Read Online Warriors [4] Theros Ironfield by Don Perrin - Free Book Online Page A

staining the sky. Arrayed between him and his camp stood the elven heavy cavalry.
    The quiet that had engulfed the minotaur army suddenly shattered as officers ordered troops into line again. The minotaurs moved slowly. Moments ago, it was to have been the elves who were running from the field, their morale crushed and their vanquishers chasing them down. Now, it was the minotaurs.
    Klaf’s heart sank. He realized that he had marched his army into a trap. The elves had intentionally placed an inferior force before the minotaurs to keep their attention on the battle in front. To their rear, the elven cavalry had slaughtered the rear guard and now threatened to sandwich the minotaurs.
    The sound he dreaded and knew was coming echoed across the field from the elven lines. Thousands of arrows arched their way through the clearing sky toward the army. Before they hit, a second volley was loosed.
    The impact of the first volley was devastating. Because the minotaurs did not wear substantial armor, their leather padding and shielding did nothing to stop well-fired arrows. Klaf stared in horror as warriors all around him fell.
    He swung his battle-axe over his head and began a deep growl that slowly became a howling war cry. Leaping forward, alone, he raced toward the elven infantry.
    His warriors stood and watched in stunned silence. Olik, suddenly realizing that this was the only way to an honorable death, couched the army standard like a lance and sprinted after his commander.
    The minotaur army rallied and charged.
    After one hundred yards, a quarter of them had fallen to arrows. They kept going.
    After two hundred yards, another quarter were dying in the mud, but the rest kept going. The arrows were less effective at this range.
    After four hundred yards, the minotaurs that were left were sorely winded. Still they kept charging. There was death in anything that they did now, but the only way to honor was one hundred yards ahead.
    Klaf’s own fear of defeat with dishonor fired him forward. He screamed and swung his axe in huge arcs. At twenty yards, Olik, running beside him, stumbled a few steps. An arrow protruded from his chest. The giant minotaur shook his head, tore the arrow from his chest, tossed it on the ground, and caught up to Klaf.
    Klaf hit the elven line first. The elves were jammed together in a tight defensive formation, swords and spears bristling outward. Klaf died almost instantly, but his body, as it fell, carried with it four elves, opening a hole in the lines.
    Olik plunged into the hole after his dead commander, swinging his sword with one hand, using the army standard as a club in the other. Four, six, eight elves fell beforethe giant. More elves rushed forward, only to be bashed to pieces. Finally, two archers fired four arrows each into the big warrior’s torso. Even then, Olik kept swinging standard and sword. Finally, he fell to his knees, then pitched forward into the dirt.
    The standard fell. The minotaur army fell with it.
    * * * * *
    The minotaur army had died an ignoble death. Maybe one tenth of the minotaurs who began the battle were still alive. They stood in one group, prisoners of the elves. The death toll had not been only on the losing side, however. Hundreds of elves lay where they had been battered and hacked to death.
    It was unclear whether the elves had lost more, but they weren’t counting. They had won the day. The threat of minotaur intrusion into their coastal areas had been effectively negated. All that remained was the mop-up of remaining enemy forces.
    The captured minotaurs were herded into one large group and surrounded by elf warriors and archers. All of the prisoners looked dejected. Their dishonor weighed heavily upon them.
    The surviving elves went through the battlefield looking for dead and wounded warriors of their kind. The dead were taken back to the tree line and laid out with their weapons and the weapons of dead minotaurs near them as trophies. The wounded