Shadow Blizzard (62 page)

“Third rank! Pikes at the ready!”

Another forest of pikes was added to the ones already lowered. The soldiers standing in front of the crossbowmen held their weapons at the level of their chests, in order not to hinder the second row in the fight.

The cavalry were close, a hundred and fifty yards from the Wine Brook. The horsemen had lowered their lances, preparing to rip the battalion open, to shatter it like a blow from a battering ram.

Jig watched a rider in the front line who seemed to be coming straight at him. The warrior, in a horned helmet with green plumage and a scarlet and green tunic that concealed his armor, lowered his long lance decorated with numerous ribbons and little flags.

Arrows sang in the air—the detachment of elves standing beside the Luza Forest had started bombarding the cavalrymen’s right flank. The dark elves might handle their bows like gods, but here were only three hundred of them against several thousand, and they wouldn’t stop the cavalry.

The uproar was indescribable. The earth shook under the pounding blows of thousands of hooves. A horn gave a low growl and the unit commanders yelled fit to burst.

“First line of crossbows! Fire!”

A sklot gave a dry click right beside Jig’s ear. The second line of crossbowmen had already taken the place of the first.

“Fire!”

Then another switch of ranks.

“Fire!”

The third rank of crossbowmen hastily withdrew to the center of the battalion, where their comrades were reloading their weapons.

“Fifth and sixth rank! All together! Pikes at the ready!”

The fifth and sixth ranks of anglers had already occupied the places where the crossbowmen were standing. They swung their pikes over to the left in order not to hinder the second and third rows, and froze.

Now all three battalions standing on the left road looked like very big, very angry, and very dangerous hedgehogs that were impossible to approach.

The time between salvoes from the crossbowmen and switches of rank was no more than eight seconds. The crossbows inflicted a lot of damage on the front ranks of cavalry, the elves rained arrows down on the enemy, and now the horses in the rear ranks had to advance over the bodies of the dead, which reduced their speed. And the Wine Brook had its effect, too—while the first ranks (most of them already dead) had leapt cleanly across the obstacle, the rear ranks noticed the brook too late, and dozens of horses and riders went tumbling head over heels, sowing even more confusion.

The horses had to be reined back, disrupting the rhythm of the attack formation so that the famous impact of a shattering blow from heavy cavalry was lost. But the scramble didn’t extend all the way along the Wine Brook. Many horsemen hurtled toward the battalions, as if they wanted to winkle those accursed crossbowmen out of their centers.

“Hold formation, you monkeys!”

“Stand firm! Don’t run! Pikes!”

“Ho-o-o-old!”

“Sta-a-a-a-a-a-and!”

The cavalry came rolling on, closer and closer, closer.…

“A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-aa-aa-aa-aaa-aaa-aa!”—all the battalions uttered the same mighty roar, combining the anticipation of battle, and a curse, and fear … and the desire to instill fear in the horses and their riders.

The horsemen were no fools; they had no intention of running onto the pikes.

The cavalry always tries to frighten the infantry, and it always believes the infantry will run. And very often the infantry does run, although its salvation lies in holding a solid formation, not in running away.

Most of the Crayfish had swung their horses round in time, and now they were hurtling along the line of the battalions. Another section went galloping into the gaps between the bristling squares of infantry. The crossbowmen on the sides couldn’t risk firing at the enemy in case they hit their own comrades in the other battalions, but the crossbows in the rear ranks didn’t hesitate, and as soon as the cavalry flew out into the rear they fired a withering salvo, and then they were joined by the crossbowmen from the front section of the battalion, who had already managed to reload their weapons.

But even so, some riders among those who attacked the left army drove their armor-clad horses straight at the pikes without the slightest fear. Some of them were fools, some were recklessly brave (that is, hopeless fools), some were carried away by the dash and fury of the battle, and some simply didn’t manage to halt or turn their horses in time. The front of the battalions took the impact of several hundred horsemen.

Rumbling and clattering, desperate screams, the clanging and scraping of metal on metal.

The impact of the cavalry sent the ranks staggering back. Some men fell.

“A-a-a-a-a-a!” One of the riders was unable to stay in the saddle and, like a stone from a catapult, he went flying over the heads of the cavalry to land somewhere in the rear ranks.

Jig hoped very much that the lousy rat would be welcomed with wide open arms back there.

Up at the front there was a full-scale scrimmage. The pikemen were zealously skewering anyone who came within their reach. One of the horsemen reared his mount up on its hind legs and rode it at his enemies. The horse immediately ran its belly onto four pikes and collapsed, crushing two soldiers in the front rank; the rider leapt down agilely off the poor beast and started waving his sword, hoping to hold out until help arrived, but Bedbug had his wits about him, and his heavy halberd came plunging down on the valiant man’s head right between the horns of his helmet. Without hesitating, Jig added a blow of his own, thrusting his halberd in under the man’s helmet.

While several soldiers in their section were pulling their pikes out of the horse’s body, another horseman performed the same maneuver, and his horse crushed part of the second rank. Two more horsemen drove in through the gap, then more.

And more.

The cavalrymen were losing their horses, but they were achieving something very important—a frontal section of the formation of the central battalion had been torn open, and the Crayfish who were nearby wasted no time.

Jig went dashing forward. The halberdier’s job is to deaden the momentum of the attackers but, without even knowing how, he found himself in the thick of the slashing and hacking. There were no more than fifteen Crayfish, and only three of them were still on their horses. The pikemen grasped their swords.

Jig struck one of the cavalrymen in the back with the shaft of his halberd, hacked at the leg of another with all his might, then took a good swing and thrust the spike of his halberd through the heavy cuirass of some noble warrior. Bedbug, who had somehow appeared beside him, cut off a horse’s leg, and the rider fell straight onto some soldier’s thoughtfully positioned pike.

Before Bedbug could straighten up, a cavalryman nearby struck downward with his lance and pinned the guardsman to the ground. Jig screamed out loud and attacked. The rider held out his shield. The guardsman struck again, caught his enemy by the neck with the hook of his halberd, and jerked, dragging him off his horse. Once again one of the pikemen was there to finish off the man, who was lying dazed and helpless on the ground after his fall out of the saddle.

“Form up!” someone shouted at Jig, and a soldier pushed him back.

He obeyed—he couldn’t bring Bedbug back now. The cavalry breakthrough had been halted and the pikemen re-formed their ranks.

“Cro-men, fire!”

The crossbows sang again. The crossbowmen in the frontal ranks of the battalion were joined by those from the rear ranks, who had already shot the cavalrymen who galloped through to the rear.

The remnants of the cavalry of the Crayfish Dukedom sensibly withdrew, taking crippling casualties from the steel rain of crossbow bolts.

“First rank stand erect! Crossbowmen! Into the third rank! At ease! Pikes in the air! Horse traps out of the ground! Ten paces back! To the count of the drum, march!”

Jig tramped back willingly with all the others, leaving an area littered with the bodies of men and horses in front of them.

“Hey, friend!”

Jig didn’t realize straightaway that he was being spoken to. It was a pikeman he knew.

“Glad you’re still alive.”

“Me, too.”

“Great, the way you dragged that bastard off his horse! Good for you!”

“That was too good for him! He killed Bedbug.”

“Yes, I saw. I’m sorry for the lad, but we gave them a good mauling!”

“What did they do to us?”

“About eighty gone.”

“Ha-alt!” came the order, and the battalion stopped.

The right and left battalions had followed the example of the central one, moving back to maintain the line of defense.

“Rest!” The order ran along the ranks.

It was only now that Jig realized just how heavily he had been sweating during the brief battle.

*   *   *

Izmi sighed in relief. Despite his misgivings, the left army had withstood the impact of the cavalry, and not only withstood it, but inflicted serious losses. More than a thousand Crayfish had been left lying on the ground, most of them killed by the hail of crossbow bolts and the elves’ arrows. The sections of the Nameless One’s army that retreated had now reunited with the cavalry that had been testing the strength of the center a few minutes earlier, and the surviving horsemen were re-forming into a broad attack formation. Izmi reckoned there were slightly fewer than seven thousand of them.

“Am I mistaken, milord? Doesn’t it look as if they’ve decided to break through on to the hill?” Vartek asked, screwing up his eyes. “The gnomes haven’t had time to reload the cannons yet.”

“Lower your visor and be prepared to lead the men out to help if the Crayfish crush the infantry.”

*   *   *

“Work, you sons of dwarves! Work!” Pepper tongue-lashed his cannoneers. “Can’t you see what’s happening out on the field? The center’s not the left army, they can’t muster that many pikes! We’ve got to give them a hand!”

“We are working, Pepper! Can’t you see?” red-bearded Zhirgzan panted in his deep bass voice.

“Then you’re working too slowly! Load faster!”

“Wait, Pepper!” said Honeycomb, who had borrowed the gnome’s spyglass to take a look at what was happening at Nuad. “Swing the cannon round.”

“What? What for?”

The Wild Heart handed the spyglass to the gnome without saying a word. Pepper looked in the direction indicated and roared.

“Agh, damnation! Looks like our turn’s come! Swing it round! Swing it! And stick that ball up your backside! Load it with grapeshot!”

“My prince, I’m afraid the gnomes will not have time to fire a second salvo,” said the Beaver Cap standing beside Stalkon: Two of the Beavers had been attached to the Prince of the Spring Jasmine as his bodyguards.

“Sound the alert!”

He had seen the cavalry’s unsuccessful attempt to break through the left army. Now the combined forces of the Crayfish would try to break the center.

“Tell the bowmen to aim at the horses!” the commander of the center ordered, keeping his eyes fixed on the approaching enemy.

“Already done!”

“Your Magicship! Is there any way you can help us?”

“I do not have any attack spells of sufficient power, Your Highness,” replied the magician sent by Artsivus. “I doubt if I could eliminate even fifty at a time.”

“Well, what about five times instead of one?”

“Then I’m afraid I would not be able to protect the soldiers against the magic of the shamans.”

The prince pursed his lips.

“But I think I can do something that will be useful to you.”

“What?”

“The Skating Rink,” the magician said, and smiled.

*   *   *

Izmi Markauz cursed the moment when his men were sent into the reserve. The center would need help now. That massive cloud of horsemen would sweep over the hill like an avalanche and not stop until it reached Avendoom. It looked as if the king had been too hasty in dismounting the cavalry. With them, there would have been a chance. Now everything depended on the will of Sagra and luck.

The Crayfish infantry had already appeared on the left road, and their sheer numbers were appalling. They were deploying along the Rega Forest, with the clear intention of attacking all three Valiostran armies. And with numbers like that, they could pull it off. In addition, several hundred warriors from the northern tribes were already hurrying along the road from Nuad to Slim Bows. The castle was still showing its teeth and mauling anyone moving along the road on the right, and as far as Izmi could see, the enemy hadn’t stopped trying to take the most northerly bulwark of Valiostr’s forces. But a large part of the Nameless One’s army had passed Nuad, completely ignoring the hail of arrows.

*   *   *

The sorcerer’s army was moving straight into battle from the march, and that was the defenders’ only advantage. If the enemy had arrived all at once and bided his time, the defense would have been crushed like a ripe berry. But as it was, Valiostr still had a chance. All that had to be done was beat those who were at the front, then the ones who followed, and so on to infinity, for as long as their strength held out. Sagra be praised that the enemy had been deprived of his ogres!

*   *   *

“Just look at that! Look at it, will you! That’s a massive force moving up on us. Looks like the lads in the center will have a hard time of it!” one of the pikemen shouted.

“Don’t be so quick to bury them,” said Jig’s neighbor, spitting on the ground. “We’ll see how the horsemen handle their lances running uphill.”

The cavalry advanced, and the riders set their horses to the gallop. The enemy passed the area where the bodies of the men killed by shots from the gnomes’ cannons were lying, and started climbing up the hill. From the center of the Field of Fairies the uphill slope didn’t look very steep. But the reality of things is usually far worse than what we expect. Weighed down by their armor and their riders, the horses found it far from easy to manage the climb.

*   *   *

“Three fingers of arc! Take your aim from the unit commanders! Fire!”