The orient was gilded; the day dawned.
From one side of the plain to the other, the appeal of clarions responded, like the sonorous crowing of cocks.
Already the soldiers were on their feet. The reanimated fires warmed limbs numbed by the first freshness of the morning and dried garments dampened by dew. The majority hastily made a broth out of the remains of the previous evening’s supper; a fortifying infusion or spiced wine rejoiced the warriors’ hearts. But time was pressing; orders reassembled the squadrons, formed the companies, aligned the ranks. The horses, bridled and saddled, were chewing the last grains of their fodder along with the bit. The officers, walking along the files, cast a final glance over the weapons and the harness, rectifying the occasional fault of inexperience, trying to prevent the irreparable consequences of some negligence or omission.
Iztemph and his lieutenants, Illaz and his, rapidly traveled the two halves of the battlefield, receiving reports as they went, renewing orders, shoring up doubts.
Soroé, at the repeated pleas of her counselors, remained enclosed in the habitation where she had spent the night, under the guard of half a company, Fraam and his ten Gilt-Hermians, who were not to leave under any pretext. At that price, Iztemph thought he could dispose of his last reserves, assembled at the same point, at any time.
Ruslem, installed in a house nearby, had to divide his time between the news that was sent to him from the battle-front and that which he had made arrangements to receive on an hourly basis from Atlantis. He would have given a great deal to receive some of Yerra, who had surely not remained inactive, but no indication had reached him that could even permit him to suspect the retreat chosen by Illaz’ ally. Spies sent forth to gather information had easily penetrated the rebel camp, all the way to its leader’s residence, but without finding any evidence of her presence. Her name had scarcely been pronounced. Of Argall, for all the more reason, nothing was known.
Less than an hour after sunrise, Ruslem received a first courier from Iztemph. Illaz’ troops were trying to cross the stream. The battle had begun.
The plain of Lamb’ha, thus named for the largest of its villages, only included two others, which were scarcely more than hamlets. The first of them, at the issue from the subterranean passage of the Key, remained the general headquarters and rallying center of the loyal army. The other, Taugi, situated a long way upstream on the watercourse, known as the M’rani, only counted half a dozen huts, so deeply buried in verdure that a stranger situated two bowshots away would not have suspected its existence.
The village of Lamb’ha, on both banks to either side of the bridge that determined its importance, contained about fifty houses. Although the entire valley, with the exception of a narrow strip along the mountain and its two spurs, was as flat and uniform as the dried-up bed of a lake, numerous clumps of trees, the majority sheltering some isolated habitation, limited the view on either side, only allowing large sections of the landscape to appear, especially the road from Atlantis to the northern provinces, extending in a straight line from one defile to the other, parallel to the seashore, the M’rani often being invisible between its wooded banks, the bridge and village of Lamb’ha.
Apart from the main road, a host of sinuous paths ran from one cottage to another, their turnings entangled in such a way that it was difficult to find one’s way without a guide, for the passage, seemingly easy, was in reality interrupted by all sorts of obstacles: hedges, ditches, cultivated patches, and fenced-off pastures. The hedges, above all, designed to confine the livestock, composed of thorny bushes averaging four cubits in height, constituted barriers almost insurmountable for both foot-soldiers and cavalry. Only toward the sea, and to either side of the road, for a width between five hundred and a thousand paces, was there an extensive bare heath appropriate for the maneuvers and large-scale collisions of squadrons. One could say, in leafing through history, that every square foot of that grassland had received its dew of blood.
Illaz, assembling nearly three thousand infantrymen of his auxiliary troops, had just joined battle by launching them to attack the bridge.
The complete possession of that bridge, the only one spanning the stream and putting the two halves of the plain in regular communication, would represent a considerable advantage. A few energetic words from the chief and an acclamation by the soldiers only preceded by an instant the furious rush of the latter, who surged across the bridge sixteen abreast and invaded the opposite portion of the village. Apparently, the route remained open before them; but from both sides, stones, arrows and javelins began to rain down.
Many fell; their inexperience, in spite of the efforts of a few officers, did not permit them to deploy in an orderly fashion. The flux of the later files, driving the foremost forward, only served to augment the confusion. Even so, about six hundred warriors, personal vassals of Illaz, succeeded in passing from one bank to the other. Immediately throwing themselves on the flanks, circling around the houses and enclosed gardens from which the hail of projectiles was mostly coming, they were seen, although far less numerous, sowing disturbance in their turn in the ranks of Soroé’s defenders. The latter, anxious about that attack, which came from behind, not knowing which way to turn, lost their skill along with their confidence. They were, in any case, only recently-conscripted foot-soldiers, insufficiently trained and void of cohesion.
Maghée standing beside Iztemph some distance away, the latter having offered him a place in his own chariot, asked him, not without sarcasm: “Don’t you think a few experienced companies might be necessary here?”
The Atlantean general, perfectly calm, indicated to their left three squadrons of warriors of race, the majority raising themselves up in their stirrups and giving signs of evident impatience. Their eyes were directed at their particular officer, beside Iztemph’s chariot, from which, they understood, the signal for the charge must come. That officer, his brow furrowed and his lips taut, his gaze riveted on his general, seemed to be having difficulty containing himself.
“I’d rather they were cooler,” said the old warrior. “I’m sure they’ll surpass my orders and get some of our best cavaliers killed needlessly. But nothing is perfect down here, and everything I could say...”
Meanwhile, the defense of the extremity of the bridge was visibly weakening. Illaz’ infantrymen, now protected on their most exposed flank, were reforming and drawing breath. Further battalions were advancing over the disengaged span.
Iztemph raised his arm, and simply said: “Now is the time, I think!”
That was the signal. The cavaliers massed on the edge of the road, hidden from their adversaries’ view by the last houses of the village, started moving at a trot in order to form a column on the causeway, eight abreast. As they found themselves lined up, they gradually increased their speed, passing from a trot to a gallop, and at fifty paces from the enemy, releasing the bridge and tightening their knees, lances lowered, they plunged forward at full tilt
At the sound of the charge the rebels hastily completed resuming their ranks, but the others were already upon them; sharp points dug into breasts; the horses reared up momentarily, came down again, smashing skulls with their hooves. Others, stopped by the sheer mass of combatants, kicked and bucked on the spot, shaking off human clusters with every effort. Lances broke or remained fixed in cadavers. The cavaliers drew their swords then with swift gestures, enveloping themselves with fleshing cuts; visages abruptly paled, traversed by thin red lines. Hands clutching bridles and manes were no longer anything more than flaccid fists, slowly detached, while bloody stumps agitated, flailing randomly.
Soon, Illaz’ auxiliaries, although ten against one, had nothing left but the instinct of self-defense. Only their numbers retarded their flight, encumbering the space between the houses. On the bridge, they were crushing one another, pressing one another and choking one another against the parapets. A few climbed on top and, shoved by others or maladroit, lost their balance. The surface of the stream, fairly deep beneath the blue-tinted granite arch, began to fill up with corpses.
Finally, the current was established; the entire mass flowed away, the cavaliers following, emerging after them on to their own bank. But there the small number of the victors became apparent. The fugitives, spilling sideways—diminished, to be sure, by a third—uncovered a semicircle of motionless infantrymen, their pikes raised, evidently determined to withstand the impact and capable of rendering it fatal to the assailants. Iztemph had the retreat sounded for them. The chief of the loyal squadrons had specific orders, moreover, not to persist, and to return over the bridge if necessary. Success had swelled their hearts, however; they judged the battle already won; to retreat seemed shameful to them.
“I was sure of it!” said Ruslem’s friend, with a sigh, on seeing them, instead of obeying the signal, reassemble and fall upon the crescent of steel that half-surrounded them. “I ought to abandon them to their fate, but I wouldn’t be forgiven for it. It’s a pity—it began so well. Alas! What chief has ever really done what he wanted to do?”
These reflections, addressed to Maghée, did not prevent him from taking further measures. Fresh squadrons traversed the bridge as rapidly as the repugnance of the mounts to pass over cadavers permitted. Infantrymen followed, and one might have thought that the interest of the day would definitely be decided on the other bank. That impression was strengthened by the appearance of Illaz, on horseback, at one of the extremities of the semicircle, haranguing his troops with a few sonorous phrases, only a part of which reached the ears of Maghée and Iztemph.
“Isn’t it time for me to go to meet him?” the Gilt-Hermian asked.
But the general shook his head. “You will do as you wish, son of Dahéla, for I certainly don’t have the pretention of giving orders to your valor, but if you trust me, you’ll save yourself for a future and better opportunity. A great deal of blood is going to be shed there, but it’s certainly not on the other side of the M’rani that the destiny of Atlantis will be settled.”
Maghée understood then that Ruslem’s friend had his plan, in which the present combat only figured as an episode. In fact, the struggle appeared bound to remain indecisive between troops now equally brave and almost equally experienced, for if the warriors of race, trained since childhood in swordplay and other military maneuvers were much more numerous in the loyal army, Illaz’ own vassals had been receiving, thanks to his care, an instruction and discipline far superiors to that of the commoners of Atlantis. As for the miners, ironworkers and foresters forming the principal mass of his partisans, their weapons and their tactics represented a new element on the battlefield, unexpected and capable of undoing all calculations.
The Gilt-Hermian therefore renounced, for the moment, seeking a personal encounter on the other side of the bridge with the enemy chief. He retained the ardor of his companions, who would gladly have hurled themselves into the midst of the melee. The moment would surely come when their intervention might be far more useful, and Iztemph, for whom he was beginning to feel a sympathy mingled with respect, would be better able to choose it and indicate it to them.
The latter, in order to occupy their time and enable them to be patient, showed them a kind of terrace near the bank, from which the five-cubit bows could still do some damage to the rebels. It was necessary not to think of aiming at the first ranks, where the melee was such that no skill would have prevented an almost equal distribution of blows between friends and adversaries, but beyond that tumultuous zone, the gently-sloping ground exposed profound masses ready to take part in the action.
Illaz himself could be distinguished there, in the midst of a rather disparate general staff, for, doubtless in order to give proof of impartiality in the distribution of favors and conciliate all his supporters, he had summoned around him members of the dissident aristocracy, colleagues of Nohor and the most important popular agitators, mingling with the embroidered silk tunics and glittering arms of the former brown cloaks, leather aprons, bushy hair and implements of labor, transformed into redoubtable weapons.
Although the distance was greater than the previous evening, Maghée attempted to replicate Fraam’s exploit. Lying on his back, the wood of the bow maintained by the intersection of his toes, and drawing the bowstring back to his face, he succeeded in causing a few arrows to fall in the vicinity of the enemy general. One of them struck him in the shoulder and remained lodged in the fringes of the strap, but its force was exhausted. Even if it had not encountered the obstacle of the chain-mail tunic, it would have remained inoffensive.
The chief, with a gesture of disdain, pretended to swat away an importunate fly, and his counselors or lieutenants, seizing the double opportunity to pay court to him and show him how brave they were at little expense, affected with loud bursts of laughter to offer themselves as targets to that fire devoid of danger. In accordance with the general rule, their soldiers who were a little less distant expiated the insolence of their superiors, for the Gilt-Hermians, irritated but full of self-composure, quickly too cognizance of the possible range and regulated their salvos in consequence. Nevertheless, Maghée soon wearied of the game, and, leaving his companions to dispense forceful darts and lay a few rebels on the ground, he rejoined Iztemph on his chariot.
Soroé’s general continued to follow the progress of the combat with an attentive eye. Messengers continually brought him news of the various corps scattered in the plain, but for them, the action had so far been limited to the exchange of a few projectiles from one bank of the stream to the other. Illaz was visibly concentrating his effort, and not without an appearance of success, for the troops opposed to his own in that narrow space at the opening of the bridge of Lamb’ha were beginning to show signs of weariness, if not discouragement.
“Aren’t you going to support them?” Maghée asked Iztemph, again. “It seems to me that there are scarcely more than a third of your forces there, against more than half of theirs.”
Ruslem’s friend shook his head slowly, and repeated, mysteriously and calmly: “It’s not on the other side of the M’rani that the battle will be decided.”
And he limited himself to sending officers bearing orders to the leader of the engaged corps.
Almost immediately, a movement of retreat was designed. Companies made dispositions to return over the bridge. Others, however, held firm courageously, or only conceded terrain foot by foot. The pressure of the rebel troops became irresistible, however. The two points of the crescent touched the banks. The space occupied by Soroé’s soldiers was shrinking from one moment to the next.
Fortunately for them, the infantrymen that were attacking them left them time to fall back in good order. A collision of squadrons would have annihilated them; but Illaz had to conserve his cavalry, relative small in number. Perhaps, too, he was unable to seize the moment and profit fully from his advantage, Even so, the far bank was lost to the loyal army, and soon the bridge itself, in spite of the efforts of the Gilt-Hermians, who were firing as rapidly as possible at a comfortable range, and into such a mass that none of their shots was wasted.
Maghée was obliged to bring them back himself, for they would have ended up finding themselves cut off and doubtless reduced to getting themselves killed after exhausting their provision of arrows. Whatever it might have cost the enemy, the time had not come for such a sacrifice. Iztemph, calmer than ever, while moving his position more than a thousand paces backwards, did not seem to have despaired of victory.
However, the entire village of Lamb’ha, the bridge and both sides of the M’rani now belonged to Illaz’ partisans. The middle of the day had arrived; the breeze was no longer blowing. The oppressive heat, in spite of the ardor of the combatants, produced a kind of truce. Many warriors, finding themselves out of range of the enemy, and out of breath, let themselves fall on to the ground, closing their eyes momentarily, or hastily taking some nourishment. Others slaked their thirst, dressed their horses’ wounds, readjusted their equipment and ensured the good condition of their weapons. The rebel battalions were incessantly crossing the stream, however, emerging into the other half of the village, surpassing it and advancing along the road. Soroé’s troops left the way open for them.
That, however, did not last long.
Having reassembled a part of his infantry, about six thousand men, designed an offensive return against Lamb’ha. Two thousand cavaliers covered their flanks, galloping easily over the short grass. Illaz’ auxiliaries did not hold firm; his squadrons less numerous, were driven back in spite of their furious charges. One might have thought that the village would be retaken, at least in part. But there, the victors ran into the profound column of miners, ironworkers and foresters, armed with tempered picks, axes and gigantic hammers. Others, having demolished the first houses and lit great fires in the debris, presented the nostrils of the horses with great masses of iron or enormous red-hot rods, which caused them to whinny with fear and throw their riders.
In any case, those northern revolutionaries, enraged by their long suffering, excited by the discourses of their leader and Illaz’ promises, fought with a savage energy. Wounded, they hardly seemed to feel the pain. On the ground, on their backs, they continued defending themselves in the fashion of beasts of prey, aiming at the hocks of the horses and the bellies of men. It was necessary to kill them to reckon with them. Their faces convulsed, their wounds gaping, their furious death-throes inspired horror.
The surge of the loyal battalions weakened and broke. They were driven back in their turn. Iztemph was obliged to move his chariot back by another thousand paces, more than half way to the hamlet of the Key, where Ruslem and Soroé were now beginning to distinguish the details of the combat, the grim ebb and flow of the human waves. Almost half of the heath between the two villages seemed to be covered by Illaz’ troops.
Scarcely three hours of daylight remained.
The Gilt-Hermians, retained by their leaders, reduced to fighting from the wings, from a distance, launching arrows of which they could not even see the effect, were gnawing their fists. Even Maghée was becoming irritated.
“Isn’t it time for us to attempt a charge?” he asked Iztemph.
Then the old warrior, sensing that his companion’s patience was running out, decided to reveal his plan to him.
The rebels, now fully engaged, had only left their baggage, their wounded and insignificant reserves in Lamb’ha, or further behind. All their forces were attacking, irresistibly driving back the loyal battalions opposed to them—but the latter only comprised two-thirds of the army. The detachments left to guard the hamlet of the Key, those posted at various points of the plain, at the intersections of paths and along the M’rani, represented ten thousand men, half of them warriors of race, who had not even approached the enemy.
“I could summon them with a signal,” said Iztemph. “The rebels wouldn’t hold out for an hour. But Illaz, by sacrificing a quarters of his fanatics, could retreat over the bridge with the remainder, fight until nightfall, and perhaps escape with a part of his forces. If only he escaped, the war wouldn’t be over. He’d find resources in the northern provinces, and inaccessible refuges. Soroé and Ruslem, victorious, will have enough to do tomorrow with the populace of Atlantis and famine in prospect. So we’re going to allow them to advance a thousand more paces; then, a contingent of our ten thousand fresh troops will cross the M’rani upstream, come downstream along the opposite bank, emerge unexpectedly at the extremity of the bridge, take possession of it and cross it in order to attack the enemy from behind, while the remainder, emerging from the verdure that is hiding them, will fall upon their flank and drive them toward the sea, while I get myself killed here, if necessary—at my age, it’s not worth the trouble of talking about it...”
“By the blood of my mother,” exclaimed Maghée, seizing his hands, “those who want to kill us will have to begin with me. I’d give my twenty years for your gray hairs, if they could earn me a wisdom like yours?”
“And I’d give anything,” said the smiling Atlantean, “for your twenty years. I won’t be sorry, however, to find myself twenty-four hours older.”
“It’s an inspiration of the god of war! We’ll drive them into the sea to the last man, and I defy the best swimmer to make twenty brasses in the breakers. Not one will survive, if they don’t beg for mercy!”
“They won’t.”
“I hope so! But what position will be ours? For now, I must obey you as if you were my brother Argall himself.”
“The best—and the most difficult.”
“Good! Let us take the head of a column, with orders to charge full tilt. You’ll see what the men of Erm-gilt-Herm are capable of!”
“I don’t doubt it, my valiant friend. That, however, is work that a squadron can do almost as well. Employ your vigor and courage where the courage and vigor of a horse would suffice? For those animals, you know, once excited, hurl themselves at the pikes, and their strength, seconded by their weight, can’t be inferior you yours...”
“You’re mocking me!”
“God forbid, when you’re about to render me the greatest of services.”
“You’re not, I imagine, going to offer me a place in the rearguard?”
“Your sagacity is not in default. That is, in fact, the weak point of my plan; I shall therefore put the bravest and most redoubtable of our defenders there. It might be that he won’t have to draw the sword; it might be that he’ll have to withstand the impact of an army.”
A grimace on the part of the Gilt-Hermian indicated his lack of taste for the first alternative and his lack of confidence in the latter. His fresh veneration for the genius of his companion, however, inclined him to obedience.
“Explain, then,” he conceded.
“I want to, to be sure. In brief, in order that the enemy should advance far enough from the village and the bridge for out maneuver to succeed, it’s necessary that he believe himself victorious, ready to take possession of the passage of the Key—which would, in fact, be the equivalent of victory for him. What use would possession of the plain be to us, if we had to remain prisoners here while he continues tranquilly to Atlantis?
“By heaven, that would be to die of rage!”
“That, however, is what would not fail to happen if the feeble garrison that I can leave at the entrance to the vault is taken by surprise, for example, by one or two light squadrons or a band of agile scouts that have moved along the foot of the mountain. Because, during the decisive melee, we risk being driven to the left or to the right—the gods only know which. Illaz is capable of finding an inspiration in desperation...and following it.”
“You’re right. What would become of Soroé then?”
“What would have become of her without you and your men. Will you leave your work unfinished?”
“We’ll die first. I can only make you that promise, which I’m certain of keeping.”
“And for me, don’t worry; I don’t ask any more of you than that.”
“Agreed! Give your orders.
“Assemble your companions. Don’t let a single one draw away. With them and the company of warriors already commanded to that service, take charge of the defense of the hamlet, and the safety of the Queen. Let her stay enclosed in the habitation she is occupying. Constrain her, if necessary, in the name of Argall, your brother and her fiancé. Ruslem will support you. She’ll thank you later.
“Hmm! That’s what one says to little children when one gets ready to correct them. I don’t much like fighting with women.”
“Just now you were afraid of lacking adversaries.”
“I’ll never have the last word with you. But why not send her to the far side of the passage?”
“Who will guard here there? Who knows whether she might encounter rebels or marauders there? Would not the mere rumor of her retreat put Atlantis in revolution? And who, finally, could force her to that retreat?”
“Not me.”
“We’ve therefore encountered an obstacle before which your valor recoils. Permit me, then, to employ it otherwise. The hamlet is not only the key to the passage; two or three pathways end there, one of which leads to Taugi, where our troops must cross the M’rani upriver; another goes along the valley, shorting the rock-face. A few hundred men emerging there, falling upon our rear at the decisive moment, would cause us incalculable damage. In circling around behind the enemy, we might be encircled ourselves. But they’ll find you in front of them!”
“May heaven determine that Illaz has had that idea.
“The simplest are sometimes the last that come to mind—but we ought not to count on our enemy’s mistakes. On the contrary, we must assume that he will imagine everything to harm us. But forgive an old warrior these futile reflections.”
“They’re engraved in my memory.
“That’s to do too much honor to my chatter. So, I can count on you? Give the signal?”
“No one, while I’m alive, will attack you from that direction—and those who pass over my body will know what it has cost them!”
The Atlantean and the Northerner exchanged a vigorous handshake. Maghée assembled his companions. Already, rapid messengers were carrying the orders necessary for the decisive movement to the reserve troops.
From a kind of rustic veranda attached to their temporary residence, Ruslem and Soroé were anxiously following the course of the battle, now distinct and getting closer by the minute. The priest, who was fully aware of Iztemph’s intentions, was nevertheless subject to the distressing impression of the alternating surges and retreats, each of which, in the ultimate analysis, was translated into an abandonment of terrain, strewn with a line of cadavers.
Fraam and his companions, quivering with impatience, were not far from hoping for a complete rout, which would at least bring them to grips with the pursuers. Maghée, returning with the others, carefully refrained from disabusing them completely; the prospect of an imminent and desperate struggle could only maintain their discipline and their vigilance, but the young chief’s attitude was so far from that of some someone vanquished that even the Atlantean warriors who were to collaborate with them in the defense of the hamlet acquired a new confidence therefrom.
As for the Gilt-Hermians, the idea of entering alone into combat against all of Illaz’ troops, and inflicting a memorable defeat on them, appeared to them no more extraordinary than everything else that had happened to them since their departure from the Red Rocks. They would not even have doubted the victory if they had been sure of hearing Argall’s war-cry ring out at the crucial moment, as they still conserved the hope that they would.
The news brought by Maghée also reassured Ruslem and his ward, to whom it was permissible for him to explain himself freely. The maneuver imagined by Iztemph struck them as much by its simplicity as the advantages that it was permissible to expect from it. Illaz captured or killed would be the war ended at a stroke, whatever Yerra might yet attempt. Unfortunately, they would still be enough difficulties to overcome, but time would also come to their aid.
The young woman, however, did not succeed in recovering her confident and almost joyful impressions of the previous evening. All the Atlantean blood spilled seemed to her to have been drawn from her own veins, while nothing could confirm her hope of finally obtaining some indication of the fate and intentions of her fiancé.
Furthermore, the spectacle of the battle, so close henceforth that its rumor reached their ears distinctly, did not take long to absorb the young sovereign’s attention again, as well as that of her defenders
The resistance of the loyal battalions, once again, was weakening. Iztemph’s chariot had just moved again, but for some reason known only to the old warrior, he had steered not toward the Key but toward the edge of a little wood bordering the bare heath, five or six hundred paces from the road, on the side opposite to the sea. That movement, observed by all the troops, nevertheless constituted a retreat; Illaz’ partisans, gaining as much ground, now held in their power three-quarters of the road from Lamb-ha. A similar effort, crowned with an equal success, would take them to the foot of the mountainous buttress where the subterranean passage opened in the middle of the seven or eight houses, one of which sheltered Soroé, whose guard Maghée had accepted. The moment was not far distant when the Gilt-Hermians, in accordance with the anticipations of the Atlantean general, with a handful of brave men, would sustain the impact of an army there.
On both sides, everyone appeared to be conscious that the decisive moment was nigh. Iztemph’s soldiers abruptly cased retreating. The infantry in the center stood still, bleak and resolute, returning blow for blow, dying where they stood, while the cavalry, on the wings, galloped back and forth over the hath, furnishing a succession of vigorous charges under which the adversary buckled momentarily.
It was now the revolutionaries of the mines, the forests and the smithies that were supporting almost all the weight of the action. The dissidents of the warrior caste, too inferior in numbers and unsparingly setting an example of furious bravery, had nevertheless effectively disappeared; the majority of the survivors had lost their horses and were reduced to fighting on foot, lost in the ranks of the vassal host. They could still be recognized, however, not by their embroideries, long since ripped away or vanished under dirt and blood, but by their skill and their arrogant insouciance in the face of death.
Illaz must have taken account of the necessity of finishing it. He could be seen drawing closer to the battle-front, summoning his hast reserves, even the slightly wounded with their wounds summarily bandaged, after a few minutes of repose, were required to pick up their weapons and resume their place in the field. His personal guard, henceforth forming almost all of his cavalry, assembled as if he wanted to charge at its head himself. Those preparations, perceive by all his men, whose significance did not escape them, provoked an immense acclamation.
The axes, hammers and sharpened picks whirled with increased violence. The warriors of race bounded, swords in hand—and under that irresistible attack, while Iztemph’s squadrons exhausted themselves in vain efforts to make inroads into the unshakable battalions, their center buckled again.
The acclamations of the rebels redoubled. Without launching himself forward yet, Illaz moved forward at a modest gallop. He and Iztemph, two bowshots apart, recognized one another. The rebel chief, as the younger, saluted his rival courteously.
Maghée, with his sea-eagle’s eyes, had witnessed that polite exchange at twice the distance. He was not touched by it, gripped the hilt of his sword nervously, and followed the adversary with a malevolent stare.
“If the old man’s maneuver doesn’t succeed,” he muttered, “before the sun has set behind the mountain, you’ll be the victor…but before nightfall, one of us will be dead!”
The inferior edge of the star brushed the crests. Scarcely an hour of daylight remained.
The loyal troops’ movement of retreat was accentuated. If a single rank broke, it would be defeat. In any case, Soroé’s army was about to be driven back to the hamlet of the Key. To allow a single battalion to take refuge there would compromise in inevitable disorder the last chances of a desperate resistance. Would it then be necessary to strike indistinctly at friends and enemies?
The Gilt-Hermian would have liked nothing better than to throw the young sovereign into a chariot and carry her immediately to the far end of the passage—but that would be to admit and accept irreparable defeat. How many days or hours would that delay the inevitable denouement, between the dogged pursuit of the victors and the anticipated rising and the furious turmoil of Atlantis?
Meanwhile, Illaz precipitated his maneuvers. His last files drew nearer to the head, as if an immense serpent were uncoiling along the road and its double edge. But while the front had almost reached the Key, the other extremity left between it and its recent position in Lamb’ha and increasingly empty space, in which only a few of the wounded trailed. On the other side of the M’rani, only a few servants remained, guarding the beasts of burden and the baggage train.
Suddenly, the nonchalant and idle attitude of those men, whom even the overly-distant spectacle of the combat no longer interested, gave way to a singular agitation and desperate efforts to attract the attention of their chiefs from afar. Two or three launched themselves forward, shouting, while others tried to gather their animals and hitch up their vehicles in haste. One of Illaz’ aides-de-camp, chancing to turn his eyes in that direction, called his attention to that unusual tumult, and the rebel general, shielding his frowning eyebrows with his hand, tried, at first in vain, to distinguish the cause.
A cloud of dust in which the tips of lances were glittering did not take long to dissipate his uncertainty. Nearly three thousand cavaliers, moving along the opposite bank of the steam, arrived at the extremity of the bridge, filed across it without meeting the slightest shadow of resistance, engaged upon the road and, having passed the last houses, spread out in a line on the bare heath, with a thunderous noise, and with increasing speed, fell upon his rearguard, driving them back in disorder upon the forward ranks, broken in their turn. At the same time, the edge of the wood bordering the grassland parallel to the road and to the sea was animated by a swarming of pikes. Five thousand infantrymen who had not yet done battle stood up, and saluted Iztemph’s chariot and the royal banner with long cries of triumph—for everyone now understood the trap extended for the enemy, the victorious maneuver.
Illaz’ soldiers, surrounded, attacked from all sides by superior forces, driven back toward the ocean, had no more to do than surrender or perish.
The certainty of that denouement appeared so clear that it was as if the combat ceased. A silence fell, of anticipation and meditation. Soroé, with tears in her eyes, precipitately called to one of her guards and shouted an order at him for Iztemph, following him with her gaze as he leapt on to his horse and galloped toward the chief. Only then did she realize that she had acted without consulting Ruslem, and turned toward him, almost imploring. But the old man, scarcely less emotional, found no response to her mute question than a gesture of benediction.
The messenger arrived at Iztemph’s chariot. The general was seen to lean over and exchange a few brief words. A herald of arms, detached before the enemy, shouted in a loud voice:
“In the name of the Queen, mercy and pardon to anyone who surrenders!”
Hundreds, thousands of voices repeated the generous offer.
Arrogantly, Illaz replied: “We know only one Queen; I cannot promise you that she will grant you mercy!”
And without even waiting to see whether his men were following him, he urged his horse forward and hurled himself at the pikes. But the rebel vassal knew how to choose his servants. Not one hesitated. The grim revolutionaries of the mines, the smithies and the forests brandishes their axes, their picks and their hammers steaming with blood, formed a three-sided front, and charged. The surviving warriors of race went their victorious brothers a last distant salute with the sword. The rumbling voice of the ocean, like the barking of famished dogs, seemed to be claiming the dead in advance.
Scarcely half an hour of daylight remained.
“It’s necessary to finish it,” said Iztemph.
And, not being able to make himself heard from one end of the battlefield to the other, but knowing that in every group of combatants gazes were turned toward him at that moment, seeking an encouragement of direction in his attitude, he stood up to his full height, and pointed with his hand at the immense royal banner that, by Soroé’s order, had been floating over the habitation she occupied for several minutes. The nascent breeze was agitating its pleats. That was, in the tradition of Atlantean warfare, the signal both the supreme effort, of the victory henceforth certain, and of pardon offered to the vanquished. The gesture had to be perceived, remarked and understood by everyone; the gazes of the two armies were fixed upon it.
Suddenly, the banner toppled.
A cry sprung from twenty thousand throats greeted that fall, doubtless accidental, but which the superstitious minds of the Atlanteans had to see as a bad omen for the victors. Illaz’ partisans rejoined in the hope of a posthumous revenge. The scourges would take charge of avenging them!
However, the incident could not modify the outcome of the day. The banner, in any case, would not take long to reappear. The freshening breeze would inflate its crimson and azure folds, chasing away the swarm of black presentiments with their proud palpitation.
But the banner did not reappear. A column of smoke rose up in its place, thin and blue-tinted at first, soon white and tripled in volume, finally enormous, black and riddled with red sparks. And nearby, above the neighboring houses, similar columns were already becoming entangled by the keener wind.
The hamlet was burning.
Voices—anxious? perfidious? how could one tell?—rose up: “The Queen! Save the Queen!”
Iztemph, impatient, stamped his foot and tried to dominate the tumult.
“The Queen is not in danger! She has her guards! Think of nothing but victory!”
No one heard him. The disorder even attained his entourage. Rumor propagated from one wing to the other, absorbing the attention of the soldiers to the point of making them neglect their officers’ orders, almost forgetting the peril, the imminent direct attack of their adversaries. Did not that sudden blaze announce a surprise attack, the victors taken from behind, the enemy occupying the general headquarters and occupying the subterranean passage?
News flew back and forth. The Queen a prisoner…! In flight…! Killed by a servant of the cruel gods…! Communication with Atlantis cut…! The capital in revolt, sending reinforcements to Illaz’ partisans…! Twenty thousand rebels running from the north to their aid…! The royal army trapped between the two defiles, entirely captive…! And no more food…!
Two thirds of the men had been fighting since the morning, almost without nourishment. The hope, the certainty of victory had sustained them a moment ago. It seemed that something within them broke. What had become of Ruslem’s promises, the announced, vaunted aid of the Gilt-Hermians, the sovereign protection of the Sword? Argall had not even shown himself! Maghée was probably dead.
The infantrymen who had arrived belatedly on the battleground, less weary but also hungry, having not experienced the intoxication of battle, contemplated with bleak eyes the red pools, the long trails of cadavers, and wondered why they were there, and whether the triumph of one party or the other would change their fate.
Only the reserve squadrons, arriving last of all, composed uniquely of warriors of race, remained ready to do their duty. Already, however, they had suffered a great deal. Their superb change had crushed the rebel rearguard, but the latter, defending themselves furiously, only yielding to death, had not succumbed without vengeance.
Meanwhile, from the swirls of smoke that were now enveloping the village, other cavalrymen were surging, intact squadrons, scarcely dusty. They were seen emerging at a rapid trot, arranging themselves in a line, evidently ready to charge. Their clarions sounded a familiar cadence, still popular throughout Atlantis, assembling the elite troops of Yerra’s personal guard.
Iztemph stifled an exclamation of amazement. Those cavaliers could only have passed through the hamlet by passing over the bodies of Maghée and his companions, supported by a loyal company, fortified by solid barricades and a triple row of chariots.
That such men, thus entrenched and on their guard, would let themselves be killed or removed without any noise, without a cry of alarm, without a messenger having come on their behalf to request help, was what the Atlantean chief, a minute before, would have refused to believe, and which he still tried to doubt, in spite of the crushing evidence, the irrefutable testimony of his eyes.
The fact, if it remained inexplicable, was nevertheless evident to everyone. Already, everyone was drawing the necessary consequences from it: Soroé dead or captive, the struggle against Illaz henceforth devoid of a leader and a goal, Iztemph being nothing in himself. Perhaps, a few moments earlier, when the entire army had acclaimed his victorious maneuver, he might have been able to proclaim himself king. It is doubtful that he would have thought of it. The moment of his triumph had, in any case, passed. The sudden transformation of a limitless confidence to the most somber prospects of defeat seemed to have broken the mainspring, the energy and the very soul of the army. Its various fractions remained inert. Messengers passed within javelin range, going from the hamlet now occupied by Yerra’s guards to the point where Illaz had stopped, bearing information of orders, with impunity.
The rebel chief advanced his person, to the point of exposing himself if some archer had been found to take aim at him at that moment; none, however, even sketched a simulacrum of it. By a kind of miracle, his desperate change, just now, had only earned him an insignificant wound; but the artisan who had soldered and tempered every link of his coat of mail had contributed much more than he had to that result.
In a strong and almost benevolent voice, which, by virtue of the simple reversal of the situation nevertheless seemed to take on an accent of cruel mockery, he shouted: “In the name of Yerra, sole Queen of Atlantis, mercy and pardon to anyone who surrenders!”
Elim and twenty heralds repeated those words.
Iztemph tried to riposte: “You’re not victorious yet!” But a glance darted at his troops showed him few officers ready to respond to his appeal. The others, turning their heads and insensibly drawing away, were trying to reach the wooded edge of the grassland; or, feigning a supreme revolt, they were running toward the enemy, but refraining from striking, disarmed at the first encounter.
That game, however, only succeeded with auxiliaries or Illaz’ personal vassals. The revolutionaries of the mines, forests and forges, exhausted themselves, had not yet had their fill of carnage. It was necessary for Yerra’s cavaliers to come to place themselves in front of them, hiding their adversaries from their view.
In spite of everything, Iztemph tried to fall as a warrior.
“A contest of arms between us!” he shouted to the rebel chief. “Does Illaz fear the sword of an old man?”
“Illaz fears nothing,” was the arrogant reply—but almost immediately, in a tone of courteous deference, Yerra’s ally continued: “I’m wounded, however. A brave man like you wouldn’t want to take me at such a disadvantage…and you’ve given me enough trouble for today. Come on, my Father, you’ve seen too many combats to retain rancor against a contrary fate. Permit me to offer you half my tent tonight. You’ll keep your sword and our liberty. Tomorrow, if you absolutely insist, we’ll fight. But I hope between now and then to make the conquest of a friend in you.”
“If Ruslem and Soroé are still alive, will I be free to join them?”
“As free as air! You have Illaz’ word as a guarantee.”
With a melancholy gaze, the old warrior surveyed the terrain that had almost been that of his victory. With the exception of two or three aides-de-camp and half a dozen servants he was alone. Darkness, having completely fallen, left the heath illuminated solely by the blazing hamlet. Chariots were arriving laden with food, besieged by the hungry crowds of former combatants. Cleverly, Illaz extended the distribution to the vanquished. The majority were already acclaiming him as their savior and their chief.
Soroé’s reign seemed a distant thing, a rolled-up scroll of history. What had become of her, though? Iztemph, following his host to his tent, tried in vain to interrogate him.
“Faith of a soldier, my Father, no one here can tell me! Yerra’s cavaliers found the village abandoned, the road free. Fortunately for me, for I was about to give you the regret of having me killed in order not to fall alive into Ruslem’s hands. Admit that you wouldn’t have spared me!”
“I’m convinced of the contrary.”
Servants came in, charged with the utensils and provisions necessary for an improvised feast offered by the victor to his principal lieutenants. Soon, the table was laid and filled with food and wine. Illaz, making Iztemph sit down to his right, introduced him to the other guests, heaped him with eulogies and respect. It only remained for the old warrior to admire his rival’s good grace and generous courtesy. After all, victory and defeat, like all things, are in the hands of the gods!
Outside the almost-extinct blaze no longer projected any but intermitted gleams. The victors and the vanquished went to sleep scarcely separated, overcome by a common lassitude.
Beasts of prey prowled around, furtive shadows, howling at death and sniffing the blood.