A steady stream of humanity had been trudging through the narrow mountain pass all day and to each and every cluster of travellers the captain had spoken the same words.
His throat was sore, his voice hoarse, but he kept at it. More men were needed for the task ahead and a raw throat was small price to pay.
Ten days ago the Kharisid army had poured over the border. Three days ago they had smashed the army of the Western Earls. Tomorrow they would march down this road , a spear of death and fire aimed straight at the ancient capital of the Drogar. And he did not have enough men.
There had been men a-plenty come through here. Some were warriors, headed to join the King’s muster, others were farmers taking their families to shelter behind the mountains. Too few had chosen to stay and join his haphazard warband.
He contemplated his newly recruited army . Right now soldiers and civilians alike had put aside their weapons and were working on the ancient walls that had once protected this narrow slot between the cliffs. Hoping to undo the neglect of centuries with an afternoon of sweat and scraped hands.
A wall would help a little. Another two hundred armed men in mail would be better but a man took what the gods gave him and made what he could.
“Do you honestly believe you can hold them back?” said a quiet voice, cutting through his reverie.
The captain blinked twice and then turned to look at the woman who had ridden up beside him as he stood woolgathering.
A chieftain’s wife, he guessed immediately. She had years on her face and the stamp of authority about her, even weary as she was.
And a sadness, forced back but visible to one who knew the signs.
No, he realised suddenly . Not a chieftain’s wife. A chieftain’s widow.
Her man and his warband would have marched with the Western Earls. Most likely the wolves and the crows were ripping at their cold flesh right now.
Most likely Kharisid scouts were setting light to her abandoned home as they spoke.
“Hold them? No” said the captain calmly. “Slow them, maybe.”
The chieftain’s lady looked back at the bedraggled cluster of refugees coming through the gap in the wall.
She sighed “You’ll not slow them by much. I have men here who saw their army as we fled. Thousands of men and horses there were, coming over the hills like a dark tide.”
“I know. So does every man here.”
The woman on the horse looked down at him, her face a stony mask. “So why are you here?”
“We’ll hold this pass as long as we can. And every moment we hold the Kharisids before the wall, your people - and all the others coming through the pass - get ten paces further away. Ten paces towards the King’s City and safety. We’ll make a stand here and buy you all a little time.”
The chieftain’s wife was a strong woman and proud. Even so, he saw the glint of tears at her eyes before an angry flick of the head pushed them away.
“I have no men to give you and no weapons. But there’s ale in one of the carts and good cheese. I’ll tell my retainers to give you some of each. And the gods be with you, you poor, brave boys.”
And then she was cantering back to what was left of her household, barking our orders sharp as any Kings officer he’d ever met.
“The gods be with you too, my lady.” whispered the captain.
When he turned back towards his men there was a boy standing before him.
If he’d seen his fifteenth summer then the captain would cast away his sword and take up a blind man’s cane, and while the gods might have given the lad a man’s height, they had yet to bestow upon the youngster any muscle to his arms or chest. From his clothes - good linen and woollens- he was most likely a merchant’s son. The sons of merchants rarely made good soldiers.
There was a spear in his hand, true, and a well-worn scramasax at his belt but whatever martial airs he thought to gain, it was painfully obvious that he’s used neither overmuch.
“I am Kelig.” said the boy with fierce pride, knuckles white upon the shaft of his spear. “I will stand with you.”
The captain looked Kelig up and down slowly and closed his eyes. A man uses what the gods send him. he thought. But sometimes you have to wonder if the gods make sport with us.
“That you will not.” he rasped with the shreds of his sore, croaky voice. “I need men and swords, not boys playing at the hero.”
The boy with the borrowed spear turned his head towards the men labouring on the wall. His mouth twitched upwards sardonically “Seems to me that you’re in no position to be choosy.”
“And it seems to me that you’re smart enough to know this is no heroic saga, boy.” the captain snapped.
“We stand, we fight, we most likely die and afterwards nobody will remember our damn names.”
All of a sudden the long day and the long night caught up with him and the captain felt so, so tired.
“Go with your folks Kelig. They need you more than I do.”
Kelig turned away to watch the rest of the caravan trundle away. The people he’d know all his life crawling slowly into the distance. In a few moments the only sign that they’d even been there would be the small pile of provisions that had been slung hurriedly into the road.
And him.
Nobody was looking back. Nobody saw him staring after the pretty girl in the blue dress on the second to last waggon., sat stiff as a statue with her head high and her shawl clutched about her shoulders.
Nobody saw his face fall in sudden pain before stiffening again with teenage resolve.
“My presence is not required.” he said quietly.
The captain nodded in gentle sympathy. Sometimes a good officer knew when to say nothing.
He could guess the story. A grieving girl, her father and brothers gone away to fight and never returned. A young boy left behind and an easy target for anger. Harsh words had been said. “Coward.” would have been one of them.
“It is the curse of men that we would rather face a hundred sharp swords than one sharp tongue. Rather charge into the spears than listen to the whispers as we pass by. ” an old soldier had told him once, as they had both tried to drink themselves free from the memories of battle.
“Put your spear down, Kelig, and help me build a wall.” he said at last. “You do know how to lay stone, don’t you?”
Kelig grinned suddenly. “How long have I got to learn?”
“An afternoon, maybe.”
“Maybe the gods will look down on us and the Kharisids will go home.”
“ And maybe a golden stag will trot up and shit a pile of rubies at your feet. We take what the gods give us and we do what we can, boy. We do what we can.”
I am told that when the boy’s mother finally noticed that he was missing , it took four strong men to stop her from running back to him.
I am also told that the girl in the blue dress arrived at the King’s Gates sporting a magnificent black eye that she refused to talk about.
The wall held the Kharisids for less than a day.
The captain and his men fought as best as they could but a few hundred farmers and armsmen behind a crumbling wall were never going to keep back an entire host of battle-hardened warriors.
The Kharisid king finally lost patience and hurled men at the fools in his way. Too many men. They broke over the wall like a storm tide, under a rain of arrows and the Drogar fell.
Some fell at the wall. Some fell as they ran. The survivors made their last stand with their backs to the cliff, clutching their spears in tired hands, snarling at the Kharisids with their final breath.
With a wave of his hand the Kharisid king ordered his men forward and the tiny knot of defenders vanished under a thousand Kharisid blades.
Before the blood was cool, the Kharisid cavalry was spurring down the pass, hunting for stragglers.
But by then the girl in the blue dress, the heartbroken mother and the chieftain’s widow were all safe inside the walls of the King’s City, watching armsmen marching in to join the Royal muster.
After the invaders had been defeated in a bloody battle under the walls of the city and their King had fled with what was left of his host, the Drogar army marched back through the pass in pursuit.
They passed the old, ruined wall and the bodies that still lay unburied where the King was heard to ask “Who were these men?”
“We do not know.” he was told. “We do not know who they were or who led them.”
“Bury them well.” the KIng ordered. “We can give them that much.”
A few days later a column of refugees came past on their way back home, and they stopped for a moment at the cairn that had been raised from the broken stones of the wall.
A mother wept for a son lost.
A girl wept for a boy misjudged.
And a chieftains widow poured an offering of good ale into the soil in thanks to a nameless captain.
Who had held the Kharisid army back for just long enough.
