by Tim Stead
But the cleansers did not run. They mounted a ferocious attack on the men in the forest, pushing them back ten yards, fifteen, enough to get most of the black clad men into the tree line and out of reach of the swords and lances of the heavy cavalry. It was a bold move. If the line had held, then Havil’s Dragons would have crushed them all, but even riding so close to the trees they only took thirty or forty of them.
In the distance Narak could see the final element of his strategy. The light cavalry rode over the ridge, thousands of them, shutting the door on those who had hoped to flee back to their coastal fastness. There were more than fifteen thousand Seth Yarra left in the box, and now they had the choice of fighting, drowning, or throwing themselves on the mercy of Narak’s army.
They fought. They fought well. There was still no doubt in Narak’s mind as to who would win the battle; the surprise of the archers in the forest and the heavy cavalry charge had given him that; but it was now a question of numbers.
He made slow progress towards the cleansers, and the Seth Yarra troops were pressed on all sides. Hundreds were being pushed into the lake and slaughtered there as they floundered in the weed snared, shallow water. But every time he saw one of his own men fall he grew more concerned. This was supposed to have been a quick victory. He had hoped for that. The more time he spent subduing this force, the more men he lost, and each hour made the other Seth Yarra army, the one beyond the gate, seem more formidable.
He gave orders that more men should move into the forest to stop the Seth Yarra from breaking out, and redoubled his own efforts, cutting through the soldiers before him with ruthless efficiency. Oddly he felt no anger. The last time he had fought like this, at Afael, he had been filled with rage, white hot with an anger fanned by grief. Now he felt little more than anxiety that all was not going as planned, or not quickly enough.
He stepped back from the front line for a moment and called as many wolves as he could reach. There were not so many here on the plains. What forest cover there was seemed thin, like this oversized copse that grew close to the lake that he had used for cover, and the wolves of the open plain were thinly spread compared to their forest cousins. He bid them come, come with all haste to the woods above the lake.
He stepped back through the line and pressed forwards again. He was fighting in the true style of the Ohas, pure attack with no defence, allowing his armour to take most of his opponents’ blows and using his feet and elbows as additional weapons, moving easily and fluently through the mass of the enemy. He did not see them as men. They were living obstacles between him and his goal. It did not worry him that he thought this way. It never had. If they threw their weapons aside and stepped out of his path he would have gone past them without a second thought. Today was a day for victory, not for killing.
He heard a shout go up somewhere ahead of him, and he felt the movement of the battlefield change. They had broken through, like a sudden hole in a bowl of water the Seth Yarra troops were draining towards the breach. They were escaping.
Even now there was nothing he could do. He was a hundred and fifty paces and a thousand enemies from the place where he needed to be. Frustration leant a sharp edge to his blade and a wild recklessness to his style. He used every trick he had, even throwing men to clear his path, but he was not alone. Every commander on the field had seen the breach open, and they rushed to close it. Despite desperate work by the Seth Yarra closest the hole it was sealed again within two minutes.
The trap never opened again.
For another hour the ring around the Seth Yarra army tightened, and the lines thickened. The flights of arrows coming from them diminished and then stopped, the lake shore was choked with bodies, but still they fought, tired and desperate, with no apparent thought of surrender.
They were doing exactly what they had been told to do – exact as high a price as they could from Narak’s army – and it was a price that he grudgingly paid. He saw his own men tire. Experience and training helped. Exhausted men drifted to the back of the lines while fresher troops pressed forwards, but there was not a man who had not spend an hour or more swinging a blade.
It was finished two hours before sunset. Those who still lived looked at each other and grinned, surprised at their good fortune. The last of the Seth Yarra threw down their arms and stood waiting for whatever sentence was to be passed on them. By their faces Narak could tell that they expected death.
Narak dipped his blades in the water of the lake and wiped them dry on the grass, slid them back into their sheaths. He looked across the field. It looked surprisingly peaceful in the yellowing sunlight. The lake was full of bodies, bobbing up and down on the chop like grisly wildfowl. The water was pink where it caught the light.
“A victory, Deus.”
It was Havil, and even Havil was a little subdued.
“You did well,” he said to the prince. “The Dragon Guard has distinguished itself once more.” He looked back towards the hills that hid their camp, and since Havil did not ride away he gave him more orders. “Bring me the numbers,” he said. “And the commanders – an hour if you can manage it.” He turned his back on the battle, on the bloody field, and walked away.
* * * *
Narak did not bathe. He did nothing but strip off his armour, stack it in haphazard fashion outside his tent and collapse into a chair. It was true that he did not tire. He could have fought another seven hours, another seventeen, but he no longer saw any glory in it. No man could stand against him, and those few that had scored lucky hits had found his armour unnaturally strong, his flesh impervious to steel. He was tired in a different way.
He filled a cup with wine and drained it. He filled another.
He hated war. It did not matter that he was spectacularly good at it, that his cause was just, that he was needed. He’d had four hundred years to brood since the last time Seth Yarra had come, and he knew his own mind. Yet for all that he had no choice. If he did not stand before the enemy then another would take his place, and perhaps that other would be less skilled; perhaps they would lose where he might have won. He liked this land. He liked the people, the wine, the forests, even the cities. He did not want to see it all pass away and become whatever Seth Yarra deemed acceptable. He liked the fact that everything was different between Afael and Durandar, that nobody really understood the Green Isles.
He drained his second glass of wine and sought the difference of the Sirash. It was difficult this time. His heart still pounded and his blood raced from the exertion and anxiety of battle, but eventually his chanting worked, and the wine helped him to be calm.
He went straight to Pascha.
“Narak?”
“Did you retake the wall?”
“We did,” she replied.
“And can you hold it?”
“Against ten thousand? Possibly. We did not lose many men. Your Arbak is a lucky commander.”
“The best kind. How many dead?”
“About a hundred and fifty. We gained ninety from the Berashi who were here before, so our numbers have barely changed.”
Narak was astonished. He was expecting half their force to have perished. Untrained soldiers attacking a fortified position should not have fared anywhere near so well.
“One hundred and fifty?”
“Well, they had me to help them.”
“Pascha…”
“They also had his Durander piper, and the Berashis, the ones that survived the original attack on the gate, they came over the wall and divided the Telans attention, and indiscipline was a help.”
“Luck, then.”
“Yes.”
“And the Telans, the others, they’re not there yet?”
“Soon.”
“You will have to hold the gate. Tell Arbak. Any cost, any method. If the gate falls the rest of Terras will fall with it. The rest of the army cannot be there for weeks.”
“I will tell him.”
There was something about her voice. “He is alive?�
�
“Yes. He took a cut. He’s laid up, but I will tell him.”
Narak thought for a moment about going there himself, telling Arbak himself, but then he would leave and the men guarding the Green Road would feel abandoned. It was best that he stayed here unless he intended to stay as part of their defence. It was an idea that appealed to reason, but not at all to his gut, and his gut was in control just now.
He withdrew from the Sirash and sat in his chair. He really should bathe before the others arrived, he thought, but he did not move, except to pour another glass of wine. He sipped it slowly, and allowed himself the luxury of absence. He thought no thoughts, made no plans, worried about nothing, but instead stared at a patch of canvass on the tent wall and drifted in a waking sleep until a herald lifted the tent flap and announced that the others had come.
41. Stairs
Arbak was surprised that Sheyani had been so upset. She blamed herself, her music, for sending him into such a dangerous place without the skills to defend himself adequately, but that was not how he saw it. She had not hidden his copper talisman, and after all was said and done he was a soldier again, and being in dangerous places was part of the trade. Men had died. He had taken a nasty blow, but he was still alive and his strength was returning.
When she had left him he had been visited by Coyan, the Durander colonel. The man had been alarmingly respectful. Men like Arbak usually took such respect as a sign that they were dying.
“It was a great victory, colonel,” Coyan said.
“It was lucky. Almost anything could have turned it into a disaster.”
Coyan grinned. “We Berashi believe that fortune is a quality of men, and that greatness requires her to sit at a man’s elbow. Today she was your slave, colonel. It is a good sign that she favours you so.”
Arbak wasn’t sure if he should take that as a compliment or an insult, and that opinion showed on his face. “The plan wasn’t that bad,” he said.
“Quite so,” Coyan agreed. “I am sure that I would have done something similar. We did not have a great deal of choice, but I would not, perhaps, have been so favoured.”
Arbak’s shoulder was still sore, more than sore, but he was adjusting to it. His right arm was numb and ached in a dull fashion, but he did not feel like staying in bed with the enemy so close. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and rested them on the floor.
“Pass me that cloak,” he said. Coyan brought it over and draped it over Arbak’s shoulders. He was glad of the gesture. Even fastening the clasp caused him to wince with the pain. He stood, and fought a moment’s dizziness.
“Are you sure about this, colonel? You lost a good deal of blood.”
“Call me Cain,” Arbak said.
“As you wish. Are you sure about this, Cain? It will not do for the men to see you too weak.”
“But it will do them good to see that I am not at death’s door,” he said. “I will manage to avoid fainting, I think.”
He pushed out through the tent flap with Coyan close behind him. The Durander seemed genuinely concerned for his wellbeing, which he found both touching and oddly surprising. He thought he understood it, though. He was the commander, and they had won a cheap victory. He had been among the men at such times often enough to know that they loved him for that alone. They would follow him now, with or without Sheyani’s music, wherever he led them. He was a talisman. Someone, perhaps it had been Sheyani, had mentioned that he was linked to Wolf Narak, and that would be spread through the ranks like a summer cold. By now half the men would believe he was Narak’s brother and the other half would claim he was Narak himself, heavily disguised.
He walked slowly down the pass to the wall and the gate. All around him he saw the remains of the battle. Most of the dead had been removed, most of the weapons had been gathered up, but he still saw things that had been missed. There were helmets and belt buckles, and a severed hand lying open on the ground as though begging for a coin.
The wall was heavily manned. As he approached he noted the burnt remains of the two stairs and a number of ropes hanging down. If that was the only way up to the fighting platform, then it was not enough. A man he had not seen before slipped over the edge of the platform and descended swiftly and expertly to the ground.
“Colonel Arbak, I am pleased to see you on your feet,” he said.
Arbak looked at him. He was clearly an officer, and clearly not in the first flush of youth. “Major Tragil?”
“Yes, sir,” the man answered. “And I have you to thank for getting my wall back.”
“Not for long,” Arbak said. “Without a quicker way to get men up onto the wall you’ll lose it on the first assault.”
The major shook his head. “We will have to do the best we can, colonel. We have no materials and the steps were burned when the Telans took the gate.”
“You have enough arrows?”
Again the Berashi shook his head. “We have archers, but not enough shafts to keep a great army at bay. We must hope for reinforcements.”
“We’ll see.” Arbak turned and walked back to the camp, his step more urgent, and still Coyan followed him, but this time more curious than concerned. He went among his own men, looking around the camp fires for a face he recognised.
“Cain,” the Durander said. “There are no reinforcements.”
“That’s true, but we have time, and we have people. Jerash!” He had found one of the men he was looking for. Jerash leaped to his feet. “Jerash, do you know where the rest of your crew are?”
“I can find them, sir.”
“Round them up. Bring every empty wagon that we have up to the wall, and that wagon with the white covering, bring that too, and bring your tools, all of you.”
“Sir.” Jerash hurried away. Arbak leaned against a wagon and covered his eyes for a moment.
“You have some plan?” Coyan asked.
“Of course,” he replied. “These men are not just soldiers, Coyan, they are tradesmen. Jerash is a journeyman carpenter. His friends are the same. The wagons are not important. We will use them to build steps.”
“Can they do that?”
“We will find out.”
He walked back down the pass again, and in spite of the urgency that drove him he walked slowly. His head was banging like a cheap tin drum and he could feel a cold sweat breaking out on his face. He was not fit even for this. By the time he reached the wall again he could see that a train of wagons was emerging from the camp.
“Major Tragil?”
Tragil appeared on the fighting platform above them and descended a rope. He looked expectant.
“Where do you want your steps, Major?” Arbak asked.
“You can see where they burned,” the major replied. “Either side would do.” He still looked expectant, but equally puzzled. The empty wagons began to arrive, each driven by a carpenter from Arbak’s regiment. He waited until the last wagon had stopped.
“You needed arrows,” he said. He pulled back the canvas cover from the only covered wagon. One end of it was stacked with arrows, and the rest filled with swords, shields, helmets, lances, breastplates and the like. “I borrowed this from the armoury before we left.”
Tragil’s eyes lit up. “It will make a difference,” he said. “But the steps…?”
Arbak turned to Jerash. “Steps,” he said. “One flight, sturdy as you can make it. It has to stand a lot of men running up and down it.” He pointed to the wagons. “Your raw material.”
“When do you want it, sir?” Jerash asked. He was looking at the wagons, sizing up the strength and quality of the wood.
“Now. Or as close to now as you can do it. A Telan army is on the way, and they could be here this afternoon.”
Jerash scratched his head and pulled a sour face. “To be strong it would need proper jointing, and the wood is too thin. We don’t have enough nails to do anything clever. Horain!” One of the other carpenters climbed down from a wagon. He was a young man, and kept glanc
ing at Arbak and Coyan. “That ugly thing you built for master Bernalas in the winter, can you do something like that here? Would it bear the weight?”
Horain suddenly grinned and nodded. “Aye, I think it would, aye, and quick, too.”
“We’d need to brace it.”
“But easily done, and we can get strength by strapping it, though it might need to be tightened every week or so.”
“How long, Jerash?”
“You’ll not mind an eighteen inch step, sir?”
“I’ll not.”
“Then no more than two hours, and no less than one.”
