by Duncan Lay
Ward, accompanied by Captain Edmund, had ridden over to see them and confirm they were ready to protect the Forlish from anything the elves might try. He had looked magnificent in his armour, while none of the Velsh wore anything more protective than a tunic.
‘Will the elves seek to kill you? Or will we be seen as the bigger threat?’ he asked.
‘You will be, at first. But when we stop them, they will look to us. Sumiko has tried, and failed, several times to kill us all,’ Huw replied.
‘Then keep back. If the elves get close, I will have a company stand over you with shields. But I would prefer to keep them in the line.’
‘We can also protect ourselves,’ Huw said.
‘No doubt. But better safe than sorry, eh? We will let you know when the elves are sighted.’
He had ridden away then.
Huw sniffed. ‘A company of men, eh? So they can cut us down when the Elfarans are fleeing.’
‘It is a good idea. A company is no threat to us,’ Sendatsu said mildly. ‘And the Elfarans will not flee easily.’
‘We’ll see when they get here.’
But nothing happened for turns of the hourglass. The cloud prevented them seeing the sun but all guessed it had climbed almost all the way to noon without a sign of the Elfarans. Above them, a dozen eagles flew casually in loops, kept there by a pair of Velsh Magic-weavers, in case Sumiko sent birds to spy on them.
Then Asami saw a different cloud, a dark, forbidding shape flying towards them. She pointed. ‘What is that?’
Others looked, not just the Velsh but the closest Forlish as well.
‘That’s no cloud. There is not enough wind to move anything that fast,’ Sendatsu said.
‘Prepare yourselves!’ Rhiannon cried.
The Velsh jumped to their feet, their actions alerting the nearby Forlish, although the rest of them slumbered on, not caring about what happened over their heads.
Within a few heartbeats, it became obvious this was not a cloud but a flock of birds, moving purposefully together.
‘We’re going to need more eagles,’ Sendatsu said grimly.
At a signal from the Velsh, the eagles soared across to dive into the flock of birds — but they proved to be not mild-mannered pigeons and the like but instead birds of prey, big ravens and crows, all ready to fight back.
The eagles were swallowed up by the flock and the screeches and cries and dead bodies falling out of the air made even the sleepiest soldier sit up. The fight could only go one way and the flock flew on, sweeping down across the top of the soldiers, forcing them to duck and raise their shields. On the flanks, the horses had to be held tight as birds swooped low at their eyes.
‘Break in — send them away!’ Rhiannon cried.
Wherever she looked, birds stopped swooping and turned and flew away. But for many of the Velsh Magic-weavers, breaking the hold of another Magic-weaver was not so easy.
‘The bird’s mind is in there — find it and set it free!’ Rhiannon shouted, as dozens of birds still looped and dived down at the Forlish. ‘Protect the horses first!’
Asami was already concentrating on the ones on the left flank. It took a few moments to lock onto an individual bird, then a few more to flick another mind from inside its head, like scooping an oyster from its shell. But there were scores of birds and she could only do so much.
Ward raced over on his horse, helm jammed tight on his head, a pair of guards flanking him, holding shields over his head.
‘I thought you were going to protect us!’ he roared.
‘We are.’ Huw pointed to where the last few birds threatening the horses were soaring away as fast as their wings could carry them. ‘Without us, your horses would be running for their stables even now.’
Ward looked back to where his soldiers still ducked and swore, shields held over their heads.
‘But what about the rest of my men?’
‘Can take care of themselves for a little longer, unlike your cavalry. But we will have them swept away soon,’ Huw promised.
With both Rhiannon and Asami helping, and the Velsh becoming better at freeing the birds with each attempt, the last of the birds were sent away and nervous soldiers put down their shields and looked around.
‘I thought you would provide us with a magical barrier of protection,’ Ward growled.
‘It is not that simple. We will defeat their attempts to stop you with magic but it will not be easy,’ Rhiannon told him.
‘Then what good is that?’
‘Would you rather we called all those birds back and had them start tearing out the eyes of your horses, Lord King?’ Rhiannon asked sharply.
Ward glared at her but merely nodded before saying, ‘Work faster next time.’
Huw stepped forwards to have his say, only for Sendatsu to hold him back. Before Huw could step around or protest, shouts came from the Forlish lines and Edmund trotted over to join them.
‘Sire, the scouts are racing back,’ he said quietly.
Coming so soon after the aerial attack, the sight of the scouts returning had an instant effect on the Forlish. Cavalry troopers climbed into the saddle and the front ranks of the infantry locked shields together with a crash.
‘Those scouts are fools. Have them put into the front rank for panicking the army,’ Ward ordered. ‘We had better prepare. And I hope you Velsh are ready this time!’
He rode off, leaving Huw fuming. ‘We should let him experience what it would be like without our help,’ he snarled.
‘That won’t aid our cause. And we knew he would be like this,’ Sendatsu said soothingly. ‘Think about Sumiko. Soon she will give him more than enough to worry about!’
‘I tell you, I hope she bloody does.’
‘They look pretty enough. But do they fight dirty, like us?’ Ward mused as he watched the elves march closer. They were in twelve distinct blocks, each one of a thousand or more, although their ranks were nowhere as neat as his men. Each block seemed to have a different colour of armour, the warriors all dressed differently but in the same shade. To a man used to the grey steel of chainmail and the black and white of his wolf colours, it looked strange indeed.
‘They fight like demons, sire,’ Edmund replied.
‘But for how long? Sendatsu is right. If things do not go their way, then we will have a chance. How far away do you think they are?’
‘Probably five hundred paces, sire. Too far for their bows to reach. Looks like their leader is firing them up with a speech, ready to let them loose on us.’
Ward looked out over his army, waiting in nervous silence.
‘Then I must do the same,’ he said, kicking his horse into motion.
Accompanied by Edmund, a handful of guards and his standard bearer, he rode slowly along the front of his army. He stood in his stirrups and roared at them.
‘You have followed me to victory after victory. You have never lost when I was there. Today will be the same. Fight for me, fight for the glory of Forland! This will be our final battle, our final victory, and every man will be rich at the end of it!’
Perhaps a thousand men could hear clearly, the rest knew something was going on but could not understand it, so he simply rode on, shouting out the same message as he went down.
‘That’s not a good speech. And it doesn’t even say the right things,’ Huw protested softly as Ward rode past where they waited.
‘Obviously he should have asked you to write one for him,’ Sendatsu said, amused.
‘He should! A great speech is a piece of art. The message has to be simple, reach down into hearts and set them alight, so men will stand when there is no reason to, do things they would not normally.’
‘Can words really make that much difference?’
‘You would be surprised.’ Huw watched Ward ride further down the line. ‘If you were all sitting around a warm fire, safe and full of food, a battle speech would sound ridiculous. Everything about it would make you laugh. But when you can smell death i
n the air, when every breath tastes sweet, for you don’t know if it will be your last, it can change history. You can reach into men’s heads, change them from farmers to warriors, put steel into spines and hate into hearts. The glory of Forland? The power of a king? Those are not things to get men fighting.’
‘The Forlish seem to like it,’ Sendatsu said mildly, as the Forlish in front of them bellowed at their king.
‘Any speech can make them cheer. A good one will make them fight, a great one will make them win,’ Huw said.
‘You need to be writing some of this down,’ Sendatsu said.
Huw chuckled. ‘Perhaps I should. I just hope I don’t have to make a speech like that.’
‘Careful what you wish for,’ Sendatsu said. ‘Things like that have a way of coming true.’
Ward rode back along the line, waving to his men, saluting his officers, until he had reached his spot in the centre of the formation. The lines opened smoothly and he rode through to the rear. Only then did he look again at the advancing elves.
‘How far now?’
‘Four hundred paces, I would say, sire,’ Edmund replied.
Ward shifted in his saddle and pointed at one of a dozen signallers. ‘That’s close enough. I don’t want those elven bows slaughtering our cavalry. Send them out and around.’
A flag was raised and both Wulf’s and Wilfrid’s standard bearers dipped their flags in response. Instantly the two cavalry wings swung out and around, looping around the flanks of the elves, aiming to attract their arrows and also compress the elves so they could not outflank the thick block of Forlish infantry.
‘Any moment now,’ Ward said happily.
‘Sire?’
‘Someone will begin our challenge. I always look forward to that.’
Caelin took comfort from being in the fifth of six ranks of the men. Of course he had seen how quickly even the rear lines could get caught up in the fighting but it was certainly better than being in the front rank. He rolled his head around and checked the straps on his helmet one more time, although he had done so a score of times already. He missed Hild and wondered how she was — and if the elven girl would protect the three of them.
‘It’s this waiting I hate. I wish they’d get a move on. Bloody elves have probably spent the morning prancing around and making up poetry,’ Ruttyn grumbled.
‘The king didn’t spend much time on his speech. Edmund always made good ones — even Captain Wulf was all right,’ Harald said.
‘What did you expect? A cosy chat for a turn of the hourglass?’
‘I don’t know! I’ve never fought with the king before, so I thought it would be a bit more — special, or something.’
‘There’ll be enough special to go around for everyone soon,’ Caelin told them.
‘It’s the waiting that’s the worst,’ Ruttyn said. ‘All you can think of is what’s coming, about sweaty hands and the need for a piss.’
‘You need something to take your mind off things. How about a song?’ Harald offered.
Caelin had had enough of marching songs; they would remind him too much of Hild. Instead, he began to knock his sword against his shield, making a rhythmic noise. Almost instantly it was taken up by others, men banging spear or sword on shield. The noise swelled and grew, while men began to shout at the elves, daring them to come closer and be killed, calling them cowards and women, promising vengeance for the families who died on the march south. Caelin stood taller, taking comfort from the men around him and the noise they were making, the challenge they were throwing out to the elves.
Sumiko was one of the few still mounted, with most of the horses in the care of a hundred or so warriors who had gone lame on the march south and had not healed properly, despite the help of priests. She stared at the mass of Forlish, who were shouting and thumping their shields in a coarsely threatening way in front of her.
Out to the left and right, the human cavalry circled, their threat obvious. While there were more than enough archers to turn a charge into a slaughterhouse, as soon as they took their attention away from the cavalry, they would be open to attack.
Every so often, a company or more of the cavalry would race towards the elves and the bows would go back. As soon as a volley was released, however, the cavalry would split apart and ride away, most of the arrows falling uselessly to the ground. Each time, a handful of horses and riders would be struck and thrown to the ground, to either bleed to death, lie there screaming or limp away. Sumiko ignored them. That was not where the battle would be won or lost — it was at the wall of spears that waited for her warriors.
‘Oroku, I want everyone to hear what I say,’ she instructed.
She halted her army about four hundred paces away from the mass of humans.
‘From our earliest age, our parents warned us of the horde of barbarian humans that waited outside our borders, held back only through the power of the magical barrier. That barrier is gone and the evil humans have attacked us three times, trying to steal all that is bright and good in this world. They want to tear down what we have built, while they have lived in filth! But today we stop them. Today we tell every evil monster out here that to threaten the elves is death. Today we take vengeance for the children they killed, for the mothers they slaughtered and burned in the Council Chamber, for the clan leaders and Elder Elf they betrayed and murdered. This is our chance to make a new barrier, to keep your families safe. Are you ready not just for revenge but to make a safe future for all our children?’
Her words echoed out across the thousands of elves, magically reaching every single ear, and they roared their desire for revenge back at her.
‘Remember what they did! Remember the heads of our brothers, stuck on their spears and carried as trophies, remember dead mothers and children, remember the fear as they marched to our very gates, the horror we all felt as they burned our Council Chamber! And destroy them!’
They were shouting now, calling for human blood, and she signalled to Oroku to stop the magic.
‘They are ready now. We advance,’ she said. ‘Use arrows to drive the horses away, the Magic-weavers to concentrate on their wall of shields. Use whatever means they prefer. It is better to have a dozen different attacks, so Asami and Rhiannon do not know what to defend against first,’ she said, and the word went out instantly to every Magic-weaver with every clan.
31
War is terrible. But sometimes you have to fight. It is true that no sensible man seeks a fight. But you can’t always avoid it, either. That can be worse than any battlefield.
It was a man two rows in front of Caelin who was struck first. One moment he was standing there, crashing his spear onto his shield, the next he was dropping them and jumping up and down and shouting.
That silenced everyone around him.
‘What is it?’ someone cried.
‘Ants!’ the man screamed.
One or two others, who had not been at the battle of Dokuzen, laughed, but Caelin could see this was not just a handful, but thousands, boiling up out of the ground and biting and stinging. The men around him began to back away, then they too were jumping around and shouting out in alarm.
More shouts to the left made Caelin look. The grass, which had been trampled flat by thousands of feet, was growing impossibly tall, twining around men and binding them more effectively than rope.
The front rank, which had been a bristling wall of spears, wood and iron, was thrown into disarray as the spears bent back upon themselves, the wood warping out of shape, while shields buckled and broke.
From the air came swarms of biting and stinging insects, while more birds began to swoop down from above, talons reaching for faces, beaks searching for eyes. Worst of all, men in the front line began screaming horribly as their armour heated up, sizzling through the leather backing and into the flesh beyond.
Instinctively, Caelin, Harald and Ruttyn clustered together, standing back to back rather than forming ranks. Around them the same action was repea
ted by a thousand other little groups. Men sought out their friends and stood with them, ignoring the shouts of the sergeants. In a matter of moments, the neat, ordered lines had turned into chaos and the defiant challenge was silenced, replaced by shouts, warnings and screams.
‘Hold fast! Help is coming!’ Ward roared out, his voice reaching Caelin and the others. But not all could hear him and Caelin felt the army would break at any moment.
‘Where is the Velsh magic?’ Harald cried.
‘Asami, you take care of the insects, you four get rid of the birds, six of you stop the plants, the rest of you restore bent spears and shields,’ Rhiannon ordered.
‘And you?’ Huw asked.
But Rhiannon did not have time to answer. She was looking for men pulling at their burning armour. They were easy to spot, for their friends were backing away from them, horrified. She reached into the magic and reversed it. The men whose armour had begun to glow stopped shouting as it cooled so fast that frost crackled on the rings of the chainmail. A couple whose red-hot iron rings had burned through their leather tunics to the skin still screamed, until she sent them to sleep.
She glanced around, seeking where she could help. Everywhere she looked, she sent insects scurrying back to hiding places, birds flying away — or at least to chase the fleeing insects. Grass withered, releasing winded warriors. Spears bent back into shape, shields were restored and shouting, frightened warriors fell silent. Rhiannon looked around frantically but could not see anything else that needed her attention.
The lines of Forlish looked at each other nervously, down at the ground and into the air. But when nothing else appeared to attack them, the sergeants began to shout and they shuffled back into lines, picking up the weapons they had dropped.
A score of wounded men, faces clawed open or stung badly by insects, staggered to the rear, while another dozen or so were carried out, including a few who had been burned by their armour, although ice flaked and crackled among the rings now.