The Forge of Men Read online

  No sooner had he brought his shield down to sight in on his target than another dagger thunked into the rim of it. Had the dagger been thrown an inch or two higher, it would have struck Nikomedes in the forehead. Undeterred—and knowing he had but a brief window to do what needed to be done—he drew his sword back and hurled it at the dagger-thrower.

  Not waiting to see the result of his throw, Nikomedes began to charge toward the dagger casting warrior, who was ten meters away behind the fracturing line.

  The sword spun end over end, whistling as it cut through the air before taking the dagger-thrower in the shoulder, spinning him around with the power of its impact. Nikomedes’ long, churning legs drew him closer, and the other man just had time to make eye contact before the two collided.

  Placing all his weight behind the shield, he slammed it into the man’s upper torso and was rewarded with a series of crunching noises as bones in the Ice Raider’s chest broke. Discarding the shield, Nikomedes wrapped his hands around the warrior’s neck and throttled him with every ounce of vice-like power he had in his fingers.

  When the Ice Raider refused to die, Nikomedes raised his head from the ground and struck it against a nearby rock, causing his foes’ eyes to roll back into his head. The second time skull met rock, the Ice Raider’s arms went limp. The third blow caused the man’s eyes to roll around in his head like a doll’s, until they became fixed in opposite directions, and Nikomedes knew he was dead.

  “Breakers!” he heard the voice of Kratos call from the center, and Nikomedes’ head snapped up in time to see a narrow, two meter long log thrown over the top of the shield wall. There was a rope attached to the log, and as soon as the log hit the ground the line went taught and a pair of curved, twisted blades sprung from the log’s sides. The blades were anchored to the far end of the log and the tips were rounded in an odd fashion, and Nikomedes ran to help but could merely watch with horror as the breaker did its gruesome work.

  A dozen Ice Raiders had gripped the breaker’s line and began to run away from the shield wall, as though they meant to retreat. The breaker’s blades skittered along the ground, never digging in due to the strange, rounded design at their tips, and when the blades met the calves of Nikomedes’ men, they were cut down where they stood. All six men in the device’s path collapsed to the ground clutching the ruined stumps of their legs, which sprayed blood all over the ground.

  In a perfectly coordinated display, the cat-skin elites surged into the breach and began to make short work of the shield wall. These elites were simply too much for Felix’ soldiers to contend with, and without the protection of the shield wall they would not stand long against the northerner’s savage fury.

  Nikomedes roared in anger as he saw another ‘breaker’ was flung over the shield wall a few meters to his left. He grabbed a sword from a nearby fallen comrade as he ran, and leapt to sever the rope before it could be pulled taut.

  He brought his sword down an instant too late, and his left arm was hit by the breaker blade before it did to another half dozen men what the first breaker had done. Nikomedes rolled over and assessed his arm with a quick glance; it still worked, and the bleeding would not claim him any time soon, so he leapt forward to close the newly-made hole in their shield wall.

  With no shield to protect him, he bellowed wordlessly as he entered the gap and was met by a cat-skin elite wielding a pair of curved, barbed axes.

  Nikomedes thrust out with his blade, hoping to stop the man from entering the breach while his allies re-formed the wall. The axe-wielder parried easily and launched a counterattack, sweeping his axe laterally—if Nikomedes ducked, the axe would likely claim one of his allies with its follow-through.

  Using every bit of coordination and speed he possessed, he spun his body and allowed his momentum to bring his blade around to interdict the axe as it made for his ally’s neck.

  There was a clang, but Nikomedes was already following up the attack as he kicked with his metal-cleated boot and made contact with the man’s thigh. It was a combination maneuver he had practiced at some length—and when he had successfully demonstrated its effectiveness, Felix had stopped fighting him with hand axes.

  The Ice Raider’s leg gave out and Nikomedes brought his blade up to remove the man’s head, but his sword was met with one of the man’s axes. Impossible, Nikomedes thought to himself, it was perfectly executed!

  Only then did he realize the man had apparently foreseen the vulnerable opening and had dropped his other axe so he could use both hands to block Nikomedes’ counterattack.

  The brief respite in their conflict was all that Nikomedes’ allies had needed to reform the shield wall, and Nikomedes stole a glance back toward the center as the soldiers around his went about their work of repelling the Ice Raiders.

  Kratos was there, but so was Felix! Felix had apparently rolled up and through the Ice Raider flank, and Kratos had diverted his own men to resist in order to keep from being surrounded or divided.

  Nikomedes saw Felix swing his hammer above his head and Kratos released the heavy, iron ball from his hand and grip the chain with his free hand. Kratos began to swing the heavy, murderous weapon around, and the two began to circle each other as the surrounding warriors gave way to the warlords—this was to be their duel, and their honor; to interfere was a killable offense.

  It fell to the soldiers to continue the battle on their own. Nikomedes looked to the right flank, which had completely collapsed after another handful of the savage breakers had been employed.

  He performed a quick head count and was dismayed at what he found. Even though Felix had rolled up the enemy’s opposite flank, the cost had been high; Nikomedes counted no more than fifty warriors in the left wing of their formation.

  The center was at similar strength, even though nearly two thirds of Felix’ forces had been deployed there. Meanwhile, the right flank would be fortunate to bring even half as many back into formation before they were cut down.

  That left roughly six score of men, and the enemy numbered at least as many—but three fourths of the standing Ice Raiders were the cat-skin elites. In that moment, Nikomedes reluctantly accepted that there was no way for their forces to achieve victory without Felix emerging victorious from his duel with Kratos.

  But that did not mean they would throw down their arms. He looked around to find a nearby allied commander, but saw that most of them had already fallen—which was clearly no accident.

  Looking at the ruined remains of the right wing, he stepped back from the line and waved his sword over his head. “Rally!” he called, his powerful voice barely rising above the din of battle. “Right wing, fall back and rally to the center!”

  The remnants of the right wing appeared to hear his call, and after a few moments they began to conduct a more-or-less orderly retreat.

  Nikomedes looked to the right edge of the center, and saw a man he recognized named Cassius. “Cassius!” he barked, and the other man turned to face him before pulling back from the line and coming to his side.

  “Nikomedes,” Cassius replied. Nikomedes could see the other man’s nose had been shattered, and he had lost a handful of teeth, but his eyes were clear and his voice steady.

  “We need a new commander for the reforming right wing,” Nikomedes instructed, pointing to the retreating remnants of the now-shattered line. “You’re it.”

  “Yes, Nikomedes,” Cassius acknowledged with a quick nod, and before he made to leave, Nikomedes grabbed his shoulder.

  When Cassius once again made eye contact, Nikomedes added, “We shall not retreat, Cassius. We hold against them with our very lives, do you understand?”

  Cassius looked back to the dueling warlords briefly before nodding, “Death before dishonor.”

  Nikomedes gave him a knowing nod and echoed, “Death before dishonor.” He then gestured for the other man to proceed with his duty, before turning to witness the dueling titans of the battlefield—their only hope now lay with their warlord.
r />   Felix swung Glacier Splitter around, and Kratos leapt back out of the weapon’s path before hurling his chained ball toward Nikomedes’ warlord. Felix managed to avoid the path of the ball itself by swinging his body around and using the inertia of his massive stone hammer as a counterweight as he prepared to bring the weapon around on Kratos once again.

  But this time Kratos pulled up on the chain slightly, causing the metal ball to drop to the ground, and the attached chain fell across the hammer’s haft. With a mighty heave, Kratos pulled the chain back and only then did Nikomedes see that there was only perhaps two meters of chain attached to the iron ball. The rest of the line was a finely woven rope of some unfamiliar composition.

  Kratos’ herculean pull caused the iron ball to snap against the haft of the hammer, and in doing so cost Felix his balance. The hammer fell from his hands as he fought to keep his feet, which was clearly what Kratos had been trying for. His task accomplished, the mammoth of a man charged toward Felix with thunderous footsteps and Felix drew a dagger from his belt as he braced to meet his cousin.

  The two collided, and Nikomedes literally winced at the impact as Kratos brought his spiked gauntlet down in a savage swipe at his cousin’s face, while Felix stabbed upward into Kratos’ exposed armpit with his dagger and used his free forearm to block the flesh-rending gauntlet.

  Kratos pushed himself forward at the final moment, and even from a distance Nikomedes could tell that Felix’ dagger had merely scored a flesh wound to Kratos’ back rather than a killing blow to the arteries of the arm.

  Kratos’ gauntlet was likewise prevented from ending the fight with his first blow, and Felix released his grip on the dagger—now trapped behind Kratos’ arm, which was clenched tightly to his side—to deliver a vicious, bone-cracking uppercut to Kratos’ chin. The two were equal in girth and musculature, but Kratos towered a full head over Felix, and it was all that Nikomedes’ warlord could do to reach the towering behemoth’s jaw.

  But reach it he did, and Kratos actually staggered backward as his eyes momentarily rolled in his head from the power of the punch. Felix pressed forward, grabbing Kratos’ gauntleted right arm with his own left, and using his right to pummel Kratos’ jaw with repeated overhand rights. Each strike delivered enough punishment to lay Nikomedes low—he knew this to be true from hard-won experience.

  But the giant of a man refused to go down, and after nearly a dozen blows he visibly regained his senses and brought his left hand up to catch Felix’ fist mid-strike.

  The combatants stood locked together for a moment, and in that moment Nikomedes knew that something meaningful had passed between the two. What that was precisely escaped Nikomedes, but he understood enough to know that the tide had turned against his warlord—and against his men.

  Kratos leaned forward on the shorter Felix, pressing his weight down as he brought the spiked gauntlet toward his cousin’s neck. Despite his best efforts, Felix was unable to stop the torturously slow progress of the savage instrument as it drew ever nearer to his exposed face.

  With the gauntlet mere inches from his eyes, Felix brought his knee up between Kratos’ legs in what looked to be a desperate, last-ditch effort to free himself from the larger man’s grip.

  He succeeded—at least partially—as Kratos’ hand briefly released his hold on Felix’ free, right hand. But rather than using that hand to ward off the claw-like gauntlet, Felix did something inexplicable.

  He reached up with his hand and plunged his fingers into Kratos’ eyes, and even while the larger man screamed in agony he pressed the claw against Felix’ neck and drew it across the exposed flesh there, severing his major blood vessels and sending a vertical spray of blood into the air.

  Kratos screamed in pure, unmasked pain as he collapsed to the ground, taking Felix with him. For a moment, Nikomedes thought it might have ended in the deaths of both warlords.

  Then Nikomedes returned his focus to the battle unfolding around him, and he found that his lines had been divided. The left wing, which Felix had led, was now completely gone with its men being hacked to pieces by the cat-skin elites.

  The center, which had numbered seventy warriors a few moments earlier, was now down to barely over half that number. The Ice Raiders appeared to have sustained no more than a handful of casualties, and he estimated their number to still be greater than one hundred.

  In short, Felix’ men were routed and their fates were already sealed.

  The Ice Raiders encircled the tattered, broken and bleeding remains of Felix’ army and Nikomedes could feel the resignation emanating from the men around him. Determined not to die in such an ignominious fashion, he raised his sword to the sky and bellowed, “Death before dishonor!”

  A weak cry echoed his own as he stepped forward determined to take as many of these Ice Raiders down with him as possible. “Death before dishonor!” he screamed again, and this time the soldiers around him responded with another full measure dignity.

  The Ice Raiders pressed forward, and Nikomedes knew that he was looking at his own death in their eyes, but he did not care. He would not fail his line in this, his final moment, by laying down the arms he had sworn to take up in defense of his warlord’s honor.

  I will die with their names a curse on my lips, he seethed silently as he raised his sword to signal the final act of this battle.

  “Hold!” bellowed Kratos’ voice from behind the Ice Raider line, and the northerners did as bidden as they stood there appraising the surrounded soldiers of Felix’ army. They veritably licked their lips in anticipation of victory, but still they held their position as Kratos stepped forward through the wall of men, carrying Glacier Splitter with him.

  Nikomedes looked into the huge man’s face and saw the terrible damage his warlord had wrought with his final act. Kratos’ right eye dangled two inches below its socket by what seemed to be no more than a wispy thread of flesh. The skin above and below his eye had been torn, and his cheek had been rent into a pair of dangling flaps which appeared to have stopped bleeding. Nikomedes was uncertain if the damage to Kratos’ face could ever be repaired, but the eye was obviously lost.

  Apparently reaching the same conclusion, Kratos turned to the assembled host of Ice Raiders theatrically before reaching up and ripping the once-vital organ from its final, tattered connection to his body. Grimacing with pain, but somehow managing to fight through it, he threw it to the ground and stamped it under his boot emphatically as his men roared in savage approval.

  “What no longer serves a purpose has no place in the body of a host,” Kratos yelled, and his men were instantly silent. He fixed Nikomedes with a hard, iron-like glare from his lone remaining eye and leaned forward challengingly, using Glacier Splitter like a crutch, “Do you still serve a purpose, boy?”

  Nikomedes straightened himself defiantly. “I will die before I submit to you, heretic,” he shouted defiantly.

  Kratos rolled his eye and the men around him began to chuckle. He silenced them with a gesture after a few moments of laughter, then turned back to Nikomedes, “If that is your wish, then I would grant it. In fact, I’m feeling generous today…what say you face me, one on one, with the fate of your men hanging in the balance?”

  Nikomedes looked around at his men, and he could see the sudden hope in their eyes. It shamed him to see it there, but they clearly wished him to accept the challenge—which was good, because he had already decided to do so. A chance to avenge his warlord’s death against this savage barbarian was all he could dream of in that, what may be his final, moment.

  “I would face you if you have the courage,” Nikomedes growled.

  Kratos, in spite of the horrible wound to his face, flashed a toothy grin and again his men began to chuckle—this time almost good-naturedly. “I have a few shortcomings, lad…but a lack of courage has never been one of them.” Kratos held his hammer out with one massive hand, and one of his men—one who bore a striking resemblance to Kratos himself—came forward to collect it, prompting
the one-eyed warrior to growl, “Don’t lose this again, Kairos.” He then turned to face Nikomedes as blood ran down the side of his face, but despite a tight grimace he seemed unfazed by the ruination to his face as he asked, “Blades and shields?”

  Nikomedes’ mind raced momentarily as he considered the other available weapons, and how to best take advantage of his foe’s limited vision. But he could think of no better armament, so he nodded as he tossed Kratos the sword he held.

  Kratos caught the blade easily in his right hand and sneered as he spun it over, appraising its balance. The weapon looked almost comically small in the man’s massive hand, but Nikomedes paid it no mind as he selected another blade of the same make. The men around them formed a circle—less than half of the circle was lined with Felix’ men, and the other half was bordered by Kratos’ Ice Raiders.

  “Let’s see what my cousin has taught you, man-child,” Kratos spat as he picked up a nearby shield. “I wonder if it will be enough to save you—or your men.”

  The younger man brought his sword up in the customary salute after retrieving a shield of his own. Kratos returned the respect disdainfully, and they began to circle each other.

  Nikomedes’ pulse was quickened, but he fought to keep his nerves controlled and his mind focused. After circling for a dozen steps, he lunged forward with a feint which Kratos easily saw for what it was and barely flinched.

  Nikomedes hesitated momentarily, and Kratos pressed forward behind his shield. Nikomedes circled to Kratos’ left to stay out of the larger man’s killing zone as the massive barbarian moved forward. As he moved laterally, Nikomedes lunged forward with his shield, driving his body weight behind it in an attempt to unbalance the larger man.

  Unbelievably, his foe barely moved when his shield slammed into him. Even though Nikomedes’ charge had left him open to counterattack, the larger man merely shook his head in disappointment rather than take advantage of the perhaps too obvious opening.

  “Weak,” Kratos growled, surging forward with a similar attack which landed with crushing force, causing Nikomedes to backpedal to keep his footing. He found himself dangerously close to Kratos’ edge of the circle, and quickly moved back toward the center of the ring.