Unlike the day before, where he labored in the ditch and on the earthworks walls, stripped to the waist in the spring damp, Galin rose before dawn and dressed for war. He was not a proper lord by right but through single combat was armed as well as any of the lords who marched with their retainers in his column. He felt that difference keenly, secretly jealous of the easy way they commanded, as though it was their birthright. Everything he did took effort, supreme effort, until the actual battle was joined. Then men would follow him because he was a warrior and he would see them through a fight alive. There, Galin thought, as he pulled on his padded leather gambeson, is where he was a lord, a lord of battle, and that would be the sort of man the Highlands would need, whether Galin wanted the post of or not. He tied the laces tightly across his chest as he looked east, where the sun was just beginning to show over the far end of the valley floor. He knew there would be no help from the east for days to come but still he looked, hoping the northern clans had gathered quickly and marched south, but he knew it was impossible. Instead of wishing for help, he resolved to make the pass a fortress where the orcs would break themselves and he touched the Maker’s amulet around his neck for luck in his task.
Sitting on a stump near the smoldering embers of the night’s cooking fire, Galin pulled on his boots, reinforced with iron bands to protect his calves and ankles from the blows that could lance below his shield. He stamped his feet to warm them and settle them in the boots, then tossed a small pile of twigs onto the fire. As the kindling began to smoke, he leaned closer, blowing gently on the kindling and embers until they caught fire properly. Once the fire was stoked again, he added small branches, letting the fire grow slowly so that when Luthene woke, it would be ready for her breakfast. He smiled at her, still resting where they had slept the night before, then pushed the thought of her embrace from his mind and turned his attention back to the day ahead. Galin stood up slowly from the stump, enjoying the warmth of small fire in front of him, then, with no small trouble, he hauled his coat of mail over his head, letting the weight settle heavily on his shoulders. The coat reached down to his knees and weighed heavily on his shoulders until he tightened the leather cord at his neck and strapped his sword belt around his waist. As he cinched it tight, he felt the weight on his shoulders lessen and let out a soft sight of relief. It was strange, he thought as he pulled on his gloves, reinforced like his boots with iron, that he felt most comfortable bearing the discomfort of his arms and armor. But it was a warrior’s burden and he knew it was one he would rather bear than till a field or ply a net. He was born for war and this valley would be his finest test.
Galin stooped down and unwrapped the leather bag where he carried his helmet, another piece looted from a dead champion, and he pulled the iron cap over his head until his hair was pressed down by the cloth padded leather lining. Finally, he slipped his left arm through the loops of his linden-wood shield and grasped his war spear in his right. As the sun rose, he stood at the summit of the Highlanders’ earthworks wall, looking like one of the Maker’s own warband, his mail polished and shining in the first feeble rays of the morning as the men began to stir. Cooper, grumbling about the hour, joined him, also dressed for war. Galin grinned at him and the older veteran scowled back. “There’s nothing godly about this damned hour, Galin, no matter how much you grin, you sorry bag of shite.” Galin laughed and clapped him on the back.
“We have a proper battle coming, Owen. A chance to be covered in glory, to have songs sung about us for generations. We may get gutted like herrings, I grant you that, but it’ll be a heroic sort of gutting!” Galin chuckled darkly and Cooper just groaned and stumped off back into the camp to wake up the household troops who, unlike the levied farmers, were not accustomed to waking at such an hour, preferring a life of indolence at their lords’ halls. Galin followed close behind, greeting the men he had worked with the day before and committing the names of others to memory as he met them. It was a simple trick but it made the men feel important and respected and that would be a boon in the days to come. When the men were finally all awake and gnawing on their hard bread and cold salt beef, Galin returned to Luthene and took his meal with her. He had little appetite but forced the food down, knowing that he would need his strength. “Best of luck with the levies today, lovely. It’ll be hellish work getting some of these hotheads to take discipline but the Maker knows we need every spear we can muster in the wall to fight like a fury. It’ll be a fight like we haven’t seen since the Valley. You were there; you saw it with your own eyes. We need to put some steel into these men and I know you’ll do it well.” He leaned over and kissed her cheek affectionately then shoved the half-eaten loaf into his pack. “I’ll be scouting ahead today, maybe make some trouble for the greenskins as they come down. I’ll be back before the sun’s set, so until then, you and Cooper keep this lot in line.”
Leaving Luthene to her unenviable task, Galin sought out Aelle at his fire and motioned for the shipmaster to walk with him along the rampart. For a few moments Galin said nothing, then stopped and turned to face Aelle. “I am going to ask something of you, Aelle, that you may not like, but believe me, the army needs it. When we face the orcs, I need you away from the fight, at the head of fifty of your best men, here, on the wall. Whenever the greenskins threaten to break through our line, you lead your spears into that fight and shore up the line. I know your men can hold the line if you fought there and I would welcome you on my right in the wall, but I need men I can trust to fight like madmen and push back when we are weakened. Do you understand?” Galin looked at him with worry on his face, hoping that he had not offended Aelle by suggesting that he remain as a fighting reserve. He did not have to worry, however, because Aelle’s broad, honest face broke into a grin and he clasped Galin’s hand.
“So I don’t have to fight except like a madman when these farmers shit their breeches and buckle? Just my sort of fight, Galin. Just my sort of fight.”
“That’s settled, then. Now, though, I need you and some of your men, the men you’ll be keeping on the wall. We’re going to head out and welcome the orcs to our little part of paradise, a proper Highland welcome.” Galin grinned wolfishly and Aelle slapped him heavily on the back.
“I’ll have twenty spears ready inside a quarter hour, each of them a murdering cutthroat bastard!”
As Aelle shouted at his boat crews to grab their war gear, Galin climbed down from the earthworks to confer with Cooper and ensure that the last parts of the fortification would be completed in his absence. Cooper rolled his eyes as Galin repeated himself for what seemed to be the thousandth time, promising that work would be completed before Galin returned. Satisfied that the project was in good hands, Galin joined Aelle’s men at the gap in the wall as they were heaving the spear-studded mast out of the way to clear the path. “That’ll be a real nasty treat in the orcs try and make a break through,” Aelle said admiringly as it took eight men straining to move the obstacle clear. “Wouldn’t want to come up against you in a fight, Galin, I can tell you that.”
“Then stop being a bloody pirate and do some proper soldiering now and again, you great, blonde bastard!”
Laughing, the party left to meet up with the scouts posted at the mouth of Crannog’s Pass, joking to take their minds off the trial ahead. As they walked, Galin loped over to Aelle and matched his stride. “I figure their scouts can’t be much further than the Pass’ head,” Galin said as they traversed what he knew would soon be a killing field in front of the wall. “So when they come in, we hit the bastards, kill ‘em and put their heads on stakes to welcome out greenskinned neighbors to the party. Think your lads will be able to do that, eh?” Aelle just grinned.
“We’ll make it real pretty, Galin, a proper Highland welcome.”
The scouts at the head of the valley reported exactly what Galin suspected, that the orc outriders were not more than an hour or so away and their main body would reach the pass by nightfall. Galin sent the scouts back to the main encampment to warn Cooper so preparations could be made while Aelle and his men took up positions in the underbrush and copses of trees near the entrance to the Pass. Galin did not hide. Instead, he sat one hundred yards into the valley directly in the center of the well-beaten track, unstrapping his shield and laying his spear aside. While they waited, Galin took out his long fighting dagger and whittled a limb that had fallen off one of the rowan trees that lined the pass into a point, idly passing the time. As the sun began to fill the valley with light, Galin saw the orcish outriders in the distance. Tossing the branch aside, he slowly got to his feet, stretching out his back before slipping his arm through the straps of his shield and picking up his spear again. He heard a rustle in the rowan trees and whistled softly to alert Aelle’s raiders to be still. As the orcs drew up to the mouth of the Valley, Galin stood, shield across his chest and spear leveled, and called out to them. “Best be on your way now, the lot of you. Ain’t greenskin territory, this.”
The orcs were confident of their victory and only sent six outriders ahead of their snaking column, all evidently of higher castes, from their size and armor, and one of them, his shield daubed with what appeared to be dried blood, lead his captured mount forward. When he spoke, it was a harsh, guttural, almost hissing noise, and he glared down at the defiant Highlander. “Do you think you will stop us all alone, little man? We will gut you and eat you before you can lift that puny spear.” Galin started to laugh, his sides shaking and he let the butt of his spear jam itself into the worn roadway to steady himself as tears well from his eyes. The orc looked puzzled and the other riders jostled closer to see what was causing all this laughter.
“You think…” Galin gasped for air, nearly doubled over with mirth. “You actually think… I’m alone?!”
Spears flew out of the thickets along the road, slamming into riders and horses alike. One of the horses, struck high in the chest, collapsed in a flurry of hooves, its rider pinned beneath its weight. Galin lifted his shield and took an axe blow on the boss, deflecting it to his left, then thrust his spear into the orc’s vitals as he was unbalanced. The creature shrieked, black blood oozing down the spearhead, and Galin twisted the leaf shaped blade to it would not be trapped in the orc’s flesh. Yanking it out, he turned to see the other riders being hauled from their saddles by Aelle’s men like stags being swarmed by hounds. Blades rose and fell with swift brutality and soon the pass was quiet aside from the gasping moans of the orc who had challenged Galin. He lay on the ground, his hands clutching the deep wound in his belly, trying to staunch the bleeding. Galin put a booted foot over his hands and ground down, eliciting a scream of agony.
“I want you to know, you greenskinned shite, that all your kin will die in this place, their bones unburied and their spirits forever trapped between this life and the next, wandering for eternity. This valley will be piled high with your bodies and for a hundred generations, no orc will dare enter our lands. We will kill you all,” Galin growled, stamping harder on the orc’s wound, “and it is because you failed. By the time the army arrives, it will be too late. You won’t have warned them.” He drew his arm back, letting the dying creature see the sun glinting off his spearhead. “You lose.” He thrust the spear down with all his strength, leaning into the blow and felt the blade tear apart the links of the orc’s mail and shatter the ribs beneath, burying itself deep in its chest. Jerking the blade free, Galin spat on the corpse and looked at the bloodied raiders grinning at him. “Heads off and in the road, on their own weapons. Take the horses back with us. We’ve won the first bout,” he said, wiping the spearhead on the orc’s cloak, “but there’s more to come.” Aelle brought his axe down and severed one of the corpses’ heads which he kicked toward one of his crewmen. “And make it quick.”
A few minutes was all it took to line the head, staked on swords and spears, along the mouth of the Pass. Aelle had the idea to paint their foreheads with symbols of the Maker and the Highland religion. “Might slow the bastards down, thinking a wizard’s cursed them or the like. Then they’ll have their sorcerers cursing them and trying to remove the hexes before they pass so they don’t all turn into grass snakes or the like.” Galin chuckled at the idea of the entire orc horde grinding to a halt at the Pass all the way back to the Highlanders’ camp. He slid ungracefully off the back of his captured horse and led it through the gap in the wall. He was glad to see that Cooper had kept his word, thickening the wall and shoring it with timber, and deepening the ditch in front of it. He handed the reins of the horse to Colum who had sprinted over to greet him, ruffling the boy’s hair. “Where’s Luthene, lad? And how’s the training?”
As Colum led the way, rambling about the day’s training, Galin smiled. Even in a place like this, with death a day’s march away, he enjoyed the boy’s excitement and the prospect of seeing Luthene again. He found her finishing drills with the levy and waited until the pushing had finished before calling her over. “Colum says you’ve been doing a good job and you know how highly I value the scut’s opinion. Now tell me, how will they fare, do you think, when the walls collide?” Leaving Colum to care for the horse, he walked with Luthene back toward their campfire. Once Colum was out of earshot, he leaned closer. “Orcs are a day’s march away, should be at the valley by nightfall and here the day following. We killed their scouts and left the buggers a bit of a surprise though. Aelle seems glad to lead the reserves and Cooper’s got the wall done right. I think we’ve got a proper chance of this, but I don’t want to say that and tempt the Maker to stack the odds. Always was a cantankerous bastard,” he said as they sat at the fire. “But I do think we can hold the bastards. Maker help me, I do.”
