And hell came to earth instants later for the men of the Himerian vanguard. The valley floor seemed to erupt in bursting fountains of stone and dirt. It reminded Aras of the effect a heavy rainstorm has on bare soil. The lead enemy formations simply disappeared in that tempest of explosions. The Torunnan gunners were using hollow shells packed with powder for the most part. When these detonated they sent wicked showers of red-hot metal spraying in a deadly hail, tearing men apart, maiming them, tossing them through the air. In the lower embrasures, however, the batteries were loaded with solid shot, and these skimmed along at breast height, cutting great swathes of bloody slaughter through the close-packed enemy, each shot felling a dozen or a score of men and sending their sundered fragments flying among their fellows. Aras found he was beating his fist on the stone of the merlon as he watched, and his face had frozen open in a savage grinning rictus. There were perhaps fifteen thousand men in that first wave, and they were being torn to pieces while still a mile from Gaderion's mighty walls. From those walls he could hear a hoarse roaring noise. The gunners were cheering, or baying rather, even as they reloaded and ran out the culverins again. A continuous bellowing thunder rang out, magnified and echoed by the encircling mountains until it was almost unbearable and could hardly be deciphered from the hammering beat of the blood in Aras's own heart. The smoke of the bombardment reared up to blot out the morning sun­light and cast a shadow on the heights of the Cimbrics in the west. It seemed impossible that such a noise and such a shadow could be made by the agency of men.

'They're coming on!' Colonel Sarius shouted in disbelief.

Out of the broken, smoking ground the enemy were struggling onwards, leaving behind them the shattered corpses of hundreds of their comrades; and now the massed roar of their voices could be heard amid the thunder of the guns.

'They're going to make it to the walls,' Aras said, incredu­lous. What could make men move forward under that murderous fire?

The entire valley floor seemed covered with the figures of running men, and among them the shells rained down unceasingly. It could be seen now that many of them carried spades and baulks of wood and others had the wicker cages of empty gabions strapped to their backs. In their midst arm­oured Inceptines urged them on from the backs of tall horses, waving their maces and shouting furiously.

Back up the valley, a second assault wave started out. This one was heavily armoured, disciplined, and it moved with forbidding alacrity. Tall men in long mail coats with steel cuirasses. They bore two-handed swords or battleaxes, and all had matchlock holsters slung at their backs. Gallowglasses of Finnmark, the shock infantry of the Second Empire.

The men of the first wave had now halted well short of arquebus range, and there they went to ground as if by prior order. The Almarkan soldiers began digging frantically amid the shellbursts, throwing the frozen soil up over their shoulders and shoring up the sides of their scrapes with slats of wood and hastily filled gabions. Hundreds more died, but the shells that killed them broke up the ground and aided them in their digging. As the holes grew deeper, the Torunnan artillery had less effect. The culverins of Gaderion fired on a flat trajectory, so once the enemy was below ground level it was almost impossible to depress the guns low enough to bear.

Aras fumbled in his pouch for pencil and parchment. Leaning on the merlon, he hastily scratched out and signed a note, then turned to one of the couriers who stood waiting, as they had throughout the assault. 'Take this along the walls and show it to all the battery commanders. They are to switch fire - do you understand me? They are to switch fire to the second wave. Go quickly.'

The young man sped off with the note in one fist and his sword scabbard held high in the other.

‘I see it now,' Sarius was saying. 'The enemy is cleverer than we thought. He's sacrificing the first wave to gain a secure foothold for the second. But it still won't do him any good -they'll just sit there and get plastered by our guns.'

'Perhaps not,' Aras said. 'Look up the valley, beyond the gallowglasses.'

Sarius whistled soundlessly. 'Horse artillery, going full tilt. He can't mean to bring them all the way up to the front! It's madness.'

‘I believe he does. Whoever the enemy general is, he is an original thinker. And a gambler too.'

As the courier's message went along the walls the guns of Gaderion shifted their aim, and began to seek out the second enemy wave, which was making steady and relatively un­hindered progress up the valley. As soon as the first shells began to land in the midst of the gallowglasses their orderly formation scrambled and began to open out. They increased speed from a slow jog to an out-and-out sprint. Aras could see many of them falling, tripped by the broken ground and the weight of their armour. There were perhaps eight thousand of them, and they had half a mile to run before they gained the shelter of the trenches their Almarkan comrades were so frantically digging.

'Sarius,' Aras said. 'Go down to the redoubt. We will attempt a sortie. Take half the heavy cavalry, no more, and hit the Finnmarkans. They'll be winded by the time they reach you.'

'Sir!' Sarius took off, running like a boy.

Aras turned to another of his young aides. 'Run along the walls. All battery commanders. We are about to make a sortie. Be prepared to hold fire as soon as our cavalry leaves the gates.'

Minutes passed, while Aras stood chafing and the gallow­glasses struggled closer to the line of crude trenches. They were taking casualties, but not so many as the first wave had, a tribute to their superior armour and more open ranks. The roar of the battle was a dull thumping in the ear now, for every man in the valley was partially deafened.

The great gates of the redoubt swung open and files of Torunnan cavalry began to ride out and form up beyond the covering redan. The Himerian troops in the southern half of the valley seemed to pause, and then redouble their efforts, though Aras saw many throw aside their spades to pick up arquebuses.

Sarius formed up his men on sloping ground before the redoubt. Four lines of horsemen some half a mile long. As soon as they were in position Aras saw Sarius himself together with a trio of aides and a banner-bearer place themselves square in the front rank. Then there was the flash of a sword blade, the bright gleam of a bugle-call in the smoke-ridden murk, and the first line of four hundred horsemen began to move. When it had gone a few horse lengths the second started out, and then the third, and the fourth. Sixteen hun­dred heavy cavalry in sable armour with matchlock pistols held cocked and ready at their shoulders.

In the makeshift trenches three furlongs to their front the Almarkans dropped their spades and reached for weapons instead. The guns of the redoubt and the curtain wall had ceased fire, masked by the cavalry, but those up in the Eyrie and the donjon were still pouring a storm of shot and shell into the ranks of the gallowglass infantry who were now almost at their goal. Fully five hundred of them had fallen but the remainder knew their only hope of survival was to gain the shelter of the line of trenches. If they had to retreat the way they had come they would be destroyed.

Aras watched the Torunnan cavalry charge forward. The instant before impact there was a sudden eruption of smoke all along their line as they fired their matchlocks at point-blank range. They were answered by the arquebuses of the Almarkans, and horses began to stumble and fall, men toppl­ing from their saddles.

Into the trenches. Some riders leapt their steeds across the line of earthworks, some halted at the lip, and not a few tumbled cartwheeling into them. The second line reined in and fired their matchlocks where they could. Sarius's banner was waving, but Aras could not make him out in that terrible maelstrom of men and horses and jetting smoke. He had been busy though: the third and fourth ranks of cavalry broke off and wheeled to the flanks before charging home in their turn.