"We won't be able to hold them," the commander of Siena's bodyguard hissed through his teeth. "By Sagra, I swear we won't be able to hold them!"
Hargan didn't answer, hearing only Siena's whisper, which seemed to drown out even the shouts of the enemy.
All of a sudden the fog burst into flames and was transformed into a mass of liquid fire, making the ravine look like the inside of one of the gnomes' furnaces. The blast of heat struck Hargan in the face and he felt as if his eyebrows and hair had burst into flame. The men staggered back from the heaving fiery abyss, and the enchantress was left alone, staring unflinchingly into the scorching flames. Everybody down below in the ravine must have been burnt to a cinder.
Siena had incinerated about four hundred men at a single stroke!
The enchantress began slowly sinking down onto the ground, but her shield-bearers dashed over to her and caught her before she could fall.
"Are you alive, milady?" asked the sergeant from the Borderland.
"Y-yes," she said uncertainly, and spat blood. Her hand was clutching the amulet and there were glowing strings of sparks running across the silvery droplet.
"Quick! Get her to the healer!" Hargan barked.
After seeing what had happened to their comrades, the seventh and eighth waves were beating a hasty retreat. Blidkhard's men managed to fire several times more before the enemy moved out of the range of their arrows.
Silence fell in the ranks of the defenders.
The opposite side of the ravine and the road were littered with bodies. The black, charred walls of the ravine gave out a smell of soot and burnt meat. Thick smoke from this hellish scene rose high into the air above the soldiers' heads.
"Ah, we gave them a good battering," Wencher said delightedly as he came up to Hargan. "It's just a shame that the swords had no work to do."
"You'll get your turn! We haven't killed all of them."
"Yes, there are about three hundred left. But they're not likely to attack. They'll wait for the orcs."
Morning came and merged imperceptibly into day. But the road remained deserted. The enemy had pulled back and concealed himself behind the dark wood, and the only sound from that side of the ravine was the cawing of the crows feasting on the corpses. By noon the sky was clouded over even more thickly, the rain had become a downpour, and the road was almost invisible behind the wall of falling water.
From somewhere beyond the shroud of rain there came the faint rumbling of drums.
"Everyone to his station!" yelled Hargan, emerging from under the lean-to and putting on his helmet.
The rumbling of the drums was moving closer; the orcs had moved onto the offensive.
"Can't see a thing!" said a bowman with straw-blond hair and no helmet, gazing into the white shroud.
"Listen, then!" barked Bildkhard, who was walking along the line of bowmen. "Listen to what your commander tells you!"
Hargan could not stand giving impassioned speeches. He was not Grok, nor was he some pompous, self-important colonel, to go ranting on about duty, honor, and devotion, but right now he really ought to offer his lads some kind of moral support.
"Soldiers! Our time has come! Let's show these Firstborn what we're made of! Let them break their teeth on our shields! The more of the brutes we kill, the fewer our lads will have to stick and bleed at Avendoom! Let's make Grok's job easier! Slash, stab, and cut! Kill them the same way they kill us! Show no mercy!"
And, like the last time, the cry echoed down the ranks of men: "NO MERCY!"
The volley of arrows struck at the orcs but, unlike the men of the First Human Assault Force, they made rational use of their shields. The huge rectangular sheets of metal covering the heads of the Firstborn allowed them to weather the attack of Blidkhard's bowmen with practically no casualties. The shields parted, and another swarm of arrows flew out at the humans through the gaps. Now Hargan's soldiers had to hide behind their shields and wait out the bombardment. The orcs seized their chance, losing no time in moving forward to the very edge of the ravine.
Another volley from the brigade's bowmen. The impenetrable barrier of the orcish shields. And an immediate volley in reply.
Hargan had no time to hide, and an arrow bounced off his breastplate. He swore vilely as he saw the orcs flood over into the ravine.
"Come on, you whores! Shoot! Or they'll roast your heels for you!"
While the orcs were climbing down and then climbing up again, the bowmen managed to loose off six salvos. During the storming of the ravine the shields of the Firstborn were less effective, the formation fell apart, and the arrows finally began to inflict significant losses.
On the orders of their commander, the Wind Jugglers once again divided into two sections. The first lashed at the advancing wave of the enemy, while the second sought out the archers constantly firing at the men from among the mass of the orcs.
Another arrow whistled past Hargan's head and yet another hit the light-haired archer in the stomach. His light chain mail didn't save him and he dropped his bow and fell.
"Swordsmen!" Hargan commanded. "Another twenty paces back! Maintain your spacing!"
The order to leave the wall might have seemed stupid to many. After all, this was a spot where you could take a stand and repel attack after attack, while withdrawing meant giving the enemy the chance to maneuver, gather his wits after the climb, and go on the attack. But a simple defensive trick like that wouldn't work against the orcs. The only thing that would save you here was to close formation and strike like a battering ram, and for that you had to move back. The line of men began slowly withdrawing, protected by shields and bristling with spears, swords, and axes. The orcs had already reached the stakes set in the ground and the bowmen's final arrows were striking them, piercing straight through their armor.
The bowmen were already running toward the waiting swordsmen, slipping between them and forming a new second line of defense. Hargan withdrew with them, leaving only Fox's crossbowmen behind.
"Come on, Fox!"
But the old war dog knew well enough what to do.
Forty crossbows suddenly appeared before the eyes of the startled orcs who had already begun climbing over the wall.
Thwack!
A massive, invisible chain crashed into the ranks of the Firstborn, sending them flying backward so that they knocked their own comrades off their feet and dragged them back down to the bottom of the ravine.
The soldiers slung their crossbows behind their backs and dashed toward that secure wall of shields and swords. The first orc climbed over the fortifications and immediately collapsed with an arrow in his neck. He was quickly followed by another two, then another four ... and then there were dozens of the Firstborn jumping down onto the ground.
"Swordsmen! On one knee!" Hargan barked.
The sergeants repeated their commander's order and the front line went down on their right knees.
"Fire, you whores!"
The bowmen standing in the second row didn't need to be reminded of the basic rules of war-if the front line gives you the chance, then lash away at the enemy until your arm is exhausted or he manages to reach you! The arrows whizzed over the heads of the swordsmen and halted the running orcs.
"Will you look at that!" someone beside Hargan said with a whistle. "Stubborn, aren't they, the mangy dogs!"
The orcs weren't bothered at all by the death of their comrades. There were at least a hundred of the enemy facing the ranks of humans now. And more and more of them kept climbing over the wall of the fortifications. Then the orcs' bowmen appeared on the fortifications constructed with such care by Hargan's soldiers.
Before the two forces clashed, Blidkhard's men fired for a second time. And while the bowmen mostly tried to pick off the orcs' archers, Fox's lads, who had already reloaded their crossbows, aimed them at the advancing mass of Firstborn.
"Stand firm! Lock shields! Lower spears! Maintain formation! Stand fiiirm ..."
Impact. Shield struck against shield with a deafening, indescribable clatter. Uproar, shouts, the clash of weapons. For an instant the spears halted the avalanche of orcs, then they sank down under the weight of the bodies, and the surviving Firstborn came within striking distance for a yataghan.
The men withheld the pressure of the enemy for just a few seconds, and then their line snapped under the ferocity of the attack like a flawed string.
Now there were only scattered groups of soldiers fighting to hold back the pressure: in the best case ten or fifteen soldiers opposing the enemy, and in the worst case only isolated individuals. Somehow they beat the orcs back, somehow the men had successfully weathered the first, most dangerous rush, and they were slowly but surely forcing the orcs back toward the wall.
An arrow glinted in the air, then another. Hargan swore, assuming that the orcs had managed to send in more archers, but when he looked, he spotted thirty bowmen led by Blidkhard right at the back of his brigade. The bowmen had created space for themselves by moving back to a safe distance, and now they were firing at the attackers, choosing their targets. Several of the Firstborn tried to reach the bowmen, but their way was blocked by Wencher's swordsmen, who shielded the Wind Jugglers.
Bolts of lightning began raining down from the dark clouds with a dry crackling sound, striking down the orcs one after another. Armor was no protection against Siena's magic. Before Hargan's very eyes a bolt of lightning appeared from somewhere up in the sky, divided into branches, and felled seven orcs at once, leaving behind nothing but black earth and charred armor.
The Firstborn flinched and faltered, unable to withstand the rain of lightning and hail of arrows. From somewhere behind the enemy, the war drums sounded, calling the retreat. The orcs withdrew tidily, in good order, leaving behind a small detachment to cover the main forces. But the men had taken fresh heart and they struck a crushing blow against the wall of shields, beating down the enemy to right and left, while those bowmen who had not changed their bows for swords in the course of the battle ran up, ignoring the battle raging around them, and began showering arrows on the Firstborn who were crossing the ravine.
Not one of the detachment of orcs covering the retreat was left alive.
Blidkhard spat, then he looked his commander in the eye and said: "Don't you go thinking that we've beaten them off. This is only the advance force of the orcs' army. The main forces haven't arrived yet; this lot just tried to take us in a rush. It didn't work. They didn't even have a single shaman with them, otherwise our enchantress wouldn't have got away with much magic. But when the Bloody Axes or the Gruun Ear-Gougers get here, they'll brush us aside like a feather. We won't even last an hour against those clans."
"By the way, how is our enchantress?"
"I'm alive," Siena replied.
"I'm glad your health is in good order, and thank you for the help."
"It wasn't me," the girl said, embarrassed.
"How's that?" asked Hargan, raising one eyebrow. "Then who was it?"
"I mean, it wasn't just me." The enchantress became even more embarrassed. "The amulet helped."
Hargan glanced at the magical drop of silvery metal.
"My teacher said it would protect me against the shamanism of the orcs. The amulet neutralizes that magic, if it is directed at me. And it turned out that it also restores my strength. This time I tried to use it in a slightly different way, and it gave me so much power I was almost crushed."
The rumble of war drums drifted above a world soaked in blood. During the night the orcs had attacked the humans' fortifications eight times. They had managed to force their way past the wall three times, despite the hail of arrows from the bowmen and the determination of soldiers who stood to the death. Every time the orcs were thrown back the losses had been greater. The Firstborn simply went on and on testing the mettle of the Dog Swallows. The ravine was half full of bodies. There were almost no arrows left and the bowmen had to pick up what the orcs had sent them in order to manage to return the fire from the wave of attackers.
Hargan's brigade had done the impossible-it had held out against the enemy for almost four days, giving Grok's army a huge start. The commander glanced round at the few survivors. Thirty-nine men. Thirty-nine tired, bandaged, bloodstained men. The only ones who had survived this far, who had endured.
Blidkhard was gone. The young Borderman protecting the enchantress was gone. And the girl herself had been killed. After Siena destroyed one of the enemy's shamans, the orcs had set out specifically to hunt her down, and during the last sally they had eventually succeeded, managing to surround her and her bodyguards.
But meanwhile, at the cost of catastrophic losses, the men had forced the orcs to show them respect. They had forced a race that despised everyone else living in Siala to act with caution and not simply come dashing headlong across that cursed ravine.
The soldiers would not survive the ninth attack. Everyone who was still alive knew that.
"We'll show the Firstborn how soldiers ought to die!" said Fox, picking up his beloved flails and listening to the rumble of the approaching drums.
"Yes, we'll show them," said Hargan, getting up off the ground. "Look, Fox, it's stopped raining!"
"That's a good sign."
"Raise the banner! Bugler, sound the alert. Bowmen to the battle line! Kill the enemy, show no mercy!"
And the orcs advancing on those cursed fortifications that would not surrender heard the cry that others before them had heard and feared each time they retreated from the walls of the ravine.
"NO MERCY!"
25
THE DANCER IN THE SHADOWS
Harold!" said someone, cautiously touching my shoulder. "Harold, get up."
I opened my eyes and looked at the jester, who was leaning down over me.
"Kli-Kli!" I groaned in desperation. "Now why aren't you asleep?"
He looked at me reproachfully and made himself comfortable on a saddlebag.
"You were shouting last night," said Kli-Kli. "What was it, nightmares?"
"It was all your fault," I muttered.
"Eh?"
"You tell us all those stories, and then they give me no peace all night long."
"What stories? You mean Hargan's Brigade?"
"Yes, I was dreaming all night about them fighting the orcs."
"Oho!" Kli-Kli exclaimed admiringly.
"By the way, Alistan and the lads arrived during the night," the goblin threw out casually.
"Why didn't you say so straightaway?" I asked, jumping to my feet.
"Shhh!" the joker hissed, opening his eyes wide. "Don't yell like that. Can't you see everyone's asleep?"
It was true. Even though it was already light, everyone was still lying wrapped up in their traveling blankets. Only Deler and Hallas were walking round the border of the camp, keeping watch over our rest.
The jester had not lied about our comrades' return. I spotted Markauz's huge steed and the horses of the Wild Hearts who had arrived with him.