More lowlanders-more than could be counted-all scurrying about now, as a bell started clanging. Running towards the gate from the cornfields, farming implements tossed aside.
Bairoth was bellowing something behind Karsa. Not a warcry. A voice pitched with alarm. Karsa ignored it, already closing in on the first of the farmers. He would take a few in passing, but not slacken his pace. Leave these children to the pack. He wanted the ones in the town, cowering behind the now-closing gate, behind the puny walls.
Sword flashed, taking off the back of a farmer’s head. Havok ran down another, trampling the shrieking woman under his hoofs. The gate boomed as it shut.
Karsa angled Havok to the left of it, eyes on the wall as he leaned forward. A crossbow quarrel flitted past, striking the furrowed ground ten paces to his right. Another whistled over his head.
No lowlander horse could clear this wall, but Havok stood at twenty-six hands-almost twice the height and mass of the lowlander breeds-and, muscles bunching, legs gathering, the huge destrier leapt, sailing over the wall effortlessly.
To crash, front hoofs first, onto the sloped roof of a shack. Slate tiles exploded, wood beams snapped. The small structure collapsed beneath them, chickens scattering, as Havok stumbled, legs clawing for purchase, then surged forward onto the muddy cart ruts of the street beyond.
Another building, this one stone-walled, reared up before them. Havok slewed to the right. A figure suddenly appeared at the building’s entrance, a round face, eyes wide. Karsa’s crossover chop split the lowlander’s skull where he stood just beyond the threshold, spinning him in place before his legs folded beneath him.
Hoofs pounding, Havok swept Karsa down the street towards’ the gate. He could hear slaughter in the fields and the road beyond-most of the workers had been trapped outside the town, it seemed. A dozen guards had succeeded in dropping a bar and had begun fanning out to take defensive positions when the warleader burst upon them.
Iron helm crunched, was torn from the dying child’s head as if biting at the blade as it was dragged free. A back-handed slash separated another child’s arm and shoulder from his body. Trampling a third guard, Havok pivoted, flinging his hindquarters around to strike a fourth child, sending him flying to crash up against the gate, sword spinning away.
A longsword-its blade as puny as a long knife’s to Karsa’s eyes-struck his leather-armoured thigh, cutting through two, perhaps three of the hardened layers, before bouncing away. Karsa drove his sword’s pommel into the lowlander’s face, felt bone crack. A kick sent the child reeling. Figures were scattering in panic from his path. Laughing, Karsa drove Havok forward.
He cut down another guard, whilst the others raced down the street.