24
Jun
This is an excerpt from the third novel, Laeccan Waters. Currently, the main characters and their Hálsiend allies are trying to extract themselves from a raid that went badly wrong.
Ceinder fought desperately to defend those Hálsiends around her, but their numbers were getting thinner and thinner each time she looked. Even with her assistance on their strikes, there were so many of the enemy that exhaustion was killing many of her allies, as they became slow, and too tired to block the next blow. Indeed, she was reaching that same level herself, and if she did not collapse right then, she would do soon. Still, she had managed to hold the line, preventing the Þracian troops from overwhelming them here.
On the other flank of the battle, Atyniadol and the two warriors were all but fallen, their armour covered in nicks and cuts, and with red seeping out from several places on Atyniadol, for her thinner armour could not turn blades aside the way the mountain plate of Tri-Hauwcerton could. Atyniadol knew that soon she would need to step back from the battle to staunch her wounds, but there was never a break, never a moment when she could disengage and take that time, for they were so closely pressed by the enemy Áðexe that losing the rhythm of attack and block would see her skewered on the end of a thrust. So she fought on as the crimson trails crept further up her arms.
Next to her, Sawwaed and Bwyell could both see the distress that Atyniadol was in, but despite their best efforts, they could not carve out a pocket of peace in the centre of the maelstrom either, and so they lashed left and right with their hammers, the blows less well-timed and more wild, as they relied again and again upon their armour to save them. Their shields were chipped and dented in many places, for they were as much weapon as protection, and often their most effective assault was to slam a foe with the heavy boss upon the shield’s face, and finish the matter with a second strike from the war hammer.
By now, they had built a bulwark of corpses about their position, and the Áðexe of Þracian were forced to climb over the bodies of their friends in order to get at the humans, but while that slowed the pace of the assault, it meant that the enemies came at the humans from on high, at the level of their heads, and thus were the humans continually forced backwards, into a tightening circle, their backs to their Hálsiendic allies.
Sawwaed risked a glance along the line of their retreat, and saw the dim figure of a man face down in the snow. Knowing that it could only be Tarranau, he shouted and bellowed over the field of battle, calling for all soldiers to pull back from the battlefield in a fighting retreat. They had probably left the matter for too long, for their were down to less than one hundred and fifty troops, but at least the casualties they had inflicted upon the Þracians were so grievous that their force could never been used again.
The Hálsiends now gave ground with every step, ceding the hilltop position to their foes as they clustered about the western edge of the rise. With them came Ceinder, still on her feet and still deflecting enemy blows, although now she staggered with each one that she pushed aside. Bwyell reached Tarranau’s body first, flipping him over and listening for a moment before nodding to Sawwaed. Sawwaed grabbed the two nearest Áðexe, detailing them to carry Tarranau during the retreat.
Of the Þracians following them, there were perhaps six hundred left, and while that matter meant that the casualties inflicted were far in the favour of the Hálsiends, the difference in size of force still looked to spell the end for the humans and their allies.
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mazzz in leeds on 06.24.2011
Desperation is right, you can feel it throughout the piece.
Loved “carve out a pocket of peace”
The Four Part Land on 06.24.2011
Thanks, I like to push things a little bit. Already killed off two MCs by this point in the story, and sort of wondering who should go next.
Sonia Lal on 06.24.2011
They need the cavalry to come and save the day.
The Four Part Land on 06.24.2011
Unfortunately, there are no cavalry in this setting. Quite literally in fact, there are no riding animals.