‘Oh, I’ll look forward to that,’ muttered Stavut.
The Eternal Guard began to march. Instinctively Stavut reached for his sword hilt. ‘Not yet,’ said the soldier. ‘Your arm will be tired enough by the end. Wait until you actually need to draw it.’
Up ahead Stavut saw Druss, dressed now in a long mail hauberk, walking along the front rank, Alahir beside him in the Armour of Bronze. The axeman was talking to the soldiers, but his words did not fully carry to the second phalanx. Stavut thought he heard the word ‘wedge’.
‘Can you hear what he’s saying?’ he asked the soldier beside him.
‘Don’t need to,’ said the man. ‘Alahir told us last night what the plan was. We will hit them when they reach the narrowest point of the road. They will be expecting arrows. Instead they will be met by a charge, in wedge formation. It will pierce them like an arrow head, with Druss at the point.’
The Eternal Guard marched on, not swiftly, but steadily, conserving their energies for the battle ahead.
Stavut found himself wondering about his lads, and how they were faring in the green hills. He sighed.
The sun was bright in a cloudless sky, and he saw several doves flying by. A sense of unreality gripped him. It was hard to believe, standing here in the sunlight, that men were about to die. Then he thought about Askari. She had been acting strangely these last few days. Ever since the nightmare. She had suddenly awoken beside him with a cry. He had reached over to her, and she had slapped his hand away and looked at him strangely. ‘It is all right,’ he said. ‘You were dreaming. That’s all.’
‘Dreaming?’ She relaxed then. ‘Yes, I was dreaming. Where is Olek?’
‘Olek?’
‘Skilgannon.’
‘He is out scouting the passes for sign of the Guard.’ He had leaned in to her then, and suggested they find a spot away from the others where they could be together.
‘Not now, Stavut,’ she said. It had been odd hearing her use his full name. He had become so used to Stavi.
The men around him began to shuffle and swing their arms, loosening the muscles. Stavut saw that the Guard were approaching the narrowest point of the road. They began to shuffle together, raising their long shields to protect themselves from arrows.
Without any battle cries the Drenai line surged forward, Druss at the centre, axe raised. It was several moments before the marching Guard realized they were under assault. Stavut saw the huge axe splinter a shield, and sweep the man beyond from his feet. Then the noise erupted, metal on metal, screeching and clamouring, screams and shouts and death cries. Several of the Guard were pushed over the edge of the precipice, and fell. Stavut watched them, arms flailing as they plummeted towards the rocks far below.
Switching his gaze back to the front line he saw the carnage and his stomach knotted. The axe rose and fell, swept and cut, blood spraying from it. It seemed perpetually in motion, as if it was somehow mechanical. There was a gap opening around Druss, as men fought to keep back from the slashing blades. Then, with the initial shock of the charge over, the Guards’ discipline reasserted itself. They began to push forward. Now Stavut saw Legend Riders fall, as the black and silver ranks hurled themselves at the defenders. Slowly, inexorably, the Drenai were forced back. Druss fought on, and the enemy warriors had almost reached the point of encircling him. Then Alahir threw himself into the attack, battling to reach Druss. Several men, Gilden among them, joined him, and once more the two fighting groups became wedged together, neither giving nor gaining ground.
The battle seemed to go on for ever, but Stavut glanced at the sky and saw that the sun had barely moved.
Another line of Drenai reserves rushed forward to fill the gaps left by the dead and dying. The soldier beside him had been right, thought Stavut, as he and the men around him shuffled forward. He no longer felt the urge to piss, and his mouth was no longer dry. He saw Alahir go down, and then rise again. The battle looked chaotic now. More men fell screaming from the edge, and the ground was dense with bodies, some still writhing, or trying to drag themselves clear of the fighting. Stavut, though he had no experience of battles, could sense that the tide was beginning to turn. The Drenai had been pushed back from the narrow point. This allowed more Guards to enter the fray. Druss was still holding his ground, but once more the two flanks were pressing inwards. A second line of reserves ran in, briefly bolstering the defence. Druss suddenly surged forward into the Guards trying to join the fighting, cutting left and right with his terrible blades. Stavut shivered as he saw men go down, helms crushed, faces slashed away.
This sudden, almost berserk attack opened a gap behind the Guards, and Stavut saw many men in the front ranks glance nervously behind them. Alahir must have seen it to, for he bellowed: ‘At them, Drenai!
Kill them all!’
The defenders returned to the attack with renewed vigour, hacking and slashing, hurling themselves at the enemy. The guardsmen at the rear turned and fled from the awesome axe. Then the front line caved.
Men spun on their heels and began to run, streaming back down the pass road.
Stavut couldn’t believe his luck. He had not been called to battle at all.
Legend Riders ran to their fallen comrades, lifting those still breathing from the battle site and carrying them back to the relative safety of the rock pool. Then they began to gather their dead. It seemed to Stavut there were a great many bodies. Swiftly he cast his glance around, estimating the numbers of the survivors. There were considerably less than a hundred men still standing. He saw Druss walk to the narrow point and stare down at the enemy. Then the axeman swung round and strode back up the road.
Stavut shivered as he saw him. The mail hauberk was splattered with blood, as was his face and beard.
There were bleeding cuts on his huge arms, and a long gash on his cheek. A cut above his right eye was seeping blood. ‘There is a rider coming,’ the axeman told Alahir.
The Earl of Bronze and the axeman walked down to meet him. Stavut tagged along behind them. The rider was a tall man, hawk-eyed and lean. He sat his black horse and stared past the two men, observing the battlefield. Then he turned his dark gaze on Druss.
‘You have performed bravely, but you cannot hold out much longer,’ he said.
‘Ah, laddie, that was but a warming up exercise. Now that we’re loose the real fighting can begin.’
The man gave a cold smile. ‘Do I have your permission to remove my wounded and dead?’
‘What, no offers of surgeons?’ said the axeman.
‘I fear the amount of damage you have caused necessitates my using both my surgeons,’ said the officer.
‘You can have your wounded,’ said Druss. ‘The men you send to carry them better be stripped of all armour and weapons, or I’ll roll their heads back to you.’
‘Your tone is disrespectful, sir,’ said the officer, tight lipped.
‘I’d have more respect had I seen you among your men, and not watching the battle from afar. Now scuttle back to where you came from. This conversation is over.’
Druss turned his back on the man and led Alahir back up the road. Stavut watched the officer wrench his horse round and ride away.
‘Why were you so discourteous, Druss?’ asked Alahir.
The axeman chuckled. ‘I want him boiling mad. Angry men tend to act rashly.’
‘I think you achieved that. And you were right about the surgeons.’
‘As soon as they have collected their dead and wounded form up the bowmen and prepare for the beasts.’
Druss glanced to his right. A wounded guardsman was desperately trying to unbuckle the breastplate of a fallen comrade. Blood was gushing from beneath the smashed armour. Druss laid aside his axe and moved alongside the men. Together they wrenched the breastplate clear. The man’s right side was drenched with blood. Druss ripped the shirt open, to reveal smashed ribs and a huge cut. From the look of the ruined breastplate, and the depth of the wound, Stavut knew it had come from Druss’s axe. Druss pulled the shirt back over the wound, and told the second man to hold his hand over it. ‘Press lightly,’ he said, ‘for those ribs might be pushed into the lung.’