There was no sign that Aeswiren's forces had been spotted. The landing continued. Small boats thronged the shoreline. Units of men were forming up on the shingle above. A couple units were already marching inland, up the narrow donkey path to the bridge.
The horsemen were at the bridge and they were beginning to cross.
"My enemy has won this round," came a voice beside him, speaking in the tongue of the Land, and Thru started at finding that Aeswiren had come up so quietly behind him.
"You are too late to stop him landing."
"Yes. But we have to destroy him, and we cannot do that until he offers battle."
"He has greater numbers than you."
"Not once General Toshak arrives."
"And the pyluk are out there." Thru gestured inland, across the Shell.
"True, we will have to be on our guard for them."
Aeswiren rubbed his chin for a moment as he studied the scene down below. "We will have a degree of surprise in our favor, too. All in all, I am confident."
The Emperor heard something and took a look down the trail to the bridge, which lay a couple miles distant.
"Better step into cover."
Thru needed no further urging, and along with the Emperor and his staff, he moved back under the trees and hid himself from view. A screen of archers was set out in front of them under cover.
Aeswiren sat down with his back to a tree. He had his sword out and was examining its edges.
Thru squatted close by.
Everyone kept strict silence for several minutes while the cavalry scouts rode over the crest of the hill, right past the waiting regiments of Aeswiren's army, hidden two hundred paces back in the trees.
When the sound of the hoofs had faded, Aeswiren gave a chuckle.
"You know we never could have pulled that off if we had any horses of our own. There'd have been at least one horse that gave us away. Horses always do that."
CHAPTER THIRTY
"What is that bit of land down there called?" Aeswiren asked Thru as they watched the enemy army crossing the bridge about two miles away. About three thousand men had crossed by this point, in Thru's estimation.
The ground was open in places, covered in forest in others. The river had changed its course many times there, creating a braided channel.
"That is Shelly Fields, on either side of the river Shell."
"A beautiful spot. Good land, too, and yet no one plows it?"
"Shelly Fields has always been left to the wild. The Spirit tells us that we should leave some of even the best land unfarmed."
Aeswiren expressed surprise. "Wilderness, you say?"
Thru understood what Aeswiren was thinking. The only wilderness left in Shasht was high in the mountains.
The enemy continued to pour across. Their regiments were clearly visible, bunched along the road.
Thru watched Aeswiren count the enemy and then make his decision. The Emperor gestured to his chief of staff, Gottbix. Immediately orderlies were dispatched to carry prepared orders for the regiments.
Aeswiren clapped Thru on the shoulder.
"The game has begun, Colonel Gillo. When the situation begins to clear, you should return to General Toshak and bring him up to date. Though he should join us before much longer."
"Yes, Lord."
Thru watched as the regiments sprouted up from cover and returned to the road. He noted that they carried their shields turned down and wore no helmets. As far as possible they covered every bit of bright metal. Thru was impressed by how quiet they were as well. There was the inevitable stirring of undergrowth and the like, but no metal struck metal and no one raised his voice. Men knew these things about war by some deep instinct, it seemed to him.
Once on the road, they formed up quickly and hurried away down the narrow track toward the bridge. When they reached the bottom of the hill, the regiments broke out, one to the left and one to the right. The ground there was a forest of oak and pine, with hemlock on the stream edges. There was little undergrowth, allowing the regiments to form up a good line and expand the front for the attack as they quickened toward the enemy lines.
The enemy horse scout noticed the onrushing regiments when they were about three quarters of a mile from the narrow bridge.
Bugles rang, drums thundered, and Red Tops roared at the men under their command. A rough and ready line was formed up, weighted toward the road. The horsemen, two hundred strong, pulled themselves together off to the right, ready to threaten Aeswiren's flank as his force pressed forward, but the force already across the river was plainly taken by surprise.
Long before the enemy was ready, Aeswiren's men came forward in a charge. The battle cry of "Aeswiren!" rang across the fields.
The two sides came together with a roar that sent a chill down Thru's spine. The last time he'd heard that sound had been at the battle of Chillum.
This battle was different, he knew, for this was war between men, but beyond that it had the same sounds: the howls of men, the clatter of weapons and shields, and the screams of the wounded.
Aeswiren kept his command post on the top of the hill, and Thru had a good view of it all. Orderlies and messengers were in constant motion between the hilltop and the regiments. As ever, Thru was impressed with the speed and efficiency of the Shasht infantry. In a matter of minutes, Aeswiren's army had extended its line to wrap itself around the smaller enemy force. That force, working just as skillfully, backed up to the banks of the river, forming a bridgehead. Meanwhile, their cavalry force charged Aeswiren's men and forced the right flank to peel back and form a wall of shields with spears extended to stand off the horsemen. There were only a couple hundred of them on that side of the river, and the river was too deep and swift to be forded. Later, when the tide went out, they would be able to cross, but for now the bridge was the only way over.
While the fighting continued, Thru saw the enemy begin moving his force back over the bridge, withdrawing from the unequal struggle with all of Aeswiren's army.
Then, abruptly, that movement stopped and reversed itself. Thru tensed and studied the trees past the right flank. The Emperor also had seen the change. He immediately sent orders to the regiments to look out for a flank attack out of the woods on their right.
The hard fighting continued. Aeswiren's men would charge, engage the stiff lines of the enemy, then break away, regroup, and charge again. Thru knew that no regiment of mots was capable of such cohesive work.
Within a few more minutes, two scouts arrived with word from the inland side of the battle that pyluk had been seen moving stealthily forward.
More scouts soon arrived, and the picture quickly took shape. Three columns of the lizard-men, at least a thousand in each column, were moving on Aeswiren's right flank.
Aeswiren remained silent, studying the field. Thru could see the problem. The Emperor's men were keeping up the pressure on the enemy bridgehead and bottling the enemy up on the far side of the river. To pull back enough men to fend off these pyluk would ease the pressure, but eventually enough of the enemy might get across the bridge to link with the pyluk, and then the enemy would have a larger force than Aeswiren on the field.
More scouts came in. The pyluk were close.
Aeswiren prepared orders for the right wing to pull back to cover itself.
"Well, Colonel Gillo," he said, "do you think General Toshak will be much longer?"
Before Thru could reply, there was a stir among the staff, and then two mot scouts were brought forward. They both had the look of barely restrained terror on their faces. Thru lunged through the press of men and spoke to them.
Their relief was so obvious that Thru heard Aeswiren chuckle behind him.
"Dear friends," said the Emperor in the tongue of the Land, "do not fear us. We are your allies now."
The mots' astonishment was writ large on their faces. Thru saved them from further embarrassment by asking for their reports.
Toshak was hurtling up the road. He would be with them in few m
inutes.
Aeswiren took this news, whirled back to study the field down below, then shook his head. "Can't risk those damned lizards getting on my flank."
Orderlies were sprinting down the hill a few seconds later.
Thru hurried back down the trail with the scouts and soon found himself among the vanguard of Toshak's army. Behind them came the regiments, rank after rank of seasoned mots and brilbies with spear, pike, and sword, ready for war.
He found Toshak striding along with his staff beneath his personal banner, a red pennon, that marked his position for all his troops to see.
Hastily, Thru explained the situation.
Toshak understood at once. He had been over that bridge several times.
"Hurry back to the Great King and tell him that I'm going to strike to the right of his force and clear those pyluk out. We will then swing around to take on the enemy force on his front."
Thru legged it back to the Emperor's command post. Already the mot regiments were filing through that area. The men around Aeswiren were all noticeably nervous at being in such close proximity to thousands of armed mots. So, Thru thought to himself, men felt the same fear mots did...
He passed on the message, then looked out over Shelly Fields. Down below, Aeswiren's right flank had retired and turned outward, ready to repel the expected flank assault. The enemy had taken advantage of this to expand the bridgehead and gain more room for maneuver.
Gottbix, the chief of staff, hurried past with more messages for the waiting line of orderlies. They were already looking tired; some of them had run up and down the hill three times already. Thru knew how they felt.
Then Aeswiren was standing there beside him. "Your general is very quick on the uptake. I like him."
"Thank you, Lord. We all revere great Toshak."
Aeswiren studied Shelly Fields. "Well, his timing is impeccable."
The mots had reached the bottom of the hill and were turning off the narrow road and moving across the open ground toward the trees on the right.
"And so, Colonel, we are in battle once more. I had thought that I would never know this taste again. This blend of strength and fear, hate and anxiety. A harsh brew, and one I would not have missed."
"You put it very aptly, Lord. I've not been privileged to see a battle fought from command headquarters before."
"Yes," said the Emperor, "I expect you were in the thick of things before. Different perspective up here."
Drums began booming loudly inland in the depths of the woods. Within a minute, a mass of pyluk came pouring out of the trees closest to the river. They were joined by other groups, rough-hewn columns pouring forth from positions farther back.
As they came on, the front of Toshak's regiments prepared to receive them. Mots in the front line raised spear and shield. In the second line they carried pikes, and in the third shield and sword. Archers let fly a cloud of arrows at the approaching pyluk, and many tall green figures slumped to the ground. Moments later, the pyluk rammed into the mot line. The lines sagged here and there but quickly stiffened. The sound of fighting roared up louder than ever.
The mots and brilbies had fought pyluk already once that day. They had learned valuable lessons, and they put them to work right away. The pyluk were soon stopped dead, and then they were slaughtered.
The drumming ceased. The pyluk wavered. On their front, they were dying, speared, cut down, outfought by the mots. Behind them, the drum, the urging of their strange Master, was gone. They fell back. Soon a gap opened between the two forces. Then the pyluk turned and withdrew.
Toshak did not hesitate. The three regiments closest to the river stood back, formed up, and turned about. They marched rapidly up past the turned-back flank line of Aeswiren's army until they came in sight of the line formed by the enemy along the riverbank.
With a sudden bark of horns, whistles, and shouted orders, the mots charged, hurling themselves at the enemy.
Aeswiren gave a whistle. "Your general is an aggressive fellow, no question about it."
Once again the roar of battle raged up from Shelly Fields.
This was the first time the men of the Old One's army had engaged the mots of the Land. They had been told over and over again that the mots were vermin, monkeys of only limited intelligence. Now they discovered that the mots had emerged from a hard school of military training and were very capable fighters.
For the mots, this was their first crack at men since Aeswiren's peace. Having warmed up on the pyluk, they were more than ready for the chance. The charge drove home. The regiments of the Old One held their ground briefly, but in a matter of minutes they were being forced back, step by step. With the river at their back, they faced annihilation.
Drums and bugles summoned reinforcements. Men were pulled away from the lines facing Aeswiren's men and thrown into the fight on the flank being chewed up by Toshak's mots. The fighting grew ever fiercer, taking a horrendous toll of men and mots, but at last the advance was halted. Toshak's forces fell back to regain some semblance of order.
That did not mean there was any let up. Aeswiren sent his men forward once more, and again the pressure on the Old One's lines intensified. The battle around the bridgehead grew very hot. The enemy understood that they could not retreat, unless they were to swim the wide, rushing river. The bridge was too narrow and would become a bottleneck and a death trap. Faced with those choices, they fought like cornered rats and died where they stood.
The rest of the Old One's host had gathered on the far side of the river, but until the tide went down, and it was now ebbing, they could do little more than watch as their compatriots fought for survival.
For an hour, perhaps, the battle went on like this. Aeswiren's men attacked then rested while Toshak's mots drove in on the right. The enemy men fought and died, and bodies mounded up in front of their lines.
Then, when their strength was beginning to fail and it looked as if Aeswiren and Toshak would finally overwhelm them, the men on the south bank were saved by the tide. It had finally ebbed low enough for the Old One to put most of his precious horsemen across, downstream from the fighting, at a place where the river channel was braided among small sandy islands, encrusted with the shells for which it was named.
The appearance of cavalry riding in on his left flank forced Aeswiren to pull back into a defensive posture.
Toshak continued the pressure on the right side of the bridgehead and was rewarded with a steady withdrawal of that force back across the river, using both the bridge and, when pressed into it, the expedient of men swimming back across the now shallow stream.
The enemy horsemen rode around the allied army and then disappeared into the woods where the pyluk had gone before. Aeswiren and Toshak took stock of the situation as the sun sank in the west.
Thru was present when the two generals met on the field between their two armies. Aeswiren and Toshak exchanged a firm handshake.
"An historic day, General."
"A good day, Great King, but we have not beaten him yet."
"True, but we have learned to fight together. This will disturb our enemy more than anything else from this day."
"Today, we disturbed him. Tomorrow, let us finish him."
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Admiral Heuze was taken down from the horse. His hands, two purple pancakes of pain, were tied in front of him. He had no peg leg and without it he had to be carried. So the Red Tops picked him up, and they were none too gentle about it, treating him like the proverbial sack of potatoes. They carried him into the Lord Leader's tent and dropped him on the floor.
He lay there, groaning softly to himself. Everything hurt. He wondered how long he had left before they killed him.
He felt a heavy tread nearby. Despite everything, a shiver ran down his spine. The giant was there again. The giant they called the Lord Leader, the giant that Heuze knew had to be the Old One that the Emperor had warned of.
But foul sorcery of some kind had been employed, because
the Old One, in Aeswiren's words, was "weak, sickly, an ancient parasite." This young giant of a man with ferocious black eyes was instead a mountain of muscle that radiated health and vigor.
Still, the Emperor had said he was a sorcerer, and Heuze had no doubt of that.
Hands lifted him and placed him in a chair. Someone held a silver jug of water to his parched lips.
"Yes, very good, revive our battered admiral," said the big voice, filled with false cheer. Heuze glimpsed the giant, surrounded by messengers, guards, and advisors who barely came up to his shoulders.
"I want the report from the bridge," the giant rumbled, studying a scroll under a lantern. "And send for General Seezil."
Heuze wondered dully if the fighting was still going on. He couldn't hear it anymore, but he didn't know where they'd taken him. It had been a bewildering day, from the moment they'd taken him ashore.
From the atmosphere in the tent, and from the feel of things at the other place, atop a small hill behind the beach, Heuze was sure the battle had not gone quite as the giant leader had expected.
The water was blissful, cool, wet in the bruised desert of his mouth. His parched tongue became flexible again. Gods, he barely had any teeth left. His mouth was a ruin. So was his nose. He could hardly see out of his left eye, everything had swollen so much. The jug was pulled away. He groaned sadly, burped, and shivered. How long did he have left? Before they finally tore the heart out of his chest and held it up to their damned god?
A huge shadow fell across him.
"Well, well, Admiral, you have survived the ride, I see."
A big hand scrunched his shoulder. Heuze winced. Those muscles had been stretched for hours hanging in the rigging.
The giant face was all smiles. Heuze kept his eyes locked on the other's.
"Sorry to disappoint you, whoever you are."
"Oh ho!" boomed the giant. "You remain so wonderfully defiant! Excellent! I need spirit. I shall use you for the spell that I must knit tonight."
Muambwi Gold Top had entered Heuze's field of view behind the giant's smile. Muambwi grinned malevolently as he heard the Old One's words. Clearly the Gold Top would enjoy watching whatever horror was to be perpetrated on the hapless admiral.
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