Steven Brust - Dragon

I'd never heard that line before, but it still sounded trite. For how many soldiers had words like that been the last thing they ever had spoken to them? Damned reassuring.

They appeared in a line in front of us, all at once. A whole lot of them. More than there were of us, I thought. They seemed to be walking at a steady pace, and I guessed the distance at about two hundred yards. A long way.

"Heavy infantry," said someone.

"Aim low," said someone else.

Virt tapped me on the shoulder. I jumped, but she was polite enough to ignore it. She said, "Their shields won't be long enough to protect their legs, and they'll naturally raise them once we release our javelins, so—"

"Got it," I said.

I guessed there were at least four or five thousand of them, which was more than ten times the number of our Company. Of course, it was more than just our Company on the line. I wondered how many of us there were all together. Not as many as there were of them. Soon they were close enough so that I could see they carried spears.

"Conscripts," someone said. "They'll break if we make it hot enough for them."

Napper was gnashing his teeth next to mm, as if it were all he could do not to charge out at them. Aelburr, just beyond him was tapping a javelin against the ground and whistling.

"Boss, what are you waiting for?"

"I can't run while she's watching me."

"Why not?"

"Because … I don't know. I just can't."

"Boss … "

"Loose javelins!" came the call from somewhere, and everyone except me did so. The enemy had gotten much closer, say a hundred yards away, and as our javelins flew they broke into a run. The flight of the javelins looked like we'd picked up a piece of black metal and thrown it as a body, dropping in on an enemy—

"Loose javelins!"

—who might not even have noticed for all the good they did, as I threw mine and instantly lost sight of it, and then I remembered that I was supposed to aim low, but the idea of aiming was beyond me as I picked up my second, readied it and—

"Loose javelins!"

—threw it, and who knows where it went, because they were awful close now, as I picked up my third—

"Prepare to engage!"

—and transferred it to my left hand while switching my sword to my right as they made it to the ditch, and over it, clawing at the earthworks, and everyone was yelling, including me, and there was this annoying wooden shield in my face, so I stuck my javelin into it and used it as a lever to force the thing away and then cut someone's face open, and I kept trying to move ahead, but there was this damned mound of dirt in front of me and I cut once more, hit someone's shield, then dropped to my knees and cut at the side of someone's legs, and then Virt was pulling me backward and saying, "Vlad! Vlad! It's over! Didn't you hear the drum?"

I stood there, panting for a moment, then, moved by exhaustion or disgust, I'm wasn't sure which, I pitched forward onto my face, rolled over onto my back, and lay there staring up at the sky and breathing. Oddly, it was only then that I became aware of screaming and invocations to various Gods from all around me. There was also some quieter moaning from nearby, but I didn't turn my head to look at it. I had an idea of what I'd see if I looked: bodies strewn here and there, many of them alive, some of them missing portions of themselves. The sound told enough of a story.

"You injured?"

"No," I heard myself say, and I wanted to laugh because the question was funny. Of all the things I could have said I was—hurt, damaged, destroyed, demolished, ruined—she'd asked the one question to which I had to answer "No."

Napper's face suddenly appeared above me. I couldn't read his expression because his face was upside down. There was blood spattered all over him, clothing and face. It seemed natural. He said, "You'll do, Easterner."

If I'd been able to move, I think I would have killed him.

I spent about five or ten minutes lying there before someone I didn't recognize knelt down next to me.

"We'll have to get that jerkin off," he said.

"I beg your pardon?"

"The jerkin has to come off."

"Shouldn't we be introduced first?"

His smile came and went, like he'd heard that sort of thing before, and someone behind me grabbed my shoulders and pushed me up, and he started to pull my jerkin off.

"Wait a minute," I said.

"You'd rather bleed to death?"

"I—" I looked down and saw a gash in the jerkin, and there was a great deal of blood coming from it. Be damned. I was injured. Well, that gave me some justification for lying flat on my back staring up at the sky.

The funny thing was I still didn't feel anything. But, yeah, I'd managed to get myself cut. I didn't look closely, but it was within a couple of inches of the same place I'd been cut a few days before. My grandfather would have told me my fourth position guard was drifting up. My grandfather, no doubt, would have been right. I'd have to—

"The jerkin?" said the physicker.

"Go ahead," I told him.

He pulled the jerkin off, dropping four knives, a couple of shuriken, and three darts onto the ground. He gave me a look.

"What?" I said.

He shook his head. "Lie down."

"I can do that."

He poured something onto my side; it felt cold, but there was still no pain. However, I did feel a few drops of rain on my face, then a few more. The first couple felt nice. After that I hated it, and I only wanted to get out of the mud.

Mud.

Gods, but I hate mud. I'd never noticed it before, but now I think I'll hate it until they bury me in it. I had always thought my boots fit well, until the mud kept trying to pull them off my feet with each step. Sometimes it would succeed well enough that I had to step out of line, adjust, then run to catch up, and even without that I felt like I was constantly out of breath just from the extra effort. The water that leaked into my boots wasn't that much fun either. And now I was lying in it.

I began to shiver, which, more than the knowledge of the wound, made me feel weak and vulnerable. The physicker did a few things I'm not sure of, probably sorcerous but maybe not, then he slapped a bandage onto my side and put some sort of cloth against my skin that held the bandage in place. They were both instantly soaked with water; maybe they'd have carried me to someplace dry if I were more seriously injured or if there were any such place.

The rain increased to a driving torrent, and I hated it.

"Why didn't you tell me I was wounded?"

"I was afraid if I did it would start to hurt."

"Oh. You're pretty smart for a guy with no opposable thumbs."

"Thank you so much."

"That should do," I was told. "Take it easy with that side for a few days."

Physickers always say things like that. What exactly did he mean? Was I supposed to avoid having any more holes put in it? Good plan. I'd go with it.

"Okay," I told him. "Thank you."

He grunted and moved on. There were no more screams, but there were still a few moans that I could hear over the sound of rain striking wooden shields, metal swords, and whatever else was there to make sound against. Whoever had helped with my jerkin now helped me stand up, which made my side hurt, but not badly, which was just as well since I don't much care for pain. It turned out to be Aelburr. I said, "Anyone else hurt?" which of course was a stupid question, but he knew what I meant.

"Napper lost some skin on his left hand, but nothing else."

"Can't one of our sorcerers stop this Verra-be-damned rain?"

"I suspect our sorcerers are more exhausted than anyone else on the field."

"Oh. I suppose. Any idea what happens now?"

"We've picked up our wounded and our javelins, that's always the first thing. Now, I imagine, we'll re-form and—"