Volume 3 - CH 5.1

Fire magicks flashed and flew in searing arcs.

Far afield at the verge of my vision broke the barks, the bellows, the drum and boom of battle. Affrighting the air were flares of flame and fumes as our ranks of wiċċan wove volley after volley of the Lancea Calōris spell. Their target: the single gate of Arbel’s concentration camp.

One concerted cast brought the burning lances bearing down all at once upon the barrier. Brightly billowed the ensuing explosion, spilling splinters of timber and hot bars of iron every which way. The gate was breached at last. Our way was opened.

At high noon had we initiated the attack, our opening move it was to unmake the gate. As it hardly compared to the portcullises of palaces and castles, felling it proved an unfraught affair. With it now gone, all so far was falling into place, but our course should grow only graver from here on, for the passage newly opened was woefully narrow—too narrow, in fact, to have the whole of our forces flood through. Grievous, given our primary advantage laid in our superior numbers.

But we’d not the luxury of choice. This was the only way in whereupon could be fielded any number worth fearing. And within the camp festered the Fiefguard, our very mark, and so long as they did, Arbel would not be brought to its knees.

Laying siege, too, was a lost cause. The hour-sand flowed against us; the Fiefguard had to fall at the soonest, lest we find ourselves besieged in turn by Central’s reinforcements, certain to come in days’ time.

On and on, I watched the battle from afar, and in pondering our foes did I next contemplate their new commanders as elucidated by Sigmund: the vaunted Viola Östberg, and her brother Theodor besides. The margrave was dead; not without hewing their two Östberg heads would the Fiefguard concede defeat.

The terrible twin spears of Zaharte—our foes, fierce as they were famed. As I thought ahead on confronting them, Volker’s command clapped across the air like thunder. Our braves obeyed, straightway cascading into the camp. In attempting to dam the flow, the Fiefguard met them at the smouldering ruins of the gate. A new fray frothed forth. And spotted within the swelling scene: ranks of sellswords, bold and brutish—most certainly the fliers of the Zaharte flag.

“The sellswords are not fled… why?” wondered Lise beside me. “What’s their dear wager in this war of ours?”

A forgiven doubt. Neither creed nor coin should yet shackle the Östbergs to this battle—nay, to this very land. Their lord client was cut down. None would fault them were they to quit the cause. Yet here they remained, their men swinging and stabbing alongside the Fiefguard.

Was it obligation? The transfer of command, coloured anew as some oath made with the margrave in his final moments? A hard thought; they were the heads of Zaharte, preeminent professionals in their field. Never would they suffer sentimentality nor the severed purse of their recompense.

Then perhaps their hands were forced? Some unseen factor, demanding their mettle be brought to bear in this begrudging battle? …Or perhaps they were even compromised, this duo? That bending the knee to Londosius’ will served their sole recourse out of some secret scandal?

Nay… the reverse seemed as like as not: the siblings, bending over backwards to curry favour from the Crown. The margrave had passed without a proper heir. Reasonable, then, that the Östbergs would crave his cold seat. After all, House Östberg was landless, last I heard—the two should hardly be above snatching Ström for their own.

“A wager worth dying for, is my guess,” I said to Lise. “A dream. An ambition. Likely the Östbergs’ve kept the margrave’s death under wraps for their own selfish ends.” Seeing Lise deeper in thought, I turned to her with a proposition. “Suppose we sowed this truth in Fiefguard ears, Lise. What might we reap?”

She shook her head. “Too little, I think. Mere words be our mightiest proof, sooner to sprout as lies in their ears, by this time.”

Lise’s right; familiar as I was with the Fiefguard, I could only agree.

The margrave’s death should well-serve a tailwind for our momentum, for none else beyond the walls of Redelberne should dare muster men against us by rightful claim to Ström’s rule. But such considered only what would follow our triumph, one we must hew from the foes now afore us.

I clenched my fists in silence.

Triumph—over Viola and Theodor? Had we the mettle for it? Had I? Sigmund and Ulrik proved enough of a pain; could I lay low their superiors, were we to meet?

Almost shuddering at the thought, I glared on at the battle burgeoning about the broken gate. And after a deep breath:

“Our turn now,” I declared.

Lise looked to me and nodded back, stern yet spirited in mien. “Fair winds find you, Rolf. May they find you all!”

Also in her eyes: the five braves gathered behind me. Tasked to our team of six was the securement and extraction of the captives from the bastille. To my comrades I turned, finding their faces tense, yet nodding resolutely at Lise’s words. I then raised my voice.

“Ready yourselves, all! We move!”

And so pounded our feet upon the earth as we sped off into the fray.

∵

At our arrival, the mêlée at the gate had grown to a maelstrom, chaotic and combative. Dismounting our steeds, we dashed into the din, our ears shuddering from the shrieks and shouts of friend and foe alike.

Passing into a pall of palpable heat, our bodies at once broke into sweat. Flecks and flaps of dirt and dust danced every which way, coating skin and garb in grit and grime. In all directions swished and stung the unceasing sounds of brandished blades. In every second rang and rasped reams of armour as they clashed and clattered against one another. Right afore me: a splash of enemy spears. Right beside me: a surge of allied swords. Both sides, all bunched together in a great crush of cheek-by-jowl combat.

Fallen upon the ground was one Fiefguardsman, the sight of him summarily concealed by a stampede of vying soldiers. And then upon the ears: the sounds of smashed bones and trampled entrails. But muffling them: myriad bellows, blistering and boiling ever more rabidly, filling the air to a vociferous overflow.

The battlefield, hurling in a hellish helter-skelter. Allies and adversaries, together enmeshed in an impenetrable mire.

This was a complete and utter chaos, cut and dried. But also a chaos crafted precisely to plan.

Charge the enemy, irrupt rapidly into their ranks, allow the battlefield to fall into a free-for-all, even should it exact injury from our number. Such was our aim, and for one crucial purpose: the suppression of enemy missiles, magicked or no. Going by the absence of projectiles, the plan had found success. Not that our foe could be blamed. With their numbers so dear and dwindled, the Fiefguard artillerymen could scarce disregard the risk of friendly fire.

Of note was the silencing of wide-blasting spells. From parapets and behind bulwarks could the enemy have blown holes in our ranks with impunity. Such was our greatest fear, and so to have it stricken from the equation was an immense weight off our shoulders.

“Experience pays…” I muttered to myself as I led my team through the thick of battle. Indeed, the struggles of commanding the battlements of Balasthea were bearing much fruit here. So much so that I almost pitied the Fiefguard. To witness the fall of the walls of my charge was a former fear to me, one now full-lived by my present foes.

“Wooo—h!”

So roared the Nafílim ranks all around as I rived a Fiefguardsman afore me. But not a second to spare; onward we wended through the war-like press, all whilst our fellow braves pushed the battlefront forth, gaining ground pace by precious pace.

“Ach…! Hold the bloody line, damn it!!”

Out from the screaming misery of Men, a bark from a Fiefguard field commander. A high shout followed, as though in answer:

“There ‘e is! The Man amongst ‘em! Kill ‘im! Kill ‘i—m!!”

A Fiefguardsman, spewing froth from his lips and pointing a finger straight at the sole Man amongst the Nafílim files—a moment, and next converged unto me a crush of Fiefguard grunts. In each of their eyes burnt reflections of the renegade they so reviled.

But all the better. Drawing their ire should well-ease my allies’ burdens at the battlefront.

Soul set, I sent forth a wide swing of wolfsteel. “Dyaah!”

“Ghwohakh!?” so fell a swathe of enemy soldiers.

Yet ill-abated were their fellows’ wrath for this rebel; in fact, their collective rancour only seemed to seethe all the more hotly. Opposite was I, keeping cool as best I could as I brandished the blackblade. Such was demanded by the white waters of war; only composure could carry me through this chaos. And so bearing myself against the brunt of brutes, I continued cutting them down one-by-one.

Amidst the failing front of Fiefguardsmen stood a soldier, staring me down with eyes so bitterly bloodshot that at any moment could they have burst with tears of red.

“Eyygh…!” he hissed, hate-filled and hag-like. “Foul sicarius, you…!”

…”Sicarius.”

The high epithet of a perfidist, and yet another alias for my collection. Safe to say, historically hot must be Man’s hate for this wayward son of his. Yet never one to so flagrantly fan another’s fury, I felt then another pang of pity. With such creativity do they address me; would that I had the leisure or even half a care to return the favour.

All told, I took little offence to “sicarius”. Only a soul with resolve enough to reject the machinations of this world could earn such a baleful brand. Why, I ought consider it a gift, really.

“Shog off, men!” cried a voice. “This one’s mine!”

And there, keen to cut down that Sicarius was yet another blade, held in the hands of a Zaharte hellion.