The Hollow March

by Chris Galford

  Essa shook her head in disgust. “I truly hope that’s not what they are attempting. For we would never have the sense to see it, and they would only burn what stands between us and them.” Rurik patted her hand and tried to comfort her, but she pulled away from him, professed that she was alright. Neither looked on with anything resembling hope. Merely dread.

  In the early afternoon, the guns went wholly silent. It was so sudden, Rurik thought for an instant that he had been stricken deaf by their thunder. Those thoughts were banished as the trumpets sounded, and voices rose along the line. The cannons were wheeled back and the infantry assembled along the trenches. Thousands of men formed rank to march.

  Rurik was startled from the sight by the arrival of his brother, riding through the lines, with Brickheart and a pair of knights beside him. He was barking orders like a mad dog, gesturing toward the forming columns and ordering men toward them. When he came to Rurik, he pulled up short, and cast about, as though gauging the worth of the men around him.

  “Make ready, soldier.”

  Rurik blinked at him. He was certain he had not heard him right. “Ser?”

  “You and yours are to move with the column, by me. Understood?” Leaning close, Rurik gasped as his brother suddenly seized him by the collar, that they might look one another in the eye. “And keep that Kuric to you close.” Releasing him, Ivon slapped him about the shoulder and was off again, trailed by his comrades as other officers assembled at the rear. Confused, but not willing to risk his brother’s wrath, Rurik moved with the rest, fiddling with his pistol. Essa moved softly beside him, her hawk eyes sweeping the field.

  “At least we will not be first,” Essa noted.

  “First?” he replied. “Of course we will. We are still the first through the breach. The last men in the first line of a charge rarely find themselves too far from action.”

  She nodded, mutely, staring off into the lines. He felt a draft blow through him then, a foreboding he could not shake. How he longed to tell her he was wrong, to apologize for his curtness, but there was no time, and it would do him no good. It bit so deep because it was the truth. Rurik snatched her hand and squeezed it tight, giving her a start. He kissed it tenderly, and marveled at the way her green eyes shone at him, even in the depths of their sorrow. He turned from her only as a heavy hand clasped his shoulder, tugging at him.

  “Follow,” Alviss said. “He forms east. Stay close.”

  “You do not need to tell me.”

  The Kuric studied him, and nodded severely. “Close,” he repeated, regardless.

  The others followed with them, and they found themselves forming at the rear of one of the front columns—a mash of pike and swordsmen, from Jaritz and Usteroy and even as far west as Thorinde. The men formed in long lines, behind which their officers sat, on horseback, shouting orders into the mass. Sergeants walked among the ranks, and one marched before them, hoisting the Imperial flag.

  Ivon wandered close. “Do not stray,” he said, though Rurik could scarce hear over the beating of his own heart.

  A shout went up, louder than the rest, and the lines poured on toward the walls. They pushed from two sides, one from the south and one from the west, streaming across the field in their mottled hundreds. First at a walk, than a brisk, marching jog. Little plumes of smoke rose along the walls as long guns fired on them. The pebbles they spouted were swallowed whole, a body occasionally dropping away beneath the mass. From the trenches, Imperial musketeers fired back. Rurik shuddered only when a cannon opened fire, first one, then a second, and a third, upon the column. Cannonballs rained down about their heads and burst through men entirely, or struck the ground and rolled the legs from under them. Some exploded the ground, and the screams came on, but the sound of marching boots overwhelmed them.

  The guns fired three volleys, then went silent, though long guns continued their fire in cycling waves. By then, the army had reached the wall, and they clambered over the frozen and shattered rocks to pour into desolate streets. Rurik stared up at the walls as he passed beneath them, watched the men still hopelessly trapped upon them wheeling around to fire into the mass. Some clutched chests or arms, and plummeted toward them. Others simply sagged and toppled, dead before they struck the earth.

  All the world was choked with searing black clouds.

  Inside, they found the earthworks they had spied from afar the previous day. A wooden rampart had been partially erected along this new line, and they could see the remaining defenders streaming out along it, fleeing behind the protection it brought. Part of the wall had crumbled from where a stray cannon shot had struck it, but many balls were lodged in the packed and icy earthworks, to little harm. With bow and long gun, the defenders drew up along its walls, and fired down at them. Retreats were organized, efficient, moving in paces, suppressing in lines.

  But they were a few hundred manning an incomplete wall, with little ammunition, and little strength, against a horde of thousands. The Imperials pressed, swarming over the ramparts or around them, with the measured force of men many times their age. On the steps of the ramparts, and about the hills, the defenders threw what remained of their strength at them, first with range, then with sword and spear, and even rocks, when they could. Smoke scoured them all, choking the air from their lungs. Steel rang on steel, and the bodies swirled through the streets, coupling and falling not as pairs, but in groups, their blood slicking the earth beneath their feet. Murky red flames scattered across the writhing miles.

  To the enemy’s credit, they held firm, and with efficiency, doling out death as readily as it was dealt to them. When the collapse came, though, it came swiftly. Something changed, abruptly, as though the spirit had been suddenly and violently wrenched from the defenders’ souls. In confused mass, what few remained broke from the ramparts, and fled into the city. Howling their victory cries, the Imperial soldiers gave chase, and ran them down and stabbed them in the streets.

  Rurik could but watch in horror, spattered with the blood of other men, as some of the columns broke rank. Men crying out along the ramparts—bloodied, dying—were speared or gutted. Some begged as they crawled, only to be taunted and slain. Killing became murder, yet no one said a word. It was hideous, but he could not bring himself to scream. Ivon urged them on, and Essa and the others kept him moving, but she looked as mortified as Rurik did. Their blades remained untested. He was glad of it, in truth. It allowed him to disassociate, however meaninglessly, from the rest.

  He was different. He was special.

  He was an exile, after all.

  The army fanned out along the main thoroughfares of the city. Citizens fled before them or hid within their homes, while little skirmishes broke throughout the streets. Lieven and its homes smoldered, and it reeked of sulfur.

  Hell, Rurik vacantly thought. Surely this is what Hell must be like. And they were the demons, drawing down the world.

  Ivon chose the moment to break his men from the rest, giving a shout to the men of the county, which amounted to many more hundreds than had initially joined them in their march to Erkitz. He rallied them along one of the side streets, and formed them up, in smaller groups, to march into that burned and broken wasteland. The other captains took his lead. Sometimes forced to move in groups as small as two on two, they went into the darkness.

  They were nearly to the city’s hall, by estimations, when a door sprang open from a house behind them. Two men stumbled from it, just as Rurik stumbled past, each firing a blunderbuss point blank into the crowd. Rurik stood so close to them his clothes were scorched. He froze, deafened by the sudden assault, and Essa hit the ground at his feet, but Alviss came up under them and hewed the men down. One swung at him with his now useless gun and caught an axe under the chin, splitting his skull. The other had it buried in his neck as he drew a club from his belt.

  “Are you alright?”

  Essa stared up at him, wide-eyed. Then it was Ivon, circling, as he simultaneously shouted for his men to form rank. The
noose circled, ever-tighter, as they took stock of the damage.

  “Are you alright?”

  One of Ivon’s knight-companions had fallen from his saddle, slumped upon the earth—broken, dead. Rurik stared at his brother, marveled at the calm he exuded despite how close he had just come to death. Rurik, in contrast, was shaking. His heart pounded. He tried to temper his breaths, but he was not master of himself. Rurik’s ears rang, but he managed to nod to Ivon, and asked him the same. He smelled of sulfur, just like everything else. Ivon returned his nod, circled his horse once and motioned the rest on. “We have a city to win.” The men formed and followed, and Rurik helped Essa to her feet, both following obediently at Ivon’s heel. Forward or back, it was a trail of steel.

  It was over within an hour after the assault had begun. The defenders and their count lay dead, nearly to a man. Dozens of citizens also lay dead, whether caught in the crossfire, or of makeshift militias, it was hard to say. By the time Ivon and his company reached the city’s hall, the Imperial flag had already been raised atop its crumbled roof. The ruins of Lieven were theirs, with all its empty stores and bloodied, starving people.

  Still, it was a prize that could not be denied. What it lacked in practicality, it made up for in symbolism. This was the last barrier between the Imperial army and Mankałd—the river gem, the great bastion of Effise, the capital of the kingdom. Months had been wasted wearing away at this city’s walls, and finally, it had fallen in a day. In brighter lights it might have brought more scrutiny to the Lord Marshall, but these were dark days and darker times. Few had time to spare for extra shadows, preferring to find their joys where they may.

  And this was as much a cause for celebration as anything they had lately found. That very night the men were allowed a liberty that had been denied them for much of their march. As sentries were set upon the walls, and scouts dispatched into the leagues beyond, drink was distributed throughout the city and the camps in copious amounts—ale and mead enough to quench even the heartiest of souls, with liberated wine dispersed to supplement their already daily supply. Men sang hymns in the streets and hugged in adulation. They laughed and drank and some were even dancing in the blood they had but hours prior spilled.

  Voren found the Company along the northern wall, sheltered in the mostly-intact remains of a stable. With him came a bottle of wine in either hand, and a cart loaded to bear with a keg of ale. “I come with gifts,” he cried. Rurik might have cried as well—sweet tears of joy. He and Essa hugged the boy, and nearly bore him down, amidst the laughter and the roar.

  Chigenda abstained, and Rowan with him, one for religion, the other for taste. The rest popped corks and pierced the keg, and drank themselves into a stupor, the likes of which they had not faced in moons too long to name. Alviss’s cheeks reddened as he had his ale, and he stuck himself in a corner, that he might watch them all, smiling as he so rarely did. He said not a word, but seemed to find pleasure enough in watching them play. Rurik and Voren and Essa all were as children again as they drank, and many of the men that joined them as well. They laughed at jokes so long held back, they flirted and touched and rolled in the dirt, wrestling and pinning one another amidst drunken flailing. Rurik, to his credit, put Alviss’s old teaching to good work, pinning first Voren, then a soldier from Usteroy—and lastly Essa, until he turned to gloat upon his teacher, and Essa came up from under him and locked his own arms behind his head. The crowd roared.

  “This, I like,” Essa said, standing and stretching not long after their match. She wobbled, but held herself aloft, giggling as she downed another gulp of wine. It was nothing like the watered down Ramil they were daily given. The red liquid ran down her lips, and it was all Rurik could do not to lick it off her chin.

  “What?” The baker asked for them, slapping at Rurik’s hand whenever it ventured too close to his ale.

  “Both my men, playing nice and sweet. Come, come. Give a girl a kiss.” Not for the first time that night, each kissed her cheek, first one, then the other, until each had both, and were pushed away again. She flexed her arms and raised her chin. “See? Now that’s a woman for you lads!”

  “A polygamist?” Rowan shouted, from across the room.

  “No!” She stamped her foot and pouted. “A wrestler. Don’t make me whoop you, boy. I’ll get you too.”

  “Oh no. No, no. I wouldn’t dream of it, oh great one.”

  They might have said more, but Voren leaned forward on his knees and inched closer to her. Giggling, she bent down beside him and he leaned forward to whisper in her ear. Rurik tried to crawl toward them, but swooned, and briefly thought better of it. He tried again, and fell. Both looked at him, and laughed, and the whisper went on, only to be greeted with more laughter—from Essa. Softly giggling, she slapped Voren on the shoulder and gasped in feigned shock.

  “Oh, you are terrible, Messar Vocker! Backer. Baker.” She giggled, swooned, and toppled. Rurik padded the ground next to him and motioned her over. Grinning, she rolled onto her back and crawled seductively—or rather swayingly—over to him. “What’s it want?”

  “A kiss,” he said, and leaned up to take one. She pulled up and away, still smiling. He flopped back down, dizzied. “But I fear you shall have to come to me.”

  “Oh is that so? Poor dear. Cannae hold his ale.”

  “Or his woman, apparently,” Rowan called.

  She did not seem to hear her cousin. Swinging her hips over him, she hunkered down on Rurik’s waist, as the baker looked on anxiously from behind. Leaning down, she formed her lips into a very prominent kiss, swaying enough that she struck his head instead. Giggling, she swung back, and attempted again, and he leaned up enough to catch her lips on his. One hand snared hers and pulled her closer. She squeaked, but he held her, and kissed her deeply. It was sloppy, and wet, but passionate, for all that.

  When she pulled away, it was with a pop, and she clapped him on both shoulders before hopping to her feet. The crowd roared again, and she gave a little bow for them, legs crossing in front of her, and nearly falling once more. Voren caught her, and pulled her away, mumbling something about having drank too much. She touched his chest and laid her head on his shoulder and said he was probably right. As Rurik struggled to rise, though, she waved at him and demanded he come back to her right soon.

  Voren got Essa, and Rowan took Rurik. “Easy now, boy. Time to cool off a bit.” Lifting him by the arm, Rowan nearly dropped him, and he fell into Rowan laughing, but the swordsman managed to hold him up long enough to work him into a seat by the door, and Chigenda. Chigenda snorted at Rurik and looked away, trying to focus on some point where the raucous mass was not. It was no easy feat.

  “Stay. Now, stay.” Essa’s cousin said, pressing Rurik down. “Chigenda. Watch him. I need to check on my dear coz as well. The two of them should not be allowed such merriment.” Rurik chuckled and started to turn away, but Rowan rolled him right back into his seat. “Stay,” he repeated once more. Then he took off without waiting to hear Chigenda’s feelings on his task.

  The Zuti stared after the departing fencer a time before looking to the boy. His look seemed less harsh—more like a passive disgust. “Good?” He asked, studying Rurik’s eyes. Rurik laughed again. “This drink. An evil thing,” Chigenda added, with a shake of his head. Against his religion, as well as his delicate sensibilities.

  But Rurik came at him with a sudden clarity, popping upright and padding a hand against Chigenda’s shoulder. “So,” he said enthusiastically. “What did you think?” The Zuti stared at him before brushing the hand off. Rurik didn’t notice. “Of the battle. The guns the—the everything. This…yes.” Bits of hay had worked their way under his shirt and were starting to itch. He scratched at them, to little success. Flecks of dried blood loosened with the effort.

  The Zuti rolled his eyes and sank deeper into his seat. “Many say many ting of ghost. Of Nassa—you call Ha-len-sa.” Chigenda paused a moment, focusing on some point across the room. “Different tought. Nev
er see you march before. You many yes? Dis lord dat ride. Old man. But strong. Such horse.” Rurik giggled softly, his mind trailing away to horses circling the yard. He straightened, though, when Chigenda scowled at him. “And dese gun. Is terrible ting. Such smoke. Like fire on de mountain. Is like devil work. Not war. Not so…so…war. Dis.” Struggling for a word, he seemed to think better of it, and merely let it sit. He stared off into the crowd, and said no more, even when prodded by Rurik. Essa, breaking away from Rowan and Voren, was scurrying to join a crowd of drunken singers on a table, despite her cousin’s pleas. Alviss finally rose to head her off as well.

  All the Zuti ventured was a rebuke. “I see girl. Eyes like storm. I fear. I feel gun, burst bright. I fear. Yet dis I see. Dese men of fool. And you, I tink—how dis man, he ride before the Holy Zutam? Is not’ing.” Then again, more quietly, “Is not’ing.”

  And the music and the mayhem went on, long into the night, and early the next morning. It was worth the hangovers, even as the trumpets sounded, the Zuti’s words lost in the disarray.

  * *

  He tried to tell her. Assal above, how he tried. But that alcohol, it is an infernal thing, and she was a woman outside herself when that liquid struck her tongue. Rurik was just as wanton, just as wicked. For that miserable little wretch, it showed the true manner of his character. How he lured her. How he taunted. Certainly, Voren would be first to say that he had done things he was not…entirely proud of that night, but he had at least kept things to the decent. Chaste kisses. Perhaps a few ignoble whispers.

  But that wretch! Oh, Rurik had started off with a bit of fun. But when the drink took to him, his hands were every which way that he could reach them, and she was as bad. Grinding on him. Petting him and cooing for his every little indiscretion. They might have rutted on that very floor like mangy mongrels if her cousin and he had not yanked them off. Then again, they never should have been left to go as long as they had. What sort of cousin so willingly let his own be debased in such a way?