Now the battle wound down from exhaustion on both sides.
Thru looked to the sky. The sun's light was slowly changing from the deathly dark energy of the first hour and resuming its warmth. The battle was less than two hours old, and their situation had changed drastically for the worse. Thru estimated that Toshak's army had lost a third, even half its strength. Aeswiren's men were badly hurt, too, reduced by perhaps a quarter in the catastrophe.
The enemy also had taken casualties, particularly among the pyluk horde, which had lingered too long in combat with the mots. But, all in all, the enemy's losses were not half those of Toshak's alone. Barely enough men and mots remained to hold a defensive line against the enemy.
Some good news came from the rear. The enemy's horsemen had emerged from the forest and made an attack on the hospital. The company of guards there had been unscathed by the dawn light, and they had engaged the horsemen, forming a line with grounded pikes. The horsemen had tried to panic the defenders, then fired off arrows from a distance, and finally wheeled away and made another attempt to get in among the tents. After being frustrated five times, the cavalry pulled back and retreated into the forest once more, leaving half a dozen dead behind.
Thru would have liked to go back and reassure himself that Nuza was safe, but he was kept busy working with the Grys Norvory on reshaping the right wing of the army, digging in and setting out a screen of pickets.
Toshak and his staff worked like demons to pull the army into some sort of shape and improve positions with a trench and sharpened stakes.
The catapults were firing as fast as they could be wound up and released, and their long spears were capable of killing well beyond the range of the archers. The enemy was unhappy with standing there being shot at with the huge spears. Their lines wavered and had to be ordered to stand still. Toshak increased the pressure when another set of catapults were finally brought into operation. They had been trapped on the crowded trail from Dronned during the fighting. Now there were six of the things in action, and that meant a near constant rain of long spears into the enemy ranks.
Eventually, the enemy gave in and shifted even farther back, although the catapults were still taking a toll. By late morning, they were seen digging their own trenches and erecting protective fasciae.
The battle had ended, if only for the time being. Both sides were worn out from the exertions of the dawn hours. Slowly, as the day wore on, those who had been blinded began to recover their sight. At first they saw in fits and starts, and many were cursed with dark flecks and spots in their vision, but hour by hour things improved. By early afternoon, only those who had stared full into the rising sun at that deadly moment were still affected. Alas, many of these victims had been slain in the first fury of the battle.
By then Thru Gillo had received some of that breakfast that Meu had promised long before. Afterward he promptly fell asleep, wrapped in his cloak, behind Toshak's command post.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Sergeant Rukkh rested the butt of his spear on the ground and let his shield lean against his thigh. Like the rest of the men in the line, he was bone-tired but too wound up to sleep. The day had been a strange one.
"All this hocus-pocus gives my belly the gripes," said Ladwaller, a big man from Grezack.
"Gives us all the gripes," said Rukkh.
Worse than that, of course, because it had made about twenty men in the company stone-blind that morning when they had bad luck to be awake and looking eastward when the sun first broke over the hills. In that, the company had done better than most: in some outfits on the far right of the line, as many as half the men had been blinded.
"Goddamned lizard-men, bad dreams, and this blindness. It's a bad situation," continued Ladwaller.
"Shut up, Ladwaller," said Belzec. "We're all in this together."
"Don't I know it," said the big man.
Rukkh kept quiet. Letting the men grumble was part of being a good sergeant. Especially a sergeant who was now running the whole company since the officers had been killed. The lads were a solid lot. They'd been in the Blitz Regiment since the beginning of the war and represented the best they had left in this army.
"Least the blind are getting their sight back now."
"No thanks to He Who Eats for that!" said another soldier. Rukkh grunted to himself. The religion of the Great God had really taken a nosedive in the Blitz Regiment over the past year. Once they'd been given the chance to take out the Red Tops, all interest in Orbazt Subuus had dried up. Rukkh made a mental note to inform the Emperor about that the next time he was summoned to report on the mood in the army.
"Sergeant," called Chimikin, a youngster drafted into the Blitzers from the Ninth Regiment, "something's happening over there."
Rukkh sighed and shifted position to look down into the valley. His company was holding a section of the army's line, set halfway up the hillside. Their former position, all nicely dug in, could be seen clearly about three hundred yards downslope. They'd worked hard the previous day to fortify it, but all their efforts came to naught when the monkeys had been overwhelmed in the dawn attack and the whole army had been forced to shift back up the hill.
Now he could see the enemy moving forward again, this time to face the men of Aeswiren's army.
"What are they up to?" Ladwaller asked suspiciously.
"I don't know, big man, but I'm sure we're going to find out before it's all over."
More and more of the enemy army was advancing, dressing out their line to their right and giving every indication of forming an attack column.
"All right, men, take notice of what's going on down there. Our enemy has got his wind back, and he's ready to take us on again. This time it looks like he wants some of our metal in his guts instead of the monkeys'."
"Be glad to oblige him," growled Ladwaller.
Armor clanked as the men stood up, drew their swords to inspect them, arranged their shields, and put on their helmets after scratching their heads.
The enemy was massing right along Aeswiren's front.
"Seems weird to me," said Belzec.
"Why's that?" said Rukkh.
"Well, a frontal assault like this? Right at us and us all ready for him? He usually comes up with some kind of trickery, right?"
"Yeah, well, maybe he's run out of tricks."
Belzec snorted disbelievingly at that.
"It's starting again. Listen," said Ladwaller.
And it was. The damned drums were going again, throbbing insistently over on the far side of the river.
"Look, they're raising their shields over their heads." Belzec pointed. Rukkh saw what the enemy was doing and immediately gave the order for everyone to do the same. He turned on his heel and sprinted to the command post of Colonel Begeluse, now commanding the regiment.
Begeluse wasn't the brightest spark in the fire, but he'd come to realize that the enemy's tricks were dangerous. Not only did he repeat Rukkh's suggested order to the whole Blitz Regiment but he passed on the advice up the chain of command.
Aeswiren instantly concurred, and within half a minute every man in the army had his shield raised. The monkeys were starting to imitate the men when another sound rang out, piercingly loud, echoing off the hillsides, as if a hammer had struck a bell.
The echoes of the sound were just fading away when the flash came. From one end of the sky to the other on an east-west axis exploded a vast bolt of blue fire. For a long second or two, the whole world was hidden in the blinding glare of that fire. If they hadn't had their shields raised over their heads, they would have been blinded a second time.
Yet the sorcery wasn't primarily intended to blind. Instead, every man felt his limbs grow heavy and his heart grow weak.
"What in the name of hell is this?" snarled Ladwaller.
Rukkh felt as if his arms had turned into lead weights. He wanted to sink down on the turf and just sleep forever.
"They're coming!" shouted Chimikin.
Th
e lad was right. The enemy obviously hadn't suffered from the disabling power of the blue flash, because they were charging up the slope at a steady trot, spears at the ready.
"All right, everyone, suck it up. We can still fight. We ain't gonna lie down and let the fornicating sons of bitches kill us that easily."
Rukkh spoke bravely, but his arms really did feel almost useless.
"Fine for some to say," muttered Belzec, who was struggling just to hold on to his shield.
"Shut up, Belzec, or I'll gut you myself," growled Rukkh.
The enemy was closing in. Archers on both sides lofted arrows into the ranks opposite. Rukkh lifted his own shield as shafts began falling among them. There was a cry of pain somewhere off to the left and then a gasp much closer, and he found Fonson limping and staggering, with an arrow that had pierced his knee.
Rukkh whistled for stretcher bearers and worked to keep everyone in the company steady. But from the groans and sighs he knew the men were struggling with the terrible weakness they felt. They could barely raise their weapons, let along wield them in a fight.
Rukkh had a bad feeling about this, but he had to hope that by raising their shields and blocking off the worst of the blue flash, they had a chance of recovery. The enemy's men had also endured the blue flash. Surely they could not have escaped all of its effect.
A messenger ran down the line, shouting to each company as he went: "Form in three-man defense line."
The men struggled to comply. Rukkh could see they were all making a big effort. "Good thinking," he said to himself.
The lead man held his shield with both hands. The second man set his down and took up the spear of the lead man, while holding his own in reserve. The third man had his shield and spear ready to aid the other two when the clash came. It was a tried-and-true method for the men of Shasht, who were well trained in its uses.
"Hey," shouted Ladwaller, "I can feel it fading. My strength is coming back."
"You hear that, boys?" Rukkh called out to his men.
They heard him. The leaden-armed feeling was only temporary. They just had to hold on as long as they could until they got their strength back.
"Hell, this is just like a charley horse."
"Something weird from that fornicating wizard they got over there."
"He's behind the fornicating Red Tops."
"Damn their sodomistic souls to hell."
"Heh, heh, we took care of those bastards."
A sense of shared satisfaction spread among them. Everyone in the army had really enjoyed putting the Red Tops to the sword.
But the enemy was still stepping smartly toward them.
Still weakened from the wizardry in the sky, Aeswiren's men buckled here and there along their line at the first shock. The enemy thrust hard into these places and at one point, where the Sixth and Third Regiments butted up next to each other, forced open a break.
The enemy poured through the gap.
Right in front of them was the Emperor's command post.
Rukkh's company had met and broken the first charge on their front. But they were pulled back when the Third Regiment was forced to shift position to cover the flank that was exposed to the breakthrough. Rukkh saw the Emperor's banner flying over a scrum of battle. Without a second thought, he pulled half the company out of the line and led them in a charge into this fight.
His legs still felt heavy, but his right arm was back in use and his left was improving. Plus, there wasn't time to think about things like that. Rukkh flung himself into the fight, spearing a man in armor and tunic very much like this own. As the fellow sank down, cursing him for being a sodomistic slave of the demons, Rukkh had a strange moment of recognition. The foe was someone very much like himself a few years earlier. Someone who believed his mission was to kill Aeswiren's men and the natives, to take this land and make it theirs.
Rukkh forgot about all that as another man stabbed at him with his spear. He pulled his own out of the dying man's chest and fought the next man off. They stabbed, and their shields absorbed the blows. Beside him, Rukkh heard Ladwaller triumphantly smash down another foe with a shield blow. Ladwaller's spear soon brought a scream from the downed man.
Rukkh thrust low, got under the other's shield, and pinked him in the leg. The sergeant slammed his shield against the other man's and recoiled. He had still not recovered enough strength to handle this. A spear head missed his face by a fraction of an inch the next moment.
Ladwaller gloated again as he whacked down another man. Chimikin, the youngster, killed another.
"We are the Blitz Regiment, you fancy little sodomites!" roared Ladwaller.
"Your fornicating wizard didn't cut off our dicks," screamed Belzec, "so we're still gonna kill you."
Rukkh broke through a minute later and found himself among the Emperor's guards and staff. They had formed a tight cordon around the Emperor, who had drawn his sword and taken up a fallen man's shield and was ready to defend himself.
Two of the staff orderlies were cut down just to the Emperor's right, and a spear man thrust at Aeswiren. He met the spear with his sword, deflecting it and then following through with the clash of shields. Aeswiren did not fall, absorbing the blow with skill. Striking hard at his foe, he forced him back, then kicked him in the shin, taking him by surprise. The youngster squawked and hopped backward. Aeswiren slashed at him, driving him back another step. His bodyguard, Klek, fighting alongside his King, stabbed the youth through the hip and took him down.
The body thrashed, but Aeswiren was already engaged with another soldier.
Rukkh cut down a man who got up in his path, then thrust another aside with his shield. His spear reached out to take a third man in the side.
The momentum had gone out of the enemy's thrust. The Third Regiment had mounted an assault into the side of the attack column, peeling it away from the flank of the Sixth Regiment just to the other side of the gap.
Ladwaller killed another with a crunching blow of his sword, cleaving the man's helmet in two with a flash of sparks. Then the attack faltered. Aeswiren himself started up the cheer and drove at the retreating enemy. The Blitzers went with him, and they pursued the foe, now running to retreat through the closing gap. Men of the Third Regiment got in the way, though. Most of these attackers were crushed between Aeswiren's staff, bulked up by thirty Blitzers, and the men of the Third.
Aeswiren, with a slight flush in the face and a glow in the eyes that had been absent for many years, clapped Rukkh on the back. "Your timing, Sergeant, was excellent."
"Thank you, Lord."
"But this is not over yet."
And it wasn't. Rukkh could see that the half company he'd left behind on the line was hard-pressed by the assault of two full companies of the enemy. Rukkh drew a deep breath and then pulled his men together and got them hurrying back to that part of the line.
Aeswiren and his staff regrouped around the Emperor's banner, while the Emperor tried to pick up the thread of the conflict.
Rukkh and his men crashed into the line just in time to prevent a breakthrough. The assault was stopped dead in its tracks and then slowly shoved back. After a few minutes, the attack ended there, and the enemy withdrew.
The catapults resumed their fire, and those massive spears began to unseat the enemy's confidence.
But the battle was far from done. Over on the right, where Aeswiren's army met Toshak's in the line, another enemy assault had produced a gap. The mots were fighting hard to hold back the enemy wedge, but the impetus lay with the attackers.
The men of the Tenth Regiment were roused to throw the enemy back down the hillside. They went in hard, forcing a desperate struggle for several minutes. Still, the enemy prevailed, and the Tenth were stopped and forced back.
Aeswiren, seeing this danger, looked around for a force to plug the gap. The Blitz Regiment was expressly developed for such situations. Rukkh and his company received the call and hurried off to the right.
The space behind
the line was filled with wounded who could no longer move. The sorcerous power of that light in the sky had cost Aeswiren's army many casualties in the initial contact.
Now that the deadening effects had faded, Aeswiren's regiments responded with a fury increased by the frustration of the first few minutes. They halted the enemy thrusts and turned them back once more. Where the younger soldiers of the enemy's host lingered too long, they paid with lives.
Rukkh and his men drove in on the enemy wedge. The Blitzers were too good for these youngsters, inexperienced in war. The wedge was broken up, and once the formation was shattered, the men of the Tenth Regiment pressed forward again and drove the enemy back down the hillside.
Aeswiren called the Tenth back to the line. The rest of the enemy's front was still in place, and Aeswiren was not ready to attack yet. The losses of that day had been grievous. Almost a quarter of the army had been wounded or killed. The blinding had shaken many more and left them terrified. Aeswiren needed to harbor his soldiers' strength while he studied the situation and looked for an opening. As it was, the combined allied army was now only two-thirds as strong as the enemy's main force. On top of which he possessed those pyluk; though the lizard-men had taken terrible casualties, they'd managed to grievously hurt the mot army.
Rukkh and his company were withdrawn to a position thirty yards back of the line, slightly behind the Emperor's banner. There they tended to their wounds. Ladwaller had picked up a couple of bad scrapes. Chimikin had lost his helmet in the fray and been knocked unconscious. They were still trying to bring him around. A couple of others were laid out with serious wounds. Steblemire's would probably kill him, unless the great Surgeon Biswas got to him quickly.
Rukkh set off around the company to check every man. Almost at once he bumped into Thru Gillo, who he thought of as the Emperor's monkey friend, or the monkey-who-came-in-the-night, because of the way he came and went at all hours.
Doom's Break Page 30