John Flanagan: Oakleaf bearers

"The boy has done well," he said. Halt was surprised to hear there was a note of pride in his voice.

"I knew he would," he replied quietly, then turned as Ragnak dropped a ponderous arm around his shoulders. He wished the Skandians didn't have to be quite so touchy-feely in expressing their feelings. Built the way they were, they put normal people at risk of serious damage.

"I've got to admit it, Ranger, you were right," the Oberjarl said. He swept his arm around the fortifications. "All of this, I didn't think it was necessary. But I can see now that we would never have stood a chance against those devils in an open conflict. As for your boy and his archers," he continued, gesturing toward Will's position, "I'm glad we looked after him when we first caught him."

Erak raised one eyebrow at that. It had caused him considerable anger that Will had been assigned to the freezing conditions of labor in the yard-an assignment that should have meant almost certain death. He said nothing, however. He assumed that being supreme leader gave one a license to forget uncomfortable events from the past.

Halt was studying Will's position with a critical eye. The defensive line in front of the archers was still well manned. Of all the Skandian positions, it seemed to have suffered the lowest number of casualties. Obviously, he thought, the Ulans were avoiding direct confrontation at that point. They'd seen what had happened to the troop that had charged directly at the archers.

But he knew that the Temujai general couldn't allow this situation to continue. He was losing too many men-both to the constant volleys of arrows and in the desperate hand-to-hand fighting with the Skandians. Soon, he would have to do something to nullify the unexpected problem posed by the archers.

He would have been interested, but not surprised, to know that Haz'kam's thoughts were running on pretty much the same lines.

The general cursed softly as he studied the casualty reports brought in by his staff.

He turned to Nit'zak, his deputy commander, and indicated the sheet of parchment in his hand.

"We cannot go on like this," he said softly. His deputy leaned toward him, turning the sheet of hastily scribbled casualty figures so that he could read it. He shrugged.

"It's bad," he agreed. "But not disastrous. We still have the numbers to defeat them, archers or no archers. They can't stand against us indefinitely."

But Haz'kam shook his head impatiently. Nit'zak had just confirmed what he had always suspected. His deputy was a capable leader in the field, but he lacked the overview necessary to make him a commanding general.

"Nit'zak, we've lost almost fifteen hundred men-either killed or wounded. That's nearly a quarter of our effective force. We could easily lose that many again if we keep on like this."

Nit'zak shrugged. Like most Temujai senior officers, he cared little for the size of his casualty reports, as long as he won the battle. If Temujai warriors died in battle, he thought, that was their role in life. Haz'kam saw the gesture and correctly interpreted the thinking behind it.

"We're two thousand kilometers from home," he told his deputy. "We are supposed to be subjugating this frozen little corner of hell so that we can mount an invasion of the Ara-land. How do you propose that we do that with less than half the force we started with?"

Again, Nit'zak shrugged. He really didn't see the problem. He was accustomed to victory after victory and the idea of defeat never occurred to him.

"We knew we'd take casualties here," he protested, and Haz'kam let go a string of curses in an unaccustomed display of temperament.

"We thought this would be a skirmish!" he spat angrily. "Not a major engagement! Think about it, Nit'zak: a victory here could cost us so much that we might not even make it home again."

That was the uncomfortable truth. The Temujai had two thousand kilometers to cover before they reached their homeland on the steppes once more. And all two thousand were across hostile, temporarily conquered territories-territories whose inhabitants might welcome the opportunity to rise up against a weakened Temujai force.

Nit'zak sat his horse in silence. He was angry at the tone of rebuke in his commander's voice, particularly in front of the other staff officers. It was a gross breach of Temujai behavior for Haz'kam to speak to him in such a fashion.

"So:what do you propose?" he asked finally.

For a long time, the general didn't answer. He gazed across the intervening space to the Skandian lines, looking from the command position in the center to the line of archers drawn up on his left-the Skandian right wing. Those two positions, he knew, held the key to this battle.

Finally, he turned to his deputy, his mind made up.

"Strip the first fifty Ulans of their Kaijin," he ordered. "And assemble them here as a special force. It's time we got rid of those damned archers."

"H ERE THEY COME AGAIN," H ORACE SAID, AND W ILL AND Evanlyn both turned to look toward the Temujai forces. The riders were cantering forward again, and this time it looked like a major attack. Haz'kam had committed nearly two thousand men to a frontal assault on the Skandian lines. They rode forward, their hoofbeats echoing in the valley, formed in a wedge shape that was aimed at the Skandian center and the command post where Halt, Erak and Ragnak directed the Skandian defense.

Will and Evanlyn had taken advantage of the lull in the fighting to take a quick bite to eat, and a welcome drink of water. Will's throat was parched, from both the tension and the nonstop shouting of orders. He guessed Evanlyn felt the same. Horace, who had already eaten, had been keeping watch. Now, at his call, Evanlyn slipped down into her sheltered position and the archers, who had been sprawled comfortably against the earthworks, came to their feet, bows in hand. The shield bearers, who had also been relaxing, took their positions beside them.

Silently, they waited. In the lull, the arrow bin in front of each archer had been replenished with new shafts. Even now, the women of Hallasholm were gathered in the Great Hall, making fresh arrows for the battle.

Will studied the mass of riders. He had seventy-five archers still standing in the line, several of them lightly wounded. They had lost eleven men, killed by Temujai arrows, and a further fourteen had been wounded too seriously to continue fighting. As the Temujai force advanced, Will estimated that he could manage four volleys before they reached the Skandian line. Maybe five. That would be three hundred arrows raining down on the tightly packed mass of horsemen, and in that formation, the incidence of hits would be high. If Will aimed for the center of the mass, even his undershoots and overshoots would be effective.

"Left front, position three!" he called, and the machine swung into action again.

"Ready!" called Evanlyn.

"Draw:shoot!" shouted Will. He gestured for Horace not to call the shields into position. As yet, they were not under attack. The more time he had to do damage to that mass of Temujai horsemen, the better chance he would give Halt and Erak to repel the Temujai's main thrust.

"Reload!" he called, and waited for Evanlyn's call once more. When it came, he sent another volley on its way. As it started its upward trajectory, the first volley came down and he saw horsemen falling once again.

"Left half left!" he called, swinging the aiming point to match the progress of the horsemen as they moved from right to left across his front. He called the elevation again, shortening this time, then another seventy-five shafts soared away with that now-familiar slithering sound of arrows scraping across bows. Now the horsemen were galloping and he adjusted the angle once more.