Doom's Break

by Christopher Rowley

  He ate the porridge in a few gulps, darted out of the tent as the cookmor battened down the hatches, and hurried across to the headquarters tent, still chewing the pod cake.

  He was halfway there when a cold wind struck. With it came an overpowering feeling of unease, even of fear. Something dreadful was hunting them, something that promised annihilation.

  Toshak had finished the noontime meeting with his regimental commanders. They were filing out as Thru came in. He knew most of them well and exchanged nods and a few handshakes.

  "What the hell is happening out there?" said more than one as they stepped out of the tent.

  Inside, Thru ran into the Grys Norvory, his one-time enemy. The Grys wore the red pin of a regimental commander. He had given Thru an apology for the misdeeds of the past at an earlier meeting, and now they were on cordial terms.

  "So, you got your freedom from the palace," said Thru with a nod to the pin.

  "At last. Think I've served my time as a bureaucrat."

  Another great boom of thunder rolled overhead.

  "This storm seems unnatural," said the Grys with a look out the door at the darkness above.

  "Sorcery, I'd wager," said Thru.

  "That's what we have to expect, I suppose. May the Spirit preserve us."

  "May it keep our sword edge sharp, too."

  Toshak appeared from the back of the tent. "Thank you, Grys," he said, taking Thru's arm. "Gillo, come here a moment."

  Toshak moved over to the open front of the tent. The sky was pitch-black except for blast after blast of purple lightning out to sea.

  "What do you think the purpose of this storm is?"

  Clearly, Toshak understood that this strange weather was the work of their enemy.

  "Our enemy seeks to frighten us," said Thru.

  The wind was increasing in fierceness, and the tent flaps were closed by the orderlies. In short order the papers were slid into the travel binders and the maps into their waterproof tubes. Thru and Toshak went over to a side flap so they could continue to peer outside.

  All across the camp, mots and brilbies were hurrying to tie things down. The wind rose steadily until it was fairly shrieking through the trees. All the fires had been put out and covered with shovelfuls of sand. Leaves, branches, and bits of bark were blown out of the forest and right over the tents. The wind rose to a maniacal screech. Here and there a tent collapsed. The tent set up for the orderlies to sleep in lost its pegs at the rear and was torn from its place and hurled away. The orderlies' things went flying after it.

  The cook tent was barely holding on. One peg had come up, and a corner of the tent was flapping madly in the wind. Thru could hear the imprecations of the cookmor, even over the general howl of the tempest, as she fought to control the loose corner.

  Then came the rain. The first few drops were huge and heavy, making loud splatters on the canvas. A deluge followed. With a sudden drumming roar, the rain lashed down across the Land. Thru hesitated a few moments and was soaked to the fur by the time he pulled his head in and sealed the tent flap.

  The noise diminished a little. Inside the tent, the poles creaked as the wind buffeted its walls. Orderlies did their best to hold poles in place. Rain smashed across the top of the tent in violent bursts, as if it were being hurled from the heavens by an angry god.

  Suddenly the ring at the top of one of the poles ripped free from the tent. The tent itself ripped along a seam for almost a foot, and water poured in, bucketsfuls in a matter of moments.

  "Seal that tent!" came the frantic command.

  The orderlies threw themselves at it, but it was a nigh impossible task. Thru and Toshak joined the group, taking hold of the tent pole while an orderly climbed onto a chair and strung a thong through the torn opening and laced it together.

  By the time it was done, everyone was wet, and the floor of the headquarters tent was a muddy mess.

  Outside, it was still howling. Lightning struck all around them in the forest, huge flashes that lit up the interior of the tent in bright purple light.

  The thunder was deafening. It came in peal upon peal, enormous blasts and booms in a continuous roar that obliterated their voices.

  Toshak and Thru were now standing in mud, the tent still heaving and starting to leak under the relentless downpour. Several orderlies were showing the strain. One was weeping, terrified beyond sense by it all. Their enemy was showing them his power, and his power was very great indeed.

  But not even this storm could keep up its malevolence for long. After a few more minutes, the wind began to lessen and the rain had dropped to a more normal range. The thunder continued, but the lightning was now striking inland, up above Bear Hill for the most part.

  Thru was just about to open the tent flap and take a look outside when it was rudely torn open. In stumbled a soaked, blood-stained wretch. Fur matted with mud, eyes wild with fear and exertion.

  "They are coming. The pyluk."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The attack had been artfully timed. When the tempest was at its height, a column of two thousand pyluk emerged from the woods of Lupin Valley. They had infiltrated the valley the previous day and night, moving with the utmost stealth, while sorcery had distracted the minds of the scouts on Stag's Head and in the Bell House above Snoyps Pond.

  Once hidden in Lupin Valley, less than a mile from Bear Hill, they had hunkered down in glades and stream bottoms. They had remained frozen in place all day, in the grip of the same sorcery that had controlled them since they had first come down from the mountains.

  Their stillness had kept them hidden, and the advent of the storm was the signal that brought them back to wakefulness. As one they rose up, took up their clubs and spears, and set off toward the coast.

  They swarmed over Toshak's screen of pickets at the base of Bear Hill while the thunder and lightning were still crashing overhead. The pickets barely had time to look up before they were overwhelmed by a solid onrushing mass of the lizard-men. Long spears took those who attempted to flee.

  Fortunately, a few mots farther up the hill heard the commotion and saw the horde of pyluk pouring through the trees below. The mots could scarcely believe their eyes, but they had the sense to run for it.

  Thus the mots of the Third Regiment got a few minutes' warning, but not much more. The pickets came bolting into the camp, screaming, "Pyluk!" at the top of their lungs.

  The Grys Norvory, newly appointed to the regiment, was making a tour of the tents when the word came. He'd expected some kind of deviltry, and here it was. In a matter of minutes, he was getting his soldiers out of their tents and formed into a combat line in the middle of the camp.

  The pyluk burst out of the trees. The mots, torn from cowering in their tents under the fear and the overpowering energy of the storm, now found themselves confronted by an overwhelming mass of lizard-men.

  Perhaps the abruptness of the attack helped the Third Regiment. They simply didn't have time to panic. Despite everything, they stood their ground.

  The pyluk drove forward onto the pikes and spears. Pyluk bulls with three or four arrows jutting from their flesh thrashed against the mot shield wall, before they succumbed to sharp steel. Nowhere did they break the line.

  The mots bent before this storm of flesh as the struggle went on. Their line was driven back here and there, but reinforcements coming up behind hurled themselves into the fighting at these places, and the pyluk were stopped in their tracks. For a precious ten minutes, the Third Regiment held its ground until the huge column of pyluk completely surrounded them. At that point the pyluk left them and went on across the hilltop toward the sea. The Third Regiment was left like an island of survivors amid mounds of dead.

  But for the gallant stand of the Third Regiment, the rest of the army would have taken a death blow that day. But with those few minutes' warning, Toshak and Thru managed to rouse three more regiments and get them into a rough line, northwest-southeast across the center of Bear Hill.

&
nbsp; As soon as that line began to form, Thru left the job to the sergeants and ran over the hill. The Sixth Regiment, which had been camped on the south slope, was forming up to march, and Thru shouted to them to hurry while he ran past and down into the village. He tore through the streets of Warkeen and over the old bridge. Folk were scurrying to their stations as he passed. At Aeswiren's perimeter the guards saw him coming and waved him through.

  He found Aeswiren's army already forming up. Aeswiren's scouts had heard the uproar from Bear Hill.

  The Emperor listened calmly to Thru and then sent him back to Toshak. "The men of Shasht will march at once to Bear Hill. We will seek to position ourselves inland of General Toshak's line. And if he's left any of them for us, we'll be happy to engage these pyluk."

  Thru and Aeswiren exchanged a strong handclasp, and Thru turned and ran back the way he'd come.

  The regiments of Shasht were already in motion, rank after rank of veterans of many wars. Watching them march, with a swift, economical stride, Thru felt renewed confidence. He'd fought against these men often enough. Now they would fight on his side for a change. He shook his head at the strangeness of the thought.

  He took a deep breath and started jogging. He needed to get back to Toshak at once with his message. Back through the village he went, warning them that Aeswiren's men were coming through. The village shutters started coming down in a hurry. On the other side of the village, donkey carts were jammed on the road. Thru ordered them to pull their animals to the side.

  "Let the men through. They're fighting on our side now."

  Naturally, it took a few minutes for this to be done, and by then the first Shasht regulars were in sight, swinging through the village to a beat of a drum. The cartmots redoubled their efforts. Thru ran on, toiling up Bear Hill, with Aeswiren's army coming after him.

  The effects of the earlier run, coming on top of the long walk before that, slowed his pace before he reached the top. Gasping for breath, he halted at the crest of the hill to survey the scene.

  Somehow the mots had survived the onslaught. A great tide of green warriors still stormed against the front of Toshak's army, and the roar of the fighting continued, but, crucially, the line had held. The pyluk had swarmed out of the trees and fallen on the mots, but discipline and good weapons had brought them up short. Toshak's mots had never panicked.

  The pyluk charge had lost its impetus. The stabbing swords and spears of the mots were taking a grim toll on the unarmored lizard-men, whose clubs and long wooden spears were not designed for close-order combat.

  Behind the regiments were the wounded, dozens and dozens of them, and here and there a pyluk lay where death had taken him. On the road, Thru found a group of older mots loading wounded into donkey carts. A little ways on, he found a huge pyluk bull lying on its back, a spear driven into its immense chest. This was the farthest the enemy had come. More bodies were lying nearby, pyluk and mots mixed together.

  Thru found Toshak on a hillock, set about a hundred yards from the former headquarters tent. The general had a fixed, determined look in his eyes, but Thru could tell he was worried.

  General Toshak listened to his brief message from Aeswiren and then turned, nodding slowly, back to surveying the battle.

  The mot regiments were pressing forward, pushing the pyluk back on their heels. The pyluk had no training and no techniques for this sort of fighting, and they paid heavily. Mots and brilbies with pike and spontoon took many pyluk when they tried to fight while moving backward.

  "Well," said Toshak after a moment, "we've held this attack. But something doesn't smell right to me. Why would he make this solitary assault? It seems meaningless."

  "Meaningless? It could have destroyed our army."

  Toshak shook his head. "No, it wasn't strong enough. If our scouting reports are to be believed, he used barely a third of his strength."

  Both looked up at the same time.

  "A landing!"

  "Of course, it makes perfect cover for a landing."

  As Toshak whirled toward his orderlies, Thru drank a mug of water and got ready to run like the wind once again. By the time he'd drained the mug, Toshak was thrusting a packet into his hands.

  "Tell Aeswiren the enemy fleet must be attempting a landing. Probably farther north. I'd say the river Shell would be most likely. Aeswiren must march his men right through here and engage the enemy before they can all get ashore. We will finish off these pyluk and then join him."

  —|—

  The pyluk were not reinforced. Toshak's army broke up the assault column, turned it into a fugitive mass, and drove it back down into the Lupin Valley where much of it was lost, slaughtered in the dark thickets by mots with pikes and bows. The few hundred survivors escaped across the moor beneath Stag's Head. Scouts followed them and ascertained that the remnants had rejoined the main mass of pyluk bunched along the river Shell.

  Seeing that he was not needed in this fight, Aeswiren, with Thru Gillo among his headquarters group, marched straight north, past the recent battlefield, and on toward Blue Hill. The Shell debouched to the sea on the far side of the jagged pinnacle of Cormorant Rock.

  Mot scouts, passing back from the river, were met by the pickets of Aeswiren's force. There was a certain amount of tension initially, but Thru was able to calm them. The mots told him what they'd seen and then loped away to find Toshak. Thru turned quickly to Aeswiren.

  "They are landing, as we expected, on the north shore of the Shell. Many thousands."

  Aeswiren's eyes hardened at the news. The Old One had shown a calculated blend of tactical and strategic moves.

  On they went. Aeswiren's men were all veterans, with iron-hard determination settled in their minds. They weren't going to fight monkeys this time. They weren't even going to slaughter these lizard-men. They were going to fight men! Men who had the misfortune to be the slaves of the priests. Nothing united these soldiers more than their hatred of the Red Tops.

  Thru sensed the ferocity lurking in the ranks around him. He had marched with several armies and had felt everything from boisterous anticipation to terror, but never had he sensed this hardened murderousness. "We are as strong as they are," he thought, "but we are not driven by the same demons, for we did not arise on our own. We were made by Man."

  Thru thought again of the pattern he had invented, "Men at War." He liked the work. If he lived, he would weave it again. It was a portrait of Man as he really was. Men had been warriors since the beginning of time. If they hadn't been, they wouldn't have survived. And thus they were filled with an elemental fury that the mots and brilbies could never match.

  This insight lifted his spirits for some reason, and he marched along, head high despite the lingering winds and occasional sharp showers of rain.

  The storm was lifting. The strange dark clouds had drifted away inland. Cormorant Rock loomed up in front of them. Its sharp upper spike suddenly caught the sun. Thru remembered a day, years before, when he'd turned away near here to get down to the creek. He'd been in pursuit of some sea lilies for little Iallia Tramine, the mor he'd been so in love with then.

  He shook his head with amazement. All of that seemed like part of someone else's life now. A world that had only known men as the disembodied Man the Cruel of the old prayers from the Book.

  They dipped down to the crossing of the Rocky Canyon and over the stream. If young mots were ever to come here in the future, seeking sea lilies for their beloved, the coming battle had to be won.

  As they came up the far side of the canyon, on a trail that switchbacked up the last two hundred feet, they began to notice something strange. At the crest of the hill, all signs of the recent storm stopped. It was as if a line had been drawn across the land. On one side, the trees were wet and torn by the wind; downed branches littered the ground; pools of water glistened in the returning sunlight. On the other side, there was none of this; no rain had fallen.

  Thru felt the hair on his neck stand up. This could only have been
done with sorcery. In his mind's eye, Thru again saw that strange, horrific little dance performed by the giant man before the mob of savage pyluk.

  The men muttered about the strange line, but they never wavered, continuing over the top of the ridge with a will.

  At last, they caught sight of the enemy. The estuary of the river Shell was laid out beneath them, and it was filled with shipping. On the far side of the river, the massed troops of the enemy were visible. The water was dotted with hundreds of small craft, ferrying men and supplies ashore. Helmets and shields by the thousand caught the sun.

  Thru realized that the enemy had already succeeded in getting his army ashore. Then he saw a party of men riding horse animals along the far bank of the river, and a shiver went through him. Fifty strong or more, they galloped down to the narrow bridge that spanned the river a mile from its mouth. There was no village on the Shell. It was a wild river, left to the creatures of the Land, so it had only a trader's bridge, wide enough for a single donkey cart. If the enemy wanted to cross the river, though, that bridge would be essential.

  He became aware that sharp orders were being announced up and down the marching columns. Aeswiren's army came to a halt, and the Great King himself pushed forward to take a good look a the scene before them.

  Less than a minute later, more orders came down. The army was to retire from the ridge top and move off the road and into the woods. The enemy was not to discover their presence.

  Thru was impressed by the speed and skill the men showed in following these orders. They vanished from the road, slipped back between the trees, and did their utmost to hide their passing.

  Aeswiren and his staff came hurrying back along the road, pointing out places where thousands of feet had worn trails on soft ground. More orders were given, and teams of men worked over all these places with rakes and spear points, laying leaves and broken branches to cover the worst.

  Thru took the opportunity to go forward and, keeping behind cover, to take another look at the enemy.