There were no pikes, but the line extended back beyond the torchbearers, three or four defenders deep at least. He saw Barrick’s horse crash into the dark mass, heard shrieks and hooting screams and what sounded like a shout of anger from the prince, then Vansen was in the midst of the chaos himself, striking with his sword wherever he saw something move.

Some of the creatures had shields. Vansen could only hack his way a few yards into the crush of Longskulls before being driven back again, hammering away with his sword at the sharp points jabbing at him from all sides. The bony-headed creatures didn’t have pikes or even swords as far he could tell in the confusion, but there were many axes and more than a few short stabbing-spears, as well as clubs. One shrieking creature swung something at him that looked like a pickax made of two heavy branches tied together, and although Vansen broke it with his blade, the force of the blow nearly knocked him from his saddle.

Unable to break through, Ferras Vansen yanked hard on the reins and his horse danced back out of the worst of the melee. He tried to spot another way through but it was like some children’s game in a dark room, half-seen shapes everywhere. Where was the prince? Was he down, or had he and the fairy broken through?

A moment later Vansen saw Gyir on foot, dragging Barrick backward out of a clot of defenders, the fairy-horse lost or dead. Vansen spurred toward them and was suddenly aware of Skurn squawking in fear, squeezed underneath the arm he was using to hold the reins. The large, clumsy bird would only get in his way and there was no sense in the raven dying, too, if that was what was to happen. Vansen pulled Skurn loose, then threw him into the dark rushes waving near the stream.

The reverberating cry of the creatures grew suddenly louder as the rest of the force, the troop that had been pursuing Vansen and the others down the hill, came dashing out onto open ground, waving their torches, their oddly-jointed movements stranger than any nightmare.

Vansen reined up beside his companions. Barrick looked up with glassy, fatalistic eyes. Gyir, his sword already dripping black with blood, stared past him at the Longskulls on either side.

“We are surrounded!” Vansen pulled on the reins, trying to keep his restive, frightened horse from rearing. The pursuers on the hillside had slowed from a full-tilt run to something more like a walk, but they still came on. Those at the head of the valley were moving closer now too, so that Vansen and his companions found themselves in the middle of a shrinking circle. Vansen looked for even a tiny opening—he would grab the prince and try to beat his way through—but their captors moved in without any jostling or confusion that might allow such an opening.

They were surrounded by many times their own numbers—perhaps a pentecount or more—but Vansen braced himself for a hopeless charge: better to die that way than be stuck as he stood like an exhausted boar at the end of a grueling hunt.