Blood spurted from the huge wound which appeared in the Murak's shoulder, and as he fell sideways, so the Layfian grunted and lurched forward, dropping his heavy sword to the ground. There was nothing Chaldez could do then to prevent the instantaneous assault which descended on his protector as a crowd of Muraks closed in, chopping and stabbing at his defenceless body.
They would have turned on Chaldez if Rassi and two more Laifyans had not, at that moment, appeared at his side. Rassi, already covered in blood from a wound, was almost immediately struck by a lance and pushed out of his saddle. Chaldez shouted. Caught in a maelstrom of violence, he was powerless to help his friend and now anguish was added to terror.
More allies took the place of Rassi, and Chaldez realised that he was being defended, as though he were a battle standard.
Tsem and Zikir, hacking and hewing side by side, came into view and then were hidden again.
Elsewhere, Abrikal's horsemen had formed their circles, each enclosing riders who rode round and round within the perimeter formed by their sword-wielding comrades, using their bows and filling the air with danger for every Murak within range.
The introduction of arrows in the midst of hand-to-hand combat had a powerful impact: the Muraks discovered they were vulnerable, and there was a hesitancy in their efforts to smash the circles. Some did manage, occasionally, to break through, but never enough of them to eliminate the bowmen who reacted by scattering, if they were near by, and turning their bows on them if they were farther away.
Not only did the circles hold, but they began to merge, giving the bowmen within more space in which to operate.
For the Muraks it was unsettling. In the past, their appearance on a battlefield had heralded an enemy's collapse, but the enemy this time was striking back, wounding and killing them in unprecedented numbers. Never before had their terrifying masks and fearsome weapons failed to give them an overpowering advantage; never before had their god witheld his protection. Why had he now forsaken them? Some were angry and resentful, others fearful and uncertain.
In contrast, Abrikal's horsemen grew in confidence, and there was an ecstatic ferocity in their fighting. The circles, no longer needed as defensive formations against an enemy which was no longer willing to attack them, began to break up and the Muraks, assailed by arrows, crowded together, forming clumps around which Abrikal's horsemen galloped, the thwack of bow strings accompanying the thud of hooves. Repeated attempts by the Muraks to break out and regain the initiative achieved nothing. The fighting had become too scattered for tridents, lances or even swords to be effective. The battlefield, full of movement and spaces, favoured the use of horses and bows, and any exposed Murak was quickly brought down.
Chaldez's self-appointed guard melted away; everyone now wanted to kill a Murak before it was too late; everyone but Chaldez. He was looking for Tsem and Zikir, and wondered if they were involved in the scrimmage going on just in front of him. Out of it burst a Murak. He rode straight at Chaldez, his lance with its twin axe heads sweeping the air as he came. Chaldez fended it off easily with his sword, and noticed that an arrow was sticking out from the painted mouth on the Murak's mask. He raised his sword, but before he could bring it down his foe had slumped forward against the neck of his horse, and in another moment was slipping out of the saddle. One foot remained caught in a stirrup, and as he lay, half on the ground, Chaldez saw that his tunic was soaked in blood. The arrow, he supposed, had pierced his neck.
He gazed down with contempt at the dying man in his grotesque wooden head. Never had he so loathed an enemy as he did the Muraks.
Despite their disadvantages, the Muraks were incapable of retreat. They were the world's elite; servants of Histigga, God of War who alone bestowed on them their prestige and power; they fought on until the last of them lay sprawled on the ground, bristling like a hedgehog with arrows.
Chaldez continued his search for Tsem and Zikir.
He found them lying not far apart. Tsem was dead already; Zikir's life was ebbing away. Chaldez knelt at his side, brushed away the strands of hair which had fallen across his brow, and said that he prayed Rendaryk Toje would receive him in his celestial home. This he repeated again and again, while the tears ran down his cheeks. Zikir stared at him. If he was in pain he gave no sign of it. He lay motionless, as though too tired to move, too tired to live. Chaldez was still speaking to him when he realised that he was dead, and at about the same moment a movement caught the corner of his eye. Glancing up he saw that he was surrounded by a circle of his men. They had dismounted, and had approached so quietly that he had not heard them. He stood up and asked them to move the bodies of his friends up to the trees, intending to bury them later.
All had friends who had been killed, and many would have liked to take them off the battlefield, but unhesitatingly they did as Chaldez asked, carrying away the bodies of Tsem and Zikir with something like reverence. In their eyes, Chaldez was elevated to greater heights than ever before, and they wanted, above all, to please him. It did not matter that he was not a great warrior; his mere presence had enabled them to overcome their fear of the Murak horsemen, and having overcome it, they had defeated them. Their new victory was down to Chaldez.
Chaldez hunted for Rassi, trying to work out where he had last seen him. He found him lying as though dazed, his eyes open but unseeing. For a moment Cheldez felt a surge of relief, then remembered seeing him struck by the Murak lance, and he saw that where he lay was bathed in blood. He dismounted, stroked his cold forehead and uttered a moan, not knowing why or where it came from.
His thought was to have him taken to the trees with Tsem and Zikir, but at that moment a rider galloped up. Without any formalities he said that the king was hard pressed and requested Zakarrah to bring his horsemen to Shymosdak without delay.
There was, by now, a serious shortage of arrows; Chaldez told the men to recover as many as they could as quickly as they could, and then he hurried them to the slope opposite the stronghold, leaving Gemle's archers in position in front of the trees.
Reaching the hillside, he was astonished and then dismayed by what he saw. Men smothered all the ground between Shymosdak and the bottom of the v-shaped cut. The Muraks were attacking on two fronts: they were attempting to force their way up the slope which leads to the stronghold, and also along the floor of the valley, and it was what he saw here which appalled him. Murak horsemen, plumes of long black hair falling from their grotesquely elongated heads, were savaging the troops which opposed them.
Chaldez's horsemen descended on their flank, passing to and fro until all their arrows were spent, and when they were he led them into the thick of the fighting.
Without arrows, they were robbed of their superiority, and without the need to form and preserve the fighting circles, they were robbed of an objective which had brought cohesion to their actions. They floundered, and paid heavily for the casualties they had claimed while safe from the Murak battle weapons.
Chaldez, meanwhile, had been determined to make a more useful contribution than last time, but only extraordinary good luck saved him from being killed or wounded and, as before, he was soon blundering around in a state of utter confusion and terror. When a voice cried "Zakarrah, I am here!" it might almost have been in a dream which was repeating itself, but this time four or five of his men, not just one, had fought their way to his side.
Others joined them, and then more; it was as though his horsemen had at last found an objective on which to concentrate their efforts, but instead of bringing victory, it could only preserve their leader.
For Chaldez it was horrific; on every side his men were being cut down while trying to defend him, and yet the outcome was inevitable: sooner or later the Muraks would break through and he too would be killed. If he had been able to believe that his death would somehow ensure the Murak's ultimate defeat, he would have died willingly; what tormented him was the certainty that it could achieve nothing. The Muraks would destroy Sigmar's army, and then their demon god would bestride the world, bringing death and misery wherever its shadow fell. The Murak warriors seemed to him, as he watched them, to be the sinister creatures of that demon and he began to think they would not just kill him, but consume his very soul.
He was watching one particular Murak, a huge man with a lance in one hand and a sword in the other, and was thinking that no one could stop him when he saw that an arrow was sticking out of his shoulder. A moment later a second appeared close by it, and then a third had pierced his elbow, making him drop his lance. Immediately he was struck by a sword, and then he had vanished from view. Everywhere Muraks were being hit by arrows. Chaldez decided that his horsemen must have formed a circle after all and that they were not without arrows, as he had thought.
To add to his confusion he now heard, above the din of battle, the roar of many voices raised in a great shout. He thought that the Muraks were sending in more horsemen, and the sound sent a chill through him.
The shout did not die down, and to his amazement he saw his own men taking it up, and then he too joined in. The words everyone was shouting were "Zahkahn Jeng!"
The arrows were explained: Dan’s Imperial Horse had arrived on the battlefield.