Red Valor

by Shad Callister

  And yet now he looked upon a living forest-god, ancient and gigantic, a primeval being of tundra and pine-slopes yet unseen by mortal men.

  No one in the company had seen a mammoth before. Tusks, yes, and hides, but nothing like this. This was immense, far greater in stature and raw power than any living creature they had known.

  And somehow Damicos knew, in some hidden recess of his mind, that this creature was not simply a mammoth, any more than a stick in the hand of a child was a sword.

  The legs were like trees, hung with shaggy crimson hair. The awesome sweeps of gleaming tusks were so large that four oxen could pass between them abreast. And the eyes—they knew. They contemplated the men before them.

  And they condemned.

  Sweat poured down Damicos’ face. He couldn’t look away. The very air in the valley seemed to hum and throb with waves of eldritch energy.

  Mists parted in Damicos’ mind, and he saw the vast, raw, primal land as its gods intended it to be… as this god intended it to remain.

  Waterfalls thundered and roared, glaciers gouged their shuddering way down the long valleys where grass whispered in the cold wind. Geese flew overhead in endless streams to the trackless north, where the dull red sun hung sullenly low.

  Where this thing came from, saber-toothed cats snarled in the night but turned aside in deference to it, and packs of dire wolves ran leagues out of their way to keep clear.

  He and his men had no place there, Damicos saw in the vast eyes that held him. They would be crushed, thrown aside and forgotten by all but the beetles and ravens. And the land would go on with its age-old pattern of movement, growth, and rebirth, all while this creature reigned.

  For a single drawn-out moment, the gigantic red mammoth waited, assessing the two-legged invaders that had passed through its wild stampede.

  Then it lowered its massive yellowed tusks and charged.

  The eyes shrank to red dots that glowed with fury, and it trumpeted with a sound that deafened men and brought down showers of scree from the heights above.

  The shocked cries of his men snapped Damicos free of the spell. Hoarse cries echoed among the rocks as some men of the Tooth and Blade fell to their knees, others reeling against the canyon walls to escape the mammoth’s path.

  The thunder of its coming panicked Damicos’ horse. The poor creature, already skittish from journeying alongside Leisha’s beastriders all day and then facing the horde of wild beasts, was utterly overwhelmed. It pivoted too quickly, lost footing, and its hindquarters went down in the dust.

  The infantry captain leapt clear before his mount could tumble entirely, and managed to keep his sword and helmet. Then the horse scrambled away to the rear, joining Jamson’s steed in a pell-mell flight back up the canyon. The explorer had managed to keep his saddle, but could not control his mount’s direction, and away he went.

  Damicos wheeled toward the oncoming giant, and his brain sifted through tactics faster than he’d ever done in his life.

  Priority was clear: first, avoid the charge.

  He barked out his orders rapid-fire. “Spread out! Break formation, spread as if an archer’s volley were coming. When it passes, close for the kill!”

  The call was instantly taken up by the sergeants. And like that, on nothing but deep-grained training and the instinct of a life-long soldier, he was leading and fighting against a god-like foe that might have shattered softer souls.

  The hoplites, already bunching together on instinct, quickly began to move sideways. Some stepped backward while a few brave ones stepped forward, and one of these—Meeks, the short man whose big heart belied his stature and his name—planted his spear firmly in the rocks at his feet as if awaiting a boar’s charge. He shook his head from side to side like a stunned animal and retched, still struggling free of the mammoth’s mind-bending spell. But his face was pale and set.

  Then the huge thing was upon them. Its massive hairy bulk blotted out the sun, and the ground under their feet shook so violently it set men back a full pace. The two long, sweeping tusks swung forward in a diagonal movement calculated to catch men at chest-height and obliterate them. A small, detached part of Damicos’ mind noticed cracks and surface chunks missing from the ivory, a sign of vast age.

  Meeks, brave little Meeks, was the first to go. His spear-tip reached perhaps half-way up the mammoth’s thick-furred leg, and while he was still awaiting an opportunity to drive the point home he was caught in the sweep of the monster’s tusks. The short man tried to duck and fall sideways, but too late: he was lifted bodily from the earth and flung several paces away where he lay unmoving, back broken.

  Another man’s head was impacted by the fast-moving tusks and his helm crumpled. The mammoth let out another bellow that vibrated in Damicos’ chest, and tilted its huge head back the other way for a return swipe of the tusks.

  Men dodged these more easily, but then the tree-trunk feet were among the front ranks, stomping and crushing anything that remained in their path. Damicos saw one of his men leap out of the way just in time, leaving his shield to be pounded into the ground like a boulder had fallen on it from a great height. Others fell beneath the colossal feet, and Damicos heard bronze breastplates crack, heard the muffled screams.

  “Redtusk!” he heard himself shouting. “Redtusk!”

  If the thing heard him, it gave no heed. It reared suddenly, balancing on hind legs, mouth open in a silent roar, then brought both its front feet down hard. The earth shook, and several men fell. Redtusk was on them in another moment, stomping ruthlessly.

  Damicos and his sergeants shouted commands and waved at the men to move away from the impossible situation. They didn’t need encouragement. Men that had stood firm in the face of enemy cavalry and every kind of fauna this land had thrown at them now danced away as fast as their armor would allow.

  Two hoplites seeking shelter behind small rock formations were pulverized as a tusk blasted through the outcroppings as if they had been dried mud. Even stone was no shield against the maddened god.

  Redtusk lumbered on, through the last of the men, then slowed. It began to wheel around for another charge.

  “Now!” Damicos screamed with all his might, waving his sword. “Fall upon the beast from behind, keep it pinned! Take down those legs!”

  The second priority had to be thwarting the creature’s height advantage. Once off its feet, it would be far less dangerous.

  He ran forward with a surge of men and hacked at the giant leg nearest him. The thing was not just a tree-trunk, it was easily as big around as one of the largest old-growth forest monarchs he had ever seen, and coated in inches of fur. His first few sword blows did little, merely cutting away thick tufts of red-brown hair that fell to the ground at his feet.

  Lieutenant Leon, still at his captain’s side, drove a spear-point home in the center of the leg. Other men cut and stabbed furiously, knowing they only had one or two seconds until the thing would complete its turn.

  Turn it did. The leg Damicos was attacking suddenly reversed direction and knocked the captain on his back. It didn’t move very quickly, but the mass of the thing was incredibly powerful and would have bowled over the sturdiest horse without slowing.

  Damicos clung to his sword, but the wind was knocked from his lungs and he stared upward, trying to track the movements of the gigantic god-mammoth. Men sprang back as the thing stumbled sideways, bellowing out its war-cry again, and then the hoplites rushed forward to attack the legs in their new position.

  One man threw a spear, trying to inflict damage to the thing’s vitals instead of just its limbs. His weapon stuck for a moment but then slid out and fell back to earth without noticeable impact on the creature.

  Now the huge head was turned back toward the end of the canyon it had come from, and Damicos was staring straight up at a pair of long, curved tusks, a gaping mouth full of huge molars that was sucking in air for another bellow and charge, and two maddened eyes staring down at him. All intelligence was go
ne now; the beast was frenzied with rage.

  Damicos rolled quickly aside and staggered to his feet, but the move put his back to the creature and he expected to feel its tusks puncturing his body at any second.

  Leon was there, brandishing his spear fearlessly at the mammoth and yelling in wordless defiance. Damicos took two leaping steps to get clear of the danger, and half-turned to shout at his men.

  “Keep it here! Keep it at bay! We’ll wear it down to the ground.”

  A huge red-brown foot slammed into the dust right next to him, and the impact tripped him. He barely caught himself, falling to one knee momentarily.

  Leon cried out, and Damicos saw through the dust that his lieutenant’s wide-braced legs had undone him; the outthrust left leg had been caught by the edge of the mammoth’s descending foot and splintered to ruin. The lieutenant writhed in agony on the ground.

  Damicos strove to rise and stagger to his friend’s aid, but a tusk swung past, smashing through a chunk of canyon wall and sending rocks flying. A piece hit Damicos square in the chest, knocking him once more to the earth. He gasped in pain, struggling to fill his lungs with air.

  Rock dust was everywhere. He couldn’t see Leon, couldn’t see anything.

  “Lieutenant!” He couldn’t recognize the voice. Was that rasping croak his?

  Hoplites darted in, spears stabbing out, buying their captain some time. Redtusk shrieked and reared once more, gigantic legs waving slowly. Men dragged their captain behind a boulder.

  Damicos waved them onward. “Save the lieutenant!” he rasped. “Leon—drag him clear, his leg is shattered.”

  Leon lurched upright, hazy through the dust. The lieutenant clung to his spear, all his weight propped upon it, and Damicos saw the ruined leg hanging limp.

  Leon was directly beneath the mammoth’s upraised feet. He screamed a battle-cry, letting the monster know he was there.

  “No. Lieutenant!” Damicos couldn’t get his lungs full enough to scream, a wheezing whisper was all he could manage. “Leon, you fool. Get out.” He coughed, chest racking to clear the dust.

  The feet came down.

  Leon Stonehand held his spear firm to the end. His defiant shout was cut brutally short and he disappeared from view completely. The ground shook.

  “No, no. Mishtan have mercy.”

  The giant legs lifted. Underneath, in a bloody crater, lay the remains of the lieutenant. His shield lay crumpled like a piece of cheap tin next to his flattened body.

  Damicos looked up in hatred at the rearing beast, bellowing now as much in pain as rage, and saw what had become of his lieutenant’s spear. Two cubits of splintered ash-wood protruded from the mammoth’s mighty foot, leaving four piercing the flesh and cutting the muscles of Redtusk’s right leg, sliding along the bone upward toward its shoulder.

  Leon had always cut his own oak spear-shafts extra thick, Damicos knew, boasting that a man of his girth could wield double the weaponry of other hoplites. That sturdy weapon had now allowed him to stand firm and keep the shaft pointed straight up all the way to the end.

  “Bring it to earth!” Damicos thundered. “Sever the tendons!” He gasped for air. “Telion, aid us!”

  The men attacked savagely, swarming behind and driving their spears clean through the rear tendons of the beast’s legs. Then they pulled out swords to hack at the open wounds they had made, widening them.

  One man Damicos dimly recognized as Cormoran stood directly under the thing’s belly, stabbing repeatedly upward. He could only reach it at all by holding his spear by the very butt. This seemed to have its effect, however, and the old soldier’s face was soon spattered with falling blood.

  Redtusk was not holding still to receive the damage. Taking one man in its curling trunk and crushing the breath from his body, the monster lurched forward and kicked out at the soldiers in front of it. One died instantly, ribs broken and turned inward at his heart by a blow from the mammoth’s huge foot. Another failed to dodge and was sent tumbling away, but got back up a moment later to stab at the thing afresh.

  For a moment Damicos was afraid the mammoth would break away and gain the distance for another devastating charge. But then the wisdom of positioning two troops on either side of the canyon walls came to bear. These men, initially safe from Redtusk’s charge, had been carefully maneuvering into position on either flank. Now they were in proximity and they clashed against the monstrous beast’s sides with the full weight of an infantry formation.

  Unlike their semi-scattered brethren, these fresh troops pushed with the force of a dozen well-aimed spears at once. The higher ground they stood upon, sloping upward to meet the canyon’s walls, gave them shorter range to the beast’s vitals. Driving their points between the thing’s gigantic ribs and into the side of its throat, they opened enough wounds that blood loss now began to weaken the colossus considerably.

  Another swing of the head brought death to one of the flanking troopers and maimed a few more, but others rushed in and pierced the beast’s front legs with multiple heavy spears. It roared, the mighty head thrashed, but it could no longer stomp with its previous power on a crippled leg.

  The Red God was fighting for its life now, and it seemed to sense it, but it was so enraged that the desperate creature became even more dangerous and vigorous in its crushing blows.

  Damicos heard the cries of his dying men and knew that even with the influx of the flanking troops, this was now a frantic battle of attrition: would the mammoth fall in time to leave any of his men alive?

  He’d regained his breath now, and the lack of any agonizing pain upon inhalation told him his ribs were probably not broken. He ran forward and took up the spear from a fallen mercenary, transferring his sword to his off-hand.

  Holding the long weapon halfway along the shaft at its balance point, he moved into position directly in front of the mammoth. A low slab of fallen rock lay there, and he leaped atop it—a dangerous place to be, but necessary for his intended purpose.

  Demon! You are no god. May the true gods blast your hellish eyes, and let me be their instrument!

  Timing his throw to the swaying and thrashing of the huge mammoth, Damicos found his moment and launched the spear with all the power and follow-through half his body could provide. Then he gripped his sword and watched the missile fly through the air.

  “Guide it, Telion,” he muttered.

  It missed the eye by a wide margin. But it hit the mammoth in the trunk and sank deep in the soft, sensitive skin that was protected only by a finer layer of fur. Hot blood spurted from the wound, and the beast threw its head sideways, too late to avert the damage.

  This gave the men clustered about its legs a few extra seconds to hack forcefully at the massive limbs. Bronze swords were bent against the tough hair and flesh, but finally started taking their toll. The men’s armor protected them well from attacks that were less than full-force, and the soldiers bunched together now to deliver their blows while they had the advantage.

  Something gave way, and the colossus trembled. Its angry bellow turned to a trumpet of alarm. Its front leg buckled where Leon’s spear was still embedded and where now a flurry of sword-cuts had destroyed major muscle groups.

  The mammoth lurched to one side, trying to gain purchase on the rocks and remain upright, but then young Tamwrit Kaio in Hundos’ troop delivered a mighty swinging cut to the other foreleg’s tendon, and the mammoth crashed to its knees.

  Blood gushed quickly around the beast into a steaming pool. Some men were partially crushed under the weight of its falling body, and one drowned in the blood filling the space between the rocks before his comrades could pull him clear, trapped there by the weight of five elephants. The rest backed away to avoid the wild thrashing of the downed beast’s tusks, trunk, and legs as it tried to kick its way back upright. Now that it was down, the urgency lessened and no one wanted to be killed needlessly.

  Damicos shouted orders to form up out of reach along the mammoth’s flanks. “Back in
to your troops! Phalanx formation, able men only. Get the wounded to the rear. Punch some holes in that thing!”

  In a flurry of movement, the men got into position and began rushing forward to stab the mammoth from behind, where it couldn’t reach with its tusks. It reared its head wildly and tried to roll, but its ruined body was giving out and the men were more cautious now.

  Weakening by the moment as it lost more blood, and with severed tendons and muscles preventing its sluggish attempts, Redtusk tried futilely to rise one last time. Its desperate, trumpeting roar signaled the full shift from supreme confidence and scorn for its smaller foes to the terror of defeat.

  The sergeants directed their men, eager to finish the thing off. This was much easier than fighting an army in the open field. They had a single large opponent to worry about, and it was immobilized now. Some men dropped their shields and gripped spears with both hands, delivering powerful thrusts that bit deep past the protective fur of the mammoth.

  One more man was lost, a young skirmisher who got too close to the swinging tusks while trying for a face hit. Damicos warned his men to stay clear, and soon after that Redtusk’s head dropped to the dusty canyon floor. The trunk quivered, and its eyes began to glaze.

  Now, finally, its tusks truly were red. The great arcing sweeps of ivory settled into the sodden dust, clotted and dripping with gore. Standing back to watch the final death-throes of the mammoth, legs twitching and trunk fluttering as the adrenaline and oxygen finally left its beaten body, Damicos breathed an enormous sigh.

  He tried to feel joy, satisfaction, anything. But all he could see was Leon’s crushed corpse, hear the dead man’s barking laugh that would never sound again.

  Not every man could boast that he had slain a god, but there was no triumph here now, not for Damicos. He felt used. Leisha had known well what she was about, had let his company take the brunt of this wilderness demi-god’s wrath.

  There was a scramble of movement, a muffled groan. At the great carcass’s side, a hand appeared through the shaggy fur.