David Weber - Oath of Swords

Some of them couldn’t, however they tried, and they tried hard. They’d feared this journey from the moment they heard of it, and, like Harnak himself, they felt adrift and lost in this strange, too warm place where anyone they met was likely to see them as brigands or invaders. They dreaded the thought of facing a roused and angry land so far from home, yet they’d begun to harbor even more fearful suspicions about their leader and the sword he wore. Harnak surrounded himself with hard and brutal men, and some of the cursed weapon’s ravening hunger spilled over into them. It touched the dark spots in their own bloodstained souls like seductive black fire, hazing their thoughts, and when they realized what was happening, they were terrified.

But it was growing harder for them to recognize the influence. It was becoming part of them, like a pale shadow of the furnace it had lit deep at Harnak’s heart. It gripped them like a drug, blending with their fear of losing the column in this alien land, and goaded them on as Harnak’s spurs goaded his horse. Yet try as they might, their weary mounts were unequal to their demands. More of them fell back, stringing out in a long, ragged line as the darkness came down.

Harnak knew it was happening, and a corner of his mind demanded he slow, let the others catch up, bring them all in together to overwhelm Bahzell and Brandark when he found them. Yet it was only a corner, lost in the roiling blood taste, and he ignored it and drove on into the falling shadows.

Rathan turned his head to glare at the western horizon as the last crimson rim of sun fumed amid the clouds. They were close to the bastards now. He knew it-he could feel it. Hradani needed big, heavy horses which could never match the pace and endurance of his men’s lighter mounts, and enough detachments had come in to double his company’s original hundred-man strength. He had men enough to deal with any band of brigands; all he needed was another two hours of daylight, and he didn’t have them.

He clenched his jaw and fought his own impatience. It didn’t matter, he told himself. The sun would rise again, and, indeed, it might be wiser to wait until it did. A night battle was always confusing, at best; at worst, it could turn into disaster as friend turned on friend and the enemy escaped.

He was just opening his mouth to order a halt when his lead scouts crested a low slope several hundred yards ahead of him. The last light burned like sullen blood on their helmets, and then, suddenly, they were snatching at slung bows and he heard the first shrill screams.

Harnak jerked around in the saddle as a horse shrieked like a tortured woman. There was still light enough for him to see one of his rearmost men go down as a mortally wounded mount plunged head over crupper. The guardsman hit hard and lay still, and shouts of alarm and terror mixed with fresh cries of pain as arrows pelted his straggling rearguard.

The prince stared in disbelief, and a flicker of motion even further behind him caught his eye. Dark, indistinct figures, blurry but gilded with sparks of sunset from helmets and chain mail, swirled on a low crest beyond his men, shooting as fast as they could pull their bows. The light was so bad they were firing almost blind, yet blind fire was as deadly as aimed when there was enough of it, and another of his men pitched from his saddle.

Harnak had no idea who they were, but their abrupt, murderous appearance filled the tiny corner of his soul that still belonged to him with panic. He didn’t know how many enemies were back there, but his men were too spread out for a fight, and their horses were too weary for flight. He knew, suddenly and beyond question, that he would never see Navahk again, that the Scorpion had sent him to his death after all, and terror mixed with the wild, overmastering hunger of the sword he bore-the hunger that had come to dominate all he was-and flashed over into the Rage.

He howled like a mad animal, and a livid green glare flashed like poisoned lightning as he ripped his sword from its sheath. His men heard him, recognized his Rage and felt their own respond, and the wild, shrill scream of hradani fury rose, filling the newborn night as the last embers died on the horizon and Harnak’s column came apart.

Most of his men wheeled on their attackers, blazing with the need to rend and kill until they themselves were slain, but those closest to Harnak didn’t. The instant their prince drew the cursed blade, its power reached out to them. The dark secrets of their own hearts made them easy prey, and it seized them by the throat, wrenching them back to the south with Harnak, for the one creature in all the world it had been forged to slay lay ahead, not behind. It hurled them onward while their fellows turned at bay, and they thundered blindly into the night behind their howling prince.

“What in the names of all the gods-?!”

Major Rathan blanched as the shrieks rose like demons. Darkness fell with deadly speed, washing away vision, but not before he saw the first huge figures explode into his scouts. The horse archers tried to scatter, but they’d never expected their enemies to wheel into the teeth of their fire, and the hradani’s weary mounts had caught their riders’ fury, burning out their last strength in a frantic surge of speed there was no time to evade. Most of the archers got their swords out before the charge smashed home, but it didn’t matter. They went down like scythed wheat as their quarry turned upon them.

“Form up! Form up! ” Rathan shouted, and bugles blared as his stunned men responded. There was no time to dress ranks properly, and unit organization went by the board as the troopers struggled to form front. It was all a mad swirl, a crazed delirium of plunging horses and shouts in the darkness, but somehow they formed a line.

“Lances!” Rathan bellowed. The last light was gone, drowning the hills in darkness that would make any semblance of control impossible, but he dared not let his men be taken at a stand by charging enemies, and at least the hradani’s shrieks of Rage told him roughly where they were.

“ Charge! ” he screamed, and two hundred mounted men thundered forward into the night.

Bahzell Bahnakson jerked to his feet as the first screams came out of the north. He stood among the trees for just a second, peering into the darkness, and knew he’d heard those sounds before- made them before. It wasn’t possible. Not this far south! Yet there could be no mistake, and then he heard bugles ringing over the hills and knew there was no time to waste on confusion or wonder.

He slithered down into the ravine like an out-of-control boulder. He almost fell a dozen times, but somehow he kept his feet and staggered into the camp just as a soaking wet, stark naked Brandark erupted from the stream.

“What-?!”

“No time, man! No time! They’ll be on us in minutes!” Bahzell shouted back, and Brandark strangled his questions and dashed for the heap of his clothes and armor, ignoring shirt and trousers to drag on his arming doublet while Bahzell leapt to the picket line. He grabbed a pack saddle and pushed his way in among the stamping, suddenly panicked animals, but the cacophony of screams raced nearer like some huge, malevolent beast, and it was headed straight for them.

He spun away from the horses and reached for his sword as he realized there wasn’t even time to saddle up. Brandark was still struggling with his haubergeon, and Bahzell backpedaled away from their mounts, putting himself between his friend and the lip of the ravine, as mounted men thundered into the woods above them with insane speed.

Horses went down, shrieking as legs broke or they speared themselves on unseen branches, but a few of them somehow threaded the obstacle and hurtled down the slope with howling demons on their backs, and crimson-shot green fire blazed from Harnak’s sword as he took his mount into the ravine like a madman. His horse squatted back on its haunches, sliding and slithering, screaming in fear as the ground fell away before it, but somehow it held its feet, and the prince’s eyes were pits of madness.