Disclaimer: I own nothing and no one, except Ni'aidani, and I'm not making
any money off of this. Why I even bother to write fanfiction puzzles me at
times. Unreasonable love for the Red Fox of Hernystir, I suppose. (And the
Count of Nad Mullach, but he's not in this one. And Faramir, but he's in
another universe altogether.)
Crimson Summer
The Summerfield, Ach Samrath, the grass of which had soaked up the most Hernystiri blood since the world began, the bones of heroes of the past mixed in the soil. Tens of thousands of Hernystirmen died on that field, fighting a battle they knew they could not win, but knowing too that they were the last ones who would stand against those who would destroy the most beautiful things in Osten Ard, forever.
* * *
He was roused out of a shallow sleep by a scream of anger and terror.
"Thrithings!"
"Brynioch!" swore Sinnach, grabbing his sword and quite literally rolling out of his tent, fully clothed, having not bothered to change the night before. The prince looked out to the rear of his flanks, and saw, in the pale light of early dawn, the horsemen riding away from the Hernystiri army's unprotected side in the first light of dawn.
"The south! They attacked from the south!" somebody cried, rather unnecessarily, Sinnach thought. Confusion reigned throughout the tents; even the barbarian Rimmersmen did not attack during the dark. There were rules to this sort of thing, ironic as it was.
The Red Fox shouted to the small group of men that were already up, telling them to hold back the Thrithings as long as they could, hopefully giving time to fix what they could before Fingil and his army knew their enemies had been attacked.
The company of Sithi that had accompanied the Hernystiri led the small company, much readier to fight the bronze-armored horsemen than the iron weapons of the Rimmersmen. Everywhere tents were aflame, trapping hundreds of soldiers, still asleep. Those who had heard the Thrithings coming had been cut down during the night; there were carcasses scattered about everywhere. Chariots were smashed; all the horses were set free. Sinnach spat out a stream of violent curses before calling all those whose tents were not attacked to help him rescue the unfortunates.
Attacks under the cover of darkness. Cowardly, worthless scum.
There was nothing to be done. Fires were stamped out, corpses piled up by dry-eyed comrades. "Form up!" Sinnach roared at his men. The prince gestured for two of the companies to keep the Thrithings at bay, then the remainder of the army marched forward to meet Fingil's army, despite the unease of many of leaving enemies at their backs.
Prince Sinnach walked grimly in front, prepared to meet the end with honor and dignity. Little more than ten thousand, he thought grimly. Five days ago we had more than fifty. Suddenly he heard hoofbeats behind him, and, fearing Thrithings, turned swiftly. But it was only Ni'aidani, riding, to his amazement, a horse.
"I believe the Horsemen feared our mounts," she told Sinnach, then dismounted. The black stallion stepped forward. Sinnach glanced quickly at the approaching, but still out of shooting range, Rimmersmen, then, kissing the Sitha's cheek, swung himself onto the horse. The prince looked behind him, and was heartened to see a mounted, if small, Sithi cavalry.
There was still a ways between the armies, but now the Northmen were within shooting range, and the Hernystiri archers were in front. "Shoot," ordered Sinnach. "There will be no parley today." Silently he added, For this is the end. Today we die. Ni'aidani, walking beside him, looked at him, seeming to have understood.
The arrows were loosed; a few hundred measures away some of the front line of Rimmersmen screamed and fell, but still the black iron mass moved forward, as did the Hernystirmen. In what, to Sinnach, was a far too short amount of time, the two armies met and clashed, and for a while the Red Fox abandoned logic and reasonableness. The plans had been set: the lieutenants knew what to do. Now all that mattered was the sword.
Mounted, Sinnach had an enormous advantage over the attackers, but it did not last. Sithi-reared, the stallion was skittish around the iron, and when a sword tore into its flanks it screamed, kneels buckling, nearly throwing Sinnach off. The prince swore and leapt from the saddle. Then, looking back, he drew his sword quickly across the horse's throat, ending its agony. From the cries around him, he knew other mounts were encountering the same fate.
Damn their iron!
Now Sinnach was on the ground, a thin piece of witchwood between him and thousands of armored Rimmersmen. For every one that he killed there were three to take his place. All were eager to kill the Prince of Hernystir.
An axe opened a wound on Sinnach's right arm, and he felt the tainted sting of iron with a flash of white-pain, but he ignored it, killing his attacker. Another came up behind him and he struck him down, hot blood drenching his arm. Looking around for a moment, the prince saw the devastation the still-mounted Sithi were causing, despite their small numbers. Briefly he thanked the gods for the Rimmersmen's lack of horses, and for the cowardice that kept the Thrithings from joining them.
Fingil, he thought, as another Northmen howled and fell before him. It will not stop them, but it will be revenge. It was he who started this conquest, he hunted the Fair Folk and slaughtered my kin, burned our cities and ravaged our world.
Hacking and killing his way through the melee, the prince finally caught site of the Rimmersgard King, covered in poison metal, wielding a poison sword, cutting down Hernystirmen all around. The desire to kill Sinnach on the Rimmersgard side was matched by the longing of all the Hernystiri to slay the Redhand King. Most of the Sithi on foot were hanging back from the skilled fighters near Fingil, preferring to stay back and meet those who were too terrified of them to manage to wound them. Those with even the barest wounds from the black iron weapons went down.
Beside him a soldier screamed and fell, a spear through his chest. Ignoring him - and ignorant of whose side he had been on - Sinnach continued his slow but steady progression towards Fingil. There was no time to celebrate each of the Northmen who fell before his sword; he must reach their King. That was all that mattered.
Finally, with wounded, dead and dying in his wake, Sinnach was standing before the King, looking up into that hated face, masked by black metal. There were no words Sinnach could say, nor would he have in any case. Around them the battle seemed to lull, as the Fox and the bear began to dance.
Sinnach was not a small man, nor was he unskilled with the sword. But the witchwood weapon - a gift from Iyu'unigato - could not stand up against Fingil's iron sword for long periods of parry, so the prince was forced to do much more maneuvering that he usually would, trying to find an opening, and was tiring quickly, too quickly. Fingil was bleeding, but so was Sinnach, and undoubtedly more profusely.
The prince spun, just barely blocking a downcut from Fingil, but in doing so he caught his foot on a corpse and, blocking another swipe from his enemy, tried desperately to keep his balance. A jarring parry forced him forward, and Sinnach, before he quite knew what was happening, crashed to the blood-soaked ground.
"Sinnach!" somebody screamed in the distance. But it was so far away, so distant. What did it matter, now? It was over. Finally, after five bloody, savage days, it was over.
The Red Fox closed his eyes, the scent of death enveloping him, waiting for the last blow. It was over. Asu'a would fall, and all of Osten Ard would be covered with the shadow of black iron. Truly the gods were cruel.
I tried, Iyu'unigato, he thought sadly. Brynioch, but I tried. But we were doomed from the start. You knew that. I knew that. But gods help me, we died trying.
It was then that Sinnach realized he wasn't quite dead yet. Opening his eyes, he untangled his foot from the body of the Sitha he had tripped on and looked up. What he saw made him cry out in horror and despair. Just when he believed it would all be over, no, there was still torment for him. For Fingil had not killed him, because Fingil was distracted.
For what Sinnach saw, in those last moments of the battle of Ach Samrath, was one to haunt him for the rest of time. The thing he loved most in the world, save perhaps his country, was struck down with a cruel blow by a man Sinnach thought could not wound him further, short of slaying him.
"Ni'aidani!" the prince cried, as the Sitha slumped to the ground, a ragged gash down her side. Sinnach, eyes burning with tears, managed to block the killing blow, then, staggering to his feet, fought the Northern King back with every last bit of strength he had in him. Fingil backed away, narrowly avoiding death countless times, until finally Sinnach, barely able to see through clouded vision, stumbled again, and came to a halt.
Time stopped as the two leaders stared at each other. Then, very slowly, Sinnach turned away from Fingil, looking out across the Summerfield. Everything was coated in blood, all the living and all the dead. All the dead. As Sinnach's eyes drifted across the slaughter, he did not see friends and enemies. He saw soldiers, lying together, Sithi and Hernystiri and Rimmersgard, all dead. All dead.
The prince's hand had been locked so tightly on the hilt of his sword for so long that it took a great deal of concentration to loosen the muscles in his hand and let the sword drop to the ground. Fingil stared at him in confusion and slight superstitious fear. Sinnach barely noticed.
Unable to think, barely able to see, Sinnach turned from Fingil and knelt beside Ni'aidani. Her amber eyes were still open, but clouded, shadowed. Gently Sinnach stroked her ebony hair, ignoring the heavy footsteps of Fingil behind him.
"Stand up and fight, Fox." The Rimmersman's grasp of the Common Language was poor, and Sinnach disregarded the comment with contempt. His gaze remained fixed on his dying wife, lying, bleeding, amid the carnage of Ach Samrath.
"E gundhain sluith, ma connalbehn,[i]" whispered the Sitha throatily, blood trickling from the side of her mouth. Sinnach shook his head, still stroking her hair, unable to speak. Ni'aidani choked slightly, then trembled, then lay still. Sinnach closed his eyes and cradled her head in his lap. It was over now, truly over. He could hear shouts of victory in the harsh Rimmersgard tongue, away in the distance.
"No?"
The prince's voice shook with exhaustion, grief and despair. "Where two hearts once sounded," he sang softly, closing Ni'aidani's sightless eyes, "now only beat one."
A single tear slid from the Red Fox's eye before Fingil Redhand's sword crashed into the back of his head.
* * *
Decimated, the Hernystiri army retreated, less than two hundred alive, a good fifty of who would not live past sunset. Every Sitha who had not retreated earlier was dead, and the number was not small.
There were too many bodies to bury, and too much blood to burn them. Fingil and his army moved on as fast as they could, fearful of the scene of carnage that the Summerfield had become, leaving behind their own dead among the carcasses of the Westerners.
It was the next day, perhaps, or the day after, that a party of surviving Sithi returned to Ach Samrath. One, red-haired and flame-eyed, made her way to the body of Prince Sinnach, the Red Fox of Hernystir. Her feline face stared at the man for a moment, then her eyes moved to the body in his arms.
The Sithi brought Sinnach, wrapped in the muddied and torn banner bearing the White Stag of Hern's House, and Ni'aidani his wife carefully to the edge of the field, and there, next to the large rock that would serve as their gravestone, they buried the prince and his lover. And in the rock they carved a promise, an oath to repay the Hernystiri for their courage on the Summerfield.
During King Fingil's days in Asu'a, now the Hayholt, the Hernystiri emerged again, and they saw what the Sithi had promised, and they knew, though Fingil and his successors thought they had driven the Fair Folk from Osten Ard, that the Sithi remained. Wind and rain and time washed the words from the stone eventually, but it was a legend in Hernystir.
And they remembered.
----------------------- [i] "We fought well, my dear one." See the appendixes of The Dragonbone Chair, under Words and Phrases: Hernystiri, if you don't believe me
Crimson Summer
The Summerfield, Ach Samrath, the grass of which had soaked up the most Hernystiri blood since the world began, the bones of heroes of the past mixed in the soil. Tens of thousands of Hernystirmen died on that field, fighting a battle they knew they could not win, but knowing too that they were the last ones who would stand against those who would destroy the most beautiful things in Osten Ard, forever.
* * *
He was roused out of a shallow sleep by a scream of anger and terror.
"Thrithings!"
"Brynioch!" swore Sinnach, grabbing his sword and quite literally rolling out of his tent, fully clothed, having not bothered to change the night before. The prince looked out to the rear of his flanks, and saw, in the pale light of early dawn, the horsemen riding away from the Hernystiri army's unprotected side in the first light of dawn.
"The south! They attacked from the south!" somebody cried, rather unnecessarily, Sinnach thought. Confusion reigned throughout the tents; even the barbarian Rimmersmen did not attack during the dark. There were rules to this sort of thing, ironic as it was.
The Red Fox shouted to the small group of men that were already up, telling them to hold back the Thrithings as long as they could, hopefully giving time to fix what they could before Fingil and his army knew their enemies had been attacked.
The company of Sithi that had accompanied the Hernystiri led the small company, much readier to fight the bronze-armored horsemen than the iron weapons of the Rimmersmen. Everywhere tents were aflame, trapping hundreds of soldiers, still asleep. Those who had heard the Thrithings coming had been cut down during the night; there were carcasses scattered about everywhere. Chariots were smashed; all the horses were set free. Sinnach spat out a stream of violent curses before calling all those whose tents were not attacked to help him rescue the unfortunates.
Attacks under the cover of darkness. Cowardly, worthless scum.
There was nothing to be done. Fires were stamped out, corpses piled up by dry-eyed comrades. "Form up!" Sinnach roared at his men. The prince gestured for two of the companies to keep the Thrithings at bay, then the remainder of the army marched forward to meet Fingil's army, despite the unease of many of leaving enemies at their backs.
Prince Sinnach walked grimly in front, prepared to meet the end with honor and dignity. Little more than ten thousand, he thought grimly. Five days ago we had more than fifty. Suddenly he heard hoofbeats behind him, and, fearing Thrithings, turned swiftly. But it was only Ni'aidani, riding, to his amazement, a horse.
"I believe the Horsemen feared our mounts," she told Sinnach, then dismounted. The black stallion stepped forward. Sinnach glanced quickly at the approaching, but still out of shooting range, Rimmersmen, then, kissing the Sitha's cheek, swung himself onto the horse. The prince looked behind him, and was heartened to see a mounted, if small, Sithi cavalry.
There was still a ways between the armies, but now the Northmen were within shooting range, and the Hernystiri archers were in front. "Shoot," ordered Sinnach. "There will be no parley today." Silently he added, For this is the end. Today we die. Ni'aidani, walking beside him, looked at him, seeming to have understood.
The arrows were loosed; a few hundred measures away some of the front line of Rimmersmen screamed and fell, but still the black iron mass moved forward, as did the Hernystirmen. In what, to Sinnach, was a far too short amount of time, the two armies met and clashed, and for a while the Red Fox abandoned logic and reasonableness. The plans had been set: the lieutenants knew what to do. Now all that mattered was the sword.
Mounted, Sinnach had an enormous advantage over the attackers, but it did not last. Sithi-reared, the stallion was skittish around the iron, and when a sword tore into its flanks it screamed, kneels buckling, nearly throwing Sinnach off. The prince swore and leapt from the saddle. Then, looking back, he drew his sword quickly across the horse's throat, ending its agony. From the cries around him, he knew other mounts were encountering the same fate.
Damn their iron!
Now Sinnach was on the ground, a thin piece of witchwood between him and thousands of armored Rimmersmen. For every one that he killed there were three to take his place. All were eager to kill the Prince of Hernystir.
An axe opened a wound on Sinnach's right arm, and he felt the tainted sting of iron with a flash of white-pain, but he ignored it, killing his attacker. Another came up behind him and he struck him down, hot blood drenching his arm. Looking around for a moment, the prince saw the devastation the still-mounted Sithi were causing, despite their small numbers. Briefly he thanked the gods for the Rimmersmen's lack of horses, and for the cowardice that kept the Thrithings from joining them.
Fingil, he thought, as another Northmen howled and fell before him. It will not stop them, but it will be revenge. It was he who started this conquest, he hunted the Fair Folk and slaughtered my kin, burned our cities and ravaged our world.
Hacking and killing his way through the melee, the prince finally caught site of the Rimmersgard King, covered in poison metal, wielding a poison sword, cutting down Hernystirmen all around. The desire to kill Sinnach on the Rimmersgard side was matched by the longing of all the Hernystiri to slay the Redhand King. Most of the Sithi on foot were hanging back from the skilled fighters near Fingil, preferring to stay back and meet those who were too terrified of them to manage to wound them. Those with even the barest wounds from the black iron weapons went down.
Beside him a soldier screamed and fell, a spear through his chest. Ignoring him - and ignorant of whose side he had been on - Sinnach continued his slow but steady progression towards Fingil. There was no time to celebrate each of the Northmen who fell before his sword; he must reach their King. That was all that mattered.
Finally, with wounded, dead and dying in his wake, Sinnach was standing before the King, looking up into that hated face, masked by black metal. There were no words Sinnach could say, nor would he have in any case. Around them the battle seemed to lull, as the Fox and the bear began to dance.
Sinnach was not a small man, nor was he unskilled with the sword. But the witchwood weapon - a gift from Iyu'unigato - could not stand up against Fingil's iron sword for long periods of parry, so the prince was forced to do much more maneuvering that he usually would, trying to find an opening, and was tiring quickly, too quickly. Fingil was bleeding, but so was Sinnach, and undoubtedly more profusely.
The prince spun, just barely blocking a downcut from Fingil, but in doing so he caught his foot on a corpse and, blocking another swipe from his enemy, tried desperately to keep his balance. A jarring parry forced him forward, and Sinnach, before he quite knew what was happening, crashed to the blood-soaked ground.
"Sinnach!" somebody screamed in the distance. But it was so far away, so distant. What did it matter, now? It was over. Finally, after five bloody, savage days, it was over.
The Red Fox closed his eyes, the scent of death enveloping him, waiting for the last blow. It was over. Asu'a would fall, and all of Osten Ard would be covered with the shadow of black iron. Truly the gods were cruel.
I tried, Iyu'unigato, he thought sadly. Brynioch, but I tried. But we were doomed from the start. You knew that. I knew that. But gods help me, we died trying.
It was then that Sinnach realized he wasn't quite dead yet. Opening his eyes, he untangled his foot from the body of the Sitha he had tripped on and looked up. What he saw made him cry out in horror and despair. Just when he believed it would all be over, no, there was still torment for him. For Fingil had not killed him, because Fingil was distracted.
For what Sinnach saw, in those last moments of the battle of Ach Samrath, was one to haunt him for the rest of time. The thing he loved most in the world, save perhaps his country, was struck down with a cruel blow by a man Sinnach thought could not wound him further, short of slaying him.
"Ni'aidani!" the prince cried, as the Sitha slumped to the ground, a ragged gash down her side. Sinnach, eyes burning with tears, managed to block the killing blow, then, staggering to his feet, fought the Northern King back with every last bit of strength he had in him. Fingil backed away, narrowly avoiding death countless times, until finally Sinnach, barely able to see through clouded vision, stumbled again, and came to a halt.
Time stopped as the two leaders stared at each other. Then, very slowly, Sinnach turned away from Fingil, looking out across the Summerfield. Everything was coated in blood, all the living and all the dead. All the dead. As Sinnach's eyes drifted across the slaughter, he did not see friends and enemies. He saw soldiers, lying together, Sithi and Hernystiri and Rimmersgard, all dead. All dead.
The prince's hand had been locked so tightly on the hilt of his sword for so long that it took a great deal of concentration to loosen the muscles in his hand and let the sword drop to the ground. Fingil stared at him in confusion and slight superstitious fear. Sinnach barely noticed.
Unable to think, barely able to see, Sinnach turned from Fingil and knelt beside Ni'aidani. Her amber eyes were still open, but clouded, shadowed. Gently Sinnach stroked her ebony hair, ignoring the heavy footsteps of Fingil behind him.
"Stand up and fight, Fox." The Rimmersman's grasp of the Common Language was poor, and Sinnach disregarded the comment with contempt. His gaze remained fixed on his dying wife, lying, bleeding, amid the carnage of Ach Samrath.
"E gundhain sluith, ma connalbehn,[i]" whispered the Sitha throatily, blood trickling from the side of her mouth. Sinnach shook his head, still stroking her hair, unable to speak. Ni'aidani choked slightly, then trembled, then lay still. Sinnach closed his eyes and cradled her head in his lap. It was over now, truly over. He could hear shouts of victory in the harsh Rimmersgard tongue, away in the distance.
"No?"
The prince's voice shook with exhaustion, grief and despair. "Where two hearts once sounded," he sang softly, closing Ni'aidani's sightless eyes, "now only beat one."
A single tear slid from the Red Fox's eye before Fingil Redhand's sword crashed into the back of his head.
* * *
Decimated, the Hernystiri army retreated, less than two hundred alive, a good fifty of who would not live past sunset. Every Sitha who had not retreated earlier was dead, and the number was not small.
There were too many bodies to bury, and too much blood to burn them. Fingil and his army moved on as fast as they could, fearful of the scene of carnage that the Summerfield had become, leaving behind their own dead among the carcasses of the Westerners.
It was the next day, perhaps, or the day after, that a party of surviving Sithi returned to Ach Samrath. One, red-haired and flame-eyed, made her way to the body of Prince Sinnach, the Red Fox of Hernystir. Her feline face stared at the man for a moment, then her eyes moved to the body in his arms.
The Sithi brought Sinnach, wrapped in the muddied and torn banner bearing the White Stag of Hern's House, and Ni'aidani his wife carefully to the edge of the field, and there, next to the large rock that would serve as their gravestone, they buried the prince and his lover. And in the rock they carved a promise, an oath to repay the Hernystiri for their courage on the Summerfield.
During King Fingil's days in Asu'a, now the Hayholt, the Hernystiri emerged again, and they saw what the Sithi had promised, and they knew, though Fingil and his successors thought they had driven the Fair Folk from Osten Ard, that the Sithi remained. Wind and rain and time washed the words from the stone eventually, but it was a legend in Hernystir.
And they remembered.
----------------------- [i] "We fought well, my dear one." See the appendixes of The Dragonbone Chair, under Words and Phrases: Hernystiri, if you don't believe me