The Battle of Kharbarinth
Composed with Holy Tedalonia
They had come. The scouts had reported it, and the people been drawn back into the city. But they had come - marching hundreds, thousands even, armed and ready for war. Their banners were as a thicket of young trees, hung in leaves of red and black, and the brazen voice of the man who would be the master of the Stalheimadrin echoed against the stones of the fastness where the soldiers of the Hegemon waited. He spoke, and his anger was evident in his words, his mocking demand for an answer.
Another challenge rang against cold stone, and then the gates of the City of Bells opened for a few moments. Through the frowning barred entrance to the high walls of the state walked a man in a robe of black and white. His face was ageless, both young and old, and as he walked he was accompanied by two guards in burnished soot-colored armor, their faces hidden by silvered masks. One carried the standard of the city, a vast white gemstone set on a field of sable, and the other a glittering standard set with precious jewels that blazed with arcane fire, topped by a great bat-winged beast in flight.
As the emissary of the Hierarchy approached to within two dozen paces of the Herald, he spoke with a loud and clear voice, unaccented, counting on the translator who cowered next to the warrior to repeat his words to the man of the Horde.
"My master, the Chosen of the Father, sends greetings to the warriors of the Lord of the Earth who have come before his gates. The Keen-Folk, the Firstborn of the Mother, are pleased to meet others of the children of the Maker. He asks, though, why those of his progeny have come to the Jewel of the Earth in open arms, dressed for war, burning and despoiling. His wroth is kindled, and my master bids you speak quickly, ere his anger is loosed."
The Herald listens carefully, discerning the translators words with precision. The translator was, but a unfortunate man of Xcotl, but a scholarly one at that. His approximation of the words of the emissary was fair, and his translation likewise.
After hearing the words the Herald speaks in a harsh and guttural tongue aloud. “It is good you know the Lord of the Earth, Man of the Stone. No doubt you understand, the Lord of the Earth demands servitude, no? For those who will not serve the Lord of the Earth are cast out from his domain into the fire.”
The emissary eyes the Herald, and an eyebrow rises nearly imperceptibly in his face.
“Servitude, yes. All men serve the Hegemon, and through him, the Maker, the Lord of All Men. This has been our charge since the first husband and the first wife. It is not changed by the arrivals of his servants upon the threshold of our city, nor their absence.”
These strange words rock the translator back on his heels for a moment, and he shoots a venomous glance at the young-old man who wears the colors of the city, before his master barks an order at him demanding he translate. When the Herald in his saddle hears the content of the speech of the emissary of Kharbarinth, he sits still upon his horse for a long breath. Upon the walls of the city the soldiers hiding in readiness wonder at the strange silence, where words had been bandied with speed. Then the Herald tosses his head, oiled ringlets of dark black hair in a tempest, his face mottled with rage.
"It cannot be. I do not believe it. My master demands obedience from all men, and he has never spoken of you, nor your folk, man of stone. Surrender your city and open your gates, or perish in defiance of the true Lord of the Earth."
The Emissary face is cold as he looks now at the enraged visage of his counterpart, and his voice is level, but wintry as he speaks anew.
“You may question my word as you wish, but my master has no quarrel with your kindred. If you come not in peace, and friendship to those of the Hvasskyn, my master has bid me tell you that your host must depart- for it troubles the hearts of his charges, and the rhythm of the seasons is harmed by the looting and burning that has followed in your wake.”
“Very well, if your Hegemon won’t meet our demands of bring a tithe worthy of that of the Lord of the Earth,” spat the Herald, “then he will meet our blades!”
The translator is a bit shaken by the last words, stumbling a bit. Obviously he is afraid of his master's wrath.
Deliberately, the representative of the Hierarchy and the Hegemon turns his back on the man of the Horde, and Emissary retires. As the gates close behind him the pealing of bells is heard beyond the frowning walls. From behind the parapets of the edifice of stone hundreds of warriors in glittering armor stand, apparently ready to turn back these invaders by force, since they will not see reason. Back to the host the Herald rides, and their baying warchants rise in unison, spear clashed on shield and voices crying anger in the dawn air. It was war then.
The Hierarchy, those noble fools and stalwart men of the Hegemon, denied the horde its demand. Denied the Lord of the Earth what he was due. With the rumble of drums the Horde marches, its path directed by some dark intelligence. West they move like a sea of spears and darkness blotting out the earth, eager fangs of a beast swallowing its prey. The Midnight Horde moved as though it was opening its jaw, warriors moving to place themselves before every part of the long wall of the city, eagerly awaiting to sink into his unmoving meal. An arrow whizzes through the silence of the space between the walls, and then dozens loosed from singing bows wielded by hands the color of soot. The battle had begun.
The horde swarmed westward, away from the river, and atop the battlements of the City of Bells Warmaster Naamos frowned under his burnished bloodsilver mask. They were clever, more clever than any host of fleabitten marauders had any business being. Of course, he had never fought a foe that outnumbered the Guards so clearly; there had to be at least a thousand men out there under the banners of black and red, if not more, and he had just over half of that number within the Nightwall to deal with their assault.
A few barked orders, and the hammering of pommel on shield in a rehearsed rhythm. Though hushed conversation and the cries of nervous civilians could be heard within the walls, and the harsh battle-rhythms of the Midnight Horde without, barely a word was raised atop the ramparts which guarded the Jewel of the West. Men of the Guard communicated via battle-speech, the carefully practiced tattoo of weapons and armor able to pierce the chaos of even a desperate struggle, and as clear as a clarion call in the stillness before the plunge.
Away to the west the soldiers of the Hegemon marched; not all of them, but most, following the main mass of the enemy forces. They were trying to split his force, and they succeeded, but others remained ready over the gates of the citadel, prepared for the assault which was gathering just beyond bowshot. None of the heavily armed warriors in black remained, curiously in the eyes of the Warmaster, to force a breach of this gate. But that would serve, for now. While he divined where they might have been sent the enemy mages stepped forward.. and began killing.
A fell thing. Repulsive. Life after life winked out before the walls of the fair city of Kharbarinth, and Naamos and his men braced themselves, preparing for the sorcerous onslaught. But it never came - lightning fell, and flames growled up out of the earth, but they wreathed the heavy timbers and folded iron of the gate that barred the entrance to the city, not the soldiers who defended her. A quick prayer to the Father the Warmaster offered, and then the enemy began to advance.
No word, nothing save nervous muttering from the mages of the Collegia Arcanum, broke the stillness as the howling horde of warriors advanced on the Nightwall. Then, a low drumming from the commander, and sturdy greatbows were raised by the first ranks behind the parapet. The enemy drew closer, teeming hundreds rushing headlong for the damaged gate, to force entry to the citadel of the Hierarchy. Another clap, this time of spear on shield, echoing loud in ears that had so recently been assailed by falling thunderbolt and the crush of fire. And a wind answered it, arrows from the soldiers of the Hegemon whispering through the ether for a brief moment, a paean of death. Dozens toppled where they strode, laid low by feathered shafts protruding from arm, or leg, and then the rain continued unmitigated - unarmored bodies felled by their scores against the merciless fire of the well-drilled soldiers who defended the Nightwall.
Elsewhere the rain was not unanswered - men with skins of midnight plied their own bows of graven wood, thickets of bronze-tipped shot striking against stone and armor and flesh of those who called the city their home. Defenders toppled from the wall, shot through, and ladders were raised to allow teeming slave soldiers to climb to the assault as the hosts of the Lord of the Earth pressed close to the walls to gain access to the city.. Against the climbers stones were cast down to crush unprotected skulls, and the piles of slain rose high swiftly, but still the warriors of the Midnight climbed, and drove their slaves on ahead of them.
That horde snarled and snapped, a wolf accustomed to feasting, not to a quarry with its own claws and teeth. The beast lashed out. The cavalry- the men who dare ride the beasts of nature, and use them to their own end - charges forth from where it had been held in reserve and pelts the enemy above. Skilled warriors, using the bow from atop a bareback horse, loosed darts of black-feathered against the walls above. The first rush of slave soldiers was all but slain to a man, their bodies carpeting the approach to the walls, but more came on just as surely as a tide rolled up a beach; they cared not for losses, or death, but only for killing.
Farther east, where the defenders were clustered less thickly, one can see the ladders with barbaric men climbing the walls. Men with crescent blades, and the dark skin of the hidden moon rush against the ramparts, following their brothers to the ascent of the wall, where silver-shielded soldiers of the city struggle against the barbaric host with sword and spear and mace.
And at the gates of Sunhold, mages once more prepared their wicked spells. The death-blow, prepared to let heart-blood run free. A hope of the breakthrough, and the slaughter to come. A hundred slaves with eyes of blank white bear throats and breasts for the sacrificial knife, and others rush westward to where their betters clash with the men of Kharbarinth, a master directing them to be in at the death.
"Draw your swords!" came the barked order of the Warmaster, and the leader of the forces of the Hierarchy bared his own keen slashing blade as the first heads of the enemy appeared above the parapet. A man in the black and white surcoat of the city cut down with his hand-and-a-half sword, and the matted black hair on the foeman splintered into ruined red, the man toppling from the ladder he had climbed so laboriously with a shriek.
They were dying in their hundreds, and still they came on gamely. Naamos had not seen such spirit in any brigand, but these were no ordinary brigands. As the Blackguards waded forward to the defense, between archers still firing with trained precision at the massing warriors below, another sorcerous blast shook the stones beneath his feet. Doubtless others of the blank eyed corpses walking that the enemy threw as meat into the grinder had perished, a fact that had already begun to lose its horror for the Warmaster.
"Warmaster! The gate is badly damaged! Commander Orebreaker asks for reinforcements, before the enemy breaks through. They are many."
A flick of his eyes at some of the men defending the wall, and a section fell back from the fray, running for the fortified towers that guarded the stairways down into the city below. It was hot work, and heavy. Mages here and there held glowing crystals to arrow wounds and rents in armor, the flesh of those who bore mortal wounds knitting before the eye. The power of the skilled craftsmen of the City of Bells, at work in a symphony of bowstrings and death.
Naamos risked a glance downwards, as arrows whistled to and fro about him. Most of the enemy's unmarked soldiers were down, or dead, but bolts slipped away from the bodies of the men who were now moving to the attack, the harsh singing black men who seemed to form the core of the enemy's troops. His own men were dwindling in number, and still hundreds assaulted the walls.
The gate was broken, but then a curious thing occurred. Though a rent had been blasted in the primary defense of the city, the mages who had done such a thing fled westward, to where the main throng of the Black Host lay. Perhaps they had had more than flesh could bear; already many gray robed figures were heaped in the piles of the slain, pierced through with shot from above. Perhaps it was a stratagem long devised. The cavalry too, head to the fitted walls, eager to regroup. The entrance to Sunhold lays barren before the Keen-folk, save for retreating mages.
"The enemy is... retreating?" intoned the commander at the gates, one of his men peering out of the broken timbers at the piles of corpses left by the foe.
"Regrouping, commander." The voice of the mage-captain in her white robes brought back Orebreaker from his reverie, and the great bear of a man nodded. "Send word to the Warmaster. He will want to know."
"Drive them back!" Bellowing, Naamos waded into the fray. A bronze mace clanged off of his shaped helm with the sound of a reverberating gong, and his shortsword slipped between the rips of the furious midnight-skinned warrior with the soft snick of a mother's caress. These men, whatever Lord of the Earth they served, fought with ferocity but no great skill. The shield wall was holding, and those who found purchase atop the walls were cast swiftly back into the abyss beyond, dead or dying. Men out of a vanished age, the Warmaster judged them as he slew, given a grasp upon the present by dint of savagery and fear.
But even the most savage of men could not stand against the light of civilization, of progress.
They fought well, with honor, ignoring the wounded where they fell. The Warmaster respected them even as he slew them for that. They might kill those who were beneath them, peasants who had not even tried to give an account of themselves, but to the soldiers of the Stalheimadrin they afforded a certain deference. Not that it saved them - the withering fire of the greatbows felled dozens even as they marched to where their commander must have adjudged a breach could be made, and the stinking carpet of black-skinned corpses beneath the lesser wall of Kharbarinth grew higher.
They were better at close quarters than with their bows, certainly. The bronze weapons the Midnight warriors wielded could seldom pierce good iron lorica or forged scales of bloodsilver, but they killed more men in the time the Warmaster fought with them than he had ever seen felled in his score of years at the side of the Hegemon. No bandits could have cost so many lives, not in a century of skirmishes and peace-keeping actions, and they had no give in them. Even when more than half their number lay dead, they were relentless in their assault.
"The gate!" came a cry from one of the watchers upon the walls, and the Warmaster looked up in concern.
Whether it was the plan in the first place or a last ditch effort to jab the Hierarchy a vindictive wound, the Horde massed below the walls charged not to the ramparts, to climb hand over hand into the charnelhouse that the top of the walls had become, but the gates. The thunder of hooves fills the air, men atop horses trading bows for swords, relying on the weight of their steeds to overthrow the defenders remaining there, and behind them came all the strength of the slave-soldiers and warriors of the Midnight Horde that still drew breath.
Timbers shattered under the weight of their assault, and through the small breach they poured. The force of the charge nearly broke the shield-wall formed up by the defenders behind, though shortspears pierced horses as easily as men. It was a horrible thing, the screams that filled the air. Few in the ranks of the warriors that defended the city had ever heard a scream like that; the horses, wounded, screamed like women, and the battle-cries of the Midnight Warriors added to that dreadful sound caused the faces of many to pale.
But they held. If just. Weakened and battered, shot, stabbed, and humbled, flesh and blood could take no more. As the shield wall held them back from a breakthrough, the spirit of those who remained of the soldiers of the Lord of the Earth faltered. Their losses were beyond the count even of grief, where men had expected to pillage and sack. As reinforcements poured down from where they had been caught up on the walls, reinforcing the defenders of the gate, they had had too much. First singly, then in great masses, soldiers began to flee away from the city. Slaves threw down weapons to run faster, men were trampled in the desperate rush to get away from those gleaming spears and silver faces. And it was over.
"A silver knave for any prisoner taken alive!" shouted the Warmaster over the din of battle, and with that encouragement the soldiers of Kharbarinth surged forward. That was all it took. A retreat became a rout, and those who remained of the Host fled with headlong abandon. Mounted soldiers, of course, could scarce be run down by the soldiers of the city on foot. But those who might have fled otherwise, exhausted from hours of batle, were pursued and taken, some slain, some surrendering when they perceived they could not escape.
It was done, and Kharbarinth had lived to see another dawn.
