Arcanum Part 93

They fired in quick succession, a series of short, sharp concussions that made Thaler's clothes stiffen. Five black specks rose out of the smoke, trailing vapour behind them, marking the arc of their flight. Each soared up into the blue sky, and froze for a moment at their highest point.

Then they fell.

One exploded in the air in a flash of flame that transformed itself instantly into a blossom of sharp smoke. The others buried themselves in the soft ground on the far side of the via, and great gouts of steam and soil vomited upwards.

The pots were more affected by windage than the Gunnhildes, and had clearly overshot for one reason or another. When Thaler looked around, Morgenstern was already spinning his calculator and reading off values in his books. A runner from each pot crew was hurrying towards him, and they'd receive a thin slip of paper with the new angle scribbled on it.

Everything was decidedly hazy. Smoke hung low over the river and drifted out over the far bank. The broken wagons had halted the rest of the column behind them. The dwarves had to emerge to try and clear them out of the way. They did so, slowly, fearfully, staggering and reeling with shock. Some were dragging the dead and injured out, and some were injured themselves.

Thaler pursed his lips. This was like being a hexmaster, being able to reach out and kill your enemy at a distance, without them being able to strike back. Killing with impunity. Never mind the maimed and crushed and the torn-asunder: the Order had never minded. They'd turned whole battlefields to molten glass that had swallowed up entire armies, leaving no trace of them but whitened stains on an obsidian floor.

Except he hadn't trained as a hexmaster. He didn't have that level of disdain for others or hatred of his fellows. If anything, he felt sorry for the dwarves, so very far from home, lost under the shield of the sky, desperate to find their place in this new world. Desperation led men to desperate measures, and he had no reason to assume that dwarves were exempt.

The flags were going down, one by one. The Gunnhildes were primed and ready to fire again.

Gods, why didn't they surrender? They had to know they were beaten, despite their vastly superior numbers. Fighting Carinthia was like fighting ... Carinthia. It had always been that way. When they'd had the Order, they'd won every battle. Now they had the library, they'd win this one too.

The dwarves were frantically wrestling with the first disabled wagon, the others ahead of it still rumbling uncertainly on towards the tower. They didn't look like an army on the brink of surrender. They still looked like they wanted to roll all the way to Juvavum, and drive everyone out before them.

He lifted the speaking-trumpet. "Number one. Fire when ready."

And his sound and his fury were very great indeed.

98.

Sophia watched from the tower, open-mouthed. The wagons they'd struggled to overcome were being smashed to kindling by Thaler's toys. There was smoke like clouds drifting across the battlefield, and a strange scent of cleaved slate hung in the air, giving the scene a dream-like quality, indistinct and distant.

"My lady," said Aelinn, "how is that even possible?"

"It's not magic." Sophia let her distance-pipe hang by her fingers. She needed to see the whole picture, not just parts of it. "It's not."

The devices Thaler called Gunnhildes barked again, and the dwarves lost another three wagons: one left a splintered ruin, one fallen apart, and one seemingly undamaged but for two holes punched through the fore and aft of it. She couldn't see inside, but could only wonder at the devastation it contained.

The dwarves were trying to clear the road: they'd managed to push one wheel-less wagon off the via and into the river, and another group was heaving debris which included bodies into the ditch, but Thaler was creating chaos faster than they could restore order.

The pots their sound different to that of the Gunnhildes erupted in gouts of flame, and their projectiles streaked into the sky. They slowed, and started to fall. Loud reports, flowers of smoke, and the dwarves under the blooms shuddered and collapsed.

Only half got up again.

"Gods," said Aelinn, clinging to what was left of the battlements, "it's bloody murder."

"Yes." Sophia pushed the two halves of the distance-pipe together and handed it to Aelinn. She looked down at the wagons almost at the walls of the tower. "Sound the horns," she said to the man with the carnyx. "We're attacking."

The via ran between the tower and the bridge, the tower sitting on a rise in the ground made taller by a man-made motte. She had five centuries of spears behind it.

She limped and scuffed her way down the ladders they'd put up between the floors. Her ankle, bound tight with strips of cloth, protested all the way. Tomorrow, Kuppenheim could chop the damned thing off, as long as it held out long enough to keep her standing today.

The horn blew again as she descended: the first blast had been for Thaler, the second was for her. She hurried, and emerged from the gap where there'd once been a door. She adjusted her skirts she should have cut them short like Aelinn had, but shame had stopped her and drew her sword.

Her centuries were there, ready, waiting. She bowed deeply to them all, and turned. They all ran forward, with what armour they'd been able to muster rattling as they passed, and formed up along the edge of the motte and out across the via. They lowered their spears and braced them.

Sophia walked out behind them to assess how they'd do this. The dwarves in the vanguard stopped their wagon. Twenty-five wagons in all had been separated from the head of the column. Buber's men had reported twenty in each: five hundred dwarves, five hundred Carinthians.

The lead wagon started again. Her troops lacked the ability to turn the wagons over they should have had poles and the time to train with them, but they did have alternatives. Thaler had offered up two of his crew who'd try something different.

The wagon started to bull through the spears, and there was nothing they could do save jab ineffectively through the narrow slits either side of the prow. It looked like it could simply break through the Carinthian line, and to stop it, they'd have to try and push it aside with their bare hands.

Hidden from view behind the crowd of jostling spearmen, Thaler's smock-clad laundrywoman held an old stoneware beer bottle. A quick fuse had been hammered into the neck. She crouched down and waited for the nose of the wagon to push aside the yelling men who stood hammering on the green wood sides with the butts of their spears.

Here it came, and she touched the slow match to the fuse. Timing was everything.

The powder caught with a hiss and a flare, and she rolled the bottle under the wagon with a banshee shriek that warned the spearmen to scatter.

The bottle ticked and tacked under the dwarves' feet.

Then the wagon seemed to stretch upwards. Fire squirted from its skirts and out of the viewing ports, to be quickly replaced by grey smoke as thick as water. Even a dwarf's scream was high-pitched and penetrating, and there were enough of them to carry on making that noise long after the crack of concussion had trailed away.

The front opened, the back doors swung wide. White smoke billowed out. The few dwarves to stagger out were blind and deaf, and their legs were burnt and bleeding. It was, as Aelinn had rightly called it, bloody murder, but the spears still went about their task with grim efficiency before closing ranks across the via again.

There seemed to be a paralysis of mind infecting the dwarvish column. As the spears advanced on the next wagon, Thaler's other volunteer dug around in his satchel for a second bottle. Again, the spear butts pounded against the wagon, creating a disorientating cacophony inside, while the charge was lit and slipped under the wagon's base.

This time, it burst almost immediately, and caught several Carinthians in the blast. They reeled away, and the bottle-thrower stumbled back, dazed and bleeding. A short fuse, or he'd held on to it for too long. The wagon doors broke open: the dwarves near the back were choking on the fumes, their mail smoking with still-burning fragments, but they did at least look like they could fight.

The spear wall closed around them just the same. No matter that they hacked and hammered, severing leaf-shaped spear points from their shafts, they didn't last more than a few moments.

The pattern that had been set on the banks of the Weissach repeated itself: the wagons that hadn't been directly attacked emptied backwards, and a hundred, two hundred, three hundred dwarves collected at the rear of the severed column, ready to strike forward. But, unlike at Buber's battle, they had no forests to retreat to, no hills to climb up.

"Form up," shouted Sophia. "Ready to receive a charge." Once the smoke had cleared, her wounded numbered only three, and the injured bottle-thrower, breeks black and shiny with blood, was intent on carrying on. This was the test, then: for every Carinthian or ally on the field they had allies, HaShem be praised there were ten dwarves. If Ironmaker managed to concentrate his forces, hers would be crushed like a nut.

The balance was so fine. They could win every encounter except the last one, and still lose.

Then the dwarves came, swarming forward to throw themselves on the spears, bared white teeth framed in black beards, hammers and axes raised above their iron-covered heads.

Sophia cupped her hands around her mouth. "Aelinn, the third horn."

The lines met with a shout. The Carinthian spears shuddered with the impact. They held and started to push back, and Thaler's laundry maid bent over her bag of bottles again.

The carnyx sounded again, part of its call lost in among another volley from the east bank of the Enn.

Her centre was starting to bend. The flanks, bounded by the marshy ground and the river on one side, and the tower motte on the other, were unengaged. It was like Kufstein, and she wouldn't make the same mistake as Reinhardt had.

She ran to her left, to the centurion of the spears at the end. "Charge them, sir. Charge now."

He nodded, and shouted his orders over the groan and grind. The drummer hammered out a double pace as the spears wheeled about, and when they were in position, they roared and ran.

The effect was instant. Instead of going backwards, the centre started forwards. There was another noise, too, a distant rumbling thunder like an avalanche. A field of pennants as bright as a summer meadow fluttered into view, the white bird of the Franks on every one.

The pennants dipped with the spears they were tied to, and Clovis's cavalry came galloping up behind the dwarves, already penned in on three sides.

It broke them. They died with blades in their fronts, in their backs, and it didn't matter where they turned, there were always more. The Franks, after the first shock of the charge, wheeled away rather than engage in an unruly melee, and that left the rear momentarily free.

The dwarves fled through the opening, first in ones and twos, then in a kind of mass brawl that saw them fighting each other to escape. The Carinthian spears surged forward to give chase, but Sophia wanted them back. Let Clovis have the duty of running them down before they could cross into the smoking Gehenna that Thaler had created.

"Hold," she called, and the drummers sounded the retreat.

They re-formed, and Sophia ordered that the abandoned wagons be rolled back through her lines and set up across the via, blocking it and any way around it. The two they'd destroyed, they pushed into the marsh.

Inside both was a charnel house, blackened with soot, reddened with blood. They'd done this. She'd done this. If she lived through today, this would be what she'd see when she closed her eyes at night, not fire, but ash.

She sent her wounded back across the river to Rosenheim, and had her dead laid out behind the tower. She resented the loss of each and every one of them. They'd been living and breathing that morning, and now they weren't.

Clovis, fine in his plate and with his moustache bristling, rode up beside her. "My lady. We scent victory."

Sophia stared up at him. "The main host hasn't reached us yet, and there are still far more of them than there are of us. We have a saying about chickens and eggs, and when to count them."

Clovis's horse stamped its feet, because its master could not.

"You Carinthians are so gloomy. In the Franklands we would have pressed home our advantage and routed the enemy."

"This," she spread her hands wide, "this is the first time we've ever seen them run. We've slaughtered thousands of them, and still they come at us. You'll keep your hot-headed impetuosity until after we're done."

Clovis leant forward in his saddle. "And what if I take my men and leave the field, my lady?"

"In order to lead an army of free people, a commander needs the respect of their soldiers, my lord. I'm confident I have the respect of everyone in my army, including your sergeants. How confident are you?"

He sat bolt upright. "You will not call me that name again."

"I'll have no need to call you that name again if you follow my orders. Pretend that they're yours, if you prefer, but an army has to act with a single mind."

"Yours."

There was no time for an argument, so she simply said "Yes", and turned to shout up at the tower. "Aelinn? What can you see?"

"Master Thaler is running out of things to shoot at. The horde are massing at the southern end of the field. The wagons next to Master Buber's position are staying still."

"We absolutely have to get them out into the open." She regarded Clovis. "Take your men around the back of Buber's position. Be ready."

The Frank snorted. "We are always ready."

"Good. A general can't ask for any more." It would sour him further, and she needed to be careful. But her blood was up, and she wasn't about to take lessons from this nudnik.

Clovis wheeled his horse around and rode back to his men. She had to trust that he'd do what she said, because anything else was unthinkable.

"Horst? To me." Then, to the tower: "Aelinn? I need a message taken." Finally, to her centurions: "Form up. We're marching."

Aelinn was at her side, presenting her with her distance-pipe. "My lady."

"Tell Master Thaler he's to stop firing his ... his things. Wait for a double-horn, then fire at the southern end of the field, into the forest."

She was gone, running for the bridge, and Horst came trotting over on his horse, carrying one of the Frankish pennants on his spear.

"Have you switched sides, sir?" she asked.

He dragged his eyes back from Aelinn's flying skirts. "I might carry this pigeon, my lady, but I've a leopard over my heart. What do you need?"

"A message. Find Master Buber and tell him to pull back to the very eastern edge of the woods and take cover. Then you need to find Master Reinhardt, and tell him he's to join Rabbi Cohen behind the dwarvish host. Tell him to go back up the valley, deep into the trees. Once Master Thaler's finished, they're to move up and kill any dwarves who come their way." She frowned. "Did I need to say that?"

"No, my lady. From what I've heard, your priest won't need telling."

"You're a good man, Horst. Do me a favour and stay alive."

Horst touched his hand to his forehead. "As my lady commands."

He rode off, going wide of the road and across country, chasing the rest of the Frankish horse. Across the river, Thaler's Gunnhildes fell silent, and the breeze cleared the smoke from their emplacements. She could see the people stationed there start to work at turning their weapons to the south. If she squinted, she could also see the observation tower they'd built, and, below it, a table, where a figure sat crouched over. Her father.

How had it come to this, that her father was here, that Thaler was here, that Cohen was here, that she was here, and that Felix was not?

Aelinn was on her way back. Sophia pursed her lips and stepped out onto the via, among the blood and scorch-marks and debris of war. Her spear centuries faced her, solid and battle-proven as she was now. She lifted her spatha into the air and jerked it in the direction of travel.

"Follow me."

99.

The ground was shaking. He'd felt that happen before avalanches, mainly, where he'd have a heartbeat to decide the direction he needed to run. And once it had been a dragon. He'd actually pissed himself then, but that hadn't been so much fear itself as the aura of fear the dragon had magicked up, trying to flush him out from his hiding place.

He'd held firm then, and he held firm now, despite the urge to bury his hands in the soft soil to try to cling to the earth. He wasn't the only one terrified. With every crack and boom, some of his men crouched lower than ought to be possible, cowering like dogs.

And every so often, something would go astray, and the leaves above his head would shiver as a fast-moving sliver of metal punctured the canopy and buried itself in the bark of a tree.

They could do nothing about that. They had to wait. To move forward would be to killed along with the dwarves. It was like being at Obernberg all over again, watching Nikoleta spit fire from her fingers at anything and everything that moved, with him no more than a passive spectator at a unique and ghastly event.

When the first shots had been fired, and that sharp, broken-quartz smell started to drift through the trees, they'd whispered to each other, keeping a watch for attack while trying to see what was happening further up the via.

Chapter end