Soon all is set on the mountain shoulder, all waiting to spring the assault on the Ingaldouners, and a hush falls over them all. The griphestrians stand crouched next to their mounts atop the bluff, spying down into the valley below, the tension in their bodies evident for all their poise. To Arik, they look like masterly crafted statues of warriors in mid-battle, all frozen motion. 

The sweans and weydis are just as still, each on their post, rapt attention all turned to the griphs and their riders. Arik's heartbeats pound so that he is almost surprised not to hear their echo reverberating across the valley. He glances briefly towards Egder, the only man to remain with them as overseer for this assist. In their last year, they are expected to manage their assists without overseeing, but today too much is at stake. None, warrior of foot or griph, was willing to stay away from the battle. In the end, Egder reluctantly volunteered, being the one deemed to have the best hand with the youths.

For a moment, Arik wonders if he ought to pity the man. Not being a griphestrian, he will not be able to come down to join battle whenever he is no longer needed up here. Remembering Egder's words to him on the kingspit field, Arik is suddenly glad to have him here and draws strength from the thought as he looks back towards the griphestrians.

Just then, a half-dozen or so at a time, they leap onto the backs of their steeds and glide away and down out of sight. As soon as they're all off, Egder bounds up to the top after them and looks down. After a while, he signals that all is clear for the youths to come up and see.

As they warily flock beside him, keeping a low profile, they see the griphs gliding out and away. Keeping out of the sunlight that would stand them out to Ingaldouner eyes, they ride the thermals easily, saving their strength for the charge. Moments pass as they spread out into formation. Then, one by one in a graceful line, they seek out the edge of the thermals where the colder wind bears them downwards and, gathering speed, plunge down into the valley. Arik thinks he can make out Anel among the first one, but the distance is too great to be sure.

The only warning they have is a muted, thrumming noise and then Egder's cry of alarm.

"Backs!"

In the corner of his eye, Arik sees their overseer turning on the spot, sweeping out his sword as he does so. He deflects two arrows with it and catches a third in his left hand, but they are followed by a dozen more. A few glance off his armour and hurtle over the cliff's edge, a few stick in it shivering without causing harm and a few miss entirely. But of the few that find a mark, the one through his throat is enough. Egder falls back and out of sight.

That much Arik sees but has no time to grasp before his body has turned and his sword is in his hand, reacting to the swean-drilled command before he knows he has heard it. There, some fifty paces away, a troop of four- or fivescore Ingaldouners make a shield wall before a group of archers, fitting new arrows to their strings.

Where did they come from?

Like the arrows off Egder's armour, the question touches him only in passing. The next blink of his eyes, he finds himself running, sword poised to strike away arrows, along with his fellow sweans and weydis. Bowstrings thrum again and arrows hiss past, the closest within arm's reach of him. If any of the others are hit, he cannot say, hearing no cries of pain. Then the clash.

The Ingaldouners keep their defenses up under the hail of strikes raining upon their shields and swords, they do not risk attacking. They are too close for their archers to be able to use their weapons. Slowly, they are pressed backwards.

Arik steps back a moment, taking a moment to get an overview while leaving room for the enemy to lunge if they please. He'd be ready for them. They seem to sense that, not falling for the bait, not breaking the shield wall. They make a disciplined, grim retreat towards a gully coming down from the mountain above, steady even on this rough ground. They would be hard to fight in there.

Again, the question nags at him, but now in another shape. What are they doing here?

They must have been waiting. A trap. To interfere with the assist, that is the only reason he can see. A chill raises goose-bumps on his arms as he realises that the archers had all targeted Egder before the rest. Leaving them without leadership.

In the moment these thoughts flash through his mind, his opponents in the shield wall have retreated away from him, along with the others. The sweans and weydis are outnumbered, but the Ingaldouners do not charge. To be sure, the sweans and weydis of Leawar in their last year are each as fierce a fighter as three regular soldiers. If the Ingaldouners charged, the outcome would be hanging in the air.

Arik steals a quick glance over his shoulder. The bluff where the griphs took off is still empty, no griphestrian waiting to restock yet. Most of the landing run where the stocks are is hidden by the rise of the cliff towards the gully, but if any were about to land now they would have been visible. They're not needed just yet but how the battle goes, there's no telling from here.

And still the Ingaldouners retreat towards their gully refuge. Arik advances after them, not bothering to flail uselessly at their shields and swords along with his comrades. Only as they reach the mouth of the gully, the others seem to sense the futility of it as well and pause, no more than a little winded, glaring at their foes, swords at the ready.

Then the Ingaldouners start jeering. Their tongue is different and Arik cannot understand the words, but the meaning is obvious. They are attacked with words, rather than swords.

Again, why?

Then Starkad gives a great bellow, takes a few running steps and launches himself through the air, crashing into the shield of the man in front of him. He is large and heavy and the shield wielder is flung onto his back. Before his neighbours can react, Starkad's sword has flashed in a double arch and they sink to the ground, one screaming at the loss of his arm, the other silent but for the thud when his head hits the ground before his body.

Immediately, those around them shift around, forming a new wall along with the one on the ground, now on his feet, with Starkad and their comrades on the outside. Then they resume their retreat, still jeering, into the gully.

"That's right!" Starkad roars. "Keep backing away! We'll be right on top of you, all the way down to the valley!" Then he raises a battle-cry and all the others join in.

Arik swallows, looking back over his shoulder. "We can't," he shouts. The battle-cry dies down. "The assist," he reminds them. 

Starkad stares at him. "We can't assist with this rabble at our backs, you moron!" he sneers. "Let's just kill them off and then go back to the assist."

Some of the others look back uncertainly towards the precipice, but most join in with Starkad. "Kill them!" they shout, an echo of their battle fervour during the Lord Warrior's speech. 

"We could just post a guard here to keep them at bay while we assist," Arik tries without much hope. Starkad is the unassigned leader of them all. Only Egder could have told him to back down. And now Starkad takes a threatening step towards him, pointing his sword straight towards his heart.

"You always were a coward," he snarls. "You're no warrior, you're a disgrace. You stay here and assist and let the true warriors to their job."

You're not a warrior yet, Arik thinks but holds his tongue. Before anyone has time to say more, somebody gives a shout of warning.

"Archers!"

Attention immediately snaps back to the Ingaldouners, where the archers have taken the time to get distance enough for a volley of arrows. Without a moment of hesitation, Starkad charges under the volley, shouting as he goes.

"With me, for glory!"

All join in the charge but for Arik. But some falter and look back, realising the truth in Arik's words. As the others hurl themselves at the once more retreating enemies, Dorwin and two of the more sensible weydis, Niran and Eiwiril, slow down and then turn towards Arik.

Four. Not much for an assist. They meet each others' eyes, nodding, hoping that there won't be much need for the griphestrians to restock.

With one last glance backwards, where their comrades are busy wearing down the shield wall, relentlessly pressing the Ingaldouners back into the gully, they turn and run back to their posts.

As they round the slight rise and come in sight of the stacks of waiting battle-gear at their posts, they almost stop at the sight. A dozen or so Ingaldouners are spread out over the stretch, some busy dousing the stacks with a liquid out of urns, others lighting torches. Their intent could not be more obvious. A glance back towards the gully tells them that any reinforcements from there will be too late. The four of them are all that stands between the assist-gear and consuming fire.

The realisation shoots through Arik like a bolt, setting his blood ablaze. Redoubling his pace, he clenches his swords firmly and raises his voice in a battle-cry, as much to goad himself on as to distract the soldiers before they can set the stacks ablaze. The other three follow his example.

The soldiers look up fearfully, but when they notice how few there are to challenge them, they calmly leave the task at hand and grab a spear each. As he closes in on them, Arik notes that they carry short swords and daggers at their hips. They wear chestplate and helm, and greaves on arms and legs, but they have no shields. He barely senses his comrades spreading out towards the groups of would-be arsons. Alone, he bears down on three spear-wielding soldiers.

How many times they have practiced combat like this in the four years since he became a swean is beyond Arik's reckoning. Leawar foot-soldiers, never plenty, are used to being outnumbered and fighting many foes at a time. Ingaldouners ought to know that, but they might not be aware that even sweans, in their last year, are more than a match in these circumstances. Feinting and dodging, he manages to circle one man's spear easily, leaving him with a deep gash in his shoulder, his spear clattering to the ground.

At once, the remaining two become more wary. They distance themselves and assume defensive stances, trying to circle him and keep him a spear's length, where they hope to split his attention enough to find an opening from behind. But he does not stay between them. Instead, he bounds off to the side and then has a look around.

The others have done much the same as he, but only Eiwiril has managed to down a foe. Niran spins easily between two spearmen, but Dorwin is in trouble, cornered by four. With an eye at his own opponents, Arik dashes to the nearest stack of spearheads, huffing against the reek of oil, grabs a spearhead and flings it at one of Dorwin's assailants.

The force of it, unaided by the spear-slings that they are intended for, is not enough to seriously wound its target. But it still makes a gash in his thigh and he sags, leaving Dorwin an opening to spin away and out of reach, to the irked shouts of the soldiers. Dorwin shouts something at him and points, but before he can make sense of the words, a great shadow falls over him.

Ducking, he wonders what the Ingaldouners have done, then realises that nothing happens to him. Instead, he hear a scream receding in the distance. When he turns around, only one soldier remains, staring at him with a pale and grim expression. Not waiting for an explanation, Arik hurls himself at the man.

The soldier tries desperately to ward him off, but he is not used to this sort of fighting, more to stabbing from behind a shield-wall. Arik catches the spear with his sword and turns it aside, then grabs it with his free hand and slams it to the ground while turning a one-handed cartwheel over it. The soldier has no time to back off and draw his own sword before Arik's blade pierces the plate and plunges deep into his heart.

Blood spurts out, thick and hot, splashing all over Arik's face, filling his nostrils with a smell that he until now has only connected with nosebleeds. He gasps and blinks and the world briefly swims before his eyes as he sees the fading spark in the soldier's eyes as he falls dead, the sword still lodged in his heart. Arik holds his empty hands out as if trying to hold the death of the man at arm's length, shaking his head.

What am I doing?

Then, as if through a fog, he hears someone shouting his name urgently. Niran, perhaps. Turning quickly, he sees a snarling soldier bearing down on him with his spear, mere strides away.

For a moment, he is back at the kingspit field. The next, he holds the man's spear in his hand while its former wielder tumbles on over the rocks, stumbling to a halt and turning to face him.

Arik deftly twirls the spear around and holds it in a loose stance, ready for anything. The soldier draws his sword and swallows. Their eyes lock.

This is a young man, barely older than Arik himself. He is well fed and, as far as Arik can tell from the stance, well trained for his years. But he is afraid. Mortally afraid, it is a smell almost as palpable to Arik as that of blood. And as if it were a contagion, the fear seeps into Arik himself.

Probably, he can kill this young man. Possibly, he will die himself. Arik is already half set on dying, but by the talons of a griffin, not the sword of an enemy, not yet. But the memory of how his sword felt in his grip while its uncaring edge leeched out the life of another quenches all wish of killing, as well.

Suddenly, the shadow falls over them again. Again, he can see naught of what casts it. Again, a scream behind him fades into the distance. The soldier before him drops his sword and runs towards the gully.

Instinctively, Arik runs after him. The man shoots a panicked glance over his shoulder, eyes widening at the sight of the pursuit, then runs faster. Too fast. He stumbles on the uneven rock and crashes into a boulder, shoulder first. Then he turns, scrabbling back against the boulder away from Arik as if trying to push through it, disappear into the mountain itself.

With a shout, Arik launches himself at the fallen man, but then his mind slams into him again.

What am I doing?

Jerking his hand back, he stays the sword point a hands-breadth from the young man's throat. His face is a mask of terror, his eyes squeezed shut, his teeth bared in anticipation of the pain that will end his life. Then, realising that pain fails to seize him, he pries one of his eyes open.

Arik holds for a moment. By all rights, he ought to kill this enemy. But Anel's words ring in his ears - stay true to yourself.

Leawar take no prisoners, he knows. There is only one way to spare himself from killing again, at least for now. He steps back. Looks back towards the others. They have joined ranks and are cutting down the last few of the other Ingaldouners. Then he grimaces at the man at his mercy.

"Run," he rasps. "Run fast. Don't let them see you. Run now!"

Dubiously, the man scrambles to his feet, not taking his eyes off Arik. Clutching his arm, the one that crashed into the boulder, he takes some side-steps away but does not dare run. Sighing, Arik turns and flings the spear away from himself. When he looks back, the man is sprinting over the rocks without looking back.

Groaning, he walks over to the spear, picks it up and returns to the others.