The Godlost Land (35 page)

Soon though the beasts reached the first of the defences they'd prepared and she knew a moment of relief. Under the cover of darkness they'd sent out their wizards of the earth to set up their own defences, and while the enemy inside the temple surely had to have known they were doing it, they hadn't known where those defences were or what form they took. They certainly hadn't guessed that the first of them were only three hundred paces out from the city wall.

The wizards had transformed the land into a bog by diverting some underground streams, and the result was that what looked like a grassy valley suddenly became a foot trapping swamp under the weight of the chimera's feet. It slowed them enormously. Leonids that could run nearly twice as fast as a man were suddenly reduced to crawling and roaring their displeasure at the world. Minotaurs with their hooves sinking deep into the soft mud were even slower, wading through the mud, in some places nearly swimming. Even the cerberi were slowed.

It wasn't meant to be a lethal trap. The bog wouldn't kill anyone. But what it did do was give the trebuchets more time to attack a slow moving target. And as the chimera waded through the mud, the stones descended on them. Hundreds were killed with each impact. It was like watching stones being thrown into a lake and seeing the ripples spreading out in all directions. Ripples of death. And as the bombardment continued she could see their broken and bloody corpses covering the mud and grass. But there were thousands more behind them. Maybe tens of thousands.

They continued to pour out of the city gates in an endless stream, heedless of the danger, and when they reached the bog, they simply clambered over the bodies of the fallen to reach them.

The war masters had expected that and prepared for it. But still seeing them keep coming in such large numbers set Erislee's heart racing.

Eventually the first of the chimera made it through the bog and others behind them followed. Thousands of others. They'd had only four wizards of earth to build the defences and so the line of bog was only three hundred paces deep. But that was only to be expected. It was something that they'd planned on. And the number of corpses they left behind them was almost beyond counting
. In fact she could see more bodies than
open ground.

Then as the first of the attackers came out of the mud and started racing for them again, they ran straight into the next of their defences – one they could never have prepared for. The ground gave way beneath them. The earth wizards had dug a trench with their magic. While it was only a dozen feet across, it was fifty deep – the depth only made possible by the efforts of Erislee's four earth wizards all working together. They had dug a minor chasm under the ground and the cerberi as the first to reach it had no warning. All they knew was that the thin layer of grass gave way beneath them as they ran and then they were falling. They howled as only cerberi could as they fell, but there was nothing they could do.

In time the minotaurs and the leonids started crawling their way out of the bog and reached the trench. But then they just stood there. They were smart enough to know they couldn't cross it – save for a few who tried to jump it and fell to their deaths – but they weren't smart enough to realise they could go around it. Not without someone to command them. In the end they were animals, even if they had some of the traits of humans and it never occurred to look to the left or right as they stared at their prey in front of them. So they just stood there while ever more rocks rained down on their heads and the men at the trebuchets cheered as they worked.

But eventually a decision was made, though not by those at the face of the trench. By those behind them. The chimera behind the beasts assembled at the edge of the trench came charging out of the bog and continued to push forward, and they didn't care about those in front of them. They didn't understand that those in front of them were standing there because they couldn't advance. They couldn't even see the trench. The only thing they knew was that their prey was in front of them. So they ran into them. In the end those in the front howling and roaring their displeasure at the trench were simply pushed into it by those behind them. And little by little the barrier was overcome by the sheer number of bodies slowly filling it up.

Seeing them do that, Erislee's heart started beating a little faster again. Her mouth became dry and her hands clammy. She realised that despite all their preparations the chimera still might actually overcome their well thought out defences. It wasn't through strategy. It wasn't by any sort of a tactic. It was simply by the unimaginable numbers that were overwhelming their defences one by one. It didn't matter how many fell. The enemy had the numbers and they just didn't have any fear. They had blood lust instead. For a while she could almost feel their teeth at her throat.

But then as the next wave ran over the bodies of their fallen Erislee took a deep breath and summoned her courage. They might not have destroyed them all but the well prepared traps had taken out almost half of the enemy army while more were dying all the time as the war machines took their toll on them. And they still had more defences left. The next was fire.

The wizards of earth had done a good job, but it was time for the wizards of fire to do theirs. And they were ready. As the chimera finally crossed the half way point of the battle field between the city and the rebel army they ran through what they probably thought was more water. But it wasn't water. It was lamp oil. Oil that had been solidified by the cold until it was nearly the thickness of lard, and prevented from sinking into the earth because it was too hard packed – the wizards of the earth had all but baked the earth beneath it to allow the many hundreds of barrels of lamp oil to be poured over the ground. As soon as the chimera started running out onto it in numbers the wizards of fire set it alight.

The result was an inferno.

A strip of land fifty paces deep and six hundred wide simply burst into flames that shot twenty and thirty feet into the air. Flames that burnt hotter than any others. So hot that Erislee could feel the heat even as far away as she was. And in amongst those flames she could see figures running. Inhuman shapes that howled and roared and screamed. Hundreds of them. Many of them had slipped over in the burning oil. More had lost their sense of direction and some were actually running backwards into their own lines. All of them though had lost any semblance of order. There was no control over them any more. And as they burnt they howled with pain and ran and then tore into anything nearby. They ran into the other chimera, attacking them in their frenzy, setting alight some of them and causing complete pandemonium.

For five and then ten long minutes Erislee watched as the fire tore through the beast army, and prayed that this would be the blow that would finish them off. And all the time the mighty trebuchets kept dropping their payloads among the beasts, felling them in ever greater numbers.

And for a while as the worst of the fire finally began clearing she could almost imagine that it had been the turning point in the battle. The terrible damage the defence had caused was quickly becoming apparent. There were blackened bodies everywhere. Black smoke was covering the entire valley, and the smell of burnt meat filled the air. Clearly it hadn't been mere hundreds that had died, but thousands. Many thousands. Better yet the surviving beasts were no longer under any sort of control. They had run completely wild. They were frantically attacking one another and running in all directions, lost in mindless savagery and pain. Few if any of them were coming their way. And all the while the crews on the war machines were working frantically, and raining rocks down on the heads of the survivors. The ones that hadn't yet reached the fire. There was no doubt that the enemy was in trouble.

But the cheering soon stopped. While the men worked desperately, knowing that there were still too many survivors left, the remaining chimera began to run for them again. Across the blackened ground, over the bodies of the fallen, through the smoke. They knew that their prey was in front of them, and they continued to close the gap.

Eventually command was restored, the thralls back in the city pushing all their strength into the charms that controlled the beasts, and what was left of the chimera began to reform into an army once again. By then she guessed that at least twenty thousand beasts were dead, or two thirds of the army. But that still left ten thousand charging towards them. 

Only
ten thousand! Erislee's hand tightened on her bow. They were still outnumbered two to one.

Worse still soldiers from the city had entered the fray. She wasn't sure why. But she could see at least five thousand of them slowly beginning their charge. No doubt they thought that the chimera had broken through all the defences and would have crushed the opposition by the time they reached them. They would only have to mop up the remnants.

They were out of luck.

“Second phase!”

She gave the order with all the strength she could muster and soon her cry was being taken up by others. Horns were blowing and the soldiers were preparing. They all knew their part. The war masters had been very insistent upon that, drilling their soldiers day and night in the plan. As quickly as they heard the call the crews on the war machines adjusted their aim, shifting the swinging bars down a notch and replacing the chains on the slings with shorter ones so that they had a shorter range.

It took a nervous few minutes, but the men had practised the operation hundreds of times and the war machines had been designed so that they could be quickly and easily adjusted, and they were ready well before the reformed front lines of the chimera had reached them. Then when they finally started firing the beasts started falling down in scores. Meanwhile the archers had formed up in ranks beside them. That was nearly four thousand men with longbows waiting for the chimera to come into range. And every one of them Erislee guessed, was as nervous as she was.

Meanwhile Erislee had to concentrate on another objective. As the trebuchets had been adjusted to fire shorter range volleys at the front lines, the back half of the battle field had been left free of their fire. And without the danger of rocks raining down on them, the griffins suddenly had a clear line of attack. Erislee sent them flying into the battle with a whispered command, praying that they would be completely victorious. There was a good chance that they would be as they were striking from above at the enemy's rear lines while the soldiers were looking ahead instead of to the skies. But there was no certainty in war.

Five hundred griffins struck without warning and a matter of mere heartbeats later she saw more than five hundred temple soldiers give up their lives. Picked up and torn apart, their leather armour proving useless against the claws and reach of the griffins.

Naturally the survivors panicked, caught completely by surprise as the bloody bodies of their companions crashed down among them. But then they had been crossing difficult ground, looking at their footing and at the battle ahead of them. They hadn't been checking the skies.

Meanwhile the chimera were coming closer all the time, and as she concentrated on the griffins Erislee couldn't help but notice how near they were. Even confused and surely hurting, they were returning to the attack. It seemed that even though they had been torn apart by falling rocks, stalled by unexpected canyons and burnt alive, they had still remained true to their masters' commands. To kill them. But she had to focus on the griffins. On the forces she alone controlled. And she had to keep them attacking the soldiers.

At her bidding the griffins wheeled around in the sky and then swooped in for another attack, and this time the soldiers were more ready for them. Some had their weapons out. Some threw themselves to the ground as they saw death swooping in. But it wasn't enough. They were disorganised and frightened. And though they didn't yet understand it, they weren't fighting a war. They were being hunted. Taken down as a stag was taken down by wolves.

The griffins were the Goddess' hounds, and they knew how to hunt. They knew how to strike from every direction when their prey wasn't looking. And they knew how to work as a pack.

Those soldiers who raised a weapon to the skies seeking to stop one griffin found themselves being attacked from behind by another. Those who threw themselves aside swiftly discovered that no matter which direction they took, they were diving into the jaws of another griffin. Those who ran discovered that they were too slow. And those who found the ground learned that it still wasn't low enough.

Hundreds more went flying through the air before their broken and bloodied bodies crashed down among their comrades. And that was the turning point in their advance. That was when the soldiers suddenly broke and ran.