Snakewood

by Adrian Selby

  “Hey!” shouts Shale next to me. “Kailen! They got a banner, three lines back. Get in at the front with us, we charge on the point they’re gettin’ over their dead horses an’ I’m goin’ fer it.”

  Kailen nodded, had his sword and a small buckler and he tucked in to my left, Shale then next to him and Bresken to my right. He put word back to Sho to keep the square, for we couldn’t hope to meet their entire line and couldn’t risk them getting around behind us here at the front.

  “Harlain! Fall in beside Gant and Bresken, we’re going for the banner on Shale’s word!” said Kailen.

  Harlain come in next to me. “We run into a great wave, Gant, a handful of pebbles into an ocean and we expect it to turn.” He slapped my back and readied himself.

  There were a good few thousand against a few hundred, and they a hundred yards away now, all horns and buzzing with their noisies what were making them speed up a bit, and as Shale called it, their line lost a bit of shape as they hit their own dead.

  “I’m thinkin’ that if you throw yer pebble hard enough, Harlain, yer give even the ocean cause fer doubt,” I said.

  And so Shale it was ran out, as he was always leading the front line when he found himself in one, and with the horns sounding as Kailen and the rest of us followed him, the bags went over us from the thirty or so archers and slingers in the hollow of our sheltron.

  Course, the Virates boys didn’t expect it, that us pebbles would go looking for the wave, and we hit them hard. Harlain cleared me some room with that big scimitar of his and a hand-axe in his other hand. Two at a time were getting hit, or smacked into each other, and he put a mighty fear on them, knocking them about like a bull would. I got to work tight with Kailen to my left as the lines broke up. The five of us kept a tight point and Shale it was driving at the front through to their banner and trumpet men, who had nowhere to run with those pressing up behind them all gritty for a fight. He cut them down hard. A few cried out seeing that we were after the banner, but by then Shale had killed about ten and, throwing his shield into them, took up the banner from the man he’d killed and fair hurled it back into our lines where one of the Rhosidians spun it upside down and got a roar from the men about. The bags were coming in too of course, and as the powders got up and the pastes working there was panic across their lines. Many about in the ranks of infantry we couldn’t reach were stumbling and others blinded and tripped over each other and caused havoc on those advancing around them. Seemed like every few seconds there was one of Stixie’s big arrows coming in too, protecting the wedge we had formed for Shale to reach their banner, and each arrow was like a short spear, knocking men clean back, smashing open shields, three or four at a time. On any lesser brew, or with any lesser archer, his shooting, as well as Dithnir’s and Kheld’s, might have been a danger. We closed back up in the confusion and slaughter, Kailen and Bresken flanking Shale so he could move back, and we edged back then into the main front line of the sheltron as the greater force moved at us, against which of course so few could never overcome.

  Shale called it well, for the banner cheered us no end and the Rhosidian drummer we had with us took it and stood alongside Urutz’s bannerman and the two were like a big fuck you to the horde. We made the line again and Kailen left us to command, with Sho, our flanks and rear to tighten the square.

  “Horse!” shouted Mirisham, only moments after we’d locked shields again, his voice carrying well across the fighting. He was gesturing to the rear of the sheltron. We were sore pressed as it was at the front, but he was on a flank organising the Rhosidian boys there that we’d brought into our sheltron, doing little more of course than replacing what we had lost from the Virates infantry pressing around us. The cavalry what had scattered the column at the mouth of the pass had got itself in line and was coming for us, too few Rhosidian soldiers to withstand them.

  Kailen run up to Harlain then, so he could lipread what was needed. “Harlain, take a spear, get to the rear with Bense and Moadd and sort those spearmen out, because their cavalry’s looking to pincer us again!”

  “I shall claim a banner, Kailen, for they gladden our men to see them!”

  Kailen had commanded us then to keep edging backward, and so for a time there was nothing to do but keep the discipline, keep killing, and hope there were some in the pass beyond the Falls that could help us.

  Kailen

  The land rose gently to the Falls. We were maybe a thousand yards from the mouth of the pass when the cavalry came at our rear. Sho I instructed to form a loose wedge from the men who made the rear line of the sheltron, something that could shield Milu and their other singers who we’d managed to get on his Roob, though it made one of them pass out for he couldn’t manage his breathing once he took it. I pulled Harlain back there to ensure our spears were set firm to meet their charge.

  I commanded as I could and ran the lines with Ibsey and Kigan and two Rhosidian drudhas, telling the wounded who could do so to move back behind the frontline and get their wounds done. The drudhas’ focus was our archers of course, for it was plant that would make the difference now, not muscle and steel. Rhosidian drudhas were a lot of shit sadly, but they took direction well from Ibsey.

  Seeing the number of horse now charging the rear I went to the back line and took up a spear with Harlain. As I joined the line the cavalry hit the wedge and Milu let loose with a vicious screaming from the horn that was an agony to their horse. I called Bense and Moadd to me and with Harlain we made a run from the line and into them. The Honour gave us the agility to deliver cuts to as many horses and riders as we could while we ran, for the poison would do the work and we were after another banner, one of Jaon’s oldest I learned later, which sits proudly at the gate to the Rhosidian king’s palace to this day.

  Harlain was magnificent; on the Honour, with his great strength, he was spearing horses and, incredibly, forcing them over onto their sides. Three he took out this way and, seeing his moment, smooth as water, he took aim and threw his spear, catching the bannerman we were after hard in his breastplate from thirty yards. Seeing the banner fall sent another shout across the line behind us and I could feel in the earth the rippling out of this change, the power of these men, of Milu’s thunderous singing and also the fear now in the cavalry as they fought to turn about and retreat to regroup, the momentum lost for hundreds of yards around us.

  As I’d hoped, there were men in twos and threes about the plain between us and the Falls, many wounded, that were trying to move back as we were, but on seeing the cavalry break against us and a banner go down they stepped up, found bows or weapons around them and ran to us, a vigour in them, shame as well perhaps, that this van could rid them of.

  Then came Jaon’s last play, another astute manoeuvre, for he could see well enough from his position behind his lines what was happening, and he saw that although our sheltron was withstanding his forces, we were dying, his weight of numbers picking us off one by one. He had his own guard push through their lines, two elite units, one coming at us head on, the other making for our left flank. I called out for arrows to the flank as I saw what he was up to, trusting the boys in front to keep shape and take them out.

  “No bags or arrows, Kailen!” called Stixie. I looked skyward a moment. So it would end here.

  “Blades then, fall in with me!” I shouted to the archers. “Captain! Sheltron in! Form a single line! Trumpets! On my signal, and only on my signal, blow for a charge!”

  Gant

  We doubled up on the Honour. We had no choice now, for they kept coming at us and we had nowhere safe to go. Kailen collapsed the sheltron to a line, so that meant a final stand, for it wouldn’t be too long before the cavalry that we broke to our rear would regroup to charge us again. I looked back a moment when I was freshing my blade with more paste and there were no archers, so they must have run out of bags or arrows. About twenty yards to our left then I saw some Virates soldiers break through, and to our right some more. Kailen called that there were some
specials coming in and it was what give us a nudge to take another hit of this brew and hope it wasn’t the death of us, though of course at the crossroads there was no real choice anyway, was there?

  I called for us to tighten up and pulled Shale out of the line to join me and go at the men pouring through to our right, what were busy slaughtering those about them with ease. It give them some extra puff of course, seeing us break. We charged at those that come through, and sure enough they were well equipped, quick and cautious, better soldiers than what we’d faced to that point.

  We got among them and though we shouted for our own that fought among them to run back to us and reform a line, they were getting taken out. I had to hope that their horse wouldn’t regroup again, but with infantry breaking through, they’d be doing it now through their own.

  Those Rhosidians holding the line on our left were broken now as their specials come through and they were closing to where the Twenty were. For all that Kailen must’ve been over that side, their general must’ve himself ordered a flanking knowing we couldn’t do much while he pushed at us from the front with his best soldiers.

  We got Sho and Digs with us then, who must’ve seen we were beginning to struggle; four of us stood strong and the second rise hit me like a spade to the face, and the world come to life fierce then. I was lost to the noisies and the Forms as we killed all that come at us. I never felt such a thing ever in my life again, being as strong as I’d ever get on the best brew I’d ever take. The Rhosidians around us were falling, their brews up and Ibsey and Kigan not able to give enough of them a second hit of the Honour. These Virates boys were much the better and quicker and we started taking blows, yet it was Kigan and Ibsey’s plant what saved us from their worst effects for they knew well what the Virates used and had prepped as much before we sailed for Rhosidia.

  I heard Kailen calling for Shale and me then and I knew that his flank had collapsed. They moved back in to join up with us again, and it was slow going but soon enough, stumbling over the dead of both sides, I found myself at The Prince’s side, who was a credit to himself for we all knew swords weren’t his strength.

  Then Kailen at some point must have give the shout for a charge, for the trumpet sounded it, and there couldn’t have been more than fifty of us left. It give us a moment’s pause for sure, while we realised what it meant, that we weren’t fleeing today, that the crossroads was upon us and this was how we would go out. Harlain and Shale went at it and we fell in tight. We focused on their advance at the point where they’d put their best men, meaning to give them a fierce tale to tell of Kailen’s Twenty, and we brought them to a halt by doing it, their infantry behind closing up and their room diminished. We were quicker, stabbing and parrying, leaving the paste to do the work for there were too many others trying to catch us with their own weapons, thrown or otherwise. A pile of bodies was building up and it slowed them even more. Then The Prince took up a warsong with Milu and we all took it up and with a glance either side of me I saw that as we stood our ground, it was us twenty in a line, including Sho, and just the bannermen and drummer left behind us, and us in a half-circle around them, defending the banners we’d won. They planted them then as we had stopped retreating, and they joined us in the line and they died and all, but we knew that the Virates army’s best men had mostly been killed and those left were struggling among their wounded and dead to get at us. Their force spent itself, their song stuttering, no flow to them, and they hesitated and stopped believing they were going to kill us. On the Honour it was like something I could taste it was so clear to me. I cannot count how many I killed.

  Shale and I were at one end of this line, and the line held and the minutes passed, though I couldn’t have been the only one thought it was going to break.

  Soon enough, Kailen was barking sharp commands at intervals, for us to run at them, to upset them from finding a formation to better press us or put bags into us. There were enough of them that it was a matter of time only, and with a sudden easing of their assault from a blast of their horns we guessed it; they were hoping to drain out our brew.

  Horns then started up from the pass, maybe twenty. They were clear and loud, a distant cheer then at our backs like the wave that Harlain had spoke of. It brought tears to my eyes then, the sound of hooves, of the Rhosidian cavalry that had been pressed into the valley now breaking into the plain to force a rout, followed by the infantry that also rallied there.

  They come past us at a gallop, five hundred horse, but enough, being fresh and with so many of the oppo worn down with our poisons and their own brews, that they broke their lines open, and maybe three hundred infantry come behind them, the last of the Rhosidian army from the valley.

  By then the Virates men had lost their flint. They couldn’t break us and so it was word spread far and wide from Rhosidia in the months that followed of Kailen’s Twenty, who had stopped Cassica being taken and Rhosidia, and in so doing saved the Old Kingdoms at Tharos Falls.

  Goran

  I will leave the last words with Gant, my father, telling of how he came home to us.

  I wanted him to know that I was his son, but Aunt Emelt forbade it. She said he didn’t deserve the grief that would come of knowing her deceit, not while he was away, and knowing that if others knew, then our status in the tribe, her status on the council, would be ruined. I know my father would have wanted that least of all after what happened.

  When I saw him, being drawn in a cart by my patron, The Red, and Fieldsman Ninety-three, I respected the wisdom of my aunt in the above. He had hours to live it seemed, but survived nearly two weeks more to tell his story, such as it is written here.

  It is far warmer here in Harudan than in Upper Lagrad, where my father went into the ground. I’m not used to the sun and my fair skin burns pink and has earned me the name “Goran the Salmon”. I am Kailen’s ward and his quarter has been teaching me that which is necessary for me to know to one day run this estate and manage its groves and other interests. The children here leave flowers every rest day for Araliah, up on the hill. Imbrit and I weed it and keep the flowers there. A small oak sapling is also taking root, which will be a shelter in years to come for my children, says Kailen, but I am no better than a fish out of water for conversation when Jesca comes by and it is her that I would have those children with. Kailen has yet to come back, being at war.

  The houses hereabouts are rebuilt. I have helped to oversee the work. Kailen insisted the main house be done last, once his people had their homes.

  Aunt Emelt spared him as little as she did the council with her views, while he was at Lagrad, in this case my being a suitable ward for him, to give me an opportunity as the least that he could do for what had happened to Gant. I think he respected her fiercely for it, her direct manner, and she’d taught me my letters well enough he could not really refuse her. In every way that mattered she was a fine mother to me. Kailen agreed that she excelled also in her work on the council. Introducing himself as a Reeve and introducing Laun as an Agent, I have no doubt she saw him for what he really was and was clever enough still to ensure that our tribe and the Post would not have cause to fall out with each other. In return for some caravans of whatever the council needed, mostly weapons and plant, we would let them through our territories and give word of any of the movements of Caragula’s forces.

  I can add little more to round out the story. That my father was a man to be proud of, in a life where there was much that many would be horrified by, was more than I could have hoped for. He never forgot his home, and despite how things went for him after his wound in the Red Hills, he might not have managed to come back at all had he not been given Kigan’s blue potion, plant beyond any in the Old Kingdoms, the price of which was his own awful life after Snakewood.

  Epilogue

  Gant

  We took Kigan’s recipe books and Kailen would soon crack his cyca for the Hanwoq Book, as it would become known I’m sure in years to come. His plant bought me time enough it se
ems to put here what become of Kailen’s Twenty, the end of us remembered at least, for we ruled the world like kings for a time and our story would have been its own sort of history of these lands had I long enough to recall it.

  Kailen hoped some good use could be made of them recipes, perhaps the most valuable in all the lands with what Kigan learned in the Hanwoq jungle from Lorom Haluim, who had known of Caragula’s coming.

  Kailen too it was that insisted I write down this account, for we shared much on the way back to Lagrad. We got there along the quiet ways what he and Laun knew and I had a lot to ask him as we went along, the salve what Kigan give me doing a fierce job with the pain and slowing down what was inevitable.

  I was curious, of course, of that one thing Kailen said in Mirisham’s hall.

  “Valdir told us you were in on the thing at Snakewood,” I said, “but I was curious that you knew so much of Kigan and what he was up to, in particular what was said about that magist.”

  “Let me go back a bit then. I invested much of that wealth we took in some ships, hoping for some good returns from importing spices and plant. The returns were spectacular, so I kept investing for a few years, until I met my wife Araliah. But I was doing little else. I had lost touch with Mirisham and the others, or should I say we avoided each other for a time because we knew we were being looked for, and I kept up mainly with The Prince, with whom I had some of my shipping interests. Shortly I owned ships of my own. Trading, the nature of commerce, became interesting the more I learned of it. I began to understand better the ways in which the struggle for power in the world, being the struggle for plant, shaped the way so many countries made peace and war. Through it all I had dealings with the Post, and many High Reeves.