Chapter Twenty-One Guthnyr
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Guthnyr
“We’re fortunate the winter was so harsh this year, else the river might have thawed by now.” Torfyn’s voice was steady enough, but Guthnyr saw fear in the outlaw’s habitual clutching at his chest. Guthnyr doubted it arose from concern for his niece.
In the three days since Deyna and Aleida had set out to intercept the Nihlvarian host, Guthnyr had marched his force of Travka and Morvek the eight miles to this riverbank.
The march itself required only a day, but getting them all properly arrayed and provisioned entailed an aggravating delay.
He put the Morvek at the head of the column, spread out and ready to bring word if their foes had already crossed the river.
But Silfaer’s favour was with them and the entire host reached the riverbank by twilight of the second day.
Guthnyr encamped them two hundred paces short of the river’s edge, close to the point where Torfyn advised the ice was thick enough to permit the passage of an army.
The morning of the third day had been taken up with arranging his forces and explaining the plan for impending battle to his disparate army.
They seemed to comprehend their allotted roles but he knew even the cleverest stratagem could fall to pieces once the first arrow flew.
He took some reassurance from the steepness of the riverbank, a rocky incline ranging from three to five feet in height.
His confidence was buttressed further by the evident bloodlust of his warriors.
Tirohk’s Vehlkasa were ever keen to slay Rulchakin, but he found the desire among the Travka to get at those they habitually referred to as “the Vortigurn’s dogs” disturbing in its intensity.
Despite his fears over their persistent squabbling, they maintained discipline during the march to the river.
He had been careful to order the different clans so as to avoid friction between the most antagonistic groups, but the general lack of discord continued once they made camp.
Talk at their fires was of the inventive torments they hoped to visit upon the dogs come the next day, many sharpening blades or polishing their gleaming kelvehr steel in anticipation.
Noting the fascination all seemed to afford the arcane-infused metal, Guthnyr wondered if it exuded some kind of unnatural influence over these beggared souls.
The weather worsened during the march, casting a thin drizzle over the forest and heralding a frosty mist come the morning.
It lingered over the frozen river for much of the day, thinning partially by noon but still obscuring Guthnyr’s view of the far bank.
Hours had passed with no sign of the Vortigurn’s host, leading Sygurn to an inevitable conclusion.
“She’s sold us,” he muttered, crouched at Guthnyr’s right. “We sit here while she leads that army into our rear.”
“Patience,” Guthnyr said. “Aleida’s at her side, remember.”
“She’ll have found a way to slip that chain from her neck.
A Tuhlvyr remains a Tuhlvyr. Something you may have forgotten.
” The implication behind the smith’s words was plain.
Too many nights shared with their erstwhile enemy, who had led her own army against them not so long ago.
Yet Guthnyr entertained no doubt regarding Deyna’s loyalty, and it had nothing to do with hours spent coiling in the dark.
“I’d trust her hatred for the Vortigurn above all else,” he said. “Now be still, and wait.”
It was nigh another hour, by which time Sygurn had begun to argue they should send a scouting party to check their rearward flank, when Guthnyr spied a shape in the mist. At first it was just a vague smudge in the haze, soon growing into a twenty-strong party of warriors making a cautious approach across the ice.
They were lightly armoured and all bore bows with arrows nocked to the string.
The commander of the Nihlvarian host wasn’t foolish enough to send his main force across the river without first scouting the opposite bank.
“It worked,” Guthnyr said, jerking his head at Torfyn and Sygurn. “Let’s go.”
Crouching, they ran through the trees to the shallow gulley where Tirohk waited with the Vehlkasa.
Spread out to either side, the rest of the Tielvik’s menda lay in cover.
All had been warned in the harshest terms to keep silent and hidden until the word was given.
Guthnyr hurriedly fixed the iron spikes Torfyn had given him to his boots.
These were a common item among the Travka who would often venture out onto frozen water to fish.
Most of his host had them affixed to their footwear, save the Morvek who used a similar device crafted from elk horn.
“They’re at the bank,” Sygurn reported, peering over the edge of the gulley. After a short pause, he glanced down at Guthnyr with a relieved grin. “Don’t look too keen to venture more than twenty paces from the river.”
The high-pitched peel of a hunting horn came from the direction of the bank, three long blasts Guthnyr hoped was the signal for the main force to begin its crossing. Even if it wasn’t, this trap was already sprung and there was no time to change it.
“Tirohk,” he said, nodding to the Morvek who promptly scrambled free of the gulley with his dozen best archers. Within moments he heard the multiple thrum of bowstrings and a brief chorus of shouts. Silence followed, unbroken by the sound of any horns.
“It’s time,” he told Sygurn. Drawing Kohrvayl, Guthnyr stood tall, raising the sword.
The light was dim in the forest, but the kelvehr blade caught it well enough for those of his warriors nearby to see.
In accordance with his stern instruction, they rose and began their advance with no raised voices.
He had also warned them against running.
Instead, they formed their lines and tramped through the undergrowth at a steady pace.
By the time they came within sight of the river, he could make out the dark throng of the Nihlvarian host upon the ice.
They appeared little more than a disordered mob from this distance, their ranks perturbed by unsure footing.
But, as they drew nearer, he saw they were arrayed with a semblance of discipline.
The column was fifty warriors across at its head, the companies behind maintaining a narrow gap between the ranks.
It made for a compact formation that could be ordered into a swift charge, but also offered an easy target.
The Nihlvarians in the lead all marched with unslung shields, proof against most arrows but not those tipped with kelvehr warheads.
Experimentation back at the Wehrtrova had confirmed the ability of the arcane metal to pierce even the sturdiest shield.
Not every shaft would punch all the way through to the warrior behind, but those launched by the powerful strong bows carried by the Morvek often would, if loosed at sufficiently close range.
Also, the kelvehr blades carried by every warrior in this menda could cut through the thickest leather armour, even steel breastplate, at least in the comparative safety of Torfyn’s forge.
This would be the first true battle test for the weapons upon which so much rested.
Guthnyr was determined it would not be a failure.
Moving ahead of the advancing line, he found Tirohk crouched in the dense brush close to the bank.
The Vehlkasa archers were spread out to either side, the rest of their folk rushing to join them with bows in hand.
Further along the river, Travka hunters hurried to take up their prearranged positions, training their ash longbows on the approaching host. Scanning the lead company, Guthnyr saw a tall man striding ahead of the column.
He was easily marked as the captain of the Nihlvarian vanguard by his commanding gestures to the warriors following behind.
“Kill him first,” Guthnyr told Tirohk, pointing to the tall captain. “Not until I tell you.”
The war chief duly trained his arrow, half-drawing the string.
Guthnyr kept squinting into the mist shrouding the far bank, hoping to discern some sign of Deyna or Aleida.
He assumed they would be kept close to the commander of this force, meaning instant peril once the ambush began.
He had voiced this concern to both of them before they departed the Wehrtrova, only for Aleida to tell him to stop fretting like an old woman.
“I survived years in my father’s home,” she said.
“Mere hours in the company of a gulled stranger is nothing.”
Pushing aside his worries, Guthnyr watched the tall captain stride to within a hundred paces of the riverbank then patted a hand to Tirohk’s shoulder.
The Morvek’s arrow flew in a shallow arc, perfectly aimed to plant its kelvehr warhead in the centre of the captain’s breastplate.
He staggered, tottered back a few steps, then collapsed face down onto the ice.
“Loose!” Guthnyr cried, the order echoed all along the bank and swiftly answered by every archer in the Tielvik’s menda.
The first volley streaked from the trees in a dark, angry swarm, aimed directly at the lead company.
Guthnyr had been expecting to fell about a third so found himself blinking in surprise when all but a handful of the shield-bearing vanguard tumbled to the ice.
The rank behind, still marching with their shields slung on their back, fared even worse when the second volley slammed home.
Screams and shouts echoed as the arrow storm continued, claiming dozens by the second.
Watching the bodies pile up, Guthnyr entertained the nascent hope that this entire battle might be settled by archers alone.