Every muscle in Necrem’s upper body tensed as the breastplate slid over his shoulders. His violet shirt, damp with sweat, clung to his body. Fastening the belt around his waist glued the formed metal plates against his chest and back from the wet cloth.
I didn’t fight in my last breastplate. He flexed his arms, making sure he had full range of movement and that the two plates didn’t pinch or dig into his sides. There was no time to fix them if they had.
A low grumbling piqued his interest. Radon was perusing the rack of armor and picked out one of the pauldrons.
Necrem could tell immediately it was the left set. After all, he had forged them.
He raised his left arm, sticking it out from where he sat on his stool so Radon could fit it over his shoulder and bicep.
He’s still upset.
Radon’s reddened scowl gave him the appearance of a dried grape. His scraggily, days-old beard added to the grimace. Tiny hairs stook out in all directions over his face from neither of them having time to shave with the demanding work. His face had taken on that expression the moment after the commandant had told him the marquesa said it was time.
Necrem winced as Radon buckled the pauldron’s leather strap under his arm. He bucked the other strap holding the three plates across his bicep himself. That plate on, Radon returned to the rack, the muttering starting up soon after.
“You shouldn’t be mumbling to yourself,” Necrem said. “Everyone will think you’re going senile.”
Radon hawked spit off to the side and hefted the other pauldron off the rack. “You joking at a time like this isn’t good either.”
Necrem held out his right arm for the old smith as he stormed back and slammed it down on his shoulder.
“You told me,” Radon grumbled, this time loud enough for Necrem to catch, “and everyone else with ears, that you weren’t a soldier.”
“I’m not,” Necrem grunted from how tight Radon was securing the buckles.
“Then why are you doing this?” Radon dashed in front of him and clapped his hands down on the pauldrons. The metal sang out, but the minor impact was blunted. “If you’re not a soldier, then you have no business going out there in front of calleroses! You may be big, and you may scare everyone that looks at you, but that won’t do you any good in a Bravados. You know that! Those bastards out there will be riding around on their horses, looking down at you as some idiot bumpkin they get to boast about killing. And they’ll do it, too, Oso—you know they will! The Bravados is their sport.”
Necrem’s ears twitched from quiet metal ticks. Radon clutched the top plates of his pauldrons, his shaking grip failing to reach through the padding while the metal clicked together.
The soft scrubbing of a brush against leather stopped. Necrem glanced down at Oberto knelt beside him, stiffly shaking as he tried to remain as still as possible. He held the shoe brush over the toe of Necrem’s right boot with his ear slightly raised.
A loud knock came from the front post holding up the stall.
“We’re closed!” Radon growled.
Hezet pulled the canvas flap back and stepped inside. The veteran paused at the entrance, swallowing at the grizzled smith snarling at him. He wore Lazornian armor and uniform now, carrying his helmet under his arm with a round shield strapped to his back and sword on his hip. His spirit brightened when he spotted Necrem.
“Well, smith”—he laughed—“finally decided to enlist right at the end, huh?” He put his hands on hips, smiling as if an old friend had come for a visit.
“It’s nothing like that,” Necrem replied.
Hezet raised an eyebrow. “Then why the armor? Good armor, too.”
“What business is it of yours?” Radon demanded, pointing back the way Hezet had come. “This forge is closed and likely won’t reopen. Go somewhere—”
“Radon!” Necrem snapped. “This is Hezet. We were conscripted together before Compuert Junction.”
“Guess you were one of the lucky ones.” Radon snorted, dropping his arm and looking Hezet up and down. “Got taken in by the Lazornian marquesa, too, did ya?”
Hezet shrugged. “Her officers did make recruiting sound better than being taken as a laboring prisoner of war. The pay’s better, too.”
“That makes sense.” Radon softened at the talk of money and wandered back to the armor rack, mumbling to himself again.
Hezet looked between him and Necrem, perplexed at what to do next.
“Did they make you an officer?” Necrem asked, attempting to change the subject.
“Hmm?” Hezet raised his head up, blinking. “They did, amazingly. Talk started about making me a sergeant after I showed a few I had some knowledge with a blade as well as a pike. Even sparred with some to prove I can hold my own. These Lazornians do have some peculiarly high standards for common footman.”
“And yet, you seem to have met them.”
Necrem meant it as a compliment. The Lazornians had a higher standard for the armor the marquesa wanted fitted on those former sioneroses. Despite the limited time and resources, the officers weren’t shy of looking over the finished work and throwing plate back, demanding it be redone.
“I did,” Hezet said proudly. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “However, upon receive my rank, my new capitán pulled me out line with transfer orders to report to a newly formed company to escort someone called”—he unfolded the paper and squinted down at the writing—“Steel Fist for further orders.” The veteran raised his eyebrows over the scrap of paper, back at Necrem. “I thought you hated being called that.”
Necrem squeezed and released his knees, his shoulders hunched, rubbing the pauldrons against the breastplate.
Oberto began brushing his boots again. It was something the commandant had suggested, and the boy had become strangely set on trying to make the worn leather shine.
“I think that’s as good as they’re going to get, Oberto,” he said. “Fetch the shin plates.”
Oberto hastily nodded. He tossed the brush aside in his scramble for the armor rack, getting a chuckle out of Hezet.
“I’ve been asked to challenge the Bravados,” Necrem said blankly.
Hezet smirked. “Right.”
Necrem sat straight and kept his gaze from wavering.
Hezet blinked. His smirk turned from confused frown to stunned, mouth-gaping shock. “What? That’s impossible!”
“That’s the most popular opinion of the day,” Radon chided, bring over Necrem’s elbow plates while Oberto brought the shin plates. Necrem pushed off his knees to stand up and make it easier for them fit the arm on him.
“It was a request,” he explained. “From the marquesa.”
“The Lazornian marquesa herself asked you to go into the Bravados?” Hezet said, still gawking at him.
“Yes.” Necrem bent his elbows, one after the other, once Radon had strapped on the plates. He needed to move his arms if he was to do what the marquesa had asked of him.
Oberto strapped on the shin plates over his bootlegs, tugging them as tight as he could make them.
“Is she wanting you to challenge Borbin’s calleroses?” Hezet shook his head. “Recruiting you is one thing, but to throw you against calleroses . . . that’s insane!”
“That’s what I’ve been telling him!” Radon piped up, finished with the other elbow plate. He pointed at Hezet. “I knew I liked you from the moment you walked in here. Good luck talking sense into this one.” He thumbed up at Necrem. “Head’s made of adamant, it is.”
I’m not that stubborn. Necrem grunted, watching Radon go to the rack and pick up the knee plates.
“The way I understand it,” he explained, “the marquesa doesn’t want me to fight.”
“Then, with all due respect, she doesn’t know what a Bravados is,” Hezet said dryly with a skeptical look. “Campaigns have been decided on Bravados’ victories alone.”
“She knows that.”
Necrem knew it, too, having witness several years ago. The Bravados always felt archaic. Calleroses challenging each other in front of their respective armies, dueling each other as their men shouted insults, as if they were fighting in a tavern. All the while, their marquéses were talking behind their backs to determine whose men would be sold off.
“But not all Bravados end up in a fight,” he added.
Both Radon and Oberto paused in buckling his knee plates.
Hezet studied him. He looked at his armor, more akin to the heavier plate of calleroses. He turned to the remaining plates still hanging on the rack and stared.
Necrem followed it to the pair of darkened steel gauntlets hanging from leather cords off the rack. When his knee plates were fastened, he walked past the rack to a side table. He didn’t wear all the armor pieces yet, and they were heavier than his former plate and better made. On the table sat a metal canister of his face salve and the steel mask he had finished that morning, now with a cloth lining the inside and leather cords dangling from the corners.
“You’re not going to answer a calleros’s challenge,” Hezet said. “You’re going to make your own challenge!”
“Welcome to the madness,” Radon said.
“Oso, you can’t do that!” Hezet exclaimed.
“Do you remember that night at the junction, Hezet?” Necrem asked, reaching behind his head to undo the knot holding his leather mask. “All that talk, you and the other old soldiers telling the young boys what was going to happen, how the Bravados worked?”
Hezet snorted behind him. “That feels . . . long ago now.”
“It does,” Necrem agreed, laying down his leather on the table and letting his face breathe. Each of his hissing breaths drew air in from all three sides of his face. His scars were dry and crusty, in need of a heavy layer of salve before he put the steel mask on. Flabs of skin hung down, and drool pooled around the gaps in his cheeks.
“Remember how you told it?” He picked up the metal canister, popping open the canister’s lid with his palm. “In a Bravados, the calleros making the challenge makes the rules, while his men cuss.” He frowned into the can, finding only enough salve for this coat. He could make out the bottom of the can beneath the thin layer of fatty, yellow paste.
Too late to ask Doctor Marron for more.
He dipped his fingers into the salve, the greasy gob squeezing between his fingers as he scooped out a hefty portion.
“How do you plan on making your challenge?” Hezet asked. “Or is the marquesa doing that for you?”
“I wanted to ask you”—Necrem smoothed out the salve across the right side of his face, working the sticky mess into every crevice of scarred flesh and holding in the urge to spit from the invading, salty taste—“if you could do the challenging for me.”
“Me?” Hezet’s voice cracked, followed by a thud from dropping his helmet.
Necrem smiled, despite his taut skin.
A dry, retching gargle came from his left. He caught himself from turning his head, yet watched Oberto slink away, hand over his mouth, face paling.
Necrem turned his face away, gathering more salve to lather that side. “Not a pretty sight, is it, lad?”
“That’s what you get for not minding your own business,” Radon whispered a hiss, presumably at Oberto.
“I just . . .” Oberto softly whined. “I didn’t know . . .”
“I’ll need to know why, Oso,” Hezet said. “I can see why the marquesa would want you, a man who did what you did at the Compuert Junction. Stories like that would be a boon to any company’s morale. But . . . you’re a smith.” He cleared his throat and snickered. “I’m an old soldier that had nowhere to go, no family to get back to, and needed the deberes. But you . . . you got a family, Oso. If you’re ever going to see them again, you should just stay with the other smiths until this is over. One way or the other.”
Necrem’s fingers fell still against his face. The salve seeped into his scars, bringing moisture back around the stitches. In a shock to all of them, he turned around and displayed his face, every scar, pulled stitch, and gaping hole, to them.
Hezet winced and, with each passing second, withered under the flickering impulse to look away. Radon’s sour scowl evaporated, replaced with wide-eyed paleness as he instantly turned away.
“Borbin did this to me,” Necrem hissed. His chest swelled against his breastplate, heart hammering against bone and steel alike to say that aloud after all these years. “I’ve lived with . . . this, and I . . . refused to say anything about it. All I ever wanted was to . . . just live with my family.” His chin wobbled. The stiches on his face, though lubricated, stretched taut, stinging him as his jaw clenched. “But Borbin and his calleroses ruined our lives.” He sharply swiveled his head to Radon, making the old man jump. “I forge scrap, horseshoes, nails, and knives for people who have nothing. My little miracle, Bayona, though she smiles all the time, she has gone to bed hungry once too often.
“My wife . . .” He turned, shaking from head to foot and hands balled into fists, to Hezet, “Eulalia . . . She can’t stand the sight of me!” His armor rattled from his body’s tremors. Angry tears escaped and rolled down his face, joining the salty salve in his scars. “I haven’t held my wife in ten years! How’s a man supposed to live like that?”
Hezet swallowed, bowing his head. Radon couldn’t face him, and Oberto hid behind the old man’s legs.
“I want to go home, but there’s no safe way home.” Necrem shook his head. “And that Lazornian marquesa, she plans to fight to the end. No matter what, there’s going to be a fight. And she was also right. I hate calleroses!
“It wasn’t Lazornians I fought that night at the junction, Hezet. No. I never saw one of their faces. I saw the calleroses who laid their hands on my Eulalia. I saw them that laughed and called her a whore! I saw Borbin laughing!”
He stood straight and reached around, picking up the metal mask. He pressed it against his face, the inside cloth clinging to the salve while the steel fell below his chin so he could move his jaw and speak if he needed. He tied the cord back behind his head with a tight yank.
“It’s not enough just to go home,” he said. “Go back and keep my head down and accept this is all there is.”
He moved over to the rack and picked out the right gauntlet. He turned the heavy-plated glove down and slid his forearm into it. His fingers clicked the small, overlapping plates together as they filled them. One sharp tug after the other fastened the greave’s buckles to his forearm. The gauntlet’s weight was that of a hammer, coating his entire hand and forearm.
He raised his hand, forming it into a fist. Metal plates scraped against each other, grinding and groaning under the tightening pressure until he could close it no further.
“The Bravados is supposed to test the mettle of each side, right?” he said lowly, his vision briefly narrowed and reddened around his raised fist. “I’m going to make them look at what they did. And if any of those calleroses answer me . . .”
He raised his head. Radon was as white as a canvas, having backed away several steps and shielding Oberto behind him. Hezet, however, stood taller, hand on his hilt and eyes beaming as if enthralled.
“Today, I will be Steel Fist.”
His last words hung in the air. Outside, marching footsteps, hurried voices, distant drums, and neighing horses clamored together, only to hush after leaking into the covered stall.
Radon hung back, trembling. Hezet’s breathing grew louder. His breastplate stuck out from his rising and falling shoulders. His beaming eyes burned with fire, and his lips twitched as if holding back a scream.
In an instant, his head snapped around to Radon, causing the old smith, and Oberto, to jump.
“You heard him!” the veteran barked. “Get the rest of his armor on! We have a Bravados to interrupt, and probably a battle to start. Move!”
His demanding, officer’s voice sent Radon and Oberto scrambling. As they hastily fitted Necrem with his remaining plate, Hezet picked up his helmet from the dirt.
“Master Sergeant Hezet, reporting!” he exclaimed, tying the helmet’s cheek guard strings underneath his chin. He snapped to attention, and a bright grin spread across his face. “Shall we interrupt the Bravados, Steel Fist?”
Necrem held his left forearm out for Radon to finish buckling the other gauntlet. He flexed and curled the fingers, testing them out, as well as the right again. Satisfied, he gave Hezet a hard look from over the rim of his metal mask, air hissing through the holes.
“Yes.”
~~~
Necrem struggled to keep up with the drumbeats through the long, dried stems of grass covering the field. He was getting used to the extra weight of the shin plates and had to make a conscience effort to lift his foot higher to step over or through the grass threatening to trip him with every step.
The last thing I need is to trip and fall.
“Light your matches and fall in!” an officer shouted.
The camp was in upheaval. Tents were coming down and being moved to make way for another army to march in. While they did, fresh companies formed up along the old outskirts, preparing to relieve those guarding the battle lines.
Musketeers formed single file lines, lighting their matches one after the other from a sergeant holding a lantern.
“Come on!” another officer yelled, waving his arm to guide them into line behind two rows of pikemen. “Move!”
“Load!”
To Necrem’s left, another company’s musketeers hastily rammed long rods down the barrels of their guns.
“Keep your powder pins closed unless ordered to open them,” their officer instructed. “And keep your matches burning.”
“Our company doesn’t have those new muskets,” Hezet commented beside him. “Well armed, but after drilling with them for a day, I can tell they’re a newly formed company.”
Necrem turned his head, but his pauldron and the rim of his helmet, joined with the uneven ground, made it impossible to look over his shoulder. “They’re former sioneroses. The marquesa commissioned every smith in the camp to improve their armor. I think they’ve been drilling them ever since we got here, too.”
In-between forging his own armor, Necrem and Radon had forged what they could for the sioneroses. Within the second day of the stalemate, the men they got had been happy to be measured, some mentioning it was better than being marched and carrying pikes all day.
Behind them marched three such companies. Most of their armor gleamed from polish, the army’s smiths having used up most of their stores to make it happen. Most lacked the uniforms of the other soldiers, though some had tried to dye their jackets or shirts purple with various results. All of them wore leather neck braces around their biceps like badges. To make them stand out even more, their company banners were black.
“Here’s hoping their drilling was enough,” Hezet whispered.
Other companies accompanied them marching out on the field. Here and there, square blocks of men made their way down, moving casually at their own pace, each on their way to relieve their designated counterpart on the line. A couple had already been relieved. The relieving company would wait patiently as the company on the line beat a disciplined withdrawal out of line until there was enough space for their counterpart to march in and replace them.
After the exchange, the newly arrived company would stand at rest, pike butts resting on the ground and men glaring at their counterpart yards away from them. The old company beat a steady march back to camp, keeping out of the way of other fresh companies.
“Rotating out in battle won’t be as easy as that,” Hezet mused. “Companies will have to merge with one another. The new boys rushing between the holding company’s lines and ranks to take their place while the tired men hold out the best they can.”
“Sounds complicated,” Necrem said.
“It requires a great deal of drilling. That’s why most try to avoid the hard battles.”
Beating hooves over the drum taps announced the calleroses before they rode up behind them.
“Column, halt!” one of them yelled.
Necrem stomped his feet into the ground with the rest. Being in armor brought out some of the training that had been drilled into him. Unfortunately.
Calleroses galloped around both sides of the column. As they formed their own column in front of him, a small group rounded in front of him, one bearing a large banner of Lazorna.
“Sir Oso!”
Necrem raised his head.
General Galvez rode up to him with his guard close behind. He held his hand in the air, which Necrem assumed was a greeting, and a wide smile shined from between his helmet’s cheek guards.
Necrem thought of moving aside for a second before the general turned and reined his silver stud to a halt a foot or two before running into him.
“Attention!” Hezet roared. His order was echoed by officers down the line, followed by bootheels stomping together and pike shafts slapping against shoulders and breastplates.
Necrem followed suit by standing straight and keeping his head up.
General Galvez looked him up and down then let out a whistle. “Sir Oso,” he said, “if ever a man was a sight on the battlefield, it is you! If I wasn’t horsed and saw you coming at me, I’d”—he shook his head and glanced at his guard behind him—“curse my sword as useless and pray to the Savior I’m faster than the next man.”
The calleroses behind General Galvez laughed.
Necrem spied Hezet faintly smirking out of the corner of his eye. As for himself, he remained silent.
General Galvez let the laughter die and sighed down at him. “Still stoic, I see.” His smile faded, and he straightened in his saddle. “Do you understand the battle plan for today?”
Necrem matched the general’s stare. “With respect, General, I’m not going into battle. Marquesa Mandas offered this to me, and I gave her my word I’d do it.”
The other calleroses frowned and mumbled to each other. General Galvez gave away nothing.
“That’s a strange way of looking at it,” the general said, “while you’re also walking out onto a battlefield. And believe me, Sir Oso, a Bravados is the center of a battlefield.”
Necrem looked out past the general and over the field. Two Orsembian calleroses were galloping up and down an empty corridor between the two armies’ battle lines, jeering and insulting the Lazornians as they rotated companies off. A smaller square of men stood out in front of the Orsembian line, the calleroses’ footman carrying their patron’s personal flag.
Necrem turned back to the general, gauntlets balling and tightening at his side. “As I said, I’m only keeping my word.”
General Galvez nodded. “I’ve been ordered to escort you onto the field before taking command of the left. Neither I, nor any other calleros, have been given permission to interfere with the Bravados. You’ll be on your own if you go through with this and if your challenge is met. However, once it is over, you are to pull back behind the battle line and stay there until ordered. Is that clear?”
“Yes, General.”
“Very good.” General Galvez spun his horse around then abruptly pulled it to a halt. “And if any of them are crazy enough to fight you,” he shouted over his shoulder, “crush them, Steel Fist!”
The calleroses fell in behind their general, passing hard glances as they rode by. He might march with them now, but the stares proved they remembered he got the name from crushing Lazornians.
Once the horses were moving, Necrem followed.
“Column, forward!” officers ordered behind him.
Drums started up again and marching feet resumed. The beating grew louder the farther Necrem went into the plain. Squares of companies marching toward the battle line. Squares of companies marching away. Each in step with their own drummers tapping out the same beat.
It was almost . . . maddening.
Not one man’s step was his own. Rather, they all walked as if reduced to blocks and shapes, crawling along the ground. Even the horses, plodding along in files of three, were included.
Necrem’s own heels found the drums’ call irresistible, falling in with the others, as if he were being drawn to the Bravados instead of choosing to go.
He rolled his shoulders, shifting his pauldrons, and looked about, desperate to satisfy his mind’s demand to take hold of his situation, to not get swallowed in.
“Have you ever been a part of a Bravados before, Hezet?” Necrem asked. A little late, but any respite from the drums around him would do. “Any calleros ever pick you for an entourage?”
Hezet snickered. “I’ve cussed up a storm a time or two from the lines.”
“Will you be all right speaking for me?” Again, it was too late to ask, but Necrem felt he should.
“I’m getting a chance to cuss right at a calleros’s face or two.” Hezet barked a laugh. “Who wouldn’t jump at a doing something so crazy? What about you? What are you going to do with that?” He thumbed behind them.
Trailing between them and former sioneroses were two three soldiers carrying an armor rack, a breastplate and helmet, and a shield.
“The marquesa asked if I could repeat what I did at the junction,” Necrem explained. “So, I will.”
Hezet hummed.
“What does that mean?” Necrem gave him a sideways glance.
“Just coming up with ideas before we stroll out there.”
Closer to the battle lines, the drumming became less intense with more and more companies rotating out, the relieved ones getting farther away and the replacements simply taking up their place.
General Galvez and his calleroses peeled off, revealing the line and waiting company capitán at the rear of his company. The officer stood at attention for the passing general, yet frowned concerningly as Necrem approached.
“Column, halt!” officers yelled behind him, and Necrem stopped with him.
The waiting capitán bounced his eyes between Necrem and Hezet expectingly.
Before he could say anything, a young officer, the company’s true capitán, rushed around them from the column and snapped a hasty salute.
“Company three-three-seven of the Third Army, reporting to take its place on the battle line!” the young capitán shouted. “You are relieved, sir!”
The waiting capitán gave Necrem and Hezet another wary look then gave his fellow officer a sharp nod. “We stand relieved,” he said. “Drummer! Beat rotation!”
Necrem wanted desperately to cover his ears from the infuriating taps. The image of putting his fist through the top of the drum also flashed through his mind. He would have walked into from behind if Hezet hadn’t jerked his elbow to alert him.
The exchange happened just as smoothly as rest, the old company pulling back and letting the first sioneros company to step into its place. Yet, the other two sioneros companies didn’t replace the companies to either side of the old one. Instead, they remained in squares behind the first on the line.
What are they here for?
Galloping hoofbeats killed Necrem’s curiosity. He spun to see an Orsembian calleros barreling toward the new company, crouching in the saddle, head down, and lance leveled in a charge.
“Pikes down!” the company capitán yelled, dashing into the middle of the ranks.
The first three rows of long poles fell in waves. The front rank planted the ends of their pikes in the dirt and held them at an angle. The second rank held their pikes out straight, and the third held theirs high over the heads of those in front of them. The rest behind them braced the backs of their comrades, their pikes’ wooden shafts knocking together.
“Pikes down!” The order echoed down the line as the Orsembian charged on.
The calleros was within ten feet before he reined in his horse. The animal screamed, its eyes wide and white from its head being jerked back. Its hooves dug into the dry ground, flinging clouds of dirt and dust into the pikemen’s faces. The calleros threw his head back and laughed, ignoring his horse prancing and kicking under him.
“You sniveling black-flaggers finally grew a backbone?” he yelled. “Or did they send the rest of them to stand behind you so you couldn’t run away this time?” He stuck his lance out and trotted his horse down their line. His lance’s head pinged and tinged off their pikes as he galloped by. One pikeman lunged. However, the calleros knocked him away with his lance as he passed, guiding his horse away before others could try the same.
And still, he laughed. Always laughing.
“Look at that!” he yelled, prancing his horse back out into the field with his lance raised in the air. “They did grow backbones and guile!”
Calleroses from across the space between the armies laughed. There were five other calleroses on horseback, nudging each other and pointing at the former sioneroses. Each’s armor was a little different in color and shape, signs they’d had their suits forged specifically for themselves. Behind them were personal retainers standing in small, separate squares. The calleroses joined their fellow in laughing and pointing at the pikemen, with their retainers adding in.
“They finally think themselves solders, do they?” one yelled with his gauntlet cupping his mouth.
“They certainly weren’t soldiers a few days ago!” another yelled. “Running like squealing pigs.”
“And ending up as stuck pigs!”
They shared a boisterous laugh, and Necrem glowered over his mask.
Laughing.
His fists balled until the plates in his gauntlets squealed in protest and their edges dug into his fingers through the gloves’ thick fabric. The laughter buzzed in his ears, drowning everything out as those from ten years ago answered them in his mind. Always laughing.
Someone grabbed him by the elbow. He jerked it away, forcing Hezet to jump back, warily looking up at him.
“This is your last chance,” the veteran warned. “If you walk out there, you’ll have to go through with it. Otherwise . . .” He cautiously looked over his left shoulder to watch General Galvez and his calleroses trotting toward that side of the field.
“I’m fine,” Necrem replied lowly. His breath hissed through the mask’s steel holes.
Hezet swallowed then took a few deep breaths. “Well then”—he straightened his armor, running his hands along his belt to loop his thumbs under—“I best go smart off before they all run away. I am rusty at this. I might make a fool of myself.”
“Be honest to them,” Necrem advised. “A common man giving them an honest opinion is something they can never stomach.”
“You sure you don’t want to tell them off?” Hezet smirked. However, it drained away when Necrem looked at him and shook his head.
He cleared his throat, set his shoulders, then made for the gap between the companies on the line. Necrem followed a few paces behind with the men carrying the extra suit of armor at his back.
“Stand easy, men,” the different officers of each company urged.
The men, glaring across the field, took easy breaths as they stepped apart and raised their pikes to rest them on the ground.
Necrem caught confused and wondering looks as he walked between them.
“Pardon, calleros!” Hezet shouted firmly and directly, the tone of a soldier to a superior with his shoulders back and head high. He snapped to attention in front of the former sioneros company. “Pardon, but we men of foot would have words with you!”
“What’s he doing?” someone whispered to Necrem’s left.
“We were ordered not to talk back,” another whispered. “Weren’t we, Sergeant?”
More whispers spread, and officers in the ranks hushed the men. It was too late, anyway, as the Orsembian calleros turned his horse around.
“What’s this?” the calleros spat back. “No Lazornian calleros has the courage to face us, but they send a footman to talk for them?”
“Apologies if you are disappointed, Cal,” Hezet shouted back. “The calleroses and officers of Lazorna have more important duties. But speaking for the footmen, if you’re going to make charges like that, you would kindly give us some relief!”
“Relief?” The calleros couched his lance in the crook of his elbow with a bored sneer visible under his helmet.
“Yes, Cal! If you would kindly plant yourself on the end of our pikes, it would save us from having to listen to you, Cal! Such a thing would be a relief more Savior blessed than rain to all of us right now!”
Sporadic, surpassed snickers sprinkled through the ranks.
Then a chuckle.
Then a bursting hiss.
In a company over, someone slammed his pike butt into the dirt. More joined in the beating, and those carrying shield slapped their fists against them. Men shouted throughout the ranks in agreement, waving their pikes or muskets.
“You forget your place, footman!” the calleros spat, thrusting his lance at Hezet. “This is the Bravados. Unless your calleros have finally come to answer our challenges with one of their own, run back to your sniveling marquesa before I waste my time running you down for speaking so impertinently to your betters!”
“Pardon, Cal, but I was unaware there were any who could call themselves my betters on the field. Permit me to confer with my comrades.”
Hezet sharply spun on his heels, never breaking his straight posture. “Gentlemen!” he shouted. “Company three-three-seven of pike! Do any of you see anyone one the field that are our betters?”
“No!” men yelled, in the company and up and down the line, in response, brandishing their weapons at the Orsembians across the gap. A floodgate of pent-up frustration had been opened, snarls, spitting, and rude gestures abound from the men.
Necrem snorted at watching Hezet rile everyone up. And he said he was rusty.
Hezet spun back around, snapping his heels together and faced up at the calleros now glaring at him. “To the calleroses of Orsembar!” he shouted. “We, footmen of the Lazornian Third Army, bring you a challenge. Sir Necrem Oso!” He beat his fist up into the air, shouting and chanting in fury, “Steel Fist! Steel Fist! Steel Fist!”
The men in the ranks shared looks at one another.
“What’s he doing?” one whispered to Necrem’s left
“Who is he shouting for?” another asked.
“Wait! The junction! Men in the First Army talked about a man . . .”
Necrem slipped out from between the companies.
Hezet saw him, his face red from hollering. The veteran kept yelling, pumping his fist in the air at the men behind them and the calleroses across the gap.
The men in the front ranks watched Necrem in silence, their heads craned upward and turned with his every step.
“Steel Fist!” a soldier yelled to the company in the left. “Steel Fist!”
More shouts rose after the first, though most watched quietly, more intrigued than excited.
Men set up the armor rack, and Necrem pointed at two of them to stay; one held the shield and the other stood behind.
“What was that?” the calleros mocked.
“They don’t have any calleroses to challenge us, Enostio!” One of his fellows behind him laughed. “Looks like they brought out an armorer instead!”
“And he’s brought his wares to sell!”
The calleroses’ following laughter sounded pretentious, yet still grating.
Hezet grimaced, first back at the ranks and then to Necrem.
“Let’s get on with it,” Necrem reminded him.
Hezet snorted, casting one last disappointed glare at the ranks before facing the calleroses again. “Calleroses of Orsembar,” he yelled, “a challenge is made! A Bravados of fists!”
The laughter stopped, followed by the calleroses sharing confused looks.
“There’s no such thing, you ignorant footman!” the one called Enostio, the calleros who had charged, yelled. “The Bravados is of the sword! Of the spear! Of the horse! None of this fist nonsense.” He waved dismissively. “If you’re going to be a bore, do it to your calleroses too stupid not to tell you the difference.”
“Since they obviously fraternize with their lesser ranks and allow you to wander where you don’t belong!” another calleros added.
Necrem ground his teeth together. Drool pooled out between the gaps in his cheeks, dampening the cloth mask pressed against his face and making his every breath a wet hiss.
Always. Laughing.
“Cowards!”
His bellow shocked him along with everyone else. Hezet flinched and stepped away. Men shifted their weight, their armor rustling. Some cautiously coughed. The calleroses across the way and their men stood in stunned silence.
Necrem had thought to let Hezet do all the talking, but he couldn’t stop the words flowing out of his mouth.
“Cowards!” He pointed his gauntleted finger at them. “Thieves! Liars!” His cheeks warmed, and his hot breath blew back in his face, unable to fully slip through the mask holes. “All of you calleroses! All of you, always sitting and ordering working men about and providing nothing in return. Nothing!”
He shook from the bottom of his souls to his shoulders. Heart pounding in his ears, he could barely hear himself, making him shout louder. Ten years of holding his tongue. Ten years of accepting things as they were. Ten years of trying to put shattered pieces back together while ignoring something he was too proud to admit he held. Resentment poured out him like molten iron, bubbling hot and hissing.
“Year after year, we try to build!” His hands stretched out before him, the interlocking metal plates clinking and tinging from the excessive shaking. “And year after year, you take it away! You take our food! You take our deberes! You take us from our homes! You’ve even taken our families! And for what?” Necrem raised his fists in the air. His teeth clicked together. His entire face burned and stung, but he ignored it as the world took on a red hue.
“Prove that you are men! On your own feet with your own two hands, like working men. Get off your comfy saddles, where you look down on us. Laugh at us! Always laughing! Prove your steel!” His demand turned into a roar. His knuckles popped inside his gauntlets from his tight squeeze. His teeth cracked. There was a stinging snap against his right cheek. One of the scars had cracked.
It all added fuel to his roar, more coal to the furnace inside that had been shut up for so long. The pressure building.
He needed to hit something!
He spun on his heels, rearing his fist back. The two men carrying the shield raised it in defense of themselves, faces pale and eyes wide with terror. Necrem crashed his fist against the shield’s rounded surface. Metal on metal grated the air with the powerful boom of a parish bell. The men holding the shield crumbled under the blow, collapsing onto each other. The shield itself now had a large dent in the center.
Yet, it wasn’t enough.
Necrem jerked the shield away from the men who were cowering and scrambling away. He turned around and held it up in the air, his grip tightening more and more around the rim.
Tighter.
Tighter.
Metal groaned. The leather and wood of the forearm straps inside moaned. Necrem’s biceps bulged, and the straps of his own armor soon joined the shield’s, crying from the strain. Sweat soaked his face, dripping off his mask. The taste of iron invaded his mouth. The cracked scar had started to bleed, yet still, Necrem pulled.
The shield let a yawn as metal bent.
Necrem let out a bellow and—
Snap!
The wood for the forearm brace exploded, raining splinters above his head. The shield’s round frame gave way and folded outward in screeching cry. Necrem held the bent metal over his head, arms throbbing against his armor’s straps with every heartbeat, and each breath a heavy, fuming hiss.
The calleroses stared at him. Their men shared nervous glances at each other while the Orsembian soldiers along the line looked between their calleroses and Necrem.
“Get off your frickin’ horse,” he spat.
The calleroses remained in their saddles, one of them looking back and forth at his fellows as if searching for someone else to dismount first.
Enostio fumbled with his reins. His horse snorted and pawed at the ground with a hoof, the animal recognizing a challenge his master ignored.
“Get off your frickin’ horse!” Necrem yelled, thrusting the misshapen scrap of the former shield at Enostio. “Prove you’re a man with your own two hands!” He threw the shield down with a reverberating clamor, leaving the metal sheets wobbling in the dirt, the rim bent and molded with the shape of his fingers.
Enostio’s horse snorted and danced under the calleros. Likely bred to fight, the animal wasn’t afraid. Enostio struggled with the reins, growling and muttering curses too low to reach across the field for Necrem to hear properly.
“Such a display of strength,” he said, finally getting his mount under control, “for a common rank. So common you obviously don’t understand. The Bravados is meant for civilized and honorable combat, that between warriors! Between calleroses! Not brawling in a saloon. But, if you’re so intent on bending your own arms, don’t let us stop you!” He let out another pretentious cackle, glancing over his shoulder too obviously. His fellows were a bit slow to join and not as loudly as before.
“Scared of getting your own armor bent?” Necrem called, cutting them off. “Or scared of taking it off?”
Enostio spat off to the side. “Watch your tongue, scum. You may have a strong arm, but your armor’s shit compared to ours!” He thumbed his fist against his breastplate. “Orsembian steel is the finest of all the marcs, and our smiths are the best. I can slice through your armor before mine even dents!”
Necrem locked eyes with the man.
He snorted.
A grating snicker later, and he threw back his head and laughed, rich and deep. It was a sick joke hearing a calleros compliment Orsembian steel after so long.
Hezet backed farther away from him, and grumblings went through the ranks behind him.
Enostio and the other calleroses pointed at him, shaking their heads as if he were mad.
“Awfully proud of your fancy suits, aren’t you?” Necrem gasped. “I should know. I’ve forged many of them!” He reached around and grabbed the top of the breastplate hanging on the rack, driving the rack’s prong feet into the ground. “But if you’re so proud of it, let me test it for you! Come on! Get off your frickin’ horse and let a steel-working man test your metal!”
He reared back and slammed his fist into the center of the plate. Crashing metal rang out again over the field. The gauntlet cushioned the blow for his knuckles, but the plate held. The rack held also, barely wobbling where it stood.
Necrem let go of its neck, pulling back and striking the other side of the breast with his left. The plate held. The rack remained standing. Metal sang in his ears. The world narrowed around the plate and that fading tune. All so familiar, but with a sharper feel.
He lashed out at the plate, raining blow after blow into the chest. The metal song drowned out the laughter, although he could see their faces. They flashed in the armor, changing with every punch.
The calleros guarding the steps of his and Eulalia’s wagon. His right fist dented the plate over the heart.
The calleros inside watching. An uppercut with his left bent in the plate against the ribs.
The calleros holding her down. A crack formed at the center of the plate running to the top of the neck.
The calleros violating her.
Necrem let out a roar. Moisture—spit mixed with blood—stained across the inside of the cloth mask, sticking it to his face. He punched faster. Harder! Not pulling all the way back before beating the plate now riddled with dents and the growing crack.
The rack snapped. Before it tumbled to the ground, Necrem seized it by the neck again and, with a yell, sent a right uppercut into the gut of the plate. His gauntlet struck. The plate caved in with a scraping screech.
When Necrem tried to pull back, the gauntlet’s metal plates hung in the armor. He pulled and jerked, snarling at the breastplate refusing to let go. He flexed his fingers, and the steel gave, revealing a caved-in hole punched through the plate.
Turning to face the calleroses across the field, he wrapped his fingers in the hole and heaved. At first, the steel held, an estimate of how well he had forged it. Necrem’s arms bulged once again and, keeping a firm grip on the neck, he pulled all the harder.
The steel croaked and creaked.
There was a pop.
Then—
Shriek!
The steel ripped louder than any piece of parchment as Necrem gutted the plate, pulling a long, curling sheet up the center to the crack. The ripped portion of metal rolled and curled around itself, the tear losing momentum at the neck rim, and Necrem left it there to hold up in the air.
“Let a steel-working man test the metal you’re so proud to wear!” he bellowed. “Get off your horse! I challenge you!”
He had never challenged another man to fight. His own past meant he couldn’t deny he had fought before. Those few times had always been after someone had done something to him or after they had hurt someone whom he cared about.
His throat tried to hold the words back, yet the desire forced them out. He couldn’t deny it. He wanted that calleros to get off his horse. He wanted to fight.
The field was quiet. The distant sounds of the camps behind the lines never reached them. Up and down both lines, all eyes turned toward the calleroses. Not a man coughed or spoke. Even their breaths were hushed and low.
Enostio turned his horse and spat.
Necrem tossed the ruined breastplate aside, seeing that as his answer. He took a step forward—
Enostio wheeled his horse without a word. He waved to his entourage and fellows, riding past them and between a gap in the Orsembian line. One by one, the other calleroses followed, spitting at Necrem as they wheeled their horses to ride back behind their lines, their soldiers watching and following them with their heads.
Necrem stared, shaking. His fists pulsed inside his gauntlets from using them as hammers against the breastplate. No matter how deep he breathed, no amount of air could calm him.
“Cowards,” he growled, glaring at their backs. “Cowards!”
“Cowards,” Hezet agreed.
“Cowards,” someone behind them echoed.
Another man repeated it. Then another. Men companies down the line spat in agreement.
“Cowards!” a soldier yelled.
“Cowards!” a group shouted in unison.
“Cowards!” an entire company roared.
“Cowards! Cowards! Cowards!” The chant grew up and down the Lazornian line. Pikes beat in the dirt. Drums sounded, tapping out. Fists slammed into shields. Swords waved in the air.
Ever muscle in Necrem’s body swelled. Every hair stood on end. Every breath of air he sucked in tasted sweater than the last. At last, the world saw the calleroses as he did. At last, other men had joined him.
At last, vindication!
In the thrall of the chant, he pumped his fist into the air and walked down the rank of former sioneroses, each man yelling with crazed eyes and spitting snarls.
“Cowards! Cowards! Cowards!”
His voice cracked, but he ignored it. His face burned, but he ignored it. His throat begged for water, but he ignored it. He could have kept yelling until his lungs burst and every calleros rode away in shame.
Men in red and black walked through the Lazorna line, two companies down from him. Those companies they walked between fell quiet.
Officers?
His fist hung in the air, missing a yell when he spotted the pink eye on the men’s chests.
Not officers.
Viden de Verda.
Behind them, they led disheveled men in once lavish and silk clothes by a long chain interconnected to collars on their necks. The Viden led the men out and forced each of them to their knees, kicking their legs out or driving fists into kidneys, whether they protested or not.
The last Viden to emerge wore steel vestments over his red robes with the pink eye emblazoned upon his chest. The Easterly Sun reflected off his bald head, but what was most striking, even at a distance, was his wide, milky eyes. He walked up to the prisoner kneeling in the center, out of nearly twenty, and raised his hands out to his sides.
“Hear me!” he yelled, his voice carrying as well as any deacon’s. “Hear me, Orsembians! Before me kneels Givanzo Borbin! Before me kneel betrayers! Men who claimed to take on the duties and lives of other men but did not! When the time came, these men offered to barter and sell their own!”
He reached to his side and slid a hammer out of his belt with a head too small for metal work, but a wicked spike on the end of it. He thrust it at the Orsembian line.
The calleroses who had ridden away had returned, gawking over the heads of the ranks in front of them.
“Hear these words, Orsembians!” the Viden yelled. “I bring you the words of La Dama Recha Mandas, Marquesa of Lazorna! She will never surrender a single soul under her charge! She will never betray her people! This is her answer to your Si Don.” He raised his hammer over his head. “Begone with the Rules of Campaign. Vengeance comes . . . now!”
His hammer swing was smooth, a technique fit to be seen in a forge. The song of steel didn’t ring when he struck, the hammer’s spike driving into the top of Givanzo’s skull before the man knew it. In stunned silence, his skull cracked open and sprayed blood on the faces of the men beside him.
The prisoners gawked in shock. The men with blood on their faces stared in stunned disbelief until the Viden wrenched his hammer free and smashed Givanzo’s skull in with a second blow.
“Wait!” one begged as another Viden pulled his head back by the hair then drove a dagger into the man’s eye, forcing the entire blade in man’s head.
The other cultist fell on the prisoners with all the ferocity of mellcresas. Knives slit throats. Daggers gauged out eyes before being driven into brains. Hammers crushed skull. The hapless, chained men wailed, thrashed, and begged, but the Viden butchered in absolute silence. No cruel, mocking retorts. No curses. No righteous sentiments. No pity. No hesitation.
Just cold slaughter.
A cry came from across the field, followed by pounding hooves. Scattered Orsembian calleroses rushed between their soldiers ranks, lances leveled or swords waving, toward the killing ground.
“Musketeers, front!”
The order was repeated down the entire Lazorna battle line. Two ranks of musketeers filtered through each company and took up positions a few feet into the field.
“First rank!” an officer yelled. “Blow match!”
Red embers blazed as each man blew on their matches. Small wisps of smoke drifted around their faces. All down the line.
“Present!” the officers yelled and, as one, the front ranks leveled their muskets.
“Open pans!”
The musketeers made a flicking motion on the side of their stocks.
The calleroses were closing in. Drums beat down the Orsembian line. Officers stepped out in front of their companies, waving their swords across the field. Spears dropped and men started to—
“Fire!”
The world erupted!
In a bellowing pitch of smoke and flashes of fire, a thousand muskets went off. Calleroses tumbled from their saddles. Horses, tripped by an invisible hand, rolled head over hoof, crushing their riders. Their charge fell apart, and men who hadn’t begun to move dropped where they stood.
“Second rank!” Lazornian officers yelled. “Step forward!”
The process repeated. Matches were blown, muskets were leveled, pans were opened, and then—
“Fire!”
Necrem envisioned the ground splitting open to engulf the space between the two armies from the fire and sulfur. Added to that was the cry of wounded and shocked men. He stood and watched men across the field drop—some holding their limbs, their heads, their sides; some dropping to the ground and never getting up.
“Pikes, forward!”
Lazornian drums tapped the march. Every company, except the one behind him, moved forward, absorbing their musketeers and stepping over the butchered Orsembians whom the Viden had left to rot on the field. Pikes dropped, and men yelled as the Lazornians pressed to attack.
Necrem turned back, finding General Galvez pointing and giving orders to the subordinates around him. More Lazornian companies were marching down from the camp, now in their own lines.
The general’s words came back to him. The Bravados is the center of a battlefield.