Chapter 26 Faron #2
“Hold steady!” Sir Tristan shouted, pointing, directing, and even shoving soldiers into line as he rushed along the newly created front on the opposite side of the creek. “This day is ours!”
The ground shook with the approach of the riders.
They barely slowed from their chase through the thin trees.
Neither the creek nor the line of Doremy soldiers would give them pause.
With their numbers, their horses, and their momentum, they had every reason to believe they would stampede to a crushing victory.
“Almost here!” Bart shouted from up above Faron. He’d been waiting there since this morning, perched on a heavy branch with a bow in hand. Twenty other hunters were with him, their goal to bring down riders who happened to unknowingly use the safe paths across the creek.
“Stay beside me, Iris,” Faron whispered, kneeling down beside the coyote. “I don’t want you trampled underfoot.”
Water splashed as the horses reached the creek, their hooves scraping the smooth stones. And then the first hit the traps.
Faron had guided their creation, modeling them after bear traps that had been common several hundred years ago, before the switch to the preferred iron-teeth style.
They were flat boards adorned with small but stubby spikes, dozens of them laid out along the bottom of the creek, half buried in gray mud and pebbles.
The lead horse let out a horrific shriek as spikes pierced its hooves.
Balance ruined, it collapsed forward, the impact twisting its neck awkwardly to one side.
The rider suffered worse, his head striking the ground before the horse’s body trapped his lower leg and thigh underneath.
The same horror played out for hundreds of feet in all directions. The knights came in rows, and those not in the lead found their path strewn with collapsed horses and thrown riders. Blood painted the creek red.
“For Doremy!” Faron bellowed, sprinting out from the trees.
This was his plan, his victory, and he would lead the charge into the mad chaos.
First blood, however, would not be his. An arrow from Bart shot overhead and pierced the neck of the closest knight, the first of a salvo from the twenty hunters.
Faron thrust his sword into the man’s gut for good measure, then flung him from his horse.
A second knight leaped over the trampled body, his sword swinging a long, low arc in an attempt to slice Faron open from waist to chin.
Faron’s shield blocked it with ease, and then his own counter took the man’s arm off at the elbow.
The horse’s momentum continued, but Faron dug in his feet and roared out his fury. He would not be moved. The horse crashed into him as if he were a stone statue and then stumbled away, only to be overwhelmed in the sudden wave of Doremy soldiers rushing the creek.
The knights, already outnumbered, suddenly found themselves swarmed with swords and spears.
Those whose horses were lame or wounded were the first to die, and then came the second rows, disjointed and lacking momentum.
Faron tore into them, blasting his way from knight to knight with speed to rival even Sariel.
His shield smashed aside any attempts to slow him.
His sword hacked off legs and thrust into ribs and abdomens.
All the while, arrows flew overhead, the hunters easily finding targets with their height advantage.
“Fall back!” one of the enemy knights called.
Faron didn’t see any markings on him to signify that he had that authority, but then again, given the copious number of dead, such a leader might not even remain.
Several others took up the call, but the one who gave the initial order would not live to enact it.
Iris flung herself onto him, easily clearing the height of the horse with her powerful legs and tremendous size.
Her jaw snapped tight about his face, and her momentum whipped him sideways in the saddle.
His neck broke, and bloody chunks of his face tore free, trapped tightly within Iris’s teeth.
The knights turned about and retreated from the creek and out of the forest. They left behind dozens of corpses. A quick survey had Faron estimating at least eighty knights dead, if not more.
“It’s not over yet,” he shouted, sensing relief sweeping through the Doremy soldiers. “Get back and ready for the footmen!”
He shouldn’t have been giving the order. That was Sir Tristan’s responsibility… but where was the knight? Faron scanned up and down the line, not finding him.
“Come on, form ranks,” Alex said, the giant man barreling through the troops and echoing Faron’s demands. It seemed he had appointed himself in charge. “The day is not won yet.”
Faron stared at the thin forest ahead, to see if he could glimpse any approaching soldiers and judge how much time he had, but saw nothing.
“Bart?” he asked, calling up to the tree behind him.
“I don’t see anyone,” the young man shouted back.
Faron’s frown deepened. What was going on? Even with the ambush, their numbers would be mostly equal once the four hundred footmen arrived. Had they spooked King Jehan that badly?
“Wait here, girl,” he said, patting Iris’s side. “I’ll be back in a moment. Protect Bart in the meantime, yeah?”
Iris licked a bit of blood from her face, then yipped at him.
Close enough to a “yes” for Faron. He dashed along the line, scanning bodies as much as he did survivors.
If Sir Tristan had perished in the assault, chain of command would pass on to Alex, his second-in-command.
It’d be best to know that now, before the footmen arrived…
If the footmen arrived. Faron’s worry grew. Had they misinterpreted Etne’s tactics?
At the far southern end of the line, Faron finally found Sir Tristan. He stood behind the rest of his soldiers, talking with a mounted rider bearing Rudou colors.
Faron held no rank, and no sway here, but he had to know.
“What’s going on?” he asked, projecting radiance into his voice so they would struggle to resist answering. Sir Tristan turned, a bit of blood staining his beard. Worry tainted his blue eyes.
“King Jehan has retreated,” he said. “And the fighting at Oswind’s Crossing has halted completely. King Murta is calling for an armistice.”
Faron furrowed his brow.
“Isn’t that good news?” he asked. “Why the dire faces?”
Sir Tristan glanced at the rider, a young man who looked pale from fear.
“Because this is no ordinary peace, but a matter of desperation,” said the knight. “Word from southern Argylle has reached us of ruined villages and great swaths of burning fields.”
“Raiders?” Faron asked.
Sir Tristan shook his head, and he clutched his sword tightly as the messenger turned his horse about and rode for the distant army.
“No,” said the knight. “A dragon.”