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What were the soarers doing?
Fabrytal rode forward toward Mykel. Fifteenth Company, mounted and ready,
sir.
Thirteenth Company ...
Seventeenth Company ...
The three undercaptains looked at Mykel.
Sir? Loryalt finally asked. Is that the Reillies?
No. Mykel shook his head. It s the ancients.
The three officers exchanged glances.
A roaring, rushing sound filled the air, coming from the south and east. Mykel
turned the roan toward the bluffs overlooking the river. He could sense water,
knew it was crashing downstream, but his mouth still dropped open when spray
spewed up the side of the bluffs to the south, turning into a thick fog. Even
from half a vingt away, Mykel could feel that the water was warm even hot.
Sir! shouted Fabrytal. Here they come.
Mykel turned the roan. The river would have to wait.
A mass of mounts and men rode down the road, and then rode away from it, aimed
directly at the knolls behind which the Cadmians waited.
Battalion forward. Re-form just below the top! Staggered firing lines!
Battalion forward ...
After initially riding forward of the battalion, Mykel turned back and reined
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up on the crest of the knoll, letting the Cadmians ride past him. The three
companies slipped into the positions Mykel had planned.
By that time, the Reillies were less than a half vingt to the west. There was
no strategy, no flanking maneuvering, no attempt at a cross fire just a swarm
of hill riders with green-painted faces riding full speed toward the Cadmians.
Mykel waited until the foremost of the hill riders were less than a hundred
yards away. Open fire! Fire at will! He glanced to the south in the
direction of the Vedra. A thick fog rose over the river, and some of it had
begun to roll northward. The line of fog was high enough to be seen above the
tops of the trees and the bluffs, and followed the course of the river.
He forced his concentration back to the flat below and to the east of the
knoll.
Already, scores of Reillies were dead and dying, and yet the flow of riders
went over and around the fallen.
From their slight elevation on the upper section of the knoll, the Cadmians
continued to fire down on the flat. Occasionally, Mykel could feel a Cadmian
fall, but few of the Reillies and Squawts were using rifles. Most were
carrying their overlarge blades. Some of the blades dripped green as well.
Mykel glanced to the northwest, catching sight of maroon and gray
uniforms Fourteenth Company riding toward the Reillies and Squawts. Even as
the shots from Culeyt s men began to rip into the rear of the attackers, not a
one turned. All of them pressed forward.
The charge had begun to slacken, if less than fifty yards from the base of the
knoll, as more and more riders were slowed by fallen riders and mounts.
Then, a group of close to fifty riders coalesced at the base of the knoll,
right in the center, and redoubled their efforts, riding straight uphill
toward Fifteenth Company and Mykel.
Fire! At the center! ordered Fabrytal, standing in the stirrups at the front
of the company.
Seeing the undercaptain so openly ordering his company, Mykel winced.
The concentrated fire from Fifteenth Company reduced the number of riders in
the oncoming advance charge to less than half those who had started up the
slope, but there were still fifteen or twenty who neared the front line more
than forty yards ahead of the main body.
Fabrytal s sabre flashed once, twice, perhaps again before he was surrounded.
The first lines of Fifteenth Company struck back, and the rest of the Reillies
went down, one way or another.
Dress those lines! Senior Squad Leader Chyndylt s voice penetrated the
chaos, and Fifteenth Company responded.
While the continued fire from Third Battalion had taken its toll on the
attackers, they still rode forward.
Mykel calculated the distances and the speeds, noting how the attackers were
bunched in the middle, then called out his own orders, boosting them with his
Talent. Fifteenth Company! Rifles away! To sabre! To sabre! Seventeenth
Company! Thirteenth Company! Keep firing! To offer the example to Fifteenth
Company, he raised his own sabre, if left-handed. After a moment, he shouted,
Talent amplifying it, Fifteenth Company! Charge!
Charge! echoed Chyndylt.
Clearly, the Reillies had not expected the Cadmians, with their smaller
sabres, to charge, but those smaller sabres could be and were far more deadly
in confined quarters, with riders and mounts pressing on all sides.
The Reillie and Squawt riders broke off, despite shouts and orders from
somewhere.
Fifteenth Company! Withdraw and re-form! Withdraw and re-form!
Mykel was relieved to see that most of the company did ride back up the slope,
already littered with bodies.
From the west, Fourteenth Company continued to rake the Reillies with rifle
fire, but the warleaders or priests in the front seemed ignorant of or
indifferent to those losses as the much diminished mass of hill riders
regrouped into a rough series of lines and once more charged toward the bulk
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of Third Battalion.
Another concentration of Reillie riders formed a wedge aimed at Mykel. In
between the grunts, the screams of men and mounts, and the continuing rifle
fire from Fourteenth Company, he could hear the shouts of the attackers.
To the priest-killer...
ForKladyl!
At those words, Mykel did his best to gather and strengthen his Talent shields
around him, but he remained behind the center of Fifteenth Company.
From beyond the swirl of attackers and Cadmians below him, Mykel could sense a
focus of Talent somehow being directed at him, and he raised his sabre, if
left-handed, trying to infuse it with what Talent he could. As he did, a line
of greenish flame arced toward him, a crossbow bolt coated in Talent.
Amber-green flared before Mykel, and he rocked slightly in the saddle at the
impact of bolt and sabre. His eyes still watering from the last Talent impact,
he tried to get a clearer view of the battle beside and below him.
Thirteenth and Seventeenth Companies remained on the fringes of the attack,
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