by Duncan Lay
Ward’s blow was parried, then another elf stepped in and kicked out at Ward’s leg, flipping him up and over, his sword flying away. He gasped, all the air knocked out of him as he hit the ground, unable to rise.
‘Father!’ he heard Wilfrid call, then saw an elven sword burst through his son’s chest, driven through the mail with enormous force.
He had no time to mourn, as many hands grabbed him roughly and dragged him away.
‘They have him,’ Rhiannon reported dully.
Beside her, Edmund hung his head. He had watched Sendatsu and the Velsh battle valiantly but hopelessly as they fought to reach Ward. He saw how the Velsh had been able to cut down the elven warriors but they were unable to drag their accompanying Forlish shield wall with them fast enough. He had also seen the massacre of the men with Ward but had hoped against hope that somehow his king might find a way out.
‘Why did he go? Why?’ Rhiannon demanded. ‘It was madness!’
‘It was. It was like he was bewitched. His one thought was to save his son and nothing else.’
Rhiannon groaned. ‘Sumiko. She must have spoken to him, touched him, planted a seed of magic within him so he would do this. She had always had plans within plans.’
‘Can you free him?’
Rhiannon closed her eyes for a moment. ‘It is done. But I do not know how that will help us.’
‘It will not,’ Edmund said. ‘But at least it gives him a chance to die with honour, as himself.’
Rhiannon turned and saw the Forlish officer’s eyes were unnaturally bright, and his jaw was clenched with an effort to keep himself under control.
‘He was a bastard who slaughtered his way across these lands. And you mourn him?’ she asked.
Edmund shrugged and lowered his voice. ‘He was the closest thing to a father I had. And I mourn not just for him but for Forland as well. We are lost now.’
Ward felt his mind clear as he was hurried along by a dozen elves. He desperately searched for a way out of this. But nothing had come to him by the time he was dragged in front of a gloating Sumiko.
‘King Ward. Not so proud now, are you?’ she greeted him.
He tried to stand but elves kicked him in the back of the knees and dropped him down once more.
‘Kill me and get it over with. I don’t have the patience to talk to you,’ he said.
‘Kill you? I’m not going to kill you.’
Ward spat. ‘That’s right — you wanted me to be your servant. Well, you can try but first chance I get, you will be dead.’
Sumiko smiled at him. ‘Such anger and violence. No wonder you humans have not risen out of the mud since we left these lands. No, I do not require you to be my servant. I shall let you and your family live in comfortable exile. All you have to do is tell your men to lay down their arms, and hand over the traitors Sendatsu, Asami and Rhiannon to me.’
Ward stared at her with loathing. ‘My last son is dead — killed by your warriors just then.’
Sumiko did not blink. ‘He will not be dead yet, I am sure. And we can heal him in an instant. Think of it. Your son returned to you. A palace by the sea. Any comfort you desire. All for handing over a few worthless traitors and making your people bow down before me.’
‘How can Rhiannon be a traitor? She is Forlish,’ Ward said.
Sumiko chuckled. ‘She has magic, which is ruled by me. By fighting against me she is a traitor.’
‘And for that you will let me go?’
‘You have my word on it.’
Ward glanced around and saw the way the elves were looking at him as though he was an animal — and one marked for slaughter, at that.
‘You get your son back, just by doing this for me,’ Sumiko said enticingly.
Ward felt a strange compulsion to agree with her, but perhaps the blows he had taken had changed him, for he was able to resist it.
‘You are afraid of Rhiannon, Asami and Sendatsu. That is why you want them,’ he said.
‘Afraid? Me? I fear nothing and nobody. I want what is mine returned to me, that is all. You do not have to do much. I will even let you keep ruling your people, raise the Forlish up into the status of Elf Friends. You will be first among the humans, safe with your family, your son at your side, every comfort you could want, just for saving the lives of your men from my wrath. Think on it, for I shall not offer it again.’
‘And the other lands?’
‘They will be enslaved by us, just as you enslaved them.’
‘And the magic?’
‘Is mine, as it always was. Now choose, for my patience grows short!’
Ward nodded wearily. He could see how the elves despised him, it was written all over their faces — so much so that they had stopped holding him down on his knees.
‘It seems like an easy choice. I owe Rhiannon, Asami and Sendatsu nothing. And I have enslaved and brought misery to many other countries,’ Ward said.
‘Good. We shall send healers to find your son —’
‘But there’s one thing you don’t know about me,’ Ward interrupted, his voice firming. ‘I did not do anything for myself, nor even my sons. It was for all humans, to see us rise once more. You are right to fear Rhiannon. For she will destroy you …’ Ward kept talking as he surged to his feet and elbowed the nearest elf in the face, then grabbed his sword and turned to stab Sumiko to death. He went to take the final pace, except all the strength had gone from his legs. He fell to the ground, still trying to force his arm to move, then all went black.
‘You should not have killed him!’ Sumiko thundered. ‘He is worth nothing to me dead!’
‘My apologies, High One. He was about to stab you. What else was I supposed to do?’ Mogasai replied, sheathing his blade with a flourish.
‘He could not have harmed me,’ Sumiko said angrily.
‘My apologies again, High One. I saw the danger to you and sought only to protect you.’
Sumiko glared at him for a moment longer and he kept his face expressionless, before she nodded once to dismiss him.
‘We shall have to do this the hard way,’ she said. ‘Take his head and put it on one of their spears and send it forwards. As soon as they see it, launch every arrow we have at their centre, then I’ll break their line and we finish this once and for all.’
‘They have little magic and few arrows left,’ Sendatsu said. ‘We have to go on the attack. We can’t let them come for us.’
He said it with all the strength he could muster but Edmund shook his head.
‘The men know the king is dead. Their confidence is shaken. We would do better withdrawing for the day,’ Edmund said.
‘Sumiko is not going to let you just walk away,’ Sendatsu warned. ‘Don’t let fear stop you.’
‘I have commanded before, many times! The king has rarely been with the armies these last ten years,’ Edmund said heatedly.
‘But the last time you fought the elves you did not dare to test us and, with Dokuzen at your mercy, you chose to pull back. The memory of that failure haunts you still but you have to put it aside now and fight this battle.’
‘For someone trying to persuade me to agree with you, you certainly like to insult me,’ Edmund said heatedly.
‘Now is the time for the painful truth. Now is the last chance you will have to turn back these elves. Send your men forwards, get them to avenge your king while you still can,’ Sendatsu said passionately.
He could see Edmund wavering and tried to find the words to convince him. He would have liked Huw to help, for the bard was ever ready with words, but he had also created the problem by holding back on the magic and Sendatsu did not want to see him yet, for fear of losing his temper.
Then a howl went up from the ranks of Forlish and they both turned to see a head on a spear being paraded along the elven ranks.
‘Your king is dead and you will soon follow,’ Sumiko’s voice boomed over all, the magic ensuring it carried to everyone.
‘Attack! Attack now!’ Sendatsu
urged.
‘Too late,’ Edmund said sadly.
The arrows began first, a torrent of them, bringing down men and filling the shields of the others. Thousands of shafts, all landing on the centre of the Forlish line. And they did not stop, an endless stream that found tiny holes in the shield wall and made them larger by wounding and killing.
‘You have no cavalry left to take the pressure off. They can’t stand much more of this. You need to attack,’ Sendatsu said.
Then, while the arrows were still raining down, thick as hail and far more deadly, the front rank’s shields were shattered in a burst of magic once more.
Even as Sendatsu was opening his mouth to shout out to Rhiannon, the Forlish broke.
The centre could not stand under the killing rain of arrows and, without protection of shields, the front ranks pushed back, trying to get to safety. The second rank did not want to let them through and began to backpedal, all the time with the arrows falling.
The remains of the front rank pushed harder and that was it — everybody began to run backwards. What had been the hard centre of the Forlish swiftly became an empty gap — and the arrows made it impossible for the two wings to even think about pushing together and sealing the hole.
Not that they had the chance.
The elves rushed forwards, swords thirsting for human flesh and the two wings saw they had no chance either. They began to back up, then everyone was running and what had been a disciplined army turned into a rabble.
The elves, lighter on their feet without heavy shields and armour, began to overtake, cutting down the wounded as they tried to limp for safety.
‘Do something!’ Sendatsu shouted.
But Edmund was just watching the disaster unfold, his mouth open, nothing coming out of it.
34
Never give up. That seems like an obvious thing to say but too many people give up when things turn for the worse, or get too difficult. Don’t follow them.
Wulf saved the Forlish.
Forced to stay out on the left wing, forced to watch as men died and his king was killed, holding stubbornly to his orders, which had seen dozens of his men killed or wounded to no effect, Wulf had had enough.
His men swept in from the side, sweeping along after the fleeing soldiers, catching elves who had pressed too close. Strung out, eager to kill the fleeing humans, the first of the chasing elves were easy meat. Even better, the mixture of elves and humans all together made it impossible for the elven archers to aim at Wulf’s men.
Sendatsu grabbed Edmund by the shoulder. ‘He’s buying you time! Get your men under control and back towards the city. The day is growing late — there is light for only another turn of the hourglass or two. You can get most of your men away.’
‘What is the point?’ Edmund asked dully.
‘The point?’ Sendatsu shook him, conscious of the fact the elves were getting closer and although Cadel and his dragons, as well as Rhiannon and Asami, were between them and the elves, they were looking increasingly isolated and nervous.
‘We can’t let them win. Don’t you want to avenge Ward? Do you want to be a slave for the rest of your life?’
‘Don’t you understand? We have lost, we might as well give up now!’ Edmund shouted back at him.
‘You saved your men and got them back after Dokuzen last time — you can do it again!’
‘We cannot win,’ Edmund repeated, but there was less conviction in his voice now.
‘Sendatsu!’ Rhiannon called.
‘Yes, we can win. And I know how. Trust me. Get your men back and I’ll tell you how. Or do you want to shame your king, betray everything he did for you?’
Edmund’s face hardened and he nodded then raced off, the marshals following him. Sendatsu joined Asami, Rhiannon and the dragons. Huw and the Magic-weavers had hurried across to meet them and now all the Velsh were together.
‘What was all that about?’ Gaibun held a horse for Sendatsu to climb onto. The dragons and Magic-weavers were riding double but they were in little danger of being overrun by Sumiko’s advancing warriors. ‘Are we going to cut east and then try to attack Sumiko as she goes past? That was what I planned to do to Ward’s men when they were marching on Dokuzen and it would work just as well here. With nightfall, a few elven faces and plenty of magic, we could be upon her before she even knew.’
‘There is no coming back from an attack like that,’ Sendatsu warned.
‘Did you think it was going to end any differently? Especially now? And I, for one, will go happily to my ancestors if I can take her with me.’
‘It has little chance of working,’ Sendatsu said.
‘What else is there? We are dead anyway, so why not go out fighting?’
‘We have not lost yet,’ Sendatsu said, watching the cautious advance of the elves. The threat of Wulf’s cavalry was keeping them back and the elven horses were miles to the rear.
Huw laughed disbelievingly and pointed back to the battlefield. ‘Is this what a victory looks like?’ he demanded.
Sendatsu could see just as well. Wounded men crawled or staggered away, pleading for their mates to come and save them. The elves showed them no mercy. Even those lying on the ground were despatched with brutal swiftness. The ground was carpeted with dead and dying men, the only live ones the wounded who had not yet been killed by the elves. It was a heaving, screaming horror.
The elves moved across it slowly, not rushing forwards in pursuit. Sendatsu suspected they thought the humans would simply give up, that all they had to do was walk up to the gates of Cridianton tomorrow and find the entire population on its knees, begging for mercy. Realistically, that was still probably going to happen. But Sendatsu would rather hand Asami over to Sumiko than leave it there.
‘We lost today but that does not mean we have lost tomorrow,’ Sendatsu told them.
‘Ward is dead, maybe a third of the Forlish army has followed him and you expect them to just line up and do it all again?’ Huw asked.
‘No.’
Huw’s eyebrows raised in surprise. ‘So you have come to your senses?’
‘I never lost them. We will get more men and we will face them once more. They have suffered as well and will be almost out of arrows.’
‘More men? From where?’
‘The Velsh, for starters. Then we shall free all the slaves in Cridianton. Most of them were taken from the armies of the southern countries. Give them swords and they will fight.’
Huw stared at him. In fact, Sendatsu could feel everyone staring at him.
‘They won’t fight for Ward and Forland. Forland burned their cities, killed their wives and took their children. And we won’t fight for Ward either. Offering them magic is one thing but we need the dragons to protect Vales. I am not throwing them away here to try to save Forland. That is lost.’
Sendatsu guided his horse closer to Huw.
‘You don’t understand. Ward’s Forland is gone. The one that destroyed the south died with the man today. The slaves would never fight for Ward. But they will fight for you.’
‘Me?’ Huw’s surprise was all too obviously not feigned now.
‘That’s right. You are going to persuade them to fight for the human lands, against the elves.’
‘How am I going to do that? And why would I do that? I’d be better off taking them north with us, then they can fight for Vales —’
‘You’re going to do it here because the Forlish army is still going to be the backbone we need to stop Sumiko. And you’re going to do it because you lost us that battle by holding back on the magic. Rhiannon had to step in, so she did not have enough to fight Sumiko.’
‘I never meant for this to happen,’ Huw said fiercely.
‘I know. But you tried to be too clever and now those men are paying the price; men whose only crime was following their king into battle.’ Sendatsu knew that was a bit rich, for none of the Forlish soldiers were new recruits. But that was not the point. ‘You owe them.’
‘They will not listen to me,’ Huw protested.
‘You need to give the performance of your life. Because without it, we might as well slit Rhiannon’s throat now. Sumiko will not rest until Rhiannon is dead.’
‘It is madness,’ Huw whispered.
‘Good. We tried to do the sensible thing today and lost. Tomorrow we need to be mad.’
Once you started running, it was hard to stop. And, after a few paces, you decided your shield was too heavy, so you threw that away, then your crossbow, then your sword, until you were just an unarmed man running across a field and an easy mark for the elves to kill.
Caelin forced himself to stop running.
‘Come on, sarge!’ Harald cried.
‘Where are we running to? Do you think the elves will let us go home in peace after today?’ Caelin shouted.
Around him, tired men puffed past, the first of them beginning to throw away their weapons. But they still possessed enough wits to turn their heads to listen to him.
‘What would the king say if he saw us running like this? Running like a bunch of Breconians? Did running away save them? Did we show mercy to anyone who ran from us?’ Caelin shouted.
Men were now slowing down. Some still rushed past but others were stopping. Behind them, Wulf’s cavalry circled protectively, threatening any elves who tried to rush in.
‘The king is dead! He doesn’t care what we do!’ someone shouted.
‘Then run away and hide. Maybe the elves will forget about you. But they’re killing every one of our mates that we couldn’t carry away.’
Men now looked back the way they had come. Beyond the thin screen of cavalry they could see elves stabbing down at anything that moved.
Growls of anger began to replace cries of fear and more men slowed and stopped to see what was happening.
‘I’m not letting those bastards make a slave out of me,’ Caelin said.
‘And how are you going to stop them?’
‘I don’t know,’ Caelin admitted. ‘But it certainly won’t be by running away. I never broke. They never defeated me. I will walk and carry my shield off the field and Captain Edmund will think of something.’