The Shadow Isle - Katharine Kerr [127]
The plume of dust announcing the Horsekin army was coming closer, a little faster, then abruptly paused. Daralanteriel rose in his stirrups to survey it, then sat back with a pleased little grunt.
“We outnumber the hairy bastards,” Dar said. “And somewhat seems to be troubling them as well.”
“Not troubled enough, Your Highness,” Gerran said. “Here they come.”
To the sound of brass horns, the oncoming Horsekin charged down the road in a sprawling, disorganized formation. Deverry javelins and Westfolk arrows arched into the air, fell whistling among them. Riders screamed, horses reared, neighing, pawing the air, then fell. Horsekin pitched over their mounts’ necks and tumbled to die among the dying horses as the arrows came again and again, a deadly slither through the air.
Gerran had never before witnessed a battle from the viewpoint of the commanders. From this distance, he felt detached enough from the rage-frenzy of fighting to feel as if he’d never seen a battle at all. The glory had evaporated like summer mist on hot stone. Watching men die while he faced no risk himself sickened him. Yet he couldn’t turn away, transfixed as if by a javelin at the sight.
The sound of Calonderiel’s horn floated over the shrieks and the battle cries. The archers fell back. The remaining Horsekin desperately tried to form some sort of line, but the mounted swordsmen charged, bursting in a thunder of hoofs and war cries into the midst of the enemy. Swords flashed, the dust rose high, and the battle became nothing more than slaughter. Two and three at a time the Deverry men and Westfolk mobbed the raiders and cut them down like cattle. A few Horsekin managed to pull out of the mob and try to flee. Westfolk arrows killed them before they’d gone twenty yards.
Gerran glanced around and saw Voran and Ridvar sitting as calmly on their mounts as if they were at table, their faces utterly expressionless. Prince Daralanteriel, however, looked sick at heart. When he noticed Gerran watching him, he shrugged.
“It’s daft,” Dar said, “all of this, them and their cursed goddess. She doesn’t exist, and yet they’re dying for her sake.”
“True spoken,” Gerran said. “Daft is a good word for it, Your Highness. The cursed thing is, some of our men are dying because of it, too.”
Slowly the mob thinned as more and more Deverry men pulled back. Slowly the shouting and the screams died away. In a vast litter, spread across the road and meadow, the dying men and their dying horses lay on blood-soaked ground. Other horses, some wounded, some merely terrified, stood quivering in the midst of the carnage or wandered back and forth at the edge, as if they were trying to understand what had happened.
Yelling orders, Calonderiel and the two Deverry captains rode forward. The Westfolk began to round up the living horses. Most of the Deverry men dismounted and began to search for wounded men. They slit the throats of any Horsekin still alive. The Deverry and Westfolk casualties, what few there were, they carried up the hill to the temple compound where Ridvar’s chirurgeons waited. Most of the men were looting as they worked, but Gerran’s silver dagger found a greater prize than a few foreign coins or bits of jewelry.
Nicedd rode up leading a white mule and its rider—a woman, Gerran realized, dressed in a long leather tunic bunched up over a pair of leather leggings. The painted bow and arrow emblem of Alshandra the Huntress decorated the front of the tunic. She rode slumped over, her hands clutching the pommel of her saddle.
“Is she wounded?” Dar said.
“I don’t know, Your Highness,” Nicedd said. “I don’t speak a word of her ugly language. I saw her just sitting there at the edge of the field, and when I rode up, she didn’t even try to get away.”
The woman raised