Haven atobas-4

by Joel Shepherd

  “It seems we are expecting an attack,” said Alfriedo. All the army stood ready, a huge force of men, shields in place, making a great wall, flames from the city reflecting in polished shields and helms.

  “Yes,” said Carlito, drily. “And it seems that we have been relegated to the side, we Pazira and our fellow outcasts.” His noble companions smirked without humour. Members of the Rochel clan, Alfriedo guessed, and their allies.

  “It will be a desperate charge,” said General Zulmaher, gazing at the walls. “They will try to punch a hole through our line with cavalry. Talmaad will ride through that hole. Once they get behind us, in their thousands in the dark…”

  “We cannot fight serrin in the dark,” Carlito muttered. “Not here. At night in Saalshen we cluster like a ball; here we are spread out between two forces, Jahnd and serrin.”

  “The breakout will fail,” Zulmaher said confidently. “These lines are far too strong, and their forces too depleted. And our artillery will turn about and light up the valley with hellfire. If we can see serrin, we can fight them.”

  Carlito nodded gloomily. He showed no joy at the prospect of victory. Nor did his noble friends. Before him were arrayed ranks of Pazira cavalry, and a small number of Pazira infantry. Largely unblooded, they'd lost barely a man. Alfriedo's Rhodaanis too were mostly unscathed. A trivial number they'd made between them, Paziras and Rhodaanis, when the battle had begun. But now, nearly three thousand men combined to form a significant chunk of this left flank.

  Alfriedo recalled what Rhillian had said. He gazed up at the heights of Jahnd, its grand buildings silhouetted in flames. The architecture reminded him of Tracato. Was Kessligh up there watching? Of course he was. The counterattack was about to happen. And what was this that he felt, when he should have been terrified to be having these thoughts? Why did the prospect of what he was about to do fill him only with calm?

  “My dear Duke Carlito,” Alfriedo pronounced, quite mildly. “I cannot escape the feeling that our combined forces are poorly located for this coming battle.”

  Carlito laughed bitterly. “If they wish to die in the main fight, let them. I am pleased to sit this one out. I want no part in this stupid man's war.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” said Alfriedo. “I also think we should sit this one out. I suggest that we do so. Perhaps three thousand paces in that direction.”

  He nodded toward the far northern side of the valley, lost in darkness. Carlito nearly laughed. Then frowned. He studied Alfriedo's face more closely. Alfriedo met his gaze with complete seriousness. There was a moment of utter and complete silence.

  Carlito's eyes slowly widened. He looked about at the encircling army. Eighty thousand at least, infantry first, then cavalry. In the middle of the formation, the great, swinging arms of catapults, now mostly silent as the fires took hold without them. And then back to this, the left flank. It was not a difficult flank, easy to hold even for lowly rated forces. Anyone attacking here would pin themselves against the hills, a terrible place to be.

  But what if this flank were to simply disappear?

  A thousand emotions tore across Carlito's face. Alfriedo could guess them all, for he'd felt them too over the past hours of deliberation. Duty to his family. Duty to Pazira. To family tradition that went back centuries, and would all be taken from him if this failed. It was a poor flank to attack, but a deadly flank to leave open. Here they guarded the throat, and to leave would expose it.

  And yet the cost if they won. Alfriedo had recalled Alythia telling him Sasha's tales of Alexanda Rochel, Carlito's father. Alexanda had hated this war. Hated the Archbishop's vile ravings about the evil serrin, and hated most of all the rise of the greedy and powerful merchants in Petrodor, the Patachis, that stripped all Torovan of the good and wise rule of the eldest families. Carlito was surely his father's son in such matters. But could he risk everything Family Rochel had built in Pazira over many hundreds of years, his own life and those of all his relatives, on a matter of principle?

  For a moment, Alfriedo felt the fate of the world swing upon a thread. One man, his mother had told him, can make all the difference. “Yes, Mother,” he thought. “Now I believe you.”

  Astride his horse, Kessligh's eyes widened. He peered through a tube, a serrin invention with glass lenses on either end, that could help him to see distant things. Yasmyn did not know what he searched for, the Regent's formation was quite fixed and highly visible, shields and armour alight in the glare of flames before Jahnd's wall. They would not shift. They had all of Jahnd trapped, and they would not move for anything.

  “They move,” Kessligh breathed. He peered intently through the tube, mouth open. Yasmyn stared into the dark, seeing only lines of soldiers. But now, there on the far right, up against the hills of Jahnd themselves…was that a line breaking away? Several lines, in fact? Her own eyes widened. What in the world were they doing? “I see a banner. Oh dear spirits, it's Alfriedo. Alfriedo and Carlito!” He turned to Yasmyn. “Message to the front! Tell Damon that the far-right flank retreats! Rhodaan and Pazira have made us a gap, do not attack them, they're on our side! Go now!”

  Yasmyn spun her horse and galloped, horseshoes sliding on pavings across the high courtyard. Upon her right, great buildings were ablaze, and the sound of fighting raged.

  She reached the main road and skidded about a corner, heart in her mouth as her horse nearly fell…please the gods and spirits old and new, she could not fall now. The road ahead was filled with cavalrymen, blocking the way.

  “Messenger!” she yelled, thrusting past them, making space by force where she had to, crashing them aside. “Messenger, urgent message!”

  Ahead, cavalrymen turned to look, then pulled their horses aside. Space appeared and she accelerated once more, dangerously fast on the slippery ground downhill. Men were shouting ahead now, and cries of “Messenger!” flew downslope faster than she could manage at a gallop.

  She passed the serrin at the midslope, then finally reached the lower slopes and heavier cavalry. Before the defensive wall, she saw Prince Damon with a group of commanders, waiting for her. Beside Damon was her brother Markan, with an expectant frown.

  She could barely contain her excitement as she told them. Prince Damon simply blinked at her, astonished. Her brother Markan laughed, reined to her side, and kissed her roughly. Then he yelled, and all the horsemen yelled back. Most of them had not heard what she said, but they saw the news was good, and cheered that fact alone.

  Markan yelled again, and this time, Prince Damon joined him. Then he turned, and galloped out the gate. The combined armies of human and serrin followed him, in a constant, deafening rush.

  Damon took a right turn out of the gate and along a weaving city street. Visibility was no issue here, for fires made the street as bright as day, casting crazy shadows across unburned facades. Buildings turned abruptly to smaller houses, then disappeared completely as he emerged from the city. Here were fields, and walled pens for animals. Beyond them, far wider fields, occupied now by a massive and impenetrable wall of armoured men. But as he looked right, up against the valley's southern slope, there was a gap. It was a large gap, quickly filling as men from the adjoining line flooded in. They would have to hurry, before a new line formed.

  He cleared the animal pens, angled right again, and drew his sword. A roar ripped the air, yet it did not spring from his own lips-suddenly he was being overtaken by cavalrymen, one of them Markan, swords also drawn. From his peripheral vision he saw artillery rounds streaking into the night sky. Huge fireballs erupted upon the fields behind him, on either side of the racing cavalry. Ahead, running men and some horses scrambled and yelled and waved arms and weapons, trying to dress their line. Damon yelled with a furious bloodlust that he had not truly felt since the battle's commencement. He wanted to kill them all. Gods willing he would.

  His horse simply leaped through the infantry line, unimpressed with the obstacle they presented, and he leaned from the saddle to hack a man as he p
assed, feeling a satisfying jolt through his arm. Ballistas fired, but whizzed overhead. Damon cut toward them, as other cavalry rushed forward on his left to do the same. Men leaped from the back of ballista wagons to escape the swinging blades, only to be trampled underfoot by big horses trained not to dodge.

  Damon indicated with an arm out to keep turning left-he had to protect this flank for the cavalry column still racing through the gap, and get them all behind the Regent's lines. Men followed him, yelling to form up, but it was dark. Very dark, he was realising now. There was no moon in the night sky, and in less light than this, a man riding at any speed off-road would shortly come to grief.

  Cavalry were counterattacking now. Most of the Regent's cavalry had been behind the lines of infantry, in case of precisely this sort of breakthrough. But they were scattered, having had no time to gather in force. Damon hit one man across the shield, accelerated hard to hit another in the shoulder, then swung about to help an Isfayen man engage an armoured knight. Swords made little impact upon the knight's armour, but with him squeezed between them, Damon simply hit him in the visor to stun, then pulled him hard from the saddle. He fell with a crash, and Damon wheeled to look back at the racing cavalry line.

  Several thousand were already through, and now the serrin were passing. They loosed arrows into those infantry trying to close the gap, and men fell in droves. A steady stream of serrin were passing, firing one shot from range, then another up close, and Damon could see ranks of feudal infantry dissolving. Men stopped trying to advance and either sheltered behind their shields or ran. Those who ran quickly fell with a shaft through the back. Those crouching behind a shield lasted longer, but these were feudal men-at-arms, not heavily armoured Steel infantry with their enormous body-covering protectors. These shields were small, often little wider than a man's forearm was long, and serrin accuracy, deprived of killing shots, found other gaps instead. Arrows punched through stomachs, thighs, and hips, and men fell screaming, clutching at shafts that, at these ranges, only plate armour could stop.

  And now the serrin were wheeling left, still in a long, weaving line. Damon felt somewhat chilled to watch it, for a line like this, cutting across behind their ranks, had ended the Army of Lenayin's battle against the Enoran Steel at Shero Valley. Now it aimed at a common enemy, and new ranks of oncoming cavalry fell beneath a storm of concentrated arrow fire. Other cavalry broke and tripped on walls or ditches, some horses protesting at being made to run too fast on ground they could not see. They slowed, and made easy targets of their riders, who fell in turn to serrin fire.

  In previous battles, talmaad had scattered before charging feudal cavalry. Now they held firm and cut them down with contempt. Cavalry cleared, the line continued on, winding leisurely behind the Regent's formation, unleashing a broadside storm against the rear ranks of infantry. There were five thousand talmaad in this attack, each one frighteningly accurate. Arrows now flew like rain, close range and aimed, not merely sprayed from distance. Men fell in their hundreds, and kept falling, all along the line.

  “Horseback archery done right is not warfare!” Markan suddenly appeared to yell at Damon's side. “It's murder!” For all the Isfayen's preference for honourable warfare, he was grinning ear to ear.

  “Come on!” Damon shouted. “We can still help them with the cavalry!”

  They charged after the serrin, more of whom still flooded past even now. Suddenly Damon saw incoming artillery fire ahead, and pointed. Hellfire hit in the serrin's midst, engulfing riders and horses, turning animals into flaming meteors, running across the grass until they crashed and died. Damon wove past the flaming grassland and bodies and saw that the night here was now day. The catapults had been turned and were firing from the middle of the formation, back over their infantry's heads. Upon the left, infantry ranks were re-forming, bigger shields to the front, archers behind. With clear targets now to shoot at, feudal archers were returning fire with accuracy. Ahead and about, serrin riders fell, and horses staggered as they were struck.

  More hellfire erupted, serrin trying to dodge wide of the incoming fire, many failing. As the glare faded, Damon could see a great mass of horses gathering ahead. The Regent's cavalry was being regrouped for a charge. With all this fire, the night would not bother them. And if they bottled up the attack on this side of the formation, the artillery would keep falling until they were all dead.

  As Jaryd's cavalry raced toward the Regent's artillery, some talmaad ahead of them peppered the surrounding defensive lines with arrows. Some fire came back, and talmaad fell, but they did not break or dodge, merely continued to walk up and down, taking down pikeman after pikeman. The catapults were surrounded by such terrible bristles to guard against precisely this. But long pikes required two hands, leaving none for shields. Many pikemen wore breastplates instead, but even in the dark, serrin shot for faces and throats.

  Only when Jaryd's cavalry were bearing down did the talmaad split to allow them through. And then there were pikes rearing up in Jaryd's face, still enough to cause a flash of fear, and a sudden maneouvre to keep from being skewered. The line of horses crashed in, animals rearing as pikes impaled them, riders falling, poles snapping into pikemen's faces. Jaryd found himself inside the line of spikes, and wheeled his horse to force a wider gap, hacking about him with his blade.

  Other cavalry forced their way within, Lenays on smaller dussieh, typically less frightening for infantry but harder to impale on giant poles. They got in amongst the pikemen, and did not need to reach as far to strike. The forward rank of pikemen began to collapse, men abandoning poles to reach desperately for shields and swords. That made more space for cavalry, and soon there were horses trampling everywhere through their lines, and men fleeing in panic.

  Suddenly there was artillery ahead of him, great wagons on huge wheels, pulled by teams of oxen. Even now, their huge arms swung, hurling flaming balls toward the rear of the left flank.

  Archers defended them, and fired at oncoming cavalry. Jaryd felt a jolt through his shield, then his horse screeched and stumbled. Another jolt, and the horse fell, but at slow speed. Jaryd rolled off as a lifetime playing lagand had taught him, while other cavalry tore past and laid into the archers without mercy.

  Jaryd ran, still limping on the leg he'd hurt crossing the Ipshaal weeks ago, and found his way up onto the nearest catapult, blocked by a shirtless crewman who grabbed a polearm. Jaryd warded off the blow and cut the man's legs from under him. He climbed up over those bloody screams and killed the next two crewmen, several more abandoning the massive winches and pulleys to run away, only to die amidst the cavalry.

  Looking at the catapult mechanism, Jaryd realised that it would take some time to disable one properly with a sword. Ropes could be cut, but there was spare rope stored in loops, for they snapped quite frequently, and could be repaired fast if need be. But behind was the ammunition wagon.

  He climbed onto it and looked down. The wagon's sides were like a giant box. Inside were racks, within which were stored the leather balls of hellfire rounds. There was a system of water, fed by a large trough at the back, that dripped down over the leather balls to keep them cool. When the catapult arm was wound down, a loader would take out a ball and place it in the cup, while another poured on a smear of hellfire, and lit it.

  Both loaders had fled, and he was alone up here and under fire, as arrows zipped in, impaling the wagon. He looked about, and from this vantage of height, saw something shocking. This was the only portion of the artillery defences that had collapsed. Even here, his cavalry were now fighting a losing battle to hold back the teeming tide of infantry that regrouped and charged the far side. Archers peppered them with arrows, and horses were falling. Very soon they would be overwhelmed.

  The great torch upon the wagon's rear that lit the final rounds was still in its sconce, and burning. Nearby catapults were still firing, incinerating serrin riders, and the last hope of victory. Jaryd realised what he had to do, for Lenayin and everything that he lo
ved. For Sofy, who would surely die with most of Jahnd if this attack did not succeed.

  He grabbed the torch off the wagon's rear and fell flat atop the wagon's storage rails. Below, a hellfire round had been arrow-struck, and was leaking badly. He pushed the torch toward it, and held it there.

  “I'm sorry, Sofy,” he murmured. “You can't save me this time. But I can save you.”

  His ears were filled with the Goeren-yai war cries of his cavalry around him, battling to grant him more time. They'd be joining him in the spirit world, his brothers-in-arms, and that suited him fine. His last thought, as the fire lit, was of Tarryn.

  “Hello, little brother. How've you been?”

  The fireball was the brightest thing Damon had ever seen. It pierced the eyes with heat more white than orange, and every serrin on the battlefield turned completely around to save his or her vision. Flames roared through infantry in the middle of the Regent's formation and engulfed a neighbouring catapult, which also erupted. As did the next, and the next, and the next, a chain of fire like a rolling wall, engulfing men by the thousand.

  When it died, the battlefield seemed paused, as though in shocked silence. Serrin stood their horses off, blinking and dazed. Across the Regent's army, men stared in disbelief.

  Too close together indeed, Damon thought, recalling Kessligh's observation. Far too close. And a second thought, as he realised how many attackers had surely been within range of those fires. Jaryd was one of the best horsemen and warriors in Lenayin, and one of the most determined. Surely he'd been in close. Suddenly, he knew with certainty that his friend was dead. It was a certainty like serrin sometimes had, of things they could not possibly know about each other. He just felt it.

  Damon did not cheer in triumph, or salute the bravery of fallen heroes. He gathered as many men as he could, and charged the nearest enemy cavalry he could find. Then he began killing.