by David Hair
Perhaps he’s right. Without going right into the front line, Gurvon couldn’t judge for himself, but Frikter’s words were ringing true. Did I really misjudge this so badly? ‘I’m told you almost broke them yesterday.’
‘Sure, we did. But even a pure-blood can’t shield a dozen arrows a second for long, and I swear that’s what we’re facin’. My lads want to see this dump razed, Gurv, same as you. But let the Harkun take the blooding, I say.’
Gurvon scowled. It was well-known that mercenaries could be notoriously tentative when faced with determined opposition. ‘But we’re winning, yes?’
‘Sure.’ Frikter picked up a roughly hewn lump of garlic sausage and gnawed on it. ‘We’ll break ’em today, luck holding. Or tomorrow. They can’t have much left to throw at us, an’ sooner or later even fanatics despair. It’s only a matter of time.’
‘All right, Hansi, I believe you. But we need to finish this. Attack again today, in force. The longer this goes on, the more the other Javonesi lords will be encouraged. And I want you into the citadel first: we need to capture the Nesti children, not Heale.’
‘He tried,’ Frikter commented. ‘Sent a skiff right to the top of the tower, but they were beaten away. Some wild tale of snakemen,’ he added with a chuckle. ‘Stupidest excuse I’ve ever heard.’
Snakemen? Gurvon blinked. Are the lamiae here? Memories of his captivity reared up and he shuddered. If Elena had brought that infernal tribe of constructs here, then no wonder this fight was going slower than expected. Should I warn Hansi . . . ?
He opened his mouth, then the humiliation came roaring back to him. He pictured himself trying to explain gnosis-wielding serpent-men to the stolid Argundian and still managing to keep his respect and couldn’t.
Bugger it, let him find out for himself.
He went with Frikter to the muster, then followed the mercenary commander through the smashed outer walls of Forensa and into the rubble within. Morning mist and smoke fouled the air, so badly that the rankers had rags tied over their mouths and noses. Flights of arrows came and went in flurries, emanating from away to the left, where their Harkun allies were massed. Frikter estimated the nomads had lost six thousand, with many more wounded, but they’d slain three times that number of defenders. Right now they were burning naked Jhafi and Rimoni corpses, looted and stripped, in pits outside the walls. All genders, all ages. It reminded Gurvon of the Noros Revolt.
War always smells the same: like shit and scorched meat.
By now Roland Heale knew he was there; he sent an invitation to dine at midday, but Gurvon politely declined. I want to be supping from Cera Nesti’s goblet by then. He made his way towards the front and watched Frikter’s men forming up in tortoise formations. Their warspears were jutting in all directions like porcupine spines.
‘That should be unstoppable,’ he remarked to Frikter.
‘Not over broken terrain, Gurv. That’s the problem. We can’t hold together over the rubble, an’ we can’t cross the canal in formation.’
‘You’re turning into an old woman.’
‘You’ll fuckin’ see,’ Frikter said grimly.
The drums rolled and the legion marched forward. Visibility was poor, but the Jhafi were obviously watching because as the Argundian phalanx shuffle-stepped out of the smashed buildings and approached the canal, arrows began to sleet down. Initially the shafts were ineffectual, for the tortoise formations protected the rankers head-to-toe. The men bellowed Argundian drinking hymns and slammed their spear-butts into the ground in rhythm as they advanced. It was stirring, in its way. Alcohol fumes clogged the air, overlaying the stench of death. The wailing of the Harkun away to the left was an eerie counterpoint.
They were checked at the canal though, where the arrows came thicker. Voices bellowed orders or shrieked in pain and terror, the cacophony punctuated by the recoil of the catapults and the crunch of falling boulders: the unforgettable, horrific sounds of war. Gurvon edged closer, well-shielded behind the tortoise formation as it clambered forward and waded into the canal, now fordable thanks to the weight of the rubble and dead bodies choking it. He began to hope they might cross safely.
But it turned out Frikter hadn’t been exaggerating.
The Jhafi shrieked orders and suddenly the broken buildings on the far side were alive with archers and people hurling rocks, and before he knew what had happened, the sheer weight of fire had shattered the tortoise, the rocks battering the shields aside an instant before a wall of arrows shredded the air, deadly as the Bullhead’s axe. He saw the phalanx stagger and break, and then half of them were dead, their boiled leather armour punctured in a dozen places. The rest died a few seconds later, shrieking at each other even as they tried to surge forward.
‘Fuckin’ told yer,’ Frikter snarled as he broke cover and hurled fire at the archers, incinerating half a dozen before a hail of arrow-fire forced him to dive behind a wall, his shields flashing from pale pink to scarlet as the projectiles ripped them apart. Gurvon, beside him, was truly awed at the ferocity of the defence. The Jhafi cheered as the assault faltered and the Argundians who could slunk back into cover.
It’s like the walls at Norostein. The Pallacians didn’t think a mere militia could fight trained soldiers, but we did. I should have remembered that.
‘Well?’ Frikter snapped. ‘How many more o’ my lads d’you want to see die?’
‘None.’ He slapped Frikter’s massive shoulder. ‘Listen, we can do better than this. I’ve got an idea.’
The second assault began soon after, driving forward behind gnosis-propelled wagons he’d ordered up from the rear. He sent them ploughing over the rubble and straight into the canal, choking it entirely, while impotent arrows flew all around. He followed that up with another wave of wagons, seeking to choke the canal and render it a non-factor. The Jhafi tried to burn them with hurled oil-lamps, but the Argundian magi, roused by his presence, wanted to prove themselves and they doused the flames as swiftly as they began, or hurled them back through the windows into the enemy. They could see the Jhafi clearly now, and the exchange of javelin and arrow fire intensified. It was a war of attrition, of who could kill whom faster.
‘Just about . . .’ Gurvon called, then as a large rock flew and splashed into the deepest hole, he stood and pointed forward. ‘Now!’
With a roar, the Argundian mercenaries charged, this time over ground that was more or less flat and dry.
Gurvon followed, blasting archers on the roofs with mage-bolts, directing his attackers to the weak points, while ten yards to his right, Frikter did the same. The magi fanned out to support the attack, fighting in unison for once, and sheer momentum carried them forward across the water-course and into the rubble. In amongst the houses it was brutal, a kill-or-be-killed mêlée, but the heavily armed and experienced Argundians were finally making headway. They broke into an alley behind the canal houses packed with Jhafi, Gurvon right behind the fighting men, although he dared not intervene for fear of blasting his own men.
But they were winning now, driving forward step by step.
Then the Jhafi line broke.
He’d seen it before, the way the will of even the most desperate, dedicated men could fail when faced with an inexorable advance, especially when they had space to retreat into. The Jhafi began to turn and look for ways out; the panic now clear in their voices and faces. He began to select targets, anyone who was standing his ground, lancing mage-bolts at them, until with a wailing cry the Rimoni and Jhafi defenders began to stampede backwards. The Argundians roared lustily and began to trot forward, their weapons raised. Anyone who tripped and fell in their path were stabbed or hacked apart before they could rise. One woman was dragged aside screaming by two burly rankers who were tearing her robes; a Jhafi man turned to help her but before he could even raise his scimitar, he was gutted by a warspear.
The rout was on.
Then the mist overhead parted at a sudden gust of wind and someone shouted in alarm. Gurvon looked up, a
nd stopped dead.
Sweet Kore . . . But how—?
A windship hung over them – no, not just any old windship but an Inquisition warbird: a giant of the skies with ballistae fore and aft, and specially elevated archery decks. Then he looked closer and swore: the warbird was packed to the rigging with bodies, most of them snake-tailed, and gnosis energy twinkled in every hand. Three skiffs plied the air at its sides, darting lower, and bolts flashed from magi riding in the prows, straight into the front ranks of the Argundians, who were gaping upwards in horror. The Yurosian rankers scattered for cover as the windship came lower and giant balls of fire came whooshing towards them. Gurvon cried aloud in fury and shock, darting for shelter as the flames seared around him, engulfing whole cohorts trapped in the packed, narrow alleys.
In the distance, Nesti horns brayed and arrows began to fly again. He looked up in time to see men and women with impossibly bright auras dropping from the side of the ship and floating down on a wave of destruction.
There was a woman standing at the prow, shortsword drawn and grey cloak fluttering.
Elena.
He ducked into the shadows and began to slink away.
*
Elena had seen warbirds in action over a battlefield before. She herself had faced military windships during the Noros Revolt and felt lucky to have survived, fortunate not to have been singled out, nothing more than one face among many on a crowded battlefield that day. But this was her first time on board one during battle. She’d been vaguely aware that the keel of a well-made windcraft not only stored Air-gnosis for flying, but also pure energy, which could be siphoned off by the magi on board. This was the first time she’d benefited. Her sister had flown an Imperial skiff in the First Crusade, and had used its power to level buildings in Hebusalim – just flimsy hovels, Tesla told her later, but nevertheless. In the hands of strong magi, a warbird could be a thing of majestic destruction.
Catapults couldn’t target something that moved so fast. An archer couldn’t penetrate the shielding on something so high up. And from such a vantage, no one could hide. The only things she’d ever seen bring one down were gnosis-powered ballistae or other warbirds – but nothing else.
Now she directed the craft over the battlefield, raining fire and missiles onto the mercenaries below, targeting the mage-knights for special treatment. Some of the Ordo Costruo, those who considered themselves best equipped for fighting, had descended to the field, but she remained aboard. It felt good to be the one holding the whip-hand for a change.
She identified the enemy below: Hans Frikter’s Argundians. They were fighting desperately now, not just against the warbird, but against the returning Jhafi archers, who’d taken heart at the sudden arrival of such powerful allies; the battle had turned into a storm of crossbow bolts and arrows and javelins and spears, as the defenders flooded back. For once the mercenaries were disadvantaged: they might be well-armoured, but they were not archers by nature, and were unable to engage at close quarters. Instead they gave ground, retreating beyond a rubble-choked canal where it looked like most of the fighting had been taking place.
‘Take her round to the north,’ she called to the pilot, one of the humans captured with the ship who had elected to join the lamia community. ‘Get above those Harkun in the centre!’ She glanced at Odessa D’Ark, who was revealing herself to be the scariest pregnant woman on Urte, a tempestuous Fire- and Air-witch. They shared a look of immense satisfaction – blood-sisters again! – then she sought Kazim. All he’d been allowed so far were a few fire-blasts, and he was visibly chafing.
She judged that the time had come for them to join the fray below.
Together they threw themselves over the side and swooped towards the ground, accompanied by a dozen more Ordo Costruo magi.
*
Hans Frikter bellowed in fury as another pile of debris came to life, rocks and rubble flowing together and forming into a twelve-foot approximately human shape: an improvised galmi. The Brician-discovered art of animating the inanimate could be terrifying, and it was too far off for him to be able to stop it, or affect it in any way; he could only watch as it waded towards a line of his lads, rankers from the third maniple. They were good men, but those who weren’t immediately crushed ran like panicked sheep.
‘Fall back!’ he shouted, turning to Ogdi, his aide and nephew. ‘Get Hullyn here! He can use Wizardry: we’ve got to neutralise that blasted galmi!’
‘Hullyn’s dead,’ Ogdi replied, his normally placid face completely bewildered. ‘Some Keshi bastard cut him in half, down by the canals!’
Merda! Hans gripped his axe as he looked at the circle of men around him: his personal cohort, men of his own village, who’d been at his side most of his life. Seeing them anchored him. We’ve got out of worse. There were days you fought and days you ran, and this had suddenly become one of the latter. ‘Get everyone out – head for the staging point beyond the walls.’
Ogdi saluted, visibly trying to contain his own panic. He was a better soldier than mage, but he gripped his periapt, closing his eyes and straining. ‘I can’t find Eafyd,’ he groaned, then suddenly he gasped, clutching his skull. ‘My head!’
Frikter swore, gripped his nephew’s shoulder and felt the whine of some kind of psychic attack on him. ‘Hold to your wards,’ he encouraged, as his cohort shuffled anxiously, worried by the uncertainty on his face. Then a crowd of Jhafi broke from the rubble and spewed towards them.
‘Form up!’ he bellowed, though his lads didn’t need telling; they were already slamming their shields together and brandishing their axes as they shouted to Taurhan, the Argundian war-god, the true Bullhead. Good lads! Frikter raised his hand to blaze fire into the enemy charge.
But before he could strike, a torrent of rock rose like a wave and slammed into the shield-wall, smashing his men backwards like toys, wrecking armour, breaking bone and cracking skulls. Frikter shouted furiously, seeking a target, but the air was filling up with dust and the screaming of the injured. He loosed fire blindly into the space in front of his men and was rewarded by shrieks of agony and the sight of two shadowy figures going up like torches. Then blue fire slammed into his shields from two flanks, staggering him with the strength of the bolts.
That’s it, we’ve got to get out.
But the Jhafi were already on them; turning their backs would mean death. Hans looked around desperately, seeking a way to buy his lads the space to run. He blasted the nearest Jhafi off his feet, then two more of those overpowering mage-bolts hammered his shields again, one high and one low, perfectly synchronised. His shields blocked the high one, but his left leg crumpled beneath him, with searing pain following a moment later as he tasted the dust. He crawled upright and hurled a spear-waving Jhafi woman away with a gesture.
Ogdi screamed, ‘My head! My eyes!’
Frikter blanked the pain from his blackened leg and rallied, threw kinesis behind his battle-axe and hacked through a circle of Jhafi. Some of his lads were still up, but few, too few. The Jhafi swordsmen backed off, but they were replaced with archers, who were pushing their way to the front. He heard his lads furiously praying, while behind him Ogdi rolled over and fell on his face in the mud and blood.
Where the fuck is Gyle?
One fire-blast and I’d kill half these fuckers . . .
‘Boss?’ one of his lads muttered as they edged towards him.
‘Kill ’em all!’ He raised his fist to pour fire on the Noories when two more mage-bolts struck him with that same deadly synchronisation: one took him square in the midriff; in the centre of his wards—
—
as the other took his left hand off, in the instant before he let loose his own lethal fires. His spell fell apart as his hand became a smouldering stump. He howled as his legs went out from under him and he pitched forward, not even seeing the arrow-storm that was carving into what remained of his cohort.
The dark earth swallowed him up.
*
Kazim Makani strode through the Jhafi, who parted fearfully, clearing a path for him. He tried reassuring them, praising them, patting men on the back, but they fell over themselves to get out of reach. He wondered if he’d ever again feel the camaraderie of being one of the gang. Back in Aruna Nagar, when only kalikti games mattered, he’d been part of a close-knit group of young men who crowed and joked and laughed at the epic feats and ridiculous failures, the mighty hits and the dropped catches.
He felt so isolated now.
And I am sick of war . . .
Elena sent. She was bent over the fallen mercenary commander, the Argundian – another of her old comrades, no doubt. She seemed to know everyone they were killing.
The fighting was done here. With their magi either dead or fled, the Argundians were running, chased by the victorious Jhafi, who were butchering the wounded and anyone stupid enough to surrender.
‘Is he dead?’ he asked, peering over Elena’s shoulder. The soot on her face and the ash in her hair made her look older than her years.
‘He’s alive. I’ve Chained him, and Cardien is sending someone to pick him up. I want him kept safe.’
‘Who is he to you?’ It came out tense and jealous.
‘Hansi?’ Elena shrugged. ‘No one much. We’ve shared a few pints. What’s wrong, Kaz?’
‘Nothing!’ He stamped away, and she didn’t follow.
It was hard to explain his feelings, even to himself. Right now, all he was thinking was what a disappointment war had turned out to be. All his life, he’d dreamed of battle, as all young men did: war was how the great won eternal fame; it was the pinnacle, the ultimate test of manhood, for which even his beloved kalikiti was a poor substitute. He and his friends had longed for war, seeing themselves striding across the battlefield seeking out the enemy heroes and slaying them in epic hand-to-hand combat, demonstrating their superior prowess and worth, creating legends . . .