The Long War 02 - The Dark Blood

by A. J. Smith

  Long Shadow stood out below, his tattooed head contrasting sharply with the wild and matted hair of his fellows. He stepped forward, a lone man facing the oncoming yeomanry, and shouted, ‘This is our ground... our land... our city. These men want to take it... they want what is ours. Show them no mercy, for their masters wish nothing for us but a cage.’

  The men of Ranen gripped their axes and prepared to get bloody once more in defence of their home. Lanry frowned and again felt a deep well of conflict within him. He believed what the king was doing was wrong, and what the Ranen were doing was right, but he had never questioned the vows he had taken as a boy or the direction his life had followed. Now he was in a city besieged by his countrymen. Despite what Lord Bromvy might believe, it was not simply a matter of right and wrong.

  He was certain that, if the city should fall, he would be treated better than the Ranen. They would not think to kill a Brown cleric. In fact, the Purple traditionally ignored the aspect of poverty and would probably regard Lanry as a wayward brother in need of re-education. There was a part of him that resented this. He knew, too, that were he a younger man, he’d find a quarter-staff from somewhere and join the defenders. But he was an old man and he remained behind the third gate, watching from above.

  Behind him, the Ranen assembly and the chapel to Rowanoco provided the last lines of defence, the ultimate fall-back position should the third wall be overwhelmed. He had heard it said that the defences of South Warden would allow men to fight and retreat, fight and retreat, until they had their backs to Rowanoco’s Stone. Lanry hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  Half-hearted shouts rose from the advancing column as they reached the outer walls. The Ranen held their ground, waiting for the yeomanry to enter as far into the breach as possible before springing their ambush. The yeomanry had to slow down to pick their way among the splintered wood and dead bodies. Their lines narrowed as they were funnelled into the breach. Many of them had caught sight of Long Shadow, who was making no effort to remain hidden. He did not move to meet them, but simply stood in front of the last gate and beckoned them on with predatory eyes. Either side of him, the Ranen waited for their opportunity to destroy the invaders.

  Horrock Green Blade was an impressive figure, standing at the head of his men with a hand raised to hold them back until the optimum moment. Next to him, Al-Hasim looked out of place. The Karesian was calm and measured, crouching low and weaving tight patterns in the air with his scimitar. He was not a fighter who relied on strength, but Lanry suspected he would prove more dangerous than many of the men of Ranen.

  The dead bodies from the previous assault made the ground treacherous as the yeomanry began to charge Long Shadow and his men. Several stumbled and were slowed to walking speed, allowing the Ranen to mark their targets well.

  ‘Cut them down,’ roared Long Shadow, once the bulk of the yeomanry had funnelled into the breach.

  The Free Company men were suddenly visible and their cries of defiance were deafening as all three forces advanced. Horrock’s men attacked first, using the shock of the impact to drive the first few ranks of Ro on to the waiting axes of Mathias Flame Tooth and his men. Johan Long Shadow rushed forward and split a man in two with a great swing of his axe. The yeomanry quickly dissolved into a rabble, trapped between the three forces of axe-men. They had the advantage of numbers but they were no match for the Ranen’s skill and ferocity.

  The scene was grim as the meat-grinder did its work. The rear ranks of yeomanry tried to force their way forward but succeeded only in pushing their fellows further on to the waiting axes of South Warden. In moments, dozens lay dead or mutilated.

  Horrock and Long Shadow led their forces in a triangular formation, driving the body of the yeomanry towards Mathias and his men. Al-Hasim and Haffen were on the left flank, where there was no duelling, only a brutal hacking apart of men who had nowhere to run and no hope of defending themselves.

  ‘Let them retreat,’ shouted Lanry, well aware that his words would not carry over the sounds of combat. A few scattered men of Ro had indeed managed to squeeze through the press of bodies and run in panicked groups out of the killing ground, but the majority were simply being cut to pieces.

  Lanry was forced to turn away again as he felt the nausea rise from his stomach. The Darkwald yeomanry had little interest in South Warden, but the king had forced them into a position where the men of Ranen had no choice but to cut them down.

  ‘Hold your ground,’ shouted Johan Long Shadow, as the defenders met in the middle. ‘Do not pursue them.’ Most of the slaughter was now over. Barely a few hundred yeomanry had made it out of the breach. The Ranen cheered raucously.

  Lanry did not join in the cheering and a tear appeared in his eye.

  * * *

  The night lasted forever. Lanry was frequently called upon to rush down from the wooden palisade and attend to wounds. The yeomanry were ordered to storm the breach a total of four times. Each time they were repulsed, a handful of Ranen met their ends, and the breach became more and more clogged with the dead.

  Al-Hasim, who had taken no rest since the first assault, was slumped down next to a wall with sweat running down his face and a superficial wound to the left side of his chest.

  ‘How long till dawn, brother?’ he asked the cleric.

  ‘An hour, maybe two... you need rest, my dear boy,’ replied Lanry, kneeling down to inspect the wound. ‘I saw that last fight and you could barely stand and lift that... weapon, sword... thing.’

  The Karesian scoundrel smiled wearily. ‘It’s a scimitar. I stole it from Horrock’s collection in Ro Hail. I never liked longswords or axes – too heavy for prolonged fighting.’

  Haffen Red Face, the axe-master of Ro Hail, was nearby, pouring an entire bucket of water over his head. ‘Can you not swing a blade, brother? We could use another pair of hands down here.’

  ‘Some men are built for fighting and some are not. I have the luxury of years and the curse of squeamishness. I am too old and far too weak of stomach to kill anyone, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I suppose you are a Ro,’ he said, as if that explained everything.

  Haffen slumped down next to Al-Hasim. Both warriors were exhausted and Lanry doubted whether they could remain effective for much longer. The defenders of South Warden were vastly outnumbered and the king’s willingness to throw away the Darkwald yeomanry in futile assaults was beginning to take its toll. Horrock Green Blade estimated that, if they could hold the breach until sunrise, they would be able to rest and meet the next day’s attacks with fresh arms and clear heads. However, the tactics of the Ro had given them no time to recuperate and, unlike the attackers, every one of the Ranen was needed for each defence. They had no reserves or reinforcements, and Lanry was all too aware that the king had not yet ordered his knights or clerics to attack.

  ‘We’ve got two hundred dead and almost that many wounded beyond fighting,’ said Haffen between deep gulps of water. ‘I reckon we can stand for one more assault, and then...’

  ‘And then what? You all die? That doesn’t sound like a strategy,’ remarked the cleric.

  ‘Well, maybe we could buy the king a present and hope he forgives us for killing all his men,’ said Al-Hasim with a wry smile.

  ‘They’re not really his men, they’re just common folk.’ Lanry was uncomfortable with fighting in general, but to see men thrown away so freely was disturbing in the extreme. ‘They’re just auxiliaries, they have no choice.’

  ‘What do you want us to do?’ asked Haffen. ‘Try diplomacy?’

  ‘I’ve just never seen so many men wasted so badly,’ replied the Brown cleric.

  The breach had been cleared of the fallen and funeral pyres had been built. The dead had been moved in plain sight. The Ranen bodies were taken beyond the third gate and arranged on separate pyres next to the assembly. Words would eventually be spoken over them to speed their passage to the ice halls beyond the world.

  The defenders were in surprisingly good s
pirits and gallows humour was the order of the day. They had spent the hours of darkness fighting, killing and watching their friends and family die, and yet, as the Darkwald yeomanry formed up for yet another assault, the men of South Warden remained boisterous and defiant, telling off-colour jokes and boldly declaring how drunk they would get once the city was safe.

  Lanry was less optimistic. He returned to his position beyond the third gate and prepared for another spectacle of slaughter to be played out before his eyes. Horrock was leaning on his axe and looked particularly weary as a horn was sounded across the plains of Scarlet. The massed forces of Darkwald were approaching once more. They moved more slowly this time and Lanry gasped at their numbers. The previous assaults had been carried out by several companies of yeomanry, while the others remained in camp. This time they had left no one in reserve, and several dozen Purple clerics were also riding behind the common folk, pushing them forward.

  ‘They’re committing everyone, lads,’ shouted Johan Long Shadow, moving down to join his men. ‘That’s the best part of six thousand men.’

  It was a desperate gambit on the part of the king and his clerics, and it looked as if it would be their last attack of the night. Even with the narrow breach and the Ranen meat-grinder, the difference in numbers was overwhelming. The Ranen had been whittled down throughout the night and, although they had lost far fewer men than the Ro, their losses had more of an impact. Even more worryingly, in the distance, just as the first shards of blue appeared on the horizon, the trebuchets were being moved up. The giant engines of war had been silent since the breach had been opened. They rumbled across the grassy plain, manoeuvred into position by teams of engineers, with carts behind them full of large stones.

  The Free Company men had noticed the trebuchets. Mathias Flame Tooth, axe-master of South Warden, stood before his men and motioned them to form up on the right of the breach. ‘They won’t shell us with their own men in here... nothing’s changed, lads. We still fight, we still kill, and we still defend this ground,’ he shouted.

  Lanry glanced behind him at the central mount of South Warden and saw clustered women and children peering out from the Ranen assembly. It was central and solidly built, making it the logical place of refuge for those who could not fight. However, as the trebuchets inched ever closer behind the advancing yeomanry, Rowanoco’s Stone looked dangerously isolated.

  Below him, the defenders were forming up in their flanking positions. The approaching army of Ro had spearmen at the front, with crossbows positioned between them. The Purple clerics giving the orders were keeping them in tightly organized ranks and the advance had a much more determined feel than the previous assaults.

  ‘Hold your ground, lads,’ said Long Shadow. The captain of Scarlet Company was no longer standing in plain sight. Instead he’d pulled his force to the right and now stood next to his axe-master and opposite Captain Horrock. ‘This is it. We hold this one last time, and then we can get drunk.’ The words were loud, but Lanry could detect concern in Long Shadow’s voice, as if he doubted what he was saying.

  Hasim, the most pragmatic of the defenders, glanced up at Lanry and shrugged, as if to say we’re in trouble.

  The column reached the outer walls and stopped, not pushing into the narrow breach as before. The spearmen levelled their weapons and held the ground firmly as hundreds of crossbows were levelled across the killing ground. The defenders were all behind cover and did not present a target for the yeomanry, but the measured nature of this final assault had thrown the Ranen off their strategy.

  ‘Men of Ranen,’ shouted a cleric from the rear of the column. ‘I am Brother Jakan of the Purple, commander of the Darkwald yeomanry. I order you to surrender South Warden to your king.’

  The defenders looked at each other for a moment before a laugh erupted from Mathias Flame Tooth. The barrel-chested axe-master of South Warden was a good-humoured man at the best of times, but clearly he found the offer of surrender, after so much death, highly amusing. The laugh rippled through the rest of the Free Company men.

  ‘There will be no mercy shown if you do not lay down your axes,’ shrieked Brother Jakan. ‘This is no longer your land.’

  ‘Come here and say that,’ growled Long Shadow, resisting the urge to break cover and run at the attackers.

  The rumbling sound of the trebuchets ceased and Lanry saw that the engineers had begun loading them with large boulders. They were closer now, though still out of range of South Warden’s catapults. Lanry had a sinking feeling. It looked as if the slingshots would be firing right over the third gate rather than into the existing breach.

  ‘I am the servant of the One God,’ proclaimed Brother Jakan, ‘and this is your last chance to surrender.’

  Long Shadow took a step forward and, though still out of sight, stood within a few feet of the first line of spearmen.

  ‘I will not surrender. My men will not surrender,’ he said in a controlled shout. ‘Our mothers, our wives, our children, none of them will surrender.’ His voice grew emotional and the defenders were carried along with the passion of his words. ‘We will die on this ground, defending our land and our people, but we will not surrender!’ His voice cracked and there was a tear in his hard, grey eyes.

  There was silence for a moment.

  ‘So be it,’ replied Jakan. He waved his hand theatrically and the Ro trebuchets sprang into life.

  The massive counterweights, hanging between upright wooden beams, were released. Each swing-arm described a wide arc above the machine, dragging with it a long slingshot and flinging a huge boulder high into the twilight sky.

  A strangled cry of no echoed from Scarlet Company as rocks smashed into the Ranen assembly and caused fissures to appear in Rowanoco’s Stone.

  Lanry stood aghast. Those that huddled within the stone building tried to avoid the falling masonry and flee the crumbling structure, but more boulders followed. By the time the first volley had ceased, the sounds of dying women and children echoed from the centre of South Warden. The men holding the inner wall rushed up the raised ground to assist the wounded, but many were hit by pieces of the outer stone wall. The sacred building was gradually collapsing to the ground.

  Glancing back at the breach, Lanry observed astonished faces and indescribable rage amongst the Ranen. Some of the men were wrestling with battle fervour. Johan Long Shadow shook with righteous anger. The men of Darkwald didn’t react; nor did Brother Jakan. They simply held their ground at the entrance, keeping their spears levelled and crossbows ready. Then a guttural roar erupted from several men of Scarlet as the battle rage of Rowanoco took over.

  ‘Hold your ground,’ shouted Mathias Flame Tooth. The axe-master of South Warden tried to hold them back, but to no avail, as half a dozen men went berserk and charged the line of Ro spears.

  ‘Don’t die like this,’ roared Horrock, trying to wrestle a frenzied Haffen Red Face to the ground. Other men of both companies began frothing at the mouth as they saw wives, sons and daughters trying to pull their crushed and bloodied bodies from the wreck of the assembly.

  The scene grew chaotic. More and more of the defenders succumbed to unthinking rage. They ran from their defensive positions and into the breach to be cut down by a blanket of crossbow bolts or skewered on the end of long spears. Lanry saw a man of Wraith impaled on a spear and scarcely seeming to notice. He pushed forward, driving the wooden haft through his body until he hung limply within a few inches of the spearman.

  ‘Hold,’ shouted Al-Hasim, one of the few men not possessed by battle fervour. Several others shouted hold, including Horrock, Mathias and Lanry, who was waving his arms and trying to attract Al-Hasim’s attention. The Brown cleric could think of nothing but getting these men to fall back. Then his eyes were drawn to the shaking form of Johan Long Shadow.

  With a deafening roar the captain of Scarlet Company reared up. His eyes had gone black and his teeth were gritted in an animal expression. All pretence at defending the breach was gone as the
leader of South Warden entered the battle rage of Rowanoco and charged the line of spears. With no further need to restrain their men, Mathias and Horrock ceased trying to hold the breach and let their warriors fly into a berserk rage and join their captain in an out and out attack.

  Long Shadow wrenched a spear from a man’s grasp and threw him roughly into another one of the yeomanry, before splitting a man in two with his axe and trying to push forward into the bulk of the attackers. He received crossbow bolts in his leg, shoulder and neck, but none slowed him down.

  The men of Ro were stunned by the suicidal ferocity of the Free Company men, but they were still vastly the greater force. A few men brutally hacked apart by rage-infused berserkers did not make much of a dent in the attacking army.

  The battle had changed completely. The Ranen no longer attempted to hold the breach and the Ro no longer attempted to storm it. All the yeomanry had to do was hold their spears level and rapidly reload their crossbows as more and more defenders fell. Horrock, Mathias and Al-Hasim were still thinking clearly, but they had little choice but to join the others in attacking the yeomanry.

  ‘Kill them all,’ ordered Brother Jakan from the rear. ‘Show no mercy, for you shall receive none.’ The Purple cleric drew his longsword and ordered the other twenty or so clerics of nobility to do the same. Lanry followed their movements as they made their way through the yeomanry to the front line.

  Al-Hasim darted forward through the killing ground, avoiding two crossbows and trying to reach Long Shadow, who was completely surrounded. Haffen Red Face was swinging his axe in wild but powerful arcs, killing and maiming men as he drew further and further away from the rest of Wraith Company. Horrock was trying to reach his friend, but had his hands full with massed spearmen keeping him at bay. Lanry could no longer see how these brave men could survive.

  Haffen was the first to die. Lanry gasped as the axe-master of Ro Hail received a crossbow bolt at short range to the left side of his chest. Once he was off-balance, the Ro surrounding him attacked from all sides, stabbing in short thrusts with knives and short swords until a powerful spear thrust pierced his stomach.