“No!” barked the wizard, though it was news to him-bad news. Gypsum and Facet had failed? How could that have happened? Even as he pondered the prospect, he pictured Facet slain, maybe captured, and felt a surprising pang of heartache at the thought she might be dead. Why did she affect him so? What sort of bewitchment did she possess?
“What about the Black Cross?” Willim pointed at the deadly regiment of Daergar heavy infantry, currently idle in the rear ranks of the center column.
“Yes, I’m holding them in reserve, sir. In the event of an enemy breakthrough, we’ll need them to plug the gap.”
“An enemy breakthrough?” snapped the black robe wizard. “It is we who will do the breaking through! Send them now to the attack. And that’s an order!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” replied Blade Darkstone evenly. Though he disagreed with the command, he knew it would be unwise to say so. Instead, he ordered a signal flag raised, and the Black Cross regiment started moving forward.
“What about the heavy infantry?” muttered Willim darkly.
The old commander repressed a sigh, saluting firmly. “Master, that part of the Black Cross I was also holding in reserve. However, they are ready,” he reported.
Willim gestured impatiently at the tight, neat ranks of the Daergar heavy infantry unit. They covered a front some two hundred yards wide, with sword- and shield-bearing heavy troops in the front, a rank of spearmen behind, another line of heavy troops in the third rank, and the elite crossbow teams in the very back of the formation. “Send them in!”
General Darkstone gave the signal.
The main complex of fortifications was firmly in the control of General Darkstone’s forces, and the other gatehouses were also in the hands of the attackers, who blocked all routes of access between Norbardin and the Urkhan Sea. But the royal garrison troops of the First Division had marched into the middle of the great square and formed a line that the rebels had not been able to crack.
Willim cast a fireball to open the attack, sending the churning sphere of flame through the very center of the royal ranks. A hundred dwarves died on the spot, but before Darkstone’s skirmishers could rush into the gap, a full complement of reinforcements charged up and over the still-smoldering bodies of their slain comrades to again tighten the formation and hold the line.
Willim and his general watched as the Black Cross and the heavy infantry moved into position for a full-on assault against the royal defenders.
“Those are General Ragat’s men,” Darkstone declared, watching the royal troops as they stoically prepared their defenses. “I’d know that drill anywhere.”
“What does it matter who commands them?” snapped Willim. “I want them pushed out of the way!”
“It’s the commander what makes all the difference,” Darkstone retorted, in a tone that sounded very much like insolence to the short-tempered wizard. “Any other general, and they’d have routed away when that fire blew out their center.”
Willim stared at the flanks of the Royal Division, where a motley lot of citizens, no doubt the king’s pathetic conscripts, were rushing forward to support the veteran troops. The recent arrivals, a veritable mob, were armed with pitchforks, hammers, picks, and a few swords and spears. If anything, they would weaken the defense.
Willim spotted Captain Veinslitter in the middle of the Black Cross regiment. The Daergar leader wore a silver helm that was festooned with a crimson plume, and he was looking up at the rampart, toward his general and the wizard. Feeling those eyes upon him, Willim nodded, and General Darkstone ordered the climactic attack forward.
With a roar of battle lust, the Daergar attacked. They advanced in a rush, sword tips extended past the line of shields. Even at full speed, their discipline held-there was no wavering in the straightness of the line, no gap opening between one fleet dwarf and his slower comrade. Like an advancing wall of steel, the Black Cross bore down on the ill-equipped and virtually unarmored troops of the king’s militia.
The roar of the charge swelled into a thunder as a thousand throats chanted “Black-Black-Black!” in steadily hastening cadence. They were calling out the name of their own unit, but Willim the Black allowed himself to reflect on the irony that it was his name as well. Plus it was the stark and chilling color of the order of magic he had cherished all his life. The power of the Black Robes: soon it would rule Thorbardin!
Shortly, the rebels’ shield wall smashed into the first of the defending troops. The hammers and pitchforks of the royal contingent broke against the steel shields, and the untrained troops dropped by the score. Yet they showed a fanatical willingness to die and fell back only when the Black Cross veterans put their shoulders down and pressed ahead in murderous fashion. The line of battle surged, shouts and screams rising from the wounded, and finally the irregulars started to roll back, pushed and trampled.
The line of the Daergar veterans wavered once or twice as some pockets of resistance proved more stubborn than others, but it made a steady advance. The hobnailed boots of the heavy infantry stomped over the bleeding bodies of the enemy wounded and slain, and the dwarves put their weight against the heavy steel shields, pressing ahead. Their swords, every blade streaked with blood, hacked and gouged at the mass of defenders.
“They show some courage, Master,” General Darkstone allowed as more and more of the militia troops hurled themselves into the fray to assist the royal guards.
“Then let them be courageous fools!” snapped Willim. “I want their blood to flow like a river down the streets!”
Moments after the first impact, the second rank of the Black Cross halted, dwarves cocking back their arms, holding their short, stout javelins at shoulder height. At a command from Veinslitter, they launched the weapons in a dense volley. Each spear was tipped with a razor-sharp, barbed tip of the strongest steel, backed by the weight of a heavy shaft, and when the rain of missiles came down, the lethal points tore through whatever paltry shield or armor lay in its path and the flesh, bones, and bodies beneath.
Hundreds of the defenders fell, pierced through, many writhing in agony amid spreading pools of blood. Others, stabbed in the heart or the skull, lay still, killed instantly. Some twisted the weapons free from gory wounds, even as the cruel barbs tore painfully at the victims’ flesh. A very bold and lucky few, having eluded the barrage, picked up the javelins and tried to hurl them back at the attackers. But most of the return missiles missed their marks, bouncing off the armor and shields of the regulars, clattering to the ground with more noise than effect.
Still the shield wall pressed forward, advancing steadily over the bodies of the hapless defenders. Captain Veinslitter strode forward step by step with the first rank, shouting exhortations, clapping his men on the shoulders as he stalked behind the line, wielding his own blade whenever a tiny niche allowed him to lunge directly at a foe.
The royal guards and the undisciplined, conscripted citizens were undeniably outmatched by the steady, well-equipped veterans of the Black Cross. But for some reason that Willim didn’t readily understand, the defenders refused to break, to surrender, or to flee.
He watched as one white-bearded old fellow charged forward with a pitchfork, jabbing it futilely against the shield wall until he was cut down by a stab to the abdomen. As he fell, he thrust his weapon one more time, and one of the Black Cross dwarves stumbled, taking a tine in the hinge gap of his armor around his knee.
At the same time, another pair of dwarves, wearing only stiff leather smithy tunics, raised hammers and hurled themselves against the shield wall. Even from his lofty vantage, Willim could hear the resounding bang of the heavy mallets against the metal shields. One of the smiths went down, cut almost in two by a sideways slash, but the other brought his hammer down heavily on the swordsman’s wrist, breaking bone and forcing the veteran to drop his sword. The injured infantryman backed out of the line, his place quickly taken by a comrade, but too many Black Cross dwarves were being similarly attacked and forced to yield their positions on the shield wall.