He was no military genius, but Toc believed that this night could not have been more perfect as far as the Awl were concerned. They had their enemy confused, weary and frayed. Instead, Redmask exhausted his own warriors by sending them one way and then the next, with the seemingly sole purpose of raising dust no-one could even see. No command to initiate contact had been issued. No concerted gathering to launch a sudden strike into the Letherii camp. Not even any harassing flights of arrows to speed down in the dark.
He thought he understood the reason for Redmask’s inconstancy. The Letherii mages. His scouts had witnessed that impatient, deadly sorcery, held ready to greet the Awl attack. They had brought back stories of blistered land, rocks snapping in the incandescent heat, and these tales had spread quickly, driving deep into the army a spike of fear. The problem was simple. Here, in this place, Redmask had no answer to that magic. And Toc now believed that Redmask would soon sound the retreat, no matter how galling-no spilling of blood, and the great advantage of advancing well beyond reach of the Letherii column and so avoiding detection had been surrendered, uselessly thrown away. No battle, yet a defeat nonetheless.
His horse, unguided by the human on its back, took another step, head dipping so that the animal could crop grass. Too much of that and the beast would find its bowels in knots.
Oh, we take you into slaughter without a moment’s thought. And yes, some of you come to enjoy it, to lust for that cacophony, that violence, the reek of blood. And so we share with you, dear horse, our peculiar madness. But who judges us for this crime against you and your kind? No-one.
Unless you horses have a god.
He wondered if there might be a poem somewhere in that. But poems that remind us of our ghastlier traits are never popular, are they? Best the bald lies of heroes and great deeds. The slick comfort of someone else’s courage and conviction. So we can bask in the righteous glow and so feel uplifted in kind.
Aye, I’ll stay with the lies. Why not? Everyone else does.
And those who don’t are told they think too much. Hah, now there’s a fearsome attack enough to quail any venturesome soul. See me tremble.
His horse heard a whinny from off to the right and in whatever language the beasts shared that sound was surely a summons, for it lifted its head, then walked slowly towards it. Toc waited a few moments longer, then, when he judged they were well clear of the ridge line behind them, he straightened and gathered the reins.
And saw before him a solid line of mounted warriors, lances upright.
In front of the row was the young Renfayar, Masarch.
Toc angled his horse on an approach.
‘What is this, Masarch? A cavalry charge in the dark?’
The young warrior shrugged. ‘We’ve readied three times this night, Mezla.’
Toc smiled to himself. He’d thrown that pejorative out in a fit of self-mockery a few days past, and now it had become an honorific. Which, he admitted, appealed to his sense of irony. He edged his horse closer and in a low tone asked: ‘Do you have any idea what Redmask is doing, Masarch?’
A hooded glance, then another shrug.
‘Well,’ Toc persisted, ‘is this the main concentration of forces? No? Then where?’
‘To the northwest, I think.’
‘Is yours to be a feint attack?’
‘Should the horn sound, Mezla, we ride to blood.’
Toe twisted on the horse and looked back at the ridge. The Letherii would feel the drumming of hoofs, and then see the silhouettes as the Awl crested the line. And those soldiers had dug pits-he could already hear the snapping of leg bones and the animal screaming. ‘Masarch,’ he said, ‘you can’t charge those pickets.’
‘We can see them well enough to ride around them-’
‘Until the animal beside you jostles yours into one.’
At first Toc thought he was hearing wolves howling, but the sudden cry levelled out-Redmask’s rodara horn.
Masarch raised his lance. ‘Do you ride with us, Mezla?’
Bareback? ‘No.’
‘Then ride fast to one side!’
Toc kicked his horse into motion, and as he rode down the line he saw the Awl warriors ready their weapons above suddenly restless mounts. Breaths gusted like smoke into the air. From somewhere on the far side of the Letherii encampment there was the sudden reverberation of clashing arms.
He judged that Masarch led six or seven hundred Awl riders. Urging his horse into a gallop, Toc drew clear just as the mass of warriors surged forward. ‘This is madness!’ He spun the mount round, tugging his bow loose from his shoulder even as he looped the reins over his left wrist. Jamming one end of the bow onto his moccasined foot-between the big toe and the rest-he leaned down his weight to string it. Weapon readied and in his right hand, he deftly adjusted his hold on the reins and knotted them to ensure that they did not fall and foul the horse’s front legs.
As the beast cantered into the dusty wake of the cavalry charge, Toe Anaster drew out from the quiver at his hip the first stone-tipped arrow. What in Hood’s name am 1 doing?
Getting ready to cover the retreat 1 know is coming? Aye, a one-eyed archer…
With the pressure of his thighs and a slight shifting of weight, he guided his horse in the direction of the rise-where the Awl warriors had arrived in a dark mass, only now voicing their war-cries. Somewhere in the distance rose the sound of dogs, joining that ever-growing cacophony of iron on iron and screaming voices.
Redmask had finally struck, and now there was chaos in the night.
The cavalry, reaching the rise, swept down the other side and moments later were lost from sight.
Toc urged his horse forward, nocking the arrow. He had no stirrups to stand in while shooting, making this whole exercise seem ridiculous, yet he quickly approached the crest. Moments before arriving, he heard the clash ahead-the shouts, the piercing shrieks of injured horses, and beneath it all the thunder of hoofs.
Although difficult to discern amidst the darkness and dust, Toc could see that most of the lancers had swept round the outlying pickets, continuing on to crash into the camp itself. He saw soldiers emerging from those entrench-
ments, many wounded, some simply dazed. Younger Awl warriors rode among them, slashing down with scimitars in a grotesque slaughter.
Coruscating light burgeoned off to the right-the foaming rise of sorcery-and Toc saw the Awl cavalry begin to withdraw, pulling away like fangs from flesh.
‘No!’ he shouted, riding hard now towards them. ‘Stay among the enemy! Go back! Attack, you damned fools! Attack!’
But, even could they hear him, they had seen the magic, the tumult building into a writhing wave of blistering power. And fear took their hearts. Fear took them and they fled-
Still Toc rode forward, now among the berms. Bodies sprawled, horses lying on their sides, kicking, ears flat and teeth bared; others broken heaps filling pits.
The first of the retreating Awl raced past, unseeing, their faces masks of terror.
A second wave of sorcery had appeared, this one from the left, and he watched it roll into the first of the horse-warriors on that side. Flesh burst, fluids sprayed. The magic climbed, slowed as it seemed to struggle against all the flesh it contacted. Screams, the sound reaching Toc on its own wave, chilling his very bones. Hundreds died before the magic spent itself, and into the dust now swirled white ash-all that was left of human and horse along the entire west flank.
Riders swarming past Toc, along with riderless horses surging ahead in the grip of panic. Dust biting his lone eye, dust seeking to claw down his throat, and all around him shadows writhing in their own war of light and dark as sorceries lifted, rolled then fell in gusting clouds of ash.
And then Toc Anaster was alone, arrow still nocked, in the wasteland just inside the berms. Watching another wave of sorcery sweep past his position, pursuing the fleeing Awl.