by Duncan Pile
Maybe that was it! Sestin must have beguiled him with some spell to keep him compliant. No, not Sestin…Ferast! He remembered the young magician stepping out before the army, but he couldn’t recall a word of what he’d said. That must have been the moment.
Antoine was roused from his thoughts by an attacking guardsman, forcing him to defend himself. He parried the blow and knocked the man out with a punch to the face. He was in a battle, surrounded by men who were trying to kill him, but all of a sudden he didn’t want to take a single life. The people of Helioport were fighting bravely, doing everything they could to hold their ground, but they were steadily driven back by the attackers. They numbered in their hundreds now, and he, Antoine, led a force of thousands. Inevitably, every last one of them would die and Sestin would have his victory.
He caught sight of a dark-skinned swordsman, cutting through his troops like a scythe. He’d seen the man fight earlier in the battle and knew him to be a true master. In any other circumstance he would relish the chance to take him on, but his appetite for killing had ebbed entirely, replaced by a desperate desire to take back what he’d done. Right then, the swordsman’s gaze met his own and he changed direction, heading directly for Antoine with fire in his eyes. Antoine sighed and hefted his sword. The swordsman had marked him as his enemy, and woe betide anyone who got in his way.
Sure enough, the swordsman made quick progress through Antoine’s men, disembowelling one opponent and spinning to block an overhand blow from another before slitting the man’s throat. Bright red blood fountained into the air, but Sabu had already moved on. A fourth mercenary fell, stabbed through the heart as the swordsman slid past and opened a fifth man’s jugular. His next opponent took a brutal punch to the neck and fell to the ground, grabbing his ruined throat. Moments later he was kicking his heels, a fat, blackened tongue protruding from his mouth.
“You!” the swordsman cried, thrusting the point of a gleaming scimitar in Antoine’s direction. “The man in black!”
Antoine could see the fury in his eyes and understood it entirely. The swordsman saw only a man who had brought about the death of many of his friends, and would stop at nothing to kill him.
Only two men stood between him and the approaching swordsman now, one of whom fell even as he watched. “Lemox, behind you!” Antoine barked, as the point of a scimitar burst through his chest and he choked his last breath, blood frothing on his lips.
Wearily, Antoine settling into a defensive stance, balanced on the balls of his feet. The swordsman leapt forward and attacked, blades cutting a glittering arc through the air. Antoine blocked them and swept them aside, before trying to backhand his opponent in the face. The swordsman ducked beneath Antoine’s heavy, gauntleted fist and attacked once more, lancing out with a lighting-fast jab. Antoine deflected it with a down-stroke of his scimitar, but the swordsman’s blade caught his thigh and sliced through the iron rings of his armour as if they were made of parchment, inflicting a stinging wound. Antoine jumped back, eyeing the silver blades warily. They must carry a powerful enchantment to shred his armour so.
The swordsman attacked again, forcing Antoine to block a vertical blow that would have opened him up from groin to neck, and then another, slicing towards his neck. The swordsman was deadly, his blade-work impeccable. It would take everything Antoine had to hold him off, but even with his life on the line, he couldn’t find it in himself to go on the offensive. He caught a blow on the crosspiece of his dagger and shoved the swordsman away, but failed to follow up with an attack of his own.
The swordsman looked at him quizzically, clearly confused by Antoine’s failure to seize the advantage. After a moment’s hesitation he launched a fresh attack. Antoine blocked him and their blades locked up, bringing them in close to each other. The swordsman tried to head-butt him but Antoine pulled back and shoved the lighter swordsman away once more.
The swordsman leapt in again, thrusting a blade at Antoine’s armoured belly. Antoine spun away, completed the turn and caught another vicious thrust to the belly on his scimitar. The swordsman laid into him in a frenzy – slashing, punching, kicking and dancing around him, using a bewildering combination of swordsmanship and hand to hand combat, but Antoine was a match for him, holding him at every turn. Not once did he strike out in earnest, concentrating wholly on keeping his opponent at bay.
Their blades locked up once more and they came face to face. “Why won’t you fight?” the swordsman asked, his voice soft and deep.
“I am fighting,” Antoine said, taking the opportunity to shove his opponent away.
This time, the swordsman didn’t attack, choosing to circle him instead. “You’ve had two chances to wound me and have taken neither.”
Antoine shrugged. “I don’t want to kill you.”
The swordsman frowned. “I am your enemy.”
Antoine met the swordsman’s confused gaze. “I don’t want to kill any of you,” he said bitterly. “I had no idea who we were allying ourselves with. He is a monster.”
The swordsman’s eyes widened, and then his face settled into determined lines. “You lead this army, do you not?”
“I command them in battle, yes, but they serve Sestin, not me.”
“Will they obey you?”
“Many will.”
“Then give the order to retreat.”
Antoine’s eyes widened. It was possible. He could turn his troops around and sow chaos among the attacking force.
The swordsman spoke again, seeking to persuade him. “If you continue on this path, you will carry the knowledge that you perpetrated the most heinous of crimes each and every day. The rape and slaughter of every woman and child will be on your head.”
Unbidden, memories of Nabiya rose to the surface – the fear in her face, the tears, flowing endlessly down her cheeks, her cries of pain. Antoine made his mind up. If the women and children of Helioport suffered such a fate, his life may as well be forfeit.
“I’ll do it,” he said at last, lowering his weapons.
The swordsman nodded. “You will order the retreat?”
“I will. Not all will obey, but it might be enough.”
“It will have to be enough,” the swordsman said. “Go now. Do it quickly.”
…
Filled with a sense of purpose, Antoine ran to an overturned cart and clambered up on top. “Men of Namert!” he cried. Dozens of heads turned to face him, most of them his own men, who had stuck close during the battle. “This is not our fight! We retreat!”
Nobody moved, staring at him instead as if he’d just told them up was down and left was right. Antoine lifted his arm and gestured out towards the plain. “Wake up you sluggards. I’m ordering you to retreat!” he roared.
His own men were first to respond, breaking away from the front line and pushing back through the troops behind them. Even more heads turned. Some men began to cry out in confusion, others decrying Antoine’s men as deserters.
“Retreat! Pass the command along. Move!”
Antoine jumped down from the wagon and joined his men, exchanging a last nod with the dark-skinned swordsman as he led his men away from the melee. Many joined him, but others tried to stop them, attacking them as they retreated. An unknown mercenary leapt at him, swinging a two-headed axe at his midriff. Antoine sidestepped with ease and hacked the man’s arm off before pressing on, calling out commands the whole time. The mass of men accompanying him grew by the moment, and soon they were streaming from the field in their hundreds. Antoine could only assume that the same force that had gripped him throughout the battle, and which he’d finally shaken off, had been holding them captive too. Now they were free to act on their consciences, and many were happy to abandon the field.
As a mercenary, Antoine knew he should hang his head in shame – he’d broken his contract, which was the only code a sword for hire knows – but in his heart of hearts he knew he was doing the right thing. He felt…lighter, as if a burden had fallen from his shoulders. Surp
rised, he even let out a brief, shaky laugh, but the sight of his men struggling to retreat sobered him up. They were being slowed down by knots of mercenaries whose loyalty was first and foremost to their pay chit. He was under no illusions – the men of Namert were notoriously corrupt, without much in the way of a moral compass. He himself had done terrible things in the past, but this slaughter wasn’t something he could knowingly take part in. Many of those who chose to remain, however, would revel in the bloodshed, torture and rape that lay before them, and were fighting for the right to take part.
Even as he made headway through the surging, jostling army, he was faced with another discomforting question – would retreating be enough? If even a third of the army remained, Antoine would have achieved nothing. His men were streaming from the battlefield, joined by hundreds of other fighters. Smiling grimly, Antoine led the swelling tide of men from the field, hoping that enough would follow to tip the balance in the defenders’ favour, and wondering what he would do if they didn’t.
…
“What’s going on?” Taurnil said, as a disturbance broke out somewhere beyond the front lines of battle.
“No idea,” Gaspi said, ducking a blow from a double-bladed axe and planting a strike in his attacker’s chest. The man was thrown from his feet and bowled into several of the mercenaries behind him. Taurnil downed another man with a skull-splitting blow to the head and they found themselves in open space, without immediate opponents. Frowning, Gaspi realised the pace of battle seemed to be slackening. The enemy army had been applying relentless pressure for hours, but suddenly they seemed to be giving quarter. Something was definitely up. Sestin’s men were looking over their shoulders, distracted by the commotion at the rear of their lines.
“Taurn, this way,” Gaspi said, pushing his way back through the defenders.
“The fight’s that way,” Taurnil complained, grabbing him by the shoulder.
“It might be the ogres! We need Rimulth,” Gaspi said, shaking himself free. The tribesman had taken his place alongside Hephistole, in case the chancellor should have further need of the air spirit’s eyes.
Gaspi laid eyes on Hephistole first, on his feet once more but leaning on Trask at the heart of Helioport’s army. His face was still pale, but he seemed to have recovered a little of his strength. Gaspi pushed his way through the lines as fast as he could, and heard the men behind him grumble as Taurnil followed, forcing his broad-shouldered form through the ranks in Gaspi’s wake.
Rimulth, who stood at the chancellor’s side, saw him coming “Gasp, what is it?” he said.
“Something’s going on,” Gaspi said. The disturbance in the enemy ranks was intensifying. Angry shouts could be heard all through the mercenary force, punctuated by the clash of metal on metal. “It might be the ogres. We need to know, either way.”
“Right!” Rimulth said, closing his eyes and casting his mind into the body of the air spirit.
Gaspi waited with his heart in his mouth as the noise in the enemy ranks rose to an all-out din. Were they saved?
Rimulth’s eyes sprang open and he leapt to his feet. “It’s not the ogres. Some of the mercenaries are retreating. The rest are trying to stop them!”
Gaspi was stunned. Sestin was on the verge of crushing them. The battle would have been over in a matter of minutes, but somehow they’d been given a reprieve.
Trask grabbed Rimulth by the shoulders. “How many are deserting?”
“A lot,” Rimulth said “Maybe half the army.”
“Half won’t be enough,” Trask said.
“Unless it buys Baard enough time to reach us.” Taurnil interjected.
“The ogres are on their way, about halfway between here and the Argent Hills,” Rimulth said.
“Okay, we stick to the plan and hope Baard gets here in time,” Trask said. “Gaspi, Taurnil, get back to the front line. Rimulth, you too. Hold as long as you can.”
The tribesman nodded, closing his eyes briefly once more, and moments later the air spirit came boiling down from the skies in spirit form.
Gaspi knew it was enduring great pain, but it was now or never. “Rimulth, we’re moving among the ranks, propping up the line wherever it looks like collapsing. Do the same!”
“Got it,” Rimulth said and rushed off in the other direction, the air spirit glowing fiercely at his side. Gaspi and Taurnil dashed back the way they’d come, pressing through the throng of defenders towards the place where the fighting was thickest.
A mighty roar sounded from among the enemy ranks, making Gaspi pause. The golem had turned away from the battle and was striding angrily towards the deserters, roaring in fury and casting its own men aside as if they were so much refuse.
“I want to destroy that thing,” Taurnil growled.
“Just wait,” Gaspi said. “Our time will come.”
Thirty-nine
At long last Antoine’s men broke free of Sestin’s army, and rushed across the plain without pursuit. Antoine spotted a large rock ahead, protruding from the plain and made for it, running up its sloping side and turning to face his men at the top. He spread out his arms. “Halt!” he cried, his own men obeying immediately, followed with varying degrees of alacrity by those who came behind. He waited until the men had stilled, waiting for him to speak. He understood the mingled confusion and fear in their eyes.
“For the first time in my life I have fled the field of battle,” he cried, hoping his voice would carry to the farthest ranks. “I have done so because the men we fought alongside are monsters. They ally themselves with demons, and use foul sorcery to control them and us. That’s right – we have all been duped by the spell-caster, Ferast, who took control of our minds from the moment the demons first emerged from the trees and we laid eyes on our allies.” Angry muttering broke out among the men. Antoine raised his hands and waited for quiet. “I have seen terrible things this day, but worse atrocities are to come, visited upon the innocent children and women of Helioport by men and monsters alike. I cannot be a party to this, and seeing that you too have fled the field of battle, I suspect you feel the same way.”
A loud murmur of assent rippled through the crowd. “Too right!” someone called.
“But we cannot stop here. Retreating is not enough!” Antoine continued. Silence fell immediately, a deathly hush he didn’t know how to interpret. “Like it or not, Sestin has enough men to destroy what remains of Helioport’s army. Every woman and child left in that city will be raped and tortured, or even worse, handed over to demons. If they are to have a chance of survival, we must turn now and attack Sestin’s army from the rear.”
The men began to mutter once more. Someone cried out from deep within the ranks. “Go back and fight that bloody great golem? Not a chance!” Others shouted their agreement, and Antoine could sense he was losing his one opportunity to win them over.
“I cannot force you to return with me. I have abdicated from my command of this army, but I appeal to your consciences. You are rough men one and all, much as I am. You have killed many times for nothing more than a few silvers, and so have I. We are mercenaries not holy men, but this is different. If you turn your back today, you will have aided in the rise of a madman, whose conquest will not stop at Helioport. I have heard enough from Sestin’s lieutenant to know he intends a much wider conquest – possibly the whole of Antropel, and maybe even beyond. What will you do when he arrives at the gates of Namert, and it is your lives and the lives of your families that he wishes to take? No, I say we must fight him and we must do it now, while he can still be defeated.”
He paused, waiting to see how his words had gone down. Whispers rippled through the army, along with more angry mutterings, but they were fewer and less vociferous than before. It was time to force the decision.
“If you intend to leave I will not stop you, but do so now, and quickly, so I know where we stand.”
Nobody moved for a moment, and then a man near the front turned and pushed his way through the ranks. Others
followed, and soon there was a steady exodus, making its way back over the plain and away from Helioport. Some had the grace to look chagrined, but most wore expressions like flint; hard, unyielding and closed. At long last the exodus was over, and Antoine looked out at less than a thousand men. Many more had left than he had hoped, but he still had an army. Perhaps it was hopeless, but his mind was made up. His gaze fell on the Blackguard – his own company – and he was heartened to discover that none of them had abandoned him. Their faces reflected his own feelings; grim determination and searing anger. It was time to take the fight to Shirukai Sestin.
“Form up!” he cried, and the troops did their best to close the gaps in their depleted ranks. “Come!” he said to his own company, leading them to the forefront of the rebel force. He lifted his sword high above his head. “Charge!”
…
Groaning in pain, Ferast placed his palms against the cold, muddy ground and pushed himself up to his hands and knees. He hissed in pain and raised a hand to the back of his head. It came back slick with blood. What had happened? He remembered corralling the dJin through the gate and pursuing the defenders onto the plain, only to find himself much closer to the battle than he would have liked. He’d retreated to the wall, avoiding the clashes of defender and demon, and had thought himself safe for a while, but the battle surged and swirled, encroaching on his hiding place all too often. At long last Ferast had grown weary of dodging errant blows, and had chosen to head back through the gate. His plan had been to climb the stairs at the side of the barracks and watch the rest of the battle from the safety of the wall, but somewhere along the way that plan had gone wrong. He remembered being jostled and then bashed about by a sudden surge of armoured bodies, followed by a hot explosion of pain, and the next thing he knew he was coming to on the battlefield, only yards from embattled defenders.