Joel Shepherd - Tracato

“I think about four thousand,” said Arendelle, staring hard across the battlefield. “One thousand knights.”

Another trumpet call from the artillery line, which ceased its advance. Rhillian saw rounds being moved to the catapults from amongst piles of wet blankets. Small fires were lit, men swarming to prepare their enormous contraptions.

“They’re in range,” said Tessi with certainty, measuring the distance with her eyes. “How unbelievably stupid of them.”

“Let’s go,” said Rhillian, and galloped down the slope, her talmaad in pursuit. She was nearly at eye level with the artillery when the first catapults fired. With a great, unwinding rush, they hurled flaming balls into the sky. For a moment, the air filled with streaking, burning projectiles. Already the catapult men were rearming, winding furiously at the handles that wound metal-toothed gears, pulling back the giant arms thrice as fast as conventional rope winches.

Ahead, flames erupted across the Elissian cavalry line with a horrid orange and blue glare… Rhillian winced as she rode, to shield her sensitive eyes. Then the noise reached her above the thunder of horses’ hooves-the whump! of successive bursts of flame, and the screams and cries of a thousand men and horses, who had not realised themselves within range of the Steel’s most feared weapon. Conventional artillery was hard to aim. How the Steel artillerymen could achieve such accuracy on wheels was beyond even her.

Now the ballista were firing, forty-five at once and each one a double-stack, the cartsmen not even bothering to halt their advance. Ninety bolts shot skyward, and mechanisms were immediately winched back, even faster than the catapults.

Rhillian arrived at the head of her three hundred right flank cavalry, just short of the riverbank, and stopped. From here, through breaks in the trees, she could see the confusion of the Elissian forward line-horses milling and rearing, senior men waving swords and flags, trying to rearrange the formation. Smoke hung in the air in great palls, and sections of grass still burned.

The Rhodaani infantry line had now stopped, midstream. They simply stood in waist deep water, and watched. More horses fell, randomly, to streaking ballista bolts. Cavalrymen held shields above their heads, and hoped, waiting for their seniors to sort out the confusion and give the order to charge. Surely they still had some time left before the next fiery volley, as catapults took time to reload.

A new series of thuds and whistles overhead put the lie to that. Cavalrymen saw it coming, and screamed in panic. Whole sections of formation broke, hundreds of horses scattering. Some rode straight into an eruption of flame, and were engulfed. Rhillian closed her eyes to save her vision. When she opened them again, she saw scenes of utter horror, men and horses engulfed twenty and thirty at a time, rolling and running, screaming and falling. Ballista fire whistled continuously, felling animals and riders with steady, random rhythm.

Finally the trumpets blew, others taking up the cry. Broken sections of cavalry came galloping downslope, and others joined them, as much in hope of escaping the murderous artillery as attacking the midstream Rhodaanis. More trumpets blew, this time from behind, and with a thunder of their own, a thousand Rhodaani cavalry charged for the river, and the gaps between their infantry’s formations.

Rhillian held her horse in check, watching the mass of mounted Rhodaanis plunging through the frothing waters. They were not so heavily armoured as Elissian knights, wearing segmented armour like the infantry, yet their shields and lances, and huge warhorses, made them imposing enough. They cleared the far bank, and aimed for the gaping holes the artillery had torn through the Elissian cavalry’s ranks. The Elissian charge split, some falling back in swirling confusion upon the Rhodaani cavalry, others charging on toward the river.

Rhillian tore her sword clear, raised it, then swiped at the air. She needed no trumpeter, and the serrin gave no yell as they charged, crashing into the waters in a churn of white spray. Ahead, beyond the confusion of cavalry, new bursts of fire were blooming further upslope. The artillery had turned their attention upon the Elissian footsoldiers…and Verenthane gods help them.

Her talmaad rounded the Rhodaani right flank, and emerged from the waters to find what heavy cavalry had made it this far, plunging into the river to attack the Steel infantry. The water slowed their horses in leaping, splashing bounds, and took the weight off their charge. The Steel held firm, behind solid walls of shields, and returned with sword thrusts and thrown spears from within the protective formation squares.

Serrin riders fanned out, bows ready, firing wherever targets presented. Always they fired at horses, never at armoured riders, and animals toppled. Perhaps fifty mixed knights and cavalry charged them instead of the infantry, huge armoured suits atop equally huge horses, angling wicked steel lances as they came. Rhillian might have attacked, courageously, but instead wheeled, and galloped before them. More serrin did the same, wheeling for the flanks, firing as they went. Pursuing horses fell, and knights crashed tumbling on the ground. A cavalryman to Rhillian’s left, in chain and helm, took an arrow in the neck as he charged at her flank. Serrin ran on, twisting in their saddles to shoot with accuracy known only to the talmaad .

Smart Elissians turned around and galloped away as fast as they could. Ten frustrated cavalrymen rode about in circles, yelling and swiping at any serrin who came close enough, demanding hand-to-hand combat. Serrin archers stayed calmly out of range, shooting one horse after another, and taking a rider in the neck where the opportunity presented. Rhillian rode down one fallen, horseless man with her sword, and took a mounted man from behind with a blade through the neck. When all had fallen, or galloped away, the serrin moved on.

Rhillian paused her mount on some open grass, and stood in the stirrups to take stock. Elissian cavalry were retreating in scattered bunches, pursued by Rhodaani horsemen, or serrin with bows. The Steel infantry were emerging from the river, like a dripping, moving wall. Fallen cavalrymen yielded before them, threw aside weapons, and were trampled over if they did not seek a gap between the advancing squares.

A great roar filled the air, and a rattling thunder. Rhillian turned to see, past the scattered remnants of retreating Elissian cavalry, the infantry were charging downslope. She wheeled, signalled those riders still around her, and rode hard for a gap between the Rhodaani squares. Past the first rank, then the second as they emerged from the river, she turned left and cantered, splashing through the shallows toward the right flank once more. Upon her left, the Steel’s front rank were shifting, the squares unfolding into a series of unbroken lines, with no gaps between. Ahead of them, a mass charge was descending, thousands of screaming Elissians with mail, shield and sword.

The second and third Rhodaani ranks threw light spears into that charging mass-some of the attackers fell, others slowed to dodge, others took a spear through the shield, narrow points punching deep, the spear shaft then entangling as they ran. The first wave that crashed onto the Rhodaani shield line was uneven, yet it broke with the fury of a great wave upon a cliff.

The cliff held firm. Soldiers leaned into the force of it, like sailors into a howling gale, the men behind pressing on their armoured backs. Shields tilted aside just enough to admit the Rhodaani’s short, stabbing swords through the gaps, and men across the attacking wave collapsed, shrieking and clutching their abdomens.