The Dragon Hammer (Wulf's Saga Book 1) (35 page)

Chapter Forty-Six:
The Crux

Max Jager heard the distant clanging of the cathedral bell for the first time in his life.

Was it already Nickerchen bell? It seemed like he’d been fighting forever.

He’d heard bells before—his home village had one in its chapel tower—but nothing so deep and
powerful
as this. It carried over even the clash and clamor of battle. He guessed it was the Elder Bell, something he’d known about all his young life but never heard before.

Jager was nineteen years old. He was a rarity among the Tier, a bobcat man. Brullen, his small village of hunters and trappers, was in a cove far in the south of Bear Valley. There Jager had been an assistant to his uncle, who was a tanner of hides.

Jager was tall for a bobcat, but barely the height of a short human. Despite his small form, the fifteen bear men in his company respected him because they’d grown up near the back-valley bobcat village where Jager was born and knew that Jager was smart and a ferocious fighter. When the call had come to gather at Bear Hall, they had elected him their leader despite his age and followed him up the valley.

These fifteen had gathered in their cousins from elsewhere in Bear Valley. A band of misfit otter, beaver, and raccoon men had thrown in with the group as they made their way toward Bear Hall.

Before Jager knew it, he was leading a group of over seventy. Soon everyone was calling him “captain.” The company was calling itself the “Raufers,” which was valley slang for “brawlers.” They’d even provided him with something he’d only dreamed of ever owning, a horse.

Jager didn’t care what they called him or each other. He just wanted to fight.

Once at the Bear Hall gathering ground—a muddy, trampled barley field outside the village—the earl had assigned a squad of squabbling buffalo men to the Raufers, as well. The group of twenty had been fighting with each other and with their leaders, and nobody had known what to do with them.

Now these Tier men he’d barely had time to meet, much less learn their names, were fighting for their lives outside the gates of Raukenrose, a town Jager had never visited.

He’d been fighting for what seemed like hours. He was not built to be part of the shield wall, but he’d used his size to his advantage, like he’d always had to do. He’d climbed up the backs of buffalo and bear men and stabbed down into the scrum of Sandhaveners, drawing blood again and again. He’d worked his way between legs and under shields to cut into Sandhavener shins and groins.

Jager growled in rage when the Raufers were pushed back toward the forest edge. He ran up and down the line of men, sometimes pouncing on shoulders, sometimes scrambling under legs.

If we have to move back, Jager thought, I’ll damned sure keep us from breaking.

“Push, boys, push!” Jager screamed. He’d seen when he’d joined the front lines that his awareness narrowed like a steep walled canyon to just those fighting directly near him.

There wasn’t any use shouting out general orders. There was only one command that counted.

“Stand with your left man! Stand with your right!” he shouted.

He’d thought about ordering a step-by-step retreat, but had seen a band of bear men break after trying that. He’d lengthened and thinned the Raufer line far more than he’d wanted to filling up the hole the retreaters had left. Had to be done.

“Cut ’em down, boys,” Jager screamed. “Make ’em pay!”

More of his men fell. Some could be pulled away, and he ordered it done, but most would have to lie where they’d gone down, usually wallowing in their own blood.

We’re
not
gonna break like those cursed buffalo, Jager thought.

But things were looking bad.

He had a squad of bear-man longbowmen that he’d kept pouring arrows into the Sandhavener second and third ranks. They were also a reserve.

He climbed on the shoulder of Odis Knudsson, the bear man’s chief archer. Knudsson was Jager’s best friend from Brullen. He was about to order them to lay down bows and take up spears, when he caught a movement to the rear.

It was a clump of twenty or so of the buffalo men he’d been assigned. They were headed toward the forest.

No you don’t!

“Hold the cursed line, Odis,” he growled. “Move your boys forward if you have to. I’m takin’ after them quitters.”

Knudsson nodded, too intent on nocking another arrow to make a reply. Jager pounced from his shoulder and took off after the buffalo men. He was very fast when he wanted to be, and he soon caught up with them.

No time for yelling and screaming. Jager took out his sword—which would have been little more than a long knife to a bear man—and stabbed one of the buffalo men in the butt. This brought forth a scream and curses, as Jager had intended it to, and the whole group turned to look.

Jager bounded in front of them.

“Turn around, boys!” he shouted. “Turn around and fight! There’s men that need you back there.”

For several of the group, this was enough. They did what Jager ordered. But there was a knot of ten or so buffalo men who did not obey. One of them huffed loudly.

“You get out of the way, little cat.”

Snot streamed from the buffalo man’s nostrils.

Scared out of his mind, Jager thought.

He shook a halberd at Jager.

“I’ll trample you myself,” the buffalo man shouted. He stepped forward, trying to move around Jager.

Mistake.

With a quick movement, Jager spun and stroked his sword across the back of the buffalo man’s heel. He’d skinned enough hides to know exactly what was there.

The sword sliced through the rear tendon in the buffalo man’s lower leg.

Jager cut the other tendon for good measure. The Tier fell, howling in pain and amazement.

“You stinking bobcat!” yelled a buffalo man behind Jager. “I’ll cut you down!”

He charged at Jager, and Jager dodged again. He repeated the exact same procedure. Another buffalo man went down screaming and clutching at his ruined legs.

Jager raised his sword. He gazed up at the remaining buffalo men. “Get back in there and fight!” he yelled. “Get back, or I promise you, by Sturmer, I’ll do the same to you!”

Eyeblink.

Jager shook his sword.

Eyeblink.

The remaining buffalo men turned and headed back to the fight. Jager wasted no time. He raced in front of them and led them like a spear into the Sandhaven lines. Jager reached around a shield and stabbed up through a Sandhavener’s chin. Jager twisted his sword and yanked it out as the man fell dead.

In a moment, the buffalo men were past the spot where Jager stood over the dead Sandhavener. They were fighting more furiously than ever.

He headed back to his bear man archers.

“Down bows and up spears!” he yelled to the bowmen. While they were doing this, he climbed back up onto Knudsson’s shoulder.

“Want me to bring ’em up behind those cowards, keep ’em at it?”

“Nah, those others will hold,” Jager said. “They got something to prove.” Jager balanced with his feet on Knudsson’s broad shoulders and stretched up as far as he could to get a look at the fight. He was mindful that he was making himself a target for Sandhaven archers, but he needed to glimpse what was going on.

He saw what seemed like a roiling sea of fighting, screaming, bleeding men and Tier. But behind them he made out a column of Sandhaveners marching up in rows of four. He couldn’t see how many there were. He wasn’t high enough. But he knew there were plenty of them. They were headed at an angle to the company’s left. It was where the line was thinnest.

This looked dangerous. The approaching Sandhaveners needed to be bloodied as quickly as possible or they might punch through.

“Got to take ’em left,” he said to Knudsson. “Take ’em in hard.” Jager jumped from Knudsson’s shoulders. “Follow me, boys!” he shouted.

Once again, Jager charged.

They were losing.

The flank attack with archers worked for a while. Centaur and fox-man bowmen on one side, bear-man longbowmen on the other. The Sandhaven dead and wounded piled up.

But there were always more of them. And reinforcements were charging out of the town. Two thousand warriors of the mark, most of the Bear Valley recruits. Five thousand Sandhaveners.

Numbers began to matter.

It took a while, but the Sandhaveners finally got organized behind a wall of shields. They moved forward together and started to push back the attackers. The Alerdalan Wood got closer and closer when Wulf glanced over his shoulder. Keiler had abandoned the rise where they’d been watching the battle. Now they were getting backed up against the tree line.

It was a fighting retreat, but it was a retreat.

Earl Keiler moved his horse up beside Wulf. “I wish we had reserves, but we don’t. Now would be the time to throw them in.”

The earl sounded almost apologetic.

“It’s not over yet,” Wulf replied.

Keiler started to answer, but began to cough, and the fit lasted a long time. The scrofula was getting worse. Blood spattered from his mouth and dripped down the hair of his chin. He finally straightened. “We’ll have to make a stand against the woods,” the earl said. “If they push us into the trees, they can hunt us down one by one.”

Keiler led a group of leaders he’d picked back toward the woods at a trot. Wulf followed. When they got there, the earl spread out these troops along the edge of the woods. “You have to stop them. You have to turn our own if they break, boys!” he shouted.

They waited for the battle to come to them.

They didn’t have long to wait.

The Sandhaveners were attacking in tight boxes of eight or ten men, each two men deep. They were taking no prisoners. They were slaughtering any Tier or men they caught.

And pushing the rest back. Farther back.

“It’s going to get desperate pretty soon, Lord Wulf,” the old bear shouted at him.

“Seems so,” Wulf shouted back.

“We
cannot
be pushed into the woods.”

“I know.” Wulf smiled. “Are you going to let me fight?”

“Draw your sword.”

Wulf pulled the bear sword from its scabbard and got ready.

The front line got closer and closer. Troops were shouting. They cried in pain as they were stabbed or slashed, going down.

Something dripped on Wulf’s nose. Was his head bleeding? Another splash. More and more.

The rain was here. Thunder rumbled. The rain grew heavier.

“Curse it all!” Wulf shouted.

Nagel, on his shoulder, shook out her wings.

I’m not going to die wet and beaten. I’m not going to run through the forest being hunted.

A cluster of Sandhaveners broke through the lines. They headed toward Wulf and Keiler.

He pointed his sword at the advancing soldiers. He kicked his horse into movement and charged forward to meet the oncoming men.

The rain did not let up. For a moment Wulf thought it might hide his approach.

But the Sandhaveners saw him and were ready.

This is it, Wulf thought.

He saw her face.

Blonde hair. Blue eyes. Willowy. Skinny.

Beautiful to him because of who she was.

Saeunn.

It wouldn’t be a bad thought to go out on.

When Wulf was twenty paces from their line, the Sandhaveners seemed to cringe back.

They look
terrified
.

Did I do that?

But then, an eyeblink before he reached them, a cloud of arrows flew over his head and into the enemy. Many fell. An eyeblink later Wulf trampled through the rest with his horse. Another cloud of arrows flew over his head. More Sandhaveners fell.

Then he heard a roar of wild joy coming from the crusty, ancient Earl Keiler.

“The gnomes are here! The gnomes! By Sturmer, now we’ll see some fighting!”