He replaces the water bottle and then takes out the pouch, which, he discovers, contains several hard biscuits. He puts one in his mouth, gingerly, and discovers that, while neither bitter nor tart, it has little taste at all. He eats the first biscuit in moments and then the next, replacing the pouch in his jacket as he reins up beside Altyrn, who is talking to Juist.
“… those road traps and makeshift caltrops ready to put in place, ser, once we engage them…”
“Then take up that position and look like you’re going to hold it, but if they start to throw fireballs, fall back immediately behind the log barricade. Have your archers loft shafts into their rear. That’s where the white wizards are. Ease back as quickly as you can.”
“Yes, ser.”
“Go!”
Lerial has only the vaguest idea of what Altyrn has just ordered, except that it sounds like a ploy of some sort. “You’re trying to lure them into something?”
“That comes later. I’m hoping that they’ll drop fireballs into some bitumen and oil that will surround a mass of their armsmen on three sides.”
“If they don’t?”
“Then Juist will likely lose the rankers who will have to use torches.” Altyrn’s voice is steady, as if he were discussing the worms that made shimmercloth fibers. He turns his mount. “Just stay with me and watch. Don’t ask any questions until I tell you that you can.”
“Yes, ser.” The only wagon that Lerial can see around the area where second company had been posted creaks by him, leaving the area with little but flattened grass where tents had been and almost empty of Lancers-except for third company, forming up across the road. To the south, in the direction of the apparently still-intact but useless road gates, Lerial can hear horn signals, but he can sense nothing more than a few yards away.
“We need to move back. This way,” commands the majer, turning his horse.
Lerial follows Altyrn along the shoulder of the road, through and past another wider clearing, beyond which the trees are spaced more widely. Some hundred yards later, the majer reins up behind a pair of trees with wide trunks that almost touch. He positions himself so that he can look through the gap at the road that leads to where the roadgates are … not that they have done much more than delay the Meroweyans. “Stay behind me.”
Third company rides past, and the area where the Verdyn forces had been for the past eightday or so appears empty. For a good quarter glass, nothing seems to move, not even the air, and there are no clouds in the sky that is slowly turning from gray to green-blue as the sun begins to rise, not that Lerial can see it yet, not from within the confines of the Verd forest.
He shifts his weight in the saddle and takes several more swallows of the greenberry liquid, admitting wordlessly that he does feel better, and slightly stronger, as a result of drinking it and eating the biscuits. He shifts in the saddle again.
“Watch,” orders Altyrn quietly. “Say nothing.”
From the south come sounds, a muted series of vibrations. Lerial stands in his stirrups, so that he can look over Altyrn’s head and through the opening between the two tree trunks. He can make out what at first looks to be a huge brownish worm with spikes jutting out and walking sideways on many legs, but then realizes it is a Meroweyan shieldwall some fifty yards wide, centered on the road and moving toward the majer and him. Behind the shieldmen are pikemen, their pikes leveled to discourage a mounted attack. Behind the pikes and shields are footmen, although Lerial can only see their heads, while behind each end of the formation are mounted troopers.
When the shieldmen are about a hundred yards from the majer and Lerial, a wall of flame races from somewhere well to the sides of the road and under the boots of the shieldmen. Several yell, and one man staggers out of formation, his uniform in flames … and then another … and another. As the shieldmen run forward to keep from getting burned, the pikemen are left at least partly exposed to the arrows that come from all sides. Then two squads of Verdyn Lancers-one from the east, and one from the west-charge the pikemen.
The mounted troopers behind the ends of the line of pikemen move forward, but by the time they get around the chaos of wounded pikemen and disorganized shieldmen, both squads have turned and vanished back into the trees.
“Time to withdraw!” snaps Altyrn, turning his mount and urging it into a canter along the shoulder of the road.
Lerial follows, wondering where or when Juist’s men will do what he had heard the majer discussing, because what he has just seen does not match what he had heard between the two.
Altyrn does not slow his mount until they have covered almost a kay and entered a larger clearing. Closer to the north side is a log barricade almost eighty yards long and somewhat more than two yards high that straddles the road. The two sides are slightly angled so that the middle is perhaps ten yards forward of the ends. Lerial can see the tips of spears and caps and the like behind the barrier, and slightly less than two squads of riders in formation at each end. Altyrn keeps riding, circling around the east end of the log barricade and into the trees on the northeast end of the clearing. Once there, he turns his mount so that he can see the clearing, but so that he is largely shielded by the trunk of the tree. Lerial follows his example and reins up the gelding beside a nearby tree. Looking back, he can see that most of the figures behind the log barricade are crudely formed of vines and branches or other material with caps or scarves or the like on the “head,” and that the spears and weapons are merely crude poles with carved points. Still, from a distance, they looked real enough. What is real, however, is the small catapult behind the mock force. Three youths, even younger than Lerial or any of the rankers, wait by the catapult. Behind the catapult are two rows of women archers, presumably from third company.
Almost a glass passes before the shieldwall of the Meroweyans enters the south side of the clearing and moves roughly twenty yards into the clearing before a horn sounds, and the shieldwall comes to a halt, while the pikemen ground their pikes, as if expecting an attack.
Lerial cannot see exactly what is happening, and his order senses have not recovered enough for him to determine anything at that distance, either, but he can see movement.
Then, at some signal he does not catch, a flaming ball of fire arches from the catapult behind the log barrier toward the shieldwall, landing on the ground and spraying feeble shards of burning matter. There is no reaction from the Meroweyan forces. Several moments later, another flaming ball arches over the log barricade, and this flaming ball catches the top of one of the outsized shields, and burning goo splashes on the shield-bearer, who drops his shield and rolls in the grass trying to smother the flames burning his sleeves and chest.
Then a third ball of flame hits another shield-bearer.
The Meroweyan horn sounds, and the pikes level. The shieldwall marches forward, solid step by solid step. Another flaming ball arches into the Meroweyan force, this time into the armed footmen behind the shields.
At that, a chaos-bolt arcs from the rear of the Meroweyan formation toward the catapult, but misses to one side, incinerating three stick dummies. Another chaos-bolt follows. The fireballs are smaller than the ones Lerial has diverted, and he wonders if that is because the white wizards are tired as well … or because they have been ordered to husband their chaos strength. The youths sprint away. Two escape. The third, trailing by a yard or so, is enveloped in flame.