by D Murray
Serkers And Flame
The rain trickled cold down Lucius’ back. The cuirass he wore did not fit, and all the undershirts and mail in the world would make little difference. He squirmed as the cold moisture joined the growing pool of sodden material at the small of his back. He shivered, and turned to Sergeant Hoyt. “Any word of fires to the south yet?”
“Nothing, sir.” The thin young sergeant sniffed, then rubbed the gathering raindrop from the end of his nose.
“Don’t suppose the lads have made it, then.” Lucius shook his head and looked down the ranks of troops along the battlement of the western wall. When will they come? he thought to himself, then realised he’d said it aloud.
“Spotters have seen movement in the docks, sir. It will be soon, I’m sure of it.”
Lucius smiled at the sergeant and rubbed at his beardless face. For whatever reason, it felt wrong to be clean shaven up here on the wall. He appeared to be the only person who was. Should’ve let it grow in for the battle. Maybe they’d mistake me for one of their own. A brother in arms.
“Sir,” Sergeant Hoyt turned and spoke in a hushed tone to Lucius. “Forgive me, sir, but you seem nervous.” The sergeant waited a moment, probably expecting a rebuke. A perfectly reasonable expectation, given Lucius’ reputation. “I saw you in battle not so long ago, sir. You’ve as much place on the walls as any of us. Don’t forget that.”
Lucius’ brows rose, and he felt the wrinkling of his forehead as the man’s words sank in. “Seems you have me all worked out, Sergeant. Would you say you’ve hit the mark with your little pep talk? Do you feel perhaps we’ve bonded here over our little chat?” Lucius felt his upper lip begin to curl, his famous contemptuous sneer. Don’t be a total prick all your life. He caught himself, and twisted the growing sneer into an uncomfortable smile. “Forgive me, Sergeant. Your words are kind, and you’re right. We all have a place here. We who stand here waiting, by virtue of the fact we have not skulked our way from the city, we all have a place here.”
Hoyt nodded, and looked out across the dark-shrouded western quarter of the city.
Lucius peered out into the night and towards the docks, home to nothing at present but half-ruined buildings, charred memories, and no doubt thousands of Cannans just waiting for their moment. I might die this night. The thought crept up on him, and he suddenly felt a burning urge to piss. Might have been he was pissing himself already. He made to check, but a scream sounded.
“Ladders!” A roar came from along the wall to the left.
Lucius fumbled at his pommel and gripped the sword, drawing it free as he strode alongside Hoyt to the edge of the battlement. He peered out into the western ruin of the city, and saw a mass of bodies so thick it was like the rush of a black tide, the sea rising up to sweep at the walls of Carte. A sea of death. “Oil!” he roared in an ascending pitch, terminating in an almost squeak. He didn’t care. It was long past time to care. “Oil!”
Major Skeldon stared out to the south at the light of the Cannan encampment. There was no fire. It seemed as though the cock-sure young captain had failed. Chances were the young pup was lying in the piss-soaked latrines punched full of bloody holes. Waste of good orders. Waste of a good opportunity. Shouldn’t have entrusted the pup with it. The lad was everything that was wrong with the Free Province forces: promoted beyond competence. Entitled following one personal success; a success most likely owed to the work of others. The Free Provinces were built on the selfless grit and determination of those who sought no glory but that of their people. Skeldon looked about the south wall, busy with his lieutenants and sergeants moving the last of the troops across to the western wall. He shook his head in disappointment. Had I arrived but days earlier, I could have avoided taking orders from that inflated piss-bag Subath, and likely taken the chief marshal’s role myself. I’m the most experienced man here. I’m the only true competent choice. But now I have to listen to the orders of this oaf, who will no doubt bring this city to its knees. I could have saved the city. Now I’m going to die in it, having never received the respect I deserve. This is the great tragedy of my life; being utterly fucked by bad leadership.
A rush was on in the streets below the wall. Something was spreading between the moving troops.
“Assault on the walls!” a voice shouted up from the milling chaos below.
“Shit!” Skeldon turned and looked over the south wall. Nothing there. There’s no assault on the walls. The western wall. He looked at the troops all pressing in the street to make their way to the western wall. Glory is that way. Skeldon looked at the troops on the wall, and back out to the south. There was nothing coming. Subath was right. Lucky guess. They’re only attacking the western wall tonight. “You,” Skeldon called to a young man with a lieutenant’s flashes. “You’re to take charge of the south wall. I must speak with the chief marshal.”
The young lieutenant nodded, and blurted, “Yes.”
“It’s ‘yes, Major’,” Skeldon snapped. Disrespectful little shit.
“Yes, Major.”
“The allocation of troops from the south to the west has been complete. There’s nothing happening at this end. Just keep an eye out.” Skeldon turned and hurried down the steps and into the pressing crowd of troops heading to the western wall. “Get out of my way. Move!” he shouted as he pushed his way through. I’ll show that old bastard what it means to be a leader. I’ll show the lot of them.
The screams and moans of injured and dying Cannans echoed all along the wall as the hot oil fell. Lucius watched and waited as the ladders swung up towards the wall all beaded with men. He had come late to the fight at Carte when the Solansians had attacked. Now he would be in the middle of the first assault.
“Ready the poles!” Lucius shouted. “How the hells did I end up here?” he asked, coughing out a thin little laugh.
“All thinking that way, sir,” Hoyt grunted beside him as the ladders swung in.
“Poles!” Lucius roared as the ladders began to crash down.
The defenders stepped forward, dropping the poles and slotting their forked ends around the tops of the ladders even as the lightly armoured Cannans leapt onto the battlements. The polemen strained and shoved the ladders back, sending them over with men screaming as they fell.
A Cannan leapt off a ladder in front of Lucius and lashed out with a long, curved blade, taking a defender across the mouth and sending him spinning. The man’s face was a ruin, a grotesque lop-sided grin opened by the flashing blade. The Cannan deflected a sword thrust from another defender, and stabbed the tip of the knife he held in his other hand into the man’s throat. Twisting out of the way of another stroke, the Cannan dropped to his knees in a flash, cleaving a leg free below the knee, before jumping back up inside a wide sword swipe and ramming his knife up under the man’s ribcage and into his heart.
Lucius was mesmerised by the speed and skill of the Cannan fighter. He glanced up the line, and saw a similar action as his eyes traced the chaos. Cannan serkers.
Hoyt shouldered the dying man out of the way and sent him slumping over onto his face.
The Cannan serker deflected a sword thrust from a defender at his back and then snapped forward, bringing his curved weapon down towards Hoyt’s head. Hoyt raised his sword, blocking the weapon.
Lucius saw the opening and jumped forward. He drove his sword up and into the armpit of the serker. The man’s head turned and his dark eyes widened in the eye-slits of his black helmet. Lucius pulled his sword point free, air streaming from the wound between a gout of blood. The Cannan sighed and dropped to his knees, then over onto his side.
“Thanks,” Hoyt said, before turning to aid the press against the nearest Cannan serker.
Lucius flipped his sword across to his left hand and wiped the slick blood from his right, and then the grip of his sword. What a mess. He looked up, and saw more sets of ladders being raised. “Polemen!” he roared as loud as he could over the din of clanging metal, of grunting, of bleating, and rag
ing battle.
The ladders clashed down on the parapet and more Cannans leapt off. Two serkers landed to the side of Lucius. They slashed out, cutting forked ends off the poles aimed at their ladder, and slashing out at the polemen, dropping them in crumpled heaps of meat. Lucius shouldered one of the serkers into a mass of defenders, and followed in close. The Cannan couldn’t lift his sword, such was the press about him from the stumbling form of Lucius and the mass of defenders to his other side. The serker tried to force Lucius back. Slow and sure, through gritted teeth and strained muscle, he did. Then he went limp. Lucius shoved himself backwards, and saw the Cannan drop, a bloodied knife held behind his head by a defender.
“Behind you!” the defender shouted.
Lucius ducked on instinct, feeling the rush of air pass over his head. He twisted around on the blood-slick flags, his sword arcing around in a horizontal thrust and biting deep into the calf of the serker. As the serker fell to the ground, Lucius could see Cannan regulars now pouring onto the battlements where the polemen had failed to turn the ladders away. “Shit!” He scrambled up, dodged the wild swing of the lame Cannan, and rammed his sword point into the prone man’s throat. He stumbled and collided with the falling body of one of his own, sending him tumbling on top of the corpse he’d just made and into a tangle of armour and limbs. Shit, shit, shit. He could see someone step in front of him as the Cannans advanced. Weapons clashed with a closeness to make his ears ring. The smell of blood was overwhelming, and he could taste a metallic tang in his mouth. Someone cried out to his right, and then retched. Shit, shit, shit. Lucius shoved the limb of the dead defender off him and rolled over on to his stomach. He shoved himself upright, losing his helmet. Around him bodies were falling, piling up and moaning. Steam rose from the battlement in the cold, damp night air. Steam from the opened bodies. More ladders came.
Subath slashed his sword down across the airborne Cannan serker’s chest. The force of his swing folded the man and sent him tumbling backward into the ladder, dragging it along the parapet and crashing down to the ground. “One way to do it,” he growled, wiping rain from his face with the back of his hand before turning and bounding towards the pocket of fighting around the nearest ladder.
A Cannan serker opened the belly of a defender, then shoved the wailing man over the wall, his grey innards tumbling to the battlement before following the toppling man to the ground below. The serker pointed his curved sword at Subath and yelled something behind the blackened metal of his helmet’s face guard.
“Come on, fucker.” Subath grinned, pulling his hatchet free from the belt loop, his sword primed in his right hand. He stepped forward to engage but had to backpedal as the Cannan serker’s face went slack and he collapsed forward. Subath looked up, eyes wide at the sight of the young lad with the huge double-bladed axe in his hand. “Aye, one way to do it.” He nodded at the lad, and turned to pick out his next foe. Just where in the hells does a lad of that age pick up an ugly weapon like that? I sure as fuck didn’t train that into him.
A ladder crashed down onto the battlement, with two more Cannan serkers leaping into a knot of defenders, a mix of Free Province and Cannan exiles.
“Polemen!” Subath roared, and ran towards the nearest.
Cannan exiles engaged the serker, but he was too quick. The curved sword whipped out, tearing two throats open in a gout of blood. At the end of the wide arc, the Cannan jabbed the sword point forward into the face of another exile.
Fuck! Subath growled. Won’t make it. He threw his hatchet, and watched it spin. It bit into the flesh of the serker’s shoulder just below the neck.
The Cannan turned and, seeing Subath, dropped the knife from his left hand and took a double-handed grip of the curved sword.
Subath copied the Cannan’s action and the blades met with a crash. The shudder of the blow ran up into Subath’s shoulder. He strained against the Cannan’s strength, and then thumped his knee up into the man’s stones. The serker’s strength gave for an instant, and Subath pressed down with his sword edge, pushing the Cannan’s weapon lower. He reversed the downward pressure and swung a short blow upward under the chin guard of the Cannan’s helmet, tearing open his throat. The curved sword fell from the serker’s hand as he dropped onto his knees, and then onto his back. Subath stepped backwards and stumbled on a dead hand. His arse fell against the inside edge of the parapet and tilted backwards, wobbling for a moment, and then falling backwards.
A hand reached out and grabbed his cuirass under his chin, hauling him back onto the flagstones of the battlement. Skin appeared to be stretched too tight over a bony face, blue eyes bulging at him. A ghoulish bastard if ever there was one.
“Skeldon, what are you–” Subath paused a moment. “Thanks.”
Skeldon nodded. “South wall is fine. You need the help.”
“That we do. Behind!”
Skeldon turned and met the Cannan regular. He deflected the mistimed swing, then took the man’s arm. He followed up with a thrust to the belly.
Subath jumped past him, and thumped the next Cannan to the ground in a bloody heap.
“More oil!” Subath yelled. “And set some fucking fire to it!” He sent the Cannan’s sword thrust into a joint in the parapet stone, where it jammed. He crashed his hatchet into the side of the man’s head with a crack of fracturing bone, and tossed the twitching body down onto the Cannans climbing up the ladder.
The closest climber avoided the falling body and his face now appeared in front of Subath.
“No, you fucking well don’t.” He stabbed the man through the mouth, sending him falling to the ground. Subath grunted, and shoved the ladder backwards. The remaining Cannans on the ladder screamed as it tilted. It paused in its travel, and began to fall forwards again, and bounced against the parapet. The shock of the collision reverberated down the ladder, and sent two more of the Cannans falling to the ground. Subath laughed, “One way to do it.” He grabbed the wooden end of the ladder and dragged it to the side, sending it toppling over against another ladder, destabilising it and sending them both crashing to the ground along with their wailing passengers.
“Oil!” a voice boomed to Subath’s right as two burly troops in leather aprons hauled a cauldron of oil towards the wall.
“Down there.” Subath pointed to the rush of Cannans at the wall below, several dozen men raising ladders.
The cauldron tipped, and bubbling oil fountained down over them and their ladders. Screams rose and fell. They rose again as flaming arrows set the lot ablaze.
“It’s easing,” Lucius said, panting for breath and eyes scanning the battlement.
“Aye,” Subath agreed, looking about him. The last of the ladders were being tossed back, the last remaining serkers surrounded and brought down by spear thrusts. Lightly armed archers made their way back onto the battlement and began peppering the Cannans with shafts.
“Those not engaged, start tossing whatever rubble you can!” Skeldon shouted along the battlement.
Men rushed forward and began hauling lumps of fractured masonry at any Cannans still bent on scaling the wall.
Subath sat against the inner parapet and leaned over, tearing free some black fabric from a dead Cannan serker’s uniform. He used the rag to clean down his sword, and sheathed his weapon.
“Bloody,” Lucius said, replicating the chief marshal’s actions.
“Aye, it was that. Bloody and quick. Only the first assault. They’re probing, that’s all.”
Lucius nodded, sucking in a deep breath and looking down the wall. “We did well.”
“We did,” Subath agreed. He studied the side profile of the coward, Lucius. Blood spattered his clean-shaven face. Somewhere through the fight the man had lost his mail coif. Lucius’ sandy-grey hair was clumped with dried blood. Not so much the coward any more. “You did well,” Subath said, clenching his fist to try and stem the rising tremor in it. Damn blood-yips.
Lucius nodded, a grim smile on his face. “Did what I had to t
o stay alive.”
“The very essence of soldiering.” Subath grinned. “Where’s Major Ferah?” he asked, looking around.
“I haven’t seen her,” Lucius replied.
Subath strode up the battlement, past the troops lifting blocks of masonry and tossing them onto the Cannans below. He passed over dead defenders, Free Provinces and Cannan exile alike. A wounded exile leaned against the outer wall of the battlement. Subath crouched and looked at the man’s blood-streaked face. He held a hand to a deep gash that ran up his forehead and into his hairline. “Where is Major Ferah?” The man’s eyes flicked to the left.
“She fell,” he said. His voice trailed off in a tremble as shock took root in the man.
Subath stood and rushed up the battlement. And there she was. Leilah lay on her back, brown eyes wide open and staring at the dark sky. A thin line of blood trailed from the side of her mouth and ran down over her ear and onto the slick flagstones. A dark wound had been opened up under her armpit where a sword had found an opening. “Fuck!” Subath roared with such fury his throat hurt. He hunkered down and closed her eyes with trembling fingers. He stood up, sucking in a deep breath of the cold air, steadied himself, and turned around to where Lucius was standing. He looked at the sky. “Sun’s coming up soon. Need to get the sally port blocked up. Any word from the south wall?”
“None that I’m aware of,” Lucius replied.
Subath stood, clenching and opening his fists. He turned to Lucius. “Get rid of the corpses, and keep the men watered. I want a strong crew on the wall. Keep the oil hot, and make sure the archers have fresh quarrels. They’ll come again. It may be soon. Take what rest you can, but be ready.
“Skeldon, with me. We’re going to the south wall.”
The rain slapped down hard on Thaskil’s back, wind buffeting the spiky marsh grass about him and chilling the wetness that sheathed his body. It had been hours. Hours on his belly in the stinking cold mud. Hours waiting for the sentries to give them a chance. Hours of his whole body trembling from the cold, or the blood-yips. Finally, one of the sentries stood. The man stretched his back, rubbing at it as he stepped away from the other three and walked out from where they huddled.
