by Ahimsa Kerp
Petteri was picking something from his mace. Barlow moved closer, and saw it was grey, veined, and pulpy.
“Brains,” the big man told him without emotion. “Southerners don’t use them for much anyway.”
A shout down the field alerted him. Another group had broken through the lines and needed to be finished quickly. There were more this time; a hundred at least. They also wore Gaulang’s colors but looked more like peasants than actual warriors. Barlow lifted his mace high and charged at them. His men followed.
Dead bodies surrounded them. Barlow and maybe three-dozen Titans had been isolated, surrounded by waves of Southerners, and beaten into a bloody pulp. They’d survived, only to stem another tide, and another. The Southern Army had been breaking through in too many places at once and the fight for containment became a fight for survival, bereft of all strategy save that of staying alive.
And then the last of the Southerners fell away.
Barlow’s heart raced. His legs ached and feet were blistered and sore. His body was a mass of cuts and bruises. He’d never felt better in his life.
He wondered if that was normal. A touch of battle madness, perhaps. He wiped at the rain on his face and his hand dripped red. Was it his hand or his face that bled?
Lord North’s men had been pushed halfway up the hill. The left flank was now a shattered collection of disparate forces. But on the right, Ghazi and the Marchers had not seen so much as a stray arrow. The Southerners had avoided them entirely. There were rumors that many Southerners had deserted upon hearing of the Marcher presence. Many perhaps, but certainly not enough.
A wall of death had formed at the crest, with the bodies of both sides lying in piles. Barlow had never seen a battle like this. Down the hill milled more of their opponents, more than they had yet faced. Both sides had suffered heavy casualties, but the North could ill afford to trade lives, even of lowly pig-forners.
Barlow reunited with the remaining Titans. Most of Ambrose’s company was dead or missing, but over eighty Titans survived. They were all wounded and exhausted, but a quick check showed that none of the wounds was life threatening. Not yet anyway.
Shouts sounded from behind them, in a copse of trees farther to the far right of the battle. Barlow turned and instantly sickness filled up his stomach. Men on horses; lots of men on horses had flanked them. He could see from here they were the Gallopers: Galkmeer’s elite horse warriors. Within a few minutes, they would be entirely behind the army, and could ravage the supplies or hit from behind. The only thing saving the North was that the mud slowed the horses as much as it had the men.
There was only one course of action. Wordlessly, Barlow motioned his men forward. They jogged slowly back to their horses and mounted up. “You know what to do. On my word, and not before.”
Next to him, Maryk nodded tiredly. Slowly, not much faster than a walk, the Titans headed toward the Gallopers.
The Southern cavalry saw them coming. They pulled up on their horses and turned to face their opponents. The advance warriors were just coming from the trees and most of them remained under the cover of the forest. The numbers of each side were about equal but both the Titans and the Gallopers knew who had the advantage. The long spears of the Gallopers looked dull and deadly in the grey rain.
The Titans bore down on them. They were fifteen lengths away, then ten. Barlow could see the lead rider’s black eyes and the scruffy beard on his face. Not Galkmeer, obviously, but one of his young lieutenants. More Gallopers emerged from the forest. They were fresh and fierce; like the Titans, they were also armored in chainmail.
They were five lengths away. “Now!” Barlow shouted with as much volume as he ever had. He jerked the reigns of his horse as hard as he could and leaped over the horse’s head. It was a maneuver the Titan’s had practiced a hundred times in the last months, since the possibility that they would face the Southern cavalry. They’d practiced it in full armor and at full speed, but never while already tired and hurt in the muddy rain with real enemies trying to spear them.
Barlow landed on his feet but his momentum pushed him forward too fast and he pitched over. Wet mud filled his mouth and his eyes. He heard a horse jump over him and felt a blade re-bound from his back. This was bad. Barlow hoped at least some of his men had landed on their feet or they didn’t stand a chance.
The good news was the Gallopers were taken by surprise and rode past the sudden force of infantry in their midst. The Titans went to work. Petteri swung his great mace into a horse’s skull, smashing it open with a violent thud. Barlyk fought next to him, his great golden mane whipping nearly as fast as his mace. Maryk was confronted by three horsemen, but he moved his mace and buckler in a series of parries long enough for other Titans to rush to his aid. Trant’s mace had shattered and he picked up a fallen spear, heaving it into the back of a horse warrior who had skidded past him. Nekyl was jumping from his horse when a rider speared him, hard enough for the blade to penetrate the armor. His mouth opened in surprise and his body dropped to the ground. Houn led a wedge of men to Barlow, who had pulled himself from the mud.
Chaos reigned. Some of the Gallopers dismounted, but many of them were hammered before they could get off their mounts. This close, their long spears were useless. The Titans grouped into a wedge and marched through them. The Gallopers were strong warriors, but they could not close together and the Titans inexorably marched forward, weapons swinging. They were singing the death song of the North, and it chilled Barlow to his bones.
The battle ended and the slaughter began. Barlow swung his mace at whatever he could see—arms, faces, legs, or horses. Any man who dropped into the mud would be finished by the wave behind them. Houn was at the point of the wedge and Barlow had a hard time keeping up. His body ached like it never had and though he had wiped most of the mud from his eyes it remained difficult to see. The Gallopers were trapped in the mud—they could not flee and could not face the Titan wedge. They died in droves, though not without a fight. A few horsemen were able to wheel away and return back into the copse of trees. It was a small amount of men, and Barlow preferred that a few lived to tell of the valor of the Titans.
They had won again, but the cost grew higher. Almost thirty Titans perished in the bloody battle. Nekyl was dead, from the hands of his countrymen. They found Trant’s body, trampled in the mud. He’d died without a weapon in his hand. Barlow was prepared to restrain Maryk but the youth simply nodded; too tired or in shock for it register. It would hit him later, if he was still alive. The Titans were covered in sweat and guts, mud, and blood.
Battle be damned, Barlow thought. We need a rest. It was then that the messenger found them. Barlow knew the man; he was a crony of Hroald Ernmund, Lord North’s brother. He was dressed well and his clothes were still clean. His horse neighed as the man pulled sharply on the reins.
“You look awful,” the man said, looking down at them from the horse. “I don’t think this is going to work.”
“Don’t think what is going to work?”
“Lord North wants you to meet up with the Marchers when they attack. He didn’t know that you had been…over enthusiastic already.” He sneered.
“I’ve kept the South army from breaking through more times than I can count. Just now, we repelled Sturm’s Gallopers. You on the other hand have not even drawn your blade.” Barlow knew he was wasting his breath. The man was not interested in the truth.
“And you have Galkmeer and Kiln’s head on a plate, I’m sure. You can’t even listen to orders; you’re too bloodthirsty to trust.”
Barlow did not recall drawing the knife. His brain belatedly realized it was in the air just about the moment it sunk into the courier’s throat. He really had to stop this murdering business.
He turned to his men. “I was a little out of line. But the Titans deserve more respect than that chicken-forner showed us.”
“I would have done the same thing, Captain,” Houn said.
The men cheered raggedly. They ha
d been equally offended by the man, it seemed. Good.
“Well,” Barlow said wearily, “Let’s go meet the Marchers. We didn’t invite them to our party for nothing.”
“You don’t have to come with us,” Tomas told him. He was concerned that the Titans would not survive the next round of fighting. Barlow and his men had arrived already half-dead, minutes ahead of the largest southern attack yet. The enemy still had not assaulted the Marchers, however, as if by ignoring them they could make them not be there.
“Yes, we do. It’s why we’re here.” Barlow was concerned that if he stopped moving he might not ever start again. “Are you afraid we will kill everyone before you get a chance?” He stood between Tomas and Ghazi.
Tomas started to reply, then shook his head and chuckled. “No, I’m not too afraid of that happening. But we welcome the competition.”
The Southern forces in some areas had literally had to scale the piles of dead, soggy bodies to get over the hill. More and more of them came, men from Fairnlin, men from Kiln, men from Gaulang, and places even farther south. Lord North’s forces sagged, unable to withstand the brute force of the southern assault.
“You men of Hairng, Captain Barlow,” Ghazi said. “You are all going to die.”
Barlow could not truly dispute his claim. Their shield wall had been overwhelmed and broken into several smaller shield islands. But he’d be damned if he let Ghazi know he agreed with him. “We still have a chance,” Barlow said. “Once Lord North sends the command for the Marchers to charge, we’ll have their flank.”
“Your arrival here signified that order,” Ghazi said.
Barlow stared at him. He’d been here at least half an hour. Betrayal. He reached for his knife.
“Peace, Barlow,” Tomas said, his arm reaching to restrain Barlow. “We will attack, but we want more favorable terms.”
“More favorable? You get Baardol!”
“We want more,” Ghazi said. “Not much more, but more.”
He told Barlow what they required.
Barlow agreed. He had no choice but to agree. That was not bad at all. I won’t be the most popular man around, but he didn’t ask for too much. And I can’t say I don’t want to.
The afternoon sun was lowering in the sky when they attacked. The Titans were at their brutal efficient best. The Marchers were ferocious and savage. And the Ashmen were a portrait of killing, a symphony of death. It was beautiful, watching them gracefully wield their long dirks and longer spears.
The Marchers’ charge into the battle had started the Southern route. Many had dropped their weapons and fled at the very sight of the barbaric northerners. Barlow knew the legends of Marcher valor, but this extreme of a reaction surprised him. The Southerners had not grown up fighting them, and to them the Marchers were bogeymen rather than flesh-and-blood opponents. The peasants and spearmen that didn’t flee were cut up by the Marchers, Ashmen, or Titans. Ghazi led the bulk of the Marchers deep into the orchards to continue the route of the southerners, and the Ashmen had charged up to relieve Lord North’s forces on the hill.
Barlow and his men found themselves on a vast field of death, halfway between the top of the hill and the orchards beneath. Bodies of the dead and wounded stretched farther than the eye could see or the mind could accept. This was carnage on a scale unknown since the time of King Arman some three hundred years before.
A pocket of Southern warriors had banded together and were retreating away from the Ashmen, down the hill. They were Gaulang’s men; they still looked relatively fresh and marched with precision. They were perhaps forty lengths away.
Barlow lifted his hand high in the air. For the first time since he’d joined the Titans, the men did not immediately charge forward. “Come on, Captain. There’s got to be a hundred men over there,” Houn said. Their own numbers were less than thirty. Houn was bloody, barely standing up, and one of his ears was missing.
“I make it over two hundred,” Judec added. “They’ll head right into the Marchers—let them take care of them.”
“Is that what we’ll do now?” Barlow snapped. “Just let the Marchers fix all our problems?” The tiny part of his brain still capable of being rational told him he was being unfair, but exhaustion and pain quickly shut it up. “Are you afraid?”
“I’m not afraid,” Judec said grimly, adjusting his mail. It was slippery with blood and rain. “I just don’t want to die.”
Barlow looked at the rest of the men. “Any of you who are still men, come with me.” He turned and ran toward the retreating Southerners himself. Maryk, Petteri and Barlyk were with him almost instantly. The rest quickly caught up, including, Barlow saw with a backward glance, Judec and Houn. A gruesome bridge of bodies covered most of the mud. Barlow leapt from back to back of the dead men beneath him.
Like their namesake weapons, the Titans hit their opponents with brute, bludgeoning force. The Earl’s men outnumbered them and were fresher, however, and they hit back. Men on both sides fell, screaming. Whipping his mace with a shrill shriek, Barlow crushed the face of one of the men in front of him. An axe came at him and he blocked it, but then more blades came at him, more than he could parry. One hit his side and punctured his armor. It cut into his much-abused ribs. He leapt back, screaming in pain.
Titans were dying everywhere. Petteri fell to the ground in front of him, his head nearly cleaved in two. With a roar, Barlyk leaped beside him, only to fall beneath another onslaught of blades. His great mace slipped from his fingers and splashed into the mud.
Barlow turned to Houn to find the man had an arrow in his chest. His mouth worked soundlessly. “I’m…sorry,” he whispered, before falling backward into the earth.
A southerner with a captured Titan mace caught Barlow in the knee with a jarring explosion. Barlow fell screaming to the earth, his kneecap broken into a hundred pieces.
The man with the mace stood above him for a moment, and then he himself collapsed dead. Maryk stood behind him. The newest Titan had a dagger in each hand, and moved in a blur to both deflect blades and launch attacks. Maryk was one of four Titans still on his feet. At the edge of the skirmish, Judec was retreating step by contested step. His buckler was feathered by two arrows and his mace notched from the repeated blows, but there were no soldiers behind him and it looked as if he might escape. Two other Titans fought back to back, until they were overwhelmed and dragged to the ground and their throats cut. The remaining southerners turned to Maryk and Barlow.
A roar from the south alerted all of them. The Marchers were streaming from the orchards. Lord Ghazi was the forefront, in one hand a long blade and the other held…something horrible. A severed head. From where Barlow sat, the features were not identifiable but judging from the white hair in Ghazi’s grasp he had a good guess. Gaulang. It had to be Gaulang.
The old Earl hadn’t deserved a death like that, but then neither had most of the dead men lying on the bloody plain and in the bloody forests. Looking at the Earl’s severed head, Barlow thought of his most recent promise to Ghazi. He must have a head fetish. Barlow hoped he would live to get him his request.
Gaulang’s men, only minutes before at two hundred, now numbered less than forty. As the Marchers neared, they lay down their arms. It did not save them, and the Marchers cut them to pieces where they stood.
Maryk, panting with exhaustion, collapsed in the filthy bloody earth next to Barlow.
“I never thought it would be like this, Captain. Never.”
Barlow said nothing. He felt the mud coating his skin, his shattered kneecap, the broken ribs that the battle-axe had cut into his ribs and then he felt no more.
Dusk deepened as if the sun itself wished to escape seeing this terrible carnage. The horrendous fighting of the day was, at last, over. The southern army had gone from retreat to route; they were fleeing as fast as their legs or mounts could carry them. Surviving Northerners were dragged from the field and into piles where the leeches would begin to heal them. Most of the wounded Southerne
rs had their throats slit. The dusk deepened into night and still men continued to die.
The wan sunlight indicated it was early in the morning. Barlow had been half buried beneath the corpses of Gaulang’s men, and he briefly wondered if it had been deliberate. Though if Ghazi wanted him dead, he could have simply slit his throat. It didn’t matter anyway. He was alive, albeit only in the loosest sense of the term. His head hammered, his body ached, and he could not stand. He leaned over and spat the drying glob of blood from his mouth.
Barlow crawled from the battlefield, pushing his body through blood, guts, organs, piss, and shit. Some part of his brain told him he should be bothered by this but he found he wasn’t troubled by it. Every push that propelled him forward shot daggers of pain through his shattered kneecap but this didn’t concern him either. He desperately wanted water and the lack of it did concern him. He crawled up the hill, hoping the Northern army was still camped just on the other side of it.
Many of the dead men he crawled through had no wounds. They’d been so closely packed in that they’d suffocated without even being able to fight. A terrible fate, though perhaps more merciful than the brutal deaths others had suffered.
Barlow heard men behind him, and rolled onto his back to see who it was. He narrowed his eyes. Southerners. His hands hunted for a blade but there were none within reach. Then he recognized the man in front and sighed in relief.
Salmund Palne, Lord of Kiln, stood in front of him, accompanied by half a dozen of his men. One had a piece of dirty white cloth tied to the end of a spear shaft. They brought a prisoner, gagged and in chains. Despite being covered in filth and mud, the prisoner was very recognizable. Ghazi’s words ran through his head. “We want more,” he had said. “Not much more, but more.”
Barlow would have to plan this carefully. He hailed the oncoming men.
Palne stopped his men, staring at the wounded wreck of the man before them. “Captain Barlow? You live? They said you were dead.”