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"My Lord!" a voice called Ituralde’s guard split to let a young boy ride up, panting "My Lord, it’s Lieutenant Lidrin!"

"He’s fallen?" Ituralde demanded

"No, my Lord He’s…" The boy looked over his shoulder In the pike line nearby, the soldiers were bulging forward toward the Trolloc wave, rather than falling back

"What in the Light?" Ituralde said, heeling Daeave into uard and the younghim in a thunder of hooves

He could hear Lidrin’s yells despite the roar of the battlefield The young Do the Trollocs with sword and shield, bellowing Lidrin’sthe pikemen confused and disoriented

"Lidrin, you fool" Ituralde reined his horse to a halt

"Co his sword up before the Trollocs He laughed loudly, voice half-mad, face splattered with blood "Come! I will face you all! My sword thirsts!"

"Lidrin!" Ituralde screalanced over his shoulder His eyes ith a crazed kind of glee Ituralde had seen it before, in the eyes of soldiers who fought too long, too hard "We’re going to die, Rodel," Lidrin called "This way, I get to take theet back here and--"

Theforward

"Get his"Close the pike ranks! Quickly We can’t…"

The Trollocs surged forward Lidrin fell in a spray of blood, laughing His ly pressed, and they split down the middle The pikemen reset themselves, but a fist of Trollocs crashed into them Some Trollocs fell

Most didn’t

The nearby creatures screeched and howled at seeing the hole in the defenses They ca themselves at the pikemen

Ituralde cursed, then pushed Daeave forward In war, as in faret knee-deep in the uard rode in around hi terunts of pain

Daeave snorted and danced as Ituralde lashed out with his sword The warhorse disliked being so close to the Shadon, but he ell trained, a gift froeneral on the Borderlands needed an aniht Trollocs before Ituralde blessed that soldier now