The Spirit Stone - Katharine Kerr [189]
(Continued)
The archers loosed a flat volley into the herd. The lead horses reared, screaming, with arrows in their chests, and fell, kicking and writhing, but the rest leapt over their bodies and charged forward. Another flight of arrows hissed into the herd. As blood spilled onto the ground, horses slipped and went down, but still others carried the charge forward. Drums sounded overhead; the dragons swooped down from the side and roared. Horses scattered, turned aside, went plunging and neighing to the south and north as the dragons harried them.
A handful of massive warhorses still galloped straight into the scattering swordsmen. Men fell, crushed and broken, as the centre of the line broke. In the chaos came Gel da’ Thae, advancing in lock-step, spears level, like some huge scythe aimed to mow down the broken ranks facing them.
‘Ah horseshit!’ Gerran screamed. ‘Fuck the plans! Red Wolf, to me!’
He kicked his horse hard and headed for the battle. Howling warcries, the warband followed. They dodged through the retreating swordsmen and slammed into the flank of the Gel da’ Thae line before the spearmen could wheel and reform their shield wall to face them. Gerran slashed, yelled, swung back and forth at every head or arm he could see. His horse reared, kicked out with its front hooves, came down hard on one fallen spearman. When his horse reared again, over the swirling mass of shields and spears, Gerran caught a glimpse of Mountain axemen, slashing in from the other flank. He could hear arrows, hoped they’d overfly him and his men, heard Ridvar’s men shouting ‘Cengarn! Cengarn!’ behind him as the second wave of horsemen slammed into the breaking ranks of the spearmen.
A Gel da’ Thae thrust his spear at his horse’s neck. Gerran leaned, swung, cracked the spear just in time, then clubbed the man on the helmet with his backswing. The man went down under the hooves of another Deverry man’s horse. In the welter of dying horses and dying men on the blood-soaked ground, the spearmen slippedand staggered. They’d lost any chance of reforming their shield walls, and with that loss they began to lose their lives as well.
Gerran kept cutting, leaning, fending off spear thrusts with his shield, while his horse kicked and bit, plunging onward. He saw the enemies only as faces and shoulders, the gleam of helmets and the spurt of blood as swords struck home. The warcries behind him told him that his men followed close behind him. Suddenly he smelled smoke—a lot of smoke—thick clouds of it eddied down, flecked with burning. The spearmen broke utterly, throwing shields, running for their lives, only to find themselves facing Mountain axes. The horsemen cut them down from behind as fast as the dwarves cut from the front.
Gerran broke through the line at last, nearly rode into a volley from Westfolk archers, and turned his horse barely in time. Here and there on the field Gel da’ Thae spearmen had formed up into desperate clusters and squares. Horsemen rode around and around them, trying to break in while axemen shouted at them to get out of the way. Deverry and Westfolk swordsmen faced off with the near-berserk Horsekin, who screamed wordlessly as they attacked without the slightest thought or skill.
Behind it all Zakh Gral blazed. Ashes fell, swirling down upon the dying and the victors alike, white ash, black cinder, and here and there flecks of burning bark or scraps of cloth. Men swore as the burning kissed them. The wooden walls had turned into solid flame. Over the crackle and hiss of burning wood, Gerran heard the boom and crack of stones splitting under heat or falling as the beams that supported them burned through.
Almost over, Gerran thought, and we’ve won. At the edge of the battlefield he dismounted to rest his blowing, foam-streaked horse for the rout sure to follow,