20
As the dawn sky lightened on the morning of the third day, the first realities of apocalypse hammered home on the walls of Dros Delnoch. Hundreds of ballistae arms were pulled back by thousands of sweating warriors. Muscles bunching and knotting, the Nadir drew back the giant arms until the wicker baskets at their heads were almost horizontal. Each basket was loaded with a block of jagged granite.
The defenders watched in frozen horror as a Nadir captain raised his arm. The arm swept down and the air became filled with a deadly rain that crashed and thundered amidst and around the defenders. The battlements shook as the boulders fell. By the gate tower, three men were smashed to oblivion as a section of crenellated battlement exploded under the impact of one huge rock. Along the wall men cowered, hurling themselves flat, hands over their heads. The noise was frightening, the silence that followed was terrifying. For as the first thunderous assault ceased and soldiers raised their heads to gaze below, it was only to see the same process being casually repeated. Back, and further back went the massive wooden arms. Up went the captain’s hand. Down it went.
And the rain of death bore down.
Rek, Druss and Serbitar stood above the gate tower, enduring the first horror of war along with the men. Rek had refused to allow the old warrior to stand alone, though Orrin had warned that for both leaders to stand together was lunacy. Druss had laughed. ‘You and the lady Virae shall watch from the second wall, my friend. And you will see that no Nadir pebble can lay me low.’
Virae, furious, had insisted that she be allowed to wait on the first wall with the others, but Rek had summarily refused. An argument was swiftly ended by Druss: ‘Obey your husband, woman!’ he thundered. Rek had winced at that, closing his eyes against the expected outburst. Strangely Virae had merely nodded and retired to Musif, Wall Two, to stand beside Hogun and Orrin.
Now Rek crouched by Druss and gazed left and right along the wall. Swords and spears in hand, the men of Dros Delnoch waited grimly for the deadly storm to cease.
During the second reloading Druss ordered half the men back to stand beneath the second wall, out of range of the catapults. There they joined Bowman’s archers.
For three hours the assault continued, pulverising sections of the wall, butchering men and obliterating one overhanging tower, which collapsed under the titanic impact and crumbled slowly into the valley below. Most of the men leapt to safety and only four were carried screaming over the edge to be broken on the rocks below.
Stretcher-bearers braved the barrage to carry wounded men back to the Eldibar field hospital. Several rocks had hit the building, but it was solidly built and so far none had broken through. Bar Britan, black-bearded and powerful, raced alongside the bearers with sword in hand, urging them on.
‘Gods, that’s bravery!’ said Rek, nudging Druss and pointing. Druss nodded, noting Rek’s obvious pride at the man’s courage. Rek’s heart went out to Britan as the man ignored the lethal storm.
At least fifty men had been stretchered away. Fewer than Druss had feared. He raised himself to stare over the battlements.
‘Soon,’ he said. ‘They are massing behind the siege towers.’
A boulder crashed through the wall ten paces away from him, scattering men like sand in the wind. Miraculously only one failed to rise, the rest rejoining their comrades. Druss raised his arm to signal Orrin. A trumpet sounded and Bowman and the rest of the men surged forward. Each archer carried five quivers of twenty arrows as they raced across the open ground, over the fire-gully bridges and on towards the battlements.
With a roar of hate, almost tangible to the defenders, the Nadir swept towards the wall in a vast black mass, a dark tide set to sweep the Bros before it. Thousands of the barbarians began to haul the huge siege towers forward, while others ran with ladders and ropes. The plain before the walls seemed alive as the Nadir poured forward, screaming their battle cries.