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x “Shields!” “Spears!” “Blades!” On the little mound at the valley mouth, Samwell’s voice had gone hoarse.
His expression had settled as the battle wore on.
The recruits had been remade in blood, but Samwell had also learned something.
The military ideas he had pieced together were not empty theory.
In a war of cold steel, a straight line, hard discipline, and order under command were weapons stronger than any one man’s courage.
The slope buried under wild men proved it.
He could feel the enemy’s spirit failing.
Their attacks no longer came with the same force.
Soon they might lack the nerve to charge the mound at all.
Even without Todd striking them from behind, Samwell believed his recruits could hold the valley mouth.
Looking at the dark press of wild men in the passage, he even found time to wish for archers.
A few volleys into that mass would have broken them.
But archers took time and money.
Four months were not enough, and a bowman was an expensive kind of soldier.
Cavalry would be worse.
That could wait for a richer day.
“Kill!” The roar struck like thunder.
Samwell snapped back to the present just in time to see one of his shieldmen flung into the air.
The man turned once, hit the ground hard, and lay still with his chest caved in, blood bubbling from his mouth.
What in the Seven— A huge wild man had torn through the shield line.
He drove upward with a long blade in both hands, unstoppable, the shadowcat fangs on his chest flashing darkly in the torchlight.
“Stop him!” The wild man smashed another shield apart with a single blow.
Splinters flew.
His bloodshot eyes fixed on the man giving orders atop the mound.
“Die!” Keka came on like a shadowcat springing downhill.
Samwell had no time to dodge.
He raised his sword and met the blow with both hands.
Steel rang.
The force tore the sword from his grip and hurled him backward as if he had been struck by a charging horse.
Pain burst through his chest.
For a moment he could not breathe.
The mail had saved him.
Without it, that blade would have opened him from breast to belly.
Keka laughed and brought the sword down again.
The stink of blood and sweat came with it like death’s own breath.
Samwell threw himself sideways on hands and knees, crawling like some great lizard through the dirt.
The blade smashed into the ground where his head had been.
Mud and stone sprayed across his face, cutting his cheek.
One heartbeat more, and his head would have left his shoulders.
He tried to rise.
His limbs felt packed with lead.
Keka lunged again.
“Protect Lord Greenhand!” The soldiers finally closed around the wild man.
Samwell dragged in several breaths and tasted blood in his mouth.
Terrifying.
The man’s strength was monstrous.
After months of drilling and gold-tailed shrimp, Samwell’s Strength had risen to 1.32, already above an ordinary man’s.
Before Keka, it had meant almost nothing.
The wild man’s Strength had to be near 3.00.
Perhaps higher.
“Second group forward!
Hold the line!
Third group, surround him!” That was the value of reserves.
The broken line steadied quickly.
Keka might be fearsome, but even he could not easily escape dozens of shields and spears closing in around him.
One man’s valor mattered little in a true battle.
Still, Samwell could not deny how close it had been.
Keka’s strength and timing had nearly changed everything.
If he had killed Samwell, the battle might truly have turned.
Almost.
Now the wild man was trapped, lunging left and right amid a ring of spearpoints.
Wounds opened across his arms and body.
With a furious roar, he suddenly hurled his long blade at Samwell.
“Die!” Samwell had been watching him.
He snatched a shield from the soldier beside him and brought it up.
The blade punched through the wood, but the mail beneath stopped the point from going deeper.
The force still drove him back three steps and dropped him onto his backside.
He swallowed the blood rising in his throat and forced himself up.
“Kill him!” “Kill!” The soldiers rushed in now that Keka had lost his weapon.
The wild man roared and charged toward Samwell again like a mad beast.
The soldiers gathered tightly, ready to die before letting him through.
But Keka suddenly twisted aside and bolted back toward the valley mouth.
His earlier fury had been so direct, so relentless, that the feint caught the soldiers flat-footed.
In that instant, he broke through the ring.
“Do not chase!
Hold the position!” Samwell stopped the men before they scattered after him.
He wanted the wild man cut into pieces.
He also knew the battle mattered more.
Keka was badly wounded.
He was no longer the threat he had been.
The breach had shaken the defenders, but it proved to be the wild men’s last flare of strength.
After that, they could no longer threaten the mound.
And now Samwell could hear fighting outside the valley.
Todd had returned.
Cheers broke out inside the camp.
The defenders’ spirits surged.
The wild men opposite them sagged.
They still tried to attack, but the low hill before them might as well have been a wall of iron.
Their front was blocked.
Their rear was under attack.
Trapped in the valley passage, they began to falter, then panic.
At last, dawn cut through the dark and lit the valley.
It revealed the whole horror of the night.
From the valley mouth to Samwell’s line, the hundred-foot slope lay packed with wild men’s bodies.
Some still lived among the dead, crying in pain and begging for release.
Blood had turned the earth dark red.
The smell of it filled the air until breathing felt difficult.
The sight broke what courage remained.
The wild army collapsed.
Some ran madly backward.
Some wept with their hands over their heads.
Some sank to the ground and stared at nothing.
Samwell seized the moment and shouted down the slope.
“Drop your weapons!
Surrender, and you will live!” His soldiers began pushing the line forward, calling the same words as they advanced.
CREATORS’ THOUGHTS TheDevotedReader I hope you enjoyed this chapter.