Forest For The Trees (Book 3) (41 page)

“Perhaps so,” the Tullainian spearman agreed.  “Hard
falls have been taken by men who sought to place themselves higher.”  With
that, he returned to his spot, his long spear resting idly on one shoulder.

Even on the forest floor in night’s iron fist, those
teeth still seemed to shine with eerie illumination.  Being dead made the Taur
no less terrible.  Dietrik could still recall that sensation of frozen doom. 
The eye of the serpent, which contained within the creature’s unearthly power
to paralyze its victims.  Those teeth struck him like that.  As if the fearsome
power these inhuman beasts possessed sprang from neither muscle nor voice nor
claw, but resided wholly in those fangs.

A silly notion.  In a short while he knew he would be
laughing at himself for a budgie straight out of its nest.

Still, without knowing why he did it, he felt his hand
pulling his dagger from its sheath.  He bent over the creature and pried at the
bloody gums under the furled lip until he extracted three long fangs.  They lay
wetly on his palm, still warm.

He shook off his daze, crammed the teeth into his
pocket, then briefly noted Talbot looking down on the Taur corpse from a
distance with a guilty expression.

Dietrik restrained a sigh.

*        *        *        *        *

Kraven led his men closer to the well square.  Second
Squad was infamous for their specialty; dirty work.

His men knew what to do.  They had done it countless
times before.  Behind the lines work.  The secret was to never let the enemy
understand what faced them.

Tonight more than ever.  A small squad causing trouble
would only make the Arronaths grind their teeth.  An unknown enemy attacking
superior forces must surely hold a superior hand.  Right?

With large Galemaran groups to their north and south
raising hell, along with occasional arrows into their ranks from the east
courtesy of Jayran, Arronath sentries had been pulled closer in.  All watches
were done by black-armored soldiers lining the fragmented walls nearest to
their camp.  Rubble had long ago been dumped in the spots that had once been
spaces between closely-set buildings.  As defensive measures went, the ruins
were only an inconvenience.

A solid wall three or four enemies thick surrounded
the archers in the well square.  Kraven had no intention of taking out the
bowmen.  Any place along the enemy line would have done for this, but hitting
here added the benefit of making the Arronaths think the archers were the
primary goal.  Keep events happening too fast and hopefully they would fail to
realize that several of their former sentries were missing thanks to Baxter.

Second Squad rearranged into their three-needle
formation once he stopped.  The technique had been perfected deep in the band’s
past by their forbearers.  It worked wonderfully to make an enemy concentrate
his men in a specific spot.

Kraven ran with the leaders.  One-third of his men ran
with him over a space roughly two-hundred feet wide.

They entered the torchlight.  Kraven could see eyes
widen in surprise on faces unblocked by the badger helms.  His line ran at the
defenders.  In most cases, fewer than three feet worth of wall remained to
shield the Arronath’s legs.

Twenty-six men hit the enemy line as one.  The first
hit was always the most effective.  Most soldiers had their swords drawn
already.  What few who kept them sheathed until they saw an enemy were the only
ones who fell.

Kraven swung a hard blow.  Despite his charging like a
wild stallion from the dark, his opponent’s reflexes were fast.  He blocked the
lieutenant’s blow.

The instant the first blow ended, Kraven spun with his
men and ran back into the night.  He shouted as he went.  “All brigades lean
to!  Forward the battalions!”

Two voices called back from men widely spaced in the
remaining squad.  Their replies were as nonsensical as his.  Its only purpose
was to make the enemy think a larger force prepared to assault than actually
did.

Second needle lanced ahead.  Twenty-six men launched
forward when they distinguished the forms of returning shieldmates.  Offset,
they would strike different points along the enemy line.

No victory could be gained via three-needles but it
never failed to make enemy commanders question the tactics being employed
against them.  The bizarre actions always left them worried about what they
faced.  As long as the squad withdrew when the time was right, usually after
the fourth needle, perhaps as many as six if the Arronaths were slow to
redirect their archers, it would keep their attentions riveted on the eastern
front.

*        *        *        *        *

Marik looked down on the battle from the etheric.  The
Arronath holding force roughly equaled the total number of soldiers he
commanded as crown-general.  A pitched battle would have meant high losses due
to the shock-troop Taurs.

Fewer than ten Galemarans had been lost.  Arrows had
claimed fifty or so Arronaths.

Nine Taurs had attacked the southern forces.  They
were taken down by the crossbows before they could deal serious damage.  The
eight Galemaran casualties were their doing before the beasts were finally
killed.

He watched while his orders reached the crossbows
planted in the northern woods.  Eilow’s had been the only serious heavy
artillery used so far.  The Arronaths would never guess that only a quarter of
the crossbows at Marik’s disposal were situated in the south.

A small portion of the northern crossbows, held by the
most experienced hands among the soldiers, unleashed a flight that ravaged the
three Taurs advancing on Devry’s squad.  Cold satisfaction filled his spirit.

Marik snapped back into his body.  “The last Taurs are
down.  Its time to pry them out of their shell!”

Gibbon, sour, immediately signaled to the Screamer
archers.  Their arrows’ high-pitched voices told the allied forces surrounding
Drakesfield to enter the next stage.

Until then, the only missile assaults against the
Arronaths had been Jayran’s paltry archer squad to the east armed with
traditional bows.  Marik had needed their presence felt from the beginning,
setting the enemy mindset about where the opposition’s forces were stationed.

With the Screamer signal, the bows furiously unleashed
the shafts that remained into every corner of Drakesfield within their range. 
Too, Eilow’s crossbows began a hundred-shot assault into the well square as
quickly as the men could load fresh quarrels.

Behind Devry in the North, Classent kept his men under
tight control.  No mean feat considering he needed to control three times as
many as he was accustomed to.  He only allowed the fifteen men who had fired on
the Taurs to launch their shots over the ruins.

Marik silently urged the Arronaths to do what he
wanted them to.  With no solid roofs remaining in the town, they had very
little shelter from the incoming projectiles.  Canvas campaign tents could slow
an arrow, but not a quarrel whose head was one with the body and the fattest
part.  Quarrels ripped through the heavy fabric, continuing with nearly the
same destructive force as before.

Don’t try to tough it out!  For all you know we have
enough shafts to replant an entire forest.  You know it’s a bad position, so
give it up.

After the ninth flight, Marik could vaguely feel his
fist pounding his thigh in frustration.  Were they going to brave the assault
until he
did
run out of shafts?  Already the bow archers were nearing their
stock’s end.

Their Taurs were gone.  The only magic users they
possessed were the Taur handlers.  Since they had never once cast offensive
magics against the Galemarans who slaughtered them in every engagement Marik
had taken part in, he believed they were task-specific trained.  They could
control the Taurs’ minds, and that was all.

A moment before Marik decided to send a contingent of
crossbows from Classent’s company to reinforce the dwindling bow fire under
Jayran, he saw the Arronaths finally begin moving.  They had no idea if they
faced a minor raiding party or a concentrated assault from the royal army. 
Attacks rained in from every direction except west without surcease.  They were
dying a man at a time and could launch no counteroffensive, especially with
their best weapons dead.

The Arronaths chose to retreat.  Marik smiled.  The
only step left was to direct their path.

*        *        *        *        *

Baxter tapped his fingernail against a blackened
beam.  He had been at it long enough that most of the char had flaked off,
revealing the surviving wood beneath.

The Screamers for full-firing to commence had flown as
planned.  Then…a longer wait than he had been led to expect.  No surprise
there.  Battle predictions were only worth the material they were printed on.  In
this case, air.

Only one Screamer signal would be sent after the
first.  It finally came when minute splinters were working their way into his
fingertip.

“That’s it!  Light it up!”

His four sergeants echoed his order.  Handy of the
Arronaths to leave their torches behind.  They were flung into the oil, which
had saturated the earth until Baxter had begun to worry if it would catch or
not.

The dirt seemed no hindrance whatsoever to the war
oil.  It caught faster than any lamp wick Baxter had lit.  In short order it
blazed an impressive height considering it had no objects to burn.

It would continue to blaze until morning if his
experience with the alchemist’s product had taught him anything.

Through the flames, he could see startled faces in the
distance.  Arronaths on the verge of retreating from their captured town’s
center looked shocked.  They had assumed any enemy movements to their rear
would be reported by their watches.  In all the confusion, they had lost track
of who was where.

Baxter tipped them a salute with a finger off his brow
before returning to collect his two men by the back wall.

*        *        *        *        *

“Cock them at the ready!” Marik ordered the nearest
messenger.  “They’re breaking out to the north!”

He could see the Arronaths, imagined he could see the
leaders grinding their teeth in irritation.  Etheric viewing never allowed for
that level of detail, though.

The flames caught them off guard.  Less than six
minutes had passed since the first arrow shower arced into their camp.  Marik
had allowed them no time to collect their wits, had provided them with too many
fronts to deal with at once without considered thought.  Every new minute
seemed to bring stronger force against them until the enemy leaders made the
wise choice to retreat.

A strong force waited to the south.  Attacks had begun
from the east and persisted non-stop.  Lighter troops appeared to be holding
the north.  The western front had erupted in a fiery wall.  Marik placed his
bet…and won.

Soldiers grown hesitant in the face of fire gathered
fortitude from their officers and charged north.  They had, as hoped, chosen to
break free of the deathring by hitting the weakest point.

Marik’s messenger ran on foot through the trees,
making better time over the short distance than he would have on horseback
through the thick growth.  The entire hidden crossbow contingent trained their
artillery on the torch-lit areas.  Trees in thick interlace meant the archers
were scattered nearly Drakesfield’s entire breadth.  Men knelt so others could
stand at their backs, both firing from the same position.

When the first enemy wave reached the lit areas’ edge,
verging on crossing back into the darkness, Classent ordered the attack.  The
kneeling men unleashed their flights.  They quickly spun the winches on their
bows to draw back the weapon’s stout arms and reload while the standing ranks
added a second volley to the assault.

A hundred Arronaths collapsed.  Their shieldmates
tripped over them, exposing the third lines to the deadly second flight from
the kneelers.  Black armored carapaces scrambled from the ground as if a beetle
army spilled from cracks in the earth.

Three squads from the Crimson Kings stood ready to
meet the enemy, along with all six free bands.  The crossbows would fire in
alternating attacks.  Moving shapes took top targeting priority.  If the
Arronaths could close faster than the bows could take them down, Squads One,
Four and Ten would slip between the archers with swords at the ready.  Marik
had placed the other mercenary bands there strictly as observers, only to join
the fray in the event of unanticipated catastrophe.

Unanticipated…such as the abrupt turn the Arronaths
made without warning during the fourth volley from the standing ranks.

*        *        *        *        *

Marik saw the change.  Whatever Torrance had promised,
deep inside he had nursed a secret hope that the ambush might be able to
destroy the Arronaths to a man.  If they tried to avoid the crossbows, it would
certainly have to be to the northwest.  Not the northeast where he waited with
the band commander and Gibbon.