by P D Ceanneir
The black armoured warrior stood over her and spoke through the helmet he wore. It sounded metallic and hollow, yet there was much anger and hate in his voice.
‘My father ordered me to bring you out of the forest alive. Believe me when I say, it is only his command that has meant you live this day,’ growled Prince Creed.
Chapter Eighteen
The Skirmish at Laden Howe and the Battle of Lots Muir
D
ay was fading into night. The darkness inside the Perwood shifted with large shadows as the small host of black-armoured men sneaked along the timberline watching for the return of the scouts.
Marshal Juno then used hand signals to order the men to crouch. He scanned the farmstead through the branches. The journey here had been long and fraught with danger. Killing the garrison at the fort near the Southron Pass had been the easy part. Moving many miles through dense woodland without detection was difficult, especially since the woods now had various military outposts along the thoroughfare since the first days of the civil war. Their first main obstacle was the ferry at Lake Merrit, which they easily took, but now needed two companies of his army just to keep it occupied. He had no wish for General Balaan’s Jertiani Infantry attacking them from the south.
The plan to invade the Jertiani homelands came from Prince Creed, with King Kasan’s authority. The need to create a division in the Rogun lands and distract King Vanduke while he took the main prize of Haplann was only part of the strategy. Prince Creed wanted revenge on the traitor, Elkin. Not just for his defection, but also for the role he played in extracting Langstroum of Mutresi from the prince’s clutches, and making the Vallkyte De Proteous look like a fool afterwards. Now with three companies of the Unduli, the given name to Prince Creed’s personal infantry regiment, Juno looked down at the farmstead of Laden Howe as dusk settled on the fields with the main bulk of his men stretched out along the woodland’s edge.
As night fell there was some movement among the horse pens; the farm hands lit braziers, several of them had torches. More men ran in from the fields, some of them wearing chainmail and all carrying weapons, spears and shields. Juno wanted to attack as soon as possible, but he hesitated, he waited for his scouts to return. The movement down on the farm told him that Elkin was aware of an attack. How? He did not know.
Presently, three men in dark leathers moved quietly through the tall grass and climbed the slope towards the woods. Juno’s scouts went directly for him in the centre of the small host.
‘They know we are here,’ said one, ‘Elkin has drawn his Bellmen to him from all over.’
‘Damn it! Hissed Juno, ‘how many?’
‘Hard to say in this light, sir, they are coming in from all directions. We have taken the liberty of dismantling the log fence by the pigpens to the south, sir. I could take some of our archers around that way?’
Juno nodded. Due to their position in the woods, they had a fair view of the steading, but the log fencing that ran along the fields beside the main house hampered their route of attack. The house itself was more of a squat three-storeyed keep surrounded by a short brick wall and garden.
‘Yes, take the archers,’ said Juno, ‘give us time to negotiate the field’s fences to the north. Let’s move!’
Lord Rett, the Red Duke of the Rouge, reined in his horse and the mounted host behind him did the same. He scanned the land towards the south east and remarked on the silence to one of his officers.
‘Should I take some men along the road ahead to search for danger, my lord?’ said the officer.
Lord Rett sat in silence for a few seconds. Being a Rawn Master of some renown his abilities made him more attuned to the world in ways that normal mortals failed to understand. At this moment, his instincts told him to be wary of danger.
Four hours of travelling southward and twenty-seven miles from the gates of the Pander Pass, the cavalry host of fifteen hundred soldiers now waited in silence as the darkness shrouded the land. Far to the south east lay the border of Haplann with the town of Caphun sitting on the other side of the Haplann Hills straddling the wide valley floor that the Drove Road ran through. To their left was the dark and brooding screen of trees known as the Old Woods that fringed the south of the Eternal Forest. To their right was the open expanse of grassland dotted with stunted elder, juniper and home to a scattering of villages and sheep farms. Lord Rett took this panorama in as he twisted his body around in his high backed saddle.
‘Yes, he finally said, ‘take some men…’
‘Sir!’ a soldier to his left shouted and frantically pointed southward. The duke looked around and saw flames lighting up the darkness several miles distant.
‘Someone has torched a village,’ said the officer beside the duke’s horse as he pointed south, ‘could be Aachen, or Lots Muir, hard to say.’
Lord Rett was not always known for his caution, yet he wondered how the enemy could be so far north in such a short time. Obviously, the countess’s messenger had no knowledge on the location of any advanced guard, and only hurriedly sent with little information. Still, if the countess needed help, he was glad to give it to such a beautiful woman.
‘Captain Tallow’s squadron to the rear as reserve!’ shouted the duke, ‘everyone else fan out and advance at the trot.’
They crossed the fields at a good speed. The light from the flames lit the way as they drew closer. Burning buildings roared and timbers split in the heat. People screamed off to their right, some were seen running for cover into the darkness.
Something was wrong. Lord Rett’s instinct rang a warning in his head. The flames totally engulfed the small village of Aachen. Every house, not just a few chosen and fired thatched cottages, but everything burned, including the muddy streets, burning red and in certain places a bright blue. There was also a smell he could not place; a chemical concoction and sharp too, with a cloying smoke that blew towards them from the east.
‘This is not right…’ he said. For some unfathomable reason he looked up into the darkening sky. His eyes widened. He jabbed the flanks of his horse and yelled to the others. ‘Move!’
The sky lit up to reveal a large winged creature with a gaping mouth. Flame tore through the sky from the thing and struck the Red Duke’s Own Cavalry as they began to scatter. The force of the flame’s impact lifted men from the wings of their formation and set them spinning away from the burning liquid that engulfed and spread over the centre column of horse.
The Red Duke felt a pressure wave strike his back. His horse buckled from under him and he landed hard in the muddy field. He scrambled to his feet in time to see the wings of the dragon flapping high above his men as it hovered to fan the flames and then it unleashed yet another stream of Wyrmfire over his helpless soldiers.
General Elkin buckled up his hauberk and padded jerkin as his house steward, Mistress Jemma, held his sword and scabbard with tight-clenched fists while she looked around her in fear. They were both outside, not far from the manor house garden walls. Jemma had found him pacing up and down while issuing orders to those Bellmen that had run in from the fields and the cluster of cottages down the farm roads. More would come at the general’s call, she knew and hoped, but it was growing darker, becoming difficult to see anyone running towards them in any direction. Certainly, the burning braziers that flanked the edge of the yard blocked any chance of seeing anyone beyond them.
Elkin finished the last buckle on his shin bracer and was about to take the sword when Jemma stiffened and looked at him with wide eyes. Elkin caught her as she fell to her knees. He saw the arrow protruding from her back and she gave one last rattling breath as she died in his arms.
More arrows whizzed past him and Sergeant Herun, along with several Bellmen, ran towards something inside the darkness beside the barn and the house.
An arrow thumped into Elkin’s thigh and he grunted as he snapped off the shaft. Another struck his shoulder, but by this time, he was running towards the enemy archers by the barn, screaming with
evident rage at the death of his house steward.
The enemy archers in dark leathers were ill equipped for a full frontal attack when the Bellmen and Elkin struck them down, but the enemy were many. Those archers towards the rear pulled back, discarded their bows and drew swords.
Elkin had no time to buckle up his sword harness so he unsheathed the broadsword and discarded the scabbard. The sword flayed from left to right taking down two archers before finding someone trying vainly to defend with a shorter bladed sword. He ignored the growing pain of the arrows in his shoulder and leg.
The general may be over sixty years of age but he was fit enough to wield such a huge weapon with powerful strikes. He brought down his opponent with a downward hack and turned towards Herun, who was bleeding from a deep cut on his left arm.
‘Fall back, form the men up by the cattle pen!’
Herun nodded and sprinted away while Elkin and the other Bellmen held off the archers.
Somewhere behind him, there were high-pitched screams of “Unduli!” informing the general that more of the attackers were coming from the north. Anxiety flared in his gut as he recognised the nickname of Prince Creed’s personal army and he hoped that the prince was not commanding this attack.
Someone cut down a Bellman beside him and a spear lunged out of the darkness to pierce the general’s left side. He pulled out the tip with a grunt and swung his sword to cleave open the skull of the spear-carrier who spun away, screaming, as a fountain of blood gushed out of the wound. At that point, the enemy eased off, one of his own men pulled him from the fight, and half carried him towards the main mass of half-armoured Bellmen who were engaging a larger host of infantry with their spears by the manor gardens.
More arrows screamed out of the darkness but these were striking down Unduli. Elkin managed to glance around and saw the teenager, who delivered the warning message to him earlier, firing arrows in quick succession from the quiver at his side. More archers, servants, were loosing shafts down upon the enemy from the open windows of the manor house’s upper rooms; this gave them a better view of the field and a greater advantage over the attackers.
Elkin and his colleagues managed to climb the house garden wall and meld with the Bellmen as they moved backwards towards the cattle pens that sat beside the house’s west wall. It narrowed into a “V” where the larger end meant that the Bellmen could form into a wall and use their longer spears to good effect as a tight phalanx at the narrower entrance. The defensive formation proved adequate as the Bellmen’s spears cut down the charging Unduli as they attempted to cut through their phalanx. Yet, the enemy still ran in from the north in numbers and some had taken to dismantling the fence of the pen with their axes. If they were able to move to the Bellmen’s left flank from the pig-field then they would have the advantage.
The fight raged on. Most of the Bellmen were wounded and were tired from the constant push and shove of spear and sword. General Elkin watched them persevere through this adversity as he felt the blood flow down his leg from the wound in his side. Herun tried his best to stem the flow with wadding and hold up his leader, but the general’s legs were too weak.
‘Herun...’ he whispered to his sergeant, ‘don’t let the men see me like this. If I should die…hold me up in the dark…let them see me alive long enough for them to win the fight.’
Herun looked startled. The thought of this man, who he had respected his entire military career, suddenly dying, did not bear thinking about. All he could do was brush away a tear and nod silently, while all around them the battle continued.
The Red Duke rolled away from the flailing hooves of his horse. A blazing blanket of flame swept over his head and he crawled backwards in an attempt to get away from the heat.
Dragons? There were dragons here! How?
He only knew of the stories from the Dragor-rix. A dangerous time of conflict, that lasted four hundred years. How could the Vallkytes have dragons? Only a Ri had the ability to summon a dragon from the Dragon Lanes, but the knowledge to do such a thing was lost for millennia and even if they had the ability then the act was made illegal by the Order not long after the war ended.
How was this possible?
He had no time to ponder the implication, flames rose around him and he heard the distant screams of his men as they burnt inside the conflagration. People were running in all directions, some of them soldiers, most locals.
He stood up and extracted his sword, Selnour, from its scabbard and looked around, hoping to gather the surviving host around him and watched the skies for the dragon, but the flames bent and swayed from the downdraught of wings and something huge landed twenty feet to his left.
Lord Rett recalled his days in the Academy and especially the long history lessons about the Dragor-rix. There were twelve dragons, all in various sizes and colours. Every one of them could spew destructive Wyrmfire and his or her layered scales were as hard as plate steel. From what he remembered, they were very difficult to kill, Rawn Fire could damage them to some extent, but they healed quickly. In all the stories of the dragons he recalled, most spoke of the dragons dying from conflicts with others of their kind. He hoped that the rumours of the Prophet, Ciriana, were true.
The beast that crawled out of the flames was large, but not as big as the tales foretold which meant this dragon was still young and had not reached full size. It was bulky, with a short neck, a wide arrow-shaped head, and a strong thick lower jaw full of long sharp teeth. Its copper-coloured scales rippled from the packed muscles underneath as it moved on stumpy legs. It was staying close to the ground, sniffing the air, searching.
The Duke stepped away from it hoping to cloak himself in the darkness beyond the flames and knowing how hopeless such a plan was. Dragonsight, so legend says, was exceptional. They had the ability to see various colours of the spectrum and the heat of the bodies of their prey. Their sense of hearing too was far greater than humans, and at this moment it heard the pitiful bleating of Rett’s horse as she lay maimed on the ground where he had left her.
The dragon moved out of the flames and literary pounced on the horse, which bayed in pure terror. The dragon’s huge jaws clamped onto the mare’s head and ripped it from it’s body. Tattered red strands of flesh hung from its mouth as the powerful jaws crunched through the skull of the horse. It gave a satisfied grunt and exhaled loudly. Black smoke issued from it’s nostrils.
It was only then that Lord Ret gave a double start. He had been so intent on the dragon he had not noticed the rider on it’s back.
From the tales of the Dragor-rix he could recall, only the dragons Aprilia, Sin and Dex ever had riders. From what he understood, dragons detested the idea of humans using them as mounts, so this was a surprise. This rider was armoured in steel, with a long red cape that depicted a rampant dragon holding a spear. Whoever the knight was, he and the dragon had not noticed Lord Rett, possibly because the duke had moved away to their rear. By this time, the dragon took another bite out of his horse. The knight held a spear in one hand, slammed up his visor with the other, and began to look around him. He affectionately patted the nape of the beast as it fed. The thing’s long, ridged tail swung from side to side with obvious joy.
Lord Rett was not a man prone to fear, but at this moment his heart thumped very fast and he concentrated on calming down should the dragon hear it flutter in his ribcage. Warrior instinct and Rawn training took over. He knew he had to even the odds somehow. His only advantage was stealth and the fact that dragons, while masters of the air, were also ungainly on the ground.
He gripped the hilt of Selnour with both hands and leapt into the air. He sailed high with the third element giving him lift and he landed on the creatures back. With one powerful thrust, the Rawn forged blade of Selnour punched through the armour of the knight impaling him from behind. The knight screamed, the dragon flinched and roared, twisting its huge head around to see the attacker. The rider slumped in death and slipped off the dragon, still with the duke’s sword in his
back. By this time, Lord Rett had grabbed the knight’s spear and jumped to the ground just as the beast rounded on him.
Most dragons had a soft underbelly of fat, muscle and thinner scales. The duke knew that he would be able to pierce its skin if he was close enough. He did not give the creature time to react to his attack as he drove the point of the spear forward and up into the base of the neck. The thing roared and flapped its long wings in annoyance. A fine spray of Wyrmfire jettisoned out of it’s mouth as it shook it’s huge head. It tried in vain to pull out the deeply embedded spear with one of it’s claws, but it could not get enough of a grip to extract the shaft. The dragon retreated, and to the duke’s surprise, leapt into the air and flew away into the night.
Thinking that the creature had a better chance to kill him while airborne, Rett’s only option was to retreat to safety also. He reached out his hand and Selnour shot out of the body of the knight with a sickening squelch and landed hilt first into the palm of his hand. He sprinted for the holding lots, a series of low walls that marked the boundaries to the cattle fields and the farmer’s homes, shouting “the Rouge, the Rouge!” at the top of his voice so any surviving soldiers would come to his call. That was when he heard the undulating blast of a war horn somewhere to his left and the rattle of swords on shields.
He squinted in that direction trying to see into the darkness of the night beyond the blinding light of the flames. All he could see was a rippling line of black-clad soldiers running from the slope of the woodland down into the area of the lots. Somewhere in the distance, he heard the clash of steel and scream of horses as someone engaged the attacking host before they reached the bottom of the slope. Lord Rett ran harder and reached the first low wall. He found about a hundred of his host, most on foot. They had the same idea as he did in seeking safety between the buildings. Each man was grateful to see him alive.