Tracato: A Trial of Blood and Steel Book Three (60 page)

“Come,” said Sasha. “We’ve had our rest.” She jumped from the wall and strode back toward the horses. Riders galloped past, and Sasha spared them a wary look, to be certain they weren’t serrin sneaking through the lines once more to cause havoc in the rear. “I think we might be wasting time trying to make a wide flanking move about the far side. I think there might be a way through closer to the middle.”

“Against the infantry flank, aye,” the Isfayen agreed. “Then there’s the artillery.”

“We can’t become so paralysed with concern for the artillery that we don’t dare venture near it. Our infantry are right under it, we have to take some pressure off them.”

She didn’t dare use the word “fear,” or else the Isfayen might have charged straight into the teeth of the worst artillery fire, just to prove they weren’t frightened.

On the way in, she found Damon and the royal vanguard, partially hidden behind a cluster of barn and trees. Sasha indicated to her riders, who now numbered perhaps a hundred and fifty, to wait aside while she rode to converse with her brother. Royal Guards pulled aside, and she found Damon and Jaryd pointing at the unfolding confusion ahead of them, seeking an opportunity. Both looked relieved to see her as she halted alongside.

“Hell of a fight, yes?” Jaryd remarked to her. Though it was now midmorning, and they had been fighting since dawn, he seemed yet to overcome his awe.

Damon seemed as grim as ever, yet less anxious than she’d seen him, as though warfare was preferable to waiting. His left shoulder guard was torn, yet from the angle of the cut, it seemed that the mail beneath had deflected it, and his face betrayed no pain.

Sasha explained her trials in the rear with the
talmaad
.

“I’m tempted to try the artillery just to get away from those damn serrin,” Damon agreed, eyes searching the way ahead. “I think we erred to suppose that the artillery would be Enora’s greatest advantage.”

“Sasha, what do you think?” Jaryd pressed. “Perhaps like Ymoth? A two-force feint?”

“Perhaps,” said Sasha. “How many are you?”

“Immediately, perhaps two hundred,” Damon replied. “If we rally properly, we could collect thousands….”

“But we’ll afford the Enorans the same opportunity,” Sasha finished for him. “I think that’s our next option, if this doesn’t look like it’s working. We’ve maybe three hundred and fifty between us, any more may be more hindrance than help. You go first, spring the trap, I’ll get in behind and get straight into their infantry. See if we can turn one of their formations, get our infantry an edge.”

It worked superbly, but not how she’d thought. Riding out in front, Damon and Jaryd’s two hundred cavalry were countered by a similar-sized formation of defensive Enoran heavy cavalry. Thus committed, those cavalry were in no position to stop Sasha’s hundred and fifty Isfayen, who tore down on the exposed flank of Enoran infantry. Ballista fire adjusted too late, raining mostly behind the Isfayen charge, and a single catapult shot erupted close enough to singe the leftmost Isfayen rider, but no more.

The redeploying formation of Enoran infantry was caught squarely in the face of the charge, soldiers running madly to lengthen their square into a wide wall as the horses bore down on them. Then, just before impact, the Enorans did the utterly unexpected, and ducked. Soldiers curled up on the ground, shields overhead, and charging Isfayen horses simply jumped, unwilling to risk that metal underfoot. Isfayen riders swung at the Enorans, yet those that could reach hit only steel. Once the charge had passed over and around, the Enorans jumped back to their feet, and completed their previous manoeuvre of widening the flank. Sasha could only be impressed with the discipline.

But now, she could see the Enoran artillery for the first time: rows of wide-armed ballistas on cartback, guarded behind a wall of yet more infantry—the reserve, Sasha realised, doubling as artillery guards in case of a cavalry breakthrough like this one. Men on those ballistas were winding them frantically downward to meet the onrushing threat, and as Sasha looked left and right, she saw no immediate cavalry support rushing to assist. She lowered her sword, and yelled.

The Isfayen roared, and were onto the ballistas before they could winch low enough to fire. Sasha slashed at the Steel defensive wall, again and again, more in hope of a lucky strike than assurance. A few spears soared past, but the Isfayen were too numerous, flanking the defences, spreading them, then driving horses into their midst and hacking about them with huge, curved swords. Steel infantry fell as powerful strokes found gaps in their armour,
trying to re-form, clustering back-to-back for protection, shields above their heads to ward the blows that fell on them from all sides.

Other Isfayen jumped from their horses and onto the carts, as mostly unarmoured ballista men abandoned posts to grab defensive weapons, only to be hacked down in fives and tens by furious, howling bloodwarriors. Long-haired warriors then clambered over the ballistas, hacking the taut ropes, stabbing the mechanisms, disabling the weapons, killing the cart oxen along with any remaining men who resisted. No Enorans ran. A group of perhaps twenty Steel, managing to regroup at one side of the carnage, formed a wedge and counterattacked, taking down several unprepared Isfayen in the process. But more surrounded them, attacking from above on horse while those on the ground dropped to a knee to cut under their shields, amputating legs in great scything sweeps. The rest folded quickly, but fought until all were dead.

Sasha did not join in, but circled with the four warriors who had assigned themselves her protectors, watching for a counterattack. Barely two hundred paces to the side, more Steel clustered about the great, swinging arms of the dreaded catapults, oxen teams to the fore, ammunition teams to aft. Not one of those infantry abandoned position to come running to their comrades’ assistance. On the forward infantry line, Sasha could see the rear ranks glancing back to monitor the slaughter of the ballista team, but again, none broke their formation. The Enoran cavalry was the artillery’s protector in such events, she knew, but the cavalry was vastly stretched, with little or no reserve.

Very concerningly, a pair of catapults were now being turned about to face upon them directly, infantry shifting ahead of the driving oxen teams. Sasha yelled orders to disperse, uncertain if the catapults could in fact fire accurately at such short ranges, but unwilling to find out. Isfayen men finished the last of their carnage, and ran for their horses. For a brief moment, Sasha pondered attacking the catapults too, but she saw horses tearing along the rear of the Enoran line toward them, and figured she’d pushed her luck as far as was sane. Perhaps she and a hundred and fifty Isfayen would be a fair sacrifice for a couple of catapults, but those reinforcements were heavy cavalry against Isfayen dussieh, and besides, she’d glimpsed the Enoran rear, found a tactic that worked, and discovered a key Enoran weakness. She had to get out and tell someone.

Again she rode for the rear of the Enoran infantry line, who were now engaged with Lenay infantry at their front. The rear soldiers turned, and those on the outside made a shield wall, while the ranks behind formed the roof. Isfayen riders crashed their horses into it, making some stumble, and opening holes that others attacked…but it was taking too long, and Sasha, again on the fringes, saw that there were indeed hundreds of Enoran heavy horses galloping past the catapults with murder on their minds.

She yelled for a retreat, and enough heard her to follow, which the others copied in turn. They streamed back onto the Lenay side of the lines, Lenay infantry cheering them madly, and pursued in turn by Enoran heavy horse. Ahead, Damon and Jaryd’s cavalry were still entangled in a frantic melee with the initial, defensive formation of Enorans. Sasha led her Isfayen squarely into the fight from behind, and for a brief moment, their numbers overwhelmed the Enorans, their cavalry blindsided, cut down unawares by racing Isfayen, or abruptly outnumbered in their various duels. They scattered, wheeling outward, and Sasha was circling while standing in her stirrups, screaming to re-form rather than pursue.

Again, enough heard her to comply, and when the pursuing Enoran cavalry tore into them, they too were quickly outnumbered. This time it was Damon who was yelling at them all to retreat before Sasha did, and they turned and raced from the field as two catapult shots landed in the vacated fields behind them.

The Isfayen had lost men, and others were wounded, but they were whooping and yelling in Telochi as though they’d defeated the Enoran Steel on their own. The village headman who’d stood with Sasha on the wall came alongside, blood flowing down a slashed arm, but grinning toothily.

“You
are
the Synnich,” he told her in Lenay, “and I’d follow you to the last hell!”

Sasha felt relief to be alive, but there was no joy. She thought only of the ballista teams as she’d last seen them, crumpled piles of bloodied corpses, killed to the last man in the certain knowledge that defeat was worse than death. Not fanaticism, no. Determination. Selflessness. Pride.

Suddenly she wanted to cry.

T
HE
S
TEEL LINE WAS ACTUALLY BENDING.
Andreyis was so tired he could barely lift his shield arm, but as he took his rest for an uncounted time, he could see beyond the press that this entire portion of the Enoran formation had bent back upon itself. About him, lay Enoran and Lenay bodies in equal numbers, many groaning or struggling to move. He did not know where Teriyan was, and could not see any Baerlyners, yet there were many faces that had become familiar on the march, or in the past morning’s fighting. These were his brothers now.

For the third time that morning, the Steel infantry formation began to lose its discipline, as tired Enorans struggled to move into line as the previous line fell back. Andreyis did not see how it happened, perhaps someone tripped, or several in the same place fell to Lenay blades, but suddenly the Valhanans were into their midst with a roar, forcing gaps between the shields, knocking men down with sheer bodily force to cause a cascade that rippled through the entire Enoran rank.

Isolated from their protection, Enorans formed small groups and fought furiously, attempting to fall back. Andreyis’s rear formation surged forward, trying to find a way in…. He suddenly found a space and darted within, saw an outnumbered Enoran fighting with remarkable skill, felling one Lenay while blocking two more.

Andreyis came at him with an overhead, but the Enoran blocked it, then rammed the shield back into Andreyis, driving him back, then spinning to cut at another on his side. Two Enoran comrades came to help, and pulled him back into the regrouping formation behind. Andreyis tried to cut around their shields, but his aching arm lacked power, and an Enoran shield thrust knocked his own smaller shield aside, with the following short-sword thrust slicing through shoulder leather as he barely ducked away in time.

There were arrows falling now amongst the Enoran rear ranks, Torovan archers braving the artillery zone behind to fire into that armoured mass. It seemed to do little damage, but it kept the rear ranks holding their shields above their heads instead of resting, and the Enorans seemed as exhausted as the Lenays.

“Keep ’em moving back!” men were yelling. “Keep the pressure on, lads! Move ’em, move ’em!” Defeating an Enoran formation by killing a majority of its men hand to hand seemed unlikely, particularly now that exhaustion was setting in. But moving them backwards and out of position would breach the entire Enoran formation, and open spaces for the cavalry. From there, a collapse could occur relatively quickly. Lenay militia knew this for a fact, and motivated themselves and each other without a need for higher command.

Trumpets sounded above the whistles of rank change. Yells from the Enoran officers, unintelligible in that foreign tongue. Suddenly the entire Enoran line was falling back. Lenay men howled in triumph, and surged forward. Too exhausted to join in immediately, Andreyis managed only a walk. As he fell behind the front line, he noticed that the Enoran line to the left was not falling back evenly, but rather pivoting, as though on a hinge. He stared across to the right as Valhanans jostled past around him, and saw that on that side, the formation was doing the same.

“Wait!” he yelled. “Wait, it’s a trap!”

Ahead, though he could not see, the renewed sound of battle assured him that the sudden Lenay advance had stopped dead. The Enorans had moved up the reserve, he realised…and unlike the Army of Lenayin, with its Torovan reserve, the Enoran reserve would be every bit the quality of its front-line troops, only fresh and itching to fight. The Enoran general had spotted this part of his line about to break, and had shored it up.

And now, the line they had been facing had become the walls of a box, while the new reserve formed the floor. The Valhanans were in the middle, surrounded on three sides.

“Fall back!” Andreyis yelled, pushing forward so that the front ranks might hear. “Fall back, it’s a trap!” The roar of fighting resumed to either side, as the walls of the box began pressing in. Other Valhanans took up the cry, and as quickly as they’d advanced, the Lenays were soon fighting a fast retreat as the box’s steel walls began closing in around them. Unprepared men who had thought themselves in the rear, suddenly found themselves exposed and fighting on a flank, as the Enorans attacked with renewed vigour. In the confusion, the Lenays lost their spacing, became crushed together, and abruptly the advantage swung back to the Enorans, whose short blades and lightning stabs were far more suited to the cramped quarters. Lenays pressed against that Enoran line fell, unable to defend from two or three possible threats at once, unable to see the blow coming behind its shield, and without the space in which to perform a proper parry in the Lenay style.