Jin was galloping at the shield wall, arrows flying from her bow, slamming into linden and flesh. She saw a White-Wing collapse, the warrior behind too slow to fill the gap, a dozen arrows flitting into the hole. Screams, more White-Wings dropping, the gap widening.
They are close to breaking.
Jin glimpsed split shields, other White-Wing warriors exhausted, trying to rotate back in the wall, but her Cheren spied every movement, every chink, filling any weakness with arrows. And there was nothing the White-Wings could do to stop them—the Cheren horse were always out of reach.
Jin was enjoying herself.
Her war-host had made over a dozen passes and put about thirty thousand arrows into the shield wall. She had glimpsed shadows flitting across the ground as Ben-Elim gathered in the sky above her, and Jin was waiting for their inevitable diving attack. But that was what Jin wanted. Her Cheren would move their bows from the shield wall and aim them at the sky.
Jin realized something had changed on this flank: there was an absence of sound. She glanced around, saw that the entire eastern section of the plain was still. There were no Revenants moving in their constant, animated thirst for blood.
What has happened? Have they retreated?
The hiss of an arrow and the Cheren rider in front of Jin swayed in his saddle, toppled slowly to the side, a white-fletched arrow protruding from his neck. His foot caught in a stirrup and he was dragged along the ground.
The thrum of bowstrings and instinctively Jin ducked. More Cheren riders fell in front of her, four or five, screams and thuds behind her.
She looked to the east, the direction the arrows were coming from, and frowned.
Horses were standing in a line, maybe a score of them, and upon their backs were… Revenants. And they were loosing arrows at her Cheren riders. A bank of smoke swept across them, Jin squinting to see. The Revenant riders appeared again, trotting out of the smoke, sending more arrows flying. Jin swayed in her saddle, an arrow hissing past her.
The Revenant riders broke into a canter, and then a gallop, charging at Jin and her war-host. Another volley of arrows from them, the rumble of their hooves in gallop, more Cheren hurled from saddles.
“WARE!” Gerel was crying, Jin raising her bow, grasping for arrows, nocking and drawing. She put her first arrow into the chest of a Revenant, her second and third into its face. Three more arrows punched into it in quick succession, Gerel unloading his bow into the creature. It rocked back in the saddle, swayed and fell to the side, crunched to the ground.
And Jin’s heart froze in her chest, ice suddenly in her veins.
There was another rider sitting in the saddle behind the Revenant, who wore a deel of grey beneath a lamellar coat, horsehair flying from an iron-spiked helm.
Bleda.
He was galloping towards her, bow in his fist, loosing arrows at her Cheren riders. The sheer bold audacity of it sent a pulse of rage through her, even as she threw herself forwards, barely avoiding two arrows in the chest.
A handful of arrows flitted from Jin’s warriors, more Revenants pierced and falling to the ground, revealing Sirak warriors in the saddle. They were close, now, thirty or forty paces away. Cheren warriors gathered about Jin, seeing this new threat, and launched volleys of missiles at the charging line. Bleda was already turning in a tight half-circle and riding away, cantering between the pits of fire, his warriors following him, back into the flames and dark vapours.
Without thinking, Jin was guiding her mount off the wide channel and into the maze of fire-pits. Gerel saw her and followed, his horn at his lips, blowing blast after blast, and then her Cheren were following her, three thousand warriors riding into a fire- and smoke-filled wasteland.
Jin glimpsed Sirak riders ahead of her, clicked her mount into a trot. No reckless gallop through this maze of fire, another trap of Bleda’s, no doubt. Dimly, she was aware of horns blowing, to the north. Fritha’s voice, high and shrill, calling Jin’s name. She knew this was breaking away from the plan, that she had not yet accomplished her task of cracking the White-Wings’ shield wall, but she did not care. The horn calls changed and a glimpse to the north showed ranks of acolytes massing around Fritha. They began to move forwards, down the wide channel towards the shield wall.
I will return. Once Bleda is dead, his corpse hanging from a spike, I will lead my Cheren back and finish what I’ve started. But Bleda is right there…
Another glimpse of horses ahead of her, three or four hundred paces, grey deels. She loosed a trio of arrows, heard screams, both human and horse. Picked up her pace, moving into a fast canter, becoming accustomed to finding the winding path between the pits of fire.
Corpses littered the ground, emaciated, their clothing in tatters, and Jin realized she was riding amongst a field of Revenants.
This is where he took the Revenant corpses from. He killed their captain.
Fritha had told Jin how the Revenants could be slain, and what had happened when their captain had fallen in the Desolation.
Smoke cleared and Jin saw Bleda and his riders breaking into a gallop. They were free of the pits and riding up a hill.
Jin bared her teeth in a snarl, resisted the urge to gallop after them, she was almost through the field of fire. And then the ground cleared before her, no more pits, no more fire, her view unhindered.
Bleda had crested the rise of a hill and had stopped, was looking down at her.
Ice slithered through her veins, a hatred of this man before her that chilled her blood. Her hand twitched but she knew he was out of bow shot. Jin reined in a moment, allowing her warriors to gather behind her as they emerged from the smoke.
A score of Sirak surrounded Bleda, Jin recognizing Ruga, one of Bleda’s oathsworn, and also Yul, who had been Erdene’s first-sword.
You didn’t save her, and you won’t save Bleda.
Bleda saw her. He lowered his bow and slowly drew one finger across his throat.
The ice in Jin’s veins erupted into a white-hot fire.
“BLEDA!” Jin screamed.
Then she flicked her reins and touched her heels to her mount, felt the animal’s muscles bunch and she was leaping forward, breaking straight into a gallop.
Bleda looked at her a moment longer, and then he was turning and riding down the far side of the hill, disappearing.