So far, the enemy had provided him with a solid alliance with Eshreegar, and bloody humiliation for Clan Morbus. That would keep Hiirc and his minders in check for the foreseeable future.
A pair of slaves scuttled up onto the dais, carrying a large, rolled parchment between them. Eekrit smiled to himself as they unrolled the map at his feet.
Yes, the warlord thought. This might actually turn out better than he’d hoped.
Resistance increased steadily the deeper Nagash’s forces went. The ratmen holding the lower mine shafts were fresher and forewarned of the counter-attack by streams of fleeing survivors from the upper levels. Nagash’s warriors began to encounter more prepared defences and formed companies of warriors holding key tunnel junctions leading to the lower shafts.
Nagash drove his troops remorselessly forwards, determined to cleanse Nagashizzar of the invaders. When his companies encountered heavy resistance, he simply ground the ratmen down; gladly trading one of his warriors for one of theirs, until finally the creatures broke and ran. He had fewer of the Yaghur to call upon now; most of the surviving flesh-eaters were either too gorged or too exhausted to be much use. So far, the northmen had successfully held the ends of the mine shafts so that the retreating ratmen couldn’t escape the necromancer’s trap. With almost half of the mountain’s mine shafts back in his hands, he had a sizeable reserve force of living infantry to call upon, but he was loath to trust them unless he absolutely had to.
What troubled Nagash was that he hadn’t yet plumbed the depths of the enemy force. Every army had its breaking point, he knew; an invisible line where its leaders knew that they’d given all they had and it was time to pull back or risk destruction. Gauging an enemy’s breaking point was a fine art, one that separated competent generals from great ones. Nagash knew without doubt that he was a great leader, but this subterranean battlefield offered him no clues as to the dispositions of his foe.
Though he had a god’s-eye view of the battlefield from his own troops’ perspective, he had no idea what the ratmen had waiting for him around the next bend in the tunnel. He’d expected fierce resistance in the upper levels of the mountain, then less organised resistance as he broke through the enemy’s front line and encountered his reserves. But there didn’t seem to be a front line that he could discern, not in the manner of a traditional field battle. This was an entirely different style of warfare—one that he began to suspect the ratmen were better capable of fighting than he was. They certainly seemed to know the layout of the lower tunnels as well as he did, which led him to wonder just how long they’d been hiding down there, biding their time until they chose to strike.
Hours passed and the fighting wore on. Nagash breached one defensive line after another. Now more than three-quarters of the way through the lower levels of the fortress, his troops had reclaimed all but a handful of the newest, deepest—and therefore richest—mine shafts. The enemy resistance grew clever and more determined. His lead packs of flesh-eaters were lured into five separate ambushes and badly mauled by dark-robed rat-creatures wielding knives and razor-edged obsidian darts, then a company of ratmen attempted to launch an attack at his flank through a network of half-finished tunnels. Or they had been half-finished, the last time he’d turned his attention to that part of the under-mountain. It appeared that the invaders had actually spent some time and effort in expanding the tunnels, displaying a kind of instinctive engineering skill that such monsters had no right to possess.
The advance began to lose momentum against a seemingly endless tide of screeching, furry bodies. His skeletons were within a few hundred yards of the next mine shaft, but no matter how many of the creatures his warriors killed, it seemed like three more sprang up to take their places. The necromancer’s anger grew. For the first time, he regretted not entering the battle himself—but in the close confines of the tunnels, his sorcery would only be effective on localised portions of the battle. And as it stood now, he was literally miles from the front lines, with no swift way to reach the centre of the action.
Nagash leaned back against his throne and once again considered summoning the northmen. A flanking attack down the mouth of the lower mine shafts could well tip the balance… but then he remembered the steady look of defiance on Akatha’s face, and his paranoia asserted itself once more.
He redoubled his attack on the rat-creatures, fuelling the lead companies with still more sorcerous power. The invaders had to be near the limits of their strength, he told himself. They had to be.
The counter-attack couldn’t keep going much longer, Eekrit told himself. There had to be an end to the damned skeletons, sooner or later.
Hopefully sooner, the warlord thought nervously as he studied Eshreegar’s map. The fighting was now less than five levels away. He fancied that if he opened his ears fully he could hear the faint sounds of battle, though he knew that it was just his imagination.
At least with the battle close at hand he had a better idea of how things were progressing. A steady stream of messengers were running to the front lines and making it back to report within minutes. He doubted the master of the damned skeletons had half so good a picture of the battlefield as he did.
The enemy had pushed his clanrats nearly all the way back to the caverns where they’d started from. At last count, he had only five mine shafts still in his possession, and one of those was about to fall. If he didn’t manage to turn things around very quickly, he might as well ask Eshreegar to put a poisoned knife between his eyes. Better that than report his defeat to the Council.
The warlord turned to the Master of Treacheries. The counter-move had been Eshreegar’s idea; no doubt if it succeeded, he would try to use it to balance his utter failure to determine the actual size of the enemy force. Unfortunately for him, Eekrit was increasingly certain that the revised estimate of five or six thousand skeletons was still woefully inadequate—not to mention the reports of howling, ogre-like creatures that seemed to accompany the skeletal spear companies like packs of jackals. When all this was over, Eshreegar would have a great deal of explaining to do, Eekrit thought.
“What are the reports from the slaves?” he asked.
Eshreegar paused for a whispered query to one of his scouts. With a curt nod, he turned back to Eekrit. “All is in readiness,” he replied.
Eekrit gave the map one last look and then reached his decision. It was now or never.
“Send word to Clan Snagrit,” he ordered. “Begin the retreat.”
The change in the tempo of the fighting was palpable. For more than an hour, the ratmen had been fighting tooth and nail—sometimes literally—to keep the skeletons from forcing their way into the next mine shaft. The branch-tunnels were choked with pieces of bone and heaps of furry bodies, and no matter how hard Nagash pushed his troops, the advance ground inexorably to a halt.
Both sides hammered at one another without pause, until the course of the battle was measured in mere feet gained or lost. And then, slowly but surely, the pressure against the skeletons began to ebb. First the ratmen were pushing hard against the skeletons, trying to drive them back; then their momentum dwindled until they were at a virtual standstill. It was only minutes later, when the invaders actually began to retreat back the way they’d come, that Nagash began to suspect that the ratmen had finally reached their breaking point.
The invaders withdrew quickly, but in fairly good order, careful not to create any gaps that Nagash could turn to his advantage. That convinced him the retreat wasn’t a feint; had they been trying to lure him into an ambush, he would have expected to see a tantalising gap open in their lines to lure him into a killing zone. Sensing that the endgame was near, Nagash drove his companies forwards all the harder, pressing the enemy across the entire front in hopes of creating so much strain that it finally shattered. Then the slaughter would well and truly begin.
Nagash’s companies reclaimed yet another mine shaft. There were only four left in enemy hands, the excavations begun so recently that they
had yet to commence full operation—in fact, the mine shafts themselves had yet to be extended all the way to the surface of the mountainside. This served to limit the avenues of approach and channel the retreating invaders into fewer and fewer tunnels, which in turn permitted Nagash to focus his battered forces into larger, more powerful columns. The exhausted ratmen would have no reprieve as the undead warriors chased them inexorably into the deeps.
Level by level, the skeletal companies drove the ratmen back. From time to time, the enemy lines would halt and resistance would stiffen, but never for more than a few minutes at a time. Nagash’s certainty grew: clearly the enemy’s troops were exhausted and they had no reserves to call upon. Sooner or later, the leader of the ratmen would be forced to either sacrifice a rearguard so the rest of his army could escape, or else find a place to make a doomed, final stand.
Within an hour, Nagash’s troops were closing in on the next mine shaft. Here the chambers and passageways were rudimentary in the extreme. Nagash’s past philosophy of expansion was predicated on one thing only; access to the mountain’s deposits of burning stone. His labourers first created exploratory tunnels to locate sources of abn-i-khat, then created galleries and chambers around the tunnels in anticipation of mine work to come. The necromancer knew that there were numerous natural tunnels and caverns throughout the lowest levels, as well as half-finished spaces that the enemy had been using for some time. If the ratmen hoped to outflank him through one of these natural approaches, he would be ready for them.
The spear companies reached the branch-tunnels leading into the fourth mine shaft and pressed onwards, forcing the ratmen back into the wide, echoing tunnel. The invaders continued to fall back across the dimly lit mine shaft—and then halted with their backs to the branch-tunnels at the far side. The loathsome creatures stood shoulder to shoulder, brandishing their weapons and snarling defiantly at the advancing skeletons.
Nagash smiled, already anticipating the final battle. He poured troops into the mine shaft, taking full advantage of the space to bring his greater numbers to bear against the enemy. No matter how fierce the ratmen thought they were, the fight would be a short one.
The two sides came together, not with a flurry of war-horns and the thunder of charging feet, but with a dreadful, appalling slowness. The ratmen watched the thicket of spears press in about them, one slow, implacable step at a time. Many became unnerved by the warriors’ soulless advance, but there was nowhere left to run. Their angry snarls turned to panicked whimpers, then to shouts and screeches of terror as the bronze spear-points closed in.
In seconds, the screams and shouts of the living were drowned by the rising clatter of metal and wood, as swords and axes beat against spear-shafts and the rims of bronze-edged shields. Ratmen fell, pierced through the neck and chest, their blood slicking the stones. Bones cracked like brittle branches. The invaders had already learned to focus their attacks against the legs of the undead warriors; they toppled to the tunnel floor, rendering their spears all but useless and hindering the advance of the troops behind them.
More of the ratmen threw themselves desperately at Nagash’s host. They came rushing through narrow passageways and rough-hewn tunnels, probing for a way to reach the army’s flanks, but in each case their path was blocked by a phalanx of skeletal troops. Soon, Nagash knew, the ratmen would realise that there was nowhere left to turn and that defeat was imminent.
The enemy fought hard, matching Nagash’s troops blow for blow. The battle raged across a two-hundred-yard length of mine shaft and at a score of smaller side-tunnels to either flank. The ebb and flow of the fighting absorbed the necromancer’s full attention—so much so that by the time he saw the ratmen’s trap, it was already too late.
To either flank of the undead advance, and a full two levels behind the front rank of the army, rough stone walls burst apart under the frantic claws of digging ratmen. Years before, the invaders had begun expanding side-tunnels in anticipation of their own mining operations in the depths of the mountain. Now their tunnelling masters skilfully turned those unfinished passageways to deadly knives aimed at the centre of the skeletal horde.
The ratmen broke through into the flanks of Nagash’s forces at almost a dozen points. Whips cracked and a storm of snarling, snapping rat slaves tore into the packed ranks of skeletal warriors. Armed with picks, shovels, heavy rocks and bare paws, the slaves rushed in low, tearing at the skeletons’ legs and lower spines. The skeletons, packed tightly into the narrow tunnels, couldn’t bring their weapons to bear against the sudden onslaught and losses began to mount.
The first indication Nagash had of trouble was a sudden surge in ferocity from the ratmen inside the mine shaft. Where moments before the invaders seemed to be locked in a last, desperate stand, now they pushed forwards against the undead ranks with steadily mounting fervour. With sheer, bloody-minded ferocity the ratmen began to drive wedges into the skeletal companies. They scrambled over heaps of their fallen kin, their feet and legs coated in crushed bone and gore, and began hacking at every bony limb they could reach. Skeletons collapsed by the score and were crushed underfoot as the ratmen carved deeper and deeper into the enemy ranks.
What shocked Nagash more than the wild counter-assault wasn’t the attack itself, as much as the waves of attackers that came pouring out of the tunnels and into the mine shaft. These warriors weren’t the exhausted, desperate creatures he’d expected; they were fresh troops, well armed and eager for a fight.
For just a moment, the necromancer was incredulous. Somehow, somewhere, he had made a miscalculation.
Thinking swiftly, he ordered his troops to redouble their efforts, determined to swallow up the enemy’s counter-attack and smother it by sheer weight of numbers.
Nagash’s awareness swept backwards, along the arteries that supplied his advance. It was then he saw the enemy’s flanking attack and realised how he had been duped. The sheer scale and complexity of the ambush had been greater than anything he’d imagined his foes to be capable of. Worse, their numbers seemed endless.
The enemy had chosen to face his troops inside the mine shaft for the very reason that it would draw in as many of Nagash’s warriors as possible. The branch-tunnels created choke points both into and out of the long tunnel, and now the pincers of the enemy’s flanking movement had effectively cut them off from reinforcement. That left fully a third of his army isolated, and the rest strung out along miles of connecting tunnels where they couldn’t bring their full strength to bear.
As Nagash watched, the enemy’s flank attacks poured warriors into the tunnels in staggering numbers. They fought down the connecting tunnels in both directions, tightening the noose around the skeletons trapped inside the mine shaft. Immediately, Nagash ordered skeletons from the upper levels to push forwards, trying to batter their way through the enemy positions and link back up with the front lines, but he could already sense the tide of battle starting to flow away from him once more. After another moment’s hesitation, he came to a galling decision.
The necromancer broadcast his orders to the horde. Within the mine shaft, half of the warriors formed a rearguard to hold the attacking ratmen at bay, while the rest began to withdraw back down the branch-tunnels towards the enemy’s flanking units. He had to salvage what forces he could and form a defensive line until he knew the full extent of his enemy’s dispositions.
It took almost three hours for his warriors to fight their way out of the trap. The enemy’s flanking attacks were finally driven back, but not before the skeletal rearguard had been overwhelmed. The ratmen surged forwards, scrambling over heaps of shattered bones, and harried the withdrawing skeletons until they fetched up against fortified defensive positions three levels above. The invaders hurled themselves at the fortifications three times, only to be repulsed with heavy losses. After the third attack, the survivors paused, muttering and snarling to one another as they considered their next move. Nagash used the time to further reinforce his lines and prepare for mor
e flanking attacks, but after half an hour the invaders slowly withdrew to their own hastily-formed lines.
The first battle of Nagashizzar had reached its bloody, inconclusive end.
—
Manifest Destinies
Lahmia, the City of the Dawn, in the 97th year of Djaf the Terrible
(-1320 Imperial Reckoning)
Old Jabari grinned and picked up the wooden cup with one gnarled hand. He gave it a good shake, rattling the ivory dice inside. Alcadizzar had learned to hate that sound.
The scarred Rasetran bent forwards and squinted into the depths of the cup. “Hmm,” he said cheerfully. “Interesting.”
Alcadizzar folded his arms, glaring at the dispositions of his army. Four spear companies were arrayed in a slightly curving line before the oasis, their left flank anchored by the ruins of the old caravan post, their right covered by his chariots, situated on a low dune to the south-east. His archers still held the caravan post, despite repeated attacks by enemy skirmishers. The survivors of the last attack had retreated to the edge of a dune to the north-west, where it looked like they might be re-forming for another attack. In the centre, his companies were hard-pressed by enemy infantry, and his fourth company was on the verge of breaking. His reserves—a single company of spearmen—waited in the shade of the palm trees surrounding the oasis. He hesitated on committing them just yet, for the enemy cavalry had yet to make an appearance.
Jabari set the cup aside and plucked a wooden figure from the tray at his side. “There’s a thundering of hooves off to your left!” the tutor declared. “Bronze glints in the noonday sun! There are shouts and confused cries from the ruins!” The Rasetran leaned across the wide sand table and placed the elegantly carved figure of a mounted horseman on Alcadizzar’s flank—behind the ruins of the caravan post.
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