The Iron Teeth

Interlude: For Love and Duty

The press shifted towards him, and Ewerlayn readied himself for it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw one of his men fall with a spear lodged in his guts. Another spear stabbed towards Ewerlayn's own face, but he batted it aside with his shield.

Then, in one fluid movement he then knocked the spear's shaft down with his blade and stepped forward to counter attack. His slash was stopped by his opponent's mail shirt but the impact knocked the man off balance.

Ewerlayn's second slash was lower and bit into his opponent's unprotected inner thigh. The man crumpled as blood spewed from his artery, and Ewerlayn kicked his weapon away.

Then he had to shift his attention to the next member of the Elorian militia that charged him. He managed to take this one down with a single blow to the neck. The Elorian army really needed to train its soldiers better.

Maybe they believed in quantity over quality though, because there was no lack of militia around to take the man's place. Ewarlyn's vision was full of tightly packed soldiers in blue. They pushed inexorably towards him like a crashing wave. Luckily, he had his own mob of violent killers to watch his back.

"Hold the line, and ready for impact. Not one of you takes a single step back. We're going to break these Elorian lilies before us!" Ewerlayn roared to the rank of spearmen around him as he brandished his blade.

Behind him spears that had fallen as their wielders had tired were suddenly raised and thrust forward all at once to form a bristling wall. Then there was a chorus of heavy thuds and angry shouts as all the spearmen under Ewerlayn's command stepped forward to meet their enemies' charge.

The mercenary lieutenant let his men engulf him and move past. He had done enough fighting for now. The two sides had become too tightly packed for sword fighting, and he could use a break anyway.

He sheathed his sword and stepped back to get a better view of the battlefield. It was probably time for him to do some real officer work and stop playing around.

Hundreds of men screamed and fought over the muddy field that lay before Ewerlayn. Soldiers wearing the blue of Eloria clashed with men clad in the yellow and green of Count Eron var Istabulan. Off to one side of the battlefield were the plain mismatched uniforms of the Silver Blades, the mercenary band Ewelayn held a commission in.

He frowned as he observed the flow of the battle. It didn't look good. The Elorian forces were pushing the Count's forces back. The Count's men were fighting hard, but they were simply outnumbered by the Elorians. That group of archers over on the hill there also seemed to be doing a great deal of damage to the Count's flank.

"Well there's not much I can do about that now. Where are the cavalry though?" Ewarlyn muttered to himself as he looked around.

The Count was supposed to have a sizable division of heavy cavalry. It was one of the reasons the Captain agreed to this commission in the first place, that and he was supposed to be rich. The Captain was always saying that mercenaries had to prioritize staying alive and getting paid, in that order.

Ewarlyn didn't disagree. So, where in all the hells was that cavalry? If they didn't show up soon the Count's left flank was going to collapse, and then the Elorian infantry there would spill forward towards the Silver Blades. That would be very bad; there were a lot of the whores' sons.

Suddenly the sound of trumpets filled the air, and Ewarlyn's head spun towards the source of the noise. Off in the distance across the torn up fields that lay before him a group of horsemen charging out from behind a hill, and towards the rear of the Elorian forces. One of the riders held a green and yellow banner that streamed through the air behind him.