by T. O. Munro
And now their progress had utterly halted.
Jay sat with a company of Nordsalve Infantry. He had, for the moment, eschewed Kimbolt’s advice to station himself with the elves. Their unwearying endurance, for all the help he knew they would have given him, would only have dented his pride. So he chose to walk the dusty road with equally leaden footed soldiers and to slump uncaring into the brief moments of rest that chance should throw their way.
The retreat had funnelled into a shallow valley. It skirted round the southern tip of a great tree topped escarpment which ran from north-west to south-east. Jay’s company had progressed east and drifted south in a series of leapfrogging manouveres. Their moments of rest had doubled as picket duty behind the main body, providing a screen against the approaching enemy. The meanders in their progress had carried them towards the southern edge of the fleeing army and so they took their rest where the ground began to rise again. Jay lay back and surveyed the scene.
Within the resting mass of humanity there were isolated points of movement as captains and lieutenants were summoned to attend on the queen. The small regiment of elves habitually formed the rear guard and their tall captain was striding to the centre of the camp. Jay glanced westwards beyond the elves. The corporal at his side muttered, “bugger me, but that’s a lot of dust.”
Jay shaded his eyes with his hand to better see the line of beige cloud smudging the horizon. It stretched so far to north and south that he might have thought it a blurring of his vision or a heat haze rather than the airborne herald of an approaching army. “How far away are they?” he asked.
“Not much more than fifteen miles,” the soldier guessed. “They’ll be here by this time tomorrow.” He patted the ground for emphasis.
“And where will we be?”
“Well I’d like to say, bloody miles away,” the corporal told him. “But we’re going slower day by day not faster and…” He broke off staring east. Jay followed his gaze to the crest of a low rise two or three miles distant. “… and,” the corporal went on. “We appear to be surrounded.”
The crest was filling with a line of troops, sunlight glinting off polished mail, detachments of cavalry to either flank. “How did they get round there?” Jay stumbled to his feet.
His companion gave a low whistle. “It seems the enemy mean to hold us here for sure.” He grabbed his shield. “Mind you, it’s poorly timed, they come at us today and the main body won’t reach us until tomorrow.”
“That’s still two battles to be fought, corp,” a soldier observed as the new arrivals continued their deployment in battle lines. “Even if we beat them today, I warrant there won’t be much left fit to fight tomorrow.”
There was a thunder of hooves behind them and a horse pulled up level with the corporal. “I thought I told you to march with the elves,” the seneschal’s voice made Jay spin around.
Kimbolt’s expression was grim, though it had seldom been otherwise in the glimpses that Jay had caught over the past three days.
“I didn’t think it would make much difference,” Jay said. He waved an arm eastwards, “particularly not now we’re surrounded.”
At last Kimbolt cracked a smile and even let slip a half-hearted laugh. “Surrounded, boy? Is your hope so dulled that your eyes are driven to deceive you. Those are men of the salved, few enough for our purpose perhaps, but better friend than foe.”
Jay looked again at the gathering divisions. They were too ordered in their deployment for outlanders, and the easterly breeze bore no hint of the foul but different stenches of zombies or orcs. Great standards were unfurling red and gold on the left, a deep verdant green on the right. “Where do they hail from then, Seneschal?”
“Red and gold stands for Oostsalve, while the green, well that is the garrision from Salicia come home at last to the Petred Isle. It seems the princes of Oostsalve have finally been stirred to their duty.”
“They’re ours?” Jay said dully. He had grown unused to good news in the seven days since he had seen a troll head, cloven by his axe, seal itself back into grinning malevolence.
The corporal at his side spat on the ground. “Aye, they’re ours, though we could do with thrice as many and still not think ourselves secure.”
“Watch your tongue,” Kimbolt commanded. “These are fresh re-inforcements that the foe knows nothing of. It is time we all let in a glimmer of hope and remembered too that in battle as in all things, whether you think you’ve won, or whether you think you’ve lost, you’re probably right.”
Jay’s companions frowned as they tried to decipher the seneschal’s meaning, but Kimbolt saw them not. He was already riding hard towards the newcomers.
***
She knew that Tordil was pleased to see her wearing the Helm. The tall elf could not keep a smile of confidence from his lips despite the dire tidings that his lieutenant had brought. If he could have seen the grim faces on the white thrones in the Chamber of the Helm, then the elf captain’s certainty in victory may have been somewhat shaken. The revelations of the Vanquisher’s son had sorely strained the fragile alliance constructed by Gregor and Thren.
The bloody crime on which their resting place was founded had shattered the budding consensus of heroic endeavour and renewed their awareness of the sordid little blasphemy that they inhabited. With that perception, the petty and not so petty rivalries that had, for a moment been set aside, began to surface once again. Bulveld the Second grumbled of other murders and would not recognise his son save only to condemn him as a fitting heir to the Vanquisher.
Danlak and the Dragonsoul had sharpened their sibling rivalry into open dispute, apart from those moments when each remembered how much they had resented the heavy hand of restraint which their father had laid upon both their ambitions and turned their approbrium on Thren the Second.
Chirard the Second cried out to any who would listen, and to many who would not, of the illegitimacy that underpinned the rule of Thren the Fourth. By implication the unparalleled conquests and martial glory of his warrior son, were rendered unworthy by the theft of a crown on which they had been built.
It had become a rancourous gathering whenever anyone should choose to speak and Niarmit felt herself tainted with each short visit to the cursed place. The horror she had felt when Santos first told her of the Helm had returned in force. The bile rose in her throat when she thought how far she had trusted the artefact and its prisoners.
The vision presented by Feyril had retained its infectious power. The ability of the Helm to defeat any foe and to scatter any army had been a shining kernel of hope. But she could no longer ignore how the comforting reality of the Goddess’s presence faded into dull emptiness whenever she wore the Helm. This was a place beyond Her grace, beyond Her blessing. It was a place no priestess had any business being. It was a place far too close to the world, the mind, the motivations of Maelgrum himself.
Nonetheless the Helm held some of the greatest military minds in salved history. Pragmatism dictated that that resource at least she should draw on, letting them see through her eyes the dilemma that the returning Elyas had posed.
The Vanquisher was not there. Storms raged in the garden where Eadran walked alone with his guilt while his chosen central throne lay empty. His son would not usurp the seat of honour that his father had chosen for himself and instead brooded in the second rank of thrones. The rest of the monarchs sat, eyes closed, all the better to see through Niarmit’s eyes the map that Elyas was sketching out in the dirt, and in so doing to be kept from viewing the peers whom they had remembered they more or less despised.
Santos alone had eyes for the Domain of the Helm. He sat on his chair, almost as motionless as the statue of the Kinslayer. The first victim of the Helm’s power stared at the floor gripped by a torment he could not share.
Niarmit had told him it was not his fault, but the steward had only given a brief shake of his head and asserted, “I have failed. I have failed everyone.” The queen had not the time to probe t
he disconsolate steward’s grief more deeply. Her awareness was all for the material world where Elyas’s revelation of the enemy’s numbers and deployment demanded her attention.
“So,” Tordil looked at the dirt sketch. “It is time to make a decision.”
Elyas nodded. “If we march on, we have three days at least across flat level plains until we reach the northern tip of the Palacintas. Easy travelling, but still not fast, not with our entourage and there are no defensive positions we could occupy.”
“Yet sometime on the second day, certainly by the third, the enemy would catch us in open ground,” Pietrsen said.
Tordil pointed north at the tip of the tree topped escarpment whose shadow reached almost to their little gathering. “But atop that ridge would be a strong position. There an army could hold against almost twice its strength.”
Elyas grimaced. “Indeed, Captain, though sadly they have six times our numbers.”
“But we have the power of the Helm,” Tordil said. “We knew we could not run for ever, let us entrench our positions there and let him dash himself to pieces against us.”
Niarmit shook her head. “I rode along the ridge this morning.” She had made a habit of scouting out possible defensive positions as they passed them. “It is hard to assault, but the crest is too long a length for us to man. It dips a little to the north and an old manor house stands in the lee of the hill, but our force is too few to stretch from the high point here to the manor house. Which ever end of the slope we chose to stand, the enemy could come up the other end and outflank us.” She sighed, hoping that someone within and without the Helm might see something she had missed. “It is a fine position to be sure, but not for a force as small as ours.”
“We could thin the ranks,” Pietrsen said. “Make our line stretch the length of the hill crest.”
Torsden snorted his disgust. “Aye and then he need only concentrate his force a little to punch a hole through the centre before driving left and right to roll up the rest of our army.”
“Would you have us flee across the plains, Lord Torsden?” Pietrsen was nettled by his towering predecessor’s rebuke. “Fine ground for cavalry charges and an offensive battle, but we have few horsemen and not the numbers for attack.”
In Niarmit’s head she heard the Dragonsoul mutter. “It is a good question, though this fellow may have assumed the wrong answer. A resolute but outnumbered force can still win out be seizing the initiative against a more numerous and disordered foe. At Muagmela my echelon formation enabled me to strike at the heart of the enemy, I was within a horse length of the enemy general when his nerve failed and he turned to flee. Seeing his cowardice the rest of the army routed.”
“I doubt that Maelgrum’s courage will prove so fragile,” Mitalda said. “Even if between us we had the slightest idea of how to defeat or entrap him.” She glanced with some reproach at her father on the second rank.
“The Vanquisher has no more or better answers than us,” Thren said sourly. “Be sure of that.”
“At Gainborough, I defeated a far superior force by letting them come at me in a strong position,” Thren the Fifth chimed in. “We repulsed the front rank of the enemy who then fell in disorder on their own advancing second rank. Half the damage was done by the enemy’s own soldiers against his fellows.”
“My father fought at that battle.” The Kinslayer’s elder brother Bulveld the Fourth made his contribution. “You had the fortune of the ground. Forests on either side, funnelling the enemy up to your line and guarding your flanks. It was the muddy earth that won that battle as much as your archers and men at arms.”
The victor of Gainborough gave a self-deprecating smile. “My point was only that great victories can be won from a strong defensive position.”
“And mine was that this is a different position. Without the channelling woods you would have lost at Gainborough, so my father assured me.”
“Enough with your prattling,” Niarmit hissed and then realised she had spoken aloud both in the Helm and in her small council of war. Torsden and Pietrsen looked at her both somewhat crestfallen at her misaimed rebuke. “Forgive me, my lords,” she made a quick apology. “I spoke in haste, but I think Captain Tordil has the right of it. For better or for worse we must make our stand here.”
There were shouts of alarm from the sentries stationed to afford their conference a little privacy. A call of challenge was quickly answered as two horseman clattered to a halt. Kimbolt slid from the nearest mount and strode into their conference. “We had begun without you, Seneschal,” Niarmit said.
Kimbolt bowed. “Apologies for my tardiness, your Majesty, but I had seen movement to the east and rode out to investigate more closely.”
He stepped to one side to gesture forward a figure clad in black leathers and silk. “Sir Vahnce,” Niarmit turned her surprised exclamation into a greeting.
“Your Majesty,” the knight bowed low, with a delicately bent knee. “I have brought you the force of Oostsalve and the Garrison from Salicia.”
“How many?” Tordil asked eagerly.
“Seven thousand from Salicia, another six fresh trained from Oostsalve.”
The elf slapped his hands together with joy. “Why that has near enough doubled our numbers at a stroke.”
“Your march must have taken you through Medyrsalve.” Niarmit tried to mask her hunger for news in a dignified enquiry. “Did you gather any word from Laviserve?”
“We travelled as straight as the crow flies, your Majesty. That took us north of Prince Rugan’s palace. I sent word of our movements and received a note of best wishes from Lady Giseanne.”
“Nothing more?” Niarmit glanced at Kimbolt. “No word from the prince, or from princess Hepdida.”
The black clad knight frowned. “No your Majesty, I assume they were not there, or had no word to send.”
Niarmit reached for the chain about her neck, stroking the smooth surface of the royal ankh distractedly.
“Now then, Lord Torsden, Lord Pietrsen,” Tordil was rubbing his hands in glee. “We will have force enough to hold the full length of that ridge. This is a most serendipitous arrival.”
Elyas was more measured in his appreciation. “It is certainly welcome news,” he said. “But let us not forget the vast numbers and the formidable nature of our enemies. Orc infantry and wolf riders and legions of the undead.”
“I have three hundred ordained priests within the Oostsalve division,” Sir Vahnce said. “They are from Prior Abroath’s monastery. They are forewarned of the unrested dead that we will face and of their obligation to invoke the grace of the Goddess to dispel them.”
“By the cracking ice, Sir Vahnce,” Pietrsen exclaimed. “You are most properly prepared and most welcome here.”
“I was well taught in the ways of our foe, my lord.” Vahnce gave a short nod of acknowledgement in Kimbolt’s directon.
“Priests?” Niarmit leapt on the information. “We have some sorely injured, grievously mauled by troll and fire. Constable Johanssen is numbered amongst them. Please you must send the two dozen who are strongest in the Goddess’s favour to attend upon them.”
Within her head a cacophony of advice was erupting. The doubling of her little army driving a dozen enthroned generals to issue anything from mild suggestions to outright orders concerning the deployment of her enlarged force. She shook her head and, with some care and precision, directed her ancestors to be silent.
“We will make our stand atop the ridge,” she told her council of war. “Have the refugees make their best speed east. They must travel through the night. Let them get as far from here as they can before battle is joined. By sunset tomorrow, for better or for worse, the matter will be decided.”
***
The sun had long since set, but still the soldiers worked, carving out pits and traps in the sloping ground infront of their positions. A mix of lanterns and the globes of light cast by priests illuminated their work. Kimbolt paced from one patch of light to
another, disbursing words of encouragement and at times wielding an entrenching tool to give a soldier a few minutes of rest.
“Thank you sir,” the latest recipient of his assistance tapped a smart salute as the seneschal returned the jagged blade. These were the Salicia garrison, gifted to him by the queen as a mark of some honour. Or perhaps in a bid to keep him from her side. They were the elite troops of the last Salved outpost, bloodied in incessant defence of the final shred of a colony that the Salved held in the Eastern Lands. In a vast continent, where the Salved writ had once run near as wide as that of the Monar Empire, their rule was now shrunk to a tiny city state.
But the Salicia troops were fresh, unwearied by the long sea journey or even the rapid march that Vahnce had impressed upon them. So it was to them fell the honour of holding the vulnerable northern flank of the army’s position. Here where the ridge was lower and the ground more gently sloped the enemy’s first assault should naturally fall. Hence the imperative to dig in as much additional defence as a night’s hard work could create.
The only force further north were stationed in the abandoned chateau at the very sharpest point of the northern tip of Niarmit’s deployments. The fortified manor house was below the crest of the ridge, some hundred yards ahead of the main line of defence. It was too vital a strong point to simply surrender to the enemy, yet its position rendered it difficult to support and vulnerable to attack. If the Salicia garrison had been granted a position of honour, then the defenders of the chateau had a station of distinction, a distinction that had fallen to Tordil and the elf regiment.
Kimbolt wiped his calloused hands on his breeches and strode back along the line of the ridge. South-east of the Salicia garrison’s position, bobbing circles of light showed where Torsden had gathered the infantry of Nordsalve. Both those who had marched with Niarmit as reinforcements and those who had withdrawn from the abandoned fortress of Colnhill came under the Northern Lord’s command. They too were engaged in the business of entrenching their position. Besides the pits there were angled stakes. Sharpened branches cut from the swiftly denuded trees at the top of the ridge and driven at forty-five degrees into the sun baked earth.
