Scarcely had the first shafts of light thrust over the mountain-tops when Oleric, from the shadows of the forest, launched a great bolt of cavalry across the plain. Another division which had been moved in the night swept east along the south bank of the river. While the riders of Bel-Ar went out to meet them, the trumpets of the king of Ruthar were sounded in the center of the camp, and long files of men-at-arms crept forth into the dawn behind the screen of dashing horsemen.
In three deep columns Polaris moved his footmen into battle, with lanes between them, into which the cavalry might retire, and through which the charioteers would charge when the time came. Each of the marching columns was tipped with regiments of swiftly moving javelin men, and behind them came the archers, stringing their long bows and singing a lilting chorus as they moved out on the plain.
Mounted on his black stallion, Polaris led the center, riding behind the first ranks of his swordsmen and accompanied by the men of Jastla and some score of the Rutharian zinds, all in full armor. Far to the right rode Oleric the Red. The left was headed by Tarnos, one of the zinds. That post Polaris had offered to old Jastla of the hills, but the chieftain had declined it.
"'Tis a great honor, O king," he said when the proffer was made, and his eyes shone. "But I pray you give it not to me. I would fight at your side. That post will be troublesome enough, as I well know." Jastla grinned broadly. "Give the command to a nobler man."
"There is none nobler, old wolf," Polaris replied. "But have it as you will."
So Tarnos led the left, along the river Thebascu, and Jastla and his ring of steel rode with his king, and he was content.
Midway between the camps, as Oleric had ordered it, the charging horsemen swerved aside, doubled, and, as though in fear, plunged back between the advancing columns. Hard on their flying heels came the shouting riders of Ad. As they came the javelin men cast, and the archers bent bows and loosed a bitter flight from their twanging strings that shrieked among the horsemen like a white drift of blizzard through the mountain trees. Then, before the eyes of the Maeronican riders, the horsemen they pursued were gone; the bowmen and the javelin-throwers melted away; fanwise the heads of the three columns spread out and joined each to each, their front ranks kneeling; and Ruthar received her plunging foemen on an unbroken front of leveled spears.
Fell ruin awaited that splendid charge. Unable to turn back because of the surging squadrons behind them, the foremost ranks were dashed against the grim steel barrier, and went down in a horrible tangle of struggling men and horses.
Into the mêlée, through the lines and over the shoulders of their comrades, leaped the light-armed footmen with their javelins and daggers, and slew hundreds of horses, whose riders fell easy prey to the two-handed blades that now were aloft and busy.
At the rear the Rutharian cavalry formed again, and dashing around the flanks of the columns in two flying wedges, closed like nippers behind Bel-Ar's confused squadrons.