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.As it was, he went down, rolled into someone else, and came up again behind Oggi.The monkeys had stabbed Mushukk, who'd fallen over him as he rolled.This was rapidly turning into the worst day in Rukkh's entire life.Forjal had broken free and was running, somehow, in a slow crazy tilt down the beach.Sergeant Burok was steadying a small but growing line of resistance.Rukkh saw Chaz was there.Big Uruk was there, too.Half a dozen others, all with shields up and spears ready."Get in line, Rukkh!" roared Burok.They were dressing right automatically and spacing out at shieldswidth.And then the monkeys were on them again.Spears flicking and stabbing, shields slamming and cracking against the oncoming tide of the fornicating sons of sodomites.The monkeys came on, but the monkeys died there, because these men had their backs to the sea and were fighting with all the terrible skill of their kind.Soon the line had thickened further; more men had struggled through the throngs of keening monkeys.The initial assault had broken the Blitzers completely, but now they were able to re-form because the monkeys had no battle discipline.Their formations broke down into mobs as soon as they engaged.Soon the monkeys were streaming back up the dune while archers shot them down.And then the two flank forces came in and joined up in front of them, reknitting the army's line of battle.Burok was there to help steady them.More men joined up, coming in from all over the beach."Forward, let's kill the fucking monkeys!" shouted Burok.Rukkh and the others roared the war cry and hurled themselves forward.Now they were taking the monkeys in the flank and the killing was easy.Soon the monkeys broke and ran.Back up the shingle beach they went, across the short strip of sand at the top and on to the low walls of the allotments.After them came Rukkh and the rest of the surviving Blitzers, their war cry on their lips.At the wall a fresh force of monkeys stood up.Hundreds of bows let fly, and a swarm of arrows fell on the Blitzers.A loud crack-whine from the top of the dune signified another of those damned seven-foot-long spears and it zinged into their ranks a moment later, but missed and slammed harmlessly into the sand.Big Uruk hauled it out and waved it at the pullulating, pestilential monkeys, and they all cheered.Then they were up on the wall and fighting toe-to-toe with a solid line of monkeys.The fight teetered there for several minutes as the two lines stabbed and hacked at each other.The Blitzers gave it everything, but the monkeys would not step back.Dead bodies heaped up on both sides of the shallow walls.The little vegetable gardens were smashed to pulp beneath the feet of the combatants.Then, just as the monkeys were starting to give—big Uruk had thrown one bodily through their shield wall and Chaz had exploited the gap with a beautiful thrust of the spear—there came a lot of noise from the left and another mob of monkeys came running up and threw themselves into the fight.At their head was one who wielded only a sword.He fought with such speed and grace that men's bodies tumbled away from him to either side with a steady, relentlessness that was terrifying to see.There was something familiar about him to Rukkh.And then he recalled him from a fight in the streets of a small place they had taken and burned.Oggi was on Rukkh's right.He was the next to engage the monkey with the sword.Rukkh was squeezed between Oggi and Konigswat and he missed the next series of motions, but it ended with Oggi's scream, a last shriek of hate and anger.Then, as the sword flashed and Oggi's head flew away, the shriek cut off instantly.Rukkh slammed his shield into the side of the monkey.It was caught unprepared and went down on its knees.Rukkh fell on top of it, pushed from behind by Konigswat, who was struggling with another one of the really big monkeys.Rukkh kicked out, knocked the enemy away, and got back on his knees.At which point something hard and heavy came down on the back of his helmet and just about brained him.When he came to, he was being dragged across the ground.His head was still ringing like a bell.Then hands released him.Feet trampled him.He struggled to sit up.His head was still not right, but he was alive.He found a shield, then a spear, and moved to regain the line.They were at the next low stone wall, and the fight was just as it had been.Spears stabbing back and forth while shields smashed together.The monkeys just would not give ground any farther.They died there by the dozens, and the bodies mounded up, but they would not break.And the men were dying, too, and they could not take these kinds of casualties for long.Suddenly the bugle was blowing for a retreat, and Burok was bellowing [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]