The Crippled God

explosive. The entire line disintegrated, bodies tumbling back to the crouching loaders.
    More grenados arced after the quarrels, down into the trench. Closer now, Erekala could see limbs, ripped clean from bodies, spinning in the air.
    Higher up the slope, the reserve companies boiled into motion, rushing down towards the third trench, while those troops who had been stationed in that position were now foaming up over their own berm, to begin a downhill charge. The line of archers dug in above the third trench were swept up in the wholesale advance.
    ‘What are they doing?’ demanded Staylock.
    ‘The trenches are proving indefensible against these munitions,’ Erekala replied. ‘The half-blood officers have correctly determined theproper response to this – they must close with the marines. Their elevation and their numbers alone should win the day.’
    The marines, he now saw beneath the fast thinning smoke, had overrun the archers’ trench, and looked to be digging in all along the line – but Erekala had ensured that the earthworks were designed in such a manner as to expose them to attack from higher up the slope. Those trenches offered them nothing. The marines began scurrying in full retreat.
    ‘They’re panicking,’ hissed Staylock. ‘They’ve run out of toys, and now …’
    The descending, elongated mass of Kolansii was like an avalanche racing after the straggly marines.
    ‘Hold up at the lowest trench,’ Erekala pleaded. ‘Don’t follow the fools all the way down!’
    The sound of that charge, past the archers’ trench and into the dip of the first trench, was like thunder.
    There were officers in the lead ranks. Erekala saw them checking their soldiers—
    The whole scene vanished in multiple eruptions, as if the entire slope had exploded beneath the Kolansii forces. The concussion rolled upwards to shake the summit, fracturing the wall and shaking the stone gates, taking hold of the wooden platform Erekala and the others stood on and rattling it so fiercely that they all lost their footing. Rails snapped and men and women tumbled over the sides, screaming.
    Erekala grasped one side post, managed to hang on as successive shock waves slammed up the slope. Wolves protect us!
    Twisting now on the strangely tilted platform, he saw the clouds lifting to blot out the view to the north – dust and dirt, armour and weapons and sodden strips of clothing – all of it now swept down towards them, a grisly rain of devastation.
    Unmindful of the deadly deluge, Erekala pulled himself upright. One of the legs of the platform had snapped and he was alone – even Staylock had plummeted to the broken ground below.
    A sword tip stabbed deep into the pine boards just off to his left, the blade quivering with the impact. More rubble rained down.
    He stared downslope, struggling to make sense of what he was seeing. All but the highest, nearest trench – along with the levelled ground behind it – was torn chaos, the ground wounded with overlapping craters steaming amidst chewed-up corpses. Most of the Kolansii army was simply … gone .
    And then he saw movement once again, from the downward end – the same marines, swarming back up the slope, into the huge bites in the earth, up and over. Squads advancing, others drawing into tight clumps and beginning work on something.
    Streams of Kolansii survivors, stunned, painted crimson, were retreating up towards the stone wall, clumping on the cobbled road. Most of the soldiers had flung away their weapons.
    Just like that, the Kolansii are finished .
    Strange crackling bursts of fire from the marines, and Erekala’s eyes widened to see streaks of flame race out from squad positions, sizzling as they lunged up and into the air, arcing upslope.
    Of the dozen terrifying projectiles launched, only two directly struck the crowded road.
    The platform under Erekala pitched back, flinging him round. He lost his grip, slid past the embedded sword, and then he was falling. There was no sound. He realized that he had been deafened, and so in sweet, perfect silence, he watched the ground race up to meet him. And overhead, shadow stole the morning light.
    Staylock had only just picked herself up – bruised and aching – when a closer detonation threw her back to the ground. The wall before her rippled, punching away the soldiers huddled against its protective barrier. And then, with a roar of fire, something descended on the gate to her right. The stones disintegrated