“I helped you start this war,” she said simply. “The least I can do is be here to finish it.”
“They’re going to come at me with a whole army of Salamis on horseback, eh?” Ankhar said with a chuckle. He was addressing Captain Blackgaard, who sat astride his black stallion next to his army commander. “Perhaps they forgot what your pikes did to them on the bank of the Vingaard, eh?”
Blackgaard narrowed his eyes, studying the long line of armored riders, their lance tips raised so they sparkled in the new sunlight of the day. “I am not so sure about that, my lord. The Solamnics are stubborn, to a fault, but they are not fools. I doubt they will ever forget the crossing of the Vingaard River. However, I agree, we need to deploy our pikes in the front line.”
The human captain gave the necessary orders, and his crack troops with their long weapons moved out in front of Ankhar’s army. They deployed in their three-rank formation, standing at rest-the butts of their pikes resting on the ground for the time being-while they awaited developments. They would be able to raise their weapons to form their impenetrable line on a moment’s notice, far more rapidly than the knights could cover the half mile or so of distance to confront them, even with their fastest charge.
While waiting for the knights to make the first move, Ankhar turned to his stepmother, who as usual was close by his side. “Did you brew your tea for the Gray Robe?”
“Yes,” she replied. “He has drunk it and is making his way here.”
“You said that potion will kill him. He will not die today, will he?”
Laka cackled. “It should have killed him already. I begin to think that the Thorn Knight has magic even mightier than my own. But no, my son, I do not think it will kill him-at least not today.”
“And the wand? You have it?”
She pulled back her cape, showing him the slender piece of wood tucked securely into her belt. “He says that it is better than the first one. And I will be ready when the time comes:” She opened her pouch and showed him the ruby box. The half-giant blinked, still surprised-despite his experience with the device-that such a small container could hold a force so terrible and awe inspiring.
“My lord!” called Blackgaard, drawing Ankhar’s attention back to the enemy. “It seems the knights have begun to move.”
“Aye, indeed,” grunted the half-giant. The vast ranks of armored riders had mounted now and were riding forward, their pace a measured walk. “And your pikes?”
“See, there,” said the human captain with a nod. Indeed, the men with their long pole arms were taking up positions, hoisting the long shafts into a bristling, deadly fence. Three deep, they knelt, crouched, or stood, holding firm to the steel pikes with razor-sharp tips.
“Good. Let the knights impale themselves,” Ankhar said with a belly-deep chuckle. He tried to suppress a small sense of disquiet, but the feeling wouldn’t quite go away: Why would the humans cling to a tactic that was so obviously bound to fail?
“How about the back ranks?” he asked Eaglebeak and Spleenripper, who were standing nearby.
“The archers are ready, lord.”
“So, too, my footmen.”
“And I have a thousand ogres, ready to advance when the enemy breaks,” Bloodgutter pledged, lumbering up to the command conference.
To the rear, Rib Chewer’s lupine cavalry milled. Already mounted, the gobs clutched their reins and tried to hold their eager, hungry mounts under control. The half-giant knew that they would be slavering for blood by the time he gave the order.
Surprisingly, Ankhar heard something like thunder booming from the direction of the Garnet Mountains. A deep rumble shook the air, a powerful sound he felt in the pit of his stomach as much as he heard it in his ears. He looked up toward the foothills with their snowy summits-the white peaks brilliantly outlined in the morning sun-beyond. However, there was not even a suggestion of a rain cloud in the pristine sky.
Peering more closely, he saw something resembling a gray fog swirling around one of the near ridgetops-but that seemed more like the smoke from a grass fire than any gathering of moisture in the sky. The vapors billowed and churned along the crest. Definitely not a storm cloud, Ankhar told himself. When he looked to the sky again, puzzled, Ankhar could still not determine any suggestion of threatening weather.
“Strange,” he murmured. “How can there be thunder without any clouds?”
“I think we’re going to fall just a bit short,” Dram remarked, speaking almost conversationally to Sulfie. They peered through the thick smoke of the muzzle blast, watching the six balls from the first bombard volley soar through the air-they were still visible, though dwindling into the distance-plunging down toward the plain. His target was the long, unbroken formation of pikemen. The pikes extended for more than a mile, screening the entire front of Ankhar’s horde. Let’s see how those well-disciplined soldiers face up to a rain of unforgiving stone balls, Dram thought grimly.
True to his prediction, the six spheres all thudded to the ground several hundred yards short of the enemy line. Several of them simply sank into the soft dirt and vanished, but three or four others bounced and rolled. Momentum carried them along with irresistible force, and they bowled through the line of pikemen like balls striking down ninepins. Even from a mile away, the dwarf and the gnome could see the shock effect of the missiles as the line of pikes wavered and a number of men were taken down.
The Solamnic Knights still advanced slowly, lances and pennants aloft, armor gleaming in the sunlight. The great formation looked more like a parade than a charge, horses still proceeding at a walk nearly half a mile before the enemy lines. The Palanthian Legion was in the lead of the broad line, and the three columns of Sword, Rose, and Crown knights maintained a steady interval between each wing as they came behind.
“Raise the elevation just a quarter turn,” the dwarf ordered, and his gunners complied by adjusting the massive screws set under the muzzles. The hill dwarves cranked the simple machines, and the barrels were raised almost imperceptibly.
Even as the aim was being adjusted, other gunners swarmed over the wagons, swabbing out the barrels and loading in new casks of powder. Six of the burliest dwarves acted as the ball handlers, and each of these now lifted his heavy missile over his head and dropped it into the gaping black mouth of the bombard.
“All right,” Dram said with relish. “Let’s try this again.”
CHAPTER TWENTY — FIVE
Six perfect spheres of stone, each weighing well more than one hundred pounds, soared lazily through the air. From a distance they looked harmless, like a spray of pebbles tossed by a child. But as they neared, they grew in apparent size even as their flight remained deceptively lyrical. Ultimately the rocks crashed only a few dozen paces before the line of Blackgaard’s pikemen, striking with enough force to send tremors through the ground.
One of the balls landed in a low, wet swale and simply vanished into the mud with an audible plop. The other five missiles struck harder patches, and they bounced and tumbled irresistibly forward. Momentum carried them onward, not at all lazily now, thumping and pounding the ground as they rolled. In scant moments they tore through the tightly packed ranks of human flesh and wooden shafts. Pikes splintered and snapped, bones shattered, and flesh was crushed by the irresistible mix of mass and momentum.
Wherever they hit that line, the heavy balls simply burst through, following the trajectory imposed when they blasted out of the muzzles of the bombards a mile away on their mountain ridge. They came up against no obstacle that could obstruct them or even seriously impede their progress. Any stick or body in the way of the flying boulders was simply borne along as the balls blasted through the line and tumbled across the grass to settle at the rear. Thus, human heads, torsos, arms, legs, and sometimes complete bodies, were blasted away, swept like grains of sand propelled by a broom, leaving a gory wake of body parts in the path of each of the five balls. The unbroken line of leveled pikes wavered as five distinct gaps were instantly carved in the previously unbroken formation.