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from Chapter 26: The Archers
“We’re not going to make it in time,” Siannon said. She looked back along the path they had traveled. The vanguard of the Norse forces was now in sight—still distant, tiny figures of black and brown against the relentless whiteness of the frozen valley—but based on how quickly they were able to traverse the first half of the valley and get over the frozen waterfall, she estimated they would be upon them before they made it to the end.
Siannon and Captain Pritchett were walking along an icy path at a dangerous speed. She made sure to keep her horse in sight, upon which Rupert rode with her children. The horses were just about spent, and so were most of her men. “I’m going to take my knights and form a skirmish line behind these boulders up ahead,” she told him. “We can buy the rest of you enough time to get away.”
“No, your highness,” Pritchett replied. “I cannot allow you to do that.”
“What do you mean?” she said. “I am responsible for all these people, for my children…”
“Yes, Kira, you are responsible for them, and that means you have to stay alive and get away with them as well.”
“I have to protect them!”
“Who is your captain of the guard?”
“What?” she said.
“Who is your captain of the guard?” he repeated.
“I don’t…I mean, in Macnylleth, I am the captain of the guard,” she said.
“Right,” he said. “And what is your first order?”
“Protect the Kim and his family.”
“And what does the captain tell the Kim when he wants to do something foolish and stupid that will get himself killed?”
“I tell him that he’s too valuable to risk his life unnecessarily,” she said, her voice hushed.
“Right,” Pritchett said. “Now, who is your captain of the guard?”
“I suppose that here and now, you are,” she replied.
“Now you’ve got it,” he said. “And as your captain, I’m going to let you in on the King’s Guard’s final secret in this valley. We’ve got a whole mountain of boulders at the top of those cliffs up ahead. Send your archers to the rear of the company. As soon as the Norsemen get within range, they’ll begin loosing volleys at them. That will slow them down enough to allow us to get into place. When we are, we signal them to move out of the valley as fast as they can. After that, we pull out the supports, and the whole mountain comes crashing down in front of them.”
“That sounds like one of my husband’s traps,” Siannon said.
“Kim Macnylleth’s a clever man, but he’s not the only clever man in the kingdom,” Pritchett said. “Give the order, and let’s get moving.”
They continued to move as fast as the terrain would allow even as she gathered her archers and filled them in on their plan. The archers, about two dozen men, stopped walking until the rest of the company had passed them. Looking behind them, the approaching figures grew larger, recognizable as men at this point. The archers began moving behind their own company again, careful to keep watch to see when the enemy would be in range.
That moment came much sooner than expected. The archers, having already judged the distance, angle, and wind, let their first volley loose. They watched with satisfaction as several of the men on the front line collapsed. Three more volleys followed, each with the same results. The fourth volley, however, met a front line with shields deployed. The arrows bit into the heavy wood without harming the men underneath the shields, and they kept on advancing from there.
“What do we do now?” one archer asked. He looked not one day older than sixteen.
The oldest officer, barely halfway through his twenties himself, thought for an instant and gave the orders. “Get up on the sides of the valley. Split in half, and try to find some kind of shelter, a boulder, a tree, a bush—build a bloody snow wall if you must. When they get in front of us, open fire from behind. Don’t stop shooting until you run out of arrows, then draw your swords and keep them here long enough for the Kira to get the rest of the people to safety.”
“So we’re to die?” another archer said.
“Aye, lad,” their leader said. “But we’ll take a lot more of these Norse bastards with us. And think of the songs they’ll sing about us after we’ve won. People in Macnylleth will tell their grandchildren how no more than twenty-odd archers defeated a whole battalion of Norse warriors.”
Resigned to their fate, yet determined not to fail, they split into two groups and did as he ordered. There was little shelter on either side due to the sheer steepness of the valley’s walls, but each man found a scrub bush or a crevice along the pathway, and several of them used their helmets to create small walls made of snow. There was nothing left to do now but wait.
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