Redmane stared for a moment, his cheeks red, but then nodded. “As ye wish, Max.”
“Good. Now, we need to hire some help for Enoch. All of our engineers, masons, guards and such are working at the mine, the way station, or here in the city. I don’t want to pull them off of that work, so can you reach out to some trustworthy folks who can work in the gnome city for an extended time, and keep what they see to themselves? They won’t know about the outpost, just our need to secure our section of the city as quickly as possible. We can blame the war on the orcs, and our fear that they might hear about an easy target and attack.”
“Aye, I’ll hire some o’ me own clan, and swear them to secrecy.” He thought about it for a moment. “We can have two hunnert bodies, engineers, stoneworkers, and stout warriors, there inside a week. This’ll seriously deplete yer treasury, Max.”
Max had already considered that. Despite the good fortune he’d had, there was a limit to what he could do with the money from the arena, the gold he’d found in the city bank, and the loot from Deepcrag. Merchants and crafters were settling in around Stormhaven, but it would be a while before their taxes, rent, or property purchase proceeds would amount to much. His mines were producing, but after the miners and the dwarven leaders took their share, and he paid for having the ores refined, the profit margins were less than optimal. He had the fifteen thousand gold he’d just received from the Greystone merchants, and would probably receive significant funds from the use of the Deepcrag portal as folks settled the area. But again, that wouldn’t help him much in funding such a large project. He was afraid that sometime very soon he was going to have to bring in Ironhand and the others, or risk bankrupting his kingdom.
His thoughts turned to Glitterspindle and the need for him to start building a portal pedestal. “Redmane, how much could we sell a portal pedestal for? Assuming we can get the metal gnome to start building them.”
“Maybe fifteen thousand gold.” The dwarf replied.
“That’s it? The merchants paid me that much for access to the Deepcrag portal, a manor and a warehouse. Why doesn’t every settlement have one?”
Redmane shook his head. “That be a lot o’ gold, Max. They likely cleaned out their entire fund to pay ye, gambling that the investment would pay off. They stand to make a hundred times that, but only if their gamble is successful. Look at it this way. If ye had to run this city on its taxes alone, no vault full o’ found money, no big winnings in the tournament, just what the city earns day to day, could ye scrape together fifteen thousand gold fer a portal?”
Max slumped back in his chair. “I could not. At least, not for a while. I did give instructions to start a fund for that on day one though. How much is in that fund now?”
“One hundred eighty gold.” Redmane grinned at him. “Not bad, considerin’. And keep in mind that most settlements or cities don’t have hundreds o’ guards on loan from their allies, or the naturally low crime rate of a dwarven city, or oathsworn citizens dedicated to helpin build up the city. There be crimes, fires, attacks from outside, attacks from inside… a thousand lil things that drain yer average settlement’s treasury.” He paused, holding up a finger. “Speakin’ o the treasury, since I’m reachin’ out to me clan, there be a young lass who’d make ye a fine treasurer.”
“Right. I’m sorry, Master Redmane, I’ve been slacking when it comes to finding one. You’ve been pulling double duty all this time. I’d be happy to meet with this young dwarfess. Is she related to you?”
“Aye, the granddaughter of a cousin once removed, I think. Her name be Matilda Hammerfist, and she’s been workin’ at her da’s accounting firm for… forty years or so. If ye get along, she’ll be able to serve ye for a century or two.”
Max blinked for a moment, having to remind himself that a hundred year old dwarf, or dwarfess, was still considered young among their people, who often lived between two and three centuries.
And that he himself might live for thousands of years. Talk about needing to plan for the long run.
“Alright, with the portal at Deepcrag, and the opportunities there, can we raise some more income selling properties to merchants?”
“Aye, but ye’ll be competing with them Greystones for recruits. They’ll be lookin to fill their own cities. The competition could drive down the prices.”
“Right. No point in that. We’ll figure something else out.” Max mumbled, mostly to himself.
“What about the kobolds?” Nessa’s voice was hesitant, barely more than a whisper.
“The kobolds?” Both dwarves and Max repeated in unison.
“I have spoken to a few of them here in the city, and they offered me gold for fresh meat.”
Max got excited. “Fitchstone told me when I sold him my grey dwarf loot that first night that the kobolds spend gold and gems like water!” A moment later he was less excited. “But they’ve been chowing down on grey dwarf stew. Why would they be after more meat?”
Nessa wrinkled up her nose. “Apparently grey dwarf does not taste very good. They are eating them out of a sense of revenge more than anything. They crave more palatable meat.”
“And apparently drink, too.” Redmane grinned. “If the speed at which they cleaned out yer wine cellar be any indication.”
“Okay, let’s send a message out to the orc and minotaur hunters at the mine and way station. We need every bit of game they can get for us in the next three days. We’ll pay them whatever the going rate is for the meat, then charge the kobolds… more? How much more can we get away with and not anger them?”
Redmane shrugged. “I’ll leave that to Goldentongue.”
“Thank you, Nessa.” Max smiled at her. “That was a wonderful idea. Every little bit helps. Maybe we can sell them the next shipment of mead from the Blooded, as well. Something new for them, so we can charge more.”
“Might be worth yer while to have a few scouts search around Deepcrag. If there be kobolds there, it’d be an untapped market. They might have piles o’ gold…” Dalia winked at him.
“That too! Wonderful!” Max was grateful for his friends’ input. “We’ll need to get to them before the other merchants do.”
Just then, Teeglin came bursting into the office. “King Max! A messenger! He says its urgent!”
Max got to his feet as she motioned for the messenger to enter. It was an orc warrior, and he was breathing hard. He took a knee and bowed his head before speaking. “King Max! Lo’tang sent me. Deepcrag is under attack. A force of several hundred hobgoblins and trolls are marching toward the city from the direction of the goblin settlement. I ran to the portal as fast as I could, but they will have arrived at the city gates by now.” The moment the message was delivered, Max got accompanying notifications.
The kingdom of Stormhaven is under attack!
Quest Accepted: Defend Deepcrag!
An invading army has attacked your Deepcrag settlement.
Gather your forces and defend your territory!
Reward: Variable
This is a mandatory quest, and cannot be declined.
Redmane was dashing out the door, already yelling for the general. Max patted the soldier on the shoulder. “Thank you. Rest for a few minutes, get something to eat. We’ll be heading back there as soon as we can gather some troops!”
“Thank you, sire.” The orc trotted off toward the barracks and mess hall.
“Dalia, can you go load up on healing potions from the lab, just in case? I want every warrior to be carrying two, at least. One of the good ones, and a common one.”
“Aye, I’ll be ready in ten minutes.” She got up and hurried off.
Nessa was on her feet as well. “If you’ll send me through the portal now, I can do some scouting for you.”
“Thank you, let’s do that.” Max took off at a jog, the panthera right behind him. He sent her through the portal, then turned to see the general mustering troops. The alarm bells were ringing, and the place looked like a freshly kicked anthill. A moment la
ter a runner asked Max to open the portal to the temple, so that he could retrieve some troops from the mine. Max did as requested, not sure he liked the idea of weakening those locations, but trusting in the general to know his strengths and weaknesses. While he waited, he opened his interface and figured out how to share the quest with everyone, all his citizens and the troops on loan to him.
In ten minutes, a force of two hundred orcs, dwarves, and kobolds were assembled in the courtyard, all armed and armored and ready to fight. Behind them stood Smitty, Dylan, Dalia, Erdun the old minotaur enchanter, and half a dozen other minotaurs carrying hefty axes, two-handed swords, and steel bows much like Max’s own. When Max waved them over, the elder bowed his head slightly. “It would be our honor to fight alongside you, King Maximilian.”
“It would be my honor to have you.” Max nodded with respect to the large warriors. Each was between eight and ten feet tall, with bulging muscles and fierce eyes. The tips of their horns glistened as if recently sharpened and oiled. Each wore a chainmail shirt and leather pants with steel bars sewn into them along the thighs and shins for protection. Max decided he wouldn’t want to face any one of them in melee combat.
A whistle blew, and the portal opened. The moment it did, the troops began to surge through, led by Rockbreaker. The general stood to one side, hollering at the warriors as they passed him, both encouraging them and threatening them against failure. “Ye lads and lasses go whup them puny hobs and bring me their heads! Don’t ye dare come back dead!”
The moment they were all through, the minotaurs chased after them, followed closely by Max and his party.
Chapter 22
The entire force hit the ground running on the Deepcrag side of the portal. Rockbreaker led the Stormhaven force at a fast jog, allowing for everyone to move quickly toward the battle, but conserve their stamina. Even warriors with high Endurance and the natural strength of dwarves or orcs could get tired running in armor, and they needed to be able to fight when they arrived.
Max and his party sprinted to the front of the column as soon as they got near the end of the tunnel. While Rockbreaker was an excellent captain, who had showed himself to be a worthy leader in the battle with the greys, Max and his corporals had a whole other understanding of battle tactics. Their wars had evolved well beyond the swords and spears, bows and arrows of Earth’s medieval times.
When they reached the ramp that led down to the bridge, Max pointed. “If we can, we should draw them to us, fight them at the bridge. That choke point will negate their numbers advantage, and bunch them up for us to kill.” He spoke for a bit longer with Rockbreaker and his party, watching the battle at the gates.
The hobgoblins hadn’t prepared for a siege of a walled city. They were massed near the gates, the trolls at the front pounding with massive stone clubs, trying to bash through. The defenders, both Lo’tang’s troops and the merchant guards, were firing down at them with bows and crossbows, or simply tossing down heavy rocks upon their heads. While scores of the hobgoblins were down, either wounded or dead, the trolls just shook off the injuries. The full-blooded monsters had an even higher regeneration rate than Max.
Max made sure his people were in place, moving forward toward the bridge, making as little noise as possible, before he took off on his part of the mission. He had the simplest job of the bunch…
Go piss off an army of hobgoblins and trolls.
He ran down the ramp and across the bridge, not making any particular effort to be quiet, but not making a lot of noise, either. In his hand he held an unfortunate sacrifice, a bottle of Firebelly’s with a burning cloth fuse. As he approached the back of the hobgoblin horde, he flung the bottle over the heads of the hobgoblins, straight into the gates that the trolls were busy pounding. There was a hush from the hobs as the flame passed over their heads, several of them turning to see where it had come from. Max took a deep breath and roared, joined a second later by all two hundred plus of the troops behind him, and Princess. A few seconds after that, the defenders atop the wall joined in as well.
As one, all of the enemy turned to face the new threat approaching the bridge. They saw Max standing just twenty or so yards behind them, then the bottle struck. It never reached the gate, instead shattering against the raised club of a troll. The liquid splashed over the troll holding that club, as well as half a dozen of his brethren, and the flames began to spread. To help things along, Max focused on the club, and shouted, “Boom!”
The stone weapon, six feet long and weighing at least a hundred pounds, shattered. Stone chips and chunks embedded themselves in every living thing within twenty feet, drawing blood from the trolls even as the flames from the Firebelly’s Molotov cocktail spread. The troll holding the club dropped dead, its arm, shoulder, and head mostly gone. The others roared in fear and pain, trampling the hobs in their panic. One of the trolls nearest the dead one knocked the corpse into the pool of flaming alcohol at their feet, and a moment later that corpse exploded as well, raining flaming bits of troll meat in a wide circle. Hobs and trolls alike were knocked down or killed by the explosion, and three flaming trolls bulldozed their way through their allies, fleeing the flames. They exploded one by one, the last having almost reached the outer edge of the confused and terrified hobgoblin horde.
Shocked by the unexpected effectiveness of his attack, Max stood and watched for a moment longer than he should have. Several of the hobs had started toward him before the fire even started, and they were now within a few steps of him.
The hobgoblins were larger than their goblin cousins, about four feet tall on average, and slightly bulkier. Dalia had explained to Max and his corporals as they jogged toward Deepcrag that it was believed hobgoblins were the result of interbreeding between orcs and goblins. The trolls, by comparison, were closer to Dylan’s size, averaging ten feet tall and bulky, built much like the outpost golems. Wide shoulders, long arms, thick bodies, they made natural tanks.
Not wanting to get stuck in a melee with hundreds of hobgoblins, Max focused on a spot atop the wall next to Lo’tang and cast Jump. His body disappeared just as the lead hobgoblin jabbed a spear at his belly.
Now atop the wall, Max turned to look down at the destruction he’d caused.
Of the twenty or so trolls that had been pounding on the gate, only six remained standing. The others had either been killed by the explosions, or caught fire and exploded themselves. Those still on their feet had mowed down scores of hobgoblins, while their exploding cousins had killed a hundred more, and wounded about the same number. A few of the little monsters rolled about on the stone, flaming troll bits stuck to their skin, screaming in pain. The archers atop the wall were quickly picking them off, though they were getting hard to see. An unfortunate side effect of the explosions was that the gates were damaged, and aflame.
Lo’tang looked down upon the decimated horde and shook his head. “Damn. King Max, that was… effective.”
“Heh.” Max patted him on the shoulder. “Way more than I expected. I had planned for them to be scared away by the fire. But when the club got all soaked, I improvised.”
The two of them watched as their reinforcements reached the bridge, the dwarves having moved to the front to form a shield wall. The orcs and minotaurs, as well as Smitty and Dalia, raised bows and crossbows while Blake prepared to cast some offensive magic.
Most of the remaining horde charged toward the bridge, three hundred at least, all of them wanting to get far from the flaming gates and exploding trolls. Some few scattered in terror, dropping their weapons and running back the way they’d come, toward the goblin settlement. Some of those charging toward the dwarves seemed to have second thoughts and began to slow. Not wanting them to escape, Max cast Boom! on two of the rearmost, causing one’s head and the other’s chest to explode. Then he cast Zap! into a cluster of three others, stunning them so that they fell on their faces, their bodies locked up and appearing to be dead. This motivated the rest to keep going.
All exc
ept for one clever hobgoblin, who turned and took a knee, raising a crossbow and aiming at Max. A wicked looking barbed bolt flew upward, striking his neck. The force knocked him backward off the wall, blood spurting from an artery as he fell. When his back struck the stone twenty feet below, the air that was forced from him propelled a fountain of blood into the air. He felt his ribs crack, and he nearly lost consciousness when his head struck the stone a fraction of a second later.
Max’s ears rang, and he couldn’t seem to take a breath. He could hear a voice he thought was Lo’tang’s shouting, but couldn’t make out the words over the ringing. His vision was blurry, and fear gripped him. Closing his eyes, he tried to focus on casting a heal, but couldn’t manage it. Something deep in his consciousness laughed at him, calling to mind the grey dwarves he’d shot and knocked off the walls of Nogroz. The same had just happened to him.
He felt a tug at his throat, and a flash of pain, then his mouth filled with a warm liquid he assumed was his own blood. But the pain receded quickly, and Max felt the familiar sensation of a healing potion working through him. Keeping his eyes closed, he found that his throat had cleared enough for him to take a much needed breath. Then another. After the third deep breath, he managed to cast a heal on himself. He thought it odd that Dalia hadn’t healed him, then remembered that she was on the other side of the wall, across the bridge. Never split the party he thought to himself.
Opening his eyes, he found Lo’tang looking down at him, holding an empty potion vial. “King Max! Can you hear me?” the orc looked alarmed. Unable to speak yet, Max raised a hand and patted the orc’s arm. He continued to lay there, casting another heal on himself as he waited for his throat, ribs, and skull to mend fully. When he was mostly pain-free, he held up a hand, which the orc grabbed and pulled him up. Looking down at the stone, he saw an alarmingly large, roughly Max-shaped pool of blood. His own chest was covered in it as well, and when he reached behind his head, he found his hair sticky, fresh blood covering his hand when he pulled it away. No wonder Lo’tang had looked so concerned.
Battleborne Book 2: Wrack and Ruin Page 33