The King with Six Friends

A Snuffed Flame

Kindle and Eryx crouched in the ditch, barely breathing. Lines of soldiers beside them waited for the enemy to arrive. They tied cloth to their faces to suppress the clouds of breath.

It was early in the morning, and the dew from the grass made their clothes damp. A dense wall of mist had rolled in, shrouding the view of anything farther than a few paces. Every ear strained to hear the sound of marching soldiers or whinnying horses. Deep pits were dug ahead of the defensive line waiting for an enemy soldier to fall in. If the tell-tale sounds of an accident came, the day's battle would begin.

The "pitfall strategy" combined with fog was nigh military genius. A fast offensive line would be rendered immobile once it hit the field of holes. Cavalry lines would be broken up to avoid the traps. Even if an enemy soldier was still alive when they fell, it would take some time to escape with the soft soil giving little purchase to climb out. A sneak attack might get through their defenses, but not before giving away their position to the line of soldiers waiting in the ditches.

The past few weeks had been brutal to both body and mind. One of the three enemy kingdoms was taking turns launching their attack front while the other two armies rested and recuperated as they pleased.

The Southern Army had to scramble their forces almost every hour to push them back away from the border. They had allocated twice as many losses, but they somehow still managed to hang on by a thread.

Their armor might as well have become skin to the southern soldiers; they hadn't taken it off since the beginning of the war. Eryx and Kindle had kill counters scratched into the handles of their halberds. Kindle was on thirty-three; Eryx, sixty-four.

"You know," Kindle said, sitting next to him, "I think after this I'll have to visit my mum. Haven't seen her in a while. I miss her."

"Hm," Eryx mumbled, barely keeping awake.

"She makes really good pies from the berry bush by our house," he continued, sitting up on the ground. "I used to eat them all day with my sister. I miss her too."

"Mm-hm." Eryx yawned.

"I think you should meet them after we're done with all this. It'd be nice to have some peace and quiet."

Eryx rested his head against the shaft of his halberd. "Mm-hm."

"We have a goat we named Miete and I think she's a hundred years old, but she makes amazing goat cheese. Very good with tin bread."

"Mm-hm."

"I think I'm just hungry."

"-hm."

Just as he was beginning to nod off, Eryx heard a crash and yelp ring out from the fog. Suddenly, dozens of shouts came from the holes. All the soldiers sprang up from the ditch to fight.

Above the ditches, Southern pikemen shoved Snowvidian soldiers down into the pits. The sudden ambush had left the enemy foot soldiers and cavalry completely discombobulated. Eryx had to yank Kindle back by the collar to keep him from being trampled by a horse.

Eryx gripped his halberd and thrust it into the breastplate of a Snowvidian soldier. The point punctured the armor and caused the soldier to tumble backward into a pit.

It was likely the soldier would never come out and be buried as he was. One other gruesome aspect of the pits was their use after the battle as mass graves. Eryx tried to block out the terrified expression on the man's face as he fell to his death. Eryx just had to keep going and not get killed; it's what he'd been doing for weeks.

With all the movement from the battle, the fog thinned so the two sides could see each other's hidden catapults.

The resounding snap of a projectile being fired raised everyone's heads as a boulder soared through the air and flattened an oak tree with a crunch. The projectile came from the Southern army's side. The Snowvidian front returned fire with three boulders.