Explosions tore across the cliff faces above the narrow passage, showering the oncoming Orsembians with rocks, from pebbles to boulders. The calleroses’ horses screamed and reared out of their charge in a panic. Their riders desperately whipped and kicked their mounts, driving them forward until the moment the rocks fell upon them.
Raging avalanches of rock, dust, and smoke bellowed down the slopes of both cliff faces. The rumble of cascading rock drowned out everything—the trumpets blaring, the drums beating, the hooves pounding, and—Savior be praised—the calleroses screaming. The last sight Recha caught before the tide of dust and smoke engulfed the entire trek was the unfortunate calleroses who had turned the bend in time to be caught, their hands outstretched above their heads before being swallowed up.
No manner of plate could survive such an onslaught. Horses shrieked and men wailed, many of which were cut off short and suddenly.
Recha didn’t count the minutes. What felt like hours had happened in the span of seconds.
“It worked,” she said under her breath, still grinning from ear to ear. She laughed. “Sevesco, you . . . magnificent madman!”
More rumbling explosions echoed from back inside the pathway.
Sevesco had been setting it up for a couple of days. They had known Ribera knew these paths. They had suspected that path led to their rear and likely connected farther east. Their scouts had reported movement. However, they couldn’t be certain of what. They couldn’t ignore the obvious threat the path posed, nor guard it completely.
Recha shook her head at Sevesco being the one to have suggested turning the trail into a trap.
Now for the second part.
The avalanches’ giant, combined cloud of dust and smoke merged and wafted in the air, taking minutes to drift high enough to reveal the carnage below. The ground was littered with crushed bodies under rock, yet not all were dead. Many of the survivors struggled and coughed through their helmets’ visors. Some led horses while others staggered on their feet.
A couple drew their swords and trudged forward—
A high-pitched whistle pierced the air!
A steel-barbed crossbow bolt struck into a calleros’s pauldrons with a thunk!
The man staggered, dropping to his knees.
As his compatriots raised the alarm, more crossbow bolts whistled down from the west- and north-facing cliffs. The calleroses’ charge was demolished, their path blocked, and now, as for the second part of Sevesco’s plan, the surviving calleroses were being treated with a hail of steel from above.
“Excellent call giving Sevesco all our spare crossbows, Papa!” Recha praised over her shoulder. “We’re finally putting them to use.”
The Third Army had been carrying around their crossbows and bolts since refitting with the muskets before Compuert Junction. It had felt like such a waste to have them hauled around and unused. Sevesco’s plan had offered the perfect opportunity to deploy them again, along with any camp worker able to volunteer that could use the weapon, either firing or loading them.
Of course, Sevesco found no shortage of volunteers, Recha mused. They got to climb up to the highest, safest place during a battle. With weapons!
“This battle isn’t over!” Baltazar bellowed, storming through Recha’s guards surrounding them. “Dispatchers! Ride to Marshal Narvae! He must charge now!”
A man sprinted to a horse, galloping off as Baltazar seized two more dispatchers by their collars.
“Find Marshal Olguer and General Priet! Marshal Olguer’s to take command of all of Second Army’s calleroses and take control of the southeastern passage. He’s to harass all Orsembians who’ve made it in there until they are driven off, crushed, or taken prisoner! General Priet is to prepare all his musketeers and swordsmen to keep those squares of Orsembians divided and unable to link up. He’s to prepare the rest of his army, all his pike to attack forward. Off with you!”
He didn’t give them time to reply. He shoved them toward their waiting mounts that were nervously kicking the dirt from all the excitement around them, and marched back to the command tent. He moved hurriedly, like a man half his age, grim determination scowling his face.
I should be doing something, Recha thought, sweat streaking down her forehead. I know I should be doing something!
“Don’t just stand there!” Baltazar shouted, rushing by. “Commandant Narvae! Get La Dama to her horse! All staff officers, to your horses and prepare to defend yourselves and this position!”
The whirlwind that had engulfed the camp now swept through her tent. Every officer and soldier around the tent dropped whatever they were doing and rushed about. Papers went flying. Plates and bowls clattered on ground. Men sprinted to their horses, fixing helmets over their heads before soldiers helped them into their saddles.
Someone seized her shoulder.
“This way, Recha!” Cornelos implored. “Hurry!”
Hurry?
“Wait!” she yelled, realizing what Baltazar had meant. She stumbled a few steps then dug in her heels, turning a snarling glare at Baltazar a few feet away, shooing some officers. “Baltazar! I’m not running!”
“Neither am I!” he yelled back, glaring through his grimace. He thrust a finger at her. “But you’re getting on your horse!” He shifted his finger, pointing behind her. “The White Sword’s still heading this way!”
Recha spun around. Despite the explosion crushing most of the enemy calleroses in the passage, despite being behind enemy lines with his means of escape cut off, despite Recha’s soldiers rushing off to face the calleroses who had gotten through, Ribera was still charging toward her tent.
After the explosion, the calleroses who’d been aiming to swing around the rear of her camp had pivoted and joined up with him. It was too late for the calleroses charging toward Hiraldo’s rear to change their course. Hiraldo’s rear guard was already countercharging.
Yet, even without those men, Ribera and close to five hundred calleroses were charging straight for her. Her soldiers in camp were still forming up, and those resting in reserve were still rushing to cut them off.
They’re not going to make it! Recha realized, judging the soldiers’ distance and the calleroses’ speed.
A dozen trumpets called at once. Piercing, sharp-noted cadences.
Recha stiffly turned her head.
Borbin’s host was moving, straight for the center of her armies.
***
Necrem hissed. The damp cloth stung his face with every light dab.
“Hold still!” Doctor Maranon scolded. “You’re bleeding from a dozen rips.” He spat to the side, wiping his sweat drenched brow with a stained sleeve before dabbing the other side of Necrem’s face with the cloth. “Whatever possessed you to do something as insane as this?”
“The La Dama asked him, Doctor,” Hezet replied, standing off to the side with two bowls of stew.
Doctor Maranon shook his head. “Stupidity. I took you to have more sense, Necrem.”
Necrem winced and said nothing as Maranon dug the cloth between the flabs of scarred skin, cleaning out the dried blood and dust. He sat on his knees on the slope between the battle lines and the camp. Cookfires dotted the land, along with wagons filled with water barrels and barrels of black powder.
Men sat around in the hundreds, eating, drinking, sleeping. Some ventured off to take care of releasing themselves. Men and women with bandages and buckets of water for washing moved about, tending to the lesser wounded, if they could, and helping the more seriously wounded limp back to camp, if they couldn’t.
The healers had descended on them upon reaching the rear, checking everyone. The sight of him bleeding through his mask’s holes was enough for one woman to become insistent, believing he had either been struck on the head or in the face.
No amount of warning from him or Hezet could persuade her it was something she couldn’t handle. Not until Necrem knelt on the ground, removed his helmet to allow her to untie his mask’s knots did she get to see the grizzly truth for herself. Necrem’s cloth mask made wet, sticky, suction sounds as it peeled off his face.
Surprisingly, instead of repulsion, the woman’s face, tanned like bronze from being out under the Easterly Sun all day, had hardened. She furiously demanded him down to his knees and began washing his face with the cloth carried in her water bucket.
Necrem could do little but wince at every dab and wipe, unable to keep his face out of sight from the men passing by. Although, on a field where so many gruesome sights lay strewed about, his face probably amounted to one of the hundreds, probably thousands.
Hezet left to fetch some food, and on his return, he brought Doctor Maranon. A few stubborn words passed between the doctor and the healer woman before he informed her there was little more that she could do and sent her to tend to the wounded she could help. The woman did so in a huff then raced toward another group of limping soldiers. Maranon, meanwhile, instantly went to scolding Necrem.
“I don’t have any salve,” Maranon grumbled, pulling a glass bottle of yellow liquid out of his satchel. “I ran out of stiches an hour ago”—he uncorked the bottle and dabbed his washcloth into the liquid—“and I can’t send you to the surgeons. For once, I agree with the soldiers—you’ve been cut up enough.”
Necrem grunted at the joke, opening his mouth to retort. His nose wrinkled at the strong, heavy scent of—
Liquor!
Maranon dabbed and wiped his face. A searing, stabbing pain shot through his face with every wipe of the cloth, forcing a gasp through his clenched teeth and tears to swell around the corners of his eyes.
“Don’t move!” Maranon demanded. “This will clean you up and stop most of the bleeding—”
Bugles blared. Echoing shrieks sounded like they came from everywhere at once. Men stumbled and groaned to their feet, twisting and turning about in search of the direction of the bugles.
Maranon continued to clean Necrem’s face with a stubborn scowl on his own face as he remained focused on his work . . . until he flickered a glance over Necrem’s shoulder. His hand froze in the air. His scowl dropped as his eyebrows leapt up.
“Savior, shield us,” he whispered.
Necrem angled his head to check on Hezet. The veteran, likewise, gawked at something behind him.
Necrem shuffled around. His armor felt heavier with him on his knees, the plates clinking and knocking together, weights dragging him down by their straps. He was also exhausted. His muscles strained and burned with every twitch and jerk he made to hobble himself around and . . .
The largest army Necrem had ever seen stretched across the other side of the field. Rank after rank of infantry. Columns of calleroses. The number of banners swaying on poles equaled the number of spears. Necrem lost count of how many must have been out there instantly.
His shoulders slumped at the sight of them. Was . . . was everything we did down there . . . was it all for nothing?
He curled his hands into fists, popping his knuckles. The gauntlets’ leather groaned and plates rattled. He breathed deeply from his nose once, twice, three times before realizing he was mad. From that simple question, one which he must have shared with most of the men around him as they, too, looked, pointed, and shook their heads at what they saw across the field.
Still, he was mad, like working on a commission for days, only to be told it was not what the customer wanted. The waste of steel, sweat, and time. This anger felt worse. It stung deeper and tasted bitter.
Explosions ripped him back to the present, and he snapped his head around, as did everyone else.
Those are behind us!
The north cliff line was exploding! The bugle blaring cut off.
As Necrem followed the rock fall, he jerked to his feet.
Calleroses were behind them!
He couldn’t count how many, though a stream of them were charging toward the Lazornians over on the left, while more joined together and charged into the camp. Necrem stiffened at the banner waving over those charging into camp.
“White Sword!” someone yelled.
“Calleroses are behind us!” another yelled.
Drums furiously rapped across the field. Officers shouted. Men cursed as bowls were sent flying, and it became a mad dash as every man raced to take their pike or musket from their racks, their swords out, and their helmets on.
“Here!” Hezet shouted, nudging something insistently against Necrem’s arm.
The veteran held out one of the bowls of stew while tipping his head back, gulping down the other. Necrem watched, blinking in wonder as Hezet sucked gulp after gulp, barely needing or trying to chew. He pulled away coughing after a minute.
“Hurry!” Hezet coughed. “Eat as much of it as you can!”
Necrem took the bowl and was still holding it after Hezet finished devouring the rest of his.
“Eat, Oso!” Hezet demanded. “If you don’t, you won’t have any strength for the next fight.” He turned his head back and forth at the calleroses behind them and Borbin’s massive army across the field, frowning grimly.
“Wait!” Maranon protested, grunting to his feet. “He can’t fight with his face like this! He could bleed out from these. They could become infected! Besides”—he looked up at Necrem with a pleading look—“you’re a blacksmith, not a soldier.”
Bugles blared across the field.
“Form up!” an officer galloping across the slope bellowed. “Form up, Third Army! All reserve companies form up!”
As company capitáns repeated the order and drums tapped, Necrem passed looks between Hezet and Maranon, holding the bowl of stew in his gauntlets. Despite having scooped water through them, he picked out the stained varnish of dried blood speckled between the small plates on his gauntlet fingers.
He looked behind him at the sound of thundering hooves. The Orsembians’ calleroses across the field were charging. All three columns roared over the field of dead that Necrem and so many others had left barely twenty minutes ago.
The Lazornians lowered their pikes. Their tight squares grew tighter. Drums ceased.
The calleroses roared in, waving swords and lowering lances. Their banners waved in the air against their colorful sets of plated armor. A volley of musket fire erupted from one Lazornian company. Then another volley from beside it. Calleroses pulled up on their reins. Some jerked and fell out of their saddles. Horses stumbled head over heels, rolling their riders under them. But more came on after them.
Necrem gritted his teeth, watching every second. Until . . .
Impact.
The Lazornians, to their credit, didn’t budge. Most of the calleroses horses wheeled away, refusing to run into the bristle of barbed steel. A few unfortunate beasts had no way of turning. They slammed into the pikes, screaming out across the field as the force of their charge took over after their legs failed them. Two or three pikes snapped off and lodged in their bodies.
Calleroses swarmed around the squares, hacking with their swords and thrusting with their lances. In response, the Lazornians kept their squares and stabbed at horse and rider with eager vigor. Any calleros who fell from his saddle, whether it be from caught by a pike or musket ball, was brutely set upon by more stabbing pikes.
However, the calleroses keep storming in, riding between the company squares and getting between the lines. Drums began tapping, and the second line of Lazornians in the center lowered their pikes and began marching forward to meet those who got through.
“Third Army, form up!” a Lazornian calleros yelled, waving and pointing at the battlefield from his horse. “Those men are going to need all of us! They’re holding back all of Orsembar out there! For the love of the Savior, form up!”
Necrem turned back. More men had formed their companies. Their drummers rapped taps, and they began to march down the slope again, in step. The healers and cooks were all jogging away to their wagons, rushing off to whatever their duties were and avoiding watching the soldiers leave and the battle beyond.
Hezet and Maranon both stood there, watching him. Hezet stood with his body turned, one foot pivoted toward the marching companies. He frowned determinedly, his fists shaking while his eyes twitched at every drum tap, as if they called him. Maranon, though, held his pleading look, holding his washcloth up.
Necrem dropped his head. His grip tightened around the bowl of stew as the sounds of battle raged behind him.
It couldn’t have all been for nothing.
“Yesterday, I was a blacksmith,” he said. He brought the bowl up to his mouth. His ripped and sliced lips made slurping impossible, and he didn’t have time to use the spoon. He tipped his head back and lifted the bowl. The stew was mild, and he poured it into his mouth. He strained it through his teeth, chewing what he caught, and swallowed what he could. Half of the salty, milky contents spilled out of the holes in his cheeks, running down his jawlines and dripping onto his armor. He pulled the bowl away with a sigh. “Today, I’m just another man with a job to do.”
Maranon hung his head, dropping his arm to his side.
Hezet stood a little straighter and held out Necrem’s steel mask and helmet. “You’re going to need these. And we need to find ourselves some pikes.”
***
Recha finally discovered something positive about sitting sidesaddle—holding her pistol’s ammunition in her lap. She held her pistol under her other hand that was holding her horse’s reins. She rubbed her thumb along the pistol’s hammer as she watched Ribera’s force storming toward her.
“Form up across here!” a calleros ordered. The officer guided soldiers with his sword between a lane of tents that led straight into the open surrounding Recha’s command tent. “Across here, men! Hurry! Fix your pikes once you take up your positions!” The calleros trotted his horse back behind the infantry as they rushed to fill in the gap with their pikes.
They made three rows. The first row bent over and planted the butts of their pikes into the ground, the second held theirs straight out, and the third over the others’ heads.
“Order all reserved units in camp to converge around the command tent,” Baltazar ordered to one of his few remaining dispatchers. “Understand? Every group you can find in camp is to rally here.” He passed messages to his last two dispatchers. “Make sure these orders reach General Galvez, Ross, and Priet! Go!”
The dispatchers galloped away before a wagon was overturned in the center lane. Rallying around the command tent was the best strategy, rather than having every soldier in reach try to put themselves in front of the charging calleroses. They would meet the same fate as the current squad of soldiers.
A mixed group of pikemen and swordsmen struggled in a tight knot as the calleroses flowed around them. They had run out to block the lane from the Orsembians, but they didn’t have the numbers, and half of them were trampled upon contact. The survivors kept close together, holding a portion of the lane.
The Orsembians followed their horses around the path of least resistance, striking out with their swords to knock the jabbing pikes out of the way or thrusting their lances at the soldiers as they rode by.
A lance found its mark. The unfortunate soldier was jerked out of the defensive knot and into the path of oncoming hooves. In an instant, the soldier was snatched from his feet and sent rolling on the ground underneath the calleroses’ hooves and out of sight.
Recha bit the inside of her cheek. Damn them! She cocked her pistol’s hammer. Savior damn them—!
“No, Recha!” Cornelos warned, grabbing her saddle horn. As always, he was by her side, mounted with his helmet’s vizor down. She could only make out his wary eyes through the holes in his helmet’s black mask. “You can’t move! No matter what happens, we can’t have you move from this spot.”
She had inadvertently nudged her horse forward. She was surrounded by her guard and nearly every mounted calleros left available in camp, amounting only fifty riders. They had more infantry that could be mustered, yet . . .
Not enough! Recha bounced her eyes this way and that, counting. Not enough! How is it we read the enemy’s movements, performed an ambush, and they still have enough men to outnumber us? She gently squeezed her pistol’s trigger and guided the hammer back down to avoid setting it off accidentally in the heat of the moment.
Baltazar trotted his horse in front of her, beckoning more soldiers into their packed formation with his sword. He had donned a breastplate and helmet in all the confusion and, although he was less armored than the other calleroses, he still managed to appear born to command by his poise alone.
“Form up across the lanes!” he ordered, directing with his sword. “Use the tents and wagons as barricades! Once they hit the first line of pikes, they will try to race around us.”
Recha swiveled her head to see. Somehow, in the short amount of time, they had formed a square around the command tent in-between the lanes of tents. However, even with more soldiers rushing in to join it, the question remained.
Do we have enough?
She stood in her stirrups, searching for any relief coming from beyond the camp. The calleroses Hiraldo had sent from his rearguard were still engaged with those Ribera had sent. Despite Hiraldo’s rearguard outnumbering the Orsembians, there was little chance of them defeating them and coming to her aid before Ribera reached her.
Rather than seeing relief, she gritted her teeth at the sight of groups of enemy calleroses in twos and threes, barely managing to doggedly walk their horses through the hail of crossbow bolts and rubble out of the trek. They remounted the moment they cleared the trek and raced on Ribera’s trail.
“Baltazar!” she shouted. “More of them made it through the trek. We need more men!”
“We need to hold!” Baltazar said back from over his shoulder
“What?”
“We must hold here!” He raised his sword in the air, shaking it. “Stand your ground, men! Stand shoulder to shoulder and don’t show your backs! Stand for Lazorna! Stand for La Dama! Stand for your lives! Lower! Pikes!”
Men roared as a forest of pikes fell into position.
The thunder of hooves grew louder. Recha could pick out individual riders now. They filled the entire lane, and those in front charged abreast, each with lances couched low under their arms. They whipped and kicked their mounts into a frenzy.
They smell glory. Recha bristled in her saddle. It took more than courage or madness for a calleros to incense his mount to the point it would charge a formation of pikes. They think they’ve won.
Her bristles turned to shivers. She clenched her jaw and teeth together. Her snarl split wide to a compulsive grin. Every panting breath came as a hiss. Her chest tightened, threating to burst.
The howls of the Orsembians drifted over their crashing hooves. Every Lazornian officer yelled to hold.
“No quarter!” Recha screamed. Her arm thrusted into the air, as if it had a mind of its own, waving her pistol. “No withdrawal! No fear! Let them hear you, Lazornians!”
Her guards roared around her, lifting their swords in the air. Their bellows spread like fire through the ranks. First, through the calleroses mounted around them. Then the officers shouted at their men. And like a dam, the soldiers holding the lines and makeshift barricades let loose roars and curses until they were red in the face. The infectious fever broke through her stoicism, and she screamed until her throat squeezed shut and her voice cracked in the dust-filled air.
They yelled over the charging hooves, over the calleroses’ howls, until—
Crash!
The front row of Orsembian calleroses ran into the wall of pikes. The soldiers’ yells were overcome by wailing horses impaled on the end of a pike, a few from breast to jutting out of their sides or backs. Most of their riders had no time to dismount before dueling off the second line of pikes thrusting to knock them into the dirt.
However, some of those impaled horses rolled over a few of her men in the front row. The loss of a horse also equaled the loss of a pike or two, opening a gap for another calleros to dash their mount through to fight the pikemen up close.
The Orsembians weren’t satisfied with waiting to break through one lane, either. Those riding in from behind quickly turned their horses between tents and rode around to the other lanes, charging in and probing the defensive perimeter.
In a matter of seconds, a swirling cloud of dust surrounded them. The center of Recha’s camp became a twister of sand, screaming horses, and desperate men. The Orsembians threw all their numbers at every line and against every barricade. Lances rattled against pikes. Swords sang against swords.
Calleroses around her dashed off, one by one, wherever they could lend a hand. One filled a gap in the line across the lane behind her. One rushed up to an overturned wagon and traded sword thrusts with the Orsembian on the other side of the barricade, both men still on horseback.
Fight, Lazornians! she wanted to scream. She wanted to ride her horse up and down the line of men yelling until she lost her voice. But in all the shouting, crying, and swearing, it would only get lost.
Is this it! she raged in the only place she could—inside herself. Is this all I can do? Even in the middle of a battle, fighting all around me, I can only just . . . sit here!
She spun toward Baltazar, expecting him to be shouting order after order, directing with his sword as if he were everywhere at once. Instead, her field marshal sat straight-backed and calm, staring forward as if it were a tranquil False Fall day, immune to the carnage and struggle around him.
Recha followed his gaze to a calleros, sitting tall and lean in his saddle. His horse, his armor, and his sword were all bone white. The thin face stood out from under his helmet. Ribera, like Baltazar, sat on his horse, as unmoved as death. The great men held each other’s gazes, as if silently speaking to one another. Then his eyes slid across and met hers.
Recha’s shoulders compulsively rolled at the sudden rush of spikes racing down her back. Her horse snorted, sensing her move, and stomped his feet. She was forced to look away to rein the animal in, and when she looked up, Ribera held his white sword out toward her.
His words cut through all the noise around her, “Mandas is there! Forward, men! Seize Mandas, and this day is ours!”
***
Fighting raged everywhere. To Necrem’s right, volleys of repeating musket fire erupted. To his left, the Lazornians marched over the remaining lump of bodies from the press, advancing along the cliff wall with pikes down, ready to meet anything. However, the fight in front of him was a frantic mess.
The charging mass of calleroses had squeezed through the gaps between the companies on the front line. They raced their mounts around them, picking at the squares of fighting men with their lances. The pikes kept them at bay, and the second line of Lazornians edged forward, their own pikes down to catch any wayward rider between them before they could dash away.
Necrem watched, nestled shoulder to shoulder in a company square that made up a third line. They were more spread out than those fighting. It was as if they were a drifting island, watching everything around them but too far away to do anything. Except knowing exactly what it was like to be in such tightly packed fight.
“Do you think we’ll be able to take their place?” he asked Hezet, who was standing beside him, motioning toward the companies fight. “When the time comes?”
Hezet hummed and moved his head back and forth, taking everything in. They had joined the rear of the company when it had been called up, figuring they would be in the back row. Instead, they had found themselves in the front when the company had been ordered to turn and put into line with the other companies. It gave them a view of what was happening, but no comfort.
“I think,” Hezet replied, “when the time comes, they’ll just order us in to join the fight.”
“That bad, huh?” Necrem shifted his stance to ease his throbbing heels, aching for him to be off them. He balanced against the pike he had planted into the ground to lighten his weight.
“That bad,” Hezet agreed. “If they break through this time”—he shook his head—“I don’t think another crazy charge from you is going to stop them.” He snickered and elbowed Necrem.
Necrem grunted. “No. No more charges for me.” I’m too worn out.
He leaned a little more on his pike. His heels weren’t the only things aching. The backs of his legs were sore from running and constantly standing. His heavy arms demanded to hang to his sides. He kept his grip tight on the pike’s shaft to make sure they didn’t, or risked falling over with them.
His shoulders slumped under the weight of his pauldrons. Every strap holding his armor on chaffed, and his sweat made every plate feel stuck to his body. Sweat also dripped off his eyebrows, into his eyes and onto his metal mask. The mask holes pricked at his scars now that he no longer had the cloth mask under it. Every breath he took brought in hot, dry air, which did nothing to cool him down.
I should have drunk more water.
From the tired panting around him, he wasn’t the only one needing water.
Musket fire cracked from in front of him. He lifted his head to the sight Orsembian calleroses tumbling out of their saddles and those left spinning their horses around. The Lazornian companies of the second line forced their way between the companies on the front line, driving the calleroses back with their pikes and skewering man and beast alike.
Necrem squeezed his hands around his pike until his arms trembled. As much as he sympathized with the foot soldiers fighting for Borbin, he felt nothing for the calleroses being knocked out of their saddles.
“Get ’em,” he growled.
The man beside him grunted in approval.
A horn sounded.
“Shoulder!” an officer yelled. “Pikes!”
Necrem glanced around to make sure before joining everyone else in lifting and propping their pikes on their shoulders. It was just the same as carrying spears, except the pike’s extra length made it wobble more.
“Here we go,” Hezet said.
Necrem looked down at him. Hezet nodded at him, and he felt obliged to nod back.
“See you when this is over, blacksmith,” Hezet said.
Necrem snorted. “I’m not a blacksmith today, remember?”
Hezet smirked.
Another horn blew.
“Company!” the officer yelled. “Forward! March!”
Drums furiously rapped down the line.
Tap!
Tap!
Rap! Rap! Rap!
The drums’ call was the same as when they had left the field. Now they drew him back.
Necrem’s steps fell in line easily with the rhythmic cadence as easily as his arm fell into rhythm hammering steel. Their footfalls thumped on the ground as one on the stomped-over ground.
While they marched closer, the fighting on the front changed. The calleroses were dashing back. Their horses eagerly galloped away from the jabbing pikes. The Lazornians didn’t cheer or rush after them, though. They didn’t get the chance.
Those ranks of infantry behind the calleroses stormed in across the entire center line like two colliding waves. The Orsembians charged in from the sides of the front line and, gradually, as the calleroses moved out of the way, more and more companies squared off against their Lazornian counterparts.
Pikes clashed against pikes this time. Some Orsembians did wield spears, and there were several halberds in the mix, chopping at whatever came into reach, but most brought pikes. Both sides dueled and prodded each other. The Lazornians’ musket fire was sporadic, and as Necrem marched closer, he caught the sounds of crossbows being released, metal clicking and bows strumming, along with the whistle of a bolt cutting through the air and random pops of powder firing.
This was different than the press. Men weren’t packed against one another. Instead, they either jabbed forward with their pikes or staggered away from any enemies’. The cries of pain were the same, though, growing louder the closer Necrem got.
A man shrieked as if he’d suddenly been caught by surprise.
“No!” another begged. “No! Get bac—!”
“Hold them, boys!” an officer encouraged. “We can hold these bastards!”
The line weaved and bobbed. As Necrem’s company approached, a few of the companies on the front took a step back. Then a few around those inched back. Any company from the second line that hadn’t squeezed between those on the front line to push the calleroses out, stepped up and braced the front line. Like folding metal, the ranks of soldiers merged with little say they were combined companies, save their banners.
Horns blared. The drums rapped furiously and suddenly fell silent.
“Company!” the company capitán yelled. “Halt!”
Necrem stopped, and his heels immediately resumed throbbing, fatigue raced up his legs. It took all his strength to keep from planting his pike into the ground and leaning on it again. The heavy panting resumed around him. However, it couldn’t compare to the battle cries in front of them.
Galloping horses snatched his attention. A column of Lazornian calleroses were riding between them and the second line. At every square, three calleroses would break off from the rest of the column and two dismounted. One pushed his way into the dense fighting while the other jogged to join the company in Necrem’s line. The third calleros took their horses and led them away by their reins.
“They must be carrying orders,” Hezet surmised aloud as they watched a calleros rush through their company’s ranks.
“To everybody?” Necrem grunted.
“Must be something big to include the entire army.” Hezet looked up and down the line. “Or a big maneuver. Savior, I hope it’s not a big maneuver.”
“Company!” someone yelled, different from the capitán, probably the calleros. “At the volley, you will join with front line! From here on, all companies are on rank rotation! Move with the rank in front of you! We fight as one army now! We will hold this center! We may give an inch! We may give a yard! But we, the Third Army, will hold this center!” A similar speech was parroted down their line to the other companies.
“Oh Savior,” Hezet mumbled under his breath, “we’re in for it now.”
“In for what?” Necrem whispered.
“Rank rotation,” Hezet replied, “it means, instead of fighting as companies, we’re all going to rotate rank after rank every so often. I haven’t seen or heard of it being used in”—he shook his head and snickered—“years. But we’re not going to be pulled off the line to rest. We’re not going to have any reserve to back us up. We’re all going to fight sooner or later, and none of us are leaving this field unless we win . . . or we break.”
Necrem’s gaze traveled past the fight and over the heads of the Orsembian soldiers waiting for their turn. He looked over the wounded and struggling men, hobbling out of the fight, and the line of calleroses behind them, waiting like razorbills to swoop in on dying flesh.
There, in the center, the calleroses ringed around an open space where the largest of Borbin’s banners was on a towering pole planted in the ground. The vibrant orange fabric draped down under its weight, nearly quadruple the size of every other banner on the field. While men rushed in and out of the square, only one man sat on a horse, watching.
Borbin.
“Then we better win,” he growled, his face growing taut. The few stinging pricks flared across his cheeks, forcing him not to grimace.
“That’s the spirit, Steel Fist.” Hezet chuckled, joined by the other man standing next to Necrem.
Two volleys exploded on the far ends of the line. Others followed in a cascade. Musketeers in the company next those on the end fired, followed by the companies next to them, and then those next to them. The volleys flowed inward toward the center of the front until at last the musketeers in the company in front of Necrem fired. The concentrated fire dropped ranks of Orsembians.
Once again, Necrem’s nostrils wrinkled at the sulfuric gray cloud of burnt powder rising over battlefield.
“Third Army!” the calleroses yelled. “Forward!”
The Lazornians at the front rushed in with their pikes to reclaim the ground they had given up moments before. Drums rapped along Necrem’s line.
Tap!
Tap!
Rap! Rap! Rap!
Necrem stepped forward without a thought. We have to win!
***
“They’re cutting through the tents!” Recha yelled, pointing at a couple of Orsembian calleroses hacking through a tent in the corner of the lane.
Three calleroses surrounding her broke away. They maneuvered their mounts around men, rushing between the barricaded lanes and those staggering away from the fighting to charge the enemy before they carved through the tents. Sword blades hissed and clashed off one another as the horsemen dueled each other from their saddles. Their horses finished the enemy’s job, trampling the shredded tent under their hooves and leaving a gap in their defenses.
Such fights were breaking out all around them.
After Ribera’s declaration, his calleroses had charged and probed their entire perimeter, pushing for a breakthrough. The pikemen blocking the lane behind her had withstood five separate charges already. Those in the lane in front of her were still fighting off Ribera’s main body. The calleroses willingly risked their mounts to get in close and thrust or slash down at her soldiers.
An enemy calleros gasped. A Lazornian calleros had found his mark, getting under the enemy’s arm and thrusting his sword into the man’s armpit above his arm. The Orsembian folded over and slipped from his stirrups in a crash of steel.
A wrenching crack jerked Recha’s head around. One of her pikemen fighting to hold the lane facing the battlefield, took two shuffling steps back then fell backward. His pike fumbled from his grasp, and his head tipped back, revealing the carved gash through his helmet and into his skull.
The victorious Orsembian attempted to force his mount through the now open gap in the line, only to furiously defend himself as her soldier’s compatriots closed in on him from both sides. Their curses were lost in the other noises of battle, yet their determined pike thrusts spoke for them.
The wounded and the dead were mounting. Those who could were dragged or hobbled back out of the lines or barricades. Many collapsed around Recha’s banner, laying sprawled out in the Easterly Sun. Without any doctors, they made do with ripping cloth from either their clothes or the uniforms of others to wrap around their wounds. Those who could bandaged themselves up and went to kneel or sit behind a barricade. They couldn’t remain standing, and several at least held their pikes firmly in the dirt.
As for the dead, they were left where they fell.
We need more men.
Recha stiffly clenched her jaw until her back teeth ached from gnashing together. She had to keep her face placid, though. She couldn’t grimace or show any fear or frustration. Her men were fighting so desperately; they couldn’t look behind them and see their La Dama had given up.
Still, their situation remained the same.
Three years of planning. Three years of preparing. Knowing the odds, finding the ground to match them, using tactics to even them . . . and it’s still not enough!
She pushed herself up in the saddle, longing to catch a glimpse of Hiraldo’s calleroses rushing. All she caught, though, was dust clouds kicked up from whirling Orsembians riding around them.
A snarl cracked her calm mask, and she nudged her horse up beside Baltazar’s. “We can’t keep taking these loses!” she declared.
“They’re holding,” Baltazar replied, hard as stone and never taking his eyes from the fighting.
“We must fight back!” Recha urged. “If this keeps up . . .” Her chin wobbled, not wanting to say it aloud. We’ll be overwhelmed.
She took a deep breath and raised herself up in her saddle. “We got to break this encirclement and take the fight to them. We gather the remaining calleroses we have, even my guard. When the Orsembians pull back from a line, we charge them.”
“We hold.”
“We can’t!” She grimaced at her outburst, but as another shriek of pain carried through the air, she couldn’t let it go. “They’re going to break through if we do nothing but defend our lines. We must attack!”
“We must hold our lines!” Baltazar snapped back, his harshness making her jerk back in her saddle. “Any attack we make now will only cost us lives. If we send our calleroses outside the perimeter, they’ll be cut off, outnumbered, and destroyed. The longer we hold them here, the longer we hold Ribera’s attention here.”
He leaned back in his saddle, looking around Recha, and pointed. “They’re trying to tip that wagon over!”
Recha spun where she sat. At least seven Orsembian calleroses, from what she could see, were dismounted and pushing against one of the toppled wagons blocking the lane behind them. The few soldiers left on the barricade were dueling other dismounted calleroses to stop them.
Two of her guards led ten calleroses charging the barricade. Swords from horseback fell on the enemy that had made it inside the perimeter, and several of the calleroses leapt from their saddles to fight the enemy away from the wagon.
That was close. Yet they were straining to hold every lane.
Recha’s mind raced with all the excitement, taking everything in. She perked her head up and spun back around to Baltazar.
“What do you mean, the longer we hold Ribera’s attention here?” she asked.
“For Ramon to get into position,” Baltazar replied offhandedly. He twisted this way and that in his saddle, as if searching for something.
“Ramon?” Recha shook her head. “Papa, Ramon’s not—”
“Mandas!”
Three Orsembian calleroses charged through a gap in the line facing the battlefield. The calleros leading the charge roared, waving his sword over his head.
Baltazar moved his horse in front of her, drawing his sword. “Every man that can stand, prepare to defend yourselves!”
Wounded men all around struggled to their feet.
Undeterred, sensing glory, the enemy pressed on.
From the corner of her vision, a pikeman with a ripped uniform sleaves wrapped around his head charged into the path of the oncoming horsemen. He weakly raised his pike.
Not high enough.
The calleros on the far end rammed him with his horse. The beast stumbled as the man’s body was thrown feet in the air.
A few members of her guard countercharged, kicking up swirls of dust and came in with swords swinging. They cut off two of them.
Horses circled and snorted at each other as their riders traded blow for blow. Blades sang against each other as all riders searched for openings to thrust between armor plates or knock the other out of the saddle.
One enemy escaped.
“For Orsembar!” He leaned in his saddle, arm outstretched, his sword leveled directly at her.
Shoot him! Recha screamed at herself. Her hand gripped her pistol. Her thumb, slick with sweat, slipped on the hammer, failing to cock it. Her arm froze, spasming. It turned to rock and refused to move. Shoot!
Baltazar kicked his horse. It screamed, spinning about. Its rear bumped into her mount and forced her to move, turning with him.
The calleros charged in. Sword level.
Something flashed.
A clash of metal, steel kissing steel.
Baltazar leaned back in his saddle, farther back than Recha believed possible for a man of his age. His sword arm flung back.
“Papa!” she screamed.
They got him! a part of her wailed while her mouth hung open, eyes wide, shaking in the saddle. They got—
Baltazar sprang forward, the movement almost too fast to follow. His sword followed up the enemy’s as he charged by. A spring forward, a turn of the wrist, and Baltazar swung under the calleros’s arm.
Clang!
His sword struck and sliced against the edge of the enemy’s breastplate. His sword’s tip ripped through the man’s shirt underneath and staggered him, but the calleros kept in his saddle.
“Missed,” Baltazar grunted.
Recha gawked at him. Her vision blurred until she couldn’t see.
“Baltazar Vigodt!” she screamed, shaking her head to clear her eyes. When they were, she snarled at him, face burning, but she’d been in the sun all day, so she brushed it off. “What were you thinking? You’re too old for those kinds of stunts! Don’t ever do that to me again!”
Baltazar raised an eyebrow at her.
A horse screamed behind them.
Her fears of the calleros charging again eased at the sight of his horse thrown to the ground. Cornelos and another of her guard had rammed into him. The enemy’s mount had lost against the combined force of two horses slamming into its side. The enemy calleros scrambled in the dirt to stay mounted and get his horse up, fortunate his leg hadn’t been crushed.
His fortune ran out when Cornelos guided his horse around, and its raging hooves kicked the man in the head. The horseshoe cracked against the man’s helmet and sent his head rolling around on his shoulders. When his horse regained its feet, the calleros slipped out of the saddle, and her guardsman dismounted to finish him on the ground.
“La Dama!” Cornelos cried, trotting up to them. A bright sheen of sweat gleamed across his worried face, looking her up and down. “Are you unharmed?”
Recha blinked. “Yes,” she replied.
“Rally!” Baltazar shouted, holding his sword in the air. “Every man still standing in the perimeter, rally here! We’ll stop every enemy who slips through, one at a time!”
He snapped around, glaring at her. He seized her reins and ripped them out of her hand. “Commandant! Get the La Dama to the center and make sure she stays there!” He threw her horse’s reins at Cornelos.
“Baltazar!” Recha protested.
“Yes, sir!” Cornelos eagerly replied, raising his sword hilt to his forehead.
Recha glared at him. “Cornelos, don’t you dare—”
Cornelos kicked his horse and dragged hers along with a jolt. Recha’s head snapped back, drawing an embarrassing yelp. Her cheeks flushed warmly, and she clawed to take hold of her saddle horn to keep her seat and her pistol’s kit in her lap.
“Cornelos!” she growled. “When we get out of this—”
“You can reprimand me all you want!” he finished.
He waved at her few remaining guards as he led her horse to stand right beside her banner in the center of their square. Cornelos put his horse in front of hers, still commandeering her reins. The other three guards surrounded her. Two put their mounts beside her; one facing forward and the other facing behind her. The last guard put his mount behind hers.
Terrific, Recha fumed. Now I have my own personal square and look completely desperate.
“Cornelos! We can’t—”
“They’re breaking through!”
The crash of wood and axle springs announced one of the wagons being turned upright and rolled away. The calleroses whom had rushed to defend the barricade had all dismounted and now were backing away in a line. They fought in line with each other, several picking up shields left over from the wounded and dead.
“Form a square!” Baltazar bellowed. “All defenders, fall back in order and form a square! Rally around the banner!”
The order filtered through the defenders. Those around the overwhelmed barricade fell back quickly, while the pikemen struggling to block the lanes took measured steps backward at a time to keep their lines.
The Orsembians became maddening, desperate to keep up the pressure, some recklessly charging in the moment the defenders eased back. A few were knocked out of their saddle or had their horses cut from under them by thrusting pikes for their brashness.
Her calleroses holding the corners took the worst of it. They couldn’t wheel their horses out of the tight pockets they dueled in, and showing their backs was suicide. They were trapped defending corners they couldn’t hold.
When the infantry had backed away enough for a tiny gap to slip through, a few charged straight at her calleroses, attacking them from behind.
Recha panted and sweated from her saddle. A fixed snarl stretched across her face, unable to utter single useful word as her men yelled in desperation and wailed in pain. Swords slid under armpits. Blades sliced between helmets and plate. One by one, her men in the corners fell as the rest pulled back around her banner.
Her calleroses, who withdrew to safety, dismounted and turned their horses loose to keep the formation tight. They, and every wounded man who could stand, gathered as many pikes as they could find to ensure pikes bristled every side of the square.
The tighter the square became, the less the Orsembians attacked. They pushed the barricades away, clearing the lanes. However, when they saw the forming square, they sprinted back to their horses instead of pressing the attack. The pulled back from all four sides.
The dust cloud swirling around them began to subside. A few of her calleroses lucky enough to survive were able to break away as the enemy did, leaping from their saddles to dash into the safety of the square.
They’re withdrawing?
Recha turned her head back and forth, watching the Orsembian’s pull back. In their withdrawal, they left the bodies of the fallen, both theirs and hers, marking the boundaries of the old perimeter. She faced forward.
Ribera remained there, under his banner, as his remaining calleroses formed up across all the lanes.
They’re preparing.
***
Necrem grunted and heaved, swinging his pike over the heads of the two men in front of him.
Being the third man in line from the front, it was his job to hold his pike over the men ahead of him and knock away the enemies’ pikes by swinging down on them. His height gave him an advantage in being able to see over their heads and handle the pike better than those in line beside him. The long poles wobbled clumsily as mostly everyone either waved them about or aimless jabbed over their comrades’ heads.
An enemy’s pike made a thrust, aiming for the man at the front. Necrem heaved his pike to the side, striking the oncoming shaft and knocking it aside.
“Keep at ’em, men!” a calleros yelled, wandering back and forth through the ranks. His repeated words of encouragement were nearly lost under the crashing of thousands of pikes clashing down the line. “They may make us take a step back, but they’ll never break us! Put your backs into your thrusts and drive them back!”
“Skewer those cowards!” an enemy calleros shouted from atop his horse behind Orsembian ranks. “Are all of you going to let these dirt Lazornians stand up to you? In front of Si Don? Get in close and break them!”
The Orsembians heaved forward, some weakly shouting while the rest grimly charged in silence. Necrem braced the back of the man in front of him, and that man likewise braced the man in front of him. Pikes, breastplates, and shoulder pauldrons crashed together.
“Keep your feet, men!” the company officer encouraged. “Hold them! Hold them!”
Necrem dug his heels in. He held on to the top of soldier’s breastplate in front of him, steadying him as he steadied the man in front.
Unlike the previous press, instead of the entire company pushing in from behind and all the enemy bearing down on him, only the first three rows pushed and shoved against each other. Men at the front of the line grunted and cursed over thuds and smacks against armor and flesh, both sides struggling to heave the other back for the slightest inch.
“Hold the line!” officers yelled. “Hold the line!”
A musket fired somewhere in the distance.
“Push ’em in tighter!” Orsembians yelled desperately.
Musketeers tried to slide in their muskets where they could between the struggling forces to shoot into the densely packed ranks. Necrem didn’t smell the acidic smoke of burning powder, so the shot didn’t come around him. He kept his ears sharp for other things.
A hard thunk of a blunt impact against metal made him jerk to his left.
“Crossbows!” came shouts farther down the line.
“Don’t give them any openings!” someone else yelled.
Necrem had watched this same cycle from halfway through the rotation. The Orsembians would rush the line, pushing and shoving. The Lazornian musketeers would take advantage and shoot, and Orsembian crossbowmen would take advantage and release some bolts. Both adding to the struggle, until—
“Front line, heave!” the company officer ordered.
Necrem rushed forward, pushing the man in front of him as hard as he could while not running over him. The man groaned and pushed into the man in front. For a moment, they all pressed together, shoving forward as if against a cliffside.
Then that cliffside gave.
The Orsembians slipped backward, and the rush was on. Necrem hauled his pike over the men’s heads again and stabbed blindly. Every man in front and around him did likewise. It was a test of strength and a race to see which side could push the other off then stab with their pikes.
Necrem jabbed, unable to aim where he was thrusting while using one hand and everyone being so close. His pike was struck. The reverberating wobble raced up the shaft, being turned aside, and shook in his grip. He pulled back again and stabbed.
Resistance. His pike hit and stayed put.
He drew back. Stab. More resistance, followed by something giving way and a pained yelp. He knew that feeling. It was the same as the spear drills and running his pike into the press. It was the feeling of a steel-tipped pole driving into a body, almost the same as hammering a post into the ground. However, Necrem repulsively discovered that, after the initial strike, there was less resistance sinking steel through flesh than a post through dirt.
The resistance came when pulling the pike out.
Something pulled on his pike. A foot of pike slipped through his grip before he grabbed it with both hands to keep hold of it. He twisted and jerked back, just as he was drilled, and the resistance released.
“Forward!” the company officer ordered. “Entire line, forward!”
Pike shafts rattled as they fell and batted into the enemy.
The men in front of Necrem stepped froward, giving him room to finally see over them. There was a gap in the enemy’s line. A man was missing.
The first man in front had enough room to lower his pike and thrust into the enemy company. The second man joined, stabbing the Orsembian soldier to their right as he held his arm up, blocking another battering pike.
“We have a hole!” someone shouted beside him.
“March into it!” a calleros roared.
Necrem joined the surge around him. Men yelled and jabbed. Necrem did his job, thrusting his pike over the heads of the men in front of him. He knocked flailing pikes away as their line surged into the gap. The men in the first two rows did the stabbing and . . . killing.
We can’t let them win, he told himself as men yelled and cried from the broad pike heads stabbing between their armor, under their bellies, or into their faces. We can’t let them—
A dozen metallic springs and releases filled the air. Multiple swishes followed.
Thunk!
Clang!
Both men in front of Necrem fell; the one in front was thrown back while the second twisted, clutching his shoulder. The metal spike of a crossbow bolt jutted out, lodged through his pauldron. The man in front took one squarely in the chest, the bolt jutting through the breastplate.
“Crossbows!” a man cried.
A running roar was all the warning Necrem got.
Three Orsembians rushed in at him, stepping over the bodies of their comrades laying and crawling away on the ground in front of them.
Necrem shoved the injured soldier aside, grabbed his pike, and swung it downward with all his force. The long shaft swooped through the air and came down on the first man’s head. It smacked against his helmet like a gong, sending waves wobbling down his shaft. The man collapsed, sprawling facedown on the ground. With him in the way, the man behind him tripped and ran into Necrem’s pike.
Necrem winched as he watched his pike spear into the man’s side, piercing the plate to shred the man’s flesh. The opposing soldier stumbled a couple of steps then stopped, dropping his own pike to weakly grab Necrem’s. With him blocking the way, the soldiers behind the man were stopped in their place.
Necrem paused. He took deep breaths through his mask, taking advantage of the lull his pike blocking the space in front of him bought.
“Oso!” Hezet yelled.
A pike slid across his vision and slid past him, over his own, and into the enemy soldier he hadn’t seen on his left. The soldier stumbled back, dropping his own pike to hold his belly.
“You’re the front of the line now!” Hezet chastised. He held his pike over Necrem’s shoulder as the man directly behind him did the same to his other shoulder. “You can’t stop or hesitate!”
“Sorry,” he gasped. “I got tired.” He twisted and pulled his pike out of the enemy soldier.
A soldier elbowed his way between them, yelling as he leveled his musket at the ranks of enemy soldiers. Necrem didn’t have a chance to pull away before the trigger was pulled.
The blast made his ears ring, but worst was the burning smoke. The gray cloud made his eyes water, blurring his vision. His face stung from the sulfuric haze seeping through the holes in his mask. He coughed and gagged. Unable to use his hands to wipe his eyes because of his gauntlets, he was forced to blink them clear.
“Are you insane?” Hezet yelled angrily at someone. “You blinded us firing that thing off like that. Get back in line and wait for orders! Oso, get back in this fight!”
Necrem turned to catch the musketeer being dragged back in the ranks. In front of him, though, Hezet and every other soldier around him swiped their pikes into the gap between the lines. A couple of Orsembians waved their own pikes around, trying to bat their way in.
Necrem shook his head, took up his pike, and stepped into the gap. No thrusts were required. Leveling his pike in the gap, the Orsembians couldn’t bat the other pikes and stave off his. They scrambled backward, avoiding his pike, and into those behind them, nearly tripping over each other.
“Huzza!” someone cheered. “They’re pulling back!”
Necrem stopped. He had lost all sense of the fighting all around him while focusing on what was just in front of him. He cautiously looked away from the Orsembians hastily backing away from him to glance side to side.
The other Orsembians were backing off, too. Not down the entire line; only those facing Necrem’s company and the two beside it. More cheers went up at the retreating soldiers, yet Necrem’s hands started to shake.
Not again, he tiredly groaned at a familiar, warning feeling.
He leaned his head back, peering over the withdrawing enemy to beyond them. The fluttering banners in a valley with no wind blowing confirmed what he was sensing.
“Calleroses,” he said loudly. “Calleroses are coming!”
The exhausted cheering around him died to exhausted and frightened groaning. More exhausted than frightened, but the fear was there. Seconds passed, and the horses trotting and forming into columns came into the sight for everyone else. There were at least eight of them, all aiming to ride into the different companies at different points and cut them apart.
“Don’t buckle now, men!” a Lazornian calleros yelled, stepping out of the ranks and walking down the line. “You’ve faced down calleroses before! You withstood their charge and turned it away! You can turn them again!”
No one cheered.
We’re too tired. Necrem swallowed, his dry throat desperate for water. And it’s too hot for speeches.
“Muskets to the front!” the calleros ordered. “Two ranks; one kneeling, one standing. Both ranks load your shot and keep your matches burning!”
Musketeers filtered through the lines to form up, their faces blackened from powder, and they smelled no better.
As they formed ranks, they pulled out their ramrods and began loading their powder and lead balls. Necrem and the rest kept their pikes high.
“Sir,” one musketeer called the calleros, “we’re running low on powder and shot. Some of us are down to are last shots.”
The calleros frowned. “Then, after this, use your muskets as clubs. Just prepare to shoot what you have.”
A bugle blew, and pounding hooves drummed through the valley. Eight clouds of trailing dust cut through the field as if it were being ripped apart, cracking open and heading straight toward them.
“Take your positions!” the calleros roared, racing down the line. “Each pikeman, lower your pikes between the musketeers! Musketeers, hold fire until ordered!”
Being on the front line, Necrem did as he was told and followed the others’ example, lowering his pike between the ranks of musketeers.
That dreadful waiting set in again. This time, though, he was at the front of the line, waiting for the calleroses to ride down on him. No surprise charge through the smoke. No sudden, horrifying attack. Necrem stared straight ahead and saw them coming. The hot haze of the Easterly Sun shimmered on their helmets and plate, obscuring their distance and number. He couldn’t tell if one of those columns was heading straight for him or around him, but they were coming.
Closer.
“Steady!” the calleros ordered. “Hold your fire!”
The nearest charging column spread out a little. Now closer, Necrem could tell the right side of the column was coming right at him.
Closer.
The shimmer caught the calleroses’ lances now, lowering into a charge. The hooves grew louder.
“Hold!” the calleros ordered.
Closer!
The calleroses shouts and hollers echoed over their charging mounts.
“Hold!”
The earth vibrated under Necrem’s boots. He set his shoulders and stance, gritted his teeth, and held his pike as firmly as he could.
The calleroses waved their swords above their heads and held their lances low, hollering like the madmen they were.
Necrem could make out faces and visors of individual riders!
“Fire!”