by J P Corwyn
“Lock it up!” Valgar bawled. As one; they echoed the command. As one; the shields tightened up, left edge over neighbor’s right, and braced for the impact.
“Here …they …come!” Said Valgar.
Kaith braced for the impact.
✽✽✽
TWO
“Sir Kaith?” It was a boy’s voice: hesitant, accompanied by a tentative hand on Kaith’s shoulder, shaking it.
Kaith grabbed the wrist out of reflex but stopped himself from squeezing or yanking. His eyes snapped open. He spoke with a voice that hadn't been used in some time.
“I’m awake. What is it?”
The brown-haired boy froze, eyes the size of serving platters.
Kaith released the boy's wrist, reaching his empty hand out to pat him on the shoulder. He flinched away, rather than accepting the touch.
"Relax boy. You simply pulled me out of a doze. I'm not going to eat you." Kaith did his best to keep the bite of annoyance and frustration out of his voice and didn't entirely succeed.
"Dame Marcza," The boy began but did not finish. It didn't look like he was capable of finishing, as his face was still all eyes.
“You’re not going to make me guess, are you?”
Kaith's smile seemed to encourage the boy. He pinked slightly with embarrassment, his face splitting into a reluctant smile of his own.
“Dame Marcza sent me to come and waken you. She says,” he screwed up his face in an almighty act of concentration, then relaxed as if he’d been trying to, and finally managed to pass wind. When he spoke; it was in the usual brogue of the peasantry. “She said to tell’ee that we sh’make Ash-acre by four of the clock, but she’s only g‘bout two bells in her before she’ll need’ee to spell her.”
Kaith nodded after a moment's pause to chew through the messenger's accented words. He took the measure of his own exhaustion and then nodded again. With an effort; he hauled himself to a sitting position. The back of the wagon was not only full of gear but of awkwardly sprawled, sleeping people. He reached to his right to grab the small retaining wall, then vaulted over the side. He managed to land on his feet, for the wagon wasn't moving terribly fast, but he felt the vibrations shoot up past his knees as he did so.
Standing upright as the wagon finally fully rolled past him; he started walking toward the front of the column. He managed to pat the boy on his shoulder as he passed by the wagon, eliciting an uncertain smile for his effort.
As he walked; he looked up: gauging the time. The sky was a thin, hazy gray. It forcibly reminded him of the smoky air that had permeated Westsong when he’d last seen it. Rather than softening the rising sun; it made its light blinding.
Instead of squinting; he blinked, as Greggor had taught him. Eyes adjusted to light more quickly through rapid blinking than they did through prolonged squinting. He judged the time somewhere near half seven. It might be a bit later, but it certainly wasn’t much past the eighth bell yet.
The battle had only lasted perhaps an hour, though time grew funny when swords and spears were in motion. They'd spent another hour tending the wounded and doing their best to stand a nervous watch: in case more of the things revealed themselves. With less than two bells remaining until midnight; they’d moved their column out, following the road to the southeast. By two of the clock; Kaith had been banished to a wagon to take his rest. He protested, but his brothers, sister, and the Countess herself had overridden him.
The battle may have only lasted an hour, but while he slept he found he couldn't escape it.
Five or six hours, he thought. Normally that would’ve been enough: but riding and watching will almost certainly be more restful than sleep’s proven to be. He shook his head (though whether in negation or simply to clear it he-himself didn’t know) and began to move.
In less than a minute; he’d half-staggered his way to the riders at the head of their little column: Marcza and Edren.
“Finally starting to feel it?” Kaith asked. It was Marcza he was specifically addressing, though Edren nodded as well.
"Aye," Marcza said. She smiled cheerfully enough, but her eyes and the heaviness of her voice told a different story. "Starting to, at any rate."
"Well, never fear," Kaith said. "Awake's better than asleep for me. I'd rather fight fatigue than endlessly re-fighting that battle."
Edren grimaced. “I keep thinking,” He began. “… We shouldn’t have lost so many.”
“Edren…” Marcza began. He forestalled her, waving his hand and overriding her.
“You can quote numbers at me all day, Marcza. I knew some of those men. The others came up with them along the tournament circuit from damn near boyhood in some cases.”
“A few of them were still boys last night.” Said she. Her voice was dry. It held none of her normal hang-it-all good humor.
“Mind your damned tongue.” Edren’s voice was raw and full of a naked emotion that hurt to hear. “By the end of that battle none of them were boys, and even if they had been; every single one of them fought and died as befits a knight. I won’t have them belittled, nor the fact of their valor forgotten: not by you, not by anyone else!”
Marcza bowed her head. After a moment; she spoke, though she didn’t meet Edren’s eyes.
“You’re right, of course. It’s just…” Tears began to roll down her face. Her voice was quite steady despite being subdued.
“I know,” Edren said finally. His voice had dropped into a low, bitter growl. “We should’ve, I should’ve done some-thing.”
After a long moment during which both riders had their heads down, the ears of their horses twitching back nervously; Kaith found his own voice. To his surprise; it was quite steady. Moreover; it carried with it the unhappy wisdom that only abandoned children ever really gain.
“There isn’t anything you could have done: either of you. There isn’t anything any of us could have done. When the Falx finally comes for you; no one can help you. The best you can hope for is to make your life, make your death means something. In the face of a nearly unimaginable horror, facing down monsters who wore the faces of men and boys they grew up with, the faces of those who loved them; every one of them, every one of us stood. Every one of us made certain that our lives, and if it were our time: our deaths meant something.”
Marcza stopped her horse. She dismounted in an awkward, unpracticed manner and handed Kaith the rains. Not a word passed her lips as she completed this chore, though she looked at him through shining eyes. Finally; she laid her hand upon his right shoulder, then departed for the wagons in the back for a few hours of likely broken sleep.
Kaith mounted up and rode forward to catch up with Edren.
Neither man spoke for the next thirty minutes, but Edren looked at Kaith several times as they rode, then looked away nodding to himself.
Finally; he called Kaith’s name. He was going to go wake his replacement: and would instruct the man to pull a fresh horse from their train.
Kaith nodded at that, and then faced forward.
He looked up, gauged the sun, and thought it would be about an age before they finally had sight of Ash-acre.
As he lowered his eyes back toward the road; he couldn’t help but deride the landscape. As far as the eye could see; there were sloping, rolling low hills full of long, wild grain farmed by no one, and punctuated with the occasional group of Aspin trees. Given the overall haze of today’s not-quite-midmorning sky; every vista before him seemed like the last. It did nothing to help him stave off the long thoughts that stalked toward his waking mind.
✽✽✽
THREE
Swordsmen stood beside me,
Lords of fen and field,
Stalwarts stood to risk their bones,
Each man a living shield,
Kaith felt the impact of something massive colliding against his shield. He’d braced his shoulder, and for a wonder his position held. Blows from weapons rarely made the bones and muscles of his shield arm vibrate so completely.
To his right; Lanwreigh shield came uncoupled from Kaith’s for just a moment. It wasn’t fear that had unbalanced Lanwreigh, merely the youth’s comparative weight when held up against the enemy that had rammed their shield wall.
"No, you don't!" Robis said. His words were quickly delivered, though spoken with a surprising and bitter calm that knew nothing of age. He pulled back his glaive and set it diagonally against Lanwreigh's back to brace him, preventing him from sliding any further. "I have you. Now dress that damned line!"
Lanwreigh didn’t have to be told twice. With a grunt; he shoved forward locking his shield into position between Kaith’s and Samik’s.
To his left; Kaith felt Valgar shift, rolling so his back was against Kaith’s left shoulder.
“Robis!” Valgar shouted, “Refuse the left! Get somebody over here to help me! There’s a damned horse breaking through!”
“Aye, I see it.” came Greggor’s voice. He was almost as calm as ever, but his words were slightly more clipped than usual as he raced along behind their line.
Kaith heard a grunt of effort, the clatter of hooves, and a sickly wet popping noise.
“Valgar? Your sword, if you please?” Greggor was both strained and insistent, despite the requisite understatement of his dry wit. He sounded as if he was struggling under a mighty weight.
“Kaith! Refuse the left. Close it up!”
“Refuse the left, aye!” Kaith’s response was swift and automatic. “Lanwreigh; stay the line.”
As Valgar took a step behind the shield wall; Kaith was already bending back, making the line's flank look like the left side of a trapezoid. As he finished the act of repositioning himself; he saw what Greggor had done. Sir Reginald’s white warhorse, (its chest mauled, dripping gore, and ribbons of flesh) had managed to lumber into their backfield. The men had decided earlier that day that the poor thing's bulk was too heavy to effectively move into the moat with the other corpses. Now; it looked like all of them were paying for that decision.
Greggor's glaive had penetrated the thing's neck, and could now be seen poking out from the top of its head. Unfortunately; the wound didn't appear to be doing more than inconveniencing the grotesque mount.
Valgar took a single step to Kaith's left, Greggor's right. In relative silence; Valgar brought his sword down just below where the glaive exited the top of the horse's head. It took him several strokes before the animal's head finally parted ways with its neck, but at long last, the creature collapsed.
“The heads!” Kaith shouted, “Take their heads and they’ll fall to the ground like any other thing in creation! Take their heads!”
“Glaives! Spears! Shift right!” Greggor barked.
As always; the men echoed the call, then executed the command.
The thing pressing against Kaith and Lamwreigh’s shields seemed to slip off to the left, suddenly.
“Valgar!?” If Kaith was right; the thing that had been pressing against both shields with such vehemence was going to slip to the right: rushing straight toward Valgar’s turned back.
He needn’t have worried. Valgar spun, charged forward with his shield before him, and punched his shield upward: catching the beast’s lower jaw and knocking it off balance. Wasting no time; he shoved the creature directly into the burning guardhouse to the left.
Kaith had been right; it had been a wolf – perhaps even a massive Winter Wolf - though not of the same coloring as he’d seen on Forester’s once-foe. Had been was certainly the operative phrase, now.
Seeing that gave him an idea. Kaith made his voice sharp to be heard clearly above the din.
“Valgar! Slot in!”
Valgar shouted his assent, backpedaled to stand on Kaith’s left, locked his shield in position, and waited to replace Kaith in the line.
Kaith disengaged once Valgar was braced, shouting, “Dress the line!” as he moved.
As always; the men echoed the order and executed the command. Once he was satisfied that Valgar was in place (which took all of an eyeblink) Kaith step back behind the line of reach weapons that made up the second rank: holding his sword aloft. It would serve to focus those who looked to identify who was giving the order.
If the enemy’d had archers; this would’ve been a foolish, if not suicidal decision: marking him as a prime target.
Speaking of archers; he heard more arrows being loosed overhead, toward either flank of the town: Yaru and Arafad doing their best to provide their war effort with missile support.
“Shield wall!” Kaith bawled, “Give me a wedge! Tip of the spear? Aethan, center! Samik! Left! Barnic! Right! Move-move-move!”
At once the command was echoed. In a matter of seconds; the men had formed themselves into a very small chevron shape.
Kaith saw Barnic and Jastar each move off to cover a flank, dispatching more shambling creatures as they came through.
“Alnik?” Greggor’s voice: loud but reassuringly in control. The sound of his name stopped his uncertain shift toward the western flank before it’d really started. “Stand fast! Never move a step! You’re just where I want you: right behind Aethan!”
The brown-eyed constable (until recently Westsong’s only regularly armed man) nodded and reset both stance and spear. He looked as if he were managing well, despite being utterly out of his element.
He alone was unused to fighting within a larger force. Greggor had, therefore, wisely put him in the center of the pole weapons, where his eye could focus on targets in spear range, rather than trying to mentally contend with the entire field.
Normally tunnel vision in combat was most deadly to the one seeing through it. In this case, however; Alnik had a force between him and the enemy. He couldn't afford to be oblivious, but his lack of experience in small unit tactics and formations would do everyone far less harm with him near the center of the rear rank.
“Kaith?” Raun’s voice was full of uncertainty. He didn’t see it yet. Fortunately; Kaith had been drawing breath to give the next order, even as the bard was calling his name.
“We’re going to shove them into the fires! Keep reforming, keep dressing the line! Poles; make ready to brace the shields!” He drew a deep breath, took a step back to take in the field one final time, and gave the order.
“Shield wall! Advance by step! Step-step-step-step-step, line stop!” The men echoed his order, shouting the word step right along with him until the command to stop had been issued. He saw a dozen men and beasts undertake what could only be described as a shambling charge across the bridge. He’d stopped his formation just in time.
“Brace!” He’d planned to say the word two or three times, as was the norm, but there hadn’t been time. They’d braced their wall of ower shields just before the dead things impacted. “Stay the line!” He fought to maintain the surety in his voice, despite the enemy grabbing at, and trying to dislodge the tight formation’s cohesion. “Stay the line!” He said again. There were only two more left to join the shambling, groping mob, and one of them was the ruined form of Sir Reginald. He hoped Robis’s vantage meant he would be spared the sight of his sire stagger-striding toward them, but hope was all he had time for. “Now! Into the fires! Now! Now! Thorion!”
Screaming as one, screaming “Thorion!” they obeyed.
✽✽✽
FOUR
“Who are you thinking about?” Raun’s voice, soft though it was, forced him back from the memory of that bloody caidence.
“Raun.” Kaith nodded as the man rode up beside him.
“Kaith…” His voice held a hint of quiet annoyance for the formality, minor though it was. He let a minute pass in silence, their horses ambling along amiabl
y enough. At length; he asked his question again.
“Who are you thinking about?”
“Does it matter?” Kaith’s voice was more defensive than he would’ve liked, but the words were already out of his mouth. He didn’t mind. He wanted silence with his thoughts, not prodding, questioning…
“I keep thinking about Samik," Raun said. "It's hard to believe a mountain like that…"
Kaith’s voice was sharp as he cut across him.
“Must we?”
Raun rode in silence, his face expressionless.
“I’m sorry,” Kaith said eventually.
"It's fine," Raun said. He sounded like he meant it, which made Kaith feel even worse. "I'm just trying to find the right way to honor them."
“When the Falx comes...” said Kaith, beginning the old catechism.
