“They’d actually burn the village down with us inside? That’s barbaric!” Obair gasped, looking out over the walls again.
“That’s war, Druid. I think that you’ve led a very sheltered life locked away in your woods. Mankind can be every bit as vicious and brutal as your fae.”
Obair stared at the fires in horror, stepping to the side as men laden with buckets rushed up the steps. Water splashed down the sides of the palisade, pooling in the mud at the bottom, and still the men rushed back to the wells and pumps to fetch more.
The distant catapults lurched and Obair saw at once that Rhenkin had been wrong. There were no burning pots arcing through the skies. Instead, he could see nothing more than clouds of smoke and dust around the catapults. Then the glowing coals and embers began to fall. They passed overhead, far above the palisade, and flew into the village.
Rhenkin swore and waved at Larson, who ran for the steps, shouting at the men to form bucket chains.
“I’m busy here, Druid. What do you want?” Rhenkin demanded.
“The satyr. It's contained but there is much we can learn from it.”
“When we start the withdrawal, we’ll take it with us. I think it’s time you met my duchess.”
“When we withdraw?” Obair said, shocked.
“We're not going to be able to hold here, Druid. We simply don't have the men. This village was doomed the moment the Bjornmen advanced. We’ve been sending small groups out since yesterday.”
“But the village...?” Obair protested, looking down at the houses and streets.
“Will burn,” Rhenkin finished for him. “The only thing that would stop their advance would be if the king finally committed his armies. Until he does, then North-eastern Anlan will belong to the Bjornmen.”
Obair stared at him, but Rhenkin had already turned away and was giving out a steady stream of orders to the runners passing in and out of the watchtower. Obair stepped back onto the walls and looked out over the fields, drawn by a morbid curiosity.
Rhenkin’s catapults, positioned at the base of the walls, fired briefly but the operators soon abandoned their efforts. The Bjornmen had pulled back out of range during the night and had not yet advanced far enough again. As he watched, the gates opened, and archers and infantry poured out, forming into mixed ranks before they slowly advanced towards the Bjornmen.
The trebuchets fired again, this time lofting flaming pots. The burning pitch Rhenkin had predicted had arrived. The pots arced across the sky, trailing lines of black smoke as they flew. One fell short, the fragile clay shattering as it crashed into the mud in front of the walls and creating a lake of fire around it.
The other two flew true. One smashed into the wall itself, while its brother flew into the village, turning one of the recently constructed buildings into a pillar of flame. Obair turned away from the sight, gagging as men were transformed into torches and fell screaming from the walls to writhe on the ground, while others frantically emptied buckets of water over them.
Through it all, the Bjornmen stood still, watching.
“Why don’t they advance?” Obair demanded of the man stood next to him. The farmer shrugged and fiddled with the bow he held inexpertly in his hands.
“Because they don’t want the village,” a sergeant said quietly from the other side of him. “They’re not looking to take this place. They just want it gone. They can get most of that just by burning it down. Why risk their own men before they need to?”
Obair opened his mouth to respond but then turned his head at a shout from behind him. “Obair!” Larson waved him down from the walls.
The old man pushed his way through the press of men and clambered down the steps.
“I want you in the next group,” the lieutenant explained, as Obair drew close.
“Next group?”
“The next group to leave, man! Wake up!” Larson snapped. “The captain wants you to take the cart with that beast and take it to Duchess Freyton.”
“He wants what? Why me?”
“We need more support, old man,” Larson said. “Look around you. We can’t hold against these Bjornmen and, so far, we’re the only ones that know anything about the fae. You wanted to warn mankind, Obair. Well, now you have your chance.”
Obair nodded. He couldn’t really object to that.
The line of carts stood before the rear gates, packed tight with villagers clinging to those few possessions they could carry. They were surrounded by a circle of soldiers looking anxiously at the crowd of villagers pressing in at them. As he walked closer, he heard a commotion surrounding the rear cart. A soldier was bundling a large man he dimly recognised as the miller away from the cart.
“Why can’t I just leave now?” the man demanded. “I don’t see why that hell-beast gets pride of place while we have to wait.”
The response was lost in the noise of the crowd as they surged against the line of soldiers.
“So that thing gets to go while we stay here and burn?” the miller roared, shouting more towards the throng of people behind him than to the soldiers in front. “Who are you protecting here?”
Obair elbowed his way through the crowd until he reached the nervous soldiers, and was quickly grabbed and bundled aboard a cart. The men wasted no time in opening the gates and sending the caravan through. There was an air of panic about the crowd and the guards seemed little better as they resorted to driving the villagers back with clubs.
The gates were shut hurriedly as the caravan went on its way. Their closing creak was muffled by a crash, as a hail of stones smashed against the palisade at the far side of the village.
As the wagon clattered over the sun-baked road, the distant sound of steel on steel carried from the far side of the village. Obair looked back at the smoke, tinged red with sparks and floating embers, that belched up from the palisade where the firepot had struck. He looked at the flames, shaking his head in wonder and disgust. He'd come to try and warn mankind about the fae but, as he watched the Bjornmen surge forward, he wondered who would warn mankind about itself.
***
Rhenkin looked on as the Bjornmen drove the line back again. Mixing the archers in with the regular infantry had worked well for a time, but the enemy adapted quickly, rushing his units before they could fire more than once or twice. As he watched, the Bjornman advance forced his line to retreat again or else be overwhelmed, and the sky turned dark with flights of arrows as the infantry units ran back behind the range marker and headed for the gates.
Another hail of rocks struck the palisade and men fell screaming to the ground. He turned to look for Larson before remembering the man was overseeing the evacuation.
“Where did they find the stone?” he grumbled to himself, as he waited.
He didn't have to wait long before the dark-haired man ran up the steps, ducking involuntarily as the wall shook from the impact of more stones.
“Report,” Rhenkin said, as soon as the man was close enough to hear.
“The satyr and six carts are away. The villagers are close to panic though, Sir. We’ll need to allow a general withdrawal soon or we’ll have a riot on our hands.”
Rhenkin nodded. “Open the gates and let them go. I didn’t really want to do that until those bastards started to advance, but I don’t think they’re going to until they've breached the walls.”
Larson looked out to the battlefield. The Bjornmen hadn’t really moved since they’d driven the defenders back, preferring to use their siege engines, but now they were drawing close. “I don't imagine they can have much left in the way of stone, Sir,” he shrugged.
As if in response, the trebuchets leapt forward, lofting a barrage of firepots towards the village. Rhenkin threw himself flat on the platform, barely aware that he'd screamed out the order to get down. The pots struck and then a wave of heat passed over him, scorching his skin despite his prone position. The flames soared high as the stench of burning pitch filled the air.
He pulled himself to
his feet and staggered back from the heat, one arm flung over his face to ward off the flames. The entire section of palisade was engulfed by fire. Had he been just ten feet farther along the wall, he would have joined the men that had fallen screaming to the earth.
He heard Larson call for water and bucket chains, but he knew it was futile. The logs closest to him were already steaming in the heat. An entire day’s work soaking the palisade had been undone in moments. Another section of the wall exploded into flames. The Bjornmen had found the range now.
“Larson, get those back gates open and pass the word for the villagers to go,” he ordered, as he staggered towards the steps. “I want all the men off these walls. Squads of archers to form a retreating firing line back towards the inner palisade.” One last glance over the walls showed a massive ram being wheeled through the enemy lines.
He grabbed a corporal as he reached the bottom of the steps. “Get some men and dump the earth out of those carts against the front gates. I’ll be damned if we’re going to make this easy for them. Be sure to get them braced with beams first though.”
As Rhenkin made his way back to the heavy gates that would soon seal the inner palisade, he saw his men moving smoothly into position. Almost a third of the front wall was burning now. It wouldn’t be long.
The Bjornmen were already surging forwards by the time he’d made it onto the walls of the inner palisade. His men had abandoned the outer wall and moved into their new positions. A glance behind him revealed that the rear gates to the village had been thrown wide open, and a stream of carts and villagers was fleeing along the road.
The soldiers had braced the outermost gates with thick timber beams and then dumped earth from the carts onto the ground in front of them, piling it high and shovelling it against them. Rows of archers standing immediately behind the gates launched volley after volley over the walls. The need for any kind of accuracy was gone as the Bjornmen charged. The archers couldn’t help but hit something.
From where Rhenkin was standing, he could see the arrows were having little effect. The Bjornmen were in a tight formation with shields interlocked. Men were falling, but not nearly enough to make a difference.
The gates shook as the ram was brought into play and the impact resounded through the village. Smaller catapults were wheeled into position near the ranks of archers and logs began to fly over the walls. Rhenkin couldn’t see the results, but the screams of pain seemed testament enough to the fact that they were hitting their targets.
As he watched, a figure appeared on the outer wall, close to the gates. He was some distance away, but Rhenkin could see that he wasn’t in uniform and was too fat to be one of his men. He was running low, trying to make himself as small a target as possible for the crossbow bolts that flew past. He sped through the clouds of smoke carrying something under one arm. As the ram crashed into the gates again, he stumbled, dropping to one knee before throwing the object down over the wall. He tossed something down after it and then the ram was engulfed in bright blue and crimson flames.
Rhenkin grabbed a nervous soldier. “Find out who that is,” he ordered, pointing at the wall.
A hail of heavy crossbow bolts rained down inside the gate, dropping the closely packed archers like flies. While the Bjornmen all had shields, Rhenkin’s archers were unarmoured and the heavy bolts caught them completely by surprise. He muttered bitter curses as they fell and the survivors scattered.
The catapults lurched forward again, hurling small wooden casks out over the walls. Rhenkin shaded his eyes as he watched the missiles fly, and fresh crimson and blue flames shoot up from the Bjornman lines.
He turned his head at the sound of footsteps to see the soldier he’d dispatched returning with the innkeeper in tow.
“That was you on the wall?” Rhenkin asked, in surprise.
Owen nodded, his face pale and his hands shaking visibly. “My best brandy,” he explained. “The bastards might be burning my village down, but I’ll be damned if they're going to drink my stock.”
Rhenkin grinned and slapped the man on the back. “I thought I caught a whiff of something.” He glanced at the rear gates. “You’d better get your family out of here, Owen. It’s going to get ugly soon and you want to get a lead on these bastards.”
Owen nodded and looked past Rhenkin towards the dark stain of the Bjornman army that extended out to the trees on the horizon. “We’ll be gone in half an hour. I’ve a brother in Kavtrin that I think it might be time to visit.”
“Not a bad idea. We’ll be pulling back ourselves once we’ve bled them as much as we can here. The meeting point was supposed to be Carik’s Fort, but I won’t blame you for going your own way.” He held a gloved hand out. “Good luck.”
“Luck to you, Captain,” Owen said, grasping his hand. “You’ve done everything that could be done here. Some will blame you anyway, but I want to thank you for it.”
Rhenkin nodded once and turned back to the battle.
The gates shook again as a hail of rocks crashed into them, then they slammed inwards against the mound of earth piled behind them as the heavy crossbar tore apart. With a tortured creak, a section of palisade to the right of the gates, weakened by fire and the barrage of rocks, first sagged and then fell away, crashing down into the compound. There was a moment of shocked silence and then cheers rose from beyond the walls, as the Bjornmen began to pour through the breach.
Rhenkin watched in silence. There was no need to bark orders now. For the moment, they were already given. It was time to let his men do their jobs. The archers fired in ranks, loosing arrows and then sprinting through the rows of men behind them to their next position. The constant hail of arrows took its toll and the Bjornman charge faltered as bodies littered the earth until an effective shield wall could be formed.
The outer village beyond the inner palisade had become a killing field. The extra buildings required due to the influx of refugees and the demands of the Rhenkin's own forces, had almost filled the area which had once contained cottages and small fields. The defenders launched furious counter-attacks from the new streets and squares as the Bjornmen pushed their way forward, striking from ambushes when they could but then melting away before the Bjornmen could truly engage.
Rhenkin watched the line of carts as the villagers fled through the rear gates. The village had been neatly bisected by a line of collapsed houses and buildings, with the inner palisade at the centre. Though it might have been possible to clear the debris, it would have taken time and the Bjornmen were pushing directly towards the inner gates. It was obvious they were seeking to neutralise Rhenkin's forces as quickly as possible.
The assault on the inner gates, when it came, was overwhelming. As Rhenkin's troops retreated behind the walls, the Bjornmen pulled back, holding their positions at the outer wall, as the trebuchets were slowly wheeled forward. He could do little more than watch. The range of the siege engines was such that they could fire from way outside of the breached outer walls. First firepots, then rocks and then massive sections of tree trunk were hurled at the inner palisade and the gates.
“Sergeant!” he shouted at a man further along the walkway.
“Sir.” The man snapped off a salute. Rhenkin fought back a burst of irrational laughter. A parade ground salute in the middle of a hail of rocks and burning pitch. It all seemed so ridiculous, somehow.
“Find me a corporal, man,” Rhenkin barked.
The man rushed down the steps into the village as Rhenkin glowered out over the walls.
“Orders, Sir?” The officer was a fresh-faced man with an immaculate uniform.
“Bloody droos, man, what are you? Twelve?” Rhenkin swore. “Never mind that.” He raised a hand as the man sputtered and started to protest. “We’re going to lose this wall soon. I want archers on every roof that will hold them, with ropes in position to let them down.”
The man nodded smartly and began to turn away.
“I’m not finished yet!” Rhenkin snapped. “No
heroics. I want every archer off the roofs and back behind our lines before they are truly threatened.”
Another section of tree trunk sailed over village and crashed into the gates. The impact threw them inwards and, already weakened by fire, they gave a tortured groan as they twisted and then fell.
“Don't just stand their gawping, man,” Rhenkin shouted. “Move!”
The lieutenant snapped another salute off and hurried to the steps.
“And tell Larson to get back over here!” Rhenkin called after him.
The interior of the village had been almost completely transformed. Piles of logs and debris from collapsed buildings had turned the once open and airy place into a maze of twisting corridors and tiny lanes.
The Bjornmen surged through the streets, meeting no resistance for the first five or ten seconds. A horn sounded and each of the men on the rooftops of the buildings closest to the breach rose to one knee and drew back on his bowstring. The arrows flew at the Bjornmen from all sides and hundreds died in a moment, falling to the ground, their screams mixing with the battle cries in a bizarre chorus.
The mass of raiders recoiled like a burnt snake and they crouched low, reforming their formation of interlocked shields. The advance halted altogether for a moment, while arrows slammed into shields as the archers searched for a weakness.
A unit of pikemen charged around the corner. They threw themselves into the fray, easily finding the cracks in the shield wall with their long weapons and thrusting them deep, decimating the stricken Bjornmen. They withdrew quickly, before the Bjornmen could gather themselves, and more arrows lanced down from the rooftops.
A raider tossed a flaming torch up onto a thatched roof and, as if this was the signal, more followed. Within moments, half a dozen buildings were suddenly alight.
Rhenkin swore as his plans dissolved into chaos. The Bjornmen locked shields and advanced slowly through the streets, touching flame to thatch as they went. The archers did their best but, in one stroke, their time had been cut in half. Barely had they loosed an arrow, when they were forced to flee to the next roof or down into the streets.
The Riven Wyrde Saga boxed set Page 50