Bazil Broketail (23 page)

“We’d better brace these lines, Weald. I’ll take the left—meet you back here shortly.”

The officers turned their horses and moved away beneath the canopy of the forest.

With black pupils slitted, the dragons of the 109th watched the enemy surge forward across the meadow in a great dark mass, their high yipping war cry floating ahead of them. Great hands tightened on the hilts of swords, heavy muscles knotted in anticipation of the fray.

Then the imps slowed, sensing something amiss. The men they pursued had ceased their flight. With their sensitive feet the imps could tell that the horses had pulled up somewhere in the woodland ahead.

The treeline made a natural line of defense. Imp leaders, some as much as five and a half feet high, cast anxious looks ahead. The rest of the savage mob looked to the leaders for reassurance but found none.

The leatherclad men on horseback urged them forwards with oaths and threats. Always this was what the men did—the men were so cruel, so casual with the lives of imps. The very imps they depended on to do their fighting.

The imps threw up sharp complaints; in frustration they bashed their cutlasses against their heavy, square shields.

The men were adamant—they unsheathed their cat-o‘-nine-tails. Urgently they swished them about.

The imps advanced, but they went at a tentative pace. As a result the long-legged trolls soon caught up and would have passed through their line but for the harsh cries of command from the men.

The imps complained again. Always the bloody trolls were kept safe from harm, always the imps were the ones that had to do the dirty work. The big maroon trolls snarled back things about the flavor of imp when cooked in certain ways, and the imps made scornful references to the lack of sexual organs among troll kind.

The men laid about themselves with their heavy whips to instill order and push the imps on while holding back the trolls until the enemy’s dispositions were understood. Then the trolls would be sent in, to smash through the enemy line and break up their formations and open them up to the swarming attacks of the imps.

The waiting dragons rumbled with excitement, their fatigue completely forgotten. Their ferocious natures had bubbled to the surface once more, they were eager for battle.

Relkin had seen this war lust several times now, during the Teetol righting, but it still made the hair on his neck rise. It was such an elemental thing, a surge of crazed energy. The dragons had gone into themselves, into a state where they wielded weapons with merciless energy and slew everything that stood before them.

The natural human instinct was to run away at once from these huge, dangerous creatures. Their wild cousins ate human beings, along with anything else they could catch, and in this battle mood they gave off a terrifying potential for carnage.

Driven forward by the harsh shouts of the men in black, the imps finally drew close to the defensive line. Suddenly the air was thick with arrows as the men of Marneri fired a volley.

Burly imps went down with shrieks of complaint. The imp majors lashed them on, the heavy horns blared. The imps stood their ground. They had little desire to go forward and receive more arrows. There was death in those woods for them; their coarse features were bent in frustration and rage.

But the cat-o‘-nine-tails cracked down upon them and they knew that much worse awaited them if they did not obey. Their frustration built to a peak. Suddenly the mass of thick-limbed figures vented a shout and broke into a charge.

Across the remaining distance came a mob of muscular grotesques of more human form, most less than five feet tall, waving heavy cutlasses above their steel pot helmets.

Relkin sucked in a breath and raised his crossbow. This would be the true test for the 109th. Out beyond those imps stalked the trolls, brazen-skinned monsters nine feet tall. They had never fought trolls before. In the winter campaign they had faced simply the Teetol, and the Teetol for all their prowess as warriors were only human. Trolls were what battledragons were for.

Imp arrows came whistling through the leaves. Relkin pressed himself close to the tree. He glanced to his right. Bazil was waiting crouched over, with Piocar in hand. With his tail tip he held his small sword. Over his left arm he carried his shield, a buckler five feet across, made of triple-lapped steel and hides.

At the sight of Bazil Relkin’s fears vanished. They were the fighting 109th, their foes would soon find out what that meant!

And then the imps were upon them.

A dozen or more of the squat shapes broke in on the dragons’ front. The great wyverns rose up and long swords beat down on the imps, with flashes of steel and sparks of flame imp helms were sundered and bodies clove in two.

Aghast at this violence, the imps sprang backwards with the cry of “Gazak!”, a most deadly word in their rough speech. Yes, filthy great Gazaki were waiting in these woods.

More imp shafts filled the air, and the heavy leather joboquin jackets worn by the dragons sprouted with arrows like a weird form of plumage. Kepabar, just beyond Bazil, uttered a thick curse as one arrow found a chink in the leather and pierced the flesh of his shield arm shoulder.

Tomas leapt up the mighty brass hide’s flank and cut the shaft free. Kepabar growled with rage the whole time.

The imps had become cautious on this part of the line. Elsewhere they had crashed into the men with a thunder of steel on steel and successfully pressed them back with vigor, although the men fought with iron determination and soon would yield no further ground. Imp bodies piled up in front of them as the swordsmen engaged each imp to his front, while the spearmen leaned past to jab and impale the thick-bodied enemy.

From the center the word went back to the men on horseback—filthy dragons are in the woods, they have killed five good imps!

The men conferred swiftly and then sent the trolls in fast. Half the trolls carried the heavy spear, the dragon lance. The heads of these were two-foot-long wedges of sharp steel, forged in the bowels of Tummuz Orgmeen. The other trolls bore immense axes, weapons that could cut a man in half as easily as a sword cutting through a rat.

Arrows flew, studding the trolls and eliciting moans of rage from their dull throats. They strode forward and crashed into the dragons waiting for them under the eaves of the forest.

The leading trolls attempted to spear the dragons, who defended with shield and sword and sought to clear the spears away and close with the trolls. Great swords flashed in the late afternoon sun, and tree limbs and brush flew around like chaff under the flails.

Bazil and Kepabar were in the center of the dragon mass. Four trolls, two armed with the long lance and two holding heavy two-handed axes, came up against them.

The imps gave way with shrill, exultant yipping but the trolls thrust forward with their lances and the dragons yielded ground, moving back between the larger trees, swinging their immense swords to cut away the lance heads.

Now four imps dashed in through the underbrush, seeking to hamstring the dragons hemmed in the thickets. As they came Relkin and Tomas loosed their crossbows and brought a pair down, bolts through the throat and eye. The remaining pair came on and met the swords of the dragonboys.

Relkin faced an imp that was shorter than himself but twice as broad. He ducked and darted and kept his sword flickering in the creature’s face while it sought to reach him with its own heavier weapon. It was dangerous going, hampered by the trees around them. Relkin had a couple of close escapes before he managed to blood the imp with a thrust into its arm.

It shrieked its rage at him and lunged forward. Relkin tripped going backwards and went down with a thud right in the imp’s path. It gave a triumphant bellow and raised its sword.

And then with a shrieking whistle Bazil’s tail sword swept down and crashed full upon the imp’s iron pot with a flash of bright sparks.

The imp went down in a heap and lay still.

Relkin jumped to his feet and drove in to distract the other imp as it fought with Tomas. It turned to block his thrust and Tomas at once jabbed his own sword into its side. It gave out a groan of despair and tumbled backwards. Tomas caught it another lick across the back before it was out of range.

Meanwhile, Kepabar had sundered the lance of one troll and was engaging one of the axe trolls. Kep’s sword, “Gingle,” slashed wide at the troll and buried itself in the side of a tree. With an oath the great brass hide struggled to remove it. The troll gave a gurgle of delight and swung the axe high, intending to cut Kepabar’s arms at the elbow. But Relkin’s arrow lodged in the side of its head and distracted it and the axe fell wide, thudding into the ground and sinking deep.

Kepabar abandoned his sword for a moment and drove a huge fist into the troll’s midriff, which set it down on its haunches. It tore at the arrow in its head and succeeded in pulling it free. A gush of black fluids ran down its face and neck. Kepabar yanked Gingle free and charged. The troll barely scrambled back in time.

Elsewhere Bazil crashed chest to chest with another troll, and then wrested the dragon lance from its grip. The troll squealed with rage and kneed the dragon in the belly.

Bazil felt as if he’d been kicked by a stallion. He reeled back, but clutched hard on the dragon lance.

The other axe troll sought to reach him but was deterred by a slash of the tail sword. Then Kepabar’s Gingle swung high again and clove the axe troll from shoulder to waist.

Without a sound it toppled and crashed to the ground.

The remaining trolls fell back with groans of dismay. Everywhere they had received stern punishment from the filthy Gazaki.

Two of their number were dead, for Nesessitas had disemboweled another with her swift sword “Mercuri.” The rest had bruises and cuts aplenty.

Seeing the loss of enthusiasm among the trolls, the men sounded the dull horns to call off their forces. The imps and trolls disengaged and fell back, loosing more arrows as they went, until they were out of bowshot. And in truth they were as eager for a respite as the men of Marneri.

At once Hollein Kesepton moved up and down his line, heartening the men and reordering their positions.

There were three dead and a dozen wounded. Barely a fifth of the enemy’s casualties but still enough to trouble Kesepton. Among the dragons, Chektor and Vander had taken slight wounds from imps harrying at their legs.

“We held them, sir,” said Weald, who had a small cut across the ridge of his nose from an imp cutlass.

“Aye, Lieutenant, we did, but they will come again. And now they know our strength and dispositions.”

“It will not be easy to get those imps to charge again like that. They’re damned unstable troops.”

Kesepton smiled grimly. “Perhaps we can make them even more so.” He turned his horse and threaded his way back through the trees to find Subadar Yortch.

He found him kneeling beside a wounded trooper, whose arm had been bandaged from wrist to shoulder.

“Your men fought well,” said Yortch, getting to his feet.

“An experienced unit, Subadar—experience makes all the difference.”

“But I disagree with the disposition. You should put two dragons at the ends of the line. The men were pushed back by the first shock—you need to anchor them.”

Kesepton’s mouth tightened. Did Yortch not see that that would leave the center open to a charge by the trolls, who would smash through and kill men and dragons in the resulting rout?

“I’ll not be discussing my tactics with you, Subadar. Just assure me that your men can be mounted and taken out to the right flank. On my signal I want a flank charge, behind them when they come again. I want you to engage their leaders who hover there, out of bow shot.”

Yortch nodded, thoughtfully. “Yes, it sounds good. I will do it.”

Kesepton felt a vein in his temple throb. He fought to keep his voice under control.

“As quickly as you can then, Subadar. I expect a second charge any moment now.”

Yortch nodded again. “Of course.” He whistled and a man brought across his horse. He swung up into the saddle and gave Kesepton a mocking salute.

“And thus farewell, my Captain, for we go forth and we may not return, I and my gallant band from Talion. Give good reckoning on us if you survive and we do not.”

Kesepton shook his head, and then laughed. “Of course, Subadar, your courage had already been noted. Now drive that shock home when the time comes, hurry them, and let us get to grips with them without their leaders being able to watch it all in calm repose from the rear.”

Kesepton wheeled about and galloped back to the front beneath the trees.

The enemy had formed up into two thick clumps, each with trolls in the center. The horsemen were yelling at them in their harsh tongue.

Liepol Duxe emerged from the brush on his right.

“What are they doing, do you think?” said Duxe.

Kesepton shrugged slightly. “They will charge, but this time in two divisions, seeking to concentrate their efforts on our flanks. They know they outnumber us.”

“The men are ready for them. The dragons also by all accounts.”

As if by magic Dragoneer Tetzarch appeared beside them.

“I heard that, Sergeant Duxe, and I can assure you that the 109th will be ready.” Tetzarch was a tall, rangy fellow with premature grey hair and pale hazel eyes.

“The dragons fought well, Dragoneer,” said Kesepton.

“No more than they would expect to, sir. They’ve become a seasoned bunch.”

“But this was their first taste of troll, I believe.”

The Tetzarch smiled. “Actually they’re discussing their first real taste of troll right now, and quite a lively discussion it is too.”

Kesepton and Duxe exchanged glances.

“Oh yes?”

“The Broketail says troll is best when marinated in wine and herbs. Kepabar won’t agree, while Vander wants his raw and Chektor wants it boiled.”

Duxe’s hollow laugh was rarely heard, but now it rang out sharp and distinctive and the men of Marneri looked up and were heartened. If Liepol Duxe thought the situation was that funny, then it could not be as bad as they had supposed.