by Anna Thayer
“None,” he answered.
In the silence that followed, Eamon imagined the officers and captains, the Hands – and Arlaith overall – prowling the Gauntlet lines with threat and fear and words to stand contrary to his own, bolstering morale, and quelling any streaks of rebellion in the men. How often did a Right Hand proclaim allegiance to the King? It must have been a terrifying thing to witness.
But had they seen him for what he was? Or had their heads and hearts been filled with the cries of “traitor” that had followed him?
“Courage, First Knight. They have seen the way prepared by you, and it lies open to them also.” Hughan reached across and touched his arm. “Do not let it trouble you; the day is long, and you will yet see who followed you in their heart when you rode to me. Until that time,” he added gently, “I need you to be with me here, in every part.”
Eamon drew a shuddering breath. “I am here, sire.”
To the north, the knights and Easters both pulled back. Eamon gave Hughan a worried look.
“What is happening?” he asked, wishing for not the first time that he had understood something about cavalry tactics.
“Another wave of banners comes,” Hughan answered. Eamon followed his gesture back to the lines and saw that a second wave of Dunthruik’s knights, no less impressive than the first, rode across to engage the King’s men and bolster the struggling first wave. It seemed strange to Eamon that so much should be happening in the north, and yet the lines of Gauntlet and King’s men before him should hold still in the warm morning light.
He saw Hughan, who had, like him, been watching the clash of the northern lines, nod. He seemed satisfied with what he saw and looked to Eamon once more.
“Ride with me, First Knight.”
Though he felt oddly weighted in his armour, Eamon took a firm hold of his reins and followed the King as he turned to move down to the infantry lines in the south. The lines reached all the way to a sharp bend in the River, and Eamon remembered Waite’s assertion that it would be a difficult place to stand. The banners all along the line shivered in the wind, mirrors of the blue River and the sun-struck sky.
As they went down the lines the wayfarers began to cheer. Voices joined together and men raised arms and tongues as the King passed by.
“The King! Brenuin for the River Realm! The King!”
The cries were joyful and spontaneously taken up by the whole line; Hughan accepted them with a gracious smile as he rode, and Eamon felt how every man – even the Easters in the central part of the line – loved and respected the King. It amazed him.
It was as they came near to the southern end of the line that Eamon heard another cry mixed in with the voices of the King’s men:
“Goodman for the King! The First Knight for the King!”
Astounded, Eamon turned. As he searched the calling faces for those who called his name he suddenly saw one that he recognized. Amazed and delighted, he dismounted at once and went across to him.
“Goodman for the King!” the voices cheered. As Eamon approached they whooped and applauded. He knew their faces, though they knew his the better.
He reached the line and stood before it in wonder. Mr Grennil, and a score of the evacuees from the East Quarter, stood a little way back in the line.
Eamon laughed. He rushed forward and embraced Mr Grennil.
“I thought you were dead!” he cried. The line cheered to see his joy. “I thought you were all dead!”
“And we feared for you,” Grennil replied with a smile. “Goodman for the King!”
“Goodman for the King!”
“The East for the King!” he answered. The men cheered him, delighted, and Eamon felt tears of joy on his face. The King smiled at him, and he wondered how he could ever have believed that the wayfarers had killed the men who even now stood before him.
“First Knight!” called another voice.
Feltumadas, resplendent in helm and armour, rode towards them. His banner stood not far from there, at the centre of the infantry line.
“Lord Feltumadas,” Eamon greeted, trying to wipe the tears from his face. His armour was not conducive to the task.
The Easter lord smiled at him. “I had not the time to greet you before,” he said, “though I had time aplenty to admire your spectacular folly. The Star tells me that you never considered yourself a rider?” he added politely.
“Never,” Eamon agreed. “Nor am I yet, I fear.”
“Then what a ride you made, no-rider!” Feltumadas answered. “They will tell tales of that before your days are done, and long thereafter.”
“May we live to hear them,” Hughan laughed.
Feltumadas watched Eamon for a moment, then turned to Hughan. “May I counsel your First Knight, Star of Brenuin?”
“As you would counsel me,” Hughan replied.
“Battle will soon be joined. While men standing and cheering will recognize Lord Goodman as your First Knight, once they are striking at their enemies, a moment’s error will put red on his tabard which he did not intend.”
Eamon glanced down suddenly at his breastplate’s ruddy and sable covering, and knew at once that Feltumadas was right. He could not stand in the King’s lines wearing these colours.
Flexing his armoured fingers, he set his hands to the hem of his tabard and put his strength against it. After a moment a tear appeared, but the material was strong.
Feltumadas watched Eamon’s efforts for a moment before turning to Hughan. “May I lend you my blade, Star?” he asked with a grin.
“Thank you, Lord Feltumadas,” Hughan replied.
Feltumadas swiftly swapped his mace from his right hand to his left, and then drew his blade. It was much shorter than the swords used by the Easter cavalry or Eamon’s own long infantry sword. Feltumadas handed it to the King with a graceful gesture.
Hughan deftly dismounted and came to Eamon’s side. He set blade edge to the tear. With a bold stroke he drew the blade up through the tabard, shearing it in two. Though it weighed but little, a great weight lifted from Eamon as the tabard came away in Hughan’s hands, no more than a ream of cloth.
Eamon laughed as he shed the black and red. The men watching him cheered riotously to see the First Knight liberated from his colours.
Hughan handed the blade back to Feltumadas, then he and Eamon both remounted. Leaving Feltumadas at its centre, Hughan and Eamon proceeded futher, inspecting the line. Everywhere they rode they were met with a continual roar of cheers, and of arms clashed joyously against shields.
“All these men serve you,” Eamon breathed. He could only gape at their numbers.
“And they honour you; they know what you have done.” And as Eamon surveyed the lines, they called:
“The Sword and Star! The First Knight and the King!”
They rode down the line and back. The Gauntlet waited across the plain. He wondered if they were anxious seeing the wayfarers lauding their King and their First Knight, the man whom Dunthruik had dubbed Right Hand. As they rode, the cavalry battle sounded to the north. Eamon looked towards it. He discerned many scores of fallen horses and men, but he could not tell what happened.
A trumpet blast sounded across the plain, followed by drums. Eamon glanced sharply back towards the city. The great ranks of Gauntlet drawn up against the King’s men began to move.
“Sire,” Eamon said, pointing.
“I see them.”
The strike of the drums pounded into Eamon’s chest. It pulsed with the beat and readiness of battle. He flexed his hands. Soon he would be called upon to wield his sword. As the drums came on, he heard the call with them that chilled him:
“His glory!”
They returned to the centre of the line where Feltumadas kept sunny watch over the advancing Gauntlet. The Easter looked at Hughan.
“You should withdraw to the rear ranks, Star,” he said, “and your First Knight also.”
“The rear?” Eamon repeated, heart sinking.
Feltum
adas smiled at him. “You are eager to strike?”
“Would not you be?”
Feltumadas looked back at the oncoming crimson lines. “Yes.”
Hughan reached across and touched Eamon’s shoulder. “You will have your chance, First Knight.”
“But at the moment the Star is more concerned with both your hides,” Feltumadas added. “Think, First Knight, how many men dream of felling the man beside you!”
Eamon glanced at Hughan. “Many,” he replied sombrely. He had heard many dreaming of it, or swearing that they would do it.
“Given your deed of this morning, I imagine that there are now as many who would happily garrotte you,” Feltumadas told him lightly. “Perhaps they are as many as those who rejoice to see you here.”
The drums grew louder. Dunthruik’s militia crossbowmen withdrew and grouped into the advancing Gauntlet line. The Easter bows directed a last volley at the red line. Very few men were struck and fewer injured, for the Gauntlet were well armoured. After the volley, the Easter bowmen also withdrew swiftly to their waiting line.
It was then that Hughan went before his men, his helm aflame with silver.
“You are the honour and glory of my house!” he called. “You are the pride and joy of my heart! You have ridden with me through fire and storm, through bog and fen, over mountain and River, and I have been amazed by your courage.”
Eamon gazed at Hughan, for the King’s words stirred something in him that was wide and deep.
“You are more than flesh and blood, than iron and steel; you are King’s men. And whether we have victory or defeat I will count myself rich to have fought this day with you.”
“The King!” the line roared.
As the shouts continued, Hughan returned to Eamon’s side. “Come, First Knight.”
Eamon followed the King and his aides; the line parted before them and closed behind them. As they went, Eamon fully appreciated the depth of the wayfarer line and the countless men who formed it. He could not guess at their number but he knew that each man he passed was a man prepared to give his life for the King. As they went back through the lines, the King’s cavalry reserve drew up further back along the plain, and battle sounded in the north; for a moment it chilled Eamon’s blood.
Then the drums came. Quiet they had been, and distant, like the beat of a man’s heart when he worked at his daily business. But now the sound increased and the line advanced. The drum beat grew and grew and the Gauntlet called out their Master’s glory, raising bill, axe, and sword with each cry. They were a fearsome gash of red across the plain, the city’s blood marching for vengeance – against the King that had besieged them, the Right Hand who had betrayed them, and for the glory of the Master that they served.
The beat of the drum came on.
Strange quiet fell over the wayfarers. Eamon could taste and smell the tension of arms and spirits preparing for battle. His heart beat to the pace of the drum. As the Gauntlet lines came on, he felt a sting of flame in his palm.
Was he not sworn as they were? And as they called again on the Master’s glory, their words bubbled up to his lips: His glory…
He pressed one gauntleted hand over another, rubbing at the unseen mark that burned him. He was not of their number, and yet the drum beat penetrated him, calling him to undo his foolishness and return to the men he loved and the fire he served.
“Eamon.”
Eamon saw that Hughan watched him. Embarrassed, he let go of his hand.
“If you would rather withdraw,” Hughan began, “you may do so.”
Eamon swallowed hard. “My place is here.”
The second Gauntlet line halted a few hundred yards away; the first was pressed on. Movement at the north end of the lines attracted Eamon’s attention – some of Hughan’s hobilars struck out at the Gauntlet from a grove. At once a group of the throned’s men countered the harassment, disrupting the uniformity of their careful lines and forcing the hobilars to drop back. The Gauntlet advanced again, the beat of the drums driving them steadily on. Feltumadas – who rode a little way back from the front of the wayfarer line – gave a signal, and suddenly the thudding drums were matched by a blast of trumpets that stopped Eamon’s heart with its intensity.
Moments later the air was rent with a great clack as more than a thousand wayfarer bows loosed a storm of arrows at the red line. The Gauntlet marched on, urged by drum and officer. Some of the men went down in the hail of arrows. The Dunthruik militia answered the volley with one of their own, but barely had they begun when a second, third, and fourth flurry of wayfarer arrows filled the air, a merciless rain that beat down on the line. A standard in the sea of red dropped and disappeared in the surge before it re-emerged, like the head of an ocean beast over the crimson waves, swelling with the tide and moving in the hands of its new bearer.
Still the Gauntlet came on.
Feltumadas gave commands that were echoed by horn calls all along the line. The front ranks lowered their spears. The ranks behind them angled their crop of steel against the blue sky to ward against any stray missiles launched by the enemy. Then the trumpets blared again. Like a river, the wayfarer line washed forward to meet the red sea. It was a swift and an unerring advance, the sound of the drums lost beneath the sound of marching. Feltumadas, now on foot but marked by his great orange standard, went with them, keeping the pace and formation of the advance. A final crossbow volley was launched by the Easters to devastating effect on the Gauntlet lines: swathes of men fell.
The advance of the two lines towards each other was a gracefully executed death-dance. The tension and anticipation of their meeting grew in Eamon’s breast as the allied lines went down the slope to their enemy. He felt the long, slow agony of time as the two forces went on towards each other, drum and trumpet, bill and axe, crown and star.
And suddenly the lines met.
The clash was deafening as axes and swords, bills and shields engaged upon Dunthruik’s plain. The lines rammed together and then moulded one against the other as smoothly as the meeting of plane and lathe.
Once the two infantries met, Eamon could not discern one side from the other. He raised himself up in his saddle and peered forward, but he could make nothing from the chaos of the front ranks. Orange, green, and blue drove forward. The cries of men sounded as they took their oaths in their hands and proved their fealty with their blood.
Eamon was not sure how long the initial attack lasted. After a time, wounded men appeared behind the ranks, pushing or crawling their way from the mêlée, marred with blood and broken flesh, red on blue. The wounded gathered together and helped each other to stagger back to the field hospital far behind the lines.
The King’s ranks seemed to lose ground to the south. Feltumadas pushed through the press, his mace reddened, calling those men around him on to courage for the King. Eamon’s blood pulsed at the thought, demanding that he join the fight.
A great cry sounded to the south. The line shuddered before a violent drive from the Gauntlet. The line of King’s men gave back before it and vomited out wounded men. Eamon saw at once that if the line gave back too far, then the Gauntlet would take the River bend and be able to take the wayfarers’ flank. It would be disastrous.
“Sire, the south –” Eamon began but stopped; drums again. The reserves behind the main Gauntlet lines marched fiercely towards the weakened southern flank of wayfarers.
Eamon looked to Hughan. The King had also seen the danger.
“I must command the cavalry.” Hughan matched Eamon’s grey look. “First Knight,” he said, “I have need of your sword.”
“You have always had it,” Eamon answered.
“Take the south flank. It must hold until I can send the cavalry to it.”
“It will hold,” Eamon answered grimly. He would hold it single-handedly if he had to.
“Go!” Hughan commanded. He and his horse and aides turned and wheeled across the plain towards the cavalry.
The Gauntlet reserves
marched on the wilting wayfarer flank. The men there cried out, as if sensing their danger.
Eamon drew his reins tightly into his hand. Scores of men followed him. Calling quick words of encouragement to them and to his steed, he clicked his spurs and rode down towards the River – a shining sea of fighting men, of shattered helms and swords, and screams of the dying.
He swiftly reached the ailing part of the line, which shuddered back beneath another blow. Eamon saw the standard of a wayfarer general back the way he had come. It pushed into the thick of the ranks. The Gauntlet reserve advanced. Eamon did not have much time.
Hurriedly he threw himself down from his saddle. He drew the reins forward over his horse’s head as his feet touched the ground. Gripping the reins, he drew his sword then pulled off belt and scabbard to avoid tripping over them in the fight. His blood beat thick and fast in his veins. He was an infantryman by training. He would fight as he knew best.
He tied belt and scabbard to his saddle and then looked to the lines.
Eamon could see little of the wayfarers’ front lines, but he could feel fear about him everywhere. If the line failed, they would be slaughtered by the searing red. A turned southern flank could mean defeat for the King.
Cries sounded all around him. The smell of sweat and blood beneath the May sun overpowered his sense. Sword in hand, Eamon pushed forward.
Support it if you wish, son of Eben; it will not hold.
As he and his men pressed forward, Eamon found wounded men and fallen helms beneath his feet. He looked at the wearied, frightened men about him, heard the drums of the reserve marching grimly towards them. A terrible quiet fell as both Gauntlet and wayfarers anticipated the coming blow.
Eamon raised his head and his voice.
“Hear me!” he cried. “You are more than flesh and blood! You are more than body and blade! Fear no arrow, fear no flame, fear neither terror, nor oath, nor bond, nor strike against you, for you are King’s men.”
His voice seemed louder than he expected. Indeed, even the din of battle did not seem to drown it out. All around him the wayfarers heard, and their grips on their weapons grew firmer. New hope birthed in their eyes as they looked to him.
