by T. O. Munro
Mitalda squinted at the enemy lines where a strange convoy of contraptions was assembling. “Some kind of chariots?” she ventured.
“But not pulled by horses.”
Kimbolt frowned. “It is the undead they are yoking to those shafts, cumbersome pack horses at the best of times and each vehicle seems to need so many.”
Each chariot had a team of at least thirty undead arraigned in rows of four, two either side of a long central shaft. As the seneschal and his royal compaions watched, the zombies leaned as one into the horizontal drawbars to drag their burdens forward. Sixty chariots began an awkward lumbering ride towards the battle lines of the Salicia garrison. Followed at a distance by a line of orcish infantry.
“I had thought that chariots were meant for speed,” Mitalda said. Even allowing for the limited mobility of the animated corpses that drew them, the chariots were making exceptionally slow progress.
“They must be very heavy then.” Thren peered at the vehicles. “There is some form of hood or canopy at the back of them, like on a cabriolet, such as there used to be promenading in the streets of Oostport.”
“They still do promenade, your Majesty,” Kimbolt said, biting back the thought that it was in just such a vehicle that the Lady Maia was wont to flaunt herself riding unchaperoned and only half hidden from view with many a different fine noble.
They watched the slow progress of the approaching chariots as they came just within bowshot of the archers. Kimbolt pursed his lips. No point in firing at extreme range. The design was clearer now, lower chassied and smaller wheeled than the elegant society vehicles that Maia would flirt in. In that respect they were more like the chariots he had first assumed them to be. But the great dark hood on the back, shaped like a half a clam shell had no place on a war machine.
“Why are they so heavy?” he muttered as the zombies strained to pull their burdens closer.
“I reckon the enemy’s about to surrender,” Stennal growled out in the front line.
“And you do you reckon that,” his friend Trajet snapped.
“’s obvious.” Stennal was unfazed by his companion’s short temper. “Them undead things is towing up all his gold to give us. He means to pay us to let him run away.”
That brought a laugh from the ranks. Even Kimbolt smiled, but the monstrous charges had come close enough. He waved his hand at the captain of the bowmen, and a volley of arrows arched over the heads of his soldiers whistling their way towards the strange zombie beasts of burden.
Quite a few struck home, piercing the unarmoured zombies, but without inconveniencing them greatly. Though some were bristling like pincushions they soldiered on. It was only where a luck shot had punctured knee or foot that the arrow might disrupt their work, by creating a purely mechanical obstruction to their dead limbs juddering movement.
Kimbolt beckoned a runner. “Call for the priests,” he said.
“Hey,” Thren said. “They’ve stopped.”
They had indeed. Just drawing within short arrow range the zombies had stopped and now began lurching sideways they pushed their carriages laboriously round, swivelling them through one hundred and eighty degrees so the strange black hoods faced towards Kimbolt’s lines.
“What now?” Mitalda asked.
As if in answer an ill disciplined salician arrow shot through the air, its steel tipped head hit the shell shaped canopy with a metallic clang.
“That’s not cloth or leather,” Gregor exclaimed. “That’s iron, an iron shell. No wonder the things were so heavy.”
Before Kimbolt could muse as to who rode in these cumbersome vehicles, a narrow slit opened momentarily in the smooth iron surface which now faced them. A sizzling jet of fire shot across the gap and exploded in a ball of flame in the midst of his divisions crowded ranks. The same assault was repeated all along the line as three score of spells unleashed fire and death within the cramped rows of the salicia garrison.
Instinctively the archers had returned fire in support of their beleaguered comrades, but the rain of arrows bounced off the iron plate.
“Shit!” Kimbolt cried. “Sorcerers, sorcerers in armoured chariots.” He spun round to bellow at his sergeants “loose order!” The man blew three short one long blast on the whistle around his neck and, as the command was relayed along the lines, the Salician troops spread out in a less packed formation, but not before another volley of explosive spells had torn into their ranks.
The spell casting monarchs within the lines cast counter spells. Shimmering shields were flung up to deflect the incoming balls of flaming death. Mitalda doused one of them with a cone of ice. But there were too many of these infernal chariots and their concealed wizards. Two thirds or more of the deadly spells broke with morale shattering force deep within the Salician lines.
Discipline held. The wounded were carried to the rear in the pauses between spell castings. The concealed wizards could not sustain the frantic pace of hurling magical missiles, the effort must have sorely depleted the foul energy that they drew on. But still the assault went on in a steady, if slower rhythym. The spell bursts were generating fewer casualties amongst Kimbolt’s dispersed troops, but still they were taking casualties and giving none in return. It could not be sustained.
***
“Come, Lord Pietrsen, we have mages to skewer,” Niarmit commanded.
“Immediately, your Majesty.” The Master of Horse raised his arm to wave a signal at the eighteen hundred horsemen drawn up in four loose companies behind him.
The cavalry, a mix of heavy horse from Nordsalve and lighter lancers from Oostalve and Salicia moved off the high point of the hill and trotted north-east working behind the as yet untouched divisions of Vahnce and Torsden to come up towards the hard pressed Salician infantry.
“Do you mean to charge those infernal contraptions,” Eadran hissed in Niarmit’s head.
“I cannot do nothing.”
“That is exactly what you must do. Your young seneschal has the sense to stand firm. He knows what will happen if he once takes his men forward from behind the defensive positions he has dug.”
“His men are being murdered without the chance to return fire.”
“But you see the archers, you see the enemy wolfriders.” Eadran swung Niarmit’s gaze behind the line of armoured chariots to where the reformed wolf-riders, lurked in columns interspersed with orcish archers. They were were stationed beyond the reach of Kimbolt’s arrows but close enough to spring to the defence of the tormenting mages should the chariots come under attack.
“I see them,” Niarmit admitted stiffly, still trotting north with the mounted reserve.
Eadran clucked in irritation. “If we move to attack those mages then we will abandon all the advantage of the slope and our dug in defences. We end up fighting them on almost level ground and we will be overrun. That is what the enemy wants. He wants to draw you down.”
“Are you saying that I should pull Kimbolt’s division back, retreat from that position?”
“Of course not, the armoured chariots would follow you up to where the hill gets flatter and again you would have lost all advantage of position.”
“Then what are you saying? Do not advance? Do not retreat? You mean he should just stand there while his troops are destroyed.”
“Swop your divisions, let that giant Torsden take his people to hold Kimbolt’s position.”
“Fresh meat to be slaughtered by the mages,” Niarmit snapped.
“To do anything else is to do exactly what the enemy wants, and my first tactic in battle was always to make sure I didn’t do what the enemy wanted me to do.”
“I would say getting to pummel our troops into flaming dust is also what the enemy wants,” Niarmit said. “Of the three choices you offer, charge, retreat or provide fresh spell fodder, none seems to be particularly to the enemy’s disadvantage.”
“Bravo!” Pietrsen cried from beyond the Helm.
Niarmit swung back to see a trail of smoke rising from on
e shattered chariot. “What happened?” she asked as a ragged cheer went up from Kimbolt’s battered troops.
“A mage on our side, must have shot their spell in just as the bastard opened up to fire. Got a spell to go off inside the thing, blew it to pieces.”
“It must have been a brilliant shot,” Niarmit said.
“More like a very lucky one,” Eadran growled within the Helm. “We cannot trust in more such strikes of fortunate brilliance. Look at what ruin is being wrought.”
Bodies lay across the hill side. There were yawning gaps in Kimbolt’s dispersed troops as blasts of thaumatic energy punched great holes in his dispositions. There were pockets of protection where the spell casting monarchs had raised shields and flung counter spells, but they were too few. There were barely a couple of handfuls of sorcerers on Niarmit’s side, and five or ten times that number in the hardened armoured chariots.
“Give the command, girl, swop around the two divisions.”
She scowled within and without the Helm. “We must strike at them. We cannot simply offer up more men for the slaughter. He wants to draw in more and more of our people into this killing zone and bleed us dry.”
“Your Majesty,” Pietrsen cried. Their brisk trot had carried them as far as the northern tip of Torsden’s division. Ahead of them lay the hard pressed infantry of Kimbolt’s command; more wounded were being carried to the rear while the dead were left where they had fallen. But the Master of Horse was looking beyond the troops and the line of armoured chariots to the chateau at the northern tip of the battle, its white walls brightly lit by the early afternoon sun.
Niarmit followed the direction of Pietrsen’s outstretched arm and saw a flood of figures running at speed from the chateau towards the flank of the baleful row of chariots.
***
Jay had been only a couple of yards behind of Tordil when they began their mad dash from the shelter of the chateau. But with every stride Jay had fallen further behind with more and more fleet footed elves sweeping by him.
The nearest chariot was turning slowly, the arrow skewered zombies bending their backs to push it round so that its deadly orifice faced the approaching elves. But the undead were too slow and the elves too swift. Jay saw the tall elf leap onto the shaft of the chariot. There was a flash of lilac flame which bloomed within the hollow metal cave and then Tordil’s long sword swept at the zombie team, separating heads and limbs and the elf was running after his fellows towards the next armoured chariot and the next.
Jay’s side ached with an incipient stitch before he had even drawn level with the first destroyed chariot. He glanced inside, two burned bodies lay entangled on the vehicle’s floor one in tattered black robes, the other in red. A heavy footed thump to his right alerted him to the attack of a zombie whose head had not been quite separated by an elven blow. The creature held its head steady with one hand, though the half neck width wound at his throat gaped open with every juddering step. The zombie’s other hand reached out for Jay as it emitted a low keening moan of hunger from one or other of the holes within its throat.
Jay sidestepped the clumsy creature and slashed across the back of its neck with his sword, completing the unfinished decapitation. For a moment the shambling undead struggled to hold onto its head by the hair, taking a few uncertain steps, but then its decayed scalp gave way and the head dropped to the ground while the body walked on aimlessly with only a scrap of hair and skin held between its fingers.
There was a hum of bowstrings to his right. Jay glanced round wildly. A screen of elven archers were strung out in a line loosing a steady stream of arrows at their orcish counterparts who lurked downhill of the infernal chariots. In open ground, far from the cover of the chateau walls, the elves were proving vulnerable to the orcs’ volleys. The greater accuracy of the elven archers was off set by their fewer numbers, and Jay saw an elf fall pierced with two black arrows. Still worse was the lupine howl of the wolfriders forming up behind the orcish archers, making ready to charge the elves down.
Jay swung back to call a warning to the elves that Tordil had assigned in haste to destroy the chariots, but they were far ahead having carved a path through twenty or more of the machines. A pair of chariots faced them now. Flame and lightning belched from the left hand one silhouetting an elf in sizzling fire.
The task was half done but they were out of time. Jay heard another howl from the wolfriders and the pace of elven archery picked up in desperation.
***
Gregor, sheltering behind the scintillating shield which Danlak had conjured, heard the crackle as another spell harmlessly discharged. Along the line of the ridge hundreds of soldiers sought protection behind other conjurations by the returned monarchs.
“It is warm work this,” Danlak grinned at his descendant. “I fancy the day might have given my brother a little more respect and value for the craft of sorcery.” He glanced to his left where the Dragonsoul faced down the armoured chariots from behind a shield cast by Bulveld the First.
Gregor smiled back and turned to look at the enemy lines. Danlak and he were at the southern end of the Salician line. The elven attack had not reached as far as the chariots facing them, so the concealed mages still launched their murderous blasts. Their aim and enthusiasm, however, must have been somewhat disturbed by the screams and shouts and blasts of fire to the north where Tordil and his companions were carving a burning scarlet path along the line of armoured chariots.
Gregor scowled. The elves would get no further. The wolfriders were closing fast and Tordil would have to retreat or face them in open battle. The elf it seemed was not for running, well at least not running away. Another chariot exploded in a lilac blast even as the clash of swords rang out at first contact between elf and mounted orc.
“Bloody fool,” Danlak muttered.
“Captain Tordil is determined to destroy these contraptions,” Gregor replied before he realised that Danlak was not looking at the tall elf’s command. Instead the lacklustre king was again looking to his right. Gregor looked to and saw a flood of men flowing off the hillside as the Dragonsoul led the men of Salicia in a charge against the chariots.
“Bloody fool,” he echoed Danlak’s assessment as the Dragonsoul abandoned every advantage of height and position to charge towards an enemy that far outnumbered him. “Oh crap.” Thren the Fifth, not to be outdone, had initiated a charge of his own still further up the line.
There was a blast of a sergeant’s whistle, one short, one long, one short, repeated along the line. “Seems like the seneschal has decided we should all follow your brother’s example,” Gregor murmured.
Danlak nodded pale faced. At the whistled command the rest of the men of Salicia, those that remained uninjured by the predations of the mages, began to thunder off the hill down into the valley of destruction. Gregor clapped the Dragonsoul’s brother on the arm. “Come on,” he said. “What’s to fear, we die at sunset anyway!”
Danlak gulped and nodded. Gregor swung his borrowed sword aloft and charged down the slope crying, “for Salicia and the Salved.”
***
“Shit!” Niarmit exclaimed as the Salicia garrison flooded off the hill. The ground around the twisted line of broken chariots had become a heaving mass of orcs and elves and wolves and now men too as the Dragonsoul hammered into the fray. Another tribe of orcs had been despatched towards the fast growing melee, while a full square of the undead converged with slow but relentless progress on the new made nexus of the battle threatening the rash adventures of elf and man with the trump card of overwhelming numbers.
To Niarmit’s left the divisions of Torsden and Vahnce held firm, kept honest by the row of orc tribes waiting patiently for them to abandon their strong position. “Shit!” she said again. “We can’t win this in toe to toe hand to hand combat.”
“Then you’d better get your troops out of there,” Eadran drawled in her head. “Sometime before those zombies arrive would be good.”
Niarmit scowled at the
mixture of re-inforcements which Maelgrum had committed to the unintended melee around the chariots. He would consider the sacrifice of a few sorcerers well worth the prize of drawing so many of her soldiers to a place where his numerical superiority could be played to advantage. In this tactical gamble he was relentlessly raising the stakes and she had not the resources to see him out. She blinked, and looked again. A tiny crevice of opportunity was presenting itself.
“Lord Pietrsen.”
“Your Majesty.”
Niarmit gestured to the open ground between the wolf riders and the reinforcements following them up the hill. A patch of clear space had opened up partly due to the pace of the wolf riders’ charge, but mostly because the orc tribe and the zombie square had got in each other’s way. A few zombies had shaken off their masters’ will to charge at their tasty green hided allies. It was enough to make the two groups had shy away from each other slowing their halting advance. While their leaders struggled to restore order and direction, the hiatus had created an opening for Niarmit. “Let’s get ourselves between the enemy and his reinforcements.” She gestured at the space yawning widely in the wake of the accelerating wolfriders and ahead of their dilatory infantry.
“And then we charge down on the reinforcements?”
“No we charge up,” she said. “We get down below them and charge up into the back of the wolfriders.”
“Catch them in a salved sandwich,” Pietrsen said approvingly. “We’ll wipe them out.”
“More important than that, if we can do it fast enough we’ll give them a chance to scrabble back up the hill before the rest of Maelgrum’s army can catch us out of position.”
“Good plan, girl,” Eadran grudgingly admitted.
***
Jay felt the hot breath of a wolf, flecks of saliva speckled the back of his neck. He dodged and turned and an orcish blade swept through the air his head had just left. He fell in desperate evasion pursued by a snapping maw as the wolf bent its head lunging for his throat. Beyond the beast’s great head, its rider swung a wicked sword at the back of an elf who was hard pressed by another wolf rider. Jay rolled in the dirt scrabbling away. A great paw caught his foot, dragging him back. He let himself be swept onto his back, blade jutting skywards as the wolf’s head came down again, fast, vicious, hungry, but incautious. In its greedy bid for Jay’s throat, the animal overlooked the short sword in the boy’s hand. The wolf’s own momentum drove the blade up through its chin into its brain as it dived in pursuit of its own killing blow.