Tau

Battle of the Pass

As Karrack Korim sat in the watch tower, drinking fire brandy, he thought back to the day in the parade ground, where he had earnt his promotion to corporal.  Thirty years had passed... and yet here he was with Reyka, Mallik, Aelfdan Yarling and Brund.  The only difference was that they were no longer rooky Legionnaires.

'Commander, permission to speak, Sir!'  Sergeant Mallik barked his request.

'Permission to speak, Mallik.'

'Reports received, Sir!'  Fifty thousand Ehorim and Eldar are working their way down the pass.'

'The snow not deep enough to put 'em off eh?'  Korim smiled.

Captain Reyka sat at the table with Korim.

'We've got two hundred archers in the towers above the pass... coward's way of fighting, but guess that should take care of a few of those fifty thousand.'

'Ael, I want you and the Black Watch to hold the barricades.'  Korim looked at Aelfdan Yarling, who was now Captain of the Black Watch, the Legion Commander's personal guard.

'And Brund, your buys stand behind the Black Watch.  Anything that gets past them, you just flatten 'em.'

The giant, muscled bull-man Brund, with his horned head and big brown eyes nodded solemnly.

It was then that the battle horns began to blare.

'Ok... if you see Death... spit him in the eye!'

Karrack Korim spoke and the others saluted, before filing out of the watch tower.

Korim stood there, momentarily alone.  He pulled out a small brass telescope from his cloak and peered through the little eyepiece.

'Fifty thousand... against 1,000 of the Legion... how dya like them apples?'

The thick white snow of the pass was turned green and brown with the advancing army of the Ehorim and Eldar.  The Eldar carried long-bows and short swords, almost like daggers.  The Ehorim rode horses and dressed in leathers.  Lances and short axes were the Ehorim's weapons of choice, although many of them also carried recurved bows.  Korim wondered what tricks they had up their sleeves, too.

He watched the enemy army approach.  Would they just keep on coming, inexorably, even as the Legion fired off arrows into them?  As Korim watched he saw the Eldar archers stop, just out of range of the Legion's catapults and bows.

'Sneaky bastards.'  Korim muttered to himself.  He saw the Eldar knock arrows to their bows.  They looked confident.  Eldar fighters beside the archers struck up flaming torches and lit up the arrows.  As one the Eldar drew back the flaming arrows and let loose.

Korim watched, unbelieving, as the flaming arrows climbed towards the watch towers in the cliffs above the pass.  The flaming arrows landed on top of the watch towers and shot through the small openings in their thick walls.

'Bastards!'  Korim cursed the Eldar.  And then the ranks of the Eldar parted and the Ehorim rode through.

From the Legion's watch towers some arrows shot down on the Ehorim, but nowhere near the two hundred that Reyka had planned.  The Eldar's flaming volley of arrows had caused the chaos they wanted.  Behind the charging horsemen, the Eldar now ran, too.

The Ehorim lassooed wooden stakes and boulders and began to drag them away from the barricades.  From the higher watch towers the catapults began to rain rocks down upon the Eldar forces.  Korim kept a close watch.  He saw a boulder crush an Eldar, but had to blink his eyes.  The Eldar crumpled, then disappeared in a flash of light.

'What the hell?'  What were these creatures?

More and more of the boulders were loosed from the Legion watch towers.  Korim began to smile.  Maybe 1,000 Shardahn Legionnaires could hold off 50,000 after all.  It was then that he saw the Eldar scaling the cliffs.

Like lizards on a wall, they climbed over almost sheer rock faces, making for the watch towers.  Arrows caught a few of the Eldar, but they still came on.  It would be only a matter of time before they reached the towers.

'Sod this.'  Korim strode out the door.  His aid, Captain Kurran stood waiting.  'Kurran, get your squad together.  We're heading for the towers.'

'Aye, sir!' Kurran smiled.

In the upper towers Reyka's archers kept firing off volleys of arrows at the Eldar scaling the cliffs.  Direct hits to the head would take out the Eldar, in a puff of blue light.  Reyka watched, unbelieving, as one of the whips of light danced away on the air, heading back up the pass.

And then the Eldar were upon them.

The archers lay down their bows and took up shields and swords.  The Eldar wore no armour, and were quick.  The Legionnaires were bulky and had never faced enemies such as these.

Reyka pulled out his double-headed axe and spiked Peytahn shield.

'Men, to me!'  The Legion's shields locked against each other, their short swords stabbed outwards.  In front of the Legionnaires, like a man possessed, the seven foot Reyka sliced a path through the oncoming Eldar.  They seemed to feel no pain and bled no blood, but decapitation was one thing even these creatures couldn't take in their stride.

Around Reyka, though, his men began to fall, as wave upon wave of Eldar poured into the towers from the cliffs up above.

Three Eldar crouched before Reyka.  He sliced with the shield and axe and spun his way through the three, and yet they would not fall.  Once, twice, three times, the Eldar blades found their target on the Peytahn.  Reyka ran red with blood.  He spat at the Eldar and fury drove him on.  His axe cut through the neck of one, then two and finally the third Eldar.

Reyka hear a noise behind him and spun round, growling and baring his fangs... only to find his commander, the Old Eel standing there.

'Captain Reyka... permission to stand down!'  Korim said the words that they had heard since they were both boys and the Peytahn's bloodlust began to dissipate.

'Aye... aye, Sir!

'Reyka, take the rest of your men down to the lower towers beyond the barricades.'

'Aye, Sir!' Reyka rallied his men.  Of the 200 in the towers only 50 remained.

Korim and Kurran walked to the top of the tower and looked down.

The Eldar were steadily demolishing the barricades at the pass.  The catapults on the cliff towers had been destroyed, some cast over the side of the towers and others wrecked beyond repair.  The Eldar had achieved their goal in attacking the forward watch towers.

'Kurran, see if you can gir up some spikes or stakes on top of these towers.  We've lost the catapults and we'll probably have to move down to the lower towers, but let's make it as difficult as possible for those bastards to attack us from here.'

'Aye, Sir!'

Korim stood on the tower, looking around.  The top of the tower was littered with dead Legionnaires, some burnt, others red with blood... and not a single body of the Eldar enemy.  This was like no fight he had ever seen.

A cold chill ran down his spine and the Old Eel wondered if this was one fight he wouldn't be able to slip his way out of.