Brave Men Die: Part 2 Page 12

  Calan got up and ran the scant metres to the kneeling body of the mage. He brought his sabre back over his shoulder as the mage turned to face him. Her hands were still buried in the ground as her green eyes locked onto his and he swung the blade around, taking her head from her shoulders. Her sandy blonde hair flew through the air as her head travelled, landed, and rolled across the ground. Her body collapsed into a pool of blood, her arteries spurting the last of her life force out of her body.

  Calan snapped out of the moment when arrows thudded into the ground around him. He took off to the riderless horse standing nearby, grabbed hold of the pommel and pulled himself into the saddle. He slapped it on the rump with the flat of his sabre as an arrow thudded into his shield. The horse was reluctant but eventually reacted to his directions and he took off back toward the fight.

  Castor’s sword struck out and turned away a strike that would have claimed Volans’ arm. Volans reacted, bringing his warhammer against the Kyzantine’s head, crushing the man’s skull. Castor moved forward, urged Virtue to take two steps, allowing him to get around his opponent’s guard.

  Hearing the screams, Castor sat high in his saddle and watched as the garrison company charged into the Kyzantine column. Kyzantines rallied to the new threat and gave the Nails some relief. Signalling to Volans, Castor dashed forward, urgently needing to take advantage of the shift in battle. His arm darted forward, taking a woman in the armpit. The grip on her hilt loosened, the blade clattered to the ground.

  Castor’s eyes darted across the battlefield. Warriors were fleeing in the distance and others were pulling away from the Nails. He witnessed a female warrior dispatch man after man with the lightning strikes of her scimitar. The look on her face screamed frustration and anger. Castor singled her out for combat. His mind raced. Could he take her? He realised it didn’t matter. He just had to stop her killing all the others. Maybe buy some time, create something out of nothing. Whacking his mount with the flat of his sword he screamed at her, leaving Volans behind as he smashed in the skull of the last warrior facing him. Castor wove through the combat, aimed his sword at her chest.

  ‘You and me bitch. Let’s see how well you dance.’

  Before he could get close enough to swing his blade, two soldiers ran interference. Raising his shield Castor took the first blow on its metal frame and took the second on the crossguard of his sword. Volans charged past, leapt from his saddle and collected the first soldier. They landed in a heap on the ground, fists flailing into each other as they wrestled for dominance and distracted Castor’s second opponent. As the man stammered, ‘Fizdis, sir,’ Castor lashed out and ended his life. The man’s blood sprayed on Castor’s face, adding to the gore that was already covering his skin.

  As Volans wrestled with his foe on the ground Castor pressed on, his heart racing as he entered single combat. She turned his blade away before striking out with lightning quick reflexes. Castor just managed to block the savage blows as she struck rapidly again. She thrust with complete accuracy, aiming for every point his armour failed to protect. He brought his shield around, keeping the blows away from his body. His sword knocked an attack away from his head but swept the strike into his unguarded arm. The tip of the scimitar punctured his muscle and tore open the skin across his forearm.

  The hatred burned inside him, consumed his thoughts as the fresh wound of Argol’s death reopened. Someone had cut him open too. If he couldn’t end this woman then more of his friends would die. It was true, those that lived through battle were haunted by those they lost.

  Castor retaliated with furious strokes, blood trickling down his sword arm. She countered all but one with her scimitar, her wrist flicking from side to side. The one that landed nicked her arm and Castor twisted the tip of his blade to make her scream.

  Cursing, she pulled away as a Kyzantine soldier barrelled into Castor and knocked him from his horse. Castor wondered where on earth he had come from as his vision filled with blue sky, then brown dirt, then blue sky again. Castor kept his shield between him and his opponent as the Kyzantine dismounted and started pounding his sabre down toward his body. The man was pushed from behind, nudged by a Murukan boot, and fell forward on top of Castor’s shield. Dropping his sword, Castor grabbed his dagger and drove it into the man’s neck without hesitating. Brown eyes stared back at the realisation of what just happened sunk in. Blood spewed out over Castor’s face as the dead weight started to crush his body.

  With an effort and a deep breath Castor rolled the dead body off him. Gaining his feet, Castor grasped his sword and rammed the dagger back into his sheath. His battle hunger demanded he seek the woman out and he found her off in the near distance. Rage boiled within, his arm throbbed with pain. By the time he found Virtue it was too late and the Kyzantines had fought their way out of the pass, the woman gone with them.

  Mounting Virtue, Castor trotted over to Hydrus and Volans who were talking to the commander of the garrison forces.

  ‘They got away Duncan,’ stated Hydrus, a look on his face that demanded to know the reason why and wasn’t going to take any fucking excuse.

  ‘Not to worry. The ones we missed will come back soon enough and we can kill them then,’ the older commander replied, patting the younger on the shoulder.

  ‘The same tactic won’t work again though. Did you notice the standard?’ Hydrus asked.

  All three of the men nodded but it was Volans that answered.

  ‘Pyxis Jorgh, youngest spawn of the Emperor. One of the best cavalry commanders that the Empire has to offer and a master tactician.’

  ‘Well, that girl has probably studied more on tactics than you have boy,’ Duncan said jokingly to Hydrus.

  ‘More than all of us together,’ Volans interjected, aiming his comment at the others.

  ‘She was quick with the blade too,’ Castor muttered, his eyes drawn to the blood trickling down his arm as he spoke, drawing the others’ attention to the wound.

  ‘That looks nasty Castor. I thought you were better with the blade?’ Hydrus commented smugly.

  Volans recognised the look on Castor’s face, the anger rising behind his eyes. ‘Castor is better than you Hydrus, one of the best in the unit. If it was anyone else up against her, they wouldn’t have just been wounded. They'd be dead. I saw the blows, the battle. Their blades blurred Hydrus, blurred because they were so fast.’

  The group stood there in silence, not really looking at each other. There was still tension but also a sense of awe.

  ‘I could have taken her,’ Castor said quietly, interrupting the silence.

  The other three looked at him. The seriousness on his face said it all. The girl would be his one day or she would be the death of him. Castor’s chest tightened and his breathing became deeper as the resolve sunk in.

  ‘If anyone else goes after her they are going to die,’ Castor muttered.

  ‘I don’t like threats,’ Hydrus replied, annoyance rising in his voice.

  ‘Pyxis will kill you. Her blade hums the songs of death. Leave her to me or you will die,’ Castor replied calmly.

  ‘I’ll take my chances,’ Hydrus said, rotating the shoulder of his sword arm.

  Volans nodded and accepted the advice. He knew better than to pick fights with expert swordsmen.

  ‘So report,’ Hydrus commanded. ‘How much are they hurting?’

  ‘Judging by the piles of bodies scattered throughout the pass, I’d be safe to say about fifty percent. I’ll have some of my men do a body count,’ Duncan stated.

  ‘One of their captains is dead as well. When I crushed his skull there were concerns from nearby troops and they called him sir,’ Volans mentioned. ‘Hopefully that will set them back.’

  ‘I doubt it will stop them for too long,’ Hydrus mused.

  ‘There are always eager young men to promote,’ Duncan agreed, his eyes flickering over Castor and Hydrus.

  ‘And us?’ Hydrus asked.

  Volans eyes scanned the milling Nails, took in th
e empty saddles and then accounted for those on the ground helping the wounded. ‘Worse case scenario we lost thirty men, but I’m hoping that most of those are wounded and not dead. Better to suspect the worst I think, I did see Pyxis take out two of ours.’

  ‘My garrison company took the worst of it then,’ Duncan said sadly. ‘I can see seventy odd empty saddles and there aren't a lot of my men standing around on the ground.’

  Hydrus looked around at the bloody mess in the Gorgon Pass. The bodies trailed from one end to the other, showing how extensive the fighting had been.

  ‘Pyxis won’t fall for that trick again. Let’s grab our dead and get back behind the wall. She will send infantry up to lay siege now that her initial tactic failed and the element of surprise is no longer with her. We need to be ready and start thinking of ways to ensure that we can still take the fight to them.’

  Duncan and Volans nodded. Volans struck Castor across the arm and he focused on the situation.

  ‘Do you understand the orders corporal?’ Hydrus asked.

  ‘Yeah, I got it captain. No worries.’

  Castor nudged Virtue off in the direction of the Nails, leaving the command party behind. His eyes followed the shadows on the ground as he slowly moved toward the waiting men. Looking up from his thoughts, he noticed their expectant faces and he figured they were waiting for him to tell them what to do.

  ‘You all know what to do, we look after our own, and then get your arses back behind the walls.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  The ten-man patrol walked purposefully down the main street, letting the citizens of Buckthorne see their presence to assure them of their safety. Sweltering in the summer heat, armoured in chain, they walked in single file scanning the crowd.

  Under orders to remain visible to the public, the patrol — one of many — looked prepared but not menacing, but the weapons at their waists were a reminder that they would enforce the law if necessary. They were the watch, and they did their duty no matter what the condition. No matter what the order.

  There was a foot between each man as he pounded down the road, his leather boots scuffing the coarse stones underfoot. Alert eyes examined the people, the places and more importantly the dark. The captain had warned them of the possibilities, of what could happen on the streets of Buckthorne now. Tonight. Any night. They had to be wary. They had to impose the law.

  The absence of the military seemed to haunt the streets. From one extreme to the other over the course of weeks, their absence left a strange unease across the town. The excitement that should have continued from the tournament was gone, replaced with a sense of dread. Tension hung thick in the air.

  Something was brewing. They all knew it. Black Claw had been attacked. There was trepidation in the farewells, a hesitation before saying goodbye, one last long, hard look at someone in case that was it, the last time.

  It was as if the situation was dire already, like the hounds were baying at the gates of the city. The prices in the market district had gone up. The cost of an apple was now ridiculous. Debts had been called in and bones broken when people couldn’t pay. Fights between friends had broken out last night when good men had turned to the bottle in troubled times.

  Captain Sutton had doubled the shifts on the outer walls, leaving the keep’s walls short-staffed until the baron returned. That was meant to make them all feel safer, knowing that if anyone was coming they would know about it. He’d ordered patrols to be increased in the city, the market district by day, the pub district by night, to keep the situation from getting out of hand.

  Gerard Morgan was the fifth man down the line, behind the lanky Tom who was at least a foot taller and in front of Steve who was twice his weight. Gerard was non-descript. Average height, average weight, he was the epitome of the Buckthorne Watch. He looked like most of the watch, or most of the watch looked like him. Either way, he was part of the crowd.

  Sergeant Murray had the command, and was leading them straight into the market district. He carried himself with pompous indignation, the three weeks of officer training giving him the attitude that he was capable of everything, which was certainly not the case. He had spent most of the patrol yelling back over his shoulder that they needed to keep up, to be alert — yet never turned to see that they were exactly where they were supposed to be, scanning the crowd diligently.

  The marketplace was a thrum of activity. The townspeople were out in numbers but parted as the patrol came through. They were pushing to get closer to the vendors with a sense of urgency to purchase whatever they could. The march boded trouble whether anyone wanted to admit it or not. The captain hadn’t openly suggested anything of the sort, but his actions were indication enough. The absence of their men, their soldiers, had put doubts in their minds.

  Gerard reached up and ran his fingers through his light brown hair, cut scruffy the way he liked it. Any longer and he feared it would need actual maintenance. Leave that to the other ponces in the watch. He didn’t need that. His fingers ran down the edge of his left ear and pulled slightly on the lobe out of habit as he watched two women head down a street on his right until they faded from view and blended in with the crowd.

  This was his second year in the watch. Gerard wasn’t going to kid himself, he was one of many watchmen and that was all he would be. The aspirations and thoughts of grandeur he left to others scrambling to get ahead, be noticed, and make it up the ranks. All he needed was a bit of purpose, a reason to get up in the morning, or afternoon as the case may be. In the watch he had that and more, he had a roof over his head and three meals a day.

  Work wasn’t always work, he hadn’t enjoyed the previous jobs. Didn’t pay well, didn’t feed him, and the hours were just crap. This he liked, despite the twits like Murray. And the double shifts, but that was at least temporary and would be over as quickly as it started, he hoped. But hey, he could handle it for a week or two.

  During the briefing before the patrol had left the barracks, Murray had paced back and forth in front of them, reminding them about the conflict happening in the mountains, that with the military gone, it was the watch’s duty, blah blah blah. None of it was important or new.

  As for the orders for the current patrol Murray had told them to be on the look out for thieves, cutpurses and the like, but out on the streets Gerard couldn’t tell the difference between one kid and the next. He did what he could, tried to look menacing, but the easy smile on his face didn’t help.

  What Gerard did see was the nervousness in the people’s faces, how their arms were full of goods, how their hands shook when they handed over money. Some were confident, there was no doubt about that, but more were nervous. It was the way they smiled back at him, offered tiny waves of greeting. It was the way the kids clung to their mother’s skirts.

  They saw the group of boys the same time the boys saw the patrol. The five lads were loitering at the corner, hands in pockets, just kicking at the ground. They were looking aloof and terribly guilty of something. They should have had better things to do than to be standing on the corner. Gerard could remember working at their age.

  Murray didn’t lose a step as he drew his club. Gerard, like the rest of the patrol, stared open-mouthed at his action. They were kids.

  ‘You there!’ he ordered, pointing the club in their direction and gesturing wildly with it. ‘You can’t just be—’

  The kids didn’t let him finish. Gerard didn’t think anyone was surprised. They bolted, dispersing into the crowd and alleys.

  Murray had been in the watch for near a decade. He was ambitious and any sniff of opportunity sent him into a frenzy to prove his worth. He would have the patrol marching double-speed all day if it would make him look good. Gerard had the feeling this was going to be one of those times.

  ‘Break off in pairs and pursue,’ Murray ordered back over his shoulder, already running after the boy he presumed to be the ringleader.

  Bloody loitering. Gerard couldn’t believe they were going to be chasi
ng and arresting boys on a suspicion of being guilty when any smart person would run from a watch commander who looked like Murray. He had that look in his eye that no matter what, he would find something you were guilty of.

  Gerard ran off to the right, the watchman behind him trailing. Five and Six, he thought. Today Steve was six, and Gerard rolled his eyes. The boy was fast, and Steve was slow, his massive girth was never going to be an advantage on this. Gerard soon left him behind in pursuit, Steve’s heavy laboured steps on the road slowing and finally coming to halt. Steve wasn’t designed to run.

  The boy wasn’t wearing chain and made the most of it. He was light and fast and nimbly moved through the crowd. He glanced back over his shoulder every other step, his arms pumping furiously in the air as he ran.

  Trust me to go after the athlete.

  ‘Clear the way,’ Gerard screamed, knowing he had no chance of copying the boy’s tactics.

  Most of the crowd parted for him and he dodged around the others as best he could. His chain was heavy but he wasn’t going to let some twelve-year-old run from him and get away with whatever it was he was guilty of.

  The kid cut right down an alley and Gerard slid round in pursuit, never letting the kid out of his sights for long. In the alleys there was nothing for him to dodge and his longer stride helped him make up some ground in the shadows of the stone walls.

  They went left and right, the boy knocking over anything he could to slow Gerard down. He leaped over them the best he could, made sure he wouldn’t trip with the faces in the windows watching him. Gods that would be humiliating. He jumped over what he hoped was the last of the crates and his heart leapt into his throat as his toes clipped the top. He lurched forward, got one foot down and flailed his arms around to keep himself from falling. He kept moving forward, wobbled from side to side, but managed to keep upright.