Falon stumbled to a half and stood there stunned as the Captain half walked, half jogged away.
A few seconds later someone behind her hawked and spat.
“Any new orders, Lieutenant?” the Imperial asked.
“We’re to move off a bit and hold here,” Falon said faintly, still trying to understand what had just happened. It was almost as if the Captain approved of her. “We’re to set up some kind of fallback position, in case he has to retreat.”
“Ah,” Darius said as if he understood more about their orders than she did.
Falon turned to him surprise written all over her face. “Did I miss something?” she asked felling irritable. There was so much to learn about warfare that once again she felt caught flat footed
Darius furrowed his brow at her and then understanding dawned, “Not at all,” he said courteously and even though she could tell that Darius knew she was missing something, he continued speaking as if she didn’t, “From here we can fall back to the main lines and we can advance on the enemy,” Darius said with a smile.
Falon snorted.
“Or if we’re faced with Cavalry or overwhelming numbers of armsmen, we can simply disappear into the trees, break up their charge and hopefully escape with our live,” Darius continued with a shrug.
“I didn’t realize that,” Falon said blinking rapidly as she processed this new information.
“I’ll see about rallying whoever’s left,” Darius said with a doubtful look at the dead, dying and wounded men scattered in a large semi-circle across the field.
Looking around, Falon saw that other than a number of Two Wicks men, just about everyone else that was still there was injured to some degree or another.
“You do that,” Falon agreed, stopping where she was and leaning over to place her good hand on one knee. Leaning over like this helped with her increasingly short breath. It seemed to her that air on the battlefield was just plain hard to come by. Could it be that too many men in one place made it hard to breathe? Looking around, she saw that a lot of men were also breathing hard, so she thought it was a definite possibility. That or she was just more tired than she had originally thought.
Chapter 49: Battle: The Pink Breakout
Wearily, Falon sat while the rest of the wounded that weren’t able to hobble back in the direction of camp. Those who were able and possessed two functioning hands did what they could for those injured too damaged to move themselves.
The screams of the maimed and fatally wounded pierced her to the depths of her soul. “By all the gods, mercy! Someone give me mercy,” cried a man before his words became incoherent shrieks of agony.
When the worst of the screamers suddenly fell silent, Falon looked over to see Darius leaning over the man she was certain had been the cause of the noise. He held a bright, red knife in his hand.
Falon’s stomach rebelled and she averted her eyes. The mercy blade was something she had only ever heard about in muttered tones of voice. It was a custom that predated the conquest of her mother’s people, and had been heavily frowned on by the ruling class ever since the mass training of Healing Wenches. At least one Wench to every village was required by law, ostensibly to avoid such outcomes as she had just witnessed.
Although on a practical level the law was not there so much to force women to learn healing magic as it was to separate it from general witchery. Healing magic and its practitioners were legally protected from the widespread persecution of only a few generations earlier, which ran rampant immediately following the conquest. Although nowadays the warriors of her Kingdom were too wedded to their Healing Wenches to even think about casting them aside in some kind of stupid pogrom, like she heard had been done in other lands. The lives of too many men had been saved by the healing hands of the Wenches.
When Darius started moving toward the next screamer, Falon realized she had been unconsciously shying away from watching—or even thinking about—what was going on.
Painstakingly, she levering herself back up to her feet and walked away. Even just a few dozen feet felt like it put a large enough distance between herself and the grim business. Tears streaked down her face as she was confronted with the harsh realities of war. Even now, ‘mercy’ was only given to enemies, or those who requested it and who looked to never recover with the aid of the Healing Wenches.
If walking away from this makes me a coward, then that’s what I am, she decided. How could Papa fail me like this, she thought bitterly. This was his job, not mine! Right then, all she wanted was to be back home with her sisters.
From the Center Wing Falon could hear the thunder of hooves and the crash of a charge sinking home. From her position she couldn’t tell who was doing what to whom…she just prayed that it was her side driving home the charge, and not the enemy.
The clamor of men fighting grew from an occasional long distance shout or clang, to a dull roar. Then horns began blowing and drums sounded in the distance.
“Prince William!” Falon could hear the faint battle cry from her side and she felt a bitter taste in her mouth. More than anyone else, this entire war was his creation, his desire and his fault. At that moment she couldn’t believe she had ever thought this ‘Flower War’ to be even remotely romantic.
After a few minutes the Raven army’s slightly shriller horns and deeper sounding drums sounded.
“Withdraw,” they were yelling in the distance, and she could hear the triumphant cries of Captain Smythe’s militia—or at least, she assumed it was the rest of the Fief Militia, because it was coming from the direction they had gone toward. The noise was also noticeably closer than the rest of the sounds down the field.
The thunder of hoof beats grew in her ears, and Falon’s head snapped up and around. This was not the distant sound of a mass cavalry charge; this was at least a dozen mounts, close up and getting closer.
“Horses!” Falon yelled her voice turning shrill and thready at the thought of yet another battle. Gripping the hilt of her sword tightly, she pulled the Imperial sword from the thick earth it had been left it sticking in, to save her weary arms the job of carrying it. Blade in hand, she moved over to join the nearly three dozen men who were still able to stand and fight. From the sound of those hooves, she didn’t have time for a proper head count; they had to rally up and fast.
“The wounded that could be moved have already been dragged to the tree line,” Darius reported as he limped over to her, “but so far this is all the men that have stopped running long enough to come back and see that we held this spot.”
Falon’s mouth tightened but before she could say anything she saw Duncan and Ernest. They both looked haggard but other than a cut on Duncan’s arm that was wrapped in a bandage, the two were miraculously unharmed.
“Thank the Lady,” she breathed.
Darius looked at her oddly. “Thank superior planning,” he replied.
Realizing she had spoken aloud what she had only intended to think silently, Falon nodded. “Of course,” she said, “and good work.” Darius nodded in return.
“Spread out into two lines,” the Imperial shouted towards the men, “spears and long arms to the front, everything else to the back.”
The line looked terrible, three men deep in one spot and only one man deep in others, and it wavered all over the place but at least it existed.
“They look set to ride close past us,” Darius remarked as the first of the horses came into view, they consisted of at least a dozen mounted riders in a V-shaped formation. The ones in the front were heavily armed and armored, while the ones in the back were much less so, and one carried a banner. “This close to the trees, they must have been planning to skirt the rest of the action and flee. If they’re willing then we should probably just let them pass.”
Falon glanced at him worrying her lips between her teeth. Looking over at the tired men with bandages on various parts of their bodies she couldn’t help but agree with Darius’ suggestion. Then her eyes caught on the banner: it was
a blue and white mountain, set on a green field with a rampant unicorn quartered in the corner.
Falon did a double take and saw that in addition to the dozen or so riders there were at least as many rider-less pack horse being hauled along behind. As the group thundered closer, Falon saw a very distinctive color of the lead rider of the V-formation.
“Unless I’ve gone blind, that’s the Pink Princess…along with her entire household both guard and staff,” she exclaimed, unable to believe that this was happening to her.
“By the bull,” Darius cursed under his breath, and Falon heard the men muttering amongst themselves. There was a hungry, speculative sound to their rumblings now which had been completely absent before.
“What banner does the Princess normally fly, Lieutenant?” one of the men asked eagerly.
“Can’t you see the pink dress?!” called out another in reply, and Falon realized it was Ernest.
“The Prince is here for the Pink Princess. If we capture her we’ll all be rich men,” shouted an axeman with strange tattoos on his face.
“Forget getting chopped down by her Knights; all I want is some of those pack horses,” snapped a man carrying a spear, “filled with gold, they must be!”
Without so much as a single order from her or Darius, the band of wounded and tired militia warriors started moving forward.
“I was afraid of this,” Darius grumbled, running to the front of the group, “slow down men! There’s been no order to advance yet.”
“There’s less than a dozen of them and their leader is a woman, how hard can it be?” cried the overly verbose axeman.
“We have several times their number,” cried Duncan, and Falon couldn’t believe her ears. She felt strangely betrayed by him in that moment.
“We can take them,” a half a dozen voices cried.
“Wait, she’s bound to have personal guards with her!” Falon yelled in an attempt to distract them. If they only hesitated for half a minute then the Princess and her men could gallop right on past! Unfortunately the men of the Left Flank—men who had recently overseen the defeat and capture of the hundred man strong Raven Cavalry contingent—were not deterred.
“Charge!” more than twenty men picked up the cry, and almost as one they lurched in to a sprint. As Falon watched the recently created battle lines shredded.
“We’ve lost them,” Darius shouted, the words tossed over his shoulder at the last second, as he hurried forward to keep up with the men.
“Do what you can,” Falon cried back.
“Formation,” Darius roared as he caught up with them. “Spearmen to the front!”
None of the men were listening to him, as instead of clumping back together and forming a wall of weapons, they spread out to ensure the Princess and her men couldn’t just barrel past. One man was even waving a very large tree branch from side to side, clearly with the intention of forcing one of the horses to rear to stop so he could catch it. How he got a branch in such a short period of time Falon had no idea.
She tried to jog but simply couldn’t do it, so she hurried forward at a fast walk.
Seconds later it turned out that the Princess did have personal guards—Knights, and there were four of them.
With the Pink Princess at their head, even without any lances they cut through Falon’s spread out militia formation like a hot knife through room-temperature butter.
“South March, for a-Princess,” raged the Knights as they hacked from side to side, easily punching through the spread out mass of men.
“Pink. Pink!” cried the Princess, and although she was dressed in a velvet riding gown of alternating red and pink coloration, it seemed no one had told the highborn lady that battlefields were no place women or their fine dresses, because she stood up in the stirrups and fired a shot from a copper-wrapped, ivory short bow. The arrow flew true and went straight through the heart of her target. Such a feat should have been impossible from such a delicate-looking bow wielded by a woman on horseback.
The rest of the Princess’s party was less fortunate than the Knights and their Lady. One of Falon’s men managed to ram a spear through the belly of riding palfrey, spilling Lady rider onto the ground. Then the man with the large branch successfully spooked another mount, this one carrying a lightly armored man whose the horse reared in surprise, throwing off its rider.
That same horse reared up and kicked out, its hooves promptly connecting with the branch-wielder’s face. While its rider was still rolling in the grass, the horse and another one tethered to it veered to the side and headed for the trees.
Hearing the cries of her fallen Lady’s Maid, the Princess pulled her horse to a stop and reversed direction. “We must return for Astrid! I’ll not lose another man or woman to either of these murderous peoples!” the Princess called out in a musical, lilting voice that pierced the din of battle more clearly than it had a right to do.
“Yes, my Princess,” called out two of the Knights, then all four of them hauled on the reins, bringing their mounts about to have another go at Falon’s men.
As she watched, Falon saw the Princess once again rear up on the stirrups and, fast as lighting, she sent a pair of arrows into the back of one militia man and the forehead of another. A slender little bow like that shouldn’t have had that kind of power, Falon thought with a mixture of awe and anger.
“Save my Maid,” cried the Princess.
Most of the rest of the Pink Princess’s party had charged through Falon’s poorly assembled men, although several had pulled their horses up short and started to turn back. The rest, mostly consisting of several more Ladies and a herald, kept driving forward.
The Princess and her Knights had essentially ignored Falon, and why shouldn’t they? She was slow, injured and only one person. However, they had left Falon at their backs and however much she sympathized with the Princess’s desire to save her Lady Maid, those Knights of hers were doing terrible damage to the Two Wicks’ men.
Any sympathy she felt toward the Princess and her men flew out the window when she saw a Lady Maid produce a slender looking war hammer and shatter Ernest’s knee as she rolled gracefully to her feet. Like her Princess, the Lady Maid appeared deadly with a weapon. The Maid she wore a serviceable gown, rather of the velvet affair with flowers and ruffles in it that the Pink Princess seemed to favor.
While Darius engaged one of the Knights in battle, a one-armed man on the ground, against a fully armored Knight on his horse. Falon saw Duncan dodging and weaving between still-mounted warriors as he pursued his quarry.
Meanwhile a pair of lesser armored members of the Princess’s party got their own licks in, and sent a pair of militia men reeling before they were swarmed by half a dozen Kingdom militia and dragged from their horses.
Falon watched openmouthed as one of the militiamen threw himself atop one of the servants’ mounts, and not so much as glancing back down at any of his comrades or to check the fate of the previous rider, kicked his heels to the ribs of the horse and took off. The mount he was on promptly reared and shot forward, snapping the tether connected to the pack horse behind it.
When she looked back, Falon was horrified to see Duncan almost upon the Princess. The beautiful young woman was now shooting arrow after arrow from a quiver attached to the front of her saddle, and each time she fired another militiaman fell down.
Feeling a burst of energy Falon rushed forward.
“Surrender, Princess,” Duncan called out, brandishing a sword that Falon was certain he hadn’t the least idea how to wield. For the first time she also realized he was also wearing the chain mail shirt of an armsman. She must have missed it because the armor didn’t gleam, being rather dull and rusty.
“Never, my good man,” the Pink Princess replied, deftly drawing another arrow and nocking it in one fluid movement.
“No!” Falon shouted, trying to distract the highborn Lady and she lunged forward to stab the woman’s horse in the rump.
Duncan had just seemed to real
ize his folly and started to duck when two things happened: Falon’s sword went two inches into the Princess’s horse near its tail, and the Lady in Pink loosed her arrow.
Falon screamed as the arrow took Duncan in his side and spun him around. He fell to the earth with a thump and sprawled into a boneless heap.
“I do apologize if I just killed your friend,” the Princess said through gritted teeth as she controlled her rearing horse into a hard turn towards Falon.
“Apologize?!” Falon shrieked as the horse reared up and tried to kill her with its iron shod forelegs. Ducking to the side, Falon tried to stab upward at the Princess while she had the chance but her sword was too short with the horse reared up, and all she got was the side of the Princess’ hot pink riding boots.
Falon grimaced when she realized she hadn’t even cut through the boots, but only sliced the leather. She was here to kill or capture the Princess, not ruin a pair of boots!
“Yes,” the Princess said in such a prim voice that Falon almost couldn’t believe she was hearing the Lady in Pink correctly, “there is no excuse for acting, dressing, or in any other way comporting oneself as less than a lady—even when on the battlefield.”
“You’re insane, I can think of plenty of reasons,” Falon growled, and even though it made her chest scream she lunged forward with her blade raised high. Even if she couldn’t reach high enough to stab Princess in the chest she could still stab her leg through that impractical, flamboyant, incredibly expensive dress. It was the sort of clothing Falon and her sisters could only ever dream about wearing.
To her dismay, Falon’s sword skittered off the long, flowing Pink riding gown, throwing sparks the whole way. The dress was enchanted!
“Some here have said so. I disagree,” the Pink Princess retorted in her melodious, pitch-perfect voice as she pulling one of her few remaining arrows from its quiver and put it to the string, causing Falon to stagger back in horror. It went against everything Darius had been teaching her about never flinching in the face of the enemy, but she couldn’t help herself.
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