by Leo Carew
This fight was so much that Roper could hardly watch. The noise felt as if it was forcing him backwards, and his eyes shrank away from the mighty collision of weapons as they smashed together. The ground was being churned to mud and several of the warriors had simply fought themselves to exhaustion. They no longer swung their weapons; just pushed against each other, trying to drive the other backwards through the mud. Roper saw one guardsman without a sword fall upon a similarly exhausted Sutherner. He held his hand so that the Suthern knight could not swing his mace at him and used his other hand to wrench back the knight’s helmet. He bent forward and Roper realised that the guardsman had sunk his teeth into the knight’s freshly exposed neck. The knight flailed weakly but was pushed to the floor and did not rise.
Through the haze, Roper could see some change occurring in the mass of knights. Some were falling back and a relief unit appeared to be forcing their way through to the front line. As they drew closer, Roper spotted a single figure that towered above those around him: Garrett. He held Heofonfyr, his bastardised spear, and was leading Bellamus’s household warriors into direct combat with the Sacred Guard.
Roper unclasped his cloak, threw himself out of Zephyr’s saddle and advanced without a backwards glance. He forced his way through the exhausted and bloodied guardsmen who had already taken their turn in the front rank and were now recovering at the back. They stared at him as he passed, observing his clenched jaw and Cold-Edge held by his side as he used his size to bully his way to the front. There were bodies in his path. He stepped over eleven knights, their bright armour wrecked and smeared with blood and mud, and two Sacred Guardsmen. He did not look at these. He did not hear the guardsmen at the back begin to call his name in a chant that was slowly taken up by the rest of the Guard until they were all roaring: “Rop-er! Rop-er!” He did not even notice Helmec barging another path behind him, staying with his lord. He reached the front just as the first of Bellamus’s household warriors did, clad in their stolen bone-armour and all armed with the two-handed spear.
To fight well, you must first forget.
A single mistake, a single lapse in concentration, and you could end the day as a cooling corpse. You could bleed inexorably into the dirt. Your windpipe could be severed and wheeze and hiss as life escaped you. Your tangled guts exposed to the air. You could lose a limb, an eye, your hand; the feeble flesh carved open by steel. Fearful, mortal wounds; but what happens then? Pain engulfs you; death comes for you. You know you must hold your nerve, and meet it with honour and courage. But in spite of yourself, you wonder if this final, terrible ordeal is the one that you cannot sustain. Perhaps, as you have seen some among your comrades do, you will weep openly for your mother’s face, or because your day was about to go so dark, so soon. The façade would crack and all would know that in your heart, at your core, you were never so sure as you looked; that you were fearful all along and never truly the man you tried so hard to be.
All this, you must forget. You cannot defeat a man hand to hand if terror has made your limbs weak and slow. You must forget what you have to lose: your wife, your children, your mother, your father, your peers. You must forget the pleasure of frondescent sunlight bathing your face; or sitting by a hearth with hot food after a hard day; or the dark, warm embrace of your beloved. You must forget those noises around you: the pain, the retching cries, the clanging, the coughing. Forget the smells ramming the top of your nose, all of them metallic. Forget the frenetic movement to either side; the cold grey flashes, the expression of the warrior opposite you, the restrictive metal girdling your body, the pain in your numb and blistered hands. You must close your mind to all thought and emotion, and open the door that is kept locked at all times but during combat. You must be able to summon immense violence in the time it takes to draw a sword. In the sacred clash of the battlefield, you must be equal to the aggression of every man whom you face. More than equal. Your sword must swing faster and harder, your movements more certain than those of the hero opposite you. You do not have time to consider either attack or defence. Every action must be performed with utmost assurance on reflex, nerve and synapse. To fight must become instinctive. You must develop a self that knows these things, shuts out noisy thought and lives right at that instant, with no delay between stimulus and reaction.
First and foremost; you must forget yourself.
Roper’s first twisting lunge went through a man’s mouth, killing him instantly and robbing the thrust that he had aimed at Roper of any strength. He dropped to the floor and Roper dragged Cold-Edge free of his lips. The next spearman stepped off his right foot to confuse Roper and aimed a thrust at his stomach. Roper twisted aside, taking a swing at the man’s waist which clattered harmlessly off the bone-plates. He ducked beneath the spear that swung over his head, lunging forward where Cold-Edge was again stopped by the bone-plates. However, the blow was enough to stagger his opponent and drive him backwards where he lost his footing in the mud, dropping to one knee. The spearman reacted fast, smashing his spear into Roper’s helmet. Roper staggered, dazed, and the man was up again, ramming the spear at him whilst evading Roper’s frenzied parry. It hit Roper in the chest, grating against his plate armour but stopping before it breached the steel. Another lunge and Roper tried to twist aside but it caught the chain mail that protected his thighs, piercing his leg by an inch or so. Roper seized the spearman’s wrist and dragged him unwillingly close, bringing Cold-Edge up to his throat. The man pulled back desperately but he was not as strong as Roper and his spear was too long to be used now that he and Roper were chest-to-chest. Cold-Edge cut the man’s throat, spraying Roper’s mouth and neck in his blood and dropping the spearman to the ground at once.
Two enemies dead and Roper’s lungs were already heaving. The air seemed so thick with hail that he could barely breathe, but another spearman was lunging at him over the bodies of his two dead comrades. Roper parried and countered but found himself blocked. They clashed three times, each deflecting the lethal blows aimed at them by the other until Roper slipped suddenly in the mud, crashing to his knees. He sucked in air but it was not enough and his limbs were growing heavy with fatigue. The spear came at him again and he batted it aside. He tried to grab its shaft but it was pulled back too quickly and thrust at him again. This time it caught him in the shoulder and rammed him back against the mud. The hail pelted down on his face as he was forced to look into the grey skies. Roper had felt no pain, merely the impact as it smashed him backwards. His free left hand went instinctively to the shaft of the spear where it joined his shoulder and he seized it. The spearman was trying to drag it free but Roper held it fast in his own flesh, using its bearer’s own force to drag himself back to his feet. He blundered forward, the spearman trying to pull back and get away from Roper, but he would not let go. He slashed Cold-Edge down the shaft of the spear and the man had to snatch his fingers away or lose them. He let go of the spear and Roper pulled it from his shoulder, feeling pain at last as the blade came free. He tossed it aside and the warrior flew at him, a long dagger in his hand. In a single backhand swipe, Roper cut his throat.
There was senseless noise around him and Roper could feel the pressure from the men that they opposed lifting. The Sutherners were pulling back and the exhausted guardsmen were letting them go in one of those odd, mutually agreed breaks in the battle. “Garrett!” Roper roared, casting around for the huge Sutherner, but he could not see him and hands were dragging him backwards and away from the fight. He turned in fury to find Pryce’s implacable face behind him, ignoring Roper’s protestations completely and hauling him away. He pulled against Pryce’s hands and struggled to advance into the no-man’s land between the forces, seeking to call Garrett out. But his limbs were heavy. His lungs were straining and Pryce’s grip was strong.
“Let him go!” said another voice behind Roper and he turned to see that it was Uvoren who had given the order, looking at him hungrily. This sobered Roper at once. He stopped resisting Pryce and turned his back o
n the Sutherners, stalking back through the ranks of the Sacred Guard. Gray was after him.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded of Roper, spraying his ear with blood from a split lip. “Fight if you must, but almighty god, withdraw when we do! Uvoren would like nothing more than for Garrett to cut you down in front of the legions.”
Roper snarled for Gray to get away, and headed back for Zephyr, being held for him by one of the aides. Once he had mounted again, Roper turned to see that the two battle lines were peeling apart. From the point of the Guard outwards, the warriors were disentangling themselves, throwing one last savage attack and pulling back in thin and ragged ranks. “What news?” demanded Roper, head still fuzzy from the spear that had slammed into his helmet. His thigh ached and his shoulder ached where he had been wounded, but neither seemed serious.
“The lines are pulling apart,” advised an aide. “We’ve taken heavy casualties against the pikemen, but they’re pulling back too.” A tideline of bodies was becoming evident as the legions and the Sutherners withdrew, both sides stooped with exhaustion and fighting for breath.
“Tekoa!” Roper shouted. “Find me Tekoa!” But he was there already, at Roper’s side in moments. “Skiritai forward, Tekoa: do not give them one moment’s respite.”
“Exactly, my lord,” said Tekoa, who seemed to have come seeking an invitation to undertake just such a manoeuvre. He rode off, and Roper could hear the higher-pitched horn that gave signals just for the skirmishers blow to send the Skiritai swarming forward between ranks. They would pepper the Sutherners with arrows and try to tempt them out of formation to where they could be slaughtered as individuals.
Meanwhile, Roper spurred Zephyr forward and in front of the legions. He raised his bloody sword and cantered along the line. “Again!” he boomed as he passed them. “Again! Again! Again! Cut them down, cut them down, cut them down, cut them down!” A cheer built and began to travel along the line with Roper as the exhausted legionaries stood up straight. The Skiritai flooded out past him and another great rumble of thunder rolled over the legions. The hail had abated a little and visibility lifted above a hundred yards.
Roper turned Zephyr back in behind the legions and began to ride back towards the centre of the line. The legionaries were gulping down water, field-dressing wounds and washing and drying their hands so that they did not lose grip of their weapons in the melee. Nobody could eat; even drinking was difficult. The break would last no more than another few minutes and then the lines would clash once again.
Roper dispatched more aides to the legates, requesting an update on how the fighting had gone, and reminded them that, above all, they should hold the line. He heard from left and right how the hail had been too thick to release more than a few volleys before the pikemen were upon them, and how the legions had then been forced to fight their way through a thicket of pikes before they could even strike back at their enemy. Casualties had indeed been heavy. It also seemed that he had been fighting just a few yards from where Garrett wielded Bright-Shock’s blade, and that the Suthern champion had killed two Sacred Guardsmen.
Another rider arrived from Tekoa, informing Roper that the Sutherners had begun to advance again and the Skiritai were pulling back. “Legate Tekoa says that the harvest was good,” said the aide at last.
The legions readied themselves once again, trying to recover their bows from where they had been dropped so that they could release another few volleys into the Sutherners before they engaged once again. Roper heard horns blasting from up and down the line as legions began to charge once again and he reached Ramnea’s Own at the centre just in time to see them thrown into battle against the knights. This time, Bellamus’s household guard, the “Hermit Crabs,” as they were becoming known, started arrayed against the Sacred Guard. Bellamus was obviously trying to negate the impact of the Guard by pitting his own crack troops against them.
Tekoa was on horseback next to Roper, and the two watched the battle lines clash amid the constant rattle of hail bouncing off armour. A bolt of lightning pulverised the ground perilously close to where the two sides met. Above the seething horror of armoured flesh, a single figure towered at the front rank of Ramnea’s Own.
Vigtyr the Quick.
Roper rode forward, wanting to see this most feared warrior at work. A knight was assaulting him: a plumed noble magnetised by Vigtyr’s immense size and the esteem he would gain by killing him. He lunged at Vigtyr’s chest with a halberd, teeth gritted and fingers white about the shaft. Vigtyr gave a parsimonious side-step, raising his sword and letting its edge slice deep into the knight’s exposed wrist. The knight sprang back, drawing a curtain of scarlet drops that fell with the hail. The cut was deep and blood dribbled from the knight’s wrist, which seemed to have been weakened, for his next lunge was a gentle prod compared with the heave he had unleashed a moment before. It came unexpectedly close to landing, Vigtyr leaving the parry late. The same thing happened again; and again, Vigtyr content to defend as the knight’s blood drained onto Harstathur and he slowed and weakened. The knight was growing clumsy and on his next lunge he stumbled forward, Vigtyr raising his sword once again and skewering the man’s throat just above the breastplate. The knight toppled aside, fading from actor to stage. Vigtyr did not advance into the space left behind. He lowered his blade and beckoned for the next warrior to come and try his luck.
Roper dragged his eyes back to the Sacred Guard, where he spotted another towering figure in the thick of the action, his shocking blond hair plastered to his head: Garrett, who at that moment cut down a guardsman with Heofonfyr, slicing the inside of his knee to drop him to the ground and then killing him cleanly with a thrust to the neck, eliciting a gush of bright blood.
“I’m going back in,” declared Roper, kicking Zephyr forward. The horse snorted and tossed but did not move. Roper realised that Tekoa was holding on to its bridle.
“Leave the horse,” Tekoa said. “Those spearmen will bring it down in a heartbeat, even with the barding, and you’ll be killed. You fight toe to toe.”
Roper nodded. “Command is yours.” He dismounted once again to force his way into the Guard, Helmec following loyally behind. He could see where Garrett fought bareheaded at the front and pressed his way towards the giant Sutherner, observing Heofonfyr’s long blade greedily. Many guardsmen tried to stop his advance but Roper snarled at them until they let him go and, through sheer force of will, made it into the second rank. To have pushed any further would have been dangerous for those guardsmen who fought at the front; he might distract them from the task at hand. Instead, he had to wait until a gap opened in front of him. The guardsman before him was engaged in combat with Garrett and giving a heroic account of himself. Garrett was snarling and twisting, lunging again and again at the nameless guardsman who batted his thrusts aside and launched blistering ripostes. White sparks were pouring off the two Unthank-silver weapons as they clashed, and twice the guardsman made it through Garrett’s defences but had his sword stopped by the bone-plates. Roper was itching to move forward but his mouth opened in shock when, before his eyes, Garrett unleashed a lunge of immense power, catching the guardsman in the stomach hard enough to puncture steel and bone-plate both, pick him off the ground and drive him into the mud at Roper’s feet.
Garrett pulled Heofonfyr free and stepped back, wolf-like eyes flicking at Roper, who, he knew, was next in line. He unleashed his wide grin as he saw who his opponent was and hefted his mighty spear, stepping back to give Roper space to advance. Roper raised Cold-Edge, opened his mouth to speak, but another figure stepped out in front of him. It was a guardsman, his ponytail exceptionally long, evidently determined to fight Garrett.
Pryce the Wild.
“No!” shouted Roper. “The Eoten-Draefend is mine!”
Pryce did not even turn to face Roper. Instead he launched a lunge at Garrett that almost took out the Sutherner’s eye. It would have done, but Garrett was just equal to deflecting it so that it grazed the side of
his face and sliced into his ear. The force of his lunge had sent Pryce sliding forward through the mud and he danced backwards, parrying Heofonfyr twice before the two warriors separated. There was a tense pause. That first lunge alone had made Garrett cautious, and the two warriors appraised each other across the space that was forming around them as each side gave their champion room.
“What is your name?” called Garrett in his accented Anakim. “I wish to know who this is that I am about to kill.”
“My name? I am Pryce Rubenson. I cut off Earl William’s head. I hold more Prizes of Valour than any man living. I am the fastest warrior in the north. I facilitated the death of Lord Northwic, and when I am done with you I will kill your master too.”
Garrett nodded slowly. “Lovely accolades,” he said. “I am the Eoten-Draefend, of Eskanceaster. I have duelled with the Unhieru and killed Gogmagoc’s eldest son, Fathochta, in single combat. I have killed one of your winged legates and half a dozen Sacred Guardsmen. Tonight, I shall boast that I brought to justice Earl William’s killer.” With that, Garrett attacked. Heofonfyr surged forward, blade silver-white in the hail and streaking for Pryce’s chest. But it found only empty air: the guardsman was gone. He had stepped aside as though he had known for days where that spear would be at that moment, and delivered a backhand slice that Garrett had to duck beneath. Pryce bounced off the ball of one foot and struck right, then left, forcing Garrett to parry with a shower of white sparks. He was frighteningly quick and when Garrett returned some thrusts of his own, they seemed to bounce off an impenetrable shield of flashing alloy. Pryce lunged forward and Garrett was forced to react to that snake-like speed, swinging Heofonfyr across his body in a parry. But Pryce had been feinting. His sword, instead of being deflected by Garrett’s spear, surged into his chest and sent the huge Sutherner backwards. His bone-plates held the powerful blow but he almost lost his footing in the mud and had to flail his arm to remain upright. Pryce took advantage and lunged for his thigh but Heofonfyr came at the guardsman in a slashing arc that cut across his jaw and sent him reeling back. Pryce stood off for a moment, raising his hand to his jaw and taking it away to observe the fresh blood that beaded there. Garrett’s slip had been faked to draw a wild lunge from Pryce and it was the Sutherner who had drawn blood.
