The Last of the Etela, Chapter 6

...wherein shit jumps off, and someone earns a nickname.

Previously on The Shieldbreaker Saga… Kareva got stabby, and everyone has been dealing with the fallout basically ever since.

And now, to quote an all-time great children’s book, “It’s time to battle!”

—

Even after all his time at the right hand of Regez of Led, learning to respect the enemy so as not to be surprised, Miruz was surprised—stunned, really—by what he saw in front of him at daybreak.

He’d seen the bloody business of assaulting fortresses up close and personal a few times now, mostly small earthworks with well-placed traps designed to destroy an attacking force’s will as well as their bodies.

But he had never seen anything like this mountain. The view of it in the firelight last night hadn’t done it justice. No man could have imagined something so perfectly suited for defense. It was miraculous: a plateau two hundred feet high, almost completely surrounded by nearly vertical jagged red rock. The impossibly steep walls would be a nonstarter for all but the most agile climber. There seemed to be only one viable path to the summit, and besides the distant bristling of weapons where that path ended he could also see sunlight glinting off of metal along the way—spikes of some kind, driven into the ground.

Probably the blades of old enemies who had tried to take this mountain from them.

And at the base of the mountain, feet from the entrance to the path, stood three rotting corpses with cut throats, tied to three more of those long spears to keep them upright. Either a sacrifice to their vicious gods, or another message to the Pohyor from their crazed butcher chieftain, using a few men he didn’t like as the conduit.

These people were animals.

He turned back towards Oreik, standing a few feet behind him, looking at the same hill with the same obstacles. Why the hell was he smiling?

“Alright. We’re going up.”

Some invisible string broke. Miruz’s mouth dropped open. “You’re joking. You must be joking. We have to wait.”

Oreik turned to him abruptly. “What did you say?”

Miruz stepped closer to Oreik and lowered his voice to a whisper. “You rushed us here into the middle of nowhere, not thinking about how long our supply lines are getting. The men are tired and hungry and footsore, and they’ll be cut to pieces! You can’t tell me you don’t see how strong their defenses are, and you haven’t even sent scouts to see what else we’re up against! You’re about to get hundreds of men killed needlessly. I don’t know what the hell you’re thinking. We need to wait for your father to get here and let him decide what to do.”

Oreik stared at Miruz for a second, his anger building quickly. “How dare you? If I feel like it I’ll send you up first!”

Miruz never broke eye contact but gently laid his hand on the dagger at his belt. “You won’t live long enough to get the order out. I’ll take my chances explaining myself to your father. Don’t test me.”

Oreik seemed to lose his nerve for an instant, but then his smirk returned to his face. “I never took you for a coward, Miruz. It's a battle. Men die. You can stay down here and wait to report to my father if you want. By the time he gets here I’ll have their leaders’ heads on their own spears to present to him as a gift.” He turned away from Miruz and took a few steps back towards the camp, raising his voice towards the mass of warriors behind him. “Do you see those men up there? My father—your Khogon—has ordered their deaths. I will personally reward every man who kills one of them!” He scanned the crowd and pointed at the first commander he recognized. “Bhorda Hakkar, you and your tribe will have the honor of making the first assault.”

Bhorda nodded impassively.

Miruz shook his head, angry and disgusted but unwilling to take the final step into open mutiny. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. This will be on your head,” he murmured from behind Oreik. He had no choice but to assume that the warlord’s son was, again, not listening.

—

Bhorda, Khogon of the tribe of Hakka, was no fool. He had been helping Miruz quietly slow this march down for two whole days. If he wasn’t completely confident that Oreik was a fool, he’d be wondering if his men were being sent up first as a punishment.

He had been watching the two commanders intently in the moments before Oreik addressed the horde, and he was almost certain he’d seen Miruz’s hand reach for a weapon as his mouth moved. He’d have given almost anything to know what passed between them—almost as much as he’d have given to see Miruz gut the ignorant little shit in front of them all.

Where the hell was the warlord? Overseeing the herding of our horses, was that where he’d said he’d be? Was he really content to sit back and let his son proceed as he saw fit? Was this some kind of political maneuver, or just sheer overconfidence?

He heard a scream a few ranks behind him, and the men all shuffled to a stop. One of his boys must not have seen one of the deeper-dug spikes sticking out of the rubble. The agonized wail sounded like someone suffering from an impaled foot. This was a nightmarish way to start an assault. He took a deep breath and bellowed back towards his men. “Come on, you bastards! We can’t sit here waiting to grow old and die on this damned mountain! Keep marching! We have men to kill!” Then he started moving again. He wasn’t the type of chieftain who would be content leading from the rear. His men knew it, and would go where he went.

The spikes seemed to appear more frequently up ahead—and sticking further towards the middle of the path. He raised his hand to call for attention. “Tight together! Ranks of five!”

He heard the rearrangement going on behind him. A few hundred more feet ahead the path would curve to the right, and though he couldn’t see them now, he knew that was where the enemy was standing.

Part of him wanted to tell a few of his boys to try to climb up the face of the ledge right here and now to get a better look—it was only ten or fifteen feet up at this point—but as tired as they already were, and as smooth as the rock face felt to the touch, it surely wouldn’t amount to anything. Best to just get on with it.

The enemy’s strategy was clear enough: force him to narrow his ranks enough that they could attack his men from three sides at once at the top of the path. He’d play right into that: he’d have his men form a wedge and try to break their center at full speed. They’d go into a run as soon as they hit the curve.

—

Kareva looked out across the field over to the ledge where he and Alakuz had placed their archers. Two men lay flat and silent at the front of the ledge, watching the first ranks of the Pohyor advancing up the path below them. Harila ul-Toruk had the rest of the detachment lined up twenty paces back from the edge to make absolutely sure they weren’t seen. No one would fire until Kareva gave the signal.

Kareva looked to his left and his right, down the line. Four of his twelve captains were here with him—all in the front line, as their honor and prowess demanded. The Hodrir did not elevate men to the position of Ohta simply for their intelligence and leadership: they had to be better fighters than their peers, too.

On the far right of the line stood Metan ul-Aravan and the Pehtur. That was the standard they’d chosen for themselves, as a reminder of their history, and a promise to make the most of their opportunity to redeem themselves.

Metan noticed Kareva looking in his direction and grinned. Being back among warriors had clearly improved his spirits. Kareva smiled and nodded to him.

Halfway between Metan’s posting on the end of the line and Kareva’s spot at the very center stood Edren ul-Edren with his Kamar, their faces all ceremoniously coated in red dust from the pathway up the mountain. At the center-left, Georz ul-Zimion stared forward, stonefaced, head shaved cleanly again this morning to match all of his Kaljur. Georz’ two similarly-shorn sons Katuz and Tarav stood flanking Kareva in the very center of the line; Alakuz had recommended them for the honor of guarding him in the battle line’s most visible and dangerous place.

Kareva looked to the end of the line and made eye contact with Turan ul-Toruk, commanding the leftmost company, eyes wide, doing his best to control his breathing. Turan was the first Ohta in recent memory to be raised up without the benefit of any actual combat experience. He had not even had time this week to decide on a battle standard for his warband. Kareva’s first thought was to use Turan’s company to cover his brother Harila and the archers, but Turan had begged him, on behalf of all his men, to give them the chance to prove themselves immediately.

All of these warriors surrounding him were fearsome. In all, Kareva was grateful for these past eleven days spent among them, sparring with them, planning and training for this battle with them. Talking with them. Getting to know and like them. It might have been silly to bother doing so now; they all would die on this rock, today or tomorrow or the next day. But either way, he was proud to be in their company.

—

Bhorda hit the curve and shouted “Wedge!” He broke into a run and heard the first several ranks follow him. The spikes were sparser up here. He fixed his gaze on the man in the black robes in the very center of the line. That must be their leader: he would be the first man Bhorda of the Hakkar killed today.

Suddenly the warrior in black dropped to one knee and lifted his sword in the air. It was clearly a signal. Bhorda felt his blood run cold as he wondered what was going to happen next, then he felt a crunch as the full weight of a collapsing warrior hit him in the back of his leg. His knee buckled under him and he cried out in spite of himself as he crashed to the ground, then went instinctively still as he saw three arrows strike the gravel inches in front of his face.

Then two more of his men landed on top of him. One of them was holding his sword at just the wrong angle as he fell.

—

Satisfied that the first volley had completely broken the momentum of the wedge, Harila shouted, “Fire at will!” He and his archers moved to the edge of the plateau and began loosing arrow after arrow at the backs of the ranks passing beneath them.

—

Kareva made no sound, but simply launched himself forward at the stumbling remnants of the wedge.

The first man he came upon was still regaining his balance and had only enough time to look up before Kareva’s blade slashed cleanly through his throat. The invader’s weapon fell to the ground and he dropped to his knees, then fell face-first into the dust. Kareva didn’t see that; he was already past him, parrying a spear-thrust and turning behind the man who had delivered it to slice into the back of his neck. He kicked a third man in the ribs; that man fell backwards into his own fellows and disappeared in their mad scramble to recover some semblance of order. Another blade flashed in front of Kareva’s face. He caught it on the black steel of his father’s sword, knocked it to the side of him, then lost track of the man wielding it as his comrades crashed into the Pohyor line with an ear-splitting roar.

He saw Metan-Ohta, somehow steps ahead of his company, take on two of the Pohyor at once, laughing and screaming his defiance. Both Pohyor fell before him, though one of them managed to cut deep into Metan’s arm as he was being run through. The old man grimaced as he lunged forward to take on a new challenger.

Directly in front of Kareva, Georz’s sons were hewing a path through the leaderless, panicking mob of Pohyor trapped between them and the archers’ ledge. Kareva stepped forward to work with them, swinging his weapon to sweep aside their enemies’ increasingly ineffectual attacks and opening them up to counters from his guards’ spears. An enemy shield collided with his shoulder, knocking him off-balance for an instant, but Katuz ul-Georz speared the man holding the shield and got in front of his master, giving Kareva a second to recover himself. Kareva patted him on the shoulder as they pressed forward.

—

Inaz and Metoz screamed along with the other archers, keening out a vicious, bloodthirsty joy as they fired into the unprotected masses of the enemy. They could see the Hodrir shield wall closing down the pathway, smashing the Pohyor’s faltering front ranks, scattering what was left of the wedge and driving the remainder of the attacking force backwards towards the curve. They saw a few Pohyor fall screaming to their deaths a couple hundred feet below. A few others resolved to stand and die fighting, making wild lunges which glanced off the Hodrir’s shields and laid them open to the spears of the second rank. Most had already turned and run away—and crashed right into their own comrades, pushing forward to try to get away from Harila’s archers.

No one who got close to the Hodrir camp was to make it down the hill alive. The Oproz had made that very clear. This first encounter had to make a statement.

—

As he saw the spearmen readying to finish off the last few Pohyor in the gap, Harila called, “Hold!” and his archers ceased fire, cheering lustily along with their comrades across the gap. Ironically, it was the narrowness of the path that saved the tribe of Hakkar from complete annihilation: only about half of Bhorda’s men had advanced far enough to put themselves into Harila’s crosshairs. The rest hurried back down the hill now as the defenders jeered at them.

—

The last Hakkar warrior in the gap died bravely.

Atan had tripped and been knocked to the side in the initial chaos, hitting his helmeted head on the rock wall and losing his senses. Now he came to and noticed the eerie silence. He looked around and saw all of his comrades strewn across the pathway up to the plateau. Then he looked behind him at all the dead men behind them lining the pathway full of arrows.

They killed everyone. Which meant he was next.

He looked up to see lines of the enemy standing before him. A few steps ahead of all of them stood a young man with strange eyes, dressed in black robes and holding only a sword of black iron. He looked too young to be their leader, but he must be. They all deferred to him.

Atan stood. His head was swimming. He dropped his shield.

“No need for that,” he heard the warrior in black say. “You look like you need all the help you can get.”

A few of the men behind him chuckled.

Atan braced himself, then pointed his sword at his opponent and launched himself forward clumsily, a lurching, ungainly lunge that he chided himself for even as it became clear that it wouldn’t matter.

The black-robed warrior’s sword whipped across his vision at lightning speed, knocking Atan’s blade to the side and then whirling back around to plunge into Atan’s chest and through his back. Atan gasped as he slumped against his killer. He was so young, younger even than Atan had thought. There was no expression on his features, no emotion at all in those strange, pale eyes, no joy or gloating, no rage or relief. He simply held Atan’s gaze as his last breaths shuddered out of him.

“You have my respect,” the boy whispered. Then he pulled the blade out swiftly. Atan was dead before he hit the ground.

—

Kareva closed his eyes briefly and took a deep breath, then turned back to his men.

“Did we lose anyone?”

Turan, covered in blood, answered first. “None of mine, Oproz.” A few of his men nearest him clapped him on the shoulder. He had been ruthless in this first exchange, and the rest of his men had simply followed their training. They were warriors now.

Edren ul-Edren stepped forward. “Two of the Makar are with our patroness, Oproz. They died well and have nothing to fear.”

“I have no doubt of it, Ohta. Anyone else?”

Georz ul-Zimion was the next to answer. “Four of mine, Oproz. One of them was hit by a stray arrow from the ledge.”

Kareva spat. Needless deaths were the worst possible omen this early in a battle. “Shit. How about your men, Metan?”

Metan called back from his end of the line. “One of mine, too, Oproz. Turan Whitehair, son of Uskol. He tripped over a body in front of him and took a spear through his throat. Pretty sure he was the one who’d killed the man who tripped him, though.”

Kareva came over to inspect the scene. Turan ul-Uskol’s eyes were open; he looked surprised, and he was still holding the spearhaft that killed him with his right hand. Kareva pulled the spear out of the dead warrior’s throat as gently as he could, waiting for the last of Whitehair’s blood to spill before he knelt to close his mouth and eyes. Then he looked up and noticed that Metan’s right arm was hanging loosely to his side. He seemed barely able to hold onto his sword.

“He died well, at least. How’s your arm?”

Metan did his best to smile through gritted teeth. “Which arm do you mean, Oproz?”

Kareva smiled back and nodded his respect. “Forgive me, Ohta. I’m clearly mistaken. Go get some rest with your men.” He turned to the rest of the men and raised his voice. “The enemy will be back shortly, I imagine, with more men and a better plan. Ohtar, rotate with your companies according to the lots you drew. Get some rest. We may need you again before the end of the day.” He touched his right fist to his chest. “Well done, everyone.”

The men raised their fists to their chest to salute him back. Metan, Kareva noticed, could not.

—

“What the hell happened up there?” Oreik was pacing angrily back and forth in front of one of Bhorda’s Ravat’r, the only ranking officer to survive the assault. He was on his knees with three spearblades pointed at him: one at the back of his neck and two at his hamstrings. “Who authorized you to order your men to fall back? It surely wasn’t me, and I know Bhorda’s too goddamned tough to retreat after fifteen minutes of fighting!”

The doomed man’s eyes never moved from the ground in front of him. “Bhorda’s dead, my prince. Half our men are dead. Their archers were firing at us from behind, and the boys couldn’t turn their shields on that thin pathway or they’d all have fallen off the mountain. If we’d kept attacking, not one of us would have come back.”

“And so you decided to run away.”

Miruz turned his head away, snorting his disgust. Oreik whirled around, face darkening with rage. “Do you have something to say?”

Miruz contemplated taking a step forward into the personal space of his master’s son and forcing him to back down. But to do it in front of witnesses would be unseemly. He kept his tone even. “If you punish this man for retreating from an impossible attack, his people will never forget it. And then the tribe of Hakka will never accept you as their overlord.”

He walked out of the tent unhurriedly, enjoying the thought of the look on Oreik’s face behind him. To hell with him if he wasn’t going to take advice.

“Wait.”

Miruz turned. Oreik still looked furious, but was trying to get control of himself. “What do we do now?”

Miruz looked down at Bhorda’s man. “Why don’t we start here: cut him loose, and have him tell us what he saw.” He knelt down close to the Hakkar officer to untie his hands and smile at him. I just saved your life, and now you’re mine. “Spare no detail.”

—

Alakuz stood with the second rotation of warbands in front of the gap. A few of the boys had had the idea to start pushing the dead Pohyor off the cliffside and down into the enemy camp, but Alakuz put a stop to that. The more obstacles the next advance faced, the better—especially ones that would sap their morale.

He caught a glimpse of Kareva and Turan-Ohta standing next to Turan’s brother Harila, who commanded the archers. He took a second to feel a bit of satisfaction: Kareva had done well for himself in his first real taste of battle. It had been smart to let him command the line for that first encounter, give him a chance to take full advantage of their trap and let the men’s confidence in him grow. This next fight would almost certainly be rougher on everyone involved.

—

Oruz, Khogon of the tribe of Led, grimaced. “He wants us to go up next?”

“You’ll want to make a roof of your shields on the way up,” continued Miruz. “They have archers stationed on a ledge that gives them an easy look at the back of anyone moving towards the summit on that path.”

“Miruz.”

Miruz shrugged. “You heard the warlord, clear as I did. His son speaks with his voice until he arrives.”

“And we can’t wait until he gets here?”

“I recommended that we leave it until tomorrow, but he wants to press the attack immediately.”

Oruz looked hard into Miruz’ face. “Can I speak plainly with you? Seeing as how we’ve known each other a little while now?”

Miruz gestured for him to continue.

“I’d have no problem sending my tribe up there if my cousin were on hand giving the orders for the warlord.”

“I know.”

“There’s no way we can delay?”

Miruz shook his head and lowered his voice. “I’m with you. I mean, I understand. I slowed us down as much as I could while we were on the march, but it’s his first battle and he wants to make sure he gets credit for winning it.”

Oruz snorted. “The boy is a fool.”

“Yes he is. And he’s already frustrated and looking for someone to punish for his mistakes…” Miruz tilted his head just so. “And you know how he feels about Regez.”

Oruz looked down and sighed. “That’s why it’s us. Damn him.”

Miruz put an enormous arm around the chieftain’s shoulder. “The Hakkar captain I talked to said it looked like there were even fewer of them than we thought. Just make sure your men keep their shields up and close together on their way up the last part of the pathway. Let their archers waste arrows on the tortoise-shell, and when you get enough men through the gap to make a proper shield wall, just use your numbers to shove them backwards until you gain the summit. I’ll make sure the warlord knows who actually got the job done for him.”

—

Alakuz saw the problem developing before the enemy’s new force even hit the gap. “Makava!”

His runner pushed through the few ranks separating them. “Yes, Ohta!”

“Go raise up Mikal ul-Zalan and his company. Have them bring all the long spears we have left and set up on the ledge on our right flank. The enemy are going to have numbers. We need to keep them from getting around us.”

“Yes, Ohta.”

“Repeat it, Makava.”

“Summon Mikal ul-Zalan and the Angh-Ner, have them bring all the long spears they can find and set up on the ledge on our right flank.”

“Good. Go. Uskol-Ohta!”

Uskol ul-Sakara stepped forward from the right end of the line. “Here, Ohta!”

Alakuz beckoned him closer and lowered his voice slightly. “They’re going to come straight for you to try to cut the rest of the line off from the plateau.”

“Best of luck to them. We will not be pushed back.”

Alakuz nodded his appreciation and saluted. “May the goddess know you and your men by your black shields and smile on you today.”

Uskol-Ohta smiled grimly and saluted back. “The Dazvar-Muz will have nothing to fear when we go before our patroness. Until we meet again, my friend.”

“Until we meet again.”

—

“Damn it.”

Inaz grimaced as another arrow stuck fast into the tortoise-shell of the Pohyor’s overlapping dark-blue shields, each painted with a strange-looking white tree.

Metoz turned his head towards his linemate. “Have you hit any of them yet?”

“Don’t think so.”

“Shit. Me neither. Ohta!”

Harila-Ohta ran over towards them again. “Still no luck?”

“No, Ohta.”

“Nobody else, either. They’ve got those big shields covering them all the way to the rock wall.” Harila looked around quickly for something heavy to throw down onto the advancing column, but nothing caught his eye. He looked down at the enemy again, frustrated. “Once they get enough men through the gap cleanly, the front line is in trouble…I’m going to get the Oproz. Keep looking for an opening until I get back.”

—

The first ranks of the tribe of Led bridged the gap and quickly fanned out across the space in front of the barbarian shield wall, with two ranks facing backwards and forming a screen with their large, rectangular shields to protect the rest of the contingent from arrows while they formed their battle line. Five or six hundred men could fit comfortably, Oruz thought, and they could use their strength and size to shove the barbarians back and make more space for reinforcements.

—

Alakuz muttered curses silently to himself, second-guessing his decision not to advance a few more yards and make the enemy attack with only a few soldiers at a time. Where the hell were Mikal-Ohta and all those long spears?

He drew his sword and raised his voice. “Shield wall.”

Behind him, four Ohtar repeated his order at a roar. “SHIELD WALL!”

The clash of steel against the iron bosses of several hundred shields got Alakuz’s blood up.

Let them come.

—

Oruz looked behind him to his left and right to satisfy himself that his men’s backs were covered, and shouted, “Take them!”

With a roar of their own, the warriors of the tribe of Led rushed forward.

—

Inaz relaxed his bowstring and spat, frustrated. “I can’t see over those shields! We’re more likely to shoot our own.”

Metoz shook his head. “Gods help them. Where the hell is the Ohta?”

—

Kareva grabbed Makava as he was turning to follow the Angh-Ner back to the ledge. “Might be better for you to sit this next bit out, yereka. It’s about to get rough.”

The runner pulled his arm away instinctively, before remembering who was in front of him and dexterously turning his gesture of defiance into a salute. “I’m of age, Oproz. I can take care of myself.”

Kareva shook his head. “Alakuz-Ohta and I need you and the other runners alive and whole to get orders back and forth. You know this. Stay at the back of the line. I command it.”

Makava’s chin drooped for a split second, but he recovered. “Yes, Oproz.”

Kareva clapped him on the shoulder. “I promise you’ll get your chance to fight a few northerners. There’s plenty of them.”

“Oproz!”

He turned at the sound and frowned. The captain of the archers was not a welcome sight this early in the battle. “Harila?”

“We’ve got a problem. They all came up with these big shields overlapped over their heads and we can’t find a target.”

“Shit. How big?”

“Big enough. No use trying to shoot through them. And there’s really nothing around that’s heavy enough to throw down at them, either.”

Kareva looked away. “Damn it. Makava?”

“Yes, Oproz!”

“Don’t go anywhere just yet. Did Alakuz say why he needed the Angh-Ner?”

“He needed them up on the ledge with the long spears to cover the entry to the plateau. Something about not letting them get around.”

“Harila, are they already over the gap?”

The roar of charging warriors a few hundred yards away answered the question before Harila could.

“What are your orders, Oproz?”

Kareva thought for a moment. “Makava.”

“Yes, Oproz!”

“Raise up the Limavar and the T'kar-Kulta and have them get to the front line as well. And have everyone else get ready just in case. Tell Metan he’s in command until I get back.” He turned to Harila. “Get back to your men and tell them to be ready. I’ll join you there shortly.”

—

Uskol ul-Sakara thrust his sword into the enemy line again, hitting his target expertly. He grunted with satisfaction as he sawed the blade out and pulled it back to go again. He let his eyes drift to his right flank for a moment; he had told Alakuz his line would not move, and so far it had not, but the Ra'an Ohtar had been dead-on about the enemy’s strategy and he had no doubt that his end of the line was under worse pressure than anywhere else.

He lifted his shield up slightly to deflect a sword-thrust, saw a spear jab down from behind him, and heard a scream as it found its mark. Then he gasped as he felt a sharp pain shoot through his planted left leg below the knee. He felt a muscle snap and recoil, felt his leg give. He was powerless to stop his body from toppling over it. He felt a sickening wave of pain as his shield boss hit the rocky path, and he looked up to see a man scream in triumph as he lifted his sword to strike a killing blow.

Uskol’s sword caught him through the throat before he had a chance to start his swing.

Got you, you bastard.

Then he felt another sharp pain—through his right armpit, into his chest. He gasped again and felt his mouth fill with blood, and he knew he was done.

He pulled his sword out of his last kill and held it tight as he sank to the ground, noticing for the first time how many of his men were already down there.

—

From his place in the second rank, Toruk ul-Sakara locked eyes with the warrior who had just cut down his twin brother.

Toruk often daydreamed about stabbing Uskol himself, mostly because when they were children, Uskol used to call him “Toruma,” short for “Toruk-ruma” or “Toruk the Ugly.” And when they came of age and joined the same warband, Uskol had made sure the nickname stuck. It didn’t help matters that Uskol was also the better fighter and had been put in charge.

All the same, Toruk would be damned if some northern bastard was going to get away with killing his brother.

He lunged forward into Uskol’s place at the center of the company’s front line and thrust his sword deep into the man’s belly. He heard the man’s anguished scream, roared with victorious rage, and never saw the blade that cut his throat.

—

From where he lay, Uskol felt someone else fall in front of him, and the angle of the body’s descent allowed him just enough time to recognize his brother’s face.

“Toruma. Get up,” he urged him, though all that seemed to come out of his mouth was a wet, wheezing sound.

He lifted his left arm to try to reach Toruk and fell a few inches short.

—

The right flank was at the point of buckling when the birds of prey struck the enemy ruthlessly from above.

Mikal ul-Zalan and the Angh-Ner made it to the ledge just in time to see the Dazvar-Muz line begin to fold in on itself. Mikal-Ohta shrieked his company’s battlecry, startling the enemy beneath him, and rammed his long spear into the throat of a warrior in the enemy’s second rank.

His men followed suit, sounding the call that had annoyed so many of their fellows for so long during mock battles in training, stabbing downward into the backs and necks of the Pohyor tribesmen who were threatening Alakuz’s flank.

Mikal heard some cheers—and even a few (decidedly poor) attempts at a falcon’s screech—from the men behind the black shields whose asses he had just saved. He smirked, supremely self-satisfied, then stabbed his spear downward into his next victim.

—

From his spot in the rear of his tribe’s line, Oruz saw the spearmen appear above his men on the ledge to his left and shore up the flank he had been battering. He cursed inwardly; he needed more room to maneuver on this treacherous ground in order to make anywhere close to full use of his numerical advantage, and it was moving slower than he wanted it to.

He shouted back down the path. “Send two hundred more men up here! We need to keep the pressure on!”

—

Inaz and Metoz stood with their bows in hand, waiting.

Harila-Ohta had said to wait. Wait for the Oproz.

Inaz had no damned idea what that meant, but he could see the shield line moving again beneath him, and it was clear the front line would be in terrible trouble if this kept up.

Suddenly, there was an ear-splitting crash to their left. The two archers’ heads whipped around to look for the source of the sound.

“What the…”

Metoz never finished the question; his mouth dropped open in shock. The shield-roof was open in several places, and screams were coming from beneath it. A few of the shields on the outer edge of the path tipped over and fell off the mountain completely, taking the men who were holding them along for the ride.

Inaz instinctively nocked an arrow and pulled his bowstring back but stopped himself from releasing at the last instant as his mind caught up to his reflexes and he realized what was going on.

Some of their own had just jumped off the ledge onto the enemy’s shields.

—

The easiest man to kill is the one who thinks he is completely safe.

Alakuz’s words echoed in Kareva’s head as his ears rang from the impact and the screams. His sword and knife were hard at work, sawing through the middle-ranks of Pohyor he’d caught totally by surprise on their way to reinforce their fellows.

He had known as soon as Harila said the shields were impossible to shoot through that there was only one way to open their defenses up.

He asked for volunteers—but first he asked for the Daughters of Vei by name. This was a mission that required warriors with a death-wish. Twenty-four men (and, of course, all three women) had joined him.

“No shields. Put on an extra coat of mail if you want, as long as you can wear it and still move quickly. And take two blades. Hell, take an extra sword and put it in your belt, in case you lose one.”

Sivridi had looked at him sideways. “What are we doing, Oproz?”

He raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Killing a tortoise.”

He batted aside another clumsy, panicked thrust with his sword and plunged his dagger into the gut of the man who’d attacked him, twisted it to do as much damage as possible, then punched the man in the chest to use his weight to pull the blade out.

He heard another victorious scream behind him. Sivridi must have gotten another one.

She was standing back to back with him now, her own swords weaving a similar path of destruction. No one wanted any part of either of them. Already he could see the Pohyor soldiers around them pushing and shoving each other in an effort to get out of their way.

If the rest of the contingent were having a similar effect, they’d be able to work their way up to the summit and knock down those enemy shields so the archers could do their jobs again.

—

Turan stood with his brother Harila and his company of archers, watching Kareva-Oproz and his jump partner tear through the enemy soldiers on the mountain path.

He stared at the blades whirling in his chieftain’s hands, and remembered his own bouts with Kareva on the training ground. The Oproz fought like a god. So did the wild-eyed woman he’d taken along with him to go first.

Turan counted himself lucky to be on their side today.

—

Taravi and Uzani were less fortunate.

As she leapt over the ledge, Uzani struck the intersection of four shields perfectly—and fell straight through to the ground. She landed wrong on her left foot, and her ankle broke on impact.

Taravi, who had inexplicably stumbled in the run-up and mistimed her jump slightly, was hit directly in the chin by the edge of one of the shields Uzani had tipped upward. She fell to the ground in a daze several feet from her sister—much farther away than they’d all hastily planned while pairing up on their way to the ledge—and came to her senses while watching Uzani swing her swords wildly in either direction while trying to pivot on her one good leg, already bleeding from half a dozen cuts.

Taravi rolled over into a crouch and bull-rushed her way through the enemy ranks to try to reach her sister, taking wounds to her left arm and right leg in the process, and she saw the light go out of Uzani’s eyes as she lunged at one final enemy and took a spear through her chest. She screamed with rage, charged the man who’d killed Uzani, and ran him through with both of her swords.

The impetus of her lunge drove them both over the edge of the cliff.

—

Oruz looked back again, wondering where the hell his reinforcements had gotten to. The last thing he saw was a stranger with devilish, pale eyes swinging a sword of blackened steel towards his face—and to the stranger’s left and right, the shields that had been central to his plan toppling to the ground.

—

Katuz ul-Uzan saw the rear of the enemy formation shudder from the position he’d taken up on the ledge to watch the action. He wasn’t sure what had changed, but it was clearly time to get his boys down there.

He ran back to rally the T'kar-Kulta, standing at attention fifty feet behind the Hodrir’s battle line, and saw that Aravan ul-Ganruz had beaten him to the punch, and was rousing his Limavar to launch a counter-assault.

“Ohta!” he screamed to get the other captain’s attention. Aravan ul-Ganruz looked up. “Lead my boys in too! I’ll go tell the commander what we’re doing!”

Aravan nodded, and Katuz sprinted down to the line.

There were far fewer Hodrir on the line than before, that was for sure—and the Dazvar-Muz had had a particularly bloody time of it—but on the whole, the Hodrir line was holding steady. Mikal-Ohta’s spear formation on the ledge had done its work. Now it was time to press their advantage.

At the very center, the chieftain’s first sword stood calmly on the front line, stabbing and cutting through the enemy at every opportunity.

“Ohta!” Katuz shouted from a few ranks behind him. Alakuz didn’t seem to hear him. The hell with it. He drew his sword and pushed his way through to where his commander was making his stand.

“Ohta!”

“What is it, Katuz?”

“Something’s happening at the back of their lines! We need to counter-attack.”

“Our men are pinned down here.”

“The Oproz sent my men and the Limavar to the line to back you up if you needed it. I want to—” Katuz parried a thrust from a Pohyor sword and stuck his own blade into the offending party’s chest. “Sorry, I want us to take our companies and push them back from the right. Do I have your blessing?”

Alakuz looked up. The tall shields that the enemy had been holding up were gone, and the archers were loosing arrows from the ledge again. He grinned. “Go! Have your men shout when you’re ready to charge and I’ll throw everyone forward.”

“Yes, Ohta!”

—

Freed from the visibility constraints the enemy shields had placed on them, Harila ul-Toruk’s archers wasted no opportunity to shoot down routing Pohyor soldiers as they raced away from the summit.

Between shots, Inaz hit Metoz on the shoulder again, still buzzing with excitement.

“Can you believe he did that?”

—

Kareva felt an arrow zip past him as he cut through another enemy with his father’s sword. The more he used it, the more it felt like his. The Pohyor were breaking now; it felt like there were more men running away from him down the hill than there were still in front of him. He saw another sword fly at his face and parried instinctively, spinning under his own blade and letting his momentum carry his dagger-arm toward his assailant—who caught Kareva’s arm on his own, grabbed him at the elbow, and pulled him forward to open his torso for a thrust…

He recognized that move.

Now the man had stopped pulling his arm and was screaming at him in a frenzy. “What the hell are you doing down here? I could have killed you!”

He smiled at his mentor and embraced him. “It’s good to see you too, Alakuz.”

Around him and behind him, he heard the clangor of sword upon shield, and a chant beginning to rise. The men on the front line must have recognized who had come to rescue them.

“OHH-PROZ! OHH-PROZ! OHH-PROZ!”

—

In the midst of the celebrations, Sivridi paced quietly, looking around the summit for any sign of her sisters, trying to escape her gnawing suspicion that they’d left her behind.

—

Go to Chapter 7

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The Last of the Etela: Table of Contents

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