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“I’m afraid to trust my wing to the air again. I will go in with the Hypatian horsemen.”
“We’ll count on you to come to the rescue of the first wave,” Ayafeeia said. “The sounds of fighting shouldn’t be hard to find.”
“Maidmother, would it not be better to let the Hypatians lead the attack? It’s their city. Let them keep their honor by winning it back.”
“It is an accepted rule of the battle art that air should pass ahead of ground, the way the rain strikes before the flood.”
The quote stirred Wistala’s hearts. She’d read an old battle-treatise of Rainfall’s grandsire. Strange that one of his maxims passed over to dragon-strategy in such a manner. Perhaps dragons had fought with the Hypatians in those ancient battles.
She brought herself back to the present.
“The Hypatians’ approach may draw the Ironriders out into battle.”
“Or it may send them to the walls and war-engines.”
“I’ve been in the city. The walls are old and ill-kept, and if they have any war-engines, they weren’t on display when I passed through. The Hypatian numbers are few. Would not their princes send their horses out to fight in the fields such as would be most familiar to them and their manner of fighting?”
“You argue like an Anklene, Wistala. Very well. We shall stay concealed in the marshes until you launch your attack.”
“I’ll leave it to you to best judge when to launch your fliers. Just do not leave us out there too long on our own.”
“For our gardens and our vineyards,” Sandwash shouted, leg hooked in perfect balance atop his strange sidesaddle, his enormous bow held with long, slipper-covered toes of one extended leg. The pose reminded Wistala of the dancers who’d traveled with the circus, who could hook ankle around behind ear like a ruin-cat.
“For our roofs and our hearths,” Ermet called, perched atop his thug on the horny ridge just above the eyes. A long-handled ax hung easily in one stout arm, a forked mancatcher in the other.
“For our fathers and our daughters,” Roff called.
“For our libraries and our courts,” Wistala said, finding her Hypatian again.
“For all this and all we hold dear,” an aged, bent elf in the shining armor of a Knight of the Directory called, just barely keeping his great, steel-shod warhorse under control.
“Let’s get to some stompin’ already,” the horse muttered.
“For all this, forward, Hypatia. Forward, the Last Host!”
“Forward, the Last Host!”
They came into the open fields beside the riverbank and passed through the vineyards, tearing away stakes and stalks as they went.
The advance wasn’t quite so splendid as a charge. The horses moved at a fast walk, having to keep behind the vanguard of thugs. But it allowed Wistala to keep up at an easy pace.
Yet there was something to be said for a slow advance. Wistala wondered how it would look to the bleary-eyed Ironriders as they woke to the drums of battle.
The thugs had been trained to go into battle in step, and their heavy footfalls shook the ground. Behind them one felt it rather than heard it, a boom . . . boom . . . boom . . . as the creatures swayed forward in their odd, sailorlike gait. What would such a noise sound like to the Ironriders, far from home in a strange city?
But for all that their pace was slow. The Ironriders had plenty of time to prepare and draw their plans.
The Ironriders, or some part of their number, rode out to meet them.
They rode out in three long columns, a trident of black emerging from three different points in the city. Wistala, peeking between the thugs and kicking up as much dust as she could as she walked to hide her presence, guessed the Hypatians were outnumbered ten to one or more.
She marked three tall banners drawn by horse-carts, as high as ship-masts. Bodies hung from them, arranged in frightful and gory poses. She recognized among them women and the black-and-white robes of the Directory.
So much for a peaceful surrender.
Ah, well, the center would make a fine aiming point for her leap.
“Do not take alarm at what I’m about to do,” Wistala said.
