Kitchell’s, perhaps, ought to have been like that, he knew.
But for him it was more personal.
He had told Olyeg the truth when he said that his life had been good and, if it ended here upon this stony ground, long enough. To either side of him, however, as he watched the enemy rush up the slope, were young men, some barely more than boys, with the biggest part of their life ahead of them if they survived this day.
And that is what this battle had become for the Governor-general of Cumberland – a mission to get as many of them home safe and as sound as possible. But even if just one survived because of his actions on this day, it would suffice. Young Sub-general Hulse, under whose command his own troops had now fallen, was better trained and clearer-eyed than Kitchell, and Kitchell was happy to stand aside, get into the line with the men, and let him command.
It was not that he had a death wish; he did not. Kitchell hoped to live and see his young grandchildren grow to maturity. But he also knew that none of the men of Cumberland had seen that which was about to transpire on this hazy day; and he meant to be in the line, with the men, whatever came to pass.
He was not as strong as he’d once been, nor as quick; still, he was strong enough, and one didn’t need to be quick with a pike, only determined.
And Kitchell was determined.
The enemy was within twenty yards, their pikes down and at the ready.
“Spikes!” Kitchell shouted, as from either way along the line, other commanders rendered the same instruction.
Those with spikes drew back and hurled those odd weapons into the face of the onrushing foe. Many went down; some got to their feet again, others did not. Small gaps appeared in the lines of the enemy but these quickly went away as the gray men behind moved up to take the place of those that had fallen.
Another volley from the archers of Seneca sailed over the line, off to the left of Kitchell’s position, to fall among the lashers at the rear there. In front of him the beasts that ranged along behind the charging gray men, driving them forward, remained unmolested.
“Pikes to the fore!” Kitchell yelled, and again this command echoed along the line.
There came an odd swooshing sound as thousands of pikes came down into position, pointing slightly downslope into the faces of the enemy. Kitchell quickly adjusted his shield, which was strapped to his left forearm, gripped his pike tightly, and took aim at a gray man whose narrow gaze seemed to be fixed on him in turn.
At the last moment, Kitchell abruptly realized that his pike, in fact, was slightly longer than that of his foe, giving him an opportunity. Nor was this foe – or any of the enemy immediately before him, strangely enough – bearing a shield.
The enemy seemed intent on using the force of their charge to grant them advantage in the first moments of the conflict.
Cocking his left arm upward to lift his shield, Kitchell took a half-step forward and thrust with his might. He was rewarded with a grunt from the gray man as the pike pierced both his armor and his flesh. The black eyes widened, and the enemy soldier’s pike fell and ground its steel tip into the rocky soil. The lean, hunched figure lost all forward momentum, impaled upon Kitchell’s pike.
The Governor-general’s muscles twanged and bunched from the effort, but he persisted, pushing his victim’s body against the force of the enemy charge. Gray men following behind stumbled and faltered.
And a gap was created.
Forgetting for the moment that he did not fight alone, that thousands of friends and enemies alike surrounded him, Kitchell gave into the impetus of the kill and moved forward, intent on thrusting the ranks behind back down the hill, widening the gap, and creating further opportunity.
For a moment, it worked.
Though no longer young, Kitchell was yet strong. More gray men, to either side, stumbled and faltered. The gap grew wider.
Then, into the gap, stepped a lasher.
The monster fixed Kitchell with a malevolent gaze and raised his halberd.
Kitchell tried to wrest his pike loose from the body of the gray man he had slain and pushed backward, but to no avail.
The lasher’s arm began its descent.
Abandoning the pike, the Governor-general of Cumberland lifted his shield with his left arm and reached for his sword with his right hand, yanking it from its scabbard and swinging it upward.
He was too slow.
The lasher’s stroke smashed through his shield, severed his arm, and sliced deep into his body between his ribs and his hip. Blood poured forth in a flood, both from the stump of his arm and from the gash in his lower torso.
Kitchell stumbled. The hazy sun above grew suddenly darker as his strength left him in the rush of blood.
Still, in his last extremity, there was enough left in him to stoke the fires of fury. As he fell, he stabbed with the sword, though the blade was strangely heavy. The tip fell toward the earth as he shoved it toward the lasher. It missed the monster’s thigh, brushed the leather shin-guard of the beast and then, the weight of Kitchell’s dying body driving it downward, plunged into the great clawed foot, pinning it to the earth.
The lasher stumbled, lost his balance and went down to one knee, howling with pain and fury.
But his fury was nothing compared to that of the young men of Cumberland who had just witnessed the slaying of their beloved leader. As the beast attempted to use the butt of its halberd to roll Kitchell’s body from his foot so that the blade might be dislodged, those young men, their blood fully up, saw opportunity.
Pikes plunged into him and swords hacked at his massive arms and clanged off the horns of his head.
With a great roar, the lasher attempted to rise, lifting his weapon to strike. But the sword was still lodged in his foot, pinning him in place. Down he went again upon one knee though his great steel blade was ready for action.
It was at this moment that a stout young man of Cumberland by the name of Wethurfurd stepped behind the beast and swung his sword with all his might at the base of the creature’s neck. The steel bit deep, the massive head tipped unnaturally forward, and the beast let out another shriek of pain.
Wethurfurd struck once more.
And then again.
The great head came loose.
The lasher’s body rolled away down the slope. As he went, the blade of his weapon tripped two gray men that fought beside him on his left. They went down as well.
The gap that had been created by Kitchell grew wider yet.
From his position behind and over to the right, Sub-general Marteren Hulse had turned from directing reserves into gaps of his own in order to check, yet again, on Cumberland’s leader. With his heart in his throat, he witnessed the duel between Kitchell and the lasher. When Kitchell went down, Hulse began running toward the scene, drawing his sword as he went.
His soldier’s mind saw the gap created in the enemy ranks, even as his eyes fell upon the terrible sight of Kitchell’s body lying face down upon the slope in a widening pool of blood that thickened as it oozed downhill. As he sprinted toward the front, Hulse turned his head and saw Evan Cinnabar, who was directing the last of his reserves to the left.
“No, captain!” Hulse shouted as he slid to a halt on the gravelly slope. Cinnabar’s head jerked around to look his way. Hulse pointed to his front. “There is a gap! Give me the last of your men and send them through! We’ll turn the enemy here!”
Cinnabar glanced toward the indicated spot, immediately saw the truth of his commander’s words and shouted for the last company of his troop to – “Belay that! Come with me! Forward!”
Hulse sprinted on into the gap where even now, the men of Cumberland were turning to the right and to the left, instinctively flanking their enemy.
Wethurfurd was leaning over Kitchell’s body, tears streaming down his face.
Hulse grabbed him by the shoulder, making the young man look up. “Get some help – and get him out of here,” he told him. “Then get back here and help me turn this flank.
”
Hulse knelt to put a finger upon Kitchell’s neck, even though it was obvious that the Governor-general of Cumberland was no more. In the midst of battle, with pandemonium surrounding him on all sides, Marteren Hulse bowed his head for a moment in reverence and grief. Then he came to his feet and his eyes blazed.
As Cinnabar’s troops came through the gap he formed them up and sent them left and then right, while placing a small group to watch the downslope for treachery. “Push them, boys!” He shouted, waving his sword above his head. “Push them!”
And so it was that Kitchell’s desire to save the life of at least one young citizen of Cumberland was multiplied many times over, and victory was given to that part of the field where he fell.
41.
While the lines of the enemy were being pierced in front of Thom Sota and Marteren Hulse, over to the east upon the little round hill where Mallet stood with his band of Wallensians, things were rapidly going from very bad to very much worse.
As he had feared, the part of the enemy line that overlapped his position had elected not to attempt a climb up the steep, broken slope that extended beyond him to the east in an attempt to flank the army of humans, but had turned instead and enveloped his hill.
And up the slopes of that hill they came – in numbers that appeared irresistible. To the north, the enemy charged up the slopes in three ranks, but to the east and around the southeastern portion of the hillock, where the excess of their strength had gathered, they were eight or ten deep – and there were more than enough lashers in that host to chill any man’s blood.
Mallet turned his right flank as well to meet this threat, even as he knew this act to be very likely a futile one. There were simply too many of the enemy.
“Go to the right, Jon,” he told Jonwood. “Take every reserve – put them into the line.”
When the enemy was something more than halfway up the hill, the Senecan archers standing on the main ridge behind went to work, targeting lashers. And they were deadly accurate. Mallet’s spirits rose ever so slightly as he observed the carnage those eastern warriors inflicted upon the ranks of the great beasts. Even as he watched and drew courage from the spectacle, he knew that, sooner or later, probably before the enemy reached his pitifully small line, those men would use the last of their missiles.
Then the enemy would be here, and it would get savage.
As he was examining the shape of his deployment one last time before the enemy made contact, Mallet heard screams of pain and fear erupt from down the slope, from among the ranks of the enemy upon the right side of the hill, where it sloped away into the small dark canyon.
The wolves had entered the battle.
Mallet’s spirits lifted a bit more.
Behind him, the Senecan archers, commanded by a tall, dark-haired young captain named Stevear, were making their presence count. Ignoring the gray men, as Matibar had instructed them, they were slaying and wounding the lashers by the score. Still, though, many of the monsters remained, driving their hordes of gray men up the slope – and how many more arrows, Mallet wondered, did those men of the east yet possess?
The sound of screams from the right and rear intensified, mixed with the low growl and eager yips of the wolves. The number of enemies that would shortly arrive at the top of the hill would be less – much less – than they had been.
But they were still very many.
Too many.
And they were nearly here.
“Spikes!” Roared Mallet. Even as he gave the command, he found himself wishing that every man in his troop was in possession of not one but two or even more of those blunt killing instruments. After watching to gauge the effect upon the enemy of those odd spears, he hoisted Lasherbane and inserted himself into the line, working his way into the forward rank at the point where there were still three or four lashers in a group coming up the hill.
“Now!” He shouted again. “Ready pikes! Here they come.”
Just before the enemy host impacted his front and his flank, Mallet roared out one more command.
“Lean into it, boys – give them the steel!”
The men of Wallensia, though daunted by the vastly superior numbers that they confronted, had nonetheless been in battle twice before. They could perhaps not all be called veterans, but they were all of them experienced in the terrible pageantry of battle and the attendant dark carnival of death. To a man, each obeyed his commander’s exhortation and put all his weight into his weapon, pushing off the back foot, making the sharp end of his pike do that for which it had been designed.
There was one thing more that gave each of them courage, a small reservoir of savage hope.
It was a thought.
Lord Aram will come.
There was no buckling of the line here, upon the brow of this small hill.
There was instead a horrific collision of determined men and lasher-driven gray soldiery.
At the first, the determination and courage of the men of Derosa held, and the enemy took casualties in terrible percentages. Mallet swept the gray soldiers before him to the side and went for a great beast that driven those lesser creatures before him. The lasher sneered and swung his halberd, but though Mallet was smaller, he was not small. And he was quicker.
Rolling the lasher’s stroke over the top of his shield, Mallet stepped close, crouched, and thrust upward with Lasherbane. The sharp end of that massive pike careened off the monster’s hardened leather chest armor and went into the fleshy part of the beast’s neck behind the jawline. Then the big man rose up out of his crouch and drove the steel upward with his might. The steel disappeared into the lasher’s head.
The great beast died without uttering another sound.
Around Mallet a mighty cheer went up as his first kill hit the ground, rolling downslope and into the rear ranks of the enemy. Another lasher challenged him, and though this duel went on a bit longer, in the end, one more of Manon’s beasts died.
But as the minutes wore away, free men, too, began to fall, many to never rise again. And they had not the numbers to sustain such casualties.
The angled, hook-shaped line of Wallensia became ever more exaggerated and sharply bent until, at the east end of the hill, comrades fought almost back-to-back. The only thing saving them at the moment was the actions of the wolves. Leorg, Shingka, Padrik, Goreg, with all their people continued to harry the foe. In the rearward ranks of the enemy host, Manon’s troops fought facing away from the men upon the hilltop, contesting with the sharp teeth of wolves for their very lives.
Then, there was another respite granted to Mallet and his small company when Stevear and his Senecans joined the fray. Their missiles exhausted, the men from the east ran out the ridge to the extreme eastern end of Mallet’s line where it hooked back above the canyon, drew their swords and assaulted the enemy upon his flank.
Soon, however, the Senecans were pushed back until they became Mallet’s eastern wing, fighting desperately to keep the enemy from enveloping them.
And still, despite the savage aid of wolves and the added weight of the Senecan contingent, Mallet’s company was pushed back further, casualties mounted higher, and the enemy pressed ever harder upon them. The strength and the will of Mallet’s small band approached its breaking strain.
“Fall back – close the gaps!” Mallet roared for what seemed the hundredth time and as he obeyed his own command, his right shoulder pushed into something larger even than him. Startled, he turned his head.
Markris stood there, using his bulk to fill a gap in the line.
Mallet shook his head and shouted above the din, forgetting in the heat of things that the horse could hear his thoughts. “No, my friend – get away! This is no place for a horse!”
“There is no one else to stand here,” the horse replied. “If I go, who will guard your right?”
“We’ll move back further, close the line to the rear,” Mallet replied. “Please, my friend – you have no weapon.”
�
��I have my hooves.”
“Please!” Mallet pleaded.
Markris hesitated. “At least let me summon Thaniel. He will bring Lord Aram.”
Mallet dropped back, keeping his pike to the fore, and glanced around. His line had doubled completely back upon itself. The company of Senecans actually faced toward the south, still fighting to keep the company from being flanked. But it was a losing battle. Flanked, they most certainly were – on all sides.
Mallet nodded. “Do it,” he agreed.
Markris moved back, and Mallet eased backward as well, closing the gap.
“Is he calling for Lord Aram?” Jonwood asked breathlessly.
Mallet nodded again, without looking over as he thrust his pike into the chest of yet another gray soldier. “He is.”
Jon had lost his pike and was fighting with his sword. His face was streaked with blood, most of it that of his enemies, but some of it his own.
“About time,” he said.
And still the fighting went on, and on, against seemingly endless ranks of gray men and the occasional lasher. As Mallet parried the thrust of yet another giant creature and then sank his pike into the beast’s side, twisting away and driving the monster to the ground, Jonwood directed a question at him.
“How many of those bastards have you taken down today?” He grunted, swinging his sword in time to relieve another of Manon’s minions of his head.
“I’ve lost count,” Mallet responded wearily. “Not enough.”
“Make way!” A familiar voice shouted.
Mallet glanced around.
Aram and Thaniel were driving toward him along the top of the ridge, making for the far end of the hill where the enemy were strongest.
“Here, Lord Aram!” Mallet yelled and he leapt out of the way, dragging Jonwood with him.
Aram and Thaniel drove through the gap and into the enemy ranks, and the king lowered his sword and released a thunderous bolt of lightning-like fire into that grim host. Then he swung that unearthly weapon and scores of the enemy went down in a heap of blood and gore.
Kelven's Riddle Book Five Page 27