55
The poleaxes were whetted, with Kobe sitting behind a spinning wheel of rough stone that he pedalled with his feet and soldiers kneeling beside him to sharpen their blades against it in a screeching shower of sparks. Even Fletcher managed a turn with his khopesh, once he had finished reloading Gale and Blaze.
Guns were cleaned, inspected and cleaned again, while the wall was repaired and reinforced with a combination of mud and scavenged shields and spears. The gremlins had brought back grisly trophies from the battlefield, and Half-ear proudly paraded around, wearing a necklace of goblin ears threaded through a dirty string. Fletcher did not discourage them, even requesting that the gremlins display their trophies beside the bodies within the Cleft – a warning to any goblins that chose to venture through once again.
All the while, orcs barked and bellowed guttural commands, shoving goblins into position, just beyond rifle range. The hyenas had been unleashed into the forests, presumably to hunt down the goblins that had fled earlier and herd them back to the killing fields. What Fletcher knew for sure was that there would be a massive attack coming, and not much time to prepare for it.
The wagon had come with shovels, which they had used to churn the earth to make the mud-mortar for their walls. But Fletcher came up with another use for them. The ground just before the Cleft had been torn up by the explosions of the bamboo bombs, and Fletcher sent a contingent of men to extend it into a trench, as deep as their waists. When this was done, they embedded the stone points of the goblin spears at the bottom, covered it with the canvas of the Forsyth tents and camouflaged it with a thin layer of earth.
It was too narrow to prevent goblins from leaping over it, nor could they conceal their actions from the watching enemy, but Fletcher was sure that in the chaos of battle, at least a few goblins would fall in and cripple themselves on the spikes below.
As for the manchineel tree timber, Fletcher ordered it moved into the space beyond the wall, and had spare tent covers, spears and the bamboo that had been left over from the bomb-making added to the pile. It was still a far smaller heap than Fletcher would have liked, but it would have to do.
‘Rory, any news?’ Fletcher asked, sidling up to the young officer. He and Genevieve were sitting apart from the others, their eyes closed, brows furrowed in concentration. They had small fragments of scrying crystal in their hands, and Fletcher could see the rushing images of a war-torn landscape within them.
‘We can only hear and see from Malachi and Azura,’ Genevieve answered, before Rory could speak, ‘since they’re the ones connected to our scrying crystals.’
‘Of course,’ Fletcher said, biting his lip. Rory spoke, his eyes still closed.
‘The others just have instructions, but we won’t hear who they’ve reached. We’ll only know that the message has been delivered and we’ll sense the emotions our Mites feel. If they’re happy, we can assume rescue is on its way.’
‘Not rescue, reinforcements,’ Genevieve rebuked him gently. It was only then that Fletcher saw the pair were holding hands. He smiled. It was about time.
‘One message has been delivered,’ Rory said suddenly, a smile breaking across his pale face. ‘Hang on … I think—’
‘My lord, movement!’ shouted Kobe. Rory’s eyes snapped open, and the pair scrambled back to their squads on either side of the wall, his words forgotten.
Fletcher refocused on his scrying crystal, and his heart filled with cold horror. It was the Phantaur. The enormous beast was advancing with its great flapping ears and arms extended wide. Behind it, a column of what could have been a hundred goblins followed, their rawhide shields raised as they took cover behind the demon’s bulk.
Already it was past the first row of stakes, and was nearly in musket range. With every stomp, the chorus of death whistles and rattling slowly increased in volume, accompanied by the squalling of the many hundreds of goblins behind them.
Sir Caulder took a breath to order a volley, but Fletcher knew better.
‘Hold your fire!’ Fletcher yelled to the Foxes. ‘Its skin is too thick.’
‘So what are we supposed to do?’ Dalia snapped, sighting down her musket regardless. ‘Let them come in and finish us off? As soon as we’re in close combat the rest of them will charge.’
‘No,’ Fletcher said. His mind raced and then he turned to the riflemen in the stone ring of the old watchtower.
‘Can you hit its eyes?’ Fletcher asked.
‘We’re low on ammunition, but it’s worth a shot, if you’ll pardon the pun, milord,’ Rotherham’s voice called back.
‘Do it then,’ Fletcher ordered.
The Phantaur was in musket range now, and Fletcher could see the goblins behind it through the gaps in its great, tree-trunk legs. Should he order his musketeers to fire?
But even the riflemen were failing. The first shot glanced off the demon’s cheek, then as more gunfire whipped down, the great beast did nothing more than flap its ears inwards over its face, slowing its pace as it stomped ever closer to the Cleft. It extended its arms, walking blindly.
Fletcher looked to Sir Caulder, hoping for a solution, but the old man simply stared at the approaching beast, his knuckles tightening white against the pommel of his sword.
He needed to solve this himself.
Fletcher’s mind flashed back to his lessons at Vocans. He’d read dusty journals from battlemages long dead that spoke of the Phantaur’s trunk-tips as being like a thumb and forefinger, with equal sensitivity and dexterity. He had learned that their skin was so thick that only a speeding lance might penetrate it, and that Phantaurs used the clusters of nerves in their footpads to sense tremors of potential mates from as far as a mile away.
And that was when Fletcher knew what he had to do. It would take a bit of luck, and a big roll of the dice. But he would be damned if he was going to go down without a fight.
‘Rory, I need your squad,’ Fletcher said, jumping over the wall once again. ‘Poleaxes only.’
Rory’s mouth flapped open. For a moment Fletcher thought he would ask something, but then he nodded grimly and gave the order. Fletcher looked to the platform above.
‘Rotherham, I want a rolling fire on those ears, keep him blinded.’
‘Aye, sir,’ Rotherham said, punctuating his answer with a shot from his rifle.
By now Rory and his fifteen soldiers had leaped the wall, with a brief moment of awkward confusion as the three dwarves in the group struggled over the top. Gallo and Dalia were among his squad and, to Fletcher’s surprise, Half-ear, Blue and a handful of gremlins had clambered over the wall to join them.
‘We come too,’ Half-ear sneered, licking a wicked looking dagger malevolently.
Fletcher grinned and waved the soldiers on. If all went to plan, there would only be a few moments of fighting. If it didn’t … well … a few more warriors wouldn’t hurt.
‘There’s a hundred goblins and a Phantaur about to come through there,’ Mason said, less concerned with propriety than the men. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing.’
‘Just cover us,’ Fletcher replied, his voice loud for the benefit of Genevieve’s squad.
Then, without looking back, he drew his sword and ran towards the Cleft.