Revision – 2026.6.29
“Ghwah! Ach, agh!”
There I lay, coughing, retching, hungrily gasping for air.
“…Hhah…! Haahh…!”
Water purled about me; pebbles scraped under my weight—I must’ve washed ashore somewhere downstream, to guess with what little wit remained me. But how far? And for how long?
Dazed, I craned my head up and slowly scanned about. Beyond the banks, there could be seen sprawling a rugged and parched expanse, hazy with heat. And high overhead, there hung the sun with its slanting, searing stare. Altogether, it was blinding and desolate wheresoever the eye looked, that for a moment, I mistook this to be some bleak land in the afterlife. But nay: I was alive yet. The pain panging through every crevice of my body once again proved that aplenty, especially at my shoulder, whence jut still the stabbing arrow.
Little remained of this parting present from the earthworkers, being broken anear its base, as I saw. Hardly blameable. But here was where we parted: gripping the shivered shaft—“Nrrkhhaah!!”—I wrenched it free out of my flesh. Casting it aside, I splayed further, panting from the pain. And as soon as I could, I turned my mind to the rest of my worsted body.
Arms, legs, fingers, feet; all were sound, I found—if “sound” meant “still attached”, anyway. My left arm: it was broken. Same with the little fingers of both hands. And added to the shot-wound at my shoulder were wounds all about my body: cuts and scrapes, blisters and bruises, the whole selection. And as for bones… the ones in my legs were yet whole somehow. There was a sprain in my right ankle, but I supposed I could walk yet with it, though it blared in agony. My ribs, however, weren’t so lucky: one, two… not few of them were in fracted shape.
“Hhahh… haegh…”
But all told, I had survived. That was something. Something of a miracle, maybe. Think of that: a miracle for a god-scorned man. Nay, that couldn’t be it, surely. But if not a miracle, then what?
“…”
Lost and languid, I lay looking up into the smoke-stained sky. Not a toe, not a finger of mine wanted to move. I was weary. Deadly weary. And oh so, so very sleepy. Thus, I quietly closed my eyes. Yes, that’s it: just let it all go, why not? Mind, mission—everything.
And like a mist nearing noon, I soon sensed all thought thinning into nothing. A darkness began to pool. A warm, welcoming darkness. A darkness I could… meld and… melt into…
…
“…Or maybe not,” I wheezed. “Not yet… not like this…”
Pressing hand to earth, I pushed myself up. I daresay, in all my life, waking had never required such a mountain of will. But wake I did; and after toiling to my feet, I looked at the bedraggled gear upon my person.
Half its leathers were thrashed. Plate and spaulder dangled and were dinted, their straps either gone or ready to give up. And so I peeled them off—them, and the leathers withal that were no longer of any good. Nay; some I could use yet, maybe. But that’d need a sharp blade. Well, my knife was lost. What about my sword? I groped about my belt, only to find it missing, too. As if one “miracle” weren’t enough, however, a gleam then caught the side of my eye: it was the sword itself, glaring anear upon the ground, still half-thrust into its waterlogged scabbard.
I reached down and retrieved it, only to startle from a seizing pain; already I’d forgotten my broken ribs.
“Urghh…”
Grimacing and grinding my teeth, I next squinted at the sun to read its angle.
“Sun’s here… smoke’s there… That puts the Erbelde…”
Tracing the tributary’s currents, my eyes settled upon some heights that stood far in the distance.
“…yonder, then.”
♰
Through the wasteland I trudged. Not a single other soul haunted the eerie place. Only things cricking or crawling… and the carrion-birds that’d been eyeing me from the sky. In any case, the going proved dreadfully slow. My ankle demanded that I limp the entire way; yet even absent the sprain, I could not chance haste, to remember Behrmann’s warning about the enemy patrols that prowled the basins. Even out here, from any shadow might a Nafíl pounce; and if my ungraced self couldn’t put up much of a fight before, it certainly wasn’t going to now. This cost me some precious hours. Eventide was starting to turn, though the sun beat as stubbornly as it’d ever done.
Indeed, it seemed only a dream that I was once drenched as a drowning dog. And despite having purged all that gear at the shores, only salvaging enough to splint and stanch my left arm, I felt leaden as a boulder being rolled up a hill. Get faster updates on g.com.
And goodness, if everything didn’t hurt. These hours had seen sweat break and dry, break and dry, rousing a stinging itch from my already throbbing wounds. This also meant my throat now stuck and thirsted a bedevilled deal, even after drinking more than I’d like from that “trip” down the tributary. And if that weren’t bad enough, my cracked clavicle screamed with every hoarse breath I took. And that’s to forget my panging ankle, my shot shoulder, and the gash somewhere on my scalp that now seeped a crusty redness down over my face.
But still, I got on. Thirsting and limping half-alive, I got on. Not that there was anything else to do.
“I’ll remember this day…” I grumbled under my breath. “I, and every bloody calendar I’ll cross…”
After taking two blasts to the back, who wouldn’t? And both in a single noon, at that?
“Wait till you hear this ‘thrilling’ tale, Emilie… Just you wait…”
If a third blast doesn’t claim me sooner, I grimly thought. But then I considered the silver lining: after literal fire and water, I was lucky to even be alive. The tributary, too, hellish though it was, hadn’t been so deep as to have drowned me.
I certainly hoped it was all worth it. I wondered Felicia and the forders next. Had they all been delivered at the last? It couldn’t have been long between the two blasts; I’d driven that poor beast to the limit of its lungs, I’d done, to get to the dam so undelayed. No; not more than five, ten minutes could that’ve been.
Yes… everything had worked out. Or so I’d like to think. Indeed, if they’d managed to endure both enemy and river, then they ought be alive enough at this moment. I’d done what I could for them; all that’s left was to believe.
♰
The sun had died. Twilight was fading fast. Yet still was I trundling onwards. Just how long had it been? I’d begun to wonder if I hadn’t gone the wrong way when, coming around the foot of some slopes, I saw in the distance, past the far mouth of a large and tracked gully, a splay of sharp shapes—shapes bespeckled with twinkling lights.
At once, I recoiled behind a rock. Those shapes… they were tents. War-tents. And those lights: torches, braziers they were, like as not. Carefully now, I peered out. And sure enough, it was a garrison.
But whose? Considering I’d been sent down the tributary, which itself snaked through Nafílim territory—not to mention my having borne towards the Erbelde all these wandering hours—of course this encampment would be the enemy’s. And as luck would have it, I’d come upon it from behind, as the gully seemed a secondary entry of sorts, purposed for supply waggons or a dire retreat, perhaps. Though whether this would all be “lucky” in the end or no, I cared little to guess.
With what stealth I could muster, I entered and made my way down the long gully, slinking from bush to bush. But ever as I got on, my ears pricked to a rumour of cries and clanging metals, faint and far: the noise of battle, if ever there was one—which was passing strange, for even as I eventually crossed the fenced postern, there was barely a brave anywhere to be seen.
Craving news, I climbed out of the gully and up to the nearest lip of the cliffs that sheltered the garrison from all sides. And peering far ahead, I beheld the Erbelde itself, bending yonder through the moonlit land like a brushstroke of shining ink. Crawling cautiously forth, I drew my eyes down to regard the garrison in its great entirety. And what was in it stole my breath away.
There indeed, anear its navel, raged and roared a pitched battle. On the thither side towards the garrison entrance, silver arms and armour glinted amidst the many braziers about like a sea of stars. And then I understood: against all odds, Londosius had not only defied defeat, but over the hours, had even managed to make it to these very camps of the enemy. But if so, then in all likelihood had the forders, too, made it across the river.
I huffed in relief. But things weren’t settled yet. Watching the war more closely, I saw the astounding numbers that the enemy braves boasted. Thousands they were, coursing betwixt the tents and mantelets as though to relive the wrath of the Erbelde. By my reckoning, they must constitute the entirety of the Nafílim forces in these basins, poured horse-and-foot thereto in a desperate defence against our advancing knights. Little wonder now why so few lurked these posterior parts, or were missing from the patrols.
All told, the blasts at bridge and dam had toppled and reset the gameboard. Now, with no river between them, both sides were locked in landed battle. But this being the bosom of the enemy, the fight was proving fierce, with the Nafílim sparing neither pawn nor prince to the great repelling. Meanwhile, our knights, rendered fewer by fire and water, were bitterly belaboured and beset, even as they stood on the cusp of ending this month-long battle.
Something again was needed to turn the tables. Something I could perhaps provide, distant and undetected as I was. Yes: a bit of deception and disorder, maybe, to draw the enemy off, and thereby thin their strength at the battlefront.
Straightway, I strained an eye across the vicinities below, before finding a stables nearby. Four steeds thereat were reined together; good, this I could work with. Descending the cliff, I hurried to the horses, hard-by which there burnt a brazier. This I could use, too. The Nafílim fashion such illumination as iron baskets thrust with torches, four whereof I then availed myself by kicking over the contraption.
This, and my bringing the burning things over to them, rather startled the steeds, which took some solacing to sort as I tied the torches to their saddles. I wasn’t going to roast them, if that’s what they feared, especially after being twice-roasted today myself. But bedecking them with fire, I freed them from their pens, tugged them out, and slapped their hinds. At once, they galloped away together, and wildly at that, discomforted by the bright fires borne at their backs. And in this way, they charged and tripped about, setting aflame any tent that they so touched.
After seeing them off, I stole into some unattended tents myself, rummaging them for fire-arrows not unlike the one that’d helped me back at the dam. A quiver of these I found before long, and withal a bow to borrow. And after scurrying back to the crest of the cliff, sprained ankle and all, I started loosing a firework of flaming shafts, nocking two, three at a time.
The aim was awful. Between my broken arm which trembled in pain to bear the bow, and my two little fingers being bent out of shape, I couldn’t shoot a wall if it stood afore me. But I didn’t mind. Enough of the arrows were landing on the tops of the teeming tents below that, together with the lawless steeds, quite a distraction was being contrived. Indeed, in just a moment, the garrison postern was positively aglow in flame.
It neither took long for the fighting Nafílim to notice. Their combat fell into confusion, having no doubt guessed their garrison to be beset from behind. Well, to their credit, that wasn’t so far off the mark. But rather than a surprise of more knights, it was merely a one-man army: a bruised, blasted, arm-broken bloke of an army.
Seizing the chance, the knights rallied, wreaking a blow quick and acute. At their head, discernible even from the scalp of this cliff, was a cherry-blonde dame, charging might and main into the foaming fray. That must be the Mareschal Tiselius, doing justice to her daring repute. The silversword in her hand, appearing as just a tiny needle from this distance, then bloomed into a blazing billow, brightening the dusk; and bringing it down upon the braves, she breached the enemy formations even further and laid them low in flames.
And amidst that luminous scene, I perceived another outstanding figure. Flaxen of hair she was; and the blade she bore was brilliant with levin, a single stroke whereof then swung to fell a handful of braves.
“…Emilie?” I could but gasp in wonder.
What on earth was she doing here? And not bodyguarding our timid mareschal as an Owlcrane ought? Even as doubts danced in my mind, a rimy mist smoked asudden above the battle, and just as asudden it swirled into itself, before spouting down unto the heads of the braves a shower of frozen shards. That was the spell Hrīmhorn, the source whereof I saw standing further behind the knightly van: it was Felicia my sister, holding ahigh her shining silverstaff.
“There you are. Thank goodness,” I sighed my lungs out. My fracted clavicle complained for it, but I didn’t care: my sister was alive and fighting. This chapter was taken from novelping . com without permission.
But now with the tables turned, the battle seemed set to enter its last stages. The Nafílim side—lessened as some of their number drew away to answer a surprise assault that did not exist—shrank bitterly aback, whilst the knights collectively lunged with sword and spear. Yet, was this to last? Desperation was swiftly spreading amongst the enemy. At this rate, the knights would no doubt try to corral them against the cliffs. In which case, there would be carnage… on both sides.
“That won’t do…” I muttered; but then, I remembered the gully. “…There’s your answer, Rolf. Now, move!”
And move I did, despite every bit of my body blaring in such pain that I knew no longer what or where was hurting. Down the cliff I went again, delving into the red light of tents blazing here and there. And warily I looked around; the Nafílim detachments, teased away from the battle yonder, were already come. Hither and thither they scrambled, scouring and shouting in confusion. Taking advantage, I couched behind what cover I could find as I crept along my way. Then, lying low, I began to do a bit of scouring myself.
“Not him… No, not him either…”
There was only one chance at this. A bad pick, and I’d have braves springing upon me by the hundreds. But at length, I found what I was looking for: a mounted brave, lightly geared and lagging behind his fellow riders.
“Here goes…”
Shifting through the shadows, I approached the brave as he galloped nigh. And all the while, thoughts thronged in my head. Second attempt at stealing a steed, this, I said to myself. Ought go more swimmingly, now without a bloody crate to carry. Or maybe not. Better a crate than broken bones, after all. Nay, forget it. Come on, Rolf. It’s either try… or die!
Pouncing from cover, I assailed the brave from the side with a shot of my last flaming arrow. Twang! it went, missing the head of the horse. But it did the trick.
“Ghrr!?” exclaimed the brave, as his beast reared in sudden fear. Swiftly he tamed it, and glancing aside, his angry eyes found me flying close. At once, the spear in his hand swung, but wavered when I sooner flung my bow at his face. The spear struck me anyway, but only on the shoulder with its odylless truncheon; for I’d already arrived at his foot, which I then wrested and wrapped under my armpit. And with a heave, I unhorsed him down into the dirt. “Uwa-waah, aggh!?”
This crash and cry of his did not go unheeded: the three riders ahead of him checked and swivelled in alarm. But wasting no time, I ascended the steed, steered it about—and sent it galloping for the battle itself!
“You! Stop there!” yelled the riders behind.
“Not too bad,” I grinned to myself. “Experience pays.”
Two-for-two; not bad, indeed. I was lucky, getting so close as I’d done, considering my sprain. And if that spear had been a sabre, that would’ve been the end of me. Right; better be more careful next time, if ever it comes.
But now, I drave and drave the drooling beast, even as riders were hot on its hoofs. The battle was just ahead, blade and blood, fire and frost. Forgetting fear, I urged my horse ever on—into the backs of the enemy rearguard. I didn’t doubt that they already suspected a flank attack, but to judge by the way they now gasped, pushed, and cast themselves out of my way, they hadn’t at all suspected one of their horses to come charging from behind.
This caused a splitting of their ranks as I ran through. And run I did, stooping low lest I be scried too swiftly and struck off my saddle. For their part, the knights thankfully did not send my way either arrow or spell, but seemed to watch in wonder this new confusion in their enemies.
And after the longest instant, I broke all the way through the Nafílim ranks and into those of the knights. At their van were Emilie and Tiselius, to whom I steered and slowed my steed. But as I dismounted, my legs, bruised and trembling still from the thrill, buckled to their knees.
“What’s this?” uttered a knight nearby. “A Man emerging from the other side?”
“Poor lad! He’s beaten up and down,” noted another. “What Hell he must’ve gone through!”
Surprise sputtered all over as the fighting then resumed. Looking up, I found Emilie standing in astonishment.
“The man of the hour himself…” I heard Tiselius utter. “Well met, Rolf Buckmann.”
Now did surprise seize me in turn. The Hero-Dame, knowing me by name? That’s quite the honour, indeed, though I suspected Emilie had something to do with it. Nay, never mind that. Resting my reeling mind, one thing became clear: I had found my way back to the Order… alive.
───────── ♰ ─────────
Notes
Hrīmhorn
(Language: Old English; original name: “Frost Gravel”) “Hoar-horn”. Ice-elemental battle magick. A spell in the form of shards and/or stumps of ice, directed towards a target at high speeds. Pierces and/or pummels on impact.