The boy walked a few paces off. He took a moment to stop, looked around, and wondered where was the best place to conceal himself. Obviously, he wanted to be able to see the outcome of the fight. He wasn’t planning on fleeing until it was clear that he had no choice.
A few of the hobbes in hobbe-form were standing loosely about, checking their armour and weapons. He considered asking if they had a spare tunic of mail or leather, but decided against it. It would likely not have fitted him very well. Certainly, the hobbes were about his height, but much broader in shoulder and more corded of muscle. Their shirts would have flapped around on his far skinnier frame.
He turned then, taking a last look at Caewen sitting atop Dapplegrim. Then he lifted his eyes and he watched for a moment the draig-riders circling. They beat their great wings in ponderous flaps. He followed their path as they climbed slowly higher with each sweep of bone and sinew and skin.
Without any good reason, he dashed off to his left, more or less in a eastward direction along a lip of clifftop. He passed a few more hobbes, standing ready with bows and watching the knights filing closer. Then he passed back into the dark stands of pines: soon enough the great old trees were squirming their roots all over the rocks, and brown needles lay thickly in any crevice where the winds could not reach. The pungency of pine-sap took up its place on the air.
Things were becoming more urgent. He needed to be hidden, and soon.
After a while longer, climbing over sharp rocks and weaving among the fissure-barked trees, the boy found a gap with a view. There were tussocks here, hanging like hair over the cliff, but also providing a good degree of camouflage along its edge. The boy hunkered himself down between the masses of coppery grassy foliage and peered out from the cliff.
He had climbed farther uphill than he’d realised. The cliff wasn’t level, but followed a jagged path upwards–it would eventually turn south and become a ridge of the cloud-tipped mountains behind. The boy supposed that he could follow that line and find a pass.
If it came to that.
For now, he was fixated on the fight that was just about to spark.
Down below, the knights were riding up and into the entrance of the narrow cleft between hummocks of stone. The way they took was narrow, but not very steep. Still, the boy had expected them to dismount before approaching. They must have been sure of their victory–they rode in double file, headlong and uphill. From his vantage point–and at this distance–the knights of the nightfolk looked so beautiful. Their armour was silver and black, decorated with steel ivy leaves, and struck with stars of sparkling stones, both upon the plates of black metal, and set glitteringly into their mail. The many different sombre colours of their heraldry stood bold and dyed on surcoats, and upon the flapping standards. Soon, the fighting men were close enough that the boy could see the steam of their breath in the evening air. A sweaty murk rose from their horses too, gleaming orange as the sun shot out its last rays–a light that streamed almost level to the ground, over the earth, setting up stark contrasts of brilliant gold on sunward surfaces and deepest shadow on the obverse.
There was a stir of movement nearer at hand. The hobbes crept into position along the rock edge and drew taut their bows, testing the pull of the string, and easing them back to a resting looseness again. Their eyes were keen and alert.
For a bare breath of a moment, the whole scene was still as death.
Caewen sat straight and upright in the saddle–motionless–her summer-green sword drawn and reflecting the last sunlight of evening, even as the first light of stars and a rising moon also stroked its sharp edges. Just a little farther off, the apparition of the Wounded Queen and the white ghaists stood in their armour, tight within their own enfolding silence. Waiting. Watchful. Owls perched in trees, their talons causing the wood to groan and creak. The boy looked up and down the line.
For the first time, he wondered if they really might stand a chance. There was so much that was uncanny about the knights of Sorthe, but there was great and deep magic here too.
The knights were getting closer.
Wind tousled the boys wisps of hair. He heard as a hobbe somewhere down the line gave the order to loose arrows. Hobbes drew their bows and set the strings twanging freely.
A hail of white darts showered down on the knights. There were curses and yells, and a few cries of pain. More than one knight fell and was trampled if he couldn’t crawl out of the way of the hooves that came on behind him. The boy saw one of the men take an arrow right through the slit of his helmet, directly into the eye. Blood exploded out of his visor and down his chest. Somewhere out of sight, a horse screamed. Somewhere, a wailing horn was cut short. But the drumming only grew more impatient, louder and louder, rising like storm and thunder from the back of the line. Finally, the draig-riders decided to swoop. They bent forward, and the claws of the draig outstretched like hawks intent on rabbits. But they didn’t reach the ground: a flurry of arrows rose to meet them, forcing them to break and pull away. And then, a hundred owls with their own sharp claws flurried out of the treetops. The flock enveloped the draig like a mobbing of magpies. The draig had to pull further away, beating their massive wings, and striking about madly, trying to snatch and kill the smaller and more agile owls.
Unfortunately, it seemed that the distraction of needing to loose arrows into the air had allowed the enemy on foot to break forward. The knights yelled and kicked spurs. They half-charged, half-stumbled through a gap that gave out to the clifftop. Almost at once, armoured horses and riders were atop the rocks, hewing about, left and right with sword and axe and morning-star.