The Shadow of the High King

by Frank Dorrian

  Aenwald smirked, watching eagerly, a thumb tracing idly over the head of his war hammer, mind wandering, showing him images of what it would be like in the very thick of it. Distracted, he spared the knights returning to their left flank through cloying smoke only the briefest of glances. It’d been years since he’d last been in the depths of a wild, bloody melee. He envied those men down there. They were lucky, fighting on foot – there was nothing manlier, nothing that screamed out its warrior ethos more than planted feet, squared shoulders and grit teeth as you faced down the man in front of you. The stuff of song, the stuff of legend, fucking beautiful.

  He lost himself in the spectacle for a time, mind retracing bloody, happy, sublime memories.

  The woods burned ever more fiercely as minutes passed, the smoke disgorging from the trees frequently obscuring Aenwald’s view of the battle as it ground slowly towards a stalemate between the slopes. Men became dark shapes, shoving and struggling against one another, their spears jabbing over and around shields almost blindly where the smoke was at its thickest. Some crumbled and fell clutching wounds, those behind them in the ranks stepping over their floundering forms and into the fight beyond.

  Aenwald’s hand twitched and fussed with his sword’s hilt impatiently. Weight of numbers would soon take its toll on their men. Garrmunt had already committed most of his heavy infantry, it wouldn’t be long before they began to push back their left flank and the line was folded up and enveloped by the larger force. But if Aenwald had his knights flank the enemy line now… it would end in disaster. Garrmunt himself and his knights still waited on the height opposite with their reserves, watching the fighting below. Aenwald grimaced briefly at that traitor’s banner, eyes burning into the backs of his men struggling and dying between the slopes. One of his vassals’ banners trembled and went down, vanishing behind smoke and darkened helms, the emerald viper of House Guthred. Aenwald felt a growl build in his throat as he watched. Hold, you worthless bastards.

  Across from them there was movement amongst Garrmunt’s knights. A shuffling of man and horse. Garrmunt’s banner moved through the ranks of his knights, heading for the front of their formation. Go on, you fool, do it, you impatient shit!

  Garrmunt’s banner set off, leading the knights behind at a slow, steady trot down the hill. Glancing to their opposite flank, Aenwald saw the same occurring there, beneath a banner showing the ram and bloody hand. He smirked to himself, satisfied.

  I knew you could not wait to see this over in due course, Haakon.

  ‘Olan,’ he snapped eagerly, ‘Garrmunt prepares to strike our right flank with half his knights. Take the knights on our left and prepare for a counter charge once they strike, I will take the right and face the traitor myself. Should we need your support, make sure your men know Haakon Garrmunt is to be taken alive, alive, Olan – nothing else will do, do you understand? My ears itch for what the slithery little fuckwit has to say for himself.’

  Aenwald set his great helm upon his head, strapped it securely beneath his chin and slammed down its sculpted bull-face visor. He drew his family’s sword with a faint chime, raising it aloft.

  ‘With me, men,’ he cried to the Red Cloaks as the smoke-choked sun dimly caught on the blade, ‘we take the right flank and make for Garrmunt’s banner at my word. Sweep right, come about and fuck him in the arse like a tavern wench!’ Their voices rose together behind him, as he rode across the hilltop to take charge of the knights on the right flank of their formation.

  Down into the smoke strewn Dales they rode, amidst the clash and peal of spear and shield and bloody cries. Five hundred strong, they swept out to their right, to the eastern quarter of the battlefield, where the smoke was thickest, carried by the breeze and trapped by the encircling hills.

  They swung hard to the right again, looping, hooves thundering over timid grass and hard earth, and back around to their left at a canter. Another boom roared out across the battlefield from the melee’s right, hundreds of large, darkened shapes flashing through smothering greyness. Screams, terrified shrieks and choking cries came from within the clouds, punctuated by sounds of hacking, tearing, crushing and rending.

  A flash of red passed above the milling forms, careening through their spearmen’s flank. A banner, the shattered spear woven upon it. Aenwald sheathed his sword and instead drew his war hammer, the time for displays was over. Now was the time for fury, time for the Ironbrand. Time for bloody slaughter.

  He raised the hammer high and let it fall, the blunt head following Garrmunt’s banner. ‘Forth, knights of the Armingstone! Forth!’

  Let us see how strong your new god is, Haakon, he thought, his battle-lust reaching fever pitch, a high note screaming in his ears like a broken, tuneless song.

  Their battle cry was fierce, Aenwald’s throat burning as he added his own, arm loaded behind his head and ready to strike, his knights’ lances couched as they formed into a spearhead, slicing through smoke and body alike, new cries splitting the air as the knights of the Spear Hills were taken from behind.

  Aenwald’s hammer swung high through hazy air, taking a knight in the neck beneath the helm, sparks flashing as it clipped the man’s armour and sent him lurching from the saddle. The back swing caught a horse across the face with the spike on its rear as a knight appeared to his side. The beast shrieked and flailed, rearing, and cast its rider into smog-clouded depths.

  He wheeled about, seeking new foes, his blood pounding like a drum in his ears, echoing within the depths of his helm. Dark-mailed men came at him bearing spears and poleaxes, trying to take his horse from beneath him. Eobar reared furiously, hooves lashing out, his ill-tempered nature bred and drilled into him through constant training. More than one easterner fell with their face or head a red and shattered ruin from Eobar’s screaming, snorting wrath, and Aenwald laughed heartily as he swung his hammer.

  Where the infantry still bitterly fought, he saw briefly Garrmunt’s line bending and weakening under pressure, as men left the ranks to assist the knights being shattered by Aenwald’s counter charge and shore up their flanks. Spearheads flashed from smoggy depths, jabbing at mount and rider both, scraping armour and scoring horseflesh.

  Aenwald rode in a loose circle, calling out challenge, caving in heads and breaking the limbs of fools who neared him on foot, swatting knights from the saddle with cheerful laughter.

  ‘Run back to the Spear Hills, dogs!’ he bellowed, slamming his hammer’s spike through the visor of a knight in a red and white chequered surcoat. ‘See what I have left for you there! Hollow ruins! Dead children!’ He smashed apart the snout of a warhorse that reared nearby, pawing at him with its hooves, the beast falling out of sight with a scream.

  ‘Dead! All dead! The fucking lot, Haakon!’ He laughed, excitement coursing through him like sweet wine, and rode in a wide circle seeking more knights, the Red Cloaks following in his wake, claiming a few more spearmen as they passed.

  ‘Where are you, coward!’ Aenwald roared, eyes searching for Garrmunt, his bannerman long since trampled into the bloodied earth, slowly being swallowed by bloodied mud. Where was the fool – he could not have strayed far from his banner. Haakon thought too much of pomp, of quick glory, to abandon the chance to strike down the King of Caermark himself. There was no sign of him though, and some of his knights were already pulling back under the weight of Aenwald’s onslaught.

  He heard a grunt behind him and chanced a quick look over his shoulder, seeing one of the Red Cloaks slump forward in the saddle and fall to the ground limply, the hilt of a knife jutting from his helm’s visor. Hastan, he thought, though couldn’t see properly. He and his men reared round, cantering over the fallen and dying, seeking their new assailants.

  Black shapes came sprinting through the smog from all directions, appearing like phantoms from the air, cloaks stained dark red as the inferno in the woods reached its climax, the smoke blotting out the sun. With a yell, Aenwald and the knights with him charged for them, bloodthirst in their voi
ces as they galloped.

  There was a flash, something thrown, cutting through red-tinged fog like a silver dart. A cry from behind, a fading thud, one of the knights that followed him. Another, Aenwald felt something strike his breastplate with surprising force, rebounding and spinning away – was it a knife? A terrible roar escaped his lips and he swung low, hammer colliding satisfyingly with something darkly-cloaked, as Eobar crushed another beneath his iron-shod hooves.

  More burst from the smog, black robed shapes, spindle-limbed, gangling things. Silver blades flashed, slashing and cutting, seeking horse, rider, limb, saddle, anything they could reach. Aenwald saw his knights rush past him as he slowed to trade blows with one, their charge crushing many – but more came from the northern slopes where flames soared, bright and frenzied.

  One came leaping for him, and he clubbed it the ground before it could swing for him, thick, dark blood splattering across his gauntlet, the thing’s weight slamming into Eobar and knocking the hammer from his grip. Another came behind it, leaping for him as the first, blade descending in a silver arc. He caught it by the wrist, wrenching the weapon from its grasp, and slammed his fist into the thing’s hooded face, pausing for a moment at the sound of metal ringing against metal.

  It clambered up Eobar’s neck as he rode, unperturbed, shrugging free of his grasp, the horse rearing and flailing as steel-clad hands scraped and tore into its flesh. ‘Filth King!’ a voice hissed, clawed gauntlets reaching for Aenwald’s face. It dug its sharp fingers into the eyes of his helm, hissing and pulling fiercely at it, forcing him to ride blindly as he tried to fight back barehanded.

  With a snap his helm came free and was flung away, and powerful, slender hands snaked around his throat. ‘Die now, Filth King!’ Aenwald landed another blow on its shrouded face again before they lurched from Eobar’s saddle, landing with a crunch atop an easterner’s corpse and rolling away. It was upon him again in an instant, dark cloak slithering across his armour, its clawed, armoured fingers seeking his eyes, coming close enough to leave deep cuts in the flesh of his face as he wrestled for control of its arms.

  ‘Die! Die! Die!’ it shrieked the word over and over, breath hissing from beneath its shroud. Aenwald’s arms started to give, the power in its spindly limbs unreal, unrelenting, unnatural. Aenwald caught sight of something silvery glimmer from beneath its hood for a moment, for the briefest of seconds, before one of the Red Cloaks rode past and cut its head clean from its shoulders.

  Thick, foul-smelling blood spurted over Aenwald’s face and breastplate, too dark to be the blood of a man. There was something of a burnt quality to the reek of the thing. Burnt flesh, it smelt like. He spat out a mouthful of its blood and cursed at the foulness of it all, rising to his feet, pushing its body off him. The Red Cloaks called out his plight to one another and formed up about him defensively, striking down gangling black figures wielding cruel blades that skulked about their formation like creeping shadows. Away to his left he could see the battle still raging, a confused maelstrom of death now that the lines had broken under the charge of knights from both sides.

  A cry sounded from somewhere behind. A wall of mailed bodies burst through the smoke, wisps of it trailing from their armour as they came. Their heavy infantry, a thousand hulking, mail-clad swordsmen from the hills of Erenthrall, Lord Ugrith at their forefront in his battered blue half-plate, came tearing across the field of dead. With a bloody roar, they slammed into the rampaging melee, scattering men before them and trampling them beneath heavy boots like a dismounted cavalry charge.

  The enemy broke beneath their impact, foreign tongues crying out in bloody panic as spears and shields were cast aside. About Aenwald, the cloaked figures paused, shrouded heads turning to take in the calamity unfolding for their forces nearby. Like solemn phantoms, they slinked away, vanishing behind roiling clouds, the air filled with blood, fire and smoke. The main body of Garrmunt’s men fled towards the northern hills, black shapes against red flames, others fled east and west, arrows cutting them down, Aenwald’s archers loosing shafts from their foothold on the height.

  From the west came Olan, leading his knights in a final charge, crashing through the enemy’s dissolving ranks. Their momentum flinging bodies aside as they stormed through the burning Dales, charging down those who ran for the northern hills, their cries echoing and distant as they were pounded down into the earth and stones by iron hooves.

  ‘It seems we have won the day, Your Majesty,’ Cyneweld called from atop his mount. ‘The enemy are shattered and their reserves flee without a fight.’

  ‘What the fuck were those things that came at us?’ said Aenwald, ignoring the captain, kicking the severed head of the one that had tried to throttle him. Whatever it was that Cyneweld said, Aenwald heard him not, mind elsewhere, focussed on the head that lay before him.

  A steel mask covered the face, sculpted into the elegant visage of a man. It was streaked with dark blood from its severed neck, with a great dent in the metal of one cheek where Aenwald had struck it as they had struggled atop Eobar. He walked to it slowly, picking it up, and pulled the torn hood from it. The mask was strapped tightly in place to the head by leather straps, the skin that showed of the head puckered, pale, pink and white, as though scarred by horrific burns.

  From the corner of his eye he saw the Red Cloaks and a few other knights press in closely, curious, or concerned, as he undid the mask’s leather straps and pulled it away from the face beneath. Gasps, oaths, curses and retches sounded in equal measure through the knights gathered about him as they looked upon what lay beneath.

  Olan came riding down from the northern hills with a few men following behind him, Aenwald sparing his approach the briefest of glances before staring back down into the mottled eyes of the head he was holding.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ Olan panted, removing his great helm, face pouring sweat, armour bloodstained.

  ‘What, Olan?’ Aenwald murmured, staring down into brown, red and yellow irises, lost in them.

  ‘Our men have taken Haakon Garrmunt as he made to flee the field, alive as commanded, Sire.’ Aenwald looked up then at him, blinking, smoke stinging his eyes.

  ‘Good,’ he said, rather distantly, the sight of that face between his hands had made him forget about Garrmunt for a moment. He blinked, mind coming back to present concerns. ‘Very good. Take him to the torturers’ tent and put him under close guard. Have your men do away with the rest of his mob and then retire.’

  ‘Yes, Sire.’

  It was evening as the King bathed in an iron tub of hot water brought straight from the fires outside to his tent. He reclined in it joylessly, mind astray, one of the more pricey camp followers busy alternately working his cock with her mouth beneath the water and coming up for air, as a serving boy poured that fine red into a silver cup for him to sip.

  He barely made a sound as he spent himself in the whore’s mouth, the young girl emerging hesitantly a moment after, sandy hair sticking to her face and teats. ‘Away with you,’ Aenwald grunted at her, hand waving her off idly. She climbed out quietly, gathering her clothes from beside the tub and accepting a small pouch of coin from Baine, stood at the tent flap on guard duty, as she left.

  Aenwald rose from the water and stretched, his body aching from the morning’s fighting, and downed the rest of his wine. He had his clothes brought to him, a fine shirt of red silk with golden buttons and trim and soft cotton trousers of matching shade and decoration.

  They were feasting in the camp, the men toasting his name with the goodly wine he’d had sent out – a gift from their King for their valour in the morning’s battle. Fine music provided a merry background to the sounds of drunken joviality and tomfoolery that always followed victory. The screams of the knights of the Spear Hills as they were tortured and excruciated on the camp’s outskirts provided another, one just as lilting and ebbing and flowing as the sounds crafted by lyre, flute, fiddle and drum. Aenwald smiled, buttoning up his shirt, as he heard another distant, hi
gh pitched wail of agony crescendo and then fade away.

  He would join them soon enough, his lords and captains – a King must show his face at such things, after all, they would want to toast him in person for unleashing such a storming defeat upon the enemy. They had Garrmunt to thank for today’s victory more than anyone, the man was ever a rash, impetuous fool on the battlefield. A conniving schemer but incompetent tactician. Still, Aenwald allowed himself to feel a modicum of pride at ending the man’s rebellion so quickly. A little celebration with his vassals could do no harm.

  But there were questions that ran through his mind. Ones that would not be silenced, not with wine, women nor good company. An itch at the back of his mind, and a silent anger that smouldered feverishly like a soured cut. There were still things to be done this day.

  He nodded as he decided, lacing his boots. He motioned for Baine to follow him, Garan doing the same as they passed him by. They strode briskly and silently through the crowded camp, heading for the outskirts, following increasingly loud screams, the air still smelling strongly of burning wood despite the fire in the trees having mostly died.

  One of the torturer’s tents was heavily guarded by a detachment of spearmen, Aenwald seeing the misery writ in their features at having landed guard duty while their friends feasted, drank and fucked the camp whores. They went to their knees upon seeing him approach, some crying, ‘Long live the King!’ as he passed them by heedlessly.

  He paused before the tent flap, hand frozen as he reached for it. A dim, oily light shone from between the canvas flaps, lanterns burning somewhere within. They used them for effect, his torturers. More than one had told him that plunging a man into morose half-light served to break him just as much as pincers and blades. There was something about taking away light that helped rend the mind, as the torturer’s implements rend the body, heightening pain and fear in equal measure, extracting answers more easily.