They heard the hollow axe sounds all morning, from the west and south. Hartmut flinched every time the sound came clear. All he could imagine was a long line of forts running all the way across his path-
Before noon, the Dead Tree Qwethnethogs and the scouts of the Huran caught a band of axemen and destroyed them.
After that, there was no holding the army, and it flooded forward into the low hills, up each ridge on its steep face, and then a shallower descent. Hartmut didn’t know the country, but he knew the general lay of the land.
He was concerned at how quickly a few miles of wilderness swallowed their whole force. By how open the woods proved to be.
It was more alien than anything he’d seen.
But Thorn seemed content with their route, and they pressed forward. It was terrible walking for the men-the sailors and the brigans-but Hartmut put them deep in the column so that the great daemons, the stone trolls and the other forest folk could make a trail for them. At last they broke out of the lowlands and into the higher ground with bigger trees, and every step they climbed seemed to rid them of the clinging hobblebush and the terrible alders.
Cunxis, one of the warlords of the Dead Trees, appeared out of the light rain, his feather cloak making him almost invisible until he chose to be seen.
“Thorn-they are right here! A whole army!”
Cunxis was intolerably excited; his red crest stood up, engorged with blood, and his teeth all but glowed white.
“Where?” Thorn demanded. There was a very faint sound of horns-above them on the next ridge. Further north.
Ears of many shapes pricked.
Without any order being given, the whole host began to flood up the ridge, led by the daemons of the Dead Tree Clan, followed-and sometimes outrun-by a thousand Outwaller warriors. The column had only been moving on a path ten or so creatures wide, crushing the underbrush as they moved, and now it gathered speed-but there were bands and bands, stretching away down the last three ridges…
Hartmut spat. “Halt,” he roared at his own human auxiliaries. They halted-and creatures flowed around them.
The enemy-Outwallers and daemons-got to the top of the ridge first.
The captain swore-palpably.
“Don’t halt!” the captain roared, when the line faltered. Even in the rain, the feather cloaks and the slick skin-and sheer size-showed the fearsome enemy. Everyone had nightmares of the daemons at Lissen Carak.
The ground was actually becoming more broken as they climbed the ridge, and on the narrow front where the daemons emerged from the rain, there was naked rock and a steep slope.
“Household-dismount,” the captain called. Cursing-no knight likes to fight on foot-the veteran knights swung off their war horses and handed them back to pages-and in some cases lost only a few strides.
“Stay open,” the captain ordered. He was on foot, and they were going up the slope-the steepest.
Heavy rocks came down on them. A daemon lobbed a rock as big as a man’s head, and Chris Foliak died, his head crushed.
His squire pushed forward into his space and they continued up. Lord Wimarc slammed his face-plate closed as a smaller stone broke his nose.
Stones were not their only weapons. The daemons had heavy axes. They had halted, and stood waiting near the crest-and Outwaller warriors started to leak around their edges.
The household went up the last few yards with their archers loosing at very close range-most of them already at or behind trees as big as the columns that supported a church roof.
The daemons stopped the captain’s household cold, and didn’t give a foot’s breadth. Nell fell there, cut almost in two by a daemon’s axe, and Toby saw the captain go down-struck in the chest by a rock-he rolled, and got to his feet before Toby could take any action. Then Toby missed his guard and caught most of a blow-his helmet did not fail, but his head moved too far, he screamed and fell, and the captain’s ghiavarina was everywhere for a few seconds. A daemon fell-another rolled forward, tripping on its own tangled guts.
“Back!” roared the captain.
Toby had never seen the company stopped. He could not, at first, believe it, and Cully, safe behind a tree at the base of the slope, had to pull the stunned boy out of the line of rocks now falling as the daemons taunted the beaten company.
The household retreated slowly, dragging their wounded. The rest of the company was not retreating-in some cases, like Ser Michael’s lance, they had won the race to the crest.
“Was that Nell?” the captain asked Toby.
“Yes,” Toby spat.
The archers continued, working through their livery arrows at a stunning rate. The thrown rocks were not enough answer, and their shafts began to tell. The daemons were suffering. One of their shamans tossed a working.
The captain unravelled it.
“Listen,” the captain said to Toby. “Listen to the horns.” He smiled.
Toby heard only the sound of desperate combat: horns, and horns, steel and shouting, and screams. Nell-Chris Foliak… He had never felt so tired. So beaten.
“Ready everyone?” the captain called. “Fast as you can to the top. Everyone kill one. This is it.”
Toby looked around. What did he hear? They were going again?
The captain stepped out from behind his great tree and a stone hit his left arm. He raised his right and blew a long call on his horn.
The beaten household got up, or came out from behind their trees.
The captain was already a third of the way up the slope. He was flying over the rocks like a faery horse. Toby decided to try not watching his footing and jumping-in full plate armour-from rock to rock.
It was insanely foolish.
He fell, and his breastplate took the force of his fall on a sharp rock-rose, and jumped.
He could no longer see the captain, but suddenly, above him, there was a great beaked face.
Sometimes, you have to go up the hill first.
The irony was that he was fairly certain that this part of the battle was already won. He could hear the red banda’s horns, and even Michael’s shouts-from the ridge crest. He’d guessed the enemy would be on a narrow frontage-at first.
That didn’t change the tactical reality that he had to hold the whole ridge crest to win. It was bad luck that the enemy had led their force with their very best assault troops.
The logic was unassailable.
But he’d blown their first chance, and now he had to lead from in front, and very possibly die.
He thought-in no order, and all at once-of Harmodius, of Amicia, of Blanche, of his mother, and, of all people, of Ser Tapio.
Win or lose-he could die here, and that was fine.
He began to run.
He had a plan-he had a plan for everything, and if he hadn’t been labouring to breathe inside a pig-faced bascinet while climbing a cliff in armour, he might even have assayed a laugh, because he hadn’t made any plan at all for Blanche, and she was a new world of delight and happiness that he didn’t think he could ever grow used to.
Planning. Over-rated.
But he had planned not to use his powers until he met Thorn, and he found, here, on a naked rock slope with a hundred giant daemons ravening for his blood, that he really didn’t want to lose another friend.
He leapt to the left-landed well, on a big spike of glacial scree-and flicked with his left gauntlet, opening his first of seven sequenced attacks. He’d layered days’ worth of ops and stored the results in Pru’s ever-faithful mind. He didn’t have to enter his palace or speak a trigger.
Daemons died. Some simply lost their feet at the ankle. Their shaman revealed himself to cast-first a strong shield to prevent a repetition, and then a concussive hammer spell, very simple, very hard to shield.
Gabriel turned to working with the ghiavarina, and reached out through the dangerous terrain of the aethereal, found him, and took him. He subsumed the daemon even as the creature shrieked, begged mercy, and collapsed.