The scouts were coming back in now, since Josel was no longer sending them out. He was concerned about just one thing; the position of the enemy against his western force. The line was thin there, and the hope was that they would hold until support reached them. To the east, Kollivar’s division should be in a full advance by now—if they held the Lordslanders just until the sun was clear of the eastern horizon, it would be over. With the combined might of Josel’s two divisions and Kollivar’s relatively unscathed army, they would outnumber the enemy by at least five to one on the field. The Lordslanders would have to surrender or be annihilated.
They were streaking through the south coast treeline, having pulled back after the second charge. Josel wanted to give the enemy room to maneuver, so they could do the same. Time to think, he had said, led to the more logical decision—the only one he had left for Gallord-Smit to make.
The Lordslander Front-Captain had made that decision, so Arad and Josel’s group would soon sweep inland to merge with their men guarding the west flank. The company they had with them, combined with Elsano’s who were executing a similar maneuver along the foot of the mountain, would approximately equal the numbers of the Lordslanders. That would be enough to hold them until Kollivar arrived.
“Here,” Josel called out to Arad and the men behind as he turned into the jungle. The light was enough to see clearly in the bush now, and they were able to move quickly. Ahead of him Josel drew his sika, the curved blade tracing a smooth arc as it emerged before him, slicing the stalk of a flowery plant ahead of him as it did. Arad drew his as well, and allowed his shield to drop onto his arm.
A hundred heartbeats running through the jungle, and they came upon a small group of men; Somrians. They cheered when they recognized the two, and Arad grinned in reply. There were about ten of them, most of them carrying minor injuries. He saw a dead scout at their feet.
“Tried to sneak through to find our depth, Captain-General,” one answered when Josel queried them on it. “He drew steel when we caught him, no choice.”
Josel nodded. In the distance Arad could hear battle; men shouting and steel clashing. “Why aren’t you in there?” Josel demanded.
“We came to meet you,” another man replied; a tall, gangly fellow in heavily scuffed armor. “When we heard word, the Bannerman was worried you’d pass us.”
“Bannerman?” Josel said. “Where is your Precept, soldier?”
“Dead, sir,” the man replied. “Bannerman Edwis took over. He’s right behind the front,” he added, motioning toward the sounds of battle.
“Form up on me,” Josel commanded. “Stay near Master Arad. SOMRIA! PREPARE TO CHARGE!” he bellowed, and they began trotting forward through the trees.
The men formed up behind Arad, who was right on Josel’s heels.
“Master Arad,” Josel said quietly, moving closer to him. “This will get ugly. They will fight like cornered waterdrakes, this time. Best stay off the front line.”
Arad nodded. “I’ll stay close, Captain-General. Let’s make sure this ends quickly, to minimize losses,” he urged.
“Yes, exec,” Josel replied, but he seemed more focused on winning than saving lives. It was, Arad reflected, probably the best way to ensure minimal casualties—win decisively, and quickly.
He could see men ahead now; Somrians and Lordslanders engaged. His group was coming in from the side.
“SOMRIA!” Arad roared when the time seemed right. Josel hadn’t cued him, but his blood had risen and he knew they needed to charge. He raced ahead, perhaps faster than he should have this time, but his men were right with him.
It was the largest battle Arad had seen yet, with at least a company on each side; he unintentionally found himself looking around for Gallord-Smit.
The enemy had formed a line to receive their charge. There was more room, here; perhaps that was the reason for the larger battle. Trees were larger and formed a partial canopy overhead, and there was little ground cover.
Arad heard Josel yelling behind him; something about shields. He noticed men astride him bringing their shields up and pressing closer together, so he did likewise. A moment later they hammered into the enemy line; Arad was in the front, and felt a man behind him thrusting him forward with a shield at his back.
Two Lordslanders were before him, one with a short lakat and shield, the other with a spear. Arad focused on the spear as the two sides came into contact, making sure it glanced off his shield, and used his longer sika to parry the incoming sword slash. All the while he pushed forward, helped by the man behind him. The air was thick with the smells of leather, sweat, and metal, and yells were reduced to grunts and soldiers on both sides began to press against each other; after a moment, the Lordslander line began to slide back.
The man before him with the spear, his helmet knocked sideways, went down underfoot. Arad kept his weight low for balance and stabbed at the man as he stepped over, shield high. The Lordslander had dropped his spear and had no defense; Arad’s thrusts took him in the belly and chest, and he cried out. Then Arad stepped over him, and he was gone.
The other man Arad had first met was still in front of him, shield to shield. Pressure from behind was driving Arad forward; it was only a matter of time before his opposite stumbled as well. The man brought his sword up and down on Arad’s shield several times, trying to slow his advance, then he retreated backward suddenly. Arad pressed.
“LORDS LANDS! LEFT A FORE!” a shout echoed from a few dozen paces ahead. Arad didn’t see him, but this time he recognized the voice—Gallord-Smit.
His man tried to retreat further. The pressure was no longer at Arad’s back; he sprung forward, and raised his sword.
Time slowed. The man brought up his shield to receive Arad’s overhead blow; Arad dropped and spun in a low backhanded slash—the Willow’s Whip. His sika glanced under the Lordslander’s shield, and found knee. Either the man was already turning and his knee buckled with the impact or Arad severed it, because there was almost no resistance. His opponent screamed and fell on his back, sword arm high, and Arad swatted the weapon from his hand. The man was no longer a threat; he moved on.
Soldiers around him went to follow the enemy retreat, but stopped when Josel’s voice sounded from behind, calling a halt. The Lordslanders had drawn back a few dozen paces, but were still clearly in view. Arad saw a well armoured, broad shouldered man near the front who appeared to be giving orders. Gallord-Smit?
A firm hand found his shoulder. “I thought you said you’d stay back, Master Arad,” Josel said, the words not quite chastising. His own sword was still out, thought Arad didn’t see any blood on it.
Arad opened and closed his mouth once, and frowned. “You’re right. I guess I got caught up in the fire of the charge,” he admitted.
“Well, you’ve proven yourself to the men now,” Josel told him firmly. “Let’s keep you alive to reap the awards, shall we?”
Arad nodded, but couldn’t help feeling foolish. He had intended to stay away from the front lines, but somehow the intensity of the moment had overwhelmed him. He was no use to Sayri dead; he chastised himself where Josel had chosen not to, and promised himself not to lose his head again.
Josel ordered a withdrawal to one hundred paces. As they backed away, he sent out runners to find the rest of their western front; there were more Somrian soldiers north, as evidenced by the Gallord-Smit’s clear reluctance to retreat northwest. They only needed to know exactly where they were, so they could coordinate.
As the scouts dashed off, Arad eyed the trees to the northeast where the Lordslanders had last been visible, wondering what Gallord-Smit might be thinking. He had something more up his sleeve, to be sure.
Calls rang out off to his right—warnings of an unidentified approach. Arad’s hand tightened on the grip of his sword; had the Lordslanders somehow flanked them on that side?
The calls quieted, however; it wasn’t the enemy coming in. A few moments later a runner trotted up. Arad recognized
him; he had been one of those sent to Kollivar’s division with the orders to advance when battle sounded.
“Execs,” the scout said. He had a strange, haunted look on his face, and he was sweating heavily, but didn’t seem that winded. He paused where Arad would have expected him to continue.
“Report,” Josel commanded impatiently.
The scout swallowed. He was a smaller fellow, about the same height as Arad, but with much narrower shoulders. If he hadn’t found duty as a runner, Arad didn’t imagine the army would have much use for him, as he would have been overpowered by any soldier in reasonable condition. He wore a light leather jacket, which might have protected him from scratches in the bush, but little else.
He was, Arad decided, quite dismayed to deliver whatever message he carried.
Josel frowned. He glanced in the direction of the enemy, or at least where the battle had last been fought, then to his left, where his messengers had run off in search of friendly forces. Seeing nothing of interest in either direction, he turned back to the scout. “Soldier,” he said, his voice tight, but not harsh.
“Execs,” the man repeated. “I—I have just come from Captain Kollivar’s division, execs.” At that, his teeth clenched, and he closed his eyes forcefully for a moment.
Arad began to become concerned. Whatever this man had to say, it wasn’t good.
“And?” Josel prompted.
The scout took a shallow breath through his mouth, as if he were ill. “Execs . . . they’re all dead.” He shook his head, eyes closed, clearly trying to block out whatever vision hung behind them. “All dead, Captain-General.”
Arad paled. What had Gallord-Smit done? How?
Josel just stared at the man. “Soldier,” he said slowly, as if patiently repeating a simple lesson to an ungifted student, “Captain Kollivar has over three hundred men at his command. That is more than double what the enemy has left, and they are all right over there.” He pointed northeast, through the trees. “You’ve made a mistake. Tell me what you saw.”
The scout shook his head. “No, exec. It wasn’t them. The Lordslanders, I mean. It . . . they were all there, exec. In a clearing, along the foot of the mountain.” His expression darkened, and his eyes glazed slightly, moistening; Arad saw fear in him, then. “Just lying there, Captain-General. Just lying there. Not a sword drawn. Not a spot of blood. Some of them,” he said, struggling to continue, his voice breaking with emotion, “some of them were facing me. They had their eyes open, wide, like they were—surprised. Or—terrified. As if . . . as if they had seen death coming for them.”
The man’s breaths were coming in short gasps, now; Arad was afraid he might hyperventilate. Yet, he felt the same panic that gripped the scout rising up the back of his neck. What had happened to those men?
Josel was quiet, examining the scout as if attempting to determine his sanity.
A thought occurred to Arad, however. He turned to the Captain-General. “Poison?” he asked.
Josel’s eyes narrowed. “Soldier. Did you see any indications that the men had vomited? Or strange colourations of the skin?”
“No,” the messenger replied instantly.
“Think about it, man. Did you stay long enough to even take a close look?”
The soldier straightened. “Exec, I admit I was afraid. I still am. But I do my job, exec. I walked right in among the first few . . . bodies. I didn’t see anything like that. It was as if they had—well, I grew up on the coast, exec, and I’ve seen men drown. It was like that.”
“Drown?” Arad put in. “How could a man drown on land?”
The scout only shook his head. He had no answer.
“Dismissed,” Josel said. The scout, surprised and uncertain of what to do, bowed and moved off. Josel stood there, staring northeast.
“Captain-General,” Arad said quietly. “Do you believe him?”
Josel shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. The other scouts will confirm it soon enough. We have to assume it’s true, Master Arad,” he pointed out calmly.
“But that would mean—that would cut our numbers to almost even with Gallord-Smit’s.”
Josel nodded silently.
Arad took a deep breath, then released it slowly. “What do we do?”
“Runners!” Josel called out. As several men trotted over, he turned to Arad. “Master Arad, if we are reduced to the numbers that this report suggests, then we no longer have any advantage at all—save one.”
In a flash, Arad saw it. “He doesn’t know,” he suggested.
“He doesn’t know,” Josel repeated. “So he will try to run, rather than standing fast. We can only make use of that in one way.”
Arad nodded. It was clear to him, now that Josel had said it that way.
Josel turned to the runners. “Straight to all friendly forces. Close and attack at best speed. No quarter, no reprieve,” he added.
The scouts stared at him. Then, one by one, they turned and dashed off into the jungle.
Josel took out his bladecloth and wiped down his sword; it had no blood on it, but the action held the same meaning. Arad followed suit.
“Master Arad,” Josel said, raising a hand to place it on the younger man’s left shoulder.
“Captain-General,” Arad replied, stuffing his own cloth into his belt.
“You may disregard my previous comments, Master Arad,” Josel said intently. “From now on—everybody fights. We either win, or we die. This island shall become known as a home to slaughter.”
Arad nodded. His father would execute the officers who failed him so horribly if they lost. It might not mean death for him, but it could well mean so for Sayri, or at least her continued imprisonment, and her use as a tool to manipulate him into more foul deeds.
Josel was right. It would either end in victory, or death.
They headed northeast.
・・ ・ ・ ・
Charese stood over a field of death.
The place the Somrian commander had chosen as a mustering point was a good one; a low rise bulged from the jungle a few hundred paces from the mountain’s slope, forming a long hump that was covered in thick, mossy grass. For whatever reason, trees had not colonized the hill top, so that from its shoulder a fair view was afforded across the top of the jungle canopy. It would have been a beautiful view, save for the bodies.
She had moved quickly, with her group in tow, ready to meet scouts or worse at any time. Her group was, she knew, little more than a diversion, but she had forced herself to look upon them as a squad of shock troops. Best to ignore the likelihood that there would probably be no troops after the initial shock.
They had encountered no scouts, however. That had made sense, since the enemy army would want to remain as hidden as possible until the last moment, and would use scouts only close to their ranks. But as they continued on, she began to think something was wrong. Had the army left, to completely surprise them by circling the island the other way? Thoughts of returning to warn the Front-Captain were seeding her mind as they ran.
Then they emerged from the jungle onto the open grasses of the hill, and found the bodies.
They were lying about as if taking rest, except some of them in odd positions. Arms stretched out, legs twisted; some appeared to have fallen, but most appeared to have sat, then toppled over. Many were flat on their backs; all had wide-eyed, frozen stares. The closest few Somrians—scouts and sentries that would now never report the onrushing enemy, if they had had anyone to report it to—were spread across the hill just beyond the jungle, still in formation, their heads toward the rest of the army as if they had been returning from a sweep and had simply collapsed.
The bodies ran up the hillside, the nearest facing uphill, then strewn about randomly. There were hundreds; Charese had no doubt it was the entire second army. She pulled her black helmet off, its great white plume swishing about as she did. Her short, tangled, red hair fell free. She had expected to smell the decay of death, but detected only fresh sea air.
And a hint of something else; something rotten. Not decayed flesh, but more like broken eggs left for days in the sun.
“What in the Great Link could do this?” Util, who had been with her when she first met Front-Captain Gallord-Smit, muttered as he started moving forward, perhaps to examine the nearest fallen man a dozen paces up the hillside.
Charese put out a hand across his broad chest. “No, Util. Whatever happened here, we want no part of it. The Front-Captain wanted us to find them, and do what we could to slow them down. Well—we found them, and they’re slowed. We need to get back and report this.” She turned to him, looking up into his eyes—sad eyes, in memory of his young, mute friend Losly who had been killed in a brutal volley of Somrian arrows. “This changes everything, Util.” She looked back up the hill at the field of bodies. “Now, we have a chance.”
As if in ominous assent—or was it dispute?—a low rumble filled the air. Charese turned her deep, green eyes to the sky above; it was clear, and blue now.
48 CONSUMMATION
The first line they contacted had fought back briefly, then retreated. Arad and Josel’s soldiers were attacking from all sides now, save the east where Kollivar would have been. The enemy didn’t pull back that way, though; as they had hoped, evidently Gallord-Smit had not received word of Kollivar’s catastrophe. The Lordslanders fell back a few hundred paces east, then retreated north until they had their backs to the mountain; at that point, they began to fight back ferociously.
The Somrian soldiers had formed another shield wall and were pushing forward, trying to prevent the enemy from presenting a concerted resistance. Josel was bloodied now, but there was more of the enemy’s on his tunic than his own, which ran from several minor, but painful, wounds. He came over to Arad and took him by the shoulder, shouting to be heard over the roar of battle.
“We have to keep hammering them!” he yelled. “The men need to hear your voice!”
Sayri's Whisper: The Great Link Book 1 Page 61