Soldiers' Redemption (First Cohort Book 1)

by M. R. Anthony

  A third strike snapped one of the leather straps keeping my shield held to my arm, making it impossible to control well. In desperation, I lifted it upwards to deflect one final crashing blow and shrugged my forearm out of it. As it clattered to the floor, the mace caught me a glancing strike on my metal shoulder guard, tearing it from me.

  All at once I found my sword in my hand and the world around me slowed down. The gloom seemed to fade and the foes around me came into stark relief, their eyes glowing a peculiarly bright white in the darkness. There was a howl – I don’t know if it came from me or my sword – and my devastating overhand chop smashed the maceman’s shield and opened up a huge wound in his shoulder, cutting his arm completely away.

  His mouth opened to scream but already my mind had changed its focus to the next threat. I thrust at a man who battered at Lamper and my sword tip cut deeply into the man’s torso. I kicked him off the tip, the strength of my leg propelling him several feet away and fouling the arms of his fellows.

  There was a second lurch and everything slowed down again. I felt my breathing deepen and a shiver touched over my skin. One of the enemy soldiers stooped over the fallen Spangle and slid a dagger into his throat. Even in my battle-lust I was not quick enough to stop him, but I separated his head from his shoulders. His brain had hardly recognized its own death before I’d driven my sword into the belly of another man. The runes on my sword sparked beautifully as the tip ignored armour and flesh alike, plunging through his body and out of his spine.

  I don’t know what took over me, but I roared a cry of anger and saw my enemies quail before me. I was suddenly in space and the sparks from my sword wove a glowing pattern in the air as I hewed about, laughing at the pitiful men who hoped for my death. Before I knew it, there was no one left to kill. Their bodies were strewn around the room, some on the floor, some slumped against the walls as if they’d been flung there by an enormous hand. I heard a voice, speaking as if from afar.

  “Fuck me, Captain, we’ve sent them running.”

  The world returned to normal and I felt a ringing in my head from where the sword had hit me on the helmet. As I spoke, it sounded strangely slurred, as if I were dragging the words out to double their length.

  “Binks, grab Spangle. He’s coming with us. Anyone else?”

  “Fruit isn’t coming with us, sir. He’s in pieces out the back room.”

  There was a third exit from the building, which would take us onto the river. We ran through the house towards our escape, just as a rumbling boom shook the building. I felt the walls and the floor shake as the concussion reverberated through the structure. Another attack followed the first. We were in a room adjacent to the river bank now and this second attack blew the outer wall away, sending chunks of heavy brick and stone across the room. One of them caught Hobble full on his helmet, casting him to the floor with violence. I only needed a quick glance to see that Hobble wouldn’t be continuing our journey. The metal of his helmet had been crushed to nearly half of its usual width, and the soldier’s head was still inside.

  The stone projectiles had thrown several of us over the room, but I was relieved to see the men get quickly to their feet. Through some stroke of luck, I was completely unscathed by the rubble and not a single piece of it had hit me. Above us, the building shook again as it was hit for a third time.

  “A sorcerer, or something,” I said. “Let’s get out of here before we’re buried.”

  We ran past the destroyed wall, since I didn’t want us to leave at a place where the sorcerer might have been looking. Through two more rooms was an exit doorway onto the river, but adjacent to an alleyway along which I planned for us to escape. I was fourth out through the door and saw the man immediately. He was over a hundred yards away and standing on the far side of the river, on what remained of the damaged bridge. He saw me as well and I felt a surge of his power constricting my body as he commanded me to burn. I gritted my teeth and imagined using my mind to push back against his assault, to let him know that if Gagnol the Blackhearted could not burn me, what chance did he have?

  The man was powerful and I stood there unmoving as he pushed with his will, trying to assert himself over whatever it was my body and mind used to defend itself. The sorcerer’s pride distracted him from the men of my squad who continued to escape the building. Once my ears told me that they’d all made it into the alley, I raised a single finger to the sorcerer to let him know that I considered him to be filth. Before I could follow my men, I saw an arrow appear in the sorcerer’s back and he stumbled. A second arrow joined the first and the caster dropped to his knees. I couldn’t spare any more time to watch how this played out and ran after my men, the last of whom was now twenty yards ahead and had stopped in concern to see what I was doing.

  “Move!” I hissed, ushering him along with a wave of my hand. Seeing that I was coming, Twist turned away and made after the others of our squad.

  Twenty-Five

  That evening found us pushed to a hovel in the outskirts of the town. We’d spent the day in a game of cat-and-mouse, keeping ourselves hidden from view in whatever abandoned shops or businesses we could easily break into. Twice we had to resort to smashing open doors belonging to the town’s residents in order to take refuge. On neither occasion had our unexpected entry been greeted with hostility, with one lady even providing us with food, for we had left our own behind.

  I asked the residents if they’d heard any news about how the battle fared and as I expected, received garbled and contradictory responses. I’d sent Twist out soon after we’d escaped from the sorcerer, but he hadn’t returned and I had started to become worried.

  Here on the north side of town, there were soldiers everywhere and it looked like reinforcements had been sent up, because I estimated the enemy commander would have needed more than the initial six thousand we’d seen in order to maintain such a presence on the streets. This didn’t bode well and I could only hope that they’d left the south side of town badly secured and that our lady’s men were making things difficult for them. I must admit that I had hoped to see more resistance from the townspeople that we’d armed, but there was little sign of it.

  After we’d spent the afternoon looking for an opening that would allow us to return to a more central position in the town - from where I hoped to renew our harrying of Warmont’s army - I was forced to concede and took us to the slums on the edge of town. Our path here had seen us kill another fifteen or twenty of the enemy, whom we had taken by surprise as they patrolled in understrength groups of five or six.

  Our hovel was a sprawling and crowded collection of homes, with walls knocked through and doorways added to form a strangely communal area, which was home to several different families. The dried mud of the streets outside didn’t host the boots of Warmont’s soldiers, reminding me how the outskirts seemed almost to be forgotten. It was as if the people here were known, but went unseen to the eyes of the other residents of the city.

  “No soldiers bother to come along here,” said old lady Dorner. She’d let us in willingly and appeared to hold the role of matriarch to the people living in this collection of run-down dwellings. “We don’t exist to them, you see. It was like this before your Saviour arrived and it’ll be like this long after your Saviour has been trodden into the dust.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but Lamper got in first. “I think we was like you, lady Dorner,” he said, showing her a respect which she appreciated. “Pretty much everyone in the First Cohort’s done something bad in the past, I reckon. Or if not, then we’ve done so many shit things since that we’d all lost hope that we’d ever get a chance to do something new. To change what we’d become.”

  The old woman cackled. “Soldier’s speak,” she said. “What hope do we have here of anything beyond the castoffs of our betters and a quick tumble with a warm body?”

  Lamper was quiet. I could tell that he didn’t really know how to respond to what lady Dorner had told him. At least we in the First
Cohort had some sort of power to affect our destiny. These people in Gold probably had nothing.

  A young boy ran through the room where we were all crowded.

  Gurney spoke up. “That lad only looks about eight. In one sentence, you’ve doomed him to the same life as you have. Back where I came from, it was for the men and women to promise a better life for the young’uns, rather than promise them a life of nothing.”

  The old woman’s eyes narrowed at that and then softened. “I’m proud enough to be angry at what you’ve said, but old enough to know you’re right. Maybe you’ll drive out Warmont’s soldiers or maybe the Saviour will ride to save us at the head of fifty thousand armed men. If I see her again, I’ll open my heart to her and see what comes in.”

  There was a choking sound from the corner of the room and I watched Spangle’s body twitch and jerk. He hadn’t moved all day but it wasn’t clear if he was alive or dead. Without warning, he sat up straight and let out a choking gasp. I looked at him and his eyes were clear and bright – I saw the recognition behind them as we crossed over to where he was.

  Beamer clapped him on the shoulder. “I knew you’d come back to us, Spangle. There’s plenty of horse turds left in the world that you need to stand in before you can leave the First Cohort.”

  Spangle opened his mouth to talk, but the only sound that came out of it was the same gasping sound. He looked puzzled, rather than distressed.

  “Look, Captain! That blade in the throat must have cut something important. He can’t talk proper now!”

  Spangle made a rude gesture and tried to speak again, with an equal lack of success.

  “I think I like him like this,” said Tigs. “He never had anything useful to say anyway.”

  “Yeah, I always thought he talked more balls than anyone else in the Cohort,” said Chant.

  “But listen to him now. Everything he says is making perfect sense!” said Bastard. “I’ve never heard him talk so clearly before.”

  “Maybe we should change his name. To celebrate his new-found skill with words,” suggested Gurney. “How’s about we call him ‘Sense’?”

  There was a quantity of sagely nodding around the soldier formerly known as Spangle. I kept out of it, knowing it wasn’t my job to interfere. Spangle didn’t look at all upset by his new name. Not that it would have mattered – if he’d expected sympathy, he certainly wasn’t going find it amongst these bastards.

  The naming ceremony was interrupted by a single, loud thump on one of the two doors which led to a dingy alley outside. I must confess that my first thought was that old lady Dorner had betrayed us somehow and sold our location to Warmont’s soldiers. I cast a quick look at her and saw a mixture of puzzlement and alarm. If we’d suffered an act of treachery, I knew straight away it hadn’t come from her.

  I made a motion for silence, though it was redundant as all of my men had stopped talking at once. We could still hear the hubbub of the dozens of people who lived here, but we made no sound of our own. I waved a hand to indicated that Tigs and Lamper should approach the door. Two others stood at the second door and we drew our weapons. Tigs leaned across and wrenched the door open. There was no heavily-armed squad of soldiers standing outside waiting for us, only Twist. I could see at once that he was hurt – his face was drawn in a tiredness I had not seen before, and his left hand was missing. There’d been no need to dress his wound since he had no blood to flow from it. The jagged bone of his arm protruded from his wrist and the flesh looked puckered and dry.

  “I’ve found out who’s leading them,” he said weakly. “Leerfar’s here.”

  The news was not a shock. “I suppose she had to surface at some time,” I said. “We’ve seen off the other four after all – he’s running out of generals.”

  Twist staggered over to a seat and with him facing away from me, I could see that he was more badly hurt that I’d first thought. There were two puncture wounds though the leather of his breastplate, where the armour wrapped around to cover his back.

  “I saw a group of them with a banner,” Twist said. “Thought I’d have a little look to see what was what, in case there was something we could make use of. Next thing I knew I heard a sound behind me and someone stabbed me – a couple of times I think. I jumped away but she had me by the arm - broke it over her knee. I got her with my knife in the chest but she just laughed at it. I don’t know how she managed it, but she just pulled at my arm and tore my fucking hand off. I vanished into the shadows and came looking for you.”

  I was concerned now. “Did you get away or were you followed?” I asked. I saw Twist’s face go even paler as he considered that he might have been tricked.

  “I don’t know Captain. I don’t think I was followed. I’ve never been seen before.”

  “Until today,” I reminded him. I turned to the other men. “Get your things and do it now. We can’t stay here.”

  As I spoke, Tigs was looking out the doorway into the street. “I can hear something coming, Captain,” he said. “We’d better get a shift on – it sounds like there’s more than a couple of them.”

  I thanked lady Dorner and we left her house. I hoped that she would be left alone by the soldiers. They were looking for us, not her. There was no such thing as a main street in the outskirts of Gold – everything was a narrow lane or an alleyway. I listened for a moment to determine which direction they approached from.

  “Sounds like they’re everywhere,” I said, before making up my mind. “Let’s go this way,” I decided, and we set off at a run, cursing under our breaths. The men of the First Cohort didn’t need to rest often, but sometimes it was nice to have one.

  We reached an intersection at the same time as a dozen torch-wielding enemy soldiers. We shield-charged them, taking advantage of their surprise and the fact that they didn’t all have their weapons drawn. I stabbed two men with my sword in rapid succession and watched Beamer kill another before they had even realised our threat. They performed a quick about-face as they tried to run away from us, shouting the alarm to alert their fellows. Only one man escaped us, showing a pace that might have given Sprinter or Flight a moment’s pause. The others died to our unmerciful blows before they had managed to get a dozen paces away from us.

  I had a faint idea where we should go and took us along a route the followed the perimeter of the town. I hoped that we’d get the chance to return to the centre this evening and hole up on the south side. There were really far too many soldiers to the north for them to have left the south properly defended. The outskirts were like a rabbit warren and in some places we struggled to keep two abreast. Lights from the enemy torches bobbed here and there in the darkness to our left and right, never quite getting ahead of us. Eventually, I judged that we’d run far enough and the tumult had been left mostly behind us. At least, the number of flickering torches had diminished to such a degree that I was no longer concerned that we’d be immediately overwhelmed.

  “Up here,” I whispered to my squad. Eighty yards ahead of us were more torches, looking as if they floated in the air like huge fireflies. We came out of the darkness and slew the six men, before they had the chance to utter their cries or flee from us. I saw the face of the one soldier I killed – by the torchlight he looked to be almost an old man, had doubtless survived fifty battles over a dozen campaigns. And there he was, killed in the briefest of moments, doubled up over the sword in his guts, before my dagger ended his life. Another pointless waste, in another pointless little town, fighting for a man that everyone hated.

  Now the lights from the pursuing soldiers were no more and the hovels of the outskirts became quickly more affluent in appearance. I wasn’t familiar with exactly which part of the town we’d entered, but thought we were somewhere close to the Farmer’s Market that I’d visited on several occasions. One of the men hissed for us to stop.

  “Where’s Twagger?” he asked.

  “He was with us just a moment ago,” said Beamer. “I think he killed one of them soldiers b
ack there.”

  “Quick, let’s get back,” I said. I was worried – my men didn’t mess around at times like this.

  We followed the path we’d just come and it was Gurney who saw him. “There’s Twagger,” he said. “Sitting down on the job again.” He made light of it, but I could tell that he knew this wasn’t good news. Twagger was slumped against a wall, just inside a narrow side street.

  “He was last in the line, wasn’t he?” I asked.

  “Yeah, bringing up the rear, he was,” said Waxer. “He was right behind me.”

  The remaining men spread out in a tight circle, their swords pointing outwards, ready for trouble. I stooped down over Twagger. He was in a sitting position, with his head looking downwards into his lap. I put my hand under his chin and looked into his eyes – there was nothing left inside. Reaching across, I rolled him onto his front and saw the ragged mess of his back. It was as though he’d been ripped to shreds by a claw, though I knew that it had been repeated strikes from a dagger which had done this damage. I pushed at a couple of the wounds and saw they ran deep into his body. Whatever kept him ticking inside was broken beyond repair and this soldier had fought his last.

  “Another one gone,” I told the men around me. “Fuck this place and fuck Warmont!”

  I watched their faces as we prepared to head away again. The determination in their eyes was joined by anger. I could feel it building within them as one by one their comrades at arms were taken from them.

  I knew she was watching from somewhere close by, though none of us could see her. If Ploster had been here I think he might have been able to penetrate the veil of shadows she kept around herself. Or maybe not. Either way, he wasn’t with us in order that I could find out. “You’re the last of his five, Leerfar,” I said into the semi-darkness. “We’re going to do the same to you as we did to the others.”