Wall of Spears (41 page)

‘Crossbowmen back!’

The shout went out and Caelin stopped wrestling with his bow and backed through the lines, making it to the fourth line before stopping.

‘Well, that did bugger all,’ Ruttyn said, flexing sore fingers.

‘We stung them a little,’ Harald said.

‘Stung them? Your wife’s mother would have given them a harder time than we did.’

‘You’re right there. They’d be running right now if she was here.’ Harald pulled his shield around.

‘Well, I wish she was here then. Her and about a thousand like her,’ Caelin said.

‘No, you wouldn’t, sarge. The ear-bashing would make you throw yourself on an elven sword just for a bit of peace.’

There were a few chuckles from the other men at that, but only a few. The elven swords were getting very close now.

‘Shields up!’ someone bawled and the three of them raised their shields over their heads as a new rain of arrows began to fall. The front few ranks were being spared — it was the rear ranks that had to hunch down and try to protect themselves.

‘I hate bloody arrows,’ Ruttyn said, as the screams started again.

‘Still better than swords,’ Harald pointed out.

‘Hold fast! Spears ready!’ Sergeants up and down the lines took up the cry and, even in the fourth line, Caelin could feel the whole shield wall tense, bracing itself for the expected impact.

Sumiko grabbed hold of Oroku’s arm. ‘Break shields and keep breaking them until you drop,’ she ordered.

‘And you, High One?’

‘I will watch for Rhiannon and Asami. I expect them to come looking for me as soon as I am distracted. So I do not intend to be distracted.’

‘But what if I do not do enough? What if they hold their line? What if they don’t come for you but fight us with magic?’

Sumiko chuckled. ‘How long have you been with me? And still you doubt! If the humans prove better than expected, then I shall merely unveil our final surprise. Now, the shields — get moving!’

‘When their line cracks, run and kill everyone.’ The order came from the Magic-weavers, passed instantly up and down the ranks.

Mogosai gripped his sword tighter and banished his thoughts about Sumiko — that would only get him killed. Many of the other warriors had boasted of how they would slaughter the humans but Mogosai remembered how the Forlish had ridden down his patrol, killed Lord Konetsu and then hunted him through the forest like an animal. He would not take them lightly.

The Forlish line was only paces away. The first rank was hunched down, shields close together, helmeted heads low, only their eyes showing. The second rank had its shields higher up and together they made a fearsome-looking wall of wood and metal, with barely a chink for a sword to break.

As well as the shields, spears poked through other gaps, ready to drive forwards and into any flesh that got too close.

‘Our swords will drink their blood for the murder of our children!’ someone roared.

Mogosai kept quiet. Partly because he was watching the wall, trying to pick out a weak spot, but mainly because it was one of the more stupid battle cries he had ever heard. Other elves were shouting insults but Mogosai suspected they had spent too much time working on them. They sounded less ferocious and more foolish.

The elven advance slowed and then stopped dead, no more than ten paces from the shield wall. Anger and a desire for revenge had pushed them this far but they had to gather themselves to rush the final few paces. Nobody wanted to be the first. Hitting that wall promised to be a world of blood, hurt and screams.

Then the shield wall broke apart.

Mogosai watched in shock and surprise as shields shattered, leaving the owners reeling back, holding just scraps of timber held together with leather straps and the iron boss.

‘Now!’ someone yelled.

The whole line raced forwards, all eager to break in to the human lines before they had a chance to gather themselves. Mogosai bounded with them, sword held over his shoulder, picking out his spot. Two men had kept their shields, while the ones either side of them were trying to push backwards, seeking the safety of the next line. But Mogosai did not give them a chance. He drove his sword in hard at the back of a neck, feeling only a slight resistance as his blade, which he had spent days sharpening, punched through the man’s throat and painted red over the shields in front. He ripped the blade clear and sliced down, hacking into the leg of a man with a shield. Muscles and tendons were severed and the man collapsed, shrieking, until other elves silenced him.

Mogosai could see the second line was backing away, horrified by the slaughter, although spears were flickering out of the lines and at the elves now. To his right, an iron spearhead punched an elf from his feet, tearing a hole in his chest. Mogosai cut down furiously, splintering the shaft, then rained blows at the second line, trying to crack it open. This was for his father.

In an instant, a hundred more elves were doing the same, long swords reaching out for throats and eyes, while Forlishmen ducked, covered and tried to use spears to keep them at bay.

Mogosai took a pace backwards and picked up a fallen shield, surprised at the weight of it. But he had trained with a bow every day for the last fifteen years and he hefted it easily, spun once and hurled it into the line of humans. It snapped one man’s head back, breaking his nose and sending his helm flying off. His body fell, creating space like ripples on a pond and Mogosai leaped to the attack. A short sword reached for his ribs but he flicked that away and used a cartwheel cut to take off the swordsman’s arm.

‘Kill them all!’

Now that was a battle cry and Mogosai joined it. The shade of Lord Ichiro would approve of what his son was doing to avenge his death.

Caelin could feel the tension all along the line as men braced themselves for the elven attack. The moment when two huge blocks came together was always terrifying — and it only got worse. The more times you fought, the more you feared it. The first couple of ranks were men from the south, soldiers who had not faced the horror of the wall at Dokuzen but were instead used to the southern armies, who fought bravely but crumbled in the face of the Forlish war machine. Men screamed out their fear at the elves in the form of challenges, although there were a few — fewer each battle — who became so lost in the fight they wanted to hurl themselves into the enemy.

Harald and Ruttyn joined in the chorus, bellowing defiance at the elves who hesitated just a few paces away.

‘They’re scared of us, the bastards!’ Harald shouted.

‘Come and taste our steel!’ Ruttyn bellowed.

Caelin took a breath to shout out his own challenge, then took an involuntary step as shields burst and shattered all along the front line, men staggering backwards in surprise and horror. The mass of elves burst like a dam and flooded over the Forlish line, hacking and stabbing and howling.

Men took another step back, those in the third line, who had expected to do nothing more than thrust spears home into trapped elves, had to drop those spears and bring shields around, try to protect those in front.

Caelin started forwards, feeling fear pulsing back from the front lines. He could see instantly they were in trouble. Usually the Forlish shield wall was their greatest advantage. Pressed in tight together, they could work with each other, using shields and short swords in close, where a longer blade was useless. Then the rear ranks could use spears on the men trapped against the press of shields. But what the elves had done was open hundreds of holes in the front line, so the remnants there were fighting on three sides and the second rank was sometimes helping them and sometimes the first rank. And now the longer elven blades were an advantage, able to reach over and between spears and create holes in the second line.

‘Hold fast! Shields together!’ The sergeants took up the cry, the same words they shouted every time. But now Caelin could hear the fear in their voices, the desperation, as if by force of words alone they could sew the line back together.

And everyone else could hear it too. Most men did not know their officers well but they knew their sergeants. They were the ones who held the line steady and provided the guidance in the madness of battle. If they were afraid, then what was happening?

‘Hold your ground!’ Caelin shouted it without really knowing what he was saying. He got his weight behind his shield and pushed the third line forwards. ‘Stand and fight!’

Harald and Ruttyn followed, then other sergeants took up the cry, and the rear lines began to heave forwards, pressing the third line into the second and the second into the elves.

Caelin could hear the elven shouts, see bloodied swords flashing through the air, but they had reduced the fight to a simple choice for the men in front: if they could not go back, then they had to fight or die.

They did both.

The elves were close enough now so that drops of blood were landing on the fourth rank. A man fell in the old second line — the new front line — and the soldier in front of Caelin stepped forwards into the breach. Caelin did not have to think — and anyway there was a shield in the small of his back urging him forwards. He stepped up, raising his shield high to protect the soldier in front’s head, so he only had to worry about the low blow.

An elven sword jabbed across and then swung down in a huge blow that Caelin only just caught on his shield. He did not even bother thrusting back — he was too far away for his short sword to do any damage. Caelin looked into the elf’s eyes, saw the hate there and spat back at him. The elf recoiled a pace and then jumped high, bringing his sword down again in an even bigger blow. Caelin took a half-step forwards, all the room he had, and pushed his shield up and out as hard as he could. The sword smashed into the metal boss in the centre of the shield with a ringing noise that deafened Caelin — but the force of it flung the elf’s arm back and away. The soldier in front of Caelin thrust once, hard, his sword plunging into the elf’s throat and sending him reeling away, lifeblood pumping out.

‘We could use some magical help about now!’ Ruttyn yelled.

Caelin risked a glance to his left to see him standing there now.

‘We don’t need magic, we’re holding them!’ Caelin shouted back.

‘Not on our right, we’re not,’ Harald said.

Caelin felt a cold shiver go down his back but he had no time to look there, as another elf rushed in, howling a song of hate.

‘Now is the time,’ Huw said. ‘Direct it all on the right, make the grass grow to form a barrier. We shall save the Forlish now and they will know it.’

He looked down at the Magic-weavers from the height of the saddle and saw they all had their eyes closed, facing towards the right. But nothing was happening.

‘They are holding us back,’ one cried.

Huw stood in his stirrups, mouth dropping open as he stared at the crumbling Forlish line, feeling his heart begin to pound.

‘Keep trying,’ he croaked.

‘The left is holding, sire, but the right is being pushed back. A few more steps and they will buckle,’ Edmund said grimly.

He was stating the obvious; all could see it. Arrows were falling on the rear ranks, preventing them from doing their job of holding the front in place and stiffening the line. On the left, they had ignored the threat of falling arrows to hold the men and had now formed a new wall of spears and shields, pushing the elves back. But the right was being bent, the centre struggling to keep in contact with both. At that point, where the line was curving away, the elves were threatening to split them in two.

‘What about the Velsh and their bloody magic? Where is it?’ Ward shouted.

A marshal raced up on a sweat-lathered horse. ‘They say they are using all they have but the elves are blocking them. No magic is influencing the battle now, just swords.’

‘No magic?’ Ward snarled. ‘What smashed the front line then? The bloody wind?’

‘Sire, we need to send in the cavalry on the right to take the pressure off the men,’ Edmund said.

Ward looked at the milling cavalry, falling back from another pretend charge that had provoked a shower of arrows but no more from the elven side. He also saw his son’s banner in the centre.

‘Send Captain Wulf in,’ he said.

‘Sire, Wulf is on the left. It will do nothing. We have to take the pressure off the right. By the time Wulf gets around there, it will be too late.’

Edmund saw the fury and the anguish warring on the king’s face.

‘Send in the right,’ Ward said, the words sounding as though they were being dragged out of him.

‘What is Huw doing? We are using no magic on them!’ Sendatsu snarled. Then he felt the surge of magic — a surge matched instantly by another from the elven side.

‘He’s left it too long,’ Rhiannon said. ‘The elves will fail before our people but it will not matter — the Forlish are about to break.’

‘Save them,’ Sendatsu said immediately.

‘But Sumiko?’

‘Will have to wait.’

Rhiannon and Asami nodded to each other and then reached out to hold hands.

‘I’ll bloody kill Huw when I see him next,’ Sendatsu spat.

‘How are we going to get to Sumiko then?’

‘The hard way,’ Sendatsu said, looking at the mass of elves between them and Sumiko.

‘We are almost through on our left. Their right is about to break,’ Sumiko noted with satisfaction.

‘They have raised a flag for cavalry, High One,’ Oroku wheezed.

She looked over and smiled. ‘Well done. Rest now, I shall finish it.’

Oroku sat down heavily, servants rushing over with food and drink for him to rebuild his strength. Sumiko looked at the cavalry on her left, forming their right wing. She gave orders to her Magic-weavers with the two clans there.

‘Stop loosing arrows. Send a few warriors to run out and retrieve fallen ones to make them think we are out. Then when they charge, we shall hit them with everything.’

She glanced across to where the Forlish right was about to break — and felt a blast of magic strike there. The grass, trodden into blood and mud by hundreds of boots, suddenly sprang into life, grabbing elves and twisting them up and away, holding them helpless or flinging them back. In a few heartbeats the whole battle changed, with the Forlish now at the advantage, thrusting spears through the grass wall that protected them.

Sumiko heard the cheer that rose from the Forlish ranks, saw the way the other side was also heartened by this, and forcefully cut and stabbed at her warriors, who were taking a step back in the face of such extravagant magic.

‘So that is how you chose to use your powers. Well, here’s something you did not expect,’ she muttered to herself.

Ward could not restrain a shout of triumph as the magic finally took effect, sealing off his right and protecting his men.

‘Huw and his Velsh have proved their worth, after all,’ Edmund said with relief.

‘It is something we shall have to watch, when we take it for ourselves,’ Ward said, feeling his face break into a smile.

‘Let the men get their breath and then send them hooking around the right into the elven flank?’ Edmund suggested. ‘The elves cannot get through that grassy wall.’

‘Yes,’ Ward agreed, then held out his hand. He turned to give the order to the marshals. ‘Quick! First of all we should call back the cavalry.’

The cavalry flag was dipped three times, the signal to break off an attack. But there was no sign it had been seen by the cavalry.

‘Ride! As if your lives depended on it!’ Ward roared at the marshals.

Two men put spurs to their horses and raced off with the message, riding as if they truly believed death would be their reward for failure.

‘What is he doing?’ Ward snarled.

‘You stay here, my prince. I’ll take half the men in,’ the castellan said steadily.

‘I am in command, I should be the one to lead the charge,’ Wilfrid said hotly.

‘This is not a ride to glory, this is a ride to death,’ the castellan said softly. ‘We have to take the pressure off the shield wall, buy time with our lives. Your father would not want that for you — and would not let me live if I sent you in my stead.’

He held out his hand, but Wilfrid was looking past him, towards the elves.

‘We don’t have to die — we can win!’ he said excitedly.

‘What?’

‘Look!’ Wilfrid pointed. ‘They’re collecting arrows. They must be out.’

The castellan turned to see a dozen elves grabbing handfuls of arrows out of the ground, looking nervously towards the looming cavalry, just a hundred paces away. He had resigned himself to death — now hope bloomed again.

‘It could be a trap,’ he said uncertainly.

‘Who would sacrifice warriors like that? Look, they are running for their lines and we are not even moving — surely that means this is no trap!’

The castellan wanted to believe it, desperately. ‘I should still lead,’ he said.

‘No! If there is glory to be won, I shall win it,’ Wilfrid declared, his eyes shining.

The castellan could see what the young prince was thinking — it was written all over his face: win this battle, save the day and not only would he win everlasting fame, his father would embrace him.

‘My prince, please let me …’ he tried, but he did not have the words, nor the time, to convince him.

‘Form three ranks!’ Wilfrid shouted. ‘We don’t stop until every last elf is dead!’

The cavalry companies shook themselves into lines in an instant, eager to gain some revenge on their tormentors and avenge their fallen comrades.

Almost before they were ready, Wilfrid slapped his trumpeter on the shoulder. ‘Sound the charge!’ he roared.

The castellan pushed into the second rank beside Wilfrid.

‘Perhaps you would be better in the third rank,’ he tried to say.

‘This is my place!’ Wilfrid shouted.

The castellan knew a charge needed to begin slowly, then hit the gallop only in the last few strides, so that the men arrived together, in one massive block that was impossible to stop. But this charge was not like that. On the other side of Wilfrid, the trumpeter was lashing the men into the charge, blowing the long notes that fired men’s blood. The first rank went into the gallop almost straight away, before they reached the line of arrows that marked where they had previously sheared away.

‘There’s nothing coming from the elves! They are out of arrows!’ Wilfrid exulted.

Almost as soon as he spoke, he stabbed his mount with spurs and took off after the first rank, forcing the rest of them to go into a gallop as well.

The castellan drew his sword as he tried to catch up to Wilfrid. There was no stopping this charge now.

‘You can let the magic go now, the Forlish have reformed their lines,’ Sendatsu said urgently.

Asami and Rhiannon opened their eyes and then Asami fell into Rhiannon’s arms.

‘How much have you got left?’ Sendatsu asked.

Rhiannon wiped sweat from her forehead. ‘Some,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if it’s enough for Sumiko.’

‘I need something to eat before I even think of doing anything,’ Asami gasped.

‘Maybe we won’t need it. The Forlish cavalry is charging.’ Gaibun pointed.

Sendatsu’s head whipped around. ‘The fools,’ he whispered. ‘They’re dead.’

Sumiko smiled as the Forlish fell into her trap, spurring to the gallop.

She strode over to that side, uncaring of the bloody battle still going on at the front, where elves and Forlish scratched and clawed and stabbed at each other, the grass around their feet covered in blood, shit and brains, close enough to see the expression on the faces of those they killed, close enough to smell their breath and hear their last whisper.

But that was not where it would be won.

She watched the first rank pass the line of arrows and refused to give the order, although many elves, Oroku among them, looked at her anxiously. Her eyes were fixed on the second rank, where she could see the prince’s standard. Only when they went into a gallop, passed the arrow marker, did she relax.

‘Everyone with a bow, aim at the horses,’ she ordered her Magic-weavers.

Less than eight hundred horses were riding at them, in three ranks. That was still enough to tear her warriors into tatters if they struck home. But against them she had nearly four thousand archers, who had all been training for ten years and could loose an arrow every six heartbeats. The cavalry was less than one hundred paces away now, a distance from which every archer could put an arrow in a target the size of a hand nine times out of ten.

A cloud of arrows converged on them, followed by another, then a third.

The cavalry raced on for a few heartbeats, the big horses absorbing the first arrow hits — then the third volley struck home and the first rank simply dissolved. Riders were plucked out of the saddle by the force of the arrows, or sent flying through the air as their mounts collapsed under them. The screams of men and horses were terrible to hear.

A handful somehow escaped the slaughter and tried to turn around, sure they only had moments before arrows ripped them apart also.

‘Leave them! Kill the second rank!’ Sumiko screamed. ‘Aim for the flags!’

Elves laid fresh arrows on their strings and bent bows, lifting their aim from the wreckage of the first rank to where the second rank was trying to slow down and turn for safety. There was no way through the thrashing, writhing remnants of their first rank, even if they could hope to survive the arrow assault.

But it was not an easy thing to turn a galloping horse, particularly when there were more to either side. As they tried, the first volley of arrows landed on them, with another in the air and the third on elven bowstrings.

Wilfrid watched the destruction of the first rank of cavalry in horror. The sheer butchery of it left him bewildered and the second rank galloped on for precious strides before he thought to do something to save himself.

‘Get clear, my prince!’ The castellan tried to grab the reins of Wilfrid’s horse and force its head around.

‘Sound the split — break left and right and head for open ground!’ Wilfrid shouted, but his words were whipped away on the wind and the men around him were becoming ragged anyway as some slowed down and others waited for orders.

Then the arrows whistled down.

Wilfrid saw a pair of them strike the castellan and snatch him out of the saddle, then the trumpeter made a strangled sound and went over backwards before he could blow the new orders. Wilfrid glanced around, thinking to wave the men away, to see holes appearing in the tight ranks as men and horses were knocked down. His standard bearer opened his mouth, then an arrow disappeared into it and the tall flag came down. Wilfrid watched it fall towards him in slow motion and he could do nothing about it as his horse’s feet became tangled in the linen and he went over.

Sumiko stopped watching the massacre and looked instead at where the king’s banner flew high.

‘Now, Ward. Now let’s see how good my magic really is,’ she whispered to herself. ‘Make me proud.’

‘No!’ Ward said, thumping the saddle in fury.

They had all watched as Wilfrid’s wing had spurred into a gallop before the marshals could get there, the two men frantically chasing after the cavalry ranks.

That had been bad enough but to see the elven arrows casually destroy the front rank was worse. By the time they saw the prince’s standard fall and the remains of the second rank try to flee, there was nothing any of them could say.

Edmund swallowed and turned to his king, searching for words. Ward was staring out at survivors trying to hide behind dead and dying horses, sheltering from incessant arrows, while the last rank of cavalry turned and raced for safety.

‘Sire,’ Edmund said, not knowing what to add next.

‘He is still alive. I feel it,’ Ward said.

Edmund had no reply.

‘Edmund, I need you to take charge here. I will go and get him,’ Ward said calmly, as if he was discussing taking a stroll around Cridianton on a warm summer’s evening.

‘Sire?’

‘I have to go and get him. It is something I must do.’

‘But, sire, the battle — your men — the country … it all rests on you. One man, no matter who he is, is not worth all that,’ Edmund said desperately.