by Dan Abnett
He also saw Fithvael, sat amongst a group of diligently working farmers and crossed to him. The elf was showing them how to fashion arrows, and some were so advanced in this work they were binding the heads with pitch-wetted rags.
‘Fithvael,’ he greeted his oldest friend.
His companion looked up. He smiled broadly. In truth, he doubted he had ever seen Gilead so happy and carefree.
‘The work abounds,’ Fithvael said by way of greeting. ‘Harg has got a team out in the wood felling timber to shore up the outer dyke. That Kislevite woman is raising a new army of archers.’
‘I saw her.’
‘Vintze and Caerdrath have ridden out to spy for a sign of our enemies.’
‘I had better find myself some gainful work as well, it seems,’ Gilead said, and walked on towards the outer ditch.
Nithrom and Cloden, rags tied around their faces, were watching the fire in the ditch pit. Mule-teams guided by similarly masked villagers were dragging the last of the Tilean carcasses, horses and men, to the ditch. The pyre of the enemies they had slain the night before belched black, fatty smoke. A pair of scrawny buzzards circled high overhead.
Nithrom saw Gilead approaching. He left Cloden in charge of the work with a brief word, and jumped down from the ditch head, pulling off his rag-mask.
‘What can I do?’ Gilead asked him.
Nithrom shrugged. ‘Can you cut timber?’
Gilead shrugged back. ‘If I have to.’
‘Well, you can sharpen blades, at least. From the way your own sword cuts, I can tell you know how a whetstone works.’
‘Bring me the blades. I will sharpen with pleasure. I feel almost useless amid all this toiling.’
‘Ah, they’ve done well since dawn,’ Nithrom commented, glancing around. ‘We’ve strengthened the inner ditch and raised more obstacles that cavalry won’t like. A few other tricks besides. When Harg comes back with the timber, we’ll raise a solid bulwark inside the dyke.’
Gilead pointed up along the main avenue that led to the public yard and the mound. ‘We should get some barrels or stable planks, and make a few points of cover along there, to the left, you see? The bulwark may slow their horsemen, but a few good nests for bowmen would break the line of the street and stop their vanguard getting up any speed if they make it in.’
Nithrom shrugged and nodded. ‘Well said. I will get the elder, Swale, on it. He’s a devil with the strength of a giant. Maybe you can show him what you mean.’
‘Of course.’
‘And I did as you suggested… the water jars in the scarcement of the hall are refreshed and full again.’
‘You would have thought of that without my help.’
Nithrom grinned. He took Gilead’s hands in a tight clasp. ‘By the old gods, it’s good to have you here, Gilead te tuin! The spirit of Tor Anrok will keep this place safe!’
Mule-pulled carts laden with freshly cut timber were approaching from the woods. Astride the first, bare-chested, Harg waved his great axe to salute the town.
AN HOUR PASSED in helping to unload Harg’s expertly felled timbers and lift them into place, then another teaching old Swale and four of his grandsons to build angled cover in the main street. Passing by, Dolph noticed the defences and nodded in admiration.
Then midday came, and found Gilead up in the cool shadows of the inner mound fence again, sharpening blades. He had acquired a block of spruce as a rest, and a crowd of children as an audience. They oohed and aahed as he unwrapped his whetstones from their oilcloth bag.
The weapons had been brought to him: Fithvael’s sword, Nithrom’s long blade, Harg’s battered axe, Bruda’s sabre, Le Claux’s broadsword; all of them, and the spare weapons besides.
He set to work, wearing out nicks and gouges, finishing edges, testing sharpness with a few strands of his own long hair, and explaining each piece of work and weapon to his retinue.
‘This is a longsword, from an elven smithy. It belongs to Nithrom, the tall elf warrior in the dark green armour.’
‘With the kindly face?’
‘Him indeed.’
‘He’s your master.’
‘He is my friend.’
‘What’s an elf?’
‘You are looking at one.’
Laughter. Some whispers.
‘No, we do not steal away newborns in the dead of night. You humans have so many wrong ideas about my kind.’
‘What’s a human?’
Laughter, some playful punching.
‘See here, how I make the stone strokes long and unbroken. A little oil… and now the edge comes sharp. See?’
‘I could do that!’ this from a tall lad at the front.
‘Then you may come here and do it. No, let it slope against your leg. That’s it. Again, no… against the way of the metal. Like this.’
‘Am I doing it?’
‘Yes you are. Well done. Now both sides, mark, and both edges of both sides. That is good.’
‘It looks easy!’ A girl at his shoulder.
‘Come around here and try it. Now this is the scimitar of the red-haired Kislev woman.’
‘She’s beautiful,’ said the older boy already at work. More laughter and some jibes.
‘She is, and so is her sword.’ To the girl now, her hands trembling with the whetstone. ‘Long clean strokes now. Careful, do not cut yourself on the edge. And there’s only one edge to this blade, so you’ll be done in half the time.’
‘Why’s there only one edge?’ piped a small boy in the huddle.
‘It’s a weapon design for slashing, rather than stabbing or slicing. You work it so!’
Some gasps, some backing off.
‘It is very different from this blade. This is my sword. My brother’s, in fact. He gave it to me. Taller than you, eh? This is meant both for slashing and thrusting. Ha! And ha!’
More excited yelps.
‘Come on now, take a stone in your hand and come here… that’s right, some oil… no, not too much… now, along the blade to the tip. Good.’
A little industry around him, small faces concentrating and determined. Gilead smiled.
‘Now, the Norseman’s great axe! Who’s brave enough to whet that?’
A forest of grubby hands.
‘You… come on. Here’s the trick, rub the stone both ways. Keep the haft wedged against the ground. Yes, good. Back and forth.’
‘And now, this is a greatsword, forged in Carroburg! Have you ever seen a sword so big? It’ll take two of you at least. You… and you, lad, with the freckles. In you come…’
THE AFTERNOON WAS waning, and all the blades were polished sharp. Gilead was at work on the last - Le Claux’s trusty broadsword - with the last of the children grouped around him. Most had wandered away at intervals as more interesting things happened in the town below. A woman had brought him a plate of stew and some ale, but it sat untouched and the food had gone cold.
Thunder rumbled in the cold, windy distance. The summer storm that had been threatening all day was about to break. A first few spots of rain pattered down.
Gilead felt… something. He rose, Le Claux’s ornate sword ready before him.
He went to the gate, some of the children scampering after him.
Below, away on the flank of the northern hills, were the shapes of two riders, galloping down to Maltane as fast as they could, kicking dust: Vintze and Caerdrath.
‘Get inside. Hurry,’ Gilead instructed the children.
Maura was coming.
RAIN WAS HAMMERING down by the time the Murderers appeared in full force. They lined the top of the northern scarp, blue and white banners flopping in the downpour. From his position on a flat roof in the lower town, Fithvael sighed. Nithrom had estimated two hundred, and the night before they had sent forty to their doom. But there was no mistaking the size of the force ranged up there: three hundred, at the very least.
The batter of drums rolled down the valley slope into Maltane, blurred by the rain. The Til
ean infantry were beating the march. As Fithvael watched, more drew into view: horse teams, further squadrons of infantry, six-horse limbers that dragged great cannon.
Fithvael looked away, across the rise of rooftops, and saw Nithrom already mounted upon his steed, waiting in the public yard. Le Claux and Caerdrath were with him. Nithrom saw the veteran elf’s glance and signed for patience.
Yes, I shall wait, Fithvael thought, though doom itself comes to overlap me.
There was no parley this time. Fuentes had taken word back to his chieftain, and so sealed Maltane’s destruction. Fithvael, craning his eyes against the rain and the dying light, could see a brute of a man on a great horse, trotting the length of the escarpment, looking down and issuing orders to the rows of cavalry and foot soldiers that stood around him. The man’s silver helmet was plumed with blue and white feathers. That had to be Maura himself.
Fithvael gauged distance and crosswind and knew he had no chance of hitting the Tilean leader, even with his best bowshot. On a roof across the street, he saw Bruda doing much the same. They caught sight of each other and both shook their heads.
What will he do, this Maura? wondered Fithvael. Lay us to siege? Pound us with cannon? Assault all out with foot and horse?
Personally, he prayed it would be the latter. He hoped this Tilean dog-lord would be characteristic of his kind, keen for a swift and arrogantly crushing defeat achieved by force of manpower. That they would greet. But a siege? Such a tactic would kill them, and an artillery barrage would flatten Maltane and leave nothing left standing to be looted.
Though from what he’d heard of Maura, such a punishment would be signature. Fithvael was sure, after the defeat and humiliation of his advance guard, that Maura wanted nothing from Maltane except its death rattle.
A horn sounded. The clear note rang around the bowl of the valley.
Fithvael picked up the human-made composite bow next to him. It had been a while since he’d wielded one of these, and it was crudely constructed compared to what he was used to, but his trusty crossbow’s rate of fire was too slow for what was coming.
A wave of Tilean cavalry broke down the funnel of the hill towards them, fifty abreast. Their thunder was louder than the storm rumbling across the sky.
MALTANE HAD NO cavalry force to meet a tide that great, and so, under Nithrom’s terse instructions, it did not begin to try. Instead the defenders waited, tensed, as the horse army charged down on them - crossing the low scrub, crossing the slake of marshes that skirted the town, charging up the low rise towards the outer ditch and the bridge.
Which only seemed to still be there…
The weight of the first eight outriders on the ditch bridge brought it down in a tumult. Harg’s expertise with a wood axe had severed the beams just to the point of cracking. The bridge falling out from under them, horses and riders, moving at full pelt, cartwheeled and tumbled into the ditch. Those immediately behind were slammed into the gulch by the weight of the charge.
The cavalry broke, moving aside in both directions. But behind them, down the slope, came the infantry, a pouring horde.
Some horsemen tried to jump the ditch, but it was deeper than Fuentes had known it, and the bulwark on the far side was piled up and lined with out-facing stakes. More horsemen foundered in the ditch, some leaping up and calling for the footmen to help them pull their struggling horses free. Others tried the leap and were disembowelled on the timber points.
The first of the infantry were now at the ditch, many clambering over and up the other side. Now Fithvael, Bruda and Erill, along with the half-dozen Maltane folk who had shown any bowmanship, began their work, picking off as many of the troops who crawled over the bulwark as they could.
Fithvael cursed as he saw infantry teams on the far side of the ditch dragging timber boards with them and heaving them out across the mire. They were just out of his bowshot.
A few infantry climbed over the bulwark. Fithvael and Erill picked them off with clean shots. The lad was good with a bow, Fithvael noticed. That plate armour and elderly sword was all for show.
Now the first straggles of infantry were over the ditch, more than the archers could manage. Further bowmen, under Cloden’s direction, villagers all, began firing down the main street into the press.
The Tileans had managed to get three boards across the ditch, and that was enough for the milling cavalry. They romped over the vibrating boards, kicking infantry aside as they spilled up into the town, lances and swords glittering.
The first dozen fell on the lethal tripwires that Vintze had fixed across the street. Charging steed limbs snapped as they tripped and went over. Others leapt on, the wires now broken, dodging the sprawling bodies of their comrades and their horses, galloping up the streets.
Now more wires, pulled suddenly taut at head-height by waiting villagers, snapped into place. Tileans cracked back out of their saddles, several virtually decapitated. The horses ran on.
Others assayed the main street towards the public yard, peppered by arrows. Several fell. A quartet of riders made it as far as the town pump, where gunpowder charges buried under a dusting of soil by Dolph and Brom erupted and killed them.
The heat was out of the cavalry now. They fell back, many not even daring to cross the ditch. In their stead, the mass of infantry rolled in, clawing over the bulwarks and the makeshift bridge faster than Fithvael and the bow teams could match.
The infantry seethed up the main street.
Fithvael saw Nithrom’s signal but he already knew what to do. He lit a pitch arrow and shot it into a tarred straw bundle on the edge of the street. Bruda and the other archers did the same. In a few moments, the main street was a fire-lined inferno that gave the Tilean soldiers little room to move. Gunshots rolled down the street as Dolph and Brom began firing.
But there would still come a point, Fithvael knew in his heart, when all their tricks and skills would be overwhelmed by sheer numbers.
Then Fithvael saw Nithrom, Le Claux and Caerdrath charge into the head of the infantry spread from the main yard, cutting them back. On their heels, on foot, Dolph and Brom, maces swinging.
Cloden, Gilead, Harg and Vintze sprang, also on foot, out of houses further down the street to meet the influx side-on and press them against the horsemen. They had taken the battle to close quarters.
Fithvael realised he had no arrows left. Raising his sword in one hand and his wound crossbow in the other, he leapt down off the roof and charged into the melee.
THE ELF VETERAN emptied his crossbow into the belly of the first Tilean he met, then laid about himself with his sword. It was thick and close in the muddy, wood-walled street, lit by the burning tar-bundles. He glimpsed Bruda nearby, slashing with her scimitar and baying like a she-wolf.
He saw Erill. The youth had come down from the roofs too, his sword in hand, and almost at once had become surrounded. He had killed one Tilean with a lucky thrust, but others were stabbing at him. The lad fell.
Fithvael blundered that way through the press, hacking left and right. Erill was down, blood leaking from a shoulder wound, his aged armour broken and pitted.
Fithvael cut right, removing a head, and then left to open a belly. In the space that he had made, he scooped Erill up and tossed him his short sword.
The lad managed to catch it. It was a pearl-inlaid blade, two feet in length, made by the master craftsmen of Tor Anrok. He stared at it for a heartbeat, flexing it in his hand.
‘Don’t admire it! Use it!’ Fithvael shouted.
Erill swung left, wondering at the lightness of the elven blade, and severed the weapon arm of a Tilean almost on him. The youth laughed with sudden glee, and set into the mob.
Fithvael struggled to join him and set his back to the youth. Murderers, in great numbers, massed around them. They fought like devils, man-boy and elf-sire thrown together by the gods of war.
A figure erupted in through the press around them, swinging his sword and destroying the foe.
T
he newcomer said nothing, because he could not. It was Madoc. His trusty warhammer lost in the flood of the stream when he fell, he had resorted to the unfamiliar weight of a broadsword, which now he spun and chopped almost as deftly as a great hammer of Ulric.
Side by side, though the hot blood of their enemies covered them, Fithvael, Erill and Madoc held the street.
GORE DROOLED OFF Gilead’s longsword. He had lost sight of Vintze and Cloden, but that hacking and splintering nearby could only be the work of Harg and his axe. The elf cut into the press once more, blue-steel spinning, and slit through wrists and windpipes. There was a pack ahead, Tileans mobbing over a victim in the firelight. He sliced them down.
The white warsteed was dead, its eyes staring. Le Claux was trampled in the dust nearby, his armour torn and shattered, two lance heads and a sword thrust through his torso. The knight looked up at Gilead with misty eyes.
‘Have we won?’ he asked.
Gilead paused. ‘Of course, warrior. Thanks to you.’
‘I thought as much,’ Le Claux mumbled, blood gurgling in his throat. ‘I’m thirsty. Have you a drink at all?’
Gilead swung aside and cut down a Tilean who loomed out of the fire-dark.
Then he knelt by Le Claux’s side and pulled out the last of the flasks of elven wine that he had taken from Tor Anrok and carried with him ever since. It was almost empty. The Bretonnian finished the remains.
‘Ah…’ smiled Le Claux. ‘Quite the best I-‘
The Bretonnian continued to smile up at him, but Gilead knew Le Claux was dead.
He turned, severing a marauding Tilean from armpit to armpit with his voracious sword before the mercenary could strike him down as the man had intended, and leapt back into the battle.
BLOOD, MEAT, SINEW, flesh, steel, bronze, iron, fire. The currencies of war were played out and exchanged until dawn.
As the sun rose, the Tileans fell back to the north scarp. They left seventy cavalry and a hundred and twenty infantry on the plains before and the streets inside Maltane.