A Malazan Book of the Fallen Collection 4

charge into the
Bluerose companies. Errant below, they've been wiped out. Hundreds of dead and dying skirmishers covered the
grounds to either side of that fateful impact.
    Her right advance had been deeply wounded – not yet mortal, even so – 'Advance the medium and the two heavies
across the valley – order to engage that line on the ridge.
Wedge formations!' Those skirmishers are too thinly arrayed to hold.
    'Atri-Preda!' called an aide. 'Movement to the north
side!'
    She cantered her horse to the very edge of the rise and
scanned the scene below and to her left. 'Report!'
    'Bluerose lancers in retreat, Atri-Preda – the valley floor
beyond the chokepoint is theirs—'
    'What? How many damned horse-archers does he have?'
    The officer shook her head. 'Wardogs, sir. Close on two
thousand of the damned things – moving through the high
grasses in the basin – they were on the lancers before they
knew it. The horses went wild, sir—'
    ' Shit! ' Then, upon seeing the messenger's widening eyes,
she steeled herself. 'Very well. Move the reserve medium to
the north flank of the knoll.' Seven hundred and fifty, Merchants' Battalion – I doubt they'd try sending dogs against that. I can still advance them to retake the chokepoint's debouch, when the time comes.
    As she thought this, she was scanning the array before
her. Directly opposite, the thousand Harridict skirmishers
had crossed the riverbed, even as the Crimson Rampant
sawtooth advance moved onto level ground.
    And Redmask's five wedges of warriors were marching to
meet them. Excellent. We'll lock that engagement – with ballistae enfilade to weaken their north flank – then down come the Crimson Rampant medium, to wheel into their flank.
    Surprisingly the Awl wedges more or less held to their
formations, although they were each maintaining considerable
distance from their flanking neighbours – once the
space drew tighter, she suspected, the wedges would start
mixing, edges pulled ragged. Marching in time was the
most difficult battlefield manoeuvre, after all. Between
each of them, then, could be found the weak points.
Perhaps enough to push through with the saw's teeth and
begin isolating each wedge.
    'Wardogs on the knoll!'
    She spun at the cry. 'Errant's kick!' Frenzied barking,
shrieks from the weapon crews – 'Second reserve legion –
the Artisan! Advance on the double – butcher those
damned things!'
    Obscurely, she suddenly recalled a scene months ago –
wounded but alive, less than a handful of the beasts on a
hill overlooking an Awl camp, watching the Letherii
slaughtering the last of their masters. And she wondered,
with a shiver of superstitious fear, if those beasts were now
exacting ferocious vengeance. Dammit, Bivatt – never mind all that.
    The Awl spear-heads were not drawing together, she saw
– nor was there need to, now that she'd temporarily lost her
ballistae. Indeed, the two northernmost of those wedges
were now angling to challenge her Crimson Rampant
medium. But this would be old-style fighting, she knew –
and the Awl did not possess the discipline nor the training
for this kind of steeled butchery.
    Yet, Redmask is not waging this battle in the Awl fashion, is he? No, this is something else. He's treating this like a plains engagement in miniature – the way those horse-archers wheeled, reformed, then reformed again – a hit and run tactic, all on a compacted scale.
    I see now – but it will not work for much longer.
    Once his warriors locked with her mailed fist.
    The Awl spear-heads were now nearing the flat of the
riverbed – the two sides would engage on the hard-packed
sand of the bed itself. No advantage of slope to either
side – until the tide shifts. One way or the other – no, do not think—
    A new reverberation trembled through the ground now.
    Deeper, rolling, ominous.
    From the dust, between the Awl wedges, huge shapes
loomed, rumbled forward.
    Wagons. Awl wagons, the six-wheeled bastards – not
drawn, but pushed. Their beds were crowded with half-naked
warriors, spears bristling. The entire front end of
each rocking, pitching wagon was a horizontal forest
of oversized spears. Round-shields overlapped to form a
half-turtleshell that encased the forward section.
    They now thundered through the broad gaps between
the wedges – twenty, fifty, a hundred – lumbering yet
rolling so swiftly after the long descent into the valley that
the masses of burly warriors who had been pushing them
now trailed in