*****
They came at twilight just as General Sanjo had said they would. They stormed up and over our trench work and earthwork defenses around the Shrine in three places.
We were hard pressed to hold them back without calling out our reserve troops hidden within the Shrine and by the shore of the bay. Of the eight thousand warriors manning the wall of dirt and wood, we lost over half of them throughout the long hours of the night. Before dawn’s early light, we subbed out most of the survivors along the defenses for the fresher warriors still hidden near the Shrine building.
It was an exchange of roughly five thousand fresh warriors for just over three thousand worn out warriors. Not only had we lost over four thousand of the best warriors of my people during the night, but we had lost General Sanjo too. He had been one of my nation’s greatest all time commanders. Several of my old arena friends had fallen too and I felt their loss keenly.
General Sanjo had rushed to where the defenses were being pressed most by the enemy and there he had died, as a warrior should in the heat of battle, with his sword running with the blood of his enemies.
I wish I could say I was glad to see the first rays of the morning sun after the bitterly contested night I had survived, but I found it hard to because of the ugly sight that it revealed. Easily within bow length, a mass formation of at least one hundred thousand men stood apart from the rest of the army as they silently and patiently awaited their orders.
Two columns of cavalry flanked their position, but we were in no danger from them as they would be unable to charge up and over our wood spiked earthwork defenses. They were just for show, to let us know how hopeless our situation was, as if the greater mass of the un-deployed army still beyond wasn’t sufficient to accomplish that. What I saw by the early dawn’s light reminded me of something that had occurred during the night.
At some point during the night, I had dozed off between skirmishes and I’d had a fitful dream or perhaps possibly a vision of the future, I wasn’t sure. I had dreamed that there was a field of dead and dying warriors, who had fallen in a great battle before the walls of a city. I was one of the fallen warriors. In the distance a storm was brewing, its black swirling winds fast approaching towards the battle scarred, but yet un-shattered walls of the city. I lay on the plain before the city and glancing up I saw the storm approaching, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. I looked back at the wall and I saw but a single man standing there, but what a man! There was no other man like Him.
He was my master for whom I lay proudly dying. I leaned up on one elbow before my end came to me, determined to gain the attention of my master one last time. I raised my blood stained sword in a final salute towards the silent figure standing on the wall behind me, hoping soon to experience His eternal peace, even as those before me had. A sword came out of His mouth, which blinded me because of the light cast off from the power of the Word of God that issued forth.
I felt His power flow into me, causing me to stand as I could not otherwise and face what I alone could not defeat. Likewise, all those around me rose to stand, both dead and alive, as His power was greater than the death of the storm that raced toward us. United in faith, we stood against the evil of our time, even as we were built up from within, by the One who is timeless.
The storm howled its glee as it descended upon us, only to shatter like black glass which reflected back the condition of its fallen nature that had failed to overcome my Master. The storm was gone as our foundation was sure and we found life in the words of our Master, which were enough to sustain us through the length of the day and past the terror of the night.
Now, as I thought back upon the dream and the good feelings and the hope that it had inspired, it all seemed to fade away as I saw so many of the enemy gathered before us poised for the killing strike.
Rolf who, as usual, had been by my side all night through the heat of the action, asked a question, sounding puzzled by the answer he was coming up with in his own mind, “Why do they just stand there? Why not just finish us and be done with it! I’m tired of this lying around!”
“You know the answer to that one Rolf,” I said quietly as my eye was drawn toward something else.
Were those sails out there?
“Rolf, look over there and tell me whose ships those are!”
Rolf had the eyes of an eagle and if anyone could tell the identity of the ships it would be him. The small burst of hope died in my chest, as I realized the answer for myself. The horizon was now liberally dotted with sails. Too many ships to be our friends the Tranquil Islanders coming to our aid.
“They look to be of Zoarinian construction, Roric.” I nodded sourly. There went that part of the plan. Really, it had been a wild chance of receiving any help from the island people, but still I had been hoping. If the enemy's navy was off coast then that meant our friends had at least tried to come to our aid and had broken through the blockade around their islands. On the other hand, perhaps they had failed and were even now all dead. It was a possibility to be considered, but all that really mattered in the here and now was that they weren’t here to help us.
The western shore was the only place along this part of the coast where troops could either be landed or boarded. I looked past the Shrine at our backs, at the small northeastern bay that lay situated between two rocky headlands.
It was through this little bay that the mythical ships of our ancestors had supposedly journeyed, but I did not see how. The bay itself was a perfectly good harbor. It was even somewhat sheltered from the vicious storms that raged up and down this coast at times, as it was shielded by the rocky headlands to either side of it.
What made it unusable, however, was the maze of jagged rocks that jutted above and below the surface of the water at the mouth of the bay, where it narrowed between the two rocky promontories. It would be suicide to attempt to sail a ship into the turbulent white water breakers that washed around the bases of the rocks guarding the bay. We were alone with little chance of succeeding in the battle to come. It had been the chance we had all taken.
General Santaran lay in hiding to the northeast with forty thousand experienced warriors and ten thousand heavy cavalry. He was not to engage until General Nadero appeared from the south with his cavalry and whatever was left of the fifty thousand militia. I had but a little over eight thousand warriors left at the Shrine, and that was including our reserves.
Our force of warriors had to somehow find a way to last until General Nadero could arrive and then General Santaran’s troops would make their presence known. The appearance of two armies on the enemy’s flanks would hopefully be enough to convince the Attorgron slave warriors to throw in with us. Without them turning sides we didn’t stand a chance. Even with them, our chance of winning was still minimal at best.
I was starting to feel like Rolf. I wanted to quit thinking about it and just get started in on it, but anything that wasted time was to our advantage so I held back from issuing the order for the archers to fire. If the enemy wanted to stand there and gloat, then fine by me. I’d let them do it all day long if they wanted.
The enemy’s trumpets suddenly rang out, splitting the formerly tranquil morning air with their blare of challenge. The enemy formation began to approach and I gave the order for the archers to fire.
“Rolf, we’re likely to be overrun early in some parts, so be sure to rush the reserve to those areas as you see fit. Go and make ready for the assault. Give the order to fall back to the Shrine as our positions are overrun on the breastwork defense. We’ll make our last stand at the Shrine itself.”
Rolf turned to go but hesitated and then turned back and offered a hand out to me, “See you soon, brother.”
I knew what he meant and I took his hand, “Likewise, brother!”
Then he was gone and I turned back to the enemy as they started reaching our forward ditches. I picked up a bow by my side and notched an arrow only to let it fly seconds later.
The bow wasn’t my weapon of choice, but I was proficient enough with it to make most of my arrows count. They reached the deeper trench and broke formation as they began to climb down and then up the other side, which was higher and studded with sharpened stakes and the littered bodies of those slain throughout the night. I laid the bow down, reached over my shoulders and pulled my twin sabers free of their sword harnesses.
I would have preferred to have had Tadias’s war sword in my hands, but I had left it on Flin, fearing that its constant glowing and sprays of light would have made me too big of a target to enemy archers during the night. I hated the thought of it falling into the enemy’s hands, but I couldn’t do any more than I already was in trying to stop that from becoming a reality. There was no more time to think about fabled swords or even winning and losing.
The enemy was upon us and I swept my swords down, smashing their blocks away as I slashed at any soft target that came available to me. Wounded and dead enemy soldiers fell backward to drag even more of their fellow warriors down with them, but the press of the enemy was relentless and they just kept coming. I lost awareness of the greater battle taking place around me and knew only the perimeter of ground that I had carved out for myself directly around me.
The fighting grew savage as they began to make it up and over the top of our earthwork defense line. I jumped up onto the mound top itself, unmindful of enemy archers, as I was lost in the need to hold the enemy back at all costs. My twin blades moved independently of each other, sometimes combining to take out a single opponent or, at other times, engaging two or more of the enemy at a time.
Always I kept moving, never staying in one place too long to become a target of the heavy press of enemy soldiers that seemed to be all around me. This was different than the arena. I had never faced so many at once before, but the key to survival was the same. Take the fight to them. Don’t let them dictate my movements. Always keep moving. First pressing then retreating, then pressing again.
Fellow warriors were becoming harder and harder to find in the press of bodies and I helped those I could, but they all seemed to disappear in time and I was left alone. I was used to being alone in my fights. Dealing with multiple opponents wasn’t new to me either, but this was pushing it. Still, there was a similarity to the arena about the fight scene. The movement of their slashing thrusts and rushes to grapple with me was almost predictable. One only had to keep up with the dance to deal the fatal blow before they had the chance to start their move or had just missed on their move.
The mound was slippery with blood and it was becoming increasingly harder to navigate with any grace of movement other than a stagger. My left arm hurt at the shoulder from where I had been too late to avoid a crushing blow from a war hammer.
I could feel the blood trickling down under my armor from a graze to my neck caused by a spear point thrust at my head. Sweat rolled into the slash and it burned like fire. I saw the sweaty, angry faces of the enemy around me, yelling out who knows what as they tried to catch me and at the same time avoid being caught by my ever swinging blades.
All was quiet in my world and I didn’t really hear them even though the din of the battle noise had to be overwhelming. I had tuned out the noises and distractions around me and simply reacted to the opportunities I saw, almost unconscious in my awareness of what was going on around me outside of the sphere of death that I dealt out to any who fell within the path of my blades.
Dimly it registered to me that I hadn’t seen anyone on my side who was alive for a long time. Clearing a brief swath around me, I glanced to the right and then the left. It was all bad as both ends of the line had been completely overrun as well as my section in the middle, except for where I alone still defended and my run of luck could be over in a second with one ill advised move on my part.
There was nothing to be done about it. I had no sense of how much time might have passed by. All I could do was keep killing until there were no more of them or no more of me.
Suddenly, like an assault on my emotions that smarted worse than the salt of my sweat falling into my wounds, I thought of Krista and the life I had hoped to experience with her. All gone now!
The knowledge of my futility to control the future and to survive the present enraged me and the enemy once again reeled backward from me as I took out my rage on them even more savagely than before.
Out of the sea of faces my eyes caught sight of Rolf. We turned back to back and fought in unison of movement unequaled by any other than those who have been tried by fire in the bonds of a brotherhood thicker than blood.
One of Rolf’s arms appeared to be almost useless from some wound and I extended myself even further to keep him alive and the brunt of the attention on me and not on him. Rolf slipped and I saw him pitch down the side of the mound in the direction of the Shrine and I dove after him hacking and slashing as I went.
It was useless to stay on the mound anymore anyway. Rolf was trying to get up but wasn’t succeeding as his one arm hung uselessly beside him while he tried to block the downward thrusts of the enemy with his remaining hand. I have big hands and I was never more grateful of that than now. I grasped both of my saber handles in my right hand with the blades set opposite to each other and with my left hand I grasped the back of Rolf’s collar and drug him backward across the ground as I headed for the Shrine ahead of us.
I stabbed left and right with my double-sword grip. It seemed the rage on my face was enough to part those ahead of us. Rolf gamely swung out at those who followed after us with his one good arm, as I drug him along the ground toward the Shrine. A sudden crushing blow to my back had me flying forward to my knees, struggling to find breath.
I half pivoted on one knee to see the source of the attack as air began to leak back into my starved lungs. The enemy soldiers had actually drawn back from me and Rolf slightly and then I saw why. One of the dark hooded figures had come up behind me and slammed me across the back with a broadsword. I was surprised that my armor had withstood such a strike.
The big sword drew back for a killing downward strike. I dropped one sword into my open left hand and I barely had enough time to cross them into an x above my head before the massive sword came crashing down. I caught the strike in the crossing of my swords that would have otherwise cut me in half and I tumbled backward. Breathing heavy, I half stumbled to my feet.
The black hood came back and I recognized Marfoul. “Stand back, you sniveling cowards! He’s all mine!” Marfoul screamed out, before he came at me with a vengeance.
I did my best to step out of the way of his wild sword swings. “So we meet again, but this time will be the last!” He raged out at me.
“I seem to remember you saying something like that before. How did that turn out for you?” I taunted.
Marfoul howled at me and swung his sword. Thankfully, he missed. He pressed me backward and I had to admit that I was farther gone than I had realized. The sword in my left hand fell from my grasp as my shoulder clamped up in an intense ball of pain from an earlier injury. As I deflected a killing blow with my right sword, the impact of his larger blade sent my lighter sword sailing from my grasp into the sea of onlookers.
The force of the hit drove me down to my knees and Marfoul drew his sword high over top his head with a triumphant scream of fiendish joy. I watched, helpless to do any more, as the sword began to come downward, only to be suddenly arrested as two massive arms appeared from behind and encircled Marfoul’s chest, clamping tight across it and halting the downward progress of the blade as they did so. I recognized the figure behind the struggling Marfoul as that belonging to Olaf.
He was covered in blood, much of it his own, but somehow he held onto Marfoul as the dark enforcer twisted and howled to be set free.
“Get him off me!” Marfoul cried out hysterically, the sword still locked in position above his head.
The surrounding soldiers rushed in and began to repeatedly stab Olaf, but ev
en then he held onto Marfoul. Beyond any normal limit of human endurance, his great strength refused to give in. But as he bled dry his arms fell free and he slumped forward into a heap, having already been dead for several moments as his muscular impulses continued to protect his friend and master.
Marfoul turned and mercilessly hacked away at the fallen man before turning back to me with a vengeance. He came towards me then with baleful death in his eyes. I watched as soldiers behind him shot into the air to either side and dimly I wondered what could possibly be coming next.
Sensing the disturbance behind him, Marfoul turned slightly, but he was too late to dive out of the way as Flin caught him with a big shoulder that sent Marfoul flying past me.
Flin, in full protective warhorse temperament, swung around me in a circle and sent enemy soldiers flying or crushed them to the ground beneath his hooves. He then wheeled straight at me and catapulted forward onto his knees skidding in his fall to present me with his left side.
His wild, flared eyes connected with mine and I knew in that moment that the Creator had given this horse more intelligence than even I had given Flin credit for, or at least some special awareness in this moment.
I knew in that moment that God had not forsaken me. Even as Flin’s crashing weight shook the ground I leaned forward and with both hands, regardless of the pain it caused me, I pulled my sword free of its saddle sheath. I twisted at the waist, falling back against Flin’s belly as I swung the sword upward.
The sword came alive in my hands like never before and connected with the downward swing of Marfoul’s sword, as he had come rushing up behind me with his blade already descending down toward me. I did not even feel the impact of his sword as it contacted with mine. His blade shattered like glass and he went flying backwards from me through the crowd of men. Gaining my feet, I staggered toward him. I stopped at his feet as he lay stunned.
He looked up at me with an awful comprehension in his glassy eyes. “This is for Treorna, the Kurts and me!” I said savagely, as I brought the brightly arcing blade down with all the force I could muster.
As my sword struck him, a bright light exploded and consumed him where he lay and as the blade of the sword carried on through to hit the ground, a corresponding shockwave of terrific force radiated outward, knocking every enemy soldier to the ground within the compound and even to the ditch beyond the earthwork enforcements.
I remained standing, even as my fellow warriors gathered in a tattered line in front of the Shrine of Remembrance did also. The ground itself coalesced into a consuming fire that devoured the enemy both alive and slain, but left the bodies of my fellow slain warriors untouched.
Flin went to one knee beside me and I swung onboard as he lifted up and away. Together we rode through the field of fire, untouched by its flame, to the top of the mound. Flin reared back, screaming a challenge to the shattered remnants of the attacking force beyond the burning ditch and I yelled out one of my own.
I held the sword aloft as Flin’s front hooves crashed back down onto the top of the mound, spewing chunks of burning wood all around us in a fury of lit embers.
“The Lord my God is the God of battles, of whom shall I fear! He is Master of all and there is none before Him! To Him all glory and honor is due! Behold this day our Creator fights for us, as our cause is just and His mercy is great for those that call upon His name and are faithful to His Holy Word! He has heard our cries and taken our fears captive, even as we will be avenged this day!”
My words lashed out over the battlefield like words of thunder even as a white light, too bright to look upon, shot out of the end of the sword I still held aloft into the dark clouds of war above. A crescendo of echoing thunder rumbled out over the battlefield.
The remnant of the attacking force dropped their weapons in their haste to flee back to the mass of the larger part of the enemy army still gathered farther back on the plain. As I sat there astride Flin, I watched as the retreating soldiers were cut down by their own men. As the last of the retreating men fell, I watched the army gathered on the plain slowly start out for us.
I glanced to either side of me and saw the remnant of warriors, who were still able to stand and fight, spread out in a ragged thin line to either side of me on top of the mound. My grip on the sword tightened as I turned to face the enemy once more. We would be wiped out within moments by such a force, but it didn’t matter. We had already won.
I felt a hand on my leg and glancing down I saw Nadalarkin standing there, bloody and bruised. He had been with me in the arena and the years that had followed and I had only known him to always be faithful to me. He could very well be the last friend I had left alive from the old days.
He was gesturing to the sea behind me, “Look Roric! Surely they wouldn’t! They’ll be smashed to bits!”
I turned in the saddle to look behind. Way out at the head of the bay, I saw a row of sails stretched out full with the wind and colored a bright burgundy with streaks of gold across them. They were the battle sails of only one nation, the Tranquil Islanders.
“Roric, they're dead men! They’ll be smashed to bits on the rocks!” Nadalarkin exclaimed, looking up at me.
“Maybe so my friend and then maybe not. Who can say?”
Nadalarkin glanced from the distant sails that were fast approaching the rocks to the glowing sword in my hand and smiled lightly back up at me, “It’s been a day of miracles so far. Perhaps they’ll be another.”
A Warrior's Redemption Page 61
