‘They do seem a little wasted after their hibernation.’ Troist had just come from the command tent to join him.
‘I wonder why they’re fighting now?’
‘After Klarm discovered their whereabouts and we sent the army to Strebbit, I suppose they had no choice.’
‘Then why didn’t they attack there? They had the numbers.’
‘They were just out of hibernation and needed the past week to recuperate.’
‘Why not take a fortnight and recuperate fully?’
‘How the blazes would I know, Nish?’ snapped Troist. ‘They may have been afraid to wait, in case we discovered them. It’s not easy to hide that many lyrinx and they wouldn’t want to be forced into battle at a ground of our choosing, as they have been here.’
‘I suppose not.’ Nish scanned the battlefield. ‘Our light-blasting weapons don’t seem to be having much effect.’
‘There are few miracle weapons in war. They’ve worked about as well as I’d expected. They are making a difference.’
‘Not much.’
‘A lot of small advantages make a big one. We’re fighting the lyrinx on our terms. Good visibility, open land and bright sunshine. We can use our new tactics to best effect.’
The soldiers were fighting in tight formations, making it difficult for the lyrinx to get through their walls of spears and shields. And when the lyrinx attacked in groups, as they had to, they were vulnerable to the clankers, which could fire their catapults and javelards from the side or the rear, over the heads of the soldiers. The thapters were also taking a toll, maintaining a height from which they could fire at the enemy but above the altitude where the enemy’s catapults could reach them.
‘I do believe we’re gaining a little,’ said Troist in the early afternoon, watching the battle through a spyglass and relaying orders over his farspeaker. ‘They don’t seem to be fighting quite as ferociously as I remember.’
‘I was thinking the same. We’ve taken heavy casualties though,’ said Nish, gingerly feeling a shoulder wound. A small band of lyrinx had broken through the lines just before noon and gone straight for the lookout. It had been a brief but vicious struggle. He hadn’t killed the lyrinx that had attacked him, but fortunately one of Troist’s guards had.
His shoulder was throbbing. It was not a bad wound, as battle wounds go, just three long claw marks. Nothing like the blow that had practically taken his father’s shoulder off a year and a half ago. Another ell, though, and Nish would have been in the same situation.
Troist was going through the latest tally sheets. ‘We’ve lost nine thousand men, and as many injured. They’ve about twelve thousand dead, so it’s evened the odds a trifle, but they still have the advantage if they dare to press it. Pray that they break soon, Nish. They can take these casualties better than we can.’
He called Flydd on the farspeaker. ‘Scrutator, we can’t manage much more of this.’
‘I agree,’ said Flydd. ‘It’s time for a different approach. A strike at their morale.’
Shortly, five thapters appeared in the west, flying in a line, low and slow. As they passed over the enemy formations a soldier on the shooter’s platform of each machine emptied a bag of what looked like brown flour over the side. Dust clouds slowly sifted down onto the lyrinx. At the edge of the battlefield the thapters wheeled and came back on a different track, flying just above catapult height. They kept this up until they’d covered the bulk of the enemy troops and all the bags of dust were gone.
At the end of that line, four thapters turned away and resumed the bloody work with their javelards. The fifth went back and forth across the battlefield again, a second man standing on the rear platform, though he didn’t appear to be doing anything.
Nish raised an eyebrow. ‘What’s that all about?’
‘Something Yggur came up with,’ said Troist. ‘Did you hear about those lyrinx at Snizort that caught a dreadful skin inflammation?’
‘I did. The creatures had to be put out of their misery.’
‘Klarm discovered where they’d been buried, and Tiaan thaptered there and recovered one of the corpses.’
‘So that’s what she was doing,’ said Nish.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘She showed up at Snizort when we were trying to make thapters from the wrecked constructs. Tiaan didn’t say what she was doing there, and I was so pleased to see her I didn’t think to ask.’
‘The disease was some kind of fungus. Yggur grew it on offal, harvested bags of spores, and that’s what we’ve just dumped all over the enemy.’
‘A fungus could take weeks to infect them,’ said Nish. ‘It’s not going to make any difference today.’
‘What does it look like that second man is doing?’ smiled Troist.
‘It’s a bit hard to tell from here.’
‘Take a closer look.’
Nish focussed his spyglass. ‘It looks like he’s holding a flagon to his mouth. No, it’s a speaking trumpet. He’s giving them a message. He’s got only one hand. Is it Merryl?’
‘It is. He’s telling them, in their own tongue, what the dust is and what it will do to them.’
‘To break their morale.’
‘Hopefully,’ said Troist.
‘I wonder what they’ll do in retaliation?’
Another hour went by. Whatever the effect of the dust, the enemy continued to fight, though it did improve morale in the defenders. The advantage turned their way, then back to the enemy after a furious counterattack.
Nish was working his spyglass back and forth, counting casualties, when something small and dark streaked across the bloody ground and hurled itself into a formation of soldiers. There were screams, the formation collapsed in the middle and broke up. It reformed quickly, though with three fewer members than before.
‘What was that?’ said Nish.
‘I don’t know,’ said the scribe who was tallying Nish’s figures and sending them with a runner to the command table.
A second creature lunged into a formation and broke it as well. By the time it had reformed the little beasts were everywhere. One raced up the hill towards them, as if directed to the command post. Nish dropped the spyglass and reached for his crossbow but the creature disappeared.
‘What was that?’ said Troist, hurrying down from the chart table.
‘I don’t know,’ said Nish, ‘though I’ve got a nasty suspicion …’ There had been something about the way it had scuttled, low to the ground. The hairs rose on the back of his neck. Flesh-formed. Was it another nylatl, or something even worse?
Fortunately he’d prepared a remedy in case of this eventuality. Reaching into his pack, Nish withdrew a small metal phial with a tight stopper that had been wired on for safety. Carefully taking the stopper out, he touched it to the tip of the crossbow bolt, stoppered the phial even more carefully, twisted the wire over it and packed it away.
‘I don’t much go for poison,’ said Troist. ‘It’s a dirty way of fighting.’
‘Don’t see what the difference is,’ said Nish. ‘War’s a dirty business. This stuff is an easier death than the fungus, by all accounts. Besides, if those little creatures are what I think they are, we’ll need every advantage we can get.’
Troist turned away to the farspeaker and began calling urgently. Nish crouched low, the crossbow cocked. Where had it gone? The creatures could camouflage themselves almost as well as a lyrinx.
It shot out of the low grass, a spiny, toothy creature the size of a dog. Scooting across the bare earth of the path, claws scrabbling and raising puffs of dirt, it leapt at Troist.
‘Surr, look out!’ cried Nish.
The general turned and the nylatl, or a near cousin, struck him in the chest, knocked him down and lunged for his throat. Troist desperately tried to fend it off with the farspeaker globe but it was knocked out of his hands and rolled away. The claws tore his chest and arm, and Nish could not shoot for fear of hitting him. Soldiers were running from everywhere but they wouldn’t get to the general in time.