by T. O. Munro
The ill-disciplined zombies were finally returning to battle, having finished their feast of Medyrsalve archers the necromancers were gathering them into some kind of order for a push northward where the orcs and nomads were already a dozen ranks deep in assault on Rugan’s much weaker lines.
Thom glared long and hard at the unfolding scene, wondering what hope someone with a better military mind than he might see in what could only be incipient disaster.
***
Half-elf and Medusa danced and spun, blades clashing with a flash of sparks which glinted beneath the darkening sky. They stepped forwards and back in the clearing that their sword play had created, swaying and rolling with each other’s thrusts. Each one using the momentum of the other to re-position themselves for a counterstrike that the opponent always seemed to have anticipated. Close enough to smell each other’s sweat, close enough that an observer could often see no light between them, it was a dance of deadly intimacy, each breathing in the other’s fury.
Rugan saw a chance and took it, a glimmer of an opening in the Dema’s impenetrable defence. The Medusa laughed as her sword swung back sealing off the tempting gap she had dangled in the Prince’s view. Her blade caught his on the fuller, sliding up to the hilt when, with a sinuous flick of her wrist, she sent Rugan’s sword spinning through the air to land point first quivering in the ground.
She battered his shield to one side, kicking him over in the dirt as he groped for a dagger in his boot. He tried to roll over, but she stood on his wrist, pinning his right hand to the ground. With a sideways swipe of her sword, his shield flew off his arm.
He lay still then, the point of her sword resting on the gorget that guarded his throat. His dark eyes glared up at her sparkling blue ones, his mouth sealed amidst a mask of fury.
“What, my Prince?” she mused. “No last words? ‘tis a shame your elven blood has saved you from my gaze. You’d last longer as a statue than a corpse.”
***
“Ride harder,” Niarmit cried. “I see his banner.” The lancers galloped up the centre of the hollow V which weight of enemy numbers had made of Rugan’s lines, towards the point where the Bonegrinder’s standard and the Silver pennant of Medyrsalve fluttered side by side.
“Leave the abomination to me, your Majesty,” Tordil urged at her side, breathing more easily than any of them despite the frantic pace they had sustained. “My kind have some protection against her ilk.”
“The bastard never rode this hard to our aid,” Kaylan’s voice gasped behind her.
“Rugan!” Niarmit screamed. “For Matteus and Gregor we are coming!”
***
Dema looked up from the doomed Prince. She saw a troop of lancers storming towards her, in the lead a woman, red hair trailing, her upraised sword shining in the darkness of the lowering clouds. And in its light her face shone.
The Medusa, tilted her head to consider this strange phenomenon for an intake of breath. “It seems, my Prince,” she remarked as though the matter were of no consequence. “That today is not your day to die, nor mine.”
She turned and walked away as the stunned Rugan struggled into a sitting position, grasping at last the boot knife he had been reaching for before. A silver warrior, seeing the Medusa’s unguarded back, lunged at her, but alerted by her snakes, she ducked and turned driving her sword into his belly even as his eyes met hers. There was a grating sound as she pulled the steel free of his petrified form and then she was gone. The ranks of the Bonegrinders and the outlanders reformed behind her, puzzled but still ready to withstand and repel this fresh charge of cavalry, even as Rugan staggering to his feet, lunged to retrieve his fallen sword.
***
Thom could have wept. They had regained the illusory security of the Oostsalve archers but to what purpose. Perched on the southern extremity of the battle, they peppered the nearby orcs with arrows, but to slight effect. The heavily armoured orcs simply raised their shields above them, and for all the pincushion effect of countless arrows the foul humanoids were undaunted indeed barely damaged. While the spears of Oostsalve might hold them at bay, there was no value in securing a watchful stand-off here while the rest of the battle was on the brink of becoming a rout.
“Those zombies are nearly ready to attack,” Hepdida said, glaring at the distant reformed division of undead. “Can we not take our archers against them, keep them from the Prince’s lines?”
Quintala shrugged. “You’ve seen how little arrows hurt them, my Princess. There’s a thousand Medyrsalve bowmen scattered in pieces on the field, who tried to stop those things with arrows.”
Thom grabbed the half-elf’s arm with sudden force. “We must shoot the shepherds!” he declared. “Get close and shoot the necromancers that drive them.”
Quintala looked down at the hand gripping her arm with improper force, until the illusionist let go with a softer repetition, “we must shoot the shepherds.”
“That would not destroy the undead,” Quintala pointed out. “They would still be desperate to feed, a dangerous foe.”
“But to whom?” Thom urged.
Hepdida caught his meaning. “We must shoot the shepherds. Come Quintala, let the archers remount and ride West. We must shoot the shepherds.”
The half-elf looked from Princess to illusionist nodding slowly at their desperate expressions. “We must,” she said at length. “We must shoot the shepherds.” She turned to shout along the line. “Archers mount up, we must shoot the shepherds!”
***
Kimbolt caught up with Dema as the Medusa was remounting her palfrey. The mask was back in place but below its darkened gauze, the left side of her face was entirely red with blood that flowed too freely from a gash in her cheek. “You are wounded,” he cried. “You must seek healing.”
She looked at him, her mouth unbent with any sign of recognition. She shook her head, scattering crimson droplets of blood across her horse’s mane. “It is a scratch, no more it will heal itself.”
Kimbolt pulled a strip of cloth from the kerchief around his neck and held it out to her, but she waved it aside, her mouth hard with irritation or pain. Beyond them the rejuvenated Redfangs and her elite guard were embroiled in a battle with Rugan’s tattered guard which could go only one way, despite the occasional flashes of lilac fire and the guttural screams of immolated orcs.
Dema stood up in her stirrups and strained her eyes to peer into the darkening murk. She scanned the ragged panorama of the battlefield from North to South, satisfied with events right up until she caught movement at the limit of view. “Harpies’ bollocks, what are they doing?”
Kimbolt looked south to where the mounted archers of Oostsalve had ridden within bowshot of the reformed division of undead. “Arrows don’t hurt the creatures,” he remarked. “You’d think they’d have realised that by now. Mind the orcs and the nomads will have to move aside to make room so the zombies can shoulder their way through to Rugan’s lines.”
“Ogre piss,” Dema spat as the first salvo of arrows arced their way across the sky towards the rearmost ranks of the undead legion. “Galen is an arse. He’s given them no protection, no skirmishers to guard their backs.”
“But the zombies don’t need protection.”
“Not the undead, Kimbolt” Dema grabbed his wrist. “The fucking necromancers. They’re unprotected.”
***
The shepherding necromancers were distinctive in their robes, thin ascetic bodies and steady gait. However, Thom was quick to point out likely targets to any archers that were in doubt. Their aim was aided by the fact that the necromancers were mostly closer at the rearmost southern edge of the zombie regiment, driving them from behind in the northward stagger towards Rugan’s anaemic battle lines.
An arrow in the shoulder might do nothing to a zombie, but it certainly ruined a necromancer’s concentration. Some turned and tried to conjure magical shields, and while these afforded some protection, it detracted from the business of controlling the collective m
indlessness of the undead. Others struggled on, trying to ignore the arrow flecked rain that fell about them, but their motionless concentration made them easy targets for a direct hit. Still more cracked and ran, scurrying eastward away from the deadly shower and the restless dead it was their duty to command.
Thom reckoned they had probably hit less than half the necromancers and certainly killed far fewer than that, but then they didn’t need to. You could see the wave of uncertainty ripple through the zombie horde as the bonds of dominion were let go by the panicked necromancers. There was a moment of wavering, as the undead sought new purpose, returned to their own base instincts and sniffed the air for fresh flesh.
They found it.
They found it exactly where he had hoped, in the ranks of the nomads and the orcs who even now lay between them and their intended target of Rugan’s much diminished silver soldiers.
The illusionist smiled as the zombies charged into the rearmost ranks of their own allies. There were screams and shouts of alarm as the faint hearted who had sought out safety at the back of the attack, found themselves in the greatest danger of any, from the gnawing failing assault of their own allies.
There was a squeeze on his arm. “Brilliant, Thom,” it was Hepdida, her eyes shining with the success that had attended them.
“Mount up,” Quintala was shouting. “Our task is done here and the rains are coming. I’ll not be caught out in the open with wet bowstrings.”
***
Niarmit was at Rugan’s side when she sensed the change in the battle. While the Redfangs and the Blackskulls pressed as hard as ever upon the army’s northern arm, the pressure was easing to the south. The front ranks of orcs and nomads wavered in their relentless grinding drive forward. A few heads turned, looking behind them whence came cries of alarm not encouragement. As the southern attackers wavered, a few silver soldiers stepped forward, poking spears into the gap that opened between the forces.
“Hold your lines,” Rugan shouted. “Hold your lines.”
“The enemy is breaking to the South, Prince Rugan,” Niarmit hissed. “We could press on against them.”
“With what, my Lady? My men are quite spent. It is all we can do to defend what we have.” He waved an order and the back rank of his southern line detached to reinforce the northern troops. “Fall back! Fall back!” the Prince commanded. With iron discipline the silver troops on both sides stepped watchfully backwards. Their out thrust spears dissuaded orcs and nomads from thinking that charging them was an easier alternative than facing the new peril in their rear, a peril which had distracted the entire southern army.
Niarmit swung her sword in the front rank, Tordil and Kaylan to either side, as the much reduced army of Medyrsalve made its slow fighting withdrawal towards the Gap of Tandar. The shining blade of the father was ward enough for many a foe. All day it had sliced with ease through chain and plate mail, its edge crimson and black with the blood of many severed limbs. A few shattered swords and split heads had soon persuaded the rest of the enemy to hang back warily, the two lines gradually separating until they were two full spear lengths apart. The silver soldiers retreated each man guiding those in front of him over the carpet of dead and dying from both sides. The orcs advanced taunting and catcalling but not daring to throw themselves on the spears of a defeated but still resolute foe.
Niarmit felt a heavy raindrop strike her cheek, and then another. Soon the plain would be as awash with mud as it was with blood, but for now the army of Medyrsalve crept towards the hills.
***
Odestus hurried through the downpour, slipping on the muddy path up the hillock in his haste to be at Dema’s side. He offered her his hand, “my dear a great victory.”
Dema’s face was bloody from some deep wound, the water washing the gore into a pink stain across her blue cloak. The heavy rain seemed to have stilled her snakes more effectively even than a hood, as each serpent sought to hide its head beneath the body of another.
Odestus looked towards the distant hills, the force of Rugan bottled up in the Gap of Tandar, a crescent of Dema’s army in a shadowing position across the Eastway. The Medusa paced restlessly across the hillock in evident dissatisfaction and Odestus sought to put a scale on her victory which would give her some cheer. “You have destroyed half the Prince’s army.”
Her face twisted into a scowl at the wizard’s congratulations. “Half?! I wanted to destroy it all, and I could have done. Has that arse Galen brought the rest of his pets under control yet?”
Odestus rubbed his hands slowly over each other. “He has brought most of them under the will of the necromancers. Those that were not destroyed in the confusion are returning to their pens. I hope the orcs and the nomads were not too hurt?”
“Too hurt?” the Medusa snarled. “If it were not for those mis-directed zombies I’d have rolled up Rugan’s entire line, there wouldn’t have been so much as page boy would have made it back to his fucking palace. Now.” She waved her sword towards the distant Gap of Tandar, “Now he’s still got eight thousand soldiers like a great big plug barring my path into the hills. What with that and the rains, I’ll not get one hide of orc into Medyrsalve until winter’s past.”
“The Master only wanted us to hold Rugan for now. “ Odestus tried to re-assure the disconsolate Medusa. “The Prince and his army will present no obstruction now to Maelgrum’s reduction of Morsalve. That is all the Master required of us.”
“But I required more!” Dema snarled.
“When Spring comes, you can take the fight to Rugan then, in his own province.”
“If I have that long,” Dema said darkly. She was silent for a moment before adding, “next time I go into battle, little wizard, Galen can take his pets into the very first attack right in the centre, and if anybody is going to be loosing arrows at his cowardly necromancers it will be me.”
“But all things considered, you have done well, my dear.”
She rounded on him, snakes writhing despite the rain. “Had we destroyed all but a company of Rugan’s soldiers and allowed that company to escape while it was still within our power to get at them, I would never have called it well done.” Her mouth worked in some intention to say more but all that emerged was a bestial snarl that had the wizard take a step backwards in unaccustomed alarm.
***
Niarmit stood beneath the canopy of Rugan’s hastily erected tent. The water was everywhere. Rain had turned the dust to mud and only on the cobbles of the Eastway could a man be sure of his footing. Water flooded noisily from the valleys of the canvas canopy, adding to the thunderous cacophony of raindrops striking stone, wood and metal around the hastily reclaimed camp.
The guard at the tent flap watched her warily, but then his colleague returned and bade her enter.
Rugan was seated, Kychelle standing. The elf pressed a flagon of steaming broth into the Prince’s hand. She looked up at Niarmit’s entrance.
“I know not how you dare show your face here, bastard born witch,” the elf lady began. “But if it is an apology you offer, then it is some hours overdue.”
“I have been tending the injured, Lady Kychelle,” Niarmit replied stiffly. “I am a priestess as well as Queen. Prior Abroath and I have been much occupied calling on the Goddess’s favour to heal the wounded and ease the path of those beyond saving.”
“It is no thanks to you, that there are so many in need of healing, leading the force of Oostsalve off on some wild goose chase,” she snorted. “Where is my grandson’s victory?”
“Leave us grandmama,” Rugan said, his voice laden with the weariness of five hundred years.
“I’ll not…”
“Leave!” sharper toned this time, energy the Prince could not spare expelled in a simple command.
She looked from one to the other and then, with a haughty sniff she strode from the tent, as though leaving entirely of her own volition. Rugan waved Niarmit into a seat opposite him.
“Have you need of healing, my Princ
e?”
“Only to my pride, Lady Niarmit.”
She raised an eyebrow at his choice of title. He glared back at her and took a gulp of steaming broth. “I have spoken with Sir Ambrose and others of my soldiers. Unlike my grandmother I will concede you have done our cause more good than ill these past twenty-four hours.”
Niarmit bit back the instinctive angry words at the Prince’s mean spirited gratitude. She was glad she had not brought Quintala to this meeting. The discussion seemed fated to move as stiffly as their battle weary limbs. It would not have been well served by the Seneschal’s hot temper.
“It was your sister who commanded the archers,” she said, determined to draw Quintala into the circle of credit with her half-brother. “They are the ones that broke the undead and gave you time and room for this retreat.”
The Prince glared back at the unwelcome reference. “My sister,” he began before thinking better of his intention. “My sister has been Seneschal to seven Monarchs of the Salved. Near half of them did not admit her to the inner counsels appropriate to her office. Inconstancy and vice have been the only constants in her life.”
“She is Seneschal to an eighth monarch now and I find she serves me well. She has saved my life and I would argue in her deeds today has saved yours also.”
Rugan laughed at that, an unusual throaty roar from one not given to merriment. “Be sure you tell her that, Lady Niarmit. My rescue is not an accomplishment she will take much pride or pleasure in.”
“Prince Rugan, I am your Queen,” Niarmit grasped the nettle of Rugan’s disdain, glad to do so without an audience. “You should address me by my proper title.”
The Prince took another draught of broth and levelled the finger of his left hand at Niarmit. “When you stand before me, wearing the Vanquisher’s Helm, Lady Niarmit, then will I call you my Queen and bend the knee to you. Not one second before. For your service today and your proven bloodline I will admit you to my councils and heed your advice, but I will take no orders from you.”
