“No scouts, nothing,” Hobble whispered, more to himself.
“Would you like to be a scout in a town like this?” asked Bastard with a snort. “You’d get cut down in seconds and no one would ever hear your report.”
I heard the noise of booted feet along the street, coming ever closer. Suddenly, there was a roar as men shouted their battle cries and I heard the impact of two groups of men colliding.
“Now!” I shouted.
The street was just wide enough for us to form a line ten across and this was the formation we adopted as we marched quickly around the corner. Thirty yards distant, the enemy soldiers were fending off an attack to their flank and I knew that at least one squad of the First Cohort was involved.
In the confusion, we engaged them, taking advantage of their distraction. There might have been two hundred or more of their infantry, but I didn’t care. We used our shields to batter aside their own smaller, round shields and thrust with our swords. I hated myself for it, but I remained a short distance behind my line so that I could direct my men more effectively and so that I would not perish to an unlucky strike.
Their front line went down in moments and their second line stumbled away from us, pushing against the men in the further rows. The swords of my men skittered and flickered as their blades shattered metal armour and cut through leather. Mid-way along their column I was able to make out a bowing of the enemy lines where another squad – I assumed Lieutenant Craddock’s had attacked.
“Cut those bastards down!” I yelled at the top of my voice.
We did just that, meeting no effective resistance as the enemy troops struggled to hold their formation against our two surprise attacks. I could see fear in the eyes of their soldiers as they tried to back away from us without exposing themselves and giving an easy kill. The enemy crumbled at the front and the sides, and the fear turned into a rout. In the tightness of the street, they had no easy way to escape and we mowed down their closest ranks, stepping over maimed bodies in order to follow them. We showed no quarter and though we had been significantly outnumbered, we’d killed almost half of their number before they were able to flee whence they had come, with some escaping down a side street which ran parallel to the river.
I called my squad back, though I knew we had too much discipline to go chasing after the retreating backs of a routed enemy. The second squad had also withdrawn and disappeared to their own hiding hole. I saw a man looking at me – it was Lieutenant Craddock. He raised his thumb and I raised mine in response.
“What happens now, Captain?” asked Binks.
“They’ll come again later,” I said. “With many more men.”
“We’ll kill them as well,” Binks told me with certainty.
“No we won’t, Binks. Because we won’t be here to see them.”
We left the bodies where they lay, as a reminder to their fellows that they would never be safe on these streets. I had known some commanders strip the bodies of their enemies and use their clothes as a disguise. We did not do that in the First Cohort and I had once been told that I had a misplaced sense of honour. I didn’t really know if that was the case – we simply acted as we always had and I didn’t spend my time thinking about concepts such as honour. When we’d fought for Warmont, the whole notion of honour had seemed as far removed from our reality as it was possible to be.
I took us over the river Fols, wading through the shallow waters to the other side. A little further down the river was another building, similar to the first one we’d stayed in - the riverbank was lined with such places. I saw other squads from our lady’s army crossing further up and down river from us. We took refuge in our second home in two days and once more, we waited.
This new building had a reasonable vantage across to the place we’d just vacated. As I’d thought, more of the enemy came this time, nearly an hour after we’d sent their fellows packing. Our attack had caught them by surprise and they hadn’t seen where we’d come from, but I watched groups of them warily searching the opposite riverbank. I guessed there to be four or five hundred this time. They stayed on the other side of the river and made no efforts to cross. I was sure they’d already been stung many times by our attacks and probably hoped to consolidate their position to the south.
Twist came and went, carrying information to and from the other squad leaders. I knew he wasn’t like my other men – he had some kind of power that let him slip into places unseen. He could have been a wealthy man anywhere he chose to travel, but I had never for a moment doubted his loyalty.
Night time came and once I judged it dark enough, we left our building and used the dark shadows of the dragon-shattered bridge to cross to the south of the town. Gold wasn’t large, but soldiers needed to sleep and it would be impossible for the enemy commander to keep the streets completely locked down. There were hundreds of men on the streets, of course, but they were spread out all through Gold, rather than remaining in one single group. They patrolled in groups of twelve or fifteen, which was a suitable number in most cases. I knew this, which is why our own squads were made up from twenty plus a commander, to ensure our numerical superiority in one-on-one clashes.
I took us along a random route, avoiding the likely areas where the enemy would have stationed the bulk of their men. That night, we came across four different patrols before I deemed it time to withdraw. The first group happened to be fifteen. They were alert and nervous, but milled around at a junction between two of the larger streets. We approached them at a fast march. By the time they became alarmed, we were too close for them to do anything about it. They raised a hue and cry, but the battle was over in less than two minutes. A couple of the windows nearby had lights shining behind them and I kicked up the visors of a couple of the men we’d killed, to see who they were.
“Children!” I spat in disgust. The others were the same, all bar two or three older-looking faces. “They’ve sent their unblooded lads out tonight so that the old hands can get some rest. Fucking useless!” I swore, angered for some reason at the injustice of it.
We didn’t stay around any longer. They’d made plenty of noise as we’d slaughtered them. Three streets away, we came upon a similar pile of bodies to the one we had recently created. More youngsters. Even if they’d been veterans, they’d have died, but I hated to see these young men killed so that their comrades could get some sleep.
“This lot will never become brothers,” said Lamper. We all knew what he meant.
I moved us away from the dead boys. We hurried along and clashed with another two groups in quick succession. We were engaged with one squad of twelve when a larger squad happened upon us. It was fortunate that we had almost concluded our business with the first when the second arrived, else we might have struggled.
By the time we’d killed the fourth squad of enemy troops, there was an uproar. We’d come across many of their dead, but I knew that it was almost impossible to stop someone raising the alarm. The enemy would not be getting the good night’s sleep that they hoped. In the end, we fairly had to sprint to get away from their men. We could have likely cut our way through them, but it was more of a risk than I was willing to take, so we hightailed it back across the river and entered our building through a back door in order that no observers on the south side of town would see us enter. Warmont’s infantry had either been told to stay put or lacked the appetite to give chase and no one followed us.
“A shame about all them young lads, Captain,” said Frods. “Could have grown to become men.”
“Not even given a chance, were they?” said Beamer.
He wasn’t blaming us for what we’d done – this was his way of giving sympathy for the plight of a soldier ill-used by his commanders. I felt the same. We had our business to attend to and none of us blamed ourselves for what we’d had to do, but damnit it could get stuck in my craw sometimes. I had never used to care about the deaths of our enemy, but more and more I found that I could be touched by the senseless nature of it.<
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I set three men to watch and we settled down for the remainder of the night. We were still restless and most of us paced around, doing our best to pretend that nothing was the matter. In my old life, I had lived in a city full of indolents. They would spend their waking hours breathing in the smoke of the harkar plant, which I was told made them blissfully happy and unaware of the world around them. When these people got too far into their addiction, they became nervous and shook whenever they were deprived of the plant for even a short time. As I watched my men copy my own fidgety behaviour, I saw in us a reflection of these harkarans, except that our addiction was to the battle, rather than to the smoke. It wasn’t surprising that we seemed so similar to those people – the First Cohort had lived with death for so long that perhaps none of us could see an alternative life that did not involve war.
“Think we can whittle them away like this until they get bored and piss off, Captain?” asked Gurney.
“No, and we’ll not be going out tomorrow night, I think. Tomorrow’s patrols won’t be ten or fifteen. There’ll be groups of a hundred at a time. We’ll see.”
“Well it seems to me that their lads like a nice sleep, so maybe they’ll all stay indoors?”
“I’m not sure they have enough men to flood the streets,” I said. “If they only send half their men out, they’ve just halved their numerical advantage.”
“Numerical advantage?” asked Frods. “It’s words like that is why you’re captain and we’re just the foot soldiers, eh?”
“And don’t you forget it, Frods,” I advised him.
The next day, the enemy crossed the river in great numbers. There were still two other bridges standing in addition to the broken one. They came over in three long columns and I estimated there to be two thousand men in each. Where the bridge was gone, they tramped across next to it, eight abreast and waved onwards by their lieutenants.
“Recognize any of them?” I asked. I had a good memory for people and faces, but I didn’t know who any of the officers were.
“Not seen these ones. I reckon this lot look better-trained than the ones we saw yesterday though,” Waxer ventured.
I nodded in agreement. They kept a good formation and their armour looked battered but well-maintained. Many was the man who kept hold of a ‘lucky’ shield or breastplate long after it should have been replaced for a newer one.
“Let’s get downstairs and wait,” I said. “Now the real fun begins.”
We found ourselves a place on the ground floor where we had plenty of space to fight anyone who came to us, but had three possible exits from the building. This new place was less ruined than the first we’d stayed in, and had clearly been a home at one point in the recent past. There was plenty of old furniture lying around, but we’d cleared much of it away to give ourselves room. The floors were made from wooden planks which creaked and stirred as we walked over them. The rooms were large, with low doorways between.
I was worried that the enemy’s commitment of nigh on half of his troops meant that the south side of town had been easily pacified. On the other hand, they may have wanted a show of force to try and get some easy kills and thin our numbers. It would have been immediately apparent from our tactics that we had too few to face them in the open.
To our relief, the wait was not a long one. There was the sound of a fist, hammering on the wide wooden door to our building.
“Open the door or I’m going to kill you all!” said a voice to accompany this knocking.
“What a charming gentleman,” murmured Gurney to those around him.
I’d assigned us to groups – five in each - with me part of a six, so that we would all know who to stay close to.
There was a second knocking sound behind us, to the rear of the building. I waved two of the groups over to the far entrance, which was three rooms away. They left as silently as they could, but the creaking of the floorboards sounded enormously loud.
We didn’t wait behind the front door, since we hoped to lure a number of the enemy into the house before we attacked. The banging increased in intensity and then changed in tone as the knocking hand became a booted foot. A couple of my men chuckled to themselves when it became apparent that the door was more sturdily built than the kicker expected and it took over a dozen kicks before it crashed open.
“It’ll take them weeks to search the city at this rate, Captain,” Waxer said to me in a low voice.
“And the feller that just booted the door isn’t going to march anywhere on his foot,” Chant continued, before I raised my hand for silence.
I heard someone swear from outside, followed by the sound of footsteps walking across the wooden floor. We kept ourselves pressed back out of sight in the next room, using the darkness to our advantage.
“Can’t see a fucking thing in here, sir,” said a voice.
“Do you think I care?” came the reply. “Search the building and do it quickly.”
I heard a muttering sound from the man as he whispered imprecations against his commanding officer. He stood at the doorway separating his room and ours and poked his head around the corner. He’d have seen our dark shapes immediately, but I grabbed him from the side, put my hand over his mouth and twisted my body so that he was dragged quickly into the room and out of sight of the doorway. I pushed my dagger up beneath his chin and held him firmly for the seconds it took him to die.
“Are you all right Gakler?” said the voice of the commanding officer.
It was evident that the officer had concluded that something was wrong and I heard several sets of footsteps as men flooded the outer room. The first of them was incautious and came through the doorway at speed. Hobble stabbed him in the side of the head with his dagger, the blade crunching into the man’s skull. The shouting began from outside our room and I knew the alarm would have this building filled with soldiers in the coming minutes, likely with more coming from the main group.
The next man came through the door with his shield held before him, preventing us from getting an easy kill. Another two followed and I could hear many more behind as they jostled to get inside. The room was gloomy for us, but our eyes had been given plenty of time to adapt to the lack of light. The men from outside had come in from the bright morning and were at an immediate disadvantage. From experience, I knew that they’d see us as little more than darkened outlines against the background of the walls.
I used my shield to push the fifth man firmly to one side as he came through with his own shield raised. Caught off-balance, he stumbled over to one side and Tigs stabbed him in the shoulder once, before wrestling him to the floor and driving his dagger under the man’s arm and into his heart.
We all had our daggers in hand and our square shields with us. The room was large, but not well-suited to hosting swordplay from so many of us. There were clangs and grunts as the first few of the enemy died quickly to our attacks, outnumbered and with their vision too hindered to block our attacks.
“Get in there, you idiots!” shouted their commander, though I already knew that the only idiot out there was him.
I guessed the room outside ours was rapidly filling up and above the noise I could hear other sounds from the back of the house, telling me that our building was assailed by two separate groups. After that, the flow of attackers didn’t pause, rushing into our room one after another. I aimed a thrust at one, but my dagger slid off his shield. I used my own to push him away as I stabbed a second man in his blind side. He screamed and I kicked at him.
Something hit me on the back of my helmet and I wheeled round to see a man struggling to bring his sword up for a second go at me. I didn’t know how he’d got behind me, until I saw that our foes had entered the building another way and had come into our room through a second doorway. I raised my shield, and managed to stab my opponent in the chest before he could use his sword again. His breastplate was hardened leather, but my dagger was very sharp and my arm very strong.
“Beware the doorway!” I shou
ted, though my two groups had already become aware of the new threat and Tigs, Lamper and Bastard positioned themselves in front of the door. From the corner of my eye, I saw Bastard draw his sword – he had more space to swing it over there.
By now we were outnumbered in this room, but we had moved into the centre of it, keeping our shields forward and our backs facing the far wall. As we fended away the attacks against us, we were given opportunities to make our own thrusts in retaliation.
“Just like being in a shitty field, isn’t it?” I asked Weevil. A heavy mace clanged off the top of my shield, jolting my arm and rocking me on my heels.
“Give me a proper field any day of the week,” he replied, without once taking his eyes from the man before him.
Another mace blow connected with my shield, making it ring with the impact. I pushed forward a half-stride, looking to knock the wielder away from me, but another blow struck as a second man joined the first. Eventually my arm would shatter from the impacts, but I was saved by Weevil, whose dagger snaked out through a gap in our barricade and opened a wide cut on the maceman’s inner leg, which immediately spurted a quantity of blood. The man dropped away from us, pressing his hands over the deep wound. He didn’t want to die, but the choice was no longer his to make.
The second maceman had turned his attention to Spangle nearby, who was crouched low beneath his shield as three of the enemy struck at him in the hope that they could break our line by focusing on this one man. The maceman reached over and clonked Spangle on the top of his helmet. Spangle fell over at once, and was closely followed by the man who had hit him, when Beamer stabbed the enemy soldier twice in quick succession.
The assault didn’t let up and I could hear the sound of combat from the back of the building drawing closer. The enemy must have thrown two hundred men at us.
With Spangle down on the floor, the weight of numbers against us was able to force us apart as the enemy behind pressed their fellows from the back. Another maceman appeared in front of me and caught my shield with two quick blows. I tried to stab him, but he deflected my dagger easily. I hadn’t anticipated we’d be facing maces, and they were proving to be a superior weapon to our daggers indoors.
Soldiers' Redemption (First Cohort Book 1) Page 28