Wrath (The Faithful and the Fallen Book 4)

by John Gwynne

  Balur strode towards the oncoming shield wall, those armoured like him falling in either side, forming a wall across the path, flanked by the other giants.

  Veradis saw Lothar cantering back down the line to his massing warband, the Kadoshim that had accompanied Lothar staying with Nathair. At the sight of Balur and his giants Nathair frowned from his vantage point upon his draig, but he allowed his shield wall of eagle-guard to proceed. Veradis shifted his gaze to them, thought he saw Caesus at the centre of the front row.

  My position, where I would stand amidst my Draig’s Teeth. And now I would call the halt before these giants, lock shields, brace my feet, and allow my enemy to throw themselves to their deaths.

  He blew out a long breath as the shield wall rippled to a halt, muffled orders shouted, shields locking high.

  ‘Giants will not save you,’ Nathair called from behind the shield wall, ‘we have faced them before and triumphed.’

  Not these giants, you haven’t, Veradis thought.

  ‘SHIELD-BREAKERS, FORWARDS,’ Veradis bellowed, and Balur and his comrades lumbered forwards, slowly, each step a ponderous thundering drumbeat. Before them the shield wall stood, silent and implacable.

  They will be waiting for the roar of warriors, the thunder of their charge, the first avalanche-like impact. Veradis’ fingers twitched to the hilt of his short sword, feeling almost as if he was there, alongside them, his one-time sword-brothers. Now his enemy.

  ‘NOW,’ Veradis yelled, Balur and his Shield-Breakers rippling to a halt, well out of range of the shield wall and its short stabbing swords.

  They need the crush of flesh upon their shields to reap their harvest of blood.

  As one, the giants’ axe-shafts shot out, arcing high, slammed down onto the heads of the first row of eagle-guard and were explosively yanked back, the tapering points of the axes hooking behind shield rims, dragging them and the warriors gripping them tumbling into the space between giant and eagle-guard, some sprawling on the ground, others stumbling on unsteady feet. The axes rose and fell, hacking down into iron helms and leather-covered shoulders and backs.

  Eagle-guard screamed and died, an explosion of blood as half of the first row were dragged to their deaths, huge gaps suddenly appearing in the shield wall. Veradis heard Caesus yelling orders, men shuffling forwards to fill the gaps.

  Giants from the flanks of Balur’s row ran forwards and finished any eagle-guard still breathing in the killing ground, crushing or splitting skulls with hammer and axe, then leaped back to the flanks as Balur’s axe-men raised and slammed their weapons down into the shield wall a second time, repeating their grisly attack, men screaming, shields splintering, blood spraying as more men were dragged tumbling to their deaths. The Shield-Breakers ripped another half-score of men from their formation, and Veradis saw men in the wall hesitate, slow in their movement forwards where before they had moved like a machine, thoughtless habit and instinct guiding them.

  Fear is swaying them now.

  The gaps closed, though, the line reforming, shields crunching together.

  Footsteps behind him and Krelis appeared. He was holding a flaming torch.

  ‘How goes it, little brother?’ he said, watching as Balur and his kin continued their bloody work dragging more men screaming to their deaths. Krelis whistled. ‘I’m glad we’re on the same side,’ he muttered.

  ‘All’s ready,’ Veradis told him. ‘We just need to hold them here a little longer.’

  ‘Shall I?’ Krelis said, waving his torch at the shallow, narrow ditch before Veradis’ feet that cut across the path. It glistened with fluid – tree sap and other combustibles that Brina had helped them gather.

  Must hold them here, let the whole of Lothar’s warband gather behind them into one large maul.

  ‘Wait till we see the flames, that’s what Corban said. Else we’ll give them warning. Patience, brother.’

  ‘Not my best quality,’ Krelis growled.

  The killing ground was piled with the dead, the earth blood-soaked, and still the giants continued to hook, drag and kill, the shield wall as yet having no answer for this deadly stratagem.

  I would move, march forwards, try and close with them, rather than stand and wait for my death to descend upon me. That is the weakness in this attack. A sudden charge and the giants would be vulnerable. They may be wrapped in iron, but there are still gaps, knee and hip joints, gut and elbow. But it is hard for a battlechief to see that in the heat of the moment, when his men are dying to left and right, when his own death looms large, as close as a breath upon the neck.

  And even as Veradis thought it, he heard Nathair’s horn-man blowing the signal for a fast advance, shouted commands echoing from the front line of the shield wall.

  So Nathair still has something of his tactical skill, then. I must not forget that it was his plan that gave us victory over the draig-riding Shekam.

  The shield wall lurched into motion, not as fluid as Veradis would have expected, but it kept the shields tight, the wall solid, rows behind packed close and firm. Even when they marched over the bodies of their fallen sword-brothers the line did not break. Veradis grunted approvingly. He pulled a horn to his lips and blew on it, one long note. Balur’s head tilted his way, and then the giant’s voice was booming and he and his Shield-Breakers were retreating, moving back and towards the forest, sinking into the trees and shadows, revealing behind them on the track the shield wall of Veradis’ men, silent and still.

  ‘Remember, big brother, wait until you see the flames,’ Veradis said, and then he was running, back towards his men, tugging on his helm, taking the shield offered him and slipping it onto his arm. He fell in at the centre of the first row, looked at the men either side of him and gave them a fierce grin.

  ‘SHIELD WALL,’ he yelled, and their shields slammed together with a concussive thud.

  Veradis willed his men to hold.

  CHAPTER NINETY-ONE

  NATHAIR

  Nathair sat and stared at the mangled carnage that had been the front rows of his shield wall. Shock had frozen him for too long as the deadly genius of Veradis’ Shield-Breakers had unleashed their fury upon his Draig’s Teeth.

  Now, though, he was back in control of his wits.

  Over a hundred men dead, in less time than it would take to count them, but I have a thousand of my eagle-guard about me still, give or take. This is not defeat, Veradis, merely a blooded lip.

  ‘Let us deal with them,’ one of the Kadoshim close by said to Nathair.

  ‘Soon,’ Nathair replied.

  He held his draig back as the shield wall marched forwards, allowing more men from the surrounding flanks that stretched all the way back to encompass Lothar’s warriors to hurry forwards and fill the gaps of the fallen, thickening the wall upon the track until it was fifteen, twenty rows deep, and more joining it all the time.

  The iron-covered giants with their axes had fallen back, disappearing into the gloom of the forest, and now blocking the way on the path ahead was the original shield wall that had stood behind Veradis.

  He felt a rush of anger, that his old friend would betray him like this. Would stand against him.

  He has chosen his death. They are men, and they are not my Draig’s Teeth.

  Even as Nathair watched, the front row of his shield wall slammed into Veradis’ line. There was a concussive crash that seemed to ripple outwards, shaking leaves from branches, and Veradis’ shield wall bent at the edges, like a pulled bow. Nathair held his breath, thinking with every heartbeat to see the enemy line shatter and break apart. A cloud of smoke rolled across the path, for a few moments obscuring the locked shield walls. Nathair heard the screams of men, heard the dull thud of iron on wood, the pushing and heaving of hundreds of men.

  Veradis’ line held but the sheer weight of Nathair’s eagle-guard began to tell. It was twice as many rows deep, and more men were joining it, at least four or five hundred men packed into the track before Nathair. Then men from the flank
s began to scream.

  They were being dragged from the wall, the giants in the forest had returned to strike from the shadows, tugging men out of formation and hacking them to pieces.

  I need to scour those giants from the trees, else my men on the track will be like rats in a barrel to them. Perhaps that is a task best suited to the Kadoshim.

  Another billow of smoke rolled across his vision.

  That is not from campfires.

  Nathair looked to his left, and for a moment did not believe what he was seeing.

  The forest gloom was thicker all along their western flank, a wall of roiling darkness. But within it flickered orange light, blooming and spreading.

  Fire and smoke.

  Even as he saw it, there were shouts along the flank, and then from the front a wall of flame suddenly arose, searing across the track and carrying on into the forest, carving a line through his eagle-guard, cutting the track in two, separating his shield wall from the main body of Lothar’s warband and the remaining eagle-guard that were protecting it. Hundreds were on the far side, fighting on against Veradis’ wall, oblivious to the flames.

  That will not stop us. A brave man may jump those flames, if he has room. I remember a young eagle-guard doing just that in defence of his prince.

  More shouts of warning rose up from the left flank as clouds of smoke began to billow over them, the flames behind the rolling smoke growing clearer, the whole forest to the west seeming awash with them.

  Do they hope to trap us here against Veradis’ bottle-neck and burn the rest of us to death?

  Then Nathair heard something else, a scuttling sound that grew louder, and as he looked the very forest floor appeared to . . . move.

  He peered harder, trying to pierce the gloom of the forest, saw undergrowth swaying, collapsing under the weight of some invisible force, a wave like a great slick of oil spreading over the forest, black and scuttling. Getting closer and closer.

  Nathair felt a fist of fear clench around his heart. He did not know what it was, but instinctively he knew that it wasn’t anything good. Beneath him his draig rumbled uneasily, shifting from foot to foot.

  And then the first row of his eagle-guard that edged the western flank just . . . disappeared.

  They collapsed beneath a black tide that surged towards the main bulk of Lothar’s warband, engulfing hundreds of men in a few heartbeats, arms flailing, feet kicking as they fell to the floor, screams rising and cutting off, wails, bodies twitching. The next row behind them turned and ran, back into the row behind them, and then the whole western perimeter of Nathair’s defensive line was gone, either swallowed by the black tide or running frantically from it, up the embankment and into Lothar’s massed warband.

  The eagle-guard fighting Veradis were oblivious, cut off from this new threat by the wall of flames that dissected the road.

  ‘What the hell?’ Nathair cursed, and the Kadoshim about him drew their swords, three of them stalking through the crowd that was pressing towards them. Blood spurted as one of them hacked at men, and then a space was parting before them and they were standing alone at the base of the embankment, the black tide swirling towards them.

  The first Kadoshim slashed at it with his sword, then the darkness was at his boots. It spread over his feet, up the boots, onto his breeches, the Kadoshim swatting at his legs, knocking clumps of whatever it was off of him, but the darkness continued climbing, and then Nathair saw shreds appearing in the Kadoshim’s clothing, blood welling from its legs.

  Then Nathair realized what it was he was seeing.

  Ants. Like the ones near Jerolin, all those years ago. They were unstoppable, and shredded the flesh from anything that got in their way. They were my inspiration for the shield wall.

  For a few terrifying moments he just sat in his saddle and stared, frozen with fear.

  The first Kadoshim turned, took a few staggering steps up the embankment, then dropped to its knees, looking confused as to why its body was not working properly. It reached out to the two behind it, who were already stamping on the never-ending wave of insects, one of them dark to the knees. The first one fell face-first to the ground, rolling and thrashing as the ants swarmed over its torso, up its neck, filling its mouth, crawling out of its nose, shredding and ripping its flesh, its body spasming for a few moments, before it shuddered and was still, black vapour gushing from a score of wounds, forming into a mist-wraith in the air, screeching its rage before it evaporated into the gloom.

  So taking their heads is not the only way to kill them.

  Then the ants were sweeping up the embankment, a tide of them as far along the road as Nathair could see, smoke and flame behind them, engulfing eagle-guard, labourers and warriors from Lothar’s warband, everyone scrambling away from them in a panicked frenzy, bodies crushed, pushed flying, trampled as close to four thousand men tried to run south, down the road’s embankment and into the forest.

  The first ants reached his draig’s feet and it lifted one foot, squashing many with a crackling splat, but hundreds more were already there, swirling up the draig’s talons and onto its foot, mandibles ripping at the flesh beyond the curved claws.

  The draig bellowed.

  Nathair yanked on his reins, shouting in the draig’s ear, the command to turn, to run, and it was happy to obey, lumbering into a shambling gait, turning right, down the embankment, crushing any eagle-guard before it as it headed eastwards into the forest.

  ‘With me,’ Nathair cried. ‘With me.’ He tried to gather eagle-guard behind him, desperate to lead as many as he could through the forest and to safety. Warriors fell in behind the draig, following the path it made through the undergrowth, and soon they had outdistanced the flow of ants, though behind him Nathair still heard the screams of men being eaten alive.

  Glancing back, he saw at least a few hundred of his men running in his wake, some of Lothar’s warriors in their white cloaks amongst them, more gathering to him as his draig ploughed into the forest.

  I’m going to need every last man, because even if we make it to the plain before Drassil, I’m betting there will still be a fight ahead of us to make it to the gates.

  He cursed Corban and Veradis, and guided his draig looping east and then north into the forest.

  CHAPTER NINETY-TWO

  CAMLIN

  Camlin heard screams drifting through the forest, along with the stench of woodsmoke.

  Sounds as if they’re being flayed with a hot knife, and not just a few of them, either. ‘Think someone’s having a bad day,’ he muttered to Dath, who was crouched only a few paces away.

  ‘Should find out who soon enough,’ Dath replied, running the flat of his palm over the score of arrows that he’d stabbed into the cold black earth of the forest.

  Men and women were spread in a long line either side of them, almost eighty archers in total, all of them with bows strung and quivers full. Behind them stood a hundred or so Jehar warriors, Kulla, Dath’s wife, one of them. They were led by a man named Akar, grim-faced and dour.

  ‘Here they come,’ Dath said.

  Camlin stared into the forest, saw clouds of smoke billowing amongst the trees, and heard a low rumbling thunder, growing closer, and behind it those piercing, continuous screams.

  ‘Be ready,’ Camlin called out, standing and rolling his shoulders. ‘And remember, first arrow together, then in your own time, fast as you can.’

  He plucked an arrow poking from the soil in front of him and loosely nocked it, waiting.

  He didn’t have to wait long.

  The shouting and screaming grew, louder and louder, and then shadows were moving through the trees. Individual forms began to solidify within the stampeding mass, a horde of men running in Camlin’s direction, more than Camlin could begin to count, many in the black and silver of Tenebral, more clad in Helveth’s white cloaks.

  ‘Tell us when,’ Camlin muttered to Dath.

  The enemy were within range, now, but Dath waited.

 
Good lad. They need t’be close enough for an arrowhead to punch through leather and mail.

  Another twenty paces, covered in four or five heartbeats.

  ‘READY,’ Dath yelled, and eighty archers drew their arrows, sighting a target within the onrushing wave of men.

  ‘LOOSE,’ Dath cried and Camlin’s arrow was thrumming from his bow, sinking into an eagle-guard’s throat, sending him crashing to the ground, a handful of men behind him snared by his fall, tumbling with him.

  All along the front of this wave of flesh and blood men fell, legs crumpling beneath them, but the wave kept coming.

  Before the first man had stopped rolling, Camlin’s second arrow was on the string, drawn and loosed, another man spinning and falling; again, another down; another, every time a knot of men going down as one, so tightly were they running together. And beside him Camlin heard Dath’s bowstring thrumming, a constant rhythm.

  The plan wasn’t just to kill indiscriminately, though of course taking down the numbers of the enemy was vital.

  Especially when they outnumber us so heavily.

  The plan was also to keep the survivors of this warband running blindly into the forest, and, if possible, to steer them east or south, away from Drassil. Because, once the panic was over, there would still be a lot of men wandering around Forn Forest with allegiances to their enemy, so the more that were lost and unable to find their way to Drassil, the better.

  Of course, the more that’s dead, the better.

  To his left Camlin glimpsed a man mounted on a white stallion, other riders about him, galloping hard past the line of archers. Shadowy shapes were running alongside them, dark blurs, and it took a moment for Camlin to realize they were Kadoshim.

  Lothar and his shieldmen, with a Kadoshim bodyguard.

  He thought about trying to put an arrow into Lothar, but the horses were past him before he’d had a chance for the thought to reach his fingertips. He shrugged and carried on.