The Rage Within Page 5

  How many had fallen in the first minutes? A thousand?

  He could hear the humming of those massive discs as they lazily sailed towards the ranks, a throbbing he felt in his belly. Then came the sickening crunch of armour and bone as the unstoppable objects tossed his soldiers aside like broken rag dolls.

  The volleys of arrows, normally easily defended against with regimented, disciplined soldiers, were taking their toll too, as order broke down among the ranks. He was proud to see that none fled, but without structure they were vulnerable. He was hesitant for a rare moment in his career.

  To sound the retreat would doubtless save many of his men’s lives, but even then a large number would be within range of those war engines whilst falling back.

  Then what? Rethink my strategy whilst the enemy take heart from an early victory.

  But they were not yet close enough to sound the charge. Running in heavy armour would sap their strength, even over a hundred yards. He would rather have that distance halved, but few would make it that far at this rate.

  So it was with reluctance that he gave the order to charge, and the trumpeters rang out the command even as he ordered his cavalry to prepare and his archers to advance to within range of the defensive line.

  With the frontal assault under way, even tired Infantrymen would force the defenders to expose that eastern flank to cavalry. Then to silence those blasted machines.

  Scurrilous Blunt watched the charge begin, and hoped the men arrayed before him had the nerve to hold for long enough.

  “Hold your bloody ground you sons of sows. Any man who breaks before the order will wear his bollocks for a bloody necklace!” he shouted.

  No-one could hear him over the din of course, but he felt comfortable hurling abuse, and he needed to be relaxed to concentrate. He nodded approvingly as he saw a cohort of Korathean cavalry circling south-east and checked that the markers were all intact. The flags they had erected to mark the strategic points within their own ranks were vital to avoid killing their own. All appeared as it should. The first of the Heavy Infantry met a Dasari pikeman, knocking the pike aside easily and felling the Dasari before himself being impaled by the defender’s fellows. Blunt cursed and wondered if the Dasari were up to the task.

  He was reassured as more Heavy Infantry slammed into the defensive line, and while it buckled under the momentum of the massive armoured troops, it held. The pikemen carried shields that were almost the height of a man as well as their long pikes, so those at the front formed a wall as those a rank behind stabbed over their heads at the enemy. It would not hold for long, but it did not need to.

  When he judged the moment right, he called to the signaller to give the order. The coded flags sent the message to the watching Captains on the ground who shouted their own orders to their men. The line broke at its centre and Defenders retreated back and to the side, like a breached dam wall. The front line held their shields steady as they fell back in a carefully practised formation, forming a funnel that the attackers could not help but be swept through. The Heavy Infantry flowed through the breach, fifty yards across and growing, forced through by the weight of those behind them, and they poured into the gap in their thousands. Blunt watched as the sea of armour washed into the area before him and what had been an empty ‘courtyard’ moments before filled with gleaming steel and cries of victory..

  The defenders fled to points behind the markers as camouflage sheets were pulled from still more war engines.

  Those Koratheans at the front saw their fate even as the engineers fired the weapons. Dozens of Ballistas - giant crossbows - fired in volleys, their steel bolts ripping the Koratheans to shreds. The massive broad-headed bolts, a yard across, killed a dozen before coming to rest. It took six men to load each bolt even while four others worked the winches to reset the cable, but still, there was no break in the volleys as the well drilled engineers reloaded and fired time after time, with cruel efficiency.

  Nothing outside the markers was safe. A few defenders fell, too slow to make the safety of the flags, but the number of Koratheans killed was far greater.

  Even those at the edges of the breach who had someone to fight were so distracted by the wholesale massacre just a short stride away, that they fell easily to the swords and pikes of the defenders, and as more poured forward and were cut down, the cavalry charged the eastern flank.

  Olimar Bluntis took charge of the eastern flank. This was where the two hundred strong mercenary band held position along with two hundred Eritanian spear men, whose javelins would prove useful soon. Behind them, a further two hundred archers peeled off from the main archery and took up position in readiness. From his tower, Olimar’s father had seen the approaching cavalry in their heavy armour, circling, and had given the order to make ready.

  Dozens of carthorses fidgeted between the footsoldiers and archers. The horses were hitched in teams of four to stout ropes that lay buried in a shallow layer of dusty soil. The ropes ran in the direction of the oncoming cavalry, disappearing a few finger widths underground before they reached the backs of the waiting Eritanians and mercenaries. Grooms held the nervous beasts steady.

  Olimar doubted he had ever seen so many horses in one place. The Koratheans had committed about half of their cavalry – four thousand he estimated - to this attack. Merat obviously felt that would be enough. Olimar hoped it wouldn’t be. No doubt there would be more to follow when this first attack broke through and started dealing with the archers and war engines. They would need to break through first, of course.

  With the bulk of the defensive line pulled in to hold back the frontal assault, Olimar found his line of men drawn painfully thin, and hoped for his sake that Valia’s plan worked. He would have insisted that she face this attack herself had hers not been a far more daunting task.

  The cavalry approached at a canter in two columns. One from due east, the other timed to reach them slightly later from the north-east. He grimaced in reluctant appreciation. The first column would force the defensive line to close and turn inward, just as the second arrived to bring the fight to two fronts. Against such overwhelming odds, it would be a quick rout.

  The nearest column began to fan out as they approached, forming a wedge twenty riders wide. The horsemen at the back were completely shrouded in dust, and Olimar wondered if his initial estimate was accurate or not. Either way, it didn’t matter.

  “Hold those teams steady until I give the order,” Olimar called to the grooms behind him. The horses whickered, sensing as much as hearing the approaching hoofbeats.

  The Cavalry upped their speed gradually as they drew nearer. Olimar carefully kept his eye on the faint markers left on the ground ahead and hoped the riders would not see them. He let them come closer, the canter developing into a full gallop. Olimar gauged their approach.

  Two hundred yards.

  “Archers, ready!” he shouted, not looking back.

  “Loose!”

  A volley of arrows arced overhead and fell on the advancing cavalry even as another volley was fired. Some of the arrows struck home, felling horse or rider, but most found shields or armour.

  The next volley had more effect as the distance closed and the arrows had more energy to pierce the enemy plate, and still more fell. But for all that the archers chipped away at the numbers of the horsemen, the mass of riders still shook the ground with their approach. They had time for six volleys before Olimar signalled them to stop. He estimated two hundred to two hundred and fifty had fallen.

  Closer. Fifty yards.

  “Teams One to Thirty!” he called, holding up his arm, eyes fixed on the approaching riders.

  The Cavalry lowered their lances, mounts sweating, flanks gleaming where plate and mail did not protect them.

  Thirty yards.

  “NOW!” he shouted, dropping his arm.

  On his order, the grooms holding those teams whipped at the flanks of the stout carthorses. They lurched forwards, hauling the hidden ropes stiffly out of the
ground, pulling them taut and whipping the ropes from the shallow soil. The ropes in turn lifted banks of steel spikes, their points rising to meet the oncoming cavalry. Each cluster was several yards wide with a dozen sharpened spears coming to a halt at chest height of the hapless horses. The hinges were still firmly anchored underground and the spikes locked in place even as the cavalry struck. They had been staggered from a few yards ahead of the defenders to a hundred yards in front and so the first wave of horsemen found themselves in a sea of rising metal.

  Olimar could not help but wince at the sound. Horses screamed as they ran into sharpened steel, tearing themselves open on the vicious spears. Those that avoided the banks of metal tripped over their fallen comrades crushing their riders in the chaos of hooves and steel.

  The second column realised too late that the same fate would befall them, too slow to react and turn.

  “Now! Now!” Olimar yelled, waving frantically to the remaining teams desperate to be heard over the din. They saw, and chivvied their teams forward, cutting the ropes when the spikes locked and leading the carthorses away from the shrieks of their kind.

  Those cavalry fortunate enough not to have been in that killing ground when the spikes rose from the soil, tried to regroup. Those at the front attempted to turn against the press of those at the rear, to attack another part of the line, away from the spikes. For a full minute the archers could pick their targets as the horsemen were all but motionless, unable to go forward for the thrashing mass of broken cavalry ahead, and pinned from behind by their fellows trying to advance. When they finally did move, it was back to regroup out of range of the archers and their powerful longbows.

  “Eritanians!” Olimar ordered. “Advance!”

  The javelin wielding Eritanian soldiers advanced into the killing ground. They killed the injured horses with quick thrusts of their javelins, and finished injured cavalrymen, pinned beneath their mounts or unable to stand with broken bones. Those that could stand and wield a weapon were quickly dispatched, their armour too heavy and cumbersome for ground combat, and their lances unsuited to this type of fighting. Some unsheathed swords, but the javelins, when thrown by the skilled Eritanians, took even a heavily armoured cavalryman clean off his feet; his armour pierced. They never got to fight.

  The Korathean archers were all but kept out of the fight by the superior range of the Dashiyan longbows. Every time they advanced to within firing range of the defenders, volley after volley cut them down. Such was their reliance on the might of the Heavy Infantry, that the Korathean army had never invested much time or thought to bettering their long range capability. Besides which, a well ordered column of Infantrymen with shields locked could advance right up to an enemy archery and take their bows from their hands.

  Hatar Merat Fol’Ashar wished for better archers for the first time in his career. It seemed this would be a day for ‘firsts’.

  He could see his Cavalry being slaughtered as they lay broken amongst those damned steel palings. And his archers were unable to get close enough to fire on the butchers without being cut to shreds by the Dashiyan Longbowmen.

  And those blasted war engines still rained death on the Heavy Infantry.

  This was no way for the sons of Shol’Hara to die.

  By his reckoning, the day would still be theirs. They were slowly crushing the rebels – for he already thought of Dashiya as part of the Empire – but at what cost?

  Curse the Eastern Kingdoms and their cowardly machines.

  He would lead the armies of the Korathean Empire east himself to crush those savage Kingdoms, if his Kodistai gave his blessing, and after today’s display of treachery, how could he not?

  The coastline to the north of Hadaiti, Dashiya’s capital, was dominated by several miles of chalky cliffs. They were not particularly high, a dozen yards at their tallest, and they gave way to the plateau currently being contested.

  Valia and her companions moved quickly and quietly northwards, led by a shrew faced Dashiyan guide, Ashami. He knew of a cave, so he said, that led to a sink-hole within the Korathean camp.

  This was perhaps the most important part of the plan, and the most likely to fail.

  She was accompanied by the green skinned Lythurian, Elan, the Dasari mercenaries Foley and Marlon Padar, and a half dozen other mercenaries she knew to be stealthy enough for this task.

  They could hear the sounds of battle above, though they were spared its full volume sheltered as they were by the cliff. They had gone perhaps two miles from the city walls when their guide pointed to a narrow crevice leading into the friable rock.

  “Are you serious?” said Valia.

  “I told you it would be a squeeze,” Ashami said shrugging.

  Valia looked at her comrades and realised that she was probably the broadest of the lot. Marlon Padar was a muscular man, but turned side on would be able to pass through the crack. She looked down at her ample bosom and shook her head.

  “Oh to be a man,” she sighed.

  “That sort of talk would break Truman’s heart, you know,” Foley, Marlon’s younger brother teased quietly.

  “Shut up, Foley,” she replied, turning towards the cliff. She forced herself into the crack and wriggled her body deeper into the gap, where it mercifully widened. It opened into an upward sloping corridor, washed out by high tides. She moved in deeper, looking back to make sure that the others were making good progress, and then stopped to wait. When everyone was inside, except Ashami, who had remained at the entrance, she nodded to herself and moved onwards, picking her way carefully.

  The scrape of a boot earned those behind her a stern look. Lyman grimaced, revealing his guilt. They continued through the crack, which started to lean to the left, forcing them to crab awkwardly along on all fours. Eventually they neared an area of light streaming from above. Valia ushered Foley forward. He squeezed up close to her and placed a foot in her offered hands. She slowly lifted him towards the patch of light.

  Foley found himself looking out from the grass-obscured opening in a small outcrop of chalky stone. He could smell urine; clearly someone had been too lazy to walk to the latrine pits. There were tents within his field of vision and smouldering camp-fires, but no sign of life besides. Valia lowered him again. He gave a nod, and they waited.

  Back at the entrance, Ashami saw the signal fire at the harbour that he had been waiting for. He whistled into the opening, an imitation of a marsh gull; waited until his whistle was answered, and then returned southward.

  Again, Foley was lifted up to the exit. He cautiously forced his shoulders through the hole and pulled himself into the open air. He crouched silently for a few moments, scanning his surroundings, then, gave a low whistle into the hole he had just exited. One by one, the mercenaries crept from the cave and hunkered down. They could hear the sound of cooking pots being washed somewhere in the distance, an army of this size brought with it another army of cooks, pot washers, blacksmiths, carters and seamstresses. Any one of them could give the alarm and the mercenaries would not hesitate to silence them if it came to that.

  They made their way towards the distant sounds of battle, weaving through the tents, keeping their heads low. At one point they all had to dive for cover in various tents when a young groom led a horse too close to them for comfort.

  They reached their goal some minutes later.

  Hatar Merat Fol’Ashar sat on his great charger, surveying the battlefield. He was surrounded by twenty mounted swordsmen, Heavy Infantry from the look of them, though with lighter armour; and a dozen crossbow bearers on foot.

  Valia waited behind a tent for everyone to find a vantage point. She made sure that they were all in eye contact, then slowly and deliberately signalled that the crossbowmen be taken out first, then the mounted swordsmen. They all nodded their understanding and unslung the short bows they carried. Only Elan carried a longbow.

  She held up a hand with three fingers up, then counted down

  Two, one…

  As
one, they broke cover and fired at the crossbow bearers.

  Eight fell immediately, but the remaining four spun, and quickly overcoming their shock, fired back. None of the bolts found their targets as the mercenaries took cover again. The horsemen charged and spread out, so as to draw the fire from their Hatar. Another two crossbow bearers died trying to reload their heavy weapons whist the other two ran for cover.

  “Horsemen right and left!” Valia cried. “Elan! Foley! With me!”

  Four of the mounted swordsmen had remained with the Hatar, swords drawn and forming around him.

  Elan was the first to break cover, sprinting towards the Hatar and his guard. He nocked and loosed two arrows as he ran, taking two of the guards from their saddles. Valia stopped to fire briefly and took out another whilst Foley took care of the last. One of the crossbow bearers had managed to reload his weapon and hit one of the mercenaries before being run down and stabbed by Marlon. Some of the swordsmen dismounted, frustrated at being unable to negotiate the maze of tents. Then they used their greater number to surround the intruders and close in for the kill. The mercenaries discarded their bows and drew their own swords; the sound of the steel being unsheathed rang in the silence that followed.

  “Put up your weapons!” Valia shouted. Elan stood with his longbow drawn, a bead on the Hatar’s chest. Foley also held his bow on the Hatar.

  “Put up your weapons, or your General dies,” she repeated.

  The soldiers stopped their advance, eyeing the mercenaries warily and waiting for orders. The Hatar took stock, looking all around him.

  “I could order them to kill you,” Merat sneered.

  “Indeed,” she replied, “But Elan here is Lythurian. He will not miss. You will be dead before you draw another breath.”

  “Every victory has its cost,” he replied.

  “Are you willing to pay that price?” she asked.

  Merat regarded the archer with the green hue to his skin. “We have no quarrel with the ‘Tree Folk’”