Battledragon (45 page)

The time had come for a decisive blow. General Baxander sent a message to Count Felk-Habren requesting that the Czardhans press home their famous charge and break the Kraheen mass apart.

Czardhan bugles began to blow. In their full magnificent panoply the knights moved out, each a tower of steel atop his warhorse. Their lances glittered above their heads. Baxander's battle plan was unfolding exactly as hoped for.

The sense of expected victory was rising high in the legions. Dragonboys whooped at the sight of the charging knights going away. The Kraheen were running.

And then mere was a distant boom, and the ground shook slightly. A curious sound, very loud, but far away. Then there came a second boom, exactly like the first. Again the ground shook a little. More of these distant bursts followed, and then there came a sudden, louder, heavier noise, as if several of the things had spoken at once.

"Look," cried Endi, pointing way up the slope ahead of them. Columns of smoke were rising from the ground, dark and ominous. Relkin glimpsed something black and solid hurtling through the air high above.

"Up there!" shouted Swane.

A moment later something struck the ground in the midst of the retreating Kraheen host, about fifty yards from where Relkin stood. There was a loud crash, a thud, and a collective shriek from the Kraheen. Relkin saw men, both whole and in parts, go flying up in the air.

A moment later there was a second impact directly ahead. Relkin saw something dark and round skip toward him at terrible speed. Instinctively he ducked and felt the wind of its passage above him.

There were screams all around him, and the ground shook and heaved as several huge projectiles struck the battlefield at once. Great polished balls of stone smashed on the rock-strewn field, some shattering into a thousand knife-edged shards that slew everything around themselves. Others bounced and hurtled through the packed masses of Kraheen and the legions. One passed straight through the charging Czardhans and brought down thirty knights in a moment.

Then it was over. The crashing ceased. All that remained were the screams of the wounded and the crying of the panicked. Relkin saw horror all around him. Poor Finwey, a big brasshide from Marneri, was down. Dragonboy Axis was screaming his dragon's name and frantically undoing the buckles on the joboquin. Relkin could see the blood under the great body. Finwey would not move again.

His eye caught on the upper half of little Roos's body almost underfoot. The sight did not register for a moment since he was still looking at his own dragon, who seemed perfectly untouched, but bewildered.

"What is happening?" bellowed Baz.

Relkin couldn't respond because he was too busy staring in horror at the torn torso of little Roos. His gorge rose. He almost stumbled and fell. Roos's dragon, big Oxard, gave a harsh hiss of dismay. Relkin turned away, sought comfort in his own dragon's survival.

The legion advance wavered, the front dented, and casualties struck right through the columns behind. The Czardhans kept going, however, ignoring their losses, plunging on into the Kraheen mass, who fled in utter rout.

"What was that?" shouted Swane in Relkin's ear. Relkin shrugged in hopeless ignorance.

And then there came another distant boom, followed by another and then more in a solid ground-shaking crash. Fresh fingers of cloud loomed above the retreating Kraheen, and a moment later the ground jumped and shattered as a dozen great solid stone shot slammed home and ricocheted through the legion formations.

Little Shutz was smashed to a pulp in front of them by something that hummed through the air. Big Oxard, still holding poor little Roos, was felled by a piece of stone that slammed into his breastplate at chest height with tremendous violence. The Purple Green was almost knocked senseless by a similar piece of stone.

Dragon leader Wiliger lost the little finger on his left hand, plucked from his hand by yet another speeding fragment that he never saw.

The legion advance was stalled. Lanes had been cut through the ranks. Men knelt by the bodies of their friends, stunned by the suddenness of their deaths. It was inexplicable and therefore more frightening than any of the known hazards of the battlefield. Disbelief and horror filled the air along with the cries of the wounded.

Another round of booms sounded far ahead. Once more the clouds of smoke rose. Men looked up, eyes searching for some sign of this weapon of the enemy. Then came the carnage as the enormous stone shot smashed and splattered its way through the legion ranks. A moan went up from the Argonathi. In that cry of grief was the fear that the world had changed in some inexplicable way and the rules of warfare by which they had trained all their lives had been torn up. Disaster rode high in the sky, borne up on the dark clouds of smoke jetting from the hilltop.

Fighting off panic, Lessis rode up to General Baxander. This was the weapon she had been warned of. This was the end of the world. Worse, they were too late! And they could not defeat it with their usual tactics.

She found Baxander in the act of giving orders for a renewal of the attack, only now the legions were to speed things up. It was necessary to close up with the mysterious sources of the deadly fire that was falling upon them.

Lessis tried to convince him to change his mind. General Steenhur rode up. Both generals insisted that they had to press the attack and capture the enemy weapons now that they had shown themselves. Lessis despaired. She struggled inwardly against the prohibition on the use of magic to influence the military. She and Ribela had broken the prohibition during the battle of Arneis, but they had been sworn before the emperor not to do it again. Yet she was sure that to renew the attack was a recipe for further disaster, and the only way to stop it was to resort to magic.

The ground shook to a fresh fusillade. A moment later there were screams all around them. Then General Baxander and his horse were destroyed when something struck the ground ten feet ahead and flew through their position. The horse spun over, smashed, fountaining blood. Baxander flew away, turning like a broken doll and landing in a loose heap. Lessis knew instantly that he was dead.

Steenhur was sitting his horse, blinking. His eyes were wide, and there were tears coursing down his cheeks.

"What is happening?" he cried. "What are they?"

"Explosive devices, General, that throw a heavy weight a great distance at tremendous speed. We have to destroy them."

Steenhur closed his mouth and snapped back together. "You are correct. We must attack."

"No, General, I think that would be a mistake. We must get our forces away from this field and regroup."

But Steenhur was no longer listening. He was talking to his aides. Others investigated poor Baxander's remains.

"He was a damned good man," Steenhur said bitterly.

"The best, sir!" said someone with great emotion. All of Baxander's staff had tears in their eyes. They had worked miracles together these last few months. They had expected, somehow, to continue.

"You can see the enemy weapons now, sir," said one young staffer holding out a telescope. "Appear to be long tubes, resting on heavy wheeled carriages. There are a great many men standing around them."

"Explosive catapults of some kind, I think, sir," said Major Romer.

"We have to smash them."

"Yes, sir."

"Let's do it for old Bax!"

"Yes, sir!"

Lessis was ignored. The cornets blew moments later.

"What are the Czardhans up to?"

"They are still advancing, sir, but their horses have slowed on the upper slope."

"We were right to worry about their condition. Those big horses were not ready for this. Have we contact with the rest of the cavalry?"

"We have had word within the minute. They engage the enemy's horse, things are about even. Our advance will be covered on the left flank. No attack is expected from the right."

The booms of the enemy weapons came again. Smoke rose in towers from the curve of the low hillside. Moments later the ground around them shuddered, and the ranks were thinned once more. Two dragons in the Bea 34th were killed.

Lessis pushed her horse close to Steenhur.

"General, may I say something?" He blinked. She rushed on. "If you order the men to lie down, they will present less of a target."

Steenhur looked at her blankly.

"If they lie down, Lady, they will not be able to attack. We must attack. We must destroy these weapons."

In vain did Lessis plead with him. The cornets blew once more and shortly the legions moved forward.

On up that deadly slope they continued. Far ahead they could still glimpse the Czardhan knights, pennons fluttering as they rode slowly toward the even more distant enemy weapons. At this distance, almost a mile, the knights formed a dense mass, seeming to slide slightly rightward as they went like some dark creature with a thousand legs and spikes along its back.

While they pushed their exhausted mounts onward, the enemy manning the great tubes was frantically at work, shifting them around, knocking out wedges to lower their snouts until they were aimed directly at the oncoming Czardhans. Then they were loaded with the blasting powder charges as usual, but instead of the great balls of smooth stone, the men were ordered to pack the tubes with jagged shards of iron and slag from the piles placed nearby.

To the oncoming legions there was a welcome respite from the invisible projectiles that had done such deadly work. They moved at a steady trot up the slope, their lines tight and well formed. Indeed, they were moving considerably more quickly now than the Czardhans, who were still pushing their desperately tired mounts, but who could get little more than a walk out of them.

To Relkin and many others in the legion attack this was a timeless, soundless moment. Their hearts had been numbed by the loss of so many comrades. That numbness would change to rage in time, but for now they marched in virtual silence. Apart from the rattle of the snare drums, there was just the clank of metal equipment and the creak of leather to interrupt the hush.

Abruptly the quiet was broken by a near simultaneous volley from the great tubes. A wedge-shaped cloud of smoke arose, and the Czardhan pennons fell in a clutter. The distant mass of knights was virtually gone. A mere handful remained.

General Steenhur put down the glass with a groan. "It is too bad, too terribly bad."

"They have been annihilated, sir."

Steenhur slapped the spyglass into his palm. His mouth tightened to a line.

"We go on, sound the cornet, tell the drummers to raise the tempo."

And on they went, striding toward the ridgeline while the enemy worked furiously to shift the great tubes again and reload them with powder, wadding, and tons of scrap metal and slag. Once more there was nothing but the snare drums beating out the tempo to break the hush of the morning.

Lessis found Lagdalen riding beside her on a cavalry horse. The girl held out a canteen. Lessis took a swig to clean the dust from her throat. She had a sense of impending disaster.

"What is it, Lady? What do they do that kills like this?"

The nightmare was plain to see in the fear that filled young Lagdalen's face. It seemed a great magic to her, one filled with an awesome power.

"Think of a catapult fired with an explosive powder rather than by twisting ropes. It is a terribly simple device, once you have mastered the key skills required for making it."

"They say that the Czardhans have been destroyed? Can this be true?"

"Alas, 'tis all but true. They are retreating now, too few to press home their attack."

And Steenhur was impervious to her pleas that he call off the assault. The rest of the army was marching into the same inferno.

When she looked along the marching lines of men, she had to wonder if even magic would stop them. There was a spirit there that would refuse orders to stop now. There was nothing to be done but to ride behind them, her heart in her mouth, as they marched into the gates of hell.

They met the Czardhan remnants tottering back on completely exhausted mounts, a few handfuls of men, some openly weeping, some walking, others borne limp over the backs of their mounts.

Ahead lay a bright carpet of the flower of Czardhan chivalry, a patchwork of steel armor, horseflesh, and blue and yellow silk tied together with threads of scarlet.

The legions passed over this carnage, ignoring the cries of terribly wounded men, grimly setting their sights on the line of dark-mouthed tubes two hundred yards ahead. The crowd of men around the tubes were very active.

And now flowing forward from hidden positions behind the tubes came an army of imps stiffened with fifty trolls. At the sight of more traditional enemies the legions gave voice with a defiant shout. The cornets sounded, the drums thundered, and they pushed on for the final assault, returning to a full trot, readying weapons for the moment of contact.

But before the two sides could meet, the ground trembled once more and the great dark mouths spoke again in a vast cloud of smoke and vented forth a hailstorm of iron and slag right into the oncoming legions. The army of the Empire of the Rose staggered, a moan went up, and thousands fell, cut to ribbons.

The survivors broke into a run, and with a shout of "Argonath" they crashed into the imps and trolls.

At last they were at grips with an enemy they could understand. A ferocious battle of sword and spear and arrow took place. The legions unloaded a tremendous charge of hate that had built up during the earlier slaughter at long range. The imps and the evil men who commanded them were battered, cut up, and slain in droves. Dragons pitched into the trolls, and though the trolls fought well, the dragons fought magnificently and in the matter of fifteen minutes had destroyed most of them.

The tide had turned, but the enemy was still engaged, the struggle pressed back virtually to the mouths of the tubes in dense clumps and knots of struggling figures, and now the legionaries were attacking the men who served the new weapons.