The enemy line grimly surged forward and at less than fifty yards came to a halt. Hundreds of bows snapped, the arrows slamming in at a flat trajectory. Though protected to their shoulders by the trenches, dozens of Suzdalians fell backward, the heavy war bows driving arrows clear through their bodies. Though five Tugars fell to every Suzdalian, still they pressed forward, firing as they advanced.
A man leaped out of the trench, throwing his musket away.
Scrambling out of the ditch, Andrew came up and struck him across the shoulders with the flat of his sword.
"Get back in that line!" Andrew roared.
Wide-eyed, the frightened soldier looked up at him.
"Get back or I'll run you through!"
A number of Suzdalians had stopped shooting to watch the drama.
The soldier tried to dodge past Andrew, who leaped in front of him with sword pointed at his chest. Sobbing, the soldier turned back into the trench.
The pressure was building. Standing in full view of both sides, Andrew remained where he was, sword in hand.
Relentlessly the Tugars kept driving ever closer, their showers of arrows covering the advance. The Neiper was red with blood, hundreds of bodies slowly rolling, tumbling downstream, but still more came forward.
And then with a wild shout the shore was gained. Dropping bows, the enemy surged in, drawing swords and battle-axes and raising them high.
Desperately they scrambled up the muddy banks.
"Out of the trenches!"
Andrew roared.
"Up out of the trenches!"
The Suzdalians surged up, some trying with wild despair to load one final round.
The line started to crack and give way.
"Keane!"
Andrew turned. It was Hans galloping forward, behind him a regiment advancing at the double.
"Form a volley line!" Andrew shouted.
While the 1st Suzdal bled and died, not thirty feet away, Hans formed his regiment, cursing and swearing.
And then, all at once, the 1st gave way, the men streaming to the rear, the Tugars, charging behind them, roaring with delight, spilling into the trench, and coming up the other side.
"1st Suzdal get clear, get clear!" Andrew cried, even as Hans's shout echoed up.
"2nd Novrod, first rank, fire!"
Those of the 1st still in the way dived to the ground, but all too many were caught in the blast. At near point-blank range the Tugar charge came crashing down.
"Second rank, fire!"
Another sheet of flame slashed out.
"First rank, fire!"
Stepping back, Andrew saw yet another regiment and then another rushing up the road, their battle standards snapping in the wind.
And then from down across the river came a staccato burst, the water about the ford churning and splashing as the
Ogunquit,
having rounded the bend of the river to reveal its position, slammed a deadly salvo into the flank of the advancing line.
He looked back to where the 2nd Novrod stood pouring in their deadly volleys, driving back the Tugar toehold. Men in the line were dropping as the fire support from the enemy shore poured in around them.
The 4th Suzdal, forming now to the right of the Novrod position, suddenly added in its weight as well.
Yet still from the far bank, wave after wave of Tugar infantry swarmed forward.
They were smashing them, smashing them hard, but they had over a hundred thousand and he had but ten thousand. He looked over to where Black was reforming the shattered remnants of his regiment.
They can afford to loose soldiers and I can't, Andrew thought grimly.
Andrew turned to look eastward. It had been hours, he thought, but the sun was not more than two handspans above the trees. It was going to be a long hard day, and remembering he was no longer a line officer but commander of an army, he stepped back from the volley line, the staff that had been following him sighing with relief that their battle-maddened commander was still alive.
"It'll be a long day, gentlemen," Andrew said, looking at their nervous faces, "a long day indeed."
"Call them back," Qubata said evenly.
Muzta turned in some surprise to look at his battle commander.
"We're pushing them hard," Muzta said grimly.
"And we're bleeding rivers of blood. Half the Olkta Umen is smashed. Call them back."
"Perhaps you are right," Muzta replied, and nodded to the nargas sounders, who gave voice to their long trumpets.
Ever so gradually the roar of battle on the opposite side of the river dropped away. Muzta could not help but feel a surge of pride in his warriors. Not one broke
ranks
, not one showed his back as they withdrew across the river and with bows raised continued to pour in sheets of arrows.
The enemy fire slackened, punctuated only by the bellow of artillery, which had rendered the riverbank into a torn confusion of shattered trees and smashed bodies.
A shout of defiance rose up from the other side, and then drifted away.
"We know now that most of their weapons, except for those carried by the blue-clad Yankees, cannot reach beyond sixty paces, to our hundred and twenty. It is senseless to keep feeding our warriors into this bottleneck."
"But we have bled them as well," Muzta said evenly.
"That at least was good. But here our great strength is like a long spear, with only the tip able to fight. We must get around them."
Muzta looked out across the river.
"Here is the only place we know to cross," Muzta said.
"Then we must find another. Tonight I will send the three Umens of Tula and the two of Zan northward. They will stay far back from the river, sending down only scouts to check until a place is found to cross."
Muzta looked to the western sky, where the light of the everlasting heavens hung low on the horizon. It had indeed been a long day.
"My Qarth."
Muzta looked up to see Argun, commander of the Olkta, sitting astride his blood-covered mount.
"We did all that we could," Argun said wearily. "These are not cattle that we face—they seemed possessed by demons from the underworld."
"Yet still we will feast upon them," Muzta said evenly.
He looked at Argun, wanting to ask, yet he could not.
The commander, however, knew, and his face contorted with pain, he shook his head.
"Garth, your youngest," he whispered, and then turned his mount away.
Muzta walked away from his staff, and even Qubata left him alone. Watching the setting of the sun, he could only pray that the most beloved of his sons would cross the sky without fear of demons to rest in the place of light; and the Qar Qarth of the Tugar horde cried alone.
"It's as you feared, Andrew," Hans said, shaking the rain from his poncho and then sitting down at the rough table which besides the cot and two chairs was the sole furniture in the staff tent.
"They've turned our right.
About thirty miles upstream.
The bastards found that upper ford. Our scouts stayed hidden, and counted at least ten thousand before pulling back."
"I wish we could have covered it," Andrew said grimly, "but if we had, our army would have been split. If they forced us here, the units farther up would have been cut off."
"Well, by the time they get down here it'll have bought us nearly five days' time, and that's what this was for."
"At a price of three hundred dead, and nearly seven hundred wounded. That's ten percent, Hans," Andrew replied grimly. "The 1st Suzdal Regiment is a skeleton."
"And we've got fifteen hundred more muskets and fifteen artillery pieces from the factory," Hans stated evenly. "It's worth the price."
"What time is it?" Andrew asked.
"Nearly midnight."
"If they force the road tonight they might be here on our flank by noon," Andrew said meditatively, looking at the rough map spread out on the table.
"All right, we'll break position here in two hours. We'll pull back five miles to here," and he pointed to a small field that was bordered on the north with open fields, to the west by the river, and to the east by heavy woods.
"Can we chance an open-field fight?" Hans asked cautiously.
"They won't be up to us for hours—we'll dig in through the village and put the artillery hub to hub. Hold them till nightfall, then pull back to the next village"—he looked at
the map for a moment—"to Tier. I want a message sent down to Kal to bring up several thousand workers and they'll dig positions there for us."
Hans stood up and then, as if against his better judgment, looked back at Andrew.
"You know that if they flank us down there, we'll lose everything?"
"We need time," Andrew said wearily. "I know the risk, but by heaven we need more time."
"Battalions, fire!"
Fifty guns, resting nearly hub to hub across a front of a hundred yards, fired in unison, sweeping the field, breaking yet another formation of Tugars before they had advanced fifty yards out of the distant woods.
Regrouping, the charge swarmed forward, the enemy shrieking and yelling.
"Load canister!"
"Smash 'em up, that's what I say," O'Donald shouted, looking at Andrew. "Smash 'em up. By God I haven't seen anything like this since we broke Pickett's charge!"
Sitting astride his mount, Andrew watched with field glasses raised. This was the fifth charge they'd broken in less than three hours. Only once had the Tugars got close enough to use their bows. From over by the river the
Ogunquit's
guns added their weight, sweeping the field at an oblique, adding yet more to the carnage.
The woods to the right were heavy with smoke as Tugars kept pushing farther and farther, trying to find his flank. One full division was in there already, a brigade of another moving in to form an angle.
Excitedly O'Donald looked up and down the line as, one after another, gun and battery commanders raised their hands to signal they were ready.
O'Donald put his fist up.
"Battalions, fire!"
A thousand iron balls swept downrange. Sickened, Andrew turned away as the advancing line simply disappeared. The charge faltered, and turning, the Tugars started to stream to the rear.
"Load solid shot!" O'Donald cried.
"Let them run," Andrew said quietly.
"Those man-eating bastards, we can still kill some more!" O'Donald shouted.
"They're brave warriors nevertheless. For heaven's sake, we broke them. Besides," Andrew added hurriedly, "we need to save our ammunition."
Looking to the west, Andrew was relieved to see that in another hour darkness would come. So far the Tugars had shown no desire for night action. He'd wait a couple of hours, disengage, and pull back to Tier to slow them again tomorrow.
Maddened with rage, Qubata rode across the corpse-strewn field. Five days they had been stopped at the ford. For five days more each day had been the same. In the morning the humans would be gone. Formations would be pulled in, scouts sent up, and then yet another village would be in their path, with heavy woods anchoring their right flank, and the river with its damn gunboat the left. At least we've learned what their wheeled weapons can do, he thought grimly. From four hundred paces away he had nearly been killed, the warrior next to him decapitated by a shot from one of their weapons. Charging straight in on them was madness.
Twice
Tula had been sent out in the afternoon to flank wide. Waiting through the night, he'd swept in at morning light only to find that the
enemy were
gone.
Whoever this human was, he was good, Qubata thought grimly. He wished that the man could be taken alive, for surely he would be a pet worth speaking to; perhaps he could even be trained to serve. If not alive, he hoped that at least he could eat of the man's brain and heart.
Qubata turned in his saddle and stared grimly at Alem.
"Shaman, I care not if the night spirits are pleased, displeased, or screaming with rage. I want this army moved tonight."
Alem shook his head grimly.
"Tugars do not ride or fight at night. It causes a curse."
"Then tell your prattle-spouting underlings that you've talked to the sky and they have given a pledge not to curse us."
The priest crossed his long shaggy arms and sat silent.
"Listen, shaman. You know and I know that your powers are a hoax. Old customs work when all observe them, for when Tugar fought Merki, or Uzba, or any of the tribes of the people, he wanted it done in the light,
so
all could see his prowess of arms.
"But we are fighting men who do not care for glory. I will not waste my warriors again like this," and he pointed to the hundreds of bodies that lay about, ghostlike beneath the pale glow of the twin moons overhead.