The Quest - Smith Wilbur (читать лучшие читаемые книги TXT) 📗

'Steady!' Meren cautioned his men. 'Let them get in close. Hold your arrows!'

The massed ranks of the Basmara swept past the outer markers and they began to chant their war-cry. The spears drummed on the shields.

At every fifth pace they stamped their bare feet in unison. The rattles on their ankles clashed, and the ground jumped at the impact. The fine dust from the ashes of the burned city rose waist high around them so they seemed to wade through water. They came up to the one-hundred-pace markers. The chanting and drumming swelled into a frenzy.

'Steady!' Meren bellowed, so that his voice carried above the din.

'Hold hard!' The front rank was coming up to the fifty-pace marker.

They could see every detail of the weird patterns painted on the Basmara faces. The leaders were past the markers now; and were so close that the archers on the stockade were looking down upon them.

'Nock and aim!' Meren roared. Up came the bows. They arced as the archers drew. Their eyes narrowed as they aimed along the shafts. Meren knew better than to let them hold the draw, until their arms began to judder. His next command came only a breath behind the last. At that precise moment the dense ranks reached the thirty-pace markers.

'Let fly!' he shouted, and they loosed as one man. At that range not a single arrow missed. They flew in a massed, silent cloud. It was a mark of

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their mettle that no two archers aimed at the same Basmara warrior. The first rank went down as though they had fallen into a pit in the earth.

'Loose at will!' Meren howled. His archers nocked the second arrow with practised dexterity. They threw up, drew and released in one movement, making it appear easy and unhurried. The next rank of Basmara went down, and moments later, the next fell on top of them.

Those that followed stumbled over growing mounds of corpses.

'Arrows here!' The cry went up along the top of the parapet, and the Shilluk women scurried forward, bowed under the bundles they carried on their shoulders. The Basmara kept coming, and the archers shot at them until at last they milled about below the stockade trying for a handhold on the poles of the wall to hoist themselves up. Some reached the top, but Nakonto, Imbali and her women were waiting for them.

The battleaxes rose and fell as though they were chopping firewood.

Nakonto's cries were murderous as he plied his stabbing spear.

At last a shrill piping of ivory whistles brought the carnage to an abrupt end. The regiments melted away across the ash-dusted field to where Basma waited to regroup the survivors.

Meren strode along the parapet. 'Is anyone wounded? No? Good.

When you go out to pick up your arrows, watch out for those who are feigning dead. It's a favourite trick of such devils.'

They opened the gates and rushed out to gather up the arrows. The barbs of many were buried in the dead flesh and had to be chopped out with sword or axe. It was grisly work and they were soon as blood spattered as a gang of butchers. Once they had the arrows they collected the spears of the fallen Basmara. Then they ran back into the stockade and slammed the gates.

The women brought up the waterskins with baskets of dried fish and dhurra cakes. While most of the men were still chewing, the chanting began again and their captains called them back to the parapet: 'Stand to your arms!'

The Basmara came again in a tight phalanx, but this time the leaders carried long poles they had cut in the forest. When they were shot down by the archers on the wall, the men that followed picked up the poles they had dropped and carried them forward. Fifty or more men died before the poles reached the outer wall of the stockade. The Basmara crowded forward to lift one end of a pole and prop it against the top of the wall. Immediately they swarmed up it, their short stabbing spears clamped in their teeth.

Once their weight was on the pole it was impossible for the defenders

to dislodge it. They had to meet the warriors hand to hand when they reached the top of the wall. Imbali and her women stood in the line with the men, and dealt out deadly execution with their battleaxes. But the Basmara seemed impervious to their losses. They clambered over the corpses of their comrades, and rushed into the fray, eager and undaunted.

At last a small bunch had fought their way on to the parapet. It took hard and bitter fighting before the last was hurled back. However, fresh waves swarmed to take their places. Just when it seemed that the exhausted defenders were about to be overwhelmed by the sheer weight of painted bodies, the whistles shrilled again and the attackers melted away.

They drank, dressed their wounds and changed their blunted swords for new ones with keener edges, but the respite was short-lived before the cry went up once more: 'Stand to your arms! They are coming again.'

Meren's men met two more rushes before sunset, but the last was costly. Eight men and two of Imbali's companions had been speared or clubbed to death on the parapet before the Basmara were thrown back.

Few of the troopers had survived the day unscathed. Some had only light cuts or bruises. Two had broken bones from blows of the heavy Basmara clubs. Two more would not see out the night: a spear thrust through the guts and another through the lungs would carry them off before dawn. Many were too weary to eat or even to drag themselves to the shelter of the huts. As soon as they had quenched their thirst they threw themselves down on the parapet and fell asleep in their sweat soaked armour and bloody bandages.

'We will not hold out here another day,' Meren told Taita. 'This village has become a death-trap. I had not thought the Basmara could be so tenacious. We will have to kill every one before we can get away.'

He looked tired and despondent. His eye cavity was hurting — he kept lifting the patch and rubbing it with his knuckles.

Taita had seldom seen him in such a reduced state. 'We do not have enough men to hold this perimeter,' he agreed. 'We will have to pull back to the inner line.' They looked across at the final ring of defences around the well. 'We can do that under cover of night. Then we will set fire to the stockade at the first enemy charge in the morning. That will hold them for a few hours until the flames burn down.'

'And then?'

'We will keep the horses saddled, and wait for our chance to break out of the town and escape.'

'To where?'

'I will tell you when I know,' Taita promised, and stood up stiffly.

'Make sure the men holding the stockade have fire-pots. I am going to Fenn.'

She was asleep when he entered the hut. He did not want to wake her to examine her leg, but when he touched her cheek it was cool, not flushed or feverish. The wound has not mortified, he reassured himself.

He sent Lala away, and lay down at Fenn's side. Before he had taken more than three breaths, he had dropped into a deep, dark sleep.

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I”?“ TT e awoke in the uncertain light of dawn. Fenn was sitting over him anxiously. 'I thought you were dead,' she exclaimed, as he . opened his eyes.

'So did I.' Taita sat up. 'Let me see your leg.' He unwrapped the bandage and found the wound only slightly inflamed, but no hotter than his own hand. He leant close and sniffed at the stitches. There were no putrescent odours. 'You must get dressed. We may have to move quickly.' While he helped her into her tunic and loincloth, he told her, 'I am going to make a crutch for you, but you will have little opportunity to learn to use it. The Basmara will certainly attack again at sunrise.' Quickly he fashioned it from a light staff and a carved crosspiece, which he padded with bark cloth. She leant on it heavily as he helped her hobble out to the horse lines. Between them, they put the bridle and saddle on Whirlwind. There was a warning shout from the outer stockade.