Gutter Rats: Prologue
It was pre-dawn when the sergeants started rousting the soldiers. Quyloc (KWY-lock) was already awake. He felt like he hadn’t slept at all. Fear was a cold lump in his chest, so thick he was choking on it. Growing up an orphan on the streets of Qarath, he’d been in plenty of desperate fights, but nothing like this. To stand in a line, an open target, while the enemy attacked. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.
What would he do? During the cold empty hours of the night, he’d imagined himself fleeing in terror as soon as the battle started. He’d panic and run.
And he’d lose everything. Not just his life. That didn’t matter so much. Once his cowardice was revealed, he’d lose Rome, his only friend. The truth of him would be inescapable. He’d be better off dead.
It was with shaking hands that Quyloc pulled his boots on, followed by his leather armor and sword belt. Sergeant Tairus was walking through the camp, giving orders, making sure his men didn’t forget anything important.
“Make sure your skins are full. Don’t forget your shields.” He approached Quyloc. “Where’s your chain mail?”
“It slows me down.”
“It keeps you alive. This isn’t a patrol. Speed won’t help you. You need armor. That means chain mail.”
Reluctantly, Quyloc put his on. He picked up his spear and his shield.
“You ready?” Rome asked him.
Quyloc didn’t trust himself to speak. He just nodded.
“Stay close to me. We’ll get through this.”
Quyloc nodded again. What else could he do?
They formed up outside the fort. The sun was rising, quickly chasing away the chill of the night. They’d be sweating hard in an hour. Between the three companies and the veterans, they numbered almost four hundred and fifty fighting men.
The general and the major emerged from the gates, riding horseback. Major Stemper was trying to appeal to General Stanley.
“Please, sir, I’m asking you to reconsider. Ten men is not enough to hold the fort if it’s attacked while we’re gone.”
“I’m done talking about this,” Stanley snapped. He was a young man, barely into his twenties. He’d been given his rank by his uncle, the king. It was his chance to prove himself. So far, every decision he’d made had been terrible, but that only seemed to make him more stubborn.
“The decision is made. Frankly, ten is too many. We want every sword in the field. We want to make sure none of the bastards get away.”
“But if they attack—”
“They’ll be too busy running for their lives.”
Stemper looked like he would say something else, but he didn’t.
Another figure rode out of the gates then, causing Stemper’s eyes to widen in alarm. It was the veiled figure of the Lady Atheen.
“Sir, surely you don’t mean to bring the lady. The battleground is no place—”
“She will be safe by my side. I want her to witness our victory. This is something she should see.”
Behind the lady rode a young woman on a horse that was loaded down with what looked like picnic baskets, a parasol and some blankets. Stemper groaned and rubbed his eyes.
The general and his lady rode through their ranks, Stemper bringing up the rear. Stanley was babbling on to the soldiers about what a glorious day this would be, how they were all lucky to be part of history, but Quyloc wasn’t listening. He was fighting to keep his hands from betraying his fear. He had to keep wiping his hands on his breeches, they were so sweaty. They shook like he had a fever.
His speech finished, the general gave the command to move out. Quyloc noticed, without surprise, that the general and his lady did not ride in the front as they had on the march here. They were firmly in the middle. Arrayed around them were the six members of the general’s personal guard. One bore the general’s flag on a long pole, a rearing horse on a blue and black background.
Quyloc shuddered at the thought of carrying that flag into battle. He’d be a target for every archer in range. He didn’t much like the idea of riding a horse for the same reason. The only use he could see for a horse in battle was to run away fast. Not that he’d ever find out. Horses were for nobility and officers.
They marched across the plain and into the canyon. No Crodin had been spotted yet. Eagle Company was in the vanguard, which put Quyloc and Rome close to the front ranks. Quyloc gripped his shield and spear tightly, eyes scanning for the slightest movement.
They marched in the canyon for some time. At the rear of each company were the archer squads, bows strung, and arrows nocked. They encountered no Crodin nomads. Quyloc actually dared hope that this was another ruse by Cornash. They probably wouldn’t encounter him at all. The Crodin were known to avoid direct battles. With so many soldiers, maybe they’d simply retreat.
The canyon wound aimlessly around blind corners, turning this way and that. At no time could they see more than a few hundred paces ahead. The heat built. The men stumbled over the rough ground with their heads down. It was hard to keep the ranks intact in such terrain.
They were coming around a sharp corner when the first arrows hit.
The soldier in front of Quyloc suddenly dropped without a sound, an arrow sticking out of his throat. Another off to the right fell.
Quyloc threw up his shield, desperately ducking behind it. An instant later he felt the impact as an arrow struck his shield and stuck there. The arrowhead pierced the shield, almost sticking into his arm.
Captain Lepold shouted an order to advance.
On unsteady legs, Quyloc ran forward with the others. He was gripped by a sense of unreality. Was this really happening? Why was he going forward instead of doing the smart thing and running away?
From his peripheral vision he saw arrows arcing overhead from behind, evidence Eagle Company’s s archers had joined the fight.
Their attackers were forty or fifty paces away, maybe a score of them. They were hidden behind large, fallen rocks, using them as shelter. Arrows continued to fly from them in a steady rain. More soldiers fell. Quyloc had to jump over a man who dropped in front of him and was thrashing around, screaming, holding onto the arrow in his stomach.
“Close up ranks!” Tairus yelled.
Quyloc felt another arrow embed itself in his shield. A soldier banged into him from the side, nearly knocking him down. The man grabbed at him with bloody hands.
More men went down. Lethar took an arrow to the face and staggered sideways, knocking other soldiers out of their charge.
Suddenly, the Crodin withdrew, running around a bend in the canyon and out of sight.
Captain Lepold called a halt, wary of running into a trap. The rest of the soldiers gradually caught up to them.
Stanley spurred his horse forward, his face red. “Why are we stopping? We have them where we want them.”
“I thought it best not to get strung out. They can pick us off too easily that way.”
“I will not brook cowardice, Captain,” Stanley sneered. “If you don’t have the courage to fight, I’ll replace you. Now advance. I don’t want to be out here all day.”
His expression stormy, Lepold ordered the men to advance once again.
Quyloc was only one man back from the front now. His heart was in his mouth as they edged around the next bend in the canyon, going slow despite the shouts from the general. Shouting didn’t hurt as much as an arrow in the face.
The canyon was empty. Quyloc breathed a sigh of relief.
Stanley shouted in anger when he saw there was no enemy to engage. “You’ve let them get away!” he snarled. “Advance! Double time!”
Reluctantly, the soldiers broke into a trot. It wasn’t easy. The sand was deep in places, and the bottom of the canyon was littered with rocks of all sizes.
They rounded the next bend in the canyon, then the next and the next. Sometimes they were met with a hail of arrows. Sometimes the canyon was empty. But at no time were they able to engage the enemy, who always disappeared like smoke when they got close.
Major Stemper saw that the men couldn’t keep up this pace for much longer and began to work on the general.
“I won’t let them get away,” Stanley said. “I mean to finish this. We have them on the run.”
“They’ll be too tired to fight if we keep this up,” Stemper warned. “At least let them walk sometimes to catch their breath.”
After conferring quietly with his lady, Stanley finally agreed. The soldiers gratefully slowed to a walk, all of them breathing hard.
This went on for hours. The Crodin kept engaging and retreating. Each time they engaged, more soldiers went down. Quyloc hadn’t seen a single Crodin body. Every time, the nomads had the advantage of cover, and before the full strength of the Qarathian archers could be brought to bear, they fled again.
Each time they engaged, Stanley forced them to charge and keep charging even when the Crodin were out of sight, not letting them slow until Stemper almost begged him.
“They’re wearing us out,” Quyloc said to Rome. “By the time they face us, we’ll be too tired.”
“It’s a good strategy,” Rome admitted. Frustration showed on his face. “If we could just bring them to bay.”
It was late afternoon, and they were far from the fort, when the trap finally sprung.
A smaller side canyon intersected the one they followed. They got there in time to see the backs of the Crodin as they retreated.
“We’ve got them now!” the general yelled. “They’re trapped in there.”
It certainly didn’t look like this side canyon went very far. But Quyloc had no illusions that the Crodin had trapped themselves by mistake.
“This is it,” he said to Rome. Rome nodded and shifted his grip on the axe.
With the general shouting orders, the thinned ranks of Eagle Company turned up into the side canyon.
What Quyloc saw filled him with sick dread.
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