All three squads had been given a chance to eat and rest before Edmund called them back to the parapet. The archers were back at work but this time the attacking force was led by some of the plate-clad figures, which didn’t make Herzer happy at all.
“There’s nothing you can do with a regular sword to plate,” Edmund said to the Blood Lords. “But the arrows will go right through it at short range, as can your pilums if well driven. This is the place for the pilums, and lay your construction tools to hand; we’ll show them how armored men-at-arms die.”
The plate-clad men-at-arms were obviously making heavy work of climbing up the hill and as they closed, the primary archers took their positions, sending carefully aimed arrows into the joints at neck, elbow, knee and the vision gaps of the visors. The men-at-arms tried to keep their shields up but they could only cover one side, and the archers on the left flank were striking them hard. As the armored figures got closer, the arrows began to punch straight through their armor and they fell by the wayside. For that matter, the Blood Lords could get their pilums in play. The pilums couldn’t penetrate the armor but they could penetrate the shields and when they did the soft steel heads bent down, adding their weight and leverage to the already unwieldy shields. The fighter then had to stop and try to extricate them, leaving them open to the archer fire, or try to come on with the spears stuck in their shields, which made them virtually useless. There had been only fourteen in the group, by the time they were at the top there were five.
“Let them cross the parapet,” Edmund said in an amused tone as the first reached the top. “Step back,” he added, stepping forward.
The armor-clad figure got a hand over the top of the parapet and hoisted itself up, almost falling into the interior and raising its shield and sword against the Blood Lords to the right.
By doing so he turned his back on Edmund who stepped forward and brought his great hammer down on the back of the figure’s head. The thick steel of the helmet crumpled under the blow and the figure pitched forward on his face.
“That’s the technique,” Edmund said. “Get them separated, stop them with your shields in one direction and then bash them down with the axes and mallets.” As another came up the parapet he smashed the hammer down upon the fighter’s hand, eliciting a scream and a clanking sound as the fighter fell off the parapet and began to inexorably roll down the steep mountain’s flank. “And, of course, don’t fight fair.”
There were only three of the fighters left and they were finished off in a similarly brutal fashion. The last caught sight of Herzer and raised his visor in desperation to reveal the visage of Galligan, one of Dionys’ cronies.
“Herzer!” the man gasped, out of breath. “Please God…”
“See you in hell,” Herzer ground out and drove his pilum into the man’s face. He walked along the trench and flipped up visors.
“Benito’s here as well,” he said with satisfaction.
“Feel better?” Edmund asked as the first of the figures was tipped over the parapet to slide down the hill into the next wave of orcs.
“A bit,” Herzer admitted. “I’ll feel much better when he’s dead,” he continued, pointing down the hill to where McCanoc could be seen striding up and down.
“You’re not supposed to enjoy this,” Edmund pointed out.
“I don’t enjoy killing people,” Herzer said then shrugged. “Okay, there are a few that I get some satisfaction from. But I also don’t get all wrapped up about it. Does that make me sick?”
“Not if you don’t enjoy killing for its own sake,” Edmund replied. “Some of the archers and your fellow soldiers are puking themselves sick. But that’s just one end of the reaction to combat. Some people are like you, they just do it and go on. As long as you don’t get to enjoying it too much.”
“I like the competition,” Herzer said. “I really like the winning. Even if it means the other guys die.”
“Then if you survive for a while you’ll make a pretty good soldier.” Edmund smiled as McCanoc called back the last of his forces. “Hell, you’re already making a pretty good soldier.”
After a brief consultation between Dionys and a few of the armored riders, one of them rode towards the defense and stopped out of bowshot, waving a white rag on the end of his lance.
Edmund stood on the parapet and cupped his hands. “Come forward if you want to parley. Any tricks and you’re going to look like a porcupine.”
The rider worked his horse up the hill slowly as the half-trained horse shied constantly at the smell of the blood from the bodies. A few of the attackers were still alive but the rider didn’t pay any attention to them, simply riding around their outstretched hands.
When he reached easy shouting distance of the Raven’s Mill line he stopped again and raised his visor.
“Him I don’t recognize,” Herzer muttered.
“Sacrificial goat,” Edmund guessed. “So, do you surrender?” he called.
“No,” the man said with nary a flicker of humor in his grim visage. “But we call upon you to do so. If you do not we’ll simply swarm your silly palisade and kill you all.”
“You should have tried that at first,” Talbot replied. “Now you’re already down, what? Fifty? A hundred fighters? And the rest aren’t going to be exactly ecstatic about attacking.”
“Leave now and we’ll permit you to live,” the horseman called. “It’s the best deal you’ll get.”
“Give us McCanoc and all of the survivors that participated in the rape of my wife along with anyone who was in the sack of Resan and we’ll let you live,” Talbot replied contemptuously. “Oh, and head back to your hole. Then we’ll let you get away alive.”
“Is that your last word?” the armored figure asked.
“That’s my final answer,” Talbot replied with a grin. “Come on to it. We’re just getting warmed up.”
The horseman shook his head, then headed back down the hill. At the bottom he conferred with McCanoc who simply lifted his finger at the hill and gave a very ancient symbol of contempt.
“Now to see what they’ll do,” Edmund mused. “Tell the troops to get a bite to eat. I’ll go talk with McGibbon and Alyssa.”
Herzer passed the word and sat himself down to eat. The smell of the bodies was rising up over the palisade and between that and the cries of the wounded, for water among other things, it was not one of the best meals he’d ever had. But he managed to choke it down. Finally Edmund came back, chewing on a bar of monkey, and nodded at something down the hill. “He was serious.”
The whole force had gathered at the base of the hill, with the armored figures in the center by the trail and the archers and Changed arrayed to either side. At a gesture from McCanoc, the whole force started up the hill.
“He’s got some tactical sense,” Edmund said. “He knows that with us in his rear he can’t get to the town and that we can obviously outmaneuver him on the hills.”
“So what are we going to do now?” Herzer asked nervously. The small force on the hill was outnumbered nearly a hundred to one.
“See how many of them we can make die,” Edmund said with a chuckle. “And then, run away.”
Herzer heard the horses start up the defile and looked around involuntarily.
“Eyes front,” Edmund called. “They come up the hill and we kill them. Not much more to it.”
The orcs moving among the trees were a poor target for the bowmen so they concentrated on the armored figures moving up the trail. Again the figures dropped, one by one, but behind them was a tide of orcs and as they ascended the trail the surviving enemy bowmen reached a position to start to fire back. Their bows were lighter than those of the Raven’s Mill archers but they scored, mostly among the archers and their assistants. The archers shifted fire to get rid of them and in doing so gave the armored men-at-arms the chance to scramble up the hill unmolested.