And then, when that first contact had penetrated so far that most armies would have considered it a success and paused to regroup, the later ranks of soldiers pushed past their leading comrades, fresh to the fight, and took over the charge. Beyond the packed forward ranks there was space, space enough for a Lenay warrior to move, to swing, to clever-fake and spin, and perform all the deadly tricks he'd rehearsed all his life, if only in the hope of impressing his friends and village girls at evening practice. Bacosh men-at-arms, mostly peasants and village folk with solid skills but none of the artistry, simply died, falling in horrible, screaming wrecks before a class and power of soldiery they had never before encountered. The Army of Lenayin, now five hundred paces beyond the Bacosh soldiers' front line, began to accelerate.
“Good gods!” Arken exclaimed in the saddle at Sasha's side, looking over the battlefield. The Army of Lenayin was flooding out from the Dhemerhill Valley, beyond its protective walls, and now churned inexorably toward the banks of the Ipshaal. The Bacosh forces looked stunned, not so much retreating as sinking like saplings in a flood, as Lenays ran through them and past them, and left the slower ones for comrades behind to deal with. “Look at them!”
Similar exclamations rose from across the Ilduuri lines. Their own attackers had faded back down the slope for the second time, and men with a vantage now gathered eagerly on this side to see the battle below.
“They're still going!”
Excited yells rose to a crescendo, and then men were hammering on their shields and roaring, chanting for Lenayin. Upon her horse, Sasha wiped tears from her eyes. Of all the moments in her life she had ever felt proud to be Lenay, all were as nothing before this. She stood in her stirrups, pointed her sword at the sky, and yelled with the rest of her Ilduuris.
Jaryd thrust and crashed his way through infantry ranks, men giving way in panic, others falling flat to escape the reach of his sword, only to be trampled underfoot. On this left side of the Dhemerhill Valley, only cavalry had attacked. Now they pierced the thin and wavering lines of Bacosh soldiers toward the Ipshaal like a dagger through the heart.
He yelled in fury as some soldiers ahead were slow to run clear and barrelled into them, his horse bounding for footing, knocking through several, trampling another. Arrows zipped past, talmaad mixed with the Lenay ranks behind, shooting fleeing soldiers in the back. Ahead, now visible across a final stretch of grass, was the Ipshaal. Enemies parted before it, and he nearly laughed at the ease of it, this astonishing victory, against such overwhelming odds.
The Lenay cavalry reached the bank in their tens and then hundreds, and wheeled. More hundreds poured in as Bacosh soldiers parted on either side. Damon's noble friends were whooping and yelling as though the war was over. Damon, Jaryd saw, merely stood his horse upon the bank, and looked along the river in either direction.
Along each bank was an endless sea of men. Further up-and downriver, entire armies were barely even aware they had been attacked. Jaryd's joy died upon his lips, and the look that Damon gave him was wary.
“We can't hold here,” he said. “We can't push in either direction along the river. The forces in the other direction will move in and cut us off from the valley. We'll be trapped. We must withdraw.”
“Withdraw?” Jaryd didn't like the sound of that. Damon was often grim and worried-this seemed like capitulation. More arrows zipped through the air, only these ones were incoming. Archers in the surrounding ranks were organising. “Look, let's at least clear the hill in front of Sasha's bluff….”
“There's no room. They were thin before the valley mouth but if we press them tighter along the riverbank they'll have nowhere to retreat to and we'll get stuck….”
“Their disadvantage, surely!” Jaryd protested.
“And ours when we can't make it back to the valley! We had a good run, we killed a lot of them and made them wary, let's get back before our triumph turns and bites us.”
“Surely we can…”
A whistling buzz interrupted them, like a swarm of wasps, followed by rapid thudding, and further across the grass a horse was smashed into the ground like a bug. Then another two, and a rider clubbed from the saddle by something big and fast.
“Ballistas!” shouted Damon. “Their artillery is trained on us!”
“Dammit,” Jaryd muttered, spinning his horse to stare up the riverside once more, searching for the source of it. “It'll be a few hundred paces up that way, if we can just…”
A flaming ball came through the air directly before him-they were out of range from Ilduuri artillery on the bluff, so it could only be enemy fire.
“Hellfire!” someone yelled. It hit the fields further from the river, riders scattering, not so concentrated there to be affected. Two more shots came, one hitting a tree and engulfing it, the other erupting near the bank of the Dhemerhill.
Upon the opposite side of the Dhemerhill, more flaming balls were arcing through the air. These were coming from further up the Ipshaal bank to the north. And these were heading straight for the Lenay infantry.
“That's it,” said Damon. “We're getting out before we get slaughtered.” He turned and galloped back the way they'd come, waving his sword and yelling for men to form up on him. “Get me a trumpeter and get our infantry back! Full retreat!”
Sasha swore, watching the artillery land. Great plumes of fire rose from amidst the Army of Lenayin's ranks. Likely it was killing surviving Bacosh soldiers in there as well, but the thought did not comfort.
“Get them out of there, Damon,” she muttered. “It was a great victory, now fall back and live to fight another one.”
Here on the near side of the Dhemerhill, Lenay cavalry were indeed falling back. That would be Damon himself, though she could not make him out. Artillery fire was landing amidst the horses here as well, though less effective on the open ground. It was coming from just before her left flank.
She wheeled and rode fast along her lines, where Ilduuri men who had been cheering now stood and watched with grim concern. They knew how fast hellfire artillery could turn any exposed and tightly clustered army to cinders. Soon she reached a spot on the harshly contested left flank where black grass still burned from llduuri artillery and piles of charred corpses smouldered, while others lay strewn underfoot, having fought right up and even past the Ilduuri shieldline. To her left, amidst the trees, wounded Ilduuris were treated by comrades, and a small number of dead lay silent.
At the bottom of the slope, and perhaps fifty paces beyond, she could see the Regent's captured artillery. Great arms swung from the backs of huge wheeled wagons, pulled by large teams of bullocks. With each crank and crash, they hurled another flaming projectile downriver. Her position was safe from them up here; neither catapults nor even ballistas could reach this altitude from that position. But the Army of Lenayin was another matter.
“Give me a thousand,” said Arken at her side, “and I can get them.”
Sasha stared at him. His return stare was deadly serious. “There's still a lot of men halfway down this slope,” she pointed out. “You'll have to fight through them.”
“With downhill momentum it's no problem,” said the confident Ilduuri.
“Then after you hit them, and destroy the artillery, you have to run back up here under fire, in full armour, with half the Regent's army on your heels.”
“We are the Ilduuri Steel,” said Arken, blue eyes blazing. “You see how we fight, we run up mountains in full armour every day before breakfast.” It was true, they did. “In Ilduur, and here today, you have shown me the greatness of a Lenay warrior. Today we shall show you the greatness of the Ilduuri warrior.”
Men nearby who overheard him gave a bloodthirsty yell of agreement.
Sasha thought about it, for the short moment that was all she had. She could not afford to lose a thousand Ilduuri here, and it was certainly possible that if a thousand ran down this hill, barely a handful would return. But she and Kessligh had both agreed that if the Regent's artil
lery remained intact for the entire fight, their chances of final victory were slim. Even now the artillery threatened to turn Lenayin's great triumph into carnage. This was the chance she had to take.
“Do it,” she said. “Write me a war tale, Arken. Write me a war tale that warriors will tell around their firesides in Lenayin, of how the Ilduuri Steel is feared by its enemies.”
Rhillian dashed across carnage, her horse bounding and skittering to avoid bodies underfoot, some still moving. Most of them were Bacosh men, but now there was artillery falling all around. Eruptions of flame engulfed unsuspecting men, and ballista fire thumped steadily to the ground with a sound like giant hailstones, here and there taking a man with it.
She found a Lenay officer beneath a banner and raced to his side. “Get your men out of here!” she yelled at him. “Sound a retreat before you lose half your force!”
“We are winning!” the officer shouted back defiantly. “A few cowardly fireballs won't stop us now.”
“Fucking fool!” Rhillian shouted. “They're just getting their range in, you're losing hundreds of men even now!” Ballista fire hit very close. Then a nearby horse was hit, straight through the head, crushing its skull and upending it into a somersault.
“You are serrin, you do not command here!” Looking about, Rhillian saw he didn't have a trumpeter anyway. Nearby she spotted another group beneath a flag, and galloped toward them instead. She was halfway there when they disappeared beneath a wall of flame. She threw up her hands and her horse reared. The next moment, she was on the ground.
She rolled to get up, staggering on bodies. She could barely see, blinking desperately to restore her sight. The air stank of fumes and burned flesh. Where was her horse?
Hooves approached from behind, and then Aisha's voice. A big shadow came across in front, and her reaching hand grasped a bridle. She mounted by feel as Aisha asked urgent questions.
“I'm not hurt,” she explained, “I just can't see, that hellfire was too close. How's my horse?”
“Looks okay,” said Aisha, “just try not to fall off again.” Aisha had as little respect for her horsemanship as Errollyn had for her archery. “We have to get them out of here-these brave fools don't know when to retreat!”
“Can you see officers and trumpeters?”
“Um…yes! Just follow me, can you do that?”
Rhillian waved her ahead and followed the blur that was Aisha's horse. More ballista fire hit, unnervingly close by the sound of it, then the flash of another fireball. Rhillian thought that temporary blindness was not such a bad thing, so she did not have to see men burning.
Her vision was clearing by the time she reached the officers, still advancing behind their men toward the Ipshaal. “Full retreat!” she yelled. “We don't stand and fight beneath hellfire, that was already decided by Kessligh himself!”
“I've had no orders from Prince Damon,” the officer retorted.
“And you won't for a short while more, because he's fighting too! But in that short while, you're going to lose your army!”
The officer chewed his lip, barely flinching as two more rounds struck ahead.
“Trumpeter,” Rhillian shouted, “sound full retreat!” The trumpeter looked askance at the officer. Finally, the officer nodded.
The trumpeter raised his horn to his lips and played high notes. It repeated, several times, and then other trumpeters took up the call. And not a moment too soon, as in the midst of the fifth repeat, the Rhodaani trumpeter was struck by a ballista bolt that pinned him to his horse and killed both.
“Let's pick up some wounded and give them a ride back!” Rhillian commanded. “If we're fast we can make several trips before the infantry make it back.”
Hellfire rounds burst across the downhill slope, and then with a roar the Ilduuri Steel were plunging over the edge. Archers stood before Sasha and fired ahead, but with little chance of doing more damage than the hellfire had already done. The great wave of Ilduuri men ran fast and sure despite the slope, and even held a rough formation as they plunged downhill through the dying flames and smoke of hellfire strikes.
Across the wooded ridge behind, Ilduuri officers yelled for men to take up positions, now that the great mass of twelve hundred had gone. They were separate battalions from different regiments-Sasha had not wished to lose an entire formation from any one regiment, as many were from the same towns and regions. In the Army of Lenayin, village men now spread themselves across different formations, so the menfolk of entire towns would not disappear in a single hellfire strike.
There were yells and clashes from below as the downhill plunge encountered men milling at midslope and below for the next uphill attack. But here on the left flank Ilduuri artillery had been heaviest, and there were not so many still living.
Yasmyn galloped in from her right, and came alongside. “Lenayin pulls back,” she announced. “The Regent pursues.”
“We must give them cover. Tell the artillery to put every available unit to fire on the Regent's forces if they come within range. And then come back fast, because if Arken's men are pursued back up the slope, they'll need cover, too.”
Yasmyn nodded and disappeared at a gallop, running Ilduuri replacements skipping aside from the cleared path. Sasha had nineteen thousand Ilduuri in total and nearly four thousand of those were cavalry, now divided between Enoran and Rhodaani forces down in the valley. They'd been reluctant to part from their infantry, but she simply had no use for them up on the ridges, and the other Steel armies had need for more horsemen.
That left fifteen thousand infantry. Kessligh had four thousand guarding the ridges on Jahnd's eastern flank, and she had nearly one thousand manning artillery. Ten thousand fighting men. If none of these just departed came back, she'd have nine. Casualties so far were only in the dozens, but that would change when Balthaar truly got his act together, claimed the Dhemerhill Valley mouth, and forced her to widen her line. If he came up in all places at once, holding could become nearly impossible.
The Army of Lenayin would need to fall back and regroup. The Rhodaani Steel could then move up the valley to defend her right flank and pressure the Regent's left, but they would have to do so without much of their artillery, as the defensive wall across the Dhemerhill Valley had been built without gates for weakpoints, and the valley sides around the wall made it very difficult to haul heavy artillery up and around. And once up the valley, as the Army of Lenayin had just discovered, they'd be exposed to the Regent's own artillery fire.
She had to get some of that artillery here. Dare she send more men down the slope? If she lost too many on such risky charges, she'd never have enough to hold this ridge for even a short while, and if the ridge itself fell quickly, so would the entire heights back along the south side of the Dhemerhill Valley, outflanking the Rhodaanis and their defensive wall completely.
And worse, looking out at the Regent's army beneath her, she'd begun to suspect that she'd underestimated his numbers. If his cavalry were all coming from the east, that should leave him with about a hundred thousand here, mostly infantry. But now, as she tried to count, she thought it was probably more.
Yells and cheers arose from the Ilduuri as the charging force reached the bottom of the hill and laid into the Regent's forces with a distant clashing that sounded like a thousand pots and pans being bashed together. Sasha wished there were more space upon the ridge to deploy artillery further forward, but there was not. Arken's men were now beyond his own artillery range, and exposed. More hooves came toward her, but it was Daish, not Yasmyn. “Kessligh says forty thousand cavalry, led by Koenyg,” he told her, steadying his sweating, gasping horse. “The talmaad did well, but the Enoran cavalry got smashed, lost about half.”
Sasha nodded grimly, not especially surprised. “Well, he can't have any horses from here, we're going to need them.”
Daish shook his head. “No, he's not asking, they've stopped them cold but dear gods there are still a lot of them. But they've the Enoran Steel bef
ore them now, plenty of talmaad, a defensive wall plus artillery on the ridges overhead.”
“Koenyg won't attack directly,” Sasha said with certainty. Her brother could be a hothead, but not where military victory was in question. She stared at the battle below as she spoke. Arken's men were pressing through the Regent's massed ranks, closing on the artillery. Artillery teams were trying to move, but were hemmed in by men on all sides. “He'll wait and force Kessligh to hold many forces to the rear. Tell him to get down to the western wall, that's where the action will be.”
“Now?”
“Now. Go find someone down in the valley to get a report on the Army of Lenayin's status on the way, and tell him that the Rhodaanis are going to be in big trouble if they have to move up to defend my flank, and get hit by the same artillery that hit Lenayin. I'm trying to get some of that artillery now,” she pointed below, “but I can't afford to lose huge waves of men attacking from this position. And tell him I think we've underestimated their numbers here by maybe thirty thousand.”
Daish paled. “You think?” He looked along the riverbank.
Sasha nodded. “I don't know how, but we did,” she murmured, staring downward. Arken's line was nearly at the artillery now, but having penetrated into the Regent's force, his flanks were under pressure. A thin silver wall of men fought hard to keep the tide at bay.
Daish galloped away, and passed Yasmyn as he left. “The Lenays are crossing the river as they pull back,” she informed Sasha when she arrived, “they're coming under our artillery cover. The Regent's forces pursue, but not hard; they seem shocked.”
“Lenayin does that,” Sasha agreed.
Yasmyn smiled ferociously. “The artillery captain tells me that any who pursue them beneath his fire will regret it. How goes the fight?”
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