Tim Leach - A Winter War

No telling from where the chant began – somewhere to the right, from the Wolves of the Steppe or from the clan of the Grey Hand. It was not one of the old songs, no song at all, nothing but three words, spoken again and again.

Iron and gold. Iron and gold.

The treasures that would be theirs if they won, that would make them whole again. Iron to give them their freedom. Gold to honour their dead.

No signal was given, no horn blown or command sounded out. But like a flock of birds wheeling together in the sky or a pack of wolves who spring from the snow as one, the Sarmatians knew that it was time and stirred their horses forward with a rattle of scale and blade. Five clans, riding together as one, perhaps for the last time.

The riders stepped from the snow of the bank to the ice of the river. A moment when the horses should have gone tripping and tumbling to the ground, the line broken before it had even begun. The ice was clear and slick to the touch, and yet the horses moved upon it as carelessly and easily as if it were the tall grass of the steppe.

For this was the wager. They had gambled their entire people upon this one cast of the dice, with all the odds against them save for one – that the Sarmatian horses knew the dance of the ice, and the Romans did not.

Iron and gold. Iron and gold.

Imagination, perhaps, but Kai thought he saw the Legion – the undaunted, immovable Legion – give a shiver of fear at the ease with which the cavalry moved. They must have understood the trap that closed about them, at the sight of that death that walked calmly towards them. No need to gallop or trot, not yet.

Iron and gold, iron and gold.

Before them that Legion formed the square as they must, their only chance against the charge that would surely come. Shields as big as men locked together, but there was a tremble across the line as the Romans struggled to hold a steady footing. For the first time that Kai could remember, there was weakness in the shield wall.

Iron and gold! Iron and gold!

The taste of sand was in Kai’s mouth, the blood beating in his ears like the hollow strike of hand against drum. Sharp points of cold across his flesh at all the places that a blade might cut – a stab into his belly, a raking coldness across his throat, a pain that seemed to stitch his legs together. The first time he had ridden to battle, in a bloodfeud against the Wolves of the Steppe, the fear had been so strong that it seemed as though he would go mad. The fear was still there, as strong as it always was. He had only learned that it always passed at the very last moment.

Iron and gold! Iron and gold!

Then all words were lost, as the cry went up that belonged to all languages and to none. The cry of the charge.

Like falling through the sky – that was how it felt as they sprang forward. As though the entire world had tipped sideways, and they fell screaming towards their enemies.

The cold wind struck tears from Kai’s eyes, and all he could hear was the crack of hooves against the ice. He guided his horse with his knees, both hands on the spear before him, one to grip and the other to guide, holding it high like a fisherman about to thrust into a river.

The line of shields trembling before them. The horses charging perfectly. The Legion trapped upon the ice.

And then the horns began to blow.

Roman horns, all calling at once. They did not call a pattern that he knew from battles before, to advance or retreat, to form a square or a wedge. He saw the men before him raise up their shields as one and as one bring them down. An echoing crack that he heard over the beating of the hooves as the shields found their home, anchored in place and part buried in the ice.

The world seemed to hold still. That torrent of motion brought to a stop, as though by the touch of a god or the spell of a magician. And in the stillness of that moment, he could see the faces of the Romans. Peering over their shields, half masked by the helms they wore, but even so he could see them.

They looked afraid.

The spear wrenched from his hands, the sky was tumbling and turning about Kai as he fell screaming through the air, until he slammed back first into the ice and the world was struck into silence.

From where he lay on the ice, half stunned, he watched the charge fail.

The horses trying to turn away at the last moment, flinching from the shield wall. The second rank of riders driving into the back of them, a mass of men and horses that rolled over the shields like a wave, the Romans reaching up to pull the riders from their saddles.

It should have been a butchery, riders pulled from their mounts and carved open on the ice. But dark shapes loomed high, a line of monsters it seemed in the mad whirl of the battle, standing tall against the Romans. For it was the horses who held the line – standing tall on their hind legs and breaking shields and helms with their hooves, or turning and kicking out behind. Riderless, undaunted, the battle fever upon them, bloody foam flying from their lips and their eyes rolling wild as a berserker’s.

No time to think, to remember any of the finer arts of killing. No time even to take a weapon in hand as Kai scrabbled from the ice to his feet and launched himself at the nearest Roman bare handed. All about him, the dismounted Sarmatians did the same, diving into the Roman ranks like swimmers into white water. Slipping, stumbling, fighting their way through the press, seeking throats to close and hearts to still, and all around there was the rip and tear of hand and tooth against flesh. And even the Legion was screaming now.

Kai fought by touch and feel more than by sight. He reached out, felt a beardless face against his skin – the face of a woman or boy of his own people? No, for he felt the scrape of stubble and knew it for a Roman. He rolled a thumb into an eye, heard a shrieking scream, and closed that scream with his gauntlet. Lifted up into the mob, hands pulling at him from behind, he kicked out and felt the crack of teeth beneath his heel.

Back into the roiling mob once more, barely room to breathe, much less to swing a sword, his vision filled with flesh and metal. It was only occasionally, when the mob broke open, that he caught a vision of the battle – an eyeless Sarmatian, blinded by the cut of a sword, tearing the throat from one of his companions with his teeth, mistaking him for a Roman. A horse dragging its entrails beneath it like a fallen rider, still kicking out against all who came near. The golden eagle dancing in the sky high above them all, twisting and swaying as the mob swirled upon the ice, but never coming close to falling.

Space opened up around him as suddenly as it had been stolen away, and Kai was on his hands and knees, scrabbling and scratching against the ice, trying to get to his feet. A blow cracked off his armour, then another. Kai lashed out with a fist and sent one man spinning to the ice, snatched a Sarmatian axe off the ground and faced the second man. No time to try and wear the man down, to use the tricks of footwork, and so Kai swung at once. The stone head of the axe broke and shattered against the mail, and the Roman answered with a thrust of his sword. Kai threw up his arm to block it, felt the line of cold pain across his wrist as the iron blade cut past the scales of horn and bone.

The Roman bared his teeth, a smile of relief. He came forward but the ice took his feet from underneath him. Kai stamped down once, twice, a third time, snatched the sword from the twitching fingers, and all around he saw Sarmatian stone breaking against Roman iron. The line of Roman shields reforming, the swords flickering out like claws from a crawling monster, and above them, the golden eagles steady in the sky.