Legends Never Die: Making Way (ch. 13) (Patreon)

The Franks roared at me as I neared, their spears braced, their shields up, and their formation ready to rebuff us. With the army charging down the hill, the screams from thousands of men filling the air until it seemed to shake with the force of it, I struck the first blow by slicing the head off a spear before slamming into the formation with a Power Attack. I saw the Frankish man scream as my axe shattered his shield like rotten timber, the edge of my axe digging into his body in a slash that destroyed his chainmail and cut deep into his ribs. I saw him, but the melee was so loud, I couldn’t hear him.

I dove into the formation, the Franks moving in quickly to plug the hole I made -- they wielded seaxes, stabbing at me with short thrusts. Hacking one’s arm off, I beheaded another with a single slash of my axe before finishing off the former. A seaxe grazed across my skin, but found no purchase and I repaid the attack with far more success. I pushed deeper into the formation, carving a way for the soldiers behind me that made sure that I wasn’t isolated and surrounded by Franks.

Fighting men was different than fighting wolves, I noted, lashing out with my axes as my own war cries added to the chorus of thousands of others. The same thing that I had noticed the first time played out again -- even though I was surrounded… fighting fifty men, you fought fifty men. Each one was more concerned with living than killing me. The only benefit that they had was that the chaos of fighting fifty men was often far more than a match for anyone.

Fighting fifty wolves was different. It had been like fighting a single man that just so happened to have fifty bodies. They worked together as one, each one playing a clearly defined role of either distraction or attack. If I were fighting wolves right now, then I’d be dead. There was no doubt in my mind. Yet, I wasn’t. I was fighting men. Men that were frightened easily and thought that they could defy fate and live if they got in my way.

Blood splashed on my face, slickening my hands, dripping down me in fat drops. I killed two or three men for every step forward I took. I swung out with my axe, only to find myself freed of its head, so I drove the sharpened handle into a man’s throat and took his seaxe. Weapons flickered at me, their edges digging into my flesh. Morrigan had spoken the truth -- my muscles were denser, and Oakflesh made my skin more difficult to pierce. That wasn’t to say none managed it. I felt a sharp pain in my side, at the nape of my neck, across my forearm. They wept blood, yet the pain didn’t stop me from pressing forward.

They were light wounds. Wounds I knew would heal fast even without the aid of Fast Healer. It wasn’t enough to slow me down in the slightest as I continued to carve my way through the line of Franks.

However, distantly, I thought of how much different it was being in the thick of the battle than it was to overlook it. What did the battle look like from the top of the hill? Was I deep in the Frank line? Halfway? Had I barely scratched its surface? More worrying concerns were the fact that I had absolutely no clue how the rest of the battle was going. Was the entire army surrounded by the Franks?

Had the charge just let us be surrounded? Had we been hit with one of those cavalry charges Father spoke of? Were we winning? Losing? It was impossible to tell. I had no clue and I wasn’t sure how I could find out. I didn’t think I would know until the battle was either won or lost.

I drove my seaxe into the heart of a Frank, yanking it out before burying it into another’s throat. Unbreakable Guard blocked a thrust at my neck and I returned the blow by hacking at the offender’s arm, then beheading him. Kicking him in the chest hard enough that a foot print was left behind on his armor, I knocked a few men back before falling upon them. Beyond the wall of Franks, I thought I caught a glimpse of the Rhine river, so I buried my axe into a Frank’s skull and shoved forward.

One second I was surrounded, and the next I wasn’t.

Coming to a brief stop as I quickly looked around, wondering what I should do, I found the gaze of the man that I had met with King Charglmane. He looked to be in the middle of shouting something, and I realized that he was the leader of the army. Around him were a dozen warriors on horses. One of them rushed forward, leveling a spear at me, only to catch an axe to the face that knocked him off his horse. Darting forward, I scooped up the spear, feeling its weight as Projectile Trajectory helped me wield the weapon.

Throwing it, it sailed at the richly dressed man, striking home in his chest, knocking him off of his horse and sending him falling to the ground heavily. The action spooked the others, their horses kicking up and knocking another three men off, but the others only seemed to take a brief moment before coming to a decision.

They spurred their horses around and began to flee. It wasn’t a full retreat, I quickly noticed, but they were putting as much distance between them and myself as they could without running off the battlefield. I would have given chase, but I quickly found myself fighting off Franks who realized that I stood behind them. They started to peel off from their formation to attack me. I quickly killed them all at the cost of my axe shaft breaking from the constant use, forcing me to abandon it. In the thick melee, I found myself wielding two seaxes -- they were far more useful in such thick fighting than a spear would be.

I found myself drawn back into the battle, attacking the Franks from the rear. After killing those that initially took notice of me, I found that I was attacking men from behind. It was troubling, especially with how my brother had fallen to the same trick, but I saw why. They were so distracted by the enemy before them that they completely failed to notice me in the confusion. In minutes, I found myself carving out pockets of Franks that the warriors eagerly fell upon. I couldn’t tell what was going on exactly, but I figured destroying their formation was the best thing that I could do.

The fighting dragged on for far longer than it had in that first battle. Much,  much longer. I was lost for most of it. The only way to gauge the passage of time was occasionally looking up to see the sun making its way across the sky. The thunderous noise of screams and shouts slowly died off, leaving only a powerful chorus of metal hitting metal or wood. Hours upon hours went by and the battle didn’t seem any closer to ending then it had at the start.

Then I heard the sound of a horn blowing. A signal fire was lit at the top of the hill, and it was only then that I noticed the darkening sky. It was a signal that I wasn’t sure would be needed. It was a call for the battle to end for the day and for the army to disengage and return to the hill. I was neck deep in Franks, so for me the battle continued for some time after, but I did notice that our warriors were breaking off to head up the hill just as the Franks around me thinned out.

It was still another hour before the fighting came to a stop for me, the stars and moon above offering me enough light to see the battlefield. The Franks returned to their own camp where the village had been located, leaving the dead at the base of the hill. It was a sight I would never forget.

The piles of dead were taller than me in some places. It was at its worst at the base of the hill, but I could almost mark my path with the bodies that were left in my wake. I saw Franks and norsemen alike on the field, their lifeblood soaking into the dirt. The stench of blood and shit hovered in the air, forcing me to breathe through my mouth, but I could taste it on my tongue. There were hundreds of bodies, more Franks by the look of it, but still plenty of norse corpses.

Tilting my head back, I took in a deep breath and let out a deep sigh. With sore legs, I began the march back up the steep hill where I was greeted by guards that were keeping an eye out for the Franks. The men looked at me with stunned expression when they saw me approach, entering the light of their torches. They didn’t say anything to me, and I said nothing to them as I entered the camp.

There were many screams from the wounded filling the air. I saw some of them laying on the ground, their wounds bandaged over with already bled through pieces of cloth. I started to turn away in search of the nearest bed. Instead, I found my feet moving towards the injured. I only then realized that I still had the seaxes in hand, both covered in so much dried blood that I had to peel them off of my palms.

I saw a slave woman grab a knife to cut out an arrow that was sticking out of a man’s shoulder. The exhaustion in my voice as I spoke was almost tangible, “Boil it first,” I told her, catching her attention. Her jaw dropped the moment that she saw me -- either because she knew who I was, or because of the possibly hundreds of men worth of blood that drenched me from head to toe.

“I- what?” She said as I grabbed a pot and found a waterskin filled with water. Heading to a fire that was used to heat up knives to sear wounds closed.

“Boil the knife first. It helps make sure there will be no sickness after,” I said, putting the pot into the fire and letting it heat up. I looked around and saw dozens of people. Some were dead men that hadn’t died yet -- Emergency Aid gave me insight on how bad wounds could be and how to treat them, but some were just too far gone for me to do anything. But, that wasn’t the case for others.

Healing was considered women’s work. The most you could expect from a fellow man was to have a limb cut off or seared closed. I was probably the only man running between the various injured -- all were women that were either slaves or midwives. There was a stigma against it. I wasn’t really sure why, there just was. And even if it was a valid stigma, I found that I really didn’t care because I began washing my hands before getting them bloody again.

An arrow to the thigh could be a deceptive fatal wound. I knew that there were arteries in the thigh that if severed could kill a man in a minute. One of them had been nicked when a midwife pushed the arrow through to the other side of his thigh instead of cutting it out. Which is how I found myself tying a knot around the artery of a screaming man to slow the bleeding and to save his life and leg. Accepting a red hot knife, I seared the back of his thigh closed to stop the bleeding.

Then I pinched the bleeding artery that no longer spurted blood and seared it closed as well. Undoing the knot I had around the artery, the sear didn’t immediately tear open, which I hoped was enough. Tossing the blood-soaked twine to the side, I pressed his leg together, poured mead over it, which made him scream again, before I seared the wound closed.

The stench of burnt flesh was becoming a familiar one, I noticed as I handed the knife over to a thrall, who immediately put the knife in a pot of boiling water. The warrior passed out, but he was alive. And I moved on.

There were plenty of injuries to deal with. A missing eye that had been pierced with an arrow, so I gave him an eyepatch slathered in honey. A missing hand that was seared to prevent the bleeding. A gut wound that I opened up, seared the bleeding parts off, before stitching him close and slathering the stitches with honey.

I didn’t know how to explain most of the things that I did. Most people seemed to take that as a sign of my exhaustion, but it was because I couldn’t put it into words. I didn’t really know why honey was put on wounds, I just knew that it was -- both because the gods gave me the information, and because Morrigan did it. I didn’t know why boiling tools lowered the chances of someone getting sick, just that it did. The same for washing my hands so many times.

But, hours later, I felt like I had saved some lives when I began to make my way to my family tent. I stumbled inside, still covered in dried blood, but I didn’t have it in me to care. Though, Otto seemed like he just about died from fright when I pushed open the tent flap to see Father and Havi were also inside, the latter dead asleep.

Father looked at me and gave a small laugh, “It was a good day,” he said as I stumbled to my bed. “The entire army is talking of Siegfried the Wolf-Kissed,” he said, and that was good. I had been too distracted to recall if I had gotten the quest rewards.

“Did we win?” I asked, earning a warm chuckle from Father while Otto huddled in a corner to make himself appear small. It was a genuine question. I had absolutely no clue if we won or not. The fact that we had retreated to the hill made things unclear.

“It was a good day,” Father repeated. “I don’t know the numbers, but the Franks suffered badly today. Their line broke early on, and they were unable to use their calvary. Meaning that it’s still fresh, but their infantry had a rough time of it because of you. You cut them in half. One side ended up nearly enveloped,” Father said, making me look at him as I collapsed face first into bed.

I mulled that over -- that sounded pretty good. “How do you know all that?” I asked him, because I had been clueless. I never noticed that we nearly surrounded one half of the army. To that, Father chuckled.

“It’s easier to notice with experience. And when you don’t stand at chest height with the enemy,” he added, and he probably had a point there. “When you fight with the formation, you see where the tide is going. But, I suspect you won’t be doing much of that. Do what you did today tomorrow, and we should manage to make it through this battle. We might even have enough men to carry out Jarl Horrik’s insane plan,” he said before settling into his own cot. “Get some rest, my son. You’ll need it. It’s going to be another very long day.”

With that, he turned over, showing his back to me as he made to go to sleep. I turned my gaze to Otto, the promise I made to the Frankish King weighing heavily on my mind. My thoughts had been so consumed with revenge and Otto had made himself scarce, fearing I would take my wrath out on him, the promise slipped my mind.

But, with sleep rapidly creeping up on me, I spoke, “You’re free,” I told him, making an expression of alarm pass over his face. “You can go to the Frank army, if you want. But, I swore to Charlemagne that I would free you. So I have.”

Otto opened and closed his mouth for a good long minute, “What… I… what should I do with my freedom?” He asked me, and I think he was going to start with a rant about freeing him now of all times. So, I interjected.

“Whatever you want,” I told him before rolling over to my side, closing my eyes and everything went dark.

…

I picked at the scabs that covered a number of the cuts I had suffered. I shouldn’t have left them untended, but I had been too tired to do anything else. But, it seemed fine. Though, I was a little stiff, and not just because of the dried blood on me. There was no point in washing it off. I would just be getting drenched again.

The call to form up came early in the morning. I roused from my sleep to see that Otto was curled up in his usual place, his wooden cross clutched tightly in his hands while he slept. Father and Havi got up, we ate some boiled meat and bread, giving us some strength before we once again took our formations.

The platforms for the archers were far less full, I noted, stepping up on one. I had a few quivers of arrows near me, some of which came from the Franks that they shot at us yesterday. Thankfully, everyone had fresh shields as the blacksmiths had been refitting them with new planks or had kept others in reserve.

Leaving me to look out at the Frank army that was gathering at the base of the hill. It was a far more gruesome sight in the light of day. Piles of dead where the fallen had stacked on top of each other, and I could almost make out the line of where the battles were fought yesterday. There was a stench of rot in the air that rose up to greet us. However, my attention was more directed to the army.

Fast Counter let me count the troops in no time at all. Yesterday, they had two thousand and five hundred troops and today I only saw a thousand and seven hundred. Meaning that they had lost around eight hundred men either to death or being too wounded to fight. It was a huge loss in manpower, I thought, seeing that they took up a very similar formation -- infantry in the middle, archers in front of them, horsemen on the sides.

But, looking at our own army, I saw that we were down to near seven hundred men. Meaning that we were still outnumbered near two to one.

I knocked my arrow, the first of the battle, and I took aim. Jarl Horrik was at the back of the army, his shoulder bandaged and his face pale. Looking to him, I got a small nod and the arrow flew free from my bow. No sooner than it left my bowstring, I was nocking another and letting it loose. The first arrow struck true, making an archer fall and the man next to him looked over just in time to catch an arrow to the neck.

The battle began once again. I ignored the soreness in my back and arms as I fired arrow upon arrow upon arrow, doing my best to make a difference before it became a melee. Archers dropped one by one and, this time, I noticed far fewer arrows in the sky as they returned fire. Despite how it felt on the first day, I had killed dozens, maybe even a hundred archers alone. The other archers had killed some as well. Their archers had been halved. And, with each arrow, I whittled them down further.

In a few minutes, I emptied a quiver. The inside of my forearm bled from the bowstring hitting me, but I paid it no mind. Grabbing another quiver, I quickly began emptying it.

The archers seemed to realize that they were being picked off. They fired as fast as they could, trying to get me, but their aim was too poor. At least, at first. Then it seemed like they were aiming at me specifically because I found myself leaning out of the way of arrows more and more often. The interruptions slowed me down a bit, but I still emptied the second quiver. By the time I emptied the third, the Frankish archers were cut down to a mere third of the number they previously had.

Then, with the final quiver, that number was halved.

The battle of arrows had an effect on both armies, I noticed. Our side cheered loudly, and it was difficult to tell, but they were chanting my name -- Siegfried the Wolf-Kissed. They cheered when the archers melted away and we were no longer pelted with a near endless stream of arrows. Likewise, I saw the growing alarm in the Frankish army as they watched the archers drop one by one, seemingly from a single bowman. I still preferred a sling, but seeing the dead, I couldn’t deny that the bow had a power of its own.

With only a few left, I watched the archers head to the back of the army for safety, leaving us with ranged superiority. A slave brought another two quivers of arrows towards me, and I gladly accepted them to begin firing on the Frankish cavalry. Father seemed to think highly of them, even if I didn’t really see how men on horses could be dangerous against a wall of people.

They, I quickly saw, had a very different reaction to me firing upon them compared to the archers. Almost as soon as the first man dropped dead from his horse, I saw that the cavalry shifted back, spreading out. However, at the same time, their warriors began to march forward. My eyes widened as I realized that they intended to fight up the hill.

The men cheered as I redirected my shots towards the infantry just as the army used the traps we intended to use yesterday -- trees had been cut down, their branches stripped, and loaded up. Men heaved the logs towards the front of the army before sending them down the hill at the approaching Franks. The logs picked up speed as they rolled, slamming into the Frankish line -- some jumped over, but that just meant it hit the person behind them. One log caught air on something and ended up slamming into Frank heads.

It disrupted their formation. If we had more archers, we could have made more use of it. Instead, those at the front of the line had their javelins with them and began tossing them. When I emptied the two quivers, I was quick to hop down the platform and head towards the front of the army. As I neared, the men parted for me, those that could reaching out to touch me. They rubbed my blood-crusted hair, my shoulders, back, face and chest. I paid it no mind, focused entirely on the battle at hand.

It went on until I reached the front of the army, the shield wall parting to let me stand at the front. A warrior offered me a javelin that I quickly accepted. The Franks screamed their war cry as they approached up the hill, climbing over those that fell to the logs. Rearing back, I threw the javelin at the approaching army that was so compact that it was impossible to miss. Mine was just one of many that flew at the encroaching Franks that bled away under the missile fire. The one I threw caught a man in the chest, knocking him back.

No sooner than I threw it, I found another in my hand and I threw it as well. I watched dozens of Franks fall as we threw our weapons and the last of the logs. I could see the whites of their eyes by the time I reached to my belt and found my two new bearded axes. Gripping them tightly, I roared as the Franks neared.

Then, in a thunderous clash, we met each other in battle. Once again, I found myself in the thick of the melee, acting as the front line. Only, this time, I planted myself like a stone that the river of enemies were forced to crash and break against. My axes flashed out, digging into armor and soft flesh, standing my ground as the Franks slammed into our shield wall. In no time at all, I found myself surrounded by dead men, the corpses pushed forward by Franks trying to push through.

I stood on their bodies when there was no other choice. With the added height, I found myself standing at the Frank’s height as I fought and killed them, lashing out with blow after blow, after blow, each one dealing absolute death to the enemy. Limbs flew free, as did heads, and then their bodies dropped to my feet as the pile began to grow larger. In a minute, I found myself standing not only at eye level with the Franks, but above them.

For a moment, I glimpsed the sea of bodies that was the Frank army. I saw them trying to swarm over the barricade and they were handily being pushed back by those fighting on that wing. I saw men, twenty bodies deep, all trying to press down on us to overwhelm our position to push us to flee.

It became a violent mess. Again, I found myself completely drenched in blood that soaked the dirt and turned it into mud. Only this time, I had a much better idea of how we were doing and I could see the shield wall holding up. For hours, I killed men with every swing of my axes. The act of bringing death no longer bothered me in the slightest -- they were enemies, and I would kill them because they were enemies. It was as simple as that.

The sun was beating down overhead, and the density of the bodies made everything hot. Through the blood, sweat dripped from my body and my mouth felt unbearably dry. The others could change out when their strength was failing, but not me. I wasn’t arrogant enough to think I could single handedly win the battle, but I could feel myself making a difference with each swing I made.

So, I fought. And fought. And fought and fought for hours.

Then, it happened. As I stood on a growing wall of men, I saw the back of the Frank army start to thin out as Franks turned tail and fled. The leader of the army, one of the men I had seen yesterday, was trying to rally them, but when I threw my axe and caught him in his horse’s head, that came to an abrupt end.

I could feel the Franks breaking. The more Franks that ran, the more the others were encouraged to do the same. The battle had lasted for hours, yet, in a handful of minutes, the entire army seemed to vanish into nothing as the Franks fled the battle. Our army pursued some, but most threw their heads back and screamed in victory. The Franks were in full retreat, most of them not even going to their camp and just running away.

Taking in a deep breath, I pushed back my drenched hair. My body ached and I was tired. Above all, I was thirsty. But, for now, I had another task.

Walking forward, I headed to the man I had knocked off his horse. I worried that he might have been trampled, or maybe he had gotten away, but instead I saw him alive and pinned under the corpse of his horse. One leg was underneath it and based on his pained look, the leg was broken. He bared his teeth in a snarl when he caught sight of me, lashing out with a dagger to keep me at bay.

“Who are you?” I asked the man, crouching down just out of reach. I took in his armor, his clothing, and even his looks. His hair was neatly cut, clean-shaven, his clothing was very fine, equal to that I had seen on Charlemagne, and his armor was just as well made. Scalemail around the torso and arms, while underneath it was ringmail that had the smallest rings I had ever seen. He also had a sword at his hip, but it was pinned underneath him. Based on the handle, it was a nice sword.

The man seemed surprised to see that I spoke his language, but he mustered up whatever dignity that he could in his position and spoke clearly in Frankish, “I am Ageric Roding, the now Duke of Frisia with the death of my father,” he spoke, looking at me with a fierce glare even as beads of sweat dripped down his pale skin.

I frowned, “What’s a duke?” I asked him, making him swallow thickly.

He worked his jaw for a moment, considering the question before deciding on an answer. “A very valuable hostage,” he told me.

A small smile found its way onto my face, “Then consider yourself my hostage, Duke of Frisia.”