David Farland - Wizardborn

Gaborn’s charge had been aimed at the reavers’ rearmost troops. To the south, the huge line still snaked ahead for miles.

Many of those reavers had begun to turn. Thousands of the monsters charged back now toward their dead. They spread out, began forming a battle line half a mile wide with ranks twenty or thirty deep. It was a formidable front.

Gaborn’s heralds furiously blew their horns. A few hundred Runelords began forming a new front of their own.

The barbarian at Borenson ‘s side shouted gleefully, “Looks as if they’ll make a fight of it!”

Runelords spurred their mounts toward the new battle line. Borenson shouted and wheeled his charger.

He was among the first to reach Gaborn’s new front. But the king seemed uncertain. The Runelords who stood with him were ill-armed. Not one in twenty had a lance.

From the west, Binnesman raced to the battle lines, with Averan astride his horse. Gaborn’s Days followed on his own mare.

Averan warned Gaborn, “It’s the sorceresses, come back to feed. There was a fell mage here. They’ll want to harvest her and the rest of their kin.”

Borenson had never seen reavers harvest, but he’d heard tales. They’d rip out the brains of the dead or the glands beneath their arms. Sometimes they’d devour their brothers whole.

Averan said forcefully, “We can’t let them harvest the dead. The Waymaker may be among them.”

Gaborn’s brows furrowed. Blindsiding sluggish reavers was one thing. But now the child begged him to stand against a frontal assault—thousands of reavers confronting his ill-armed troops.

Gaborn’s eyes flashed, and he looked at the reavers. “Hold the lines!” he shouted to the massing troops. “We’ll allow no harvesting!”

The reavers gathered, creating a wall of flesh about five hundred yards north. Reavers that had fled Gaborn’s charge now circled into the rear of the massing horde. Huge blade-bearers began to jostle through the ranks, gaining better position. Here and there, reaver scouts began to creep near, heads held high, philia waving as they scented the air.

The reavers were far enough away that they could not see Gaborn’s army, yet they could smell the human host.

The air filled with energy, as if from a rising storm. Borenson’s blood thrummed through his veins. This battle wasn’t over. It had barely begun.

Averan studied the battle lines forming, sensed from the reavers’ body language that things were quickly getting out of hand. The reaver scouts approached cautiously. They’d take three strides, then halt, rise to their back legs and wave their philia in the air, turning eyeless heads this way and that.

The reavers were worried but determined. They’d not hold back for long. As soon as the scouts spotted Gaborn’s troops, learned their number and position, they would tell their masters how few men stood against them.

Gaborn seemed unsure how to withstand the horde.

“They’re going to charge you,” Averan warned. “If you want to stop them, kill the horde’s new leader.”

Gaborn looked at the mass of reavers, brow furrowed. “Which one is it?”

The question left Averan astonished. The answer seemed obvious. But she was looking at the horde now through reaver’s eyes. “The mage at the center of the front lines, hiding behind the two blade-bearers.”

Gaborn spotted the reaver slowly. She was a big brute, glittering from fiery runes tattooed on her thick outer skin. She held a fiery red staff. Averan thought her size and the configuration of her runes should have warned anyone that she was Battle Weaver’s successor. Her name was a scent, the scent of Blood on Stone.

Yet Averan saw that Gaborn had been searching to her right, where a knot of mages in the front rank acted as decoys. Blood on Stone was well concealed.

Gaborn swore. It would be hard to get her.

It was an eerie moment. Nearly all of the Runelords had ridden forward and were bracing for a charge. Eight Frowth giants, spattered with reaver gore, lined up at their backs. Two had fallen in the battle.

Averan glanced over her shoulder at the wylde. Spring strolled through the midst of the dead reavers, some of which she’d killed herself, mindlessly feeding.

“Milord,” Borenson shouted, urging his mount through the ranks. “May I suggest archers? We’ve a few men with steel bows.”

“Archers?” Gaborn asked. “Erden Geboren never used archers.”

“But he didn’t have bows made of Sylvarresta’s spring steel!”

Gaborn licked his lips. “I’d not thought of that. Can it work?”

“Myrrima and Hoswell killed three or four dozen of them in the charge.”

Averan found it hard to imagine Myrrima killing dozens of reavers.

“Archers,” Gaborn shouted, “to me!”

Over a hundred Runelords rode forward. Some had their bows still wrapped in canvas. These were powerful lords. Many moved so swiftly that it baffled Averan’s eyes. By the time she realized that the lords were drawing bows from their cases, many bows were strung.

“The big sorceress with the red staff,” Gaborn ordered the archers. “Take her swiftly.”

“Kill the scouts, too,” Averan offered. “Before they get close enough to see us.”

“Lancers!” Gaborn shouted, waving toward the scouts. Two hundred lancers rode out of the crowd.

The men prepared for their charge, and someone blew a horn. The force horses surged across the field, weaving in and out.

By the time the reaver scouts saw danger approach, and reacted by skittering backward, the lancers took them.

The archers raced within a hundred yards of the reavers’ lines. Blade-bearers leapt forward, turning themselves into living shields as they sought to preserve their sorceress.

Arrows sped from steel bows, riddling the fell mage and those that sought to protect her. She lurched backward a pace, died as she bowled against the reavers behind.

For their part, the reavers in the main rank reacted slowly. The blade-bearers and common troops backed away a pace, stood up waving their forearms and weapons, but held their line, having no other command before them. Far more dangerous were the blade-bearers well behind the lines.

They began hurling stones in a deadly hail.

Gaborn’s archers and lancers all wheeled their mounts and galloped away from the front. Rocks hurtled from the sky. Even though the reavers threw blindly, some stones struck their targets.

Half a dozen archers died outright.

A boulder struck a knight of Heredon nearly two hundred yards from the reavers’ front. The stone slammed into his shoulder and knocked him from his horse.

For a heart-stopping second, Averan imagined that he was dead. But he crawled to his feet and staggered up, right arm hanging limp. In the fall he must have injured his hip, for he barely managed to stand. He looked about on the ground briefly, as if he’d lost something but could not recall what, then grabbed his bow.

His horse had run ahead. The archer limped for cover, using his bow as a crutch.

Around Averan, hard-faced Runelords clenched their weapons, steeled themselves for a charge.

But Averan knew that there would be no charge.

Blood on Stone’s successor wasn’t here. Less than a tenth of the reavers had made a stand. Her successor was fleeing with the main body of the horde.

Even as Averan watched, the blade-bearers turned to Blood on Stone’s corpse and began to pry at the sweet triangle on her skull. The bony plates ripped outward, and the reavers tore out her precious brains, while others sought the glands beneath her legs.