This time Marcum looked over at the young Sergeant. “Relax…the oil will hold them…at least for a good while. Kommidi will be well west and in a position to support the King against the Palmerrio.”
Birdsong took a deep breath as another mid-sized stone struck a house which rocked a bit then tipped alarmingly. For a moment the Sergeant watched the men beneath struggle to hold the house upright. They failed and the house pitched over the side taking one of the soldiers with it. The man screamed comically on his way down but then he plunged into the river and was lost from view. Another was quickly shot through the neck by a well aimed arrow and he staggered off the Scar to follow his countryman into the rushing water below. The two remaining soldiers tried to find cover beneath neighboring houses. One was lucky and scrambled into a house in time and was safe for the moment, the other was stopped, partially exposed and took an arrow in the right calf. The man cried out and dropped, clutching at his wound before taking another in the chest. The train of houses paused for a moment, then the dead man was dumped over the side of the Scar and the slow progression continued on its way.
Another boulder, larger this time, went over the side, but it unluckily struck the side of the Scar with a sharp clap and was deflected away from the house beneath it.
“Bring up the oil,” Marcum said a half an hour later. Four more houses succumbed to boulders but the majority of them were still moving relentlessly to the top of the Scar. The lead house was now three quarters of the way to the summit. “Go and make sure the halberdiers are ready. They must meet the attack at the very edge of the Scar. We can’t afford to give them a foothold.”
The oil, dropped in clay pots, soon covered the first dozen shield houses and flaming arrows easily setting the roofs ablaze. The men beneath, understanding the danger, began to move quickly up the trail as the fire rapidly spread. Marcum was impressed. The approaching soldiers must be tired from lugging the “A” frames up the steep path, but they found new energy and ambled up the Scar at a surprisingly quick pace; but the fire moved quickly as well and the soldiers in the lead house were forced to heave it over the cliff and away when they were still fifty feet from the top. Without hesitation they charged up the path as the next five houses were also dumped over the side. A score of men made it to within ten feet of the top before the last of them was killed by arrows but by then another score were racing up and the closest shield house was now only thirty feet from the top.
Another barrage of oil was thrown over the edge of the Scar and fire arrows had another half dozen shield houses alight by the time the first of the Deutzani soldiers reached the very top of the Scar. The brave enemy soldiers were almost immediately killed by a host of archers, but their success diverted the attention of many of the defenders and it allowed many of the men below to climb higher relatively unimpeded. In the next few minutes, more and more Deutzani scrambled to the top, a number of the enemy were also archers, who began firing arrows back at the defenders while more Deutzani moved up to engage the closest Massi soldiers. The Massi hold on the edge of the Plateau was quickly slipping away. There were perhaps fifty enemy soldiers on the top of the Scar when Marcum signaled to Sergeant Birdsong.
“Advance!” he yelled and then turned to the fifty or so heavy foot soldiers that surrounded him. “Let’s move,” he said rather softly and as one they rushed to attack the enemy that now threatened to occupy their Plateau.
Fighting as he was, Captain Marcum was completely unaware of the battle for the Scar trail. The majority of the Massi men and women on the edge of the Plateau continued to drop boulders large and small on the advancing shield houses. When the enemy was close enough they would dump more casts of oil down onto them and then set them alight with fire arrows. But as more and more Deutzani gained the summit of the Scar and engaged the defenders above, the attack on the Deutzani still climbing began to falter.
Marcum fought and killed as well as he was able. Over the years he’d lost a bit of his speed with age but retained much of his strength, which was substantial. And all the while he tried to keep track of the battle around him, trying to judge the strength of the defense. After nearly an hour the Deutzani attack seemed to slacken, until finally it fell off all together. By the time Marcum reached the edge of the Scar he could see the remainder of the Deutzani army was in quick retreat. Sporadic arrow fire rained down on them, and an occasional rock, but for the most part the defenders on the edge of the Plateau just rested and breathed thanks that they had survived.
Sergeant Birdsong took a superficial arrow wound to the right cheek, but otherwise he was unharmed when he finally reached Captain Marcum.
He was smiling as he approached his commander.
“Full retreat,” he said happily. “And they only have a dozen or so shield houses.”
“They’ll be back,” Marcum said somberly. “Tomorrow…or if we’re very unlucky…tonight. How many did we lose?”
After a bit of checking it was discovered that they lost just over a hundred men, most of them halberdiers and foot soldiers. The Deutzani dead numbered nearly three hundred and fifty on the Plateau and it was estimated another fifty or so had lost their lives during their climb. It was a victory, but a costly one. Their supply of oil was nearly depleted and they had fewer than a dozen boulders of any size remaining.
“Get the town folk to work finding more rocks,” Marcum ordered as he gazed out and down at the Deutzani camp far below. “And find Lyle…see if he knows of any other oil…or anything flammable we might use against the bastards.”
“Find Speaker Torres,” was all he said.
VII
As it happened, Captain Gaston and the Massi cavalry were just over fifty miles to the east of Manse trying to regroup after the recent attack on the Temple Knights which quickly turned into a fiasco. Most of the Massi horsemen, Gaston included, counted themselves lucky that the entire force was not completely wiped out. The Knights were good, there was no doubt about that and they’d proved it by killing or capturing nearly ten percent of Gaston’s force…and that was during a supposedly surprise attack.
In all they lost nearly two hundred men during the engagement, with another seventy-five suffering wounds serious enough to keep them out of the fighting for a while, but more importantly they lost over two hundred and fifty horses. Neither men nor horses could be replaced easily, and Gaston was gathering his courage before contacting Gwaynn to inform him of the defeat.
In the immediate aftermath of battle, after rejoining with the main contingent of Massi cavalry, Gaston decided to keep moving east. His greatest fear was that the Temple Knights would follow and capitalize on their obvious advantage, but after nearly a day and a half of hard riding they’d encountered no more of the enemy, a fact that left Gaston feeling very thankful.
“We’ve done damage to the Knights as well,” Captain Kerr said as they sat in the command tent. Kerr, who sat near the back of the tent, remained silent for so long that Gaston forgot he was present.
Gaston blinked and looked to his second in command. “Does the worry show?”
Kerr smiled, liking the younger man. “Yes, and you are wise not to let the men see you so,” he answered. “You must contact Gwaynn and General Bock…inform them of the situation.”
Gaston nodded but did not answer. They both looked up as Speaker Sarbeth entered the tent as if on cue. Gaston’s heart began to pound in his chest the moment he saw her, expecting to be told of contact by the King, but Sarbeth remained quiet, standing stiffly just inside the tent flap. The female Speaker was young, athletic and had such a strong, square jaw that it was the envy of many of the men who rode with her. Her dirty blonde hair was cut shoulder length and pulled back away from her face and as she waited Gaston thought wildly that she would have made a fine looking man. Politeness however, kept him from revealing his opinion to her, though
