“Down!” shouted Leks, and the defenders crouched behind the pine log wall. A few seconds later, there was a rattle as some arrows slammed into the logs, and a chorus of whistling hisses as others passed over the top of the wall, angling down to bury themselves in the courtyard.
“Anyone hit?” called Leks. There was no answering cry.
Thorn grinned to himself. He always enjoyed a battle. “Call out if you’ve been killed,” he ordered, and there was a chorus of laughter from the men crouched along the walkway.
In the valley, a second Ulan nocked and drew arrows, releasing in another extended volley. There were more rattling crashes against the pine logs, more hissing projectiles passing overhead. Then, almost immediately, the third Ulan released and more arrows flew.
“They’re not hitting anyone,” Thorn observed.
Leks nodded grimly. “Maybe not. But they’re keeping us pinned down. Look.” He peered through the gap between two of the pointed logs. Thorn followed his line of sight and saw that the three wagons were moving forward, passing between the left-hand Ulan and the sheer stone wall of the canyon. As he watched, Leks’s hand gripped his shoulder and pulled him down, just as the first Temujai squadron shot again. An arrow whipped through the small gap where Thorn’s head had been a few seconds earlier.
“Don’t stay up too long,” the commander cautioned him.
Thorn smiled gratefully. “They’re quite good, aren’t they?” he said, taking note of Leks’s instruction to keep his observations short.
“They do tend to hit what they aim at,” the gray-haired commander told him.
Farther along the rampart, Damien was shouting instructions. He could hear the rumble and rattle of the carts and knew they’d be in position before too long—unless he did something about it.
“Bring up the shields!” he ordered, and his archers complied. There were a dozen two-meter-high timber shields ready on the walkway behind them. The Araluen troops seized hold of them and erected them along a section of the rampart, projecting above the pine logs and leaving a small gap between each shield.
“Third squadron!” Damien ordered. “Take a look.”
The first squadron was just drawing back its arrows for another volley as a dozen archers peered quickly over the rampart between the shields, noting the position of the third Ulan and committing it to memory. They heard the multiple slither-slap as the first Ulan released. By the time their volley arrived, slamming into logs and timber shields, the archers were safely below the rampart once more.
More hissing and rattling. A chance arrow found its way through the narrow gap between the shields and sent one of the archers flying, crying out in pain as he hit the timber floor of the walkway.
“Replacement!” Damien yelled, and one of the men in reserve stepped forward to take the wounded man’s place, unslinging his massive war bow as he did and crouching down in cover.
Another volley hissed and rattled around the defenders. Then Damien shouted his orders.
“Right-hand side. At the third squadron. Shoot!”
Shoot was the command for the archers to release in their own time, as they found a target. Right-hand side told them which side of the shields they should emerge from. Damien would vary that with each shot to keep the Temujai guessing. Now, as his men rose from their crouched positions, drawing back the yard-long arrows until the feathers touched their cheeks, he joined them in one of the gaps, drawing back his own bow, sighting and releasing almost immediately.
There was an extended slither-thump sound as a dozen archers all released within two seconds of one another.
Damien remained standing to watch the result, although he stayed back a meter or so from the gap between the shields. The Temujai formation had just raised their own bows when the volley arrived, hissing down out of the sky like a dozen venomous snakes.
Eight of the arrows struck home, and eight riders in the front rank were pitched from their saddles by the impact. Some lay still as they hit the ground. Others tried to crawl away through the legs of the riders in the rank behind them. The suddenly riderless horses were panicked and they reared and kicked, buffeting their neighbors, who turned on them in bad temper, snapping at them with their big yellow teeth and spinning to kick out with their hind legs.
As a result, the Temujai volley was disrupted, and most of the arrows went wide. Even worse, the disciplined formation was broken up as the horses plunged and reared and tried to avoid one another. Their riders sawed angrily at the reins, trying to bring the beasts under control again. While this was happening, Damien directed a second volley at the disorganized riders.
This time, six more men were hit, and confusion among the ranks became widespread. The Ulan lost all semblance of discipline. Their commander, sensing that he would never restore order while they were under such an accurate barrage, shouted a command and the troop wheeled to their right, forming into two files once more—although without their previous precision. They galloped away from the battle to reform, leaving ten of their number on the ground. The other fallen riders hobbled and limped after their companions.
At that moment, the first of the ladders slammed against the log walls of the fort and the yelling men below began to scramble up them. They had taken advantage of the ongoing duel between the Temujai and Araluen archers to move into position at the base of the walls, scrambling through the protective ditch with their ladders. Now, as they started to swarm up, the first Ulan galloped forward to the ditch and dismounted, drawing their curved sabers as they ran to join their comrades on the ladders.
The Temujai had practiced this maneuver repeatedly over the previous week. The remaining two Ulans maintained a withering barrage on the tops of the walls, keeping the defenders crouched below the tops of the logs and allowing their comrades to climb the ladders. They were expert shots, and most of their arrows went over the top of the wall. A few fell short and struck their own men, plucking them from the ladders and sending them screaming to the ground below.
But to a Temujai commander, that was regrettable but inevitable. War was war, after all.
As the first of the dismounted riders swung themselves over the log wall, the arrow storm was lifted and the defenders were able to fight back. But the delay had been too long and the first half dozen Temujai swarmed over the wall, hacking and stabbing around them. They came from two ladders placed close together and they rapidly joined ranks to form a wedge, driving into the defenders.
“Let’s get ’em!”
The traditional battle cry of the Heron brotherband rang out over the struggling men, and Thorn led a counter-wedge of steel into the attackers.
Even though three of their most fearsome warriors—Hal, Stig and Ingvar—were absent, stationed at the two shooting platforms, they were still an irresistible force. Thorn’s mighty club smashed down on the leader of the Temujai wedge. The man’s knees buckled and he fell, to be trampled underfoot by Thorn, then Ulf and Wulf as they followed his lead. The massive club swung in a horizontal arc and sent another of the slightly built riders flying. Jesper, Stefan and Edvin followed in the wake of the twins and the bellowing one-armed sea wolf who led them as they drove the Temujai troops back to the rampart. The Temujai were small men, slightly built. The Skandians were heavy and muscular. They shoved the enemy troops bodily back over the wall.
Elsewhere, Leks and his men had held the attackers at bay, pushing the ladders sideways with long pikes, causing the men climbing them to crash to the ground.
Damien and his archers, at the eastern end of the rampart, away from the scaling ladders, engaged the two remaining Ulans in a deadly archery duel.
On the western shooting platform, Hal had so far not taken any part in the battle. He saw how Damien’s tactics had disrupted one of the Ulans. Now, as the attackers were bundled back over the ramparts, he sensed that the deadly storm of arrows directed at Damien’s men would r
ecommence.
“Let’s stir them up,” he told Ingvar. The mangler was already loaded, and he swung it toward the second Ulan. He crouched over the sights, sheltering behind the solid pinewood shield that was fitted to the front of the mangler. Behind him, Ingvar stooped in the cover of the rampart around the platform.
Hal let out a piercing whistle to attract Stig’s attention. His first mate was manning the mangler on the east side of the valley. He was on his own. He was strong enough to cock the mangler himself, and Hal hadn’t wanted to weaken the defenders on the wall any more than necessary. As he caught Stig’s attention, he gestured toward the two drawn-up Ulans as they shot volley after volley at the wall. Hal indicated that he would take the group on the left. Stig waved assent and bent over his own sights.
Hal’s mangler was at a slight angle to the ranks of horsemen. That was all to the good, he thought. The bolt would plow through them, taking down two or even three of them.
SLAM!
“Reload!” he called to Ingvar, not waiting to watch the bolt’s flight. Then he saw a sudden commotion in the front rank of the Ulan as a rider was plucked bodily from his saddle by the huge dart. Almost instantaneously, the rider behind him to the left reared up in his stirrups as the projectile hit him, smashing through his light leather armor.
The two horses, highly strung creatures, reared wildly, lashing out with their front hooves as their riders were so violently displaced. That set their neighbors rearing and bucking as well. As they were panicking, Hal let fly with another bolt, aiming farther down the front rank.
Meanwhile, Stig’s first shot slammed into the right-hand Ulan, causing more panic and confusion among its ranks.
“Give me a fire bolt,” Hal said as Ingvar heaved the twin cocking handles back. The big warrior had been about to load with a normal bolt. He stooped now and took one of the fire bolts from the bin beside him. He already had a handful of tinder smoldering in a brass bowl at the rear of the platform. He dipped a wax taper into it, blew on the burning coals until a flame licked up on the taper, then looked at Hal, receiving a nod to tell him that he was ready.
He placed the taper against the fuse and waited until he saw it spitting and smoking.
“She’s burning,” he said. Hal aligned the mangler on his target, raising the point of aim to compensate for the extra weight of the clay warhead, and released.
SLAM!
In the uncertain early morning light, they couldn’t see the smoke trail behind the bolt. But they could see the projectile curving out and up, then angling down. It plunged into the middle of the disrupted troop of horsemen. There was a short pause, then . . .
WHOOF!
A tongue of red flame, accompanied by a pillar of black smoke, erupted from the middle of the Ulan.
It was too much for the demoralized riders and their horses. Confused and on the verge of panic, they broke, spinning in all directions, fighting to get clear of the ranks around them and escape back up the valley. At first, it was a trickle of men, then the trickle became a flood as the entire Ulan retreated. They collided with their comrades from the decimated third squadron, who had only just managed to recover some semblance of order. Both squadrons now turned tail and ran. Their companions, seeing them deserting, spun in place and galloped after them.
At least two score of their number remained on the field of battle, unmoving.
chapter ten
They’ve gone, you say?” Erak asked, and Hal nodded.
“Lydia went out scouting the following day,” he said. “Their camp was deserted and they’d gone. She tracked them for a few kilometers. They were heading northeast.”
“Back where they came from,” Erak mused. He rubbed his beard thoughtfully. “But for how long?”
“I don’t think they’ll try another attack at Fort Ragnak in a hurry,” Hal said. “They lost too many men and they didn’t come close to breaking through.”
“You said they got over the wall,” Erak reminded him.
Hal shrugged. “A few of them. And Thorn and the boys threw them back almost immediately. The Temujai are simply not equipped to attack a fortified position like that. They don’t have the equipment or the tactics for it. They prefer to fight in open country, using their speed and maneuverability and their bows. Arrows aren’t a lot of use against a log wall.”
They were sitting by the fire in Erak’s private chamber. The booty and plunder that he’d amassed over years of raiding was festooned around the room. Most prominent was the crystal chandelier he had “acquired” in Gallica years ago. The ceiling of the Great Hall was too low to accommodate it properly, so it was draped down the wall and across a table, where its myriad twinkling facets caught the firelight.
It was a week since the battle at Serpent Pass. After Lydia’s reconnaissance had revealed that the Temujai had departed, Hal and the Heron brotherband had made their way back down from the mountains to Hallasholm, where he reported to Erak.
“The two manglers came as a big shock to them,” Hal continued. “The fire bolts were particularly effective.”
“But they’ll be prepared for them next time,” Erak said.
Hal frowned. “You keep assuming they’ll try again.”
Erak took a long pull at the tankard of ale on the table in front of him. Out of deference to Hal, he had served the young skirl coffee. But Erak was an old-time sea wolf, and ale was his drink of choice.
“They’ll try again,” he said. “They have to. Skandia is blocking their way. They plan to conquer the western world, and we’re the key to their success. They need to reach the sea and they need to get control of our ships. Then they can move on Gallica, Teutlandt, Araluen and the rest.”
“Why is it so important to them?” Hal asked. “They’ve conquered thousands of square kilometers of country in the east. Isn’t that enough?”
Erak shook his head. “With an aggressive, warlike nation like the Temujai, it’s never enough. They need to keep conquering new territories. Maybe it’s a religious thing, I don’t know. But I do know that they’ll keep probing, looking for a way to break through to the sea. And that means coming through us.”
“But even if they did fight their way into Skandia, we’d never hand over our ships to them. And if they captured the ships, they’d need us to sail them.”
“They don’t realize that. They’re used to having conquered nations submit to them and do what they’re told. And if they don’t get our ships, there’s always the Sonderland fleet.”
The Sonderland ships were big, cumbersome, slab-sided vessels—unlike the swift, agile Skandian wolfships. But they were probably better suited to transporting large numbers of mounted warriors across the sea.
“And the Sonderlanders would have no qualms about helping them,” Hal mused. Like all Skandians, he had a low opinion of their western neighbors—an opinion that had been proved correct over many years.
“Exactly. So, the fact remains that they’ll keep trying to break through to our coastal plain,” Erak said.
Hal shrugged. “They can try all they like at Serpent Pass,” he said. “It’ll simply cost them more and more men.”
Erak was quiet for a few seconds. Then he changed the subject. “You say the Araluens did well in the fight?” he asked.
Hal nodded emphatically. “They were invaluable,” he said. “They’re every bit as accurate as the Temujai, and their bows hit a little bit harder. It’s strange. The Temujai rely on the bow as their principal weapon, and they seem accustomed to cutting down enemy troops with showers of arrows. But they don’t know how to cope when they’re handed back some of their own medicine. Thorn says they’ve rarely faced archers before.”
“I imagine it’s not easy when you’re used to standing off a couple of hundred paces, shooting your enemy to pieces, if someone does the same thing back to you. It’s good to know that. The treaty with the A
raluens is due for renewal next year. I’d been wondering if it’s worth it.”
“It’s worth it,” Hal assured him. “Just the knowledge that the border is defended by archers will hold them at bay.”
Erak drained the last of his ale and turned to the door, about to call for a refill. Then he changed his mind. His life these days was a mostly sedentary one, and he’d begun to soften around the waistline. He didn’t mind being bulky, so long as the bulk was muscle. But he was getting to an age where the muscle was being replaced by fat.
“So, the question remains, where will they try next?” he said softly, almost to himself.
Hal frowned at the thought. “Where else is there?” he asked. “Serpent Pass is the only viable route into Skandia, isn’t it? At least if they’re looking to move large numbers of troops.”
Erak rose and moved to the map of Skandia and its neighbors on the wall. He studied it for several seconds, then replied with an apparent non sequitur.
“Is the Heron ready for sea?”
During the winter months, Hal and his crew, like most of the Skandian brotherbands, had kept themselves occupied refitting and repairing their ship. They had been interrupted by the expedition to Fort Ragnak, but the work was mostly completed.
“A day’s work will see her ready. There’s some rigging that needs replacing,” Hal said. “Do you have something in mind?”
He couldn’t resist a certain thrill of anticipation. The Oberjarl had fallen into the habit of calling on the Heron brotherband when he had a special mission to be carried out. It made for an interesting life for Hal and his crew.
Erak didn’t reply immediately. He tapped a point on the coastline some leagues to the west of Hallasholm.
“Ice River,” he said finally.
Hal rose and moved to stand beside him at the map. He knew where Ice River was, of course. It was a large river that flowed down from the mountains through a valley before making its way to the sea. Few wolfships had ever ventured far up the river. As the name implied, it was iced over for at least half the year, and there were several steep, white-water rapids that were deemed to be unnavigable.
Return of the Temujai Page 7
