“I’ve told you, and Tonsar’s told you, but I’ll say it again. Whether you live could rest on how quiet you are. So don’t say anything. We’ll be back to lead you against the demons.” He gestured toward the other side of the ruined shed/barn. “The four of us will be less than two hundred cubits away, and we’ll be getting the whites as confused as we can. Then, it will be up to you to finish the job.” He nodded curtly, and turned his mount.
Ayrlyn and the two archers had their bows out and arrows set up for easy reach by the time Nylan had tethered his mount and carried his own composite bow and shafts behind the barricade on the south side of the ruined dwelling.
“Tonsar got them moving fairly quickly,” said Ayrlyn, moving to make room for Nylan behind the planks.
“He wants to get back to Syskar.”
“I wonder why.”
They both laughed.
The silence, broken only by the hiss of the hot breeze, dragged out.
“Still no sign of them,” murmured Buretek.
Ailsor nodded.
Stillness descended again.
“What are you thinking?” Ayrlyn asked.
“I still wonder why they don’t use archers more.”
“After all the effort it took to make those arrows for Westwind, you wonder?” Ayrlyn laughed softly. “Arrows take effort; they get lost, and a lot don’t ever hit a target, and it takes time and effort to train an archer. Swords don’t get lost, and anyone can sort of swing one.”
“Oh…in a way it makes sense, but bows are about the only standoff capability in a low-tech culture.”
“You’re also assuming that those who fight want a standoff capability.”
Nylan nodded. Fornal-or the anonymous holders he always quoted-didn’t seem to like it-that was certain.
Another stretch of quiet fell.
“You can just see the dust rising above the road,” said Ayrlyn in a low voice. “There.”
The dust continued to rise, as the first white-clad riders appeared, moving at the measured pace that all Cyadoran forces affected. Glints of light flickered from the mirrored shields and burnished blades.
When the lancers were almost a kay short of the first dwelling in the hamlet, a series of triplets sounded-on-key. The entire column seemed to stop, then thicken, before flowing out on each side of the row to form three-deep ranks of the lancers.
The first line of lancers moved at a quick trot, the small shimmering shields worn on their left arms, the long white lances all resting on the lance guides at the same precise angle.
The Cyadoran lines passed the ruined ramplike shed, the hoofs of their mounts almost drumlike on the dry ground, and swung toward the olive grove and the smoke of the “cookfires” beyond. Not a word passed the lancers’ lips, and the hoofs continued to drum the hard dry ground.
“All right,” Nylan ordered. “Let’s start the fun.” He raised the composite bow and released the shaft.
Not a single lancer even blinked, from what Nylan could tell, as the shaft whizzed through the ranks. Nor did his second shaft hit.
Frig it! Sure, it’ll hurt if you kill someone, but you’ll be dead if you don’t and that’ll hurt more! His third shaft struck true, and a lancer staggered in his stirrups.
Ayrlyn released a shaft. “Not as good as your bow.”
Buretek followed Ayrlyn’s example.
Before the Cyadoran lancers reached the flat before the olives, the four with bows had loosened nearly twoscore shafts, and perhaps eight or ten lancers had fallen, mostly wounded, although wounds tended to be fatal eventually in low-tech cultures, Nylan suspected.
“Faster! Now!” he ordered, as the lancers neared the concealed trenches. Arrows sleeted toward the white forces for several moments.
Then, abruptly, more than a dozen mounts went down where the weakened road caved in, and even more when those who followed, dodging the fallen horses and lancers, ran afoul of the staked trenches and struggling downed mounts. The glittering reflections from the mirror shields sprayed in all directions.
The screams of the horses bothered Nylan, but he pushed them out of his mind. “Keep firing!”
With barely moving targets, the four were far more effective than earlier, but the massed lancers still began to move across and around the trapped area.
“Let’s go.” He touched Ayrlyn’s arm. She jabbed Buretek, who nudged Ailsor.
The angel smith and Ayrlyn pulled themselves onto the mounts waiting behind the burned-out house. So did Buretek and Ailsor.
As Nylan rode around behind the ruined barn, with Ayrlyn beside him and the others behind him, he lifted the blade-the one from the waist scabbard. He looked at Tonsar. “Now!”
Slowly, too slowly, the double squad that had formed behind the low walls of the ruined structure began to follow him westward, as if fleeing-until they reached the gentle hill that concealed them from any who might watch or follow. Then, they turned back south and began to parallel the incoming road.
If the lancers saw the dust, he hoped that they would believe the Lornians were still retreating. But no one followed-the Cyadorans were disciplined-perhaps too disciplined for their own good.
Nylan mentally filed that datum for future consideration and concentrated on the rough side road that led back to the main road-behind the Cyadorans. There wasn’t much cover, but if the lancers were prepared, well…the Lornians had everything with them and they could head back to Syskar, with virtually no losses. Even the tools had been parceled out among the squads.
The Lornian force quick-trotted toward the rear of the lancers, the last squads or companies still jammed up by the confusion of trenches before the olive trees, their eyes forward and focused on the commotion ahead of them.
Nylan hated leading charges. His riding skills were newly acquired enough that he still feared bouncing off the mare or some other probable occurrence. But if he or Ayrlyn didn’t lead, who would follow?
Only a single Cyadoran looked back, his mouth opening, as if in slow motion, and the rearmost dozen of the white lancers fell before the others understood what had happened.
Then lances began to swing, and shimmering round shields, and white bronze sabres to rise and fall as the rear of the white forces began to respond to the attack.
Nylan forced his own blade against a lancer whose lance tangled in the stirrup of the flanking lancer. The man dropped the long shaft and grabbed for his sabre, but the angel’s sword was quicker.
Nylan willed himself to hold on to his blade as the inevitable wave of whiteness and pain swept across him, trying to keep his guard up even as he shivered in the saddle from the impacts of the currents of chaos and death.
From the corner of his eyes, while fending off a lance that seemed a kay long, the smith could sense one…two…three…purple-clad figures tumbling. It was time to cut their losses.
“Back! Now!” His voice seemed lost in the grunts and swirling dust, but Tonsar repeated the command, and slowly the Lornian armsmen disengaged, straggling away in groups.
Only the tops of the grayish olive trees were visible clearly, with all the dust that swirled across and around the road.
“Back to Lornth!” Nylan ordered again, lifting his blade and blocking the thrust of another long lance, before driving the shortsword across and severing the wood. The lancer urged his mount away from the angel; Nylan let him go and, after scanning the intermixed purple and white figures, pulled the mare back from the fray.
A gleam of red caught his eyes, as Ayrlyn’s blade came around in a short arc. Another lancer swayed in his saddle, and both Ayrlyn and Nylan shuddered.
“Back…” he half-yelled, half-gasped.
“You…first…” She followed the retort with a savage grin.
“…fine…” He half-guided, half-willed his mount back to the road, gesturing to the others with the shortsword as he did. “Break it off…now! Now, frig it!”