Chapter 231: Over Ash and Blood

The assault formation charged at a hard canter across the open ground south of the earthwork.

The walls were still distant, but arrows were already falling. The defenders had the advantage of elevation, and they were using it exactly as trained. On flat ground, a rider could often judge an incoming arrow by its path. From above, the arrows came down almost vertically. By the time a man recognized the threat, the shot had usually already reached him.

Nasan rode on Gal’s left, staring at the walls.

"Those bastards don’t even need to aim from up there. Just loose and let it do the killing."

Gal kept his attention on the fire burning ahead. Dull orange flames showed through the pale dawn while smoke rose from the blackened section of palisade where the projectors had spent the previous day and much of the morning burning through the base posts.

The earthwork itself remained far away, and the assault was still accelerating.

Thirty meters to Gal’s left, a rider took an arrow through the neck.

The shot came from walkway height. It entered below the jaw on the left side and burst out the right in a spray of blood that splashed across the horse’s mane and shoulder. The man’s hands slipped from the reins.

For several heartbeats he stayed upright, his horse carrying him forward out of momentum and habit. Blood streamed down the front of his coat.

Then his balance failed. He slid sideways and struck the ground thirty meters farther on. The horse kept running.

The horse directly ahead of Gal took an arrow through the chest near the shoulders.

There was no stumble. The front legs simply folded beneath it.

The animal crashed down chest-first from a canter and launched its rider over its neck.

Gal reacted before the thought fully formed. He pulled right. His horse jumped the fallen animal in stride, landed cleanly, and continued forward as the formation closed around the distance.

The earthwork rushed toward them.

The slope proved steeper than it had appeared from below. The moment the horses hit the incline, their movement changed. Their hindquarters dug into the earth while their forelegs reached upward. The easy momentum of open ground became a struggle against weight and the steep rise.

Ash mixed with mud through it. Burning debris from the projectors had rolled down during the night, leaving black scorch marks and hidden patches of earth beneath the ash.

The horses adjusted without instruction. They understood terrain instinctively. Men had to learn it.

The defenders understood their advantage just as well.

From the walkway above, they could fire almost straight down the earthwork. The archers exploited it relentlessly. Arrows dropped onto the riders climbing toward them, and there was no way to stay low on the exposed slope.

A rider two positions ahead of Gal took a shaft through the top of his right shoulder. The arrow punched down through the joint, driving deep. Blood immediately soaked across his sleeve. His arm lost strength at once. He shifted the reins to his left hand and continued climbing. Stopping on the slope would only make him an easier target.

Somewhere above and left, a defender shoved a burning timber beam over the palisade rail.

The beam struck the slope end-first, rolled once, and slammed into the rider off Gal’s right shoulder. Fire scraped across the man’s back and left side. Sparks scattered. His coat began to smolder.

He did not stop. There was no response except continuing upward.

Fifteen meters farther down, a horse found a patch where ash and wet snow had turned the slope nearly frictionless. Both front legs slipped out together. The animal crashed onto its chest while its hindquarters still drove forward. Momentum rolled it sideways.

The rider freed one leg. The other caught briefly beneath the animal.

He tore it loose after two seconds and completed a full roll through the ash before stopping.

Then he was back on his feet.

The wall remained above him. That was all that mattered.

Gal reached the top of the earthwork.

The breach lay directly ahead. The projectors had spent a day and a half attacking the base posts, and the effort had worked. A section of palisade roughly six meters wide had burned through and collapsed inward. Heavy timbers lay folded across the interior ground.

Fire still burned at both edges where surviving sections had partially ignited. The ends of the logs glowed orange and radiated heat into the morning air.

Between the breach and the interior ground lay a real drop, several meters down the interior of the earthwork.

"There’s the breach. Move."

Gal drove his horse forward.

The first rider through reached the bottom and immediately met resistance. A defender waiting at the base thrust a spear upward. The drop gave him exactly the opening he needed.

The point punched into the horse’s chest near the shoulder.

The animal screamed. Blood burst around the shaft as it collapsed on impact.

The spearman was dragged forward with the shaft trapped between them, and both went down together. The rider jumped from the saddle, hit the ground on his side, and regained his feet before Gal completed his own descent.

Gal came through second.

He pushed right to avoid the fallen horse and defender. As he landed, a garrison soldier on the left swung an axe at his horse’s neck.

The blade cut across muscle, scraped bone, and opened a long wound that immediately ran red, but it failed to strike anything vital.

Gal struck back at once.

His sword hacked down across the man’s face, opening him from the left ear through the jaw and into the throat. Blood sprayed across the churned earth. The axe slipped from numb fingers. Both hands flew to the ruin of his neck as he dropped to his knees.

Orkhon came through behind him.

A defender on the right thrust a spear at close range.

The point entered Orkhon’s left forearm and burst out below the wrist in a wet spray of blood.

Orkhon made a tight sound through clenched teeth. His injured hand released the reins while blood ran freely down his arm and dripped from his fingers. His right hand took control instead.

He kept moving east through the interior because more riders were pouring through behind him. There was no space to stop and no time to deal with the wound.

Nasan entered next and immediately saw the injury.

Blood was running down Orkhon’s arm in streams now, splashing from his fingertips with every movement of the horse.

Nasan snorted.

"Yeah, that’s going to need a physician if you want to keep the arm."

Orkhon gave no answer. He continued east.

Among the defenders still holding the breach, one voice rose above the noise of combat.

"Stoyte! Stoyte!"

The shout was sharp, directed at nearby men.

The druzhina professionals had organized even here. They used the interior of the earthwork as cover while fighting the stream of riders emerging from the gap.

Their position should not have held as long as it did. Training made the difference.

They continued resisting until the constant flow of attackers made defending the earthwork face impossible.

Gal guided his horse onto the walkway and advanced east along the inside of the palisade.

The planking narrowed in places. The defenders had fallen back toward wider sections near the tower corners, using the railings and the structures themselves for protection.

One man worked a spear horizontally with both hands. He kept the point exactly where Gal could not strike effectively from horseback. The weapon functioned less as a spear than as a barrier.

Gal judged the distance and adjusted.

He pushed his horse against the left rail. The animal’s shoulder pressed into the timber. The spear point slid past on Gal’s right.

His sword flashed.

The cut opened the defender’s left forearm from wrist toward elbow, deep enough to break the grip. The spear fell away.

Gal followed through across the man’s throat.

The defender collapsed against the rail, folded over it, and disappeared from sight.

A crossbow bolt came from farther east along the walkway.

It struck the rider behind Gal through the front of the shoulder. The bolt punched through and emerged from the back in a burst of blood.

His arm immediately dropped uselessly at his side.

He remained mounted and drove his horse onward with his heels. The walkway offered neither room to retreat nor reason to try.

Below, on the interior ground, Chaqu emerged at the breach with the riders who had followed through. He looked up toward the walkway.

"The gate’s still standing! Get moving before the bastards stack more men there!"

Gal looked east along the walkway, then glanced through the smoke toward the distant wall.

The route was clear enough.

He turned his horse east and continued.

Inside the city, the riders who had entered through the breach were already spreading across the interior ground and into the first streets.

Three fires burned within the walls where the projectors’ attacks had spread from the timber defenses into nearby buildings. Through the black smoke, a gold dome still rose above the rooftops.

The district beneath it burned, but the dome remained intact.

Nasan brought his horse up beside Gal on the walkway. He studied the city below, the columns of smoke, the burning buildings, the form of a settlement that had endured a day and a half of bombardment and was now being infiltrated from multiple directions.

"Suvar looked the same from the walls. Bulgar too. Smoke, fire, screaming. Never changes."

Gal looked ahead toward the city and the gate beyond it.

"No."

He nudged his horse forward.

"It doesn’t."