Captain's Fury

Chapter 46

In two years of fighting since the Battle of the Elinarch, Marcus and the First Aleran had never seen the Canim resort to the use of their bizarre sorceries. In the absence of other evidence, they had concluded that the enemy's ability to use them had died with Sari and the majority of his ritualist compatriots.

The conclusion was incorrect.

The first shock of the Canim charge was repelled by the massed ranks of the three Aleran Legions. The palisade wall was a light defensive emplacement, as such things were reckoned, but it was critical that the outer wall hold until the engineers could fortify the partial wall remaining around the ruined town at the crown of the hill.

"Now we know why they didn't fortify the ruin," Crassus murmured.

"Why do our work for us?" Marcus grunted. He raised his voice, and shouted, "Third Cohort, dress those ranks!"

The Canim had withdrawn in good order after their first charge, but a second and larger force of raiders was already in position. In two years, Nasaug had drilled his own conscripts into something that resembled an actual military force, and the mass movements of the raiders, which had originally been slow, confused, almost tidal, had become disciplined and precise.

Their armament had changed as well, Marcus noted. They had taken the handheld scything swords (originally harvesting implements, for goodness' sake) the Canim raiders had used and mounted them on thick wooden shafts, effec-tively changing what had been a close-fighting implement into a weapon with far greater reach, one more suited to assaulting a defended position.

Marcus watched the assault coming and felt his heart pounding in fear as the oncoming Canim let out howls and bellowed battle cries. The raiders smashed into the palisade like a living tide of muscle and steel. The Canim raiders fought with far more skill and tenacity than they had at the Battle of the Elinarch, and the new hafted weaponry proved deadly.

Over and over, Marcus saw the same brief, hideous tableau repeated: A Cane raider would swing his hafted scythe overhead and straight down in a smashing, two-handed blow. The tip of the scythe would land hard against the top of a legionare's helmet, and with the power and weight and leverage of a full-sized Cane behind the blow, the tip of the simple weapon would pierce even Aleran steel, straight down through the top of the helmet and into the skull of the doomed legionare beneath.

It was a deadly tactic. The foe could adjust his aim with relative ease, and there was no practical way for a legionare fighting in close formation to dodge the diving tip of the Canim scythes.

Marcus brought his own shield up in time to catch the inner edge of a scythe falling toward his skull, and dropped to one knee. The scythe's edge managed to carve straight down through the steel of his shield, despite the strength of the standard Legion battlecraft that strengthened it. Marcus grunted, summoning strength from the earth to twist the shield, trapping the weapon, and with a powerful blow of his gladius, he parted the wooden haft from the scythe head, drove a wounding blow into the Cane before him, and fell back, trying to clear the weapon head from his shield while another legionare shouldered into his position-and was promptly felled by a falling scythe as the Cane Marcus had wounded was replaced just as swiftly as he had been.

After that, it became a desperate nightmare of a battle. The Legion spears were not long enough to outreach the Canim haft-scythes, and their comparatively slender wooden shafts were easily shattered by the sharpened inner curves of the scythes. The legionares, fighting on raised mounds of earth behind the palisades, fought nearly eye to eye with the Canim, and it did them no favors. The second rank could not press up onto the earthworks and employ their shields to shelter their compatriots in the first rank, and the Legion's favored tactic-the steady press forward with murderous swords thrusting and chopping between miniscule openings in the shieldwall-was simply not an option from the defensive position.

It was, Marcus reflected grimly, a tactic that would have made short work of the Canim. A steady press inside the reach of the Canim haft-scythes would leave the weapons all but useless-but fighting from a static position, the foe's new armament was taking a savage toll on the Legion.

The Canim broke the ranks on the earthworks almost at will, but never pressed their advantage. Why should they? More and more legionares stepped up to fight, and more and more went down, helms shattered. Even the heavily layered shoulders of their body armor could not wholly turn aside the force of a well-swung Canim haft-scythe, and the toll of dead and wounded steadily mounted.

"Sir!" Marcus shouted at Crassus. The young officer was near the front ranks of the battle, and as Marcus watched, he stepped up over a wounded legionare, his face a mask of determination as a Cane swung a haft-scythe in a finishing blow. Crassus's sword lashed out, and the young Citizen's blade shattered the steel of the Canim weapon in one swing and wounded the Cane holding it in another. Crassus seized the fallen man and dragged him back, while other legionares pressed up to take his place.

"Sir!" Marcus screamed. "We've got to press them, sir! We've got to push them back before they cut the men apart!"

"No!" Crassus bellowed. "Hold the line! You hold that wall until the engineers signal us, First Spear!"

Marcus's instincts and experience screamed that Crassus was making the wrong choice-that his naturally conservative tendencies as a commander, which were so ideal in other circumstances, were fatally flawed this day. The First Aleran could ill afford such a mistake in leadership.

But it could afford a loss of unity even less.

"You heard the man!" Marcus bellowed, urging his men forward. "Hold the wall! Hold! Hold!"

He had no idea how much time went by. He was briefly blinded twice- once by the blood of a Cane, and again by the blood of a veteran legionare named Barus. He was once caught off guard by a haft-scythe, and only the raised crest of his centurion's helmet kept him from sharing Barus's fate. The Cane weapon left a deep crease in his shoulder armor, and the straps and edges beneath cut into his flesh, but he kept fighting, kept supporting his men, desperately clearing the wounded from the line and urging fresh legionares into the fight.

After a lifetime, the trumpets began to blare up higher on the hill. The engineers had finished their work.

"Fall back!" Marcus screamed to his men in the tumult. "Fall back to the wall!"

The Canim howled and surged forward as the Aleran legionares began to withdraw from the palisade. They hacked into the wooden barrier, chopping away enough material to create myriad openings, and began to press the retreating legionares.

Without the Knights and the reserve waiting on the hill, it could have become a rout. Several cohorts broke altogether, but Marcus somehow kept the Prime from fragmenting, withdrawing step by step up the hill, fighting all the way. Where discipline began to fail, teams of Knights smashed into the Canim lines, and now the haft-scythes, so deadly in one circumstance, became hindrances in another. Knights Terra and Ferrous smashed through the weapons like toys, piling up fallen Canim like cordwood, and the cavalry's initial charges down the hill left windrows of dead behind.

It would be enough, Marcus saw, as Antillar Maximus, a long blade in either hand, plunged through the ragged remains of the decimated Ninth Cohort and shattered the fragile momentum a squad of raiders had gathered to pursue their advantage. The First Aleran was steadily gaining the security of the thicker stone walls of the ruin, fighting in a shrinking half circle as the men at the rear retreated. Without being ordered, he positioned the Prime at the outer edges of the defense. They would be the last cohort to gain the walls.

A flight of Knights Aeris screamed by, low enough to employ their spears, spitting Canim entirely with the speed of their passing. One man weaved aside from an upraised scythe, but the weapon's point caught in his armor or gear, and he was hauled down into a howling mob of furious raiders. As the Knights Aeris completed their pass and arced around for another, men began to drop, wounded or killed by Canim balests, and they were forced to withdraw.

Increasingly, it was the efforts of the close-combat Knights that made the critical difference as the Canim surged forward into the steadily shrinking Aleran lines. Showers of missiles from the newly crafted walls slowed some of the Canim, but there were simply not enough missiles in enough concentration to break them, and the Knights had to expend more and more effort, now fighting in the ranks with the legionares.

That was when the Canim unleashed their sorcery once again.

Marcus had little time to gawk, but he did catch a patch of unusual motion at one of the fallen palisades. A number of Canim figures in mantles of pale, pale leather appeared, filing steadily forward, swinging lit braziers in rhythm in front of them. They fell into a line, facing the hill, and then as one reached their clawed hands into gaping pouches slung across their bodies. They withdrew their hands as one single motion, sending out splattering arcs of scarlet liquid, and as one body the ritualists threw their heads back and howled.

Lines of violet flame sleeted suddenly from the skies. They struck the hillside near the distinctively deadly forms of the battling Knights and erupted into spheres of hellish fire and light. Men screamed and died, and if the skyfire wasn't the enormous destructive force that had struck the First Aleran at the Elinarch two years before, the more precise, smaller eruptions of fire certainly struck with telling effect.

The Aleran lines collapsed. Marcus screamed orders, dragged at wounded men, and had no idea how he managed to avoid all the Canim weapons that came screaming at him. He remembered felling one Cane that had leapt upon a badly burned Knight he recognized as Maximus, and then his weapon was struck from his hand. He fell on Antillar's wounded form, covering them both with his shield, and then there was a flash of steel, and Crassus was at his side, long blade in his right hand, and the curved, heavy blade of a Cane dagger in his left.

Crassus dealt two death strokes in as many seconds, driving the Canim back. "Inside!" he screamed, and rushed forward.

It was not a second too soon. Another delicate-looking line of violet skyfire descended upon him and exploded into a blinding sphere of heat and light. A second later it was gone, leaving a circle of blackened earth behind it-and Crassus with it, untouched by the fire, the bloodred gems in the hilt of the Canim dagger glittering in the lowering light.

A fresh round of cheering howls from the Canim raiders died abruptly as Antillus Crassus unleashed the power of the son of a High Lord of Alera upon their ranks.

Fire engulfed his blade and lashed out in a wave, washing over a hundred of the inhuman warriors. Somewhere, a balest hummed, but Crassus's blade intercepted the blurring missile in a shower of sparks, deflecting it. At his cry, a sudden vortex of wind formed, spinning the ashes and gravel and dust of the hillside into a blinding cloud, shielding the remnants of the Prime Cohort from the sight of most of the enemy.

Marcus got to his feet and seized Maximus by the armor. He dragged him backward, bumped into the wall, and was guided by the hands of other legionares to the opening. He retreated through it, shaking with fatigue, and fell to the ground in exhaustion.

Seconds later, Crassus bounded through the opening, and half a dozen Legion engineers rushed forward, laying their hands upon the stone of the wall. The opening quivered and began to shrink, and in seconds it was gone altogether, the stone of the wall smooth and unbroken.

Outside the walls of the ruins, the heavy, braying horns of the Canim began to sound.

"They're retreating!" shouted someone on the wall. "They're falling back!"

"Healer!" Marcus rasped. He turned to Maximus, and found the young man lying senseless, burned, and bleeding. "Healer!"

"Easy," said a voice. "Easy, there, First Spear." Crassus eased Marcus back and away from Maximus. "Go ahead, Foss."

Marcus watched them carry Maximus away. Someone guided his steps to one side and sat him down with his back against a wall. He found a mug of water in his hands and gulped it down at once, then a second and a third. Food came next, and though it was only plain, mashed oats, he emptied the bowl and licked it clean.

Only after he had attended to the screaming needs of his body did he manage to look up, gathering his wits again.

Lady Aquitaine, in her washerwoman guise, stared at him expressionlessly. Then she went back to passing out bowls of food, such as they were, and fresh water to the exhausted legionares, who were scattered all over the ruins nearby. Other domestics tended to minor injuries and brought replacements for weapons lost or broken in the fight. Battle-weary soldiers wolfed down food, gulped water, or simply lay in senseless heaps on the ground, asleep, as they did after practically any battle, much less one as strenuous as this one. Marcus felt like a mound of worn-out boot leather and wanted nothing more than to join them.

Instead, he pushed himself to his feet and started stumping around the immediate area, locating his men as the light faded from the sky. Of eighty spear leaders in the Prime, twenty-nine were still fit for duty, including himself. A quarter of his legionares were wounded and out of action. Another quarter were dead or missing-and in the savage battleground they'd left behind, "missing" probably meant that they'd been too badly mangled to be identified as the Legion withdrew. Another quarter of his men were lightly wounded and awaiting their turn with the healers. In the merciless mathematics of war, lightly wounded legionares were treated first by the Legion's watercrafters and returned to duty. Those more heavily wounded were generally stabilized, and then suffered until there were resources enough to get them back on their feet.

As he took count of his men at the healer's station, Marcus saw a lot of Alerans suffering.

He went around to the Legion's fifteen Tribunes. Three were dead. Three more were injured and out of action-including Antillar Maximus, whose injuries relegated him to the category of those awaiting additional medical resources. The tally of losses was sobering. The report from the Tribune Logistica was even more so.

Marcus found Crassus where he probably shouldn't have been-visiting his half brother, on a cot in the healer's tents, alongside all the other men too badly hurt to be easily put to right. The young man sat beside Maximus, his expression remote.

"Captain," Marcus said quietly.

"You were right," Crassus said without preamble. "We should have sortied."

Marcus ignored his words. "We're at half our normal fighting strength, sir.

More than a third of our supply train was cut off as they tried to make it inside the palisade, most of it our livestock. And the only well we can reach on this hilltop has been poisoned. The Tribune Logistica is working on a way of filtering the water, but it doesn't look promising. We've already gone through most of what we had in barrels from the wells down the hill, so unless we get some rain, or Tribune Cymnea manages a minor miracle, we're going to be fighting dry."

It was a death sentence for a Legion. A Legion might-might-manage a day without food, but without water, men would drop by the score every few moments, unable to fight.

"I was so sure we had to hold," Crassus said. "To tough it out for a few moments more. I thought that any minute, the walls would be ready, and wed stand them off, like before. I thought that we must have drawn the heaviest attack, that the Guard would be able to reinforce us. " He gestured at his fallen brother. Maximus was covered by light sheets, and Marcus knew that the healers had done it to keep dirt and grime out of the burns. "Max was right," Crassus said. "I thought too much, Marcus. And he's suffered for my sins. Again."

Marcus stared at the back of the young man's head for a moment. If Lady Aquitaine saw Crassus like this, she'd be hard-pressed to hide her satisfaction. He could be no threat to her liegeman Arnos's military laurels, like this.

It would probably never occur to her that in their current circumstances, there would be no laurels bestowed, no honors conferred-except, of course, the posthumous ones.

He walked around to the young officer's front, saluted, and slapped him sharply across the mouth.

Crassus blinked and stared at the First Spear in perfect shock. It hadn't been a gentle slap. Blood trickled from the young man's lower lip.

"Crows take you, sir," Marcus said quietly. "You are a Legion captain. Not some teenage bride mooning over her husband off to war. Get off of your ass and lead, before more men wind up like your brother."

Crassus just stared at him blankly. It occurred to Marcus that it was entirely possible that no one had spoken so to the young man in his entire life.

"Stand up," Marcus growled. "Stand up, sir."

Crassus stood up slowly. Marcus faced him, and banged his fist to his chest in another salute.

Crassus responded in kind. He studied Marcus for a moment, nodded slowly, and said, his voice very quiet, "Half strength, no meat, no water."

"Aye, sir."

"The Guard?"

"I spoke to their First Spears, sir. They're in worse shape than we are. For all practical purposes, we've got the only Knights on the field. The Guard used a different model of helmet than we did, without the crossbars on the crowns, and those hafted scythes went through them like paper. They've got fewer wounded but a lot more dead."

"Orders from the Senator?" Crassus asked.

Marcus shook his head.

"The other captains?"

"No word from them, either, sir."

Crassus drew in a deep breath. "It seems to me we really ought to have some kind of plan."

"If you say so, Captain."

"Send runners to the Senator and the other captains," Crassus said. "Inform them that I've prepared a pavilion for him, his staff, and the other captains, and that it is ready to receive him immediately."

Marcus saluted and turned to go.

"Marcus," Crassus said quietly.

He paused, without turning back.

Crassus dropped his voice, until only the two of them could have heard it. "We aren't getting off this hill, are we?"

Marcus blew out a breath. "Doesn't look like it, sir."

Crassus nodded. "Thank you," he said.

Marcus went on about following his orders, though he was ready to allow the Canim to kill him, if only they promised to let him get a few moments of sleep first.