A red-bearded headhunter heeled his pony at Bili and jabbed furiously with his spear, but the soft iron point bent against the Pitzburk plate and Bill’s axe severed the speararm, cleanly, at the shoulder. Screaming a shrill challenge, Mahvros reared above a pony and rider and came down upon them, steel-shod hooves flailing; gelatinous globs of brain spurted from the man’s shattered skull and the pony collapsed under the weight, whereupon the killer stallion stove in its ribs.
It was a battle wherein living men were a-horse. Those not mounted—noble, Freefighter or barbarian—were speedily pounded into the blood-soaked ground. The shaggy men fell like ripe grain, most of their weapons almost useless when pitted against fine, modern plate and only slightly more effective when employed against the scalemail hauberks of the Freefighters. To counter blows and thrusts of broadsword and saber, axe and lance, the primitive wickerwork targes offered no more protection than did the hides and ragged homespun clothing.
But, though the shaggy men died in droves, it seemed to Bili that there were always more and yet more appearing before him, behind him, to each side of him, jabbing spears and beating on his plate with light axes, with crude blades and wooden clubs. He felt that he had been fighting, slaying, swinging his ever-heavier axe for centuries. But, abruptly, he was alone, with none before him or to either side. At a flicker of movement to his right, he twisted in his sweaty saddle, whirling up his gore-clotted axe.
But it was only a limping, riderless pony, hobbling as fast as he could go from that murderous engagement, eyes rolling wildly and nostrils dilated. Bili slowly lowered his axe and relaxed for a brief moment, slumped in his saddle, drawing long, gasping, shuddery breaths. Beneath his three-quarter armor and the padded, leather gambeson, he seemed to be only one long, dull ache, with here and there sharper pains which told of strained muscles, while his head throbbed its resentment of so many clanging blows on the protecting helm. Running his parched tongue over his lips, he could taste the sweat bathing his face as well as the salty blood trickling from his nose, but he seemed to be unwounded.
Several more stampeding ponies passed by while he sat and one or two troop horses, the last with a Freefighter reeling in the kak, rhythmically spurting bright blood from a left arm that ended just above the elbow. Exerting every ounce of willpower, Bili straightened his body and reined Mahvros about, bringing up his ton-heavy axe to where he could rest its shaft across his pommel.
Fifty yards distant, the battle still surged and raged. He had ridden completely through the widest, densest part of the howling horde, a testament to Mahvros’ weight and bulk and ferocity as much as to his rider’s fighting skills. So close that he could almost touch him stood a panting horse and a panting rider. There was no recognizing who might be within the scarred and dented plate, but Bili knew that mare and nudged Mahvros nearer.
When they sat knee to knee, he leaned close and shouted, “Geros! Sir Geros! Are you hurt, man?” His voice thundered within his closed helm. “Where in hell did you get my Eagle?”
But the other rider sat unmoving, unresponsive. His steel-plated shoulders rose and fell jerkily to his heavy, spasmodic breathing. One gauntleted fist gripped the hilt of his broadsword, its blade red-smeared from point to guard; the other held a hacked and splintery ashwood shaft, from which the tattered and faded Red Eagle of Morguhn banner rippled silkily in the freshening breeze. Sir Geros had borne this banner to glory and lasting fame while serving with Pawl Raikuh’s Morguhn Troop of Freefighters, but since his elevation to the ranks of the nobility—after a singular act of valor done during the early days of the siege of Vawnpolis—a common trooper had been chosen standardbearer, the new knight taking his well-earned place among the heavily armed nobles.
Bili tried mindspeak. “Did you piss your breeks, as usual, Sir Geros?”
Contrition boiled up from the knight’s soul and beamed out with the reply. “I always do, my lord, always befoul myself in battle.”
Bili chuckled good-naturedly and his mirth was silently transmitted as well. “Geros, every manjack in this squadron knows you’ve got at least a full league of guts. When are you going to stop being ashamed of the piddling fact that your bladder’s not as brave as the rest of you, man? None of us give a damn, why should you?”
“But… but, my lord, it… it’s not manly.”
Bili snorted derision. “Horse turds, Sir Geros! You’re acknowledged one of the ten best swordsmen in a dozen duchies and you fight like a scalded treecat, so why worry about a meaningless quirk of yours? No one else is bothered by it.”
“There is never a fight, my lord, but that someone mentions my weakness, asks of it or openly lays hand to my saddle or my breeks. Then they all laugh.”
Dili extended his bridle hand to firmly grip the knight’s shoulder, chiding gently, “Geros, Geros, the laughter is at your evident embarrassment, and it’s friendly, well-meant joshing. There are few men in all the host as widely and deeply respected as are you. Everyone knows you’re a brave man, Geros.”
Geros shook his head, tiredly. “But I’m not really brave, my lord, and I know it. I fight for the same reason I strove to master the sword, only to stay alive. And I’m frightened near to death, almost all the time. That’s not valor, my lord.”
“Not so!” stated Bili firmly. “It’s the highest degree of valor, that you recognize and accept your fears and then do your duty despite them. And don’t you forget what poor old Pawl Raikuh told you that day before we stormed the salients. Fear, controlled fear, is what keeps a warrior alive in a press. Men who don’t know fear seldom outlive their first serious battle.
“Geros, self-doubt is a good thing in many ways; it teaches a man humility. But you can’t let yourself be carried too far by such doubts, else they’ll unman you.
“But, tell me, how did you chance to be bearing my banner again? Can’t keep your hands off it, eh?”
Geros was too exhausted and drained to rise to the joke. “My lord, I was riding at Klifuhd’s side through most of that ghastly mess back there and I thought me I had guarded him and the Eagle well. Then just at the near fringes of the horde, a barbarian axeman crowded between us and lopped off poor Klifuhd’s forearm. I ran the stinking savage through the body and barely caught the Eagle ere it fell. Then I was in the open here. I don’t know what happened to Klifuhd, my lord.”
“Well, man, you have it now. How’s your throat? Dry as mine, I don’t doubt.” Feeling behind his saddle, he grunted satisfaction at finding his canteen still in place.
With numbed, twitching fingers, he unlatched his visor and lowered his beaver. Raising the quart bottle to his crusty lips, he filled his mouth once and spat it out, then took several long drafts of the brandy-and-water mixture. The first swallow burned his gullet ferociously, like a red-hot spearblade on an open wound, but those which followed it were as welcome and soothing as warm honey. Taking the bottle down at last, he proffered it to Sir Geros.
“Here, man, wash your mouth and oil that remarkable set of vocal cords. If we’re to really clobber these bastards, we must rally the squadron and hit them hard again.”
The impetus of that smashing charge had been lost, and the majority of the lowland horsemen were fighting alone or in small groups, rising and falling from sight, almost lost in a shifting sea of multi-toned, shaggy fur. Bili realized that where mere skill at arms and superior armor could not promise victory or even survival against such odds, the superior bulk and weighty force of the troop horses and destriers were his outnumbered squadron’s single remaining asset. But to take full advantage of those assets, the horde must again be struck by an ordered, disciplined formation, charging at a gallop. But before he could deliver another crushing charge, he must rally his scattered elements … such of them as he could.