Solace Lost

by Michael Sliter

  When Emma had observed the marching forces of the Army of Brockmore, it had been difficult to imagine losing the coming war. Ten thousand men—matching armor or no—made for an imposing site, and the glint of steel weapons could do little else but inspire confidence. The soldiers, too, had the conviction that they were marching to fight for what was right, that they’d been chosen by Yetra to combat Pandemonium given flesh through the corrupting, power-hungry influence of Little Duke Penton. How could such a force, fighting for such a reason, be defeated?

  That was until Emma had seen the forces arrayed against them. According to the most recent scouting reports and word from Escamilla’s spies, the Rostanian Army now numbered close to forty thousand, not including the many armed members in the baggage train. They must have conscripted soldiers along the way, stripping bare some of the larger towns and cities that they’d passed through in Rostane, and perhaps even forcing conscripts in Florens. The camp was practically a city; it spread from just a hundred years north of the Ingwine to beyond Emma’s sight, north and west. Banners were scattered throughout the camp—the four stars of Darinston, the red leaf of Doring, the grinning fish of Serant. Dozens of banners from noble-ruled towns and cities around Rostane were represented, and all the colors and designs looked, for all the world, like a patchwork quilt.

  Even growing up in the busy streets of Rostane, Emma had never seen so many people gathered together for a sole purpose. Escamilla’s little army would be swallowed by this behemoth; Emma could feel her heart pounding like a drum. Little wonder that the Rostanians turned away Escamilla’s emissaries without a word. This conflict would not be solved with diplomacy.

  “Is it time? My men, like their horses, are chomping at the bit,” said Captain Anew Opine. He had replaced Captain Perod after his attack on Emma and his subsequent beating by Fenrir and demotion by Escamilla. Opine was of noble blood, the Opines ruling their own barony. They’d thrown in with Escamilla after Recherche Oletta had assassinated the matriarch of their clan, Baronness Rosalee Opine. It was a small addition to the army—around two hundred inexperienced soldiers—but Opine had proven to be a capable officer, so much so that he now commanded a unit of seventeen hundred cavalry.

  Opine did have one very peculiar, and rather annoying, affectation, though. He spoke like a storybook hero, all courage and confidence and bluster. If he hadn’t also been competent, Emma would have beaten him senseless by now.

  “Soon. We are just waiting on the sun. The morning is on our side,” said General Guy Empton, his arms tightly clenched behind his back, betraying his nerves. He was resplendent in full iron plate mail, wearing a crimson cape and looking every inch a commander. His appearance was meant to reassure and strengthen their men, and it seemed to have had its desired effect. All of the officers were wearing specially made armor for this very purpose, aside from Trina Almark, who was adorned in glittering silver mail, and Ferl, who wore clothes that would have befit a merchant of middling success. The two stood as far as possible from one another.

  Emma and Escamilla were both ceremonially dressed for war, as well, each sporting ornate and specially-made black-and-crimson leather armor. There was no differentiation between lady and servant.

  The highest-ranking officers stood atop a quickly-built raised platform that sat on a small hill, providing an excellent view of the soon-to-be battlefield, the sky above it finally clearing after weeks of storms. Emma had studied the battlefield and their strategy on paper, though it was much more difficult to conceptualize troop disposition and maneuvers even from her vantage. The Army of Brockmore was to attack from the east, the southern flank protected by the Ingwine and thick forests, and the northern reinforced and anchored by their best soldiers. She could see them now—the infantry moving in units of a thousand, ten deep. The cavalry was nowhere to be seen; they were being held in reserve in concordance with their strategy. A strategy that Emma hope desperately would carry the day. She found her legs shaking in anticipation of the battle, and she had to neither fight the enemy nor order others to engage.

  General Empton was nodding at the slow formation of infantry, gesturing to one of his runners. There was a horde of runners at the bottom of the command platform, ready to disperse orders that could not be projected by the trumpeters. And then there was a separate ring of steel-clad Apple Knights, Escamilla’s personal guard, providing further defense for the leaders. Emma should have felt reassured by the organization and the protection, but it certainly was a beacon to the Rostanians, shouting “command post—attack here.”

  Aside from the officers, also present were the girls that Escamilla seemed to be so fond of. Merigold, the petite blond who’d been through so much and who might, if whispers were true, have some dark magical powers. And Morgyn, the little street-rat turncoat. Both girls had Escamilla’s sympathies, though the purpose of their presence in this council of war was unclear. Knowing more about Escamilla’s past, Emma suspected that the older woman was simply sympathetic to them, these girls being a reminder of her own beginnings and struggles. Maybe she needed these reminders right now, as men were going to die for her today. Hundreds or thousands.

  Ignatius—pompous as always—wore only black. He’d said it was to mourn the great loss of life that would occur on this day, and then quoted some pious dribble from his little book. And of course, most of the men had seemed to buy it.

  “We are waiting too long!” said Captain Ezram, fingering his sword’s hilt. “The sun will be too high soon, and we’ll lose our advantage!”

  “Be patient,” murmured Escamilla. “Our plans hinge on timing. We must wait until the designated time to strike, even if the sun is a bit higher than we would like.”

  “How do we know we can trust our allies?” asked Captain Quentin. The bearded captain betrayed his nerves with constant motion, moving from his heels to his toes. Unbecoming of a commander, but no one aside from Emma or her lady were likely to notice. Escamilla had drilled her to always focused on body language, regardless of setting.

  “Because, if we cannot trust them, we are doomed regardless,” chimed in Emma. It used to be that she would never have dared to speak in front of such men. But, in a scant few weeks, with her new authority, Emma had grown more confident in her dealings with all things military.

  “Indeed. We need just be patient,” repeated Escamilla. Her back was as straight and strong as the great broadsword Guy Empton wore slung along his back. Straighter than the front ranks of infantry even, who were nervously shifting about. From what Emma could see with the eyeglass that Escamilla had given her, the enemy’s line was similarly uneven, soldiers shifting behind their earthen bulwarks, fingering pikes, swords, and bows, anxiously awaiting the coming charge.

  This was a battle of amateurs. Even of the career soldiers on both sides, few had had any real combat experience. The Rostanian Army had some veterans of skirmishes with the Wasmer, while Escamilla’s own army veterans were nearly all confined to the mercenaries, half of them seeking to avoid the brunt of the battle by taking tenth rank positions (for Ferl’s Company), though Ultner’s Fist carried the flanks, per their contracts. Otherwise, men unused to wielding weapons in battle and anger were about to collide, and Emma expected it to be disastrous. She fiddled with her hands, not unaware of her own nervous habit.

  From the wooded foothills to the west, beyond the massed Rostanians, Emma swore she saw a flash of light. Without further warning, it caught Emma right in the eyes, leaving a flashing afterimage. It disappeared, briefly, and then caught her eyes again.

  “The signal! Escamilla, the signal!” Emma shouted. Their allies were in position.

  “Sound the horn. Advance and commence bombardment!” ordered General Empton, his voice iron even as Emma’s legs turned to water. It was beginning.

  The trumpet played several clarion notes, and the call was repeated down the line. The men had drilled for this, back at Brockmore. Would that training hold in the face of an actual enemy?

  The
infantry began to march, closing the mile-wide distance between the armies. It was a slow march, meant both to intimidate and to conserve energy. The enemy line was swirling with activity as officers shouted orders, and men notched bows and braced their pikes. Their ranks were twice as deep as those of their attackers, and part of the army was still entirely occupied with siege preparation. They obviously didn’t see Escamilla’s forces as a true threat.

  At three hundred-and-fifty-yards out, the first few ranks took a knee, and nine hundred Brockmore longbowmen notched their bows, drew back at a forty-five degree angle, and let loose. The war arrows were lost to the enemy in the sun, and then fell among the Rostanian soldiers. With her eyeglass, Emma could see arrows slinging into their ranks, soldiers clustered so closely together that it was difficult for the archers to miss. Some men sought cover under small shields, but not all had shields, and not all of those who did got them up in time. Soldiers fell across the line. As Emma watched, an arrow took one in the eye, and he grasped at his face awkwardly before falling. Another, several feet behind this one and to his left, took an arrow to his shoulder, the velocity of the falling projectile enough to pierce the leather of his armor and sink in several inches. The soldier started at the sudden growth dully before pitching to the ground in pain.

  Another volley fell while the Rostanians recovered from their shock and prepared their own longbowmen. More soldiers fell, killed or wounded, while the longbowmen notched arrows and pointed skyward. Emma cringed as the Rostanians released this concentrated volley directly at the Brockmore infantry, the sky darkening as two thousand arrows rushed toward their victims.

  The arrows fell nearly a hundred yards short, though, skewering nothing but the already-trampled farmland.

  The yellow yew bows of Jecusta, obtained by Escamilla at some unknown, but probably great, cost, fired with unprecedented range. The Rostanian bows could not match them, and it took two more volleys before the Rostanian soldiers realized that their weapons were having no effect while death continued to rain down upon them.

  It took some several long minutes for the officers of the Rostanian Army to coordinate a general advance. A weak, wavering line of Rostanian infantry began a slow advance then, stumbling over their own defensive wall of earth, men with small shields taking the lead. A number of writhing and motionless bodies were left behind.

  “How many Rostanians are down?” asked Captain Braston, the only captain without an eyeglass.

  “Perhaps a thousand and some hundred—it is hard to estimate in that mess,” replied Captain Garen, squinting at the Rostanian forces.

  “Not nearly enough,” muttered Emma.

  “All too many,” sighed Ignatius.

  Gods, but Emma hated the man. The purpose of this war was to kill, and he worked his men up to a religious froth to massacre their enemies while, at the same time, denouncing the act of killing. Hypocrisy, thine name is Ignatius Pender.

  Even with their ranks thinned, the shambling mass of men still blanketed too large a swatch of the field of battle. Emma’s heart fluttered. Though more than a mile separated her from the Rostanians, the thin ranks of Escamilla’s infantry and archers seemed woefully insufficient. She could not begin to imagine how the front rank of inexperienced soldiers felt.

  “All conscripts,” muttered Empton. “They think to defeat us with conscripts.” He gestured to a messenger and scribbled something onto a piece of parchment. The runner sprinted to his horse and took off toward the front lines at a full gallop.

  At two hundred yards, the Rostanian archers again let loose their own volley, and the Army of Brockmore experienced their first casualties. Men fell, transfixed with arrows, and the battle line wavered. The Rostanian infantry continued to march under this arrow cover, and both sets of archers got off two more volleys before only fifty yards separated the lines. Escamilla’s archers began a disorganized retreat then—first in ones and twos, and then by the dozens. None abandoned their bows, but the archers sprinted away from the battle as if terrified.

  No one in the command post reacted to this sudden, seemingly undisciplined withdrawal.

  But, the withdrawal seemed to have a demoralizing effect on the middle of the Army of Brockmore’s line, and it began to bend even before the Rostanians closed the final distance. There was a hush before the lines collided—no roaring of determined men, nor any chanting of warcries. Just the rumble of pounding feet.

  Then, the Rostanian conscripts slammed into Escamilla’s own green troops.

  It was utter chaos. The carefully-practiced, shoulder-to-shoulder collaborative combat was apparently lost in the push. The spear line in the center began to fold even more, simply pushed back by the momentum of the Rostanian behemoth. The soldiers on both sides were crushed together in the churning mud, the battlefield like a fenced pasture cramped with cows who were unable to take a step in any direction. The rear ranks of Rostanians pushed on the backs of the men in front of them, forcing their frontline into the spears of the Brockmore soldiers, and their second line over the bodies of the first. The soldiers in front, on both sides, were pressed against each other, immobilized and ineffective. Soldiers simply struck and bashed in all directions, the need for self-preservation outweighing their scant training. Men were falling to the weapons of their allies as often as not.

  The middle of Brockmore’s line continued to tremble, though the flanks held strong, anchored by the experienced fighting women of Ultner’s Fist who were laying about with their short swords as if this battle were a holiday. The Silver Lady stood, hand on one hip, her body tilted slightly. She was quietly confident. Ferl was similarly casual, nearly the mirror image of Trina Almark. For him, his men dying meant more gold in his own pockets, as his mercenaries were primarily family-less, and few had any provisions in their individual contracts to reallocate their funds in case of their demise.

  All at once, the center of the Brockmore line broke, the rear ranks beginning to run. First a trickle, then a rush. Before long, the center of the line had completely collapsed, split through by Rostanian infantry, pushed back far beyond the flanks. The battle line was a log split by an axe.

  The command post was a whirlwind of activity as each of the captains and the general were writing down orders and shouting for messengers while Ignatius and a couple of his Taneos shouted prayers for the dead. It wasn’t a panic, though; it lacked that underlying sense of fear. It was an ordered sort of chaos.

  Emma, for her part, moved off to the side lest she be as annoyingly underfoot as Ignatius. There was nothing that she could contribute to this battle now that it was joined; all she could do was impotently watch and hope that their strategy would win the day.

  “Do you think we could have done anything differently today?” asked Escamilla, moving closer to be heard over the din of the command post. Her hands were held folded in front of her, and her voice was as placid as always.

  “Yes. We could have moved far, far away. Sestra, maybe. Or Morgos, far across the Vissas. Maybe taken up farming,” said Emma. Escamilla’s face creased in a smile despite the thousands of hostiles advancing on their position.

  “My old back would be poorly suited to such an occupation,” Escamilla added. “I suppose this is the best alternative. Girl, why are you crying?” This last was directed at Morgyn, who was at Merigold’s side.

  “Because I’m scared! Those men are going to break through and kill us!” The little urchin was holding herself tightly, appearing especially vulnerable.

  “Hush, little one. That’s not going to happen today,” said Escamilla in the same soothing tone Emma had seen her use on spooked horses.

  “Where is our cavalry?” asked Merigold abruptly. “Surely, we should be bringing all we can to bear upon the enemy.”

  “Smart girl. You will have to wait and see. Tell me, are you not afraid?” Merigold did not appear to be afraid, but rather seemed distracted.

  “I don’t know. No, I don’t think so. It seems to me that if we were in dang
er, you and the general there would seem more… urgent. Until you panic, I need to assume we are safe. Besides, Yetra is on our side,” Merigold said, glancing at Ignatius, who had his head bowed in apparent prayer. Emma assumed he was just napping and trying to determine where he’d get his next meal. Fat bastard.

  “Observant and smart. Tell me, If the Rostanians were to break through, could you use your magic to protect us?” Escamilla asked almost offhandedly.

  It suddenly made more sense why Escamilla had invited this girl to the command post.

  Merigold went stiff at the question, though, and did not meet Escamilla’s searching gaze. Emma thought the girl was going to ignore Escamilla, but she finally responded.

  “No.” Merigold did not elaborate.

  “Do you not know your power? Do you not know what you are capable of?” Escamilla continued to probe. Again, Merigold paused before responding.

  “I do not remember,” she said quietly.

  Escamilla nodded thoughtfully. “Well, you will bear witness to such power in a moment. A fraction of your capability, if my guess is correct.”

  Meri started at the comment, and her eyes darted back to the battlefield, her face intensely focused on the battle. Emma followed her gaze.

  The center of their battle line was simply gone. Rostanians flowed through the gap in the line like a river, mirroring the Ingwine just to the south. Escamilla’s center was in a full rout, men sprinting to the back of the flanks. Even Emma, savvy to the strategy, felt the urge to run. But, she attempted to emulate her lady as always, watching over the battlefield with feigned disinterest.

  Six small units of Ferl’s Company detached from the rear and moved to fill the breach. In the center of each unit was an unarmored man, each adorned in whatever clothing they preferred. One was wearing all black, while another was wearing what looked like a sleeping robe, and was wearing short pants and… barefoot?