Glen

Leopard in the fog

-Battle of Hellfort’s Pass-

Part III

(The price of greed)

Dante, back pushing against the vertical boards and squatted down on the runway behind the crude crenelated parapets, grabbed his arm and pulled him down.

“I can’t see them!” Glen hissed, dropping next to him, his sword too big to put down, so he held it on his knees.

“No point in looking,” Dante said and Soren sitting on his other elbow, grunted in agreement.

“HOLD YER FIRE!” Marcus thundered, loud enough to be heard across the whole barricade. “NOBODY SHOOTS TILL I GIVE ORDER!”

“You see something?” Glen probed Jinx, the short girl had to stand on her toes to see above the barrier.

“I’m not Lith!” She snapped tensed, then mellowing up. “Too much fog.”

“Fine!” Glen retorted and Zola started laughing finding it funny, but she had to stop as well, as Marcus exploded livid.

“WHO SHOT THAT?” He roared furious.

“DORAS!” A voice replied.

“YE FUCKIN’ RAT!” Doras presumably carped.

“YE WANT ME TO STICK THAT BOW IN YER ARSE LAD?” Marcus queried for all to hear.

“TWAS A MISTAKE SARGE!”

Glen cracked a smile and made to get up again, but Dante put a hand on his shoulder and kept him down, just as a strange sound started, multiplied by the enclosed walls of the Pass. A weird buzzing, always increasing in volume ominously.

“FIND COVER!” Came Marcus’ warning.

Just before the arrows started falling. Thousands of them, they made a whistling sound when they neared, right afore breaking on the wooden parapets, or sticking on them.

TAK TAK TAK

Repeated in ad nauseam.

Fuck, Glen thought teeth rattling, seeing the nasty projectiles falling everywhere. Some of the locals standing under the barricade, run for cover, as a good number of arrows flew over the three meter high parapets and dropped behind on the open ground.

“THEY’RE COMING!” Someone yelled the next moment and the buzzing was replaced with the noise of many men approaching them.

“HOLD IT!” Marcus bellowed, as the tension reached a new level. Glen twisted one way, then the other, too anxious to sit still.

“They bring something along,” Zola said, stooped behind her crossbow, her arse as fine a vision as one could find amidst the chaos.

“What thing?” Dante queried and got up to chance a glance.

“Square big shield, of sorts,” Jinx explained. “A big one, right in the middle of their formation.”

Ah, that’s fuckin’ great, Glen thought, just as Marcus ordered the defenders to let loose with everything they got. Arrows, javelins and a lot of rocks.

The battle of Hellfort’s Pass had begun.

Jinx popped behind her cover and loosed an arrow, ducking behind a merlon immediately after, to avoid getting skewered from the angry reply thrown back at them. Glen, his back against the adjoining merlon, chanced a glance, saw the bloated leather flask coming and gasped dodging it the last moment. It went over the crenel and splattered next to a farmer holding a large stick and a butcher knife standing below them.

“Fuck was that?” Glen asked and popped his head from behind the merlon, just in time to see a Cofol get skewered by one Zola’s bolts, a perfect shot right at his chest.

“It’s all over the wall,” Zola hissed, squatting to pull the lever to rearm her weapon.

“Aye,” Jinx agreed. “They have runners hurling it, from behind that big shield of theirs.”

“What is it?” Glen asked, the battle a stalemate up until this point, with each side content on firing at any visible target from a relative safe distance. The square two meters high and five in length wooden construct, the Cofols had pushed to the middle of the Pass and parked about twenty meters from their barricade, gave some of them the ability to approach even more, but it was costly, judging by the number of dead bodies piled where it ended.

Glen had expected ladders, or ropes like the pirates had used, but none of the Cofols had any. Probably they hadn’t expected a wall built so fast.

We could be here awhile, he thought.

“Some kind of black fluid,” Jinx replied to his earlier question and pointed at a black pool of the stuff, where the flask had landed. “Stinks like a motherfucker.”

“Fuck,” Dante cursed, a little uncommon for him. He looked down, saw Liko loitering, a large helmet on his head and shouted loud enough to get his attention. “Tell everyone you see, to bring up water!”

“Water?” Liko queried, readjusting the helm to look up.

“JUST DO AS YOU’RE TOLD!” Dante snapped at him and turned to a frowning Glen. “Find Emerson, or Marcus. Repeat what you heard. Move, milord!”

At first he thought the Gallant Dogs captain had gone mad, but as he run to the center of the barricade, ducking for cover on every stride, what Dante had feared came to be.

Explaining why the Cofols hadn’t bothered building ladders.

There was a pause before the next mass volley of arrows. These were great in volume and came at regular intervals, about a minute apart, to give the chance to the probably over a thousand archers standing further back to reload and release en masse. It had taken them twice that long this time and Glen was almost next to Marcus, when the familiar scary buzzing started again.

“ARROWS!” Marcus bellowed, right at the center of the wall, above the sealed and barricaded gate. Glen looked up over the crenel and realized the thick fog had turned a strange yellow-red instead of white-gray across the whole Pass. The buzzing sound increased, an angry whistling multiplied tenfold from the echo to turn into a beast’s roar.

For a moment Glen thought he saw it moving in the haze, large scaly head, big as a tower and that cavernous mouth wide open, breathing fire on them.

Luthos stinking taint!

TAK TAK TAK

A huge tongue of flame jumped over the parapets, burning splinters dousing anyone near, part of the runway already soaked in that black oily substance igniting in turn and splitting the defenders line in at least three large sections.

Darn it, Glen cursed and twisted around to head back, the flames erupting next to Marcus almost engulfing him. Something whistled next to his ear and he ducked instinctively, boots sliding on the wet planks, the lit arrow smacking a hapless soldier in the face, not a foot from where he was and pushed him screaming over the runway, the fall short but lethal.

“WATER!” Marcus yelled to the locals watching from below and some rushed to help, buckets in hand already. Glen got up, the flames all over the wall lighting the defenders up and glanced towards the dark Pass. The mist had turned red again. Everything around him had that same color, or variants of it. The wall was burning fully, mostly from outside and perhaps not everywhere with the same intensity, but it was bad.

“It’s bad,” Jinx declared, as she’d read his mind, when he reached their spot on the wall, the flames not as heavy there. She’d discarded that furry coat of hers, the morning chill not a problem anymore.

Obviously.

Glen wanted to laugh at that, but he’d enough wits about him, to realize this wasn’t going well; Soren, part of his beard badly singed some-fuckin’ how, agreed with a grunt.

“This ain’t good.”

“No shit genius!” Jinx hissed, nailing a Cofol that tried to add more fuel to the fire, right through the neck. Glen looked the other way, saw Sir Emerson rushing down the stairs two at a time, Spurius right behind him. The knight spotted Glen on the wall and immediately pointed to the slopped road leading to the Castle.

“What?” Glen asked.

“DANTE GET HIM DOWN HERE NOW!” Emerson growled, just as another volley of arrows descended upon them. Glen ducked panicked, Dante’s raised shield saving them both, as at least three burning projectiles were broken on it.

“LIKO WHERE’S THAT WATER?” Dante yelled and a moment later Liko pushed up the stairs, bucket in hand, most of the water spilling out and on him. Everywhere across the barricade, people were hurrying to bring as much buckets of it they could manage. Dante grabbed the one Liko had brought and splashed water on his shield, emptying the rest on the smoking runway.

This is fuckin’ pointless, Glen realized.

The inside of the wall was smoking, adding to the thick fog, the air bitter and the sturdy vertical boards crackling and hissing. The Cofols kept peppering them with more and more burning arrows at regular intervals, their reserves inexhaustible seemingly.

“Down,” Jinx ordered and all but shoved him towards the stairs. Glen stumbled down, the Gish jumping over him and landing expertly before he managed that last step, her knees bending to absorb the worst of the impact. The rest of the Gallant Dogs following suit moments later.

“You’re okay?” Glen asked, lifting a scowling Whisper up and she spat a blob of phlegm down to clear her mouth, before replying dead serious.

“Think I just crap in me pants,” Seeing his stunned stare, she added. “Just a bit.”

“THE MOMENT THE GATE’S DOWN,” MARCUS thundered to the twenty soldiers’ hurdled around him. “THEY’LL TRY TO COME THROUGH, BUT WE’LL STOP THEM BOYS!”

“AYE!” The soldiers replied, banging at their shields. They were lined up five meters from the gate in a v-formation.

Glen watching them from further back started coughing, his eyes watering from the thick smokes coming from the inferno that was their barricade.

“Listen up,” Emerson said to the rest of them. “This ain’t gonna hold them long. We’re gonna lick them once, but then we’ll retreat towards the castle, make a stand there.”

“What about the civilians?” Dante asked, at least fifty of them were still trying to put out the fire, using buckets they filled from barrels brought from the river earlier. It was futile. The distance to refill those barrels too great to make a difference.

“Captain Blackwood, you’re in charge of their safety,” Emerson decided after a small thought. “Gather everyone up, from here and the castle and hurry them across the bridge. Women and children first.”

“We don’t have enough horses,” Zolla noted.

“Use ours,” Emerson deadpanned. “Post haste Captain.”

The gate came down just as he finished his words.

“STEADY!” Marcus yelled, just as the first Cofol soldiers came out of the destroyed and still burning gate. The fog had lifted somewhat as the hours ticked away, but the smoke clouds from the hundred meters long fiery barricade, kept the visibility near the mouth of the Pass low.

“JAVELINS!”

The unlucky first twenty or so that jumped out of the smoking crater were skewered from javelins hurled at them from point-blank range, bolts and arrows. One managed to get hit from all three variants, managing only a couple of strides, before dropping dead.

Then another twenty attacked, carrying shields and swords, managed to withstand the fresh barrage of projectiles and reached the shieldwall, the soldiers had formed. The clash was ferocious, but with more and more pushing from behind, the line buckled and eventually broke.

Emerson who had held a reserve of around twenty soldiers back, turned to Glen, eyes wild and face blackened from the smoke and barked for him to get over the bridge, before charging into the melee with his force.

Glen glanced towards the road leading to the river and then the other way at the slopped path heading for the castle. His gold was back there. Can’t just abandon it, he thought. In front of him the contest had turned into a bloody scuffle, Emerson’s charge pushing the Cofols back and stopping all but one of them.

The Cofol broke through, blood spattered on his leather armour and the spear he held broken in half. Glen moved without thinking it through, closed the distance with the disoriented soldier fast and by the time he realized the idiocy of what he was doing, it was too late to back away. The Cofol, long braided hair caught at the nappe, twisted around on instinct, saw him approaching and hurled the broken part of his spear, aiming for his head.

The long shaft came at him, managing a full rotation mid-flight and Glen ducked to avoid it, a fine plan in theory, much more difficult to execute in the field. The shaft missed his head, but smacked him on the left shoulder hard, tripping him up and numbing his arm to his fingers. Glen groaned, boots slipping in the mud, left arm dangling useless, but managed to find his footing not a meter from his opponent and attacked immediately with a simple upward slash.

The Cofol soldier pulled away from the blade, unsheathed a sword he carried at his waist, a little surprised at the clumsiness of his attack. He tested him with a side cut, but Glen who’d recovered from his initial shock, was fully committed now and too scared to do anything half-arsed. He parried the soldier’s blade away and attacked immediately with savage downward cut of his own that separated the man’s exposed sword arm from the rest of his body, right at the elbow.

The Cofol’s severed limb, still holding the sword, landed between them. His opponent recoiled from the mind-blowing pain, a manic cry escaping his clenched teeth, in a sense mirroring Glen, who had also jumped back shocked and wild-eyed, the blood spraying out of his opponent’s grotesque wound turning his stomach.

Emerson found him moments later, still watching the man slowly bleeding away and pushed him back, grabbing him by his throbbing shoulder.

“Move ye fool!” The knight ordered him. “What are you standing there for?”

“What happened?” Glen asked coming about, more from the pain, than the knight’s words.

“They broke. It bought us some time,” Emerson grunted. “You need to leave now! We’ll set another shieldwall further up the slope, but you need to leave, boy!”

“Aye, I will,” Glen replied. “I just need to get some stuff first.”

“What stuff?”

“It won’t take long,” He explained and started hoofing it towards the slope ahead of the men.

Soren and ‘Pale’ were coming down on foot leading at least twenty animals, mostly laden mules and horses, with several having children on their saddles. A long row of civilians followed, walking slowly towards the bridge.

Glen found Jinx getting ready to leave in the yard, Zola and Dante with her, along with Kacie and her father.

“Where were you?” Whisper asked, seeing him coming towards them huffing and puffing, after his uphill trot. Darn armour was weighting a ton. Glen sucked a couple of quick breaths in, sweating alike a pig under his thick gambeson and all that leather, but remembered to throw the farmer’s daughter a corny smile before answering, with half-a-truth.

“Had to help Emerson beat the Cofols back at the wall, Pretty,” Jinx curled her upper lip to call bullshit, Kacie raised her brows impressed and sweet Zola made a cooing sound that took Dante by surprise, before he wrestled back control of the situation.

“Right. Will milord vacate the yard soon? We have to go,” Dante said pointing at the last of the people leaving.

“I will,” Glen replied and glanced at Jinx. “I need to get some of my things first.”

“Soren has my box and your satchel,” She replied, sensing where he was going with this. “Val is outside the stable. Can’t miss her. Yer deaf, not fuckin’ blind hopefully.”

“I’ll give it another look, just in case,” Glen insisted, riding through her taunt. He didn’t want to leave anything to chance and a fortune in gold to an unwashed Cofol. “Follow ye right after.”

“You sure?” Whisper queried, for some reason sounding troubled. Perhaps it was a Gish thing. “Hurry it up.”

“Just leave, I’ll catch up wit you, in no time.” Glen said and Dante not set on waiting around any longer than necessary nodded.

“That’s it then. Down the slope gents and lasses,” He said vibrantly, a man who’ve seen danger many a times and lived to tell a well-embellished tale. “On the bloody double.” Adding as an afterthought. “We’re almost out of it.”

Almost, being rather important in this instance.

Glen checked under the sideboard for any leftover coins, found a hidden sack with some clothes and random stuff he’d pilfered the past months, cutlery and tools amongst it and satisfied he’d gotten everything of value out of the barracks, turned to leave it behind. The sun had come up for good being almost noon, the heavy fog that had made their life difficult since early morning, mostly gone, but the thick clouds kept the light to a minimum.

The light that escaped, created heavy shadows, some of them dancing on the barracks back walls, others remaining still, mostly near the door. Glen headed for the exit, worried about the knight and the soldiers he’d come to know pretty well. Defending the castle was foolish, he decided. He should order Emerson to retreat to the bridge. Glen could do that, since he outranked him. Glen outranked everyone basically.

Gurae…

The Wyvern hissed.

A stride before stepping outside, his now mostly fine left arm, flamed up again and turned a shade of black, just as a thin shadow next to the door turned into a man with no face. Glen felt a blade punching through his armour, opening the skin expertly and sliding between two ribs, aiming for his heart. Everything happening unrealistically slow, as if under a spell. Glen jolted to the side and away from the butchering blade, the wound going wide instead of deep, the blood pouring out of him like wine, from a broken barrel.

The time returning to normal again.

“Fascinating,” Larn murmured, turning from a shadow to a man again, as Glen stumbled and went down next to the door, the wall on his back the only thing keeping his torso upright. “How did you do it? You dodged.”

The assassin stooped above him and watched hawkishly as the young man desperately tried to speak, but failed. Fuck, he thought, completely freaked out with the unexpected assault. I need help.

I should have gone wit them, He thought miserably, trying to staunch the bleeding with a hand, the other utterly useless, but failing.

“What’s your secret boy?” Larn asked him, with that strange accent of his. “Where did you learn that?”

Glen wanted to tell him to go fuck himself with one of the burning boards, while begging for help at the same time, but all he managed, was to spray blood down his chin and neck.

Luthos ye son of a whore!

I don’t fuckin’ deserve this!

“You killed Zestari,” Larn explained, sounding all reasonable, sensing his voiceless query. “Actions have consequences, spawn of Reeves. It was a killing blow, what you dodged. So take pride in that. You earned precious little time to reflect on your crimes.”

Go suck a bag of dicks, Glen’s swollen eyes replied.

Larn stepped back, hearing the sounds of boots approaching.

“I thought about sparing you, but she wouldn’t have moved on, whilst you still breathed. I doubt we will meet again,” Larn said, thin mauve lips split into a freakish smile that reminded him of Lith and taking another step back, he was gone.

The light coming from the door dimmed, the colors turning gray and dull. The sounds of people returning, quietening down. Everything grinding to a stop. A welcomed blessing, Glen thought slipping out of consciousness, as it had also taken, most of the pain away.