[Nagash 01] - Nagash the Sorcerer

by Mike Lee - (ebook by Undead)

  The earth shook as the giants climbed ponderously to their feet. Their faces, carved from wood and sheathed in burnished copper, bore visages meant to win the favour of the gods: a snarling hound’s face, in honour of Geheb; the cunning, enigmatic jackal favoured by Djaf; or Phakth’s haughty, cruel falcon. The warriors of Rasetra and Lybaras stared in awe as the great engines hefted massive stone maces and took their first steps towards the battlefield. Few noticed that the army’s war scorpions were nowhere to be seen. Like their patron, Sokth, the stealthy machines had slipped away in the night, leaving only piles of churned sand to show where they had been.

  The stirring of the war machines brought answering bellows from the south-eastern quarter of the camp, as the living war machines of the Rasetran army raised their armoured snouts and challenged the distant giants. The thunder-lizards were massive, humpbacked creatures, with squat legs the size of tree trunks and powerful, lashing tails that were knobbed at the end like maces. The beasts were sluggish in the early morning chill, despite sleeping on sands heated by the warmth of a score of blazing fires. Their handlers, lean, agile lizardmen from the southern jungles, prodded the creatures to their feet with long, spearlike sticks and clambered up their sides into howdahs of wood and canvas fitted to their armoured backs. Packs of lizardman auxiliaries crowded the field around their massive cousins, whispering to one another in their hissing, clacking tongue. Some showed off the bloodstained skulls they had taken in battle the day before, inviting their fellows to taste the trophies with flicks of their dark, forked tongues.

  Just as the first rays of sunlight broke over the far horizon, a chorus of trumpets pealed from the centre of the camp and the infantry began to move. The forward edge of the battleline, twenty thousand men, formed into ten companies stretching nearly five miles from north to south, advanced under the watchful stares of their noble commanders and the leathery curses of their file leaders. The cavalry rode in their wake: eight thousand light horsemen, five thousand heavy horse and two thousand chariots, plus another twenty thousand reserves and auxiliaries. Behind them, striding through swirling clouds of dust, came the titanic war machines of Lybaras and the bellowing thunder lizards of Rasetra. Last of all came the multicoloured processions of the army’s priests: servants of Ptra and Geheb, Phakth and Neru, and even priests of Tahoth the Scholar in their gleaming vestments of copper and glass.

  The armies of the East marched to battle with the rising sun at their backs and the shadows of night retreating before them.

  The bow of the sky-boat pitched and rolled as the sun churned the air above the rolling dunes, making Rakh-amn-hotep glad that he had resisted the urge to eat a hearty breakfast before heading for the battleline. Beside him, Hekhmenukep swayed like a palm tree in a storm, relaying instructions to his signallers as easily as if he were reclining in his tent back at camp. The King of Rasetra gripped the bow rail in one white-knuckled hand and resolved not to embarrass himself in front of the scholar-king.

  Scores of Lybarans crowded the decks of the sky-ship as it floated along behind the advancing army. Four teams of signallers lined the ship’s rails, clutching their dish-shaped bronze reflectors and periodically gauging the angle of the blazing sun. Behind them, a company of archers sat cross-legged down the centre of the deck, their long bows resting within easy reach as they chatted or played at games of dice. At the stern, surrounding the sky-boat’s complicated set of rudders, two dozen young priests chanted invocations to the air spirits that kept the vessel aloft. Farther off to the east, trailing well behind the advancing army, came the remainder of the Lybaran sky-boats, the seven stately craft casting long shadows across the rolling terrain beneath their keels.

  Two hundred feet below, the allied army advanced steadily across the broken plain towards their waiting foe. At such a distance, none of the rumble and clatter of an army on the march reached Rakh-amn-hotep’s ears, which only served to deepen his unease.

  “I feel like a spectator up here,” he said, half to himself. He glanced at Hekhmenukep. “Are you certain this will work? What if the army can’t read our signals?” The King of Lybaras gave Rakh-amn-hotep a condescending smile.

  “There are Lybaran signallers with every company,” he said, as though reassuring an anxious child. “We have spent centuries refining this system in elaborate games of war. It cannot fail.” Rakh-amn-hotep stared thoughtfully at the Lybraran king.

  “How many times have you used it in a real battle?” he asked. Hekhmenukep’s confident smile faltered a bit.

  “Well…” he began.

  “That’s what I was afraid of,” the Rasetran king growled. For a fleeting moment he considered asking Hekhmenukep to be set down with the rest of the army, but having orders issued from the ground and the air would only increase the risk of confusion. Scowling, he turned his attention to the battlefield below and tried to work out the enemy’s dispositions.

  From Rakh-amn-hotep’s vantage point, the army of the Usurper was laid out before him like tokens on a battle-map. Companies of blue-clad Zandri archers formed a skirmish line some fifty yards in front of a veritable wall of enemy spearmen, anchored on the trade road to the north and stretching for more than four miles in a shallow crescent to the south. The enemy companies were less numerous, but individually larger than the allied formations, five ranks to the allies’ three. The king spied still more companies held in reserve behind the front rank, reinforcing the enemy centre and right. As near as he could reckon, the combined forces of the Usurper outnumbered the allied infantry by more than twenty thousand men. Large squadrons of Numasi light horsemen prowled along the flanks of the enemy army, alert for any attempts to sweep around the battleline, and a large block of heavy horsemen waited behind a set of dunes along the enemy’s left flank. Two more formations waited at the rear of the Usurper’s force, but they were cloaked in the mists rising from the Fountains: chariots, or perhaps even catapults, the king surmised.

  “Seventy, perhaps eighty thousand troops,” Rakh-amn-hotep mused. “It appears that Ka-Sabar’s diversion to the south wasn’t as successful as we hoped. That must be all the fighting men of Khemri, Numas and Zandri combined.” He leaned against the rail, studying the formations more carefully. “Still no tents, as reported at Zedri. Where are the Usurper and his pale-skinned monsters?” Hekhmenukep considered this.

  “Perhaps they are hidden in the mists surrounding the fountains,” he suggested.

  “Perhaps,” Rakh-amn-hotep agreed. “At Zedri, he revealed himself only when his army was on the verge of defeat. It’s possible that he thinks he can carry this battle on the strength of his army alone.” The king folded his arms and scowled at the enemy troops.

  “No. There’s more to it than that. Something is wrong here, but I can’t put my finger on it.”

  Hekhmenukep joined the Rasetran king at the rail and spent several long moments surveying the broken plain. Finally he said, “Where are the bodies?”

  “Bodies?”

  The Lybaran king indicated the plain with a sweep of his hand, and said, “This is where you fought the enemy vanguard yesterday, correct? You told me that there were hundreds of dead from both sides.”

  “More on their side than ours,” Rakh-amn-hotep interjected.

  “But what happened to the bodies?” the Lybaran asked. “The plain should be covered in bloating corpses and flocks of vultures, but there’s nothing there.” Rakh-amn-hotep considered this.

  “That’s it,” he said at last. “Yes, it must be! Nagash used his damnable sorcery to animate the dead and…” He swept his gaze across the battlefield, looking for clues. “He could have marched them into the mists to conceal them as a reserve force.”

  “Why not simply bury them in the ground where they fell?” Hekhmenukep suggested. “Then they could spring up behind us as our companies advanced.”

  The Rasettan king shook his head, and said, “The ground is too rocky to allow it, and we’d see the churned ground from here besides.” Once ag
ain, he studied the enemy’s dispositions. “The enemy has reinforced its lines in the centre and on their right, leaving the left flank relatively weak. They want us to throw our weight against the left, drawing us forwards as their companies retreat, and then counter-charge with their heavy cavalry to stop us in our tracks. That leaves us overextended and weak on their right flank, ripe for a counter-attack from the south.” Rakh-amn-hotep pointed off into the dunes beyond the enemy’s right flank. “The dead are waiting out there in the sands,” he declared. “That’s what Nagash is planning. I’d wager my life on it.”

  Hekhmenukep considered this, before saying, “I can’t fault your reasoning, but how do we counter it?”

  “We shift the bulk of our reserves to the south,” the Rasetran king ordered. “Alert the commanders to watch for counter-attacks. Then we see about turning the tables on the Usurper’s forces to the north.”

  Rakh-amn-hotep began to issue instructions to the waiting Lybaran signallers, his commands growing swifter and more assured as the pieces of his battle-plan fell neatly into place. Within minutes the signal-men were at work, flashing messages to the troops on the ground, and the Rasetran king grinned fiercely as the allied army went into action.

  Even with the wonders of the Lybaran sun-signals, rearranging the dispositions of the allied army took up much of the morning. Huge clouds of dust churned above the plain, masking the movements of the allied companies as they headed to their new positions. Other than a few desultory probes from enemy light horsemen to the south, the Usurper’s army made no move to interfere with the allies’ manoeuvres.

  Rakh-amn-hotep sipped watered wine from a golden goblet as the army completed its final adjustments along the great plain. Hekhmenukep waited alongside the Rasetran, contemplating the waiting enemy forces.

  “Four hours, and they’ve barely moved,” he said. “It’s as though we don’t matter to them at all.”

  “Oh, we matter,” Rakh-amn-hotep said, “but it doesn’t profit them to come out and challenge us. Remember Nemuhareb’s mistake at the Gates of the Dawn? He could have sat and defended the fortifications at the gates and probably driven us back, but his pride got the better of him. Nagash knows that time is on his side. He’s got the fountains at his back. All he has to do is hold us at bay, and the heat will do his work for him.” The Rasetran took another sip of wine. “That’s why we have to risk everything on one, fierce assault,” he said. “We break through his lines with our first attempt, or probably not at all. Each successive attack will be weaker than the one before.”

  A signaller on the starboard rail flashed an acknowledgement to the forces on the ground. The nobleman in charge of the team strode quickly to the waiting kings and bowed deeply, before saying, “All is in readiness, great ones.”

  Rakh-amn-hotep nodded.

  “Very well,” he said, and smiled at Hekhmenukep. “Time to roll the dice,” he said, turning to the signaller. “Send the order to begin the advance.”

  The command was passed among the men, and within moments all of the bronze discs were flashing the signal in hot bursts of light. The kings heard the wail of war-horns on the plain below, and with a muted roar the vast battleline of the eastern armies began their attack.

  Rakh-amn-hotep had shifted the entire weight of the allied infantry southwards, arraying them against the centre and right flank of the Usurper’s host. Ten thousand Rasetran warriors marched in the front ranks, striding shoulder-to-shoulder with their broad wooden shields raised before them. Their dark faces were painted in vivid streaks of yellow, red and white, in the manner of the barbaric lizardmen, and fetishes of feathers and bone joints were bound to the heads of their stone maces. At the rear of each company marched groups of Rasetran archers, clad in heavy, ankle-length coats of lizard hide. Each archer had a slave who paced alongside him, carrying bundles of bronze-tipped arrows so that the bowmen could draw and fire on the move.

  Smaller companies of Lybaran light infantry marched behind the Rasetrans, armed with heavy swords and hatchets. They advanced close behind the heavy infantry, like jackals pacing behind a pride of desert lions. Their task was not to confront living foes, but to wield their blades against the bodies of fallen warriors, both allied and friendly, who were left in the wake of the army’s advance. Still farther east, the infantry reserves of the army were arrayed in a crescent covering the advancing army’s southern flank, watching for signs of a surprise attack from the dunes.

  As the battlelines advanced, the Lybaran catapults went into action, sending rounded stones the size of wagon wheels arcing over the heads of the allied troops. The projectiles ploughed into the packed ranks of the enemy infantry, crashing everything in their path amid sprays of splintered wood, flesh and bone. The screams of wounded and dying men rose above the muted tramp of marching feet.

  When the allied companies were two hundred yards from their foes, the feared Zandri archers drew back their bows and darkened the skies with volley after volley of arrows. Bronze arrowheads crackled against the shields of the Rasetran infantry, or buried deep into their thick, scaly coats. Here and there a warrior fell as a reed shaft found its way through a chink in their heavy armour, but soon the Rasetran archers were returning fire against the Zandri bowmen, and the intensity of the enemy fire began to subside.

  The enemy archers gave ground before the advancing allied host, continuing to fire until they had exhausted their small store of arrows. Then they retreated behind the safety of their battered infantry companies. The Rasetrans continued their slow, steady advance, conserving their strength in the blistering heat, until the two armies came together in a slow, grinding crash of arms and armour. The enemy infantry met the allied warriors shield-to-shield, jabbing at their foes with long, darting spears, while the Rasetrans hammered away at the lightly armoured troops with their brutal stone-headed weapons.

  The hard-bitten jungle warriors sowed terrible carnage among their less-skilled foes, their armour shrugging off all but the strongest blows. The enemy line bowed beneath the onslaught, but before long the heavy infantry began to tire beneath the weight of their gear and the heat of the sun, and the advance began to falter. Enemy reserves streamed to the centre and right, shoring up the Usurper’s battleline.

  * * * * *

  “The advance is faltering,” Hekhmenukep said. “Your men can’t keep this up for much longer.”

  Rakh-amn-hotep rested his hands against the rail of the sky-ship and nodded. He could clearly see that the push on the centre and the enemy right could not succeed, for the heavy infantry was trying to force its way into a veritable sea of enemy troops. The attack had done its job, however, drawing off much of the Usurper’s reserve troops, leaving the enemy left flank even more vulnerable than before. The enemy commanders on the ground could not see the concentrations of the opposing armies as he could, and, with the advantage of his god-like vantage point, he knew exactly where and when to strike. Had his foe been anyone else, the Rasetran king might have pitied him.

  “Any sign of attack from the south?” he asked.

  Hekhmenukep shook his head, saying, “Nothing yet.”

  “Then they’ve waited too long,” Rakh-amn-hotep said. Satisfied, he turned to the signallers. “Signal for the attack on the enemy left to commence.”

  Down on the battlefield, the Lybaran scholar-priests read the winking signals and raised their hands to the towering figures before them. Singing incantations and carefully worded commands, they unleashed their charges upon the enemy line.

  Timbers creaked and giant mechanisms rattled and groaned as the six giant war machines lumbered forwards against the enemy’s left flank. Packs of huge lizardmen and their lumbering war beasts loped in their wake, filling the air with furious shouts and ululating war cries.

  The skirmish line of enemy archers faltered at the sight of the advancing war machines, and when the first volley of arrows clattered harmlessly against their wood and bronze frames, the bowmen beat a hasty retreat behind the dub
ious safety of their spearmen. The Khemri infantry held its ground as the giant engines approached, perhaps trusting in their Eternal King to deliver them.

  The giants covered the intervening distance in a few dozen strides and waded into the packed warriors, hurling broken, screaming bodies skywards with every sweep of their legs. Their huge maces swept down like pendulums, carving bloody swathes through the press. Frantic, screaming warriors hurled themselves at the giants, stabbing their spears into the joints between the engines’ heavy plates, but their weapons could not penetrate deep enough to hit their vulnerable joints. The war machines never slowed, driving steadily deeper through the shattered enemy companies, and into the deep, bloody furrows ploughed by their feet came the wild lizardmen, who fell upon the stunned warriors with their savage, stone-tipped mauls.

  Panic raced like a sandstorm through the enemy’s left flank, and the Usurper’s broken line reeled backwards in the face of the overwhelming assault. As the Khemri champions tried to re-form their retreating companies the ground beneath them exploded in a shower of rock and churned sand as the Lybaran war scorpions sprang their ambush. Terrified warriors were chopped to pieces by bronze-edged pincers or crushed to pulp by the scorpions’ lashing stingers. Within the space of a few minutes, organised resistance collapsed as the Khemri spearmen lost their courage and fled westwards.

  As the enemy’s left flank collapsed, receding from the giants in a swift-flowing tide, the air overhead was rent with unearthly shrieks and arcs of flickering green flame that rose from catapults concealed in the mist to the rear of the enemy host. Clusters of enchanted, screaming skulls rained down upon the striding giants, shattering against their wood-and-bronze plates in bursts of sorcerous fire. Within moments, two of the huge machines were wreathed in flames as burning fragments found their way through gaps in their armoured plates and ignited their vulnerable skeletons. Their advance slowed as the building heat softened their bronze gear wheels and ate at their bones. Thick copper cables snapped under the building stress, lashing like giant whips and bursting the engines apart from within. A giant with the jackal-headed visage of Djaf died first, blowing apart in a shower of jagged metal and splintered wood as its steam vessel burst in a thunderous explosion. A falcon-headed giant fell next as its bronze knee joints broke apart, toppling the machine forwards onto a dozen retreating Khemri spearmen. Horrified, the Lybaran priests chanted frantically to their war machines, commanding them to withdraw, but not before two more of the giants were struck multiple times and set on fire.