Brotherhood of the Wolf (85 page)

As they rode, they began to sing. The pounding of hooves and the ring of metal kept time with their deep voices.

Against Gaborn's orders, Skalbairn drove his troops right against half a dozen reavers. With a crash of lances against carapaces his knights left the monsters impaled, then veered away at slow speed, forcing the horses to lope.

The effect of his diversion was astonishing. The plains were pocked with odd burrows—lopsided craters with dark maws. To Gaborn it had seemed that the plain was almost black with reavers, but now hundreds more boiled up from underground, giving pursuit. In moments, perhaps two thousand reavers were chasing Skalbairn's men south.

At Gaborn's back, men began to cheer and raise their weapons. “Well done!” Queen Herin and others whispered, obviously pleased.

Gaborn sensed little danger to Skalbairn's men. Indeed, they were not in great peril, yet they accomplished much.

Gaborn nodded toward Sir Langley, sent his lancers charging left.

Langley, too, advanced on Bone Hill at slow speed, this time from the north. But Gaborn felt a pall over the man. Langley was in far greater danger than Skalbairn.

As Langley neared Bone Hill the reaver mage raised her staff to the sky and hissed. Her voice echoed from low-lying clouds like thunder.

A dark wind roiled from her, and Langley's men shouted in fear, turned their mounts and galloped east toward the lake, fleeing the dark wind of her spell, the burnished metal of their helms and armor limned red from the burning citadels of Carris. Hundreds and hundreds of reavers gave pursuit.

The black wind caught the men near the lakeshore, and suddenly the air filled with cries. Knights began to topple from saddles, stricken. Gaborn could not tell why.

Whatever effect the fell mage's spell had upon them, Gaborn was too far away to feel it himself. Langley's men fought to stay ahorse as reavers closed in.

“Get up,” Gaborn sent to the men. “Fight now or die!”

After a heart-stopping moment, Langley himself roused in his saddle, shouted, and spurred a charge south. Dozens of men followed, though most of his force remained inactive. Their horses milled about or fled from advancing reavers.

Thirty of his men lanced through the charging reavers, losing less than a dozen knights in the clash. The survivors wheeled their mounts and fled north along the lakeshore, with seven or eight hundred reavers giving chase.

The repercussions of Gaborn's feints shuddered through the reaver horde. Reavers near the causeway backed off, fearing an attack on their flank, giving the defenders of Carris some relief. Others continued to race south after Skalbairn.

To Gaborn's relief, the north slope of Bone Hill was momentarily left with few defenders. He saw only some hundred reavers above their burrows, but a hundred reavers were not to be trifled with—especially not when a fell mage stood at their backs.

He had only seconds to strike.

57
IN THE SHADOWED VALE

“Prepare the charge!” Gaborn cried. “Staggered pinwheel formation! Single line! Ho!” He raised his hand in the air, whirled it, letting the men know that they should pinwheel from left to right.

The staggered pinwheel, or the knight's circus, as it was sometimes called, had proven an effective formation against reavers in ancient times.

Rather than charge forward in a line, as they would against human opponents, the knights rode in a giant pinwheel that gravitated forward as it circled. Deadly lances bristled along the pinwheel's edge, so that fresh men and mounts were constantly racing at an angle to the enemy's line.

Getting the proper angle and attack speed was vital when lancing a reaver. The trick of using a lance to kill a reaver, Gaborn had learned from those who had tried, was to strike the reaver solidly and skewer the damned thing without killing yourself in the process.

Above all, speed was essential. A force horse with many endowments charged at forty to eighty miles per hour. At such a speed, a knight had to take care not to slam into a reaver haphazardly, for in doing so he would break his bones.

Nor could a knight make a pass at a reaver in the same way as he did a man. The reaver was too massive. Besides, even if a knight did make a pass at the front lines of a reaver horde, he would lose his lance in the process, only to find himself behind enemy lines. Consequently, he had to race parallel to the reavers' lines, only daring to touch briefly before he pulled back.

As Heredon Sylvarresta had shown so many centuries ago, the art of lancing a reaver required the lancer to lean toward the beast in such a way that he did not slam into the monster after his charge. While leaning thus, his best hope was to thrust the lance into the reaver's head, into the “sweet triangle,” an area the size of a man's palm where three bony plates met. A second such area could be found in the reaver's upper palate, if the monster opened its mouth.

And if a lance entered at the right angle, then the knight could send it home to the reaver's brain with a gentle and powerful shove.

Thus, in the staggered pinwheel, lancers rode fast enough so that reavers could not adjust to the knights' breakneck pace. At the same time it allowed the knights the chance to engage the reavers in a viable formation, one that would let a knight escape the clutches of a reaver if he missed his target or let a man who was unhorsed escape while the knight behind pressed the attack.

Gaborn spurred his mount. It leapt downhill, thundered ahead.

As Gaborn neared that odious hill, he glanced to each - side and found that he rode alone. Such was the speed of his mount that no others could match pace with him.

“Beware,” the Earth whispered, and its Voice took him by surprise. Gaborn was so used to warning others, he felt unprepared to take warning himself.

He glanced back. Behind him, the hill was dark with lords and knights. They came singing; firelight from Carris reflected in their shields.

Erin Connal screamed a war cry. Celinor Anders glowered near her side, with High Queen Connal not far behind. The wizard Binnesman's face was rigid with terror. Gaborn's cavalry charged ahead, streaming out from the Barren's Wall.

Ahead, Bone Hill rose, wrapped in its cocoon. Tendrils of white were strung from it like threads from a spider's
web. Dirt and rock gouged from its slopes made it look a horrid ruin, scarred and maimed.

Warned by the front ranks, blade-bearing reavers suddenly issued from the crevasses in the ground on that hill, climbed atop the cocoon as if it were a fortress wall. Behind the blade-bearers, mages continued their foul work.

The rust-colored mist grew heavy in the vale beneath Bone Hill, lying in thick folds. It seared Gaborn's eyes and made them water. He blinked away tears, saw ghostlights flicker back under the cocoon.

Gaborn grimaced as he tried to draw a breath. Fatigue and illness slammed into him like a fist. His stomach wrenched; his gorge rose. Every muscle in his body strained as sweat coursed down his forehead.

Gaborn galloped past a blade-bearer that spun, swinging its glory hammer too late. He ducked beneath its blow, knowing that he'd be dead by now if he'd not taken endowments at Castle Groverman.

Gaborn heard the crack as a lance exploded into the monster's unprotected side, piercing the beast.

Queen Herin the Red had scored her first kill.

Though his charger carried him toward the foul rune, all Gaborn's effort could barely keep him ahorse. He slowed his mount a third of a mile from Bone Hill, close to the ranks of the reavers, and gripped the pommel of his saddle.

Reavers raced down the slopes of the cocoon to do battle.

Gaborn dared charge no closer. Here in the vale, the sour-smelling mists lay over the ground like a suffocating quilt, and no commoner could have abided the stench. His muscles flamed, aching as if every fiber would rip asunder. Sweat poured from him like a drenching rain. Gaborn reeled, fell hard on the earth.

The very soil beneath him burned; it was almost as hot as a skillet. He writhed upon it, could not breathe.

Silently he wished that he'd taken more endowments of stamina.

He glanced up through the rust-colored mist. His knights were forming their pinwheel, racing ahead of him in a line
to cut off reavers that thundered into battle, their thick carapaces crashing against the stony ground.

Several knights caught up to him, circling him protectively. He glimpsed Erin Connal and Prince Celinor, their faces frozen in dismay to see the Earth King fallen.

Gaborn lay sweating on the ground, gasping in the cruel haze, afraid that he might-suffocate, for he could hardly draw a breath for the pain that assailed him.

Desolation lay all around him, a smoke that choked the soul.

Atop Bone Hill, the fell mage raised her citrine staff to the sky and hissed so loudly that the sound echoed from the clouds. With a boom like thunder, black smoke roiled off her.

Gaborn tried to climb to his knees as the mage's curse swept downhill.

Erin Connal rode behind Gaborn, choosing to guard him rather than help form the staggered pinwheel. Almost instantly she was glad that she had.

A reaver sped through the lines as a knight broke his lance against its side, then lumbered through the rust-colored mist toward Gaborn, an enormous behemoth swinging its head from side to side.

Erin shook the streaming sweat from her forehead, shouted a battle cry, and charged the beast. She raised her lance overhead and to the side, preparing for the thrust. She squinted against the haze, for it pained the eye, then leaned out from her saddle.

She thrust home her lance, just as the reaver spun its head back toward Gaborn. The tip penetrated the monster's sweet triangle at a slant.

She felt the lance tip drive shallowly into the reaver's crystalline skull. She suspected that she had the wrong angle, that the lance would merely catch in bone and shatter, but she hurled it anyway, hoping to shove the tip home with brute force.

The lance snagged on bone and snapped at the point.
Suddenly Erin was caught still thrusting the damned thing without any resistance. Off balance, she pitched from her horse and sprawled to the ground, just beneath the reaver.

It reared above, raised its greatsword protectively to fend off a charging knight.

“Flee!” Gaborn's Voice spoke in Erin's mind as she tried to gain her feet.

As if I couldn't guess, she thought, knowing she was too late. The reaver hunched its massive head and lunged, its crystalline teeth gleaming like quartz.

A dark blur sped past her. Celinor's lance pierced the monster's sweet triangle and heaved into its brain as if it had been shot from a ballista.

In amazement, Erin realized he'd thrown the damned thing like a javelin!

The reaver collapsed at Erin's feet.

Celinor galloped near, as if he'd planned to block the dying reaver from further attack with his own body. Then he whirled and drew his Crowthen battle-axe.

Erin ran for her own horse.

“One!” Celinor shouted, then pointed toward the Earth King. Gaborn had fallen from his mount.

Gaborn lay in the dust. Several knights leapt from their mounts to fight at his side, prepared to die if necessary. Celinor Anders rode near and stood guard over him, screaming and waving his battle-axe as if daring any reaver to come close.

As Gaborn struggled to get up, the thought streaked through his consciousness: I should Choose him.

Reavers surged down from Bone Hill like living monoliths, and the thought was driven off as Gaborn sent warnings to hundreds of warriors. In moments Erin Connal and others reached Celinor's side.

The black wind struck, and it carried with it an unnameable stench—a smell similar to burnt cabbage, but that affected Gaborn profoundly. He felt suddenly as if his muscles
had turned to jelly, and he experienced the most profound fatigue he'd ever imagined.

He dropped to the ground, as weak as if he'd just given an endowment of brawn. Everywhere around him, dozens of others did the same, even Queen Herin the Red.