The Isle of Battle by Sean Russell

Author:Sean Russell
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: HarperCollins

Only a few had managed to scramble into their saddles, though foot soldiers had quickly formed a ragged line. Not enough of them, though. Kel had driven his charger into the hastily formed line. It appeared to happen very slowly, his mind taking in every detail. The pale grim face of the young man, helmless, who fell beneath Kel’s first stroke. The sound of iron-shod hooves on mail, on bone.

Most men broke and ran. The rest were trampled or cut down. It was a slaughter, though the greater numbers of the Prince of Innes preserved them for a time. Men flailed into the river, where they sank beneath the weight of their mail, and others fought to cross back over the bridge, where knights had drawn swords and began killing their own to stay the rout.

“The horror of victory,” it had been called, and Kel understood it now. He spun his horse and looked around. Everywhere, he saw men in purple and black and in the Wills evening blue running from the Renné and their allies. Small pockets of men, surrounded by sky blue, were sullenly laying down arms. A sword in one hand, a torch in the other, and controlling his mount with his knees, Tuwar Estenford led a battle for the bridge, driving the Wills and their allies back.

Kel turned again and spurred his horse forward to go to the aid of a group of knights hard pressed on all sides, but horns called out in the early morning, horns and the cries of men. He looked up to see mounted men swarming down the slope under the dark, double swan banners of the Wills.

A shout went up from the Wills and the men of Innes. They were delivered! Suddenly they turned from flight and renewed the battle, engaging the Renné as equals rather than conquerors.

And now it was Kel who was being driven back, back from the bank of the canal. He saw Tuwar, almost on the bridge, throw his torch into a barge and begin to fall back.

Above the din Kel heard the whistle of arrows, and flinched before he realized it was the Renné archers sending their arrows into the arriving Wills. Where had they come from? he wondered.

The battle hung in the balance, he knew. Either the resurgence of the men of Innes would spend itself, or they would push the Renné from the canal bank. It might take only a few minutes for that to be known. If the archers couldn’t drive the Wills reinforcements back, then they would fall upon Kel and his men from the rear and they would be encircled. It would be a miracle, then, if they could extricate themselves and escape.

Kel was isolated and surrounded so quickly he didn’t know how it had happened, but suddenly he was beset on every side, he and one other who would not hold this position long.

Horns sounded again, and a cheer went up from the men of Innes and the Wills. More reinforcements had arrived, Kel thought, but could not look up.

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