tearing into either side with a percussion of metal. Only the echoing, anguished cries pierced the long corridor of spears. For all of the armor each tribesman wore, the wicker was no better than paper for shielding their bodies.
Across the battlefield, row after row stood waiting for their turn, pushed to a halt at the mouth of the riverbed. Mounds of bodies stymied all attempts to break the front lines of the Purple Sun. Rivulets of the stream and blood drained down toward the sea beneath the massive line of dead and dying, the sand beneath becoming like mud yet unable to absorb fast enough.
Pressing their own forward from behind—and maneuvering over the piles of corpses—the Nepengal tribe pushed hard into the center trough of the Purple Sun phalanx, trying to open the path once more by clogging the spears with bodies. Spears from both sides sawed into their guts repeatedly, mutilated soldiers screamed in anguish as their bodies were torn apart. Even so, the only forward progress came through that porcupine pass.
Vrelm Lagnothor moved from his position in the left phalanx line. Peering into the spear-laden path, he eyed the enemy’s progress. Looking behind, he spotted the loxodonts finally lined up and ready to charge. Moving back to position, Lagnothor took a horn from his waist. It was carved from a loxodontus tusk, ornately decorated in bronze to amplify its sound. He blew the horn repeatedly, sounding clear warning and necessary signals to those ahead and behind. The resonating funnel of the chasm gave the horn’s voice enough weight to sound crisply over the wailing soldiers and whistling arrows. As if that were that not enough, for the first time since battle began, the two phalanx lines began sounding in imitation of the horn’s sound and notes, making sure all heard the signal.
Over the din of screams and scraping spears, the porcupine path widened slightly, with several of the soldiers stepping back and allowing small gaps in their defense; however, the pounding of the spears never abated, skewering any who fell too close.
Falling over themselves and the cobweb of bodies and limbs, the tribesmen charged into the small opening, steadily pouring onto the spears. Even so, the large numbers of soldiers were forcing deeper and deeper into the phalanx pathway, slipping and sliding over bloodied bodies and finding relief from their wounds in gruesome death.
Suddenly, the soldiers broke into a chorus of victorious cheers that they were finally making a foothold. This clamor was accompanied by new and numerous loud whistles as amazons too deep into the riverbed to fire at the army on the beach let fly their arrows into the gullet of the phalanx. The extra space of the path and the bloodstained wicker provided easy targets for the skilled amazonian archers.
The procession slowed again, although the tribesmen flooded the pathway like water from a faucet. The further in they scrambled the fewer bodies they had to climb over, but the path was never clear.
Lagnothor watched the horde of tribesmen loom closer. He gave no verbal orders, but turned towards the back of the phalanx line and blew his horn once more, proudly, drawing it out for as long as his lungs could muster. With a gasp, he slung his horn on his hip once again. Lifting his spear up, the Asiér’rïan vrelm readied himself for his turn at the carnage.
Rangthor pulled on the reins of his loxodont, leaning over its left ear to view the line behind him. “I’m getting impatient, Nelledotor!” Jedivo Tilin called out with a smile.
“I’m with Jedivo!” Ategem Jidalurg agreed from further back. “I’d like to die in battle rather than waste away watching it!”
“How you warriors survive at all with such reckless behavior in the face of death is beyond me,” Fora’tine Xi’indirs swore under her breath. The amazon warrior gripped her reins, threatening to burst the bindings of her armor with every flex of her muscles.
“Don’t worry, Fora’tine. We’ll make sure you stay alive long enough for Sulour to sing you to sleep,” Toris glibly called out. Sulour Riutu shook his head with a sigh. Fora’tine turned in her saddle, about to spit back a vile retort, but Elaisegen cut her off.
“Rangthor, it is now, or it is never,” Elaisegen stated. “Our army can’t hold this position much longer.” Rangthor’s eyes narrowed, watching the horde of falling soldiers push further into the pathway of spears. He wanted as many as possible. Without alerting those behind, Rangthor snapped the reins and charged his loxodont forward. A sea of cheers rose from the Warriors of the Purple Sun, who followed him in a tight line.
Dust and dirt was stirred up with each trembling pad of the loxodonts’ feet depressing the ground solidly in its wake. The line of mounts began calling out in loud roars, a thunderous noise to the ears of their new riders. Had the grass below been able, it would have run away rather than be trampled flat by the controlled stampede of loxodonts.
Rangthor grabbed up his horn once more, blowing on it triumphantly. The clarion call trumpeted their approach in a constant note, occasionally accompanied by the loxodonts’ various voices. Neither the squeaking of leather stretching and pulling taut nor the creaking and groaning of the wooden towers rubbing against their bolts could be heard over the warning calls and the trampling feet.
Lagnothor looked back towards the growing cloud of dust and dirt, plodding towards the back of the phalanx. Rangthor’s trumpeting prompted the Asiér’rïan vrelm to accompany it; turning towards the front lines, Lagnothor’s horn shrilled out a succession of notes.
The Rygem’dor army barely seemed to care that suddenly most of the spears down the path had retracted, opening up a path they could walk through unscathed. Pouring into the new opening, tribesmen tried to put their wicker shields towards the spearheads and force the pass open, tripping over any of their fellow men that failed to move into the pass quickly enough. Their shields flush to the sides of the path and locked together to hold the phalanx tight, the tribesmen saturated the clean riverbed with wicker and spears.
Almost breaching the back of the riverbed, several tribesmen looked forward. Their elation stopped, looking up at the charge approaching. Smiles faded fast into shock and fear, and the tribesmen made a fruitless attempt to double back the way they’d come, confronted by a river of soldiers.
Rangthor’s shout was lost in the din, unsheathing his bronze sword in a flagrant show of force, snapping the reins once again. Its trunk upraised and roaring, the loxodont bore down toward the phalanx and the clogged path therein. The looming shadows of the gorge muted the colors of the dry riverbed, darkening the fear-struck eyes of the soldiers now facing behemoths barreling down on them. Trunks upraised, war towers wobbling to and fro, the line of loxodonts crashed recklessly into the trapped tribesmen.
The path bulged, shrill screams of agony resonating into the gorge as wide flat feet slammed onto leather-clad bodies and crushed wicker armor. Bone turned to shrapnel within flattening bodies as loxodonts trampled over the same felled men.
The Purple Sun warriors matched their counterparts by forcing their shields into the pathway, pushing fearful Rygem’dor tribesmen into the loxodonts’ path to be trampled. The long spears turned toward the center, shooting forth to recreate the zipper of metal into whomever they couldn’t force back under the feet of the loxodonts. Rangthor called out, his right arm still upraised as he fought to steer his flailing loxodont forward. Its head lurched down and to either side, swatting spears away and flinging men into the columns. The few spears that could stay pointed Rangthor’s way snapped against the loxodont’s wicker and leather armor, as well as the beast’s natural scutes lining its trunk and body.
Like children throwing a tantrum, the loxodonts charged forward, flailing their heads and seeking an exit from the mass of bodies and spear points poking their soft underbellies. The crunch of bone was drowned in the noise of the screams; behind their shields, the inner phalanx ranks closest to the path wiped their eyes of the blood splattered from broken bodies underfoot.
Calmly and coldly, the phalanx lines began to return to their original shape, closing up the path at its back as the last of the loxodonts passed. Amidst flailing bodies, screams and blood, the
zipper of spears began to close up, each spear jamming into whoever was left alive in the trampling, reshaping the phalanx back into one large rectangle of spears and shields.
Jitalonr Austron leapt to his left in reflex, watching the massive loxodonts burst through his ranks. Their legs and bellies had some spears lodged in the skin, but nothing close to what would be needed to fell these beasts on their rampage. Rising from the sandy shores, Austron followed the loxodont procession as it charged into the beachhead and the chaotically amassed army beyond.
Rangthor sheathed his sword, grabbing the loxodont’s reins to force it where he wanted. Opening his charge in the wider beach, Rangthor expected to trample over very few soldiers—loxodonts would, after all, run into clear territory if given the choice. He eyed the front, watching archers assemble ahead. Holding onto the bow of the saddle with his left hand, Rangthor reached back behind him, tearing free the round wicker buckler affixed to the side of the towers. Bringing the shield ahead, Rangthor readied himself for the volleys to come.
The loxodont cried out, the porcupine quills of archers from below the wounded underbelly of Rangthor’s mount further maddening