"Loose javelins!"
threw it, and who knows where it went, because they were awful close now, as I picked up my third
"Prepare to engage!"
and transferred it to my left hand while switching my sword to my right as they made it to the ditch, and over it, clawing at the earthworks, and everyone was yelling, including me, and there was this annoying wooden shield in my face, so I stuck my javelin into it and used it as a lever to force the thing away and then cut someone's face open, and I kept trying to move ahead, but there was this damned mound of dirt in front of me and I cut once more, hit someone's shield, then dropped to my knees and cut at the side of someone's legs, and then Virt was pulling me backward and saying, "Vlad! Vlad! It's over! Didn't you hear the drum?"
I stood there, panting for a moment, then, moved by exhaustion or disgust, I'm wasn't sure which, I pitched forward onto my face, rolled over onto my back, and lay there staring up at the sky and breathing. Oddly, it was only then that I became aware of screaming and invocations to various Gods from all around me. There was also some quieter moaning from nearby, but I didn't turn my head to look at it. I had an idea of what I'd see if I looked: bodies strewn here and there, many of them alive, some of them missing portions of themselves. The sound told enough of a story.
"You injured?"
"No," I heard myself say, and I wanted to laugh because the question was funny. Of all the things I could have said I washurt, damaged, destroyed, demolished, ruinedshe'd asked the one question to which I had to answer "No."
Napper's face suddenly appeared above me. I couldn't read his expression because his face was upside down. There was blood spattered all over him, clothing and face. It seemed natural. He said, "You'll do, Easterner."
If I'd been able to move, I think I would have killed him.
I spent about five or ten minutes lying there before someone I didn't recognize knelt down next to me.
"We'll have to get that jerkin off," he said.
"I beg your pardon?"
"The jerkin has to come off."
"Shouldn't we be introduced first?"
His smile came and went, like he'd heard that sort of thing before, and someone behind me grabbed my shoulders and pushed me up, and he started to pull my jerkin off.
"Wait a minute," I said.
"You'd rather bleed to death?"
"I" I looked down and saw a gash in the jerkin, and there was a great deal of blood coming from it. Be damned. I was injured. Well, that gave me some justification for lying flat on my back staring up at the sky.
The funny thing was I still didn't feel anything. But, yeah, I'd managed to get myself cut. I didn't look closely, but it was within a couple of inches of the same place I'd been cut a few days before. My grandfather would have told me my fourth position guard was drifting up. My grandfather, no doubt, would have been right. I'd have to
"The jerkin?" said the physicker.
"Go ahead," I told him.
He pulled the jerkin off, dropping four knives, a couple of shuriken, and three darts onto the ground. He gave me a look.
"What?" I said.
He shook his head. "Lie down."
"I can do that."
He poured something onto my side; it felt cold, but there was still no pain. However, I did feel a few drops of rain on my face, then a few more. The first couple felt nice. After that I hated it, and I only wanted to get out of the mud.
Mud.
Gods, but I hate mud. I'd never noticed it before, but now I think I'll hate it until they bury me in it. I had always thought my boots fit well, until the mud kept trying to pull them off my feet with each step. Sometimes it would succeed well enough that I had to step out of line, adjust, then run to catch up, and even without that I felt like I was constantly out of breath just from the extra effort. The water that leaked into my boots wasn't that much fun either. And now I was lying in it.
I began to shiver, which, more than the knowledge of the wound, made me feel weak and vulnerable. The physicker did a few things I'm not sure of, probably sorcerous but maybe not, then he slapped a bandage onto my side and put some sort of cloth against my skin that held the bandage in place. They were both instantly soaked with water; maybe they'd have carried me to someplace dry if I were more seriously injured or if there were any such place.
The rain increased to a driving torrent, and I hated it.
"Why didn't you tell me I was wounded?"
"I was afraid if I did it would start to hurt."
"Oh. You're pretty smart for a guy with no opposable thumbs."
"Thank you so much."
"That should do," I was told. "Take it easy with that side for a few days."
Physickers always say things like that. What exactly did he mean? Was I supposed to avoid having any more holes put in it? Good plan. I'd go with it.
"Okay," I told him. "Thank you."
He grunted and moved on. There were no more screams, but there were still a few moans that I could hear over the sound of rain striking wooden shields, metal swords, and whatever else was there to make sound against. Whoever had helped with my jerkin now helped me stand up, which made my side hurt, but not badly, which was just as well since I don't much care for pain. It turned out to be Aelburr. I said, "Anyone else hurt?" which of course was a stupid question, but he knew what I meant.
"Napper lost some skin on his left hand, but nothing else."
"Can't one of our sorcerers stop this Verra-be-damned rain?"
"I suspect our sorcerers are more exhausted than anyone else on the field."
"Oh. I suppose. Any idea what happens now?"
"We've picked up our wounded and our javelins, that's always the first thing. Now, I imagine, we'll re-form and"
The juice-drum cut in again. I was getting very tired of the thing. Aelburr paused, then said, "Or maybe we retreat to a prepared position."
"What does that mean?"
"With luck, it means the higher-ups had this in mind all along. Without luck, it means we're running and they don't want us to fall apart."
"Oh. Yeah. I didn't have to ask: They had it planned."
"How do you know that?"
"Uh … I'm an Easterner. We know things."
He didn't look convinced, but he did help me find my pack, get my heavy cloak out and on, and then put the converted satchel onto my back. That hurt, too, but I could carry it.
"Carry it on the wounded side," said Aelburr.
"Excuse me?"
"If you carry it on the healthy side the wound will open up." That made too much sense for me to ignore it, so I did as I was told, then made my way up to the mudworks, which were vanishing into the field, and stared out; I could just make the enemy out through the drizzle, formed in a solid, even line, not moving, about a hundred and fifty yards away.
The command came a little later, and this time it was in plain words: "Fall back!" Seemed like a fine idea. Rascha came along and formed us into something like a line, and then Crown yelled something and everyone else turned around so I did, too; we began to move, in one long line, the Captain to the extreme right, our backs to the enemy. We started out at a quick trot, which I can safely say that everyone in the company was better at than I was, but I kept up. Eventually, on command, we dropped it back to a fast march, which we kept up much too long, and then we halted and turned and waited.
The rain stopped at last, and it was followed by a bitter wind that was only partially blocked by my rain-drenched cloak. Happiness, I decided, would be a nice campfire, proving once again that happiness is minor misery where before was extreme misery, if that ever needed proving. But there was no fire, and we waited.
At the time I had no idea what was going on, or how our part fit into Sethra's grand design, nor, to be honest, did I give it even a passing thought; but it is rare that a foot soldier has the chance to ask questions of his commanding general over a glass of red wine, and I had that advantage, so I ought to give you the benefit of what I was able to learn, later, when I had the leisure for curiosity.