End-Ero: Vaqui Battle

Battle was joined when Shor rested at his highest seat in the sky. One week before, a Firewatch Rider patrol had discovered the Vaqui tribe’s ceremonial javelin of war embedded just inside the border marker at the edge of the Ironlands. There was no need for further discussion or the exchange of emissaries, all that remained was to call the levy.

Miners and smelters and smiths, all armed themselves for the battle to come. They marched out from Irontown with their tall shields and long spears, short javelins and butcher-blades. Helmed and dressed in steel and iron according to their means, armed in accordance with the traditions of their people, they shone immaculate under Shor’s light like polished mirrors. Standing in ranks upon the low rise, ready to lock their shields together and do battle in the way their ancestors had for generation out of rememberance.

 Their enemies, in contrast, the hate Vaqui, were dirty with the coal they burned in profligate cooking fires, it being their style to rub the stuff around their eyes and into their hair. They had no discipline, no order in their equipment, grouping themselves together as clans and bearing what meager weapons came to hand. Many waved blades and picks of good iron, purchased in the past when times were more peaceful and trade flowed between the two peoples without acrimony. Long and long ago, before rust and ill-use pitted the honest metal and made it fragile. Their only advantage was in the greatness of their numbers, and there was a significant disparity in that accounting.

Nine hundred Ironborn men stood in silence upon the hill, while over three thousand Vaquis stamped and screamed and chanted. It was a good many for Irontown to provide, enough to make some fathers worry for the women left at home; with so many protectors in the field, treachery became a real threat. But the danger was no less real should battle be joined closer to home, when flankers and deserters from the fight might find their way into the nearby houses.

Nemo was in the Smelter contingent, the strong left flank opposite the more numerous Miner wing. In the center were the Smiths, a hard core for the Vaquis to smash themselves like so many tumbling rocks on the face of a mountain. Their ranks were loose, well-spaced and staggered to give men room for their throwing arms. As for the men of the Firewatch… they played their own game, and beat their own drums when the time was right. For himself, the young man stood in the front line with his fellows, shield against his chest with a spare javelin through the strap, the other in his hand, his longer fighting spear thrust butt-spike first into the loamy earth underfoot.

Their battle-hymn complete, the Vaquis started forward across the field, trampling grass and brush underfoot. Men ran ahead of the lines to be the first to cross the border, toppling the carved markers over to signify that they were here to take Ironborn lands. Roaring for a triumph they had not earned, the barbarians rushed forward in a mass. As they came within the range of the javelins, a senior Ironborn blew his whistle.

Reverse javelin, draw back over shoulder, advance shield, advance left foot, pivot, release. Nemo grunted with the effort of his cast as his shield swung down in counterweight to the direction of his body, using its mass to turn his entire body sharply into the throw. Recovering himself, he drew the second javelin even as he watched the first arc down the hill and sink its iron head directly into the chest of a Vaqui. He felt little exultation in the kill, his first ever, for that one death seemed so little amongst the sudden carnage. Screams of pain and fear sounded in chorus as the bravest and quickest Vaqui men were scythed down under a hail of spears, only to redouble as the second flight found their mark just seconds later. Over a thousand unarmored savages were brought low in the space of a few short breaths as every Ironborn man on the field hurled his two spears and readied the longer third.

Nemo snatched his pig-sticker out of the earth and drew back into the formation with his fellows, whooping along with them as the enemy tried to rally for another charge. Even to his inexperienced eye, it was clear that a great many of those black-smeared cowards were looking for their escape. Now would be the best moment to strike, when the Vaquis were most confused, most stricken with doubt.

“We can kill them all,” he said, nudging the man to his right. Much older, and a veteran of several less decisive battles, the man shook his head. “Let’s just get them!”

“Not the plan, boy,” Gotyan said quietly, shifting his shield ever so slightly. In so doing, he gave Nemo a few more inches of protection, but also held him back from his incipient charge. “Just wait. You’ve done your job, now wait for the order.” At that moment, a stone banged off his shield with a hollow bang, scattering splinters over the pair as they ducked.

“Shields!” someone shouted, and the front rank knelt and slammed the bottom edge of their broad shields into the earth. Stepping forward, the second rank angled their own along the top edge of the first row’s, and the third did the same behind them. This makeshift wall shed the staccato rain of slingstones and darts like so much water off of a tile roof, until the sharp end of a spear found its way into a gap and an Ironborn man went down with the point in his thigh. He was dragged away and another man stepped into his place.

“This is what we want!” Gotyan was shouting to Nemo over the hammering, seeming otherwise untroubled by events as they unfolded. “Let them beat on us a little, so long as they stay put!”

Shaking his head, Nemo let out a laugh that was only a little hysterical. “I was just thinking,” he answered Gotyan’s furrowed brow, “Every job we do seems to be loud as hell. Mining, smelting, smithing, fighting. It all sounds just about the same, and yet I like this a lot better!”

“Get your years and join the Watch, then,” Gotyan yelled back, his last words sounding loud as the barrage suddenly ceased. “Shit, here we go, up!”

They broke the shield wall and stood, shaking themselves out again just in time to receive the rush of screaming Vaquis who had apparently crept up the hill on their bellies while the targeteers kept the Ironborns’ heads down. Nemo thrust at the first man to enter his sector, a rangy git with teeth as black as his eyes in a howling face. A rusty short sword never made it to the flesh it was aimed for as the man ran himself straight onto the questing spear, going down with the shaft in his belly. Nemo released the weapon with a spat curse, yanking his sword out and shoving forward with his shield to deflect the next attacker.

It took all his concentration to fight in concert with the men to left and right, but he had been drilled well and hard since he was a boy. Their advantage was in unity, and it was his job to cover Fust to his left, just as Gotyan covered Nemo. In return, Nemo chopped the hand off of a man threatening Gotyan with a long hay fork, and was spattered with blood when Fust opened the throat of a man who grabbed Nemo’s shield with his bare hands and tried to drag it away. From behind the leather and wood wall of his shield, Nemo stabbed and cut, stabbed and cut until his hand was soaked in gore to the elbow and ached from the weight of his sword. He needed water, he needed rest, and he needed to piss.

A whistle blew. Someone tugged on his belt. Moving like a well-greased machine, Nemo faced right and side-stepped to the second row. Out of his sight, the man who had been behind him advanced into the space he had opened and joined the battle, bellowing his challenge. Still shuffling in the narrow space between two files, Nemo made his way to the rear, trying not to jostle the other men as he went. When he reached the last man, he checked him with his shoulder and grinned wildly.

“Five minutes up already?”