Chapter 31 - the Great Tempering II
Over the course of any large battle, groups of fighting men are arranged. Some groups are easily seen. For instance, the men on horses. Or great masses of stand and fight infantry. Even the supply men, seen with small, fast, nimble carts and wagons.
Subgroups of the various groups emerge. Heavy horses, for cavalry and supporting the infantry. Lighter, faster horses for hit and run, stick and move units. Individual messengers and various specialty units. Medical, water, small transportation, etc.
There are also leaders. The North Star, for example, was well known to obey the old ways about it. The North Star always led the battle right at the front, and he was well known to charge directly into the heart of it. Not all kings do this, however. Kings that do this, have infinitely more respect from their men they are leading from the front.
The men first and foremost have more respect for an up front war leader. More morale as well also. The men take heart seeing their leader running the same risks they themselves are taking. The bragging rights are obvious as well. A king who sat behind the lines, or didn't even attend a battle? Had little to brag about if he was not thought too old, or if he was not known to have any great tactical planning.
Kings that engage in battle, almost always have a sword bearer. Even if the man goes by another name, he is still the right hand man for the king when he is on the battlefield. A sword bearer is not some ceremonial position, in that he actually rarely carries the king's sword.
This man is simply one of the finest hard asses the king can have around him for his protection. Heralds, while nice to look at and all, are utterly useless in battle. The North Star's sword bearer, although he was not called such, was naturally Wulfgar.
By reputation, The Wolf had one of the best sword arms in the kingdom, if not the finest one at that. He was already the king's right hand man, he already was in command of all the Heyermannen, and all the men under the Heyermannen. It was only natural therefore, that he was a constant fixture during any battle.
With his legendary ice in his veins, Wulfgar had the uncanny ability to look and see things an ordinary man in his position might not see. While taking a drink of water, for instance. The Wolf was not simply getting thirst quenched… he used this little break to scan the battle. See if anything was amiss.
A group of particularly tough units making a mess of things, or some individual champion raising too much hell. Such things would take Wulfgar's attention, and he would fight his way over and deal with it. Wulfgar's normal way of dealing with things, at least on the battlefield? Was to simply dispatch the problem. His cool, calm demeanor coupled with his quick results… gave his men extra morale.
The High King, Wulfgar, and usually a band of others that were sticking with them would raise all manner of hell, right in the middle up front. They attracted better men to come and get them, and they always dispatched these men. They also moved towards objectives. A King, generals, squad leaders, what have you they felt would create disarray in the enemy.
During this big battle, some sort of champion group became all but too obvious. Such sub-groups went by different names, and it didn't really matter what they were called in their lands… on this battlefield, on this particular day? They were simply a group of pains in the asses. They were taking too many men out, and they were also obviously making for the North Star and for Wulfgar.
Ryeamund had taken Wulfgar's line of sight, and circled around and fought his way up behind them. Arroch, Theyer and Sooth were a small band up within the area as well. These three helped flesh out the central core they all formed, but if Ryeamund broke off and went for anything, they usually took his lead.
When Ryeamund fought his way over and around to attack the rear flank of this group of ass pains, he had their attention. It became obvious Ryeamund was a target, and they wanted him. Ryeamund fell back, with Arroch and Theyer and Sooth around him. This group stayed with them. Apparently, Ryeamund was a prize to get to.
Rather than stay with the core group, Ryeamund made the decision to move off. This drew the band with him. It provided more protection at the moment than he could give the High King and The Wolf by being there; by moving off? He drew off what was most prickly and dangerous.
Arroch and Theyer and Sooth were taking Ryeamund's left and right side, and his back. Different of them performed each position as they were there, it was not an assigned thing, it was fluid and simply happened. Various sub-bands of men were formed throughout the High King's army in this fashion. Men that trained, lived, and fought together had their own pecking orders and their own sub-bands within the great-house structure.
Ryeamund was well known to take orders easily from Arroch, he always had. He also had a well earned reputation for simply acting when the need arose. It was easy for Ryeamund to have no time to explain something; he would just hand out a few words then go and set off on it.
When all three oxen moved back with him, they were eventually on the edge of the huge writhing mass of mess that was the battle. Ryeamund decided to act.
"Arroch! You and the oxen… stay with the Wolf and the King! These men want me for a trophy? I'll give them their chance! Go!!"
Ryeamund pointed his ax towards the core group, for them to get back to. On the edge of the battle now, their movement to circle around to work back to their spot was easier. Ryeamund also quickly proved that he himself was their desired trophy. When Arroch and the oxen did as he bid them, this band of pains in the asses came out with him.
Ryeamund kept moving around, drawing them to him. He could see he was having the effect he wanted as well. The carnage around the King, created by mainly Wulfgar, went back to normal. These men were a problem, and they needed dealt with. Once all of them were more or less assembled, out here where they could have some quality time together? Ryeamund moved around as erratically as him and his horse could.
Then? He suddenly turned and fled. The men took the bait, then they all raised a cheer and followed. Ryeamund had the lead in the chase, because when he quit moving around and simply whirled and bolted… it was a sudden change. He had previously been teasing around them, bolting in and darting back out. When he committed to his run, and they saw it? They followed quickly.
Ryeamund gave his horse all the gentle spur he dared. The edge of the field was near. He rode into the underbrush at full tilt. Leaning with the horse as it navigated around trees. The underbrush was very thick here, and quickly became too much for the horse. Ryeamund leaped off adroitly, and took off on foot. Nothing moves through the heavy trees and underbrush so much as a professional woodcutter. When the band of pains in the asses had to abandon their horses to follow? Ryeamund was happy about it. He had a commanding lead on the foot chase and he meant to keep it.
Ryeamund knew this area. There was a small funnel that led to a swamp. Ryeamund headed directly for it. Ryeamund actually baited the men by whistling to let them know where he was. This kept them focused on him, and it kept them together. If they lost him, they would fan out too wide for his plan. He needed them tight together and hot on his heels.
When the underbrush turned into wet grass, then into mud grass, and finally into ankle deep water with thick clay and sand mud under it… Ryeamund was happy. He could see and more importantly feel the terrain change. He headed directly for the middle of the deepest part of the swamp bog.
Ryeamund had enough of a head start, that when the mud started to get knee deep, he had to let them catch up. The chase was more in slow motion now. He actually had time to get his thin stout leather day pack off, and discarded it as he continued marching through the mud, threatening at any time to go over his knees.
When it actually went over his knees, the two objects he kept from the day pack were in his left hand. With his right hand, he reached up and grabbed the highest up thick branch he could manage to grasp firmly. The grip allowed him to get one foot out of the clinging deep mud, and he got his ankle over the branch his hand was on. He swung up as easily as any tree man can.
He climbed the tree easily, and the band of men pursuing him now had him treed. They felt that they had their quarry. He had turned tail and ran and fled. They had pursued, they had chased him on foot. Ryeamund was the prey, they were the hunting pack.
The trees in this bog swamp were close together. Ryeamund climbed up his tree a few branches. Men were starting to come up the tree much slower than he had. All the rest? Were boosting men up into the tree, and fanning out around the bottom. Everyone was in mud well past their knees now. Movement was very slow on the ground.
Ryeamund amazed them by leaping to a branch on the next tree over. He fixed his two devices he had grabbed, over his feet. They were long thin saplings bent into a U shape. Tied at the top of the U. Smaller saplings were woven into a grid. A sheath of oiled leather was over this wide, light, egg-shaped framework. The leather 'moccasin' over this light framework, had regular holes around its edge. After forming a soft wide leather sole, they came up and were tied over them.
These were Ryeamund's snow shoes, and he had added the laced 'moccasin' over them, and well oiled it. After jumping to the new tree, he had descended quickly to the bottom branch. All he had to do, was slip his feet under a couple of leather thongs, which drew them taut.
Smiling, as he hung low from the bottom branch, he stepped down into the mud. Actually? It was not accurate to say he stepped down into the mud… he more correctly stepped onto the soft, deep, clinging mud.
Laughing now, he began to walk around. Slowly. His oiled leather over-covering under and up around his wicker snowshoes, allowed him to walk atop the soft mud, as long as he walked correctly. Slow and flat footed. All the pursuing men, were hopelessly mired in the thigh deep mud. Men coming down out of the tree they were in next to his new tree, were hopelessly caught in the mud. Most had went sideways and went down up past one shoulder in it; extricating themselves in a panic was now impossible.
Laughing easily, Ryeamund simply marched around, and poked at the men mired in the deep sticky mud with a long, straight sapling he had broke off. He lopped the end off with his sharp sword on an angle. It was more than pointy enough to do the deed he wanted to perform.
He speared down on an angle, well out of sword range. Some had axes and hammers, but these were even more useless to them now. He had a huge reach advantage, he had a huge height advantage, he had a huge distance and angle advantage. He also had switched the momentum so quickly, they lost all morale they had been previously enjoying.
He simply walked around easily, spearing the men in the neck, or in the hollow of the shoulder and down. Into the top of their lungs. Each punctured lung actually took a little while to fill up. With no exit hole at the middle or bottom of the lung? It filled up steadily, until it hit the bronchial passage over to the other lung. The blood steadily filled up now that lung as well. Some of them got speared in both shoulder hollows, as the spearfishing went on.
The men were in a panic, and stuck, and being speared like food over a fire. The adrenaline they were under pumped their hearts faster and faster, which filled up their air-sacks quicker. After both lungs were filled up, the blood came out their mouths, but they were already ceasing movement but for twitching by the time the mouth blood started to boil out.
The few that tried far too late to escape, had zero chance. Ryeamund easily plodded up behind them and dispatched them with a poke. The base of the neck and the inside of the top of the shoulder is a famous weak point in any armor system; it is all but impossible to protect it, as movement is required.
When Ryeamund was sure he had them all, he simply walked out slowly and deliberately. When he got back to his day pack he had abandoned, he took off his snowshoes cum mud-shoes, and quickly scraped off the sticky mud to a light dirtiness, and put them back into his day pack.
He hustled back to his horse, which was keeping the other horses in the area at bay. Riderless horses formerly occupied and owned by the enemy's band of champions. His own horse saw him and came up to him, and he was on it and riding back directly.
When he worked his way up through his own men from the side, and was once again next to the Oxen and Wulfgar, Arroch looked at him quizzically.
Ryeamund winked.
"Modi the Duck… killed those men!!"
Arroch laughed, not knowing in the slightest what it meant. He knew all he needed to know. The pain in the ass group of champions? Were gone. Ryeamund appeared to be fine, and was more importantly back. The effect was tremendous; these men had been a little pack of 'almost Wulfgars'. It cost the other side more than just the tally of their lost numbers. It cost troop morale. Which was worth ten times the number of men actually killed.
Wulfgar got the basic idea of what had happened. He took one of his famous wipe the blood and gore moments, and had a squirt of mouth water to rinse errant splashes of warm salty blood out of his mouth, then he swallowed some of the tepid bag water. Recapped his water skin, and went back to work.
Not without a slight 'toast' to Ryeamund with the water skin, before replacing it and getting back to the task at hand. Which was of course opening up men's throats and poking them in the lungs and guts and locations their appendages met their trunks; which were weak points in the armor he always aimed for.
This phase of the battle, had been planned to occur a small distance out from the base of the corridor, out in the open, so his men could fan out and tie the larger force down. They were doing fairly well previously; with the band of champions gone they were doing great.
A low horn sounding, was the sign they were waiting on. It was the signal to begin to slowly come together. The next sounding, was the signal to slowly start falling back. The men up front, peeled off in layers and went to the sides, and back around. Fresh men were always in the front leading edge, inflicting heavy casualties. They were constantly and slowly falling back like they wanted.
As they hit the base of the corridor, they continued back up it in the same fashion. They filled up the base of the corridor now at the bottom. It was a lot easier going now. The front leading edge could go for broke, then peel off and work back and around to slowly come up to the leading edge again. The men were constantly taking a long break, they constantly had a fresh wedge in the front.
In addition to the heavy toll they had inflicted with their first heavy charge, and the disruption to formations and plans it had caused… they had accomplished much more. Momentum from attacking now dispelled? The attackers were now playing their game.
This had bought precious time for the ravens lining the sides of the corridor to get into place. Instead of fighting down the corridor like all the times in the past? They were now fighting backwards and up the corridor, very slowly.
Ambush after ambush after ambush would now take the sides of the foe as they tried to fight their way up the corridor. Once they had finally backed slowly up the corridor far enough? The rear of the enemy coming up was exposed. The Ravens skirmished both the sides and the rear flanks erratically and ruthlessly.
Each attack was seemingly random and short lived but highly effective. The attackers would now get hit constantly from one side, then the other, then the rear. Sometimes from both sides at once.
Bands of reserve heavy war horses in armor would suddenly charge through the thin column and pierce through to the opposing side and disappear into the underbrush. They would find their way up the corridor and reset. It would happen again.
The enemy was already feeling the pressure. It was non stop fighting for them, with the added loss of morale constantly looking over their shoulders fearfully to try to anticipate the next ambush. The defenders? Were constantly at rest, due to the way they peeled off the leading edge and fell back and reemerged later. The same for the ambush parties. They would wait until the time was right, then strike… then regroup and reset another time farther up.
By the time they were far enough back up the corridor, another signal finally happened. A single flaming arrow arced down and struck the ground in their rear. A larger reserve unit now filled in shortly after behind the enemy, and did the same peel-off tactic from their rear. Cutting off any route of escape or tactical retreat. It also prevented them from trying to imitate the tactic they were up against.
They slowly ground the larger force down to nothing, and closed in on it, with no mercy. The last few men that tried to break and run, they were simply too easy for the Ravens in the underbrush to follow and cut down.
By mid-afternoon? It was over. Blood and guts and heads and arms and legs decorated the entrance to the corridor and about a mile up it as well. For years afterwards, the entrance because of this was known as the 'bone-yard', for obvious reasons.
Rusty weapons and pieces of armor and bones were found by passerby for quite some time afterwards. Children marveled at all the small metal bric-a-brac to be found, once the majority of skulls and arm and leg bones had been cleared.
Though cheers had gone up as the battle wore down to its inevitable conclusion once the tactic had started working effectively? There was very little hoo rah after it was over. It had been expensive in terms of lives lost in the initial charge to shock the enemy formations. The open battle surrounded on the open plains at the entrance to the corridor? Had claimed lots more lives. It wasn't until they began backing up enough they were at the mouth to the corridor that losses had fallen off, then all but quit.
A lot of close friends were gone. A lot of BluddenBruders were on their way to Valhalla. What earlier enemies fighting the corridor in times long past had called 'ghost-riders' were all about now; riderless horses that stayed with their horses they trained and lived with around them that still had riders on them. A few or even a single man? Could charge and still have great effect. The ghost-riders, the riderless horses were still in formation with him. He could charge effectively as if his dead friends still fought with him, from beyond the grave.
There was no leaving, either. They had to stay put. Until the Ravens on the high ridges were sure no reserve force was inbound for their position. Other bands of Ravens went scouting. They were seeking to find any reserve forces that could be located and harried. The main group would then be directed to them to follow them and finish them off.
This was no cause for celebration, it took three whole days for all of this to be made sure of. During those three days, everyone pitched in to bury as much of their own dead as they could locate. Everyone loaded up all of their belt loops now at their ease; everyone was in "full trophy" and would decorate whatever they wished with their prizes.
The enemy? They stuck heads in lines on the sides of the road as a warning to others for years to come. They put heads on sticks for the crows and other scavengers to pick. They made impromptu piles of legs and arms of the enemy far enough off the road that the stink would not be too great to prevent usage of the corridor. Close enough to the road, however, that any bandit would be disheartened to find piles of limb bones trying to set up bandit ambushes.
The wounded were patched up as best they could. Those that could walk or ride, did so. Those that needed to ride back up? Rode in the supply wagons. Every so often, another man would peel off and die from sustained wounds. Everyone was quiet as they buried him. Vinegar splashing, followed by sugar packing and bandages, prevented some of the infection that would otherwise be rampant. It was no magical wand. It only helped a portion of those with deep wounds.
The men that died instantly or almost instantly on the battlefield, were perhaps the luckiest. The next luckiest were those that died quickly from blood loss. While still in shock, it was a lot less painful. Followed in amount of luck, by the men that died from slow blood loss. From internal bleeding injuries. The least amount of battle luck, was as always, borne by those that had gut wounds or otherwise deep puncture wounds.
The guts when pierced release horrible infection. Deep puncture wounds could not be cleaned effectively. Even if cauterizing them would stop the blood flow? A man that punctured you with a sword or spear, had likely done it to others before you… that dead man's bowel filth was inoculated deep into your own puncture. The resulting fever and infection that raged was a slow torturous way to go to Valhalla.
Septicemia is no man's friend.
The men that could leave early? Did not. The men had to know that men like the high king and Wulfgar, would do as they did. Do all the work they did. They all marched slowly back up the corridor, having won. The supply wagons limiting their speed.
All of their important objectives had been obtained.
---first and foremost? The corridor had once again, been successfully defended. They were victorious.
---this fight had involved no pickles caught in the crossfire, fighting in villages was the last thing anyone wanted.
Over a short time, all battles pick up nicknames. This battle came to be known as "Wulfgar's Sausage Grinder". Apparently, his tactics when described, were said to sort of resemble the actions of a sausage grinder. The way the men peeled off and fell back, always churning forward for their turn to be the fresh front line; also the way the ambushes hit from the sides, then the constant rear engagement.
Before Ryeamund went anywhere, he had brought up a number of trophy heads. From the band of men had had lured into the swamp then exploited the snowshoe tactic on.
The owners of the farm were surprised to see him there. They were more surprised to see him with so many enemy trophies. They were highly amazed, when he sat reverently at Modi the Duck's small monument. He stayed for quite some time, and did not leave when it grew dark. It appeared as if he were speaking softly to the dead duck. By morning, they woke up to find that Ryeamund had moved on in the night.
They were aghast, to see he had placed the trophies on and around the small monument. No one dared move them, for fear of offending the man. Asking around quietly? It was explained to them, what had happened. How he had fought these men. Ryeamund would explain later that he always had a deep and abiding respect for Modi the Duck, from the tale he had heard.
Everyone knew how much Ryeamund loved animals. Rather than decorate his own area with the trophies to show off? He had dedicated them to the infamous warrior duck that had taught him what to do.
Just like Modi had wisely done, Ryeamund had chosen to make his stand in deep mud. Where webbed feet make you a god that all but walks on water, while your superior enemy is mired and can't effectively fight.
Simply because, sometimes the gods do strange shit.