Kormak weighed the balance of forces. In terms of numbers they were probably fairly evenly balanced, at least as far as men and elves were concerned. The spiders outnumbered both sides and that was not counting the four huge monsters that stood alongside Weaver and her mount. Her forces also had the advantage of position. Kormak could hear horns sounding in the woods and he could tell that there were still elves there moving into new positions. Soon they would be surrounded and the elves would be in a position to roll up their flanks. It did not look as if things were going very well for the Army of the Morning.
Master Graydon barked an order and the First Empire weapon swung to bear in Weaver’s direction. Sensing what was going to happen, the great spider pranced backwards and two of its kin began to move forward to block the line of fire. Even as they did so, the metal arm swung forward, lobbing a glowing, rune-carved stone, a product of the dwarves who still dwelled beneath Mount Aethelas. It flickered through the air and impacted upon the leading spider. There was a huge explosion, bright as the sun. Where the light touched it, the spider’s flesh turned black.
That was only the beginning. A moment later the spider’s body exploded, everything inside its carapace having boiled and turned to steam. Gobbets of flesh flew everywhere, splattering the surrounding spiders and the elves and humans of Weaver’s force.
Weaver roared a command. Her force rushed forward into battle. With an answering cry, the army of the Burning raced to meet them.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE CORRUPTED HUMANS and elves advanced from the base of the tree. From behind the Army of the Burning, thousands of projectiles arced out from the edge of the wood. The screams of hundreds of men struck down by poison-tipped projectiles echoed in Kormak’s ears.
Horns continued to sound to both east and west. A tide of elves emerged from the forest in response, running towards the left and right flanks of the human army.
Not only were they being attacked from all sides, they were being attacked from above. The spiders spat webs down at them. Many of them connected, immobilising men, pinning them to the ground with sticky goo. Strands of sticky silk tore weapons from the hands of human soldiers. Men were raised into the air towards the clacking jaws of the huge spiders. Their screams held a note of horror that he knew would haunt his dreams.
The huge battle spiders rushed forward, splitting up so that there was no clear line of fire for any of the war engines to them as a group.
The use of the solar war engine and the onslaught of the spiders had done nothing to calm the knights’ steeds. Even though they were trained warhorses, nothing could have prepared them for these conditions. Some were spooked and threatened to trample their masters.
Here and there, groups of mounted soldiers were preparing to charge. It was complete and utter chaos. No one seemed to have any plan. Everything had happened so quickly that there was no time to give orders to the army. Lord Rhys was trying to get his troops into battle line. Baron Enderby had already spurred his steed towards the onrushing elves, not waiting for his troops to form up in any sort of order, riding at the head of those who could go with him.
Only the brothers of his own Order seemed to have any discipline in the midst of this chaos. They had formed up around the war machines, the alchemists and the magicians, a small island of armoured men in a sea of panicking flesh.
“To me!” Kormak shouted, raising his dwarf forged blade above his head. He strode forward confidently and gestured for one of the nearby banner men to follow him.
Seeing the Guardian’s blade, a flag carrier ran forward and those with him formed up around the banner. Kormak found himself at the head of a moving company, pushing towards the giant rotting tree. Ahead of him the charging knights raced on towards the onrushing elven line.
A wave of spears hurtled towards them. A few horses went down tripping some of those behind them. A number of Sunlanders fell to the ground with missiles through their chests and throats. Kormak saw one man go down with a dart through the visor of his helmet. Moments later the thunderous charge smashed into the elves, lances pierced chests, skulls were crushed beneath hooves.
The elves in skirmish line danced away from the riders, still stabbing at them with spears and knives. Having pierced the enemy frontline, the knights found themselves confronting the reserves and kept on charging, ignoring the spiders swarming towards them and dropping on them from above.
They vanished into the chaos of combat and Kormak lost sight of what was happening to them. He was too busy trying to defend himself amid the swirling melee.
More spiders dropped from above. When they landed on a man’s back, he panicked. Men threw themselves onto the ground, rolling over and over trying to crush the poisonous creatures. Other men moved around them, trying to find an opportunity to stab at the spiders without hitting their comrades.
Kormak’s company lost all cohesion in the face of this horror. Around him the battle degenerated into desperate one-on-one combats. The elves were quicker, nimble enough to dodge blows aimed at them. The humans were more heavily armoured and stronger.
Kormak lashed out with his dwarf forged blade, slicing a spider into pieces. He heard more screaming from behind and realised that the remainder of Weaver’s elves were starting to emerge from the woods. If they had been sensible they would have remained there, shooting from the cover of the trees. Instead it seemed as if they feared losing contact with their enemies and had chosen to emerge from cover and engage in combat.
The smell of burning assaulted Kormak’s nostrils. He scented alchemical fire and heard the weird eerie screeching noises of spiders being burned alive. There was another flash of light, bright as the Sun, and more howls of terror and pain. He guessed that one of the Order’s artificers had managed to get one of the Solari machines working.
There was nothing for it but for him to throw himself completely into the sea of battle. He strode across the field killing anything that got in his way, shouting for men to rally to him. So deadly was he and so confident that, where he passed, scared men rallied and tired men felt their courage renewed.
Some of those who faced him now were not elves or spiders. They were humans garbed in the leather jerkins and doe-skin britches of the lost inhabitants of the Settlements. There was a strange madness in their eyes and a terrifying hatred. They threw themselves into combat with no fear for their lives and seemingly no desire other than to slay the Weaver’s enemies.
Kormak smashed through them, severing limbs, chopping off heads and cleaving men in twain with his ancient runic blade. He saw others fight on against more normal weapons even after they had been chopped half to pieces. Once a man he would have sworn was dead rose to strike at him. Whether his wounds had simply looked worse than they were or whether the power of the Shadow was animating his form, it was hard to tell.
He wished that he had some idea of what was going on, some overview of the battle but he had no idea whether his side was winning or losing. All he knew was that all around him men and beasts and things that were neither were locked in a terrible struggle. He tried to locate the banners of his Order flying above the battle but somehow he had lost all sense of direction or they had moved from their previous position.
In the distance he saw one of the massive battle spiders looming over the conflict. It held a squirming man in its enormous mandibles and then, with what looked like the gentlest of squeezes, chopped his body in two.
A roaring sound came from somewhere off to his left and when he looked over in that direction he saw an enormous blazing fire elemental. He guessed that in that direction lay the magicians of the Order and he began to cut his way towards them. Protecting those wizards was probably the best thing that he could manage other than finding Weaver and killing her. That would have been his first choice but after the initial conflict he had not caught sight of her.
An arrow flickered past him, missing him by the breadth of a hair. It was pure luck that saved him. If he had been a fraction of a stride further forward it would have taken him through the neck.
He glanced to his right and he saw Grogan, taking a bead on him again. Kormak threw himself forward and downwards, stabbing at a nearby elf. An arrow flickered through the air where he had been. When he looked around to locate Grogan, there was no sign of him. The tide of battle had carried him away. It looked like his old friend had not the slightest compunction about killing him. Kormak was glad. He would feel no guilt if he had to put Grogan down.
He kept slashing his way forward, cutting elves down from the side and from behind as often as he faced them in open combat. He did not care how he did the killing. In this sort of carnage there was no such thing as honourable combat. He knew the minions of the Shadow would show him no mercy either.
Ahead of him, a battle-spider moved through the crowd. A man’s impaled body was stuck on one of its dagger-like limbs. He shrieked every time the great arachnid moved, rising into the air, limbs flailing with each step. At least he was keeping the monster off-balance as it advanced towards the Order’s formation.
One of the artificers on the great Solari war-engine was trying frantically to bring it to bear. A green-tipped poison spear emerged from the chaos and took him in the throat. He lolled dead in the command saddle of the engine, held in place by thick leather straps. His brothers frantically tried to get him free. In the heat of the moment, none of them had the sense to slash the leather bindings with a blade.
Kormak sprang forward with redoubled fury, taking the head off an elf and severing the left arm of another. One turned to face him and Kormak sliced his spear in two as he attempted to parry and then split his head in half with the force of the blow. Blood splattered, slivers of brain slid down the elf’s shoulder.
The battle spider was ahead of him now. The great armoured legs looked surprisingly delicate supporting that bloated monstrous body. He took aim at the joint of one of the rear pair of limbs and cut right through it. A strange oily fluid spurted forth. The rear of the spider fell momentarily off-balance, giving him the chance to leap onto its thorax. His boots sank into the furry flesh but he forced himself to keep moving, even as the spider reared. He jabbed the dwarf-forged blade into the space between its eyes, driving it deep, hoping he was hitting the creature’s brain but with no idea of whether he was. It reared and spun frantically, the glow going out of its eyes. He had blinded it, or at least he hoped so.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the artificers had managed to free their colleague and bring the Solar ballista to bear. They did not seem to have noticed he was on the spider’s back. As if in a dream he saw one of his brothers pull the command lever with nightmarish slowness. He was mounted on the bucking back of the great spider, directly in the path of the destructive magical energies that were about to be unleashed.
His heart pounded wildly against his ribs. Frantically he threw himself clear of the rearing spider, tumbling towards the ground. A flash of utterly brilliant light, a blaze of enormous heat passed close by. The spider exploded under the impact leaving only half of its torso, awash with flames, still dancing behind Kormak.
He dropped amid a packed group of elves. One of them raised a spear to impale the falling Guardian. Kormak slashed it aside with his sword and landed on the shoulders of an elf, sending him dropping to the earth.
In desperation he wielded his blade two handed, clearing the area around him, chopping his way to the relative safety of the Order’s lines. The Solar ballista kept firing, blasting great holes in the enemy line until an arrow sliced through the windpipe of the new operator. He slumped back in the chair, hands still on the controls. The catapult arm swung to bear randomly.
The projectile arced out, directly at the rotting bole of Mayasha. It hit the side of the tree, and exploded. The Shadow tainted wood did not catch fire but came apart, like ash stirred with a poker.
Kormak clambered up onto the engine’s side. He had no idea how to operate the machine. The artificers had their secrets but perhaps he could get it to swivel on its mount again. It seemed some of the elves had the same idea. The wagon on which the engine rested vibrated beneath their weight as they leapt onto it. He found himself looking at a group of savage elves.
He slashed at one of the elves, sending him leaping back into the mass of howling Lost from which he had emerged. The second one sprang forward, aiming his spear directly at Kormak’s chest. With one hand Kormak knocked it aside and buried his blade in the chest of another. Heartened by his presence, the brothers pushed forward, throwing the elves around the engine back. In another moment, an artificer had slid into place in the command chair. He pulled a lever. Nothing happened.
“What happened?” Kormak shouted.
“It’s overheated somehow.”
“Is there nothing you can do about it?”
The artificer shrugged. His brass mask hid his features. “We have to wait for the engine to cool and try and get another sunstone into place.”
Kormak nodded. From his position on the wagon’s back he had a slightly better view of the field of battle. The humans were still surrounded by the Lost elves, except where in the distance companies of knights had broken through and were harrying the elves in turn. The spiders had finished dropping from above and now were caught up in the swirl of the melee.
Kormak’s allies were rallying around their banners. Here and there a few companies had managed to bring their long bows to bear and were returning fire at Weaver’s people.
It did not look good though. The army was surrounded by greater numbers of elves, corrupted humans and sentient spiders and the elves were making better use of their missile weapons. Poison made every hit deadly. It did not matter if it was fatal or merely paralytic. Almost every man hit was removed from combat. The brothers of the Order of the Dawn continued to hold their ground. Their heavy armour, their war-engines, their alchemists and their wizards gave them an edge. Kormak could see Graydon and the chief sorceress in conclave. The Chapter Master was shouting something and Elanora looked at first dismayed, then fearful then obedient.