Spears of the Gundermen
Oct 19, 2020 21:21:25 GMT -5
Post by trescuinge on Oct 19, 2020 21:21:25 GMT -5
Spears of the Gundermen
A tale of old Aquilonia
Retreating clouds rolled over the distant hills, streaks of lightening playing upon the rocky peaks. A new washed sun shone down upon the city of Gundenenn turning the old walls the ripe color of summer wheat. Residual storm waters filled the guttered streets, sluicing away the accumulated debris of the tempest.
A crowd had already formed in the square before the council chambers. Indeed, many of the tawny-haired men had been there since news of the invasion had arrived the previous afternoon. Faded fires, lit for light and comfort during the long, wet hours of the night, popped and smoked in their sodden beds.
A tight knot of young men had formed early around the brick plinths that supported the roof of the Drovers’ hiring hall. They too had waited, restlessly in motion, all night. Full of the mindless vigor of youth, they waited impatiently for some definite tidings of their elders’ intentions.
In the very midst of these young blades, an anchor to their vagrant eddies, stood a tall, confident young man. Every so often a glance and a brief flick of the chin from this young giant would dispatch one of his eager and nervous comrades to listen at the doors of the council chamber. One of these eavesdroppers approached him now.
"Thorne, we march as soon as the spearmen can be marshalled." this individual whispered in the big youngster's ear. "The yeomen will join the rest of the Aquilonian forces as they move north from Galparan. The novices and apprentices will go with a small band of Bossonian rangers to Pontenotte bridge. There we can counter any attempt to cross the river in the east."
"There, where we will be safely out of the way of any real action against the Waymen!" Thorne said bitterly.
His comrades murmured angrily. Young and high spirited, most not yet 16 years of age, the novices yearned for their first combat.
"One other matter Thorne." the journeyman said. "A minstrel from Tarantia is going with us as a guide."
"Who is this minstrel?" Thorn asked warily.
"His name is Rinaldo."
"Him! Rinaldo's a hare-brained drunk! I've seen him myself passed out in a ditch!"
"I'm awake now, boy." a jocular voice said. "Do you want to dispute my right to accompany you youngsters on a pointless expedition to a bridge in the middle of nowhere?"
The young men turned to see a man in brightly-colored clothes with a polished lute pushing through the press.
"I'll 'dispute' whatever you want, whenever you want, rhymester!" Thorne said proudly.
"Rhymester! Rhymester! I am Rinaldo and I was lauded by King Numedides himself as the greatest singer and songwriter in the Hyborian kingdoms!"
The newcomer was average sized and of rather eccentric appearance. For one thing his hair was dyed bright blue and for another he was wearing leopard-skin britches. "Let's settle my right to die with you right now!" he said as he handed his lute to a startled apprentice. Without further preliminaries the minstrel rushed at Thorne. Without hesitation the younger man stepped into Rinaldo's charge and the two grappled. Both were quick and strong and neither was a stranger to the art of wrestling.
The crowd inhaled as one and pushed back to open an arena for the combatants. Thorne grabbed Rinaldo's wrist in his calloused fingers. He tried to step through under the Aquilonian's arm but Rinaldo broke away. The two men circled, their hands weaving and jabbing as the crowd confidently gave and took bets on the outcome. Odds heavily favored Thorne, but the minstrel managed to pick up the bigger man's leg and almost throw him to the ground. Instead, the Gunderman pushed his opponent off and dove in at the Aquilonian. He failed to get a good grip as the older man pivoted aside and kicked at his knee.
The kick missed and the minstrel drove his thumbs at Thorne's eyes, a move more suited to a battlefield than to a friendly test of mettle. The younger man slipped aside with a litheness that belied his size.
The minstrel struck out with his right fist but Thorne grabbed his wrist and ducking down wound his arm around Rinaldo's left knee. Then he pulled the minstrel's arm over his shoulder and lifting the man carried him, struggling helplessly, around the ring of cheering apprentices.
After a circuit, with a twinkle in his gray eyes he asked, "Do you give, or should I toss you into one of these muddy puddles?"
The minstrel struggled for several more heartbeats and then gave a rueful laugh. "It serves me right for wrestling a giant! What's your name youngster?"
"I'm Thorne, son of Enner the Smith and I am accounted the best man amongst the apprentices of Gundennen."
Rinaldo laughed ruefully and slid to the ground as the young Gunderman relaxed his grip. "At least you can stand me to a bottle of Poitain red." he said, hauling up the rumpled seat of his leopard skin breeches.
Thorne shrugged and looked around at the ring of apprentices. "Better we all go home and get ready to leave tomorrow. I want everyone here and ready to march half a glass before first light."
They started early on the next day. The apprentices marched under their guild banners, the largest block, the drovers, in the lead. The minstrel tramped at their head, strumming his lute and frequently bursting into song. Even the most critical admitted that his tunes were extraordinarily good. Most of them trailed the long pikes that made the Gundermen the most feared infantry in the world. A small knot, led by Thorne, hefted the fearsome, long-hafted axes that stiffened the pike line.
Rinaldo led them by the forest road. It was a pleasant march. The trees were freshly wakened by the Spring and the songbirds flew gaily among their boughs. Now and then, if they watched closely, they would catch a glimpse of a hard-faced Bossonian flitting through the trees at their flanks.
The air held a special freshness at the end of each day. Then they had opportunity to stretch out upon the soft, leafy loam in the last rays of the sun and allow the sweat of the day’s march to dissipate in the cool air. Then they were happy to be out on their own away from their fathers and employers.
Sitting around the fire at night, flames reflecting from their young faces, they listened to the older men reminisce. Burnam, the leader of the Bossonians, spoke quietly of the constant, bloody warfare his people waged against the savage Picts. A short, solid man, his eyes always seemed focused on some faraway horizon but never missed the smallest detail.
Rinaldo regaled them with tales of his travels among the barbaric Cimmerians and reminisces of his tenure in the glittering court of King Numedides. On the third night, while golden specters of the campfires danced upon the shadowed pines, he grew serious.
"I fought the Waymen once before." the minstrel said. He leaned forward to snatch a stick from the fire and trace circles in the air with the glowing tip.
“Every twenty years or so the Waymen just appear from the north. They burn, they pillage, and then they disappear again. I’ve heard that they all issue from a fissure in a rock somewhere up there.” he paused to blow on the ember at the end of his stick.
“Do they live in some kind of cave, then?” Thorne asked.
“Oh no.” Rinaldo said. “I wouldn’t say so. If you see them, you’ll notice the tracks of sun and wind on their faces. They bear the marks of some land that breeds hard, cold men.”
"They are horsemen, aren't they?" someone else asked.
"The best I've ever seen. Better than Hyrkanians, and that is saying something."
"But they can't break a pike-wall, not a solid one, a wedge of Gundermen!" a youthful voice stated.
Rinaldo shrugged "Twenty years ago their host caught a band of Aquilonians, about half of them Gundermen, out on an open plain. They launched massed lance charges preceded by arrow storms. We held out all day while the sun beat down and we drank the liquid from our sweat-soaked sleeves. The final assault came just before sundown. The Gundermen all died in their ranks and the Waymen hunted we who survived long into the night."
The young men fell thoughtfully silent. They were unused to tales of Gundermen losing battles.
They came up on the bridge late in a dusty afternoon. The river rushed by busily far below. The bridge crossed the deep ravine in one soaring stone span two hundred yards long and wide enough for two wagons to pass side by side. A deserted pair of watch towers was built into the parapets at the midpoint of the span. The Bossonians trotted over the bridge and disappeared into the mountains on the other side of the river.
The apprentices broke ranks to explore. They wandered around picking mushrooms for the dinner pot or poking their spears at the nimble squirrels that scrambled in the trees. A large group gathered on the bridge to take turns spitting into the torrent rushing by far below.
Thorne was rummaging in his pack for a stray strip of dried beef when he looked up to see Burnam the Bossonian tearing back across the bridge. The man headed straight to him.
"The Waymen are coming." he gasped. "They will be here in an hour!"
Thorne gaped. Rinaldo swore. All the young Gundermen within hearing stood frozen and confused.
Burnam fixed his far-away stare on Thorne, and prompted, "I've sent my fastest runner back to alert the main army. My other bowmen are going to keep those bastards under observation and let us know when they are close"
Thorne shook himself and looked around at his fellows, "Arm yourselves and form ranks!" he bellowed. "It's up to us to hold this bridge till help arrives!"
While the apprentices arrayed themselves their leaders studied the structure that would be their first battlefield.
"If we form up to block that bridge we will be wide open to archery." someone said.
"Form up in the grove of saplings on this side." Rinaldo said.
"No, if they get a toe-hold on this side they'll surround us and tear us to pieces."
Thorne was staring thoughtfully at the bridge, "What if we cut those saplings and use them to roof over the roadway?"
"We could tie the trunks to the parapets and then bend the tops over and intertwine the branches. That should give us protection from Wayman arrows."
They worked feverishly to construct a cover over the western end of the bridge. All the time the Bossonians kept them apprised of the swift approach of the invaders. They were still hard at work when the last of the rangers came running fleetly down the road on the far side of the river. The enemy followed close behind.
The Waymen made a colorful host, resplendent in silvered mail, brocaded silks and dyed plumes. Their neatly-made horses were caparisoned with colored leathers and sweetly- chiming bells. They stopped briefly when they espied defenders at the west end of the bridge.
The boys ran for their weapons and swiftly formed their pike wedge. Grimly gripping their familiar weapons, their hearts hammering with fear and anticipation, they filed onto the bridge. At the tip of the formation, surrounded by bobbing ash shafts, Thorne hefted his glittering axe. Rinaldo, strumming a lively tune, took his place in the center of the column. The Bossonians strung their fearsome bows and formed up on the banks at either side of the bridgeway. Songbirds fled the coming storm, their places taken by flocks of strident ravens.
The Waymen did not deliberate long. Trumpets and bugles peeled and a squadron of the horsemen cantered forward fitting arrows to their bows. Several fell, pierced by Bossonian shafts, the rest came on. They tried to loose their own arrows point blank into the ranks of spearmen but most of the darts stuck in the tangle of branches overhead. The Waymen turned abruptly and galloped wildly away. The young pikemen cheered and several rushed forward in pursuit.
"Stand firm!" Thorne bellowed. "Keep to your ranks in Mitra's name!"
The few eager pursuers looked around and slunk back to their ranks just in time. The next troop of the invaders charged their lances and came forward in a solid wave of glittering steel. The bridge shook under the fury of their charge. The sound of galloping hooves hammering the stone cobbles deafened the defenders. The boys gripped their pike-staves in sweaty palms and remembered they were Gundermen. At the last second they surged forward to meet the horsemen.
The two forces collided with a crash of sound that drowned the sound of the rushing river below them. Snapping ash-shafts, rended armor, tearing flesh, and dying men and horses all contributed to that indescribable sound. It bounded and echoed for miles down the riverbed.
Slipping on the bloody cobbles, trampling fallen comrades, the Gundermen and the Waymen came to grips with each other. Fighting men born of warrior races, they gave and received horrendous bows with high hearts and iron wills. The battle-line became a maelstrom of fury where only a chosen few could survive.
The Waymen squadron died to a man, plying their lances and swinging their curved swords relentlessly till they fell beneath the pike-points or the axe-blades of the defenders. However, the Gundermen had no respite, another troop of horsemen immediately followed the first and others echeloned behind those till it seemed they were an endless stream of gaily caparisoned specters hacking and stabbing at the slowly diminishing wedge of defenders.
At the fore of the close-knit line of darting pike-points stood the axe-men. Leaping forward, weaving sideways and back among the glittering, thrusting pikes, they kept the invaders from forcing a way under or through the pike-hedge. The strongest, the supplest, the bravest of the defenders, they fell one by one till there was only Thorne.
He was a blur of steel, ashen shaft, and hard muscle moving at will through the ranks of the invaders. Horses died with cloven heads, or fell thrashing leglessly to the pavement. The riders fell also to be trampled under the hooves of their fellows or split from helmeted head to crotch by that singing blade. A mist of blood and unclotted gore hung about their heads as they fought. The surviving Bossonians had moved up till they were mixed in with the Gundermen, fending off sword strokes with their bow staves and scurrying forward to gut horses and men with their curved knives.
Then Thorne was striking only air. His axe was foul from bitt to butt with a gruesome caking of blood and hair and tissue. He looked around stupidly, searching for the enemies that had been so plentiful just moments ago. Behind him stood Rinaldo, a shrunken but resolute block of Gundermen and a smattering of Bossonians. Many were wounded, some mortally so Thorn judged. They were looking at him with something very like awe on their horror-scarred visages.
He lurched over to the side of the bridge, sagged over the copping and retched weakly into the torrent below. His right leg could not hold his weight and seemed to bend unnaturally at the ankle. He braced himself with his left foot on the withers of a dead horse and his right elbow on the balustrade of the bridge.
Destruction surrounded him. Hacked and torn, the bodies of the dead and the dying littered the roadway. The camber of the highway shed rivulets of blood that merged together in the gutter at his feet. The roofs of the watch towers were dark with a restless, black thatch of cawing ravens.
At the far end of the bridge he saw movement. Grimly he pushed himself erect and hobbled to the center of the road. There he stood, trying to appear as if the haft of his axe was not the only thing holding him upright. Turning his head kept the approaching rider in sight of his only good eye.
The Wayman was plainly a veteran, his tough, brown face framed by gray hair and topped by a richly engraved helm. He rode a neat-looking bay mare trapped out in red-dyed leather trimmed with flashing gold. Her hoof beats rang out above the harsh calls of the carrion birds as she trod her delicate way through the swath of corpses. As he neared, her rider’s eyes sized up the Gundermen with wary calculation. He reined in about ten yards away but made no move to attack, retire, or parley.
Rage boiled up from the well of revulsion and weariness that lapped at Thorne’s soul. A manic hunger possessed him, a desperate lust to leap out upon the Wayman with swinging axe. Something held him back, a tiny deep-buried shred of sanity.` Clearly the rider was waiting and it was for him to wait also. He locked eyes with the warrior’s flat, blue stare and smiled with the part of his lips that could move.
Abruptly, the Wayman turned his horse and rode back across to his fellows. The mare trotted lightly, quickly picking her steps as she seemed to float across the shambles that was the cobbled roadbed. Her rider looked back over his shoulder.
“What is your name, Axe-man?”, he called in perfect Aquilonian.
Thorne grounded the butt of his shaft, and stepped forward with his left foot. “Thorne Ennerson of Gunderland”, he bellowed as loudly as he could.
The old rider nodded once, engraving the name in his memory, and in the tales of his people. At the far end of the bridge the horseman disappeared into the crowd of brightly clothed Waymen. Very shortly, the invaders moved off to the north in a subdued riot of dust, color and noise.
Thorn stood in the roadway of the bridge, swaying from his wounds, till the last horseman had rounded the shoulder of the mountain. He did not hear the rushing of the waters or the deafening clamor of the scavenging birds. He felt no triumph, no nimbus of pride and glory settled upon his shoulders. Numbly he surveyed the carnage. The swift, cool breeze carried away the knacker’s scents that rose from that place of butchery. After a time tears ran down his bloody cheeks. Finally, he hefted his axe, and slowly limped away.
