You are my solemn warden, my knight of all dawns.
Tonight you don’t get to perish. I forbid it!
-
Princess Elsanne Eikenaar
(Eve afore the Rebel Queen’s coronation)
Circa 196 NC
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Sir Gust De Weer,
Raven of Dawn
Sheep, Dogs & Tyeusfort
Part V
-Hell of a crowd milord-
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[https://i.postimg.cc/4N0q2Lxs/Tyeusfort.jpg]
The warhorse shook its black mane, iron horseshoes digging at the soft grass-covered ground, the terrain much greener between the two rivers than further east, but for the gravel covered road and the Depot’s nine large buildings coming towards him fast.
Gust glanced at the watchtower and the Cofol soldier ringing the bell to warn the guards, eyes returning at the men gathered in the street, pouring out of the barrack sized buildings.
“LANCES!” Sir Wim Cramer bellowed to his right, but Gust had lowered his already, left arm pulling the shield near his body and Sir Jan Reuten riding a horse body ahead of him crashing on the still assembling soldiers first.
A breath and everything blurred, steel lance snapping, the jolt felt on his right shoulder hard as a landing sledgehammer. Something splashed his visor, gore burning his eyes and restricting his vision. The warhorse shuddering underneath him as he bulldozed his way through three opponents, hooves sliding in the packed gravel raising a thick dust cloud that veiled the charging men behind him.
Gust saw the Cofol covered in scaled armour nurturing a crossbow three meters in front of his neighing panicked and spinning sideways warhorse, the man’s eyes growing twice their regular size and knew he’d no time to unsheathe his longsword. He ducked behind the shield heaving the shaft of his lance at the firing Cofol with his other hand.
The next moment the bolt struck the top iron-reinforced edge of his heater shield, ripped it right off and glanced the side of his helm, dousing his face with sparks. Gust grunted, head snapping back, the Cofol diving out of the way only to be skewered under the armpit by Sir Blooten, who tossed him aside a moment later.
“Torch the buildings!” Sir Cramer yelled to the following men-at-arms that flooded the street behind them. “FIND THEIR GOD DARN CAVARLY!”
“Ah,” Gust grunted and unsheathed Sir Mael’s blade. He pressed his knees and the warhorse lunged forward, shoved a soldier coming out of the building back. The Cofol swung with his sabre cursing, clipped Gust’s knee pad and then the knight’s longsword came down screaming, opened the hapless soldier from clavicle to hip bone, tearing armour, fabric and flesh at a perfect straight line.
The Cofol went stumbling down, blood turning the grey-yellow gravel a fierce red and Gust swept the longsword around parallel to the ground aimed at a heavy-set man charging him with an axe. It sheared the top portion of his head clean off. Conned helm, skull-bone and all. The iron cap hit the wall of the building across the street to his right, the Cofol’s bloody brains splattering everything in a two meter radius and Gust who’d kicked his legs to get the warhorse going again fell on his next opponent.
The soldier yelped seeing him charging the small distance, threw his sabre down and tried to run away, but man and horse reached him in a second, Gust’s spurred heavy steel-plated boot catching him on the sides breaking a rib. The screaming Cofol spiraled out of control in the middle of the street on wobbly legs. He started pleading for his life, Gust’s ringing ears not hearing anything but an incoherent buzz and died to Sir Jan’s miraculously intact lance. The steel tip bayonetting him through the open mouth shearing most of his lower teeth and tongue away.
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The Depot was burning.
Gust turned his warhorse around at the junction, trying to calm both of them down and Sir Cramer cantered next to him followed by a tense-faced Klaas.
“Horses rode hard west towards the thickets and the overgrown fields!” the knight from Castalor reported, bits and pieces reaching his ringing ears and Gust lifted his gory visor to make sense of his words.
“Where does the road lead?” He grunted when Sir Cramer reiterated his report.
“Blacksheep, the banks of Shifton River milord.”
Gust stared at the wooded area west of the Depot, then at the burning buildings behind them. They had run through the small settlement in less than thirty minutes, killed everything that moved and encountered little resistance.
Not much of a garrison as well.
“Where is the army?” Gust growled in frustration and grabbed a water flask Klaas tossed him to wash his face.
“Could they be they moved to Tirifort?”
“Eh, send scouts in the woods,” Gust grunted with a grimace and poured some water down his throat, afore returning the flask to Klaas. “Make sure they are not hiding from us.”
“We let the cavalry escape?” Sir Cramer asked.
“No,” Gust retorted. “The Prince might be with them.”
He turned his warhorse and raised an arm to notify the knights they were heading west.
“What about the Depot?” Sir Jan asked when he reached their gathering spot.
“Let it burn,” Gust replied trying to readjust his plan on the fly. “If Radin is retreating towards the river… ah, why would he do that?”
“He knows about the assault on Tyeusfort?” Sir Blooten offered in the form of a query. A dent on his dark-grey plate had left a clear sliver mark behind.
“So he runs?” Gust snapped. “The day is early, we ride after them. If we can’t catch them soon, we turn back and wait for Robert to appear.”
“He might be a day away,” Sir Jan said as if to jog Gust’s memory.
Gust snorted and snapped his visor shut. “I wouldn’t in his stead. His, is the more precarious position.”
Unless we run into a trap.
Knowing Radin, he has something prepared.
He had at least a four day warning.
> In the fall, the year of the new calendar 191, Khan Burzin Radpour ordered the Khanate’s Treasurer Elur-Sol, Lord of Que Ki-La to assume the title of War Leader, in the event Lord Chubin Amin of Lai Zel-Ka failed to report to the capital before the end of the year in person. He was to relinquish the lofty title to his second son and Prince Heir Nout now recuperating in the picturesque desert-lake city of Yin Xi-Yan, when the young scion was ready.
>
> The Khan himself left the capital Rin An-Pur, taking the majority of the army with him. The ten thousand strong elite Jang-Ju infantry, one thousand Cataphracts, one thousand medium cavalry, five thousand horse archers, three thousand slaves and twenty thousand horses, camels and other animals including twenty white elephants. The army slogged through the fertile and endless plains the great sprawling city had been erected, right between Kin Ton-Inn River and the mighty Son-Zan at the gullet of Khanate Gulf. They crossed the great bridge over Son-Zan a month later and were at the city of Dinar a month after that just as the year turned. In the winter of 192 the Khan would travel through the Cofol Steppe to Xuski Fort.
>
> The Khan’s orders and departure from the capital shifted the khanate’s strategy and changed the dynamics inside his domain dramatically, having a ripple effect on the ambitious people living under his rule.
>
> Lord Chubin Amin wouldn’t make the travel to Rin An-Pur for starters and that elevated Elur-Sol giving him immense power. It also severed him away from the other Sisters of the Peninsula, though the Lord of Que Ki-La was never that close with the other Lords to begin with. While the Khan’s strategy was sound, placing a loyalist in charge while he was away and his heir ailing, the Lords of Greenwhale had already decided to take action if the war continued for another year. Or so they later revealed. Instead of dousing the fire, the Khan’s decree had strengthened it even more.
>
> The cunning Prince Atpa, who had found himself climbing a step closer on the ladder to the throne after his bigger brother’s demise, had initially decided to resume Sahand’s campaign in Altarin and finish it. Upon learning his father was coming with another army, the Prince decided to leave the Khan and Sahand’s troops to deal with that and took the Army of the Desert out of Rida. Instead of traveling to Sadofort -he had to in order not to lose control of the army- the Prince travelled hastily towards Hi Yil castle. The destroyed castle was in no position to house troops, but Atpa had an uncanny ability to rebuilt ruins –mainly because he’d appropriated Prince Nouts engineers and not so much out of skill, despite his war memoirs- so he went about re-opening wells and setting up a large camp and worksites.
>
> He also contacted Prince Radin –the younger Prince busy trying to deal with the remnants of the First Foot, Sir Gust’s expeditionary force and Princess Elsanne’s pirates- after avoiding talking to him for a year. Learning about Radin’s troubles, Atpa decided he couldn’t hop over the desert without wings, nor was it practical keeping hold of vast parches of land stretching themselves too thin. So he ordered Radin to abandon his plans for Tirifort, retreat towards Merchant’s Triage and then find a way to slip past Robert’s men towards Devil’s Cove, where Atpa intended to attack once he finished repairing the ruin Sir Gust had left behind.
>
> Radin found himself conflicted as he didn’t want to lose his properties, mainly Dia Castle, but Atpa assured him the Issirs didn’t have the strength to campaign that far south. ‘They are trapped between Felmond and Shifton Rivers’ he wrote to him. ‘They just don’t have the men to expand anymore, unless they find a way to magic troops out of thin air.’
>
> While Prince Atpa’s main strategy wouldn’t reveal itself until much later in the war and it had nothing to do with this part of Eplas, Radin agreed to it at the start of winter. Without knowing what Atpa had promised him, the youngest of the Princes isolation at the edge of the khanate, his ever increasing family both in the number of wives, offspring and even the hope for an ally in the power struggle that everyone knew was about to break out, played enough of a role in his decision to follow his bigger brother’s will.
>
> In Tyeusfort, the Gallant Dogs managed to collapse part of the fort’s wall the first morning of the siege, but had little progress after that. It took them a week to reduce the south tower to rubble and while everyone agreed in the need to destroy north tower as well, Princess Elsanne goading them to hurry up so they could help the missing Sir Gust, the engineers found themselves in a conundrum. They had run out of ammunition.
>
> After a thorough excavation of the river banks produced few ‘quality boulders’ for the job, the officers agreed on switching to hurling flammable material over the ruined part of the wall. Several suggestions were made, but a camel caravan seized –the mercenaries were stopping all caravans heading to or from South Market for ‘security’ reasons- and then heavily plundered for meat, left them with enough hides to try something.
>
> The ensuing bombardment produced little result other than a fire that burned the fort’s supplies and barracks. While sleeping on the ground was taxing for the defenders, they refused to surrender the fort without a fight until the merchants from South Market decided they just couldn’t supply them via the east gates anymore.
>
> In the end and despite their best efforts to level, or burn the fort, the mercenaries’ best tactic ended up being the fact they had strangled the nearby supporting merchant town from its income.
>
> So the Cofol commander decided to sally outside the ruined part of the wall very early the next morning to catch the Dogs unprepared. The reason for attacking instead of surrendering being a missive he received from Prince’s Radin second in command that informed the hapless defenders they were going to attack the mercenary camp the next day.
Not even half an hour later Gust pulled hard at the reins to force his tired warhorse to stop abruptly.
“Whoa!” He yelled, arrows flying over his helm, one breaking on his right shoulder-guard, two missing his horse for a handbreadth and smacking the tree trunks right and left from the muddy road. “GET BACK!”
“Keep them out of range Sir Cramer!” Sir Jan Reuten barked stopping next to him, afore turning his warhorse around.
The Cofols had blocked the road to the livestock town, most maps on Jelin didn’t even have marked. It wasn’t a large obstacle, more like hastily cut down trees and Gust considered going through the woods on either side to flank them.
“Damnit!” Sir Cramer cursed jumping from his horse many men mimicking him. Gust’s riders keeping a safe distance from the barricaded road. The incensed knight had an arrow stuck in his left thigh.
“How bad?” Gust asked jumping from the saddle himself.
“He is better off burning it,” Sir Jan said with a grimace, his helm’s face cover raised, seeing the mud under their spurs.
“We can attack through the woods on foot,” Sir Blooten rustled still atop his horse. “The men-at-arms can do that milord.”
“Ah,” Gust grunted looking at the thick at places mud-infested woods and vegetation. “They’ll retreat on their horses again using the road. They are stalling us Blooten!”
“You think they are leaving?” Jan asked him and Gust went to his warhorse again to climb up on the saddle without answering. He’d spotted out of the corner of his eye a rider galloping their way coming from their rear. A lot of men had turned to watch him approach.
“No time to rest gents,” he grunted. “Sir Cramer can you take the barricade with fifty men?”
“Soon as I burn and stitch the wound lord De Weer, I’ll hit them from the sides,” the knight replied clenching his jaw when his squire removed the arrowhead using a small knife to widen the wound.
“What about the rest?” Sir Jan asked and Gust pointed at the sinewy scout riding so hard to reach them he almost crashed in the rear of their immobile procession.
“Sir Gust!” The young Issir scout said, face covered in watery mud and his nimble horse frothing at the mouth. “We found the cavalry!”
“Where?” Gust barked, though he’d suspected as much.
“They had hidden in the woods a couple of kilometers before the Depot sire,” the heavy breathing scout reported. “Missed them the first time but a couple of us thought to have another look behind our backs down the road and caught whiff of them. Thing is, they saw as well.”
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Gust had left less than twenty men at the burning Depot.
“Did they retake the Depot?” he growled, though it was probably half-destroyed by now.
“Nah, but they pushed us back. We lost a couple of men,” the scout replied. “They mean to keep us away. There’re more than five hundred riders there sire. More than that continued towards Tyeusfort. Way more,” he added. “Hell of a crowd milord.”
“Shit,” Sir Jan spat and turned to look at the scowling Gust. “Do we leave those here?”
“We can’t,” Gust grunted and turned on the saddle to look back towards the couple of hundred meters away crude barricade. “They’ll come at our backs afore the first dark. Sir Cramer you fix them there, but don’t engage. Take no risks!”
“We can take them milord,” the wounded knight said.
“I don’t care!” Gust barked. “The first sign of trouble you hop on the saddle and retreat towards the Depot! We don’t know the terrain,” he told him in a sober voice. “Nor where the good or bad places for an ambush lay.”
“As you wish milord,” Cramer said with a slight nod of his helmed head.
“You’ll take the road back?” Sir Jan asked.
“Aye,” Gust replied. “But we’ll cut south through the woods for the last part of it. They expect us to pop out at the mouth of the junction. We’ll do what they did and hit their rear. Put them between us and the men holding the Depot.”
Probably less than twenty of them left by now.
It was a poor plan, as he had enemy cavalry already past him heading for the besieged Tyeusfort, but Gust hoped Robert would drag his arse from Tirifort at some point and that Martel had already finished with the darn fort.
When you get to hope for something and it turns into a wish list, one of them things probably won’t come to be.
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“Tyeus spear!” Gust growled covered in mire and rotten leaves, pushing the warhorse through the last trees and onto more clear ground. He could see the fires burning at the Depot, more black smoke than fires now, four hours later.
“Any of our guys still standing?” Sir Jan asked coming near him, man and horse a muddy mess and the rest of their riders slowly emerging out of the tree-line.
“Can’t tell, but those are Cofols,” Gust grunted and used a dirty cloth to clean his helm, banging it a couple of times on the saddle to get the stickier bits off.
The Cofols were twirling around the smoking buildings loosing the occasional arrow through a crack, or a broken window. Too many to count. All bunched up at the south entrance of the settlement. Nice big timber buildings. A couple of them two-storied alike barracks, the rest long and rectangular warehouses. There was flour in there, salted meat and sausages. Boxes with arrows for sure and blades. Good chance there’s proper fodder for the animals too, although this part of Eplas was the greenest Gust had seen, but for the irrigated part of the fields between Eikenport and the river.
He’d enough of the desert, occasionally arid land to last him a lifetime in three long years. If there was better land ahead or to the west, he wasn’t as eager to know. Gust hadn’t come to Eplas to explore it nor did he fear for his life afore. He didn’t still, but now the knight was plenty worried of failure.
You fail as a noble knight people might sing a song in yer funeral, he mused with a grimace. You fail as a rebel following the princess, you get yer head chopped off and she gets disemboweled in Caspo O’ Bor if she’s lucky.
Gust didn’t much mind the former, but the latter he couldn’t stomach.
He couldn’t.
Some of the riders saw them populating the gravel road, the terrain not perfect, but ten times better and much preferred than stumbling about in the darn forest on tired mounts. They paused whatever it was they were doing and rode out of the smokes restricting their vision. More and more coming out of the Depot.
Horse archers, but wearing hardened leather, or mail and carrying sabres. Mercenary units, probably former Caravan guards that had found loftier employment. Gust had faced them afore probably three hundred kilometers north from there in Shifton’s Camp. Bastards had almost killed him then and it seemed they got to try it again.
“Gust we can make a run after the big group,” Jan told him and Sir Blooten nodded. An older knight closer to fifty than forty, probably a good friend of his uncle. His beard more bleached than white, skin porous and wrinkled around the eyes. He’d started as a tourney knight in his youth and Gust remembered him properly now. His killed squire as well. He glanced at the other knights with him then, their squires -the blank-faced Axel included- and the modest men-at-arms. Not knights, but the closest one can reach if he was willing to put in the effort and the coin. Heavy cavalry and heavy infantry in the same body.
Scaldingport’s best units.
Tough as nails.
“We can’t do that,” Gust rustled somberly loud enough to be heard and young Ronald Klaas, who had turned twenty the other day, so he wasn’t so young anymore, wild beard sprouting on his cheeks tossed him a warspear his face pale. No more lances. “Martel has a chance against them, if those cunts over there don’t lend a hand,” he growled channeling Lord Ruud and Sir Blooten shrugged his armoured shoulders once taking it in stride.
“By the bloody dead,” Sir Jan Reuten gasped hoarsely and slapped his mud-covered visor down, probably unsure whether he’d make it out this time. The knight from Colle had played the odds multiple times during the campaign.
“TITS FOR BRAINS!” Bugs roared flying over them in a dive and Gust thought it as good a signal to charge as any.
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The warhorse neighed in pain, half-blinded by the smoke, the ground shaking under hooves and the sound of almost two hundred men charging rattling each man’s bones as if to shake their souls off.
And kill them a moment sooner.
Gust punched his warspear through thigh and saddle, lethally injuring horse and rider. He felt it shattering in his grip, the jolt almost unhorsing him and twisted about on the saddle, the horse jumping over a mangled corpse in a blur.
Maddened yells, pained screams, terrified neighs and the horrific sound of steel connecting with flesh, or armour. Most times both. Bones splintering, shields buckling, or breaking. Arms twisted and shoulders dislocating. The clatter of hooves on metal, or gravel. The smell of blood and excrement. Animal and humans. There’s nothing good at the end of a charge.
But there is death aplenty.
Gust found the saddle with a grunt, reached for his sword, a leg kicking out to nail an unhorsed Cofol on the chest. The boot missing, steel spur peeling the man’s face off from pointy chin to the hairline. A gasp and he felt his horse buckling, its head snapping back, eyes enlarged and bulging, blood in its mouth. Gust let go of the other stirrup, the horse dropping like a rock under him and saw the Cofol out of the haze swinging that mace again.
Protruding wedges on it sharp as razors and covered in gore.
Gust jumped back and off the saddle, the mace striking his shield that came apart, clipped his forearm numbing it and bounced off the wooden saddle cracking it.
“ARGH!” his opponent snarled irate and rushed to jump over the dying horse, Gust landing on the balls of his feet, heels digging the ground but still dropping backwards, his mind on getting the darn sword out more than finding the balance.
If you are to fall, don’t be a cunt about it.
He crashed on the gravel, back of his helm banging on it, skin splitting and bleeding, a hoof coming down inches away making a crater and Gust had to roll immediately away to avoid the next one. A moment and he stopped on a knee. Sir Blooten dropping his broken spear and going for his sword some feet away. Everyone embroiled in a desperate fight all about them.
Gust glanced at the nearest building, counted the distance to be less than ten meters and grinned manically at the charging Cofol with the mace whilst getting up. They had penetrated so deep into the gathered Cofol riders group, they had split their forces in half.
That was a lot of dead slanted-eye bastards caught in the middle.
A vicious chop and the charging soldier lost half a leg -the left one- a couple of fingers under the knee along the will to fight. He stumbled forward and Gust kicked him in the face proper, upper part of his midfoot encased in iron-reinforced boot connecting with the yelping man’s lowered head. He lifted him clean off the ground, the Cofol making a backwards somersault afore crashing down dead.
The ripped off head flying over the crowded battlefield, a bit of bloody spine still attached to it.
Gust turned to parry a sabre away, brandished the longsword upwards in an arc gutting the rearing on its hind legs horse under the rider attacking him and then brought it back down again catching the falling soldier on the shoulder guard.
“Umm!” Gust grunted and kicked the brutally killed Cofol’s chest hard to get the blade lodged to his ribcage out. An arrow breaking on his helm pushing him back. Gust grinded his teeth, his vision restricted and went for a Cofol fighting with a man-at-arms. He grabbed a leg and heaved him off the saddle, made to climb on his horse, but someone hit him high on his back. The force of the blow send Gust on the scared horse’s side -already turning- and the better aimed plunge with the sabre glanced his plate and sunk in the saddle.
The Cofol let go of the handle and reached for a long dagger, but Gust who had the same problem as him, they were standing too close to use their swords, close his left fist and punched him once under the right eye.
Breaking the cheekbone and popping that eye out. The man yelped and tried to push it back inside the empty cavity, but Gust’s punch had shoved him back over a meter and the knight raised his sword taking the chance.
Then run the sharp edge against his opponent’s neck-skin from tip to midpoint. Blood spurted out sideways, arteries severed and the man went down shuddering like a fish out of water. Gust turned around, drenched in sweat and in a fervor to find that horse, but caught the last bit of Sir Blooten getting skewered by a spear that went in from the right side of his neck and exited out the other.
The Cofol rider that had managed the small charge, yanked the spear out, the veteran toppling from his warhorse lifeless and turned the horse around to keep Axel at bay. Gust made to rush there irate, but a spear flew over his head smacked the Cofol in the back with a thud and hurled him off the saddle.
As dead as Sir Blooten.
“Milord!” Klaas yelled to be heard from atop his horse. “I run out of spears!”
“Ah,” Gust grunted a bit disoriented, the clamor of savage fighting all about them not helping. “Toss me the bloody mace!”
He needed a shorter reach and much nimbler weapon than Mael’s longsword. Gust could feel this was turning fast into a solid good ole close quarters scrap.
> A fast galloping scout patrol warned Commandant Martel -the Gallant Dogs leader sieging Tyeusfort- of the approaching host. The message found the leader of the mercenaries early morning in his tent, but already awake. Martel burst out of his tent spyglass in hand and at first he thought it was only Sir Gust returning. Being cautious he sounded the alarm and rushed to the reserve force he was holding back, his best troops already in the field facing the walls, as they had decided to try the defenders resolve the previous night.
>
> Seeing a lot of steppe horses approaching and much more men than he anticipated Martel got a little suspicious, until a keen-eyed sergeant of engineers informed him there were white-leather armoured Cofol medium cavalry in the mix.
>
> Now sufficiently worried Martel lined up his spear infantry to cover his northern flank, warned the Princess’s nearby large camp they had a problem and ordered Captain Wyncall to pull his heavy infantry from the line. He managed two of his three actions as the Tyeusfort defenders sallied outside their shattered walls and attacked his preparing for an attack veteran troops.
>
> While unexpected, the defenders assault wasn’t as critical, since the startled and sleepy mercenaries were already lined up and facing them two hundred meters from the walls. They also had the assistance of several war machines aimed at the fort, mainly Scorpions that hadn’t had the chance to run out of ammunition. Their crews, bored out of their minds and envious of their colleagues operating the bulkier catapults that had gotten free reign for a week to bombard the fort, opened fire afore Sergeant White had a chance to reach them.
>
> Seven out of eight bolts ripped through the charging Cofols blunting their attack, the eighth killing five mercenaries as it was short. Friendly fire aside the sally was met with great success by the Dogs and Martel released control of this part of the battlefield to Wyncall to deal with the incoming charge of the reinforcing Cofols.
>
> The Grunts in their first action of the campaign –most had fought a bit during the siege of Eikenport of course- lost forty men in three minutes, but pushed the riders back inflicting an equal number of casualties at least. Martel rushed to the front line –sort of- just as the Cofols cavalry retreated to cycle charge, but pausing to allow its large horse archer detachment to fire volley after volley into the packed spear infantry. They caused some casualties as most remembered to use their shields, but moral dipped dangerously. Martel had to resort to threats, curses and even pleading to keep the men from routing.
>
> Seeing their chance the cavalry returned galloping fast and fell on the reeling lines of mercenaries again -losing less men than afore, but killing even more ‘Grunts’ as they aimed their charge at the edge of their line. The Cofol commander, his name not known but this probably was Vijay Mirpur, son of Lord Zuti Mirpur of Rin An-Pur, the Khan’s Master of Horses, pulled back to allow the archers to fire again at the disoriented spears and charged for a third time, this stint with every horse and man available to him.
>
> Whether he’d seen Anne’s Raiders pouring out of their camp in the chaos and clouds raised by his horses, or not, it’s impossible to know now. It is highly likely the Cofol leader would have charged again even if he had, as he needed to break through the reeling mercenaries and help Tyeusfort’s defenders that were dying fast afore its walls. With their sally failing against the hardened ‘Old Dogs’ and Wyncall’s veteran troops, if they broke the mercenaries would follow them inside with nowhere for them to run.
>
> Whatever the case might have been, the Cofols charged en masse and almost broke through as the horse archers fired a volley at point blank to shatter the first row of defenders. Commandant Martel standing behind seven rows of spears found himself in a fight for his life with several Cofols. His staff as well, from map holders and even non-combatants like Purse Holder Crafton and his young protégé Liko. In the chaos that ensued and with casualties mounting the raiders arrived. While probably useless in a line, or during a march –the raiders were a notoriously slow footed unit- the mostly made up of pirates and cutthroats unit proved extremely effective at closer range.
>
> The use of custom weapons from long steel hooks, cleavers and even curved-spike hammers causing mayhem on the riders that were in advantage against the green spears at such a close range, but utterly vulnerable to face the raiders up close and personal. Horses were maimed, people dragged off the saddles and disemboweled, cut or quartered alive. The pack tactics of the raiders very effective and helped by the realization that amidst the chaos of the expanded battle, nobody really paid attention on what they were doing.
>
> The fight turned to a slaughter, with people butchered and plundered at the same time. Fingers severed to get the rings out faster, ringed ears sliced off, bejeweled cocks carved out and gathered in bags, with at least a couple of cases of sodomy reported, Martel decided later to sweep under the rag.
>
> Some days away, Sir Gust De Weer having missed Prince Radin for a month, almost fell into Vizay Mirpur’s trap -the Cofol leader the former had left in charge- but managed to fight the superior Cofol force to a standstill mostly because the two opposing mounted troops were too entangled to separate, or retreat. What had initially started as a cavalry on cavalry charge turning into a melee amidst and around the burning buildings of Radin’s Depot.
>
> Unfortunately for the extremely unlucky Cofols Sir Gust was excellent in melee –his brother rumored to be the better rider- as was most of his mounted extremely veteran force and he was the only man in the battles fought that day expecting reinforcements.
>
>
Gust switched his grip on Mael’s sword and cleaved the Cofol’s right arm off, using the mace to finish him off. He charged three meters, boots thudding the gravel and reached another group, three Cofols duking it out with a sword carrying Axel. The older squire keeping them at bay, but suffering a wound on his right leg that had slowed him down.
The mace caught the nearest opponent right at the nappe, the spine crackling paralyzing him. The Cofol collapsed on his knees, but his sabre clanked between his friend’s legs and the scout jumped away alarmed. Axel went after the third now that the fight had evened out and Gust murmured under his breath, afore trying again.
A savage slash broke the Cofol’s sabre above the hilt, the broken apart whipping past his head and nailing itself on the half burned wall. His opponent cried out in shock and made to run away, but Sir Jan who was fighting two sabers a couple of meters away, casually cut him once across the back and send him spiraling down in the middle of the street.
A weary Gust turned to help Axel out, but a wounded horse came between them and he had to jump back. His legs a bit tired were slow to react and the horse’s rear bumped him aside. The knight grunted livid, the adrenaline fueling his resolve and forced himself forward again. A step and a blade went through his plate from the side, but he stopped it dead downing his mace on the hand holding it. The Cofol screamed blinded by pain, his wrist bones and fingers squashed. Gust yanked the sabre out dropping the mace and run through his stumbling away opponent with it. The blade entering right above his right hip and exploding out of his belly.
The knight cursed and stooped to pick up his steel mace, a Cofol bodying him dagger in hand. Gust stumbled back a step, grabbed the man’s dagger wielding hand and twisted it, his sword blocked by the Cofol’s body. He got a punch on the visor that bloodied his nose, but he heaved once, then pulled and dislocated his opponent’s shoulder, turning the dangling arm and dagger useless.
“SHIT!” The man yelped afore abruptly stopping, Gust’s helm connecting with his in a savage head-butt. The Knight went for another one, but sensed more than saw a man rushing his sides and made to twist around, the semi-paralyzed Cofol hugging him desperately, slowing Gust down.
The man with the spear rushing their way was going to skewer them both like river trout.
Eh, Gust gasped and attempted to turn just the same to put the brain leaking down his bloody face Cofol in front of him.
Axel’s blade chopped the charging Cofol’s head off the next moment and the steel tip of the spear bounced off Gust’s plate impotently. He hadn’t managed to turn at all.
With a grimace and a nod at the Issir squire, Gust reached with his left hand and shoved thumb and index finger into the Cofol’s still hugging him ogling eyes. Then pressed hard until he heard the disgusting pop and warm fluids covered his glove.
A mounted knight covered in fine powder like grit had emerged out of the dust cloud, the sound of battle still raging at the mouth of the settlement twenty meters away behind Gust. An Issir knight, he thought and dropped the blinded Cofol down to free his sword hand.
He could make out the blue lobster engraved on the knight’s chest. The fish tails on the helmet.
A knight from Badum.
“Sir Gust,” the knight said recognizing the Raven’s armour and lifted his visor to show his face. Sir Lowell Koel, Gust thought and raised his face cover to spit down. His jaw covered in blood from his leaking nose, plenty of it in his mouth. “Kindly step aside so we can move in,” the knight added civilly.
“Sure,” Gust retorted and he had to unglue his lips from the dried up gore to do it, then signed for a solemn faced Axel to step aside as well.
Bugs landed on the street, picked up a severed hand and came to stand next to them by the side of the road.
“Looks more impressive up close. That’s the famed raven then?” Axel asked staring at the large bird crunching the fingers with his black beak. The late Sir Blooten’s squire words ambiguous. Technically he was Sir Walter Roon’s squire afore that, Gust thought tiredly and breathed out once, almost every part of his battered body hurting.
“Yes,” the Raven of Dawn had replied simply.