The Rise of Nagash

by Mike Lee

  “Perhaps they are hidden in the mists surrounding the fountains,” he suggested.

  “Perhaps,” Rakh-amn-hotep agreed. “At Zedri, he revealed himself only when his army was on the verge of defeat. It’s possible that he thinks he can carry this battle on the strength of his army alone.” The king folded his arms and scowled at the enemy troops.

  “No. There’s more to it than that. Something is wrong here, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

  Hekhmenukep joined the Rasetran king at the rail and spent several long moments surveying the broken plain. Finally he said, “Where are the bodies?”

  “Bodies?”

  The Lybaran king indicated the plain with a sweep of his hand, and said, “This is where you fought the enemy vanguard yesterday, correct? You told me that there were hundreds of dead from both sides.”

  “More on their side than ours,” Rakh-amn-hotep interjected.

  “But what happened to the bodies?” the Lybaran asked. “The plain should be covered in bloating corpses and flocks of vultures, but there’s nothing there.” Rakh-amn-hotep considered this.

  “That’s it,” he said at last. “Yes, it must be! Nagash used his damnable sorcery to animate the dead and…” He swept his gaze across the battlefield, looking for clues. “He could have marched them into the mists to conceal them as a reserve force.”

  “Why not simply bury them in the ground where they fell?” Hekhmenukep suggested. “Then they could spring up behind us as our companies advanced.”

  The Rasettan king shook his head, and said, “The ground is too rocky to allow it, and we’d see the churned ground from here besides.” Once again, he studied the enemy’s dispositions. “The enemy has reinforced its lines in the centre and on their right, leaving the left flank relatively weak. They want us to throw our weight against the left, drawing us forwards as their companies retreat, and then counter-charge with their heavy cavalry to stop us in our tracks. That leaves us overextended and weak on their right flank, ripe for a counter-attack from the south.” Rakh-amn-hotep pointed off into the dunes beyond the enemy’s right flank. “The dead are waiting out there in the sands,” he declared. “That’s what Nagash is planning. I’d wager my life on it.”

  Hekhmenukep considered this, before saying, “I can’t fault your reasoning, but how do we counter it?”

  “We shift the bulk of our reserves to the south,” the Rasetran king ordered. “Alert the commanders to watch for counter-attacks. Then we see about turning the tables on the Usurper’s forces to the north.”

  Rakh-amn-hotep began to issue instructions to the waiting Lybaran signallers, his commands growing swifter and more assured as the pieces of his battle-plan fell neatly into place. Within minutes the signal-men were at work, flashing messages to the troops on the ground, and the Rasetran king grinned fiercely as the allied army went into action.

  Even with the wonders of the Lybaran sun-signals, rearranging the dispositions of the allied army took up much of the morning. Huge clouds of dust churned above the plain, masking the movements of the allied companies as they headed to their new positions. Other than a few desultory probes from enemy light horsemen to the south, the Usurper’s army made no move to interfere with the allies’ manoeuvres.

  Rakh-amn-hotep sipped watered wine from a golden goblet as the army completed its final adjustments along the great plain. Hekhmenukep waited alongside the Rasetran, contemplating the waiting enemy forces.

  “Four hours, and they’ve barely moved,” he said. “It’s as though we don’t matter to them at all.”

  “Oh, we matter,” Rakh-amn-hotep said, “but it doesn’t profit them to come out and challenge us. Remember Nemuhareb’s mistake at the Gates of the Dawn? He could have sat and defended the fortifications at the gates and probably driven us back, but his pride got the better of him. Nagash knows that time is on his side. He’s got the fountains at his back. All he has to do is hold us at bay, and the heat will do his work for him.” The Rasetran took another sip of wine. “That’s why we have to risk everything on one, fierce assault,” he said. “We break through his lines with our first attempt, or probably not at all. Each successive attack will be weaker than the one before.”

  A signaller on the starboard rail flashed an acknowledgement to the forces on the ground. The nobleman in charge of the team strode quickly to the waiting kings and bowed deeply, before saying, “All is in readiness, great ones.”

  Rakh-amn-hotep nodded.

  “Very well,” he said, and smiled at Hekhmenukep. “Time to roll the dice,” he said, turning to the signaller. “Send the order to begin the advance.”

  The command was passed among the men, and within moments all of the bronze discs were flashing the signal in hot bursts of light. The kings heard the wail of war-horns on the plain below, and with a muted roar the vast battleline of the eastern armies began their attack.

  Rakh-amn-hotep had shifted the entire weight of the allied infantry southwards, arraying them against the centre and right flank of the Usurper’s host. Ten thousand Rasetran warriors marched in the front ranks, striding shoulder-to-shoulder with their broad wooden shields raised before them. Their dark faces were painted in vivid streaks of yellow, red and white, in the manner of the barbaric lizardmen, and fetishes of feathers and bone joints were bound to the heads of their stone maces. At the rear of each company marched groups of Rasetran archers, clad in heavy, ankle-length coats of lizard hide. Each archer had a slave who paced alongside him, carrying bundles of bronze-tipped arrows so that the bowmen could draw and fire on the move.

  Smaller companies of Lybaran light infantry marched behind the Rasetrans, armed with heavy swords and hatchets. They advanced close behind the heavy infantry, like jackals pacing behind a pride of desert lions. Their task was not to confront living foes, but to wield their blades against the bodies of fallen warriors, both allied and friendly, who were left in the wake of the army’s advance. Still farther east, the infantry reserves of the army were arrayed in a crescent covering the advancing army’s southern flank, watching for signs of a surprise attack from the dunes.

  As the battlelines advanced, the Lybaran catapults went into action, sending rounded stones the size of wagon wheels arcing over the heads of the allied troops. The projectiles ploughed into the packed ranks of the enemy infantry, crashing everything in their path amid sprays of splintered wood, flesh and bone. The screams of wounded and dying men rose above the muted tramp of marching feet.

  When the allied companies were two hundred yards from their foes, the feared Zandri archers drew back their bows and darkened the skies with volley after volley of arrows. Bronze arrowheads crackled against the shields of the Rasetran infantry, or buried deep into their thick, scaly coats. Here and there a warrior fell as a reed shaft found its way through a chink in their heavy armour, but soon the Rasetran archers were returning fire against the Zandri bowmen, and the intensity of the enemy fire began to subside.

  The enemy archers gave ground before the advancing allied host, continuing to fire until they had exhausted their small store of arrows. Then they retreated behind the safety of their battered infantry companies. The Rasetrans continued their slow, steady advance, conserving their strength in the blistering heat, until the two armies came together in a slow, grinding crash of arms and armour. The enemy infantry met the allied warriors shield-to-shield, jabbing at their foes with long, darting spears, while the Rasetrans hammered away at the lightly armoured troops with their brutal stone-headed weapons.

  The hard-bitten jungle warriors sowed terrible carnage among their less-skilled foes, their armour shrugging off all but the strongest blows. The enemy line bowed beneath the onslaught, but before long the heavy infantry began to tire beneath the weight of their gear and the heat of the sun, and the advance began to falter. Enemy reserves streamed to the centre and right, shoring up the Usurper’s battleline.

  “The advance is faltering,” Hekhmenukep said. “Your men can’t keep this up for mu
ch longer.”

  Rakh-amn-hotep rested his hands against the rail of the sky-ship and nodded. He could clearly see that the push on the centre and the enemy right could not succeed, for the heavy infantry was trying to force its way into a veritable sea of enemy troops. The attack had done its job, however, drawing off much of the Usurper’s reserve troops, leaving the enemy left flank even more vulnerable than before. The enemy commanders on the ground could not see the concentrations of the opposing armies as he could, and, with the advantage of his god-like vantage point, he knew exactly where and when to strike. Had his foe been anyone else, the Rasetran king might have pitied him.

  “Any sign of attack from the south?” he asked.

  Hekhmenukep shook his head, saying, “Nothing yet.”

  “Then they’ve waited too long,” Rakh-amn-hotep said. Satisfied, he turned to the signallers. “Signal for the attack on the enemy left to commence.”

  Down on the battlefield, the Lybaran scholar-priests read the winking signals and raised their hands to the towering figures before them. Singing incantations and carefully worded commands, they unleashed their charges upon the enemy line.

  Timbers creaked and giant mechanisms rattled and groaned as the six giant war machines lumbered forwards against the enemy’s left flank. Packs of huge lizardmen and their lumbering war beasts loped in their wake, filling the air with furious shouts and ululating war cries.

  The skirmish line of enemy archers faltered at the sight of the advancing war machines, and when the first volley of arrows clattered harmlessly against their wood and bronze frames, the bowmen beat a hasty retreat behind the dubious safety of their spearmen. The Khemri infantry held its ground as the giant engines approached, perhaps trusting in their Eternal King to deliver them.

  The giants covered the intervening distance in a few dozen strides and waded into the packed warriors, hurling broken, screaming bodies skywards with every sweep of their legs. Their huge maces swept down like pendulums, carving bloody swathes through the press. Frantic, screaming warriors hurled themselves at the giants, stabbing their spears into the joints between the engines’ heavy plates, but their weapons could not penetrate deep enough to hit their vulnerable joints. The war machines never slowed, driving steadily deeper through the shattered enemy companies, and into the deep, bloody furrows ploughed by their feet came the wild lizardmen, who fell upon the stunned warriors with their savage, stone-tipped mauls.

  Panic raced like a sandstorm through the enemy’s left flank, and the Usurper’s broken line reeled backwards in the face of the overwhelming assault. As the Khemri champions tried to re-form their retreating companies the ground beneath them exploded in a shower of rock and churned sand as the Lybaran war scorpions sprang their ambush. Terrified warriors were chopped to pieces by bronze-edged pincers or crushed to pulp by the scorpions’ lashing stingers. Within the space of a few minutes, organised resistance collapsed as the Khemri spearmen lost their courage and fled westwards.

  As the enemy’s left flank collapsed, receding from the giants in a swift-flowing tide, the air overhead was rent with unearthly shrieks and arcs of flickering green flame that rose from catapults concealed in the mist to the rear of the enemy host. Clusters of enchanted, screaming skulls rained down upon the striding giants, shattering against their wood-and-bronze plates in bursts of sorcerous fire. Within moments, two of the huge machines were wreathed in flames as burning fragments found their way through gaps in their armoured plates and ignited their vulnerable skeletons. Their advance slowed as the building heat softened their bronze gear wheels and ate at their bones. Thick copper cables snapped under the building stress, lashing like giant whips and bursting the engines apart from within. A giant with the jackal-headed visage of Djaf died first, blowing apart in a shower of jagged metal and splintered wood as its steam vessel burst in a thunderous explosion. A falcon-headed giant fell next as its bronze knee joints broke apart, toppling the machine forwards onto a dozen retreating Khemri spearmen. Horrified, the Lybaran priests chanted frantically to their war machines, commanding them to withdraw, but not before two more of the giants were struck multiple times and set on fire.

  Devastating though the barrage was, it was not enough. As the last two surviving giants withdrew, the lizardman auxiliaries pressed their attack amid the lashing war scorpions, and the enemy’s left flank continued to disintegrate. Farther west, trumpets sounded as the Numasi heavy horse were ordered into action to try to save the day.

  Hekhmenukep uttered a stream of vicious curses as the fourth giant shuddered to a stop and blew apart, showering the battlefield with fragments of molten metal.

  “I told you they weren’t suited for this kind of battle!” he said in dismay. “The giants were meant as siege weapons, to break down the city walls once we reached Khemri!”

  “If we break the Usurper’s army here, a siege will be unnecessary,” Rakh-amn-hotep snapped. “Your machines served us well. The enemy flank is shattered, and victory is within our grasp.” The Rasetran king pointed westward. “Unleash your sky-boats on the enemy’s catapults and take your revenge, Hekhmenukep. It’s time to strike the killing blow.” With that, he turned to the signallers and began issuing a third string of orders to the troops on the ground.

  The King of Lybaras shook his head sadly at the burning wreckage littering the battlefield to the north-west.

  “Such a terrible waste,” he said, watching decades of labour turn to ash before his eyes.

  The Numasi horsemen knew that something had gone terribly wrong by the frantic sound of the trumpets calling them to battle. Spurring their horses, they crested the ridge to the east and saw devastation and disaster unfolding before them. Undaunted, they closed ranks and charged into the teeth of the enemy advance.

  Eight thousand of the finest heavy cavalry in Nehekhara swept down upon the marauding lizardmen, their spear points glittering balefully in the noonday sun. Like an avalanche of flesh and bronze they bore down on the howling barbarians, until the last moment, when the galloping horses caught the acrid stink of the lizardmen and recoiled in confusion and fright. Horsemen cursed and fought their suddenly panicked mounts, and chaos spread through the cavalry’s ordered ranks just as the charge crashed home.

  Huge lizardmen were dashed to the ground, impaled on spear points or trampled by frenzied horses. Some of the barbarians pulled the screaming animals down with them, their reptilian jaws clamped around the horses’ necks. Men were smashed from their saddles by stone mauls or dragged to the ground by powerful, clawed hands. The huge thunder lizards bellowed and lashed at the cavalrymen with their massive tails, crushing man and horse alike.

  Like two maddened beasts, the formations tore at one another in a wild, swirling melee. The lizardmen and their war beasts were individually more powerful and resilient, but they were also vastly outnumbered. The master horsemen of Numas quickly regained control of their mounts and pressed their advantage against the barbarians, using the speed of their horses to launch coordinated attacks against their slower foes. One after another, the barbarians sank to the ground, their thick hide pierced by dozens of spears.

  Tormented past endurance by the spears of the horsemen, one of the thunder lizards let out a panicked roar and turned tail, thundering back the way it had come. Herd beasts at heart, the rest of the massive creatures followed suit, chasing after their retreating cousin. The Numasi cavalry, severely mauled by the fight, staggered to a halt and tried to re-order their scattered formation, until an ominous rumble to the east warned them of impending doom.

  The Rasetran chariots, two thousand strong, rumbled across the plain at the spent Numasi horsemen. Arrows fell among the exhausted heavy cavalrymen, pitching warriors from their saddles and killing horses. Filled with dread, their commanders ordered the cavalry to withdraw in the face of the onrushing chariots in the hope of buying time to organise a countercharge, but in short order the withdrawal turned into a full retreat as the decimated warriors lost their courage in th
e face of the enemy’s relentless advance.

  Behind the charging Rasetran chariots, five thousand Lybaran and Rasetran heavy cavalry raced across the plain and turned southwards, driving into the enemy’s centre. Struck in the flank by the massed cavalry charge, the enemy companies wavered, and then broke. Trumpets signalled frantically from the rear of the Usurper’s army, and the remaining reserves rushed forwards to form a rearguard and cover the army’s retreat. Overhead, the sky-boats of Lybaras glided past the fleeing enemy troops, heading for the Usurper’s catapults. As they passed above the siege engines, warriors hurled baskets full of stones and sharp pieces of metal over the side, raining destruction down upon the war machines. Panicked by the sudden, deadly rain, the catapult crews broke and ran, fleeing into the concealing mists of the fountains.

  Across the plain, the armies of the east raised their bloodied weapons and cheered, shouting the names of their gods into the pale blue sky. Behind the exhausted heavy infantry, the warriors of Lybaras continued their grim work, plying their heavy blades across a vast field littered with the bodies of the dead.

  Cheers resounded from the decks of the sky-boat as the enemy’s beleaguered rearguard withdrew under a steady hail of arrow fire into the fountains’ concealing mists. Hekhmenukep turned to his ally and bowed in admiration.

  “The victory is ours, Rakh-amn-hotep,” he said. “Your strategy was without flaw.”

  The Rasetran king shrugged. “Who couldn’t triumph with machines such as this at their command?” he said, rapping a knuckle against the rail of the floating vessel. “I could see the enemy’s every move laid out before me, as if I was playing a game of Princes and Kings. Perhaps we’ve found the answer to Nagash’s vile sorcery at long last.”