Battered Defences
Palatine marched his beleaguered company of men through the dry scrubland at the edge of Vantaiga’s forest. The Goddess had called him to yet another attack. A hazy trail of smoke in the sky guided the small army’s way. In the distance, he could see the makings of a work camp, a group of tents around a larger structure, possibly a mill for cutting trees.
The Champion and army prefect was accompanied by the remains of his force, two hundred hot and tired men. To bolster his ranks, Vantaiga had given him one hundred of her children to command—five packs, as they liked to be called. The small beings rode atop massive wolves, lions, and bears—also gifts from the Goddess to aid her children.
They were dressed in clothes of forest browns and greens, with their light-coloured hair shining out brightly. At their sides, they wore only a single dagger, but on their backs were bows sized to suit the diminutive fighters that looked similar to Syffox’s. These were not the living bows that Syffox wielded. Only the pack leaders were equipped with the limited number he was able to create. Absent from Vantaiga’s children was armour, as it weighed down both them and their mounts.
Palatine grew apprehensive of the distant encampment. He gestured to his commander to halt. The clank of boots and armour subsided to reveal the buzzing of insects. In their previous encounters, his troops appearing on the horizon would send the intruders fleeing. He knew his force could be seen, yet the camp seemed undisturbed.
He looked over to his commander. “This settlement seems larger than the others.”
The older soldier nodded. “It does but no more than a few score of men. They should be little trouble.”
The prefect looked back over his weary men and their diminished numbers. “I’d rather there be no trouble.”
An impatient pack leader trotted up on a sleek forest tiger. Palatine found what Vantaiga’s children lacked in strength they made up in vigour, their thin frames undaunted by drudging marches or stifling heat. The man spoke with a calm, rhythmical voice. “Are there orders, my lord?”
The smooth, easy voice set Palatine on edge. It didn’t fit someone that he knew was anxious to kill these intruders. “Yes. I do not trust these latest strangers. They don’t seem threatened by us. Take your packs into the trees. If the invaders do not flee from our charge, cut down their flank.”
The leader bowed his head and replied in his melodic voice, “It will be a pleasure, my lord.”
He turned back to his group of animal riders and whistled several clear notes that sounded like a bird’s call. En masse, the one hundred soldiers and beasts slipped into the forest with no more sound than the rustling of leaves. Soon, the whole company was out of sight from mortal eyes.
Palatine’s commander turned to him. “They may be small, but they’re soldiers and a half—even the females.”
The prefect grimly nodded. “Let’s hope they stay that way.” He called out for his cohorts to approach while addressing the commander. “I’ll lead the outside, you take the tree side.” He turned to his surviving cohorts: five mounted officers trotting up to the pair. “Give me a hardened formation of four ranks. We may have resistance this time. Don’t chase anyone that runs away. It’s too hot for that. Let the archers take care of the cowards.”
The officers looked amongst themselves before one tersely spoke up. “Prefect, we are fighting peasant workers, correct?”
“There will probably be many to escape and report back to superiors. We are soldiers, Cohort. Let’s be impressive soldiers.”
The officers nodded acknowledgement before returning to their squadrons. A commotion of clanking armour, shouting commands, shuffling men, and grumbling broke out as the army retrieved shields from supply carts and jostled into formation.
The commander seemed buoyed by the thought of a respectable fight. “I never thought I would, but I enjoy serving the Goddess. However protecting trees and peacekeepers from farmers and workers was not the army life I was expecting.”
Palatine never imagined his second-in-command enjoying serving a woman, nor had he for that matter. But the Goddess granted him forgiveness and gifts. It was his duty to protect what should never have needed protecting in the first place. “The world does not want these trees and peacekeepers. You may be living the life you were expecting yet.” He slapped the man on the back. “Until then, we have peasants to chase off. To your post!”
A lightly armed signalman trotted up, bringing a heavy riding spear and iron shield for his prefect. With thanks, Palatine took the arms. The two then watched as the foot soldiers found their places. The shield-bearers lined themselves at the front, side by side with tall shields and sharp spears at the ready. Behind them, a row of foot soldiers placed their spears on the shield-bearers’ shoulders. Behind the foot soldiers, a small camaraderie of clerics stood in a line with heavy armour but only staves and maces.
Palatine bit back a surge of bitterness. He had twenty healers before Syffox removed half of them from the world. Of the survivors, half he could not convince to serve the Goddess. Now his army was tended by a mere handful of clerics. He gritted his teeth. He would need to ask the Goddess again for more reinforcements.
On either side of the infantry, two rows of spearmen stood ready with his archers lining the hind flank. When the assembly was in position, the cohorts raised their spears. The commander signalled all set by raising his broad sword.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
Palatine nodded to his signalman.
The signalman raised his oxen horn to his lips and let out a single long blast that echoed off the trees. Shields and spears clattered as the men set their arms firmly in place. When the noise died down, Palatine set forth and the signalman blew his horn with two long notes.
The sound of banging metal and crunching boots grated Palatine’s ears. But within a few paces, the men synchronised their steps, and the cacophony was replaced with the steady thump of stomping boots. Pride and authority came over the Champion. His men might not be quiet and smooth like the children, but the cohesive drumming of marching feet was impressive as well.
As the small army made decisive steps forward, a commotion broke out in the encampment. But instead of panicked labourers running about, a throng of darkly clad men poured from the large structure. They assembled into rows before the building but did not take any noticeable action.
Palatine expected them to set up shields and begin marching, but instead, stillness returned to the camp. The experienced officer was baffled. Were they waiting to be run through by their spears? To answer the prefect’s question, black streaks appeared in the sky and grew in size as they fell towards him.
Surprised, both Palatine and the commander yelled out, “Arrows!”
The officers and shield-bearers covered their heads as a hail of shafts hissed around them. Metal rang and men yelled as the deadly barrage found flesh. The army captain cursed. They were not in bowshot yet. Why did all the fighters out here have such long-ranged weapons? He needed to close the distance.
The prefect raised his spear and yelled, “Charge!” The signalman blared out three short notes and the steady thrum of the soldiers’ footsteps quickened. The men let out a roar as they stormed forward beneath the assailing missiles.
An arrow struck the prefect’s shield with a heavy bang that punched the tip through the metal. It felt as if his shield been hit by a hurtled rock. He peered over the edge to examine a short, thick arrow unlike any he had seen before.
New activity broke out among the enemy ranks. Streaks of arrows flitted from the forest as Vantaiga’s children began their own barrage. Palatine was now close enough to see his enemy were lightly armoured archers with no infantry protection. With such weak defences, his men would be disappointed by the fight, once again.
The officer’s assessment of the battle was interrupted by movement out of the corner of his eye. On the far ridge over his shoulder, a dark mass rolled down the hill, dust rising up behind it. The captain’s eyes grew wide; it was a charge of heavy cavalry. Shining metal armour glinted off both the riders and their mounts. In their arms, they held large spears levelled to the ground, twice the size of even Palatine’s long weapon. There looked to be a hundred of them, and they would rend his small army apart before his men could strike a blow.
They were two hundred yards from the forest. His men would not make it to safety in time. Options and tactics crowded the seasoned officer’s head until a plan struck him. It was time to see what mettle Vantaiga’s children had inherited from him.
He yelled out to his signalman: “Full retreat! To the forest!”
Without hesitation, the signalman pivoted his horse and cantered to the tree line with continuous blasts from his horn. There was confusion among the men until they noticed the rising dust and thunder over their shoulders. The shield-bearers dropped their shields and joined their fellows running to the forest. The commander called the cohorts to him, and the group of mounted officers galloped off to collect what straggling wounded they could.
Palatine hooked his shield onto his saddle and kicked his horse into a gallop, bolting towards the invaders’ camp. He waved his spear in the air and pointed to the storming horsemen bearing down on his men. Howls echoed out of the forest as wolves, tigers, and bears leapt out from the trees bearing their diminutive riders.
While exchanging arrows with the foreigner archers as they passed, the children joined up with Palatine. He steered the group around the oncoming cavalry. Sidling up to the pact leader, he shouted over the stamping paws and growling animals, “Run around them. Slow them with arrows. fight head-on!” The pact leader nodded, and with a whistle, the company of riders fell in behind their prefect.
Pointing his spear at the enemy, Palatine dashed the group behind the formation of charging horses. The roaring hooves drowned out the sounds of their own animals while dust blurred their eyes and burned their lungs. The children fired upon the horsemen, their arrows piercing through thinly armoured backs. There were cries of pain and frustration, until a blast from an unrecognized type of horn sounded.
The chargers slowed down, the air filled with clanks of metal as horses and riders jostled to turn around. Palatine quickened the pace and pointed his spear to the far flank of the enemy, calling out to the pack leader, “Go around! To the forest!”
The pack commander whistled and gestured for his company to follow. The enemy cavalry struggled to set their formation, but soon they found their places, and the thunderous hooves now bore down on them.
Palatine’s men were now safe in the forest, and his archers fired arrows over their heads into the invaders. He drove harder to the tree line, but the children and their beasts were falling behind. The light riders might be faster than armoured cavalry, but their beast mounts did not have the endurance to sustain the retreat. Not all of them would make it.
The prefect dropped behind the forest riders until he was almost in reach of the enemy’s lances. He looked back and could see the eager smiles on their faces. Desperately, Palatine wracked his brain for manoeuvres to save his fleeing children. But all that came to mind was lessons on how to calculate losses. He looked ahead to the looming trees and their salvation. A different lesson struck him: that he should be proud his Goddess held such power.
The wolf riders were almost under the spears of the enemy. For the sake of his men, his soldiers, Palatine cast aside his pride, closed his eyes, and reached out his mind to the forest, shouting, “
There was no reply other than the continued pounding of hooves behind him. A bitter rage gripped his heart. Was she in her cavern and unreachable again? There was a bark and scream as a wolf and its rider went under the crushing cavalry. He clenched his teeth as a second wrenching cry broke through the deafening charge, then a third.
A burst of immense shock and anger consumed the prefect’s body, but it wasn’t his. It was Vantaiga’s—her horror engulfed him. A surge of power and light filled the Champion as he became a brilliant conduit for the Goddess’s power. His sense of self evaporated away to her glory as he turned into an instrument of her vengeance.
The ground exploded behind his horse, and a multitude of thick, barbed vines struck out. The destructive, thorny wave of green ensnared the charging enemy rending apart their armour and flesh. Horses screamed and men yelled as they all fell to the ground with broken and bloodied limbs. Those that were not ripped apart from the vines where crushed under tumbling mounts and bodies.
A large swath of the enemy was cut down beneath the deadly, strangling, growth. At the edges, clusters of horsemen escaped the blast. They ran down several more beasts and riders, until the underbrush grew high enough to thwart their charge.
Once inside the forest, Palatine gasped for breath and struggled to comprehend the power that had just filled him. The remaining children, eager for revenge, dismounted and fired upon the invaders. The heavy brigade retreated from the deadly arrows of the living bows. By the time the enemy disappeared over the far ridge, there was less than a dozen of the force left to report to their superiors.