The Chronicles of Heaven's War: Hell Above the Skies

  * * *

  Legion’s assault in the predawn hours on Trisha’s southern siege lines ringing Memphis couldn’t have achieved better success. In less than half a day, Legion’s generals had pushed the entire line back, in some places by as much as four leagues. At LeninSolkie, his army had taken over six hundred prisoners without a shot. Two reinforcing companies from Xhosa Corps, Second Division, Rendell Brigade, First Regiment, got lost in the darkness and blundered into an advancing tank battalion. They were all brutally murdered, mutilated and scalped, their corpses discovered the following spring.

  By noon, it appeared the entire southern line would collapse in a rout. And then Legion pulled his first major blunder of the battle. Seeing his eastern attack on HerpetonMnema fizzle and stall after its initial thrust, he became concerned a counterattack might trap his army. Before orders could reach his lieutenants in the field, that is what nearly happened. A counterattack by Trafalgar Corps’ Trobry Division,from the north and KozBi Division from the east nearly surrounded Legion’s corps, forcing it back toward Memphis. By midnight the following evening, General Copeland’s army had regained its former works, thus thwarting any further attempt at taking the Spider’s Lair.

  In the early afternoon, shortly after his army in the east was being mauled by General Copeland’s counterattack, Legion called a temporary halt to his southern advance, even ordering the forward units to pull back to designated locations. It was eighteen hundred hours before he was prepared to order a renewed attack, having regrouped and reinforced his front lines with additional troops. This gave General DinChizki time to bring up his meager reinforcements and form a new defensive line.