Kindle Edition
Download to your Nook (eBook)
Download from Apple iTunes (eBook)
Download from Smashwords (eBook)
Amazon
Barnes & Noble.com
Category:
Fantasy
Publisher: Neil Port
ISBN-10: 0987384511
Type: Fiction
Pages: 488
Copyright: November 5, 2012
ISBN-13: 9780987384515
Price: FREE! (eBook)
Sword & Sorcery Epic Fantasy set in ancient Turkey and Syria (18+).
The fight to save the elves.
Sword & Sorcery Epic Fantasy set in ancient Turkey and Syria (18+).
The final destruction of the Elves has been foretold and now the time is all but upon them. Only through an ancient prophecy can they be saved, but it will require every bit of love, sacrifice and courage that a group of extraordinary people have to give. An elf princess, an eleven year old Gypsy orphan girl, and a mercenary tribesman are the first to be called. They must unite in a desperate search through ancient Anatole for the key to the survival of the Elves, but first they have to stay alive!
Excerpt
Chapter 1: Hakeem of the Shantawi
Samit burned with rage when he heard the distant trumpet call and saw Hakeem’s small force crest the faraway hill. It was as if molten lead flowed throughout his body. Never in his 60 years had the veteran commander felt such fury.
Victory was already theirs. The Troians were beginning to fall back in disarray. Hakeem was ordered to skirmish and harass from a distance, not join the main fight!
The young pup!
Samit had seen him as the most promising of all their legend-ary Shantawi mercenaries. He had given him a full command of 120 of the desert horsemen, despite his age. Now good Shantawi men would die so that Hakeem could make a gesture, so that he could join in routing the enemy. The penalty for him would be swift and it would be lethal, but it would bring shame on Samit and those under his command.
Samit paused on a small hillock, his eyes sweeping the battleground. Below him was a chaos of people fighting and dying. The Troians had made a surprise attack on the northern defences and broke through to march on Pergamon, the great Aiol fortress-city. Samit’s forces had joined the Aiol King Helios in a desperate dash to stop them here, in this valley. Defeat had seemed inevitable for their smaller Aiol force, but then the Troians attempted to advance with much less cavalry than expected and the Aiols managed to attack their flanks.
The Troians had taken heavy losses and were now attempt-ing the most difficult of all tasks, an orderly withdrawal in the middle of a battle. The Aiol forces had been pressing them back for more than a turn of the glass. The small size of the enemy cavalry was incomprehensible, but it seemed that at last the crafty Troians were caught! The Aiols were pressing their advantage and Samit’s main command had joined them in harrying the Troian vanguard.
Samit glanced back at Hakeem’s men and felt a surge of blessed relief. Hakeem’s small command hadn’t turned to join the battle. His trust in the young tribesman had not been misplaced.
But what were they doing? They were rapidly skirting the main fighting, staying parallel to a distant ridge. Samit smiled in pride as he watched them gallop. Few could ride like the Shantawi! But what could be the cause of their urgent ride?
They seemed to be headed straight for the Aiol royal party on a hillock, well back from the main battle.
A sudden horror gripped Samit as a thought came to him. He glanced at the ridge that ran the length of the battlefield. Could that ridge conceal an enemy detachment, planning to attack the King and flank the main force? Was the Troian retreat a clever trap?
He cursed, where were the missing Troian horse?
It was then he heard something carry across the wind that made his blood freeze, the Berserker chant! It was the most sacred of all the Shantawi battle hymns. It had not been heard in over a hundred years.
Hakeem and his men called on their God. They didn’t offer their lives to this coming battle, they believed them lost. They pledged their very souls that they would give glory to their God. They pledged to fight to the death, but they asked God to give them inhuman strength and, in their rage, no thought for their safety. The Shantawi Berserker Chant was a final prayer by the Shantawi warriors as certain death approached.
It meant only one thing.
“Hold this flank!” he yelled to the surprised General, Evago-ras.
Spinning round, he screamed in his own tongue. “To me! To me!” as his trumpeters took up the call.
Treachery! Evagoras thought, but knew it was impossible. Honour was very literally a religion amongst these tribesmen.
In the confusion, the flank began to fall apart but Samit didn’t care. If he was wrong, he was a dead man.
He spurred his horse, not waiting for his men, who were raggedly disengaging and galloping like the wind to catch their leader. Careless of his horse, at full gallop over the uneven ground, he was only halfway to the distant Aiol royal standard when the enemy boiled over the ridge like ants from a nest that had been kicked.
He was too late!
Evagoras had fallen for a clever trap. His main army had been drawn further and further away, leaving the royal party isolated at the rear. The enemy cavalry would take the Aiol King and would fall on the Aiol army from behind! A fresh cavalry outflanking a battle-weary centre who’d just lost their king. Few would survive this day!
The King led a score of heavily armoured Lancers in his guard. Formidable in combat, their heavy armour made flight impossible. The rest of the King’s personal guard was composed of a single manipulus (century), 80 Latin mercenaries, all heavy infantry. They quickly formed a square around the King and his mounted escort. Their large rectangular shields formed a solid wall, but they were handicapped against cavalry by their short swords. Each carried two heavy pila (javelins) on the underside of their shields, but the tight formation protecting the King, and the speed of the cavalry, prevented them from using them.
Samit watched as the infantry met a cavalry charge of superior numbers as best they could. Just as the enemy threatened to overwhelm the royal party, Hakeem’s charge hit the enemy van and, incredibly, swept it away!
* * *
In the short pause afforded them, Hakeem nudged his horse up to the King and his loud voice rang out. “Great King of Aiolía, it is thus that we of the Shantawi come to fulfil our oath to you!
“If we fail, we will gladly die at your feet. But should that prove to be our fate, we will build such a burial mound from the bodies of your enemies, that you need never feel shame amongst the greatest of your ancestors, or the mightiest Warrior Kings of old!”
With these grim words the small knot of remaining defenders cheered and bashed sword against shield. They were eager for the fight.
The young King Helios nodded gravely, and then gave a great shout.
“It is here, that we will stand!” He grabbed his standard himself and thrust it into the soil with a great blow.
Hakeem ordered his men to form up on either side of the infantry and they turned to face the onslaught as the second wave of Troians hit them. The Latins held the centre and the Shantawi encircled the Troians. What a cavalry they were! While they were heavily outnumbered, the Troians had no chance against them.
* * *
As he rode, Samit laughed. His heart was bursting with pride and joy. This was the essence of the Shantawi warrior! If any survived, what songs would be sung! If they died, who could not wish for such an ending as they would make?
Behind him the desert mercenaries sang their own battle songs as they rode. Horns sounded as they thundered on. In the front was the growing clamour of fighting.
A desperate plan had come to him, but it would require the King and Hakeem to hold out longer than anyone had any right to ask of them.
* * *
Just then, Hakeem saw a frightening sight that foreshadowed the end.
The Troian advance guard were swift and lightly armoured like Hakeem’s men, but they seemed to be falling back. Behind them, he could see a large company of lancers gathering for a charge. The Troians had three or more of these companies and they formed a formidable force. Heavily armoured, they carried long heavy wooden lances tipped with iron. Their shields were broad and half the height of a man. Their helmets had feathery plumes that bobbed as they arranged themselves in formation.
The lancer mounts were also armoured, with heavily padded leather armour and overlapping leather scales along the neck. A powerful slash could get through, but it would take a direct hit with an arrow or a solid thrusting stab to cause sure damage. Their horses were heavy and strong. They lacked the speed and stamina of the desert-bred horses, but they could ram their enemies with brute strength. Their saddles had a wooden brace, like a chair, at the back of the rider, to steady their rider from the impact of his lance.
The lancers would charge in formation, as a unit, where each man supported the man on either side of him. From the front, in formation and crouched behind their heavy shields, they were almost invulnerable.
The desert fighters were the finest mounted skirmishers in the known world. They would gallop up to their enemies and shoot their wickedly accurate and powerful recurved horse-bows and then ride away before they could be engaged in a stand-up fight. Guiding their small wiry horses with their knees, they could fire at full gallop and even fire backwards when galloping away. Any unprotected infantry that came against them in the open would be rapidly diminished without much loss to the horsemen.
They did not fight in tight formation, instead relying on speed, agility and individual prowess. If they could employ their greater speed and agility, they could likely defeat a heavy cavalry unit, but it would be a deadly cat and mouse game, and against so many they would need a great deal of room ... and they were not going to get that. They had to defend the King.
The heavy lancers would be front on, in proper formation, and with time to build up the speed of their charge. If Hakeem’s men got in their way, they would simply roll over them.
Samit’s force was swelling in numbers, but he was on the other side of the Troians. Whatever Hakeem did, he would have to do it without help.
There was only one chance for Hakeem’s small force, but it would require great luck. If Hakeem’s men could break up the lancer’s formation somehow, they could attack from the vulnerable sides or perhaps get close enough to render their lances useless, but this required the lancers being diverted from their charge at the Aiol King. If he could hit them hard from the sides early in their charge, they might be induced to mop up Hakeem’s men first.
He only had a short space to try this. Once they got too close to the King, the Shantawi would need to face them; the Latin infantry could not be expected to meet a charge of heavy lancers unaided.
So to do this, Hakeem would have to ride well out to meet them. At the very best, it would be at great cost. Only a madman would try this knowing he had such a short distance, was hindered by the need to defend the King, and he and his men were outnumbered two to one. Madman or desperate, he would take as many of the Troians with him them as possible, before he and his men were cut down. It was better than waiting.
Hakeem nudged his horse close to the King and nodded to the disaster they faced. Conversationally, as if remarking on the weather, he said, “I’m intending to ride down and meet them. It will likely not go well for us.”
Then Helios, the young King of the Aiol, nodded solemnly. “And so the time for all of us now comes.” He reached forward and clasped the large mercenary’s hand. King to mercenary, they farewelled like equals, like brothers. Leaving his wounded and sixteen mounted bowmen with the King, Hakeem took less than 80 men down to meet the charge of twice that number.
* * *
Samit pulled his horse to a sudden halt. He would not try to reach Hakeem and the King. Such an attempt would only lead to defeat. He glanced back. The main battle seemed to be turning against them, so he’d get no help from their army.
He needed to do something fast with the small force at his disposal.
If Samit could avoid a direct engagement, there may be a chance! He hoped the Troians would remain focused on Hakeem and the King. It meant, in a way, using them as bait. If things went wrong, which was likely, Samit would not live to face the aftermath. To leave the King at peril would be seen as cowardice. The tribesmen’s reputation for honour would be gone forever.
|
