The Chronicles of the Eirish: Book 1: The Lich's Horde

by Doug Dandridge

  He shook his head at the thoughts that were running through him, his great mane of hair, now free of his helm, waving in the night air. What do the other walking gods do? he thought, not sure how many others there were, if any. The Gods of the Faery were the first to drop out of the dimensions of divinity, as their worshipers had been wiped out by the encroaching humans, and they themselves had fought with failing might against the new gods, of which Tengri had been one. If any of those still existed, thousands of years after their fall? There were also some few of the human gods who had fallen, as their worshiping peoples had been killed off, and they had faded from the lands of the divine to walk the world of mortals. That had been an unusual occurrence, until recently.

  He had never paid attention to those former deities. Like most of his kind he had paid attention to himself first and foremost, then to those worshipers who caught his fancy. And since his fall, he had found the same attitude from the other gods toward himself, save one.

  Maybe I can do something for these people, he thought, a feeling of empathy he was also not used to. He turned from the railing and walked to the cabin where the wounded were being tended. He entered, finding only the three seriously injured men, including the one who was dying. There was no one else there, even the crewmen who had been tending them down for the night. Tengri looked down on Marco, the dying man, and felt pity for the mortal. Enough pity to use some of his remaining energy, the little bit he still gathered from the few of his people who continued to pray to him.

  Tengri knelt at the side of the man, looking at the blood-soaked bandages that covered his upper chest and throat, where the wood splinters had torn through tender flesh. I need to do this now, thought the demigod, putting his hands on the man, feeling his ebbing life force through the touch. Then, with a thought, he was pouring life energy into the man, concentrating on fixing the damage done by the sharp pieces of wood. It took almost a man’s worth of life force to complete the healing, but with concentration the muscles, blood vessels and skin knitted back together. With an intake of breath, the man opened his eyes.

  “Sleep,” whispered the demigod, putting his fingers tenderly on the eyelids of the man. The eyes closed, and Marco’s breathing became calm and regular. Tengri smiled down on the man, who really meant nothing to him, except that he was of some importance to the captain who had let him sail on his ship, despite his dangerous appearance.

  The demigod spent some more hours leaning against the forward railing, thinking, his mind a roil with the many thoughts that flooded his head. The sun rising from behind him as he stood staring at the harbor ahead caught him off guard. He hadn’t realized how late it had become, and how the entire night had slipped by.

  As the disc of the sun came up over the horizon, the small boats of the fishing fleet began to row out into the harbor, headed for the open sea beyond. There was activity on the decks of several of the ships, and before long a pair of merchantmen were being warped out of their positions on the quays and into the harbor.

  “Put the boat over the side,” yelled the captain, coming out of his cabin. “Let’s get her warped into the docks.” The captain looked over at Tengri and walked to him. “There was a change in Marco’s condition last night. Know anything about it?”

  “I just remembered what you said about gratitude and ingratitude, Captain,” said Tengri, looking into the man’s eyes. “It was something I could do, so I did it.”

  “And just what are you?” asked the wide-eyed captain. “A priest, or some kind of angel?”

  “Neither,” said Tengri, putting a hand on the captain’s shoulder. “But what I can say is that I am a friend. And would appreciate it if you would not talk of it with the authorities here. I wish to be on my way, and not answering interminable questions.”

  “Of course,” said the captain, nodding, then turning and walking away to direct the crew about their jobs.

  It took almost an hour to get the ship next to the dock and tied up, and as soon as the plank was laid the crew started rigging the pulley and making ready to lift pallets of Aegyptian wheat from the hold, their main cargo for this trip.

  “I will take my leave now, Captain,” said Tengri, coming back onto the deck in his full travelling gear, his pack and bedroll on his back. “I would as soon be in the cover of the city before the watch and their priests arrive. I’m surprised they are not here already.”

  “They are landlubbers,” said the captain with a smile. “They don’t know what the world looks like before they pull their lazy bodies out of bed to eat too much breakfast. May the gods bless you, Master Tengri,” finished the captain, hand to his brow.

  But they have already cursed me, thought the once god, walking off the pier and into the city, which was alive with the calls of merchants and shoppers. He was some blocks away when he heard shouting from the docks and turned to see a patrol and a brace of priests running toward the ship he had just vacated. Tengri smiled and continued walking, his long strides eating up the distance, until he found himself at a stable near one of the outer gates, preparing to bargain for a mount that would take him across the isthmus and to the next port.

  It was a long ride ahead, not in the reckoning of his people, but of those hereabouts. Many would be curious about a strange looking outlander moving through their land. But he would have come and gone before they could do anything about it, and he could live with that.

  Chapter Four

  King Rory McMennamin, known as The Red for his great beard, cursed under his breath as he raised his ax into the air. The big man rose in the stirrups of his great warhorse and focused all of his attention on his foe, a spearman who was trying his best to penetrate Rory’s strong armor with the head of his weapon. The spear struck twice, both times sliding from the alchemy hardened steel plate in a shower of sparks, all coming from the steel of the spear. The thrill of battle was upon the king, fueled by adrenaline, and he felt more alive than he had in years.

  With a loud cry Rory brought the ax down on the helmeted head of the spearman, the heavy blade splitting helm and skull alike. The red of blood and the pink of brain matter flew into the air, and the spear dropped from dead hands like a branch from a lightning struck tree. The man fell after it, and Rory kept a strong grip on the ax and allowed the weight of the body to pull the head of the weapon free.

  Rory looked around, seeing no other foes for the moment. Cries sounded in the near distance, along with the crack of muskets. Around the king were arrayed the dead, scores of enemy spearmen, and a dozen of the royal guards who had fallen trying to defend their monarch. Unfortunately for them, they were not arrayed in the same kind of hardened armor that the king had been blessed with, and so had been taken down by the mass of spears they had faced.

  And it can never be me, thought Rory, elation giving way to regret, raising his visor and looking down on the bodies of men he had been with every day for many years. I should have been the one to die here, not they. Instead, he would again sleep this night through the nightmares that hounded him, the images of his dead wife, lost to him forever. And all because the damned Gods would not bestir themselves to heal her, he thought, depression giving way to rage, looking up to the sky as if he would catch a glimpse of the hated beings.

  Shaking his head, flinging the sweat from his face, he kneed the horse forward, looking for something else to kill, and letting his ears direct him to the action. The big stallion was tired, but still responsive, and took the king where he wanted, where the action was. Topping the hill that dominated the marshlands they were fighting on, Rory looked over the battlefield in a manner those down in the bottomlands could not.

  If only the damned Iberians had kept the peace, he thought, looking down on the clumps of struggling humanity. But the king of that land had not been able to control his northern nobles, who had again crossed the river swamps that were the borderlands between the two kingdoms. The rich farmlands the Eirish possessed to the north of those swamps had proven too much of an enticem
ent to those northern Iberian barons, and so they had marched with their levies.

  Unfortunately for them, Doblas, the capital of Eireland, was only a hundred miles of good road away. Which meant the Iberians had less than two weeks to besiege the castles of the resident nobles, without cannon, which couldn’t be transported across the swamps. And then King Rory had come down on them like a plague from heaven with his professional army.

  And I should have marched on them with one body, thought the king with regret. Instead, he had succumbed to arrogance, and attacked them piecemeal with what he had on hand, not waiting for the duke to bring his own men up.

  And now I’ve lost men I’ve known all my life. My bodyguard, he thought, thinking of those who had been with him in the palace and at war for many years, now so much dead meat.

  The cannon fired again, twelve-pound field pieces that sent their balls bouncing over the ground, to knock over men like pins from a game of lawn bowl. The only problem was the enemy was intermingled with or too close to his own forces to give the cannon easy targets. At that thought he saw two balls miss their targets and go flying through a line of his pikemen with a thick splash of blood.

  Rory looked away for a moment, his eyes roaming the area around him, what could be seen from his elevation. He caught a glint of light through the sparse woods and shaded his eyes to get a better look. Yes, he thought in a silent cheer, spurring his horse down the slope and toward the men he saw riding toward him.

  “Your Majesty,” yelled out Duke Connor, raising a hand in the air in salute. “I am sorry we are late. If we had gotten here earlier…”

  “Not your fault, your Grace,” said the king, looking over the two hundred heavy horsemen the nobleman had brought with him. “Have your bugler sound recall. I have some other cavalry around here, wandering through the woods. I would have them with us before we hit the enemy flank.”

  “Then you intend to charge them?” asked the duke, his eyes wide with battle lust.

  “It’s a stalemate right now, your Grace,” said the king, watching as some score of horsemen came riding in from the surrounding woods at the sound of the bugle. The cannon sounded again in the background, while the wind blew the acrid smoke of musketry their way. “They will overrun the cannon at any moment, and then we might find ourselves facing our own guns. So, we need to move.”

  “What are your orders, my Liege?” asked the older man.

  “We will ride in a column around the hill until I tell you to stop, at which time we will form into a triple line. At the sound of your bugler we will charge into their flank and break them up.”

  The duke nodded, then looked over at his standard bearer, who raised his lance into the air and swung the flag, getting the attention of all the knights and men-at-arms. The king watched with approval as the duke’s men formed up in the formation he wanted without fuss or wasted effort, a show of discipline. The duke swung his hand forward, and the double column, a hundred long, started in a trot after the two ranking noblemen.

  Scores of the cavalrymen the king had brought with him, scattered in the fighting as they pursued into the woods, came out every minute, forming up on the rear of the column. His knights were also disciplined. The king demanded such of his men as well. Headstrong nobles who charged without order, and broke up the coherence of an army, were of no use to him. Such were retired from service, to their shame.

  The formation came around the hill, to the sight of the invaders pushing with their pikes into the ranks of the Eirishmen. Musketeers on both sides were firing into the pikes, or at each other, and a couple of cannon spoke from the Eirish side, cutting swaths through the enemy with their load of grape. The enemy lacked cannon, but it looked as if they outnumbered the Eirisk two to one in everything but cavalry.

  The standard bearer waved his flag, and the column split, half going to one side of the ranking nobles, the remainder to the other. There they formed up in three ranks of a hundred each. Some tried to get in front of the king and their duke, but both nobles waved them back.

  The king looked over at his duke with approval. Many nobles would use their own people as cover. But Connor was wearing plate that must have cost half the income of his duchy, fortified by alchemy to be as resistant to bullets as anything made. Rory had similar armor, maybe a little better. No bullet made could go through his plate, which by no means made him invulnerable. A cannon could still kill him, even if it didn’t penetrate, and bullets striking his undercoat of chain through the gaps in his plate could do the same. Still, he was better protected than any of these troops who were sworn to him, and he thought it would be a poor ruler who wouldn’t take the brunt of the enemy fire when equipped as he was.

  The enemy had seen them, and some of the pikemen at the rear ran to form a new line against his charge. The sparse enemy horse attempted to break contact on the flanks where they were engaging the Eirish cavalry, which redoubled their efforts at the sight of reinforcements and prevented the Iberians from breaking away.

  Bullets started coming their way, whistling by, some hitting men and wounding a couple, killing one. A bullet hit Rory’s armor and bounced away. Charge, damn you, he thought, looking over at the duke.

  Connor raised his hand, the bugler blew a couple of notes, and the column started forward at a trot. Most of the men held pistols in their right hands, their left balancing their lances, butts in the holders of the saddles. Each pistol was attached to the saddle by a strap, and all had another gun in leather holsters on the sides of their seats.

  The bugle blew again and the columns went into a run. At fifty yards, into the teeth of the enemy muskets that were taking men every second, the horsemen fired their first pistols, dropping them to dangle on the strap while they pulled out their second guns and fired. At twenty yards they switched to a charge, lances lowered, facing a wall of pikes that looked like a hedge of death.

  Just before they struck, their own pikemen burst through their opposition and wheeled around to come at the Iberian infantry from the back, while the rest of the pike pushed their opponents back. The knights and men-at-arms, the two hundred odd who had made it, struck the enemy line in a thunderous clash of steel. A score of horses went down with pikes thrust through their chests, while another score of horsemen were unhorsed, some killed, others merely unseated. The front rank of the pike line disintegrated, and the horsemen who had lost their lances jerked heavy swords, maces or axes from sheaths on the saddles and started to lay about them.

  Rory’s borrowed lance spitted a pikeman and went through the breastplate of the one behind. The shaft shattered with the blow, and Rory pulled up his ax from where it hung at his saddle and started to swing it about. The next rank of pikes tried to unseat him, but with a powerful grip on the barrel of his horse he resisted while he crushed skulls and took off arms at the shoulder.

  He wasn’t sure how long the battle lasted. All he knew was that people kept appearing to his front and he kept killing them until his ax ran red with gore and his armor was covered in blood. He kept waiting for the deathblow, but it never came, and he fought on with anger, willing the enemy to drive a pick into a vulnerable place. But such was not his luck. Despite his anger, he found that the gods still had something planned for him.

  Then there were no more Iberians around him, and he raised his visor to get a better view. The last of the enemy was running for their lives into the woods, pursued by both cavalry and infantry. The pursuers were taking the enemy in the back. It was the worst situation a soldier could find themselves in, back to a victorious, blood mad enemy. Many went down without a chance to defend themselves. Rory might have felt for them if they hadn’t invaded his realm and killed his people.

  “We’ve won the day, your Majesty,” said Connor, walking his horse up to the king’s. Blood was splattered across his surcoat, his helmet had a shallow dent, indicating the power behind the blow to that enchanted piece of armor. “But at a cost.”

  Rory nodded as he looked over the field. Of t
he two hundred heavy cavalry the Duke had led to the battle, only four score were still in their saddles. Added to that were a couple of score of his own cavalry. Many more were on foot, some leading injured horses, while other sat on the ground, to injured to rise. Magic would have helped, but the damned priests say that war is not their business, he thought with a grimace. Damned priests and their damned gods. Only useful when they want something.

  He thought about that all the way back to the capital, with some of the duke’s soldiers as borrowed bodyguards. By the time he had gotten back to Doblas after a three-day ride, he had made up his mind. If the priests wouldn’t give him what he needed, he would have to go elsewhere. The priests wouldn’t like it, and he really didn’t care. He would have magic on his side the next time he fought, and the Gods be damned if they didn’t like it.

  Chapter Five

  “The men seem to be in good spirits today, your Majesty,” said Borka Meciar, arrayed in his full plate and ready for battle.

  “Of course they’re in a good mood,” replied King Oswik Bulgarin, looking up at his general as the man stood at the entrance to the pavilion. The king checked the fit of his cuirass, noting that he needed to have it expanded to his expanding waistline, something that hadn’t seemed necessary the last time he had actually put on the armor. “We’re facing barbarians, after all, and what chance do they have against the army of the kingdom?”

  The king was outwardly confident, as a leader should be. Inside he felt some trepidation, enough to roil his guts. These barbarians had routed his steppes scouts and had taken the city of Bratislava. How they had done that was still an unknown, as steppes horsemen were not known to be masters of siege warfare, and Bratislava had been a fortress city of stone, but not all that well manned. The messengers who had been sent to the city had returned with tales of the place in ruins, the barbarians camped out among the Bulgar dead. There had also been reports of walking dead. Such reports, obviously, we nonsense, and the king dismissed them out of hand.