City in the Sky (37 page)

No one was foolish enough to think they wouldn't try again.

Kolanis hadn't bothered to withdraw the Green of Third very far, on the presumption that even the distraction factor of the Claws attacking the forts might allow him to get a decent strike in, opening any gap the ground-pounders opened even further.

The real end result was that the sky-major was in the perfect position to watch when Colonel Dai Aerens obviously decided that his Fifteenth Regiment was more than enough to deal with a bunch of Aeradi militia.

He also had a ringside seat for the demonstration of what happens when a full twenty-two hundred man regiment charges a prepared Aeradi position supported by archers. The Fifteenth had been shattered by the time they'd reached the Aeradi lines, and only the sheer brutality of Draconan discipline had kept the Claws fighting for as long as they did before breaking.

Which wouldn't keep General Adaelis from decimating what was left of the regiment – literally killing every tenth man – and
impaling
Colonel Dai Aerens. Which wasn't, thank Fiehr, his problem.

With a sigh, Kolanis picked up his communication tablet. “Fifteenth attacked unsupported,” he wrote, the words a silent condemnation without any further explanation. “Aeradi defenses intact, remnants of Fifteenth withdrawn.”

“Understood,” came the single word reply after a moment, in the general's own hand. “Make certain,” the word underlined twice, “that the Ninth, Twentieth and Twenty-second move together. If they do not, you are ordered to use your Skyborne to change their mind.”

Had the orders come in the hand of the clerk who'd been relaying communications for Kolanis, he would have demanded clarification, but the words were in Adaelis' own hand. If any of the commanders of the three regiments moving against the Square tried to repeat Aerens' folly, the Green of Third would convince them otherwise.

The Aeradi's losses driving back the first attack had been light, in consideration to what they'd faced. That didn't make Erik feel any better about the hundred plus bodies lying still and silent where their comrades had dragged them.

More troops had trickled in from around the city, making up the losses and a little more, but none had come in for too long. Which meant, Erik knew, that the Draconans had probably cut off the approaches, and that the defenders' time was growing very short.

They'd used what time they had to finish the trenches across the Square wherever they could, using the dirt and torn -up cobblestones to build impromptu barricades across the paved areas. The fortifications were still only a step or so up from nothing, but they would give the Aeradi with their longer swords a few extra moments with which to strike at their enemies.

Every preparation they could make made, Erik stood on an observation mound they'd thrown together from extra dirt and watched in silence. He heard Ikeras behind him and gestured the older man forward.

“How much chance do we really have?” he asked his
kep
retainer quietly.

“These are good men, and we've probably pulled together as many as we could,” Ikeras replied, equally quietly.

“That wasn't the question,” Erik told him.

Ikeras sighed. “They won't mess up again. They've got enough troops to ram their way straight through us.”

“That's what I thought,” Erik said softly. “We'll need every sword we can get on the lines.”

“Yessir,” the non-com replied.

“When the Claws have closed, have the archers leave their bows and reinforce the lines,” Erik ordered. “They may be able to walk over us, but we can bloody well make them
pay
for the privilege.”

“Yes, sir!” Ikeras snapped firmly, his voice suddenly stronger. Then, his voice weakened. “Look,” he told Erik.

Erik raised his gaze from the Aeradi troops in front of him to the main entrance into the Square. In the distance, just barely in sight, the sun had begun to glint off armor as the Claws of the Dragon came into sight.

“Get back to the archers,” he ordered. “Do everything you can.”

The Claws moved in their five-hundred-and-fifty-man battalions, advancing down the Royal Boulevard towards the square in battle formation, five men deep and a hundred and ten men abreast. Three more battalions followed, their lines neatly spaced in deadly parade ground perfection.

Erik blinked at the sight, and then checked the entrance again. Four battalions was all he saw, and that made no sense. They'd already tried to take the Square with a single regiment, and the Draconans were far from new to the art of war. If one failed, they should have sent several.

“Sir,” one of the messengers standing near him said quietly, “look.”

Erik followed the man's gesture to one of the
other
two entrances into the Square, and his breath stopped. The secondary avenues into the Square weren't as large as the Royal Boulevard, but they were enough for the Draconans to advance their battalions fifty men abreast and eleven deep.

He didn't even need to count to know the Draconans had sent a regiment down each of them. It was the simplest way to apply the maximum force. Three routes into the Square, so they'd sent three regiments. Three regiments was the better part of seven thousand men.

There were less than two thousand Aeradi.

For an eternal moment, Erik gave in to despair,
knowing
that he could not hold against this enemy. The Claws were better armored and better trained than his own men. The fortifications were almost worthless; certainly they couldn't make up
those
odds.

Behind him, he heard Ikeras bellowing: “Archers ready!” and breathed deeply. He could not
afford
to believe that they would fail. They were defending their homes, their people, their city –
his
home, his family, and his city.

“Aim!” Ikeras bellowed, and Erik felt his despair flake away. Whatever came to pass, he was
here
, in a place he could call his own, as a noble among these people and a leader among these soldiers. It was a far cry from being an oppressed blacksmith in a place he'd never felt was home.

“Fire!”

Kolanis had thought he'd seen the worst Aeradi archers could do when they'd shattered the Fifteenth, but now he realized he was wrong. However unconsciously, the Aeradi had been conserving ammunition when fighting the Fifteenth, keeping to a trained pattern.

Now they were firing as fast as they could, and even from above the sky seemed filled with arrows. They fell on the shields and armor and bare flesh of the advancing Regiments, and Draconans died.

The sky-major bared his teeth in a snarl, desiring nothing more than to lead his battalion sweeping down upon those archers, burning and tearing and stopping them from killing his countrymen.

As if to punctuate why, the cannon in several of the nearer forts began to boom, dropping red-hot cannon balls into the lead ranks.
Any
dragon trying to intervene in the Square of the Gods would die under the guns of those forts.

Grudging admiration filled Erik as he watched the Draconans advance. Even under the fire of his archers, they marched forward evenly, taking their losses to enter the Square and close up the three regiments, creating one formation that now advanced upon his people like a giant hammer.

It was costing them –
Gods
was it costing them – but they came on anyway. Hundreds of them fell, wounded or dead, and their comrades merely split and reformed ranks around them, closing up as they came on.

The commanders of the last regiment to attack had lost control, Erik knew, and the men had simply charged. Whoever was in command
here
was still in full control, and proved it when the entire Draconan forced slowed fifty yards from the Aeradi forced, exposing itself to continued arrow fire.

“Prepare for enemy fire!” Erik bellowed, knowing full well what that slowdown meant.

Almost as one monstrous creature, the Claws drew back their right arms and lashed forwards, loosing their javelins upon the Aeradi defenders. Thousands of the weapons cascaded down upon the militiamen, and only the warnings of the men who knew what was coming saved any of them.

Shields were thrown up and men ducked behind barricades all along the Aeradi line, and still men died. Shields were fouled by the weapons and thrown aside, and Erik knew that all too many of his men would now face the Draconan Claws with no defense but the fortifications they hid behind, and whatever armor they'd managed to put on.

The Draconans began to speed up again, but as they did, they launched a second javelin salvo. By now, however, most of the soldiers in the line had found something to hide behind, and only a few were injured.

The point, however, hadn't been to hurt anyone. It had been to make them keep their heads down, and it had done just that. With the Aeradi behind their berms, the Draconans burst into a full-scale charge.

There was no way the Aeradi could have reacted in time had the charge gone home as it should have, but the Draconans had discounted the archers. There was a gap, several seconds long, after the second javelin salvo, as every archer made ready, and then they fired. The range was short enough that they were firing almost flat across the Square, and Aeradi longbows could go clean through a man and kill another at that distance.

The front rank of the Draconan formation simply vanished, destroyed by the lethally accurate fire, and the Aeradi kept shooting. They couldn't
stop
the Draconans, and they didn't, but they slowed them down.

Slowed them down enough that when the Claws of the Dragon hit the line of trenches and earthen berms, the Aeradi were waiting for them with drawn steel.

For the first few moments, it didn't matter how many more soldiers the Draconans had. The Square was wide, but not
that
wide. The Aeradi had dug their line straight across it, but only about five hundred men held the front, with another thousand or so doubling up the line behind them.

Of course, the equivalent Draconan formation was far deeper, and provided the pressure that began to force the Aeradi back off their positions. Whoever was in command of the Draconans had clearly taken some of the time before the attack to interrogate the survivors of the first assault, as his heaviest pressure came against the Aeradi's right flank, the opposite flank from where the Second Kirmon provided a steady resistance to the Draconan attack.

Mere Militia couldn't hold against the pressure for long, and Erik gestured to his signalers, sending both of his reserve companies to reinforce the right flank. They got to the position just in time, as a company of Claws pierced the Aeradi lines, coming up over the berm.

The two Regular companies slammed into the penetration like the Hammer of the Gods, and drove the Draconans back into the ditch. The immediate threat contained, they spread out to reinforce the soldiers there, assuring the Aeradi's right flank, for the moment.

A shift in the pattern of war cries now drew Erik's attention to the
left
flank. An increased pressure from the Draconans, soldiers shifting from the center to the flank, was threatening to break through even the Second, and Erik had no reserves left.

Before he could curse, he felt a hand grasp his shoulder and looked back at Ikeras standing behind him. “The archers are armed and ready to go,” the non-com said flatly. “Five companies. Where do you want them?”

The Militia captain blinked, and remembered. “Leave two companies with me,” he ordered. “Take the other three and reinforce the left!”

Ikeras simply nodded and gestured to the men behind him. “Sorris, Telman,” he bellowed, “keep your companies with Lord Tarverro. Kelm, Tukli and Aret, bring your companies and follow me!”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Erik was aware that a non-com had no business ordering around the commanders of companies. The
front
of his mind, however, was well aware that only two of the five men were even lieutenants, and other three were merely senior sergeants, and Harmon
hept
Ikeras had more experience than all five put together.

Even with the reinforcements on the way, Erik was forced to watch the left flank in horror as the companies guarding it gave way before Ikeras could reach them. At least two hundred men of the Second Kirmon were simply ground under, and two full Draconan companies came over the berm and started to turn to roll up the line.

Then Ikeras reached them, sending the three companies swirling up in waves that hammered into the gaps between the two companies and shattering their cohesion. The four hundred archers, now re-armed with swords and shields, shattered the two companies and drove them back against their own compatriots.