Nothing was coming to her, and all she could think about were those weapons pointed at her back. She tried to imagine what Darius would say, she really did, but she couldn’t. She was Falon, not Darius, and she didn’t know what a fighting man needed to hear. Her shoulders started to slump, as she only knew what she would want to hear.
Feeling the eyes of the men upon her in a way they hadn’t been mere moments earlier, she could feel their need for encouragement. It didn’t matter if she made a mess of it; anything would be better than saying nothing, she could instinctively tell. She remembered Darius’s advice, that it was ‘better to do something and be wrong, than to do nothing at all.’
Clearing her throat and pushing her back her shoulders, Falon knew that right or wrong, all she could do was speak from the heart.
“Those savages mean to kill us,” she said bluntly, uncaring that she’d just said that not less than a candle sliver ago. “They want to kill our men, take our women to wife, and raise our children to be bloodthirsty little savages just like them.”
She paused and looked around grimly, to let them know how serious she was. A small number of the men grumbled at this and she saw hands tightening on their weapons.
“I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sound very good to me,” she said, and men started nodding but she could see that it was still not as many of them as she needed.
“Yah, but if we stay here we’re as good as dead!” shouted someone from the second line.
“You’re right: we can’t stay here,” she declared in answer. “But if we run they’ll just kill us anyway, and even if they don’t manage to finish the job, then the Prince certainly will,” she said darkly, meeting as many eyes as she could
“We can’t charge right into them,” called out the same voice, “we jus’ be killed if’n we do that!” Men started nodding in agreement and grumbling, this time not against the barbarians, but against her and her leadership—which had got them into this mess.
“The Prince has a plan. I also have a plan,” she shouted, lifting her sword, “and when Schmendrick gives the signal, I want all of you to crouch down and cover your eyes, for the magic he works will be mighty,” she exclaimed, crossing her fingers behind her back where only the barbarians could see that she was fibbing. “But you know what? If we’re dead anyway—if we stand, if we run, or if we charge, and it all turns out to be just a bad toss of the bones—then I want to do it in the way that gives those women and children we leave behind the best chance of surviving these locusts in human form.”
Heads nodded at this, but still not nearly enough of them. Still, she was heartened to hear men muttering, ‘the Lieutenant has a plan’ to on another.
“Not my children,” cried a man from a different part of the unit from the last voice, “why should I die for some other man’s woman or rug-rats? I’m not from ‘round here!”
“Anyone who wants to bug out now is free to do so,” Falon said angrily. “I don’t need any cowards who’d rather die with a sword in the back than a bloodied one in his hands. But for the rest of you, let me say again: I have a plan. We’re going to make it. I swear to you that while some—maybe even many—of us will die, that the rest of us will make it.” She raised her fist and clenched it, “We aren’t barbarian sword fodder; we are the Fighting Swans!” she screamed, also conveniently forgetting that the savages weren’t known for their swords but instead for their axes, mauls and spiked clubs.
The men looked from side to side, as if gauging each other. Then Uilliam started stomping his feet and a few seconds later his men did likewise.
“If them Stags-landers is too scared to follow thee, Mister Falon, don’t thou worry; there’s a whole gaggle o’ Ravens who’ll follow you to the death pits!” Uilliam, the former War-Leader of the Raven Peasants, shouted.
This sent up an angry muttering among at least half of the men, and it appeared to be the half that weren’t white-knuckled and looking about ready to break at the thought of another savage attack.
“We can do anythin’ yon craven Ravens can,” Papa Aonghus stated angrily, “eh, boys?!”
Men started clashing their weapons together, all but drowning out the angry words of the Raven men at being called craven.
“We’re with ye, Lieutenant,” the gape-toothed file leader, Papa Aonghus, declared. Looking around the group of men, Falon felt tears in her eyes.
She didn’t fail to notice a number of men quietly slipping out the back of the lines and slinking off the field of battle, but the majority—the vast majority—of her men had held true.
Using the sleeve of her shirt she roughly wiped her across each eye and then lifted high her sword. Turning her back, she leveled the sword at the chanting savages.
She didn’t know how many more men would turn and slink off as soon as she gave them her back to give the order to charge, but she didn’t care. She was proud of the men who would follow her into the teeth of the barbarians, even if it was only a handful of stout hearts.
“For our land, for our homes and for our Prince,” she yelled, but something didn’t exactly feel right about ending her call to battle with the name of the arrogant princeling she’d come to know. She had learned too much about him for his name not to sit sourly in her mouth, “For the Swans, men! Have at them—charge!” she cried, settling an old helmet she’d picked up earlier firmly onto her head before breaking into a run, with the powerful and heavily-armored Sir Orisin at her side.
An answering roar broke out from the savage tribe facing off against them, and within moment the opposing groups of warriors were surging to meet in the middle; to live or die within the storm of swords.
Chapter 41: The Fog of War
Magic surged through her veins and the first savage fell to her blade, but in the time it took to free her blade from his chest another was already upon her. His spiked club fell with a shriek of tortured metal, as the spike was diverted by her new helmet, but the blow of the wooden club drove her to her knees.
“Saint George was a Raven!” bellowed Sir Orisin, shoulder-charging the club-wielder before planting his feet and assuming a guard stance with his broadsword.
While Falon was still shaking her head, and trying—and failing—to get back to her feet, her legs felt weak and uncoordinated, the sword of the Raven Knight struck again and again, sending barbarian warriors reeling back from his blade as it flashed in the sunlight.
“A-Swan,” screamed half a dozen a spearmen as they piled into the growing melee surrounding Falon and Sir Orisin.
“Vosten Mogrey’s!” cried a savage who was blocking the Raven Knight’s sword with his stone maul. The barbarian then slammed his shoulder into the Raven’s armored middle while the knight’s weapon was swung wide. It wasn’t enough to force him back from his position, but Sir Orisin was staggered from the man’s charge.
An axe-wielder jumped forward, his weapon raised high and ready to split the Raven Knight’s head in two, but Falon watched as the older knight’s broadsword sought, and found, the belly of the axe-wielding savage.
Giving her head a shake to clear it, Falon lurched back to her feet. She instinctively raised her sword to block the maul-wielder before he landed a blow that would easily have broken Sir Orisin’s shoulder. Even if the weapon couldn’t penetrate the aged plate-mail he was wearing, the impact from the massive weapon would have threatened to fell a charging bull mid-stride, and that much power had to be absorbed by something—in this case, Sir Orisin’s shoulder.
Sparks flew as her blade met the stone head of the savage weapon, but calling on the strength of the magic running up her leg, she muscled through the overhead attack. For a long moment they struggled back and forth, the savage with the larger weapon on top and the girl with her slender sword trying to block from below.
Then savage adjusted his grip and the tableau broke, sending her blade skittering down the wooden handle of the maul. In a flash her blade had reached the end of the wood and it bit into the warrio
r’s flesh.
The barbarian reeled, howling more in outrage than agony and dropping the maul, as several of his fingers dropped to the ground in a spray of blood.
Falon stepped forward to finish it. She drew back her sword and, in a fit of desperation, the barbarian thrust his fingerless hand in her face.
Blood caught in her eye and stung her, causing her to reel back and swing her sword blindly. She felt it catch on something, but by the time she cleared her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt, there was no sign of the fingerless man.
“We have to keep moving forward,” she shouted. Putting words to action, she dodged out of the way of Sir Orisin’s broad backswing and pushed past him.
“They’re too thick around us!” Sir Orisin bellowed like a stuck bull, as he lay all around him with his mighty sword.
The battle surged around the two of them, separating them from any friends and allies, and for a full candle sliver it was just the two of them fighting against the growing horde.
“Forward!” Falon cried.
“Put thy back to mine,” the Raven Knight said before howling as a barbarian axe screeched across his leg armor. Out of the corner of her eye, Falon saw blood seeping through the rent in his leg’s armor which had been made by the barbarian’s axe.
Back to back, the two hacked and slashed, surrounded on every side by savage warriors.
A warrior with glowing, orange eyes stepped forward, and a small circled started to grow around the two Fighting Swans.
“I challenge ye…the leader,” the savage said with heavily-accented kingdom speech.
“I’ll cut this bloke down to size,” Sir Orisin panted, clearly winded after the sliver’s worth of fighting against multiple foes.
“No, I’ve got this,” Falon said as firmly as a girl who was still sucking in deep breaths herself could manage.
Sir Orisin started to rumble, a deep sound inside his chest that indicated disagreement, but Falon ignored him and stepped forward.
“I’m the leader,” she said boldly—or, at least she tried for bold, but what came out as she craned her neck to look up at the huge savage with glowing eyes was more along the lines of a girlish squeak. Falon winced and tossed her head, glad that her hair was in a battle braid down the back of her tunic and not running wild across her face. “I mean, I’m Lieutenant Falon of the Fighting Swans!” she growled, figuring that a growling voice had a much harder time squeaking than a normal one did. And it turned out she was right! “I am not afraid!” she yelled, as much to bolster her own courage as to communicate with the enemy.
“This…is leader?” the savage with the orange eyes mocked throwing back his head and laughing.
“Stand and fight,” Falon shrieked, drawing back her sword and slashing down at him, drawing upon the snake to power her strike.
“Ho-ho-ho,” the orange-eyed savage mocked, lifting his axe in reply. Sword met axe and Falon’s arms was thrown backward from the force of the block. There was a ‘ching’ sound, and a piece of the bronze axe split off the axe coming to rest at the savage’s feet. The barbarian looked at the missing corner of his axe and laughed. “Him hit like giiirrl,” he grinned smugly, and then said something in his own language and all the barbarians gathered around them started to laugh, big deep belly laughed.
Falon stared at the enemy warriors as the realization that she was the butt of their jokes slowly sunk in, and when it did her face flamed. They thought she hit like a girl, did they? Well she was about to show them just how hard a girl could hit!
“Twin Orchards!” she shouted, stabbing forward with her sword.
The barbarian easily parried her blow, and followed through with a brutal and devastatingly fast attack of his own which she barely had time to react to before it landed.
“Ahhh!” Falon screamed as the axe bit into her right arm. It stung and she could feel the blood welling, but she still had movement in the arm.
She looked up into the barbarian’s smug face and saw that he was just toying with her. She hadn’t been able to block in time; she should have lost the arm. The moment that realization crossed her face, the savage seemed to see it and he smiled.
“Ye soul to feed the Slice Weasel,” he said baring his teeth, the edge of his axe beginning to glow with an unholy orange light where her blood lined it. “Ye blood to light the way to Urguth Mogrey!”
“Never!” Falon said defiantly. “Your foul sorceries will fail; I’ll die before you can—”
“With pleasure,” the savage cut her off with a look of evil delight in his face—and an underhanded upswing of his axe, once again evidencing his impossible speed.
Falon dodged aside just in time and riposted with her fastest thrust, but the barbarian was just too fast and knocked her sword to the side with such a powerful return strike that she lost her footing and stumbled.
A loud, shrieking sound arose from somewhere behind her, causing the Orange Eyes to hesitate. For a moment, Falon didn’t know what was going on but then she saw the fear and confusion on the faces of the Ice Raiders and she knew it wasn’t them. But it was clearly magical in nature and if it didn’t belong to the shamans that only left…her eyes widened.
“It’s Schmendrick,” she cried to Sir Orisin, “cover your eyes!” Putting words to action, Falon crouched down and threw an arm across her face and squeezed her eyes shut.
“What?” Sir Orisin yelled, instants before a white flash of light exploded around the edges of Falon’s covering arm.
“Aahhh!” the Raven Knight cried in pain, his voice accompanied by the wails of anguish from the barbarians all around them, who had also failed to close or cover their eyes. The noise level rose to a debilitating cacophony that eclipsed the noise of a forest full of crickets and croaking frogs singing at night.
Blinking her eyes fiercely, she ignored the water streaming down from them. Schmendrick had come through; he’d given her a chance!
“Fighting Swans and no quarter,” she shrieked, feeling the snake coil around her leg hard enough to burn as she summoned strength through it.
The orange-eyed Ice Raider was shaking his head from side to side and bellowing like a bull that had just had its jugular slit, and she took ruthless advantage of that, chopping with all her power at the joint between his impossibly thick neck and equally powerful body.
Orange Eyes cried out as hissing steam poured out of the mortal injury but she had no more time to spare on him. The spirit warrior was down and she had to seize her chance before the savages recovered.
“Cut them down while they can’t see!” she shouted, hoping that someone could hear her—and that some of her men had remembered to cover their eyes.
Jumping around, she stuck one man in the gut, cut another man’s throat and kicked another smack between the legs. As that particularly tall man bent over, power surged through her veins and with one, powerful, double-handed chop she took his head from his body.
Blood flew from the stump over which his head used to reside as arterial spray covered her tunic with the lifeblood of her foes, and Falon felt her stomach heave.
Turning away from the gruesome sight, her stomach recoiled at what she was doing and she was almost immediately overcome with fear, sorrow and battle-madness. Something inside of her snapped in that moment and she felt herself go wild. Men who couldn’t see fell like wheat before a scythe, and her sword was that scythe. It wasn’t sporting, it wasn’t honorable, and she wasn’t proud of it, but this was war and the field around her ran red with the blood of the savages.
When her stomach twisted and knotted again, she ignored it in favor of unleashing a slaughter upon enemies that were starting to blink away their blindness. When fur-covered men fell to their knees and raised their hands to protect them from an enemy they couldn’t see, she tried to steel her heart but it clenched and gave up the ultimate rebellion. With tears streaming down her cheeks at the ruin she was making of nearly defenseless men—living, breathing people who were fathers, sons and brothers�
��she covered her shirt with the contents of her stomach. Yet she never once stopped her attack as she cut them down one by one.
Some, or perhaps even many, of the Ice Raiders swung wildly, clearly preferring to strike out blindly than to go down meekly. Those ones she simply avoided when she could, letting them more often than not cut down their own people instead of her, and when she couldn’t ignore them she ducked or dodged within range of a speedy death blow.
Behind her she could hear Sir Orisin yelling about the Short-Mire and calling upon his numerous Saints. From his stumbles, she figured even if his visor had protected him slightly, he still hadn’t covered his face in time to stop the light from blinding him. Yet he fought on bravely, but as for her she couldn’t find it within herself to let loose a proud battle cry. No Saint could possibly look favorably upon what she was doing, not even a Battle Saint. Surely even the Lord of the Field looked away from what she was now doing.
Lost within herself, Falon’s sword rose and fell until it was met with empty air, throwing her off balance, straining her shoulder, and sending her tumbling to the ground.
She staggered to her feet, stumbled over a body and fell again. Yet even as she fell, her sword instinctively lashed out, once again whistling through empty air.
Sucking in deep, greedy breaths, Falon stuck the tip of her sword into the ground, heedless of potentially damaging the fine Imperial blade. She had done more to test its edge this day—mortifying the bodies of her enemies and chopping through meat and metal—than any amount of clean, healthy dirt ever could. Levering herself up with the sword, the back of her tongue and her throated burned as she looked around.
A trail of dead bodies and wounded warriors lay round about her. Not a single man stood within fifty feet of her, yet she straightened and pulled her sword from the ground with an arm that felt like lead.
Turning in a circle, she spotted her men, or what remained of them anyway. Less than half the men who had started the charge with her remained standing, and each of them had at least two or three dead savages laying at their feet. The look they showed her when she met their eyes was one of barely muted horror.
The Painting (Rise of the Witch Guard Book 2) Page 35