Bloodstone (16 page)

Above the roar of his men Dribeck waved his sword and shouted in exultation. "Ristkon's cavalry! We've done it! Now the Wolf will know he's thrust his leg into the jaws of a trap! He'll gnaw it off if he's to escape us! For Selonari, men! Our steel can spare his worn teeth the task! At these yellow-bearded reavers, now, and we'll show them how Selonari welcomes thieves!"

He threw the remainder of his force full into battle, boldly committing them to his strategy. For when the point of Malchion's crossing had been fixed, Dribeck had sent his entire cavalry under Ristkon's command to ford the Macewen at the closest shallow. It had been a gamble--a mad ride downstream, across the fording, then back upstream--with only a few stretches of roadway to speed their progress. His archers had delayed the Breim crossing for as long as could be done without alerting Malchion to their true strength. It had been close, but the first of the gamble was won. To capitalize on this strategy remained for him still, and his carefully set trap might well prove unequal to the monstrous beast its jaws held.

Intent only on crossing the river, Malchion was caught altogether off guard by the cavalry assault. Milling in confusion along the bank, his soldiers were staggered by Ristkon's charge. Men yelled and fell over one another, tumbled into the current, seeking only to escape the murderous hooves, the reddened blades. Chaos shambled along the shore. A wedge through rotted log, the Selonari cavalry split the Breim army as they drove to the bridge.

Malchion howled commands, but the panic-stricken confusion upon the shore made a barrier of the packed ranks, and the Wolf was helpless in his numbers. For all the disorder, his soldiers heavily outnumbered the enemy horsemen, and he knew he could bring down his heel to crush the Selonari into the river. But first his men must recover from the shock of the charge, and Ristkon had not meant his to be suicidal.

Even as the army of Breimen recoiled from their thrust, the Selonari cavalry slashed through to the bridge. There the Breim soldiers fell back in dismay, uncertain whether to face the enemy on one shore or the other. Ristkon's men rode determinedly forward, and the pontoon bridge became the unlikely field for a cavalry charge. Meanwhile Dribeck had moved up his archers once again under the advance of his reserve infantry. Arrows raked the near side of the bridge, driving back the Breim soldiers who attempted to retreat to their fellows' aid. Cut down by arrows, crushed by hooves more frightful than the blades of the riders, Malchion's soldiers were swept from the bridge. The Macewen seemed choked with limp or struggling bodies of men and horses.

The Wolf led his army in pursuit, enraged with sudden understanding of Dribeck's strategy. But his way was blocked. For as they retreated, the rearguard of cavalry held back their pursuers long enough to break open skins of oil which they had brought. In minutes the bridge was ablaze, while in other sections the Selonari smashed open the pontoons, slashed and pried at the lashings. The bridge seemed to disintegrate all at once. Freed of the pilings, large sections drifted away into the current, some sinking, others trailing smoke--one with several soldiers yet standing on its decking.

Malchion's army was divided, and the Wolf could only howl in anger. The Macewen was too deep to ford here. Men and riders who shed armor to swim across were picked off by the archers when they came within bowshot--those who were not swept away by the current. The fastest of Malchion's remaining cavalry could not reach the fording and ride back to the battleground until hours after the issue was decided. Even had there been more material readily on hand, it would take hours to rebuild the bridge. In despair Malchion sent men across in whatever rowboats he had available, but these were subject to murderous archery fire, and eventually the Selonari captured and destroyed them all.

There was nothing to do but stand powerless with a good third of his army, a helpless witness to the battle as it resolved on the far shore. It was a torment that drove more than a few to plunge into the river and vent their rage in futile exertion.

The forest floor became a raging, tumultuous battlefield, its carpet torn apart, spattered with dark wetness, strewn with death. The final dice had been thrown in the game of strategy. Now the mindless demons of war ravaged amok throughout the field. The battle was joined in inchoate ferocity that only death could untangle. No retreat, no reserves--either in men or in fury.

And through the twisting dance of war, the earth-shaking din of combat, Teres coldly appraised her position. With the influx of Ristkon's cavalry and Dribeck's reserves, the Breim invaders were well outnumbered. Strafed by arrows as they milled across the flood plain, their advance to the forest was crushed back by Dribeck's fresh troops, and through their rear slashed the Selonari mounted horse. They were seized in a vice between forest and river, with Ristkon driving a wedge through their spine. Her army must brace its full strength to force open the vice, or be broken like a thief on the rack.

Down from the forest marched Dribeck with his personal guard. At his flank Crempra dashed about, exhorting his archers to waste not a shaft--nor leave a full quiver, when the conflict became too entangled to know friend from enemy, as soon it must. The Temple guard had fallen back to form a wall of steel about the archers, fending off the desperate rushes of the Breim army. In the midst of the invaders already, Kane and Ovstal still fought at the head of their companies. Ristkon could be seen, silvered mail gleaming as he rode, leading his cavalry across the Breim flank, where such of the Wolf's cavalry as survived made an attempt to group for countercharge. Two others of his captains were down, by Dribeck's counting, as had fallen Diab, commander of the Temple guard.

Swords and spears slashed at his flesh. The Breim soldiers fought grimly to break through Dribeck's picked personal guard as it ringed the Selonari lord. His death could swing the battle, and their attack became maniacal as the tide turned against Breimen. Dribeck met the attack of those who reached him with cool swordplay. He was not a born swordsman, nor had he the physical might to dominate in combat. But his lean frame was possessed of wiry strength and evasive swiftness, which hours of careful training had honed to make his sword arm respected. And though he was conscious of the double risk he took in joining this desperate battle, Dribeck knew his men expected his personal leadership. They would not follow a lord whose bravery or martial prowess was suspect, and Dribeck meant to die a leader--if death must take him--rather than dance his dismal days as the puppet ruler his predecessors had become.

A spear tore at his mail and fell back. Dribeck drove his blade through the wielder's face. Screaming, the soldier dropped to his knees, still clutching the spear, and blindly jabbed it at his horse's belly. Swinging from the saddle, Dribeck lopped off the man's arm and left him writhing on the ground, as another enemy leaped to stab him. Dribeck's sword caught the other's blade, then with a sudden lunge laid open his belly. He straightened in time to block another's sword with his shield, traded blows in rapid succession, then rode the assailant down.

So it went. The battle knotted tighter still, now hand to hand exclusively, as the invaders were driven from the forest and onto the flood plain. Ristkon had split the Breim army into unequal halves, and in a fierce drive had overwhelmed the last of the enemy horsemen. The smaller half of Breim warriors was being forced into the Macewen, where the invaders were cut apart in the churned mud of the riverbank. Many tried to cast off armor and weapons, to swim back across the treacherous current. Some escaped thus. The annihilation of this segment of Breim warriors took the heart from their fellows; those who could now sought to slip through the perimeter and escape into the forest, where the Selonari pursued them a short way.

Kane's horse fell, Dribeck saw, hamstrung by a dying footsoldier. The red-haired stranger somehow leaped clear of crumpling mount to land on his feet. Blood-mad Breim soldiers swarmed upon him, and Dribeck knew no. ordinary warrior could live under that rush. But Kane had penetrated to the thick of the enemy's main body, and there was no hope of reaching him soon enough. Kane was a bear surrounded by hounds, and his sword and mace rose and slashed, striking with blurring speed and deadly certainty. His attackers were hurled back by brute strength, ringing him with smashed and contorted corpses like a bulwark over which new assailants slipped and scrambled.

Then reddened blades and stark faces swirled about him, and Lord Dribeck could spare no further thought for Kane. Doggedly he fought. His guard were fewer now; the enemy were fewer still, but seemingly heedless of their lives in an effort to bring down the leader of their foe. His shield hacked and dented, the arm behind it numb from countless blows, Dribeck's sword arm ached with relentless exertion--the pain less endurable than the gashes and bruises inflicted upon him. He set his teeth, breathed with a shuddering, hiss and drew upon the last stores of endurance to keep blade and shield weaving. Slash, parry! Block, thrust! Where were his men?

The foemen fell back abruptly as a mounted warrior drove through them. A mace shattered helm and skull of one whose axe had all but torn away Dribeck's shield, then the other was at his side. Too exhausted for surprise, Dribeck recognized Kane, astride a horse he had somehow captured, his massive frame splattered with gore, but apparently little of it his own. Dribeck could not guess with what awesome carnage the man had fought through the Breim ranks.

With Kane came a number of Selonari soldiers--the battle too disordered now to distinguish one captain's company from another's. They threw back the Breim onslaught, giving Dribeck time to draw agonized breaths, wipe stinging sweat and filth from his eyes. The drive to slay the Selonari lord had been the last hope of Breimen's army. It had failed. Now Dribeck's soldiers were massed about him. The defenders' losses had been slighter, mainly because of the punishing toll of Crempra's archers, and the untenable position Dribeck's strategy had forced upon the intruders. The Selonari army was now in full control of the field; the battle's outcome was established.

Hopelessly outnumbered, a knot of nearly a hundred Breim warriors fought on. Teres had tried to maintain their advance into the forest. She and her men had been driven back last of all, forced onto the flood plain to discover further retreat was cut off. Dribeck held riverbank and forest edge; his soldiers surrounded them beyond escape. Nor was there any reasonable line of retreat, should they break through the trap--only the river, awash with hacked and drowned corpses, or the trees, where Dribeck's cavalry harried those few who sought to flee through the hostile forestland.

They formed a shield wall and waited for death to come, weary, bleeding limbs set for a last hopeless struggle. Already the Selonari army smashed and tore at their perimeter, merciless as starving wolves.

Amazingly, Lord Dribeck ordered his men to draw back. Still surrounded, the Breim soldiers accepted the respite to take fresh grips on their weapons and glare back at their slayers. But Dribeck was not minded to lose more of his warriors. The turn of battle had opened another avenue for him, and he sought quickly to follow on it.

"Lady Teres!" he called out to the disheveled girl astride a foam-streaked warhorse. "Your position is hopeless--any fool can see that! Order your men to drop their weapons and surrender to me!"

Teres tossed her head, ears still ringing from a blow that had dented her helmet. "Why surrender? Are your gutless jackals afraid to face Breim steel any longer? Then stand clear and give us passage to the river--and I'll order my warriors to spare your stumbling alley scum as we go!"

An angry murmur went through his men, and some edged forward. Sharply Dribeck ordered them back. "Save your bravado, Teres! You know your position! I'm giving you a chance for life! Be a fool, and you'll all die before the afternoon sun sinks an hour lower!"

"We'll die with swords in our hands, rather than stretched on Shenan's altars! Or slaughtered for the amusement of your craven nobility!" she shot back.

"You can't pretend to believe your own propaganda!" Dribeck growled. Human sacrifice had been officially banned for generations, though what the Temple might do in secrecy was beyond conjecture. "I offer you your lives on my, word! Before all my men, I swear that all who surrender now will be treated as prisoners honorably taken! You will be bartered to Malchion according to my terms; until then you will not be harmed. These are terms no army of aggression deserves, but I here declare this to be my command! Now decide quickly between life and death, for my archers grow tired of waiting!"

Gloomily Teres considered her predicament. Across the Macewen, cruelly in full view, stood the rest of the Breim army. They might stand across the Western Sea for all the help they could offer. At her side were the last of her men, a pitiful few. Most of her officers were slain; Lian perhaps had fled, since none saw where he fell. She called herself a warrior, and in the sagas Teres's heroes would have spat in Dribeck's face and died with sword swinging. It was the way a warrior died.

But sagas were for the night, when minstrels could weave heroic images from the shadows of the dead past. The day was beautiful, clear and bright with cool forest wind soothing her anguished brow. And Teres did not want to die.

There will be other battles to fight, perhaps, she told herself wearily. Then there was Kane--an enigma, but there was no question of his service to Malchion in the past.

"All right, damn you," she said huskily. "I surrender myself and my men to you--on the strength of your word, for what value it will prove. Gwellines is too good a warhorse to be feathered by Selonari arrows."

For two days after the battle the skies wept--the hammering rains that marked the close of the Southern Lands' short summer. In Selonari there was rejoicing--unbridled riot that made the Festival of the Spring Moon seem a pauper's wake in reflection.

Victory!