Book 6, Chapter 33: Fight or Flight
We’d left before the dawn fully awakened, before the birds roused the forest with their singing, and rode and rode, eating in the saddle, switching horses every few hours. In the afternoon, we saw it. In a large area far ahead, the sky was darker, dirtier, smokey. Nebulous and billowing outward. The cookfires from a large low technology city. At least, that’s what I thought. And I was half right.
Those ahead of me had stopped on a hill when I’d caught up to them. I rode up to Gyges and the Laemacian lieutenant, who were conferring about what to do.
Below us was a large and flat valley that looked to me like a flood basin, a river meandering lazily through, and a high-walled city built around it. Opposite us, forests grew near it on either side and up into the hills beyond, and on the right, the downriver side, the forest was ablaze, sending brownish grey smoke up into the air. Surrounding the walls on that side, too, was a large army.
Disturbingly, they had crude catapults built out of logs recently harvested from the forest, not stripped of bark, boulders hanging from baskets on their launching trunk. The catapults were within bowshot of the walls, meaning they didn’t have enough range. That was good for the defenders, who were loosing burning arrows at them. I wondered if they were responsible for the forest fire raging along their city.
I sighed. It had to happen eventually, people being cunning in war. At least my army had a head start with siege weapons. I could only hope the smithies continued to develop them. That my generals pushed for more and better weaponry.
“Clearly,” Gyges said, pointing to our left, “we should ride to that side of the city and attempt entry there.”
The lieutenant, a touch of a smile in his eyes, looked at the captain. “Clearly. We’ll backtrack, keeping on this side of the hill to stay out of sight, then make a run for it along the river. There’s a road leading to gates on that side. But,” he slid off his horse, “keep your eyes open. They’ve likely positioned scouting parties along these hills. It’s a wonder they didn’t see us already.”
I nudged my horses back down the hill before dismounting and following the lieutenant. The grass here was short, rough and brownish. Horses, being horses, pulled some up and began chewing anyways.
Gyges walked up to me, asking, “Where are your weapons?”
“Weapons?”
“Your sword and dagger. The ones you rescued Cresida with.”
“I left them at Serce’s encampment.”
“Why ever would you do that?”
Because, I did not say, I needed to appear powerful and godly. Instead, shaking my head, “I, uh, don’t really need weapons.” Nope, I’ll just take them from whoever attacks me, assuming there’s only one of them. Yeah, alright, I was dumb. But dropping my weapons belt worked at the time. It certainly got Serce’s attention.
He gave me a scowl, furrowed eyebrows with matching squint and all, then took out his dagger, “Here. So far, all I’ve seen you use are weapons.”
“I don’t have a belt or sheathe.”
He glanced at my horse, “You’ve saddlebags.”
“Those I have.” I took the blade, putting it in my left hand for now. I didn’t feel like slowing us down just to put the dagger away. Carrying it felt awkward, though, like running with scissors. I endeavored not to stab myself. “Thank you.”
“I really don’t understand you. Cresida said you were the best fighter she’s ever seen and yet you didn’t bring a sword belt while we’re being pursued by soldiers?”
“I just told you I don’t really need my own weapons.”
“Yes you did, and I’m telling you that doesn’t make sense.”
“How many women in your armies, Captain? How many in the Laemacian armies?”
“I don’t think those rules apply to you. Especially now.”
“Tell you what, you get me a suit of armor, I’ll carry a sword and dagger into battle.”
“If you’d asked earlier, I could have arranged it.” He looked around, “Now, I don’t think so.”
I didn’t bother to shrug, had to step around some thick brush, said, “You wouldn’t have before.”
“After the battle I would have.”
I sighed inwardly, not wanting to continue this back and forth. After the battle, he may have thought I could hold my own, based on Cresida’s telling, but he no longer had access to the armor he was so generously insisting I should have asked for. The only reason to mention that now would be to put him down. “Yeah. I’ll see if I can round some up when we get into the city.”
“That doesn’t help us now.”
“As we don’t have spare armor, neither does this conversation.”
“I’m trying to understand you.”
“Ah. Thanks.”
He sighed, shook his head, and his silence was welcome.
It wasn’t a circular valley, and our path was taking us further and further away from the city. Passing the lead to Gyges, I asked, “Hey, can you hold my reins for a bit?”
“Uh, alright.”
I jogged ahead, catching up to the lieutenant, and asked, “What are your thoughts on getting into the city?”
He didn’t look at me. “Exactly what we’re doing.”
I moved in front of him, walking backwards. “And how will you know it’s safe to ride through the valley?”
Having no choice, his purple eyes met my own, “It won’t be safe, my lady. We’ll need to ride hard.”
“You see, were I a scouting party, I’d also want to be watching the hillside for people like us. We’re almost certain to run into one.” I tried not to be obvious, glancing sideways to make sure nothing was behind me, as falling on my backside would be embarrassing.
“It depends on how long the battle has been raging. I don’t think very long at this point, given that the forest is still burning.”
“If that’s the case, we should have run into Laemacian messengers headed for Serce.” Step, step, rock, stumble, catch myself, step, smile, blink, blink, smile.
“Perhaps that indicates the battle began this morning.”
“You can’t seriously believe that.”
“The messengers may have taken a circuitous route to stay unseen. Also, I saw a scouting party up ahead of us, moving as we are, on this very path.”
That took me by surprise, “You have us following them?” Getting out of his path, I moved to walk alongside him, peering through the threes, searching for leather clothing among the trees or anyone hiding.
“What better way to stay hidden than in their past at their backs? If we suddenly ride now, they’ll see us and give chase.”
“How many are there?”
“Maybe ten. We might be able to take them, if we take them by surprise.”
“We’re walking our horses. We’re not catching up this way.”
“Scouting parties often send a man back, as a rear sentry. We must go slower than they are. But, I don’t mean to attack them. Up ahead, the valley bends southward. That is where we’ll head down.”
“Ah. You think they’ll continue along the ridge but staying well in advance and out of line of sight with us.”
“That’s my hope. Once we hit the valley, we’ll have to ride quickly.”
“Why not wait until night?”
“We’d risk them retracing their steps and finding us. My lady, perhaps you should return to your mounts? We’re close now. I mean to ride down just ahead.”
“Yeah. Thank you for the information.”
He nodded. With growing frustration, I headed back down the trail. I could have waited, Gyges would eventually keep up, but my body needed to move. I missed being with my soldiers, perhaps selfishly, because they actually listened to me, and gave me useful information ahead of time. This whole being kept out of the chain of command, being dismissed off handedly, well, it wasn’t fun. I suppose almost everyone else was treated like this normally, especially women. Girls, too, the world loved ignoring young girls. Young appearing in my case! Ancient at heart.
I really should have kept my weapons.
True to his word, we stopped when the hill bent around south, which was to our left, more or less toward the enemy we’d been fleeing. The hillside was meandering, not sharp, and the path followed the edge, and the trees up here prevented anyone further along the path from seeing us and our many, many horses.
The problem was, at least to me, the slope down seemed a bit steep. It leveled off nicely near the midway point, though I was worried about bringing three horses tied together down. I decided to take the most rested one and undue the other two.
Cocking her head at me, slight narrowing of her eyes into not quite a scowl, Cresida followed my lead and began untying her horses. I didn’t know why she was mad at me. Unless it was for all these events, losing their lands and magical defense and needing to flee invading armies, but if you ignored all that, I didn’t know why she was annoyed at me just now.
Two of the men attached flags to their spears, holding the flags down for now. So, that’s how we’re being recognized at the gates. It made me wonder what would happen if an enemy copied a flag. Perhaps there was some additional password or the soldiers manning the gates would recognize the bearer. I’d hopefully find out shortly.
“Choose your freshest,” said the lieutenant, loud enough to be heard by the fourteen of us, following suit. When everyone was ready, down he went leaning back in his saddle, like a tree growing on a slope, leading the way. His horse moved into a trot and then broke into a gallop.
Keeping my body pointing skyward, I let my horse do the same. The lack of stirrups put all the pressure on my inner thighs and calves, and I squeezed, then the horse took off and it was all I could do to stay on while not pulling on the reins.
Showers of gravel and a cloud of dust ballooned as a rider went down.
A glint of light to my left. I blinked, glanced over – soldiers, racing toward us! “We’ve been seen!” I shouted.
“To the gates!” yelled the lieutenant arm up in the air as a balance, as if in a rodeo.
As we hit the shallower downslope, horses in full gallop now, making it easier to stay on but kicking up clouds of dust, I glanced over my shoulder, taking in our men. At least two had gone down and only half of the freed horses followed us, the rest still up top. Two of the enemy headed toward our fallen, who were doing their best to get their horses up, the remainder chasing us.
An arrow whizzed by and I cursed that they were horse archers. I leaned forward to present a lower profile and began to overtake everyone, being the lightest and not in armor. That wouldn’t do. I had to keep Talaren safe, and slowed down my mount, looking for him.
A thump to my left, a horse and man crashed into the ground, clouds of dirt everywhere, flag tumbling end over end. Damn. Behind and to my right, the scream of a horse being hit by an arrow. I hoped and hoped it wasn’t the other flag bearer or we’d be fighting at the gates.
Finally, Talaren rode by, I paced him. “Down, lean down!”
Then, a scream like an eagle rang out, but louder, more powerful, more piercing, than any eagle ever could, and the horses put their heads down, ears flat, and ran faster and faster, pelts gleaming. Trusting my ride, I looked up and nearly fell off.
The most beautiful women with long, black hair, half-naked, breasts firm and high, narrow waists and wide hips, gliding down on enormous grey bat-like wings, feet on their shapely legs ending in knife-sized, eagle-like talons.
The lieutenant slowed his horse to a stop, eyes on one of the womanly beasts. I quickly looked around and saw that Gyges, too, was slowing to a stop, Cresida riding over to him, yelling and pointing at the gates.
The enemy soldiers chasing us were now stopping their horses, weapons down and relaxed, also staring up at the monstrous women. One flew into the group, to a solder who’d dropped his bow to hold his hands up, and with enormous strength, she plucked him from the saddle with her arms, he hugged her, she wrapped her legs around him and took him into the sky. None of his fellows seemed to notice and more of them let their weapons fall away.
“Talaren!” I yelled in a panic. “Don’t look, keep riding!”
But he had, and he stopped his horse, wheeling it around to face them, “They’re the most beautiful women! I’ve never seen anyone so . . .”
I lined up with him, taking his reins and pulling his horse along with mine, voice full of panic, “They’re beguiling you! All the men!”
Talaren weakly batted away at my hands, making it hard to keep our horses together, “Stop. Let me go, leave me, I want to watch them. Join her.”
“No, damnit!” I backhanded him in the chest hard trying and trying to get his attention, “Talaren, focus! We’ve got to get to the city gates!”
By now, many of the creatures circled the men – ours and the enemy’s – and the beasts screamed again and again, another picking up a man who had his arms extended upwards, readily offering up his body and life.
I’d have scoffed if I wasn’t so desperate. Angry and giving up on reasoning with him, reins under my control, I turned the horses back to the city gates and tried to get us moving together. Well ahead of us and near the gates, the second flag bearer racing on and not looking back. I wondered how he resisted the beasts, but was glad the city guards would know we were on team Laemacia.
“Cayce!” Cresida shouted, “Do something!!!” She was holding onto Gyge’s hand and arm, trying to pull him down from his horse, but shaking her off as if she were some pest, some afterthought. “Gyges! What the hell is wrong with you!” Cresida reached up and slapped her husband.
Gliding down, a bird-women landed on the horse in front of Gyges and kicked Cresida away. Smiling, he hugged his arms around the creature, it wrapped its legs around him, breasts pressing into his armor, and with effort, they rose into the sky. Their lips locking, he began pulling his hauberk up, then over his head, she helping him strip with her human hands, wings beating them off into the air, up they went. The chainmail dropped to the ground, he began fiddling with his leather pants.
The whoosh of air above broke my focus on that awful sight. Just above my head, another winged woman reaching for the wizard. Talaren, to my horror, began unbuttoning his shirt. No point in arguing with him, I aimed the dagger Gyges had given me, and threw it into the creature’s neck, flinching away as blood rained down on us and it fell to the ground just missing our horses.
Cresida was loudly begging Gyges to fight back, yelled my name again and again, but I could do nothing. I could not lose Talaren. The world couldn’t lose him.
My horse pulled back its lips, raising on its hind legs, and smashed a hoof into the creature’s face, and then another. Talaren’s horse wanted to bolt, eyes white, and it was all I could do to hold the reins and him, trying my best to soothe the horse, maybe the mage, too, “Hey, hey there, hold on, it’s ok, it’s ok . . .”
Talaren shook his head, wiping blood off his face, saying, “What . . . are these things?”
“They’re after you! Don’t look at them!” I slapped his face.
“What?” Putting his hand up to his cheek, he asked, “What was that for?”
“Eyes on me!” I pointed at myself, he looked down at my chest, making me tempted to slap him again, and I squeezed the horse, directed her to gallop and we took off, finally, toward the gates. One last glance at Cresida, standing alone before all those men, arms upraised, staring at the sky. My voice shaking, I yelled back, “Cresida! Get on your horse and follow us!” And that was all I could do as I spurred my horse on, still holding his reins, trying to keep our horses separated enough to run.
Whatever the flag bearer said, he’d beaten us to the gates and they were just now opening. Archers formed up on the walls, took aim, then most of them let their bows slide down. A few began loosing. Behind me, even as far as we were, even going through the gates, their shrill and hungry screams bit into my ears, making me want to curl up somewhere.
Yet I couldn’t. Beyond the gates, I passed Talaren’s reins to a soldier, and loudly said, “Here! He’s very important! Don’t let him out of your sight and, whatever you do, do not leave here! This place, your post, do not move! Or look outside the gates!” Then, I wheeled about, kicked my horse into a gallop and headed straight for Cresida.
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