Leybound wore no uniforms, and they had no ranks. All they had were blackened hands from the residue of the arcane leylines that stained their ragged clothes, faces, long hair, beards, and even the heavy manacles clamped around their wrists. Most looked like coal miners fresh from the pit. Though one looked ready for the mortuary cart. What they all shared was the look of soldiers who had made it through a battle. Men robbed of joy.
In their sullen glares, Riot saw troublemakers, drinkers, murderers, thieves, and thugs. Men he’d lived and fought beside all his life.
He’d been a fool to think that he might gain anything from this. Roveran might have risen up, but Riot knew he was now one of the damned, living the nightmare that Gerrard Price had been running from.
Riley, resplendent in his new uniform, guided his horse forward to address the sixty men who stood shivering in the prison yard. “This is Sergeant Riot. You might know him by reputation as the last man of Ivensrook!”
At the mention of his name Riot stopped scratching his arm. The Leybound exchanged looks of confusion. Someone muttered a joke, and the others chuckled. Only Loic, the young northman, stared at Riot, unblinking.
“I’ve told Sergeant Riot to work you hard,” Riley declared, slapping his riding crop into his gloved hand for extra emphasis. “I’ve told him not to spare the rod! So those that fall behind will feel the heat of his wrath.”
Riot's body was an empty husk, and he held one trembling hand with the other. The heat of his wrath burned not hotter than a snuffed out candle.
“Lieutenant Fitz, release the hounds and get them armed,” Riley called.
“Yessir,” the small manservant replied.
Fitz moved along the row, and the manacles clanged to the floor. The Leybound rubbed their sore wrists and muttered darkly as they pulled rusted swords from a barrel and searched in a pile of old boots, clothing and leather armour. Riot reached for his own sword hilt, cursing under his breath as he remembered he still wasn’t armed. He pulled a battered jerkin out of the pile. It had a burned hole in the chest and a bloom of dried blood had seeped into the leather. He threw it back.
“Sergeant Riot, form them up on me,” Riley declared.
“What's the mission, sir?” Riot asked.
“Top secret,” Riley said, tapping his fat nose.
The Arcanist heeled his horse out of the prison gate, and Quinn nudged her own horse after him. Riot gave the order to march and brought up the rear of the ragged file.
Riot realized he was scratching at his arm again and stopped. See him now, the last man, weak as a kitten in a den of lions.
Riley led them to the outer defenses of the citadel of Helgan’s Rest. After the chaos of the retreat, fifteen-foot high ramparts of earth had been hastily thrown up around the city. From the other side, Riot could hear shouts, whistles, trumpeting, and the thrumming of horses' hooves on frozen ground. There must be a whole regiment out there at least. A dangerous move. In the last week, the Mazral army could have marched all the way to the city.
A tunnelled gateway led through the earthworks, and Ritta Kerne stood beside it, flanked by the two wikkan girls.
“Why the blazes didn’t you tell him to wait?” Riley exclaimed.
Ritta Kerne cast a dark look at the huge gateway. “Colonel Williams did not take kindly to my advice. He thinks if he can bloody Bimil-pal’s nose today, they’ll put him in charge in the spring.”
“He damn well knows he’s only here to distract them so that I can get out, and he can’t stomach playing second fiddle. Roveran will be general in the spring, the Arcanum has practically decided,” Riley replied.
“If this mission fails, there might not be an Arcanum in the spring,” Kerne said, handing two packages to Riley.
One was a brown leather messenger pouch, and the other was wrapped in grey fabric, which Riley pulled back to reveal two highly polished officers medallions on heavy chains.
Both packages went into his saddlebags. The chains would fetch a good price. Riot saw that the Leybound knew it too. He could almost see the thoughts turning in their heads. Riley has a fatal accident in the hills, and they make a break for the coast, richer to the tune of two fine chains, enough to keep them sodden in ale all winter.
“Keep it down,” Riot growled, meeting their glares with a hard stare of his own. He couldn’t show weakness, or he would have enemies in front and behind.
“I have a map, Kerne, perhaps Miss Quinn would be safer staying behind. These Leybound are dangerous criminals that need to be molded. I won’t have them distracted by feminine wiles,” Riley said imperiously.
Natalia Quinn’s gloved hands gripped the reins, and her mouth pulled down at the corners.
Kerne simply gave Riley a faint smile. “Miss Quinn will only travel with you until you reach the hills. She has her own work to do, but until then, there may come a time when you’re glad she’s with you.”
“I highly doubt it, but if you insist. Get them moving, Fitz!” Riley shouted.
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Lieutenant Fitz's piping voice called the order to march, and the small unit made their way through the gate.
Kerne handed Riot his sword as he passed. “You might not think it now, Nathanial, but you made the right choice. They look broken, but they could be more.”
Riot strapped on his sword and marched on without a word. The Leybound could stay broken as far as he was concerned, he wouldn’t accept any more advice from a wikkan.
They soon left the shadow of the earthworks, taking a road that was little more than a rutted trail that snaked into the hills. After thirty minutes they emerged on a windswept hillock that gave a sweeping view of the peninsular.
To the south, the fortress city of Helgan’s Rest clung to the high cliffs like a desperate babe on its mothers breast. It was the last stronghold of the Arcanum on the continent and there were too few ships anchored in the wave tossed ocean to move the regiments. Even if they had more ships, where would they go? West to the Lost Coast? The pirates and brigand warlords held no love for the Arcanum and would be next to face the Faelen anyway.
No, the fight would be had here, and Riot only wished he were down there with them, better to get it over and done with.
Far below, the Duke of Fallow’s regiment was arrayed in neat squares on the flat ground to either side of the northern road. Their long pennants flapped in the wind, and Riot felt a tug of pride at seeing the banners he’d marched under for most of his life.
“Looks like Williams will get a fight after all. Bimil-pal joins the field of battle!” Riley declared.
The regiment of Faelen infantry advanced in a long column down the road, their drums pounding out the marching rhythm.
“What luck! We shall have a fair view from here. Fitz, my telescope,” Riley commanded, holding out his hand.
“Perhaps we should keep moving, Commander Riley, for the mission.” Quinn tried to keep her voice even, but there was a note of annoyance.
“Just making some observations. I’m writing a book on Faelen tactics, don’t ya know. It’ll be the textus classicus in the regiments come the spring.” Riley held the telescope to his pudgy eye. “You can see Williams has chosen his ground early. Not what I would have done, of course. Eh Sergeant?”
“Ah, yes, sir.” Riot cursed softly, his feverish scratching had broken the skin on his arm and it stung as the blood wept out.
In all honesty he thought Colonel Williams had chosen a fair position on a slight rise. Four square infantry ranks stood centrally, while behind them, smaller companies of archers stood ready to loosen their arrows over the heads of their own men to rain down on the enemy.
“The Faelen are forming battle lines! Note the time, Fitz,” Riley cried.
At a hundred paces, the Faelen regiment broke out to form a long, unbroken line three ranks deep, and the chill wind carried away the final flourish of their drums, leaving only a cold silence.
“You see that, Riot? Williams won’t withdraw, he’s a fool, but a damn brave one. He has the numbers, so he should hold the hill. Fill them full of arrows, and they’ll run,” Riley declared confidently.
Riley was dead wrong. Give the regiment twice the numbers, or three times, and the result would be the same if they didn’t move forward. The only way to beat the Faelen was to close on them fast enough to break through their flimsy line and make the fight about swords, axes, and blood. That’s why most of the men had stopped wearing mail and carrying shields, nothing stopped the darts and only weighed you down.
The blue-uniformed archers drew back their bow strings and let fly a volley of arrows that sailed majestically through the sky. Where they struck, Faelen fell, leaving gaps in the neat red uniform line that were quickly filled from the ranks behind.
The Leybound gave a ragged cheer, all save Riot, Loic, and a few others who watched the battle with similar grim expressions.
A dark red glow welled up all along the Faelen line as they formed the two-inch-long burning darts in the palms of their hands. The weapon was innate to even the weakest of them, honed during their long imprisonment in the Echo as they fought each other for the scraps of their broken land.
“Here it comes,” Riot muttered.
The Faelen darts shrieked across the hundred-yard gap and pummeled into the infantry, decimating the front rank. The wounded, dead and dying were dragged to the back as those behind were shoved forward to take their place.
Riot counted silently, and when he reached twenty, a second volley exploded from the Faelen. More blue uniformed bodies fell. Too many. He knew what it was like to be down there, soaking up the punishment, desperately praying to stay alive long enough for the order to advance and claim their revenge. “Move forward, you poor bastards,” Riot growled.
The archers kept up a constant barrage, but the thin line of the Faelen infantry was a poor target, and still the red darts flickered out, unrelenting.
Then, to the west, Riot saw a flash of weak sunlight on metal. “Looks like another regiment!” he warned.
Riley scanned the area Riot indicated, then collapsed his telescope. “A dangerous turn of events. Ready the men, Sergeant. We’re moving out.”
“We can’t leave, they won't have seen them. We have to warn them,” Riot argued.
But Riley was already guiding his horse toward the hills. “The perils of command, Sergeant,” he called over his shoulder, waving a hand airily. “I have to make the hard choices. Just because Colonel Williams chooses to make a hash of his job does not mean that I will do the same.”
Riot appealed to Quinn, who shook her head. “He’s right. We all have a job to do, this is theirs,” she said, riding after Riley.
“They’re breaking,” Loic, the big northman, reported, drawing Riot's attention back to the battle.
The regiment's infantry couldn’t take the punishment of the Faelen barrage any longer, and a ripple of backward movement passed through the ranks. Officers and sergeants tried to stop them, beating some with the flats of their swords, but the tide had turned, and like a flame consuming a sheet of paper, the edges of the ranks began to drift out of formation. Hurried walking turned to running as they all streamed for the safety of the gate.
The Faelen cavalry gleefully abandoned their posturing and charged into them, hacking and slashing as they caught the infantry on open ground and ran them down.
The regiment's officers whipped their horses, easily outpacing the rank and file and gaining the safety of the gate, just as the second Faelen regiment came into sight.
“They won’t make it,” one of the Leybound said, his voice hollow.
He was right. The second Faelen regiment would reach the gate before the fleeing infantry. Seeing this, some of the fleeing soldiers dropped their weapons and fell to their knees to be taken prisoner. Others fled east for the safety of the hills, while the indecisive or panicked among them were cut down by the charging horsemen.
The outer defenses of Helgan’s Rest were lost, and a silence spread around the sixty Leybound as they all shared the same thought. They were trapped outside, and if they didn’t move, they themselves might be caught in the hills. Whatever their mission was, they weren’t returning the way they had come.
