The muscular monster recovered his swing and drew back in time to parry her sword cut with the stout handle of his axe. She cut again, aiming for his fingers. Her bronze blade bit deeply into the thong-wrapped handle held by Ungrah. He threw the axe over in a wide arc, forcing Karada’s hand to follow or lose her sword. The upper edge of the axe sliced into her horse’s neck. The wheat-colored stallion reared, lashing out with its front hooves. One dealt Ungrah a fierce blow to the forehead. The ogre stumbled back, recovered, and laid about on either side with his axe, hacking empty air.
A nomad on Karada’s right pushed in and tried to spear Ungrah. The ogre chief snatched the head of the spear in his bare hands and snapped the shaft. An ogre beside him thrust with the spiked tip of his axe handle and caught the nomad in the ribs. The nomad dropped his spear and reeled away, clutching his bleeding side. With another sweep the ogre lopped the man’s head off. His triumph was short-lived. A brace of spears hit
Ungrah’s comrade, one finding the gap between his tunic and his breechcloth. Dark blood fountained. The second spear buried itself in the fleshy junction of his neck and shoulder.
Ungrah turned to the wounded ogre and plucked both spears out. The bleeding ogre staggered backward and sat down. He was immediately trampled by five eager nomads, who used the weight of their horses to hold him down while they speared him to death.
All along the line the struggle continued, drenched with rain and blood. Grips grew slick. Horses slipped. Ogres fumbled. Though the fighting pressure was not too great, Karada stuck to her strategy and slowly withdrew up the hill. Ungrah followed, still trying to connect his jagged axe with the nomad woman’s neck. She eluded his blows and teased him on.
Hoten’s small force of veterans was on the scene at last. The ogres, fighting as individuals, were engulfed by the nomad horde. Zannian had ordered Hoten to exploit any gaps the ogres made, but he couldn’t even see all of Ungrah’s warriors, much less any gaps.
The raiders with Hoten shifted restlessly in the pouring rain, watching the bloody fracas occurring just in front of them.
“Are we going to fight or sit and soak up rain?” one asked Hoten.
Hoten looked up and down the enemy line. Attacking now would be futile, like flinging grapes against a stone. He wrapped the reins around his hands. He thought of Nacris and of the dreams he had, which she would never share.
“At them, men!”
They galloped up the hill, shouting the way they had in the good old days out on the plains. Hoten aimed himself at the only landmark he could see: the back of Ungrah-de’s head.
The center of the nomads’ line fell back. Karada let them come, luring ogres and raiders over the crest of the knoll. The press was so great that she lost contact with Ungrah. Off to her right another ogre had cut a clean circle around himself, slaying any nomad who came within reach of his axe. She crouched low over her horse’s neck and rode at him. He heard the fast rattle of hooves and whirled in time to receive Karada’s sword in his eye. Transfixed, he nonetheless seized her sword arm in both his broad hands and tore her from her horse. She hit the muddy ground the same time as the dead ogre.
The legs of horses and ogres churned around her. She leaped up, planted a foot on the dead ogre’s chest, and recovered her sword. Her favorite horse had disappeared. Buffeted on all sides, she found herself propelled through the crowd until her back bumped into something large and solid.
Karada looked up into the face of Ungrah-de.
He was bleeding from sword and spear cuts on his face and shoulders. Seeing Karada, he bared the yellow tusks in his protruding lower jaw. Up went the chipped axe. Her blade could not deflect such a massive weapon. With no other choice, she whirled away from the downward swipe, spinning on one heel like a dancer. Completing the circle, she brought her blade down on his axe arm, only to watch the bronze blade skid off the polished chunks of lapis attached to the ogre’s sleeve.
Ungrah backhanded his axe, narrowly missing Karada’s chin. She ducked, rolled, and came up standing. She felt something snag her back and jumped aside. The ogre’s axe head came away with a triangle of buckskin on its tip.
The fight had shifted so that Karada had to run uphill to battle Ungrah-de. Behind him, raiders with painted faces traded cuts and thrusts with her warriors. She saw friends and foes fall, horses floundering in the mud or lying still in death.
A nomad with room to maneuver bolted in front of his chief and shoved a stone-tipped spear into Ungrah’s chest. The flint head shattered on the ogre’s breastplate. With a roar, Ungrah impaled the brave fellow on his axe tip, hoisting him off his horse and into the air. Lightning played on his face as Ungrah lifted the slain foe over his head. He roared back at the following thunder and hurled the nomad’s body into the battling swarm.
The nomad’s sacrifice was not without benefit, however. Karada sprang onto the dead man’s sorrel mare and shouted for Pakito and Bahco. Her warriors took up the cry, transmitting it through the din of battle and thunderstorm. Word reached both men, and they spurred their forces to action.
Hoten’s small band had disintegrated within moments of colliding with the nomads. He found himself alone, dueling with capable foes on all sides. A spear butt struck him in the mouth. He spat blood and teeth and fought on. A bronze sword chopped the head off his flint spear, leaving him with only a knife. Hoten put the stone blade in his teeth and jumped from his horse onto the back of a nearby nomad. One stroke of the knife, and the woman’s horse was his.
He had no idea where he was or where his men were. He had no idea where he was going. Rain came in waves, drenching him to the skin and making his oxhide garments stiff. He drove his horse through the crowd, and many nomads let him pass, thinking from his mount he was one of them. Emerging at the base of the stony knoll, Hoten spied a large body of enemy horsemen sweeping around, closing in behind his little band and the ogres. They were solidly trapped.
Despairing, he briefly considered falling on his own knife, but thought better of it. Why throw his wretched life away when he could still sell it dearly?
He yanked a lost spear out of the mud and rode hard to the head of the nomad column. Leading them was a giant warrior, Hoten’s old comrade Pakito. When he drew near enough, he shouted to the big man. Pakito turned his horse and received a spear jab in the face.
Pakito was quick as well as big, however, and the tip only tore a gash through his left earlobe. He countered with a stone-headed mace, caught Hoten’s spear, and sent it spinning away.
“Yield!” Pakito said.
Hoten spat. He held out his too-short knife. “Do your worst!”
Gripping the club in both hands, Pakito easily parried Hoten’s slashes. Then came the opening he needed. He let go with his right hand of his two-handed grip and punched Hoten hard in the ribs. Then Pakito slammed the flat stone head of his mace into the raider’s chin. Hoten’s vision exploded in a haze of red. He fell from his horse.
Pakito had no time to make sure of the death of his former comrade. The chaos was shifting again. After losing several warriors to overwhelming numbers, the ogres belatedly had closed together and formed a tight ring, back to back. From there, the seventeen survivors were fighting off every attempt by the nomads to ride them down. Hoten’s men were not so lucky. Isolated and outnumbered, they succumbed like their leader until none were left standing.
Karada caught sight of Pakito and worked her way to him. They clasped arms.
“No raiders remain!” Pakito cried. “We’ve won!”
“Not yet! The ogres!”
“If only we had our bows!”