Bleda rode at the centre of their column, his mother riding as vanguard today. It had been Uldin’s idea to rotate each day, a way of avoiding bad feeling between the Sirak and Cheren about who led and who rode rearguard. Bleda was impressed with Uldin’s straightforward diplomacy, a simple and fair way of avoiding unnecessary conflict. It gave Bleda hope for the future between the two Clans.
If Uldin is this level-headed, perhaps he will be the one to see that my handbinding to Jin is not vital for the Cheren and Sirak to co-exist peacefully.
Then he remembered Uldin’s words to him upon his arrival at Drassil.
Are you worthy of my daughter?
Bleda shifted in his saddle, feeling abruptly uncomfortable. He searched the sky for Riv, saw the silhouettes of Ben-Elim high above, but could not pick out the dapple-grey wings that set Riv apart.
This was their sixth day out from Drassil and, as Kol had ordered, they were riding at a slower pace, sending scouts into the fringes of the forest, making the most of the high branches and navigable ground.
There was a creaking sound ahead, horn blasts from the front of the column and riders were reining in. Bleda guided his horse to the edge of the road so that he had a better view down the column. He saw Erdene sitting tall in her saddle, staring at something ahead.
Then Bleda saw it, too. A huge oak on the forest edge, branches swaying as if it was caught in some solitary wind. The creaking sound grew louder, building into a sharp crack, and then the tree was falling, branches and trunk crashing down onto the road, a cloud of dust erupting around it, settling slowly.
Bleda reached for his bow, in a few heartbeats had it strung. All around him Sirak were doing the same.
Behind him hooves drummed and Jin cantered up along the line.
“What is happening?” she asked him. “Why have we stopped?”
Bleda nodded at the fallen tree. “Ambush. Be ready,” he said.
Jin gave him a curt nod even as she was turning her mount and galloping back down the line.
And then something emerged from the treeline, just in front of the fallen oak, about eight or nine hundred paces before Erdene and the head of the column.
Two auroch, big bulls with huge chests as wide as a wagon and low-curving horns. They were harnessed, behind them was a wain, enormous in its proportions, two shaven-haired men sitting upon the driving bench, reins in hand. Upon the wain was a giant box, or cage.
And then another brace of auroch appeared, pulling another similar-sized wain, two more figures on the driving bench, another massive box upon the wain’s back. It stopped behind the first wain.
A silence settled, the creak of wood as the wains strained under some immense weight, Bleda hearing sounds of movement within the boxes.
Scratching, sniffing.
A growl.
I don’t like this.
Erdene called out an order and her front ranks shifted, Sirak warriors riding out either side of her, forming a long line across the road, thirty riders wide. More ranks formed in disciplined order behind the first. Bows were strung and in hands, all with fists bristling full of arrows.
Ben-Elim flew overhead, Kol appearing, flanked by a dozen more winged warriors, all of them landing in the space between Erdene and the wains, other Ben-Elim remaining in the sky above. They all seemed hesitant to approach the wains.
Bleda remembered the giant Alcyon telling him of the Battle of Varan’s Fall, where the Ben-Elim were ambushed within Forn Forest and suffered serious losses. Alcyon had said that the Ben-Elim had been far more hesitant since then, reluctant to press forward in any situation where they were not certain of victory.
A silhouette flew out from the trees ahead, its wings dark, not white, and Bleda recognized the distinct outline of a Kadoshim.
Fear uncoiled in his belly.
Fear is not the enemy, it is the herald of danger, and that is only wisdom, he reminded himself of the Sirak’s Iron Code. Fear is wisdom, but you must master it, lest it master you.
The creature landed upon the top of one of the cages, feet spread, and looked down at Kol and his Ben-Elim. Something seemed strange about it, different from the Kadoshim Bleda remembered. It looked taller, and a nimbus shadow appeared to edge it, blurring the lines of its movement. Other Kadoshim followed, swirling out from the trees, circling above and behind the wains like a murder of crows, fifty, sixty, a hundred, more joining them as Bleda stared.
“Is that you, Kol?” the Kadoshim upon the cage called out. “I had heard a rumour that Israfil was dead and you had replaced him. I hoped it was true.”
“Aye, Gulla, it is I,” Kol said coldly. “I am glad to see you crawl out from beneath your rock. It is a mistake, of course, because now I am going to send you back to the Otherworld.” He raised a fist, Ben-Elim swooping up from the back of the column, speeding over the heads of Uldin’s Cheren.
Gulla just leaned down, gripping a huge iron pin on the cage front and tugging it free. With a squeal of iron and wood the front panel of the cage fell forwards, crashing to the ground, a cloud of dust erupting. There was the sound of savage snarling, a cacophony of howls and growls, and then a tide of fur and muscle and claw was exploding from the dust cloud.
Bleda felt his blood freeze.
Ferals.
But where Bleda had seen a score or so of these creatures before, now hundreds of them swarmed from the cage and surged towards Kol, and Erdene behind him, even as another Kadoshim landed onto the top of the second cage and pulled the pin, releasing the door in another eruption of Feral beasts.
Kol and his Ben-Elim companions leaped into the air, rushing to attack the Kadoshim swirling above them.
Behind them Erdene was shouting, just noise, but horns rang out from those beside her and the front rows of her Sirak began to trot forwards, at the tide of Feral murder surging towards them. Even in the midst of the chaos and terror that was turning his veins to ice, Bleda felt his chest swell with pride for his mother, ordering a charge at these fearsome creatures, where the first and basest instinct was to turn and run.
Another horn blast, Erdene and her Sirak breaking into a canter, bows in hand, arrows gripped, and then within heartbeats they were at a gallop, their hooves a thunderous avalanche, five hundred paces between them and the onrushing, slavering Ferals, four hundred paces, three hundred, two, and then the front rank of Erdene’s line was breaking left and right, across the Ferals’ path, and their bows were singing, arrows loosing, the huge power of the Sirak bows hammering into the front rows of the Ferals’ charge, hurling them from their feet, throwing them back into those behind. Screams and howls of agony rang out, Ferals going down in a tangle, snaring those on their heels, a tumbling mass of limbs and blood.
Bleda saw Ferals claw their way back to their feet, tearing arrows from their bodies, raising their heads to the sky and howling, then breaking into a run again. Some stayed down, a dozen arrows pin-cushioning them, twisted unnaturally in death.
But still the vast tide of them came on.
Erdene and her front row were galloping back along the roadside, reforming behind her last row of riders to continue the manoeuvre in a perpetual cycle, peeling and loosing their arrows in an endless hammer-hail curtain.
They need more room.
Bleda had seen this manoeuvre performed before, upon the open plains of Arcona, where mounted warriors could ride like flocks of birds in the open sky. But here their flanks were constricted by the looming walls of the forest, and they could not endlessly retreat because the road was blocked by Bleda’s hundred and then Uldin’s Cheren.
We need to get off the road, give them more room to retreat.
A movement on the edge of Bleda’s vision, amongst the trees on his left. He stared, arrow nocked, and then saw a Sirak rider burst from the trees, one of their scouts. He was shouting a warning, twisting in his saddle and shooting back over the hindquarters of his mount into the murk.
“Protect the flanks,” Bleda cried out, the cry rippling through the warriors about him, spreading, and he commanded his horse towards the trees. His hundred began falling in on either side of him, a long row facing into the forest.
“Tell Uldin, protect the right flank,” Bleda yelled to Mirim beside him. She nodded and galloped away.
Two bodies crashed into the turf before Bleda, making his mount dance backwards. A Ben-Elim and Kadoshim, wrapped in a tangle of limbs and wings, still fighting, stabbing, biting, even as they rolled on the ground. They came to a halt, a flurry of blows, then a sharp shriek.
The Ben-Elim rose slowly to his feet, blood on his face, wings shaking off grass and dirt, and then he was leaping back into the air, hurtling back into the combat that was swirling above.
And then figures were materializing out of the shadows of the trees, shaven-haired men and women, faces twisted in fanatical rage, screaming as they came running at Bleda’s line.
A hundred arrows loosed, the sound a sweet music in Bleda’s ears, and all along the treeline the enemy were falling, tumbling to the ground.
Bleda drew and loosed, drew and loosed, grabbed another fistful of arrows from his quiver, but more enemies surged from the trees, pounding across the bodies of their comrades, so much closer now.
A snatched glimpse right and left showed Erdene’s Sirak swirling back in an endless retreat down the road, the Ferals surging on, snapping and snarling, the gap between them down to fifty or sixty paces now. Uldin’s Cheren on the right flank were facing a storm of shaven-haired enemy, as Bleda was.
Only twenty or thirty paces now between Bleda and the enemy pouring from the forest.
Bleda loosed almost point-blank into the face of a woman, her spear stabbing up at him. His arrow pierced her eye, hurled her back into a man behind her, both of them going down in a heap.
“SWORDS,” Bleda yelled, slipping his bow into its case at his hip, his hand reaching over his shoulder, gripping the worn leather of his sword hilt and drawing, all along the line his warriors doing the same.
“WITH ME,” Bleda screamed and clicked his horse on, riding to meet the enemy rushing towards him.
His trained mount barrelled into a man, threw him to the ground, then hooves were trampling the fallen warrior, cutting short his screams. Bleda struck downwards, his sword jarring on an upraised blade. The blow shivered through his wrist and arm, numb for a moment, he swept a parry, sending a spear-thrust aimed at his chest wide, returned with a backswing from his curved sword, opening a red line across the spear-man’s face, and saw him fall away, clutching at bloody folds of flesh.
Bleda rode deeper into his enemy, the treeline looming.
A grunt and scream to his left, a thrown spear slamming into Ruga, hurling her from her saddle. Bleda looked, could not see her, swayed in his saddle as an axe tried to take his face off. He chopped down, a scream, a hand hanging almost severed, dangling by a shred of sinew and skin. He thrust down, into the screaming mouth of his foe, ripped his sword free in a spray of teeth and blood.
And then the enemy were breaking before him, turning and running back into the gloom. Bleda reined in, resisting the urge to pursue his enemy, the blood-rush of victory a sudden surge in his veins. A snatched glimpse over his shoulder and he saw the same was happening to Uldin, the Cheren King spurring his horse after them, his warband following him into the treeline.
“After them,” Bleda yelled, spurring his horse over the bodies of the fallen as he chased after his fleeing enemy.