by Troy Osgood
Leigh had set the bone, so he couldn’t feel the ends grinding against each other anymore, but she hadn’t had a chance to fully heal it. Hall had insisted that all the Druids help with the fire and heal the others before him. She’d glared at him but listened.
The citizens who didn’t need healing were either helping with the fire, looting the Duntin corpses, or standing guard down at the pass where the raiders had come from. Brient and Jackoby, along with a couple of others, were there. In the dark, watching and waiting. Hoping that no other raids were coming.
They were all tired.
Hall was amazed at how quickly the Breakridge Irregulars, the Skara Brae guards, and the others had responded. They had crossed the distance in minutes, meeting the Duntin raiders not that far from where the fire was. The raiders had slowed to start the fire, a couple moving ahead. Those front-runners had run into Brandif and Garrick. They hadn’t made it any further.
He was proud of them all. The response time had been excellent. But this raid just highlighted the need for the watchtowers as well as a big vulnerability in the meadow’s defenses.
Hall added a wall and watchtowers on the wall to his mental list. First chance, he’d talk with Duncant.
“Fires out soons,” Smol, the Leshy said, coming to stand next to Hall. The furry creature stood only four or so feet tall, looking like a tiny bear with fingers and toes.
Hall wasn’t sure exactly what the extents of Smol’s abilities were, or even what those abilities were. The Leshy was the gardener of Greenheight Vale. His presence there indicated that the Vale was important, magical in some way. Another thing that Hall had yet to explore and discover.
“Red Caps bads,” Smol added.
“Yes, they are,” Hall replied.
He hadn’t spent that much time with Smol, but Hall liked the odd little gardener.
“Cust’dian comes,” Smol said, his rough and squeaky voice drawing Hall’s attention.
The flames had started to hypnotize him. The dancing reds and oranges, flickering shadows, along with his exhausted mental state, had lulled him into a kind of trance. He shook his head, looking to where Smol pointed.
Leigh was walking up to them, pushing stray locks of curly red hair out of her eyes. The antlers seemed to drag her head down, but Hall knew it was just exhaustion. She smiled down at Smol, who seemed to hop in excitement.
“Hello, Smol,” she said. “Thank you for your help. I know the meadow isn’t part of your garden.”
“Fires bad,” Smol said, nodding his head. “Smol help.”
“And we’re glad you did,” Hall said.
He remembered seeing the little Leshy standing in front of a Duntin, protecting the citizens who were hauling buckets of water from the small stream. The Duntin was a little taller, bulkier, meaner, and armed. But Smol hadn’t backed down.
After killing the last Duntin at the pass, Hall had run for where Smol had been, determined to aid the Leshy. There had been no need. Smol had defeated the Duntin. The Red Cap had been alive, barely, when Hall arrived. He had quickly ended the Duntin’s life, allowing Smol to aid with the fire.
Leigh turned her bright blue eyes on Hall. “It’s your turn.”
He started to protest, but the Druid’s eyes turned hard. He simply nodded, too tired to argue.
Hall moved his arm up and down, pushing it out to the side, opening and closing his fingers. It was stiff, sore, but he had the full range of movement. The bone was no longer broken. Leigh’s healing had fused the bone together. There was nothing she could do for the stiffness; that would go away after a couple of days.
His Vitality had taken a hit. He’d need a couple of good nights of full rest to recharge. It wasn’t low enough to worry him, not yet. If it got low enough, he wouldn’t be able to fight, his blows coming slower and with less force.
Magical healing was good for closing wounds, but it did nothing for the aches left in the body. There were some things that only true rest could heal.
He glanced at the others in the town hall. The councilors, Leigh, Brandif, Sharra and a couple of others. The rest of the citizens were still trying to clean up the results of the raid. There were bodies that needed to be disposed of and burned crops to pull up so the field could be tilled and turned into new crops. There were the piles of loot to go through.
The Duntins didn’t have much in the way of magical weapons beyond the red caps, which no one wanted to touch. They did have a lot of coins and jewels. Hall found it odd that a raiding party would come with so much wealth on them, but Gorid Stoneglare didn’t find it that unusual. The captain of Hall’s ship, the Ridgerunner, Gorid had the most experience with Duntins. The Dwarf had been on board airships his entire life. He’d run across the Red Cap pirates many times.
“They don’t want to leave valuables behind on their ship. Someone would steal them,” he’d explained.
Timmin’s eyes had lit up at seeing the accumulation of coins and jewels. He was eager to start counting it and add it to the village’s treasury, which had gotten low in the past month. The treasure they had gotten from Greenfire Depths, their half, had allowed Hall to buy a lot more supplies and materials, but it hadn’t lasted as long as he had hoped. But it had served its purpose. Without it, the village wouldn’t be as close to complete as it was.
The hammers and bucklers, along with the Berserker’s two-handed axe, could be melted down by Tunwell, the village blacksmith, and reforged into needed parts. Or they could sell them the next time a trip was made to Silverpeak Keep. Either way, the large pile that was being moved into one of the empty houses serving as a storeroom would end up being useful to Skara Brae. The leather armor, the pieces that weren’t ripped to shreds, would be stored for the village’s eventual leatherworker.
They had lucked out in containing the fire. Dinah reported that only a half acre had been destroyed. There would be a shortfall but not drastic. The coins and jewels would more than make up for that shortfall.
Hall was thankful it had worked out seemingly so well for them. There was still the threat of the Duntins returning, which had brought them to the town hall.
Hall looked around at the faces. All were tired, covered in ash. None had changed or cleaned up since the end of the fight. Even Timmin, the administrator, had helped out in the bucket brigade.
“Where did they come from?” Hall asked, bringing the hastily conceived meeting to order.
“No clue,” Brandif replied. He stood off to the side.
Everyone was standing except Timmin, who sat at his desk behind Hall with a pile of coins and jewels. Aside from the council table and Timmin’s desk, there wasn’t any furniture in the large open space. The table was covered in more of the coins and jewels, along with anything odd that had been found on the Duntins.
“Talon has flown pretty far down the edge of the island and hasn’t found anything,” Brandif continued. “I doubt the ship, this Roc Reaver, has taken off. They should still be waiting for the raiders to return.”
“Could the ship have dropped them and left?” Dinah asked.
There was an edge of anger to her voice. The fields were her work, her contribution to the village, and the Duntins had tried to destroy them.
“Maybe,” Gorid said, all eyes on him as the expert in Duntins. “But it wouldn’t have gone far. Would want to see the smoke from the crew’s destruction or their signal to return.”
“How do Red Cap crews work?” Hall asked. “We killed close to two dozen. Is that the entire crew of this Roc Reaver?”
Gorid shook his head. “Naw. These ones weren’t true crew of the ship. Hands brought on for the raid. Most Duntin warships have a crew of thirty, all of them fighters and sailors. For raids like this, they’ll bring in bodies from the clans, wherever the Duntins’ home isles are. Another ship will ferry ’em over, a warship or two providing support.” He paused, looking up into the ceiling rafters, thinking. “Ye said these were part of the Roc Reaver?”
Hall nodded.
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“Seems the captain of that ship hired them, then. Raiders are part of the ship’s crew for the raid.”
“So there’s another thirty or so Duntins somewhere nearby?” Brandif asked.
“Maybe more. This could have been the first raid, to test our defenses,” Gorid replied with a shrug. “I’ve nae dealt with the Duntin raiders, just the pirates. Just relaying what I heard from some of the smaller settlements.”
Hall started pacing, moving from one end of the room to the other. He passed Timmin’s desk, earning a glare from the administrator. He didn’t stop. His healed arm was growing stiff. He stretched it out as he walked.
“What is a raiders’ camp like?” he asked, not looking at Gorid, still pacing.
“Not a clue,” the old Dwarf replied. “Never seen one. Don’t know anyone who has.”
Hall stopped pacing, searching for Brandif and Bradberry out of the assembled group.
“Thoughts?” he asked the two older adventurers.
Brandif had been level twelve when Hall had met him in Land’s Edge Port. Along with Garrick, the Skirmisher had been hanging out at the fighters’ guild, bored. He had gotten to level thirteen since being in Skara Brae. Bradberry was an Arashi, from the higher islands, the desert kingdom. The name wasn’t Arashi, but it was what he went by. There was a story there, one not yet told. A rank four Cartographer, level eleven Duelist. Along with Garrick, the level twelve Warden, they had the most experience and knowledge of anyone in Skara Brae.
The two men looked at each other before answering. Bradberry indicated that Brandif could go first.
“I agree with Gorid. The ship, this Roc Reaver, is around somewhere. Has to be close by.”
“Since the raiders came from the south, we can assume the ship is along the island’s edge in that direction,” Bradberry added. “They could have gone over the mountains and come in from another direction, but I do not think so.”
“Not yet, anyways,” Brandif said, Bradberry nodding. “I think we have a couple of days before they would move.”
“Why a couple of days?” Hall asked.
“It’s the nature of raids,” Brandif answered. “They’re quick hits meant to overwhelm the defenders. But this wasn’t an overwhelming force. At least to us, but to the Duntins maybe they thought it was. Either they were testing our defenses, or they thought this group would succeed. Both tell me that the ship is somewhere waiting. If they don’t receive the signal, they would move back and rethink their plans.”
“So we have some time to track them down,” Hall asked.
He saw some heads, mostly those of the adventurers, lift at the suggestion. None of them really liked the idea of playing defense. There was risk to seeking out the Duntins, but there would be risk in waiting for the Red Caps to come to them. They could come from any direction, at any time. There was no way the citizens of Skara Brae could watch everywhere. Not for long.
“A couple of days,” Brandif said. “If the Duntin captain is smart, he’ll pull back and wait for us to grow tired.”
He was agreeing with Hall’s thinking. The longer they waited, the more it worked to the advantage of the Duntins. They had to assume the captain was experienced and would wait to attack again. Which meant he would set up a camp somewhere.
“Would they venture inland this soon?” Hall asked, mostly to himself.
“Probably not,” Gorid said. “Would want to stay near the island’s edge as much as possible. Easier ta escape.”
“What if they just stay wherever they are?” Roxhard asked from where he stood next to the Battleforge siblings, very close to Gerdi. “If they just wait along the edge, they could attack any ships coming this way or us going south.”
Hall glanced at Gorid, who appeared angry. At himself, for not thinking of that possibility. He nodded.
“That could be part of their plan as well,” the ship captain replied, grumbling.
That added a wrinkle. If the Duntins weren’t just going to keep raiding, they could start attacking any of the ships that made their way up the island’s edge to Skara Brae. That could be very harmful to the village.
The people of Skara Brae could not allow that.
“We know that stretch of land very well,” Bradberry said, “from the trips down to Silverpeak Keep. There’s not many places they could set up a camp. Flying over and letting off a couple of dozen raiders, they could do that anywhere. But not a camp.”
Hall pictured the land between the Thunder Growls and the island’s edge. Bradberry was right. For most of the length, the mountains sloped down to the edge, not much land between the two. A couple of small areas of some flat land, but not defensible, exposed on all sides. There was only one place he could think of that he would choose for a camp.
Hall looked over at Bradberry, the older Cartographer, nodding. He was thinking of the same area.
“Who’s going to go?” Hall asked the assembled group.
Chapter 6
Hall opened his map for what had to be the tenth time.
It still showed the blinking green marker not that far ahead, on the side of a mountain. The map was pretty detailed. Hall had drawn it over the course of a couple of voyages south to the larger city of Silverpeak Keep. He had spotted it once, after making the trip a couple of times.
The position of the ship that day must have been just right, because he had never seen the collection of wood and stone houses built into the hillside before. He had marked it on his map, and as he and Bradberry made the trip again, they increased the detail of the maps. Because Bradberry was a higher-rank Cartographer, he was able to share his maps with Hall.
The map showed the trees that blocked the view of most of the homes. It showed the rough elevation changes of the mountain ahead, where it sloped up steeply from the jagged edge of Edin to the still steep but not as bad mountainside where the homes had been built.
From where he now crouched, Hall could see the sides of those homes.
Similar to how the homes of Skara Brae had been built underground, the majority of these homes were built into the mountain. The front walls faced the sky beyond the island, barely any of the sides exposed, the low sloped roofs with dirt and grass, even small stones, piled on top to blend in with the mountain behind. Even from this angle, knowing they were there, it was hard to make out the half dozen or so homes.
The way the trees grew, as if carefully cultivated and placed, shielded the small village from above. Pike or Talon couldn’t be used to scout from the air. Neither Hall nor Brandif wanted the dragonhawks to fly over for fear of being noticed. A dragonhawk looked far different from cliff shrikes, the only flying creature native to this stretch of mountain.
Hall remembered thinking that the way they were hidden from view was to protect them from Duntin raiders. Now they were being used by Duntin raiders.
Two ships were anchored at the bottom of the slope, along the thin strip of relatively flat land. Hall, not an expert on airships, could see the Dwarven origins to the ships. Just in the bones. The Duntins had made their own changes. Hall could only describe the ships as angry. There were harsh lines across the bow, sharp angles. Along the sides were two wings, the only wings he had ever seen on an airship. But there was something different about them. He caught the glint of metal in the sun along the outside edge.
They weren’t wings but giant knives attached to the ships.
There were large ballistae mounted at both ends, cannons visible along the sides.
It all made the ships look fearsome and deadly.
One of them was slightly larger, not less intimidating.
It had to be the carrier, Hall thought, turning his attention to the houses. He could see movement, small forms going from building to building. The Duntins. There were too many to get an actual count. No set pattern, he would follow one only to have it go into one of the structures, coming back out again. Or so he thought. From this distance, with such similar armor, they all looked alike.
“Whe
re are they all?” Brandif asked from his spot next to Hall, further up the slope. “There must be tunnels beyond the homes.”
Hall agreed. From what they could see of the homes, they were not big enough to contain as many Red Caps as they were seeing. The structures had to open up into the mountain. Hall didn’t like that thought. Confronting Duntins in tunnels they knew better would put their already outnumbered group at a massive disadvantage.
He sighed. Of course it wasn’t going to be easy.
They had rested for a day. Hall had wanted to set out as soon as possible, but wisdom had prevailed. He was wounded, his Vitality low. He needed rest. As did the others. Hall had slept through the night and the day, waking the next night.
Not fully rested but as close as he would let himself get with the threat of the Duntins.
The plan called for the Ridgerunner to get them close to the mountainside collection of homes. That was the first debate.
Without knowing the exact location of the Duntin ship, or ships, the fear was that the Ridgerunner would either get too close and be detected or encounter the Duntin ships in the skies. Gorid assured them that the Ridgerunner could outrun anything the Duntins had, that they knew about, at least. It wasn’t much assurance. If they were dropped too far out, they could end up watching the Duntin ship sail right overhead, powerless to catch it and leaving Skara Brae mostly undefended. Too close and the Duntins would know they were coming.
Hall, Brandif, Gerdi and Gorid pored over the maps the two Cartographers had been making. They knew the location of the homes built on the side of the mountain, where they assumed the Duntins to be. They knew how long it would take to get there, adjusting for a much slower flight from the Ridgerunner.
In the end, they decided to get dropped a half day’s march from the small village. It was as close as they dared to get.
The next debate was over who would go. The inclination was to bring everyone who could fight, but that would leave the village unprotected. They were hoping to attack the Duntins before the Duntins could attack Skara Brae again. But that was the hope; it might not be reality. The village needed to be defended.