The Column of Ash [Epic Fantasy]

Oskar sat on his haunches in the early morning, elbows on his knees, arms dangling out in front before the warm coals of a quenched fire, spear leaned up against his shoulder. He was watching his scouts, who watched the horizon. They were hidden in the hills north of Sino Point, where, nearby, a road snaked its way south, connecting the walled, defended city that'd become the epicenter of the coming war and northern Ermenik, which maybe had a palisade around part of it and a castle inside. Easy pickings, even for a small band, if just to create some chaos. But he wanted to avoid that kind of dark business.

So, here they were, following Oskar's call to be a nuisance in another way. Over the last few days, they'd taken out a few small bands of men coming to prepare to defend Sino Point. They'd need to move on soon before word got out. But he'd had an outrider spot a larger party on the way, and that was worth risking it for.

See, they weren't there to kill potential reinforcements. They were there to get leverage.

"Twenty of them," Thovin said from the edge of the thicket, a good scout as well as a competent druzhina, "as I thought. A few riders."

"Armor and arms?" Oskar asked.

"Hard to say."

They waited a while longer until the party drew closer. Oskar's men waited impatiently, adrenaline getting blood pumping and hands jittery, but no one talked, thankfully. They had horses of their own, but kept them far back and tied up. They'd just get in the way in such tight fighting on the road here, and if need be, he kept a few men in reserve to mount up and chase down runners or fill in gaps as needed.

"Oh, yeah, they've got some mail. Only a handful of men do," Thovin murmured. "Looks like a few servants among them. Shit, I think we've got a noble here."

Praise the damn gods. And he'd almost given up on finding someone of worth!

Oskar could hear their chatting and so forth from here. They were getting close.

"Distance?" he asked.

"Ah… Thirty strides and closing." The druzhina ducked down. "I think it's about time, sir."

"Agreed." Oskar stood to a crouch and wiggled some life in his legs as he shuffled down the line, checking on the men, giving them looks to let them know it was time. "Remember, boys, you see anyone of blood or money down there, try to take them alive."

Nods and whispered "sirs" met him as he passed, finding his position toward the southern end close to Sino Point. In case anyone tried to run, whatever happened, they had to make sure none made it to the city. A deep breath in, then a harsh exhale out. He checked his sword's fit in the scabbard at his hip, axe securely tucked in the belt, and helmet buckle. All was well and good.

The voices came loud now. He could see their forms through the trees.

Another moment now… Wait for it…

He picked up his shield and nodded to the side. Ten of his men drew bowstrings back, picked their targets, and let arrows fly. To the thwack of bowstrings, Oskar let out a roar and broke into a sprint down the slight hillside, smashing through the already-trampled underbrush, spear held tight to his side and shield before him, eyes narrowed under the iron helmet. Two carts. A few riders at front and back with horses bucking, arrows sticking in their sides, one rider with a feathered end pointing from his side. Men on foot turning wide eyes, screams of surprise and fright and horror. Spears loosely held turned in white-knuckled grips. And one man sitting on a cart, dressed in fine red-dyed wool, leaping to his feet. He had a blue hat on and a nice sword at his side with some silver inlaid in the pommel. Might as well be jewelry for how the rich man yelped and shuffled back. Here's the target. Oskar's eyes flitted from him to the man nearest—some kind of guard, fit in fucking scale mail and wielding a battle axe.

"Mine!" he shouted, rushing forward.

A spearman got in his way, raising his weapon with some trepidation. A levy of some kind, then. Oskar deflected his strike, faked right, stepped left, and thrust his spear through the young man's stomach, yanking it back before he could collapse on it, shrieking in pain. Tough way to go. He found the guardman again, who was backing up, trying to shove the cart driver over and regain control of the bucking horses.

Oskar kicked a man locked in a duel with one of his own, sending the spearman flying, and pointed him in the direction of the cart. Then he lifted his spear up and hurled it ahead. It flew wobbly and a little crooked, but stuck in one of the two horses tied to the cart. The whinnying shrieks cut through even the sound of a small battle. He kept forward, drawing his hand axe just in time to rush forth and bury it in the head of a servant picking up a fallen man's spear. It stuck in the poor fucker's skull, and things were too messy to sit around and tug it out, so he had to draw his sword quicker than he would've liked. Could never have enough weapons on you.

The rich man was hopping off the cart and making to run, his guard just behind, smashing one of Oskar's men's shields with his long axe, likely breaking the poor druzhina's arm. Another of his men was threatening the guard and about lost his head for it, helmet cracked in and face bleeding.

"Shoot the fucker or stay back!" Oskar howled, leaping over a twitching body and circling until he stood between the rich man and freedom, forcing the guard to engage him. "That's it, you dumb prick. You and me now."

"Behind me," he could hear the guard hiss, moving toward Oskar with his axe outstretched, the head of it circling and swiping like a serpent. The man had a blond beard and bright eyes. Not from the area, then. From the north? Merkenia? Sadovoe? The Buurk? He didn't know how they fought all too well, except for loose shield walls and a lack of heavy cavalry.

The guard began to chant some kind of war song as he pushed forward, forcing Oskar to retreat lest he engage that menace of an axe. Ten years younger and a head taller, that bastard. Where was Stanilo when you needed him? Oskar scowled and eyed the flanks. He was getting drawn away into something like a real duel. Shit. Then he caught some movement further back.

Well, that was about as much help as he was going to get. Time to be an idiot.

Oskar pulled his arm back and hurled his shield forward like a mean discus. Its iron rim caught the axeman on his lead front knee, cracking loudly. Not hard enough to break anything, but it did force the man to stumble, his axe faltering. Oskar leaped in and swiped out, catching the rear wrist with his sword blade. Just a light cut. Damn!

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Before the guard could get his bearings, Oskar backpedaled and threatened to push the rich man. Of course, this forced the guard to engage, but at this point, an arrow whistled out from the edge of the trees and broke against the scale. Another followed shortly after and hit him in the calf, where he wore no armor except some thick leg wraps. Thovin was one good archer.

The guard stumbled to a knee and tried to rise, but found a sword smashing into his helmet and cracking his skull.

Then something happened that Oskar didn't expect one bit.

The rich fucker charged him with his blade out and held high, bellowing mad gibberish.

Oskar whirled about, barely deflecting a crooked blow before closing the distance and smashing his pommel into the man's face. His attacker collapsed with blood pouring down from his nose and sword falling on the ground. Oskar kicked it away and pushed the tip of his blade into the fine red wool of the man's chest. He looked back to the fight. It was about done. One holdout on the cart getting picked off with arrows and thrown spears, someone running into the trees, soon to be chased down, and two heading back north, also getting run down by a fast rider. He saw one of his men on the ground, dead. A good few more were injured; one or two of those injuries looked fatal. He didn't like it, but it could have gone a lot worse for such a bit fight.

"Don't kill me!" the rich man said, finally, almost choking on his own blood. "Leave my men, too. Please!"

"And why should we?" Oskar asked, keeping an eye on his surroundings.

"My name is Panos Balazoy, and I beg your mercy!"

"Never heard of you."

"I'm an elector! Please, let my men stand down!"

"Call 'em off, then."

This Panos seemed a bit hesitant but raised his voice and screamed out, "Put down your arms, men of Ermenik! They will give you mercy!"

Some of Oskar's own boys looked at him for confirmation, so he nodded and shrugged. One by one, the last fights stopped as the ambushed men realized they no longer had to fight to the death. It hurt the pride, to be sure, but the gods cursed dumb men who died for no good reason. Still was a shock they fought on for so long.

"Round them up. Tend to the wounded." Oskar squinted down the road. "Thovin! I want eyes north and south."

"On it," the druzhina said, snatching a horse and riding north, pointing to another rider to go south. They'd manage that just fine. It was bad enough to lose men in fights like these, but in the last encounter, he'd lost a good pair of eyes to a fellow who was falsely surrendering and stabbed the poor man in the stomach, then died trying to run away, not even making it to the treeline. His men were naturally wary of enemies with hands in the air now. Stupid would-be heroes.

Oskar brought the prisoners out of the road, kicking dirt over the blood, freeing or taking horses, and hauling the cart into the trees. When they were safe enough, and his scouts didn't report any enemies abound, he let his men plunder what they could and relax. Oskar knelt before the rich man with his sword balanced across his knee in a mild threat.

"Alright, Panos the Elector, you seem like a man who knows something about this war business. Care to enlighten me as to what's going on in Sino Point?"

"Well, nothing you don't know already, I would think," he replied, then reddened and looked down when Oskar scowled at him. "Ah, um, okay. Let me think…"

After the fight, when his blood wasn't flowing so hot, Oskar recalled that the Free Cities, or at least some of them, had electors who chose the man to run the city. Just a handful of them, of course, and they were always filthy rich and powerful. About the closest thing to a boyar of a prominent town you could find. And, most importantly, they could be a real, proper hostage.

"I'll keep it simple," Oskar said. "Why's an elector going south?"

"Many electors will, you see. There's a, um, call across the Cities for electors to show their support. I was to be one of the first!"

"And you decided to do so with, what, a dozen men? What's that going to do?"

Panos scowled away. "I was going to summon more in time."

"So, you've got some sway in Sino Point, then?" When the man gave a pathetic shrug, Oskar sighed and nodded north. "Well, in Ermenik, surely."

"Yes, of course!"

"So, then, you'd be worth enough to get them to change their mind about helping Sino Point?"

He raised in chin in some sort of juvenile defiance. "We stand strong because we stand together. You bandits will hardly force our hand, even with myself as a hostage, I can assure you this."

"Bandit? No, no, hardly. I thought it was obvious by now. You've got us all wrong, Elector. I'm a Veterian man." He grinned at the elector's shock. "And we'll just have to see about your conviction, eh? Because I think when they see your pretty face, they'll start to think about what happens to them. So, why don't we try this again?"

…

It had been a week since Laczlo sent Vida east on her mission, and in that time, much had changed. Word of what happened at the square where he'd attacked those Rutenian scum had spread and developed. Now, it wasn't just the servants and people of his household that whispered things about him, but the entire tsardom. One night in Latna, he awoke and stood at the window of his room, one borrowed from the voivode, to see a huge crowd gathered outside the palace walls lit by torchlight. But they weren't angry and threatening to break in, as he feared—no, they were singing praises. Damn praises.

Kapitalena was there with him and said they were likely organized by someone, that such a crowd could not form spontaneously, but still, that it meant something. He should be proud, though still avoid being so reckless in the future.

The people wanted someone strong. They wanted someone decisive. They wanted a leader to free them from the cruel reality of decades of turmoil, division, and downfall. Of course, he wished to have raised the boy Amon Vadoyeski as the rightful tsar, but how could he say what kind of leader he'd become? How could he assume to control and direct the boy the right way? And without the luxury of time in such desperate circumstances…

He saw it. He finally saw it.

Thus, it was fitting that only a few days later, a messenger arrived with urgent news that the Free Cities were preparing for war. He stared at the young man gasping for breath, trying desperately to stand straight and respectably just outside the voivode's stables within the walls of his small palace grounds. Isak was nearby, having fetched Laczlo, and so was Stanilo, having helped the messenger off his half-dead mount.

The messenger was reporting for Vida, though he didn't explicitly say it. "Great Tsar, be warned that the men of the Free City know of our plans. They amass forces at Sino Point day by day, reinforcing and training their militias." He coughed and gulped down a wineskin of water, then cleared his throat and continued, "And uh, I'm to report that the cities are working as one, by all appearances. And you may be unable to force them to fight piecemeal."

Laczlo cursed quietly to himself. This was exactly the opposite of what he needed right now. A large war was not good for Vasia when they had the Targul rattling their spears further east and the Rodezians in a temporary mess to the west. He'd left a few good men in Nova to keep things steady in his absence, but the true power would lie with Varul, who stayed with the Column. He simply didn't have the luxury of an extended campaign far from home.

"Anything else about their forces?" Isak asked.

"No, sir. Numbers are unclear." He gave a hurried nod to Laczlo. "Great Tsar, my most sincere and humble apologies for the lack of—"

"How does Vetera prepare?" he asked the man, waving aside his apology.

The messenger was flushed but paled quickly, looking down. "They harass the Free Cities well, it seems. They somehow managed to secure enough silver to procure mercenaries and begin organizing an army…" he trailed off, for some reason seeming frightened.

"Speak, boy," Isak growled. "What are you hiding?"

"I'm not hiding a thing, sir!" He glanced nervously between them, then over to Stanilo, standing quietly just behind.

"You won't be harmed," Laczlo said, leaning forward. "Just tell me the full story, good man."

He took a deep breath, nodded, and said quite quickly, "Voivode Vetesky has a new boyar of Ltava, a trading town in the foothills famed for its trade and—"

"I know of Ltava," Laczlo interrupted. "Who's the man?"

"He, uh, heads many of the actions against the Free Cities. Um…. And, well, you know him, oh Great Tsar… His name is Oskar Koyzlov."