A Darkness Unleashed (Book 2) (12 page)

Jaerd lifted his hand to his face as he fought back his gorge.

“We can’t let them report back,” Joslyn said with a flat tone. “And orcs are useless as prisoners.”

A grimace spread across Jaerd’s face while he watched the slaughter. No matter how often he saw battle, he still hated its violent gore. Mandibor’s horses trampled over burning, crawling orcs, while the militiamen moved among them on foot, killing off those who still breathed. A sour taste rose in the back of Jaerd’s throat.

A cloaked form moving through a line of wounded militia drew Jaerd’s glazed stare from the butchery on the field.

“Dawne!” He spurred his sorrel forward, leaving Joslyn and Khalem to follow behind.

Jaerd leapt from the saddle once he closed on the makeshift infirmary. A long line of men lay moaning and bleeding, some still as stone. The one Talented healer among the militia, his face fixed in a tight, deadpan expression, spared his powers for only the worst cases. More mundane healers cared for the rest and provided comfort to those beyond help.

Dawne knelt over one man who kicked his legs against the frozen earth in pain. She held a white strip of cloth against his bare chest, while a healer pulled a black arrow free from the man’s ribs. Blood spurted across her riding dress. A sharp, barking scream sounded from the man’s throat before he passed into unconsciousness. The healer tossed the arrow away, while Dawne wrapped the bandage around the wounded soldier’s body. Deep red soaked the white rag, and she pulled another from her bag, pressing firmly to staunch the wound. Red stains dotted her face.

Jaerd dropped to his knees beside his sister, pulling another bandage from his own battle pouch. “Let me help.”

A pale, withdrawn calm obscured Dawne’s face, but she gave him a firm nod. Down the line of men they worked, more than a few dead before they could be reached. Some thrashed and screamed in panic, while others grit their teeth and bared the pain. Most kept a sort of graveyard humor about it all.

“Looks like I got out of planting for da’s farm this year,” one man younger than Tallen said between gritted teeth as Jaerd wrapped his right arm, severed above the elbow. The healer had only been able to close the wound. “Ah, who am I kiddin’. He’ll probably just tie a hoe to the stump, and make me do it one handed.”

Jaerd did not reply, but he heard Dawne sniff. She stood and moved to the next man, who held a bloody rag to his head. Jaerd continued wrapping, his mind focused on the job.

“Do you care for the lives of all the men who serve you?” Jaerd heard Earl Boris bark at Mandibor through his concentration. The two approached each other across the battlefield. “Or do you just care for the glory of your Range Riders. If you had held the line with us, far fewer of these militiamen would be laying here.”

“How dare you, sir?” the roguish watch captain shouted back. “I give everything for my men.”

Tying the bandage in place, Jaerd let the soldier lay back down on his cloak.

“You were given orders, Captain!” Earl Boris stalked toward the Kirathi, his face nearly as red as the blood on the man Jaerd covered with a spare blanket. “You charged into battle before the lines were set. Dozens died that might have been saved if you had shown more prudence and judgment.”

“You dare to order me!” Mandibor swung from his saddle and whipped out his rapier. “This is not your country, sir.”

Jaerd gave the wounded soldier he nursed a questioning smile to ask if he the bandage was secure, and the young man nodded back.

“My country or not, I will not allow you to waste lives.” Earl Boris clenched Greyiron, which would snap Mandibor’s rapier with only a light swing. “Your carelessness killed far more men than needed die today.”

Leaving the wounded man to rest, Jaerd rose to his feet.

Mandibor drew back as if to gut thrust Boris. “I’ll have your liver on my blade!”

“Enough!” Jaerd shouted, thrusting his own body between the two men. “These wounded need aid, not pride and recrimination.” He pushed Mandibor back into the arms of one of his own lieutenants, and then turned to rest his hand on Boris’ shoulder. “Discipline can be handed out later. Right now we need bandages.”

The earl’s face might have been carved from granite, save a rogue hair from his mustache that fluttered in the cold breeze. He stared at Jaerd, unreadable. The icy glare shifted to Mandibor, then back.

“Good point, Captain Westar.” He lightly pulled Jaerd’s hand from his chest. “If you please…” Boris turned and stalked back to his horse. He pulled a medical kit from one of his saddlebags and tossed it over. “You seem to have a knack for it.” Boris looked at Dawne where she worked on a struggling soldier. “You both do.”

Jaerd jogged back over to the wounded, his heart still pounding from the confrontation. It soon passed, however, while he worked, aiding the healers and his sister in their task. They worked to save the lives they could, everyone in a hurry to move before more orcs could appear. Many of the injured had to be borne from the field.

“Take the wounded on ahead to the wagon train with horses and stretchers,” Earl Boris told a militia sergeant as Jaerd walked up, wiping his hands on a dirty towel. “Ah, Captain Westar.” Boris placed one hand on Jaerd’s shoulder. “Thank you for your wisdom and calm earlier. It is good officers like you that help good commanders stay focused. Perhaps I let the heat of battle get the better of me in my judgment of Mandibor.”

“Thank you, sir.” Jaerd lowered his head. “I hope I didn’t overstep my bounds.”

“You did.” The earl patted his shoulder. “And let’s not make a habit of it.”

Jaerd drew his brow down in concern. “We will have a hard time in another pitched fight like this. We will need more strategy if we meet another group this large.”

Boris looked at where Mandibor led his Range Riders in a screening action along the prairie. From the glower that shadowed the earl’s face, Jaerd feared he had reopened the recent wound. “If his men are good enough, and if he can follow orders for once, we could use a feint and fade to draw the orcs toward Kirath and away from the refugees.”

Nodding, Jaerd followed the Riders as they moved in a tight, well-organized line. “We could give the mayor another try. His guards would be a welcome addition to our force.”

Earl Boris shook his head slowly, his countenance never leaving Mandibor and his men. “We can return much faster without the train. I doubt Mayor Kodi will be of much use to anyone, but perhaps we can convince enough of his guards…”

A
solitary arrow clattered against the cobblestones, skidding to a halt just a few yards from where Jaerd had ducked behind a salt-filled barrel.

“Blast it, Wardson! It’s me, Mandibor!”

The guards around the mayor’s keep only replied with another arrow that stuck in the seat of an abandoned wagon.

The brash captain cupped his hands around his mouth. “It’s true what these men said about orcs in the wilds! We fought them ourselves!”

No arrow flew this time, but Jaerd could see the movement of burnished armor over the gate.

“Go blast yourself, Mandibor, you jumped up knave,” came an echoed reply from the mayor’s captain. “Run off to the Gannonites for help, you craven. We’ll protect what’s ours.”

Captain Mandibor cursed, and Boris clenched his jaw.

“If the orcs get those granaries, they could bring their entire force here,” Khalem Shadar whispered to Jaerd. “A hundred thousand of them would ravage the Free Cities before any of us might return with aid.”

Looking up at the beehive domes of the granaries, Jaerd saw them in a darker shadow – now a target to be destroyed, rather than an asset to be protected. “We can’t let them have it.”

A sudden commotion broke out along the top of the gate. Metal flashed in the dying sunlight, and clanging crunches sounded up the long street. A few men broke from a postern door. One took an arrow from above and fell, while three more ran for where Jaerd crouched near Khalem. Two soldiers leaped from a tower down the wall. Jaerd heard the snap of one’s leg as he came down hard. The other ran toward the city, never looking back at his companion, who the guards finished off with a volley of arrows.

“By the Waters,” Jaerd whispered, rising with the spare bow he had grabbed from a fallen militiaman. He turned his voice to a shout. “Cover them! They’re trying to join us.” He launched a steel-tipped arrow toward the gate, desperate to slip one through the parapet. “Fire and Flames, they’re killing their own men!”

One of the three Kirathi guards fleeing towards them took an arrow in the shoulder. He stumbled five good steps before another caught him in the neck. The lead man lost his helmet in the mad dash, while the second shook off a wooden shield. More arrows fell toward them, but a flick of Magus Britt’s hand threw a dozen flashes of light that dissolved the quarrels in midair.

Jaerd, Khalem, and Mandibor led a few of the Range Riders in a dash forward. They launched arrows in a return barrage that slowed the attack on the escaping men. When they passed behind the line, Jaerd urged his fellows back, shooting more arrows as they retreated. The entire group slipped into cover, gathering behind a cluster of buildings just beyond their enemies’ range.

“Welcome, Corporal,” Captain Mandibor sneered, casting aside the bow and placing a hand on his rapier. “Are you sent to spy among us, or are you simply cowards?”

Earl Boris held up a calming hand. “That’s enough, Captain. These men fled when their own sanity overruled their commander’s madness.” He turned to the gasping newcomers. “Easy, lads. I am Earl Boris Mourne. If you come in peace, we welcome you among us.”

“Aye, Milord.” The corporal got through his heavy breaths. “Thank you, sir.” He looked back over his shoulder. “Everything’s gone mad over there, sir. The mayor and the officers…they know the minute they give up their position as masters of the grain…the minute they are stuck amongst the rabble, they’ll be torn to pieces.”

The other soldier grimaced. “They’d rather face a pack of orcs than their own people.”

Joslyn Britt barked a harsh laugh. “There’s more than a pack coming, boys. Best get those shiny swords sharpened.”

His face screwed up in disgust, the corporal grunted. “Most o’ the other men…they’re more scared of the officers than anything. They turned on the few of us who refused to stay.”

Fighting back his rage, Jared glanced back at the two pinpricked bodies lying dead outside the wall. Pools of blood, dark in the low glare of sunset, spread in square runnels between the cobblestones.

“How many would stand against us if we charged them?” Mandibor asked, his brow knitted in impatience.

“At least a hundred, sir,” the shocked corporal replied. “And they’ve heated pots and stacked stones.”

One black eyebrow lifted, Earl Boris looked to his Battlemage. “Joz?”

Magus Britt sighed. “It’s been a long day, Boris.” He looked toward the keep and granaries. “If we could get close enough, I might be able to get them burning. But to get all four…that would take some time…time I don’t think we can make.”

The anger on the earl’s face was not for his friend. “Then I don’t see how we can do it. We are far too few to assault them – we’d be cut down. And I don’t see any way of giving you the cover you need.”

Magus Joslyn Britt sucked a tooth. “And we don’t have the time for me to rest and gather my reserves. If I had an hour or two, I could get at least one of them going from this distance.”

Boris’ steely gaze caught fire when he looked toward the setting sun. “We do not have that time. We need to be on to Novon and Gavanor.”

Frustration plain on his face and in his voice, Mandibor gripped the hilt of his sword. “Then there is nothing we can do?”

Lord Gael faced the Kirathi captain. “There is nothing we can do.”

The earl looked one last time at the granaries, the light in his eyes fading with the last of the sun. “Then let’s go. We have a lot more to worry about now.”

Jaerd stood for a moment, staring at the gate full of metal-clad idiots. “Damn fools!” He cupped his hands to his mouth. “I hope they gut you before you die!”

A few minutes later, Jaerd sat in his horse’s saddle on the ridgeline where most of Mandibor’s Range Riders had waited. He lifted his father’s old spyglass, tracing the edge of the trees on the far side of Kirath.

“There,” he called when he saw the first few orcs step into the cleared fields surrounding the city. Bands of hundreds followed the first few platoons. Soon, thousands of orcs trotted toward the city in closely organized companies. Jaerd lowered the spyglass once he saw fires spring up among the wood buildings.

“Captain Westar,” he heard Boris shout. “The city is lost. There is nothing to be done save move on to save the next one. Come, let us be off.”

As he spurred his horse after the others, Jaerd heard shouts of orcish joy followed closely by screams of pain and death from those who had not heeded their warnings.

“Serves them right,” Mandibor grumbled.

Jaerd questioned his earlier conviction at the sight of so many men dying.
Does it when their leaders made them stay?