Michael Stackpole - When Dragons Rage

Adrogans nodded to the signalman. “Blow charge.”

The notes for charge blasted out and the Horse Guards surged forward. Hooves devoured the ground. Snow sprayed up, dappling chests and legs, hiding limbs as if the horses were wading through a sea of fog. Men screamed and, awaiting them, the gibberers hooted. Snowflakes stung Adrogans’ cheeks as he spurred his horse forward.

Off to his left a new cry was voiced. Springing up from beneath blankets and cloaks of white, the Loquelven Blackfeathers revealed their presence. The light infantry had already been ranging far to the northeast of Guraskya, so were able to make it to the Svar River ford before the cavalry. Under cover of the blizzard they had advanced to the edge of the river and waited there for the trumpet calls.

Even over the pounding of hooves, Adrogans could hear that deep groan of silverwood longbows being drawn. Black arrows a yard long and as thick as a finger sped through the air. On a snowy hill a gibberer spun and fell with two shafts crossed in his chest. A vylaen running toward them took one in the throat and slid face forward to disappear beneath the snow. Another gibberer who stood and hooted defiantly as two arrows fell short of his position had his head snapped back by a shaft that pierced his right eye and burst through the back of his skull.

The vast majority of the arrows flew at the hoargoun. The elves shot from the giant’s right, sticking him from calf to crown. Some of the arrows passed through the meat of limbs, ripping holes in his flesh. Others sank deep into muscles and joints. A half-dozen pinned his right ear to his skull and one vanished within his ear canal.

The sheer shock of that many arrows hitting it did seem to affect the giant. Broadheads had cut through muscle, and even reanimated, the creature did need those muscles to move and strike. Tissue hung in shreds from the ravaged right arm, changing the arc of the club.

This did not, on the first pass, seem to matter much.

The club caught the first cavalryman and his horse on the right flank. The club’s head had just splashed through the water and was on the upswing, so it lifted the horse and rider into the air. The horse’s chest collapsed under the assault, wrapping the beast around the club. The blow jolted the rider from the saddle and he would have flown free save that his right foot caught in a stirrup. As the horse whirled off the club, the man spun around it. His leg twisted in all manner of impossible angles, then he flew apart from the horse and smashed down to the ground before a group of gibberers.

The Aurolani troops fell upon him with longknives. Their howls of triumph shrank to gurgles as a second volley of arrows ripped through them. Shaft-stuck gibberers capered and spun, dark blood spraying. Bodies fell, twitching. And sometimes, in a grotesque display, others could not fall because so many arrows had transfixed them together.

But the majority of arrows sank into the giant’s flesh. The club’s weight had turned the hoargoun more toward the elves, so this second set struck it full front from groin to throat. More important, the elves had switched arrows. The first they’d used had heavy heads designed to punch through armor. While very effective on the gibberers, they did not do as much damage to the hoargoun as they could have.

The new arrows, however, were designed to carve up tissue. The razored edges had been twisted into a spiral, so as the rotating arrows hit their targets, they drilled in, and an inordinate number of archers went for the giant’s neck. Shaft after shaft stabbed into it, paring away the thickly corded muscles that connected the giant’s head to its body.

The giant staggered, then the club’s momentum twisted the body around. The head didn’t turn at the same rate. About the time the hoargoun was left looking back over its own left shoulder, the heavy head flopped forward. Scored tendons parted with whip cracks and the head tumbled free.

The body crashed down moments later. It landed heavily enough to shake the ground and topple some gibberers. Several of the cavalry also went down as the giant’s feet swept through their ranks, but the vast majority splashed on past, driving their horses at the gibberers. They rode through the cloud of snow the giant’s body had raised, hiding them from Adrogans’ sight, but the harsh rasp of steel and the tendrils of pain told him what was happening.

A savage roar erupted from the left as Adrogans’ horse vaulted one of the hoargoun’s legs. A red-gold fireball careened down from the high point on one snowy mound and engulfed a rider. Man and mount vanished in flame, then reappeared as blackened, skeletal figures that fell to dust as the flames evaporated into greasy smoke.

Up on the hilltop stood a creature Adrogans had not seen before. Tall and slender enough to be mistaken for an elf, it had white fur covering its body save for a scarlet loincloth. It bore a small wand and its head came around, searching. Their gazes met for a second, then the wand came up and another fireball blossomed.

The roiling sphere of burning gases roared as it raced toward him. Adrogans’ horse squealed and reared, nostrils flaring. The Jeranese general kicked free of the stirrups as his horse leaped away. He landed on his feet and went down to one knee, raising his saber in a futile attempt at a parry.

Just for a heartbeat, the fireball paused and hung there in the air. Adrogans wondered if the spell had been cast at him and his mount as a unit, and if their splitting had created a problem. It struck him as ironic that he would be trying to puzzle this out in the last seconds of his life. It saddened him that he’d not have a definitive answer before he died.

Then the air stiffened around him and the fireball glanced into the sky. It exploded loudly, shooting tentacular streamers of fire above the battlefield. The blast was enough to knock Adrogans to the ground, and he was not alone. He rolled to his feet amid rising mist from melting snow, then dodged as a fallen horse struggled upright again.

He turned to face the creature that had tried to kill him. Though he realized he would never likely get to it, he fully intended to try to kill it. Steel against magick didn’t give him good odds of success, but someone had to destroy it or more warriors would die.

The creature, and two more flanking it, raised their wands to cast more spells, but never got a chance to complete their magery. Blackfeather arrows flew thicker than the snow, and struck with the impact of an ax chopping wood. The coring broadheads drilled inch-wide holes in their targets and sailed on through, leaving a bloody red mist hanging in the air. Two of the creatures went down immediately, collapsing as if their bones had been reduced to pulp. The last, though—the one who had sent the fireball at Adrogans—had time enough to look down at the holes in its middle. Its eyes were coming back up when a shaft slammed into the side of its head. It whirled in a circle, the wand flying from limp fingers, then the creature slid down the mound, leaving a bloody smear in its wake.

The two light horse legions raced across the ford and spread out, driving the gibberers before them. Arrows struck here and there, as the elves chose specific targets. Some of the Horse Guards dismounted and swarmed over the mounds, rooting out hiding gibberers, and quickly the resistance came to an end.

Mistress Gilthalarwin, the leader of the Blackfeathers, waded through the ford. “I saw you go down. Are you hurt? I have a healer.”

Adrogans shook his head. “I am fine, though some of my people could likely use help. I thank you and your warriors. If not for you, this would have been much worse.”

The elf laughed. Her black hair had been drawn back into a long braid that slithered snakelike over her shoulders. “Ever arrogant, Adrogans. Without us you might not have taken the ford.”