Raid! On The Temple of Elemental Evil

Chapter 7 – The Battle

CY 579, Month of Readying 14 (Freeday)

The straight- cut passageways, made firm in the blessed, grounding rock, echoed with faraway hideous laughter, distant screams and the unending, monotonous dripping of water. It filtered down through the foul, dark marshes at the surface through joints and faults in the stone – bless their structure, and their chaos, he thought – and fall drop by drop onto the floors of the Temple of Elemental Evil, making the tunnels of the subterranean sanctum humid or clammy with wet. A puddle even lay before them, pooling against the wall as they marched.

Canon Barkinar, High Priest of the Earth Temple, stepped over this pitiful sacrilege and swept onward down the hallway to the Greater Temple, the place of worship.

Canon Barkinar would not have permitted such a profanity within the Earth Temple – where the floors were kept deliberately dirty and dry, an outward manifestation of the choking end of life and its inevitable return to dust – but outside those sanctified halls he could well be subjected to the insults and vagaries of Water, Fire, and Wind: each uncontrolled, wild and aimless. Each of the other Temples had their own strictures: the Earth Temple used magical light for illumination rather than fire, which had failed the Temple before, while the Fire Temple was filled with burning torches and oil lamps at every turn which made the air hot, sooty and choking.

Inwardly Barkinar laughed at the inherent fallibility of the other temples: sanctuaries to fickle Fire, faithless Water, frivolous Wind – all of which could only exist in their underground refuge only by the support of stone, the highest and purest expression of Earth! The fools! They worshipped his element with every step they took and never knew it! He sneered at the thought.

Today, Canon Barkinar wore all his best attire: his full suit of plate – polished to a perfect sheen by a pair of human slaves taken in a caravan raid, for not for nothing did he mistrust the work of goblinkind – over his best brown cassock and cincture with the stones of cinnabar, jasper and tourmaline, evoking the stability of Earth… but coupled with tiger's eye stones set at the hems to remind all of the potential for motion, when necessary. Across his shoulders was draped his finest ochre mantle, his amice and stole decorated with patches of the distant, apocryphal mountain of his homilies: black, stark and imposing, evoking a malign, watchful consciousness. His thinning hair was freshly washed and combed over and his clutched in his spidery fingers were his prayer-book and his staff, each of which gleamed with wrathful magic. He was adorned with every fancy and mark of his rank, each perfect in their presentation.

For Bishop Barkinar was going this night to prayer.

Trailing behind him came his feckless dogsbody, Romag – a craven worm he had collected at the Battle of Emridy Meadows – and behind him came his own pathetic adept, a bootlicking servitor called Hartsch. They were trailed by nearly a score of the Temple Troops – a dozen hairy, snaggle-toothed bugbears skulking along and four huge, flat-browed ogres lumbering along on tree-trunk legs – and before them was thrust one other person who would be attending the ceremony, but who would not be leaving it the same way she arrived.

Barkinar had ascended to his leadership of the Earth Temple and of the Temple Guards – bugbears, ogres, trolls and the like – over the last six years with great struggle, ascending the ranks with charm, wisdom and ruthlessness. He supplied wisdom to his betters, avoided culpability for his failures, carefully courted his superiors – and murdered his rivals. The shrunken heads of two such – and even one superior cleric – decorated a marble mantle in his chambers, along with another from a woman of Nulb, a rare raven-haired beauty among those benighted wretches who had unwisely spurned his advances. Today, surprisingly, he considered that he would be dealing with still another impudent female: but that was no matter. The Lady would be honoured, and that was what was important. Perhaps it would be enough to make her rise at last from the sluggish slumber of thirteen years and join them on the Material plane once more. But succeed or fail, he would indeed try.

For Barkinar intended to rise still higher, much higher. It was inevitable to his mind that High Priest Hedrack, Supreme Commander of the Temple of Elemental Evil, would sooner or later commit some sin of omission in the eyes of the Dark Lady whom they served: the great goddess Zuggtmoy, many-shadowed Lady of Fungi, Mistress of Molds and Regent of Rots, and more lately the Queen of the Polarized Evils of the Elements themselves. Was there anything she could not achieve?

And when Hedrack's penultimate error came – a happenstance Barkinar would surely help along, if he could – he would be only too ready to step into the vacuum created by his master's very unfortunate but timely death. On that day, he would consolidate the Temple's complete power into his fist, raising the Earth Temple to absolute pre-eminence. The different factions of the Temple always made pretenses of unity, but it would be the Earth Temple that truly ruled from that point on. Barkinar's growing preeminence and power made that as inevitable and irresistable as a mountain slide.

And to think he had just barely escaped the debacle of the Battle of Emridy Meadows, when the accursed Viscount Wilfrick had managed – through dint of sheer luck! – to overcome the Temple's Horde.

It had all begun fifteen years before.

CY 564

The Battle of Emridy Meadows

A rogue preacher and deserter of yet another black faith had arrived at Nulb, no less a figure than the mighty Hedrack himself. A younger man then, he had seen a vision of the Dark Lady on her throne of rot as he thrashed with the flux on a rotten cot in some highwayman's back room. The vision had been mystical and intruiging with its promise of power and status. He had immediately established a small chapel there with some stolen coins and preached the evils of her ways. He had found a receptive audience in the Nulbites and before long he had gained himself a small but relatively loyal and zealous following among that bitter, impoverished people. Word of his fervent preaching – and the powers he promised his faithful converts – spread around the Southern Gnarled and soon new adherents were flocking to Nulb, seeking his blessings.

His coffers were not very full at first but soon dearest Hedrack had a new vision and began a new kind of preaching – about hunting, and taking; about snatching what the world possessed and making it your own. Let the wolf be loosed upon the flock! his preaching went, let the fox be among the fold! And so on and so forth; Barkinar had heard it all a hundred times by now. It had started with a little casual fleecing of passers-through by his supporters, then outright robbery, and then wholesale attacks on caravans passing through the woods: theft and blood. Hedrack's chests had filled with devotions to the new goddess: and what god did not love gold?

Hedrack had – wisely and with forethought, Barkinar was forced to admit – chosen to reinvest his ill-gotten gains. Money made money, as all knew. In Hedrack's case, money could be used to hire bandits, men with practical experience and suitable weapons for this work – and horses, which allowed them to range far. Now, instead of a mass of peasants armed with billhooks, gaffes and knives descending on an unsuspecting column of traders, armed riders ranged to loot caravans, farmsteads and villages all over the southern Verbobonc and Gnarled Woods as far as Dunmarsh and even Cienega Valley. That had been a particularly rich one and the forces of the Temple had feasted their triumph. That had been when Barkinar had joined them; the itinerant and uncelebrated priest of a lesser, certainly false goddess, he had been wandering the High Road between Sobanwych and Twilight Falls, preaching for a few pennies and a stale crust of breath when he had been set upon by armed men on horseback and – other options conspicuously absent – gone with them to tend to some of their wounded fellows in Nulb. And in that dark little harbour Barkinar had seen true mysteries, true magics, the acts of a real, present goddess conferring the one thing he desired most: power.

Barkinar had, that day, been utterly converted.

For eight years the power of the Temple – and of Barkinar, its newest adept – had grown and grown, getting fat off the riches they looted from the trade passing between Verbobonc, the Wild Coast, Greyhawk, Dyvers and even the Elven realm of Celene, although raiders that got too close to that shadowed land simply – disappeared, without trace. Barkinar had always assumed and hoped that the filthy Elves would be dealt with someday for their insidious interference, and eventually events had fallen into place to create such an opportunity.

As their wealth grew, so did the number of clerics coming to serve the Dark Lady; one, Barkinar recalled with amusement, had even risen higher than Hedrack in rank, supplanting him as leader. That man – a fool from the Wild Coast called Inoxis – was a servant of the Fire Temple from long before Hedrack had experienced his first 'vision', brought to bring order and leadership to the Temple itself. Hedrack had – grudgingly – accepted this change, though privately he had raged, of course. The Temple had also got itself a new military leader; a dangerous, imposing renegade lord named Auric. Barkinar should have suspected that such an appointment meant a new phase for the Temple, and so it did. The Dark Lady had grown impatient with their progress, demanding Commander Auric, in conjunction with Inoxis, had concocted a plan to expand the Lady's control and their thinking, such as it had been, had run thusly:

Ultimately, Verbobonc itself must be taken; the soft weakness of the southlands, coupled with the easy and abundant loot and the rich farmlands there made it a most tempting target. Why should not the Temple take that fattened, helpless land? Why should the fools of Verbobonc be permitted their unbelief, their rejection of the true goddess? The Temple would raise its pennants over Verbobonc City itself; ten thousand new subjects for the Dark Lady!

To the north, any relief from Furyondy and Veluna would be weeks of march away and across a river: the Velverdyva to the north, the Celebvara to the west. The fords across each were known and could easily be defended, but they would need more than just raiders and brigands. They would need an army.

And it was then that the fool Inoxis had come up with the plan to recruit humanoids.

There were goblinoids and giant-kin aplenty in the Gnarled, he argued, in the Welkwood, even on the southward slopes of the Kron Hills as they filtered in from the Lortmil Mountains – and the orcish kingdoms of the Pomarj were not so far away. That, High Priest Inoxis reasoned, was a limitless supply of troops. There was also Lord Mastryne's domain in the east, and Pastcorel, and perhaps even the great Green Dragons Chaustichlorinus and Rothcor could be persuaded to help! They would cut the road north from Celene and the filthy Gnomes of the Lortmils would be isolated too; and with the great God Iuz raising his forces north of Furyondy, that nation would soon be busy with other concerns. It could work! The Elves of Celene, already pressed from east, west and south would be isolated; a little island of light before even more goblins and giants could be collected to pour into that land and destroy it, lootings its magics, its treasure and its women. Perhaps the devoted followers of the Temple would even earn themselves a beautiful Elven concubine or two when all was said and done. The humanoids were stupid and malleable; yet Inoxis had not seen the problem in that, for all his alleged wisdom.

Goblins, Gnolls and giants began to appear at the Temple, rapidly formed into rough units and inducted. They began to support the Temple's bandit raids on the increasingly pillaged southlands of Verbobonc and, inevitably these raids became more vicious, more bloodthirsty in nature as the humanoids' savagery spread. Before, their bandits had raided villages for tribute, stolen cattle and wine. Now, Orcs would cut down every person in a little Thorpe and cook them all in front of the horrified Temple troops, leaving remains and bones everywhere. It could not fail to have an effect on the leadership of Verbobonc, and it did.

Viscount Wilfrick was raising the army, and they were coming south.

The Temple's spies in the city– one of the few moves Barkinar had approved of, as a junior cleric of the Earth Temple – reported back that he was gathering arms, organizing his housecarls and calling in the baronial fyrd. The word was that they would march within the month, or early next.

Inoxis and Auric conferred with the High Council; Barkinar, not a member yet of this august body of the leaders of the Temple of Elemental Evil, was forced to wait for their decision with the rest of the Temple. At last, it was decided: the Temple would gather all their forces, and march immediately on Verbobonc. They would bring every bandit, every recruit from Nulb, all the giants, ogres, Orcs and goblins into a mighty Horde and strike first, rushing up the Southway and putting every village and steading to the torch before rushing to the gates of Verbobonc, breaking through with their clerical magics and swarming into the city before Wilfrick could raise his army, smiting them in the cradle! – as Inoxis had put it. Crude, but effective. They need only hurry.

Yet Auric and Inoxis had tarried, a little, as more and more tribes of goblinoids came in to join; larger and larger their force had grown but the days ticked by and Barkinar's consternation had grown. Finally, Auric had agreed that no more humanoid forces were coming. Strapping on his dark, forbidding armour the Lord Auric had formed his troops into long, loose ranks and marched west towards Hommlet. All told, he had collected over eight thousand Orcs, five hundred Gnolls – big, dog-headed humanoids, stripey-furred from head to toe like hyaenas – thirty big ogres and five hill giants, one of whom was a war chief from the Lortmils. There were also four hundred light cavalry – bandits – collected from across the roads of the south Gnarled Woods, and a couple hundred lightly armed peasant troopers from Nulb, along with the priest-officers from the Temple itself. Lord Auric was an imposing sight atop his dark stallion, accompanied by his own household Guard of a score of experienced cavaliers.

Surely, this was an unstoppable force.

Their march had indeed been rapid: living off the land – and, for the Orcs, anyone they captured – they were unencumbered by long support trains and consequently moved quickly, though the constant need to forage and collect did cost precious time. And, of course, there was the screaming. Barkinar did not mind that – already several men and women had gone under the knife in home to his dark gods – but it unnerved the human soldiers of the Horde, and Barkinar shared some of that unease; there was a world of difference between him and most of what the Temple were using for soldiers, and it would take only a tribal war-call to start a wholesale massacre. Still, the Lady demanded and needs must when she called. Auric stationed the human forces far from from the humanoid camp at each halt.

Their advance in the Southlands went nearly unopposed; there were no castles there, no fortresses to be reduced, encircled or avoided and so the Horde moved westward to the Southway like a black tide. A paltry defense was encountered near Hommlet but was quickly scattered with severe losses to the humans and the village was empty by the time they arrived, frustrating the non-humans.

Their first objective had been captured almost without a fight and now Auric held the road junction between the Southway, running north to Verbobonc, the southern road to Sheernobb and Celene and the western track to the Kron Hills. In one stroke he had cut off reinforcements from the Gnomes or the accursed Elves.

Auric did not rest on his laurels. Quickly he set up a blocking force there behind heavy barricades, leaving a thousand Orcs and all of the giants and ogres to fend off any approaching Elven or Gnomish forces, since they were slower by far than the humanoid and human troops and speed was of the essence. Throwing his light cavalry ahead as a screening force, he hurried northward along the Southway with the bulk of his army, rapidly eating up the distance towards Verbobonc, and everything they came across.

It was not enough.

In the early morning on their fourth day out from the Temple, the Horde's horse scouts bumped up against what they described as a serious blockading force near a little village a day south of Cienega Valley – a collection of hovels and half-finished drainage ditches called Emridy.

Auric looked down upon the battlefield, his officers a loose gaggle arrayed behind him.

Before him lay a wide grassland, half a mile in all directions. Emridy village lay off to the left halfway between him and the enemy, already abandoned and mostly looted. A few thatched houses and barns were burning there – the victims of his scouts. Some were chivvying bullocks and cattle back to the Horde lines. Dark smoke drifted across the fields towards the river.

The enemy were drawn up across the road on a shallow rise behind the broad, open meadows; six hundred heavy infantry in mail with pike and sword, and two hundred archers behind them. Like his blocking detachment near Hommlet, they had set up stakes, barricades and ditches before them to slow a frontal assault. On their left were the fast-flowing waters of Nigb's Run, roaring and swollen by the spring melt but on their right was nothing, a vast misty gap and then a thick woodlot that stretched widely out westward. Behind them, the flag of Verbobonc green tree fluttered on its golden background, bordered by a green band with golden leaves and acorns, accompanied by the personal standard of Viscount Wilfrick himself, a mailed fist on a split blue-and-white background.

Auric had laughed, a deep rich noise from within his black helmet. 'Fools! Their fortified position is worth nothing – their flank is wide open! We will encircle,' he snorted, and issued orders for his officers to begin to chivvy the Horde into ranks. Red guidons were raised in the commander's camp and the Horde began to grudgingly shuffle itself into units.

The Orcs he assembled into two great divisions – right and left – because Auric did not think the Orcs would understand or be able accomplish anything more complicated than that. The larger and more fearsome but – frankly – cowardly Gnolls he put behind the right division to use their longbows and serve as his reserve of shock troops, at need.

The Nulbian foot-troops he put on the far right nearest the river, expecting little from them and knowing that the defending forces would not break south in any event. That would only cut themselves off from Verbobonc and, since he had no siege train, they were welcome to put themselves between his Horde and the forces left leagues behind in Hommlet. His own cavalry he held in reserve, to see what would happen when he committed the Orcs but, all in all, he knew it was a decided fight. His right wing would pin the human defenders with his Gnoll archers barraging theirs and their leaders, while his left wing would simply hook around their pathetic defenses and outflank them. Simple. They had no hope. Wilfrick was indeed a naïve fool.

The right division stamped impatiently. Auric and Inoxis had assembled many tribes: in their centre the Orc tribesmen carried the tarred wolf skull of the Death Moon tribe and the flayed womanskin of the Vile Rune, symbols of horror and fear branded clearly upon the pale leather, a ragged tuft of blonde hair still visible on the top of the vexillum like a grisly pennant. On the right nearest the Nulbians was the banneret of still another tribe – a sharpened three-pronged stake each with a rotted, blackened hand upon each tine. Other, equally gruesome pennants were held above the other mixed Orc tribes on the left and still higher than all were the pennants of Auric's command group: yellow Eyes and eight-pointed stars of Fire, a Golden Skull on a black field, a grinning horned skull, multicoloured circles, ovals, triangles and squares. Orcs with kettle drums stood at the side of each wing, ready to pound the cadence.

Then, the swirling mists had cleared and Auric saw another contingent appear, as if by magic, from the grey soup in the lower ground between the humans and the woods; a dark line of grim, squat shapes: Dwarves.

It was a company of Dwarves. They stood waiting in a line two deep and carried a mix of weapons: spears, short broad-bladed swords, two-handed war mattocks and the Dwarven favourite, heavy axes bearded for pulling down shields before landing a killing blow to face or neck. They wore a variety of armour, too, from old iron helmets and scale mail, to chain or ring hauberks. Barkinar could not be quite sure, but they seemed to range in age as well: thick-muscled oldsters with beards plaited or forked and tucked into their belts, and younger ones with shorter growths bushing out wildly.

To the left of the Dwarves, between their line and that of the Verboncian humans, was a unit of Gnomes of about the same numbers as the Dwarves. Unlike their larger cousins, the Gnomes were garbed uniformly in surplices of brown and green over chain mail, carrying shields, short swords and spears. The ranks of Dwarf and Gnome filled the gap between the Verboncian formation and the woods, with spikes, barricades and pickets on the right of the Dwarves so that the whole formation could not be outflanked. They waited, silent and grim. Barkinar studied them, dividing each unit's line in half in his head, then again as Auric had instructed him, and counted; there were nearly two hundred Dwarves and two hundred Gnomes by his estimate.

Quickly, Auric gathered his staff together again. This was unexpected; they had not anticipated that any of the Dwarven clans from the Lortmils could possibly have arrived in time to interfere with their lightning advance, and their presence almost suggested that the plan had been known from the start. But Auric was certain that this was not the case: the lack of uniformity in the dress and weapons of the Dwarvish contingent meant that they were clearly not a single Clan Regiment, but a mixed bag of unrelated volunteers, probably from Verbobonc. Such a unit was no unit: they must fight and fail as individuals. The Gnomes, he conceded, were probably housecarls from the ground-manors of Verbobonc, but that was all: the Horde still had strategic surprise and must use it before any other allied troops could intervene, he explained, wondering how his blocking unit at the road juncture south of Hommlet was doing. In any event, the forces of the enemy were simply not enough to stop them, being outnumbered five to one.

The plan would proceed as before. They would launch both wings, with the right pinning down the human forces and the left – all Orcs – attacking the detestable demi-humans with the object of punching through the Gnomish part of the line, which was bound to be the weakest. When that was accomplished, his cavalry would bolt into the rear of the Verboboncian fyrd while the Orcs encircled the Dwarves, and then each contingent would be finished piecemeal: the allied army was stuck to its lines, needing to be strong everywhere, but Auric's army could maneuver. By noon the allied forces would be dead or scattered, and they would carry Wilfrick's head on a pitch-pole before them like a talisman on the march north. How the Verboncians would quail and tremble! Auric would achieve his breakthrough, and after that he would set the Northerners to flight. Barkinar went to his unit, immeasurably cheered. Doom would fall on the unbelievers!

And then, the damnable singing had started.

It began as a deep thrum, barely audible at the distance, two hundred Dwarven throats raised in heavy, irresistible sonorousness. Their voices lifted their war-song into the air, the cadence strangely engrossing in their strange-canted tongue. Higher and louder their chant rose, defiant, taunting, growing. It was infuriatingly bold and, to Barkinar's mind, insolent: how dare they challenge the Lady's will not only by deed but by spoken word of their mouths, as well! A jackdaw fluttered past, heading south over their lines as Barkinar swore.

They added a rhymic clapping of axe or mattock on shield, pounding to the cadence of their challenge, deep voices calling out great huffs, mixed with insults and mocking calls in Orcish. On and on their low-pitched challenge sounded over the field, reaching the ears of the waiting Horde like a deep, persistent hum.

The rivalry between Orcs and Dwarves was of old date, seeded in their battle for high places of the mountains and the Orcs of the Horde were already seething at the sight of their hated foe, barely able to contain their utter abhorrence. Their reaction was immediate and extreme. Already slavering for blood, those on the left – nearest then Dwarves – began yowling and shaking their heads as if to clear the sound from their ears, then started gnashing their crooked teeth, clawing at their faces and tearing their coarse hair, howling in rage and hate at the challenge of their enemy. To them, the very idea of Dwarves was itself an abomination and to actually be taunted by such a chant absolutely intolerable.

Without warning, a sole orc sprang a few steps out of line, screeching and shaking his axe at the distant Dwarvish line, only to be sharply cut down a moment later by a quick-witted Horde officer. 'Back!' the man roared, aiming his dripping blade at the others. 'Hold your damned lines!'

But another orc took a step forward, screaming a war-howl, and then another. Then one darted into the open from the middle of the ranks where he could not be immediately reached for punishment, screaming and bolted for the Dwarvish line. Then another just ran out, legging it pell-mell towards the enemy, and then a whole troop broke free of the ordered lines and charged howling, uncaring about the rest of the army.

'Stop them!' Auric roared in his great helmet, but it was already too late. Company-sized groups, seeing their comrades running for the foe, broke free of their ordered ranks and joined them and in mere moments the entire left wing was thundering that way in a ragged mass, gangly legs pumping as they rushed north in a swarm, screaming for Dwarvish blood.

Auric cursed and slammed his fist on his armoured thigh. Inoxis had gone pale. 'What – what do we do?' he said unsteadily.

''What do we do, my lord,'' Auric corrected him darkly from the recesses of his boar-faced helm, his voice deep and dangerous. 'We attack, High Priest Inoxis.' He looked down on the small gaggle of men leading the right division. 'Canon Hedrack!' Auric bellowed, stentorian voice thundering in his helmet, louder than any human intonation had a right to be. 'Begin your attack!' The tall, pale Hedrack, Canon of the Wind Temple, looked back nervously to signal his acknowledgement of the order, then turned to give hasty commands to his under-officers.

Auric turned to Inoxis. 'Our foolish left – mongrels all,' he growled murderously, 'will win or fail on their own, but we cannot let the Northerners take us piecemeal. We will attack according to the plan with the rest of the army; left division to assault, and horse to await the breaking of the Gnomes. We cannot fail,' he concluded, sounding as much threat as promise. With that, Auric walked his horse forward, the other cavalry trailing in behind him in a long column that wound out onto the field.

Barkinar arrived at his own company and took stock of the gangy, hideous things.

Orcs were horrid creatures, with skin of an unpleasant brown-green lustre and ears and snouts red to pink underneath mats of bristly hair and whiskers. Their leering red eyes were narrow slits of hate and their rubbery lips peeled back to reveal sharp tusks and pointed teeth. They carried an assortment of crude weaponry – flails, swords and axes – and wore thick hide shirts that might turn a blade, treated leathers or the rudiments of ring mail that might have come from human victims. One, Barkinar noted, had the rotting head of what looked like a human baby on a chain around his waist; another wore long-haired scalps like a furred hat. Many had ritual tattoos, or scarring over shoulders, arms or snouts. They were covered in blood and filth and they cursed each other as they waited, ever Orc hating every other almost as much as their enemies.

Barkinar studied them: close up, they seemed menacing, dangerous – but they were primitive, tribal things, ignorant and fractious. They did not have the compact lines and organization of the Verboncian infantry a half-mile in front of them, seeming less a company and more a pack. He could not reconcile this inherent disorder with his devotion to the Lady, which to him was rendered in structure, order and solidity. He looked down. The summer meadow was shot with patches of flowers and a little damp underfoot from the morning dew.

He raised his head, looking out on the human lines far before him. 'Prepare to advance,' he pronounced, feeling for the handle of his mace and unhooking it from his belt. The Orcs looked contemptuously at him, then turned almost as one to the north, eyeing the opposing line, shifting from foot to foot as they waited.

They did not have long to wait. A single horn-call came from the officers around Hedrack moments later. 'Division,' a big-bellied Water cleric standing there bellowed, 'Advance!' The command rippled down the line, each company's officer amplifying the call, and the lines trembled as the Orcs stirred. Behind them, the Gnolls got to their feet – lazy to a creature, Barkinar thought – yawned and strung their heavy longbows.

'Forward!' Barkinar snapped, pointing, and his own company began to march, harness and weapons slapping and jingling, weapons hefted menacingly. The kettle-drummers began their rhythmic beat: thumpa-thump – thumpa-thump – thumpa-thump – thumpa-thump, interspersed with brash hooting and mocking roars and howls. A few Orcs trumpeted dark marching wails on crude corni made of ox horn and ligament glue while dark banners of grinning skulls, severed heads, and bloody runics bobbed and bounced as they marched along.

In the centre of the wing, a pair of burly porters in the entourage of the great Orc war-chieftain just under Canon Hedrack raised a great bronze carnyx: a tall vertical war-horn of brass shaped like a striking serpent, with a ridged head like a dragon's maw. A blower joined him, taking a great breath and winding, beginning with a heavy, warbling high pitch that descended into evilly sonorous rumbles and throaty squeaks, each note fit to put a man's nerves on edge, imparting unknown terror and mysterious dread.

The other units followed by stages, slightly staggered from their delay in receiving the orders. Curse and cajole as they might, the cleric-officers could not redress the skew on the march, and so the right wing tramped towards the Verboncians in a shallow echelon-left, heavy feet crushing grass stems and wildflowers, leaving muddy goblinesque prints behind. Barkinar did not know who they were, and did not care, but he felt frustration and worry creep up his spine as he watched the Orcs shuffle forward, already making a mess of their formations.

The left wing's impromptu charge was nearly the Dwarves and Gnomes now, their ranks settled into a running, disorganized mass, bandy legs flashing. Soon, the bloodletting would start and the fall of Verbobonc would begin. The leading elements of the mob were far ahead of the main body, under a quarter mile now and closing. They had lost their fervour for screaming but were running fast and eager, tongues lolling.

Then, to Barkinar's eyes, an orc at the front tumbled and fell. He would have thought it mere clumsiness, but there was something sudden about it that made him look again. Then another orc topped, and then more were falling. Barkinar shaded his eyes as his company jogged along, then gasped in shock.

A line of archers had appeared behind the Dwarves. They were tall, green-clad and slender; Barkinar recognized them instantly and cursed.

Elves.

He could tell there were not many of that ancient people, perhaps fifty or so but that was already more than he liked. Elves were not like Men, who died shaking out their lives easily on the end of a spear, but every one a cunning and skilled warrior – and sometimes worse. Gray clothyard shafts streaked out from their line, arranged so that every one of them could shoot, and their accuracy – and the tight mass of the charging Orcs – made nearly every shot tell.

It was slaughter. Orcs tumbled to the earth by the dozen as the Elvish shafts cut a swathe into them. The thin tip of runners at the front were the first to die, and then others coming up behind them began to trip and sprawl over the bodies as arrows struck them so that there was carnage and a chorus of orcish screaming. But the sight of Elves – which they hated nearly as much or more than Dwarves, and had for longer – leant strength to their limbs and they came on faster, screaming prayers to their evil one-eyed god and eating up the punishment. The main body of the left wing was getting closer and closer now; the Dwarves closed their ranks, shields coming up.

Barkinar's skin broke out in a clammy sweat as his mind worked over the rough math – but no! There were not enough Elves to stop them! The Orcs would reach the Dwarvish line and swarm over the filthy beard-faces long before they ran out of bodies! They would yet win! The thought made a thrill of excuberation shoot up through his heart. How could he ever have doubted the Lady's success? This would be a triumph! A shattering declaration of the Lady's power! The thought fired his mind, widened his strides.

Behind Barkinar, Hedrack's signaller blew two blasts for the right wing and the Orcs began a bow-legged trot as Barkinar's heart swelled. Three such blasts was the signal to charge, not to be sounded until they were within striking distance of the Verboncian front line. Soon! How the Lady would be served today! They would be victorious; he could taste it. 'Move!' he bellowed at the lollygaggers trotting in the rear. 'Move!' To his right and back even the Gnolls were coming along at an easy jog, already yelping and barking with excitement – though, to his surprise, he saw their formation was even more strung-out and loose than his was, despite the yelling and cajoling of the female cleric supposedly responsible for them. They were tall creatures, striped brown and tan, with yellow fur on their heads and napes, their eyes and nails shades of dark yellow. Though individually formidable, Gnolls were especially lazy, uncontrollable and disobedient and it showed in the shabby appearance of their skin clothing and the grubbiness of their gear. He'd heard that they supposedly had a king, somewhere, but that his authority even over his own species extended so far as his followers could reach.

Barkinar looked up, uncertain what the men of Verbobonc could possibly be thinking as the mass of the Horde's right wing approached. How could they really think eight hundred could stand against nearly seven thousand? Wilfrick had his housecarls, but Auric had his own personal Guard, and they were mounted! Not to mention the Gnolls. The humans would be annihilated. It was strange to think about it, using Orcs to slay humans; but these men, he told himself, were not followers of the goddess. Their lives did not matter. And, when they conquered Verbobonc, there would be no human opposition left. Their paltry gods would be thrown down, and the Dark Lady would have complete control of the city through those same Orcs, who would surely be grateful for such a prize. And if they persecuted the inhabitants a little – well, what was that? Surely the Orcs deserved it, as recompense for their labours and blood. With their support, the Lady could rule Verbobonc – indirectly through her loyal clerics, of course – forever. They would need some new laws – a prohibition on weapons or weaponlike tools to start – but in a few generations it would hardly matter; Verbobonc itself would be changed.

He could hardly wait.

His attention snapped back to the now. He was on the furthest left of the right division. It would be for his company to not only attack, but prevent the enemy from turning their flank. They would link up with the right side of the left wing, forming a unified front; not that their enemy could do anything at all, outnumbered as they were.

He glanced over to see the Orcs of the disordered left division. They were almost upon the Dwarves now, having suffered under the Elvish bows – curse them! – and strung out at the end of their too-long rush. They fetched up panting and sweating just before the Dwarvish line, axes raised –

– and then dozens of them just seemed to disappear.

Barkinar blinked, unsure of just what had happened, even as others also just seemed to vanish as they moved forward – and then Barkinar realized. They'd fallen into a line of pit traps! The accursed, cheating sub-humans had dug concealed pits before them and the stupid Orcs had blindly run right into them! Filled with sharpened wooden stakes too, no doubt. More tumbled in as Barkinar watched, jostled forward by their fellows only to meet the same fate as other Orcs shoved them forward in turn, their screams mixed with the sounds of grim Dwarvish laughter audible even at that distance. Barkinar swore and cursed the Elves – it was probably them that had set it up; typical filthy Elvish trick! Where were their officers?

'Close ranks!' came the call from Hedrack, forcing his attention back to the front. 'Close up!'

Barkinar, no warrior, thought he understood the significance of this command: a force spread out could be easily defeated, perhaps even scattered. Solid, tight ranks were the way to make sure a unit stayed together – and also to make sure that the ones at the front would be forced to fight. The Orcs, used to strongarm leadership but not to tactical thinking, obeyed as much as they might do but the action was wasted at their bouncing, jangling trot and so they still loped along in a loose formation.

On the left, the Horde forces – unable to see the danger – still pushed forward heedlessly, and more orcs were shoved screaming into onto the spikes by their fellows as the Dwarves laughed grimly. Finally, surviving subchiefs and other leaders pushed and shoved their way to the front, organizing them to pull the stakes and begin edging around the pits, or leaping where they could, as a renewed hail of Elvish fire ripped into them. Dozens fell but they surged forward and the first Orcs scampered past the pit lines to throw themselves against their enemy.

Auric had miscalculated this. While these Dwarves were indeed volunteers from Verbobonc rather than a single unit, they were not mere peasants. Nearly to a man they were older, experienced veterans of the savage Lortmil Wars against the bowlegged hobgoblins fought up in the bitter high places, retired from their Clan Regiments for a life of entrepreneurism and hard-knock commercial adventure. As such, they were grim, hardened fighters with spines of iron and no mind for mercy and they showed it, making brutally efficient work of the first attackers. Axes flashed and mattocks swung and the enemy fell like leaves before them: gutted, beheaded, skulls crushed. Black Orcish blood flew.

The Orcs, thrown back, rallied again on the inside of the checkerboard pit line and flung themselves on the Dwarvish host again shrieking bloodlust, but the Dwarves merely hewed them down as before, neatly and efficiently piling more Orcish dead and shrieking wounded before them as sheets of Elvish archery laid low those further back. Again scores of Orcs attacked the Dwarvish line, singly or in groups as they got across the pit line, and again they were slaughtered and sent off in disarray.

But now the Orcs pressed across the pits, filling their ranks from and shoving themselves against the Dwarvish shieldwall. A cohort of tall gangly mountain orcs shoved to the front, stabbing and slashing wildly over the Dwarves' shield rims with spears and axes, hacking at heads and helmets. 'Deadbeards!' they howled, an Orcish insult. 'Deadbeards!'

But the Dwarvish veterans had seen that simple tactic before too. They closed their shieldwall tight with the rear rank covering the heads of those in the front like a tortoise as the front rank belted their axes and drew short, stabbing swords – little more than long, broad knives with wicked points and edges. These they raked these up into unprotected groins and bellies, or slashed at their thighs for them to fall screaming before the shieldwall to be knifed or trampled by ironshod boots; or else Elves lunged through the Dwarvish lines to skewer them with long spears. More Orcish blood soaked into the meadows of Emridy.

Then the Dwarves braced their shoulders and heaved at the mauled enemy mass, and again, and again, shoving them back with short steps and toppling still more Orcs into the spiked pits. Then their axes came out again and they hewed and slashed the remaining enemy, sending them hurtling backwards – but there were twenty times this many now piled up between the spiked pits and the Dwarves, salivating for the chance to slay. Not even the shooting of the Elvish archers could stop them; there were just too many Orcs. The allies were bogged down by the sheer mass of the enemy.

The Gnomes tried to emulate their larger cousins but with less effect; their packed phalanx of spears were bringing down those Orcs that got through the pits but more and more piled in as before, overwhelming the pikes and tangling them down with their wriggling bodies. Like the Dwarves, the Gnomish contingent formed shieldwall but their even smaller size was more of a disparity and before too long their line was starting to bend under the weight of their enemy. Grinning Orcs slashed down at them, or seized individual Gnomes from the first rank and dragged them screaming into the masses of the Horde.

Not long now, Barkinar thought, but his own division must arrive soon if the plan was to work.

Something hissed past his head. He couldn't figure out what it was until he heard another to his right and saw an arrow sink into an orc's chest. Verboncian archers, Barkinar realized with horror as another orc nearly beside him fell dying. It was not so far now – perhaps three or four hundred yards – but he realized with a sickening feeling that he would be subjected to their fire for that entire distance! And still they only marched forward, the pace maddeningly slow.

Never having been under fire before, Barkinar's first impulse was to run, to flee or take cover. They were trotting right into arrow fire? An orc of his company was hit and fell and he watched in amazement as the others just trampled right over him, one orc actually tripping on his body and falling. But the rest simply kept moving forward. He realized, of course, that he could heal himself if he was hit – the Lady was prolifigate with her favour and even evil priests could use healing magics – but what if he was hit critically? Would she help him in such a case, or discard him like a broken toy? Zuggtmoy was not known for a love of things with no use.

More and more arrows hissed out of the blue sky like narrow adders, dealing death below them. One landed six feet in front of him, making him jump while the Orcs laughed mockingly. This was madness, Barkinar thought, desperately scanning the sky for dark falling streaks; an orc stubbornly stumped along with an arrow in its chest for a few moments before collapsing. Another arrow glanced from a horned helmet and skipped away into the grass. Was there really no better plan than to march blindly on, accepting the hail of ash shafts? How could the stupid and ignorant Orcs possibly have the will to keep going forward? What madness was war? When would the third horn sound? He wanted at least to run forward, to dash in so close to the enemy pikemen that the arrows would stop for fear of hitting their own men, but they could not start their charge too soon or else arrive exhausted. Every instinct told him to run, to flee or cower on the ground with his shield over him – but this was not the Lady's will, and moreover such a thing would have him as the Temple's next sacrificial victim. So he steeled his heart and marched on – but not without a nervous glance behind as another orc of his company fell. Where were the Gnolls? Why were they not shooting back?

As if summoned, the Gnolls were ambling along in the rear of the formation when suddenly the largest and most scarred of them gave a sharp trilling bark. The others pulled up alongside of him looking irritable and cross. He barked out more orders and they sullenly arranged themselves in a loose line. The Gnoll leader took out a yard-cloth shaft and fit it to his longbow – a simple but strong stave almost as tall as he was. Flexing corded muscles he drew back the string until it almost touched his ear, aimed at the still-distant humans and loosed, his bowstring vibrating with a twang. His fellows did the same, drawing and loosing, though entirely at their own discretion – a few did not even bother to shoot.

Their shafts, though, cut into the Verboncian pike. Men were hit here and there and to Barkinar's joy he could see humans falling, dying or wounded. But there were not enough; the Horde had marched in haste and only a fraction of the Gnolls had bows, the rest carrying axes, ironshod clubs and polearms. Moreover, the rear rank of the Verboncians had raised their shields over their heads like a vast turtle in imitation of the Dwarves. The Gnolls fired again, causing casualties, though the human shields and archer's pavises furnished good protection.

Immediately the human archers shifted targets to the exposed Gnolls and now arrows fell among the hyaena-men. Most skipped aside from the human darts, but some were hit and a few of those fell dying onto the meadow, yowling as they bled out in the grass. One was struck and fell, thrashing wildly and shrieking until its annoyed fellows set upon it with wicked morning stars, bashing its head in and laughing in their strange yapping barks.

'You're supposed to be up there!' snapped Mistress Telsa, coming to stand in front of the Gnoll leader. She was a moderately pretty Air Temple priestess charged with overseeing the Gnolls – probably as a joke, Barkinar had thought at the time.

The Gnoll leader, leered down at her, clearly unused to receiving orders from a human, let alone one of their females. It snarled and made to ignore her, plucking another arrow from its quiver.

'You have to go up! Now!' Telsa snapped, unhooking her mace from her belt.

That had been a mistake. Telsa had been told to mind the Gnolls, but not too closely and in truth her assignment had been more to get her out of the way than for any reason of practical command and control. Now, her ego and desire to be useful had clouded her judgement – only for a moment, but it was moment enough.

Aggravated by having to be fighting at all instead of taking easy pickings from frightened farmers and knowing full well the great value of his tribe in the fight made the Gnoll chieftain completely intolerant of such irritations. Moreover, as in all Gnoll tribes, his leadership was tenuous enough without a female – a human female at that, alike to him as a sheep to a wolf – snapping at his balls, as the Gnoll saying went, before the entire tribe.

He lunged forward, grabbing the diminuative Telsa by the head and hurled her bodily to the ground, then fetched his axe out of his belt as he loomed over the squirming woman.

Barkinar, aghast, looked for any other officer to intervene, but all were already well past the scene, except for him. 'Canon Ashrem!' he cried ahead to a more senior cleric officer that he saw, pointing backwards at the Gnolls, 'there's – '

'Attention to your front!' Ashrem snarled back at him, jogging forward. 'Get back to your unit!' He was older and already sore from the campaign and was of no mind to hear the whinings of some minor cleric from a different sub-temple. He wanted to win this fight, and then soak his sore feet in the river. 'Move!' he howled over his shoulder.

Barkinar glanced back just in time to see the chieftain's axe chop down into the helpless Kalsa's torso, cutting off her terrified scream. The priestess jerked, blood spraying, and the chieftain chopped down again and again into her, leaving her a red ruin as the other Gnolls laughed and jeered with belly-splitting hyaenic mirth. Then the chieftain picked up his bow and started to shoot again, some of the others joining him, others wandering off after the still-advancing Orcs and a few starting to pick at the body.

This was madness. It was all madness, he thought, as an arrow hit another Gnoll in the head, dropping it like a clubbed sow and the others around it broke out in hysterical, yapping laughter. Barkinar hesitated, trying to decide what to do, but realized he could not intervene against five hundred murderous hyena-men; and besides, Telsa's fate had been of her own making, the foolish woman. Later, he would see what could be done – that sort of thing was surely bad for morale and control – but for now their usefulness certainly exceeded that of one minor priestess. To the Hells with her, he decided, and ran to catch up with his company before they got too far ahead.

Barkinar stumbled along, struggling to catch up, but his chain mail and cassock slowed him and he was not a fit man: he was puffing hard and his back was dripping with sweat. His heels ached and a crippling cramp quickly started growing in his side. The enemy line jounced and shook in his view half a mile ahead and he glanced left again, trying to see what the other wing was doing, hoping the distraction would keep the burning out of his lungs, the weakness out of his limbs.

On the left, the allies were still reaping a butcher's bill from the Orcs, but the sheer weight of their attackers was beginning to tell; the enemy was pressing on them two dozen ranks deep while the Dwarves had but two. Orcs were stabbing at them over their shield rims, trying to gouge a face or slash a throat and a few Dwarves had fallen, their ranks naturally contracting to make up the space. Pace by pace, the Dwarves were falling back, even as they made the Orcs pay for every step. The air was thick with grunts, howls and screams of the dying as the Orcs pushed forward through meadow slick with blood and entrails. The Orcish horde were forcing themselves at the link between the Dwarvish and Gnomish units by dint of sheer numbers, creating a great salient inside the allied army that threatened to burst behind their lines.

Auric, from his column in the centre, sensed the impending fracture. His signalmen raised their flags at the out-of-position, disorganized Temple leaders of the left division who, finally noticing, raised their own in turn for their wing, who noticed not at all; the Orcs packed into the gap all on their own, eager to get past the allied forces. The commander of the left – an Air cleric named Sagubris – screamed with futility at the masses of his troops to no effect. Slowly, irrevocably the Dwarves were pivoting, being pushed back against their own barricades and pickets adjoining the woods while the Gnomes were forced eastward towards the human formations. The Elves carried on firing right over the heads of their allies, skewering great swathes of Orcs, but their arrows were running out and they were beginning to cast aside their bows for shields and longswords, leaping into the fray, slashing madly like dancers as all the while the boil grew, threatening to burst.

Auric raised his hand and signal flags went up for Hedrack on the right wing; they acknowleged and his men raised their horns.

The human lines were only a hundred yards away when, to Barkinar's relief, three warbling horn-blasts sounded from the back of the right wing where was raised Canon Hedrack's banner of the white circle. At long last – the signal for the charge! Thousands of Orcish throats rose in challenge and hate and as one the right division thundered northward, loosed at last, sprinting the last of the distance.

As the charge was delivered, some of the more long-legged lopers got ahead of the rough lines – and began falling into pit traps, shallower than on the Horde's left, but filled with stakes as the others. Wounded Orcs crawled broken from them or lay dying as the rest of the wing stamped by. More carnage ensured as Orcs fell skewered, tumbled into ditches and broke feet, legs, lying screaming. But the rest leapt or dodged them, and moments later the right division crashed into the assembled pikemen of the Verboncian army.

The advantage of pikes was in their reach. At fifteen to twenty feet or more, such a spear could deliver a killing blow without risk to the user. Individually, however, they were slow and unwieldy. A warrior could bat the point aside and close, charging to hand-to-hand range… but a massed formation made a veritable hedge of steel points that could not be evaded or dodged.

The Verboncian infantry was arrayed in two thin lines of three hundred men each, with the wings curved back, gleaming steel points facing outward. It was less than one would want: three ranks were better, making a serrated array of spears, so that one could not sidestep the first line and just run up between the shafts for if the first point missed him, the others would catch him. Two ranks made that less likely, and the pikemen must then be experienced, cunning, and well-trained. Barricades could slow the enemy, but ultimately all relied on training, discipline and skill.

Yet the Orcs were packed in tight and could not dodge individually around the pikes. Instead they charged on headlong nearly shoulder to shoulder and the first wave died on the great spears, jerked from their feet and hurled to the ground.

The Verboncian pikemen had trained for years in the best tactics that a small army – less than a thousand to cover the entire Viscounty – could muster. They were Verbobonc's only army and, as such, had seen combat from one end of the Viscounty to the other: veterans of battles with goblins, orcs and brigands – even some of the Temple's raiders – they instinctively resorted to their endless hours of training in dusty courtyards and verdant fields.

The front rank shoved their victims backwards, the weight of the pikes jerking the bodies like ragdolls as the pikemen wrenched the hafts of their weapons to rip the blade from the sucking flesh. As they cleared their pikes, the second wave arrived and were gored in turn by the pikes of the Verboncian second rank. A scattering of other Orcs following on behind stumbled on the fallen bodies, struggling to reach the barricades as the first Verboncian line rammed their pikes home again while the second line jerked the dead and dying from their weapons and readied them, a clockwork slaughter delivered with methodical hate. Orcish survivors scrambled forward across the spiked barricades, wooden spikes scratching and tearing while the Verboncian troops lunged, cleared, and lunged again, merciless. These were Men fighting against invaders from beyond the pale trying to destroy their homeland who had seen the depredations of the Temple up and down the Southland, and they had heard the horrific tales of the survivors fleeing up the Greenway. They gave no quarter and none asked as the two middle columns of Orcs tangled up in the wreckage of the front of their own formation, more piling on behind, pressing ever forward.

But Hedrack was not concerned about such casualties; while the Verboncian infantry was formidable there were simply not enough to hold the Horde's entire line. His columns on each side of the division were already marching around each flank of the formation. They would simply press the wings of the Viscounty's forces, rolling them up until they snapped and collapsed in. Then the trapped Verboncians would be slaughtered wholesale and those that escaped the collapse by running north would be run down by Auric's light cavalry. Though they knew it not, their resistance was already at an end; the left and right sides of Hedrack's division were heading up the low hill around the human line, Orcish tongues lolling as they dashed forward –

– straight into the much deeper and wider placed pits that Wilfrick's mages and a few rogue Druids from the vicinity of Hommlet had positioned on each of his flanks.

Dwarvish, Gnomish and human strength and ingenuity, coupled with the raw magical powers of the Elves, wizards and Southland Druids driven from their glades by Horde scavengers had produced not merely spiked ditches but virtual gullies on each of Wilfrick's wings, thirty-foot drops into hard-packed soil or rock scree, covered over by cunningly formed screens of loose vegetation and branches. Where there were not such chasms, the Druids had raised wide belts of sharpened stones that tore to shreds the feet of any Orc trying to cross them in their hide sandals. Howling Orcs charged forward only to fall screaming to their doom, or topple crippled after a few yards, bleeding out into the short grass. Left and right the columns turned to milling confusion as the Orcs realized they could not cross to reach the human flanks.

And meanwhile the Verboncian pikes stabbed, twisted, ripped and repeated.

With dismay and much cursing, Hedrack sounded the horn for the wings to withdraw and join the centre, but the Orcish troops could make no sense of the signals and milled uncertainly as the two middle columns were savaged in the middle assault. Arrows began to fall among them, slaying indiscriminately. 'Pull down the barricades!' he finally roared, spittle flying, his magically amplified voice booming over the battlefield. 'Pull them down and attack!'

This the dull Orcs understood, chopping their axes into the spiked log fences and tearing at their spars and points. Arrows from the human archers were immediately redirected and assaulting Orcs began to fall, but still more surged in to rip down the barricades. Meanwhile those Gnolls with bows kept up a continuous pelting on the pike and archer formations, trying to whittle them down before the assault struck.

Finally, a knot of large, savage Gnolls shoved their way through the milling Orcs to attack the barricades. With great axes, they sheared through the supports of the logs, then lashed thick ropes of hemp to them, formed quick lines and hauling hard. The frames of the barricades twisted, creaked, then split as the Gnolls dragged them down.

The Orcs roared triumph and surged up the hill – straight into the human pike line. The heavy spears stabbed, cleared and stabbed again but there were too many Orcs and not enough lines of soldiers. More and more individual Orcs filtered through to close with the Verboncian infantry, forcing them to drop their long spears and draw swords and savage hand-to-hand fighting broke out in a score of places. The Viscounty forces closed ranks as the Dwarves had, but this left minor gaps between their formation and the traps around them which still other Orcs surged towards, trying to slip through.

In the rear, Auric's two hundred light horse and personal entourage of heavy horse waited patiently for the infantry to make a hole in the enemy lines.

His plans had come somewhat undone; yet that was usual in war. The appearance of the demi-humans had been an unpleasant surprise, but his forces were overwhelming; no combination of entrenchments and protections could make twelve hundred survive the onslaught of seven thousand, plus his Gnolls, cavalry and light infantry. The Orcs had taken severe losses, but that was their purpose: to break the enemy with their numbers, throwing down their lives to bleed and bludgeon the enemy. They were well spent that way. And his decision to push through the Gnomes was working: their lines were already badly bent. Soon they would break, and his Orcs would pour into the allied rear while his cavalry stalked the fields north of the hillock like Death, sweeping left and right to slash and trample the fleeing enemy. He suspected he might have to assault the Dwarvish holdouts, since the stubborn beardlings were still putting up a game fight and would right to the end; he knew well their ways. The Elves he might catch, or they might fade back into the woods, but he expected no different. Such a paltry force could not stop him. His Horde, having broken the allied army, would rush onward to the City and smash its gates down and then the city would be his. His to rule; a new Viscount would be crowned that day.

He watched his left division. The Orcs swarmed around the pinned Dwarves and Elves but could not encircle them with their backs against the impenetrable woods and picket stakes. Those few that tried were picked off by Elven archers or skewered with spears but there were more and more and soon they would be attacking from behind in force. Then he saw it and smiled grimly under his big helmet: the Gnomes were being thrust hard back against the human right, falling back and opening the gap that he had sought to make at long last. He watched as it widened while the Gnomes tried desperately to consolidate their force. The Orcs were already starting to pour past them, screaming in victory as the Gnomes retreated.

The moment had arrived. Auric signalled an advance at the trot, leading his pair columns forward onto the field, then sounded the charge when they were just over halfway to the battle. In moments his two hundred light horse and fifty heavy cavalry were barrelling down towards the growing gap, sounding whoops and cries of triumph. They rolled into the press of Orcish infantry, shoving their way through, sending them scattering as they rolled towards the opening breach.

At the moment Auric's cohort charged for the opening in the allied lines, a long, clear hornblast sounded from the area of Wilfrick's housecarl guard. An answering call came from far off to the west.

Barkinar looked up from where he was, jammed in the press of the melee. That had not been the Dwarves, or the Gnomes. It had been much further west. What was going on? He'd attacked – much against his natural instincts – with his company and now they were fighting in the space beyond the opened barricades where he was battering at the Verboncian shields with his mace. Like the damnable Dwarves, the Viscounty's troops used the same formation of locked shields and the Orcs were slamming their bodies against them, trying to shove them back or down while Wilfrick's men opened for brief moments to stab or slash. It was hot, tiring work and he wanted nothing more than the clear air, away from the smell of blood and the stink of Orcish bodies.

Other Orcs from ajoining companies were pulling more of the fences apart and forcing into the gap, fighting their way through the pikes and trying to reach the soldiers behind them. At least half the Verboncian line was engaged with Orc warriors with more pressing in all the time and they were already moving back, fighting bitterly as they did. They were brave, bold veterans, but they had not the literal hundreds of years of experience of their Elven and Dwarven allies, and their casualties were inevitably steeper.

The left division was pushing more and more Orcs into the growing split between the Dwarf and Gnome companies. Some were already spilling out and running for the allied rear around the back of their formations, though the greater part ran salivating for the supply train, where they knew would be food, loot, maybe even women. The wagons of the allied forces were half a mile behind the action and the drovers and wainsmen there picked up weapons at the sight of the approaching rabble. The field was filled with the screams and yells of battle, mixed with the clash of steel and the thump of bodies. They were winning at last, Barkinar exulted with relief. He'd been worried before at the losses of the Orcs, the difficulties they'd had in overcoming the assembled ranks of the Northerners, but they were genuinely winning. He glanced up, noting a cloud passing over the sun where there had been nothing before.

And then he jumped in shock and surprise as a twenty-foot fireball exploded in the Orcish ranks packed into the salient. And then another. And another; three sharp, savage detonations that shook the very air in Barkinar's ears. Orcs were roasted where they stood or ripped to shreds, throwing smoldering body parts in all directions and knocking those around them to the ground. Then, just as Barkinar had recovered his senses, a forked bolt of lighting leapt horizontally out of somewhere near the Dwarves and Elves pinned against the woods with a clap like close thunder. Scores of Orcs were instantly scorched dead and the sky suddenly began to crackle with thunder as it continued to grey, though it had been a clear cerulean blue moments before. Sorcerors! Barkinar realized. So the humans had brought magic-users. Well, the forces of the Temple could command magic as well, if that game were to be played.

At the same moment, arrows began pouring out of the woods at the Horde forces; far more to Barkinar's eyes than the small Elf company on the field had been able to deliver. The Orcs that had broken out towards the allied supplies were instantly shot down, and then the arrow fire turned on those teeming between the Dwarves and Gnomes, where they dropped like flies.

To Barkinar's horror another, much larger Elvish company emerged from the woods: two hundred archers at the least. Their barrage continued unabated, feathering Orcs left and right in a merciless hail. A few shafts picked off some of Auric's cavalrymen jammed in among the Orcs and now the screams of Men could be heard as well as bodies fell from their horses.

Before them came an even larger company of Dwarves that seemed to suddenly emerge from the foot of the woods as if from the very ether, the very terrain around them shimmering and vanishing. The solid mass of their unit – three hundred or more stout Dwarves armed with axes, short swords and spears and suited head to toe in mail hauberks and steel helmets – crashed into the flank of the Orcs in the gap, carving their way towards the trapped Gnomes. A deep war-chant came from them as they plowed into the Orcs of the left division packing the salient, hewing the enemy down before them, black blood flying. On their left came another cohort of Gnomes in a red phalanx that speared into the leading elements of the Orcs. Gnomes were not the size that Dwarves were but they were not the weakings Barkinar had taken them for and their unit drove hard into the dazed Orcs. Like the Dwarves, they seemed to appear out of nothing and Barkinar realized to his shock that the enemy must have placed a great illusion spell on parts of the fields to hide their forces.

As if they had been waiting – and they surely had, Barkinar realized with a sinking feeling – the trapped Elves and Dwarves on the allied right let out a great roar and surged forward. Gone was the delaying shieldwall; now they came on like savages, hewing and smashing. One Dwarven berserker, bareshirted and screaming, leapt out of their ranks to shear off Orcish arms, legs and heads with great bloody flashes of his two-handed axe, beard and arms soaked with gore as he chopped madly all about him.

Their formation begain to swing counter-clockwise like the lid closing on a box, driving the wing of the Orcish left division before them with great slaughter while the Elves in the new formation shifted their fire to the Orcs in front of the mixed company, shredding them. Everywhere Horde warriors were falling, topping into their fellows as they stumbled away, being trampled underfoot and tripping up others. Everywhere was chaos and death. Another pair of fireballs lashed the Horde – the Elves had brought their own dreaded sorcerors with them! A diminuitive silver-haired female Elf safely inside their ranks raised her hand and a lightning bolt flashed into the Orcs in front of the first Dwarvish company, throwing smoltering bodies everywhere. With another motion of hers, dozens of Orcs simply dropped their weapons – or turned and attacked their fellows! Accursed Elven witch! Barkinar gripped the haft of his mace, wishing he could smite her.

Barkinar ducked down as the slaying arrow fire shifted again, this time to the left side of his division, shield over his head as arrows ripped into the packed ranks of his company and the one behind.

Orcs screamed all around him. Hairy bodies topped and one big creature, shot through with two gray goose-feather shafts, fell atop him, pinning him to the earth as it bled all over him. A high-pitched screaming was in his ears, and he found only belatedly that it was him. The realization crashed over Barkinar like an avalanche: Auric had let the Horde into a moving trap, and it was closing. 'It's a trap!' he screamed, his voice lost in the cacophony as hobnailed Orcish feet trampled everywhere.

But there were still thousands and thousands of the Horde – whole tribes had not even entered the fray yet! – and the Gnolls were nearly untouched as they pressed in on the Verboncian pikemen. Auric's cavalry were practically untouched too, though they were stuck in the gap; but Auric was rallying them and they were forming ranks, forcing their way forward.

Surely that armoured fist would smash through the enemy reinforcements. The human forces could not hold for long. When the Gnolls reached the humans on the right, they would break and flee, and then the right wing would join the left and together they would pincer the foul demi-humans between them. They would not fail! They could not! The day was still theirs, and the Lady's!

Then he saw that something was wrong with the sky. It had been sunny previously, but was now a perilous grey. With a rumbing crash, a terrifying storm of ice pelted the middle of the left wing, slaying swathes of Orcs. This too was the work of the Elven witch, her hands raised to make a gesture like a crashing wave as razor-sharp ice splinters tore orcs into red ruin like terrible shards of glass. Howls of agony came from inside the great girdle of mist that rose, and still the Orcs kept coming.

Behind him, High Priest Inoxis had begun a series of incantatitons of his own, throwing a pinch of sulphur in the air as he did. Suddenly a column of flame burst downward from the open air, striking the human lines in front of them. Barkinar wanted to cheer: now the horrible allies were getting their true rewards from the Lady! Men staggered and fell, burning, screaming, and the Orcs hooted with glee, charging towards the growing gap.

And then Barkinar felt it in his feet: a steadily growing thunder. It grew and grew and now Barkinar recognized it: the final piece of the puzzle. A fearful tremble shivering down his spine, he turned to look westward at the south bend of the big woodlot.

A column of a hundred heavy cavalry flying the Furyondian azure-on-gules with three crowns passant and Veluna's crescent-quarted white star on its black field emerged from behind the woods, wheeled, and aimed straight for the rear of the Horde. Each knight – and even at the distance, Barkinar could tell they were knights, not merely armoured soldiers – wore full plate mail and carried a heavy steel shield. They were mounted on heavy destriers rather than medium war-mounts, carrying longswords and other arms, and each held high a heavy lance with a gleaming tip. Their helmets were set with stag's horns painted gold and in the centre flapped banner after banner of the accursed golden horns on green: the war-banner of the Knights of the Hart.

'Dark lady, no,' Barkinar gasped.

Prince Thrommel, Grand Marshal of Furyondy and Provost of Veluna had come, bringing a full War-Chapter of the Knights of the Hart with him.

A pennant from in the front with Thrommel was raised and lifted twice in the air, and now the horsemen moved up to the trot, leaning forward fractionally in their saddles. Thrommel's armour seemed to gleam like a star in the greying morning light as his destrier snorted and whinnyied as if it was channeling the wrath of its rider. His squadron spread out left and right into a wave, closing on the enemy's savaged left wing. Their appearance was sudden and they closed the gap rapidly.

'Turn!' Barkinar shouted. 'Turn around!' he screamed, though of course none could hear and certainly not those so far away. Thrommel's wing went to the canter, signalled again by the pennant and Barkinar realized it was so they could not be easily heard. Barkinar watched with horror as the lances of the Allied heavy cavalry lowered and they began the charge. 'No! No!' he cried out.

At last some of the Orcs heard the approaching rumble and began to turn, but far too late. At fifty feet one of the knights raised a horn and blew a long, terrifying blast that shivered the Horde's ranks. Moments later, Thrommel's formation slammed into the rear of the Horde's left wing.

Their lances thrust scores of Orcs to the ground, not a single great spear missing. Some of the spars skewered two together, throwing them down shrieking and thrashing. Some of the knights raised their weapons again and thrust down, but some of the hafts snapped and out came their swords, flashing death among them with an ease and efficiency created from endless hours of practice in the training yard. An overhand chop would smash through a guard and split the skull of a fighting Orc; the fleeing or unaware were taken from behind with a rising slash that laid their backs open to the bone. They fell like wheat. Those not slain outright were scattered or knocking screaming to the ground to be ridden down by the heavy hooves of the great destriers.

The result was absolute pandemonium.

The Orcs, pressed from the front by the resurgent Dwarves, shot or blasted by Elves, began to surge hither and thither as they were trampled by armoured horses or dispatched with disciplined, practiced backhands or overhand slashes, or crushed with heavy flanged maces. Even their mounts were long trained for war: they lashed out savagely with their iron-shod hooves to cave in skulls and break chests, or savagely bit limbs and tore off faces. Some Orcs cleverly struck at the mounts instead but the perfectly-trained beasts, guided by the knees of their riders, skipped away with surprising agility as the Orcish spears glanced from their heavy plate barding. Then, inevitably, another almost instinctive knee movement left the Orc lined up for a downward slash.

Then at another horn-blast, Thrommel's wing abruptly withdrew and wheeled away into the field, turning to sweep now towards the other side of the left wing. As before, they line hammered into the Orcs, crushing their packed ranks between them and the Dwarves as the Dwarves grimly cheered the arrival of the human heavy cavalry, their axes singing. Thrommel's squadron now pressed not into the left division but into the very junction between them where the salient had been developed, hammering home into the thickest press of their foe, reckless of danger.

As Barkinar watched in dismay, Verboncian reinforcements marched into the back of their left wing, filling the gap that Inoxis had created and reinforcing the rest. Now, four solid files confronted the Orcs of the right division, ranging end-to-end between the pits on either side. Machine-like, they stabbed, withdrew, and stabbed again in the cadence of the Verboncian heavy infantry, advancing step by step into the enemy ranks.

More human archers had arrived too from somewhere behind the high ground and now the sky began to fill with arrows. Orcs fell in the crush, or were hurled forward to die upon the human pikes, or were pierced with shafts and dropped bleeding. Barkinar had seen the hate, the arrogant triumph of the Horde. Now he looked around and saw a new emotion: fear. Orcish eyes rolled white, their roars of hatred turning to squeals of alarm.

Hedrack did not sit idle. At his orders, the rear ranks of the right wing turned and began to form a rough spear-line against the possibility of mounted attack as he also shouted for the Gnolls to reform into a phalanx to defeat the human pike. Barkinar began chivvying his troops into line but the Gnolls, wanting none of this, formed instead into a little ring on a minor point of high ground in the meadows, fending off all others and ignoring orders. Barkinar and the other cleric-officers cursed and berated them, but still they did not move. Arrows fell among all of them, slaying indiscriminately as the Gnolls shot back. Auric's Guard and the Nulbian light cavalry had turned at his roared commands and were pushing their way out of the crush of Orcs in the shrinking salient.

Thrommel's force continued to carve deep into the Orcs' left wing from the south as the Dwarves pressed on them from the north and the mixed company slashed into them from the west. Arrows and flashes of magic wracked their lines, exploding and burning them, so that the howling and screaming from their ranks was like the cries of the damned. The Orcs there fought desperately, but there were little more than a third left of all those who had started the battle with that loping charge.

The salient began to collapse. The Orcs holding the front were being massacred and those behind had no wish to join them, pushing and shoving back south, then flooding that way. Auric cursed and swore as they threatened to swamp his cavalry as they tried to burst out of the entrapment, forcing he and his men to lay about with their swords to force their way through. A few were toppled in the crush, and did not rise as the hobnail boots of the stampeding Orcs ground them into the turf.

Auric burst out, managing to extract most of his horse, but he had taken losses too, including among his Guard. The last of them burst out of the crush and began reforming into a pair of squadrons, one heavy and one light. Those few Orcs escaping the salient fled into the main mass of the now-shattered left wing, which in turn fled westward to take up a position south of the right wing, still locked in better fighting with the Verboncian troops, and stopped there, exhausted. Most of their human clerical officers had been separated from their units or run down by Thrommel's charges, and many of the bolder or more foolish chieftains slain in the first charge, so they rallied by clan and tribe under their banners and closed their ranks.

The bulge, meanwhile, became the focus of fire for the Elves, and for the mages of both Elves and Men. Orcs stampeded, horses screamed, and it became a charnel house. Those Orcs still within – hundreds – were doomed. The original mixed Elf-Dwarf company and the newly arriving regiments crushed them between them like iron jaws while Thrommel's cavalry took up position on the field as a blocking force against interference by the right wing, or the survivors of the left. As the mid-morning sun watched, the last resistance there was ended and their desperate ring collapsed with quarter neither given nor asked; they knew their fate was sealed. The last of them – a shrieking, berserker sub-chieftan of the Severed Hands, his trophies dangling round his neck as he flailed wildly at his enemies – was run through by an Elven longsword, the razor tip skewering him right through his dark heart.

The sun was rising higher as the forces squared off and reassembled.

The right division, frustrated by the Verboncian resistance, had broken off contact and now the entire Horde, its strength nearly halved, stood in a rough semicircle facing west, their backs to the river. Auric's cavalry wings stood off to the south, both to watch the Horde's new left flank, and also because it was nearest for a quick retreat down the Southway; Auric was not a fool and things were different now.

His left division had been all but exterminated, with losses from the Elven archery, the frontal battle with the Dwarves, the deaths to force the breakthrough and then the crushing of the salient. Scarcely a thousand Orcs of the left remained. He had positioned them on the right of his formation – here, they were furthest from the South and therefore had less ability to run away. They would fight, or they would die.

His three thousand other Orcs, from the right division, made up the centre and the left in the new formation. The Gnolls were in the middle, behind the centre division – ostensibly to reinforce any wing that seemed to be failing, but also because if they were surrounded by the rest of the army it was less likely that they could simply run away. They probably ran faster than Orcs.

The Horde panted in the hot sun; their waterskins were empty and their throats parched, and the light dazzled their eyes. Orcs did not have – had never had – the organization or discipline to cooperate in order to do something like help supply themselves with water, and if he had ordered them to do so the peevish creatures would have refused. They simply seemed to have no conception of the future, or of consequence. A few went to fill their own waterskins, and the rest went hot and thirsty. Half their clerical officers were dead now, slain by the Elves or crushed by the sudden appearance of Thrommel. But they did not run; not yet. The Nulbian light infantry he ignored; they had done nothing in the previous battle, and he expected the same now. They milled nearer the river, awaiting no one could say what.

His opponents, reinforced, encircled him to his west. They were waiting, but they would not wait much longer.

The Dwarves, humans and Gnomes were drawn up on a long linked front, the Dwarves in the centre, the humans to the south and the Gnomes to the north. By his count there were now nearly six hundred Dwarves, five hundred Gnomes and closer to two thousand Verboncian infantry, most of which were their heavy pike, though they had nearly doubled their archers as well.

Worst of all, two hundred and fifty Elves were in line behind them, spread out so as to minimize the effect of Auric's archers, not that it mattered; they would not be slain with simple random arrow-fire. They had the range of him, and by far the accuracy, and they had recovered most of their shafts from the wreckage of the Horde's left. Their wizards were there as well; he could see the silver-haired Elven wench even at this range.

Last of all was Thrommel's own heavy cavalry unit, standing patiently opposite his own. Auric's guard were good – but he had no illusions about their abilities to defeat an entire squadron of the Knights of the Hart in full plate mail. His only advantage was his light cavalry, not that he was sure they were such a help; when Thrommel came to kill them, he would do with them what he could.

The allied troops waited, still and patient for the moment. It hadn't been quite an hour yet, and still it grated on Auric's nerves. Why did they not come? Auric almost wanted them to, to get it over with. What were they waiting for? He glanced again at the rushing waters of Nigb's Run behind him, the water roaring and foaming. His scouts had not looked for fords there; simple creatures enough, but neither had he demanded such investigations, for it had not been though necessary. He wondered if the fast waters could be swum. Then he looked southward, half imagining the giants and ogres of the blocking unit would have broken orders and come north, or that the Temple had raised some support that would have hurried after them. But there was nothing.

So he waited.

A tremor of disquiet came from the front, rippling through his own troops. He turned to look.

A battle ensign had risen over the allied formation, from the Dwarven part of the line.

It was simple, so very simple and so Dwarven a gesture that he almost smiled under his heavy helmet: just a long pike pole with a round object atop it.

It was the severed head of Sagubris of the Air Temple. His sightless eyes looked out over the Horde, tongue hanging out, empty mouth silently haranguing them from his scraggly, blood-matted beard. Even the Orcs, long used to such sights, bared their teeth uneasily at the spectacle.

The Dwarves bobbed it up and down in an almost comical way, deep malicious chuckles and jeers rolling through their ranks, and then they tossed it carelessly on the ground. Then they took their axes and began a slow beating of their shields, bam – bam – bam, a rhythmic steel-and-wood sound clacking that resonated in the Horde soldiers' chests, shuddered the air of the late morning as grey clouds closed over the battlefield again. A deep chant rose from the Dwarves, picked up quickly by the Gnomes and soon even the Men had a go of the tune.

It was the Death-Chant of the Dwarvish people and its message was as clear as it was unnecessary:

As before, no quarter would be given.

A single ram's-horn blew behind them and the allied troops began a slow march forward, lines rippling three deep, their jaws set and eyes burning with hatred. One or two roared excitedly at the prospect of dealing more slaughter to their hated foe. The Elves followed behind, loading at a casual march; as a raven cawed in the still air above, the first of their arrows began to fall, with the Verboncian archers joining in.

The Horde had dug – or tried to dig – simple ditches and scrounge some materials for palisades and barricades, but there had been little time and little enough discipline to do so. The lazy Orcs merely stood waiting for death. In a way, Auric was pleased; while they were fair warriors they were poor soldiers and he was bitterly happy enough that they should die. He studied Thrommel's detachment another moment, then turned to his own cavalry and raised his dark helmet. A few of the Nulbian horsemen shuddered at the appearance of his face, the twisted, mangled jaw, the sightless eye, the scars of fire and steel etched over his hideous figures.

'The Guard will charge with me,' he intoned. 'The light horse will go with us, but only feign an attack and will instead sweep around to the rear to do what they may. Strike at the Elves, if you can reach them; but go quickly. That is the last chance for the Horde. If you win through, lash at the back of their lines again and again, and we shall punch through from the front. If not and you reach Hades before me, save me a pull on the hell-horn and expect that I shall see you anon,' he ordered, then replaced the helm. His sword came out and pointed at Thrommel's unit. 'Charge!' came the brief command, and his Guard rumbled forward. The battle was personal for him now; the remnants of the Horde would fight their own battle, led by Canon Hedrack. Auric hoped he was wiser than he seemed.

Auric's Guard went quickly into the trot, then the canter, and finally the gallop as Thrommel's heavy horse matched their rate, lances dropping into the couched position. The Knights spread out into a wedge of steel, led by Prince Thrommel in the centre.

To his left, the Nulbian horse spread out, crying wildly and waving their blades like the Cossacks of the Bandit Kingdoms. They hooked wide left – then kept on angling left towards the Southway, hurrying back in the direction of Nulb as a group, their light horses rapidly disappearing into the fading morning mist as they left the Horde behind.

Auric laughed bitterly under his helm. So be it. He turned back to the charge just as the two lines of heavy cavalry collided.

Horses screamed and fell, and men were thrown to the ground. The heavy lances of Thrommel's detachment and Auric's Guard slammed into plated armour, splintering, or running men through. The Knights of the Hart had the better of it, though, and most of Auric's Guard fell. Those few that remained swirled close around their leader – loyal to the last, bitter, hell-bound men united in the curse upon them all – and their blades came out as the next bloodletting began. Blades flashed and horses lashed at the foe with mighty hooves. Auric hewed and slashed about him, his heavy blade crashing into armour, slashing through here and there; and then he saw Prince Thrommel himself angling through the melee to meet him until they were sword-to-sword. Auric saluted him briefly, and saw the salute returned.

Auric was the older, the more experienced from a lifetime of often bitter mercenarial service, but Thrommel was young, and spry and the very flower of Northern chivalry, and the light of the gods was in his eye. Steel clashed as their swords met again and again in single combat, but then Thrommel was battering back the guard of Auric with his mighty blade, Fragarach – Answerer, in the Old Tongue – and then his edge was drawing blood. Then, with a mighty blow the shield-arm of Auric was hewn from his body.

Auric reeled, seeing blood spray from the stump. He dropped his sword, trying to clap a hand to it, but the flood could not be stemmed. His mount, uncommanded, began to stamp and back away.

Auric sagged back in the saddle, his vision dimming and spinning. He looked up. The sky was a rumbling grey, and turning darker.

The Horde's general toppled, falling between the crush of horse and Man.

Elven arrows rained down on the Horde as the infantry closed. Orcs and Gnolls collapsed under the fire; those that had shields raised them, but the ranks suffered under the withering fire. Fireballs exploded again, but fewer this time and only on the wings. They stood and bore it for a few moments and then, when the chiefs saw that Canon Hedrack would not send them forward, screamed their own charge in their native tongue. Three thousand Orcs raised their weapons and came forward. The Gnolls, at last, charged as a unit in the center of the line, halberd and flails readied.

The allies braced, pikes and shields coming up. The armies were just about to clash.

Then, the gray sky rumbled ominously over the Horde again and without warning there was a blinding flash, followed by a thunder like the crack of doom. A massive stroke of lighting exploded in the middle of the Horde force, far larger and wider than the bolts that had leapt from the magicians of the allies before and right in the centre of the Gnollish unit. Their centre exploded with white light, throwing bodies like toys, Orcish screams rending the sky. When it lifted, there was nothing to be seen except a massive hole in their lines littered with scorched corpses. Dazed Orcs on either side of the burned circle staggered mindlessly or clawed at smoldering hair or hides, or screamed with horror at the impassive skies. The others slowed, looking with dim horror at the scene. Orcs by nature preferred the dark, but not this eldritch storm-night by day, and they quailed as the air crackled with magic.

The Allies did not stop their advance. As Auric's unit disintegrated against the Knights of the Hart their infantry slammed into the disoriented ranks of the remnants of the Horde, marching straight into the burned ground, hewing and slaying everywhere. Nothing could stand against the accursed Dwarves and the hated Elves, whom they could not reach, were mowing them down in swathes.

The unbloodied Nulbian infantry, comfortably in the rear and seeing their horse flee, began to filter away too; by ones, then groups, and suddenly the whole lot of them took to their heels and fled southward, throwing their paltry weapons aside as they fled. They were not stopped; there were no allied soldiers that could reach them and the Horde was engaged. They simply fled south over the long fields, angling to reach the Southway.

By then the Horde itself was broken. Half had been so blinded by hate as to charge into a half-mile charge against orders, a mark of their shoddy discipline, and had nearly been exterminated. The rest had bled and fought to even close with a bitterly committed foe, and now the skies themselves conspired against them. It was all too much. They began to fall back from the approaching troops, trading ground for time and a little breathing space. The advancing allies, spearheaded by the Dwarves, drove a wedge deep into the Horde, slaying mercilessly, so deep that the Horde's formation began to split, with Dwarves going left or right to press on the newly developed divisions, though they were just masses of rabble now. The allies pressed on ever closer, Orcish dead piling behind them. Some Orcs threw down their weapons and sued for peace, but the Allies were of no mind for that, and slew them out of hand. Others surged in a last rush against the locked shields, but were cut down. Unstoppably the Allies rolled on.

Then a voice in the retreating press cried in Orcish 'The Great Man is fallen! There is no plunder! We are lost!' though none could have said which one of them called out. That had been the final straw. Panic shot through the ranks now that Auric himself had fallen and they Orcs began to flee in earnest, shoving the ranks into wild disorder that the Allies capitalized on, charging into the panicked mass, slaying.

Some Orcs ran south and were cut down by Thrommel's swirling cavalry. A few tried to stay and fight, forming a last circle of defiance bolstered by the Gnollish survivors. Many turned away from the killed blades to their west and the horsemen waiting to the south and made instead straight for Nigb's Run, throwing themselves in and struggling to reach the far side. But – hill, mountain and woods-dwelling Orcs having had little experience with large bodies of water – none could swim. Orcs tried fording or wading, or grabbing up pieces of driftwood where they could find them, but the raging whitewaters simply tore them away downstream and dragged them under. Bloated, stinking Orcish bodies washed up in the Velverdyva for weeks after the battle.

Barkinar wanted to weep in fury as the Horde began to scatter, fleeing south or east. Did they not know the Lady's glory? Was her service not glorious and right? But then he was fleeing too, running along with the other clerics of the Dark Lady, throwing aside shield and mace, and wrenching at his mail away, making for the river. He could not surrender; he would be hung on the spot and the ravens would tear at his eyes.

The water felt blissfully cool on his feet as he splashed into the shallows, ripping the sides of his cassock as he went so as to better allow the use of his legs. The act made him think in a flash of women's dresses, and then of the woman Telsa, who was lying dead somewhere in the field. She had not even lived to see the failure of the battle. Irrelevant! he shrieked at his subconscious and plowed into the churning river.

It was deeper and faster than he'd thought. He'd made some effort to angle towards his left and upstream as he went, so as not to be clawed under by the flailing Orcs hitting the water; a gaggle went by as he watched, screaming and thrashing at the air. Carefully, he made his way into the flow, his already freezing feet stumbling to find purchase as he went past his knees. The rocks were of mixed sizes here. He glanced back.

The allied forces had all but completed the slaughter. The Elves were concentrating on the northern mass, cutting them to shreds as they hurled spears and rocks in return. Thrommel's cavalry had returned to slam into the southern refuge and their swords were doing butcher's work, rising and falling, black blood flying everywhere.

Suddenly, arrows began to fall around him. He looked up. The Verbonician archers had spotted him and were trying to prevent him from making the east bank. Ducking low to make himself less of a target, he thanked the Lady that at least it hadn't been the damned Elves: those filthy non-humans would have punctured him by now, even at the range. He glanced nervously back at the water as another shaft plopped into the torrent beside him.

It was too fast, too violent. It would yank him off his feet and dash him on the rocks until it tore him apart. But what else could he do? He could certainly not go back and if he waited there much longer the freezing current would chill his muscles to the bones so that he would never be able to cross. Frantically he searched the river for any sign of a ford, or some shallower crossing point.

Then he looked back to see the silver-haired Elven bitch standing exactly opposite him on the west bank. She was looking directly at him and at the closer range he was struck for a moment by her painfully exquisite beauty, his gaze locked in place by her flowing argentine locks, her graceful, perfectly made form.

And her burning, wrathful violet eyes.

She raised a hand at him and he felt the electric surge of growing magic as she began to evoke a spell.

Barkinar turned, panic hammering in his heart, and leaped headfirst into the roaring river.

The last thousand Orcs on the left of the Horde's formation – tough Lortmils warriors of the Evil Moon tribe – massed together and closed their ranks. Shoving away from the Verboncian formation, they began loping away south in disciplined ranks under the leadership of their clan chief, Snagrot Two-Hands, turning to raise shields and ward off the pursuing forces of Thrommel's people with barrages of spears and stones cleverly aimed for their horses, or made simple hedges of spears and pikes captured from the Verbonician troops.

Snagrot had never liked this Temple plan with its rapid advance and easy conquest; he knew too well the foul humans and their simpering Dwarvish and Elvish allies. He had stuck with them for the loot, but the Horde was destroyed now. He would bring his tribe out of this, and go back to fighting the Littlebeards in the Lortmils, where they belonged.

As the light began to fail into the later afternoon, it seemed they might indeed use the growing darkness to melt away into the woods of the Southlands; Thrommel's cavalry pursued and herded them but did not press a charge and at length slowed as if unwilling to pursue further, turning north to hunt escapees that had fled towards Verbobonc City from the debacle. Snagrot sneered; he, alone of all the chiefs, had led his people out!

Three leagues south of Emridy they ran headlong into a force of a thousand Elven medium cavalry from Celene, pursuing the Horde north after having exterminated Auric's blocking force near Hommlet. The Elves had just completed mopping up the other fleeing remnants of the Horde, including the recalcitrant Nulbian light horse, and were racing north to join the battle.

They swept down on the disbelieving mountain Orcs like a grey wave.

No orc of the Evil Moon ever returned to the Lortmils and for many long years after the disaster of Emridy Meadows their caves remained empty and silent.

Barkinar dragged himself out of the water on the far side of Nigb's Run, unarmed and exhausted, his soaking robes dragging him down. He winced at the feeling in his left shoulder; he'd smacked into a great underwater stone as the river wrenched him away, then bounced off another with his now-aching hip. Beside him, another cleric of the Earth Temple lay shivering on the sand, just past the stony part of the beach; Romag was his name, or so Barkinar thought. He glanced back at the far shore; the river had swept him far downstream, miles perhaps. The enemy was mopping up the last of the Horde, throwing shattered bodies into a growing pyre fed by the magics of the Elf-wizards. There was no sign of the silver bitch at the distance, which was as well. He had to get out of here before they started sending hunter parties across; the damnable Elves probably knew where the fords were.

Barkinar turned to walk on then stumbled to his knees with a howl of pain. His ankle, twisted hard by the cataract, gave out and dropped him into the shallows. He clutched it, cursing the river, the Dwarves, the Elves, even the Orcs. What in all the hells had they been thinking, the High Priest and his General? Had they not so much as scried for a trap? A waiting ambush of a whole army! Damn Auric and his foolish lightning advance!

He reached into himself, feeling out his power, his magics, summoning them to the fore. He could feel his goddess' dark power surging through his hands, feel the creep of his flesh as it crept over his damaged limb, twisting, surging like a heart beating under his fingers – a foul, dark heart laced with slithering tentacles of mold and rot –

No! He must not think in such a way! With the force of practice he dragged his attention back to the Principle of Earth, of stone and rock, of strength and building. He grit his teeth as he felt the ligaments on the outside of his ankle slip forward, knitting themselves together, binding almost tether-tight, of the minute crack in the socket seal. With a gasp of released strain, he let go of his foot, experimentally stretching and rolling it. He stood. It was sound. The Lady was fickle, perhaps, but her divine powers did not disappoint.

He turned. The other priest, Romag, was watching, though he made no move towards him; did not dare do anything, in fact. Romag was a subordinate in the Earth Temple, though an insignificant one.

Lacking any better idea, Barkinar stood and looked out over the river, and the faraway site of the battlefield, now lost.

The humanoids – the Orcs and Gnolls, at least – of the Southlands had been decimated, or worse. He wondered where the blocking force was, and if some of the refugees from the battle might find them and rally them. They had best not go north. Even a handful of giants and ogres would make little dent on a force of their size; the blocking group would only be so much meat thrown into the same grinder.

Which left him wondering what to do himself.

He could follow the river and head south, but that would put him a stone's throw – almost literally – from the allied army as they marched south, as they surely would. He could not hope to keep ahead of them on the broken ground of this side, where there was no road and sooner or later they would send men across to take or slay him; as clerics of Zuggtmoy, the Horde's officers were doubly valuable and, therefore, worthwhile targets. He looked eastward into the rising trees of the Etter Hills; deep, rough woods and broken hills. There were small habitations in there; he knew some of them, had even preached the words of a false goddess there for a crust of bread, though the influence of Zuggtmoy had reached most of them by now. If he struck out straight east, he might strike on Emridy's Run, where he could maybe find a boat and find his way back to Nulb. It was his only chance to sound the alarm before the army of the enemy arrived at the Temple, as surely it would.

Suddenly there was a splashing and sputtering just to his left as another figure emerged from the water.

It was High Priest Inoxis, leader of the Fire Temple and the deacon of all of the Temple of Elemental Evil, lord and master and partial author of their defeat. The man crawled landward, choking out river water. His side was gashed with a vicious wound and one leg seemed lame. 'P-please,' he groaned, holding his side. 'Help me. My spells… depleted… we must escape… warn the Temple… help me.'

Barkinar stared at the man. His robes weighed him down like sheets of lead and the muscles of his legs were rubbery and spent but he cast about as he walked towards the High Priest, finding and picking up a suitable rock.

Inoxis looked up, brown face blanching as Barkinar came towards him. 'Wait… what are you…'

The first savage blow felled the High Priest, dropping him face-down and motionless into the shallows. The remaining strikes were almost unnecessary, but Barkinar desired thoroughness, always; and besides which the edge of his anger was fresh and raw. Not until Inoxis' skull had been split, spilling his brains out into the water for the small fish, and his neck made into a purpled welt of meat did Barkinar stop.

Barkinar stood back panting, surveying his work; then he tossed the makeshift club into the water beside Inoxis' corpse with disdain, dimly noting the splash.

'Good, master,' Romag said, startling Barkinar as he suddenly and unexpectedly appeared beside him. Quickly Barkinar glanced at the rock, but the other priest did not attack, seeming to prefer simpering. 'He deserved such for his failure!' Romag went on, spitting at Inoxis' corpse. 'We have lost all! The fool!'

Well, thought Barkinar, that was true enough. He looked across the river again. He saw neither scouts nor cavalry there, but that would not last long. They would need to move – soon.

As Barkinar turned to begin hiking up into the wilds of the Etter Hills, no less a personage than Canon Hedrack himself fetched up out of the savage flow just a few yards away, staggering and clawing at the rocks as he heaved himself ashore. There was a red stain on his cassock and a savage bruise over his right eye. His exhausted gaze fell on them both, and Barkinar knew that he could not have failed to see all that had transpired. Barkinar glanced at the rock again.

Hedrack staggered past them, casting an uncaring eye on Inoxis' still form to reach the sands and fall to his knees in the shallows, panting.

'Zuggtmoy's Molds and Mushrooms,' he swore, turning over to sit painfully on the shore, the body of Inoxis floating practically at his feet in the shallow water. 'What a godsforsaken disaster.'