The autumn leaves had begun piling in the woods, and the ground here had been dry for a couple of days. Yet the fire did not rage as Gaborn had hoped. It fumed and sputtered, filling the sky with a dim gray.
Still the reaver horde marched. The mass of bodies running and heaving themselves over the rocks and trails became a dull roar.
Baron Waggit rode down the hill, pick in hand. Gaborn looked at the young man, felt deeply troubled. Waggit was in danger, might not survive the battle.
“So,” Gaborn said. “You’ve decided to join the fight?”
“If I may. I’ll give it a go. But...I’m really not sure what to do.”
“You rang the bell in town, and already saved a man and his family,” Gaborn said. “You don’t have to give yourself in battle. Certainly not in this battle.”
“I...I want to stay.”
“I’ll see that you begin training for knighthood soon.”
“Thank you,” Waggit said softly.
“Stick close to me,” Gaborn said. “Move when you see me move.”
Waggit nodded.
Skalbairn caught sight of the baron, rode up and shouted, “Good man! Good man!” He looked out over the Knights Equitable gathered in the ranks, and shouted, “Did I tell you that he’s going to marry my daughter?”
Waggit shook his head at Skalbairn’s jest. “I said no such thing!”
But the knights all cheered as if it were a made match.
Gaborn’s senses screamed in warning. A few miles west, the wounded refugees were still puttering around in Feldonshire. He struggled to send the message, “Flee!”
But if his people heard, none obeyed.
The thousand knights had all joined ranks across the field. Gaborn shouted, “Gentlemen, we’ll hold here as long as we can. We’ve got to make the reavers believe that we’ll fight, in hopes that they’ll retreat. But be ready to fall back on my command.”
Even as he spoke, gree flapped overhead, squeaking with a sound like aging joints. The ground began to tremble, and he looked down the valley to the south. Two miles off, trees creaked and toppled.
On the slopes of the vale, a couple of fires had begun to rage. Pillars of red and yellow twisted up, enveloping oaks whole. The heat smote Gaborn’s face, and the smell of it came drier than before. Limbs crackled and branches hissed. Yet the center of the valley floor merely smoldered.
We should have been here an hour ago, with barrels of oil and pitch, Gaborn realized.
For a moment he dared wish that he had a flameweaver in his retinue.
The reavers were two miles away, and then one. The front of their formation filled the valley from north to south. Distantly to the northwest, beyond the thunder of the reavers’ pounding feet, a single warhorn blared, signaling that troops had been cut off behind enemy lines.
Gaborn realized what had happened.
The men who bore the philia were cut off, surprised at the reavers’ pace, no doubt. Gaborn sniffed at his own hands. He could still smell the garlicky mildew scent that Averan told him was a reaver’s death cry. He hoped that there was enough residue on his men’s hands so that the reavers would feel some trepidation.
“Hold your positions, men,” Gaborn shouted. “Hold your positions.” The warriors were ranged on horseback about fifty feet behind the stone wall. If Gaborn ordered a charge, the force horses would merely leap the wall.
Among his troops, lords began to lower their lances. Others had already strung bows. Now they nocked arrows.
The faintest breath of a breeze swept down from the hills, teasing the flames, raising Gaborn’s hopes. A flickering wall of incandescence licked the forest floor in some places, making a low curtain of fire beneath the trees.
Just as quickly, the wind dropped off.
In the distance he glimpsed reavers between the boles of oaks now. They had been traveling in a loose pack, but they smelled trouble ahead. The reavers closed ranks, making a wall half a mile wide. Blade-bearer walked shoulder to shoulder with blade-bearer.
Charging into those lines would be suicide. Reavers with stones behind that wall would provide artillery cover, while mages cast their noxious spells.
The reavers came slowly, philia waving. When they reached a tree, the blade-bearers merely lowered their massive heads and rammed. Thus they cut a huge swath through the forest.
The reavers were a quarter of a mile away now. Gaborn sought to put on a bold face, yet his Earth senses warned, “Flee! Flee!”
Every man under his charge was at risk.
“Not yet,” Gaborn whispered to his master. In Feldonshire, his Chosen still lay abed, while others puttered over the bridge of the river Donnestgree. He hoped to buy them time. Every minute that he slowed the reaver horde might win him another hundred souls. “Not yet.”
Then the reavers were two hundred yards ahead, almost to the smoldering woods.
The reavers did not slow. In fact, they seemed to lope faster as they neared the flames, as if in welcome.
When they reached the fire, they lowered their heads into the dirt, bowling over and burying the burning leaves. Even trees that crackled with flame fell back under the onslaught.
The horde marched forward, irrepressible, trampling the flames. Reavers hissed in warning to their neighbors.
“Retreat!” Gaborn shouted.
The reavers began to hurl a hail of stones. Boulders that weighed as much as a man came soaring overhead, falling into his front ranks.
“Dodge,” the Earth warned, and Gaborn spurred his charger to the left. A great boulder slammed into the stone sheep wall, toppled it. Flaming debris and flakes of stone hurtled past Gaborn and into the ranks of his men behind. Horses and riders burst into a spray of bloody gobbets. Gaborn felt sickened to the core as half a dozen men were ripped from him.
He glanced over his shoulder, Baron Waggit rode on his tail. The young man had followed his instructions precisely, and it saved his life. The pasty color of Waggit’s face showed that he knew how close it had been.
To the left of the battlefield, another boulder hurtled from the reavers’ ranks and slashed through Gaborn’s lines.
His men wheeled their mounts and raced for safety.
56
Lord of Darkness, Lord of the Sun
Many men dream of doing well, but few give form to their dreams.
Therefore, we cannot insist that greatness is a condition of the heart or mind in abeyance of deeds. To do so would diminish the achievement of those who prove their greatness by their deeds.
In the reavers’ fortress, darkness reigned. Fireballs hammered the outer walls, and briefly illuminated the reavers’ kill holes. The hive shuddered under their impact. But deep in the heart of the lair, no outside light could pierce.
With his keen ears, Raj Ahten heard the cries of war out on the plains.
He raced through a tunnel, a string of dead sorceresses and blade-bearers strewn behind him.
There were no kill holes so deep in the lair. Only a little light issued from the flickering blue runes tattooed on the dead sorceresses.
Darkness was the reavers’ element. They did not need light to hunt by. Even the watery lights of the runes were most likely an accident. The reavers would not know that their tattoos glowed.
But ahead of Raj Ahten, a room seemed to be filled with fire. He raced to an entrance and looked down from a parapet to a floor twenty-five feet below.
The Seal of Desolation spread before him, pulsating with color, throbbing. It was nearly two hundred yards across. A dozen scarlet sorceresses filled the room. At the center of the seal, like a great spider in its web, hunched a great mage.
Indeed, she was larger than the one at Carris.
Raj Ahten dared not give the reavers time to react. His left arm was still numb, and he could not hold his breath much longer. Soon he would be forced to take the foul air, and learn just how vile it tasted.