Part 39 (1/2)

'Pick the best one you can. If Sephrenia has to bring down the cave-mouth, I'd like to have you all back where it's safe.' Talen nodded.

'Be careful, Sparhawk,' Ehlana said to him, embracing him fiercely.

'Always, love.'

Sephrenia had also embraced Vanion, her admonition echoing Ehlana's. 'Now go, both of you,' she added.

'Yes, little mother,' Sparhawk and Vanion said in unison.

The two knights started back down the canyon. 'You don't approve, do you, Sparhawk?' Vanion asked gravely.

'It's none of my business, my friend.'

'I didn't ask if it was any of your business, I asked if you approved. There wasn't any other way, you know. The laws of both our cultures prohibit our marrying.'

'I don't think the laws apply to you two, Vanion. You both have a special friend who ignores the laws when she chooses to.' He smiled at his old friend. 'Actually, I'm rather pleased about it. I got very tired of seeing the pair of you moping about the way you were.'

'Thanks, Sparhawk. I wanted to get that out into the open. I'll never be able to go back to Eosia, though.'

'I'd say that's no great loss under the circ.u.mstances. You and Sephrenia are happy, and that's all that matters.'

'I'll agree there. When you get back to Chyrellos, try to put the best face on it you can, though. I'm afraid Dolmant will burst into flames when he hears about it.'

'He might surprise you, Vanion.'

Sparhawk was a bit startled to discover that he still remembered a few words in Troll. Ulath stood in the centre of their narrow gap, bellowing at the forest in that snarling tongue.

'What's he saying?' Kalten asked curiously.

'It wouldn't translate very well,' Sparhawk replied. 'Trollish insults lean heavily in the direction of body functions.'

'Oh. Sorry I asked.'

'You'd be a lot sorrier if I could translate,' Sparhawk said, wincing at a particularly vile imprecation Ulath had just hurled at the Trolls.

The Trolls, it appeared, took insults very seriously. Unlike humans, they seemed not to be able to shrug such things off as no more than a customary prelude to battle. They howled at each new sally from the big Genidian Knight. A number of them appeared at the edge of the wood, foaming at the mouth and stamping in rage.

'How much longer before they charge?' Tynian asked his tall blond friend.

'You can't always tell with Trolls,' Ulath replied. 'I don't think they're accustomed to fighting in groups. I can't say for sure, but I think one of them will lose his temper before the others, and he'll come rus.h.i.+ng at us. I'm not positive if the others will follow.'

He roared something else at the huge creatures at the forest's edge. One of the Trolls shrieked with fury and broke into a shambling, three-legged run, brandis.h.i.+ng a huge club in his free hand. First one Troll, then several others, began to run after him. Sparhawk glanced around, checking the positions of his archers. Khalad, he noted, had given his crossbow to another young Pandion and stood coolly sighting along the shaft of the javelin resting across the centre of his improvised engine.

The Troll in the lead was swinging wildly at the sharpened stakes with his club, but the springy saplings bent beneath his blows and then snapped back into place. The enraged Troll lifted his muzzle and howled in frustration.

Khalad cut the rope holding his over-sized bow drawn back. The limbs of the bow snapped forward with an almost musical tw.a.n.g, and the javelin shot forward in a long, smooth arc to sink into the Troll's vast, furry chest with a meaty-sounding 'chunk!' The Troll jerked back and stood staring stupidly at the shaft protruding from his chest. He touched it with one tentative finger as if he could not even begin to understand how it had got there. Then he sat down heavily with blood pouring from his mouth. He grasped the shaft feebly with both hands and wrenched at it. A fresh gush of blood burst from his mouth, and he sighed and toppled over on one side.

'Good shot,' Kalten called his congratulations to Sparhawk's squire, who, with the help of two other young Pandions, was already re-c.o.c.king the engine.

'Pa.s.s the word to the other archers,' Khalad called back. 'The Trolls stop when they come to those stakes. They don't seem to be able to understand them, and they make perfect targets when they're standing still like that.'

'Right.' Kalten went to the archers on one side of the canyon and Bevier to the other to pa.s.s the word along. The half-dozen or so Trolls who had followed the first one paid no attention to his fall and lunged on forward towards the field of sharpened stakes.

'We might have a problem, Sparhawk,' Tynian said. 'They're not used to fighting in groups, so they don't pay any attention to casualties. Ulath says that they don't die of natural causes, so they don't really understand what death's all about. I don't think they'll back away just because we kill all their comrades. It's not like fighting humans, I'm afraid. They'll make one charge, and they'll keep coming until they're all dead. We may have to adjust our tactics to take that into account.'

More Trolls came out of the trees, and Ulath continued to shout obscenities at them. Kalten and Bevier returned.

'I just had a thought,' Kalten said. 'Ulath, will the females attack too?'

'Probably.'

'How do you tell the females from the males?'

'Are you having urges?'

'That's disgusting. I just don't want to kill women, that's all.'

'Women? These are Trolls, Kalten, not people. You can't tell a female from a male unless she's got cubs with her-or unless you get very, very close to her-and that's not a good idea. A sow will tear off your head just as quickly as a boar will.'

The Genidian went back to shouting insults. More Trolls joined the charge, and then, with a vast roar, the entire edge of the woods erupted with the monsters. They did not pause, but joined the loping herd.

'That's it,' Ulath said with a certain satisfaction. 'The whole pack's committed now. Let's go get our horses.'

'They ran back to join the others as the several Cyrinics firing Bevier's improvised catapults and the Pandions working Khalad's engine began to launch missiles at the oncoming Trolls. The archers at the canyon walls rained arrows into the s.h.a.ggy ranks. Some Trolls fell, riddled with arrows, but others continued the charge, ignoring the shafts sticking out of them.

'I don't think we can count on their breaking and running just because their friends have been killed,' Sparhawk told Vanion and the others as he hauled himself onto Faran's back.

'Friends?' Stragen said mildly. 'Trolls don't have friends, Sparhawk. They aren't even particularly fond of their mates.'

'What I'm getting at is the fact that this is all going to be settled in one fight,' Sparhawk said to them. 'There probably won't be a second charge. They'll just keep coming until they break through or until they're all dead.'

'It's better that way, friend Sparhawk,' Kring said with a wolfish grin. 'Protracted fights are boring, wouldn't you say?'

'I wouldn't say that, would you, Ulath?' Tynian asked mildly.

The knights moved into formation, their lances at the ready as the Trolls continued their bellowing advance. The first half-dozen or so Trolls that had been in the forefront of the charge were all down now, either dead or dying of arrow wounds, and the front rank of the bellowing horde was faltering as sheets of arrows struck them. The Trolls at the rear, however, simply ran over the top of their mortally wounded companions. Mouths agape and fangs dripping, they charged on and on.

The sharpened stakes served their purpose well. The Trolls, after a few futile efforts to break through the bristling forest, were forced into the narrow corridor where they were jammed together and milled impatiently behind the brutes who were leading the charge as Tynian's sharpened pegs protruding from the ground slowed the rus.h.i.+ng advance of the leaders. Not even the most enraged creature in the world charges very well on sore paws.

Sparhawk looked around. The knights were drawn up into a column, four abreast, and their lances were all slightly advanced. The Trolls continued their limping charge up the gap until the first rank, also four abreast, reached the end of the stake-lined corridor where it opened out into the basin.

'I guess it's time,' he said. Then he rose up in his stirrups and roared 'Charge!'

The tactic Sparhawk had devised for the Church Knights was simple. They would charge four abreast into the face of the Trolls as soon as the creatures came out into the basin. They would drive their lances into the first rank of Trolls and then veer off, two-by-two, to the sides of the gap so that the next rank of four could make their charge. Once they had moved out of the way, they would return to the end of the column, take up fresh lances and proceed in an orderly fas.h.i.+on to the front rank again. It was, in effect, an endless charge. Sparhawk was rather proud of the concept. It probably wouldn't work against humans, but it had great potential in an engagement with Trolls.

s.h.a.ggy carca.s.ses began to pile up at the head of the gap. A Troll, it appeared, was not guileful enough to play dead. He would continue to attack until he died or was so severely injured that he could not continue. After several ranks of the knights had struck the Trollfront, some of the brutes had as many as four broken-off lances protruding from them. Still the monsters came, clambering over the bleeding bodies of their fellows.