Oakleaf Bearers

35

F ROM THE CENTRAL COMMAND POSITION, H ALT AND E RAK watched as the smooth drill of the archers caused havoc among the Temujai ranks. Now that the attacking force was aware of them, Will's men had no chance to repeat the devastating casualties of those first three volleys that had all but wiped out a complete Ulan. But the regular, massed fire of one hundred archers, and Will's accurate direction, was breaking up attack after attack.

In addition, the Temujai now realized that their own favorite tactic had been effectively countered. If they sent one group into close combat while another stood off to provide covering fire during the withdrawal, they knew that the second group would instantly come under fire from the archers on the Skandian right flank. It was a new experience for the Temujai. Never before had they encountered such disciplined and accurate return fire.

But they were no cowards, and some of the commanders were now substituting raw courage and ferocity for tactical ploys. They began to storm toward the Skandian line, abandoning their bows and drawing sabers, trying to break through in close-in fighting, determined to bury the Skandians under sheer numbers if necessary.

They were brave and skillful fighters, and against most adversaries they might have faced, their ploy would probably have succeeded. But the Skandians reveled in hand-to-hand fighting. To the Temujai it was a matter of skill. To the northerners, it was a way of life.

"This is more like it!" Erak bellowed cheerfully as he moved forward to intercept three Temujai scrambling over the earthen bulwark. Halt felt himself shoved to one side as Ragnak rushed to join his comrade, his own battle-ax causing terrible havoc among the small, stocky warriors who were swarming over their position.

Halt stood back a little, content to let the Skandians take on the brunt of the hand-to-hand fighting. His gaze roamed outside the area of immediate engagement until he saw what he was looking for: one of the Temujai marksmen, recognizable by the red insignia on his left shoulder, was searching the milling crowd of men for the Skandian leaders. His eyes lit on Ragnak as the Oberjarl called more of his men into the breach the Temujai had forced. The Temujai's recurve bow came up, the arrow already sliding back to full draw.

But he was two seconds behind Halt's identical movement, and the Ranger's huge longbow spat its black-painted shaft before the Temujai had reached full draw. The rider never knew what hit him as he tumbled backward over the withers of his horse.

Suddenly, the savage little battle was over and the surviving Temujai were scrambling back down the earth slope, capturing any horses they could and hauling themselves into the saddles.

Ragnak and Erak exchanged grins. Erak slapped Halt on the back, sending him reeling.

"That's better," he said, and the Oberjarl growled agreement. Halt picked himself up from the dirt.

"I'm so glad you're enjoying yourself," he said dryly. Erak laughed, then became serious as he nodded his head toward the right flank and the small group of archers, still pouring steady fire into the attackers.

"The boy has done well," he said. Halt was surprised to hear there was a note of pride in his voice.

"I knew he would," he replied quietly, then turned as Ragnak dropped a ponderous arm around his shoulders. He wished the Skandians didn't have to be quite so touchy-feely in expressing their feelings. Built the way they were, they put normal people at risk of serious damage.

"I've got to admit it, Ranger, you were right," the Oberjarl said. He swept his arm around the fortifications. "All of this, I didn't think it was necessary. But I can see now that we would never have stood a chance against those devils in an open conflict. As for your boy and his archers," he continued, gesturing toward Will's position, "I'm glad we looked after him when we first caught him."

Erak raised one eyebrow at that. It had caused him considerable anger that Will had been assigned to the freezing conditions of labor in the yard-an assignment that should have meant almost certain death. He said nothing, however. He assumed that being supreme leader gave one a license to forget uncomfortable events from the past.

Halt was studying Will's position with a critical eye. The defensive line in front of the archers was still well manned. Of all the Skandian positions, it seemed to have suffered the lowest number of casualties. Obviously, he thought, the Ulans were avoiding direct confrontation at that point. They'd seen what had happened to the troop that had charged directly at the archers.

But he knew that the Temujai general couldn't allow this situation to continue. He was losing too many men-both to the constant volleys of arrows and in the desperate hand-to-hand fighting with the Skandians. Soon, he would have to do something to nullify the unexpected problem posed by the archers.

He would have been interested, but not surprised, to know that Haz'kam's thoughts were running on pretty much the same lines.

The general cursed softly as he studied the casualty reports brought in by his staff.

He turned to Nit'zak, his deputy commander, and indicated the sheet of parchment in his hand.

"We cannot go on like this," he said softly. His deputy leaned toward him, turning the sheet of hastily scribbled casualty figures so that he could read it. He shrugged.

"It's bad," he agreed. "But not disastrous. We still have the numbers to defeat them, archers or no archers. They can't stand against us indefinitely."

But Haz'kam shook his head impatiently. Nit'zak had just confirmed what he had always suspected. His deputy was a capable leader in the field, but he lacked the overview necessary to make him a commanding general.

"Nit'zak, we've lost almost fifteen hundred men-either killed or wounded. That's nearly a quarter of our effective force. We could easily lose that many again if we keep on like this."

Nit'zak shrugged. Like most Temujai senior officers, he cared little for the size of his casualty reports, as long as he won the battle. If Temujai warriors died in battle, he thought, that was their role in life. Haz'kam saw the gesture and correctly interpreted the thinking behind it.

"We're two thousand kilometers from home," he told his deputy. "We are supposed to be subjugating this frozen little corner of hell so that we can mount an invasion of the Ara-land. How do you propose that we do that with less than half the force we started with?"

Again, Nit'zak shrugged. He really didn't see the problem. He was accustomed to victory after victory and the idea of defeat never occurred to him.

"We knew we'd take casualties here," he protested, and Haz'kam let go a string of curses in an unaccustomed display of temperament.

"We thought this would be a skirmish!" he spat angrily. "Not a major engagement! Think about it, Nit'zak: a victory here could cost us so much that we might not even make it home again."

That was the uncomfortable truth. The Temujai had two thousand kilometers to cover before they reached their homeland on the steppes once more. And all two thousand were across hostile, temporarily conquered territories-territories whose inhabitants might welcome the opportunity to rise up against a weakened Temujai force.

Nit'zak sat his horse in silence. He was angry at the tone of rebuke in his commander's voice, particularly in front of the other staff officers. It was a gross breach of Temujai behavior for Haz'kam to speak to him in such a fashion.

"So:what do you propose?" he asked finally.

For a long time, the general didn't answer. He gazed across the intervening space to the Skandian lines, looking from the command position in the center to the line of archers drawn up on his left-the Skandian right wing. Those two positions, he knew, held the key to this battle.

Finally, he turned to his deputy, his mind made up.

"Strip the first fifty Ulans of their Kaijin," he ordered. "And assemble them here as a special force. It's time we got rid of those damned archers."