Page 16 of Ensii
This was the worst part of any infantry battle. Shields locked, it became a shoving match and not just one of brute strength. Shove too hard and that might shove the shieldman in front past the others and into enemy blades. Don’t shove hard enough, and their lines would break.
“Hold the line!” Talitha yelled. “Hold the line! Archers!”
“Their formation is as strong as ours if not stronger,” Ashek grunted.
Shaza braced his shoulder against the man in front of him, just a few rows down. “Breida will handle it.”
Talitha only hoped that he was right. They were too close to the enemy lines and shouting too loud to discuss tactics.
From behind the enemy shield wall, Talitha caught the order—“Heave!”
As one, the Ilian line shoved into the Hudspethites. They let off a great yell and Talitha was shoved back a good step. It was just a step, but the entire line had been moved.
The goal was to find someone who was shoved back farther than the others to get an opening in the line. The Ilians were better trained and had practiced together as a single unit.
Taitha refused to consider her own ragtag band of fighters as she whirled on Ashek. “Give the order to have the left flank draw back.”
“What?” Even in the moonlight, Ashek’s incongruous balk was impossible to miss.
“Let part of the line get between us and the front of the buildings. It will disrupt their formation and force some of them to expose their flank.”
Ashek whipped his head to their left.
“We can’t hold out like this forever.” As she spoke, the line gave another heave backwards. “We have nothing to lose.
Ashek didn’t reply. He leaned over and shouted something inaudible to the Dunedrifter at his left, who didn’t hesitate before passing the word along the line.
Talitha’s husband nodded to her once before the line of Ilians gave another heave, forcing them back again.
This time, the Ilians and Hudspethites pulled back on the left. They drew back into their own ranks along the side. The Ilians hadn’t expected the line to give and a good thirty men stumbled forward, shields dropping.
“Strike!” was the command bellowed from an unseen lieutenant. “Cut them down!”
The broken line of Ilians was set upon the next instant by Dunedrifters and freed Ilians. Shouting spread through the Hudspethites and Naram’s soldiers alike.
“Keep the front formation!” Talitha shouted, stopping several fighters at her back from rushing to join the fray. “Hold! Gilsazi, advance!”
The tavrosi general knew that command well enough. From the middle point of their formation, Gilsazi and his fighters circled around and streamed into the gap left by the broken line.
Before the Ilian soldiers could recover, Talitha spotted a massive hulk crowned by black horns tearing through them with an axe. She watched in elated horror as he cleaved a soldier head to sternum.
Ashek shouted a name she didn’t catch and a unit of Hudspethites streamed after them. In moments, the Ilian line had broken.
The shield wall in front of Talitha gave way and she gave the order all the shield-bearers had been waiting for. “Charge!”
There was a kind of ecstatic frenzy that came in battle and it took over. The man in front of Talitha thrust his sword into the neck of an Ilian and blood hit Talitha hot and thick from behind.
A wild scream went up and the Ilians reeled. It took Talitha a moment to realize that Breida and her fighters had joined the fray, flanking the Ilians from behind.
A sword clanged into Talitha’s shield and she shoved up, knocking it out of the way before impaling the attacker through his hip. She knew all the weaknesses and vulnerabilities of Ilian armor and Ilian tactics. She’d spent half a lifetime learning to compensate for them. These commanders might have studied just as long, but they had never faced anyone with the same training.
With Krispos dead, the lines broke.
Raising her sword, Talitha let off a wordless battle cry before falling upon the soldier in front of her. She hacked and parried, aware of Ashek, Shaza, and others moving around her. She bashed her shield into a man’s temple before he jabbed a spear into Shaza’s back. Ashek split a man shoulder to spine out of the corner of her eye. The soldier behind her caught an enemy soldier through the face with a javelin as the attacker drew back his bow.
Their motley band fought as one and yet each one was wholly alone. Talitha’s heart raced and her breath came in gasps—she was aware of every motion and move of those around her and yet it all felt distant, as if she were watching this battle from far away.
Talitha slipped, thinking it water had somehow gotten on the pavement. When she looked down, the cobbles were soaked in a swill of blood and piss. Under the moon, the blood was black as ink.
She slashed her sword across the thigh of the next man and the bloodbath continued.
