“Maybe start shooting, aye?” Grim loosed a shaft, pulled another out of his quiver. Dogman snatched out an arrow himself, but there were so many targets he could hardly bring himself to pick one, and he shot too high, cursing all the while. They were getting close now, close enough for him to see their faces, if you could call ’em faces. Open flapping jaws, snarling and full of teeth, hard little eyes, full of hate. Clumsy weapons—clubs with nails in, axes made from chipped stone, rust-spotted swords stolen from the dead. Up they came, seeming fast as wolves through the trees.
Dogman got one in the chest, saw it drop back. He hit another through the leg, but the rest weren’t slowing. “Ready!” he heard Threetrees roaring, felt men standing up around him, lifting their blades, their spears, their shields, to meet the charge. He wondered how a man was meant to get ready for this.
A Flathead came springing through the air over the tree, mouth wide open and snarling. Dogman saw it there, black in the air, heard a great roar in his ear, then Tul’s sword ripped into it and flung it back, blood spraying out of it like water from a smashed bottle.
Another came scrambling up and Threetrees took its arm clean off with his sword, smashed it back down the slope with his shield. More of ’em were coming now, and still more, swarming over the fallen trunk in a crowd. Dogman shot one in the face at no more than a stride away, pulled his knife out and stabbed it in the gut, screaming as loud as he could, blood leaking warm over his hand. He tore its club from its claw as it fell and swung it at another, missed and reeled away. Men were shouting and stabbing and hacking all over.
He saw Shivers wedge a Shanka’s head against the tree with his boot, lift his shield high above his head and ram the metal rim deep into its face. He knocked another sprawling with his axe, spraying blood into Dogman’s eyes, then caught a third in his arms as it sprang over the tree and they rolled onto the wet dirt together, flopping over and over. The Shanka came out on top and Dogman smashed it in the back with the club, once, twice, three times and Shivers shoved it off and scrambled up, stomped on the back of its head. He charged past, hacking another Flathead down just as it spitted a squealing Carl through the side with a spear.
Dogman blinked, trying to wipe the blood from his eyes on the back of his sleeve. He saw Grim lift his knife and stab it through a Flathead’s skull, the blade sliding out its mouth and nailing it tight to a tree trunk. He saw Tul smashing his great fist into a Shanka’s face, again and again until its skull was nothing but red pulp. A Flathead sprang up onto the tree above him, spear raised, but before it could stab him Dow leaped up and chopped its legs out from under it. It spun in the air, screaming.
Dogman saw a Shanka on top of a Carl, taking a great bite out of his neck. He snatched the spear out of the ground behind him and flung it square into the Flathead’s back. It fell, gibbering and clawing over its own shoulders, trying to get to the thing, but it was stuck clean through.
Another Carl was thrashing around, roaring, a Shanka’s teeth sunk into his arm, punching at it with his other hand. Dogman took a step to help him but before he got there a Flathead came at him with a spear. He saw it in good time and dodged round it, slashed it across the eyes with his knife as it came past, then cracked the club down on the back of its skull, felt it crunch like a breaking egg. He turned to face another. A damn big one. It opened its jaws at him and snarled, drool running out from its teeth, a great axe in its claws.
“Come on!” he screamed at it, raising the club and the knife. Before it could come at him Threetrees had stepped up behind it and split it open from shoulder to chest. Blood spattered out and it grovelled in the mud. It managed to get up a ways, somehow, but all that did was put its face in the best place for Dogman to stab his knife into.
Now the Shanka were falling back and the Carls were shouting and hacking them down as they turned. The last one squawked and went for the tree, trying to scramble over. It gibbered as Dow’s sword hacked a bloody gash across its back, all red meat and splinters of white bone. It fell tangled over a branch, twitched and lay still, its legs dangling.
“They’re done!” roared Shivers, his face spotted with blood under his long hair. “We did ’em!”
The Carls cheered and shouted and shook their weapons. Leastways most of ’em did. There were a couple lying still and a few more laid out wounded, groaning, gurgling through clenched teeth. The Dogman didn’t reckon they felt much like celebrating. Neither did Threetrees.
“Shut up, you fools! They’re gone for now but there’ll be more. That’s the thing with Flatheads, there’s always more! Get them bodies out of the way! Salvage all the arrows we can get! We’ll need ’em before today’s through!”
The Dogman was already limping back towards the smouldering fire. Cathil was lying where he’d left her, breathing fast and shallow, one hand pressed against her ribs around the shaft. She watched him coming with wide, wet eyes and said nothing. He said nothing either. What was there to say? He took his knife and slit her bloody shirt, from the arrow down to the hem, peeled it away from her until he could see the shaft. It was stuck between two ribs on the right hand side, just under her tit. Not a good place to get shot, if there was such a thing.
“Is it alright?” she mumbled, teeth rattling. Her face was white as snow, eyes feverish bright. “Is it alright?”
“It’s alright,” he said, rubbing the dirt off her wet cheek with his thumb. “Don’t you fret now, eh? We’ll get it sorted.” And all the time he was thinking, you fucking liar, Dogman, you fucking coward. She’s got an arrow in her ribs.
Threetrees squatted down beside them. “It’ll have to come out,” he said, frowning hard. “I’ll hold her, you pull it.”
“Do what?”
“What’s he saying?” hissed Cathil, blood on her teeth. “What’s he…” Dogman took hold of the shaft in both hands while Threetrees took her wrists. “What’re you—”
Dogman pulled, and it wouldn’t come. He pulled, and blood ran out from the wound round the shaft and slid down her pale side in two dark lines. He pulled, and her body thrashed and her legs kicked and she screamed like he was killing her. He pulled, and it wouldn’t come, and it wouldn’t even shift a finger’s breadth.
“Pull it!” hissed Threetrees.
“It won’t fucking come!” snarled the Dogman in his face.
“Alright! Alright.” Dogman let go the arrow and Cathil coughed and gurgled, shuddering and shaking, gasping in air and dribbling out pink spit.
Threetrees rubbed at his jaw, leaving a bloody smear across his face. “If you can’t pull it out, you’ll have to push it on through.”
“What?”
“What’s he… saying?” gurgled Cathil, her teeth chattering.
Dogman swallowed. “We got to push it through.”
“No,” she muttered, eyes going wide. “No.”
“We got to.” She snorted as he took hold of the shaft and snapped it off halfway down, cupped his palms over the broken end.
“No,” she whimpered.
“Just hold on, girl,” muttered Threetrees in common, gripping hold of her arms again. “Just hold on, now. Do it, Dogman.”
“No…”
Dogman gritted his teeth and shoved down hard on the broken shaft. Cathil jerked and made a kind of sigh, then her eyes rolled back, passed out clean. Dogman half rolled her, body limp as a rag, saw the arrow head sticking out her back.
“Alright,” he muttered, “alright, it’s through.” He took hold of it just below the blade, twisted it gently as he slid it out. A splatter of blood came with it, but not too much.
“That’s good,” said Threetrees. “Don’t reckon it got a lung, then.”
Dogman chewed at his lip. “That’s good.” He grabbed up a roll of bandage, put it against the leaking hole in her back, started winding it round her chest, Threetrees lifting her up while he passed it underneath her. “That’s good, that’s good.” He said it over and over, winding the bandage round, fumbling fast as he could w
ith cold fingers until it was done up tight, as good as he knew how. His hands were bloody, the bandage was bloody, her stomach and her back were covered in his pink finger marks, in streaks of dark dirt and dark blood. He pulled her shirt back down over her, rolled her gently onto her back. He touched her face—warm, eyes closed, her chest moving softly, her breath smoking round her mouth.
“Need to get a blanket.” He started up, fumbled through his pack, pulled out his blanket, scattering gear around the fire. He dragged it back, shook it out and laid it over her. “Keep you warm, eh? Nice and warm.” He pushed it in around her, keep the cold out. He tugged it down over her feet. “Keep warm.”
“Dogman.”
Threetrees was bending over, listening to her breath. He straightened up, and slowly shook his head. “She’s dead.”
“What?”
White specks drifted down round them. It was starting to snow again.
“Where the hell is Poulder?” snarled Marshal Burr, staring down the valley, his fists clenching and unclenching with frustration. “I said wait until we’re engaged, not damn well overrun!”
West could think of no reply. Where, indeed, was Poulder? The snow was thickening now, coming down softly in swirls and eddies, letting fall a grey curtain across the battlefield, lending to everything an air of unreality. The sounds came up as though from impossibly far away, muffled and echoing. Messengers rode back and forth behind the lines, black dots moving swiftly over the white ground with urgent calls for reinforcement. The wounded were building up, dragged groaning in stretchers, gasping in carts, or trudging, silent and bloody down the road below the headquarters.
Even through the snow it was clear that Kroy’s men were hard pressed. The carefully drawn lines now bulged alarmingly in the centre, units dissolved into a single straining mass, merged with one another in the chaos and confusion of combat. West had lost track of the number of staff officers General Kroy had sent to the command post demanding support or permission to withdraw, all of them sent back with the same message. To hold, and to wait. From Poulder, meanwhile, came nothing but an ominous and unexpected silence.
“Where the hell is he?” Burr stomped back to his tent leaving dark footprints in the fresh crust of white. “You!” he shouted at an adjutant, beckoning him impatiently. West followed at a respectful distance and pushed through the tent flap after him, Jalenhorm just behind.
Marshal Burr leaned over his table and snatched a pen from an ink-bottle, spattering black drops on the wood. “Get up into those woods and find General Poulder! Establish what the hell he is doing and return to me at once!”
“Yes, sir!” squawked the officer, standing to vibrating attention.
Burr’s pen scrawled orders across the paper. “Inform him that he is commanded to begin his attack immediately!” He signed his name with an angry slash of the wrist and jerked the paper out to the adjutant.
“Of course, sir!” The young officer strode purposefully from the tent.
Burr turned back to his maps, wincing as he glared down, one hand tugging on his beard, the other pressed to his belly. “Where the hell is Poulder?”
“Perhaps, sir, he has himself come under attack—”
Burr burped, and grimaced, burped again and thumped the table making the ink bottle rattle. “Curse this fucking indigestion!” His thick finger stabbed at the map. “If Poulder doesn’t arrive soon we’ll have to commit the reserve, West, you hear me? Commit the cavalry.”
“Yes, sir, of course.”
“This cannot be allowed to fail.” The Marshal frowned, swallowed. It seemed to West he had gone suddenly very pale. “This cannot… cannot…” He swayed slightly, blinking.
“Sir, are you—”
“Bwaaaah!” And Marshal Burr jerked forwards and sprayed black vomit over the table top. It splattered against the maps and turned the paper angry red. West stood frozen, his jaw gradually dropping open. Burr gurgled, fists clenched on the table in front of him, his body shaking, then he hunched over and poured out puke again. “Guuurgh!” And he lurched away, red drool dangling from his lip, eyes starting from his white face, gave a strangled groan and toppled back, dragging one bloody chart with him.
West finally understood what was happening just in time to dive forwards and catch the Lord Marshal’s limp body before he fell. He staggered across the tent, struggling to hold him up.
“Shit!” gasped Jalenhorm.
“Help me, damn it!” snarled West. The big man started over and took Burr’s other arm, and together they half lifted, half dragged him to his bed. West undid the Marshal’s top button, loosened his collar. “Some sickness of the stomach,” he muttered through clenched teeth. “He’s been complaining for weeks…”
“I’ll get the surgeon!” squealed Jalenhorm.
He started up but West caught hold of his arm. “No.”
The big man stared back. “What?”
“If it becomes known that he’s ill, there’ll be panic. Poulder and Kroy will do as they please. The army might fall apart. No one can know until after the battle.”
“But—”
West got up and put his hand on Jalenhorm’s shoulder, looking him straight in the eye. He knew already what had to be done. He would not be a spectator at another disaster. “Listen to me. We must follow through with the plan. We must.”
“Who must?” Jalenhorm stared wildly round the tent. “Me and you, alone?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
“But this is a man’s life!”
“This is thousands of men’s lives,” hissed West. “It cannot be allowed to fail, you heard him say it.”
Jalenhorm had turned almost as pale as Burr. “I hardly think he meant that—”
“Don’t forget you owe me.” West leaned still closer. “Without me you’d be one in a pile of corpses rotting nicely north of the Cumnur.” He didn’t like doing it, but it had to be done, and there was no time for niceties. “Do we understand each other, Captain?”
Jalenhorm swallowed. “Yes, sir, I think so.”
“Good. You watch Marshal Burr, I’ll take care of things outside.” West got up and made for the tent flap.
“What if he—”
“Improvise!” he snapped, over his shoulder. There were bigger things to worry about now than any one man. He ducked out into the cold air. At least a score of officers and guards were scattered around the command post before the tent, pointing down into the white valley, peering through eye-glasses and muttering to one another. “Sergeant Pike!” West beckoned to the convict and he strode over through the falling snow. “I need you to stand guard here, do you understand?”
“Of course, sir.”
“I need you to stand guard here, and admit no one but me or Captain Jalenhorm. No one.” He dropped his voice lower. “Under any circumstances.”
Pike nodded, his eyes glittering in the pink mass of his face. “I understand.” And he moved to the tent flap and stood beside it, almost carelessly, his thumbs tucked into his sword belt.
A moment later a horse plunged down the slope and into the headquarters, smoke snorting from its nostrils. Its rider slid down from his saddle, stumbled a couple of steps before West managed to get in his way.
“An urgent message for Marshal Burr from General Poulder!” blathered the man in a rush. He tried to take a stride towards the tent but West did not move.
“Marshal Burr is busy. You can deliver your message to me.”
“I was explicitly told to—”
“To me, Captain!”
The man blinked. “General Poulder’s division is engaged, sir, in the woods.”
“Engaged?”
“Hotly engaged. There have been several savage attacks on the left wing and we’re hard pressed to hold our own. General Poulder requests permission to withdraw and regroup, sir, we’re all out of position!”
West swallowed. The plan was already coming unravelled, and in imminent danger of falling apart completely. “Withdraw? No!
Impossible. If he pulls back, Kroy’s division will be left exposed. Tell General Poulder to hold his ground, and to go through with the attack if he possibly can. Tell him he must not withdraw under any circumstances! Every man must do his part!”
“But, sir, I should—”
“Go!” shouted West. “At once!”
The man saluted and clambered back onto his horse. Even as he was spurring up the slope another visitor was pulling up his mount not far from the tent. West cursed under his breath. It was Colonel Felnigg, Kroy’s chief of staff. He would not be so easily put off.
“Colonel West,” he snapped as he swung down from the saddle. “Our division is fiercely engaged all across the line, and now cavalry has appeared on our right wing! A charge by cavalry against a regiment of levies!” He was already making for the tent, pulling off his gloves. “Without support they won’t hold long, and if they break, our flank will be up in the air! It could be the end! Where the hell is Poulder?”
West attempted unsuccessfully to slow Felnigg down. “General Poulder has come under attack himself. However, I will order the reserves released immediately and—”
“Not good enough,” growled Felnigg, brushing past him and striding towards the tent flap. “I must speak to Marshal Burr at—”
Pike stepped out in front of him, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword. “The Marshal… is busy,” he whispered. His eyes bulged from his burned face in a manner so horribly threatening that even West felt slightly unnerved. There was a tense silence for a moment as the staff officer and the faceless convict stared at one another.
Then Felnigg took a hesitant step back. He blinked, licked his lips nervously. “Busy. I see. Well.” He took another step away. “The reserves will be committed, you say?”
“Immediately.”
“Well then, well then… I will tell General Kroy to expect reinforcements.” Felnigg shoved one toe into his stirrup. “This is highly irregular, though.” He frowned down at the tent, at Pike, at West. “Highly irregular.” And he gave his horse the spurs and charged back down into the valley. West watched him go, thinking that Felnigg had no idea just how irregular. He turned to an adjutant.
Before They Are Hanged tfl-2 Page 56