PROLOGUE (79 page)

"I saw the Eika leave the gates of Gent and yet I arrived here before them." She heard, nearing their position, the beat of drums and a low shuddering roar. "It lies just beyond that bluff," she lifted her hand to point, "beyond the small wood."

"You've done well, Eagle."

Now he lifted a hand, seeing his cavalry in place.

Ai, Lady. If only the count had waited in Steleshame, perhaps Henry would have come. But he had had a plan, and yet, as plans often do, it had come to naught. He had planned to meet the Eika in battle in the field, forcing their hand by moving siege engines into place and then meeting their sally with his cavalry as his infantry used the tunnel to enter the city, but now the opposite was true. His foot soldiers were pinned; to abandon his horses and lead his cavalry soldiers, on foot, through the tunnel into Gent would condemn those on the hill to annihilation. Yet surely the city had been emptied of Eika. A surprise attack from within could take the city and probably hold it against an Eika army stuck outside the gates
— but by then that army would have done their gruesome work at Lavastine's camp, a camp commanded by his only child.

His people watched, expectant, as he paused before riding forth. They waited, three hundred strong, horses shifting, spears waving against sky and the looming hill behind them.

He lowered his hand and, in silence except for the rumble of hooves, they moved out, swinging wide to give themselves as much space as possible to maneuver. Above them, from the hill, a roar of shouts followed by the clash of arms rolled across the valley like thunder.

The roar of the Eika host overwhelmed even the maddened beating of their drums as they closed the distance. Alain stood at the top of the hill so that he could see his entire force.

"What is that?" he gasped, squinting toward Gent. It seemed to him a dome of fire arched over and concealed the city, but surely no such thing could exist; it must be the sun shining in his eyes.

From below came the call to shoot, but the first volley Doos of arrows had little effect against the huge round shields or the tough hides of the Eika. Only a few dropped, among them a handful of dogs. Arrows lodged in their arms or necks or quivered in their glittering mail girdles, the metal "skirts" woven of hundreds of interlinked rings of brass or iron
—but still they came on.

In answer they sent a volley of spears, axes, and stones from their back ranks even as the foremost Eika units swarmed onto the ramparts. Men braced behind earth and shield.

The lead Eika leaped over the ditch onto the earthern walls and hacked at the palisade stakes. A few of his comrades tried to slip between those stakes, turning shields sideways, but spears thrust up through their armpits or stomachs and they died straddling the earthern wall. To the left, a clot of Eika pressed hard against the wooden stakes, iron-tipped spears forcing the shieldmen back from the rampart. Men-at-arms with spears dueled back, and a small band of archers gathered behind the men-at-arms and riddled the Eika with arrows.

Other Eika bands swarmed on all sides, trying to swamp the rampart from every direction. Because the south slope of the hill was steep, the Eika had trouble maneuvering up to the wall. From his platform, out of reach of arrow and spear, Alain saw the men there tossing rocks and rolling logs into the Eika ranks. The north slope had a more gentle pitch and here the Eika pressed hard against the north "gate," made of wagons rolled up against a gap in the rampart. An Eika armed with a stone-bladed club leaped in a great bound onto the wagon that sealed the gate and struck a man with such force the blow shattered the man's shield and slammed him down to his knees. Already two arrows protruded from the chest of the Eika. A dozen spears and swords wounded him. The creature leaped again, arms outspread as if flying. A soldier thrust his spear upward, and the weight of the Eika's fall drove the spear clean through its chest as the spearman collapsed underneath its dead weight. More Eika clambered after him, screaming and howling.

"There!" Alain cried as a hole opened in the eastern defense, but the captain was already in motion sending re
‍
serves in to plug the gap. Was there nothing he could do? Only watch as others fought, and bled, and died?

Along the north wall, held by what remained of Lord Wichman's infantry, an able sergeant with a long spear stayed close to the gate. His standard bearer leaped to and fro shouting encouraging words of scripture and at one point dropped the standard over the face of an Eika to confuse it as others set upon it with axes and swords.

It seemed an eternity that Alain sat there, restraining himself. His father had told him to wait until the time was right. If he acted too soon, there would be no reserve for when it was truly needed. It was worse to stand and watch. If these men who were dying in order to protect him knew that he could not strike a blow in battle and that in war he was a coward, would they so willingly lay down their lives under his banner? Did he deserve their respect and confidence?

From the east rampart the sound of splintering wood signaled the breaking of the stockade wall. Many logs, weakened by strokes of ax and sword or pulled up by Eika, split or gave way as the weight of the Eika charge pushed into camp. On the south the line still held, but on the north slope the wagons blocking the gate had been shattered. A pack of Eika dogs bounded through the breach and over those men who now formed a shield wall as they attempted to close the gap.

Two dogs charged the gold lion banner of Saony. The standard bearer dropped the standard to make a spear of it, and with a mace in his right hand he countercharged, but one dog dodged nimbly aside and bowled the man over while the other grabbed the standard in its teeth and shook it viciously. Still the man refused to yield the standard. Splayed with his left hand gripping the banner-pole and the right arm fending off attack, he lay helpless.

"Lord Alain." The captain jumped up to the platform. Alain's horse
—his father's favorite gray gelding Graymane—waited patiently beside. "Take your men to the north gate. I'll drive them off the east."

At last a decision had been made. Alain mounted and raised a hand, the only way to communicate over the roar of battle surrounding them. He charged, two dozen men and seven hounds behind him.

At the north gate the weight of the Eika broke the line of shields. Men stumbled back to leave a wide gap thick with Eika and their dogs. There came an Eika, grinning up at Alain in a battle fury, his teeth studded with gems and his bone-white hair braided into a thick rope. Alain leveled his lance and rode in, but it was like play, like a dream with no fury, no fire; he charged for the sake of his men who died holding back the Eika, nothing more, nothing less.

The Eika stood its ground and at the last instant batted the lance aside and drove in toward the gelding's neck with its stone-tipped spear.

Alain reined sharply aside and the spearpoint passed through Graymane's mane, striking Alain's mailed right shoulder. The shaft of the spear splintered. The shock sent Alain tumbling, his shield slapping into the Eika's face as he fell. He struck earth with a slam, air driven from his lungs. A pack of dogs leaped on him, biting, ripping at his shield, clawing and jumping over him. Only his mail saved him. He tried to reach for his sword, but it lay twisted beneath him. He tried to roll, but a huge slavering dog landed on his chest, slamming him back down, and lunged for his throat.

Sorrow arrived first. His weight at full run slammed the Eika dog sideways, and Sorrow pressed on, biting and clawing, heedless of a gash opened on his great black head. Then Rage swept in, silent and deadly, and the Eika dog fell to lie twitching, hide opened in a dozen places, its life bleeding away onto the dirt.

Sorrow had already clamped down on the throat of another dog, twisting his massive neck back and forth until the Eika dog died with a spasm.

Then the other hounds charged in, a mass of black fur and fierce fighting that clouded Alain's vision. He struggled up to his feet, drawing his sword. Tears streaked his face beneath his helmet.

"Lady of Battles, forsake me not, I beg you."

He had never been so afraid in his life. Terror barked an alarm and Alain barely turned, rising from his knees, in time to catch a blow from an Eika ax upon his shield
—but it drove him back down to his knees. A spear stabbed past him, from behind, thrusting in the Eika's face, shattering
its gem-studded teeth. They came, his guard, forming up around him, crying out to each other, calling Alain back. With an ax-blow one of the men severed an Eika's hand at the wrist, and though the creature tried to retreat, howling in pain, the press of his shield brothers forced him forward straight into Alain.

Alain struck feebly at him, more reflex, more for his own defense. Ai, Lady, the savage was helpless, disarmed now with foul greenish blood pumping from the wound. The spearman struck again, catching the Eika at the throat and finishing him. As he fell, blood gushing at Alain's feet, two more pushed forward. Alain could only fend off blows, hold hard against the rush of Eika while his men with spears and axes did damage around him.

"Back, Lord Alain!" they cried. "Back behind us!"

Weeping with shame, he stumbled backward, the hounds following in among the legs of his guard. The shield wall parted to let him into their ranks.

All along the north face the line at the rampart gave in toward the center, and throughout the camp Lavastine's troops gave way from the wall to stand shoulder to shoulder against the Eika tide.

Alain prayed that his father would arrive soon.

THE heavy cavalry formed up in three open ranks, twenty paces between, with Lavastine and his banner in the center of the lead rank. A line nearly a hundred horsemen wide swung around the hill. Liath rode behind Lavastine. At first they advanced around the north side of the hill at a trot. As the enemy came into full view, the first rank broke into a charge followed by the second and third ranks.

The banner of Lavas drove all the way into the back ranks of the Eika. The lances struck high, hitting shields and heads, breaking through the Eika line in a hundred places. Lavastine himself at the front bore onward, the steel of his sword winking in the morning sun as he raised it between strokes. The second and third ranks thundered through behind him, slaying the now disorganized Eika who had received the first charge. Liath followed Lavastine and his guard and, as his charge slowed, she sheathed her sword and drew her bow. Few of the horsemen fell at first, but as their charge slowed, the Eika began to mass around any horseman who had become separated from his companions in the press, and these poor souls were dragged off their mounts to disappear into the claws of the howling Eika.

Lord Wichman forged ahead, having learned this lesson from the Eika. Small pockets of his men, under the banner of Saony, pressed on ever forward until they came around the east side of the hill. Lady Amalia and her standard bearer had also pushed on deep into the Eika forces, but as the troops from Fesse ground to a halt against stiff resistance, she and her standard pressed on until they struggled alone, an island amidst a sea of Eika.

There,
Liath saw them, the red eagle banner of Fesse with a small knot of soldiers surrounding Lady Amalia, all striking furiously around themselves as, one by one, their horses staggered and collapsed or they themselves were dragged from their mounts. Her black horse raised and kicked at Eika and dog alike, Lady Amalia seated firmly on its back. She had lost both lance and shield and now cut so fiercely to either side with her sword that her attack itself was her shield.

The red eagle banner faltered and crumpled, drowned by the flood, and a great roar of triumph rose from the Eika host. Beyond, the gold lion of Saony was never still as Wichman and his men broke through the small openings between the Eika bands, slaying as they rode, and then turned and charged again into their midst to rescue the red eagle.

Lavastine had brought his riders through and now they regrouped. Behind them, Lord Dedi, in a black tabard and beneath the standard of the raven tower, led a charge through the ranks of those Eika who struggled to form back up, faltering as the weight of the horses drove them again into disorder.

Lacking armor, Liath stayed out of the thick of the fight. A few Eika charged her, perhaps thinking an archer easy prey, but all fell pierced through the chest.

To the east Gent sat silent. Its gates stood closed, shut tight, and she felt from within the watchful eye, the gloating trimphant heart, of Bloodheart. The Eika standards that bobbed upon the field were not his; he did not walk this bloody ground. She knew it. He waited, and watched through his magic, while his Eika fought for him. What need had he to test his strength on the field? He had already killed Prince Sanglant, the best among them. These were but nuisances, rats to smash beneath his heel while he waited for his real prey to arrive: the king.

A movement flashed to her right. She shook off these disheartening thoughts and quickly nocked, drew, and shot a charging Eika. Was this more of his magic, to dishearten his foes as they felt him gloating over his imminent triumph? Wasn't that all illusion was, the power to project your own will upon others, to make them see what you wished them to see?