‘What're we gonna do?’ Brill asked, wiping his running nose.
‘How in the Abyss-’ Nait caught himself, cursed under his breath. ‘Let's find someone in charge out here in this mess. C'mon!’
They hunched low, jogging, and passed a natural depression in the rolling plain where a knot of irregulars had gathered, all clustered around something, crossbows loose at their sides. Nait ran over.
‘Do you crack ‘em?’ someone was asking within the crowd.
‘Naw. I think you scratch ‘em.’
‘You try’
‘No – you try.’
Nait's bowels tightened in sudden gelid terror. He surged forward. ‘Who's in charge here!’
Sullen, sneering faces turned on him. ‘Who wants to know?’
‘I do!’
‘Who're you?’
‘Corporal Jumpy, that's who!’ Brill bellowed, pointing a warning finger.
Silence, then gales of raucous laughter all around. ‘Corporal Jumpy! That's a good one!’
Nait hung his head. Gods, Brill… ‘Yeah, yeah. Listen, you're gonna blow yourselves up – worse than that, you're gonna blow me up. I know how to use those so hand them over…’
‘Piss off!’
The crowd melted. Men and women legging it in all directions. ‘Wait, dammit!’ None halted. In seconds all that remained were four skirmishers; the youngest of the lot. They wore plain leather caps and soft leather hauberks set with rings and studs. The faces of three were ravaged by pimples and pox scars. They peered up at him suspiciously.
‘You a real sapper?’
‘Yeah, kid.’
‘You'll show us how to use ‘em?’
‘Yeah.’
They exchanged narrowed glances. ‘Well, OK – but we get to throw ‘em!’
In a heroic effort, Nait squelched the urge to grab them by their ankles and shake them until they dropped the munitions. ‘Sure, kid. You'll get to throw them.’ He motioned everyone to the lip of the depression. There, they knelt for a peek. The lads cocked their crossbows. The smallest lay on his back, pushing both feet on the goat's foot lever, straining, until it caught. Nait was amazed, and appalled. He did that just as fast as any soldier could. Crazy brave kids. Just what he needed.
The Imperial skirmishers were now facing a fluid, shifting battle on two fronts. To the west, the League skirmish-line was making steady progress against the irregulars, who were giving ground. The line was long and loose but three deep, staggered. Shieldmen advanced, covering their own bowmen or crossbowmen. Their superior discipline was showing over the Imperials who simply retreated, making no effort to pull together an organized line. The remaining League cavalry swept back and forth across the grounds before the skirmish-line, swords scything, scattering any knots of resistance.
To the east waited the swollen merged wedge of League elements and Moranth Gold. And it was obvious to Nait that the skirmishers were now bunching up dangerously close. Braven Tooth's command must have absorbed enormous punishment holding all that back, but it still held. Behind, the reserve phalanx under High Fist Anand was closing to reinforce. With it came the Sword's banner. Oh, great! Now he's gonna wreck another one. Nait motioned aside.
They ducked and wove through the massed irregulars. Crossbow bolts sang overhead like angry insects, so close that Nait almost stopped to chase down one or two offenders but they scattered when he turned and he gave it up as useless. He led his squad to a position as close to the Gold shieldwall as he dared. All around skirmishers knelt, loading and firing. The whine and singing of bolts through the air was unrelenting. They'd passed a number of skirmisher bodies displaying bolts in their backs – the occupational hazard of friendly fire. Occasionally, the irregulars would dare to advance and a wave of javelins arcing out of the Moranth formation drove them back. The shouting and clash of weaponry from the ferocious engagement of heavies just beyond was deafening. Hunkered down, Nait waved his squad close. ‘Okay,’ he shouted. ‘I want you lot to spot one of them Gold carrying something – it might be on his back or at his side. It'll be about so big – a pack or a box…’
From his position on the modest hillside overlooking the battle, Ullen felt sick. That horde of skirmishers was savaging their forces. Soon they might have no cohesive units left. If the Gold and Talian heavies could push through, force the Empress to retreat, then they would have a chance to bargain for terms. Otherwise, they faced a slow gnawing down to nothing. He wish Urko continued luck with his skirmish-line. Gods! A line! Forming line with Imperial cavalry still in reserve! But it was all they had. He turned to one of the messengers who waited along with his staff next to Bala's cumbersome carriage, now unhitched of all its horses, much to her annoyance. ‘Any news of Toc?’
‘None. Apparently he went after the Seti – hasn't been seen since.’
Poor man. They probably killed him out of shame. He examined the field. It was hard to tell – the dust kicked up by all those shuffling feet obscured any details – but it looked as though the skirmishers were bunching up favourably. He was about to tell Bala to send a message to V'thell when across the field Imperial pennants and battle-flags dipping and circling caught his attention. The Imperial cavalry – many boasting their own noble family banners – was on the move. Two wings came cantering out from the rear where a tall grey horizontal banner bore the Imperial sceptre. They arced around the battlefield to the north and south. But few. Very few. Less than a thousand all told, he calculated. His gaze flicked to Urko's thin skirmish-line. The risk they'd invited had been delivered. It suddenly seemed to him that perhaps they'd waited too long. ‘Bala! Bala!’
‘Do not bark! I am here!’ came her scornful voice from within the carnage.
‘Tell V'thell, now's the time! Open up!’
‘Yes, yes!’
A flash from the battlefield made him flinch. It was followed by an eruption of dirt and bodies that arced up high above the Gold formation, flying outwards in all directions, armoured bodies pin-wheeling, then spinning down. The thunderous echo of the explosion reached him like a distant roll.
Hood preserve us! A lucky crossbow bolt? Who could know? He almost laughed. His order might well be irrelevant now that the first munitions had been unpacked. V'thell would probably just go ahead now. And he watched sideways, half wincing, for the firestorm to come. His gaze caught the top of the distant outcropping to the south, golden now in the late afternoon sun. And the Guard. What would they do? Should Laseen win would they throw their weight against her now that she was weakened? Yet what could they hope to accomplish? Someone else would merely claim the Throne. And what if Urko and Choss down in the chaos below should prevail? Would the Guard simply leave, the terms of their Vow sufficiently fulfilled?
‘What do you sense of the Guard?’ he asked of Bala.
‘Ahh! You are perhaps no fool after all, little Ullen. They have not deployed – yet. But they watch. And wait. And bide their time.’
Some ally this mage of theirs was proving to be!
A moment later a rider charged up from behind Ullen's position, sawed his reins. ‘Seti approaching from the rear, sir,’ he gasped. ‘A long column/ Ullen's staff and guards repositioned themselves, swords drawn. Shortly afterwards five Seti horsemen galloped up. Ullen raised a hand and kneed his mount to the fore. The lead Seti was a bull of a man in layered ringed armour bearing a score of lances, javelins and two long-handled axes crossed over his back, long-knives sheathed at his hips. Under his blunt bronze helmet his scarred, sun- and wind-darkened features were those of a startlingly old man.