Ragnarson was proud of his soldiers. They did not let the sorcery panic them. They took cover and tried to hold their ground. When compelled to fall back they did so with discipline, fading toward the ruin.
They wrought incredible carnage while their arrows lasted. But this time the supply ran dry.
Bragi heard a distant whinny and sudden pounding of hooves. The Disciple's men had captured his mounts. "Looks like I miscalculated this time, don't it?" he told one of his officers.
"You're damned calm about it, Colonel."
Surprised, he realized he was calm. Even with the lightning stalking about. "Get back into the ruins. They'll have to come after us on foot. They're no good on the ground."
He ran hither and thither, establishing his companies amidst the tumbled stone. The majority of the foe were hanging back letting their prophet hammer the hill. El Murid was not much of a sharpshooter. Satisfied with his new dispositions, Bragi climbed to the ruin's highest point and stared toward the city. "All right, Haroun. This is your big chance."
Haroun surveyed his men. Their mounts pranced as if eager to be off to the fray. The warriors wore grins. They could not believe their good fortune. An absolute certainty of destruction had turned into a chance for escape.
"How soon, Lord?" Shadek asked.
Haroun peered at the hill. Ragnarson was in bad trouble. "A few minutes yet. Let a few hundred more dismount." He considered the street below. Beloul had finished passing along the line, vigorously pointing out that there was to be no run for freedom while El Murid's back was turned. They were to jump the Disciple from behind.
The more Beloul talked the fewer were the grins.
"Now, Shadek. Take the left wing. Beloul will go to the right."
"I'm thinking we ought to head east, then north, as hard as we can ride."
"What about our friends?"
El Senoussi shrugged.
"Who was it said something about people sticking? Sometimes I wonder how much I dare lean on you myself, Shadek."
"Lord!"
"The left wing, Shadek. Go after them as hard as you can, as long as you can. Let's not let El Murid duck the Dark Lady again."
"Suppose he won't let you duck?"
"Shadek."
"As you command, Lord."
Haroun led them out, spread them out and trotted them toward Ragnarson's hill. His coming was not wholly unanticipated. Many of the Disciple's horsemen came to meet him.
The lines crashed. Horses reared and screamed. Men shouted war- and death-cries. Lances cracked, swords clanged, shields whumped to the impact of savage blows. Dust rose till it choked the combatants, coating their colorful clothing a uniform ochre. And the Disciple's horsemen gave way.
Haroun howled and wailed, urging his men to finish it for once and all. His blood was up. He never thought to appeal to his people with arguments more convincing than love for their King. What matter to him that one man's death would mean they could return to loved ones unseen for years? He had no loved ones waiting in Hammad al Nakir. What matter that the passing of El Murid would permit their escape from sad roles as unwanted strangers in lands with grotesque customs? He was a stranger everywhere.
For Haroun—and Beloul—home was the hunt for the hated foe. Family were the men who shared the stalk.
A hand of fear passed over the battlefield. Its shadow fell heaviest upon the Chosen.
Haroun crowed and whipped his men forward.
The enemy broke and flew away like autumn leaves scattering in a sudden cold wind.
Beloul and Shadek drove their wings forward. Haroun, wounded, kept pointing with his blade and cursing his men because they would not hurry.
Spears of lightning fell upon the battleground, failing to discriminate among targets. Horsemen pelted away from every point of impact.
Haroun tried to locate the Disciple. He descried a large band of Invincibles, but could not determine if El Murid were amongst them. He tried to force his way closer.
More and more of the Disciple's horsemen fled. Some flew eastward, toward Hammad al Nakir. Some galloped across the narrow plain and got inside Libiannin's undefended wall.
The fighting rolled this way and that, up and down Ragnarson's hill. All order vanished. Immense confusion set in. The dust made it difficult to distinguish friend from foe. Neither side could guess who might be winning. But the longer it went on, the more the once stout members of the Host chose the better part of valor.
Late in the afternoon the big band of Invincibles lost their nerve. They scattered. The morale of the Host collapsed. It dissolved in minutes.
"Enough," Haroun told Beloul, who wanted to give chase. "We got out alive. That's enough." He dismounted with exaggerated care. His legs quaked with weariness and reaction. He lowered himself to the earth and began cataloging his injuries.
Twenty minutes later Ragnarson limped down the hill. He was covered with gore. Some was his own. He rolled a corpse aside, seated himself on the trampled earth, loosed a weary sigh. "I'm going to be too stiff to move for a week. If they come back... "
"They won't," Haroun promised. "They're going home. They've had enough. This was the last battle." Despair shadowed the corners of his soul. "The last battle. And the desert is still theirs." The groans and cries of wounded men nearly drowned his soft, sad voice. "I should have seen it before."
"What?"
"It will take more than killing El Murid to recover Hammad al Nakir."
He stared down the hill. The fallen lay in mounds and windrows, as though a big, wild tornado had slapped down in the midst of a parade. People from Libiannin were hurrying toward the field to join the looting. "Beloul, run those people off. You needn't be polite about it." A handful of Royalists, apparently with energy to spare, were working the dead already.
Haroun turned to Ragnarson. "My friend... My friend. What are you doing here? Sir Tury had more room to refuse than you did."
Ragnarson wrapped his arms around his knees, rested his right cheek atop them. "What orders? This is my army." He tried to smile. It was too much work. "I'm my own man now."
The setting sun painted the seaward sky a fitting shade of blood. A cool breeze came off the water. Bold gulls drifted inland, curiosities aroused by the gathering ravens.
"They wouldn't be too harsh with you," Haroun guessed. "You won. Winners are easily forgiven."
"I don't want to go back. I wasn't born to be a soldier. Not the Guild type, anyway."
"What, then, my friend?"
"I don't know. Not right now. There'll be something. What about you?"
Haroun glanced at Shadek, at Beloul returning across the field of death. "There's an usurper on the Peacock Throne." A vast weariness entered his voice. He was tired unto death, and still the ghosts whispered in his ears. His father, Yousif, to his right, his uncle, Fuad, to his left. Contested by Megelin Radetic. "Still an usurper."
"There's one in my homeland too. The way I figure it, time and his own stupidity will take care of him."
"I'm not made for waiting."
Ragnarson shrugged. "It's your life. What ever happened to the fat guy? He was weird, but I liked him."
"Mocker? I thought he was with you."
"I haven't seen him since we split up. I figured he went with you."
"Curious."
"Maybe he headed east. He talked about it enough."
"He talked about everything. Probably somebody finally stuck a knife in him."
Ragnarson shrugged again.
Below, the groans and cries continued. More of their men were finding the ambition to search the dead.
Chapter Twenty-Three:
GOING HOME
E l Murid flung both hands skyward, beseeching another bolt from the firmament. He was half-mad with frustration. The bandit Royalists were not overawed by his power.