The Lance Thrower by Jack Whyte

Author:Jack Whyte [Whyte, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2005-11-01T06:00:00+00:00

We rode into it. Rode unsuspecting into the chaos and destruction that marked the beginning of Gunthar’s War and were engulfed by its madness within the space of two heartbeats. One moment we were forging ahead determinedly through the still unceasing downpour, our horses plodding side by side along a broad and muddy woodland path, and the next we had rounded a bend in the path and found ourselves at the top of a steep defile leading down into a tiny vale that was choked with corpses. It was still not yet noon and the noise of the lashing rain was loud enough to drown any noise from the flies that were beginning to swarm here in uncountable numbers.

At first glance, I could not tell what I was looking at, but beyond that first uncomprehending look there was nothing that could disguise the atrocity of what we had found. My first conscious impression was of a score of bodies. The number sprang into my mind as though it had been spoken aloud, and I recall it clearly. A score of bodies. No sooner had I acknowledged it, however, than I saw that it was woefully inadequate, for another score and more lay sprawled and half concealed by bushes. And at that moment, as though it had been preordained, the rain stopped falling, for the first time in days, to leave us sitting stunned in a silence that seemed enormous, gazing in stupefaction at the carnage before us.

Ursus, as usual, was first to collect himself. “Well,” he said, his voice sounding louder than ever now that he had no need to shout over the noise of the rain, “at least we know now that they have not all joined forces. Whose men were these, do you know?”

“Ban’s,” I said, still too stupefied by the unexpectedness of what we had found to have thought beyond the fact of it to the implications it entailed. “They’re garrison troops, wearing Ban’s emblem, see? The blue boar’s head.” And then, as the import of what we were seeing began to sink home to me, my voice shrank to a mere whisper and I felt my bowels twist themselves into spasms of knotting cramps. “These must be the men Theuderic took with him when he left yesterday.”

Ursus nudged his horse forward until he was sitting knee to knee with me. I glanced at him, wondering if he felt as I did, but he was scanning the entire scene ahead of us, his eyes moving ceaselessly over the ranks of slaughtered men.

“Took them on the march,” he said. “Must have lain in wait for them, knowing they’d be coming.” He tilted his head back slightly, pointing with his chin. “Look at them. Poor whoresons didn’t even have time to draw their weapons. Not a strung bow or an unsheathed sword among them. Probably ambushed from over there.” He pointed to the hillside facing us on the other side of the narrow valley. “See, on the top of

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