The centurion nodded and ordered his nervous hastati maniple forward. Escaping horsemen flowed around them, turning to form up for another charge or switch to their bows. Kell swung her horse around. She saw a lone Revenge rider in a sea of enemies. The woman slashed wildly around her, keeping her horse turning around and around. So brave but the end was inevitable. A spear skewered into her side and cast her from her horse. The Tsardon bunched and came on through the gates once more.
Harin withdrew his levium and called for his horses. The phalanx reformed but it was just a matter of time before more catapult stones found their target. The Gatherer mounts were in a paddock just behind the reserve. Their saddles had not been taken from their backs and they waited in nervous expectancy while the tumult rolled around them.
'Quickly and up,' he ordered the two hundred with him. 'We're going to play a holding role. Where we see a breach, we ride in, give the infantry time to form up. Levium, for the Conquord and for me!'
Tsardon onager rounds were still falling and still the Conquord answered them. The damage behind the walls was terrible and the rampart was shattered in a dozen places. He rode around to the south, away from the gates which were under serious threat but where a solid concentration of soldiers was gathered and holding firm. He saw Kell among them. While she still rode, they would not break.
Gesteris was down at the major breach, his life on the line every heartbeat. Nunan was next to him, directing forces. Above, they were slowly losing control of the rampart. The available number of archers was thinning along with their supply of ammunition. And every swordsman that went up there knew they would not be coming down.
'Hold here,' he said. He rode to Gesteris. 'General.' 'Appros, how are we doing?'
'Badly,' said Harin. 'You must cede the rampart. Let them climb. Place archers and swordsmen below. We're wasting good citizens up there.'
Gesteris looked up. Fighting was continuous along the top. Soldiers fell out into the enemy and back onto their friends. The ground was covered in bodies too numerous to clear.
'Not yet. While they're up there, they don't know we are losing ground. I have to buy more time.'
'Don't leave it too long. We'll—'
A multiple shuddering impact south of them shook the ground under their feet. From without, the Tsardon roared again. Two more sections of the wall collapsed inwards. Tsardon surged in behind, running free behind the walls. Maniples set waiting engaged them hard under the direction of triarii within their ranks. Gesteris did not have enough fit centurions left.
Harin nodded at Gesteris and dragged his horse around, pushing it hard back to his levium who were waiting his call.
'Into the gap,' he shouted. 'Break their charge, isolate those inside.' He pointed at one rider. 'You, get to the rest of the cloaks. I need them mounted and mustered right here. We're going to lose the walls. Quickly now.'
It was surely hopeless. Harin galloped into the running Tsardon flank. Enemies bounced from his horse. He leant out and forwards, slicing into their faces. He kept low against the threat of arrows. Behind him, the levium carved their way through. Horses picked their way over bodies and debris. He swung round again and began to come back, angling towards the wall where they kept on coming. Hundreds of them. And thousands still waited outside.
More impacts. On the ground behind the walls a flare of fire in the fading afternoon light. Conquord artillery was shattered, crews dead in an instant. A third section of wall exploded inwards, sending rock high into the air to crash down on the few reserve not committed. Five breaches including the gate. Tsardon had broken through unopposed in two places and were heading for the few remaining artillery pieces.
Harin kicked out at a Tsardon head. Pain flooded him. He gasped. An arrow had pierced his armour at the base of his breastplate. Blood flowed. He breathed in, trembling. His sword came down on the shoulder of an Atreskan legionary running with the enemy. He kicked at the flanks of his horse, kept her moving forwards. Levium crowded him, seeing his injury.
The horns he had been fearing blared across the Conquord lines and the shout was taken up by every man and woman in the legions.
'Retreat! Retreat! Make for the stockade. Defend the camp.' The levium moved to take him that way but he stopped them as soon as they'd cleared the immediate threat.
'No, no. To the muster point. We have to get out of here, get behind them. It's our only chance to help. Horses are no good inside a stockade.'
'You're hurt sir, we must get you to safety.'
'Safety? Show me where that is and I'll lead us all there. Levium, for the Exchequer, for the Conquord and for me. Let's get out of here but first, let's give the legion as much time as we can. Let's ride.'
Gesteris saw the levium moving and all he could do was mouth his thanks as he ran back towards the stockade. Again and again, the levium rode down and through the Tsardon advance. It bought them precious yards in their flight to the final plank of Conquord defence in the north.
Behind them, triarii held a solid triple line across the front of the enemy charge. They fell back as fast as they could, taking advantage of Harin's bravery and the sacrifice of the levium, who were cut down in number every time they broke into the enemy lines. Kell was with the triarii. What few remained of her cavalry, less than thirty, rode the flanks of the fall back.
There were dozens, hundreds of Tsardon and Atreskan rebels amongst the legions. Gesteris didn't have time to care. He needed to focus the final defence and hope Roberto was closer than he had any right to be. But the Omniscient had apparently turned away from them this day. Gesteris had wanted to hold the walls until dusk and retreat under cover of dark if he had to. But this smacked too much of Scintarit. The one difference was that he was in a position to help the stockade.
It was a four-hundred-yard sprint back to the stockade past the abandoned and sabotaged onagers. The Conquord flag snapped proudly at its gates which stood open. There were already four hundred infantry and engineers inside. They lined the ground in front of the camp and the platforms and rampart inside. Bolt-firers sat in towers. Catapults on the parade grounds inside. This stockade hadn't been built to house an army, only to provide a last refuge.
Gesteris paused to look back. In the failing light, the levium rode past one more time, turned and charged directly at the Tsardon line. Gesteris nodded and wished them luck under his breath. He signalled the horns and the fallback line turned and ran.
His people were flooding inside the stockade. Onager rounds thumped out overhead. Scorpion bolts whined by. And as Gesteris and the last of the legions came under the long shadow of the gatehouse, the archers set up a withering fire. The Tsardon slowed, forced to defend with shields high and above their heads.
How many people Gesteris had, he had no idea. He ran in, slapped the rump of Kell's horse as it thundered past him and ordered the gates shut as the final archer ran inside. Out there, the Tsardon would mass. They would bring their catapults and scorpions up with only a few hundred levium at best able to upset their progress.
Here was where it would end. Here, like in the harbour at Estorr, the Conquord's fate would truly be decided. The first of Gesteris's few fell from the rampart, an arrow in his face. The Tsardon were not even pausing for breath.
Chapter 78
848th
cycle
of
God,
18th
day
of
Dusasrise 15th
year
of
the
true
Ascendancy
Harin ignored the scything pain in his side and hacked down with his sword. Countless times he'd made the move and his arm ached like his thighs, his arse, dammit the whole of his body. The levium chopped and slashed their way through the heart of the Tsardon. Harin brought his blade back to the ready. He moved it smartly aside to block a spear thrust and reversed it back to thud onto a helmeted head.
Levium rode seven abreast either side of him. He knew they were trying to shield him but everyone had to fight. The mass of the Tsardon flowed around them, content to let them go knowing their true goal, their true victory, lay ahead. Directly ahead, though, the defence was stout and they knew their own catapults were at risk.
The rubble and broken walls towards which they rode were a hideous backdrop. The Tsardon who ran through the gaping holes were like rats invading new carrion feeding grounds. They poured around the bodies that lay abandoned in their thousands, helpless before the Omniscient. Friend and enemy together, as would always be the way at the end of life in battle.
The sun was setting quickly behind the levium, sending stark, cold shadows across the battle ground. Birds were already flocking in the sky, waiting their chance to feast on dead flesh. Harin's anger dulled the pain away. He kicked his horse again and she sprang forwards, her front hoofs kicking out and catching a Tsardon in the chest. She found firm purchase and moved ahead. Harin beat about him with his sword, seeing Tsardon fall or scatter before him.
At his back were perhaps ten per cent of the levium who had ridden to battle just a few days before. Three hundred but with any
number of others scattered to all points of the compass during the fighting. Too many, though, lay dead.
The power of the gallop saw them through the sundered gates and out into open ground. He could see the light of fires around catapults being secured for onward movement. Clustered about them were groups of archers and swordsmen. The enemy jeered, thinking they were fleeing the battle. Harin couldn't resist demonstrating their mistake.
He raised his sword and pointed at the nearest group of weapons. Levium came into a wide line, two deep, and rode in a crescent formation. The wings galloped at greater pace, closing in on the artillery crews and their defence. Harin barked his satisfaction. The encirclement was long in the training. It was gratifying to see its execution.
In front of him, the archers and swordsmen bunched together, trying to cover all the angles. Arrows came at the levium who hunched low. The target area was small, the depth of the line slight. And his archers were far better from the saddle than these Tsardon from firm ground.
Harin circled his blade and the levium cruised in. He sheared his horse left and swung his blade out and back, striking the arm from an archer. Three hundred riders choked every hint of space. Archers picked off their counterparts, swordsmen used their height advantage to drive the enemy into the ground. It was a slaughter. Unedifying but intensely satisfying.
Harin smashed his blade through the neck of a frightened boy soldier and kicked the corpse off its tip. He left the destruction of the weapons to his Gatherers and swung out to seek the next target. No one was coming back to them from the direction of the walls and the Tsardon catapults were open. Further south, artillery was already moving away into the gloom. Nearby, panic was evident and two or three archers had broken off to sprint away to call for help.
He turned his horse full circle. The low cloud was hampering his vision and in the dusk, snow began to fall again. But away northeast, a shadow was moving. It was broad and pinpoints flashed in the last light of the sun. Harin trotted his horse a few strides towards it, straining to see. The shadow resolved itself.
'Oh no,' he breathed.
Riders. Hundreds of them heading back onto the battlefield. Those pinpoints of light were reflections from the tips of blade lances. Only one force used them in such numbers and he had thought in his naivety that they had been defeated and scattered. He wondered if they had been seen. If not yet, then soon.
'Levium! We have to go. Steppe cavalry north-east.' He rode past them while they disengaged from the destruction of the artillery. One small blow for the Conquord. 'Whatever it is, leave it.'
He pushed his horse as fast as she would go. The levium tore through the outer reaches of the enemy encampment, ignoring the handful of guards. Once on the highway again they galloped away east, aiming to be lost in the foothills of the Gaws.
He heard shouts from up ahead and knew the Omniscient was not done with them. More riders were heading towards them along the highway. They must have numbered over a thousand. Harin felt like weeping. At every turn, they were thwarted. Luck never rolled in their favour. It had been so at the walls and it was so now.
Harin made the front of his levium to lead the charge to their doom. There was no point in turning back into the teeth of the others. He ordered them to drop to a trot. They would wait until the opposition was within a hundred yards and then charge afresh.
'Ready levium. Make this our glorious charge. Every rider you unseat is one less for Gesteris to face. Make your lives count.'
He raised his sword into the air. One more drop. One more charge. Harin glanced over his shoulder. Every face that stared back at him was steady. There was no fear, just determination and pride. The cloak sat well on all of them. He turned back.