Dark Tide: Book Five of the Phantom Badgers

by RW Krpoun

  Grand Marshal Laffery peered through the haze and cursed bitterly. “The Hand’s sill shifting troops, they’ll throw their weight against one flank, but which flank?”

  “They might hit the center, sir,” an aide ventured.

  “Not with the Legions there,” Laffery shook his head. “Much as I hate to admit it, they hold the Imperial troops in high regard, while the forces of the Realm and Arturia stand far less in their estimate. Will they risk units edging into the wall-mounted engines on the left, or try the cluttered mess of the graveyard?”

  “They’re moving, sir, all along the front,” the aide observed a minute later.

  “Of course they’re moving across the front, they have to engage our full force lest we counter-charge, but where will the real blow fall? They won’t make a head-to-head rush this time; at Mancin they wanted to push us back and test our mettle. This engagement will be out for blood.”

  “They’ve less than three to our one,” the aide pointed out. “Hardly enough for the job, really.”

  The Grand Commander reined in the angry reply; the aide was his nephew, a cultured dolt who knew little about war and less about leadership. He aped the Arturians in all things, which meant he was a vainglorious dandy who would charge into any odds without a second thought and wore a silk night-shirt when sleeping on his padded cot in a heated tent when in the field, or at least he had until the orders about transport stripped him of these comforts. “I suspect they haven't been completely forthright about their true capabilities,” he tried to keep the sneer off his face. “They might just have hidden a surprise or two out on the Plains where we couldn’t get wind of it, and brought them up while our Seers are blind.”

  “Rather unsporting, that,” his nephew observed, missing his uncle’s weary head-shake.

  Eyade and wolf-riders swirled across the advancing Hand’s front, pelting the Heartland troops with arrows and taking return fire from archers and Imperial artillery, the riders and mist helping obscure the advancing Hand infantry until they were within a hundred yards.

  “They’re coming at the left,” Laffery murmured as the lines of attackers drew closer. “Direbreed against the Legions to hold them in place, while the Dayar and Orcs hit the left; I don’t see any Human Holdings or Sacred Bands, so they must be in reserve. I believe they’ve a Lardina of Goblin foot as well, although they didn’t show at Mancin.”

  “Goblins,” his nephew sneered. “The wolf-riders and a nasty bit of work, but Goblins on foot? Really.”

  “Don’t say that too quickly; they nimble little buggers, and experts in broken field fighting...” the Grand Marshal’s voice trailed off and he turned in his saddle to stare at the great cemetery that covered his right flank. Waving a courier forward, he snapped, “My compliments to the commander of the Arturian foot, and advise him that the Hand may send Goblin foot into the graves against him. They’re slippery as eels, and used to broken terrain, so request that he take all appropriate steps. Advise him also that I’m sending him caltrops to help secure his flanks.”

  The courier repeated the message and spurred his horse away. A second courier was dispatched to the quartermaster at the baggage train to send four hundred pounds of caltrops to the Arturian foot.

  The Direbreed made contact with the center a minute later, hurling themselves upon the waiting Legions with enthusiasm; instantly the field was flooded with the sounds of heavy fighting. The blow to the left flank was lagging, however, and the Arturians to the right had not been engaged at all save by Eyade skirmishers; Laffery was gratified to see that his courier had made contact there, and that three loaded pack mules were trotting up the road towards the graveyard.

  Marshal Rhys Sorgen watched the Holdings of Dayar approach the left flank and frowned; they were half-stepping, deliberately advancing slowly, which had to be a ploy, as the Dayar were emotionless and would never slow due to reluctance or fear. Nor did they tire much, so conservation of strength could not be a factor. The Hand commanders were deliberately holding them back for a specific reason, but what that could be the Sagenhoftian commander could only guess. The foot divisions of the Lasharian, Kordian, and Ilthanian forces stood in neat ranks, ready for battle; fifty yards behind each stood the Sagenhoftian cohorts, ready to act as a reserve, and a hundred yards behind them stood the Marshal’s command, a thousand heavy house deployed in two ranks, ready to seal any breach or to ride around the flank and counter-charge should need or opportunity dictate. In all, they should be able to absorb and repulse any charge, while the artillery on the city walls of Apartia could slow and disrupt any flanking move on the Hand’s part.

  Shifting his shield on his arm, the Marshal dusted the grip of his lance with chalk-powder for a tighter grip and looked up and down the lines twenty paces behind him; all were doing the same, checking buckles, saying a prayer, talking quietly. Confidence was high, and all were eager to avenge the set-back at Mancin. Rhys had confidence in Grand Marshal Laffery; the man was a fighter, just the sort they needed to teach the Hand a new tune to dance to. The Heartland Army was as ready as it was going to be, and he knew that victory would be theirs.

  The first hint was a whistling noise heard faintly over the crash and rattle of combat coming from the center of the line where the Direbreed were testing the Legion’s mettle, a sort of wailing-air noise that Rhys had never heard before; from the turning heads, he knew that others in his command had heard it, and was about to remark on the sound to the standard bearer to his right when the form came into view through the gray veils of mist, slicing through the damp air like the largest spear ever thrown. Due to its size, it was impossible to judge the distance at first, but that was a point few considered at first sight.

  It was a dragon sweeping in diagonally over the center of the Hand army, a long limber beast fully seventy feet from its armored, vaguely horse-like nostrils to the spiked tip of its tail, its surprisingly delicate-appearing front arms folded up against its armored chest, and its rear legs clutching a long dark bundle in the manner of a falcon carrying a young rabbit. It was more than the sudden appearance of such a beast that froze every man in the cavalry in place, it was the sheer impossibility that any creature so large, so armored from nose to tail in horn-like plates, so heavy in appearance could fly, even using the vast sweeps of leathery wings jutting from either side of its back.

  Of course, from his childhood reading Rhys knew that dragons couldn’t fly, that they used a form of enchantment to hold them aloft and another to propel them, while their wings were merely for steering and speed-control; they were intelligent, speaking creatures as well, long-lived and vastly dangerous, not merely because of their size, strength, and armor (which were all three considerable), but because of a liquid they could distill within themselves to spit out upon their foes. In some dragons the liquid burned, in others it was acidic, while for still others it was a terrible venom whose touch could kill.

  Dragons were also rare, it being commonly accepted that there were between five to six hundred dragons alive in the world at any one time, and for a long, desperate moment the Marshal hoped that the beast was abroad on some errand all its own and had just come across the battlefield by chance or curiosity, as had been known to happen.

  That it was no chance encounter became painfully obvious when the beast dipped a wing and came arrow-straight at the left flank as the Dayar picked up their pace to a trot. Dragons were also greedy beasts, Rhys recalled, and some had been known to go over to the Void; this creature’s allegiance, whether permanent or temporarily, was obvious.

  As the creature swept thirty feet over the wavering ranks its head turned on its long, serpentine neck and jetted a long gout of liquid fire down the center section of the Kordian lines; fifty or more men were slain instantly, and scores more thrashed on the ground in desperate efforts to put out the flames as the uninjured broke and fled in all directions. As the dragon came over the line it released the net it was clutching in its claws, and swept dramatically upwards as t
he great weight it had been carrying left its grasp. The net, a large fishing net, opened and a dozen six-foot lengths of tree trunks tumbled out, slamming into the central ranks of the Sagenhoftian Second Cohort, each trunk leaving a bloody path of broken bones and crushed bodies behind it as it tumbled across the ground. The beast’s left wing dipped sharply, turning the creature far too nimbly for its natural size, and Rhys, staring spellbound by the horrific sight, found himself looking down the creature’s throat as its jaws opened and flaming fluid roared forth. It flashed overhead with a howl of tortured air as the ranks behind the Marshal exploded in flame and screaming men and horses, skimming a dozen feet over the marshal’s lance-point. At this close range he realized that the beast’s scales were flecked with color, that while it had appeared black at a distance, its hide was mainly dark blue with touches of red and orange, fading to a sky blue dotted with green on its belly and inner limb-sides.

  The Marshal’s horse trying hard to buck and bolt jerked him back from the awe and terror he had felt; controlling his mount took every bit of his skill for the better part of a minute, but eventually he regained control. What he saw when he was once again master of his horse was disaster and ruin: the Kordian division had broken and fled, tearing a great rent in the Heartland Army’s left flank; the Second Cohort had taken heavy losses from the logs and its survivors were likewise in full rout. His own reserve force was shattered, with perhaps twenty men and sixty horses dead or injured, and twenty times that number galloping off in every direction, leaving him with roughly half his men all intermingled, their formation lost.

  The Dayar were reaching the gap, he saw, and both the First and Third Cohorts were charging forward to try and fill the breach, but their combined numbers were roughly half of those who had fled. The Ilthanians and Lasharians were holding fast for the moment, and the Marshal knew that the battle could well be decided in the next few minutes. His standard bearer had been unhorsed, but still gripped the green banner that marked the left flank reserve; Rhys threw aside his lance and seized the banner from the dazed young man. “Go to the rear and find a mount,” he shouted, turning his horse to race along the line. “Horsemen, to me, to me! Form line, prepare to charge! Our time has come, we must close the breach! Heartland, to me, to me!” He slammed the standard into the turf and caught up a lance that had been jammed point-first into the ground by an unseated rider. “Form on the standard, double line. For the Realms, for Sagenhoft, Ilthan, and Kordia, form!”

  Slowly at first, and then with increasing speed the remaining cavalry spurred their mounts into position, hopelessly intermingled, but still game, although at least a hundred slipped away in the confusion, their spirits broken.

  Laffery pounded the front horn of his saddle, cursing; the dragon had dispersed the left flank’s horse, then swept in and given the Grand Reserve a long blast of flame that had left at least a hundred dead and the rest stampeding in panic; even the Imperial cavalry fared no better in the face of such horror. The dragon then dropped its right wing and veered back over the Heartland Army’s line and whipped off into the mist, flying through a cloud of arrows, quarrels, and various harmful spells that battered at its wings and body in flashes of lighting, bursts of flames, and eruptions of colored lights. It screamed once, whether from pain or triumph the Grand Marshal could not say, but he could care less.

  “Courier to me,” he kept control of his voice by sheer force of will. “My compliments to Duke Radet, and, good he’s moving, yes, my compliments and ask that the Duke direct his entire force to the left flank.” The Arturian horse were already moving at a walk towards the left flank, travelling at a walk to conserve their laden mounts for the charge, but the order would be a polite touch and recognition of the Duke’s willingness to help. “Courier to me; my compliments to Lord General von der Strieb; ask him to send at least two cohorts, or three if he can spare them, to the left flank at the double to restore the line.” He turned to his staff officers. “Who here has good knowledge of dragons? Well, sir, how much fire should it have after that display? None? Pray the Eight you are correct, sir, and that the blasted thing was injured sufficiently to forestall it lugging any nets of logs about.”

  Turning back to the left flank he could see that the Dayar were forcing the Sagenhoftian cohorts back, widening the gap they had been unable to close. The Sagenhoftian Marshal, Rhys Sorgen, had, unbelievably, reformed part of his command into a double rank and was advancing at a walk towards the breach; Laffery shook his head in wonder. The Baron of Kordia was either dead or had fled, and the Grand Reserve was gone, but the Marshal was still game for a try, and had between three and four hundred men who were likewise inclined. “Courier, to me.”

  Durek joined the Duke as the ragged line of horsemen moved from the trot into a full charge and plowed into the Dayar with a shock that could plainly be heard half-way across the battlefield. The lances were immediately discarded for axes and maces which, when wielded from a heavy war horse’s back, were terribly effective against the Dayar. There were not enough horsemen to close the breach or push back the mass of Dayar, but they slowed the penetration to a trickle as three Imperial Cohorts marched double-quick towards the left and the Arturian horse rolled across the rear of the army.

  “You sent for me, sir?” The Dwarf saluted with a chest-thump.

  “Yes, Captain Durek, isn’t it?” The slender, gray-haired nobleman kept his eyes on the seething mass of Men and Undead where his younger brother fought. “Grand Marshal Laffery has sent to me asking that I constitute as much of a reserve as I can with what is to hand and stand ready to support the right flank as infantry. I will lead one half of my Lifeguards in such a role while the remainder takes my court and family to safety. Will your Company join me in this endeavor?”

  Durek saluted again. “By your command.”

  “Very good, Captain, very good indeed. We shall number less than two hundred all told, but the spirit makes a considerable difference, does it not? In any case, the Grand Marshal has staff officers out rounding up both foot and horse from the units which broke, and I hope we soon will have a considerable number to add to our array. We shall depart as soon as I have organized my partition of the Lifeguards.”

  Lady Eithne shouted farewells to her friends in the Badgers as the two forces parted ways; the little reserve force, the Badgers and sixty Lifeguards in half plate, marched to the southern edge of the Great Fallow and stood ready.

  On the left flank the Dayar and Orcs had been checked, but not stopped, by the Marshal’s daring charge; the delay did allow the three Imperial cohorts to form a line at right angles to left flank of the Lasharian division, the Sagenhoftian Third cohort falling in with the Imperial troops, thus protecting the rear of the main body of the Army. The First cohort and the Ilthanian division formed a curved line as they backed towards Apartia, allowing the breach to open wider, but there was no helping it. The survivors of the Marshal’s charge fell back with them. A few minutes later the three Arturian cavalry divisions moved around the angled line and charged the Dayar and Orcs trying to flank the Legions, a thousand horsemen deployed stirrup-to-stirrup in two ranks.

  The shock of the charge could be felt even at the Great Fallow; the Arturians drove deep into the foe, trampling scores and cutting down scores more. Like the Marshal before them they were too few and the gap in the line too great: they checked the foe, and allowed the Imperial and Sagenhoftian cohorts to swing their line forward as the Ilthanians and the First cohort drove back as well, but when the cavalrymen fell back to reform the left flank was still broken.

  “What can you see?” Kroh asked Rolf, who was standing on the tallest point of the crumbling wall.

  “The Legions are sending another cohort to the left, and the Arturians are advancing at a trot again. There looks like some horsemen forming up near the Grand Marshal’s position, I see the Baron of Kordia’s standard amongst them.”

  “Rallying the Grand Reserve,” the Dwarf rumbled around his cigar. “How ma
ny?”

  “Less than a hundred so far. Oh-oh.”

  “What?”

  “The Hand is moving on the right, looks like a Lardina of Goblin foot followed by at least one Holding of Human troops.”

  “Right, that’s it, get off the wall and back into ranks,” the Waybrother stubbed out his cigar. “We’re going into action.”

  “And what do you base that opinion upon?” Starr asked a bit archly.

  “The Legions only have one cohort in reserve, plus us and what they’re scraping up from the Grand Reserve; everything else is scattered or committed to the left. Now it’s time to hit and pin the right, and then send Eyade and wolf-riders in a long loop around this bone-yard to hit the Heartland army in the rear. Our necks are in the noose and they’re about to pull it up sharp.” He hefted his axe, grinning. “The fight will get interesting, now.”

  Grand Marshal Laffery beckoned for a courier. “My compliments to Lord General von der Strieb; ask him to move his last reserve cohort to a position behind the Great Fallow where it can act as a block to any flanking cavalry.” He turned to the battered Baron of Kordia, who had been unhorsed during the dragon’s attack and who had suffered a broken left arm after having been accidently run down while trying to rally his fleeing men. “How many in the ranks, sir?”

  The noble, his arm strapped across his armored stomach, grinned painfully. “Near to two hundred of my horsemen, and about half that number of Imperial cavalry so far, with more coming up in ones and twos.”

  “That’s not enough,” Laffery shook his head as the right wing took the impact of the Goblin-charge. “Take half my couriers, all my staff officers, and all but ten of my personal guard; that will give you nearly two hundred more. You’ll be seeing action soon, as they can’t seem to restore the left and I expect the right to be hard pressed soon. Stand ready for my command.” He turned and stared grimly out across the field as his command group moved away. His left was broken, and his right would be giving way in not very many minutes, if he didn’t miss his guess; once again, it was time for the hard decision.