No one had survived…
Out of a village of hundreds…
The pyre was a massive one, stretching along the inner part of the road enclosing the market and the temple both, and filling the market as well. The bodies on the pyre were pressed shoulder to shoulder and head by feet alternatingly, with their hands folded in prayer on their chests. What families he could make out, they had lain together, along with the tools of their trade. At least, where they could be managed in such a short time. Even the Chastened had been laid to rest, together with the weapons they had died with.
It was the best they could do for them now…
The best he could do for them, now.
His brothers of the company surrounded it, standing between what remained of the village and the long pyre. Many held torches, waiting to light it all, but for now, they waited. The commander of the company, a slight man with a full, red beard, bright green eyes, and dressed in full armor, stood to one side while Cardin stood on his other.
He stepped forward and raised his voice to echo along the street, "We have marched, as one, to defend this place! The people of Ansel, as is their right, called upon us for salvation when the Grimm came near! As is our duty, we marched!"
As he spoke, he held out his arm and a Chastened servant approached, working to remove his gauntlet and the glove he wore under it.
When it was free, he raised it and a knife in the other, and cut deep into his palm. "I failed our people! I marched too slowly and too late! For this, I offer my blood! And if any here have lost their beloved kin to this, I offer my life, if you would take it!"
Jaune kept his tongue, staring at the body only a few feet in front of him…
His broken hammer lay to either side of him and, with the help of Cardin and Dove both, his anvil had been moved down to rest on the ground at the base of the pyre below his head. On it Jaune had stacked whatever he could think of. Port's favorite plate, his best vice, a knife he'd bought off a merchant which supposedly came all the way from Mistral, some coins he'd found in the man's house…
When no one spoke for a long minute, the captain lowered his arm and let the Chastened work at bandaging it.
While they did, and then worked the glove back on, he spoke more, "As the noblest of blood among us to lose love here, in this place, I offer the first torch, and the last words, for Lord Jaune, of House Arc! A man raised on earth and blood of Ansel!"
He flicked a look to the man who turned towards him, holding out a torch in his uninjured hand and nodding gently.
When he hesitated, Cardin laid a hand on his shoulder and said, "Speak whatever you feel. Even if it's nothing at all. Then, send them home, Brother."
He nodded and, with legs that felt like they had iron weights attached, but he turned and crossed the few yards between himself and the captain. His eyes burned, and his vision blurred, but he moved on anyway. When he took the torch, the captain nodded and moved to stand in front of the line. He turned to the knights, mouth opening and closing for a moment as a Chastened came to stand beside him with a lit torch to light his own.
But… He couldn't speak.
Bowing his head, he turned and walked down along the pyre, back to where Port had been laid. Choking on nothing, he stood and just… Stared at the man, for a long, long time. Too long, he was sure, to expect everyone to simply stand there.
No one bothered him, though.
Dozens of men, an entire fighting force, stood in the early morning hours and simply… Waited for him. Patient, accepting, understanding.
Finally, he found the words to speak, "I wasn't here, Po- Father. When the Grimm came, I was far away. I-I'm so sorry, I wasn't- I couldn't be-" He choked on his words, bowed his head and swallowed so hard it hurt his throat and his chest. "I am sorry. I will avenge you, I swear my life to it. I-I swear, I'll…"
"Never. Again." He vowed, laying a hand on the anvil he'd grown up listening to. Grown up feeling, every time Port's hammer came down. "I will never allow an innocent to die, so long as I am able to stop it. I will fight, just like you wanted. Be a- Be a hero, like you believed I could be."
"Until…" He held his torch out and was dimly aware of the Chastened lighting it. As the torch flickered to life, he looked into the flame. "Until they build my pyre, and I join you. And everyone else."
He set the torch beside the man, gently, and backed away. Cardin was waiting to lay a hand on his shoulder and, to his surprise, Deery was waiting, too. She took his hand, gently offering what she could, and he felt his knees finally give out. As the fire began to finally roar, Jaune felt his eyes burn.
"The forge," he murmured, "was supposed to outlast us…"
Jaune Smithson choked on a sob.
And Jaune Arc screamed…
XxX----XxX----XxX
Come noon, they reformed their formation and began to march in a more pensive sort of silence. The woods to the North of the village were quiet, but had been torn up. Trees were bare of bark from where claws had been sharpened on them, and the earth had been churned and torn up by the same.. Some of the fires had spread into the woods, too, and burnt down small clusters of trees just beyond the village's border. But the rain had contained them to small black spots in the sea of dark green.
But… He still knew it.
The winding, worn, poorly paved path, surrounded by woods and the sound of the wind in their leaves. The pounding in his ears as his blood raced. His head ached and throbbed, and his breath came in short, anxious bursts. All as before, when he'd walked this path. All as before, but for such darkly different reasons…
He could almost make out the indentations where the camp had been, before whoever had come out to collect the lost supplies and put the bodies to rest.
They passed the camp-site and continued on, turning vaguely East. After about half an hour, a horn sounded and the cavalry pulled away and around them, then surged forward. Jaune couldn't see far enough ahead of himself to see where they had gone, but the thundering of their hooves faded away inside a few moments. They didn't come back, and the sudden quiet that fell over the column made the blood roaring in his ears all the louder.
"We walk in the Gods' sight." He heard Cardin murmur, and joined him, training just behind him and along with several others in his formation. "In their sight, we are blood. In their sight, we are unbreaking. Their gaze may never falter. Let us match it."
The silence returned with the prayer finished, but…
He felt just the least but better, at least, and was grateful to his brother for it.
A horn sounded and split the air, jerking Jaune to attention and drawing his eyes forward, towards where the sound had come from. He could see the trees beginning to thin that way, light peeking through and brightening as the foliage gave way. As the front of the column broke free of the forest, the horn sounded again in a staccato rhythm - two quick notes, then a pause, and another two.
The column began to move, each block of men turning in an alternating pattern to march to the left and right. With his block at the rear, they were left in the center, with two blocks of men to one side and three to another. There were only a few ranks in front of him now, which let Jaune see down the hill into the open, rolling plains that stretched out towards the distant sea.
He'd never been out this far…
It was beautiful.
There was a small gap between each of the formations, which the red-haired man at their command used to get behind them. He had a small, circular sort of brass horn wrapped in thin black linen that he raised to his lips, letting out one long note punctuated by a sharp lilt at the end - an order forward.
The formation took only a second to answer, marching forward in rough lock-step, down the gentle hill.
As they marched, Jaune could hear… Something, over the shifting of metal and the banging of shields bouncing off armored shins and shoulders. For the longest time, he wasn't able to recognize it. Couldn't make it out, over the rest of the noise. But, soon, he started to pick up pieces of it.
The screaming of the horses came first… Then the snarl and roar of big, furious beasts. That, he recognized from a nightmare he'd lived most nights - Grimm. He'd heard those roars before. For a moment, he froze, ice in his veins and fog in his head, until the man behind him shoved him forward and out of his fearful stupor.
"Thanks…" He murmured.
"Steel, brother." The man murmured back, voice barely audible over the sounds around them. "Steel and faith."
As they climbed another hill the sounds grew louder, until they crested it and Jaune could hear - and see - everything.
The mounted men had ridden ahead, either to hunt down or search out the Grimm. And they'd found the pack, which was nearly forty Beowolves strong, now. The knights circled them in groups of two, harrying the Grimm to keep them together and weaving out of the way whenever one of the monsters leapt for them. Most got away unscathed, but Jaune saw one of the wolves drag its claws down a horse's flank, spraying red along its arm and the ground as it went.
The beast screamed, stumbled, and fell, tossing its rider away.
To his credit, the armored Knight rolled away from the fall and came up with his maul in hand, which caught the blood-soaked Grimm broth the jaw when it came for him. The monster staggered away, wounded but alive until another knight rode by, her long spear shattering as it buried itself in its back.
It was an excellent display…
But the exhausted knight couldn't fend off the three Beowolves that leapt upon him, crushing him under their weight and ripping at his armored arms and legs. Two got their maws around an arm and a leg and yanked, and even over the horses screaming and the Grimm bellowing, he could hear the man scream. Flesh gave way before bone, and Jaune saw the bright red wash out through his chainmail and along his plated armor. When he went limp, they dropped him to the ground with the other three dead knights scattered across the field, uninterested in the man now that he was dead.
A long series of four high pitched horn blasts echoed from behind the armored line and the cavalry suddenly turned to pull away. Before the Grimm could chase after them, the horn blew again in two short bursts. The formation drew their weapons and began beating them against their shields and bellowing, drawing the Grimm's attention from the fast horses onto the still line of unhorsed men and women.
The dumb animals only cared where the closest Humans were, after all…
Another horn blew and the outer flanks drew back a few feet, curving their formation with the center ranks forward a bit. The Grimm, all mindless hate and snarling rage, ignored the flanks and rushed in mass towards their closer center. The men and women in front of him braced, squatting and raising their shields, and the men behind them leaned forward, almost pressing their shields against their backs. Jaune mirrored them, and then…
All he could do was watch, and wait.
The Beowolves leapt into the shield-line as they reached it, pressing the men and women on the front line back. Three ranks deep, Jaune felt the momentum slam into him, carried by the men in front of him. The man behind him caught Jaune and pressed forward, while the Grimm pressed them back, and for a moment, Jaune couldn't move, or even breathe. He could only hold on, and try not to be crushed by the weight.
Then, someone slipped.
The left side of his block slid back an inch or two as men and women in the rear staggered and struggled under the weight, and Jaune watched the Grimm press in, snapping and clawing at the wood and steel madly. One of the monsters managed to find purchase somehow, and Jaune watched a knight be dragged down and vanish under a black mass. More pressed into the gap he left behind, and Jaune saw another fall as weapons came out and the men and women hacked and beat at the beasts.
A Grimm fell, finally, black smoke leaking into the air, but another filled its place.
Soon, all he could see was black smoke clogging the air. All he could hear was their roars, and the knights' cries of pain and fury. Another knight fell, and more Grimm joined him, but they were being pressed back. The wolves, rabid and enraged beyond reason, ripped and tore at metal and wood, leapt onto shields to try and force the knights down through sheer weight, and climbed over each other to leap deeper into the formation to crush and tear at knights in the rear ranks in a mad, suicidal rush for as much blood as they could before the other knights around them crushed them.
One landed on the knight in front of him, forcing her down through his weight but ignoring her in favor of digging its claws into the side of the man beside her. He screamed and Jaune saw his weapon tumble out of his broken hand.
Then, he bellowed and his hammer came up.
The Grimm turned to him, claws deep into his brother's side, and Jaune felt his blood turn to ice. Its red eyes locked with Jaune's blue, and all Jaune could hear was the deep rumble in its chest. Like it was challenging him. Asking him if he had the brass to use the hammer in his hand.
Snarling, Jaune brought it down in spite of the frost in his heart. The strike caught it on the hip and it bellowed as the bone shattered and it stumbled back. Cardin surged forward, hand closing on the wounded woman's shoulder and dragging her back, and Jaune stepped forward with his heart hammering in his chest. As if it could escape.
His hammer came up and down on its shoulder, shattering it.
It roared and turned to him, jaw snapping closed in front of his face as Jaune leaned back, and his hammer came up to catch it in the chin. Its jaw snapped shut and Jaune saw shattered teeth tumble. Then it lashed out with its uninjured, bloody claw and knocked the wind out of him, driving him back into the knight behind him. The man caught him and pushed him forward, onto his feet, as the Grimm came in.
His shield cracked and Jaune yanked on the tie that kept it on his arm with a finger. As it fell, he took up his hammer in both hands-
'Strike clean, boy.' Port echoed in his head, 'If you turn the head, it'll glance off. Ruin the blow and the steel, too, if you're not lucky.'
The Grimm roared and his hammer came down.
Its skull shattered around the head of his hammer, and he watched it collapse, leaking black smoke as it faded away.
Ahead of him, horns sounded and Jaune looked past the mass of fighting monsters and men. His eyes widened as the knights came in, charging in formation with long spears in hand. The infantry that had drawn back before had moved forward at some point, hemming the Grimm into a narrow choke point, and Jaune could see now that the horse-men would plug it.
He left his hammer in the Grimm's skull and leapt forward, bracing against the back of the man in front of him, and felt the man behind him do the same with his shield.
Through a half-dozen Grimm, and two ranks, now, of heavily armored knights, Jaune could still feel the weight of it as the horses came in.
Horses screamed, knights roared, and the Grimm bellowed rage and fury as spears pierced their hides, hammers, axes and all else crushed them from the front, and the horses reared up to bring their weight down on them. The fight lasted half an hour after that, but from that point on, it was more slaughter than skirmish.
Slaughter… And justice.