There’s always a lot of confusion during a battle, and this was
probably the biggest battle in history. Our years of planning and
preparation were beginning to pay off. The Angaraks were confused, but
we knew exactly what we were doing and what was going to come next. All
the Angaraks could do was to try to respond.
“Belgarath!” It was Beltira.
“Ad Rak Cthoros is down.”
“Is he dead?”
“Not yet, but he’s working on it. He’s got an Ulgo knife in his
belly.”
“Good. Stay on top of his Murgos. I want them to break and run, if
you can possibly manage it.” I glanced off to the west. The legions
were methodically chopping their way through the Nadraks, and the
Thulls were already fleeing.
“The legions are starting to break through,” I reported to Beltira.
“If you can break the Murgos, Zedar’s going to have to commit his
reserves, and that’s what I’m waiting for.”
I’m probably not the best general in the world, but I had certain
advantages at Vo Mimbre. I was several hundred feet above the battle,
so I could see everything that was going on. I was also in constant
contact with my brothers, so I could exploit anything that happened
down below.
To top it all off, Polgara could keep me advised of everything Kal
Torak and Zedar could come up with to counter what we were doing to
them.
With those advantages, any sergeant could have directed the Battle of
Vo Mimbre. I think that when you get right down to it, we won the
battle at the Imperial War College in Tol Honeth long before our
advance forces even started to march. Planning–that’s all it really
takes. You might want to make a note of that before you declare war on
somebody. I’ve spent centuries trying to pound that notion into the
heads of any number of very thick-skulled Alorns.
The charge of the Mimbrate knights had slowed by now. After the
Malloreans’ initial dismay had passed, their resistance stiffened and
elements of their army had flanked the knights and closed in behind
them.
The tide of that part of the battle was inexorably turning. The
Mimbrates were surrounded now, and their horses were nearing
exhaustion. Their lances had long since been shattered, and they’d
fallen back on their broadswords and battle-axes. Their numbers were
being whittled down gradually, and Mandor had been forced to draw his
men into that circle that usually signals the beginning of what is
romantically called “the last stand.” Arendish poets love to describe
last stands. It gives them the opportunity to extol lavishly
unspeakable bravery and to exaggerate outrageously the exploits of
individual knights. The outcome is almost always the same, however.
The standees ultimately are swarmed under. It makes for exciting
poetry, but from a tactical standpoint, it’s a futile and useless waste
of lives.
“Beldin!” I shouted.
“I need those legions! Now! The Mimbrates are surrounded! If they go
under, you’re going to be neck deep in Malloreans!”
“We’re coming, Belgarath! Keep your feathers on!”
I’ve never fully understood the significance of some of the tactics of
Tolnedran Legions. Quite often it appears to me that their changes of
formation would be more appropriate for a parade ground than a
battlefield.
Cerran had been advancing on a broad front with about forty legions.
He issued a few sharp commands, which were passed on by some
great-voiced sergeants, and his force rapidly coalesced into a solidly
massed spearhead. The Nadraks had been spread out to face a more
generalized advance, and they simply could not respond fast enough to
that sudden change of formation. The legions, their shields
interlocked, advanced at a trot, cutting through the Nadrak lines like
a hot knife slicing through butter. Once they were through the
Nadraks, they came at the Mallorean rear, since the Malloreans had been
concentrating on Mandor’s knights. In a matter of minutes the legions
and the knights had joined forces.
There wasn’t any last stand that day.
To make Kal Torak’s situation even more desperate, the Chereks had
exploited the corridor Cerran had cut through the Nadraks and had
joined with the growing force in the very center of the Mallorean army,
and the Murgo lines were beginning to break on Torak’s left.
At that point Zedar didn’t have any choice but to commit his reserves,
and that’s what I’d been waiting for. I held off for about a quarter
of an hour to give the Angarak reserves enough time to rush down from
their positions just to the north of the main battlefield. I wanted
Torak’s rear only lightly defended, and I also wanted to give Rhodar’s
pike men time to break through the crumbling Murgo lines to link up
with my main force. The death of Ad Rak Cthoros had broken the Murgos’
spirit, and their resistance grew less and less effective. Finally the
Drasnians crashed through, and the Algar cavalry kept the Murgos from
closing ranks behind them.
“All right, Belkira,” I sent out the thought.
“You can join us now.”
Brand sounded a single long note on his horn, and I waited–a little
anxiously, I’ll admit. Then the edge of those woods on the north side
of the plain suddenly began to erupt Rivans, Sendars, and Asturian
archers.
They were coming very fast, and there weren’t any Angarak forces on
that side of the plain to slow them down.
“Father!” Polgara’s voice was a little shrill.
“Torak’s coming out!”
“Of course he is, Pol,” I replied.
“That was the whole idea.” I said it quite calmly, as if I had never
had any doubts at all. That was a pose, of course. I was far enough
up in the sky above the battlefield so that she couldn’t see me–at
least not clearly enough to see my wild triumphant swoops of sheer
exultation. I’m fairly certain that she couldn’t hear any shrill cries
of triumph, either. Our desperate strategy had worked!
Zedar’s reserves had not yet engaged, and after a few moments of
confusion, they turned and tried desperately to run back to defend
their former positions. By then, however, the Asturians were close
enough to intercept them with a solid wall of arrows, and the Rivans
and Sendars were charging down to meet them head on.
Kal Torak’s original strategy had been to crush us between two
armies.
Now the tables had been neatly turned. His army was in the middle, and
mine was coming at him from both sides. The Malloreans were trapped,
the Thulls had run away, and the Murgos and Nadraks were demoralized
and largely out of action. I had him! Then I suddenly knew what I was
supposed to do.
“All right, Pol,” I called to my daughter, “get out of there. It’s
time for you and me to join Brand.”
“What?”
“We’re supposed to be with him during the EVENT.”
“You’ve never told me about that.”
“I didn’t know about it until just now. Don’t dawdle, Polgara. We
don’t want to be late.”
I flew up to the northern edge of the battlefield, settled to earth,
and resumed my own form. That noticeably startled a platoon of
Sendars. I didn’t have time to explain it to them, though, and some
very wild stories have been circulating in Sendaria for the last five
hundred years as a result.
It took me a little while to find Brand, and Polgara had already joined
him by the time I reached them.
“You know what you’re supposed to do?” I asked the Rivan Warder.
“Yes,” he replied.
“And do you know when to do it?”
“I will when the time comes.” The calm, almost indifferent attitude of
the Child of Light–whoever he is–has always sort of unnerved me. I
guess it’s understandable, since he’s totally under the control of the
Necessity, but it seems sort of unnatural to me. Garion’s told me that
he felt much the same way on that dreadful night in Cthol Mishrak when
he and Torak finally met. As I remember it, though, I didn’t feel that
way when Zedar and I had our little get-together up in Morindland. Of
course, I had a certain amount of personal animosity toward Zedar at
the time, and that might have had something to do with it.
Then there was a slight change in Brand’s expression. His calm
indifference faded, and it was replaced by a look of almost inhuman
resolution.
He straightened, and when he spoke, his voice didn’t even sound like
his own, and the language that came out of his mouth was certainly not
in the Rivan idiom.
“In the name of Belar I defy thee, Torak, maimed and accursed,” he
said. His voice didn’t sound all that loud to me, but I was told later
that it was clearly audible inside the walls of Vo Mimbre.
“In the name of Aldur, also,” he went on,
“I cast my despite into thy teeth. Let the bloodshed be abated, and I