He kept watching and praying. It was the only thing he could do.
“Stand firm, lads,” Sardec shouted, from beneath the regimental colours. The walking corpses were mere yards away, intermittently visible through the billows of powder smoke. “One last volley and fix bayonets!”
The final blast of musketry sounded like thunder in his ears, and then the men were desperately attaching blades to their musket barrels as the undead closed with them. The Barbarian slung his rifle back over his shoulder and drew his chopping blades, taking up a position near Sardec, Weasel and the Sergeant. Sardec was suddenly glad he was there as the first wave of corpses broke on their position.
He brought his blade down to slash off the arm of a skeletal creature, its skin blotched with mould, that looked like it had been dead for days, and then took off its head with his return thrust. The men had formed up in a defensive ring around him, thrusting with blades, smashing rifle butts into undead heads. Still the monsters came on.
With all the smoke and noise it was difficult to grasp the situation but he guessed that things were not looking good. Even if all the deaders managed to do was pin down his force it was enough. His lads were already fatigued, and the undead were tireless. Behind them were waves of fresh human infantry, led by Terrarch officers and supported by monstrous bridgeback wyrms. All he really got a sense of was that his own side were being pushed back by the sheer numbers of their foes.
Even as that thought occurred to him, he heard the bellows breathing and kettle-whistle shriek of one of the great creatures. The earth shook beneath its tread as it raced forward.
“Disperse, lads!” he shouted, and the formation thinned to let the creature pass. It loomed gigantically out of the sulphur-tainted smoke, five times as tall as Sardec, a man, feet kicking frantically was caught in its beak-like jaws, and then sheared into two halves with a flick of its head.
Sardec lashed out at one columnar leg with his blade, aiming to ham string it. He felt the weapon bite home and then he hurled himself aside to avoid being crushed. Those around him were not so lucky. He saw one man go down beneath an enormous padded foot, when it rose again he was nothing more than a bloody smear.
A musket ball buzzed beside his ear, and the side of his head felt wet. He reached up with the back of his hand and felt blood flow. Looking up he caught sight of musketeers on the howdah on the beast’s back. He could do nothing except bellow at them with impotent rage. The blade in his good hand was useless under the circumstances.
Something caught him a heavy blow on his side. He turned and saw a walking corpse, so close the air billowing from the open wounds in its chest washed over his skin like the breath of a demon in a nightmare. He slashed with his hook, catching the thing across the eyes, blinding it, then punched it in the face with the hilt of his blade, breaking teeth and sending the deader tumbling backwards.
For the next few minutes everything was a chaos of pain, and smoke and blood and blows. He lashed out at any walking dead man within reach, losing all sense of self in his desire to put them down. The futility of the exercise, of trying to kill dead men, only goaded him to greater efforts, frustration fuelling his anger, and his rage fuelling his demented blows.
Glancing around he saw the company colours were down. The Angel of Death lay in the mud, covered in blood and dirt. He strode over and picked them up, looking around for familiar faces and finding none.
“Foragers to me,” he shouted. “To the colours!”
From the mist around him emerged a few scattered shouts. Sergeant Hef emerged from the gloom, blood pouring from a face wound. The Barbarian half supported him while beating at corpse men with his blade. Weasel followed, moving calmly amid the chaos, pausing every now and again to stab a foe with controlled precision of a surgeon wielding a scalpel. Sardec shouted a warning as a mass of walking dead swarmed towards the men. He saw Sergeant Hef go down beneath a pile of animated corpses before he could get the rest of the Foragers to the rescue. He dragged Weasel clear himself with the Barbarian covering their retreat.
From all around came the beating of drums and the sounding of great horns. It felt as if they were surrounded by the enemy as if the great mass of undead had swept by them, and all that was left was for them to face the oncoming enemy infantry.
Sardec knew without having to be told that the battle was lost, and that surrender was not an option. The best they could hope for was to flee for their lives, and hope to fight another day.
The walking dead crashed into the Foragers. Sardec returned to the unequal battle.
Rik watched the Talorean centre collapse. There was no way that human courage could stand against that oncoming tide of corrupt flesh. The infantry did their best but were slowly overwhelmed, as the huge mass of walking corpses broke their line in many places and swirled over them.
Clouds of musket-smoke obscured the battlefield. It became harder and harder to get a sense of what was going on. Now and again the smoke would part and reveal a scene of terrible carnage, in which dead bodies moving and unmoving were intermingled. Even as he watched, he felt a surge of mystical power from the East, and the newly killed started to rise horrifically from the ground. More and more new recruits joined the Sardeans.
Down there it was chaos. Undead in the uniforms of Taloreans were turning on their former comrades, killing them before they even knew what was happening, and they in turn would join the ranks of the enemy. It was devilish and it was all but unstoppable.
Rik moved closer to Asea. He knew the risks of interrupting a sorcerer at work but he felt he had better warn her anyway. She saw him coming and nodded her head.
“I can feel it too,” she said. “Someone is exerting necromantic power all along the line of battle. I am trying to counter it but I fear that the best I can do is slow it down. Please let me be now. I must concentrate.”
The eyes of her silver mask closed. The gem on her forehead blazed brighter, she began to chant something in an alien tongue. Her words echoed strangely, booming out from her metallic lips and then seeming to twist and vanish out of the air, as if the echoed off into some strange dimension at a different angle from reality.
For a moment the strange drumbeats faltered, and the formations of the marching dead stopped, milling around like penned sheep. For a moment, hope flared in Rik’s breast, and he thought that the Taloreans might yet be able to turn the tide of battle. Then he felt the surge of evil power play across the battlefield from some point in the East. There was a brief contest of wills. Asea cried out and her eyes opened once more, this time in shock.
It seemed that she had met a power even stronger than her own. The drums took up their beat once more. The dead men pressed their advantage, and their army started to grow once more. The Talorean centre crumbled. The enemy came ever closer.
Even to Rik’s eye it was obvious that the battle was lost. The Talorean centre had gone, and not even the valiant efforts of the cavalry were going to change that. The Sardean wyrms and the undead soldiers were just too much for the horses. The cavalry officers had already come to that conclusion. They were pulling back to regroup.
Asea looked drained. Her gaze was haunted. She obviously knew as well as he did what was going to happen. He imagined that the possibility of falling into Sardean hands was even less attractive for her than it was for him.
The undead infantry were already at the foot of the hill and were beginning to make their way upward. If they were going to make a break for it, now was the time to do so. He walked over to where she stood, being careful not to break the sorcerous circle.