Kingdom of Bones

by Philip C. Quaintrell

  When the first crossbow bolt skimmed the cliff face to his right, spraying his face with pellets, Nathaniel wondered if he had asked for too much adventure out of this trip. The only blessing to being hunted by a pack of killer dwarves was the distraction it proved. His journey through the ancient halls had been accompanied by terrible thoughts and fears for his wife.

  The old Graycoat ran as fast as he dared along the stony path. Were he to fall to his left, he would likely survive, thanks to the sloping snow, but he would be at the mercy of the dwarves. Since he wasn’t an elf, scaling the cliff face to his right wasn’t an option either. His only saving grace came from the path itself, which wound left and right, creating natural shelters from the line of sight.

  That didn’t stop the occasional crossbow bolt from digging into the rock in front of him as they climbed up. Nathaniel was tempted to use Reyna’s bow. The enchanted weapon would have him rid of the pursuit in one or two shots, but it would undoubtedly kill the dwarves. That was something he couldn’t do.

  A great gust of wind slammed into the mountain, pushing Nathaniel into the cliff face. He knocked his knee and fell to the path, cutting his hands in the process. The old knight cursed and reminded himself that dying alone on a mountain top was not to be his fate. Asher had died to give him this life and he wasn’t going to give up on it because of a little breeze.

  Nathaniel rarely found himself in dire situations such as this anymore, but when he did, he would always think about his lost friend. What would Asher do, he would think. Cutting the dwarves down was the only thing that came to mind, so Nathaniel did the only thing left to him.

  He rolled off the side…

  The drop was short and cushioned by the snow. It was that same thick snow, however, that would hinder his escape. There was nothing for it. He pushed forward, throwing his weight down the mountain just as the Heavybellys appeared on the ridge above.

  They barked at him in dwarvish, their curses lost in the howling wind. So loud was the wind that Nathaniel missed the sound of the crossbow being reloaded. Had another dwarf not thrown a single-bladed axe in the knight’s direction, Nathaniel wouldn’t have dived forward and the bolt would have killed him. When he looked up from the slope, his face covered in snow, the bolt in question had struck an outcropping of rocks and rebounded.

  Deciding that he wouldn’t give the dwarf a second chance, he jumped to his feet and continued to flee before the next bolt could be loaded. A quick glance over his shoulder informed the old Graycoat that the Heavybellys were determined to follow him. The first two to jump down from the ridge, however, vanished in the deep pile. With only their heads sticking out of the snow, they could do nothing but hurl profanities at Nathaniel.

  The knight made it to the outcropping of rocks and climbed the nearest boulder. Aware that he wasn’t out of range yet, he decided not to linger.

  It wasn’t long before the distant sounds of the dwarves failed to find Nathaniel’s ears over the wind and terrain. Staying below the ridge line, the old knight continued to travel east, keeping the valley to his left. It was slow progress through the angled snow and sporadic outcroppings of rock, but Nathaniel preferred his chances with the environment rather than the dwarves.

  He trekked through the snows and over the mountain slopes, avoiding the ridges above as well as the valley below. Having crossed a frozen plain of The Largo River, Nathaniel finally found rest behind a cluster of rocks and lonely pines that collected over a jagged ledge.

  The old knight moved cautiously between the sparse trees and boulders, his eyes fixed over the edge. There before him was camped a dwarven army, their numbers so vast they almost filled the breadth of the valley. Nathaniel couldn’t even hope to count them all, but there were undoubtedly thousands of them.

  Creeping farther down the ledge of the outcropping, he leaned against the bark of a tree and huddled himself against the bitter cold. Farther east still, more camp fires and tents could be seen, though they were too far away to belong to this army.

  “Namdhorians…” he uttered, the word reduced to steam before him.

  Four dwarven words and a questioning tone resounded from below the ledge. Nathaniel cursed his stupidity and backed away from the lip. He waited. The sound of crunching snow and grating armour found his ears in the dying wind. Hiding behind the largest boulder, the old knight dared to look over the top.

  He immediately dropped back down.

  On the other side was a pair of dwarves, each sporting a colourful beard and long hair. From what Doran had told him, there was only one clan that would dye their hair blue and green: The Brightbeards. They were at the bottom of the dwarven hierarchy, but that didn’t stop them being vastly superior to the Namdhorians in the east.

  Finding no cause for alarm, the dwarven scouts returned to their patrol and left the rocky ledge. Nathaniel sighed in relief and decided he wouldn’t stay in case they retraced their steps.

  More hours of trekking were required before he was perfectly positioned between the two armies. He had decided, given the distance he had covered, that it would be safe to ascend to a higher ridge.

  There was no sign of the Heavybellys, a fact his exhausted muscles were thankful for. Nathaniel hoped that the hunting party had also discovered The Brightbeards and gone down to greet them. The only down side, of course, would be if The Brightbeards offered some of their own and added to the hunting party.

  With that thought, and a waning sun, Nathaniel decided to put his mind to work. Namdhor, nay all of Illian, needed this army of man to turn around. The knight sat on the edge of the ridge and watched the two armies from afar, searching for something that might help him. He could present himself to whoever was leading the Namdhorians, he reasoned. But, what would he say? There were no words that could turn the whole army around, not from the likes of him. His name was famous, but he had no way of proving he was the Nathaniel Galfrey.

  It was likely they didn’t know about the orcs or the invasion of their homeland. Perhaps he could simply inform them of this terrible fact and they would turn around. Of course, he would have to explain what an orc is to all of them…

  He needed to physically move thousands of soldiers, but how? Seeing them from so far away, the Namdhorians were more of a dark blob staining the white valley, the individual soldiers impossible to make out. Seeing them like that made them appear as one entity to Nathaniel’s eyes. That imagery alone began to shape his thoughts, allowing him to come at the problem from another angle.

  He couldn’t go down there and turn each of them around one at a time and command them to march home. He needed to move them all at once and give them no choice but to return to Namdhor. To do that, he needed something equal in size as a deterrent to advancing. He looked west and set his gaze upon the smaller force of Brightbeards. The dwarves should have been deterrent enough, especially since they were renowned for being deadly warriors, not to mention the other five armies in Dhenaheim.

  Deflated again, Nathaniel paced the ridge. If an army of dwarves couldn’t turn them back, what could he possibly do to shift them? The old Graycoat kicked a stone over the edge and listened to the cascade effect it had on the rocky slope. The stone disturbed several rocks on its way down, creating a trickling of loose pebbles and debris.

  Nathaniel looked over the edge and watched the stones fall. He continued to watch. He was frozen to the spot, his eyes locked on the waterfall of rocks below. Why was he transfixed by the sight? The knight knew a solution had just presented itself to him, but in his fatigue he couldn’t put his finger on it.

  Then he looked up.

  Across the valley, looming over them all was a mountain, its face thick with snow. It was just sitting there, between the two armies, like a god watching its creations.

  Nathaniel blinked. He looked back down at the cascading rocks and back up to the adjacent mountain. Then he held up Reyna’s bow, his eyes flitting between the weapon and the mountain or, more specifically, the tons of snow.

/>   Could he do it? he thought. Could the bow? In all the years Reyna had been firing Adellum’s bow, not once had Nathaniel seen an arrow curve, regardless of the distance.

  The knight returned to his pacing again, his thoughts racing. If he struck the mountain there was no question as to the level of destruction the arrow would cause, but would it be enough? Would it cover the valley and see the Namdhorians turned around? Considering the bow’s power again, Nathaniel wondered if the arrow would cause too much damage and blow the top of the mountain into the sea beyond it.

  What other choice did he have? If he didn’t act soon, both armies would collide and Illian would fall. The worst that could happen was that the arrow did in fact curve and it simply skidded across the valley, leaving the mountain untouched.

  Nathaniel nocked an arrow and flexed his back muscles. “Let’s see what you can really do…”

  He pulled back on the string, shocked by the lack of strength required. His aim was high, but not too high, since he didn’t need to take the distance into account. He just needed to strike the sheet of snow towards the top of the mountain.

  He released the arrow.

  Nathaniel watched the arrow fly into the distance with all of his hope. As swift as the arrow was, and it was faster than any other from a conventional bow, it still took some time crossing the valley. The old Graycoat marvelled at its accuracy and bold defiance in the face of wind resistance and gravity. Like a comet streaking through the sky, the arrow plunged into the adjacent mountain, disappearing into the snow until it found solid rock.

  From this distance, Nathaniel neither heard nor felt anything from the impact. That came some time later. What he saw, however, was several tons of rock explode from within the mountain, shortly followed by a mighty sheet of snow and ice. The knight stepped forward with bated breath, shocked at what he had accomplished with a single arrow.

  The snow poured down the mountainside, continuously diving over itself in an effort to reach the valley floor. The largest chunks of rock smashed into the ground first, shattering into a thousand pieces. It wasn’t long before the avalanche piled in behind the rock, filling the valley like a river pushing through a broken dam.

  The violent reaction set off a chain of avalanches across the mountains. That was decidedly not good. Nathaniel started for the nearest slope, his destination the Namdhorian camp. They appeared to be reacting already to the collapse of the first mountainside, but if he was to join them he needed to get ahead of the next avalanche.

  He skidded, slipped, and fell on his way down. As he broke away from the mountainside, he could see clearly the divide that had been created by the rock and snow, a physical barrier between both armies.

  Running flat out across the valley floor, Nathaniel could see that he wasn’t going to reach them in time. He was halfway between them and the mountainside when the sound of horses advanced on him from behind.

  “He’s no scout of ours!” one of the riders proclaimed.

  Nathaniel turned around and saw three riders of Namdhor bearing down on him. “We don’t have time!” Nathaniel shouted, gesturing to the collapsing mountains. “We need to get out of this valley now!”

  The Namdhorian riders looked to the approaching waves of snow with great trepidation. “Let’s go!” one of them cried, setting his horse off into a gallop.

  The second rider quickly followed behind him but the third paused beside Nathaniel. “Get on, quickly!”

  Nathaniel didn’t need to hear the invitation a second time. Astride the horse, the pair galloped east, towards the bulk of the army. They had abandoned their camp, tents and all, and found their horses instead.

  Ready for war at a moment’s notice, thousands of saddled mounts ran through the camp as towering waves of snow crashed over the ground between the two armies. Nathaniel glanced over his shoulder and urged his rider to spur the horse on. The farthest tents were wiped out in a rush of white, the fires extinguished, and any semblance of a camp removed from the earth.

  Thousands of horses galloped through the valley for another mile before they could dare rest, beyond the falling sheets of snow. It would be some time before they could accomplish any kind of headcount and check for missing men. Nathaniel had looked around the camp as they passed through it and couldn’t recall seeing anyone. They had had plenty of time to flee the first, and intended avalanche, but the second and third had come as a surprise to everyone.

  Shocked as he was to have not only survived that, but also having instigated it, Nathaniel missed the fact that his rider was taking them through the chaotic din to their general.

  “Sir!” the rider called, grabbing Nathaniel’s attention. “Get off,” he added over his shoulder.

  Nathaniel obliged and jumped down. He was suddenly surrounded by Namdhorian soldiers, all on horseback and all wielding spears. The old Graycoat felt very small.

  “Found this one on patrol, Sir, before the avalanche. He’s not with us.”

  The surrounding riders parted for a new man on horseback to trot through. Ironsworn. Everything about him screamed Ironsworn to Nathaniel, from his permanent expression of confusion to the tattoos visible on his neck. He got down from his horse and walked up to Nathaniel with all the confidence of a man who had been given too much power and not enough education.

  “Are you the cause of this?” he demanded, looking the knight up and down. “Have you checked him for a wand?” he asked the rider.

  “No, Sir…” the rider mumbled.

  The Ironsworn sneered and turned his attention back to Nathaniel. “Don’t move. Move so much as your little finger and I’ll cut you down, you hear? You two, get down here and search him for magic.”

  Nathaniel held up his arms and let the men search him for the wand he didn’t possess. Keeping the truth of his part in the avalanche to himself, however, was probably for the best.

  “I’m not a mage,” he insisted. “My name is Nathaniel Galfrey, Ambassador Nathaniel Galfrey.” Looking at the faces around him, it was easy to see those who recognised his name and title. There was one soldier in particular, a captain by his uniform, who discreetly passed a message on to the soldier behind him.

  “Galfrey?” The Ironsworn repeated. “The same Galfrey that fought in The War for the Realm?”

  “Aye, that’s me,” Nathaniel confirmed. “I’ve been on an errand for Queen Yelifer, one that has led me here, to you. I passed through the mountains to get ahead of you before the dwarves engaged.”

  The Ironsworn dismissed the two men patting the knight down and looked at him with obvious disbelief. “The Nathaniel Galfrey was sent, through Vengora, on his own, to deliver a message to me?” The thug laughed. “You must think I was born yesterday. You’re coming across as more of a dwarven spy to me.”

  Nathaniel stopped his eyes from rolling. “Do I look like a dwarf?”

  The Ironsworn took the measure of him again. “Go on then, Ambassador. Deliver this message you’ve travelled so far for.”

  Nathaniel projected his voice. “Illian has been invaded from the south. A foreign army calling themselves orcs have taken all but Namdhor. Your queen and countrymen need you all to turn back and meet this invader before the north falls.”

  The Ironsworn held his serious expression for a second longer. Then he laughed. Nathaniel would have felt defeated had he been surrounded by derision, but only The Ironsworn was laughing. The rest, it seemed, had either heard him and had the right response or they were still in shock from the sudden avalanche that had nearly killed them all.

  “You’re a funny man,” The Ironsworn continued. “But, until I get word from Lord Draqaro himself, this army is marching west and holding the entrance to Vengora.”

  Nathaniel shook his head. “Did you not hear what I said? Most of Illian has already fallen to these orcs!”

  “Can you prove it?” The Ironsworn spat back.

  “I am a man of my word,” Nathaniel protested. “Besides, on the other side of that snowfall lies an arm
y of dwarves and behind them lies another five! Lord Draqaro’s command is folly. You will all perish doing what? Holding a cave?”

  The Ironsworn hooked his thumbs in his belt, loving the power he wielded. “You should have crafted some better lies, dwarf spy. We’re going west, dwarves or no dwarves.”

  Nathaniel was about to renew his argument when The Ironsworn thug received a blow to the back of the head and collapsed at the knight’s feet. Behind him stood the captain who had discreetly dismounted and drawn his dagger, a dagger which now had a bloody pommel.

  “Captain Vorn,” he announced, holding out his arm. “Well met, Ambassador Galfrey.”

  Nathaniel hesitated before embracing forearms with the man. “Well met, Captain Vorn… You believe I am who I say I am?”

  “Aye. I saw you when I was a younger man, when you offered help in the civil war.” The captain eyed Nathaniel with wonderment. “Just as the stories say…”

  “What’s that?” the knight asked.

  Captain Vorn looked him up and down. “You haven’t aged a day.”

  Nathaniel didn’t want to get into the reason for his longevity. “Well, I appreciate you taking command.”

  “Sorry you had to see that,” the captain apologised. “I just couldn’t stand to hear another word fly out of that moron’s mouth without a thought behind it.”

  Nathaniel held up a hand. “I’m sure I would have done the same in your position, Captain. Maybe even a few days earlier…”

  “Lord Draqaro gave him command in place of General Morkas,” Vorn explained. “The fool didn’t understand a thing about marching an army over terrain like this.” The captain looked over the riders that surrounded them. “Journeying into Dhenaheim to face one dwarven army after another isn’t our idea of serving the north. Especially just to hold some cave…”

  Every second they wasted talking was more ground gained by the orcs. “The cave in question has already been explored and holds no value,” Nathaniel rushed through his explanation. “What I said about a foreign invasion is very true. This army needs to turn around and return to Namdhor before all is lost.”