Bili left only a half-troop with the trams. If the battle should go against him, whatever remnants of the squadron were left could withdraw to the position and try either to hold the strongpoint or, if it seemed advisable, flee back the way they had come onto the plateau. Meanwhile, he wanted every sword he could get behind him when he attacked those thousands of barbarians.
When he had described what Whitetip’s eyes had seen to Hari and certain of the others, the old nobleman had protested, “Bili, lad, I like a fight as much as any other, but … three thousand men, and us less than a thousand? And don’t forget the High Lord’s mission, his instructions.”
“I’m not forgetting either, Hari,” Bili replied grimly. “But aside from the fact that those folk, whoever they be, probably owe me bloodprice, for the butchery of Raikuh’s squadron, we have no choice. Our path lies straight across this plateau, and I don’t want the likes of them snuffing out our trail or barring our return. Do you?”
“Well, no, Bili, but—”
“I’d rather fight them now, on my terms, than later, on theirs and at a place of their choosing. Too, if the Ahrmehnee are now our allies, we can’t just ride on and let them be massacred by a pack of human wolves, can we?”
Behind several lines of pickets, with outriders thrown well out to van and flanks, the squadron made a rapid advance despite the difficult, uneven terrain. Along with the background rumble of thudding hooves, armor clanked and leather creaked, equipment thunked and metal-fittings jangled, but Bili knew that the noises were unimportant, for none would hear them above the din of battle even if distance and the folds of ground failed to muffle them.
A quarter-hour brought the van to the outskirts of the village mentioned by the cat. And all was just as Whitetip had described it. It had been a small place, only a bare dozen small cabins of dry-stone construction, thick, windowless walls and thatched roofs. But those roofs had all been burnt off and smoke still curled up from within those walls, along with the stink of charring flesh. All among the ruined houses lay stripped, hacked, headless bodies of both sexes and of sizes varying from infant to adult.
All the men of Bill’s squadron were soldiers who had witnessed the horrors of war at first hand. Most of them were professionals and had devoted the larger portion of their lives to traveling from one bloody battle to the next. Even the southern nobles, those who had never been professionals, had lived through the incredible carnage of the siege of Vawnpolis or had ridden with Bui to put down the rebellion in Morguhn. But the evidences of unhallowed atrocity which lay athwart the path of the squadron had more than a few men frantically unlocking visors and fighting down beavers that the interiors of their helms might not be befouled with the spewed contents of their stomachs.
Just below the crest of the hill, Bili halted his command and, along with Hari and Taros, who would captain the right and left wings, bellied into the thicket which concealed Whitetip and the other cat.
The scene Bili now saw with his own eyes was very similar to that seen earlier through the eyes of the huge cat. There seemed to be slightly fewer of the shaggy men milling about their gigantic leader and a somewhat denser carpet of bodies between the horde and the cliff. But there were definitely fewer of the Ahrmehnee, far fewer. Their lines were considerably contracted in length and the depth of then—formation was much reduced. But they stood firm in the face of the death which must surely overtake most of them when next they were attacked. Men and women leaned, panting, on their well-used weapons In grim silence. Behind their lines lay their wounded or dead, and within cave mouths in the base of the cliffside Bill thought he could discern the heads of horses.
The top of the cliff was a continuation of the crest of the hill on which the men and cats lay, though the slope before them was much more gradual than it became as it curved around closer to the sheer precipice. A charge down this slope would take the attackers of the Ahrmehnee on the right flank and, were the line strung long enough, at the right rear, as well. Squinting in concentration, the young thoheeks considered every angle of the projected charge, weighed up every misfortune which might befall and racked his brain to settle upon an alternate plan of action to counter each. At length, he slid his armored body back down from the thicketed crest, signaling the two nobles to follow but mindspeaking the cats to remain, bidding them let him know when the barbarians seemed on the verge of a fresh assault.
Back at the squadron, he summoned the nobles and Freefighter officers and first outlined his strategy, then issued succinct commands.
All was in readiness before the undisciplined rabble, screaming and howling like wild beasts, started to cover the distance separating them from the battered little band opposing them. Bili and the others did not need Whitetip’s mindspeak to tell them, for the thud-thudding of the thousands of pony hooves was clearly audible. A ripple of movement went all through the ranks of armored horsemen as visors were snapped shut and locked onto beavers. Then Bili kneed Mahvros forward and, behind him, his squadron advanced uphill, toward the crest.
On the floor of the wide defile, the shaggy men on their shaggy ponies roiled ahead, presenting a jagged front as faster ponies surged uncontrolled and slower ones lagged. Few darts flew between the two groups, for nearly all had been expended during the earlier engagements. All at once, though, furry figures commenced to drop their crude weapons while emitting shrieks of agony, to reel from off their mounts and be trampled under the heedless hooves of the riders who followed. The Ahrmehnee seemed as shocked as the barbarians at the drizzle of slender shafts, seemingly from the empty sky.
The brow of the cliff hid from the Ahnnehnee the staggered line of bowmasters, but the barbarians could see them, and increasing dozens of them felt the deadly bite of the arrows. But the advance neither slowed nor faltered. As the range decreased, more shafts homed into flesh and the dozens became scores. Wounded ponies screamed and reared or fell with their riders, to die messily as the thousands galloped over them.
At the crest, Bili halted for half a heartbeat, taking in the panorama spread below. The giant was now among the rearmost of the horde—Northorses being bred for strength and endurance rather than speed, even the comparatively tiny ponies were far faster at the gallop. The big gray lumbered along, the monster who bestrode him waving his impossibly long blade, his huge maw gaping, his roars lost in the general din.
“Sun and Wind!” swore Komees Han. “Yon’s not a man, it’s surely a monster!”
Taking a fresh grip on the steel haft of his massive axe, Bili mindspoke his stallion. “Now, brother-mine, now we fight.”
With Bili and a knot of heavily armed nobles at the center, the squadron crested the hill and swept down the slope at a jarring gallop. Naturally, a few horses fell, but only a few. As they reached level ground, Han’s wing, the left, extended to take aim at the rear of the unruly mob of pony riders. And, all the while, the bowmasters sustained their rain of death upon the forefront of the host.
Bili unconsciously tightened his leg muscles, firming his seat and crowding his buttocks against the cantle, while crouching over the thundering black’s neck and extending his axe at the end of his strong right arm, the sharp spike at the business end of that shaft glinting evilly in the pale rays of sun.
And then they struck!
The big, heavy, war-trained horses sent ponies tumbling like ninepins, and the well-armed, steel-sheathed nobles and Freefighters wreaked fearful carnage among the unarmored and all but defenseless barbarians. The Ahnnehnee could only stand speechless with the wonder of this eleventh-hour deliverance from what must surely have been their last battle.