The Silver Mage - Katharine Kerr [152]
As the dwarven troop formed up into defensible squares, some half-a-dozen riders broke free of the Horsekin pack and trotted some distance to one side, maybe twenty yards, Laz estimated. They were holding some bulky thing.
“Archers!” Laz wrenched himself from his trance. “They’ve got archers.”
Garin swore aloud and began yelling at the guards in Dwarvish. Laz felt the danger around them so strongly that he could barely breathe. He had to struggle with his mind before it calmed enough for him to return to scrying.
What he saw, half-hidden in the swirling dust from the battle, appalled him. The Horsekin raiders had indeed brought archers with them—not many, but enough to torment the dwarven line. A swift volley of arrows forced the axemen to lift their shields and swing the heavy axes one-handed in feeble strokes. The horsemen would pull back, wait for the arrows to fall, then dart forward to strike with their falcatas. The front squares broke, and the survivors pulled back. Mountain dead lay scattered on the field, while only a few horses and riders had fallen.
Laz could see Brel Avro, trotting back and forth, shouting orders, he guessed, since Laz couldn’t hear sound from the battlefield. The dwarves began to fall back in orderly retreat. One of the archers grew too bold. He spurred his horse forward. A solid Mountain hand ax came flying out of the retreat and caught the fellow across his face. Laz could imagine the scream as the man toppled from the saddle and fell under the hooves of the Horsekin charge.
The lead horses reared and bucked, disrupting the Horsekin line. More hand axes flew, striking randomly. They wounded only a few Horsekin, but the half-trained cavalry began to break ranks and mill around. Laz was expecting the dwarves to use the brief respite to retreat further, but instead they suddenly threw their shields and charged straight for the enemy. Long axes swung hard. Horses reared and fell, their legs cut out from under them. Horsekin rolled from their saddles and died as the axes slashed down.
The cavalry line broke. Horses fled beyond control. Riders broke ranks and shamelessly deserted, racing back toward the west. The Mountain men swung and hacked. Blades flashed up bloody in the sunlight as the remaining Horsekin turned their mounts and ran. One remnant in utter confusion broke for the hill that separated the camp from the battle.
Laz pulled himself out of trance and screamed, “They’re coming our way!” A wave of lathered horses and yelling Horsekin broke over the crest of the hill and started down just as the axemen left on guard rushed forward to form a line twixt Horsekin and camp. At the sight of them, most of the Horsekin turned their horses to either side and rode back up to the crest and over. From the screaming and war cries drifting on the summer air, Laz could guess that they’d met the dwarves and their wyrd on the way down.
One of the archers, however, decided on revenge. He pulled up his horse on the crest and began loosing arrows into the camp below. Servants screamed and dodged. The axemen trotted forward and up the hill, climbing as quick and steady as only the Mountain Folk can climb. The archer turned his horse and fled with his companions.
The danger-omen left Laz as suddenly as it had appeared the night before. He turned around to speak to Faharn and saw his apprentice slumped over a dwarven cart, hands clasped around the shaft of an arrow protruding from his chest. Blood flowed from between his fingers. Laz swore with every foul oath he knew as he caught Faharn by the shoulders and gently laid him down on the ground.
Laz dropped to his knees beside Faharn and bent over his body. A quick glance