Wizardborn (31 page)

“Get back in line,” Borenson growled. “Don't be afraid of them. Be afraid of me!” He slapped her ears with the reins and tried to work her toward the reavers, but she had endowments of her own. It was hard work. Reluctantly she followed the cavalry.

Myrrima had retrieved his ring mail, helm, and warhammer from Carris. With only one endowment of brawn, the weight dragged him.

He reached Skalbairn's war band. It was traveling light
and fast. Most of the knights already held lances, but a hundred wains carried spares.

Gaborn rode up to get a lance. Borenson bent as a squire passed him one too. The weapon was a heavy war lance, perhaps eighty-five pounds. He inspected its iron tip, sharpened to pierce the reaver's hide. The shaft was polished and oiled, to speed its entry. Three recessed iron rings bound the ash at equal distances, to keep the wood from splitting.

Borenson hefted his lance, felt his mouth going dry. With so few endowments, it would be tough to keep the lance steady.

He glanced up and down the battle lines, saw some lords take two lances, one in each hand. They would plant one in the ground before the charge, return to make a second charge quickly. A week ago, he'd have done the same.

He saw a few knights reach for wine flasks. In the north-lands, men drank wine mingled with borage to lend them courage. Borenson thought it a coward's act.

But there was little idle chatter, little boasting, the kind of thing that one hears from unseasoned lads out on their first charge. These men had fought at Carris. They'd already pounded into the reavers' lines again and again, and lived to tell about it. That was a boast that damned few men could make.

Gaborn's heralds sounded the charge, and Gaborn spurred his mount, leading the way. The cavalry was off. By now the reavers sluggishly loped nearly a mile ahead.

Gaborn circumvented their flank, taking his men to the west. As they crossed the reavers' path, it looked like a shallow trench.

The reavers had beaten this track on the way north, compacting the soil to a depth of four or five feet compared to the surrounding terrain. There were no trees in that furrow, no bushes or rocks. Everything was pulverized.

Borenson imagined that in years to come, the reavers' trail would fill with rainwater, frogs, and fish. Generations from now, people might stand in the shallows in the summer and still find the clear footprint of a reaver.

As his mount galloped along, he listened to the cadence of its hooves, imagined his heart beating in rhythm with it.

Gaborn led them west of the horde, so that the reavers moved along to Borenson's left, but Gaborn kept half a mile downwind from the monsters.

Borenson watched them intently, in case they turned to attack—huge gray beasts, corded muscles rippling beneath flesh so dense it almost seemed to be bone.

To Borenson's surprise, Gaborn did not order the charge immediately.

Myrrima rode up beside Borenson. She didn't speak. She merely held her bow, arrow nocked.

They rode along, tense, poised to attack. Borenson's palm grew sweaty on his warlance.

A pair of badgers, apparently disturbed by the trembling ground, came up out of their dens and sat staring toward the reavers.

The reavers loped ahead in a rocking motion, heads rising, and then abdomens. Their crystalline teeth flashed in the morning sun. Their huge forepaws were large enough to rip a horse in two.

Here and there, deep in the horde, Borenson spotted fiery runes branded into a scarlet sorceress. He looked up and down the length of the reavers' lines. The sorceresses kept themselves hidden.

The reavers were a wall of flesh, far more impressive than any herd of elephants. Borenson found his blood thrumming through his veins. He'd often imagined lancing reavers as a child, but always he'd envisioned them in ones and twos. Never in his wildest fantasies could he have imagined this.

Sir Hoswell rode up beside them. The small man with his dark eyes and enormous moustache reminded Borenson of an otter.

He smiled at Myrrima. “Don't worry yourself. Killing reavers isn't so hard. Just think of them as a target—a big target. Aim for the sweet triangle. Or if they rise up on their hind legs, shoot between the abdominal plates. Other
than that, don't shoot at all. You'll never get the angle to hit the soft spot under their palate.”

Myrrima did not answer.

Up and down the line, men began to make jests. Someone shouted, “Has anyone seen a runt in the horde? Sir Sedrick wants to battle it.”

A knight rejoined, “There's no runts, but I saw a sickly one dragging its butt on the ground!”

“I'll give a silver hawk,” another lord cried out, “to any man who will catch a gree between his teeth and swallow it whole.”

Tradition held that a knight should face death with boldness and a good humor.

But Borenson was in no mood for it today. He could not understand why Gaborn waited to charge. They rode on thus for nearly ten minutes.

The reavers kicked up a cloud of dust a hundred yards high as they slowly loped across the plains, and all of it was drifting west, right into the knights' faces. Soon, the dirt powdered their armor and their hair, clogged their throats. It would take hours to clean it out of Borenson's ring mail.

Borenson could see every reason to speed the attack before the day and the reavers warmed up. The fields were clear, the ground dry and even, with hardly a rock or a shrub. There was no reason for Gaborn to hesitate, no reason that a trained veteran could see.

But Gaborn was the Earth King, and saw things that others could not.

After a bit, a message came down the line. Warriors ahead of Borenson said, “The Earth King warns us not to outpace him, to charge when he does. Make no battle cry, blow no horns. Ranks three deep!”

The battle line spread out, so that each knight put ten yards between himself and his neighbor. Borenson positioned himself to be in the front rank.

Then he waited, and waited. His mare quit fighting him. Sometime during all of this, she seemed to find her courage.

Borenson never saw a signal, never heard an order to charge. Instead, he suddenly became aware that the lords began turning their mounts toward the reavers' lines. Gaborn led the way by a dozen yards.

Gaborn kept his left hand raised, so that none would outpace him. He began trotting his horse toward the reavers. For their part, the reavers did not react. The huge monsters trod across the grasslands, apparently unaware of the impending attack.

At a thousand yards, Gaborn turned his mount a bit, began racing northeast toward the reavers' lines at a forty-five degree angle. He spurred his horse into a canter, and dropped his lance into a couched position. All the Rune-lords along the front followed his lead.

Borenson did likewise. The mare surprised him. She ran with an especially fluid gait, and he found it easy to keep the lance tip from bouncing.

He watched the reaver horde, prepared for the moment when they would turn to confront him.

At five hundred yards, Gaborn spurred his charger into a gallop. Borenson's mount seemed to leap beneath him, and the ground became a blur beneath her hooves. All up and down the line, a few chargers began to outpace the rest.

To Borenson's surprise, the piebald mare did the same. She did indeed seem to have found her heart, and raced now toward the reavers.

Borenson began to search for his target. The rumbling of the reavers' footsteps sounded far louder than the hooves of the charging horses. The rumbling worked into a man's bones. Gree whipped overhead, squeaking. The reavers grew closer in his field of view, yet still the eyeless heads did not swivel his way, nor did the reavers wave the philia along their necks and jaws as they did when disturbed.

He spotted a flash of opal deep in the horde, a scarlet sorceress. But there was no way he could get to her. Instead he picked a reaver in the front rank, lowered his lance.

Time seemed to freeze as his charger raced on. He concentrated
on the cadence of her hooves, on the little things all around him. With only one endowment of brawn to help, the heavy lance was a clumsy weapon, but he was a skilled knight. He marveled at how butterflies and grasshoppers still flew up from his horse's path.

He tried to steady himself. For one instant the madness of what he sought to do struck him. If he missed his target on a reaver, if he fell from his horse and botched this in any of a hundred ways, he'd most likely end up dead.

He fought back a maniacal upwelling of terror, and began to chuckle.

At three hundred yards the reavers had not sensed the attack. At a hundred and fifty yards, some of them stumbled and began to swivel their heads.

But his mare was charging so fast that they had only a second or two to respond.

His reaver faltered, skidded to a halt, throwing up a cloud of dust. It was a huge blade-bearer that bore a glory hammer in its right paw.

The black iron hammer had a handle twenty feet long, and a head that weighed as much as a horse. A bit of human hide was tied near the base of the handle. A ballista bolt had pierced the reaver's back, and stuck there still.

Up and down the lines, Borenson could hear the clash of metal against bone, the shouts of men, the screams of horses, the roaring of reavers.

His own reaver opened its mouth and raised its weapon as he approached.

Ease the tip in, he thought.

He pulled the tip of his lance up, adjusting for the change in angle, as his charger galloped. The monster loomed overhead.

Borenson began to rein his mount in, pull hard to the left. Then he was practically under the reaver, could see every crease in its warty gray hide. Its teeth flashed above him.

He guided the lance tip into the monster's sweet triangle, felt it pierce the dense cartilage there. He let the weight of
the lance carry it home, made his release. The lance plunged into the beast's head.

The reaver hissed and swung its glory hammer—more in a spasm than an actual blow.

Borenson ducked violently, nearly colliding with the weapon as the hammer whooshed overhead.

Suddenly a second reaver spurred up the embankment. Borenson's mare screamed and skidded, lost her footing and rolled, throwing him from the saddle.

For a brief second, he was in the air, the smell of dirt thick in his nostrils, a reaver roaring as it filled his vision.

Then he slammed into the ground. The air came out of him in a huff, and he seemed to ache everywhere at once. He knew he had to get up, to move, and he reached out for the ground and pushed with his hands.

He thought dully that he should grab his warhammer, put up a manly fight at the very least.

But he was a warrior of unfortunate proportion. Every muscle seemed to go to jelly, and he couldn't decide which way was up.

He heard the reaver, rolled onto his back to face it.

The reaver charged, towering over him, its teeth flashing in the sun, philia writhing like snakes. It roared and raised its massive paws.

A bow twanged. An arrow blurred, disappeared into the reaver's skull.

He looked toward the source. Myrrima hunched not ten feet behind him.

The reaver lurched backward, as if seeking to escape. Her bow twanged again and the monster's legs went out from under it.

There was a hissing as a third reaver came in from the north. He saw the flash of glowing runes on its gray hide. A smell came before it in a thin gray haze, a stench that blinded Borenson and set his ears to buzzing so loudly that he could hear no other sound. His eyes burned as if they were full of acid.

Myrrima whirled as his sight dimmed. She shouted in fury and loosed an arrow.

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