The Amyrlin Seat had thrown her lot in with these men, and with the Seanchan, too. Uno wasn’t going to flaming complain. They needed every sword they could get, Cairhienin and bloody Seanchan included.
“You like our dragons, Captain?” the leader—Talmanes—called to Uno. Captain. Uno had bloody been promoted. He now led a force of newly recruited Tower pikemen and light cavalry.
He shouldn’t have been in charge of bloody anything; he had been happy as a regular soldier. But he had both training and battle experience, things that were in slim supply these days, as Bryne had said in Salidar. So now he was a flaming officer, and leading cavalry and foot soldiers no less! Well, he knew his way around a pike, if he had to use one, though he usually preferred to fight on horseback.
His men were ready to defend the rim of the Heights should the enemy make it up the slope. So far, the archers situated in front of the dragoners had prevented that, but soon enough, the archers would have to pull back, and then it would be bloody regular soldiers doing the bloody fighting. Below, the Sharans pulled aside to let the main Trolloc forces storm up onto the slope.
The pikemen would advance, resisting the Trolloc attack, and pikes would work well here, as the Trollocs would be pushing uphill. Add in some flaming cavalry on their flanks, and some bloody archers shooting through those gateways made high up in the air, and they could probably sit here for days. Maybe weeks. When they were pushed off by superior numbers, they’d let go inch by inch, clinging to every speck of ground.
Uno figured there was no way he was going to survive this flaming battle. He was surprised he’d made it this long. Really, flaming Masema should have had his head, or the Seanchan near Falme, or a Trolloc here and there. He had tried to keep himself lean so he’d taste flaming terrible when they stuffed him in one of those flaming cookpots.
The dragons fired again, blasting enormous holes in the hordes of advancing Trollocs. Uno clapped his hands to his ears. “Warn a man when you do that, you flaming bits hanging from a goat’s—”
The next shot drowned him out.
The Trollocs below were blown into the air, the dragons pulverizing the ground beneath them. Those eggs exploded once they were shot from those cursed tubes. What kind of thing, other than the One Power, could make metal explode? Uno was certain he flaming didn’t want to know.
Talmanes stepped up to the rim of the Heights, inspecting the damage. He was joined by a Taraboner woman, the one who had invented these weapons. She looked over and saw Uno, then tossed him something. A small bit of wax. The Taraboner woman tapped her ear, then began speaking with Talmanes, gesturing. He might have command of the troops, but the woman had charge of the devices. She told the men where to position the dragons to fight.
Uno grumbled, but pocketed the wax. A fist of Trollocs had pushed through the blast, about a hundred strong, and he didn’t have time to bother with his ears. Uno grabbed a pike, leveling it and signaling for his men to do the same. They all wore the white of the Tower; Uno himself wore a white tabard.
He shouted orders, readying his pike by standing sideways near the top of the slope, the heel of its shaft raised. One hand gripped the shaft in front of him to guide and reinforce the thrust; the other hand, palm down, gripping it an arm’s length from the heel, would drive home the thrust as the Trollocs came into range. Several ranks of pikemen behind Uno stood ready to advance following the initial impact.
“Steady with the pikes, you flaming sheepherders!” Uno bellowed. “Steady!”
The Trollocs scrambled up the hill, crashing into the line of pikes. The beasts in the vanguard tried to knock the pikes aside with sweeps of their weapons, but Uno’s men stepped forward, skewering Trollocs, often two pikes per beast. Uno grunted, pulling his pike back into line to catch a Trolloc through the throat.
“First rank, back!” Uno yelled, pulling his pike backward to free it from the Trolloc he’d killed. His companions did the same, pulling their weapons free and leaving the corpses to roll down the slope.
The pikemen in the front rank fell back as those in the second rank came forward between them, ramming pikes into snarling Trollocs. Each rank rotated up front in succession until, minutes later, the entire group of Trollocs was dead. “Nice work,” Uno said, raising his pike to the upright position, a trickle of rancid Trolloc blood winding down the shaft from the pike head. “Nice work.”
He glanced toward the dragoners, who were feeding more eggs down those tubes. He hastily pulled the wax out of his pocket. Yes, they could hold this flaming position. They could hold it well. They just needed to—
A cry from above stopped him from putting the wax in. Something thumped to the ground beside Uno. A lead ball with streamers dropped from high up. “Flaming Seanchan goat!” Uno yelled, looking up and shaking his fist. “That nearly took me in the crown, you lover of rotting worms!”
The raken flew off, probably without its rider hearing a word of what Uno had shouted. Bloody Seanchan. He stooped down, removing the letter from the ball.
Retreat down the southwestern slope of the Heights.
“You’re bloody kicking me,” Uno muttered. “Kicking me in the head while I’m sleeping. Allin, you bloody fool, can you read this?”
Allin, a dark-haired Andorman, wore a half-beard, shaved at the sides. Uno had always thought those looked flaming ridiculous.
“Retreat?” Allin said. “Now?”
“They’ve flaming lost their minds,” Uno said.
Nearby, Talmanes and the Taraboner woman were receiving a messenger—and she was relaying the same news, by the looks of the Taraboner woman’s scowl. Retreat.
“Cauthon had better bloody know what he’s doing,” Uno said, shaking his head. He still didn’t understand why anyone would put Cauthon in charge of anything. He remembered that boy, always snapping at people, eyes sunken in his head. Half-dead, half-spoiled. Uno shook his head.
But he’d do it. He’d sworn to the bloody White Tower. So he’d do it. “Pass the word,” he said to Allin, stuffing the wax in his ears as Aludra, at the dragons, prepared a last volley before leaving. “We’re pulling back from the bloody Heights, and—”
A clap of sound hit Uno physically, vibrating through him, bloody near stopping his heart. His head hit the ground before he realized he’d fallen.
He blinked dust from his eyes, groaning and rolling over as another flash, then another, struck the Heights where the dragons were. Lightning! His soldiers were down on their knees, eyes shut, hands over ears. Talmanes was already up, however, shouting orders that Uno could barely hear, waving for his men to pull back.
A dozen fireballs, enormous and incredibly fast, rose from the Sharan army behind the Trollocs. Uno cursed and threw himself in a depression for cover, rolling into place moments before the entire hill shook like an earthquake. Clods of earth fell upon him, almost burying him.