Chard longed to agree. Instead he shook his head. 'I will ride in with the attack,' he said. 'When it is over I will leave you to your ... pleasures.'
'Only trying to be helpful,' said the officer, with a wide grin.
They waited until the fifty horsemen had reached their position to the north of the village, then Chard drew his sword. 'Give the order,' he told the officer.
'No prisoners!' shouted the man. 'And all the looting to be left until the job is done! Forward!'
Chard wondered briefly if God would ever forgive him for this day, then touched spurs to his mount. The beast leapt forward. The soldiers around him drew their weapons and charged. The men were lighter armoured than he, wearing leather breastplates and no helms, and the mercenaries soon outpaced him, forming three attacking lines.
Chard was some fifteen lengths behind the last man when the first line of mercenaries reached the stream. The woman there dropped her washing and, lifting her heavy skirts, ran back towards the buildings. The raucous cries of the mercenaries filled the air and then the horses galloped into the water, sending up glittering fountains that caught the sunlight and shone like diamonds.
The first line had reached the middle of the stream when disaster struck. Horses whinnied in fear and pain as they fell headlong, tipping their riders over their necks. For a moment only Chard was stunned.
Tripwire! staked beneath the water line. My God, they were ready for us!
The riders of the second line dragged on their reins, but they collided with their downed comrades in a confused mass. Chard pulled up his mount. Experienced in battle, he knew that the tripwire was only the beginning. Swiftly he scanned the buildings. There was no sign of a defensive force .. .
And then they were there!
Rising up from behind the low retaining wall, a score of bowmen sent volley after volley of shafts into the milling men. Wounded mercenaries began to scream and run, but long shafts slashed into them, slicing through their pitiful armour.
'Dismount!' shouted Chard. 'Attack on foot!'
Scum though they were, the mercenaries were not afraid to fight. Leaping from their horses they rushed the bowmen, who stood their ground some thirty feet beyond the stream. More than twenty mercenaries went down, but Chard was confident that once hand-to-hand fighting began they would be swept aside by weight of numbers.
Urging his horse to the edge of the stream, he shouted encouragement to his men.
From behind the buildings came a surging mass of fighting men, armed with claymores, scythes, spears and hammers - and women carrying knives and hatchets. They smote the mercenaries' left flank. Chard saw the baker, Fat Tovi, slash his claymore through the shoulder and chest of a mercenary, and then the white-bearded smith, Grame, grabbed the pox-marked officer by the throat, braining him with his forge hammer.
The mercenaries broke and ran. But there was no escape.
Chard wheeled his horse and galloped along the stream, crossing a small bridge, then riding for the second group. All fifty were waiting as ordered in skirmish formation some twenty yards below the tree line. With these men he could yet turn the battle.
His pain was forgotten as he urged his stallion up the hill.
As Chard came closer he watched with horror as a dozen men pitched from their saddles with arrows jutting from their backs. Horses reared, spilling their riders.
A line of mounted bowmen rode from the trees, shooting as they came: grim, dark men, clothed in black and silver. As they neared the stunned mercenaries they threw aside their bows, drawing shining silver sabres. There were no more than twenty soldiers left. A few of them tried to fight, the others fled.
Chard, his force in ruins, his fragile reputation gone for ever, shouted his defiance and galloped towards the attackers. From their centre, on a jet-black horse, came a red-cloaked rider in silver armour. Chard raised his sword, slamming his spurs into the weary stallion's flanks. The horse leapt forward.
The silver rider swung her horse at the last second and the two beasts collided. Chard was flung from the saddle as his stallion went down. The silver rider sprang from her mount and ran in just as he was trying to rise. Despairingly he swung his broadsword at her legs. She jumped nimbly and, as she landed, lashed her sabre across his face. The blade struck his temple, biting deep and dislodging his helm.
Chard fell, rolled and struggled to rise. The sabre smashed down upon his skull, glancing from the chain-mail headguard. The blow stunned him and he sagged to his back. The sabre lanced into his throat. Chard felt pain only briefly, for the sword plunged through his neck and into the cold earth beneath him.
All was quiet now, and he felt a curious sense of relief. No dead children, no raped and murdered women. Perhaps God would forgive him after all.
Perhaps...
*
Sigarni stepped back from the corpse and heard Asmidir order his men into the village to check on casualties. She was breathing heavily, yet her limbs felt light. Asmidir came alongside her. 'How are you feeling?' As he spoke, his hand came down on her shoulder.
'Don't touch me!' she hissed, pulling away and turning to face him. She saw the shock and the dismay, but it was nothing to the roaring panic his contact aroused within her. 'Stay away from me!' she said.
'Sigarni.' His voice was soft, his eyes troubled. 'You are in no danger from me. The battle is over, and I believe we have won. Calm yourself before the others see you.'
The roaring receded and she began to tremble. 'God, what is happening to me?' she said, dropping her sabre and sitting down on the grass.
He moved to sit opposite her. 'I think we should blame it on the reaction to the battle, though we both know that is not the truth,' he said sadly. 'However, let us put that aside for now and enjoy the moment of victory. You risked it all, Sigarni. And I am proud of you. As I told you, I did not believe in the wisdom of this course. It was, in my view, too early for a confrontation. But you proved me wrong. Now perhaps you will explain why you were so confident.'
She smiled and felt some of the tension ease from her. 'It was not confidence. You told me I must have special skills. Whether or not that is true only time will tell. But I knew I could gather no support without a victory. Who would follow me? An untried woman in a world of beaten men.'
'But why here in Cilfallen? How did you know they would come here? There are scores of hamlets and villages throughout the Highlands.'
'Indeed there are, and we won't be able to protect them all. But Cilfallen was my village, and from here they took the hostages. It is also on largely open land. No major walls, no defences.
Added to this, it is the closest main settlement to Citadel.'
'And why did you believe there would be an attack?'
'I questioned Obrin concerning Outland tactics. He believed they would send between one hundred and two hundred men.'
Asmidir smiled. 'We could have lost it all, my lady. We gambled everything on a single throw of the dice. That is not to be recommended for every occasion, I assure you.'
Sigarni rose, then extended her hand to pull Asmidir to his feet. He looked up and met her eyes, and she knew he could see there her fear at the prospect of his touch. Slowly he reached out and clasped her wrist, rising smoothly and disengaging his grasp. 'That took courage, did it not?' he said.
She nodded. 'I am sorry, Asmidir. You are a dear friend, and will always be so. But they took something from me and I cannot get it back.'