The Rest of the Story: You can find the complete, uncut version of
Fire, in PDF format,
here. Or you can read the story that's been posted to the blog so far on
this page.
And I return to Gaius's point of view for this chapter.
Chapter 7
Contact
Gaius kept his head close to his horse’s neck, trying to make as small a target as possible. Zephyrus, his grey stallion, could have outpaced the other horses, but he was keeping at the rear for a reason. The Dominus rode beside him, upright in his saddle with his head turned so he could face the oncoming Orcs. Lightning crackled from his fingertips, leaping from Orc to Orc and felling the foremost among them. Unseen blows struck the Orcs with enough force to shatter bones. Invisible barriers caused horses to stumble. Each time the pursuit would slow while the Orcs witnessed the fate of their companions. It would always renew before the humans had gone far. The Orcs’ quick ponies wove in and out of the trees more easily than the Novari’s bulkier horses, and if not for the Dominus they would have caught up by now. They had tried, with their small recurved bows, to take down a few Novari, but none of the arrows hit their mark, instead bouncing off some unseen wall if they neared the Dominus. Gaius wondered why the Orcs continued the chase even though they were losing horsemen and doing no damage. From what Gaius knew of Orcs, stupidity seemed the most likely.
Gaius had to grab the Dominus’s reins several time to make sure his horse kept up, rubbing his hand raw by the time they reached the encampment. The tribune gave a relieved shout at the sight of the ditch and wall fortification. If that barrier, nine feet high from crest to trench, did not stop the charging Orcs, then the legionaries on top of it would. Gaius struggled to bring the Dominus’s headstrong horse into the camp, slowing it from its full gallop in order to get it past the defenses. As soon as he had come to a halt just inside and wiped his eyes to clear them of the burning sweat, he dismounted and held the Dominus’s horse for him to do the same. The Dominus slid from his horse’s back, then staggered before Gaius caught hold of him.
“Are you all right?” Gaius asked, not concerned for the Dominus’s well-being so much as the magic which had kept them alive.
“No, I am not!” the Dominus said, pulling out of his grip. He leaned one hand against his horse, just drawing deep, ragged breaths. The chestnut pawed the ground but otherwise held its place.
“What’s wrong?”
The Dominus turned to look him in the eye. Gaius tried to return the gaze, which was disconcerting since he couldn’t see any eyes, just a faint hint of a face underneath the hood. The Dominus nodded as he came to his decision. “It is considered very poor form for a Dominus to show weakness, but the more you know, the better the chance we’ll survive to worry about my lack of decorum.” Gaius didn’t speak a word, uncertain what he could say.
“A Dominus has limits. It takes energy, mental and physical, to empower Circuits--spells, you’d call them. I... misjudged when destroying the cache. It took more energy than I expected, and now I’m feeling the effects. That, combined with my attempts to keep the Orcs from riding us down...” The Dominus took a deep breath before continuing. “I am at my limits. If I expend much more energy, I may kill myself. I’m not sure what help I can give you now. You’ll have to fight these Orcs yourself.”
“But--”
“You should be fine. Your numbers equal theirs and you have a well fortified position. Unless they have warlocks, you should be able to hold out here.”
Victrinus, done with issuing orders, came over to where they stood. “You should move back from the wall. Any arrows fired our way could reach you here.”
“Victrinus?” Gaius said as they followed him from the camp’s perimeter to the first line of tents. “What is your opinion of our chances?”
“It depends how true the stories about Orcs are. From what I saw, they aren’t as ugly as they say. I hope the rest is true.”
“What else do the stories say?”
“That they’re stupid, without discipline or order. That they attack first, and think second, with no thought for overall strategy or tactics.”
“They didn’t seem too bloody smart when they were chasing us,” Gaius said.
The Dominus spoke to that, “Don’t mistake that mad dash...” He paused to draw a deep breath. “That dash through the trees for a good indication of Orcish tactics.”
Victrinus eyed the Dominus distastefully, but admitted, “They were trying to catch a much smaller force before it could report to a larger one. You take risks to do that. They haven’t rushed to follow us; instead, they’re waiting for the rest of their cohort to catch up. I can’t say what they’ll do now. I wish the histories told more about the Orcs.”
“Histories?” The Dominus had recovered enough of his breath to give his voice the scorn appropriate to his words. “I wouldn’t call them that. At best, they’re self-serving half-truths told by commanders who wanted to improve their image in Novaro. At worst, they’re incomplete legends mixed with a good amount of myth.”
“Are you saying they’re wrong?”
“What else do you think I’m saying? While it’s true that most Orcs are stupid, their leaders are as smart as you, which may not be saying much. Their footsoldiers lack order or discipline, but the commanders have a good feel for overall strategy, and strong tactics won their fair share of battles in the last war.”
“Well, if they’re that smart,” Victrinus said, “neither of our armies will be going anywhere soon.”
“What do you mean?” Gaius asked.
“Any commander worth his pay could see that our forces are pretty balanced. They have somewhat larger numbers, so in an open battle he might risk it. With us in a fortified position, he’d just be throwing away his soldiers. What he ought to do is contain us and wait for reinforcements.”
“How do you know that there are reinforcements?” Gaius asked.
“I saw that supply cache. It was meant for a much larger force than this. Much, much larger.”
“Now you’re an expert on Orcs?” the Dominus asked. “They may not be as stupid as your stories say, but they don’t think like we do, either.”
“I don’t see that attacking this camp with what they have would be very smart, any way you look at it,” Victrinus said.
“Oh, they have reasons. They don’t set the same value on lives that we do. Their ruling class would throw away all of their underlings for a large enough prize. If they have warlocks, they may believe that their magic tips the odds in their favor. Also, I angered them by destroying that supply cache. That will make them furious, and anger, on top of their unreasoning hatred of humans, has led to some bad decisions in the past. Finally, if they know anything about Domini, they may think now would be the best time to attack.”
Victrinus just looked puzzled at that last one, but he nodded. “If they come, we’ll be ready. Commander, we should prepare for an attack. I’ll arm the men with spears to better hold the defenses.”
Gaius nodded. Watching Victrinus at the receiving end of a lesson would have been fun if someone other than the Dominus had given it. Victrinus went back to shouting himself hoarse, ordering the centurions to distribute spears in place of the usual javelins, since these would better fend Orcs from the earthen walls. The Dominus watched without offering any further advice. Gaius stood where he was, trying to look commanding. He itched to be doing something, but he had no idea what. He was a tribune, one of the highest ranking commanders in the Novar legions, but he had no real experience in war. While Victrinus and some of the older men were cutting their teeth in the Agnatius Rebellion, Gaius had only been a child, literally cutting his teeth. His military career, during a time of relative peace, had seen little fighting outside a few skirmishes against bandits and Kawyr, battles where the forces numbered in the dozens. He could understand now why many of the Senators felt that the army had grown soft. If a real war was coming, the Empire stood ill-prepared with men like him in charge.
He could not fault his training. Gaius knew it all in theory: tactics, strategy, leadership. He had led forces of men larger than this one, on patrols and in mock battles. But now, with a real enemy coming and no way to avoid them, his responsibility frightened him. He didn’t want to give the commands telling his troops how to defend their own lives. If Victrinus was willing to do it for him, for once Gaius was willing to let him.
One result of being the commander, even if only in name, was that others with no idea what to do flocked to him. The horsemen, tired from the ride and with no responsibilities in a siege, all clustered nearby. After some thought, Gaius gave the command for them to order themselves. He informed them that they would be the reserve in case the Orcs breached the defenses. They moved to the center of camp, where the thoroughfares leading east-west and north-south crossed to give them easy access in all directions. Gaius paused to take up a good spear before he mounted. They had not found a strong location for the camp, as such did not exist in these forests. Rather than on a hilltop clear of obstructions, the Novari had laid out the camp among the trees, enclosing several in its perimeter. The lines of the camp lacked the precise, straight lines the Novari preferred, the tents giving way to trees in several places and the walls curving around unyielding root systems. Even so, the trees added only a few blind spots to Gaius’s survey of his surroundings. Once in his saddle, he had a good view over the low, mud-streaked leather tents to the approaching enemy. He also noticed the faltering light, as even the slight dappling of sunlight visible on the forest floor dimmed. Those storm clouds he had seen earlier must be directly overhead by now.
He watched the Orcish army gather outside their camp, keeping their distance outside of the archers’ range. The horsemen remained mounted on their agile little ponies. Shaking their bows and shouting at the Novari in a language that Gaius did not recognize, they milled around the nearby trees. Every once in a while, one fitted an arrow to string and let fly, but the shafts never reached the encampment. The Orcs didn’t seem eager to approach the walls. Victrinus had archers ready in case they did, since he felt confident that the longer bows of the Novari would outrange the Orcs’ short bows. They were probably waiting for the rest of their forces to arrive before they attacked. That happened surprisingly quickly and with surprisingly little order. The Orcish footsoldiers did not arrive in a marching column, but instead started as a trickle of soldiers, with the first few to arrive pushing themselves to the head of the horsemen. After some brief argument, the horsemen ordered them to the back of the line. Soon that trickle became a flood, and the bulk of the soldiers took up position behind the horsemen. As the flow of soldiers slowed, some more mounted troops appeared, a few of these wearing blood-red robes.
“Warlocks,” the Dominus muttered, also mounted for a better view.
Gaius looked at him, remembering something from the stories he had never believed. The legends described warlocks as menacing, otherworldly figures with some vague connection to the Orcs, not as the same species. These appeared to be Orcs in red robes.
“Are you sure?” Gaius asked.
“Of course I’m sure,” he replied. The Dominus searched the ranks for more of them. “Just the three. They’re still too many.”
“Can you fight them?”
“This morning I could have dealt with three.” He didn’t sound as certain as the words implied. “Now I’m too tired to stop them from tearing this camp apart.”
Gaius looked again at the three strangely dressed Orcs. He didn’t want to believe that so few could swing the balance of the battle, but he couldn’t escape how much damage the Dominus had done at the Kawyr village. If someone directed that kind of power against the Novar camp, he could level it. “Are you saying we don’t stand a chance?”
“I’m saying that you need to kill them quickly.”
“And how are we supposed to do that?” Gaius snapped. “You’re the one with the damn magic.”
“Stick arrows in them, poke them with swords, they’ll die just like any other Orc. The trick will be getting past the defenses they’ll have against such attacks.” The Dominus heaved a sigh before continuing. “If you tell me when you’re about to attack them, I may be able to penetrate their protection.”
“You think we should go after them?”
“Of course. I suggest you believe me when I tell you they are the most dangerous enemy out there.”
Gaius did not know whether to believe him or not. “How close will the warlocks come?”
“They’ll have to come within range of your bows to attack.”
“Close enough to target them individually?” Gaius asked. At long-range, the archers launched their arrows at formations rather than at individuals. Unless they came much closer, no archer could pick them off.
“I wouldn’t wait for them to come that close. Don’t worry, if you cover the area with enough arrows, you’re bound to hit them.”
Arrows that could break up a charge would have to be spent against three Orcs in red robes. Gaius grimaced at the waste, both of the arrows and of the men who would die in the unhindered charge. While he did not trust the Dominus, Gaius didn’t doubt the man’s self-interest in his own survival. Whatever he did or did not know about tactics, he must have had good reason to fear the warlocks. If nothing else, Gaius now had something to do. He turned in his saddle and instructed the nearest rider to go to Victrinus and tell him to concentrate his archers on the three red-robed Orcs. The transverse crest made the centurions easy to find among the crestless helms of the other soldiers. Gaius had no difficulty picking out Victrinus, who turned from consulting with one of his fellow centurions to speak to the man. The old centurion looked in the direction of Gaius and the Dominus. He didn’t appear happy, but he sent the messenger to the centurions in charge of the archers next.
The noise coming from the enemy had reached a fever pitch as they shouted and screamed at the Novari in their harsh-sounding language. Many of the Orcs were rattling swords on shields, others clashing weapons together. The number carrying a weapon in each hand surprised Gaius. He had seen some Western swordsmen use a light sword and a dagger in tandem, but these Orcs wielded two large swords or axes as though they weighed nothing. Some of the footsoldiers carried large crossbows instead of blades, which, though they couldn’t be anywhere near as powerful as the Novar siege engines which they resembled, could probably punch a hole through Gaius’s muscled cuirass. Though all the weapons appeared well-made, the footsoldiers’ armor looked mismatched and slapped together. The horsemen had armor as good as their weapons, sturdy breastplates over mail, all covered by colorful tabards depicting stylized emblems. One Orc with an upraised saber sported a red falcon on a white background, while a nearby Orc drawing his bow showed a broken arrow on his tabard. Gaius saw one with a black winged lizard which he thought might be the mythical dragon. He wondered just how mythical it was.
The amount of scrambling around suggested an imminent attack. Officers herded footsoldiers and horsemen alike. It didn’t look easy, since the Orcish army seemed more interested in snarling at the humans than in whatever their officers said. Despite that, they drew up with disconcerting speed. Gaius tightened his grip on his spear and wondered whether their fortifications could hold against that mad mob. Without any discernible signal, the mass began to move forward. The small ponies outpaced the foot, but rather than rushing the fortifications, the horsemen split and flanked the camp while the foot surged between the two wings. Gaius knew it for a wise move, as the ponies wouldn’t have made it over the wall. His real attention focused on the warlocks, however, and they rode forward at a stately pace, letting the footsoldiers stream around them. Though the foremost soldiers had entered bow range, the archers held their fire. A few more moments passed before Victrinus signaled and the archers drew their bowstrings to their chests, aiming upward for maximum distance.
The arrows left the bows too late to break up the first charge. Even as they reached their apex, the first Orcs reached the walls. Novar spears thrust down into the milling mass, killing any who started to climb the wall, but the Orcs kept coming. Gaius pulled his eyes away to watch the falling arrows, all focused around the three red figures. At that range, the archers had little accuracy, so only a few came close to their targets. Gaius watched in amazement as the arrows approaching one Orc exploded into flame so that little more than ash remained by the time they struck the ground. The Orc seemed unperturbed by the ashes that settled on him. The sight so startled Gaius that it took him a moment to realize that the arrows targeted at the other two Orcs had found their marks, and two warlocks lay unmoving on the ground.
The fierce fight continued at the walls. Shouts and screams rang through the camp as Orcs slipped past the spear-wielding men in the front ranks. The Novari behind those ranks, armed with short swords, dispatched them before they got far. Meanwhile, archers began to launch their arrows into the crowded Orcs still beyond the wall. Orcish archers launched their own volleys, but most of them, aimed high to avoid their fellow Orcs, flew over the heads of Orcs and humans alike to land deeper into the camp. Some came uncomfortably close to Gaius.
Zephyrus caught some of Gaius’s impatience as the tribune watched his men fight and die. He patted his horse to calm him, but that did little to relieve his own tension. Though he chafed to do something, the smart, responsible thing for him to do was to wait with his reserve. He hated being smart and responsible.
Gaius had begun to consider jumping into the fray anyway when the Orcs withdrew, leaving behind a massive number of dead. His own men had fared better, with only a few casualties. He should not have found that surprising. Gaius knew that Novar soldiers fought well, but he had still expected them to come off worse than they had. Taking advantage of the respite, the centurions sent the more seriously injured men to the Philosopher physicians.
“You didn’t do us much good,” he said to the Dominus, sparing a moment to look in his direction.
If he could have, Gaius would have taken his words back. For the first time, he could see the Dominus’s face, a human face. Gaius wasn’t shocked to see that the all-powerful Domini were human, since he had never believed the stories that said otherwise. What did shock him was the condition of the face, drawn tight across his skull and pale as ivory, made even paler by contrast to the dark hair plastered to his forehead. His breath came in gasps as he swayed in his saddle, and he didn’t even flinch as Gaius reached out a hand to steady him. With considerable effort, he looked at the prince and replied in a hoarse whisper, “You should be dead. It’s only because of me that you aren’t.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I killed two of the warlocks--” Gaius must not have hidden his skepticism because the Dominus’s gaunt face twisted into a sneer. “Yes, your arrows did the actual killing, but it was I who penetrated their defenses. That last one was stronger than I expected, though, and he beat back my assault. Since then...” He drew a breath that made his whole body shudder. Gaius could feel his arm trembling beneath the black sleeve. “Since then, we have been dueling. He’s launched attack after attack that would have leveled this camp, and I’ve been fending him off. I haven’t been able to hurt him... I’ve barely been able to stop him.”
“I haven’t seen any sign of this duel,” Gaius said, careful not to sound too unbelieving.
“The first sign you’d have seen of it would have killed hundreds of your soldiers. Do you think I’m lying to you?”
“If that’s what you’ve been doing, how much longer can you hold off this warlock?”
“I’m too weak to fight him anymore. My next attempt will leave me either dead or unconscious.”
“And then what will happen?”
The Dominus looked towards the attackers. “That one’s strong. His fight against me has worn him down, but he’ll still be able to turn the battle in their favor.”
Aside from a few burning arrows, Gaius had not seen any sign that these warlocks had any power at all. Dozens of his men had already died because he’d redirected the archers. Dozens was better than hundreds, however. “Can we stop him?”
“Can you train your arrows on him again?”
“That didn’t work before. What makes you think arrows will kill him this time?”
“If I wait for him to attack, I can breach his defenses while his attention is elsewhere. We’d have to let him go through with his assault. He’ll probably destroy part of the fortification and the men defending it as well, but we’d be rid of him after that.”
“You mean you’ll let him destroy our wall and kill those hundreds you claim to have saved?”
“Just give the command!” the Dominus hissed. “That’s all you have to do! Telling your archers to shoot at him won’t get any of your men killed. Let me decide how to fight this warlock. Believe me, if I go down without killing him, you will lose this battle.”
“Having my archers hold their fire until something happens could get lots of my men killed, and if something does happen, that gets lots of my men killed. Neither of those sounds good to me.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
“Yes. Rather than have the archers wait just in case the warlock does do something, we’ll let them do their job. That way they may break up the charge.
If the warlock does attack, they can target him then.”
“If your archers don’t fire the moment he attacks, they may be too late. I’m not sure how long I can keep his defenses down.”
“They’ll be quick enough.”
“They better be!”
“I’ll go tell Victrinus myself,” Gaius said as he kicked his horse into a trot.
Finding Victrinus proved simple. The crested helmet and silvered armor marked out all six centurions, but Victrinus alone rode his horse, rushing back and forth along the defenses and shouting orders at the top of his lungs. He reined up when he saw Gaius coming. “You shouldn’t be here,” he said. “A mounted officer will draw their fire like nothing else.”
“I don’t see you walking,” Gaius returned. Besides, the Orcs’ shortbows couldn’t reach this far. He hoped that applied to their crossbows as well.
Victrinus grunted. “What’s up? That Dominus get another marvelous idea?”
“Yeah, he wants to target the warlock, that Orc in red robes, again.”
“My archers could have launched several flights into that main charge while they were waiting for those warlocks to come into range. You tell that black monster that I’m not going to waste any more arrows trying to hit one Orc.”
“I’m not your messenger boy, Victrinus. I’m your commander,” Gaius said. “If I ordered you to target that warlock, and only that warlock, would you do it?”
“It’s a bad idea,” Victrinus growled.
“Would you do it?”
“Yes, I’ll do it! All the soldiers killed by this foolishness will be on your head, though!”
Gaius blinked. He’d won an argument he hadn’t meant to have. How had he managed to talk himself into doing what the Dominus wanted? “Er, that’s not necessary.”
“So you still know how to listen to sense. That’s good.”
Gaius felt his ears burning. What good did it do to win an argument if you immediately had to back down? “I meant that I wasn’t ordering you to target the warlock.”
“If you say so,” Victrinus said.
“Damn it! I’m telling you I--oh, never mind! Look, the Dominus thinks the warlock is going to do something. Whatever it is, you’ve got to give your archers orders to fire at him as soon as it happens.” Seeing Victrinus getting ready to argue, Gaius added, “They can shoot at whatever you want them to until then.”
“So they only have to target the warlock if he does something, huh? I can live with that. What’s he going to do?”
“I don’t know. Something magic directed against our fortifications, I suppose. I don’t know what it’ll look like.”
“I’ll tell them to start shooting at the warlock the moment something weird happens,” Victrinus said. “Is the Dominus going to be able to stop him from hurting us?”
“I don’t think he can. He’ll make it possible for us to kill the bloody warlock, though.”
“After the fact. Well, we’ll manage.” Victrinus hurried to another centurion, whom he sent scurrying off. Gaius returned to his reserve force.
After that, they could do nothing but wait. In less than half an hour the attack came, Orcs rushing the walls yelling and screaming while their archers, afoot and mounted, shot over their heads. The legionaries readied themselves to receive the new assault, but they could not defend against what happened next. Just as the onrushing Orcs neared it, a length of the wall exploded. The earth shook in response as the sound deafened Novari and Orcs alike, and the charge shuddered for a moment as Orcs were knocked to the ground. The attacking wave had too much momentum to be stopped by a mere explosion, however, and oncoming Orcs trampled over their fallen brethren. The Novari took longer to recover. Those still standing stared at the dirt and smoke billowing into the air, mercifully swallowing up the remains of the soldiers who had manned the destroyed section of wall. Only Gaius could hear the Dominus muttering, “Hurry! Kill him now!” The tribune had reached out to take his trumpeter’s instrument from the man’s white-knuckled hands, thinking he would signal the bowmen himself, when some of the archers remembered their orders well enough to fire their arrows in the direction of the warlock. Others recalled themselves at this display, and within seconds, a storm of arrows fell upon the warlock.
Gaius didn’t wait to see whether the arrows struck home. He had seen Victrinus disappear in the explosion, and the Dominus had slid from his horse just seconds after the archers opened fire. Everyone who could tell him what to do was gone. He would have panicked if he had had the time. A gaping hole had opened in the defenses, and he had command of the reserve force: what he had to do was clear. Gesturing to his trumpeter to sound the call to his men, Gaius put his heels to his horse’s flanks and charged towards the opening. Victrinus would have had fits at his breaking formation without even looking to see if the remaining horsemen followed, but the centurion must have died in the warlock’s magic, and sometimes you had to lead by leading. He just hoped his men didn’t trample the Dominus. Zephyrus, named after the west wind, surged forward with a speed undiminished by the morning’s flight. The grey quickly reached the Orcs funneling through the crater left by the warlock’s magic. Gaius just had time to see that some of the Novar legionaries were regaining their senses and hurrying to the defenses before he closed on the first of the Orcs to climb out of the crater. Gaius’s spear drove through his chest before the Orc could react.
Trying to pull the weapon free while galloping past the dying Orc resulted in a snapped spear. Gaius cursed his luck as he reversed the spear to use the spike on the other end. Orcs swarmed all around him, cutting him off from the other horsemen, none of whom had managed to keep up with their tribune. He stabbed wildly with his shortened spear while his horse kicked and bucked, nearly unseating him several times. Zephyrus had the sense to fight an enemy, but not enough sense to watch out for his rider at the same time.
Gaius spun about, stabbing at everything green. The spear tip dripped crimson with Orc blood, which was as red as that of humans. Only his higher position and the longer reach of the broken spear allowed Gaius to keep the mob at bay. Even so, he took several blows on his small circular shield. He twisted in his saddle, urging the horse to spin as well, as an Orc armed with a long spear rushed at him from behind. It wasn’t going to happen: Zephyrus could not or would not turn fast enough. Gaius could clearly see the spear, but he could not bring his body around to block it. He threw himself forward in the saddle, knowing even so that his back was too large of a target for the howling Orc to miss...
The Orc fell just a few feet short of him, a Novar javelin in his back. Paulus followed with a group of less than twenty soldiers. He gave his commander a grin that would have looked confident if it hadn’t been so sickly. Gaius fell back behind the men as they formed a double line, large shields held high to offer better defense than their banded armor. At Paulus’s signal, they ploughed into the Orcs, stabbing from behind their shields. To Gaius, they looked like farmers harvesting grain: systematic, efficient, and unhindered by the enemy.
The tribune noticed the oncoming rider just in time. The mounted Orc carried a long sabre and wore a fine steel breastplate mostly hidden by his tabard, which bore the black dragon emblem that Gaius had seen earlier. A half-full quiver of arrows hung from his saddle, but he had no bow. Gaius’s first good look at one of the Orcish ponies showed him a black stallion as fierce as any war-horse, stockier, but not round or soft-looking. The rider appeared different from the other Orcs Gaius had been fighting, his skin paler, his face fine-featured. The footsoldiers had overlarge noses and small eyes. This one looked too beautiful for the snarl he now wore as he gave his war cry. With a shout sounding something like “Behmweerthen,” he charged the soldiers from behind, heading straight for Paulus.
Gaius had fallen back over a hundred feet behind the soldiers in order to survey the battle and determine what needed to be done, taking a position to the right of the line while Paulus anchored the flank on the left. He didn’t have the angle to meet the charging Orc head on. Instead, he reversed his spear again and hurled it like a javelin. The spear had never been weighted for such use, and breaking it in half hadn’t helped. Its wobbling flight missed the Orc by a foot, but its passage just in front of his face broke his charge as he pulled his pony up short. The tribune had his sword out and his horse moving. The Orc moved faster than he expected, however, and his small pony had turned to meet the young commander by the time they made contact. Gaius’s higher position should have given him the advantage, but the Orc aimed at the horse rather than the rider, leaning forward and chopping at the tall gray’s leg. Zephyrus, still smart enough not to sacrifice himself, danced aside, causing his rider’s own sweeping sword to go wide. The Orc’s pony spun faster than Zephyrus, and Gaius nearly took the sabre in his gut as his grey turned to find the Orc already there. The horse’s cleverness worked in his favor as Zephyrus leapt forward so that the blade passed behind Gaius. Rather than turning, he charged forward, hoping to gain enough distance to come about safely. A quick glance over his shoulder showed that the need had passed. The Orc had vanished.
He pulled his horse to a halt and looked around. The Orcs who had poured into the gap were fleeing now, and they did not stop once they passed beyond arrow range. The Novari had routed them. While Gaius saw plenty of mounted Orcs, they now outnumbered the remaining footsoldiers. Hundreds of green bodies lay where the wall had once been, slaughtered by the disciplined Novar troops. Leaning forward to pat his horse, he closed his eyes and wished for a little sleep. Gaius had no hope of fulfilling it, since he couldn’t sleep with the cold water running down his back. He wondered when the light, steady rain had begun.
This has been a 5,654 word except of my 90,110 word novel,
Fire. A total of 37,154 words have been published on this blog so far.
This is the first battle scene I've ever written. I tried my best to be historically accurate, but after sorting through half a dozen mostly contradictory books, I decided I needed to just go for it. It's more about the personal experience than the details of the tactics, but I don't think I messed it up
too badly.
