CHAPTER FIFTY NINE

Looking down at the Murak's battle formations, Chaldez searched for their commanders, Cregitzig and Jaejisir, and thought he saw them riding around with their mounted entourage. Unlike Sigmar they had no vantage point from which to direct their army, He watched for a while, and then his attention was drawn to a body of foot soldiers, with spearmen to the fore, on the gentle slope below his position. They were either there to attack him and carry out the flanking movement feared by Sigmar, or their intention was defensive. He thought with wry pleasure of how galling it must have been for Cregitzig to have arrived on the battlefield to discover that a potentially powerful position on his own flank was already in the enemy's possession.
Beyond the formation facing him were laid out the Muraks' main forces, and as his gaze swept over them he was reminded of the limited use which they made of horses, allowing only priests and nobles to ride them. He could see that there were, in fact, clusters of horses here and there, but they were riderless and he dismissed them as insignificant.
The enemy's leading ranks were composed of spearmen, who, in the absence of cavalry, would provide the initial thrust. From his campaigns in the Karandi war he knew how formidable they were likely to be. Protected from Sigmar's archery by their shields, they would hope to break up the infantry formations prior to the start of hand-to-hand combat when the Murak battleaxes and fearsome two-handed swords would come into their own.
How could he have thought that the Muraks would be overcome with ease! He felt ashamed of his ignorance and embarrassed at the way he had displayed it in front of Regdag and Saminad.
The Murak's signalled their attack with a strident blast of horns and a great shout. The front rank of spearmen rushed towards the stream.
Chaldez, his insides churning, held his breath.
A cloud of arrows arched from the hillside, and as it descended he noticed that there were yet more archers among Sigmar's infantry beyond the stream. They were shooting directly at the advancing spearmen, and bringing them down in clusters. The Murak's were confounded, not knowing whether to use their shields to protect themselves from the arrows coming straight at them, or from those falling on their heads. In desperation they started throwing their spears, only to see them fall far short of the enemy lines. Even as their charge failed, the next rank ran forward, and so it went on, but at no time were Sigmar's foot soldiers seriously threatened.
A large central section of the Murak army began now to advance, bringing on itself the deadly portion being served up by Sigmar's archers. Chaldez could no longer see what was happening, but sheaves of arrows continued to rain down, and he supposed that many must be finding their mark.
The advance continued, slowly but inexorably, and soon he could only guess where the stream lay; the whole area, right up to where the cliffs began, was covered by a seething mass of men locked in combat made deafening by shouts and the incessant clash of steel. Saminad's cavalry swept down from the high ground where it had been stationed, charging into the Murak's embattled flank, and afterwards, an occasional flight of arrows from the hillside suggested that some enemy formations could still be distinguished by the archers.
Engrossed by what was happening on the battlefield spread out below him, Chaldez was suddenly aware that the issue was being decided without him and he wondered whether he should attack the formations which were still opposing him lower down the hillside. It was a hard decision because his relatively small force stood the risk of being wiped out if the Muraks turned on it in strength.
He was considering what he ought to do when the decision was taken out of his hands. The formations facing him began to move up the slope. Gemle sent a company of archers forward, and Chaldez knew that he was repeating the tactic used by Sigmar. The forward archers would shoot straight into the advancing ranks while those who had remained in position farther up the hillside would lob their arrows at them.
Timing was of the essence and Gemle, whose pupil in matters of archery Sigmar had often admitted to being, got it exactly right. The archers decimated the Murak spearmen, but the survivors kept on coming, and behind them were the fearsome infantry with their swords and battleaxes.
Gemle's archers began to retreat from their forward position, and Chaldez ordered Abrikal's horsemen to attack at will, and streaming away from their position, they galloped across the front of the Murak column, letting fly their arrows from the saddle. It was a spectacular sight, and one which the Murak's would never have seen before. Backwards and forwards rode the horsemen, sewing death into the Murak ranks. Chaldez took no part in it, his horsemanship being inadequate, but from where he was sitting he was able to judge the right moment for the next phase. At his shouted command, the horsemen veered away and up the slope. There they formed three “archery” lines so as to carry out the manoeuvre they had learnt at Sigmar’s encampment in the Ix Valley: the front line let fly their arrows, retired to the rear and were replaced by the second line which did likewise so that barely had their arrows landed among the advancing Muraks than another volley was let loose by the third line; those in the first line were now ready to shoot again, the successive volleys keeping up an almost-continuous rain of arrows.
The Muraks’ advance stalled, and now Chaldez ordered the horseman to draw their swords and charge, and possessed by the thrill of the moment, he was there among them, his sword raised.
The Muraks in their path scattered, and as they did so, the Sairish infantry advanced at the double.
All Chaldez's concentration was focussed on delivering sanguine punishment to the Muraks; his sword had hit flesh and bone so many times that it no longer registered with him, and for a while he was unconscious of the impending danger. Briefly isolated, he reigned in his horse and saw that the battle on the hillside had turned into a route. It was a moment of potent triumph, but only a moment because almost immediately he realised that if the Sairish foot soldiers were not restrained they would rush headlong into the Murak forces which were not yet engaged in the main action. He tried to block them, and seeing Tsem close by, he called out for his help and together they tried to make the other horsemen steer the infantry away from certain death.
It was hopeless. Excitement was generating its own furious momentum, and the exultant infantry careered onwards, to discover too late that they had gone too far. Their quarry was transformed, bewilderingly, into assailants, and Chaldez could do nothing but watch as they were overwhelmed. Sickened, he was on the point of turning to ride back up the slope when a line of monstrous horsemen came charging towards him from the Murak ranks. Where they had been lurking he had no idea, but they were approaching at full gallop, and he stared at them in disbelief. They were inhuman, with grotesque heads, tall and thin from which flowed streams of black hair. Huge eyes were clearly visible, and he could see their gaping mouths. Some held aloft tridents on long shafts, and others grasped slender lances set with twin axe heads below their glinting tips.
In trying to save the doomed infantry, Chaldez had ridden well beyond the range of Gemle's archers, and the Murak horsemen were closing on him with such speed that he was sure he would not reach the protection of the archers before he was caught.
Tsem, a little farther up the slope, was as stunned as he by the awful sight of the charging Muraks. He thought they were a horde of demons, and would have fled if concern for Chaldez had not overcome his terror. Sheathing his sword, he reached for the bow which he carried across his back, and he promptly planted an arrow in the chest of one of the leading horses in the Murak charge. It reared up, throwing its rider to the ground.
His action, and the sight of the rearing horse and thrown rider, had an instant effect on Abrikal's horsemen who had also been gripped, until that moment, by fear and indecision.
On seeing the Murak charge their instinct had been to save themselves, and some had indeed turned and galloped up the slope towards the trees. The rest stayed where they were, terrified but unwilling to abandon Chaldez who was in even greater danger than themselves. Since the taking of the Shymosdak stronghold he had been more like a god than a commander, and his destruction would have been intolerable.
Encouraged by the effect of Tsem’s arrow, they let loose their own into the Murak horsemen, bringing several down.
There was no time now to shoot again, and Chaldez spurred his horse back up the slope, shouting at them to follow him.
The others of Abrikal’s horsemen were now arranged in their archery lines, which opened as Chaldez and those with him reached them. They had just enough time to release a couple of volleys, then those who were now in the forward-most line drew their swords and galloped downhill straight into the on-coming enemy. As they did so, the remaining lines of horseman evolved rapidly into a series of arcs which would eventually form complete circles, the horsemen with their swords facing outwards like the spines on the back of a hedgehog. As the arcs took shape, some of the horsemen dropped back and fitted arrows to their bows. They were joined by other horsemen who had initially ridden away in fear.
The first line had meanwhile met the Murak onslaught, slowing it down, but at terrible cost. And in the midst of the mayhem was Chaldez.
Many of his horsemen were swept out of their saddles by the Murak lances and then pierced by thrusting tridents. Chaldez fought wildly. He had no clear idea of what was happening. Every moment he expected to be impaled as he blindly slashed the air. There was desperation in each wild stroke.
A voice near him shouted in Laifyan "Zakarrah! Zakarrah! I am here."
The speaker was a man whose name Chaldez did not know, but his great size made him instantly recognisable. He wielded an enormous sword, and his sweeping strokes forced the Muraks closest to him to back off. By manoeuvring his horse around Chaldez he cleared a space, giving Chaldez his first opportunity to assess what was going on. But just when the battle was coming into focus for him a Murak lance was thrust deep into the giant Laifyan's side below his raised right arm. Bellowing, the wounded man reached across with his left hand, and before his assailant could pull the lance away, had grabbed it and tugged it so violently that the Murak was pulled forward and sideways, and within range of his sword. It descended in a bone-splintering arc.