The rangers surrounded the beastmen completely, so Rod didn’t see what happened; all he knew was that it lasted about thirty seconds, then his men faded back into the trees, leaving three corpses in the center of the glade, pumping their blood into the pale sand.
Rod stared, shaken and unnerved. Beside him, his sergeant grinned. “ ‘Twas well done, Lord Warlock.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Rod muttered. “What’d these boys do in peacetime—work in a slaughterhouse?”
The sergeant shrugged. “Any farm lad must know how to slit the throat of a swine, and these ogres are little more.”
Rod had to bite back a sudden impulse to explain the conflict as the beastmen saw it. “They’re the enemy,” he agreed unhappily, “and this is war. They’ve already pretty well proved that they’ll kill us if we don’t kill them first.” Privately, he wondered how many of them really wanted to.
Later. Right now, it was time to play monster. “Tell the men to spread out along the backtrail, sergeant.”
The sergeant turned away to mutter a few words, but that was the only effect Rod saw or heard. He sat his saddle securely anyway, knowing his men had spread out toward the beastmen. He sat securely, and waited.
After about five minutes, the vanguard came up. Their leader saw the corpses in the center of the glade and held out an arm to stop his men. While they stared, shocked, Rod called like a gull, and fifty commandos slid from the brush, swords slashing throats before the beastmen even realized they’d been attacked.
As the first Neanderthals fell, the others turned with a roar, axes whirling down. Rod’s men leaped back, but a couple weren’t quick enough. He let the anger fuel him as he commanded Fess, “Go!” The great black steel horse leaped out into the battle as Rod shouted, “Havoc!” The beastmen’s eyes all riveted on this new threat, so they didn’t notice the shadows that slid out of the rushes behind them in answer to Rod’s cry. Beastmen began dropping at the rear as Rod and his men began their deadly gavotte, skipping back out of reach of the beastmen’s axes as they tried to catch Gramarye glances, but Rod’s men held to their hard-learned tactic—staring at the enemy’s weapons, not at his pupils. Here and there a soldier accidentally looked at the reddened eyes of the foe, and slowed. It even happened to Rod—being on horseback, he attracted eyes. One Neanderthal managed to catch him squarely, and suddenly he was plowing through molasses, panic touching him as he felt two rival impulses battling in his brain, and realized neither of them was his own.
Then a spreading warmth coursed through his head and down his spine, a familiar touch, and he could almost scent Gwen’s perfume as his shield-arm leaped up to give the ax a slight push that deflected it to just barely miss, while his sword stabbed down over the beastman’s shield. He felt it sink in, jar against bone, and yanked back on it furiously, turning to the next foeman, trying hard to ignore the falling body.
Then lightning strobe-lit the beach, and thunder broke upon their heads. Rod blocked ax-blows frantically, realizing that almost half his force was frozen. Axes swung and the Gramarye soldiers fell, while their opponents turned to help their fellows gang up on soldiers. Darting frantic glances from one to another, most of the soldiers slipped and chanced to look a Neanderthal in the eye—and froze.
Rod bellowed in anger and fear and chopped down at a beastman. He dodged aside, revealing a grinning face that stared up at Rod, catching his gaze full in the eyes.
It was as though Rod’s riposte had slammed into a wall. Frantically, he pushed at the sword, but it wouldn’t move, and an ax was swinging up at him. Only a spare tendril lingered in his mind, probing weakly at a dark wall that seemed to have settled there…
Then a blazing shield tore into the dark mass, shredding it to tatters—and Rod’s arms answered his summons. He whipped aside as the ax swung past, then bobbed back to stab downward. His men tore into the beastmen like wildcats, outnumbered but determined to bring down ten times their number by sheer ferocity. But more beastmen were welling up behind the vanguard, more and more; and, in a stab of fear, Rod saw a long, slender dragon ship shouldering up out of the drizzle behind the masses of enemy.
But a roaring bellow shook the beach, and the beastmen looked up in sudden terror at five thousand Gramarye soldiers pouring down along the riverbank.
Rod bit back a shout of triumph; all his men kept silence and channeled the surge of energy into a series of quick stabs. Beastmen dropped before them, then came out of their trances enough to turn and defend themselves; but it was frantic and scrambling now, for the soldiers outnumbered them.
Stabbing and blocking fiercely, Rod became dimly aware of a rhythmic rumble coming from the enemy.
“Rod,” Fess’s voice ground out like a slowing recording, “the strain increases… I may fail you…”
“Hold on while you can!” Rod shouted, and mentally prepared himself to leap down and use Fess as a back-shield.
The rumbling grew louder, became coherent; the enemy army chanted, as with one voice, “Kobold! Kobold! Ko-bold!”
And it almost seemed that their god heard them; the whole riverbank was suddenly transfixed by a shimmering glare, and thunder wrapped them inside a cannon shot.
As the glare dimmed, soldiers slowed. A beastman caught Rod’s gaze and he felt himself pushing his arms with agonizing slowness again.
Then the white-hot shield burned through the dark mass again, and his arms leaped free. The whole Gramarye army erupted in a shout of joy and fought with new, savage vigor. A bellow of anger answered them, but it was tinged with despair; and the beastmen seemed to shrink together, forming a wall against the Gramarye spears. But the island wolves harried at that wall, chipping and digging, loosing the blood that it held dammed; and the night was a bedlam of screaming and the crashing of steel.
Suddenly, Rod realized that they were gaining ground. But how could they be, when the enemy had their backs to the water? Looking up, he saw beastmen scrambling single-file back aboard the dragon ships.
“They flee!” he cried, exultant. “The enemy runs! Harrow them!”
His men responded with a crazed scream, and fought like madmen. They couldn’t really do much more than scratch and chip; the beastmen’s wall was solid, and became all the more so as it shrank in on itself as one boat glided away and another replaced it. But finally, the last few turned and ran to scramble up the sides of the boat. Soldiers leaped to chase them, but Rod, Tuan, and Sir Maris checked them with whiplash commands that echoed through every knight to every sergeant; and, looking up, the soldiers saw the beastmen already aboard poised to throw down everything from axes to rocks upon them. Seeing the soldiers checked, they did throw them, with crazed howls; and shields came up, bouncing the missies away harmlessly. But as they did, the dragon ship slid out into the current, swooped around in a slow, graceful curve, and drifted away downstream.
Tuan stabbed a bloody sword up at the sky with a victorious scream. Looking up, the astonished army realized they had won. Then a forest of lances and swords speared up with a screaming howl of triumph.
Before the echoes had faded, Rod had turned Fess’s head downstream again. “You made it through, Old Iron!”
“I did, Rod.” The electronic voice was still a little slowed. “They could only come at me from the front in this battle.”
Rod nodded. “A huge advantage. Now head for the witches’ tent, full speed!”
The sentries outside the tent recognized him and struck their breastplates in salute. Rod leaped off his horse and darted in.