A Daemon-Horn Blade Ch. 22

"The council ruled wisely, I'm afraid. So far, their leader knows not of us, and if we can move our fleet in secret to the east, perhaps to Lacestone or Haldyne, from there we might march safely and quickly to their relief. Caught in the open water, much if not all of our fleet and our army would indeed be destroyed, to the loss of hope by all! Fear not about the Draca, for I feel that your flame might prove much a match for its, or so I pray!"

"Still, I am now very much afraid! How can I lead men into battle against such a foe? They will flee, and none shall blame them!"

"Warriors shall find their heart and hold to their duty; they did so over an age ago on these very lands and held, against worse odds. Although powerful and terrible in their wrath, the Draca are still mortal, like you and me, and brave men and women have held in the past against their fury... often with terrible loss, but still they held. There is no time to gather the second-born once more, if indeed they could even come to our calling. This world belongs now mostly to men, and it is by your blood, will and valor that you will keep it!

***********

Having just unloaded the vast army into Tellismere, Rowan found it agonizing to watch the slowness of the process of reloading it once more onto the ships of the fleet. With the additional Tellismere merchant ships still in harbor, there was enough stowage to handle the additional conscripts from the city, and as each ship completed loading, it was given immediate orders to sail out into Crystal Lake, to be rejoined with the fleet at Beran Harbor, off of Bear Island. At worst, the ships sailing one or two at a time would attract little attention or notice, even if the boarman leader and his dragon flew off into the lake to scout. Rowan, and the rest of the council, rather hoped that this rather unusual Eorfleode wizard would be kept too busy keeping all of the hundreds of different war-bands organized and focused upon their objective to go out patrolling much.

As for the regular scouting reports of the western tribes that were still trapped on the western side of the Bekingham River, the last report that Rowan had received, a mere two days old since it was dispatched, reported that these rather disorganized war-bands had been pushed off rather considerably towards the coast, further from the ford, so that their chances of being able to even slightly reinforce the great horde were close to nil. Loren was going to try and extract the greater part of the light cavalry force, leaving a weak screen behind to gently harass the isolated enemy and keep it relatively in-place and impotent. With the greater force of the cavalry, Loren was going to push them hard, but secretly, to ride around and bypass the great horde at Applewood, rumored to be in the tens of thousands to meet with the main army at Lacestone, hopefully in less than a week. Rowan and Boyle prayed that it would be so, for the former bandit was indeed a quite skilled cavalry commander and he could wield his squadrons in battle like a medicus with a sharp scalpel excising diseased skin.

As their flagship left the docks of Tellismere a few days later, with the vast bulk of the army loaded and already enroute to Beran Harbour, Rowan and Gwenda and Ayleth and Boyle, each took advantage of the relative quiet to find some private time for each of the couples. In the solitude of their cabins, each couple rejoiced at their moment for intimacy, and many hours later that evening, as Boyle emptied his seed inside of Ayleth's cunt, he first spoke of his willing to consort her, and he made his troth-oath to her. Each couple spoke private words of love all that long dark night until, as they were about to drift to sleep, a messenger knocked to announce to each that they were nearly at the harbor, and that a swift message ship was approaching them.

The news was fairly grim. The Eorfleode wizard and his dragon had spotted several of their troopships near the harbor of Lacestone and had flamed most of them. For once, Rowan was glad that a few overly eager ships' captains had disobeyed orders, for if the entire fleet had sailed, perhaps they would have lost a great many more ships instead. Also, if this news wasn't unpleasant enough, other fast scout ships were reporting that the city of Applewood was ablaze with flames that could be seen many leagues away. The city had fallen, and now the horde would turn its eyes to Lacestone.

Now, after a brief consultation with the other Dukes, it was decided instead to take the fleet further east along the coast to Haldyne to unload. Further out of the way, and if the final approach was timed to arrive in darkness, it was felt that their fleet could arrive there unspotted. Haldyne's docks were large and better equipped than Lacestone's anyway, the Foole mentioned, so that the extra two days lost due to marching back down to Lacestone, might even be recovered by the increased ability to unload the ships, and perhaps much faster than could be done at Lacestone.

Rowan gave orders for the fleet to sail south for Haldyne late the next afternoon, to travel in darkness and without lights, the cavalry ships were to dock first and when the docks became full, the other remaining ships were to ground themselves onto the nearby sandy shore to get as many men off of the ships as fast as possible. It was thought to be a relatively small force of Eorfleode that currently threatened the walled trade-town, but Rowan wanted this nuisance disposed of quickly, and before the boarman wizard could be warned.

That extra speed unloading did indeed pay quick dividends, as the fleet of the Great Southern Army beached itself for several leagues up and down the shore, quickly discharging fighting men and women eager to meet the Boar-Men in battle, even in the wee hours before morning. For leagues in every direction, a confused and chaotic battle took place until the middle of the next day, with few meaningful reports coming into the commanders about what was happening, and where. It was a bewildering battle, fought not by an army, brigades, or even regiments, but individual squads and occasionally later full companies fighting isolated parts of war-bands of Boar-Men, who seemed to be just as confused about where the real heart of the battle was actually occurring.

Rowan would have loved to have taken credit for the battle-plan, how his army scattered all around drove all of the war-bands tight against the walls of the city, to be surrounded and slowly destroyed in the way that an orange is slowly pealed and then consumed, but in fact no one was capable of giving any overall command to the wildly chaotic battle at all. Even a full day after the last boarman was slain, loose groups of lost, isolated soldiers were still reporting into the town to find their commanders and join their battalions and brigades.

It was a nasty messy sort of battle, but it was a complete victory. Most of the heavy cavalry was still unloading from the boats, at the docks, but as soon as they could be assembled, Boyle sent squadrons down the road to Lacestone and into the nearby woods to chase down survivors before they could report to their war-leader. None escaped, the cheerful lad reported the next morning, with an even bigger grin than usual. Now with the army unloaded and arrayed for a combat march, Rowan even smiled himself in turn.

They now had tactical, if not complete strategic surprise, and when that great Eorfleode horde arrived at the gates of Lacestone, it would get the surprise of its life. With no further Boar-Men reinforcements coming from either the east or the west, the great horde was itself now surrounded, and with proper preparation, the odds were going to be as good in their favor as they were likely to ever get.

*********

In two days, the entire Great Southern Army of the Five Duchies was saluting the gates of Lacestone, and the army began at once to dig itself a great protective fort upon a large hill just outside of the town, to the west. Ditches and trenches were dug to block the entire road approach from the west, with green tree boughs soaked with water, freshly cut to shelter the soldiers, even from just a little of the dragon's flame that was soon to come. Every bucket, barrel and pail that could be found was filled with water, and spiked tree poles were set to cover the entire level ground surrounding the hill and the western approach to the city. Between the archers of the town, now well supplied and prepared, and the ever-growing fort of piled sandbags upon the hill and the front line of the trenches, the great army wasted little if no time, working even late into night with as few torches for light as was possible.

***********

Early that evening, as Rowan was leaving a meeting inside the town to coordinate the defense efforts of the townsmen, he was startled to hear an old familiar voice, Ypreth, the former innkeeper of The Goblin's Head Tavern, who was now pouring some pints of ale for the town defenders with the last of his stock, from on top of a wagon.

"Rowan, my lad! It is good to see you hear! The stories all say that you are a great hero and have done many valorous things since you left our village! I'm afraid they're mostly true, aren't they?"

"Probably so." Rowan agreed.

"I don't suppose you've found me that real goblins head, have you? Just as well. I hear now that they are our allies and fight with us. Perhaps, should I be able to rebuild the tavern, a different sort of name might be in order. Named after you perhaps? Or not, as you will. Most of the villagers made it here to safety, but alas not your old master, Gorge. He and his nephew fell together, holding off the Boar-Men as they burned the village, so that the rest of men and lads bearing arms could escape. We had evacuated the women and children a few days earlier, leaving only those behind that could bear arms. At the forefront was Vainard Miller, the old headsman. He fought like a lion, he did... the first to fight and the last to withdraw. He saw Gorge fall, but said it was a good death. The strong old man beat down several Boar-Men with his largest hammer before they sent him to the Shadowlands. His widow is here, in the town somewhere, but she has not spoken a word since the death of her stout husband. Your friend Bryce, the guardsman is here as well, somewhere up on the walls. He took some bad wounds earlier, in the beginning days of the campaign while defending the river watch tower when the first bands of Boar-Men came. He lost an eye, and much of the use of his left arm to a deep wound that will never heal, but still he fights. A brave lad, like you... and Boyle. It will be good for the three of you to return home safely, to help rebuild Swanford, so take your care!"

Rowan promised that he would try, and left to climb the hill so that he could inspect the earthworks. It was starting to rain now, a cold wet miserable sort of winter rain that froze the soldier's hands and feet. Rest or not, the horde would be arriving soon, and they would have to be ready before dawn!

***********

Their efforts were completed none too soon, for in the hour before dawn, a great beating of wings overhead could be heard and random bursts of flame filled the siegeworks with light and fire. With the entire army well dispersed, the flames scorched few, but the effect to the moral of the men was still rather disturbing.

Rowan in turn, unsheathed his sword and sent a burst of flame towards the dragon and its rider that only barely missed. With a great flapping of wings, the boarman leader beat a hasty but dignified retreat and the men of his army all stood and cheered. Morale was restored and even uplifted, and as the first light of dawn rose but soon disappeared behind angry rainclouds, sounds of the approaching foe to the west told of the arrival of the horde.

He considered shouting out some speech of courage and duty to his men but with their spirits soaring at the sight of their leader with his divine blade, the soldiers were all instead bursting into song, and rather than interrupt them, Rowan and Gwenda joined in.

The miserably cold rain just fell harder, filling the muddy trenches with a foot of icy-cold water or more, but even the most disgruntled arms-man had to admit that this made the dragon's flame a considerably less potent weapon today.

************

The Duchess Ayleth brooded and repeated bit her lips in frustration. Boyle had already left to join his two great wings of heavy cavalry, each of at least a large regiment in size. The Dukes were off with their respective armies, and the she was stuck here, back at the rear with the reserves, at the rear of the large hill, along with most of the surviving Tellismere arms-men and their new inadequately trained recruits. Her old brigade, which had rescued Ruromel, Kenniford and Orshold, took the honor of holding the central trenches, directly in the path of the old dirt roadway that passed by the hill to the town, with the other Duchy armies aligned on their right and left.

Only the greatest of needs, she decided, would drive her to give her reserves the order to advance. They were too green and their morale was far too uncertain to be placed into the battle-line, but if any of the other armies should crack or bend too greatly, it was these innocents who must shed their blood to prevent a breakthrough. To save a Duchy, or even five, blood would be spilled, perhaps even a sea of blood... and she just prayed that their sacrifice, if ordered, would be enough.

Still, all things considered, she would rather have been with her old brigade again, in the very center of the battle-line, and she was worried that the battle would be won or lost entirely without her.

*************

To the end of his days, Rowan declined to take any significant responsibility, for good or ill, for the great battle of Lacestone. Certainly, he had helped plan the defensive array, to best protect his army against the boarman wizard and his flame spewing dragon, but once the battle started, his own participation had been rather minor. For starters, as he would sheepishly explain, from the moment the melee started he had his hands full dealing with the boarman wizard and his dragon... or was this the other way around, and it was the dragon who was their leader and the boarman but his pawn?

Far from commanding the armies arrayed below him that were nearly at once locked into a desperate struggle for life and death in the defensive lines in front of the town, the brave lad really had almost no recollection of the overall twists and turns of the battle itself. Right from the very start, every nervous twitch of his eyes was dedicated to keeping himself alive for yet another moment further. Alone, he stood at the top of the hill, challenging the draca and its rider to combat.

In previous battles that the Lady Ayleth's Regiment, or later her Brigade had fought, it had been Rowan's flaming sword that carved through entire charging war-bands seeming at once, but this time his battle was with just one single boarman alone, and it took all of the lad's concentration and quickness to avoid the dragon flames that burst all around him, and to block with his infernal sword the spells of certain death and destruction that unceasingly were cast his way. Without his flaming sword, which blocked and parried these, he would have certainly died in but a matter of moments and it was awhile before he began to have time to act, rather than react, before he could cast infernal flame of his own towards his attackers.

The dragon, a rust-red colored creature that was larger than most any building Rowan had ever seen in Swanford, was nimble in the air and could avoid most of his flame blasts from his sword, but not quite all. His infernal flame could and did hurt the creature, one large burst even searing away a good portion of its left wing, leaving a large gapping hole in the wing membrane.

While it breathed flame upon Rowan nearly unceasingly, with his sword forming a great shield of fire, it passed around him leaving him smoky but unburned. The top of the hill was consumed now in flames, but still Rowan held firm. Now he knew that his infernal sword was indeed a match for the ancient creature and that his sword-flame indeed was mortal to it. With increasing confidence, the lad ignored the sea of flames that surrounded him and called forth his own burning anger toward the creature, with several bolts of infernal flame against striking its already weakened left wing, nearly making the creature unable to fly, let alone properly maneuver. Rowan was surrounded by now by a hell-like world of searing flame and had to discard his helmet in haste as the metal began to turn red hot, searing his head and causing his hair to quite burst into flames, but still he held his ground against the legendary creature.

Concerned that its primary weapon was of little or no effect now, the draca took to the air to circle back for a more physical diving attack with its teeth and claws that were longer than most spears. Rowan ducked the savage bite and as the rear claws passed by him he swung with his sword and it bit deeply into the left leg of the creature, carving through the rock-hard scales of the monster and deeply into its flesh to the very leg bone. Howling now with pain, the dragon attempted to sharply bank and circle back for another pass at this defiant mortal, but it was then that its badly torn and burned left wing failed it, and in an odd circling spiral it crashed into the very center of the battlefield, spilling its outraged and bewildered rider hard into the ground.

The now riderless draca was greatly wounded and was lashing out in enraged fury at every living creature around it, either boarman or human, and great loud hissing cries in a speech unheard by men for over a thousand years filled the air, as the creature burned flame all around itself, consuming entire companies of men and entire war-bands of Boar-Men alike in moments, in its pain and anger. Soon it was alone upon the battlefield, and that suited everyone fine, as no one had the courage to face this terrible Eotenas, a legendary malevolent creature from the dim past. Alone, it was content for the moment to sit and inspect its wounds, and now study the melee between its master... or its thrall, and the pesky human bearing the infernal blade as they fought about forty yards away.

A human might have broken bones with that spill, but the boarman wizard was largely unhurt and soon gathered himself to his feet, and was more than ready to face the charging attack of Rowan. To keep his surviving men alive in the center of the battle-line, the lad knew that he had to divert the wizard's attention fast, and he raced down the hill and leaped over the trenches and embankments to meet his mortal foe, and together with great flames and the fury of a thunderstorm, the two mighty foes crossed swords for the fight that would probably determine the final overall outcome of the battle.

Rowan had faced a master swordsman in Corælyn, the wicked Viscount Gart d'Bournyss, but this was a much different sort of battle. The boarman wizard had a glowing sword of his own, etched also with glowing dark runes that made Rowan cringe just to look upon them. The sword was also at least double the size of his, but the huge wizard-warrior swung it as if it was as slight as silk. Also being well over two feet taller than Rowan, even the lad's considerable strength was of little benefit to him at all. The boarman was far stronger still, and its eyes glowed with an unearthly violent light, that matched the glowing purple stone that was mounted in a ring through the creature's nose.