by Wilf Jones
‘How dare you! You’re nothing but an old woman. Don’t risk this, don’t try that. You’re scared of shadows. Don’t you dare talk about the Lord Temor. You malign him to disguise your own weakness. Shaf was a hero!’
Tregar realized he’d already had enough of all this.
‘With respect’ he yelled at the pair of them, ‘This is not the time for stupet arguments! I’m surprised at ye, Jaspar.’
‘But you’re not surprised at her, are you.’
Tregar thought about that for a few seconds.
‘Well, no I’m not.’
Xandra looked as though she might burst for a moment or two but then she subsided into something that sounded almost like a chuckle.
‘Thought you might fold that time, Tregar,’ she teased.
‘The day I won’t stand up to you, little Xan, is the day I pack it all in.’
‘Good. Let’s hope that’s a day far off. So, was that explosion all your own work?’
‘Let’s say I provided the spark. Others did the hard work. And Shaf amongst them. We fight this fight together, we have all a part to play.’
‘Just what I was telling Jaspar. That’s why I’ll be leading another sortie—’
‘You’ll… what?’
‘We’ve got to get out there now before they hem us in again. Last time it was different—’
‘Last time? Good Gods, Jaspar, ye haven’t been letting her fight?’
‘Letting her?’
‘Letting me?’
This time she was furious. ‘I am not a teenager still, Tregar, I’m twenty-nine years old, though you never seem to realize it. What did you expect me to do? We’ve been fighting for our lives you know. Wouldn’t it have been just fine and dandy if Mador’s Heir had sat on her backside and done nothing! Do you want me kept hid like some pretty, precious girl? How fine, how noble; a splendid tale for my children.’
‘Well that’s just the point isn’t it, Xandra: I want ye to survive long enough to have some children. What your father would… Whit the divilment’s that?’
It seemed that the stones beneath their feet quivered, swords propped against a wall clattered to the floor. Below, and they stood in a chamber directly two floors above the Francon Gate, a powerful, measured thumping sound set in. They could feel it through their feet; they’d soon have headaches. The respite gained by the victory in the cwm was over and Tregar was let off the hook.
‘Rams,’ explained Selby, ‘Sounds like they’ve brought that big one in at last. Damn great, ugly-looking iron thing. It’ll have that gate down if we’re not quick. You ready for some more fireworks, Tregar?’
‘I’m sure we can manage something suitable. Let’s get the oil fired.’
‘Oil?’
‘Yeees, Jaspar, oil. Black, sticky stuff; use it in lanterns. Oh don’t say it.’
Jaspar looked sick and Selby swore.
‘We’ve used it all,’ Xandra said. ‘One of the reasons I wanted to get out of the gates.’
‘You said all together,’ Jasper explained, ‘so I used all we had left.’
‘Fine, just fine! How do ye suppose I can make fireworks without something to burn? Eh? I’m just a simple, idiot wizard, you know, not a bladdie god!’
‘I thought the oil was just for effect.’
‘Great Spurl’s tits, Selby. Do ye think I’ve time to worry about effect when I’m up to my balls in blood? And ye can stop that grinning, Xandra. This is hardly the time for humour.’
‘There’s plenty of peat,’ Jaspar offered cautiously.
‘Whit can I do with bladdie peat? Clod it at them?’ Exasperated, he turned away and found himself facing the mantlepiece. Almost growling in frustration Tregar thumped the stone in time with the thumping on the gates. It was satisfying somehow to react so badly. And when he realized that fact, he stopped both the growling and the thumping. Nobody dared speak. After a tense moment he turned back to face them rubbing his knuckles and said: ‘I’m sorry. Sorry about that. A wee bit disappointed, ye know how it is. Peat now, ahem. Well peat would work, probably. If we could figure some way of throwing it over the walls. Though I doubt it’d spread the same, whatever I do to it. I think it’ll take too long to sort out, far too long.’
Jaspar looked a little sheepish. ‘Well let’s forget the peat. Stupid idea. But we have to do something quick. My people have more or less run out of everything and that gate’ll not hold much longer.’
‘Never mind the gate. That hammering’s got te stop before my brain rattles loose. Now what’s occurring?’
Distracting them from their problems for a few seconds, there was a commotion along the hallway. They all looked to see what was happening. Soldiers from Temor’s army were trying to push past the guards. Tregar was surprised to find himself with something to grin at after all: he had recognized a face.
‘Just the man. Jaspar, Your highness, Commander Selby, meet Seth Cookson. He’s the young man who won quarter of our battle all by himself.’
The risk of opening the gates was more than made up for by the vigour of Seth’s attack. He led five hundred foot into the ram carriers and the ladder men, and the suddenness of the attack pushed the enemy back several hundred yards. Then on came the cavalry with Xandra at the head, despite Tregar’s protests, and the thrust won them quarter of the high meadow. And there they stopped. Jaspar wanted to consolidate his gains, wanted to make sure that there were no surprises. To that end he set the cavalry to cutting up any of the enemy still walking in their part of the field and the foot soldiers to even more gruesome work.
It couldn’t last of course. After thirty minutes or so of this less than glorious task, Xandra, with Seth at her stirrup, became bored and impatient. The Heir peered to the fore rather than the rear. The ranks of the enemy, she determined, seemed fearful. Wherever Seth had come they’d fallen back almost in a panic. Scared by his great skill perhaps; they’d certainly learned to respect that sword of his. Retreating they’d gathered witless and dithering in the last third of the field apparently unable to initiate any sort of reply to the Partian advance. Xandra spoke a few well chosen words to Seth and to the commanders in his group, all exclusively Temorians. Just as exhilarated as she was by the charge, just as annoyed by the delay, they had revenge in their hearts and were more than ready to get on with the next move.
She looked around to see that Jaspar was ordering his own battle group into a sensible defensive array some way back towards the castle. She laughed.
‘Old woman,’ she called. ‘Let’s show you how it’s supposed to be done.’
Jaspar obviously heard her call and raised his head, but couldn’t make out what she’d said. He rode a few yards towards her looking puzzled. Xandra grinned and called out again:
‘See if you can keep up! Right lads! For Temor, for Sands, for Pars! Let’s break them!’
And with that she went, the cavalry too fast and the foot struggling to catch up. Selby over on Xandra’s left must have presumed that the attack had been ordered by Jaspar. He shouted up his hundred and led them into the fray at a tremendous pace oblivious to Jaspar raging and swearing and shouting at them:
‘Not there, not there! Remember the map.’
They couldn’t hear him. Selby had come too late to the briefing anyway, and Xandra hadn’t been paying attention, and so a large part of Sands’ cavalry, and half of the Temor foot went bowling along, heedless of their peril, into a huge morass.
Because of the angle of his approach, Selby’s horse were first to reach the enemy lines with the commander running at the head of his command. He dealt savagely with the creatures he ploughed through and in numbers they fell back before him. But it was all deceit. Within moments his mount floundered into a bog, his command piled in after, and their fate was sealed. Trap sprung, hundreds of the pale warrio
rs returned, seeming somehow native to such an environment, and very carefully they began their awful work. The javelins flew and when those had done enough damage they waded in to finish their task with blades. As Xandra, faring better on more solid ground, considered the chances of rescue, Commander Selby was encircled by ten axe wielders. He understood their intent but could do nothing to escape. Selby screamed and screamed as, stroke by bloody stroke, they took off his legs and arms and only stopped when they’d hacked off his head. This commander of the living would not be rising again from the mire, they made sure of that. Abandoned to death, his men themselves either dead or hideously dying, Eduard Selby found no better grave.
The next hour was desperate. Jaspar led the charge himself in the attempt to get Xandra out of the action but once again it was only the energy and threat of Seth Cookson that gave them their chance. This was the most wasteful hour of Sands’ battle. Hundreds were slaughtered, hundreds more were wounded, but eventually, with that great bloody sword still guarding their backs, Jaspar dragged them back platoon by platoon into the safe shadow of the castle, and there he found the space to count his losses.
Tregar had kept thirty of Jaspar’s people with him and had them transferring the huge pile of peat turves out on to the narrow gorge of the road east. It was hard labour; Tregar took off his jacket and mucked in with the rest. He noticed that the men, much more than the women, were discontented with their ignominious role. Typically they wanted to be out there among the blood and guts of the fight. Men were ever perverse creatures.
‘What are we doing here anyway?’ one of them demanded loudly so that the wizard could hear. He threw down the stack of turves he carried with contempt. ‘If we’re meant to be building some sort of wall, there isn’t enough of the stuff; and even if there was, it wouldn’t be much to hide behind.’
Tregar could only smile grimly. Sword work would have been more to his own taste but this had to be done.
‘Ye must realize’ he said when they had a few yards to themselves, ‘we cannot prevail today. I don’t believe it, anyway. But with the gods’ favour, we might just survive. That’s what this is for. Once we’re throught it, and the gap closed, this’ll become a wall of fire.’
A biased observer might have seen enough evidence to say the honours were even, that the battle was stalemate. Incredibly, the numbers on each side were now not so very different after Tregar’s fireworks and the relentless attacks led, on the one front by Xandra and Jaspar for Sands, and on the other by Honry and Senca for Anparas. The enemy held the central ground but it was effectively surrounded. Jaspar still had a cavalry to speak of, even if it was rendered ineffective by the marshy ground. They still had Tregar and the chance that he might discover some new weapon they could use; and they still had the farmer’s boy and the fear he seemed to generate.
An observer might even be tempted to say that Pars had the upper hand. Unfortunately there was one factor in this conflict which inevitably upset the scales. While the Partians were dead on their feet with weariness, the ‘walking dead’ they fought seemed tireless and only died after extreme duress: duress indeed that became harder and harder to apply.
To Lomal it seemed that the enemy, sitting unconcerned in the centre of the valley or guarding the path from meadow to valley floor, were inviting attack. Well, why shouldn’t they? The earlier desire and rush for victory had been replaced, he presumed, by the quiet knowledge that victory was assured. Lord Anparas knew that the time had come to consider retreat. They had done all they could: the enemy was much reduced. If the two Partian forces took opposite routes from the valley he thought it unlikely that the enemy would pursue both or either.
To that end he turned his gaze upon the Western road, the road that had brought them to this place. Tired, at first his eyes couldn’t focus properly, and then when they did he thought he was mistaken. He turned to his aide.
‘Stubson, look out there. Where we came. What do you see?’
‘Yes, my lord.’ His eyes traced the road out to the end of the Francon. ‘Is it… is it reinforcement? Jemenser, perhaps?’
‘I think not, Stubson.’
‘Then it is our death. The tracker was right.’
It wasn’t a huge force: he guessed at two thousand. But two thousand were as good as ten in the circumstance. Lomal realized he was trapped. The Anparas army was locked in and all they could do now was fight to the finish. How much of all this had gone according to some wretched plan? He understood the arrogance of the army in the valley. He began to realize why the siege of Greteth had lasted so long: it had been a trap from the start. Instead of destroying the House of Sands and marching on to meet whatever Pars could stand against them, they had enticed three eighths of Pars’ standing army into one confined place with the simple intention of destroying it. The anger took him at last.
‘Death for us in the valley, Stubson, but not for everyone! I’ll not have it! Find me eight horses. Quickly man! Four trumpeters and three guards to give them a chance. If the cwm is clear Jaspar can escape, but he must go now.’ And then he stopped, and he sighed. ‘And perhaps, just perhaps, some of our own may find a way too.’
Stubson was quick to his task. ‘I’ve sent Sergeant Colham, my lord. They’ll be here soon. Ah… Lomal?’
‘Yes, Charles?’
‘You asked for three guards and four heralds.’
‘I did. I’ll go with them. Let me say goodbye now, before they come. You know I’ve counted you as my friend these many years? I want to thank you for putting up with me so long.’
‘Never mind that, Lomal. Friends don’t have to say thanks and sorry – not at a time like this. I never thought… It’s a bad way for a friendship to end.’
‘There are worse.’
‘Yes. Yes there are. You don’t expect to get through to Jaspar then?’
‘Hardly. Those devils are not that lax. But we must get close enough to blow the retreat so they can hear it.’
‘Then I’ll come with you. As well die there as here, my lord.’
They didn’t embrace, it was never Lomal’s way. It was his way to be fair. He made sure each of the seven with him understood the situation, understood they would almost certainly die. Lomal wanted none to go unwilling: they did not; he expected none to back out: nor did they.
They rode the southern wall of the valley as far as they could but shortly came to a stream too rocky and deep to cross. Pushed down so quickly onto the edge of the conflict, it seemed as if the valley walls themselves were against them. The delay set Lomal cursing, his rage no longer held in check. They plunged through groups of the enemy with such reckless speed that they were through before weapons could be aimed. Inevitably, however, their progress was observed and their charge became a desperate scramble to twist and turn their way. Lomal and the three guards each rode just ahead of their chosen partner, and now each pair took a different route. After they had parted so Lomal never saw the others again.
They were more than half-way to the eastern front of the battle before Lomal screamed back to the herald with him:
‘Blow it now! Blow till your lungs burst, man. Blow!’
Looking over his shoulder Lomal saw the brave man cast aside his sword and raise the instrument to his lips. And Lomal saw the black blade that caught him in the midriff as he galloped through. The trumpet spat away and he was hurled backwards over his saddle, feet still caught in the stirrups.
‘No!’ Lomal screamed and ‘No!’ again as he looked away. He caught the full force of the javelin in his face.
Two hundred yards away another soldier was blowing the retreat: blowing madly, blowing wildly, dodging blows, ducking behind his comrade, his protector, one Charles Stubson, who fought and cried and fought some more. They had lost their horses and soon they would lose their lives.
Jaspar understood at once. He had returned to the
walls of Greteth to see how the battle progressed and was searching for some chance, some advantage that might turn things in their favour. It was only a blur in the distance but from that trumpet call he knew what was coming. With a heart cramped by the grief of the situation, he added his own trumpets to that sad, desperate voice. Below, he could see Xandra halt at the sound. It was not an order to please her, but one even she would obey. Up on the walls questioning faces turned to him but he was looking out over the Francon. He imagined he could see that lonely trumpeter and imagined that he heard the dying note.
The retreat was close fought at first but once Jaspar’s army was within the castle or in the cwm the enemy seemed to lose interest. Jaspar presumed it was a matter of priorities.
Within a half-hour the retreat was complete. The Francon gate was closed once more and barricaded. The gap in Tregar’s wall beckoned but the army of Sands and Temor did not leave immediately. Jaspar had a duty to perform, the saddest duty of his life.
He ordered a silence. The fifteen hundred survivors of the battle stood to attention, hands clenched, chins somehow set. They listened, with the tears blinding them, to the horrible sound of defeat: the brave shouts, the clash of arms, the screams of agony, screams of despair.
And then Jaspar let the trumpets blow one last time over the weary walls of Greteth, over the Francon Deep. They blew the lament at last, the honour of honours.
Farewell, comrade, in whatever life you go to;
Farewell, your deeds live after you.
Farewell.
