Robert Adams - The Death of a Legend

Then young Geros Lahvoheetos had climbed up, and they three had been discussing various aspects of the Freefighter’s trade and what did and did not constitute bravery when the High Lord mindspoke him.

“Bili, move your company down to Strahteegos Ahrtos’ position. I’ll be leading the attack on the left salient and Ahrtos will be in command of the attack on the right one; but I want you with him, because you own a quality that he ail-but lacks—imagination.

“Take care of yourself, son. If anything happens to you this day, Aldora will no doubt make my life miserable for the next century or two.”

The attack had been absolutely hellish. Only narrow gaps had been cleared through the interlaced abattis, and the Confederation infantry sustained heavy losses while threading through the openings. Slingstones and arrows and darts hailed down thickly from the summit of the fortified hillock, despite the shafts rained on the defenders by the Confederation archers.

Then, when the survivors were at last through the deadly hedge and were forming up for the uphill charge against the bristling breastworks and the masonry walls beyond, no less than three catapult stones—from Confederation engines, too!—fell short and bounced a sanguineous path through the forming ranks; the hundredweight missiles sent steel scales flying and mashed leather and flesh and bone into one indistinguishable sickening jelly.

The ranks closed up again and the charge was launched, but less than halfway up the slope, Strahteegos Ahrtos—his visor open for better vision—had his jaw torn almost off by a slingstone and fell, clashing and gurgling bloodily, at Bill’s feet.

The sah-strahteegos who immediately assumed the lead got but a few yards farther up when a pitchball took him full on the breastplate, and Bili’s last view of the unfortunate officer was of a writhing, shrieking, flame-shrouded figure rolling on the ground.

The keeleeohstos who then took over made it almost to the outer works—a chest-high, earth-and-timber rampart—when a thick-shafted, four-foot engine dart spitted him through the belly, going through his high-grade steel plate as cleanly as a warm knife through soft cheese.

Then Bili had no more time to watch or count the succession of commanders. He leaped aside barely in time to avoid a trayful of red-hot sand, though a hideous scream from just behind him attested that the sand had landed on some poor bastard. But Bili surged forward, and the powerful sweep of his heavy axe cleanly severed a leg of the man holding the tray.

And somehow Bili found himself atop the breastwork, wreaking bloody carnage on the swift succession of foes who appeared for but bare eyeblinks before him, dimly recording the shock of countless blows on his own plate and helm.

Oblivious to the familiar cacophony of battle, he concentrated only on remaining alive… and seeing to it that his opponents did not.

Then only the backs of rebels running up toward the stone-walled summit met his eyes, and someone’s—was that Raikuh’s voice?—shout was ringing th»ough his closed helm.

“… Bili, Duke Bili, if we tail those bastards now, we’ll take fewer casualties. The frigging archers and darters won’t be able to range us without ranging their own, as well.”

Bili attempted to speak, but he had to work his tongue about in the aridity of his mouth before he could wet his throat enough to get the words out. “Whoever the new army commander is, he’ll take time to dress his troops, however many of them are left. You’ve seen how these hidebound regular arseholes operate, man!” Raikuh shook his head briskly, his lobstertail napeguard rattling. “There’re damn-all officers left, Duke Bili. The highest-ranking bugger I can see is a lieutenant, and he’s missing a hand.”

“Then who the hell led the regulars up here?” demanded Bili. “Somebody must’ve led them onto this rampart.”

“If anybody did, it was you, my lord,” snapped Raikuh bluntly. “They followed you once, they’ll do it again. If we wait around for those spit-and-polish types to forward another senior officer, damned few of them or us will make it up to those bloody walls!”

Bili whirled to face the regular infantry men and lifted his gory axe on high, roaring, “After them! After the bastards!”

For a breathless moment, the Confederation troops wavered, partially reassured at the voice and tone of command, but on edge, uneasy at the lack of formation. And that was when old Djim Bohluh repaid Bili’s kindness.

“Sacred Sun fry your shitty arses!” bellowed the loud and far-reaching voice of the sometime senior noncom, its flavor unquestionably that of parade grounds and make-work details, “What’re you pig-fuckers a-waitin’ on? You heerd the friggin’ order! Or has them there money-fighters got them more guts than you? Move, damn you, move!”

And it was just as Raikuh had said it would be. The defenders of the walls had the bitter choice of loosing full at their own comrades now retreating from the captured ramparts or having the bulk of the attackers run up the slope unscathed. So they tried what they took to be a middle course, loosing at a high angle and hoping that their shafts fell upon the proper heads; most of the rebel archers lived just long enough to rue their error in judgment.

Not, thought the still-wakeful Bili—lying rolled in his woolen cloak in a lean-to shelter somewhere far to the west of any civilized land or people—that there still weren’t some close moments yet to come that day. Not to mention what Geros did… and Bili still had trouble believing he did it, though he saw it with his own eyes and knighted him for it.

The shouting, screaming, cheering, howling broil of men had swept over those gateless walls, their jabbing spears and dripping swords leaving red ruin in their wake, while shrieking panic fled before them.

Bili’s pitiless axe scythed ruthlessly through the press of rebels atop the wall. At its inner edge, he kicked over a ladder down which the less nimble defenders were fleeing, then jumped lightly to the stone paving of the inner court, briefly wondering where the defenders had lived in the absence of huts or tents within the fortification.

But the thought was necessarily short, for he was almost immediately confronted by a determined opponent armed with a broadsword and a huge body shield—a rebel officer, if the garish richness of the elaborately chased and inlaid full suit of plate was any indication.

An experienced warrior, this one, for he handled his long sword and weighty shield with a practiced ease, deflecting Bili’s hard-swung axe on a sloped shieldface and quickly rushing inside, too close for the axe to be effective. His flickering blade feinted briefly at Bili’s visor slits before its point sank through leather and cloth and into the flesh and muscle high on the young thoheeks’ thigh.

Roaring his pain and rage, Bili closed the distance even more, and his left hand let go the iron axe shaft to pinion the wrist of the rebel’s sword arm in an armor-crushing grip. Heedless of the searing agony of the steel buried in his leg, he pivoted half around, slid his right hand halfway up the axeshaft and ferociously rammed the central spike betwixt the gilded bars of his adversary’s visor.

With a gurgling, gasping scream, the swordsman stumbled back, his big shield dragging, his sword hanging by its knot. Bili disengaged his axe, whirled it up in both hands and swung a crashing blow against the side of that black-plumed helm. The swordsman was hurled to the pavement and lay motionless and soundless while immense quantities of blood gushed from between the visor bars of his sundered helm.

And Bili strode on to his next encounter.

Lying with his cheek pressed against the scratchy saddle blanket, Bili thought, “And that was when I very nearly died. Would have, if not for Geros; he deserved his knighting for that alone. That big rebel could’ve crushed me like a bug with that monstrous club of his. He was the biggest man I’d ever seen, before I saw a Mubkohee, that is.”