He forced it from his mind, drawing his sword with a faint zing. ‘Form up!’ he cried, hearing the first startled screams from somewhere to their left. At least the Princes had the sense to attack the flanks and not their centre. The men closed ranks about him, shields rattling as they locked against one another, their pace slowing to a grinding trudge as sharp winds buffeted against their shields. The spearmen either side of them kept pace, the distant bellows of their serjeants cutting through the storm.
Over the top of his shield Arnulf saw the first dim shapes come into view through the haze. A writhing mass of blue-grey bodies some forty paces away, indistinct through the downfall. They were engaged on left and right flanks, their centre thin and weak from the Princes’ assaults, their attention diverted. Perhaps those two weren’t so foolish after all.
They stomped forward silently in the storm, feet sifting heavily through snow. Despite the cold, Arnulf felt sweat bead upon his brow beneath his helm already, glances left and right showing him Balarin and Ceagga looking straight ahead, faces red with exertion and concentration.
Arnulf kept his eyes on that vulnerable centre as they marched on. ‘Steady,’ he called out. ‘Steady!’ A bit closer. A bit more. The easterners were too occupied with their flanks to turn to meet them, Aenwald’s men dividing their attention.
‘Boar tusk!’ Arnulf roared, feeling the formation of the men change immediately, flowing like living liquid at his command. The Blackshield Dogs stormed forward as a great wedge, a grim tooth of men and sharp steel. Arnulf sprinted at its tip, chin down, legs pumping. They howled, their battle cry shrill and haunting through the falling snow. An easterner turned to face them, dark eyes horror-struck beneath a wrapped face, pointing and screaming at them in his jabbering foreign tongue. Arnulf’s shield smashed the man into the ground, the heel of his boot crushing his fragile windpipe as he trod over him.
With a lurch and a tumbling of broken, bleeding bodies, the easterners were split in two, snow turning pink as the Dogs burst through them like a fang through flesh, blades flashing silver from behind their black shields, stabbing, piercing, rending everything before them.
‘Break formation!’ Arnulf’s cry was lost to the din of battle and shrieks of the wounded, a few close enough to hear passing the order back down the line as they emerged on the other side of the enemy line. The men turned, their wedge becoming a shapeless mass of shearing blades and bludgeoning shields. The new bloods fell upon the confused easterners with a fury even Arnulf had not expected. He smiled, cutting men down alongside them, his blade sweeping out like a red scythe, easterners falling beneath it with each stroke. Some broke and ran from them, throwing down their weapons as their line was rent asunder in the snapping jaws of the Dogs.
One of the Princes and his knights came crashing through their enemies’ left flank atop his dark warhorse. Their mount reared as men turned to try and defend themselves, its hooves lashing out and crushing faces, breaking necks with a snap, clear even over the battlefield.
‘Pressure, lads!’ Arnulf cried hoarsely, throat feeling flayed, ‘keep the pressure on them!’
More of their enemy began to flee, stumbling and slipping in slushed snow, blood, flesh and the contents of men’s bellies, the ones who made it furthest leaving pink footprints and trails over the white land.
The Dogs surged forward with Aenwald’s men, driving the easterners across the field towards the woodland in an utter rout. Arnulf pelted after them, all organisation forgotten, the world passing in a white blur. He drove his blade through a man’s back, dragged it out of him, leapt the twitching body and cut down another with a cut to the hamstring. His bloodlust drove fatigue from him, the images of his fallen men at Harron’s Ford and the Marrwood spurring him onwards, and screaming men sprinted from him, weapon and shield flung aside to escape the retribution he brought down upon them.
‘Halt!’ he finally cried as the last of the easterners fled shrieking into the woodland, raising his fist for the men behind him. He drew ragged gasps, watching forms trip and stumble into the shadows of winter-dead trees and glowering evergreens.
An enormous, hoarse, exhausted cheer went up behind Arnulf, Aenwald’s men and his own, and he turned to face them, adding his own to theirs, the wind stinging his sweat-dampened cheeks.
As the men celebrated and embraced one another, Arnulf found the two Princes of Caermark approaching him atop their snorting, glaring mounts, their small host of knights following them. Their armour and horses were both bloodstained and scratched from the fight. They led from the front like their father, warriors as much as they were princes. That alone earned them a cautious nod from Arnulf that they returned in kind. Aenwulf, the bigger, older and harder-faced of the two, had lost his helm in the fight, Arnulf saw, and sported an impressive gash on his left cheek.
‘Our thanks, Lord Arnulf,’ he said, auburn curls plastered to his sweaty forehead. ‘We dealt them a swift defeat with that manoeuvre.’ His brother inclined his head, removing his helm, sculpted into the visage of a glaring, bearded face.
‘Many thanks,’ Prince Aenfeld echoed, quieter and rounder-faced than Aenwulf. It made him seem all the more dangerous, somehow.
‘Vengeance needs no thanks,’ Arnulf panted, chest aching fiercely, ‘the scum claimed many Shield Brothers at Harron’s Ford.’
‘This bodes well for us,’ Aenwulf said, staring about at the heaving shoulders of the surviving Blackshield Dogs. The Princes’ contingent of spearmen pressed in about them, many sporting wounds, others helping injured brothers-in-arms to their feet. The sounds of distant battle came from north and south.
‘Our father takes command of the northern front,’ Aenwulf said then, head jerking over his shoulder. ‘How do you and your men care for a spot more vengeance, Lord Arnulf? Thousands more of the bastards to kill before the day is done I –’
An arrow sunk into his mount’s flank and the beast reared, screaming and whickering. Two more took it through the neck, and with a yell, Prince Aenwulf fell, vanishing amidst snow and corpses.
‘Form up!’ Arnulf cried, looking for where the attack came from. Nothing, empty snow, corpses, dying men. The Dogs closed in around him, shields raised high, confusion birthing fear.
‘The woods! The woods!’ Prince Aenfeld shouted from behind. Arnulf whirred on the spot. The Prince was falling, his mount feathered. A volley landed amongst the spearmen, knocking down a score. The man to Arnulf’s right took a shaft to the shoulder, staggered and fell on his arse beside him, hands dragging him back through the snow away from the front. Another volley hit them, arrows whistling from between bole and bough, from high perches in towering evergreens, snatching men from their feet, sending others spinning.
Shapes burst from amongst the trees as their ranks fell into disarray against the storm of arrows. They crashed into Aenwald’s spearmen in a dark blur, roaring garbled, slurred battle cries, their flashing blades cutting men apart. They came in no formation, a maddened mob storming from the woods, arrows shrieking overhead, landing amongst the huddled forms of the Blackshied Dogs and the broken lines of infantry on their flanks.
A knot of screaming madmen came storming from between the trees towards Arnulf and his men before they could lock shields. Arnulf managed to raise his own in time to stop a shoulder barge from a hulking form that nearly swept him from his feet. He glimpsed a handful of Shield Brothers go down to his left, the steel faces above them blood-splattered and haunting, blades rising and falling in a frenzy.
The sounds of battle erupted again all around. A shield slammed into Arnulf’s, metal grating, a blank steel face snarling at him over it, its muffled voice spewing threat in a tongue he did not know. A blade flashed past his face. He tilted his shield upward, stabbed under it, his opponent falling away with a growl. Another immediately came leaping across the writhing body, sword aimed for Arnulf’s face, shadowed eyeholes rendering them hollow, ghostly.
It can’t be, Arnulf thought, blocking the blow, stabbing
out at them in answer. Frigid sweat born of horror crawled down his spine. It can’t be.
He caught his opponent in the shoulder with an overhand swing, his sword biting into flesh through leather and fur. Two more bore down on him, steel faces grim and empty, long braids hanging beneath their helms, gold glinting at their ends. He found himself moved down the slope of the land towards Redda’s Motte, trying to keep pace with his men as they were forced back with him as he defended himself. They left a trail of broken black shapes behind, the falling snow slowly covering them and their pink bloodstains.
Aenwald’s men fared poorly from the glimpses he caught of them. All discipline was forgone, the combat breaking down into individual melees, spear against sword and shield, men fighting desperately for their lives. Their assailants fought with a fury and skill Arnulf had rarely seen. Their movements, footwork and technique awakening memories in his mind’s eye as he fought back desperately, wincing every time a sword rang against his helm or clipped a spaulder.
The ground beneath Arnulf’s feet suddenly heaved and burst, launching him skywards, the world becoming a spinning blur. Lights flashed in his eyes as he landed heavily, pain shooting through his side, the wind knocked from him.
The sounds of battle were gone, replaced by the moans and wailing of the injured. His vision cleared piecemeal, green and yellow stars fading to white snow-heavy skies. With difficulty, pain stabbing through his side, Arnulf raised himself to a sitting position, looking about him.
Thousands of bodies covered a mile-long stretch of land that had been the battlefield. The once pure-white snowfield now churned pink, black and grey by blood, combat and whatever had just happened. His men lay in various states of consciousness all about him, groaning as they tried to raise themselves from where they lay. Some sported limbs twisted at alarming angles, swords, shields and helms were scattered everywhere.
‘My lord.’ He craned his neck, and saw Ceagga crawling towards him, face smeared red, teeth clenched in pain as he dragged a limp leg. Arnulf tried to stand and help him, but a heavy hand shoved him to the ground with a slurred word carrying threat. Looking up, he saw a blank steel face atop a broad body clad in thick leathers and winter furs. A bloodstained sword was clenched in a meaty fist, an equally bloodstained shield strapped to a thick arm. Damp braids clung to the warrior’s shoulders, golden rings at their ends, etched with a pattern of rolling waves.
Something else caught Arnulf’s eye then, striding across the field of the fallen. Two figures. One female, tall, wrapped in pale furs, copper hair streaming in the wind, her beautiful, lean face as white as the snow that buffeted her narrow form. The other was male – hulking, tall, terrifying, and Arnulf’s jaw dropped as he took in what they wore.
It can’t be, he thought numbly. It can’t be!
Mail, topped with hard, black leather. A ragged, torn black cloak, lined with grey fur, draped across broad shoulders.
How?
A helm, its faceguard grim and leering like the others, plunged the eyes behind it into shadow. A fearful image he had seen more than once in recent years. A hollow mass of walking death, steel-faced, empty, sword edge trailing blood as he single-handedly finished off a few straggling spearmen. His movements were quick, precise, brutal. The honed motions of a man bred to kill from childhood.
No.
Long braids trailed from beneath the empty helm’s mail aventail, dark and held with silver rings. A black shield was upon his arm, similar to the ones his own men carried. Where once there would have been a snarling dog’s head in white, now there was a wolf’s, its empty eyes profound and hungry against their black background.
Harlin?
A heavy boot thudded into Arnulf’s chest and forced him back down into the churned earth, its sole squeaking on his breastplate. He tried to resist, fumbled for a weapon that wasn’t there, but pain coursed through him too greatly and he lay placid. Two men with steel faces and braids looked down at him. They looked dead wearing those helms, looming over him like leering spectres. Hatred poured from somewhere in the depths of those empty eye-holes.
The one pinning him down levelled the point of their sword at Arnulf’s throat. He fumbled again, hoping to find some kind of weapon within reach, but the other’s boot stomped down painfully on his wrist and ground it into the dirt. The two laughed together, the sword at Arnulf’s throat drew back. He closed his eyes, prepared to meet his end.
There was a shout, a voice he recognised, though the words were unfamiliar, unintelligible. A thud, a snarl. Arnulf opened his eyes slowly when the finishing blow never came.
Harlin stood over him, gloved hand gripping the warrior’s sword arm, speaking heatedly in his mother tongue. They withdrew, heads bowed, uttering something that sounded like an apology.
For a time, all Arnulf could do was lie there and stare up at Harlin, watching his shadowed eyes roam the battlefield. He could hear men being finished off by the steel-faced warband, their screams and pleas cut through the snowstorm shrilly.
‘Are you hurt?’ Harlin said eventually, the shadows of his helm deepening as he looked down at Arnulf.
‘Everywhere.’ It hurt to talk. Harlin grunted heedfully and knelt, helping Arnulf into a sitting position. He rose after, and barked something out in his people’s tongue. The braided warriors began dragging Arnulf’s surviving men together, leaving the dead where they lay.
Arnulf looked up again at Harlin, mystified and confounded, not sure what he wanted to say, what to feel. He had wondered so much over what had happened to the boy since the Marrwood, had cursed the world and the gods for their ill luck, for scattering his plans to the wind, that to have him stood here now, alive, vibrant, but colder than ever – for once, words failed Arnulf.
‘Why?’ It was all he could ask, or croak, rather – his throat was parched and raw. Harlin’s head turned towards him, his eyeless gaze terrible to endure.
‘We all walk our own paths, Arnulf,’ he said. ‘We do what we must.’
‘And yours led you to side with these eastern filth?’ Arnulf shook his head, grimaced against the pain. ‘I… I had hopes for you once, boy. You could have been great, had you stayed true, had you let me guide you.’
‘I side only with myself, Arnulf,’ Harlin answered coolly, ‘only ever with myself. I have been a slave to others for far too long.’
‘And now you are a slave to sorcery,’ Arnulf coughed, clutching at his dented breastplate, the ribs beneath ablaze with agony. ‘What did you do to us?’
‘I did nothing. It was my consort who saved you from our men at my command.’ There was a note of amusement in Harlin’s icy voice.
‘Your men? This… treachery… was your doing?’
Harlin nodded slightly. Something in the shadows of that fearsome helm he wore seemed to pierce right through Arnulf. His temples prickled uncomfortably. ‘What became of you, boy,’ he croaked, ‘what happened to you at the Marrwood? We searched for you as long as we could. You disappeared without a trace in Farrifax.’
‘I went home, Arnulf,’ Harlin answered flatly, turning away. ‘These are the warriors of Luah Fáil, a thousand men your kind once thought dead. Now, they are returned, and this is but a taste of what they will bring to Caermark.’
‘What will you do with us, then,’ Arnulf said scornfully, ‘now that you have your Shield Brothers at your mercy?’
Harlin only watched him strangely in answer.
‘Traitor,’ Ceagga groaned, crawling slowly to where Balarin lay unconscious, helm dented, left arm twisted awkwardly at his side. ‘It is true what Berro said of you, Oathbreaker! We freed you from your chains, treated you like one of our own, and you turn on us like a snake! Oathbreaker!’
Harlin considered Ceagga silently for a moment before looking away, unmoved, his head turning slowly, as though following something from afar.
Something moved through the snowfall some hundred paces off to the north, catching Arnulf’s eye. At first he thought it some trick of the weather, b
ut something moved – a silvery shimmer or ripple passing through the air – his mind could not define it properly. Light seemed to coalesce about its huge form, coruscating, the snow swirling against the wind to envelope it.
There was a flash, snow bursting outwards in a sharp, sudden blast of frozen air, and before them stood Graxis atop his dreadful mount. Frost and crusted snow crunched beneath its hooves as he steered it slowly towards them, crystals of ice falling gently from his grotesque armour.
Arnulf felt a horrendous weight thrust itself upon him, and, try as he might, he could not look upon Graxis’s form for more than a second – it made him flinch, feel sick, dragged up every primal fear in his soul and made them numbingly real. He heard men scream, pray, break down and become blubbering children. The very air itself seemed to bend and warp around Graxis, shifting and contorting as he moved.
Harlin did nothing but stand stoic in the face of the Kaethar, seemingly immune to the waves of revulsion that took all others, nor did he flinch when Graxis spoke in his obscene voice, something trapped in what lay between man, animal and demon.
‘Hail, Harlin!’ Graxis rumbled, a wave of sickness flowing up from Arnulf’s stomach. ‘High King of Luah Fáil! The Black Wolf of Easthold! How quaint to find you here on the field of battle against our mutual foe!’
High King of Luah Fáil?
‘Hail, Kaethar Graxis,’ Harlin called back without enthusiasm, ‘last Emperor of Ipathos and King of the Red Crusade.’
‘A pleasure,’ Graxis said. The pates of his armour scraped vulgarly against one another, Arnulf imagined that foul helm dipping in mock formality as he kept his eyes fixed on Harlin’s boots. He cringed as that heavy gaze caressed his form once more, feeling violated as it passed. ‘I must say though, Black Wolf, I did not expect mercy from such as you. Your reputation is… bloody, by all accounts. Why have you spared these men? Their very lives are an offense.’
The Shadow of the High King Page 65