The Blooding

by Luke Sky Wachter

Falon immediately vomited and fell to the ground beside the dead man. In a detached part of her brain, Falon watched as the rest of her mind spun faster and faster, with the realization that most or all the of the fallen figures littering the ground were the mutilated bodies of dead men.

  “Oh, Lady,” she wheezed, repeating the words over and over, “what have I done?” The full import of exactly what she, her friends, and her neighbors had been party to bore down on her with the crushing force of realization. She had killed them just as surely as the enemy had. Falon had thought that by ensuring better training than the other militia units in The Swans, that she was doing her best to keep them all alive. But they never would have broken the enemy lines and been hammered under by the Raven Cavalry if she’d just been content to be as incompetent as everyone had expected her to be.

  It was her fault that everyone was dead. She never should have tried to help them learn to fight better. If they had been as poorly trained and organized as the rest of the militia, someone else would have broken the lines and gotten the glory. Falon looked at a pair of corpses within her field of vision and her stomach spasmed again. There was no glory here in this ruin of a spot, and the only honor belonged to the Prince who had thrown their lives away to recapture the respect he’d lost because he refused to accept his losses.

  “Come on now, up with you. It’s going to be alright, you’ll see,” Falon heard someone say as if from a distance, and a cry of pain was ripped from her body when the very same man who had been weeping over his fallen friend put his arms under her armpits and lifted her back up to her feet.

  “How can this ever be alright?” Falon wept, and with her feet back under her felt she had no choice but to try to remain standing.

  “Now don’t talk like that, nothing good will come of it,” the man with the tear-streaked face said in a broken voice, “besides, we did something great here this day.”

  “What is great about this?!” Falon snapped with more force than she expected herself capable of, shocked and dumbfounded to hear the words coming from someone who had experienced everything she had just experienced.

  “We broke the Raven Cavalry—we, the Militia, we did that, not some sworn-man or group of nobles. It was us,” the Man said hoarsely and stuck out his hand, “I’m Bud, with Kempsrest band of the Greater Lamont Fief Militia.”

  “Lieutenant Falon, with the Fighting Swans,” she replied taken aback, “look, I need your help with something,” she said absently, looking back at her prisoner.

  “Lieutenant Falon! They said it was a Lieutenant in the Dirty Duc—I mean, Old Swans that broke their infantry lines and stood tall against the Knights. It’s an honor, Mister Falon, a real…” Bud’s voice started out strong and excited, but then he looked down at the man with the axe in his head and his voice ended on a tremulous note.

  “All I did was get a lot of good men killed,” Falon said dismissively, not even caring that this man, by his own admission a part of the New Blood militia contingent from the Fief, had just slipped and used a derogatory term for the Fighting Swans, “I did nothing.”

  Bud’s wild eyes started to turn red. “My brother is dead at my feet, and he didn’t die for nothing,” he shouted in an irate rising voice, grabbing her by the arm and squeezing with a grip as hard as Falon had ever felt. “He didn’t’ die for nothing, he died bravely! When I go home to see his widow, I can tell his children that he spent his last breath breaking the pride of the Raven Prince’s Right Wing!” he shook her from side to side and screamed, “That’s not nothing!”

  “I’m sorry. Look, I’m really sorry, I apologize,” Falon exclaimed. His hand was digging into her good arm so hard she wanted to cry out, “Please stop. You’re hurting me!”

  “Never try to take away the honor we—my brother—earned here, Lieutenant,” Bud growled, releasing her arm abruptly, “never do it, or even though I’m not an Officer I’ll come for ye myself,” he said kneeling back and kissed his brother’s forehead before closing the corpse’s staring eye. However, the eyelids wouldn’t stay closed, and as Falon watched he tried half a dozen times to push them closed.

  “I can’t even do this right,” Bud sobbed in a broken voice.

  Hesitantly, Falon put her fingers on Bud’s shoulders, and when he didn’t immediately shrug them off, she firmed up her face. “Come along, I need your help with something,” she said in as firm and Officer-like voice as she could manage.

  For a long moment, she thought he was going to refuse her, but then he gave a great sigh and picked up a pitchfork off the ground and moved to follow her.

  “Help me get this man free,” Falon said, pointing down at the Knight still trapped under his horse. Sir Orisin looked up at her with eyes that seemed to know far too much for Falon’s comfort.

  “It’s too heavy,” Bud protested, pressing it with his feet, “I’ll have to get some help.” Falon then watched with surprise as he walked off without saying anything further.

  She was even more surprised when he came back with a pair of other men, and the three of them levered the horse far enough off Knight’s legs that with two of them holding the gains in place, the other was able to come around and drag the Raven Knight free.

  The moment they started pulling, Sir Orisin cried out in pain and when he came out from under it, Falon could see his right leg was twisted at an unnatural angle.

  “It’s no worse than ye deserve, birdbrain,” Bud spat, glaring down at the Knight and spitting a wad of phlegm that came close to hitting the Knight on his foot.

  Falon was going to say something—exactly what, she wasn’t sure—when she heard a familiar ‘hee-haw!’ coming from a ways behind her, and she spun around as fast as she could manage.

  It was Bucket! He was tethered to the back of one of her wagons, with a travois strapped to his back for extra carrying capacity, and seated in the driver’s seat of the wagon was Tug, urging the oxen on to their best speed. In the back of the wagon, which she now saw was empty, the Healing Wench and her Apprentice were bouncing up and down.

  “Over here,” Falon yelled, waving wildly. She was simultaneously relieved that they could get the wounded out of there, and furious at them for putting her donkey into further danger. It was irrational and she knew it, but that donkey felt like the last real link to her life back home.

  “We’ll get as close as we can,” Tug yelled back, weaving back and forth between several fallen horses, even going so far as to drive right over a pair of corpses to get as close as possible to the wounded.

  Falon was gratified to see that men who had been wandering around aimlessly on the opposite side of the battle site from where Darius had gone off to, immediately made a bee line for the wagon and began helping to shift the wounded into the bed. Over half the men doing the carrying were from Two Wick.

  However, she was horrified to see that after all the wounded who would fit in the back of the wagon had been loaded into the bed, the Two Wicks men immediately started tossing a headless Knight up into the driver’s seat beside Tug and after placing his helmet—minus the head—between his legs, they began lashing him to the seat. A trio of other men were carefully placing swords, shields and spears or, in some cases, just a spear head into the sides around the wounded men still crying out with pain in the back.

  “What are you lot doing?” Falon demanded in a rising voice.

  “The important boys with their fancy armor will be over here soon enough,” said one of the men, as if that explained everything and Falon did a double take when she realized it was Glaisne who was doing the speaking. He looked a far cry from the older boy she had tussled with back at the cross roads out of camp—he looked like a man now.

  Despite being back-footed, she opened her mouth for a fiery retort about how could they let the wounded in the back suffer so that they could load up the wagon with war spoils, when one of the wounded lifted himself up and interrupted her train of thought.

  “Make sure ye get something good,” he gasped, “i
f I end up a cripple, me Leslie will need something to help tide us over until the boys get old enough work the fields.”

  “If ye don’t make it, I’ll make sure she’s well tided over alright, Sean,” promised a man weaving from side to side under the weight of his loot.

  “Screw you, Dogan,” Sean yelled at him and slid back down to lay in the bed of the wagon.

  “I’d like to see ye try,” laughed Dogan.

  “I’ll put an arrow up yer backside is what I’ll do,” Sean said, “And a bow just needs two arms, don’t matter a wit if I’ve got legs to stand with or not!”

  “Enough heckling the injured,” the Healing Wench said sternly before her eyes fell on Falon and she drew a sharp breath. “Come hither, little Thorn,” she instructed, as she reached into a satchel at her side.

  Somewhat confused at being called a ‘Thorn’ by this woman for the second time, Falon shook her head adamantly. “I can take care of myse—“

  “Now, child!” the Healing Wench snapped. When Falon grudgingly stepped closer to the wagon, the Wench leaned closer to whisper in Falon’s ear, “None of that mannish nonsense from ye; I spoke with yer mother before we left, and ye can rest assured that yer secret’s safe with me.”

  Falon was shocked, and had circumstances been even slightly different she would have asked a dozen question of the old woman. But as it was, all she could do was gape and nod in stunned silence.

  The Healing Wench nodded curtly. “I can’t fully heal yer wound with no moon in the sky, but this poultice will buy ye some time,” she continued in a louder voice, indicating the wound in Falon’s upper right chest. In the Healing Wench’s hand was a small, tightly wrapped bundle similar to the mixtures Falon had seen her mother use for treating wounds. It was nearly an inch across and three inches long. “This will not be pleasant, child,” she warned, before jamming one end of the poultice into the wound and squeezing its contents into Falon’s body.

  Falon failed to stifle a shriek of pain when the wound began to burn, as if it were suddenly on fire. But she managed to control herself after the initial outburst, and the Healing Wench’s work was concluded after just a few seconds.

  “There, that will prevent yer immediate demise,” the older woman explained. “But I fear that wound will take ye, should ye fail to receive proper healing before the night is out.”

  “Thank you,” Falon managed through gritted teeth.

  “Good luck, little Thorn,” the older woman said with a piercing look, before turning to Tug, who manned the reins, “Let’s get a move on it!”

  “Aye, Wench,” Tug said flicking the reins on the wagon.

  “Am I really that prickly?” Falon muttered to herself, again confused at the ‘Thorn’ comment.

  “Sharp enough to draw blood, by my measure,” Tug agreed with a wink as he drove the wagon away from the field.

  “Watch it there, driver,” yelped a stranger Falon had never seen before, dodging to the side to avoid the wagon wheels as they rolled away.

  “I’ll send Nyia back with the next wagon,” the Wench called out as the wagon trundled off, “and do what I can for these lot until the sun goes all the way down, and we start getting some moonlight!”

  In the distance, Falon could hear the clash of steel on steel and she realized the magic fireworks had slowed to a stop some time ago. Hearing the sounds of renewed combat growing louder and louder in the center, she just hoped they had time to get all the wounded out before the battle drifted back this way.

  She knew she couldn’t possibly be lucky enough to avoid any more fighting.

  Chapter 47: Battle: Rallying to the Standard

  Sir Orisin hadn’t been too happy that Falon filled up both wagons with her wounded, telling her that she had a duty to see to his safety now that he was her prisoner. So when the West Wicker’s little cart came down for the third haul, she put him and his dead friend in there to shut him up. After covering them both with a ragged old blanket, she put a pair of seriously injured men on top of them.

  The seriously injured had been left out on the field until the last because no one expected them to make it. They couldn’t complain; they were too out of it, and Falon was more than willing to turn a deaf ear to Sir Orisin’s protests. It was still with a feeling of relief that she waved the cart with its cargo, and Bucket—now on his third trip, also with a severely injured man missing both legs strapped to his travail—goodbye. If her sendoff was met by a string of outraged curses that only trailed away with the growing distance of the wagon, the faint smile on her face was her only response.

  Horns and drums sounded from the enemy side of the field, in the direction that the Captain and a good half of the Left Wing had gone off to. The Centers were still roaring back and forth at each other, with the magical battle seeming to have been temporarily halted.

  “Rally!” Darius shouted from a group of about forty men that he had managed to gather up. He was waving his sword in the air to get as many men’s attentions as he could, “Rally to the standard!”

  Falon’s brows wrinkled, and just in case she was more wounded than she had thought, she looked again to see if they actually had a standard. Certain that her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her, and that they didn’t actually have a standard to rally around, she stiffly quick stepped over to Darius’s position.

  As she walked over, Falon saw Darius trying to form the men up into a pair of rough lines, but was being impeded by trio of men. She was too focused on making her way to his position without aggravating her newly-treated wound to make out specific details of the dispute.

  “I don’t see a standard to rally around,” Falon said wryly.

  Darius whirled around and stared at her and then glanced up above him, as if to check if what she was saying was accurate. “Force of habit,” he said, shaking his head.

  “I don’t know who ye think this is that he is more import than me, Foreigner,” growled the man at the head of the trio who had been arguing with Darius, “but as you can see from the sash, I am a Sergeant! That means, Corporal—if that’s what you really are—that I’m in command until this wounded Lieutenant of yours magically presents himself!

  “We don’t have time for this,” Darius snapped.

  “Make time,” the other man said stabbing his finger into the Imperial’s chest.

  “Touch me again and whatever it is that does the touching gets cut off,” Darius said in a deathly quiet tone.

  Falon pushed her way between the two, her eyes taking in the blood spattered green sash of the supposed Sergeant as she did so.

  “The Lieutenant is here now, Sergeant, so back off and start helping to form up the men,” Falon said firmly.

  The Sergeant looked at her with disbelief. “This is supposed to be your Lieutenant, a stripling of a boy?” the man said, dismissing her and turning back to Darius.

  “We’re wasting time—” Falon started, prompting the Sergeant to round on her.

  “I don’t know you and you don’t even have a sash,” the man said shortly, “but even if you did, this is the Field, not parade or training ground. Step aside.”

  Falon gaped at him and then rage began to suffuse her, giving her extra strength.

  “I don’t have a sash?” she snarled. “Well if that’s all that’s important here, then where is your green armband, so that we know you’re from our kingdom and not a Raven spy!”

  “That’s preposterous,” the Sergeant shouted, his face immediately turning red.

  “It is no such thing,” Falon shouted right back, “the horns are sounding, my Corporal is trying to rally the men, and all you can do is try and stop or slow us down!” Falon didn’t think it was important to admit the fact that she didn’t exactly know what it was those ‘horns’ were telling them to do.

  “These men are in no condition to advance against the enemy!” the Sergeant roared, his face turning an ugly shade of beet red. “Most of them are either battle-shocked or walking wounded.”

  “T
he drums are signaling a general advance of the entire Left Flank,” Darius cut in, “orders signaled by the advance elements, Captain Smythe and the rest of the militia up there,” the Imperial pointed up the meadow, “and repeated by his Lordship’s drummers back behind us! This is to signal the Left to throw forward; we have our orders and now it’s time to carry them out.”

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Falon quickly offered in support.

  “Richard Lamont is no Lord of mine! I’m the Chief Man-at-Arms for Sir Lancaster, answerable only to him and he will not be pleased if I throw away the rest of his fighting tail on a fool’s gambit,” the Sergeant said shaking his head from side to side while making a slashing gesture with his hands.

  “Then stand aside, or your Knight can take it up with my Lord, and the Royal Marshal the Prince after we cut you down where you stand,” Falon hissed, reaching around her back and grasping the hilt of her sword. She didn’t exactly know what had come over her, but she was in no mood to be crossed—especially not by someone who dismissed her as a stripling when she was standing on the field of battle covered in blood!

  The Sergeant jumped back, bumping into his two supporters and then pushing them out of the way. Then he placed a hand on the hilt of his sword. “Sir Lancaster will not sit still for this,” he shouted, “you can’t just accuse his men of Treason and then threaten to cut us down without consequences!”

  “Then I’ll defend my assertion with charges of cowardice on the Field!” Falon exclaimed. Turning to face the gathered men, she pointedly ignored the Sergeant or Chief Man-at-Arms, or whatever his proper style was, “anyone willing to follow orders and advance on the enemy is to get in line and follow my Corporal’s orders. If, on the other hand you’re too wounded or two cowardly for another battle,” she shot a scathing glace at the Sergeant and jerked a thumb toward him, “then by the Lady you can stay here with him. The rest of us still have a man’s work to do today!”

  Falon didn’t wait for Darius to finish forming up the men; after accusing that Sergeant Chief Man-at-Arms of cowardice, she couldn’t very well stay back claiming to be wounded, so knowing she was going to be slower than the rest of the men, she immediately started moving in the direction of the Captain’s horns and drums.