The Claws of the Manticore

The cross-country trek was more arduous than they had expected. Passing over dividing walls of crop fields and searching for openings in the tall living hedges were things that slowed them down, and they were as tired and sore as they had been the night before. Hals grimaced with every step, not only because of the pain of his broken leg, but also because he had sore skin under his arm where it rubbed against the makeshift crutch.

Reiner shook his head as he watched them. What chance did people like them have of destroying the banner? Most likely they would have to fight Ulburt to do it, not to mention Erich and a host of knights. It was ridiculous. It was like beggars planning to take Crownheim by storm.

They lost sight of Ulburt's column as they slipped through Herlmann's deserted camp and finally reached the battlefield. From their position, far behind Herlmann's lines, it was difficult to see anything but a confusion of men, horses and horned hooves appearing and disappearing through billowing columns of smoke.

Reiner was unable to make out which, if any, of Ulburt's men were there, or whether they had arrived yet.

"We need to get a better perspective." He said. The steep hills to the right of the camp looked like a good vantage point. "Up there."

Hals groaned, but with Pavel's help he limped up the slope after the others. After a while they found a goat path that made the ascent easier and led them along the side of a hill to a point from which they could see the battle stretched out before them like a tableau.

They were looking west over the Y-shaped fork of the valley. The castle of Nordheim was a little to the north of where they were standing, on the promontory between the oblique arms of the "Y". Herlmann's camp was to the south, well inside the vertical pole of the "Y". From the position of the armies at that moment, it was easy for Reiner to imagine how the battle had begun. The barbarians had come out through the castle gates and formed a long line stretching down the valley from side to side just below the oblique fork. Herlmann had lined up against them at the north end of the pole. He was outnumbered two to one and was downhill relative to the Norse forces, but he had two advantages: the steep slopes on both sides of the valley made it difficult for the barbarians to attack it from the flanks, and just at the end of the vertical pole of the "Y" rose a rocky knoll looming out of a small forest of bare trees, crowned by a small wooden shrine dedicated to the Triumvirate, which narrowed the front from which the barbarians could attack it and provided a perfect platform for mortars and cannon. The hillock was practically a vertical ridge on the north, but descended gently sloping on the south, and Herlmann's army had split in two to flank it on either side.

As expected, Herlmann's army had been giving ground. The hosts of Norsemen were forcing him back down the "Y" pole as if they were the charge of a gun pushed into the canyon. They had not yet pushed Herlmann into the valley to the point of making him lose the advantage provided by the rocky knoll, but it seemed likely that this would happen on the east side of the rise, where Herlmann's forces had to cover a wider front and those of the barbarians were more numerous. If this happened, it would be disaster for Herlmann, because the barbarians could surround the ridge from the south and attack from behind the forces occupying the north side.

Hals breathed in through his teeth.

"It looks bad."

"Yes." Reiner nodded. "But can you imagine what it would be like if we hadn't thrown the Norsemen's cannon into the river? If they were firing that monster from the castle battlements, the battle might have been over by now."

"Where is Ulburt?" asked Franka.

"There." Oskar said.

Reiner and the others looked where he pointed. Through the smoke that floated back and forth above the battlefield, Reiner dimly made out a squadron of knights emerging from the sparse forest on a slope across the valley. Ulburt was leading them, and a standard-bearer was at his side with the family ensign held high. Several companies of swordsmen and gunmen followed the knights, and four teams of artillerymen began to move their guns into position. Somehow, the baron had found a passage through the hills and reached the north of the battle line. With a charge down the hillside, he could engage the barbarian forces from the rear.

"And there." Oskar added, pointing to the south.

Reiner looked to the left. From Herlmann's camp came companies and more companies of spearmen, all of them marching with that eerie sleepwalking gait that Reiner's companions had seen earlier, and they formed a broad front when they were two hundred paces behind Herlmann's lines.

"Are you going to support Herlmann, after all?" asked Pavel, confused. "Have we been wrong all along?"

A tremendous chorus of cheers went up as Herlmann's besieged army noticed Ulburt's forces, and the soldiers began to fight with renewed vigor. The barbarians, too, saw the newcomers and made a frantic attempt to maneuver their soldiers into a position to engage Ulburt's knights. But both the jubilation of the men and the terror of the Norsemen was short-lived because, strangely enough, although Ulburt's soldiers were in an excellent position to attack and provide support, both those on the hill and those formed up behind Herlmann's lines remained where they were as silent observers of the bloody battle raging before them.

"What is he waiting for?" asked Hals, angrily. "He could put them to flight."

"Where is the standard?" inquired Reiner. They looked for it but did not see it.

Meanwhile, the few yards of ground that Herlmann's soldiers had regained when the Norsemen had been confused by the new threat were being lost again, as the Norsemen fought desperately to defeat the enemy they were fighting before the new one attacked.

Beside Reiner, Franka exclaimed in a choked voice.

"There it is! Over the small hillock!"

Reiner and the others followed the young woman's gaze. Up the slope of the rocky knoll in the center of Herlmann's lines, Erich was ascending on the white warhorse, with the vile banner wedged in the lance wedge. Reiner saw Herlmann's artillery teams advancing toward the young knight with weapons drawn but not attacking him. On the contrary, the men fell to their knees before the standard and let it pass.

Erich reached the top of the hill and raised the banner high above his head. It fluttered heavily in the wind. Although there was no change in the atmospheric weather, a deathly pall seemed to fall over the valley as if the banner was absorbing the light. Reiner felt a shiver run through his body. Franka groaned. The effect it had on the soldiers in the valley was even stronger. Herlmann's men wavered and fell back all along the line, reduced to stunned inaction by the terrible influence of the banner.

The Norsemen also wavered, confused by that strange symbol, but they did not seem to fear it as they did the men of the realm and took advantage of the stunned horror of their enemies to attack with more ferocity. Herlmann's army was defending itself, but it was clear that morale had declined greatly and they were fighting without motivation.

"We have to get to that banner before it's too late, "said Franka.

"It's already too late." Giano stated. "I want to help, but those are dead men, how about we leave?"

Reiner shook his head. It was strange. He could hear the screams of the dying and the bellowing of captains and sergeants trying to regroup dejected soldiers. I knew the situation was desperate. He knew that riding into that mess was suicide. If he did what was in his best interest, he would sneak over the hill with his tail between his legs, but he couldn't do that. He couldn't allow that uptight nincompoop Erich to claim victory for the day. Nor could he let Roselyn and that overstuffed sausage Ulburt have their way.

"No. We're staying. Let's go. Straight for the knoll."

He started down the steep slope with his companions limping and grunting behind him. They reached the valley floor at a point just south of Herlmann's line, where surgeons and aides were dragging the dead and wounded away from the fighting. A hundred paces to the left, motionless and eerily silent, were Ulburt's infantrymen: rows and rows of spearmen and archers staring blankly ahead like statues of flesh and blood. Reiner and his companions began to advance carefully across the field strewn with bodies. Since they were dressed in Kingdom uniforms, none of Herlmann's soldiers paid them the slightest attention.

When they were halfway up the ridge, a movement that Reiner caught out of the corner of his eye caused him to look up. At the top of the rocky elevation, Erich was standing in the stirrups and swinging the evil banner in a circle above his head.

"By the gods!" growled Hals. "Here they come."

Reiner looked to the left. Ulburt's infantry was advancing in perfect formation, swords low and dead-eyed. Behind them, archers pointed to the sky and fired arrows.

"Run!" shouted Reiner. "Run for the hillock!"

The party members ran as fast as they could, limping, stumbling and cursing as a cloud of arrows described overhead an arc that momentarily blocked the sun to fall towards the earth like a black rain. Luckily, the archers' target was Herlmann's lines, and only a few fell where they stood. Though it was no such luck for Herlmann's men, who screamed in surprise and terror as the arrows knocked them down.

"Traitor!" shouted Franka.

Over the crest of the rocky ridge, Reiner saw that Ulburt and his knights had also responded to Erich's signal. They were charging down the slope into the valley, spear at the ready. From where Reiner stood it was impossible to see who they were attacking, but the barbaric roar of anger that echoed through the valley gave him the answer. Ulburt had fallen at last upon the Norsemen.

"Attack both sides!" shouted Hals as he limped forward. "What's that crazy fool up to?"

"Crazy?" gasped Reiner. "He's cooler than I thought. He wants the castle for himself, so he's waited until each side had weakened the other, and then attacked them both."

They reached the sparse woods surrounding the rocky knoll just as Ulburt's spearmen were passing before them. Herlmann's battle line, already badly decimated, had split into two fronts that were back to back, one line still facing the Norsemen and the other turned toward their haunted brethren, who charged twenty paces before they reached them.

It was a truly disturbing sight, for Ulburt's soldiers showed no emotion as they ran. They uttered no war cries and growled no defiance; they merely stared before them as they charged at Herlmann's battered lines with spears in perfect synchrony. And yet, despite their lack of emotion, they were bloodthirsty savages who slashed like butchers, biting, clawing and gouging out eyes as soon as they engaged in hand-to-hand combat with their enemies, never ceasing to stare into the middle distance with expressionless eyes.

Adding to the carnage was the fact that Herlmann's soldiers hesitated to attack the spearmen. Cries of 'Erhardt, what's the matter with you, don't you know me?' and 'Beren, brother, I implore you to stop!' rose above the fray to end in howls of pain. Reiner heard a sob beside him and saw that Hals was crying. The only factor that played in favor of Herlmann's soldiers, even remotely, was that Ulburt's spearmen, though very fierce and brutal, were also clumsy and gauche like puppets manipulated by an unskillful puppeteer.

"Let's go up the knoll," said Reiner as he turned Hals' back to the battle and pushed him into the bare forest. "Hurry."

But before they got very far they saw that the base of the slope was guarded by a unit of swordsmen, all of whom had the glazed look of banner slaves.

"This way," Reiner said, and led the others silently north along the hillock until the swordsmen were out of sight behind them. The hillock ascended like a plank of a wooden floor ripped from one end, and showed steep sides. Reiner picked his way through brambles and bushes until he reached the base.

"Oskar, grab my arm."

He helped the gunner up the slanting strata while Pavel did the same for Hals. Franka and Giano climbed alongside him. They reached the top edge at a point about a third of the way up the gently sloping hillside, and crouched behind a clump of bushes to look down and check if the swordsmen standing guard at the base had noticed them. The men continued to stare fixedly and blankly into the forest. Further up the hill, Herlmann's gunners had again brought their catapults to bear, and, with a shrinking heart, Reiner realized that they were firing at his own army mates. The standard had turned them against their own. At the back of the gunners, on the crest of the ridge, stood Erich, facing the battlefield, banner held high. Six other swordsmen protected his rear. Roselyn stood beside him and watched the battle with great concentration.

From the nearest catapult came a grunt. One of the gunners was shuffling toward them, his eyes expressionless, his ramrod raised like a gun. Reiner looked down the hill. The swordsmen had not yet seen him.

"Shoot him." He whispered. Franka hesitated.

"He's not our enemy. He's one of Herlmann's men."

The gunner's grunts grew louder as he tried to warn his comrades. He swung the ramrod around his head.

"No more. Shoot him."

"But he is not master of his own mind."

Next to them a dull clatter sounded and the man fell with a crossbow bolt stuck in his chest.

Giano shrugged and reloaded the weapon.

"Any man who tries to kill me is my enemy."

But he had silenced the man too late. The swordsmen had heard him and were ascending heavily up the slope as the gunners turned to look at them.

"The thing's gone bad," said Reiner. "We'll be surrounded in a minute."

"Wait a minute," Oskar interjected. "I have an idea." He hurried forward toward the approaching artillery group.

"Oskar!" shouted Reiner, then started after him. "Come on, all of you!" he ordered over his shoulder. "It's now or never."

"Since when did he get any ideas, that one?" growled Hals as he and the others followed Reiner.

Oskar dodged the gunners' clumsy blows and ran toward the catapult. Pavel hit one of the gunners with the spear shaft and knocked him aside, and Reiner kicked the other one down because, despite the orders he had given Franka, he was reluctant to kill the stunned soldiers.

Reaching the catapult, Oskar uncapped a kite of alchemical fire, stuck a long piece of lit wick inside the hole, and kicked it down the hillside. It rolled and bounced down the slope toward the advancing swordsmen, wick sputtering, as he readied a second kite.

Reiner smiled. It was a good idea, indeed. He hadn't thought the gunner was capable of such a thing.

As Oskar rolled the second kite, the first one hit one of the swordsmen in the chest and knocked him down. The others turned like sleepwalkers to look at him, and paid a heavy price. The kite exploded in their midst and tore them all to pieces.

Oskar uttered a choked exclamation.

"They haven't... they haven't run away." Reiner grimaced.

"You haven't been paying attention to what's going on."

The second kite bounced past where the shattered bodies of the soldiers lay and exploded in the forest at the foot of the knoll. A dozen trees ignited and the flames began to spread.

"That will keep the reinforcements at a distance." Pavel said.

"They won't need reinforcements." Hals observed. "These will finish us off."

Reiner looked behind the pikeman. All the men at the top of the hill had turned at the sound of the explosion. The gunner teams were abandoning the catapults and advancing towards them, while Roselyn, Erich and their swordsmen stared at them.

"Scum!" shouted Erich as he advanced toward them. "Are you still chasing me?"

"No!" Roselyn interjected, restraining him. "The banner must remain here."

"As you wish, my lady." Erich replied as he shrugged his shoulders to free himself from the woman's hand. "No need to move. get back to the catapults!" he shouted to the artillery detachments. "I'll take care of this rabble."

The artillerymen obeyed like sheep.

"Shoot him!" shouted Reiner as he drew his pistols and Erich began to swing the standard. "Kill him!"

Franka and Giano raised the bows as Oskar aimed his gun at him resting the barrel of his blunderbuss on the splint of his fractured wrist.

"Cease fire!" ordered Erich, and, to Reiner's distress, he found it impossible to disobey the order. He could not make his fingers pull the trigger. His companions had suffered a similar effect and were trembling from the effort they were making to shoot him.

With trembling hands, Giano finally fired his crossbow but the arrow went out diagonally.

"Damn!" said the Mercenary, frustrated. "My hand won't listen!"

"It's the banner." Said Franka, whose arms were shaking to keep the bow fully drawn.

Erich let out a laugh and raised the banner as he pointed at them with his free hand and the six swordsmen advanced towards the group.

"Kneel down, soldiers! Listen to your leader. I am your lawful captain. You must obey my orders. Kneel and bow your heads."

To Reiner's right and left, Pavel, Hals and Oskar knelt. Their chins dropped to their chests although Reiner could see they were struggling to raise their heads. He felt an almost irresistible urge to do the same. Erich was indeed the rightful chief. Now that Barrister was dead, he was the senior officer, and he was very strong and brave and much more experienced than Reiner. It would be an enormous relief to forget the responsibility of command and have someone else command them again. Reiner's knees buckled, but as he raised his eyes to his beloved chief, he stopped halfway to the ground.

Erich's face contorted into a smug sneer, a shattering discordance to the noble image Reiner had of him inside his head. He stood motionless as his mind struggled to reconcile the two images. To the left, he saw that Giano and Franka were equally halted in half genuflection.

Erich's swordsmen were approaching them, moving like monkeys rather than soldiers of the Empire, hunched and menacing, eyes expressionless and jaw slack. Reiner tried to move, but his limbs could not respond to the conflicting commands his mind was sending them.

The first swordsman reached Franka and raised his weapon like an executioner. Franka trembled from the effort she made to jump out of the way, but she was unable to do so. The sword was descending.

"No!" shouted Reiner, who fired the first gun without thinking. The bullet entered through the swordsman's lower jaw and exited through the top of his head. The man went down dripping blood and spilling brains, and Reiner found that this small disobedience had disrupted the power the standard had over him. He could move.

The detonation of the pistol had also freed Franka and Giano. They staggered back from the attacking swordsmen, gasping and cursing, but Oskar, Pavel and Hals remained motionless, slumping like rag dolls. The swordsmen were closing in for the kill.

Franka, Reiner and Giano jumped forward again to defend their comrades. Franka threw a dagger thrust underneath the sword wielding one of them, but was knocked down by an elbow from the swordsman. Reiner blocked a slash aimed at Oskar's head and pierced the attacker's heart with a shot from the second pistol. Giano threw the crossbow at the swordsman's face and drove the sword through his heart.

"On your knees, you bastards!" bellowed Erich, but they were too busy to hear him.

"Hals! Pavel! Oskar!" shouted Reiner as he parried two swords. "Wake up!"

Franka rose with precarious balance. A swordsman drew back the sword to slash at her, but she stepped unsteadily to the side and the blade missed. Reiner cleaved the swordsman's shoulder to the bone. The man raised his expressionless eyes and thrust at Reiner as if he hadn't felt the blow.

Surprised, Reiner tried to parry the thrust and had to desperately dive to the ground to avoid it. The swordsman raised his sword to deliver the killing blow, but suddenly a spear was thrust between his ribs. Reiner turned his head to see who had saved him. Pavel was clinging to the spear as if it were a lifeline.

"Thanks, kid." Reiner said as he stood up. He dispatched the swordsman and turned to face another.

Pavel was still too stunned to answer. Beside him, Hals was slapping his face and cursing, fighting with all his will against the standard. Reiner and Giano protected them. Oskar crawled away from the fray.

Three swordsmen remained. They fought with brute strength but little refinement. Had Reiner and his companions been unharmed and in full possession of their faculties, they would soon have finished them off; but dazed and wounded, they were almost as gauche as their mesmerized opponents. The swordsmen's attacks slammed into their blockades with surprising force, and they barely reacted as they suffered wounds that would have made normal men scream.

Franka helped Reiner kill another swordsman, slashing his throat with the dagger from behind while Reiner kept him busy.

"Go ahead, Captain!" Hals shouted as the swordsman fell. "We'll take care of these last two. Go teach that brainless swine a lesson."

Reiner raised his eyes to where Erich and Roselyn were watching the fight from with anxious eyes. He didn't want to face Erich hand to hand, especially when the knight was counting on the power of the banner to give him strength. But someone had to do it. With a sigh, he drew a pistol from a dead swordsman's belt and started up the hillside while his companions fought behind him. The forest surrounding the hill burned like dry hay, and smoke and sparks rose everywhere around him. It was almost impossible to see the battlefield through the flames.

Erich sharply advanced the banner toward him.

"Kneel, you dog! As Baron Ulburt's standard-bearer I command you! Do as you are commanded! Obey me!"

Roselyn smiled affectedly as Reiner stumbled as the force of the command weighed like a yoke on his neck and pushed him to the ground. The urge to kneel and kiss the ground was almost overwhelming, but having gotten rid of it once, she found it easier to disobey a second time. He continued to move forward as he shook his head in an attempt to clear it.

"I'm sorry, Erich." He said, forcing the words out through his lips. "You have chosen the wrong soldiers to test your magic on. Dungeon scum are terribly bad at obeying orders."

With a shriek of fear, Roselyn backed away only to turn and run to the edge of the cliff. She picked up a yellow flag from the ground and began waving it vigorously overhead.

Reiner paid not the slightest attention to her. He raised the gun and pointed it at Erich.

"Drop the gun, Reiner!" Erich shouted. "I order you."

Reiner fought the order and kept the gun, but only just. Firing it was out of the question. His fingers refused to obey him.

Erich laughed and with his free hand made as if to slash at Reiner. The knight was unarmed and ten paces away, yet Reiner shot back as if struck in the chest by a battering ram. He collapsed to the ground, gasping, terrible pain burning his ribs and abdomen. He looked at his torso. The leather jerkin was intact, but blood soaked through his shirt. He yanked it open. There were three deep gashes in his abdomen, and through one of them the white of his ribs was visible. He winced.

"The manticore's claws." He said hoarsely.

"The Dragon's claws" Erich declared in a boastful tone. "To shatter the enemies of the Kingdom."

He made the same hand gesture again. Reiner rolled to the side and claw marks appeared on the mob.

"If you still think you're fighting for the Kingdom, you're stupider than I thought." Reiner snarled. "And whether dragon or manticore, it continues to be an unfair advantage."

"Unfair?" said Erich, offended. "This is a sacred weapon."

Reiner closed his jerkin as tightly as he could over his wounds.

"And I have only this sword." He stood up, wavering, groaning in pain, and raised a fierce glare at Erich who, his head haloed by the sun, looked like a hero of legend. "I thought you were a man of honor, Erich. An honorable gentleman. What has become of honesty? Of fair play and choice of weapons?"

"Why should I play fair when you cheated in our last confrontation?"

"I did not cheat. Hals acted on his own. I was fully prepared to fight another combat with you, but fate interfered."

"What a nice story!" scoffed Erich.

"Think what you will." Reiner replied. "But here I stand, ready for another fight to prove who is the best, and you attack me with invisible claws and stun my mind with the power of the banner. You dare call that fair play? You dare call yourself a knight?"

"Do you question my honor, sir?"

"I will until you lay down the banner and fight me man to man."

"Don't listen to him, you fool!" cried Roselyn, who came running back from the edge of the crag. "You must not leave the banner."

"Madam, please." Erich said. "This is a quarrel between men." He gave Reiner a fierce look. "How do I know you will not cheat again?"

Reiner put a hand to his heart.

"You have my word as a knight and as the son of a Knight. I will fight you according to the rules of knightly combat. May the gods strike me down if I lie"

Erich hesitated, his brow furrowed. Roselyn clenched her fists.

"You airheaded child, I order you to keep the banner in your hand and kill this man instantly."

This seemed to make up Erich's mind. He raised the banner over his head and jabbed it savagely into the ground so that it stood on its own. He turned to face Reiner as he removed his belt and unsheathed his beautiful longsword.

"Well," he said. "To the death this time?"

"Of course." Reiner replied, again in control of his body, he did not hesitate twice to fire a shot into Erich's asshole's face.

The bullet went through Erich's nose and exited out the back of his head with a trail of blood. The knight collapsed like a house of cards with a shocked expression on his shattered face. He was dead before he hit the ground.

"You were right after all, Erich." Reiner said as he tossed aside the pistol. "I'm a cheater."