Heirs of Empire

He jerked out of his shock and wheeled his mount. The branahlk squealed in protest as his spurs went home, then bounded forward with a teeth-rattling jerk. He had to warn High-Captain Ortak! He—

Something cracked behind him, and he didn’t even have time to scream as the rifled pistol bullet smashed him from the saddle.

“Sir, the relief column’s been sighted.”

High-Captain Ortak looked up and smiled at his aide’s report.

“Well, thank God for that! Call for my branahlk. High-Captain Terrahk deserves to be met in person.”

“Did you hear something?” Sergeant Kithar raised his head, ears cocked, and glanced at the man beside him.

“In this rain?” The trooper gestured at the water drumming from the eaves of their rough roof.

“It sounded like a shot…”

“You’re joking, Sarge! It’d take a special miracle to get a joharn to fire in this stuff!”

“I know, but—”

Kithar was still gazing out into the rain when Folmak’s lead company stormed into the picket’s rear area.

“Folmak’s taken out the picket.”

Sean nodded as his com implant carried him Sandy’s voice.

“Anyone get away?” he subvocalized back.

“I don’t think so. It’s hard to be sure with so many people moving around in the rain, but I don’t see anyone headed away from the picket.”

“What’s Folmak doing?”

“Rounding up POWs and shifting into assault column to hit the bridge. Don’t worry, Sean. He knows what he’s doing.”

“So far, so good,” Folmak murmured, then raised his voice. “This is what we came for, boys! Follow me, and from here on out, make all the racket you can. Let’s make these bastards think the ‘Cragsend Demons’ are here to eat ’em all! First Brigade, are you with me?“

“Aye!” The roar almost blew him from the saddle.

High-Captain Ortak dismounted, handed his reins to an orderly, and tried not to scurry as he hurried for the shelter of the bridge tollhouse. The under-captain commanding the bridge traffic control detachment jumped up and saluted, but Ortak waved him back into his chair.

“Sit down, sit down!”

“Thank you, Sir, but I prefer to stand.” The bridge commander was a very junior officer, but he knew better than to sit in the presence of a high-captain, whatever the high-captain in question said.

“Suit yourself, Captain.” Ortak stood in the doorway, peering into the gloomy afternoon. He could just make out the head of Terrahk’s column at the far end of the bridge, and he wondered why they’d stopped in the rain. Were they dressing ranks for some sort of parade?

He frowned. The rain and the rush of river water around the bridge pilings filled his ears, but that didn’t keep him from hearing the cheer. What in the world—? Were they that happy to be here?

And then, suddenly, the relief column lunged forward onto the bridge, and High-Captain Ortak stared in horror as it swept over the half-dozen men watching the far end of the span. Bayonets flashed in the rain, musket butts struck viciously, and the high-captain went white, for he could hear the voices clearly, now.

“Malagor and Lord Sean!” they howled, and twenty-five thousand men stormed into the Guard’s undefended rear behind their screaming war pipes.

“That’s it!” Tamman snapped to High-Captain Ithun. “They’re hitting the bridges now. Get the columns formed!”

“At once, Lord Tamman!”

Ithun dashed off, and Tamman’s enhanced eyes swept the entrenchments facing his position. There was no movement over there yet, but there would be soon. Now if only they’d pull enough off the parapets to give him an opening!

For the Yortown survivors, it was a hideous, recurring nightmare. They’d seen their formations smashed at Yortown, watched that wall of fire and smoke grinding down from the north behind the terrifying Malagoran yell, and known—not thought; known—they’d faced demons, but somehow they’d escaped. They’d fallen back, dug in, waited for the demon-worshipers to sweep over them, and as the weeks passed, they’d come, slowly, first to hope and finally to believe it wouldn’t happen after all. They’d stopped the heretics, held them, and at least their rear was secure if they were forced to retreat again.

But now their rear wasn’t secure. They’d spent days preparing bivouac areas for High-Captain Terrahk’s column, chattered in their relief, swapped lies and rumors about what would happen next, only to see the forces of Hell do it to them again. Some evil sorcery had transformed their reinforcements into rampaging demons that stormed into their positions in a solid, deadly mass of bristling bayonets and the terrible, shrieking war pipes of Malagor.

Surprise was total, High-Captain Ortak was nowhere to be found, and officers floundered in shock as the first, incredible intimations of disaster reached them. Folmak’s brigade slammed over the bridges and butchered its way across the closest encampment. Guardsmen looked up from routine camp tasks to see eighteen hundred screaming maniacs scythe into their position, and panic was a deadlier weapon than any bayonet. Cooks and drovers scattered, half-naked men erupted from tents and lean-tos and fled into the rain, officers shouted in vain for their men to rally, and Folmak’s riflemen swarmed forward like some dark, unstoppable tide.

Here and there a handful did rally around an officer or a noncom, but there were too few of them, and they were too stu

“They’re hitting us in the rear, I tell you! My God, there’re thousands of them!”

High-Captain Marhn stared at the gasping, half-coherent officer. Impossible! It was impossible! Poison-raw terror quivered deep inside, yet he’d been a soldier for over thirty Terran years. He didn’t know what had happened to High-Captain Ortak, and he couldn’t even begin to guess how the heretics could be behind Erastor in strength or what had happened to High-Captain Terrahk, but he knew what would happen if this attack wasn’t crushed.

“They’ve already got the bridges!” The officer was still babbling his terrified message. “We’re trapped, Sir! They’re going to—”

“They’re going to die, Captain!” Marhn barked so sharply the officer’s mouth snapped shut in pure reflex. “We’ve got eighty thousand men in this position, so stop howling like an old woman and use them, curse you!”

“But—”

Marhn whirled away with a snarl of disgust just as Captain Urthank, his own second-in-command charged up, still buckling his armor.

“What—?” Urthank started, but Marhn cut him off with a savage wave.

“Somehow the demon-worshipers got ’round behind us. They’ve taken the bridges, and they’re advancing fast.” Urthank paled, and Marhn shook his head. “Get back there. Send in the Ninth and Eighteenth Pikes. You won’t be able to hold, but slow them up enough to buy me some time!”