Tracato: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Three (18 page)

Now, as Rhillian watched, cavalry were pouring down the hillside between formations of footsoldiers. Before the front ranks, they were forming.

“Signalman,” Rhillian called, “if you please. Call to our
talmaad
to prepare.”

The trumpeter was a tall, skinny Rhodaani boy, lent to her for the occasion by General Zulmaher. The boy raised his long horn, and blew a clear, high melody.

“That’s very pretty,” Aisha remarked, steadying her anxious mount with one hand, her bow in the other.

“Thank you, M’Lady,” said the nervous young man. He seemed far more nervous of serrin women than men, Rhillian thought. Well, perhaps she should have forbade Eli and Sairen from trying to get him drunk and bedded last night. To the best of her knowledge, the lad had not succumbed. Which was still a pity, she thought now, watching the army advance toward the river. It would not do for any man or woman to die a virgin, and this lad certainly looked it.

From the rear of the Rhodaani formation, Rhillian could see her
talmaad
now galloping in two groups, three hundred to each flank. Arendt would see that, and have his conviction to go through the centre reinforced. Rhillian wondered if he would also note the artillery line moving up behind the infantry, and grasp its significance. Most feudal commanders rarely did. The great crossbow arms of two-stack ballistas bounced as the carts upon which they rode trundled forward, pulled by horse or oxen.

Of the nine thousand assembled men, fully a thousand were artillerymen. Each of the infantry formations was backed by fifteen cart-mounted ballista, and five catapults—for forty-five ballista and fifteen catapults in all. Usually, in forces equipped with such weapons, the artillery remained behind with the command and reserve. Here, the artillery advanced, while the thousand-strong reserve, of eight hundred foot and two hundred cavalry, remained behind. It was a great risk if the battle turned against the Steel. But General Zulmaher did not expect to lose.

The right-flank formation reached the river a little before the centre and left, and waded in past the broken screen of trees. Serrin riders had already tested its depth, braving occasional arrowfire to gallop through the waters, returning to assure all that at its deepest, it would be barely above a soldier’s waist. Before the front rank of Elissian infantry, the cavalry line appeared to be nearing completion.

“How many cavalry, do you think?” Rhillian asked Arendelle. There were ten of them here, atop the shallow hill, all serrin save for the signalman. Enough to guard against sneaking scouts and outriders who sought to flank them, and ambush in the rear.

“I think about four thousand,” said Arendelle, staring hard across the battlefield. “One thousand knights.”

Another trumpet call from the artillery line, which ceased its advance. Rhillian saw rounds being moved to the catapults from amongst piles of wet blankets. Small fires were lit, men swarming to prepare their enormous contraptions.

“They’re in range,” said Tessi with certainty, measuring the distance with her eyes. “How unbelievably stupid of them.”

“Let’s go,” said Rhillian, and galloped down the slope, her
talmaad
in pursuit. She was nearly at eye level with the artillery when the first catapults fired. With a great, unwinding rush, they hurled flaming balls into the sky. For a moment, the air filled with streaking, burning projectiles. Already the catapult men were rearming, winding furiously at the handles that wound metal-toothed gears, pulling back the giant arms thrice as fast as conventional rope winches.

Ahead, flames erupted across the Elissian cavalry line with a horrid orange and blue glare…. Rhillian winced as she rode, to shield her sensitive eyes. Then the noise reached her above the thunder of horses’ hooves—the
whump!
of successive bursts of flame, and the screams and cries of a thousand men and horses, who had not realised themselves within range of the Steel’s most feared weapon. Conventional artillery was hard to aim. How the Steel artillerymen could achieve such accuracy on wheels was beyond even her.

Now the ballista were firing, forty-five at once and each one a double-stack, the cartsmen not even bothering to halt their advance. Ninety bolts shot skyward, and mechanisms were immediately winched back, even faster than the catapults.

Rhillian arrived at the head of her three hundred right flank cavalry, just short of the riverbank, and stopped. From here, through breaks in the trees, she could see the confusion of the Elissian forward line—horses milling and rearing, senior men waving swords and flags, trying to rearrange the formation. Smoke hung in the air in great palls, and sections of grass still burned.

The Rhodaani infantry line had now stopped, midstream. They simply stood in waist deep water, and watched. More horses fell, randomly, to streaking ballista bolts. Cavalrymen held shields above their heads, and hoped, waiting for their seniors to sort out the confusion and give the order to charge. Surely they still had some time left before the next fiery volley, as catapults took time to reload.

A new series of thuds and whistles overhead put the lie to that. Cavalrymen saw it coming, and screamed in panic. Whole sections of formation broke, hundreds of horses scattering. Some rode straight into an eruption of flame, and were engulfed. Rhillian closed her eyes to save her vision. When she opened them again, she saw scenes of utter horror, men and horses engulfed twenty and thirty at a time, rolling and running, screaming and falling. Ballista fire whistled continuously, felling animals and riders with steady, random rhythm.

Finally the trumpets blew, others taking up the cry. Broken sections of cavalry came galloping downslope, and others joined them, as much in hope of escaping the murderous artillery as attacking the midstream Rhodaanis. More trumpets blew, this time from behind, and with a thunder of their own, a thousand Rhodaani cavalry charged for the river, and the gaps between their infantry’s formations.

Rhillian held her horse in check, watching the mass of mounted Rhodaanis plunging through the frothing waters. They were not so heavily armoured as Elissian knights, wearing segmented armour like the infantry, yet their shields and lances, and huge warhorses, made them imposing
enough. They cleared the far bank, and aimed for the gaping holes the artillery had torn through the Elissian cavalry’s ranks. The Elissian charge split, some falling back in swirling confusion upon the Rhodaani cavalry, others charging on toward the river.

Rhillian tore her sword clear, raised it, then swiped at the air. She needed no trumpeter, and the serrin gave no yell as they charged, crashing into the waters in a churn of white spray. Ahead, beyond the confusion of cavalry, new bursts of fire were blooming further upslope. The artillery had turned their attention upon the Elissian footsoldiers…and Verenthane gods help them.

Her
talmaad
rounded the Rhodaani right flank, and emerged from the waters to find what heavy cavalry had made it this far, plunging into the river to attack the Steel infantry. The water slowed their horses in leaping, splashing bounds, and took the weight off their charge. The Steel held firm, behind solid walls of shields, and returned with sword thrusts and thrown spears from within the protective formation squares.

Serrin riders fanned out, bows ready, firing wherever targets presented. Always they fired at horses, never at armoured riders, and animals toppled. Perhaps fifty mixed knights and cavalry charged them instead of the infantry, huge armoured suits atop equally huge horses, angling wicked steel lances as they came. Rhillian might have attacked, courageously, but instead wheeled, and galloped before them. More serrin did the same, wheeling for the flanks, firing as they went. Pursuing horses fell, and knights crashed tumbling on the ground. A cavalryman to Rhillian’s left, in chain and helm, took an arrow in the neck as he charged at her flank. Serrin ran on, twisting in their saddles to shoot with accuracy known only to the
talmaad
.

Smart Elissians turned around and galloped away as fast as they could. Ten frustrated cavalrymen rode about in circles, yelling and swiping at any serrin who came close enough, demanding hand-to-hand combat. Serrin archers stayed calmly out of range, shooting one horse after another, and taking a rider in the neck where the opportunity presented. Rhillian rode down one fallen, horseless man with her sword, and took a mounted man from behind with a blade through the neck. When all had fallen, or galloped away, the serrin moved on.

Rhillian paused her mount on some open grass, and stood in the stirrups to take stock. Elissian cavalry were retreating in scattered bunches, pursued by Rhodaani horsemen, or serrin with bows. The Steel infantry were emerging from the river, like a dripping, moving wall. Fallen cavalrymen yielded before them, threw aside weapons, and were trampled over if they did not seek a gap between the advancing squares.

A great roar filled the air, and a rattling thunder. Rhillian turned to see,
past the scattered remnants of retreating Elissian cavalry, the infantry were charging downslope. She wheeled, signalled those riders still around her, and rode hard for a gap between the Rhodaani squares. Past the first rank, then the second as they emerged from the river, she turned left and cantered, splashing through the shallows toward the right flank once more. Upon her left, the Steel’s front rank were shifting, the squares unfolding into a series of unbroken lines, with no gaps between. Ahead of them, a mass charge was descending, thousands of screaming Elissians with mail, shield and sword.

The second and third Rhodaani ranks threw light spears into that charging mass—some of the attackers fell, others slowed to dodge, others took a spear through the shield, narrow points punching deep, the spear shaft then entangling as they ran. The first wave that crashed onto the Rhodaani shield line was uneven, yet it broke with the fury of a great wave upon a cliff.

The cliff held firm. Soldiers leaned into the force of it, like sailors into a howling gale, the men behind pressing on their armoured backs. Shields tilted aside just enough to admit the Rhodaani’s short, stabbing swords through the gaps, and men across the attacking wave collapsed, shrieking and clutching their abdomens.

Rhillian finally galloped clear on the right flank, and found a milling confusion of her own cavalry and some Rhodaanis already there. A lieutenant was forming them up, and her
talmaad
were spotting her own snow-white hair, and galloping across at speed. Rhillian waited for the Rhodaanis to move first, and watched that the infantry on this side were not outflanked. The extreme-right flank formation were unengaged, and instead moved forward, swinging around to press on the Elissian flank. Lieutenants yelled, dressing the line, and men shouted encouragement over the roar of clashing steel. Mostly, they coordinated by reflex, as though moved by a single, steel will.

Flames continued to erupt further upslope, decimating the later ranks. Elissian archer fire was so sporadic, Rhillian was uncertain if they
had
any archers. But Bacosh lords always employed archers. These must have been in the middle ranks, so positioned to be at good range against the advancing infantry, whatever good it would do. Those archers were now squarely in Rhodaani artillery range.

The Steel line advanced. Men yelled and heaved, pushing onto their shields, stabbing then covering, push, stab, cover. Push, stab, cover. Elissian soldiers hammered desperately at that impenetrable wall, and fended the lightning thrusts with their smaller shields, but with so little space to move, their defences were limited. Inevitably, flashing Rhodaani blades found the gaps and they fell, as did the next behind them, as did the next. At a whistle, the front rank of Rhodaani soldiers abruptly faded back between the shields
of those behind, who became the new front wall, while the front rank took a rest in the rear. The Steel pressed on, trampling over the bloodied corpses of enemies, the second rank finishing those wounded who resisted from underfoot, pushing that huge sea of foes inexorably back up the slope. Occasionally a Rhodaani man would fall, to be replaced immediately by the man behind.

Ahead, the re-formed Rhodaani cavalry gave a yell and charged once more, this time into the flank of the Elissian infantry…of Elissian cavalry there was nothing to be seen. It seemed they had fled, or regrouped in the far, far rear. Several hundred cavalry ploughed into the Elissian flank, hacking and wheeling as men began scattering before them. The scattering gathered pace, and within the blink of an eye, the entire Elissian flank was falling back in terrified confusion.

Rhillian found Arendelle, eyes alive like he wanted to go after them. Rhillian put a hand on his arm. “It’s over,” she told him. “Let them run. I want Lord Arendt.”

Here on the right flank, a wide expanse of hillside, paddocks, farmhouses and small woods were all that stood between the
talmaad
and the hilltop castle. That, and several thousand panicking, milling, retreating cavalry and infantry.

Rhillian galloped to the head of her re-forming cavalry, at least two hundred, with the remainder gathering fast, sprinting from the river, or from entanglements further up the slope. Most had bows, a few like Rhillian only swords, and some alternated, as only serrin cavalry would. Once in position, Rhillian wheeled her mare, waved her sword, and cut the air.

Again the thunder of hooves, and a headlong sprint up the gentle incline. Rhillian could not see her friends around her, and could only trust that they were well, somewhere in the pursuing crowd. She leapt a low wall, skirted a small dam and watercourse, and saw arrows whip past from behind, smacking retreating cavalrymen squarely in the back. Two tumbled, and a third rode on, slumped and dying.

There were running, panicked infantry, serrin riders weaving amongst them like wolves through so many terrified sheep, putting arrows into any who looked likely to swing a weapon. Ballista fire fell near, random streaks thumping the turf with force audible even above the thunder of hooves. To the left, retreating infantry were hit, smashed into the ground like piglets beneath a charging boar spear. Rhillian signalled her riders further to the right, hoping the artillery captains retained their usual vigil, and saw her move up the flank.