Fritha ground her teeth, watching as Jin led her warband away from the White-Wing shield wall.
She will answer to Asroth for that.
She scanned the battlefield, knew that Jin had come close to breaking the shield wall.
I shall finish the shield wall in Jin’s place and I will take her glory, and Asroth’s praise.
Wrath led the way, Elise and Arn either side of her, Aenor and his acolytes massed behind her, maybe fifteen hundred to two thousand who had survived the assault upon the wall.
We must strike now, before the shield wall has a chance to recover and reorganize.
Wrath was lurching forwards, head low, moving side to side, tongue flickering. The ditch was close now, maybe fifty paces ahead. Spikes and corpses were becoming visible.
That will not keep us out.
Fritha looked to the east, flame and smoke shielding much from view, but she could see Jin and the first of her riders galloping hard up a gentle hill beyond the field of flame. Other than the Cheren on the hill, the whole eastern quarter of the battlefield looked strangely still. Fritha had seen the Revenants fall, knew instantly that their captain must have been slain. The shield wall they’d been tearing to pieces was still standing there, looking like a half-mauled animal, stunned and in shock. The skies were clear, which bothered Fritha. She knew Asroth was waiting for the Ben-Elim to commit to the fight, and she had thought that moment had arrived when the Ben-Elim swept forwards with their torches. But they had flown back, behind the shield wall, and now the skies were mostly clear of white-feathered wings, maybe a few score of them circling beyond the shield wall.
To the west Fritha saw more wings, but they were low, swooping at the Revenants that were attacking the western shield wall. The White-Wings looked swamped, close to breaking. Fritha glimpsed grey-feathered wings and blonde hair diving low over the Revenants, recognized the half-breed Ben-Elim that she had seen in Drassil.
You chose the wrong side.
The ditch loomed, waters swirling with blood, the stench of death in the air, voided bowels. Flies buzzed on corpses. Wrath spread his wings, broke into a run and leaped into the air, wings beating, and he glided over the ditch, landed with a crunch on the far side. Fritha let him walk on a few paces, then told him to stop.
“Not smash enemy?” the draig asked, confused.
“Soon,” Fritha said. “We should wait for our friends.”
A splashing behind her as Arn rode into the ditch, water coming up to his horse’s chest. Elise slithered into the water, swam sinuously across, both of them navigating the obstacles and climbing up the bank. Then they were either side of Fritha, more of Fritha’s honour guard negotiating the water, Aenor leading his acolytes into it, wading through the filth. It was not long before a thousand swords were massed about and behind Fritha, all dripping, more wading through water and climbing up the ditch’s bank.
The shield wall was still and silent before her, maybe five or six hundred paces away. Behind it was more open ground, eventually rising into a hill, a vast camp spread upon it. And beyond that, the town and tower of Ripa, framed by the sinking sun.
Fritha leaned in her saddle towards Aenor.
“Form a wedge behind me,” she said. “You know the shield wall as well as any. I’ll punch the hole, you widen it.”
“Aye,” Aenor said, hefting his shield. Blood crusted his mail, a flap of skin was hanging from his chin, but he looked animated. This was a moment they had all waited for, to take on the fabled White-Wing shield wall.
“We’ll teach those arrogant bastards a lesson,” he said, giving Fritha a grim smile.
She nodded, then looked to Arn.
“Hold back, don’t follow me into this, horses won’t help where I’m going. Harry the flanks as the wall splits.”
He dipped his head in acknowledgement.
Then Fritha was sitting tall in her saddle, hefting her spear, eyes fixed on the wall of shields.
“Smash them,” she said to Wrath.
The draig let out a bellowing roar, and then he was lumbering forwards, a shuffling, broken-gaited run. Behind her the acolytes broke into a jog. Within the shield wall, orders were shouted, shields tightening up.
It won’t help them. Nothing can, now.
Closer now, fifty paces away, forty, the ground flashing by in a blur. Spears flew at her, cast from far back in the wall. Some hit, striking Wrath’s neck and shoulder, but were shaken loose as he continued to charge, blood flowing over his scaly skin. He roared again, his wings giving a sharp beat, a final burst of speed, and then he was smashing into the shield wall. A concussive whoomph, Fritha rocked in her saddle, and warriors were flying through the air, voices screaming, trampled, bones shattered like kindling.
Wrath ploughed on, his momentum carrying him deeper into the shield wall. He lashed out with jaws and talons. Fritha righted herself, gripped her spear and stabbed, took a White-Wing in the neck, dragged her spear free, stabbed again, into the opening of a helm. Shields and swords were coming back at them, now, stabbing. Wrath bellowed, jaws crunching on a shield and the arm that held it, ripping it from its socket.
Fritha glanced, saw Elise beside her, round shield in one hand, her black-bladed spear in the other.
Shields started pushing in, Fritha jabbing left and right, adrenalin coursing through her, fuelling her limbs. Elise was hissing and snarling, her black spear carving ruin. A roar from behind: Aenor and his acolytes. White-Wings fell, the acolytes cutting into their ranks, widening the existing gap like water freezing to ice within a cracked stone, prising it open from within, and then the shield wall began to break. Like a dying animal taking a last, deep breath, there was a moment’s pause, and then the shield wall shattered, fracturing into a hundred smaller parts. Horns blew, a frantic sound from deeper back in the shield wall. White-Wings were disengaging and retreating where they could, though many were falling to Aenor’s acolytes and Arn’s mounted warriors.
We cannot let them regroup.
More horn blasts and the tramp of feet, Fritha looking to the east. She saw the shield wall that had been fighting Revenants marching towards her. It was six or seven hundred strong, shields locked and tight. Ahead of her the shield wall was retreating and regrouping, maybe two or three hundred swords left.
Wrath could smash it again, but our flank is threatened. This could become far too even a fight in a very short space of time. She twisted in her saddle, looking back to the hole in the wall. We need reinforcements.
Asroth, I need you.
But nothing was there, the hole in the wall an empty place, no sign of movement.
Her troops were massed about her, milling, waiting for her leadership.
A long look at the two shield walls before her.
We should retreat, pull them after us, or send word for reinforcements.
There was a burst of light, like a soundless explosion, and then a wall of blue flame was leaping up, higher than two men, spreading across the field of battle in a wide, looping curve.
Giant’s fire, like in the hidden forge in Drassil’s great tree.
“No,” she said, even as the wall of flame ignited the ditch in front of her, cutting across the channel she was about to use to retreat, flames crackling on, rippling around the whole battlefield, the entire ditch a barrier of blue flame, heat haze rolling from it in waves.
Realization dawned upon her.
The ditch was not to keep us out. It was to keep us in. We are trapped.