by J P Corwyn
“Burn the Falx!” Raun said. His voice was black and bitter, almost angry.
“Burn the-,” Raun cut him off before he could finish.
“Falx, yes Kaith. Burn the damned thing.” Raun’s voice was the auditory equivilant of wrapping your bare hand around a thornbush. “Burn it, hang it, throw it off a cliff!” He returned to riding in silence for perhaps a minute before resuming in a less agitated tone. “I’m not trying to make sense of their deaths, or their lives Kaith. I’m not looking for a bedtime story that lets me lay them down: in peace at last.”
“What then?”
“I don't know," Raun said: voice returning to its normal, softer tone. "Something to keep them alive."
Kaith looked at him: uncertainty etched across his face.
“That’s not remotely what I meant.” Raun snorted. “I mean a statue, an entry in the great histories and sagas, I don’t know…”
“…A song?”
Raun blinked hard, then hung his head, nodding.
“Already tried, have you?” Kaith’s voice was low and sympathetic: was almost another apology.
Raun nodded. “It’s too big for me. I can set the stage, but everything that comes out after that; it’s just hollow. It doesn’t do the battle justice, nor the loss, nor the valor they displayed.”
“Well,” Said he, “Maybe that’s enough.”
Raun eyed him. “Enough?”
“Yes, Raun. Setting the scene, taking everyone to the moment before the first charge; maybe that’s enough.” He paused for a moment, looking down and studying his horse’s mane as he collected his thoughts. “Before long; the whole county will know what happened at Westsong. There’ll be records of the Countess’s proclamations before the battle for both the living and the dead. There’ll be a library’s worth of information written down, and what’s written down is discussed and debated for years, decades, perhaps longer.”
“A song that takes everybody to the moment before they charged our line, however…” Raun trailed off, then nodded. “Maybe you’re right. Thank you, brother.”
Kaith nodded agreeably enough. After a moment he asked one final question.
“What will you call it?”
“Silver in the Skies, I think.”
Kaith cocked his head to the side, rolling the words around in his mind. Raun was eyeing him, trying to gauge his reaction. At length; he put the singer out of his misery.
“Silver in the Skies; I like it.” Kaith wrapped his fist around the silver chain he wore, meeting Raun’s eyes. “I like it very well.”
✽✽✽
FIVE
Spear and glave behind me,
Deadly, swift and strong,
Wraiths of winter’s moon above,
Fade rag-ed, and are gone.
“Horses!” Robis shouted. He shoved Samik out of the way just before the charge would’ve run him down. How he’d managed to move the mountain of a man was a matter quite beyond comprehension, but he had. Samik now owed Robis his life. it was a debt he'd never be able to repay
“Scatter!” Barnic’s shout was a sudden thunderclap.
Kaith's impromptu wedge had worked to shove the shambling, shuffling things into the fires set within the moat. First to be devoured by the flames was Sir Reginald. Kaith had seen him starting to raise both his sword and his chin, as if to give an order, when the wave of bodies hit him, driven by the press of their shields. It had been effective, certainly, but he hadn't correctly reckoned when and if Sir Cedric's cavalry would at last crossed the bridge and enter the fray. It seemed like the fire had been keeping them at bay, and they'd been content to send other troops into tire Westsong's few defenders. Either they had run out of additional troops to send, or the mounted creatures had run out of patience.
Once the eight horses had managed to plow through, and were in the courtyard; Marcza’s voice rang out clear.
“Form up! Form up! Back them against the manor! Hem them in! Now! Move-move-move!”
Kaith spun to face toward the manor and the invading horsemen. He saw Lanwreigh’s brother Lanian stand on the back of his father’s horse, then leap onto the wall of the manor, beginning to climb the ivy.
"Cedric is alone! I'll keep him that way!" Kaith was surprised at his own bravado but knew he had the right of it. An effective leader on the field was a force multiplier for even a handful of soldiers. Cedric would have to be kept isolated if he couldn't be outright removed. "Give me a triad, Marcza!"
Lanwreigh thumped into position along Kaith’s right, locking his shield into place.
“On your right, Kaith! I’m with you!”
Kaith nodded. “Be ready to move, double-time!” Now to grab a glaive or spear.
As if his words had summoned the man…
“Spear in, Kaith! Jastar’s with you!”
Kaith’s smile was bitter as he tightened his grip on both sword and shield. This he could do. This was just another tournament: small units versus large, infantry versus cavalry. He readied himself, drawing a draft of rain-thickened air before letting it out in a burst of sound.
“Cedric!” As one; Kaith and Lanwreigh sped toward the darksome knight. As one; they dipped down as they began the last few steps that would take them into combat range. Two strides later; they pistoned forward and upward, driving their shields with the full weight of their rising bodies. They collided with the left-side of Sir Cedric’s horse, pinning his leg to it, somehow unbalancing the creature.
As the horse stumbled to the right; they pressed the advantage their momentum had granted them. They posted their tower shields high, trying to limit their foe’s angles of attack while giving Jastar a clear target.
They’d denied Sir Cedric’s favorite angle of attack by the positioning of the two massive shields. The Hammer shot, as it was known, was a simple, swift, downward strike. When executed correctly; it served to drive shields or skulls skolfward like tent stakes in soft earth. In this case, however, the shields had been posted too high.
Sir Cedric, instead, began throwing scorpion's tail-like shots with his broadsword: trying to angle the edge of his blade so that it cut into the backs of the shieldmen or the head of the spearman.
Kaith automatically fell into a dump block: angling his own sword so that it, and his gauntlet, covered the back of his head, and his spine. He hoped Lanwreigh was doing the same.
“My son is a traitor!" Cedric said. His voice was as plain and detached as it had been before dawn when the true siege had begun.
Jaster stepped back: using every one of the nine feet that made up the length of his spear. He stabbed Cedric over, and over again, but the dead thing kept right on speaking: hurling sword strikes, taunts and the detached, but somehow still disgusted disappointment of a nightmare wearing a father’s face.
Finally; Sir Cedric grabbed the haft of Jastar’s spear with his gauntleted left hand, yanking it out of his grasp with an inhuman strength.
“No!" Lanwreigh stepped back: separating his shield from Kaith's. He punched it upward anew; knocking the spear aside before it could be spun and aimed at its original owner. He then leapt upward and forward: slamming his shield into Sir Cedric's side, and smacking him into the wall of the manor, unceremoniously throwing him from his ghoulish mount.
“Jastar! Take its reins! Lead it into the fire!”
“Aye, Kaith!” A moment later; the dead horse was led away without a sound of protest.
Later; Kaith would find that image chilling – how the thing had gone along, docile as you please, even into the fire.
With the horse’s bulk no longer in the way; Kaith’s eyes fell upon the final grim contest between father and son. There before the manor’s eastern bay window; Lanwreigh’d pinned Sir Cedric’s body to the ground with his tower shield.
He’d dimly registered the fact that he could no longer see anyone in the lower windows, not that he blamed them for fleeing deeper into the manor at this point, before he called his name, running to the youth’s side.
His heart sank as Lanwreigh screamed in desperation: begging Kaith to act, to do what he could not.
“Kaith! Kaith; you have to do it!” Even as Lanwreigh called out, the unearthly strength of the thing that wore his father’s face was nearly able to overpower him. Sir Cedric was lifting his son bodily, shield and all, even as Lanwreigh pressed down with all of his weight.
Kaith didn’t ask what Lanwreigh meant. It was unnecessary. Lanwreigh could help, could hold his father’s animated body down, could even fight him; but he couldn’t be the one to take his head.
Kaith tried to steel himself for the grim task as he crossed the remaining few feet that separated them. He'd killed men before (bandits and raiders mostly, but a Knight of Thorion: a once-good man, well respected throughout the County?
Holding his breath, forcing himself to look into Sir Cedric's mad, monstrous eyes; Kaith raised his sword and struck.
As his head came away from his neck; Sir Cedric adopted an expression of peace and tranquility that Kaith thought he'd never forget. It was as if, in the final moment of his second life, Cedric of Eastshadow was relieved to be allowed to truly find rest.
Lanwreigh got to his feet, his eyes swimming with un-shed tears.
“Thank you.” He managed. If the youth had more to say; this wasn’t the time.
A man (what had only recently been a man,) rode up from the east and dismounted, calling Lanwreigh’s name. An instant later; he was joined by a second, then a third: this time riding in from the south.
“Back to back!” Kaith tried to keep the fear out of his voice.
Lanwreigh complied, but far more slowly than was prudent.
The first of Sir Cedric’s former minute arms to arrive batted Lanwreigh shield aside, opening his defense with an almost lazy back cut (a horizontal sweep from dim to bright-hand side).
He lunged forward to take full advantage of the defenseless youth, but he was shouldered out of the way by a black blur of motion holding a glaive.
“Robis!” Lanwreigh’s voice was a study in shocked surprise.
Kaith circled with the undead (Squire? Had this thing been a squire not long up the hourglass? No, no silver chain.) Just a groom or other such armsman that engaged him, trying to maneuver him so that he could watch the rest of the battlefield.
At sixteen; Robis's reflexes were near their peak. His momentum carried him forward, his glaive nearly a blur as he spun and stabbed it this way and that. He moved like a whirlwind: dancing, distracting, almost toying with his foes. He separated one attacker from the other, then herded the two of them together toward the wall of the manor house, then separated them once again: his body never still for more than a moment.
An inhuman scream came from the second floor of the manor, causing each of them to risk a glance upward.
Something came hurtling out of the second-story window. Arafad (framed in that great portal just a moment ago) was nowhere to be found. The object rag-dolled: arced upward and outward from the manor: tumbling end over end as it fell.
No, not an object: a body, Kaith realized. A girl of perhaps six or seven: likely one-half of that Window's watchers.
Lanwreigh looked up. He tossed his massive shield to the side and leapt to try to catch the girl as she fell.
The creature that’d nearly killed Sir Cedric’s eldest son (before being engaged by the stormwind named Robis) took advantage of the falling distraction. The dead swordsman disengaged from the youth’s spinning glaive: leaving his grim companion to fend Robis off. He lunged at Lanwreigh. His sword arm executed a flat snap (a horizontal strike from bright to dim-hand side) on target to remove Lanwreigh’s head.
Kaith tried to step past his own foe, but whoever he’d been in life; he was inhumanly fast on his feet. Kaith saw the blow coming and understood that Lamwreigh would die. There was nothing Kaith could do to save him.
So ends the line of Eastshadow, he thought. Lamwreigh, I’ve failed you. How do I live with that?
Robis leapt into motion, somehow interposing his glaive between the strike, and Lanwreigh’s head. Unfortunately; doing so cost him.
The foe he’d disengaged with now lunged forward to take advantage of Robis’s distraction. He drove his sword up through the youth’s kidney: its point erupting from Robis’s chest like the prow of a ship finally emerging from an erie midnight fog.
Lanwreigh opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out. The girl forgotten; he leapt past Robis’s dying form and engaged his killer, hammering him back with blow after blow.
Channeling all of his mingled rage and grief; Kaith rammed his shield into the man-at-arms he was fighting, driving him back toward the skolf-bound girl, and knocking him off balance. As he'd hoped; his foe fell sprawling directly (or nearly directly) in line to cushion her landing. The impact would hurt, would likely break bone, and knock her unconscious, but it would be softer than landing on the bare flagstones.
She landed in a heap, making a sickening, wet sound.
Kaith took a giant step forward: spinning his sword so that its blade was inverted. Screaming an inarticulate battle cry; he managed to drive it down into his foes head, forcing a comical look of abject surprise to bloom on the dead things face before it, too, bore that look of peace he’d seen on Sir Cedric’s still features.
Breathing hard, releasing the hilt of his sword (leaving it, for the moment, to stick out of his blessedly-still foe’s mouth) Kaith knelt to check on the girl.
He gently pulled her into a sitting position: his arm around her shoulders to steady her. Her head lolled forward, chin on chest, and there was a dark stain running down the center of her grey sackcloth dress.
He struggled to find his voice. Before he could speak, however; she lifted her head. Her eyes were glassy and unblinking: two shocked and beautiful emeralds. She opened her mouth to smile at him, missing a few front teeth, and then it happened. All the color drained from her face: chaste by a pale, moon-kissed blue. Her arms lifted, the colors racing each other toward her fingertips. Between eye blinks; her nails elongated, becoming first yellowed, then darkening to the color of dried blood. She tried to sink them into his neck, lunging forward with surprising speed, and a mouth full of irregular fangs.
His gorget saved him from that initial assault. An odd, sweet smell of rot wafted up from where she had gouged his leather collar.
He stood up, never meaning to do so, and moved his arm so that he could grab the girl by the back of her dress near its neckline. He held her at bay as if she were an angry kitten, lifted by the scruff of her neck.
That act of nearly-comedic self-defense was a distant and automatic thing. His mind was reeling, teetering over an internal precipice. What was he doing here? He'd been right – he was no knight.
She continued to snarl and spit, bite and claw at him, but he held her out of reach of anything vital. Looking past her; he saw Lanwreigh had dispatched the thing that had killed Robis and was now engaged with the last of the grim folk that had once been his friends and training partners.
A chill passed over Kaith as his eyes left the ruined, blue mockery of the once-girl. He cast about himself, assessing the battlefield. Rain pelted down, the sky full of clouds so heavy that they seemed to be reaching from on-high with a slobbering, sickening intent. The sky's malice fell on Robis's limp form.
Kaith had seen the first of them to fall, and it had been a boy he, himself had helped to train. He remembered Robis rushing toward him in the stable complex full of pride and good humor after his tournament victory – remembered him in the sun looking out at her Excellency’s horses, his arm companionably around Lamwreigh’s shoulders. How had he been the first? How had Kaith allowed him to fall?
With a shudder of muted horror; he realized that he didn’t actually know if that were true or not.
He looked across the stony urban battlefield and saw his brothers and sister-in-arms capering amidst the knife-like downpour and unfettered firelight. As they fought their own skirmishes in the mid
dle distance, surrounded by foes too numerous to count (wherein hells have they all come from? There were only eight horsemen, and four of them are here with Lamwreigh and I); he wrestled with a dawning truth. Robis could have been the first or the fourteenth casualty on this hellish field. He wouldn't, couldn't know while the fighting lasted. Some were still left. Some still held their desperate courage to the rain-soaked sticking place…but how many? Was Robis the first to fall?… The fourth? Was he simply one of many already dead in a final act of service to the Thorion throne?
He heard Jastar in combat to the south with another of their former countrymen and fought back the wave of despair that threatened to overtake him. Suddenly the immortality they'd all felt at the beginning of the battle seemed to have washed away in the flood. He wanted to weep, to throw down his arms and give in to the inevitable.
He looked at the once-girl again: snarling and growling in her impotence at the end of his outstretched arm. Hearing Lanwreigh bleet Robis’s name in grief and horror; Kaith couldn’t help but wonder what hope they truly had. Coming out of this alive, let alone victoriously, seemed a bitter joke, all but a laughable impossibility.
CHAPTER 5:
THE RED FOG OF EASTSHADOW
ONE
Kaith and Raun rode in silence for the better part of an hour. Kaith's mind wandered and seemed helpless to do anything but relive the battle. Distantly; he heard the boy shouting, "Catch me!" Over and over again. For a moment it seemed like it was coming from all around him.
Eventually; he turned his head to look at Raun beside him in the saddle, and when the other man’s mouth moved he heard Lanian’s voice again, coming out of it.
“Catch me!” Manic and full of joy: a high, clear cry that twisted into something hungry and sadistic.
“What!?”
Raun looked startled at Kaith's sharp tone and wild-eyed half-glare. His expression, however, was born of concern for his old friend, or new brother, if that better served, not terror. He hadn’t heard the voice.
“I said I’m going to try and catch sleep. I rode beside the Countess’s carriage for an hour or two before coming up here. I’m really starting to feel it, and thought I'd go find a replacement - are you alright Kaith?” Raun’s concern was so sudden, so fervently genuine that his question rushed out from between his teeth before he'd finished his previous sentence.
