Bring Trade, Not War

Sir Danielle Longbow ground her teeth, looking back at her riders as they galloped too slowly from one battle to the next. If only she had a curaogine for all her riders instead of a herd of horses.

The nameless knights in their black tabards rode behind her, driving their steeds on past exhaustion to meet the other enemy. Armed to fight monsters, they charged southeast towards an overwhelming invasion of people. Defending her homeland would mean adding guilt to the well of it buried within her.

“Bring traders, not warriors,” she grunted as she bounced in the saddle of her curaogine, Shalakhir. It was a saying that had become common among the people of Crann in recent years. They had weathered invasions before or fled from war in foreign lands.

Corpse smoke rose from mountains on the battlefield Danielle had expected to join. The fight had moved on without her nameless knights. Curaduile trees rose from torn earth, showing the defenders had their say in the fight. Sheer numbers had washed over them. Invaders from Quin Shi had been taken away. Corpses of Danielle’s people, still wearing armour, had been piled high and hurriedly burnt.

Craters told the tale of the newest horrors of war. Cannons had ripped the earth, dismembering defenders. Carrion beasts had come from far and wide for a feast that could feed them for generations. Wolves dragged bodies away by the ankles. Crows picked at anything that wasn’t burning.

“Put out the fires. Scare away the beasts.” There was no time to grieve. No time to give the dead their dignity. Funeral pyres were the right of warriors. In that the Quin Shi invaders had done little dishonour to Crann, but tossing them like food scraps onto a midden heap was an insult that would not be bourn.

Among the predominantly pale-skinned dead from Crann Danielle was shamefully glad she couldn’t see Lupita’s dark brown highlighted against it. That doesn’t mean she isn’t buried in there. Please don’t be in there Lu.

“Leave them,” she said as her people began to pull corpses from the heaps. “We need to catch up with whoever’s left to save more from dying.” Heads turned from left to right, taking in the devastation as her army marched on. Heading south towards the new port town the trail of ruin was wide and well worn.

Sir Fao, riding another pearlescent curaogine, rode back towards the main host. “Sir Longbow. The enemy rearguard saw me and is riding back to meet us.”

“How many?” Danielle asked.

“One hundred cavalry riflemen.”

“FORM UP. RIFLES AT THE FRONT. RED ARROWS STRUNG IN THE ROW BEHIND. IF YOU’RE NOT CAVALRY, THEN LIE PRONE. SPEARMEN AT THE BACK, BE READY IF THE CAVALRY CHARGES US.” They won’t sacrifice their range. Their rifles will be better than ours. “CAVALRY, SPLIT LEFT AND RIGHT. SIR FAO LEADS THE WESTERN FRONT. I LEAD THE EASTERN FRONT. YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO.” I hope. Soldiers who could ride but weren’t trained to fight on horseback dismounted and handed their bridles to others tasked with leading the horses out of danger until the fight was over.

Danielle’s curaogine, a mix of dragon, undead horse, and living tree, galloped before a column that had broken from the mass still shaping itself according to her orders. If only Anne were here to lead the cavalry. I should be with the infantry.

Her curaogine, Djeither, strained to run at its full speed, but that would leave her cavalry behind, and they would hesitate.

Shots broke the thunder of hooves. Already? Danielle turned her column and charged for her estimation of the enemy position. Instead of drawing a pistol as her riders would, Danielle pulled a crossbow from a holster on her saddle, gripping Djeither with her thighs as she pulled the string. Fitting a bolt dyed red, she raised the tiny crossbow, aimed for a face, and fired. Instead of hitting her target, the bolt plunged into the flesh of a horse behind.

Sorry horse. Nothing personal.

Stashing the crossbow again, Danielle drew a sword she’d taken from one of her dead knights in the previous battle. Crann steel gleamed with an edge sharper than fresh-cut paper. Let’s see if the quill is mightier than the sword.

The poor horse Danielle had hit died a quick death. The curaduile tree that sprouted from it devoured the rider and rooted itself in the ground beneath, catching three other riders as it grew. Danielle rode around the new obstacle, cutting the hand from one man reloading his rifle as she shot through the ranks.

Djeither rode faster and faster, leaving her Nameless Knights behind. Missing her chance to cut another gunman, she smashed her pommel against his head as their mounts crashed together. Danielle groaned as her leg smashed against Djeither’s dragon scales.

That’s going to hurt for a while.

Quin Shi’s rifles crackled. Crann’s pistols banged back. Swords cut the enemy who had sabers to match the defender’s swords. Danielle plowed through the enemy, their shots hitting Djeither, who shrugged them off.

The handle of a rifle, swung as a club, hit Danielle in the jaw as her sword cut a red line along the throat of a man on her right. Reeling back in the saddle, she tasted blood. A rifle barrel aimed towards her face until the rider was thrown off by Djeither pouncing on the horse.

Air above her nose whistled cold in the wake of the shot that was a grey blur to her eyes. Before she could register, the moment a face popped into range. The point of her sword wouldn’t have killed the man, but he would have been trampled after falling from his horse.

Another curaduile tree erupted in the middle of the enemy, scattering them. Sir Fao’s wing of the attack was cutting through from the other side. The young knight was red down one side.

A throwing knife flew past Danielle, knocking another Quin Shi warrior into the chaos of horses without riders, and riders already knocked from their steeds. Seeing one of hers buffeted by the muscled chests of horses above, she reached down and hauled the knight up behind her.

“You take the right, I’ll take the left. Draw your sword.”

“Yes, Sir.” His blade wavered in her peripheral vision.

Switching her sword to her less practiced left hand, Danielle stabbed out at another enemy as they blew past. Ducking to avoid the point of her blade, the man tumbled. Good enough.

Minutes later, it was done. Fifty more of her number were dead, and the rearguard had been butchered. Fifty of us for one hundred of them. Too much.

A herd of horses returned to carry the infantry to the next battle. They had taken minimal losses compared to the twenty Nameless Knights and thirty Grey Acolytes lost.

“LEAVE THE DEAD. WE’LL COME BACK FOR THEM WHEN THE BATTLE IS WON.” Or join them soon enough. “TAKE THEIR RIFLES AND AMMUNITION.”

Shaking hands looted the dead. Men and women with blank eyes turned the prizes over in their hands. They strapped on the belts of ammunition that many of the Quin Shi riders had.

“RIDE.”

Corpses and blood stains marked the path defenders had followed, pursued relentlessly by the invaders. It was a good day for carrion.

“Clever bastards,” Danielle said to herself. Tracks led to a wall of curaduile trees, which had been planted along the coast months before. Cranners had been let through the wall of living trees, but not the enemy. All it bought was time. Hopefully, that was enough.

Trees parted for the defenders, letting them see the tracks that turned north again. What? Were they the ones we saw slaughtered? If not, there was a force of roughly two hundred somewhere behind them. “Maybe they fled.” Battle brought out the truth of who people were. Some seemed born to fight until they saw their first friend die.

Riding on sand would slow them down. Danielle kept her army on, riding south towards smoke on the horizon.

A dozen houses were black beams and orange flames. Villagers lay scattered on the road as they had fallen on the run.

Red water lapped at the beach as Danielle’s army reached Northport. Quin Shi’s fleet was dots on the blue horizon. Bodies bobbed back and forth in the water. Cannons boomed ahead.

“THIS IS IT. SPREAD OUT. CAVALRY FORM A LINE. SIX FEET BETWEEN EACH OF YOU. INFANTRY, RIDE UNTIL YOU REACH THE CURADUILE WALL THEN ADVANCE WITH AS MUCH SPACE BETWEEN YOU AS IS POSSIBLE.” Danielle’s throat burned from screaming orders. “FOR CRANN.”

“FOR CRANN.” The response had the hairs on her neck and arms standing on end.

Danielle’s host came upon an endless force using overwhelming numbers and superior weaponry to slaughter her people. Carts that had left deep tracks in the ground for them to follow carried cannon balls twice the size of her head. How the cannons hadn’t sunk their boats, she would never know. None of the buildings of Northport had been set ablaze by the invaders, who used half of them for shelter while they turned the rest to bloody splinters.

Thinking they had pinned all of Crann’s soldiers to the south, Quin Shi’s guns were aimed that way, backs to the dead north. Danielle’s cavalry smashed into the enemy, catching them with their backs turned. Booming cannons covered the first screams of the attack. When the enemy realised they had been flanked, the time for cavalry had passed.

“DISMOUNT.” Some of her riders heard her, others followed suit. Horses scattered through the battle in every direction. “Djeither, target the enemy near the cannons. We need to stop them from firing. Please.” Jumping down, she patted the curaogine’s side and ran for cover.

Seeing stacked bodies and burning villages Danielle sheathed her sword in the enemy until her right arm glittered red from fingertip to shoulder.

Quin Shi soldiers were excellent riflemen, but couldn’t compare to Crann’s sword-wielding warriors. Holding one corpse by the throat, she used it as a shield, advancing into the open ground between her knights and a dozen invaders guarding a cannon. Skull and brain painted her as the unsentimental gunmen from across the world chipped away at her shield. Trying to flank her, they fanned out. Danielle moved right to keep them on her left with the corpse between them. One shot skipped under the arm of her shield and scratched Danielle’s side.

Stumbling, she felt the ache from a horse crushing her leg earlier. Pain shot up her right side. Using a move honed over hours of defending the capital’s walls years before Danielle plunged her sword into a man’s eye deep enough to kill him without lodging the blade in his skull. His strangled scream cut off abruptly. The lunge left Danielle’s back open. Another graze would be lost in the lattice of scars that already covered her from neck to buttocks. Taking the latest dead man for a new shield she glanced at his remaining eye, brown like hers.

One of her knights crashed through the ten men surrounding her, removing the hand of one then burying his sword in the neck of the next. Using the distraction she threw her corpse shield at one man and killed the one next to him with a stab at the heart. Her first kick knocked the fallen man unconscious. The second kick mashed his upper spine and throat together. A saber swung down in a high arc.

Fool. Danielle stabbed through the man’s nose before his slash could cut her. Slashes were showy but a waste of time and too easy to block. Looking at her was another man’s death. A sword emerged from his mouth but her Nameless Knight fell with the body, sword stuck in the skull.

Ducking as a shot whizzed by, Danielle ran towards a man in the long padded tabards worn by Quin Shi’s warriors. His rifle barrel followed her head flawlessly as he stepped back, finger sliding towards the trigger. Danielle breathed in the scent of the burning wick as he fired. Her head was whipped to the side as she leapt towards him. Crashing together, she crushed him with the sheer weight of her muscle. Her ears rang, and she was dizzy. Her world shook on legs that didn’t take her orders. She punched, hitting sand beside his head the first time. Her second hit him in the eye.

Reaching for her head with a hand already wet with blood revealed nothing. Rolling onto her back she saw clouds swimming in the blue sky cut with smoke. Trying to stand was pointless. She crawled towards her sword. Her right eye burned, but that meant it was still there. Sounds were muffled as though Danielle was listening to the battle from the bottom of a river.

Nausea buffeted her. An invisible hand pushed her head down, pulled at her eyelids, and squeezed her stomach. Heaving on her side, she spat acid and coughed.

So tired.

Not knowing how long she’d been unconscious, she woke with a migraine and half of the world painted red. Mouth full of vomit, she spat into blood. Pushing herself to her knees, Danielle looked around. A curaduile tree that wasn’t there when she’d fallen unconscious had ripped through the walls of a warehouse.

Using the sword as a walking stick, she stumbled forward. Spearmen had poked holes in Quin Shi riflemen's backs before being mowed down in a single volley. A purple blur drew her good eye to Djeither racing around in the distance, tossing the enemy this way and that alongside Dris, Sir Fao’s curaogine.

I hope he’s alright. And Anne. And Lu. Please be safe Lu. I need you. “Can’t stand. Can’t pull a bow. What now?” Danielle picked up a Quin Shi rifle and examined it. Their rifles were as tall as they were. Muzzle loaded, that hasn’t changed. Taking a bag of lead shots from the pouch on a corpse she found that they weren’t spheres. Quin Shi’s new design was elongated with a thin tip at one end and spiral grooves around to a hollow base. Why?

Guessing that the sharp end was meant to aim at the enemy like an arrow, Danielle slid it down the barrel. Strength was slowly returning to her arms. She sat as battle raged in the distance.

The ramrod was attached to the side of the rifle. Good design. Danielle pushed the ammunition down the barrel. I forgot the gunpowder. Idiot. Throwing the rifle away she took another and loaded the explosive before the shot.

Crawling with the rifle, she found a stone wall to hide behind and looked over a no man’s land where the beach crept into the town on stilts. Piers that had crept out into the sea had been smashed, debris floating on the waves amid the bodies.

The other end of Northport was a brand-new forest. Quin Shi’s warriors ducked behind any cover to be had as they blasted their cannons through the gaps. One curaduile tree had been split into three still-growing pieces by cannonballs.

With the ammunition and powder tied to her belt, Danielle crawled through ruins until she was within the effective range of a Crann rifle. Wincing as a wave of nausea slammed into her, Danielle steadied her stolen rifle on a stack of books printed in Leonor, ready to be shipped off to the rest of the world.

Seeing that two of the enemy were aiming, she turned her gun on them. Exhale and fire. She squeezed the trigger. The flash and the bang made her wince, her head swimming. The man next to the one she’d aimed for fell. Red splashed from his shoulder. Danielle reloaded on her back. Trying to use the ramrod when she was shaking like a leaf in a storm was ridiculous. Crawling forward again, the world danced to an irregular rhythm around her. Her heart beat a deafening drum.

Come on, pain. Pick somewhere. Pain? Agony forked down her right side, but feeling had returned. She crouched. Needles pricked her up and down as blood returned to places it hadn’t been.

She dashed from cover to cover. Finding two Quin Shi soldiers around the next corner she knocked one out with the butt of her gun and thrust the barrel of it into the mouth of the other as he tried to raise the alarm. Wrapping a leg around the throat of the first, she squeezed with thighs that were as wide as his torso. She thrust back and forward into the other man’s mouth and forehead until it was clear he wouldn’t get up again. The first man’s eyes rolled. He fell limp long before she let him go.

Someone should put a spearhead on these guns.

Stumbling from the ruins of one warehouse to another, she came upon Nameless Knights fighting their way towards the beach from the west.

“How goes the fight?” Danielle asked. No one spoke. Most looked at the ground. “I see. Then let’s teach them. Bring trade, not war.” Not looking up, they nodded. Holding pistols, stolen rifles, swords, and bows, three men and two women repeated her.

“Bring trade, not war.”