Thanking the Lady and Lord with each panting breath, Hanna pounded up to the wagons braced across the roadway and shouted at the only pair of faces she could see within.
“Let me pass! I am an Eagle in the service of Princess Theophanu! I carry a message for Lady Sabella and Duke Conrad!”
She got no answer.
From this vantage, she had a wide view of the valley. The wind was strong up here. Behind her, she heard the drumming of rain, yet the sun shone over the valley. Riders had plunged out of the city and were now punching deep into the northeastern edge of the Varren line, where the entrenchments were weakest and the surrounding hill face very steep. Turning, she saw the flash of color as Theophanu’s army worked free of the eastern hills. As the princess’ soldiers closed with the rear entrenchments, her infantry tightened their ranks, and archers, working in the gaps in groups of twenty or thirty, directed their fire into the wood picket and at the heads peeking above the half finished earthen berm. The shields closed on the picket, and great axes reached out to hew or pull down what obstacles they could. Few had fallen as far as Hanna could see from this distance, but pikes, axes, and arrows responded from the other side of the berm.
The battle had begun in earnest.
“Ai, God! Ai, God! Run!” screamed the soldiers manning the barricade. They were only a dozen, but they scattered like rabbits as a hawk dives, some down the ramp and some stumbling over the side into brush and trees.
She turned.
On the road behind her, coming up through the trees, marched the van of the Eika army, shield upon shield, approaching in silence except for the tramp of their feet. But even this sight and sound did not make her freeze with dread. Not this, but another thing.
Above the fray drifted a resonant whisper, so faint she only registered it because she had heard it before and knew what it was: the tolling of bell voices, each of them calling.
Sanglant.
Horns shrilled the alarm. The Varren camp—what Ivar could see of it—erupted into movement.
Lord Berthold called to their guards, who were staring nervously toward the royal tents. “What news, friends?”
But the guards gaped at the heavens as abruptly the sun broke through the clouds. They shaded their eyes with their hands, squinting under the bright glare, paralyzed.
A captain ran past, and shouted at them. “To arms! To arms! Get to your unit!”