by N. C. Reed
Now he had to hit that mine. If he missed, then his men would miss the signal to fire, and by the time it got around the Nor would have enveloped the mines and hidden them from view, robbing Marshal McLeod of their effectiveness.
No pressure at all, there, he grimaced.
“You two,” he ordered the man to either side of him. “You fire when I do, just in case. Sight carefully since a lot is riding on this.” Both nodded and readied their own weapons.
Seymour took a deep breath and slowly released about half of it, then, sighting carefully, squeezed the trigger.
The chunk of the bolt leaving the rails was followed by a similar sound to either side of him as his men fired right on his heels.
For better or worse, the battle was underway.
*****
“What in the hell was that!” Wilson demanded as a cloud of fire and smoke rose from the front of his lines. Before anyone could try to answer, the scene was repeated all along his lines as fireball after fireball erupted as far as he could follow it down the line to either side of him. As the din of the explosions fell, he could hear the screams of his soldiers that had been injured in those blasts as well as the shouts and cries of the rest of the army as they milled in confusion in the face of this unexpected threat.
“What the hell is going on?!” Wilson screamed to those around him.
“Sir, it's the weapons we were told about from the Gap!” one man offered in near panic. “It's witchcraft!”
Wilson turned and struck the man so hard that he fell from his horse, stunned. Wilson glared down at him for a second before looking around him.
“Any of the rest of you think it's witchcraft?” he demanded icily. “There's no such thing as witchcraft you idiots! Now find out what the hell caused that before it happens aga-”
His tirade was cut short as it happened again, just as he'd feared. All along the lines fireballs erupted yet again, more sporadic this time but no less effective.
“Stop whatever that is!” Wilson demanded again, waving his arm forward. “GO!” His staff started forward, showing great reluctance in doing so but more afraid of Wilson's fury than whatever form of wizardry awaited them at the front lines.
Wilson watched them go, furious that the same thing he'd berated Brasher's scouts for reporting was now happening to him.
*****
“Mines are having a good effect,” Parno noted. Beside him Enri Willard stood silent, mouth agape at the destruction he'd just seen laid out before him. Parno turned to look at him, grinning slightly.
“Something else, isn't it?”
“Milord, I. . .,” the elder Willard tried and failed to find the words to describe his reaction.
“Yeah, hits everyone like that the first time,” Parno nodded. No one outside the Gap veterans and the few allowed to see yesterday's demonstrations had ever witnessed the power of Roda Finn's creations. It did tend to have a silencing effect on everyone at first.
“One more round,” Parno noted, turning back to the advancing Nor lines. Ragged gaps had appeared in their lines as they struggled to continue on their way. Hundreds of men in view were either dead or wounded after the two strings of explosions had rippled across their formations.
“About now-” Parno mouthed right as the next and last line of mines were set off by crossbow bolts. Once more the Nor line rippled as still hundreds more of their number visible from the tower fell to the iron ball laced mines.
“Arrows will be next,” Parno nodded to himself even as the first flights of regular arrows launched from behind a solid wall of pikes, shields and barricades. Before the first flight had struck the second was already on the way.
“We'll give it about two minutes before using the Hubel arrows,” Parno mused, repeating the instructions he'd given his commanders.
*****
“I think whatever that was, it's over with now,” an unidentified voice told Wilson. “They're using archers now, sir. We're getting hurt of course, but . . . our men can deal with arrows.”
“I still want to know what that was,” Wilson ordered. “We'll like as not face it again and I want to know what it is and how we counter it!”
“We're looking for any kind of source, sir,” the staffer nodded. “I'll see if there's been any luck.”
“I don't want luck!” Wilson screeched in rage at the departing back of the speaker. “We trained for years to avoid the need for luck!” Those still nearby looked at each other uneasily at Wilson's growing ire. This wasn't their fault. No one had known about anything like this.
Of course, that wasn't really true. The survivors of Brasher's humiliated command had reported the 'wizardry' that had decimated their ranks to any and every one who would listen. They had been jeered and laughed at for their reports and sentenced to go home in shame as cowards of the Empire.
Several people were rethinking that policy very strongly right about now.
“Our men are pressing on, sir. Whatever the source of those fireballs, they seem to have run out of tricks, now.”
Even as the words left his mouth, thousands of much smaller explosions erupted everywhere along their lines, with men screaming in agony once more.
*****
“Not as impressive perhaps, but still effective,” Parno nodded to himself as the first of the Hubel arrows impacted the Nor. Even as he watched another flight of the damaging arrows hit the Nor lines along with a flight of regular barbed arrows.
“My God,” Enri almost whispered.
“Not like reading it, is it?” Parno asked gently. He had seen this kind of raw combat, though not on this scale. For all his experience and expertise, Willard had not. Even his own combat at the Gap had been in the mopping up action. He'd not experienced anything like this before.
“No, milord,” Enri agreed.
Parno watched as the Nor managed to grow closer despite the continuous deadly fire from his archers and decided it was time to allow the artillery to engage. He nodded to the staff officer standing at the rear of the platform and the man instantly lowered the red pennant, the signal for Lars to open fire.
“Things will pick up now,” Parno predicted. “If they're rattled enough from what we've done already, this might break them. It won't last, but I'll take whatever help we can get.”
Even as he spoke the catapults and trebuchets loaded with Roda Finn's exploding wonders sent their shot sailing over the Soulan lines and into the approaching Nor army. The results were nothing short of what Parno expected.
*****
“Mother of God!” Wilson exclaimed before he could stop himself as fireball followed fireball, walking down his lines wreaking death and destruction on his men as it went.
“What in blazes?” a dozen voices asked the same question though perhaps in different ways as those near Wilson reacted just as he himself had to this new devilment.
“Have they got a dragon or something?” one man asked aloud, his voice betraying his wonderment. Wilson looked around for the offender but could not find him.
“Get our damn artillery up here and start laying some damage on those lines!” he demanded. The trouble with their lines being so far away was that his army had to advance in order to make room for his artillery to be able to move up and range on the Soulan positions. Now that his men had done that, it was now possible.
He heard the order being relayed and wondered why he, the commander of the entire army, had been forced to issue that order when he'd given precise instructions on how things were to be handled once the battle was joined. What the hell were his people doing that they couldn't handle their jobs, simple as so many of them were?
Another line of massive explosions walked down his forward lines, answering Wilson's unasked question for him. His people were all but struck dumb by the hell being unleashed on them this morning. A morning that should have seen the Soulan Army broken yet again and forced back if not destroyed entirely.
Now that plan was in serious jeopardy if he couldn't get hi
s people out of their shock and back on track.
*****
Enri Willard watched as yet another salvo of the exploding artillery rounds shook the ground even from two and three hundred yards away as Lars' men laid their fire not into the first or second ranks of the Nor that had already been decimated, but into the follow on ranks still closing up.
“Their lead ranks will reach our fortifications,” Enri noted to his Marshal. Parno nodded in reply.
“There was never any real hope of preventing that unless the shock broke them. I didn't expect that it would,” he admitted. “But we've damaged them a great deal and their first wave won't be nearly so strong as it might have been. Plus, Lars and the archers are still laying into them. It will be up to our pikes and swords now, though.”
Below and to their front, Parno watched as the now ragged line of Nor infantry finally made it within reach of the Soulan fortifications. Imperial archers were firing now, though their own ranks had been just as hard hit as the infantry had. Still, their arrows found targets and Soulanie soldiers began to fall.
Pike armed soldiers on both sides fought at the front, Imperial ranks trying to gain a purchase on the Soulanie breastwork, Royal pikemen trying to deny them that purchase. Blood began to flow in earnest on both sides of the line as the battle was well and truly joined, just as the sun finally cleared the tree line to the east.
Blood and tears would greet this new day from both sides of the battle.
*****
Tinker heard the explosions from his room at the Inn. He calmly made his way to the front as the others screeched around him, trying to get outside and see what was happening. Unlike them, he, Bell and Wysin knew exactly what was happening.
“Looks like the war's back on, Tinker,” Bell said calmly from a chair that he had tipped back against the front wall of the inn as he sat on the porch.
“I believe you are correct,” Tinker nodded slowly. “Perhaps it would be prudent to be prepared to depart here in the event the army is unable to stop the advance,” he suggested more than ordered.
“Already done,” Bell nodded. “Wagons are hitched and everyone was ordered to have a bag packed and be ready to go at a moment's notice. Can't save everything, mind, but we can make sure we get our folk out of here, happens there's a need.”
“Very good, mister Bell,” Tinker nodded. “I believe I will see what is happening elsewhere, then. Should you be forced to abandon the inn before I return, we will meet at the first alternate in two day’s time.”
“Yes sir,” Bell nodded. The first alternate was a hard ride from here and should be safe enough for a meeting place if needed.
As Tinker departed, Bell sat on the porch, listening to the distant sounds of battle, both glad he wasn't there, and wishing that he was.
*****
General Fairmount cursed under his breath as reports of mounting casualties came to him in a nearly never ending stream. His men were only just now making contact with the southern lines and already some of his best regiments had been decimated by the hellish devilry unleashed by the southern army.
“We're about to make contact, sir,” his aide reported. “Our men are within yards of their lines.”
“Good,” Fairmount nodded. “Once we're in contact their devilry won't help them! It will be our strength against theirs and we know we're stronger! Order all divisions to press the attack to the hilt!”
“Sir,” the man nodded and turned to waiting runners. It was too dangerous at this point to use mounted runners, as Soulan archers picked them off horseback with ease. So, young men with strong legs would run through the battle with orders for divisional commanders, who in turn would send more young men to brigade commanders, and so on down the line until finally the soldiers actually doing the fighting would be given orders that they were, in all likelihood, already trying to obey.
Fairmount watched them go even as he continued to get frantic reports from his subordinates about fearful losses and horrific injuries among his men. Whatever the source of those earlier weapons, they had wreaked as yet untold havoc on his men. Fairmount could only estimate, but his most optimistic assessment was that he had lost at least a quarter of his strength to the combination of attacks that had struck his men before they had even reached the enemy lines. His own archers were returning fire, but. . .no one in their right mind believed that the damage inflicted by mere arrows had equaled what they had endured just getting to this point.
Even as that though completed itself, another string of explosions rattled Fairmount's teeth as Soulan artillery delivered another walking barrage behind his current position, inflicting losses among the follow on units and creating havoc in the rear areas where medics worked to assist the wounded and provosts worked to marshal men back into line that had broken under the noise and fire.
“What the hell is that?” someone asked off to his left, and Fairmount looked to see a young staff officer pointing at what looked like a bee hive made of mud. Grass and sage that had been used to hide it had fallen away as Imperial soldiers passed it by.
“Sir, that might not be a good idea,” his aide cautioned as Fairmount moved to take a closer look.
“Don't be absurd,” Fairmount waved him away. “There's no danger with them pushed back like they are. If this is what they're using, then this is an opportunity to figure out what they're doing to us, and perhaps how to stop it.”
He bent down, peering closer at the strange object.
*****
Micheal Sanders had turned seventeen years old the day before the battle. An uncommonly good shot with a crossbow, young Sanders had earned a place with Major Seymour's sharpshooters in a competition designed to find the absolute best shots in the army. He was very proud of that, and rightly so his mates had told him. Separated from his original militia unit and forwarded to Major Seymour's battalion, Sanders had found it difficult to adjust to new surroundings as he left behind friends and neighbors he had known most all his life. Most of the men around him were hardened veterans and gave young Sanders little more than a glance, paying him no mind at all otherwise.
As the battle had started, Micheal had managed to hit his first and third targets but had found his second to be obstructed. Reloading after the third round, he had hunkered down behind a log structure, hoping for a shot at his last mine. Technically he should be helping repulse the attack, but he knew the importance of setting off the mine if possible, if for no other reason than to keep it out of the hands of the Nor.
So far he had narrowly escaped death or injury a half-dozen times by sword, pike, or arrow, but he refused to give up, stubbornly holding until the last second in case his target became visible. Already he'd had one opportunity ruined when a Nor soldier had stepped in front of a perfectly aimed bolt just in time to take that bolt in the leg and prevent it from striking the target.
Stringing his last flint tipped bolt, Sanders had settled in to wait for his one last chance.
Suddenly the Imperial lines opened for just a brief time, almost like clouds parting to allow the sun to shine through for a few minutes. Micheal could see a group of Imperial officers around his target, examining the mine with great curiosity. Grimly he took careful aim.
This would be his last chance not to fail. . . .
*****
Fairmount was aware of the force of the explosion as it hit him in the chest. He felt the impact of the iron balls on his body but strangely no pain to amount to anything as he was hurled backwards, away from the strange clay structure his staff member had found.
He didn't realize it at all when passed from this world into the next, his mind still working to explain what was happening when it ceased to work at all.
The Imperial 1st Corps had just lost its commander and three-quarters of his command staff.
*****
“We're in contact all along the line,” Enri read several messages that had been sent up the tower. “The line is holding, for now. We're taking losses, both to archery
and to melee combat, but our men are holding.”
“Good,” Parno nodded. “They'll have to withstand a great deal today. The Nor commander is obviously putting his entire command into this effort and he started with sun-up. Unless we can find a way to break their spirit and make them run, we'll have to hold most of the day or-”
Cries from along the line cut Parno's statement off as Imperial Artillery began falling among his lines. Parno reacted at once, turning to a runner.
“Compliments to Major Lars, and he is to interdict that artillery at once!” he ordered. “His choice of rounds and unit, but I want it done immediately!”
“Sir!” the officer in charge of Parno's runners nodded and turned to find the artillery runner.
“Can we afford to take Lars' fire away from the battle?” Enri asked.
“We can't afford to allow that enemy artillery to range on our lines unimpeded,” Parno replied flatly. “They can undo us in a matter of minutes if left unchecked. We learned that the hard way at the Gap. All that's letting us withstand their attack is Roda's gadgets and our fortifications. If they manage to force a breach, they can literally force their way through no matter what we do. They can afford more losses than we can and still retain enough strength to win the field. We can't let that happen.”
Enri nodded grimly, agreeing with his Marshal's opinion. Like it or not, they had no choice but to turn their artillery fire toward the enemy's own and try to contain it.
*****
“Artillery units are taking enemy fire, sir!” Wilson's aide reported. “Losses are mounting!”
“They must maintain their fire!” Wilson ordered, shaking his head at the unspoken request to withdraw. “Tell them to continue.”
“Sir, we were unable to locate General Fairmount,” a runner stumbled up, looking dazed. “That is to say. . .I think we found him, sir, but. . .”
“What is it, man!” Wilson demanded in frustration.
“Sir, I found what was left of a man wearing a general's uniform and markings, along with several other officers of various ranks, but. . .they're gone, sir. If I had to guess, I'd say one of those fireballs got 'em, sir. I tried to locate his senior divisional commander but could not. The line is a mess, sir. I did ask several of their men to locate a general officer and inform them of General Fairmount's demise and ask him to send a runner here informing us of his whereabouts.”
