Chapter 16 #2
“Ovrek!” boomed the king’s voice. His great bellow seemed to shake the air itself.
The lines surged forward, Cenric and Hróarr at the front.
“Ovrek!” Hróarr bellowed, shaking his axe in challenge. “Ovrek!”
“Ovrek!” Cenric joined in the chanting. “Ovrek!”
“Tullia!” the enemy shouted back defiantly. “Tullia!’
“You will have no graves!” Ovrek swore. “I will feed your eyes to the ravens and your guts to my pigs!”
Not to be outdone, Tullia shouted back. “I will make your son a eunuch and your concubines whores!”
More taunts and boasts flew between the warriors. Most of them lost in the noise.
Cenric’s heart raced, more excitement than fear coursing through him. He had never been as skilled with taunts as some, but he knew what to do once the lines met. “Ovrek!” he shouted. “Ovrek!”
The two lines barreled closer. The expectation, dread, and eagerness were so thick Cenric was sure he could smell it.
Despite all the yelling and taunting, Brynn was the first to strike, silent and likely unseen at Cenric’s back.
A man at the front of the enemy line tripped and recovered, but then another tripped and another. One man finally stumbled, then went down, pushed forward by the force of his fellows behind him.
As another man reached to help the fallen warrior, his head bent to the side, almost as if an invisible rope had caught him around the neck.
The man who had tried to help buckled, thudding to the ground. His corpse tripped up the men behind him.
The enemy line jostled, already fragmenting.
“That’s my girl.” Cenric never took his eyes off the advancing line.
Tullia’s men had come prepared with shields and armor, but even when outmatched, no man wanted to die like a coward. Ovrek’s line had not been prepared, but they had Brynn.
Brynn tripped up the advancing line, making them stumble in the grass. She took down another man just as the lines closed.
Cenric lunged, stabbing the man to the left of the gap. His spearhead caught flesh and he shoved harder before yanking it out, falling back into formation.
Around him, shouts and screams and grunts and bellows rang out, but Cenric could only see what was in front of him. He was aware of Hróarr to his right, the man at his left, and Brynn at his back. That was it.
The battle turned into a blur, stabbing and blocking. Another spear caught him in the shoulder, narrowly avoiding his neck.
Brynn’s hand touched his back, and the pain in his wound was gone a moment later.
The man at Cenric’s left stumbled, letting off a cry. Cenric didn’t see what had happened to him, but a moment later, Brynn steadied that man, too.
No wonder Aelgar had been able to win after he swayed the sorceresses to his side. If this was what they could do with just one, what was possible with two? A hundred?
Roars rang out as more voices shouting for Ovrek drowned out those shouting for Tullia.
A roar went up from down on the beach. Cenric realized that the other warriors who had not been present at the feast had seized their weapons and now attacked Tullia and her men from their flank. Tullia must not be as unanimously supported as Cenric had feared.
Tullia’s own warriors were flanked even as they attempted to encircle Ovrek and his band of survivors. Everything broke down into chaos.
These were Valdari fighting Valdari. Everyone looked the same and that left nothing to do but attack the men who attacked you and hope they weren’t friends.
The lines broke and chaos took over.
“Ovrek!” shouted a man to Cenric’s left. “Ovrek!”
“Tullia!” bellowed an answering call. “Tullia!”
In the dark, with no banners and nothing else to identify them, the men were calling out their leaders’ names. It was as much to keep from killing friends as it was an oath of allegiance.
“Ovrek!” Cenric answered. “Ovrek!”
“Ovrek!” Hróarr howled, swinging his axe as another man came at them.
From around them came answering cries of “Tullia!”
“Ovrek!” cried men farther down the beach. “Ovrek!”
A man came at Cenric with another spear, stabbing for his legs. Cenric caught the attack on his shield, shoving the man’s strike wide.
The man screamed, then went down. It took a moment for Cenric to realize Brynn had used a spell, but another man was coming at them before Cenric had the time to praise her.
Cenric couldn’t see the man’s features, he was a dark, yelling outline tinged in red from the light of the burning hall. This one wore armor, so he must be someone moderately important.
Cenric tried to stab the attacker, but his spearhead scraped along steel lamellar. The man came in roaring, a monster behind his helm’s design of a snarling bear.
Sword swinging, the attacker got past Cenric’s spear, smashing into his shield and knocking him back. Cenric rooted his back heel as he knocked into Brynn who jostled into Hróarr.
Brynn muttered something that sounded like a curse and Cenric muttered his own as the armored man’s sword swung for his head.
Cenric ducked low behind his shield, acutely aware that he had no armor himself.
He shoved with his shield. The impact rattled up his arm and the boss clanged into the stranger’s armor, but the attacker was undeterred.
With that lamellar, the other warrior probably hadn’t even felt it.
Sparks showered around the man’s head and Cenric realized Brynn must be trying to find purchase with her spells.
The warrior flinched back, but recovered, coming in for another swipe with his sword.
On Brynn’s other side, Hróarr seemed engaged with his own enemies.
Cenric lost his grip on his spear. Instead of reaching for it, he pushed it to the side so it wouldn’t trip him up. Grabbing his shield with both hands, he stepped back just once, then smashed the shield edge first toward the other man’s head.
The stranger’s sword stung Cenric’s upper arm and pain shot up Cenric’s shoulder an instant before the shield struck.
The other warrior’s head bent back with the popping of bone and he toppled over like a felled tree. The man hit with a hard thud, the fire shining off the lamellar plates. Cenric would have liked to take that helm and armor, but there was no time for looting.
Numbness spread through Cenric’s left shoulder, but he was still able to use it. Glancing down, the sword had not cut through his sleeve, but blood seeped through. How had that happened?
“You’re hurt.” Brynn’s hands were on him the next moment, her power sliding into him.
Cenric never could tell when she was working magic, but this time he felt her power like a wash of heat. The pain dulled into an ache and then vanished.
There was no time to thank her as Hróarr let off a great bellow, facing down four men who appeared to be together. These men weren’t armored, but they carried shields and spears.
Cenric couldn’t see their faces, not in the shifting shadows of the hall fire, but they seemed enemies, so he snatched up his spear again and made ready to face them.
Brynn stepped a little further back, letting Hróarr and Cenric draw their shields closer together.
Two of the men came at the front, closing in. The other two swept out like wings, coming to flank them from both sides.
Cenric glanced left and right.
Then the man circling to his left collapsed. Brynn shifted her attention to the man circling right.
Unfortunately, the man circling right was clever enough to realize what had happened. He skirted back, joining the small formation with his other two fellows.
The men came on with their spears, prodding and poking at Hróarr and Cenric who stabbed back. Several times, the enemy warriors tried to circle, but were quick to remember why that was a bad idea.
“I am going to bind their feet to the grass.” Brynn kept her voice low, though the odds were that these men didn’t speak Hyldish. “It will only last a moment or so, but it should be enough to trip them.”
Hróarr grunted his acknowledgement.
They could use that, especially if they knew the timing. “Signal when you do.” Cenric blocked another spear thrust from their enemies.
Brynn rested a hand on Cenric and her other on Hróarr. Her voice was but a whisper as she counted down. “In three, two, one…” She squeezed Cenric’s shoulder.
Cenric let off a roar, yelling at the top of his lungs the same instant Hróarr did. Together, they took one lunging step forward. It was an old tactic they’d used before and by no means original, but it worked.
The three enemy warriors faltered, just a little. It was barely even noticeable, but with their feet bound to the grass, it took down the man on the far left, who stumbled back into his fellows on the right.
Hróarr was on the man an instant later, his axe swinging in as his shield blocked the spear. The axe struck and crunched into ribs.
Cenric slammed into the man nearest to him, spearing the warrior’s chest just below the collarbone. He’d barely gotten his spear free before Hróarr pounced on the second man, axe slamming into an unprotected forehead.
Pockets of fighting scattered all around them. Groups of four or five breaking out into their own private battles.
Ovrek’s voice rang out over the melee. “Ovrek!”
Good, the king was still alive. At least this wasn’t for nothing.
“Ovrek!” roared the king. “Ovrek!”
Cenric spotted the king himself, armed with a bearded axe, silhouetted by the burning fire of his hall. He had faced two betrayals in a single day, and his fury burst out of him in a storm of rage.
Cenric realized that the line keeping the rest of Ovrek’s men from making it up the hill had broken. Tullia’s men were routed, crushed between the burning hall and the rest of Ovrek’s rallied forces.
What remained of Tullia’s line buckled as it was attacked from two sides. A roar went up from Ovrek’s men as Ovrek’s name was bellowed into the night air.
Ovrek himself shouted above it all, crying his name as if to be heard by the stars themselves.
Cenric stabbed, lunged, and blocked. He raised his shield, lowered his spear, feinted, and charged more times than he could count. He kept close to Hróarr and Brynn.
Every time he reached back, she was there, and every time someone tried to flank them, the man went down before he made it more than a few steps.
Cenric fought and killed until the voices shouting for Ovrek were all he could hear and every man around him seemed to be a friend.
Blood splattered his face, head, and arms. Sweat soaked his tunic and trickled down his back despite the cold night air.
Cenric panted, turning in a slow circle, then looking back to Hróarr. Had they won?
“Ovrek!” the men of the hillside shouted. “Ovrek!”
The king himself strode forward, the rings in his beard glinting, arms spread wide as he let off a savage howl, shaking his bloodied axe defiantly.
A cheer went up as the survivors descended on the dead, picking over armor, weapons, and jewelry from the corpses. If Cenric wanted that lamellar kit from the dead man, he should probably go get it now.
Brynn swayed, grabbing him for support.
“Brynn!” Cenric caught her, holding her up. “What happened? Are you hurt?”
“No,” Brynn panted. “Just…dizzy. I think I’m still recovering from the smoke.”
Cenric supported her as best he could, holding onto her. “Fearsome creature.” He kissed her forehead. “Magnificent, magnificent woman.”
Brynn rested her head against his shoulder. “They’re coming,” she whimpered. “They’re still coming.”
No sooner had she spoken than a howl went up over Istra. Cenric wasn’t sure how he’d heard it over the noise around him.
But for a moment, the whole world seemed to stop and look toward the darkness of the forest.
Brynn’s fingers dug into Cenric’s arm. “I don’t know how to defeat them.”
“We’ll figure it out.” Cenric chose to believe they were meant to win.
By all accounts, they should have all died inside the hall. They should have died in that battle. Surely the gods hadn’t spared them through all that just to have them die a few hundred paces closer to the beach?
Then the screams began again.