Douglas Niles - Measure and the Truth

One Crown sergeant managed to break a pike and bash another to the side, creating a temporary wedge. He charged ahead with a howl but was chopped at from all sides by multiple blades, losing an arm, and getting a fiendish cut in his thigh, which spurted blood.

Everywhere swordsmen waited among the pikes, and whenever the solid line showed signs of a rupture, the swordsmen stepped into the breach and took on the charging warriors. The entangling trees prevented easy flanking movement, and the defenders had piled great nests of brambles all around on the ground. Sharp thorns hooked into clothes and skin; even the most sure-footed of the emperor’s men were tripped up by the tangle of branches.

For thirty bloody minutes, the ponderous, chaotic struggle raged. Each side killed and each side died, and whenever the attackers gained a few feet, the defenders struck hard and drove the Crown soldiers back. When a man’s sword broke, he seized another from a fallen foe or comrade, and when he was wounded, he dropped back, allowing a fresh fighter to take his place in the line.

Vingaard archers scrambled into the trees and showered arrows over the heads of their comrades, into the faces and breasts of the attackers. A rank of Crown men armed with crossbows came up behind the first line of the charge and returned that fire with admirable accuracy, their steel-tipped bolts puncturing the green leather shirts of the targeted bowmen with ease. The missile duel increased in ferocity until the opposing bands were engaged in their own lethal fight for supremacy, a battle that took place literally over the heads of most of their comrades trapped in the melee.

On the hilltop south of the stream, the emperor strained to scrutinize the fight in the woods, his face showing ill-concealed displeasure. From there he could not claim to know the details, but the reality was plain. As more and more of his men crossed the stream, they were bunching up in the grove, and the advance had bogged down. Men were dying in growing numbers, and their sacrifice had ceased to have any meaning.

“Sound the withdrawal!” he snapped finally.

Dayr signaled to his trumpeters, and a trio of heralds raised their brass instruments and brayed out the command to retreat. Immediately the men at the edge of the grove turned and raced toward the ford. Others broke from the shelter of the trees, coming down the road, converging from the right and left on the narrow ford.

“Dammit! They’re panicking, running like fools!” snapped the emperor. He put the heels to his horse and, with Dayr trailing behind, galloped down the hill.

There were a dozen companies clumped together on the near side of the river, waiting to cross, and they scattered out of the way of their enraged commander. Jaymes drew up his horse at the edge of the river, even as a hundred men splashed into the shallow flow. Fleeing, stumbling, falling, and choking, they clawed their way toward the safety of the south bank.

Jaymes pulled back his reins, and the roan reared. He brandished Giantsmiter; the blue flames that crackled on his legendary blade were visible even in the bright sunlight. The panicked men hesitated at the sight of their lord on his rearing horse.

“Hold your formations!” he shouted. “Remember your training!”

Some of the men responded, while others continued to flail through the water. More arrows showered from the woods, felling more soldiers. Even though Jaymes used the flat of his blade to slap at the first of the wretches to crawl up the near bank, he couldn’t stem the tide. The officers and commanders shouted themselves hoarse, trying to organize a proper withdrawal. The men of the New City, new to battle as well, did not listen.

The enemy captain-Jaymes fleetingly wondered if it was Lord Kerrigan’s son-saw his opportunity, and hurled forward his line of pikemen. The pikemen poured out the apple grove, their long weapons prodding at the disorganized retreat. Vainly, the Palanthian officers shouted and cursed, trying to get the ranks to wheel and face the deadly threat to their rear.

It was Dayr who saw what had to be done. He barked out commands to a large troop of longbowmen, who had been holding their position on the near side of the stream. Immediately they commenced a shower of arrows, which arced over the heads of the retreating soldiers, falling among the advancing Vingaard pikes. Quickly the pikemen halted their pursuit, withdrawing into the safety of the trees, as the weary and bedraggled attackers slogged through the stream and collapsed on the south bank of Apple Creek.

Jaymes rode his horse back and forth before the shamed, defeated men. Scorn dripped from his voice as he addressed them in loud, angry terms. “You men fought like you’d never heard the horn of battle before! I won’t fault you for failing to break a line-but to run like whipped curs at the first call of retreat? I would never have expected it, nor would I believe it if I hadn’t witnessed it with my own eyes.”

“Forgive us, my lord!” cried one commander, standing amid the seated, soggy ranks. “Let us try again. We’ll carry the line of these traitors-or die trying!”

A few of the soldiers raised a cheer at his brave statement, but most kept their eyes on the ground, humiliated and shaken. Jaymes spoke sternly. “You’ll have the chance to fight again. When you do, this shame will be scourged. Until then, you will all live with the memory of your failure-and you will not march with the rest of my army, but stay behind to lick your wounds and ponder your failure.”

Some of the men wept, others shouted in protest, but he ignored them all as he spun his horse and rode back to General Dayr. “We’re going to have to march down the road and take the bridge after all. I’ll leave these men here so the enemy will have to worry about another crossing-but I want the rest of the army on the march within the hour.”

“I’ve got them ready now, my lord. These hills along the stream should conceal us for the first few miles, so perhaps we can surprise them by our decisiveness and speed.”

“All right,” Jaymes replied. He looked again at the ranks of defeated, soaking men near the ford, his eyes narrowing with displeasure. He stared for a moment then shook his head and put his knees to his horse, ready to join the march column on the road.

At first, Ankhar was enchanted with the ogre wench he had claimed as his prize from the two arguing chieftains. Pond-Lily had many natural charms: the swelling cheeks that gave her face such a fetching roundness, the twin globes of her immense breasts, the sturdy, admirable muscles of her hamlike legs. She was a pretty little blossom, a change of pace from the emerald-green wilderness.

But after a month of sampling the delights of Pond-Lily’s physical attributes, he was forced to realize her name was a pretty fair estimation of her intelligence and conversational abilities.

In fact, he thought as he glowered into the dying coals of his campfire, there might be swamp flowers out there that had more personality, and more intelligence, than his current hut-mate. That was probably why he was still sitting and sulking, long after most of the village had gone to sleep, reluctant to seek the comfort of his own sleeping pallet.

With a sigh, the hulking half-giant got to his feet, pushing himself off of his log with both hands. He couldn’t help but notice the bulge of his gut, and he flushed with embarrassment when he thought of the trim physique that had carried him through his great war campaigns.

“Once I was master of half of Solamnia,” he declared aloud, as if amazed by the realization. “Now I am a master of the swamp and of a wench who is a pond-lily by any name.”