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Sir Gust De Weer
Crows of the Desert
Part III
-Let my Crows feast-
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His stallion neighed, a sonorous desperate cry of pain, as they crushed onto the first group of disorganized foot archers. Dressed in silk robes, light cloth vests underneath, they were no match for heavy cavalry. More than sixty were killed outright, long warspears going right through torsos and chests, the wounds fatal in most circumstances. Men were hurled right and left, broken unnatural caricatures and severed body parts flying everywhere, before getting trampled under hooves.
Gust felt his warspear snap in two, the impact hurting his shoulder and he let go of the broken shaft, his large stallion sending the small-bodied archer crash three meters away in an unrecognizable pile of limbs and bloody mushy-flesh held together by leaking skin. The wind was blowing on his back, as he pulled hard at the reins, hooves sliding on the soft sand and arrows breaking on his plate one after the other, the splinters raining over him.
The battlefield around him chaotic, horses neighing crazed on one ear, animal cries mixed in with those of people on the other, bloody corpses and broken weapons strewn all over the place. Another arrow exploded on his helm, as he pivoted a snorting White around, dust clogging his throat and restricting his vision, but he caught sight of the group of three archers reloading fast and firing arrow after arrow on him twenty meters away, despair fueling their manic efforts.
He went for his longsword again, steel blade gleaming in the afternoon sun, when it came out and went after them. White galloped wild, an arrow sticking out of his chest now, blood painting its front legs a striking red. Gust extended his right arm out, blade pointed front and urged the injured horse to go faster, as the archers broke and started running away before him.
The charging Knight reached the first one in less than two breaths and cut a wide bloody wound on his back, severing his spine. The Cofol went down like a sack laden with rocks and Gust turned hard after the next, reached him covered in a billow of dust in the same breath, heart beating wild in his chest and almost delirious from the callous heat. He swung at him, but missed, the Cofol jumping spastically away, only to roll his ankle, fall on his knees with a cry of pain and then immediately get trampled under Fiend’s hooves, as Mael was following right behind Sir Gust.
The third archer turned his head back as he hoofed it away, ogling eyes desperate, seeing him approaching fast, black plate turned a dull creamy shade now, horse’s front legs rubicund and Bugs flying a hundred meters over them crying at the top of its lungs, making the whole scene nightmarish.
“Water-fuckin-melon!”
Gust downed his blade brutally, catching him right at the forehead with such force, the archer’s head exploded, bone splinters and brain matter dousing a crazed White that made it a couple of meters, before stopping breathing heavy, bloody froth coming out of his mouth.
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“Get on the horse!” Mael yelled stopping next to him and tossed him the reins of a destrier, barreling chest built alike a Midlanor’s bull, its dark-grey mane all bloody. “It’s Sir Mikel’s mount,” The Knight added gravely, seeing his questioning stare.
Curse them.
Gust jumped on the saddle and raising his face cover barked at fresh-faced Klaas to approach. The squire was following them with spare weapons on his own mount.
“Spear!” Gust rustled, his mouth dry and eyed White neighing in pain, over the dead archer. “See to the horse!”
“We need to charge their soldiers,” Mael suggested examining the chaotic battle raging at this expanded flat terrain, about a kilometer from the entrance to the gorge. “Support De Moss.”
“We need to get their cavalry out of the way first,” Gust replied, crooking his mouth and accepted the warspear from Klaas, before pouring water on his face and drinking some with large gulps, as much liquid coming out of his pores, as he poured in. “Send the crossbows to fire on their flanks.”
“Gust,” Mael protested, but he’d have none of that.
“Do what yer told, Sir Bolte,” he ordered his old friend and with a grimace the knight closed his face cover, a crow’s beak sculpted on his helm and nodded.
“Don’t charge at them alone,” Mael said, before turning his horse away and Gust guffawed at that, seeing their almost eighty strong cavalry easily breaking the almost four times larger in size, but hapless archers and butchering them without mercy.
“I won’t,” he replied, closing his own raven-like face-cover. “I’ll take ‘em fellows with me.”
> Kuntur realized something was amiss on his west flank, when the first broken groups of foot-archers started appearing, running as fast they could. Fearing his infantry was in trouble, the battle raging amidst the thick dust clouds and the blinding sun far to the north impossible to gauge, he decided to order his heavy cavalry forward and send another runner to the supply train. He wanted to use the five hundred strong medium mixed-cavalry, covering the long column’s rear, as reinforcements.
>
> Many of the officers present argued the wisdom of the order, at this late time of the day and valuable time was lost. Granted, nobody was adequately informed on what was happening and despite Sir Gust’s heroics, the Issirs of Scaldingport were losing in that particular moment in time. The Cofol infantry had reached the palisade inside Devil’s Cove, the ditch filled with dead horses and mostly dead, or half-way there people. Sir Jan, while he’d managed to prevent the garrison detachment from reinforcing Kuntur’s main force, was slowly dying a noble death and finally Captain De Moss’ force, currently locked into a brutal struggle against the rest of Kuntur’s infantry, was still outnumbered and running out of time.
>
> With the sun slowly losing its shine and turning an ominous red, a series of events on the expanded battlefield turned what appeared to be the young Tsuparin’s scion almost certain triumph, to a far more… dubious outcome.
>
> The first of those events being the arrival of Scaldingport’s heavy-crossbowmen in support of the hard-pressed De Moss. They’d quickly set up their clunky weapons in the spot where Kuntur’s foot-archers had tried to reach earlier and fired two devastating volleys into the Cofol’s locked infantry exposed left flank. The casualties impossible to gauge, but most agree, no-less than a hundred were killed in the span of five minutes. The rest of their line realized something was wrong and either tried to pull away, or their left flank simply disintegrated, Captain De Moss’ men following after them, when they folded and pushed them towards the limestone mounds, with nowhere to go.
>
> While De Moss should have left the crossbowmen keep firing and disengage his men, the mistake wasn’t costly as the Cataphracts, finally given the order to intervene hours into the battle, were caught flatfooted by Sir Gust’s heavy cavalry in the cruelest engagement of the day.
>
>
The Cataphract saw Gust blasting out of the putrid dust, warspear lowered and turned his armoured horse to bring it towards him, using his heels to urge it forward. Gust couldn’t hear anything, the thundering of hooves charging alongside him and the roar of as many horses counter-charging them so great, he’d just lost that ability.
With a gasp that escaped his cracking lips, his warspear connected with the Cofol Knight’s chest, clad in scaled metal vest over thick chainmail and punched right through, exploding out his back. His horse pushed him aside violently and the man toppled and disappeared from sight. Gust reached for the reins, his whole body numb and realized he’d lost the handle on his spear. He made to glance back, all in the space of a breath, the visibility non-existent and a Cataphact came out of the haze and crashed on him, the impact so vicious, Gust flew from the saddle and landed on his back after a couple of bounces, stunned and swallowing sand and blood.
Get up.
“Gah,” he rasped and coughed his lungs out, but other than that and quite surprisingly Gust felt uninjured. His arms and legs were working and while most parts of his body were hurting that wasn’t going to stop him. Gust stumbled to his feet, grinding his teeth and walked towards his horse, about three meters from where he’d landed.
The Cataphract was still there, atop his own horse, long lance stuck firmly, as it had met Gust’s mount big head first, in through the snout and out the right ear. The poor animal was dead, but it had taken the Cofol knight’s weapon with him, as a last act of defiance and the slant-eyed bastard wasn’t willing to leave it behind.
Gust had a ringing in his ears now, still deaf for the most part and felt his legs a little unsteady. He was properly mad though, right angry. Mostly with himself for letting his plan unravel and the ambush turn into this chaotic mess. While he had excuses aplenty, like his opponent’s greater than predicted strength and the surprise arrival of reinforcements ruining the trap, Gust offered none for himself. This was his mess and he’d have to fix it, only way he knew.
The Cofol spotted him coming, his grey robes torn and the black plate armour turned a sickly white, the crow engraved on his chest lost under a thick layer of dust and let go of his stuck lance, to reach for his sabre. Gust reached him first, grabbed the right leg daggling from his horse’s saddle and pulled hard upwards sending him tumbling over the animal’s hind legs. The Cataphract landed badly on his neck, losing his blade and Gust still grinding his teeth, walked with determined strides behind the scale-armour covered horse to reach him.
Gust stabbed down with his boot savagely when he did, right at the shiny sinister mask. Once and that smile got distorted as the metal wrapped. Twice and it gave and caved down, crashing the cheek bones, with a sickening sound Gust never heard.
The only sign his opponent had died, the fact his legs had stopped kicking.
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“Lord De Weer!” Young Klaas yelled and jumped from his horse to run towards him. Gust still rattled from earlier, his longsword in hand grabbed him by the collar and pushed him back.
“Get on that horse boy!”
What had started as a cavalry engagement had turned into a series of hard-fought duels, as many like Gust had their horses killed under them. He left the squire protesting, Gust’s ears still ringing and rushed into what he believed was the thick of the struggle. The dust billows raised from men and horses kicking the fine sand under foot, fueled the gushes of wind that came and went without stop, and diminished the light coming from the setting sun even more.
Soon telling friend from foe, would be nigh impossible.
Gust almost fell victim to that fact, the Cataphract charging him, while he was busy defending himself against another Cofol knight on foot. The large warhorse came at him like an avalanche, a small mountain of flesh and iron, black eyes huge behind the Chamfron and its hooves digging out the soft ground. His opponent turned his head to see what had spooked him and Gust used the spare half second to punch him hard in the face, knocking his head back, before stepping out of the horse’s way.
The horse missed him, but the Cataphract’s lance didn’t, since Gust didn’t really have half a second to spare, so he got nailed on the left side of his torso, despite jerking away at the last moment. The steel tip punched through plate wrapping it, teared his gambeson, the lance angling downwards and opened up a flesh wound right at his ribs, just as his own sword, blade zipping parallel to the ground, caught the onrushing warhorse at the mouth, sliced through tendons, tongue, bone and iron, kept cutting, brutally opening up a grotesque fatal wound, until the hapless horse and rider went past him.
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“Blast you to Oras hells!” Gust growled stumbling away, a hand on his bleeding wound, while the Cataphract lost control of his dying animal, not five meters from him and went crashing down in a heap of broken limbs and wrapped metal.
The knight of Tyeus tried to draw a deep breath, his eyes red and swollen, sweat and dust making matters worse. Gust never saw the Cofol he was fighting earlier sneaking up on him. Not that the impressive armoured Cataphract could sneak up on anything really, but for that day, that place and in that particular time. Gust felt the blade strike his helm and he instinctively rolled with it, the sword cut deflected away leaving a visible dent. He felt it from his neck, to his toes though and immediately went down dazed. The Cofol made to swing at him again, but got hit from the side by a charging horse that send him tumbling down and out of Gust’s sight.
“Sire!” Klaas yelled and tried to get him to his feet, but failing at first. Gust was a powerfully built man, wearing heavy armor and standing well over six feet.
Darn ye boy.
Well done.
Grunting Gust got up and immediately looked to see where the Cofol had gone. He spotted him trying to get to his feet, left hand broken and twisted the wrong way, sabre still in his right. Gust could admire that. A good strong grip spoke volumes about an opponent’s skill.
“I shan’t forget it. Now hand me my blasted mace,” Gust rustled and started towards the Cataphract, right after Klaas -dirty face tensed, but grinning proudly- tossed him a short steel mace. The knob at the business end of it round and heavy, but with four ridges on it protruding symmetrically to better split armor.
The Cofol saw him coming, heavy footed and all furious, the blood leaking from his wound fueling Gust’s anger and decided to attack him first, to take advantage of his longer weapon. Gust parried the blade aside, sparks lighting up the ever creeping darkness and fast as a viper struck at the elbow joint, the curved metal plate reinforcing the Cataphract’s sleeve wrapping, the bone shattering underneath.
The horribly maimed Cofol, both his hands broken, face hidden behind that unsettling mask, growled in mind-numbing pain and lost the grip on his sabre. The blade dropped between them, as his opponent flinched back, but Gust had never stopped moving, right hand holding the mace by the end of its iron shaft pointed down, the steel knob making a line on the fine sand, as he followed him like a silent predator. The masked foe cried and pleaded in Cofol, but it only helped to infuriate Gust even more and he opted to silence him right away with a devastating uppercut, the nasty knob pulverizing the lower part of his helm, cracking the smiling mask and sending splinters and broken parts of jaw-bone ripping through the man’s skull and into his brain, killing him instantly.
Bugs landed next to Gust the next moment, beady eyes looking rather pleased and hopping comically the last couple of feet to the dead Cataphract -the Cofol’s head a bloody horrific mess- he started feasting on the spillage, letting out gurgling satisfied sounds.
The scene surreal amidst the chaos.
“Sire!” Klaas, the young squire now standing atop his own horse, yelled waving his hands and interrupted that particular moment. Gust turned his head, feeling his neck muscles hurting and too many parts of his body burning, the sweat mixing with the blood leaking down his sides and soaking his undergarments. “They are pulling back!”
> With the darkness falling and the Cataphracts shattered, Kuntur attempted to retreat from the mouth of the gorge. He faced several problems accomplishing it, as a good portion of his army was still fighting inside Devil’s Cove, the rest of his infantry was cut off and was grinded down by Captain De Moss’ men-at-arms, their backs on the mountain slopes and his supply train, while it had stopped and even retreated about a kilometer down the road they had come from, it was still too close for comfort.
>
> What made matters worse, was that they had started constructing a camp, as the huge number of animals, slaves and civilians couldn’t stay in column formation for a whole day and no-one really knew how the battle was going, but for the high-ranking officers. The garrison detachment had never reached them, another puzzle Kuntur couldn’t decipher with darkness falling over the battlefield.
>
> The latter his only solace. Expecting the hostilities to halt, or slow down to a minimum for the night, as the grueling battle had drained both adversaries, Kuntur retreated towards his hastily-built camp to regroup and send word for his army to break out during the night, if they could, or stay put until the next day.
>
> Historians still debate until this day, why he didn’t just retreat fully that night, leaving behind what wasn’t essential. Kuntur had an open road towards Eikenport and his decision to wait it out, seems poorly-thought out. The prevailing opinion most have on this matter, is that his army had either run out of fresh water thus being on borrowed time, or he’d grossly underestimated Sir Gust De Weer’s fervor to continue the fight.
“How many?” Gust growled and Mael, dirty face distorted in the light of the torches, looked about them first to gauge the men’s reactions, before replying.
“We lost half our cavalry, my Lord,” the Elder Disciple of Tyeus said. “The Cofol infantry want to parley.”
“No talk,” Gust replied and stared at Albert the dottore patching up his wound. “They surrender, or we finish them off using the crossbows. We have plenty of bolts, do we not?”
“We do,” Mael said, wiping his face with a cloth. “We are also low on water and there’s four hundred infantry glued at our palisade, the gorge blocked to us.”
“Leave the Old Spears to De Moss and the crossbows,” Gust ordered getting up, despite Albert’s protests. “Split the men-at-arms in two, one group will open up the gorge for us and the other will reinforce Sir Jan.”
“Gust, the men are exhausted,” Mael noted and looked around, the other knights –four of them were still alive- looking displeased. “We have dead and wounded—”
No.
“The dead belong to the crows!” He growled staring into each in turn. “We help our wounded, finish off any Cofol we find still breathing!” He took a deep breath, his throat drier than the sand under his boots. “NO QUARTERS!”
He thought of his brother, the memory of his empty eye socket horrifying. He thought of the Princess, a distant elusive prize ever denied to him and famed Rida that was no more.
“Gust,” Mael protested again, but he cut him off with an angry gesture.
“THE KHAN LOSES TONIGHT!” Gust De Weer declared, more a beast’s roar than a human’s and the knights of Scaldingport took a step back and lowered their heads.
Unequivocally.
There was no other outcome, Gust thought adequate to salvage their campaign, not if anything was to be accomplished. Expecting a better chance would come somewhere down the road, another opportunity better than this one, was sheer folly.
And Gust was no fool.
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The camp sentries saw them approach just before dawn, their armour drenched in blood and caked mud, dented helmets and warn out blades from a night’s worth of butchering. Gust was running on pure adrenaline, haven’t eaten anything but a bit of water and half-a-biscuit, and this after they’d broken through the narrow gorge –a horrendous, claustrophobic ordeal- and fell on Kuntur’s shocked infantry that had almost won the fight for Devil’s Cove earlier in the day.
It was a savage affair, men running and shouting, strange shades in the dark, the whole blasted lot reeking of fear and chaos. Panicked men fighting under the moonlight, under torchlight, or no light at all, axes and blades and long knives swung in the blind, sometimes connecting on what they were supposed to hit, others gutting a hapless friend. Men died on the sands, inside the moat turned to a ditch, over half-burned out camp fires and even falling face first in the pond. The Issirs giving no quarters, taking no prisoners, even when scores of Cofols broke and threw their weapons and begged for mercy.
Had the sentry known that, he’d probably jumped on his horse and hoofed it towards Eikenport never looking back, but he didn’t and tried to warn the camp instead. Gust’s hurled spear skewered him through the chest, his body dying but not touching the ground, staying at an angle of sorts, the long shaft now firmly stuck down, keeping it upright.
Gust burst into the camp, atop his third horse for the day, almost a hundred and fifty riders coming behind him, hurling lit torches inside tents and cutting down anything that moved, or attempted to resist. Such was the shock and terror the raging fires and the pitiless assault instilled on the fleeing animals and people, Kuntur’s bodyguards got overwhelmed and stampeded, before they could form up.
“Gust!” Mael yelled a warning, just as he swung his sword decapitating both an officer and his lover, the Cofol had tried to use as a shield at the last moment. A young man, Gust had mistaken for a woman.
He twisted around, the horse nervous under him, unfamiliar. The bolt smacked him on the shoulder, punching through the curved thick-metal pad and almost dropping him. Gust grunted, the injury superficial and kicked his legs to charge the horse towards his foe. Tyeus has spoken, he thought. The Cofol, rich curly hair framing a painted face, large gold looping earrings on his ears, dropped the crossbow and unsheathed his sabre. He came at him, at a slow trot as if expecting Gust to slow down and duel with him.
Sword on sword.
Gust intended nothing of the sort. He charged at full speed as if to crash his mount on the Cofol’s, the clad in fine armor opponent turning away to avoid him at the last moment, opening his side up. Both horses neighed loudly and jumped away from each other, stunned and scared, but unhurt. The Cofol tried to pull at the reins and start his mount going again, but realized he couldn’t. He’d the better part of a broken blade stuck in his chest, right through the sternum. He tried to talk next, only to find his throat and mouth flooded with blood, so he didn’t do that as well. The Cofol just stared at Gust, as the knight approached him, holding the broken longsword still in his right hand, the blade cut right at the handle. There was surprise on that face, Gust realized and his features not as pronounced as the other Cofols he’d encountered up until now.
“Is he gone?” Mael asked him, approaching on Fiend and carrying a torch, the sturdy horse somehow getting through the whole ordeal unscathed.
But for deathly tired, he supposed.
They all were.
Gust glanced at the fancy dressed Cofol still atop his horse. His white leather armor slowly painted a deep red. His eyes glassy on the light of the torch.
“Aye. He is,” he replied and seeing young Klaas approaching, he tossed him what was left of his sword and the nibble squire caught it, with a frown. “See ye fix this. Better yet, have ‘em melt it down and built it anew.”
“ANEW!” Bugs croaked with enthusiasm and came to land on his horse’s head, the poor animal attempting to dislodge him shaking it, until the large raven tapped it a couple of times with its beak between the ears to put an end to it.
“ENOUGH!” Bugs warned the horse.
Mael shook his head and turned on the saddle, to watch the carnage still continuing in various parts of the burning camp. Klaas found it hilarious and burst out laughing hysterically, probably searching for an outlet for the horrors he’d witnessed all day and all night.
Speaking of the night, Gust turned his eyes east and watched as the large disk started slowly appearing on the reddish sky.
“Should I stop them?” Mael asked him a long moment later.
“They won, Sir Mael,” Gust replied, with a tired smile, letting himself relax for the first time, his injuries a dull reminder of the hard-won battle. “Let my crows feast.”
> The crows feasted alright that day. While the casualties suffered by both armies are still disputed, Sir Gust De Weer came out on top without a doubt. He still had his force, though somewhat mangled, had control of Devil’s Cove and started building a small port settlement there immediately. He also had effectively cut off Eikenport from the rest of Eplas. While caravans could still reach it across the desert, no army could. With Kuntur’s force utterly destroyed and him presumably killed, as the young scion disappeared from history after that battle, the Khan needed to campaign to the far south in order to retake control of that part of the Khanate.
>
> Had he managed to keep hold of Hi Yil Castle, he might have attempted it that very winter, but Sir Gust always proactive assaulted its lightly defended brickwalls two weeks later and burned the Castle to the ground, before retreating again towards Devil’s Cove. By destroying the Khan’s vital resupply station there, Sir Gust made the plans for a campaign south extremely costly. Not when everyone seemed to wait for the High King’s response at any moment.
>
> It seemed as if the fear of the vaunted Second Foot appearing anywhere on the east coast of Eplas was a bigger deterrent, than the well-drilled force out of Midlanor, were ever to prove in reality. Whatever the case may be, the Raven of Dawn was left to campaign uncontested that winter. Sooner all later everyone thought, the Desert would swallow his crows up.
>
> On their return journey from the leveled Hi Yil, over a month after the Miracle at Endless Dunes, or perhaps two, a Cofol came out of the Great Desert and followed them down the Merchant Path. The old Horselord, a brigand according to Sir Mael Bolte’s notes of the campaign, brought strange tales of ghosts and vile magic birthing out of the long lost ruins beyond the Ancient Horn. Of living shadows and an insane man who instead of a raven, had a blasted Wyvern as a pet.
>
> Sir Gust De Weer had found the Cofol’s story absurd.
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> Lord Sirio Veturius
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> Circa 206 NC
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> The Fall of Heroes
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> Chapter IX
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> Epilogue
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> (Sir Gust De Weer, Raven of Dawn,
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> -Crows in the Desert-
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> Miracle at Endless Dunes, the fall of Hi Yil
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> & the birth of Devil’s Cove port
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> Summer through Winter 189-190 NC)
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>