Jin sat in her saddle, waiting.
She had felt a fierce exultation watching Fritha upon the draig’s back, the two of them hurtling out of the sky like a hammer and smashing the wall before her to kindling. Even Tark had grunted his satisfaction. Then Fritha’s warriors had passed through the breach, followed by a lot of screaming. To either flank Revenants were still swarming the walls, a never-ending stream of bodies climbing and disappearing. She glanced to her right, saw Asroth sitting upon his horse, wings furled tight to his back. Kadoshim were all about him, on the ground, some circling lazily in the air, and behind them a large number of acolytes. Around a thousand warriors, kept in reserve. A bank of mist churned sluggishly beyond Asroth, showing that not all of Gulla’s captains had been committed to the attack on the wall.
A winged figure flew out from behind the wall and sped towards her. Morn. She descended, alighting in front of Jin.
“Fritha has cleared the way,” Morn said. “Our enemy have retreated. They have dug pits, but they are all on fire, so you can see them.” Morn looked back at the wall. “There is a central pathway wide as a field that cuts through the pits, a shield wall of White-Wings at the end of it.”
“Room to manoeuvre?” Jin asked.
“Aye, there is,” Morn said, “it is maybe two hundred men wide, but it is clear they are guiding us that way. And there is a water-filled ditch cutting across the plain before the White-Wings.”
“How wide?” Fritha asked.
Morn scratched her arm-pit. “Maybe three men, lying head to toe.”
Jin nodded. “We can jump that,” she said, “but we will need room to move between the ditch and the shield wall.”
“There is much room,” Morn said. “More than from here to the wall.”
Good, Jin thought. That will be enough. She dipped her head to Morn. “My thanks,” she said.
Jin took her helm from a saddle hook and slipped it over her head, buckled the strap under her chin, looked at Gerel.
“Begin,” she said.
Gerel blew out a long horn call, Jin flicking her reins and touching her heels to her mount’s ribs. She moved forwards at a fast walk, three thousand Cheren following behind her. The wall grew closer, the crackle of flame louder. A cloud of smoke billowed out of the hole in the wall, Jin sucking in a deep breath and riding into it. She came out the other side of the cloud, inside the wall, now, and saw Fritha upon her draig, standing to the right of Jin. Pits of fire burned across a wide plain, only a central channel directly in front of Jin clear of flame. A dark line shimmered, marking the water-filled ditch. A fair distance beyond the ditch Jin could see a long row of rectangular shields, white wings emblazoned upon them.
They want us to approach down this line, think their wall of shields is strong enough to resist whatever comes at them. I shall teach them to regret such arrogance.
She looked elsewhere, searching for a sign of Bleda, but could only see smoke and flame.
He is here somewhere, and I shall find him, but first I will show these White-Wings what it is like to stand before the Cheren.
She clicked her tongue, shifted her feet, her horse moving from a walk to a slow canter. Jin dipped her head at Fritha as she passed her.
She rode on, focused now on the path before her. Jin called out to Gerel, more horn blasts, and a line of riders formed up either side of Jin, sixty wide, a ripple as lines formed behind her, the warband slipping into a huge column. Their passing rumbled like constant, distant thunder.
The ditch was closer now, Jin saw spikes with bodies impaled upon them. Another touch of her ankles and flick of her reins and her horse was leaping into a gallop. She bent low over the arch of her horse’s neck, felt the wind snaring her warrior braid, her heart pounding in her head. The ditch rushed towards her, forty paces away, and Jin tapped her heels into her mount’s flanks, urging him on, then she was rising in her saddle, taking her weight from her horse’s back, and they were flying, weightless, leaping across the ditch, a flash at the edge of her vision of Gerel and Tark and so many others doing the same, for a long, timeless moment all of them sailing through the air. And then with a thud and drum of hooves she was landing on the other side, turf spraying, and she was galloping on.
A wide stretch of plain opened up between Jin and the White-Wings, the warriors closer with every heartbeat. A horn blast and the White-Wings stepped together, moving from loose order to tight, another signal and their shields were coming up, interlocking with a crack. A hundred warriors wide, ten rows deep, it was the largest shield wall Jin had ever seen.
Over ten years I have waited for this moment, planned it in my mind. How I will show the Ben-Elim and their White-Wings that a wall of shields is no match for the Cheren.
Her mouth twisted, part snarl, part smile, and she reached for her bow, drew it from its case, then her other hand was grasping a fistful of arrows. She knew her warriors were all doing the same.
A hundred and fifty paces at full gallop, she wrapped her reins around her pommel, guiding her mount with her knees, passed her arrows to her bow fist and nocked the first arrow, drew it and loosed, the next two arrows flying before the first one hit. She heard bowstrings thrum left and right of her, a hail of iron hurtling through the air. The rattle of stones on wood as arrows slammed into shields, screams as the missiles found gaps in the wall, a head too high, an exposed ankle.
One hundred paces away from the wall, a new handful of arrows, nock, draw, loose, nock, draw, loose, the arrows punching deeper now that she was closer. More screams as arrowheads pierced wood and bit into the arms holding the shields. A ripple as warriors fell, others stepping forward to fill the gaps.
Fifty paces, another trio of arrows loosed, their impacts rocking warriors not fully braced. One of Jin’s arrows took a warrior in the cheek as he risked a glance over his shield rim.
Idiot.
He dropped, dead before he hit the ground.
Almost on top of the shield wall now and Jin touched her reins, a pull to the left, pressure from her knees and ankles, and her mount slowed, turned, thirty riders doing the same, the other thirty from Jin’s front row peeling right, all of them galloping along the length of the shield wall, loosing arrows at almost point-blank range, White-Wings hurled back into the warriors behind them. At the same time the row of riders behind Jin began loosing at the shield wall.
Jin reached the end of the shield wall and steered her mount left again, dropped to a canter and rode back along the flank of her galloping column, riding three hundred paces back down the channel before touching her mount and riding back into the centre, reforming a line again with Gerel and Tark meeting her, all of her sixty riders slipping back into a disciplined row, moving forwards at a slow canter, horses blowing and sweating. Jin saw the last few rows of her column galloping at the shield wall, peeling left and right, others cantering back down the line, reforming into rows behind her. The shield wall appeared before her, their shields studded with arrows, some cracked and splintered, dead White-Wings heaped on the ground, and then she was urging her horse into a fresh gallop, reaching for more arrows, bending low in the saddle.