by Damien Lake
“Finish and get to sleep,” Fraser said. “We have a walk and a fight ahead of us.”
Chapter 15
“Ow! Damn it!”
“Shhh!” hissed six different voices from the blackness engulfing Marik. He threw a glare in their direction, which nobody saw through the dark, so he reined in the comments on the tip of his tongue.
Half this night lay behind them. The Second and Fourth Units were making their way along the dry river bed in the dark. It was lighter than it could have been, the half-moon shining intermittently through a ragged cloud quilt, yet still dark enough to make stealthy travel difficult. Stumbling across the uneven river bed hardly lightened one’s spirit, especially a spirit low on sleep.
They wanted to circle around the west flank of Fielo’s army, except the river canyon presented a problem. If they traveled far enough away to avoid Fielo’s lookouts, the canyon would gape between themselves and their objective. Climbing down then back up a steep canyon wall would be more dangerous than stumbling across enemies in the dark. Besides, it would take too long. The men needed to be in position when Dornory’s other squadrons began their assault.
It had been decided that their nearly fifty men would follow the river banks, uncomfortably close to their enemies, then pull themselves out of the canyon before the sides became too steep to climb. Given their lack of knowledge concerning the specific terrain within the canyons, the plan seemed a gamble.
Marik’s ankles complained whenever they found a sharp stone rise in the dark. Given that an enemy scout could be lurking anywhere looking for exactly this sort of troop movement, he was denied a satisfying burst of swearing to relieve his feelings.
They had sent their own scouts ahead to detect enemy lookouts, but with everyone being silent they might walk past each other in this gloom. It added a new degree of tension to the trek, knowing that at any moment they might be set upon by unseen foes. The men walked, or stumbled, with one hand upon their weapons.
Before leaving, Earnell had instructed Fraser to hug the opposite bank instead of using the near shore they had followed the day before. Though the river ran nearly bone dry, people usually thought of it as a natural barrier, a defense covering one direction. Fielo might have sent men to watch the river bank but habit could have kept him from posting them on both sides. Marik damned well hoped it worked out that way so they could justify all this painful tripping. No shoreline graced this side. The canyon wall crowded the river’s edge, leaving only uneven stone plateaus worn mostly smooth by ages of water.
In spite of their care, the air echoed with a noisy din when feet continuously found holes. That no enemies had yet detected them amazed Marik.
He would also be amazed if he remained awake once the fighting started. Hayden had kicked him from his bedroll in the night. Marik felt that he had not slept at all. The older mercenary was in no mood to answer questions, being too occupied with his own discontented grumbling. They were setting off in the middle of the night to attack an enemy in an elevated position in the dark, again.
No one else displayed a better mood, including, he had to admit, himself. He’d decided his efforts would be better spent on getting ready rather than complaining.
Now he half-crawled through a stone crevice looking for interesting ways to get himself killed. Lack of sleep always gave him a negative view of life.
“Hold up,” Fraser murmured to the nearest men. The whisper quickly passed back from man to man, sounding like a spring breeze across the open grass, if any grass had ever found purchase in this stony landscape. Fraser spoke to a returned scout.
“We go up here,” he whispered. Marik looked at the valley walls which speared upward in a near vertical cliff. Climbing here meant the scout cared little for the look of the canyon ahead.
“Are we past Fielo’s army yet? We haven’t gone very far,” asked Marik in his own whisper. Being near the group’s front left him near Fraser.
“No choice,” his officer hissed back. “Just be ready for anything.”
This hardly boosted Marik’s morale. Fraser gave new instructions to the scout. The other scouts would return in moments. As soon as they did, they would explore the east wall, looking for the best routes up. Fraser instructed his men to spread out and hunch behind rocks. “And gods damn it, don’t fall asleep!” he hissed.
Though very tired, Marik tensed in anticipation, the edge on his weariness slowly dulling. In a fight, his desire to live outmatched his desire to sleep. For now.
The men squatted while the scouts inspected the wall. Fraser sent Duain back to inform Bindrift, who held the rear guard for this action.
On edge, his ears twitching at every slight noise, Marik picked other Fourth Unit men from the gloom and gauged himself against them. Most showed no sign of tension. Either they were better able to conceal it or their years of experience inured them to the moment. They might regard him as a skittish young colt if he displayed nervousness, so he forced himself not to fidget, concentrating instead on the scouts he could still see.
Only two remained within sight. The other pair had wandered further in their search for purchase against the canyon wall. It was difficult in this light to tell if they were moving, so carefully were they studying the rock and running their hands across it. Watching them quickly grew boring. Marik decided to spend his time thinking about his sword strokes, to work on finding a method by which he might dispatch that last imaginary foe.
He sat against a rocky outcrop that water, had there been any, would have surged around, creating eddies of white foam across the river surface. Marik closed his eyes to begin his mental drills without the accompanying physical movements.
Working out the next in a strike series had turned out to be a wonderful way to relieve his tension. When this contract ended and they were on the road home, he would rope Dietrik, Hayden, Landon and Kerwin together one night to practice his moves against real opponents. He knew from experience the first few attempts to physically use his visualizations would be filled with mistakes, resulting in an early ‘death’ at the hands of a sparring partner. Yet after several runs the real practices might be going as smoothly as the imaginary versions.
Not that he ever wanted to seriously try holding his own against his friends. He might be good in a practice session, but in an honest fight with them using every ounce of their skill, he would be lucky to scratch them. His combat abilities were still far from where he knew they could be. Marik renewed his determination to practice harder than ever.
Remember the weight of the blade. Marik constantly reminded himself of this simple fact. It was easy to imagine cutting down hordes of enemies, but the mental exercises only proved useful if he remembered the physical limitations of a fight. His sword had weight, requiring time and effort to reach his target. His mail was heavy, affecting every move he made. His balance changed with every step, limiting the responses he could make to threats.
Forcing his mental figures to act realistically under these parameters had been very difficult the first several thousand times he’d attempted this mental training taught to him by Sennet. His friends had shrugged the technique off as being a waste of time when they could be exercising for real, except Marik, intrigued, persisted. Sennet had emphasized that he must never forget what a real fight felt like.
Marik, determined to use every training method available that might help him master the warrior’s skills, had kept at the exercise until it required less effort to visualize his foes. After a hard day’s work with Dietrik, he would lie on his cot in the dark, continuing to practice in his mind.
As he did now. He constructed his four imaginary foes and sank deep into concentration; swinging, defending, thrusting, blocking, dodging. Marik nearly jumped from his skin when Hayden shook his shoulder.
“Are you asleep? Come on, it’s time to go,” Hayden growled.
He began a hot reply, saying of course he had been awake…then stopped to wonder. Maybe while deep in his thoughts he had slippe
d into genuine slumber, dreaming of fighting his constructs rather than imagining them. When his focus sank his mind far enough into the visualizations, the fights could seem as real as a strong dream sometimes did.
Whichever, he rose, feeling revitalized and refreshed. The short rest had done him a world of good.
“What’s going on?” he whispered.
“We’re going up this bastard of a wall and circling around if we’re not far enough behind them.”
“How long until first light?”
“Call it a candlemark,” grumbled Hayden unhappily.
Well, at least they would have time. The plan called for three different forces to strike at first light, the two halves of the Ninth attacking from behind to distract Fielo’s army while Dornory’s guardsmen charged in. Marik would have preferred a strike under the cover of darkness, except among the aristocracy such an act was apparently considered cowardly, even if the one you attacked was a lifelong rival and an inconsiderate neighbor to boot. But no one had put him in charge.
“Half of you follow Landon, the rest go with me,” Fraser whispered. “Watch the man in front to see where to climb. Regroup at the top.” Fraser headed into the darkness with his half of the men.
Marik followed Landon to the route the acting scout had uncovered up the cliff. It could have been worse. Thirty or so feet was not bad at all! A veritable walk in the summer sun. Except for the dark. Up a loose rock wall. With enemies everywhere. Right.
He fell in behind Landon, meaning he would be among the first to reach the top. And everyone else below can help break my fall. Landon wasted no time in beginning the ascent. Marik followed uneasily.
Thanks to the dark, he was unable to see how much space separated him from the bone-breaking ground. The anxiety he would have felt in daylight remained absent for the most part.
The climb took far longer than he thought it should until he finally attained the heights. By moving out of the way for the next man, he also moved away from the edge. A slight shiver passed through him that had nothing to do with the chill air. He turned his back on the canyon in an effort to put the fool-headed stunt he had just pulled from his mind. Then, while the third man crawled over, movement caught Marik’s attention.
“Down,” he hissed. All three dropped flat instantly at his words. The movement flickered through the shadows until it resolved into a lookout staring at them, squinting to pick apart the darkness. Marik did not move so much as a hair.
Unfortunately, they had reacted too late. The man ran, pulling a thin reed to his lips that hung from a loop around his neck. A shrill whistle split the night.
“Damn it!” No sense in staying quiet any longer. “Up or down?” he asked Landon.
“Stay up here,” the archer replied without hesitation and yelled over the edge. “Hurry up! Is anyone still down on the bottom?”
A reply drifted upward. Landon told the voice’s owner to run and inform Fraser’s group, who made their ascent a hundred yards further north.
Not that anyone would need to tell the sergeant trouble had erupted. The whistling continued in the dark, starting and stopping at different lengths in a pattern that must alert Fielo’s army to the specifics.
“Hurry up,” Landon repeated loudly. He strung his bow with a quick efficiency that came from years of experience.
Six men ran at them from the direction the lookout had fled. Marik knew his first real battle was upon him. He drew his sword, hoping the dark would hinder his enemies as much as it did himself.
Beside him stood Sloan, brandishing his strange, single edged sword. Its blade had been forged long, narrow and with a straight back so it looked like an overgrown machete, though less wide. A rectangular, guardless hilt stretched long enough for both hands to find an easy grip, the wood polished over the years by Sloan’s palms. If it had been the size of a dagger, it might have been found in a kitchen chopping vegetables. Marik wondered at the usefulness of a sword the wielder could not reverse direction with. Nonetheless it looked as mean as its owner.
On his other side waited Nial, with a short sword in his right hand and a one-handed flail in the other. The flail’s short chains were tipped with four small, spiked iron balls. Talbot struggled to reach the top. He would still be several moments in achieving it.
Landon drew back his bowstring, unrushed by the deadly situation. His first shaft dropped one advancing man. The three mercenaries formed a line before Landon, guarding him while the remaining five struck.
In the middle, Marik’s flanks were protected by Sloan and Nial, both of whom unleashed an attacking flurry. Each had two opponents who shuffled to maneuver behind so they could attack their weak points, take out the archer and stop the men climbing from the river bed.
The center man opposite Marik seemed of average build in the shadows, bearing a sword similar to Marik’s own. He came on hard and fast, opening with a high strike from above. The three Kings had spread far enough that Marik could move without interfering with his shieldmates.
Both hands gripping the hilt, Marik raised his sword while ducking low. He blocked the first blow. When his opponent’s blade rebounded, he brought his arms down and flicked his wrists. The motion altered his hands’ positions only slightly, but sent the sword arcing in a quick slash for a responding strike.
It met the other man’s sword, he having already initiated his next attack. The two blades crashed against each other. Marik started forward a step to place his weight against the enemy’s sword and force him backward before realizing that would break the line, leaving Landon vulnerable. As he thought that, Marik heard Landon’s bow twang. Hopefully it found a mark in their enemies.
He stepped back quickly, retaking his position. This surprised his foe who had shifted his own weight forward to counter Marik’s. Fielo’s man lost his footing and stumbled. Marik took advantage and lunged forward, slashing at the man’s torso. The man had nearly recovered, but not enough to save himself. Instinctively he raised his sword arm in an attempt to block and Marik’s blade bit deep into his flesh.
Marik felt bone, heard the man’s screech, heard the clatter of his dropped sword striking the stone. He wrenched his blade back. A flash of silver streaked through the faint moonlight as his sword delivered a killing stroke to the man’s neck.
His foe collapsed in a heap. Marik turned his attention on the other attackers. Nial fended off the two swordsmen he faced ably, though this left him few opportunities for a counterattack. Sloan was a different story altogether.
He wielded his strange blade with ease, having dispatched one opponent so quickly and efficiently Marik had never heard the man die. Marik saw the cold mercenary slice off his second enemy’s weapon arm, then reverse his stroke in a continuous motion that cut through the man’s neck before he could register the fact of his lost limb. The man died before much blood from the amputation struck the ground.
Marik turned back to aid Nial when Landon’s bow sang again. One of the remaining opponents sprouted feathers from his chest. With only one to deal with, Nial easily occupied his opponent’s weapon with the short sword long enough to deliver a crushing blow to the side of his head with the flail. It split the flesh, dislocated the jaw and shattered all the teeth on the man’s right side. Nial stepped quickly to the fallen man to dispatch him with the blade.
Talbot flopped over the cliff’s edge like a landed fish before jumping to his feet and shouting, “Agghhhh!” He stopped shouting while still fumbling to draw his sword when he noticed the four men looking at him in silence.
“Oh,” he said. “Looks like you’re already done.”
“For the nonce,” Landon agreed. “These were the closest to the call. More will be arriving any moment.”
Nial nodded and returned to the drop. He looked down as Kerwin clambered over the edge. “Go faster,” he shouted down. “We need to move!”
Dietrik peered from his perch halfway up the wall. “We’re going as bloody fast as we can!” He sounded out of temper.
“More!” called out Landon, who had been watching the direction the first men had run from.
Light, and not far off either, could be seen from the campfires of Fielo’s army. Men stirred over there. Closer to, three men came at a dash. They stopped several yards away when Landon’s arrow streaked past them and missed by inches. In a glance they took in the mounds on the ground combined with the pungent reek of fresh blood. These three retreated immediately.
“Damn,” swore Nial. “They’ve gone to get real reinforcements. We’ll be in for it if we stay here much longer.”
Dietrik crawled over the edge, panting from his rushed efforts. “Another three,” he wheezed, then sat up to catch his breath. “Should only take a wink.”
“We may not have a moment,” replied Landon, listening to the scrambling of men organizing in the dark. “But we don’t seem to have a choice.”
Time slowed to the speed of cold molasses while everyone waited for the remaining men to ascend. When the last man, Korial, reached the edge, two pairs of hands yanked him the rest of the way over. No one waited for him to regain his balance. They started north, only to stop when men charged from the shadows.
Luckily, weapons were checked after the two groups recognized each other. Fraser shouted, “Just what the hells happened?” Landon opened his mouth to reply when the sergeant overrode him. “Never mind! Everyone south to rejoin the Second Unit!”
That sounded a great idea. Everyone began double-timing it, the going much easier topside than on the uneven riverbed. This time Marik jogged at the rear with the others. Nial glanced over his shoulder, then tapped a warning on the back of the man before him. The message quickly traveled along the line to Fraser, who looked behind as well. Marik saw torches clustered where they had ascended. Several torches spread out and began moving their way.
They found Bindrift’s group jogging north to their aid, somehow avoiding any other lookouts posted. The two units paused a moment while the sergeants decided their next action.
