Once they had gone, nervous, excited chatter rose from among the young recruits. For some, that had been the first time they had ever seen the chief.
‘Well, old man?’ said Keira.
Careen sipped his cider and turned to her.
‘You will address me as Mage, Child of Pyre,’ he replied, looking her in the eye.
There was a moment of silence round the campfire, as the ears of the squad pricked up.
‘Sorry, mage,’ she mumbled.
Killop smirked as a quick smile of relief touched the lips of the high mage.
‘Keira ae Caela,’ Careen went on, ‘even when you were my student you had a fair conceit of yourself. The chief may humour your impertinence, but I will not.’
He paused for a moment, as Keira’s face fell. To think you were better than everyone else was the worst trait a Kell could be accused of possessing. Thing was though, Killop thought, she was better than everyone else. The rest of the squad were deathly silent as they sat around the fire, each leaning forward, drinking in every word.
‘But I also knew, my girl, that if you could stay alive you would become the greatest Mage of Pyre that Kell has seen in a hundred years.’ He caught her gaze and held it as she looked up, some of the old cockiness showing in her clear blue eyes. ‘Before the battle begins, I wanted to remind you that you are not yet the greatest. Your powers are still developing and growing. It might be another ten years before you reach your peak.’
Killop’s jaw dropped. What? She was going to get better? Better than she already was?
‘I also wanted to remind you that you won’t be alone today,’ the old man continued. ‘While you are here on the left, I’ll be behind the centre by the road, and Clewydd will be over on the right. We will all stay in our areas, so no charging off into the enemy on your own like you did at the Falls of Kasper.’ He wagged his finger at her, as if he were still her teacher. ‘Today we have to ignore our every Kell instinct, and fight as one to stop the reptile hordes getting through. If we fight as we are accustomed to, as individual warriors, each running around mindlessly, we shall be defeated. You were there in Northern Kell, you saw what happened whenever we bravely but foolishly charged the reptiles’ shieldwall. Hiding behind walls and ditches might not seem like an honourable way to fight, but that does not matter, Keira ae Caela. If we lose the pass, we lose Kell. Do you understand?’
‘Aye, mage,’ she said, ‘I do.’
Careen nodded, and got to his feet, Keira supporting his arm as he rose.
‘Good girl, thank you,’ he said, smoothing down his cloak, ‘and remember, stay alive.’
Killop stood by her side as they watched the old man walk back down the forest path to the central section of the forward line.
He glanced at his sister. ‘Good girl?’
In an instant Keira’s demeanour changed. She glared at her brother, teeth bared, and a gravelly growl came from her throat.
‘That’s more like it,’ he said, crossing his arms over his wide chest.
Furious, she turned from him to the rest of the squad, who were still staring. They realised their mistake and began to look away, but it was too late.
‘What the fuck are you useless wank-stains looking at?’ she shouted. ‘And why are ye sitting about like a bunch of gormless eejits when there’s a million wee scaly bastards just over the fucking hill?’ She started to point. ‘Caelia, Kyle, back on the wall. The rest of ye, I want this pile of firewood twice as high before Lizardo arrives with his merry band. Conal, get your hand out yer pants ye dirty wee toerag, or I’ll stove yer head in with ma fist…’
Killop tuned her out. Years of living in the same house had taught him this. He felt a twinge of pity for the rest of the squad.
Two hours later, Killop and Keira watched as the Rahain made their way from the forest into the cleared area a hundred yards in front of the Kell forward line. The squad had lined up along the palisade, standing a pace apart on their elongated shooting step. What they were watching emerge from the forest was a long wooden wall, made up of dozens of timber shields, each as large as a door, their edges overlapping, behind which they assumed the Rahain huddled. Above the front rank, more of the large shields were being held over the heads of the soldiers.
The long wooden wall inched towards the palisade, navigating its way over and around scattered boulders, dense banks of saturated moss, and the hundreds of tree stumps that littered the rough ground.
‘No loosing until they reach the pits,’ Killop called out to the squad. ‘At this range we’d be wasting arrows.’
There was muttered agreement.
‘Calum,’ Killop asked the crew leader, who was standing three places to his left, ‘did you mark our farthest pit this morning?’
‘Aye, boss,’ he replied. He pointed out over the wall. ‘See those three stumps in a wee cluster, about fifty yards out?’
‘Aye.’
‘And the upright stick shoved in at the left of them? That’s our marker.’
‘Everybody hear that?’ Killop shouted. ‘The three stump cluster. When the Rahain get there, we start. In the meantime, check your bowstrings.’
‘Aye,’ they called back, except for Keira, who was watching the advancing shield wall. There was no fear or tension on her face. If anything, she looked bored.
‘Hey, Keira!’ shouted Kendrie, a warrior from their neighbouring squad further down the line. ‘We gonnae be eating roast lizard tonight?’
She turned towards him. ‘You’ll be eating fuck all with ma boot in yer pus,’ she yelled. ‘After I’ve sorted these bastards out,’ she waved her arm towards the Rahain, grinning, ‘you lot are next.’
As both squads started laughing and jeering, Kendrie puffed out his chest. ‘See, boys,’ he nodded to a couple of mates by his side, ‘she does fancy me.’
‘In yer dreams, ya wee fud.’
As the two squads squabbled, Killop kept his attention on the Rahain. They were about half way between the forest and the pits, their advance slow and disciplined. At that distance, Killop noticed that slots had been left open in the middle of each shield, two inches high by eight wide, to aim their crossbows through. In Killop’s opinion it had been the Rahain crossbow that had defeated the Kell earlier in the spring. These weapons could be reloaded at a rate which had stunned him when he had first witnessed an entire Kell war band being mown down as they charged across a field. They could discharge over a dozen bolts a minute, and every Rahain solder carried one. Killop had once seen a captured bow. The mechanism was ingenious, utilising a detachable springed frame containing ten bolts that slotted into the underside of the bow shaft. This frame fed the bolts into the bow, while a lever on the top reset the bowstring. Despite many heated efforts, the Kell had not been able to make it work, and by the time Killop saw it, it was broken and half dismantled.
The noise level was rising all around. A great clattering came from the Rahain shields, while the two hundred Kell on the forward line were generating a hubbub of excited anticipation.
A couple of other squads up and down the line started loosing off a few arrows, arcing them high over the front of the shieldwall to land on the ranks behind. While most of them thudded into or glanced off the huge shields being held overhead, a few found gaps, striking Rahain soldiers, punching holes through thin leather armour into their flesh. The first Rahain screams of the battle arose, a high pitched nasally whine, and a few of the recruits glanced at each other.
On and on the Rahain came, pouring out of the forest to join their shieldwall as it trudged and rolled ever closer. Four enormous stone throwing machines were wheeled out of the woods. They were hauled up the road at first, then spread out across the Rahain line. Each machine had large wooden screens attached to the front and sides to protect them from arrows, while wagons of boulders were trundling along behind. Several of the squad were still bantering, but the voices of the younger ones were frayed around the edges with tension.
‘Upon my signal,
loose at will,’ Killop cried, as the Rahain approached the pits. He pulled his first arrow from the upright quiver by his feet, and took a position sideways to the wall. He held the bowshaft in his left hand, notched the arrow, and drew his right hand back to his ear. He gazed out at the Rahain, searching for a gap, holding his position, waiting.
He heard a shriek, and saw a shield topple over fifty yards in front of him, the soldiers carrying it slipping and tumbling down into one of the hidden pits. A gap in the enemy line opened, and Killop loosed his arrow. An instant later the rest of the squad did the same, as the pits brought the shieldwall to a shuddering halt. Ranks of Rahain soldiers were now exposed, shields falling as the front rows stumbled.
Iron-tipped arrows ripped into the front lines of the Rahain, throwing them down and hurling them backwards, in many cases passing straight through them and hitting the ranks behind. Soon two hundred warriors on the Kell forward line were loosing arrow after arrow at the densely packed Rahain. Screams rose as soldiers fell, their blood pooling on the thirsty ground as they piled up. The Rahain were slow to re-organise their front, and Killop managed to get six arrows off before enough shields had been propped back up, and every one had found its mark. The Kell ceased shooting as the reformed shieldwall firmed, before stumbling its way towards them once again, its pace even slower than before.
‘You know what?’ said Kallie, the squad’s best archer. ‘We just killed more lizards than there are Kell on this mountain.’
‘How many did you get off?’ asked Calum, her crew leader.
‘Thirteen.’
‘Do you fancy a wee challenge, hen?’ Keira asked.
‘Aye, Keira.’
‘Any moment now,’ she said, pointing at the Rahain line, ‘their crossbows will be in range, and they’re going to let loose a shitstorm like you’ve never seen. Let’s see how many we can pop before they do that. Kallie, see they wee slots in the middle of their shields? Aim there.’
Kallie notched an arrow. She jumped down from the walkway, and aimed through one of the arrow loops lower down the wall. Her sister Kelly clambered after her, longbow and quiver clutched in her arms, and took up position at the next place along.
The red-haired twins stood side by side, peering through the arrow loops. The forest air seemed to still and quieten for a moment, the sun hanging in the blue sky above them. Kallie loosed first, Kelly half a second later.
Both arrows sped through the air into the shieldwall, each disappearing through a crossbow slot. A great cheer came from the Kell lines at this feat, and the arrows started flying again. Most weren’t as well placed as those loosed by Kallie and Kelly, and many thwacked into the thick timber shields, but several found their targets, and as the line inched forwards, more and more were hit.
A further ten yards on, and the shieldwall stopped.
‘Get down!’ Killop cried, diving off the walkway.
The squad scrambled down, but Collyn wasn’t quick enough. He hesitated for a moment, his curiosity overriding his common sense. A noise began like the clicking of a running cat’s claws on a flagstone floor, and a hail of crossbow bolts punched through the air towards the Kell palisade, Collyn taking one straight through his neck. The force of it spun him through the air in a shimmer of blood to slam against a tree a few yards behind the wall. His brothers, Calum and Colm, ran to his side, their cries drowned out by the noise of a hundred bolts thudding against the walls. Killop saw Connie and Kyle hold their hands to their ears as the noise grew into a crescendo, the earth seeming to shake at the pounding the walls were taking. He ran over to Collyn’s body. Colm was kneeling, his face twisted in anger and shock. Calum was cradling his dead brother’s head, a look of surprise on Collyn’s pale features. His neck had a chunk missing, and blood streamed from the ragged wound onto the ground, and onto his brothers.
‘Stupid wee bastard,’ Calum whispered, his voice cracking.
Killop put a hand on his crew leader’s shoulder, but Calum stiffened at the touch, so he pulled back. He wished he knew what to say to comfort the surviving triplets. When he had been up in Northern Kell, their leaders had found words for all who had lost a twin, lover or friend, but now he stood in silence, helpless.
Keira came over.
‘They’re getting ready to rush the walls, wee brother.’
Calum looked up and met her eyes.
‘On your feet,’ she said to him. ‘We have lizards to kill.’
Calum and Colm got up and ran back to their positions.
Killop gazed down at Collyn’s body lying twisted in the dirt.
‘The first of our squad to die,’ he said, his voice almost inaudible over the never-ceasing thud against the walls.
‘Aye,’ she replied. ‘Let’s go.’
When they got back to the palisade they could see that, for all the terrible racket, the bolts were doing very little actual damage to their thick wall, their purpose being to ensure that Kell heads were down while the Rahain infantry kept up their advance. Kell archers continued to shoot through the arrow loops, as the Rahain approached in a slow but inexorable wave.
There was a huge crash about twenty yards behind them to the left. Killop turned, and saw that a rough path ten paces long had been gouged out of the forest. Kell bodies were lying broken on the ground amid the splintered and shattered tree trunks and ploughed-up soil. A couple were groaning and crying out for help, while warriors ran to assist them. Moments later he caught a low whistling sound and glanced up to see an enormous boulder fly overhead. It missed the top of the squad’s hut by a foot before smashing into a tall and sturdy pine, cleaving it in two. The upper half of the trunk fell, creaking and snapping as it toppled and crashed onto the forest floor.
‘Take cover!’ Killop shouted, gesturing for the squad to huddle by the wall and keep low.
He peered through an arrow loop to check the position of the Rahain boulder throwers. Two of the machines were on their side of the road, while the other two were far off to the right.
‘Got a pair of stone-throwers ahead,’ he said to his sister. ‘Out of range, though. They’re reloading.’
‘How far are the infantry?’
‘Take a look.’
Keira squinted through the loop to gauge the distance.
‘Right,’ she said, ‘my turn.’
She walked over to the section of the wall where they had cut a large square hatch from the top of the stockade, hinged at the side to allow them to swing it open. She climbed up onto the walkway, keeping her head down as she scrambled over to the hatch.
Killop unslung his heavy shield from his back, and hefted its weight onto his left arm. He propped his longbow against a tree and climbed up to crouch beside Keira.
‘Ready?’
‘Aye,’ she nodded, her eyes shining in anticipation.
‘On three,’ he said, putting his right hand up onto the hatch. ‘One, two.’ He gripped the handle. ‘Three!’ He swung the hatch open, and pushed his shield up into the gap. Within seconds several crossbow bolts had thudded into it, and he grunted with the effort of keeping his arm in position. One bolt nicked the rim of his shield just inches from his face.
‘On three,’ she said, crouching by him, her right hand grasping the timber palisade, her left held out low and away from her body, towards the fire they had been sitting round earlier. ‘One, two.’ Flames rose from the fire, curling in sinuous ribbons above her left hand, building and flowing. Sweat poured from her forehead, and she narrowed her eyes. ‘Three!’ Killop lowered his shield and Keira leaned forward and swung her left arm up and over until it was pointing at the Rahain front, a mere twenty yards ahead of them. A roaring arc of flame followed her arm, billowing and flowing up from the fire and slamming down into the wooden shieldwall. There was an infernal noise as the flames burst through a section of the Rahain lines ten yards wide. Shields exploded and were consumed like tinder, and the bodies behind them were incinerated. The first ranks were reduced to ash and bone as the roiling
mass of fire tore over them like a summer blaze through dry wheat, while behind them dozens of others were burning, the flames melting their corpses into unrecognisable shapes on the ground. And all around, within a radius of thirty paces, the large Rahain shields, and the soldiers who held them, were on fire.
Keira toppled off the walkway, and collapsed in the dirt by the smouldering campfire, its fuel almost extinguished. Killop fitted the hatch back into position and clambered down. Rending screams were coming from the Rahain, and the smell of scorched flesh made his stomach turn and his eyes water. He looked through an arrow loop at the destruction wrought by his sister. Greasy black smoke snaked its way up over the blackened ground. Ash swirled among the bones and fragments of metal helmets, swords and the long nails that had held the shields together. Around the central dead zone a thick semi-circle of fire still blazed. Dozens of soldiers were burning, screaming their death agonies. To either side, the Rahain front had halted, and some had retreated a little. Amid the cacophony, Killop could hear shouted commands coming from the Rahain, and as he looked up he saw the two stone throwing machines loaded and ready.
‘Squad!’ he bellowed. ‘Away from the wall! Take cover!’
He heard a thrumming noise and sprinted to Keira. He began dragging her to the trench a few yards to the right of their hut, Killian arriving to help pull her over the edge. They slid down the steep slope, their boots sinking into the mud at the bottom. Killop threw himself down against the boggy ground close to Keira, and pulled his left arm up so that his shield covered them. There was a deafening blast as a section of wall four yards wide exploded in a storm of pulverised timber. A shower of fragmented wood flew past overhead, and he heard screams above the high pitched whine his ears were making. A huge boulder flew by to his left, coming to an abrupt halt as it punched deep into the soft soil beside the trench.
‘Holy fuck,’ he gasped.
He glanced at his sister, lying in the bottom of the trench. She was still unconscious, her eyes glazed over the way they always were after throwing fire. It would be at least another ten minutes before she would be herself again. Until then, they would have to protect her.
The Magelands Origins Page 26