Carl glimpsed Lenard, sitting between his guards and watching the Dalesmen prepare. He appeared to be amused.
“They’ll know we’re coming, Father,” said the boy.
“Can’t be helped,” said Ralph. “We’ll just have to reach favorable ground before they attack.”
For an instant, the hardness of the leader was gone, and he touched Carl’s hand with a sudden tenderness. “Be careful, son. Be brave, but be careful.”
They thrust ahead, plowing through brush, panting up a long slope of forested hill. The woods ended on its crest and Ralph drew rein. A sunbeam speared through hurrying clouds to touch his armor with fire as he pointed. “The Lann!”
Carl’s eyes swept the ground. The ridge went down on a gentler grade here, a long grassy incline broken by clumps of young trees, ending in a broad, level field where the Lann were camped. Beyond that lay the river, a wide watery stretch gleaming like gray iron in the dull, shifting light, trees rising thick on its farther side. On either hand, a mile or less away, the forest marched down to the river on the near side, hemming in the open ground.
The Dalesmen looked first on the Lann warriors. Their tents were pitched on this bank—only a few, for most of those hardy warriors disdained such cover. They swarmed down by the river. It was indeed dark with men and horses, a whirling storm of movement as their horns shrilled command. Banners flying, lance heads hungrily aloft, hideously painted shields and breastplates glistening, bearded faces contorted with battle fury; they were a splendid and terrible sight, and Carl’s heart stumbled within him.
Ralph was looking keenly down on them. “Not so many as we,” he murmured. “Three or four thousand, I guess—but better trained and equipped, of course. And their Chief can’t be so very smart. He let us get this close without trying to stop us, and now we have the advantage of higher ground.”
“Why should Raymon fear you?” sneered Lenard. “The Lann can get ready as fast as you can.”
Ralph galloped his horse across the front of his army, shouting orders. He had rehearsed his men at Dales-town, and they fell into formation more quickly than Carl had thought they would. But his own eyes were on the man who rode down toward the northerners with a white flag in his hand. Ralph was going to try one last parley….
The rider threw up his arms and tumbled under his suddenly plunging horse. A moment later, Carl heard the faint clang of the bow and the cruel barking laughter of men. The Lann didn’t parley—and now they themselves were ready and moving up against the Dalesmen!
Chapter 8
STORM FROM THE NORTH
Ralph’s army was drawn up in the formation his people had always used, a double line in the shape of a blunt wedge, with himself and most of his guards at the point. Those in the first rank had axes and swords; behind them, the men slanted long pikes out between the leaders, with their own infighting weapons handy if they should have to step into the place of a fallen comrade. The banners of company commanders were planted at intervals along the lines, whipping and straining in the stiff, damp breeze. Horsemen waited on the flanks, lances lowered and swords loose in the scabbards. On higher ground, spread along the wedge in their own line, were the boys and the oldest warriors, armed with bows and slings. The arrangement was good, tight enough to withstand an attack without crumpling and then move forward against the enemy. The Lann, Carl saw, were approaching in a compact square of foot soldiers, about half the number of the Dalesmen. Their cavalry, much larger than that of their opponents, waited in a line of restless, tightly held horses near the river. Briefly, Carl thought that his own side had an enormous advantage. A frontal assault of lancers would have shattered itself against pikes and hamstringing swords; in any case, he could not think that cavalry would be of much use on this crowded field. Since almost half the Lann were mounted, it seemed that Ralph had already put that many out of useful action. That was a cheering thought.
And Carl needed cheering. The sight of that approaching line of fiercely scowling strangers brought a cold, shaking thrill along his nerves and muscles. His tongue was thick and dry, his eyes blurred, and something beat in his ears. In moments, now, battle would be joined, his first real battle, and that sun, lowering westward behind windy clouds, might never see him alive again.
The Lann broke into a trot up the hill, keeping their lines as tight as before. A rapid metallic banging began within their square, a gong beating time for their steadily approaching feet, and pipes skirled to urge them on. The red flag of the north flapped on each corner of the formation, bloody against the restless gray heavens. Closer—closer—here they came! Carl fitted an arrow to the string from the full quiver before him. Tom and Owl stood on either side, their own bows strained, waiting for the signal. The Lann were close, terribly close. Carl could see a scar zigzagging across one square, bronzed face—gods, would the horn never blow?
Hoo-oo-oo!
At the signal, Carl let his arrow fly. The heavy longbow throbbed in his hand. Over the Dale ranks that storm of whistling, feathered death rose, suddenly darkening the sky—down on the Lann! Carl saw men topple in the square, clawing at the shafts in their bodies, and yanked another arrow forth. Fear was suddenly gone. He felt a vast, chill clearness. He saw tiny things with an unnatural sharp vision, and it was as if everything were slowed to a nightmare’s dragging pace. He saw the wounded and slain Lann fall, saw their comrades behind them trample the bodies underfoot as they stepped into the front ranks—Zip, zip, zip, give it to them!
“Yaaaah!” Tom was howling as he let fly, his fiery hair blown wild as the lifted banners. Owl fired machine-like, one arrow after the next. Carl had time for a brief wondering as to how he looked, and then the Lann struck.
Swords and axes were aloft, banging against shields, a sudden clamor of outraged iron. Men yelled, roared, cursed as they struck, shields trembled under blows, pikes thrust out and daggers flashed. Carl saw the lines of Dalesmen reel back under the shock, planting feet in suddenly slippery ground, hammering at faces that rose out of whirling, racketing fury and were lost again in the press of armored bodies. He skipped backward, up the hill, seeking a vantage point from which to shoot.
Ralph towered above the battle, smiting from his horse at helmeted heads, lifted arms, snarling faces. The animal reared, hoofs striking out, smashing and driving back. A spear thrust against the Chief. He caught it in his left hand, wrenched it loose, and clubbed out savagely while his sword danced on the other side. A Lann soldier rose yelling under the belly of his horse, and Ralph’s spurred heel crashed into his face. Dropping the spear, the Dale chief lifted his horn and blew, long, defiant shrieks that raised answering shouts.
Backed against a thicket, Carl looked over the confusion that boiled below him. The Dalesmen were holding—the Dalesmen stood firm—oh, thank all gods! A sob caught in his throat. He took aim at a mounted piper in the square, and his bow sang and the man staggered in the saddle with an arrow through his shoulder. Mostly Carl was firing blindly into the thick of a mass that swayed and trampled and roared all along the hill.
A spear flew viciously close, plowing into the earth beside him. Arrows were dropping here and there, and stones were flying. The Lann had their own shooting men. Carl growled and planted his legs firm in the grass and shot.
Thunder burst in his head, light flared against a sudden, reeling darkness. He toppled to hands and knees, shaking a head that rang and ached, fighting clear of the night. “Carl! Carl!”
He looked up into Owl’s anxious face and climbed unsteadily erect, leaning on the younger boy. “Not much,” he mumbled. “Flung stone—my helmet took the blow—” His skull throbbed, but he stooped to pick up his weapons.