Unnamed…- chapter 15
I can’t post all of this on the website, so I’ve skipped a bit to one of the larger battles…
Chapter 15- The North RoadThe cowled man marched past the gates of the ruined tower, giving the utter devastation around it the merest of glances. Soldiers could be replaced, doors could be rebuilt and the gurgling creatures lying in pools of their own blood could be cleared away. He strode towards a new sentry, a large demon that fingered its bow as it watched him approach.
“New orders from our master,” the man hissed, “I will need a horse saddling within the hour for my ride to Carnul,” he hesitated in thought for a moment, “And dispatch a message to our forward scouts. Give them orders to intercept some… friends of mine on the North Road.” He chuckled to himself.
“El’sare will never live to reach the city.”
It was a damp, cold and miserable late autumn morning when a damp, cold and miserable Fardan El’sare emerged from the woods and made his way towards the watchtower. He swore silently and repeatedly as he thought of his comrades’ reactions to him. Isath seemed all right, but what would happen to his friendship with the other men? The friendly but ferocious Karath Heanes, the jolly twins, the dry yet good-natured Varnes? Would he lose all of those?
Even Keria?
He was already imagining a furious mob with burning torches when the portcullis clanked up before him, revealing a fatigued Horas leaning against the stone wall. His friend looked him up and down a few times, before unexpectedly smiling in relief.
“You look like hell.”
Fardan glanced down at himself- soaking wet, muddy and dressed only in a pair of trousers, he looked like some kind of beggar. He laughed for the first time that day, relieved at the thought that at least some of his friends didn’t mind. Looking back up at Horas, he noted the bags under his friend’s eyes and the tired way he slumped against the wall.
“You can talk! What were you doing last night?”
“Handling your little escapade,” Horas grinned and grabbed Fardan’s shoulder, “I’ll help you inside.”
As he entered the courtyard, Fardan was shocked to see the whole of the garrison standing in front of him. There were no weapons or burning torches- just his comrades. Except… Fardan glanced around quickly. There was no sign of Keria. Stony silence hovered in the air for a moment, before Juran spoke.
“Sir, you have a very strange idea of a good night out.”
The quiet tableau of the courtyard exploded into laughter. Fardan looked on, stunned, as Karath Heanes nodded at him amiably.
“Welcome back, sir. Had a rough night?” Fardan tapped Horas on the shoulder.
“This isn’t what I expected,” he whispered, “I was thinking more along the lines of them wanting to kill me.” Horas stared, then shrugged and spoke the words that Fardan had wanted to hear for thirteen years.
“They’re your friends. Why should they care?”
* * * * *
Half an hour later, Fardan made his way down to the stables, his arms full of the items he would need to take with him to Carnul. Captain Isath had told the whole garrison that there was a chance they would not return to the tower, especially if the demons were planning a full-scale invasion. So Fardan had packed up his equipment, leaving nothing except the furniture back in his room.
Opening the gate to one of the pens, he patted the black stallion inside with a spare hand as he dropped his equipment onto the floor beside it. The horse’s name was Myrku, a large black animal with a lighter, silvery mane, and Fardan had spent quite a lot of money acquiring him- he seemed to be an amiable creature, and Fardan had never ridden a faster stallion. Saddling him quickly, Fardan attached Moonfang’s scabbard to a strap on Myrku’s flank, and placed his crossbow beside it- it wasn’t unheard of to be attacked on the way to the city, either by bandits or demons. However, Fardan didn’t bother donning his armour, instead placing the chain shirt and carved breastplate into a saddlebag. He preferred riding without it on long journeys, and the ride would take the best part of a day to complete.
Five minutes later, Fardan vaulted into Myrku’s saddle and urged the stallion forward, into the courtyard where the others were waiting. Isath gave him a nod, then turned his horse around and rode out of the gates. As Fardan followed him, he glanced behind him at the watchtower, knowing that he may not see his home again, and wondering why his life had suddenly been turned upside down.
* * * * *
The North Road was a bit of an overstatement. Over the years, Riftwatch watchtower garrisons had taken to using a certain route north to the city of Carnul, a particular way that was both quick and easy. Eventually the many horses had beaten a track across the hills, creating what became known, by unspoken accord, as the North Road.
Fardan rode near the head of the column of horses, keeping pace beside Isath. The captain seemed to enjoy riding, insofar as it was a more comfortable alternative to walking. On his other side was Keria. She hadn’t spoken for the whole three hours they had been riding- in fact, she hadn’t spoken at all to him since the incident the previous night. Now she sat silently on her dun mare, her head down. Fardan shifted his gaze, suddenly feeling guilty. Deep down, he knew that her depressed condition was his fault.
Sergeant Varnes led the garrison, his hand constantly fingering the longbow strapped to his horse’s side, his one keen eye constantly scanning the bleak landscape. Fardan knew that the Sergeant was once a hunter in a village near him, and didn’t doubt that Varnes could easily spot- and shoot with ease- anything that meant them harm.
Fardan diverted his course slightly, riding up to Isath.
“How far now?” he asked.
“At this rate, I’d say another two hours or so.” replied the captain. Fardan nodded his thanks. Once they were in the city, perhaps he would have a chance to talk to Keria. She deserved an explanation.
Yes, he thought, the sooner we get there, the better.
As if hearing his thoughts, the sky rumbled, and began to rain.
* * * * *
Another hour and a half later, Fardan swore repeatedly, wishing that he had at least had the sense to wear a cloak. The rain was a pounding torrent now, and he was soaked to the skin. Cresting another hill, he put a hand to his eyes and attempted to stare through the punishing deluge. No luck- he knew that from this hill he would usually be able to see Carnul in the distance, but in this weather he had no chance.
Fardan’s head rattled. Donning his helmet as protection from the rain had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now it was proving to be a nuisance. The sheer force of the rainfall vibrated it so much that the heavy pattering was the only sound he could hear. Almost.
As he rode to the side of the column, Fardan thought he heard something else. For a second, what seemed to be a cry from his left had broken through the monotonous sound of the rainfall. Pulling off his helmet, he brought Myrku to a halt. Captain Isath trotted up to him, followed by Varnes and Keria.
“What-” began Isath, but Fardan cut him off, raising a hand for silence and pointing to his left, where a score of dark shapes were racing across the grass and hillocks towards them, only a few hundred metres away.
Through the echo of the pattering rain came the sound of war-cries.
“Not human,” muttered Varnes, squinting with his one eye as he attempted to calm his shuddering horse, “Demons. On horses, or… something like them. Friends of yours?”
“No… we’ve only just met.” replied Fardan. Isath swore.
“Flanking attack on the left!” he screamed, “Everyone to me!”
“Same on this side too, sir!” came Ferrick’s voice from the other side of the road, sounding panicked. The world-weary cry of one of the twins came from the rear of the column.
“They’re behind us, too.”
As Fardan watched, some of the demons broke off from the group coming from the left, spreading out in a pincer movement.
“They’re trying to surround us!” yelled Isath, snatching up his crossbow, “Erdae, how many are there altogether?” There was a pause while Erdae took stock of the amount of demons on each side, before she spoke.
“At least fifty,” the woman groaned behind them, “We’re outnumbered almost five to one.”
“Then let’s even up those odds a bit,” the Captain grinned as he cocked the crossbow, “Open fire!”
Varnes already had his longbow up, and a moment later a three-foot arrow flew past Fardan’s ear, smashing a dark figure off its steed as the shapes grew closer. As Fardan grabbed his crossbow and cocked it frantically, he noticed that the demons were now clearly visible, humanoid creatures in the strange bone armour, mounted upon hideous beasts that seemed like a hybrid between dog and lizard. Wondering why he had ever joined the Riftwatch, Fardan sighed and fired.
One by one, the soldiers pulled their triggers. One by one, the demonic riders dropped, punched backwards by a crossbow bolt or nailed to their steeds by one of Varnes’ arrows. But it was not enough. Riderless, some of the demonic hybrids were still coming up the hill, following their companions that still had masters. The demons held on to the creatures with their legs, holding barbed spears or crude axes in their hands. Some attempted pot-shots with small bows, but due to both poor aim and fast riding, none of them hit their targets, instead falling short of the unarmoured Riftwatch.
At a distance of only a hundred metres, Isath clipped his crossbow back onto his saddle.
“There’s too many of them to shoot!” he screamed, “Draw your weapons and follow me!” Urging his horse around, the Captain rode to the north edge of the hill, with the others hot on his heels. Fardan glanced down, and saw Isath’s plan. The demons had not yet finished encircling the hill- a quickly narrowing gap in their mob was visible as the groups from each side rushed to join with each other. If the soldiers rode through that, there was a chance that they could escape the ambush. Drawing his blade, Fardan kicked Myrku forwards and the horse bolted towards the gap in the demons’ line.
At that precise moment, the flanking demon riders burst onto the hilltop.
The first demons to reach the garrison died very quickly. Erdae was on one side, and Keria was on the other. In a flash, both demons were beheaded- one by a flashing axe blade, the other by a whirling scimitar. Fardan ducked as something huge flew towards him, throwing himself to one side and instinctively lashing out with Moonfang. A deafening howl rang out, and the shape fell to the grass. Turning to look, Fardan saw one of the lizard-like creatures writhing on the floor with a gash across its throat. The rider, a thin, human-like beast with cracked grey skin, jumped to its feet and tried to bring its spear to bear- a bad idea, as it turned out. Panicked and angry, Myrku reared up, his thick hooves flailing at the creature. The spear shaft snapped under a thunderous impact, swiftly followed by the shocked demon’s neck.
“Good boy.” Fardan grunted in the horse’s ear.
“Break off!” came Isath’s voice from ahead, “Head for the gap!” Kicking another demonic steed on its nose, Fardan rode towards the Captain, who was holding his dripping sabre with a look of annoyance on his face. The others turned their horses around and followed, closely pursued by a mob of mounted demons. The creatures the demons rode were fast- faster than even horses, it seemed. Riding at the rear of the group, Dranos and Juran were taking the brunt of the assault, almost completely surrounded by demons. They were nearly lying flat in the saddle to increase speed as they lashed out low, clipping the enemy steeds’ heads in an attempt to slow them down.
Fardan galloped alongside a huge, riderless dog-like beast, its loping pace easily keeping up with his black stallion. Closing in, the beast leaped, clamping its jaws on Fardan’s shoulder. He cried out at the sharp pain as its teeth ripped through the meagre protection of his cloth shirt, sinking into flesh and pulling him sideways with the demon’s weight. Sheathing his sword, he drew a knife from his belt and plunged it into the creature’s unprotected eye. Black blood spurted as he twisted the blade and yanked it back out, and the corpse fell back without a sound.
A scream from the side brought his eyes away from the swiftly closing gap ahead. Just ahead of him, on the left, Keria was struggling with a demon larger than her. The demon, a brown-skinned humanoid with a goat’s head, was standing up on its mount beside her, holding on to it with one hand and clutching the wrist of her sword arm with the other. Clubbing it with her spare hand, Keria lashed out with her foot, kicking the beast it was standing on, which recoiled. Bereft of its steed, the demon swung over and held on to Keria’s horse with its legs as it pulled a wicked, cleaver-like axe from its belt. As Fardan watched, the demon brought the axe down, splitting the skull of Keria’s horse. The dun mare collapsed in a heap, taking Keria with it.
Fardan acted without thinking. Steering Myrku around to face the way he had come, he galloped towards Keria. Three demon riders blocked his way- he impaled one on the point of his sword, brought a knife down in an arc to slash the throat of the second and simply urged Myrku over the third, the demon’s mount standing no chance under the stallion’s angry hooves. The last of the garrison rode past him, accompanied by a yelled “Sir! Get back!” from the twins. Fardan ignored them, and the mass of demons heading his way. His eyes were fixed on the brown-skinned creature raising an axe over Keria’s head.
Fardan’s vision went red.
* * * * *
Keria rolled to one side as the axe came down, swearing constantly as tears ran down her face. She was going to die. She knew it, this time. The others had gone, and Keria knew that Isath would not risk more lives to save her. As the axe buried itself in the corpse of her horse beside her, she found it odd that she could not stop thinking about Fardan. She had stubbornly ignored him all day, simply because of what he was. Keria had turned her back on the man who had saved her life.
The man she loved.
Wrenching her foot from underneath the remains of the horse, Keria brought up her scimitar, intending to block the next crude axe blow with it. The two blades met with a grinding noise, but the demon stamped on her crushed foot and she winced in pain. The moment of weakness was all the demon needed- the axe rose again and fell with deadly speed, bouncing off a half-hearted parry from the woman and embedding itself in her good leg. The pain shot up Keria’s body like a red-hot arrow, making her scream in agony as her vision swam, almost blacking out.
A bellow of anger boomed from nearby, echoing throughout the battleground, a howl of pure rage. Keria looked up, realising that it was not the demon above her. Whoever had made that sounded human…
Keria stared.
Pounding towards her, like some furious beast of legend, was a lone figure on a black horse, screaming a terrifying battle cry as it flourished a long, dark blade. The demons fled before the warrior- the ones that didn’t were cut down or trampled in seconds.
Turning to face this new threat, the creature above Keria only had time to scream as the black horse ran him down. Keria felt a hand seize her shoulder, and put up no resistance as she was dragged upwards onto the stallion. Raising her head to see her saviour, she gasped in shock.
“You?”
“Who else?” grunted Fardan El’sare.
* * * * *
With difficulty, Fardan tore his eyes away from Keria’s shocked face, satisfied that she was safe.
“You’d better hold on to that,” he muttered, pointing at her scimitar without looking, “You’ll need it.”
The gap in the demon line was gone, along with the rest of the Riftwatch. Fardan cursed as he realised that the score of remaining demons had not pursued his companions, instead going for the easier prey- him and Keria. Now they slowly closed in from all sides, aware that they would easily defeat the two humans, but cautious, not wanting to be the first to attack. Fardan drew his sword, and charged.
The demons immediately before the charging horse fell, cut down by the flashing blades of the two riders, but there were too many to kill. In moments, the momentum of the charge had slowed as more demons stabbed at the riders and more of the foul steeds pounced.
Then, a voice rang out.
“Fire!”
Five of the demons fell with their steeds, clutching at the crossbow bolts that had broken through their armour. Fardan, through a haze of blood and sweat, saw a gleaming blade slice a path through the creatures. They fell back before the terrifying sight of Captain Isath, yelling commands as he wielded his blood-soaked sabre with ease.
Fardan didn’t waste time. Kicking Myrku as hard as he could, he galloped through the temporary gap, passing Isath, who sheathed his sabre and followed. The garrison were lined up on the road, clipping their crossbows back onto their belts. As Fardan and Keria reached them, they too began to ride along the road.
A quick look back revealed that the demons had recovered and were not far behind, urging their strange mounts forward and catching up. The rain was slowing, and Fardan took full advantage of the increased visibility to stare ahead. At this speed, surely they could not be far from the city…
The rain stopped, and something huge loomed up ahead of him. He laughed out loud and felt Keria hug him as he recognised it. It was the wall of Carnul- fifty feet of ten-metre thick solid stone at the base, with one huge oaken gate, backed by a steel portcullis. They had arrived.
An alarmed cry rang out from above, swiftly followed by the pounding of booted feet. A hail of long arrows sailed into the ranks of the mounted demons, sending them screaming from their steeds. Three volleys of barbed shafts from the archers on the wall were all it took. As the men rode in through the massive, intimidating archway below the gatehouse, the last of their pursuers died.
Isath trotted up alongside Fardan, grinning with relief.
“Welcome to Carnul.”