Vengeance of Hope

by P J Berman

  Chapter 25

  There it was! The edge of the forest! Sensing the moment was right, Silrith kicked her cantering mount into a gallop. Within moments the ground thundered with the noise of three thousand sets of hooves. Keeping her body low, she looked ahead, seeing the light of Jostan’s camp getting closer and closer. She saw the silhouette of a guard, but he turned and ran, raising the alarm instead of standing to fight.

  ‘Stay in formation! Follow me!’ Silrith called, hearing panicked cries and heavy crashes, telling the fate of some of her horses behind as the column surged forward.

  They burst out of the forest and charged headlong into the camp. There were many soldiers there, but they’d had no time to form into any sort of order. Silrith slashed this way and that, sending anyone in her path straight to the afterlife. None could be allowed to stop her from reaching Jostan’s tent.

  Inside the Preddaburg Gate, seated astride his gelding in full armour, Yathrud heard the alert horns sounding all around the enemy camp outside. Silrith must have begun her attack. Now was the time to move. At his back, the remaining Divisios were ready, crammed into the walled courtyard; each unit in a small square formation. Behind them, in columns that snaked all the way through the gates into the outer and inner wards, were the militia and the Hentani infantry. In all, they numbered around six thousand troops, with a further two thousand staying behind to defend.

  Yathrud raised his sword high above his head.

  ‘Open the gates!’ he called. ‘We advance!’

  As the gates we hauled apart and the portcullis raised, he looked up at the walls and all the troops crowded on to them. He hoped those militia stationed there would be enough to hold the citadel if anything went wrong. In moments the gates were open and he could see the enemy. In the distance, thousands of Jostan’s troops, now rallied into some kind of order, were rushing to the camp’s eastern flank, towards sounds of metal on metal, the whinnying of horses and the screams of soldiers.

  ‘Forward!’ Yathrud bellowed and he kicked his horse into a trot.

  ‘I am the Daughter of Ashes, Bertakaevey’s holy ashes. For I was formed from the ashes of her once mortal body, guided by her immortal soul,’ Ezrina declared. ‘The prophecy is true. Follow me and freedom will be yours.’

  The crowd erupted into an enormous cheer and Ezrina encouraged them, but their jubilation was short-lived. Through the noise came a terrible shout to the west of where they stood.

  ‘Quiet!’ Ezrina called and she listened. The crowd stopped celebrating and immediately heard the screams. They were all temporarily rooted to the ground as they listened, but in a moment hundreds Bennvikan civilians, adult and child alike appeared out of the western streets, running headlong for the east of the city.

  ‘They’re through the gates!’ they were shouting. ‘Save yourselves from slaughter! Run for your lives!’

  The crowd was sent into hysteria and before Ezrina knew what was happening they were stampeding towards the east gate. Anyone who tripped was trampled and crushed.

  ‘Everyone head for the East Gate,’ ordered Ezrina. ‘Pray that my Holy Mother’s fire protects us from any that they bring.’

  ‘Jakiroc, get me a horse,’ she said. ‘Any horse! And a sword! Now!’

  Charging through the camp, slaughtering soldiers left and right, carried onward by the rage of battle; this was what it was truly like to be a warrior. Enemy troops lunged at Silrith, trying to slash at her horse, or trying to pull her to the ground, but it seemed she was blessed by the Gods this night. If she did not dispatch them by the sword, then either one of her horsemen did so, or the assailant was knocked to the ground by her stallion and trampled by those behind. Still she hurtled on, feeling that she could personally kill a thousand troops; troops that were here simply to ensure the destruction of her family and this city.

  Now the enemy was doing little more than running and dying. With great satisfaction, Silrith realised that her soldiers had routed much of the east side of the camp. Yet there was still much fighting to be done and the sounds of battle all around still filled the air.

  Then she heard it; Yathrud’s war horn, somewhere towards the centre of the camp, opposite the Preddaburg Gate, confirming that the infantry, led by the remaining Divisios, had engaged the enemy. She smiled and kicked her horse again, pulling it in the direction of the note, beginning the second stage of her plan.

  Moments later, the fight could be seen. Her uncle was directing things from astride his war horse and had sent the Divisiomen forward in a tight tortoiseshell. They formed the point at the front of a triangle of militia and Hentani warriors. The opposing warriors of the Defroni hurled themselves against Yathrud’s force and their resistance seemed to rally some of the enemy militia, though nevertheless, their line was buckling in the middle under the pressure from the Divisiomen at the spearhead of Yathrud’s formation.

  To Silrith’s left, Gasbron’s Standard Bearer blew on a war horn and enemy faces looked up in dread as they saw the cavalry charging in to outflank them from their left. Many turned and ran just at the sight of them, while those that remained were quickly slaughtered as the torrent of horses smashed into their east wing.

  As the enemy formation collapsed and broke in terror, Silrith called a halt and was echoed by a bellow from Gasbron. Amid the chaos, she had noted that those who had retreated west had routed like a wild rabble, while those that had retreated north had done so in a little more order, amid calls from some petty commander for them to fall back.

  ‘My Lord Alyredd!’ she called to Yathrud, using the formal term in front of her troops.

  ‘Yes my Queen?’ he replied from his position.

  ‘We follow those who retreated north,’ she ordered. ‘That’s where Jostan’s tent will be. I’ll lead, then you follow us.’

  She looked at the soldiers all around her.

  ‘Who wants to kill the usurper who brought this war to us?’

  Her answer was a clamour of battle cries and she kicked her mount again. She and her cavalry galloped past the infantry and they moved towards the place where Silrith hoped they’d find the one who had taken everything from her. As she rode, they caught up with more soldiers who had become isolated from their units in the confusion and they paid for it with their lives. The exhilaration of battle pulsed through Silrith’s body like nothing she’d ever experienced before, yet she fought the feeling. Jostan’s army was in disarray, but her victory so far had seemed just a little too easy.

  As they reached the north of the camp, sighting the royal enclosure barely a few hundred yards away, she laid eyes on something that confirmed her suspicions.

  ‘Halt!’ she called. Gasbron repeated the order and it was relayed backwards, preventing the horses form piling into each other as they slowed. ‘Keep out of bow range!’

  Before them was the royal enclosure, though it more closely resembled a porcupine of soldiers. It looked large enough to be the camp of a small army on its own. There must have been room for ten thousand troops in there. The gate was blocked by many Divisiomen with their large rectangular shields in a tortoiseshell formation. To Silrith’s eye, from what little she could make out with her blocked view, it looked like many of the Divisios were in the enclosure, with the remains of Jostan’s army visible behind them in reserve. Either side of the gate was a low fence made up of wooden stakes that had been driven into the muddy ground, each of them bound together in groups with rope that overlapped into the other groups of stakes around them. Through square openings that had been cut into the wood, the fence bristled with spears.

  Silrith wondered how long they’d been there, waiting. It seemed unlikely that many of those retreating soldiers she’d seen would have been in position in time. The idea that Jostan may yet win the battle stung worse than the attack of a thousand hornets. Silrith swatted the thought away. Now was the time to seize the moment with a clear mind. She turned to Gasbron and to Shappa who had ridden to the front of the column.

  ‘T
he infantry will catch up soon, but there’s no time to wait. In the meantime, we must launch skirmishing attacks, concentrating on the Divisiomen blocking the gate and avoiding the spears at all costs.’

  ‘Yes my Queen,’ Gasbron said.

  She watched as he called to the riders waiting behind.

  ‘All units to skirmish! Dead centre!’

  Silrith raised her sword above her head, bellowing her war cry, which was echoed by three thousand voices at her back. She kicked her horse to attack. Seeing the solid enemy line at the gate, it seemed reluctant to advance, but as it cantered forward she hustled it into a gallop as her comrades followed and the enemy visibly braced to defend their position. At the bellowing of an order, the front two rows of the enemy Divisiomen threw their pilums in a sudden volley. One zipped past Silrith’s head so close that she gasped and there was a sharp cry as Gasbron’s Standard Bearer was gutted by the deadly missile, though she did not see where the others went. Onward she charged and just as they got close she heaved on the reins with one hand to pull the horse left, slicing her sword down on the enemy Divisiomen. The tip of her long blade found a gap between the shields and she was almost pulled to the ground as it bit into somebody’s flesh, but mercifully her momentum pulled it free. A glinting enemy blade sliced up at her, but as she turned it tore only into the material of her tunic, glancing off her chain mail and she galloped away as the riders behind attacked under a hail of pilums as the enemy Divisiomen launched another volley.

  The bulk of the damage to the enemy was done by pilums thrown by the Divisio cavalry and subsequently the spears of the mounted militia, but only at great cost to the latter. They attacked the enemy Divisio infantry head on, with many of their foes falling, impaled on their weapons, though the troops in reserve quickly moved to fill any gaps. Meanwhile, those enemy soldiers at the front who stayed standing raised their white shields, attacking from underneath them and slashing at the horse’s legs as they tried to withdraw and regroup with the rest of Silrith’s cavalry out of arrow range.

  Suddenly Silrith caught sight of marching soldiers approaching them from behind. Yathrud’s infantry were back with them.

  ‘Infantry to the front, cavalry to the rear!’ she called. Each rider moved to one side to allow the infantry through.

  ‘What are your orders, my Queen?’ Yathrud asked as he drew his mount alongside Silrith’s after calling a halt.

  ‘Uncle, you and I must lead the infantry forward to attack the enemy position. The cavalry are too vulnerable on their own.’

  ‘Very good, my Queen. May I suggest that we both dismount? Two isolated horsemen would be easily felled.’

  ‘Of course. We shall lead from the front. Gasbron, tell your Divisiomen to dismount also. Take up position in front of the rest of the Divisio infantry. Your troops must form the boar’s snout that will lead the assault on the gate. The remaining infantry will protect our archers but must remain close to the Divisiomen so as to capitalise when you break through the enemy line. As for the fences, if we can get in their faces their spears will be useless at close quarters, even with a fence to protect them.’

  ‘Yes my Queen,’ Gasbron said and he started issuing orders to his soldiers.

  Silrith turned to Shappa.

  ‘Prince Shappa, I’ll leave you in command of the remainder of the cavalry. Lead them around the edge of the royal enclosure and make sure the enemy see you do so. With luck, they may divert some of their soldiers away from here. If you find another way into the enclosure, use it. We may need you to outflank them. They’ll be at a disadvantage if they’re worried about what’s coming up behind them.’

  ‘As you wish, my Lady,’ Shappa bowed. He sent a soldier to relay orders for the Hentani and militia to follow him before raising his sword and calling ‘Knights! On me!’ and the ground thundered as many hooves galloped past.

  Once they had gone, Silrith slithered off her horse. She checked the strap on her helmet and flexed her hands on the grip of her shield and the pommel of her sword. Then she joined Yathrud just to the side of the first Bastalf Divisio, with a group Hentani infantry on their left. Silrith felt that it was fitting that it would be Yathrud, the man without whom her rebellion would have never taken place, who would fight directly at her side. Then she looked into the face of the Hentani man who would fight at her other shoulder and despite the fact that he was a stranger to her with potentially no common tongue, she felt a connection of a different kind with him too.

  ‘Lock shields!’ she called and shield walls formed either side of her Divisiomen, who had formed their tortoiseshell. Silrith hoped that they would stand up to the challenge of Jostan’s more numerous Divisiomen blocking the gate.

  ‘Advance!’ she bellowed with all the strength she could muster. The whole line lurched forward, with Gasbron’s infantry at its head and Silrith and Yathrud on the left wing. Many of her troops started rhythmically beating their swords against their shields and Silrith did the same. It was like a combined heartbeat for every soldier in the line, pushing them forward.

  From somewhere behind the enemy line there was a shout. Almost in slow motion, a hail of dark, thin shafts flew up into the air.

  ‘Under shields!’ Silrith cried, instinctively crouching and curling as much of her body under hers as she could. She’d never felt her own mortality quite as much as this as the arrows fell and began to thud against her shield. She knew that her life was for that moment entirely in the hands of the Gods.

  Here and there she heard cries of pain as her troops were hit, but mercifully these were minimal. The hail stopped and, fighting the urge to turn and run, Silrith leapt to her feet, raising her sword and bellowing out a war cry that was immediately taken up by all those with her.

  She saw with pleasure that Gasbron’s troops had carried on advancing under the cover of their shields in spite of the enemy attack. She hurled herself forward to bring her part of the line back level; Yathrud staying right at her side. The Divisiomen’s flanks had to be protected in case of ambush. Some of her own archers fired arrows back at the enemy, though they were fired at a run and their level of success could not be known. She tried to keep her head down as she ran, knowing that she had to get either underneath or in between the spear tips.

  With perfect timing, she slipped between two spears that were protruding from a square gap in the fence, just as she heard the Divisio lines clash together. She hurled herself at the fence, rejoicing in the look of horror in the nearest spearman’s face as she crashed into it and buried her sword in his flesh.

  Silrith found herself in a claustrophobic frenzy of violence. The fence now provided less protection than a shield wall for those inside, as the stakes began to creak and crack under the force of the attack as the soldiers on either side thrust their weapons at each other through the gaps, while others began to climb over the top of it.

  Losing herself and succumbing to instinct, Silrith hacked and stabbed at the enemy men and women, though with less success now as the vulnerable spearmen withdrew and many swordsmen pushed their way to the front of the line. She kicked and pushed at the fence as she fought, desperate for it to fall.

  ‘All together! Push!’ she ordered and every soldier in her force hid behind their shield and used their combined strength as a battering ram. The soldiers on the other side shouted in horror and pushed back as they realised what Silrith’s troops were trying to do, but the moment it took them to see it was enough. The creaking got louder and the attackers’ momentum stronger and finally the stakes began to fall out of position. Soon the gaps were enough for Silrith’s troops to break through and under the increased pressure, there was an almighty crash as the fence collapsed completely.

  Silrith roared as she and her followers surged onward.

  ‘Forward! Outflank their Divisiomen,’ she commanded, hoping that the troops to the right of Gasbron’s soldiers had broken through as well. The ploy had worked. Jostan had thrown all his Divisio units forward in a line against Gasb
ron’s own Divisiomen. Silrith climbed over the fallen stakes; her bloodlust-filled soldiers pouring over them in her wake or pushing through gaps between any that still stood. They had to get through the enemy militia and reach Jostan’s Divisiomen before they could reform to defend their flanks, while still facing Gasbron’s troops.

  But any move now would be hard to coordinate. The two bellowing forces smashed together once again and Silrith’s shield crashed against that of a roaring Defroni warrior with a thick beard. He bellowed his war cry and his sword came down close to Silrith’s head, but at the last moment, she was able to parry the heavy blow. She pushed forward and hooked her foot around his, causing him to stumble backwards into the warriors behind as they pushed to get to the front. The distraction was fatal, as he lowered his guard just for a moment and Silrith buried the point of her blade in his neck. He made a burbling sound, but it was cut off as Silrith ripped her sword back out again and he dropped to the ground.

  She stepped forward on to his body so that even as her next opponent came at her, it was she that had gained ground, punching forward into the line of enemy militia. She despatched the next man with ease, but this time the blade caught as she tried to wrench it out of his torso and all she could do was throw up her shield hand as another militiaman swung his sword down at her.

  With a loud clonk, the blow was deflected and she tried again to pull out her sword, which still stuck, but from behind her a long spear was thrust forward into the man’s chest and he looked at his new attacker in shock as the head of the weapon burst out of his back.

  There was no time for Silrith to thank the soldier who had saved her life. She pulled her sword free of the corpse’s ribs with a snap of bone, pushing the skewered man’s body from in front of her, off the spear tip as she advanced, deftly smiting down the next warrior who blocked her path.