Saddle and Silk

XI.

,,.. carefully.. " It was heard from the other side of the trench. The Rhodoch patrol crouched down. If the attempt to break through and then pass through the front does not work, they are after them. Wígláf... Come here, now, please.",, Oh yeah ... What is it? ",, Fuck me and come here". Wígláf approached the edge of the trench. He heard a thud as a giant mangonel bullet hit the city walls from the other side.,, Look over there. ", Clear Bahi, Clear..",, don't call me that, Anežka has already taken over from you, you scumbag! "Wígláf grinned.,, Hehe... what's up bro, don't you think so? Huh?" The wild snarl of the Khergita answered him., Parchante..",,Be quiet or I will silence you." They heard from the other side of the trench. It was officer Jansen who saved them from a group of Khergit Čambulu near Krásnay. That was last year. Then winter came and the rebels together with the royal troops tended to avoid each other, creating strong positions. With no rookie commanding them, he managed to cut Tiberius off from Uxhal. Which was now cut off from the other side of the country.

"Jansen, shut up. they both said in unison and continued to argue. Jansen sighed and looked at the positions in front of him. A small mound rose about fifty meters in front of them. The pig, as Jansen named it, had two ramparts. One small one for the archer and one larger one for the ballista. And such a fortification stretched along the entire line.
The peasants, as they are mockingly called by the Rhodocan nobility, successfully resist attempts to subjugate them for quite some time. The climax was the siege of Uxhal, the capital of the kingdom of Swadia, but technically it was just a city to run the administration of Swadia. Thanks to the Republic of the Two Nations, Rhodok and Swadia, the nobility and the king became immensely rich, as did the townspeople. And all this led to a peasant uprising that joined the great Khergit civil war. Paradoxically, the entire Sanjaru family waged war against someone else, exceptionally.

,,.. advance.. "Jeremius, the elder of the party, declared quite decisively. About three hundred soldiers avoided the vicinity of the trench, and advanced forward, as if with a fearless step. Foot by foot, soldier by soldier. All were knights or huskars, here a sergeant there. She was walking with a steady step, which, however, was heard from the other side. Besides, the same sound was repeated in the other two places commands. Jeremius, almost as an answer, only Vaegirsky declared: "Til dem, Hajde da se pomuиimo!" The line stretched into two lines and ran out into the trenches under siege. The surprise of the attackers gave the nine hundred soldiers a great advantage. Baheštur was just walking past the ballista stand and cut through the straps. It is an unpleasant job to change it on the ballista. He ran dal.

However, the fight dragged on. With every fallen soldier. Although an envoy was coming from the city, it was not in the city's ability to defeat an army five times larger.,, Wiglaf! "he shouted at his companion. "run to that forest! "", That's a stupid plan bro! "I admit it," Baheshtur said to himself. I don't have a better one! "Wígláf smiled like a wolf. "You made it up nicely, but it's true!"  "Whoa! Had mir uae sir FIrtha!" He roared at the Huskarls, and ran towards the forest. Several Khergits stood in their way, but they fell under the onslaught of axes and shield walls. Baheštur was retreating towards the forest as well, when the last survivors blocked his way , there were no more enemies around, because they were fighting on the other side of the city. "Fight with me, I challenge you, like a noble of a noble!" The voice of one of the Khergits thundered at Wiglaf. Few knew that although Baheshtur and Wiglaf had met at Tiberius, there was a difference of six years between them. THAT was a significant difference for fencing. Baheshtur was now twenty-two years old, but he had been fighting since he was fifteen. Besides, Wigláf was already a twenty-eight-year-old swordsman, with a lot of experience and, moreover, he loved fighting very much. Even before the challenge was finished, he seemed to be standing twenty paces away from his opponent, drawing his saber. "Hit!" "Kill!" Khergita swung at him with his saber, but Wiglaf casually danced away with the saber out of reach and only lightly tapped him on the shoulder, but enough to injure his opponent. But Khergit did not slow down, so Wiglaf decided to teach the young man humility. As Khergit's blows were quick and unconsidered, so Wiglaf's were light and impressive, as Khergit slowed down, Wiglaf added, where Khergit made a mistake, Wiglaf returned it with lightning speed, and at the same time his movements were as sparing as possible, yet so lightning fast that his saber was hard to see, and yet he had it so invitingly out, almost as if he was not even covering himself, yet he deflected any blow with the ease of a falcon who had been living on the steppe for some time. "You're swinging it like a flail!" He thrust into his face, with a slight smile on his lips and bright eyes. He stood at attention and waited. He parried a few blows, then disarmed his opponent. "Pick it up" He stepped back from the khergita. Khergita slowly, as if tiredly, raised his saber and prepared to stand guard. they struck each other several times, but then Khergit couldn't take it any longer and said, "Stop it, please!" with that they pushed away from each other, and before he could react, Wiglaf struck him in the head with a quick swing of his saber. Khergit's eyes glazed over, and he fell to the ground.

"He's alive, but we can't take prisoners," said Wiglaf. "Take him to your people, if he survives, maybe he'll be my equal." And with that they left the besieged city.

*

The wounded Khergita lay writhing in pain. He didn't know if he was lying or sitting, but he knew that the pain in his head was terrible. "Vdaryly ataman!",,Yakoho bisa?!",,Takyy molodyy,pivnichyy,sapsan!" Falcon, pche, smiled the wounded colonel in his mind. More like an old devil. I wonder, he thought, which devil trained him.

*

*

"Otamane! Z povahoyu povidomlyayu, shcho v sutychtsi na prolomi v zamku nash polkovnyk tyazhko poranenyy." The steppe speech was a rather special dialect of the general speech. Swadians and Rhodocians also had their dialects. But the Khergits and Nords had a completely different language. ,, Who cares so much, just Kostya?" ,,YA vzhetse diznavsya. Vin buv navchenyy shvydkiy shabli, tom buv duzhe mitsnyy nanashomu kisti. Zvutʹ yoho Vihlaf, raised brother of Baheshtur" He fought with Wiglaf? It is a miracle that he survived. "What shall we do, ataman?" "Reassure the crew and send out the scouts. I'll only be willing to chase him here for two or three days, then if we don't catch them, we'll pull out. I know exactly who he's after, and I don't want to meet that person in battle. I don't need him to show me around riding in direct combat, I'm willing to learn from someone else. With that the ataman got up and left.