Recruited Mage (11 page)

The riders were angry now and drew out
clubs, which they held out in front of them. A boy was running along behind our lines.

“Hold you
r fire until they reach the trips,” he  shouted and I guessed he meant the string trip wires. “They will dismount when their horses trip and probably charge us! Wait until they are close and then we will get them.” I nodded, seeing his reasoning and lowered my crossbow to my knee.

The horses hit the wires and were tripped over. Nearly every horse was tripped and each one who did fell head-over-heels, flinging their riders off. A few boys started firing into the mass of fallen horses and men, causing confusion and panic amongst the men. The riders were well trained however and joined into a line before we could do anything about it and charged towards our lines.

I took aim at a large man who I presumed was, by the lighter coloured uniform he was wearing, the Commander. The man was running at full pelt towards the middle of our lines when my bolt hit him in the shoulder. It stopped him dead and spun him around. The man fell to his knees where another then hit his back two bolts. The man yelled in pain and fell forward off his knees onto his front where he just lay. I felt slightly sorry for him before I remembered that they were to capture us.

The charging men were getting closer but we could barely miss at that range and each shot was taking a man down.
When the men had almost reached the lines the rest of the front row started running backwards and I ducked through the second row to follow. I looked to each side and saw that a group of about fifty riders had broken away from the main group unnoticed and was now riding around towards the flanks of our lines where no one was watching. I called out a warning to anyone near the rider and to my surprise they acted instantly by forming another line of boys with loaded crossbows now facing the flanking riders. The new line fired at the charging riders and was joined by more and more boys as they finished reloading their crossbows.

I looked around frantically in the confusion of charging men dodging crossbow bolts, and boys falling back to find safety. I remembered the clubs and shields and slung my crossbow over my shoulders by a leather strap on it before running to the main lines again and taking a shield and club from where they had been laid out.

Next I looked to see where everyone was falling back to and saw everyone forming defensive circles around trees. I ran up to one of the circles just as the men were reaching the remaining second line. The second line broke away and sprinted into the defensive circles around the trees. I could not see any more as I was engulfed in the circle I had run to. All the boys drew out their clubs and formed an strong shield wall.

Before I had even got to the tree the men charged into the shield wall with tremendous force. Everyone was pushed back a step and I was thrown against the tree
headfirst. The impact made my head ring and everything seemed to draw in. I saw spots in front of my eyes and felt nauseous. I leant against the tree and dropped my club so I could put a hand up to my head where I had hit it. I felt a thing trickle of blood run over my hand.

Please let it be nothing serious.

Even without my hazy vision I would not have seen anything trough the mass of boys all around me. Every few seconds I would be thrown one way or another.

I could not think strai
ght and I decided to climb the tree. There were few knots in the bark and I grazed my knees badly on the wood. I however managed to climb onto the first branch and shakily spread out my legs. I pulled the crossbow of my back and laid it on my knees.

Everything suddenly went quieter.
I must have hit my head harder than I thought.
Then I realised that the fighting had stopped.

“Now I have you attention,”
boomed a large voice suddenly in the relative quiet. “I will make you all a deal.” I saw it was the man who I had thought was the Commander talking. “Either you all will surrender to us now and we will tie you all up and lead you all back as failures to your Strike Team Commander,”

What? No way! We could be flogged as failures.

He continued.
“Or you could fight us and we will ensure that there will be two of us to every one of you! And then we will break you… we will not be blamed if you die from it. And if you survive you will be no use to the Kingdom and even a hindrance to it. You would be thrown out on to the streets and left.”

They can’t do that!
No one else moved and I assured myself that they were thinking the same thing.

We are safe as we are, we could stay like this for however long is left. Even twenty minutes if still that much is left.

However to my horror the man stepped forward again. “You have decided then,” he shouted. “We will break you all.”

He will have to get us first.

Then to my horror the man gestured to a large group of his men behind him and from where they had been hidden behind them they brought forward five boys who had their hands tied behind their backs, almost delirious with terror.

“Starting with these
!” Everyone gave a shocked gasp.

What are we going to do?
A rush of fear swept through me and my hands became clammy with sweat. The men’s leader stepped towards the tied boys who cried out n fear.

We have to do something! We can’t just watch this happen!
I saw that one of the boys was Donal.
Not Donal! I can’t help him from here!

Then I remembered the crossbow sitting on my knees.
I could use that.

I hastily loaded my crossbow as fast as I could and slid a bolt into place. Everyone else seemed to be doing nothing but wait in shocked silence. I raised the crossbow to my shoulder and took aim at the leader who had taken a club and was not
yet raising it above his head to strike the first boy.

If I do not put him out of action he will probably kill us!

I took a deep breath and fired. The twang of the crossbow seemed incredibly loud in the dreadful quiet. Everyone flinched at sound including the Commander who whipped his head to look towards me. Because of this, rather than hitting the man in the helmet uselessly, the bolt hit square on his temple and he was knocked unconscious.

As the man dropped to the floor everything seemed to erupt into chaos. Everyone seemed to be running in every direction. It seemed that everyone was shouting. I turned
, slowly stood up on the branch and leant on the trunk. I reached up to a higher branch and pulled myself up.

I crouched low on the branch and looked around again. As I watched, the fighting stopped once again but this time I was alone; everyone else had formed a large circle. Around the circle were the men, each one almost
shoulder-to-shoulder surrounding the boys.

This time it was not the Commander
who stepped forward because, he was still unconscious, it was another man.

“W
e will not be merciful again!” he shouted to the boys who were however still triumphant. “We swear if you do not give up now we will rush in and get you all.” As the man shouted this he walked in ever decreasing circles around the boys who had sorted themselves in to a shield wall with two layers. The first layer was low of slightly crouched boys and the second was above that, held triumphantly up at shoulder height.

A boy in the middle who I had not noticed before, wearing a gold stripe across the front of his waist coat, stood on what I guessed was a log so he could see over the other boys.

“You see now sir,” he said loudly in a teasing tone that made the speaking man bristle with anger. “We have the advantage of everyone being here and you have captured no one. I also know that you don’t want to fight us, do you,
wimps?
” The word wimps made all the men angry. “You know you will get badly hurt if you fight us as you already have found out.” I noticed the man who had been shouting was no longer looking at the boy but was whispering to another man. That man then went around the other men and about twenty of them followed.

I peered at the men, wandering what they were doing. I was no longer listening to what the boy was saying as I watched the men. In fact my attention
was fully on them. I watched with dread as they went and mounted their horses where they had left them.

I turned my attention back to the boy with the golden stripe on his waistcoat. He had seen the men go to the horses as well but to my surprise he was not frowning or looking surprised at all but he was grinning immaturely. Then I saw the ends of crossbows pocking out from behind the shields.
If the horses try and brake the line they will be hit by the crossbows like before and stop!

The boy gave the order to fire earlier than I thought, when the riders were still far away. Only two or three were fired every few seconds so a steady volley could keep the riders away. It had devastating effects and each time a shot was fired a horse screamed. The riders were driven quickly back. Then they started shooting the
men, which was very risky as they outnumbered us. Every time a man was hit he would keel over in pain.

However before more than ten shots had been fired the men could take no more and they charged forward with their clubs.

The boys stood ready and in less than a second the men were almost on to them. Just before the men reached them however every loaded crossbow fired in a deadly point blank volley and at the same moment every boy leaned forward to meet the charge.

The result was a desperate skirmish as the men smashed again and again into the circle. I tried to do my bit with my crossbow and I fired as many
shots as I could into the mass of attacking men.

I can’t believe this is only a training exercise, this is rough.

War is rough as well.
I almost fell of my branch in shock.

Diryn
Kust! What have you been doing! I forgot all about you. I need help! I… I… So much has changed.

I know I have been watching and listening.

I needed help!
I surprised myself as a wave of emotions washed through me.
I could have been caught! I need you. You can’t just leave me when you want!
You didn’t call for me remember, as you said you forgot about me and you were fine.

Suddenly there was a loud bang from the direction of the edge of the woods. There was a resounding cheer from the circle of boys. The men swore and walked slowly towards their horses.
We can to go!

I slowly climbed down from the tree and grabbed my club and shield from where I had left them. As we all walked out of the woods I
realised how bulky my crossbow really was as it bounced up and down painfully on my back.

“Where have you been?” c
ame the angry voice of Detarian from behind me and I turned to see him stride up to me. “I am meant to be looking after you and keeping you safe from being wounded.” He looked at me expectantly.

“But I was safe!” I said trying to convince him that I had been safe.

“Really?” he questioned, not believing me.

“Yes, I was left behind and I hid in a tree.” Detarian looked at me suddenly, strai
ght in my eyes.

“You were hiding in a tree?” h
e said almost shouting. “Well I suppose that you were safe so I have nothing to worry about, but remember this; If a Commander sees you up a tree whilst we are fighting he will have you flogged for cowardice.” At that I bowed my head.

I could have got him in to trouble. I have to try for him.

We walked out the trees and then towards where the Commander was standing, by the road. When we were three quarters of the way across the open area the Commander started a countdown from ten and everyone started running towards him. I followed along as best I could but everyone was faster than me and I only reached the Commander just in time.

“Wel
l done today.” said the Commander. “I have heard from a few people watching that you absolutely smashed them. They thought it was going to be so easy. They might have done a lot better however, if they had brought their bows. Also don’t brag too much as they are just scouts and they are not trained to attack, only to scout. That is the biggest group of scouts you will ever see and in these circumstances they would leave you alone, this was only a test to see if they could handle it if they outnumbered the enemy. Even so most of them would not even reach you. They would have died from the crossbows not get back up to fight. Into lines,
now
. ”

At that
command, everyone started running to positions. I stood looking for a place to go but Detarian grabbed me roughly and pulled be to a spot. Everyone else stood up straight with their hands behind their backs. I copied them and stood waiting in the correct stance. Someone at the front shouted forward and we started marching. I recognised the sound of the boy’s voice as the boy who had the waistcoat with the golden stripe. Marching was exceptionally hard, as I had to copy everyone else exactly. Luckily it was not an extravagant march and more of a purposeful walk.

We marched to the compo
und and waited outside as the Commander went inside. He soon returned and we followed him around the back of the compound where there were five carts full of small wooden logs. We were formed into a long line from the carts to somewhere in the compound but I did not know where as I was positioned outside. Then the carts were unloaded, each log passed quickly along the line and into the compound.