David Farland - Brotherhood of the Wolf

As Langley neared Bone Hill the reaver mage raised her staff to the sky and hissed. Her voice echoed from low-lying clouds like thunder.

A dark wind roiled from her, and Langley’s men shouted in fear, turned their mounts and galloped east toward the lake, fleeing the dark wind of her spell, the burnished metal of their helms and armor limned red from the burning citadels of Carris. Hundreds and hundreds of reavers gave pursuit.

The black wind caught the men near the lakeshore, and suddenly the air filled with cries. Knights began to topple from saddles, stricken. Gaborn could not tell why.

Whatever effect the fell mage’s spell had upon them, Gaborn was too far away to feel it himself. Langley’s men fought to stay ahorse as reavers closed in.

“Get up,” Gaborn sent to the men. “Fight now or die!”

After a heart-stopping moment, Langley himself roused in his saddle, shouted, and spurred a charge south. Dozens of men followed, though most of his force remained inactive. Their horses milled about or fled from advancing reavers.

Thirty of his men lanced through the charging reavers, losing less than a dozen knights in the clash. The survivors wheeled their mounts and fled north along the lakeshore, with seven or eight hundred reavers giving chase.

The repercussions of Gaborn’s feints shuddered through the reaver horde. Reavers near the causeway backed off, fearing an attack on their flank, giving the defenders of Carris some relief. Others continued to race south after Skalbairn.

To Gaborn’s relief, the north slope of Bone Hill was momentarily left with few defenders. He saw only some hundred reavers above their burrows, but a hundred reavers were not to be trifled with—especially not when a fell mage stood at their backs.

He had only seconds to strike.

“Prepare the charge!” Gaborn cried. “Staggered pinwheel formation! Single line! Ho!” He raised his hand in the air, whirled it; letting the men know that they should pinwheel from left to right.

The staggered pinwheel, or the knight’s circus, as it was sometimes called, had proven an effective formation against reavers in ancient times.

Rather than charge forward in a line, as they would against human opponents, the knights rode in a giant pinwheel that gravitated forward as it circled. Deadly lances bristled along the pinwheel’s edge, so that fresh men and mounts were constantly racing at an angle to the enemy’s line.

Getting the proper angle and attack speed was vital when lancing a reaver. The trick of using a lance to kill a reaver, Gaborn had learned from those who had tried, was to strike the reaver solidly and skewer the damned thing without killing yourself in the process.

Above all, speed was essential. A force horse with many endowments charged at forty to eighty miles per hour. At such a speed, a knight had to take care not to slam into a reaver haphazardly, for in doing so he would break his bones.

Nor could a knight make a pass at a reaver in the same way as he did a man. The reaver was too massive. Besides, even if a knight did make a pass at the front lines of a reaver horde, he would lose his lance in the process, only to find himself behind enemy lines. Consequently, he had to race parallel to the reavers’ lines, only daring to touch briefly before he pulled back.

As Heredon Sylvarresta had shown so many centuries ago, the art of lancing a reaver required the lancer to lean toward the beast in such a way that he did not slam into the monster after his charge. While leaning thus, his best hope was to thrust the lance into the reaver’s head, into the “sweet triangle,” an area the size of a man’s palm where three bony plates met. A second such area could be found in the reaver’s upper palate, if the monster opened its mouth.

And if a lance entered at the right angle, then the knight could send it home to the reaver’s brain with a gentle and powerful shove.

Thus, in the staggered pinwheel, lancers rode fast enough so that reavers could not adjust to the knights’ breakneck pace. At the same time it allowed the knights the chance to engage the reavers in a viable formation, one that would let a knight escape the clutches of a reaver if he missed his target or let a man who was unhorsed escape while the knight behind pressed the attack.

Gaborn spurred his mount. It leapt downhill, thundered ahead.

As Gaborn neared that odious hill, he glanced to each side and found that he rode alone. Such was the speed of his mount that no others could match pace with him.

“Beware,” the Earth whispered, and its Voice took him by surprise. Gaborn was so used to warning others, he felt unprepared to take warning himself.

He glanced back. Behind him, the hill was dark with lords and knights. They came singing; firelight from Carris reflected in their shields.

Erin Connal screamed a war cry. Celinor Anders glowered near her side, with High Queen Connal not far behind. The wizard Binnesman’s face was rigid with terror. Gaborn’s cavalry charged ahead, streaming out from the Barren’s Wall.

Ahead, Bone Hill rose, wrapped in its cocoon. Tendrils of white were strung from it like threads from a spider’s web. Dirt and rock gouged from its slopes made it look a horrid ruin, scarred and maimed.

Warned by the front ranks, blade-bearing reavers suddenly issued from the crevasses in the ground on that hill, climbed atop the cocoon as if it were a fortress wall. Behind the blade-bearers, mages continued their foul work.

The rust-colored mist grew heavy in the vale beneath Bone Hill, lying in thick folds. It seared Gaborn’s eyes and made them water. He blinked away tears, saw ghost lights flicker back under the cocoon.

Gaborn grimaced as he tried to draw a breath. Fatigue and illness slammed into him like a fist. His stomach wrenched; his gorge rose. Every muscle in his body strained as sweat coursed down his forehead.

Gaborn galloped past a blade-bearer that spun, swinging its glory hammer too late. He ducked beneath its blow, knowing that he’d be dead by now if he’d not taken endowments at Castle Groverman.

Gaborn heard the crack as a lance exploded into the monster’s unprotected side, piercing the beast.

Queen Herin the Red had scored her first kill.

Though his charger carried him toward the foul rune, all Gaborn’s effort could barely keep him ahorse. He slowed his mount a third of a mile from Bone Hill, close to the ranks of the reavers, and gripped the pommel of his saddle.

Reavers raced down the slopes of the cocoon to do battle.

Gaborn dared charge no closer. Here in the vale, the sour-smelling mists lay over the ground like a suffocating quilt, and no commoner could have abided the stench. His muscles flamed, aching as if every fiber would rip asunder. Sweat poured from him like a drenching rain. Gaborn reeled, fell hard on the earth.

The very soil beneath him burned; it was almost as hot as a skillet. He writhed upon it, could not breathe

Silently he wished that he’d taken more endowments of stamina.

He glanced up through the rust-colored mist. His knights were forming their pinwheel, racing ahead of him in a line to cut off reavers that thundered into battle, their thick carapaces crashing against the stony ground.

Several knights caught up to him, circling him protectively. He glimpsed Erin Connal and Prince Celinor, their faces frozen in dismay to see the Earth King fallen.

Gaborn lay sweating on the ground, gasping in the cruel haze, afraid that he might suffocate, for he could hardly draw a breath for the pain that assailed him.

Desolation lay all around him, a smoke that choked the soul.

Atop Bone Hill, the fell mage raised her citrine staff to the sky and hissed so loudly that the sound echoed from the clouds. With a boom like thunder, black smoke roiled off her.