A Warrior's Redemption

by Guy S. Stanton III

  *****

  One Month and three days later

  It was raining softly. The pitter-patter of the rain drops splintering off the armor of the men standing silently in rank behind and around me made its own pleasant music as we waited. Then, like the obtrusive sound of a crow shattering the melody of a songbird in full trill, came the sounds of heavy drums from further down the pass.

  The drums announced the menacing presence of the enemy close at hand. The drums grew louder and louder until they reached a fever pitch of intensity. It was a performance of sound meant to instill fear in the hearts of my warriors. I saw the enemy for the first time as they rounded a bend further down the pass.

  Their column was as wide as the pass and it bristled with the shiny teeth of war, even as the dull finishes of their shields and armor seemed to drag down what little light there was on this overcast day. I could see that they were surprised to find soldiers in massed file waiting for them before the massive ancestral wall of this land they were set to invade.

  I stood at the head of five thousand handpicked warriors. The wall’s central fortifications lay behind us. We were flanked on either side by separate contingents of fifteen thousand warriors each. They too were handpicked for this battle before the great wall of Kingdom Pass.

  The enemy columns spilled into the wide expanse of ground before the great wall. I could see hurried consultations occurring among their field commanders, which showed their evident surprise at our unlikely and unexpected appearance before our great wall. Their drums had fallen silent in the sudden confusion that our presence outside of the wall had elicited within their chain of command.

  I didn’t let them discuss it any further, but instead I lifted my shield high. Within seconds, countless trumpets blew as one in a direct hard challenge that buried whatever perceived threat the sound of the enemy's drums had tried to instill within our hearts. As one we started to move forward, stamping our feet heavier than necessary to create the sound of a moving army committed to the action before them, even arrogantly so. Both flanking columns of fifteen thousand warriors each followed our central group of five thousand, only they stayed close to the sides of the pass and kept slightly behind in pace from our central column of warriors.

  The blaring of the horns ceased and all that pervaded the stillness of the peace that followed was the sound of our marching. My group of warriors slowly mounted a slight promontory rise in the relatively flat terrain, which had been created by sediment buildup from the two great rivers that used to flow through the pass. We stopped as one, in complete unison, across all three companies of warriors. In unison, shields were slammed into the ground, even as spears were poked out through narrow gaps in the shields in the direction of the enemy. As one, we roared out a military grunt of aggression as old to mankind and the history of fighting as two buck deer slamming their heads together in provoked aggression.

  Silence followed our shout and the enemy continued to swell into the wider expanse of the pass as they formed a hasty and somewhat disorganized battle line. Behind us the walls bristled with the poised arrows of thousands of archers, many of which were women.

  Suddenly a woman’s voice broke out from the ranks of the other archers gathered there. She was singing. The words of the song she sang echoed clearly into the crispness of the morning air and every warrior’s heart gathered before the wall.

  Her song was older than the wall she stood on and was quickly picked up by both men and women up and down the wall, who repeated the chorus to her lead.

  Across the waters so far have we come,

  In search of a land of milk and honey,

  At last we have found our home,

  Where we will grow strong,

  We will grow strong,

  Loss of our homes we have known,

  But in our valley rest is to be found,

  Come and see our valley so fair,

  Mountains so high they reach the sky,

  No better a home could one ask,

  We have found our rest,

  Our rest we have found at last,

  Proclaim to one and all this our journey’s end,

  Move on as strangers no more shall we,

  We will fight for our home,

  May it forever be.

  Throughout the song the enemy soldiers rushed to form a battle line that they had expected to have had hours to accomplish in an orderly fashion, but instead were down to only minutes. The song ended and so did the enemy’s rush to reach formation.

  The enemy formation abruptly opened up across the battle line to form gaps, which mounted cavalry poured through in endless streams. They were lancers just like the ones who had killed my family. They fanned out the width of the pass over ten rows in depth as they surged heedlessly forward toward us, intent on breaking us with the power of their charge. Ground soldiers rushed to keep up with them in order to support them if need be.

  “Get ready men! For our families and our country! Hold the line!” I yelled out, my words similarly repeated by other warrior commanders around me.

  The horses of the unbroken line of cavalry were completely stretched out in a full gallop, when suddenly it appeared as if the ground opened up and swallowed them. They were but forty feet in front of us when it happened. As the first row of lancers pitched unexpectedly into the camouflaged chasm before them, they were closely followed by the next several rows that had been pressed close behind the front line of cavalry. As both horses and riders somersaulted into the ditch from the force of their momentum alone, they were impaled on the sharpened stakes which lined the steep sides of the deep trough into which they had careened.

  The remaining cavalry floundered to avoid a similar fate and streamed through the narrow gaps between our three companies, where there were no spike laden ditches. We had broken the force of their charge, but they had regrouped behind us and were preparing to charge from the rear, when a literal shower of arrows reigned down unexpectedly upon them from those gathered along the great wall behind them. Within moments, the once proud lancer cavalry brigade was reduced to but a few scattered survivors, who either faked death on the battlefield or were trapped underneath the heavy bulk of their dead mounts.

  The onrushing soldiers, following close behind the ill fated cavalry charge, attempted to climb across the ditches, trampling on the fallen and wounded bodies of their own fellow soldiers and their mounts. It was a grisly scene of hell reserved for only the bloodiest of battles.

  The ditches filled full with the bodies of the fallen. As they met our tight line they were thrust through by our spears, as we stood tightly packed together in our wall of shields. They parted around the strength of our shield wall, as the cavalry had, in search of a weak spot in our shield line and because they were being pushed on by the onrushing mass of soldiers behind them, still eager to claim their part of the victory over us.

  The strength of our shield wall and the deadly thrust of our spears helped send them sheeting through the gaps between our three columns in search of an easier target than the one we presented. As they poured out and around our company’s rear, they too became victims of the same scathing rainstorm of iron tipped death shafts as their cavalry had been before them.

  We held our shields tight against the desperate jerks that came from the enemy in their vane efforts to break our shield wall. The ditch before us was now full with the bodies of the slain and the dying. It was time to move on.

  “Lift shields and circle turn!” I bellowed out, trying to be heard over the loud din of the battle all around us.

  Those nearest me echoed my words and soon all were in awareness of the command. The center column, of five thousand warriors, split seamlessly into ten circular shield formations of roughly five hundred each, which moved independently of each other and began to march in spiraling trajectories, pressing deeper into the enemy line.

  Each of the ten formations lengthened the distance between them and the other
groups. Some moving slower, while others moved faster, in beat with a choreographed plan they had been practicing for weeks. The enemy ranks gladly parted allowing the circularly spinning and tightly pressed formations to go deeper and become more isolated, away from the two larger warrior groups that still remained pressed against the steep sides of the pass in an elongated formation.

  Warriors fell to the ground within the hot press of the formation, either the victims of blind sword thrusts through the shield wall or because they had been brutally hauled out into the encircling mob and hacked to pieces. Gaps in the shield wall were filled as quickly as possible, but it was hard to keep up with the rapidly appearing vacancies in the outer rim of the formation.

  I narrowly side stepped a sudden sword swipe at my ankles from beneath my shield even as the warrior beside me was pulled out into the mob. We wouldn’t hold up to much more of this kind of pressure. I had no idea if the other formations had even reached position yet, but I hoped they had because I had caught a glimpse of the white paint on the ground just up ahead of us.

  The command to fire would be given when our formation reached its target goal, regardless of whether or not the other groups had reached theirs yet.

  “Twenty more feet men! Twenty more feet and we have it!” I screamed out in encouragement as I struggled to hold onto my shield and maintain a forward circular motion.

  There was the huff of renewed struggle as warriors all around me also saw the white arcing lines of paint on the bloodstained ground. It seemed like an hour went by, instead of probably just the few minutes it took us to center overtop the scuffed white paint circle on the ground. We slammed our shields down and stopped even as warriors behind the outer rim raised shields overhead to form a canopy of dented steel over top of us.

  Other warriors moved within the canopied formation to brace and hold on to those of us on the outer rim, who were struggling to keep from being ripped from the safety of our huddle of shields into the certain death of the enemy’s voracious hacking blades.

  It felt like we were inside a bell that was ringing loudly, as the enemy beat on our shields unmercifully. I barely heard the sound of our horns on the ramparts sound out again. There was a questioning breakup of the intensity of the assault upon us as the enemy soldiers also heard the sound of the horns.

  Panicked shouts rang out, but it was too late, as a massive, perfectly timed barrage of stone rained down upon the enemy ranks in a perfectly calibrated pattern of crushing force. Stones pelted down all around us, with one stray stone taking out several of our number, but that was the extent of our losses to the barrage. We waited, our breathing tight within our chests, as within minutes of the first barrage another came as coordinated as the first, only this time it wasn’t stone but fire that fell instead.

  The fiery bombs hit the ground and exploded into engulfing walls of explosive flame that spread out along the ground with a vengeance. Flames licked around the edges of the tightly pressed together shields and I was grateful for the leather grips by which I held onto the shield, as the shield heated up from exposure to the flames of the fire bombs.

  We were gasping for breath within moments as all the air seemed to have disappeared and we were left with only smoke to breathe. The strength of the fire died down after several minutes of intense burning.

  Coughing hard, I gave the order to drop shields and it was with relief that we dropped the heavy burdens we had fought so hard to hold onto. It was a relief as real as drinking cold water on a hot day to feel and breathe the cooler air that rushed in around us when we dropped our shields as well.

  There were still fires here and there across the breadth of the battlefield, but the smoke had cleared enough to clearly see the depth of the carnage we had caused. Thousands upon thousands of the enemy lay dead and scorched all around us. Counting out in my head, I could see that six of the ten formations had made it through as we had and while I mourned the four who hadn’t, I was also glad to see how many had made it.

  The enemy line was drawn all the way back to the bend in the pass, where they gazed in shock at the grizzly fate of their brethren before them. A dark hooded figure on top of a black stallion was riding up and down the disorganized line of the shocked enemy. He appeared to be screaming at them and then I saw him lean out of the saddle and lop the head off what looked to have been a field commander.

  I knew who the black robed figure was and I quickly shouted out as loud as I could, banking heavily on Marfoul’s obsessive arrogance and hatred of me to instigate further rashness on the enemy’s part.

  “Who’s given us the victory?” I yelled at the top of my lungs.

  My voice carried well up and down the pass, as it echoed off the steep rocky sides.

  Without any apparent hesitation those around me and in the other six groups belted out, “The Lord God Jehovah!”

  I drew my sword out and clanged the flat side of it repeatedly off the shield at my feet in a regular cadence of ringing metal that was quickly picked up by the rest of the warriors.

  “Who created all the lands and the seas?” I yelled.

  “Our God!” came the resounding cry of the warriors on the field.

  “Who created the heavens and the stars?”

  “Our God!”

  The black robed figure had ceased from berating the cowed soldiers in front of him and had wheeled his stallion around to stare in my direction.

  “Are there any before the Creator in glory or majesty of power?”

  “No! Father God we adore Thee and we will serve none besides The Ancient of Days!” came the responding shout.

  Stabbing the air above my head with my sword I yelled, “Our God!”

  The warriors on the field and even those on the distant ramparts behind us on the wall chorused back, “He reigns!”

  “Our God!”

  “He reigns!”

  Then with the greatest shout I could muster I yelled out,

  “Forever!”

  “Forever!” came the thunderous ovation of the Valley Landers up and down the pass.

  There was then a sudden silence and in it I made an elaborate show of sheathing my sword, as if to say ‘I was done here’ and turning my back, I started to walk towards the wall as my actions were replicated by the rest of the warriors of the six surviving groups.

  I had only taken but a few steps when I heard Marfoul’s echoing voice ring out in the distance in a guttural outpouring of rage, “Ten thousand golden tarsas to the man who brings me back his head!”

  Wow! That was a lot of money for just one man’s head. Glancing back over one shoulder, I saw that quite a lot of the enemy felt the same way about the amount of money being offered for my head. I quickened my pace some to a fast walk, but no faster than that. It was hard to not quicken the pace further though. The greedy envy of so many men in regards to one’s own head can have that affect on a man.

  The warriors of the two supporting groups, gathered along either side of the pass, peeled off as we passed by joining us in triangular formation, which pointed back to Kingdom Pass, of which I was at the head of the point of the v formation.

  Emboldened by our lack of response to their charge, the enemy horde’s onrush quickened, as they rightly surmised that they were too close to our spread out line for another barrage of stone or fire to take place from high up on the fortifications of the wall for fear of hitting our own troops. I was the target of their avaricious greed and their onrush took the shape of a triangle as well as they singularly headed for me even trampling over each other in the process.

  We were far enough advanced and I stopped and turned, drawing both of my curved sabers from behind my back as I did so. I held one low and one high in a classical double sword fighting technique. As I had stopped and turned, the entire v formation rippled in a duplicate rhythm of movement. Their double blades were held as mine, poised to slice into the onrushing enemy.

  We had no shield other than the flash
ing movements of our second sword. As the enemy caught sight of the line of raised sabers flashing in the late morning sunlight, they gave up their sole chase of me in favor of the next clash between our two forces, with taking revenge for their fallen brethren foremost on their minds. The great horns of the wall behind us bellowed out once more. The sound was deafening.

  The onrush of the enemy stumbled somewhat at the sounding of the horns in fear of what new terror they might be heralding. The side walls of the pass abruptly came alive and it was with terror that the packed onrushing enemy soldiers watched as heavily armored warhorses and their riders tore through a partition of artfully painted blankets that had been stiffened with glue and painted to resemble the rocky sides of the pass.

  It had been these fragile partitions that the two elongated formations had been protecting while stationed along the sides of the pass. Warhorse stallions neighed loudly in their savage desire to fight, even as their masters drove them headlong into the packed ranks of the enemy.

  The big steeds surged forward with a will, as their masters swung side to side with heavy axes and maces to add their intensity to the crushing power of their mounts, who surged through the ranks of packed soldiers like unstoppable juggernauts committed to destruction.

  The heavy cavalry charged into the enemy in an angled trajectory heading down the pass. They cut off a solid diamond shaped mass of the enemy from the main body of the army that numbered into the thousands and, like sharks diving into a bait pool, the long flashing line of saber wielding warriors advanced quickly in a flurry of slashing blades that felled the stunned and cut off enemy troops as if they were a field of wheat being harvested by an unbroken line of sickle wielding reapers. As the two bodies of heavy cavalry converged to form the second point of the diamond, they wheeled to head down the pass, charging straight into the very heart of the enemy army in a phalanx formation.

  None could stand before the intensity of their onrushing force. The troops before them broke and fled down the pass in a vain effort to escape the crushing hooves and brutal axe strikes that followed close behind. Seeing the army flee from before the heavy cavalry, and with it their only chance of a managed retreat, the morale of the men within the diamond formation of our forces broke as well and they turned to run.

  We charged after them, cutting them down mercilessly the length of the pass, that had turned into a gory landscape that reflected the true horrors of war. Near the bend of the pass, the cavalry gave up their pursuit of the enemy and circled back toward the wall. They cut down those they had missed on the first charge and then smashed into the larger body of fleeing soldiers that my warriors were busy slicing down from behind.

  It was full on blood bath melee as the retreating soldiers' escape was cut off by the milling heavy cavalry in their way. They had no choice but to fight, but the heart to fight was gone from them and they fell away quickly before our blades.

  There was the echoing sound of the beat of horse’s hooves and from down the pass a solid wall of cavalry, numbering in the thousands, appeared at a full gallop. Their haste was such that they ran wholesale over their own fleeing troops in an effort to join the battle and snatch victory out of a skirmish that could only be labeled as the most shameful of defeats on their part.

  The wall of cavalry turned the bend in the pass and as they came abreast of the narrowest distance between the pass walls, where the two ancient rivers that had once flown through the pass had converged into one. Murky colored fluid sprayed down upon them from sluice ways that had been carefully built into and hidden in the steep sides of the pass to either side of the narrowest point. The murky colored fluid drained out in great volume from massive underground vats that had been opened further up the steep sides of the passes.

  The direct fall of gravity down the pass sides, and a reduction in sluice size, aided the higher pressure of the fluid as it shot out into the pass forming interlacing arcs of fluid across it over thirty feet into the air. Torches were thrown by men, who had lain in concealment for days in carved out niches on the pass sides. The fountains of fluid arcing out and over the pass ignited instantly to reveal itself as a light flammable oil.

  The forward rows of cavalry, already doused with the oil, burst into flame and went crazy in their desperation to be free of the fire engulfing them, both man and horse alike. The thundering column behind them drew up to a shuddering halt even as the new frontrunners of the column were pushed from behind by the momentum of the charge into the liquid rain of fire that poured down like a sheet across the pass.

  The great horns of the wall sounded out once more, which was the call for our retreat from the field of battle. Not one of the enemy remained standing within our controlled area of the pass. Quickly we searched through the littered remains of the battlefield for our own dead and wounded.

  The twin gates of Kingdom Pass creaked open and wagons, pulled by teams of horses, rushed out to help convey both the dead and the wounded, as well as those who were simply too spent to walk back to the city, having used up all their energy in the battle. The flames would only last for perhaps fifteen or twenty minutes, and then they would be out and we would be exposed to the enemy once more without any more tricks to play on them.