Storn was sat on his horse watching the imperial advance, eyes focussed on every footfall before him, mind filling in what his eyes couldn’t see.
“This is it then,” Larly said to his left.
“The battle started a while ago,” Storn pointed out.
“Yes, but this is what you were telling us about. You have to stand. This is it. The armies clash, and if we stand… Why are you smiling?”
“I’m not,” Storn said.
“The corners of your mouth turned up, as if… What have you seen?”
Larly snapped his head back round to the field, but it looked the same. The rebels were in their staked line on the hill and the imperial infantry, well that had reached halfway across the field.
“As a member of the rebel council I demand to know what you’re seeing.”
“I recently sent some orders, dear council member, which will help us greatly in this battle.”
“Oh. And they are?”
“Wait and — err, am I seeing that right?”
Larly saw Storn had begun to smile earlier, as if there was another wrinkle in the plan he could use, but now the man’s face showed surprise.
Utter naked surprise.
Larly turned, and he saw it too.
The imperial soldiers were set in their formation, shields together, spears through, moving as fast as they ever had through the ground. The force was coming ever closer. But the rebels…
Not all of them were now in a line behind their stakes.
Larly’s mouth dropped open as he saw a part of the line appear to bulge and then burst, before he realised it wasn’t water but people running down the hill.
Down the hill?
All this time Storn had been drilling in the importance of not running away, because chaos and rout caused the casualties, and every man had sworn not to take a step back unless ordered. But now some rebels were actually charging forward, down the hill, onto the wet battlefield and straight at the imperial infantry.
“What’s happening?” Larly asked in confusion.
“They’ve gone too early.” Bloodlust or excitement, maybe even our cancelled attack earlier, they think they’re meant to charge. They’re charging. The thoughts took less than a moment. “They’re right in the bloody way.”
Storn bit his lip. This was the moment when a general could affect the outcome of a battle. Well, when he could directly lose a battle. A third of his force was rushing torward the enemy, and they were the green ones who would get chewed up. He either let them be smashed and left the other two thirds in their positions and continue with his trick, or…
The others would break. If they saw this advance be mauled, the line would break when the imperials met them. He had to support the assault and hope to turn the tide another way.
Storn put his feet into his stirrups and stood. “Charge!” he cried with as much force as he could muster. “Charge and fight!” Most of his aides charged with messages and orders.
He watched and for one dreadful moment thought the army would split into two, but his veterans soon heard the order, helped by the fact so many were trying to find any sort of instruction, and then the rest of the rebels surged forward. Not like a bursting bubble, like a surging wave.
A wave aiming for the rocks?
“We’ve left our lines?” Larly asked.
No one bothered to answer.
Storn turned to one of his own aides. “Get over to those archers and stop them firing before it’s too late.”
“We’ve left our lines! We have to hold, we have to hold our lines, you said!”
“Shut up politician. And you, get riding to those archers!”
*****
An arrow slammed into the soil, the wadding on one end burning. This garnered a reaction from the owner of the foot that was very near it.
“Fucking flaming arrows!”
Alia now stepped even closer to the shadow of the barn, which wasn’t providing much shadow at all.
Trimas peered down, reached out and pulled it out of the ground. “Soaked in oil, burning nicely. Survived the flight. Some amateurs don’t get that right.”
“Why are you so calm?” Alia asked him.
“Oh, once you’ve been in a few arrow storms you start to trust your luck or God rather than worry about the way you can’t dodge them.”
“Which is why we dived off that roof and hid behind here.”
Trimas winked at her. “Doesn’t hurt to help God or your luck. That and they’re not aiming for the farm, we’ve just got the rogue arrows from the peasant archers. The real bowmen are firing over there into that, er, open space.”
“The real question,” Daeholf began, “is why they’ve started firing flaming arrows at that area and not, just off the top of my head, the imperial army attacking them.”
Trimas looked at the arrow and dropped it into the ground. “That is the key question.”
“No obvious answer?” Jonas asked.
“Not unless Storn has decided he really hates grass. Maybe he’s seen a rebel flanking move coming through here.”
“In which case we want to be long gone,” Alia concluded.
“Indeed, but we’ve been closer and we haven’t seen anything.”
Trimas took this moment to butt into what Daeholf was saying. “Seems to have stopped.”
“Well you can go out and see,” Alia said, putting a hand to the wood of the barn.
Daeholf turned to look out at the farm. “There is something odd going on here.”
“Alright,” Trimas said, “I will,” and he stepped out until there was clear sky above him.
“And?”
“God is with me so far, hang on,” and he clambered back onto the roof.
“Now he’s showing off,” Jonas concluded.
“He does that when women are around,” Zedek said, shaking his head.
“I can still hear you. And yes, the arrows have stopped, archers moving away.”
“Good,” Jonas said, debating whether he had to climb his old and aching body onto the barn anymore.
“Also, the rebels have charged the imperial advance.”
Zedek, Jonas and Alia looked at each other, then up. “Is that normal?”
“No, not even remotely. Stupid rather than normal. Although stupid tends to be normal when you’re doing—”
“Yes, yes we get it Trimas, perhaps you could also tell us why your friend is staring at the hay bales.”
“Err, Daeholf?”
“You clever, clever bastard.”
“Well yes Daeholf, quite, but why…”
“Not you, another general. Storn.”
“And what’s he done?”
Daeholf looked up and went from thinking to swift animation.
“The stream has been diverted to flow over the battlefield. But it isn’t really doing this to bog the enemy down.”
“No?”
“No, and the flaming arrows are coming here for one specific purpose…” Daeholf pointed. “Do you see that covered pile of hay, ready for feeding.”
“Yes.”
“Do you see that identical one next to it.”
“Yes.”
“So why is the third pile of hay a different shape.”
“I’m not a farmer,” Trimas moaned, “what aren’t I seeing?”
“I bet you that’s a pile filled with barrels of oil. Send enough arrows to light the pile, the barrels rupture and the oil ignites, and where is the pile? Near the stream. The diverted stream allows a tide of flaming chaos to flow across the battlefield.”
“Oh shit.”
“If the rebels had stood behind their lines, on the hill, they’d have been safe. Then Storn could cut the imperials in two. The advance would hit their lines, but everyone behind would be harmed and prevented from advancing, while the front lines would be trapped, damaged and panic mauled.”
“Fucking shit.”
Daeholf continued, “And that’s not even the best bit.”
/> “Oh?”
“Garrow sent everyone in the first attack. You could have fired the field and hit them all in one go. It’s just that he has a dubious group of archers firing at a tiny target. Easy to hit an entire imperial line, tougher to hit some oil barrels.”
“Then why stop? If they needed to swamp the area with arrows, why stop?”
“Because Zedek, now his own troops have charged onto the field and Storn isn’t cold enough to burn them too.”
“You say that like some generals would.”
“Oh yes they would.”
“And more besides,” Trimas shouted down.
“Admittedly not Trimas.”
Zedek turned to Daeholf. “Why not just position a man there.”
“Relying on anyone to be at a specific point at any part of a battle is asking for trouble. Battles are chaos.”
“Except the general, he’ll be at the back.”
Daeholf laughed at Alia and pointed a thumb. “You’ve learned already.”
Trimas shook his head. “Don’t you start on me as well. I need to start some form of guild. The generals’ guild.”
“You’d still get yourself thrown out of it.”
“Ouch Daeholf, ouch. Did I not lead…”
“Yes, alright, you did.”
“I have the tattoo…”
“So what now?” Alia asked, clambering up to see.
“Now the most dangerous military ever invented by humanity has been charged by a group of excited peasants.”
Daeholf nodded at Trimas’ conclusion.
“Now, whether brave or foolhardy, they have to fight.”
“Foolhardy then,” Jonas concluded as he once more looked out over the battlefield.
*****
At the same time as this conversation, another one was happening.
“But we’ve left our lines!”
“Larly, if you don’t shut up I will make you the next messenger.”
“That’s hardly…”
Cutting him dead, Storn turned to an aide who’d been earmarked for one purpose, and only one purpose.
“We’re going to have to use them, go get them ready and bring them straight up.” Then he turned back. “God wants it done that way.”
The messenger nodded, and used the deadly efficiency she’d been selected for to disappear before Larly’s eyes could catch up.
“Use who?” he asked.
“Go away Larly.”
Storn turned back to the field. The moment of impact would come any second.
“We need to talk, General.”
Storn kept his eyes forward as he replied.
“Chairman.”
“Why have we charged?”
“To save the day.”
“But the plan…”
“A wise general once said no plan survives contact with the enemy.” Presumably before an emperor had them executed.
“Isn’t charging suicidal?”
“Please leave the assessment of the battlefield to me. I can command much better without explaining myself to politicians every few moments.”
“Can you look me in the eye and promise me this whole battle isn’t going to shit?”
Storn smiled now, clearly. “No.”
“Your feints and plans aren’t working.”
“Not so far.”
“Would you advise the rebel council and I retreat from the battlefield?”
The chairman thought the question innocent, he wasn’t expecting Storn’s head to snap round and look so … venemous.
“You will stay exactly where you are.”
“You have already tried to ignore us, and now your plan is failing.” The chairman was worried.
Larly took back over. “Yes, we should leave.”
“No. I forbid it.”
“You have no power over the council, General. We employ you.”
Storn nodded. “I have a guard of veterans in proximity. If you take one step towards the rear they will arrest you and force you to stay here.”
“But…”
“Battles are about confidence. If the rebels rank and file see you fleeing, no, running away, why should they stay and fight? Or die?”
“I…”
“I will not let you destroy morale. You stay or I make you.”
“We’d be prisoners.”
“The rest of this army just charged an imperial fucking legion. They are brave bastards. You stand here and talk. Look, look out there, they are fighting and dying.”
Larly stayed silent.
“What is your answer to that! Why don’t you charge! Why don’t you do something fucking useful for a fucking change!”
The chairman and Larly looked at each other, then at the ground.
“We will… stay.”
“Good. And watch, watch closely, council, because I am not out of tricks yet.”
*****
As people talked, others had charged.
The legion had been moving through the muddy ground, some through areas torn up by their own cavalry. Legs were burning, but they didn’t slow. You could win just by intimidation, and the legion knew it. Up they came, spears lowered, men and women swearing and screaming their bloodlust out while staying controlled in units and lines and rows.
And then more screaming, and the enemy coming towards them.
Some commanders paused when they saw a counter charge, but not those in charge of a battle hardened legion. Instead they called out.
“Halt.”
The advance slowed, the unstoppable force of the empire stopping.
“Receive!”
Tight they packed, feet braced, spears up.
Ahead of them the rebels were only just in units and lines and rows. Those who had charged first were now a single mass of wild, adrenaline fuelled chaos hammering wildly along, momentum from the very real physical act of charging down a hill.
To their side and slightly behind came the rest, where veterans balanced the need for fast movement with keeping together, and by God they judged it right. On they swept, an army in full rage.
The imperials watched, bemused, as the rebels came on. Off the hill, into the soft ground, their feet never getting a signal through to their heads about the earth.
Closer, closer, the length of two people, then a person, then…
The rebels who went first didn’t stop of their own volition, they barrelled straight into the imperials. Shields were the first, smashing together, sending shockwaves through both sides. The experienced side with their feet braced grunted and took the shock, while the first rebels found themselves sandwiched and shaken.
The commanders of both sides didn’t breathe for a moment, as they waited to see what would happen. Would the rebels stand? Would they be shattered apart on the rocks, would the battle continue?
But the rebels did stand and the grinding of combat began. Spears were thrust forward, some catching shields or helms or mail, but some went into flesh. People screamed, blood flew, shit leaking out below, the lines distorting as some sections moved forward and others back.
Some wounded stayed where they were, pinned upright by those around them, some fell onto the ground where they were crushed underfoot. Some people panicked and tried to flee, rebels and green soldiers alike, but as they turned spears stabbed through their backs. Others found courage they never knew they had, and would never possess again, and they clashed and pushed and spat and stabbed.
The front line of both sides began to tire, but the imperials had their reinforcements right behind them already, and they were able to provide close support. Their fresh men and women could work their way forward, to replace tired soldiers who worked their way back to breathe and recharge themselves at the rear. The rebels had few veterans and could not refresh their front ranks, and slowly as they tired the imperials enacted the years of training and were able to change about while still fighting just as hard, while not wavering and while not conceding to the hammering rebels.
On one side of the field Garrow watched. On the other Storn, as best they both could.
In the middle, but to one side, Daeholf and his group watched too.
Watched as the imperials began to force the entire rebel line back.
Back, back, back.
******
It was calm in the darkness. The layered heavy cloth sides of the wagon also damped down most of the noise so it was like a world apart. A world free from anger and pain.
A panel was drawn back abruptly and the day flooded in, stabbing at his eyes and ears.
Three got to his feet and blinked as he stepped out into the light. There was noise. Lots of noise. Glorious noise. The good sort of noise. A battle. A big battle.
This was why he was here. This was why he was alive.
“Where?” Three rumbled, feeling the energy already starting to build.
“Straight ahead of you, not a hundred yards,” a little man said, visibly trying not to back away.
Run away little man, this isn’t for you Three thought to himself.
“Weapons,” he growled.
“Y-yes, of course,” the little man said, turning and fumbling behind him.
Three’s temper started to grow. He smiled, flexed and eased into it. Anger was comfortable. Anger was his friend.
The little man was obviously frightened as he handed over a large axe and sword. Three took a couple of test swings sending the little man running for cover. Three laughed nastily. He had a vague memory of being little once but it was hard to grasp. Failure made him angry. Most things made him angry. He needed to take it out on some people. Some lot of people.
Up ahead were some people that deserved his anger. He’d been told so. Three snarled. It was time. It was his time. He started walking. His steps grew bigger. Faster. He was running. Charging. He roared. People started to scatter.
There were little men in the way. They were allies. It didn’t matter. They were in his way.
Dropped a shoulder and kept charging, smashing men out of the way. They were all smaller than him and were knocked sideways or trampled.
Charging forward, swinging.
Little men on his own side not getting out of the way fast enough.
Slash. Laughter as the man’s head went sailing through the air.
Dark Healer (An Empire Falls Book 1) Page 59