The Ancient Enemy

by Christopher Rowley

  Burok was cursing Rukkh's sodomistic parentage for letting the lines bunch. Then a stone struck Burok on the helmet with a loud clang and he pitched facefirst into the mud. The monkeys were pressing them. More spears were thrusting and jabbing. Rukkh deflected spearheads, felt one stick in his shield, then tug furiously as its owner tried to pull it free. He held on, trying not to be pulled out of line, another spear struck at him, and he pulled his hip aside. He couldn't move the fucking shield.

  "Nooooooo!" screamed Rukkh, and Forjal somehow knocked up the spear coming at Rukkh, but also managed to flick his spearpoint back into the monkey's face, sending it over in a fountain of blood. Rukkh's shield came free as the spear snapped.

  But then Forjal was tripped up by another monkey's spear and fell backward with a loud curse. Rukkh nipped in, used the shield to clear away the spears pointed at him, and thrust overhand into the breast of the nearest monkey. The armor took most of the blow, but gave enough for blood to run when he pulled back. The monkey fell back, but others pushed forward.

  Forjal had regained his feet, but now his spear had stuck in a monkey's shield. There was no time to pull it free. Forjal let go and drew his sword while his shield knocked away one spear thrust and he ducked another.

  The monkeys were pressing. There seemed to be more and more of them. The line was buckling. There was a loud scream to Rukkh's right. Yegeb in Hugga's squad had gone down with a spear in his guts. Monkeys broke the first line back around Yegeb's body.

  Forjal, now cursing in a continuous roar, was slashing back and forth at the spearpoints in front of him, while Rukkh and Oggi pushed in on either side, trying to halt the monkeys and set them back.

  They were halted at spear's length, jabbing away again at a line of monkeys that would not give ground. They were dying, but they were not bending.

  Among the monkeys there were some bigger ones, like he'd seen in the previous fight. One of these was opposite now, and for the first time, Rukkh felt that he was the smaller of the combatants.

  The heavyweight monkey slammed shields with him, and Rukkh was driven back a step. He cursed, jabbed at his foe's face, and darted to the side. The monkey was quick with the spear, but unskilled. He lunged too far and overbalanced.

  "Forjal!" roared Rukkh. "Grab it!"

  Forjal had seen the opportunity and he dropped his sword and grabbed the spear shaft. A powerful tug jerked the monkey farther off-balance, and Rukkh thrust home into its side, at the point where the leather plates were tied together. The big monkey jackknifed with the agony, Rukkh got a foot up on the brute's chest while he tore the spear free. Then he had to protect himself from monkeys to his right, who were stabbing at his face. Another monkey had closed up in front.

  Forjal tripped over a body and went down on one knee. Oggi covered while Rukkh dueled with the monkey on his right. The problem on the right was Glukk, who had gotten his shield wedged tight against a trio of monkeys there. They were stabbing over it at him, and he was fending them off with his sword. He'd lost his spear in the press. The flanking attack had choked off their assault, and the line was caving in from the right.

  Now the inevitable came, and Glukk took a spear thrust in the thigh. He heaved back with a final effort and broke his shield free. Two monkeys were pulled off their feet as he came. But big Glukk was down, leg pumping out bright arterial blood. The monkeys swarmed over him.

  Rukkh dodged a grounded monkey's spear as it flashed around his ankles and slapped it with his shield.

  Another man went down. Rukkh evaded spearpoints, felt his shield take a heavy blow, and then something rapped him hard across the front of his helmet and he saw stars. He could feel blood running down his lip to his mouth and thought his nose was broken, but there was no time to check.

  Shields slammed into his own, spears thrust at him. Then more men pushed up and drove the monkeys back. Lurgi came up from behind along with Chazz. Rukkh slipped back a few paces to regain his breath.

  Burok had gotten back to his feet, but he was still shaking his head. Rukkh had a second to think how incredibly hard Burok's fornicating sergeant's head must be, and then there were orders being screamed behind them.

  They were taking unacceptable casualties.

  Sergeant Hugga had taken over Burok's men for the moment, until Burok either recovered or was replaced. He roared at them to retire, spears front, stepping backward smartly in good order!

  They retreated in proper fashion, parade-ground style, except that they left a litter of their brethren lying among a heap of the sodomizing, God-damned monkeys.

  The fronts separated. The regiments retired and dressed rightward to move out of range of missiles from the wall.

  Uisbank was left to chew over the fact that his thrust along the wall had failed. The damned monkeys had—somewhere, somehow—learned to fight.

  They were still crude, and they'd lost more heavily than his men had, but still they'd stopped the charge of the Blitz regiment, something that few human armies had been able to do since Aeswiren began his rise to the summit of power.

  The casualty list was going to be far too long. Uisbank felt a clutch of fear. More than forty left behind, most of them dead. The stones from the catapults had done some heavy damage. Uisbank had never thought the monkeys would be capable of something like that. Catapults? The monkeys were just animals; how could they come up with catapults? And who had taught them how to hold their line like that and wield spears like men?

  Meanwhile, the force of monkeys that had sallied out of the waterside gate had retreated back to it and were passing in, while the men pulled back out of range of the rocks from the wall.

  The Fifth Regiment was sent forward to take the place of the Blitz and the Second, Third, and Fourth Regiments were ordered to lengthen their line and threaten to flank the monkeys lined up on the road.

  The maneuvering began after a few blasts on the bugles.

  "While we stretch out their lines," said Uisbank to his staff, "we'll take a good look at the field."

  If the monkeys had learned to fight, at least a little bit, then he needed a new strategy. The men under his command were mostly veterans. They could be trusted to pull off the most complicated maneuvers. Perhaps it was time to dazzle the monkeys with some military artistry.

  Damned monkeys had upset the timetable though. There'd be no triumphal dinner that night. Nor would they take the city easily. At least, not yet, not today, not at the first blow, which was the sort of thing that had a chance of making it into the history books as they would be edited by the Hand of Aeswiren. Uisbank shrugged inwardly, uncomfortable with the thought of Admiral Heuze's smirking reaction to this news.

  Phaugh! Uisbank hated that whole world-weary, semitreacherous state of mind that the admiral personified so completely. People like the admiral loved art and poetry and disdained the common people's love of the bloodthirsty games in the arena. Uisbank hated all the bastard, sodomistic softies, who would end slavery and abolish the blood rites of the Great God. A knife in all their hearts!

  Uisbank was true to the faith, true to his core belief in the majesty of Aeswiren III. No trace of disloyalty had ever slid across his mind. When he bowed low to the Great God, he bowed low in purity of soul.

  The priests all knew this, and the red tops left him alone.

  Heuze, on the other hand, had run up a high mark in the books kept by the priests. That had been unwise. And what the priests knew was almost certainly well-known to the Hand of Aeswiren. It could strike at any moment, and that old bastard with his smirks and witty remarks would be given to the red tops for "correction" before his interrogation began.

  It would be what he deserved, thought Uisbank, before summoning his scouts across.

  "What lies inland, beyond the roads and those gardens?"

  "More gardens, orchards. All the way to the next road and the road beyond that."

  "And what lies inland down the coast?"

  "After three miles the cultivated land stops. Th
e road goes on through wild woodland."

  "And on the far side of the city?"

  "First there is a stretch of water paddy about a half mile across with the river in the center of it."

  "Bridges?"

  "Lots, but all small."

  "Without bridges, how difficult to negotiate?"

  "Moderate difficulty. Ditches and canals are frequent. There are narrow lanes, walled enclosures, ornamental statuary."

  "What?"

  The scout shrugged. "Well, they're carvings in stone, about life-size I'd say. They're usually of monkeys carrying farm implements."

  Uisbank's eyebrows rose.

  "Statues of farmers?"

  "I suppose."

  Uisbank flashed his teeth as he let out a great laugh.

  "Now we know we're fighting idiots."

  The scout laughed, too, of course, but in his eyes there was still puzzlement. The monkeys carved statues of themselves? How could animals do that? Something very basic in his worldview was coming apart at the seams, and the scout could not completely hide this from himself.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  "All right then, I'll run through this one more time." Uisbank turned back to the sand chart they had drawn of the battle. The city sat at the center with a strip of flattened sand around it.

  "By the grace of Aeswiren and the gift of the Great God, we are here and our force is together and ready to fight."

  The red markers of the army were lined up facing inland with the city wall on their left. One regiment was held ready to counter any sallies from the city. The monkeys were indicated by blue markers.

  Watching the proceedings were the line officers, almost all of them.

  "The first phase of our battle is over. We have bloodied the monkeys and taught them to fear us."

  Uisbank stared at his officers, looking for any signs of lack of heart and passion. Any slackers would talk to the Hand, he'd made that plain.

  "Now we move to take control of the battlefield. We swing inland, shift our strength across to the right, and move past the enemy. He will have to face us with the walls at his back. We will stretch out his line, and then we will attack.

  "We will give him the horns of the bull."

  Their faces broke into smiles and a rumble of amusement went round.

  If the enemy turned to face them, as he must, Uisbank would thin the center of their own line and bulk the wings. Then they would attack with both wings slanted forward to catch the enemy on the flanks of his formation. The center would not engage until the enemy's flanks were both impacted. Then the encirclement could begin and the enemy's destruction completed.

  But the flanking action had to be quick.

  "I want to see good work by our men. They're veterans, they know how to do this better than anyone. Let's show these stinking monkeys how men put in the bull's horns."

  By going inland, Uisbank wasn't going to worry about the monkeys cutting him off from the beach. If they tried to get in his way, he'd knock them aside. This time he was determined to set the field properly and let his men's strength and skills crush the monkeys once and for all. He'd kill them all, right in front of those walls, and let the defenders see their own doom coming!

  Uisbank was gratified greatly by the fire in the eyes of his listeners. They all wanted to do whatever they had to to smash this mockery of an army that the stinking monkeys had put out there on the field. They all still felt the shame of their failure to smash the monkeys with the first charge.

  The Blitzers couldn't explain it either. They always broke through, but this time they hadn't. The monkeys were too quick with their spears, and then they'd broken in on the right flank. They'd left forty dead back there and there were twice that many with wounds. A dozen of those now being ferried out to the ships might die. No, the Blitzers were in a sorry state of disbelief. They were left standing in reserve while the Fifth Regiment had their place.

  And still there was anger in the army over the regiment's failure. A few voices had been heard suggesting they be dealt with the way the Old Empire would have, with a decimation by crucifixion. What Kadawak would have done.

  "What Kadawak would have done is feed us to the ants," growled Uisbank. "All of us. No mercy would be shown. But we serve Aeswiren, not Kadawak, so we are fortunate. We will get the opportunity to atone for our error and to show the Emperor what we are made of, and how much we venerate his glorious name."

  "Aeswiren!" they chanted with right-hand fists pressed to their chests, left hands raised high.

  Uisbank began to issue specific orders. Second and Third Regiments were to hold their positions for the moment, while Fourth and Fifth march around them and extend the line inland facing the walls, but out of range of those damned catapults.

  Colonel Bok of the Second had just received his written orders from Uisbank's clerk when there came a sudden shout, followed by another shout that had almost a sense of panic to it.

  More shouts followed. Men were moving.

  "What is happening?" snarled Uisbank, peering toward the commotion.

  "Look!" yelled an excited staffer.

  Coming at them out of the heather was a mass of monkeys carrying shields before them. They had emerged unseen with amazing stealth. No one had noticed them until they were well on their way.

  Arrows started falling among the officers and Uisbank's staff. An aide gave a plaintive yelp as an arrow sliced into the edge of his forearm.

  Isolated on top of the dune, the officers were exposed to a swarm of hundreds of monkeys with just a detachment of thirty men to protect them.

  Uisbank dropped his pen, felt his jaw slacken. What was the world coming to? Here were these filthy monkeys actually daring to attack!

  "Bugler!" roared Emjex.

  The bugle began to blow for help.

  Bugles were instantly blown down below, where the mass of the army was laid out north of the dunes on the open space. Orders could be heard being barked, and men turned and began to hustle toward the northern end of the dunes, but it would take them a few minutes to get there.

  And then the screaming monkeys were on them. General Uisbank and his commanders found themselves fighting for their lives with their own swords and whatever they could find as shields. The monkeys drove in with no sound, no cries, nothing but the fire in their eyes. As they came, some slipped around the men and encircled them on top of the dune.

  The monkeys pressed hard, and they were on all sides now and the fight was unequal. Arrows had ceased, this was all spear work now.

  Colonel Bok went down, Lieutenant Greevis was spitted by a spear that passed through his leather chest armor. There were only twelve of them left on their feet when the monkeys drew back.

  Uisbank had taken a knock on the head from a shield and a couple of jabs from spears and knives. It was a shockingly fierce fight. These monkeys were quick. Uisbank had not quite appreciated how important that was until this moment. His head hurt, and there was something in his eye, and he was afraid it was his own blood.

  The monkeys were on fire; you could see it in their eyes. They had the advantage and the numbers. The wall of shields and spearpoints was going to rush in and overwhelm the men standing at bay, while the rescue parties were still struggling up to the halfway mark on the dune.

  "Surrender!" called a voice from the monkey side in clear Shashti.

  What? Uisbank was stunned. Had he heard that voice correctly?

  "Surrender!" it shouted again, quite clear. "Surrender and your lives will be spared."

  Uisbank felt his jaw drop.

  The fucking monkeys were speaking Shashti? What the hell was going on? The surviving dozen men, ten officers and two soldiers, exchanged looks of wide-eyed amazement.

  "Go fuck yourself!" screamed Captain Emjex in a spasm of rage.

  It was perhaps a bit peremptory, considering the situation. Then before he could waver, Uisbank waved his sword and roared, "We will never surrender!"

  There was a long, sile
nt moment.

  "Bugler, hurry that relief!" But there was no way the men down below would reach them in time.

  The bugle blew, and the monkeys surged forward and the fight renewed. A roaring sound rose up composed of grunts, oaths, and the racket of wood and steel slamming on shields.

  When it was all over, Uisbank, still stunned, was walking down the slope on the end of a rope attached to the cuffs on his wrists. He was limping badly, but his captors didn't seem to care.

  The other captives were the bugler and Uisbank's clerk, Fee-id, a slave. The rest, so far as he could tell, were dead.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  With hundreds of men charging the top of the dune, the victorious mots did not linger. They ran, they scampered, back down the inland slope and into the tangled heather. This was what a victory could feel like! They fairly danced into hiding once more.

  Behind them, a horde of red-faced men, panting from the exertion, came up onto the top of the dune. They found a handful of survivors, wounded and lying among the dead. They found no trace of General Uisbank and had to accept the horrific likelihood that he had been taken prisoner. Messages were sent back down to the lieutenants who were clustering behind the Third Regiment, wondering what was going on.

  On the other side of the dune, Thru made sure that their captives were dragged down through the heather at a smart pace and then under the trees of the woodlot that grew along side the road. It was a triumphant moment, but Thru knew they had plenty yet to do that day.

  And the first thing was to find the Assenzi. This he did, almost immediately, when they appeared from behind a tree like three small black storks, stalking over on spindly legs to confront him. Thru had to stifle a laugh at the sight of them. He realized he was still a little light-headed from the events of the last ten minutes.

  "We took them by surprise, Masters. Your spell had them completely in its grip; they never saw us until we were on top of them."