Chapter Twenty Three: The Battle of the Red Pass
Chereskar and Callixtus both ran outside to find the camp in chaos and confusion. From the pass ahead, flashes of flame and loud shouts and cries showed that battle was in progress, but it was difficult to make out what was happening amidst the smoke and dust of conflict. But other similar sounds gave indication that the camp was also under attack from their right.
Chereskar frowned. "I do not understand. We seem to be under attack not only from the front, which I expected - although I thought we would have had more warning - but also from the flank. I do not see how the enemy could have got there, unless they have somehow come through the secondary pass which the Angiskoris were guarding. But how could they have got through undetected, and what has happened to the Angiskoris? I must go aloft and find out." And so saying, he raised his arms, and in moments his body sprouted white feathers, and he launched himself into the air in the form of a crane.
The huge form of Shalmaneser was easily spotted, his milk white body nude and whole, although a bandage remained around his thigh where the Rhenoussian arrow had injured him in the Battle of the Tulip Field.
"Callixtus!" called the unicorn. "The Fire Giants have used sorcery to surprise us, and they are pouring through the Red Pass to our front. I will engage them there, but you must find Magnus on the right, and assist him - we are also under attack from there! Mountain goblins have swarmed over the secondary pass - the Angiskoris have betrayed us and fled!"
Callixtus raced past the scenes of confusion. Fireballs were exploding nearby, and the screams of injured men and horses were everywhere. Within a few minutes he had scrambled across to the top of a slope where he saw Magnus standing by the contingent of crossbowmen from the Free City of Cantazeno, who were calmly firing crossbow bolts into a thick swarm of goblins who were rapidly approaching with shrill battle cries, blowing horns and banging their scimitars on their shields.
The crossbowmen were firing volleys, and when they had fired they turned as one, presenting their backs to their enemies, as they knelt to cock their weapons. They wore large rectangular green-and-white shields strapped to their backs, which gave them some protection from the red-fletched goblin arrows which were whistling towards them, but nevertheless many of them were hit, though green-robed women healers moved among them, tending to the wounded.
Magnus looked grim. "Fire into them, Callixtus!" he called, and with trembling hands the boy notched his bow and started to shoot into the advancing enemy. Magnus extended his staff and a bolt of lightning shot forth which hit a group of goblins, who fell twitching and writhing to the ground. As Callixtus continued to shoot, gradually becoming steadier, he and Magnus joined the crossbowmen as the goblin dead started to pile up below them. But on they came.
Just then Magnus was hailed by a deep voice which carried over the noise of battle, and they turned behind them to see Baron Makris of Volantia at the head of a regiment of Volantian heavy infantry. "Magnus! I am taking my infantry to engage the fire giants, but my slingers will have little effect on the creatures. Take them and use them on this flank - the goblins will present them with an easier target!" So saying, he motioned forward a swarm of naked young slingers, looking pale but determined.
Magnus ordered the slingers to position themselves beside the Cantazene crossbowmen and to direct their fire at the advancing goblins. Firing down the slope, their pellets carried further than the small goblin bows, and they soon began to extract a heavy price on the enemy.
Meanwhile Makris led his infantry on a charge straight into the heart of the enemy to their front, who were tangled in a confused melee with a mixed group of allied soldiers who had lost cohesion in the surprise of the attack. Here there were also goblins, but also huge fire giants - some of them eight feet tall - roaring through their orange beards and laying about them with great clubs, although many of them also paused to cast fireballs about, to which they and the goblins were immune.
Now, looking aloft, Callixtus caught sight of Chereskar, in crane form, flying high above the battle. But even as he watched, an enormous fire giant stood back a little from the melee and brought both his hands together to point skywards. He gave a loud roar, and a ball of flame burst from his hands to arc upwards. As Callixtus watched in horror, the fireball caught the crane a direct hit with a huge explosion of flame, and Chereskar became a blazing mass of feathers, spiralling downwards to the ground. Callixtus choked back tears, but was forced to return to his bow as the goblins surged ever closer.
Meanwhile in the centre Lendulio was also in the melee, fighting side by side with the huge unicorn. Shalmaneser was roaring and laying about the fire giants with a giant club, and at intervals he held up his free hand and sent bolts of lightning which sent many of the giants twitching in death throes, with crackles of electricity sparking all over their bodies. But the unicorn had been scorched badly by enemy fire magic, and was also streaming with blood from great bruises and lacerations caused by hits from the clubs of the enemy.
Lendulio was darting about with incredible agility, repeatedly slashing at the fire giants and their goblin allies with a machete. Incredibly for such a slim and slight looking figure, the power of his blows opened gaping wounds in the giants, sometimes hamstringing them so that they fell to their knees to be despatched by the spears and axes of the allied soldiers; and as for the goblins, many of them had heads and limbs entirely severed by his blows. Every cut and blow that came his way he seemed to dodge with acrobatic skill, but nevertheless his beautiful body was marked with burns and scorches, the results of near misses from enemy fireballs.
Lord Skanderos was gathering together his cavalry to make a charge. It was no easy task: the sloping and uneven ground was far from ideal - such a contrast to the Field of Tulips - and to make matters worse the cavalry were also being hit by fire bolts cast from the giants, disordering their ranks and panicking the horses. Kari, looking pale and grim, was sitting on Skanderos's horse, gripping his mane with one hand while with the other he launched repeated lightning bolts at the fire giants - though they lacked the power of the ones cast by Shalmaneser or Magnus, and it often took several hits on the same giant before it toppled to the ground, its bright red skin blackened and crackling with blue sparks.
At length, the cavalry were got into a rough order, and Skanderos called the charge. He gave a great shout as Moonlight reared and leaped forward, Skanderos and Kari both sitting together on the noble warhorse. The Companions - still naked except for their blue cloaks - and all the remaining Megaran cavalry charged with them, making the mountains ring with their battle cries of "Megaros! Skanderos! Death or Glory!" They smashed into the fire giants, and were soon embroiled in a whirling melee, in which many were unhorsed - although fire giants too were toppling under their determined onslaught.
On the right flank a goblin chief, larger and fiercer than the rest, urged on his companions with a bestial cry and hundreds of them sprang forward to sprint across the remaining distance that separated them from Magnus and the crossbowmen and slingers. But Magnus sent a lightning bolt at him which exploded in a huge ball of electric energy, frying the goblin instantly and causing at least a score of others to fall as well. The goblin surge paused, and the Volantian boy slingers redoubled their efforts, so that hundreds of goblins now lay dead on the slope, and the remainder started to waver in dismay.
In the centre, the tide was also turning in favour of the allies - though at heavy cost - as one by one the fire giants were brought crashing down.
A great fire giant, his red skin steaming from multiple wounds, swept a huge club towards Skanderos. Moonlight reared up, and the club caught the horse fully in the chest, smashing it in instantly. Kari was thrown clear, but Skanderos fell to the ground under his mangled and dying horse, the fall breaking his leg and trapping him. As he lay there helpless, the fire giant brought his club high above him, and brought it swinging down with a roar - but at that moment Kari, who had with difficulty scrambled to his feet, dived in front of Skanderos and launched a bolt of lighting directly at the giant's face. The bolt entirely obliterated the giant's head in a crackle of blue sparks, instantly killing it, but its huge club, powered by an overwhelming momentum, had already started its downward descent. With a sickening crunch, the club smashed into Kari's chest, lifting him completely off the ground and hurling him a considerable distance, where the boy's mangled body smashed into a pile of rocks. And the headless body of the giant, dead before the boy hit the ground, toppled full length across the helpless trapped Skanderos.
Soon after that, it was all over. The fire giants fought to the very last, but long before the last one was brought roaring and toppling to the ground by a final lightning bolt from Shalmaneser, the surviving goblins had all fled, with shrieks and howls of dismay.
The Megaran Companions pulled their injured commander, pale and bloodied, from underneath his dead horse and the prone body of the slain fire giant . "Kari...Kari...where is Kari?" said Skanderos.
Callixtus and Magnus had both rushed over to Kari's crumpled form. Both of them were unscathed, but Magnus was white and drawn with exhaustion. Callixtus was shivering and weeping as they looked down at Kari. His face stared up at them, his eyes misting over, and a bloody froth bubbling on his lips, which had turned blue. His chest was smashed into a pulp of bone and gore.
"Magnus! Magnus! Heal him!" cried Callixtus. "I am sorry Callixtus...he is beyond help." And the mage, weeping too, held Kari's hand as he knelt at this side. "Oh Kari....Oh Kari..." he wept. But the boy spoke no more. His small ruined frame gave a convulsive gasp, and his final breath shuddered from his body. His green eyes were open, but fixed in the glassy sightlessness of death.
Lendulio appeared at their side. Though somewhat burned and scorched about his limbs, he was relatively unscathed, considering how he had fought in the thick of the action - thanks to his extraordinary agility. But Shalmaneser, who came snorting with him, was in a very different state. His white skin had flushed a deep shade of pink with the exertion of battle, and he was mottled with great bruises and gashes, and streaming with bright red blood from multiple wounds and abrasions.
"We have won a great victory", said Shalmaneser, "and the Fire Giants will, as Chereskar foresaw, trouble us again no more for many generations of men. But Chereskar is dead....as is poor Kari...and many others."
The unicorn gave a great sigh, and continued - "Alas, many have lost their lives today. Almost all our regiments have suffered grievous losses, apart from the Cantazene crossbowmen and the boy slingers of Volantia - thanks to you, Magnus - and you too, Callixtus. But Baron Makris is dead, as are the greater part of his infantry. I fear many of the boy slingers whose lives you saved will weep for fathers and brothers lost this day."
"And Skanderos?" said Magnus.
Lendulio replied, "The healers say he will live - his broken bones will heal in time. Though I fear the wound to his heart will take longer to heal. If indeed it ever does."