The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [93]
Celly Guest had spared them not only Sir Evan but fifty heavily armored riders, thirty archers, and thirty pikemen. As Aspar watched, the knight formed his cavalry in a thick column, five abreast and ten deep. He supposed that made sense, as they would only be charging what was coming across the bridge.
The archers fanned out on the bluff, with the pikemen lined up to protect them. Emfrith’s men were now the reserve.
Aspar sighed and strung his bow. Leshya did the same. He checked the binding on the spear he’d made from the feyknife one last time, wondering if it would be better to have it in his hand.
Probably not. Emfrith had given him a new throwing ax and dirk, which would be fine against men and Sefry but of less use against the sedhmhari. If he fought one of those, better to keep it at more than arm’s length.
Fend was forming his beasts up, too. Aspar wondered how exactly the Sefry communicated with them and how he had learned to do so.
He probably would never know. If he got Fend close enough to talk to, Aspar didn’t intend to waste any time asking questions.
Fend didn’t seem much interested in getting within bowshot, however. He wasn’t in sight. In fact, Aspar still didn’t know his old enemy was with the band at all.
Whoever led them, the monsters would be his vanguard.
One of the manticores came first, followed by the pack of greffyns and then the utins.
Have I lost my mind? he wondered. Am I dying of fever in the Mountains of the Hare? Is any of this real? Because it shouldn’t be.
The archers began firing as the beasts marched onto the bridge. Some of the shafts stuck, but the sedhmhari all had hide like armor, and none of them went down.
He heard the snap and hum of the catapult firing. Emfrith and his men had dragged it down there and found the range that morning.
A stone a little larger than Aspar’s head flew to the bridge and struck one of the greffyns just behind the head. It screeched and flopped over with its back plainly broken, and a tremendous cheer went up from the men.
The manticore charged.
Once again Aspar was startled by its speed. Sir Evan and his first and second ranks were trotting now, and as the thing neared the end of the bridge, they went to a gallop, ten lances with the weight of ten horses and ten men behind them.
Oddly, there wasn’t much sound as they came together, just a sort of dull thud. The manticore, for all its armor and weight, was driven back. It was hard to tell how hurt it was, though.
The riders wheeled away as the greffyns came leaping across, and the next two rows of horsemen gathered speed.
However Fend controlled them, it was clear that he couldn’t make them any smarter or he would have had the catlike beasts avoid the charge and try to flank. They didn’t, though, but met the charge head to head, leaping over the downed manticore.
Two of them were actually lifted into the air by the lancers, but the third got through, bowling over one of the horses and ripping into it with its beak and claws. Those riders wheeled away, too, but the beast abandoned its first kill and took down another horse.
The manticore wasn’t moving. Two of the four greffyns looked like they were dying, and a third was wounded.
Something was missing.
“Sceat,” Aspar said. “Where are the utins?”
But even as he asked it, he saw them swarming out of the river, coming at the cavalry column from the sides.
Utins, unlike greffyns, were pretty smart.
Cursing, Aspar picked the nearest and started shooting at it. His first arrow skipped off. The second stuck but didn’t look like it went in deep.
The column already was coming apart as the riders turned their horses to meet the fast-running utins. Aspar watched as the one he was firing at leaped nimbly over the lance aimed at it, danced down it, and struck off the head of the rider with its claws. Aspar sent another arrow at it as it came back to ground and disemboweled another rider’s horse.
“Holy saints,” he heard Emfrith gasp.
Now the second manticore was starting across the bridge. The