Chapter 320

Nameless

 

Camp, Foothill below the Monastery

Trumpets blared from the watch posts, and iron plates were struck in alarm. All the fortifications beneath the hill sprang to life in an instant. Men who had been hunched over bowls of thin porridge moments before now leapt to their feet, scooping the last of their breakfast before throwing it into buckets of water. Those on night watch were jolted from their slumber, reaching for weapons and helmets as they hurried out.

Group leaders shouted orders through the rising noise, herding their men into formation.

“Helmets on. Straps tight. Swords on your belts.”

Crossbowmen hurried to their positions on the walls, slinging spare quivers over their shoulders, and quickly checked their crossbows. Some knelt to crank their weapons. Others tested their strings, breath misting in the cool morning air.

The same situation unfolded outside the camp. Men rushed to reinforce the sentries who had already formed a rough battle line, shields overlapping, spearheads angled outward toward the palisade fences and the ditches surrounding the hill.

At the main gate, heavy beams were dragged into place and slammed into their brackets, sealing it against attack. Above, the camp’s command staff, still without their plate armor, climbed the wooden tower overlooking the gate. From there, they could see a mass of bodies moving along the winding road, descending from the Monastery.

The gate master offered the newly arrived command staff the Ekionia optics the Lord had purchased through the Southern Trade.

With a nod, as the noise of mustering men behind them was too loud for words, the vice took the optics and pressed them to his eyes.

The knight commander, Sir Harold, arrived moments later, after making certain the gate was sealed and every unit had been directed to its post.

“Sir,” the staff and the gate master greeted as he climbed onto the tower platform.

Sir Harold returned the nod and walked to the railing at the edge of the tower, resting his hands upon the timber as he looked out over the approaching columns. What he saw was a dark mass moving in unison, snaking through the winding path like a vast, venomous snake bearing down on the camp.

The vice glanced at him and offered the optics. Sir Harold took them. He lifted the lenses to his eyes, shifting his angle several times until the distant blur finally settled and faces emerged from the moving tide.

Men. Thin. Ragged. Worn, yet unafraid.

They marched in faded gambesons, dented helmets, and carried their spears like walking staffs. They bore all the markings of levy troops. He shifted the optics left and right, near and far, and saw the same everywhere.

It was a fighting force.

What they lacked in training and strength, they made up for in numbers. Judging by the density of the columns, there were more than five hundred. Possibly close to a thousand, just as the interrogations had suggested.

Like a living serpent, the mass was already spreading, preparing to spill across the foothills, to surround, press in, and swallow the camp whole.

“Fanatics,” his vice remarked as Sir Harold lowered the optics.

Sir Harold had not been present when the Lord fought the rebellious fanatics during the One Day Rebellion, but he had heard enough firsthand accounts. His vice, however, had been with the Lord on that fateful night.

Then, from a beaten path leading out of the trees, a large figure burst into view and raced toward them on all fours.

“What is our half-kin doing over there?” Sir Harold asked, his tone level.

His vice answered at once. “I tasked Big Ben with gathering intelligence.”

That piqued the knight commander’s interest. “What do you fear?” he asked.

“Ghouls,” his vice replied.

No explanation was needed. Everyone in the army had heard of the fanatics who kept fighting even while burning. Believers who dosed themselves with heavy concoctions of powerful drugs, numbing themselves to pain.

Sir Harold let out a long sigh and turned to his staff, all of them watching his every movement. He met each of their eyes in turn and echoed the words his Lord sometimes muttered without realizing. Foreign words that somehow fit the scene all too well.

“Yare, yare…”

His tone was unimpressed, yet faintly amused.

Hearing Sir Harold use those foreign words, his staff quickly broke into wild grins.

“Should we call in all our men, Sir?” his vice asked.

Though they were technically three thousand strong, they were stretched thin guarding the entire hill. The main camp held fewer than three hundred, while the nearby slopes and paths leading down from the hill were held by similar numbers.

“No,” Sir Harold answered.

“Then?” another staff officer in red brigandine, asked.

“They are already dead. Why bother?” Sir Harold turned to the side, looked down, and spotted his squire. “Get me that Tedzeus’ man.”

His squire stiffened at once and snapped into motion without a word.

Sir Harold then turned back to his staff, saying, “Time to show these believers our warmest welcome.”

 

***

 

The Believers

Wearing a distinct black surcoat, granted by the Monastery for faith and bravery, over his ringmail, a broad-shouldered man named Toye, in his thirties, led the nine hundred believers. His family had roots in Inglesia and was considered foreign in Midlandia, but the Monastery treated them no differently.

Though not a Candidate, Toye had lived within the Monastery since childhood. His father and uncles had long been useful in its less virtuous dealings.

From pressuring those who refused to pay for healing, to protecting the Monastery’s interests against nobles who tried to flaunt their power to receive special treatment, and in recent years, serving as the sword arm of the Living Saint, his family had rendered vital services.

Knowing the Monastery inside and out, Toye was not deluded into thinking he was acting out of righteousness or goodness.

His father had died in the Siege of Cascasonne. His uncle now reaped most of the benefits from the Monastery, leaving Toye and his mother with only a meager fortune. Now, he sought to prove himself, gambling against the very House that had taken his father’s life.

He believed himself smarter and more resourceful than his father, who had been caught unprepared by the Lord’s sudden arrival in Cascasonne to lift the siege.

Not to mention, he was now entrusted with nine hundred fanatics who would obey every order.

A quarter of them had already been conditioned by the Monastery’s men as true believers, a column that would march despite bodily pain.

Currently, his closest confidants were dealing with scout reports from the front. A half-kin had been spotted fleeing, and the men were far too pleased.

“Our advance must have scared that hairy man out of his hiding,” one claimed loudly.

Rough cackles and snorts followed.

“What was he doing here anyway, hiding?” a man, part of the Monastery Guard, asked, bewildered.

“Likely trying to ambush innocents,” another replied impatiently.

His brethren were in high spirits. Originally, the plan had been simply to pressure the camp to let the believers pass. But with so many men now eager to bear arms against the Black Demon’s army, the plan had quickly changed.

A few had sensed fortune in war.

With an army this large at their backs, everyone was confident. For many of them, it was a chance of a lifetime. Most were nameless men, much like the troops they commanded. But today, they would make names for themselves, swearing to be the ones who would breach the Black Demon’s so-called invincible forces.

They believed the failed rebellion had fallen apart because of its complexity and because it had been launched at night, when the Black Demon was at his most powerful. Now, under the open morning sun, they were certain his magic would be useless against them. No camp, no wall, no defense would stand in their way.

“Captain Toye,” one of his confidants approached from the front. The long-haired man had a prized heavy windlass crossbow slung across his back, its steel limbs catching the morning light. “I can already see the camp’s gate. They have sent no men out.”

Around Toye, his brethren wore the same eager expressions, eyes bright with anticipation.

“No formation,” one of them commented. “The Lord’s men are afraid.”

“We caught them with their trousers down,” another remarked with a wide grin.

Toye quickly ordered, “Deploy your men with the pavises. Let our troops form and catch their breath before we storm the camp.”

“Aye, we must act quickly, or their forces from the other sites may arrive,” the Monastery Guard said.

“The Candidates has promised diversions on the other sides as well,” Toye answered. “We can afford to take our time.”

His men nodded. Before leaving for their respective commands, they raised their voices together. “For the Living Saint!”

With that, the first wave advanced into the foothills like ants marching to war. Three companies spread out at a measured distance from the camp and its palisade walls, forming a broad front across the uneven ground. Smaller forces continued to move left and right, searching for faults or gaps to be exploited.

Against the camp gate, their crossbowmen deployed their colorful, richly decorated pavises. They planted the heavy shields into the soil and packed earth around their bases, turning them into makeshift walls against any sudden counterattack.

Now, the two sides faced one another.

...

 

Before the sun grew hotter, the believers had sent trusted men to demand that the Lord’s forces break their camp or face annihilation. That demand was met with firm rejection, laughter, and mockery. And so, after all three of his waves were in position and murmured chants rose from the ranks, Toye, feeling it was time to act, gave the order to attack.

With little warning, the bannerless army made its move. A hundred men carefully poured toward the gate, holding pavises. Several held second pavises above the first at an angle as they advanced, providing protection from bolts coming from above. They knew the camp had little chance to counterattack, and thus they had the initiative to press forward without hesitation.

Behind them and to their sides, crossbowmen stood ready to deal with the defenders.

As his men made their move, Toye gave the signal, and his right-hand man shouted, “Bring out the ram!”

Thirty strong men brought forward solid old timbers with sharpened tips, adorned with thick iron and bound tight with coarse ropes, shaped into battering rams.

Suddenly, trumpets sounded from the camp’s direction, and bolts cut through the air, whistling their tune of death across the battlefield. Both sides eagerly traded crossbow fire while the men drove the rams against the gates.

Behind them, hundreds waited with bated breath. Many chanted, others too lost in the haze of incense to think.

Before long, the first blood was drawn. A young believer took a bolt just beneath the neck, collapsing to the ground, wailing and gurgling on the floor.

Toye rushed to the scene, protected by two pavise wielders.

“Easy, easy,” he said as he knelt beside him. He found the young man, not even in his twenties, beyond hope. His eyes looked up at him desperately for help. Blood poured from the torn flesh of his neck, soaking his collar and running down his chest. His breath came in wet, ragged gasps.

Toye pressed one hand against his shoulder. But with the other, he brought his dagger down into the ruined wound at the side of the neck. The blade slid in without resistance.

The young man shuddered once, his eyes widening in confusion, then slowly softened. He choked once, then went still. His eyes remained open, holding that betrayed expression.

Wiping his gloved hand clean of warm blood, Toye turned to his army, shouting, “He saw the light of the Saint. We have the first Salvation!”

It was a lie, but the army on the foothill cheered aloud, all offering their praises. Their reaction was so loud that their noise dwarfed the battles at the gate.

For Toye, who stood at the center of attention, it was the time of his life.

Now the battering rams struck more ferociously, and there were more volunteers willing to spearhead the attack. The wooden gate shuddered at each impact, its timbers groaning.

The situation they were in felt like standing on top of the world.

Nothing could go wrong. The day was theirs.

Until a sudden sound of bursting water was heard. A powerful surge erupted from one of the towers, like a waterfall appearing out of nowhere, and slammed into the attackers. The flow was strong enough to push men aside. They were unprepared for it, and the pavise wall was quickly broken on one side.

Shouts of encouragement rose from behind them, but it was all in vain.

“What is that?” Toye asked one of his men, who had rushed to the scene, trying to decipher this new attack.

But all the man saw was a jet of water. The water was brown in color. Horridly stinking like filth, muddy, and slippery.

The hundreds of believers waiting behind turned to one another, all sharing the same confusion. They began to murmur, doubt rising among them. Many raised their voices to chant, but it was clear that many were disturbed by this unexpected development.

The brown water continued to splash toward the frontline, relentless and powerful, making a mockery of their assault.

Slippery with filth and muck, the ram wielders slipped and fell, injuring several. At last, almost all broke apart and retreated as the foul water hammered down on them.

Adding insult to injury, the defenders on the walls and towers laughed at the scene.

“Drink the duck’s holy water!”

“Piss and turds from the finest connoisseur.”

“You might find gold if you look close enough.”

The mockery was relentless.

“It’s just water. Get them moving,” the Monastery Guard rallied the men.

Meanwhile, Toye commanded, “Bring up fresh men. And keep the pavise wall from falling.”

But it was futile. The water attack was far more powerful than they had expected, and it took everyone by surprise. The newly reformed column broke even faster, stumbling in the puddle of greasy water. The men retreated with sick, defeated looks on their faces, now wet and browned from head to toe. Nobody could stand against it.

The stench only made it worse. Many vomited as it was worse than horse manure.

From afar, the hundreds of believers watched with horrified expressions on their faces. Their faith had not prepared them for this kind of situation.

“Where is the Saint Candidate? Surely they will help us,” a woman said innocently, and many echoed the call, searching for guidance, for miracles.

But there was no answer. They had been lied to. There was no Saint Candidate in this mission, only rumors meant to embolden their resolve.

Soon, the Monastery Men's lack of presence shook the believers.

Watching this, Toye’s brethren burned more incense to calm their nerves, but since they were in the open, the effect was weak.

On top of the walls, the defenders kept laughing. The attack was seen as so harmless that they even stopped their crossbowmen.

Finally, the brown water ceased, only for one of the defenders to call out loudly, “Drop your weapons and surrender. Or else... the skies know what we will do to you.”

Bolstering the threat, the camp gates swung open, revealing an array of warhorses and knightly riders. Their lances were lowered, ready to charge.

Gasps spread through the ranks. They feared the heavy cavalry.

Yet, blinded by the slim chance, Toye turned to his men. “This is our chance.” He gestured toward the robed figures as if they were Saint Candidates. “Now.”

At his command, his men in grey robes, with helmets and shields, walked forward, leading the fanatics who followed behind them.

This clash would determine the fate of the attack. On one side stood the heavy cavalry. On the other hand, hundreds of fearless fanatics. Their eyes were hazy, their lips calm. There was no concern in them, their minds fully devoted to the Saint’s will.

All hopes rested on the true believers. Toye and his brethren expected them to surprise the heavy cavalry, as they had done in the last rebellion against the Black Demon’s own column. His underlings would surely fare no better.

If they could break the charge, he would unleash the wrath of the believers. All several hundred of them would pour through the open gates.

The cusp of victory was in their hands.

 

***