Tuorel snarled. He was not happy about leaving the southern battle, which he regarded as the more important of the two engagements, in Avaera’s hands; her experience was in skirmishing and raids, not open field battles. But with Baehemon dead, he had no one else he could trust to do as he ordered.

As he had each day for the past week, he regretted killing the seasoned general.

“What shall I do about the Markazorans?”

“Don’t worry about that; I’ll handle Kraith. If you think you need him, send word to me first, and I’ll see what I can do.” He looked at her face, obscured by her sinister helmet device. “You’d better get to work; it looks like Vandiel’s getting ready to charge.” Tuorel pointed at the Dieman line, closing at a rapid trot. “Remember, take him alive if you can. And don’t disappoint me.”

Avaera saluted, and Tuorel rode off again with a curt gesture at the standard-bearer. The Iron Guards peeled off from the Ghoeran line, and followed him as he galloped north to confront Gaelin Mhoried’s attack. He didn’t even bother to spare a glance over his shoulder to see how she handled the massive shock of the first Dieman and Haelynite charge.

“ They’re waiting behind the ramparts,” said Boeric, squinting at the Ghoeran earthworks. The sturdy sergeant was serving as Gaelin’s standard-bearer; although his leg still pained him, he refused to sit out the battle.

Gaelin frowned, studying the maze of earthworks that confronted his column. “Well, I didn’t expect Tuorel would just line up his troops for us to shoot down with a few volleys of arrows.”

Lord Anduine, the commander of the Knights Guardian, trotted close to Gaelin. “This could be a damned hard fight, my lord Mhor. Our lads have courage, but I’m not sure if I would ask the best-seasoned troops you could find to attack the siege lines without cover or heavy engines of some kind.”

“We don’t have the luxury of preparing a deliberate attack,” Gaelin replied. “It’s right now, or not at all.”

“I hope you have some kind of plan?”

Gaelin took off his helm for a better view and rode a few steps ahead. His army was lined up four hundred yards shy of the Ghoeran defenses, just outside crossbow range. He could see the Ghoeran soldiers standing on top of their wall, jeering and hooting as they tried to taunt the Mhoriens into a rash attack. The dark walls of Caer Winoene were visible just beyond.

What are our advantages? Gaelin asked himself. We’ve got nearly two thousand archers right here; we’ve got a thousand spearmen; we must outnumber the fellows in those ramparts by a long margin, if Tuorel is facing the Diemans. Now he just had to figure out how to cross the open ground and storm the ramparts without getting his men slaughtered. Gaelin realized he should have thought more about this part of the plan – in retrospect, he should have known it would come down to this.

He glanced up and down the lines at his own men. Many of the farmers and herdsmen were leaning on their bows, or checking the flights on their arrows, and not a few were gazing idly in his direction to see what he would do.

Erin followed him. In a low voice, she asked, “I have some illusions at my command, but I’m not sure what I could do to affect so many.”

“Let’s save your spells for now. I think I know what we can do here.” Abruptly, Gaelin turned back to his officers.

“Gather all our spearmen in the center, and send them to the attack. The archers on either flank will concentrate their fire on the positions the spearmen are going to attack. That’ll keep the Ghoerans down under cover, while our spearmen advance. Then, when our fellows hit the ramparts, we hold our fire. Once the spearmen are in the Ghoeran lines, they’ll keep them busy enough for our archers to advance in turn.”

Lord Anduine weighed Gaelin’s plan. “If I were the Ghoeran commander, I’d hold back a heavy force of some kind as a reserve, a little ways off the dike.”

“We’ll use the Knights Guardian to hit any reserve they have nearby, while the spearmen secure the dike,” Gaelin said. “I’ll lead that contingent myself.”

“My lord Mhor, that will be very dangerous,” Erin said.

“You have no way of knowing what the Ghoerans may have hiding behind those ramparts.”

“Your concerns are noted, Erin,” Gaelin said. “But I’ll not linger in the rear while men are fighting in my name. Herald, pass the orders, if you please.”

The Mhoriens shifted so the Knights Guardian held the center, just behind a broad wedge of militiamen with spears and shields. When everyone was in place, Gaelin gave the orders:

“Spearmen, take the wall. Archers, advance and cover them.”

With a ragged yell, the Mhorien levy surged forward in a disorganized, screaming mass, bunching and thinning as each man made his way forward as best he could. To any military commander’s eye, it must have looked like a disaster – but Gaelin knew that even a line of disciplined troops would break on the earthworks, so the lack of order wasn’t the disadvantage that it seemed. On either side, the archers trotted forward to get into bowshot of the walls.

A hail of arrows and bolts greeted the oncoming tide of spearmen, but as the Mhorien archers came into range, they replied with a barrage of arrows that darkened the sky above the Ghoeran position. Spearmen stumbled and fell, as Ghoeran bolts found them in the surging ranks of the charge, but before the Ghoeran crossbowmen could prepare for a second volley, they were driven from the top of the wall by the storm of Mhorien arrows. Gaelin let the spearmen get within a hundred yards of the wall and then nodded to Anduine. “Lord Knight, let’s get to the walls on the heels of the spearmen.”

“If they’re thrown back, it will go badly for them,” Anduine cautioned. “We’ll trample them under our own hooves.”

“I know. I’m gambling that they won’t be repelled,” Gaelin said. “Let’s go.”

Anduine sounded the charge, and Gaelin joined Blackbrand with the line of Knights Guardian thundering forward toward the lines. He had nothing left in reserve; every man was committed to the attack. Ahead of him, the spearmen waded through the ditch in front of the low earth mound, kicking and knocking down the sharpened stakes on the dike’s face so that the cavalry could follow. As the spearmen struggled up the hillside, the Mhorien archers ceased firing and rushed forward themselves, sprinting toward the battlements with hand axes, knives, and short swords to join the fray.

The first ranks of spearmen made it to the top of the wall before they met any serious resistance. To avoid the deadly sweep of the Mhorien arrows, the Ghoeran troops had retreated to the reverse slope of the dike, and as the fire lifted, the Ghoerans surged back to reclaim the wall. But Gaelin’s stratagem worked. Instead of catching the Mhoriens as they floundered in the staked ditch and soft earth of the dike’s face, the Ghoerans missed their best chance to halt the Mhorien charge and had to meet them on equal footing. As ordered, Gaelin’s spearmen made no attempt to push in from the wall, but instead turned left and right to push sideways and get out of the way of the Knights Guardian.

His trusted sword raised above his head, Gaelin raced Blackbrand down, through, and up the other side of the ditch, swimming through the loose dirt until he struggled up on to the wall top and dropped down the other side. Roaring a challenge, Gaelin led the charge as they crashed into the heavy Ghoeran infantry who were streaming forward to hold the line. In a matter of seconds, Gaelin’s vision of who was where on the field of battle vanished, and he hewed wildly on either side of his saddle.

Blackbrand plowed through dozens of men, trampling them to the ground as Gaelin parried and slashed his way through the press. All around him, the Knights Guardian made short work of the Ghoeran infantry – in a close-quarters fight, there were very few infantry who could stand up to the weight and power of a line of horsemen.