Muray was splitting his troops in the face of the oncoming lashers, hurrying them to each side of the pavement.
“Move, lads!” He shouted, and waved his sword at them, as if he could speed them along by the force of his will. “Off the road – to each side. Now!”
As the men of Lamont fell back and retreated from the road, gray men began to pour through the gap and charge up the black pavement toward Timmon and his cart, many of them turning either way in order to flank the Lamontans. Immediately behind them, rushing through the gap created by the flanking maneuvers of the gray men, came the massed horde of lashers.
Muray turned and screamed again. “Gun!”
“Fire!” Timmon yelled and then he dove for the side of the road and angled for the back of the cart.
Ryan dropped the flame to the fuse.
There was a burst of sparks and then a small puff of smoke as the fire disappeared into the rounded chamber of the gun.
And then the cannon awoke with a loud roar. The cart recoiled back up the road, yanking its restraining chains taut, making them hum. Smoke and fire – and hundreds of small rounded bits of steel erupted from its barrel and ripped into the charging mass of gray men and lashers. Most of the gray men had moved aside, in an attempt to flank the men of Lamont. The main force of the blast was directed straight down the road, and the lashers bore the brunt of it.
Flesh and bone, along with leather armor, and even bits of shiny black horn, exploded into pieces as the steel shot tore through their ranks. Few of the beasts remained on their feet and those that did so were missing much of their anatomy, some of it vital.
The threat on the road melted away before the force of the blast.
But behind the first group of lashers, sheltered from the effects of the gun by those in the first group, there came another hard-charging company of beasts – and these were less than fifty yards away.
His chest pounding at the sight, Timmon came to his feet and grabbed the ramrod, yelling at his crew to, “Reload! Reload! Hurry!”
One man hurriedly forced a bag of nixite into the barrel and Timmon rammed it home, and then two other men of Timmon’s gun crew shoved containers of shot into the opening.
As he stood back to let them get the shot into place, Timmon flung a glance down the road. The lashers were through the gap in Lamont’s lines and closing fast.
Thirty yards away, maybe less.
Horror erupted in Timmon’s soul.
He was going to be too late.
Shoving his men aside, he rammed the rod into the barrel, pushing the shot deep, yelling up at Ryan to – “Light the fuse – now!”
“Commander?”
“Now!”
As he desperately forced the shot down into the gun, he could hear the grunts of the enemy and the rasping of clawed feet upon the pavement of the road. The sound of their thumping feet and scraping claws was so close that the straining muscles across his back twitched in anticipation of sharp steel. His heart seemed ready to burst from his mouth and he couldn’t draw breath.
Then something large and golden roared past him, going down the road, straight toward the horde of charging lashers.
Bonhie.
“No!” Timmon screamed while he desperately worked the ramrod. “Get back, Bonhie – now! – get back!”
The shot was almost in.
Behind him, upon the pavement, there came a sudden eruption of terrific commotion, hoarse shouts, grunts, and the angry whinny of a horse that was abruptly cut off.
“Down commander! Get out of the way!” Yelled Ryan from up on the wagon. “The fuse is lit! The gun is going to fire!”
Timmon yanked the ram from the barrel of the gun and dove for the side of the road just as flame and steel spewed forth and smashed into the lashers at point-blank range.
Bonhie, he thought.
Rolling away from the blast of the cannon, he came to his hands and knees and looked toward the road.
The mare had crashed into the company of lashers at an angle, impeding their forward progress as she made impact from right to left across the whole breadth of the road. By doing so, she had given Timmon just enough time to load and fire.
But the beasts, though hindered from reaching the gun, had taken their fury out on the horse, slashing her to pieces with their huge scythe-like weapons. And the blast from the gun had caught her in the hind quarters as she made for the far side of the pavement, horribly wounded, bleeding forth her life.
Her mangled body lay partway on and partway off the black surface of the road. She did not move.
Heartsick, Timmon rose to his feet and made to run toward her, but was immediately stopped by the sight of Muray, standing in the road, waving his sword and screaming, “Gun! Here they come again!”
Timmon looked down the slope of the road. About a hundred yards away, there came another massed company of the great beasts, headed straight up the road for the gun and the center of the army.
But even as he started to turn away to find the ramrod, fire engulfed the onrushing horde. Sizzling and crackling, an explosion of lightning, the golden flame mowed them down like wheat before the sickle. Timmon stopped dead in his tracks and stared. When the smoke cleared, Lord Aram and Thaniel stood in the road, a few yards beyond the burned and blasted remains of the final group of lashers. Even as he watched, the king and the great horse pivoted toward the west and went toward the left wing of the army.
Not a lasher stood upright anywhere in sight.
With the threat to the center now fully removed, Muray immediately began driving the surviving gray men back, slaying them in droves as he did so, repositioning his men across the pavement in preparation for a further defense of the roadway.
Timmon turned to his crew. “Reload the gun,” he told them, and then he went to see about Bonhie.
The horse was dead. The beasts had assaulted her with their massive flat-bladed weapons when she smashed into their leading elements, very likely doing enough damage to end her life. But even if that were not so, the blast from the gun had nearly disemboweled her, and had shattered her hind quarters.
She had saved Timmon and his gun crew by her reckless deed, and very likely the center of the army – maybe the battle itself.
Kneeling down beside her, Timmon wept.
44.
As the lashers gathered out upon the level shelf, the gray men disengaged from Donnick’s center and moved to the sides, acting as reserves for their comrades there. This action left Donnick’s center completely unopposed.
There was nothing he could do to exploit this seeming opportunity, of course – it was obvious that the large mass of beasts to his front intended to come right here, into the gap created by the moving aside of their lesser companions.
A volley of deadly missiles from Matibar’s Senecan archers descended upon the lashers, dropping dozens more of the beasts. But there were hundreds.
And on the instant of that aerial attack, they charged.
“Hold, boys – hold.” Donnick repeated over and over. “Lift the tips of your pikes – anchor the butts of your shafts in the ground. Make a wall of steel. Even those beasts can’t get through if we hold.” He looked back over his shoulder toward the rear. His son and his troop of mounted archers, lances to the fore, were almost to them. Further to the east, Nikolus and his cavalry had also seen the danger gathering to Donnick’s front. They were coming as well.
And Matibar was raining the last of his aerial weaponry down upon the ranks of the charging lashers.
Donnick looked along the line. “Raise those pikes – keep them steady. Close all gaps. Courage, men – hold.” He raised his voice so that it carried along the front, but he kept his tone calm. “Help is coming.”
As the grim lord’s great horned beasts rushed toward them, Donnick found himself repeating that one word in urgent repetition.
“Hold.”
Then Wamlak arrived with his mounted bowmen. Quickly lining his troopers up behind Donnick�
�s line, he gave a shouted command. “Take good aim,” he told his archers. “Make every arrow count.”
As the lashers came on, Wamlak and his men fired volley after volley. Though not as deadly as the missiles of the men from the east, they nonetheless took their toll. Some of the beasts went down, and many more slowed and fell behind as they tried to relieve themselves of offending darts buried in their flesh.
And yet there were still many – too many.
And they were closing fast.
“Hold!” Donnick exhorted his men yet again.
His arrows exhausted, Wamlak gave another command. “Ready lances! Form a line behind the ranks! Prepare to receive the enemy!”
The charging line of lashers smashed into the line of Elamites and Duridians, swinging their vicious halberds. Men went down, screaming in mortal pain. Gaps appeared instantly. Where the men stood fast, with the butts of their pikes in the earth, the line held, but even here the casualties of that first contact were many and hideous. And it was mostly to Donnick’s right, among the men of Duridia, that the line maintained a semblance of order.
To his left, where the inexperienced men of Elam lined up, and where the ground was flatter and more advantageous to the charge of the beasts, gaps appeared upon the instant that the lashers made contact. In places, the monsters went completely through the line and into the rear.
Eventually, under horrible pressure, the line to the right of Donnick gave way as well.
Then, except for one small pocket where Donnick stood, the front simply melted away. Scores were killed, many more terribly maimed, and many that tried to flee were slain in mid-stride.
Ruben and his mounted troops arrived just as the initial impact with its horrific attendant carnage occurred. The cavalryman immediately grasped the fact that the fate of the entire battle would very likely be decided right here.
“Straight into them, Varen!” He shouted aloud, then, “Lances to the fore! Charge!”
Without hesitation, he and his troopers rode straight into the lashers that had passed through the lines and were reforming in an attempt to turn the line, east and west. As the horses drove down upon them, the troopers hurled their lances and then drew swords. Lashers went down but so did horses and their riders. Many horses and many riders.
Having fully engaged the line, the monsters employed their huge scythe-like blades with hideous fury, swinging them back and forth, killing and maiming with each stroke. Men fought back valiantly, but on their part the struggle rapidly became purely defensive in nature, using their long-handled pikes to keep the enemy at bay. But the lashers, with their greater strength and reach, wrought havoc.
The fighting became so savage that in places it seemed as if it were raining blood.
Confusion spread and panic grew. As men fell in greater numbers, the fighting moved east and west along the battlefront. To Donnick’s right among the ranks of Duridia and west among Elam, more gaps appeared in the allied lines. Small groups of men found themselves cut off and assailed on all sides by vicious beasts. Finding their situation utterly untenable, many men dropped their pikes and abandoned the front, running for their lives.
In the middle, where the line had held up to the initial onslaught, Donnick, Kevan, and Durayne, and a small cohort of about twenty men found themselves cut off from the main line and utterly surrounded.
All around was a veritable sea of lashers.
“Form a circle! Thrust and parry!” Donnick shouted to his companions. “Thrust and parry! These bastards can be killed and wounded. Hold!”
Wamlak’s mount, Braska, had been slain in the very first moments by a scything thrust from a lasher’s halberd, and he was on foot, joined by a company of his troopers, whose horses had also been slain. His lance gone, sunk deep into the chest of the beast that had killed his mount, Wamlak was fighting with his sword when he saw his father and the small company, alone and surrounded.
Gathering up the dismounted troopers near him, he pointed with his sword. “There! With me! Relieve the general!”
But there was a nearly solid line of beasts between him and his father, and many turned to face this new threat.
Wamlak parried a thrust from a giant lasher and then slid between the beast’s massive legs, stabbing upward with his sword into the soft flesh of its underside and was rewarded by a howl of anguish. He regained his feet in time to see Donnick and Kevan go down as a massive lasher swung his halberd with his might, shattering their pikes and slashing through their armor.
“No!” Wamlak let out a yell of horror and fury and went for the gigantic lasher that had slain his father.
And in his blind fury and lust for vengeance, he did not see the second beast that slipped in behind him and leveled a killing stroke.
45.
After he released an immense amount of stored energy from the Sword into the last company of lashers that were attempting to pierce the center of the army at the road, Aram watched just long enough to see that they were indeed destroyed. Then he peered further up the road until he could ascertain that the gun and Muray’s Lamontans were safe. Satisfied that the center was secure, he and Thaniel turned and went again toward the west.
For over there, upon the level shelf of ground in front of Donnick where Duridia and Elam came together, there was a roiling maelstrom of furious struggle. Hundreds of lashers, perhaps every surviving member of the species from this side of the army, had formed up on that gentler piece of earth and driven straight into the ranks of men. To either side of that maelstrom, there were hundreds of gray men that had peeled away and were assaulting Elam and Duridia in force upon their flanks.
For the moment, however, both Boman and Kavnaugh had turned their wings to face the threat and seemed to be holding, or at least were engaged in ordered, gradual retreat.
But between them, upon that level shelf of earth, the enemy had pierced the army to its core. Even from this distance, Aram could see that lashers ran amuck behind the main body of the army.
As Thaniel topped one crest after another, urged on by Aram, the two of them could see that the situation grew more desperate by the moment.
“Hurry, Thaniel!” Aram urged, even as he knew that the great horse was giving everything he could.
Then, finally, the horse scrambled up a ragged slope and out onto the rocky shelf. He spun toward the south, toward the main ridge and the battle.
The seriousness of the situation was obvious. For perhaps a hundred yards below the brow of the crater rim, the line had dissolved. Clusters of men fought separate battles, each of them harassed by clots of lashers. Companies of horsemen darted here and there, trying to retard the lashers’ advance. Horses reared as men threw lances or lashed with swords, but for every beast that stumbled or fell, it seemed that more than one horse and rider went down.
In the center of the left wing of his army, disaster ruled the moment. Aram felt sick.
In the middle of the rocky shelf, directly ahead, a large mob of lashers completed the slaughter of a group of men that had stood alone and reformed to push further up toward the crater rim and the small groups of horsemen that still fought there. As Thaniel neared this horde, Aram scattered them with a blast of fire from the Sword, killing several, wounding more.
There was no time to collect more power from the sun. In three strides, Thaniel would be among the enemy, dozens of them, perhaps hundreds, driving the lines of men each way, toward the east and west.
Aram made his decision. “Get in among them and spin, Thaniel,” he commanded the horse. “Turn to the left, rotate, but keep your footing.”
They entered the area where the line had stood in the first minutes of the battle. Bodies lay everywhere, of men, gray men, and even horses and some lashers. Aram was about to warn the horse to beware of their own, in case some were wounded only and not dead, but then abruptly realized that such admonishment was utterly unnecessary. In order to keep his footing, Thaniel had to avoid the carnage anyway.
As Thanie
l weaved this way and that, making for the center of the horde of beasts that were driving an enormous hole in the army, they passed the spot where the lashers had completed the slaughter of the lone group but moments before. Looking down, Aram was stricken to recognize the bodies of both Donnick and Wamlak among them.
Fury erupted within him, driving away the sickness of heart. He spoke aloud, his voice cold with terrible anger.
“Straight into them. Let us kill them all.”
Thaniel crashed into the horde of lashers in about the middle of their long, deep formation and then, using his hooves as a fulcrum, spun in a tight circle to his left. Aram leaned out, twisting his boot in the stirrup for support, and held the Sword out at the level with both hands. As Thaniel turned, Aram let the power of the sun flow through the blade as it filtered down from the firmament above.
There was not enough fire that gathered in it at any one moment to cause flame to leap out in the form of lightning, but it was enough to direct a tongue of searing flame from the end of the blade. Lashers flinched and cringed as the tongue of flame licked out and burned their flesh. In moments, as quickly as Thaniel completed his first full turn, Aram had cleared a space in the heart of the lasher mob.
“Wider, Thaniel,” he said. “Swing wider.”
By this time, those in command of the lasher horde became aware of the new enemy that had come among them. But he and his horse were alone, and they were still very many. As the monstrous beasts saw their advantage, they also saw opportunity.
This man, after all, was the great prize, worth more to their master than all the rest of the army that had gathered before his gates. With second children flanking the army of humans east and west, they could focus their strength once and for all time upon ridding the earth of this troublesome man.
As one, they turned their attention inward, to the center of their amassed company, upon the man and horse. Six and seven deep, they advanced in a rush, closing upon their quarry.
Even with the aid of the searing fire that flowed through the blade, Aram recognized that there were too many of the massive beasts, and most of them appeared to be harbigurs. Thaniel was further disadvantaged by the mounds of bodies that lay all about, making sure footing impossible. As Thaniel turned in a tight circle inside the mob of beasts and Aram slew and maimed many of their number with the Sword, the lasher horde tightened its circle of death around them.
Kelven's Riddle Book Five Page 29
