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delighted in the carnage it was wreaking. The
peculiar metal, forged for so long and with such
love by the smithy high on the snowbound slopes
of Fujiwara, appeared to glow a deeper blue-green
and the desiccated flesh of the deathshead
warriors sizzled where it cut through to the white
bones.
Inhuman jaws with their pointed fangs clashed
upward at him and the luma reared to take him
out of danger. The hissing of the globes increased
until it sounded like the onset of a swarm of
famished locusts as the enemy jammed about him,
trying to bring him down.
Moeru and Bonneduce the Last, both mounted,
were fighting their way across the plain and now
they grabbed their reins, kicking into their steeds'
flanks, racing for the river crossing.
The sleet increased to a driving, pelting rush as
hard as hail. It rattled off the armor and weapons
of the warriors. And now even the shouts of the
victorious and the screams of the dying were but
muted background sounds to the clashing of metal
upon metal and the hideous drum of the chilling
sleet.
The banks of the river, muddy with alluvial soil
at the beginning of the battle, ran red and the
bodies of the fallen, dead or not, were ground into
the earth by hoof and boot alike until the
combatants fought on a higher level, battling
across an expanse of shifting, crunching soil
without dirt or grass.
Already strike forces, composed of the
combined Greens and Reds, who were more
familiar with the terrain, had been dispatched by
their taipan to disable the great war machines of
The Dolman. Certainly, it was unlikely that they
would be used once the armies came fully
together but the rikkagin felt it incumbent upon
them to destroy the machines' effectiveness.
Moeru narrowly missed being decapitated by
crashing jaws, slammed her blade down the center
line of the forehead, and the deathshead skull
splintered, blinding her momentarily with shards
of bone and marrow and bits of brain. She felt a
searing pain along her left arm and spun away as
the acephalous body swung again reflexively, the
ranged globe dark in the torrential downpour.
She slipped along a smooth piece of armor
underfoot as she dismounted, the way clogged
with bodies and her horse bleeding from a dozen
wounds. She cracked a skull with her boot. Off
balance, she swung, correcting her weight, her
DAI-SAN 209
sword shearing through the torso of another
warrior. This time, she ducked as the globe hissed
in the air where her head had been. Then she
raised her sword and slew her horse.
Waving to Bonneduce the Last, she waded
through the soldiers and swung up upon his steed,
just behind him. They went forward.
Adrenalin and something more soared through
the Sunset Warrior's huge frame as he moved
further into the enemy's ranks. His immense blade
swung like a blurred scythe, so swiftly that his very
outline dimmed. It ripped through four warriors on
the forward strike, three as he reversed the mo-
mentum, swung the other way.
At his back, the foot soldiers, fresh from
Kamado's gates, broke like a wedge into the midst
of the deathshead warriors.
As Rikkagin Aerent saw the Sunset Warrior
wade into the central attack, he wheeled his mount
and signaled to his remaining cavalry to move out
onto the army's right flank where the defense
appeared weakest. Strange crested creatures were
now directly behind the wave of deathshead
warriors, commanded by the insect-eyed rikkagin.
He spurred his horse along the foaming banks of
the river, the water a high silver spray in the
hissing sleet. He heard the ram's horn sounding
the charge. He leaned forward in his saddle,
lashing at the enemy warriors who climbed out of
the turbulent water. Here they were short muscular
men with no necks and broad backs. They carried
long black metal pikes and thick-bladed
single-edged swords scabbarded at their hips.
Rikkagin Aerent turned in his saddle, shouting
to be heard above the roar about him, attempting
to deploy his men along the near bank, for the
defense was weaker here than he had at first
thought.
A blade flashed over one ear and the heft of a
pike splintered and fell across the pommel of his
saddle. He turned back, cursing, decapitating the
warrior who had tried to impale him. He lifted his
streaming blade to the soldier who had saved his
life, then spurred his steed onward.
The squat warriors and the plumed soldiers
poured up from the river crossing in great numbers
now and Rikkagin Aerent sent two of his men back
up the field for reinforcements.
The foot soldiers were falling back under the
intense assault of the pikemen, giving ground
grudgingly as the wave forced them from the near
shore up onto the field.
"Into the river!" called Rikkagin Aerent, and his
horsemen plunged into the pink water in an
attempt to outflank the
210 Eric U Lustbader
emerging warriors. He used his men as a wedge,
surging horses bodies and flashing horny hoofs
against the solid wall of the pikemen, forcing
them in upon themselves.
His arm grew weary as he lofted his sword,
striking downward over and over, as the squat
soldiers fell beneath his assault.
Seeing the effectiveness of the cavalry, the foot
soldiers rallied themselves under the cries of their
rikkagin, standing their ground, then gradually
beginning to advance upon their foes.
Then over the deafening tumult of the battle,
Rikkagin Aerent heard a muted shout and he saw
a squad of warriors streaming across the river
crossing directly at him. In their midst, riding an
ebon creature that was difficult to look at, he saw
the rikkagin of the central forces of The Dolman.
He was an immense bulk of a man, with
obsidian eyes. Long dark hair swept back from his
temples like the wings of some predatory bird.
Above him and just behind arced two banners,
fresh and whipping in the sleet storm. Straining,
Rikkagin Aerent made out the ensign of silk: an
ebon field with a writhing lizard as crimson as the
flames which danced at its feet.
The Sunset Warrior felt it before anyone else.
Deep within the tangle of metal and flesh, bone
and blood and gore, he tensed. The pressure of
numbers which had occupied him all the morning
was mysteriously giving way.
He looked up. Still the deathshead warriors
streamed across the river crossing, mixing with the
plumed warriors and the pikemen. But now they
came in two lines and their shouts echoed
through the din of banle. They called to each
other and pointed off to their right.
Putting a gauntleted hand to his forehead, he
peered into the distance, downriver. And now he
saw a dark shape
emerging from the sleeting mist. He began to
fight his way to his left, to get nearer to it.
It plunged into the river where the water was
very deep and quite swift, perhaps two hundred
meters downriver from him, directly across from
a jutting headland on the near shore.
He saw clearly the cold orange eyes pulsing
through the snow, heard now its hideous cry
echoing across the rampaging water.
The Makkon.
But he was a long way from that part of the river
and
DAI-SAN 211
though he swung his great blade to and fro, though
he lurched through the heaving sea of writhing,
flailing bodies, he could make little headway, so
packed was the near bank.
The Makkon came on, swinging its wickedly
curved talons. Its beaked mouth opened and
closed spasmodically, revealing its stubby, grey [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]