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They were in danger of the same swift envelopment they had broken around Cefwyn’s father. Dys was working at the bit, shaking his neck so the barding rattled, traveling sideways, nudging Cass, who likewise worked to be free.
“Lances!” Cefwyn called out, and the trumpets blew. “Lances!”
They were going. None of it he had ever done, save only with Uwen, in the practice field by Henas’amef—but like a Word, it had been with him then and it had always been with him. He ducked his head to brush his visor down, settled his reins in his shield-hand and looked up within the narrow frame of that visor as he reached out for his lance. It arrived in his hand, Lusin coming up at his side, horse bumping horse and falling back again. He took a solid grip, tucked the length of ash-wood high for a hard ride as he brought the shield up. Dys was pulling at the reins, a warfare occupying all his attention else.
Cevulirn’s men and then Umanon’s engaged with the Elwynim wings, two almost simultaneous hammer blows. “Ride for their heart,” Cefwyn was saying to the standard-bearers and the riders that would pass the word. “Let them see the standards! Break their line and go around them again! Unit standards—keep spread, in the gods’ name! Pass through them, behind, and around! In the good gods’ name!”
Cefwyn loosed Kanwy: Tristen let the reins fall, settling all his grip on the shield and all his mastery of Dys on his knees. Dys broke into his run—like chasing rabbits through the meadow, like chasing the leaves and the wind down the road, with Uwen by him, likewise shielded, likewise helmed, likewise with lance braced. A thunder was growing in the earth, the strike of hundreds of plate-sized hooves, whuffs of breath entering a vast unison, like a blacksmith’s bellows.
There was nothing in the world but that moving vision of shielded line and forest that the visor-slit held.
—Sihhé prince, said the Wind, above that rolling thunder. Remember the Galasieni. How many of these foolish Men will you kill? Turn back now. Your friends will be alive. You can win them that. You can save them all. Didn’t you learn, the last time? I know the outcome of this. But you don’t, do you?
The Shadow grew above the woods, above the opposing line, that was a forest of lances. Something throbbed in the air, faint and far in the dark West, like the beat of a great heart to his ears. Or perhaps it was still the horses gathering speed. On either hand came a clash of metal, as if a cartload of pots were being shaken, on the hillsides. But the thunder throbbed and beat like his heart in his ears.
Owl flew past his vision and flew on past the ba
Let them see the ba
Tristen pulled white light out of that gray place and sent it around himself, around Uwen and Cefwyn and Idrys. It spread to the standard-bearers, and snaked up the poles and spread about the edges of the standards and across their surface, white and red and gold blazing bright against the dimmed world.
—Ah, the Wind said. The Dragon with the Sihhé Star—there was once a sight, when the Marhanen and the Sihhé king went to war. And here we are again. The voice filled his ears. Dust, coming past the visor, stung his eyes to tears, and be could not reach them to clear them. He could only blink.
Where is vengeance for Elwynym, Sihhé’ prince? Mauryl never called you to save the Marhanen. Mauryl never called you, my prince, to kiss the hand of traitors. They should tremble at the sight of you!
Closer and closer. He saw the shields of opposing riders—saw, through the gloom, the forest of lances lower, and lowered his own against them.
—Sihhé king, the Wind wailed, you are of the west. I shall serve you, as Mauryl should have served you. Stay, do you want them? I shall make these creatures of yours lords of the earth. I shall make each of them a king, and they will live a thousand years. I can do that for you.
Only keep riding. Keep doing as you are! You are doing my bidding, in all you do and have ever done. You’re mine, now. Mauryl’s lost you.
Keep coming!—Keep coming ....
The light had dimmed so they scarcely showed the shields ahead of them—but the ba
“Tristen!” he heard Cefwyn shout at him, and he caught breath into a body grown stiff in a cold instant, sense into wits gone wandering in the wail of the wind.
“Its name is Hasufin!” he shouted, stripping it of all mystery. “It is a liar, Cefwyn! It is still telling me lies!”
“The ba
Cefwyn cried. “There is Aséyneddin! Let us go and take it from him!”
—Asdyneddin, the Wind said, would welcome his true King, the Sihhé king he and his fathers before him have awaited. This man would fall on his knees at your feet. I can assure that will happen. Be that King.
You can stop this. No one need die.
Then do so! he thought of saying; but he recalled the lord Regent’s warning never to begin to listen, and never to begin to answer.
—I do not want to fight you, the Wind said, I do not, my mistaught lord of the Sihhé. So I shall not. Come to me when you’re done with him. I’ll wait.
Aséyneddin’s ba
But at the same moment a new presence impinged on his awareness, distant, desperate, and mortal, against which Hasufin strove—a distraction to him it was possible to feel as he felt the outlines of Hasufin’s power unfurl within the woods, a trap for any Man who rode too far.
Pelumer, he thought. It was Pelumer, fighting for escape, in the edge of Marna.
An enemy shield was coming toward him, a Griffin blazing white. He centered his lance. A howl went up from the oncoming ranks of the Elwynim, metal lit by the illusory glamor he had sent over them. Dys’ hindquarters bunched and drove with all his force. Uwen was on his left. Cefwyn was on his right as a lance raked off his shield and line met line with a thunder-crack and a shock that went up his arm.
His lance bent and exploded in splinters, a lance grated off his shield, and the riderless horse passed him as he cast the stump aside. He shielded off a blow from the following rank and ripped his sword from its leather bindings.
Guelen blades, Guelen maces hammered about him as lighter horses and lighter-armed riders and foot now struck behind the heavy cavalry, Elwynim riders that had not carried through attempted retreat and became involved in a dark mass of their own Elwynim infantry bristling with weapons and trying to defend against the Guelen horse.
He sent Dys into the midst of foot soldiers, drew the light of illusion about him and all the riders near him, harmless show—but it terrified men before him, and ranks broke.
Riders followed him ... he was aware of it as he knew the whereabouts of Lanfarnesse so far lost and of the Amefin troops entering the fray behind them. Dys trampled men trying to bring pikes to bear, and never stopped, his breath coming hard, his huge shod hooves making nothing of living or dead, brush or uneven ground. Tristen laid about him with the sword, cut down men as he found them, making a path, sending Dys this way and that, to right or to left of oncoming enemies and threatening steel. His sword burned with white fire as it swung. Dys shone as if a white light were on them. The silver wrap glittered on the sword and left ghosts before his eyes.
Then they reached an astonishing vacancy in the noontime dark, confronting nothing but forest: they had come through the Elwynim’s lines, and he reined Dys about to ride at the faces of men trying to flee-Aséyneddin’s center had split in two, and riderless horses were bolting through the confusion, trampling light-armed men ru