Torn By War: 4 (The Death Wizard Chronicles) (34 page)

“First row, fall back!” Torg heard Captain Julich shouting.

Bhojja responded without prompting, tearing through the enemy until she and Torg again were in the open. The first row, less a score of fallen riders, spun around and rushed through the ranks all the way to the back, except for Torg, Laylah, Rajinii, Ugga, Elu, Julich, and Manta, who halted at the sixth row, the next of the armored riders.

Now in the front, four files of mounted archers, twelve squadrons in all, prepared to enter the fray, with Bard anchoring the middle of the lead row. Even before the armored horsemen were clear, the archers, arranged in pairs, scraped the pitched-coated heads of their arrows together, causing them to flare and catch fire. As one, they drew back their bowstrings to their chins and then loosed thirty-six hundred flaming arrows into the sky. The shafts blazed in the firmament like a flock of tiny dragons before hissing downward upon the leading edge of the druid army. In rapid fashion each archer loosed five more arrows, so that more than twenty thousand fell among the stunned enemy, causing it to briefly halt its forward momentum.

“Fall back!” shouted a master bowman. In unison the four rows of mounted archers retreated to the rear. Row six came next: seven hundred armored horsemen and two hundred Tugars again led by Torg, Rajinii, Laylah, and Ugga.

The leading edge of the druid army was in disarray. Thousands bore wounds. The armored horsemen waded into the chaos, finishing off those most seriously inflicted. For Torg, especially, it was easy pickings, and he and Bhojja again wandered farther than the others, slaying any that came within reach. But during the second wave, Torg noticed something disturbing. Interspersed among the ordinary druids were hundreds of larger and stronger ones, and none of these appeared to have been punctured. Were their hides impenetrable? Torg rode one down and hacked at it with the Silver Sword. Its insect-like head fell away, gushing hot green blood, but the supernal blade encountered more resistance than Torg had expected. These bigger druids, which he had first seen guarding the entrance to
Kattham
’s lair in the heart of Dhutanga, appeared to be far more dangerous than the ordinary ones. This did not bode well.

Julich ordered the retreat. The sixth row spun around and galloped toward the rear, sluicing through the ranks like rivulets of water. This time more than fifty horsemen had fallen. Torg and the others halted at the eleventh row and waited. The next four rows of archers, again anchored by Bard, loosed the ensuing barrage.

Rajinii came over to Torg, her white armor splashed with green blood. Arusha leaned against Bhojja, as if already exhausted. The queen raised the visor of her helm. In the darkness, her gray eyes glowed like burning pitch.

“Did you see them?” she shouted above the tumult of humming. “The big ones?”

“Yes,” Torg said. “They were unharmed.”

“The normal ones . . . the
smaller
ones . . . are falling like flies. But these others . . .
I
was nearly bested by one. I don’t think that Navarese is aware of the difficulties they present.”

Laylah rode beside them. “They are
much
harder to kill than the others.”

Manta, the necromancer, agreed. “They resist our magic.”

Julich’s white breastplate bore a long gash. “Navarese must be told, but I am needed here. Your highness, who should I send in my place?”

Instantly Rajinii turned to Elu. “Sir! We have an urgent message for General Navarese. You must go to him immediately.”

The Svakaran didn’t like that one bit. “Sir Elu’s place is by your side.”

“Your
place
is to obey my orders. Feel free to return once you have done so.”

Elu snapped down his visor and guided his pony toward the rear of the army.

“I have to admit that I’m glad he’s gone, at least for a while,” Laylah said. “I was more worried about him than anyone.”

“Me too,” Ugga said. “The little guy is a toughy, but some of these druids are big even for me.”

Meanwhile, twenty thousand more arrows had been loosed. The master bowmen called the retreat. Then Julich ordered another armored charge.

“Kill as many of the big ones as you can,” Torg shouted to Ugga and the others. “We must keep them from advancing too quickly.”

During his third charge, Torg paid even closer attention to the threat of the larger druids, and his worst fears were confirmed. Though it was difficult to see long distances in the darkness, he still came to believe that there were more of them than before, and none had been severely injured by arrows. Torg estimated that already five thousand druids were dead, but now fully a third of the druids that came forward were the more dangerous kind. Torg was confused. When he had been battling the druids in the clearing that surrounded Kattham’s lair during the rescue of Laylah, he remembered seeing just a few dozen of the larger ones. All the others had been what he considered normal-sized.

“Why are there so many of you?” he screamed, before riding down and beheading a particularly nasty-looking one, easily nine cubits tall and weighing more than one hundred stones. While he was slaying this giant, another of the big ones spit a ball of acidic sputum onto his back, burning away a patch of his jacket, though doing little harm to his Tugarian flesh.

“Retreat!” he heard Julich shouting. Yet again, Bhojja responded without prompting.

When they fell back, it was half a bell past midnight. Torg saw with dismay that at least five score armored horsemen did not return. While the rest rode to the rear, Torg, Laylah, Rajinii, Ugga, and Julich stopped at the sixteenth row. His companions looked exhausted. A sizeable portion of the sorceress’ left cuisse had been torn away, padding and all, revealing a milky thigh. The queen’s breastplate was dented and scarred, and Ugga’s oversized helm looked as if a tree had fallen on it. Though Julich had done little fighting, his responsibility as captain of the ranks was wearing on him. If he called the retreat too soon, the druids would advance on the archers and rout them, but the longer he delayed, the more horsemen he was dooming to unthinkable deaths.

While the next volley of flaming arrows was being launched at the enemy, Elu rode up in a rush.

“
Lord Torgon
!” he shouted in greeting.

“Sir Elu,” Torg responded.

“General Navarese requests that you call all Tugars to the front.”

Even as they spoke, Julich ordered another charge.

“There is no time now. I shall summon them after the next withdrawal,” Torg said, knowing that he would have done so, regardless. Then Bhojja bore him forward again.

DURING THE FOURTH charge, Ugga sensed his barded destrier beginning to tire. Of all who rode into battle, the crossbreed was the heaviest, even more so than Torg. Though Ugga’s warhorse was larger than any but Arusha, it still struggled to carry him. The crossbreed wasn’t sure how much longer it could remain standing.

The druids were even worse than black mountain wolves. Some of the stuff they spit from their mouths had worked its way between gaps in his armor, burning his skin. And they were strong, too, especially the big ones. If not for his axe, he would have been in trub-bull.

To make matters worse, the crossbreed had to keep a constant eye on Elu. The little guy had a heart as large as a dragon’s, but he was overmatched in this battle. The Svakaran’s pony also was brave, but it was less than half the size of Ugga’s destrier. At least a dozen times, Ugga chopped down druids just before they got to Elu.

At one point, a score of the bigger wood-eaters encircled Ugga and tried to force him off his mount. Ugga growled with rage, killing them one at a time. When he finally worked himself free, he saw that Elu’s pony had been knocked on its side and that the Svakaran was standing next to it, fending off more than a dozen druids with his nasty dagger. The crossbreed raced to his rescue, lifting Elu off the ground and dropping him onto his lap. Just then, Julich ordered another retreat. As they rode away, Elu’s pony was slaughtered. Elu screamed and screamed.

LAYLAH HAD BEEN unsure how she would respond to battle. Would terror render her useless? As it turned out, her concerns were unfounded. A bloodlust came upon her, and Obhasa responded in kind. The larger druids seemed immune to flaming arrows, but they were no match for the blue-white fire that spewed from the ivory staff. During the first charge, she had killed at least two score, but slightly fewer during the second and less than a score during the third.

The druids weren’t just becoming stronger, they were becoming smarter, evading the most powerful of them while going after the ordinary horsemen. By the third charge, Laylah found herself having to chase after the druids, who fled at her presence like schools of fish shying from a single predator. This was time-consuming and exhausting, for both she and Izumo. She might have to sit out at least one charge, just for the stallion’s benefit.

During the third charge, she paid little heed to the ordinary druids, and it almost cost her. One managed to slip close enough to strike her with his hand, gashing through the armor that protected her left thigh. The strength of the beast stunned Laylah. She looked down at her leg, expecting to see her flesh torn to the bone, but instead saw no visible damage.

“I’m as strong as a Tugar,” she thought proudly, and then renewed her assault, first slaying her immediate attacker and then going for more.

During the fourth charge, Laylah noticed that the flaming arrows had not harmed at least half the druids within her vision, and when the sixteenth row crushed into the attackers, the result stunned her. Almost an entire squadron fell in the first frantic moments, torn from their mounts and dragged into the darkness. She saw Torg and Bhojja charging from place to place, trying to fend off the worst of it, but the druids shied from the wizard even more than from her, making it difficult for him to kill them in sufficient numbers. Julich rode along the rank, his eyes wild with exhaustion, waiting for what he considered the right moment to order another withdrawal.

“How much more of this pressure can he take?” she thought. “His kinsmen are dying before his eyes, and he feels he is to blame. Someone must give him a respite.”

The fourth retreat came earlier than Laylah expected, further evidence that Julich’s condition was deteriorating. When they reached the twenty-first row, she saw that Elu had joined Ugga on the crossbreed’s mount. Bard was with them too, his bow strapped to his back and now bearing a Jivitan war hammer. Rajinii no longer wore her helm, and the side of her face was bruised. Julich rested on his destrier’s neck, panting so hard that he appeared to be hyperventilating. Meanwhile, Torg raised his arms and let out a high-pitched shriek. The Tugars, she assumed, had been summoned.

Already the next four rows of archers had loosed most of their arrows. There was so little time between charges it was difficult to make alterations in Navarese’s original plan. The druids were exerting relentless pressure—and gaining ground.

“Let me take over for Captain Julich,” Laylah shouted.

“No,” Julich said wearily. “I’m all right.”

“I’ll order the next two charges and retreats,” Bard said to the captain. “It will free ya to fight. That will do ya more good than rest.”

At that, Julich smiled. “My queen?”

“I couldn’t care less who orders what,” Rajinii said, her voice nearing hysteria.

“So be it,” Torg said. “Bard, perform your duty.”

“Charge!” the handsome trapper shouted.

Only this time, two thousand Tugars charged with them.

The twenty-first row crushed into the densest resistance yet. Now more than half the druids were the more dangerous kind, and some were even larger than before, almost as large as Kojins. Against these druids, the ordinary horsemen fared poorly. But for the first time since the initial charge, the druids were driven back, thanks to the addition of the entire force of Tugars. The desert warriors’ ferocity amazed Laylah, and she watched in stunned silence as they methodically broke apart the leading edge of the massive army. Many of the druids had been able to avoid Torg, Rajinii, Ugga, and her. But it was impossible to flee from two thousand warriors whose strength, dexterity, and fighting skills were unparalleled in the world. When Bard called for a retreat, all but one score of white horsemen had survived the onslaught; and as far as Laylah could tell, not a single Tugar had fallen.