The wedge smashed into the Nadir ranks, the larger black war horses cleaving a path through the mass of smaller hill ponies. Hogun’s lance speared a Nadir chest, and snapped as the man catapulted from his pony. Then his sabre slashed into the air; he cut one man from his mount, parried a thrust from the left and back-handed his blade across the throat of the horseman. Elicas screamed a Drenai war cry from his right, his horse rearing, the front hooves caving the chest of a piebald pony who ditched his rider beneath the milling mass of Black Riders.
And then they were through, racing for the distant, fragile safety of Dros Delnoch.
Glancing back, Hogun saw the Nadir reform and canter to the north. There was no pursuit.
‘How many men did we lose?’ he asked Elicas as the troop slowed to a walk.
‘Eleven.’
‘It could have been worse. Who were they?’
Elicas recounted the names. All good men, survivors of many battles.
‘That bastard Orrin will pay for this,’ said Elicas bitterly.
‘Forget it! He was right. More by luck than any judgement, but he was right.’
‘What do you mean “right”? We’ve learned nothing and we’ve lost eleven men,’ said Elicas.
‘We have learned that the Nadir are closer than we believed. Those dog soldiers were Wolfshead tribe. That’s Ulric’s own, they’re his personal guard. He’d never send them that far ahead of his main force. I’d say we now have a month – if we’re lucky.’
‘Damn! I was going to gut the pig and take the consequences.’
‘Tell the men no fires tonight,’ said Hogun.
Well, fat man, he thought, this is your first good decision. May it not be the last.
9
The forest had an ageless beauty that touched Druss’s warrior soul. Enchantment hung in the air. Gnarled oaks became silent sentinels in the silver moonlight, majestic, immortal, unyielding. What cared they for man’s wars? A gentle breeze whispered through the interwoven branches above the old man’s head. A shaft of moonlight bathed a fallen log, granting it momentarily an ethereal splendour. A lone badger, caught in the light, shuffled into the undergrowth.
A raucous song began among the men crowded around the blazing camp fire and Druss cursed softly. Once again the forest was merely forest, the oaks outsize plants. Bowman wandered across to him carrying two leather goblets and a winesack.
‘Finest Ventrian,’ he said. ‘It’ll turn your hair black.’
‘I’m all for that,’ said Druss. The young man filled Druss’s goblet, then his own.
‘You look melancholy, Druss. I thought the prospect of another glorious battle would lighten your heart.’
‘Your men are the worst singers I have heard in twenty years. They’re butchering that song,’ Druss replied, leaning his back against the oak, feeling the wine ease his tension.
‘Why are you going to Delnoch,?’ asked Bowman.
‘The worst were a bunch of captured Sathuli. They just kept chanting the same bloody verse over and over again. We let them go in the end – we thought that if they sang like that when they got home, they’d break the fighting spirit of their tribe in a week.’
‘Now look here, old horse,’ said Bowman, ‘I am a man not easily thrown. Give me an answer – any answer! Lie if you like. But tell me why you travel to Delnoch.’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘It fascinates me. A man with half an eye could see that Delnoch will fall, and you’re a man with enough experience to know the truth when you see it. So why go?’
‘Have you any idea, laddie, how many such lost causes I have been involved in during the past forty or so years?’
‘Precious few,’ said Bowman. ‘Or you would not be here to tell of them.’
‘Not so. How do you decide a battle is lost? Numbers, strategic advantage, positioning? It’s all worth a sparrow’s fart. It comes down to men who are willing. The largest army will founder if its men are less willing to die than to win.’
‘Rhetoric,’ snorted Bowman. ‘Use it at the Dros. The fools there will lap it up.’
‘One man against five, and the one disabled,’ said Druss, holding his temper. ‘Where would your money go?’