Sons of Ymir

by Alaric Longward

  Most had not even noticed the enemy legions.

  Only the horn blown by the order of Quiss, recalling them to the militia, stopped the charge.

  Soon, they spotted why the recall had been given.

  And then, half of the men out in the field, found Roger calling for a shieldwall there and then, while was Hal retreating. Rogers men were pushing into each other, in utter confusion.

  The thousands of Hammer Legionnaires were just a hundred yards out. They were a silent wall of professional killers, stepping in tune to their brothers, their shields up, a wall of steely death. Their eyes spoke of something else.

  They finally, finally had their enemy where they had wanted it all this time. They would finally fight a battle on a level field, shield to shield, and they had much avenging to do.

  The chaos in our ranks was complete. The militia was spreading into two lines, but slowly and chaotically. The men-at-arms were rushing to the right wing, but hundreds and hundreds were trying to form the wall on the left, and what was born out of that was corpses.

  A milling mass noble cavalry was confused and not sure what they should be doing, so they were instead riding in all the directions

  Aten began shooting arrows. So did the legions. Six Spears had many, and a cloud of missiles tore through the morning sky. Men were falling from their saddles, horse were crashing down, and the troops that obeyed Roger were falling in tens and dozens, often unprotected by shields.

  Then the enemy shieldwall was blowing horns, the standards were dipping, and they rushed forward, their howls filling the valley.

  I flew as fast as I could, but I was far, weary, and hurt.

  Snow was flying as the enemy charged.

  They rolled right to the nobles and the men-at-arms commanded by Roger. It was Milas Illir and Ontar who struck the chaotic lines with shields, and Aten rushed to cut most of the fools off. Spears first, stabbing at backs, shields, and faces, pushing men over, shields working in unison, the legionnaires pushed into, and through, hundreds of men, leaving pockets stranded in a sea of the enemy. Our militia, Aten’s traitors, Hal’s nobles, and the hundreds who had obeyed the recall on the left were forming ranks, staring in stupefied horror at the butchery before them.

  One by one, standards high, shields pushing relentlessly, the enemy was victorious. Our men were butchered, and beaten to ground.

  It seemed to take no time at all.

  Roger led dozens of survivors to our shieldwall, while the enemy turned marched to join theirs.

  The loyal Aten fell in with the bloodied Milas Illir and Palan’s few Bull legionnaires, and when the killing was done, many heads were hoisted on spears, a field of thousand and more of our dead celebrated by the foe. The enemy stopped to dress ranks, to stand in attention, and to stare at our shieldwall with a promise of similar death clear in their sullen eyes. The silence—save for the screams of the wounded, many of whom were crawling away from the legionnaires—was chilling. Horses were running free, their riders slain.

  Roger was again active.

  He was howling orders, waving his sword amid the much reduced, thin left flank. It rippled and took steps back.

  Hal was on the right flank, but they moved nowhere.

  Cil and Quiss were sending riders to Roger.

  The enemy marched forward. They stormed over the dead and the dying, silencing last of the wounded. In three ranks, spears falling to place, it marched to within fifty feet of our army.

  The left flank retreated again, like a gate swinging open.

  The legions stopped, and I saw arms pumping along the lines. Horned helmeted men and women were howling orders under their banners, and javelins and arrows shot up and at our men, especially the militia, and the traitor Atenites.

  The missiles ripped through the ranks, which seemed to recoil, and then, people began dropping. Hundreds fell, then another hundred, and many others lost shields or took wounds. The line of Red Midgard looked like a wounded animal shuddering from pain.

  They replied in kind, especially those trained for it. The militia had very few missiles. Javelins, stones, and arrows tore haphazardly into the mass of the legion, dropping men all along the lines, but it was a paltry price they paid in comparison to what the enemy had done. The numbers were still fairly even, but the left flank was still in turmoil and chaos as Roger was howling orders, clearly shocked and terrified beyond recall.

  They stepped back again, and again.

  Horn blasted a note to the air. It was a fast, high one and ended quickly.

  The legions stepped forward together and then again forward, and then, they rushed forth, spears flashing, spears out.

  They bashed into our ranks. They fell back, and back, and many fell under the enemy.

  The spears stabbed over the first ranks and tore lives away, on both sides. The stabbing went on for a long moment, all along the shieldwalls, which were no longer straight, but looked like a snake slithering forward. It was a battle of attrition. The legionnaires had the skill, the routine, and the bravery, and so, while men fell on both sides, they killed two to everyone they lost.

  Our men tried. They fought as hard as they could.

  Hal’s ranks held. They took the brunt and settled into brutal exchange of lives with no visible gain.

  The center only held due to Aten and Cil’s men-at-arms, former of whom fought against their own countrymen, and Ontar and Palan. They held in the middle, but the militia, ill used to battle and never really having endured the shieldwall, fell like dogs. More and more of them were eaten by the terrible veterans, whose shields pushed, pushed, and tied down men, and pole ax, spear, and sword stabbed them down in dead ranks.

  The left, having moved back, had somewhat confused and delayed the enemy, but was now also fully engaged, and since they lacked so many men due to Roger’s mistake, it was just a matter of time it would be enveloped and shredded.

  There were no reserves.

  I struggled against the winds that had so favored me when I flew south. I beat my wings, cursed my luck, and saw, how in the militia ranks, sudden holes appeared. Bashing down militia and tearing through a company of Aten, Milas Illar’s men were abandoning the shieldwall to gain a breach, to hold it, to widen it. Enemy warriors were moved by keen captains from elsewhere in the ranks and moved behind such attempts in the hopes of gaining sudden, brutal breakthrough.

  I saw Quiss, on her horse, guarded by some dverger near the center, yelling orders, which nobody heeded, and she had no men to convey the orders either.

  A javelin went past her face. Another seemed to strike her, but she had apparently dodged it.

  The broiling pits, where the enemy were trying to break through, suddenly gained great success. Near the center and left, where Roger’s men suddenly retreated, an already desperate fight to plug a hole suddenly fell apart. The enemy butchered those who had tried to stop it and began stabbing men from the sides as hundreds poured in after.

  A single hero was pushing from the left, stabbing and hacking with a sword, and few men joined him. For a moment, they stood there, falling men, and then, like swimmers in a tide, they disappeared.

  Just to the right edge of the militia, a savage company of Six Spears Legion, led by near gigantic man with a hammer, smashed its way to a company of Dagnar and simply tore it to pieces. The man’s men spread around him, and Hal, leading cavalry from the right that had somewhat regrouped, led a savage attacked to stop them.

  Hal left his lance on the giant’s gut and dismounted to hold the fragile line, but many an enemy turned right and began pulling the militia and Aten’s men apart.

  The enemy pushed, they pushed again, pushing back the entire line. There were cheers as the enemy took the standard of Roger from a torn nobleman. They took it away, holding it aloft.

  They were all chanting now. It was a ferocious chant, a merciless one.

  “Death! Death!” they howled.

  They had won.

  Nothing more was needed. All they
had to do was to push and kill, push and kill, and our men would run and many killed.

  What came next broke the hearts and souls of Red Midgard for long years.

  Lisar’s cavalry appeared on our right flank. They came from the woods, and I cursed none had sent scouts to the flanks.

  Thousand men were thundering in a thick column of glittering lances for Hal’s men.

  Our cavalry, most still trying to pluck the hole, nonetheless turned to counter it. There were no more than two hundred. They rode at the enemy bravely, like immortals.

  A wall of fire burst from the ground under them. The spell’s power was terrifying, explosive, fierce. A hundred of our men were caught in the inferno of fire, the horses hurtling in burning pieces on the snow, the men burning around them.

  The spell died out, leaving just the smoldering corpses, and the noble cavalry that had not been caught in fire was milling in terrified chaos behind the corpses. Many had been thrown. All were stunned.

  The thousand men of Harrian rode over them. They stabbed at the horsemen, they sent our men to Hel, and the enemy crashed forward. Stomping over the dead and the frozen ground, Harrian and Vittar’s Lions rode behind the right flank, wheeled, and struck that flank from behind, the column spreading expertly into a line. The hundreds and hundreds of lances dipped and tore to the backs of the panicked men, pushing them into ruin, into the spears and swords of the legions, and simply tore our men to pieces. One standard after another fell. The enemy cavalry dropped the lances, pulled swords, and began riding freely at our fleeing, desperate men. They lost a dozen men to a small counterattack by some of our nobles who had been late to abandoned late the breach in the line, but quickly overwhelmed the men. Soon, the right flank was in shreds, and Lisar’s riders proceeded to ride for the center, and Quiss.

  All the army ran.

  They simply fell apart, no longer soldiers, and ran.

  Most went for Hillhold, like billowing clouds of sparrows, herded be enemy right, left and front. Roger, looking around in panic, was gathering men around him and rode to the northern woods, being pursued by the enemy.

  I saw Cil, holding the tide, and then, he was buried under shields, and spears.

  Not all got away.

  Many thousands were suddenly surrounded in the middle. There were perhaps four thousands of them. They were Aten’s men, they were mostly militia, and many nobles with their men-at-arms. Hal was there, as was Quiss, who was saved from twenty riders of Harrian by her dverger, who bought her time to push to the milling mass of her men, before dying under hooves.

  And it was then when I arrived.

  I hurtled from the sky, heard the enemy chanting as they chased our people all over the field, and most ferocious were the legionnaires, who had pushed to the cut off men and women of Aten and Red Midgard. I saw them stabbing, stabbing, and then, I spotted Lisar amongst many of her riders, looking triumphal and proud as she gazed at the chaos, and the impending victory. She stared over the shoulders of her legionnaires at the surrounded thousands and lifted her spear high.

  I shapeshifted as I came for them.

  I turned into a gigantic wolf, bounded from the bloody ground, and leaped for Lisar.

  She and I fell, my rear claws tearing chunks of flesh from her horse, and I buried her under me. My fangs ripped into her side. She placed her spear shaft into my mouth, and pushed me back. I tried to snap it in two.

  I failed.

  Men dismounted, swarmed me, and finally pulled me off, and I roared as I change into a twelve-foot jotun, straddling the falling men and Lisar. My sword cut the air and took down four men. I kicked aside few, stomped on a sergeant who rode at me with a lance, and looked for Lisar under me.

  She was gone.

  I roared and cursed. I heard her calling for her men, but I couldn’t see her. Instead, I rushed forward to the enemy mass ringing our people and braided together a spell.

  Icy blizzard grew around me, the braid wild, rushed, and powerful.

  I had no time to perfect it, or aim it. I had no easy way to control it. Instead, I let loose a whipping storm of ice and wind amid thick ranks of enemy.

  The spell tore flesh and bone from tens of the foe.

  It tore the life from many of our people.

  It moved along the line of both our men, and theirs, and ranks and ranks of men and women died, their flesh ripped, skin torn, eyes and mouths full with ice and snow. The Minotaur legion of Kellior Naur suffered worst, standard after standard disappearing into the blizzard, men falling and running away, two captains shredded and falling with their horses.

  I screamed at Quiss and pointed my sword to the woods. “Quiss! Get them out!”

  Her eyes enlarged as she saw me, her mouth moved in astonishment, and then in shame, and I had to call again.

  “Hal! Quiss! Get to the damned woods! We must get there! Don’t let them run!” I yelled, and cursed, as a spear entered my flesh in the calf.

  I whirled and struck the man down with my sword and then another, and suddenly faced a draugr king who had pulled his helmet off to see better.

  It had been a prince, judging by the young age.

  He had been barely a man when he had died and been raised. His draugr father had likely fallen in the battles, and he ruled his legion now.

  He had dropped his pretty face and looked white, skeletal, and his hair was hanging lank around his shoulders.

  He Kissed the Night and aimed his finger on the ground before me. I rolled away just as our men began pushing out of the shattered legionnaire ring, commanded by Hal.

  A large hand clawed its way out of the ground. Mud, snow, stone was mixed on it, and a face appeared next to it. I growled and stomped on the hand, hacking down on the head with my sword. The thing fell apart. The draugr cursed and braided another spell. Fire grew in the draugr’s hand, and he produced a flaming whip, and he jumped forward and struck down at me. I dodged, but the whip rattled against my armor, scorched it, and judging by the look in his dead eyes, both full of surprise, he had not thought my armor might be dverg-made, near magical. I spat and grasped the whip, my gauntlet ripping apart, and yanked him to me.

  I rammed my sword to his chest.

  I threw him down and hacked him in two. For good measure, I stomped on his face with my heel until he resembled a fallen cake. I whirled, looked at the mass of battling people rushing for the woods, saw Quiss, and Hal, leading men and women over a line of legionnaires, and then, they were pulling down Harrian’s horsemen, who had tried to cut them off.

  Legions were turning to attack them, rushing after.

  Harrian and Vittar’s Lions were galloping wildly, a long stream of trouble, to cut them off.

  I called for a spell again. I pulled at the great power of the ice, I twisted the coldest streams of icy water, the chilliest winds that blew across the nine rivers that tumbled into the Filling Void, and added more ice, in a braid I had only used a few times.

  I pulled in all the power I could. I made the braid strong, thick and, my head throbbing, I threw it at the cavalry.

  The spell struck the men. The horses tumbled down, thirty, forty, their legs kicking air. The men on them didn’t object. They couldn’t scream. Their mouths and noses were pushing out a stream of bloodied ice, as I had turned their blood into ice. The rest of the riders scattered, terrified. The spell had ripped out the heart of so many men, I could scarcely believe it. It was one of the most powerful spells I knew, and I couldn’t use it repeatedly, but it had never been that powerful. I wondered if the spirit of winter had a thing to do with it, but it didn’t. I was just growing in power, for it was winter, indeed.

  An arrow struck my head, but the point had been cut off, and spun off.

  I stumbled forward with a splitting headache.

  I distantly heard my name being called.

  I thought it was Quiss.

  Then, I felt a spell being braided together. I knew it had been Lisar who had called me, instead.

  I fell
on my face and roared, as a lightning bolt kissed the air and ground, as well as corpses next to me, before hitting me with its waning force. I flew around and landed ten feet away. A pauldron had been ripped off, leaving part of my chest, back, and the entire shoulder exposed, save for chain and leather. The riders of Harrian were heeding Lisar’s call and coming for me. I spat away the blood in my mouth, staggered up, and saw a horde of horses arriving, men leering down at me. One stabbed a lance at my back, other one at my leg, and one guided his mount before me and swung with a hammer, smashing it down for my head.

  I caught the hand just in time.

  Then, I saw Lisar looking at me ten feet away, standing on a corpse, her face twisted with unequaled rage.

  She began braiding together another spell. I tossed my captive head over heels at her, and she fell with it into bloody snow and mud.

  I raised my sword and rushed forward.

  A lance tore to my bared back, and I saw bright lights of pain. The man twisted the lance, and I twisted and hacked the man down, then another. Hundred enemy were milling around me, and many more were rushing for me, answering Lisar’s calls. Hundreds tried to stop a few thousand of ours from escaping, pulling down straggles, cutting tired groups from the main body, isolating the slowest and the bravest, but a mass of our people were nearly in the woods.

  I turned, sensing something behind me.

  Lisar was there and charging yet again with her riders, all White Lion, this time. She wore her horned helmet now, and men saw her and followed her willingly, ashamed to show fear while a One-Eyed Priest led them.

  I had a moment to prepare, and I lifted my sword high.

  Her spear, hooked and deadly, was coming for me, as were the many lances from her riders.

  I dodged left and right, and then hacked down. The sword whistled in the air and tore a horn off her helmet, killing a man next to her. I found her spear was tangled in my armor. Men rode to help her, all armed with hammers, and their mounts crashed into me. I fell on my knees, they pushed and pulled, and I fell on my back, struggling mightily. Lisar, holding on to her spear, jumped to my chest, her eyes burning with rage, and then, her foot on my face.