3.3 The Battle to End It All
By the second week, Silven had decided that proper wars were silly things.
At first, it had seemed that there was just no way to hold onto his, er, holdings. All anyone went on about was siege engines the size of small castles, tearing down walls, and glorious marches across the ramparts. Simitest had made their first move by marching straight for Solmond City, and Treken had made his second by wisely withdrawing in the face of city watch opposition, his ranks swelled by hardcore Fireline haters promised a good old log fire in the south. So, the capital was Silverlink’s, but everywhere else gradually wasn’t. Despite Silven’s brave defence, Thornyhedge quickly yielded to a battering ram ten times the size of its windmill. Gigglewick unfortunately followed suit, though was quickly given up on account of the king’s army finding a mere pair of habitable homes. Watchtowers in the Capital Foothills fell left, right and centre to catapults carefully drawn up behind impenetrable trees. And then, by the end of the first week, the king’s forces marched on its first great target.
Captain Cretwell marched eight hundred good men up the mountain slopes to settle in the stinking old shambles of Shitpeak. They were the butt of a barrage of unbearably distasteful jokes hurled down from the houses of Stonepeak far above.
The jokes ended when Cretwell swept through the town and unfurled the king’s banner.
Silven responded by leading three hundred of his finest troops to the rescue and retook the town.
The next day, Stonepeak was once again the king’s.
The following morning, the Silverlink banner stood proud.
Cretwell emptied his wallet, built ten more megatowers overnight, and sauntered to certain victory.
It was then that Silven realised it was all a bit of a farce, and that he really only needed to press his troops into the town square by the market cross to keep control. The king’s forces waddled round the lake for a bit, raping and pillaging, and eventually got the message that the bit of stone in the middle wasn’t going without a fight and promptly retreated. Stonepeak was saved.
Elsewhere, Dasat completely destroyed an invading force of five hundred in the streets of Greenholme by throwing back his gates every few minutes and cutting off the great host into little tiny batches. The fifteen Firebreaker wall-drills were quickly abandoned at the sight of an open route, and three southern lords and their knights gladly queued for the chance of an easy entry through the bottleneck of death. The Massacre of the Gate was the day the tide turned.
Defence went from impossible to a certainty. The age of sieges was quickly at an end. There was no point advancing on Bluebay and Rockborough and Southcastle for the massacre to be returned in kind. Today was the day of open battle.
Silven decided to fast-travel only to the supply train on that bright morning. He had the curious notion from somewhere or other that as general of a mighty army, he had to plod through it all, glower at his men, and pretend they weren’t ready. “They’re not ready,” he growled to Simitest, head of the rearguard, as he stalked through the immense valley camp.
“We’re ready as we’ll ever be,” replied the dashing engineer confidently. “Dasat has assessed the situation, concluded that this is the Battle To End It All, and pulled all our garrisons out of the towns. Thirteen-hundred battle-hardened men in total. There’ll be no more fighting for us anywhere after today, one way or another.”
“One way or another...” mumbled Silven thoughtfully. He reached the edge of the dirt-splattered tents and assessed the all-important base, a neat little brick tower from another Battle To End It All long ago. “So this is it? I fall, or this does, and it’s over?” He approached the mailed sergeant at its gate. “Hail! We’ve got a bit of time yet. Improve the defences.”
The sergeant gazed back, uncertain. “Well, sir, there’s a variety of improvements we can make, for a bit of coin.” He pointed to an open ledger by the entrance. “Red tapestries, to match the blood of our enemies? A little herb garden at the rear, to soothe pre-battle nerves? For a bit more, I could always add a few gargoyles for a little field cred.”
Silven walked on.
The valley opened onto a perfectly circular moor, with a perfectly circular lake in the middle. Two identical valleys flowed off the expanse at perfect 120 degree angles. “If the gods demand fairness, why don’t we get a hill?” Silven muttered. “How many does the king still have?”
“Recent estimates suggest another two hundred reserves up from the south. Three and a half thousand, in all.”
Silven grunted. “Off to the right, as far as that standard shows. The question is... who takes the third valley?” For that, Simitest had no answer. The pair pressed on through the throngs of soldiers, further onto the field. It was a worrying thought. Was Carlax to run down the victors after all?
The field was empty as Silven stepped from the shade of the trees onto the plain, the armour of Yashurwil glowing like a ball of flame all too dramatically. Then, three and a half thousand screaming soldiers charged towards the valley. “Damn!” cursed Simitest, hefting his golden spear. “Did the king walk up to us?”
Silven turned his head to the side as he considered. All the noise of the charge was making it horribly hard to think. “Well, we were at the valley already, but he did send a couple of skirmishers over last night...”
“Fizzlerats! First blood! He claimed the battleground, and so by the code of war he reserved the right to ambush,” lectured Simitest. At present, the lecture was a bit unhelpful. “Rally the troops. I’ll pull back to base.” He turned and hurried off as a cloud of arrows whistled by all around the pair.
Silven adjusted his helm and stared left and right. The king’s host filled the basin from vertical edge to vertical edge. A shining rectangle of plated regulars closed in dead ahead; rabbles of ragged reserves struggled to keep up on either side, and the thundering horses of the royal cavalry roared along the flanks. There were lines of archers behind, and beyond that, a score of rather confused sappers hurried along with an enormous siege ladder. Only a direct order from a commander could disband units, and Treken was a busy man.
Silven drew his sword reluctantly, turned and ordered his men into place. Dasat sprinted up with a handful of eye-patched veterans, circling their general with axes aloft. “We’re all going to die, we’re all going to die, the kings gonna bake us in a steaming victory pie,” the sword of Gnomeania greeted him.
“My sentiments exactly,” agreed Silven. “Dasat, bring up the pikemen on the flanks, hold the cavalry until our foot gets in position. We’ll hold the main body. Charge!” The men screamed as they met the soldiers with a sickening crack.
There were only seventeen axe veterans; Silven hadn’t had time to train more. But the unit did hold six experience medals, and therefore they proved hideously hard to kill with cold steel. It was a fair fight - once the enemy archers got their customary two volleys off and sat down for a spot of tea, the foot closed in obediently and the melee began in earnest. Seventy of the king’s elite went down in circular clumps to the swirls of the veterans’ axes. Then, their special attack energy ran out and Silven ordered them all to sit down in single file to hold off Treken’s advance a little longer. Five were hauled to their feet and butchered despite their furious kicking before the company infantry stepped over the survivors into the fray. Silven rose, cut a man in half with a lazy flick of the wrist, and bowed out to assess the situation. The other Generals of the Four Legs were reacting well to the ambush. Olgred had appeared from somewhere behind and arranged their pikemen into two phalanxes on the flanks. The sacred triangle of the melee was complete – squadrons of cavalry charged into the wall of points and flopped down enthusiastically into the churned soil. The rest drew back and looked for openings to chop at the central swordsmen, but their own men were inadvertently holding them back for now. At the sight of the retreat, Simitest was moving units of stragglers into the central bloodbath and edging his auxiliaries forward, ready to pounce. The smaller force had held up well against the unexpected onslaught.
Silven watched anxiously. The centres of the armies rushed mercilessly against each other time and again. Men politely found a likely partner from the opposing side, stepped into a suitable space away from the crowds, and waved their weapon at their foe until one of them was dead. Silven’s stomach dropped as he understood. Today, the ritual was something he couldn’t afford.
Before long, all his good men had found weapon waving pals. And that meant the larger host had free men to push forward through the pairs. On Silverlink’s left, the right-hand enemies forced themselves through to the other side, turned, and hacked at the back of the phalanx. The pikemen wheeled round to meet their foe with all the gusto of a clock hand. The left flank disintegrated. The king’s cavalry flew through the opening. Simitest barked an order, pointed a table leg, realised it was a table leg, drew his sword instead, and marched the reserves into battle. Horse met man and trampled flesh underhoof.
“Sing with me! The day is lost, the minnows all dead, the king will dine on Silven’s lumpy head!” chortled the sword.
“I do not have a lumpy head!” snarled Silven. He power-warped the way clear to the remaining phalanx and found Olgred dancing between two axes at the front. “About turn,” he snapped at his general. “Ninety degrees anti-clockwise. Poke furiously, men! Rally the troops.” Little by little, the phalanx obeyed, the vicious pikes diving into the sea of bloodied men. Points found the king’s men and opened throats and jugulars. Points found Silven’s and pushed them unharmed to the centre to regroup. From somewhere up ahead, he made out a rhythmic chant, but no more.
“Break through!” he yelled to the knot of swordsmen in the middle. As royal soldiers screamed and sank to the red grass, the infantry broke free. Archers cursed and dropped their biscuits in their haste to draw knives, but it was too late. A dozen of Silven’s chargers went down under a scalding haze of caffeinated beverages, but the slaughter had begun in earnest. “Wohooo!” cried Olgred above the savagery. “The ladder’s down. A tiny victory for logic has been won this day.”
With a cheer, the phalanx surged forward and pressed into the centre of the king’s infantry. Silven embraced his haggard comrade and wordlessly slunk away from the advance. He needed to see how Simitest’s auxiliaries were holding up. One horse away to the base, and the day was lost.
He never got the chance to behold the struggling reserves. The rhythmic chanting grew louder. “Five.... four.... three... two.... one.... they’ve arrived. Fall back!” came a cry from beyond the beleaguered archers. Treken’s battered host staggered away, merged into lines, and sauntered off for the lake behind them. Dasat’s vanguard began to give chase. “Hold!” roared Silven, sheathing his sword. “Reform. Be cautious. We need to take stock of this horseplay.”
“Neigh!” moaned a riderless destrier as it galloped past across the bodies.
“No offence, sir. But we do need to be careful,” Silven added.
Blessed space opened up in the field of battle. Swordsmen groaned and limped back into formation; Olgred began the laborious process of shouting at the remaining phalanx twenty times to break up; healers came running from camp to see to the fallen. Bodies from both sides littered the grass like autumn leaves. Finally, the four generals convened behind their troops.
“They’ve arrived?” groaned Simitest. “So we were right to worry all along. How many men have we lost?”
Dasat scanned the survivors. “Around two-hundred, I reckon. Treken’s lost double, but we can’t afford that sort of attrition.” He knelt and cut away a strip of trailing leather from his gouged leg.
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Silven and Olgred stood silent. The companions shared a secret glance as Simitest babbled on about recruiting reinforcements from the farms. The countdown still rattled in their minds.
Finally, their fears were answered. The empty valley suddenly blazed with bobbing banners far above the trees. “Red thumbs up? It’s not Carlax,” muttered Silven as a sea of forms emptied into the plain on its far edge.
Dasat stared, then turned and yelled for a horn. But it was too late. Almost immediately, a mournful note rang out from the king’s camp, and the standards turned blue. “Curses!” Dasat spluttered. “So close. Almost had those reinforcements. I never thought about other factions.”
“I’m sure they had some deal in mind before heading off to death and glory,” Silven called as the mercenary stormed off to his veterans’ cooking pot.
Simitest glanced sideways. “You do know the code of war?”
“Before leading an immense host into a climatic clash deciding the fate of Oldeburgh forever? Absolutely,” snapped Silven. He turned away angrily, but Olgred clutched at his shoulder. “What?” he shouted. Then he saw.
The Host of the Thumb was advancing. It was not normal.
A scattering of shapes and colours and sizes met the eye. Knights in black took the flanks upon black horses. Bulbous frogmen with tridents waddled along the centre. Ponderous beasts carried towers of archers just behind. Here and there, pockets of rebels marched alongside sorcerers huddled in flapping robes, with werewolves in painful pants, with neatly sliced cubes of blackcurrant jelly. And everyone, even the things without mouths, were all chanting the same thing as they closed.
“We want to fight! We want to fight! We’ve been ignored but to fight is our right!”
The clamour went on, a raucous chorus that, as they desired, could not be ignored. Off to the right, Captain Cretwell led his reserve spears up past the lake, guarding a bank of rolling catapults, but Silven barely took notice. “Ride with me, Olgy,” he said.
“Don’t you mean-”
“Battle, remember? We’ll have to do it the boring way.”
Together, the generals acquired a pair of fresh horses, cursed those endless turnips as they huffed and puffed by the stirrups, and plodded ahead of their army on foot. Their men, loyal as ever, reformed and edged onwards towards the lake.
The new army was endless. By the time the generals met its head, the rear was still emerging from the valley. Off to the left, a globular form rose from its deckchair, folded a sheet-like magazine, and donned its battle slippers. “They have a lawn troll,” Olgred observed simply. There was no need for fear. Death would come soon, unless....
“Are you really allied to those southern buffoons?” declared Silven incredulously when the warty amphibians came into hearing range.
“Yes,” they warbled.
Silven nodded glumly. “Death is coming soon.”
The armies halted. Cretwell’s reserves prepared the catapults. The main bulk of the king’s host gathered in their valley and waited. Together, the blue banners numbered eight thousand or more.
There was a rustle of steel. A whinny of horses. The enemy looked on.
“Errrr, this is awkward,” called Silven. He shook off his helm and handed it to Olgred. “Isn’t this the part where you sweep down and wipe us off the map?”
“No,” warbled the tallest frogman. “We stand and wait for your charge.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” scoffed Silven. “About turn, men. Away from this place. Some of us might get out.”
“I think you might find a big slab of rock in the pass now,” whispered Olgred in his ear. “You did read the code of war, didn’t you? This is the Battle To End It All.”
“Oh,” Silven sighed back. “Let’s end it.”
He unleashed his sword. “Slimey McSlimester from Flysucker Bog-“ it began.
“Hang on,” Silven interrupted. He took a step forward, as if truly seeing for the first time. “What in Shadowdeep is this? Who are you all?” He gestured at a cloaked giant clutching a stone warhammer. “Why are you here, sir?”
“Ignored,” grunted the giant in a gravelly voice.
“And you, Slimey- err, sir?”
“You should have challenged us long ago,” bubbled the frogman. “That kidnapped girl has been sitting there for a year now. Waste of fly stew, she is. You should’ve got ‘er while you had the chance.”
“And you, in the poncho?”
A robed wizard strode forward and raised his hands dramatically. “We meet, again, hero. This time there’s nowhere to hide. Mwahaha!”
“Shhh,” hissed someone behind him.
Silven blinked. “I’ve never met you in my life.” He reeled suddenly as the earth shifted beneath his feet. A sea of hands and claws waved in front as the rabble struggled to keep its balance.
“Back off, master, it’s not safe,” moaned Olgred. A shiver ran through the soil once more. “What is it?” Silven gasped.
“It’s an omen of your doom!” boomed a hooded figure from the second row.
But Silven was not finished. The voice brought back memories, distant memories of paper mountains in a musty cathedral far from here. “Well then, Mister Whateverborn, you can hardly claim to be ignored! We’re press-ganging your brothers left right and centre for charitable causes. And, now that I recall, isn’t your Fellowship a royal office? Did you ever report your suspicions about our involvement in the Glitch to higher powers?”
“Yes,” boomed Brother Whateverborn, stepping forward. “Seeing as you’re going to die, I may as well witter on about all our plans, thus giving you an opportunity to delay until the tables are turned, before you die. The king was most concerned with your meddling. He knew he was losing the war against the rebels, so he’s been using your resources ever since to regain the upper hand, knowing any moment he need only take you out to stop the rise of Silverlink. He has many informers willing to do it, you know. Beggars, soldiers, potion purveyors....”
“Eleganto!” whispered Silven. Then, he frowned. “So that’s what that bottle of skulls was all about. Yet... it doesn’t make any sense. Why try to poison me then? I was poised to eliminate the greatest single threat to the crown, unless he counted me based on all that baseless speculation of yours. So either he wants me dead first, and gives me, I don’t know, a water resistance potion for Zolar to finish me off after his poison fails, or doesn’t try to kill me until after that quest at all. It was almost like some sort of clever side-test to point me to the truth.” The ground rumbled again. Silven staggered closer. “And what about after? We had Carlax powerless; the war was practically over. There was no need for all this. The king had me in the palm of his hand. Eleganto’s a council member, I’m the Academy Dean. A simple private meeting would have done for me. And yet I’ve not been called to Desert Marsh since.”
A crack ruptured the ground beneath Silven’s feet. He dropped to his knees and looked into solid darkness. It only looked an inch deep. “Enough. Forward, creatures!” spluttered a frogman. The army burst into life. The mercenaries of Silverlink raised their weapons and hurried forth to their leaders’ aid.
The black cavalry closed in from the flanks. Silven edged back across the crack. “Hi!” said Olgred. “Master, it’s the Terrorknights of the Black Shadow again. Say, haven’t you supposed to have been murdering us every time we’ve left Overwall?”
“Oh, yeah,” laughed the lead knight from atop his charger. Then, the ground exploded beneath him with the crack to end all cracks.
Soil and pebbles showered across the battlefield. Silven and Olgred went sailing through the air into the first line of their swordsmen. Soldiers opened their mouths to shout, but Silven heard nothing. He did, however, feel the earthquake.
The crack was expanding at an alarming rate. The flat blackness yawned beneath. The Terrorknights of the Black Shadow tried to reign up their horses as they slipped on the liquid mud, tumbled into the hole, clattered onto the black plain, and vanished at the impact. The chasm reached out to the frogmen as they scattered, tendrils of pure darkness opening under their flippers. As the amphibians began to fall, there was another jolt. Miniature gorges raced up the flanks where the knights had been seconds before. The field beneath the enemy began to turn sideways towards the gaping hole. Writhing creatures slid towards their doom as the back lines jumped to safety.
The ringing in Silven’s ears died back. “I knew I should have finished you when I had the chance,” roared the wizard, menacing eyes fixed on his quarry. He wobbled forth, blue sparks flickering around his fingers. The hooded brother joined him and tugged at his sleeve. “Arule, get back! The Glitch has arrived. The reckoning has begun.”
The wizard wrenched free. “Fool! This is no glitch. A plotslide, if the legends be true. And there’s only one way to stop it.” He raised a glowing fist, desperate eyes fixed on Silven as the warrior squirmed for balance in the quaking mud. The bolt of energy crackled and extended towards its target. Thankfully, it stopped when the giant lost its footing and crashed downwards onto Arule’s silver head. Noiselessly, the pair rolled towards the black pit and disappeared from existence.
The danger jolted Silven back to reality. He found his feet, and reached fearfully for Olgred. The general was out cold, a bloody trickle congealing in his hair, but there was nothing he could do now. He motioned for the closest mercenary to carry his friend to safety, and turned to the field with fresh eyes. No time to think about what he was seeing in front. The landslide was busy rocking away those trapped upon the island of grass, but many had reached safety beyond. Treken’s host off to the right had just begun to march. Now was the time to strike.
“Freedom!” he screamed, raising his sword for all to see. He sprinted for the right side of the chasm, and with a deafening roar, his soldiers rushed behind him. Up ahead, the lawn troll cracked its knuckles and lumbered on. It was at least sixteen feet tall, sunglasses perched atop a shaggy forehead, slippers gently crushing the ground beneath immense feet. “This is madness!” squealed a footman just behind. “Nonsense,” Silven called. “He’s very dangerous, I wager. So naturally, he’s only going to be able to amble. All power must be balanced.”
He was right. The troll raised a barrel-like bottle of wine like a club and spat. The infantry edged to the side and trotted around to the right. “Uuuuhhh?” said the troll, cocking its head like a sloth. It turned, ready to strike, but the thirteen-hundred troops were already upon its kin of the thumbs-up.
The assembled foes were not prepared after their lucky escape. The mercenaries were among them like savage hounds, slicing jelly and snapping tridents as they went. Silven had paused to enjoy a particularly appetising beheaded apricot dessert when Simitest found him. His armour was covered in dents, but the man seemed rather unharmed, and his smile was so broad that it even managed to lift the ends of that drooping brush above his lip. “The swordsmen have killed enough,” he called above the clatter of battle. “They’re ready to upgrade.”
“Oh?” Silven managed around the jelly.
“I thought I’d leave the choice to you. A point more armour, or transformation into machine-archers of persuasion.”
“Huh?” said Silven.
“I’d highly recommend the latter.”
Silven was persuaded. So were the remnants of the host. In the blink of an eye, the swordsmen had drawn back, gleaming crossbows at the ready, and unleashed a storm of bolts into their foes. Those foes promptly turned a sickening shade of green, high-fived the attackers, and trotted off towards Cretwell’s catapults. “Interesting,” murmured Silven as he carefully embraced a sticky frog and joined the charge. “These new-fangled ‘machine-bows’, was it? I think we’ve brought peace at last. Give the city guards a ranged weapon each, and we’ll soon see the end to brutality in the streets.”
“Indeed,” puffed Simitest by his side. “But first, let’s worry about all the angry men trying to kill us, shall we?”
Cretwell didn’t last long. Silven’s dream of peace would have to wait. The frogs and giants and dwarves of the green were upon them before he could bring his machine bows to bear. The catapults did their best, but the king had obviously forgotten to cancel his last order of ammunition after the start of the war, and the bouquets-worth of kittens Trashbag had substituted only delayed the oncoming force for the length of a three w ‘awww.’ Incidentally, that day, the great observer Sargus of Dasat’s mercenaries founded the great work of the Silicarco Cattery, and its pioneering strides in the precise measurements of cuteness.
Frustratingly, Cretwell himself refused to yield even when surrounded by hordes of jeering monsters with but a tenth of his strength remaining to him. “What is it with the stubbornness of bosses?” Silven questioned over his lifeless body when his patience had grown too thin. He looked out past the abandoned siege weapons into the advancing thousands of Treken.
Simitest and Dasat were at his side. Humans danced with dwarves over the corpses. Frogs crouched and waited for flies to settle on the puddles of blood. He sighed contentedly. “A fine victory!” he declared to the exhausted force. “There’s just one little job left.” He shouted for his machine archers to draw up in the face of the massive army before him. “For freedom! Persuaders, persuade!”