Valley of Shields

by Duncan Lay

  ‘Well, lads, that was the hard part,’ he told the closest troops. ‘Now we just have to run!’

  They cheered him as he rode on, shaking hands and patting backs, stopping beside an exhausted group of scouts.

  ‘No more forests for us. It’s open hills and valleys, nowhere those elves can spring out at a man,’ he told them. ‘I bet you won’t be sorry to see your last tree for a while!’

  ‘Didn’t think we would get out of there once or twice,’ Caelin admitted.

  The last few days had been a nightmare. The elves had rushed forwards, overwhelming each position with a storm of arrows. Caelin had been on the third line, which had been a nasty little fight. They had run as soon as the arrows began falling but then Wulf had sent them back in with two companies of cavalry when the elves relaxed, thinking the position taken. They had surprised and killed several dozen elves but had then been counter-attacked themselves, losing half of their men in a vicious battle among the trees. The elves were unstoppable when fighting in broken formation, as their sword skill was far greater. But, if the Forlish could form a shield wall or use their cavalry, then the elves could be held, or even pushed, back.

  ‘I wish I could give you a rest because, skies above, I know you’ve earned it. But I want you to join a squad of my best riders and make it as fast as you can to Captain Edmund. As soon as you arrive with the message, Edmund will strike. He’s going to need some good scouts to guide him to Dokuzen and there is none better than you and your men.’

  Caelin bowed his head. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Wulf rode on, waving to grinning men, who thought the worst was over. He found it harder to smile. He had left more than three hundred good men behind in that cursed elven forest. It had better be worth it. Worse, if the elves did not follow him out then he would have to go back and do it all over again. And he was under no illusions as to how that would turn out. But he had to keep the elves’ attention down here, no matter what.

  Caelin, Ruttyn and Harald watched Wulf ride off.

  ‘So, we clamber out of one pile of shit only to fall into another,’ Ruttyn said after a few moments.

  ‘That’s about the smell of it,’ Caelin admitted.

  ‘And Edmund won’t have any cavalry,’ Harald mused.

  ‘There’s a cheery thought,’ Ruttyn muttered.

  ‘Look on the bright side. You could get beheaded by an elf and then your wife’s mother would have to find another fool to marry her daughter.’

  ‘Well, put it like that and it does have its good points. If I can annoy her by dying, it’s almost worth it.’ Harald smiled.

  Caelin patted them on the shoulder. ‘Come on. You two are my lucky charms. With you near me, I can’t be killed. I’ll live as long as an elf!’

  ‘I’d settle for making it to next year,’ Ruttyn said.

  ‘We have achieved what we were sent to do. We have driven the humans out and made the borders safe once more,’ Retsu said firmly. ‘We can leave a couple of clans here to secure the border, until the Magic-weavers have repaired the barrier. But the rest can return to Dokuzen —’

  ‘Let the gaijin get away?’ Moshin snarled. He had been beyond fury since discovering the bodies of Konetsu and the rest of Gaibun’s patrol. ‘They have taken the heads of Lord Konetsu and the other warriors with them. Do we let them think they can walk in here, kill and maim elves and get away with it? No, we shall pursue this horde and take back the heads of our friends, then create a new barrier, of human heads, as a warning to any who think to try to threaten us again!’

  Retsu knew it was useless but he tried anyway. ‘But this is not some numberless horde. They did not try to fight us, only delayed our advance a little, stung us but never seriously attacked.’

  ‘Never seriously attacked? What about our losses yesterday?’ Moshin snarled.

  Retsu sighed. He had thought the third position secured and sent for Moshin to see what the gaijin had done to Konetsu. The humans had attacked at that point and killed dozens of Moshin’s clan before Retsu’s warriors had driven them away. That had been the final straw for the clan leader.

  ‘We ride out and we don’t stop until the last gaijin is dead! Retsu, your warriors shall lead the way!’

  26

  Their plot was to rule us all but they were stopped by one of their own. He managed to save the rest of us from being ruled by these Elfarans, although it cost both his life and the lives of every human with magic — betrayed and murdered by these ‘good, honourable and kind’ Elfarans.

  Huw’s song

  Edmund sat in his tent and stared at the map. The last few days had been some of the worst of his life. Without any way of knowing what was happening in Dokuzen, he had to sit and wait, and hope. Had Wulf been able to control his men and get out of there alive, with the elves hot on his heels?

  His mind had not been eased by the surprising resistance of the Velsh. Edmund was not concerned with them, expecting them to scatter before his men and run for the hills. But arrows kept killing his guards and, when he sent out foraging parties, they were being ambushed and slaughtered.

  He had formed a fighting column five hundred strong to sweep these pesky Velsh away, sending it out to scour the nearby hills and valleys. They had come running back with their tails between their legs, nearly one hundred of them missing after being hit from three sides.

  If he had more time, and more men, he would have applied himself to removing this problem. The failure of the raiders the king had sent north was more understandable now and he thought dealing with the troublesome Velsh might be next on the king’s list, once the treasures of Dokuzen were his.

  As the days dragged and there was no word from the south, Edmund felt the temptation of taking out his frustration on the Velsh. Then Wulf’s riders arrived on sweat-lathered horses, bringing the news he had longed to hear.

  ‘Captain Wulf retreats south and east, with the elven army after him. They are on foot and horse and covering plenty of ground each day but Wulf reports he can stay ahead of them and string out the pursuit for at least the next quarter-moon. The elves are not using magic to close the distance either.’

  Edmund exhaled in relief. No magic meant his attack could work. He stared at the map, calculating distances and times in his head, factoring in how long it had taken for these riders to circle around north and west. No point in attacking too soon, nor waiting too long either. It had to be timed right, a lightning strike to take the elven city and then force the elves to give up all their treasures in order to get back their females and young.

  ‘Good work. How did they fight?’

  A vaguely familiar scout sergeant was pushed forwards and saluted.

  ‘Sergeant Caelin, sir.’

  Edmund nodded. ‘The man who helped me see how to break through the barrier. Glad to see you are still alive. What of the elves?’

  ‘Deadly with arrows and their swords. One-on-one we don’t have anyone to stand against them. But they struggle to break a shield wall, nor could they handle cavalry. And they die like any man.’

  ‘Excellent!’ Edmund grinned. ‘You can travel with us. We shall rest and eat today and then leave in the dawn.’ He glanced around at his officers. ‘Tell the men to take three days of food with them, no more. We shall march fast and travel light.’

  ‘But the wagons, sir. If we are held up, then we shall be unable to force a siege,’ his aide, Orsa, suggested.

  Edmund waved away the concerns. He had heard them all before. ‘We must risk everything. Fortune favours the brave. Remember that! Now, tell your men to relax. No foraging parties, no night patrols, except for the companies who will stay here to guard the wagons on the journey back south. We shall march hard and then dine on the finest that Dokuzen has to offer!’

  Wulf looked back, shading his eyes from the setting sun.

  ‘Are they still coming, sir?’ an officer asked.

  ‘They are,’ Wulf confirmed. ‘They are closing the gap a little but we have slowed as w
ell. Pass the word for the men to march for an extra turn of the hourglass tonight. We need to put more space between ourselves and them, in case they try a sudden rush.’

  Wulf watched the advancing elves. They were mostly on horse, but many were also on foot, including the lead group. They were moving fast but must be tired — they had been pursuing him for four days now and had to be running out of food, unless they could create it by magic. He had ordered his men to walk beside their horses as often as possible, to kick up even more dust and make it appear as though they had far more men than the reality.

  If they had been a normal enemy, such as the Breconians or Landish, he would have been tempted to turn around tonight and try to take them by surprise. In the open, two thousand cavalry was a match for ten times that number of infantry. But these were elves and anything could happen, so he was content to keep moving. Actually, he was more than content. Even if they caught him now, his role was done. The elven army had been dragged away from its home and was at least a quarter-moon away from Dokuzen, while Edmund was, at most, three days’ swift march. That was all the help Edmund would need. Dokuzen was at his mercy.

  ‘Lord Moshin, this is foolish. The humans are leading us a merry dance through this country and we are getting no closer to catching them. At least we should send riders forwards to see how many there are and if we can cut them off somewhere,’ Retsu said quietly. ‘Dokuzen is safe. But the further away we get, the more at risk it becomes.’

  ‘I will not listen to your defeatist talk any longer,’ Moshin said. ‘The gaijin run from us and soon shall lead us back to their cities, where we can have our revenge and teach them a lesson that will keep them away for another three hundred years.’

  ‘But there is nothing out here. We have not seen any human villages or towns since we passed through the barrier,’ Retsu said reasonably. He had hated Jaken but at least he was no fool. He would have smelled a rat a long time ago. But Moshin refused to accept that he was wrong or that anyone else could be right.

  ‘Enough! We do not stop until we have the heads of Lord Konetsu and the others. We shall double our efforts tomorrow.’

  ‘But our warriors grow tired and the food grows short, even using magic to help replenish our supplies each night.’

  ‘We stop when the humans are no more and that is the last I shall say on the matter.’

  Asami woke with a start, her heart pounding. The magical barrier around Dokuzen, which she could sense and which had grown as familiar to her life as her right arm, was all wrong. She could not hear it but she knew the trees were screaming in pain as they burned, just as they had when the Forlish had burst through in the south. Except this time it felt even worse.

  Hands trembling, she called down birds, sent them winging west as fast as they could fly.

  ‘What is it?’ Gaibun padded into the garden, yawning, watching her send another bird to the west. ‘I heard you run past my bedroom.’

  ‘The Forlish. They are breaking through the barrier again. It must be to the west.’

  Gaibun came fully awake then. ‘Exactly as we feared. How many Forlish, how wide is the break in the barrier?’

  ‘I’ll know soon.’ Asami shivered in the cool dawn air of autumn. She was wearing only a thin robe and, in her haste, had not bothered to grab anything warmer.

  ‘Come inside. You’ll freeze to death out here. Let me prepare you some tea.’ He put his arm around her and pulled her gently back towards the house, rubbing his hand down her back for warmth.

  ‘I need to wait for the birds …’

  ‘You can wait just as easily inside. They will not be back for a turn of the hourglass. With hot tea inside you and a warm robe, you will be prepared to wait for them. It will do us no good if you catch a cold and cannot use magic properly.’

  It all made sense, so she allowed herself to be guided inside and wrapped in a warm robe while he boiled water for tea.

  ‘We are just waiting for confirmation from the birds,’ she said tiredly. ‘We have known since we saw them half a moon ago what they were planning. They will have thousands of soldiers marching as fast as they can towards Dokuzen and there is no way our warriors can get back in time to stop them.’

  ‘What about magic?’

  ‘There are no oak trees near where Lord Moshin has led our warriors. The nearest are back in the forest but the army is days away from the forest. By the time they reach it, it will be too late.’

  ‘It cannot be too late. There are still many elves here, all of whom were trained with sword and bow …’

  ‘We won’t stand a chance,’ Asami said. ‘Old men, children and women. Oh, we shall fight but these are not ordinary humans. They are hardened warriors. And most of our people have not picked up a sword since they passed the Test, nor drawn a bow except for the once-a-moon compulsory sessions.’

  He poured her tea and they took their cups back outside, to wait for the birds to return.

  ‘Sendatsu will come to our help. There’s fifteen hundred Velsh dragons that I helped train. They could make the difference,’ Gaibun offered.

  ‘And do you think Daichi will ask for their help? And, even if he did, would they come? They would be massively outnumbered and they have no reason to love us.’

  ‘Then we shall persuade him!’

  ‘And I’m sure that will go well,’ she mumbled.

  They drank their tea in silence.

  ‘We have to try. We have to try everything. You have more magic than any elf in our generation. You have been telling me of your work with the new Magic-weavers — you cannot just let that go!’

  Asami shook her head, unconvinced. It had become their habit to sit and talk each night. She had enjoyed that but then last night had come a message from Sendatsu, sent through Rhiannon. She doubted it had been all Sendatsu’s work but it had still made her think. A heartfelt apology, as well as a promise he would never run away from the two of them again. It made her heart beat a little faster and, at the same time, took the edge off her enjoyment of talking to Gaibun. She feared she was being pushed towards a decision between the two of them and, whichever way she went, pain would follow.

  ‘We are not without power,’ Gaibun continued, interrupting her thoughts.

  Asami smiled. ‘Not enough, I fear.’

  ‘I won’t accept defeat,’ he warned. ‘I have too much to live for. You, for one. The thought of not seeing you ever again is worse than death.’

  ‘You seem to have discovered a new talent for poetry, and pretty words.’ She chuckled.

  ‘Well, it worked. It got you to smile.’ He grinned.

  She nodded ruefully.

  ‘Are you still cold?’ He eased closer to her on the bench, sliding his arm across her shoulders. As he leaned in to kiss her, she was vividly reminded of how she had so nearly kissed Sendatsu like that, on this very bench. She hesitated — and heard the beat of wings.

  ‘The first of the birds are back,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘Come, we must see Daichi.’

  The Elder Elf was less than impressed to be woken but his displeasure faded into disbelief as Asami outlined what was happening.

  ‘It is hard to judge numbers at night, in a forest. But from what the bird saw I would say there was eight thousand of them, all marching towards us. They will reach here in less than three days,’ she finished.

  ‘Impossible!’ he croaked.

  ‘I can show you what the bird saw, if you want,’ she said impatiently, lifting up the crow that sat tamely on her forearm.

  Daichi nodded jerkily and she reached out, placing the crow on his desk. She took Daichi’s hand, pressed it gently to the top of the bird’s head and reached into the magic.

  Instantly they were both flying west, soaring above the trees, to where smoke billowed into the dark sky and flames licked above the treetops. They circled, their vision strangely distorted by virtue of seeing through a bird’s eye. Asami was used to it but it left Daichi feeling even more sick to his stomach.
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br />   Beyond where the trees thrashed and moaned as the fire ate them, a huge mass of humans stood, a glittering array of metal spears and shields lit by the flames. They roared and cheered as the trees burned, their faces alight with bloodlust, their shields raised into the air until it looked like an entire valley of shields.

  ‘Enough?’ Asami released the magic and Daichi had to clutch at the arms of his chair for support as he dropped from high in the air back into his office.

  ‘They are through the barrier,’ Daichi said shakily.

  ‘And will be at the outskirts of Dokuzen within three days,’ Asami said.

  ‘We have to call back Moshin and the clans. Send a bird immediately.’

  Asami shook her head. ‘There are no oak trees near him. By the time he marches back close enough, the humans will be inside this villa.’

  Daichi leaned back in his chair and Asami restrained the urge to hit him, scream at him that she had warned this would happen days ago.

  ‘We need to delay them, give Moshin time to get back. Can you use your magic?’

  ‘I can use magic to slow them down but they will be able to march around any barriers I create — and then I will lack the strength to bring our warriors home through an oaken gateway,’ Asami said. ‘What about Sumiko and the other Magic-weavers to the north? If you told them what we face, they would put aside what happened to protect Dokuzen —’

  ‘Free the traitors? Are you mad? No, we can slow them down ourselves, buy ourselves at least two days to allow Moshin to return. I shall summon every remaining warrior in the city, even those to the north. Gaibun can lead them.’

  ‘And how many will that be? You emptied Dokuzen to give Moshin every warrior we had. We’ll have some greybeards, youngsters not even close to their Test and mothers. They will die and the Forlish will not even pause in their advance!’ Asami shouted. ‘Why will you not even consider something else?’

  ‘Lower your voice,’ Daichi said warningly. ‘I understand this is a dangerous time but I will not be disrespected in my own home!’