The Channeling (Rise of the Witch Guard Book 3) Page 23

  They pushed maybe twenty feet into the enemy before being driven to a halt.

  “Casualties are just too high,” Darius said angrily, “with metal armor and superior weapons, trying to go into them is like putting a hand into a meat grinder.

  In the distance, there was a shout of dismay and shortly after a group of men started to sound their war cry.

  “Fox—Fox—Fox…Vosten Mogreys!” shrieked one man, followed by another, then yet another until their cries were too numerous to count. Then the whole group broke into an odd ‘yi-yi-yi’ sort of yipping sound shortly afterward that more closely resembled the cry of an enraged fox clan than anything else Falon could think of.

  “Saint Aeofia…and the…Short Mire!” bellowed a familiar voice that started to get closer and closer with every yell.

  “The Ice Fox came on their own. Bring them in! Bring them in!” Falon shouted, jumping up and down to get a better look—and if she used some of her magic to help enhance the amount of air she got under her heels, no one needed to know but her.

  “Stop them!” cried a Frog

  “Don’t let them link up!” shouted another.

  “There’s got to be a bounty on that old Knight. Bring him down,” screamed another, and the clamor rose even louder.

  Then Sergeant Uilliam and his stone maul appeared and began clearing a path at the lead of the Ice Foxes. Thankfully, most of the men between the Ice Foxes and the rest of the Company were now had a large mixture of peasant militias thrown in. But even if it had still been entirely armsmen, with that stone maul of Uilliam’s crashing into them, Falon figured even armor wasn’t going to save a man from broken bones.

  “Make an opening!” bellowed Uilliam, and as soon as he was almost there the men in front of him pulled back to let the Foxes and Ravens in.

  Stepping around from behind the Sergeant was a panting Sir Orisin. He was panting because he was dragging something heavy behind him. With an entirely masculine grunt, he lifted his hand which was holding another, limp and unresisting, knight by the collar of his armor. He then unceremoniously threw him into the center of the hedgehog.

  “There’s going to either be a big ransom or a great reward for the Knight known as the Beheader,” Sir Orisin said, limping into the circle.

  “Good man,” Darius said, clapping him on the shoulder.

  Sir Orisin turned to look at him for a long moment before shaking his head.

  “We survived…but a lot men out there today can’t say the same,” he said over the shouts and cries of active combat taking place all around them as the men of the Swan Battalion fought to keep from being overrun. Although, now that a lot of the armsmen had moved on to easier prey with richer loot and ransoms, leaving behind enough men to keep them contained with the help of the peasant militia, things were starting to slow down.

  “We’ve got to get out of here and off the field before that cavalry of their takes notice and comes over to crush us,” said Darius. “It might take a little while, but the longer we’re here the more likely something like that will happen.”

  “Those invisible riders?” asked Orisin before nodding in agreement.

  “We’ll lose more men if we move…” Falon said, but that was inevitable and she knew it. But just the thought of every loss hurt.

  “No choice,” the two men shrugged in agreement.

  While they were still trying to figure out the best way to make it off the field alive, the Prince sounded his drums and—thankfully—sent out a white flag for a parley.

  Chapter 39: Prisoner of War

  “I guess it’s a surrender then, no matter what we might have tried,” Sir Orisin said his whole body seeming to sag for a moment before he nodded to Falon. “Best we run up the white flag ourselves if we want to stop the fighting here and be a part of whatever deal the Prince makes with the Frog. Of course, if you’d rather fight it out till the bitter end that’s your call…” he trailed off.

  Falon felt as if she’d just bitten into something sour. At first the thought of ceasing to fight had seemed wonderful, but now that she was thinking about it all she could imagine was the Prince selling the rest of them out to save his own skin. So whatever deal he made would be crafted to take care of his Highness first and foremost, and the rest of them last—or not at all.

  On the other hand, she wasn’t eager to die. For a moment, the bitter pang that followed the certain knowledge that, far from earning another big pay day, she and her people were instead going to lose everything they had left. That included much of her remaining personal loot from the Northern Aggression War, as the Prince and his people were calling it. Now that she was thinking about those financial losses, it was a truly bitter pill. But in the end, better some gold was lost than people’s lives.

  Or, at least, that’s what she told herself repeatedly as she agreed to send up the white flag.

  “Ho the Tyrants! Not so eager to fight now that ye canna get yer taxes out of us?” laughed a militia leader as he stepped forward with an armsman at his side.

  “If you’re looking for bloodshed and death, we can keep giving it to you until you’ve had your rebel fill of it,” Darius shot back easily. “But we thought maybe those of us out here doing the bleeding and dying in the mud might wait until after the lords in their castles have sat down, had their tea, and decided if they still want to fight before having at it again.”

  “What are you on about, man?” spluttered the opposing militia leader, but he stopped when the armsman put a hand on his shoulder.

  “We’re as ready as the next man to sit back and wait until the parley’s over,” the armsman called back.

  “Pull your men back twenty paces—and no arrows into our formation—and we’ll do the same and wait,” Falon interjected herself into the conversation, unable to sit still and wait anymore.

  “Fifteen paces—and we’ll be keeping a weather eye on ye,” the armsman shot back. “And it’s a white peace only until we hear what the word is from the command tent. If your Prince is being as stubborn and ruthless as usual then don’t blame us for being restarting this battle and being just as ruthless!”

  “Fine,” Falon said, waving her hand in the air and turning away.

  Then, for nearly a half hour, they sat there surrounded by their enemy and waited.

  ****************************************************

  Finally, when all of Falon’s fingernails had just about been nibbled down to the quick, a pair of riders came out from the parley in front of the Prince’s Reserve formation.

  “A White Peace! A White Peace! And the Baron has agreed to pay his taxes,” shouted one of the riders as he galloped past, bearing the Prince’s three pointed Stag Emblem.

  A loud cheer went up from Falon’s men, and an angry rumbling came from the Frogs around them—who looked like they were about ready to restart the killing immediately if not sooner, no matter what the big cheeses at the top had decided.

  “I didn’t lose my brother just so these Tax Collectors could—” a man in the enemy lines started agitating loudly.

  The second rider, bearing the banner of a Giant Frog, rode up at a canter and slowed.

  “Hear ye, hear ye!” he called out forcing the men to quiet down so they could hear him. “Men, the Prince’s army has broken like the cowards they are and we have taken the field!”

  “Darned right!” shouted the still somewhat belligerent men before they broke out into a rabid cheer.

  “The army of the Tyrant and Tax Collectors is scattered and on the run—all except the Prince’s Right! Victory is ours! We have repulsed the invaders and your homes are safe,” shouted the Rider.

  There was another cheer. “What’s this we hear about having to pay the taxes then if’n as we won?” demanded the uppity militia leader belligerently, and judging from the bobbing heads Falon figured he was speaking for everyone there.

  The Herald raised his hands. “Hear me. Hear me, people!” yelled the Herald. “The battle is won, y
es. And the enemy is in retreat or,” he paused to look around Falon’s unit smugly, “surrounded. However…” he stopped.

  “What is it?” demanded the men.

  “We took the field on all sides except the enemy Right. However, the Young Lord who was leading the Barony’s Left was captured after a heroic duel with the Heir to the Barony of Quinn,” reported the Herald.

  There was a sudden chorus of boos and other, angrier sounds.

  “Down with Quinn!”

  “What cause do they have against us!”

  “I’ll have no truck with Quinn in the future!”

  “Where is Quinn—exactly where? I suddenly find the urge to go there and break some heads!”

  “As such, and considering the Prince is the son of King Richard,” the Herald continued, his voice rising to be heard over the growing din, “Baron Froggor has agreed to allow all enemy survivors that are able to walk off the field, along with any wounded they can carry, to do so. Then the Prince and his army are to leave our lands. In addition, all the spoils from the dead on the field are ours!” he said, and there was another, smaller cheer from the Frogs. “Finally, out of fear for his son’s life, Baron Froggor has agreed to ransom the young Heir. That is all! And that is what you heard when that lying herald of the Prince came galloping by and said the Baron has agreed to pay a tax. The only tax he’s agreed to is a bounty to keep his son’s head atop his shoulders—just as any father would do for his son!”

  “Those dirty, rotten, tax collectors and their Tyrant Prince!” the enemy warriors and accompanying militia shouted. They were clearly outraged, but finally began moving from potentially murderous to merely bitterly angry. “They need to get their yellow, lying, no good keester’s off our property before we fill their guts full of iron!”

  “Thankfully, because even a Prince is unable to start an illegal war, and having lost it cannot claim otherwise, Prince Marshal William Stag is even now claiming our young Lord’s ransom as taxes paid toward the crown,” said the Herald, raising his hands. “So do not fear, good people: that money will go straight to the King and not to line the pockets of this no-good Prince. In short, this is just a face-saving gesture by the Prince.”

  This time the men from the town threw their helmets in the air broke out into a cheer. Finally, they started to drift away, scattering over the battlefield to pick up loot before moving back toward the town to find and reassure their loved ones that they were still alive.

  “Well…” Falon released a long, pent-up breath, “I guess that settles that,” she said with a sigh.

  “Not quite. We still need to march off this field,” advised Sergeant Darius, “and sooner rather than later, I’d wager.”

  Falon looked around at the diminished, but still-existing group of warriors encircling them. From the hard look in their eyes, these were the ones that would prefer fighting to looting the dead.

  “Alright, men,” she said raising her voice as loud as she could, “gather up any wounded you can see that belong to us. We’re going to slow march it out of here! No sudden moves, now, or we might startle our escort,” she added blithely.

  After taking a minute or two to gather up the wounded, and to build a few impromptu stretchers, the Fighting Swans slowly made to leave the field.

  If the head formation of the Swans tended to march over some of the largest concentrations of dead or wounded bodies on their way out, in order to retrieve a wounded comrade—or, in a few cases, to surreptitiously liberate a weapon or snatch a purse—Falon wholeheartedly supported the former and turned a blind eye to the latter.

  This was war, after all, and the Prince sure wasn’t going to pay for anything—especially not after he’d lost. He was the worst sort of penny pincher even when he won; she shuddered to think how things were going to be after a defeat.

  In the end, though, at least she still had her life. And where there was life, there was hope. For far too many people on this field, hope no longer existed in any form.

  Starting to feel melancholy, her roving eye caught on a particular suit of armor and held fast. Her eyes widened with concern, and then shock, followed by a sudden gleam when the man inside it groaned but otherwise lay there unmoving.

  Hurrying over and glancing around to make sure no one was looking—well, no one but the warriors on her side—she decided the risk was manageable and bend down. Drawing on the power of the earth, which was starting to buzz through her body with an uncomfortable rhythm, she grabbed him under the arms and lifted.

  “Come on up here,” she grunted, much of her power grounding out as she came into contact with the high iron content of the steel in his plate armor. Steel wasn’t as bad as pure iron, like Sir Orisin’s armor was made of, but it was still pretty bad. And the uncomfortable feeling in her bones from over using her magic grew, turning into a full blown head ache.

  “What? Where?” he asked in confusion.

  “We’ll get you to a wench, and then somewhere you can lay down,” Falon said cheerfully, as she directed the other Knight back toward her group of warriors.

  “I need to…” the Knight staggered and almost fell, and with her struggling to carry him with only her own natural girl power, and greatly reduced magic enhancement, it was all she could do to keep him upright until the dizzy spell passed.

  “Right this way,” she said slyly, and as soon as they crossed the twenty feet back to the Swan Formation, she gleefully passed him over to Sergeant Uilliam.

  “Got him, Sir,” the oversized former Raven militia man said, taking the other man’s weight with a grin. “A nice haul, yeah?”

  “Bringing an enemy knight back with us like he was one of our wounded? Falon, you’ve got more gall than a fox in a henhouse,” Ernest scolded her, limping up. “Ye could have been kilt!”

  “Get back in line,” she scoffed, rolling her eyes and generally feeling well-satisfied with herself. “Me and that one have a few things to talk about,” she finished dismissively. After all, taking care of family was important—even on the battlefield. As far as a knight’s ransom falling into her hands like money from the sky? Why, that simply had nothing to do with it.

  No…nothing at all, she thought as a broad grin spread across her features.

  Chapter 40: Negotiating from Weakness

  “This is extortion!” fumed the Stag Prince, picking up a vase and shattering it on the ground now that the Baron Froggor was safely out of his tent and returned to enemy lines. “He dares to mock a Prince! Just who does he think he is?” he roared, breaking a campaign table by virtue of kicking it until the legs broke.

  Lord Advisor Declan flinched ever so slightly at the Prince’s continued rampage before a resigned look entered his eyes.

  “I believe he thinks he is the man who just took the field. And, save for Young Quinn capturing his Heir, I fear we might not have been allowed to sit down at the negotiating table—let alone get such a good deal as we did,” Declan sighed.

  “A good deal?” William shouted angrily. “If this was a good deal I’ll cut my hand off and eat it after pickling it in a stew! I am a Prince! The likes of me cannot lose to a mere Baron of Frogs and Lily Pads like Froggor. This humiliation will not stand, I tell you! It will not stand—do you hear?!”

  Declan shook his head. “To the victors go the spoils, my lord Prince, and today the Baron of ‘Frogs and Lily Pads’ is the victor. All we can do is keep this defeat in our minds as we go forward,” he said, closing his eyes as he awaited the inevitable rebuke.

  “That is your counsel?” the Prince demanded, stepping forward his spittle spraying the advisor’s face. “Sit quietly in the corner like a scolded school boy? Is that it, Declan?!”

  The Advisor shrugged, his eyes finally turning cold as he looked at the Prince. “All we can do is take our defeats like men. Pick ourselves back up and vow to do better next time. As long as there is breath in our bodies, there is a chance to recover,” he said flatly.

  “Unbelievable…that even my own advi
sor,” the Prince spluttered histrionically.

  “Now, about those Wizards who are not directly from the White Tower—at least those that survived—are beginning to ask about their wages. As are the mercenary war bands and independent lords you recruited along the way here,” Lord Declan said seriously. “Next are bandages and food supplies; there seems to be a great—”

  “Arrrrrgh!!!” shouted the Prince as his chief advisor continued to ruthlessly prompt and remind him of the long list of things that needed to be done for an army in either victory or defeat.

  Chapter 41: The Butcher Bill’s

  “The wenches have worked long into the night, and even though we still have a few men with torches combing the battle field near where our battalion fought, I think it’s safe to say that anyone who could be saved has been at this point,” a haggard and harried Darius said wearily.

  “I see,” Falon said, not feeling much better than he looked. She was so weary after this day of death and bloodshed that all she wanted to do was find her cot and sack out. Unfortunately, she was a person who knew her duties and took them seriously. If only, she thought irritably, the wenches didn’t have to wait until the moon was up before they could begin their life saving magic. The number of men that bleed to death before they can work so much as a simple healing spell…she took a deep breath to calm herself.

  There was no point in getting so worked up that she forgot the difference between a spell and a working, and even less point in blaming the wenches for their power being bound so tightly to the moon. There was literally nothing more they could have done. She knew—she’d gone over and checked personally.

  “What’s the tally?” she asked wearily.

  “Not counting Lord Warrick’s armsmen, we had just under three hundred men prior to this battle. As of right now,” the Sergeant looked down at the paper in his hands, squinting at it in the darkness. “Eighty survivors from your company are hale or in the tents wounded, forty two more from Ice Fox, and…,” he paused before continuing, “another twenty eight from the Prince’s new men that originally fought under Warrick.”