The Battle of Isaf
I was there that day, as I always am. No one took particular notice of me as I boiled in my armor with the rest of them. This suited me fine because I still don’t like explaining that I’m from an alternate universe.
There were maybe a thousand of us on the hill overlooking the tiny village. The rest of the army was back at camp, fifteen miles to the south. Ulfhrem said we wouldn’t need them—today’s work would be quick and straightforward.
The prince himself stood on the front of the hill with the most unobstructed view of Isaf below. Beside him stood Captains Rygg and Ragnir. I moved through the crowd of steaming soldiers who had no business being in the scorching desert to hear our leaders’ conversation better. No head turned my way. I was just another white guy in the desert, wishing I had a tall glass of ice water.
That day marked more than a year we had been in Lesh Kalae, camped across from its capitol, Kammun. No one ever tells you how boring war is. The stories only repeat the exciting parts, and even then, they have to embellish because the “exciting” parts usually just mean a lot of people died. I knew before anyone else that a lot of men with me would die today. I see a lot that others don’t. But this isn’t my story, and for the sake of conciseness, I’ve chosen to start telling it from this moment when Ulfhrem looked down on Isaf with all the disgust of a small-town pastor whose daughter just announced that she’s going to become a dancer.
Brenn Ragnir wiped the sweat from his forehead and face. It was barely noon, but already the men from the north were ready to call it a day. Brenn slicked back his long blonde hair with his sweat and shook off the excess moisture. It almost seemed blasphemous to let so much water go to waste. Beside Brenn, Andreas Rygg took a pull from his canteen and then handed it to Ulfhrem, who took an even longer drink. Brenn lifted his hand to receive the water, but Rygg stopped the bottle and placed it back on his belt. Brenn’s hand fell to his sword pommel.
“Where are they?” Brenn asked.
“Oh, who knows,” Ulfhrem said. “Could be having a sloom under the sand, for all we ken. Cheeds love the sand.” He spat between his teeth, and the short brown grass at his feet slurped it up.
“Ne’er can ken those cheeds,” Rygg added. “Whether they hide in open sight or beneath the sand.”
Brenn looked at Rygg. “Could they be beneath the sand?”
Rygg smirked. “Best not be a wisehead, reidr.”
“I only see a few barns yon,” Brenn said, squinting. He wiped the sweat from his eyes and licked the wet salt from his lips. “They’re playing with a ball, ’hold it?”
Ulfhrem shrugged. “They were here in the oughten, ere the sun arose. The forewards beheld them batching them all out, wresting away any trowless, or Weroklans.”
“It’s not past oughten, yet,” said Brenn. “How could they have come fullframe so quickly? And the village looks whole.”
Rygg laughed at that. “Whole, he says. ’Hold that pile of cack they call a village. It’s just one-room houses built of soal and grass. I don’t even see a cackhouse. They all likely mithe on their floors.”
Brenn turned around to look at the men behind him. By now, the heat had gotten to them all. The lines were broken and sloppy as they fell to sitting in their scalding armor, removing helmets and chest-plates until the situation required otherwise.
Why would Ulfhrem bring only half our men if he thought the Soduqir army was here? he thought.
The soldiers passed canteens among themselves.
“Maybe the forewards were wrong,” Brenn told Ulfhrem. “There’s outright no one here but the village folk.”
“I led the undertaking myself,” Rygg said. He looked at Brenn with the sides of his eyes, not deeming him to be worth a turn of the head. “The prophet himself was one of them unless some other cheed has been wearing that black mask.”
“The way you all name them cheeds, you’d think they’d all be wearing them.” Brenn’s voiced tapered off at the end of that sentence, regretting speaking at all. He only wanted to get back, seeing as there was no threat to these villagers. “In another hour, we’ll all be seared,” he said, more confident this time. “Behold there at them. If we were going to have ourselves a wye, we’d have to come fullframe before midday. But the Soduqir aren’t here.”
“Go back to camp if you will, boy,” Rygg grumbled. “Go sit beneath a sunshade and have some iced tea. When we return, I’ll give you a foot rub.”
Brenn was near thirty and hadn’t been a boy for more than a decade, but he ignored the jab. His short yellow beard dripped with sweat onto his metal chest plate. The drops sizzled away in tiny puffs of steam.
“Atheling, we aren’t needed,” he said to Ulfhrem. “Those yon barns look to be in right bliss. I don’t see how they’d be playing if they’d just seen soldiers wrest off or kill their friends and kin.”
“You’re e’er one to make known your weening, aren’t you, boy?” Rygg said. This time he turned his full body to Brenn. Ulfhrem stood between them with his eyes only for the village below. “As a wyeman, you have no weening. You do as you’re told, as you’re wielded. You’d be a lordswike, else.” Rygg clenched his fingers around the hilt of his sword that hung at his waist. The man’s mouth moved up at the corners, so slightly that Brenn didn’t notice.
Ulfhrem ignored both men. He spun around to face his army. “On your feet!”
The men snapped to attention and rose to their feet with sounds of metal rubbing against leather and feet shuffling in dirt and sand as armor was buckled back on in haste. Sweat plastered their hair to their faces, and those with helmets still waited to put them on, electing to hold them beneath their arms for as long as possible. The men formed ranks, moving into neat lines. The loudest sound now was their labored breathing.
Ulfhrem drew his sword, a long and wide weapon that glinted the bright sun across the desert. The blade was silver, and the hilt was plated in gold. Many of us blinked and looked away.
“Looth all you can carry!” shouted the prince. Spit flew from his wide mouth. “Carve down anyone who stands in your way!”
The soldiers drew their swords in unison with a sweeping grinding sound. Those who carried spears pounded the butts of their weapons into the dirt. The army lit up with four hundred swords and a hundred spear points.
Brenn stared at Ulfhrem, his eyebrows coming together as a realization came to him. Beside the prince, Rygg smirked.
“You can’t,” Brenn said, but Ulfhrem let out a bellowing war cry, and the army echoed it back across the sands.
Soldiers ran down the hill like a herd of stampeding elk, all with swords drawn and spears pointed forward, voices booming with the warning of death. Brenn stood still as hundreds of men ran past him. He looked down at the village where a small red ball rolled across the dirt. He sprinted.
