‘I couldn’t sleep,’ he said in a hushed town, his eyes daring. ‘So I went walking. Well, prowling. I was going to go sneak into those knights’ camp, y’know, the ones from down south – Spear Hills and all that shite. Was gunna see if there was any loot I could lift from those rich twats. Only…’ He narrowed his eyes into the low flames. ‘Only they was all awake like, and wandering round all armoured up, like they was getting ready for battle, at this hour! Strapping on swords and getting their horses all saddled up. Something ain’t right with it. They should be resting up for tomorrow, what’re they playing at?’
Garrmunt, Harlin thought sourly. There always was something untrustworthy about that man. What was he up too? ‘We need to tell Arnulf,’ he said to them all, ‘Garrmunt might be planning to desert.’ They nodded in agreement.
‘Never did like that southern cunt,’ Anselm spat.
‘We’re not all cunts down south, farmhand,’ said Jorric, rising to his feet and stuffing a small bag of coin in his pocket he had claimed from the fight with Torc. ‘But yes, we need to rouse the Dog, something isn’t right.’ He looked about at wavering shadows around them all. ‘Something isn’t right at all.’
‘I’ll go have a look at their camp,’ Harlin said, rising too. ‘See if I can find out what they’re up too. There is something ill in the air tonight and I would know what it is.’ They all grunted their agreement and rose from the fire.
‘I’m coming with you,’ Red Harry suddenly said, ‘I haven’t killed a southerner in too long, hopefully they’ll give me a reason.’
‘And me,’ said Anselm. ‘Just let me get my gear. I’m not going near them without it.’ Harlin had to agree with him there.
Harlin went to his tent and dragged out his gear into the light. His mail hauberk, his hardened leather armour, his round company shield, his sword and his helm – a treasured thing. It was fashioned in the traditional style of Luah Fáil – made of dark steel, with a mail aventail to protect the neck, and its face guard sculpted into the grim visage of their god of death, Ancu – mouthless, dead-eyed, cadaverous. His father had owned one like this, as did all clansmen of Luah Fáil, he’d had it crafted by a smith from memory. It felt good to wear, fitted close, protected well – and stabbed men’s hearts with terror.
He threw his gear on over his clothes, strapping his sword to his belt and slinging his shield on his back. Anselm and Red Harry had done the same and all three of them looked ready for war.
They set off, picking their way through tents, shadows and around campfires, trying not to attract attention from men they were not affiliated with – it would arouse suspicion to be seen skulking around fully armed and armoured at this time of night. It would be a bitter irony if they themselves were apprehended for that very same thing.
The camp, Harlin saw, as they picked their way through it, was restless as he had been himself upon waking from his dream. Many men were still awake and all seemed on edge, and even the rats and dogs that always lurked around war camps seemed nervous and jittery, eager to be out of sight.
Lord Garrmunt’s camp was almost like a small, moderately fortified camp within a camp, off somewhere to the eastern edge, close to where the horses grazed. The knights had driven stakes around it to mark out their perimeter, hundreds of feet all around, with a deep ditch dug around it. The stakes were planted so densely that even a man on foot would have trouble squeezing between them, and they had a sizable portion of this area to themselves. An opening in the stakes that served as an entrance to their enclosure was guarded by two plate armoured knights, stood erect beneath the banner of the Spear Hills and baring torches against the dark.
Harlin, Anselm and Red Harry kept away from them, lurking to the knights’ right and moving through the shadows the stakes cast into the ditch beneath them. They could see into the camp, the stakes giving a partially obscured view of the goings on within. The three of them found a good spot together, a good few yards away from the knights on guard duty, and crouched in the shadows that lay thick about them, close to the piled buttress of the stake palisade.
Within the enclosure, knights were bringing in their horses, saddled and ready for war. They all were fully armed and armoured and went about things in a hushed, rehearsed way. There was no chatter, no talk, only a silent efficiency and speed to them that told Harlin something was wrong here. He did a quick count of them, though it was difficult in the night and with such a limited view. There had to be at least three or four hundred, maybe more.
‘Elric was right, this bodes ill,’ Anselm grunted, ‘they are up to some evil, no doubt about it, some treachery is afoot here.’
‘Dirty southern bastards,’ Red Harry growled from between clenched teeth, fingering the grip of his sword.
‘Come, we must tell Arnulf,’ Harlin said, moving away from the camp quietly. Anselm followed, Red Harry reluctantly so and still muttering to himself about southerners. They crept back around through shadows and towards their own camp, making haste. Yet a sudden thunderous noise behind them made them spin on the spot.
The knights came charging from their enclosure. No battle cry was given, no horns were blown, there only the sound of their mounts’ hooves and rattling steel. Into the air they cast flaming torches that landed on and among tents that began to burn almost instantly. Through the camp they came crashing, through tent and pavilion and lean-to shelter alike, riding down any who stood before them with brutal efficiency.
‘Back to the camp!’ Anselm cried, drawing his sword and unslinging his shield as they ran. More torches came twisting, turning through the air, hitting tent and man with crackling thuds and billowing clouds of sparks. Some men awoke with a start, confused at what was happening, and seeing the three mercenaries running for their lives they shouted vicious insults after them, thinking them guilty of some mischief.
They could hear cries now, the camp was wakening, and the sounds of fighting began to break out behind them. They didn’t stop to look, not daring to break pace, heading straight for their own camp with reckless abandon. They leapt tents and men like hurdles in a village race, only keeping from tripping by a hair’s breadth at times. Harlin thanked Arnulf mentally for his gruelling fitness regime he had them all undertake, it had kept them alive more than once before.
From behind the sound of hooves and crashing and ripping gained on them, and a quick look over Harlin’s shoulder showed him a knight of the Spear Hills, lance couched, charging straight towards them. He gripped his sword tightly as he ran, listening to the fall of those hooves, waiting, waiting.
With one last quick glance behind to make sure he didn’t strike blind, Harlin spun to his left as the knight gained ground and swung his sword for the mount’s legs. The creature fell with a cry and a crash and flailed shrieking, its leg hanging by its tendon. The knight had been thrown from the saddle, landing awkwardly on his back and was trying to pick himself up, sluggish from his fall. Anselm was on him suddenly, kicking him down to the ground. ‘No! No!’ the knight pleaded from somewhere within his finely sculpted helm, hands outstretched for mercy he did not receive, as Anselm drove the point of his sword through the visor.
‘Tin cunt,’ he panted, spitting on the jittering body and wrenching his sword free from clutching mailed hands.
‘Should’ve let me have him,’ Red Harry grumbled as they ran again.
They reached the camp a few breathless minutes later, the glow of burning tents growing behind them like a halo of dawn. The sounds of battle were constant now yet still thankfully distant from the Dogs’ camp. The Dogs themselves were already forming up, fully armed, fully armoured. Arnulf was already shouting orders over the sounds of carnage awakening, as straggling men stood to the side pointing and watching the knights of the Spear Hills ride through burning tents in the distance, trampling and riding down men. They were coming closer, Harlin noticed unpleasantly.
The company banners had been taken from their positions and were now carried aloft over some hundred and eighty
helmed heads. They all looked confused, Harlin saw, some clearly still half asleep. Some grumbled and others uttered foul curses and some prayed to their gods, so ferocious was the sight of the camp burning.
‘Lord Arnulf!’ Harlin cried as they burst into the camp ground, breathless and exhausted from their flight. Arnulf turned to him instantly, his eyes wild, his hair ablaze in the light of gathering flames. ‘Lord Garrmunt! Lord Garrmunt betrays us!’ Harlin shouted to him, stopping before him with Red Harry and Anselm behind him bent double and gasping for breath. Arnulf said nothing, but unslung his shield from his back and drew his sword. His expression was tense, yet unreadable.
‘Into formation,’ he grunted at the three of them, ‘we make for the horses and ride for Farrifax, this job is over.’ With the sound of swords ringing clear of scabbards the Blackshield Dogs stomped through the camp, heading for the eastern perimeter where their horses were tied and left to graze. Twenty men at the back formed a rear guard, three of whom were Harlin, Anselm and Red Harry, keeping watch on the scene in the camp and shouting over their shoulders to relay the knights’ murderous progress to the main body of men.
They moved too slowly, their progress sluggish, tents and fleeing men from Lord Callen’s army making the going difficult. The tents they crushed beneath leather boots into the dirt, the men not of their own they shoved aside or trampled. But each slight delay or obstacle cost them precious seconds while the night was dark and the flames of burning tents grew closer, brighter, and the sound of beating hooves roared, and the cries of dying men shook while the screams of horses cut a shrill, ghostly note.
And then the knights were on them. They came riding through the glaring fire, flame and smoke, full thirty of them, launching torches through the air to land on tents that still stood, or shoved them into the canvas as they passed. One at their head cried for them to charge, brandishing his sword at the Blackshield Dog’s retreating formation, and they fell upon them like a storm of mounted steel.
The rear guard had sent up the cry when the knights were spotted, the men turning on the spot and slamming their shields together, locking them in place a moment before the charge struck home. The momentum of it sent men flying through the air, broke limbs and crushed those who bore the very brunt of it. The three men in front of Harlin took the full impact of one of the charging knights, the first crushed beneath hooves with a crunch, the other two stumbling back with the force. Harlin was nearly taken of his feet himself, so great was the impact upon his shield, saved only by the men behind him shoving him ever forward.
The knight rained down blows upon Harlin’s shield, now raised above his head, using his sword like a club and screaming with mad fury, as the other riders tried to take down the Dog’s they hadn’t crushed with their charge. With a quick stab from under his shield, Harlin pierced the neck of his foe’s mount. It reared, hooves clattering against his shield as it fell back and tossed in pain, squashing its rider beneath it.
But there were more, and they were all around now, some breaking off to charge again as the shield wall buckled and bent, the Dogs being forced to fight on all sides against mounted enemies, their line descending into a chaotic, jagged melee. Harlin caught sight of Anselm, somewhere to his left, plunging his sword into the flank of a warhorse as its rider tried to break free to reform with the others, the creature’s screams almost piteous as it fell and the its master was slaughtered. Their riders’ plate armour made them hard to kill while mounted and active, and good horses like these were a shame to kill, but there was no place for mercy here, no, not if they hoped to live through this betrayal. They cut down horse after horse without pity, without thought – their will to live, to prevail, overcoming foe after foe, keeping their momentum at its peak.
Discipline. Training. Resolve. Those three things made the Blackshield Dogs nigh on unbreakable, and those same three things were what broke those who dared test them.
Another charge came from the front as the survivors of the first attack withdrew and reformed. Fewer knights, many of their number dead, having underestimated their opponents, their mounts sporting wounds. Their charge was weaker, its effect less but still felt. More of them fell, their mounts wounded or killed or the riders dragged from their saddles in the ensuing melee. The Blackshield Dogs were ruthless and efficient with those they took down. A quick stab, through the visor of the helm, into the eye, into the skull, or through a gap in the armour where one could be found, or where it was weakest and into the vitals.
The shield wall held after the second charge, the knights too few to survive against so many that still stood, against ones so skilled. Harlin felt his bloodlust kindled more with each one he killed and prayed for the fools to charge again. From somewhere to the right side of the shield wall he heard Arnulf call for them to begin to fall back. Their scarred and beaten shields locked once more as they crept back slowly, pace by pace, keeping the wall intact. Another rear guard formed from their back rank of men, and now cleared the way for them through tent and fire and kept watch over their exposed flanks.
Smoke and fire obscured Harlin’s vision. A red glare penetrated grey clouds, swirls of scarlet flame caught and twisted by wind. Shapes moved, horses galloped, the knights had fallen back out of sight to lick their wounds. There were shouts, and the sounds of distant skirmishes still taking place in small pockets around the camp as groups of Lord Callen’s men fought for their lives or were simply butchered.
‘The sellswords escape!’ A cry went up from nearby, somewhere from where the knights had retreated. Silhouettes moved but Harlin could not tell what they were, the smoke was too dense, too many shapes milled about in chaos some distance from their flanks, dashing and crashing into one another.
‘Make haste! Something comes!’ Arnulf called to them, their pace quickening instantly. They still moved too slow, hampered by their shield wall – but too vulnerable without it, stray men making easy pickings. Dark shapes moved in the smoke before them, moving across the fallen knights and their butchered mounts. A sound built from somewhere, like rhythmic thunder cutting through the carnage that spread out around them. ‘Brace yourselves!’ Arnulf roared, the wall halting and tightening, feet digging in, the men of the rear guard racing to support their Shield Brothers from behind.
A great wedge of steel and horse burst from within the billowing smoke and the knights of the Spear Hills came again with their swords held high and drove into their shield wall, shattering it utterly, rending shield and man with ease.
There was a great, white flash before Harlin’s eyes and he was sent spinning back under the force of the charge, a sharp ringing note singing in his ears, his heartbeat pulsing with a percussive rhythm beneath it.
All was white, pinprick stars growing and blossoming into pink and green flowers before his eyes as his head swam. A wicked pain boiled in the depths of his skull. Slowly the ringing ebbed, and he could hear muffled orders being shouted, though from whom he could not tell. His body felt numb, and a great weight lay atop him. The searing light in his eyes faded back into spots of pale luminescence, and then back again into fuzzy grey clouds of smoke.
He was on his back, two dead men lay across him, the weight of them in their mail driving the feeling from his limbs. His head throbbed and his ribs cried out in agony from where he had taken the force of the knights’ charge. Bruised, he prayed, not broken. He looked around slowly, letting his vision focus.
Their shield wall had been completely smashed apart. Around him his Shield Brothers lay dead, broken and dying. Black-clad bodies lay mangled, trampled, flattened and piled atop one another, surrounded by the burning, crumbling skeletons of tents. The knights had moved on, it seemed, satisfied they had been utterly crushed. The sounds of fighting were fewer now, more distant, less engaged.
The Blackshield Dogs were finished, defeated. The fact smothered the last bit of fight left in him. He closed his eyes and tried to drive the pain from his head, arms and legs dead and numb.
Footsteps c
ame nearby. He lay still, struggling to breath beneath the weight of two dead men in armour. His head began to feel light again. His eyes rolled beneath their lids, vision blurring, refocussing, blurring again.
‘Harlin,’ a voice grunted, the edge of pain in it. He opened his eyes, thinking he was hallucinating, not believing whose face it was he saw before him.
‘Anselm.’ His friend stood over him, his features dimly cut by the flames around them. He was upside down, Harlin thought stupidly, as his face swam and swelled and shrank. He vanished from sight.
He heard a grunt of effort and the weight atop him lessened greatly. He sucked in air like a drowning man brought back from the cusp of death. Another grunt, and blood flowed back suddenly to every limb, setting them ablaze with pins and needles. He curled to his side with sudden pain and retched dryly, the sensation almost a relief.
‘Come on,’ he heard his friend say. ‘Can you stand? On your feet, lad.’ Anselm’s thick gloved hands took him under each arm and helped Harlin raise himself to a sitting position, his legs too weak to do anything else. Anselm crouched beside him, holding a wound to his side and wincing, he noticed. His face was blood splattered, a cut on his eyebrow leaked steadily and his nose looked broken beneath the bent guard on his helm.
‘What happened, Anselm?’ he uttered, looking at the casualties around them. Anselm shook his head gravely.
‘Flying wedge,’ he spat, ‘must have been a hundred of the bastards, went through us like cock-rot in a whorehouse.’ Harlin felt numb again. He closed his eyes and stumbled to his feet.
‘What of Arnulf?’ he asked.
‘No idea. They got nearly all of us, the southern cunts. Broke my fucking ribs and face.’ Harlin felt his hand moved to rub his own wounded ribs in sympathy as he watched Anselm rise awkwardly. ‘We’re done for, Harlin,’ he went on, his voice softening. ‘A handful got away, maybe, they made for the horses and fled, I think. You weren’t out too long, few minutes perhaps, all it took. It’s over. We have to move, they’ll be looking for survivors soon and I’m not up for taking another charge like that with just two of us.’
The Shadow of the High King Page 11