Kelven's Riddle Book Five

by Daniel Hylton

  “Lean into it, boys!” Muray shouted hoarsely as he drew back and thrust his pike to the fore, once again reducing the number of the enemy by one. Ripping his pike free, he advanced, drawing his men with him by the sheer force of his will. “Drive them – and the day is ours!”

  Scrambling over the prone body of his latest kill, Muray found the torso of a lasher and climbed atop it for a moment, standing in full view of both the enemy and his men.

  “Now, boys!” He yelled, and leaping to the front, he sank the business end of his pike deep into yet another foe.

  His men went with him.

  The enemy broke.

  They did not run, but nonetheless began to fall back in full retreat. For a time, because Muray and his men were also obliged to climb over and around mounded lasher bodies in order to give chase, the retreat was a fairly orderly thing. As the enemy retreated further down the road, however, and encountered yet more piles of lasher remains that hindered orderly progress, their lines became fragmented.

  Muray now had the luxury of being able to stop and reform his own lines at need, while determinedly pushing the enemy into defeat. Presently, however, his forward movement created a bulge in his lines that was unsustainable, for there were yet thousands of enemy troops stretched away toward the east and the west.

  Though to the west, in front of Boman and Duridia, the enemy was in partial retreat, to his right, before Lamont, many were still fully engaged.

  “Hold!” He commanded. “Hold the line!”

  After a few minutes of stalemate, when the enemy, who had halted perhaps thirty yards from his front rank, showed no interest in continuing the struggle, Muray once again told his officers to hold and he went in search of his father, somewhere over to the right.

  Because of Muray’s newfound success upon the road after the failure of the lasher charge, the enemy was growing soft all along Lamont’s front. He didn’t go more than fifty yards before he spied a familiar stout bulk buttressing a now well-formed line. At the moment, no enemy was within striking distance of the old farmer.

  And, much to Muray’s relief, his ken appeared unharmed.

  Eoarl looked around in response to his son’s hail.

  He grinned. “Hello, my boy – it’s good to see you well and standing upright!”

  Muray grinned back. “I say the same to you, ken.” Then he nodded toward the ranks of the enemy. “They’re not pushing us so hard now, are they?”

  Eoarl glanced that way, too, and shook his head. “No, they’ve gone soft in the last few minutes. They don’t seem to want to leave, but they don’t seem so anxious to test us again, either.”

  Muray moved up and placed a hand on his father’s shoulder. He did not speak but just looked toward the front.

  Eoarl shot his son a curious glance. “What now? If they retreat – what do we do? Do we give chase?”

  Muray nodded. “I imagine so, although Lord Aram will have the last word on that.”

  “Where is he?”

  But Muray was not obliged to make a reply. Both men looked toward the west where Lord Aram had gone after incinerating the last of the lashers on the road.

  Way over there, beyond Boman and Duridia, flashes of white fire, like lightning, told of the king’s position and of the battle still raging on that part of the field.

  West of Muray’s position, Boman was also driving the gray men back. The lines of enemy to his front were even more ragged and thin now than they had been when he had unleashed his earlier volleys from crossbows. Having secured his front, where his men had faced and fought only gray men since the lashers had gone left to the shelf in front of Donnick, Boman had spent the last few minutes reforming the extreme left of his line to face the enemy soldiers that turned it when the lashers struck.

  Now, those men that had fled in the face of that attack had discovered new reservoirs of courage under the encouraging eyes and words of their calm commander and were helping to push the gray men back toward the roiling melee around Lord Aram. Boman was anxious to turn the enemy and force them back downhill so that he might find a way to come to the aid of the king.

  There were now no arrows left in any of their quivers, but the men of Duridia were perfectly willing to face gray men and even lashers with pikes and swords.

  Boman was in the angle of his line where it curved back toward the left away from the tangent of his main line when shouts and the sound of low thunder alerted him to action on his left. Pivoting he saw dust and the bobbing heads of horsemen coming toward his lines. He ran in that direction.

  “Make way!” He shouted. “Let the horses pass!”

  As his line curved yet again, folding in upon itself, Nikolus, Jared and a company of riders pounded through, covered with sweat and dust – and blood; theirs and that of their enemies. Oddly, even in the din of battle, Boman heard the leather of the saddles creak, the plates of the horses’ armor scrape together, and the shards of gravel chime and skitter over the rocky slope as they were dislodged by the violent passage of the horses’ hooves.

  As the cavalry passed along the southern flank of the enemy that faced Boman’s men, they used their lances to deadly effect on those gray soldiers unfortunate enough to stand in their way. Then the horsemen wheeled up the hill in a long line and went back the other way, toward the struggle surrounding Aram.

  And as they went, they left Boman with fewer enemies to face upon his flank, and an opportunity to extend his line into the breach that had occurred to his left. Physically grabbing those men that had moved out of the horses’ path, he began herding them back around the now-exposed end of the gray men’s formation.

  “Drive them!” He shouted. “Push them down the slope!”

  Then, drawing his own sword, he joined his men in executing the order he had just given.

  The enemy broke under the increased pressure. They did not fold their line back into the breach, or pivot away in an orderly manner, but instead they retreated en masse. Sending fearful glances toward the swirling mass of their overlords, and the white fire that flared and blazed in the center of that violent storm, they filed away from the clot of lashers surrounding Aram and moved back and to the right, into a reserve position behind their own thin and faltering lines.

  Boman watched the retreating enemy long enough to determine that this behavior was not a ruse, but that they were, in fact, quitting the fight. Then he lengthened his line toward the lashers that assaulted Lord Aram. The cavalry made another pass just then; more lashers were caught off guard and eliminated from the fight, falling among the bodies already strewn about, or stumbling away toward the rear.

  The Duridian Governor realized that the ground to his left, stretching into the breach, had become an uneven, unmanageable jumble, with the bodies of countless men, horses and lashers scattered and piled everywhere. This area was so filled with the terrible detritus of struggle as to render the maintenance of martial formation impossible. Climbing a bit of high ground, he looked back toward the east, along his lines. The pressure from Manon’s gray-faced soldiers was perceptibly lessening, everywhere along the front.

  The crossbows of his men were devoid of arrows; his weaponry was reduced to pikes and swords, both of which required sound order to be effective. Realizing, then, that he could do little to aid Aram without hindering that which the horses were already accomplishing, he instead assigned details of men to remove the dead, both of the enemy and of allies, from the horses’ path. At least he might be able to aid the horsemen in their deadly business.

  A hundred yards away to the west, beyond the breach, Kavnaugh Berezan, though less experienced than the Governor, had reached the same conclusion. In places along his front, especially at the west end of his lines, where the gray men had been badly disadvantaged by terrain, the fighting had ceased entirely.

  His captains had put their rearward ranks to work removing the dead and the wounded up and over the ridge, while the front ranks stood guard, watching the enemy that were, a little at ti
me, easing away from the battle. With less and less happening to his front to concern him, Berezan had also turned his attention to aiding the horses in any way he could.

  In the middle of the straining mass of lashers, Aram was making little headway against the mob of giant assailants. Because of the flame that leapt and burned from the tip of his blade, the beasts shrank away from every pass as Thaniel wheeled in a circle, abandoning frontal assault in favor of an attempt to get at him from the rear. Occasionally, the horse would catch one of the beasts off-guard and lunge close, giving Aram an opportunity to add another body to the growing heap.

  Still, Aram felt stymied, stalemated at his lack of kills.

  But it wasn’t a stalemate.

  Because Aram leaned to one side of the horse as Thaniel turned in a tight circle, the Astra, while avoiding the Sword, were nonetheless able to rotate with Thaniel, staying to the other side, away from Aram and the dangerous blade, and work their will. With each turning, they slew dozens.

  The clot of lashers grew ever more compact, and ever less numerous – though never less determined, it seemed, to try and get at the man on the horse.

  And out upon the southern edge of the fight, Nikolus, Jared, and the others were busily reducing their numbers there as well.

  Aram couldn’t see it from his position in the midst of the conflict, but the outcome was less in doubt with every moment that passed. The army of the allies, even though it couldn’t be discerned here in the middle of this violent throng, was winning.

  And then, abruptly, it was over.

  Suddenly, from the great gleaming black tower rising from the center of Morkendril, two short, booming, low notes sounded, reverberating across the valley floor and echoing among the distant mountains.

  47.

  All across the battle front, the enemy broke off and began to retreat down the slope.

  Here and there, groups of men, their blood still hot, and their battle fury undiminished, gave chase. In places the gray men turned and resisted these small cadres of soldiers, but more often than not Manon’s minions simply picked up the pace, until they were fairly running down the slope toward the valley floor.

  Around Aram, the conflict abruptly ceased. Thaniel spun one last time to find every enemy falling back and moving away. The lashers did not run, but their rearward pace was not slow either, as they retreated back out the shelf of level ground and began to tumble out of sight onto the steeper earth beyond.

  Thaniel stopped turning, breathing heavily, and he and Aram watched them go.

  “Do you want to pursue them?” The horse asked.

  Aram drew in a deep, shuddering breath and shook his head. “No,” he said, and then he looked east and west along the lines. “Let’s see to our people, first.”

  He looked back toward the tower, gazing at it with narrowed eyes for a long moment, and then lowered his gaze to watch the enemy’s army recede down the slope. Over to the right, in front of Duridia and Lamont, and further east, where Thom was in command of Elam’s left flank, soldiers gave energetic chase to the fleeing enemy. Aram watched this violent chase with only slight concern for a moment, and then, suddenly, another sense became involved.

  The hair on the back of his neck stiffened.

  He jerked his head around and stared at the tower. His own words sounded in his inner ear.

  Manon no doubt has many tricks he will employ.

  He looked around desperately for a trumpeter. There were none in sight, but Boman was but forty or fifty yards away.

  “Sound fall back!” Aram shouted in the Governor’s direction. “Quickly – the men must fall back! Now!”

  Boman stared back for a moment and then spun on his heel, shouting the command further along the line. An instant later, the clear call of a bugle rose into the air. Boman went running, shouting the command to be disseminated further along the front.

  Aram looked to his left. In front of Kavnaugh, there was one small cohort of men, no doubt seeking an extra measure of vengeance for the day’s blood, giving chase to Manon’s troops.

  “Tell the general to have those men fall back!” Aram yelled, and then, once he was certain his command was comprehended and would be directed on, he spoke to Thaniel and they rode madly toward the east to spread the word.

  In that moment, he could not have said what it was that made his gut coil into loops of anxiety.

  But there was something. Of that fact, he was certain. The god that resided in the great black tower a few miles across the valley floor would not simply take defeat and admit it. He intended malice of some kind, of that Aram was sure, and if his men were too close when that malice was made manifest, they were doomed.

  Thaniel tore toward the east with Aram calling every few minutes.

  “Fall back! Sound fall back!”

  As the bugles sounded along the line and word was spread, most of those giving chase to the fleeing enemy reluctantly gave up the pursuit and returned to their units below the brow of the crater rim. Some few, however, did not.

  As the line re-formed in its original position, Aram realized that he was not satisfied. “Fall back further!” He commanded. “Fall back to the top of the ridge!”

  And once more the bugles sounded.

  Mystified by their supreme commander’s strange behavior and attitude, the men nonetheless complied. Within a few minutes, the army was once again on line, standing atop the very rim of the crater. Down the slope, a few groups of men still gave chase. The gray men, and even the lashers, seemed not to notice or care that they were pursued.

  On they went, down across the rocky, ragged slope.

  Because they were moving downward, and in a hurry, most of Manon’s army was on the level floor of the valley in less than half an hour. Once there, they slowed, affected a semblance of order, and began to march toward Morkendril. Watching them, Aram was astonished at how their number had been reduced, how many they had killed, and yet how many remained.

  There were still tens of thousands of Manon’s soldiers that remained capable of continuing the struggle.

  A terrible thought made its way into Aram’s mind and found uneasy lodging there.

  Would they be required to do all this again tomorrow?

  No sooner had this thought made him shiver than there came a deep, distant, yet horribly thunderous and deafening thump! from the direction of Morkendril.

  The whole valley shook, the very bedrock of the ridge trembled, and the tower itself seemed to shimmer like water for one small moment.

  Then, spreading out from the base of the tower like a storm wave upon the sea, something that could be sensed but not really seen, rushed outward with incomprehensible speed. Dust billowed up in its wake.

  It caught Manon’s thousands and scythed through them like grass before a prairie fire.

  Then the something – evil spirit, wave of power, perhaps the shock from a terrible detonation – whatever it was, it struck the slope and began to climb toward the army with awful speed.

  “Retreat!” Aram shouted. “Sound retreat!”

  But there was no time.

  The terrible force that could be seen only by the burst of dust it raised as it passed along the ground overtook those men that had pursued the enemy toward the valley floor, knocking them flat. Most did not move again. Those that did move, did not rise, but flailed feebly at the earth around them, obviously dying.

  As one man, the army turned and tried to flee over the top of the ridge. Thaniel turned his back to the onrushing, unknown power, but he and Aram stayed, with Aram standing high in the stirrups, desperately waving the men to the rear.

  The invisible wave caught them.

  It was like being struck by an unseen hammer.

  Thaniel went down upon his haunches. An instant later, his front legs buckled beneath him. Aram was knocked forward, prone upon the horse’s neck armor and nearly unseated. Men went down all across the front, knocked forward onto their faces, helpless against the force of the shock wav
e. The cannon was shoved backward, up the road; its anchor chains rattled as they went taut.

  The breath was driven from Aram’s body. For a very long moment, as he tried to sit upright in the saddle, he found that his thoughts were muddled, unclear. His lungs burned and his mouth gaped as he tried to replenish his body with air. Finally, after several terrible and painful moments, his lungs expanded again. Thaniel struggled back up onto his hooves.

  “What was that?” The horse asked, as he shakily established his legs under him and also regained his breath.

  Sitting upright once more, Aram looked around. All along the crater rim, just below the brow, the army got haltingly back to its feet and gazed with wide eyes out toward the valley, from whence the thing had come. Many men seemed troubled with minor injuries, but from Aram’s vantage, he could not discern any fatalities, though here and there some were slow to regain their feet.

  “Are you alright, Thaniel?” He asked.

  “I am,” the horse replied.

  “Turn, then, and let’s see what is happening in the valley.”

  Down on the valley floor Manon’s army lay unmoving, tens of thousands of gray men and hundreds of lashers, apparently slain by the power that had come forth, blown across the valley, and surged up the slope.

  Aram looked closer. Down upon the slopes, those men that had pursued their foe almost to the valley floor also lay unmoving, sprawled upon the slope. Nearer at hand, those that had responded to the bugle’s command and had been climbing back toward their lines also lay upon the incline. Some moved not at all, but some had struggled up onto their hands and knees. Others lay writhing, calling in pitiable tones for aid to come to them.

  The force that emanated from the tower had slain Manon’s army, slaughtered those lower upon the slope, maimed those a bit higher, and then had spared the army, though it bruised it sore.

  Evidently, the wave of energy had lost some of its impetus and consequently its killing power as it came up the slope.