by Sandell Wall
Sergeant Braston swaggered over and said, “Listen up, boyos, I want teams of four, one team to each wagon. Let’s get these tubs into the fort.”
Arms crossed, the lieutenant stood beside the sergeant, trying to look interested as he observed the work. Assigned to the wagon farthest away from the fort, Remus and his team had to wait before they could start pushing it through the mud. It was going to be hard, dirty labor. In idle curiosity, Remus glanced down the road towards the runner.
Instead of a solitary figure dwindling into the distance, he saw ten hulking giants sprinting towards the open fort. Invaders. Raiders. The enemy. He wanted to shout, but his tongue had not caught up with his thoughts. They ghosted through the rain like shadows. Despite their size, the brutes moved with frightening speed. Behind them, sprawled in the muddy road, lay the crumpled, lifeless body of the runner. It took several heartbeats for the panic surging through his blood to reach his brain and then his voice, but when it did Remus pointed and let out a strangled shout. “Sergeant!”
The tremor in his voice caused both the sergeant and the lieutenant to whip their heads up to look at him, and then whirl around to face the direction he was pointing. A quick mental calculation made Remus’s blood run cold. There was no way he could reach the safety of the fort in time. Sergeant Braston and the lieutenant came to the same realization.
“Ambush!” the lieutenant roared. “Close the gates!”
Remus would remember the bravery of Sergeant Braston and the lieutenant for the rest of his life. There was no hesitation or fear, only action. As one, the two soldiers drew their weapons and charged the enemy. Remus’s heart soared at their courage, but he knew they were doomed. Like saplings trying to stop an avalanche, a pair of fragile trees standing against a thousand tons of angry stone, the two brave soldiers never had a chance.
Still twenty paces away, one of the attacker’s let fly a projectile. The lieutenant’s entire body spasmed as he collapsed, face obliterated by a throwing axe. Sergeant Braston raised his shield as he charged. Surging ahead of his comrades, a massive barbarian with fiery red hair pivoted on one foot and spun, using his momentum to crash a huge mace into Braston’s shield. Sergeant Braston went flying backwards, his shield shattered into a hundred pieces. The sergeant lay broken and twitching as the rest of the attackers leaped over his body.
Four of the twelve recruits reached the fort before the doors slammed shut. Stranded in the open, the men who did not make it inside ran back to the wagons. Remus had not moved, too stunned to think about escaping. And once he thought of it, he realized the only place to run would be into the forest. He heard a clatter and turned to see the other recruits throwing their weapons and shields to the ground, hoping for mercy.
When the fiery-haired barbarian reached the gate, he smashed his mace against it in frustration. The heavy wooden doors rocked, but held. The attackers might be able to hack their way in, but it would take time.
Remus was astonished by the size of the barbarians. He had thought Holmgrim big, but these men were giants. Clad only in simple leather armor, most of them were naked above the waist. Leather bands were wrapped around biceps as thick as Remus’s waist. Lashed together with animal hide and rope, their weapons were crude things of wood and bone.
Fire Hair, who Remus decided was the leader, turned from the gate and focused his attention on the recruits who stood by the supply wagons. Remus’s insides turned to water. Unquenchable fury burned in the man’s eyes.
We’re dead.
The barbarian jabbed a thick finger at the recruits and issued a command in his guttural language. His warriors fanned out and surrounded the terrified men.
“Mercy, have mercy!” the big recruit said, his bravado replaced by blubbering fear.
“I don’t think they have mercy in mind,” Remus said.
The barbarians forced the recruits, including Remus, into a line, dragging some by the hair, prodding others with the points of weapons. Once lined up, the recruits were forced to their knees.
Fire Hair’s axe was the only metal weapon Remus could see. The barbarian leader stepped up to the first recruit, his axe held at his side. With a huge hand he palmed the top of the man’s head and with a violent wrench, exposed the back of the neck. Fire Hair looked at the fort and shouted one word, “OPEN!”
The word sounded mangled on Fire Hair’s foreign tongue, but the meaning was unmistakable. Fire Hair waited to the count of ten, and when there was no response, raised his axe slowly into the air. He separated the recruit’s head from body with one savage blow. The body fell away—the head stayed in Fire Hair’s hand. Furious, he lifted the bloody trophy high into the air, roaring his rage at the fort. Remus’s stomach churned. He looked away as the severed neck pumped blood into the mud. The other recruits cried out to whatever gods they believed in.
Fire Hair stepped over the headless body and repeated the grisly process. “OPEN!” he shouted at the silent fort. Thunder crashed overhead and rain swirled around the gruesome spectacle. Fire Hair stood like a statue, blood dripping from his jagged axe, as he stared down the garrison. He seemed to think the force of his will alone could beat down the doors.
Remus knelt in the cold mud, three men down the line. If he did not act, his head would soon join the growing pile. He shifted his weight, trying to find purchase in the slippery muck. All he needed was an opening. They might chop him down as he ran, but he refused to die on his knees. He did not look when the second and third recruit died, but he heard the decapitated heads smack into the mud. If he could get a lead on the barbarians, maybe the rain would work to his advantage. Maybe they would just let him go.
He tensed, getting ready to surge to his feet and run for his life, but before he could move he saw a blur of motion out of the corner of his eye. Four dark shapes sprinted from the forest. A shout came from one of the dark figures. Fire Hair looked up, and when he saw the source of the noise, he snarled.
The figure who had shouted skidded to a stop in front of Fire Hair. Shorter than Remus by at least the span of a finger, the newcomer looked like a child standing before the barbarian. His dark, shell-like armor glistened in the rain. Something about the armor seemed familiar to Remus, but his terrified mind could not focus on why.
No one moved. The dark soldier stood with his feet spread wide, helmeted face tilted back to stare up into Fire Hair’s eyes. A turmoil of emotions flashed across the barbarian’s face. Anger, confusion, and frustration twisted his already fearsome features. Fire Hair growled something the armored man did not like, whose response was terse and defiant.
A heated argument erupted between the two men, the purpose of which Remus could only guess at. The shorter man gestured at the recruits kneeling in the mud as he talked. Whatever his argument was, Fire Hair was not convinced. Fed up, the barbarian took a half-hearted swing at the soldier, trying to brush him aside. The dark soldier would not be moved. He caught the haft of the axe in one hand, and with the other pressed the point of a wicked-looking dagger into Fire Hair’s naked stomach.
In a flurry of movement, the three other armored soldiers drew their weapons and moved to guard their leader’s back. The size difference between them was astounding, but the barbarians were obviously reluctant to cross blades with these dark newcomers.
The soldier with the dagger barked a command, emphasized with the point of the blade pressed against Fire Hair’s skin, and the barbarian leader finally relented. Disgust clear on his face, Fire Hair spat out an order to his warriors, and they backed away from the cowering recruits.
One of the armored soldiers uncoiled a long chain with manacles welded to it. Soon, the recruits were chained together in a line, imprisoned by a metal clasp around one ankle. With sharp jerks and hand signals, their captors indicated that the recruits were to follow them into the forest.
Remus almost tripped over the chain, struggling to find a rhythm to running with fetters on. If he was too slow, the man in front of him would jerk him off balance, bu
t if he went too fast, the man behind him would trip him up. They were getting nowhere, and the muddy ground only made it worse. Remus saw the soldier with the dagger becoming frustrated, and he worried that the man might be thinking the recruits were not worth the trouble.
“Listen up!” Remus shouted. “Left foot on my mark.”
He paused, finding the rhythm.
“Left!”
Only a few of the recruits understood.
“Left!”
The two men at the front of the column were not listening; they did not understand that the captured recruits either moved as a unit or not at all.
“If we don’t march, we die!” he shouted. “LEFT!”
On the next call they got it. Every recruit fell into step, and as long as he shouted out the cadence, they could shuffle along without tripping.
Remus noticed the soldier who had challenged Fire Hair watching him. Unlike the barbarian, he did not see anger in the man’s eyes. He saw a cool and calculating intelligence. Which, in a way, was more terrifying than Fire Hair’s fury.
They passed into the forest and were swallowed by shadow. Mercifully, the rain could not penetrate the thick canopy of trees and they were able to run on dry ground. As they moved deeper into the woods, leaving the empire behind, Remus thought of Aventine.
I hope she fared better than we did.
Chapter 14
GIANT TREES TOWERED OVER Aventine’s head like great lords of wood and spore. The forest set the soldiers on edge, a sense of eerie strangeness growing with each step. Aventine had loved playing in the woods as a child. She remembered feeling at home in the timberlands of Morn. But walking through these trees she felt unwelcome, each step a trespass. Wild and hostile, the land encroached upon the crude road with thorns and bristly shrubs. In two hours of marching they had seen no signs of life.
“I’ve not seen a single animal, not even a bird,” Aventine said. She kept her voice low, compelled by a powerful urge to stay quiet and unnoticed.
“They don’t call them the ‘wilds’ for no reason,” Brax said. “Only the strongest survive here.” He walked beside her at the head of the Legion column. In front of them marched the warriors of Lome and Cinder.
“It’s the trees,” Centurion Durost said from behind them. “They call them tyrant trees. The giant bastards suck the life out of the soil and block the sun so that little else can grow or live. Have you seen any sign of Centurion Immers or his men?”
“Nothing more than the tracks we’re following,” Brax said.
“If we don’t turn around soon, we’ll be marching out under darkness.”
“We’re not turning around.”
“Yes, sir.”
Aventine glanced at Brax out of the corner of her eye; this was the first time she had seen him stressed. He had been snapping at questions and barking out orders since they entered the forest.
Ahead of them, the warriors of Lome and Cinder split into two groups, Sir Lorent leading his men left, Sir Trent heading to the right. They had marched into a large clearing and were moving aside to let the Legion column pass by. Brax ignored the two praetors and strode to the center of the clearing. In the middle of the open area, the tracks they had been following terminated in a morass of churned mud.
Brax knelt and inspected the ground, probing the dirt with the fingers of his right hand. Down on one knee, he scrutinized the disturbed earth surrounding him. He took his time, but finally he stood and walked back to where Sir Lorent waited.
“A battle was fought here,” Brax said.
“Nonsense,” Sir Lorent said. “There are no corpses or debris.”
“I did not ask for your assessment.”
Brax’s head was turned away, but Aventine saw Sir Lorent’s face twist into a terrible grimace. It was gone in an instant, replaced with a pained smile.
“What do you propose we do?” Sir Lorent said.
“You don’t pick a battlefield clean unless you have good reason.” Brax peered into the trees across the clearing. “It’s a trap.”
“What’s it like to be the emperor’s pet, always seeing enemies in the shadows?” Sir Lorent said.
Brax gave the praetor an odd look and then beckoned Centurion Durost over. “Centurion, I want your men in a shield-wall three ranks deep facing the center of the clearing. Sir Lorent, position your men on the left, and Sir Trent, put yours on the right. If the enemy tries to encircle the shield-wall, destroy them.”
“Yes, sir,” the centurion said, saluting as he moved away.
“As you wish,” Sir Lorent said.
Sir Trent saluted and went to give the orders to his men.
Soon they were in position, three blocks of infantry facing the dark forest on the opposite side of the clearing. Aventine and Brax stood with Sir Lorent on the left. The sky was grey above them, and as they waited in tense silence, the wind began to swirl. Aventine lifted her face to the heavens as the rain finally stopped. It was a small mercy.
From the first step into the forest she had felt tiny and weak, like prey walking unwittingly into the hungry mouth of its doom. There was none of the strength and structure of the empire here; they stood on the border of an alien and hostile land. A land of shadow and death that swallowed a hundred of the Legion’s best and left no trace.
Aventine shifted her weight, uncomfortable in the tense silence. She glanced at Brax, but the grim face of her mentor held no doubt or fear. His entire focus was on the far tree line.
She heard a sergeant reassuring the Legion troops. “Steady, boys, nothing in those trees can stand against the might of the empire.”
So I’m not the only one feeling like I’ve a noose around my neck.
Sir Lorent was growing impatient. “There’s nothing out there. It will be dark soon. We need to either march out, or make camp.”
In response, Brax pointed high into the distant trees. “They’ve been watching us this entire time. We wait.”
Sir Lorent and his warriors scanned the tree line, trying to see what Brax had pointed at. All Aventine could see were branches swaying in the wind.
Before Sir Lorent could protest, the ominous silence of the forest was shattered, a hundred warhorns defying the Legion with their single blasting note. The deafening noise thundered from the trees on every side.
“We’re surrounded!” a soldier cried out.
Panicked soldiers stumbled out of formation, frantic to identify the direction from which the enemy would attack.
“Back in ranks, you spineless maggots!” a sergeant bellowed.
“Movement, forward!” came a shout from the Legion shield-wall. Every eye turned to the trees opposite their battle line. In the shadows movement was perceptible, but little else.
“Hold the line!” Centurion Durost shouted.
The soldiers of the Legion braced for combat, gaps between shields closing as the men in the second and third rank moved up to lend their mass to the shield-wall.
Aventine’s ears picked up a faint roaring sound. It sounded like a great wind tearing through the treetops, but the forest was still.
“Brax, what’s—” she tried to say, but he cut her off with a raised fist and a shake of his head.
At that same instant, the vanguard of an enemy horde poured from the trees.
Barbarians!
Giants clad in leather and bone. There were hundreds, possibly thousands. And they roared as they charged.
“By the gods,” Brax said, shock and dismay sapping the strength from his words.
“That’s no raiding party, that’s an army!” Sir Lorent shouted.
Centurion Durost stepped forward out of his shield-wall and planted his century’s banner in the dirt. He turned his back on the charging horde and shouted at his men, his voice carrying loud and clear over the roar of the barbarians, “For the glory of the emperor, bury these heathens in the mud!”
The centurion’s bravery jolted the Legion out of their stupor, and with a rallying cry they broke into
a battle-song of the empire, their voices answering the wave of sound that flowed towards them like the harbinger of destruction.
Figures in dark armor stepped from the tree line with bows in hand. With a coordinated volley, they launched a hail of arrows over the charging barbarians.
“Shields!” Centurion Durost shouted, jumping back into the shield-wall.
Timed perfectly, the missiles hit the raised shields of the Legion soldiers a heartbeat before the charge struck home. The first wave of the enemy carried enormous mauls, the stone heads the size of an anvil.
They have seigebreakers!
Shields up, warding off the wicked, barbed arrows, the Legion soldiers had no choice but to absorb the charge. It was exactly what the enemy wanted. Mauls crashed into the raised shields with terrible force. Wooden shields were smashed into bits. Arms snapped like twigs. In an instant the entire first rank of the shield-wall was obliterated. Aventine could hear the crunch of metal and bone from where she stood.
“They cannot stand against this,” Brax said. “Lorent, Trent, on me! Aventine, come on!” The big Guardsman took the great sword from his back and sprinted towards the fight. Out of the corner of her eye, Aventine saw the glow of runestones as the Lorent casters unleashed their full might.
Brax vanished, his now-glowing armor empowering him to tear through the air with impossible speed. She dashed to follow Brax, and after a few steps she felt her armor swell with power. She glanced down and saw every intricate rune glowing with astonishing brilliance. The spear in her hand flashed with blinding light. Vibrating with dread energy, the weapon felt like a living thing drawing her to battle—she could feel the memory of her mother willing her to carry the lance into the fight. With her free hand she flipped the visor of her helmet down and strode into the fray like an avenging angel.