by GJ Kelly
“Two hours until sunset,” Valin sighed, “And the clouds are thinning.”
“Serre Crellan?” Elayeen called on a sudden whim inspired by Valin’s observation.
“Aye, lady Ranger?”
“Remind us to compliment Tam o’ The Leg on the accuracy of his weather forecast. If he’s awake when next you see him.”
“Hah!” Crellan’s face cracked with sudden and unexpected laughter, “I shall! He’ll like that, so ‘e shall!”
Grins plastered the crews’ faces too, but they were strained, nervous, and desperate. The elves had seen such expressions before, at Far-gor.
“How do they travel?” Valin asked his wife, quietly.
“In a single group with no discernible order. I saw nothing to gainsay your estimate of their numbers, mihoth.”
“We’ll all know soon enough,” Elayeen asserted, “Come, let’s move nearer the centre, behind the larger stacks of hay. It wouldn’t do for the enemy to spy three of elfkind leaning idly on their bows out in the open here. What was the view from up there, Meeya, did anything strike you as out of place when you rode down?”
“Only the smoke from the chimneys, Leeny, and only because I cannot believe the residents of Fallowmead would make fire so readily available to their enemies.”
“Nor I,” Elayeen admitted.
“They are terrified, miThalin, and take comfort from simple daily routines. Besides, if our line fails, it will not matter how they spent their final hours, except to them.”
Elayeen stepped up on a bale, and peered over the makeshift wall of the haystack, summoning the Sight. There was nothing yet, trees, distance and terrain conspiring to shield the enemy from view.
“I ate all the buttercakes, Leeny, sorry!” Meeya announced softly, shaking crumbs out of a small sack and tossing it onto the bale by Elayeen’s boots before climbing up to stand beside her.
“No you didn’t, Meemee, I filched one and kept it in my cloak while you weren’t looking.”
“Oh! You are become sneaky as well as nasty in battle!”
“For which I blame you, you do know that, don’t you?”
“Me? Why me?
“It was you who butchered my hair, and made of me the sneaky, nasty scarecrow you now stand beside. And it was your eating of almost all the buttercakes too which has condemned my poor legs to remain little more than sticks in boots.”
“And nothing to do with wandering around the wilds for weeks on end with ghastly frak and the poorest of diets.”
“I think G’wain actually put on weight the last time.”
“Perhaps the strange horse-throth he shares with Gwyn means he puts on weight when she eats all that good Jurian grass.”
Elayeen smiled. “I’ll ask him for you when he comes for us.”
“I’d rather you didn’t, Leeny. He has always been suspicious of Valin and I, ever since the Barak-nor. It’s why Vali doesn’t like speaking with him. If you were to tell Thal-Gawain I thought he was throth-bound to his horse there’s no telling what he might do.”
“True,” Elayeen smiled disarmingly. “Something to be remembered next time there’s a sack of buttercakes on hand.”
“Should I say ‘ah’ now?”
“Yes.”
“Ah.”
“D’you think I should speak with the men, they seem on the verge of tears, some of them?”
“Thal-Gawain would. He would probably tell them a funny story, or a joke.”
“I’m not he, Meemee. I’m not he, and I don’t know what to do or say now the time’s come!”
Meeya blinked, Elayeen’s use of contractions an indication of the depth of her sudden feelings of doubt. “Leeny, you have brought them this far. They have done all you asked of them, and they have placed all their hopes in you. On your shoulders now rests the future of Fallowmead, they put it there. Don’t shirk it off and put it back on theirs, the weight of it now would break them.”
Elayeen sighed, heart hammering, butterflies swarming, worms of doubt gnawing. But she took a deep breath, and with a last glance at the tree line, hopped down from the bale and strode across to Crellan and Chert Ardbinder.
“Do you have something to keep your voice hale, Serre Crellan?”
“I do, lady Ranger!” and Crellan produced a hipflask. “Good Jurian brandy it is, had a couple of bottles of it in Sudshear, three, oh, four year ago now. Kept some back all this time, for something special…”
“It is not for me, Serre Crellan, but for you. It will be noisy, and my voice is soft and will not be heard over the din. You’ll have to repeat my commands to our friends.”
“Aye, aye I shall!”
“Master Firesmith, I hope you have not worn your ‘stone to a nub with all the handling you’ve given it this day?”
Chert Ardbinder’s eyes narrowed, trying to work out whether Elayeen had intended a double entendre or not. Crellan grinned, and then the Firesmith finally smiled.
“Ain’t no worry where my sticks an’ stones’re concerned, lady. Allus get a spark when it’s needed.”
“Then strike hard when the order is given, Chert Ardbinder. What fire you raise this day is not just for us and for Fallowmead, but for all Arrun.”
“Won’t be no chore, lady. Won’t be no chore.”
Elayeen moved then to the first of the immense catapults, and Fergal and his crew.
“Is all well, Master Fergal?”
“Aye, lady Ranger. Taut where taut’s needed, bolts and beams all sound. Time’s coming then, for the real test?”
“Soon,” Elayeen eyed the engine’s arm, held back against tremendous pressure. “You have good clearance for the swing? And the winding in?”
“We do, lady. You say the word, we’ll raise ‘em up and let loose and wind ‘er back again. She’ll go well, as will ‘er sister yonder.”
“It’ll be Crellan Jokdaw gives my orders when the din of battle rises, Master Fergal.”
“Aye, we know… I built these presses years ago, they beams are sound. They’ll stay sound now, my word on it. You may rely on ‘em, lady Ranger.”
“I rely on you, Master Fergal, and your crews. The tool is nothing without a hand to wield it. Tomorrow, these sound beams will be back in the shed, ready to press wool at the next shearing.”
“Aye, such is our hope too.”
And so Elayeen moved the length of the line, with quiet words uttered in her calm and lilting voice, betraying none of the fear she herself felt, none of the doubts. When she looked behind and to her left at the immense shed, the doors stood open, Arbo leaning casually against them as if enjoying the day, a pitchfork propped within easy reach beside him. She held up a hand to show that she had seen him, and he in turn raised a hand to his heart, though from a greater distance it would not have seemed like a salute, but more like an idle youth scratching at his armpit. Incredibly, two women were up the track and at the well, drawing water…
“The scouts have reached the tree line, miThalin,” Valin announced.
She flicked her gaze up the slope, and saw the four muddy lights of the Meggen squatting in the trees.
“Pass the word quietly, Serre Crellan, she called softly, “They come.”
The word passed, men moved as quietly as they could, squatting low and taking up slack on ropes.
“The rest come,” Meeya announced needlessly, “And they are not slowing.”
Elayeen’s mouth went suddenly dry at the sight of so many lights advancing through the trees to join the scouts, and had but the faintest glimpse of a dark glow well to their rear before the Meggen burst soundlessly from the trees and onto the slope.
There was no commotion. No din. No yelling. They simply ran, fast, bunched together at first but beginning to move apart slowly, speed increasing, the long, crude maces clutched tightly and flashing up and down as their arms pumped. Hair, wild and matted, streamed behind them, beards likewise, giving the eerie impression of a horde of wolf-men padding silently down the slope towards them, c
lothing little more than rags.
Behind them, and the gap slowly widening, half a dozen Gorian mercenaries, curved swords gleaming, trying desperately to keep up with the wildmen of the north, but standing little chance of keeping pace with Men of Gothen bred for violence and war in service to their black king, Morloch.
Geography and the subliminal illusion created by the vee of wagons and carts seemed to combine, guiding the silently sprinting enemy straight towards the gap left at the point of the vee and the track beyond it leading directly up to the village square. No lure was needed to attract the Meggen to the heart of the village, where smoke from chimneys and the mouth-watering aromas of cooking meat spoke of blood and lives for the taking.
Elayeen, standing on a bale and her muddy brown straw-like cropped hair invisible against the haystack, watched, wide-eyed, heart pounding. The vision before her was surreal, the enemy moving so quickly, and so silently. A voice seemed to whisper inside her head, but it was her own, calm, detached, dispassionate, as if making notes while observing an experiment.
Most of them are barefoot… the voice whispered, and she flicked away the Sight, and it was true, most of the Meggen were indeed running barefoot down the slope, boots or shoes lost in the wrecking of the ship perhaps.
The Goth-lord remains in the trees. He is cautious. He has given them their head, the better to control them later when they are sated.
“Steady,” she called softly, remembering where she was.
“Steady now lads!” Crellan called, repeating the order.
“Woss appnin, Crellan?” a voice called back, tremulous, fearful.
The men cannot see the enemy approaching, they are low behind the bales.
“Steady on lad, we’ll all see soon enough!”
At four hundred yards, halfway down the slope and the incline beginning to ease, the group of some fifty Men of Gothen began to slow a little, though it seemed to Elayeen those in the front ranks were jockeying for position, perhaps for the honour of being the first to kill something or someone in the village.
They are now within bowshot.
They were. Three hundred yards from the line, but still short of the mouth of the vee, into whose gaping maw they ran, unwitting, the lure of the wide track at the point and its clear path into the village irresistible. For Elayeen and her friends to loose upon them now would scatter the foe immediately, and herald catastrophe.
“Stand by the ropes.”
“Stand by the ropes, stand by the ropes!”
Men took the strain, and dug in their heels.
They are in the mouth of the vee.
But the mercenary stragglers, six of them, were at least twenty yards outside the maw of the funnel, and slowing fast, tired and not driven by the same bloodlust as the Meggen.
Swords and maces, no ranged weapons.
“Fire the vee! Raise the beams!”
Crellan’s voice boomed out the moment Chert Arbinder’s firestone struck steel, raining sparks onto the end of the fuse-rope.
“Raise the beams! Raise ‘em up lads!”
Flame shot along the ground, following the rope out to the knot where it forked left and right, whooshing with astonishing speed, flashing from cart to cart, wagon to wagon, great balls of flame roiling and billowing skyward, the fireballs lighting up the vee and the slope.
At the same time, men heaved, and the two catapults lifted, timbers creaking, tilting skyward, heavy beams reaching for the clouds. At the same moment they settled vertically on their bases, the front ranks of the Meggen encountered the first line of pit-traps three quarters of the way up the vee from the point.
Six went down at once, screaming, feet ripped, legs broken, others tripped over them, some simply trampled over their downed countrymen heedless of their welfare. Three Meggen leapt over their fallen comrades, grinning wildly, only for the ground to disappear beneath their feet and for them to greet the same agony as those they’d hurdled.
“Load ready!” Elayeen shouted, and nodded to her friends, stringing an arrow.
“Load ‘em up! Load ready!” Crellan shouted.
The men could see the enemy now, flanked by flame and being compressed by the heat. There was a sudden whooshing, alarming and utterly unexpected, and great gouts of fire spewed from the sides of the blazing wagons and carts, spurting towards the enemy in the vee, searing skin, hair and whiskers.
“Yes! Yes! Weren’t no chore! Weren’t no chore ya bastards!” Chert Ardbinder screamed, punching the air in triumph and rage.
No longer were the enemy silent. Screams of pain and battle-cries of ‘Yattar!’ shattered the peace beneath the roar and crackling of fire.
They are at the centre and about to encounter the second line.
“Shoot now! Shoot now!” and Elayeen loosed her arrow.
Three Meggen fell, shot by arrows, and then the horde struck the second line of pitfalls. A dozen went down screaming this time, compressed as they were by the gouts of fire that had spewed forth from the wagons.
Two loud bangs from the right and the left signalled the loosing of the catapults, and two sacks tumbled end over end away into the vee. At almost the same time, two lesser concussions signalled the loosing of the wooden grappinbows, bottles flying towards the enemy.
At once, the crews frantically began winding capstans to re-cock the mighty engines for another salvo.
Two great white clouds billowed up in front of the advancing Meggen, and the pitch and intensity of their screaming increased dramatically. The sacks of quicklime had burst on impact, the caustic powder billowing, searing Meggen eyes and lungs. Bottles from the bows burst, showering lye up the slope in a fine mist.
Still the Meggen advanced, eyes streaming, coughing, some blind, others choking, tripping and falling, staggering and succumbing to the traps of the third line.
They will not stop until they are dead, or you are.
“Bring down the mercenaries,” Elayeen called in elvish, and loosed at the small group of Gorians fleeing the battle back up the slope. Three of them went down in the blink of an eye, and then the grappinbows thrummed again, more bottles of lye flying out into the vee.
The Goth-lord is fleeing towards the south.
At the top of the slope, the dark wizard, alone, was hurrying south and east, away from the battle, not waiting to witness the outcome, his life far more precious to him than any other.
Another bang, a barrel of quicklime tumbling through the air, and then another, from the left. They were heavier than the sacks had been, and burst a dozen or more yards in front of the advancing Meggen, sending plumes of powder roiling up the slope and into their faces.
“Keep shooting!” Elayeen called, and Crellan repeated the order.
There was a sudden crack from the far right of the line, and shouts, and swearing. The makeshift grappinbow there had snapped a winding-rope. Urman rushed to the scene, a coil of rope over his shoulder to set to the repairs.
They have yet to encounter the fourth line of traps.
“Stand fast,” Elayeen ordered Meeya and Valin, again in elvish, the better to prevent Crellan suffering any confusion about repeating the command. No point wasting arrows.
The scene in the vee was appalling to behold. Meggen, dusted white with lime, staggering, still with mace in hand, choking, eyes streaming, blinded, garishly lit by flames from the blazing carts and wagons, bales and sheaves of hay bursting asunder with more gouts of fire, barrels of some flammable substance hidden within them by Chert Ardbinder exploding. The left grappinbow loosed with a crack, and a large blue glass bottle filled with lye arced out into the field, striking a Meggen clean in the head, killing him instantly and shattering as it did, spraying its caustic contents in a fine mist over those behind him.
Another bang, and two small casks sailed up and far out into the vee, bursting on the ground in the midst of the first line of lamed Meggen still crawling forward towards the point. Then those in the front ranks encountered the fourth and final line of pit-
traps, a hundred yards from the point and the stream marking Fallowmead’s eastern border on Elayeen’s map. This line, being the shortest, was the broadest.
A crack from the right, the second grappinbow’s winch-rope replaced, and this time, instead of a magnum of lye flying out to meet the enemy, a small cloud of assorted nails, bolts, stones and metal off-cuts tore into their ranks, if indeed the group of lurching, stumbling barbarians could be described using such an orderly and disciplined term.
“Stand away!” Chert Ardbinder called from the foot of the left catapult, and the crew hurried back from the weapon. He knelt by a barrel, and with ‘stone and steel lit a fuse, then turned, grabbed the rope tied to the catapult’s release latch, and heaved.
The barrel sailed up into the air, narrowly missing the end of the launching arm as the sling heaved it tumbling up into the sky. It was clearly heavier than anything else they’d launched thus far, and clearly dangerous. It tumbled, wobbling and rolling in the air towards the middle of the line where the knot of Meggen were lurching forward, and it began slowly falling.
What is it?
Elayeen watched the barrel as it fell back to earth, wondering at its obvious weight and the fuse Chert Arbinder had lit before launching it into the air. Then it landed in the midst of the enemy. For the briefest of moments she thought she saw the barrel’s hoops and staves burst apart, revealing a dark and treacly substance, but then that substance ignited, and the scene disappeared in the flash of an immense fireball that rose like a roiling mushroom into the sky.
The makeshift grappinbows continued loosing their bottles and shrapnel, and the heavy catapults launched three more salvoes of quicklime and casks of lye before Elayeen ordered them to cease and stand ready.
But there was nothing for them to stand ready for. In the vee, the Meggen left alive writhed, squirmed, or twitched. None were standing. The ground was littered with them, some living but dying horribly, most dead, the land blotched black with fire or white with the caustic powder spread upon it. One sheep still lived, its fleece covered in lime, bleating pitifully, its back broken by a Meggen mace. Elayeen shot it without hesitation, and then turned to face the men of Fallowmead.