The Born Queen - J. Gregory Keyes [94]
With a shout, Emfrith began trotting his horse forward, his men behind him.
The archers shifted their fire again as several of the utins began running toward the bluff. Aspar picked the one coming his way and began letting fly.
His first shot hit it in the eye. It spun and staggered but roared and began speeding toward them again. He saw one of Leshya’s white-fletched shafts appear in its thigh. Aspar put another arrow on the string, inhaled, and let it snap. It glanced off the thick scales of its skull.
Then it was up to the pikemen. It grabbed one of the pole arms below the head and flipped itself up and over the first rank, but one of the men in the second rank managed to set his spear, and the monster’s weight drove the point into its belly, showering gore all around. Screaming, it grasped at the shaft.
It was five kingsyards from Aspar. He took careful aim and shot it in the other eye, and this time the arrow went all the way to the back of the skull. Its mouth froze open, and it stopped struggling. The pikemen rolled it back down the bluff.
Another one was coming, but fifteen arrows met it. Most either missed or skipped off, but one that found it struck it through the eye.
The archers were beginning to remember his advice concerning the creatures’ weak spots.
A glance showed him that the other wing of archers wasn’t doing so well. An utin had gotten through the line, and most of the men were in flight.
Things were coming back together on the field below.
Sir Evan and the other nine in his first charge had kept their cohesion and, as he watched, put their lances to the greffyn. Most of the rest had dismounted and were taking on the utins with sword and shield, encircling them with superior numbers. One was already down, being hacked by eight heavily armored men.
Emfrith’s group was slowing its charge because the second manticore had stopped advancing and stood just out of catapult range.
In moments, the two remaining utins tore away from their tormentors and ran back across the bridge.
“I don’t believe it,” Aspar said.
It looked like Sir Evan had lost around fifteen horsemen and probably about that many archers. A few more probably would die of contact with the greffyns. But of his monsters, their enemy had lost all but two utins and a manticore. Suddenly, beating them didn’t seem that much trouble at all.
They seemed to know it, too. The wagons were turning.
Sir Evan was forming his men back up, and Emfrith was galloping back up the hill.
“Well,” he said as he drew up, “maybe not such a bad idea, after all.”
“Maybe not,” Aspar agreed. “I never would have believed it, but maybe not.”
“We’ll dog them for a while, find a good place to attack them, and—”
“Sceat,” Aspar said. “I think Sir Evan has other ideas.”
Emfrith turned just as the Celly Guest horsemen—what remained of them—went thundering over the bridge, along with about twenty of Emfrith’s men. The manticore wasn’t there anymore but had moved back up the hill.
“Get back here,” Emfrith howled. No one looked back. They probably couldn’t even hear him.
The men and Sefry across the river had turned but didn’t seem to be readying a countercharge. He couldn’t make out their faces from that far away, but something seemed odd about them.
“I don’t like this,” Leshya said.
Aspar just shook his head, trying to figure it out.
And then, as if struck by a thousand invisible arrows, Sir Evan and all the men with him, along with their horses, fell and did not move again.
Far across the river, Aspar saw something glinting in the back of one of the wagons.
“Turn around!” Leshya screamed. “Close your eyes!”
Aspar felt his own eyes starting to warm and followed her advice. After an instant, so did everyone else.
“What is it?”
“Basil-nix,” she said. “If you meet its gaze, you die. I think it’s too far away right now, but…”
“Get them out of here, Emfrith,” Aspar growled. “Get what’s left of your men out of here.”
“I don