by Emery, Ben
Rural sent no one to collect the bodies of his men, so Galarus ordered that they be laid out, unspoilt, further down the mountain path, in the hope that someone would claim them. Though they now stood against him, the Legions had always been his family, and they deserved the respect and honour of a decent burial. Those of the Vahc, on the other hand, that had died upon the wall rather than fallen from it, were tipped over the battlements to meet the ground with sickening cracks and thuds that reverberated back up the mountainsides. Under the cover of darkness, Rural’s men had cleared away the gutted remains of the battering ram, but with any luck the bodies of the Vahc would prove, at least, to be an inconvenience.
The watch that night was held by the archers and guards that had manned the barricade around the gate; men who had not seen a great deal, if any, actual fighting that day. The rest, meanwhile, under orders from Galarus not to drink too much, congregated in houses, enjoying the warmth of fires and jovial conversation. Much of which was awed remarks or light-hearted boasts concerning the performance of individuals in battle. And there was no difference in Brier’s quarters, where the General and his companions gathered to eat.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it!’ Miran exclaimed, so swept up in his account of the events he had witnessed that he was forced to stand. ‘One man against hundreds! And none even came close to him!’ As he talked he mimed swinging Fellammer at imaginary foes. ‘They fell like stalks of wheat!’
The behemoth sat in silence, quietly enjoying his food, while the others around him happily listened to the archer.
‘What about your guys?’ Jaxon asked Miran. ‘That was some superb shooting; I barely had to do anything! Every Vahc that popped his head up over the wall had an arrow in his eye before I could even take a swing. I’m lucky I saw any action at all!’
‘Are we really going to ignore the Wandeer in this?’ Placatas interjected. ‘Did you see the fear on those Vahc bastards’ faces when it started raining fire? Can you imagine how they must have felt, climbing up those ladders and the first thing they see is a man holding a fireball?’
There was laughter and a cheer of agreement around the table, as a toast was made to the heroes of the day.
‘You did very well for your first battle,’ Coran whispered to Isella, who had not said a word since the fighting had ended earlier that evening.
‘Thank you,’ she said, and smiled sweetly. Coran felt the blood rush to his face. ‘You fought well too.’
‘Yeah but I’ve fought before. And there’s a hundred other soldiers like me up on that wall. But you’re special. We would have struggled without you today. And your father, of course,’ he added hastily.
‘You are being too kind,’ Isella replied, lowering her head. ‘But I do not enjoy battle. I know what we are doing is right, but all those people that died…’
‘It gets easier,’ Coran assured her.
‘I hope not,’ was all she said.
There were several seconds of silence that followed, neither one of them sure of what to say next.
‘I…’ Coran began.
‘I think I will get some rest now,’ Isella cut him off. ‘Goodnight, Coran.’
She kissed him softly on the cheek, an act that took him entirely by surprise, and only served to fuel the fires reddened his face so. The Wandeer politely excused herself from the table, and bade everyone a good night. Coran sat stock still, almost glowing.
‘I think…I’ll go to bed too,’ he managed to say to no one in particular.
None of the others heard him over the conversations taking place at the rest of the table, and he stood up and walked, weakly, in a daze, toward his bunk. The others were not far behind him. Despite the elation of having survived the day, exhaustion began to take over. Muscles ached and weary heads longed for pillows. The frigid mountain winds howled at the walls and the night sky was obscured by a low grey cloud. A fresh snow fell white, ready to be bloodied the next day.
Chapter Eighteen
The following morning, Galarus was once again the first atop the wall, scanning the plains below, watching closely as the enemy began to move into position.
‘They’re changing their strategy,’ he informed Placatas, Jaxon, Attais and Coran as they arrived simultaneously. ‘The Legions are manning the ladders and rams. The Vahc have already headed for the base of the mountain path.’
‘They’ll move quicker than the spearmen,’ Jaxon observed.
‘And they have crossbows,’ Attais added.
‘Hmm,’ Galarus agreed. ‘The Ironhand won’t be able to hold them on his own, but at least the archers will be of more use against them.’
‘What are you thinking?’ Placatas asked of the General, staring out over the battlements as he did so.
‘We’ll need to hold the path ourselves,’ he replied. ‘Form a shield wall against them, halt their advance, and let the archers pick them off. The veterans will be well suited to that, and the others can guard the wall with the garrison. We will need the Wandeer to deal with the siege equipment again.’
‘And deal with it we shall, General,’ Vedeon said as he and Isella approached; the behemoth and Marrew not far behind. ‘Miran is rousing his archers, and Brier awakening his guards.’
‘Good,’ Galarus said simply.
Today would be a far tougher fight than the day before. The enemy would no longer underestimate the small force, and with the Legions on the ladders, Brier’s men would have their work cut out for them. It was one thing to repel a Vahc rabble, but another to fend off thousands of well-trained, well-equipped soldiers.
Reinforcements would still be days away from impacting upon the battle at all, and even that depended on how long it took for them to receive the news of Valgaard’s besiegement and, afterward, react. The trusty sword arms of their allies were all the defenders had to depend on for now.
The main body of the garrison arrived; Miran, Brier and Draiden at its head and Galarus brought them up to speed on the necessary changes they would be making to their formation. The confident gleam in Brier’s eyes wavered ever so slightly when told he’d be facing legionaries, rather than the undisciplined hordes.
The Caldoan order to advance echoed up to them, and the defenders took to their positions, bracing themselves for the onslaught that was to follow. The thunder of footsteps drove toward the wall, followed by the clatter of ladders against the stone. The ram was, instead, held back, out of range of the Wandeer, to prevent a repeat of the day before. The legionaries began their ascent, and the Crimstone archers commenced a showering of arrows upon them and the men on the ground. Unlike the Vahc, each of the legionaries bore a shield, held aloft to protect them from the falling projectiles. Some fell, arrow shafts protruding from pierced bodies and armour, but most were undeterred.
The defenders pitched the rocks and other weighty miscellany that they had stocked atop the wall over the battlements. Such things crushed skulls and broke limbs and bodies, or else dislodged men upon the ladders, sending them howling and flailing downward, until the ground or the helmets of their allies silenced them.
The legionaries pressed on, incurring few casualties; the broad, circular shields of the swordsmen that led the charge deflecting most of the arrows. The macemen followed them closely, prepared to exploit any foothold that could be gained upon the wall. Vedeon and Isella once again ignited the ladders that they could reach from their positions in the close conditions within the garrison. Fireballs rose and fell against the white sky, scattering burning chaos amongst their foes. But still the Legions advanced.
The first few that reached the last rung of the ladders were picked off by Miran and his archers. Those behind, more wary, had shields ready, and the missiles clanged off of the steel surfaces. The real fight for Valgaard had begun.
The behemoth had stationed himself at the centre of the wall, a gap of three metres either side of him that would allow for the full and terrible use of Fellammer. He waited, patiently, for the first of his opponents
to present themselves, twirling the great weapon in his hands. A swordsman’s shield rose into view, a duo of arrows ricocheting off of it with a ring. Fellammer stopped spinning, axe head up, and the behemoth lunged forward. The huge blade sliced through the legionary’s midriff cleanly, before he had even stepped onto the wall. Blood jetted into the air, raining down viscera onto his allies below. Another swordsman clambered up a ladder to the Ironhand’s right, and he smoothly stepped across and planted Fellammer into the assailant’s skull with a crunch. The behemoth wrenched the blade free as a third attacker attempted to gain a footing on the battlements. The enormous tribesman swung low, severing a leg, and the swordsman fell backward, screaming and scrabbling into the air, desperately trying to clutch at anyone or anything that might slow his descent.
The behemoth leapt onto the parapets, towering over the men below, making himself visible to all. He stared down the ladders at the advancing enemy, and those closest to him froze. He grinned broadly at them as their successors pushed them upward toward him. He would make the survivors remember this day. That was, if any of them did survive.
Further down the wall, at the northern end, Marrew had positioned himself as backup to Galarus and the other defending legionaries. The swordsmen scaling the wall were easily dealt with; if they were not run through with his spear, then they were floored with powerful swipes from it, and killed effortlessly from there. The full Wandeer armour he wore, despite his initial fears, did not hamper him at all. Every movement and motion was fluid and precise, and entirely unhindered. He had, through no intention of his own, accumulated a bodyguard comprised of some of Brier’s men. So awed were they by the tribesman’s speed and skill and relentless ferocity that they had resolved to defend and support him, rather than engage the attackers directly and risk getting in the way.
On the mountain path, the Vahc, devoid of any semblance of order or formation, charged toward the waiting defenders. Unimpeded by heavy armour or the need to maintain ranks, they moved quickly over the icy ground, their hooded cowls concealing their faces in shadow. They were a far easier target for Miran and his archers than the shield walls of the spearmen had been the day before. The bowmen notched and loosed arrow after arrow, until it seemed the air between the two sides was full of them. The Vahc fell in droves, but weight of numbers inched them forward.
Now only fifty paces from the hordes Galarus gave the order to brace for the charge. The defensive line was only two ranks deep, and the General had made the decision to defend from further back than the behemoth had done, allowing for a broader shield wall. With only ten trained legionaries at his disposal, himself included, Galarus had taken a position in the front line, alongside Placatas and three of the five veterans. Behind them, Jaxon, Attais and Coran, possessing the smaller shields of swordsmen, stood with the remaining two veterans in the second rank.
The Vahc whooped and hollered as the distance between them and their targets shrank, and they raised their weapons for the final stretch. A hasty volley from the archers felled the frontrunners, before the lines collided with an ear-splitting crash. The hordes hammered flesh and metal into the shields of the defenders, but the line held strong; the spears of the front rank stabbing low, those and the swords of the second thrusting high, in true Caldoan style. Arrows arced skyward and fell among the rabble, while other archers shot at point-blank range at the foremost of their opponents, in an attempt to thin out the pressing masses.
‘Just like the good old days, eh, General?’ Placatas bellowed over the tumult of battle, hunched behind his shield to protect his head.
‘It sure does take me back!’ Galarus replied, slamming his own shield into the face of a Vahc warrior, who was finished off by one of the veterans behind.
The bodies of the horde began to pile up on the path, slowing the advance of those beyond, still baying for the blood of the garrison. As the momentum of the attack petered out, the Vahc resorted to their crossbows. With a greater range than that of the archers, the majority were able to stay out of harms way while peppering the defenders with ragged waves of bolts. Without the years of experience possessed by Miran and his men, Alarum’s crossbowmen lacked any visible signs of accuracy. Frustrated at being unable to see at who or what they were aiming for from so low down on the slope, several of them began to clamber up the sheer rock face that flanked the path. In doing so, they were able to hang from the cliff with one hand, while firing their weapons with the other. The archers picked off those within range, but the rest were given free reign, and odd bolts whipped toward the defenders.
Several of the garrison fell quickly, their right flanks exposed as they became preoccupied with the enemy before them. Among the dead and wounded were some of Marrew’s self-appointed bodyguards, and those that remained raised their shields to defend the tribesman, allowing him to continue his bloody work. The behemoth, the initial target for more than a few of the Vahc crossbowmen, was discovered to be out of range, but Vedeon and Isella were forced to hurriedly snatch up their own shields to protect themselves.
At the mountain path, the first of the defensive line fell; one of the veterans of Legio, Jara, took a bolt to the shoulder, just below the neck. His guard slipped and the Vahc in front of him lunged, hacking mercilessly at the body as it fell. The gap in the line was hastily filled by Attais, but already the ranks of the garrison were weakening.
Initially intent on bringing down the strangely impervious warriors in the black armour, the crossbowmen changed their focus. If these demons could not be brought down, at least the men around them could, and a hole torn in the wall’s defences. The archers were targeted next, a handful of them killed as bolts thudded powerfully through their lightweight armour. Miran ordered them to take cover as best they could, half a dozen or so able to conceal themselves behind Galarus and his legionaries, using their shields and heavy armour as their own means of defence. Others were forced to retreat to barricades beyond the reach of the crossbowmen, which meant the archers too were unable to fire upon anyone other than the invading forces of the Legions directly in front of them. The situation did not look good; if the path were overrun, the defenders would become trapped upon the wall and surrounded.
A scream unlike any other tore through the sounds of clashing weapons and roars of pain and fury, attracting the attention of a great many of those involved in the fighting.
‘Father!’ Isella cried.
The behemoth, closer to the Wandeer than their other companions, looked across. Vedeon was slumped against the battlements, his daughter, tearful, at his side, as the conflict raged about them. The Ironhand champion swiftly dispatched his current opponent, driving the broad axe blade into a swordsman’s ribs, and knocking him to the ground with the haft of Fellammer.
‘Fill the gap,’ he instructed the men of the garrison around him, who quickly followed his orders.
The giant made his way toward the Wandeer, striding through skirmishes and felling attackers foolish enough to stand in his way, all the while focusing on a beautiful girl and her wounded father.
A swordsman scaled the battlements beside Vedeon, raising his sword to strike. The behemoth reached them just in time, Fellammer sending the man soaring from the wall. Vedeon was still breathing, a rogue crossbow bolt jutting from his right side.
‘Father?’ Isella willed him to talk as she choked back tears.
Silently, the behemoth scooped up the Flameweaver in his massive arms, careful to avoid the puncture wound and the projectile lodged in it. The brief absence of the Wandeer from battle did not go unnoticed by the legionaries, who began to hurry up the ladders with a renewed vigour, and their increased numbers steadily began to threaten the garrison’s command of the wall.
‘I need to get him away from here,’ the Ironhand said to Isella. ‘Get rid of them.’
She nodded, wiping the water from her eyes. Bringing her hands together, flames began spiralling between them, a fireball broiling in mid-air, growing larger and larger, until she release
d it forwards. An explosion that seemed to shake the very mountains themselves silenced the battlefield. The top of the wall was torn open, shattered battlements and chunks of rock and rubble showered down upon the men below. But the fire did not stop there. It shot outward, along the breadth of the wall, scorching the stone and engulfing assailants as they reached the tops of the ladders. It hung there, briefly, both sides watching noiselessly. Time seemed to slow, as all that could be seen to move was the writhing of the flames atop the wall, before they began to pour downward. More like liquid than fire, wave after wave of searing, scorching death descended, melting armour onto flesh, and stripping flesh from bone, until it seemed as though the whole monumental height of the wall were aflame. Those on the ground fled in terror toward their camp, and the Vahc, terrified at the mere sight of the spectacle, turned tail and scurried back down the mountain path.
The fires faded, and Isella collapsed, exhausted. Marrew arrived moments later, collecting the girl from the ground where none had dared to touch her; her fragile appearance meant nothing after what the garrison had just witnessed. The defenders separated, opening up a passage through their ranks for the tribesmen and their Wandeer companions. Isella had bought the defenders time enough to rally, but how much, and at what cost, were questions still yet to be answered.
The behemoth laid Vedeon down upon the long table in the central room of Brier’s quarters, while Marrew found a bed for Isella. Her breathing was shallow, like her father’s but there were no signs of physical injury. The smith winced as pain lanced through his body, and moved his hand to his injured side. The behemoth restrained him.
