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The paeans of spring
Part III
A murder of Crows
Act I
-The panegyric of the damned-
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(Radin Radpour)
> ‘Voges will do what’s best uhm, yes,’ the vile Aken Suharto had said –or whoever the allhells he was, because Radin had seen at least two versions of that fiend in the past- and licked his dark-gold lips with a disgustingly long, forked and mauve-colored tongue, that bizarre face distorted from many different nervy ticks, a spasm making his right, slightly-enlarged snake’s eye flutter uneasily.
>
> ‘We need him to buy us time,’ Amir-Zeket noted just to clarify the thorny matter. The general would have preferred more soldiers than a sudden visit from the Khan’s strange alien shaman.
>
> ‘Um? What’s best… yep, uhm.’ Suharto agreed vaguely. ‘Time… is unimportant.’ He hiccupped but it was a disconcerting chortle. ‘Heh… hehe. Aha. Yep.’
>
> Jorah Dhin-Awal glanced at the skeptical Prince. ‘Time is paramount,’ the old Horselord grunted in frustration. ‘What in the Desert’s Spirits, is this freak talking about?’
Things change, Radin thought and used a square-cut leather fabric to clean his blades. The forest’s humidity had already started eroding their armour. Especially on the animals. They were losing time to clean them as they turned heavy once mud got between the links. Plans or ideas become obsolete.
Time starts anew with every ticking second.
And the forgotten or those cast aside tend to rise to prominence or become important.
Tobro’s painted face stared at the Prince with fearful eyes.
“What are you worried about?” Radin asked him lightly and got up from the placed on the ground saddle holding his sword.
“The man could be lying, oh great prince of princes,” Tobro replied taking the sword from him to leave it on the container with the other weapons.
“The man is here and we just passed by his home. He can’t afford to lie. That’s him with Garai,” Radin pointed out with a half-smirk. “Stef Valk. The King’s own master hunter.”
“The previous king’s noble sheik,” Tobro noted lowering his voice, as Garai had brought the aged local Issir closer.
“Indeed,” Radin replied and stood up straighter removing the Cataphract’s helm from his head.
‘Cruel’ King Theun loved hunting animals and people, but King Antoon did not. The new king just ordered his enemies to be swiftly executed and favored spectating games of valor instead, the story went. So Theun’s promise to take care of Valk’s kin after years of loyal service both in hunts and wars, had bothered Antoon who held a certain animosity towards his now deceased father mainly for what he’d done to his late mother. When the old scout reminded the young king of that promise in court and in front of all the lords, hours or days after his coronation, young Antoon had almost lost his temper. Duke De Weer, one of Theun’s oldest friends and hunt buddies, offered the old scout lands in his famous for their rich game forests, very near where the King used to journey to enjoy himself.
It could have defused the tense atmosphere but it did not, ‘for Ruud tends to drink a lot when he visits the palace and wine loosens the Old Crow’s tongue, which is never a good thing.’
The ancient Scaldingport Duke, proceeded to scold the young king for his actions publicly, using a rather well-known in nobility’s circles, but otherwise esoteric remark. ‘An impetuous man will act hastily on his first day on the job, and then proceed to swiftly fuck his way to an early conclusion’. Antoon had cursed at the old Duke and ordered him thrown out of the palace, but the other Lords present intervened to calm the young king down -probably because Ruud and his Crows had come fully-armed for that joyous dinner and pleaded through Duke Anker Est Ravn that in ‘a feast’s evening table, seemingly strong words might be exchanged afore Uher, the coming morning won’t remember, or heed any second thought to and the forgiving God shall cast aside.’
Antoon wisely had taken the opening to dissolve the situation and then proceeded in a hollow, fake magnanimous gesture, to exchange Valk’s second promise from Theun that he’d knight his son and Theun’s squire Rinus Valk, with a place for the man’s young daughter near his sister Princess Elsanne instead.
“Be warned that you are in the presence of the bravest of Princes, the glorious Radin Radpour,” Tobro reminded the aged Issir that donned old leather armour and carried a bow over his shoulder with a full quiver of arrows. “The Bloodfang of the Steppe,” his slave added meaningfully.
“Is my granddaughter still breathing?” Stef Valk asked raspingly crooking his mouth at Tobro’s introduction.
“Loes is well and with child,” Radin retorted with a gesture for Garai to sheathe his half-drawn scimitar. “She belongs to the house Radpour now.”
Valk grimaced and then stared at the groups of Horselords resting between the trees on both sides of the forest route. “The girl has word for me?” Valk finally queried.
“Loes asked for her father,” Radin said with a soothing voice.
“Rinus is beyond the Red Bridge. Lord High Regent Anker, knighted him a couple of years back, but he wasn’t going to support this queen anyway.”
“How about you?” Radin asked with a smile, as he knew all that from Loes already. A maiden can learn a lot of details in court or living near a princess.
“I owe the Duke.” Valk replied tensely.
“Do you really?” Radin probed. “Ruud has one foot in the grave, mayhap both and is just holding on with crooked fingers from the edge to avoid plunging into his coffin. His sons support the queen I’m told.”
Valk sucked on his teeth nervously. “It’s a bit more than that I’d say.”
“How so?” Radin asked calmly and the man’s eyes flickered but didn’t answer. Hmm. “We seek the way to the main road,” the prince continued wondering what else was there and spotted Nar Masud-Rum approach with his servant Amu. Nar had freed Amu after years of service but the now in his forties Cofol had stayed to squire for him anyway. Some Cataphracts openly teased Amu that he had done it because nobody had a need for an old former-slave, but Radin believed the reason was much simpler. Amu considered Nar his only family and a friend.
“Robert Van Durren is here. Cast his lot with the Princess,” Valk informed him and Garai grimaced, with Masud-Rum gasping at the news.
“How many men?” Radin queried cursing under his breath the inability of the Khan’s court to value the gathering of intelligence or to give the job to more competent people willing to get their hands dirty and their ear to the ground, in order to listen for the distant sound of approaching hooves.
“About two-thirds of the Foot or thereabouts. People flocked to his banner after that greedy Charles’ treating Badum as his own village. One shouldn’t mess with the order of things, or covet another man’s birthright.”
Ah, but one should, the Prince thought, for if one didn’t, nothing would ever change old man.
Radin nodded agreeably instead.
“The queen is in Scaldingport then?”
“The princess couldn’t even make it to Rusted,” Valk retorted. “Her pirates stayed at the Pavilion. It is a large merchant stop of sorts, thirty kilometers west of Rusted, where the roads coming from Tail and Tongue join the main route. Many hostels and shops scattered by the road.”
“Like Merchant’s Triage?” Garai probed and the man shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know what that is,” Valk replied honestly. “But if you keep heading south that way, you’ll get out about a kilometer west of it just where her pirates camp is.”
“If the Foot heads for Even Fork,” Nar started and Radin signaled for him to stop as he was busy thinking of this new development. Masud-Rum grimaced, stayed silent for about half a minute and then tried again. “My lord, Putra will need help to clear Even Fork. Lord Jorah might arrive too late if at all,” the Cataphract insisted.
“Putra has Horus and Maluph,” Radin argued. “He’ll make it beyond Even Fork for sure.”
Garai raised his penciled brows at the prince’s words but chose to remain silent.
“We need to go after Sir Robert,” Masud-Rum countered tensely and with his voice cracking. “Seek revenge for Tirifort my Prince, plus repay your debt to Lord Jorah.”
Radin recoiled at his words and clenched his fist not to land a blow on the brazen Cataphract. “I owe no debt to Lord Jorah,” the Prince hissed turning red in the face, furious he had to address the matter with everything else he had on his mind. “Havor’s attack on the lakes wasn’t my idea in the first god darn place!”
Dhin-Awal’s sons were never your fucking friends!
Masud-Rum run his fingers through his uncombed, sweaty hair. Wearing a helm through the forest was a torture so he hadn’t his on as well.
“I was speaking of Hajot, my Lord,” Nar the fool insisted and Radin crooked his mouth glaring at him. “He died to Kalac, so you can keep your name unsullied.”
“A Prince of Rin An-Pur owes naught to no man!” An affronted Radin growled through his teeth, remaining mindful that several Cataphracts had approached to eavesdrop on their conversation. “You are balancing on a tight rope Nar. Do not take advantage of my good will dear friend. I know you for many years but I won’t allow you to insult me thusly!”
“Truth can’t be insulting,” Nar said, his voice hardening. “And a Horselord’s character and legend is defined by his actions when faced with true adversity, or he’s stripped of privilege and his whole bloodline is sullied. Hajot did what he was supposed to do without a second thought my Lord. A true Horselord. A Prince may stand above mere men, but with all respect prince Radin, only a true Horselord can be seated on the Khan’s throne.”
You truly are an ignorant fool!
Even so, several Cataphracts nodded in uncomfortable silence around the high-ranking group, a few still wearing their smiling masks despite the discomfort, themselves dirtied from the road but their horses cleaned up, rested and ready to move on.
The alert Radin noticed their reactions and pursed his lips tightly to control his anger.
“I shall avenge Dhin-Awal’s sons and destroy their enemies,” he retorted hoarsely and grimaced in the attempt to smile reassuringly for the men listening to his words. “Let us reach the main road first. See where the trail leads us next.”
“The Prince has spoken,” Garai declared under the enthusiastic roar of the around two hundred steppe knights and five hundred Horselords slowly gathering around them. The old Issir scout Stef Valk furrowed his white brows, the only man not elated by Radin’s words.
-
> Maluph Erul-Sol met briefly with Horus Mirpur while the battle was raging all about them, now entering its third hour, and Horus asked him to clear out the arriving from the south men-at-arms of Sir Rik De Weer. The latter were followed by less than a hundred Grunts under the injured Liko and Bert Ottis now on mounts. Over a hundred wounded had been left behind at the Gallant Dogs camps with some of them critically injured or horrifically maimed. Half the Grunts had been killed in less than thirty minutes and Sir Rik’s horses were worn out for the most part, but the Scaldingport scion regrouped his tired force that now threatened the rear areas of the Horselords attacking Martel and the remaining engineers. They were also dangerously close, less than fifty meters away, from the scrambling to escape civilians.
>
> Horus ordered Cardus to escort the civilians out of the woods and rush them towards the contested road (about two hundred meters away to their northwest) leading to Desmond Boss’ east camp first and then the bridge. Cardus slavers were given strict orders to fight to the last if it came to be. Tibia-Han and several other injured men and women too injured to move were left behind in the bombarded woods, while Dumar harassed Rik’s Crows to give Mirpur time to strike against him. Maluph added seven of his chariots to assist but kept the last two back near the pouring out of the forest civilians and slaves.
>
> Over a kilometer away to their east, Perku with Larmir (Api-Nofre had returned near Horus upon spotting the Crows) prepared another assault against the injured Captain Wyncall’s mercenaries. The mostly Lesia outfit’s low-ranking officers debated a retreat towards the forest east of their positions but they didn’t want to abandon the many injured amidst their ranks. The ‘Gold Contract’ Dogs had been recruited in Atetalerso fifteen years prior in another mercenary company the ‘300’ and some of them had been with the outfit for even longer. The originally created by Jacomo D’Orsi unit had already survived their previous company’s destruction in the distant Eikenport. They were not pushovers and a very tightly-knit professional group. The mercenaries decided to wait for the dark before retreating and Perku’s lancers (mostly Horse-Archers) with Larmir attacked them not five minutes later.
>
> Larmir’s charge hit the mercenaries north flank in three spots, his best for the day, but he got counter charged trying to disengage by Sir Pek’s arriving men-at-arms (part of Robert’s cavalry) and got mauled to smithereens. Sir Pek had recognized the Horselords easily in the chaotic battlefield and his fresh heavier units brutalized the lighter-armoured Khanate riders. Larmir was killed almost immediately but Perku, realizing they were being counter-attacked, managed to angle, then change the direction of his own incoming charge (in a brilliant demonstration of fine horsemanship) away from the rattled mercenaries and strike the Issirs head on instead. Perku’s lancers killed friends and foes in what was a messy crowd of men and animals.
>
> Sir Evert Pek got lanced through the torso and went down ending a very long campaign for him which had started over six years earlier in 188 NC, when the First Foot had first arrived in Rida with Robert and his father to secure Raoz, at least on Issir soil and amongst his comrades in arms, but alas without ever laying his eyes again on his wife Lady Siske Tellman. In a cruel twist of fate, the two of them were in different camps now, with Sir Reinir’s Tellman’s daughter fighting under Lord Anker’s banner.
>
> Perku’s charge rattled the Issir men-at-arms but the nearby mercenaries got involved and the Horselords got surrounded by hostiles in moments. An injured Perku managed to disengage with a score of riders and was saved by the arrival of Lord Jorah Dhin-Awal’s scouts, who had send a group of them under Kontar to assist Cardus’ mass exodus. Kontar, himself badly injured and probably not in a condition to make sound decisions, was distracted by the large fight and headed east instead of west upon arriving. The mercenaries halted seeing the fresh group of Horselords and slowly retreated to regroup while the Issir cavalry with them, sent word to Robert they had found the enemy.
>
> Maluph’s battered chariots moved against Sir Rik’s riders to the southwest in the meantime, followed by Dumar and Horus Mirpur himself. Under arrow fire Sir Rik ordered Liko’s men to dismount and use their issued lances to form a shieldwall in front of the horses, while his Crows flanked the arriving chariots and Horselords. The arriving Chariots veered away from Liko’s mercenaries as it was a feint and Mirpur’s Cataphracts shattered the haphazardly formed shieldwall, punching through Sir Rik’s counter charges in the most brutal cavalry on cavalry clash of that bloody afternoon.
>
> Sir Leonel Koel’s also nearing cavalry that was less than a kilometer away by now, chanced upon one of late Sir Pek’s mounted messengers and decided to rush to their assistance, but Sir Gust who rode ahead of him had spotted his brother’s black banners in the field, or the many crows flying over the visceral engagement and galloped that way instead under the dissonant croaks of hundreds of birds.
-
(Horus Mirpur)
Togo stopped a lance with his chest plate, the blade bending and slicing at the chainmail above his right leg, but Horus’ lance punched through the Crow’s shield and hurled him off of the saddle. The Cataphract yanked the reins hard to the left to disengage reaching for his flail and the warhorse shoved the Crow’s mount aside to leap over a broken corpse.
Another Crow cut him off, but Horus ducked under a sword slash and found the Issir knight’s kneepad with the flail. The metal buckled, destroying the bone and the Issir growled behind the helm’s visor, his hack clanging on the jerking away Horus’ chest without much force. The Cataphract grunted, trying to stay on the saddle while Togo moved them sideways dancing on his hooves between the arriving men and horses.
At the charge’s end, always disengage was the dictum, but they were too many bodies around to do it safely. Swords and spears were thrust at him from right and left, shields taking blows, helms denting and chainmail ruined by blades or maces. Arrows and bolts were peppering the men fighting it out as cohesion broke down and everyone tried to get himself out of trouble.
Or went looking for it.
Horus moved between Issirs and Horselords, switching his flail for a sword and intervened where he could to assist. He led Togo out of a cluster of fighting men, some of them on foot and hacked at a Lorian stumbling to get away. The soldier went down spraying blood all over the ground and Togo moved past him with an irritated neigh.
Api-Nofre rode next to him in the mayhem and his men forced the Crows back momentarily. Horus glanced at the chariots moving at a slow pace just outside the engagement and barked at them at the top of his lungs.
“Get in it damn you!”
“They can’t help here!” Api-Nofre argued and slapped his shoulder to show him the regrouping enemy Knights. Horus charge had hurt them badly but several amongst them appeared unwilling to retreat to safety and urged their comrades to fight on with spirited calls. “Their horses are shot. Bleeding at the mouth!” Api-Nofre growled showing him the red froth on their worn out enemies horses. “Make them move Ermin Suru,” his friend pleaded hoarsely. “And they’ll fall from the saddle.”
The tired Horus nodded and patted the snorting Togo’s mail-encased mane with a gloved hand. Then he pressed his thighs tightly to make the warhorse move at a slow trot again. The Cataphracts still able to follow after him did and they started galloping in a semi-circle, while the also regrouping Issirs, who had noticed their maneuver sprang to action. Those were mostly men still on the saddle that had managed to get out of the fierce melee still raging on.
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Horus intended to force the Crows to come after his men initially trying to close with them and after narrowing the angle fast, his Cataphracts would turn around and hit their ‘pursuers’ on the move.
Break them here, a tensed Horus thought galloping atop of the also tired Togo, though the warhorse had stopped complaining well-aware of the stakes, then help Perku. The road is almost clear.
The Crow Knights coming after them moved very slowly with some of their horses refusing to increase the tempo beyond a light trot and the Cataphracts turned around much easier than he anticipated. While the smoke coming from the burning woods and the dust was a problem, losing the light was a bigger one. In the dark, they wouldn’t be able to use the horses and if enemy infantry was around they would hold advantage unless Amir-Zeket or the Prince arrived finally.
Ape-Nofre raised his arm to signal that they were to gallop hard the moment the angle was favorable and most of the men secured fresh lances from their surviving servants that followed after them. Gero brought Horus another lance with a gesture that it was the last one available and the cantering Cataphract noticed that several of the Crow Knights had split from their group and were riding towards the woods. A knight with his hard riding squire barking and gesturing in an animated manner at the exiting the trees civilians.
Horus glanced that way and Togo sensing he was distracted got out of the formation, now compacting to form an attack wedge and slowly stayed behind the charging Cataphracts.
Noble Spirits, Horus hissed under his breath noticing Marleen standing near Maluph’s chariot to watch the nearby engagement unfold and kicked his legs to head that way, whilst to his south the Cataphracts clashed with the Crows head on.
The Crow Knight clad in dark engraved plate and a sinister, winged closed-visor helm was heading straight towards the motionless war-vehicles. It was as if he had noticed the noblewoman himself and seeing his wife’s drained of blood face, Horus realized Marleen had recognized the onrushing Knight as well.
Maluph saw the Issirs coming towards him and barked at Hortif who led the other chariot to cut them off. Hortif’s chariot started moving immediately creaking and clanging, rotating blades springing to action but the Issirs didn’t turn around or slowed down.
The greatly concerned Horus, still about forty meters away, galloped hard towards them, but failed to notice the swarms of black birds landing on the trees and the corpse-littered ground, with others flying low over the men still fighting in a big cluster on foot southwest of him and about fifty meters away just beyond Maluph’s slow-moving firing chariots, or to the southeast, where the Cataphracts clashed with the Issir Knights in another brutal cavalry duel.
The hundreds of birds perked up, black beady all-knowledgeable eyes blinking and then started croak and cackle with an increasing intensity as if they wanted to cover the sounds of battle.
Or the sound of many hooves from the arriving large mass of warhorses.
CAW
KRAA
CAW-CAW
Hortif downed a knight with a timely bolt shot that banged on his visor, but got skewered through the neck by the leading knight’s lance, his still hidden behind the smiling-mask head detaching from the charioteer’s shoulders in a thick torrent of blood. The Scaldingport knight’s horse cleared the rotating blades in a magnificent leap but his squire didn’t and was thrown from his gutted animal, with bloody pieces of flesh hurled right and left in a red mist that covered everyone nearby.
The other Issir knight killed the chariot’s archer and yanked hard right to hack at the driver, who let go of the reins and jumped down to attack him with a scimitar. Horus avoided the empty racing chariot narrowly and closed with the Issir knight lowering his lance, as the frothing Togo charged the last couple of meters.
To his right the Crow leader stopped a javelin hurled by Chuma, Maluph’s 2nd with his shield but got rushed by three arriving mounted scouts, Dumar, Nabil and Madaki, who forced him to use his longsword to fight them off.
A moment later Horus’ lance hit the other knight’s turning horse and buried itself into the hapless animal’s chest. Horus discarded the lance, turning Togo right and then left, while reaching for his sword. In the meantime, the Issir had cleared his collapsed animal and killed the charioteer with a savage hack to the chest that splintered the armour and revealed the groaning man’s gory lungs.
Horus rushed him but the Issir slashed at Togo, the blade cutting the warhorse above the knee through the chainmail. Togo neighed and shoved the Issir back, Horus hacking at the faltering knight brutally at the same time, but got his blade deflected. Togo leaped forward angrily and Horus managed to cut the Issir across the right arm dropping his sword. The knight picked it up with the left but was knifed in the back of the neck by Dumar, who had approached to assist Horus.
The groaning Issir went down, spilling blood through the holes of his visor and the knight leader fighting with Madaki and Nabil let out an incensed growl upon witnessing his friend collapse bereft of life.
“Adrian! Curse you!”
Dumar turned his steppe horse around, but then shuddered receiving a heavy blow to his left side just above the hip. It was delivered by a long-shafted axe from the knight leader’s squire –still breathing after his spectacular tumble- that had managed to sneak up on the scout leader in the chaos of the scrap.
“You little…” Dumar growled twisting around to hack at the manically clenching his bloody teeth teenager, but he failed and the squire’s heavy weapon landed on his left shin shattering the bone. Dumar’s lower leg detached in an explosion of gore and the severely wounded scout slipped from the saddle, probably losing consciousness from the traumatic shock and broke his neck when he landed badly between the disturbed horse’s legs.
Horus rushed the surviving knight, but Togo’s hurt leg bothered the skilled warhorse and messed with the Cataphract’s final angle of attack. The angry Crow hacked Nabil’s arm off at the elbow and half-turned his horse spotting Horus’ short charge out of the corner of his eye, despite the crow-shaped visor limiting him. Togo slammed the knight’s horse forcefully with his chest and tossed the Issir from the saddle, just as Nabil toppled due to severe blood loss from his.
“My Lord!” A tensed Madaki grunted in warning and Horus recoiled to avoid the axe that thudded on Togo’s left side, mauling the flesh and breaking the ribs there. The warhorse neighed in pain and kicked the teenager with its hind legs, a heavy hoof catching the yelping squire’s shoulder savagely. It hurled the teenager four meters away but then the horse’s legs buckled and Horus had to jump from the saddle to protect it.
“Marleen!” The stubbornly standing up Crow growled at the watching in shock Issir female. “Get your arse here woman!”
Horus glared at the Knight, while Gero jumped from his own horse, a young stallion Tiro, to tend to the injured Togo.
“Api-Nofre won,” the mud-covered Maluph Erul-Sol barked from atop his chariot ten meters away. He had his arm around Marleen’s shoulders. “Cardus has Aswad and the girls.” The Chariot leader added pointing at the slavers directing the civilians away on foot not five meters behind him. “I can take them away faster Horus.”
“Marleen!” The irate Crow growled, he had gone to check on his squire and was now returning near the Horselords unafraid. In a weird expression of Luthos’ favor, the moaning teenager, now with an arm dangling freely down his sides was miraculously still breathing. “Have you lost control of your senses?” The Scaldingport Knight roared arming his left arm with a long dagger. “I came here for you!”
“You came here to salvage your pride! The De Weer name!” An emotional Marleen retorted clenching her jaw. “I don’t want it! It brought me nothing but lonely years and shameful pain! You came here to unload even more suffering upon me Rik. Just let us go!”
“You’ll side with these savages? Over your own god darn people?” Rik grunted sounding strangled from the affront and Horus walked up to him with Madaki clicking his tongue to circle the furious knight and get a better shot from the bow he had armed himself with.
CAW
The birds cried in unison, just as Horus attacked. Rik parried the scimitar away and stabbed with his dagger wounding Horus above the forearm. Horus moved away and deflected the longsword’s slash, recoiling instinctively as he’d moved near the dagger, for a blow that never came. Rik had reacted slowly from that side and when an arrow broke apart on the left side of his chest the knight stumbled back.
“He’s blind from the left side!” Marleen informed Horus and Rik cursed irate. “I don’t want you to win Rik!” She screamed at the seething scion. “He’s my boy’s father!”
“Get her out of here!” Horus roared at the undecided Maluph, while the trotting on his horse Madaki fired another arrow at Rik who swatted it away angrily with his dagger. Api-Nofre’s Cataphracts were heard returning behind him and Horus glanced that way to watch the Horselords getting intercepted by a large host of men-at-arms wearing Gray Cloaks and Issir armour.
Noble Spirits! Horus thought dismayed upon witnessing these fresh Crows crash on the weary column of Cataphracts that was caught unawares in the confusion. Api-Nofre’s men were scattered and Maluph’s remaining six chariots –hanging at the periphery of the other scrap still raging just over thirty meters away- moved to assist sounding a horn of alarm.
“LEAVE!” Horus growled at Marleen and Maluph while fending off Rik that attacked again, closing the distance.
“I can’t!” The noblewoman snapped and shrieked in warning, her voice filled with preternatural terror, but even so she was drown out under the croaks and the thundering of many hooves digging at the ground.
CAW-CAW
Horus slashed Rik across the chest, but the Crow’s blade thudded on his left shoulder and bit at the flesh there shattering the clavicle bone, afore dropping him to a knee. Horus groaned in horrible pain and Rik stepped forward raising his sword to cut his head off. Marleen screamed at the top of her lungs, Madaki’s timely arrow splintered on the knight’s helm, snapping it back and Horus managed to roll out of the downing longsword’s way.
Horus faltered trying to get on his feet but the exertion, heavy armour and his bleeding injury worked against him. Still the Cataphract slowly got up to his feet grinding his teeth, helped by the heroic Gero that bought him the time by diving in front of Rik’s blade. Rick’s sword gutted the slave, getting in from the right side and emptying the gurgling Gero’s innards upon exiting from the left.
“UHER PLEASE!” Marleen screamed besides herself and Horus tried to locate Rik through blurry eyes with the ground shaking under his feet. Madaki who had rounded the Scaldingport knight firing arrow after arrow on him, twisted on the saddle alarmed with his bow half-drawn, as one of the arriving cloaked Knights had veered off from the bigger scrap happening not that far away to their south and charged at full speed against them.
The especially heavy-set Knight, clad in heavy dark plate armour that resembled Rik’s, but with a long grey cloak billowing freely behind him, was riding a nibble steppe’s horse, too small for his large frame and carried no lance or spear. The man had a longsword on his extended right arm and went straight for the bewildered Madaki.
The scout fired an arrow in panic and then the charging knight swung his beefy arm and decapitated Madaki’s hapless horse, his angled parallel to the ground savage blade catching the recoiling in terror scout right above the hips and chopped him off in two as well alike a piece of firewood succumbing to an axe’s blade.
Once you climb on the saddle to ride in search of war, the palaces of Rin An-Pur shall fade from your memory. Aye. For you’ll be a true Horselord once again and trouble shall find you, his father Lord Mirpur had told him and his brother Cephas, upon their departure from Eplas years back now. War and its creatures shall seek you out.
Horus stood up staring feverishly at the knight that had blasted through the butchered Madaki and charged pressing brutally with his knees to force the scared, gore-covered horse to keep its course towards the wounded Cataphract. Horus timed his slash and scored a deep gush on the charging animal’s head whilst moving out of the way. The horse recoiled but the Scaldingport knight stayed on the saddle despite its reaction and managed to stop it yanking at the reins so hard the horse fainted or died outright and then collapsed on its weakened legs.
“Eh,” the over six-feet tall, bulky knight grunted hoarsely and jumped from the saddle sounding quite pissed off.
Rik went to cut off the approaching Horus but Api-Nofre’s horse shoved him out of the way, with the arriving blood-covered Cataphract yelling at Horus through his mask.
“Leave my lord! I've got this,” Api-Nofre implored turning to defend against Rik’s attacks.
No you don’t, Horus thought pensively, in response to his old friend’s words. You can’t beat them both on your own Api.
Horus glanced at the shuddering Marleen, violently pushed on the chariot by a sullen Maluph, who stared in turn at the Mirpur scion with querying eyes.
“Gust!” Rik growled. “It’s Marleen!”
“Um,” Gust grunted and eyed Chuma as if measuring him up. The charioteer had moved against the thickset knight holding a halberd at Maluph’s silent orders, instead of returning on the ready to depart chariot.
“Please!” Marleen pleaded, fighting to free herself from Maluph’s arms. “Gust I have a baby!”
Chuma swung the long weapon confidently at the thoughtful, standing still knight, but Gust raised his left arm and grabbed it under the blade as it came down, while moving aside deceptively fast for his bulky size. Chuma grunted at the near miss, made to retrieve his weapon with both hands from Gust’s steely grip, but failed and the knight yanked the startled Horselord forward towards him, placing his sword in the yelping charioteer’s way.
The blade penetrated Chuma’s chest and exploded out of the back with a torrent of blood, turning this way and that for maximum damage. Gust discarded the dead Chuma, grabbing him by the collar and tossing him away like a sack of rocks. Then he took a large step forward towards the carriage, after a brief glance at Rik who was duking it out with the still mounted Api-Nofre.
These are the De Weer scions, Horus thought and moved to bar Gust’s way determined to stop him. Behind him Maluph nodded in understanding, though Horus missed it focused on the mountainous Crow.
Don’t sully your ancestors’ name. Be a Horselord and only take that which you’ve honestly gained after a bloody struggle.
KRAA
Horus slashed at Gust, but the knight parried and retaliated with a vicious hack that Horus’ blade barely intercepted with fat sparks erupting from their swords when they connected briefly. Gust’s sword came back again without pause and Horus turned his torso with a pained grunt, to get his legs under him. He managed to place his long scimitar in the sword’s way, angled to get a deflection, but realized a sharp moment later that Gust’s sword had been buried under his armpit instead. It had gone through his own blade, the plate-reinforced chainmail, and then the flesh, whilst ruining his internal organs and collapsing the chest cavity.
Horus’ mouth flooded with blood, with more splashing down his legs when Gust retrieved his blade. The latter giving a strange shine in the setting sun’s dwindling light.
Ah. What do you know, a numb, catastrophically injured, Horus thought impressed and a little curious, whilst in the background Maluph’s chariot raised a great ruckus as it started to move away, over Marleen’s heart-breaking shrieks.
“Imperial steel. You did well lad,” a somber Gust informed the fainting behind his bloody smiling mask Horus and then chopped the brave Cataphract’s head clean off of his shoulders.
image [https://i.postimg.cc/gzJ0vd4Q/Castalor-Radin-arc-v2.png]
2nd Battle of Even Fork, early evening of the 3rd of Tertius
-
> earlier that morning
> KRAA
>
> God darn arthritis, Ruud thought sourly, veined eyes ogling at the maid’s hindquarters as she cleaned his field bed. It was a hostel’s bed but still, it sort of counted according to the old Duke.
>
> KRAA
>
> The large raven protested, its beak striking at the glass of the closed window.
>
> “Fuck off!” Ruud cursed, coughing up a splotch of phlegm that was about the size of a cupcake on the floor. Good. I got the worst part out! The maid stared at the Duke shocked and Ruud, showed her his worn-out yellow teeth in a sly grin. “Got yer attention, didn’t?” He told her and the local girl gulped down nervously.
>
> “It did, milord Duke. It’s so big,” she croaked, through flushed dark cheeks and heaving a young provincial bosom.
>
> Ah, plenty of milk ye had from yer sharp-eyed mother.
>
> “You like big things yes?” Ruud asked teasingly. “I’ve got something—”
>
> “OLD TURD!” The large raven protested from outside the window interrupting Ruud’s lewd musings and the Duke groaned in deep frustration, then in similar pain as he attempted to stand up from the chair.
>
> “You need help milord Duke?” The maid asked eagerly and Ruud looked at her genuinely intrigued at the prospect.
>
> I’ve got plenty left in the tank.
>
> “SHIT FOR BRAINS!” Bugs bellowed hoarsely, striking and scratching at the glass furious.
>
> Ruud cursed, his wrinkled face distorting and went to open the window to allow the large bird to get inside his quarters. Quarters, it was a hostel really, but he’d ‘rented’ the whole building.
>
> “What do you want?” Ruud grunted when the large, well over a meter in height, equally frustrated raven leaped inside.
>
> “WATERMELON!” An angry Bugs declared tipping his head back, and then proceeded to look about him energetically for a while. It ended with the vicious bird assaulting the screaming, scared out of her wits, young maid with its large beak to get her out of the room.
>
> Ruud stared at the bird’s black beady eyes sourly.
>
> “What brought you back to my old arse?” He asked and went to pick up his timeworn sword. Ruud had the blade for seventy years or thereabouts. Well, the handle he’d replaced a couple of times and the blade had been reforged once… eh, twice? Anyways, it was a good fucking weapon.
>
> Talking of old parts, not every part of him had been awaken fully, and some parts would take a while or even the whole day depending on the plaguing weather, but Ruud had learned to navigate old age by not giving a fuck about it.
>
> Come to think of it, the last part was his standard attitude since his youth.
>
> “Timus Toes,” the raven croaked switching to his normal speech. Bugs would speak to you, if you had a piece of brain that worked. Else he would appear in your dreams, try his luck there. Ruud had put a stop to the raven’s annoying intricacies early on in his reign.
>
> If the Others wanted a talk, they should get an appointment like everyone else!
>
> “Toes is dead for centuries.” Ruud grunted hoarsely, trying to get his hurting fingers to work on the belt’s fastener and failing. “Fucking hells!”
>
> “This is our land. Duke Henk swore an oath!” Bugs snapped, clacking his beak angrily and dragging his wings on the floor. “The Duke should move.”
>
> Duke Henk had been dead for about the same years as the ancient warlord of Scaldingport’s past.
>
> Ruud let go of the fastener hearing a knock on the door, the maid had closed on her way out.
>
> “The Duke is too old to take a plaguing crap without falling backwards into the blasted latrine!” He grunted, then barked. “YES!” Afore adding just to keep any strange thoughts off the bird’s skull. “Having said that, I’m still young enough.”
>
> “You’re not!” Bugs argued with a snort.
>
> “Look who’s fucking talking! Anyways, I’ve no one to take over,” Ruud snapped back just as Don Fliers entered. The sergeant-at-arms wasn’t a spring chicken exactly and furrowed his brows comically seeing the bird depositing a black round turd on the floor.
>
> “You have plenty,” Bugs croaked –either heirs or turds- and watched at Fliers intently with one eye closed.
>
> “He knows you talk, fucking turd-releasing numbskull,” Ruud grunted and glared at the Scaldingport officer austerely. “You pick this up now Don. There’s a good lad,” he told the officer. “I’m fixing to make a good impression upon Kaiser’s daughter. Can’t have her think I’m crapping on the floor eh?”
>
> Fliers blinked in shock. “Riet is not sixteen yet milord,” he croaked.
>
> “I’m almost eighty five myself,” Ruud retorted pursing his wrinkled mouth. “So I’ve got plenty of years for the both of us.”
>
> “The Queen,” Fliers proceeded and Ruud stopped him with an angry gesture.
>
> “The Queen will understand,” the Duke warned his subject. “It’s not like she’s not sleeping around herself. Did I make a big deal about it? Hmm? Nope. Well then,” Ruud cleared his throat and spat another something that had lodged there, not as big as the previous one.
>
> “Your grandson,” Fliers insisted and Ruud stopped him again.
>
> “What’s the matter with you? I’ve plenty of grandsons. Be more fucking specific!”
>
> “The Heir sir.”
>
> Ruud pursed his mouth. “The kid croaked?”
>
> “No milord,” Fliers replied, seemingly horrified at the thought. “The Queen left him with the Eunuch.”
>
> “So? I’m about to head there myself. It’s a half-hour ride,” Ruud dismissed the still trying to speak officer’s report and walked gingerly around the sullen raven to reach the door. “See to use a cloth to gather the turd. You don’t want…” the Duke paused and turned to glare at the demoralized Fliers sternly. “When you say the Queen left Reinut with the cock-tamer, you mean… she went for a walk?”
>
> “No milord duke,” a discomforted Fliers responded looking at Bugs droppings, with the raven returning the officer’s stare with a good-measure of reserved suspicion.
>
> “A hunt? It’s early. Didn’t think she had it in her, what with all the cock riding,” Ruud chanced speaking freely and Bugs blinked opening its black beak to talk as well.
>
> A splinter in the gonads. Fucking raven, Ruud cursed inwardly just as Fliers and Bugs replied talking at the same time, but in different tones, meaning and fashion.
>
> “The worried Queen is headed for the frontline milord,” Fliers said respectfully playing it down, which was always a bad thing.
>
> “TITS FOR BRAINS!” Bugs bellowed unable to keep it in, using a variation of his earlier yell to fit the subject and ended it with a sharp but vague order. “MOVE THE TURD!”
>
>
>
> Or move old turd, as Fliers seemed to remember the scene playing out differently than the Duke.
>
>