Haven: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Four (54 page)

Jaryd sighed, shook his head to clear it of unnecessary thoughts, and cantered off to the path along the wall, and his army beyond.

The Ilduuri were running back up the slope. Exhausted, some half-carrying wounded comrades, they struggled and strained up the grassy hill, around rocky outcrops and charred trees. Arrows streaked up and into them, lower velocity on the upward arc, but still fast enough to pierce exposed flesh and mail. Running men fell, and were helped up by comrades, but the Regent's men were pursuing behind, and those in the rear were fighting a desperate rearguard.

“Lowest slope!” Sasha yelled at her archers. “Let nothing fall short!” Arrows streaked away, and then fell, a long, fast plummet toward the bottom of the slope. “Yasmyn, get back to the artillery and tell them to fire only at the lowest slope, nothing falls short!”

Yasmyn galloped off. Sasha did not trust the trumpet now to call artillery—its notes did not allow for enough precision, and she was desperate to avoid killing her own men with those terrible weapons.

A new, whistling, thudding noise drew her attention back down the slope. Ballistas by the Ipshaal River were firing uphill. They could not elevate enough to hit the ridge, but their bolts were streaking by the score straight into her struggling, retreating men who were now approaching midslope. She saw them hit, smashed, and pinned into the turf, armour and all. She saw men trying to retrieve fallen comrades, only to find them literally stuck to the ground. The screams were a horror, and she could see their faces, eyes up toward the ridge, desperate to reach that safety.

And now, at midslope but further to the right, clustered beneath their shields for protection from Ilduuri archers, a large mass of Bacosh soldiery was preparing to hit those climbing men from the side.

“Captain Dalen!” she yelled. “Form another three companies and sweep down this ridge! Clear those scum off our mountain!”

Captain Dalen rushed to do that. Some fast orders and men sprinted from amongst the ridgeline trees to make new lines. More ballista fire tore into the retreating party. They were not nearly so fast now as on their morning runs. The Ilduuri Steel were tough and talented, yet they had not seen heavy battle in a long while, and perhaps had not realised that fast manoeuvres in training, and fast manoeuvres after heavy fighting were completely different things.

With a roar, the new Ilduuri line went over the edge and plunged down the slope. Archers sent arrows whistling ahead of them as Bacosh soldiers appeared from cover and tried to make a line. On the downslope, against Ilduuris desperate to cover their comrades, they had little chance. Still some of the Bacosh line was engaging the climbing Ilduuris, exhausted men fighting hard just to get through, until their comrades arrived and sent the Regent's soldiers fleeing down to the bottom.

They clashed too with the soldiers who pursued them, forming a rearguard that was fresh and full of fight. Heavy clashes followed, lines of Ilduuri men repelling great waves of Bacosh soldiers, and killing many with the great advantage of skill, armour, and height. Finally, the artillery was resuming, first ballista fire spattering across the lower slope, and then the blinding flashes of hellfire.

Retreating Ilduuris made the ridge and collapsed to hands and knees, gasping for air. Comrades helped them, and moved them back into the trees so they did not block the way for others coming up. Some came up wounded, helped by friends, some with arrows sticking through legs or arms, and some with worse. Sasha remained out of their way, doing some rough counting. Downslope, Bacosh men were falling back fast. As they did so, Bacosh artillery resumed firing at their newly available targets—the second wave of Ilduuri soldiers now at midslope. More were hit, with brutal force.

“Trumpeter!” Sasha yelled. “Full retreat, get them back up here!”

The exhausted, battered Ilduuris looked dejected. They'd overrun several ballistas and a catapult, but had been unable to do much damage before the Regent's forces had overwhelmed them. Dead crews would be replaced, and little would change. Now those same ballistas were killing their friends.

Sasha leaped down from her horse and walked amongst them, whacking shoulders and shields with fierce appreciation.

“Magnificent!” she told them, moving from one man to the next. “Brave as all hells! Formidable soldiering, Lenayin could not have done better!”

“We failed you,” a sergeant mumbled, face streaked with sweat and blood.

“You failed no one!” Sasha shouted for all to hear. “You gave them a fucking thrashing. I see their blood all over your swords and shields! It is my fault. I gave you an impossible task and still you nearly pulled it off! You are heroes, each and every one!”

It seemed to have some effect, as men sat to rest, and drink, and check on their friends. Sasha continued walking amongst them, determined to put a hand on as many shoulders and a word of encouragement in as many ears as possible. Now the second rank began returning, some of them wounded, and she walked amongst them as well.

A lieutenant came to her, having made a more precise count. “Six hundred and thirteen missing,” he said quietly. “Another hundred and five too wounded to fight.” Nearly all of those in the first wave, he did not need to say. “Captain Arken is amongst the missing, several say they saw him fall.”

Sasha kept her face stony calm. “Get the wounded to the rear, and put the first wave survivors in reserve for now, they deserve a rest.”

“You had to try,” said the lieutenant. Evidently her attempt at calm was not convincing.

“I know,” she said. “Thank you, Hanser.”

Lieutenant Hanser nodded and left. Sasha stroked her horse's nose for a moment. That had always calmed her in the past. It failed to do so now. She recalled Arken's handsome blue eyes when she'd first met him, the tall blond man who looked so much the Ilduuri ideal, and yet trusted the foreigners that so many of his fellow Ilduuri hated. They would laugh at him now, and consider themselves proven right, as his faith in the foreigners had killed him after all.

Sasha recalled Arken's young family left behind in Andal, and hoped that it was worth it. For a brief moment, nothing was.

K
essligh galloped past lines of hospital wagons, and others loaded with ballista bolts for the artillery. He rounded the Dhemerhill Valley's western wall and found the Rhodaani Army in preparation to advance, and General Geralin in final discussions with his officers.

“Balthaar hits the Ilduuri with everything,” said the general. “He attacks not only along their front, but now up the valley sides as well. We must advance, to pressure their flank, or the Ilduuri will lose the ridge.”

Kessligh nodded. “You will be advancing without artillery. You must change the formations—an open formation, as we discussed.”

The general frowned. “We are not accustomed to such formations. They disrupt our pattern of battle.”

“The Regent's artillery will disrupt it more. Your forces are so close together that single hellfire rounds will destroy entire portions of your formation. Should you attack in such a manner, the Rhodaani Steel may be destroyed in its entirety.”

General Geralin had not liked this idea when Kessligh first suggested it, and he did not like it now. The Steel had introduced hellfire into their artillery nearly one hundred years ago, and despite a century of trying, various enemies had failed to discover the secrets of its making. Now, things had changed.

“The Lenays made their attack in good order,” stated another officer. “Their losses are light. The Regent's forces have not mastered their new weapons—they are not such easy things to use.”

“The surest way for commanders to lose battles is for them to presume that they are the only ones on the field who know what they're doing.”

“You are Lead Commander,” General Geralin said sharply. “You are not in command of the detailed affairs of the Rhodaani Steel. They are mine to command, as I have risen from foot soldier to generalship across my thirty years of service, and I am certain I know them far better than you.”

“You are right,” said Kessligh, “you know your soldiers better than I. But I know something of your enemy, and his capability with that artillery, and I know that he will kill all of your soldiers if you let him.”

“Your broken formations will not contain a force of their number…” the general tried again.

“My
broken
formations will allow you to absorb punishment from their artillery for a considerable time instead of being destroyed as an effective fighting force within the first few salvos.”

“And I will not engage the enemy in a formation that does not allow my men to effectively close with and kill the enemy! Now good day, sir, I have a battle to fight!”

He and his officer wheeled and galloped to their formations, a few of the lower officers with misgiving looks at Kessligh as they went. Kessligh refrained from swearing.

He summoned a messenger. “Go to Sasha, tell her that if the Regent's artillery is employed in good order against the Rhodaani Steel, the Rhodaanis are about to get hammered. They're advancing with the old formation, not the new. Go!” The messenger left in a hurry.

Rhillian arrived on horseback and reined alongside. “What is that fucking idiot Geralin up to now?” she said succinctly. “Those look like the old formations.”

“I want their command party shadowed,” Kessligh said grimly. “If the general is killed, and pray that it comes soon, then Captain Aile should be in charge. Make certain that he is—I know he agrees with me.”

“You can't reorder formations in close contact and under artillery fire,” Rhillian replied. “Once they're in, it's too late.”

“No, but he will manage an orderly withdrawal before they're all dead.”

“I have an archer in my group,” said Rhillian, emerald eyes unblinking. “Some say that he is Errollyn's equal with a bow, though there is some dispute. Many chaotic things happen under artillery fire. No one will see everything.”

Kessligh exhaled hard. “I'd have relieved him of command, but the Rhodaani all follow him. If they catch you shooting their general off his horse, they may leave the battle. Better we take our chances. He may get lucky.”

The attacks now made those previous seem like mere skirmishes. The Ilduuri line was assaulted across its entire front, and well down the Dhemerhill Valley. The Regent's forces had followed the Army of Lenayin's retreat into the valley, keeping at first beyond Ilduuri artillery range. Then they had attacked along a valley front more than a thousand paces wide. There had not been enough artillery or archery to so much as slow their approach this time, and now as a sea of enemy soldiers swarmed up the hills like ants upon a carcass, Sasha's entire line was engaged hand-to-hand in furious action.

“The Rhodaanis are coming!” Sasha yelled at her men as she cantered along the ridge trail behind their line, weaving through the trees as Ilduuri ranks fought and exchanged places to her right. “The Rhodaanis are coming, hold the line!”

She had no archers now, for there was no room to shoot. To her left, away from the valley, the ridge was level in parts and thickly forested, preventing any archery. Then it climbed, far more steeply than the valley walls. Their foothold upon this ridge was like a thin path upon the lip of a cliff, the enemy below and mountains behind. Any breach along the line would cut off those further along. The line had to hold, or she'd lose the whole formation.

She passed her artillery position, a ridge that ran from the mountain behind. The great contraptions swung and sprang, shooting swarms of bolts or burning hellfire rounds streaking through the sky. That would protect her far-left flank overlooking the Ipshaal, the scene of all previous action. But it was her near-right flank that worried her most.

She reached the bluff at the corner of the valley mouth and turned left. The fighting here was again heavy, and the sea of men below apparently inexhaustible. Flame and smoke roared into the air from hellfire impacts—catapults were poor for firing short range as their abbreviated swings were inaccurate, a terrible risk firing over the heads of friendly forces with hellfire rounds. They were only reliably accurate at long range, meaning this far flank. Ballista fire now fell across the middle and right flank, searing low over the Ilduuri line's heads to scythe through men coming uphill.

Seeing that the line held, she turned, careful to dodge men moving across her path. Coming back down the valley, she could see the Rhodaani Steel advancing. There were great squares of glinting silver, formations that had once terrified feudal armies far smaller than this one. But this army advanced without its artillery, while the feudals, even as she watched, were beginning to fire.

Rounds leaped into the air from down the valley, where artillery had advanced on the far side of the Dhemerhill River. She'd sent Andreyis to tell General Geralin of its position, but evidently he hadn't listened. As many as ten rounds at once soared into the air, trailing thin smoke. The Rhodaanis were packed so tightly together they could not possibly dodge.

She stopped at her artillery position, not even bothering to watch the enemy's rounds landing. The artillery captain came running down to her, shield above his head as he left the protection of a near catapult in the light rain of arrows that nearby archers were directing at his contraptions.

“We're about to lose the ridge!” Sasha yelled. “Pull all your units off the ridge at once, and get them back to Jahnd!”

“If I stop firing now our left flank may fold!” he shouted back above the din of battle.

“We're going to lose it anyway!” Sasha retorted. “Your artillery is more valuable, you've done all you can here—now it's time to leave!”

He nodded and ran back to his men, yelling orders. Sasha turned and spared a look down at the Rhodaani formations. Black smoke rose, and fires spread. It was hard to see the formation clearly, just glints of steel through the smoke. On the wide flanks, Rhodaani cavalry was charging, accompanied by
talmaad
and Lenay cavalry back for a second charge. It met little opposing cavalry, but gathering now before the Regent's artillery were great rows of pikemen, apparently organised for just that purpose. Their pikes were huge, and their lines bristled like a porcupine. Cavalry hated that. It seemed the Regent had put some thought into how to protect his artillery from cavalry at least.

Andreyis came racing back from his latest mission, and Sasha sent him on a new one. “Tell Kessligh we're pulling off the ridge! We'll protect the artillery and try to make a new line for them to pass, but if we stay here we'll lose everything.”

He left. Yasmyn had been sent to carry another officer's message, and she had no idea where Daish was. Sasha turned and galloped up the line once more, to where her left flank was about to find itself without artillery cover.

She'd just reached the bluff when yells and running men alerted her that the line behind her had been breached. She spun her horse and saw a swarm of men-at-arms pushing through the Ilduuris and across the path she'd just ridden. Rear ranks were peeling off the adjoining lines to attack them, but as they did so, a second portion of newly thinned line also collapsed. The line now dissolved into a mass of fighting, flailing men with no semblance of order. The chaos extended a hundred paces across, and was growing wider. She, and everyone on this side, was now trapped.

An officer ran to her with wild-eyed desperation, shouting questions she could barely hear. She did not bother yelling back, but instead gestured with her hands—a firm line to hold along the ridge so they did not get cut off again, and this new front upon the ridge itself should fall back past the bluff and contract upon itself to make a pocket. She did it as calmly as she could, despite the fighting barely twenty paces from her side, and the officer seemed to absorb that calm, take deep breaths, then turned to run back and yell orders.

Sasha spun and galloped about the corner and onto the Ipshaal front. Soon she was met by Captain Idraalgen, senior officer on this flank.

“We're cut off, the middle just folded!” she yelled at him, dismounting from her horse. “We're about three thousand stuck on this side, and our artillery is retreating!”

Idraalgen did not look very surprised. “Do we attack?” he asked cheerfully.

Sasha laughed. “Yes, but backwards! Those trails up the mountains, can we use them?”

“Any trail is enough for Ilduuri,” he replied. “We'll contract into a tight pocket and funnel men up the trails from behind. They can chase us if they wish, but the trails are narrow—one Ilduuri can stop a whole army if positioned well.”

“Then that's the plan!” Sasha shouted, and slapped him on the shoulder. But she couldn't take her horse. Probably she should have had the stallion killed so that the Regent would not gain another mount, but she had a man take him off beyond the left flank and tie him to a tree. Killing horses was bad luck, and she was superstitious enough to think that a worse threat to this battle than her enemies gaining one more steed.

With her shield on one arm, Sasha took position by one of the trails where it began to climb through steep rocks and precarious trees, shouting for the rear ranks to make an orderly ascent. They came running past her, slinging shields to their backs and swords into their scabbards, then onto the trail at speed. After long fighting, battered, sweaty, and bloody, they
ran
up the trail, climbing fast in the knowledge that in single file, one slow man condemned every man behind.

Soon the extended right flank of their pocket was falling back from the bluff, amidst triumphant cries and yells from the Regent's men. Directly before her she could hear Ilduuris yelling back, a few in Saalsi, words to the effect that all the piled corpses at their feet did not look like much of a victory.

The pocket drew closer, armoured flanks closing in on all sides, and arrows began to fly more thickly as the Regent's men identified the source of the trail above. Sasha found shelter behind a tree trunk, her shield raised, and figured her men were down from three thousand to just a few hundred. Now it became tricky.

A sergeant alerted her to the endgame, racing from the line now only ten paces away, waving frantically at her to run. Sasha slung her shield and ran straight up the path. Arrows struck about her, and she realised the other advantage to having the shield on the back as Ilduuris wore it while climbing. She'd been in the saddle rather than fighting on foot, so her legs were relatively fresh, yet still it hurt. Fifty paces up she paused where Ilduuri archers had halted to sit just off the path, with an increasingly sheer drop below, and expend their remaining arrows on the men who now closed about the remaining Ilduuri.

Sasha took a knee alongside them and looked down upon the final act. Wounded men, she realised, seeing the last formation of perhaps twenty men fighting amidst the trees, their balance unsteady, clearly too wounded to make this retreat. The last healthy Ilduuri made the trail and climbed, and a gap opened behind him as the wounded men fought, and fell, one, then two, then two more. They could not have gone first—the path was too narrow and they'd have slowed the entire Ilduuri retreat if their comrades had carried them. That would have cost far more lives than just these twenty.