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armor. Move!"
The number of men assigned to my command nearly twenty-five
thousand infantry, with spears and pikes, plus two thousand archers and a
thousand cavalry seemed impossibly huge, and yet as I rode down the assembled
ranks, I couldn't help but feel it wouldn't be enough. This attack had been
well orchestrated... the hell-creatures knew our numbers, and still they came.
Somehow, I thought we had missed some important detail.
Then I glanced up at the sky, at the swirling black mass of clouds
over Juniper, and I wondered if they counted on the lightning to help destroy
us. If we fell back around the castle, we would certainly be within its
range...
No sense worrying about retreat now, I thought with a sigh. If we
carried the day, we wouldn't have to worry about getting too close to the
castle.
I reached the end of my troops, raised my sword, and cried, "On to
victory!"
The men gave a cheer, then began to march forward, heading south
across the fields.
As we neared the woods, troops began to pour from the forest
silently, waves of hell-creatures armed with pikes. I saw no sign of their
horsemen yet, but I knew they wouldn't be far behind. We couldn't wait for
them our archers would have to take out their first wave of attackers.
"Archers ready!" I called, and the bugler sounded my commands so
all could hear.
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Our front lines dropped to one knee, giving the archers room to
aim.
"Fire!" I screamed.
They began to let loose their arrows, huge volleys of them. The
front line of hell-creatures fell, but more swarmed from the trees in a
seemingly endless black wave.
My archers continued to shoot, but there were too many of the
hell-creatures. For every one that fell, five more took his place, advancing
on us at a run. And then, behind them, I saw lines of hell-creatures on
horseback making their way steadily toward us.
"Sound the call for the pikemen!" I said to the bugler, as their
first men neared our lines.
He blew the call, and our archers dropped back. The line of
pikemen rushed forward, screaming fierce battle cries. The archers raised
their bows and fired over the pike-men's heads, killing more of the
hell-creatures to the rear.
"Hold some arrows back for their horses!" I shouted. "Aim for
their mounts whenever you have a clear shot!"
Both sides met in the middle of the field, a huge writhing mass of
bodies. From my vantage point on my horse's back, I saw still more
hell-creatures pouring from the forest, although there had to be tens of
thousands already fighting.
Our archers kept firing as they found targets, but I held our
horsemen back. Their mounts shifted impatiently, eager to charge.
"Steady... steady..." I murmured.
The battle slowly turned in the hell-creatures' favor. Half my
troops had fallen, and the remaining half seemed badly outnumbered. The
archers had begun to fall back; they couldn't pick out targets easily. I knew
the time had come to send in my horsemen.
"Sound the charge," I said, raising my sword.
To the wailing call of the horn, I spurred my own mount, and
together with my two thousand cavalrymen, I rode into the battle.
It became a blur of slashing, hacking, and chopping. Around me, I
saw horses and riders from both sides pulled down and then hacked to bits.
Still I fought on, my sword a blur as I killed hell-creatures by the dozen.
Soldiers began to rally around me, and together we cut a wide swathe through
the enemy's lines. I screamed my war-cry and rode, smeared in blood and gore,
fighting as I had never fought before, taking a wild joy in the feel of metal
slicing through armor and flesh, of killing those who had destroyed my life
and my love and my home.
Suddenly, it was over. I heard the wail of enemy horns, and the
hell-creatures turned and began their retreat. Archers fired at their backs,
taking down dozens, then hundreds more. The men around me began to cheer.
I sagged in my saddle, grinning madly, exhausted beyond words. As
I turned, taking in the battlefield, I saw bodies everywhere, human and
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hell-creature alike, piled three and four deep in places.
My arms trembled. My head ached. I had never felt so tired before
in my entire life.
And yet I felt a wild elation it had been a victory of epic
proportion. Although two-thirds of my men had fallen, dead or wounded, we had
still won the battle. And we had killed twice as many of them as they had
killed of us.
"O-ber-on! O-ber-on! O-ber-on!" The men began to chant my name.
I raised my sword and sat up straight in my saddle. "Back to
camp!" I cried. "Carry the wounded and our dead!"
Still cheering, they fanned out across the battlefield, looking
for human survivors, killing whatever hell-creatures still lived.
There would be no prisoners in this war, I thought.
By the time we started back toward camp, scouts had ridden out to
get a report and tell me what had happened. Their news wasn't good. Although [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]