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With that shout as the signal, the soldiers began to move in disciplined order.
Varkas seized Toruk’s reins from a squire who came sprinting up and mounted at once.
Just as he was about to gallop through the encampment and past the palisade gate, the second son of the Bluestone family chased after him, shouting at the top of his lungs.
“Your Excellency, we will join the fray as well!”
Reining Toruk in, Varkas looked down at him and gave a brief nod.
“Take the right wing.”
Without a word of objection, the man wheeled and galloped straight through the barricade.
Varkas followed, riding toward the front lines. Seeing the enemy swarming like a stampede of wild oxen, he drew his mount to a halt halfway up the slope.
Beyond the wide-open fortress gates, massive warriors clad in heavy armor poured out in an endless stream.
Gauging their numbers, Varkas held out a hand to the squires who had hurried to his side.
At once, a heavy halberd measuring eight kvets was placed into his grip.
The moment he raised it high to signal the attack, the ballistae arrayed along the ridge loosed their iron bolts in unison.
With a sharp, rending whistle, hundreds of great iron shafts tore through the air, mercilessly impaling the men who charged like frenzied boars.
In an instant, hundreds lay broken across the snow-covered earth.
Yet the Northerners did not waver in the least. As if resigned to death, thousands of shock troops vaulted the bodies of their fallen and collided with the infantry spread across the hill.
Varkas immediately signaled to halt the artillery. Keeping up the barrage would only mow down his own men.
He wheeled his horse, ordering the cavalry waiting on the left wing into a charge. In that same breath, the horsemen crashed into the enemy’s flank.
As the foe broke and scattered beneath the surging tide of warhorses, the imperial center pushed forward. Crushed under the multi-pronged assault, the rebel line collapsed in moments.
At this rate, the battle would be decided before midday.
Tasting the wind heavy with blood, Varkas swept his gaze across the field and spurred his horse straight into the carnage.
Even with their lines shattered, the Northerners fought with brutal tenacity.
Varkas rode directly into their midst without hesitation. A warrior hacking wild with a battleaxe was trampled beneath Toruk’s hooves, skull and blood crushed into the snow.
The soldiers witnessing the slaughter froze.
Varkas did not miss the opening, sweeping his halberd in a vicious upward diagonal.
A single stroke severed the necks and torsos of three men together, spraying gore across the line.
Trampling past the bodies, Varkas pressed forward. He drove the long, pointed tip of his halberd clean through a hulking warrior clad in heavy plate.
Snapping the shaft, he hurled the corpse straight into the enemy’s core. The warriors lunging with their axes were knocked flat by the hurtling body of their comrade, scattering like pins.
Struck by that overwhelming violence, the Northerners began to give ground.
No matter how warlike their blood, they were still a militia lacking formal drill. Once their resolve cracked, they would disintegrate in an instant.
Varkas raised the blood-slicked blade high and ordered the entire line forward.
Just then, a thunderous rumble of hooves shook the ground from beyond the gentle crest of the hill.
A cold prickle ran down his neck, and Varkas looked back over his shoulder.
A cavalry host clad in heavy black iron armor was thundering toward them, shaking the earth to its foundations. There were easily thousands of them.
Varkas swung his mount around to reinforce the right wing, but the vanguard of the black-clad horsemen slammed into his lines at that very moment.
The screech of iron shearing against iron and the terrified shrieks of horses tore through the air.
Gripping his polearm with both hands, he quickly assessed the new arrivals’ formation. Their maneuvers were precise—seasoned, disciplined soldiers, through and through.
Reaching a conclusion in an instant, Varkas cut his way to the front. He brought the halberd’s axe head sweeping upward; the blood-drenched steel sliced through the lead horse’s neck and tore clean through the rider’s breastplate without catching.
Yet the rider was extraordinarily swift. Throwing himself backward to evade the fatal bite of the steel, the man snatched a spear stuck in the earth and hurled it at Varkas in the same fluid motion.
Varkas knocked the spear aside with the shaft of his halberd and spurred his mount directly at the man.
The Northerner moved with an agility that defied the weight of his plate armor.
Rolling clear of the descending hooves, the man cleared a longsword from his waist and thrust with blinding speed.
Varkas brought the shaft up instantly to parry.
The blade, driven with terrifying force, struck the steel-banded haft with a deafening crack. A violent vibration rattled through Varkas’s wrists, up his forearms, and deep into his shoulder joints, forcing his teeth together.
This was no ordinary warrior.
Holding his weapon firm with both hands, Varkas peered through the slits of the man’s visor.
Beneath the dark steel, a pair of red eyes glowed with fierce intensity.
‘Is this Bjorn Blodar Heimdal?’
Varkas drove his horse forward, using the beast’s bulk to shove the warrior back. The man stumbled, but recovered his footing in an instant and slipped out of reach.
Just as Varkas leveled his spear tip to track the man’s stance, a stray cavalryman who had slipped past the lines charged him from the side.
Varkas whipped his weapon around to parry the strike, reversed the momentum, and brought the axe blade crashing down into the rider’s collarbone.
As he pulled the weapon free to face the Northerner once more, an abrupt numbness spread across his fingertips.
He forced his hands to tighten against the slight tremble and raised his weapon defensively.
Yet that fraction of a second created a fatal gap. In that opening, the warrior had closed the distance, his blade lunging straight for Varkas’s chest.
Though an instinctual twist of his torso saved his heart, he could not stop the long steel from skewering deep into his side.
Varkas grimaced at the sickening bite of cold iron shearing through flesh.
Yet his hesitation lasted only a heartbeat. He swung the axe blade hard toward his attacker’s neck.
The man, whose eyes had gleamed with triumph while his blade was lodged in Varkas’s body, recoiled and leaped backward.
A rush of blood poured from the open wound as the steel was torn free, but Varkas paid it no mind, driving his halberd forward in a relentless strike.
The warrior deflected the blow and scrambled to widen the distance. At that moment, someone blocked Varkas’s path.
“Hold, Your Grace! Your wound!”
Varkas shoved past the retainer trying to hold him back, his eyes locked on his prey.
Then, without warning, his weight gave way. He drove the halberd’s butt into the snow to keep from tumbling from his horse, but the Northerner had already slipped out of the melee.
Clutching his bleeding side, Varkas watched the man’s retreating back. Bjorn Blodar Heimdal had already rejoined his rear guard, leaped onto a fresh mount, and was sounding the retreat.
Had the surprise charge been staged from the start merely to buy time for the Amasec rebels to withdraw?
Watching the enemy forces rapidly disengage after turning the field into chaos, Varkas clenched his jaw and forced his spine straight. He started to lift his halberd to signal a pursuit, but suddenly, the world washed out into blinding white.
“Grand Duke!”
END