Mercenary of Lastia - BtLH - Ch 74 (Patreon)

Late afternoon arrived. No attack came.

Everyone was miserable, and Lys stared at the dead, the flies thick in the air.

Maybe they had hurt the enemy enough to make them give up? An arrow arrived to disabuse her of the notion. She added the projectile to their growing stockpile.

It was almost time to poke out and shoot back at them, again.

She wished they had taken a prisoner. She burned to know the reason for the stubborn, vicious, unending attack. It felt personal. Vindictive.

So many men had died on both sides. For what?

They were fresh recruits. They’d never done anything to anyone, except some Irongians. Her mind drifted toward the prince and his carriage, but how would they know she had ever spotted it?

Lys let out a groan and touched her head, fingers rubbing against the coarse bandage. It was swelling painfully, but she didn’t seem to be debilitated. There were a lot who were hurt far worse.

Not that questioning a random soldier would have done any good, she imagined. The regular soldiers probably knew about as much as she did. But it was a little fantasy that ran over and over in her head. She just wanted to know. WHY? Why?

Lys stood up and moved to patrol the line, even if she could see the entire interior of the redoubt from any spot inside of it. Nervous energy bled off of her like sweat.

It was a miracle she had any energy at all, after everything they had been through. But she had recovered her breath faster than any of the others.

Other recruits sat and alternatively fidgeted or remained tense as rocks. A few slept, and the wounded rested.

Swift nodded to her grimly as she passed the stump of a tree that had become his command post. She stopped and squatted beside him, hugging her knees.

“Think we’d be better off attempting to flee into the night?” she asked, voice low.

Swift’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the horizon. “Maybe,” he replied, “but I imagine they are looking for that. They’ll come again—at dusk. Maybe later, if we hurt them bad enough. I don’t think we did.”

Lys let out a weary sigh, running a hand through her tangled hair.

“How’s morale?” Swift asked, not looking at her.

Lys let out a low chuckle, drawing a few glances from the men leaning back against the barricades. “Low,” she admitted. “Some are ready to bolt.”

Swift grunted, adjusting the grip on his sword hilt. “Can’t blame ‘em.”

They sat in silence for a moment, the weight of the situation pressing down.

“Any sign of reinforcements?” she ventured.

“None,” Swift said flatly.

Yeah, she figured that. She hadn’t seen anything herself. She’d just asked to be asking.

Lys chewed her lip, glancing at the recruits. “We need something to keep them going.”

Swift nodded slowly. “Aye, but what?”

She shrugged, feeling the futility of their position gnaw at her insides. “Bunzard come to deliver us?”

Swift snorted. “Not likely.”

They fell silent again, the sounds of branches rustling in a breeze rolling through the area. Birds chirped overhead, oblivious to the carnage below. Or maybe they were looking to join the insects in their feast.

“How’s your head?” Swift asked suddenly.

Lys touched the bandage at her temple, wincing slightly. “Still hurts like hell.”

“Good,” he said with a grim smile. “Means you’re still alive.”

She managed a weak grin in return. “Small comfort.”

Swift’s gaze hardened as he looked out over their ragged band of survivors. “We’ll hold,” he said firmly.

That was a lie. She silenced her first thought of yelling at him.

She wanted to believe. It was hard to muster any genuine conviction, though. She stood up, stretching her sore muscles.

“I’ll keep patrolling,” she said.

Swift nodded, his expression unreadable. “Stay sharp.”

She walked away, feeling his eyes on her back as she resumed her walk along the line. The recruits looked up at her with weary eyes, their hope hanging by a thread.

She tried to put on a strong face for them. Even for the ones she didn’t know their names. They were White Dragons too.

Slowly the exhausted recovered, and by late afternoon everyone had eaten and those who were not wounded too badly were ready to fight again. At least a little.

That was good, because the harassment with arrows continued until near dusk. The enemy did exactly as Swift predicted. Several squares of men formed up in the growing shadows far enough away to make them hard to make out.

Lys counted the defenders: twenty fighters left, ten fighting wounded, six critical.

Not enough.

She waved over a few recruits to take bows and arrows from the pile. Then she joined them as the enemy slowly approached.

Night came early under the thick canopy of the forest.

She drew her bow and fired before it was impossible to aim. Her shot nailed a man in the throat. The other archers opened fire as well. That elicited a battle cry, and the enemy charged.

“We’ll make our stand here!” Swift shouted. There was a weak chorus of affirmation.

Lys nocked another arrow, aiming at the shadowy figures rushing towards them. She released, hearing a satisfying screech as it struck home.

Around her, recruits readied their shields and spears. Half of them were set in a loose line at the front of the redoubt across the main gap where they had plugged and wedged the spiked barricade. There was no way out or in, except over the walls or through it.

The other half of their number was spread out even more along the wall. She would have preferred double the number they had for that, but well… they had lost them.

“Here they come!” Stormwell yelled, gripping his spear tightly.

She continued to fire, breathing deep and letting loose and letting the energy of her core wash over her. Every shot found its mark, slowing the enemy’s advance but not stopping it. There were just too many of them.

Arrows flew back at her, but she ignored them. They were badly aimed, and the trajectories were off. A few recruits stared at her in shock.

The air filled with the clash of steel and cries of pain.

A figure climbed the nearby abatis and jumped at Lys from the side. His boot caught on a stake that killed his momentum.

She stepped away from the wall to draw her sword and then moved to plunge it into his back as he failed to finish climbing up to her. He curled up in a ball, a gurgle of blood soaking into the dirt and wood.

She eyed another man following his path up and waited until the right moment to boot the body at him—both ended up smashing into a set of wooden spikes.

“Keep pushing them back!” Swift’s voice rang out over the chaos.

The recruits held the barricades, stabbing tangled and stalled enemies while keeping their shields raised to fend off blows and arrows.

She couldn’t sit still in her spot. Enemy archers moved closer and started to target her, and she wasn’t suicidal like the stares pointed at her had thought.

Her bow was still useful as she moved between recruits like a shadow, her bow singing as she fired arrow after arrow as soon as an enemy would silhouette himself on the wall.

“We’re holding!” Plainfield called out, his face streaked with dirt and sweat. He was holding his side and on a knee, sword planted in the chest of an enemy who had rolled into the redoubt.

“For now,” Lys muttered under her breath. She moved and checked on him, helping him to his feet. He waved her off.

She wasn’t sure how bad his earlier injury was. By the time she did another round, the enemy was in retreat again as it turned pitch black. Arrows continued to harass them at a heavier tempo, whistling through the air and thunking into the barricades.

The slight elevation and wooden defenses were a miracle. If not for them, they’d all have been dead simply from the arrows already.

Lys gripped her bow, ears straining for any sound of movement as she made her way back to the sniper perch. Her fingers ached, burned from drawing the string, but she couldn’t stop now.

“They’re pulling back!” Stormwell called out, relief tinged with exhaustion.

“Keep your guard up!” Swift ordered. “They might come again.”

Lys scanned the darkness. The twang of an enemy bow sounded. In a smooth motion she turned, aimed, and fired with her eyes closed.

A scream echoed out. One less enemy loosing on them.

She could hear men skulking in the black, and wounded moaning and crying out on the spikes, unable to leave the putrid rot from earlier.

It was almost enough to make her feel bad for them.

Not.

Lys counter fired a few more times, but the arrows failed to elicit a pained cry. She ducked back down under the barricade as Plainfield came to crouch beside her, muttering curses under his breath.

Hours dragged on, each minute stretching into a more uneasy quiet. The smell relented as a strong breeze picked up. The forest felt like a living entity, upset about the events of the day—days? Her eyelids grew heavy, her muscles protesting each time she forced them to stay alert.

A sudden rustle nearby made her tense. She drew an arrow, ready to fire at the slightest hint of movement.

Silence.

Only the buzz of insects broke the quiet. She exhaled slowly, lowering her bow but not relaxing.

Beside her, a recruit shifted, the weight of exhaustion evident in his slumped shoulders. “We can’t keep this up,” he murmured.

“They’re feeling it, too,” Lys said, her voice barely above a whisper. They had to be. If anything, they were only still coming after them because they had killed so many of their own companions. The need for revenge must be high.

Was there any point trying to pry the motivations out of the enemy in her own head? Probably not, but it helped her stay awake.

The night stretched on, an endless loop of tension and brief bursts of activity. Lys’s vision blurred, fatigue clawing at her senses. She fought it.

“Trekhill!” Swift’s voice cut through the haze. “Get some rest. That’s an order.”

She wanted to argue, but knew it was pointless. She found a spot against the barricade, leaning back and closing her eyes. The world faded, replaced by a restless slumber.

A hand shook her awake what felt like seconds later. Bunzard, why was it always like this?

Swift’s face loomed, the dawn light casting harsh shadows across his features. “Up. It’s daylight.”

She groaned, her body stiff from the brief rest. “What now?”

“It’s morning,” he said grimly. “Reinforcements might reach us today.”

She nodded, pushing herself to her feet.

Around her, the recruits stirred, their faces etched with fatigue and determination. She grabbed her bow. Something told her the enemy would come again soon.

She was right.

The enemy advanced in a thick shield wall. The rear ranks held ladders and makeshift bridges for scaling the ditches. Lys narrowed her eyes—they intended to breach the defenses and go over them this time instead of impaling themselves on the front barricade.

Smart, but that was bad for her and the others.

She scanned the area, then turned to Swift. “What can we do?”

Swift frowned. “Get what supplies you can to the middle.” He turned and repeated the order.

Recruits scrambled, grabbing things and tossing them into a pile at the center of the redoubt. Lys grabbed a bundle of arrows and slung it over her shoulder.

What was the point, though? Maybe it would serve as a rally point, but if the enemy came over the wall with enough numbers, they’d be crushed. They certainly weren’t going to be resting with them inside!

“Move faster!” Swift barked, his voice cutting through the chaos.

Despite the snap to the order, the recruits were lethargic. Maybe it was just a warmup—they were all exhausted and spent, but a little movement would help get the blood flowing. Work a little of the edge off first.

The first seconds of a fight were important. No time to be exhausted.

“How long do we have?” Stormwell asked, his face pale.

“Not long,” Lys replied. “Just keep moving.”

Plainfield stumbled past her, clutching a brace of spears. “This is madness,” he muttered.

“No choice,” she said, pushing him forward. “Put that in the pile, then get your weapon ready.”

He nodded and followed her direction.

The pile in the center grew steadily with the tension in the air. Arrows began their sick song of thuds and whistles.

“That’s enough!” Swift called out. “Man the walls!”

Lys moved to the highest end of the redoubt and poked her head high enough to get a good view and scanned in every direction. The enemy were coming from only one direction, one massed tortoise equipped with their siege gear.

They certainly weren’t intending to need to find multiple ways in.

She sucked on her lip. Hopefully, they could prove them wrong again. Reaching out, she shouted for Swift. “That way, sir, almost all of them!”

Swift nodded and directed the recruits. “Half of you, double that side, move it!”

The recruits braced themselves as the enemy reached their outer defenses. The sound of clashing steel and shouts filled the air.

“They’re coming over!” Stormwell yelled.

Metal spikes stabbed over the edge before being pulled down tight, locking ladders into the top of the walls. For a second it seemed like they’d tear the walls down completely. The wood flexed and groaned.

But didn’t break.

A black helmet appeared, and Lys released an arrow into the eye slit. He tumbled back without a scream.

More men appeared, along with ladders, eight abreast. She glanced at the other archers. “Keep firing!” she ordered.

There was no need to conserve ammo. They weren’t going to need any after this one.

Arrows flew from their bows, the accurate direct fire striking down enemy after enemy. It made the work of the others lighter, but their progress began to slow as the sheer weight of the men coming over was too much.

More ladders clamped down. The recruits bunched up at the location of the attack, coming up to spear the men climbing.

“We can’t hold them forever,” Plainfield said through gritted teeth.

“We don’t need forever,” Lys replied. “Reinforcements are coming!”

If she repeated that enough, then it would come true.

The realization that this was their last stand began to appear on the others’ faces.

Lys fired another arrow.

They had prepared for this moment, fought tooth and nail to it; now they would see if their efforts would be enough to hold off the tide of enemies crashing against them.

“Hold the line!” Swift’s voice cut through the din.

Bunzard, how many times could they do that? Calling for it. Grasping to keep them back with just one more spear thrust, sword slash, or arrow.

Lys slowly turned, searching for any breach. Her eyes darted from one side of the barricade to the other, fingers brushing against her quiver. She nocked an arrow and released it into an enemy attempting the main entrance. He fell backwards into the trench with a scream.

“More ladders on the left!” Stormwell shouted, his voice strained.

Lys pivoted, a grimace appearing on her face. They had worked their way around with some of the ladders. No one had been able to risk a peek over the wall without risking being shot. Had she been too focused on shooting anyone making it inside?

There was no time to figure things out. She aimed at a soldier at the top of the new set of ladders and let loose. The arrow struck true, sending him tumbling back.

How many more? The air thrummed with violence.

“Keep them off!” Swift barked, his sword flashing as he cut down another enemy. Another recruit went down behind him and he pivoted, smashing the attacker in the face and sending him back over the ladder.

Multiple fronts increased the pressure. A weak line formed at the entrance, making a shield wall behind the spike barricade. It faltered almost immediately as enemy spearmen jabbed them back so axemen could hack at the defense.

“Push back!” Plainfield yelled.

She twisted toward the cry. More ladders, and men coming over the wall unopposed.

Lys fired again, her bowstring thrumming with each release. She felt a cold detachment as she picked them off one by one. If they raised their shields, she shot at their ankles. If they crawled, they were too slow to reach her comrades.

“Reinforce the right!” Swift commanded.

A group of recruits shifted to bolster the weakening section. Lys moved with them, her arrows flying in quick succession. Her quiver went empty and grabbed a new bundle from the supplies in the center. She was joined by Stormwell and Plainfield.

“They’re relentless,” Stormwell muttered, sweat dripping from his brow.

“We can’t let them through,” Lys said, her voice steady somehow.

A ladder crashed against the barricade nearby. Lys turned and fired at the first head that appeared above it. The arrowhead thudded into the man’s helmet, sending him scurrying back.

Swift’s shouts continued. Lys moved to shoot at wherever there was trouble. The enemy paid dearly for their transgression.

But still, recruits died. They were already tired, exhausted, and wounded.

Hawkins took a spear to the chest, standing over two recruits who couldn’t move anymore.

Holding the wall became a impossibility. Ants, they were like ants.

Lys felt her muscles burning from exertion but pushed through the pain.

“BREACH!” Plainfield’s shout pierced the air, sharp and urgent.

Lys spun around.

The rear wall held four ladders side by side, their tops bristling with enemy shields. She raised her bow and released immediately, but her arrows thudded harmlessly against them, deflected by metal.

Instead of coming over piecemeal, they had finally wised up and formed a block. Bunzard.

She fired at them anyway. Arrows clacked against shield as the men leaped down into the holdout in unison. One landed poorly, and she put a shaft through his knee. The others made it, and then another four right behind.

“Stop them here!” Lys ordered, voice cutting through the chaos. Releasing the last of her arrows again, she grabbed a spear and shield and moved to counter.

Plainfield and Stormwell moved to her flanks. There wasn’t anyone else to join them.

Blood and sweat mixed, making the ground slick.

A wounded recruit struggled to his feet, bandages soaked through. He drove his spear into the enemy group’s back before collapsing. An enemy’s blade found his back, ending him.

Lys surged forward. Her spear slid over the enemy’s shield, to jab a man in the second rank. A sword stab punched out, but she grabbed the man’s wrist and pinned it against the shield. He tried to shove her back, but she slipped her own blade around the other side while Stormwell tangled the other man’s weapon.

Steel found flesh. The front-liner faltered back onto the second ranker’s corpse. Two down.

Steel clashed. Lys parried a blow, then wrapped her sword under the man’s guard and slashed his wrist open, disarming him. Plainfield bashed an enemy’s shield, forcing him back. Stormwell’s spear darted out, taking another down.

Four more enemies jumped down to replace the dead men.

“Please keep coming! I won’t sleep well until you’re all dead!” Lys shouted, driving her sword into another soldier’s gut.

The chaos roared, metal striking metal, cries of pain and fury mingling in the air.

She moved with purpose, every strike calculated, every step firm. The panic, the fatal sense of defeat, disappeared. A smile appeared on Lys’ lips as she parried a man’s lunge and slashed open his throat deep enough to nearly decapitate him.

She was good at this. All she needed was to control her breathing, and sup on the energy at her core. It wouldn’t matter if it crippled her later—if she died now, if they all died now, there wouldn’t be a later to be crippled.

Killing as many of the bastards as possible, making them pay for what they had subjected her and the others to—it became a goal in and of itself.

The exhaustion disappeared and her body felt light as a feather as she moved to her next opponent. There were more and more of them coming over the wall, the recruits unable to prevent more intrusions.

That just meant they had to kill more. Along the defenses, the last defenders remaining, including Swift and Ashton, fell back to the center pile of supplies.

A soldier lunged for her. She slipped, but she turned it into a slide that took his ankles. She rolled to avoid being impaled by a spear. Standing back up her boot landed weapon’s shaft and snapping it.

The defenseless man stared at her in panic. She savored that for a second before slashing. He raised his arm and her blade bit into flesh and then slipped past bone to punch between his ribs.

She jerked to the left with him still impaled—an enemy’s spear punched through his chest toward her but jammed in his ribcage on the blade’s wings. She leaned back and put her boot just below it and shoved the corpse back onto the attacker, freeing her weapon in a smooth motion.

A sword slashed toward her face and she turned her movement into a side-step, then counter slash. Her sword snapped in the middle as it stuck on his ribcage. She drew the jagged remainder of her blade back and slashed his eyes out.

Someone tackled her from the side, and they both went rolling. He outweighed her, but she got the jagged remnant of her sword under his arm and stabbed into his armpit. He weakened, and she rolled them again, this time with her on top.

The hair on the back of her neck prickled like a nest of bees was stinging her and instead of finishing her opponent, she jumped off to the side, taking a handful of worked dirt. One of the man’s friends stabbed with his spear where she had been and impaled the downed man.

She tossed the earth into his face, then reached out with her boot to smash it between his legs. He tilted and fell.

Lys knelt down and traded her sword hilt for a discarded spear. Then jabbed him in the thigh, then the side.

She looked around—the redoubt was a melee. There was no form to anything, except a small clump of recruits in the center harassed on all sides. The rest had all turned to focus on one thing.

To fight her. She sucked in a ragged breath.

Stormwell and Plainfield, she didn’t see them.

Lys stabbed her spear into the earth and picked up a dead man’s sword, then his shield. “Who wants to die next?”

The enemy started to shift towards each other.

Letting them form a shield wall was not a good idea.

She charged the man in front. They closed in toward her, stabbing at her flanks, but she deflected one spear away with her shield and the other with her sword. The man in front swung at her, but she jumped and kicked his shield with both her feet.

He flew back enough to run into his own companion, and she turned and landed with a roll that turned into a rush of one of the spearmen. His armor deflected the slash at his throat, but the impact jarred him enough for her to step in and stomp down on his knee.

It was a blow she’d used before under far different circumstances.

It worked just as well here, though.

Shouting filled the air—it had been doing so for some time, but this had a distinct sound to it.

A horse screamed.

A horse.

The enemy was no longer coming over the earthworks.

The pocket at the center was still there. Swift was raising his sword and holding the line with the remaining recruits.

They’d done it.

Lys frowned. Why did the twist in her gut say that they had failed?

A sudden heat flared in her side, and she staggered away from the stab. One of the men she had taken down was bleeding from the mouth, but was still alive enough to jab her.

She stepped forward and smashed her blade into his temple, leaving a bloody line across his skull and sending him to the dirt for good.

The world felt hot, and it was hard to breathe. Like there was water in her lungs.

Another recruit ran over to her, grabbing and steadying her. “Trekhill!”

Oh, she recognized him. It was Stormwell. “Ah… you didn’t die,” she mumbled. She clutched at her side, heat and wetness soaking her fingers. “He stabbed me.”

She felt lightheaded. A second later she topped over, her friends shouting her name and looking down at her. Why were they so upset?

The world turned into a blur.