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The Sothoii horsebow was a powerful, deadly weapon, and men screamed as point-blank fire punched pile-headed arrows through leather armor, and even breastplates, at such short range. Horses shrieked as they took arrows of their own, and kicking, writhing warhorses went down on the awkward slope as Trianal’s men closed with the saber to finish off the remnants. None of Hathmin’s troopers got free, and Fahlthu swore vilely as the last of them fell, dead or wounded, in a pointed illustration of why pushing ahead too recklessly was … unwise.
Still, the other side had expended a lot of arrows massacring Hathmin, and that was the other side of the equation. When their arrows were gone, they were doomed, for why should Fahlthu close to saber or lance range when his bows could still fire and theirs couldn’t? And at this rate, it might take even less time than he’d originally hoped.
He watched the reserve which had finished off Hathmin pull back across the crest of the hill. Then he grunted and sent his horse cantering forward, his chastened standard-bearer and bugler at his heels, following the carpet of dead or writhing men and horses back the way Trianal Bowmaster had retreated.
“Sound the gallop!” Trianal commanded as the main body of his dwindling command topped the line of hills and headed down their western face towards him.
The bugle calls rose perfect and forceful, as if their insistent beauty had nothing to do with the carnage and stink and blood littering the ground between the hills and the Bogs. But the officers his messengers had reached understood what he intended, and they wheeled their men quickly. Their horses were less fresh than they’d been when the engagement began, but they answered to their riders’ demands and came pounding down the hillside dangerously quickly. At least one horse and rider went down with a smashing impact and rolled in an ugly, mutually lethal heap. But most got clear, and he exhaled a deep breath of relief as he watched his wi
“And now,” he told Sir Yarran, swinging his own horse and urging the stallion to a gallop, “we see how fast Golden Vale horses are!”
“They’re up to something,” Fahlthu heard someone say, and turned his head. “Master Brownsaddle” had appeared out of the chaos, like the proverbial bad kormak, and the knight glowered at him.
“Of course they are!” he snarled back. “They’re trying to get out of the chamber pot they shoved their heads into! And,” he continued in a grimmer voice, “to kill as many of my lads as they can in the process.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Darnas Warshoe grimaced impatiently, cantering along at Fahlthu’s side. “They started out fighting a serious rearguard—now they’re galloping away like hares before hounds, when they must know our horses are fresher than theirs are.”
“Do you always have to look for the crookedest possible answer to any question?” Fahlthu demanded disgustedly. “Did it ever occur to you that they may simply have had enough? That they’ve seen enough of their friends killed that they’re breaking at last? Men who finally panic and rout seldom stop to think about whose horse is freshest!”
“Milord,” Warshoe said as patiently as he could, “if they were going to panic, they should have done it at the outset. And if their morale’s finally broken, why in all the gods’ names did it happen simultaneously for their entire formation? Hasn’t it been your experience that when a force routs, it usually at least begins breaking one subunit at a time?”
“And just how in Phrobus’ name do you know they didn’t start breaking that way?” Fahlthu demanded harshly. “I couldn’t see through the solid top of a hill to watch the exact pattern of it—could you?”
Warshoe ground his teeth together and managed not to scream at the idiot. Gods above, this fool wouldn’t have lasted three months in the King’s Own! He’s made his mind up about what’s happening, and he’s not about to let any inconvenient little facts interfere now.
“Milord,” he tried once more, “what if it’s a feigned retreat?”
“And what if it’s Hirahim Lightfoot’s long-lost mother?” Fahlthu shot back sarcastically. “No, Master Brownsaddle. You tend to your responsibilities—whatever they really are—and I’ll tend to mine. And right now, mine are to go finish off an overconfident young whippersnapper who let guts and determination get the better of good sense!”
He urged his horse from a canter to a gallop, and Warshoe let his mount fall back. He watched Fahlthu spurring up the hill, waving his sword and shouting at his more laggardly men, and shook his head.
It was always possible Fahlthu’s analysis was correct and Warshoe’s was wrong. In that case, the cavalry commander had more than enough men to finish off Trianal and Yarran, and Warshoe could leave the brute labor up to him. Even if Fahlthu was wrong, it didn’t necessarily follow that Trianal’s plan—whatever it was—would succeed. But whether it did or not, Warshoe had no desire to find himself embroiled in the sort of melee that was going to ensue when Fahlthu finally closed for the kill. He was a specialist these days, not a common trooper. And if Fahlthu failed—or even if he succeeded, but Trianal himself escaped death—a specialist in the right place might accomplish more later on than all of Fahlthu’s cavalrymen put together in the wrong place could manage now.
Or, for that matter, a specialist might be required to see to it that Fahlthu himself wasn’t around to … discuss his orders with Lord Festian or Baron Tellian. It would be most inconvenient for Baron Cassan if the Golden Vale captain were to be taken alive, and Darnas Warshoe wasn’t in the habit of inconveniencing his patron.
He smiled unpleasantly at the thought and began dropping back from the front ranks of the pursuit.
Trianal Bowmaster’s entire body ached. He supposed that he’d probably been nearly this tired sometime before in his life; he just couldn’t remember when.
He drew rein, and the stallion beneath him blew harshly, a deep, heaving sound of fatigue and gratitude. The warhorse’s nostrils flared, patches of crusty lather splotched his dark shoulders and flanks, and Trianal could feel the powerful muscles quivering with exhaustion. He leaned forward, patting the coal-black neck and whispering endearments. If he and his surviving men were reeling with fatigue, their horses were even further spent, and every one of them owed his life to his mount.
Not that there were very many of them, he thought bitterly.
He turned and looked back. The enemy had pursued them doggedly for almost three hours now, and the sixty or so of his troopers who remained couldn’t stay in front of them much longer. It was fortunate that they’d come so close to breaking contact when they fell back across the hills. That blessed pause while the enemy’s main body came up had let them open the range still further. Even more important, it had allowed Trianal’s battered troops to reorganize themselves on the fly. Holes in the chain of command had been plugged, formations had been beaten back into order, and his entire surviving force had emerged as a compact formation readily responsive to his bugle commands.
And it was as well that it had, because the grueling pursuit had been even more costly than he’d allowed himself to believe it might. Captain Steelsaber would not send any more messages for Trianal; he lay somewhere miles behind, with an arrow through the base of his throat, and eight of his troopers lay scattered along the track of their retreat with him. Nor had Trianal been able to stay out of the fray, whatever Sir Yarran would have preferred. One of his two saddle quivers was completely empty; the other contained his last five shafts, and at that, he had more arrows than most of his men.