Battle Hymns — Song of Arventis, Part Five
Pressed into the Dellish Army, Arventis Finds Himself on the Verge of a Battle
Link back to Part One
“You’re lucky, yanno,” said a bulking woman marching next to Arventis. He turned to her, his eyebrows raised with surprise that anybody could have such a twisted view of the world that they might mistake his situation for a lucky one.
“We march with the Serpent of Sparia,” she said, and flashed a smile missing several teeth. Arventis pursed his lips in a tight smile and nodded, hoping that would suffice to end the conversation with a woman mad enough to consider marching with some hero good fortune.
The Serpent of Sparia. Arventis had heard of him. But it made him feel no better about marching under duress with a military unit representing a country he loathed. So deeply did Arventis brood in his woes that when the company came to a halt, he ran into the soldier in front of him hard enough to rattle his skull and draw blood from a bitten tongue.
After apologizing and pacifying the fellow he’d run into, Arventis craned his neck to see what had caused the halt. He heard some shouting. But it came from too far away to see the source or make out the words.
Soon, the mass of bodies surrounding him pressed forward, squeezing him in a stinking crush. Standing on his tip toes, Arventis could see ten rows of heads distant from him, a circle cleared in the grass. Nobody stood upon it. But on the opposite side of the clearing, what he saw made his guts watery.
The crimson vestments of Bergot. A welcome sight, if he were alone, and in possession of a writ of exemption from military service. But now? The crimson tunics heralded fighting, which pricked Arventis with cold terror.
He backed away from the circle, but the press of bodies jostled him back into his place. He pushed, and was pushed back. Looking left and right for some escape, he found only more faces — likewise stricken with fear, or frothing for blood, or resigned to what must have been another bout in a long history of violence. How could he, a bard, survive a true battle? His mind raced.
An idea struck Arventis, and he clung to it, hoping it would float him out of this mess. He began to sing. Throaty, deep, a battle hymn of Dellin, one of the first songs he learned upon arriving in this awful country. Its staccato notes stuck in the head like a parasite. Made for chanting, his voice struck the sparks, and before Arventis finished the first verse, the song flamed to life in the voices of the soldiers around him. Soon, the tune carried across the whole troop. Soldiers rattled spears and swayed.
And in the sway, Arventis danced. He released his spear from his hands to fall where it may, and danced his way between bodies, darting into the gaps left when men leaned back to bellow the words. Before the song ended — and was immediately repeated — he found himself at the edge of the crush of bodies.
He stole a look at the Chief’s Hand, a man mounted on horse to keep an eye out for deserters. The thin man, laden in steel plate, waved his sword in time to the music, eyes closed in merriment.
Arventis walked with casual cool — despite his thundering heard — to a tower tree just outside the mass of soldiers. And he scurried up it. Branches lashed his face as he jammed his way through the tower tree’s dense needles. But Arventis cared not a frog’s fart. He came to rest ten body lengths above the ground, nestled like a bird amongst the cover of the blue needles. He smiled, and let himself enjoy the music he had made below.
If you stuck around this long, hopefully you enjoyed the story and didn’t simply finish it out of spite. And if you liked it, do my ego a favor and throw some claps, maybe a response, or a follow my way.
Arventis has a long journey ahead of him. I can promise music (on the page), violence (on the page), and disease (on the page, as well as in my own body on occasion). New chapter every Thursday.
