Haven: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Four (49 page)

“They're good,” the lieutenant said grimly, reining in at Errollyn's side. “Damn good. I lost five; I think we only got two.”

“Northern cavalry are feared even in Lenayin,” Errollyn agreed.

“They've got crossbows,” said a
talmaad
arriving at his side, steadying her horse. “Some of them. Not our range, and difficult to reload on a horse, but dangerous enough if we let them get close.”

“They take away our extreme range, and our close range,” Errollyn surmised. “They limit our options, and when they find themselves in our kill-zone they retreat. At this rate we're unlikely to kill very many of them before we run out of valley.”

His plan had been to draw them into a series of pursuits along the valley, which would in turn be ambushed by group after group of hidden
talmaad
who would appear in their midst, as the serrin behind the farmhouse had done, and shoot them down. Enoran and Rhodaani cavalry then complicated the picture, charging to close range to hold the Lenays in place, allowing
talmaad
cavalry to close in and pick off targets.

But the northerners weren't falling for it; they evaded the
talmaad
's preferred shooting range while manoeuvring easily around regular cavalry ambushes, and when they did come to blows in close, neither
talmaad
nor Steel cavalry could match them for sheer ability.

He needed to make a dent in their numbers, but even now he could see the main column of Lenay cavalry advancing behind, at no more than leisurely pace. Probably they would send out columns like these to chase and harass for a while, and spring
talmaad
ambushes before they could do any real damage, and then rotate those columns back into the main force while sending out fresh columns to replace them. They could do that all the way down the valley, and suffer very little. Errollyn thought he smelled Koenyg's planning in this.

“He thinks he knows how we fight,” he said grimly. “We'll have to show him something else.”

Sasha sat ahorse on a bluff overlooking the western mouth of the Dhemerhill Valley. Before her lay the Ipshaal River, wide and calm. Immediately beneath the bluff lay the small, human town of Hama. Saalshen allowed human occupation of towns in the western Dhemerhill and upon the Ipshaal banks here, to give Jahnd access to the river and trading routes to Enora. Typically it would be surrounded by small fields, trees, and farmhouses, but now it seemed an island before a sea of soldiers.

Sasha recalled the Battle of the Udalyn Valley, where the sight of so many soldiers had astonished her. Then she had fought with the Army of Lenayin at Shero Valley, and that had been many times the scale of anything she'd previously seen. Compared to what she saw before her now, Shero Valley looked like a skirmish. The army spilled in both directions along the Ipshaal bank, as far as she could see. Hills rose steeply on this bank, becoming low mountains to either side, and providing no passage to Jahnd. The only way in was the Dhemerhill Valley, and now more than one hundred thousand men were massing upon the bank to organise in advance of moving into the valley.

“They know it's a trap,” said Arken, seated at her side in full Ilduuri armour. “That is why they hesitate.”

“Traps can be smashed with brute force,” said Sasha. “They come at us from both ends of the valley, and it is we who are trapped in the middle. We must make them pay for every advance they make, and hope that their losses are so grave by the time they reach Jahnd that they cannot trap us within.”

“Perhaps they'll try to force open the valley without first capturing these heights.”

“I hope they're that stupid. But they'll know we have artillery up here, and a wall down the valley, and if they get stuck up against that, they'll be slaughtered. They have to capture the heights first, and no commander ever won a war by hoping his enemy would commit suicide.”

She looked across to the opposite side of the valley, wishing she could have artillery on those heights also. But the hillsides there rose steadily steeper and steeper, with no bluffs or flat ground on which to place even archers, let alone bullock-drawn catapults and ballistas on wheels. They had enough of that on this side of the valley that perhaps half of the valley floor could be covered, thanks to the extra range that height provided. It should be enough, as no commander could afford to cede half the battlespace to his enemy. But they had to hold these heights from attack.

“Look,” said an Ilduuri captain, pointing below. “Stars.”

Verenthane Stars, he meant. They were carried by horsemen in black robes, mounted atop long poles, galloping before the near rank of teeming soldiers. Men cheered as they passed.

“They think the gods are with them,” said Arken. Several officers muttered rude things in Ilduuri to hear that.

“Lenays think the gods and spirits want a good fight,” Sasha said loudly. “Today they're going to get one.” That met with loud approval.

She turned and considered her position. Her Ilduuris were back from the edge of the bluff, on the off-chance that the Regent really was stupid enough to attack down the valley without capturing these heights first. That, and she did not want him to see exactly who was up here. Ilduuri Steel had smaller shields and lighter armour than the Enoran or Rhodaani armies, and when arranged in a shield line, that difference would be visible from below. She did not mind showing herself and her officers, however. To imagine that the Regent might believe there was no one up here at all would be stretching credulity.

“Should I go?” asked Daish at her side, looking wide-eyed upon the Regent's army.

“Not yet,” said Sasha. “Wait until they attack, then we'll have something to tell Kessligh that he doesn't already know.” Kessligh supervised the defence from the eastern end of the valley. That concerned him most, as it was certain to be a cavalry attack that, if not stopped, could overrun their rear and end the defence of Jahnd before it had even begun. This western side, effectively, was Sasha's to command. Ilduuri were mountain soldiers, they held the heights, and so controlled the battle. Whatever happened here would not happen as fast as in the east, and so was safer to delegate to a junior commander. Yet even so, as Sasha considered the scale of what confronted her, the enormity of her responsibility felt like the weight of the world.

Aside from Daish, Sasha had Andreyis and Yasmyn for messengers. She and Kessligh were separated by the entire battlefield and some steep hills, and there were other commanders she would also need to communicate with. Even three might not be enough. All were good riders, knew her well, and knew battle well enough to not miscommunicate a message. She hoped.

“Here,” said Arken, indicating below. “Here they come.”

Formations were advancing toward the little town below, thousands of men. “So many different Bacosh forces,” Sasha observed. “The nobility speak Larosan, but the common folk don't. They won't communicate easily.”

“They're trying to find the lightest forces to assault these slopes,” said Arken. “If heavy steel were good for climbing, mountain goats would have shells.”

Men were now pouring into the town, disappearing beneath red-tiled roofs. More were following. And now others were heading off to the left, searching for other ways up. The Ilduuri had prepared this defence for days, and knew all such ways.

“That's not enough, you fools,” said an Ilduuri captain with a smile, watching the activity below. “You'll need more than that.”

“Let's hope it takes them a while and a lot of casualties to figure it out,” said Sasha. “Artillery Captain!”

“Commander!”

“Prepare your ballistas! Save the catapults for now!”

“Yes, General!”

Men emerged from the near side of the town, and began climbing the slope directly behind it. Some followed the path, but officers were directing others straight up through the trees, realising that the path would take far too long for them all to climb. They needed to come up in a swarm, and as the captain had observed, there were not yet nearly enough of them.

Yells went back and forth in Ilduuri, artillery spotters shouting back. They'd tested these ranges before also, and knew exactly the required elevations for each ballista and catapult to hit a specific patch of hillside. Ilduuri artillery soldiers had their own language for it, and while they used primarily ballistas and not catapults, they'd incorporated these borrowed Enoran and Rhodaani catapult teams into their ranks easily enough.

“Deploy the archers?” Arken wondered.

“Not yet,” said Sasha. “Let it take a little time for them to figure out just how many we are. The longer they take to realise the strength of our defence, the more men they waste.”

Sasha found herself thinking of Regent Balthaar. Balthaar thought they were only Enorans, Rhodaanis, and Lenays, plus
talmaad.
He did not count on Ilduuris too. Jahnd had a domestic militia, but those would serve as defence only and, if the Regent's forces surrounded Jahnd with their own artillery, would probably all perish without so much as swinging a blade in anger.

Balthaar would presume there to be
talmaad
in the valleys, supporting Enoran and Rhodaani Steel in their well-suited blocking formations. But to hold these heights as well, at both ends of the valley, would dilute the strength down in the valley. Right now, he would be wondering how the defenders could possibly find enough people to serve both purposes at once.

The Ilduuri Steel would be a shock to him. Possibly not a nasty shock, but a shock all the same. Was it possible that he could overreact, and send too many men up this hill? The rest of these men by the Ipshaal were very confined, between water on one side and steep hills on the other, stretched very wide and thin along the bank. If they were sending men by the thousand up the hillsides, and not preparing for a major thrust…

Sasha smiled. She knew just who to send to make that work. “Brother-in-law,” she murmured, “your size is great, yet your stance is weak. If we can reach the Ipshaal, we cut you in half.”

The artillery captain indicated to her that the ballistas were ready.

“Fire!” she yelled.

Koenyg was becoming alarmed at the lack of opposition in the Dhemerhill Valley when he saw the mass of horses charging from the trees ahead. Immediately captains were yelling, men deploying wide, others shouting to bring the rear ranks forward as fast as possible, all without the king having to utter a word. Koenyg tore clear his sword and steadied his snorting warhorse.

This time the serrin were coming all at once. He'd expected them to change tactics when their initial ambushes hadn't worked, but he hadn't expected it quite this soon. Forest made a break in the fields ahead on either side of the Dhemerhill River, but only the formation on this side of the river seemed to be under attack. They were racing now, leaping fences and weaving about obstacles, spreading to widen their line.

“Look to me!” Koenyg yelled, standing in his stirrups and holding his sword aloft. “Look to me, charge on my signal!”

He wanted to hit them head-on, so they had no time to fire. If he charged too soon, they might halt, gaining them an extra shot or more. If he charged too late, they'd get their extra shot anyway. The first serrin were approaching another fenceline, and he half expected them to stop short, but they leaped over without slowing, readying arrows on their bowstrings even now. Such horsemanship could only be admired.

“Now!” cried the king, and kicked his heels. The Lenay formation sprang forward, thousands strong, with a roar like an avalanche. The serrin fired, and halted, and for a moment the air was filled with zipping arrows. Men and horses fell left and right, and Koenyg covered with his shield, confident enough that at this range he might lose his horse, but nothing more. But his horse remained unscathed, and ahead the serrin were turning and running.

A poor predicament for him, given how the serrin loved to cut down those who chased by shooting behind them, but in the confusion of the turn, these serrin had misjudged their approach and turned too late. Koenyg's heart pounded with excitement as he saw how fast he and his men were closing. The horses of Northern Lenayin were swift, and the serrin struggled to get back up to speed after turning around. Koenyg urged his horse faster, grinning as he selected a target, unarmoured as all serrin were unarmoured, and too busy trying to gather speed to turn and fire his bow….

And suddenly the serrin were evading, gaps appearing in their formation as new horsemen came rushing through, a second rank of men in gleaming armour, and these men were not stopping. Steel cavalry, with lances lowered.

They hit with fatal power, bodies flying, lances snapping, and horses careening, and suddenly Koenyg's world was filled with racing enemies. He deflected a lance with his shield, yanked the reins to dodge another, then manoeuvred to slash at a third. He wheeled about to pursue the last of them, but now the serrin were firing into the backs of those exposed Lenays. Men were hit through the back as they turned, falling with screams and thuds as powerful arrows punched holes through armour. He needed his enemies around him and fast, for cover.

He tore back in amongst the Steel, lances dropped and now swinging with swords. He crashed in on one unawares, reeling him in the saddle with a blow. And then it was chaos, crashing swords and yells and jostling, shrieking horses. He hit another Rhodaani hard, took repeated blows to his own shield, then had a kill robbed from him by a Banneryd warrior he did not recognise. The Steel men fought with skill and bravery, yet there were little tricks of horsemanship in such close quarters that Lenays seemed to know that these men did not.

Koenyg gave one man a jostle at just the right moment, upsetting his balance right before a swing, then thumped him with his shield. The man grabbed for his reins to rebalance, and Koenyg killed him with a downswing before he could recover. He manoeuvred in tight space toward a new target, but that man died before he could reach him, the Ranash warrior responsible joining his king's side to hunt for more.