54. The Field of Arrows.
The earth was still shrouded in the pale morning mist when the two forces started arraying themselves for battle on the forest floor. Finding a good place for such a large number of beasts to clash in the open, ranks against ranks, was not an easy task – in fields and meadows grass grew tall and thick enough to engulf whole armies, slow them to a crawl and throw them into disarray. But this time a place was found. Commanders on the both sides considered the idea of preempting their foe with a night assault and rejected it – neither an army of untrained volunteers, nor an army of separate bands that had no experience fighting together and did not particularly trust each other were suited for the inevitable chaos of night fighting. The sun painted morning clouds with a beautiful, shifting palette of reds and oranges and the mist largely cleared when both armies finally assumed something that could be called formations without obvious sarcasm.
The vermin force was the first to form up, and now it waited for the enemy to come. Ubel and Eikeru picked a good position, their center on a steep hillock, their right flanked by a thick tangle of thorny bushes, their left by a ravine with a stream below – which curved to the army's rear, leaving no avenue for a swift escape.
Blackear the ferret wondered if that last part was an important consideration for choosing this place. And to be honest, she could see the reason why, in her mind, if not in her gut – the sight of the forest floor covered by the woodlander throng, advancing like a landslide, made her sweat, and she only hoped that with so many beasts standing close together the sickly scent of her fear would be drowned in the general odor.
"Hey, see, there is their little squirrel King." Treestalker, a fellow ferret pointed to the right of Blackear's score position. A big banner hanging from arms of a wooden cross could be seen in that direction. A white castle and a wreath of red flowers on the green field of cloth.
"Ain't it bad we won't be the ones to take his head?" Blackear nudged him lightly, though in truth she was relieved that their flank won't be going against the best woodlander fighters who surely guarded their king and banner.
"Nock arrows!" Captain Ulakhai's sharp command interrupted their little conversation. As the big mustelid strode before the line of his archers, Blackear's attention was drawn to lines of drying blood on his cheeks and neck. Of course, an occasion as important as a decisive battle called for a sacrifice, Blackear could not dispute that, yet still… Even if she, as a mere score commander, was not required to attend the ritual and mark her fur with woodlander blood, she doubted southswarders would accept this as an excuse after finding Ubel's work. And there was no avenue for a swift escape. Not much middle ground between death… and victory.
Blackear steadied herself as she nocked a barbed arrow and raised her bow, ready to draw and release. Her eyes were fixed on the approaching woodlanders, but she could hear that the rest of the score followed her lead with admirable cohesion. Six of her nineteen beasts, the recruits of the last autumn, still weren't real battlers in her opinion, but Ulakhai's drills seemed to be paying off.
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The morning was quite cool, but Melayna Firebright found herself sweating. She could see the vermin clearly now, not just a dark and indistinct mass of bodies, but separate figures – a thick line of bowbeasts, all big, tall and wicked-looking. About four hundred paces ahead. She fought vermin before, yes. But those were ragged band of vagabonds, scavengers, and thieves, nothing like the savage host now before her.
"Steady." Melayna commanded as she drew her longsword in a theatrical motion. She had enough mastery over her voice to speak loudly, betraying no hesitation. "No charging without command."
She herself kept walking just as she said – steady, setting the pace for the whole mass of woodlanders following behind. From the books and from Ironbristle's advice she knew that bows were of little use beyond one hundred paces. The time to command the attack would be at one hundred paces or closer. Charging earlier would leave her and her woodlanders out of breath.
The vermin now were about three hundred paces ahead. Melayna gripped the sword hilt tighter.
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Blood was supposed to be sweet and a coming battle was supposed to be exhilarating. Seien son of Kunas found neither to be true. Well, maybe for actual warriors things were different. But Seien knew very well that he was not expected to fight – or command – this day. He was here, overlooking the vermin army from the hillock at the center of its position, simply as a good luck charm, a living banner. And as he gazed at the seemingly countless Southsward host, his blood was freezing, instead of boiling.
"It's time," Ubel spoke right into his ear, leaning close. Right. There was, after all, a task for him to do.
Seien raised the big bow of his father. It was still too heavy, taut and powerful for Seien to use properly, he checked just a couple of days ago. Good thing that he was not expected to hit any actual foes with it. But as the King, the warlord of all the warlords gathered on the field today, if only in name, he had to make the first, symbolic shot of the battle.
Straining his muscles to the very limit for a second, Seien pulled and released. The arrow, launched with great force, soared high in a graceful arc – over the vermin ranks, over the forest floor, well clear of any tree branches that might have stopped its flight midway, right to the swarming mass of woodlanders. Seien was not sure if it actually hit somebeast. But the whole vermin army could see that it was a good shot!
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"Volley!" Ulakhai shouted, as he pulled his own bowstring. And one arrow was followed by hundreds more.
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Melayna's step did not falter as the first volley of arrows came down all around her, many sticking in the ground or hitting trees on the way, but quite a few finding targets among the dense woodlander crowd even without aim. But her mind froze, unable to process what was going on. They were still at about two hundreds paces. A distance that was supposed to be mostly safe!
So Melayna simply walked forward, as if nothing happened. She made less than twenty more steps before the second volley hit. This time a good number of vermin sent their arrows in her direction – her chainmail and helmet, polished to a shine, made her quite visible. Absence of accuracy, inevitable at such range, was compensated by sheer numbers of arrows. Screams of pain around and behind Melayna deafened her, just as something stabbed sharply at her thigh.
The same mail that made Melayna a conspicuous target saved her life, or at least her footpaw – the arrowhead didn't go deep enough for its wicked barbs to get stuck in the flesh. Melayna bent down to pull it out, and at that moment something hit her head – an unusually heavy arrow, or a weapon swung carelessly by a fellow woodlander, she never knew. Her fine steel helmet averted any lasting harm, but not shock and daze.
Melayna felt like her helmet suddenly turned into the loudest of bells, but over ringing in her ears she still distantly heard warcries of "Southswaaaaard!" and "Squirelkiiiing!". She could see woodlanders around her charging forwards with all their speed. Before she could as much as open her mouth, somebeast slammed at her from behind and knocked her to the ground.
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Captain Ulakhai made sure that each of his archers prepared more arrows than usual for this battle. Blackear had twelve in her quiver. She released the eleventh of them when the closest of woodlanders was eleven paces from her – a large hare brandishing an equally large club. She wasn't sure if it was her arrow that dropped him, or the half-dozen of others, shot by her fellow archers, finally had their effect. She reached for the last arrow, when an axe-armed squirrel bounded over the fallen hare. At that moment, even as her paw touched the arrow's shaft and started pulling it from the quiver, Blackear realized that she won't be able to make another shot. The squirrel stumbled, almost fell, Blackear could see his chest heaving as he struggled for air, but even as her arrow left the quiver she knew this small delay won't give her enough time. The squirrel had to make just four more steps.
Then a grey-feathered arrow came from her right and took the squirrel through the neck, sending him spinning to the ground with the force of impact. Blackear raised the bow, taking aim with her last arrow. Maybe she was not going to meet this evening in Hellgates, after all.
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Seien was not sure how, but he clearly heard the dull "thunk" of a slingstone hitting one of the guards next to him right into the forehead over all the din and noise. The guard stood in place, swaying, for a second or two, and then collapsed limply, as if some force suddenly removed bones from his body. The rest of the guards backed a step away, but the young King remained rooted in place, as if his footpaws turned into stone. He knew that at moments like this his father stepped forward personally, cutting the way through the enemy ranks with his battleaxe, leading his guard of the best and the bravest beasts to decide the battle. But Seien had yet to cut anybeast in his life, and his guard – or, more accurately, Ubel's guard – was just a bunch of bullies. There was nothing he could really do about a band of burly otters, no less than twoscore, and each at least as big as him, fighting their way right up the hillock. On the right the archers were now caught in melee with woodlanders, on the left corsairs were pushed back by the shock and press of enemy numbers, only the band of ermines and polar foxes from the Land of Ice and Snow standing firm like a cliff. And the center was about to be broken. And Seien could do nothing beyond standing straight and still like a pillar of ice under his father's banner – the black battleaxe on crimson field – and showing any vermin who turned in his direction that their army is not broken yet.
More slingstones and arrows flew from below. "Close ranks!" Seien could hear Ubel shrieking just a few steps away. "Shields up, you wastes of fur! Protect your King! Rugger! Here's your war – what you're waiting for?! Kill 'em!"
For a second Seien wondered if fear in Ubel's voice spelled doom for them all.
Then Rugger the Black stepped forward, magnificent and terrifying in his black mask and blood-red cloak over the heavy chainmail. "Kill!" the fox shouted, echoing Ubel's last words, as he walked down the slope to face the foes.
"Kill!" More beasts took up the oldest and the most common vermin warcry in the world, as they stepped forward, following the fox – Zerwik, the young stoat left by Ulakhai to guard Seien in battle, Sheska, Ubel's weasel aide.
"Kill!" Seien found himself shouting with all his might.
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Gwynfren Squirrelking could not see much of anything. The otteguards who surrounded him and the royal banner were simply too tall. He might as well have been blind. And he might as well have been mute and lame – that wouldn't have rendered his contribution to the battle any smaller. Lerith and Elmsfort did all the commanding today. And now others were doing all the fighting any dying as well. The banner was of more use than him – at least it was visible enough to see and follow.
Even if Gwynfren could not see why they are no longer moving forward, he could hear that the noise of battle – clangor of metal, crash of wood, screams of pain – now was both on the left and the right from him, and that the "Southsward!" battlecry was faltering, the rhythmic chant of "Kill! Kill! Kill!" breaking through it.
Then one of the otters surrounded him yelped and stumbled, her paw pinned to her side by a javelin. Before Gwynfren thought of anything, Chamberlain Elmsfort was before him. The aging squirrel was wild-eyes and splattered with blood, his own or somebeast's else Gwynfren could not tell.
"Get the King to safety!" Elmsfort gasped.
"No!" Gwynfren reached for his sword. "I…"
Before he said anything more, two burly otters, one from each side, caught him by the paws, and bodily carried him away. Gwynfren was a squirrel of average size and build. Lerith picked the tallest, strongest otters to guard the king and the two strongest among them – Eskil and Martnok – followed Elmsfort's order. So no matter how much Gwynfren shouted at them, and thrashed, and kicked, and ordered, and begged, he was unable to slow them down in the least. He could see more woodlanders running – perhaps unsurprisingly, those who kept to the back ranks were the first to break away once it started smelling of defeat and death.
He did not see any vermin, before a swarm of spears and javelins came from the side, bringing him and both otters to the ground.
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Scrubtail, the new captain of Plunderer, laughed, seeing the woodlander king and his last guards falling. The laugh died swiftly, as one of the otters sprung back to his feet, bloodied, a broken shaft in his side, but alive, raising a javelin. Scrubtail threw himself flat just in time – a rat behind him screamed in pain, pierced straight through by the powerful throw.
"Get 'im, ye idiots!" Scrubtail shouted, scurrying aside on all fours, as the otter aimed with another javelin. "Get 'im!"
Martnok's body took most of the missiles, and armor saved Gwynfren from the rest. The fall only briefly stunned him. He was back on his paw just in time to see a big and ugly searat reaching for him. The searat wanted to seize the woodlander king alive, already imagining the glory and reward for such a deed a bit too vividly for considering the possibility that Gwynfren could draw his short sword faster than expected. Then four of the rat's claws flew off, and as the corsair stopped to stare in shock, Gwynfren struck again.
The old sword from the Squrrelkings' armory that he carried on his hip was more of a ceremonial weapon, with a gem-encrusted hilt and delicate interwoven ornaments on the blade, not drawn in anger for generations, if ever. But it still was made of the best steel that could be forged in Southsward. On another day Gwynfren would have retched at the sight of ruin his blow made out of the unfortunate searat's face. But now Gwynfren's eyes were too clouded with tears of rage, and he hardly took note of anything beyond his foe collapsing to the ground.
"For Floret!" Eskil shouted the old warcry of the castle otterguards, laying about with his sword and javelin. Much bigger than any of the corsairs, fighting with no regard for his own life, he alone might have been able to scatter them, if not for the fact that Gwynfren, dead or alive, was such a precious trophy. A weasel was tensing to jump on Eskil's back with a curved dagger, when Gwynfren chopped at her neck, then again, and again, when the fist blow did not drop the vermin.
In his fury, the young King only dully felt a blow at his footpaw, below the knee and the mailed skirt. He turned just in time to see a mangy searat a few steps away, rushing at him with a flail, Reflexively, Gwynfren raised his sword in defense. Before he could blink, the iron ball and chain whipped around the blade and tore it from his grasp, nearly breaking a couple of fingers. Gwynfren jumped to the side, to avoid the searat's next swing.
Or at least he tried, and as he did so, the throwing knife lodged in his footpaw scraped the bone, sending a jolt of such horrible pain through Gwynfren's nerves that he fell on the moss, nearly unconscious, and nearly wishing to be unconscious, just so this torment would stop. He heard somebeast shouting his name but was too busy writhing in agony to respond.
He didn't see Ironbristle appearing from the nearby ferns and taking the small group of corsairs by surprise. The big old hedgehog lost his shield in battle and wielded his curved sword with two paws. Yelling "Gwyyynfreen!", he cut into the vermin converging on Eskil and the fallen king, laying two low with a single stroke for each, before the rest realized what there was a new foe in their midst. And when they realized, their courage faltered at the sight of yet another blood-splattered battle-crazed woodlander warrior, looking eager to take as many foes with him as he could. They broke and scattered in every direction like glass.
Ironbristle and Eskil did not have more than a moment to catch their breath. Wherever they looked, woodlanders were lying dead or running away in blind panic. A bigger band of vermin, led by a black rat in bright steel armor just crested a nearby hummock and saw them just as they saw it. Ironbristle cast a brief glance at Eskil. The otter got slashed and pierced in a dozen places but luck and a chainmail shirt seemed to avert the worst – none of the wounds seemed to be immediately life-threatening. Before Ironbristle's eyes, Eskil pulled a broken javelin from his side with a pained grunt – it wasn't buried deep.
"Rescue the King!" Ironbristle wheezed out. "That way! There's a stream, it will delay 'em."
Eskil looked around once again and Ironsbristle took it as a sign of hesitation. "I'm old, slow and no swimmer, you addle-brain! Move! They're nearly upon us!"
Half a hundred paces from them, Eikeru Manybattles saw the big otter lifting the squirrel in royal attire as easily as if he was a babe and starting to run, and shouted. "Get 'em! Use spears!"
Eikeru's haste got better of her. Those of the vermin who still had spears and javelins obeyed their captain, stopping momentarily to hurl their weapons, but the distance was just too big. None of the missiles hit the otter, while the hedgehog threw himself behind a broken tree stump, just to reappear a second later, and grab a spear that got stuck his cover. A few of the more fleet-pawed vermin, were ahead of Eikeru – that is, until one of them fell, transfixed by the spear that Ironbristle returned with deadly accuracy. Others suddenly found that pursuing other woodlanders scattering into the woods all around was a better idea, or slowed down, letting Eikeru take the lead.
"Come on, you vermin, are you afraid of a single ol' hog?"
Eikeru clenched her teeth in anger, as she, in turn, slowed down to fast walk. She had no desire to fight a real warrior, like this hedgehog, while a much more precious quarry was getting away, but she had no desire to appear weak or afraid in front her soldiers either. An arrow whistled from behind her and stuck Ironbristle's chest, for a moment seeming to penetrate the armor of small metal scales that he wore… but then fell to the ground uselessly before the hedgehog even touched it.
"Hah! Gnats bite harder!"
"Let's see how ye'd like the bite of this!" Eikeru growled as she lowered her long pike festooned with a red pennant, pointed it at Ironbristle, and closed the distance. The vermin following her flooded forward to surround the hedgehog, keeping out of his blade's reach, waiting for a distraction, a chance to strike. A few of them had polearms too. In this fight there could only be one outcome.
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At about the same time, Captain Scrubtail found himself in a dense patch of tall ferns. He could still hear cries of triumph all around. The vermin victory seemed to be secure regardless of his personal misadventure. But he was in no haste to leave his cover. He had enough mad woodlanders appearing as if out of nowhere for one day.
"Captain."
Scrubtail heard a familiar voice from behind and turned to face the speaker, his face contorting with rage. "Windflight? By Vulpuz' storm-breath, where in the abyss you were…"
A suspicion started crawling into Scrubtail's mind when he saw an undersized axe, clearly taken from a woodlander, in the vixen's paw. Too late. A blow with the axebutt made him bend double. Three more with the blade to his head and neck finished the job. Windflight left the axe stuck in her former captain's skull, as she left swiftly. With the rich, warm country in their claws, Windflight could not forget about a corsair's life – backbreaking labor, cramped quarters, foul weather and rock-hard biscuits – soon enough. So Scrubtail's knowledge of the seas, skies and sails was no longer useful. It was the time for a warrior, not a sailor, to take command of the remaining crew.
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Blackear walked slowly and giddily across the field of carnage. On her way to commanding a score she saw and fought a good number of battles, but just the day before she couldn't even imagine a battle like this: dead and dying woodlanders as numerous as leaves in autumn, arrow shafts protruding from their bodies and the mossy ground here and there like a sudden growth of ghastly saplings. Treestalker, who just relieved a badly wounded squirrel of both life and a beautiful silver-buckled woven belt, straightened up in a few steps from her, examining his trophy. In that moment Blackear remembered that of all beasts in her score, it was Treestalker who liked to use grey gull feathers for fletching. Before the younger ferret could react, Blackear dropped her bloodied sword and hugged him with all her strength.
"We did it!" she cried out, finally finding words for the elation that filled her. "By Vulpuz and all of Hellgates, what a victory! I thought we were dead meat! And now the country is ours!"
Of course Blackear knew that things are unlikely to be so simple. But who cared right now! She scarcely paid any attention, when Treestalker, totally dumbstruck, nearly bit her before collecting his wits. And she did not mind when he hugged her back.