There was a third barrage of javelins, which did some damage, to judge by the screams around me, and then a fourth, during which one went screaming past my ear and made Loiosh yelp psychically, and then we met the enemy.
The noise is what I remember most about that first instant, a screeching, groaning thunder that filled my skull and became something greater than noise, that went beyond the pain from my ears. It encompassed the battle like a shroud, and everything that happened was twisted and dulled by the dinout of which it was impossible to isolate what was causing any of it; it was just one unending roar. And through it, I kept trying to go forward, and I couldn't.
Now look, I think I'm more than a match for just about any of the swordsmen you care to name. For one thing, I'm good with a blade, but more important than that, I fight in a way they aren't used to: We Easterners have our own ways of fighting that I can use to take advantage of the fact that I'm smaller and quicker than they are. This mostly involves staying out of the way of those big monster blades they use, not giving them a good target, and never putting myself into a position of setting my strength directly against theirs.
Okay, now that I've said that, you probably already see the problem. I was not out there fighting against another swordsman with the object of killing him or taking him out of combat; I was out there trying to get myself past a certain point along with several hundred others, and at no point did I really have the chance to settle in and actually fight someone. I ducked a lot, and scampered back and forth, and I'd occasionally make a halfhearted jab in the direction of one of the defenders, but there was just no way for my fighting advantages to be of help, whereas all of my disadvantages were multiplied.
It's nothing short of a miracle that I wasn't killed inside the first twenty seconds after we met their line. The very first instant someone brought a big old sword cutting down at my head, and I still don't know how I got out of the way. He certainly would have killed me if he had followed up on that first strike, but I guess he got distracted after that. For whatever reason, I picked myself up (no, I don't remember falling or dropping to the ground or whatever I did) and charged again, and someone came within a whisper of disemboweling me. I don't remember gasping for breath while this was going on, but I must have been. I just remember thinking in a strangely detached way, That's two; the third will probably kill me.
Then Loiosh said into my mind, "To the left, Boss!" which accomplished two things. The first, and most immediate, was that it caused me to look to my left, where someone was drawing a bead on me with a sword swirling over his head. The second thing was that, somehow, it transformed me from a soldier into what I was. Or, to put it another way, it reminded me that I had more weapons than my swordalthough that isn't accurate either, because I didn't exactly remember, because I never made a decision, but the next thing I knew I had put three shuriken into his chest, which slowed him down a bit, and while he was trying to decide how badly he was hurt, someoneI think it was Aelburr, though I'm not sure, cut his legs out from under him.
I went back to looking ahead of me, and when I attracted someone's attention I threw a knife at her, missing, but I guess making her decide to look elsewhere for entertainment.
How long did our assault last? Well, I saw in the log book where it was recorded at four minutes. To me it seemed longer and shorter. Longer because at the time it seemed to go on and on; I kept thinking that something had to break, but nothing did. Shorter because I can't account for most of it. I usually have good memories of fights because my mind is always working, keeping track of the movements that training has made instinctive and making notes for future reference, but in these battles it had been different, and in this one in particular I can only account for about a minute of the fight, and then we were retreating back to our own lines with Rascha shouting to maintain our line. I remember seeing our colors and telling myself, Okay, we didn't take them, but we weren't broken. I didn't know that the color bearer had gone down, and his replacement, too, but I suppose that didn't much matter; what did matter was that we retreated in order and looked threatening enough doing so that whoever was in charge of the company that had just repelled us decided not to counterattack.
Which is part of what I meant earlier when I spoke of mistakes. I am fairly sure they could have broken us if they had charged immediately. They had elevation working for them, and we were at least a little demoralized, but, probably because we looked like we were retreating in order, or maybe because we'd killed some officer, or maybe just because the enemy commander lacked backbone, they didn't attack.
It was only when we had retreated all the way back to the bottom of the hill and an additional hundred yards besides that I became aware that there was fighting going on around us. We had, it seems, been only one part of a major battle, which I should have known but had never thought of until, motionless and recovering my breath, I noticed dust clouds from several of the hills around us, and the movement of troops, and opposing banners awful close together.
I didn't watch, however, because I couldn't see much and didn't want to anyway. I overheard various remarks about who was winning where, but they didn't agree with each other so I concluded that no one knew.
Presently Virt came up next to me, and it was only then that I remembered she'd gone down. Aelburr said, "Good work, slackard."
"Good move on their part," she said. "If they hadn't knocked me down we'd have won."
"Yeah," he said. "You'd have taken the position by yourself."
"Damn right."
"What happened?" I said.
"The bastards missed my knee, that's what. Thigh wound, about as clean as you could ask. I'd have kept going up the hill but I felt like taking a nap."
"You and Napper," he said, which was when I realized that I hadn't seen Napper since the fight, but then I noticed him almost at once, lying on his back just past Aelburr; as near as I could tell he was sound asleep.
I tried to decide how I felt about that, but gave up and threw myself onto the ground next to him.
"Behold the grim aftermath of battle," remarked Virt.
Loiosh tells me I caught a nap myself after that, and I can't prove him wrong. In any case, the juice-drum brought me to my feet with "Rubbing Elbows," the call to form a defensive line. I looked around the battlefield, aware that I'd been resting my eyes for a little while, and saw that the scene had changed; our colors now occupied a hill we hadn't been on before, and I could just barely make out fighting a long way to the right. They were, I supposed, attacking our flank. (Well, no, they weren't, as it happened; it was some sort of complicated diversionary move to cover an envelopment on the other side that never happened, but I didn't find that out until much later.)
I asked Loiosh, who had been strangely silent since we charged, if he was all right.
"Boss, we don't belong here."
"I know. What's your point?"
"We should cut out."
"Can't do it."
"Why not?"
"For one thing, I've agreed to a job."
"Do you see any way to do it?"
"Not at the moment, but" I said aloud, "Where do you suppose their command center is, Virt?"
She pointed to a hill about four hundred yards south of us. "I'd be there," she said. "It commands a good view, and it's hard to tell for sure, but I think it's pretty steep. It would be easy to defend, easy to retreat from, easy to advance from. I'd certainly have my sorcerers there, and probably my command post. Why?"