The wounded continued to arrive throughout the day—on horseback, on foot, carried in litters, dragged on sledges. Some with their skulls opened and brains exposed. Others struggling to hold their guts inside ripped bellies. Men with crushed ribs, shattered limbs, mashed faces. Men who must certainly die. Others who would live out their lives in crippled misery.
The savaged baggage camp could offer little solace to these suffers. Little was done in any army to prepare for the horrendous casualties of a major battle. Surgeons set bones and stitched gashes. Clerics laid their healing hands on those who had sufficient coin to pay for the service. Many wounded, however, received no aid, sometimes lying on a corpse-covered battlefield for days until their torn bodies rotted and their faces turned black with decay.
This day was even worse, for most of the baggage camp’s provisions had been destroyed by the rampaging Black Tongues. Luckily, the camp survivors, in an extraordinary spirit of cooperation, pitched in to help. Sections of ruined pavilions were erected as sunscreens. Concubines and soldiers’ wives tore their petticoats into bandages. Stable boys and wine stewards carried endless buckets of water to assuage the terrible thirst of the dying.
Roscoe’s long experience as an Adventurer had lent him a certain grim skill, he could examine an arrow-pierced stomach or a depressed fracture of the skull and gauge with fair accuracy whether the sufferer was likely to live or to die. This became his painful function for the rest of the day as man after man was brought for his assessment.
Those beyond help were placed to one side, where, for most, the end came with merciful rapidity. Those judged capable of salvation were stitched, bandaged, and placed in such shade as the camp had to offer.
Thurmond, Torgul, and Sarah worked tirelessly, tending the wounded, offering whatever comfort was in their power. The uninjured Gascars, Wat and Cob, were enlisted as litter bearers and water carriers, as were Bung and Whump, the two surviving tenants.
Gradually, the story of the battle unfolded. They heard of the earl’s grievous wounding as he fought to hold the collapsing left flank, and of the glorious ride of some minor knight who swept behind the Keltin line and broke the back of their mighty host.
Later in the day, help began to arrive from the city. Wains piled high with foodstuffs and drink. White Friar nuns, trained in the healing arts. Fishwives and harlots eager to comfort those who had so stoutly defended their city.
These brought the stories of the desperate fighting within the town walls—of the horrific assault on the South Gate, of the devastating onslaught of earth, air, fire, and water, of collapsed buildings and flooded streets.
They told of the brown river of rats that had surged through the city and invaded the magician’s guildhall. This event was less consequential than anticipated, the only casualty being Mistress Commode, the sole female member of the order. Well into her nineties, she had been unable to follow the example of the other guild members who promptly climbed atop their high stools when the rats appeared. As a result, she lost a number of toes from both her feet.
Other tales told of greater gallantry. A score of black-hatted Adventurers had rallied near the charred remains of what had once been The Severed Head. This tiny group had successfully held off a much larger force of Painted Men who were advancing up Castle Wynd toward the city’s very heart.
Other accounts were more spurious. There were those who claimed to have seen, at the final stages of the battle, a rotund figure in purple armor lashing a chariot drawn by coal-black horses. His scythed wheels, they said, slashed through the Keltins massing along the corner of the west wall. He was followed by a dozen skeleton warriors who quickly dispatched any who avoided his spinning blades. Such tales were, of course, highly unlikely and had to be disregarded by anyone of sound intelligence.
The story of the great battle, like that of all epic events, would always be filled with confusing elements and conflicting details, but at least this much is certain—the city of Gorgonholm was saved. Battered though they were, the high walls and tall buildings stood as proud and defiant as ever in the aftermath of the Keltin invasion.
As Earl Ralf lay in his pavilion, his body pierced by many serious wounds, his dead forbearers gathered in the great hereafter to see how things would go. Was he destined to join them this day, or would his soul cling tenaciously to his mangled flesh?
Although seldom given to strong passions, these ancient shades were filled with a tingling sensation they dimly recognized as pride, a feeling with which they had once been very well acquainted. They were gratified that their young descendent had fulfilled his purpose so manfully, that a Mortimer still defended the land over which they had held sway.
Surgeons and physicians clustered about the young nobleman, fussing and arguing. Some applied poultices of noxious herbs and the excretions of animals. Other claimed that in spite of his already substantial blood loss, he required further bleeding. They listened to the gurgle of his stomach, the rasp of his labored breathing. One gauged the color of his tongue while another judged the clarity of his urine.
A renowned physician consulted the hours and the stars and then prescribed cordials of gold leaf and quicksilver. A village healer—no one could quite explain his presence in the earl’s pavilion—suggested a broth of hellebore and small, black mushrooms.
Amazingly, Ralf survived both his injuries and the fervent ministrations of those learned medical professionals. Near midnight, he opened his eyes and called for meat and mead. The Mortimers had always been blessed with stout constitutions.
The Adventurers put in a very long day. When food was available, they ate quick mouthfuls between cartloads of wounded soldiers. Dizzy with exhaustion, Thurmond sat down to catch his breath and promptly dozed off. He slept, he could swear, for only the briefest moment, yet Sarah was suddenly shaking him by the shoulder.
“Come on—you’ve been sleeping for more than an hour. We need you.”
Battles always attract carrion-eaters. A gathering of the raven, the wolf, and the eagle were known to be harbingers of slaughter. Battlefields were popular with human scavengers as well. Whole families now flocked from the city to plunder the slain.
Their enthusiasm was understandable, for a battlefield was a treasure trove of ownerless wealth. A good broadsword cost more than the average worker earned in six months of hard labor. A suit of plate armor was worth more than most peasants made in a lifetime.
Of course, few scavengers ever acquired an item of great value. Anything of real worth was almost always gathered up by soldiers while the battle was raging around them. Mailshirts were routinely stripped from fallen foes while their blood was still pumping from their veins. Fine weapons could be put to immediate use.
Nonetheless, simple commoners could acquire a plethora of lesser items that they could use, barter, or sell for hard coin—a fine hat, a belt with a knife in a sheath, warm clothing, new leather boots. So looting was well worth their while.
Most scavengers were ruthless in their foraging, stripping friend and foe alike. Helplessly wounded soldiers often received the quick thrust of a knife to hasten the taking of their things. Less mercy was often shown after a battle than during it.
Women, it was said, could be the cruelest scavengers of all, for the battlefield offered them their one chance to take revenge for the terrible pain and humiliation they had suffered at the hands of men. Not content to merely slay the wounded, they made them pay for all the years of abuse they had had to endure. Their victims were sometimes left alive, but with certain offending body parts removed.
When the battlefield was sufficiently picked over, many of the scavengers made their way to the camp where, they assumed, there would be people with money who might purchase their gleanings. Surprised by the devastation they found there, they immediately started to loot the already-pillaged baggage.
Caught in a frenzy of acquisition, the scavengers turned on each other, fighting over such spoils the camp had to offer. In the madness of the moment, the valueless became precious. Thurmond watched as two toothless crones wrestled over a strip of ripped tenting. A group of young boys pummeled a hunchback for some fragments of harness and pieces of broken furniture.
This continued until the scroungers were driven off by the camp survivors who were not about to lose their remaining belongings. The sight of such human degradation saddened the young Adventurer. There had been too many such sights that day.
He now stood beside a mound of severed arms and legs—the surgeons had been busy with their saws, cutting away limbs too badly damaged to save and cauterizing the oozing stumps. Many of their patients did not survive this procedure. Their stiffening bodies were stacked like firewood.
In his two years with Roscoe, Thurmond had seen much blood, but never anything on this scale. The very air stank of it. His gore-splattered hands disgusted him. His stomach turned over, and he thought he might vomit.
Sarah was suddenly at his side.
“You’re looking a little queasy—what’s the matter?”
The young man took a deep breath, but even the air tasted foul.
“You know, when I was a boy, I loved the old stories about great battles. But they never said anything about what goes on afterwards. There’s not a lot of glory in a man trying to shove his guts back into his belly.”
Sarah sighed.
“I know what you mean.”
A blaring trumpet drew their attention to a large troop of horseman that came clattering into the camp. Thurmond recognized the black and silver banner of Lord Drakar. He despised the pompous noble, but at that moment, he was too tired and disillusioned to care. He turned again to Sarah.
“It’s funny, instead of feeling proud of my deeds today, of the men I slew, I feel kind of ashamed. I had to do it—they’d have killed me if they could have—but it still seems wrong somehow. I’ve never felt this way before.”
She nodded.
“I feel much the same. Maybe because there was just too much killing today. Maybe a person can only stand so much of this kind of horror.”
Roscoe joined them. He appeared to be in good spirits, as if unfazed by the day’s events.
“Good news, laddie, Lord Drakar released me from feudal service. We can leave as soon as we gather everybody up. Torgul’s off lookin’ for the others now.”
Thurmond looked about him, at the shattered encampment and broken men.
“Roscoe—I was just talking to Sarah. This was our first big battle, and it’s making us really doubt ourselves. How do you feel?”
“Well, boyo, this was my first big one as well, so it was. But my part in it wasn’t much different than many little scraps I’ve been in, some of ‘em with you beside me. Anyway, we didn’t come across the river tryin’ to kill our neighbors. Them Keltins did that, so we didn’t have no choice but to try and stop em.”
“Then why do I feel bad about killing them?”
“Maybe because you feel no hate for ‘em. You could see that them and us fightin’ each other didn’t make a whole lot of sense.”
“It does seem pretty stupid—all this killing for no real reason.”
“Aye, maybe so. But that’s the way things be, stupid or not.”
When Torgul and the others arrived, Roscoe’s face brightened.
“We’re done here, so let’s go home. I’d like to sleep in my own bed tonight.”