Drummers and pipers played on.
“I have heard that one of the most difficult things about fighting the Valaes Tairn,” Dagii had said the previous night, “is drawing them into a battle. They fall back before a charge. They ride around a stand. They come to a fight on their own terms. Victory is victory.”
“How do you intend to engage them, then?” a warlord had asked.
“We make them curious,” Dagii had said, ears flicking. “Then we give them a reason to fight.”
On the battlefield, Keraal shook out and raised a banner. Tall and narrow, it had until last night been the red silk lining of a warlord’s fine cloak. Now it carried a crest of three black rings, one above the other, each with three stretched slashes along the outside, like a sword blade bent into a circle with the notched edge out. Ekhaas’s heart soared, not just because she’d been the one to supply the design, but for sheer awe at the sight of a banner that had not been raised over a dar army since the beginning of the Desperate Times. Atop the command hill and on the battlefield, she saw warlords and warriors alike stand straighter as they gazed on the crest, ears rising proudly, as instinct stirred in them.
Words rose in her, and her voice rang over the sound of pipes and drums. “As the armies of the Dhakaani emperor fought, so shall we! Behold the Riis Shaarii’mal! Behold the Three Tearing Wheels of Dhakaan!”
“Give honor!” shouted Dagii from her side.
Nine companies of disciplined dar warriors responded in unison, fists striking chests in a single salute sharp as a crack of thunder.
The Valaes Tairn shifted warily. Ekhaas bared her teeth. The elves knew their ancient enemy-and they knew the symbols of Dhakaan. The Riis Shaarii’mal had flown above countless battles between dar and elves in the time of the empire. To bring it forth again was a challenge, a declaration of rivalry. The leader of the warclan leaned over and spoke with one of the elves beside him. The rider nodded and urged his horse down to meet Keraal.
“Only one?” growled a warlord on the hill.
“Patience,” said Dagii.
Drums and pipes fell silent. The elf reined in his horse a few paces from Keraal. The hobgoblin raised the red banner. “I speak for Dagii of Mur Talaan, lhevk-rhu of these warriors!” he roared in Goblin.
Behind his veil, the elf’s eyes narrowed in disdain. He answered in the musical tones of Elven, lilting nonsense to many of the dar on the battlefield but clear to Ekhaas. “I speak for Seach Torainar, high warleader of the Sulliel warclan-”
“Now,” said Dagii.
The drummer behind Ekhaas brought a stick down hard on the skin of his instrument.
On either side of Keraal, the trampled sod rose and flew back. Goblins hidden in camouflaged pockets popped up onto their knees, raised compact crossbows, and sighted. The waiting elves jerked in surprise. The elf who had ridden forward cried out and started to wheel his horse, but he was too slow. Ten bowstrings sang and ten bolts flew — and ten scarlet flowers blossomed on the white hide of the elf’s horse. The animal wore light barding, but it wasn’t armored everywhere and the goblin bolts sought any exposed flesh. The horse screamed and bucked at the pain, fighting its rider’s attempts at control. The goblins were up and running from their hiding places, racing up the dirt track to join the army. Keraal turned his horse and retreated as well, but slowly, mockingly. Bows rose among the waiting elves and arrows buzzed but they were too far and their own man, struggling with his horse, blocked true aim.
The wounded horse shrieked again. It stumbled once and its hindquarters collapsed as the strandpine sap that had coated the goblins’ crossbow bolts burned into its blood. The elf leaped from the saddle and stared in horror at his crippled mount trying to drag itself with its forelegs. Its hind legs kicked uselessly. Then the elf wailed nearly as loudly as his horse, drew his scimitar and leaped forward to slash the beast’s throat. Blood sprayed him, dark against scarlet robes. The horse’s screams fell silent, but the elf’s did not. Still wailing like a madman, he turned and raced after Keraal.
His cries were joined by others as the ragged lines of the Valenar broke and elves streamed into battle.
The only things they hold sacred, Chetiin had once said, are their ancestors and their horses.
Keraal put spurs to his horse and galloped up the track, the Riis Shaarii’mal snapping in the wind of his passage. Arrows loosed by the charging Valenar traced a dark line behind him. Ekhaas stole a glance at Dagii. The young warlord’s face was hard, his eyes intent. He held his left hand in the air, waiting… waiting…
He brought it down. The piercing voice of the warpipes rose.
And out at the edge of the battlefield, just behind the holes left by the emergence of the goblin snipers, long ropes snapped up from among the grass, pulled tight by teams of bugbears lurking in the thin woods on either side of the plain. Shards of broken glass worked in among the fibers glittered in the sunlight.
Charging horses hit the ropes hard. The trees to which they had been lashed thrashed violently, and the heavy stakes that anchored them on the battlefield leaped. The long ropes sagged and snapped, but their damage was done. Horses whinnied and fell, tumbling like toys. They screamed at broken and slashed legs, and their struggling bodies brought down more horses that weren’t quick enough to turn sharply or jump high. Some struggled back to their feet. Others didn’t rise at all. The first charge of the Valaes Tairn had been broken. But there would be another.
An outraged voice roared in Elvish for an attack, and those elves who had held back surged forward.
“Form up!” ordered Dagii and the great drum beat the signal. Lesser drums took it up and the Darguul lines folded and split. Seven squares formed up on the battlefield, shields locked together. Dagii snapped more commands, and five of the squares moved to meet the oncoming elves, warpipes wailing in their midst. Archers among the two companies that remained in the rear sent clouds of arrows arcing down ahead of the marching companies. The elves answered with arrows of their own-arrows that rattled as harmlessly as hail on the locked shields.
Above the din of battle, Ekhaas didn’t hear Keraal approach, but suddenly he was there. In his hand was clenched the Riis Shaarii’mal. He dropped to one knee and held it out to Dagii. The warlord clapped a fist to his chest.
“Ta muut,” he said.
Keraal’s ears flicked. He rose and stabbed the banner’s shaft into the soft ground of the earthworks at the brow of the hill.
The first wave of Valaes Tairn closed on the Darguuls. The beat of the drum changed, and the squares stopped, two ahead, three behind. Shields parted slightly and spears thrust through. The armored turtles of the squares abruptly became bristling porcupines. Charging elves screamed and howled, demons in their flying red robes. They slashed at the air with their scimitars. Even on the hill, Ekhaas thought she could feel the earth trembling beneath the driving hooves of their horses. She had heard stories that during the Last War, human armies that had faced a Valenar charge had often crumbled before a blow was struck, their lines broken by sheer terror.
The Darguul lines stood strong. Valenar wheeled away, forced aside by the unyielding spear points. Crowded by the rush behind them, though, they had little room to turn. Many were forced around the two leading squares, splitting like a stream around stones.