It was Predikant Viljoen, sermonizer of Enkeldoorn, who realized that their only chance was to break through the Redeemer wall and become so mixed in the fight that the archers on the hill would be forced to stop. Hell was Viljoen’s great passion – his sermons would raise the hackles of his congregation like the quills upon a fretful porcupine. Now he was handing out hell himself in spades. The Predikant was half as big again as any of the other Folk and had a face like an ample plate, fringed with a beard. Like all the Folk he carried a small shovel, used on the veldt for everything from digging holes to slaughtering animals. It was light, the shaft of bamboo, the blade a square of steel sharpened on three sides with only the top left blunt. The grindstoned edges of the shovel that he swung sliced shoulder, hip and knee.
It was with the spade the Predikant burst through the wall of Purgators, shouting for his flock to follow, lashing with skill and holy madness from side to side. He took the top off the head of one Redeemer as if it were a Memphis lady’s breakfast egg. A mercifully instant death, it appalled the Redeemers to either side, courage gone as their comrade fell. The next man took the shovel straight in the face from a ferocious jab – his teeth and jaw split, his tongue severed. The next blow took off an arm, the next a foot. Now the gap he needed was opened and he lashed around him like not a bull or bear but like a pastor ordered by God to clear the seventh circle of hell. Cale had backed away to the left. He could see when God and nature had conspired in holy violence and were with a man in such a way that he was like a hurricane.
Roaring with rage and pride the Predikant lashed on – the Folk were pushing in behind him now, hearts the stronger, their courage increasing. The shovel bit like a dog, hands split, haunches cut open. Ribs were sliced and the lights and liver fell into the dust – not even animals could die so cruelly. And still he came on, Folk spreading behind him and still Cale kept back behind the frightened Purgators. Then was the moment when all things were open. Here where the road split, where two fates were calling, where Victory beckoned and Defeat nodded him over. Then the Predikant’s mistake: calling on God he caught Cale’s eye and vanity killed him – Cale’s vanity and his own as their eyes met briefly and the Predikant dismissed him as only a boy. Turning as a short spear whipped past him and into the heel of a fleeing Purgator. Cale pulled it out of the poor man’s foot as if it were a present. As the Predikant ripped open the stomach of a Purgator who had stayed to fight instead of run, Cale grasped the javelin and raised it over his shoulder, took two steps and threw. Nothing you’ve seen was ever so graceful, power and balance combined to perfection. No bite from a snake was struck with such instinct. The spear took the pastor just above the groin. Splitting his bladder and smashing his pelvis it emerged from his buttock. Crying with anguish he fell to the ground, the blood and the urine pouring into the sand, like wine and like water, the steam of it rising. Cale remembered it always. Now he was shouting and urging them forwards and two of the Folk who’d seen that their pastor had died at the hands of the boy who was roaring came for him, instantly pumped up with vengeance. But only one made it – the other was taken by Purgators, their courage returning. The second man struck – the blow would have cut Cale in half had it landed. But colder and colder Cale watched his opponent like a man who was playing at fighting with children – the blows were just clumsy, ungainly and awkward. But the arrows came close now – one nearly took him and broke his attention and the moment of focus fled for a moment. The clang and clatter, the yelping and shouting brought him to earth and the gracefulness left him. The man saw him waver and gaining in confidence moved to kick at him. The blow swept past Cale, who kicked at his standing foot, grabbed at his waist and then pulled him downwards onto the sand. How long was the second as Cale took his time and bending him backwards reached for his knife. They struggled so, quietly grunting and gasping, Cale shifting his weight to get better purchase. Then he collected his strength and wrenching his arm free he struck. The Folkhusband’s body was shaking as Cale got to his feet and looked to gather the danger. The Folk had lost heart with the death of their Predikant. The arrows from the hill began again as they fell back. The Purgators pushed ever forward. The lives of the Folk could be counted in minutes. As to the details of the slaughter that followed not even Predikant Viljoen had described the pains of hell in such a lively manner. Already the flies were laying their eggs in the mouths of the dead and the dying.
So on a poxy hill, in a scuffle between fewer than two hundred men in a place that didn’t have a name until it became a byword for Redeemer failure, an entire world was changed in the time it takes to boil an egg.
Things for the Folk went from worse to even worse. Cale wasn’t the only one to make a blunder at the Drift. The Folk Maister watching from the west could not himself see the attack led by Cale but he could see the beginning of the charge down the hill ordered by the centenar in support of it when it was almost over. The most recent information he had been given was that his men were gathering to take the hill and that success was certain. The Redeemers he could see piling over the crest and out of sight were, as far as he was concerned, engaging in a desperate and suicidal attempt to recover a position already lost. Anxious to take advantage of what he reasonably regarded as a terrible mistake, the Folk Maister ordered his troops to cross the river from in front of the hill and attack the Drift from inside the U. Once the centenar recalled his troops and Cale established a new defence lower down, the attacking Folk found that they were playing to another Redeemer strength. Flights of bolts and arrows from the hill they thought they’d won now took them from the rear and from high above where they could easily be picked out. The few who took refuge in the trenches along with the fake Redeemers did not survive for long. Fighting in trenches was the third Redeemer strength. The Folk were shown as much mercy as they were accustomed to offering themselves. None.
With such heavy losses and shocked by the peculiar way in which the Redeemers had fought, the Folk withdrew and attempted to use the mortars on the shoulder of the tabletop mountain to cover their retreat. This was when the Redeemer snipers Cale had left on the tabletop itself finally came into play. From what was now complete safety, the archers picked off half the Folk artillerymen before they realized that they could neither defend themselves nor remove the mortars. Abandoning them they fled to join what remained of the escaping Folk.
Cale had made every judgement that day correctly, except for the one that would have made his brilliance and courage completely unnecessary. It was a lesson of sorts but of what kind he was unsure – never make a mistake, perhaps. He walked up to the top of the hill, where Gil was waiting for him. Cheers and God bless yous came everywhere from men he despised but had now been forced to risk his life to save and who depended utterly on him, as, he now realized, he did on them.
Gil bowed only slightly but in such a way Cale that could sense some even deeper change towards him.
‘You have won golden opinions. Men, even degenerate men, find it hard not to love someone who has saved them twice.’
‘Well, we were very nearly even.’ Cale got down into the trench and looked back down the hill. He’d chosen the site from horseback some seven feet off the ground and from where he had a clear sight down its entire length. But at ground level it was obvious that there was a bulge in the middle of the field of fire which meant that until you were twenty yards away there was easily enough cover to attack the trench, protected from bolt and arrow. He was amazed at his own stupidity. How was it possible, when he had been so right about everything else, to be so witless about this?