by Duncan Lay
But the Forlish were grim opponents, used to victory. Some began to pull apart the barricade to reach the men, while others scrambled up onto the low roofs to attack the women, seeking an easier target.
A pair chose the hut Rhiannon and half a dozen other women were using.
‘Get them!’ She pointed and they converged their aim on the two Forlish as they tried to clamber up the roof, which bowed under their weight. One of them was struck repeatedly by bolts but the second kept coming, a bolt jutting from his upper arm and a bloodied sword in his hand. The women began looking backwards, to the dubious safety of the ground and the huts beyond, but Rhiannon knew they could not leave. Let one Forlish through here and a dozen could follow — and the children were in the huts behind. She loosed her last pair of bolts but one missed and the second, while striking his chest, did not seem to slow him. Rhiannon dropped her crossbow and leaped at him, kicking out as if she was performing a dance. Her leather shoe slammed into the side of his head and tumbled him over backwards and off the roof. She landed awkwardly on the thatch and nearly followed him off the roof, while the rafters groaned under the weight of her fall. She clung to the roof for a long moment before scrambling back up to the top. She accepted her crossbow back and loaded it with shaking hands.
‘I did that move for their king — but it works better here!’ she called to her companions, trying to make light of the fear she could feel coursing through her veins. More Forlish were threatening them, while others were hacking and cutting at the menfolk across the barricade.
‘Sendatsu, we need you now,’ she murmured to herself, amazed she could even speak those words, hidden as they were by shouts, screams, the ringing sound of steel on steel, as well as the deeper sound of steel on wood and the sickening sound of steel in flesh.
Broyle had not been overly concerned by finding a new barricade, or even by more Velsh resistance. His men had taken losses but were still churning forwards and it was only a matter of time before the enemy broke — for good this time. He did not have to do anything. There was no need in a fight like this. His men would keep attacking until they had killed everyone. It was the way of things. Certainly the Velsh were fighting better than he had expected — they were using their swords in a completely different way to anything he had seen before. Most warriors used a combination of strength and speed to batter down their opponents. There was no need for finesse. But these Velsh were different. A blow aimed at a head suddenly became a body cut, getting underneath a shield hastily raised, while parries turned into lunges and cuts seemingly without any effort. But it was not enough to stop his men.
Then he heard singing and turned. And felt fear for the first time in many a day.
Sendatsu ran easily, well within himself, making sure he stayed at the back of the dragons, who in turn stayed ahead of the leading Forlish.
‘Stand and fight, you gutless sheep!’ a Forlishman yelled and Sendatsu marked the owner of that voice, a tall warrior with a long moustache.
The ground was soft and sloping and he could feel it in his legs — and knew the Forlish, already tired from their exertions and carrying shields, had to be feeling it more. He led them on.
‘Cowards! We’ll get you!’ the lead Forlishman shouted, his voice catching from the exertion.
Sendatsu glanced over his shoulder and saw the Forlish were ragged now, men dropping out the back, their tight lines in disarray.
‘Close up!’ he called and the lead dragons slowed a little, turning them into a solid mass.
‘Sheep-shagging scum!’ the Forlishman shouted but Sendatsu ignored him, judging instead his own men.
‘Now!’ he roared and turned, running as fast as he could back at the Forlish.
The lead chaser, the man with the insults, only had enough time to look surprised before Sendatsu was upon him. One slash of the sword and the Forlishman reeled back, trying and failing to keep his guts inside his body.
The other dragons were only half a step behind Sendatsu and were among the Forlish, dealing death with every blow a heartbeat later.
The Forlish thought they were the hunters — they never got the time to realise they had fallen into a trap. By the time they raised heavy shields on weary arms, the faster dragons were upon them, swords reaching out for throats and chests and bellies. The Forlish tried to stop, tried to form a new line but they were scattered and tired.
Sendatsu rampaged through their lines. A cut to the left opened up a man’s chest, a slice to his right slashed open a throat as he used the cross pattern, the floating cloud and the figure-eight. These were not men to him — they were just straw targets in an exercise.
The Forlish, veterans though they were, were tired and scattered and could not stand against the dragons, much less Sendatsu. They turned and ran, throwing down swords and shields and racing for the hole in the outer fence.
‘Let them go!’ Sendatsu barked and the handful of dragons that had begun to pursue slowed to a reluctant stop. ‘We stick to the plan!’
He left three of them to help their wounded comrades, then led the rest around a little further, to where they had made another gate into the village last night. Inside, they could see the battle raging, where the Forlish were threatening to overwhelm the villagers.
‘We hit their right flank and we don’t stop until the last Forlishman is dead. And sing — let them hear you coming!’ Sendatsu shouted.
He had little more than sixty dragons left but the Forlish had suffered badly as well and their numbers were far reduced.
Roaring out ‘Land of My Fathers’, the Velsh dragons followed him in a charge across the village.
The Forlish heard them coming — but could do nothing about it. Those who tried to turn and form a new line just exposed themselves to the relentless crossbows, while the dragons ripped into their right flank and, with Sendatsu at their head, began rolling it up.
Broyle tried to impose some order, to organise a force to hold off this attack that was crumbling his right flank but he did not know how to rally the men. He had never faced anything like this — none of the Forlish really had. Defeat and reverses were what happened to the other side, not them. Without any training, without a group of sergeants on who he could depend, Broyle shouted useless orders that were lost in the confusion and watched in frustration as his men were felled.
And all the time a cloud of vicious little bolts descended on them.
‘Back! Get out of here! Run for your lives!’ a Forlish voice shouted.
Broyle stopped in horror. ‘Who said that?’ he demanded angrily. But few could hear him and even those that could were not listening to him.
Huw had clambered onto a roof, where he could see what was happening. The Forlish were almost ready to run, they just needed one more thing to tip them over the edge. He summoned his best Forlish accent and yelled down at them: ‘Back! Get out of here! Run for your lives!’
The time spent in Ward’s court in Cridianton served him well. The Forlish nearby could spot who was doing the shouting but others, unable to see him, only heard a voice of authority.
‘Flee! Run!’ Huw shouted in his best Forlish voice, using his training to make it as loud as possible.
It was enough. Assailed on all sides, without any direction from their own officers — indeed without any officers — the Forlish heard the fake orders and chose to obey them. First one, then a handful, then a stream of them raced for the gap in the wall and freedom.
‘After them! Don’t let them get away!’ Huw yelled in his normal voice, sliding down from the roof to join in the pursuit.
The temptation was to let them go, to preserve the lives of the villagers and the dragons — but over that was the thought this group of Forlish had come together to hunt him down. They had to be wiped out, or at least sent running back to Forland.
The villagers responded instantly. They had seen their village attacked three times now, their friends and family killed — and these were the men responsible. They hacked
and slashed at the running Forlish, while others pumped crossbow bolts into legs and backs, bringing the runners down. Even the women joined in, groups of them isolating and slaughtering the Forlish as they discarded shields, swords, anything that would slow them down.
Wounded Forlish begged for their mates to help them, pleaded for mercy — and received neither.
Broyle tried to rally his men at the outer wall, to give others the time to get away — or perhaps to snatch victory from defeat. He brought his sword down viciously at a shouting villager — and was shocked to see the man throw his blade up in a parry. The force of the blow drove the villager down and Broyle confidently swung again, thinking to despatch the man. But another parry was followed by a lunge that Broyle had to work hard to avoid. Furious, ignoring what was going on around him, he stepped in close and locked blades with the villager. Still the man resisted, farm-bred strength holding Broyle at bay until the Forlishman smashed a head-butt into the man’s face and finally thrust his sword into the helpless villager’s chest. He roared his triumph and looked around, hoping he had inspired more of his men. But although a handful joined him, a cloud of elven crossbow bolts made such a task impossible.
Broyle was the only one with a shield and, while he ducked behind its protection, the rest of his men were struck and went down howling. He was alone. He could not believe he had to run — to be driven back by a pack of farm boys and soft villagers! How could this have happened? He burned with the shame of it. His plan to trap and destroy them had been turned upon itself. If only he’d had proper armour and weapons, things might have been different …
‘Come on, sarge, let’s get out of here while we can!’ Ricbert grabbed his arm and tugged him away from the village.
‘Where did you come from? I thought you’d killed that elf?’ he asked numbly.
‘He killed us. I ran to live — and now you need to run too.’
Stumbling blindly after the man, he allowed himself to be led away from the defeat, from the piteous cries of the wounded and the howls of the Velsh as they savaged the slow and the hurt, any that they could reach.
‘We have to get back to Forland, we have to tell them what happened. We thought the Velsh were just sheep waiting to be sheared, but they have grown teeth. If we don’t bring the real army up here soon, we’ll have a worse problem than the Balians,’ Ricbert yelled into Broyle’s ear.
But Broyle could not imagine returning to Cridianton in disgrace, telling King Ward his finest warriors had been defeated by a pack of villagers.
Gazing around, he could see only a few score of his men still alive, and more were being dragged down and butchered every step of the way.
‘The king has to know,’ Ricbert cried. ‘We have to warn him!’
Broyle’s head cleared a little and he nodded, began lengthening his stride and drawing clear of slower runners and the limping wounded.
Hector watched from the trees as the Forlish marched forwards. It had been a slow enough advance that he had plenty of time to worry about what was going to happen to Rhiannon in there. Would she try to resist — would she fall victim to the lust of the victors? He did not trust Broyle to keep his soldiers on a tight leash but dared not speak to the man again. He bit his nails and paced as the Forlish crawled their way into the village.
The sounds of fighting drifted back to where Hector waited and he shuddered at the thought of Broyle’s brutal men hunting through those tight streets inside the village. Surely the village had to surrender and beg for mercy soon. But the noises went on and on, and he wondered what was happening in there. He began to walk out, hoping to see something and yet afraid of what he might witness.
Then the Forlish broke and began flooding back towards him.
For a long moment he stared in disbelief, then saw the first Velsh appear out through their smashed wall, loose crossbows at running men, hack down the slow and the wounded, and he turned and fled, blundering through the trees, no thought beyond saving himself.
But, after he nearly ran headlong into a tree, he forced himself to stop and breathe, try to think a little. Obviously Broyle’s plan, his confidence in the Forlish fighting man, had been drastically misplaced. These men would run or die. But what of him and his need to find Rhiannon, return with her to Cridianton? What was going to become of that?
He had sacrificed too much, invested too much time and effort to give up, even now. He could not return to Cridianton without Rhiannon and the king’s seal and hope to escape with his skin intact. He needed both — and preferably the elf and bard as well. He had to find Broyle. Hector turned around and walked back, into the first soldiers, who ran past him, wanting to get one of the few horses.
‘Where is Sergeant Broyle?’ Hector demanded, grabbing one of the fleeing men.
‘Dead, probably! Like we all will be if we stay here!’ the man gibbered.
Hector released him with distaste and walked on. He pushed through more men, shoving them aside as he searched for a familiar face. He had almost given up — and the bloodthirsty shouts of the victorious Velsh were getting uncomfortably close — when he saw Broyle running, like the others.
‘Broyle!’ he bellowed, cutting across to intercept the sergeant.
Broyle did not slow down but Hector would not be denied. He thrust out an arm and grabbed the sergeant by his sweaty, blood-spattered tunic.
‘Where are you going?’ he shouted, his fear of the man lost in his anger.
‘Let go of me!’ Broyle snarled.
But Hector had had enough. ‘Where will you run? If you go back to Cridianton, Ward will have you executed for this failure. Is that what you want?’
‘If we stay here, the Velsh will get us!’ Ricbert cried, trying to free Broyle from Hector’s vicelike grip.
‘There is another way! If we get my daughter, the bard and the elf, then we can return in triumph,’ Hector insisted.
‘You’re mad — we have lost! We were slaughtered out there,’ Ricbert insisted.
‘Is this how you want to be remembered? As the man who led the Forlish to defeat, who showed the Velsh we could be beaten?’ Hector asked, ignoring the corporal and focusing only on Broyle.
Broyle felt as though he was coming back from a distant place. ‘No,’ he admitted.
‘Then come with me now. Obey me and we can return as heroes.’
‘Are you going to listen to this? It’s madness,’ Ricbert spat.
‘You go back to Cridianton. I shall stay,’ Broyle said, his voice getting stronger. He straightened and Hector released his grip at last.
‘Good. Gather some men and we shall head west. They have won today but might just let their guard down. We shall be ready,’ Hector promised.
‘Cridianton is death for any that return like this. We have to give the king something or he shall show us no mercy,’ Broyle told Ricbert.
For a moment more the corporal looked as though he would argue, then he nodded.
‘I’ll get as many as I can before they all scatter to the four winds,’ he finally agreed.
Huw halted the Velsh at the tree line. They had caught and killed two dozen more Forlish on the way down from the village and to keep going was pointless. They might track down a handful more but they risked more than they would gain. These Forlish would keep running and, if they had any sense, would go nowhere near King Ward. Or at least Huw hoped so.
‘We did it!’
Villagers and dragons embraced one another, laughed and cheered, or sank to the ground in tears, overcome by what they had faced.
Huw knew they had to help the wounded, as well as gather up as many swords as they could find — but first he wanted to hold Rhiannon. He had brought down a pair of running Forlish with his crossbow, men who had been butchered by vengeful villagers, but he had not fought with the sword at all. Still, he had been close enough and the reaction had him shaking. The village had been turned into a charnel house and he dreaded to think of what he might find there, of the men who had died or been
crippled, ones he had persuaded to fight for him. Glancing around, he saw Sendatsu cleaning his sword off on a handful of leaves, although his face, arms and chest were covered in blood.
‘Are you hurt?’ Huw hurried over.
‘It’s not mine,’ Sendatsu assured him tiredly, then forced a smile. ‘Well, we beat them, we saved the village — this is another tale that will grow with the telling around Vales.’
‘We shall make sure all know of your part in it,’ Huw assured him. ‘We would not be here without you.’
‘I don’t want fame, or to be in a song. I just want to hold my children again,’ Sendatsu declared. ‘Besides, it was the dragons who were the difference.’
‘Who would not have survived, would not exist without you. We have proved that Velsh can fight and beat the Forlish …’
‘Not quite. They were badly led, and not wearing any armour or in numbers much greater than ours …’
‘Oh, we should enjoy the victory while we can. By the time we have finished with it, there will be a thousand Forlish, all wearing armour and riding on winged steeds against us,’ Rhiannon interrupted. But her smile was too bright, her eyes too wet to put much weight in her words.
‘Are you all right?’ Huw asked.
‘I never want to see that again.’ She shuddered. ‘Why do men love war so much, spend so much time preparing for it? How could you want to do something so terrible?’
Sendatsu nodded agreement. At times during the past few moons, he had found himself almost in love with battle. The thrill of defeating others, of standing triumphant over your foe, had been intoxicating. But now, however, he would be happy never to fight again.
‘You were wonderful. The women were the difference, helped us hold on long enough.’ Huw dropped the crossbow and enfolded Rhiannon in his arms.
