You are dead, Asbidag, Drada decided. After the battle, I will kill you.
The Aenir line assembled in the mouth of the pass, shield-straps being tightened, sword hands rubbed in dust for better grip. Twenty-five thousand men peered at the rock-strewn slopes and the towering mountain walls beyond. There was no enemy in sight.
The war-horns of the Aenir sounded and the armour-clad mass began to move slowly forward, Drada and Tostig together at the centre, Asbidag’s other sons to the left and right of them. Asbidag himself stayed at the mouth of the pass surrounded by his forty huscarles. Morgase stood beside him, her eyes bright, her heart hammering as she waited for the killing to begin.
The Aenir army moved on warily, with shields held high, scanning the slopes. Ahead of them the pass narrowed and still there was no sign of the enemy …
Suddenly the Folly was alive with noise as the Farlain and the Pallides moved into sight to man the narrow centre. A great roar went up from the Aenir as they surged forward, beating shields with their sword-blades. On either side of them rose archers from the Dunilds and the Loda. Goose-feathered shafts filled the air. The screams of wounded men rose above the war-cries and now the clans roared out their own battle-cry which echoed in the mountains, booming and growing.
Dark clouds of hissing death flashed into the Aenir horde in a series of withering volleys. Some warriors broke from the ranks to charge the archers, but these were cut down by scores of shafts. The charge slowed, but did not stop.
At the front of the Aenir line the giant Orsa felt the baresark rage upon him. Hurling aside his shield, he raced ahead of his men bellowing his anger and swinging his broadsword above his head. An arrow sliced into his thigh but he ignored it.
Lennox leaped from the line to meet him, holding a long-handled mace of lead and iron. He too threw aside his shield as Orsa ran forward slashing his blade towards the clansman’s head. Lennox made no move to avoid the blow but lashed the mace into the blade, smashing it to shards. Orsa crashed into him and both men fell to the ground, Orsa’s hands closing about Lennox’s throat. Releasing the mace, Lennox reached up to cup his hand under Orsa’s chin; then punching his arm forward, he snapped the Aenir’s head back, tearing the man’s grip from his neck. Rolling, Lennox came up with the mace and delivered a terrible blow to Orsa’s skull, crushing the bones to shards and powder.
With scant seconds to spare Lennox rejoined the line, standing beside his father Leofas and the Pallides War Lord Maggrig. The front line of the Aenir bore down on the waiting clans. Maggrig lifted his sword, grinned at Intosh, then screamed the battle-cry of the Pallides.
‘Cut! Cut! Cut!”
The chant was taken up and the clans surged into the charging Aenir. After four years of war in the lowlands the Aenir believed they were the finest fighters under the sky, but never had they met the fierce-eyed, blood-hungry wolves of the mountains. Now they learned the terrible truth, and as the blades of the clans slashed and cut their first line to shreds, the charge faltered.
Maggrig powered his way into the Aenir ranks, cleaving and killing, an awful fury upon him. Many were the Pallides dead whose faces he would never forget, whose souls hungered for vengeance. The War Lord forgot the plan to hold the centre and forged ever deeper into the enemy. Intosh and the Pallides had no choice but to follow him.
Leofas gutted one warrior and parried a blow from a second, back-handing his shield into the man’s face. Lennox aided him, braining the man with his mace.
‘Sound the horn!’ yelled Leofas. ‘Maggrig’s gone mad!’
Lennox stepped back from the fray, allowing Farlain warriors to shield him from the enemy. Lifting his war-horn to his lips, he blew three sharp blasts. The sound filtered through Maggrig’s rage and he slowed in his attack, allowing the Pallides to form around him. The weight of the Aenir numbers was beginning to tell and the clans were pushed back, inch by murderous inch.