Joe Abercrombie - Before They Are Hanged

Prince Ladisla and his staff gawped at one another, and stuttered, and stared, as the Carls began to tramp down the hill, rank upon rank of them, towards the thickening mist in the valley’s bottom where the Union troops were still blindly trying to pull back. West shouldered his way through the frozen officers to the bugler.

“Battle lines!”

The lad turned from staring at the advancing Northmen to staring at West, his bugle hanging from his nerveless ringers.

“Lines!” roared a voice from behind. “Form lines!” It was Pike, bellowing loud enough to match any drill sergeant. The bugler snapped his instrument to his lips and blew lines for all he was worth. Answering calls echoed through the mist, risen up all around them, now. Muffled bugles, muffled shouts.

“Halt and form up!”

“Form lines now, lads!”

“Prepare!”

“Steady!”

A chorus of rattles and clanks came through the murk. Men moving in armour, spears being set, swords drawn, calls from man to man and from unit to unit. Above all, growing steadily louder, the unearthly howling of the Northmen as they began their charge, surging down from the high ground and into the valley. West felt a chill in his own blood, even with a hundred strides of earth and a few thousand armed men between him and the enemy. He could well imagine the fear those in the front lines were feeling now, as the shapes of the Carls began to rise out of the mist before them, screaming their war cries with their weapons held high.

There was no sound that signified the moment of contact. The clattering grew louder and louder, the shouts and the howls were joined by high-pitched cries, low-pitched growls, shrieks of pain or rage mixed into the terrifying din with ever greater frequency.

Nobody in the headquarters spoke. Every man, West among them, was peering into the murk, straining with every sense to get some hint of what might be happening just before them in the valley.

“There!” someone shouted. A faint figure was moving through the gloom ahead. All eyes were fixed on it as it took shape before them. A young, breathless, mud-splattered and highly confused lieutenant. “Where the hell is the headquarters?” he shouted as he stumbled up the slope towards them.

“This is it.”

The man gave West a flamboyant salute. “Your Highness—”

“I am Ladisla,” snapped the real Prince. The man turned, bewildered, began to salute once more. “Speak your message, man!”

“Of course, sir, your Highness, Major Bodzin has sent me to tell you that his battalion is heavily engaged, and…” he was still gasping for breath, “he needs reinforcement.”

Ladisla stared at the young man as though he had been speaking in a foreign language. He looked at West. “Who is Major Bodzin?”

“Commander of the first battalion of the Stariksa levies, your Highness, on our left wing.”

“Left wing, I see… er…”

A semi-circle of brightly dressed staff officers had congealed around the breathless lieutenant. “Tell the Major to hold!” shouted one of them.

“Yes!” said Ladisla, “tell your Major to hold, and to, er, to drive back the enemy. Yes indeed!” He was warming to his role now. “To drive them back, and to fight to the last man! Tell Major Clodzin that help is on the way. Most definitely… on the way!” And the Prince strode off manfully.

The young Lieutenant turned, peered into the murk. “Which way is my unit?” he muttered.

More figures were already beginning to take form. Running figures, scrambling through the mud, panting for breath. Levies, West saw straight away, broken from the backs of crumbling units as soon as they had made contact with the enemy. As though there had ever been any chance that they would stand for long.

“Cowardly dogs!” cursed Smund at their receding backs. “Get back here!” He might as well have given orders to the mist. Everyone was running: deserters, adjutants, messengers seeking for help, for direction, for reinforcement. The first wounded too. Some were limping under their own power, or using broken spears for crutches, some were half-carried by comrades. Pike started forward to help a pale fellow with a flatbow bolt sticking from his shoulder. Another casualty was dragged past on a stretcher, muttering to himself. His left arm was off just below the elbow, oozing blood through a tightly bound stretch of dirty cloth.

Ladisla looked greasy pale. “I have a headache. I must sit down. What has become of my field chair?”

West chewed at his lip. He had no inkling of what to do. Burr had sent him with Ladisla for his experience, but he was every bit as clueless as the Prince. Every plan relied on being able actually to see the enemy, or at any rate one’s own positions. He stood there, frozen, as useless and frustrated as a blind man in a fist fight.

“What is happening, damn it!” The Prince’s voice cut across the din, shrill and petulant. “Where did this damn mist come from? I demand to know what is happening! Colonel West! Where is the Colonel? What is going on out there?”

If only he had been able to provide an answer. Men stumbled and darted and charged through the muddy headquarters, apparently at random. Faces loomed up from the mist and were gone, faces full of fear, confusion, determination. Runners with garbled messages or garbled orders, soldiers with bloody wounds or no weapons. Disembodied voices floated on the cold air, speaking over one another, anxious, hurried, panicked, agonised.

“…Our regiment has made contact with the enemy, and are falling back, or were falling back, I think…”

“My knee! Damn it, my knee!”

“…His Highness the Prince? I have an urgent message from…”

“Send, er… someone! Whoever is available… who is available?”

“…King’s Own are heavily engaged! They request permission to withdraw…”

“What happened to the cavalry? Where are the cavalry?”

“…devils not men! The Captain’s dead and…”

“We are falling back!”

“…fighting hard on the right wing and in need of support! In desperate need of support…”

“Help me! Somebody, please!”

“…And then counterattack! We are attacking all across the line…”

“Quiet!” West could hear something in the grey gloom. The jingling of a harness. The mist was so dense now that he could see no more than thirty strides, but the sound of trotting hooves drawing closer was unmistakable. His hand closed round the hilt of his sword.

“The cavalry, they’ve returned!” Lord Smund started eagerly forwards.

“Wait!” hissed West, to no effect. His eyes strained into the grey. He saw the outlines of horsemen, coming steadily through the gloom. The shapes of their armour, of their saddles, of their helmets were those of the King’s Own, and yet there was something in the way they rode—slouching, loose. West drew his sword. “Protect the Prince,” he muttered taking a step towards Ladisla.

“You there!” shouted Lord Smund at the foremost horseman. “Prepare your men for another—” The rider’s sword chopped into his skull with a hollow clicking sound. A spray of blood went up, black in the white mist, and the horsemen broke into a charge, screaming at the tops of their voices. Terrifying, eerie, inhuman sounds. Smund’s limp body was flung out of the way by the leading horse, trampled under the flailing hooves of the one beside it. Northmen, now, unmistakably, growing more horrifyingly distinct as they loomed up out of the murk. The foremost of them had a thick beard, long hair streaming out from beneath an ill-fitting Union helmet, yellow teeth bared, eyes of horse and rider both wide with fury. His heavy sword flashed down and hacked one of the Prince’s guards between the shoulder blades as he dropped his spear and turned to run.