Sanglant put spur to Fest. The gelding pressed eagerly onto the field. The sun stood high over all, barricaded on all sides by a glowering wall of dark clouds. The valley lay in brightness, and the forest beyond, in shadow.
Answering trumpets came from the siege works, which were well constructed against a charge. Pickets of stout, sharpened poles and half-dug trenches guarded the bulwarks, with Sabella’s and Conrad’s banners stationed deep within. There were but two flaws. They had anchored their right flank upon the steep northern slopes but had not yet set defenses there, perhaps thinking the slope itself sufficient to reject a charge. Some trenches were partially excavated to their rear, but nothing was complete. The other flaw in Conrad’s defense was, of course, that he had to defend from both front and behind.
A hundred strides off, Sanglant wheeled his force to the left and made for the slope. Some archers loosed arrows in vain. Others crawled through their own defenses so they might close the range against the riders that charged across their front. Even as they did so, infantry advanced at double time out of the gates of Kassel, shields held high and their own archers behind, letting fly as they closed the range. The Varren archers who had come out before the lines scrambled back to their defenses. A few fell.
Where the Varren line gave way to hill, Sanglant leaped the farthest and most shallow trench. A pair of archers rose to meet him. He thrust the first through the right eye even as that man tried to nock a new arrow. The other man stumbled as he staggered back. As Sanglant passed, lifting his arm and twisting up to free the lance, he kicked the second archer in the throat. He reset his lance, but it was hard work. The chase, the thunder of hooves around him as his troop smashed into the Varren flank, the first screams, that sharp stone scent that gave him flashes of vision of Bloodheart’s hall in Gent, all these roused the fury that drove him in battle. He sucked it down. He was regnant. He was captain. The one who led. He pushed on as his riders scythed the ground behind him. They must push forward, no respite for those in front and no time to slay those left behind. To his right, he glimpsed Liutgard’s cavalry pressing the line on either side of Kassel’s milites as they pushed and pushed. They had to cut through the lines and reach the Hellweg at the base of the ramp so that any of Theophanu’s troops who were riding in from the Hellweg would have a clear descent into the fray.
Wind churned the heavens. A battlement of black clouds rose in a ring around them. Waiting outside the hall, Hanna shuddered as a cold rain drove over her, but a moment later the shower ceased and only the towering thunderheads warned of the looming storm. The sun shone above the valley of Kassel, yet nowhere else.
“Sorcery!” the Saony guards whispered.
She wiped rain from her eyes. Theophanu’s army was in tumult, units trotting out in all directions. The main force of infantry moved toward the ridge slope where, moments before, ax-men had toppled a dozen trees. Six men waved cloth banners where the view opened, trying to alert those trapped with Kassel. Their faces were caught in the sun, but their backs were still in shadow.
“Eagle!” Theophanu emerged from the hall, armed and fit for battle. A captain walked beside her, carrying her helmet. “Eagle, make ready. Kinship demands we warn Conrad and Sabella of the Eika. We must join to negotiate against a greater threat. You’ll be brought a fresh horse.”
“And ride into the battle, Your Highness?”
“If need be. You will ride along the Hellweg and gain herald’s entry into Conrad’s camp where they’ve set a barrier across the road, at the top of the ramp. If you cannot reach Conrad or Sabella, then ride to Kassel’s gates. I will rally my forces at the gates of the town if they refuse to listen to reason.”
Hanna could scarcely breathe, thinking of the Eika scout she had seen in the forest. Why had he let her pass? Would the Varren troops recognize and respect her Eagle’s badge and cloak? But she nodded, shucking her doubts and fears aside because that was what an Eagle had to do. “I am ready.”
A horse was led up and the reins given to her. She mounted. It was a short ride to the Hellweg, and the descent of the road along a shallower rise briefly gave her a clear view back the way she had come.
From the top of the hill, where the banner flapped in the morning air, the trumpeter called and Theophanu’s advance began. Lines of infantry descended the hillsides, breaking and re-forming around trees and outcrops of rock. Most of the cavalry led their horses down the slope, though Theophanu and her commanders rode, standing above the rest.
Hanna heard, from the direction of Kassel, an answering shout of horns, followed by the blare and call out of the Varren camp. She pressed her mount—a calm mare, thank God—and raced down the road and into the forest with braids flying and her heart galloping in time to the staccato of hooves: A bronze face stared at her from the trees, but she did not look closely into the dense foliage. Better not to know. At any instant she expected a cold arrow to pierce her flesh, but none came.
The feeling that swelled in his heart was the one that humankind called “amusement.” For how many winters had he gathered his forces, forged alliances, destroyed his enemies the tree priests, and studied the ways of the enemies of the Eika? Never had it occurred to him that they would be so dedicated to their own destruction, their own petty quest for power, that they would burn their own great hall even as he battered upon their door. Their scouts knew of his army, yet still they commenced their civil war, clan brother against clan brother.
His troops had marched down along and beside the road called by its builders the Clear Way, for its width and straightness. He had learned that it was built upon an ancient road engineered by the Dariyans, and it was therefore the quickest and easiest route from Autun to Quedlinhame. Hearing the start of the battle, he had backed his forces into the trees. Cavalry was always at a disadvantage within the forest.
“Last Son,” he called. “We will advance to the rise where the road emerges out of the forest. There, it ramps down into the valley. In that place they have set a barrier across the road. We’ll take that ground, and from the height we will watch. Do not throw down the banner that flies in that entrenchment. Let them believe their own people still control the barricade.”
“Lord Stronghand! A rider approaches along the road, out of the camp of the Wendish army!”
He saw her, and he knew her, because he had dreamed her once—the only person in all of humankind whose dream he had ever snared besides Alain. She was one of the messengers called Eagles, but in all other ways a mystery to him, except for her pale hair so white that it might have belonged on any good Eika brother.
“Let her pass,” he said.
He smelled the sweat of her fear, and he admired the stoic courage that had propelled her onto a road she must know was overrun by her enemy. She galloped past. The sound of her passage faded. He lifted his banner and tapped it three times on the earth, that infinitesimal tremor enough to alert his brothers, whose rock-born heritage gave them a keen sensitivity to any whisper in the earth.
His force was mixed with various groups of human allies, most of them former slaves and poor folk out of Alba and the coastal reaches of Salia. Well trained and finely honed, eager for glory and the fruits of victory, they moved out. Scouts ran up in stages to report that there was minimal defense at the barricade because the soldiers stationed there were peeling back to meet the double-pronged attack of the Wendish host.
He looked back to see the wagon of the shaman come into view, rattling along the stone of a road meant for foot and horse traffic, not for wheels. The horses were skittish. The one-handed servant had dismounted to lead them, leaving the cleric to cling to the driver’s seat. Strange that it should all fall into his hands so easily.
As this wing of his army surged forward, he called Last Son to his side and gave the standard into his keeping. Together, they advanced.
The barricade had been thrown across the road where it came out of the forest. Just beyond the barricade, the ridgeline sloped sharply down, and here the famous Dariyan ramp descended into the valley.
o;And ride into the battle, Your Highness?”
“If need be. You will ride along the Hellweg and gain herald’s entry into Conrad’s camp where they’ve set a barrier across the road, at the top of the ramp. If you cannot reach Conrad or Sabella, then ride to Kassel’s gates. I will rally my forces at the gates of the town if they refuse to listen to reason.”
Hanna could scarcely breathe, thinking of the Eika scout she had seen in the forest. Why had he let her pass? Would the Varren troops recognize and respect her Eagle’s badge and cloak? But she nodded, shucking her doubts and fears aside because that was what an Eagle had to do. “I am ready.”
A horse was led up and the reins given to her. She mounted. It was a short ride to the Hellweg, and the descent of the road along a shallower rise briefly gave her a clear view back the way she had come.
From the top of the hill, where the banner flapped in the morning air, the trumpeter called and Theophanu’s advance began. Lines of infantry descended the hillsides, breaking and re-forming around trees and outcrops of rock. Most of the cavalry led their horses down the slope, though Theophanu and her commanders rode, standing above the rest.