A chaotic mass of men ran toward their line. As they drew closer, Will could see that they were all young. The spears they carried were strange as well, with short, heavy shafts connected to a long, slender head that was more of a spike than a proper spearhead. Sergeant Nash yelled a warning from behind the line, “Skirmishers! Ready shields!”
“Skirmishers?” Will asked aloud, knowing no one besides Sven or Tiny could hear him.
“They won’t engage,” said Sven. “They’ll just throw their spears and run back. Keep your shield up.”
Just as the old soldier had predicted, the Darrowan skirmishers ran up until they were almost close enough for Will to skewer one, then they threw their spears and darted away. Each of the skirmishers carried two of the strange spears, and they threw the second one before they were out of range. Men up and down the line yelled out as a few of them were unlucky enough to be hit. Will saw one of the spears hit Tiny’s shield, and the slender point went completely through the thin wood. The point had gone half a foot through the shield before it stopped, making it nearly impossible to remove.
Tiny struggled to keep his shield up properly with the long, wooden shaft throwing him off-balance. “Pull the shaft off!” yelled Sven. “It isn’t attached.”
That made little sense to Will, though he later learned the metal points were made that way to keep an enemy from picking them up and throwing them back. Even after Tiny had removed the wooden portion, he was still left with a sharp piece of steel pointing inward and threatening him every time his shield took another blow.
Glancing to one side, Will saw that one man had been much less fortunate. He’d had his shield braced against his shoulder, and one of the strange spears had gone completely through, pinning his shield to his chest. Will wanted to stop and help, but there was no time; the line kept moving.
Crossbow bolts began slamming into them then, and a few more men fell as they advanced. As the skirmishers fled the field, Will could see a shield wall topping the small, earthen ramp in front of them, and he realized they were about to march down into the ditch and then up again, all while the enemy was standing several feet above them. Shit. He was convinced he was about to die, and the urge to break and run was almost overwhelming.
But he couldn’t abandon Tiny and Sven, and even if he were willing to do that, the second and third ranks were pushing them forward. Retreat simply wasn’t an option. It was do or die. Or more likely, do and die, thought Will.
Working as quickly as he could, Will used the source-link spell and began pushing his turyn into the men directly ahead once they were in range. He managed to get one, two, three—and then the lines met, and everything went to hell. With his shield up, he couldn’t see anything; he just kept pressing forward while blindly thrusting with his spear.
The men in the rank behind him could see, though, and they used their weapons to better effect. Most of the Terabinian line stalled in the trench, but the portion in the center, where Will was, managed to get up the earthen slope. Everywhere men were dying, screaming and bleeding, yet somehow Sergeant Nash’s voice continued to cut through the cacophony. “Company B, wheel left!” The perpetually angry sergeant continued screaming, keeping order and somehow making what they had practiced in drill actually work.
Will and the men around him moved forward, swinging to the left while Company C went the opposite direction, opening a wide, clear area in the center of the enemy line which Fulstrom and the reserve company charged through.
Company B continued on, rolling up the enemy and destroying their cohesion, while Fulstrom’s company moved on, wreaking havoc in the camp and scattering the Darrowan reserves who were still trying to form up.
Sven called out to Will from his left, “We might just win this th—” His words cut off suddenly. Will glanced over and saw a long, leaf-bladed spearhead pulling back—it had just gone through Sven’s cheek and the back of his throat. The old soldier collapsed, blood pouring from his mouth.
Their formation had begun to disintegrate, and Will froze in horror as he watched soldiers of both armies trample Sven’s dead body. A shadow caught his attention, and he saw a spear coming toward him. He had been too distracted, and now it was too late. Time slowed to a crawl as his heart sped up, but there was no way he could avoid the thrust.
A larger shadow eclipsed the sun as Tiny’s massive form bulled forward, the edge of his shield knocking the spear away. Thrusting with his own weapon, Tiny impaled the Darrowan. Will saw the big man’s face and was shocked by the rage he saw there. Snarling, Tiny lifted the man he had skewered and swung him sideways, hurling him off the spear and back into the enemy mob.
Tiny’s spear had cracked under the weight of the man he had thrown, but he bent and snatched another from the ground and moved on. As he passed by, Will heard him scream, “Get up!”
Ashamed of his weakness, Will jumped up, lifting his shield and following his friend. He had lost his spear somewhere, but it wasn’t his best weapon anyway. Staying close to the big man, he began using the source-link spell again, incapacitating as many of the enemy as he could. Together, he and Tiny destroyed the knot of rallying Darrowans, and Company B began surging forward once more.
Their line was gone. The enemy soldiers had lost all cohesion, and many of them began to run, followed by the Terabinian soldiers. Sergeants and lieutenants yelled continuously, trying to restore order to their own men, but the Terabinian army was hot on the heels of the routing Darrowans. Order was gone, and the battlefield devolved into a rioting melee in which it was hard to identify friend and foe.
Will stayed close to Tiny, and when he looked to his right, he saw Dave was still with them as well, though the man seemed to have gone mad. Spittle flew from Dave’s mouth as he spat out a constant stream of incomprehensible curses. The ex-thief’s voice had failed him at some point, but his mouth continued to open and close as he screamed and stabbed at anyone who got close to Tiny’s right side.
Ahead, Lord Fulstrom and Company E ran rampant through the enemy camp, scattering the second half of the enemy force before they could form a cohesive force that might turn back the Terabinian army. As Will watched, the baron stood in his stirrups and began drawing power from his elemental, forming a large fireball above his raised hands. Before he could release it, though, streams of fire erupted from the enemy, coming at him from two different sides.
The baron was incinerated, and the massive ball of fire above his head exploded, devastating the men around him. In the span of a few seconds, half of Company E was gone. The world seemed to pause then, as soldiers on both sides stopped in horror to stare at the awful carnage. Will could feel the battle teetering on the edge of a blade. Given the slightest push, it might topple and fall either way.
For once, he was the first to recover. “For Terabinia!” he screamed, charging across the open ground in the direction of one of the two sorcerers who had slain Lord Fulstrom. Tiny and Dave went with him, and the Terabinian army began to move again, becoming a raging mob as they charged forward.
Will only had eyes for the dark-robed sorcerer. He feared to look elsewhere and lose sight of the man. He and his squad mates were ahead of the Terabinian charge, but he couldn’t stop to worry about that. The sorcerer was surrounded by a small, protective guard composed of four men, but otherwise he was alone. His eyes met Will’s, and Will saw them harden as the sorcerer gathered his power to destroy them.