The Taleweaver

Escape, part five

The fight, if it could even be called one, had turned sour from the onset. They were too few to meet the enemy head on, and when Neritan promised they were indeed close to the caravan they decided to flee, and now Harbend was crouching between two heaps of snow having lost sight of his friends.

Arthur had killed one man with his device, and the sound had been enough to give them some well needed respite, but then Arthur said there would be no more thundering help from his side.

A rumbling from behind spelled either more trouble or some much needed help. Hopefully the latter. The escort should have been here by now if it would ever come to their aid.

Harbend ducked and rolled in the snow. Nowhere to hide out here. The snow crept inside his clothes and started to melt. The cold was agonizing, but he didn't dare to move before he knew what was happening.

Another roar from behind. This time he decided to take the risk. Nothing to lose any longer. Harbend stood on his knees trying to be ready to fight back, but weaponless there wasn't much he could do.

It was the escort. The battle mages he had hired but never got to know during the journey threw lances of fire over his head aiming for targets he couldn't see. If they were here men on horses couldn't be far away. A wave of relief washed through him. They were safe, or as safe as they would ever be this far from Keen.

Captain Laiden roared curses at full throat, and the incredibly foul language filled Harbend with a warmth that would have had his mother frown in disgust at him if she had known. Then the thunder of hoofs passed on both sides of him as the escort joined the fray.

Harbend staggered to higher grounds.

Ahead of him Trindai's men loosed their crossbows while charging. Then they rode into the disarray they had created, slashing with drawn sabers as they rode through the thin line of soldiers. They wheeled their horses, line almost unbroken, and charged back. The third charge scattered the enemy who retreated, and when Nakora's troops joined the fight the retreat turned into a rout.

Once Horse-lord Vildir Kanir had told Harbend that a soldier must fight or break, and that fighting was surviving. He hadn't understood it then, but as he watched the slaughter in front of him he wondered where his uncle's cavalry commander had learned the lesson. Harbend had experienced a skirmish, even seen men killed as a young man, but nothing like this. Khi didn't war on anyone, but there were clan feuds, and Harbend had a sickening feeling the word feud didn't really describe what happened when two clans failed to resolve their differences with diplomacy.

He stared out over the battlefield and saw the soldiers from Ri Khi dispatching wounded men begging for mercy. Only the escort from Keen refrained from the butchering, and he could almost feel their distaste for the sight they shared with him.

There had never been much of a battle, and now it was only murder.

The screams were almost as awful as the sight. Harbend helplessly watched wounded men having their arms and legs cut away before they were finally killed. Soldiers cut off fingers to get rings from men still alive and screaming in pain and shock. The snow, once even and white was now trampled and dirtied by blood and the scattered remains of bodies.

Harbend knew parts of his own history. Once the armies of Khi had earned themselves a very bad reputation. Apparently some of the reason for that had become a damning tradition still upheld by the descendants now living in Ri Khi. He turned in disgust and walked away. The relief he once had felt was gone and there was only revulsion left.