by Anton Le Roy
Gregor mutters into my ear, “How’d you feel?
This isn’t as easy as it used to be. “Old,” I reply truthfully.
“You look it too,” Gregor quips, then louder for the others to hear he says, “Ok lads, let’s slaughter some pigs!” A further cheer resounds from the gang.
Arrows punch the air overhead and in response many Pig Stringers drop with dull thuds.
“You two grandpas want to see decent fighting? Then just watch me!” adds Razor, with laughs from the men.
“And me!” exclaims Bast, before others pipe up, all wanting to prove their worth.
All humour soon fades as the wave hits more urgently than before with the front rows of Pig Stringers pushed forward by the Ellen men behind. We use pikes left behind by the enemy and these strike home into their previous owners, launching men into the air. Gregor and myself then wade in, my shield taking many clangs and bangs and despite Sephan's limited prowess with a sword and various panicked moments, the three of us work well together as we cover each other's backs. I lose count of the number of men that fall to my sword and to Gregor's axe. Flesh and muscle hacked and split with metal. Blood spraying like rain.
These men that stand before me do not stand out individually, instead they’re lumped together as a huge monster deformed by thousands of sprawling limbs swirling sharp pieces of metal. A huge beast with endless bobbing heads and faces hidden by gloomy helms. We hack and stab at this awful creature, lopping off appendages and making it bleed as its millipede legs try to gain a foothold on our little wall. The growing blizzard shifts and pulses, flashing the scene between vague shadows and surreal clarity highlighting the sheer scale of this monster we do battle with.
It roars and presses forward. Bits of its body, what look like soldiers (some still barely alive), lay all around it and indifferently it uses these as solid footing in the bloody mud/snow/ice sludge, just as I anticipated. Screaming faces sometimes squish down into the ground by comradery boots. With extra purchase on the slippery rise, the monster pushes.
We are feeling the strain and the death cries of fellow Blackwater comrades sound louder than the whipping winds. Where they fall our line buckles. Pig Stringers and Ellen soldiers are suddenly inside the gateway and on the ramparts and we stagger back. I hear Gregor and Razor's battle cry echoed by others, even Bast and Sephan. Myself? I’m tiring terribly, feeling damn old with all my joints and muscles starting to burn, and then as I fell yet another foe and gasp for breath with a heaving chest I glance down the line again and see the most extraordinary thing: the Twins, moving as one human with four arms each wielding blades of whirling death. They seem to suddenly evolve before my eyes into a singular killing machine and the enemy don’t stand a chance as that vortex of death slices through their ranks.
The Twins stride forward, faces hidden behind their death mask visors as man after man is chopped down. Onto the rampart walls the Twins continue, arms a blur. It's hypnotising, almost beautiful, a dance of death. The Ellen ranks crumple as those nearest to the Twins, perhaps sensing the futility of taking on such a terrible force, push back against those beside and behind and then panic sets in all around and men are falling over each other to escape, causing uncertainty and confusion in the rest of the battalion. The Captain screams for us to advance and now we’re driving back at the once horrific monster that has now become a whimpering mess. Finally the monster explodes into hundreds of soldiers falling or fleeing back down the slope. We’ve broken them a second time! Us paltry few against many!
Despite our wounds we all cheer, tearing our throats from the force of it, screaming to the heavens and raising weapons in defiance. We’re alive! The Twins had continued on for a while beyond the battlements, cutting down the fleeing men from behind and now they stand all alone on Dead Man’s Drop amongst mounds of the dead and swirling snow. There are groans from those unfortunate men still alive, slowly dying. Most of the Pig Stringers are among them.
I’m the first to reach the Twins, to check they’re ok, because I cannot believe they just did what they did without getting hurt. Both are breathless, covered in ice, mud, blood and gore. They lift their visors up simultaneously.
“You ok?” I ask.
Two nods with flashes of white smiles on dirty faces. Not smiles of mad cruelty, but a simple gesture of friendship.
“We like your beard,” they say in unison.
I check them over to find no serious wounds and then notice a tunic sliced open and there, so exposed, so delicate and out of place in this valley of war, is a small female breast. Like a blossoming flower amongst flames. Everything about the Twins becomes obvious and I gasp with realisation. The blizzard falters and knowing anyone else looking our way must see it too I immediately pull the flap of clothing over and tuck it under a shoulder guard strap until the soft flesh is hidden.
Still the Twins smile, yet there is momentary fear in their eyes. They’re briefly the two little girls they’d once been not too long ago, raped by their father and abused by their neighbours. “Thanks,” they whisper, eyes wide.
“Now you understand, then,” the Captain says, standing beside me.
“You knew.”
A nod.
“The others?” I ask him.
A shake of the head unsettling the snow on his helm. “But I guess the secret's out of the bag now.”
It's clear now: on the run from their tormented past they ran into the arms of the local army official who assumed them as two boys and then transferred them to Blackwater Platoon, a new family where they were treated like normal people, where they weren't judged, where they were wanted. One day their Captain stumbled upon their secret and decided to protect them.
The Captain nods as if reading my mind.
Although they may not need protecting on the battlefield they need it against other desires of devious men. As we lead the Twins back up and over the ramparts I recognise the emotions of some, especially the mercs. Lust.
“Any of you whoresons go near these girls,” swears the Captain, “I’ll personally throw you down to the enemy, swiftly followed by your dick!”
Chapter 10
We regroup once more as does the enemy. Corpses out on the slope are strewn across the earth like seed in a field and crows fall onto them like dark ghouls. The enemy bodycount is high while Blackwater have lost eight more men, and still we stand strong at a mere fifteen. Sergeant Jones is kneeling down beside Miller, stitching a wound to his leg as we all sit around the fire pit to melt the ice from beards and clothes and to warm up icicle fingers.
Miller grins to me. “We are rocks and they are nothing but waves, right?”
I can feel his confidence echoed in everyone else, even those who I’d thought wouldn't survive this long. Gurny, a genius with a bow, leads his bowmen out amongst the nearest bodies scrounging for extra arrows. The Captain, as always, strides amongst his men, producing hearty slaps on backs – the man is an accomplished battler. Gregor laughs with Razor, both strutting like stags and talking about the whores they will ride when the enemy are either defeated or give up and leave. The Twins, as always, look like they’re out for a pleasant stroll as they loot trinkets from Ellen bodies to use as jewellery or fetishes – still hard to believe how incredible they’d been earlier on – I think something inside them just clicked and all of a sudden they revealed their true identities in more ways than one. Bast is like a new man, full of confidence despite a wicked slash to his jaw. You cannot fault the natural ability of Jones out in the field and even Miller has surprised me – I didn’t expect him to last five minutes, just like Sephan.
What about me? Well, I’m weary and aching and I lean against a wall to slide down into a sitting position next to Sephan who is sullen and quietly sitting by the fire. The snowstorm fades in and out in like beach waves and at the moment great white chunks cause the fire pit to hiss and spit in anger. It's like the sky is falling and the world is ending while we do battle as insignificant as ants. I feel like a d
amn frozen fish although when I’m out there fighting I've gotten to the point where I don't even notice the cold and wet anymore.
“If we survive this,” whispers Sephan while blowing into his hands, “There’ll be more battles, just as awful, just as hard, won’t there?” He doesn’t wait for a response. “I joined the army to try and be a hero, a great soldier, but I dunno if I want that anymore. Don’t think I ever really did, it was just a way to try and impress my pa. Stupid, right? I ain’t like you guys. I try but I really ain’t any good at fighting.” He chuckles even though he isn’t smiling, “I ain’t good at all!”
“You got this far.”
“Only because of you. I just don’t think I belong here, like Miller. He teaches kids in the next town from my village. He’s a good guy, a kind man. Why’s he here?”
I rub a sore elbow and then the pulled muscle in my left arm. “To make a difference?”
Tears well up. “And will his efforts really make a difference? Will mine?”
“Does it really matter? Some situations you can’t escape from and those moments test you. If you survive then what comes out the other side is someone stronger than ever before.”
“But you and Gregor choose to stay when you don’t really have to.”
“I guess.”
He sighs with a shudder and wipes his red eyes. Poor kid. Unfortunately he’s right – he doesn’t belong here. He’s not made for this at all. Problem is he’ll never have the opportunity to really do what he wants to do with his life and he’ll forever feel lost because of it. That’s life, I guess.
After a few sniffs his words are a whisper, “They'll keep coming and coming until there’s too few of us left.”
“So what? You want to leave?”
He shakes his head. After a while, “Yeah, I do, but I can’t and I won’t.”
“You're tougher than you realise,” I say.
A humourless laugh. “No, I’m not. You got no idea how fucking scared I am right now!” he hisses, glancing around to make sure no one else heard. He hugs his knees and becomes just a frightened little boy. “I ain’t tough, you don’t have to try and make me feel better. I’m just a kid out of his depth and I know that. I know because I’ve always been scared. As long as I remember. Ages before I ever held a sword.”
“You faced those dreads when you signed up. You can use that fear, turn it into a weapon.”
“I’ve tried, but it grows till it feels like it’s gonna explode and destroy me. You ever get that feeling? Like you don’t know what to do with yourself?”
I look at him for a while. “I’m afraid of things too.”
Sephan grins, “I find that hard to believe.”
But it’s true.
“Not beating these fears… it makes me feel, I don’t know… wrong inside,” he says.
I don’t know what to say. I’m a man who would rather flee halfway across the world for decades rather than face his fears. A man swallowed by unbearable sadness at times. Haunted by a torrent of regrets. Moments in time that I mull over and over again in some sort of self-torturing ritual until I’m unable to escape these endless wraiths that crowd at my side. More and more of them every year. I’ve lost count of their numbers and I wonder if it’s all in my head or if they truly are real. I’m even preferring to fight for my life here than finally moving on to find an old lost friend. I’m more fucked up than Sephan could ever be. How can I dare give advice?
Before I can conjure up a poignant response there is a shout from the wall. “I think something is happening,” is all I end up saying.
We both get up slowly for different reasons.
“What next you reckon?” asks Jones, joining us.
Looks like the whole damn army.
The valley floor fills up with moving things. Squad after squad of men, battalion after battalion. Even though the snow blurs too much and my eyes aren’t good enough anymore at this distance, I’ve seen enough to know what approaches. A proper army has arrived. Maybe not the whole Ellen army just a big enough one as it is. Cavalry on fine horses; foot infantry, both light and heavy; archers; medical staff; various high-ranking officers including Generals and the King, in turn accompanied by their own mini-army of servants and advisors; wagons laden with supplies and war-machines; engineers and other skilled tradesmen; herds of oxen and goat; cages of chickens; and then the usual parasites, such as pimps, whores, entertainers and merchants. All of them, a mighty host of Ellen numbering a few thousand, all stuck down there thanks to us.
Suddenly the realisation of just what we’re doing sparks in the heads of all those who remain alive in Blackwater Platoon and from that dawns a new feeling: pride.
No matter what will happen from now on, at least we all have that. Battalions detach from the army bulk, trudging up the rise of ice, mud, blood and bodies. The monster that we had sent fleeing in terror now returns bigger and badder and in those eyes shines a burning anger. No longer will it let us paltry few make a mockery of it. We’ll be taught a tough lesson.
As Gurny and his few remaining archers fire their last arrows into the ranks, I swing my arms and try to relax knotted muscles in my neck, try to ignore the aches rippling from my shoulders, down my spine and across my hips, try to ignore my swollen knees and try to ignore old wounds and aching joints from the damp cold. A little more Redleaf helps dull the pain a tad: not too much to dull my senses though. I lick my cracked lips and taste sweat, blood and ice. How apt that I should die fighting for a cause I don’t entirely believe in. How typical that I shall fall on a battlefield nowhere near my homeland, in a place I’d barely heard of. Should I really be surprised by that though? Sorry Satipo – looks like we’ll have that chat in the next life.
There are simply way too many Ellen. Even though they’re still concentrated into a small frontal point, even though we hold for a while and the Twins send bits of Ellen men into the air, we’re slowly being forced back. Some Blackwater archers have no more arrows and have to join the fight by hand. The blizzard has died down and now the only sounds are men screaming and the sparks from striking metal. I lop a man’s head off and stagger backwards. Two comrades, one of them Bast, fall in bursts of blood to be trampled underfoot by the advancing enemy. They’re on the ramparts now and we’re too few to push them back. The space we’re moving into is wider, meaning the enemy can spread out more. Slowly they’re circling us, more of us are dying and my strength is fading, as is Gregor’s. This is the end now.
Shit.
For a moment I think of my old comrades and amongst them my Red Dogs friends. Their images are beside me, fighting too. I chuckle and they grin back at me. Is this a dream? Whistle, Forke, Blunt, Rum, Tobi, Link, Pitt and all the others, even Satipo, dead or alive it doesn’t matter, they’re all here with Gregor and me just as they always once were. I’m back in the past again. I’m at home again. My family give me strength. Once more I’m a young man and nothing can defeat me and the feeling is like a blessing until more spirits appear: others from my past and this time all the dead ones, all the fallen comrades, people I let down, people I couldn’t save and finally even all those I killed including fresh Ellen, too many of them crowding my view that I cannot see the real Ellen foe any longer. The blizzard becomes a white haze greyed out by all the shadowy figures surrounding me. There are women and children too and not just from the small village of Awt: there are also those that died by my hand, like that day of Satipo’s blood bond. The sight of them all makes me want to cover my eyes in horror and I fight that suicidal urge.
None of the spectres are attacking, instead converging on me in dreadfully slow steps. I scream in rage as this must be a madness setting in and I will not let it drown me, lest it gets me killed by a real blade. Finally, as if by sheer will, all of those relics fade and I’m me again, I’m my old self and only the living Ellen charge me and only Gregor and Blackwater stand at my side.
Exhaustion oozes back into my body as I struggle to maintain the strength in my limbs. L
abouring, slowing down, sweating, old wounds aching, new wounds stinging. My mind is out of focus, still reeling from that onslaught of phantoms. Pain flares in my back and the worst of my knees. Arms feel too heavy to use properly. There’s a burning in my right shoulder that flares with each swing. The pulled muscle in my left arm is hindering me too. Each stabbing weapon is getting closer, I’m sure of it. Only a matter of time before I make a fatal mistake in this chaos. Damn getting old! Damned bullshit! I remember when I could do this all day! I remember being able to do this all day with a hangover! Now look at me, a doddering old fool I may as well be and tomorrow I’ll be stiff and worn out and what use will I be then? If there is a tomorrow for me, that is. A tomorrow for any of us.
I roar in anger. No! This is not my final chapter! This is not where I lay to rest. Renewed vigour floods my veins and I fight like a berserker. We’re not a line of defence anymore, just individuals amongst a crowd. We’re singular stones within a flood. A shame I cannot make good of my conviction.
My sword guts one man and jams into another’s upper armpit. The stricken individual manages to kick out and suddenly I’m on the ground, sliding in the putrid muck amongst random stomping feet. Can see Gregor struggling to hold his own; tiredness is clearly crippling him too. Even he cannot save me. With cold realisation comes the thought – I’m done.
“No!” screams Sephan, and not, I realise, because of me.
Miller is down, a sword in his throat. Blood bubbles along the length of the blade like lava, his eyes bulging as he dies.
First Sephan chops off the sword arm of my advancing foe and then he hacks Miller’s attacker almost in two before an enemy shield thrusts into him, spinning Sephan round as a sword bursts from his belly. He thuds to his knees in front of me while Gurny’s last arrow takes down Sephan’s foe. Like a howling whirlwind, the Twins spin by, decimating all who stand in their way and for a brief moment there’s a gap between Eiseggar and Ellen soldiers, a calmness that pauses the battle. The Twins turn their backs on the enemy, interested only in Miller’s corpse and Sephan. They lift their visors and they cry.