David Farland - Wizardborn

“Far-seers?” Gaborn asked.

“There are none in this horde,” Averan assured him.

“About two hundred and fifty yards, then,” Gaborn said, yanking his girth strap tighter. “Can they count our numbers by smell?”

Averan shook her head. “I don’t think so. Our world is so strange to them—so full of new scents. Every man smells so different from another. But if you put a bunch of them together—I don’t think so.”

Gaborn glanced at Skalbairn. “The wind is steady from the east?”

“It has been so all morning,” Skalbairn said.

“Call your troops back,” Gaborn said. “We’ll charge the reavers’ rear flank from downwind. By the time they see us, we’ll be upon them.”

Gaborn leapt on his horse as Skalbairn pulled out his warhorn and blew a short riff, ordering his troops to regroup.

Myrrima had been riding beside Borenson. She dismounted quickly and strung her bow. Her face was pale with fear.

“You can’t kill a reaver with that!” Borenson said.

She looked up at him, anger in her eyes. “Why not? All I have to do is hit it in the sweet triangle hard enough to bury the arrow a yard.”

“Can you even hit a reaver?” Borenson asked. He could tell that she had taken some endowments, but it wasn’t just endowments that made a warrior. One needed skill in battle.

Several men in the crowd guffawed. The angry look Myrrima gave him suggested that if he didn’t shut his mouth soon, she’d nock an arrow and practice on him.

With that, Gaborn spurred his mount forward and his Days rode at his side. Myrrima leapt on her own horse and charged after him, drawing an arrow from the quiver at her back. Binnesman and his wylde rode beside them.

Borenson was gathering up the reins when Iome grabbed his elbow and whispered, “A word to the wise, Sir Borenson. Your wife has many endowments of her own now. How do you think she got them?”

“She said you gave them to her—a gift,” Borenson said.

Iome offered a wry smile. “She earned them with that bow of hers. She saved me and Binnesman and the lives of everyone else at Castle Sylvarresta. She slew the Darkling Glory, and I have paid her twenty forcibles for her service.”

Borenson felt sure that Iome was waiting for his jaw to drop, but he didn’t give her the satisfaction.

Instead he offered in a casual tone, “Such things are only to be expected from a wife of mine.”

Iome smiled. “No doubt she can roast a fine piglet, too.”

Borenson laughed and climbed on his horse, raced downhill. He left only the wagon of forcibles and its guard behind, accompanied by the spidery old Kaifba Feykaald. He passed the Frowth giants that loped steadily over the grass, their mail jangling like the chains to ships’ anchors. They smelled strongly of sour fat and carrion.

The hooves of the horses thundered over the ground through stands of golden alders toward the bright plain. Grasshoppers, fat from eating all summer, leapt away from the horse’s hooves. Yellow butterflies dipped here and there in the grass. Overhead, the sky was a blue bowl, and the wind felt brisk in Borenson’s face.

Borenson wondered about his wife. She hadn’t told him that she’d slain the Darkling Glory. He knew how hard it was to keep one’s mouth shut about such things.

He felt sheepish. He’d killed a reaver mage in the Dunnwood, a small one that wasn’t even so powerful as a scarlet sorceress, and dragged it home for his wife. It seemed a paltry prize now.

In the past few days, the world had turned upside down. He’d lost all his endowments, while she gained as many.

But he’d never imagined when he met her in the market at Bannisferre that Myrrima would someday slay a Darkling Glory, a beast of legend that he’d never even seen. He’d never imagined that she would take a bow and charge into the ranks of a reaver horde. He’d never imagined that she would want to accompany him to Inkarra.

Perhaps, Borenson thought, she’s trying to earn my respect.

But, no, even that seemed wrong. Myrrima wasn’t some drooling pup, eager to please. She had a toughness that did not so much beg for admiration as command it. She was that tough, right down to the core of her soul.

Borenson felt as if he were falling into a trap. He had told Myrrima himself that love was part attraction, part respect. He’d felt attracted to her from the moment he’d met her. And right now, he was feeling a whole lot of respect too.

A trio of gree whipped overhead, blacker than bats, writhing on the wind. The reavers thundered over the grasslands beneath a cloud of the winged beasts. From a distance the reavers had looked like a great gray serpent. Closer up, with the way that air vented from their abdomens, now the snake could be heard to hiss as if in anger.

Out on the plains, Skalbairn’s army rode back to join with the Brotherhood of the Wolf.

Borenson worried about his mount. He’d not have bought such an uncouth animal. The piebald mare had an endowment of brawn, one of grace, and two of metabolism, but she kept fighting the bit.

As he neared the reaver horde, the mare tossed her head and shied away. She’d ridden in battle with reavers before. He needed a steady mount, one that trusted him enough to charge a reaver close so that he could bury a lance in it. The mare fought him, tried to race away from the horde.

“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 northlands, 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.