Oh, ye good knight laying in the mud

  Neither friends, nor foes under crimson shields

  When the dance begins.

  -

  Legatus Lucius Alden’s

  (later King Lucius Aldenus the third of Greater Regia)

  a few lines of his famed poem titled

  -Ode to the good knight-

  found in the King's personal collection of journals and records titled

  Verses on campaign

  (Circa 190-195 NC)

  -

  Sir Rupert Tellman

  Red Bridge | the Griffin’s blood

  The Issirs West Flank

  (Farvor & Pastelor forces)

  Day One

  27th of Sextus 195 NC

  Linus, Sir Rupert’s fit stallion, let out a loud neigh and kicked its forelegs into the air before finally coming to a halt. The dust that swirled up briefly enveloped the knight of Pastelor, obscuring the other riders trailing right behind him.

  Amidst this swirling mist, his father's famed black metal helmet, resembling the fierce head of a mythical griffin —not that different from an eagle’s— stood out prominently. Sir Reinir's aged armor, from the intricately engraved breastplate to the lion's claw-shaped shoulder guards, and the extending to the vambraces heavy iron gauntlets, was cloaked in a fine layer of dust, much like that covering all the others around him.

  “Heard great clamor coming down from the inclines! Horses cries and weapons clanging!” Rupert warned his father almost yelling to be heard and his sister stooped to relay his words to the nodding knight.

  Sir Reinir’s ears weren’t what they used to be. It wasn’t from a head injury, although Reinir had suffered some of that, but plain old age. As for the dent blemishing the old helm, it had happened whilst his younger brother Walter had proudly worn part of their father’s armour, back when he’d gone to help Lord Vanzon.

  His poor brother lay dead for many years now, somewhere near frozen Krakenfort up in the North, but King Lucius of Regia –the man who had cut down young Walter - had been kind enough to send Sir Reinir the old armour and weapons.

  ‘Best not to give the helm to anyone else henceforth,’ the grieving Reinir had commented, pale brown eyes observing his distraught immediate family’s reactions with a measure of remorse. ‘You got the Iron Griffin’s own blood to assist you,’ Lord Anker’s man had assured Lord Vanzon, ‘thou should be grateful’. So they had all gathered that day -months after this meeting had transpired- to hear from the visiting stranger news about Walter’s whereabouts. The Lorian officer had arrived with the new Duchess’ envoi and had brought the sword and helm -now wrapped in red sheet- with him. Rupert grimaced at the memory. He could still remember the rest of his father’s words from that day. ‘The helm was made to showcase another man’s past glories in tourneys and gatherings. Best not to carry any extra burden with you in the present, or in war.’

  Be that as it may, all the Griffin’s children carried the same burden.

  Rupert had longed to work their estate, their animals and land, and spend most of his life trying to avoid getting involved in distant Lords’ wars. But he couldn’t. First following after his father to the other edge of Jelin and the lands of the Redmonds of Sovya and then participating in several of the Vanzon scraps –birthed from Issir-initiated raids, or in response to northern excursions into the Vanzon former lands- in the years that followed. His late brother Walter had missed most of that and it bedeviled him, thinking conflict was an opportunity to grow one’s legend, same as it did with his own son Rupert the second.

  Or his sister Siske. Now Siske had turned quite wrathful the moment word reached them that her husband Sir Evert Pek had lost his life, after missing for years on Eplas following after the Van Durren. Evert wanted some land of his own and an increase in station, mostly to not feel embarrassed around the Iron Griffin’s daughter. Evert Pek got nothing but cold steel in Castalor’s fields, after he first managed an unlikely return with Robert from the Horselords distant lands. They had brought with them the whole Khanate.

  “That’s the Baron,” his father rustled in his usual low timbre. “We’ll move to help him after we open the way for Mayer!”

  “Mathias!” Rupert barked at the sturdy man-at-arms who approached from the back of their procession. “Dress the men. Fix the lines. We are heading for the Thickets!”

  “Send a rider to Krakauer!” His sister yelled, her face half-lost inside the large helm. Artur Krakauer was the captain of Farvor’s militia and guards following after the Baron’s horses. “Order him to force-march straight for AredRavn and the sound of arms!”

  “Do as my sister says,” Rupert grunted and pulled at the reins to turn the neighing nervously Linus around. The sound of distant galloping, men shouting in Common, even ululating in strange accents, reverberating on the arid plains and the soft inclines to their west.

  “The horses are nervous. Must’ve caught whiff o’ something weird approaching,” Sir Reinir warned them and immediately raised his right arm high. The longsword in his hand moving in circles over the Griffin’s helm in order to get their men’s attention. “We have company! Spread out lads!”

  

  Baron of Farvor Dan AredRavn had divided the mounted men in two groups of about seventy, with a dozen acting as a vanguard and ordered to act as scouts in the wilderness. Leo Goetz led this small group up the very soft incline, the hillside of the West Porch less than thirty meters at its highest, a flat terrain of hard-packed dirt. Kaphiri ‘Kap’ Sepa, had done the same, posting men to watch for any enemies approach and had his son Rim-Sepa lead a separate smaller group of Medium Horse (medium armoured lancers) and lurk in wait at the base of the plateau to his rear, inside a small forested area separating the Arid Plains and the West Porch.

  Sepa’s riders rushed Leo Goetz’s men and chased them down the plateau, but fell right on the Baron’s group that was ascending the slopes right after Goetz. One after the other the two groups crashed on each other. The Khanate’s riders recovered faster and the heavier men-at-arms lost control of the scrap fought half at the edge of the plateau and half over gradient terrain. They tried to disengage, but the Baron’s horse broke its ankle rearing up and tossed Dan AredRavn from the saddle. The Lord of Farvor took a nasty tumble hurting himself badly and Sepa’s next charge from the more favorable higher ground tore through the Issirs killing many.

  Sir Joost AredRavn, the baron’s firstborn, who was following with the second group of men-at-arms saw the Horselords and Issirs coming down the incline together –whilst duking it out- and charged his own men into the fray. Sepa’s riders took casualties, but managed to disengage up the slope. Joost learned that his father was still missing and ordered Leo Goetz, who had made it down but was injured, to notify Sir Reinir Tellman and Artur Krakauer’s militia guards. Farvor’s Heir then took the rest of the riders, giving a portion to Arne Mair –the Mayor’s son- to lead, and rushed back up the hillside to save his own father.

  Earlier that morning and a distance of three kilometers to the east of Farvor’s cavalry, ‘Tanned’ Odd Mayer led his Eleurhall and Sallowhall warriors after Stein Kaasen’s fast-moving northern rangers. Kaasen ‘Bearclaw’ managed to run straight in one of the many groups of sentries Muvelo had posted inside the Thickets at the east edge of the wilderness and a fierce scrap broke out in the pitch black.

  Muvelo, who was resting near his horse a couple of hundred meters away, had just returned from visiting Gika during the night, a Jang-Lu officer and from a meeting with Sakir –the latter was leading the Horse Archers, was brusquely informed about the enemy presence inside the treeline and sprang in to action. He ordered his rangers to assault Kaasen’s men and the little scrap grew exponentially.

  Kaasen tried to retreat deeper into the trees and that’s how word reached Mayer. Now Mayer didn’t want to feed men into ‘the plaguing darkness’ so he led them around the Thickets -the west edge of it, with the plan being to skirt around the fight and strike at Muvelo’s rear. The alert Muvelo got wind of more enemies moving on his west flank, or even inside the outer ring of trees, and with the growing sunlight favoring horses, he ordered Sakir to get the Horse-Archers on the move and secure the west side of the Thickets.

  ‘Stay on open ground, out of the trees and Sepa’s horses, in order to keep an eye at the gap’ are rumored to have been Muvelo’s instructions.

  Sakir immediately ordered the sleeping camp to get ready, but while the massive number of men, wagons and animals (2-3 per Horselord in some cases) was difficult enough to get going, many Horse-Archers were away for the night visiting the -packed with female and male slaves- nearby supply camps. Even so, a group of two hundred Horse-Archers charged Mayer’s distracted Nords. The latter upon spotting the Horselords jumping out of the darkness (probably heard the horses first) thought they were against many lancers and run inside the Thicket again in mild panic, though Mayer denied it after the battle. He called it ‘a masculine strategic maneuver’, none more surprised to the half-breed’s assertion than Mayer’s own men.

  Masculine, or not, Odd Mayer found himself stuck inside the Thickets, first unable to help the pressured Kaasen –Stein’s small force faced the bulk of Muvelo’s veteran rangers, and second, move outside. The latter because more and more Horse-Archers started arriving from their camp with each passing minute to surround the whole Thicket.

  Sir Reinir Tellman (sources claim it was Rupert that led the men) reacted to Mayer’s presumed plight and cut through the gap between West Porch’s inclines and the Thickets to flank the Horse-Archers. The lurking Rim-Sepa, who had been alerted of the fighting and Sir Reinir’s cavalry approach, probably also saw them from his more elevated initial position, charged his group of Medium Horse down the southeast side of the plateau to intercept them. The Issirs had dispersed just before the Medium Horse’s arrival, which nullified its charge –very few riders were caught and killed- and then the closing Issir fist fell on Rim-Sepa’s men, hitting them from all sides.

  Rim-Sepa’s larger force got mauled in close quarters combat, as while they immediately switched to swords, they had no shields like the Issirs and faced in most cases, much-more armoured opponents. Rim-Sepa ordered a retreat in order to get his men regrouped, but got smashed with a spiked mace atop of the head and fell from his horse. The young Horselord did manage to stand up miraculously, with blood and brains leaking down his misshapen conned helm, but Mathias Radler, one of Reinir’s old squire’s, came up to him -as the Horselord faltered about and delivered a second, even more devastating blow with his heavy weapon on Rim-Sepa’s cracked cranium.

  The Khanate’s Medium Horse was driven back, with the Issirs chasing after them towards the narrow treeline just before the Arid Plains. Some hundred meters to the east the anxious Sakir, who was busy trying to control his unruly Horse-Archers against Mayer’s men, saw part of Rim-Sepa’s retreat and ordered a large group of about two-hundred of them to assist the fleeing lancers. The Horse-Archers went after Pastelor’s men in a timely manner and while Sir Reinir had just chased the late Rim-Sepa’s lancers back towards the south edge of the plateau, he found himself effectively between two enemy forces. With over sixty Horselords killed in the brief scrap, the Khanate still outnumbered Sir Reinir’s riders three to one at this part of the battlefield.

  Rupert Tellman cursed upon seeing Torb Honnig, his Sister’s young squire, get savagely hacked across the face and drop from the saddle. He angled himself and his horse right to reach his bravely fighting sister, but Siske managed to get a war-hammer out with her left hand, parrying the thrusting scimitar away with the right and then disarm the Horselord with a blow to the wrist, just before Rupert reached her.

  The ogling Horselord hollered in pain and stooped forward on the saddle to grab his wobbly, shattered wrist with his free hand, only to get nailed between the eyes again by the returning war-hammer and topple from his horse in ghastly silence.

  “Finn! Curse ye boy!” Rupert barked irate, trying to locate his own squire and send him to help the lost in this savage clash of men and animals Torb. It would be a cruel tragedy, if the young man survives a sword slash just to be killed by the horses’ hooves. “Hurry up and find Honnig!”

  Linus neighed and tried to turn around, the sound of many galloping horses and screaming men unnerving the animal. Rupert managed to control his horse, half-blinded by the raised dust, despite the sun slowly taking its place on the sky.

  “Allgods darn it!” Rupert cursed and found himself riding next to his sister. He spotted a bruise on her cheek and went to check on it, but a furious Siske slapped his hand away.

  “Dust cloud be rising to the east,” Siske yelled turning to an angrier version of herself, whilst frothing at the mouth more than Veteran, her young stallion. “More slant-eyed bastards are coming! They look to flank us!”

  Rupert scowled and then glanced about them tensed. The Horselords were retreating towards the slopes, but whenever the Issirs attempted to charge their rear, these devils turned around, or dispatched another group to counter them. They fought better on the move, and they were fast.

  “Where is father?” Rupert asked and then saw Egon ‘Grass’ pop out of the dust cloud to ride near them. Very slowly. “Move you smirking knave!” Rupert cursed the smart-eyed, dirt-covered Egon, who hailed from the open areas between North Grey Woods and the West Arid Peaks. The squire stooped by the side of his horse to spit down and clean his mouth.

  A goat farmer’s bastard that wanted to become a knight. No man in Pastelor had even considered him, but he’d brought the retired Sir Reinir a pair of milking goats some years back, and showed his father how to make a type of sour cheese, which the ‘Iron Griffin’ had considered a ‘nice gesture. He is a smart lad like our Walter.’ So his father had started giving Egon some sword lessons in his spare time. Very soon the teenager was following him around Pastelor like a dog and when Sir Reinir reluctantly decided to don the armour again, Rupert knew he had his sister to blame for that, he took Egon with him as his personal squire. Mathias –his previous squire- was unavailable, as he had bought a patch of land and had sons of his own by then, already a respected man-at-arms for many years.

  “The Griffin says to cut off the pursuit!” Egon finally retorted crooking his mouth. “Now, so we can disengage from the lancers afore they get wind of it!”

  “Why?” Rupert grunted and spotted the mounted Sir Reinir smacking the men and horses moving past him with the flat of his blade to get them to stop. Egon shrugged his shoulders and then whistled sharply to get another group of men-at-arms to halt and regroup.

  “Torbie was just slayed,” Siske hissed turning around to gallop near their father and yell in his face. “I’m not standing down!”

  A grimacing Rupert glanced at the approaching their rear large dust cloud and realized there were hundreds of horses hidden inside the thick soup. Then an arrow splintered on his helm, rattling his brains and almost unhorsed him. The knight cursed, Linus twirling on his axis, and then more and more buzzing arrows started falling on men and horses at a steady rhythm.

  “Fan out! Get at them!” Rupert growled and twisted with the neighing scared Linus, peeking behind the rim of his shield. Then a horse went down a meter away, the Issir tumbling on the ground with a desperate yelp, right amidst the other men-at-arms’ horses. His father’s voice crackled at that time covering the sound of the arriving with alien roars Horselords.

  “Bellay that order young Tellman! Listen up. On to the treeline my lads! They’ll try to circle around us! This is not a retreat!” Sir Reinir ordered raising his voice so as to be heard by everyone near him, just as arrow after arrow kept hitting them. Breaking apart on helms and raised shields. Sticking on legs and armour.

  Or exposed flesh.

  “The Iron Griffin does not retreat!”

  

  The Issirs of Sir Reinir Tellman attempted to turn around and scatter the arriving Horse-Archers, but while some of them did successfully, it wasn’t helpful at all. More like a deadly illusion. The Horselords skirted nimbly around the charging men-at-arms, firing arrows from the saddle, even twisting around with their horses going the other way to do it. Those Issirs that got sucked in after the splintering groups of Horse-Archers quickly got isolated and brought down. The Khanate warriors looked to cripple the horses, or slow them down first and then very clinically bring the heavier armoured Issirs down. A death by a thousand cuts, the veterans surviving the war with the Khanate described, or under an avalanche. The latter referring to another of the Horselords tactics.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Sir Reinir galloped near the same treeline Rim-Sepa had used to hide during the night and looked for cover behind the thick-trunked, but thinly dispersed, light-gray beech trees. Some dismounted to pull the horses to safety and the fresher Horse-Archers charged inside the thin copse right after them. They could see they had the numbers against the Pastelor cut-off men-at-arms.

  Something similar was happening three kilometers to their northeast, where the also trapped Mayer’s northern troops (a mix of half-breeds, but also pure Issirs and Nords serving the Duchy of Krakenhall) found themselves against the bulk of Sakir’s now fully awakened Horse-Archers horde. Initially Mayer’s warriors panicked by the volume of missiles dropping on them, but very soon the hardened men and women realized that tree trunks (much thicker in this aptly named copse) could stop an arrow better than a shield, whether it was wooden, or fashioned with a layer of metal.

  ‘Or yer head. Ye don’t want to use that,’ as one of Krakenhall’s half-breed survivors disclosed well after the battle had ended and he had returned near the Duchess. ‘Unless it’s Gunnar’s head. Then I reckon, ye can.’

  The man was referring to the story of thick-skulled –surely- Gunnar ‘Cauldron’, a ferocious named Nord warrior, who kept on fighting with an arrow stuck above his left eyebrow.

  Sakir decided to force Mayer’s men out of the woods, as he was worried about the flanking maneuver towards their rear that Sir Reinir had just performed (splitting him from Sepa’s Medium Horse). He’d probably lost sight of friends and foes due to the dust and dirt clouds raised over the dry terrain. The Khanate had spare horses and supplies moved up from one of their two big rear camps built across the river (west and east of Mid Bridge). This would have been the west camp where Bedas’ men were stationed. These supplies of arms, arrows, food and horses were left in the open at the edge of the Arid Plains, not even five kilometers away and Sakir feared Reinir knew about them.

  With this in mind Sakir ordered about three hundred (or four hundred) of his mounted troops to enter the west edge of the Thickets and kick Mayer’s men out. Muvelo, facing a similar dilemma as him, about a kilometer to Sakir’s east (right side) had opted to surround Kaasen from three sides instead, whilst keeping the bulk of his rangers near their horses, ready to intervene against the Issirs center. It must be noted here that Kaasen had lighter troops at his disposal than Mayer (still better armoured than an average Horse-Archer), fewer in number and Muvelo’s rangers had light (even medium) leather armour on, paired with a much better understanding of close combat fight and melee weapons, than Sakir’s entire much larger force.

  Twenty minutes after the Horse-Archers entered the woods after Mayer’s barricaded warriors, a strange stillness came from this part of the noisy everywhere else battlefield. The troubled Sakir rode near the edge of the woods unsure of what was going on and was just about to order another large group of Horse-Archers to dismount in order to sneak inside and find out, when Mayer’s men started hurling their own type of projectiles from behind cover.

  Shaped alike balls, the hurled objects bounced on the hard terrain and rolled towards Sakir’s stunned men, under the Northmen’s own savagely delivered, very lewd taunts that had erupted from the woods.

  At least three hundred skulls have been recovered from the grounds around the Thickets after the gruesome battle, but Mayer’s lieutenants swear they had ‘chopped of at least a hundred more heads after the order was given’, with a couple of Northmen part-time lumberjacks bringing at least two sacks with them back to Krakenhall to claim their share of warrior fame –and coin- amongst their countrymen, either well-deserved, truly-earned in the field, or not.

  ‘Ye swing yer axe,’ one of them declared in a drunken retelling of the famed battle. ‘Reckon ye get to keep whatever falls off! Aye.’

  -

  Early noon to early afternoon

  Scrap at West-heading tendril of Gray Beech Copse

  Pastelor’s mounted troops

  Part of the Battle of West Coast Wilderness

  West Flank

  The lively desert horse jumped over the dead branch and cleared it, but the one coming right after didn’t fare that well, and had its hind legs come down like a blacksmith’s hammer on the hollow wood. The whole darn thing shattered into a thousand exploding splinters that rained over Rupert’s helmet.

  The scowling knight shoved Finn towards Linus to get him out of the way and just barely had the time to raise his shield, the arrowhead finding the crack and sprouting out near his head. He stumbled forward, the archer getting another serrated steel-point arrow out of his side-quiver and his partner galloping left, hiding behind Rupert’s shield to shoot at him from the sides.

  Finn yelled something obscene at the flanking Horse-Archer and when the latter turned to glare at the teenager, Rupert lowered the shield and turned his body to move against him. It left the knight exposed to the first enemy, and the latter stopped his horse, fully grasping at the opportunity for an even better shot.

  The unseen Sir Reinir, who had stopped behind a large tree not a meter away, stepped out of its shade, took another large stride with an oomph and stabbed the halted Horse-Archer at the side of his left knee, the dagger’s blade going right through flesh and bone afore hitting the wooden saddle. The wounded man groaned, and snapped his torso violently to the left in order to shoot at Rupert’s father from point blank range, but the Iron Griffin heaved his longsword up in a corkscrew motion, the blade’s point aimed at the sky and caught the Horselord under the chin.

  The heavy blade punched through the soft flesh, mangled the man’s lower jaw and kept going upwards until it clanged on the inner part of his metal cap, after it broke out of the top of his skull.

  Rupert caught an arrow with his right shoulder, the point hitting mail at the shoulder edge of his cuirass and punching the steel rivets into his flesh. He groaned, almost biting his own tongue clean off, but managed to down his sword as he stumbled forward, the heavy blade missing rider and saddle before digging deep into the hapless horse’s spine. Rupert crashed on the wounded animal next, got a boot to the helm, but used the top of his shield like a battering ram to unhorse the Horselord.

  The Horse-Archer toppled over the other side of the collapsing horse with a cry of panic, with Rupert faltering to a knee in the attempt to keep ahold of his sword, the latter still half-buried in the animal’s gory back.

  “Keep down!” His father barked and the attempting to stand Rupert, ducked back behind the dying horse, the whoosh of the flying blade sounding too-darn close for comfort. A sharp thud and the leaping over the animal roaring Horselord was hurled backwards, with a longsword buried in his chest.

  His warcry cut short abruptly.

  “Ah,” Rupert coughed and tried to get his blade out of the dead horse again, afore a cuff on his helm, rattled his brains for a second time.

  “Retrieve mine,” his father ordered brusquely and shoved him over the gored animal. “I’ll get yours out. Move boy!”

  A chastised and cursing Rupert did as he was told letting out an angry grunt, with a glance at the Iron Griffin’s black beak.

  “Egon grab that fool Finn and locate as many spears as you can,” Sir Reinir rustled to his squire. “Give one to Siske first. Every man should have this in mind. A spear in hand and his back on a tree trunk,” he added raspingly, breathing heavy.

  “Are you alright?” Rupert asked returning with his bloody longsword. “Tossing a blade at such distance,” he continued. “Didn’t you use to say, them circus stuff don’t belong in noble warfare?”

  His father gave him a slow nod with his head. “Hurt my shoulder a bit and there’s nothing noble about this son. This is butchery and we’re in a do, or die affair. Use whatever you can.”

  “Eh,” Rupert grunted and exchanged his own sword with his father’s. “Why bring all their fast horses here?”

  “They thought our artillery will be on Grote’s west side,” Reinir replied and Rupert noticed his father’s left hand was shaking again. It ain’t fear, he had told them back in Pastelor. Just old age and things coming apart from mileage.

  “How did Luikens know to change flanks at the last moment?” Rupert queried and stooped to pick up his shield, as more Horse-Archers had appeared between the trees. “How did they know?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” his father replied dismissively and signaled for him to find cover. “Nothing we can do to change any of it now.”

  “Yeah? What about the assayer’s darn machines?” a peeved Rupert asked, banging at his helm to set it right again. “It doesn’t make a lick of sense darn it, they should have send these bastards after him!”

  “Maybe they have something better to hurl at the Assayer son,” Sir Reinir replied coolly, staring at the regrouping Horselords. “Stay vigilant, for here they come yet again.”

  -

  

  Three hours after Kaasen had first entered the Thickets and Muvelo’s rangers had almost pushed him out after heavy fighting, the observant Khanate general realized Sakir hadn’t dealt with Mayer’s Nords at all. While the Northmen were trapped at the other edge of woods, the Horse-Archers had made no progress after that failed early bloody push and Mayer’s force stood in full control of the west part of the woods. Muvelo dispatched two hundred of his reserve rangers west under Bastet and Ru-Asper, two freed slaves and former gladiators he’d bought in Fu De-Gar years prior. They were tasked to strike at Mayer’s east flank amidst the trees and prevent him from reconnecting with Kaasen’s dwindling force.

  Not that far away to their south Sir Reinir’s men-at-arms, now also defending inside one of Gray Beech Copse’s branching-out growths, had repelled Sakir’s Horse-Archers, after the latter’s successful initial attack. The late Rim-Sepa’s mauled Medium Horse detachment that had returned near leader Kap-Sepa, informed -the fully engaged with Sir Joost AredRavn’s Farvor forces cavalry leader- on what had happened.

  Sir Joost had pushed Sepa’s men back up the incline, but the numbers weren’t in his favor and slowly lost all momentum. With the remnants of the still missing Baron Dan AredRavn’s force retreating further west from the plateau and to another forested part of the coast, some of Sepa’s Medium Horse had chased after them, but even so Sepa had enough available to order a general attack on the now also retreating Sir Joost. The Lancers galloped down the slopes, but Sir Joost had retreated timely and after he’d received word that Artur Krakauer’s militia infantry had reached the base of the plateau. Sir Joost and Arne Mair ducked behind the Issir spears and Sepa’s cavalry barely managed to avoid huge casualties, as its experienced leaders called-off the charge at the last possible moment. The Horselords returned to the top of the plateau, again missing the injured Baron AredRavn laid in between the corpses.

  According to sources and Khanate’s version of the battle, the peeved at the Issir infantry’s arrival Sepa (Krakauer had three hundred spears with him) almost had an apoplexy upon learning of his son’s fate in the hands of Sir Reinir. The fuming Sepa supposedly cut down the leader of the Medium Horse survivors with his spear, then ordered the rest of them ‘to gallop back down the slopes and bring me that cursed Griffin’s head’. One of Sepa’s most loyal riders, Tekem Dhouti, a Forya-Rohir from the steppe around Torbal, joined the late Rim-Sepa’s chastised detachment and they turned around to strike at Sir Reinir Tellman again.

  Sepa had his hands full, as despite numerical superiority and more riders, in reality he led the most worn-out force inside the Khan’s army. His mobile troops had been used extensively as a stopgap and had just returned from King’s Forest, where the Khan had dispatched him at the start of the year to stop a potential Merenda advance until more defensive units arrived. With the Jang-Lu arrival, Kaphiri Sepa had returned to the capital, but before he could rest his men and horses, the Khan ordered Sepa to deploy on Muvelo’s west side ‘to toughen up his archers’ and control –via defending the West Porch plateau- the Khanate’s west flank’s supply road. The latter perhaps the reason Sepa was as concerned with Sir Reinir’s force, as his men needed to change horses, something that could be done during the night, but only if they had control of the paths leading to the Arid Plains.

  In late noon, with events elsewhere in the battlefield changing rapidly, Dhouti arrived at this thin extension of Gray Beech Copse and immediately attacked again.

  -

  Mathias Radler chopped the Khanate warrior’s arm off, the heavy blade thudding on the man’s ribcage, after going through the top part of his shield, muscles, flesh and the left arm bone. Blood sprung from the ghastly wound and Rupert, who could see the Horselord approach Radler, barked a warning that got half-lost in the chaos of the moment. Mathias swung instinctively to his left and turned his torso, but got hit with a mace just below the shoulder pad and was hurled back.

  A cursing Rupert kicked with both his legs to compel Linus forward and the warhorse bullied the smaller desert horse aside to open the way, its rider’s sneaky slash blocked by the knight’s sword. Rupert heaved and then dragged the blade down, through his opponent’s defenses. He carved a bloody wound under the snarling man’s right ear, and peeled all skin and excess flesh away from the lancer’s face with the sharpened edge.

  Then the knight broke free to reach the injured Mathias and the furious Horselord, but Linus managed only a couple of more meters, before a spear punched through Rupert’s shield, the force of the side impact tossing the knight from the saddle. Rupert landed badly, his broken left arm almost detaching from the fall and half-rolled on the soft ground, using his sword as a cane to stand back up.

  He heard the sound of hooves digging at the ground and saw a snarling Egon gallop atop his horse to his aid, whilst hefting a warspear with both hands. Egon was heading straight for the advancing, burly Horselord, as the lancer who had attacked Rupert had moved away. Now, the space left between the trees was not suitable for long charges and fancy maneuvering, but there was space enough for a horse to go through and attempt a turn.

  Or two.

  The Horselord hurled the mace at the galloping Egon and then jumped on his saddle alike a circus acrobat. Blasted to all-hells! Egon flinched at the last moment, the shaft smacking his chest afore it flipped from the momentum and cracked the squire’s jaw with the steel ball. Egon Grass lost the warspear and barely managed to stay on the saddle, bleeding profusely and the shadow of the leaping from his own saddle Horselord, looming over the hurt squire.

  “Watch out!” A hurt Rupert roared just before the flying Horselord landed on the stunned squire. The Horselord tried that is, but his father’s old horse Sagen reached there first. Reinir kicked a leg out, the spurred boot thudding on Egon’s horse’s snout to turn it away and then used his shield to block the Horselord’s mid-air swing with a curved dagger.

  The still stunned from the earlier blow Egon veered left and then fell off his horse, but the ululating Horselord plunged straight for the gap left after Egon had moved away and crashed on the ground badly. With a growl and a curse, the wiry man got up on his feet sporting a slight limp and a gnarl aimed at the imposing figure of Sir Reinir.

  “Move boy!” Reinir boomed with a glance at his snarling son and flicked the longsword vertically, the point making a semi-circle, to cut off the Horselord’s advance. The Khanate’s muscular warrior jerked his head back to successfully avoid the hissing blade, now hefting a scimitar of his own along that dagger, but just as he took another step towards the mounted Iron Griffin, the heavy blade came down and carved him up from sternum to groin.

  It spilled a bucket’s worth of gory innards between his buckling legs.

  Rupert parried the lancer’s attack in the meantime and when the spear came back, he chopped part of it away with his own sword. The lancer grunted and twisted his horse in a half-circle to jostle Rupert back. He sort of managed it and the irked knight hacked at the man’s right ankle instead.

  The gory, sandaled foot detached from the rider’s leg and the screaming in agony Horselord slid from the saddle painting a red path on his panicked horse’s back. Rupert groaned as well, as he’d an arm dangling from his shoulder, which hurt a lot on its own, but not as much as having mauled tendons weighted down by all that ‘arm-protecting’ armour. He faltered trying to assess the situation and an arrow almost took his right eye out, the tip clanging on his visor and the shaft splintering as he’d managed to angle the helm on instinct.

  He hated war.

  Nothing good could come of it, Rupert thought bitterly. Nothing worthy of all the pain. He hated he was good at it, but not good-enough to make it safe back to his sweet Inet and that stubborn son of his. Not coward-enough, or more of a callous motherfucker, to avoid the whole darn thing. The thought of Inet Baar, his Pastelor wife, warmed the knight’s soul and his son’s words snapped him back to reality.

  

  “What’s your name Sir Knight?” Lucius asked, signing for his approaching riders, Gripa amongst them leading the pack, to not get involved.

  “Walter Tellman, of Pastelor,” the young knight said steadily, eyeing the riders with a frown. No fear in his face though.

  “You can retreat Sir Walter,” Lucius offered, recognizing the famous name. Sir Reinir Tellman, the Iron Griffin, was perhaps the most celebrated Knight in the history of the Three Kingdoms. “There’s no shame in that.”

  “This is my father’s arms and armour,” Sir Walter said voice hoarse, crooking his mouth. “The Iron Griffin does not retreat Sir Lucius,” he added with a deep resigned sigh and unsheathed his longsword. The ivory handle on it long and beautifully sculpted in the shape of the eagle-headed lion.

  “The battle is over, Sir Walter.”

  “Aye, but the war has just begun, Sir Lucius.”

  Lucius nodded in understanding and unsheathed his own longsword. Sir Walter raised his head and stared at him earnestly.

  “May Luthos guide you out of the Sea of Struggles Lord Alden and back to familiar cherished shores,” he told him, using the archaic form of the famous salutation and lowered his face-cover. Paused for a breath as if to gather his courage and then walked determined towards the expecting Lucius.

  ‘We’re the Iron Griffin’s kin. His own blood,’ his passionate son -Rupert the second- had told him months back afore they had departed Pastelor. ‘Where there’s need, a Tellman must be present. No matter the strength of our foes, their skill and fame, or the amount of danger thrust upon us, we must stand proud and always fight back, sword in hand. Whatever the odds may be father, just like uncle Walter did.’

  “Eh,” a moved Rupert gasped hoarsely, in an attempt to get some air into his burning lungs and felt his dry mouth bitter. Leathery, as if he’d just swallowed a bucket’s worth of earth and gravel. The Pastelor native was in horrible pain and dead tired, but not tired enough not to realize, the Horselords attack had died down. He could see them pulling back between the gray beech trees, dragging some of their wounded behind their horses and then heard his sister’s voice calling out worried.

  “It’s me left arm. Can’t feel it,” Rupert griped raspingly, turning to behold the arriving Siske and his twenty years younger, sweet little sister grunted unladylike afore jumping from her horse. “I think the darn thing is broken Siske,” a sullen Rupert added.

  “Of course it is, you blasted idiot,” his sister cursed him irate with a cracking, insensitive voice and turned around –grabbing hold of Rupert’s good shoulder- the now doubly hurt at the unexpected absence of any show of sympathy knight, to add soberly. “Our father’s hurt.”

  Uher’s mercy!

  -

  

  Dhouti failed in his attempt to dislodge Sir Reinir’s stubborn, mounted force from the woods and the surviving this attack Lancers and Horse Archers –the latter had previously made two botched attacks against the Griffin’s men- retreated near the base of the plateau in order to regroup, leaving mounted sentinels behind. They were completely spent for the day and the rest of the afternoon was uneventful.

  While Sir Reinir had successfully fought off the Horselords and kept Sepa and Sakir bothered with his presence at their rear, the aged knight had suffered a serious injury. It was kept a secret from the men –but from those closest to him- not to affect their morale. The struggle for the west flank had successfully tied up a huge number of horses and men, which could have been useful in other parts of the battlefield. It affected both sides, as Joris Sloot was ordered by Lord Anker to bring more than half of his volunteers –the Issir center’s reserve- closer to Kaasen to prevent a collapse of their west flank so near Baron Grote’s 3rd Foot and also soar up the rest of the besieged in the Thickets defenders.

  But it damaged the Khanate’s plans the most –despite their superiority in numbers- as it deprived them from fast, versatile units to use elsewhere. This would have a cascading effect and force the Khan’s generals to employ more ‘special’ units to tackle the battle’s demands, better suited to Horse-Archers, rangers, or Sepa’s veteran cavalry.

  Like in the center, where most of the Issir artillery was located –the rather lackluster and unimaginative final placement still posed problems for the Khanate- especially when the large infantry squares from both sides slowly crept up closer with one another and the engineers realized that the plains while suitable for horses, were excellent ground for artillery as well.

  Or at the distant east flank, very deep into the Crimson Forest, where Wim Luikens' even more dangerous, novel machines, were steadily moving on their stubby steel-wheeled custom platforms, unbeknownst to most of the participants. Those who were aware of the Assayer’s ever-changing in the previous weeks’ secret plans –in the intense espionage battle that had raged on between the two adversaries for months- unfortunately, or fortunately, were already there.