Samual (52 page)

Sam vaulted onto Tyla's back and with a kick to her side, galloped madly toward the cavern entrance where he could see a dozen or more soldiers already being overrun by the steel vermin, which were coming out of the entrance like a river. A silvery steel river of death and glowing red eyes. As quick as he was – and it was only luck that he'd been anywhere close to the entrance himself – Sam was too slow as he saw the elves ahead of him start running for their lives.

They weren't nearly fast enough, and the rats were on them in moments, tearing into their flesh, even while he was still the best part of a hundred yards away. But the battle wasn't one sided, entirely. Two dozen or more rats had been taken out by the elven arrows even as they attacked, and at close range they were effective too. The elven swords had been swapped for heavier blades, and he could see more explosions as they took a heavy toll on the steel vermin.

An instant later Sam was upon the rats, riding straight into their midst no matter the recklessness of the attack, and, raising his battle axe high above his head, he released the magic held within it in a blinding ball of fire and lightning. He hoped and prayed that the elves that still lived were far enough back that the spell wouldn't hit them, but he knew he had no choice. Just as he knew if he didn't use the enchantment they would be dead soon enough anyway as the rats overran them.

The result was everything he'd hoped for as fifty or a hundred of the rats simply exploded even as they charged down the sentries, giving them enough time and room to make a better stand. A score or more of them were down, probably dead, but perhaps another dozen were on their feet and running for safety. Meanwhile others were forming a line as they raised their long bows. And with the closest rats destroyed Sam knew that that was his chance to retreat with the others. To fall back behind the line. He took advantage of it. What he had done had simply been too reckless, and Tyla could have been killed.

With the first wave down, the soldiers were able to switch once more to long bows; always an elf's truest weapon. Another two dozen fell to their arrows even as Sam joined them on the line and switched from battle axe to greatsword. Then he unleashed his favourite fire scythe spell.

The rats had no chance. Attacking them in a column formation, the shape dictated by the fact that they had just emerged from a long narrow tunnel, Sam was for a while, able to destroy them all. The narrow beam of fire that shone from his sword cut directly into them, and destroyed them all the way back to the tunnel entrance, and even inside it. But soon he knew, the sword's magic would be used up, and he didn't have another shape ready. With only a hundred yards between the tunnel entrance and their position there wasn't a lot of time to prepare one. It might however, be enough time to hold off the attack while his brothers in arms formed into a proper line and more soldiers arrived.

“Fall back and line up! Defensive lines!” He bellowed the command even as he used the sword and simply hoped the men obeyed him.

For what was surely the longest few dozen heartbeats of his life, Sam sat there astride Tyla, and kept playing his sword's scythe spell back down the column of rats that were still trying to emerge from the tunnel entrance, and held the rats on his own. And all the time he was waiting for one of the rats to leap on him and tear him to pieces. But though he didn't dare turn his head to look, he heard the sound of feet disappearing behind him, hopefully to do as he wanted, and that was everything. He doubted though that they'd have time to fall back as far as they should. Two hundred paces would have been best considering the range of the long bows, but there was no chance of that. For the moment the continuing explosion that was the tunnel mouth told him the rats were dying by the score had to be enough. For a while. Still, every pace they made was a victory as far as he was concerned.

Finally the sword ran out of magic as he'd known it had to, and he had barely enough of his own drawn by then to manage a good chained fire shape or two. There just hadn't been enough time to prepare. Again!

Sheathing the greatsword, Sam watched the rats start emerging once more from the tunnel mouth, and he knew that while perhaps hundreds had already died, it was nothing compared to the thousands behind them. Numbers were always the enemy's greatest strength.

Knowing he had to be as effective as possible with his magic, he let the head of the rats approach to within fifty yards of him and Tyla. In fact they felt so close that even the horse had the good sense to be nervous as she saw the column of silver and steel running straight for them. Then he released his first shape of chained fire, and watched with infinite relief as all the rats coming toward him died as a unit. A column perhaps fifty yards long and over five rats wide suddenly turned into a glorious river of exploding fire in front of him, and he thanked the elders for having made him study that particular shape day in and day out. Not only did it not require the same amount of effort to hold and shape it, but it was far quicker to use than the fire ring, and time was critical. Even as he watched the first river of fire dying down, and saw the sea of glowing red eyes behind it trying to run over their fallen comrades, he could feel enough magic roaring within him for a second blast. It was a good feeling.

He felt even better a dozen heartbeats later when he heard the sounds of hoof beats somewhere behind him, and knew the battle was being joined.

“Archers, take positions!”

Sam didn't know whose voice it was that shouted out – he was too busy releasing his second chained fire shape – but when he heard the call he knew that it was his turn to retreat. A heartbeat later he had wheeled Tyla around and was galloping madly back for the lines, where at least a hundred elves were already in position.

The first volley of arrows flew past his head just as he reached them. Fifty or a hundred arrows flew and he guessed as many rats had just burst into flames. The elves didn't miss.

By the time he'd once more reined in Tyla and returned to the line, all he could see of the rats was a burning column of steel, a hundred yards long. He had no idea how many of them had been destroyed, but he knew it was a lot. But still more were coming. He didn't know how many, but as he watched ever more rats pour out of the cavern mouth, he feared it would be far more than they'd expected.

Still, it was not a soldier's place to surrender to fear. And as he took his place on the line with the others and drew his magic to him, he promised them all silently that he would not. No matter what happened, no matter the odds, he would fight.

For a little while he didn't have to. Though the rats kept coming, a river of steel and glowing red eyes, the soldiers were up to the challenge. And so the numbers of dead rats kept growing while the column of rats bursting from the cavern scarcely grew any larger. And all the while he was drawing his fire to him.

The air was chilling all around, the fires from the torches were dimming, and the sky above and the ground below were growing cold. He tried to draw more from above and below, shielding the elves from his magic, but still he knew they must be cold. Yet it was the only way he could fight – and sooner or later he knew they would run out of arrows.

Then he heard the sounds of hoof beats assembling all around him, and watched out of the corner of his eyes as more elves took up their positions. They were being joined by more and more elves as they came from across the valley floor to join the fight and he praised the All Father for that mercy.

Soon they were hundreds strong. Surely two hundred stood on either side of him and another hundred were astride their horses. And as the commanders started shouting instructions they formed up into formation, ready to take on the rats. A giant semicircle with himself in its middle, and the tunnel mouth at the centre.

It was just as well. The rats were coming faster by then. Instead of a column five or six wide they were a dozen at least running at them side by side, and they were moving even faster. The river was fast becoming a torrent.

Still they came and still they died. And though every so often as the column of rats emerging from the cavern mouth grew longer, he loosed a good hot fire ball at them. One that would not just destroy them but send the pieces of their steel corpses flying high into the night sky. And each time they did he heard cheering from all around.

In time they found a rhythm. The archers on his right would loose a volley. Then when more rats emerged he would send a spell of chained fire screaming down their middle. Next the archers on his left would take their turn. And all the while more soldiers and more supplies, mainly quivers of arrows, would be brought to them.

It was a good system. It gave them all a chance to rest between attacks and conserved arrows. But as the rats kept coming and coming Sam kept wondering when they would run out. By then he was sure that several thousand had to have been destroyed. The land all around for hundreds of yards was littered with burning steel corpses. In places they were starting to form piles. And yet they kept coming.

Still, as long as they kept being destroyed.

And so the battle went on for what seemed like ages. The sun, long since set, finally let the last of its light leave the land and the sky grew completely dark around them. But another mage had an answer for that – a vast orb of shimmering silver appearing in the sky above, giving the archers all the light they needed to keep sending the rats to a fiery death. Meanwhile step by step the elves fell back as a unit, making the semicircle ever larger and allowing more archers to stand with them. Soon they were thousands strong, and for maybe the first time ever, the machina were outnumbered as they burst from the tunnel mouth. It gave the men more time to pick their targets and loose their arrows. And it turned what had been a panicked retreat into an attacking formation.

Not to be outdone, the masters of earth magic soon arrived to stand beside Sam and the archers with a plan of their own. One as deadly as any he could ever have asked for. As the soldiers fell back, they turned the good earth where they'd just been into liquid, in effect creating a giant, unseen trench fifty yards deep, which, if and when they decided to let the rats advance fully out of the tunnel, they would fall into, never to be seen again. All that was needed was the command. It was the same shape he'd used when the elders had tested him, and that others had used before him. And he guessed that it was a shape that would become more common as the war against the machina progressed. Who said that earth magic couldn't make a useful weapon!

Meanwhile above his head Sam could feel the gentle wind that marked the very edge of a gigantic tornado hovering high above them, as the weather mages made ready. No doubt they would hold off for a while, since their magic was likely to be as dangerous to anyone caught in it as to the enemy, but if and when the time came Sam knew they too would be used.

Over the next half hour or so, though it seemed longer to Sam, what had been a desperate defence and holding of the line against the enemy, became an organised campaign. The war masters somewhere behind them began sending their messengers along the lines, coordinating the attack so that the most damage was dealt to the steel rats for the least effort. At the same time the rats began to pay a heavy price for their attack. Where initially they had been destroyed in their scores, in time that became in their hundreds and even thousands. In fact so many were being destroyed that their still burning steel remnants were forming a gigantic hill over which their fellow rats had to climb to get to the elves.

But at the same time, while Sam was feeling good about their success, he was also starting to worry about the sheer numbers of rats that kept emerging from the underground entrance. They didn't seem to be slowing down. They had thought that there would only be a few thousand underground. But he was starting to think that that was yet another miscalculation. Just how many were there?

“Fog in five! Fall back twenty paces on the horn when it arrives.”

A messenger screamed it at them even as he galloped by on his horse. His words could barely be heard over the constant thunder that was the death of so many rats, but for everyone who heard him it was a major morale boost as they knew what was coming. It was time to see just how effective the earth mage's trench could be.

Exactly as promised, a little while later a fog began to descend on the rats, and Sam like every other soldier there began to feel a trace of excitement as they waited for the horn. This could be the decisive moment in the battle! The killer blow that would decimate the enemy and give them a chance to rest. Or, though he didn't want to imagine it, the rats could finally come in such numbers that they would completely fill the trench and the rest would then come running over the bodies of the fallen.