Kelven's Riddle Book Five

by Daniel Hylton

  Pain erupted and blood spewed.

  Gritting his teeth against the hot fire of a deep wound, Thom lunged to his left, bringing his weight to bear on the pike of his enemy. The gray man stumbled as he tried to raise his weapon and draw it back toward him. His leather shield fell open to his right, to Thom’s left, as the gray man tried to regain his footing.

  Thom struck.

  Lifting his pike from the earth, he thrust it with his might into the belly of his opponent, leaning all his weight into the stroke. The pike went deep, scraped against something hard and unyielding, and then abruptly went deeper.

  The gray soldier opened his mouth to emit a howl of agony.

  But there was no sound. Only blood came forth in a gushing flood as he fell.

  As he crumpled, he dragged down the gray man to his rear. Drawing back his weapon, Thom slew the fallen gray soldier with one stroke. And there was no lasher in the immediate area. Thom looked to his right and found Braden finishing off the last of his three opponents.

  The line of the enemy was breached.

  He turned to wave reinforcements into the gap, but as he did so, a strong hand fell upon his arm. It was Braden.

  “No, general, you’re wounded – bad by the amount of blood you’re losing. Get to the rear, sir,” the young soldier stated firmly. “We’ll handle this.”

  Thom, who was in fact feeling a bit light-headed, nodded and turned away. “Get the men through,” he told Braden. “Flank these bastards – but watch out for lashers.”

  “The word is that they’ve been killing lashers west along the line, sir,” Braden replied.

  “Have they now?” Thom nodded as he moved aside to let reserves flow into the gap. “Then let’s do some of that here,” he said.

  Once behind the line, Thom looked down at his upper arm, where the gray man’s pike had pierced him. Thankfully, the wound was with the grain of the muscle rather than against it. It was, however, apparently deep, and had found, if not a major artery, at least an important vein, for it was spewing blood. Moving east behind the straining line of soldiers, Thom found a surgeon tending to a man lying prone in a pool of blood.

  The surgeon looked up and frowned at the sight of his commanding general holding his left arm while blood bubbled through his fingers. The surgeon, a man by the name of Ramstin, made to get to his feet immediately, but Thom reached out with his good hand and prevented him.

  “Tend to that man first,” he ordered.

  Ramstin looked down, shook his head, and rose anyway. “I can do nothing more for him. He’s gone,” he told Thom. “Here – let me see your arm.”

  While the surgeon examined his wound, Thom watched the progress of his men. The gap he’d helped to create had been closed by the arrival of three lashers, but after dealing enough death to close the break in their line; the monsters had then driven gray men into place and moved once again to the rear.

  “Damn,” Thom muttered.

  The surgeon stopped his work and looked at him. “Did I hurt you, general?”

  Surprised, Thom twisted around to look at him. “What? No – but the enemy has pushed us back from an opportunity. How soon will you be finished with me?”

  “It’s quite a deep wound, sir, and you’ve lost a lot of blood,” Ramstin replied. “You should go to the rear.”

  Thom shook his head. “I’m not going to the rear – I’m going back to the front. Are you done there yet?”

  Ramstin watched him for a moment and then signaled to one of his subordinates, who brought him a small vial which he passed on to Thom. “If you’re going back – you’ll have to drink this, sir.”

  Thom held it up with his free hand and looked at it. “It was deeply golden in color and contained something that sparkled in the wan light of the shrouded sun. “What is this?”

  “Honey and extract of goldenseal root.”

  Thom twisted around and glared at him. “What the hell is goldenseal root?”

  Ramstin glared back. “I don’t have time to give you a lesson in remedies, general. If you want to get back into the battle – drink it.”

  Thom watched him for a moment longer and then tipped up the bottle, gagging over the contents but managing to get it down.

  “Can I go now?”

  Ramstin finished tying a knot in the bandage. “Go, sir – and the Maker go with you.”

  Thom sprinted down the slope a ways but then stopped and looked back at Ramstin, who was stooping over another soldier that had been given into his care.

  “Thank you,” he called.

  The surgeon nodded and raised one hand but kept his attention on the wounded soldier before him.

  As he hurried back to the front, Thom felt the “remedy” begin to have a surprisingly rapid effect upon him. Not only did a measure of his strength return, but he felt as if his senses were somehow heightened.

  And with that return of strength and its accompanying surge of awareness, he found himself seized by a sudden and urgent need to kill a lasher. If the rumors that came along the line in the midst of battle held any truth, those great beasts were being killed elsewhere – and not by Lord Aram. No, the monsters had been slain by men, by soldiers of the line, working together to bring down the behemoths where they could.

  And now Thom wanted his share of lasher blood.

  Picking up a fallen pike, he worked his way along the line, studying the ground in front of his troops and gauging the ebb and flow of battle. Finally, he decided to insert himself into the fray opposite the point where a lasher commander was feeding reserves into his ranks. There was a depression in the slope that fell over into a steep-sided, rocky ravine a few feet from where the two lines of combatants struggled, strained and died; steepening sharply right behind the enemy ranks, and this rough earth placed the gray soldiers in difficulty and at a disadvantage.

  The lasher was compelled to maintain the flow of reserves at this point because of the disadvantageous nature of the ground. His troops slipped, and slid, and faltered, and as a consequence were being slain in numbers that could not be sustained.

  Thom recognized an opportunity when he saw one.

  Gathering up a few reserves that stood nearby, waiting their turn to get into the fight, he formed them into a small company. “Follow me in,” he told them. Looking to his right, he singled out three men. “You, you, and you – when we break through, turn to the right, and flank the enemy line. The rest of you go to the left with me.” He worked his way into the front rank and raised his voice above the din.

  “Forward – with me!”

  Spurred onward by the presence of their commander, the men made a great push, driving the gray men backward and over the lip into the upper reaches of the ravine, pushing the lasher commander back as well, breaching the enemy line. As the men rushed forward to finish the enemy that had stumbled backward into the ravine, Thom shouted – “No! Ignore them – let others deal with them. Follow me! Take out the beast!”

  The lasher had regained his feet by using his massive broad-bladed halberd as support, though because of the slant of the ground, he actually stood somewhat downhill from his approaching enemies. The beast’s head was on level with Thom and his men.

  The monster had not yet been able to bring his weapon up at the ready. Thom lowered the tip of his pike, aiming at the beast’s broad chest. “Forward!”

  As he rushed at the lasher, Thom raised the tip of his pike and lunged at the beast’s head even as he yelled to his companions – “Go for his legs, now!”

  The lasher responded to the threat posed by Thom’s pike, lifting his halberd up in front of his body and swinging it to the right to deflect his enemy’s blow. Focusing on Thom, while ignoring the weapons of those that accompanied him, was a fatal error on the part of the great beast. Even as Thom’s strike was pushed aside, shattering the shaft, the sharp steel of Thom’s companions found the lasher’s thighs and bit deep, not only wounding the beast but driving him back and down into the ravine.

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nbsp; In a desperate attempt to keep his clawed feet beneath him, the monster dropped his weapon and reached down for the earth with his right hand.

  The massive horned head was now at the level of Thom’s shoulder.

  Thom’s pike had fallen away; his hands were free. Quickly drawing his sword, he lunged forward and drove the blade into the lasher’s neck, just above the edge of his leather chest armor.

  The lasher howled in fury and agony and grasped at the sword, but Thom twisted it with his might and jerked it free, instantly driving the blade forward again. This time, Thom’s thrust drove the steel into the lasher’s neck just above the previous wound. And this time he sawed sideways with the blade as he once again pulled it free.

  Brackish blood poured forth in a flood.

  The beast fell forward upon his face as a great cheer arose from the men in the line. And now the breach in the enemy line widened as the men of Elam and Lamont fought with renewed vigor. Thom began sending men right and left, into the exposed flanks of the enemy.

  Another lasher approached, loping toward Thom and his men from the east. Thom took stock of the situation. Behind him, his troops were driving hard into the enemy flank. The ravine below him was empty; the gray men having climbed out and moved either to the right or left.

  Alright, he thought, we killed one of those beasts – we can kill another.

  “Pikes to the fore, close ranks!” He shouted. Thom looked around for something he could use as a weapon, having lost his pike in the struggle with the first lasher. He did not wish for his men to face this second beast without him. His left foot fell hard upon something that turned and rolled beneath it. He looked down.

  A spike.

  Somehow, one of those unwieldy weapons had fallen short of its mark or had been carried, perhaps unknowingly, to the front. He picked it up and examined it. It was whole, unbroken, the deadly tip still sharp.

  He looked up. In front of him, his men had closed ranks, their pikes in position, as the lasher charged them. There was only a moment before the beast closed. Drawing back the weapon, Thom ran toward his men, launching the spike over them as the lasher closed. The weapon arced downward and caught the beast in his right leg. The sharp steel bit deep and the butt of the shaft of the weapon fell and imbedded itself into the earth, becoming an unbreakable impediment. The lasher stumbled and went down.

  “Now!” Yelled Thom. “Attack! Don’t let him up!”

  The men jammed their steel into the body of the fallen lasher. The great beast roared in pain and tried to rise, but there were too many. And then Thom was there with his sword, hacking at the lasher’s arms and then at the thickly muscled neck that held up the head. Within moments, it was over. Wasting no time on celebration, the troops retrieved their weapons from the body of the lasher and drove on.

  The breach in the enemy lines widened further. The men of Elam and Lamont smelled victory – they had slain two of the monsters and had pierced the ranks of the enemy. Their blood was fully up. Thom glanced down the slope, but there were no reserves of the enemy visible below him.

  “Onward!” He shouted, motioning to the right and the left. “Drive them.”

  On Thom’s part of the field, things were going well, indeed.

  39.

  Olyeg Kraine did his best to bury his nagging worries over his friend, Kitchell, and focused on maintaining the order of his lines as the enemy charged up the slope, smashing into his front in haphazard manner. The rough terrain, though not as bad here as elsewhere on the rim of the crater, nonetheless caused a measure of disorder in the lines of the enemy, and so contact was uneven all along the front. Kraine’s lines buckled and sagged as the enemy made impact – but the effect was not constant; the line weakened here, but not there.

  He was loath to send reserves in so soon, until he was certain of the places where his lines would, indeed, buckle and fold to a dangerous degree, something that at this moment could not be easily determined – not before the enemy made impact all along the front.

  He ran from one commander to another back and forth along the line. “Hold! Reform that line!” He shouted again and again, as his lungs burned from the exertion and his old legs began to fail.

  But his commanders responded – whether because of Kraine’s exhortations or their own acumen – and soon, there was a relatively even front straining against the enemy – all of whom were now there, driven forward with vicious ferocity by their lasher overlords.

  Kraine had placed several thousand soldiers in reserve. More than a third of these were positioned to his left, near where Thom Sota was in command, so he left those to the discretion of that younger man and focused upon the center and right of his lines.

  Technically, Kitchell was in command of his right, but since the Governor-general had decided to join the fight in a personal way, the responsibility for Elam’s extreme right had effectively fallen to young Marteren Hulse. Kraine trusted Hulse, both his nerve and his intelligence; still, he kept an eye trained on the right as he worried over his center.

  In contrast to many of his younger compatriots, Olyeg Kraine was not surprised by the horrific noise and instant carnage of war. It was not that he’d known what exactly to expect; the only battle he’d witnessed had been very one-sided, when Lord Aram and his mounted troop had driven Slan from before the walls of Tobol.

  It was simply that Kraine had lived long enough to witness death in its many forms, both natural and unnatural, so he had known in at least a general sense what would occur when two great companies of enemy combatants came together in violent collision. That which he saw happening along the rocky slope in front of him exceeded every expectation.

  What surprised him most was that his men were holding their own, struggling and straining to push the enemy back and pierce him with their steel. Kraine’s heart swelled at the sight, even as he swallowed down his emotion as broken, dead, and wounded men were transported away from the front in ever greater numbers as the first hour after contact waxed and waned, and began to wear away.

  Despite his nagging concern over his friend, Kitchell, in the very front of things over to his right, Kraine’s time, after the enemy made contact, was utterly consumed with gauging where along the front his reserves were needed most and directing them there.

  The initial carnage was light but soon became terrific, both among his own men and those of the enemy, as soldiers gave in to the fury of battle. Gaps appeared with frightening regularity in Kraine’s lines, especially where those lashers opposite injected themselves into the fray.

  Findar of Seneca and his archers, positioned upon the ridge behind him, had saved a few of their arrows, and these they now employed in felling those great beasts wherever they threatened to break through. But these volleys came less and less, and finally not at all. The deadly missiles of the eastern warriors at last gave out.

  Immediately after, Findar and his men presented themselves to Kraine, armed with swords.

  “Where do you want us, general?”

  “Thank you for your help thus far,” Kraine answered, in way of reply, and then he turned to examine the front for a moment before looking back at Findar. “Do your men employ pikes?”

  “The pike is not our weapon of choice, general,” the Senecan responded, but he nodded as he did so. “However, we do understand the use of it. Do you have any to spare?”

  Kraine waved one hand generally toward the front. “There are plenty there whose owners have no further use of them. Will your men fight as one or may I deploy them in companies?”

  Findar shrugged as he looked toward the battle raging a few yards away with rising agitation and impatience. “We came to fight, general. Send us in however you wish – by companies if you so desire. My men know their unit commanders and will follow them when ordered.” He turned and met Kraine’s gaze as he also lifted a hand and indicated the front. “It seems that we can be of immediate use.”

  Kraine nodded. “Yes, you may.” He looked closely at Findar. �
��This is my first experience of war,” he admitted. “I know no more than you, captain. Divide your men up however you will and send them where you will – I trust to your judgment. There will be pikes on the ground at the front, but keep your swords close. If the day continues to progress as it has thus far, we will need every piece of sharp steel we possess.”

  Findar bowed. “As you will, general,” and he immediately turned and began barking orders at his troop of Senecans, directing them to places where the line showed strain. Findar himself trotted toward the front with the last company. As he went, he turned his head and looked back at Kraine, raising one hand in salute.

  Kraine nodded. “Thank you, sir,” he said, though he doubted the Senecan heard above the noise of battle. Shortly afterward, Kraine sent in the last of Elam’s reserves that were stationed on the left and went to the right in search of Kitchell.

  40.

  Kitchell ignored the pleas of men to both sides for him to go to the rear as he watched the enemy charge up the slope.

  “I’m staying right here, boys,” he said. “We’ll meet them together, you and me – for Cumberland, for our families, for hearth and home – and for freedom.”

  After gaining permission from Olyeg to fight with his men, the Governor-general of Cumberland realized that he had told the truth about his need to fight.

  Every man that stood upon this barren, rocky slope knew ultimately why he was here, but many of those men had other ideas as well of what this day should bring them should they survive. All fought for the requisites of duty and honor, because their country required it of them. Many, perhaps very many, fought for vengeance, for a sister, a daughter, or a friend.

  But there were larger ambitions at work as well. Lord Aram, for instance, fought for his kingdom and for the right of those people who populated it to be and remain free. His aspirations were high and noble, as befitted his station. And there were many other princes here upon the field, whose causes were similar.