Breaking an Empire (7 page)

Rhyfelwyr gave Locsyn a few minutes unconscious before prodding him awake. Sighing as he rose to his feet, Loc undid the straps from his shield and stuffed his now-useless left hand into his sword belt. Glancing at the assembled soldiers, Rhyfelwyr nodded once, and set off towards the warehouses.

Several times they were struck by opposing Lianese soldiers, but each time the Lianese were repulsed, although one encounter had hung in the balance until Rhocas had gathered his talents and sent a jet of flame across the front lines. Their moral broken, the Lianese tried to flee, and were slain by the charging Veryan forces.

Each skirmish brought Rhocas, Rhyfelwyr and their forces closer to the warehouses, and now they could see the bulky shapes only a few streets away, promising food and sustenance for weeks to come. Calling his troops to rally, Rhyfelwyr trotted round a corner to find himself in a market square, still filled with the stands and stalls of hawkers. Cautious for an ambush, he gestured left and right, sending Taflen and Gwyth to scout through the remains. The other soldiers tucked themselves in tightly, forming a small square of shields at the edge of the open area.

Taflen advanced cautiously, his sword and shield at the ready, eyes as much on the roofs around him as they were on possible foes hidden behind the stalls. Gwyth strode forward, openly challenging any who would dare to come stand with him, using his shield to swipe stands aside. After both had passed through two-thirds of the square, they glanced at one another, then nodded at Rhyfelwyr. The sergeant led his forces forward at a steady pace, until he glanced upwards and saw Llofruddiwr standing on the building opposite, waving and pointing down at the street below. The sergeant cursed, then shouted. “Square, form a square! Pull the stands in as barricades! Now!”

The Veryan soldiers leapt to obey, with Gwyth picking up two stands at a time and stacking them into a deep wall in the direction that Llofruddiwr had gestured. Within moments there was a shielded square of Veryan forces, wrapped around by an outer barrier of wooden stalls and market detritus. As they finished readying themselves, Lianese forces poured from two streets into the market. Combined, the forces outnumbered the Veryans four to one, and Rhyfelwyr steeled himself for what was to come. Leaning over, he tapped Rhocas on the shoulder. “Don’t bother using your magic until we’re engaged. Otherwise, you’ll be a pincushion.” Turning to bellow to the soldiers around him, the sergeant cried out orders for the defence. “Grab spheres! Meet their charge at five paces! Then swords!” The soldiers readied, their faces showing the strain of half a day fighting in the alleys of Horaim. Here and there, a shield or a sword sagged towards the ground, but their comrades would jostle the arm back to its proper place.

A trumpet rang out from within the Lianese, and Locsyn saw javelins being readied. His arm pained him greatly, but he had been able to sling his shield from his shoulder and strap it to his upper arm. He could barely move it, but it protected half his body. Wordlessly, he took the sphere of glass that Rhocas proffered him and tucked it away in his belt pouch. A second trumpet sounded, and Locsyn ducked down as the Lianese assault began and the javelins flew overhead. Most were deflected away, caught in the barrier or glancing off shields, but a few pierced through, opening small holes in the Veryan forces. Men stepped forward to fill the gaps, leaving an already thin line even thinner. Soon, Locysn knew he would be called to step into the line, and do the best he could with but one arm.

As the Lianese soldiers reached five paces from the barricade, Rhyfelwyr cried “Throw!”, and the glass spheres were hurled, smashing into the faces and shields of their foe, shattering into clouds of abrasive shards and cutting splinters. The front lines of the assault collapsed, blinded Lianese soldiers crumpling to the ground with bloodied faces. Those behind tripped and fell, leaving the attack a ruin before it reached the barriers.

The Veryan forces watched as the Lianese withdrew, pulling back to gather against the edges of the market, building courage for another thrust. Rhyfelwyr wished they had been able to take advantage of the confusion, but that would have meant breaking the shield wall and stepping over the barricades, and giving up defensive surety for a momentary opportunity was not worth the cost. He called out, and the second, and last, round of spheres was brought to hand. There would be nothing but the sword after this. If the Lianese were wise and started to bombard the Veryans with arrows, Rhyfelwyr would have to strike over the barricades, into a waiting force. He could only hope that the battle was going well enough elsewhere, so that these Lianese forces did not have the time for a leisurely battle.

The second charge came, and it was repulsed in the same way as the first, glass spheres breaking the momentum at point-blank range. Spheres rarely killed, but the clouds of abrasive glass would injure many an eye, and the spray of sharpened waste would make the ground a spike-ridden mess. In the brief pause as the Lianese forces gathered for a third assault, the sergeant spoke with his squad, pulling them from the lines.

“We’ve lost three of the twenty men we started with, and three more are like Locsyn. They’re going to throw a third round of javelins, and we’ve already tightened the wall once. Do we charge?”

Taflen looked up, examining the Lianese forces for a long moment before shaking his head. “We stay, we’ll take more of them with us that way.”

Gwyth grunted. “Uplifting.”

Nervously twirling the end of his moustache, Locsyn shook his head. “Rhocas, can you get us out of this?”

The young mage sighed. “I’ve been training as a mage for only a few days, I can barely manage focusing fire when I want it. I can’t do one of the giant balls of flame. I’m sorry.”

Rhy patted the young man on the back. “Nothing to be sorry about, you signed on as a soldier and you do a soldier’s job. We stand.” Rhy turned back to his post in the centre of the barricade, and only Taflen heard him mutter “I hope Llof comes up with something”.

The third trumpet called, and Gwyth readied himself, his shield held high to catch the incoming javelins. His arm ached and a slow trickle of blood flowed from where the arrow had pierced it, but he ignored the pain, and caught the first Lianese soldier over the wall on his shield, slamming it into his foe as the man jumped from the barricades. An axe blow around the side cut through ribs, and Gwyth dumped him off, shield reset to deal with the next foe.

Taflen steadied himself, one foot on the barrier, and as the first of his foes tried to scramble across, he caught the fool with a hard strike to the helmet, cleaving the protection and leaving his enemy writhing. Two more Lianese followed, pushing Taflen back as he fought to keep his shield in front of one and strike at the other. The split attention meant neither succeeded, and a thrust at his ribs was only stopped by the quick attention of the Veryan soldier to Taflen’s left. That assistance allowed the historian to strike hard at the legs of the foe to his right, and the sword carved through the shin until it lodged midway into the bone, yanked from his hand as the Lianese soldier fell. With nothing but his shield left, Taflen put his right hand behind the boss and slammed it into the face of his second foe, knocking him backwards. The strike was too late for Taflen’s ally, for in stopping the thrust at Taflen he had left himself open, and a countering blow had him dying in the dirt. In the brief moment of freedom, Taflen grabbed the sword from his fallen comrade’s hand, stepping backwards and readying himself for the next soldier to come.

The shield wall contracted further, with only ten of the original twenty still standing, of whom five came from Rhyfelwyr’s squad. He was proud of them, that they would stand against the odds, but some twenty five Lianese soldiers remained, and that left the sergeant sore at heart. He could see Rhocas calling on his magic, and brief sputters of flame would appear, but the carnage and chaos of battle had stolen the mage’s concentration, and Rhocas fell back on his sword, standing in the shield wall and delivering blow for blow, his face pale with sweat. The young man had seen too little of life to die, and he fought with the strength of the desperate, fear lending power to his strikes, and speed to his counters.

The Lianese line began to slacken and turn back on itself on one side, and Rhyfelwyr tried to see what could steal their resolve, but nothing was visible. The scene resolved itself moments later as several Lianese soldiers collapsed with daggers piercing their throats, revealing a blood-soaked Llofruddiwr standing with two of his long-knives in hand, slashing into his Lianese foes. Caught between a suddenly surging shield wall on one side and a dervish on the other, the Lianese turned back to back, fighting desperately as two of them tried to slay the assassin. He dismissed their pitiful attempts, catching each strike on his knives before batting one Lianese weapon aside and kicking the soldier in the groin. One foe incapacitated, Llofruddiwr turned his full attention on the other, and in a whirlwind of cuts and slices, hacked away at the wrist on the sword hand, wounding it until it could no longer hold a weapon. Both foes rendered incapable, he stabbed each, cutting arteries and letting them bleed out.

The Lianese forces on that side of the barricade were finished, but two more Veryan troops had fallen, rending their total to nine, now that Llofruddiwr had returned. That left those nine against fifteen Lianese, and the Veryan forces were exhausted. Locsyn could barely stand, having been cut along his thigh, unable to lower the shield to defend himself. Rhocas had gained a wound across the back of his sword hand, and his arm trembled each time he tried to lift the blade. Gwyth stood like a rock, but this rock bled from cut after cut, and even his prodigious strength had weakened. Only Taflen stood unwounded, for even the sergeant and Llofruddiwr had been struck. Knowing what must be done, Rhyfelwyr called out “Charge!” and leapt over the barricade, followed by Llofruddiwr on his left and Taflen on his right, the other soldiers a step behind.

Rhyfelwyr could feel the energy draining from his body as he pushed it beyond all limits, and he staggered on his third step, nearly falling to the ground as he struggled with the enemy in front of him. Only a Llofruddiwr knife-thrust stopped that stumble from being the end.

In a moment the sergeant was on his feet, his sword sweeping in a low arc to cut the ankle of an enemy, shield held to protect the head. Gwyth summoned his massive strength for one last blow, and slammed his battleaxe into a Lianese shield, cutting through the wood and metal to drive the edge of his weapon into his foe’s neck. Axe caught in the shield, he let it go and grasped his shield with two hands, laying about him as if it were a club.

The far end of the line was anchored by Rhocas and Locsyn, and they fought as a team, one blocking strikes, the other leaping forward to thrust through the openings created. The style of combat was alien to the Lianese troops, and two fell before they began to understand the rhythm of blows, and drive the two Veryan soldiers backwards. Stumbling, Locsyn was only just able to turn his body to catch the attack on his shield, and he saw Rhocas take a further step back, leaving Locsyn fighting two on his own. Locsysn did all he could to defend himself, not trying to counter, only to deflect the strikes as they came. He was rewarded for his skill a few moments later when a lance of blue flame flew over his shoulder and played upon the nearest Lianese troops, incinerating the two he had been fighting, and then turning down the line to catch two more.

The burst of flame from Rhocas left the young mage in a near faint, kneeling on the ground and retching, but it had shattered the Lianese soldiers entirely. They fled, a few caught from behind by the daggers of Llofruddiwr, but most escaped, the Veryan soldiers too exhausted to follow.

Taflen applied bandages to the various wounds, cutting strips of cloth from the dead soldiers around them. The squads rested as the sun passed across the sky, sprawled upon the ground like so many dead. Only when the orb touched the tops of the buildings did Rhyfelwyr gesture the others onwards, towards the warehouses.

Eight Veryan soldiers set out, Rhyfelwyr in the lead. Another had died while they recovered in the market. The sergeant looked at his small unit, blood spattered, staggering, at less than half strength, and wondered why he did this. Why did he lead young men into battle over and over, only to watch them die? He feared he knew the answer: he could do no other thing.

Shaking the depressing thought from his mind, the sergeant turned his weary eyes to the road ahead, glancing at the hidden doorways, the places where archers could hide. If they encountered any more Lianese troops, any more at all, the Veryans would die. He knew his squad was too exhausted to retreat, and he wondered if they should hole up in some basement, wait for a day or two, and discover the outcome of the battle afterward. Something inside wouldn’t let the sergeant, and he could see it in the countenances around him: they had come too far. There would be an end this day.

Stride by stride the Veryan soldiers approached the warehouses, and although the sounds of fighting drifted over the city towards them, their passage through Horaim was untroubled. Sticking to the back-alleys of the city, Llofruddiwr lead from his station high above, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, appearing at junctions to point the way. How he had the energy for such exertions Locsyn would never know, for the wounded veteran had been forced to drop his shield entirely, no longer able to stand the strain it placed on his injury. The shield lay in the rubble of the market, so much detritus.

***

The sun was touching the horizon when the squad arrived at the first warehouse, tucked on the south side of the city. They had fought and marched their way across Horaim, arriving wounded and tired, battered and nearly broken. Letting the others slump to the ground, Rhyfelwyr motioned Gwyth forward. “Open it.” The brute nodded, and a mighty blow from his axe cleft the chain holding the door shut. Running his fingers along the edge of his weapon, Gwyth pulled out a whetstone and began to grind the nick from his blade.