The Blooding

by Luke Sky Wachter

  “Retreat,” cried the men in the front of the enemy line and nearest Falon’s position as she wildly swung at anyone she could reach.

  “Run away,” cried another one, this time toward the middle, and just like that the enemy formation—if it could have been called such a thing—broke and turned to run away screaming. More than a few of the men threw down their weapons, and as soon as they’d taken a few steps, bolted toward the woods to the far left of Falon’s position in the line.

  They had broken! They were running away! “We’ve won!” Falon cried.

  “Form up. Form up!” Darius screamed as the Two Wicks men all around him started to give chase to the retreating former unit of Raven Militia, “they’re sending in the Reserves!”

  Falon looked to either side and saw with shock that while her militia band had broken through the enemy lines—and because of this, the bands to either side of hers were doing pretty well and pushing the enemy forces back—they hadn’t yet beaten their enemy.

  Looking past this action toward the break in the line where they had pushed through into open ground, Falon didn’t see the enemy Reserves moving toward them yet.

  All around Darius, men were slowing and looking around. Only a few were charging after the runaway militia they had just broken.

  “The Reserves are not moving yet,” a Wicks man cried eagerly.

  “If they see a full break out in the line, they’ll be coming straight for us,” Darius cried desperately, as men started to edge past him eagerly, “form up. Form on my position now!”

  “You heard him, second line,” Falon screamed, grabbing the first two uninjured men with axes and shoving them until they were standing shoulder to shoulder, “form up!”

  Chapter 44: Battle: The Break Out

  The men listened to Darius long enough to form a ragged line, but they kept taking a step forward here and a step forward there, stabbing at any Raven man who came close enough to reach.

  The bands on either side of the Two Wicks men began cheering, and as Falon watched to either side, the enemy militia line started bowing out, with the Ravens looking over their shoulders. And without warning of any kind, the enemy line shattered.

  “Get ’em, lads,” she heard Sergeants cry out to either side of her, “run them down! We can’t let them get away,” the band leader to each side of her cried.

  Whatever formation the other Fighting Swan bands had been trying to keep broke when their leaders ordered a full-out pursuit. She watched as Ravens were speared in the back, or chopped down with axes like so much firewood.

  Sheathing her sword, Falon ran back to the first man she had ever killed. Unable to looking him in the eye, she tried to pull out her spear. She tugged as hard as she could, but it wasn’t coming out. With a half sob, and still unable to look in the eyes of the fallen foeman, Falon placed a foot on his stomach and forcibly heaved out her spear.

  The horror of what she had done was just beginning to register, but she did her best to push those thoughts from her mind. Half a second later, she had rejoined the back line.

  Still in lines by the force of Darius’ personality, and with Falon once again forcibly pushing people with swords and axes back into place in the increasingly ragged ranks, the Two Wicks men grudgingly stayed together. But nothing the Imperial Training Master could do was going to keep them from going after the fleeing enemy while their rival band mates were giving the chase.

  They had advanced deep into to enemy territory, unopposed except for an occasional wounded Raven Militia man who turned at bay to face her people, when they heard a thundering sound coming from the center of the enemy’s Right Wing.

  Fighting Swan Militia who had scattered up ahead of them screamed in terror like nothing Falon had ever heard from human lips, and she saw men who had been eagerly chasing the fleeing Ravens throw down their weapons and turn to run back toward them.

  “Cavalry,” Darius cried from the front line of their formation. By that point, the front line was more a mixture of swords, spears and captured enemy pitchforks, rather than a proper spear line as it should have been.

  “I thought you said we’d be facing the armsmen in their foot reserve,” Falon shouted, suddenly mad at him for being wrong, as if this were all now his fault somehow. She was more than slightly terrified at the prospect of facing a mounted charge.

  “So we’re facing armsmen on horses instead,” Darius snarled as he kicked a man beside him, who had started to turn as if to run back toward their old positions.

  “If we go now we might be able to outrun them, if they’re too busy with the other men in front of us,” Aodhan called out.

  “We’re too far out of line; hold fast and make a line,” Darius bellowed! “We’d never make it back to our lines and even if we did, they’d still be chasing us. Cavalry always chases whatever’s running away, over the prospect of slamming into a fully prepared line!”

  “Militia can’t hold against Cavalry,” someone cried from the front line, and Falon could visibly see the line waver as men started looking over their shoulders.

  “Just like we practiced: crouch low and form the pincushion,” Darius called out.

  “Our chances are better if we break up, and it’s every man for himself!” a man Falon quickly identified as Liam cried, stepping away from the front row and getting tangled up with her second row.

  “The first man to turn and run gets my spear through his back,” Darius threatened, and from the way he raised his spear it was a threat Falon was more than willing to believe.

  However, it looked like Liam didn’t believe or didn’t care what threats the Imperial made, because he was trying to push his way through the second line.

  “Stop,” Falon barked at Liam.

  But the man had a look of pure dread on his face, one that twisted into contempt when he looked up with his eyes skittering around wildly before settling on hers.

  “This ain’t back home on the manor, boy,” Liam said, shoving an unresisting second liner with an axe out of his way and dropping the pitchfork in his hand.

  Falon’s mouth opened and closed, and not knowing what else to do to stop him, she stabbed him in the back of the leg with her boar spear, causing him to collapse to the ground clutching his leg.

  “You stabbed me,” Liam squealed with disbelief, “you’ve killed me! There’s nothing for it; I’m as good as dead now! Oh, Lord of the Field, I’m bleeding—I’ll bleed out.”

  “Silence,” Falon shrieked, picking up her spear and beating him over the head with it, “you’re not dead yet! But if you don’t pick up that spear and get back in line, bleeding or not, then Darius is going to kill you!”

  Sobbing and clutching his leg, Liam picked back up his weapon. “It’s a pitchfork, not a spear,” he cried, tears rolling down his face.

  “Do I look like I care?” Falon shrieked, and would have beaten him around the shoulders with the spear again if Vance hadn’t grabbed a hold of her arm

  Falon tried to jerk free, but Vance just gave her a wide-eyed shake of the head and a powerful squeeze of his hand.

  Looking more afraid of her than the thundering Cavalry, Liam turned and limped back toward the spear line.

  Certain that she was going to have bruises on her arms from the Blacksmith’s powerful grasp, Falon stopped struggling. Meeting the New Blood leader’s eyes, she nodded to show she was back in control, and carefully pulled her arm free.

  “We have to stay together; we can’t be fighting amongst ourselves,” Vance said loudly. Falon would have felt something if she didn’t know from the way he was looking away from her that he wasn’t including her in his sentiment.

  A few men from the other militia bands fleeing the Cavalry saw the Wicks’ little island of sanity and ran over to them.

  “What do we do?” one of the new guys cried, grabbing Falon’s shoulders.

  Temporarily at a loss, Falon realized for the first time that the second line was now only half the size of the first after having l
ost a few men during the initial clash.

  “Join the second line,” Falon ordered, shoving him into position on the outside of the man furthest to the left, and three more men quickly came running over.

  “Our Sergeant is dead, they got him early; what do we do?” The men begged as they mobbed around Vance, as he was probably the largest and toughest looking man in the second line. The thunder of armored horses pounding toward them was nearly overpowering.

  Falon had just started to shove the first two into line when Darius started yelling, “The Horns! The Horns! Crouch low, men.”

  Beside him, a few men gave a lackluster, “Two Wicks,” cry that could barely be heard over the thunder of the Cavalry, who were mere meters away.

  Someone—probably Liam—was praying, “Lord of the Field, for what we are about to receive please make us—”

  Falon just had time to crouch low and bring her spear up to cover the far right side of the second line, when the Cavalry crashed into her little militia band with what felt like the force of an erupting volcano.

  Chapter 45: Battle: Receiving the Charge

  The sound of wood snapping and breaking, the thud of flesh hitting flesh, and the angry screams of warhorses resounded through her ears.

  Like a blur, almost too fast for her to see, a horse came speeding towards her—it must have missed the furthest edge of the front line somehow. The couched lance its rider held cradled in the crook of his arm went flying past her head too quickly for her realize, or she should have probably ducked. Before she could even process the event, the man to her left was flying backwards with that lance run right through him.

  The haft of the lance flew over her crouching head so close that her hair moved in the breeze.

  Then her spear took the charging warhorse squarely in the chest.

  Her foot on the butt of the spear, and keeping low to the ground as she had been taught, she pressed every ounce of her bodyweight down for extra strength. Before that moment, Falon would have sworn nothing in the world could ever be as powerful as that monster board she had killed back home in the orchard. But when the force of the horse was temporarily stopped by the spear ramming into its armored chest, she knew she had been terribly wrong.

  Tossed backwards when the horse reared to a halt and staggered over to the side, the spear snapped from the force of the warhorse’s momentum, sending shards of wood flying in every direction. Falon didn’t even have time to cry out before the ground slammed the air out of her lungs.

  Free of the spear, the horse took another sideways half step and fell to its knees with a terrible scream. The horse stumbled back to its feet, still screaming, before falling forward and onto Falon.

  Goats screaming when they were slaughtered had been bad enough, but the sound of a horse in agony was worse than anything she had heard before.

  Pinned under the front of the horse, she could hardly breathe and every time it tried to move, agony coursed through her body. The next time it shifted, she managed to free an arm and try to struggle out but it was no use. She did manage to grab her new Shri-Kriv, there being no hope of pulling her sword out from its scabbard on her back.

  Someone came stumbling toward the horse, wearing full armor.

  “Kill the horse, Sir Orin, before it crushes me,” cried someone from the other side of the horse from her. Lying still and pretending to be dead, Falon watched as the person in armor—now identified as a Knight—stepped forward and raised his sword high before thrusting it downward, pinning the horse to the ground with his sword through its neck. The Knight then knelt on the horse’s twitching neck, and pulling a dirk from his belt, thrust it through the horse’s eye.

  The horse gave out an extended, seizure-like twitching before going limp. Falon couldn't help but cry out.

  “A moment, Sir Orisin; I need to finish this Staglander before I can risk pulling you free,” said Sir Orin, crab walking over to Falon and drawing back his dirk.

  While he was crab walking over, Falon’s heart felt like beating a thousand beats a minute, and she almost fumbled unsheathing her new Shri-Kriv. Knowing she was about to die, Falon had expected to feel a sense of serenity, or have her life flash before her yes, but all she felt was bone-chilling fear.

  With only one hand usable (if she wanted to keep her movements hidden behind the neck of the horse) she trapped the sheath of her new blade under her buttocks and pulled it free one-handed. With the last settling of the horse, both her legs were trapped under the horse’s neck and shoulders but her hands were free, and she thought she could probably sit up if she had to—and it looked like she was going to have to.

  One hand outstretched and the other pulled back for a thrust with the blade, the Knight leaned over her.

  Sitting up as fast as she could, Falon slashed upward with her knife.

  “Oh ho, this one still has a lot of life left in him,” laughed the Knight as her blade skittered off his breast plate to the chain mail around his neck, before skittering alongside his metal helmet.

  “Finish him quickly, Sir Knight, so I can get back in it,” Sir Orisin urged.

  Falon slashed at his knife hand as it started to thrust down at her, and she nicked his wrist where his gauntlet and arm bracers met, causing the Knight to draw back his hand in pain.

  “This is a feisty one,” Sir Orin grunted, using his free hand to push Falon away and then, with continued pressure, flat onto her back.

  “No,” Falon moaned, using her free hand to intercept the hand that held the dirk, but all her arm strength pitted against that of a fully grown nobleman, bred and trained, barely slowed him down.

  “Long Night, Staglander,” Sir Orin said, punching her in the face with his free hand as he jerked the other hand free.

  “Stop. Don’t!” Falon shrieked, feeling dazed from being hit in the face, but not wanting to die. When the Knight placed both hands on his dirk and started to lean down, the blade in his hand pointed right at her chest center mass, Falon thrust upward against his impervious metal carapace for the final time.

  Her blade skittered over the Knight’s helmet and then caught on the slit in the visor. The slit was too small for a normal Shri-Kriv to fit through the opening, but Falon’s specially made, almost ‘stiletto-style’ blade was just thin and narrow enough to find its way in.

  Feeling the knife catch on bone, Falon heard the Knight scream and thrust downward with both hands. As he came down, Falon tried to shift her body to the side and failed—the horse’s body pinned her down, preventing such motion. Twisting, she felt her blade sink into something deep and fleshy just before the Knight’s dirk thrust into her, and Falon screamed.

  “Sir Orin,” called out the other Knight, “Sir Orin, hast thou finished him yet. Art thou okay?”

  Falon thrashed her head from side to side with the rest of her body trapped under the Knight. The pain in her chest and shoulder like nothing she had ever felt.

  Many feet started running by all around her, and Falon could hear the sounds of metal clanging on metal all around her.

  “Smythe for Lamont,” she heard the Captain cry, followed by the sound of sword striking sword and shield, “The Swans! The Swans!”

  The Captain’s battle cry was soon taken up by a large number of male voices, raised above the din of combat.

  “Dumont for a-Raven,” came a counter battle cry from an aristocratic voice.

  “Saint George for Angle Wood,” cried another noble sounding voice, with what Falon was starting to identify as a Raven accent.

  “Kempsrest! Kempsrest and the Swans! The Swa—!” screamed a voice that ended in a screeching gurgle of pain.

  “They’re off the horse,” cried Captain Smythe, “get me prisoners!”

  “I’ve been ruined Darby, they’ve kilt me,” wailed a lower class farmers voice.

  Someone staggered over Falon, sending shooting agony throughout the right side of her chest, and incidentally knocking the now dead Sir Orin part way off her.

  Scream
ing with pain, Falon arched her back and with her good left hand, pushed the dead Knight the rest of the way off her.

  “Thou hast slain my oath Brother,” cried the Knight trapped on the other side of the horse.

  Falon coughed, and a metallic taste exploded in her mouth. Feeling around with her tongue, she felt a large gash on the inside of her mouth where she had been struck in the face.

  “We’re both trapped, Raven Knight; let it be,” Falon gasped, spitting out blood and looking over at the dirk stuck into her chest, high and just to the left of her right shoulder.

  “Thou hast killed my sworn battle brother,” Sir Orisin said tightly, “have at thee, varlet!”

  Falon opened her mouth to retort, but something hard and metallic thumped into the body of the horse just past that part of her lower abdomen that wasn’t trapped under the horse.

  “What are you doing,” she cried, flinching as the Knight pulled and eventually jerked free his weapon. Looking over with wide eyes, she saw the Knight’s arm was raised in the air and his hand was clutching a flail—a large, spiked ball of metal connected by a chain to the end of a short, thick wooden shaft. She gasped with pain when, in her panic, she jerked from side to side.

  The flail once again slammed into the horse’s belly just above her body, “I’ll get thee yet, you murderous Staglander varlet,” bellowed Sir Orisin, as soon as he realized his flail had missed her for the second time. This time, however, the metal spikes had sunk deeply into the Knight’s former horse.

  While the Knight was still trying to free his flail, Falon reached over and grasped the hilt of the dirk in her shoulder. Squeezing her eyes tight, she started to pull but a wave of pain caused her ears to ring and everything went dark as soon as she tried to remove it.

  Falon snapped back to the reality of being surrounded by struggling and screaming militiamen, Knights and warriors, when the meaty thunk of the flail landing in the meat of the horse once again sounded.