Doom's Break

by Christopher Rowley

  Forced to slow, they became better targets. Men and horses fell there, in some cases blocking the way for those coming behind. Still, these Shasht cavalry were the best troops in the army, and they were not to be stopped by passive obstacles. They jumped their warhorses over the fallen, over the pits, and even over the breastworks.

  The pikes and spears of the mot front line were the next barrier and here the toll exacted was high. Dozens of horses and riders went down and others shied from the spear points. A storm of arrows broke over the leading riders, and many more saddles were emptied.

  But the main mass of the cavalry drove across the bodies of the fallen and everything else in their way. Where riders were dismounted, they fought their way to the line to engage with sword and spear. Mots began falling, and where gaps appeared, horses pushed through and their riders beat on helm and shield around them with battle-ax and morningstar.

  For a few moments, the line held, but then the horsemen broke through on the extreme left end. Outflanked, the entire mot position began to fail.

  At this point, the horsemen ran into the cloud of insects, which attacked them as avidly as they went after the mots. Horses panicked, riders lost concentration, and for a crucial half minute the cavalry milled about in the gap they had forced between the allied armies.

  Thru and Beech conferred briefly. They were about to send the reserve companies forward to halt the retreat and close the gap when they saw formations of Aeswiren's men march out of the cloud of flies. They came in a column, six men abreast, and as they came within bow shot of the horsemen, they stopped and formed up in squares, three deep with twelve on a side. The parade-ground precision of their moves brought a whistle to Thru's lips.

  The horsemen thrust forward at the first sight of these infantry, but they were too late. The troops were already in place, and the riders could only swirl about the stubborn squares, hacking at the shields below while archers and spear men within took a steady toll.

  Thru saw the power of the square. The cavalry could surround such formations, but as long as they held, they could not be flanked and routed. And while the horsemen rode around them, the infantry could fight back.

  "The flies are lifting," said Beech.

  Thru looked around. The horrid haze was thinning. The flies were rising into the sky once again.

  "Move! Close that breach in the line."

  The reserve companies trotted forward, and the ragged formations of retreating mots on the flank opened to let them through. With fresh pikes and spears, they took a swift toll on the horsemen, who had lost the momentum of the charge and were now milling in the breach area.

  This reversal brought a change of tactics. A party of fifty or more horsemen continued to ride around the squares set up by Aeswiren's flank force, but the rest pulled back, reformed into assault columns, and charged again.

  Now, instead of trying to ram through the mots' line, the horsemen rode up, engaged the pikes and spears, hacked and cut with their axes and swords, and then retreated, trying to draw mots after them in pursuit. Where this happened, the horsemen turned about and cut down anyone pulled out of position.

  Beech and his officers tried to prevent this, but the mots were not trained for this tactic, and besides, after the flies and the strenuous fighting, they were far from being able to think clearly. When a mot defeated a rider and sent the man retreating, the temptation to step out and try to ram a spear into his back or his animal's rump was overwhelming.

  The line thinned, and, despite Beech's heroic efforts, the reserve companies foundered. The enemy ordered a general infantry assault all along the line. It came forward with drums booming. The horsemen reopened the breach between the two armies, and a full regiment of the enemy marched to occupy the gap.

  Thru had pulled a regiment from the right side of the line, leaving its neighbors to close the new gap produced there. It was his final reserve, and he hesitated to commit it until he absolutely had to.

  Fighting broke out all along the front. The enemy pressed, but the mots, free of the horror of the flies, fought with the accumulated rage of days. The line held.

  An exhausted messenger appeared in front of Thru. "Sir! Message from the Grys Norvory."

  As he'd expected, the pyluk had been thrown against the right flank. The Grys was holding them, but he reported that masses of pyluk were moving farther down the valley and then climbing the hillside.

  A scout appeared at exactly that point to inform him that a band of pyluk were attacking the donkey trains bearing away the wounded on the south side of the hill. A dreadful slaughter was taking place.

  The enemy cavalry had reformed once more, and a solid mass of horsemen was emerging into the open space between the armies. In a few minutes, they would be in position to mount a charge into the rear of the mot army, now furiously engaged all along its front.

  Thru felt the battle sliding away from him. He could sense a gathering disaster. He was about to order the reserve regiment forward to stem the break-up of the left of the line when the guards called to him. He turned to see Sergeant Rukkh and, behind him, a dozen men from Aeswiren's army.

  "Sir!" said the sergeant. "We need to help you defend against the horsemen. You understand me?"

  "Yes, I do, Sergeant, and thank you. What should we do?"

  "Companies should form up into squares. Cavalry can't do much damage then. Whatever else they do, no one should leave the square they're in."

  "I'm afraid we have neither the training for that nor the chance to do it."

  "Then form a square of the whole army. Pull some units over here to form a new line. My men will help."

  Thru realized that Rukkh's dozen were just the vanguard of a small column, maybe two hundred men.

  "We're the Blitzers, sir. We know how to fight cavalry."

  Thru wasn't sure about all of this, but he did understand that Rukkh and his men were reinforcements. He turned and sent orders streaming out to his besieged army. The rear companies behind each line regiment were to turn about and form a new line one hundred paces to the rear, facing the other direction. Thru also remembered to add a warning that there would be men fighting alongside them on this line.

  The mots had practiced such formations on the parade ground, but that was a very different matter from the chaos of battle when every nerve was lit with the fire of war. And yet, with plenty of shouting and some shoving, and with help from Thru and his fellow sergeants, they accomplished it in a matter of minutes. They presented the attacking cavalry with a new line, bristling with pikes and spears.

  The cavalry came on and tried to stampede the line, but the mots held. Once the impetus had gone from the horsemen's charge, some of the Blitzers darted out to hamstring horses and pull down riders. As fallen horses and empty saddles became common along the front, the cavalry were pulled back by sharp blasts of the horn.

  One more crisis had passed. But another was forming, for even as the cavalry charge clattered to a halt, the pyluk were enveloping the right flank of Thru's line. Though they littered the ground with their own dead, the lizard warriors kept coming, forcing back the mots, bending their line, and lapping around the huge square that Thru's army had become.

  Thru looked all about. The red-tinged maelstrom swirled around the mot army. On the right and in the rear, a swarming mass of pyluk, seemingly driven to suicidal efforts, hurled themselves against the mot lines. On the front, facing north, the mots battled the main mass of the enemy's army. On the left, they faced the horsemen, now reinforced with infantry swung across to exploit the gap made by the cavalry charge.

  The sounds of fighting rang out from every quarter. The mots were beginning to sag with the fatigue and exhaustion brought on by days of fighting. The pressure of the pyluk was unrelenting. No matter how many died, more were ready to press themselves into the gaps.

  A sudden surge by the pyluk sent a mob twenty strong bursting through the lines. Thru and everyone else drew their swords and plunged into the fight. The
re was no alternative. The fighting was savage, and Thru hardly got into it before the intruding pyluk were downed.

  Suddenly Thru found the Grys Norvory standing beside him. In the confusion he hadn't seen him approach. The Grys was bleeding from a head wound.

  "We're breaking down on my front. Can't hold them much longer."

  Before Thru could even answer, another band of green-skinned lizard-men broke through. They stabbed and clubbed their way forward. Mots to either side stepped back, trying to avoid being flanked. The whole position collapsed in moments, and a confused jumble of mots straggled back. On their heels came a roaring mass of pyluk. Thru drew his sword. He and his staff were swallowed up in the fighting.

  A tall pyluk bull stabbed at him. He struck aside the spear and knocked it out of the pyluk's hand. The pyluk reached for him with the free hand. Thru tried to dodge but bounced off the mot to his right and felt the pyluk grasp his shoulder. Thru struck up with his sword, and the blade sank to the hilt in the pyluk's belly. But these bulls were in the grip of terrifying sorcery, just as Pern Treevi had been. The pyluk ignored the sword in its guts and smashed Thru across the face.

  Thru found himself on the ground. The damned pyluk was standing on his back. Another mot fell on top of him, blood squirting across the back of his head. Thru struggled to free himself. The monster was still standing on him while it fought with mots ahead of it. Thru finally managed to slip sideways under the dead mot. The pyluk lost its footing and went down, twitching, with Thru's sword still stuck in its rib cage.

  As Thru pushed to his knees, a huge pyluk bull swung its club at him. He rolled desperately to his right. A spear took the pyluk in the throat, and a brilby cut through its spear arm with a terrific blow with the sword. The pyluk fell next to Thru, who had struggled back to his knees. He got up, hurdled that pyluk, and pulled his sword free of the other one.

  Norvory was working with desperate energy to reorganize some of his mots and put them into a new line. Thru staggered toward him. His left hand was covered in someone else's blood.

  "Got to form a new line."

  "Pull back!" said Norvory.

  "Right." Thru looked off to the south. There was clear ground and then the cluster of tents of the field hospital. On that side there were only a few parties of enemy horsemen.

  "Retreat to those tents. Form a line in front of them!"

  All the regimental commanders were given these orders. In the crush of the fighting it would be hard to retreat in an organized way, but to stay where they were offered nothing but doom.

  "Now!"

  The mots disengaged and ran for it. Their retreat surprised the enemy, who hesitated briefly before setting off in pursuit. The horsemen along the way spurred their mounts to take them clear of the hurrying masses of mots and men.

  Two hundred yards south, Thru stopped. Toshak's banner was planted in the ground to center the new line. As regiments ran up, they sorted themselves out into a rough sort of order. Units were mixed up, but none of that mattered now.

  Away to his left, Thru could see that Aeswiren's men had formed a checkerboard pattern of squares and that the enemy was content to stand off and exchange archery with them. The enemy's main effort was directed at the mots.

  Yet the desperate ruse had worked. Thru's force was once again in line and extending to the left and the right. Thru found himself in the second rank, with a crew of Rukkh's Blitzers to his right.

  "Well, Sergeant, here's a day you never expected, I'll wager."

  It took Rukkh a moment to realize who had spoken to him. "By the purple ass, sir, this has been a fight to remember. If we live, we'll sing of this one for the rest of our lives."

  "Here they come!"

  The shattered mass of pyluk gave way to an assault column of men, who came forward shouting the name of the Great God. When they were fifty feet from the line, they saw the Blitzers among the mots.

  "Fornicating monkey lovers!"

  "Sodomistic heretics!"

  "Kill the traitors!"

  The enemy poured forward, and the two lines closed. The roar of battle went up once more. The enemy had the weight of numbers, and the defensive line was pressed back. Thru and his command post were swept up in the fighting. Thru hacked down a man who tried to grasp the banner. Then Sergeant Rukkh and the Blitzers formed across his front.

  "We'll guard this point, sir!"

  Thru was all too aware of the irony in this situation. He and Rukkh looked each other in the eye for a moment, and Thru thought Rukkh, too, saw the strange reversal of fortune that fate had arranged for them.

  But then he was torn away from the front by the urgent need to sort out his lines.

  They were forced back to the edge of the field hospital. Several of the tents had collapsed and were actually underfoot. Fortunately, all the wounded had been removed. Back they went a few more steps. Then a few more, until they were halfway through the field hospital. Heaps of dead lay everywhere.

  At last, the fury of the Shasht regiments began to ebb. Soon they were pulling clear and backing away while arrows flicked back and forth between the two armies.

  Thru took the opportunity to run up and down the line, calling to his regimental commanders. The line was straightened. A barricade was thrown up. The mots worked frantically.

  He found the train of catapults, nine of them, stuck on the trail, abandoned by their operators when attacked by the cavalry. Thru ordered the weapons pulled off the trail, spun around, and made ready. The principles of the weapons were plain, and though they were clumsier than the practiced crews, Thru's mots soon loaded the catapults and began firing the huge spears.

  At this range, just a couple of hundred yards, the spears were fearsome. They flashed across the gap and sank into the massed enemy. Shields and armor were of little use. The sheer power of the impact was enough to kill anyone they struck.

  At each volley Thru's army gave a cheer.

  To counter them, the pyluk horde was driven forward, urged by the power of sorcery and the terrible will of he who wielded it. The lizard-men struck at the right side of the line and bent it back under intense pressure.

  The enemy horsemen charged once again, reformed into a solid mass, eighty long and ten deep.

  "Prepare to receive the horsemen!" went up the cry all along the center of the line.

  Thru turned to the Grys Norvory, panting as he regained his breath. He had lost his helmet and was holding a Shasht shield.

  "Grys, can you find a hundred mots?"

  Norvory looked down the left side and then sprang away.

  Thru turned back to the front. The catapults fired another volley, and their spears slammed into the onrushing ranks of the cavalry. Saddles emptied and horses rolled upon the ground.

  Along the line, those few who still held pikes grounded them, the points ready to impale the horses. Others hefted spears and swords, determined not to break and flee. The Blitzers formed up in trios, as they'd been trained.

  The horsemen drove in at Thru's thin line. There was a shock. In several places the overmatched mots went down, and the horsemen thundered through.

  The fighting became a general melee, and all cohesion was lost except on the right where Norvory's regiment was still holding off five times their number of pyluk.

  All seemed lost. The chaotic battle spilled back across the field hospital, trampling the rest of the tents into the ground, smashing equipment and supplies into the mud. Back past the catapults they went, and some took up the catapult spears to use as pikes.

  Thru, wielding his sword and holding Toshak's banner with the other hand, fought his way back to a low mound at the southern end of the camp. He killed a man who came at him with spear leveled. Men with swords followed. His blade rang against the first as the others closed in. In the nick of time, he was saved by Rukkh and a handful of his Blitzers. Swords rose and fell until the enemy backed down.

  "Pity your lot don't know how to defend against the sodomistic horsemen."
/>   Thru didn't understand all of this, but he got the gist. "Hold on, Sergeant, we're not done yet."

  Grys Norvory came swinging up from the left side with almost two hundred mots behind him. They plowed into the battle and drove in deep. Horses went down screaming. Others galloped headlong into the rear.

  Once again, the enemy assault had been stemmed. But Thru's force was in tatters. There was no line, just a mob of mots, many of them wounded, standing around the little mound on which Toshak's banner flew.

  The enemy closed around them, ten regiments of men plus the sullen mass of pyluk. Off to the north, separated by two hundred yards or more, Aeswiren's army was attacking the enemy on its front and flank, but they had yet to break through. The fate of the battered mot force seemed sealed.

  Thru and the Grys Norvory, with the help of Sergeant Rukkh and the other Blitzers, worked hard to get the mots formed into three lines, set out in front of the mound with the flanks bowed back on either side. The mots responded slowly, too worn out to think clearly. Nonetheless, the lines began to form, and the flankers took up positions.

  This would be the last stand. Thru knew it, and so did everyone else.

  A vast clap of thunder burst suddenly from the clear blue sky.

  They all looked up in wonder.

  The enemy stood back; even the archers ceased firing. A strange quiet fell over the southern sector of the battlefield, although they could hear the din where Aeswiren was trying to break through to their aid.

  And then, shouldering through the throng of pyluk, came another figure, huge, black-mantled, upon a horse of equal might. A shadow surrounded him, even in the sunlight. Upon his head he wore a helmet chased with gold, and under his mantle gleamed steel on every limb.

  Every eye of the enemy host was on him.

  Thru sensed this being's true identity. He had stood in the presence of this dire majesty once before. Anger lit in Thru's stubborn soul, and, without another thought, he stepped off the mound and pushed past Rukkh and the others to stand in front of his line.

  The huge horseman loomed over him like a dark thundercloud about to spit lightning. Thru did not waver. Looking up, with his hands on his hips, he spoke in as loud a voice as he could muster.