Red Queen

by Jolie Jaquinta

  Chapter 37

  Overwhelming Odds

  “There is another charge brewing” warned Coral. They stood, locked in formation, on the hilltop in the middle of the demon lands. Surrounding them was a chaotic sea of malformed souls relentlessly beating on their shield wall. Foul and fetid odors rose up the hill extruded by the creatures, and their entrails, which littered the ground where they had been fighting for two hours.

  “I see it”, said Jesca. Amongst the masses that had swarmed to their hillside a current could be detected. Centered on some large sinuous battle ram eeling its way up the hillside, the less mindless demons charged their line. “To me! To me!” she cried. “Form up on me!”

  Shining in her tabard, and highlighted by the standard Coral bore, the Queen rallied the least spelled of those nearest to her and trotted directly opposite to where the charge was leading. “You and you”, she said, slapping two enormous Orcs, “take point. They have a large creature leading. You, you and you”, she said, pointing to an Amazon and two other troopers, “lock shields behind them. We need to be a physical barrier and meet them force for force to preserve the line. For Romitu!” They all echoed her shout.

  Her command position was just below the high point of the land, where she could get the best view of the easy approaches. Other spotters were on the more precipitous side. It was also where their medical station was set up. Those who succumbed to their wounds on the battle field were revived where they lay. The Souls of those with severe enough wounds departed their broken bodies and fled to their standard issue swords. There they gave the magical weapons Animus to continue fighting alongside their nearest surviving comrades. When a battle mage was near enough to send the sword a jolt of mana, the body was resurrected, the equipment summoned, and the trooper took up fighting again. It was those whose wounds were not mortal, or were felled by poison or exhaustion, which were dragged back to the medical station. Mages worked to revive them with specialist magic and send them back fighting. Separated from their formations, the Queen had been collecting them into units to repel resistances such as this charge.

  Coral blew his horn and they started down the hill with a shout, gathering momentum. Their line, forewarned, parted, letting them through. The ripple of the advancing column could now be seen from the line level and they drove straight for them. “Brace! Brace!” shouted the Queen, her helmet amplifying her command to the squad. There was a tremendous shudder as the serpentine head of the charge collided with their Orcish point, wrenching the arm of one as its velocity hurtled it past. The locked shields behind them prevented the Orcs from giving way and deflected the beast's gibbering snout up and over, drastically slowing it's forward process. Coral lunged forward with the standard as a spear, stabbing it into a great eye. The gibbering continued, unchanged, but its body started thrashing, throwing its own line into complete disarray.

  “Disengage!” called the Queen. The charge had been blunted. The troops the creature brought in its wake swarmed past them to collide with their line to left and right. But divided, and without a shield break from the impetus of the demon snake, they had little chance to break their line. Their second rank broke shields briefly, to let one lead Orc drag its companion behind them, then formed up again as the unit went defensive, and started edging slowly backward up the hill.

  Jesca, Coral and the other fighters in the core leaped between the shields where there were gaps, or fought over them where space could be afforded, to keep the mass from pressing too deeply upon them. In good order they met up with their line, melded into it, and passed behind it. They left the healthy to reinforce it, and took the wounded back to the command post.

  Bianca sought the Queen out when she returned. “We may be holding things militarily, but this is all burning through mana.”

  “Noted”, she said, distractedly. Dark clouds were approaching quickly from the horizon.

  “Our operations are directly drawing from the strategic mana reserve”, said Bianca, forcibly.

  “Noted”, said Jesca, and turned to her. “This is what it's for. Now please do a sweep and tell me what those clouds are hiding.”

  Bianca glared at her, then crossed her hands and closed her eyes. Her clothes and wisps of pale hair floated around her, as if freed from the force of gravity. Patterns of light appeared around her and she returned to the ground. She drew the pattern closer and condensed it down to tactical size. She gestured towards some oscillating figures on one edge, where the cloud was. But both their eyes were drawn to a thicker cluster of figures somewhat nearer.

  “What is that?” said Jesca, looking from the pattern to the skies and back again.

  Bianca furrowed her brow and waved her hands a bit more. “It's not above us. It's beneath us”, she said. Another gesture and the pattern updated. “And it's moving fast.”

  “Sound an advance” said Jesca aside to Coral. “We're moving out. We've been stationary too long.” She nodded a dismissal to Bianca and willed her generals to hear her orders.

  The troops had barely begun to form up in marching order when the first tremors started. “Curse our complacency!” swore Jesca. “Move, soldiers, move!”

  Coral watched large masses on the fading image. “Perhaps now would be the time for me to do the champion bit.”

  “No”, said Jesca. “What comes will come. We will fight what finds us. Note the clouds.” Coral looked up. They still swept in, thick and dark. “They may not hide a great foe, but they are far from a feint. We'll lose all tactical information once those descend on is. It's vital that we get this army moving immediately. Then we know: fighting will be thickest on our leading edge, and thinnest on our trailing one. Fie on the darkness!”

  “The 31st is nearest” said Coral, pointing to their standard. “Let us rally their command unit and take it to the vanguard and punch a hole through any resistance.” Jesca nodded, and called out the orders, marching rapidly for their standard.

  Darkness engulfed them. They marched through it. The ground opened up around them and multi-armed demons with heads like shovels leaped screaming upon them. They cut down those who stood in their path and marched on. Fire turned to ice and a blizzard of black, stinging flies the size of small birds crawled over them, leaving frostbite with their pricks. They swatted them and marched on. Snow turned to rain and torrents of vomit smelling liquid washed overwhelming masses of screaming and crazed damned souls over them in waves, seeking to drown them in flesh. They cut through the blubbering sobbing wretches and marched.

  Foundering over a sea of disembodied limbs and innards Bianca found the Queen fighting shoulder to shoulder in the shield wall of the 22nd. Even the Orcs leaned on her or each other for support as their tired limbs hacked their unreasoning foe. Unit blazons and tabards were indecipherable amongst the gore. They all wore the heraldry of carnage. “Majestus”, said Bianca sternly. “Enough is enough. We have proven our point. The reserve is half empty. Have a thought to tomorrow!”

  “No”, cried Jesca, sinking her sword into another torso and struggling to pull it free while another creature ineffectually clawed at her faceplate. “We're not through yet.” She freed her sword and bashed her shield in the face of another, knocking it back so the Orc to her left could cleave it with his axe. “Especially while they are throwing such fodder at us as this.”

  “These foes are not worthy of us”, tried Bianca again.

  Jesca laughed, almost a crazed cry. “Our enemy has blundered sending these against us”, she panted out. “Each one we kill is one less they have.” She shook her sword, showing the glowing pommel. “They bleed their strength straight into our hearts. Have we not already had to empty the swords twice?”

  “At great magical cost”, said Bianca, not relenting.

  Jesca turned angrily, heedless of the clawing mob at her back. “We will not get this chance again! If we finish this, we have conquered the demon lands. A century of diplomacy will not get the demons to work together. The gods shall take note and
give pause to their considerations.”

  Bianca stood, expressionless, but silent. Jesca caught her breath, as the Orcs closed ranks and held back the swelling tide of damned. “When we're down to one tenth of the reserve, we'll retreat in good order”, she said, more calmly. “Right now I want to swallow everything they are willing to push down my gullet. This all buys time to build up the reserve again.”

  Bianca nodded, and left.