David Farland - The Sum of All Men

He considered what to do, felt it would be safest to stay in the woods, hunting the last of the nomen. But more tempting game lay before the castle, in the fog.

“Right then,” he ordered. “We'll do a sweep from east to west before the castle. Lancers in front, to handle the giants. Bowmen to the sides to clear the nomen.”

The air was filling with smoke from the fires in the fields and in the woods downhill.

The knights of Orden formed ranks, charged through the trees, down to the east field. Borenson had no lance, and so took the middle of the pack, near the front, so that he could direct.

As his horse thundered through the mist, Borenson saw a huge giant looming off to his left, a great shaggy mound in the dense fog. Two lancers veered, slammed into the beast.

The wounded monster bawled out, slashed with its enormous claws, sent a warhorse sprawling as if it were a pup, snapped a warrior in half with its tremendous jaws.

Then Borenson was charging past that battle. A few bowmen had spurred into that fray.

Two more giants came wading through the fog. Nomen had gathered in their wake, taking courage. Twenty of Borenson's knights veered toward them. Borenson's heart hammered. One giant roared in rage, calling others. A vast horde of giants and nomen came rushing together, dark hills with a black tide of spearmen behind. A shout of triumph rose from the monsters' throats.

Borenson's heart nearly stopped. For in their midst rode hundreds of soldiers with brass shields. At their head, one huge warrior in black scale mail, with a helm of white owl's wings, raised a great warhammer and shouted a war cry with a voice of a thousand men: “Kuanzaya!”

The fellow struck terror into Borenson's heart, for he bore the armor and the weapons of kings.

Raj Ahten had his helm raised, and he was the most astonishingly handsome man Borenson had ever seen. The magnificent volume of the Runelord's voice made Borenson's horse stagger in its tracks. Witless with fear at the sound of the war cry, it struggled to retreat. Borenson shouted for it to charge, but Raj Ahten's voice had been so deafening, perhaps it had damaged the mount's hearing.

The horse thundered to a halt, fighting its reins, trying to turn on Borenson. Borenson managed to pivot it toward the enemy. Then they were in thick battle. Borenson's lancers frantically charged the giants, spreading the cavalry dangerously thin, bowmen firing a hail of arrows, while Borenson himself struggled to charge Raj Ahten.

His mount would not go near that man, fought instead to flee. It raced to Borenson's left, and Borenson found himself charging into the thick of giants as Raj Ahten swept past, warhammer rising and falling with incredible speed as he blazed a bloody trail through the ranks of defenders.

A giant rushed at Borenson through the fog, swung a huge oaken staff. Borenson ducked the blow, fled past the giant, into a knot of nomen who hissed and snarled, happy to see a lone soldier in their midst. Several giants raced past Borenson, seeking the heart of the battle.

Somewhere behind him, one of Borenson's lieutenants began blowing his war horn, desperately sounding retreat.

Borenson raised his hammer and shield, began to chuckle as he fought for his life.

Three hours after a perfect pink dawn, Iome stood atop the Dedicates' Keep and watched as Raj Ahten and a thousand of his Invincibles rode back into the castle, along with dozens of Frowth giants and hundreds of war dogs—all amid cheers and shouts of celebration. The fog on the downs had burned away, but a few wisps still clung amid the shadows of the Dunnwood.

Apparently, the Wolf Lord had taken a great chance, had gone to skirmish with Orden's troops in the woods, and had succeeded in killing and scattering them.

Raj Ahten's men rode smartly, weapons raised in salute.

Chemoise had brought Iome here to the Dedicates' Keep at first sign of attack. “For your own protection,” she'd said.

The remains of many a tent and farm still burned out on the fields, and a wildfire ran amok through the Dunnwood, blown now by the easterly winds, two miles from the castle.

For a while the flames had squirmed more like a living thing—tendrils shooting out in odd directions, plucking a tree here, exploding a haycock there, consuming a home with greed.

The blazes within the castle had extinguished, for Raj Ahten's flame-weavers drew the power from them. And though Raj Ahten sent men among the streets to seek the murderer of his flameweaver, his beloved pyromancer, he did so to poor effect. The elemental had consumed most of Market Street, destroying any trace of the identity of her murderer.

In the charred and smoking ruins outside the gates of Castle Sylvarresta, one could see many signs of destruction. A thousand nomen had burned near the moat, where they'd sought to make their stand against Orden's mounted knights. One could count Orden's fallen knights among them, too—two hundred or so blackened lumps that had once been men in bright armor, clustered in smoking heaps along the battle lines.

Hundreds more nomen lay strewn at the edge of the woods, where the battle must first have raged fierce and heavy. The trees there were now nothing but blackened skeletons.

Three dozen Frowth giants littered the battlefield, strange-looking creatures, with their hair burned off. Iome had never envisioned them thus—each with pink skin and a long snout like a camel's, the hugeness of their claws. From atop the Dedicates' Keep, they looked like misshapen, hairless mice, dotting the battlefield. Some dead giants still held knights and their horses in their paws.

Raj Ahten's horses were dead, cut down with many of the guards who'd been stationed at the edge of the wood.

Yet now his men celebrated a victory, a battle won.

Iome did not know if she should rejoice at Raj Ahten's victory, or weep for Orden.

She was a Dedicate now to Raj Ahten. Rather than fear Raj Ahten, Iome now had to fear assassination at the hands of other kings, or from the Knights Equitable who battled the Wolf Lord.

Chemoise stood at Iome's side, gazed over the blackened fields, weeping as Raj Ahten's troops rode to the castle. Smoke still crept over the ash, and stumps burned all the way to the hill and into the woods.

Why does Chemoise cry? Iome wondered. Then she realized that she, too, had eyes filled with tears.

Iome understood. Chemoise cried because the world had gone black. Black fields. Black woods. Black days ahead. Iome drew her hooded robe more tightly around her, hiding her face. The heavy wool seemed thin protection.

Some of Raj Ahten's troops waited down in the lower bailey. Raj Ahten rode from the battlefield toward the city gates, to meet with his flame-weavers and counselors. Even the Frowth giants ducked under the posterns of the gates and came into the lower bailey, seeking protection.

In the hills to the south, a hunting horn rang out, followed by another farther east, and another. A few last stragglers from Orden's army perhaps, calling to one another.

Iome waited for Raj Ahten's men to turn around, ride out, and mop up the survivors. Given the strength of his forces, she did not understand why so many of his men remained here in the castle.

Unless something had happened on the battlefield that she couldn't see. Perhaps Raj Ahten feared for his own men. Perhaps they were weaker than she believed. The Wolf Lord must have feared to chase Orden's men any farther, for he knew full well that he could get drawn into an ambush.

Raj Ahten's wisdom went far beyond Iome's. If he was frightened, perhaps he had good reason to fear. Yesterday, Gaborn had told Iome that King Orden could soon reach the castle with reinforcements.