War Maid's Choice-ARC (83 page)

The infantry stopped in place and two thirds of its battalions faced right, and advanced two hundred yards further inland from the Hangnysti. The front ranks went to one knee, bracing their shields before them, and a triple line of arbalesteers formed in open ranks at their backs. Half the arbalesteers would double as pikemen once the melee was joined, and the wagons assigned to each battalion drew up behind them, unloading thickets of pikes and stacking them where they’d be ready to hand when needed. Each arbalesteer had three feet of clear space on either side of him; another man in the next line stood directly behind each of those clear spaces; and a metallic clicking rose above them as thousands of Dwarvenhame-built arbalests were spanned and quarrels were fitted to the strings.

The two infantry battalions forming the rear of the column wheeled in place, facing northwest, back the way they’d come, and deployed into a line covering the newly formed battleline’s right flank with their left while their own right was anchored firmly on the Hangnysti. The pair of battalions leading the column did the same, except that they anchored themselves to the battleline’s
left
flank and faced southeast, covering the main formation’s left. The remaining infantry battalions formed into solid, compact squares, half of them spaced evenly behind the battleline to simultaneously cover the supply wagons and form an infantry reserve at the middle of the three-sided rectangle.

Not all the infantry faced west, away from the river, however. The Hangnysti provided less protection against ghouls than it might have against most other foes, given how well the creatures swam. The river could still be counted upon to break them up, especially as they struggled ashore through the soft mud and sand along the banks, but it
couldn’t
be counted on to
stop
them. That was why the other half of Yurghaz’s infantry faced the river, not inland...and also the real reason for those heavily armed barges pacing Trianal’s army on the Hangnysti itself.

The cavalry moved just as quickly, coordinating with their footbound fellows with the precision and polish of long practice and mutual confidence. They knew exactly where they were supposed to be, and they went there. Four thousand spread themselves along the rear of the battleline, where they could support the infantry with arrow fire, and three thousand more formed in the spaces between the blocks of reserve infantry, ready to pounce on any ghouls which might swim the river and get past the infantry or to intercept any enemy penetrations of the battleline. A thousand more were held back in a reserve position under Trianal’s personal command, ready to be dispatched to wherever they might be most needed, They were also earmarked for quick exploitation if the enemy should break, of course...not that anyone expected the ghouls to be breaking anytime soon. And even as the infantry and cavalry formed, the missile-armed barges which had been pacing them on the Hangnysti began shifting position. Many moved downstream, towards the Spear, placing themselves to sweep the front of the short, heavy line protecting the army’s left, but most anchored a few yards offshore, where there missile troops could cover the bank against swimming ghouls as well as forming as a final reserve for their land-bound fellows.

The catapult-armed barges positioned themselves with special care, farther out into midstream, and the catapult crews had loaded their practice rounds even before their barges anchored. As soon as those anchors splashed down into the Hangnysti’s mud, the catapults thumped, hurling their inert rounds far over the heads of the infantry and cavalry. Those practice rounds had exactly the same weight and ballistic characteristics as the banefire rounds waiting to follow them, and Bahzell smiled with grim satisfaction as they thudded into the mud a hundred yards and more beyond the infantry’s front ranks. The gunners aboard the barges launched a second wave of rounds, making certain of their range and firing bearings. Then they loaded with banefire and stood ready.

The speed with which the entire formation shifted would have astonished anyone who hadn’t seen Trianal’s “expedition” turning into an “army.” This was a tightly integrated, smoothly articulated force, one with confidence in itself and in its commanders but no illusions that it faced an easy task because its opponents were “only” ghouls, and Bahzell felt a surge of pride not just in Trianal, but also in Vaijon and Yurgazh, for making it so.

Their march formation had been planned to make it as fast and straightforward as possible to shift into battle formation, and the fact that the river covered their backs simplified things immensely. But all the planning in the world wouldn’t have produced this result without the merciless, unremitting drill to which they’d subjected their men for just this moment. Even the Sothōii levy Trianal had brought down from the Escarpment had been slotted efficiently into their overall organization, taking its lead from the armsmen who’d been part of the expedition from the beginning. The newcomers weren’t as well drilled and disciplined as they might have been, but if all went well their primary function would be as missile troops, and any Sothōii armsman had literally grown up with a bow in his hands.

The same bugle calls which had shifted the army’s formation had recalled the troops of cavalry who’d been scouting beyond its right flank on the march, and individually designated companies of infantry opened access points in the battleline to admit them. They trotted quickly across to their own assigned positions, joining their fellows, and the scouting party Bahzell had seen galloping back passed through an opening of its own to reach the command group.

“Thousands of them, Milord,” the senior man said harshly, his face white as he reined his weary horse to a halt and slapped his breastplate in salute to Trianal. “Never seen so many of them in one place! Phrobus, I never thought there
were
so many of ’em!”

“How
many
thousands?” Trianal asked calmly, and gave the scout a crooked smile when the man stared at him. “I realize you didn’t have time to actually count the number of legs and divide by two, Sergeant. A rough estimate will do.”

Two or three of his officers chuckled, and even the scout smiled. But he also shook his head.

“Milord, we couldn’t get close enough to tell how many. I’d say there had to be—what? Six or seven thousand?—this side of the Graywillow.” He looked at the other members of his section of scouts with an eyebrow raised, and heads nodded. “Problem is, they were already throwing those nasty javelins of theirs at us. They were pushing us back—pushing hard—and more of ’em were boiling out of the woods along the river like maggots. I’d be lying if I said I could tell you any more than that, but it seemed to me I’d best be getting the lads back here to tell you what we’d already seen.”

Without trying to see more and getting them all killed
, he didn’t say, but Trianal nodded.

“Information’s a hell of a lot more valuable than dead troopers, Sergeant,” he agreed, and the scout’s shoulders relaxed almost imperceptibly.

“Should I assume they’re following along behind you?” Trianal went on, and the sergeant nodded back to him.

“Aye, Milord. I’d say they’re not in all that tearing a hurry—given how fast the buggers can run, you’d’ve seen ’em already if they were. But they’ll be along. And, Milord, they’re using drum signals.”

“I see.” Trianal glanced around his command group’s faces for a moment, then turned back to the scouts.

“You’ve done well, Sergeant. Now get your men back behind the supply element and rest your horses.” He smiled again, more thinly. “I think it’s time for the
rest
of us to do our jobs.”

“Aye, Milord. Thank you!”

The sergeant beckoned to his section, and the five of them splattered off across the muddy grass while Trianal, Bahzell, and the rest of the command group looked at one another.

“Drum signals,” Trianal repeated, as if the two words were an obscenity, and Bahzell snorted.

“Well, we’d signs enough already as how these aren’t your
ordinary
ghouls, lad,” he pointed out, and shrugged. “I’ve no doubt at all, at all, as how these bastards are going to prove a right handful, and that’s a fact. Still and all, it’s in my mind the tactical situation’s simple enough to be going on with. It’s not so very likely all the drum signals in the world are to matter all that much.”

“I’m afraid Prince Bahzell’s got
that
right, Milord,” Yurgazh said sourly. He looked out in the direction from which the scouts had come for a moment, then grimaced and looked back at Trianal. “I think it’s time I was joining my infantry, Milord.”

“Agreed.” Trianal nodded at him and gave Sir Yarran a glance.

“I’m off, I’m off!” the older Sothōii said, raising one hand in a mock defensive gesture. “Just you be remembering what bugles, staff officers, and couriers are for, young man!”

“I’m not planning on leading any desperate charges,” Trianal said dryly.

“What I really want to hear is that you’re planning on
not
leading any desperate charges,” Yarran said even more dryly. “Under the circumstances, though, I suppose I’d better settle for the best I can get, hadn’t I?”

“Not much point hoping for anything else, any road, Sir Yarran,” Yurgazh said even more sourly, and glanced at Vaijon. “I don’t suppose you could convince my idiot prince to get his unmarried arse back aboard one of those barges, could you?”

“Not unless you want me to have him physically dragged,” Vaijon replied with a tight grin. “Hurthang and a couple of the other lads are probably big enough to do it, but I can’t guarantee he wouldn’t get banged up around the edges in the process if he took offense. Which he probably would.”

“And then there’s Prince Yurokhas.” Trianal’s tone was even more sour than Yurgazh’s had been as he glanced over his shoulder at the wind tube gryphon standard in the colors of the royal house floating above the compact, neatly formed block of the Order of Tomanāk.

“I might be able to order
him
onto a barge,” Vaijon admitted, following the direction of Trianal’s gaze. “He is a member of the Order, if not our chapter, and I am a champion. Although, now that I think about it, Bahzell’s senior to me. If anyone’s going to do any ordering, I think it ought to be him, since he’s at least older than Yurokhas on top of everything else.”

“And because you’ve got a pretty damned good idea how he’d react to the ‘order,’ too, I imagine,” Trianal said darkly.

“And because of that,” Vaijon acknowledged with a fleeting smile. Then the smile faded. “The truth is that in cold-blooded political and dynastic terms, he’s actually more expendable just at the moment than Arsham, Trianal. And he’s a member of the Order, too. Whatever’s coming this way, it’s exactly what the Order is pledged to fight.” He shook his head. “I can’t justify ordering him to safety without some overriding reason—like his place in the succession—and as a member of the Order, he has a
right
to be here.”

“I know,” Trianal sighed. “I know. Just...try to keep him in one piece if you can, all right? The King would be upset if anything happened to him. And more to the point, he’s my prince and Uncle Tellian loves him. Tomanāk,
I
love him, come to that!”

“We’ll do what we can,” Vaijon promised, and chuckled harshly. “Besides, if our masterful battle plan works, what could possibly go wrong?”

“The enemy, lad,” Bahzell said with a grim smile. “That’s why we’ve the habit of calling him ‘the enemy.’”

Chapter Forty

The ground trembled as the devil named Anshakar followed the howling ghouls towards their prey. The massive drums—sawn sections of hollow log, the drum heads made of the tanned hide of ghoul tribal chiefs and so massive that carrying them required four ghouls to bear each of them, slung between them on poles—throbbed and bellowed, beaten by the ghouls’ new shamans to the glory of their new gods. He tasted the mingled terror, hunger, and rage swelling about him, and if most of that terror and much of that rage were directed against him and his two fellows, Anshakar could not have cared less. Terror was terror, and rage was rage; both were chained by desperate obedience, and when the moment came to unleash it, it wouldn’t matter in the least who had spawned it. Besides, it was always useful for sword fodder to be more frightened of its commanders than of the swords it faced.

He bared his fangs, nostrils flared as he raised his head, sucking in air, seeking that first delicious scent of the prey he’d been brought here to take. Eagerness tingled, burning in his blood like fire, and the hideous light of his eyes rippled and glared. The ghouls who’d learned to worship him meant nothing. Nothing! They were only a means to an end, and this—
this
—was what his Lord and Master had created him to be and do! It had been far too long since last he’d tasted the blood of a foe worthy of his hatred. Perhaps this new champion, this
Bahzell Bloody Hand
, would slake the need for destruction and slaughter that fumed at his core like a furnace.

His gaping, bare-fanged grin spread wider, lips wrinkling with contempt as he remembered the puny wizard’s warnings. Warnings!
Warnings
for Anshakar the Great! What did
he
care for a
wizard’s
repeated failures to rid this puling world of its so-called champions?! For the incompetence of creatures who followed that bitch Krahana, or the gutless pygmies who served Sharnā the Timid? This world—this universe—was ripe for the taking. He could smell it,
feel
it, already taste the blood and destruction. His kind were even more sensitive to such things than those contemptible wizards. If the cusp point wasn’t here yet, it was coming, in no more than a few of the mortals’ little decades. That was the true reason his Lord had sent him and Zûrâk and Kimazh here, whatever the wizard or his mistress thought—to seize that point, to twist it out of the other Dark Gods’ grasp and give it over solely to Krashnark, where it belonged. And if this
Bahzell
was powerful, what did it matter? Anshakar was powerful, too, and far more ancient and experienced than any mortal champion of Tomanāk could ever hope to be. His very name—Anshakar—meant “World Breaker” in the tongue of his own folk, and he’d earned it well. He—
he!
—had led the final assaults which had given no less than two universes to the Dark. Now he would give it a third, and feast on the flesh of any feeble champion who’d dared to stand in his path!