Once they had the horses, things finally began to move at a pace that was comfortable to Klara. Despite the insistence of her men, she would not liberate a slow, heavy carriage from the helpful, if besieged, Count Schwarzenberg. He had not parted happily with forty-five horses, one of them a mighty shire for the Abbess Hildrun. The Shield could sympathise, but only to a degree. Her faith was greater than that of the count, and her authority came directly from the King.
They had left Anderwoo within an hour of acquiring their mounts, as well as generous supplies from the count. Klara and her men had two horses each, their equipment and food spread evenly between them so that they might be able to switch when one set of animals became too tired with their weight. Their pace towards The Hold had at first been a rough thirty miles a day. That changed after encountering the first caravan of merchants fleeing the country.
“What’s sending you north so suddenly?” Klara had asked the leaders of the small column of heavy vehicles. Autumn, when the traders typically left The Hold, was still six weeks away.
They gave her the news, or what they knew before they decided not to risk their wares and lives, leaving at the prompting of some bloody fool who had stayed behind. Klara was resolved then that they should cover at least forty miles a day, until they were deep enough into the great steppe of The Hold that they might find some natives for questioning. Klara, having been tutored by the best that the money of the Graf von Saddlers could afford, was well educated in the language of the people of the steppe.
Within a day of entering The Hold they passed through a collection of huts that might have been a village once. Only the elderly, the very young boys, and the women, all of whom were shocked at the column of men being led be an armoured lady, remained. Only Klara could speak their tongue, and no prompting, bribes, or threats could make these people tell her anything. As ill-educated and inbred as they must have been, even they surely guessed where she was from, and what information she was looking for.
They rode deeper into The Hold, cursing the rains that turned the roads into muddy rivers. They encountered more hamlets full of furtive, swarthy people who were too frightened to talk. Soon after, they began to encounter more caravans of merchants. The first group were desperate to get away, and brought news that sent trickles of ice down Klara Saddler’s spine. Her men became anxious. Some tried to suggest they should head back and warn the king of the calling of the stanitsas. That was not enough for Klara. She needed numbers. She needed some hint of what their plan might be.
The next caravans they found were burned out, the horses stolen and the people slaughtered, their naked bodies given up to carrion crows to feast on after everything of value had been taken from them. Klara tried not to look at the women and young girls as her men gave them all a decent burial. God only knew how many times they had been raped before their throats were finally cut. The men and boys had not gone easily, either. These had their genitals cut off and stuffed in their own mouths and were left to die, whether by blood loss or choking. Such barbarism was as common as looting to the savages of The Hold.
So it was War, then. Klara the Shield would give it to them, but she would not lower herself to the level of these cowardly, chinless people. She would fight as a soldier of Sturmwatch. There were plenty of looters and rapists about, but would she find any men among them?
They followed the tracks of the riders, but the never ending rain made this difficult after a while as the hoof prints melted into the sucking mire of the road. Klara pressed on with her score of men. What had happened was abominable, and had to be met in kind before she would even countenance the idea of withdrawal. When they finally made contact with some group of riders somewhere, there would surely be an officer, an ataman, among them. They would kill his men but take him alive, and burn all the information they could out of him. That was the plan, at least.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Dawn came, after a sleepless night of rain on the steppe. The horses were becoming weary and thin. The men were drenched and their spirits were sinking. Klara knew they were conspiring to abandon her out here, as Janus had when things had gotten tough. She was almost tempted to let them go, but for fear of what news about her they might carry back to the King, or Eisengrim. Would they tell him of her death, so that he might forget her? Would they tell him that she had failed again, as she had failed to civilise Janus? As she had failed Prince Siegfried in those final moments…?
A hue and cry from the men on watch roused her from where she slept on the ground, fully clad in all her armour but her helmet. It was misty, but as her senses returned to her and the adrenaline began to pump she heard the sound of distant rumbling that seemed to shake the very earth. The horses were panicking where they had been tied together around spikes planted into the ground. They snorted and kicked. The men were scrambling for their spears and shields, and calling out to one another.
Klara donned her helmet, and drew her sword. Her left arm was still broken, and the pain was fresh enough even now to cause her to grunt in agony, but she was still able to command, and strike down any fool that got close enough to her.
“Form a square!” She called out, waving her sword about, trying to be heard over the rumbling din. “Lock shields!”
There was a whistling, and an almighty crashing sound. The world started spinning and the ground rushed to catch her, splashing mud on her face. Klara tried to move but it was hard. She had vaguely heard something clanging against her helmet, a cheap one circumstances had forced her to take from the dead at Eichen. As she rolled on the ground she saw a broken arrow nearby, and felt her right temple becoming warm. Perhaps not so cheap after all.
The rumbling rolled over them, then, and the screams began.
Klara cursed as she crawled along the ground as all about men fought and died. Arrows sprouted from the ground. Men and horses fell, writhing in the muck, pierced by arrows or spears. She screamed then, felt the adrenaline surge through her. She was standing suddenly, as dark figures whirled about in the mist. Her sword was gone, but there was a cavalry lance sticking out of one of her fallen men.
“Face me!” she screamed, the weapon only just a little taller than she was. Some of the riders of The Hold had been coming at her, bows or their own lances in hand, and she saw how their leering grins turned to confusion at the sound of her obviously female voice. They hesitated just as they came within melee range. Klara did not. One of men wielding a bow cried out as she thrust the lance into him with such force it took him clean off of his saddle. He rolled as his horse bolted, and took the polearm out of her one useful hand, but by then the other men and their mounts were crowding round her. Thought of the men and women from the caravan filled the witch hunter’s mind then as she drew her knife from her belt and buried it into the knee of the first of the scum that reached out to grab her. The fight was lost, but taking her would cost them dearly.
She ducked low as a sabre just clipped the top of her helmet, twisting and dragging the dagger down with her. She was as close to them as she could manage, and the riders of The Hold did not like that. Lance distance was as close as these cowards preferred to get. Klara slashed out again and again with her blade, cutting through leather clad shins and the flanks of horses, which whinnied and screeched at the sudden cuts. The pain set them kicking and thrashing, disrupting their riders and hitting their fellow creatures. All was chaos as men roared in rage and howled about the giant woman. Sabres and lances swept down at her, glancing against her steel plated shoulders, and Klara screamed when something hard struck her broken arm. Mounts were trying to fall back. She heard the wet impact of some of their number leaping from their saddles to take her on at ground level. A jet of blood coated her breastplate as she slashed a nearby horse across its throat and the beast toppled like a puppets with its strings cut, its weight rolling as it hit the ground and crushing the leg of its rider.
The horses finally scattered, carrying away wounded or enraged riders. Men with shaved heads and thick forelocks were all about her. Sabres and maces flashed in the flickering light of a sun that was trying to burn its way through the mist. They did not hesitate this time, even if Klara was taller than any of them. They surged over her, and the woman howled as she fought back. They grabbed her broken arm, and the world was full of white blinding pain as they twisted it. Klara kicked out someone’s knee, and buried her dagger into the first face that flashed before her. She tried to pull it out, but it was lodged in place.
They were all over her then, and she tasted mud mixing with the blood filled puddle she found her face in. There was another twist at her broken arm. One of the men was calling out that she must be kept alive, that she would be a worthy gift for the grave lord. Something smashed against the back of her head then, and there was nothing more.
