With the vanguard attacking head-on, and the main body assaulting their flank, the bakali were forced back to the base of the next hill. Hard-pressed, the lizards did not try to retreat up the slope, but remained where they were, fighting furiously. Relfas sent word to his main force to withdraw just enough to gain room for a full-fledged charge. Such a strike on the flank would, he was certain, roll up the bakali line like a rotten carpet.

As the Riders formed up for the charge, a chorus of intense, metallic screeching rose over the battlefield for a second time. Relfas, enjoying a brief lull in the action around him, gave a shout.

“They’re begging for mercy!” he exulted.

His feeling of triumph was short-lived. On the ridge behind and above the hard-pressed bakali a whole new host of the creatures sprang up. These lizards had been lying concealed in the tall grass. In the space of two heartbeats, the enemy force had doubled in strength.

Relfas stared at the new foe in frozen shock, but only for a moment. Boldness, not timidity, won battles and brought glory. Ignoring the chatter of his subordinates, he ordered the charge.

The tired Ergothians surged forward. The fresh wave of bakali ran down the hill to reinforce their comrades, then the entire bakali line began to push forward. Charging Riders ran straight onto a wall of lethal spearpoints. Their comrades, blinded by fury and foolhardy courage, came on. Line after line of horsemen threw themselves against the resurgent lizard-men. Line after line perished. The bard Aylimar, writing of one of Ackal Ergot’s battles centuries before, had likened a similarly futile charge to wax soldiers flinging themselves against a red-hot anvil. For Relfas’ men, it was like being fed into a horrendous threshing machine. The whirling blades, wielded with terrifying skill by the bakali, tore them to pieces.