DarkFyre - Prologue

Prologue

Rain fell in a sporadic icy deluge. No true storm, it was nonetheless a persistent enough spattering of ice and water to make the battleground a wet, slushy mess of melting ice, frigid wind, and watered down puddles of mud and fresh blood steaming in the dawning light.

It was miserable conditions, even for the already miserable enterprise of war waging. But if the barbaric Haruke cared at all, they gave no sign. The warriors were far from the plains of their people, having journeyed east and north across the sweeping Johake grasslands and crossing the treacherous mountains of the Teeth that formed a barrier between their homeland and the southmost reaches of DarkFyre Dale. This they did with the fierce single-minded determination Haruke warriors were known for. A bit of sleet was nothing to them.

A Haruke raiding party had launched an incursion against the FrostFall warcamp just before dawn. As the sun crested over the craggy mountains at the camp's back, the battle was full underway. The barbarian raiding party was small but efficient, moving quickly and ruthlessly against their enemy, who heavily outnumbered them.

The Haruke made up for their numbers with ferocity, fighting with a tenacious intense spirit. There was no uniformity to their arms and armament; Haruke warriors wore the talismans and tokens of their individual tribes. Their weapons were largely of rough hammered cold iron. Well notched long swords, cruelly curved axes, hefty wooden cudgels with iron caps, menacing war hammers and blood stained spears were seen most often. Some warriors carried steel weapons they'd pillaged in past battles. A few warriors wore padded clothe armor or leather tunics, but most of Haruke tribesman fought bare chested, boldly daring their enemies to strike them down, if their blades could find them.

They came at the defenders, dark eyes wild and hair streaming out behind them, wet and writhing in the wind. Bones, beads, charms and tokens of their tribe were twined in their untamed locks. Soaked through by the rain, intricate war paint said to be the bones of their felled enemies ground down to powder ran in pale rivulet from their faces and chests.

The Dalemen held the advantage of terrain; their encampment was arranged on the elevated hills that rose at the eastern foot of the FrostFall mountains. The mountains formed the westmost borders of DarkFyre Dale land. FrostFall rose at their backs with its menacing, jagged points of white capped teeth piercing the sky. SkySpear towered across the Dale miles to the east, the tallest mountain in the region and the namesake for the chain of mountains all along the eastern border of DarkFyre land. The Teeth stood to the south, and DrakeSpine ranged to the north. The camp was positioned well, with the high grounds in the defenders favor and the sun rising at their backs. The Haruke cared not and charged the Dalemen, reckless and relentless.

The Dalemen met the barbarian's ferocity with discipline and steel. Where the Haruke were swift and wild the men of the Dale were steadfast and immoveable, enduring. Pikemen were set behind earthen bulwarks around the parameter of the camp, ready to fend off any Haruke that advanced beyond the joined battle just outside the camp's border.

Foot soldiers armed with sword and shield and clad in fine chainmail met the Haruke warriors, steel blades flashing in the weak dawning light. They held their ground as the barbarians pressed them hard, the opposing forces meeting in a savage clash of bodies and sweat and blood.

Knights of the Dale clad top to bottom in gleaming plate mail waded into the fray, shouting orders to the soldiers as they met the barbarians with steel in gauntleted hands. Their standards were emblazed on their surcoats and shields, the proud coat of arms of their respective noble houses. House Vahlar, with its red tipped spears crossed above a gray helm. House Argyle, of the great rearing black bear. House Dorn, displaying its proudly striking lion in gold. A multitude of other banners and surcoats proclaimed the knights joining the fray.

Rael was discernibly different from his Brother Knights. Though a Noble of the Realm and a Captain of the Knighthood of DarkFyre Dale, Rael carried no shield, and wore no surcoat with his family arms upon them. He did not wear a suit of full plate, instead favoring a hauberk of steel scale mail covering his torso and arms down to his forearms, his hands clad in leather gauntlets with steel plates covering the back of his hands and running up his wrists. He preferred the ease of visibility afforded by neglecting to wear a helm, and he left his cloak behind for the benefit of unencumbered movement.

The Nobleman favored a tremendous greatsword that he swung in great cleaving arcs. The Captain's swordplay was surprisingly swift and precise for the size and heft of his blade. He circled, stabbed and slashed tirelessly as he stepped around and between his foes. Perhaps perceiving the worth of the young Knight, the Haruke warriors pressed in, eager to test their mettle against him.

Rael bared his teeth as he met the Haruke head on. His blood was rushing high and heavy in his veins, thick with a heady cocktail of adrenaline, a dash of battle lust, and a pinch of hatred. He saw the same euphoria reflected in his enemy's eyes. They understood it better than any of his own people ever could. The knowing expression on the tribesmen's faces frightened him. Angered him. Yet he could not deny that part of him embraced the drumming of war in his blood as well. Rael never felt quite so alive as he did when he stared death in the eye and cut it down with his blade.

A twist of his greatsword sent a Haruke's heavy axe spinning free from severed fingers. Rael lunged forward, slamming his shoulder into the big man before him and knocking him back enough to bring his blade whistling in an upward arc to flay the man's chest and throat wide open. The Knight turned, dropping his weight and bringing his greatsword flashing out as he spun, catching a second barbarian across the belly in a cut so vicious it near tore the man in half.

Before the corpse even met the earth Rael circled to his left as another Haruke lunged at him. A heavy necklace of wickedly curving predator's teeth hung around the Haruke's neck, trophies of his tribe, clink-clacking, clink-clacking. He swung a blood-stained war hammer with killing intent. The man's eyes were wide and his lips drawn, his feral grin mirroring Rael's own, the grin of one overjoyed to at last face a glorious death. Rael moved with the man, his body turning and spinning as the barbarian hammered at him relentlessly. The power behind each blow would have been enough to shatter Rael's bone, pulverize his muscle and crush his heart in his chest if any had been able to find him. But Rael moved with speed surprising for such a large man, and his blade shot up to parry when the Haruke threatened to close.

Finally, Rael took an opening as he hit a high parry, dropping his weight and sending his greatsword slashing in a horizontal cut across the tribesman's lead leg. His cut bit deeply into the inside of the man's leg just below the knee. As the barbarian let out a savage bellow and stumbled, Rael continued his spin, raising up to his full height. He whipped his heavy sword out in a backhanded cut as he came around, neatly severing the Haruke's head from his broad shoulders.

Similar death and carnage surrounded him on all sides as the armies engaged. Men slipped and slid as the grassy hills churned into a muddy mess by too many boots while sleet mixed with blood and rent flesh underfoot. Sharp screeches punctuated the screams of the dying as battle axes bit deep into shields and metal armor crunched under the weight of hammer and mace. Though more skirmish than a true full-fledged battle, the fighting was intense and savage.

Rael whirled among it all, a man utterly in his element. His blade and gauntleted hands ran red with blood, and he did not slow. Common soldier and Knight alike rallied behind the young Knight Captain, and soon the Haruke were routed. The barbarians were slain, down to the man. None surrendered, and none retreated.

The morning sun crept over the sprawling FrostFall Mountains at their back, obscured by the overcast. The sleet continued in a lackluster, insincere fashion, too weak to wash away the blood spattering the hillocks and slopes below.

Rael stood on a small rise above the field, breathing deeply as he willed his pulse to slow and the frenzy seething inside him to cool. Tendrils of steam rose from his overheated body. He rested his bloodied greatsword across one powerful shoulder and gripped the hilt until his fingers were nearly numb. His eyes, a strange, ethereal silver, stared out over the bloodied fields as he struggled to find calm. His gaze fell on his men, who glanced furtively at him from under their helms, their expressions a mix of awe, respect, nervousness, and fear. No man would speak it aloud, but no matter how many times they witnessed it, the Captains ferocity in battle was an unnerving sight even to his hardened and loyal soldiers.

The young Nobleman pulled himself together, viciously quelling the roil of emotions inside him and burying them deep. There was no time for any of them, not the rage or the frustration or the sorrow at more of his men's blood spilled, which only served to feed the anger burning in his gut all the more. He was a Captain, and this warcamp was his to command, and no matter how deep his emotions ran, he had a job to do, and they would only complicate it.

"Stanys," Rael called. His voice came out thick and gravely. He cleared his throat and tried again, hailing one of the pikeman standing nearby. The soldier dipped an informal bow and leaned attentively on his pike. "Send for Morell and StoneSinger at the physician's tent to tend the wounded. Put any of the Haruke left alive to the sword. Burry our dead in the graves on the north embankment. Then gather the Haruke's dead and prepare them for transport to the truce ground to be turned over to their envoys.

"M'Lord," the soldier agreed, and hurried to be about his orders.

Rael slid his blade into the baldric slung across his back and tugged off one gauntlet from his hand. He wiped the sweat and rain from his brow and pushed the copper hair that came loose from its bindings out of his face. A wind began to whistle over the hills, a mournful sound. A more superstitious man would have taken it as an ill omen. Rael was grateful for it; despite being soaked right through his scale mail by the earlier falling sleet, his body was still hot and flushed as it always was after battle.

Sir Galin, one of his Knight Brothers, came to stand beside him. His plated armor clinked with each metallic step. His surcoat was torn along the left shoulder, a macabre bloodied red skull being crushed beneath the swing of a red warhammer. One meaty hand grasped the weapon that was his family's coat of arms, the other holding his plumed helm. His bald pate shone in the sunlight, and his shag of a beard grew more gray every day. A lumpy scar creased the left side of his cheek, just below his coal colored eye, and disappeared into the wiry forest of his beard.

"Don't see why you bother with the sodding truce ground. Should burn all the bastards until their bones are ash," the Knight harrumphed as he spat into the ground.

"They say two things drive a Haruke warrior's blade. Facing a glorious death on the sword of a worthy enemy, and the chance to collect the head of a man without honor," Rael spoke as he turned to face his Knight-Brother. "You know the Haruke hold their rites for the dead sacred. Interfering would ignore the basest notion of honor and humane conduct in their eyes. We would be lower than murderers and rapists to them."

"Not saying much, them being murdering raping savages already," Galin protested.

"The Haruke have already fought us to a near stand-still for nearly forty years," Rael continued with a grimace. "And that without the added insult of us violating their dead. That's what they would see it as, make no mistake. I'd rather not see how lighting that fire under them would turn the battle."

"Don't see how it makes much damn difference," said Galin as he scratched at his beard with a bloodied finger. "We kill more of the savages every day. War'll over and done with soon."

Rael's eyes were flinty as they turned back over the bloody killing grounds on the slopes below. "They said the same a score of years ago. And a score of years before that. Who knows how much longer they'll be saying it."

"Can't be much more of the sodding bastards left."

"They've been saying that for a score and more years, too," Rael pointed out. "Doesn't seem to be much fewer of them from what I can tell. Damned sure are fewer of us, though."

"Doesn't matter. We'll win. And in the meantime, it'd do some good to piss on their collective heads. They'd never let it stand. It would make them reckless."

"They're already reckless," Rael countered. "Driving their fury isn't the way to approach this enemy. Hate makes some men strong."

"Well now, and you'd know, wouldn't you?" Galin snorted, flashing a grin that had a few too many teeth missing to be handsome. Rael stared daggers at the old soldier, but Galin just laughed at him all the more.

"Don't look at me like that. ‘S not my fault you're the wrath of the old gods themselves one minute, eyes all wild and full of blood lust, and the next you're playing at being the King's own strategist in the make."

"It's less strategy and more common sense," Rael protested.

"Mm. Well, Mister Common Sense, you've got the bits of some poor barbarian sod in your hair," Galin smirked.

"Go do something useful, damn you," Rael growled at the man. Galin laughed, flashed the Captain a mocking salute, and strode back to the camp.

Rael should have been livid, enraged enough to spit at the man's gall. But his order hadn't had much in the way of teeth behind it, and it was Galin after all. A sour old veteran, Galin was battle hardened and worn and grizzled, having long past earned the right to gripe and complain and say whatever he damn well pleased. He was also one of the few men Rael trusted implicitly and was a war friend of his father's.

It still felt odd, to be in a position of authority over the rough old man. Galin had been a Knight nearly as many years as Rael had been living. If he'd never taught Rael much about strategy and tactics and how to command armies, he'd taught him much about the world, and how to make men respect you, if need be fear you, and which end of a sword to stick in someone trying to kill you, and how to do a damn good job of it at that. For his part, Galin seemed content with the chain of command and wanted nothing more than to serve, fight, and complain. And, of course, to needle and taunt and poke at his Captain at every opportune moment. Thankfully, the Knight, while a complete pain in his ass, had enough propriety to maintain proper recognition of rank when they were within earshot of others.

Barely.

Rael realized he was sporting the barest of smiles as he reflected on his old friend's behavior. And as quickly as it came, it went, buried under the bile in his throat and rage in his belly. The Knight didn't like to think of himself as an angry, bitter man but no matter how he tried, there it was, a hard knot of hatred that burst into frenzy whenever he crossed swords.

In a black mood, Rael trudged through the camp toward his tent. His day would be full as he received reports on the dead and wounded. Then he would divvy up the duties and assignments of his remaining forces. He would send a missive to the Lord Knight Commander reporting on the raid and subsequent results. Additionally he needed request replacements for the fallen men and hope there were troops to spare in the main garrison to send to his outpost. Then he must oversee arrangements for the death rites of his men according to their beliefs and station. He would send letters of condolences to the fallen's families and arrangements for them to be taken care of as well as could be managed with the meager resources left at his disposal. He would then inspect any damage to the camps supplies or defenses. If he were lucky, he would be able to get started on his regular duties once all those were seen to.

He made sure the flap to his tent fell closed behind him before he let out an agitated groan. While running the list of tasks over in his head had quieted the lingering vestiges of his temper, it only served to make him tired. Rael felt old, a weariness settling in his bones that had nothing to do with age, or even the fatigue of the morning's battle. He was a young man, hearty and hale. Yet just then with the full weight of command in this seemingly endless war resting on his shoulders, he felt ready to join his Lord Father in retirement.

Continued in Chapter 1

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