“Are we abandoning our men to die?” said Jackery as Rix, his eighty cavalry and seven hundred surviving men streamed south over the low hills beyond Lidden Field.
“I’m working on a plan,” said Rix.
“If you can save them it’ll be the most brilliant plan as ever was.”
Rix kept a careful lookout but saw no sign of Grandys and the rest of his army. If there was a trap, it was well hidden. After a mile or two, when the armies behind him were out of sight, he turned west into a patch of scrub in the bottom of a valley and continued along it until it opened out into a broad, elbow-shaped swathe of marshland. He skirted it on the southern side and turned hard north.
“If I remember rightly,” said Rix, “a narrow path runs north from here back towards Lidden Field, skirting the boggy eastern edge of the lake. Further north the path’s hidden by the rise of that hill. The path is cramped down to a few feet wide and from the north, if you didn’t know it was there, you wouldn’t see it.”
“Is it wide enough to get seven hundred men and eighty riders through in time?”
“It’d better be.”
As they went north the track became ever narrower, squeezed between the rushy marshland on the left and the steep side of the small, curving hill to the right, until only two men could walk abreast and the riders had to go in single file.
“At least we can’t be seen from the north,” said Jackery.
“But if they send someone a mile south to the edge of the hill, and he looks down, he’ll spot us. Then it’ll be a simple matter to trap us here and kill the lot of us.”
They continued forward until, after another mile, they could climb up and peer over the curve of the slope towards Lidden Field.
“They’re cutting Hork’s force to pieces,” said Jackery, “and forcing them towards the lake. If we don’t attack soon—”
“We can’t burst out into the open from here,” said Rix. “They’d have too much warning. We’ll keep behind the rise until it peters out.”
He drew on his steel gauntlet and manually clenched the fingers, one by one. The hill on their right had dwindled to a low, curving rise. The lake stood a quarter of a mile ahead and to the left, with good ground to the north but endless mire on its western side.
The enemy army extended in a menacing inverted comma from the south-east, where the great mass of the troops were, all the way to the northern side of the lake, enclosing Hork’s army and allowing no way of escape.
“We follow the line of this rise around that way,” said Rix, pointing north-east. “There’s a narrow band of land between the rise and the edge of the marsh. It’s a bit wider there and if we’re careful, moving ten abreast, the rise and the rushes will give us cover until we’re only a hundred yards away. Then we’ll charge and try to tear a gap through the middle, isolating the southern mass of the enemy from the rest and trapping them against the lake. With a lot of luck we might get the survivors out.”
“If we don’t hurry up,” said Jackery, “there won’t be any survivors.”
Rix had to ignore that possibility. As soon as they burst into the open it would be on, bloody slaughter, because the enemy never retreated. He mounted and led the way, making sure his head did not show above the rise.
“Stay back, Deadhand,” said Jackery from behind him. “A lucky arrow could kill you, and where will we be then?”
“There’s only one way to lead men to their deaths—from the front.”
Ahead, the rise curved around to the east, not much higher than a mounted man. Now reeds and tall rushes rose on the left, seven feet high. In places reeds choked the way ahead and Rix had to push between them, the horse’s hooves squelching and sucking. He could hear the battle now—the thud of sword on shield, the clang of blade on blade, the dreadful shrieking of men who had taken mortal wounds and now had to wait minutes, or hours, before death released them from their agony.
After a couple of hundred yards he stopped, unsure he was doing the right thing.
“Trouble?” said Jackery.
“Just gathering my thoughts,” Rix lied. “Have the men stop for a one-minute breather.”
Jackery held up a hand. Rix dismounted and cut across the edge of the marsh, trying to make no sound. The sounds of combat were louder here; he must be almost on them. He parted the reeds and peered through.
The southern edge of the battle was only a hundred yards away and it was as he had feared. The enemy force was driving Hork’s battered army towards the eastern side of the lake. They were defending valiantly but the closest men were only ten yards from the edge and, as the enemy tightened their encirclement, Hork’s troops would have to choose between being hacked to pieces or drowning.
Rix crept out, up the rise and peered over the top. The enemy had more than a thousand soldiers along this side and they had their backs to him. If he hit them hard with his seven hundred and eighty men and took them by surprise, he might just reverse the situation.
He went back and explained the battle plan to Jackery and his other captains.
“We’ll charge, fanning out as we go. Then, follow my signals.”
“What’s to stop them breaking through the way we’ve just come?” said Waysman.
“Good point,” said Rix. “We’ll leave fifty men here to defend this path. Stay hidden until it’s too late for them to turn back.”
He took three deep breaths, shook his captains’ hands and turned away. He had trained for this moment all his life. He could do it.
Even against Grandys?
Yes, even against him.
He mounted again and went forward around the edge of the reeds. Ahead, the rise curved around from the right, sloping steadily down until it barely concealed him. The men were fanning out behind him. Rix squared his shoulders, putting on a confidence he did not feel. He raised his sword, swung it down and spurred his horse forward.
“Charge!”
The cavalry charged, his infantry followed, and the aches and pains from the previous battle vanished. All eighty riders went with him, racing north for the weakness in the enemy’s lines.
Rix was aiming to tear through this flank, leaving them isolated and surrounded on three sides, with nowhere to go but into the lake. Hopefully Hork’s force would show enough initiative to drive them the rest of the way. Waysman’s fifty would guard the path along the edge of the marsh and Pomfree would lead another fifty onto the eastern hill to hold it as well.
Rix got to within fifty yards before the enemy realised they were under attack from the rear. Horns sounded; movement spread through the ranks like ripples from half a dozen points as the soldiers at the rear swung around.
But again, the warning had come too late for them to form a solid rank before Rix’s charge struck them with terrible force. He cut three men down with successive blows, thumped another in the back of the head with his mailed fist, and skewered a fifth.
He took stock and moved on, doing his bloody job as efficiently as possible until he was covered with gore and the enemy’s flank had been cut off. Most of them were just boys, younger than his twenty years. They had not known any kind of battle until Grandys recruited them a month or two ago, and they had never experienced defeat.
Hork’s men, who had been facing death only a minute before, counterattacked ferociously from the other side as if to make up for their shame. Rix could see the dawning panic in the enemy’s eyes.
But he could not afford to pity them; it was kill or die. He left his third company to finish the grim work and withdrew the first and second companies. They ran north for a couple of hundred yards then plunged into the enemy’s lines again.
The enemy knew they were coming but they were under attack from the front and rear now and, being at slightly higher elevation here, they could see what had happened to their left flank. The nearshore waters of the lake were tinged with red.
As he fought, Rix could not help the feeling that he’d had it easy. The enemy weren’t fighting the way Grandys fought—he definitely wasn’t here. But where was he? When would the trap close? And how?
“The enemy have lost two thousand,” said Jackery, who had blood on either shoulder, the left worse than the right.
“And Hork’s lost almost as many of ours,” said Rix.
He had known the cost would be high. Indeed, it could have been far higher.
“The big question,” said Jackery, “is where Grandys is, and his other three thousand men.”
“I questioned one of his dying lieutenants,” said Pomfree. “Grandys went racing north with the rest of his army, not long before dawn.”
Rix stared into the northern distances. “North? Why?”
“No one knows.”
“He must have had important news. Let’s hope it was bad news. Did the other Heroes go with him?”
“They weren’t here in the first place, save for Rufuss.”
“Then where the hell are they?”
“No one knows.”
“That’s bad,” said Rix. “If Syrten, Lirriam and Yulia weren’t here, what are they up to?”
The question was unanswerable.
“I know where Rufuss is,” Pomfree said suddenly.
“Where?”
“Behind you.”
Rix turned and five or six hundred enemy were charging. In the middle, a full head taller than everyone else, was Rufuss.