"How much longer?" asked the young cavalryman. He tried to keep his voice steady, but anticipation of the coming battle filled him with nervous energy. His own unit of laneers waited restlessly in an olive grove behind the wall. Across the wall, still a half-mile distant but closing rapidly, came the charging wave of color, steel, and flame that was the pirate army.
The dwarf laughed, a sharp bark of sound. "Soon enough, I'll wager." Daggrande studied Halloran closely. "After all these campaigns, why are you acting like a young recruit facing his first foe?"
Hal returned his old companion's gaze with a sheepish grin. "Cordell gave me the standard of the lancers. I'll be leading all four companies."
Daggrande grinned. "You're ready for that. But what about Alvarro?" The impetuous redhead and his jealous nature were well known to the other captains.
"Second in command. He'll follow with the last two companies." I hope, he added silently.
The dwarf nodded. "Just don't lose your head. Wait till that trumpet tells you to go! Remember what Cordell and I have drilled into you, and you'll do all right."
"We hold the high ground," Hal said. "I won't give that advantage away!" Halloran's answer was deadly serious. "Cordell's right. If we time this properly, Akbet-Khrul will be broken once and for all!"
Daggrande laughed at his companion's earnestness. "And we'll be out of work!"
Halloran laughed, too, relaxing somewhat. "I expect the captain-general will find us something to fight." "Good luck. You'd best get to your men." "And to you. Try to shoot straight this time, will you?" Hal said, flashing a quick grin.
Daggrande huffed indignantly, but the cavalryman had already slipped into the grove. In moments, he reached his charger, Storm. The roan mare danced eagerly, anxious for battle.
"The standard, Sergeant-Major." A squire stood beside the mount, bearing the lance with the proud pennant of the Blue Lancers. The long banner, portraying a golden pegasus on a sea-blue background, snapped readily in the growing breeze.
"Captain, now." Halloran smiled as he slipped smoothly into the saddle and took the long staff. The squire grinned enthusiastically.
The olive grove screened their position from the advancing enemy, but the rows of trees provided good visibility to the right and left. He could see, within a few hundred feet to his right, the black, yellow, and green pennants of the other companies. At the far end of the line, Alvarro glowered at him from the back of a prancing stallion, his mouth split into a grimace that displayed his crooked, uneven teeth.
A full hundred sleek horses pranced anxiously as an equal number of steel-tipped lances came to rest at their riders' sides. Some of the steeds were black, others were brown or roan or gray. They were all impatient to charge. Be patient, Hal thought. Your time will come.
Halloran tried to suppress a giddy exhilaration. Helms-tooth, the longsword given to him by Cordell personally, hung lightly at his side. By Helm, what a glorious commander the captain-general was! Halloran's heart nearly burst with pride at the honor that had been accorded him.
But Cordell was the glue that truly held the legion together. His skill as a commander, his eloquence as a speaker, his courage in battle, all served to unite his men and propel them toward great deeds.
Through the olive trees, Halloran could see the pirates advancing as Cordell had predicted, still preceded by their twisting cyclones of fire. The horsemen had a splendid view of the developing battle.
The scrub brush withered beneath the fiery columns, many bushes bursting into flame as the cyclones passed. Hal still counted ten of the unnatural blazes, advancing in a long skirmish line ahead of the army.
Suddenly he saw a pale white flash, like a blast of moonlight potent enough to shine in the daylight. The cone-shaped whiteness exploded from a point ahead of the army, expanding to his left. In the same instant as the flash, three of the fiery columns hissed into vapors and disappeared.
Once again came the flash of light, from the same point but this time expanding to Hal's right, and four more of the cyclones vanished.
"Icetongue!" he murmured to himself, feeling relief mixed with a little horror. All the legion knew of Darien, the elf-mage. Aloof and distant toward all but Cordell, this made her affection toward the commander seem all that much more passionate to the men of the legion. And she was mysterious, always heavily robed during daylight, for her albino skin reputedly suffered acutely from the rays of the sun.
Yet her power! Of course she had her slender wand and its deadly blast of ice. But she also could call a searing wall of fire to burst from the ground, a lightning bolt to crackle into the midst of an enemy formation, or even a swarm of meteors to smash with crushing force to the ground. On more than one occasion, those powers had secured victory for the mercenaries during a heated, hard-contested battle.
He saw the black-robed figure of the wizard, standing alone ahead of the army, and then suddenly Darien vanished. Halloran guessed she teleported herself back to the safety of the legion's position.
The pirates continued to surge closer, not visibly demoralized by the damage to their fiery skirmishers. A pair of fire columns still swirled forward to Hal's left, and one lone blaze advanced off to the right. Then he heard the thunderous bark of a man's voice, carrying even over the roar of the enemy's approach, and Hal knew that Bishou Domincus had added the might of Helm to the battle.
The pair of fire columns advancing together separated slightly to pass on either side of a small, marshy pond. As the cleric's magic took hold, however, the waters of the pond surged from their banks and swept across the field in a small flood. They swirled around the bases of the flaming columns, which hissed and writhed in agony. Slowly the fiery forms sizzled into steam. Still the army surged forward, a hundred yards away, now and closing fast.
"Now, by Helm!" Daggrande's bark suddenly carried over the battlefield. The brimmed steel helmets of his crossbow-men suddenly popped over the stone wall, followed instantly by the sharp clatter of a hundred heavy crossbows casting their missiles.
Intent upon the line of sword-and-buckler men a hundred yards farther up the hill, the pirates faltered at the sudden onslaught from the missile troops. Smoothly, Daggrande's men began to recock their cumbersome weapons, while Akbet-Khrul and his lieutenants hysterically commanded their men to renew their charge. A savage yell rippled through the air, rasping from thousands of pirate throats.
"Shoot, and again!" The second volley of bolts took a savage toll, the powerful weapons driving through the bodies of unarmored defenders and penetrating the metal shields and chain shirts of the occasional armored pirates with lethal force.
A great blossom of fire exploded in the enemy's center, fire magic working for the legion now as Darien cast two great fireballs into the midst of the pirate army. The inferno created by each spell dealt instant death to anyone caught in the effect.
Halloran felt his mare easing forward. For a moment, his hold on the reins relaxed, but then he pulled in sharply. He cast a harsh glare down the line of eager lancers, even as he wondered at Daggrande's audacity. Does he have time to shoot again?
The howling mob of pirates came on with undiminished savagery. Halloran watched the bowmen laboriously crank their weapons, certain they could not fire before the scimitars of the pirates cut them to ribbons. The leading attacker — Akbet-Khrul himself, Hal felt certain — was less than fifteen yards away when the first crossbowman raised his weapon. The pirate's face was twisted beyond human recognition, a fanatical picture of battlefield savagery.
The shrieks of the attackers pounded in Halloran's ears. I can't wait any longer! We must charge now! But then another crossbow, a dozen more, were loaded and aimed, their foes a scant ten yards away. Why don't they shoot?