“Brace!” yelled Prince Amras at the top of his lungs.
* * * * *
As the untidy battle-wedge of enemy fighters rushed towards them, yelling at the top of their lungs in a strange, alien language, Aranel, for a split-second, felt almost as if she was going to pass out. The moment passed immediately and she took another firm grip of her sword, fleetingly checking that the wrist thong was in place. She knew that mighty swipes by an opponent’s sword could loosen a grip to an extent that her hold on her sword could be swept aside. At least the thong gave one a chance to grasp the hilt again before it was too late.
“Brace!” yelled Prince Amras again.
Aranel braced. She felt Enelya pressed against her side, and was aware of the comforting image of the shield that would protect them.
This time there would be no helpful weapons trainer watching with eagle eye and ready to stop the fight if it got out of hand.
Aranel Cuthalion, daughter of the Elf Lord Arovan, was about to take part in her first real battle.
* * * * *
Individual warriors began to run forward from the enemy ranks. The enemy rank structure was also, as Aranel realised, very similar to that of the Nosse. The out-world fighters were most definitely forming themselves into a shield wall. The ones who had run forward were holding what Aranel realised were short, throwing spears much like the dragon-riding Sky Elves carried. She was proved right when, a heartbeat later, an irregular volley of these spears came hurtling out of the air towards them and Aranel quickly ducked her head down behind Enelya’s shield.
She knew that some members of the Nosse rear rank carried spears of their own. Javlins the elves called them, lightweight, wooden throwing weapons which they used mostly for hunting. The fact that the enemy fighters had emerged out of their main body made them vulnerable to retaliatory javlin strikes so there was every chance that the elf javlins would find their mark. Their counter-blow would kill at least some of them, especially when thrown by experienced throwers, used to hunting the fast and elusive forest animals.
Aranel was right.
Some eight or so enemy spear throwers hit the ground.
Aranel didn’t think the enemy would stop charging just because some of them had been killed. Neither did Enelya, Aranel saw her partner loosen her daggers from her belt to make ready for some close combat.
They were both wrong. The enemy ranks stopped.
The strange fighters stood there, shouting and yelling at them and beating at their shields with their axes and other weapons. The din was terrific. Aranel had never imagined that a battlefield would be so loud.
She caught Enelya’s eye.
Enelya’s response was a tight grin. This is what we trained for, isn’t it, her glance was saying.
Aranel, still braced ‘at the ready’ behind the shield was warily watching the fighters. The purple mist appeared to be dissipating, it had certainly stopped swirling, and the sea-tang was no longer prevalent.
The more experienced members of the Nosse realised at this point that there would be no way back home for these fighters through the T’Quel.
They were all wondering what Prince Amras would do.
Was there a way to negotiate?
“Don’t move,” Prince Amras ordered. His clipped and penetrative voice cut through the noise like a whiplash.
The out-world fighters didn’t pay any attention, they just kept yelling and beating at their shields.
A few of the strangers, seeing that the elf ranks were not going to attack, pushed their way through their own shield wall and made their way to their fallen comrades.
To the elves surprise, they didn’t kneel down to see if these fighters were dead or merely wounded. They knelt down and calmly sliced their throats open.
The ranks of elven warriors and their shield partners gasped. One or two of them gagged aloud, Aranel included. What kind of mortals were these, who would kill their own?
With a wary eye on the elf ranks, the out-worlders then stripped the bodies of their armour and weapons, the spare javelins, swords, shields and helmets.
Aranel was not the only one to wonder why they would do such a thing. Care of your friends and fellow warriors, wounded or otherwise was central to an elf’s very being.
How, thought Aranel, can we negotiate with fighters like these?
Without conscious volition she began to make out some of the words the out-world fighters were chanting. They were shouting it out over and over again. Aranel didn’t think she would ever forget it, that and the thundering noise of the beating shields.
“Deyr fe, deyja fraendr, deyr sjalfr it sama. Ek veit einn at aldri deyr: domr um daudan hvern. Havamal.”
It was like no language she had heard before, and whatever it meant, she decided she didn’t like it. It sounded, all at once, angry, vicious and warlike and, much as she tried to keep focused, she couldn’t help but wonder why they had killed off their own injured. Exposing themselves like that might be construed, she decided, as a sign of great bravery in some cultures. Perhaps they stripped the slain to get their valuable gear, but if that was so, then it was an alien thing. No elf would despoil another elf in such a way unless it was necessary. She could see two of those who had stripped their dead comrades squabbling over their ill-gotten gains.
The elf lines continued to stand and watch.
It was at that point, just as Prince Amras was beginning to push his way through the elf ranks to see if the out-world fighters might be prepared to parley, that the attack came.
The chanting rose to a crescendo and the enemy lines began to move forward.
Prince Amras cursed. They would have to fight.
“Prepare!” he yelled.
The first charge of the out-world fighters didn’t breach the elven shield wall though it came close. Aranel felt her knees beginning to buckle with the force of the impact but she strove to press herself forward, bolstering the front rank.
There were one or two almost desultory clashes of blades and axes as if the out-worlders were merely testing them. As the noisy fighters retreated, not noticeably disheartened with the failure of their first foray, Aranel was convinced they would not wait overlong to try again. She wasn’t wrong.
The out-world warriors advanced again, this time keeping within a ragged formation and Aranel and the other elven warriors readied their stance again. This was the foray that would be the deciding one, the one that would or would not break through the elf ranks.
The enemy continued to advance to battle, their weapons raised and their shields set to defence. Aranel could feel the ground tremble beneath her feet as towards the elf warriors they strode, each intent on harm to their enemy, her Nosse.
One of the enemy fighters threw a spear and wounded an elf warrior from the front rank to the left of Aranel and Enelya. Although wounded, the elf thrust outwards with his shield such that the spear shaft burst, and the spearhead shattered. Aranel saw rage grow on the elf’s face as he stabbed the proud-looking fighter who had given him the wound.
She would later be amazed that she had had the time and opportunity to notice what other warriors were doing. She deduced, also later, that being part of a battle was like time passing almost in slow motion, however fast and bitter the fighting was.
The hurt elf warrior was, as Aranel knew, one of the most experienced – he had to be; Prince Amras had placed him and his shield partner in the middle of the front rank.
He threw his own short javlin forward through the enemy's neck, his hand guiding it with such skill that his enemy’s life … it fatally pierced. Then with another stab he jabbed the enemy fighter in the thickest part of his body so hard that his chainmail coat broke.
Aranel watched mesmerised as the bright red blood gushed out of the out-worlder’s mouth while continuing to brace her body against the warrior in the front rank so that he could engage the tall, blond, enemy fighter in front of him. The enemy fighter, Aranel realised, was already wounded in the breast
. The elf warrior was trying to thrust his javlin through the linked rings of his mail shirt that had been cut through.
What transpired then took only a few seconds. A spear from the other side flew out of a hand, which struck straight through the elf warrior’s shield partner. He leant down and valiantly pulled the bloody spear out of his partner.
Bereft of his shield partner’s protection, the enemy fighter leapt towards him howling strange words and slicing down with a huge double-handed sword, which glinted evilly in the sunlight. The sword penetrated the warrior’s shoulder and he went down.
The enemy fighter grinned and looked up, meeting Aranel’s shocked eyes.
“Here we go,” cried Enelya as the two of them stepped forward. Enelya lunged at the enemy fighter with her own sword but he parried it and raised his own, but it was heavy, heavier than the elf blade of Aranel and, quick as lightning, she brought her bright blade down on their enemy’s unprotected left side, wondering why he had let his shield arm drop. Her blade struck home, slicing through and opening a gash as deep as a handbreadth. He fell to the ground his grip unable to hold the heavy sword or wield the weapon.
Aranel finished him off with another mighty swipe, slicing through his neck.
“Good,” she shouted at the top of her lungs as she prepared to meet her next enemy.
“Good?” shouted back Enelya in disbelief.
“Only word,” she gasped as she parried another enemy lunge, “I could think of,” she parried again, “at short notice. Yes!”
The last word was uttered with a sense of triumphant exhilaration as she felled another enemy fighter.
The fight went on for what Aranel believed, incorrectly at the time, to be at least a day and a half, until at last the Nosse began to advance and the enemy to retreat.
None of the out-world warriors surrendered easily and many elves were wounded as they forced the diminishing number of enemy fighters back towards the T’Quel mist.
The T’Quel remained unhelpfully inert.
There was no way the enemy would be able to go back through it to where they had come from.
“They are beaten but they will not acknowledge the fact,” said Aranel to Enelya in a lull, at a point when the enemy had moved back quicker than the elf ranks were advancing. “What sort of culture do they come from I wonder, that tells them they must fight until they are all killed.”
She felt hog-tired. All Aranel wanted was for the battle be over so that she could go to sleep. The battle adrenalin was draining out of her like a wide-meshed sieve.
“Perhaps one that glorifies war and death in battle,” suggested Enelya. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” answered Aranel with some surprise. “You?”
“Couple of scratches, that’s all.”
“Halt!” ordered Prince Amras.
He walked through the elf ranks with purposeful intent until he stopped midway between the opposing ranks.
There he stood, leaning on his bloodied sword. He had no shield partner. Aranel realised that he or she must have been killed or wounded during the battle.
“What’s he going to do?” whispered Enelya.
“He’ll offer honourable surrender,” said Aranel.
“Honourable?” scoffed Enelya. “Nothing honourable about them if you ask me. They didn’t even give us a chance to parley and look at how they killed their wounded!”
“Perhaps they have their own honour,” suggested Aranel, “different from ours. Listen.”
Prince Amras was talking to, Aranel presumed, the leader of the out-world fighters who appeared to be listening. He was tall, broad, and blond, and the only one sporting a helmet with some sort of bird emblem perched on top.
Prince Amras beckoned him forward and after a small hesitation he stepped out from his remaining fighters and walked up to the prince.
Although Aranel strained to hear what they were saying she couldn’t make out more than an occasional word.
Then the enemy leader bowed to Prince Amras, a bow that the prince returned, turned and moved back towards his fighters.
Prince Amras waited until the leader had rejoined his chastened group before turning and walking back to his Nosse.
“They have agreed to surrender,” he announced. “An honourable surrender. They will be permitted to retain their arms and armour, and wish also to retain the arms and armour belonging to their comrades. They seemed a bit surprised that we did not wish to claim them. I have also agreed that they are to be able to bury their dead, according to their own rites.”
“We,” he paused, “we shall look to our own wounded and dead.”
“And then what Prince Amras?” asked Aranel’s mentor, Isil, who, like Aranel, was unwounded.
“Are they going to go back through the T’Quel when it re-awakens?” asked another.
Prince Amras shook his head.
“There is no way we can be sure that when it does awaken they will be able to return to the same place they came from. I cannot send them back to what might be their deaths.”
To all but an elf, his sentiments might have sounded odd, strange, especially as these out-worlders had been trying to kill them such a short time ago, but Aranel and the others understood and were satisfied.
“I will send word to King Huor to seek his guidance on this matter,” he told them. “Until then we shall care for their wounded as we care for our own and feed and clothe the uninjured as we feed and clothe ourselves.”
He gazed along the line of his warriors.
They assented with a simple nod.
Prince Amras smiled and returned the nod.
“Those of you who wear torcs will be the ones who look after them. You will be able to understand what they say and be understood. There are three of you I think?”
“Four,” announced Aranel, raising her hand.
“I had not forgotten you,” he said, “but these out-worlders are not used to female warriors and I think you should not approach. I have another task for you. You are unwounded so I wish for you and your shield partner to go into the forest a little ways. Enrais and Woldfrein will go with you. Jarl Horlf, the leader of this war party, I think it can be so translated, believes that one of his fighters ran into the forest during the melee. You four will find him and bring him back, telling him that Jarl Horlf commands it.”
* * * * *
Aranel and Enelya followed Enrais and Woldfrein through the leafy dells that made up the northern tip of the forest. They were following the tracks made by the out-worlder when he had escaped. The fighter, Aranel realised, had not been trying to cover his trail. A very young elf, one of but a few summers old, could have followed the trail.
Their mission was not without incident.
Not long after they had entered the trees Enelya hurt herself. For a moment they both wondered if it was the escapee who had done it. Something had definitely struck her thighbone but Enelya found, on trying to move it that the bone was not injured and that she had only a shallow flesh wound, probably caused by a sharp piece of wood. After her wound had been examined, cleaned and bound, it was decided that it was just an accident.
“You should be more careful,” Enrais told Enelya as he tied off the bandage.
They carried on.
“We’ve to be back by nightfall,” Enrais informed Aranel, exclaiming, “trees of the forest save us, but how far has he managed to travel? He must be at least a cian away.”
It wasn’t until dusk was descending that they found the first signs of the person they were looking for.
There were some droplets of blood on one of the leaves they were passing.
“He’s injured,” said the limping Enelya with a sigh. “That’s all we need. Did you see the size of these people? What if we have to carry him?”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Aranel answered with a half smile.
“Wait!” whispered Enrais over his shoulder and in a very low voice. “I think we’ve found him.”
&nb
sp; The four of them dropped to their knees and crawled forward.
They had indeed found him and what they spied through the trees filled them with shocked amazement.
The out-world warrior was kneeling beside what looked like a number of graves. They had evidently been hastily made, for some of the bodies were partially uncovered and one body at least, had the appearance of having provided food for wild animals.
They’ve been here before! This was the immediate, incredulous thought that flashed into the minds of the four elves. The stunned Aranel and the others watched the scene before them. They were so flabbergasted that they couldn’t even twitch a muscle.
The enemy fighter looked as if he was crying.
“What do we do now?” whispered Aranel to Enrais, forcing her lips to move, to say something, anything.
“I’ll go,” offered Woldfrein, sotto voce.
Enrais shook his head. “No, we’ll both go.” He looked at Aranel and Enelya. “You two stay here.”
“You’ll not understand him unless you wear this,” Aranel answered, taking off her torc and handing it to him.
He took it and placed it round his throat with a nod of thanks then he and Woldfrein started to make their way towards the graves.
“You think the enemy warrior will fight?’ asked Enelya.
“No, I don’t think so. He’s too upset.”
Enelya looked the question.
“I heard him, when we got here,” she explained. “I think one of those bodies is his brother.”
“So how did they get here? The dead bodies I mean.”
“Battle slain bodies are, by their very nature, dead, especially when they’re buried in the ground, but I know what you mean. The T’Quel is guarded day and night by one of the Nosse. I can’t imagine how some of these out-worlders managed to get past them.”
“Is there perhaps another T’Quel somewhere?” asked Enelya in a nervous voice. To learn that your borders are not as secure as you had thought is enough to put any soldier into a jumpy state of mind and Enelya was young, younger by some years than Aranel. The training of a shield partner took half the time of a warrior.