“What’s going on here?” Darius demanded, striding up to the group.
“Er…” Duncan stumbled verbally, “Fal here—I mean, the Lieutenant,” he quickly corrected himself, “had a rough night out.”
“You’re fortunate that’s the worst that happened,” the Imperial said sternly. “You could have easily had a knife to the ribs. It thought I told you to take a guard with you whenever you go out now that we’re back in camp? At least until tempers settle.”
Falon laughed. In point of fact, she had been knifed!
“It was my fault, Sergeant,” Ernest said shame-faced, “I let him get out of sight.”
“Don’t take the blame for things that you had nothing to do with, Ernest,” Falon said, thinking she really was a fool. If only she’d listened to the Imperial Sergeant, she might have been able to last night entirely. Or at least push if off for a while longer and avoid the fear and pain of being attacked, “It was my fault.”
If only she hadn’t been so eager to relax after arriving back in the Prince’s camp and run off while Ernest was still talking to her. She was a fool; not only had she run off, she’d let her head get all turned around by a handsome young soon-to-be Knight!
“You, I’ll deal with later,” Darius told Ernest, dire promise in his voice then he turned to Falon. “Are you hurt?” he asked, the first sign of actual concern for her that he’d expressed so far, “Do you need a healer?”
“There’s nothing to patch up,” she said more or less honestly, “nothing that a good night’s rest won’t cure, anyway.”
Darius looked her up and down a severe expression on his face. “You want to play, you’ve got to pay,” he said flatly, “that said, there’s no point in putting you on the training field if you’re falling down. You’ve got two hours to catch up on your paperwork and then we’re running sword drills.”
Falon groaned.
“Two hours,” Darius said turning away, “you can come willingly or be dragged.”
“I thought I was in charge of this outfit?” Falon protested.
“Two hours,” the Sergeant repeated, “I don’t abide drunks or people who party all night long and lose their escorts.”
She felt a bolt of fury run through her body at being accused of drunkenness or ‘partying’ all night, and made up her mind instantly to tell him precisely what had happened to her the previous night.
But no sooner had she resolved to do so and opened her mouth to speak, a tightness gripped her throat like nothing she had ever felt and cut the sound off before it had begun. The constricting force remained for several moments, until the sudden urge to tell Darius the truth had passed.
Hanging her head, and knowing that Madame Tulla had wrought yet another of her foul spells on her, Falon shuffled back to the tent with Ernest and Duncan’s help.
“It’ll be alright, Fal,” Duncan said awkwardly.
“We’ll help out anyway we can,” Ernest corrected his brother with a sharp glance.
“Can you read and write?” Falon asked bluntly, already knowing the answer.
Duncan shook his head but Ernest actually looked embarrassed that he didn’t know how.
“Well it’s time to learn,” she said flatly, finally understanding the true meaning of the phrase ‘misery loves company.’ “Besides,” she added feeling a touch of cruelty, “with that bum leg, you need a skill to fall back on. I’m going to have Tug teach you your letters and numbers.”
“I already know my numbers,” Ernest mumbled.
“And I’ve also noticed you haven’t been stretching that leg like you’re supposed to,” Falon said severely, “starting tonight, we’re going to bend it until you cry ‘uncle.’ Since you don’t seem to be doing it on your own, I’m going to have to be both Officer and Mother.”
“Gee, thanks,” Ernest snapped.
“Anytime,” Falon snapped back exhaustedly.
When they got to the tent Falon pulled out a pile of parchments and even though her eyes blurred, she started going through them while Tug started Ernest on his letters.
When she fell asleep in her chair and started snoring, no one jogged her elbow until Darius was on the way over, for which she was extremely grateful when she woke up.
This was going to be a long day.
Chapter 27: Barbarian Raiders
The next day, they marched through the Ice Finger Gap at the head of the Prince’s Army.
“Being in the Vanguard is quite the honor,” Falon said, her teeth chattering in the bitter icy wind.
“Being on the pointy end of the stick isn’t an honor,” Darius disagreed quietly.
Falon looked up at him warily.
“It either means you’re considered skilled enough to scout ahead and have a fighting chance of surviving when we stumble across something or…” he said in a quiet voice and then stopped.
“Or?” Falon asked knowing she wasn’t going like the answer.
“Or you’re considered an expendable hobble for the enemy force, and your losses will hopefully give rest of the army time to deploy and meet the enemy prepared,” Darius said shortly.
“So, since we’re not that skilled of a unit…” Falon trailed off, the implications clear even to her.
“You’ll notice the only unit out ahead of us is the Foragers, a rougher band of cutthroats and poachers skilled at scouting out the land,” Darius said sardonically. “Even the rest of the Battalion under Captain Smythe is behind us.”
“Gee, that was great to hear,” Falon said unhappily.
“If you don’t want to hear the answer, don’t ask the question,” Darius said uncaringly.
Falon sat on her horse and silently fumed about the unfairness of the world and people in it.
“So even the Captain views us as the expendable part of an expendable Battalion?” she sullenly broke her silence.
“If it helps any,” Darius said after a moment, “the Captain knows we can deploy into a halfway decent formation if given half the chance, and he’s sent out his best scouts to give us that chance. He’s also got the better half of the Fighting Swans, his men-at-arms and trained guards are ready to charge up and save our bacon if anything things go poorly. He’s given us a fighting chance, with reinforcements waiting in the wings.”
Falon stopped and considered the situation for a long moment. “You know what,” she said, “that actually does make me feel better.”
“Of course, he’s also doing his best to preserve the better part of the company. If we run into too much to handle and are overrun, he can always leave us to our fate and attempt to avenge us later,” Darius added.
“You should have stopped while you were ahead,” Falon said her mood plummeting once again, “and I didn’t ask this time.”
Darius looked momentarily contemplative. “So you didn’t,” he allowed, sounding completely unrepentant.
Falon glared at him but once again he seemed unconcerned.
The narrow, winding trail they followed through the Gap was living up to its name: Icy Fingers. Even the underbrush and trees lining the incline up either side of the trail did little to cut the chilly wind blowing down from the north. Falon clutched her father’s old leather coat around her tightly, trying to seal off the little gaps and openings in the garment that let in the cold breeze.
There was the sound of a cut-off scream from further up the trail.
“I hope someone tripped and broke a leg or something,” Falon said, surprised to find her hand clutching her Imperial-style sword in a death grip—and even more surprised when what she’d said registered.
Darius grunted as steel clashed on steel up ahead, and a bone-chilling shrieking started up ahead made its way down to either side of them, causing the men ahead and behind her to waver.
“Spears out!” Darius roared. “Prepare to receive a foot charge!”
“Make way for the Fist of the North, Baron William, Lord of the Frost March!” A man yelled in an upper-class Kingdom accent, and Falon coul
d hear the pounding hooves of a pair of heavy cavalry mounts.
“How many come?” Sir Orisin cried from his position nearby her.
“I’ve come to see the King!” said another, deeper, and more important sounding voice.
“Prepare to receive a charge!” Darius shouted to the spear men.
“Stay your hand, housecarl!” the deep voice exclaimed, and moments later a pair of Knights in heavy plate armor appeared through the brush. The one in the front was carrying a banner with a silver fist over a blue keep set against a white background.
Falon wrinkled her brows; it sure looked like the banner of a baron, and other than that ‘housecarl’ bit, acted and sounded like a Stag Lord.
“This is a Princely army, headed by the Royal Marshal, Prince William, Lord,” Falon said putting heels to her horse.
“Why are these spears still in my way?” the baron asked arrogantly.
“Make way for the horses,” Falon frowned, and no sooner had the words passed her mouth than the Lord—and what looked to be his herald—were driving their horses right through the middle of her two line column of warriors.
“Out of the way!” called the herald, his horse’s shoulder checking a spearman and sending him sprawling to the side. Other warriors of the Swan Battalion dove to the side to escape rampaging noblemen, who appeared determined to get through their ranks as fast as possible, inconsiderate of the fact they were disordering the Swan lines.
Further down the road came the ever-louder sounds of steel on steel.
“Ice Raiders!” shouted one man.
“Ware barbarians,” screamed another and, “they’ve got a shaman!”
“Careful, Sire!” Falon spoke in a rising voice, pushing her own horse closer to the pair of noblemen until she was right in front and slightly to the side of the herald who was in the front, “you’re disordering our lines!”
“Be silent in the presence of your betters,” snarled the herald backhanding her with his metal gauntlet and knocking her from her horse in a spinning heap.
For a long moment, all she could see was flashes of pulsing red and as if from a distance she heard, “Make way, peasant scum!”
“To this cursed Prince!” ordered the deep-voiced baron, his horse neighing loud enough to wake the dead—or at least a punch drunk Lieutenant—and they were off.
Coming to while face-down in the sod was an experience Falon wasn’t eager to repeat. Getting up, she spat frozen dirt off her tongue.
“Report,” she slurred, dirt still coating her tongue. At that very same moment, the barbarians came charging out of the brush and down the hilltop.
“Vosten Mogrey’s!” screamed the two waves of barbarians.
Falon staggered to her feet right before they crashed into her now-wavering line of spearmen—whose wavering came courtesy of that arrogant baron’s stupidity. The ‘Fist of the North’ had done a better job of punching his own side in the mouth and disordering their lines than anything resembling discommoding the barbarians.
Falon pulled loose her sword as the first, massive, savage warrior muscled aside a nearby spearman, knocking him to the ground. A flash of fear swept through Falon as the barbarian drew back his heavy stone maul, murder in his eyes as he focused on her.
Her left leg started quivering and then the entire left side of her body tingled. A hot flash swept through one half of her body—the half covered with the now-invisible tattoos, she realized as heat danced up her body along the marks drawn by Tulla—and she felt a trickle of power wind its way up her leg. Now, if only she knew how to use it!
Then there was no more time for gathering wool. The ice raider’s stone maul was swung up behind his head, which he then brought forward with all the weight of his impressive musculature behind it.
Stepping to the side, like she’d been taught, Falon’s focus narrowed to a single point as she angled the blade of her sword and attempted to divert the powerful blow. To her surprise, instead of splitting her skull in twain like a piece of cordwood, strength suffused her arms and she knocked the barbarian’s weapon aside. He was temporarily thrown off balance as his weapon went in an unexpected direction.
For a moment the two foes—one a towering, muscular ice warrior, and the other a fifteen year old girl pretending to be her own brother—stared at each other in shock.
Then the savage’s face twisted into a rictus of unholy rage as he brought the maul back up over his head for another titanic blow. Apparently, the barbarian subscribed to the philosophy of ‘if at first you don’t succeed, just hit them harder the second time,’ and Falon fell into a defensive crouch.
The barbarian stiffened, his body surging forward. Moments later the tip of another thin, Imperial-style sword emerged from his front amid a short spray of blood.
Falon stared stupidly at the sword tip protruding from barbarian, who then slumped to his knees. She was simply unable to process what was happening.
“Hold the line!” Darius screamed, kicking the barbarian off the tip of his blade and giving her a red-eyed look that was cruel enough to kill, “They’re all around us.”
Falon snapped out of her stupor and jumped out of her crouch. She felt that same, small trickle she had experienced earlier winding its way up her leg, only now it was starting to pool in her lower belly and sit there like a hot stone.
For the first time in days she didn’t feel half-frozen, despite wearing two shirts and her father’s old jacket. If anything, she felt overly warm in the frigid environment!
Baring her teeth, she suddenly felt strong enough to go head to head with another boar! Then she saw another one of her farmers fall down, his teeth flying from where he’d been struck in the face by the wooden haft of a barbarian’s axe.
Falon lunged at the axe-wielding marauder. “Die, Northlander!” she hissed, the crystalline swirls in her blade glinting in the frigid, northern air as her blade took the man—this one built like a brick—in the arm.
The brick-like barbarian bared his teeth in a snarl and turned her way, bringing his bronze-headed axe around for a mighty sideways swing.
Falon jumped back, avoiding the axe blade by a good two feet. The power that was building inside her was temporarily interrupted during the jump, causing her to stagger until she regained her footing. Falon was surprised that she even seemed able to jump further than ever before, in addition to a surprising sense of strength in her forearms!
“Mogrey’s! Vosten Mogrey’s!” the barbarian shouted, spittle flying out of his mouth as he brought his axe whirling around. Leaping forward, he whipped the weapon over his head for a brutal, overhand smash.
“Yeah, whatever—‘Mogrey’s’ this!” Falon yelled as she charged, her sword thrusting forward to meet the barbarian. Smaller and nimbler, the young woman also proved faster and her sword sunk deep into the other man’s belly.
To her surprise, the next thing she knew her sword was pressed up to the hilt in the savage man’s belly. Dropping his axe—which had been behind his head—caused the weapon to fall to the ground with a thump, and the barbarian stared down at her sword.
Then he gasped her head with both hands and head-butted her, smashing his forehead into hers.
Red flashed over her field of vision and Falon fell over backwards, landing on her backside with a thump. If the barbarian had possessed the strength, he probably could have finished her then and there but instead he fell onto his side with a thump.
The battle cries of kingdom men and the war cries of the barbarians came from all around her and Falon shook her head to clear it. Grimly, she crawled over to the fallen barbarian and freed her sword from his stomach. The powerful scent of fresh brambleberries was carried on the crisp, morning breeze as she gathered her feet beneath her.
When she was once again standing, Falon looked around and took stock of the situation; she had a moment’s breathing room, and she intended to take it. As a Lieutenant and a war leader, it was up to her to see how the battle was going and give any necessary
orders before diving back into it.
What she saw during her brief tactical appraisal didn’t fill her with confidence. In front of her, about half the men of her company were down and the other half had their ranks broken, fighting in pairs or individually with only a spear against a rampaging barbarian with an axe, stone maul or spiked club. Looking back, she saw a different story as most of those men were still in their spear-lines and, in some cases, pressed back to back. But they were still in an orderly formation, and the ice savages were getting at least as bad as they’d been trying to give.
Fortunately there were more men behind her than before, as she’d been riding to the front to try and lead by example.
Hardening her features and turning back to the men rapidly being cut down in the melee to the front, Falon prepared to sell herself dearly and save as many of her warriors as she could, when she heard a bone chilling screech to her right.
Whirling to face whatever new threat this was, her jaw wanted to drop and then her insides clenched with fear as she took in the sight of a pair of figures. One was a scraggly-faced man-child on that cusp between boy and man, and she quickly dismissed him. But the other was a powerfully-built, older man with a graying beard sitting astride a white-skinned ice lizard!
His bare arms and exposed chest and lower legs were covered with some kind of elaborate tattooing, and the bone staff in his hands was capped with a human skull that jiggled as he raised it high above his head, shouting in a voice that was drowned out the next moment by thunder clap.
Lowering his bone staff, the lizard rider pointed it at her still-ordered lines and swung it up until it pointed at the sky. Then he swung it right back to face her men as he whipped his hand forward.
For a second nothing happened, but then a shimmer of red sparks started to coalesce into a giant, powerfully-built, four-legged animal. At first it was more of a ghostly image than anything of real substance, but as she watched with growing horror the red sparks swirling inside the ghostly figure solidified until she could no longer see through its body.
The Painting (Rise of the Witch Guard Book 2) Page 21