Chapter 197: The Legend of the Sneaky Kark

The wind. It was always the damn wind that got to you in the end, if a silex arrow from a kark hunter didn’t poison your guts first. That damn wind just never stopped. Even when it did, your ears would ring from the sudden silence, the same way a starving child dies if you feed them rich food right away. It just wasn’t used to nice things anymore.

 

The man clad in red leather sighed. His burly second spat on the ground with more anger than usual, then left to scream at the mounted infantry at the front. Those fuckers made the entire column eat dirt every time they slowed down. The red leather man grumbled at the tired army filing through the gap in the grass. He hoped they would find water soon. The Lutenese had learned, so now they didn’t leave without large cisterns pulled by teams of horses.

 

The kark had learned as well. Just earlier they’d found a dead scout bled out on the ground, his foot caught in a cruel trap. This is what everything had been reduced to: half-baked expeditions searching for kark who laid traps instead of fighting like real people. Ridiculous.

 

Used to be that thirty thousand eager folks crossed the border, in the first glory days. Entire families purging frontier villages to take what was rightfully theirs. Good, hard-working men and women inheriting Param as was their right. Used to be that Luten had balls too. Now only two and a half thousand men pushed to end the kark aggression where it should be twice that, and the mages, and the royal knights too. It was a miracle if they even got money to start the expedition to begin with. Dusty crops had left the Pure League weak and paralyzed with doubt. Not him. Not the red leather man. His brothers had gotten their titles and he would too, and no stinking kark would deny him that right.

 

The man harangued the troops so that they walked faster to a cleared area of the steppes. It was possible to flatten a ring in the tall grass, but that meant scratching bug bites off your arse for the next five days. They had to reach that little vale over there so they could see better.

 

The sun reddened. It was going to be short.

 

Suddenly, a figure stepped out of the high grass to his right, by a line of spearmen. It was a kark woman, who stopped just as the spearmen jumped and brandished their weapons.

 

The kark woman wore full plate armor made of steel, something the red leather man knew to be impossible. A massive tower shield covered her entire left flank while in her right hand, she carried a flanged mace that had seen a lot of action. She didn’t move. She didn’t speak. Instead, she glared with a rare intensity that made even his men — and the archers behind — speechless.

 

What was going on?

 

As suddenly as she had appeared, the woman brandished her mace, waving it threateningly in the face of the entire army, now confusingly stopped to watch her. A voice like a roar shook the plain.

 

“SNEAK ATTACK! SNEAK ATTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!”

 

An entire company of kark slammed into his baffled troops with a roar. They came through the grass like a hammer. All of them wore armor.

 

“Shit. Form up! Form up! Archers, to the center!”

 

What were the damn scouts doing? Fortunately, the red leather man had drilled his recruits until they responded to his orders. Pushed by his skill, the spearmen closed rank to hold the kark at bay. Blood flew, staining the fallen stalks. His men were dying. Those kark were in full armor, and they knew how to use it. It didn’t matter that the kark were their usual stupid straightforward selves. Who even screamed sneak attack before attacking? So incredibly dumb. The red leather man‘s fury ignited in his chest. He wasn’t going to be defeated by something so stupid.

 

“Archers, archers! Right flank!”

 

Vin the Swift guided them, her bow singing with every thrown arrow. Unfortunately, the kark woman just blocked them with a reliability that spoke of both skill and experience. The kark breached the first line. Now, they were a dagger driven into the expedition’s belly. Steel answered steel. Some of the cocksure spearmen who’d gotten used to kark silex tips now felt the bite of a forged edge breaching through their gambesons. It was not going well, but now his infantry surrounded the blob of metal kark while archers peppered them from the left flank. His mounted infantry was still in front, on their horses, being absolutely fucking useless. Should he tell them to dismount? Or charge? Probably neither.

 

“Cavalry, pull back and cover the left front!”

 

It was a good call. Unfortunately, it came just a moment too late.

 

“SNEAK ATTAAAAACK!” an old voice screamed.

 

From the left, a large wave of kark warriors emerged from the high grass. This one he recognized from previous campaigns, including the grizzled kark leading them, but this time, things were different. He wielded a red spear that shone like a ruby in the light, its point aimed straight at the Lutenese unprotected flank. The cavalry had not formed a screen over the formation’s soft center of supply carts and archers. The line of close quarter fighters was too thin to stop this!

 

He’d been outmaneuvered by kark? Was the first ‘sneak attack’ merely a distraction? Impossible!

 

“Sneak attack!” the old kark repeated, and his gathered troops charged in a tight mass of spears.

 

Those had metal too. Dammit!

 

“Faster! Faster, form up!”

 

His burly second managed to rally his men at the last second, as the red leather man advanced towards the center of the formation where he could lead more easily. It wasn’t enough. Spears made short work of his mounted infantry, the horses panicking under them. Kark projectiles darkened the air above the army, falling on the unarmored chests of his archers. Where the cavalry didn’t cover, the kark just pushed through the lighter infantry to attack the exposed archers. It was a mess. He moved some of his reserves to stem the tide but that now left the front and back too exposed.

 

“Archers! Left! Left!”

 

His own men were too green to do much against the armored kark but the unprotected ones were still fair game. Better to leave the armored ones contained for now. Arrows found flesh among the less protected soldiers but those aimed at the old warchief were swallowed by a ball of black magic. Combat sorcery! From a kark weapon! Seeing as he was outnumbered, the red leather man had the formation slowly contract, his skill maintaining order despite the increasingly desperate struggle. Who the FUCK had given enchanted steel to the kark? Was it the work of that witch they’d met? Race traitor.

 

The red leather man had his men finally dismount though he kept a small mounted group near the center. The line almost stabilized despite mounting casualties. Almost. But then the hammer fell.

 

“Sneak Attack!”

 

A line of pakar riders charged from the front. The red leather man saw it. He had all the time in the world to see that charge coming, but he had absolutely nothing left to stop it. All his men were committed one way or another.

 

“Sneak chaaaaaaarge!”

 

Arrows pinged against snout armor. Others found shields and muscular torsos, accomplishing little. A few spearmen tried to form a line, but half of them broke before impact.

 

“For the Red Tribe!” the old kark bellowed.

 

Less than two minutes after the beginning of the battle, a plume of voracious fire swallowed the red leather man’s burly second. The pakar charge smashed the center of his forces with barely any resistance before crossing the entire Lutenese formation from front to back, pushing carts, slaying runners, skewering archers, spreading chaos, and generally spelling an immediate end to any hope of salvaging this battle. It took a good ten seconds for the red leather man to accept the end of his dreams rolling over what was left of his command. The two flanks of the Lutenese formation fell apart with their backs exposed, and those that were near the back started running, weapons discarded. Even his tiny reserve of mounted fighters galloped away, hounded by whistling arrows. The expedition disintegrated. The last thing the Red Leather man saw of the battle was Vin’s body pinned to a cistern by three spears.

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He ran. He ran and he cursed. A line of kark tried to entrap him but he managed to rally a group of soldiers and break through, slaying a young kark warrior in his path. Hundreds of others escaped the battle while their Lutenese compatriots died where they were. As he raced away, his mind worked over time to figure out how to survive the inhospitable plain with the little water he had. He would have to ditch his soldiers, who would only slow him down.

 

It was a strange feeling, running away from one’s entire life. The vertigo lasted only the time it took for a pair of swordsmen ahead of him to fall. Blades rose from the mess of trampled grass to bleed them.

 

“Ambush!” he uselessly said.

 

But the hunters lying in wait raced away. A man who tried to follow them — what was that fool even trying to accomplish? — caught arrows in his eyes for his trouble. Around them, more of the survivors collapsed and stumbled with knives in their guts and arrows in their necks. Those who stopped to kill the hunters became the center of attention of the archers. The only salvation was to run.

 

Soon, the red leather man realized that hunters raced along the fleeing humans, picking them off without getting into range. The red leather man’s desperate attempt to gather people around him lasted only long enough for him to hear the rumble at his back. The pakar riders were going after them.

 

“Into the grass!” he ordered, and what was left of his men scattered, screaming when the kark hunters got to them.

 

The red leather man took a sharp turn left, then right again. Grunts of pain and battle faded little by little when he left the combat zone. Soon, he was left with the rasp of his breath, the pain in his legs, and the crushing weight of defeat on his shoulders. A bitter taste.

 

He couldn’t face it now. He had to survive first.

 

His steps led him further towards an incline, then up a grass-covered slope. The sounds of the steppes were muffled by a high wind. His command skill reminded him that there was an elevated spot in front of him from where he could look around, find a path through the kark trap. He needed a plan.

 

The red leather man gulped precious water from his gourd, then winced when he realized it was already half empty. He would have to ration it, since the nearest water point would probably be guarded. Maybe some other survivors would make it there and he could make a plan. If they obeyed.

 

He wouldn’t follow a commander who’d lost almost his entire army, that was for sure.

 

The grass grew shorter as the approached the elevated space until it barely reached his knees over the wind-swept mound. Against all odds, he found himself face to face with a great misshapen steel cube with masts on top.

 

It was such a bizarre sight that his mind blanked. The first thought he had was that he was already dead, and this was a strange vision of the afterlife. Soon, Enttiku would greet him with a smile, wearing a robe of metal.

 

It took him more time than he would admit to figure out there were people on top of the cube. They were leaning against the railing while working strange magic. Saved! He was… but no, he recognized the kark fucker who’d blocked them. The woman had strange reddish hair, and eyes like pits. He was done for.

 

She slowly floated down to him with her armored robes and her silly crown and that smarmy smile that made him want to hit her. Maybe he should try it? What did he have to lose?

 

“I see you have found our little vantage point. I had a good view of your attempt from there.”

 

“What do you want?”

 

“Me? Nothing that concerns you. Her?”

 

He heard it, even above the wind. The thump of heavy armor. The kark woman with the mace trampled her way through the trail the red leather man had left behind. She was going to kill him. He was done for.