Shattered Shields - eARC (20 page)

“Coreo!” Jain was caught between two of the centaurs, struggling to counter both their strikes with his huge weapon. Without thinking, Coreo took two steps and leapt, hurling himself up onto the nearest one’s armored back. It reared in surprise, and he grabbed the front of the thing’s helm, both to help him stay on and to draw its head back, exposing the crack between helm and gorget. His blade slithered inside it, and then he was thrown free as the creature collapsed. On the other side, Jain had taken the brief respite to reverse his grip and stab backward with all his strength, plunging the great blade deep between two plates of the horseman’s barding. Blood fountained.

Horns sounded. Coreo looked up, coming back from that still place his mind always went during battles, just in time to see a new wave of figures pour in from Lord Eron’s side of the lines—lightly armored footmen who advanced quickly across or around the giant’s corpse, wielding cudgels and—

“Nets!” Coreo shouted.

The legionaries closest to the newcomers turned to face them, but that only gave the centaurs the advantage once more. Sabers swung, biting deep, even as the slave-takers flung their nets. Packed in tight by the cavalry, men from both armies were unable to get out of the way, falling tangled in the thick ropes.

Standing back-to-back with Jain once more, Coreo managed to dodge the first net flung at him—but Jain wasn’t so lucky. The big man’s sword point caught in the loose weave, tangling hopelessly. Coreo lunged, arm and blade making a perfect line, and took the net man in the chest, careful to keep his blade parallel with the ground to avoid catching between ribs.

The back of his head exploded with pain. The world tilted, and then he was on the ground, seeing everything in sideways view as the soldier who’d clubbed him stepped forward and flung his net across Jain’s suddenly unguarded back.

“Jain!” Coreo shoved himself up onto hands and knees, but there was something wrong with his balance, and the world tilted again, drawing him back down. Still he could see Jain. Like a great northern bear, the man surged against the net, slamming into the man holding its rope. Then another settled over him, pulling back the other direction, driving him down to one knee. A third man raised a cudgel in both hands. Again there came a sound of horns, ringing through the wool wrapping the battlefield. Jain met Coreo’s eyes.

A boot caught Coreo in the side of the head, and the world went dark.

* * *

Seventeen.

Coreo stood in a circle with the others, yet there was no comfort in their presence. His right ear still made it sound as if everything were far away, but no amount of muffling could hold out the wailing ululation coming from the men’s throats. From his own. When it was his turn, he took the knife and carved the joined circles into his breast, then dipped two fingers in the blood and drew them down his cheeks.

Seventeen pairs broken. Far more lucky enough to die together. If Loremar’s army hadn’t surged precisely when they did, the whole legion might have been slain or taken prisoner. As it was, Lord Eron’s soldiers had been pushed back long enough for the survivors to retreat with the wounded. Of the seventeen new
kavapara
, four had partners among the dead. The rest had been taken by Eron’s unexpected ploy with the nets.

Everyone knew what capture meant. Lord Eron the Pike hadn’t earned his name by keeping prisoners. He simply liked to take his time.

Jain
. Coreo closed his eyes, feeling the blood already cooling and drying on his cheeks, and passed the knife to the next man.

Horns. Drums. Shouts. Up and down the lines, soldiers readied themselves. After three days of repositioning and licking wounds, it was finally time for the next battle.

Coreo’s last.

The keening song fell silent as Captain Dorson and Raja approached. The left side of the captain’s face was one enormous purple bruise, but he still exuded his unyielding air of command. Instead of his sword, however, he carried an unfurled scroll. The rest of the legionaries, who had moved back to give the
kavapara
space, crowded close again, craning their necks.

The captain’s voice was a whip crack. “They’re not dead.”

Silence. Then, “Sir?”

“
Lord
Eron sent us a message,” Dorson said, holding up the letter. “The men he took haven’t been killed—yet. He’s offering us a deal: switch sides, and he’ll return our prisoners.”

A murmur burned through the ranks.

It was a brilliant move. The Bonded Legion wasn’t just an elite unit—it was a symbol. If they defected at a crucial moment, it could break Loremar’s lines. Demoralize the whole army.

None of it mattered.
Jain? Alive?

Coreo heard a voice, and was surprised to recognize it as his own. “Why are you telling us this?”

Dorson looked from face to face among the
kavapara
. “Because those are your men out there,” he said quietly. “And every warrior in this legion is your brother. I can’t put the lives of thirteen men above the unit’s honor. But if you choose to go, no one will stop you. Maybe Lord Eron will still release them.”

Coreo looked around, seeing the truth in the eyes of the other soldiers, the question in the other
kavapara
. He thought of Jain—the golden curls of his beard, the stubborn set of his shoulders. So strong. So fierce.

So
loyal
.

He stepped forward. “We’re
kavapara
. Our partners are dead, and so are we.”

Captain Dorson reached out and clasped Coreo’s wrist tightly.

“Not yet, you aren’t. Not by a long shot.”

* * *

“Now!”

At Dorson’s command, three legionaries lifted their spears, each flying a red-and-black uniform stripped from one of Eron’s fallen soldiers. At the same time, the unit clustered together, forming ranks once more and marching straight into Eron’s lines.

As promised, the soldiers there broke apart, letting the Bonded Legion pass with cheers and laughter. From behind came frantic shouts and horn blasts as Loremar’s other commanders attempted to fill the sudden hole in their ranks. Eron’s men closed in behind the defecting legion, pouring into the breach with a roar.

The screams and crashing of steel made Coreo’s skin crawl, but he forced himself to stare straight ahead as he marched, not looking back at the results of their betrayal.

Lord Eron had set up a pavilion on top of a low, treeless hill toward the rear of the lines, safely out of the direct conflict and bordered on three sides by rocky cliff, giving it a commanding view of the surroundings. It was to this stony knob that the Bonded Legion marched, faces grim but backs straight. At the hill’s foot, Eron’s honor guard stopped them, forming a wall of shields and helms.

Eron had apparently decided to decorate. All around the edges of the hill, tall pikes stood upright in the dirt, impaling naked corpses so fresh that some still twitched. Coreo refused to let himself search their faces. Jain couldn’t be among them. Not yet.

At the top of the hill, Lord Eron emerged from his tent. He was a surprisingly small man for a warlord, and wore simple black leather rather than the shining plate of Loremar’s commander. Coreo was surprised to find that the Butcher Lord was actually rather handsome, with a thin moustache and slicked-back black hair. He smiled warmly as he surveyed the defectors, hands clasped casually behind his back.

“I’ll admit,” he said, voice carrying easily over the now distant sounds of battle, “I had some doubts. Would the famed love of the Bonded Legion really be enough to make them forsake their duty, surrendering their whole force—their whole
empire
—for the sake of a few men?” The smile broadened. “Yet here you are.”

“Show us our men,” Dorson called. “Prove that they’re still alive.”

Lord Eron inclined his head. “Of course.”

He waved a hand, and several attendants leapt to one of the canvas-sided structures, pulling at knots and cords. A moment later, one whole side fell away, revealing that behind the stiff fabric was a huge cage of metal-reinforced wood. Inside, a group of men huddled together, naked except for their loincloths. Many were bloody, but all looked up in surprise as the canvas was removed.

One particularly large man, his head bandaged and beard flecked with dried blood, sat holding his knees to his chest. As he caught sight of Coreo, however, his slumped shoulders straightened.

Jain
.

“As you see, they haven’t been harmed any more than necessary to pacify them,” Eron said. “I’m a man of honor. Despite the fact that you’re now surrounded by my forces, my offer still stands: fight for me, as passionately as you fought for Loremar, and you will be reunited with your men. You’ll be the shining spearhead of my invasion, with all the honors and privileges that entails. Neither I nor my soldiers will hold any grudges.”

Dorson’s thin-lipped expression didn’t change. “We’ve already agreed to your terms. Give us our men.”

Eron raised an index finger and waggled it admonishingly. “Please, Captain. I’m not a fool. Just because I’m a man of honor doesn’t mean I expect anyone else to be so. Your men will be returned to you safely—
after
you’ve led an attack against the center of Loremar’s lines. One so bloody and ruthless that there’s no way they’d ever take you back, even if you tried to switch sides again. Though I imagine your defection already burned most of your bridges in that regard.”

Dorson grunted. “Fair enough. But if it pleases you, my lord, I’d like to propose an alternative plan.”

Eron’s eyebrows rose. “Oh?”

The legion charged. There were no battle cries, no posturing—simply a wave of motion as more than a hundred men surged into motion. So disconcerting was the silence of their attack that many of Eron’s honor guard stood frozen, not believing their eyes even as swords and axes rammed home between plates of armor, blood spurting out around hilts and shafts.

Then the moment of surprise was past. With a roar, the full weight of Eron’s army crashed down on the legionaries.

Coreo was caught in a surging ocean of metal and flesh, awash in the hot stink of blood and shit as men gasped and died on all sides. He slammed his shield into the helm of one soldier, dropping him with a satisfying clang, then spun to slam his sword up under another soldier’s tasset, through the underlying padding and deep into his thigh. It felt strangely naked to be fighting without Jain, but that was the nature of
kavapara
—you fought alone, letting your fury carry you.

Except that he wasn’t
kavapara
. Not anymore.

They were hopelessly outnumbered. This deep in Eron’s camp, Loremar’s forces would never even know what happened to them, let alone be able to support them. Yet therein lay the legionaries’ one advantage.

Eron had been so focused on cutting them off from any escape or reinforcement that he’d placed most of his forces behind the legionaries, leaving only a fraction standing between him and the presumably defeated men. That honor guard still outnumbered the legionaries three to one—but the Bonded men didn’t need to kill them all. Only enough to break through.

Coreo let one man press him hard, feigning a stumble beneath the man’s axe blows, then ducked sideways as Hosch’s spear shot over his head and took the man in the throat. Coreo returned the favor by stretching out and cutting the legs from under another soldier who threatened the spearman. A savagely grinning Barcas streaked past him in a running crouch, face covered in blood and daggers in both hands. Then Coreo was back up and bringing his sword to bear on another man.

Foot by foot, the Bonded Legion moved up the hill.

Above, horns called for reinforcements, yet those reinforcements couldn’t reach the command tents without first passing through the fracas. The same cliffs that defended the command tents made it impossible for Eron to retreat.

Another of Eron’s soldiers fell, and Coreo was surprised to suddenly find himself in the open at the top of the rise. To his left, the honor guard was pulling back to form a defensive ring around Lord Eron and his retainers. Coreo ignored them and darted right instead, toward the cage.

The bars were thick wooden dowels wrapped with wire. Behind them, the men were standing now—not calling or pleading, but watching with silent anticipation. Coreo ignored them as best he could—
Jain!
—and focused on the door’s locking mechanism. It was a simple bar of iron as wide as Coreo’s forearm, slid horizontal across the door and locked with a padlock.

Damn
. Coreo spun back toward the fight, and in a few seconds had what he needed: one of the honor guard’s bardiches, its head a thick crescent blade on the end of an eight-foot pole. Sheathing his sword, he picked it up and swung it hard at the lock.

Chink!
The blade hit with a shock that Coreo felt up through his shoulders, yet only grazed the lock.

With a growl, Coreo twisted again, throwing all his weight into a spin that whipped the blade around and—

Snap!
The blade sheared through the lock’s haft, its edge chipping horribly as the lock fell away. Coreo threw it aside and slammed the bar open.

Cheering men poured out, scooping up weapons and joining the fray. One of them grabbed Coreo and lifted him, squeezing the air from his lungs with arms like tree trunks.

“Jain,” Coreo croaked.

Tears of joy streaked down into the big man’s golden beard as he set Coreo back down and held him at arm’s length. Jain’s palms cupped Coreo’s cheeks, smearing the painted tears of the
kavapara
and the real ones that had appeared alongside them.

“What took you so long?” Jain asked.

Coreo laughed, then drew his sword. “Some of us didn’t get to sit around in a cage like a pampered songbird. Come on.”

“Pampered!” Jain stooped and grabbed the chipped bardiche, snapping its haft to turn it into an axe. “I’ll show you
pampered
!”

“I expect you will,” Coreo said, and then they were back in the fight.

The battle had turned into a series of rings. The Bonded Legion had Lord Eron’s retinue surrounded, yet at the same time was surrounded by Lord Eron’s seemingly endless host. The thin ring of Loremar warriors fought in two lines, one facing out and one facing in, with only a few paces between them. Coreo and Jain moved up the shifting corridor and threw themselves at the remaining honor guard.