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"Damn!" Uwen said on the heels of the lightning strike. "That were close!"
"Do you hear it?" Tristen asked him, and then thought, foolishly, no, of course not. Crissand and Cevulirn might have heard the Wind speak. But Uwen did not. The army stood in ignorance, blind to its real danger, its confidence shaken by the lightning.
One rider came up from the ranks in haste: Aeself drew his frantic horse to a halt and pointed to the horizon ahead.
"Ilefínian!" Aeself said. "Just beyond the hill, my lord! The end of the ridge!"
"Then move ahead!" Tristen said, for when he ventured to know what Aeself said was there, he felt the truth of the threat in the gray space, a tightly warded opposition, so wrapped about with magic it was hard to see at all as that near him. He set Dys in motion, and reached out in the gray space for Crissand and Cevulirn both, settling his own protection on the likeliest targets of hostile magic. Such as they knew how, they warded him, and Uwen, too, while Owl lofted himself again and flew outward and back, a long gliding passage that ended on Tristen's outreaching hand as they crested the hill.
Here the stony ridge ended in a long, forest-girt plain, and a last outrider of that ridge, a hill rose within the valley. On that hill, towers and town walls rose from skirts of winter-bare pasturage and fields.
Lightning sheeted across the sky, a wall of brilliant light, west to east, and against it that distant fortress stood clearly to be seen, above its strong town walls. It was a Place as Ynefel was a Place, ancient and deep-rooted, and in the fire across the heavens it unveiled itself in all its power. Tristen felt it and shivered in the crash of thunder.
Far to the south, the Lady Regent herself knew they had come to her capital.
To the west, Efanor, at his prayers, knew.
And in the ranks, the Elwynim behind them knew, and raised a shout that drowned the thunder.
"The king!" someone cried, and other voices shouted it: "The High King and Elwynor!"
But others shouted, " Lord Sihhë!"
And clearer to him than all the voices was a sense of foreboding presence beyond the ridge that pointed like a spearhead toward Ilefínian, the knowledge of lives at risk the moment Men and horses set themselves in motion.
Cefwyn was in danger, Tristen thought in anguish. He had brought his army where he wished, to the end of the ridge, and in sudden clarity he knew Cefwyn was on the other side, he knew the enemy lay in wait, where he could come at them from behind, but he could not turn aside. Cefwyn was in reach of Tasmôrden's forces, in peril from his own men… but worse—he was within reach of Ilefínian, where the danger was wrapped not in iron edges, but in an ageless, malevolent will.
"It has to fall!" he shouted to those nearest, to Uwen and Crissand and Cevulirn, and pointed toward the fortress on its hill. "We ca
The carts went into place, a line between the rocks and the woods, men hauling gear off the carts in feverish haste—casting anxious looks at the heavens, for a pall of cloud flowed from over the ridge, west to east, and all across the horizon what had seemed hazed blue sky proved to be gray. Lightning raced across the heavens and thunder boomed from off the heights, and now men looked up from their work in fear.
"Form the line!" Cefwyn ordered his forces as lightning cast white light over all of them, once, twice, thrice. "Form the line, Ylesuin! We've beaten wizards before! Forward, the ba
He let Kanwys have rein, wary of the woods that fringed the road on the right… on the right, where shields were on the left. Those woods slanted away rapidly toward the right as he moved past the trees into meadow, and there the hill arched away downward, while on the left the ridge descended with it in a tumble of rocks the size of peasant huts. He knew his maps: this was the dizzyingly long, broad downslope which both his grandfather's maps and Ninévrisë's warning had told him was a long, long highland… but gods! All the subtle rise of the land over two days came downhill at once, grassland pasturage spread out for a long, long, uninterrupted descent to the cultivated plain. The view captured the eye, distracted the wits, suddenly beset with the scale of that descent, while the sky flickered with no natural storm.
But the Dragon Guard advanced, men who had stood before worse than this. The Prince's Guard moved, and so did Ryssand and Nelefreissan and Murandys, earliest ready, a wall of iron to shield men still preparing.
Were it not for the courage of the scout the army would have had no warning until an assault disorganized their line of march. "Bear east!" Cefwyn said. "Dragons! Ryssand! Hold center! Panys to the right! Bring the blackguards out in the open!"
Messengers sped and ba
Irregulars, the Saendal, armed with axes and pikes and bows, and the force with which they charged was considerable even across the slope and on the uneven ground. Brigands, hirelings, hill bandits who regarded no law but gold, hire, and murder… with them Murandys' stolid peasant infantry proved of some use, standing for a first taste of battle largely because they did not regard the trumpet signal that called them back, and for a moment there was a sharp contest, before some of Maudyn's forming right wing alike began to give backwards, disengaging in the distance across the hill.
"Hold fast!" Cefwyn shouted, chafing to have the rest of the heavy horse move up from behind. He chosen to engage the brigands' ambush quickly on this eastward fringe of woods, to keep the enemy from harrying their flank. Two of his allies, Sulriggan and Osanan, were still behind the lines, equipping their heavy horse to bring them forward, please the gods, at some convenient time: damn Sulriggan's lackluster drills!
Ryssand, however, had moved with dispatch, and so had Murandys, spreading their forces behind the immediate deployment of the red-coated Dragon Guard and the company of light horse who went at the ready.
And granted Ryssand's naive peasants who had gotten in the way of the Guard and trammeled up their advance, those peasants still had made a line, a line they must hold long enough for the heavy horse to set itself in order. He was sure now Tasmôrden's main force lay closer than that streamside he had pla
Traps were more than possible.
"Guelens, Maudyn, damn it, Guelen Guard!—Tell him so, boy! Ride!"
If Ryssand's and Murandys' peasant farmers yielded more ground on the flank, where they had crowded together, he had to trust the Guelens, the city troops among them, would account the skirmish with the Saendal their sort of brawl. And as he shouted the order another messenger of the Guard scrambled to horse and was off behind the confused wing to reach Lord Maudyn.
The embattled Dragons, too, under Gwywyn, bore toward the tangle of the peasant line, not where he wanted them situated, for this attack he was certain was meant to create as much confusion as it could, pouring downhill at the back of his right wing if he had formed early, at very least keeping him from coming onto that slope unreported to the enemy.
"Majesty!" Now, now, there was a general movement of Sulrig-gan's heavy horse from out of that screen of carts and forest. Cefwyn settled his shield and stilled Kanwy with his knees, putting him to this side and the other to settle his restless forward impulse. That would be the difficulty, with all the men: the impulse to charge downhill. Discipline; discipline: a peasant army could not restrain itself; veterans could scarcely restrain themselves when tumult surrounded them and deafened them to signals.