The Spear’s battle cry resounded behind them. They turned to see it emerge from the forest; fifty men yelling through rain and thunder. Lord Calvert led them, his sword pointed at the camp and they flashed through the open space between the tree line and the encampment. As they approached the first of the branch huts, a girl, no older than seven, shuffled out of it. Her hair was a thick, wet mess. Under the long, brown clumps and the dirt that covered her face, all Prince Hedgard could see were the features of a child. Maybe a bit wild, a bit disconnected, but those of a child nonetheless. His heart caught in his throat as Lord Calvert brought his sword down on her. Horrified, he wanted to scream, but his father clamped an iron grip on his hand. Prince Hedgard flinched under the sudden pressure and looked at him. The king’s features were steeled with resolve. He did not spare his son a glance and kept his attention solely on the Spear. By the time Prince Hedgard returned his stare to the child, the Spear was already reaching the fire pit at the center of the encampment and the girl lay motionless where she had fallen. Then they lost sight of the Alymphian unit as it moved deeper into the camp. Shortly after, the rest of the troops fanned out of the woods. They moved more hesitantly than the Spear had, but they crossed the open space quickly nonetheless. The two units farthest from them soon walked out of view and the third one ventured into the camp moments later. The group of female warriors stepped gingerly toward the incoming soldier and disappeared behind a set of huts. Nothing moved for a couple of heartbeats and then the first agonizing scream resounded.
“Come, quickly,” King Rhegard urged his son.
Prince Hedgard grabbed the temple runner by the hand and they moved into the camp. They passed a hut, then another, and stopped by a small boscage. Shouts and cries resounded throughout the camp now. They were about to move farther into the camp when a castle guard came into view running twenty yards away. He took a few steps in their direction then he screamed and his head turned into a gory mist inside his helmet. His body crashed into the mud and slid to a rest a few feet further. The urge to run away took Prince Hedgard but his feet wouldn’t move. Next to him, his father stood up and unsheathed his sword.
“FOR ALYMPHIA!” he bellowed before racing toward the sounds of the battle.
His roar snapped Prince Hedgard out of his stupor and he stood up too, pulling his blade out of its scabbard.
“FOR ALYMPHIA!” he echoed his father.
Blood pumping hard at his temples and the temple runner in tow, he threw himself after him. Shouting at the top of their lungs, they rounded the hut the castle guard had come from. The battlefield was already strewn with the bloodied and torn corpses of Alymphians and the sight ripped a cry of anger from the king. A tall female warrior was engaged with another castle guard who fumbled to avoid her spear. The king plunged his sword into her back and pulled his blade out of her with a savage lateral yank. She splashed face first into the mud, her innards spread on the ground by her side. The castle guard she was battling started saying something but his eyes grew wide and his words died in his throat. There was a wet, leather-ripping sound and he dropped to the ground like a ragdoll, his spine gruesomely sticking out of his back. A few yards from them a soldier was sinking his sword in one of the savage females when his entrails suddenly burst out of his mid-section and he collapsed to the ground. Further from them still, more soldiers were falling for no apparent reason. The king and his son ran down the path, slaying the few clanswomen they met. As they approached the central pit, a squat clanswoman brought a club down on Prince Hedgard, while a tall and wide-shouldered female who had just killed a city watchman, thrust her spear at his father’s face. The both stepped aside gingerly. The king slashed the spear aside with a swift, circular motion and, then reversed the direction of his blade and cut his assailant’s throat open. Prince Hedgard dispatched his assailant with a blow to the forehead. Then they reached the central pit and realized that all the Alymphians that had been battling there moments before were lying on the ground in pools of their own blood.
“We need to find the Undoers!” the king shouted, something dark and worried in his voice.
He looked around crazily. Arrows could be heard tearing through the rain and digging themselves into soft bodies and bark. Up the path to the north dozens of soldiers lay on the ground and a handful of surviving city watchmen were fighting a group of clanswomen. Despite their superior weaponry, the watchmen could not hit their opponents. The clanswomen were surprisingly nimble and fast and moved around with the abandonment of wild beasts. Watching them for a few seconds, Prince Hedgard realized that they were not trying to strike the soldiers; they were only keeping them at bay. Every so often, one of the watchmen would scream and topple to the ground in a bloody spray without actually being hit.
“The Press is not working!” the king exclaimed. “They’re keeping the Undoers out of sight. The archers won’t be able to get to them.”
He stepped over a few bodies, and in frustration knocked the nearest hut to the ground.
“We have to find them,” he said above the ruckus of the rain and the screams and shouts of the Alymphians dying around them. “They must be in the huts!”
The king turned to his son and suddenly shouldered him out of the way and lunged past him. Prince Hedgard turned around as a hollow, cracking sound reached him. Master Baccus was standing a few feet behind them. And behind him was a young girl, no older than thirteen. She was brandishing a thin, child-sized spear over the temple runner’s back. King Rhegard’s blade was deep in her chest. Her eyes were wide despite the rain flowing down her face. Her hand wielding the make-shift weapon twitched and when the king pulled his blade out of her chest, she let out a soft gurgle and collapsed to the ground. The temple runner looked dreary. His face was sunken and his nose was bleeding. He did not seem aware of what was happening around him. He swayed slightly from side to side on his feet, and gave the impression that he could barely hold himself up. Furious, King Rhegard turned around. He grabbed his son by the breastplate of his armor and shook him roughly.
“You are to protect him!” he said between clenched teeth, his voice seething with anger. “Something happens to him and we are both dead! Do you understand?”
Before the prince could say a thing, the king shoved him aside.
“Let’s go,” he ordered.
They headed west, past the fire pit and toward the riverbank. The skies had darkened considerably in the past few minutes. Night was approaching fast and the grayness of the stormy day would soon turn into an unforgiving darkness. Prince Hedgard was finding it difficult to keep his attention on the temple runner while surrounded by the imminent threat of death. They passed more small huts, carefully inspecting them for occupants as they went by. A child came running out of one of the small shelters screaming. Before he could even see the small sharpened stick in her hands, Prince Hedgard struck her to the side of the head. Her small features stretched in surprise and when he yanked his blade out of her skull she collapsed to the ground in a spray of blood. Prince Hegard forced his thoughts away from the guilty and sick feelings that arose in him and they went on along the muddy path, crouched against the rain, their eyes darting from bushes to branch dwellings to copses. The shouts and screams around them seemed to diminish. They arrived at the riverbank in the northwest corner of the settlement. That part of the camp was strewn with the corpses of the men who had composed the third unit of the Press. Some were horribly dismembered, while others had bloody messes where their heads should have been. Some Sisterhood fighters were lying amongst the dead, but they were few and far between.
“Farthest from the enemy; that’s where I would hide,” the king reasoned out loud. “We have to act fast. I do not think Master Baccus will be able to hold much longer. Once our troops are down in number their Undoers will focus on us and we will be done for.”
“We should call in the elites and the archers,” Prince Hedgard said. “They should be able to help from a distance, shouldn’t they?”
They made their way along the thorny bushes that grew alongside the river, back toward the sound of battle. They were about to pass another branch hut on their right when Master Baccus cried out and dropped to his knees. Prince Hedgard was behind the temple runner and before he could take the couple of steps that separated him from Master Baccus, his father’s features turned gray before him. The king’s ears and eyes started bleeding. He let out a horrifying, muted moan and fell to his knees. Lightning illuminated the scene and in the corner of his eye, Prince Hedgard thought he saw a dark shape waver in the hut. Did he really see it or did he sense it, he could not say. But without hesitation he threw his sword into the opening of the hut. There was a satisfying thud, and thunder boomed above them as if punctuating the impact. Both his father and Master Baccus inhaled heavily like they had been holding their breath for too long. Prince Hedgard rushed to his father’s side.
“Are you alright?” he asked.
King Rhegard looked pale. The rain was already washing the blood down his chin below the side-plates of his helmet. He spat a mouthful of blood and pushed his son away.
“I’m fine, attend to Master Baccus,” he said in a thick voice.
The temple runner looked awful. Prince Hedgard was not sure he would be able to go on much longer. He turned to his father and grimaced his opinion to him. The king shook his head and rose to his feet.
“We must go on,” he said as he turned around.
Prince Hedgard went to the hut to retrieve his weapon. His sword had found its mark in the chest of one of the Undoers. She sat cross-legged, a thick fur around her shoulders. Under long dark hair, her eyes were closed and her features seemed soft. His blade had pierced her chest right below her left breast.
“She looks so peaceful,” he thought as he pulled his weapon out of her. “This is madness!”
He returned to Master Baccus, grabbed him by the arm and they staggered down the row of huts and copses after the king.
The sounds of combat increased steadily now. They reached the place where the river bent sharply to the right. From the sound of it they could not have been farther than thirty or forty yards from the heart of the battle. Indistinct orders could be heard, shouted on top of lungs above the clamors and screams of soldiers. Shrill grunts that could only come from the Sisterhood’s clanswomen and indistinct, gory sounds that sent chills of disgust down Prince Hedgard’s spine punctuated the flow of the battle raging barely out of sight. In the bleary distance, behind the darkening gray wall of rain, they could see shapes and vague silhouettes come into existence, throw themselves against one another and then recede out of view. They went on along the row of bushes and trees bordering the riverbank. More bodies littered the way and, despite the incessant falling rain, the occasional flash of lightning revealed the ground to be dark red rather than muddy brown. They emerged onto an opening, a rough circle fifty yard in circumference and were immediately assaulted by two fighters. The clanswomens brought thick, wooden clubs down onto the king who blocked the blows with his sword. He reeled backward under the impact. Before he could find his footing the clanswomen attacked him again. Prince Hedgard jumped to his father’s rescue, kicking one of his assailants away while the king managed to push the other one’s weapon aside and cut her open with a diagonal swipe of his blade. Both landed in the mud, one dead, one still alive. Before the second clanswoman could struggle back to her feet, Prince Hedgard brought his sword down into her throat. Around them twenty or so Alymphians were battling for their lives. A good thirty female fighters danced hectically about them, not really attacking unless a clear opportunity presented itself. And while they kept the Alymphians’ attacks at bay, the men of King Rhegard died inexplicably. A soldier lunged at a clanswoman only to have her bounce out of reach in a wink as he let out a muffled grunt and fell face down in a bloody spray. Most fighters struggled uselessly, their blows finding their mark only occasionally, most collapsing inexplicably before they did. A silhouette came toward them; it was Lord Garnly. His eyes were wide and wild. His cotton pants and leather boots were covered in blood and gore. He slipped and tripped onto fallen Alymphians as he approached them. When he recognized the king, he rushed to him.
“My king, “he pleaded, dread in his voice. “You must go at once. This is madness. There’s nothing we can do, we are-“
The words died in his throat. He croaked and his face turned red. There was a cracking sound and his Adam’s apple collapsed onto itself. His eyes rolled in their sockets as blood spilled from his mouth and he dropped to the ground.
“Hethens damn it!” the king bellowed.
“Father, what are we to do?”
“We must find the Undoers. They must be near, somewhere!”
“Be-yond” came from behind them.
They turned around to find Master Baccus, his eyes barely present to this world, a shaky finger pointed toward the river.
“Be-yond,” he repeated; the effort it took him to speak clearly visible in the trembling of his sagging features.
“Be-”
His eyes glazed over before he could finish and his arm dropped like a dead weight to his side as blood started dripping from his left ear.
“Baccus!” the king called out.
He walked up to him, grabbed his shoulder and shook him.
“Baccus! What do you mean? The Undoers? Is that it? Beyond what? Baccus!”
But the temple runner was withdrawn once more; absent to what was in front of him for good this time, it seemed.
“Beyond? What did he mean?” Prince Hedgard asked.
“The Undoers, they must be beyond, past the battlefield.”
“The river, father, they’re beyond the river. That’s why we only encountered one!”
“Hethens damn it,” the king exclaimed. “You’re probably right!”
“How do we reach them, then?”
The king surveyed the corpse-littered clearing. Only bushes grew alongside the river. They would have to fall a tree across the raging river some other place if they hoped to cross it. The king started explaining his train of thoughts but before he could finish his sentence, fifteen yards away, two castle guards shouting at the top of their lungs came into view. They were fending off the attacks of four clanswomen. Before the king or his son could come to their help, one of them froze mid-strike. He dropped his sword and brought his hands to his throat and stomach and then his entrails came out of his mouth. The other guard stood petrified as his companion toppled over. He took a step away from the clanswomen and suddenly spread out his arms and screamed. A heartbeat went by then there was an atrocious flesh- and leather-ripping sound, and his arms came off his torso at the shoulders. He stood where he was until his scream died and then he crashed heavily to the ground. The four female soldiers the guards had been fighting turned toward the the king and his son.
“Hedgard, get the ready!” the king shouted.
The clanswomen raised their weapons and using the corpses of dead soldiers rather than the soupy earth beneath for footing, they rushed toward them. They came fast and were almost on them when a volley of arrows stopped them mid-flight and sent them contribute to the sea of corpses that covered the battleground. Gewaltt and another elite, Brientil, Prince Hedgard thought, appeared out of a bush to their right. More arrows tore through the space as archers, crouched low, entered the clearing along its southern edge.
“Gewaltt,” the king shouted, “the Undoers are on the opposite bank. We need to fall a tree across the river to reach them.”
“My king,” the elite replied and started withdrawing.
Thunder cracked above them and lightning streaked across the darkening sky, revealing the battlefield in striking clarity. Only a handful of Alymphian soldiers remained. They staggered hopelessly, surrounded and outnumbered. The arrows of the archers were finding
their mark, but soon they, too, started collapsing. There was no time to reach the Undoers. They were doomed it seemed.
“Father, forget the Undoers,” Prince Hedgard urgedthe king. “We cannot hope to reach them in time now. But without the rest of their clan are they not powerless? Is it not what Master Baccus told us?”
The king looked at his son, his expression dark. Prince Hedgard could see him furiously thinking over what he had just said. A few seconds later, a sneer lit his face.
“You might just be right,” he said.
“Gewaltt!” he called out again and once more the elite appeared before them.
“Forget the Undoers, kill them,” the king said.
Disgust twisted his mouth and he waved a hand in the direction of the enemy fighters.
“Kill them all, now.”
“As you order, my king,” the elite said.
Then he walked away, toward the row of archers. He whistled something high-pitched and strident, and the rest of the elites emerged along the bush line behind the archers.
“Come,” the king said to his son. “We must end it now.”
Prince Hedgard shot a wary look at the temple runner behind them. Master Baccus was kneeling in the mud, slouched forward. His head was down and rain streamed heavily down his chin and onto his lap. His hands lay in the mud by his side like broken wings on a fallen bird. He looked hollow somehow, empty. It seemed to the Prince that at any moment now he would start fading and soon after cease to be.
“There is nothing we can do for him, Hedgard,” the king said. “One way or another, it will be over soon.”
They turned away from the temple runner and jogged to the elites. Twenty yards away the Sisterhood fighters were avoiding the archer’s arrows as best they could. The blanket of bodies that scattered the clearing was more of an impediment to their movements now that they were trying to avoid the rushing projectiles. As they reached the elites, the archer farthest to their right jerked and reeled backward. His arrow, released prematurely, sank into the mud a couple of feet in front of him only to tear itself from the earth and brutally lodge itself nock first into the archer’s chest. The king let out another grunt of disgust.
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