Mercenary of Lastia - BtLH - Ch 71 (Patreon)

The enemy pressed in on their circular defense ruthlessly. Lys did her best to support the others. The fighting was intense, with the enemy alternating their surges at different locations.

The makeshift defenses proved a force multiplier, though.

Attempts to tear the abattis apart were met with spears, and recruits standing atop the wagons had the high ground and an easy time slashing any attackers who tried to climb up them.

A few Black Tortoises threw themselves over the stakes recklessly and recruits dragged them into a tangle before opening their flesh with dozens of stab wounds.

“Keep them off the barricades!” Sergeant Swift’s voice cut through the chaos.

Lys nocked an arrow and aimed for an enemy archer still up on the hill. Her shot found its mark, sending him sprawling.

“Nice shot, Trekhill!” Plainfield shouted.

“Thanks,” she muttered, eyes already scanning for the next target.

Arrows continued to reply, but they weren’t aimed. Most thudded into the ground, wagons, or shields.

The rest of her group’s archers focused on the up close threat, supporting the defensive line directly. The threat of her arrows kept the enemy archers tucked behind the hill’s crest. That was the best she could do because even with superhuman marksmanship, she couldn’t hit what she couldn’t see.

And there were plenty of targets to shoot at up close, too, even if her primary goal was to keep the enemy archers back.

A surge of Black Tortoise pushed against the barricade, their shields groaning and scraping against the wooden stakes. Lys climbed up onto a wagon seat and fired into the mass of bodies while aiming for gaps, but the press was relentless.

“We need more here!” Stormwell yelled, his voice strained with effort.

She blinked—he was right. The small section between two wagons was folding inward, the barricade shattered. Black-tinted armor began to flow through the break.

Lys slung her bow over her shoulder and grabbed a spear from a fallen recruit. She got a running start across the wagon and then jumped into the breach, her boots landing on an enemy’s back, thrusting him into the ground as she landed her spear into the man beside him, piercing from shoulder to groin.

He crumpled to the ground in a heap, taking her spear with him. She pulled out her sword and jabbed the man she had landed on in the spine below the neck.

The press of enemies crashed to a halt as she stared at the next enemy in the narrow alley between wagons. He stared at her in shock long enough for her to step back to join Stormwell in a reforming shieldwall.

“Hold the line!” she shouted.

“We are trying!” Stormwell shouted back at her.

The recruits rallied, her fierce example seeming to spark a new fire in them. She let Stormwell and his group plug the gap while she turned and surveyed the fight—she spotted Swift and Finn directing the defense on the other side of the circle, jumping in the thick of it themselves wherever a gap appeared.

Nearby, the enemy began to bulge in another spot, where the gap was wider and the defenses had been torn down by sheer weight of bodies. The defensive line was thin as another recruit fell out of the shield wall.

She grabbed a shield and rushed to fill the hole just as an enemy moved to plunge through it. She stomped on his ankle and shoved him back. The man behind him caught him and prevented him from falling, but that just allowed her to eviscerate him with a low stab.

“Watch your left!” Woodrow called out, deflecting a blow aimed at Lys’s side. He pushed in beside her, thickening the wall.

She nodded in thanks and swung her sword in a wide arc, forcing the two enemies in front of her to retreat. One held his stomach, trying to keep his insides from falling out while being dragged out of the way.

There was no attempt to push the enemy back further, though. Exhaustion was setting in among the recruits. Everyone’s movements had grown sluggish, their breaths ragged.

“Don’t give up now!” Sergeant Swift urged. “We’re almost through this!”

Lys gritted her teeth. Her arms felt like lead, each swing of her sword fueled by sheer willpower. One of the other recruits collapsed without anyone landing a blow on him—he’d simply become too exhausted to hold up his shield any longer despite the danger.

They’d already spent themselves before retreating to the wagons. How did he know how long it would be?

There was no choice, though.

Fight on it was.

The Black Tortoises pressed harder, but it was lethargic. They were exhausted, too?

Lys shoved her shield against the enemy’s own shield wall and put her weight into it. Sweat dripped down her face, stinging her eyes. Shields sagged, and swords moved sluggishly.

“We’re not gonna make it,” Woodrow muttered, barely audible over the clash of steel.

“Hold fast!” Finn’s voice boomed through the chaos.

The sergeant pushed past Lys and brought down a heavy blow with one of the lumber axes, splitting the shield of an enemy. A second blow caved in the attacker’s helmet. They pressed toward him, but he swung the weapon in a wide arc, forcing them back out of range.

One was too slow, and the heavy blade smashed into the man’s face. The attack was unadulterated savagery. And the sergeant moved like was not tired at all, not like the rest of them.

The ferocity pushed back the Black Tortoises, creating a momentary gap in their assault.

“Form up! Beside me!” Finn commanded.

Lys moved to his side, feeling a surge of renewed energy. The recruits rallied a second time, their formation tightening. They restored the wall at the rear of the camp, pushing back against the encroaching enemy.

“Keep them out!” Finn shouted, his sword slicing through an enemy soldier’s neck.

Lys cycled out of the front line with several others. Her legs wobbled as she stepped back, but she forced herself to stay upright. The cycle was messy and inefficient, far from what they had trained for. They didn’t have enough reserves to rotate properly; their circle was shrinking, pushing them closer to the wagons.

“The front is collapsing!” Stormwell yelled, panic edging his voice.

Lys grabbed a new spear from a fallen comrade and scanned the line for weaknesses. The spike and wagon wall was holding, but it funneled the enemy through the same narrow tunnel that had been breached earlier.

“Over there!” she pointed with her spear toward a section where recruits were faltering.

She wasn’t sure there was anyone left to pay attention to her direction, so she rushed to reinforce it herself. An enemy soldier broke through, stomping a recruit on the ground. She lanced the man in the side, pinning him to the side of the wagon. Another replaced him, but a recruit still on top of the wagon with a long spear jabbed him in the neck.

“Thanks!” Lys shouted, but the sound was lost in the noise. Stormwell appeared beside her and they linked shield, blocking the narrow path between wagons again. Two more enemies appeared to press at them and Lys gritted her teeth, jabbing back again and again, the impacts reverberating up her arm.

“Don’t let them through!” she shouted.

Beside her, Stormwell parried an attack and countered with a quick slash. Every so often help would come from the men on the wagons. Arrows began to fall in heavier numbers, but the fighting was so close half of them fell on the Black Tortoises as well.

The enemy stopped trying to breach the deadly corridor in front of her. Somehow, they held their ground. It gave her time to catch her breath, which was as ragged as Stormwell’s.

“Keep pushing!” Finn’s voice urged from somewhere behind them.

Lys’s arms burned with fatigue as she looked back. The fight was still pressing from other directions. The line where Finn had taken up position wavered but didn’t break. She could see a fire lit in her fellow recruit’s eyes—the determination to survive this onslaught, no matter what it took.

Or maybe they were just so cornered they’d turned into wild animals.

But the slow press wasn’t doing anyone any favors. They needed the enemy to go away.

The enemy had clustered around the main fight, the small holes being forgotten. Lys looked up and grabbed Stormwell’s arm. “Get this Wagon rolled forward, make a path out!”

“What?” Stormwell looked at her with shock.

“Get them off and do it!” Lys ordered. She didn’t wait to see if he did so—he would. In the center of the redoubt were two dozen recruits milling about. She moved to them.

“With me!” she yelled, raising her spear into the air. “Get up. If you want to live, get up and come with me!”

At first, they looked up at her without understanding. She lifted one exhausted recruit back onto his feet and slapped him.

“Get up! With me!” Lys shouted. “We’re in this together!”

They budged, a reply of shouts coming back in reply as they slow picked themselves up. The exhausted, the wounded that could still move, the ones who were confused, all slowly coalesced into a ragged blob. She led them out of the circled wagons.

They turned right and circled around. For a second, Lys felt doubt as she took in the size of the enemy group trying to break through. There were far, far more of them than she imagined.

There wasn’t any time for that.

“Smash them!” Lys shouted.

They charged and took the enemy wholly unawares. The first dozen men died with steel in their backs. The recruits’ voices merged into a single defiant roar.

The section they hit attempted to flee—climbing over the wagons to be stabbed from above, and then through their own men who were shoved out of the way, jostling the formation.

Ahead, Lys could hear the rest of the company.

“Hold the line!” Finn’s voice boomed, but even he sounded weary.

The press of bodies became suffocating, the air thick with sweat and blood. She led the way, but it was the weight of the press behind her that shocked the enemy. The falter turned into a rout. She spotted Finn and the rest of the company’s line—they had held.

A blade slipped into Finn’s side as the Black Tortoises fled around the wagons in the opposite direction from her group.

“Finn!” Lys shouted, her voice raw.

He staggered but didn’t fall. The recruits pushed harder, stabbing any enemies that lingered. A grim circle of bodies was left behind around the company’s defenses.

Breathing heavily, Lys dropped to her knees beside Finn. Blood soaked his tunic, and he gasped for air, his eyes squeezed shut with pain.

“Hang in there,” she urged, pressing her hands against his wound to stem the bleeding.

Finn’s grip tightened on her arm. “The eighty... into nine,” he wheezed, blood bubbling at his lips. “But you’re... the one.”

His hand fell away as his eyes glazed over. Lys held him for a moment longer before gently laying him down and closing his eyes.

She stood up and took a deep breath, surveying the aftermath. Around sixty men remained, half of their company dead on the hill or around the wagons. Exhausted recruits hunkered down behind what little cover they had left, tending to their wounds in silence.

The Black Tortoises retreated to the top of the hill, tossing the occasional arrow at them. Enemy sentries watched from above, resting and repairing their gear.

They would not be giving up, it seemed.

A shelter was heaved into place, makeshift planks pulled off a ruined wagon. That provided shade and protection from stray arrows.

Lys frowned as she watched the remaining recruits tend to their wounds and gather equipment and gear. Swift and Ashton were leaning over a recruit doing surgery to a ruined arm.

Others were wrapped in bandages.

A gnarl of anger twisted inside. How did the White Dragons train any recruits at all, given the losses they had suffered?

“Take a breather,” Swift ordered, his voice cutting through the somber atmosphere. “Then work on preparing ditches and spike walls.”

Lys’ brow furrowed. “Sergeant, is this really the best idea? Wouldn’t it be better to take what we can carry and find a more defensible position?”

Swift glanced at the wagons, his expression grim. “The supplies are critical either way.”

Lys followed his gaze before turning back to the forest down the road. “We can carry the essentials that far, fix one wagon, overload it, and haul it in one go.”

“We won’t make it far,” Swift countered, shaking his head.

“We don’t need to,” Lys insisted. “We just need to get into the trees. They’ll break up the enemy arrows and give us a better position to fortify. This spot is undefensible while they have the hill.”

Swift considered, then nodded. “You’re right. Let’s do it.”

They moved to put the plan into effect. Lys grabbed a handful of recruits, their faces pale and weary.

“Gather anything essential. We’re moving to the forest,” Lys ordered.

Stormwell, blood smeared across his forehead, nodded and began to help organize the recruits. “You heard him! Ammunition, weapons, rations, medical supplies. Leave the rest.”

Recruits scrambled to obey, their movements sluggish. Lys shouldered a pack of arrows off a wagon that had lost its wheels and headed for the wagon chosen for being in the best shape. Woodrow was there, securing a barrel of water.

“Need help with that?” Lys asked, setting down her load to assist.

“Thanks,” Woodrow grunted, sweat dripping from his brow. Together, they hefted the barrel onto the wagon, wedging it down tightly between packs of gear.

Arrows began to fall with increasing regularity. Lys turned her attention up to the hill. The infantry had retreated all the way behind the crest and just the skirmishers remained visible. There was no way of telling how far the enemy had retreated, or if they were about to attack again in a few minutes.

“We need to shoot back,” Lys muttered, moving to find a bow only to realize it was on her back. Before she could ready an arrow, the enemy archers fell back.

Swift paced nearby, barking orders. “No stragglers! Keep moving!”

Lys wiped her brow, catching a glimpse of Plainfield, who looked ready to collapse. “You good, Plainfield?”

“Just peachy,” Plainfield replied, managing a weak grin. “How about you?”

“Still standing,” Lys said, returning the smile.

The recruits formed a line, passing supplies hand to hand. Lys moved to the front, ensuring the transfer went smoothly. She glanced at the forest, which promised a bit of safety. Maybe.

“Watch your step!” Stormwell cautioned as they navigated the uneven ground. “Don’t need any more injuries.”

As the last of the supplies made it into the wagons, Lys checked the formation. “Everyone ready?”

A chorus of tired affirmatives met her ears. She turned to Swift, who gave a curt nod. “Let’s move out, dragons.”

They trudged toward the forest at the best pace they could manage. They’d salvaged two wagons instead of just one somehow. That let them keep most of their important supplies.

Lys kept a sharp eye on their surroundings and rear. She could still see their sentries on the hill, watching them.

They reached the tree line and continued for some ways through the brush. Every rustle seemed like it was an ambush, and everyone was jumpy. They didn’t go far before Swift raised a fist and called a halt on a slight elevation.

It was the closest thing to a hill in the trees Lys had seen. It wasn’t that high, but it was better than nothing.

The recruits immediately set to work. Lys oversaw the digging of ditches and the setting of spike walls, ensuring their defenses were as strong as possible.

“How long do you think we have?” Woodrow asked, hammering a spike into the ground. “Will they come back after us?”

“Not long,” Lys replied, her gaze fixed on the hill. “They probably will. But we’ll be ready.”

Stormwell approached, wiping dirt from his hands. “We need more spikes. I’ll take a few guys to gather saplings.”

Lys nodded. “Be quick about it. Don’t know how long we got.”

It turned out that time was something they actually had.

The hectic rush to set up temporary defenses slowly morphed into a more organized construction of ramparts, log walls, abatis, trenches, and lines of stakes. They had less manpower, but the area they fortified was much smaller than usual, too.

No room for individual tents. They were all heaped together. One of the outer ditches turned into a makeshift latrine for the enemy to fall into.

The rhythm alternated between shoveling dirt and chopping trees into useful defenses. Those who needed rest stood watch with their bows, spears, and shields. Tension hung in the air, even as dusk arrived. There would be no fires tonight.

Maybe digging in was a mistake? Would it have been better to flee towards Eversheaf? Lys glanced at the lines of wounded, who couldn’t march. Retreat meant leaving them behind.

“Keep your eyes sharp,” Swift ordered, his voice cutting through the dimming light.

Lys leaned against a tree, catching her breath. Her entire body felt like it was heavy, her lungs felt raw, and exhaustion was only a short span away. They needed to finish what they could, then rest.

“We’re making progress,” Stormwell said, wiping sweat from his brow.

Lys nodded, scanning the line. “We need to finish the spikes along the northern side.”

Plainfield and Woodrow worked beside her, their movements steady despite exhaustion. “Think they’ll attack tonight?” Woodrow asked, voice low.

“Hope not,” Plainfield grunted. “We could use a break.”

Swift’s voice boomed across the camp. “Alright, recruits, that’s enough for now. Get some rest.”

Lys straightened, feeling the fatigue settle deeper into her bones. Before they could go, Swift called her over to him. His expression was unreadable.

“Need you to gather the five fastest recruits,” he said, tone serious. “Ready for a special mission.”

Lys winced, remembering Private Hilk’s warning when she first joined, about volunteering for missions. “Yes sir,” she replied, reforming her face into a mask.

How was she supposed to find five recruits who weren’t utterly exhausted, though?

She moved through the camp, tapping shoulders and speaking in low tones. “Plainfield, Stormwell, Woodrow, over here.”

They gathered, curiosity and concern evident in their eyes. “What’s going on?” Plainfield asked.

“Special mission,” Lys replied. “Swift wants the fastest. Can you help me pick them out?”