The two men nodded after only an instant’s hesitation.
Turning, Aravon broke into a run and raced off to catch up to the fast-moving Fjall band, which had already covered nearly a mile in their breakneck dash back to Storbjarg. Fehlan warriors trained to move far faster than heavily-armored Legionnaires, and Aravon had always envied Colborn’s impressive endurance when running. And these weren’t any Fehlans, but Fjall warriors, running toward their home through terrain they knew far better than Aravon or his men.
Aravon risked a glance toward his companions. At his side, Colborn moved with the same easy, loping run, no sign of the exhaustion that dragged on Aravon’s limbs. Behind them, Skathi’s arrows clattered and rattled in their quiver, but the fleet-footed archer matched Aravon’s pace without complaint.
A part of Aravon wanted to order Colborn to run ahead, to catch up to the Hilmir and try to talk sense into him, yet he discarded it a moment later. Throrsson might respond to Colborn’s attempts to reason with him, but it was unlikely. Aravon wasn’t even certain the Hilmir would accede to him as the Duke’s second-in-command.
So he ran, as fast as he could, eking out every shred of strength and endurance from his body. Sweat soaked his tunic and streamed down his face, but Aravon only gritted his teeth against the stinging in his eyes and forced himself to keep running. It was the only way to reach the Hilmir in time.
With every pounding step, the nagging worry gnawed deeper into his belly. He had a Legionnaire’s endurance, legs strengthened by years of riding a saddle and marching in a shield wall. But the Legion’s fast-march could never match the pace of a Fehlan warband. And, even at the peak of Aravon’s physical conditioning, his endurance paled compared to Colborn’s and the men of the Fjall.
Jaw clenched, Aravon struggled to control his breathing—it had already grown heavy, labored. Fire raced through his leg muscles and the spear seemed terribly heavy in his hand, his palms slick with sweat. Every minute’s delay meant a greater chance that the Fjall warband walked into a trap. He had nothing but suspicions and the Hilmir’s evaluation of the Blood Queen, yet years of experience and education had honed his intuition. He couldn’t ignore the feelings in his gut any more than the evidence of his eyes.
Worry for Duke Dyrund gnawed at Aravon’s belly, weighing on his tiring muscles. The Duke could be in far more danger than the Hilmir, stone walls or no, and had only a small force of hired swords at his side. No telling what could be happening in Storbjarg, and Aravon couldn’t rest easy until he reached Duke Dyrund and made personally certain the man was safe.
Grim images flashed through his mind. The streets of Storbjarg churned to bloody mud as the Eirdkilrs carved their way through the Fjall warriors, then cut down the Duke himself amidst his Black Xiphos mercenaries. Charred corpses, the Duke and his companions burned within the longhouse. A hundred more dire outcomes, his fear for the Duke’s safety flooding him with ghastly visions.
With effort, Aravon pushed back the worry, forced himself to focus on the Fjall warband. One problem at a time.
Yet, even as Aravon forced his legs to keep moving, he could see the gap between him and the Fjall warband widening. Already, the Fjall had reached the first of the hills to the southeast. Throrsson and the foremost warriors had streamed out of sight, the rest of the warband close in pursuit. Every muscle in Aravon’s body cried out for rest, his lungs shrieking for air, but he couldn’t slow. If he did—
A new sound pierced the hammering of his pulse in his ears. He almost didn’t recognize it through the frantic beating of his laboring heart. Yet, as realization dawned, hope surged within him.
Hoofbeats!
He risked a glance back and beheld the most glorious sight: Belthar and Zaharis, crouched low over the necks of their Kostarasar chargers, racing toward him. Behind the pair came three more horses with empty saddles.
Yes!
Aravon slowed and turned as the two men came pounding up beside him. He shot a glance to the northwest as he clambered into the saddle, and was rewarded with a glimpse of two smaller figures galloping off to where Chief Hafgrimsson would be waiting for the Hilmir’s signal to strike. The Deid would be warned; Aravon had to hold out hope that Rangvaldr could convince them to march in time to make a difference.
But he had his own mission to stay focused on. Digging his heels into his horse’s flanks, he spurred the beast to a gallop. Spear gripped tight, heart hammering against his ribs, Aravon raced after the Fjall warband. Behind him rode Colborn, Skathi, Belthar, and Zaharis, bent lower over their mounts’ necks, urgency gleaming in their eyes.
Turning back to the land ahead, Aravon gritted his teeth and clutched the reins tighter. He was so close to the Fjall—just a few dozen more yards and he’d catch up to the rear of their column. The horses would reach Throrsson at the head of his men in less than five minutes, and Aravon would stop that column, even if he had to duel the Hilmir single-handedly. He couldn’t let Throrsson race into the Blodsvarri’s—
At that moment, he crested a rise and came face to face with two battle lines drawn up. Warriors of the Fjall, clad in bright chain mail, stood surrounded by a host of blue-painted, seven-foot-tall Eirdkilrs.
Horror clutched Aravon’s heart in a fist of iron. He was too late.
The Blood Queen’s trap had been sprung.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Aravon took in the scene in a heartbeat. The Fjall stood clustered in a long, ragged line of men, more a disorganized mass of warriors than any real battle formation. Even the best-trained Legionnaires struggled to maintain rank cohesion when moving at such a hurried pace, and the Fjall had thrown order to the wind in their mad dash home.
Yet discipline and years of battle experience quickly reasserted itself. Before Aravon brought his horse to a complete stop, the Fjall shield wall had already begun to form. Steel, iron, and wood clattered as the warriors joined together, round shields interlocked, into a solid, wide line. Men gripped swords, shields, and axes tighter, faces turned toward their enemy.
Yet the sight of the Eirdkilrs set Aravon’s heart plummeting into his stomach. The towering figures in fur pelts and chain mail armor formed a long line that stretched from a thicket of trees off the Fjall’s left flank, down the hill in front of them, and to the small pond beside their right flank. A line five ranks deep, which stretched half a mile wide.
Ice ran down Aravon’s spine. Blessed Swordsman! Eleven hundred and eleven Fjall, with Eirik Throrsson at their head, faced more than three times as many Eirdkilrs.
A hand grabbed at Aravon’s reins, pulling his horse around and back down the hill. Aravon, stunned by the sight of the enemy, barely had the presence of mind to cling to his horse’s mane as Colborn pulled him down the decline and out of sight of the forces arrayed below.
Aravon’s mind cleared quickly, and he shot Colborn a nod of thanks. He had no desire to sit idle while the Fjall faced an enemy that far outnumbered them, but the lieutenant was right to pull him back. Their best chance of doing something, anything, to turn the tide of battle in the Hilmir’s favor was to remain undetected.
Yet in that moment, a nagging dread seeped into his bones, chilled him to the marrow. What hope did they have against so many?
Pushing back his dismay, Aravon leapt from his saddle and ran in a low crouch toward the top of the rise. Skathi and Belthar moved to his right, Colborn and Zaharis to his left. As they reached the hill’s gentle crest, he lowered himself onto his belly and crawled upward until he could peer through the thick ryegrass and study the scene below.
Neither side had moved. The solidified Fjall shield wall stood defiant, Throrsson at its front and center. For once, the Eirdkilrs’ war cries remained silent. The giants stood without a sound, a sea of blue-painted faces that stared with naked enmity at the enemy arrayed before them. An enemy that, Aravon knew, they would crush. Nothing short of a miracle would save the Fjall warband.
He turned to Zaharis. “Anything you can do?” he signed.
The Secret Keeper shook his head, a shadow darkening his eyes. “Not against that many.”
Aravon ground his teeth and turned back to the battlefield. The Blodsvarri had chosen her terrain well. The Fjall could retreat up the hill, yet that would not save them. The Eirdkilrs had them surrounded on three sides, and it wouldn’t take more than a few minutes to fully engulf the Fjall shield line. And they had the men to do it. Save for the thicket of trees to the south and the small pond to the north, there was nothing the Fjall could use for any battleground advantage.
How in the bloody hell did they manage to sneak up behind the Fjall? The question nagged at Aravon. Throrsson had to have his scouts keeping an eye on the enemy, not to mention the two hundred with his second-in-command.
His answer came a moment later.
A figure broke from the front ranks of Eirdkilrs. Tall, taller even than most of the seven-foot giants in the Eirdkilr line, she had hair of deep brown that hung in seven long braids down her back and around her neck. Skulls and bones dangled from those braids, rattling with every step. She had a heavy, blunt jaw, cheeks, and nose, somehow made all the fiercer by the lack of a beard. That, and the thick layer of blood smeared across her features. The blood shone bright crimson on the pale skin of her right cheek and turned a deep, grisly purple atop the intricate, swirling lines of blue dye that stained the left half of her face.
Aravon sucked in a breath. The Blodsvarri.
In her right hand, she carried a spear longer than she was tall, with a steel head the length of her forearm. But instead of a standard circular shield, she carried only the end of a thick hempen rope in her left hand. A grim smile twisted her bloodstained lips and she gave a vicious yank on the rope. A figure lurched into view between a gap in the Eirdkilr line, staggering toward the Blodsvarri, the rope tied in a noose around his neck.
Gyrd.
Blood trickled from the man’s forehead, streamed from two split lips, and stained the graying hair of Gyrd’s beard. Throrsson’s second-in-command had endured a brutal beating, which left both of his eyes swollen shut and his nose shattered and twisted to one side. Yet his jaw was set in a stubborn cast, his bleeding lips pressed tightly together. He refused to cry out, even when the Blodsvarri knocked him to the ground with a vicious punch to the face.
Howls of gleeful laughter echoed from the Eirdkilr ranks, and more of the blue-painted, fur-clad barbarians broke from the line. They, too, hauled at heavy ropes, dragging forty struggling, snarling prisoners out in front of their ranks. With savage blows of their clubs, axes, and spears, the Eirdkilrs beat their prisoners to the ground. Yet the barbarians took care to avoid killing the Fjall warriors. Not out of mercy, Aravon realized.
They’re going to make a spectacle of it.
“Eirik Throrsson, Chief of the Fjall!” The Blood Queen’s voice echoed across the sixty-foot gap separating her and her captives from the front ranks of the Hilmir’s shield wall. She spoke with the harsh, guttural accent of the Eirdkilrs—even with Aravon’s comprehensive grasp of Fehlan, understanding her words proved challenging. “He who calls himself King!”
“Blood Queen.” Throrsson’s voice was calm, controlled despite the overwhelming odds arrayed against him, the rage that doubtless burned within him at the sight of his men so mistreated. “Is this your idea of honoring the Fehlan customs? Failing to present yourself at the sacred grounds, then attacking and taking my warriors captive? Such actions reek of treachery!”
“Said the serpent to the scorpion!” The Blodsvarri hissed. “Or do you deny that you entertained the very Eird I seek to destroy in your city not two days ago?” Her use of the word “half-men” was tinged with spittle and venom. “The same Eird that break bread and drink mead in your longhouse?”
Aravon’s gut clenched. So the Hilmir’s suspicions were correct. She does have spies among his people.
“The Eird offered me a cure for my people.” Still, Throrsson seemed at ease. “So I accepted their offer under false pretenses to lure them into my stronghold, where they are at my mercy.”
Ice slithered down Aravon’s spine. Duke Dyrund! His fingers dug into the grass beneath him; was the Duke, even now, lying dead or captive in Storbjarg?
No. With effort, Aravon forced down the acid roiling in his stomach. The Duke would have known if the Hilmir was deceiving him. Few men in the Princelands were as perceptive as Duke Dyrund, which was the reason the Prince had chosen him as personal advisor and unspoken leader of his Council. He wouldn’t make such an error in judgement.
And I looked in the Hilmir’s eyes, Aravon thought. There was no deceit there, no treachery aimed at the Princelands.
The Duke had given Throrsson back his son, heir to the crown he hoped to one day wear. The Hilmir’s gratitude had been real, no doubt about it.
Even then, if the Hilmir had intended to betray the Duke, he would have done it the day they rode into Storbjarg. It would have been a simple matter of surrounding the longhouse in which he’d quartered the Duke, then ordering the six thousand healthy warriors at his command to take them down. Or, simply burn the longhouse to the ground.
No, I can’t believe he means it. Aravon’s eyebrows shot up as realization dawned. He’s stalling for time!
The Deid warband hadn’t been the only force waiting in ambush for the Blood Queen’s arrival. In addition to the eleven hundred and eleven men with Throrsson and the two hundred at Gyrd’s side, the Hilmir had set another two thousand of his warband in waiting for the signal to attack.
Aravon rolled onto his side, shooting a glance at Colborn. “Go!” he signed. “Find the Fjall ambushers and get them here now!”
Colborn seemed to have reached the same conclusion, for he was already moving, scrambling backward low along the ground until he could rise to his feet, out of sight of the enemy below. Within seconds, he had sprinted the short distance to their horses, leapt into his saddle, and clapped his heels to the charger’s flanks. Grass and clods of dirt flew beneath the horse’s hooves as it galloped off to the northeast, toward the dried-up riverbed where Throrsson had said his warriors would be awaiting the signal to attack.
A faint hope took root within Aravon. With the Deid hopefully already on the way, there’s a chance we can turn this around! He scanned the grasslands to the north. The slopes of the Waeggbjod rose high into the morning sky, the thick forests surrounding its north and eastern edge. Yet he saw no sign of Noll, Rangvaldr, or Chief Svein Hafgrimsson at the head of the Deid warband bursting from those trees.
They’ll come, he told himself as he turned his attention back to Throrsson and the Blood Queen. They have to!
“…what it takes to prove that I desire to join the Tauld,” Throrsson was saying, “I will tear the Eird Prince’s envoy apart with my bare hands.” He jabbed a finger toward Gyrd, lying beaten and bloodied at the Blood Queen’s feet. “But there can be no accord until you release my men.”
From his position, Aravon saw the strange dance of emotions that flitted across the Blodsvarri’s blunt, bloodstained features. Mockery mingled with incredulity, turned to disgust, then disdain. “I hold the advantage, Hilmir.” She sneered the word. “I have no need to speak of peace. I command it!”
The Blood Queen was still and speaking one moment, a violent explosion of movement the next. She spun the long-bladed spear above her head once, twice, setting the steel head glinting in the sunlight, and drove it point first into Gyrd’s throat. The Fjall warrior’s eyes flew wide and he gasped, bound hands flying to his neck, pawing at the wound.
But the Blodsvarri was far from done. She leaned on her spear, driving it deeper into Gyrd’s neck and the ground beneath. The Fjall warrior’s hands fell slack, his movements limp and spineless. With a bark of gleeful laughter, the leader of the Eirdkilrs stooped, seized the dying man, and hauled him high into the air. She held him aloft, like a trout skewered on a fishing spear, and leaned her head back as Gyrd’s blood gushed from the tear in his throat and bathed her.
“
By the Watcher!” Belthar’s low curse echoed from beyond Skathi.
Aravon was unable to tear his gaze from the grisly scene. Gyrd’s eyes had gone even wider, his face growing pale as he bled out, his body hanging above the Blodsvarri’s head. The woman’s muscles trembled not an inch at the exertion of holding the full-grown, lightly-armored Fjall warrior. Crimson stained the Blood Queen’s face, soaked into her dark brown hair, dripped off her face and trickled from furs, leather, and chain mail coat. She reveled in the gush of blood, closing her eyes to relish the sensation.
Acid rose to Aravon’s throat. It was clear where she’d gotten her name. The ruthlessness of Hrolf Hrungnir and his Blodhundr paled in comparison to her callous, sanguinary cruelty.
Slowly, Gyrd stopped gurgling, gasping for breath, the last drops of blood draining from his body. He hung limp on the Eirdkilr’s spear, his eyes agape and empty. With a sneer, the Blodsvarri threw the corpse to the side, spraying droplets of crimson across the green grass carpeting the hillside.
“I command it!” the Blood Queen screamed again.
The Eirdkilrs behind her threw back their heads and took up a howling war cry, a long, keening sound that curdled Aravon’s blood. Those holding the captive Fjall raised clubs, axes, and spears. Forty Fehlan warriors died in seconds, butchered like calves at a barbaric ceremonial feast, their deaths underscored by the savage ululations of their enemies.
Now the Blodsvarri turned back to Throrsson. Blood dripped from her blue-stained face, and her eyes gleamed with a wild light. “Kneel, Hilmir!” she hissed. “Throw down your weapons and face the Tolfraedr like true men of Fehl.” A snarl curled her lip. “I will even give you the mercy of going first, spare you watching your men suffer.”
Battle for Peace: An Epic Military Fantasy Novel (The Silent Champions Book 2) Page 42