Disclaimer: This is a work in progress as part of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). You are reading the work product of a first draft writing session and not a finished product. Comments are welcome, but bear the first draft nature of the work in mind. Thank you and enjoy!
Chapter 15
They followed the trail south through the late afternoon before Declan came back to the lead element of the platoon. They halted on the trail as he gave his report. Lissa and Shelby were still to the south, hidden and watching the enemy force. The scouts had counted forty-two of the Imperial regulars. They wore the standard splinted mail armor and hob-nailed boots they had been described as wearing. They were setting up an ambush along the side of a rutted forest road to the south. It looked like they were waiting for something to happen.
“They must know of a party coming up that road,” Sergeant Neale surmised. He looked up at the sun through the trees; it was rapidly sinking to the west. “How far south are they?”
“No more than twenty minutes,” Declan replied. “Whoever they are waiting for, they must be close. Anyone on that road will be thinking about camp soon.”
“I agree,” Sergeant Neale said. “Okay, here is what we will do. We are going to ambush the ambushers. We are outnumbered, so we have to wait until they are attacking whoever they are waiting for before we hit them.” He looked around. “Third squad go with Declan and swing wide to the north and come back down the road from the other side. Be ready to come at a run when you hear the fighting start. Hit them hard from the other side. Take one shot with your bows and then close fast with your knives and tomahawks. Make a lot of noise as you hit them. That will make them think we are a much larger force than we are.”
He turned to the rest of the first squad and second squad. “We’ll do the same thing from behind them. Wait until they strike the target then hit them hard from behind. Two shots with your bows, then close with weapons drawn and finish them off. We’ll get as close as we can without being seen.” The assembled platoon nodded as he looked at each of them. “Okay, let’s move out.”
Cori started towards the enemy ahead, walking with the rest of the platoon, spread out abreast in the forest ask dusk’s gloom started to fall around them. Declan was right, it was just about twenty minutes later when she caught sight of Shelby and Lissa ahead of them, crouched behind a fallen tree. Lissa looked back and waved her hand toward the ground. The signal was passed, and they all crouched where they were. This was as close as they were going to get before the trap was sprung.
There was a distant creak of wagons, and the whicker of a horse could be heard through the forest. Someone was coming up the road beyond the trees. She could see shapes moving behind the brush at the woods’ edge. They were close enough to see the enemy rise up as one as someone yelled something she didn’t understand and the Imperial soldiers fell on the travelers on the road. That was the signal. She stood up and rushed forward with her bow half-drawn back to her chest. She saw an armored figure loading a crossbow behind a tree twenty yards ahead, and she stopped, drew and shot. She saw the arrow take him in the neck pinning him to the tree against which he had been leaning. Another arrow sprouted from his armor. Some other legionnaire had spotted him, too. She drew another arrow and stood to look for another target. She saw another crossbowman who was turning to see where the arrows were coming from, and she took the shot, striking him in the chest. He clutched at the arrow and fell backward into the brush. She slipped her bow over her head and shoulder then drew her long knife and tomahawk and charged, screaming at the top of her lungs, wanting to kill the ones who had ended that boy’s life back at the farmstead.
The rest of the short melee was a blur as Cori charged through the trees to the road beyond. There were splint-mailed imperials attacking a group of fleeing farm families in wagons there. The enemy soldiers realized they were being attacked and had turned from their prey to face the attackers. Cori ducked under a clumsy sword thrust aimed at her head, chopped at an ankle with her tomahawk and, as the man fell to the side, drove her long knife home through armpit under the sword arm. Warm blood spilled out along her hand and arm as she pulled the blade free. She stood up from her crouch as the members of third squad charged home from the other side of the track. And then it was over. All the Imperials were down. There were just the whimpering cries of wounded men and the screams of horses who had been hit by the initial volley of crossbows. There were also the sobs of the farmers’ wives and children crouching in their carts and wagons, not knowing if they had been rescued or suffered a double attack.
Cori found herself starting to shake as the excitement of the attack gave way to the relief she was still alive. The tremors in her hands made it hard to clean off her knife blade. She looked at the imperial soldier at her feet. He was still taking gasping breaths, but his eyes were already dimming. He seemed to be only slightly older than herself, and she watched as his efforts to breath stopped and he finally died. She had never seen anyone die before and not at her hand. She found her tremors turn to wracking sobs as the horror of what she had done overcame her. A hand on her shoulder caused her to look around, and she met the eyes of Uncle Vernon. Not Sergeant Neale, but the eyes of the man she called ‘Uncle’ who had helped train her and raise her alongside her parents. She turned and gave in to the urge, the need to hug him.
“This is what your father and brothers and mother wanted to shield you from, little one,” He whispered. “War is not glory; it is doing what needs to be done because no one else will do it for you. Remember the cabin in the woods, Lass. It will help put this into perspective for you.” She released her from the brief embrace and then started striding down the line of wagons, looking over his platoon to make sure all were accounted for.
“First squad, see to the people in the wagons. See if anyone is injured and needs our assistance,” Sergeant Neale ordered. “Second squad, gather up any wounded Imperials and keep them under guard. Third squad, half of you scout north and the other half south along the road. Watch for signs of any Imperials who escaped our notice or of any help that they might have coming. Snap to it. It’ll be dark soon.”
Cori wiped the tears from her eyes and looked up into the first wagon, which she was closest to. In it were about ten people crammed in and watching her with fearful eyes. The horses pulling the wagon had both been struck by crossbow bolts and were down in their traces. They wouldn’t be pulling a wagon again. Cori tried to show a smile as she approached the wagon.
“Is everyone alright in there?” She asked as she walked up. “We are the from the army of the Free Kingdoms. We are here to help you.”
A woman looked around at the other wagon occupants and then back at her, “We are fine, mistress,” the woman said. “Where are you from? You came just in time.”
“We have been following this group of Imperials all day since we came upon a burned out farmstead to the north earlier,” Cori said.
“Your accent, is odd, you’re not from Verona?” The woman asked.
“We are from the Princess’ Own Legion of Solon from the Kingdom of Rhodes.”
“All the way from far-off Rhodes?” a little girl said. “Have you come to save us from the invasion?”
“We’re going to try and do the best we can,” Cori said. “The whole of the Free Kingdoms have assembled armies to the south of here. We hope to stop the imperial assault.”
“That farmstead you found burned out, we saw the smoke,” a man asked. “What of the family that was there, the Olson’s? They were supposed to meet us on the road farther north.”
Cori thought of the family and the bodies they had found earlier. Her silence answered the question for the man and a few in the wagon began sobbing anew.
Sergeant Neale returned from checking the platoon deployment around the scene of the fight. He spoke in a loud voice to the families on the road. “Look, we need to get you out of here. These wagons are not going anywhere with the horses killed,” He said. “You will all need to gather what you can carry and be ready to move away from here when we are ready. We’ll stay with you tonight since it’s so late. We will get you back on the road safely tomorrow.”
He turned to Cori and looked her over. “Are you alright?” She nodded, and he continued. “Take half of first squad and find a place to camp for all of us, off the road, somewhere to the north. Be quick about it. There’s only about an hour of daylight left.”
She nodded again and called out to Shelby, Lissa, Declan and Gil. Together they trotted off to the north, passing the members of third squad watching the road for signs of trouble. About five hundred yards north there was a clearing off to the side of the road that offered some open area for shelter. The clearing was in a little hollow that was sheltered from view directly from the road. She thought it would be alright for a few small campfires to warm the refugees in the night. She sent Gil back to Sergeant Neale to tell him what they’d found and then she and the others started gathering some dead wood for a fire. It took an hour or so, but the rest of the group, including the farmers, made it up the road to the site of their camp and the people collapsed inside the perimeter of their makeshift camp.
Sergeant Neale set out sentries around the clearing and also north and south along the road and then ordered the rest to help the refugees get settled. There were a few who had been injured in the initial Imperial attack, and their wounds were tended to. Cori was happy to hear that none of the legionnaires in the platoon were injured in the assault. Only three of the Imperials survived the assault by the platoon. They were off near the road being questioned by Geb and a few of the older, more responsible members of the platoon. Sergeant Neale told the platoon sentries to stay alert. At least two of the Imperials had escaped based on the initial count of bodies recovered. They might just be stumbling around in the woods, or they could be going for help.
Cori was assigned to a sentry location outside of the circle of firelight to the west, and she settled into her selected spot behind a fallen tree, pulling her cloak tightly about her as the gloom and chill of night descended. She thought back to the battle, and she found herself scrubbing the back of her hand with a handful of her cloak, where the Imperial soldier’s blood had spilled on it. She stopped, she knew it was clean. She had washed the blood away with water from her canteen almost as soon as she could, but she couldn’t forget the coppery smell of it or the warm, wet feeling as it flooded out of the man’s body along her knife blade and on her hand and forearm. She continued to think and re-think every moment of the brief fight along the roadside as she passed the time away on sentry duty. It was well after midnight when Shelby came and found her and relieved her so she could get some sleep. She was tired, but sleep was a long time coming. Eventually, though, she closed her eyes and succumbed to sleep.
———
After spending a day getting the rescued farmers on the road and handing them off to third platoon, the second platoon of Stag Company returned south to continue their sweep for raiders. They discovered that the tactic of staging ambushes on the roads to set on refugees as they passed was being used by many of the raider groups. Sergeant Neale developed a sort of counter-ambush that allowed them to fall on the over-confident Imperials from behind in much the same way they had attacked the initial raider group they encountered. It depended on the fact that the enemy soldiers were horrible at traveling unseen or unheard in the forests. Sergeant Neale said that many of them were probably from the broad plains and deserts of the eastern parts of the Empire. This lack of fieldcraft allowed the Legion scouts to track and shadow them unseen for miles until they settled for the night or had set up a roadside ambush. Once the Imperials camped, the platoon would set up an attack for just before dawn. They would take out the sentries with planned archery shots and then sweep into the camps, taking most of the enemy as they were climbing out of their bedrolls.
Cori kept the images of the bodies at that first burned-out farmstead in her mind as she charged into each camp of Imperials, screaming the ululating, high-pitched wail the platoon members had taken to using when they attacked. She was not becoming used to the killing, but she kept telling herself that they were keeping innocent refugees and farmers alive by their attacks on the raiders.
The platoon kept at the attacks on the raider groups for two more weeks. They had found and routed twelve groups of Imperial raiders in all. The single prisoner they took in the last group called them the “devils in green” when questioned. The attacks on the raiding parties by the Legion platoons up and down the chain of mountains north of the City of Veron had been noticed, and the Imperials had developed a healthy fear of them. Sergeant Neale called that good and bad news. It was good that they were striking that kind of fear into the enemy. If they were afraid of the deep northern forests and the dangers that dwelled within them, that was a good thing. But, the attention would eventually divert larger and more prepared forces northward to counter the Legion’s efforts. They needed to be careful.
Cori and the rest of the platoon were down to just half a quiver of arrows or less when Sergeant Neale told them they would start making the trek back to rendezvous with first and third platoons and Captain McAffrey. When they connected back up with the other platoons, Brother Jerald used his healing magics to heal up the few wounds and injuries they had sustained while on patrol. No one had gotten any serious injuries, the attacks and ambushes had all been routs. But there were still a few cuts and wounds that needed attention beyond what field dressings had been applied. Cori watched as Katina was healed of a slash to her shoulder from an Imperial blade. Brother Jerald laid his hands on her wound and then closed his eyes. A golden glow appeared from beneath his hands and between his fingers. As it faded, he removed his hands and underneath was a pink scar where the wound had been. He told Kat to keep from using that arm for a few days to let the muscle underneath the skin finish knitting together and then he moved on to the next injured legionnaire. Cori had heard of the healing arts of the holy monks who traveled with them but had never seen the magics at work before. It was amazing to see first-hand.
Captain McAffrey sent a runner to reach Captain Desai to the north to tell her to bring her company down to meet with them. Cori was glad to settle in a regular camp set up again rather than sleeping in the woods as they had when on their patrol. She took advantage of the extra time to tend to her own aches and pains from the long days on the march. It was also good to get the extra rest and relaxation they needed to regroup. It took two days for Panther Company to join them in their improvised camp. As their platoons were integrated into those of Stag Company, Cori learned of similar raiding parties stopped by the Legion forces to the north as well. The “devils in green” had taken their toll on the Imperial incursions in this whole area. Cori wondered if Logan and the rest of the Legion were having as much success to the south. There was talk of marching back to the main camp to resupply with arrows and field rations to supplement their hunting. That would change as a squad-sized hunting party returned to camp with a bedraggled refugee telling wild stories of an Imperial column traveling up the mountain road to the east. A flurry of activity around the command tent at the center of the camp told Cori and the other legionnaires that the time for rest was over.
—-
Disclaimer: This is a work in progress as part of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). You are reading the work product of a first draft writing session and not a finished product. Comments are welcome, but bear the first draft nature of the work in mind. Thank you and enjoy!