Authors: Stephen Zimmer
The other Trogen nodded in the affirmative. “As good as can be, on the edge of such a great war. But he is here in the camp with his warriors, and he hopes that we attack very soon.”
“We have suffered the longer delay in this camp, and he is the one who speaks of being impatient,” Framorg remarked curtly. “Tell him his hopes will be met. The order has come that the great battle will indeed be launched tomorrow, at the breaking of the dawn.”
Framorg’s skin tingled with a deep-felt excitement as he uttered the savored words. The arduous waiting was finally over. The chains that had bound all of his kind were about to be cut loose.
He looked to the other Trogen commanders, and could recognize the subtle energies swelling within them, like a force of water about to burst through a weakened dam. Once the word had been spread, there would not be a Trogen in the entire camp that would be able to endure the coming night without a feeling of absolute restlessness.
The battle coming on the next day would be larger than any battle that any Trogen in the entire existence of their race had participated in. As a race that saw war as an ultimate test of their very being, such a notion was staggering to even contemplate.
“That is a great relief, to all of us,” Ondayon replied, his extended canines showing brightly in his broad grin.
“We will win the skies with the might of the Trogens, as many of our brothers will earn great honor in the fighting on the ground,” Framorg stated. “We will take the skies from the enemy at the beginning, even as the ground forces surge.”
“If we can draw their sky warriors into an open fight,” Ondayon responded somberly.
“We will go up to meet them from the beginning. They will not have to look for us,” Framorg replied firmly.
The lesser commanders bowed their heads, Ondayon uttering with conviction, “It shall be done.”
That was all that Framorg wanted to hear. The only way was forward, and the only option was victory.
His own lips parted to reveal a slight grin, a very rare expression on his usually stoic face.
“Then shall we talk about our deployments now?” he asked, sweeping his gaze over them.
All were eager to set their minds towards details of the coming battle, greatly buoyed by the declaration that the waiting was finally over.
*
Aethelstan
*
Darkness had barely begun to ebb, the pre-dawn still rich with damp mists that would soon burn away with the rays of the ascending sun. A heavy, palpable tension filled the air, as Aethelstan’s warriors stoically awaited the attack that they all knew would come that day.
Their patience was not sorely tested. As they expected, the attack broke upon them with the first light of dawn. It was heralded by the fierce shouts of men, and the clamor of numerous horns, both resounding within the misty, cool dawn unveiling around the Saxan lines.
The enemy forces were somewhere just ahead of them, and a multitude of Saxan eyes was fixed resolutely in that direction. Hands tensed on the shafts of spears and axes, the hilts of swords, and the grips of large round shields, as the Saxan warriors awaited the first visible sign of the enemy approach.
Aethelstan stood tall near the center of the formation, surrounded by his household guard, an epicenter of fiery determination. The Saxan line straddled a low, tree-covered ridge, right at the edge of the downward slope. The shield wall was set in place. Their placement on the rising ground, amid trees, would certainly blunt the ability of the Avanorans to use their famed heavy cavalry.
Aethelstan’s adrenaline was surging, making his long mail-shirt seem like it was fashioned out of thin cloth, and his sword feel like a shaft of wheat. A righteous fury swirled within him, filling him with strength for the coming fight.
He had walked along the entire length of the shield wall in the dim, fog-shrouded grayness of the earliest light. The scarred, bearded, hardened faces of mailed veterans were intermixed with the visibly frightened, sweating expressions of levied youths, anxiously gripping their spears in the second and third ranks.
If it were not for the presence of the thanes, with their veteran household guards and retainers, Aethelstan knew that many of the extended levies would quickly break in their discipline when the real fighting began. The veterans were the supports that kept the structure of their entire defense together.
During his foray, he had stopped many times to utter a personal word of encouragement, pat on the shoulder, clasp on the arm, or other gesture of reassurance, to both veteran and inexperienced levy man alike, whether in the front, second, or third rank. All were facing the same menace, and as Aethelstan respected the proven warriors, so also did he respect the untrained levy man, who conquered his own fear to stand in the line, and face the new, terrifying experience of battle with resolve.
Earnest nods, verbal encouragements, and nervous smiles met his various gestures. A number of monks and priests followed and preceded him, the dark-robed clerics speaking prayers of absolution, and tossing blessed water out over the arrayed warriors.
Aethelstan was deeply moved by the pious concern reflected in the faces of the monks and priests. He stopped to watch one particular priest, who was addressing a levy group that clearly had come from the villages that he had long-ministered to.
The older man’s face was outwardly calm, but his eyes were wet from the powerful emotions that he was feeling in looking upon the men that he had married and anointed in the Western Faith. It was likely that he had tended to some of the younger men of the group from the very day that they had been born.
Aethelstan knew that it took a great effort for the priest to hold back such powerful emotions, knowing that many of those who his blessed water fell upon would not live to see the dusk. Priests such as that older man had come as shepherds after the most endangered members of their flocks, willing to stand with them, and also face the risks, to whatever end. While they were not ones to fight with spear and sword, they were invaluable to morale. They lifted up the spirits of the men in the midst of the dark hour, giving them the kind of reinforcement that was greater than any warrior’s speech.
The priest moved in and placed his hands gently upon a particularly young man’s head, exchanging some quiet, private words with him. Aethelstan could see the wide-eyed young man nodding at the words, as the priest traced the shape of the Redeemer’s spear upon the youth’s forehead.
Aethelstan’s sharp eyes did not miss the priest’s face as he turned away from the young man, acting as if he was glancing back in the direction of the enemy lines. He saw the old priest’s eyes close for a moment, pain echoing in the expression, as he took that moment to regain his composure.
The emotive expression spoke of something that Aethelstan deeply understood, and he tightened his mouth and steeled his eyes as he moved onward. An overwhelming majority of the young to older males from his own burh were standing with him in those very lines, having followed him on the march out to the west. The reality was that a great majority of the able-bodied males from the region around the burh were now standing resolute behind his command, gathered from all the surrounding villages and thanes’ estates.
There were more than a few of them who he had witnessed transform from child to young man, just as the priest had experienced. He had shared countless life experiences with men from both his town and the greater province of Wessachia. They had shared his tables, his feasts, his hunts, his trade, and his travels. There were several that could be considered family, being of his own bloodline.
He recognized some that were brothers, resolutely standing beside their siblings within the battle line. He also saw several instances of fathers positioned close by their sons, each ready to ward the other with their lives. Many were closely related to each other, or had shared lifelong friendships.
Each and every death of a Saxan would exact a very high, irreplaceable price. Aethelstan could see in their eyes that the men before him were fully cognizant that they might be facing the last day alongside a son, brother, or friend. It mattered not whether they fell themselves, or survived and were separated from those who had fallen by the veil between this world and the next.
As he looked into each of their eyes, each rife with dreams and ambitions of their own, he knew that many would be still, glazed and lifeless by the day’s end. It was by far the hardest reality to endure, and it was one that he had the most trouble accepting, but as a commander of warriors he had to face such immutable truths in a poisoned world.
Even more demanding, he could not show them any sign of fear or emotion within himself, or he would be hurting them when they needed as much confidence as they could possibly muster. They had to feel as strong and assured in him as possible, as well as themselves, for any of them to have a chance of making it through the coming fury of battle.
It was still a difficult thing to do, as dark thoughts tormented him, like demonic whisperings empowered by icy truths. If he were to survive the battle, he would see many dead faces that would bring him right back to these quiet moments before the storm, as he walked down the battle lines in the early morning mists.
The thoughts were still running through his head after he had taken his position at the center of the Saxan line, listening to the sounds of the enemy advance. A chorus of horn blasts shook the ridge and surrounding hills again, as a light tremor ran through the ground. Aethelstan glanced to his left and right, at the throng of axe-bearing household guards around him.
Many boisterous shouts rose up from the Saxan ranks, as a wall of men emerged in the evaporating wisps of lingering mist, a rhythmic tramp sounding as they made their way steadily towards the ridgeline. They were lightly armored archers and crossbowmen, most wearing soft caps, and only a smattering with iron helms. They were garbed in little more than tunics or padded gambesons as they approached the base of the ridge, and Aethelstan knew that they would not be sent against the shield wall.
Behind them, another wall was coming, one more heavily armed. But Aethelstan knew that the first flurries of battle would come from the vanguard bearing the missile weapons below.
Without a tremendous quantity of arrows, Aethelstan did not want to loose the Saxans’ own barrages wildly, and he dispatched commands up and down the lines for the Saxans to brace themselves, and to keep the shield wall in place.
The front rank, largely comprised of well-experienced fighters, overlapped their round shields, as others below put forth shields to protect the lower parts of their bodies.
Where clusters of household guards gripped their long war axes, others by them held forth taller, triangular shields. The shields would protect the axe-wielders, so that they could be free to use both hands in wielding the broad, devastating blades.
More horn signals erupted, as the line of Avanoran archers and crossbowmen came to a halt not far from the base of the low ridge. There was a rumbling noise, which broke out into a crashing roar, hurling a few words in the Avanoran tongue that Aethelstan could not understand.
The Avanorans notched arrows or brought loaded crossbows to bear upon the long shield wall above them. A long, resonant horn blast then ensued, as a torrent of bolts and arrows were loosed towards the Saxan defenders. Hissing and tearing through the air, the shafts streaked towards the shield wall.
The fighting was now underway.
The great battle for all of Saxany had begun.
A number of screams and cries broke out from the Saxan lines, coming from those caught in the deadly wake of the volley. Only a few missiles had found gaps in the shield wall, or sailed into the second or third ranks, but the grim toll of war had begun to mount.
Behind the archers and crossbowmen, the next wall of Avanorans was coming into full view, as they marched up behind the front line. The archers, meanwhile, had notched new arrows, readied, and loosed them again at the shield wall. Their barrage of arrows soared through the air in unison, like a dense flock of ravens bringing a pronouncement of death.
The Saxan line held strong once again, as the shields were tightly overlapped, and held firmly in place. Most of the shower of arrows buried into the planks of wooden shields, or embedded themselves harmlessly into trees or the ground.
A few more men cried out in pain after the second volley’s impact, several clutching at feathered shafts as they fell over dead, or badly wounded.
Aethelstan could see that the crossbowmen were almost reloaded for their second shot, pulling the strings up with their arms, while keeping the end of the bow braced on the ground by an iron foot stirrup affixed to the weapon’s end. The archers were nearly prepared for their third wave.
Aethelstan could not let them continue unabated, without incurring some cost. Waving his sword, he cried out for a Saxan volley, which set off a number of horn blasts in the lines along the ridge.
The scattered Saxan archers up and down the lines released their own wave of arrows, from the advantage of the higher ground. The height of the Saxan position also enabled a number of javelin throwers and stone slingers to hurl their own missiles forward.
Aethelstan watched the combined Saxan volley as it descended swiftly, stones, javelins, and arrows arcing towards the front rank of Avanorans. Several archers and crossbowmen fell to the ground, or to their knees, and whether wounded or dead they were removed from the fighting.
The enemy then released their own shafts and bolts, beginning a small pattern in which Aethelstan had a Saxan round loosed for every couple that the Avanorans sent towards the ridgeline. He did not want to run low on missiles when the main enemy thrust occurred. Perhaps there was even a chance that they could run the enemy low on arrows and bolts, without taking too many casualties in return.
“When will they come, Thane Aethelstan?” one of the younger members of his household guard asked him, after the two sides had traded a markedly uneven number of blows.