by Damien Lake
Landon grabbed a second quiver from the wagon and loaded both when a bonfire erupted into the night sky to the east.
“Gods above!” shouted Dietrik. He shielded his eyes against the scorching tower of flames. “What in the hells was that?”
Kerwin looked over. “That was one of the catapults. You can bet your sword and dagger on it!”
Men streamed into their supply sector. Landon shouted, gathering a dozen hale men to them as they left to rejoin the fighting.
This time they made their way east toward the fire lighting up the sky. The Noliers had spread across the whole camp and the defenders found enemies everywhere. A mounted force intercepted them, scattering their small group.
Marik dove behind an empty tent. Two Galemaran soldiers followed him and a Nolier rider thundering past decapitated a third. After a short distance, the rider reined his mount to turn for a renewed charge. A quick glance told Marik neither of his two new companions were armed with bows.
While the rider turned his horse, Marik hacked savagely at the line securing the tent to a stake four feet away. Two chops ripped it loose from the canvas. A desperate tug freed the stake as the rider stormed back.
Marik stepped into his path. He swung the heavy stake on the end of its rope, hoping the Nolier could not see it well in the dim light. When the horse neared, Marik swung faster and released the stake on its line like a bolo. The stake missed the horse’s forelegs, yet the rope tangled around one to make it stumble, which Marik had hoped would happen.
Thrown off balance by his mount’s sudden veering, the horseman clutched the saddle. Marik dashed forward to bury cold steel in his side and pulled him from the horse.
The rider fell heavily to the ground. Marik paused, considering the benefits of claiming the mount. When he reached for the reins, the horse snapped, trying to take his hand off. Maybe it felt no political opinions about him hailing from Galemar, but it clearly had no intention of allowing Marik to mount it.
He ran to the spot where he had separated from his fellow Kings. They were gone. Their corpses were absent, so he assumed the battle tide had swept them away to other pockets in the bloody conflict. He ran east toward the fire, avoiding Nolier groups while he searched for his friends.
* * * * *
Colbey sensed the subtle change before he heard anything. His eyes opened from sleep filled with dreams of blasted walkways and smoking ruins, instantly awake and aware of danger.
At first he remained motionless while he gathered facts. Morning neared and the night fell strangely quiet. A shift in the air set off his warning alerts. He rose to make sure danger had yet to approach so closely. Colbey shunned the outlanders’ tents, instead sleeping under the stars by the edge of the Reaches.
His sword flashed to his hand when the first battle sounds erupted to the south. The Noliers launched no corresponding attack in the north so a force must have traveled far south, following the river to where the gorge flattened to open land. There were two fording points down there where crossing could be achieved.
Colbey made his way south, keeping to a steady measured walk. When he passed the other scout tents, he saw men pulling on breeches and strapping on sword belts while the women with them disappeared into the dark, bare skin glistening in the flickering torchlight. The men ran toward the conflict at top speed.
He moved as he always moved in the Euvea; at his own pace, taking in every detail around him. His sword swung back and forth before him as he walked, describing a slow arc that bespoke his threat greater than if he had brandished it firmly while bellowing a war cry.
The chaos spread toward him. Flames bloomed into the sky from the east, a fiery nighttime rose born of conflict and death. Colbey considered it, finally deciding it was non-magical in nature. Surely the Noliers possessed their own war oil supply and had finally decided to bring it into play.
A pair of Noliers ran northward, knocking over torches and slashing bodies as they passed. They angled for him. One swung in an overhead blow with all his force. The crudity disgusted Colbey. So many of these fools struck without thought, placing strength behind their strikes rather than skill, if they had any skill at all. Now another simpleton would learn a lesson in true swordsmanship, far too late to benefit from it.
Colbey’s sword flicked up and deflected the Nolier’s blade. With a follow-up flick, he ripped open the man’s throat.
While his friend absorbed what he had just witnessed, Colbey ended his life as quickly.
All too easy. These soldiers who swarmed the various outland forces would have been no match for Colbey during his first year in training as a scout. He could cut a swath through them before they realized their guts had been let out onto their boots.
A Nolier flood churned northward, and Colbey met them with the cold disregard that formed his nature’s core. He kept no count of the number that fell before his blade. Unlike the foolish mercenaries he endured due to necessity, he needed no specific number of heads resting at his feet to measure his worth as a warrior. Soon, though he knew not how it happened, a Galemaran following gathered to him.
Outlanders and fools though they might be, Colbey never passed up an opportunity once presented. He led them to the easternmost curve of the crescent where it would be a straight shot to the catapults. When they broke into the open they saw it would not be so easy.
In the distant burning engine’s light, the field burst at the seams with soldiers. Colbey glanced to the wall. Through the darkness he could see the gates remained shut fast. Where had all these Nolier soldiers sprung from? Could they all have followed the river south?
Colbey could only guess. Numerous enemies noticed the new entrants on the battlefield and turned to welcome them. Before they clashed, Colbey noticed the Noliers were concentrating on attacking the two remaining engines. The Galemarans fought with passion to prevent the destruction of their precious war machines.
While his own skills far surpassed the average Nolier’s, the volume washing against him and his defenders soon took its toll. For every man Colbey cut down, two blue-uniformed fighters took his place. They were forced back to the field’s edge, and Colbey, along with the remaining men who had flocked to him, retreated into the city of tents and bonfires and chaotic madness.
Unsure exactly where to go, Colbey decided south would serve, through the canvas walls and over wooden wagon beds. No one seemed to be in charge and every man fought for his skin. Any rallying force, if it came, would likely center around the remaining catapults. He would angle toward the engines once he drew even with them.
His ragged group had fought their way half the distance south when an arrow storm assaulted them. The Galemarans slumped to the ground, either dead or screaming hysterically. Cat quick, Colbey rolled underneath a nearby wagon and crawled to the opposite end to survey the damage.
The men who had gravitated to him were dead or scattered. Colbey did not much care which since he had never asked for their presence in the first place. Large groups called down arrow strikes, while a solitary man could slip through the lines.
He thoroughly studied his surroundings, spending several moments locating the archers. They had stationed themselves a hundred feet away, so he only spotted them as they released their next flight. The archers had taken over a sector filled with empty wagons used to haul the endless supplies and equipment this army of outlanders needed. Stationed in the center, they had left several abandoned wagons along the perimeter to create the illusion of non-occupancy. Colbey, making his way through the camp to reach the old road that cut through to the bridge, had entered a well lit area they must be using to pick their targets.
Well lit because the Noliers had refrained from throwing the torches into the surrounding tents. You should have recognized what that meant immediately. Living with these lackluster apprentice fighters is starting to affect you.
There were fewer than a dozen archers. Perched in their wagons, they only took shots of opportunity. Most had chosen different
perches. The darkness over the wagons loomed thick as the forest at night. None wanted a light source to betray their presence.
Colbey pondered his next course while men ran past in both directions, none of them having any idea what to do. Several fell to the concealed archers, and Colbey decided to act against the shooters after all.
First he made his way several yards back into the gloom of the camp. The gloom would last only a short while longer he knew. Dawn fast approached, and the many areas where the camp blazed helped thin the darkness. Though blacker than the outside areas, the wagons would soon lose their thick concealment.
Colbey circled, using his skill to pick his way toward the archers. This was unfamiliar territory, unlike the terrain in the Rovasii both along the ground and through the hidden roads in the canopy. He called on his Guardian training to enhance his senses and increase his awareness.
Soon, he reached the first wagon. Colbey chose to crawl beneath. He secured his sword and crouched low. In a style he had learned for traversing the topmost tree branches that would otherwise snap beneath his full weight, only his palms and the sides of his feet touched the ground. It strained the muscles of the untrained but he had long practice in it and the advantage of his stamina boosting method.
Silent as a ghost, he crisscrossed the ground, peering between slats and wagon sides until he felt sure he had fixed the positions of the eleven men above in his mind.
Fortune favors the bold. Always a preferred saying of his, it came to mind as he crept beneath the farthest wagon containing a Nolier archer. Colbey peeked between two wagons. His target sat with an arrow nocked, turning his head this way and that while he looked for Galemarans in the torch lit areas. Movement from the next nearest archer told Colbey that he looked the other way. He rose fast in a whispery breeze.
If he dragged the archer over the wagon’s side, he would surely make noise. Instead, he clamped a hand over the surprised man’s mouth and twisted his head. A quiet snap told Colbey when the man’s neck broke. He let the corpse slump into the wagon before returning to the undersides.
With his senses enhanced, Colbey could see further in the dark than these Noliers. Not much further, yet enough to give him the advantage. He took the second archer in an identical move, leaving him propped in his wagon, seemingly crouched but not lifeless.
Two down, nine to go, except the next would be trouble. Three archers occupied the next wagon and he could never take them out one by one without them noticing. Instead, he rose enough to peer over the side until the right moment. It came when all three focused on a band of Galemaran soldiers running through an illuminated killing zone.
When the three prepared to launch their volley, Colbey leapt, one hand on the side rail, and vaulted into the wagon. He landed with a soft thump that alerted the three. His sword cut with a chirurgeon’s precision and a panther’s predatory speed. None had time to draw on him. Only their cries alerted their fellows.
Two were positioned in the next wagon. He leapt the rails while they shouted. They fell to his blade as the remaining four drew to fire. Their arrows cut through the air where Colbey had stood a moment before.
Two jumped across from further wagons to locate their assailant and check their friends. When they found no one, they shuffled in a circle, nervously searching for the specter in their midst.
One of the other two archers cried out from three wagons away. The first pair rushed to his side, bowstrings pulled so hard they formed a V. They found him disemboweled from crotch to chest, then they heard the shriek from the remaining lone archer.
The two remained in their current wagon, arrows nocked and ready. They turned wildly, glancing in five directions, sweat stinging their eyes, the smell of fresh offal curling their noses, desperately seeking the phantom stealing their lives.
A high-pitched whish split the air. One Nolier archer fell, feebly pawing at his chest. His partner turned and, too late, understood their foe had armed himself with one of their bows. He jumped the rail to the next wagon, but a second arrow pierced his unprotected back before he landed.
Colbey dropped the bow onto its former owner’s corpse and checked the last two he had shot. A clean shot had killed the first. The second still shuddered. His weak struggles made it plain he would die soon enough but it went against all teachings he had received as a Guardian to leave an animal, or an enemy, in such pain when mercy could be quickly granted with a swift stroke of his knife.
Those who delighted in the suffering of their enemies were no better than the enemy they slew. Thomas had taught him that.
He left eleven corpses behind when he resumed picking his way south through the camp.
* * * * *
The entire camp devolved into a roiling war zone. When the soft morning rays illuminated the destruction, it could be seen that fighting had, at one time or another, reached every corner and between every tent. After causing what the damage they could, the Noliers turned from the camp to join the battle around the catapults. Noliers struggled to destroy the devices while Galemarans strove to hold back their lethal tide.
As the battle coalesced to this single struggle, leaders on both sides reorganized. The Noliers sent their remaining horse calvary in waves to break the ring around the catapults. They crashed into the swell, causing tremendous casualties, but the horses were unable to reach their most devastating speeds over ground littered with corpses. In the press, the defenders pulled many riders from their mounts.
The Galemaran officers slowly reestablished the command structure in the midst of the swirling pandemonium. Under coherent orders, the soldiers were retaking the ground between the catapults and the camp. When Marik arrived at the edge, he did not have to fight his way across the stretch as hard as he would have a quarter-mark earlier.
Other men also ran to join the battle. Marik found no one from the Kings, or at least none from the Ninth. He paused in the temporary safety behind the line long enough to catch his breath, wishing there were water barrels nearby.
Rather than a refreshing drink, when he glanced around he saw the mages, or the remnants of them. They had gathered on the safety zone’s southern side, placing the catapult to their backs. All in their group ignored the bedlam surrounding them. Marik could scarcely believe them, standing apart and doing nothing, until he opened his magesight.
The etheric energies boiled in a torrent. Far more spell casting transpired than he had first thought. Further south along the river he found a matching nexus of swirling chaos. Marik concluded that the Nolier and Galemaran mages were so busy countering each other’s spells, and countering the counterspells, that little in the way of attacks succeeded in breaking through the tumult. Unless a major shift in the mage groups altered their numbers, neither side’s fighters would receive help from them.
He could hear shouting over the pandemonium and see people running in every direction. Orders sent people to a faltering spot on the line or shifted defenders armed with different weapons to where they would be most effective. Knowing nothing else to do, Marik walked to frontline’s rear, sword drawn, only feet from the fighting. When the front men tired or were killed, the swordsmen behind stepped forward to replace them. Men wielding bows stayed behind the first row.
The fighters around him all shouted. One picked a stone from the ground and hurled it at the Noliers over the defenders. Marik thought that a good idea and found his own missile, chucking it after the first.
Time slipped, becoming an eternity, though a look to the sun showed midmorning had hardly arrived. The fighters on the front retained no sense of time in a battle, their senses warping as the survival instinct crowded out everything else. Marik had fought on the front twice, ducking back between the rear men when his strength flagged.
Most rear men were armed with pole arms of various types. While the swordsmen occupied the attacking Noliers, the rear would reach their weapons past to inflict grievous wounds. Marik judged the kills made by the Galemarans could mostly be tallied to them.
While Marik defended the middlemost catapult, Colbey had made his way to the northern machine. Like Marik, he filled positions on the frontline, pushing back the Noliers. At midmorning, the Galemaran line still held while the Nolier losses mounted, their dead trampled into the soil underfoot.
After the Nolier forces thinned, the defenders pushed hard to force them back across the field toward the curtain wall around the Hollister garrison. The Noliers rallied when they felt the pressure, redoubling their efforts, fighting tooth and nail. It was unsustainable for long. Within minutes the blue-uniformed men faltered, reversing their direction yet again, tripping over the boulder-strewn ground.
“Keep the lines tight,” a hoarse voice behind Colbey shouted. “We’ll grind them between us and the wall!”
But enemy strategists initiated plans to prevent such a turn. With that hoarse optimism’s echoes still in the men’s ears, the gates in the wall, closed tight hence, labored open.
Colbey thought the Noliers inside were opening a retreat for their failing forces until men filled the dark passageway through the wall. They streamed out, not in, and at their head rode a mounted force of knights in heavy armor. One wore silvered armor enameled with intricate designs and a mighty helm resplendent with sweeping silver wings. By his side rode a banner bearer, holding aloft his lord’s flapping crest for all to see.
Behind the mounted lord-knight flowed a steady column of fresh Noliers, entering the field in an exodus from the Hollister.
* * * * *
Orders were quickly shouted. The Galemarans ran to reestablish their defensive lines around the siege engines. Colbey watched the Nolier lord-knight lead his men against the northern engine, intending to burn it, then crush the center between his two forces.
The Galemarans met the charge and bowed, yet held fast. They had fought all morning though, and Colbey knew it was only a matter of time before the fresh Nolier reserves broke the defense. He pushed to the front to reclaim his point position and soon faced one of the heavy knights.