The Lives of Velnin chapter 22

Outnumbered Hundreds to One

Apr 30, 2025

An endless wave of men armed spear, shield, dagger, and bow rushed through the narrow pass toward our wall, whipped on from behind. Behind them lay row after row of archers wielding recurve bows, marching forward.

From behind the wall, in heavy armor with long spears, large shields, and sheathed swords, my men rushed forward through the gates, forming up on the other side. Above us on the wall our archers stood behind a slitted barrier, preparing to fire through the slits.

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As the enemy reached halfway toward the wall our archers let fly. Thousands of arrows dotted the sky, then struck our charging enemies. But the human wave before us did not slow. They trampled their fallen underfoot and rushed onward toward the wall.

Standing in the front row, my shield locked with those beside me, my spear held above, I gave a shout. As one unit, our rows of spearmen charged forward, meeting the enemy head on. The enemy did not slow, did not falter.

A quarter of a bowshot from the wall, we met them with a tremendous crash, our long spears skewering their front rows. As we pulled the leaf-shaped blades of our spears out of the men before us, the rows behind them surmounted the dead and jumped at us. The man behind me skewered the next man before he could reach me. Row after row pushed upon us, the pile of dead rising and our spears becoming more and more entangled. I called the backwards march as our spears pulled wetly out of the bodies before us, hoping to escape being jumped on from above.

The wave before us finally began to slow, and the front lines, instead of charging us, pulled out their bows. At point blank range they shot us while we ducked behind our shields. Most arrows clinked off our shields and helmets, but some struck home and wounded our men. Now our wounded retreated back to the wall, assisted by comrades, as the unwounded held the line and menaced the men before us with spears. Some of our front ranks threw their spears, skewered the close-range bow wielders, and drew sword. We marched forward as our arrows thinned their rear ranks, and suddenly, they were breaking and running.

As we began to retrieve our spears from the wall of dead before us, the sky darkened. Their recurve archers had closed to within bowshot of the wall, and now filled the spaces around us with arrows. We halted our forward march, held our shields at an angle, and ducked as they bounced around us. I hoped those wounded on the retreat had managed to shield, and not fallen to their volleys.

I called a command, and we gathered up spears at our halt—not only our own, but the short spears of the enemy, and stuck them in our belts. Another hail of arrows fell upon us, once more ducked and blocked, and I now yelled the retreat.

We turned, broke, and ran for the wall. Suddenly we were routed. Suddenly the enemy was once more whipped from behind into a frenzy, and charged us. As the sky darkened from another rain of arrows, we turned and hid behind our shields, spears sticking out before us lest the enemy charge over us.

Again the charging enemy fell to arrows—not just ours, from the wall, but their own. As the enemy's volley ended we gave a battle cry and charged forward through their thinned ranks, skewering those who still stood and continuing to push forward. We could not lose ground until they were at the wall—we needed once more to push them back. As we approached the wall of their dead at the quarter-bowshot mark, we heaved their spears at those of the enemy attempting to take bowshots at us from it, kicked the bodies down, and pushed onward.

As we reached the halfway point, they were routed and in retreat. Again we turned and fled, but this time, we were not charged. Instead, to a man, they pulled out their bows. They began to fire freely at us while far behind the recurve archers fired upwards and blackened the sky with arrows. Some of us took hits. We turned our shields towards the enemy and sidled our way home, the unwounded helping the wounded, as we once more pulled back to the wall under heavy fire. Those wounded went into the gates first, to be mended by our healers, and we pulled back. Abruptly, our archers and theirs stopped their volleys, as both sides had pulled out of bowshot.

I sent a few heavily-armored men to gather up arrows, as our side rested, and theirs reformed for their next push.

During our rest, the soldiers facing us had rotated. Now at their front line lay the men of the Black Legion, clad in dark armor, holding large shields and spears, crossbow and sword in belt. Behind them lay three different columns: one of archers bearing extremely long bows, one of grim men in turbans armed spear, shield, dagger, and bow, and one of horsemen bearing long ropes with loops tied at the end. I divined Soraina's plan: to thin us with the Black Legion, going toe to toe with us using similar weapons, then charge any weak points made with a massive man-and-horse wave of meat. I made plans with Canmar, who would lead the archers at the wall, then prepared to meet the enemy head to head, shield and spear, with my men.

The Black Legion did not charge us. They marched, shields before them, up to the wall. The forces behind them marched forward with them to just out of bowshot, then held position. Our archers half-heartedly peppered the Black Legion with arrows, but each arrow bounced off their shields to do no damage.

As the Black Legion passed the halfway point, I marched forward with my spearmen. We paced them, and met them just shy of a quarter-bowshot from the wall, with the pile of corpses from the previous attack breaking up their formation a bit. Now we fought, shield and spear to shield and spear.

Though they were fresh, and our forces injured from the previous battle, they proved themselves our lessers in a thousand small ways. Their spears were slightly shorter; their movement was made awkward as they attempted to stay shielded from the arrows our archers continued to pepper them with; but most of all, they did not have our skill at spear and shield. We had generations of tradition to draw upon and years of practice; they had adopted the large shield following their defeat the previous year, and simply did not know how to use it well in conjunction with a long spear. I kept landing stabs with my spear; the spears of the enemy kept bouncing off my shield; and for the men to my left and right, it went the same. Bit by bit their frontline fell, and they began to fall back and lose ground.

Our side pushed forward, taking care not to deviate too much from a solid line and invite pieces of our formation to be surrounded. We marched over the fallen of the previous attack, and those of the Black Legion we had just taken out, finishing off the wounded with our swords as we passed. Soon we were close to half a bowshot from the wall. It was time to stop our pursuit.

I yelled a command, and as one, we turned around and ran back towards the wall. The Black Legion, seeing us in flight, gave a great cry and made chase, with all the amateurism of the men who we had defeated before. But as we began to turn once more and cut them down, their formation broken, everything changed.

A horn sounded from the enemy side. Suddenly the sky darkened as every enemy archer at once let fly, the arrows angled to fill the battlefield from the wall to the quarter-bowshot mark, blocking our retreat path. The Black Legion stopped charging wildly and merged together into slim columns, their front men battering shield and spear at the thinnest-looking parts of our line as the rear of the columns aimed their crossbows diagonally in support. And from behind, a bowshot from our wall, the thunder of hooves sounded as their horsemen began to charge, a solid wall of massive beasts that filled the narrow valley from side to side, and the endless hordes of turban-wearing soldiers charged behind them.

Brian Heming - author and pulp fiction fan

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