“We have little time,” Rederick said, and he kicked his horse into motion.
Having been prepared for days, the host was already dispersed and positioned as necessary, but now thousands ran about from here to there like ants somehow sensing an impending boot. The young and the green moved hurriedly, and their hands shook as they strapped on armor and readied weapons, checking the edges of swords and fullness of quivers as if they hadn’t a hundred times already. The older, veteran warriors moved with steady purpose, for the fear of battle and death had long been driven from them. There were few words uttered except for the bellowed commands of officers.
Rederick convened his Council, with the Seven Lords and the Loszians present, but he had little to say. Everyone knew their tasks, their purpose, and instead Rederick bowed his head and knelt.
“Garod, My Lord and King,” he prayed, “we beseech Thee bring us victory this day. We stand against the greatest of evils, a madman who would slaughter his own people, and we face an insurmountable force. We beg Thee give us aid; lend strength to our blows and our wills. Let us not falter nor fail, so that we may save all of Your people from the fate which awaits them.
“Further, I open this prayer to all of those Gods that may listen, to Dahk, Hykan and his brethren, for your people fight alongside us. Please give them the power they need to win and survive this day, for they are our brothers and sister in arms. I would even ask the aid of the Loszian Gods, whose names I do not know, for surely you never intended Nadav to murder Your children as he has. And finally, I know not what Gods our Tigolean allies worship, if any at all, but may They harden our steel, help our armor protect us from wounds and make our blades sharp.”
Rederick continued to kneel silently for as long as he felt proper, and finally he opened his eyes to behold that which he did not expect. All of those in attendance had fallen to their knees at some point during his prayer, even Thyss and the Loszians, with eyes closed and head bent downward in reverence. As he climbed to his feet, he turned about to find that the thousands within the valley had followed suit, even though many could not possibly have heard his words. The others, one at a time at first and then in larger and larger groups, broke from the prayer and regained their feet.
King Rederick looked to his Council and said, “It’s time. You all know what to do.”
As they dispersed, Cor took Thyss’ hand in his and walked a short distance up the ridge toward their tent. “There’s no way I can convince you to take Cor’El and ride away, is there?” he asked.
“Of course not,” she replied, “but you knew that.”
“Then I’m pulling Keth off the front. He’ll guard Cor’El with his life.”
“You would do that to him?” asked Thyss incredulously. “First you take that duty from him, and now you want to take away the honor of battle? I promise you, he wants to fight. He wants to be at the front of the footmen. If you send him back to be a nurse to our son, he’ll take it as a slight on his honor. Don’t you see this?”
Cor sighed and dropped his eyes to the ground. It seemed that everyone always expected him to lead, to have the answer, but his answer was always wrong. “I will not leave our son unprotected in our tent. He’s not even a year old yet.”
“Have Rederick assign guards to him then. The king will easily accede to that.”
“I’ll do better than that,” Cor decided. “I’ll ask Rederick for a few men to take our son away from the battlefield.”
“You’ll do no such thing!” she raged at him, drawing looks from some who moved about around them. “He will stay within my reach, for only I can truly protect him!”
“Can you protect him while you’re fighting what’s already entering the valley?” asked Cor calmly, pointing to the southeast.
“Our tent will always be within my sight, and as long as it remains so, Cor’El will be safe.”
“There’s no point in arguing with you, but I know you’d die before you let anything happen to him. I love you,” he said as he slid his helm over his head. “Please, make sure you’re both here when it’s all over.”
“Make sure you’re here when it’s all over,” Thyss threw back at him.
They embraced, gently this time as opposed to the generally fiery and rough embraces they usually enjoyed. It did not have the passion they were accustomed to in their love making, but rather it was a display of the deeper affection they carried for each other. They ignored the world around them for a long moment, and time seemed to slow to a crawl as they simply stood and felt each other’s presence. Despite the bravado and arrogant words, somewhere in their souls dwelt the fear that it may be their last embrace, and as such, they were loath to finally break it.
When they released one another, they went opposite directions. Cor headed to the large open tent at the bottom of the hill in which he would find the king and Menak, while Thyss trudged her way back up the slope toward their tent and their son. When Cor arrived he found the king and the Loszian, as well as Mora and Walthur, standing and staring patiently inside the tent. Cor looked around and realized that it was actually Naran’s, but the sides had been pulled up to allow easy access. Hundreds of bedrolls had been laid out neatly in rows across the ground. The injured would be brought here whenever possible, in the hopes that Rederick and his priests could return them back to battle quickly through the power of Garod.
As always seemed to be the case with great battles, there simply did not seem to be enough time to make everything ready, and yet the wait weighed on them all heavily. About fifty thousand soldiers, warriors and men-at-arms waited at the base of the valley’s slopes, the widest part of the valley, organized into their ranks, and at their head stood Keth and three of the Seven Lords, including Naran. The men, and some women, behind them fidgeted impatiently as the enemy host began to pour into the valley.
It was an army unlike any of them had ever seen, even the veterans of the previous campaigns, for the numbers seemed to be without end. The valley’s mouth through which it came was over a mile wide, and yet the legions of dead overfilled its girth, spilling up the sloping sides like a great slow flood. As they watched, the dead came closer, and walking corpses was all they could make out for as far their sight would reach. The valley’s mouth could not contain the flood, and soon the ridges and hills flanking the valley were also swamped by the trodding of dead feet. The young and green urinated themselves in place, while some tried to break and flee, only to be held in place by their brethren. Some of the veterans, older grizzled soldiers who had seen death many times, blanched or even wept. They all knew it was truly an army meant to end everything they knew.
The host only plodded on with no spark of life or creativity, pushed by an unseen force known to all. As they valley widened, the dead host filled it with numbers beyond anyone’s imagination, and yet its masters still had yet to be seen. It continued to come until its hordes could have been scarcely further than five hundred yards, and then King Rederick threw up his hand. A single lone arrow shot forth into the air from the mass of bowmen, its flaming tip flickering as it arced across the sky. It landed well short of Nadav’s dead, having crossed just over half the distance.
Within moments, several dozen more flame tipped arrows sprung from the bowmen, but they were not aimed at the enemy host’s center. These shot toward the flanks, also falling short. After a few seconds, during which time almost every Westerner and Tigolean held their breath unconsciously, the flames took hold on the ground. Small fires began to burn the grass that had already been well trampled by booted feet, and they grew larger and larger. The fires spread, burning their way toward the enemy’s flanks, strips of flame that grew several feet tall and at least five feet wide. As they marched, the dead ignored the bands of pitch and tar that had been laid into the grass the day before their arrival, as they also took no note of the large quantities of brush that had been collected, laid on top of the pitch and also coated with the stuff.
A wind suddenly picked up and howled
across the valley for just a second, and Cor had the distinct impression that they had just annoyed or frustrated their foe. The fires continued to spread as far as the eye could see, carving barriers of flame right into Nadav’s host. The dead caught within it continued to shamble forward until they succumbed, stumbling and falling to the ground to add fuel to the fire. Others continued to walk forward into the flames, unknowingly bringing about their own demise, and those caught on the other side of the flame could not return to the center. Those dead on the flanks began to change direction, moving more toward the middle of the host to avoid the fires.
Some cheers went up from the defenders as they watched their foes burn, for not the first one of them had fallen. A Tigolean rider charged hard and fast from the easternmost ridge to pull up just outside of the tent. He lithely jumped from the horse, easily landing on his feet to report, his words heavily accented, “Thousands walk on hills and ridges outside of fire. They try surround us.”
“Ride,” commanded Rederick. “Ride to the cavalry. Have them sweep the hills of the dead with their horses.”
“Steel horses, too?” the Tigolean asked.
“No, just your people.”
The bronze skinned man nodded curtly and was away almost before Cor could blink. These people, their agility and ferocity, fascinated him in a way, and idly wondered if he would live through this. He thought that he may want to travel across that continent one day.
“Majesty, they are in range,” said a voice, and Cor realized he had been staring after the rider as he disappeared over the hill. He turned to see a Westerner with a bow kneeling before the king.
“Begin. Bows and catapults. Loose everything you have,” Rederick commanded.
Thousands of arrows took to the sky, a deadly rain of wood and iron that dropped walking corpses in droves. Few arrows missed their marks, as the enemy host was packed so densely, and the force of them was enough to break the enchantment, even if it was not a killing blow on a living person. The bowmen took to their task with an iron will and a bravery found only in the confidence of their skills, and the onlooking soldiers heartened at the damage done to Nadav’s host. Even still, the numbers seemed without end.
The Westerners had erected four rickety catapults using the resources found in the valley, and these they put into action. Two hurled great boulders, huge chunks of rock that flattened bones to dust and flesh to jelly as they landed, bounced and rolled to a stop. The other two threw collections of stones, some as small as a man’s fist or smaller, but they were no less deadly. These masses of small rocks ripped huge holes in the dead’s ranks, knocking down dozens at a time. And yet, they continued to advance inexorably, covering the field inch by inch.
“It is time for the heavy horses,” Rederick decided, and a young Western boy jumped onto an unarmored horse to ride up the northern ridge. Within minutes, they heard the thunder of shod hooves and rattle of armor as thousands of armored riders and their mounts came down the ridge toward the footmen. As the infantry parted to allow the cavalry to form a line, Red pulled his mount up short in front of his father.
“Cease fire,” shouted the king as he walked out from under the tent’s cover to his son. The order circulated amongst the bowmen and those manning the catapults as the two men, father and son, took each other’s arm. Cor lowered his eyes thoughtfully, realizing it was the first time he had ever seen the two men touch in any way.
“We are ready, Majesty,” said Red without dismounting, and the men released each other’s arm.
“The bowman will hold fire as long as possible. When your charge begins to slow, I will send in the infantry. Good luck, Lord Red, and be careful,” the king replied. The armored figure nodded a helmed head and pulled on his horse’s reins to turn away, but stopped when Rederick called after him, “Son, I love you.”
Lord Red did not reply at first, seemingly frozen, transfixed by his father’s words and concerned visage. The indecision showed plainly in the way he sat in his saddle, clearly wanting to pull the horse away to lead his men, but something held him in place. He seemed about to reply, but would suddenly stop himself, as the words would not come. After a moment, Red drew his sword and held it before his helmed face in salute, and then he turned to join his ranks of armored horsemen.
Twenty thousand heavily armored knights and their steeds made for an amazing sight even to a man like Red who had led heavy cavalry many times before. The missiles overhead had stopped, and the dead began to close within a hundred fifty yards to Red’s trained eye. He knew that for his horses to achieve anywhere near enough momentum, they must charge now. There was no rousing speech, no riding up and down the line with his sword aloft shouting. He simply turned his steed to face the army of walking dead and pointed the tip of his sword at them. He sheathed his weapon, and a fear faced teenaged boy handed him a long, steel tipped spear. Red waited until the boy had run off to be fully out of the way, and he kicked his heels into his horse, not bothering to see if his men followed.
Incredibly powerful, Cor had never before seen anything like this charge. The cheerful midday sunlight shined warmly on the heavily armored men and their mounts, almost blinding those who watched. As they picked up speed, the ground shook most unnervingly, causing everything to rumble and vibrate, and they sounded as if thunder, a steel storm that rolled unstoppably through the valley. The charge crossed the remaining distance with the speed of a flash of lightning, and it did not slow when it first impacted Nadav’s host.
The knights’ steel tipped spears, each at least a dozen feet in length, impaled corpses several at a time, simply driving through one body and into the next until the rider could no longer hold it for the weight or the shaft broke. With spears gone, they drew their swords or maces or even used their shields as they rode by to bash in skulls. Some forewent such weapons altogether and just used mailed fists to knock down the corpses.
The armored horses, as professional as were their riders, charged right through the mass of walking dead and trampled dozens if not hundreds or even thousands under their steel shod hooves. Their sheer size and weight were weapons in themselves, throwing bodies to the ground with their impact. The collisions shattered the bones of the walking dead, and the steel draped over the horses mostly protected them from any harm. The mounts needed little pushing from their riders, for they were warhorses bred and trained to battle, and they knew their jobs just as well as their masters’ knew theirs.
The charging steel mass looked unstoppable as it crushed and annihilated everything in its path. If Nadav’s dead was a dark flood of rotting flesh threatening to drown everything within the valley, then Red’s armored charge was the dam holding it back. But they did more than that. They carved their way deeply into the dead host as they pushed the tide back away from their compatriots, but the further they went, the more they slowed. The walking corpses pressed about them with greater and greater numbers, while those that no longer moved began to pile, creating great obstacles that slowed the charge’s momentum.
King Rederick turned to two young men, boys really, and spoke to each of them in turn. “Go to Lord Naran and Dahken Keth,” he said to the first, “and tell them they must charge, now. You go to Lord Joth. The bowmen and the catapults must resume their attack, but tell them to take care to aim at the mass of the enemy. I would prefer not to kill our own people.”
As Cor watched the boys run off with their orders, anxiousness began to gnaw at him. His place was up there, at the front of the line with his Dahken friend cleaving foes into bits, not cowering in back in a tent until it was his turn to act. Soulmourn and Ebonwing, always responsive to his thoughts, must have felt this, for suddenly his palms began to itch and even burn. The buzz, the sound that always took him back to the day that he’d killed a queen, began to assault his ears, and under it raised their song. It was all Cor could do to ignore it, for already he knew that men died hundreds of yards ahead. He could feel their exertions, their wounds as they were taken down under thousands
of clawing hands and gnashing teeth. He felt their blood as it emptied into the ground beneath their feet.
Remembering his days at sea, Cor shimmied up one of the tent’s thick ropes so that he could see over the heads of thousands. He thought he could see Keth and there was no mistaking Naran’s hulking mass as they charged at a full run into the battle. At this distance, he could not tell friend from foe except for that the sun glinted off the armor of the Westerners. Much of Red’s cavalry was down, perhaps fighting on foot, while many others attempted to disengage so that they could reform. He could not see the king’s son in the mess, and Cor could make out even fewer details when the footmen collided, though Naran’s great blade flashed clearly through the air.
Teams moved the catapults forward on uneven wheels, and the archers moved forward as well so as to fire their arrows deep into the Loszian host. Soon the air was again thick with missiles. The catapults ceased throwing rock and instead flung huge barrels which burst on contact, throwing pitch and flame for dozens of feet. Some of these exploded prematurely over friend and foe alike, and their contents did not recognize the difference.
Messages came at King Rederick from all directions.
“Flanks outside fire clear,” reported a Tigolean rider.
“Your people are still combat worthy? Good. Make your way around the enemy. Try to harass them from behind. If you see an opportunity to attack their leaders, do so at once, but do not risk too much.”
“The archers run low on arrows, Majesty,” said a short Westerner, clad head to toe in brown leather. “I doubt any have more than half a quiver-full, but we have felled many.”
“Conserve what few arrows remain. Tell your bowmen to prepare their swords,” commanded Rederick.
A boy no older than fourteen fought to catch his breath as he had sprinted all the way from where the footman fought ahead, “Majesty, we believe to have reduced the enemy number by half, but we take losses. Most of the heavy horses are down, and the foot soldiers fight desperately.”
The Cor Chronicles: Volume 04 - Gods and Steel Page 22
