by Pedro Urvi
He rode along the entire line, then went back to the center to await the answer.
“What say you?”
“Freedom!” the Senoca cried. “Death to the Oppressors!”
“What say you?” he asked again, rising on his stirrups.
“We’ll fight!”
“I can’t hear what you’re saying!” he prompted them.
“Death to the Regent! Death to the Enforcers!”
“Will you follow me?”
“We’ll follow you!”
“For freedom?”
“For freedom!”
Ikai’s gaze lingered on the brave faces, eyes shining with determination, red fists raised to the sky.
“Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!” the Senoca yelled.
The clamor of those seventy-five thousand throats was so loud Ikai thought it would deafen him. But with each shout from each man, each woman, he was aware that the hearts of the enemy soldiers shrank, for they knew they were on the side of the oppressor, on the side of injustice, and that seventy-five thousand fevered Senoca were about to hurl themselves on them.
He gave a final glance at the bridges and the river. He knew that once across, there would be no possible retreat. They would be trapped between the capital and the river.
All or nothing, he said to himself.
And he gave the order: “Onward! For freedom!”
Chapter 34
And the Senoca crossed the river.
They advanced with their leaders at the head.
Three hundred paces from the enemy forces they stopped.
The two armies, slaves and oppressors, eyed each other for a long, icy moment.
Ikai raised his sword. The six leaders followed suit, and with them the Heroes.
And they charged against the forces of slavery.
“For freedom!” cried Ikai, spurring his mount.
“For freedom!” the Senoca roared to the sky like wild lions. Thousands of throats roared as they launched themselves at a run against the enemy. The cries filled the plain, reaching the defenders and the city behind them with a deafening roar. An immense blue tide, the personification of Mother Sea Oxatsi herself, fell furiously on the three enemy formations. The rebellion had exploded in a tidal wave of frenzied slaves, determined to sacrifice their lives in the pursuit of freedom.
Tensely, the soldiers of the Guard awaited the approaching avalanche. They were the breakwater in front of the walls of the city, trying to prevent the gigantic wave from dragging them away and then flooding the city with the blue of freedom.
The officers of the regiments shouted orders to their men.
“Square formation! Front Line, shields forward!”
The soldiers obeyed, their minds following orders, their hearts unsure whether the formation would hold against the tremendous impact it was about to suffer.
“Hold your position! Dig your heels in!” Svariz shouted in the center of the right-hand rectangle.
In the triangle formed by the Enforcers, a sinister silence hinted at what was about to happen. The Executors, legs flexed and spears held out in front of them, waited like stone statues. In their outstretched hands the Eyes-of-the-Gods showed Discs of Power.
And the great Senoca wave broke against the enemy lines with the roar of a thousand storms. For a moment time seemed to stand still. The clash was brutal. Bodies of running slaves were hurled back into the air in all directions as they struck the first iron-hard enemy lines. Soldiers of the Guard were thrown backwards, taking with them the men immediately behind them. The Executors withstood imperturbably, with only a few of them swept away by the great wave. And time began again. Shouts broke out in every direction. Wild cries from the Senoca as they hurled themselves against the formations, cries of despair when they were thrust back or died beneath spear or sword. Cries of horror when they struck the Enforcers and left no mark on them. The battlefield became tinged with red as the blood of the people soaked the plain of Osaen.
The rebels attacked with all the courage of their enslaved hearts, striking tirelessly, furiously, with their rustic weapons against the enemy shields and armor, yelling wildly. The front lines of both rectangles of the Guard suffered multiple casualties in the initial assault. For an instant it seemed the lines would not hold, would succumb before the pressure of the gigantic blue wave.
“Shields in a square!” the Regiment Captains ordered their soldiers.
The lines compacted, and the soldiers of the Guard took a few steps back to form a tight wall of shields against which the Senoca crashed .
“Hold! Don’t let the first line fall!” ordered Commander Svariz.
The Senoca outdid themselves, completely surrounding the enemy formations and reaching the foot of the city walls. The enemy armies were left like three islands in a blue sea so choppy that any ship would have foundered in it.
A little to the rear, Ikai watched the battle and the walls with the sealed gates. They had no way of taking the city, not while the enemy armies were at its gates. His only hope was to manage to defeat Sesmok’s forces in the battlefield, then take the city.
“We’ve got them surrounded,” Karm said beside him, “but we’re not managing to break their lines.”
“We have to put pressure on them,” Albana said. “We have to break their formations.”
“The bastards won’t give in!” growled Honus.
Ikai turned to him. “Honus, sound the charge!”
The giant put the horn to his lips and gave three calls. In reply, the six County leaders began to send wave after wave of their braves against the enemy. The Senoca attacked the formations, trying to swallow them up, pressing in all directions at once. They attacked without respite, again and again, with all the rage in their hearts.
“Close shields! Push them back!” Svariz was calling out. While the first lines on each side of the square held back the attacks and stood firm with their shields, the second line stabbed the rebel slaves mercilessly. The Senoca were dying, the ground fast becoming a sea of blood and corpses. When the front lines of the soldiers of the Guard fell under rebel pressure, they were quickly replaced by men of the second row. In turn, the inner lines replaced those who had moved forward. They formed a killing-machine which worked with deadly co-ordination.
Karm watched that lethal efficiency at work. “For each of theirs, dozens of ours are falling!”
Downhearted, Ikai nodded. “They’re very well trained. They’re professional soldiers. If we can’t break those formations, we’re finished.”
“By the hairs of my beard!” Honus cried. “But there are so many more of us!”
Albana narrowed her eyes as she watched the fighting. “So there are, but numbers don’t guarantee victory in the battlefield.” She pointed to the enemy square on the left. “In the art of war, a very few well-trained soldiers in close military formation can overcome a multitude. We’re in a really tight spot.”
And if the situation was difficult for the Senoca trying to break the two formations of soldiers of the Guard, it was utterly impossible against the triangle of Enforcers. The Executors were decimating the rebels, with the dead piling up at their feet. The Enforcers were suffering very few casualties; their lethal physical superiority was so obvious it was beginning to affect the rebels’ spirit. Around the triangle of death there formed a void, filled with corpses. The Senoca did not dare go near. Everyone who attempted it died pierced by a spear or had his throat slit by a knife in the shape of a half-moon before he could even reach the line of Enforcers. And if any of them did reach it, he was unable to finish off those deadly monsters.
Karm glanced aside at Ikai. “We’ve got to do something. We’re being massacred!”
Ikai dismounted and turned to three young men behind him.
“Warn the leaders: we have to open a breach in the lines of the Guard. Tell them to charge with everything they have. We’ve got to break it. Half of you will attack the left-hand square with me. The other half, attack the righ
t-hand square with Liriana.”
The three messengers nodded and ran off through the throng.
“And the Enforcers?” Albana asked.
“It would be madness to attack the Enforcers. We have to focus on the Guard.”
“If the Enforcers swing round and attack, they’ll destroy you.”
“We’ll have to risk it.”
“I’ll keep them busy,” she said.
“No!” Ikai cried, more fiercely than he had meant to. “No, it’s crazy. I don’t want you facing them.”
She smiled roguishly. “Maybe you’re afraid something’ll happen to me.”
“Of course I’m afraid something’ll happen to you.” He took her face in his hands. “I don’t want you to risk yourself, least of all against the Enforcers. I need you beside me.”
Albana smiled and kissed him. “You’re a very bad liar, Hunter, you don’t need me beside you. I know how to take care of myself. Don’t worry.” She kissed him again and then vanished in the crowd.
“Albana, no!” he called uneasily after her. But she had already made her decision, and there was no way he could stop her.
He turned to Karm and Honus, who were waiting for his orders.
“Are you with me?”
“To the end!”
“Then follow me. I’m going to breach that line, even if I have to kill them all with my own bare hands.”
“That’s the kind of talk I like!” Honus said.
The three of them made their way through the rebels until they reached the front line of soldiers in the left-hand square. Ikai went up to the three men who made up the center of the line. They were waiting motionless, with their shields before them forming a wall.
“Move aside,” he told his own people, who obeyed immediately.
He pointed to the one in the middle. “That one’s for me. Karm, you take the one on his right, and you, Honus, the one on his left. Keep an eye on the spears and swords of the second line. As soon as we get any nearer they’ll try to skewer us.”
“Got it,” Karm said.
Ikai pointed with his sword, drawing his knife with the other hand. “We’re going to open up a breach here! Follow me!”
And the three attacked to the cry of “For Oxatsi!”
The messenger passed the order to Liriana, who nodded and turned to Romen and Maruk.
“We’re going to breach the line. Romen, you come with me. Maruk, you stay behind.”
“In your dreams! If you go I go too!”
“I don’t have time to argue, I’m the one who gives the orders. You’re not a good warrior, and we’ll need you to free us from the Rings. You’re staying behind, and there’s nothing more to be said. I’m not putting you at risk in the front line of battle.”
He waved at the rebels around them. “I can use a sword as well as any of these people,” he protested.
She gestured towards the ground around the enemy square, scattered with bloody corpses. “You’ll die too, just the same as them. You stay.”
“But…”
“Are you going to make me hit you?”
“No…”
“Good. Subject closed. I need some more support. Bring me Rutus, Mitas and their men.”
Romen nodded and sent two messengers.
“Woodsmen and miners… at least they know how to use an axe and a pick, and they’re as strong as oxen. They’re the best we have. They’ll have to do.”
Albana moved to the apex of the Enforcers’ triangle. Nobody was attacking them. The rebels were watching them two paces away, unsure what to do. The Enforcers seemed fixed to the ground like statues. She did not like this at all. Why were they not moving? They could wreak havoc among the rebel lines if they started to penetrate them. But it was as though they were waiting for an order which never came. She looked around for the Leaders. The somber faces of Ganat and Pasmal, of the First and Second Counties, showed not fear but impotence. Their eyes were worried, their clothes soaked with blood.
“I need a hundred archers,” she snapped. “Find them for me among your men.”
The two leaders stared at her.
“Archers? In the middle of this mess?” Ganat said.
“Do I have to say it again?”
“Of course not, Hero of the Senoca,” Pasmal said, instantly obedient. And both left in search of archers.
Albana stretched out her arms and started to walk backwards. As she did so, everybody in her way moved back.
“More space,” she said, gesturing to right and left.
The men formed a human chain with Albana in the middle and began to move back. They pushed at the lines behind them, giving them the order to retreat. With some difficulty, they managed to organize the maneuver. She counted ten paces, then stopped. The horde of Senoca behind her stopped with her.
“Keep this distance.”
With the poise of a consummate assassin, she walked the ten, now empty, paces back until she was standing face to face with the Executor at the apex of the triangle.
“You’ve only got a few moments left to live,” she said coolly. “Wouldn’t you rather break formation and kill me?”
The Executor did not reply. With a lightning move he tried to pierce Albana with his spear. But the tip of the weapon stopped two finger-breadths short of the brunette’s chest.
“If you want to kill me, break formation.”
The Executor seemed to hesitate. In his internal struggle, his killer instinct began to get the better of him. His right foot shifted an inch, but immediately he drew it back and took up the same hieratic pose again.
“As you wish… well then, I’ll have to kill you. You and the ten on your right and the ten on your left.” She shrugged, turned and walked back to her own people.
The Senoca could not believe her daring. They stared at her as if she were a goddess. The hundred archers came and formed a line in front of the human chain.
“Keep the chain,” she said to Ganat and Pasmal. “Don’t let anybody pass it, and don’t let them disturb the archers.”
“You heard her,” said Ganat.
Albana was staring at the Executor at the apex. “Now we’re going to play Shoot the Enforcer,” she said with a grim smile. “Choose ten on this one’s left, then release.”
There was a moment of doubt. Of incredulity. They would move. They would tear the archers to pieces.
“Do it!” Albana ordered furiously.
The archers released their arrows and the ten selected Enforcers received ten each.
“Excellent,” she said, watching the Enforcers’ reaction. Of the ten, half fell to the ground badly wounded. The rest remained standing, although not for much longer. She waited for a moment, and the order from the Eyes arrived. The fallen were replaced by other Executors from the inner lines, but they neither advanced nor attacked. She turned to the archers.
“Same again. Choose ten to my little friend’s right.”
The archers did not hesitate this time. They loosed their arrows straight away.
Albana went across to Ganat and Pasmal, who were staring at her in puzzlement.
“We keep shooting till they break formation. Or until something else happens. Nobody’s to go near them. Get some more archers and repeat this same operation on the three sides of the triangle. We have to wear them down. If there aren’t enough archers, bring spears. Understood?”
“Understood.”
Albana turned to the Eyes-of-the-Gods in the center of the formation.
What are the bastards waiting for? she thought, and began to feel very uneasy.
Liriana drove her knife into the soldier’s groin, freeing his shield. The man would bleed to death in a matter of moments. She glimpsed the spear-tip the soldier from the second line was thrusting straight for her chest, and deflected it with her other short sword. To her right, Romen’s spear pierced the eye of the soldier in front of him. The enemy spear from the second line missed him by two finger-breadths.
“Good strategy
,” Liriana said.
Romen smiled. “If they use it, why not us?”
“I prefer this,” said Rutus. He delivered a tremendous blow with his double-headed axe on the soldier’s shield. The impact was so brutal that the soldier flew backwards, toppling the men of the second and third lines behind him in the process.
Mitas laughed. “Not bad at all, but what about this?” and with a massive blow with his huge two-pronged pick, he wrenched the shield off the soldier’s arm. Before the man could react, two of Mitas’ men skewered him with thick wooden spikes.
“Keep it up!” Liriana shouted. “We’re opening up a gap!”
“Close lines!” they heard Svariz bellow.
“I’m going to get to that pig and cut him in half!” Rutus said.
“Not if I get there first,” said Mitas as he wrenched off two shields with two massive blows.
“Svariz is mine!” Liriana said.
Rutus delivered another mighty blow with his axe, opening up a breach in the wall of defenders. “As you wish!”
“Close lines! Close them!” Svariz shouted again, and this time his voice was tinged with fear.
Ikai blocked the enemy sword and buried his knife in the soldier’s neck. Blood spattered his face, and he had to wipe his eyes with his forearm. When he looked again he saw the tip of a spear coming straight at his throat. With no time to react, he twisted his head sharply aside. The edge of the tip cut his neck, and he stepped back. He touched the wound, fearing that the cut would be lethal and he would bleed to death.
Honus, beside him, was staring wide-eyed. “By a freaking hair’s-breadth!”
Despite the blood, the wound was not deep enough after all.
“Yes, a hair’s-breadth,” he said to Honus with a wink, and went for the next soldier in the line.
Karm and Honus dispatched enemy soldiers with something approaching the skill of expert warriors: Honus with massive blows, sending shields, armor, men, flesh and bone flying before him, Karm with fire as well as finesse stabbing ceaselessly, lethally, to right and left. They were opening up a breach in the left-hand square, and more Senoca joined them to help them. Together with Ikai, the three formed the tip of the sword which was opening up a way through the enemy lines.