It took minutes for the zombies to finally get to the guns. But that time the fuses had burned almost to the barrels, and the undead were clustered around them when the powder kegs went off with sharp crumps and flashes of fire, destroying thousands more of the undead in a wall of rushing flame.
“The zombies are passing to the rear of the formations behind us,” said Hemetre, touching the king on the shoulder to get his attention.
And the mass of the enemy cavalry was just about level with the infantry. This was a major problem with the plan, since, even though the enemy couldn’t see them, there was nothing to prevent them from riding into the presumed clear area. The illusion spell made the areas look like small piles of boulders, the leading edge with the appearance of sharp rocks, hopefully enough to keep the enemy from trying to ride up. It might not prevent them from poking a lance into the rocks or riding up for a closer examination. And some of the horses appeared to be skittish, as if they saw or smelled something that their riders couldn’t. Fortunately, their riders ignored their nervousness, attributing it to their proximity to their undead minions.
The enemy force split to go between or around the boulder fields. In less than a minute the front had passed the forward formations and were entering the hundred-yard gap to the rear formations. Those formations did not look like boulder fields. It had been thought that making them so would be too much of a giveaway. So they looked like small hills with sparse growths of woods on top. The horsemen stayed in their separated columns to that point, and actually had moved partially past the front of those formations.
“Now,” said Rory, looking back at Hemetre, who nodded, closed her eyes, and sent the signal to the other mages. At the command the mages dropped their spells, not all at the same time, but within seconds of each other. And the battle was suddenly on.
Chapter Twenty-eight
The arrow seemed to come out of nowhere, heading straight into the chest of the priestess. She was wearing light armor, the kind that might deflect a thrown spear or a saber, but not something coming from a powerful horsebow. It would have skewered the woman, if not for the more than human reactions of the other female in the party.
Freya carried a small shield and spear, and now she jumped with the nerves and muscles of a goddess, interposing her shield between arrow and priestess, deflecting it away. Another arrow came in at Marcus, who uttered the word of the inertia spell just before it reached him. The arrow hit the field and lost all of its momentum, feeding that energy into the body of the mage for his own use. The illusion field weakened at the same moment, and the rest of the nomads yelled and pointed at the figures revealed that a few of their number had already tried to point out to them.
“Attack,” yelled Tengri, waving his blade forward and streaking into a run toward the nearest of the sentries.
Perun was beside him step for step, while Freya stayed with the priestess, warding the woman with her shield. Kalli was into the total concentration of a spell as another, darker magic seemed to fall over them. As she finished casting the darkness lessened, though it didn’t go away completely.
Marcus ran behind the male walking gods, taking arrow after arrow on his field and gaining energy. He stooped for a moment and picked up a rock, straightening and throwing it toward the top of the hill, pushing energy into the stone. It took off like a cannon ball, striking one of the necromancers at the top with a splash of blood, blasting the man off the hill and into the sky, dead in an instant.
An arrow struck Tengri, bouncing from his divine mail. The demigod turned toward the archer, who stood among a half dozen other nomads who were putting arrow to bow. He opened his mouth and roared, the thunderous crash of a sky god blasting over them, rupturing ear drums, sending the Turks into spasms of agony as they dropped their bows and reached hands up to ears in an attempt to comfort what had been destroyed.
Perun pointed his sword at another group of Turks, these running around the hill and into sight, bows bent. Electricity crackled along the blade, then arced out to hit one of the nomads. The man’s hair stood on end, his body shook, while the smell of burning flesh rose from the dying nomad. Bolts of bright energy arced from the Turk, striking those around him, going from man to man. Half fell to the ground dead, the other half landing on the sward with twitching muscles and grinding teeth, helpless.
Marcus caught an arrow that moved in slow motion through his field. He reversed it and sent energy into the arrow, speeding it out and into the body of a Turk archer, driving the man to his knees as he clutched at the shaft and his mouth worked in a scream.
The two male demigods made short work of the remaining nomad warriors, their blades slicing through leather and mail like it was mere flesh to rend the actual flesh beneath.
“Up the hill,” yelled the Slavic walking god, sending another bolt at the necromancers. The searing blast hit one of the robed figures, the cloth catching on fire before the bolt sizzled among the other necromancers. One figure stepped forward and the electricity turned and headed into it, absorbed by the dark form which had to be the lich. The being was not harmed, holding up a bony hand that crackled with the electrical power it had absorbed.
“I’m done,” said Perun, looking over at Tengri. “That was all of my power, for now.”
“Understood,” growled Tengri. “Then we’ll just have to destroy them the mortal way.” With that he started up the hillside, jumping ahead five yards with each step, Perun by his side.
That most ominous of the robed figures stepped forward again and raised its hands, and a wave of darkness rolled down the hill toward the party. Tengri and Perun staggered back, their mouths open in roaring screams.
“Stop it,” yelled Freya, looking over at Kalli, whose face was a mask of concentration.
“I’m trying,” said the priestess through gritted teeth. “They’re too powerful. Too much negative energy.”
Marcus threw another stone, this one at the chief of the necromancers. The rock sped toward the target and veered at the last moment, missing the lich. Marcus picked up another one and didn’t intend to make the same mistake this time. He sent the rock into one of the other necromancers, off to the side, chanting his spell, adding his power to that of the lich. The rock struck the necromancer in the head, pulping it from his body in a splash of blood. The headless body folded up on itself and Marcus reached for another rock. When he came up he could feel the attention of the lich, and his legs began to weaken as the negative energy washed over him.
Freya launched her spear, streaking on a straight line into the chest of the lich. The evil creature lost its concentration for a moment as it clutched at the shaft of the weapon, and the two male demigods leaped ahead up the hill while Marcus brought up another spell to his lips.
The lich pulled the spear from its chest, tossed it aside, then glared down the hill, its glowing eyes seemingly sucking the heat out of the air. Marcus found that he couldn’t breathe, and the demigods continued up the hill, their movements slowed as if they were trying to move through water instead of air.
The young mage began to wonder if they had already lost this battle. And if their loss doomed the army of the king, and even more importantly to Marcus, the young wizards he was responsible for.
* * *
The cannon on the facing sides of the diamonds started the fight. They didn’t all fire at once. That would have been too much to ask. They did manage to all fire within six seconds, a short enough gap that the nomads were not able to react before they were hit. Thirty-eight cannon on each face, one hundred and fifty-two total, most of them were the light twelve pounder field guns. There were some eighteen pounders and about a dozen twenty-four pounders, but none of the largest cannon, the thirty-twos. All had been double slotted with grapeshot, twenty to forty large musket balls in each group. Over eight thousand of the balls flew from the muzzles to sweep across the Turks. There were no misses in the close packed cavalry. Horses screamed and went down, men fell dead from mounts, and the sh
ock and panic went through the cavalry. The odor of feces and blood filled the air, competing with the acrid smell of burnt gunpowder.
Ten thousand musketmen fired a moment later, sending their balls into the horsemen. Again there were no misses, though some of the horses and riders absorbed multiple shots. Thousands more of the horses went to the ground, creating even more obstructions for those still mounted. The musketmen lowered their weapons and quickly affixed their bayonets, ready for close combat. They would not have time to reload in this phase of the battle.
“Charge,” yelled Rory, jumping over a dead horse and slamming his ax into a nomad who had just extricated himself from under his fallen mount. The blade cut easily through the leather armor of the light cavalryman, slaying him on his feet. The king’s guard was close around the monarch, swords rising and falling as they cleared the flanks and protected their charge.
Thirty thousand pikemen lowered their weapons and charged forth, their spear points taking the nearest horsemen in head and body. The pikes were in three ranks, forming a wall of moving points that killed men in their saddles or pushed them off when their armor was too tough for penetration. Behind them came the musketmen, using their bayonets to take the men who were on foot, still confused after taking a spill from their saddles. They died beneath the bayonets of the foot soldiers they despised.
Cavalry’s strength was its mobility. Its ability to move fast and hit hard with the momentum of their mounts. Now they were trapped, and pikemen could move as fast as they could in these circumstances. It was a slaughter for all of the horsemen caught in the trap. The ones on the edges now also came under fire from the few cannon on the hills to the side, while peasant longbowmen, still a force to be reckoned with, started to rain arrows down on those fringes. They were as accurate as the nomad bowmen, able to launch twelve aimed shot a minute from yew longbows just as powerful as the hornbows of the Turks. Nomads began to drop under the rain of shafts, most too confused to even return fire.
* * *
Conner screamed at the top of his lungs, trying to turn it into a roar and failing. As the men to either side lowered their pikes he brought his down as well, aiming it into the space of two of the soldiers in front. The man behind him pushed, giving him no choice but to move forward. This time the line didn’t move at a walk, but at a run, jabbing their pikes into the nomads nearest to them.
Conner rammed the point on his pike into a light horseman, the sharpened steel slicing into the man’s throat. Blood spurted and the nomad fell from his horse, almost dragging the long spear from Conner’s hands. He held on, pulling it out, then looking for the next target. This one with the look of a heavy horseman, steel armor cover most of his body.
The pikeman rammed his spear into the horseman, the point striking the breastplate and sliding away. The nomad gave him a murderous look and drew his sword, raising it up and trying to bring it down on the pike. Another man thrust his long spear into the side of the horse, which, rearing up, threw his rider to the ground. The horseman made the attempt to get up, but a sergeant slammed him in his helmeted head with a poleax, knocking the man back to the ground. A musketman thrust a bayonet into the nomad’s throat, ending his struggles.
The line of pikes moved forward, a forest of points that gave the nomads two choices. Retreat, or be spit. The pike line could not hold together, and soon it was every man trying to push forward as fast as possible. The battle was in no way like the one that Conner had been through little more than a week ago. It soon devolved into total confusion, the only constant the men of Eireland always close by. Conner didn’t recognize most of them. He didn’t need to. As long as they wore the armor of the kingdom they were friends, which meant anyone else was an enemy.
Screaming again, this time more like a roar, Conner pushed his point into another horseman. He didn’t think he got penetration on this one either, but with a mighty push he heaved the nomad out of his saddle to land on the ground. The man lay in a daze for a moment, his panicked horse trying to run away through the press. He started to stir, and Conner pushed the point of his pike into the nomad’s face, ending his battle.
* * *
Rory kept moving forward, his ax taking down nomad after nomad. They had this one chance to kill as many of their enemy as possible, and he wasn’t about to waste it. He was losing people as well. The Turks were doughty warriors, and some were heavily armored, if not as much so as western knights. Lances and blades took the lives of infantrymen, while horse archers took what shots they could. The infantry was starting to get bogged down, and it was beginning to look like a good number of the Turks might escape. The men at the end were turning their horses and spurring them away, while more backed their mounts until they had room to turn as well.
Flares of fire flew over the heads of the points of contact, expanding in blasts of fire as the wizards entered the fight. Hundreds of screaming horses died along with their riders, while more panicked and threw the warriors on their backs. The pikemen continued to push ahead and kill more of their enemies, the musketmen putting down those still alive after the heavy infantry had passed by.
The sound was deafening, the odor of blood and loosened bowels enough to gag the warriors. There was also the stink of gunpowder, and wisps still floated along the field, but it had dissipated to the point where it was no longer much of a factor. Sweating men screamed in fear and anger and defiance as they tried to kill or survive as the case might be.
Rory felt as if he hadn’t had a drop to drink in days, coughing through a dry throat as the stink of the field tore at the membranes of his lungs. The king was an old warrior, able to ignore pain and discomfort to accomplish the task. In this case, killing as many of the enemy as he could. He would have preferred to have battled and killed the general in charge of the horde, but he had no way of knowing where that man was, or if he was even in the army. So he settled on killing the common warriors as he came to them, taking their return blows on his shield or depending on his half plate to catch the blades and lance tips he couldn’t block.
After what seemed like hours, but couldn’t have been that long, the slanting lines of pikemen met, crushing the nomads between them. Unfortunately, tens of thousands had gotten free and were riding away. They think they are free, thought the smiling king as he raised his visor and pulled in air as fast as possible. He shook his head and laughed, and the men around him gave him looks of disbelief as they stood on a corpse choked field.
* * *
The Turks had of course sent scouts out to the side as they moved forward. The Western cavalry hidden to the side also sheltered under illusion spells, while any scout that drew too close was taken down by shadows that came out of nowhere to pull them from their saddles and cut their throats. Now the cavalry, alerted by the mages in their midst, rode out of their cover, scattering the scouts and moving into position.
Count Brian Borai was in charge of one wing, the right, made up mostly of Franks, Geats and Iberians. He had four thousand heavy cavalry, along with another four thousand light horse on both of his flanks. Duke Connor Flannery was in charge of the other wing across the way, with almost four thousand Eirish cavalry and five thousand mixed light horse.
Brian looked to his bugler and gave the signal, and the man sounded lower lances. Eight thousand of the long horseman’s spears lowered to the front, the standard bearer raised and dropped his flag, and the bugler sounded the charge. The faint sound of the bugle across the field came to Brian’s ears, and he knew that wing was also moving.
Thirty thousand nomad cavalry had made it out of the trap, leaving behind almost fifty thousand dead and another ten thousand still fighting for their lives to get out. There was no way out for them, and as the Turks who had gotten free soon found out, the way for them was also closing as masses of cavalry came at them from both sides.
Those on the edges who could turned their horses so they presented lances, those with bows putting out arrows as fast as possible. Those trapped in the center
mass of fleeing cavalry could not turn. The knights, much more heavily armored than even the nomad heavy cavalry, their lances outreaching those of the Turks, slammed into the enemy with a crash of steel and pushed through them. The light cavalry followed through the hole, striking out to the sides as soon as they were past the first layer.
By the time they had pushed fifty yards into the mass no one still possessed a serviceable lance. Knights swung their heavy swords, axes or maces, while the light cavalry lay about them with sabers and long swords. Those with pistols fired them when they could, and thousands of Turks went down under the onslaught, some unable to even fight in the press.
Brian cut down another Turk, this one a horse archer who was trying to keep hold of his bow while drawing his saber and failing at both. The count felt as if his arm was made of lead as he jerked the blade free and looked for another target. He got his blade up in time to block a heavy sword, the strike sending a painful shiver down his arm. The count pushed away, shoving the nomad back in his saddle, then quickly brought his blade around for a cut into the side of the Turk’s neck. The heavy sword was made to be an armor smasher, and with the strength of his arm it smashed through the chainmail protecting the barbarian’s neck, cutting into the flesh and opening a wound that spurted red arterial blood.
Another nomad, another strike, another death. Swords beat on his shield and armor, none penetrating, all battering his body. Sweat ran into his eyes, stinging. He blinked his eyes, all he could do at the moment with both hands occupied. Blood joined the fluids on his face, not his he thought, while drops flew from his blade as he swung it up, then down. His ears rang, his head ached, and the count was ready for this to be over.
The Chronicles of the Eirish: Book 1: The Lich's Horde Page 29
