Chapter 26 The Battle of Warshire
The Battle of Warshire
The streets of Lestershire were flooded with the dead.
Or at least, that’s what his ex-soldiers were screaming as they fell back, running towards the gates that led into the second city of Mestershire.
Rebels had pulled citizens aside and explained it was all a hoax, that they weren’t covered in blood but delicious cherry jam, and that Bernard wasn’t a legitimate necromancer.
After that, citizens had joined the fray, terrorizing soldiers after lathering themselves in tomato juice from their pantries or strawberry preserves from their shelves.
Unfortunately, there were some braver soldiers who happened to be the most vile of Morfran’s men. They weren’t so fooled by the jammy ploy and saw Morfran as the ringleader who needed to be brought down. They hounded through rebel fighters to slaughter him.
It was in this chaos that Morfran was protected by Bronwen.
“The Necromancer’s Shield-Maiden,” they were already calling her.
Anytime a soldier came swinging a blade at Morfran’s head, she’d dart in the way, and the soldier would find his bootlaces suddenly untied and trip over his feet.
An axe hurled through the air would slow to a hover in front of her, which she’d then pluck out of the air and hurl right back.
She blocked while Morfran stabbed, parried while he dodged, and pretty soon they’d fallen into a comfortable rhythm, twirling and spinning and ducking around each other.
“Feels a bit like a dance,” Bronwen murmured as she spun Morfran around to expose her back to a spear flying at them. It veered off course, slowing enough that Morfran could reach out and grab it.
“I prefer my dances with less blood,” he muttered, thrusting the spear into the thigh of a nearby soldier.
She dodged a mace swinging at her head, and Morfran stabbed its owner with his new blade. “Well,” she panted. “Let’s survive this day, and then you can dance with me at the harvest festival next month.”
Guilt joined the residual wound pain in his chest. He wouldn’t be anywhere near her next month; he was going to be far away, where he couldn’t see the betrayal in her eyes when she inevitably discovered who he was.
He met her hopeful eyes in the frantic commotion of battle.
“Wear ribbons in your hair,” he said softly. “The green ones.”
She smiled. But it didn’t stay on her face for long, because they were approaching the gates to the second city, Mestershire.
It was barricaded by a team of Ravana’s soldiers; pikes and metal contraptions blocked the way, and standing atop the gatehouse was a line of archers.
“Halt, criminals!” shouted a voice. It was General Killian, mounted in the center. He looked smugly pleased to be on the higher ground of a gatehouse this time around. “Lay down your weapons, or we’ll shoot you dead! I have the queen’s express permission to do so!”
Morfran groaned. The man was insufferable when he’d been a lowly foot soldier. He was even more so when he was a general.
“Gentlemen!” Morfran hollered up to them. “The man you call general likes to eat bananas with ketchup.”
The line of archers balked, confused.
“He likes to fill his socks with peanut butter and go for mile-long hikes!”
“What, now?” one asked, lowering his bow.
“He triple-dips in the chip dip, and backwashes in his canteen, if he’s ever offered you a sip.”
One of the soldiers who was currently in the middle of drinking from a canteen spat it out at once to glare at Killian.
Killian blinked at them, then stammered down at Morfran, “You shut up now! I don’t do any of those things!”
“You steal your men’s boots, if you have holes in your own—”
“I do not!”
“—and you like to sneak into their beds and stroke their beards while singing ‘Mother Hen, Mother Hen, Come Home to Roost!’ ”
“I hate that song!” one of the archers complained, nocking an arrow at Killian.
“I— He’s lying, obviously! Shoot him down!” Spittle flew out from Killian’s mouth. “Shoot him down now!”
The archers grumbled but turned and drew their bows right on Bronwen, who stood in front of Morfran, straight and proud. Yet Morfran was still taller and larger than her, and if they loosed their arrows, there was a chance he’d be struck.
That was when someone stepped in front of her with an actual full-body shield. “Hiding behind a lady?” a voice asked. “Not very gentlemanly, is he, Red Rogue?”
“Sk?rnne?” Bronwen released a breath of relief as Reginald stood in the line of fire of the archers behind his massive shield.
Her relief quickly became a gasp as mercenaries with the same tall, thick shields pushed ahead of them.
Right behind them came another line of mercenaries, these ones holding the shields above their heads like a roof, and behind them was—
“Watch the log,” Reginald said as a battering ram with a wolf’s head was brought through the army by massive men large enough to rival Rapunzo.
They were followed by even more shielded men, and together they advanced on the gate, slamming the wolf’s head into the doors.
It only rattled them upon the first strike.
“My father let you in?” Bronwen asked, anxious. “He’s alive still?” Morfran found that he, too, was anxious to hear that the big man was still kicking.
Reginald nodded before yelling to his men, “Again!” He turned to Morfran as arrows pummeled his shield. “He and his men have taken over most of Lestershire. Ran into a bit of a trouble with some of the corrupted knights, but last I saw he was still on two feet. Again!”
The gate shook on its hinges as his mercenaries screamed bloodcurdling war shrieks, followed by a mass release of arrows that pelted down at them.
The man standing beside Reginald was struck in the neck.
He was dead before he hit the ground. The woman beside Bronwen was likewise hit and died just seconds after.
“Bernard?” Bronwen asked after the battering ram struck the doors once more. She’d peeped through a slit between shields, and her voice didn’t sound hopeful. “You need to see this.”
Morfran leaned over her to glance out. A massive plume of black smoke was trailing sky-high off in the distance. He’d seen dozens over his time as Dark Lord of Ruthven?, but not one of this size.
“What is it?” Reginald asked, raising his shield up as a fourth barrage of arrows came flying.
“Ravana,” he murmured, dazed. “She’s lit Warshire afire.”
“Now, why did she do that?” His friend snarled, clearly getting sick of all the arrows. One had nearly taken his eye after its tip pierced through his shield.
“She doesn’t want us to have it.” She doesn’t want me to have it.
Reginald huffed, passed his shield to Morfran, readjusted his helmet—a threatening piece of armor with spikes all over it, and said to Bronwen, “If you’ll excuse me, love.
” He turned and joined at the front of the battering ram, screaming threats that he was going to eat the flesh around his enemies’ eye sockets after devouring the cartilage of their noses.
“Your friend is…peculiar,” Bronwen said.
“He hit his head as a child, repeatedly,” Morfran replied. “I mean, he himself smashed his head against a boulder to see if he could crack it, is what he always told me.”
An enormous crash shook the ground, followed by the jeering and banshee-wails of the mercenary army around them. They’d breached the gate. Morfran and Bronwen were tugged forward, pushed into the city of Mestershire, which was similar to Lestershire but with taller stone buildings and more trees.
It was strange, seeing it from a battle perspective.
It was there, beneath that pine, that he’d kissed Ravana for the first time.
That bakery there was where he was given a free hoagie sandwich whenever he visited.
The royal barber lived in that cozy-looking house there.
It’d been boarded up, with a sign placed in the window saying Go Away.
Mestershire’s defensive forces met them readily in the entry square. Morfran took a step forward when a man fell from above, landing right at his feet.
It was Killian; a mace was sticking out of his chest, but he was still groaning. “You.” He saw Morfran, his words slurring. “How’d you know all those things about—”
Morfran hastily kicked him in the head, knocking him out. Then he stabbed him for good measure.
Bronwen was waiting for him to finish. “Shall we?”
Morfran had been in hundreds of battles before.
Some lasted anticlimactic seconds. Others lasted days.
He didn’t know how long he’d been fighting Ravana’s soldiers in the city of Mestershire; all he knew was that his muscles were tight and tired, the taste of blood was imbedded in the back of his throat, and his hand felt permanently affixed to his sword.
He wasn’t sure they were winning.
It was a dire thought. They’d made it as far as the yard of City Hall, a three-story building shaped like a brick with a tall bell tower attached to it.
Soldiers had smashed out the windows (wasteful, especially since they could have simply thrown up the sash) and were hurling assortments of weapons or items at them: arrows and daggers, but also quartz paperweights, ceramic vases, stone busts of his head.
The rebels were greatly fatigued, too. While they’d had a great start, it was a simple fact that they were fighting in enemy territory against geared soldiers who outnumbered them three to one.
Morfran saw many of them fall—including Owain, who’d been trampled by a horse just feet from where he and Bronwen fought.
Each death stung like he’d been the one killed.
He tore his sword out of a man, kicking him to the blood-soaked grass. Beside him Bronwen had begun to fight as well—she was to the point that her exhaustion was inhibiting her skills; she couldn’t do anything 100 percent anymore, and so her hex was back in working order again.
“We need a break.” Morfran shoved back his damp hair. His gauntlet came back sweaty and red. “We can’t keep this up, and you need armor now.”