by Jackson Lear
We stopped at a wide clearing. A hundred horse prints stomped restlessly in a loose huddle while someone issued new orders. Elgrid found four senior riders – two on the outskirts facing inwards while addressing the riders, another two moving between their troops like sergeants making sure the grunts were paying close attention.
I stopped at a fine slash of blood. Searched the surrounding area. Found a mostly-stripped and headless woman lying on her front with two arrow wounds in her back – one in her shoulder blade, the other piercing her lung. Her head lay more or less attached to her bloodied neck. Her knees and shins were muddied. It looked more like a mercy killing than anything else, and she had allowed it. Despite the frosted ground her skin was still warm and her limbs moved freely. No stiffening yet. Blood still trickled from her neck when I squeezed her throat.
Odalis paused beside me. “Sir, if I may … there’s been some talk amongst the soldiers.”
“I’d be very careful about the next thing that comes out of your mouth.”
He took that as a cue to drop into a whisper. “You have the numbers, sir.”
“No. You cause a mutiny and I’ll cut your throat.”
“It won’t be a mutiny sir, it’ll be the rightful chain of command. Even now it shouldn’t be Jarmella, it’s always a member of the cavalry.”
“Which makes it you or Wilbur.”
Odalis didn’t even look sheepish when he nodded. “Exactly, but I have seniority over Wilbur.”
“Jarmella has seniority over you.”
“But I’m a member of the cavalry. Either way it doesn’t matter. You were primo delta. That makes you a lieutenant.”
“As a mercenary. Not army.”
“Commanding is commanding no matter where it comes from. Jarmella doesn’t have the training or experience for this. You do. It’s as clear as day.”
“Odalis?”
“Sir?”
“Fuck off and go make yourself useful.”
Ivar huffed through the trees, this time with his bow nocked and half drawn. “Sir! The riders have split up. Half of them are still heading east towards Brilskeep. The rest – the lighter and faster ones – have gone south towards the fjord. They’re circling around on us right now.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
“It’s time to get off this trail. How far away are we from the mountain pass?”
Torunn pointed to the giant mountain range stretching for as far as the eye could see. “That’s it.”
“How long will it take to get there?”
“Another three hours.”
“Draegor’s riders are an hour away in two different directions,” said Elgrid. “At least one group will catch us in no time.”
“That puts it at fifty of them against sixty of us,” said Odalis.
“Except one set of tracks are heading back towards Faersrock,” said Jarmella.
And the northerners knew it as well. Half of them were arguing with the rest about which way to go – follow the ones back home or go after the heavier riders.
“We have the numbers,” said Odalis.
“They have vampires,” murmured Torunn.
“Hang on,” said Jarmella. “No offence to Agnarr’s people but only four of them have bows. The rest are hand to hand.”
Torunn peered back at Jarmella. “Why is that offence?”
The volume among the northerners increased to a shouting match. Torunn barked at them with a couple of ‘korla’s thrown in. The six guys who had helped to carry Dalo, Benar, and Saskia on the stretchers wandered to their people, massaging their hands, while the rest of them faced the very real possibility of being forced to give up.
“It’ll give us a chance to get some horses,” said Odalis.
“It’s not worth it if they’re a day or two away from dying,” said Adalyn.
“It is if we cut their numbers in half.”
“Woah, woah, woah,” said Jarmella. “We have eight archers – two who were trampled and are on stretchers, so those two are out. Most of us have exhausted our magic reserves, leaving us with fifty fighting hand to hand against fifty of them on horse back.”
Adalyn said: “If even one of them is a vampire we’ll be overrun.”
A fair few eyeballs looked my way. The northerners resumed shouting at each other.
“What’s with them?” I asked.
Torunn shrugged sheepishly. “They’ve been walking for hours.”
“We’re expecting to walk for days.”
“Aye, but … That was fighting talk. We have people injured in Faersrock. Might be dying.”
Jarmella said: “They won’t get back before nightfall.”
“They might.”
I looked to Jarmella. “It’s your call.”
Jarmella sunk, staring back at the wounded vanguard in unknown lands as she debated the merit of three options: dig in somewhere nearby and hope to ambush the cavalry – assuming that they were circling around on us and not going to attack Faersrock again; stay the course and keep following the first lot of riders; or split off now so that we had a chance of reaching the mountain pass before the riders mowed us down.
“They might’ve detoured with Loken and ditched him somewhere,” said Elgrid.
“Yeah,” mumbled Jarmella. She looked back towards Faersrock. Started shaking her head.
The northerners finally reached the point of shouting ‘fuck you’ to everyone who opposed them.
I turned to Torunn. “Is going back to attack Faersrock a common tactic of their cavalry?”
“I sail ships, not ride horses.”
“But splitting up – is that normal for them?”
“Not always, but sometimes.”
“To see who’s following them?”
“Aye, and sometimes to attack the town again if no fighters are still there.”
“So when you’re following your enemies, like now, do you do it quietly or as noisy as hell?”
Torunn looked as though I had asked him a completely alien question. “Why would we be noisy?”
“To get your enemy’s attention.”
He was still thoroughly lost. “Then they would know we’re here.”
“Exactly.” I stepped back. Cupped my hands around my mouth. Bellowed. “DRAEGOR!”
Torunn grabbed my wrist, pulling my hand down while swearing in his northern tongue. I had also earned the ire of Jarmella once again and the rest of the vanguard.
I shook Torunn’s hand free. “The riders are either going back to raid Faersrock or they’re checking to see if anyone is following them.”
“Yes.”
“Now they know someone’s following them. But they don’t know how many. If their orders are to attack Faersrock then they’ll know that we are onto them. If their orders are to circle around and see who’s following them then they’ll be worried about walking into an ambush. Either that or we might have just ambushed their allies. So now they have something to worry about. We have three hours until nightfall. Let’s make it count.”
The forty northerners stared back at me, no doubt muttering a few ‘mother fucker’s under their breath. Even Jarmella got in on that. “Vanguard? Form up. We don’t have as much time as we would like.”
I made my way to the front of the pack with one hand resting on the hilt of Razoz’s former sword and kept moving, determined not to check behind me until someone forced me to.
The gangly fourteen year old northerner hurtled past me with a shortbow in his hand and a quiver by his waist. Some scraggly hairs had started to grow above his top lip and under his chin, but they were few and far between. He remained in the lead, scanning left and right, desperate to prove that he was doing a good job. He stopped only once – to stare in wonder at the vanguard tactics behind him. Gaynun and Menrihk were both up a tree with seeing rods fixed to their eyes. Both giving signals with open and closed fists, numbers, spelling things out with the first letter of whatever word they wanted to communicate, which was pretty impressive giv
en that they were just one error away from falling and breaking their necks. They soon climbed down, resumed their march.
The kid was waiting for me.
“What’s up?”
“Rohd hed.”
“Road ahead?”
He nodded and began measuring things out with exaggerated gestures and sounds. He pointed to the ground; ‘Here’, then pretended to gallop, ‘one. There? Ten.’
“Thank you. Your name?” He didn’t know that much Isparian so I held out one hand. “Raike.”
It clicked. “Ithka.”
I pointed to the road. “Draegor’s horses?”
He shook his head. He pointed to me. “You …” He thrusted forward, growled with fangs, and pointed to the sword by my side.
“Yes, I killed a vampire.”
He perked up. “Vampire.”
“Yeah. It’s the same word in Vasslehün and Ispar.” Again, it was lost on him, so I shifted my accent. “Vasslehün: vampire. Ispar: vampire.”
“You, vampire …” More thrusting. Held up a finger, then two, then three, all with a questioning look.
I stretched out all ten fingers. The kid’s eyes expanded in wonder. Then came a healthy dose of suspicion. I did it again. Very serious. The kid? Still suspicious. He peered at the sword by my waist and made an obvious search for the rest of my vampire trophies. I peeled up my sleeve. Showed him the scratches from a previous vampire attack, when one of those bastards had raked me with his poisoned nails.
“Making friends?” asked Jarmella, as she huffed beside me.
The kid read the mood from Jarmella well enough and trotted back into the lead.
“What’s up?” I asked.
It was Jarmella’s first time ahead of the northerners. She twitched with every schick of the axman sharpening his blade while walking behind us. “You’re not in charge here.”
“I know.” Normally I would’ve opted to remain silent, but we were still two hours away from the mountain’s edge and so far no one was eager to use it as a short cut to Ice Bridge.
Jarmella didn’t look so convinced by my candor. “Despite what the others might say in whispered words: you do not have seniority over the vanguard. You are a member of General Kasera’s house. If you’re going to remain with the Kaseras then you’re going to need to toe the line like one of us, not like an impulsive mercenary who wants to prove that his dick is bigger than everyone else’s, okay?”
“I understand.”
“I need you to agree.”
“I agree.”
Jarmella couldn’t shake her glare. “Do you purposely jeopardize every mission you’re on or is there just something wrong with you?”
“If I purposely jeopardize every mission then there is something wrong with me.”
Clearly that wasn’t the answer she was looking for. “So why are you like this? And what the hell were you thinking by calling attention to our position earlier?”
“Why did I shout loud enough for my throat to still be hurting?”
“Yes.”
“Because we were about to lose most of our northern allies.”
Jarmella looked towards Torunn and the rest of Agnarr’s people. “Them?”
“Yeah. They were as eager as anything to charge into battle when we were back in Faersrock. Maybe it was pride, maybe it was them hoping for a fairer fight in the forest within the next couple of hours. But half a day later and they’re tired. There’s no one to lead them. Finding the cavalry tracks divide in two encouraged them to turn around sooner rather than later. And I get it. They were worried that the riders were going to attack Faersrock again. I doubt they would’ve. The moment they saw us they knew something had gone wrong in Brilskeep. Why was Miss Kasera Lavarta in Faersrock and not in a dungeon a hundred miles away? Why were we fighting Draegor’s people alongside Agnarr’s? Even more of an issue: Faersrock was practically empty of Agnarr’s raiders. There was only one ship when there should’ve been a fleet. Where were the other ships? Potentially attacking Ice Bridge or Brilskeep. If half of the cavalry returned to Faersrock there’s a good chance that the remaining hundred raiders would’ve arrived back home, enraged at what Draegor had just done to them. The cavalry wouldn’t stand a chance. There’s a lot of unanswered questions for them to deal with but the most pressing issue is to return to Brilskeep to see what’s happened. Believe me: they know something’s happened. They just don’t know what and their imaginations will be running wild. It’s in their best interests to head home and prepare for whatever they think we’re about to throw at them. So, splitting up half of the cavalry was just to see if anyone was following them. I would’ve liked to have kept quiet to buy us some more time but Agnarr’s people were more concerned about going home than helping us out so I forced their hand.”
“And now we are potentially running for our lives because you called attention to us.”
“No question there.”
“I thought you were the type who prefers to sneak through the shadows.”
“I am.”
“So why stand in the full light of day and declare yourself to an enemy who outnumbers you? We still had our guide.”
“Because we need sailors.”
“It won’t do us any good if they catch us before we reach the mountain,” said Jarmella. “The only reason Draegor’s cavalry would take a chance at coming after us is because they think our numbers are worse than they actually are. That’s not a good thing. They will blunder into a fight because they are confident of winning and will soon find themselves in a desperate situation because we outnumber them. You need to always give your enemy a way out unless you intend to slaughter them completely. If they have no hope of escaping they will fight to the death instead of fighting to scare us off. We’ve already lost twelve people since this whole mess began. We can’t lose any more.”
“I know. So I gambled. The northerners were about to desert us and that would’ve forced us the long way around.”
“The safer way around.”
“Nothing is safe this far north.”
“Everyone here is injured! Even you. You took a dagger through the chest and I doubt you can fight well with that wrist of yours. Half of us are limping with fresh stitches. The other half were trampled, bashed, knocked over, or kicked into the air by a rampaging vampire. They can’t breathe properly and you’re asking them to climb a mountain?”
“Yes.”
“That’s insane. What about the raiders here with us? What happens when we’re halfway up the mountain and they turn on us?”
“How many of them can you yourself take on?”
Jarmella stumbled beside me. “Honestly? One and a half, but I was saving that spell for a special occasion.”
“Then as long as we’re helping them enough they won’t want to turn on us.”
“They don’t need to turn on us. They just need to get tired and discouraged like before, only they’ll leave us to fend for ourselves in a worse situation than down here and you won’t have any enemy riders to scare them into following you. The northerners will just disband and head back home anyway.”
Bloody hell. All day it’s been threats of desertion and mutiny and one ball ache after another. “I don’t suppose Zara told you what’s up there?”
“No.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“Why? What are we about to walk into?”
“If Zara or Loken didn’t tell you then there’s a good reason for it.”
“Because we never intended to go up the mountain. What’s up there?”
I checked over my shoulder to see who was in ear’s shot, then whispered. “The rest of Razoz’s friends.”
Jarmella’s face turned in on itself. “We’re going another way.”
“Easy. You and I each have a trophy from a dead vampire. One of us with a vampire sword? That’s a fluke. But two? That means we know how to deal with them. They know a lot about the locals but they don’t know much about us. Our allies are in a lot
more danger without the vanguard. Without you and that sword we wouldn’t be able to scare off even a single vampire, but at least with you here they will think twice about attacking us.”
“For fuck’s sake. You know we were perfectly fine getting to Ice Bridge on our own. You should’ve left us behind.”
“I couldn’t. I’m a member of General Kasera’s house.”
“We’re going another way. We’ll just have to endure a ransom to get Loken and Berik back as soon as we can.”
Gaynun – one hundred yards behind – called out a cry to get our attention. He and Menrihk were back up a tree again, both focused to the south and firing off one desperate signal after another.
Riders. And they were coming straight for us.
“What does that mean?” asked Torunn.
“It means they’re faster than us and we’re fucked,” said Jarmella. “Ivar! Magnus! Find a position and hold the line!” With a quick nod the two archers headed back the way we came, shoulders high and heads low, both ready for combat.
Jarmella stared back at me, agonizing over several bad options – stay and fight and lose a lot of people; risk being enveloped by the rest of Draegor’s riders for taking the long way around and lose a lot of people; or scale the death trap of a snowy mountain and lose a lot of people.
Adalyn prodded her into making a decision. “Jarmella?!”
Jarmella shouted in return. “We’re going over the mountain! Everyone grab what you can and run like hell!” She sent me one last glare as she ran passed. “You’re responsible for anyone who dies up there.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
We ducked and weaved and ran through the thinning trees, onto an open stretch of land twenty yards across and up an incline that was getting steeper with every footfall. The injured staggered first, gasping a, “I can’t keep running.” Those carrying the stretchers failed next. Others took their place, still racing to beat Draegor’s cavalry as they rushed towards us.
A horn blasted from behind, over and over to frighten anyone in the rider’s wake. A slaughter was coming, that much seemed certain, and the only thing stopping fifty of those bastards from reaching us were two imperial archers on a suicide mission.