The Ramshuk (Heirs of Legacy Book 3)

by Paul Lauritsen

  It was nearly an hour before one of Tarq’s watchers ducked into the cave to inform them that the king had just ridden past, headed west. By then, Ruekig had divulged everything he knew about the chain of command in Dun Carryl, which tribe leaders and military officers had the Usurper’s favor, and even a list of some Ruekig suspected might be willing to turn given the opportunity. Tarq reacted with excitement to this news, asking a few questions about how they might go about contacting these vertaga, but Garnuk knew turning the Usurper’s servants would be no easy task. The first problem would be arranging a meeting. Garnuk and Tarq could not walk into Dun Carryl, nor would any potential traitors be able to leave the city for any length of time without immediately arousing suspicion.

  Ruekig also provided them with the locations of several sentry bases scattered around Dun Carryl, placed to alert the Ramshuk to approaching foes. Garnuk was able to draw a rough map from the information. It would not turn the tide of the war, but it would help keep his own forces from stumbling into the Usurper’s.

  Finally, well after the watcher had come and gone, they got to the questions Garnuk most wanted answers to. He asked Ruekig about the Ramshuk’s remaining military strength, where the bulk of his forces were stationed, what his plans had been should the West Bank attack fail. He interspersed these with seemingly less important queries, questions about the layout of Dun Carryl, if the slaves were still held in the same places, if the barracks had moved and if the Usurper’s own chambers were where Garnuk’s had been many years ago. Based on Ruekig’s answers, Garnuk concluded not much had changed in this regard, and that he should be able to rely on his own memories to map out the city mountain.

  Hours passed. Garnuk and Tarq spent the time wringing every piece of information they could out of Ruekig. The commander gradually warmed to them, quickly realizing they were highly intelligent and capable warriors. Among vertaga, it was not uncommon to find even bitter enemies who regarded each other highly, since their culture was predicated on strength, cunning, and battle prowess. Garnuk for his part found himself trusting Ruekig more and more. The commander had hardly been impressive around his subordinates during the West Bank battle, but he was reasonably intelligent, even if his personality was somewhat abrasive and his bravery was questionable. Garnuk suspected this particular weakness was part of the reason he and Tarq were having so much success in their interrogation.

  Much later, as the sun was dropping towards the horizon, a terrible noise began to grow outside of the cave. Rushing, whirling air swirled around the hill, kicking up powdered snow. Garnuk moved quickly to the opening and gazed out of it, wondering what could be the cause of the sudden whirlwind. There was a flash of movement overhead, then just as quickly the winds were gone and the plains were tranquil again.

  “By the spirits,” Ruekig murmured from his position against the back wall. “What do you think that was?”

  “That is the sound I always imagined the demons the elders speak of would make,” Tarq admitted, shifting uneasily. “Did you see anything, general?”

  Garnuk shook his head uncertainly. “No, but I have my suspicions. Here comes one of our watchers. Maybe he will know.”

  The warrior trotted up to the cave, staying low to the ground to avoid detection from unwelcome eyes. “General,” he growled under his breath after a hasty salute. “The dragon just passed over us.”

  “Headed west, after the king?”

  “Headed back east,” the watcher countered.

  “East?” Garnuk asked, frowning.

  “Well, at least it wasn’t demons,” Ruekig observed, shuddering.

  Garnuk shot him a look and turned back to the watcher, then stepped out of the cave and gazed up at the sky. “Why east?” he wondered aloud. “And why was it west of us? When did it leave the fortress?”

  “After the battle?” Tarq suggested. “I would have thought we would have seen it flying over us though.”

  “Or hear it,” Garnuk added, recalling the tumult from moments before. “You are certain it was the dragon?” he asked the watcher.

  The warrior nodded firmly. “Yes, general. It appeared there were two men on its back though.”

  “Interesting,” Garnuk murmured. “Was the king one of them?”

  “He could have been. One’s head seemed to be reflecting the light, like metal.”

  “Or a crown,” Ruekig observed helpfully.

  “And the king’s guards from earlier?” Garnuk muttered, turning to the south.

  “Haven’t seen them yet.”

  The Exile sighed. “Then we wait until we do see them. Maybe we can get more answers by observing them on the return trip.”

  “Very well, general.”

  The watcher retreated back down the hill to the concealed observation post, ducking back under cover as quickly as possible, before the dragon returned. Garnuk tapped the rock face beside him thoughtfully, then moved back into the cave and rejoined the others.

  “So we stay?” Ruekig asked, stretching his cramped muscles.

  “Yes,” Garnuk said absently.

  The commander nodded. “Is there anything else you would like to know?”

  “Why so eager to share all of a sudden?” Tarq asked, chuckling to himself.

  “Well, it would pass the time.”

  Garnuk laughed at that. “So it would,” he agreed. “But I’ve had enough talk for the moment. I need some time to process everything, come up with a plan.”

  “We still don’t know if the Sthan will attack the homeland,” Ruekig pointed out.

  “But we should be prepared if they do,” Garnuk murmured, tapping the stone floor thoughtfully. “I must think on what we have discussed.”

  Tarq and Ruekig fell silent, allowing the general to stray into that world only he understood. Ruekig leaned back against the wall of the cave and dozed, almost as oblivious to his surroundings as Garnuk was. Tarq, meanwhile, moved closer to the entrance of the cave so that he could see the watchers in their observation post. With the dragon already gone, there was far less risk of being seen by the Sthan.

  An hour after the dragon had passed, one of the watchers scrambled up to the cave entrance, saluting Tarq casually. “Captain. The king’s riders just passed to the south. They had one riderless horse with them.”

  Tarq nodded, satisfied. “Good. The Sthan should be done in our area for the day, now that everyone is accounted for. Spread word to the others that they can come out of the caves and get some fires going if they wish. And find two replacements to take over for you in the observation post for a while. You’ve done well.”

  “Thank you, captain,” the vertag replied, turning to go.

  The captain watched the warrior begin his rounds among the other caves, then went back inside to see how Ruekig and Garnuk were faring. The general was staring off into space, absently tracing designs in the floor and occasionally muttering broken sentences to himself. Ruekig was fast asleep, head tilted back, mouth wide open. As Tarq approached them, the commander began snoring loudly. Tarq winced at the noise and glanced at Garnuk, noticing how his eyes narrowed in frustration with each passing moment that Ruekig continued snoring.

  Tarq stepped across the cave and slapped Ruekig, hard. The commander came awake with a bellow of surprise and pain, reaching for a weapon that wasn’t there. He touched his jaw gingerly, assessing the damage, then glared at Tarq.

  “I thought we were on the same side!” he snapped.

  The captain nodded. “We are, but the general is trying to think and your snoring was distracting him.”

  Ruekig winced and leaned back against the cave wall again, rubbing at his jaw. “Oh, well you could have just said something,” he muttered.

  “No fun in that,” Tarq said, shaking his head. “But now that you’re awake, you might as well know that the king’s guards have passed by and appear to be on their way back to the Sthan fortress.”

  “They never saw us?”

  “No.”

  “That’
s a relief,” Ruekig muttered, glancing at Garnuk. The general seemed completely oblivious to the previous conversation taking place. “What now?”

  “We wait,” Tarq replied, sitting down once more with a soft groan. “Harg will send us a message when the Sthan make a move from that fortress. If they go south, then I suspect that we will as well.”

  “And if the dragon sees us?”

  Tarq opened his mouth to reply, then hesitated. “I had not considered that,” he admitted, glancing at Garnuk. The Exile made no move to reply or even acknowledge them, carrying on with his planning.

  “Do we have any food?” Ruekig asked, looking around. “It’s been a while since I’ve eaten.”

  “Nothing fresh,” Tarq said, shrugging. “I’ve got some dried mutton here if you want.”

  Ruekig curled his lip in distaste. “Dried meats?” he asked contemptuously.

  “It’s better than nothing.”

  “Barely.”

  “You don’t have to have any,” Tarq said, rummaging in his pack. “But I’m hungry.”

  “We could send hunters out,” Ruekig suggested, looking out through the entrance to the cave. “There is still a little bit of light left. Animals will be bedding down for the night. Easy prey for a couple vertaga.”

  “No,” Tarq said flatly. “Nobody leaves camp. Not without the general’s approval.”

  “Then get his approval.”

  “He’s busy.”

  “Busy?” Ruekig exploded. “He’s working on a plan he may never need to use!”

  Tarq frowned, then ceased his search for food and set his pack aside. “Do you honestly believe the Sthan will be content to turn around and march home after all the slaughter that has taken place in the last few months?”

  “Well, I – ”

  “The Usurper’s forces have razed countless villages, flattened a major fortress to the east, nearly destroyed the West Bank, and laid siege to Ishkabur for months, causing untold damage and destruction. The deaths of their people alone demand that they seek retribution. Their king is honor bound to avenge his fallen, and he has the means to do so.”

  Ruekig subsided, hunching down against the back wall nervously.

  “Think about it,” Tarq continued in a lower voice. “What would we do if the Sthan had marched into the mountains and begun slaughtering our tribes? Not our warriors, Ruekig, the others. Our mates and cubs, those who cannot defend themselves the way we can.”

  “Our people are all fighters,” Ruekig snarled angrily. “They can all defend themselves.”

  “Against lesser foes, yes. But against trained warriors? Our villages would be massacred. You know it as well as I do. If that happened to our people, what would we do?”

  “We would fight,” Ruekig replied sullenly. “We would push back at the invaders, make them fear our names, attack them until they respect us enough to leave us alone for as long as our race survives.”

  “Exactly,” Tarq agreed. “We would not merely drive them from the mountains and stop, thinking enough blood had been shed and that maybe the Sthan had been taught a lesson. We would be sure they were taught a lesson, and one they would not forget for many years to come. The Sthan, if I am any judge of humans, will do the same thing.”

  “You give them too much credit,” Ruekig sneered. “They are not vertaga. Their blood does not boil for battle as ours does, they are not built for war like us. They are lesser creatures on this world, fortunate that they outnumber us.”

  “They may not have our size or strength,” Tarq agreed. “And they do not have claws like we do. They lack horns, and their eyes cannot pierce the darkness. But they do outnumber us significantly, and they make up for their physical shortcomings in other ways. I have fought them, Ruekig. I have seen in their puny soldiers bravery and courage to rival what you would find in our best warriors. I have seen single men stand alone against many foes and kill them all. They are not vertaga, no, but they are still powerful in their own right.”

  Ruekig flinched, and sunk further towards the wall, his confidence shaken.

  “What’s more,” Tarq went on, “They are vastly superior in intelligence. We have to rely on exceptionally skilled leaders like Garnuk to even have a chance. Men have a far greater capacity for intelligent thought, and they use that to their advantage in battle. Our tactics are primitive and brutish by comparison, for the most part anyway. That intelligence helps them in other ways too, allows them to design and forge better weapons to fight us with, better armor to turn our blows. The Sthan are not weak, Ruekig, far from it.”

  The commander shuddered, rubbing his horns with his large hands. “If what you say is true,” he murmured. “Then we are indeed in a precarious position.”

  “Of the Usurper’s making,” Tarq agreed. “He was foolish to march on the Sthan again.”

  “The Ramshuk was?” Ruekig asked incredulously. “And he wasn’t?” he asked, jerking his chin at Garnuk defiantly. The Exile did not notice, absorbed as he was with his thoughts, so Tarq answered the challenge instead.

  “In the tribe where I grew up, our elder had a saying he taught all cubs, for he thought it was critical that we understand it. He said there is no shame in making a mistake once, but that making the same mistake over and over again is a sign of a foolish mind.”

  “You are calling the leader of our people a fool?” Ruekig snarled.

  “If we are looking solely at his decision to invade the Sthan, then yes,” Tarq replied, shrugging.

  “Then we are to just let them have this world for themselves?”

  Tarq chuckled to himself. “Ruekig, even if we owned these flatlands, would you live here? The mountains are our home. They always have been, and they always will be. The Sthan fear our home, and the only worthwhile settlement they maintain there is the city of Ishkabur, which is hardly in our territory.”

  “And when there are more of us? When we need more territory?”

  “If we ever reach that point, then something will have to change,” Tarq admitted. “But I do not see it happening anytime soon. The mountains have space for many more vertaga yet.”

  Ruekig fell silent and turned away, unconvinced. Tarq watched him thoughtfully, wondering how much he had changed the commander’s mind. Everything Tarq had just said he believed in, now that he had fought with Garnuk for the last few months. To have peace again, and to have the mountains, was enough for Tarq. Once he had yearned for more, glory and conquest, the destruction of the Sthan. But no more. What had changed, he wondered quietly. Was it just that he had been on the run so long and was weary of body and mind, weary of endless fighting and hiding, yearning for a more settled life? Or was there something more to this new perspective?

  The evening turned to full night and the small group slept. Tarq thought about tying Ruekig up again, but decided against it for the time being. Just to be safe though, he kept his weapons close at hand.

  The following days passed slowly. Tarq and Ruekig talked a little more, but never again about such weighty matters as the war. Garnuk meanwhile stayed in his own private world, plotting the future as best he could.

  Five days after the battle of the West Bank, a weary, snow-covered vertag stumbled up to the cave that Garnuk and the others occupied. “General,” he said, gasping for breath. “The Sthan are on the move.”

  Garnuk blinked slowly as though coming out of a trance. “Where are they going?” he asked.

  “South,” the scout reported. “To the mountains.”

  Garnuk nodded solemnly and glanced at Tarq. “Ready our warriors,” he said quietly. “We’re going after them.”

  Chapter 48:

  To the Homeland

  Garnuk strode from the cave in the side of the hill purposefully, his sword hanging at his hip, his pack slung over one shoulder. Tarq had sent the scout to alert the other warriors, then stayed behind to watch Ruekig and pack up his own gear. Below, vertaga were leaving the other caves, dousing fires, strapping on equipment, and preparing for the jo
urney.

  The scout returned to the ledge Garnuk was standing on, looking down at the others. “The rest are making preparations,” he announced.

  Garnuk nodded. “Good. Harg and the rest of your team is still watching the Sthan army?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go back, and get them out of there as soon as you know how fast the army is moving.”

  “Should we meet you back here?”

  “No,” Garnuk replied immediately. “We’re going home, back to the mountains. You must be very careful, and Harg and the others as well. Do not underestimate the dragon.”

  “It is not flying with the army,” the scout said hesitantly. “It flew off after circling overhead for a while.”

  “Then we all need to be careful,” Garnuk decided. “If we are caught in the open between here and the mountains, we are doomed. Tell Harg to meet us in the vale of the broken peak. It is close to both Dun Carryl and the pass the Sthan have made use of in the past.”

  “Yes, general.”

  “If you get there before us, wait for my arrival. Do not send any more messengers unless something drastic occurs. If the dragon is hunting, I don’t want it getting Harg’s group and the rest of us because of a simple message.”

  The scout nodded warily, glancing to the southeast. “What will we do then, general?” he asked. “What if the Sthan enter the mountains?”

  “We push them back,” Garnuk replied confidently. “The mountains are our home. All the advantages lie with us there. The Sthan will be hampered, constricted, unable to move their forces quickly or deploy them effectively.”

  “Yes, general,” the scout agreed, smiling to himself. “Is there anything else?”

  Garnuk shook his head. “No. Go now, and get your group to safety. We will follow.”

  The scout hurried off as Tarq emerged from the cave, prodding Ruekig in front of him. “What do we do about our friend?” he asked quietly.