Shardik Page 21

  Into this bad dream fell the rain, mingling with sweat, trickling salty over puffed lips, stinging open blisters, hissing through the leaves, quenching the dust in the air. Baltis lifted his head to the sky, missed his footing with the effort and stumbled against Kelderek.

  "Rain," he grunted. "The rain, lad! What's to be done now?"

  "What?" mumbled Kelderek, blinking as though the smith had woken him.

  "The rain, I says, the rain! What's to become of us now?"

  "God knows," answered Kelderek. "Go on--just go on."

  "Well--but they can't fight their way to Bekla in the rain. Why not go back while we can--save our lives, eh?"

  "No!" cried Kelderek passionately. "No!" Baltis grunted and said no more.

  Many times they ground to a stop and as many times found themselves moving again. Once Kelderek tried to count their lessening numbers, but gave up in confusion. Sencred was nowhere to be seen. Of the girls, Nito was missing, Muni and two or three more. Those who were left still kept beside the cage, daubed from head to foot with rainy mud churned up by the wheels. The light was failing. In less than an hour it would be dark. There was no sign of the army and Kelderek realized with desperation that in all probability his band of fireless stragglers would be forced to spend the night in the wilderness of these foothills. He would not able to keep them together. Before morning they would be shivering, sick, mutinous, victims of panic fear. And before morning, if Zilthe were right, Shardik would awaken.

  Baltis came up beside him again.

  "It's a bad look-out, y'know, young fellow," he said between his teeth. "We'll have to stop soon: it'll be dark. And what's to be done then? You and I'd better go on alone--find the young baron and ask him to send back help. But if you ask me, he'll have to come back out of it himself if he wants to stay alive. You know what the rains are. After two days a rat can hardly move, let alone men."

  "Hark!" said Kelderek. "What's that noise?"

  They had come to the top of a long slope, where the road curved downhill through thick woodland. The men on the ropes stood still, one or two sinking down in the mud to rest. At first there seemed to be no sound except, all about them, the pouring of the rain in the leaves. Then, faintly, there came again to Kelderek's ears the noise he had heard at first--distant shouting, sharp and momentary as flying sparks, voices confusing and overlaying one another like ripples on a pool. He looked from one man to the next. All were staring back at him, waiting for him to confirm their single thought.

  "The army!" cried Kelderek.

  "Ay, but what's the shouting for?" said Baltis. "Sounds like trouble to me."

  Sheldra ran forward and laid her hand on Kelderek's arm.

  "My lord!" she cried, pointing. "Look! Lord Shardik is waking!"

  Kelderek turned toward the cage. The bear, its eyes still closed, was hunched on the rickety floor in an unnatural, crouching position, suggesting not sleep but rather the grotesque posture of some gigantic insect--the back arched, the legs drawn up together under the body. Its breathing was uneven and labored and froth had gathered at its mouth. As they watched, it stirred uneasily and then, with an uncertain, stupefied groping, raised one paw to its muzzle. For a moment its head lifted, the lips curling as though in a snarl, and then sank again to the floor.

  "Will he wake now--at once?" asked Kelderek, shrinking involuntarily as the bear moved once more.

  "Not at once, my lord," answered Sheldra, "but soon--within the hour."

  The bear rolled on its side, the bars clattered like nails on a bench and the near-side wheels lurched, splaying under the massive weight. The sounds of battle were plain now and through the shouting of the Ortelgans they could discern a rhythmic, intermittent cry--a concerted sound, hard and compact like a missile. "Bek-la Mowt! Bek-la Mowt!"

  "Press on!" shouted Kelderek, hardly knowing what he said. "Press on! Shardik to the battle! Take the strain behind and press on!"

  Fumbling and stumbling in the rain, they unfastened the wet ropes, hitched them to the other end of the rickety bars and pushed the cage forward down the slope, checking it as it gathered momentum. They had gone only a short distance when Kelderek realized that they were closer to the battle than he had supposed. The whole army must be engaged, for the din extended a long way to right and left. He ran a short distance ahead, but could see nothing for the thick trees and failing light. Suddenly a little knot of five or six men came running up the hill, looking back over their shoulders. Only two were carrying weapons. One, a red-haired, raw-boned fellow, was ahead of the others. Recognizing him, Kelderek grabbed his arm. The man gave a cry of pain, cursed and aimed a clumsy blow at him. Kelderek let go and wiped his bloody hand on his thigh.

  "Numiss!" he shouted. "What happened?"

  "It's all up, that's what's happened! The whole damned Beklan army's down there--thousands of 'em. Get out of it while you can!"

  Kelderek took him by the throat.

  "Where's Lord Ta-Kominion, damn you? Where?"

  Numiss pointed.

  "There--lying in the bloody road. He's a goner!" He wrenched himself free and vanished.

  The cage, following down the hill, was now close behind Kelderek. He called to Baltis, "Wait--hold it there till I come back!"

  "Can't be done--it's too steep!" shouted Baltis.

  "Wedge it, then!" answered Kelderek over his shoulder. "Ta-Kominion's here--"

  "Too steep, I tell you, lad! It's too steep!"

  Running down the hill, Kelderek glimpsed beyond the trees a rising slope of open, stony ground, over which Ortelgans were streaming back toward him. From farther away, steady as a drumbeat, came the concerted shouts of the enemy. He had not gone half a bowshot before he saw his man. Ta-Kominion was lying on his back in the road. The downhill flow of rain, with its flotsam of twigs and leaves, was dammed against his body as though beneath a log. Beside him, chafing his hands, crouched a tall, gray-haired man--Kavass the fletcher. Suddenly Ta-Kominion screamed some incoherent words and tore at his own arm. Kelderek ran up and knelt over him, his gorge rising at the smell of gangrene and putrefaction.

  "Zelda!" cried Ta-Kominion. His white face was horribly convulsed, its shape that of the skull beneath and only more ghastly for the life that flickered in the eyes. He stared up at Kelderek, but said nothing more.

  "My lord," said Kelderek, "what you required has been done. Lord Shardik is here."

  Ta-Kominion uttered a sound like that of a mother beside a fretful child, like that of the rain in the trees. For an instant Kelderek thought that he was whispering him to silence.

  "Sh! Sh-sh-ardik!"

  "Shardik has come, my lord."

  Suddenly a snarling roar, louder even than the surrounding din of battle, filled the tunnel-like roadway under the trees. There followed a clanging and clattering of iron, sharp cracks of snapped wood, panic cries and a noise of dragging and scraping. Baltis's voice shouted, "Let go, you fools!" Then again broke out the snarling, full of savagery and ferocious rage. Kelderek leapt to his feet. The cage had broken loose and was rushing down the hill, swaying and jumping as the crude wheels ploughed ruts in the mud and struck against protruding stones. The roof had split apart and the bars were hanging outward, some trailing along the ground, others lashing sideways like a giant's flails. Shardik was standing upright, surrounded by long white splinters of wood. Blood was running down one shoulder and he foamed at the mouth, beating the iron bars around him as Baltis's hammers had never beaten them. The point of a sharp, splintered stake had pierced his neck and as it swayed up and down, levering itself in the wound, he roared with pain and anger. Red-eyed, frothing and bloody, his head smashing through the flimsy lower branches of the trees overhanging the track, he rode down upon the battle like some beast-god of apocalypse. Just in time, Kelderek threw himself against the bank. Spongy and sodden, it gave way beneath his weight and he sank backward into the mud. The cage thundered past him, grinding over the very spot where he had been kneeling, and the three near-side wheel
s, each as thick as a man's arm, passed across Ta-Kominion's body, crushing a bloody channel through clothing, flesh and bone. Still further it went, driving through the Ortelgan fugitives like a demon's chariot until, striking head-on against a tree trunk, it tilted forward and smashed to pieces. For a few moments Shardik, thrown upon his back, thrashed and struggled for a footing. Then he stood up and, with the point of the stake still embedded in his neck, burst through the trees and onto the battlefield.

  23 The Battle of the Foothills

  GEL-ETHLIN LOOKED RIGHT AND LEFT through the falling dusk and rain. His line remained unbroken. For well over an hour the Beklan troops had simply stood their ground, repulsing the fierce but piecemeal attacks of the Ortelgans. At the first onslaught, delivered unhesitatingly and with fanatical courage by no more than two or three hundred men, he had concluded with relief that he was not opposed by a large force. Then, as more and still more of the Ortelgans emerged from the woods, jostling and pushing their way into a rough-and-ready battle line that spread to right and left until it was as long as his own, he saw that the youth from Gelt had spoken no more than the truth. This was nothing less than an entire tribe in arms, and altogether too numerous for his liking. Soon one attack after another was breaking upon his line, until the slope was covered with dead and crawling, cursing wounded. After some anxious time, however, it became clear that the enemy, who had come upon him as unexpectedly as he had intended, possessed no effective central command and were merely attacking under individual leaders, group by group as each baron might decide. He realized that although he was probably outnumbered by something like three to two, this would not in itself bring about his defeat as long as the enemy lacked all real coordination and discipline. He need do no more than defend and wait. All things considered, these remained the best tactics. His army was at half strength and that the weaker half; the poor condition of the men, after several days' marching in the heat, had been aggravated by their pummeling in the dust and wind that morning; and the slope below was becoming more muddy and slippery at every moment. As long as the Ortelgans continued to make sporadic attacks here and there along the line, it was an easy matter for the Beklan companies not engaged on either side to turn inward and help to break them up. By nightfall--soon, now--his troops might well have had enough, but what it would be best to do then would depend on the state each side was in. His most prudent course might be to return to the plain. It was unlikely that these irregulars would be able to follow them or that they would even be able, now that the rains had broken, to keep the field. Their food supplies were probably scanty, whereas he had rations--of a sort--for two days and, unlike the enemy, would have the opportunity to commandeer more if he retreated into friendly country.

  Stand firm until darkness, thought Gel-Ethlin, that's the style. Why risk breaking ranks to attack? And then come away, leaving the rain to finish the job. As he watched the enemy, among the trees below, re-forming for a fresh attack under the command of a dark, bearded baron with a gold torque on one arm, he thought the idea over and could see nothing wrong with it: and if he could not, presumably his superiors in Bekla would not. He ought not to risk his half-army, either by attacking unnecessarily or by keeping it out in these hills in the rains. His part should be that of a sound, steady commander, nothing flashy.

  And yet--he paused. When they got back to Bekla, Santil-ke-Erketlis, that brilliant opportunist, would probably smile understandingly, sympathize with him for having been obliged to come away without destroying the enemy, and then point out how that destruction could and should have been effected. "You a commander-in-chief, Gel-Ethlin?" Santil-ke-Erketlis had once said, good-humoredly enough, while they were returning together from a drinking party. "Man, you're like an old woman with the housekeeping money. 'Oh, I wonder whether I might have beaten him down another meld--or perhaps if I'd gone to that other man round the corner--?' A fine army strikes like the great cats, my lad--swiftly and once. It's like the wheelwright's work--there comes a moment when you have to say, 'Now, hit it.' A general who can't see that moment and seize it doesn't deserve victory." Santil-ke-Erketlis, victor of a score of engagements, who had virtually dictated his own terms at the conclusion of the Slave Wars, could afford to be generous and warmhearted. "And how does one seize the moment?" Gel-Ethlin had asked rather tipsily, as they each seized something else and stood against the wall. "By never stopping to think of all the things that can go wrong," Santil-ke-Erketlis had replied.

  Another attack came up the slope, this time straight toward his center. The Tonildan contingent, a second-rate lot if ever there was one, was breaking ranks with a kind of nervous anticipation and advancing uncertainly downhill to meet it. Gel-Ethlin ran forward, shouting, "Stand fast! Stand fast, The Tonilda!" At least no one could say that he had a thin word of command. His voice cut through the din like a hammer splitting a flint. The Tonilda fell back and re-formed line, the rain pouring off their shoulders. A few moments later the Ortelgan attack came rushing across the last few yards and struck like a ram against a wall. Weapons rang and men swayed back and forth, panting and gasping like swimmers struggling in rough water. There was a scream and a man stumbled out of the line clutching his stomach, pitched forward into the mud and lay jerking, resembling in his unheeded plight a broken fish cast up and dying on the shore. "Stand fast, the Tonilda!" shouted Gel-Ethlin again. A redheaded, raw-boned Ortelgan fellow burst through a gap in the line and ran a few steps uncertainly, looking about him and waving his sword. An officer thrust at him, missed his body as he moved unexpectedly and wounded him in the forearm. The man spun around, yelling, and ran back through the gap.

  Behind the line Gel-Ethlin, followed by his pennant bearer, trumpeter and servant, ran to his left until he was beyond the point of attack. Then, pushing through the front rank of the Deelguy mercenaries, he turned and looked back at the fighting on his right. The din obliterated every noise else--the rain, his own movements, the voices of those about him and all sounds from the wood below. The Ortelgans, who had evidently now learned--or found a leader with enough sense--to protect the flanks of their assault, had broken through the Tonildan line in a wedge about sixty yards broad. They were fighting, as they had all the evening, with a kind of besotted ferocity, prodigal of life. The trampled, muddy ground which they had won was littered with bodies. His own losses, too, were mounting fast--that was only too plain to be seen. He could recognize some of the men lying on the ground, among them the son of one of Kapparah's tenants, a decent lad who last winter had acted as his go-between to the girl in Ikat. The attack had become a dangerous one, which would have to be halted and thrown back quickly before the enemy could reinforce it. He turned and made toward the nearest commander in the line--Kreet-Liss, that cryptic and reticent soldier, captain of the Deelguy mercenaries. Kreet-Liss, though anything but a coward, was always liable to turn awkward, an ally suddenly afflicted with difficulty in understanding plain Beklan whenever orders did not suit him. He listened as Gel-Ethlin, whom the noise obliged to shout almost into his ear, told him to withdraw his men, bring them across into the center and counterattack the Ortelgans.

  "Yoss, yoss," he shouted back finally. "Bad owver ther, better trost oss, thot's it, eh?" The three or four black-ringleted young barons standing about him grinned at each other, slapped some of the rain out of their gaudy, bedraggled finery and went to get their men together. As the Deelguy fell back, Gel-Ethlin found himself unable, in the failing light, to attract the attention of Shaltnekan, the commander adjacent to their left, whom he wanted to close up and fill the gap. He sent his servant across with the order and as he did so thought suddenly, "Santil-ke-Erketlis would have sent the Deelguy out in front of the line, to attack the Ortelgans' rear and cut them off." Yes, but suppose they had proved not strong enough for the job and the Ortelgans had simply cut them to pieces and got out? No, it would have been too much of a risk.

  Young Shaltnekan and his men were approaching now, their heads bent against the rain driv
ing into their faces. Gel-Ethlin went to meet them, flailing his arms across his chest, for he was wet through to the skin.

  "Can't we break ranks and attack them, sir?" asked Shaltnekan, before his commander could speak. "My lads are sick of standing on the defensive against that bunch of flea-bitten savages. One good push and they'll break up."

  "Certainly not," answered Gel-Ethlin. "How do you know what reserves they may have down in those woods? Our men were tired when they got here and once we break ranks they could be fair game for anything. We've nothing to do but stand fast. We're blocking the only way down to the plain and once they realize they can't shift us they'll go to pieces."

  "Just as you say, sir," answered Shaltnekan, "but it goes against the grain to stand still when we might be driving the bastards over the hills like goats."

  "Where's the bear?" shouted one of the men. It was evidently a newly invented catch phrase, for fifty voices took it up. "'E isn't here!"

  "'E's in despair!" continued the joker.

  "'E wouldn't dare!"

  "We'll comb 'is 'air!"

  "They're still in good spirits, sir, you see," said Shaltnekan, "but all the same, there's one or two good men have been cut up today by those river-frogs and the boys are going to take it very hard if they're not allowed to have a cut at them before it gets too dark."