An Autumn War(134)

But it was better than losing.

"General Gice, sir," the captain said as all the men saluted him. Balasar raised his hand. his arm ached from holding the raised shield. "We're, making progress, sir."

"Good," Balasar said. "What have we found?"

"All the smaller passages are blocked off, sir. Collapsed or filled with rubble so deep we can't tell how long it would take to dig them out. And they're narrow, sir. Two men together at most."

"We wouldn't want those anyway," Balasar said. "Better we keep for the objectives. And casualties?"

" NN'e're estimating five hundred of the enemy dead, sir. But that's rough."

"And our men?"

"perhaps half that," the captain said.

"So many?"

"They aren't good fighters, sir, but they're committed.'

Balasar sighed, his mind shifting. If he assumed the force pushing toward the palaces was having similar luck, that meant something like fifteen hundred dead since he'd walked into the city. More, if there was resistance in the south. This wasn't a battle, only slow, ugly slaughter. He went to the doorway, peering out down the street. Etc could hear the sounds of fighting-men's voices, the clash of metal on metal. A hundred small outbursts that became a constant roar, like raindrops falling on a pond.

"Get the drummer," he said. "We'll make a push for it. Scatter the enemy, take the entrance to the tunnels and then get runners to the others."

"The men we're seeing, sir. They're able-bodied. And decent fighters, some of them."

"They wanted to do this on the surface," Balasar said. ""The tunnels will he their second string. It won't be as bad once we're in there. If they're smart, they'll see there's no point going on."

The captain saluted without answering. Balasar was willing to take that as agreement.

It took perhaps half a hand to gather a force of men together. Two hundred soldiers would press forward and take the forges, where Sinja had said the paths down would be open. They were only another street down. "There wasn't a line of defenders to crush, so the horsemen were less useful. They could still move fast, and men on foot who entered the streets wouldn't be able to attack them easily. Footmen with archers interspersed between them ducking fast from doorway to doorway was the best plan.

Etc explained it all to the group leaders, watching the men's faces as he asked them to run through the rain of stones and arrows. Two hundred men to move forward, to take control of the forges and then hold the position against anything that came up out of it until the rest of their force could join them. Balasar would lead them. Not one of them hesitated or voiced objection.

"If we live until sunset," he said, "we'll see the end of this. Now take formation."

The drum throbbed, the captains and group leaders scrambled to the places where their men stood waiting. A few bricks detonated on the street in their wake, but no one had stayed out long enough to be in danger from them. Balasar squatted in his chosen doorway, rubbing his shoulder. The air was numbing cold, and the great dark towers rose around them, higher than the crows that wheeled and called, excited, he guessed, by the smells of blood and carrion.

It struck him how beautiful the city was. Austere and close-packed, with thick-walled buildings and heavy shutters. The brightness of snow and the glittering icicles that hung from the eaves set off the darkness of stone and echoed the vast blank sky. It was a city without colordark and light with hardly even gray in between-and Balasar found himself moved by it. He took a deep breath, watching the cloud of it that formed when he exhaled. The drummer at his side licked his lips.

"Go," Balasar said.

The deep rattle sounded, echoing between the high walls of the houses, and then the press was on, and Balasar launched himself into it, shield high, shoulder cramping. He made it almost halfway to the shelter of the forges and their great copper roofs before the arrows could drop the distance of the towers. Five men fell around him as he ran that last stretch and found himself in a tangle of heat and shouting and swinging blades. One last group of the enemy had stayed hidden here to defy him, to stand guard against them. Balasar shouted and moved forward with the surge of his men. In the field, there would have been formation, rules, order. This was only melee, and Balasar found himself hewing and hacking with his blood singing and alive. It was an idiotic place for a general to be, throwing himself in the face of a desperate enemy, but Balasar felt the joy of it washing away his better sense. A man with a spear fashioned from an old rake poked at him, and he batted the attack away and swung hard, cutting the man down. Three of the locals had formed a knot, fighting with their backs together. Balasar's men overwhelmed them.