On the left, the allies were still reaping a butcher's bill from the Orcs, but the sheer weight of their attackers was beginning to tell; the enemy was pressing on them two dozen ranks deep while the Dwarves had but two. Orcs were stabbing at them over their shield rims, trying to gouge a face or slash a throat and a few Dwarves had fallen, their ranks naturally contracting to make up the space. Pace by pace, the Dwarves were falling back, even as they made the Orcs pay for every step. The air was thick with grunts, howls and screams of the dying as the Orcs pushed forward through meadow slick with blood and entrails. The Orcish horde were forcing themselves at the link between the Dwarvish and Gnomish units by dint of sheer numbers, creating a great salient inside the allied army that threatened to burst behind their lines.
Auric, from his column in the centre, sensed the impending fracture. His signalmen raised their flags at the out-of-position, disorganized Temple leaders of the left division who, finally noticing, raised their own in turn for their wing, who noticed not at all; the Orcs packed into the gap all on their own, eager to get past the allied forces. The commander of the left – an Air cleric named Sagubris – screamed with futility at the masses of his troops to no effect. Slowly, irrevocably the Dwarves were pivoting, being pushed back against their own barricades and pickets adjoining the woods while the Gnomes were forced eastward towards the human formations. The Elves carried on firing right over the heads of their allies, skewering great swathes of Orcs, but their arrows were running out and they were beginning to cast aside their bows for shields and swords, leaping into the fray, slashing madly like dancers as all the while the boil grew, threatening to burst.
Auric raised his hand and signal flags went up for Hedrack on the right wing; they acknowleged and his men raised their horns.
The human lines were only a hundred yards away when, to Barkinar's relief, three warbling horn-blasts sounded from the back of the right wing where was raised Canon Hedrack's banner of the white circle. At long last – the signal for the charge! Thousands of Orcish throats rose in challenge and hate and as one the right division thundered northward, loosed at last, sprinting the last of the distance.
As the charge was delivered, some of the more long-legged lopers got ahead of the rough lines – and began falling into pit traps, shallower than on the Horde's left, but filled with stakes as the others. Wounded Orcs crawled broken from them or lay dying as the rest of the wing stamped by. More carnage ensured as Orcs fell skewered, tumbled into ditches and broke feet, legs, lying screaming. But the rest leapt or dodged them, and moments later the right division crashed into the assembled pikemen of the Verboncian army.
The advantage of pikes was in their reach. At fifteen to twenty feet or more, such a spear could deliver a killing blow without risk to the user. Individually, however, they were slow and unwieldy. A warrior could bat the point aside and close, charging to hand-to-hand range… but a massed formation made a veritable hedge of steel points that could not be evaded or dodged.
The Verboncian infantry was arrayed in two thin lines of three hundred men each, with the wings curved back, gleaming steel points facing outward. It was less than one would want: three ranks were better, making a serrated array of spears, so that one could not sidestep the first line and just run up between the shafts for if the first point missed him, the others would catch him. Two ranks made that less likely, and the pikemen must then be experienced, cunning, and well-trained. Barricades could slow the enemy, but ultimately all relied on training, discipline and skill.
Yet the Orcs were packed in tight and could not dodge individually around the pikes. Instead they charged on headlong nearly shoulder to shoulder and the first wave died on the great spears, jerked from their feet and hurled to the ground.
The Verboncian pikemen had trained for years in the best tactics that a small army – less than a thousand to cover the entire Viscounty – could muster. They were Verbobonc's only army and, as such, had seen combat from one end of the Viscounty to the other: veterans of battles with goblins, orcs and brigands – even some of the Temple's raiders – they instinctively resorted to their endless hours of training in dusty courtyards and verdant fields.
The front rank shoved their victims backwards, the weight of the pikes jerking the bodies like ragdolls as the pikemen wrenched the hafts of their weapons to rip the blade from the sucking flesh. As they cleared their pikes, the second wave arrived and were gored in turn by the pikes of the Verboncian second rank. A scattering of other Orcs following on behind stumbled on the fallen bodies, struggling to reach the barricades as the first Verboncian line rammed their pikes home again while the second line jerked the dead and dying from their weapons and readied them, a clockwork slaughter delivered with methodical hate. Orcish survivors scrambled forward across the spiked barricades, wooden spikes scratching and tearing while the Verboncian troops lunged, cleared, and lunged again, merciless. These were Men fighting against invaders from beyond the pale trying to destroy their homeland who had seen the depredations of the Temple up and down the Southland, and they had heard the horrific tales of the survivors fleeing up the Greenway. They gave no quarter and none asked as the two middle columns of Orcs tangled up in the wreckage of the front of their own formation, more piling on behind, pressing ever forward.
But Hedrack was not concerned about such casualties; while the Verboncian infantry was formidable there were simply not enough to hold the Horde's entire line. His columns on each side of the division were already marching around each flank of the formation. They would simply press the wings of the Viscounty's forces, rolling them up until they snapped and collapsed in. Then the trapped Verboncians would be slaughtered wholesale and those that escaped the collapse by running north would be run down by Auric's light cavalry. Though they knew it not, their resistance was already at an end; the left and right sides of Hedrack's division were heading up the low hill around the human line, Orcish tongues lolling as they dashed forward –
– straight into the much deeper and wider placed pits that Wilfrick's mages and a few rogue Druids from the vicinity of Hommlet had positioned on each of his flanks.
Dwarvish, Gnomish and human strength and ingenuity, coupled with the raw magical powers of the Elves, wizards and Southland Druids driven from their glades by Horde scavengers had produced not merely spiked ditches but virtual gullies on each of Wilfrick's wings, thirty-foot drops into hard-packed soil or rock scree, covered over by cunningly formed screens of loose vegetation and branches. Where there were not such chasms, the Druids had raised wide belts of sharpened stones that tore to shreds the feet of any Orc trying to cross them in their hide sandals. Howling Orcs charged forward only to fall screaming to their doom, or topple crippled after a few yards, bleeding out into the short grass. Left and right the columns turned to milling confusion as the Orcs realized they could not cross to reach the human flanks.
And meanwhile the Verboncian pikes stabbed, twisted, ripped and repeated.
With dismay and much cursing, Hedrack sounded the horn for the wings to withdraw and join the centre, but the Orcish troops could make no sense of the signals and milled uncertainly as the two middle columns were savaged in the middle assault. Arrows began to fall among them, slaying indiscriminately. 'Pull down the barricades!' he finally roared, spittle flying, his magically amplified voice booming over the battlefield. 'Pull them down and attack!'
This the dull Orcs understood, chopping their axes into the spiked log fences and tearing at their spars and points. Arrows from the human archers were immediately redirected and assaulting Orcs began to fall, but still more surged in to rip down the barricades. Meanwhile those Gnolls with bows kept up a continuous pelting on the pike and archer formations, trying to whittle them down before the assault struck.
Finally, a knot of large, savage Gnolls shoved their way through the milling Orcs to attack the barricades. With great axes, they sheared through the supports of the logs, then lashed thick ropes of hemp to them, formed quick lines and hauling hard. The frames of the barricades twisted, creaked, then split as the Gnolls dragged them down.
The Orcs roared triumph and surged up the hill – straight into the human pike line. The heavy spears stabbed, cleared and stabbed again but there were too many Orcs and not enough lines of soldiers. More and more individual Orcs filtered through to close with the Verboncian infantry, forcing them to drop their long spears and draw swords and savage hand-to-hand fighting broke out in a score of places. The Viscounty forces closed ranks as the Dwarves had, but this left minor gaps between their formation and the traps around them which still other Orcs surged towards, trying to slip through.
In the rear, Auric's two hundred light horse and personal entourage of heavy horse waited patiently for the infantry to make a hole in the enemy lines.
His plans had come somewhat undone; yet that was usual in war. The appearance of the demi-humans had been an unpleasant surprise, but his forces were overwhelming; no combination of entrenchments and protections could make twelve hundred survive the onslaught of seven thousand, plus his Gnolls, cavalry and light infantry. The Orcs had taken severe losses, but that was their purpose: to break the enemy with their numbers, throwing down their lives to bleed and bludgeon the enemy. They were well spent that way. And his decision to push through the Gnomes was working: their lines were already badly bent. Soon they would break, and his Orcs would pour into the allied rear while his cavalry stalked the fields north of the hillock like Death, sweeping left and right to slash and trample the fleeing enemy. He suspected he might have to assault the Dwarvish holdouts, since the stubborn beardlings were still putting up a game fight and would right to the end; he knew well their ways. The Elves he might catch, or they might fade back into the woods, but he expected no different. Such a paltry force could not stop him. His Horde, having broken the allied army, would rush onward to the City and smash its gates down and then the city would be his. His to rule; a new Viscount would be crowned that day.
He watched his left division. The Orcs swarmed around the pinned Dwarves and Elves but could not encircle them with their backs against the impenetrable woods and picket stakes. Those few that tried were picked off by Elven archers or skewered with spears but there were more and more and soon they would be attacking from behind in force. Then he saw it and smiled grimly under his big helmet: the Gnomes were being thrust hard back against the human right, falling back and opening the gap that he had sought to make at long last. He watched as it widened while the Gnomes tried desperately to consolidate their force. The Orcs were already starting to pour past them, screaming in victory as the Gnomes retreated.
The moment had arrived. Auric signalled an advance at the trot, leading his pair columns forward onto the field, then sounded the charge when they were just over halfway to the battle. In moments his two hundred light horse and fifty heavy cavalry were barrelling down towards the growing gap, sounding whoops and cries of triumph. They rolled into the press of Orcish infantry, shoving their way through, sending them scattering as they rolled towards the opening breach.
At the moment Auric's cohort charged for the opening in the allied lines, a long, clear hornblast sounded from the area of Wilfrick's housecarl guard. An answering call came from far off to the west.
Barkinar looked up from where he was, jammed in the press of the melee. That had not been the Dwarves, or the Gnomes. It had been much further west. What was going on? He'd attacked – much against his natural instincts – with his company and now they were fighting in the space beyond the opened barricades where he was battering at the Verboncian shields with his mace. Like the damnable Dwarves, the Viscounty's troops used the same formation of locked shields and the Orcs were slamming their bodies against them, trying to shove them back or down while Wilfrick's men opened for brief moments to stab or slash. It was hot, tiring work and he wanted nothing more than the clear air, away from the smell of blood and the stink of Orcish bodies.
Other Orcs from ajoining companies were pulling more of the fences apart and forcing into the gap, fighting their way through the pikes and trying to reach the soldiers behind them. At least half the Verboncian line was engaged with Orc warriors with more pressing in all the time and they were already moving back, fighting bitterly as they did. They were brave, bold veterans, but they had not the literal hundreds of years of experience of their Elven and Dwarven allies, and their casualties were inevitably steeper.
The left division was pushing more and more Orcs into the growing split between the Dwarf and Gnome companies. Some were already spilling out and running for the allied rear around the back of their formations, though the greater part ran salivating for the supply train, where they knew would be food, loot, maybe even women. The wagons of the allied forces were half a mile behind the action and the drovers and wainsmen there picked up weapons at the sight of the approaching rabble. The field was filled with the screams and yells of battle, mixed with the clash of steel and the thump of bodies. They were winning at last, Barkinar exulted with relief. He'd been worried before at the losses of the Orcs, the difficulties they'd had in overcoming the assembled ranks of the Northerners, but they were genuinely winning. He glanced up, noting a cloud passing over the sun where there had been nothing before.
And then he jumped in shock and surprise as a twenty-foot fireball exploded in the Orcish ranks packed into the salient. And then another. And another; three sharp, savage detonations that shook the very air in Barkinar's ears. Orcs were roasted where they stood or ripped to shreds, throwing smoldering body parts in all directions and knocking those around them to the ground. Then, just as Barkinar had recovered his senses, a forked bolt of lighting leapt horizontally out of somewhere near the Dwarves and Elves pinned against the woods with a clap like close thunder. Scores of Orcs were instantly scorched dead and the sky suddenly began to crackle with thunder as it continued to grey, though it had been a clear cerulean blue moments before. Sorcerors! Barkinar realized. So the humans had brought magic-users. Well, the forces of the Temple could command magic as well, if that game were to be played.
At the same moment, arrows began pouring out of the woods at the Horde forces; far more to Barkinar's eyes than the small Elf company on the field had been able to deliver. The Orcs that had broken out towards the allied supplies were instantly shot down, and then the arrow fire turned on those teeming between the Dwarves and Gnomes, where they dropped like flies.
To Barkinar's horror another, much larger Elvish company emerged from the woods: two hundred archers at the least. Their barrage continued unabated, feathering Orcs left and right in a merciless hail. A few shafts picked off some of Auric's cavalrymen jammed in among the Orcs and now the screams of Men could be heard as well as bodies fell from their horses.
Before them came an even larger company of Dwarves that seemed to suddenly emerge from the foot of the woods as if from the very ether, the very terrain around them shimmering and vanishing. The solid mass of their unit – three hundred or more stout Dwarves armed with axes, short swords and spears and suited head to toe in mail hauberks and steel helmets – crashed into the flank of the Orcs in the gap, carving their way towards the trapped Gnomes. A deep war-chant came from them as they plowed into the Orcs of the left division packing the salient, hewing the enemy down before them, black blood flying. On their left came another cohort of Gnomes in a red phalanx that speared into the leading elements of the Orcs. Gnomes were not the size that Dwarves were but they were not the weakings Barkinar had taken them for and their unit drove hard into the dazed Orcs. Like the Dwarves, they seemed to appear out of nothing and Barkinar realized to his shock that the enemy must have placed a great illusion spell on parts of the fields to hide their forces.
As if they had been waiting – and they surely had, Barkinar realized with a sinking feeling – the trapped Elves and Dwarves on the allied right let out a great roar and surged forward. Gone was the delaying shieldwall; now they came on like savages, hewing and smashing. One Dwarven berserker, bareshirted and screaming, leapt out of their ranks to shear off Orcish arms, legs and heads with great bloody flashes of his two-handed axe, beard and arms soaked with gore as he chopped madly all about him.
Their formation begain to swing counter-clockwise like the lid closing on a box, driving the wing of the Orcish left division before them with great slaughter while the Elves in the new formation shifted their fire to the Orcs in front of the mixed company, shredding them. Everywhere Horde warriors were falling, topping into their fellows as they stumbled away, being trampled underfoot and tripping up others. Everywhere was chaos and death. Another pair of fireballs lashed the Horde – the Elves had brought their own dreaded sorcerors with them! A diminuitive silver-haired female Elf safely inside their ranks raised her hand and a lightning bolt flashed into the Orcs in front of the first Dwarvish company, throwing smoltering bodies everywhere. With another motion of hers, dozens of Orcs simply dropped their weapons – or turned and attacked their fellows! Accursed Elven witch! Barkinar gripped the haft of his mace, wishing he could smite her.
Barkinar ducked down as the slaying arrow fire shifted again, this time to the left side of his division, shield over his head as arrows ripped into the packed ranks of his company and the one behind.
Orcs screamed all around him. Hairy bodies topped and one big creature, shot through with two gray goose-feather shafts, fell atop him, pinning him to the earth as it bled all over him. A high-pitched screaming was in his ears, and he found only belatedly that it was him. The realization crashed over Barkinar like an avalanche: Auric had let the Horde into a moving trap, and it was closing. 'It's a trap!' he screamed, his voice lost in the cacophony as hobnailed Orcish feet trampled everywhere.
But there were still thousands and thousands of the Horde – whole tribes had not even entered the fray yet! – and the Gnolls were nearly untouched as they pressed in on the Verboncian pikemen. Auric's cavalry were practically untouched too, though they were stuck in the gap; but Auric was rallying them and they were forming ranks, forcing their way forward.
Surely that armoured fist would smash through the enemy reinforcements. The human forces could not hold for long. When the Gnolls reached the humans on the right, they would break and flee, and then the right wing would join the left and together they would pincer the foul demi-humans between them. They would not fail! They could not! The day was still theirs, and the Lady's!
Then he saw that something was wrong with the sky. It had been sunny previously, but was now a perilous grey. With a rumbing crash, a terrifying storm of ice pelted the middle of the left wing, slaying swathes of Orcs. This too was the work of the Elven witch, her hands raised to make a gesture like a crashing wave as razor-sharp ice splinters tore orcs into red ruin like terrible shards of glass. Howls of agony came from inside the great girdle of mist that rose, and still the Orcs kept coming.
Behind him, High Priest Inoxis had begun a series of incantatitons of his own, throwing a pinch of sulphur in the air as he did. Suddenly a column of flame burst downward from the open air, striking the human lines in front of them. Barkinar wanted to cheer: now the horrible allies were getting their true rewards from the Lady! Men staggered and fell, burning, screaming, and the Orcs hooted with glee, charging towards the growing gap.
And then Barkinar felt it in his feet: a steadily growing thunder. It grew and grew and now Barkinar recognized it: the final piece of the puzzle. A fearful tremble shivering down his spine, he turned to look westward at the south bend of the big woodlot.
A column of a hundred heavy cavalry flying the Furyondian azure-on-gules with three crowns passant and Veluna's crescent-quarted white star on its black field emerged from behind the woods, wheeled, and aimed straight for the rear of the Horde. Each knight – and even at the distance, Barkinar could tell they were knights, not merely armoured soldiers – wore full plate mail and carried a heavy steel shield. They were mounted on heavy destriers rather than medium war-mounts, carrying longswords and other arms, and each held high a heavy lance with a gleaming tip. Their helmets were set with stag's horns painted gold and in the centre flapped banner after banner of the accursed golden horns on green: the war-banner of the Knights of the Hart.
'Dark lady, no,' Barkinar gasped.
Prince Thrommel, Grand Marshal of Furyondy and Provost of Veluna had come, bringing a full War-Chapter of the Knights of the Hart with him.
A pennant from in the front with Thrommel was raised and lifted twice in the air, and now the horsemen moved up to the trot, leaning forward fractionally in their saddles. Thrommel's armour seemed to gleam like a star in the greying morning light as his destrier snorted and whinnyied as if it was channeling the wrath of its rider. His squadron spread out left and right into a wave, closing on the enemy's savaged left wing. Their appearance was sudden and they closed the gap rapidly.
'Turn!' Barkinar shouted. 'Turn around!' he screamed, though of course none could hear and certainly not those so far away. Thrommel's wing went to the canter, signalled again by the pennant and Barkinar realized it was so they could not be easily heard. Barkinar watched with horror as the lances of the Allied heavy cavalry lowered and they began the charge. 'No! No!' he cried out.
At last some of the Orcs heard the approaching rumble and began to turn, but far too late. At fifty feet one of the knights raised a horn and blew a long, terrifying blast that shivered the Horde's ranks. Moments later, Thrommel's formation slammed into the rear of the Horde's left wing.
Their lances thrust scores of Orcs to the ground, not a single great spear missing. Some of the spars skewered two together, throwing them down shrieking and thrashing. The knights raised their weapons again and thrust down, and as hafts snapped out came their swords, flashing death among them with an ease and efficiency created from endless hours of practice in the training yard. An overhand chop would smash through a guard and split the skull of a fighting Orc; the fleeing or unaware were taken from behind with a rising slash that laid their backs open to the bone. They fell like wheat. Those not slain outright were scattered or knocking screaming to the ground to be ridden down by the heavy hooves of the great destriers.
The result was absolute pandemonium.
The Orcs, pressed from the front by the resurgent Dwarves, shot or blasted by Elves, began to surge hither and thither as they were trampled by armoured horses or dispatched with disciplined, practiced backhands or overhand slashes, or crushed with heavy flanged maces. Even their mounts were long trained for war: they lashed out savagely with their iron-shod hooves to cave in skulls and break chests, or savagely bit limbs and tore off faces. Some Orcs cleverly struck at the mounts instead but the perfectly-trained beasts, guided by the knees of their riders, skipped away with surprising agility as the Orcish spears glanced from their heavy plate barding. Then, inevitably, another almost instinctive knee movement left the Orc lined up for a downward slash.
Then at another horn-blast, Thrommel's wing abruptly withdrew and wheeled away into the field, turning to sweep now towards the other side of the left wing. As before, they line hammered into the Orcs, crushing their packed ranks between them and the Dwarves as the Dwarves grimly cheered the arrival of the human heavy cavalry, their axes singing. Thrommel's squadron now pressed not into the left division but into the very junction between them where the salient had been developed, hammering home into the thickest press of their foe, reckless of danger.
As Barkinar watched in dismay, Verboncian reinforcements marched into the back of their left wing, filling the gap that Inoxis had created and reinforcing the rest. Now, four solid files confronted the Orcs of the right division, ranging end-to-end between the pits on either side. Machine-like, they stabbed, withdrew, and stabbed again in the cadence of the Verboncian heavy infantry, advancing step by step into the enemy ranks.
More human archers had arrived too from somewhere behind the high ground and now the sky began to fill with arrows. Orcs fell in the crush, or were hurled forward to die upon the human pikes, or were pierced with shafts and dropped bleeding. Barkinar had seen the hate, the arrogant triumph of the Horde. Now he looked around and saw a new emotion: fear. Orcish eyes rolled white, their roars of hatred turning to squeals of alarm.
Hedrack did not sit idle. At his orders, the rear ranks of the right wing turned and began to form a rough spear-line against the possibility of mounted attack as he also shouted for the Gnolls to reform into a phalanx to defeat the human pike. Barkinar began chivvying his troops into line but the Gnolls, wanting none of this, formed instead into a little ring on a minor point of high ground in the meadows, fending off all others and ignoring orders. Barkinar and the other cleric-officers cursed and berated them, but still they did not move. Arrows fell among all of them, slaying indiscriminately as the Gnolls shot back. Auric's Guard and the Nulbian light cavalry had turned at his roared commands and were pushing their way out of the crush of Orcs in the shrinking salient.
Thrommel's force continued to carve deep into the Orcs' left wing from the south as the Dwarves pressed on them from the north and the mixed company slashed into them from the west. Arrows and flashes of magic wracked their lines, exploding and burning them, so that the howling and screaming from their ranks was like the cries of the damned. The Orcs there fought desperately, but there were little more than a third left of all those who had started the battle with that loping charge.
The salient began to collapse. The Orcs holding the front were being massacred and those behind had no wish to join them, pushing and shoving back south, then flooding that way. Auric cursed and swore as they threatened to swamp his cavalry as they tried to burst out of the entrapment, forcing he and his men to lay about with their swords to force their way through. A few were toppled in the crush, and did not rise as the hobnail boots of the stampeding Orcs ground them into the turf.
Auric burst out, managing to extract most of his horse, but he had taken losses too, including among his Guard. The last of them burst out of the crush and began reforming into a pair of squadrons, one heavy and one light. Those few Orcs escaping the salient fled into the main mass of the now-shattered left wing, which in turn fled westward to take up a position south of the right wing, still locked in better fighting with the Verboncian troops, and stopped there, exhausted. Most of their human clerical officers had been separated from their units or run down by Thrommel's charges, and many of the bolder or more foolish chieftains slain in the first charge, so they rallied by clan and tribe under their banners and closed their ranks.
The bulge, meanwhile, became the focus of fire for the Elves, and for the mages of both Elves and Men. Orcs stampeded, horses screamed, and it became a charnel house. Those Orcs still within – hundreds – were doomed. The original mixed Elf-Dwarf company and the newly arriving regiments crushed them between them like iron jaws while Thrommel's cavalry took up position on the field as a blocking force against interference by the right wing, or the survivors of the left. As the mid-morning sun watched, the last resistance there was ended and their desperate ring collapsed with quarter neither given nor asked; they knew their fate was sealed. The last of them – a shrieking, berserker sub-chieftan of the Severed Hands, his trophies dangling round his neck as he flailed wildly at his enemies – was run through by an Elven longsword, the razor tip skewering him right through his dark heart.
The sun was rising higher as the forces squared off and reassembled.
The right division, frustrated by the Verboncian resistance, had broken off contact and now the entire Horde, its strength nearly halved, stood in a rough semicircle facing west, their backs to the river. Auric's cavalry wings stood off to the south, both to watch the Horde's new left flank, and also because it was nearest for a quick retreat down the Southway; Auric was not a fool and things were different now.
His left division had been all but exterminated, with losses from the Elven archery, the frontal battle with the Dwarves, the deaths to force the breakthrough and then the crushing of the salient. Scarcely a thousand Orcs of the left remained. He had positioned them on the right of his formation – here, they were furthest from the South and therefore had less ability to run away. They would fight, or they would die.
His three thousand other Orcs, from the right division, made up the centre and the left in the new formation. The Gnolls were in the middle, behind the centre division – ostensibly to reinforce any wing that seemed to be failing, but also because if they were surrounded by the rest of the army it was less likely that they could simply run away. They probably ran faster than Orcs.
The Horde panted in the hot sun; their waterskins were empty and their throats parched, and the light dazzled their eyes. Orcs did not have – had never had – the organization or discipline to cooperate in order to do something like help supply themselves with water, and if he had ordered them to do so the peevish creatures would have refused. They simply seemed to have no conception of the future, or of consequence. A few went to fill their own waterskins, and the rest went hot and thirsty. Half their clerical officers were dead now, slain by the Elves or crushed by the sudden appearance of Thrommel. But they did not run; not yet. The Nulbian light infantry he ignored; they had done nothing in the previous battle, and he expected the same now. They milled nearer the river, awaiting no one could say what.
His opponents, reinforced, encircled him to his west. They were waiting, but they would not wait much longer.
The Dwarves, humans and Gnomes were drawn up on a long linked front, the Dwarves in the centre, the humans to the south and the Gnomes to the north. By his count there were now nearly six hundred Dwarves, five hundred Gnomes and closer to two thousand Verboncian infantry, most of which were their heavy pike, though they had nearly doubled their archers as well.
Worst of all, two hundred and fifty Elves were in line behind them, spread out so as to minimize the effect of Auric's archers, not that it mattered; they would not be slain with simple random arrow-fire. They had the range of him, and by far the accuracy, and they had recovered most of their shafts from the wreckage of the Horde's left. Their wizards were there as well; he could see the silver-haired Elven wench even at this range.
Last of all was Thrommel's own heavy cavalry unit, standing patiently opposite his own. Auric's guard were good – but he had no illusions about their abilities to defeat an entire squadron of the Knights of the Hart in full plate mail. His only advantage was his light cavalry, not that he was sure they were such a help; when Thrommel came to kill them, he would do with them what he could.
The allied troops waited, still and patient for the moment. It hadn't been quite an hour yet, and still it grated on Auric's nerves. Why did they not come? Auric almost wanted them to, to get it over with. What were they waiting for? He glanced again at the rushing waters of Nigb's Run behind him, the water roaring and foaming. His scouts had not looked for fords there; simple creatures enough, but neither had he demanded such investigations, for it had not been though necessary. He wondered if the fast waters could be swum. Then he looked southward, half imagining the giants and ogres of the blocking unit would have broken orders and come north, or that the Temple had raised some support that would have hurried after them. But there was nothing.
So he waited.
A tremor of disquiet came from the front, rippling through his own troops. He turned to look.
A battle ensign had risen over the allied formation, from the Dwarven part of the line.
It was simple, so very simple and so Dwarven a gesture that he almost smiled under his heavy helmet: just a long pike pole with a round object atop it.
It was the severed head of Sagubris of the Air Temple. His sightless eyes looked out over the Horde, tongue hanging out, empty mouth silently haranguing them from his scraggly, blood-matted beard. Even the Orcs, long used to such sights, bared their teeth uneasily at the spectacle.
The Dwarves bobbed it up and down in an almost comical way, deep malicious chuckles and jeers rolling through their ranks, and then they tossed it carelessly on the ground. Then they took their axes and began a slow beating of their shields, bam – bam – bam, a rhythmic steel-and-wood sound clacking that resonated in the Horde soldiers' chests, shuddered the air of the late morning as grey clouds closed over the battlefield again. A deep chant rose from the Dwarves, picked up quickly by the Gnomes and soon even the Men had a go of the tune.
It was the Death-Chant of the Dwarvish people and its message was as clear as it was unnecessary:
As before, no quarter would be given.
A single ram's-horn blew behind them and the allied troops began a slow march forward, lines rippling three deep, their jaws set and eyes burning with hatred. One or two roared excitedly at the prospect of dealing more slaughter to their hated foe. The Elves followed behind, loading at a casual march; as a raven cawed in the still air above, the first of their arrows began to fall, with the Verboncian archers joining in.
The Horde had dug – or tried to dig – simple ditches and scrounge some materials for palisades and barricades, but there had been little time and little enough discipline to do so. The lazy Orcs merely stood waiting for death. In a way, Auric was pleased; while they were fair warriors they were poor soldiers and he was bitterly happy enough that they should die. He studied Thrommel's detachment another moment, then turned to his own cavalry and raised his dark helmet. A few of the Nulbian horsemen shuddered at the appearance of his face, the twisted, mangled jaw, the sightless eye, the scars of fire and steel etched over his hideous figures.
'The Guard will charge with me,' he intoned. 'The light horse will go with us, but only feign an attack and will instead sweep around to the rear to do what they may. Strike at the Elves, if you can reach them; but go quickly. That is the last chance for the Horde. If you win through, lash at the back of their lines again and again, and we shall punch through from the front. If not and you reach Hades before me, save me a pull on the hell-horn and expect that I shall see you anon,' he ordered, then replaced the helm. His sword came out and pointed at Thrommel's unit. 'Charge!' came the brief command, and his Guard rumbled forward. The battle was personal for him now; the remnants of the Horde would fight their own battle, led by Canon Hedrack. Auric hoped he was wiser than he seemed.
Auric's Guard went quickly into the trot, then the canter, and finally the gallop as Thrommel's heavy horse matched their rate, lances dropping into the couched position. The Knights spread out into a wedge of steel, led by Prince Thrommel in the centre.
To his left, the Nulbian horse spread out, crying wildly and waving their blades like the Cossacks of the Bandit Kingdoms. They hooked wide left – then kept on angling left towards the Southway, hurrying back in the direction of Nulb as a group, their light horses rapidly disappearing into the fading morning mist as they left the Horde behind.
Auric laughed bitterly under his helm. So be it. He turned back to the charge just as the two lines of heavy cavalry collided.
Horses screamed and fell, and men were thrown to the ground. The heavy lances of Thrommel's detachment and Auric's Guard slammed into plated armour, splintering, or running men through. The Knights of the Hart had the better of it, though, and most of Auric's Guard fell. Those few that remained swirled close around their leader – loyal to the last, bitter, hell-bound men united in the curse upon them all – and their blades came out as the next bloodletting began. Blades flashed and horses lashed at the foe with mighty hooves. Auric hewed and slashed about him, his heavy blade crashing into armour, slashing through here and there; and then he saw Prince Thrommel himself angling through the melee to meet him until they were sword-to-sword. Auric saluted him briefly, and saw the salute returned.
Auric was the older, the more experienced from a lifetime of often bitter mercenarial service, but Thrommel was young, and spry and the very flower of Northern chivalry, and the light of the gods was in his eye. Steel clashed as their swords met again and again in single combat, but then Thrommel was battering back the guard of Auric with his mighty blade, Fragarach – Answerer, in the Old Tongue – and then his edge was drawing blood. Then, with a mighty blow the shield-arm of Auric was hewn from his body.
Auric reeled, seeing blood spray from the stump. He dropped his sword, trying to clap a hand to it, but the flood could not be stemmed. His mount, uncommanded, began to stamp and back away.
Auric sagged back in the saddle, his vision dimming and spinning. He looked up. The sky was a rumbling grey, and turning darker.
The Horde's general toppled, falling between the crush of horse and Man.
Elven arrows rained down on the Horde as the infantry closed. Orcs and Gnolls collapsed under the fire; those that had shields raised them, but the ranks suffered under the withering fire. Fireballs exploded again, but fewer this time and only on the wings. They stood and bore it for a few moments and then, when the chiefs saw that Canon Hedrack would not send them forward, screamed their own charge in their native tongue. Three thousand Orcs raised their weapons and came forward. The Gnolls, at last, charged as a unit in the center of the line, halberd and flails readied.
The allies braced, pikes and shields coming up. The armies were just about to clash.
Then, the gray sky rumbled ominously over the Horde again and without warning there was a blinding flash, followed by a thunder like the crack of doom. A massive stroke of lighting exploded in the middle of the Horde force, far larger and wider than the bolts that had leapt from the magicians of the allies before and right in the centre of the Gnollish unit. Their centre exploded with white light, throwing bodies like toys, Orcish screams rending the sky. When it lifted, there was nothing to be seen except a massive hole in their lines littered with scorched corpses. Dazed Orcs on either side of the burned circle staggered mindlessly or clawed at smoldering hair or hides, or screamed with horror at the impassive skies. The others slowed, looking with dim horror at the scene. Orcs by nature preferred the dark, but not this eldritch storm-night by day, and they quailed as the air crackled with magic.
The Allies did not stop their advance. As Auric's unit disintegrated against the Knights of the Hart their infantry slammed into the disoriented ranks of the remnants of the Horde, marching straight into the burned ground, hewing and slaying everywhere. Nothing could stand against the accursed Dwarves and the hated Elves, whom they could not reach, were mowing them down in swathes.
The unbloodied Nulbian infantry, comfortably in the rear and seeing their horse flee, began to filter away too; by ones, then groups, and suddenly the whole lot of them took to their heels and fled southward, throwing their paltry weapons aside as they fled. They were not stopped; there were no allied soldiers that could reach them and the Horde was engaged. They simply fled south over the long fields, angling to reach the Southway.
By then the Horde itself was broken. Half had been so blinded by hate as to charge into a half-mile charge against orders, a mark of their shoddy discipline, and had nearly been exterminated. The rest had bled and fought to even close with a bitterly committed foe, and now the skies themselves conspired against them. It was all too much. They began to fall back from the approaching troops, trading ground for time and a little breathing space. The advancing allies, spearheaded by the Dwarves, drove a wedge deep into the Horde, slaying mercilessly, so deep that the Horde's formation began to split, with Dwarves going left or right to press on the newly developed divisions, though they were just masses of rabble now. The allies pressed on ever closer, Orcish dead piling behind them. Some Orcs threw down their weapons and sued for peace, but the Allies were of no mind for that, and slew them out of hand. Others surged in a last rush against the locked shields, but were cut down. Unstoppably the Allies rolled on.
Then a voice in the retreating press cried in Orcish 'The Great Man is fallen! There is no plunder! We are lost!' though none could have said which one of them called out. That had been the final straw. Panic shot through the ranks now that Auric himself had fallen and they Orcs began to flee in earnest, shoving the ranks into wild disorder that the Allies capitalized on, charging into the panicked mass, slaying.
Some Orcs ran south and were cut down by Thrommel's swirling cavalry. A few tried to stay and fight, forming a last circle of defiance bolstered by the Gnollish survivors. Many turned away from the killed blades to their west and the horsemen waiting to the south and made instead straight for Nigb's Run, throwing themselves in and struggling to reach the far side. But – hill, mountain and woods-dwelling Orcs having had little experience with large bodies of water – none could swim. Orcs tried fording or wading, or grabbing up pieces of driftwood where they could find them, but the raging whitewaters simply tore them away downstream and dragged them under. Bloated, stinking Orcish bodies washed up in the Velverdyva for weeks after the battle.
Barkinar wanted to weep in fury as the Horde began to scatter, fleeing south or east. Did they not know the Lady's glory? Was her service not glorious and right? But then he was fleeing too, running along with the other clerics of the Dark Lady, throwing aside shield and mace, and wrenching at his mail away, making for the river. He could not surrender; he would be hung on the spot and the ravens would tear at his eyes.
The water felt blissfully cool on his feet as he splashed into the shallows, ripping the sides of his cassock as he went so as to better allow the use of his legs. The act made him think in a flash of women's dresses, and then of the woman Telsa, who was lying dead somewhere in the field. She had not even lived to see the failure of the battle. Irrelevant! he shrieked at his subconscious and plowed into the churning river.
It was deeper and faster than he'd thought. He'd made some effort to angle towards his left and upstream as he went, so as not to be clawed under by the flailing Orcs hitting the water; a gaggle went by as he watched, screaming and thrashing at the air. Carefully, he made his way into the flow, his already freezing feet stumbling to find purchase as he went past his knees. The rocks were of mixed sizes here. He glanced back.
The allied forces had all but completed the slaughter. The Elves were concentrating on the northern mass, cutting them to shreds as they hurled spears and rocks in return. Thrommel's cavalry had returned to slam into the southern refuge and their swords were doing butcher's work, rising and falling, black blood flying everywhere.
Suddenly, arrows began to fall around him. He looked up. The Verbonician archers had spotted him and were trying to prevent him from making the east bank. Ducking low to make himself less of a target, he thanked the Lady that at least it hadn't been the damned Elves: those filthy non-humans would have punctured him by now, even at the range. He glanced nervously back at the water as another shaft plopped into the torrent beside him.
It was too fast, too violent. It would yank him off his feet and dash him on the rocks until it tore him apart. But what else could he do? He could certainly not go back and if he waited there much longer the freezing current would chill his muscles to the bones so that he would never be able to cross. Frantically he searched the river for any sign of a ford, or some shallower crossing point.
Then he looked back to see the silver-haired Elven bitch standing exactly opposite him on the west bank. She was looking directly at him and at the closer range he was struck for a moment by her painfully exquisite beauty, his gaze locked in place by her flowing argentine locks, her graceful, perfectly made form.
And her burning, wrathful violet eyes.
She raised a hand at him and he felt the electric surge of growing magic as she began to evoke a spell.
Barkinar turned, panic hammering in his heart, and leaped headfirst into the roaring river.
The last thousand Orcs on the left of the Horde's formation – tough Lortmils warriors of the Evil Moon tribe – massed together and closed their ranks. Shoving away from the Verboncian formation, they began loping away south in disciplined ranks under the leadership of their clan chief, Snagrot Two-Hands, turning to raise shields and ward off the pursuing forces of Thrommel's people with barrages of spears and stones cleverly aimed for their horses, or made simple hedges of spears and pikes captured from the Verbonician troops.
Snagrot had never liked this Temple plan with its rapid advance and easy conquest; he knew too well the foul humans and their simpering Dwarvish and Elvish allies. He had stuck with them for the loot, but the Horde was destroyed now. He would bring his tribe out of this, and go back to fighting the Littlebeards in the Lortmils, where they belonged.
As the light began to fail into the later afternoon, it seemed they might indeed use the growing darkness to melt away into the woods of the Southlands; Thrommel's cavalry pursued and herded them but did not press a charge and at length slowed as if unwilling to pursue further, turning north to hunt escapees that had fled towards Verbobonc City from the debacle. Snagrot sneered; he, alone of all the chiefs, had led his people out!
Three leagues south of Emridy they ran headlong into a force of a thousand Elven medium cavalry from Celene, pursuing the Horde north after having exterminated Auric's blocking force near Hommlet. The Elves had just completed mopping up the other fleeing remnants of the Horde, including the recalcitrant Nulbian light horse, and were racing north to join the battle.
They swept down on the disbelieving mountain Orcs like a grey wave.
No orc of the Evil Moon ever returned to the Lortmils and for many long years after the disaster of Emridy Meadows their caves remained empty and silent.
Barkinar dragged himself out of the water on the far side of Nigb's Run, unarmed and exhausted, his soaking robes dragging him down. He winced at the feeling in his left shoulder; he'd smacked into a great underwater stone as the river wrenched him away, then bounced off another with his now-aching hip. Beside him, another cleric of the Earth Temple lay shivering on the sand, just past the stony part of the beach; Romag was his name, or so Barkinar thought. He glanced back at the far shore; the river had swept him far downstream, miles perhaps. The enemy was mopping up the last of the Horde, throwing shattered bodies into a growing pyre fed by the magics of the Elf-wizards. There was no sign of the silver bitch at the distance, which was as well. He had to get out of here before they started sending hunter parties across; the damnable Elves probably knew where the fords were.
Barkinar turned to walk on then stumbled to his knees with a howl of pain. His ankle, twisted hard by the cataract, gave out and dropped him into the shallows. He clutched it, cursing the river, the Dwarves, the Elves, even the Orcs. What in all the hells had they been thinking, the High Priest and his General? Had they not so much as scried for a trap? A waiting ambush of a whole army! Damn Auric and his foolish lightning advance!
He reached into himself, feeling out his power, his magics, summoning them to the fore. He could feel his goddess' dark power surging through his hands, feel the creep of his flesh as it crept over his damaged limb, twisting, surging like a heart beating under his fingers – a foul, dark heart laced with slithering tentacles of mold and rot –
No! He must not think in such a way! With the force of practice he dragged his attention back to the Principle of Earth, of stone and rock, of strength and building. He grit his teeth as he felt the ligaments on the outside of his ankle slip forward, knitting themselves together, binding almost tether-tight, of the minute crack in the socket seal. With a gasp of released strain, he let go of his foot, experimentally stretching and rolling it. He stood. It was sound. The Lady was fickle, perhaps, but her divine powers did not disappoint.
He turned. The other priest, Romag, was watching, though he made no move towards him; did not dare do anything, in fact. Romag was a subordinate in the Earth Temple, though an insignificant one.
Lacking any better idea, Barkinar stood and looked out over the river, and the faraway site of the battlefield, now lost.
The humanoids – the Orcs and Gnolls, at least – of the Southlands had been decimated, or worse. He wondered where the blocking force was, and if some of the refugees from the battle might find them and rally them. They had best not go north. Even a handful of giants and ogres would make little dent on a force of their size; the blocking group would only be so much meat thrown into the same grinder.
Which left him wondering what to do himself.
He could follow the river and head south, but that would put him a stone's throw – almost literally – from the allied army as they marched south, as they surely would. He could not hope to keep ahead of them on the broken ground of this side, where there was no road and sooner or later they would send men across to take or slay him; as clerics of Zuggtmoy, the Horde's officers were doubly valuable and, therefore, worthwhile targets. He looked eastward into the rising trees of the Etter Hills; deep, rough woods and broken hills. There were small habitations in there; he knew some of them, had even preached the words of a false goddess there for a crust of bread, though the influence of Zuggtmoy had reached most of them by now. If he struck out straight east, he might strike on Emridy's Run, where he could maybe find a boat and find his way back to Nulb. It was his only chance to sound the alarm before the army of the enemy arrived at the Temple, as surely it would.
Suddenly there was a splashing and sputtering just to his left as another figure emerged from the water.
It was High Priest Inoxis, leader of the Fire Temple and the deacon of all of the Temple of Elemental Evil, lord and master and partial author of their defeat. The man crawled landward, choking out river water. His side was gashed with a vicious wound and one leg seemed lame. 'P-please,' he groaned, holding his side. 'Help me. My spells… depleted… we must escape… warn the Temple… help me.'
Barkinar stared at the man. His robes weighed him down like sheets of lead and the muscles of his legs were rubbery and spent but he cast about as he walked towards the High Priest, finding and picking up a suitable rock.
Inoxis looked up, brown face blanching as Barkinar came towards him. 'Wait… what are you…'
The first savage blow felled the High Priest, dropping him face-down and motionless into the shallows. The remaining strikes were almost unnecessary, but Barkinar desired thoroughness, always; and besides which the edge of his anger was fresh and raw. Not until Inoxis' skull had been split, spilling his brains out into the water for the small fish, and his neck made into a purpled welt of meat did Barkinar stop.
Barkinar stood back panting, surveying his work; then he tossed the makeshift club into the water beside Inoxis' corpse with disdain, dimly noting the splash.
'Good, master,' Romag said, startling Barkinar as he suddenly and unexpectedly appeared beside him. Quickly Barkinar glanced at the rock, but the other priest did not attack, seeming to prefer simpering. 'He deserved such for his failure!' Romag went on, spitting at Inoxis' corpse. 'We have lost all! The fool!'
Well, thought Barkinar, that was true enough. He looked across the river again. He saw neither scouts nor cavalry there, but that would not last long. They would need to move – soon.
As Barkinar turned to begin hiking up into the wilds of the Etter Hills, no less a personage than Canon Hedrack himself fetched up out of the savage flow just a few yards away, staggering and clawing at the rocks as he heaved himself ashore. There was a red stain on his cassock and a savage bruise over his right eye. His exhausted gaze fell on them both, and Barkinar knew that he could not have failed to see all that had transpired. Barkinar glanced at the rock again.
Hedrack staggered past them, casting an uncaring eye on Inoxis' still form to reach the sands and fall to his knees in the shallows, panting.
'Zuggtmoy's Molds and Mushrooms,' he swore, turning over to sit painfully on the shore, the body of Inoxis floating practically at his feet in the shallow water. 'What a godsforsaken disaster.'