Kelven's Riddle Book Five by Hylton Daniel

Author:Hylton, Daniel [Hylton, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2014-10-14T16:00:00+00:00

39.

Olyeg Kraine did his best to bury his nagging worries over his friend, Kitchell, and focused on maintaining the order of his lines as the enemy charged up the slope, smashing into his front in haphazard manner. The rough terrain, though not as bad here as elsewhere on the rim of the crater, nonetheless caused a measure of disorder in the lines of the enemy, and so contact was uneven all along the front. Kraine’s lines buckled and sagged as the enemy made impact – but the effect was not constant; the line weakened here, but not there.

He was loath to send reserves in so soon, until he was certain of the places where his lines would, indeed, buckle and fold to a dangerous degree, something that at this moment could not be easily determined – not before the enemy made impact all along the front.

He ran from one commander to another back and forth along the line. “Hold! Reform that line!” He shouted again and again, as his lungs burned from the exertion and his old legs began to fail.

But his commanders responded – whether because of Kraine’s exhortations or their own acumen – and soon, there was a relatively even front straining against the enemy – all of whom were now there, driven forward with vicious ferocity by their lasher overlords.

Kraine had placed several thousand soldiers in reserve. More than a third of these were positioned to his left, near where Thom Sota was in command, so he left those to the discretion of that younger man and focused upon the center and right of his lines.

Technically, Kitchell was in command of his right, but since the Governor-general had decided to join the fight in a personal way, the responsibility for Elam’s extreme right had effectively fallen to young Marteren Hulse. Kraine trusted Hulse, both his nerve and his intelligence; still, he kept an eye trained on the right as he worried over his center.

In contrast to many of his younger compatriots, Olyeg Kraine was not surprised by the horrific noise and instant carnage of war. It was not that he’d known what exactly to expect; the only battle he’d witnessed had been very one-sided, when Lord Aram and his mounted troop had driven Slan from before the walls of Tobol.

It was simply that Kraine had lived long enough to witness death in its many forms, both natural and unnatural, so he had known in at least a general sense what would occur when two great companies of enemy combatants came together in violent collision. That which he saw happening along the rocky slope in front of him exceeded every expectation.

What surprised him most was that his men were holding their own, struggling and straining to push the enemy back and pierce him with their steel. Kraine’s heart swelled at the sight, even as he swallowed down his emotion as broken, dead, and wounded men were transported away from the front in ever greater numbers as the first hour after contact waxed and waned, and began to wear away.

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