Xykos turned around warily, Boarsbane raised toward the sky. Other than the twisted heaps of what had once been living men, some piled three and four deep, there was no one standing in any direction for a good twenty paces. He set his sword down and tried to clear his head of the battle-madness that possessed him when he fought. His lungs labored like bellows. For the first time, he noticed that his breastplate was dented in a score of places and there was a trickle of blood from above his eyebrow falling into his left eye. With this realization came the ache of bruised ribs and weary arms pushed far beyond ordinary duty.
He said a quick prayer to the Wargod; he knew this unexpected and unasked-for sanctuary would not last for long. Above the pikes and flailing bills, he saw the trees of the Grove of the Badger King. From where he stood, it appeared that the battle had passed over him and the surviving Veterans of the Long March.
Within moments he had located a dozen Hostigi stragglers and battle-stunned. Three or four had risen from the piles of dead and wounded like Hadron awakening in the tale of the Lost Mountain. One of the stragglers was the banner-bearer of the Veterans, still carrying the ripped and slashed flag bearing an iron boot crushing a red winged serpent. With the help of some of the other Veterans, he had soon assembled a force of some fifty to sixty men, most with minor wounds but good spirits. Those who were battle-shaken he sent to aid the gravely wounded.
The main battle was far now far enough away so that Xykos could see what was happening. The troops of the right and left flanks had held, while the center had given way. The two Great Squares were no longer in any sort of recognizable formation and had been hammered badly by the Hostigi flanks. The Royal Square had shifted to the weakest point in the Hostigi center and was slowly chewing its way toward the Great Battery.
The Great Battery itself was eerily silent, with only an occasional flash showing that was still Hostigi-held. Xykos supposed that the two armies had become so entangled that the Hostigi gunners were afraid to fire on the Holy Host for fear of hitting their own men.
It would be sheer folly to attack the Ktemnoi with only thirty men, especially since that meant going against Styphon's Red Hand. Instead he decided to move quickly through the fallen tangle of friends and foes until they were in a position to help relieve the Great Battery. He hastily explained this plan to his little company. There were no arguments; indeed they moved out eagerly, when they saw a squadron of horse under a Ktemnoi banner looking curiously in their direction.
The squadron rode off without attacking, but they'd only covered a quarter of the distance to the Great Battery when a company of Red Hand broke out of the main battle and formed a line facing Xykos' men. Their first rank fired a ragged volley with their musketoons. Three of his men dropped. He measured the distance to the Styphoni with his eyes, threw up Boarsbane and shouted, "Charge!"