"Ready for assault," Azoun said, and the signal was passed. At the right and left flanks, the armored noblemen who made up the majority of the cavalry readied their weapons and anxiously held their horses in place. In the second rank, Brunthar gave the signal to fire at will, and arrows sailed over Azoun's head in squalls.
The Tuigan reined in their horses and fired their strong short bows. Thousands of arrows bit into the western lines. Azoun reflexively threw his shield up, and he heard two arrows strike it with surprising force. Luckily, the Tuigan seemed to take aim at the front ranks, where many of the men had shields, too. Still, what sounded like a single pained groan went up around Azoun as some of the missiles found their mark.
"Signal the mages!" Farl cried at Azoun's side.
The king lowered his shield and looked to the Tuigan lines. If the infantry commander had been able to see Azoun's face, he would have seen a look of shock; the horsewarriors were wheeling their swift little horses about and fleeing. "We should save the wizards for when we really need them," the king shouted. He pointed at the retreating enemy. "What's going on?" The Tuigan fired over their shoulders occasionally, but it seemed as if they were running away.
Farl flipped back his visor. His face, too, was a mask of surprise. "That had to be a test," he ventured. "Maybe they didn't know the range of our bows or what kind of battle magic we had."
A hearty cry went up from the Army of the Alliance. The king signaled the archers to cease fire and watched as a much-weakened group of riders rejoined the khahan's army. "Losses?" Azoun asked as he lifted his own visor.
After scanning the field for a moment, Farl said, "They lost four, perhaps even five thousand. We wounded more than that." He shook his head. "The khahan must care very little for his men to condone that kind of carnage for a test."
"Or his men think highly enough of him to go to it willingly," Azoun corrected. "Save for an instant when our first volley hit them, they didn't pause. This was a familiar drill for them." He looked across his own first rank. "Have the captains tally our losses. We may just frighten them off."
The dead were counted as they were dragged out of line, and the king was relieved to find that only about three hundred had been killed in the first assault. The thought of any men dying under his command troubled Azoun, but he pushed those guilty thoughts aside.
The wounded were far more numerous, but many of the arrow wounds required only simple dressings or minor healing spells. Most of the wounded bragged about their new badges of honor or invited their neighbors in the ranks to see where the Tuigan arrows had pierced their shields or split their leather jerkins. The sergeants let this nervous bravado continue as the minutes of waiting for a new assault wore into an hour, and the sun rose high over the field.
By midday, crows began to flock to the battlefield. The corpses of the Tuigan horses and soldiers slain in the first assault lay in the field, growing cold in the sunlight. Many of the less-traveled soldiers in the Alliance were shocked to find the birds gathered so quickly. Some even spoke of the dark-winged scavengers as a bad omen or the result of evil sorcery. The experienced mercenaries knew the crows were neither of these things. The large black birds, so common in fields throughout Faerun, were like any other animal; food attracted them, and a battle always proved to be a seemingly endless source of carrion for their greedy beaks.
Still, the crows' steady cawing unnerved some of the troops. Brunthar had to discipline a few archers for wasting arrows by shooting at the birds, and Farl found himself yelling at a member of the king's guard for betting on which Tuigan body the birds would land on next.
At last someone shouted, "Here they come again!" A murmur of odd relief ran through the western lines.
"By Torm's mailed fist," Farl said, "they're scouting us again!" He slammed his visor down and raised his shield on his arm.
The crows quickly leaped in to the air, out of the path of the galloping horses. Azoun attempted to ignore the coarse squawking as he gazed out upon the advancing Tuigan line. There were perhaps twice as many riders charging toward the Alliance as last time. The odds were now even.
As before, the longbows rained arrows on the Tuigan charge twice before the horsewarriors stopped. Azoun then ordered Brunthar to have the archers attack in unison again as the barbarians turned to fire. This third sheet of arrows, launched just as the khahan's men were readying to fire themselves, had a terrible impact. Not only did the attack take a toll in Tuigan lives, it spoiled many of the mounted archers' shots. But this wasn't the only surprise the king had prepared for the second Tuigan charge.
As the horsewarriors reined in their mounts fifty yards from the Alliance's front rank and the longbowmen launched their own counterattack, the wizards entered the war.
With a crackling hiss, over two hundred flaring balls of fire leaped from the rear of the western army's ranks and struck the Tuigan charge. Like liquid, the fireballs splashed against the horsewarriors, killing hundreds and horribly burning many more. Had the field not been dampened by recent rains, a massive wildfire would have spread from the attack. As it was, blazes broke out all around the barbarians' line, sending thick black smoke coiling across the field.
Unaccustomed to such an awesome use of magic, many of the Tuigan faltered. Panicked horsemen wheeled their steeds about for a retreat or tried to fire their bows as ordered. The Alliance's archers loosed another volley, and a few of the wizards behind them completed a more complicated incantation begun a few moments earlier.
In twenty-eight spots along the Tuigan charge, the ground burst up, showering the horsewarriors with earth and uprooted grass. In each of those ravaged places, a massive creature of stone climbed out of the ground, swinging huge fists of rock and dirt. The stone creatures had cold, expressionless faces and eyes made of sparkling gems that reflected the fires still growing around the enemy.
Azoun sat motionless as the earth elementals lumbered into the Tuigan line, scattering horses and soldiers. From ten to fifteen feet tall, the creatures found it easy to dash the troops from their path, and the Tuigan arrows had little effect on their hard, rocky bodies.
Rays of glittering golden dust and swarms of glowing blue darts accompanied the arrows that rained down on the retreating enemy. The Army of the Alliance shouted out their victory as the Tuigan wheeled in the burning field and tried to escape the shambling monsters and shower of magic that drove them from their horses and crushed them into the earth.
"They didn't even have a chance to fire a second time," the king said to Farl. He raised his sword high into the air and added his voice to the army's triumphant cry.
The infantry commander shouted something the king could not hear. After an instant, Farl flipped up his visor and slapped Azoun on the shoulder. "Your Highness, look!"
Following the general's outstretched arm, the king saw what so upset Farl. Far to the right, the Alliance's cavalry was breaking from the flank, sweeping in on the retreating Tuigan line. "By the gods," the king whispered, the color draining from his face. Lord Harcourt's banner charged through the ranks of cavalry as they raced toward the fleeing enemy.
After an instant of hesitation, the king grabbed his own standard and shouted, "Call them back!" to the young knight carrying it. The king's banner, emblazoned with the purple dragon of Cormyr, ordered a retreat. The signal was to no avail; the nobles continued their charge.
"What does Harcourt think he's doing?" Azoun cried bitterly to no one in particular. "Has he gone mad?"
The cavalry meant to guard the left flank saw its counterpart's charge and followed suit. In helpless anguish, the king watched the silver dots he knew to be armored knights race across the field and cut off the Tuigan retreat. Some of the fighting was obscured by smoke, but it was clear that the better armored western nobles were having an easy time wiping out what little remained of the broken Tuigan charge.