Mage Hunter Omnibus (Complete 5 Book Series) (8 page)

Part II:

Sundered Shields

1,913 years After Ashal (A.A.)

Chapter 1

The horses’ hooves pounded into snow, churning up the pale powder and chunks of dirt from beneath. Stretching in all directions was a sea of white with a gray sky above. The only break on the horizon ahead of the galloping animals was a grim line to the east where a copse of dead trees hugged one another. At distance behind the horses was a scorched circle littered with crumbled stones, a tail of smoke stretching up from the remains of what had once been a church to Ashal, the God Who Walked Among Men. Further back was another mass of rampaging steeds, these animals generally smaller in size but much larger in numbers. Beyond this second group of horses was more white, reaching back and back until finally coming up against the cold crags of mountains.

The eleven horses in the lead carried men in armor of various types and conditions. The second group of steeds bore large, burly fellows in furs, swords swinging from their hips or gripped in their bulking hands.

Sergeant Guthrie Hackett rode in the fore group, his breathing nearly as heavy as the tired beast beneath him. Through the slit of his helm, Guthrie glanced back, spotting the church and the barbarian riders beyond. He cursed as he looked forward once more. The Dartague were nearer, their steeds having shorter legs but more familiarity in charging through snow. The Ursian horses the sergeant and his comrades rode were better suited for open plains and roads, but did not fare so well in snow and mud.

Beneath the Ursian horses was snow and mud. Thus the improving circumstances of the Dartague.

A horse on his right moved closer, and Guthrie spared a glance in that direction. The rider nearing him was Captain Werner, the mustachioed leader of the ragtag militiamen the sergeant found himself riding among. Those same militiamen had saved Guthrie’s life, finding him in this winter wasteland after the sergeant’s squad had been brought down by Dartague arrows and an ice witch had attacked him personally. The Dartague had since spread slaughter across all of northern Ursia, word that the entire northern army had been wiped out flowing from mouth to mouth. The barbarians had numbers on their side, as well as those able to conjure with spells, and they did not balk at slaying Ursians wherever they found them.

Which was why Guthrie and his band were fleeing the church destroyed by magic, Dartague riders fast on the Ursians’ tails.

His steed nearly touching Guthrie’s own, Captain Werner leaned in closer to the sergeant, the officer’s long whisks of nose hair flapping in the wind. “How many do you think there are?” he shouted above the hammering sound of hooves and the snorts of the riding beasts.

Guthrie dared a glance back again. The Dartague were too far away for an exact count, but he could make an estimate by the size of the pack of riders.“At least fifty. Perhaps more.”

The captain grimaced. “Not what I wanted to hear.” His eyes shot forward, straying across the white flats before them. “You know this land better than the rest of us. Anyplace to hide?”

Guthrie looked forward himself, staring and staring. He pointed. “There! That group of trees. There’s an old creek bed runs through it.”

“
That’s no place to hide!” Werner shouted.

The sergeant shrugged. “No, but there is no other. At least we can make a stand there. Better than being cut down in the open.”

Werner eyed the only break along the horizon. It seemed the sergeant was right. There was no place to hide, and no place else to make a stand. Even the church had been tumbled so much it was little more than blackened rubble. The captain sighed, the sound lost beneath the pounding hooves.

“
All right!” he called out. “The trees it is, then!”

Guthrie nodded and the two riders parted, spreading word to the other men. Soon enough the eleven riders swung their horses toward the left and the gray, dead limbs sticking up from the snow in the distance.

The breathing of the animals was growing more and more ragged, the poor beasts having already traveled a good distance from the militia camp at the battered village of Herkaig. The horses needed a rest, one that was soon coming but which did not bode well for their survival unless the Dartague decided they wanted extra steeds.

A glance backward revealed the Dartague were still following, adjusting their own direction to keep up with their prey. Guthrie cursed again and spurred his animal onward despite its fatigue.

Slowly the copse of dried trees grew nearer and nearer, and the sergeant could make out beneath the snow the faint outline of the dead stream bed running through.

“
There!” he pointed to the center of the tall, dead plants reaching to the sky like the giant finger bones of some ancient, forgotten corpse.

As one the riders shifted their approach again, slowing as they came closer to the edge of the trees.

As he reached the cluster of dead trees, Guthrie wasted no time sliding from his saddle and tugging on the reins to bring his horse into the weak shadow of the gray limbs. To both sides of him, other riders were doing the same.

“
We can make a stand in the creek bed,” Werner said, pointing ahead as he pulled his own beast. “Put up a shield wall.”

Guthrie glanced around. He didn’t see but a pair of shields among the group of militia, and those only wood without the backing of iron or steel. “Where are we going to find shields?” he asked with puffing breaths as he and his animal continued forward.

“The horses,” Werner asked, stopping at the lip of the creek bed. “We’ll have to use them. Only thing to do.”

Around them, the other men were leading their animals forward, riders and horses alike tired at the ride from the village and then the church. As a group they stared down to the narrow ledge of the former waterway evident only by a small rise in the snow.

The captain glanced to Guthrie. “Don’t supposed you know how deep this thing is?”

“
Only a few feet,” Guthrie said, jumping. He fell through the snow, his boots leading the way, and came to a standstill with the white powder nearly up to his belt. All the while he had held onto his horse’s leathers, keeping him from tumbling to either side.

Werner chuckled. “Everyone in!” he shouted.

At all sides, the men began to scramble or dive into the snow. As with the sergeant, they found themselves sinking up to their waists, their horses tired and waiting patiently above.

When everyone was down, the militiaman Pindle turned to Werner. “Captain, how do we do this?” He motioned toward their steeds above and the thunder of the approaching Dartague in the distance.

“If you can’t tie them off, leave them standing,” the captain answered. “We’ll target between their legs and hope they don’t get too antsy.”

The idea was a sound one. Though outnumbered and baring few shields, the Ursians were armed with crossbows, which each man was now breaking out and loading. Guthrie reached up to his horse and retrieved his own quiver and the crossbow hanging there, thankful he had retrieved the weapon after having dropped it when facing the ice witch. The Dartague, too, were known to carry bows, but they were not natural archers nor riders, not skilled at launching arrows from horseback; if the barbarians should target from their saddles, they were much less likely to hit, and if they should touch land to make use of their bows, they would have a difficult time of it with the trees and horses between them and their targets. At least those were Guthrie’s hopes, and those of the men around him. Their location was actually a decent one, and would serve well against a force the same size or only slightly larger than their own, but it appeared their enemies had them outnumbered at least four to one, perhaps more.

Pulling back his crossbow’s string to place one of the short arrows against the weapon, Guthrie glanced up at the horses above him and the other men. So far the animals were not skittish, remaining more or less in place, their reins hanging. Whether the beasts would stay that way once the arrows began flying and the enemy closed was likely a different matter. Militia were not regulars nor cavalry, and did not travel with many horses. The horses they had were not trained in the arts of combat.

Between the animals’ occasionally stamping legs, the Ursians could see their foes still riding as fast as their short-legged beasts could carry them. The lead rider, a big man with a shaggy black beard, waved a heavy sword about his head then pointed the steel blade at the trees and the Ursians.

“They’re coming,” Pindle said off to one side.

Guthrie looked up and down the line. These were nervous men he was with, many of them young and inexperienced. Guthrie knew Captain Werner was an old hand at combat, and Pindle and the fellow called Hammer looked as if they had seen a scrap or two over the years, but most of the others were quivering with fear, their eyes huge as they stared at their doom fast approaching.

At least the Dartague were still a hundred yards away and finally slowing their steeds. Apparently they felt a safe approach was best, which was fine with Guthrie and the other Ursians. Every moment of life was cherished at that point, and the men realized they might have precious few of those remaining.

Captain Werner raised his voice, but not to a shout. “Take aim for their horses. Spill as many of those bastards as you can. Maybe we’ll get lucky and a few of them will break their necks.”

Guthrie wasn’t sure this was the best of plans, but he wasn’t going to argue about it. The Dartague couldn’t approach directly on their horses, at least not without being slowed by the trees, precious few of them that there were. It was more likely the barbarians would jump from their saddles at some point and storm the Ursians while on foot, or perhaps flank them. And any Dartague knocked from the saddle would already be on foot, making them more dangerous to Guthrie and his fellow men.

But then all ruminations were trumped.

There was a twang and an arrow shot from the snow-covered creek, darting between the trees and out into the open. The Dartague were still some distance away, however, and the arrow fell short, slamming into the snow.

“
Wait until they’re almost to us!” Werner called out. “Wait until they’re right at the trees!”

But it was too late.

Nervous fingers tapping the trigger bars of crossbows, three more arrows launched. One fell short again and another didn’t make it out of the trees, slamming into a stump and cracking. The third arrow sailed true, however, closing the distance between enemies in little more than a flash and burying itself in the shoulder of one of the nearer fur-garbed riders.

The struck rider cried out and flung up an arm for balance. The arm did him no good. He tumbled from his saddle, one leg trapped in a stirrup holding him and pulling him along through the snow for a moment, but then his boot slipped off and he rolled beneath the pounding hooves of the horses behind him.

The Ursians threw up a cry of triumph. At least one of the enemy was gone. The barbarians, however, did not stall in the forward pursuit of their foes; none so much as paused to offer a solemn farewell to their compatriot’s corpse being tossed about and broken beneath the hooves of their steeds.

At least none of them appeared to be carrying spears and only a few hefted bows, Guthrie told himself. Most of the Dartague gripped swords, a few with clubs or maces. Also, none of the nearing enemy were mages or carried with them any type of magic; of this Guthrie was positive, the sergeant gifted with a special sight that allowed him to see such things.

As his enemy drew nearer and nearer, Guthrie glanced behind himself to make sure of the land. Everything was white for as far as he could see in all directions but the north where the mountains lay like skeletons of dead giants upon the horizon. The range was too far away to offer any shelter to the sergeant and the militiamen. There was nowhere to run, to hide. Whatever was to come in the following moments, the Ursians would have to make their stand there among the dry gray limbs of aged trees, the men up to their hips in the cold of the snow.

When Guthrie craned his head around to spot the enemy, he found they had closed the distance faster than he would have thought. The riders were slowing even further, nearly to the trees.

“Ready yourselves,” Captain Werner said down the line of his men as those who had launched their weapons already prepared more arrows.

Taking his own look at the men, Guthrie figured they were as ready as they would ever be. At least none of them had broken rank and tried to run, as fruitless an effort as it would be. Perhaps they realized as much. They were going to fight here, and most likely die here.

Then the Dartague were at the tree line, the burly warriors dropping from their saddles and tromping forward in crouches, quiet before but suddenly screaming their war cries.

“
Loose your arrows!” Werner shouted.

Eleven arrows sprang forward, a wall of arrows. If not for the trees, all eleven arrows might have found a mark. As it was, half a dozen slammed into one trunk or another or was snagged by a low-hanging limb. Another arrow hit low, spewing up snow from the ground only inches in front of a barbarian. The other four arrows found homes. Two slammed into the same warrior, the tallest of the Dartague, a big blonde monster of a man with a sword out at his side; he dropped to his knees, the arrows protruding from his chest as he spit up blood before falling forward, landing face first in the snow. Another arrow cracked against a knee but slid off a hanging piece of metal plate, enough to knock the lucky warrior off his feet but not enough to take him out of the fight. The last arrow to strike true caught one of the smaller Dartague in the throat, the man dropping his club and both hands grasping at his neck as if he could somehow save himself; he could not, and soon a rush of scarlet poured down his chest.