Wolf King (4)
"Orcs?"
Like a gust of frigid wind sweeping across the plain, the blue riders emerged into view.
"Where in the world did they get numbers like that...!"
It was a force of alarming scale. Several hundred, at a rough estimate—and every one of them a warrior on horseback.
Cavalry numbering over a hundred was something even the largest mercenary companies could never field. Such an army could only be raised by many orc hordes, multiple tribes bound together in alliance.
[Vengeance for Karakh!]
The orcs of the rocky mountains were demanding to know Karakh's whereabouts, while others cried out for the birth of a king.
[Save the king!]
They were shouting in the orc tongue, which meant no mercy could be expected from them.
"Tei!"
At Baatar's call, Tei readied the front line. The archers who had been sniping at Narinhoon shifted their aim.
"Nock your arrows!"
Bellowing the order in a voice like thunder, Tei drew his own bowstring as well.
"Kamar! Urshu!"
The Silver Wolf, leading the army from its head, shouted in Orcish. At his command, the force split into two wings.
Their response is fast.
Experience and instinct. Split-second judgment. For a field commander, there were no qualities more vital.
"Loose—!"
The arrows flew not at stationary targets, but along the projected paths of moving bodies.
Tei's arrow streaked toward the enemy commander at the front. The silver-furred orc's eyes gleamed, and he split the shaft in two.
Thwack.
Clicking his tongue, Tei adjusted his aim. His second arrow punched through the eye socket of an orc warrior standing beside the commander.
The head snapped back, the jaw hanging loose. An instant, certain death.
Riders began falling from their saddles one after another, and the fate awaiting those who lost their mounts would be a cruel one.
Anyone fool enough to charge in on foot would simply be trampled to paste beneath centaur hooves.
Tei surveyed the battlefield with sharp eyes.
Well armored. We're not doing real damage.
They were wearing proper armor, after all. Arrows loosed from several hundred meters could be turned aside without much difficulty by mail like that.
More than anything, their horses are good.
Orcs did not raise livestock. Which meant they could not breed quality horses. Most orc mounts were wild horses at best, or pack animals seized in raids.
The difference between a wild horse, a pack horse, and a true warhorse was nothing short of immense.
They don't so much as flinch when struck by arrows. Trained horses.
No beast the size of a horse could be neutralized by a single arrow. But horses were timid creatures, and it was possible to spook them into throwing their riders. A wild horse or a pack animal would dump its master at the mere prick of a needle, let alone an arrow.
Such animals could never become warhorses. A warhorse knew that even an arrow buried in its rump was not necessarily fatal.
It knew that staying close to its master was safer than turning tail and fleeing. Unless it took a truly lethal wound, it stayed with its rider.
The horses those orcs rode were exactly that kind of animal. Somewhere, they had acquired proper warhorses and trained them by whatever means they could.
Which means this is no hastily thrown-together force.
This was a professional corps, raised with purpose by someone.
"Shoot the horses' necks!"
Tei and the centaur archers moved to intercept the enemy.
Thock—
Tei's arrows bored into the vital points the armor could not shield.
"Tarmut. Ash!"
The orc warriors who had closed the distance drew their own bows—black horn bows made from goat horn.
They did not loose immediately, but crept in a little closer. Tei narrowed his eyes, working through the orc tactics.
"Baatar."
"Go on."
"They're aiming for a pincer encirclement."
Vesta asked for a quick explanation.
"You can tell from their shooting stance. It's the technique used to bring down skittish game with certainty at close range."
It was also the ideal posture to take from the back of a galloping horse.
The day Ashtien and I were supposed to go wolf hunting. Ahor demonstrated it for me.
Its power had been extraordinary.
Tei pressed on with his explanation, quick and precise.
"They won't collide with us head-on. They'll rain arrows down while swirling inward, herding us in like a whirlpool."
Given the centaurs' nature, it was hardly a novel stratagem. Centaurs excelled at melee, and they would concede ground, close the gap, and shatter their foes.
But things are different now.
"Tei. This pincer of theirs."
"Yes. The orc army will block the direction we break through, and that wolf-man there will seal the direction we retreat."
What made the difference was Narinhoon's presence.
Narinhoon would hold an entire army on his own. That was what made it a two-sided encirclement.
The moment the centaurs moved to crush the orc army, the net around Narinhoon would inevitably thin.
Even now, with the archers who'd been pinning him gone, the net is already fraying.
If Narinhoon tore through the thinned web and broke out, casualties would begin mounting within minutes—dozens of them.
And then the encirclement would close in tighter and tighter.
At that point, the centaurs' legs would be bound.
The strength of the centaur lay in its unmatched mobility, and in the crushing momentum that mobility created. Bind their legs, and they would be reduced to nothing more than ordinary cavalry.
Once the encirclement forms, everyone dies.
"Tei. I'm splitting the force. Take half and break the encirclement."
"As you command."
Tei did not question the order. It was the look in Vesta's eyes—burning as bright as the Light of the South—that made it so.
"I'll take the vanguard! Follow Baatar's orders and stay on my heels!"
Tei bowed his head to Vesta, then led his troops away into the distance.
Vesta was left on the battlefield, with only a minimal force remaining at his side.
Now, then. My part in this.
Vesta advanced toward the heart of the battlefield. A maelstrom of blood that never ceased to spurt—a churning chaos, where Narinhoon and Attila collided.
BOOM.
The crash of impact rang out like thunder.
"It's too dangerous here!"
He shoved aside the warrior trying to hold him back. Vesta peered into the whirlpool of blood. Countless pieces of metal. Sharpened lines and piercing points. Forces acting along those lines and points. Joints and organs working like levers.
He took it all in at a glance—and without a moment's hesitation, hurled himself into the very center of the fray.
"Wh—what—"
The legs of the centaur warriors blocked his path like a dizzying thicket of reeds. Aside from the fact that each one carried enough force to kill him, it almost looked familiar.
Crack—
A hoof slammed into the earth. A pebble leapt up and flew at him like a chunk of fat hurled from a sling. He turned his head and slipped past it. Vesta did not stop. He threw his body forward.
Through countless hooves, through blood and iron filings.
Then he saw them. Two men.
Narinhoon's blade was clashing against Attila's crescent blade.
Vesta took one step. And then another.
Blood sprayed.
[Ha.]
In the space neither Narinhoon's blade nor Attila's cresant blade had accounted for—low, near the ground—Vesta stood, his sword driven straight through Narinhoon's wrist.
Narinhoon, with the dynamic vision of a beast, had caught Vesta's movement—but in parrying Attila's strike, he had surrendered his opening to him.
At Vesta's sudden appearance, everyone froze. Their brains simply could not process what was happening.
Only three men truly understood the situation: Vesta, Narinhoon, and Attila.
Vesta spoke to Attila.
"Take the troops and break the encirclement."
A firm order, followed immediately by counsel.
"You can't kill this man. Not you."
Vesta wrenched his blade free of Narinhoon's wrist. Blood spurted.
"My wound..."
"What of it."
Sure enough, Narinhoon's wound closed before long.
He is not a being that can be killed by sword or spear.
"Then who takes this place?"
Attila asked. The answer came not from Vesta, but from Narinhoon.
[A general is met by a general.]
Even as he locked strength against strength with Narinhoon, Attila met Vesta's eyes, searching them for his true intent.
Can you do it?
Vesta did not answer aloud.
That is the wrong question.
Then what?
Because it was never a matter of can or cannot.
"I see."
What must be done. What must be achieved. Reaching beyond one's own limits and seizing what lies there.
And to do that, the first thing one must stake is one's own life.
Attila felt a kindred spirit. No doubt Vesta felt the same. The two of them were a different breed—men who prized their own lives less than any mission they carried.
Men who believed there were things that came before life itself.
"So this was your battlefield."
And with that, it all made sense.
Attila accepted Vesta's command.
Narinhoon, with his peculiar instinct, recognized it for what it was.
[Planning to slip away?]
A baseless hope.
Narinhoon's burst mobility overwhelmed the centaurs'. He could cut Attila down faster than Attila could retreat.
"Narinhoon. Here."
Fwoosh—
Flames split the space between Narinhoon and Attila.
Narinhoon twisted his body and evaded. The fire stopped just short of grazing his skin.
Sssk—
The sound of searing flesh. Was it the burn itself, or the spirit magic, that made it so? The wound was slow to knit closed.
[Yes. That's it.]
The wound dragged death closer—a death that had been waiting far away, nearly forgotten.
[As I thought. Only you can kill me.]
"That's right."
[And. Only I can kill you.]
Narinhoon believed it without a shadow of doubt.