Jeff Salyards - Veil of the Deserters

I had advocated sparing the young Hornman in the grass, and I had been spotted by him in the bazaar. I had trouble swallowing, realizing that whatever blood was spilled this day would be in large part due to me.

“Where are their horses?” I asked in a croak.

Vendurro replied, “Probably got them stowed a couple blocks away. Figure easier to sneak up on foot, guessing.”

A Syldoon stepped out from a doorway near the intersection that I hadn’t even known was there. He’d been ten feet from all the soldiers who’d passed. He gave some hand signal that meant nothing to me, which clearly put me in the minority, as it immediately set us in motion. Braylar stepped out into Bulwark, crossbow still relaxed but ready to dispatch death from a distance. We followed him out, and without another word, he turned away from Broadbeef and started walking pretty quickly in the opposite direction. This didn’t seem an oddity to anyone else except me either, as the Syldoon fell in behind him and we were all on the move, even if it seemed to be going the wrong way. I tried holding my crossbow like the soldiers around me, so if it somehow discharged, it would angle up and away from anyone in the company. Though the same couldn’t be said for anyone who happened to pop their head out a second story window to empty a chamber pot or see what the commotion was about. Still, it was smarter than aiming it at my feet.

When we got to the end of the block though, the decision to head in this direction made more sense. We turned onto Furl Street, heading northwest, and kept up a brisk pace as it slowly angled toward the Grieving Dog as well.

Closing in on the intersection, Braylar slowed down and crept closer to the facades and locked doorways which were still resisting the dawn with all the stark shadowiness they could muster. As the street slowly curved toward Broadbeef, I had to fight off the sudden and mad urge to laugh. Skulking through the shadows was like being a boy, playing Stalk the Stalkers, only the men were armed with real weapons, not sticks, and blood was about to be spilled. Quite a bit of it.

As we approached the intersection, I was sure we would be heard, just as we had heard the Hornmen. While our party wasn’t as large, and we were attempting to move with stealth, armor can’t be quieted completely, and there were still quite a few of us. But as we crept to the end of the building on Furl street, I realized two things: we had been expecting them and listening intently, while they were expecting to raid an inn without men sneaking up on them; and the Grieving Dog seemed to be occupying the Hornmen’s complete attention.

They all had their backs turned to us, as they stopped in front of the main entrance, with the leader gesturing toward the stables we had recently left.

We stepped out onto Broadbeef and approached. The moment was at hand. As commanded, I stayed near the rear of the group, not far from the Memoridons, careful to keep my hand away from the long steel trigger, even if the crossbow was pointed up.

The Hornmen seemed ready to begin their raid to capture or kill the handful of Syldoon they assumed were inside. They clearly didn’t expect those same men to attack them from the rear just then.

Syldoon spread out into a single line, and Braylar brought his crossbow up and sighted down the length, and the other Syldoon did as well. That left the Memoridons and myself as a much smaller second line. Skeelana looked at me, and seeing that I still wasn’t aiming my crossbow at a Hornman, raised both pierced eyebrows in surprise before returning her attention to the silhouettes in front of us as the first volley was loosed. She seemed remarkably calm for someone unarmored in an armed conflict.

We were less than a hundred paces away, but the Syldoon were excellent shots on horse, and twice as able lining up their aim on foot-I don’t think many missed their targets, even without much light to aim by. While the Hornmen Braylar drove off in the Green Sea had been poorly armored in gambesons, many in this group had hauberks. So while more than a dozen of them were struck by bolts and cried out or grunted, only a handful dropped to the ground, most in the gambesons as far as I could tell, though some in mail appeared to have been hit in the backs of the legs. It took the Hornmen a moment to recover from the shock of being ambushed, but they figured out the threat was from the rear quickly enough, all of them spinning around, shields up.

Meanwhile, the Syldoon worked the devil’s claws on their weapons with frightening dexterity. I’d seen Braylar and two other Syldoon manage the speed spanning on horseback, but without that added difficulty it was amazing how fast the crossbows were loaded again, the bolts dropped into the slots and the ropes drawn back with alarming alacrity, and the claws folded back out of the way as the crossbows came up to bear again.

I expected to see the Hornmen run, or at least scatter for cover, sidling up against the buildings or hiding behind posts and barrels. But the leader of the Hornmen ordered those with shields to form a wall and the rest with only spears to fall in behind, and the wall was already moving forward when the second volley hit home.

At this range, there was no possibility of arcing any bolts over the shields in hopes of hitting the men behind. Several bolts thunked into the shields low and high, but a fair number made it past, some skipping off the tops of the helms, but one taking out a spearman in the second line, striking him square in the face, and he was done. Others were hit in the lower legs, below the hauberks, and one man fell to his knees and broke the shield wall completely, and another was hobbled badly enough to disrupt it. The Hornmen slowed briefly, closed the gap, pressing forward again with renewed urgency and leaving the wounded behind.

The Syldoon still managed to span and loose a third volley, and while it wasn’t synchronized, most flew at approximately the same time, they were so practiced and fluid. It was like they weren’t facing a larger group of armed and angry men at all, just performing some training exercise, they were that smooth.

Two more Hornmen fell, one with a bolt in his neck, the other with one in his knee. The Syldoon dropped down to set their crossbows aside, gently almost, and drew their shields and swords, falchions, slashing spears, and one particularly vicious flail, and got ready for the charge, forming a longer line in front, with a smaller group several paces behind.

I was the only one still holding a crossbow, but in no hurry to attempt to shoot between or around the Syldoon to strike the Hornmen. Soffjian readied her ranseur though made no move to step forward, and Skeelana stayed close to me, as she was the only one less prepared for a fight than I was. And yet she still looked more focused than frightened or even nervous, and didn’t seem to be fighting off panic like I was. She continued looking in several different directions, and not solely at the large group of men charging toward us. I looked where she did and saw only signposts, darkened doorways, and the Grieving Dog. Nothing that should have attracted more attention than the armed men who so clearly wanted to cut us into pieces.

Once the Hornmen realized the threat of more bolts was gone, they closed faster, shields no longer locked together, shouting curses and unintelligible roars, angry they were taken unawares instead of the other way around, furious their numbers had been cut down before they even had a chance to engage the enemy, and now filled with a bloodlust, sensing their superior numbers and ferocity would simply overwhelm their foes, and it didn’t look like they were mistaken. The Hornmen came on in a mad, undisciplined rush.

The Syldoon held their ground, though, maintaining the first line stretching across Broadbeef, too few to form a proper shield wall to repel the foe, but not allowing any room for the Hornmen to rush around them and flank them either, with a handful of soldiers behind them, waiting. The Syldoon in front blocked or avoided the first blows and let the Hornmen’s momentum carry them through the first rank, striking them as they passed but trusting their comrades to take care of them. Mulldoos’s falchion chopped into the back of a Hornman’s neck, biting deep, unleash ing a spatter of red, and that soldier was down and twitching; Mulldoos turned his attention to a Hornmen who had been struck in the arm by another Syldoon as he passed through, injured but not incapacitated, who was spinning around to face him when Mulldoos moved in, the falchion coming down fast. The Hornman got his shield up just in time to turn the blow, but left himself open to the other Syldoon, who slashed across the back of a hamstring, just below the mail. With a howl, the Hornman fell over. Mulldoos kicked the shield and knocked him on his side, and the other Syldoon moved in, sword arcing down twice before the pair of them moved quickly to aid their brothers.