Doom's Break (46 page)

He found the train of catapults, nine of them, stuck on the trail, abandoned by their operators when attacked by the cavalry. Thru ordered the weapons pulled off the trail, spun around, and made ready. The principles of the weapons were plain, and though they were clumsier than the practiced crews, Thru's mots soon loaded the catapults and began firing the huge spears.

At this range, just a couple of hundred yards, the spears were fearsome. They flashed across the gap and sank into the massed enemy. Shields and armor were of little use. The sheer power of the impact was enough to kill anyone they struck.

At each volley Thru's army gave a cheer.

To counter them, the pyluk horde was driven forward, urged by the power of sorcery and the terrible will of he who wielded it. The lizard-men struck at the right side of the line and bent it back under intense pressure.

The enemy horsemen charged once again, reformed into a solid mass, eighty long and ten deep.

"Prepare to receive the horsemen!" went up the cry all along the center of the line.

Thru turned to the Grys Norvory, panting as he regained his breath. He had lost his helmet and was holding a Shasht shield.

"Grys, can you find a hundred mots?"

Norvory looked down the left side and then sprang away.

Thru turned back to the front. The catapults fired another volley, and their spears slammed into the onrushing ranks of the cavalry. Saddles emptied and horses rolled upon the ground.

Along the line, those few who still held pikes grounded them, the points ready to impale the horses. Others hefted spears and swords, determined not to break and flee. The Blitzers formed up in trios, as they'd been trained.

The horsemen drove in at Thru's thin line. There was a shock. In several places the overmatched mots went down, and the horsemen thundered through.

The fighting became a general melee, and all cohesion was lost except on the right where Norvory's regiment was still holding off five times their number of pyluk.

All seemed lost. The chaotic battle spilled back across the field hospital, trampling the rest of the tents into the ground, smashing equipment and supplies into the mud. Back past the catapults they went, and some took up the catapult spears to use as pikes.

Thru, wielding his sword and holding Toshak's banner with the other hand, fought his way back to a low mound at the southern end of the camp. He killed a man who came at him with spear leveled. Men with swords followed. His blade rang against the first as the others closed in. In the nick of time, he was saved by Rukkh and a handful of his Blitzers. Swords rose and fell until the enemy backed down.

"Pity your lot don't know how to defend against the sodomistic horsemen."

Thru didn't understand all of this, but he got the gist. "Hold on, Sergeant, we're not done yet."

Grys Norvory came swinging up from the left side with almost two hundred mots behind him. They plowed into the battle and drove in deep. Horses went down screaming. Others galloped headlong into the rear.

Once again, the enemy assault had been stemmed. But Thru's force was in tatters. There was no line, just a mob of mots, many of them wounded, standing around the little mound on which Toshak's banner flew.

The enemy closed around them, ten regiments of men plus the sullen mass of pyluk. Off to the north, separated by two hundred yards or more, Aeswiren's army was attacking the enemy on its front and flank, but they had yet to break through. The fate of the battered mot force seemed sealed.

Thru and the Grys Norvory, with the help of Sergeant Rukkh and the other Blitzers, worked hard to get the mots formed into three lines, set out in front of the mound with the flanks bowed back on either side. The mots responded slowly, too worn out to think clearly. Nonetheless, the lines began to form, and the flankers took up positions.

This would be the last stand. Thru knew it, and so did everyone else.

A vast clap of thunder burst suddenly from the clear blue sky.

They all looked up in wonder.

The enemy stood back; even the archers ceased firing. A strange quiet fell over the southern sector of the battlefield, although they could hear the din where Aeswiren was trying to break through to their aid.

And then, shouldering through the throng of pyluk, came another figure, huge, black-mantled, upon a horse of equal might. A shadow surrounded him, even in the sunlight. Upon his head he wore a helmet chased with gold, and under his mantle gleamed steel on every limb.

Every eye of the enemy host was on him.

Thru sensed this being's true identity. He had stood in the presence of this dire majesty once before. Anger lit in Thru's stubborn soul, and, without another thought, he stepped off the mound and pushed past Rukkh and the others to stand in front of his line.

The huge horseman loomed over him like a dark thundercloud about to spit lightning. Thru did not waver. Looking up, with his hands on his hips, he spoke in as loud a voice as he could muster.

"Who are you, and by what right are you here?"

There was a collective gasp of surprise in the enemy ranks at this audacity. Thru took no notice.

"This is not your land. We are not your people. Why do you do us these great wrongs?"

The towering man looked down at him with cruel eyes. Thru felt a slow mounting pressure on his mind. The huge man sought to compel him to fall on his knees and beg for mercy. The pressure intensified.

Thru shrugged as if dislodging a fly. Then he looked up into the face of his great enemy and sang his defiance:

"Who'd be a jolly beekeeper
And always suffer stings..."

The rider snarled a sudden curse, drew his sword, and raised it high.

"Silence, animal! Your time is over. Extermination awaits you and all your kind. The world is now to be mine."

From the sword came a great flash of red light. The pyluk roared en masse. The enemy forces began to beat their swords and spears against their shields. The drums began to boom.

"Prepare to meet thy doom!" roared the Old One, and every spirit on the line quailed as death rose above them like a great, unstoppable wave.

And yet the wave never fell. At that crucial moment, another sound cut across the battlefield: the scream of trumpets and with it the battle cry of Sulmo. Sulmo was come at last!

Thru and the rest of his battered little army looked south in wonder and were rewarded with the sight of banners streaming forward through the trees. Four thousand fresh troops, landed at Warkeen village that same morning, came driving forward in two brigades.

As they went, they sang out their war cry. The mots of Dronned cheered them on and raised their banners high.

The Sulmese columns struck the enemy on either end of his line. On the left, the Old One's men defended stoutly and gave ground bitterly and slowly. But on the right, the mots slammed into the pyluk, and the lizard-men collapsed. They were fought out; no matter how great the sorcery that gripped them, they could not stand against this fresh assault.

The pyluk broke and ran, or died where they stood. The mots cut through the enemy's host and broke into the rear. The horsemen were caught in the process of reforming and were routed. Now the entire force facing the mots began to crack apart. Only the Old One's infantry, formed in a square, remained intact, retreating slowly and steadily while the Sulmese lapped around it.

The battered but unbeaten army of Dronned now jumped forward with a glad shout to support the Sulmese.

Thru was still standing there, amazed, barely able to cheer, when a tall figure strode up and slapped him on the back. It was a brilby with a battered face in the uniform of Royal Sulmo.

"Ter-Saab!"

"At your service, General Gillo."

Right behind Ter-Saab was Janbur of the Gsekk, his sword in hand and bloodied.

"Janbur, old friend. You came in time!"

"We had to get past the enemy's watch. Could only manage to land the troops this morning."

"Juf!"

And there was the ruined face of old Juf Goost.

"Not too late for us to get in a blow for the Land!"

Thru had no words left. He could only embrace his old companions and weep tears of gratitude.

The battle was not ended, though. The Old One on his mighty steed had withdrawn at the first cry of the trumpets of Sulmo, but his infantry had not broken. The horsemen were scattered, but they would soon reform. The allies had halted the Old One's killing stroke, but they had not yet forged a victory.

As soon as word reached Aeswiren of the arrival of Sulmo, he called on his men to make one last supreme effort. With the cry "Aeswiren!" on their lips, they surged forward and pressed hard on the enemy along their own front. The enemy wavered, their will to fight shaken by the change of fortune. In the center they cracked, on the left they gave ground, and on the right, suddenly flanked by parties of Sulmese mots, they broke altogether and streamed back across Blue Hill until they were among the horsemen. In vain did their commanders ride among them, calling on them to halt.

With the collapse on the right side, the rest tried to form a square to resist, but Aeswiren's men were ready for that maneuver and lapped around the enemy too quickly. Surrounded, companies, even whole regiments, threw down their arms and surrendered. Others, isolated from the main mass, simply fled.

Ter-Saab's columns kept up their pressure on the remaining infantry, and the collapse of the force facing Aeswiren disrupted the cavalry. Before they could reform, Aeswiren's vanguard arrived to harry them and press them hard. As a result, the horsemen never regained the initiative and instead were driven off the hill.

On the northern end of Blue Hill, where Toshak and Aeswiren had set their line the previous day, the fight teetered briefly. More and more mots came up to join in, and soon they outflanked the enemy on the right and the position collapsed once more.

This time there was no chance of a stand. The enemy broke and fled downhill. The infantry streamed in panic for the bridge, and the mots of Sulmo and Dronned pursued them with sword and spear.

At the bridge, the fugitives jammed together, panicked, and there was great slaughter made of them. Elsewhere, fleeing men abandoned their weapons and armor and swam for it. The river was high and many drowned or were swept out to sea.

Avoiding this ruin, the enemy horsemen withdrew in companies inland. They outpaced the pursuit, but alone, without support, they could offer no real threat.

As for the pyluk, their horde had shattered entirely. The survivors, barely a third of those that had marched down from the mountains, were heading eastward in small groups as quickly as they dared. The magic that had gripped them was broken. They would play no further part in the deadly affairs of other races.

The mots held the bridge and all the southern side of the river. The surviving regiments of the Old One's host were a huddled mass of fugitives on the northern bank, waiting for the boats.

When Thru reached the scene by the bridge, Ter-Saab had already made an end to the killing. His regiments were massing on the northern shore, prepared to finish the job if necessary.

The boats were at work, but there were too many men waiting on the strand. It would be hours before they were all taken off.

Thru cast about for a messenger. Simona was with the Emperor. Finally he located Sergeant Rukkh, who had stayed in the vanguard all the way to the bridge with his cadre of Blitzers.

"Sergeant, will you take a message to whoever is in command of those men?"

"Yes, sir."

Rukkh went away with an escort of six other Blitzers. He was back within half an hour.

"They agree to the terms, sir. They will lay down their arms if you will spare their lives."

"And their leader?"

"He is not among them, sir. Some claim he was lost in the fighting. Perhaps he is already dead."

And so the battle of Shelly Fields came to an end. Across the Land, the word was sent out by pigeon and fire beacon and tireless messengers running the roads from Nurrum to Sulmo and from Creton to Ajutan. The Land was saved. General Toshak was dead. The war was over.

The command of the enemy fleet faced a strange predicament. Most of the troops they had landed had been captured or killed. The horsemen had retreated inland and were out of contact. The Old One had vanished. Emperor Aeswiren commanded the victorious allied army in conjunction with the natives. To surrender to the Emperor seemed the logical choice, but to the Gold Tops this was anathema. The fleet was in the grip of several thousand fanatical Red Tops. The sailors wished to surrender, but the Red Tops refused. Fighting broke out within an hour of the surrender ashore. Ship by ship across the fleet, sailors and soldiers rose up against the hated Red Tops and put them to the sword.

The fighting in the fleet was still going on when Thru and a small party returned across Blue Hill to find Aeswiren's command post. The Emperor was lucid, and Mentu was with him. Seeing both brothers together brought a strange joy to Thru's heart.

Simona came running up to embrace him. She was weeping tears of gladness. "It is over, Thru. We have beaten him. Everything will change now. The Emperor has said so."

"Then I am sure it is so. Most of the enemy foot soldiers have surrendered. The horsemen are still at large, but on their own they can do little harm. They will have to surrender, too. The ships are a scene of conflict right now. We think the priests are losing and that the fleet also will wish to negotiate a surrender."

"It is over, General Gillo!" said Aeswiren from his litter.

Simona stepped back. Thru turned to find Nuza with a bandage wrapped around the top of her head.

Thru swept her up in his arms. "You're alive! I was so afraid when I heard that the pyluk had broken through."

"Oh, my Thru, we have come through a great shadow, but we have survived the darkness."

There was still much to be done, however. The prisoners, more than eleven thousand strong, had to be corralled and fed. The dead had to be buried, and the wounded had to be collected and brought in for care.