Then as if it had been ripped away by a gale, the cloud streamed away. Sparhawk and his friends saw what had made the grunting sound. They were immense and human-like, which is to say that they had arms and legs and heads. They were dressed in furs and carried weapons crafted of stone – axes and spears for the most part. Their humanity ended there. They had receding brows and protruding, muzzle-like mouths, and they were not so much hairy as they were furred. Although the cloud had dissipated, they continued their advance, a kind of shuffling trot. Their feet struck the ground in unison, and they barked that guttural grunt with each thudding step. They momentarily paused at regular intervals, and from somewhere in their midst there arose a high-pitched wail, a kind of shrill ululation. Then the rhythmic barking and stamping trot would begin again. They wore helmets of a sort, the skull-caps of unimaginable beasts decorated with horns, and their faces were smeared with coloured mud in intricate designs.
‘Are they Trolls?’ Kalten’s voice was shrill.
‘Not like any Trolls I’ve ever seen,’ Ulath replied, reaching for his axe.
‘All right, my children!’ the Domi shouted to his men. ‘Let us clear the beasts from our path!’ He drew his sabre, held it aloft and shouted a great war-cry.
The Peloi charged.
‘Kring!’ Sparhawk yelled. ‘Wait!’
But it was too late. Once unleashed, the savage tribesmen from the eastern marches of Pelosia could not again be reined in.
Sparhawk swore. He stuffed the Bhelliom inside his surcoat. ‘Berit!’ he commanded, ‘take Sephrenia and Talen to the rear! The rest of you, let’s lend a hand!’
It was not an organized fight in any sense of the word that civilized men would understand. After the first charge of Kring’s tribesmen, everything disintegrated into a general mêlée of random savagery. The Church Knights discovered almost immediately that the grotesque creatures they faced did not seem to feel pain. It was impossible to determine if this was a natural characteristic of their species or if whatever had unleashed them had provided them with some additional defence. Beneath their shaggy fur lay a hide of unnatural toughness. This is not to say that swords bounced off them, but more often than not they did not cut cleanly. The best strokes opened only minimal wounds.
The Peloi, however, appeared to be having greater success with their sabres. The quick thrust of a sharp-pointed weapon was more effective than the massive overhand blows of heavy broadswords, and once their leathery hide had been penetrated, the savage brutes howled with pain. Stragen, his eyes alight, rode through the shaggy mass, the point of his slender rapier dancing, avoiding the clumsy strokes of stone axes, slipping the brutal thrusts of flint-tipped spears and then sinking effortlessly, almost delicately, deep into fur-covered bodies. ‘Sparhawk!’ he shouted. ‘Their hearts are lower down in their bodies! Thrust at the belly, not the chest!’
It grew easier then. The Church Knights altered their tactics, thrusting with the points of their swords rather than chopping with the broad blades. Bevier regretfully hung his lochaber from his saddle horn and drew his sword. Kurik discarded his mace and drew his short blade. Ulath, however, stubbornly clung to his axe. His only concession to the exigencies of the situation was to use both hands to swing the weapon. His prodigious strength was sufficient to overcome such natural defences as horn-tough hide and inch-thick skulls.
The tide of the struggle turned then. The huge, uncomprehending beasts were unable to adjust to a changing situation, and more and more of them fell to the thrusting swords. One last small cluster continued to fight even after the majority of their pack-mates had been slain, but the lightning-like dashes of Kring’s warriors whittled them away. The last one left standing was bleeding from a dozen sabre-thrusts. He raised his brutish face and shrieked that high-pitched ululation. The sound cut off abruptly as Ulath rode in, stood up in his stirrups to raise his axe high overhead and then split the wailing brute’s head from crown to chin.
Sparhawk wheeled, his bloody sword in his fist, but all the creatures had fallen. He looked around more closely. Their victory had been costly. A dozen of Kring’s men had been felled – not merely felled, but torn apart as well – and fully as many lay groaning on the bloody ground.
Kring sat crosslegged on the turf, cradling the head of one of his dying men. His face was filled with sorrow.
‘I’m sorry, Domi,’ Sparhawk said. ‘Find out how many of your men are injured. We’ll work out some way to have them cared for. How close would you say we are to the lands of your people?’
‘A day and a half of hard riding, friend Sparhawk,’ Kring replied, sadly closing the vacant eyes of the warrior who had just died. ‘A bit less than twenty leagues.’
Sparhawk rode towards the rear where Berit sat on his horse with his axe in his hands guarding Talen and Sephrenia.
‘Is it over?’ Sephrenia asked, her eyes averted.
‘Yes,’ Sparhawk replied, dismounting. ‘What were they, little mother? They looked like Trolls, but Ulath didn’t think they really were.’
‘They were dawn-men, Sparhawk. It’s a very old and very difficult spell. The Gods – and a few of the most powerful magicians of Styricum – can reach back into time and bring things – and creatures and men forward. The dawn-men haven’t walked this earth for countless thousands of years. That’s what we all were once – Elenes, Styrics, even Trolls.’
‘Are you saying that humans and Trolls are related?’ he asked her incredulously.
‘Distantly. We’ve all changed over the eons. Trolls went one way, and we went another.’
‘Ghnomb’s frozen instant doesn’t appear to be as safe as we thought it was.’
‘No. Definitely not.’
‘I think it’s time to set the sun in motion again. We don’t seem to be able to hide from whatever’s chasing us by slipping through the cracks in time, and Styric magic doesn’t work here. We’ll be safer in ordinary time.’
‘I think you’re right, Sparhawk.’
Sparhawk took Bhelliom from its pouch once more and commanded Ghnomb to break the spell.
Kring’s Peloi fashioned litters in which to carry their dead and wounded, and the party moved on, relieved to some degree that the birds actually flew now and that the sun was moving once again.
The next morning a roving Peloi patrol found them, and Kring rode forth to confer with his friends. His face was bleak when he returned. ‘The Zemochs are setting fire to the grass,’ he said angrily. ‘I won’t be able to help you much longer, friend Sparhawk. We have to protect our pastures, and that means we’ll have to spread out all over our lands.’