‘You put younger lads on their arses daily, my lord.’
Sir Silver smiled. ‘Maybe, but lads looking to me in awe aren’t goblins or adlets or other men trying to open me up, are they? The fight isn’t the same in the yard as it is out here.’ He waved his arm about, indicating the bodies and the smoke of war.
Grannit took a deep breath before he spoke, his heart pounding like it had been during the fight. Truth be told, he knew how the old knight felt. After all, Grannit must have been near on forty years by his reckoning. A bloody hard forty years, too, with less pampering than Sir Silver, not to take away from the knight’s hard work at warfare.
‘What are you saying, my lord?’ Grannit dared ask.
Sir Silver smiled again, although there was less heart in it and more resignation.
‘I’ve been asked to serve King Barrison in Wesson. In the palace itself.’
Grannit’s eyes widened, and he filled his cheeks before letting it out. ‘His retinue, my lord?’
The sudden, short laugh was a mixture of humour and regret. ‘No, sergeant. As a captain of the wall. I should be honoured, really.’
Grannit swallowed hard. ‘You should, it’s a fine honour and a fine position,’ he lied.
Nodding, Sir Silver shot Grannit a knowing wink. ‘Thank you.’
I’d follow this man anywhere, Grannit thought, but is this the end? Will he while his years away now, growing fat whilst ordering guards up and down a wall. Working out rotas and organising the repairs of crumbling crenellations?
‘When do you leave?’ Grannit asked, not sure he wanted to know.
‘Immediately.’
It was hard for Sir Silver to say that, Grannit could see.
‘And so…’ Sir Silver motioned for Grannit to kneel.
Grannit hesitated. His heart started anew and his stomach twisted. He’d fought his whole life for this moment. Literally. He’d fought and he’d fought. He’d lost friends along the way. Almost all of them. And, if he was honest with his own aching bones and stabbing wounds, new and old, the only man he trusted enough to call friend that remained in the world was the knight standing before him, ready to make Grannit his peer rather than his subordinate.
‘My lord,’ Grannit said, staying on two feet like he’d sprouted the roots of an oak, ‘what happens if you do this? What happens to…this?’ He indicated himself and Sir Silver. The two of them. Their brotherhood of pell and field.
Plate spaulders scraped across maille as Sir Silver shrugged.
‘I guard a palace and our king whilst you march around Altoln, ridding it of this shite as a knight of the realm.’ He pointed to the corpses all about. Corpses being looted and dragged off to pyres already lit.
Nodding knowingly, Grannit made a decision he never thought he would, or could. ‘Then I cannot accept, my lord Silver.’
Sir Silver rocked back and made to protest, but for the first time in the decades they’d known one another, Grannit held up his hand and stopped the knight from talking.
‘My lord needs a sergeant he can trust, and I need a lord I, too, can trust. My place is with you, Sir Silver. My place is at your side, in Wesson, if you’ll have me.’
The uncontrollable smile that spread across Sir Silver’s face struck Grannit more than any enemy ever had—and there’d been a few to talk of—but in a good way, of course.
‘You mean it, Sergeant Grannit?’
‘I mean it, Sir Silver.’
There was a pregnant pause filled with the call of crows and the sound of a victorious company making camp.
Both men clasped hands and pulled into an embrace before holding each other at arms’ length.
‘We’ll show Wesson what real soldiers are made of, eh, sergeant?’
Grannit gave a wolfish grin. ‘Oh aye, my lord. The bastards in Wesson won’t know what hit `em.’
Asalantir Forever
Steven Poore
Silence rushes in.
For a moment, Jin is certain she has died. She exhales raggedly, feels her heart hammering hard in her chest. She stares at the opposite side of the trench, then up at the muddy sky. The air is thick, flecks of earth, stone, flesh, bone, iron, and grit on her tongue.
She ducks back down. The assembled Pride stares at her. Peng, mismatched gauntlets, shoulders braced to carry the mining cannon. Kareem, the cannonball. Sails and his lances. Who the hell brings lances to a trench fight anyway? Pash and Harp. Spill. A random, nameless squire to a knight who didn't duck in time, now running with the Pride because she has nowhere else to go. Others Jin has picked up along the way. Even a crafter or two, which'll be helpful if they ever get close enough to Asalantir to use the cannon.
‘God's sainted shit, we're still here.’ She grins at Peng.
Peng grins back. ‘Never thought we wouldn't be.’
That's a lie, and they both know it. This close to the front lines, they're lucky to be in one piece, lucky to be alive, lucky to be recognisably human at all. The fortress on the hill, Asalantir, dominates the western horizon and overlooks the approaches. Put your head over the top at the wrong moment, or for too long, and it'll likely disappear in a sorcerous bolt. Or an arrow, hurled far beyond the normal range of a longbow by the damned devilish Hinyans on the battlements, taking an eyeball with hellish precision. Or one of the exploding stones that arc through the air with the grace and weight of a giant's bollock and send even plate-clad knights tumbling like rag dolls.
Or worse. Though Jin can't think of much worse than being here, now, in this place, at this time.
She risks a look. Sighs. Asalantir doesn't appear any closer. The last advance has barely advanced at all. Dozens of lives, maybe hundreds, all spent and wasted for a few poxy yards.
‘Nearly there,’ she lies. ‘They're digging in ahead of us. We can wait here for a bit, then go once they send the knights through again. Then it's just a quick race to the next set of trenches…’
Collective groans. Nobody wants to think about open ground. Not with the Hinyans up there. And the Hinyans aren’t even the worst of it.
Spill offers a flaccid skin. The Pride take a mouthful each. The last of the water. It tastes of dirt and death, just as the air does. Jin takes her share and washes out her mouth. She passes the skin to Pash, and a thought, a feeling, makes her frown. Like Pash is a ghost, like she’s already left him behind. But there he is, chain shirt rusted, helm jammed tight over his ears.
Jin shakes it off. Curses, dire premonitions, like there isn’t already too much magic on this battlefield. Sorcery in the very earth, in the air, clinging to the skin, deep in their bones. And the magic isn’t trying to stick three-foot blades through her guts while she dives from trench to trench. Damn Asalantir, damn the Hinyans, damn the idiots who told her the war would be over in a season.
‘Right.’ She takes stock. If Asalantir is there, then the front is over there, and she remembers a connecting trench that ought to be over there, and that’ll take the Pride straight up. No need to climb up and leg it. Hopefully. ‘Sails, up front. Poke everything. Pash, push from the back. We need to hurry it up or the knights will roll right over us and leave us behind.’
Sails tips his lance, jabs everything in their path. Boards, corpses, things softened by mud. Some things can explode. Others can bite. Some do both. Left behind by retreating soldiers from one side or the other, or else catapulted in from the fortress. There’s a use for lances in the trenches after all. Jin moves crabwise, back bent, peering past Sails, looking for the junction, hoping it hasn’t been bombarded to shit. The Pride follows behind her, Peng and Kareem breathing hard with the weight they carry. The lost squire clanks through the trench, her armour gouged and battered. Jin glances at the planks that span the trench at irregular intervals—no movement up there, no sign yet of the knights.
A sharp turn and, suddenly, she can see the fortress, looming over the field. Distant shouts from the other side. Staggered flights of blind-fired arrows take the air—somebody’s raised the
ir head too high for a moment or there’s an observer on the ground.
‘Cover!’ Jin shouts. The Pride ducks, raising shields if they have them. One breath, two, three…
Shafts clatter, bounce, hit the mud with wet thuds. Someone shouts.
‘Move it!’ Jin matches action to words. She shoves Sails, he keeps going for the next sharp turn, lance scoring a lengthy gutter in the floor of the trench. Peng and Kareem squeeze past her, the others, too, and then there’s only Pash, pinpricked, legs kicking, the blood running out between his fingers as he clutches at his neck.
More shouting from up ahead—alarm, Hinyan voices. Pash is on his own—Jin pulls her stabbing blade and runs for the trouble. She pushes past Spill and the rest, and Sails is holding the Hinyans back with the length of his lance while Harp chants razor-sharp beads of energy into them. The enemy has a mage, too, and the beads spray out and up, and there’s mud and stone flying all over the place. Jin roars the Pride’s cry and surges down one side of the lance while the lost squire takes the other. They stab and hack furiously. The shouting might draw help from back down the trenches, or it might bring more Hinyans. Right now, this bunch are between Jin and where she needs to be, and she won’t let them stop her.
The last few turn and run. Now, Harp’s beads can cut them to shreds, and the Pride stomps the bodies into the ground as they overtake the Hinyans. The squire is grinning, Spill is limping, Peng’s shoulder braces have been scored by Hinyan clawblades. Sails takes the lead again, and the Pride has fresh momentum. We can do this, Jin thinks. We can.
Harp grabs her shoulder. ‘Something’s wrong.’
That feeling she had earlier. Jin thinks a moment—it’s gone now. ‘What?’
‘I don’t know. Think we might have tripped something.’
‘Magetrap? Early warning?’ That would explain the enemy in these trenches. A counter attack.
Harp shrugs, unhappy. ‘Can’t tell. I don’t recognise it. It’s new. Could be a curse.’
And they won’t know what it does until it takes effect. Jin gives her own shrug. ‘This whole bloody war’s a curse. Onwards. Take Asalantir, beat the curse, right?’
Harp pulls a face. ‘Maybe.’
Jin elbows her way towards the front of the Pride. Scarred and blooded and almost past the point of no return. Kareem virtually glows with anticipation, ready to be cannoned through the earth to Asalantir’s great vaults, to open the way, to take the fortress from within. They have to get close enough to use the cannon, though, despite all the sorcery invested in this bollock-crazy weapon. Thus the Pride, one last time, one final mission.
This is the front line. The part of the field nobody owns, at least not for more than an hour at a time. Trenches collapsed by bombardments, blocked by corpses and the shattered debris of the farms and villages that once sat here below Asalantir. There are clawblades and shields and all sorts of sharp, rusty objects. You can shout to the other side, if you feel so inclined. Jin doesn’t. The Hinyans have not long come over the top. There may be more of them.
‘We’re on time,’ Peng whispers. She’s checking the orders. Howls and steel clashing, echoing down the length of the battlefield. Somewhere else has a push on. It might be the diversion they’re waiting for. Jin can’t tell. She finds the crafters, makes certain their spells are ready. They’re uncomfortable in leather and helms, holding swords and bucklers. Not something they’ve ever had to do before, but Jin doesn’t want them picked out and picked off by the bloody archers in Asalantir. Robes and fancy torcs are too obvious.
It’s quiet. Too quiet. Something’s going to happen, any time now. Jin looks up, catches Harp’s eye. Harp’s frowning, too, attention fixed on…Sails.
The tip of his lance scores another line in the mud. Jin holds her breath.
The walls of the trench explode out. Vast jaws come together like that. Sails may be armoured, but he’s still crushed like a swatted fly. The nearest of the Pride are covered by his sudden death. The trenchwyrm is gone, back into the mud, before anybody can do more than shout.
Jin wipes her cheek. ‘Fetid cocks.’
‘How did I know that was going to happen?’ Harp mutters, perhaps not realising she has spoken aloud.
‘Good question,’ Jin says. ‘Well?’
Harp hesitates. She’s about to speak when the air is filled with horns, louder than any crafted explosion. Despite knowing this was coming, Jin winces, shrinks down. That’s the power of the order to charge. Her ears ring so much she can’t tell if the horns still blare or if she’s gone deaf.
‘The knights!’ Peng yells in her face. ‘The knights are coming!’
And now she feels it. Like a tremor building through the ground, driving even the hungry trenchwyrms down into the safety of deep earth. Pounds, tonnes, of ensorcelled armour, hurtling towards the front. Lances, swords, hammers, shields, the great push forwards. The one to get them over the lines.
It shakes her teeth. The crafters are pale, wetting themselves. They’ve never seen an advance from this side before. The lost squire whoops in delight, her fists in the air. Above the top of the trench. A sorcerously-enhanced arrow takes off one of her hands, but she’s too caught up in her rapture to notice.
And that’s the rapture the knights are caught in, too. They hurdle over the front line trenches like armoured catapult projectiles, the air around them bright with magic. They would sing if their throats weren’t raw from screaming their blood-induced rapture. Huge, almost-human shapes, soaring through the air over Jin’s head. An awesome sight.
The Hinyans fire in response. Sorcery erupts across the front. The knights' armour gleams, glitters, radiates colours there are no names for as battle magic ricochets off enchanted plate and mail. Shields absorb and reflect death rays, fireballs slide down chest plates like fat in a pan. Weird bulges form in the air as spells collide, and dimensions explode into life, evolve, and die again in half a heartbeat. Blinding flashes of infinity tear into the earth through withered spells, melt armour and cook flesh. If the knights themselves are awesome, then this bombardment is truly spectacular.
From a distance, of course. Preferably, the top of a mountain, in a different country.
Jin is counting. The Pride watches her. The lost squire, overwhelmed and berserk, vaults out of the trench and takes off after the knights, heedless of her injuries and lack of protective spells. She is lost in the spray of magic instantly. Jin counts down with her fingers. Four, three, two, one…
‘Go!’ Peng roars. ‘Go, go, go!’
And they do. Over the top, at a slant to the big push, behind the last ranks of knights, the ones who maybe aren't quite so ready for a glorious death yet. The front is wreathed in a nimbus of sorcery. It has an almost physical presence. Jin feels it tugging at her, slowing her down. Peng is gleeful alongside her, Kareem and the crafters not far behind. They weave between fresh craters where the land still bubbles, trying not to notice the twitching limbs, the half-transformed torsos, the reanimating remains of the last wave before this one.
‘Mage down,’ Spill shouts. Jin peels away and looks back. There's Harp, hauling herself back to her feet, mud streaked down one side of her body. She limps forward a step, shakes her head, and waves Jin on urgently. Jin ignores her and runs back. Peng knows where they're going.
‘No! Keep going!’
‘How bad is it?’
Harp grimaces. ‘Bad enough. I can't keep up.’
Jin shakes her head. ‘We need you to fire the cannon.’
‘No. Crafters can do that. Just remember to get the bloody thing right way up.’ Harp pauses and looks up. ‘Oh, shit. Not again. Jin, it's the magetrap— We triggered a time—’
‘Incoming!’ shouts Spill. Instinct takes over, and Jin dives. She hits the ground just as the ground explodes up to meet her, and she lets the impact carry her forward, rolling away from the new crater that was Harp.
She staggers up, glad of Spill’s helping hand. Through unfocused eyes, she can see the Hinyans ri
sing up from their trenches, going hand to hand with the surviving knights. Blurs of blood and steel and mercury. There’s still a chance, still time to use the diversion. Jin holds onto Spill’s shoulder, and they lumber back to the rest of the Pride, taking cover in another gully next to the shards of a shattered barn.
‘I can see their trench,’ says Peng. ‘Easy run.’
Easy run. Jin nods. She isn’t feeling it. But they are past the point of no return now. And if Harp was right, if the squad triggered a curse of some kind… She looks around at the others. ‘On my count,’ she says.
They charge the last yards, past the stakes, down the mud banks, stabbing and hacking and smashing the defenders with their bucklers. It’s tight again, yet completely different to the trenches just a stone’s throw behind them. And without Sails, the enemy is much closer, right in their faces. Jin pours all her energy into the fight, pushing for every step. The noise around her is deafening as Hinyan reinforcements arrive to repel the knights. She can’t afford to get bogged down in that battle. She has to keep moving, keep the Pride moving at all costs.
At all costs.
Hinyan clawblades rip Peng’s guts open. She falls, holding them with one hand, the other loosening the straps that hold the cannon to her shoulders. Spill takes the cannon while Jin decapitates the offending Hinyan with a stroke Peng would surely have applauded. There’s not many of them left now. The crafters, Spill, Kareem, Jin herself, half a dozen others with names she never learned. They don’t stand and fight, they just run and hack. Speed is all now.
They leave the knights behind. The sorcerers in Asalantir are focused on that battle, not on them. At last, the ground begins to shift, leading upwards towards the great hill itself. Here, Jin thinks. They must fire the cannon here, before it’s too late.
‘Spill! Kareem, you’re up!’
The crafters set the cannon, with Kareem inside it. The big man glows with anticipation. Fire him through half a mile of earth, he’ll be ready for the fight at the end. Asalantir won’t know what’s hit it.
Art of War Page 21