Valiant

Chapter 21: Battle of Baelik's Mouth

***WARNING- INTENSE BATTLE SCENES NOT SUITABLE FOR ALL READERS***

The rising sun lends a column of comfort to the marching militia, but their silence makes to drown them. I am nestled snugly between a seasoned warrior with fur and battle-axes on his back, and a man who wears a spiked halfhelm and a rusty coif... But nothing else, excepting his boots. When asked about his nakedness, the man looks back, grins a wild grin, and says, "I be going to the gods the way they sent me to this piss-pot. And I'll be taking as many of them there sons of whores as I can." The man would've been quite an enigma, but for his uncomfortable closeness and brazen, outright offensive odor.
No matter though, I tell myself. The march is almost done, and we shall separate.
As if on queue, the trumpets sound their hymn and the men stop. I take a moment to view my surroundings. With my armor restricting my movement and vision, I can feel my smallclothes already soaked through with sweat, and my arms and legs are burning as if I'd marched ten miles instead of four.
The place sitting before me is spare, but beautiful. We stand at the mouth of a gorge, deep and shadowy. Titans of stone rise on either side, reaching unfathomably high, so as to break the heavens in their fists, and crowned in the white that gives them their name. These are the fabled Hoarfrost Mountains. A straight hundred paces ahead, the Forest of Baelik grasps at me with gnarled arms and vines, while pikes of conifers and hardwoods rise in the distance with reckless abandon. The air is chilled, despite the sun at our right, and the whole place is silent.
Not a bird chirps.
Not a squirrel darts in the trees
The earth is quiet and unwelcoming, as if the very ground knew that we had left home behind us.
A banner flaps left and right behind, and the war drummer thumps his mallet in pattern. Lord Arwik's orders to take position. Sullenly, the militia splits to either end. I take left, as the naked man goes right. And we set ourselves around the canyon like a bowl over the mouth of a bottle.
My mouth goes dry as I step into position, and I place my hands on my knees for a second. The armor weighs down, as gilded and light as it is, and my chest is already heaving with effort of breathing. I sip sparingly from the cool flask at my hip, and set my other palm in my knee. When I have wetted my lips, I squeeze the cap into place and set it beneath my breastplate to keep it safe.
A moment passed as we wait for the barbarians to appear.
Two moments.
Three. An hour.
Soon, men begin to whisper and jostle around
Then they begin to sit and drink, as the sun passes its zenith, and bears down upon us like fire.
And, as the next hour passes, the men begin to talk.
"If we win today, I'll never drink again!" One man declares solemnly.
"That's a bunch of horse manure if I ever heard it!" Laughs the man next to him, as they fidget over a hunk of salted beef.
"Mh! No, I swear!" Protests the former. "Honest to gods, I swear it. "
"Jon! You couldn't go a day without the bottle, and you know it," grins the latter, spitting a seed from between his teeth.
I watch steam curl from my gleaming armor and whisper into the azure sky, and then the turn to my other side, trying desperately not to fall asleep. For the day is very warm, and my armor is like a great, steel blanket.
"Hey, you!" I hear. My head snaps around, as I look for the speaker. My eyes fall upon a young man, but a few years older than me. "Yah you! What's your name?"
I eye him down. He has sandy-blonde hair that curls out from under his iron cap, and falls upon his chainmail coif. His hauberk is taut with muscle, and overtop, his woolen tabard bears the royal seal. His arms are bare and hairy, and his eyes are a very deep shade of brown. A shade that would've made any maid blush. No, I decide. I will let him talk first.
"A shy one, are you?" The man laughs, shaking his head and sitting down next to me. "Very well. My name is Samwell, of Flaxweed. This is my first battle, and I am surrounded by graybeards. You are the only one who looks willing to shut up and listen, so I'm going to talk, okay?"
A sense of mounting tension rises in my stomach, like the static before a storm. I nod yes.

"I have known nothing but milling my whole life. I'd spend years and years watching wheat grow and sometimes grinding it myself when ol' River Castellan ran dry. I didn' even know about the barbarians until I got to the city, and everyone was in a fuss. Suddenly, I'm slapped into iron and handed a spear and told to live. I don't want to die, truly, but at the same time, curious. I've always heard the tales of knights and war at the market, but I never cracked no skulls or such. 'Specially not the skulls of kids. I heard that the barbarians send their young out to die first. Horrible. Kids and ladies should not be forced to fight, were it up to me. You got a lady at your place?"