by Alexey Pehov
That set them wailing! Jig could hear the howls of dying men as they were burned alive. Many of the soldiers in his battalion swore in satisfaction when they saw how many casualties a single man could inflict on the enemy.
Meanwhile the magician created another fireball, then another, incinerating men by the dozen. The lines of infantry faltered and broke, scattering in panic along the bank of the Wine Brook. The smell of burnt flesh even reached Jig’s battalion.
Suddenly the magician swayed and collapsed in a heap on the snow. Someone from the front ranks dashed to the fallen man, picked him up, and pulled him back into the battalion.
The vigilant unit commanders roared:
“Crossbowmen make ready! First rank! Fire! Second rank! Fire! Third rank! Fire!”
When they’d done their job, the crossbowmen moved back. They were replaced by another nine ranks taken from the rear and the sides of the battalion.
“Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!”
The confused enemy infantry were caught in a deadly steel shower.
* * *
“Agh! The magicians have gone into action!”
Izmi wasn’t listening. Like everyone else, he was following the action in the left army. Some unknown magician had shattered the central detachment of attackers with ease, but the right and left detachments were still moving forward, and had already crossed the Wine Brook. And the other two detachments of the Nameless One’s troops were not far behind.
“Milord!”
Izmi Markauz turned away from the battle scene and looked at the soldier with a huge two-handed sword who had approached him.
“Milord, His Majesty has put my unit at your disposal.”
“How many men do you have?”
“Two hundred.”
Not bad. Two hundred Beaver Caps was more than he had counted on.
“Good. Move across to that copse behind the left army. But don’t get involved in the action just yet.”
“Yes, milord.”
Something told Izmi that help would be needed over there very soon now.
* * *
“They have crossbowmen, commander.”
“Ah, the lousy bastards!” roared the commander of the six thousand Wind Jugglers, who were now standing behind the infantry and the dismounted cavalry. He raised his fist to the heavens. “How many of them?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then find out! And be quick about it! Or they’ll pick off all our infantry! Nark!”
“Yes, commander?”
“Take your thousand men and get forward! Put the lads in with the swordsmen. Let them fire point-blank from there! If anyone in the infantry doesn’t like it, tell them I ordered it! Get going!”
“About three thousand!” panted the soldier, running back. “The scouts say three thousand! Marching ahead of the infantry.”
“I can see where they’re marching, I’m not blind.”
The cannons roared behind them and the soldiers ducked, but the commander of the Wind Jugglers took no notice.
“So there are twice as many of us as there are of them,” the old warrior muttered through his teeth, watching as the balls fired from the cannons landed in the farthest ranks of the enemy infantry. “So much the better. They won’t be able to touch us. Bows have a much longer range, and we know how to use them. Listen to my orders! Two fingers of arc! Correction for wind, a quarter-finger to the right! We’ll keep hitting those bird-brains until they start firing! Fire!”
* * *
The northern warrior leapt the wall easily, and Honeycomb only just managed to jump aside in time. His short, black-haired enemy handled the spear with a broad notched tip masterfully. The weapon danced in circles and zigzags, and the Wild Heart had to be quick on his feet. Although the crossbowmen were firing continually, on this section of the wall the enemy had managed to break through into Slim Bows, and now the battle was raging along the wall. They had to try to hold out until reinforcements arrived.
The warrior with the narrow eyes suddenly shot up into the air, obviously intending to strike down at Honeycomb with his spear. The Wild Heart dodged to one side and swung his ogre-hammer, and the spiked ball struck the life out of his unarmored enemy.
A barbarian popped up from behind the wall, wearing a polar bear’s skull on his head, and his terrible ax struck the back of the red-headed gnome, who was fighting a soldier dressed in the colors of the Crayfish Dukedom.
The ogre-hammer descended on the bear skull, shattering it into splinters and crushing the barbarian’s head.
“Damnation!” yelled Pepper, thrusting a lighted torch in the face of another soldier and swinging his mattock into the man’s crotch.
“Centurion! Cover my lads!” Rott called as he and twenty of the crossbowmen brought over the reloaded hailstorms.
Seven of the men started methodically picking off the enemy warriors who had climbed over the wall; the others opened fire on those who were crossing the shallow moat. Reinforcements arrived in the form of fifty swordsmen, and together they managed to throw the enemy back off the wall. The magician, who had miraculously survived the slaughter, flung a few final gouts of fire after the routed enemy.
“Stop throwing that fire!” Pepper yelled. “Stop throwing that fire! There’s powder here!”
“Rott! Fire as they retreat! Pepper, get to the cannon! Your Magicship, get off the wall, or you’ll catch a stray arrow!”
* * *
The first and second ranks of the left battalion parted for a few seconds to let the Beaver Caps through. Armed with double-handed swords, the warriors maintained wide spaces between them as they dashed straight at the waiting pikes of their enemies. The others followed the Beavers slowly.
Striking with wide, sweeping movements, the Beavers chopped off the pikes and sliced into the ranks of the enemy, breaking up the formation. Of course, not all of them avoided a fatal encounter with an enemy pike, but most of them managed the job well. Swinging the large swords like scythes, they cut deep into the ranks of the attackers, inflicting appalling casualties on the shocked and terrified infantry, and their comrades came crowding on behind them, crashing into the enemy, striking with their pikes and barging on like a mammoth in a china shop, slowly and inexorably following the wedge formation of the Beavers.
The right battalion had also clashed with the Crayfish infantry, but Jig couldn’t see how things were going there. The order ran along the lines:
“Crossbowmen into the sixth rank!”
The battalion was preparing to deliver a thrust like a battering ram, and no crossbows were required for that, so the crossbowmen were moved back and replaced by pikemen.
“Ranks one to six! Pikes at the ready!”
“To the drums! At the double, forward!”
The drums started rumbling in the center, the battalion thrust out its spikes and swayed.
Boom … Boom … Boom … Boom … Boom … Boom-boom … Boom-boom-boom-boom!
The drums speeded up and the battalion rushed forward, moving faster and faster toward the two-thousand-strong detachment of the second line that was advancing to take the place of infantry burnt by the magician and shot down by the crossbowmen. Jig diligently pressed against the back of the pikeman in front of him and yelled, bracing himself for the impact.
* * *
With their line broken by the bombardment from the bowmen on the hill, the enemy’s surviving crossbowmen went rushing back without having fired a single shot, and most of them were trampled by their own infantry. The men of the line were not so easily dealt with; they kept on pushing forward up the slope, trying to get past the area under bombardment as quickly as possible. Many of them raised shields to protect themselves against the arrows. One enemy detachment even managed to create a perfectly good “tortoise,” but it ran into the icy patch on the hill and fell apart, and the bowmen immediately picked off the unfortunate warriors.
“Shields together! Lances! Crossbowmen fire at will!” young Stalkon ordered.
The prince realized that, despite the casualties inflicted by the bowmen, this time the enemy would reach them. The rear ranks of bowmen halted the bombardment that had ceased to be effective, took up their swords, and merged into the ranks of the infantry. The only ones who continued firing were Nark’s thousand men and a few crossbowmen, but even they were soon forced to stop. A ragged volley from the Crayfish archers was neutralized by a magician, who made most of the arrows burn up in the air. The enemy infantry pushed forward several hundred men armed with double-handed swords, with the clear intention of breaking the tidy formation of the center.
“Beavers, look lively now!”
The Beavers had their wits about them. The shields parted for a moment to let the warriors of the legendary force through. When the enemy has a sledgehammer, you need a sledgehammer, too—that’s an incontestable rule of war. Skirmishes sprang up along the front, men fighting with their double-handed swords one-to-one or in groups. The Crayfish fought well, but they were still no match for the Beaver Caps and the advantage was with Valiostr, but even so the king’s son gave his order to the bugler:
“Sound the retreat!
The bugle gave the signal several times, and the swordsmen pulled back behind the shields before the enemy infantry, enraged by the death of their comrades, could reach them.
* * *
“You’re a pretty good magician, lad,” Pepper panted to Roderick. “You should make more of those balls of fire, then you’d be absolutely invaluable.”
“I try my best, Mister Gnome,” the young magician said with a wry smile.
The magic that had scattered a steady line of infantry advancing against Slim Bows had obviously cost him a great effort.
“Well, centurion, you’re blowing hard already, but it’s only just past noon,” the gnome called to Honeycomb. “Are you alive?”
“Yes, I’m alive. Here, hold Invincible.”
“What do I want with that crazy rat of yours? Do you think I didn’t see the way he went for that barbarian’s face?”
“Hold him, I tell you! I’ve got to go and see the commander!”
The gnome grunted discontentedly and set the ling on his shoulder.
“I hope it won’t gnaw my beard off. Be quick, will you!”
“Rott, while I’m away, you’re in charge!”
“Understood!” the commander of the crossbowmen replied imperturbably.
Honeycomb found his commanding officer in the center of the village, where the temporary hospital was located. Someone had slashed his face open, and the healers were working on him. Honeycomb had to wait until they finished.
“Who’s this you’ve brought me? Who’s this you’ve brought?” one young man, wearing the badge of the guild of healers, was yelling.
“But all his clothes were soaked in blood!” said the medical orderly, trying to make excuses.
“He’s got a cut! Do you understand, you blockhead! An ordinary deep cut!”
“But he was yelling as if his throat was being slashed!”
“How many times do I have to tell you lot that the first ones to bring to the operating table are the ones who aren’t talking! If he’s yelling and asking for help, that means he’ll survive! Nothing’s going to happen to him! But if he’s lying there saying nothing and as pale as a corpse, then he’s in a bad way! And if you bring me any more walking wounded, I won’t answer for what I’ll do to you! Load them all into carts and take them to the main hospital behind the hill! They can sort them out! Bring me only the seriously wounded, the ones with abdominal injuries and lost limbs. Can you manage to hammer that into your men’s heads?”
“Did you want to see me, centurion?” the commander called to attract Honeycomb’s attention.
“Yes, commander. We need to put two hundred swordsmen and at least a hundred crossbowmen on the bank of the Kizevka. Do we have any reserves?”
“We can find reserves,” said the bandaged commander, looking hard at the Wild Heart. “I just don’t understand why we need to move the lads across there.”
“I don’t think the northern tribes will storm the wall again.”
“Where else will they go? They won’t swim down the river!”
“That’s exactly what they’ll do.”
“I understand if it was summer, but it’s perishing cold. Who’s going to jump into the water when it’s about to freeze over?”
“They’re well used to swimming in icy water. They live in the Desolate Lands, after all.”
“What a wild idea!”
“I just don’t want to find them in our rear all of a sudden.”
“All right. I’ll give the order. Get back to your men, we’re expecting another attack any minute. By the way, have you heard the Order got rid of all the ogres?”
* * *
The battle seemed to go on forever. The poleax in the prince’s hands grew heavy, but he kept hacking and slashing, like one of the dwarves’ magical toys. The straight line had disappeared a long time ago, and the entire front had broken up into separate skirmishes. They had managed to throw the enemy back four times, and four times he had come back at them, determined to crush the accursed infantry.
These were the finest men of the northern kingdom of Valiostr, those who had been in the heavy cavalry and served as sandmen, the kind of men that superb fighting forces were built around. Practically all the bowmen had joined in the hand-to-hand fighting, and only a small group of the most experienced Wind Jugglers, no more than six hundred of them, had moved aside from the seething action to fire selectively at the enemy.
Stalkon was guarded and protected, his back was covered, and the enemy was given no chance to fire at the king’s son. But even so, despite all their subterfuges, the heir to the throne found himself on the ground twice. The first time he was knocked off his feet by a blow from a battle hammer. Fortunately, one of the two Beavers detailed to protect him had survived the bloody melee and he held off the eager enemy with broad sweeps of his sword until Spring Jasmine was back up on his feet.
The second time a crossbow bolt caught him on the helmet. Fortunately it was only a glancing blow and the bolt bounced off without wounding the prince. But Stalkon was stunned and he fell to his knees, completely disoriented for a moment. One of the barbarians was about to grasp this opportunity, and if not for Ash—the commander of the Wild Hearts who had survived from the Lonely Giant—Spring Jasmine would not have survived the battle.
The cannons and the Crater were silent. It was pointless firing now—more of their own would be killed than of the enemy. All they could do was grit their teeth and keep slashing away.
Stalkon took another heavy blow from a barbarian on his battered shield, jabbed the bearded savage in the face, and split his skin and flesh open with the poleax. It was time to finish this battle, and the sooner the better. As if he had heard this thought, the king sent the right cavalry reserve of the center to support the infantry by attacking the enemy’s flank.
* * *
Nuad was holding. The position in the center had evened out and the sudden appearance of the cavalry had disconcerted the ranks of the Nameless One’s army. The Moon Stallions had appeared at exactly the right time. Slim Bows was calm for the time being—the barbarians, northern tribesmen, and units of Crayfish infantry had been forced back and now they had withdrawn to regroup. But things were not going so well for the left army. The left battalion was busy completing the rout of its opponents, the central battalion had just rammed into the second line detachment of infantry, and the right battalion was barely managing to hold, but its opponents were tenacious, and the ranks could falter at any moment.
“Vartek, gallop over to those two hundred Beavers. Tell them to attack the rear of the infantry pressing the right battalion! Do it!” Izmi ordered.
“Commander! It looks as if the elves are in trouble!”
“I can see! Do as I ordered! Bugler! Sound the attack!”
* * *
Purple spheres
suddenly appeared in the ranks of the right battalion and started methodically annihilating the soldiers. The men faltered.
* * *
“The right battalion is retreating, Your Highness!”
“So I see. Gallop to the reserve, let them close the gap. I wonder how our magicians managed to let the shamans get so close?”
* * *
Before Jig could understand what was happening, the front ranks had been killed. But it had all been going so well! The battalion had successfully rammed the second line detachment of infantry. Following orders, Jig was back in the third rank when the right royal scrimmage broke out. The heavy halberds were ready and waiting for anyone who managed to get close to the pikemen. Then suddenly dark purple smoke had started rising from the armor of the front ranks, and the suits of armor had fallen to the ground, empty—their owners had disappeared into thin air.
The pikeman Bans was one of the first to be killed. And then it was the turn of Jig’s own line. The weapons and armor of the soldiers beside him clanked as they fell to the ground. A second later Jig was the only one left alive out of the entire line. The battalion was still pressing forward, unaware of what had happened to the front ranks.
Jig saw three men wearing black cloaks straight in front of him. No armor, no weapons. One man threw his hands up, and a silver arrow went flying into a guardsman’s chest. And then it disappeared, without doing him any harm.
“Shamans!” The cry of fright from the rear ranks could be heard even above the roar of the battle.
“A-a-a-a-a,” Jig yelled with his eyes closed, realizing that this was the end.