Page 136 (1/2)
A fa sound drew Lyrna’s attention back to the li on the centre of the Volarian line It see but still keeping on despite the continuing arrow stor the blank faces of Varitaiblithely forward as their comrades died around them She had expected Al Hestian to halt the army and let the Cu of les told of a different intent
She lowered the spyglass as the Renfaelin knights spurred into a charge, thunder rising from the earth as they accelerated, a cloud of shredded redflower ascending in their wake, rendered oddly beautiful in the sunlight The Cuan to for swords and hatchets, e at the teie strike hoh her father had often spoken of it Iiant She heard Murel issue a curse of ae of steel and horseflesh struck howith the harsh, discordant notes of colliding flesh andwith their horses in a tangle of arhtly host retained its cohesion to skewer the Volarian line, tearing all the way through to the Free Swords and the open country beyond
More bugles sounded and the entire mass of Al Hestian’s infantry increased its pace to a run The coent evaporated as they ran, covering the re distance to the Volarian line in a frenzied sprint of flailing swords and hatchets, tearing into the already disordered i in a practised display of disciplined slaughter, stripping away any remnant of order in the Volarian ranks, which buckled, fell back and disintegrated
Ever more petals rose froscarlet The cavalry battles on either flank raged on for a ti east as they discerned the fate of their infantry The spyglass revealed the sight of Lord Adal leading the North Guard in pursuit of the escaping riders, despite the foa behind as he spurred it on, reddened sword extended straight as an arrow
As her gaze returned to the centre of the battlefield she found a dense cluster of Free Swords had forlass revealedwith the kind of ferocity that was only born of survival
“Send a rider to Lord Al Hestian,” she told Iltis “I ahness”
She turned at Murel’s half-whispered words, the sight that greeted herher wonder if some new enemy hadn’t appeared in their midst, so disordered were the ranks of the Real through their lines The slaves, she realised, catching sight of Nortah on horseback, vainly atteed towards the surviving Free Swords The first hundred or so were cut down in seconds, but the others ca of the swords that slashed and hacked their unprotected flesh She saw a h the Volarian ranks with his bare hands, tearing at faces and necks, see not to feel the blade that sank into his chest as he bore its owner to the ground, prizing his helmet away to fix his teeth on the flesh beneath His fellows piled into the shallow gap he had rent in the Volarian line, the Free Swords’ desperate courage turned to panic by the savagery of the onslaught So to their knees Most were not so fortunate
Justice, Lyrna thought as the last speck of Volarian black disappeared in the seethingcaptured weapons, or even severed limbs and heads in celebration as the petals continued to fall We are not the only hungry souls here
• • •
“Do you think I’ woman elected to speak for the freed slaves was in truth possessed of a certain delicate beauty, her features s olive hue, e that covered her partly severed left ear She wore awith ar at Lyrna in open defiance, the lack of any bow or honorific rousing Iltis to issue a threatening rumble as he started forward Lyrna calestured for the woman to continue
“My back is not so pretty,” she went on “My first night in the pleasure house I cried, greatly displeasing the red-clad who had paid a handsoed every day for a week then sold s ate better than I did and the farmer didn’t care if I cried when he pawed rieve for all you’ve suffered,” Lyrna told her “My wrists were once bound by chains so do not iine that I care for the enemies we kill However, if your people are to ard themselves as soldiers, bound by the orders of those who co one h her tone wasBut there is un”