A Sword for a Dragon (15 page)

Princess Zettila was finally at a loss.

“They cannot be defeated?”

“Unlikely.” The emperor looked very grim. “They are about to destroy my army.”

Princess Zettila became most anxious.

“Then we must escape, at once. Leave the field and ride south, get to Kwa tonight and cross the river. You can be safe in Ourdh by the day after tomorrow. And you can deal with Zanizaru.”

The emperor had a strong urge to do exactly that and finally rid himself of his over-mighty cousin with his pretensions to the throne. Banwi had refrained from killing him before because of his fear of Lopitoli, and her enormous influence with the noble families.

But if he had real evidence that Lopitoli had conspired against him and planned to put Zanizaru in his place, real evidence, then he need not fear her retribution and he could strike back at last.

“The Sephisti will have the west bank, the Shogemessar will have the east,” he said. “That is what I foresee.”

Zettila nodded. “To have half the empire is better than to have none of it.”

“I agree. Go now, fetch horses and a cavalry detachment, we ride at once.”

Zettila paused at the door. “What about Auntie Haruma? Shouldn’t we take her, too?”

“Yes, tell her to come here at once. Now hurry!”

The great Battle of Salpalangum was joined. A mass of perhaps one hundred thousand black-clad Sephisti fanatics crashed home against the sixty-thousand-strong army of the Emperor Banwi Shogemessar reinforced with ten thousand men and dragons of Argonath.

On the front of the Marneri Second Legion, there was now nothing to be seen but a forest of banners of the golden serpent writhing above the great mass of men in black with their round shields embossed with the serpent design. Their drums thundered constantly, and their shrill cries filled the upper register.

The legion tensed awaiting the shock while the Argonathi archers, men of Kenor for the most part, loosed salvos of arrows into the enemy host, dropping men by the hundreds, though it made no discernible impression on the onrush. And then the first rows of Sephisti soldier were upon them, whirling their swords above their heads and screaming in maniacal rage.

The dragonboys sucked in their breath with wonder at the sight of mere men, with little body armor, hurling themselves right at the dragons. The result was dreadfully predictable. The great dragon swords swung, hammering aside those of the strongest men and slicing through shields, armor, and anything else they met.

Very quickly the Sephisti began to pile up in heaps in front of the dragons. Occasionally one or two would slip through, but these were dealt with by the dragonboys and the dragoneers who were on them at once with crossbow and sword.

Against the swordsmen of the Second Legion, the Sephisti had little more chance. The men of Argonath fought as they had been trained. In this kind of battle, the power of discipline was overwhelming. The front man on the line wielded shield and sword. Behind him worked the second man with spear and javelin. The rectangular shields were designed with hooks and flanges on their edges so they might be locked together. As the enemy approached, the javelin men threw slender pilae made of soft iron, which sank into the shields of the Sephisti, then bent and made them unwieldy.

When possible, the Argonath front rank would lock shields with the men beside them, creating a wall of rectangular shields from behind which the spearmen could freely stab into the tight-packed mass of the Sephisti horde. Then the third or reserve line of legionaries would drop their own shields, put their shoulders to the front line as if they were in a scrum over a football, and help the front men to squeeze and compress the enemy on the other side of the shield wall.

And now the poor discipline of the horde worked its deadly affect, for more and more men came up at the rear and pushed forward, driving the men at the front into a dense mass, constrained by the shields of the Argonathi and unable to free themselves to fight. Virtually helpless, they were borne forward, tripping over the corpses of the men before them until they were offered up to the darting spears and stabbing swords thrust over the shield wall. Many would die with their arms pinned against their sides by the crush, no more able to fend for themselves than cattle in the chute to the killing floor.

The bodies mounted up in front of the Argonathi shields. And wherever a small break did open in that wall of metal, it was swiftly reinforced by roaming groups called the “pluggers.” These were usually the strongest, heaviest men in a century. Their role was to get to any breach in the line and block it up quickly and efficiently.

Accompanying the pluggers were the archers, roving up and down the rear of the line, firing at targets as they presented themselves. The archers concentrated on enemy officers and horsemen, and took a deadly toll.

After about half an hour of this, the Sephisti horde opposite the Argonath line thinned out and then faded away, leaving an open space thickly carpeted with the dead and the dying. On either side of them the battle continued to rage, but on their front the legions were now given a healthy respect and two hundred yards clearance.

Like the other dragons, except the Purple Green who knew no better, Bazil Broketail did not enjoy this work. These men that he killed did not fight with much skill despite their passion. They were amateur soldiers. It was butchery. The Broketail almost wished there were some trolls on the field to give Ecator a proper workout.

Still, when men came at him with steel in their hands, he reacted as he had been trained. It was important not to let a man get inside your shield arm, that was the only real danger from a man with a sword. You kept him at bay with your own huge shield, and you cut him down with sweeps of the dragon sword. Men could jump almost three feet in the air to evade the sword, and they could crouch down to a little more than three feet. A sword swinging through at exactly three feet caught most of them.

Spears and lances were more dangerous. Here one had to take the shafts on the shield and then break them with the sword, since one could not reach the men behind them. Men without spears would retreat.

So Bazil had trained many, many times, and now he worked almost without thought. Ecator was a pleasure to wield, the balance reminded him of his old sword, Piocar, and there was an energy in the blade that seemed to make it much livelier than any sword he had ever wielded.

Back and forth he swung Ecator in a blazing net of slicing steel. No man could stand before him for very long at all, and few swords could parry more than a single blow from Ecator before shattering.

Occasionally a man’s shield would stay the first blow, and then Bazil struck with tail sword over the shield or else kicked out with the talons on his feet to pull the man down and trample him.

Only a few got past the dragon. Relkin shot three who managed it and then finished them with the dirk. One of them came at him with the sword despite the arrow in his neck, and Mono ran in from the side to distract the Sephisti while Relkin slipped past his shield and struck up and in with short sword.

Relkin Orphanboy had become a soldier. He was no longer a youth from Quosh who sickened easily at such slaughter. It was his work. There was a grimness in his heart now, a band of metal that had been wrought by battle. And still there was something terrible about this.

Relkin felt as if he’d become a small cog in some windup killing machine, something inhuman that was formed from the disciplined work of ten thousand men and several hundred dragons. It had not always been so easy, nor so cold-blooded. He remembered the battle at Elgoma’s Lodge in the winter campaign against the Teetol. That had been a very different kind of fight for a legion. The Teetol had learned from long and bitter experience not to engage blindly with a legion front. The Teetol fought with bow, arrow, spear, and short rushing charges at the flank of the dragon squadrons. The Teetol used ambushes and drop pits, giant snares in the forest to break dragon legs, fires set in summer heat in the thickets. The Teetol were still a dangerous foe, even for a full legion.

The horde of Sephis knew nothing of tactics, they came on as if by mere weight of numbers alone they could win victory, but, in fact, they were nothing but meat for the mincer.

With no trolls to stiffen their formations, the Sephisti soldiers could not stand against a legion with dragons. Once again the rule was proven.

It was not so easy, however, on either side of the narrow front held by the Argonathi legions. The Imperial Army was little better organized than the Sephisti horde, and considerably less enthusiastic for battle. At first they held and a confused melee broke out up and down the line, but as more and more Sephisti came up and began to break into their formations and to lap around the flanks, so the Imperial Army began to break down and run.

By that time, the soldiery of Ourdh had already been betrayed by all their leaders. First to abandon the field was the emperor, speeding away in a white coach with the Princess Zettila and an escort of shamefaced cavalrymen. Behind him came a torrent of carriages and gilded coaches as the rest of the court fled in panic.

At the sight of the Imperial Court seeking safety in flight, the senior officers, drawn from the ranks of the stekirs of the realm, also fled. Following them were the rest of the officers, nobles all with little in common with the fedd of the ranks.

For a while the ordinary men continued to fight, soldiers often will even when all reason for it has been lost. But without officers and under tremendous pressure from a fanatical enemy, they soon lost any cohesion they might have had and everything began to break down.

It began with a few in the rear ranks fleeing down the road after the officers. Then came a trickle from the central ranks, and then the fear took hold and everyone still on their feet ran blindly away in panic. Thousands sought safety inside the city of Salpalangum, but the gates remained shut.

Some of the Imperial cavalry units, the cream of the army, held together and rode from the field in more or less organized fashion, but most formations broke down into mobs of scurrying fugitives running as fast as their feet could take them toward the river in the east.

In pursuit poured two rivers of men in black garb that flowed around the Argonath legions like water around a pair of square rocks. Once beyond the immediate battlefield, the enemy horde broadened out, bypassing the shut-up city and heading eastwards. Slaughter and looting began that would go on for hours across the prosperous countryside of northern Kwa. The Battle of Salpalangum was over, except that the two Argonathi legions remained in the field and under a calm set of orders began to transform their dispositions.

The orders were received with little emotion by most of the commanders of the regiments. Regiments trained in flank maneuver were to move around line regiments and take up flanking duties. Meanwhile the line at front was to be shortened. The men, the dragons, everyone knew that they were preparing for an attack of their own. Despite the vast numbers of Sephisti opposing them, the spirit in the legion soared.

Soared, that is, except at the helm of the Eighth Marneri, where Commander Porteous Glaves received the orders with anything but calm.

The Eighth was in the line between the Seventh, who were skilled flankers, and the Sixth. This was because the Eighth were a new unit and untrained yet in flanking techniques.

Porteous Glaves, however, had seen the flight of the court of Ourdh down the field behind him. Then he had seen the flight of the Ourdhi generals and the other officers, and finally he had watched with sinking heart as the great mass of the Imperial Army broke and fled.

The legions were now abandoned, completely surrounded by a sea of Sephisti fanatics. Glaves was filled with rage and terror. He did not want to die here. The Sephisti did horrible things to their captives. If it looked like he was going to be captured, he must kill himself and he wasn’t sure he could actually do that. On the other hand, he could not imagine enduring extreme tortures. He ground his teeth and raged at Ruwat, who had advised him to buy his commission in the legions.

At the beginning of the fighting, Glaves had spurred his horse up and down behind his men roaring encouragement to them and shouting insults into the enemy’s faces. He was determined to make a good show of it and be seen by everyone in the legion to be in command and in full voice.

However, the men did their job with brutal efficiency, aided by the indiscipline of the Sephisti mass. There was nothing that was dashing or romantic about this. The slaughter went on and on, blood flowed and spattered high, and Glaves fell silent, disgusted by the sounds of death and the morbid stench. Blood and offal splashed up onto his trousers, flung back from a dragon sword. More struck him across the side of the face and down his shoulder. Revulsion turned his stomach. He drifted back to the rear of the position and sat his horse quietly with Dandrax at his side. Occasionally he sipped water and winced when a dragon blade made a spectacularly loud noise chopping through some hapless Sephisti.

Glaves struggled to think of some way out of this trap. Flight seemed out of the question. Not only would he be seen and condemned, but beyond the legion’s formation there was nothing but a great mass of Sephisti with packs of black-garbed cavalry dashing through ready to pick off someone like himself in a moment. Flight was out, surrender was impossible. There seemed to be nothing to do but to sit there, trembling, sweating, and praying for survival.

Then came orders from General Hektor, and the legion began to shift its regiments. The Eighth were ordered to hold their position and take over some of the line held by the Sixth, which was in motion around behind the Eighth, on its way to join the Seventh. Behind the Sixth came the Third regiment to further bolster the flank, and the legion became a three-sided weapon, a blade waiting to be hurled at the enemy.

Even before these maneuvers were completed, General Hektor had summoned the legion commanders to his tent. The general appeared very calm despite the disappearance of the vast Imperial Host. Once again Porteous Glaves told himself that he would never understand the military mind.