Makos was shaking his head, face worried. Keltos smiled; he didn’t share his friend’s anxiety. The most likely explanation was that this large family group was serviced by a single adult male, probably lying down in the tall grass and invisible for the moment. That would be the one to kill first, when they sprang the trap. Cut down the dominant male and it would be a rout.
Sergeant Bivar motioned the line to halt, and they reined in, still deep enough in the trees to remain hidden. It was a waiting game now, the riskiest part of the maneuver, until the right wing got into position. The rear body stood motionless back in the trees, ready to rush in and hack apart the quarry when they fled between the encroaching arms of the scorpion.
Keltos watched as Arco rubbed his thumb tensely on the grip of his lance. Somber Dom looked sober as ever. Aslom and Velzar fidgeted. Sergeant Bivar managed somehow to keep an eye on his unit and the apes in the clearing with the omniscient gaze that had fitted him for his rank.
Makos was tense and pale. Keltos leaned in. “Calm down, Mak. The beasts are as good as dead.”
“Where are the males, Kel?”
“Even if there’s more than one, they’ll be easy to find and subdue once we put down the main group here.”
“We don’t know that. We don’t know anything about these creatures. We haven’t scouted the far side of the clearing or sent out flanker patrols. We’re going in blind.”
“The captain knows what he’s doing, Mak. Just be ready.” Makos shook his head, and lapsed into silence.
Keltos noticed that the woodcutter was nowhere to be seen.
In the trees on the far side of the clearing where the other pincer was moving into place, a man suddenly screamed. An awful, high-pitched, hoarse scream.
Where the scream came from, the undergrowth began to thrash violently and there came the sound of panicked horses neighing. Men shouted, cursed. The apes in the meadow scattered with unbelievable speed, reaching the trees westward and disappearing without a trace. It was almost as if they’d expected the attack.
Keltos was still attempting to make sense of the situation when Bivar snarled the order to charge. “Across the clearing, now! The right wing is in trouble.”
The men were already moving, spurring clear of the trees and thundering through the grass, lances out in a long sweeping line. Keltos couldn’t see anything in the trees ahead, but the sounds of battle were still echoing across the clearing. The line of horses spread almost the full diameter of the clearing; the left wing almost grazing the western border where the apes had disappeared. The troopers kept their eyes ahead, fastened on the northern treeline where their comrades struggled unseen.
As they traversed the meadow, moving north, a sudden volley of sticks and stones hit them from the western trees. Strong ape arms had thrown the missiles, and the broadside clattered and thudded into man and horse alike. The riders nearest the trees were knocked clean out of the saddle, and the charge angled right, away from the barrage, losing speed and cohesion. Rocks and branches continued hurtling from the tree-line with killing velocity.
Bivar was standing in his stirrups, screaming orders, when a well-aimed stone hit his helmet with the sound of a tolling bell. The sergeant toppled into the grass, and his mount collided with another rider, sending that man down as well. Even as the troopers scattered in confusion, a feral roar rose from the western trees and apes began to run into the meadow, heading for the downed men.
Lots of apes.
Far more than the initial group of females and young. If Craya’s estimate had been fifty, she was off the mark by half at least. These were males. They were big and they were quick, and they now tore into the horses with brutal strength.
Keltos, on the right edge of the line, had escaped the hail of missiles that had shattered the left half. Now he wheeled Hetta hard left, jerking her poor head as she screamed in protest, and spurred into a charge. He leveled his lance at the nearest ape, a large male holding a gnarled club, and shouted a challenge. Anger flooded his mind, pushing out the dismay at seeing his sergeant go down and the whole company caught off guard.
The big tawny-furred creature whirled, snarling. It gauged his approach and then hurled its club at Keltos’ head. He ducked close to Hetta’s mane, felt the thing go past his head with a whirring sound, and then rose again, ready to spit the monster.
But it had disappeared. Through the eyeholes of his helmet, Keltos scanned the grass it must have ducked into. There was no sign of the bull ape, and he couldn’t spare the time to search for it; apes were attacking the unhorsed men in the grass, bellowing and hooting. Even as he spurred forward to aid the men, however, his original target lunged from its hiding place in the grass and Keltos grunted under the impact as the full weight of the creature knocked him sideways out of the saddle.
He fell, hit hard, and lay dazed for a moment. Then the ape was on him, and powerful hands gripped his arms, pinioning them to his side. Yellow fangs came at his neck, and Keltos writhed in desperation. The fangs chopped together a mere whisker from his cheek. His helmet had twisted around until he could see only partially through one eyehole. His own strength was useless against the powerful creature’s grasp and he knew that the ape’s next bite would pierce his flesh.
The ground thundered, a dark shape loomed over them, and then the bull ape was snatched off of Keltos, screaming. He tore his helmet off and staggered upright, dizzy and sick. Makos wheeled Brel around, and Keltos saw his former assailant wriggling on his friend’s lance, pierced through.
The ape screamed again, slapping furiously at the lance which drenched its pale chest fur in gouts of brilliant red. Even as it raised its arms to break the transfixing shaft from its chest, it shuddered and collapsed. Makos tried to dislodge the corpse unsuccessfully, cursed, and cast the lance away. He trotted back to Kel.
“Get a weapon!” he cried.
“Where’s Hetta?” Keltos screamed. “My sword’s on the saddle!”
“No time!” Makos roared. “Grab anything!”
He galloped off. Keltos staggered through the grass, searching for a discarded lance or sword. He found nothing, but a short distance away he heard a familiar whinny, and saw Hetta standing wild-eyed near the tree-line.
“Hetta!” Keltos began to run. As he did so, he noticed another ape also angling through the meadow towards the mare. It was much closer than he, and Hetta’s attention was on her master. He cried out wordlessly, reaching. The ape leaped, wrapping long arms around the mare’s neck, who reared wildly and went over backwards to the ground.
Keltos reached his horse just as the ape sank its fangs into Hetta’s neck. The mare screamed, tossing her head. He tried to wrench the ape’s arm off, but it clung like a leech, chewing into the horse’s neck. Its weight was heavy and close enough to the head to keep Hetta pinned to the grass. Keltos’ hands found his bronze saber still secure in its saddle-scabbard, and he ripped it free.
Leaping over the body of his mare, he drove the saber’s point into the ape’s side with desperate anger. The tip grated off a rib, then sank deep, and the blonde monster jerked and heaved. Keltos kept stabbing until the thing went limp.
Hetta’s neck was a red ruin, and there was far too much blood soaking the grass. Already she was weakening, her struggles becoming feeble and half-hearted. Keltos ran his hands over his her face, her delicate ears and sensitive nose.
“Hetta, sweet one,” he murmured. “Lie still. Lie still.”
The mare kicked once more, and that was all. Keltos heard her final breath wheeze from her great lungs, and the last link he had with his home across the sea died.
He rose to his feet. The battle was still raging. Troopers rode back and forth across the meadow, lancing or sabering the apes who rose to drag them down and rend their flesh. The northern woods where the right wing had been attacked were full of struggling forms, and the fight had spilled far out into the meadow. Troopers wrestled with pale figures everywhere he looked, and the humans were not often win
ning.
Keltos cast about for a target, for a furred body on which to vent his grief and rage, and then saw salvation.
The rear body of the troops, led by Pelekarr, were coming at a quick trot in perfect formation to sweep the field. They formed a steadily moving wall of a hundred glittering lances. The beasts could throw themselves at that line all they liked, and it would not give.
Keltos gave a shout. Already several apes had charged the line of horse and been thrown back, then stabbed and trampled under the inexorable tread of the massed cavalry. Those troopers still able crawled or ran towards the safety of the line, which parted for them and resumed formation without missing more than a few steps.
Keltos, still outside and exposed, looked around for Makos. There was no sign of his friend, but then he heard a shout and saw his friend riding along the western edge of the clearing, hacking at every blonde form with reddened saber. Brel’s hair was streaked with scarlet gore, and Keltos couldn’t tell if it belonged to horse or ape or man. He ran toward Makos, getting out of the way of the massed line.
The cavalry was half-way across the meadow now, driving the apes before them, spearing those who fell behind with sudden thrusts. Bulls hooted and screamed and died, wallowing in the stained grass before being trampled by the advancing horses. The pale creatures were enraged and perplexed, turning to charge, then stopping short in confusion as the wall of armored horseflesh tramped closer.
Keltos reached the edge of the woods and saw that the right wing was slowly gaining the upper hand now; almost all their assailants had been struck down, but a shocking number of human bodies also littered the ground. Keltos worried that Hetta wouldn’t be the only close friend he would lose that day. The apes had savaged one in every four or five men from the flank.
Finally the apes broke. They had wrought havoc among the flanking horse troopers, but the main body was implacable. They kept their horses tight against each other, leaving no room for an ape to penetrate between their ranks without being first skewered on the end of a pair of lances. There weren’t nearly enough of the beasts to fight back, not even with the added strength of the missile-throwers in the trees.
The apes fled before them, and a loud shout went up among the men. Every ape still standing in the meadow was now running in a mindless rout towards the south-west edge of the clearing. The fleetest had already gained the trees.
Keltos passed a wounded bull ape wriggling in the grass, stopped to dispatch it with a quick thrust into the neck, and then staggered off, still searching for a stray horse so he could rejoin his comrades. He had to avenge Hetta. Had to.
Father, I’m sorry. I tried to save her, I tried so hard…
Keltos ground his teeth, tears of hatred staining his cheeks. He abandoned his search for a horse, began looking instead for more wounded apes, ones that couldn’t run away, ones that would feed his saber.
The forest to the southwest suddenly exploded. Tree trunks sailed through the air, lazily rolling end-over-end before crashing into the cavalry line, instantly killing several men and horses and shattering their ranks. There came an ear-piercing bellow the like of which Keltos had never imagined possible. It shook the ground and made his teeth rattle.
A creature born of absolute nightmare emerged from the woods. It was colossal, incomprehensively massive—a monstrous beast of towering hide and sinew that put half the meadow in its shadow. The ground shook each time it planted an oak-thick leg. Horses reeled and screamed, and men fell to their knees with cries of horror. Keltos lifted his hands to his face, eyes wide and staring. He had seen an elephant, once, carrying a high lord along the road past Tekelin. This thing was three times as high at the shoulder, and a thousand times fiercer.
Its hind legs curved back above its haunches like two castle towers. A short tail, as fat around as a boat and just as long, hung low behind for balance, and its forelegs grasped the earth with gigantic fingers, each of which could have crushed a man. Its hide was gray, rough and ridged with protrusions along the back of each leg that hooked upward and overlapped like bony scales.
But its head was the thing which, beyond its sheer overwhelming size, terrified the onlookers. Four blunt tusks curved up around the face, which was a series of layered plates pierced by two nostrils, two searching eyes, and a central horn high on its forehead. When it opened its mouth to issue forth another earth-trembling bellow, Keltos was stunned to see a double set of giant molars. Instead of the fangs he’d heard so much about since arriving in Ostora, this creature had teeth that would grind boulders to dust. An entire horse could fit into the terrible maw, and as he watched, one did—squirming in a giant paw and screaming in terror until it was suddenly, brutally silenced.
As if to cruelly gut any remaining courage a man could have in the face of such a giant, behind it from the trees emerged an almost identical beast. A dead ape dangled from the jaws of this one, and two more were clutched in each fingered paw. The apes, which had fled directly into the creatures’ path, now fled screeching back the way they’d come, caught between advancing soldiers and slavering jaws.
They ran themselves into the lances of the riders without slowing, eyes wide with mindless panic. Those that survived the lances, and they were few, scattered, running any way they could, hooting with terror. The cavalry barely noticed, all eyes locked in disbelief on the two giants facing them across the bloody grass. There was nothing to do but run.
And yet the line of cavalry held. Pelekarr sat his mount firm in the face of death, gauging the creatures’ next move. For a moment the two titans sat on their haunches, staring at the drama in the meadow, watching the little apes and men in panicked movement.
Then they charged.
The bloody devastation was so sudden and absolute that Keltos cried out in horrified disbelief. Pelekarr vanished in the swirling chaos, his banner-bearer with him. The line wasn’t just broken, it was tossed aside. Horses and men flew fifty paces through the air, flailing helplessly. Anything or anyone grasped in one of the giant paws was locked in death’s embrace, and either had the life crushed out of it in seconds or was torn apart. The things were so big, and moved so fast, that most of the soldiers had barely begun to turn their horses aside when the things were upon them.
The two giants plowed through the ranks, crushing a score of men in their first charge. Great arms swatted and hammered, crushing still more of the brave cavalry or sending them flopping and broken to the turf. Keltos saw one of the monsters grab up four men in a giant paw and then stuff them into its gaping mouth. The men screamed as the great jaws crunched down, but the thing did not seem to enjoy the bronze armor, for it spit them out in a spray of slime.
In seconds, the cavalry went from a perfect advancing formation to a blood-soaked shambles. Captain Pelekarr reemerged next to one of the creatures, unhorsed but alive, and Keltos saw him swing a mighty blow at its colossal flank as it passed. His sword bit through skin but then rebounded so jarringly that the captain nearly fell over. The thing’s legs seemed to be its toughest part.
“Retreat!” shouted Pelekarr. “Retreat! Back to the trees! Get into the trees, for your lives!”
The few surviving apes had vanished. There was no sign of them other than the pale corpses littering the field. Swathes of men lay dead or dying in the meadow. Many more were slain in the woods on the right flank.
A blood-smeared sergeant was snarling orders, and the unwounded men hurriedly began loading the wounded onto the remaining horses, casting terrified glances over their shoulders at the rampaging creatures. They had mere seconds in which to act, and then the giants might turn on them.
The things in the meadow finished their insane attack on the soldiery before them, and began sampling horses. Unlike the armored men, the horses were almost the perfect size and meat-to-bone ratio for the two abominations, which began snatching up every horse they could see, living or dead, and gorging themselves. Keltos bit his lip as he saw Hetta’s carcass disappear down the gullet of one of the t
hings. The monsters then found an appetite for ape-flesh, and the blonde bodies were snatched along with horses. The crunch of bones was the loudest sound in the meadow, now that the giants had stopped bellowing.
At that moment Makos burst from the trees. The young trooper was racing in a mad gallop as fast as Brel could possibly run, and in his hand he held a long lance. He was charging straight for the nearest monster.
Keltos yelled a pointless warning, face turning pale. The men around him stopped their retreat to watch. Even the gasping wounded stared at the suicidal attack.
Makos aimed his lance for the gigantic belly of one of the creatures, and Brel bravely held her course despite the terrifying scent and alarming size of the things. Makos raised his lance tip at the last moment, and Keltos saw the point enter the monster’s side and almost disappear as Makos’ charge carried him right under the belly and out the other side, where he disappeared from view.
The monster went mad. Bawling like a hellish calf, it reared straight upward. All four feet left the ground and for a moment it was airborne. When it landed again the ground shook and a man near Keltos staggered and fell.
The thing thrashed around, ripping at the grass, sending already mangled corpses spinning like dolls across the meadow. The other beast, hearing the sounds of distress, snorted and left off stuffing itself with horseflesh to stare stupidly at its fellow. Then it returned to its grisly meal.
“By Mishtan,” whispered a nearby trooper, Tolanos, “never have I seen such valor.”
“Recklessness, more like,” answered Keltos, but he was grinning. If Makos’ nerve hadn’t failed him yet, perhaps there was hope for them all.
“Be silent, both of you, and get these men out of here!” Sergeant Deltan hissed. “If the things see us, we’re all dead men, valor or no.”
Keltos hurried to obey, and the shattered right wing began to move deeper into the trees, leaving most of their number dead on the field. Sergeant Deltan kept a wary eye on the monsters in the meadow, but neither seemed inclined to follow. The one Makos had wounded snuffled and bawled continuously, craning its neck around to try and lick at the bleeding gash in its side. The butt-end of his lance was still visible, jutting out from the wound.
Tooth and Blade Page 27
