‘Theron of Erisina, I bless your sword, may it serve its master well in battle.’
She embraced them both. No more words were spoken, and the two knights left to make their way to the field of battle.
Belwynn walked a little way towards the lines of soldiers forming up into position. Just visible in the distance was the enemy. Rostam of Ishari had gathered an army of tens of thousands to block their path to Samir Durg, and then drive them from Haskany.
His force, so the Kalinthian scouts had reported, was predominantly made up of Drobax. Thousands upon thousands had left their northern homeland, and travelled south down the Great Road to invade the Brasingian Empire. But there had still been plenty available to fill the ranks of the Isharite army here. They weren’t the only ones fighting under Rostam’s command, however. Some Haskan soldiers remained to defend their homeland. A Kharovian force had been spotted too—the dread rovers of the sea were more used to raiding than fighting pitched battles, but they had heeded the call of their masters nonetheless. The barks of the Dog-men, also loyal to Ishari, could be heard from time to time, the wicked sound crossing the distance between the two armies and making Belwynn’s blood run cold. Finally, of course, there were the Isharites themselves. They were few in number, but a good proportion of them would be wizards, and this made them the most dangerous enemy of all.
In contrast, their own army had only one wizard, and not one that Belwynn totally trusted either. As if reading her thoughts, Pentas strolled over towards her.
‘I see that the Knights have made you their mystic,’ he commented.
Belwynn shrugged. She saw no reason to feel any embarrassment about it in front of him.
‘Not necessarily a bad thing,’ he added, perhaps aware that she had taken it as a criticism.
‘What can be gained today?’ she asked him, changing the subject.
‘Win or lose, you are making those on the Council feel very uncomfortable right now,’ he replied. ‘After the destruction of Edeleny, the Isharites thought that they had won Dalriya. Now there is an enemy army not so very far from Samir Durg itself.’
‘And what chance that we might do more than make them feel uncomfortable?’ Belwynn asked him.
She tried to keep bitterness from her voice, but it would be a sorry waste of lives if that was all they achieved.
It was Pentas’s turn to shrug. ‘We shall see.’
Belwynn returned her gaze to the battlefield. Between the two armies was a few hundred yards of flat scrubland, nothing to offer protection to either side. Although it had been a chill night, the sun had risen in a cloudless sky, and Belwynn knew that the conditions would be hot and dry. In front of her was a simple formation. The Krykkers stood in the middle, all on foot, a few ranks deep. They fought in their clan groups, and their job was to hold position against the enemy. Some distance behind them, to each side of the Krykkers, were two units of Kalinthian Knights. One was commanded by Theron, the other by Sebastian. They would have an offensive role, threatening to outflank and encircle the enemy. Whilst it was vital that the Krykkers withstand the enemy, the Knights had to find a way to win.
Trumpet calls blasted out ahead of her. The Krykkers and the Knights were signalling their readiness for battle. It was about to start.
‘Time for me to get ready,’ murmured Pentas.
Belwynn turned to him. ‘There are people here very important to me,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to lose them.’
Pentas nodded, his red eyes gleaming. ‘There are people here who are very important to Madria, too. There is a priestess of hers. A Krykker man wielding her sword. A human woman carrying her dagger and her staff. In the bigger picture, all others are expendable.’
He turned and left. Belwynn turned her back on the battlefield and began to make her way to the camp, about a mile behind the front line. There she would find Elana, whose healing skills would be needed today more than they ever had before.
Trumpets rang out from the infantry ranks of the Krykkers, answered by the massed cavalry of the Knights.
Rabigar hefted his polearm, readying himself. He stood in the middle of the front line, with Torinac and the Dramsen clan. The other clans were positioned in separate rectangular units to either side. These units were known as buffalos amongst the Krykkers, since they shared the defensive strength and offensive reach of the horned creatures. On the left, Maragin led the Grendals; Guremar and the Plengas clan were on the right. Next to Rabigar stood Stenk, holding a great, long, two handed pike. Rabigar was keen to keep his eye on the lad, in his first real battle.
A few feet away, Torinac held aloft Bolivar’s Great Sword, symbol of their people’s defiance against the forces of Ishari. He pointed it ahead, towards the enemy. The Krykker army began to move.
The first two ranks of their army all held pole-arms of various descriptions. Those fighters situated on the two short edges of their rectangle also carried the same weapons, so that they could engage with any enemy who tried to attack from the side. Most common were the long, straight pikes that Stenk carried. But other warriors had variations on this basic design, often crafting their own weapons. Some had added an axe head to the long blade of the pike, so that their weapons could be used for chopping as well as thrusting. Rabigar himself favoured a weapon with a crossbar across the end of the pike. It prevented the blade sliding too far into an enemy and getting stuck, and he anticipated that his blade would see a lot of action today.
Despite these minor variations, the Krykkers were still able to present a long line of bristling metal points to the enemy. Holding the deadly points of their weapons up in the air in front of them, they picked up the pace of their march. The knights who had scouted out the Ishari position had done a good job. They identified that forces had been arriving at the enemy camp from various directions. But they were not yet well organised, and Rostam was most likely waiting for more to arrive before moving against them. His location had been chosen as a place for his forces to meet up, rather than as a location for a battle. But if he had been expecting the Krykkers to sit and wait for him, he had made a serious mistake. Now was the time to fight, before the superior forces of Ishari were ready.
Drums began to pound as the enemy realised that the Krykkers were on the march. Rabigar could see enemy units beginning to move in their direction. Unsurprisingly, the Drobax were being sent to intercept them. Rostam’s plan would be for his most expendable troops to soften them up, before sending in his elite soldiers.
Rabigar looked along the line with pride. Despite marching at pace, the Krykkers held their positions, presenting a long, impenetrable forest of steel-tipped wooden shafts. The Krykkers didn’t have horsemen like the Knights. They didn’t have archers like the Caladri. They lacked the sheer numbers that the Brasingian Empire could field. But Rabigar knew that they had the best infantry in Dalriya. They were the best equipped and the best drilled, learning iron discipline from youth. They fought, not as individuals, but as one whole. It had not been witnessed by the rest of Dalriya for generations. But here and now, it would be.
The Drobax were now close enough to pick out individually. Most went semi-naked, their hairy grey bodies rarely protected by anything resembling armour. Their weapons were rudimentary, made from wood or stone. They had been sent to fight in rough units, but they were already disintegrating. Some of the creatures came at a faster pace than others. The different units began to merge together so that the Krykkers faced an undulating sea of creatures bearing down on them.
Torinac called the halt. The first two rows gathered themselves, making sure that there was the correct space between each other. Rabigar’s front row put their left knees to the ground, bracing their weapons for impact. The Drobax charged. When they came into missile range, stones and spears were hurled at them from the rear rows. Many of the Drobax went down. Others tripped over the fallen bodies. Still more had stopped, in an effort to avoid the flying missiles. The Drobax advance stuttered.
‘Charge!�
�� bellowed Torinac.
Rising to their feet, pikes now pointing straight ahead, Rabigar’s line went for the enemy. He could see the fear on the faces of the Drobax as the wall of pikes bore down on them. Some of them carried spears and held them out in front of themselves, but they were barely half the length of the pikes, and no real competition. Still others carried short clubs. They would have to avoid the pikes and get in close to do any damage.
Rabigar fixed his weapon on a Drobax spearman. As he approached he saw the whites of its eyes. It lurched to its left at the last minute, in an attempt to avoid his strike. But Rabigar simply pulled his arms into his body and then thrust forwards, going down on one knee, skewering it through the chest. He checked on Stenk, who had also struck a target, through the thigh. Rabigar pulled his pike free and sent it into the chest of Stenk’s Drobax, to make sure that it was killed. With a shout, the second rank of Krykkers levelled their pikes over the heads of Rabigar’s rank and thrust forwards, finding more targets in some cases; in others, dissuading the Drobax from counterattacking.
Rabigar’s line moved forwards and thrust again, killing the next rank. A Drobax holding a club ran in-between Rabigar and Stenk’s pikes, making for the younger man. Rabigar let go of his pike and moved to intercept it, but a pike emerged from the rank behind, and skewered the creature before it got close.
Again, the Krykkers moved forwards to strike at the Drobax, and once more. Rabigar found himself having to kneel on a corpse as he kept his position in the line. Pools of dark blood lay across the parched ground.
In the end, the inevitable happened, and the Drobax broke. Unable to halt the Krykker war machine’s progress and facing certain death, self-preservation took over, and the horde of Drobax turned and fled back the way they had come.
The Dramsen clan paused briefly to draw breath. A few injured soldiers were being guided through to the back of the unit, but Rabigar couldn’t see any fatalities. He looked to his left and right. The Drobax had been broken right across the battlefield, meaning that the other two buffalos were also free. Seeing this, Torinac wasted no more time and ordered an advance.
They followed the retreating Drobax across the dusty ground. Rabigar began to make out the beginnings of the Isharite camp, where tents had been pitched, and wagons parked. Moving out to challenge them were a dozen smaller units of Haskan infantry. The Drobax ran through the gaps between the Haskan units and on into their camp. Hopefully they would keep on running.
Rabigar could see that they were now dealing with a different, more superior threat. The Haskan soldiers were well armed and their smaller units were fast—faster than the Krykker buffalos, with their long pole-arms that had to be held aloft as they moved.
Some of the Haskan units were moving to the sides, outflanking the buffalos of the Grendal and Plengas clans without getting too close. Looking across to his left, Rabigar could see Maragin’s dilemma. If she moved her unit across to deal with the threat, the Grendals would become detached from the Dramsens and potentially encircled. If she kept moving ahead, the Haskans would be able to attack from the rear. Both the Grendal and Plengas buffalos came to a halt, pikes facing outwards at all angles. Still, the Haskans manoeuvred around them without engaging.
Rabigar could see Torinac looking around nervously. Their advance had come to a halt. If the Isharites were able to regroup the Drobax, they could be in real trouble.
Rabigar felt the ground tremble. Everyone turned around to look.
‘The Knights!’ declared Stenk enthusiastically.
Two streams of cavalry were arriving on the battlefield in a wide arc. As Rabigar watched, they quickly outflanked the Haskan units and turned around to face them from the sides. In a matter of minutes, the dynamic on the battlefield had changed. The Haskans found themselves caught between the Krykkers and the Kalinthian cavalry with no means of escape—the Knights were too fast. Sebastian and Theron had arrived at just the right time.
Trumpets sounded from both groups of cavalry. They formed into a long line, levelling their lances so that they pointed ahead. Another blast from the trumpets gave the order to charge. It was an imposing sight, watching the armoured horses gathering pace. The Haskan soldiers would be terrified. Meanwhile, Maragin had taken advantage of the situation to order the Grendals to attack. The Haskans would be crushed between the two forces.
Rabigar looked to Torinac. He saw the chieftain looking ahead. Rabigar could make out Haskan cavalry forces leaving the enemy camp and heading to engage the Kalinthians. But surely, they would be no match for the Knights? Ahead of the Dramsens were two of the Haskan units. They had kept a safe distance away from the Krykkers, but now seemed unsure of what to do. Rabigar knew what Torinac’s order would be before it was given. Torinac wanted to win the battle right now. He raised Bolivar’s Sword again, and gave the order to attack.
Pole-arms raised, the Dramsen clan marched forwards, leaving the rest of the battle to their allies. The two units of Haskan soldiers reacted, looking to trap them in a pincer. Torinac ordered an attack on the Haskan unit to their right. The Krykkers turned in that direction, held their pikes aloft, and ran towards them. The Krykkers could be surprisingly fast when they picked up speed. The Haskans dithered and that was their downfall. They seemed to be unsure whether they should retreat, or attack the Krykkers in order to implement their pincer. In the end, they did neither, merely holding their ground.
As the Dramsens approached, the Haskan front line locked shields together. They wore mail armour and presented a formidable defence. Rabigar’s rank dove to their knees and thrust their pikes at the legs of the shield men. The second rank thrust forwards at head level. No shield was big enough to defend against pikes at both ankle and face level, and many Haskans fell. Those that survived counterattacked with shield and spear. Rabigar was quick to drop his pike, drawing the sword that he favoured in close combat.
With neither the wall of shields or pikes intact any more, it quickly became a vicious melee. Rabigar hacked and sliced with his sword. He swung at a Haskan spearman who took the blow on his shield, and then thrust forwards with his spear. Rabigar stepped back out of range. The spearman poked at him, creeping forwards. He then launched his attack, thrusting forwards. Rabigar sidestepped and grabbed the wooden shaft of the spear. He yanked at it, pulling the spearman off balance, before thrusting with his sword into the neck area, between hauberk and helmet. He pulled his sword free with a gush of blood.
Rabigar looked around for Stenk and spotted him, keeping an enemy at bay with his pike. Rabigar joined him but didn’t press the attack. The longer line of the Krykker buffalo was now curling around the Haskans, who found themselves being attacked from the sides. Rabigar waited until the odds were fully in his favour before joining in with the slaughter. The red mist rose as he strode around, looking for enemies to kill. Assailed from all sides, the Haskans had no chance. Many begged for mercy, but the Krykkers cut them all down.
When the job was done, it was time to turn around to deal with the second Haskan unit. As they had been drilled countless times, the pikemen at the rear end of the Dramsen buffalo had formed a defensive line to stop the oncoming Haskans. This kind of defensive formation was three ranks deep, with pikes facing the enemy from three different heights, like the quills of a porcupine. Rabigar and the other Krykkers moved around it to face the enemy, who had been unable to break through. Without waiting for an order, the Krykkers now charged the second Haskan unit. The pikemen who had been on the defence now thrust forwards. Rabigar and the men around him outflanked the Haskans and attacked from the side. The Haskans put up a stout resistance, but their defences were inevitably breached, and a second slaughter, just like the first, ensued.
When it was done, the Dramsen clan paused to take breath. Soldiers looked at each other, grim smiles for comrades covered in blood and gore. The stench of it was overpowering. Rabigar wiped his sword clean on a corpse.
He took a look at the rest of the battle. Things were still in f
lux. The Haskan cavalry had engaged with the Kalinthians, and some of their infantry units were still active. None were close to the Dramsen’s position, however, and the way was now clear to the enemy camp.
‘Forwards!’ bellowed Torinac, Bolivar’s Sword now dripping red.
They marched for the camp where Rostam and the other leaders were based. If they could drive them off now, there was little chance of the Isharites regrouping from such a defeat any time soon. Those who still had their pole-arms moved to the front ranks. Rabigar found Stenk and persuaded him to stand with him in the third rank. Stenk passed his pike over to another soldier and took an axe from his belt.
No-one was there to prevent them from entering the outskirts of the camp. They looked around. Tents lay empty. Horse-pulled wagons and carts with food and other supplies sat undefended. Rabigar spied a forge wagon, fitted up to carry the furnace, bellows and other tools required by a blacksmith to make running repairs to weapons and armour. But the craftsmen to go with it were nowhere to be seen. The camp was deserted.
Torinac led his clan into the centre of the camp, a feeling of slight unease spreading amongst them. Something didn’t feel right.
Then, from out of nowhere, words were being shouted in an alien tongue. The Krykkers turned to look for the source in all directions, but there was nothing to see. Suddenly, an enemy force appeared in front of them. It was the strangest sensation. Part of Rabigar realised that they had been there all along, but they had somehow been hidden from sight. By magic.
But there was no more time to think about it. Charging straight at them, howling and barking, were the most fearsome creatures in the Isharite army. Dog-men. The Krykkers turned to face the threat, quickly trying to get their pikes ready to face the attack. A force buffeted them, like a strong gust of wind. It caused men to stumble and lose their footing. Polearms were blown about, difficult to hold onto; more than one soldier got a crack on the head or arm from their neighbour’s weapon.
The Weapon Takers Saga Box Set Page 64