The Trees And The Night (Book 3) (18 page)

“Did you bring any monks with you?” questioned Flair sternly.

The Keltaran abruptly stopped. The young man’s harsh manner stunned him.

“No,” replied Turig. “Prince Fenrel disbanded the brotherhood and forbade those of faith on this expedition.”

“Then see to your fellow here,” snarled Flair at the big man. “He begs for a monk in his final moments and should find comfort in the eyes of a comrade not an enemy. If you know any prayers, offer them to him. He finds no comfort in those I recite for they are foreign and strange to him.”

Turig quickly knelt beside his comrade and softly spoke soothing words into his ear. The dying Keltaran relaxed then sighed and was gone. Flair turned from the scene and slowly walked toward the hill. After a few strides Turig called from behind the retreating colonel.

“Zodrian.”

Several Keltaran stopped their work and watched the pair as Turig stood and lightly bowed to Flair.

“Thank you,” stated the giant.

Fenrel was pleased as he rode back toward the front lines. He allowed Aul to become the focus of the discussion but inserted himself at key points to approve the plan. The remainder of his Ramsskull were assured of Fenrel’s place, but took pride in their plan and their fervor ignited once again. His decision not to punish Aul was a good one. The lieutenant was becoming a figurehead to the Ramsskull. A figurehead they would readily follow into battle. Fenrel smiled. Although supremely confident in his abilities, why should the prince risk himself in such meaningless battles as the one here along the Dunmor.

His Brodor broke through the stand of pines and he reined it in. His demeanor immediately changed and his face twisted into a fit of rage. In the distance across the field members of the Anvil spread throughout the battlefield collecting and administering to the dead and dying. Already many of these burdens were retrieved and set amongst the Anvil. These bodies, these signs of weakness and symbols of defeat, crowded the tree line.

Fenrel leapt from his mount as Aul and the Ramsskull emerged from the trees behind him. The prince stormed amongst the Anvil trying to find a focus for his anger. He noted the pike standing near the edge of the battlefield flying a white pennant of parlay.

“Who authorized this?” screamed the prince pointing to the pike in the distance.

Many of the Anvil stepped away from the hulking figure as he swept a hand across them.

“None of you here possesses such authority,” shouted Fenrel. “Your commanders were in conference.”

Utecht stepped from amongst his brethren and approached the prince. His expression was hard and grave.

“None of authority remained,” stated the soldier, “and decisions needed to be made. I held former rank and took it upon myself to accept the offer of parlay from the Zodrians.”

Fenrel raged forward and backhanded Utecht across the face with his gloved hands. The old soldier spun and fell to the ground, blood dripping from his mouth. Fenrel advanced and stood over him with fists clenched.

“Weakness,” raged the prince. “You show the enemy a face of weakness and embolden them while undermining all I have worked for. This army needs no offer of parlay from Zodra to collect her dead. We will retrieve them when we have routed the pigs from the hillside and exterminated every last one of them.”

“Some of those on the battlefield lived and needed our attention or they would surely die,” replied Utecht sternly.

“Then they would die honoring their king and leader,” snarled Fenrel raising an iron boot.

Aul watched the scene play out and knew the direction his master would take. Utecht was one of the old Anvil, a sergeant of some renown who others respected. No good could come of this punishment, and something inside the giant angered at the thought of it.

Aul spent his life a borderline citizen of the kingdom. Certainly he was gifted with strength and possessed a talent with weaponry. However, he always bridled at the discipline of the Anvil and drifted from place to place never truly finding a position that satisfied. The wealthy of the kingdom always required a man of Aul’s abilities and the Keltaran mercenary always preferred a pocketful of coin as a reward as opposed to the praise king and countrymen. Aul’s life thus far shone as a testament to men blessed with nothing more than an aptitude for violence.

Fenrel became the apex of this lifelong climb. The prince was a man who could provide the coin as well as a certain respect from the people. Perhaps this respect was gained through fear and intimidation, but it was a form of respect, so Aul took it. Fenrel represented the crown and the prince led Aul and his colleagues to believe their service was in Keltar’s best interest. As Aul thought hard on it now, he knew this to be untrue, but he had allowed himself to be fooled as any man who craved respectability would.

This deception, combined with the way the prince plied the men he gathered to his banner with gold and power, was a heady mixture for Aul and the other borderline citizens comprising the Ramsskull.  Fenrel’s offers intoxicated them.

The first charge toward the Dunmor hills changed Aul. As he gazed to the heights and saw the archers rise from nowhere, his heart leapt into his throat. His men were about to be massacred. Not members of the Anvil. Not loyal Keltaran soldiers, but his men.

In that instant he saw what others tried to get him to see his entire life. He cared for his men more than himself. In the past he took money, craved power. He used and abused it at his leisure, then moved on to take more. If he harmed others in the process, so be it. Aul believed in Aul and nothing more. Even when Fenrel recruited him and tried to sell him a story of world domination, the Keltaran mercenary saw it as nothing more than a means to grab more power and coin. Surely he agreed that the Zodrians wronged his people over the centuries, but nothing compelled him to right these wrongs. Nothing spoke to his heart.

However, as he saw the first volley of those dark fletched arrows rise into the sky over his men, he changed. He was drawn to protect them. Drawn to lead them from danger. These men sacrificed so much and did not deserve to be slaughtered due to the incompetence of their superiors. As he charged in amongst them and drew the fire of the Zodrians, he saw their faces. Faces originally contorted by fear and confusion came alive with hope. A hope given them by the runaway son of a miller thrust into a position he never sought in his life.

Aul thought back on his father now. An honest, hardworking man long since dead. A man who strove to teach a willful boy the ways of Avra. A man who spoke of a calling that all would receive one day in their life. A calling that would define who a man was and what he believed. Perhaps his father was right. Perhaps Aul stood at the moment of his calling. The Ramsskull lieutenant leapt from his horse and raced to the side of his prince as Fenrel’s iron shod boot hovered over the prostrate Utecht.

“My lord,” interrupted Aul.

Fenrel spun and glared at his lieutenant.

“Aul, I’ve been patient with you,” snapped the prince, “but you overstep your bounds!”

Aul ignored the prince’s threats and moved in close beside his master.

“My lord, I serve only you,” whispered Aul in a low voice only audible to Fenrel. “I attempt to protect you from your own fervor. All here know and agree with your desire to punish the Zodrian for their centuries of abuse, but do not let your passions distract us from our goal. The men’s minds are in a precarious state at this moment. Your call captured many, but just as many wonder why we abandoned our homeland to fight on foreign soil.”

“This soil and all lands stretching to the grasslands of the mongrel horse breeders are our lands by right,” growled Fenrel.

“My lord,” begged Aul soothingly. “None here argue that point, but punishing a man for aiding his brothers will not endear you to their hearts. The Zodrian offer displays their precarious state of mind. They give mercy to our few in order to beg for it in the future. All arrayed along this battlefield can observe the mismatched nature of our armies. The outcome is inevitable and the Zodrian commanders prepare for saving their own hides.”

Fenrel glanced to the form of Utecht still sprawled on the ground then quickly glanced across the faces of the men surrounding the soldier. Their faces showed dismay and anger. Aul was right. Fenrel captured enough of their hearts to lead them from their homeland on his bid for power and glory. They were willing to face death to get him what he wanted, why risk losing blind obedience over the life of this one man. Fenrel’s foot settled back to the dusty ground.

“They will receive no such mercy from us,” growled Fenrel. “Aul, I want your plan underway immediately. When the field is clear we attack. I wish to waste no more time trapped before these hills on my way to my new throne in Zodra.”

The prince spun from Utecht, mounted his Brodor and rode toward his pavilion. As the prince rode from sight behind the trees Aul leaned over and held a hand out to Utecht. At first the old soldier was reluctant to accept the hand of one of these Ramsskull, but he had watched Aul ride in the face of the Zodrian archers and lead many of the Anvil from danger. Perhaps he was a better man than Utecht gave him credit. Slowly the old soldier locked hands with the lieutenant and was lifted to his feet.

“You may not like me, old one,” said Aul, “but heed my advice. Do not cross Prince Fenrel again. He stands in the king’s stead and would just as soon have one less infantry man than let anyone upset his plans.”

“I will not disrupt his plans as long as they are the plans of Keltar,” replied Utecht.

The two bowed lightly to one another and Aul turned to confer with his commanders while the other members of the Anvil gathered Utecht into their ranks.

CHAPTER 12: THE SNARE

Brelg stepped to the East side of the hilltop where Manfir stood looking down at his cavalry in the shallow valley below. The horsemen were divided into three equal groups behind the hill and stood at the ready. Manfir’s flagman stood beside the prince clutching a red pennant. Further east, the tops of the Dunmor hills jutted from the waving grasslands. To the West the plain rolled to meet a thin tree line of fir trees nearly eclipsed by the line of Keltaran warriors standing before it.

“They remove the flag of parlay, my lord,” stated Brelg. “We have but an hour’s time.”

Manfir’s head rose and he scanned the low valleys crisscrossing the Dunmor hills.

“Every moment more affords Corad Kingfisher and the Rindoran Spear a greater opportunity to reach us.”

His eye was caught by a hill in the next line to the East that sported a huge pennant atop it. The figures of men, tiny from this distance, flitted along the hillside constructing a barricade that smiled across the broad face of the hill.

“After the Keltaran’s surge, have your trumpeter sound the retreat,” stated Manfir. “Whether we hold or not I fear the Keltaran will have solved the secrets of this puzzle and we must move on to the next. We cannot hold a third charge against this position.”

Brelg nodded and moved away to comply with his orders. Manfir turned to the hill in the distance, but this time he turned his attention to a group of men working diligently in the valleys on either side of the steep sloped hill. He prayed they possessed enough time to construct the second puzzle devised by Flair.

Sweat poured from Hindle the blacksmith’s brow as he snatched an aged pike head from the back of an old wooden cart. In the shadows of the valley it was difficult to assess the quality of the steel he chose, but the blacksmith knew its strength need only hold for one strike.

The cart still held hundreds of such discarded weapons and the blacksmith felt time running thin. Quickly he drew a hand augur from the sack tied about his waist and bore out the old, rotted wood from within the pike’s shaft. Next, he retrieved a freshly cut pole fashioned from the nearby grove of trees and affixed the pike head to its narrow ended shaft. There was no time to clear the rust from the ridged head of the pike and apply a sharpened edge to its triangular, jagged surface.

It was of no consequence. A Guardsman would never handle this pike. Hindle slammed a hammer into a small steel bit, driving the bit through a hole in the pike’s head and firmly locking it onto the wooden pole. He spun and tossed the freshly made pike to an assistant who lodged it into a deep, narrow hole drilled into the firmly packed dirt of the valley floor. The assistant stepped back and admired the forest of pikes barely visible in the dark shadows cast from the towering hill above.

Ipson was proud of his men. The newly commissioned commander of the supply corps gathered a sizable group of Zodrians under his service. Men considered unfit to fight due to debilitating injuries or their age, eagerly joined Ipson’s supply staff. Many felt it their only way to contribute to the defense of their country.

These men spent days scouring the alleyways and wharves of the capital retrieving countless supplies hidden away by Udas and his ilk. Wagonloads of weapons and rations hoarded secretly by the former supply commander were forwarded to both the North and West. Ipson rallied his men to make haste, but was unsure whether the supplies would arrive in time. Surely the Guard engaged the Anvil by now, but if his men were lucky, the wagons would have reached the Dunmor by now.

Ipson personally escorted Manfir’s final request. A request that puzzled Ipson, but everything the prince did puzzled the tanner from Kelky. It was not often a man so highly born as Prince Manfir roamed the outskirts of his kingdom pretending to be the nearly mute son of a crazy old trader. No matter, thought Ipson. The man could be a stark raving lunatic, but if he held back the Keltaran tide, Ipson would fall to his knees and declare Manfir a genius.