[Florin & Lorenzo 01] - The Burning Shore

by Robert Earl - (ebook by Undead)

  Cold blood and hot mingled on the barricades, steel met onyx, razored teeth met fire and lead. And slowly, almost imperceptibly, the skinks’ attack began to falter. As the corpses of the strongest were trampled underfoot by their weaker brethren, and as the dwarfs turned their cannon to rake across the rearguard, the ferocity bled slowly out of their charge.

  When the attack stopped it seemed like a miracle. One moment the Bretonnians were fighting tooth and claw with an endless tide of the horrors. A moment later and the lizardmen were drawing back.

  The defenders let their arms droop, snatching the couple of seconds’ rest the respite gave them, and then, with a single, shrill chirrup of command, the attacking swarm split into two columns and streamed away to either side.

  A wild cheer went up from the humans’ line, exultant despite the jagged edge of exhaustion and shock. It climbed higher as the last of the skinks burst into a sprint, the wordless roar interspersed with jeers and insults. Then the last rank of them melted away, and the Bretonnians fell suddenly silent.

  Expressions of joy melted into grey masks of shock, raised fists were lowered, stomachs grew heavy with despair. Even Florin, hardened by his hatred of his erstwhile captors, felt the fight bleeding out of him as he realized that this was no victory.

  This was just the beginning, the calm before the storm of the lizardmen’s true assault.

  The great bone plates of their wide-jawed heads towering over the scattering flotsam of their lesser brethren, their taloned feet beating the earth in perfect step, a single, vast column of saurus marched into view. Their armoured hides were untouched by shrapnel or bullet, and their bulging muscles were untired by any combat. As fresh as a new dawn they hurried to do one-sided battle against their exhausted foe.

  Florin knew now why the skinks had fled when they had. It was a tactic he’d seen often enough in the bar brawls of Bordeleaux. They called it a switch and cut, a muggers’ trick whereby one man ducked out of the way a second before his mate’s cosh came swinging through the space where he’d been standing.

  The skinks had been the cover. The saurus were the cosh.

  There was no doubting who the victim would be.

  Florin spat and swore, and tried to look confident.

  “Looks like we’re in for another round, men,” he said, holding his voice steady in an iron grip of manufactured confidence “We’ll cut through this lot like we did their mates. Let’s close those ranks.”

  Much good it would do them, though. This time the channelled melee would go against the men, that much was certain. In the messy, face to face butchery of the palisades the saurus had every advantage—strength, ferocity and sheer brute force. They had the weapons, too, great sickle-bladed swords and chitinous shields that glinted in the sun like the doors of one of the hells.

  “Gunners,” Orbrant called as the saurus, their pace neither rushed nor hesitant, approached to within the last hundred yards. “Gunners to form a back rank. Come on, come on. Keep those heathen temples clear of the little ’uns, or at least keep their heads down. I’ll keep the palisade clear.”

  So saying the Sigmarite strode forward, the boisterous grin which creased his face making him look younger. Stronger. He found his place in the decimated line of defenders, cut the air with his warhammer like a cat with its tail, and punched the man beside him on the arm.

  “Are you ready?” he asked him, eyes alight with an unholy joy.

  “Yes, sergeant,” the man muttered miserably, his own eyes locked on the advancing monsters. Somehow they seemed to be grinning.

  “I said,” Orbrant repeated menacingly, “are you ready?”

  “Yes, sergeant,” This time the man tore his eyes away from the foe for long enough to look at his officer.

  “What?” Orbrant snapped.

  “Yes,” the man dared to snap back.

  “Are you ready?” Orbrant snarled, teeth bared.

  “Yes,” he bellowed.

  “Are you ready?”

  “Yes!” More voices were raised in answer to the question and Orbrant, seeming to swell with a terrible energy, chuckled.

  “Are you ready?” he roared, lifting his warhammer aloft so that sunlight flared from the gromril of its construction, as white and blinding as a banner of the Sigmar himself.

  “Yeeeeessss!” the men roared back, the fire of the warrior priest’s burning spirit leaping amongst them as a flame leaps from one straw thatch to the next. The hairs lifted on the napes of their necks. Their spines straightened. They lifted weapons that felt suddenly light, and their faces split open in death’s head grins. Orbrant watched them with a terrible pride, seeing in their battered bodies and ugly faces the presence of his god.

  By all that’s holy, he thought, thank Sigmar for the gift of war.

  And he prepared for the charge.

  Van Delft had watched the lizardmen’s assault unfolding with a professional detachment; a certain admiration, even. The enemy had launched four perfectly synchronized attacks, the separate groups not only emerging from the tree-line at the same time, but managing to time the impacts of their charges almost to the second.

  If it hadn’t been for Thorgrimm’s fortifications van Delft had no doubt that the first wave would have annihilated his little army, washing away his formations as easily as a rising tide destroys a sandcastle.

  As it was the flanks held, just. The Tileans had balked once, but a well-timed volley from the dwarfs’ gunners had given them the breathing space they’d needed to regroup under their captain’s passionate entreaties.

  The Marienburgers had fared a little better, their well equipped and expertly disciplined ranks forming a meat grinder into which the enemy hurled themselves with suicidal courage. The Bretonnians had done just as well, although their losses had been heavier. Fully a quarter of their number lay dying across their palisade, and the rest were so blood-soaked that the gore almost seemed to be a regimental marking.

  But the real surprise had been the Kislevites. Despite their captain’s obvious reluctance to lead from the front they had fought like daemons. Their barbaric Ulrician battle hymns had cleaved the air as their axes had cleaved the enemy, the razored blades chopping through their ranks with the easy confidence of lumberjacks felling trees.

  It was no surprise then that the real attack, when it came, came against the Bretonnians.

  If van Delft had dared to hope, that folly left him when he saw the enemies’ true warriors. The massive reptiles that came marching out of the jungle in a single, well ordered column were every inch the horrors that Florin had described. Taller than men, their massive heads flared back from their snouts like arrowheads, the weapons they carried seemed almost superfluous.

  Van Delft realized that his jaw had fallen open whilst he’d been watching them. He snapped it shut.

  “Captain Thorgrimm. I have a new target for you.”

  The dwarf, who’d been busily pacing up and down the ranks of his gunners, tossing his axe from hand to hand with bloodthirsty impatience, turned and followed van Delft’s gaze.

  “Yes,” he nodded, as he saw the vast column of saurus warriors. “They could do with a bit of softening up.”

  He spat a stream of orders at the cannon crew, the language as hard and flinty as the stone of the temple upon which they stood, then stooped to help them drag the weapon to a new position.

  The first shot rang out a moment later, the cannon vomiting out a blur of iron. It whistled over the Bretonnians’ heads, bounced on the churned-up earth beyond them, and sliced through the saurus’ ranks as uselessly as a razor through a slab of ham.

  Without waiting for the order the dwarfs were already swabbing out the barrel, ready for the next shot, but van Delft knew that it wasn’t going to be enough. Turning away from the Bretonnians he looked suspiciously at the southern tree-line. It seemed to be empty. Seemed to be.

  The Colonel bit his lip and cursed himself for not having used more time clearing the obscuring undergrowth. He wanted
to take men from the remaining three flanks upon which the skink charge had faltered, yet if he did, how could he know that another attack wouldn’t fall upon the weakened defences?

  He tugged at the tips of his moustaches and turned back to watch the saurus as they advanced towards the remnant of d’Artaud’s command. Even above the din of battle he could feel their feet beating the constant, remorseless rhythm of an executioner’s drum roll.

  He took a deep breath and closed his eyes in silent prayer.

  “Sigmar be with me,” he muttered, his hand closing around the hard edges of the hammer talisman he wore beneath his uniform. His daughters had given it to him a decade ago, and although he’d mocked them for being so generous with his money, he had come to treasure the tiny memento.

  “Be with me.”

  The sounds of battle faded. A moment passed, long and silent. He opened his eyes again, and the world had become clear, his decision obvious. After all, what other choice did he have?

  “Lorenzo,” he said, singling out the Bretonnian from the runners that stood waiting for his orders. “Go back to your unit. I don’t need you here anymore. And you other three, go back to your units and tell your captains that every other man’s to go to the Bretonnian line. Once there they’ll serve under d’Artaud. Got it? Good. Well, go on then!”

  Van Delft watched them scurry away, secure in the knowledge that for the moment, he had done his duty. He stepped back and almost trod on Kereveld.

  “Ah, there you are…” the Colonel began, then stopped. The wizard’s bony old body might be there, but his mind was far, far away. His eyes were rolled up like a dead man’s, his skin as pale as death. In fact, the only sign that he was still a living man and not some standing corpse was the movement of his lips as they whispered silent gibberish, and the spasmodic twitching of his fingers.

  Van Delft remembered the devastation that Kereveld had caused last time he’d practised his godless art, and for a second he considered shaking the wizard out of his trance.

  A second later he thought better of it. After all, what did they have to lose?

  Miles above him, bright in the dark void where sky met space, energies burst into life as spontaneously as matches left in tropical sunlight. At first no more than sparks they grew stronger and hotter, fluttering around one another like newly hatched chicks in a nest. Eventually each of the sparks joined the others, coalescing into a single mass that slowly began to descend towards the world below.

  If Florin had made the decision he would have waited behind the barricade. Despite the fact that the ditch was now filled with a mass of the dying and the dead, and despite the fact that most of the defensive stakes had long since been pulled down into a tangled mess of splintered wood, the bank at least remained, giving the defenders some small advantage of height.

  Yes, had Florin made the decision his men would have waited for the impact of the saurus onslaught, and would have been scattered before it like autumn leaves before a winter storm.

  But Florin didn’t make the decision. Orbrant did.

  He waited until the saurus were near enough to spit on and then, with an animal roar of fanatical hatred, he vaulted over the palisade and charged.

  The Bretonnians followed. Caught up in the invisible storm of the Sigmarite’s energy they had little choice. Perhaps it was because of the warrior priest’s savage oratory, or perhaps it was because of some other, more subtle magic. But for whatever reason in that moment, in that one, glorious moment, they became all that they had ever dreamed of being.

  Battered and bruised, rotten of tooth and vicious of habit, the score of mercenaries fell upon their foes with the righteous wrath of the heroes of old. They hurled themselves against the advancing horde, meeting it with the bone-shattering impact of a fist meeting a sledgehammer’s swing.

  And yet, incredibly, it was the saurus who faltered. The spirit which had possessed the Bretonnians seemed to blind them to the fact that their enemies were massive, iron-scaled, invincible.

  Thus forgetful of their weakness they scythed through the first rank of lizards, their halberds and swords biting deeply through their scaled hides with a keen-edged hunger.

  A dozen reptiles were felled by that first, crazed impact. A dozen more thrown back bloodied and dazed by the ferocity of the charge. Orbrant, his ragged robes flapping around him like a bloodied storm cloud, seemed to be everywhere, the silver blur of his warhammer smiting through his foes like lightning.

  Now he was hammering down the bearer of the enemies’ blasphemous standard, smashing the totem in half and crushing the armoured skull of its bearer on the backstroke.

  Now he was stooping to drag a man free of the saurus he’d killed, picking the mercenary up by the scruff of his neck as though he were no heavier than a pup and throwing him back into the fight.

  Now he was singing a deep throated battle hymn that reverberated in the bones of all who heard it, the savage chant punctuated by the constant metronome of gromril splintering bone.

  But Orbrant was only one man, and the saurus were legion. As the shock of the charge wore off they pushed forward, their strength waxing as the defenders’ waned.

  Florin snatched bloody glimpses of the turning tide as he fought. Beneath the total concentration and numbing stupidity of combat he knew that he should be thinking of a plan. He ducked and parried, his wrist flaring in pain as it was bent backwards, and a snarling mouthful of curved teeth lunged for his throat.

  He let himself fall back away from the attack, gripping the cold iron of his assailant’s arm and stabbing the sharpened point of his machete into its belly. His entire weight travelled through the blow, driving the steel home with a force that would have gutted a pig.

  It didn’t gut the saurus. With a bellow of pain it smashed Florin to one side with the leather disc of its shield, sending him sprawling over the cooling body of one of his comrades. Stars span through his field of vision as he watched the saurus pluck the blade out of its torso and throw it to one side with a contemptuous snarl.

  Before it could turn on him once more Florin snatched the eating knife from his belt and, ignoring the certainty that he should have started running, pounced forward to stab it into the joint behind the lizard’s knee. The little steel blade punched through skin and into a knot of gristle and cartilage he found there.

  Florin twisted.

  This time it was the saurus that fell back, and Florin followed him. Using the heavy scales that armoured the creature’s head he pulled it to one side, then plunged his knife through the serpentine eye and into the brain beneath.

  The fallen lizard thrashed like a landed fish as it died, the creature’s flailing claws holding its brethren back for the second Florin needed to jump clear.

  Suddenly from behind, he felt an impact on his shoulder. He turned, knife at the ready, and met Lundorf’s white smile.

  “Take it,” the Marienburger told him, throwing him a sheathed sword. “Looks like you’ll be needing it!”

  “Thanks,” Florin laughed, a little hysterically. “After you.”

  Losing no more time in banter Lundorf winked, turned, and led his men into the Bretonnians’ line.

  A moment later the Tileans appeared, pikes held at hip height as they charged into the saurus beneath a hail of dwarf fire.

  It was a great effort. A heroic effort. But as all mercenaries know, heroic efforts never end well. Inch by inch and corpse by corpse, van Delft’s little army was being pushed back towards oblivion by the unstoppable weight of the jungle’s true masters.

  Xinthua Tzequal lolled on the comfort of his palanquin, eyes half closed as he listened to the reports of the battle unfolding. The plan he had decided upon was working with the blunt elegance of all mindlessly simple things, yet still he derived a certain satisfaction from it. Success, after all, was success.

  The skinks had first washed around the humans’ defences, wearing them away as they surged and probed, drawing them to their barriers and trapping them t
here like wasps in amber. Then, when they had found the weakest point, Xinthua had unleashed the saurus warriors. The combination of his delicate appreciation of space and time with the brute force of the warriors was proving to be the decisive manoeuvre.

  Even now, he had just learned, the saurus were smashing their way through the mammals. Their desperation had made the warmbloods fight with a surprising courage, but it was not a trait Xinthua admired. In his world there existed only force and mass, and the purity of calculation. Everything else was a distraction.

  Nor would their courage do them any good. The constant relay of skink runners all told the same story. The skinks were holding the warmbloods to their ridiculously overextended positions whilst the saurus, as wisely careless of their own expendable lives as they were of the enemy’s, ground their way through to the heart of the mammals’ position.

  It was as good as over, Xinthua thought with a sigh. Lowering his eyelids further he dismissed the fighting from his mind and sent the focus of his intellect in pursuance of some newly conceived geometries that had just fluttered into his consciousness. In the clearing around him his entourage remained standing and alert, the blank perfection of their eyes searching the surrounding jungle for any sign of danger.

  Another skink came up and threw itself into the dirt in front of the mage, its sides bellowing in and out in near terminal exhaustion. For a moment Xinthua considered dismissing its report until later. He had more important things to think about than pest control. It was only a sense of duty that persuaded him to turn his eyes upon the lowly messenger and gesture for it to speak.

  “I bear a report, my liege,” it said, its chirruping voice uneven from its panting breath. It had obviously run here much faster than its brethren. Perhaps a stronger strain that the usual, Xinthua considered.