The shouting, cheering, screaming, howling broil of men swept over the gateless walls, their jabbing spears and dripping swords leaving red ruin behind them, while shrieking panic fled before them. Bili’s pitiless axe scythed ruthlessly through the press atop the wall. At its inner edge, he kicked over a ladder down. which the less nimble defenders were fleeing, then jumped lightly to the stone paving of the inner court, briefly wondering where the defenders had lived in the absence of tents or huts within the fortification.
But the thought was necessarily short, for he was almost immediately confronted by a determined opponent with broadsword and huge bodyshield—a rebel officer, if the garish richness of the elaborately chased and inlaid full suit of plate was any indication. An experienced warrior, this one, for he handled longsword and weighty shield with practiced ease, catching Bili’s hard-swung axe on sloping shieldface and rushing inside, too close for the axe to be effective, his flickering blade feinting at Bili’s visorslits, before its needle point sank through leather and cloth and into the flesh and muscle high on the young thoheeks” thigh.
Roaring his pain and rage, Bili’s left hand let go the axehaft to pinion the wrist of that sword arm in an armor-crushing grip, and, heedless of the searing agony of the steel, he pivoted half around, slid his hand up the axehaft and ferociously rammed the thick central spike betwixt the gilded bars of his adversary’s visor.
With a gurgling, gasping scream, the swordsman stumbled back, his big shield dragging, his broadsword hanging by its knot. Bili disengaged his axe, whirled it up in both hands and swung a crashing blow against the side of that black-plumed helm. The swordsman was hurled to the pavement, where he lay, motionless and soundless, immense quantities of blood pouring from the slits of his visor.
And Bili strode on to his next encounter.
Geros, well protected by his two Freefighter guards and the big old infrantryman, Djim, had trailed the thoheeks and Pawl Raikuh as closely as was possible amid the chaos of shove, thrust, slash and cut. Leaden slingshot and various other missiles had holed and rent the Red Eagle Banner during that ghastly ascent of the hill, but Djim’s big infantry shield had sheltered Geros himself from all harm.
In the swirling court, both Pawl Raikuh and old Djim were swept out of the narrow view afforded Geros by his closed visor. Nonetheless, he kept doggedly on his lord’s heels, watching that gore-slimy axe down rebel after rebel-shattering shields, crumpling armor, severing limbs, smashing heads and chests. Behind Geros, wielding sabers and broadswords and a miscellany of pole arms, came twoscore Freefighters of the Morguhn Company and, after them, the battered remnants of the Confederation infantry, mostly spearless now but no less deadly with shortsword and shield.
The rebels fought hard, vicious as cornered rats, holding every inch of ground with a suicidal tenacity. But slowly they were driven back and back, their thinning line constricting around a central brick-and-stone platform mounting two large engines. Twice they tried to form a shield ring, but each time Bill’s terrible axe lopped off spearheads and beat down shields and the Freefighters poured, ravening, through the gaps, their blood-dimmed blades sending dozens more rebels down to gasp out their lives on the red-running ground.
Then the battle was boiling about the catapult platform and old Djim was once more at Geros’ side, only to disappear again a moment later. A sustained roar of cheering arose in the rear, loud enough that the sergeant could hear it even over the incredible, ear-splitting din engulfing him. He turned to see fresh companies of infantry, wave after wave of them, clamber atop the wall and jump down into the court.
He turned back just in time to see Thoheeks Bili, engaging a pair of swordsmen, beaten to earth by a giant of a man swinging a massive timber. Not noticing the blades beating on his cuirass, Geros hurled himself forward, ducked under the swing of the giant’s log, and jammed the ornamental brass point of the standard shaft deep into the monstrous man’s belly, just below the hornbuckled belt With a high, soprano scream, the stricken rebel dropped the log, grabbed the shaft and pulled it free from his body with an ugly sucking sound. Then, whining, his face contorted, he lumbered toward the man who had hurt him, his ham-sized hands extended before him.
Geros instinctively realized that it would be his very life to chance within reach of those hands. Wedging the ferrule of the standard into a wide crack between the paves, he wasted precious moments fumbling at his belt before recalling that his broadsword hung now on his back. The giant was perilously close as the blade came free of the scabbard and Geros danced back out of reach as lightly as his tired, trembling legs would move.
Assuming a point fighter’s crouch, he awaited his huge foe’s slow advance, then aimed a wicked thrust at the unarmored chest … and almost fell into those deadly clutches, ere he noticed that those arms were as long as his arm and swordblade combined. As it was, the right hand locked about Geros’ blade and sought to jerk him closer to his death. Frantically, the sergeant pulled back with all his might. After a heart-stopping moment of resistance, the sharp edges sliced through callus and skin and flesh to grate on massy bone and slide free, its passage lubricated with hot red blood.
Raising his ruined, useless hand to eye level, the hulking creature rent the air with another of those shrill, womanish screams, then pressed the bleeding palm and fingers against his torn belly, from which a pinkish-purple loop of gut was working. But he did not halt his shuffling advance.
To fall or even stumble would presage a messy death. Geros backed cautiously, his knees flexed, his feet feeling a way across the uneven footing of blood-slick pavement, dropped weapons and still or twitching bodies. The sergeant was suffused with cold, crawling terror, for well he knew that no sane man would so stalk an armed and armored opponent, while lacking any sort of weapon but bare hands. And he would have run, save that the giant now stood between him and Thoheeks Bili, still lying stunned where he had fallen. And, despite his all but unmanning fear, he could not willingly desert his young lord.
The monster, though, was the one who stumbled and would have fallen on his face had he not slammed his wide palm on the slimy ground. And Geros danced in, his point quick as a striking viper, sinking deep, deep into the left eye of that upraised face. The shudder that racked the gargantuan body almost wrenched the broadsword from his grasp. Then the tree-thick left arm bent and the dead man’s huge head thumped the paving stones.
Old Pyk, the Freefighter weapons master, clucked concernedly while he wrapped bandage about Bili’s thigh. “It’s stopped bleeding, my lord. Still, I think it should be burnt, else you might lose the leg to the black stink.” He finished the lapping and neatly tied the ends, adding, “And a burning be much easier, my lord, an’ you’ve no long time to think on it.”
Bili lowered the canteen of brandy-and-water from his lips and smiled. “Thank you, Master Pyk, but no. When we be back in camp, I’ll have Master Ahlee see to the wound. I’ve had such burnt ere this, and I much prefer the soft words of his mode of healing to your red-hot spearhead.”
The young nobleman leaned back, refusing to allow his face to reveal his pain, while his orderly, Makz Bineht, folded the slit leg of the blood-caked breeches over the bulk of bandage, then pulled the boottop back up and secured its straps. Then he stood, remarking, “My lord, Captain Raikuh is coming back.”
Bili opened his eyes and levered himself into a sitting posture on the parapet of the outer works, took another pull at the canteen and resolutely corked it. It would not do to have fuzzy wits if push came to shove and he had another shouting match with sub-strahteegos Kahzos Kahlinz, now commanding the Confederation troops in the conquered salient.