JAMES A MOORE
Seven Forges
Seven Forges
The Blasted Lands
City of Wonders
The Silent Army
Seven Forges Book I
Seven Forges
The book is dedicated to Charles R. Rutledge for all of his help, and to the memory of Fritz Leiber and Robert R. Howard for the inspiration.
One
An unfortunate fact about the Pra-Moresh: they tend to run in packs. The damned things are not only large, but they are also violent to a fault. The good news for most people is that they are rare. The bad news for Merros Dulver is that they still show up from time to time, and just at that moment, they’d decided to make their presence known.
Seventy-three days into the expedition across the Blasted Lands and they’d run across no sign of another living thing, unless one qualified the dust and the ice storms as being alive merely because they moved with such violence. Merros was many things, but stupid wasn’t among them – his present situation excluded, as he would have argued the intelligence of his decision to lead the trip to the distant Seven Forges mountain range.
Seventy-three days of bitter cold and constant twilight and the same number of nights wasted as they moved slowly through the near-complete darkness toward the stone towers in the distance, their light the only source of illumination under a near-constant blanket of clouds that spewed ice on some occasions and a bitter tasting dust on others. The parts of him that weren’t numbed by the cold were still aching with a deep and abiding chill that refused to go away. If it weren’t for the thick furs he wore, he’d have been worried about frostbite and worse. If the money hadn’t been such a sweet offer he’d have never considered this insanity.
And now Morello, the damned cook of all people, had alerted him to the howling screams of the Pra-Moresh. He wasn’t upset with the cook for noticing; quite to the contrary, he was very grateful. He was also extremely annoyed that neither he nor any of the twenty soldiers with him had heard them first.
Merros stared out into the darkness of the afternoon and looked at the shapes where they moved, slowly circling around the camp, their low moans and high-pitched cackles grating on his nerves and sickening him with the odd noises that crept past even the sharp winds that tried to snatch all sounds away.
There has been a great deal of debate among the scholarly as to exactly what the Pra-Moresh are and where they came from. There have been no definitive answers, but most people accept that they’re damned scary, damned big, and capable of eating roughly five times their not inconsiderable body weight in a single meal.
Merros had no desire to be dinner. To that end he called for his soldiers to get their asses in gear. The group had stopped for the night – day, whatever – only a little over an hour earlier and now they gathered their weapons and wits as quickly as they could, knowing by Merros’ tone that this was not a drill or an exercise, but a serious issue that had to be dealt with immediately.
They were none of them pups anymore. Each of the soldiers he’d chosen to bring along had been chosen for several reasons, not the least of which was experience. The Empire demanded service from all of the men who lived within its reach, but this was different. The men he’d chosen were lifers, the sort who’d spent ten or more years in the ranks. Some of them had even seen real combat in various border skirmishes over the years, though not many, to be fair. It had been close to a century since the last major war involving the Empire had occurred. The Empire had won, so really there wasn’t much to fight about.
Still, most of them had fought alongside him in a few bar skirmishes, and all of them had done combat in numerous exercises. He trusted them to know what end of the sword to use on the brutes that were looking at them from a distance, and more importantly, he trusted them to know how to use the crossbows. He didn’t want to get close enough to the Pra-Moresh to get himself chewed on. He’d only ever seen illustrations of the damned things and one skull on display at the duke’s palace. They were a great deal larger than he’d imagined.
“How damned long for the bows?” He was pleased that his voice didn’t crack as he feared it might. Certainly his heart was pounding well enough to break his sternum.
Wollis loped in his direction, his game leg giving a twinge that did nothing to stop the man from coming along at a hard jog. His second carried a crossbow in each hand and a quiver of bolts was slapping against each hip. “Got ’em. Just had to dig them out of the extra blankets.”
“Seriously, Wollis? Did you not think they might be a little more important than a damned blanket or two?”
The man looked at him and smirked. “You’re the one that wanted extra blankets. It’s been over two months and no encounters, so don’t go getting all bitchy with me when something finally happens.”
Anyone else and he would have been offended. Wollis knew him too well. Wollis was a northerner; he was used to the cold and to the heavy steppes that led to the Blasted Lands. He had also been on two previous expeditions into the great frozen waste, and as a result was invaluable as an asset. He had, however, never once encountered any living thing on his treks across the least hospitable part of the Empire.
Wollis looked at the shapes and let a low whistle spill from between his chapped lips. “I always figured the heads were, I dunno, properly sized to the bodies…”
The heads and faces of the beasts were large, but nearly tiny in comparison to the rest of them. The savage jaws of the things belonged to an animal the size of a bear, but the bodies? They didn’t make bears that big.
Even as they assessed the creatures in the distance, the rest of the soldiers followed years of practice and loaded their crossbows, set their shields in the ready positions, and laid out spears and swords alike. None of them looked the least bit confident in their actions, which made perfect sense, really. The Pra-Moresh hadn’t even attacked yet and their voices were making every last one of the trained veterans edgy. The creatures – whether they were smart enough to be called intelligent or not – had uncanny voices that called out in different tones and seemingly from different locations. One of the damned things sounded like a room full of people crying and laughing both. Several together sounded more like a small gathering of the damned.
From almost fifty yards away one of the things reared up onto its hind legs and let out a roar that warbled and shook through the air, calling in a dozen voices, challenging and demanding and weeping all at once. Even from that distance, Merros could feel the bones in his chest rattle with the sounds.
And then the damned things charged as one, their heavy claws carving trenches into the ice, allowing them purchase, whereas the soldiers had to balance themselves carefully or kneel in order to use their crossbows.
“At will! Take out their vile eyes!” Merros’ voice was calm and loud despite a desire to hide away and do whatever he could to avoid being noticed. It was automatic after the years in a position of command. He was very grateful for the ability to sound like he wasn’t ready to piss himself as he took careful aim and fired.
He watched the heavy wooden missile cut through the air, noticed how the feathers gave just the right spin to the shaft, allowing the bolt to stay true and go farther than he’d have hoped in the bitter winds. The metal tip of the bolt drove into the wrinkled fur of the creature’s muzzle, driving deep and cutting through the muscles before stopping against the bone of the skull underneath. The Pra-Moresh shrieked-wailed-screamed and shook its head, but did not stop charging.
“Oh, shit.” It was all he could think to say.
Wollis’ missile took the creature in the eye and it reared back, the screaming noise replaced by a different sound, a single note of pain that was loud and
clear and almost deafening.
There wasn’t time to celebrate. The damned things were still charging. They moved hard and fast and lowered their heads, showing mostly the thick hide of their skulls and their impossibly broad backs. There would be no time to reload the bows. Instead it was down to using the spears.
The spears were designed to take down horsemen, and the soldiers knew how to use them. They braced the long poles in the hard-packed ground, digging in with the short spikes designed to help on the icy surface, and waited, holding to the places where they knew they might well die. Running would be a guarantee of death, something they’d all been taught in the army. More than one fool had tried and been executed for his troubles in the time that Merros had been with the army. He’d killed a few such men himself, a sad side effect of being an officer.
Damn it, they were big creatures. The ground shook as they came closer and every last one of his men was looking as nervous as he felt. “No one moves! No one runs, or I’ll kill you myself, do you hear me?”
“Aye! Ho, sir!” The answer was automatic and belied the fear he saw on their faces. They would not run. They had never been trained for cowardice.
The first of the Pra-Moresh hit the line three soldiers away, and the spear that Kallir Lundt held drove in deep, puncturing flesh, cutting meat and stopping only when it reached the shoulder blade on the monster’s other side. The beast shrieked – a sound that made Merros’ teeth ache from this range, and his eyes vibrate in their sockets – and slapped one gigantic paw across Kallir’s face and chest, carving his face away in one stroke. Kallir lived through it, which only made the situation worse.
And then there was only time to look at the nightmare in front of him, the enormous wall of charging teeth and claws that filled his entire world with a cacophony of screams that seemed designed solely to drive him mad. The spear in his hands shuddered with impact and then, damn every imaginable imp of ill fortune, broke in his grip. The splintering oak stung his fingers and shredded his gloves and the flesh on his palms as the beast drove forward, the wide, yellowed teeth snapping shut scant inches from his face. Wollis was there again, his spear pushing the beast back as it sank deep into the thing’s side. It looked toward Wollis for a second, shriek-cry-roaring, and then lunged for Merros a second time.
He was a dead man. Nothing to be done but accept it. He had lived a good life, with women and friends and the occasional special moments that made everything feel right for however fleeting a time. He would miss the world; he would certainly miss not having raised a family, but it was alright. This was at least a worthy death, better than dying in a pool of his own vomit like that fool lieutenant he’d known when he was just starting his training.
The axe ripped past his head in a savage arc, cleaving the air hard enough to make a sharp whistling note he heard even over the demented noises of the Pra-Moresh. An instant later the animal that was about to end his existence was throwing itself back, trying to escape the blade that took out both of its eyes and drove deep into its brain. The haft of the weapon vibrated in the monster’s ruined face and Merros looked at the thing as if he’d never seen an axe before. Mostly because this one was nothing quite like what he’d seen in his years of training. The metal was thin and black; the design spoke of a weapon meant to be thrown like a knife, despite the grip. Even as he took in the sudden save – Alive! How the hell? – and considered the odd-looking weapon, he saw another of the monsters fall, driven down by his men. The pain in his hands stopped him from attacking anything. Instead he looked at the heavy splinters which had pierced his flesh in a dozen places and tried to wrap his mind around being alive.
A second axe whistled past his head close enough for the blade to almost part his hair, and crashed into the face of another beast that had been turning toward Wollis with every intention of biting his second in half.
Merros frowned. One axe was strange. Two was simply crazy. He finally put the thoughts together and turned his head sharply, assessing where the axes had come from.
The rider hurled a short spear past him and Merros stared at the long cord that trailed from the thing back to the rider and the strange mount he rode. Everything was happening too damned fast, and he didn’t like it. He stared at the rider for only a moment and then looked at the long streamer of rope that led past him and toward something behind him where the monsters were. Where he should have been looking all along if it weren’t for the axes moving past his shoulder. Too much to see, to take in. He didn’t like it at all, damn it.
The spear was buried deep in the neck of one of the monsters, which was roaring-shrieking-sobbing as it tried to get away from the barbed point that refused to come free.
Rider and mount backed up abruptly, and the beast let out a louder series of noises as the cord drew tight and then tighter still. The Pra-Moresh tried to get away, but the hooks in its neck were stubborn. As it started to slash at the tether leading back to the rider, the man pulled a preposterously long bow and drew back with a strength and speed that was unsettling. Merros didn’t much like bows. He preferred crossbows because he felt the accuracy was better and the lack of range was easily compensated for by the ability to steady the weapon, even when mounted and riding. The man behind him apparently did not agree. The arrow he fired buried itself in the screaming thing’s eye, and the creature fell hard and fast, very likely dead before the arrow had finished its journey.
While he watched the single rider slaughtering his enemy, four of Merros’ soldiers died horribly at the hands of the Pra-Moresh. Tardu, Hanliss, Mox and the southerner, Alcard Hammil, were torn apart, the creatures hungrily shoving mouthfuls of their bleeding flesh into mouths that snapped and slavered. How long had it been since the creatures had eaten? Even with all of the supplies they’d brought with them, he and his men had to be careful. The beasts had brought nothing. For all he knew they’d been starving for weeks.
Merros drew his sword and held it tightly, looking from one fallen beast to the next. His men had killed three of the things. The single man behind him had killed three more. No. Four. The arrow whizzed past his ear and took out the last of the things as it came from up from behind the supply wagons. He prayed it hadn’t gotten to the women. He hadn’t even had a chance to think about them. Everything had happened too damned fast.
The rider again. Merros turned back toward the stranger just in time to watch him pull three more of his short spears from a strange-looking holster on the saddle of his mount. The spears were all barbed, much like the first one had been, and with unsettling accuracy he launched them hard and fast, each slamming into the thick fur and fat of the Pra-Moresh the man had killed.
“Wait! What are you doing?” The words left his mouth without any conscious thought. He damned near flinched at the hostile tone he found himself using. The rider had to be part demon. He’d killed four of the things and never even entered the combat save at a distance.
Also, frankly, he looked very, very large sitting atop the odd beast he was riding. It could have been the creature itself, which was substantially larger than any of the horses, even those bred for hauling the supply wagons.
The rider ignored him completely and turned his mount, which began moving slowly forward, the thick claws on its feet getting purchase on the slick, icy surface before it began pulling the four dead beasts behind it.
Wollis, faithful, sturdy and sometimes a little stupid, pulled his spear from the side of the dead nightmare he’d impaled and held it at the ready. “Captain Dulver asked you a question! You’d do well to answer it!”
He wanted to yell a loud no, wanted so much to stop Wollis from being so damnably efficient before it cost the man his life. Because while the facts weren’t adding up for his second, Merros was having no trouble at all doing the math. The rider was a terror. No one should be that fast, that good at killing. No one.
The rider turned his head slowly to look first at Wollis and then at Merros. He wore a helmet, which in turn was partially covered
by a thick fabric hood. The night was almost upon them and the little light that existed was fading, until they had only their torches and the distant Seven Forges to grant them meager illumination. That meant Merros couldn’t truly see the face of the rider, but he saw the eyes clearly enough. They gave off their own light: a dead, gray color that shone out from under hood and helm alike, letting each man see clearly when he was being stared at.
Merros stood his ground. Wollis did too, but he looked a bit like running seemed a fair notion.
Before either of them could have done so, the rider’s hand lashed out and a long line of leather unfolded like a frog’s tongue. From seemingly nowhere the man had found and unfurled a whip, which cut the air. Had Wollis moved he would surely have regretted it. The whip caught the head of the spear and the rider tugged. Wollis squawked as the spear sailed away from him, his hands obviously stinging from the strength the rider used.
They stood that way for several heartbeats, Wollis staring at the rider, Merros doing the same, while the dark figure and his unnatural mount stood their ground and waited.
When no more words were forthcoming, the rider turned his odd mount around and they moved, pulling the four cooling corpses along as their prize.
“What the hell was that?” Wollis’ voice was subdued.
Merros stared at the retreating figure, watched as it moved toward the distant Seven Forges. He took his time answering, seriously considering everything that had just happened.
“I have no idea. Gather the men. Gather the dead. Do it quickly. We’re going to follow that rider until we get some answers.” It was the sort of response he hadn’t planned on giving. Not really. He’d have preferred to say something wiser, perhaps to have suggested that they forget all about the strange rider and his preposterous mount. Instead he’d said something that bordered on responsible.
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