Arcanum Part 94

Their voices had been bludgeoned into silence. Buber wasn't sure he could even speak any more. Nikoleta's flames had been part of her, extending from her body. Thaler's were different: impersonal, chemical, mechanical. Nikoleta had targeted her fury, while Thaler merely pointed his roughly in the direction he wanted it to go, and had little choice who it struck.

Clovis's Franks were another five stadia back from the wooded ridge. He wished he was there with them, or with Cohen's Jews, deep in the forests with their steep valleys and thick walls of rock. Instead, he had this thin place that lied about the amount of cover it could provide and the depth of defence it offered.

Worse than the noise was the antic.i.p.ation. The certain knowledge that when the ground stopped moving and the air fell still, whoever had survived would surge up the via. He half-wished it would come soon, while the other half of him hoped it never would.

There was one moment when a stray ball had hurtled through the wood at them. It cleared the crest of the ridge and struck a tree-trunk at mid-height. Where it hit, the tree vanished in a cloud of whirling white splinters that flew in all directions. Those underneath had barely started to recover when the crown of the severed tree descended like a giant's fist.

Buber lost someone to that, someone who couldn't get out of the way in time, who couldn't quite believe that they were going to be crushed by half a tree that had appeared out of nowhere.

They even managed to die quietly, so as not to give away their position.

After that, the initial sharp crashes and subsequent rushing of wind grew closer. The earth shivered and shook, and debris repeatedly lifted up on the far side of the ridge to patter down on their heads.

Buber pressed his cheek to the p.r.i.c.kly leaf mould and begged for it to stop, but it didn't: instead, the cry went up as dwarves started to clamber over the ridge, stunned, shocked, seeking shelter, and finding only Carinthians with spears and bows and swords.

Up, up, he thought as he hugged the ground. Around him, the figures huddled behind trees and in hollows started to stir, and he knew he had to be among the first to rise, if not the first. Certainly the first to the ridge line, sword drawn, to fall on whoever dared cross it.

He struggled up and shook his head free of confusion and of that G.o.ds' awful sound. Starting forward, he steadied himself against another man who'd reeled into him. It was as though they were drunk dizzy and incompetent from the barrage.

Some deep breaths of the tainted air. Hints of slate and copper and pine made him spit. Up through the trees, towards the top, he unsheathed his sword.

The dwarves came in a trickle, all across the long low line. They hadn't expect anyone to be there and oppose them, but fleeing from Thaler's bellowing had simply pushed them against Buber's force.

While all around him, his men picked off dwarves in their ones and twos, Buber faced off against a weary, pale-faced thing with barely the strength to swing its axe any more. It toppled forward as the huntmaster stepped back, its momentum overbalancing it, and it lay there face-down in the ground as he drove his sword through its unprotected back.

His blade was red. And instead of the bloodl.u.s.t rising within him, he felt only pity.

More blundered over the top to escape the bombardment, and the lee side of the ridge degenerated into a series of brief, brutal encounters in which Carinthia invariably held the upper hand.

Another sh.e.l.l went astray and filled the translucent air with stinging shards of metal. The dwarves, with their backs to the blast, seemed to fold to the ground, as if it were a blessed relief. The men who faced it staggered back, some bleeding from wounds that just opened in their flesh.

The horn on the Roman tower called. And again. Thaler's barrage ceased and left a numb silence hanging over the smoke-streamed woodland. Buber shouted for an advance, and hoped enough had good ears to hear him. He loped up the shallow rise to the top of the ridge, and looked down the other side.

G.o.ds. The trees looked like they'd been chewed, fresh white wood exposed everywhere from blasted branches and torn trunks, and in among the debris were dwarves, scattered over every patch of ground, and not just in the first few feet of the trees, but all the way across the road to the marshes on the far side.

Thousands of them, wading through their own dead, tripping on and over them, grimly levering themselves over fallen logs and fighting their way through severed boughs.

His soldiers took the ridge, and, like him, stared down at the shifting, groaning ma.s.s, moving like oil and covering the land as thoroughly.

Why wouldn't they give in? What spirit possessed and animated them? Any human army would have fled the field long ago, and yet they were still trying to head north, to take the tower, take the bridge and take the road to Juvavum.

He stared at them, trying to make sense of it, when he thought he saw a face he already knew. It couldn't be Heavyhammer; he was dead already by Buber's own hand.

Which meant this was a face he'd seen during his audience with King Ironmaker. Now he could see it: the finer armour, the better weapons, the remnants of coloured cloaks. Ironmaker's thanes. And Ironmaker himself, behind those stout bodies and thick shields.

He was the cause of this madness. His death would be the end of it.

Buber looked down his own line. They were waiting for him. Very well, then.

"Ironmaker! Ironmaker!" His voice was unmistakable, his sword pointed at the knot of dwarves where the king was hidden. "Do you yield?"

The shields shifted, and now Buber could see him clearly, his crown welded to the circ.u.mference of his helmet, sharp points undulled.

"Yield," screamed Buber.

His answer came quickly enough. Ironmaker roared his defiance and the pole bearing Felix's head was raised up behind the dwarvish thanes, turned to face the ridge, shaken at the men gathered there.

Buber charged as the dwarves surged up towards them. He started to cut his way towards where the dwarven king stood, and he wasn't alone. Every Carinthian wanted to do only two things now; kill the king, and get their prince back. They converged on that point, a wedge of spears with Buber's sword forming its point.

The left roared, and Cohen's Jewish centuries pressed in. The right ululated, and Sophia's men came down the road in a spear wall, pushing and stabbing.

But it was in the centre that the fighting was fiercest. The Franks had followed Buber to the ridge, and Clovis realised it would be disastrous to lead his horses into such a chaotic crush.

Proud and vain, he nevertheless ordered his sergeants to dismount, and they joined Buber's thrust, his men with longswords and oval shields, and himself with a singularly unsophisticated and ungentlemanly mace.

The dwarves' defence began to falter. They were so close to each other that they were finding it difficult to swing, and so exhausted that they had little strength to elbow themselves some s.p.a.ce. Every time one of their fellows was cut down, the net around them closed tighter. Buber, lost completely now in the frenzy of slaying and slaughter, stepped on the eviscerated, punctured bodies of the dead to get to his next target, slashing and striking, forehand, backhand, while spears darted out to his flanks, killing all who came in range.

He raised his sword, brought it down, cut deep into a shoulder, raised it again but the dwarf was already falling. He pushed it instead into another bearded face and felt it grind against bone and metal. Pulling it back, he cut up into an exposed armpit, near enough filleting the joint. Bright blood spurted out; the dwarf crumpled, taking Buber's sword-point with it. He would have been left open to a counter, but the dwarves were now running from his onslaught.

As they turned, they ran into their rear ranks still trying to advance. And they fought each other.

The dwarvish army collapsed in a ripple spreading out from Buber; a ripple that turned into a wave, washing backwards through the dwarves' constricted, cramped ma.s.s. They broke, and headed towards the only place that offered any respite: the river.

Buber found himself running to keep up with them, at the head of a surge of Carinthian spears and Frankish swords. The way ahead suddenly cleared, and there was the dwarvish elite, exposed like a rock amid melting snow. He trampled the bodies and launched himself into the air, leaping and screaming, his sword a bright stripe over his head. His feet landed square on an angled shield, breaking the wielder behind it, and his sword howled down until it ground against compacted gristle and bone.

Similar impacts collapsed the shield wall: men throwing themselves and their weapons against it, running and jumping and crashing through with their full weight behind their sharp blades. The bearer of the pole carrying Felix's head looked to his left and right and found no way out. The edge of the wood was at his back. The ditch, via and marshland stood between him and the water, but the way was already being barred as the flanks closed in to meet.

He abandoned his trophy and tried to run.

Buber, dragging his sword free, was aware that the pole was starting to topple, that it was significant, that there were only two thanes left, that they were on the verge of victory.

None of that mattered while Ironmaker still lived.

He hit the shield of one thane so hard that he shattered the rim and split the wood all the way down to the boss. That he also severed the dwarf's arm was incidental: his sword was stuck fast.

He lifted it all sword, shield, arm and threw it at Ironmaker. It hit him square in the side of his head, knocking his hammer from his grip, his crowned helmet off his head, and forcing him to one knee. Buber was right behind it, his few fingers tightening around the king's neck and his thumbs across his throat.

The remaining thane that might have stopped him was dragged down by Clovis before he could drive his axe between Buber's shoulders, and was swiftly run through by an ordinary Carinthian spearman.

Ironmaker beat at Buber's hands, then started to claw at his face. Buber ignored him, concentrating on crushing the hard lump of windpipe. There'd be more scars, more damage, more ruin. His blood dripped down into the king's beard, his mouth, his nose. The scratching and gouging grew weaker. It was now like the batting of bird's wings against his skin.

Buber pushed, and, at last, something gave. Ironmaker's hands fell back. His chest heaved, once, twice. Then he shuddered and was still.

The dwarf stared out of his white, lined face with eyes of deepest brown, and Buber let go only with difficulty.

He felt himself undo, an unravelling of such profound completeness that it was all he could do to roll off Ironmaker's body into the torn woodland undergrowth. He pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, resting his savaged cheek against his b.l.o.o.d.y breeks.

A hand rested on his shoulder for a moment, mailed and heavy. Clovis's moustache had lost all of its former grandeur and now resembled a pair of rats' tails hanging down the sides of his mouth. His own face, from the brow of his helmet to his chin, was speckled with drying scabs.

"It's done," said the prince.

Buber nodded mutely. If he never had to do it again, it would be too soon. Men drifted past him, touching his back, his shoulders, as they carried on to the via and the marshes beyond to watch the remnants of the dwarvish army fall and splash their way through the open pools and mires of mud, then topple into the river.

Someone several someones found Felix, and pulled the sharpened poll from under his chin. A Frankish sergeant took off his surcoat and wrapped the head in it before resting it on the ground at Buber's feet.

Buber looked up sharply, and stopped gnawing at one of his finger stumps.

"It would be better coming from you, Master," said the man, and Clovis, still standing beside Buber, agreed.

"This is a Carinthian grief. We can only watch."

Everything ached. He hurt. His face, his hands were cut and bleeding from wounds he didn't even remember receiving. Nevertheless, he got to his knees and slowly picked up the blue-wrapped bundle.

It was surprisingly heavy, and he had to hold it close to him while he steadied himself to stand. Willing hands came down and pulled him up, and he acknowledged their a.s.sistance with a grunt of pain.

There was barely anywhere he could tread that wasn't on one of the dead, and it took him time to pick his way into the open. The ditch was full he had no option but to step on the bodies there then it was up to the via, its stone surface ripped up and thrown aside. Sophia's spears were strung out along the road, leaning on their weapons or sitting. Sophia herself was viewing the dwarves' progress into the river with concern.

"Get Clovis's cavalry across the bridge to Master Thaler's position," she shouted, and Aelinn took off towards the woods, past Buber.

When she saw what he was carrying, she faltered, then ran on. Perhaps she was glad she'd not be present when he handed Sophia the head of her dead prince.

Sophia grew deathly still as Buber approached her. She knew what he held, he could see that. At least he wouldn't have to explain to her. Her spatha, notched and bent, slipped from her fingers to rattle on the stones.

She was cut, too. Nicks on her forearm, a gash on the side of her head that ran from eyebrow to ear. The side of her face was as b.l.o.o.d.y as his.

There was no protocol for this. He simply didn't know what to do, and it was clear that neither did she. He had Felix's head clutched to his chest as though it were a newborn baby, his arms cradling it, his hands wrapped around it to protect it from further harm.

They met like that, in the middle of the via. She put her arms around Buber and held him, put her face against his neck, pressed the head between them and wept for the child they had both lost.

100.

Agathos was shouting something from his rickety tower, but Thaler was too deaf to hear him.

"Curse the boy, can't he be clearer?" He waggled his little finger in his ear, and Tuomanen frowned at him.

"He's perfectly clear. He's saying 'nanoi', and pointing at the river."

"Nanoi? Little ... dwarves. Coming this way?"

"Yes, Master Thaler, and we're almost completely unprotected."

"Who knew they could swim?" he muttered and set off at a lumbering run toward the tower and Morgenstern's table. He put one hand on his hat, the other waved his unicorn-horn stick. "Agathos, Aaron. Come away from there at once."

Morgenstern was calmly closing his books and stacking them in the crate at his feet, while the boy waved manically at Thaler and jabbed his finger at the near bank.

"Despotis! Nanoi!"

Thaler, red-faced and sweaty, strode up and struck the table with his walking-stick's bra.s.s ferrule.

"Yes, yes. I can see that. Down off there now." He pointed firmly at the ground. "Aaron, leave that."

Morgenstern ignored him and carefully laid another book in the crate. "I have spent literally weeks of my life tabulating these figures, and I will not leave them behind."

"G.o.ds, man. They'll kill us if they reach us, and neither of us is likely to outrun one of them."

"I don't have to outrun them, Frederik," said Morgenstern, picking up his calculating circle, "I just have to outrun you."

"Oh nonsense, man." Thaler banged on the table even harder. "I insist you come with me at once. What would Sophia say if she were to lose you as well?"

Agathos swung himself down the tower, making it sway alarmingly as he climbed, and Morgenstern managed to stop thinking about his books for a moment. Thaler took the distance-pipe from the boy and trained it on the marshy ground inside the bend of the river. Those dwarves who had made it across the open water flapped and flopped like stranded fish. Those that hadn't gained the bank had simply sunk under the weight of their armour, plunging into the sluggish brown Enn as if they didn't know that it would drag them down to their deaths.

"How many?" asked Morgenstern.

"A few hundred. More than enough if they're determined to take their revenge." Thaler snapped the tube shut and brooded. "Our forces are too far away to make a difference to us. Our fates are in our own hands."

"But my books..."

"b.u.g.g.e.r your books, Aaron Morgenstern. You are more important we are all more important and we should simply leave, now, at once." Thaler took hold of Agathos's collar and pulled him in the direction of the emplacements. "You too, Aaron. Bring the disk if you must, but we must go."

The first of the dwarves had made dry land, about a stadia away. He was a filthy, dirty thing caked in gelatinous mud from the waist down, and he levered himself upright only with the greatest of effort.

Thaler thought he didn't look much of a threat, but, on the other hand, he didn't have much of an army. They had no ball or sh.e.l.l left and they'd used their experimental case-shot very early on. The bottles filled with powder and tacks they'd given to Sophia. They had half a dozen charges of powder remaining, the tools they used to rake and tamp the barrels, and some crowbars.

His firing crews a.s.sembled around the closest pot.

"I think we should retreat," Thaler said to them. "There are too many of them and too few of us."

Bastian, already grasping one of the spike-ended sc.r.a.ping rods, disagreed. "No," he said without elaboration.

"No? We've won, apparently. What good would it do to let them kill us?"

"None," said Tuomanen, "but the smith's right. The field's ours, and there's no reason why we should fear them."

"I've already lost six people to the exploding Gunnhilde: that was unfortunate, but at least it was in battle, and the Valkyries will take them as surely as they would any warrior. This? This is idiocy, and I won't lose any more of you."

"No part of our army has run today." Bastian spun the rod with its heavy iron head as though it were a drumstick. "You think we should be the first?"

"Your army?" Thaler turned on the giant of a man. "Your army?"

"It's as much mine as it yours, Carinthian."