CHAPTER 29

TRISTAN stood up in his stirrups to catch his bearings. Two hours into the battle, he still could not judge who had the advantage. With the Verdeau and the Maronnais troops combined, the Greffaires were only marginally greater in force. It would not be a quick victory, either way.

There. He had been searching for a way through the sea of frightened conscripts in order to engage with the real soldiers who would decide this battle. Tristan shouted to his men and pointed. They formed up and charged, mowing a path through the conscripts toward the first wedge of armored men. Closing in, they abandoned their horses. They had found in the last engagement that fighting full-armored soldiers on horseback was not much use, except for those few who could use a bow effectively while riding. Mostly, it got the horses killed. Tristan’s men worked in teams of three, as they had practiced: two to single out and strip a warrior, one to watch their backs. Fortin would be proud of me, Tristan thought with grim amusement. He fought carefully, with cold determination. He cared about his men too much to give way to the recklessness that goaded him.

They fought thus for an hour, making slow but definite headway, until Tristan found himself drawn against a sword blade as like unto his own as a twin. He checked his lunge and looked to his foe—and the eyes that stared back at him peered from a helmet bearing the green stripe of Verdeau, a helmet whose familiar crest pulled the breath from his body in a hiss of rage. With narrow, dangerous eyes Tristan examined the man who had picked over the King of Verdeau’s carcass like a carrion crow: Jerome’s sword in his hand, Jerome’s helm on his head—and jingling on a string of silver and gold trinkets slung over the heavy armor, the copper earring his father had worn for as long as Tristan could remember.

With a howl of fury he fell upon the Greffaire. Tristan’s sword plunged under the collar of the helm and up, and the man fell back, spouting blood. In the red haze that descended over him there was no thought of self-control or strategy. There was only his sword, the lust to drive it deep into the enemy and the wrath that fed his strength.

Tristan plunged into the Greffaire ranks like a madman, and none could withstand him. His sword rose and fell, cutting a swath through living men as though through a field of grain. His own men struggled to stay with him, both alarmed and stirred by the wild offensive.

WHEN HIS HEAD finally cleared, it took Tristan only a moment to see that he had engineered his own death. He and the little band fighting their way through to him were deep into the Greffaire lines—and they were all alone. For himself he was content to have cost the enemy dear, but he reviled himself for playing so free with the lives of the men who followed his lead. “Go back!” he yelled to them as the sea of Greffaire soldiers closed in around him. “Get back to your lines!” He set his sword and prepared to die.

The first soldier who came at him had more bravado than skill. Tristan easily sidestepped his headlong rush and sliced across the exposed back of the knee as the momentum carried the man past. The Greffaire crashed to the ground, the tendons severed.

But four leaped in to take his place, and Tristan was hard beset just to keep his feet and parry their strikes. All that was left to him was this grim and hopeless defense, until the inevitable error—or simple exhaustion—claimed him. Already his breath came in labored gasps, and his strength began to waver under the rain of blows.

The heavy arc of an ax swung in from his left. He caught it with his shield, but the angle was too extreme to meet it properly. Tristan’s arm crumpled with the impact; the rim of the shield slammed into his shoulder, knocking him sideways. Through waves of pain he fought to keep his footing, nearly regained it—then a powerful downward slice forced him to one knee as he threw up his arm to deflect it.

The end was a matter of seconds now, no more. Tristan’s enemies paused, momentarily, as if savoring their victory as they raised their weapons for the kill.

Damned if I will die a faceless death, Tristan thought. Let them look on the man they kill! He swept off his helmet, raised his sword defiantly, sucked in a final burning breath. “For Verdeau!” he yelled. They seemed as good last words as any.

THE ELVES HAD WAITED until the commotion of battle was a terrible clamor in the sky to come out of cover and rank up. There would be no hiding in the forest this time, but they could at least come upon the enemy unawares. Without battle cry or drums, horns or heralds, they appeared, a stern and silent host behind an army that took no notice of their presence.

Four volleys of arrows, loosed in quick succession, found their marks before the Gref Orisé realized their source. Several more stopped the first disordered counterattacks. By the time a commander was found to organize a concerted front against the Elves, Gref Orisé soldiers lay thick on the ground before them.

Now it was close fighting against these men clad in metal, and Féolan remembered vividly the claustrophobic misery of those casings. To die trapped within them was as ugly a death as he could imagine, and he felt no disadvantage from his own exposed flesh. Neatly, almost surgically, he stepped in and slashed at the leather shoulder strap of the heavy soldier before him. Blocking the man’s powerful return stroke, he kicked out hard at the knee joint. His opponent staggered, flailed momentarily but did not fall as Féolan had hoped. His comrade, Islain, fighting on his right side, seized the opportunity and swung his blade in a ringing broadside to the head. Even through the helmet it brought the man down—and soon after he was dead.

Féolan and his unit fought on, slowly making inroads into the enemy’s rear flank. He could summon no hatred for the men he killed, only bitter anger at the tyrant who had sent them here and the conviction that they must be stopped.

Shouting, just a little ahead, caught his ear. He thought it was a Basin accent, though in the uproar it was hard to be sure. The scene before him unfolded in brief glimpses, snatched in the heartbeat pauses between thrust and block, feint and strike: a line of Gref Orisé soldiers, moving away from him; a lone Verdeau soldier, green stripe on his helm; the Gref Orisé on the attack, wolves after their prey.

Féolan had his opening, thrust at an exposed underarm and shoved his opponent to the side. Now he was directly behind the line of soldiers. The Verdeau man had fallen to his knees, was just visible through a gap in the ring surrounding him. Feolan watched as the soldier suddenly reached up, ripped off his helmet and with a hoarse cry yelled, “For Verdeau!” The soldier’s thick blond hair fell free, his blue eyes blazed defiance. The Gref Orisé lifted their swords high.

“Tristan!” cried Féolan and leaped at the nearest soldier, clubbing him to the ground. Islain was with him, the others close behind. A sword fell; Tristan parried. Two of the attacking Gref Orisé whirled away from Tristan to face this new threat. Soon Féolan stood back-to-back with Tristan, his head still ringing with alarm and relief.

“Well met, my friend!” he shouted. He could see, now, Tristan’s men, only a few strides away, working steadily toward them. His own Stonewater Elves closed in, so that it was the Gref Orisé who now began to feel trapped.

“Féolan! Never have I been so glad to see an unexpected friend,” returned Tristan. He took advantage of the sudden press of allies to catch his breath, and as his chest heaved for air his face darkened. Here, he thought, is another who will mourn my sister and must be told.

“Tristan,” called Féolan over his shoulder, “your sister Gabrielle sends her love and says you should be more careful!”

For one terrible moment, Féolan feared the shock of his words would be the death of his newly rescued friend. Tristan dropped his arms, turned and gaped at Féolan.

“She’s alive? Is she safe? Where?”

“Watch yourself!” Féolan roared. Tristan scrambled back into his defensive posture. However, it was not skill at arms but the beatific smile with which he greeted the attacking Greffaire soldier that saved him. In the midst of such wreckage, Tristan’s grin of relief completely unnerved the fellow, who checked his ax swing and ran off in search of a less maniacal foe.

There was little chance for talk through the rest of that bloody afternoon. Tristan and Féolan fought side by side, as did their men, and though the work of war was as fearsome and terrible as before, each was bolstered by the other’s presence.

When the tide finally turned in their favor, it gathered momentum quickly. By nightfall the invasion was over. The few hundred Gref Orisé who had broken through the thin ranks of Elves ran desperately for home. The conscripts who had had the sense to bolt early from the battlefield were not pursued. Few others were left alive.