Rora

by James Byron Huggins

  Pianessa's entire plan depended, quite simply, on whether he truly possessed the bloodless soul to pour men into the ravine faster than Gianavel could kill them.

  It was more easily said than done—Emmanuel had read of more than one commander who, at the last, could not stand watching thousands upon thousands of his men butchered like dogs and called off the attack. But Emmanuel knew Pianessa would not cringe. He would not even blink as he watched his men blown to bloody rags and ground into pulp as others charged over their dead bodies.

  Doubtless, Gianavel was prepared to kill men as long as they threw themselves at the battlements, but in the end Pianessa's troops would simply be everywhere at once, flooding through the ravine like a dam burst. Then the Vaudois would effectively retreat, killing as he fell back to secondary and tertiary positions where the massacre would be repeated again and again until a bloody ramp of dead bodies ascended to the summit.

  Not for a hundred years had any great battle been decided by legions locked in physical combat. The invention of the cannon and long rifle made such contests unnecessary. But this battle would surely go house to house and room to room with men fighting dagger and sword to the last. Even when all hope for victory was lost, the Waldenses would not surrender— they had no reason.

  As Emmanuel strolled toward his tent, surrounded by mercenaries and Turks, his six formidable bodyguards gave him comfort. But it was an unfortunate thought, because it reminded him of Gianavel, who needed no bodyguards at all.

  ***

  If it had not been night, Blake would have thought the air was dark with war.

  He saw Gianavel standing atop a battlement and left his warm place beside the fire. He climbed the short ladder to the top of the wall, and Gianavel was smiling at him.

  "You should get some sleep," he said.

  Blake tightened a blanket around his shoulders. That, and a sheepskin coat, a gift from one of the Waldenses, were more than sufficient to repel the cold wind. He was aware that Gianavel wore only a long black cloak that was voluminous enough to wrap his body.

  "I don't think anyone will sleep tonight," Blake grunted and then looked closely at the captain. "Just tell me one thing. Do you think it was worth it?"

  Gianavel's gaze froze on the pass. Then he took a deep breath and released it slowly, frostily into the night. He was in no hurry to reply. Blake was in no hurry for an answer.

  "Yes, monsieur," Gianavel said at last and looked steadily at Blake. "I think it was worth it."

  The greatest things are said with the fewest words.

  Blake didn't move. "I suppose the outcome would have been the same either way."

  "And if they told you, Monsieur Blake, that you could live if you renounced God, do you think a few more years on the earth would be worth eternity?"

  "I don't know if God would judge a man so harshly, Captain."

  Gianavel lifted his face toward the sky where millions of crystalline lights burned steadily in the dome of night. Wind moved over the parapet—cold, bitter, and stronger than the world.

  "Whether we live or die is not the greatest importance," Gianavel said finally. "If I am not killed in this battle, then there is the next – or the next, or perhaps even old age. The truth, monsieur, is that the Lord is greater than death." Gianavel stared. "Only if a man fears death can death conquer him."

  Blake stared into the gray eyes that never seemed to look away or even blink and knew Gianavel was allowing him to search for truth behind the words, and Blake saw it was there. Finally he sighed and looked down through the long ravine. His thoughts turned toward tomorrow.

  "You think we have a chance?" he muttered.

  Gianavel turned his gaze to the pass, nodded faintly.

  "Yes, monsieur...I do."

  *

  Chapter 17

  Dawn broke to the doom, doom of drums as the ground trembled at their feet and Blake turned to behold a thousand pike-men marching steadily up the narrow Pass of Pelice. And behind them rolled a black sea of helmets, shields, harnesses, pikes, and rifles that swelled like waves from men massed shoulder to shoulder in the ravine. And although the length of the line disappeared beyond the far bend of the Pass it was clear enough—it stretched all the way to the valley below.

  Blake glanced at Gianavel. The captain was staring stoically at the attackers. He revealed nothing at all.

  Pianessa’s men were proceeding cautiously but would doubtless charge when the first volley was fired. They had no place to hide from rifle or cannon fire and knew their only hope lay in overrunning the wall. But they were obviously not in a hurry to attack, wanting to know what direction to avoid when they closed.

  Blake muttered and bent to lift another bandoleer with four flintlock pistols. He settled it over his shoulder, adding to the four he already carried. He had cleaned and loaded them all in the last hours before dawn, insuring that the powder was dry at first light. With the rifle and pistols he had nine shots before reloading, and he had been assigned two young boys to reload for him as he fired.

  Still, he felt unarmed.

  Gianavel was dressed as before with a heavy bandoleer of four pistols. He carried his rifle in his hand and his saber and two daggers on his belt with a pouch for ammunition and powder. He'd discarded his cloak just as Blake had discarded the sheepskin coat. They'd be warm enough when the fight started.

  Hector manned one pair of cannon on the left of the wall, and the big farmer, Bertino, manned two more on the right. It gave them a total of four huge forty-pound grapeshot rounds before reloading, but in this ravine the scattered rounds would be devastating. Blake hoped the dead would pile up so quickly that those in the rear wouldn't be able to crawl over the bodies to reach the bastions.

  The bellow from deep inside Pianessa's regiment made Blake turn, and he glimpsed Gianavel raising his rifle as those in the front suddenly lowered pikes and charged, unable to wait further for the display of cannon fire that they would surely face.

  Gianavel fell to a knee and placed the rifle on the edge of the wall to steady his aim and everyone duplicated his stance. Yet no one fired because the captain had instructed that no one was to fire, not even cannon, until he did. The stampede of men closed furiously on the wall, almost bounding over the last steep section of slope with the furious charge of wild boar and Blake glanced nervously to Gianavel. The captain held a steady aim, unwavering and calm.

  Blake saw Gianavel s hand tighten as he began to look away, and his shot threw a wide blast of white smoke along the bastion. Then the rest opened up, cannons erupting only a split second behind rifles with deafening roars that buried the entire ravine beneath a cloud of swirling white. Almost immediately Blake retrieved another rifle as the boys reloaded the first, and Gianavel had already shot again before Blake leaped back to the port.

  As the smoke flooded down the ravine, another bellow erupted and Blake saw ... hundreds of dead men were strewn across white boulders splashed and gory with blood and bodies and then Pianessa's men were thundering over the carnage, rifles firing.

  Blake fired and grabbed a third rifle, and then the cannons opened up again—huge blasts that threatened to collapse the wall itself and the militia was hurled and shredded once more by what seemed the fists of God that struck with the power of meteorites to vaporize men and blast arms and legs and bodies through the air so that blood rained through the white mist in a surreal crimson-white sight.

  Blake had no more time for thought as the living charged over the bodies of the slain, not betraying fear or doubt or even concern as they fired a hundred bullets that struck like hail, rebounding from stone to stone and cutting the air with a howl as they sailed cleanly over Blake's head. He ducked reflexively at the first enfilade and then ripped out a pistol and shot a soldier that reached the wall.

  The man fell back but others replaced him as Blake found a rifle and whirled to the wall, unable now to hear separate rifle fire amid the unending roar. He glimpsed Gianavel gain his feet and watched as the capta
in ran swiftly down the battlement. He leaped from the wall as he reached the cannon and instantly disappeared into the wall of hardwoods at the ridge.

  If Blake had had the time, he would have wondered what Gianavel was doing and where he was going—he didn't need to wonder whether he was retreating. Then he sensed something to his left and turned as one of Pianessa's soldiers appeared in the portal.

  Blake leaped back, narrowly evading the wild swipe of a sword, and as he crashed into the boys, he saw that the soldier held a pistol in his hand, having drawn it in the confusion.

  Blake fired from the hip and heard the howl and when he scrambled back, the man had disappeared.

  Drawing a pistol in each hand, Blake found himself shooting one and then another as their attackers climbed the battlement. He tossed the pistols to the boys and drew two more, firing again. Then the cannons erupted in an endless volley and the wall thundered with smoke and the roar of rifles and pistols and men beneath were heaped thigh-deep and still they kept coming.

  Blake traded pistol after pistol and rifle after rifle, killing one attacker only to kill another and another and another and still they flowed to the wall, a wave of men with rifles and swords and pikes howling for blood without end.

  And somewhere in the rush of bleeding bodies and stabbing blades, Blake fell into the furious heart of killing—a hot fellness of purpose that knew neither right nor wrong but only the full horror of war in the round so that even the horror of war was no more and only war remained.

  ***

  Ducking bullet-blasted limbs that would have taken off his face, Gianavel ran swiftly through the forest in a line parallel to the ravine. He expected them to chance a flanking attack on the wall, and he was right. Then there was no time to think as he collided with four men rushing through the treeline.

  Gianavel struck first, firing point-blank into an attacker before throwing his shoulder into another. The man's musket shot went high and then Gianavel's sword slashed in a backhand blow that speared the third man in the chest.

  Whirling back and drawing his pistol, Gianavel fired to hit the second man as he rose from the loam. Then the fourth was behind him, and Gianavel twisted sharply to avoid the slash of a saber. As the man stumbled forward off-balance, Gianavel's sword descended—a hard, straight blow that caught the man in the back of the neck.

  Instantly Gianavel stuck his saber into the ground and kicked a wide sleeve of bark from the port of a cannon positioned on the ridge. As the next group came hurtling over the hill—not twenty feet away—he struck the wick and the discharge devastated the hill and everything upon it, blasting tree and rock and flesh into shreds. The third group, barely cresting the ridge, saw the cannon and turned as a single man, running back the way they had come.

  Knowing he had beaten the attack, Gianavel reached the moss-blanketed log that concealed the barrel of gunpowder he had hidden. He didn't need to check to see if the troops were below his position. The howls and cries told him where they were.

  He held the flint at the wick and struck it with the butt of his pistol. Sparks jetted in streaks, widely missing. He tried again, and again, badly missing. The battle raged beneath him, and his thoughts strayed to the wall, wondering if they'd breached. Panic and heat were overcoming, billowing out from him in waves, and he forced himself to pause, steadying the flint where the sparks were tending to fly.

  Aim, strike.

  Caught!

  Burning!

  Gianavel threw back the moss and rolled the barrel clear, watching the fuse, feeling the timing of it as it burned, and when it was less than three seconds from the barrel, he pushed it down the slope. The short run cast it into the air, far above the bottom of the ravine, and it barely disappeared beyond the edge when the explosion lifted moss and rocks from the wall, lancing the trees around Gianavel like grapeshot, tearing bark off trees and sending bushy limbs pin-wheeling in a tremendous silence that smothered everything at once.

  Gianavel never knew he'd fallen sideways at the blast, never knew that his face was bleeding and torn. But he knew he'd reached his feet and was stumbling past dead men toward the wall. Then he'd made it through the trees to the battlement.

  The wall ...

  It was clear.

  Dead men were heaped down the pass like islands in a sea of blood that stretched from the wall to the distant militia, which had withdrawn. And the dunes and mounds at the base of the battlement were already beyond counting, but it was as if here were the gates of hell, and here all the dead of the earth must come, and pass over the blood, to enter.

  ***

  Stunned by the inexplicable explosion that had struck the wall like a hurricane, Blake groaned as he staggered to his feet. It took him a moment, scanning the ravine, before he realized what was different.

  Seconds ago, the pass had been filled wall to wall with hundreds of Pianessa's troops charging over their wounded to reach the wall. Now there was only a blackened space between the upraised pikes in the distance and those heaped at the wall.

  The last mushrooming trace of a black cloud was vanishing above the summit of the Castelluzo; the most visible sign of whatever had descended into the ravine from above, for little else remained where it had struck.

  A tremendous rotunda of scorched earth now marred the pass and men were scattered on all sides, still and unmoving. Blake stared over them in awe; never before had he seen such carnage, never had he seen such a grim battle. In this there was no place for retreat, no place to hide. It was face-to-face from first to last—the bloodiest part of battle that only came at the last of a siege or ambush. But this had hit the apex in the first moment and remained there—it was inconceivable that any flesh could stand.

  He saw Gianavel running toward him on the battlement. His face was cut, and blood ran freely off his chin and cheek. He seemed stunned or partially blinded, then he squinted to study the militia regrouping outside rifle range.

  Bertino released another shot on the right, and they ducked reflexively at the discharge. When they straightened, Gianavel scanned the numbers around them, apparently checking for wounded.

  "None," said Blake and became aware that he was shouting.

  Doubtless, he had lost a fair amount of hearing. He was also aware he shouted the word with unusual stoicism. He didn't attempt to understand it—perhaps this was the way a man became when he knew he would shortly die. And, indeed, death had less fear for him now. Whether from the fury of battle or something more, he didn't know. Nor did he have the time or inclination to wonder as another thunderous bellow swelled against the wall, and the pikes and muskets were lowered once more, and the black sea rushed toward them.

  With little expression they knelt behind the boulders and Blake reached for a rifle. He didn't insure that it was loaded as he aimed and it discharged sharply at his touch. Then he reached for the next and the next, timing it so his shots hit solidly, and then their attackers reached the battlement again.

  In seconds the Turks scrambled up the ravaged wall, now torn and pitted to provide a host of hand and footholds and he glimpsed Gianavel standing at the very edge, arms encircling his legs and waist as he struck down men with his sword, the blade rising and falling, rising and falling as he also stabbed out with his dagger to kill and kill, heaving man after man after man from the wall.

  With a shout Blake turned his musket like a club and raced to take a place beside the Waldensian captain. And standing shoulder to shoulder they held the middle of the wall, beating back the rising tide of knives and swords and pikes and muskets that had no end. Blake's chest heaved for breath like a blast furnace, his face tight with the strain of killing and still they came— endless, tireless, unstoppable and unmerciful, dying in droves and still they came.

  The world faded beyond this as Blake knew, somehow in the rising and falling of his musket, that some part of him had joined this battle for something more than life. It was a thin realization beyond the enclosing red haze of violence and death but it was there
, nor did he question it or even care for the why of it.

  Faintly he glimpsed Gianavel almost submerged in a sea of knives and swords, eyes blazing as he roared and struck like a lion torn by jackals, killing every one that rose against him and still they came and still he killed, and killed, and killed ...

  ***

  Pianessa reined his mount hard as the battle ebbed and flowed along the Bagnol. The entire ridge pounded with cannon and rifle, and the mountain itself was hazed in a white cloud that rose and fell unnaturally, sound following moments later. Emmanuel, riding beside the marquis, was stunned at the resistance mounted by the Waldenses. Despite being overwhelmingly outnumbered, they had fortified their positions well and were excellent marksmen.

  They knew when to shoot, when to move, and had extra stores of cannon and ammunition at each fortified retreat. Every inch of ground Pianessa gained cost him thirty men. But one glance told Emmanuel that Pianessa cared nothing for the loss. He would drive his entire militia off a cliff if it would force his victory.

  With fierce, bellowed commands the marquis rode up and down the ascending troops, threatening soldiers and commanders alike with death if they did not accomplish his instructions swiftly and completely. He shot one soldier who hesitated with a ruthlessness that both inspired and terrified. Men charged up the mountain for blood or fear, but they charged, and at the summit the war heated until the cliff itself could not be seen but for the long streaks that Emmanuel glimpsed starkly against the face, wondering vaguely what it was until he realized it was blood.

  With broken blades they beat them back till crimson ran the wall, Gianavel and Blake fighting savagely against the tide, but it was only a matter of time. Then Blake sensed rather than saw frantic movement at the end of the battlement and heard the warning.