The lead beasts were almost upon them as Myron and Dally fled through the tunnel. Somewhere up ahead, Meda yelled, “Hold your fire!”
Dally emerged from the shadows at full bolt, only to be blinded by the sunlight blazing straight into her eyes. She tripped over some unseen obstacle and would have gone headlong into the dirt, but strong arms gripped her and pulled her to one side.
Alembord said, “Call your dogs! For their lives!”
“Nabu, Dama, to me!”
Alembord did not follow Myron across the field to where the squads were poised for the assault to come. Instead, he planted Dally by the thorn wall, just to the left of the trailhead.
Then the fiends burst out.
Instantly her wolfhounds bayed with their lust to join the fray. Dally screamed, “Hold!” The dogs whined and panted and bayed. But they remained fast by her side.
Alembord turned to two troopers whom Dally hadn’t noticed until that moment. “Guard her well!” Then he raced back toward the high mound where Meda and Edlyn stood.
At first glance the enemy looked like oversized boars. Which was how the valley naysayers could remain blind as long as they had. But so much about the beasts was exaggerated. And just plain wrong.
Forest boars were rarely larger than a farmer’s prize pig. These were huge by comparison, most over chest-high. Their backs were creased by spines that ended in sharpened staves, as if they wore a line of daggers. Their mouths were cruelly shaped, with fangs that jutted forward with each snarl.
More telling still was the sound they made. They huffed out bone-rattling coughs from deep in their throats.
Just as they did in Dally’s nightmares.
She screamed, “Flames!”
“Down!” Alembord and Meda shouted the order as one.
Edlyn shrilled, “Shields up!”
The fiends did not breathe fire. Instead, they coughed out tight balls of flame that seared the grass as they flew, so intense they momentarily outshone the sun.
The warrior mages had their shields at the ready when the barrage struck. The fireballs splintered and dripped down in brilliant cascades, leaving most squads unscathed. But the flames were magical, or so it seemed to Dally. For they demolished the shields and opened the squads to a frontal assault.
As the mages reknit their shields, a soldier who did not drop swiftly enough screamed when his arm was clipped by a fireball.
Meda roared, “Plant halberds!”
The troopers knelt and jammed the ends of their spears into the earth. Their blades glinted fierce as death in the westering sun.
“Strike!” Edlyn commanded. “Strike!”
And strike they did. The mages stood behind the line of spears and shot bolts of their own fire down into the creatures.
The bloodlust drove these fiends to blind ferocity. They scrambled around their fallen and flung themselves in a mad rush straight into the blades.
Dally had never known battle before. The dust and noise and stench made it extremely difficult to understand what was happening. Even so, she could see that the beasts threatened to overwhelm the lines. More and more of the fiends sprang through the two tunnels, a surging river of fury and flames.
Bear and his hounds saved the field that day.
The first Dally knew of his attack was a pair of whistles, loud enough to pierce the clamor. His dogs were a mangy lot, clearly not chosen for their looks. Instead, they proved to be fast, agile, silent, and extremely well trained.
“Watch!” Dally shouted to her wolfhounds. “Watch!”
Bear’s animals slipped alongside the attacking beasts, lithe as dancers. Their assault seemed insignificant in the face of such ferocity. They simply nipped and danced away.
Dally did not fully understand what was happening until she heard the bones crunch.
One beast after another was sent tumbling. For each one that suffered a broken leg, three or four more were taken down.
Dally shot a quick image of instruction to her own beasts, then ordered, “Attack!”
The wolfhounds may as well have been born and bred for this very moment. Their assault was that swift.
Alembord yelled for the last supporting troops to engage, and led this assault himself. His own movements were nimble as the dogs’ as he leapt forward, thrusting his sword precisely through the ribs, then jumped away before the fangs could scour his legs. The squads moved forward, the lances rose and fell in an orchestra of battle. The mages sent bolt after bolt down upon the beasts.
Gradually the screams and bellows ceased. The dust settled. The field was littered with sodden lumps, some big as the soldiers were tall, all dark as night.
It was over.