The five-foot gap between the grain wagons became a slaughterhouse within thirty seconds.
Standing on the bridge facing the eastern imperial road, Mataranas and Jade locked their shields together across the opening while Lord Ovagos's Cataphracts pressed their barded mounts hard against the timber. Steel blades chopped repeatedly into the oak frames and metal shield rims, throwing sparks into the afternoon air. Beside Matty, Jade thrust his short spear through the opening, catching an imperial rider in the thigh, while Numerius swung his heavy two-handed mace in crushing downward arcs to shatter weapon hafts.
Behind the wagon rampart, a veteran mercenary sergeant with a scarred ear yelled above the din, his voice cracked with strain: "Brace the left axle! Do not let them lever the tongue!"
Down the northern river road on the eastern bank, the survivors fleeing the village of Veron reached the water, but the sight of sixty armored Cataphracts packed tight before the bridge entrance broke their composure completely.
Sellswords tossed aside their iron shields and notched swords, scrambling in wild panic along the riverbank. Six men scrambled down the muddy embankment and hurled themselves into the churning spring rapids to escape the cavalry, three of them dragged beneath the dark water by the weight of their mail shirts while their comrades screamed curses from the bank.
Captain Rodrik and his remaining men were trapped on the eastern shoreline, unable to reach the bridge road without charging straight into the rear of Ovagos's barded horses.
"THE WATER LEDGE!" Jade shouted down from the stone bridge parapet, his Leadership stat giving his voice a clear, commanding resonance that cut through the noise. "RODRIK, SCRAMBLE UNDER THE BRIDGE ARCH!"
A panic-stricken sellsword in a torn gambeson looked up at Jade from the muddy bank, his eyes wide with terror, then lunged toward the narrow stone footing that ran along the bridge pier just above the rushing water. Two more fleeing line infantry followed him, instinctively rallying toward Jade's direction as if pulled by an anchor in the storm.
Rodrik heard the call, swinging his broken sword into the brush as he shoved his men along the granite footing jutting out over the water directly beneath the bridge's stone railing.
Standing safely on the bridge deck above them, Nathaniel dropped his light crossbow onto the wagon bench, grabbed a coil of knotted hemp logging rope from the cart bed, and threw the weighted end over the stone railing down to the river ledge below.
"Grab the hemp!" a Golden Boar scout beside Nathaniel bellowed, his rough hands helping to brace the coils against the stone. "Heave, damn you, heave!"
Rodrik seized the rope from the water ledge with his working left hand, wrapping the cord around his forearm as Nathaniel, Yuzon, and three mercenaries pulled together from the bridge deck. They hauled Rodrik's battered frame over the granite parapet, tumbling him onto the flagstones with his shoulder soaked in dark blood, followed closely by the frightened infantrymen who had clustered beneath Jade's voice.
Behind them on the eastern shore, sixty Imperial Menavliatons and Palatine Guards from Veron reached the riverbank.
"ARCHERS ON THE BANK!" a scout screamed, raising his buckler a second before a purple-fletched bodkin arrow punched through his throat.
More arrows thudded into the wooden wagons, splintering the oak boards. Menavliatons lowered their eight-foot polearms, thrusting broad steel blades through the spokes of the wheels to pry the barrier apart. Under the combined weight of barded horses and levering pikes, the right-hand grain wagon shrieked as its iron axle snapped with a violent crack, tilting sideways and widening the breach to ten feet.
"THE TIMBER IS GIVING WAY!" an older infantryman yelled, stumbling back with blood running into his beard.
Captain Mira stepped straight into the widening opening with her massive two-handed broadsword gripped in both hands. Her scarred face was covered in soot and black blood as she swung the great blade in brutal, horizontal sweeps, carving into barded horse legs and forcing the lead riders back onto their haunches.
Her scouts rallied behind her on foot, forming a desperate wall of steel across the flagstones to cover Rodrik and the wounded. The fighting in the gap was savage, with fifteen of Mira's scouts cut down by lances and broadswords within minutes. Yet twenty-five of her riders held firm on the flagstones, trading blows with dismounted Cataphracts to keep the crossing open.
"OIL CASKS!" Mira roared over the screams of dying mounts. "SMASH THE CASKS AND FALL BACK!"
Two scouts shattered clay casks of lamp oil across the grain sacks, tossing a pitch torch into the pooling grease.
Flames caught in an instant, roaring ten feet into the air as the seasoned oak and dry grain erupted into an inferno. Thick black smoke billowed across the bridge, blinding the Palatine Guards and scorching the eyes of the barded coursers, forcing Lord Ovagos to haul back on his reins as his horses shrieked at the heat.
"ACROSS THE SPAN!" a mercenary veteran shouted, shoving wounded men toward Vlandian soil. "MOVE YOUR ASSES!"
Jade maintained a steady fighting retreat across the forty-yard stone bridge, his Leadership holding a knot of seven panicked infantrymen tightly around Matty's cavalry shield and his own round shield, keeping them from scattering into the river as they crossed to the western bank.
They tumbled off the western end of the bridge into their base camp on Vlandian soil, gasping for air as the flaming wagons crackled behind them on the stone span.
"The crossing is sealed!" one of the line soldiers yelled, dropping onto his knees in relief.
"Look upstream, you blind fool!" Yuzon barked, his face pale as he pointed his brass spyglass three hundred yards south along the river.
Lord Ovagos had already wheeled thirty of his barded Cataphracts south toward a shallow cattle crossing where the river spread wide over a gravel bar. The heavy armored horses splashed through the knee-deep water, iron scales glistening in the sunlight as they climbed the western bank, cutting straight into Vlandian territory to flank the camp.
"THEY ARE ACROSS!" several scouts screamed in terror.
"Scatter into the crags!" Rodrik ordered, clutching his collarbone. "Do not stay on the road!"
The Calamity Squad sprinted toward the camp's picket lines, where they had roped their five Vlandian work horses to the hitching rail immediately upon riding in to warn Captain Mira.
Before leaping onto his gelding, Nathaniel darted over to their squad's supply cart parked beside the horse line. He hauled out their heavy leather saddlebags and the iron-locked coin satchel, heaving the load onto his saddle horn with a breathless gasp of relief. If they had carried their savings across the river into the village raid like the dead infantry, all their hard-earned silver would be lying in the ditch; it was a stroke of pure luck that their main stash had stayed parked right here in the western camp.
With their gear secured and reins cut loose from the rail, they mounted up and drove their blowing horses off the flat turf, leading the retreat into the rocky gorse and pine gullies.
The imperial pursuit across the western scrub was relentless. Mira's remaining twenty-five scouts were split across the hills, forced into small pockets where they fought running skirmishes among the granite boulders.
Twelve more of Mira's scouts died in those rocky draws, their swords shattering against barded armor as they made desperate stands to let the wounded crawl into the brush, reducing her surviving troop to only thirteen bleeding riders.
The Calamity Squad guided their horses through a narrow, rocky draw between two granite bluffs. Three panicked line infantrymen who had stayed close to Jade scrambled along on foot behind their horses, looking to Jade's spear for direction.
"They are behind us!" Nathaniel gasped, his quiver empty as iron shoes clattered violently on the shale at the mouth of the draw.
Three Imperial Cataphracts rode into the narrow passage, their barded coursers blocking the exit while the lead rider leveled a ten-foot Kontos lance straight toward Nathaniel.
"Spears front!" Jade commanded, stepping his mount ahead of Nathaniel with his short spear ready, his voice steadying the three terrified infantrymen beside him so they raised their weapons instead of running. "Matty, lock the left!"
Mataranas planted his boots into his stirrups, raising his cracked cavalry shield.
The lead Cataphract kicked his horse into a sudden, explosive trot, the iron lance tip leveling for the kill.
A furious roar ripped through the crags above.
Down the steep gravel slope, a lone rider on a brown workhorse charged like a madman.
It was Garek.
His left arm was bound tightly across his chest in a white linen sling, but his right hand held his broadsword high in the air. He did not check his horse's speed on the loose shale, and he completely ignored Squad Leader Bram's shouts from the ridge to maintain formation. Seeing the Calamity Squad trapped beneath the lances, Garek charged down the thirty-foot drop at a breakneck gallop.
"GET AWAY FROM THEM, YOU BASTARDS!" Garek screamed, his voice cracking with wild fury.
Garek crashed his horse directly into the lead Cataphract's barded mount, the violent collision throwing both horses sideways into the rock face.
The imperial lance went wide, snapping against a boulder two feet above Nathaniel's head. Garek swung his broadsword with his single working arm, driving the heavy iron pommel straight into the imperial rider's visor, knocking the man backward in his saddle.
Before the other two Cataphracts could wheel their mounts to skewer Garek, a volley of black-fletched bodkin arrows whistled down from the high western bluffs.
One arrow punched through the throat of the second Cataphract's horse, bringing the beast down in a thrashing heap, while another struck the third rider's shoulder lamellar, forcing him to haul his reins around to avoid the plunging fire.
On the high ridge above the draw, Scout Officer Mara lowered her composite war bow, while Squad Leader Bram led forty fresh infantrymen from the third company into a bristling wall of spears across the crest. They had returned from Goleryn after finding the village completely abandoned, guided back to the crossing by the columns of black smoke.
Lord Ovagos saw the fresh infantry line forming on the high ground and the steady rain of bodkin arrows finding the unarmored gaps of his horses. Knowing heavy cavalry had no business assaulting a fortified rock ridge with blown mounts, Ovagos blew two short notes on his brass horn, signaling his Cataphracts to disengage and pull back toward the river.
The imperial cavalry trotted slowly back to the smoking bridge, leaving the western bluffs in silence.
In the rocky draw below, Garek tumbled from his saddle, his face contorted in agony as his boots hit the shale. He hit the dirt on his side, his breath wheezing out in ragged gasps while he clutched his re-injured shoulder.
Mataranas was off his mount in an instant. Dropping his heavy cavalry shield into the dirt, Matty knelt beside the fallen veteran and carefully supported his back against a boulder.
Garek coughed, spitting a thick wad of dark blood onto the stones, his face grey with blinding pain. His good hand trembled violently where it gripped his torn sleeve.
"Debt is paid," Garek rasped through clenched teeth, his voice shaking. "We are even, Matty."
Mataranas looked at him steadily, then rested a broad, calloused hand on Garek's uninjured shoulder.
"Even," Matty said softly. "Now sit still."
Jade lowered his spear tip, his chest heaving as he looked up toward the ridge where Bram's third company was securing the crest.
The crossing was lost, with only thirteen of Mira's forty scouts left standing and the Golden Boar cut to ribbons, leaving the border firmly in imperial hands.