Defend Karuk Page 2

Chapter Two: The Battle of the Red River

  Osuna grunted as he rammed his spear into the Arcite’s gut. His foe lurched as the spear bit his organs, and his eyes shot open, flushed with mortal dread, as blood and phlegm spat from his mouth. Osuna gritted his teeth as he pushed on the spear, forcing the spitted man down into the gore-red water, and he kept shoving on the haft until the man’s wild flailing at last died down. Only then did Osuna wrench the spear free of the drowned corpse, and the water around the punctured body became ever more crimson.

  Osuna was wading waist-deep in the River Axi, now clogged up with the corpses of Arcites and Calclaskans alike, stained red with the blood and entrails spewed into it, made brown by the mud kicked up from the riverbed by countless hobnail sandals.

  “Hold them! Hold them at the river!” bellowed the white-plumed Legiarix, Osuna’s commander, as he held his falcata aloft. His men, the Calclaskan spearmen, heaved against their Arcite foes in that almighty drowned scrum.

  Osuna panted, gasping in heavy breaths, as his eyes flitted about the hellish scene. He was a tall, strapping young man, though that would be hard to tell given the circumstances. He was clean-shaven, fair-faced and amber-eyed, though none of his Arcite foes would have taken the time to admire his looks. Like his countrymen his skin and hair were black. Like his comrades he wore a white tunic, now stained bloody brown by the river, a leather breastplate and greaves and a bronze helmet, the weight of it all making each lumbering, wading footfall exhausting. He carried a long spear and a tall hide-bound shield, and the force of the water pushing against it threatened to haul him over.

  The Arcites who fought against them were more lightly armed, with shorter spears, wicker shields and no body armour, though most had a bronze helmet. They were a bronze-skinned, dark-eyed people, and most of them had long, braided hair adorned with bronze rings, and similarly braided beards. A great mass of Arcite troops were wading through the gory river, pushing past the floating corpses and into the frenzied melee, trying to break through the much thinner line of Calclaskans. The cacophony was terrible, a blur of battle cries and anguished shrieks. Amidst the chaos, arrows, slingstones and javelins flew in both directions, thudding into men and shields or plunging into the water.

  Osuna was exhausted, chilled to the bone by the cold river, disorientated and terrified. But he had to fight on. His captain had given the order, and he would not let his comrades down.

  Beside him, one of his shield-brothers was struck on the temple by a kopesh. It was a glancing blow, and the blade did not pierce his helmet, but he was knocked down beneath the water. The kopesh-wielder, a tall, powerful shield-breaker, hefted his weapon aloft to finish him off.

  Osuna heaved as he rammed his spear into the man’s exposed gut. His enemy howled and grasped at the spear haft, and Osuna roared as he struggled against the man’s strength, eventually pushing him down into the water to drown. He found himself unable to wrest his spear free of the man’s corpse, and so he dropped it, and reached into the water to find his fallen comrade.

  He hauled him up, lifting his head and body out of the water. He was wide-eyed, dazed by the blow and shell-shocked. He’d dropped his sword and shield in the confusion.

  “Snap out of it, brother! Find a weapon, grab a shield!” cried Osuna, above the tumult, trying to shake the man out of his stupor. But then an arrow whistled through the air and planted itself in the man’s eye, piercing his brain, and Osuna watched in horror as he fell beneath the water to die like countless others.

  Shaking his head, trying to blot out the horror and peril, Osuna drew his falcata and turned to face a howling Arcite who charged at him with his spear overhead. The spear thrust. Osuna lifted his shield and it slammed into it. The man barged into him, threatening to haul him over, but Osuna rammed his foot into the soft silt of the riverbed and held firm. He pushed back, grunting, and the Arcite slipped and fell beneath the water. Osuna waded through the river and swung his falcata into it several times where he guessed the man had fallen. Eventually he hit something, and he guessed that it was skull, because moments later a cloud of deep red emerged from the murky water.

  Osuna was pushed back, staggering, as a comrade ahead of him barged into him, pushed back by the Arcite scrum. From behind him another comrade pushed forward, not giving an inch to the enemy. Soon men were pushing from every direction. The warriors in the middle were crushed, pressed up against each other along with the drowned corpses. Men remained standing even when they were dead, held upright in the crush. Those who were face to face with the enemy fought on, ramming with their spears as best they could from close quarters. They were close enough to jab their fingers into their assailants’ eyes, or throttle them with their bare hands, or bite their necks.

  Osuna couldn’t breathe. He tried to break free, struggled to wrestle to the top of the pile-up. He tried to drag down the corpses around him, tried to lift himself above them. He dropped his shield, which was weighing him down, and he lost his falcata as he groped at the bodies around him to haul himself up, not knowing if they were living or dead.

  It was no good. The sheer weight of bodies pulled him down, and the men around him were grasping at him, trying to use him to pull themselves up. He went down beneath the water. There he thrashed about, struggling, but there was no room. He couldn’t pull himself to the surface. There wasn’t even room to unlatch his heavy breastplate. He couldn’t see a thing – the water was murky, stained with blood and mud.

  He thought he was a dead man. As the chaos roiled all around him he fought and thrashed with every ounce of his being.

  A muscular hand grasped at his breastplate strap, and soon he felt himself being dragged upwards. As he was pulled to the surface of the water he gasped desperate, mortal breaths.

  The Legiarix helped him to his feet and steadied him as he regained his senses. The scrum had been broken up. The warriors ahead of him had punched through the Arcite lines, and the more lightly-armoured Arcites were being forced back onto their side of the river. The Calclaskans pressed their advantage and trudged, drenched and blood-spattered, onwards through that gory river.

  “Easy, lad. We won’t have long to regain our breath.” said the Legiarix, who took a falcata from his side and handed it to him. Osuna took it in his trembling hand as he panted, trying to regain himself after his near-death experience.

  Trumpets rang out over the battlefield, and in a flash the Legiarix looked up. Osuna was relieved to see a grin on his face.

  “It is the cavalry!” the Legiarix called as he waded towards the front of the Calclaskan battle line. “Junto-General Praxos comes with the xystophoroi! Push on, men! Force the Arcites into their lances!”

  Osuna could see a cloud of dust rising from the Arcite side of the river, and it was coming in fast. The rumble of a thousand hooves began to rise above the tumult of the melee in and around the river. As Osuna followed the Legiarix towards the front lines he saw the cavalry arrive, gloriously, from the horizon.

  To those drenched, bloodied men in the river they might as well have been a storm of angels. They gleamed in their white tunics and crested helmets. They held their xyston lances in both hands as they cascaded towards the massed Arcites, who looked on in panic as they were pushed back out of the river by the locked shields of the Calclaskan spearmen. And at the head of the xystophoroi horsemen was Junto-General Praxos himself, distinguished by his long white cloak, holding his famous golden sword aloft, flanked by shield-bearing horsemen.

  The rout began even before the horsemen hit home. The Arcites began to wade out of the river in panic, dropping their shields, turning their backs on the Calclaskan spearmen who spitted those who weren’t fast enough. But they were running into even greater peril. The lancers hit them like an avalanche, their xystons impaling men, the bulk of their horses smashing through their lines, trampling men beneath their hooves. As the Arcite formation withered and descended into a full-scale rout, the Calclaskan spearmen pressed on, out of the river and onto the A
rcite bank.

  Osuna allowed himself a grim smile as his sandals hit the shore. But he had little time to savour terra firma. Missiles flew, and so he grabbed the shield of a fallen battle-brother and held it overhead. An arrow planted itself in the wood. A slingstone ricocheted off of it. Osuna tried to peer beneath his raised shield to see what was going on.

  The cavalry were rampaging through the scattering Arcites, running them down, forcing them to turn back into the spears of the Calclaskan infantry. The braying of the horses, the tramping of their hooves, the shrieking of spitted men sounded out. But some of the cavalry fell to volleys of missiles, riders falling from their horses and steeds collapsing with arrows in their hides.

  “Form up, men! We press on!” cried the Legiarix as the spearmen began to get back into formation, locking their shields and marching towards the second wave of Arcite battle lines. Osuna was close to the front, in the third or fourth rank perhaps. It was hard to see beyond the helmets and shields of the men ahead of him, but as Praxos’ cavalry withdrew and thundered out of the way of the infantry Osuna could just about make out the Arcite formation.

  There were more mobs of spearmen. Archers, slingers and javelin-hurlers spread out in both directions, stationed on shallow hills and undulations, raining down their missiles. Formations of horsemen readied themselves on the flanks. War machines, catapults and ballistae, readied their deadly payload. And right ahead of them, on a hill in the middle of the Arcite formation, Osuna could just about make out their arch-enemy. King Khalim himself sat upon his palanquin-throne, a despot in golden armour surrounded by his Azurian Guard.

  There was a creak, and a whoosh, and down came mighty boulders and flaming orbs tossed by the catapults, and massive bolts hurled by the ballistas.

  “We press on!” cried the Legiarix even as the terrifying payload fell amongst his men. “Onwards, onwards to the devil Khalim!”

  Fire and rock crashed down, sending men flying, punching holes in their dense formation. Men ran, screaming, ablaze. Bolts ploughed through the ranks, skewering men, piercing shields, breastplates and all. And still down came the rain of arrows and slingstones, bouncing off helmets, thudding into shields. But on went the Calclaskans, undaunted, through the storm of death, fiercely loyal to their shield-brothers. They put their faith in the Junto-General and Hatra to see them through, and now, with their eyes locked on the hated Khalim, they had their target in sight.

  Arcite spearmen charged to meet them. “We smash through them, men! Onwards!” cried the Legiarix, charging ahead of the shield wall. An arrow swooped down and plunged into his neck, and he fell gasping, but the man behind him grabbed his helmet and held it aloft so that the men would not lose hope.

  “On! On!” cried the newly self-proclaimed Legiarix, donning the helmet, as the spearmen rallied around him. Osuna braced himself as the two waves collided, and so the scrum began anew, but this time fought on the parched earth of Arcon rather than the loose silt of the Axi.

  Shields pushed against shields. Spears rammed into wood, flesh and bone. Cries went up, cries of battle, of ferocity, of pain. The Calclaskans were fervent, furious. The Arcites, cowed into battle more through fear than faith, fought like doomed men, for to flee beneath the gaze of King Khalim was a death sentence. Both sides howled at each other, spitting curses, baring teeth. All the while the arrows rained down still, felling Arcites and Calclaskans both. King Khalim put little stock in the lives of his own men.

  Osuna, meanwhile, was too far from the front line to mark his foe, so instead pushed against the man in front, adding weight to the shield-wedge as the Calclaskans pushed back the Arcite masses, and as they advanced, trundling forth, unstoppable, they stepped over the fallen bodies of enemies and comrades alike, spitting the former and helping the latter to their feet.

  Over the din of battle came the shriek of war-horns, and the thumping of marching feet. It was a steady march, the march of disciplined troops, and their orders were howled by their hoarse and imperious Commander. Osuna could see the tips of their spears and their proud banners from over the heads of his comrades, coming in from the left.

  “It is the veterans!” cried one man.

  “Commander Hashur’s phrygists come!” cried another.

  The notion filled Osuna with dread. Hashur’s crack troops were famous for their discipline and grit.

  Then, over the tumult, came the rumble of hooves once more. At first Osuna thought the xystophoroi has come about for another charge, and was heartened, but he turned to see the banners of Arcon approaching from the right. A great cavalcade of horsemen, lancers and cataphracts. And leading them was the most terrifying sight of all. The red-armoured Commander Nephys.

  “The Lioness comes! She leads the Arcite cavalry!” called one man.

  “They have broken through Praxos’ lancers! We are on our own!” cried another.

  “Hold steady! Present spears! We fight to the end!” demanded the Legiarix.

  Osuna braced himself as the Calclaskans were hit from three sides at once. The veteran phrygists pressed against their formation from the left, heaving against their bronze shields. The Arcite spearmen in the centre gained heart and pushed back against the Calclaskan wall of locked shields and thrusting spears. And then, finally, the Arcite cavalry barrelled into their flank from the right.

  Osuna felt the impact at once as the cavalry drove into them. Men were hauled over and trampled, impaled on lances. The horses brayed and kicked as the momentum of their charge was absorbed. Nephys herself could be heard above the din, howling her battle cries as her famous poleaxe rose and fell.

  The impact of the charge shook through the Calclaskans. The cavalry pushed against them with such force that they were bundled over in heaps. Osuna fell in the scrum. More shield-brothers tripped and fell over him. He found himself at the bottom of a heap of bodies, crushed beneath them.

  He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move a muscle. Everything went dark. Even the din of the battle was blotted out, to an extent, by the heaps of bodies which were piling up on top of him.

  Osuna realised his strength was gone. He stopped struggling and closed his eyes, trying to blot out the horror, the fear and the noise. He made his prayers to Hatra, and then his thoughts turned to his family back home in Calclaska as he closed his eyes and went slowly limp. Everything became darkness as consciousness left him.