in their midst, hauled by elephants.
The five hundred Torunnans who were the barbican’s last defenders spread out along the tattered battlements, their arquebuses levelled. Their orders were to make a demonstration, to draw as many of the enemy as possible into the fortifications and then withdraw slowly, finally escaping over the Searil bridge. It would be a difficult thing to control, this fighting retreat. Corfe felt no fear at the thought of the coming assault or the possibility of injury and death, but he was mortally afraid of making a hash of things. These five hundred were his command, his first since the fall of Aekir; and he knew he was still regarded by many of his fellow Torunnans as the man who had deserted John Mogen. He was coldly determined to do well today.
The warmth of the sun was bright and welcome. Men wriggled fingers in their ears to let out the ringing aftermath of the artillery, then sighted down their weapons at the advancing enemy.
“Easy!” Corfe called out. “Wait till I give the word.”
A gun barked from one of the upper casemates, and a second later a blossom of blasted earth appeared on the slope before the Merduk formations. Andruw testing the range.
They came on at a slow walk, the high-sided waggons trundling in their midst. The northern and southern hosts had more of these elephant-drawn vehicles than the one which was aimed at the barbican. Corfe strained his eyes to make out the strange loads, then whistled.
“Boats!” The waggons were loaded with shallow-hulled, puntlike craft piled one on top of the other. They were going to try and cross the Searil to north and south whilst engaging the garrison on the east bank at the same time.
“They’ll be lucky,” a nearby soldier said, and spat over the battered wall. “The Searil’s swollen after the rain. It’s running along like a bolting horse. I hope they have strong arms, or they’ll be washed all the way down to the Kardian.”
There was a spatter of brief laughter along the ramparts.
Andruw’s guns began to sing out one by one. The young gunnery officer had kept his five most accurate pieces this side of the river, and was adjusting their traverse and elevation personally. They began to lob explosive shells into the forefront of the central enemy formation, blasting them into red ruin. Corfe saw an elephant lifted half off its feet as a shell exploded squarely under it. Another hit one of the high-laden wains and sent slivers of deadly wood spraying like spears through its escort. There was confusion, men milling about, panic-stricken beasts trampling and trumpeting madly. The Torunnans watched with a high sense of glee, happy to be repaying the Merduks in kind for the relentless bombardment of the past days.
But the ranks reformed, and the Merduks came on again faster, loping along at a brisk trot, leaving the waggons behind. Corfe could see that the lead elements of these men were in shining half-armour and mail. They were the
The formation splintered and spread out so that the shellbursts took a lesser toll. As they jogged ever closer Corfe rapped out orders, pitching his voice to carry over the rippling booms of the Torunnan artillery.
“Ready your pieces!”
The men fitted the smouldering slow-match into the wheel-locks of their arquebuses.
“Present your pieces!”
He raised his sabre. He could see individual faces in the ranks of the approaching enemy, horsehair plumes, panting mouths underneath the tall helms.
He swept his sabre down. “Give fire!”
The walls erupted in a line of smoke and flame as nigh on five hundred arquebuses went off in a single volley. The enemy, scarcely a hundred yards away, were thrown back as if by a sudden gale of wind. The front ranks dissolved into a mass of wriggling, crawling men, and those behind faltered a moment, then came on again.
“Reload!” Corfe shouted. It was Andruw’s turn now.
The five guns of the remaining Torunnan battery waited until the Merduks were within fifty yards, and then fired as one. They were loaded with deadly canister: hollow cans of thin metal containing thousands of arquebus bullets. Five jets of smoke spurted out, and the Merduks were flattened once more in a dreadful slaughter.
The smoke was too thick for aiming. Corfe shouted at the top of his voice, waving his sabre: “Back off the walls! Second position, lads! Back on me!”
The Torunnans ran down from the ruined battlements and formed a swift two-deep line below. Their sergeants and ensigns pushed them into position and then stood ready.
The gunners were leaving their pieces, having spiked the touch-holes. Corfe saw Andruw there, laughing as he ran. When the last artillerymen were behind the line of arquebusiers he gave the order.
“Ready your pieces!”
A line of figures pouring through the gaps in the walls now, hundreds of them, screaming as they came.
“Front rank, present your pieces!”
Thirty yards away. Could they be stopped? It seemed impossible.
“Give fire!”
A shattering volley that hid the enemy in clouds of dark smoke.
“First rank, fall back. Second rank, give fire!”
The first rank were running back through the fortress to the bridge, where Baffarin and his engineers waited. It would be very close.
The second volley staggered the smoke, flattened more of the oncoming enemy, but Corfe’s men were falling now for the Merduks had arquebusiers up on the battlements firing blindly into the Torunnan ranks.
A shrieking line of figures issued out of the powder cloud like friends catapulted out of hell.
A few weapons were fired, a ragged volley. And then it was hand-to-hand down the line. The arquebusiers dropped their weapons and drew their sabres, if they had time. Others flailed about them with the butts of their firearms.
Corfe gutted a howling Merduk, swept the heavy sabre across the face of another, punched the spiked hilt into the jaw of a third.
“Fall back! Fall back to the bridge!”
They were being overwhelmed. The enemy was pouring in—thousands of them, perhaps. All across the rubble-strewn and pitted drill square Corfe saw his line dissolve into knots and groups of isolated men as the Merduks punched into it. Those who could were retreating; others went down under the flashing scimitars still swinging their weapons.
He clanged aside a scimitar, elbowed the man off-balance, thrust at another, then spun round at the first man and slashed open his arm. They were all around him. He whirled and hacked and thrust without conscious volition. The knot broke apart. There was space again, a moving turmoil of figures running past, shouting; there was flashing murder every instant and so much blood it seemed some other element spilling everywhere.
Someone was pulling frantically at his arm. He swung round and almost decapitated Andruw. The gunner officer had a slash across his face which had left a flap of flesh hanging over one eye.
“Time to go, Corfe. We can’t hold them any longer.”
“How many at the bridge?”
“Enough. You’ve done your duty, so come. They’re preparing to blow the charges.”
Corfe allowed himself to be tugged away and followed Andruw’s lead out of the fortress, calling the last of his men with him as he went.
The bridge was standing on a few stone supports. The rest had been chiselled and blasted away. Baffarin was there, grinning. “Glad to see you, Haptman. We thought you had got lost. You’re among the last.”
Corfe and Andruw ran across the long, empty bridge. The lead elements of the enemy were a scant fifty yards behind, and arquebus balls were kicking up splinters of stone around their feet as they made the western bank. The survivors of Corfe’s command were crouched there among the revetments of the island. Those who still possessed their firearms were firing methodically into the press of the advancing enemy. As they saw Corfe and Andruw a hoarse cheer went up.
Baffarin’s engineers were touching off ribbons of bound rags with slow-match. A culverin was firing canister across the bridge, stalling the Merduk advance. Corfe sank to his knees in the shelter of the earthworks behind the bridge, chest heaving. He felt as though someone had lit a fire inside his armour and the black metal seemed
