Reaper's Gale

Obscurely, she suddenly recalled a scene months ago-wounded but alive, less than a handful of the beasts on a hill overlooking an Awl camp, watching the Letherii slaughtering the last of their masters. And she wondered, with a shiver of superstitious fear, if those beasts were now exacting ferocious vengeance. Dammit, Bivatt-never mind all that.

The Awl spear-heads were not drawing together, she saw-nor was there need to, now that she’d temporarily lost her ballistae. Indeed, the two northernmost of those wedges were now angling to challenge her Crimson Rampant medium. But this would be old-style fighting, she knew-and the Awl did not possess the discipline nor the training for this kind of steeled butchery.

Yet, Redmask is not waging this battle in the Awl fashion, is he? No, this is something else. He’s treating this like a plains engagement in miniature-the. way those horse-archers wheeled, reformed, then reformed again-a hit and run tactic, all on a compacted scale.

I see now-hut it will not work for much longer.

Once his warriors locked with her mailed fist.

The Awl spear-heads were now nearing the flat of the riverbed-the two sides would engage on the hardpacked sand of the bed itself. No advantage of slope to either side-until the tide shifts. One way or the other-no, do not think-

A new reverberation trembled through the ground now. Deeper, rolling, ominous.

From the dust, between the Awl wedges, huge shapes loomed, rumbled forward.

Wagons. Awl wagons, the six-wheeled bastards-not drawn, but pushed. Their beds were crowded with half-naked warriors, spears bristling. The entire front end of each rocking, pitching wagon was a horizontal forest of oversized spears. Round-shields overlapped to form a half-turtleshell that encased the forward section.

They now thundered through the broad gaps between the wedges-twenty, fifty, a hundred-lumbering yet rolling so swiftly after the long descent into the valley that the masses of burly warriors who had been pushing them now trailed in their wake, sprinting to catch up.

The wagons plunged straight into the face of the Crimson Rampant heavy infantry.

Armoured bodies cartwheeled above the press as the entire saw-tooth formation was torn apart-and now the bare-chested fanatics riding those wagons launched themselves out to all sides, screaming like demons.

The three wedges facing the heavy infantry then thrust into the chaotic wake, delivering frenzied slaughter.

Bivatt stared, disbelieving, then snapped, Artisan heavy, advance down at the double, crescent, and prepare to cover the retreat.’

The aide beside her stared. ‘Retreat, Atri-Preda?’

‘You heard me! Signal general withdrawal and sound the Crimson Rampant to retreat! Quickly, before every damned one of them is butchered!’

Will Redmask follow? Oh, I’ll lose heavily if he does-but I’ll also hit back hard-on the plain. I’ll see his bones burst into flames-

She heard more wagons, this time to her right. My other advance-‘Sound general withdrawal!’

Horns blared.

Shouts behind her. ‘Attack on the baggage camp!

Attack-’

‘Quiet! Do you think the Edur cannot deal with that?’ She prayed Brohl Handar could. Without supplies this campaign was over. Without supplies, we’ll never make it back to Drene. Errant fend, I have been outwitted at every turn-

And now the sound behind her was rising to challenge that in the valley below. With sick dread, she tugged her horse round and rode back, past the signallers’ platform.

Her remaining reserve units had all wheeled round, reversing their facing. Seeing an officer riding between two of the squares, Bivatt spurred to catch him.

‘What in the Errant’s name is happening over there?’ she demanded. Distant screams, the reek of smoke, thunder-

The helmed head swung round, the face beneath it pale. ‘Demons, Atri-Preda! The mages pursue them-’

‘They what? Recall them, damn you! Recall them now!’

Brohl Handar sat astride his horse in the company of eight Arapay war leaders, four warlocks and the Den-Ratha K’risnan. The two thousand foot soldiers-Tiste Edur warriors, categorized in Letherii military terms as medium to light infantry-were arranged into eight distinct blocks, fully caparisoned in armour and awaiting the word to march.

The supply train’s camp was sprawled on a broad, mostly level hill fifteen hundred paces to the west, the corralled beasts of burden milling beneath dust and slowly drifting dung-smoke. The Overseer could see hospital tents rising along the near side, the canvas sides bright in the morning light. Above another hill, north of the train’s camp, wheeled two hawks or perhaps eagles. The sky was otherwise empty, a span of deep blue slowly paling as the sun climbed higher.