Chapter 16
"The fallen should be honored according to the honor with which they served Caledonia while they still breathed."
- Quendon Franklin, 23 Yanwer, 1788 AC
"West!" Aidan shouted, certain that it was closer than the others. Time to get in the fight. He and Charlene rode hard, their steeds narrowly missing a cluster of tangled roots and brambles that threatened to trip them. Midnight leapt over a hedge as he crested as small hill, and suddenly the battle was right in front of him. Plaz exploded in glowing-purple fire before him, and he saw several Redtail-Crested bandits fall to the ground either blackened or burning. The invaders all wore deep-brown livery decorated with the red bear's paw of House Meadows.
Aidan was behind the attackers, and they were pressing hard against the platoon they'd encountered, stabbing with swords and spike-crested pole-axes. A few hung back and reloaded their muskets, snapping the barrel open from the stock and swiftly removing the spent glass-and-gears cartridges still smoking dark gray from the discharge. He drew his mace and charged the nearest one, Charlene close behind on his right flank. They smashed into the four musket-wielding members of Deputy Meadows's posse.
Aidan's mace smashed into the first Soldier he encountered, swinging full force and filled with righteous fury. This was what he was trained for; this was what he was made for. The man lurched backward from the heavy blow and landed on the ground with a thud. Another posse member came to help from his right, and Aidan smacked him with a vicious backhand, his mace's flanged head smashing into the bear's paw Crested breastplate after bending the musket that his enemy held up to block the blow. The man threw his ruined musket, but Aidan batted it away with his empty hand.
His enemy drew a short sword and shoved it full force toward Aidan's eye. Aidan dodged to the right then whipped his head to the left, smacking the feeble blade aside and exposing the man's chest for an unblocked blow. The mace hit, and the man grunted but didn't fall. Aidan heard some terrible scream, but it wasn't coming from the Redtails, who were holding their line admirably. It was coming from the unhorsed Soldier on the ground as his armor gradually gave way against the crush of the other mounts.
Aidan's opponent once again jabbed with his sword, this time at Aidan's hip-joint. Aidan caught the sword with his gauntleted fingers and smacked the man's hand with his mace. As the Soldier cried out and withdrew his hand, one of the Redtails came from behind and hooked him around the neck with a hooked bill pike. The man crashed to the ground, fingers scratching uselessly at the weapon which brought him low, and screamed while a few bandits whom Aidan recognized as students in his armor-fighting class. They learned their lessons well; one held the Man-at-Arms to the ground while the other shoved a dagger into his skull from a weak point under the jaw.
"After them!" Aidan shouted, pointing his mace toward the fleeing Soldiers, only one still mounted. Around him lay bodies both of the posse and of his own army. Some of the enemy wore Kannitick Armor, but some made do with simple plate. Their fate is the same regardless.
He slipped his mace back into his hip sling and rode north quick as the wind. He found most of his own mounted roving platoon helping with two other platoons who had apparently sprung an ambush against a party of perhaps twenty or so foes, likewise varying in their choice of armor. Marke and Rodrig were harassing one of them who wore Kannitick, but Three-Eyed Laney was clutching a bleeding leg on the other side of the line and desperately parrying relentless spear jabs from a mounted man in simple plate. Aidan snapped the reins and jumped off his horse onto the mount of the spear-wielding tough, pulling out his dagger and sliding it under the man's jaw. He twitched a few times and then went limp. Aidan sloughed him onto the ground, and held out the butt end of his spear to Laney, who thanked him and stood.
Looking over his shoulder, she became alarmed and flicked her eyepiece down. In a quick, fluid motion, she whirled her back-strapped crossbow to her front and aimed it over Aidan's shoulder. He had just enough time to look before the steel quarrel whizzed by his head and landed right in the left eye of a man charging toward Aidan, pole-axe extended and ready to swing. The man fell, his body limp as wet denim, and the enemy horse turn and ran into the forest.
"Who's in the south?" Aidan shouted to Rodrig as he made his way across the line, disrupting foes and knocking them from their horses as he went.
"Hanson!" Rodrig shouted. Aidan nodded and smacked a crossbow out of an unhorsed posse member's hands. The man shouted, and then fell to the ground in a clanking, clattering pile of steel plate as Aidan bashed his face.
This group may have been ambushed, but they were much more competent than those who manned the trap carriages. A group of about twelve dismounted and almost appeared as though fleeing on foot until they turned and interlocked large shields, holding their spears out and shouting insults and curses at the Redtails. While ten formed a phalanx line, two stood between the line and a wall of three full-grown sequoias and loaded elemental bolts into crossbows.
"Muskets!" Marke screamed. The Redtail platoons, about twenty-four in number, sheathed their weapons or dropped them and readied their muskets, forming a double-ranked firing line, just as Ygretta had drilled them. The front rank knelt, and they aimed their weapons at the approaching enemy phalanx. Three-Eyed Laney acted as a line Sergeant and shouted commands while Marke, Rodrig, and Aidan rode their horses to flank the enemy line as soon as they showed signs of flagging.
A red glowing bolt suddenly loosed from behind the enemy phalanx, and Aidan cried out as it struck the frontmost line of Musketeers. The glass casing on the bolt ruptured in a red ball as it struck, and liquid fire spewed in every direction. The people at the middle of both lines screamed like animals as the sulphur-smelling fluid melted their faces and every square span of skin it touched. Damn it! The line may crumble!
Taking advantage, the enemy phalanx charged, each member of their line jogging slowly and then picking up speed, keeping their shields tightly together. The Archers protested but were ignored, and Aidan charged them with Rodrig and Marke. One of them loosed a freeze bolt, but his shot went wide and hit the upper trunk of a tree, the wound blooming bright white.
Laney gave the order for both lines to fire. The Plaz boomed and burst, but the wall of shields held firm, the Soldiers only slowing down a little. Now or never; live or die. Aidan charged the rear of the line and smashed into it, Midnight biting as he smashed his mace into helms and backs. The Redtail platoons took up their melee weapons and charged the front, killing two of the Soldiers who were busy parrying the blows of Aidan's deadly mace. Chivalry is forbidden on the battlefield. His father's words, eerily true, repeated over and over again as Aidan maimed and killed.
Rodrig and Marke had finished with the Archers and joined Aidan's melee, Rodrig thrusting a pole-axe with incredible precision through eyes and joints of three enemies from horseback. Marke was using his longsword, parrying and twisting, disarming two of the men before thrusting the slender point of his blade through gaps in their shoulder joints.
The three remaining Soldiers threw down arms and yielded, putting a knee to the ground and holding up empty hands. Hanson's platoon charged in just in time to witness the skirmish end. Aidan waved to Greco Hanson, a bulky Iridonian with obsidian skin and long skull-braids even thicker and ropier than Charlene's. He waved back and grunted, pursing his lips in satisfaction as he surveyed the bodies that littered the ground.
"Where's Charlene and Ygretta?" Marke asked.
"And Connel?" Rodrig said. Aidan looked for sign of them. Around him were fifty or so able-bodied Redtails, perhaps twenty wounded and as many dead. As he felt worry building in his gut, there came another single long blast of alarm to the south. They were still under attack.
He opened his faceplate and whistled for Midnight, who didn't bother to stop as he leapt onto him from the horse he'd captured. Grabbing his reins, he put his heels into his flanks, and he started into a desperate gallop. Marke and Rodrig followed, but they faded fro
m his peripheral as Midnight easily outpaced their mounts.
He came upon a Redtail platoon, at least seven of its sixteen members lying dead or wounded behind their battle line, which was losing ground fast to the aggressive press of enemy Soldiers, all outfitted in Kannitick Plate. They were mostly carrying spears, so he dismounted and closed his faceplate, whispering a few orders as his heads-up display lit up with suggestions, odds, and a power meter that still read 100 percent.
Three enemy Soldiers broke off from their phalanx and tried to surround him; he leapt and struck one of them sideways in his knee with all his might, crushing the bone and ligament under the sheer savagery of his mace. One of the others swung his axe at Aidan's shoulders. He jumped back and just avoided the blow, then swung wildly at the other man who was about to strike. He hit him in the elbow, and the man took a step back, but both still held their ground.
Suddenly, the man he had dodged dropped to his knees, a quarrel sticking out of his eye slit and blood spilling out as it ran along the cruel bolt. Aidan's remaining opponent stepped in close and swung his short sword. Aidan blocked it, but the man was prepared. He grabbed Aidan's mace by the head and pulled him forward so that he lost his balance. Aidan desperately grabbed for the top of his opponent's chestplate but fumbled to get around the gorget. He felt the tip of the man's sword at his throat, right where the webbing became just thin enough to slide a blade through. Not yet, please, gods of House Franklin, not yet!
Suddenly, the point he felt at his throat fell away, and his opponent nearly pulled him to the ground with him. He sprawled on the snowy dirt, an arrow buried so deep in his neck that its narrow pointed tip came out the other side. Aidan looked to his left, from where the arrow must have come, to see Charlene standing with bow already nocked once again. She winked at him as she let it fly, and it struck one of the enemy behind the knee, perfectly between the plates to pierce the man's joint.
The other Redtails finally caught up to Aidan and helped the besieged platoon crush around the enemy. Around five more posse members died before the seven remaining dropped their weapons and surrendered. Aidan removed his helmet, his head glad of the icy afternoon air. Sweat covered his brow and soaked his matted hair. He bellowed a wordless cry and held his mace high in the air and his Soldiers joined in his victory cry, likewise lifting their weapons and channeling their leftover aggression into a roar so loud that its echo could be heard for several heartbeats when he gave a signal for it to cease. Aidan considered that there might be other patrols still in the woods, and that those troops would now know exactly where to find them. Let them come.
Spoil was stripped from the dead enemy, mostly armor and weapons, a few coins and talismans. What could be taken from the bandits' own dead was distributed as their platoon leaders saw fit, awards for balls and brains in the face of danger.
"Three groups of twenty each," Rodrig said, whistling as he came to where Aidan overlooked the new camp being struck at the crest of a large, flat-topped hill. "That should have counted for more."
"Meadows sent his men to fight us as though we were outlaws," Aidan said, shaking his head critically at the placement of the armory tent. It was too close to the edge of one of the hill's steep sides and might slip down the hill entirely if the snow shifted. It could be moved tomorrow, though; this day had bigger concerns.
"Not likely he'll make that mistake again, I'm afraid."
"Probably. Lord Meadows is many things, but he's not a man who repeats his mistakes. Next time he'll come at us like an army."
"Let him come," Ygretta said, still wearing her Kannitick Plate and holding a cup smelling at the same time sweet and bitter. "I could take him and his shithead son even after another cup of mead!"
Aidan laughed and gave Ygretta a broad smile. He had a sneaking suspicion that her refreshing beverage came courtesy of Charlene, but decided against asking. Better they make peace without my interference. He had heard whispers that the two had quite an adventure in the forest.
"Sword-sister!" Charlene's voice now shouted as she ran to Ygretta and they embraced. "We live to fight again!"
"Many more battles together, I hope! Hey ... where's your mead?"
Charlene looked over her shoulder and yelled, "Connel! Another cup!"
Connel stumbled out of the mess tent with two tall earthen mugs, spilling one as he nearly tripped over some long-dead roots that still burst through the ground like a sea monster on land. He handed the cup that was still filled to the brim to Charlene, who tipped the bottom toward heaven and drained it.
"You three are a disgrace, you know that?" Rodrig scolded, laughing nonetheless. "Drinking while the common Soldiers are setting camp!"
"Our duties are done!" Ygretta was already speaking slower and more carefully than normal. Aidan wondered how many cups she'd already drunk. "We were almost killed today, horse master, let us celebrate!"
"Celebrate all you like, I was only joking." Rodrig held up his hands, but still walked to a nearby bandit who was having trouble pressing his tent stakes into the ice-hardened ground and gave him a big rock that was lying nearby.
"You should have seen her!" Charlene said, putting an arm around Ygretta, who stumbled a bit and spilled a few drops over the rim of her silver cup.
"For the House gods," she mumbled, then took another drink.
"Well, if you lot are going to drink, I may as well go get a cup," Marke said, glancing at Aidan as if for permission. Aidan gave him a small nod, and he smiled. "Camp's almost up anyway."
"Ladies, there is nothing I want more than to hear of your daring feats of combat," Aidan said, grabbing Charlene by her waste and bringing her close to him, "but there is one final matter I must attend to."
Charlene grabbed his head in both hands and kissed him as though she were desperate to feel his lips, his tongue. He gladly returned her kiss, enjoying the leftover taste of honeyed wine a little too much. He nodded to Ygretta who held her cup to her forehead in a mock salute and took a drink, tipping the bottom to the sky. As the newly proclaimed sword-sisters went to the mess tent to beg some more mead, Aidan tapped Rodrig on the shoulder and gestured with his head for the two of them to talk privately. They moved a little away from the main camp, but stayed within view. Don't want the Soldiers thinking we're making plots in the shadows.
"The captives," Rodrig said, as usual guessing the subject on Aidan's mind.
"Since the battle ended, I have thought of little else."
"We can't keep them, and there'll be no ransom anyway."
"Can't trust them to join us either." Aidan's mind once again replayed Charlene's attack against his will, and he growled as he struggled to push it away. "That leaves one option."
"And many options that go with it." Rodrig's voice sounded suddenly weary and he sat on a nearby stump. "The question is, what message are we trying to send?"
Aidan considered this for a moment, remembering what the commanders on New Mongolia would do with their prisoners intended for execution. Torturing them was a common choice, but Aidan knew he didn't have the stomach to give that order, nor did he feel it had the effect on the enemy that his commanders swore it did. He remembered the group at Dagnar Station who were put through some kind of medical procedure which left them without emotion or long-term memory, not unlike the Thralls who served the Tower. Perhaps the heretic Windhill knew how to perform such a technique. The thought chilled him, and he wished he had some mead at the ready.
"Seems to me, M'Lord," Rodrig said, scratching in the dirt with a long twig, "that there's a basic principle of prisoner treatment: Don't do nothing to the enemy Soldiers that you wouldn't want the enemy to do to your own men." He scratched a big circle in the dirt, then a line through its center. "Seems to me, also, that we should consider what the Deputy would do with the lot of us."
Aidan pressed his lips together; he knew exactly what should be done. He found a long, thin board painted white, meant to be used as a cover for a root cellar. He took a thick greasy stick o
f charcoal to it and wrote the message he intended. He brought it to Rodrig and gave the order he had been avoiding.
"Hang the survivors from the trees near Klauston. I want King Ethan and Deputy Meadows to see them when they wake up in the morning." Aidan felt an icy shell wrapping around his heart, preventing him from feeling any emotions. How many more lines will I cross before this is ended?
Rodrig looked approvingly at the sign Aidan had made, tracing his eyes over every large, even curve of the letters. He read it out loud.
"Trespassers, you are warned." His mouth curled in a smile, and Aidan knew the message hit home. The forest belongs to us. "I like it."
"Let's hope it buys us some peace until spring."
"I reckon it will. We found a lot of coin on these bastards - more than the Deputy will be eager to part with a second time."
"Curious that they were liveried with paws," Aidan said, crossing his arms as he stared at the dead Soldiers who had been stripped of everything but their underclothes and the red paw jupons, "I would imagine the King won't be pleased."
"Yes, odd," Rodrig said, burrowing his fingers through his frizzed, matted hair, "though perhaps things have gotten worse between them."
Aidan felt his heart well up with dread, then go cold with the chilly calculus of war. He scratched at the week's worth of growth on his chin, considering what this could mean for his own efforts. Perhaps the King is in need of a friend with an army.
"That could work to our advantage, old friend."
"It could indeed." Rodrig spoke hesitantly, clearly wanting to bring up an uncomfortable subject. "What's our plan come spring?"
"We cannot take Barrowdown by siege," Aidan said, his voice sad at having to speak the words out loud. "We don't have numbers or time on our side."
"Glad to hear you say it. We'll need to take the city by some other means."
"Distasteful means." Aidan twisted his lips in a scowl. He felt the urge to spit at the idea of winning a battle purely on trickery. But New Mongolia had taught him that deception was not only part of warfare, it was the whole. Besides, how could he drive his own people to starvation, despair, and all the other horrors of a siege? "We'll need a volunteer."
Rodrig made some suggestions, Aidan recognized most of the names and made a point to get acquainted with those he didn't. In a week or two, they would send one of them on a mission from which they may never return.
"Before you return the Deputy's men," Aidan said, unable to use the word execute, "tell me: What is the final cost of this skirmish?"
"We captured fourteen of them, killed forty-three, and three fled. Probably out of the forest by now." Rodrig's voice was solemn and mournful. I've been fighting with this band for only a few months; he's known them for two years. "We lost twenty-three of our own, and I believe around two dozen are wounded, but well over half will fully recover. We may lose a few more; I'll let Sir Marke know."
"Let me know as well," Aidan put an arm around Rodrig, who was now looking at the ground as he remembered the names and faces of the friends he had lost that day. "And I'll see to the burials myself. Nadya's tree will be the first in our Sacred Grove."
Rodrig smiled, choking back a few tears as he spoke. "She'd like that, I think."
The camp was nearly set, and the festivities began. Aidan pushed thoughts of strategy and troop types and tactics out of his mind. They had gained a victory; no small feat against foes who were better armed, better protected, and more experienced. This band of outlaws had been forged into an army in blood and fire and steel. No longer a band of cutthroats and cowards, they fought no longer only for themselves but for each other.
But neither drink nor good company could shake the thought that Aidan had desperately been trying to forget for the moment. It floated back into his mind as he danced with Charlene and then Ygretta, it haunted him when he took a third cup of mead and drained it as fast as he was able, it remained when he sang the "Song of Berenice Gasca." Twenty-three of ours for Forty-three of theirs. Good odds.
When he woke in the morning, he wasn't exactly certain whether he was vomiting from too much drink or from the unshakable dirtiness of self-disgust.