Jeff Salyards - Veil of the Deserters

This action or something similar happened up and down the line, as the overly impulsive Hornmen allowed through were cut down in short order. In the line ten paces in front of me, the Syldoon let a Hornman rush past, tripping him as he did, but neither scored a decisive blow. The Syldoon couldn’t engage and had to help a comrade alongside who was fighting off three Hornmen harrying the front line, exchanging a series of blows and blocks, shrugging off the first and second that struck mail.

The Hornman who made it through wasn’t set upon immediately, as the other Syldoon behind the front line were all occupied, so he considered me for a moment, and seeing a non-soldier pointing a crossbow mostly in the sky, chose to attack the exposed Syldoon who let him through. He would have had his choice of open targets, but as he stepped forward to deliver a blow, a ranseur shot out, the long tip striking him in the side of the knee, and the curved blade catching the back of his leg. He nearly crumpled, regained his balance, and turned to face Soffjian. She thrust twice more, high, then low, and he blocked one and managed to sidestep the other, though it was clear he couldn’t move quickly on a badly injured leg. Even though her polearm wasn’t quite as long as Hewspear’s slashing spear, it still afforded her better range than the Hornman.

He stepped forward to close the gap, but his leg briefly buckled, and Soffjian picked that moment to lay in. She raised the ranseur as if she were going to slash down at his head, and the Hornman saw the potential blow and lifted his shield to protect himself. Which was exactly what she’d been counting on. She dropped the tip and it lashed out like a viper, the long spike hitting the soldier in the thigh of his good leg, penetrating the gambeson. As the Hornman’s legs gave out, he braced his fall with the knuckles of his sword hand. But that sword wasn’t doing him any good down there, and Soffjian had already closed, the curved cross blade flashing in dawnlight as it slashed across his face.

The Hornman rolled in the dirt screaming, hands trying to hold his face together, blood soaking the front of his gambeson down to his sternum. Soffjian turned to give me a baleful look. I wanted to protest that I’d been ordered to stay out of it unless there was no other recourse, that I should have been holding a quill, maybe surveying the battle from the relative safety of a second story window, but obviously she wouldn’t have cared. She stabbed the wounded Hornman twice and finished him off.

Even with their disorganized charge and the casualties they’d sustained in the first exchange, the Hornmen still had the advantage, and while the Syldoon were more competent, supporting each other and drawing their opponents into slips or exposure, numbers still mattered, and the Hornmen seemed to be forming up better now and attempting to flank the Syldoon soldiers. I saw two of Braylar’s men dead or dying as well.

I looked over to the far side of the street and saw Hewspear facing two Hornmen, one with a sword and shield, the other with a longsword in two hands. I thought with no shield to hide behind, damaged ribs, and having only his long slashing spear for offense and defense, he would be taken out quickly, even with the advantage of slightly greater range. And he would have been dispatched had the Hornmen worked together better as a team, forcing him to divide his attention, or striking together as one, the longsword-wielder using the man with the shield as buffer until he closed. But they did neither. Instead, they advanced haltingly, side by side, but uncertain, not taking advantage of the situation, unwilling to make a move. Even if they had simply charged in, one of them might have been struck down, but they still probably would have overwhelmed Hewspear. But it was clear they counted him a skilled opponent, and neither soldier wanted to be the one dead in the dirty street. So they came together, with little space between them, but too slowly.

Hewspear feinted at the man with the sword and shield, caused him to stop and stay out of range, guard up, but the longswordsman took another step forward. Hewspear’s slashing spear shot out, the tip slipping past the soldier’s guard, brought to bear too late, and striking him in the folds of mail around the base of the throat. While it was hard to tell if it penetrated the mail at all, it struck him hard, and he doubled over, letting go of his hilt with one hand and clutching at his neck.

The soldier with the sword and shield thought this was his opportunity and came in fast, shield in front, eyes peering over the edge. Hewspear seemed to anticipate this, but instead of trying to maneuver back or to the side to maintain his range, or attacking immediately to possibly force him to halt, he let him come two steps. And as the soldier started his attack, Hewspear unexpectedly stepped forward to meet him, changing his grip as he did, spear nearly horizontal, the tail and butt spike rising, then turning to intercept the blow, catching it low on the blade. At the same time he used the haft to check the shield, pressing into it hard before the soldier could have a chance to use it as a weapon to pummel or bash, and then Hewspear was taking another step to his left, forcing the sword and the arm out of his way as he moved passed the edge of the shield. The soldier tried to turn with him, but his momentum carried him forward, and it was obvious he hadn’t expected such an aggressive move from the taller man.

Hewspear kept the sword pinned out of action just long enough, spun one step ahead of his opponent, worked the haft around the edge of the shield as he did, and used it as a fulcrum as he set up his next shot, sliding forward, turning the spear, and striking with the butt spike all in one fluid motion. The spike was much shorter than the slashing spear head, but it caught the soldier square in the face, just left of the nose and south of the eye. While it didn’t kill the soldier, it effectively ended the fight, as his first instinct was to reach up and protect himself, which proved impossible with a sword in one hand and a shield in the other. Hewspear used the lapse to step in, delivering a wicked blow straight down to the Hornman’s collarbone. The soldier dropped his sword and flailed with his shield in desperation, but it barely connected with Hewspear as he kept moving, and his final blow was a horizontal one across the Hornman’s lower jaw that did considerably more damage than the butt spike had. The Hornman was down, still moving, but spastic, and not for much longer by the looks of it.

Hewspear looked like he was considering whether or not to finish him off, but then recalled the Hornman with the longsword, and was turning to find him. He saw him at the same time I did, with Vendurro standing over his prone body, his own shorter sword red with the man’s blood. Or someone else’s. But in either case, the man with the longsword was still as stone in a pool of dark red-black.

He nodded at the younger man, and looked around for his next foe. There were plenty of choices, too many, but before joining another part of the melee, Hewspear saw a Syldoon fighting a spearman off ten paces away, with another Hornman about to attack him from the rear. Hew-spear moved the slashing spear into one hand, pulled his flanged mace off the belt with the other, and flung it at the second Hornman. It spun end over end, and I’m not sure if it was weighted to be thrown or if Hewspear only got lucky, but the flanged end struck the soldier directly in the back of the helm. It seemed to stun the Hornman for a moment, and when he wheeled around to face his foe, Vendurro was already closing the distance to engage. Hewspear leaned over on his spear, the tail in the dirt, holding his injured ribs that he had managed to hurt more with the throw than the toe-to-toe fighting with the Hornmen.