“Let us hope,” Ailric said. The knight sat upon his horse, close to the nearest tree. His sword was drawn.
“Grang’s knees!” he swore. “What do you hope to do with that sword?”
The knight ignored him, staring uneasily upwards past the treetops.
A few moments later a massive shadow passed overhead just to their right. The great wyrm flew overhead about two hundred feet away, moving far faster through the air than the swiftest horse could ever hope to charge. All Jorn could see of the great beast was the end of its long tail. It was many yards long, thick and scaly and tapering into a whip-like point. It was a mottled green and gray, savagely reptilian.
No one spoke. They stared anxiously at the tree-tops, silently watching for the dragon.
“Should it sight us, scatter,” Willock whispered. “That’s our only chance.”
Minutes passed before anyone spoke again.
“It didn’t see us,” Flatfoot whispered. “It’s moved on!”
“You’d better hope so, laddie,” Ironhelm whispered.
“No, it’s gone,” Flatfoot said.
“Just hold on, Sal,” Jorn said quietly. He scanned the sky beyond the tree-tops. “He saw us atop the ridge. He’s still up there somewhere, waiting for us to poke our heads out again. He’s doing what any good hunter would.”
“So what do we do?” Flatfoot said.
“We stay put,” Jorn said. ‘Until nightfall.”
“One thing’s for damned sure,” Ironhelm said. “We can’t travel the top ridge any further. Aye, tis true.”
“What then? Not the road?” Jorn said.
“Perhaps below the road,” Willock wondered. “We might skirt the edge of the marshes.”
“Whatever the case, I need to fetch my horse,” Jorn said. He could see the animal some distance down the slope. It had stopped running, at least.
“Hugh is correct. We should skirt the marshes,” Ailric said.
“Those bloody marshes again,” Flatfoot muttered.
“Would you rather take your chances with the dragon?” Ailric said. “We can’t take the ridge. We can’t take the road. The edge of the marshes is the only way left.”
Ironhelm grunted in agreement.
“The valley it is,” Flatfoot muttered, sighing.
He could not shake off the feeling of foreboding dread every time he looked down at the valley and the great black mass of the marshes sprawled across it from one end to the other. He did not like the idea of drawing closer to that awful place than they had to, yet that seemed to be exactly where they were headed.
Twenty-One
It was difficult, but they managed to work their way down the mountainside. They happened upon a steep slope strewn with massive boulders piled in irregular clumps and impassable to horses. Skirting its edge, they found a thin game trail following the same path as a small stream. The little stream grew in size as it descended, trickling down the mountain and gradually gaining strength as the water wound its unavoidable way towards the valley. During spring, the stream had to be a magnificent sight when it filled with melting snow and became a raging torrent pouring over a long series of falls. Now it was little more than a meandering trickle.
In all, they had descended at least two thousand feet since leaving the mountain ridge when they decided to stop to eat by one of the waterfalls. Lunch was a cold meal of salt pork and stale bread consumed in melancholy silence. Leaning over the stream, Jorn splashed some water onto his face. It was cold and refreshing.
“We must be getting close to the road,” he said. “We need to scout ahead.”
“Aye,” Ironhelm agreed. “Tha’ would be best.”
“Hugh and I will take a look,” Jorn said, standing. He glanced at the woodsman. “Come on.”
Willock shrugged, grabbing his bow and bounding after Jorn. They followed the stream as it wound its way further down the mountainside. After ten minutes they spied the road below from the top of yet another tumbling waterfall. Crouching out of view, they could see the rutted and cracked ancient road and the vista of the valley beyond it. An ancient stone bridge crossed over the stream, spanning the air nearly a hundred feet above the rushing water.
“Looks quiet,” Jorn whispered.
“Wait and make sure,” Willock said.
They watched the road, waiting in silence. After a few minutes, they heard the sound of galloping horses off to the left. It grew louder until a pair of horsemen appeared. They were clad in dark furs and wore helms that covered most of their faces, their long blonde beards blowing in the wind. They rode by swiftly and soon passed out of view once more.
“Grang’s teeth! Who the hell were they?” Jorn said.
“I don’t know, but I think we need to have a better look at the road,” Willock said.
“Fine,” Jorn said, emerging from behind the rock and starting to creep down towards the road. “But we’d better be ready for a fight if those two have any friends about.”
“No, lad,” Willock said, reaching out and grabbing hold of Jorn’s elbow. Jorn knelt back down again.
“I said we needed to get a better look at the road, not a closer one,” the woodsman continued. “There must be an overlook somewhere nearby with a clear view of the road.”
The woodsman turned away from the road and scanned the mountainside carefully. Off to the left about a hundred yards away was a great mass of rock sticking out from the rest of the hillside. It was hard to see though the thick trees, but its top peeked out above the trees.
They climbed back up the slope above the tumbling waterfall and crossed the stream, hopping across a pair of large rocks to reach the other side. It took some effort to reach the outcropping and find a way up to the top, but they prevailed. A small bit of bare granite poked out just above the trees all around, affording a virtually unhindered view of the valley below and even a small stretch of the Guardian road.
Creeping out onto the rock, they crouched down as Willock took out his spyscope and assembled it. He studied the view through the lens carefully. The road was clear, or at least the stretch directly below them was. Willock lowered the spyscope and looked around, searching for other glimpses of the road. He pointed his spyscope at a distant stretch of road visible two miles to the right. He waited in silence, watching the length of road carefully before finally catching a glimpse of the two horsemen. They were tiny in the distance, and Willock could make out nothing new about them as they passed by. Turning to his left, he found another small stretch of the road and studied it through the lens of the scope.
“What do you see?” Jorn asked.
“Nothing yet,” Willock said.
Willock watched the road for long moments. Then a flash of movement crossed his field of vision, men on horseback on the road. They were clad the same as the first pair of riders.
“There are more riders,” Willock said.
“How many?” Jorn said, leaning over Willock’s shoulder and searching the distant road. He couldn’t make out a thing.
“I count fourteen in all,” Willock said.
Jorn scanned further south, past the horsemen. The road beyond them was empty, except for the cloud of dust which seemed to hang in the air above the behind the riders.
“Now, what do you think could kick up a dust cloud like that?” Jorn said.
“I think we both know.”
“So we’ve got a small army coming down that road towards us.”
“So it seems. They are ten miles away at the least and there is at best two hours of sunlight left,” Willock said, glancing up towards the sun. “They will be camping shortly, if they have not halted for the day already. We should be able to avoid them.”
Jorn nodded and was about to say something when he heard a noise behind him exactly like a twig snapping in two. Whirling about and leaping to his feet, he drew his sword. Two men stood about twenty feet away near the bottom of the outcropping, just at the edge of the trees. They were a motley-looking pair, dressed in
furs and various scraps of armor probably harvested from the battlefield. The men bore axes and spears, carrying crudely crafted roundshields and wearing rusted old helms atop their heads. They had a wild look about them, with their long tangled beards and their filthy appearance. Grunting with surprise, they lifted their weapons and stared at Jorn and Willock.
One of them, a huge man with a matted blonde beard and an immense belly, raised his shield and shouted some guttural curse at Jorn. He gripped his axe, stepping forward. Under his breath he said something to the other warrior.
The second berserker turned and ran shouting back down the thin trail the pair had just emerged from, the fat one raising his axe and charging forward. Jorn jumped down from the top of the outcropping onto a large boulder which blocked his path. The fat berserker screamed an almost inhuman cry, swinging his axe in a wide arch before him. Jorn parried the blow, countering with a slash from his sword which was blocked by the man’s shield. Jorn exchanged blows back-and-forth with the berserker, dodging the axe blows easily as he looked for an opening of his own. The berserker was not very skilled and Jorn would normally have dispatched him without much effort, especially standing on the high ground as he did. This opponent was different, however. The berserker sought not to win but merely to keep Jorn at bay. He would swing at Jorn if given the chance, but always stayed back with his shield held high in front of him. Jorn understood why. He was simply trying to hold Jorn up long enough for his companion to raise the alarm. There had to be others close by, perhaps many.
Willock, meanwhile, fired an arrow at the back of the second berserker. The shot was true but the target moved at the last moment and the arrow passed close over his shoulder without harm.
Willock sprinted after the man, notching an arrow as he did so. He ran down the trail some distance, finally spotting the fleeing warrior up ahead again. The man glanced behind him, darting in between trees as he sprinted down the trail with Willock in pursuit. It looked like Willock wouldn’t be able to get close enough for a clear shot, but then the wildman entered a small mountain meadow. It was all the opening Willock needed. He paused, taking careful aim, and calmly buried an arrow between his target’s shoulder blades.
_____
Jorn watched Willock run off in pursuit of the second berserker, still trading blows with his own opponent and trying to get close enough to attack. The man stayed just out of range of Jorn’s sword, frustrating him more and more as time wore on. Jorn sized him up; the man’s eyes were wild, wanting nothing more than to lunge forward and have real battle.
“Come on already,” Jorn said in Linlundic. He knew the berserker would understand him. The northern savages spoke a debased tongue, but it was close enough to Linlundic for the wildman to grasp what he was saying. “Attack me, you coward! Grang’s teeth! Are you some kind of old woman? Fight me, grandmother!”
“You dog,” the berserker cursed. “You Northman! But you serve Llangellan! Scum! I smash you bits!”
“Then smash me!” Jorn taunted him. “You’re no warrior, you’re a damn fat swine! I serve the Llangellans, but you serve the gruk! You’re no better than the gruk! You are a gruk!”
Jorn lowered his sword slightly, just enough to tempt the man forward. Sure enough, the wildman lunged ahead, goaded by Jorn’s words. Jorn used his sword to parry the blow of the axe and, lunging ahead himself, brought his weapon down onto the berserker’s neck. The man fell down to his knees, clutching the side of his throat. Jorn swung his sword again and ended the man’s life.
Wasting no time, he leapt over his fallen opponent and took off running down the trail after Willock. He found the woodsman bent over the body of the other wildman in the middle of the tiny meadow, recovering his arrow and peering down the twisting trail before him. On the far side of the meadow the trail ran through a thick cluster of birch trees and then swung sharply left around a large boulder the size of a small house. Creeping forward, an arrow notched on his bowstring, Willock approached the trail. He sniffed the air before him.
“What is it?” Jorn whispered, now standing right next to him.
“Do you smell that?” Willock said.
“Smell what?” Jorn said, sniffing the air. An unmistakable aroma began to tease his nostrils. “It smells like…roast pork.”
“It is roast pork. They must have a camp nearby.”
“That’s where he was trying to get to,” Jorn said.
“Rule two when scouting is to use all of your senses,” Willock said, nodding. “Including your nose.”
“Rule two? What’s rule one?”
“Always keep quiet.”
“Shall we take a closer look?” Jorn whispered as quietly as he could manage.
“I would prefer not to,” Willock whispered back. “It’s too risky. It must be a scouting party camp. We’d best let the others know. And we’d better move those bodies off the trail, too, before those soldiers go looking for their friends.”
_____
Jorn and Willock explained everything to the others. Ironhelm was quiet, listening to the report with a grim look on his face.
“We threw the bodies over the cliff,” Jorn said. “But it’s only a matter of time before their friends notice they haven’t come back.”
“And then these hills will be crawling with berserkers and gruks and the gods know what else when the bodies are found,” Willock said.
“I say we strike them at once,” Ailric said. “We could come at them from two sides, take them all by surprise, and slaughter the whole lot of them.”
“And then what?” Jorn said. “What happens when the enemy notices an entire scouting party missing?”
“What else can we do?” Ailric said. “The road is blocked, that damned dragon flies over the high mountain ridge.”
“We cross the road, down to the valley floor,” Willock said quietly.
“Not the Marshes?” Ailric said.
“No,” Willock said. “We still follow our plan. We skirt the edge of the marshes. The going’ll be slow, but we should be able to avoid trouble. And the dragon will not see us.”
Ironhelm kicked a small stone with his foot, cursing.
“All hell!” he grumbled. “Ach! Are the gods conspiring to send us towards those damned marshes?”
“It appears so,” Flatfoot said.
“The hour grows late,” Willock said, looking up at the sky. “We should eat what we can, and make for the road. And fill up your skins in the stream while we are here, for the water near the swamp might not be fit for drinking.”
_____
Willock scouted ahead yet again, sneaking in the darkness to the edge of the road. The others waited, not one hundred feet behind him. He climbed over a rock and saw the road only twenty feet below. It looked quiet in the moonlight. His eyes went past the road to the valley beyond and the rising white moon of Ithlon sitting high in the sky already. The great blue moon Arnos would not be out this night, but would appear tomorrow as a tiny sliver on the horizon at dusk. Two weeks later it would be full. By then they had best have snatched the blood quartz skull or all will have been in vain.
Willock spent no more than a moment considering the phases of the moons, his attention turning back towards the road. His eyes studied the outline of the trees and the road beyond. The air smelled fresh, a light breeze blowing off the valley and rustling through the trees. Straining his ears, he heard what might have been a shout in the distance. Perhaps it was a dog, but he couldn’t be sure. He inched closer to the road. If they could cross unnoticed, they might yet slip by this army unnoticed.
Reaching the road, he stepped out onto the cracked and rutted concrete. Looking in both directions, he saw nothing but moonlit darkness. The road looked clear for the time being, at least. Looking back over his shoulder toward the woods, he signaled to the others with a simple bird call. A few moments later they emerged from the woods and crossed the road hurriedly, slipping across and back down the steep slope, the only sound the slow clip-clop of their h
orses.
In the darkness it was difficult to find a path towards the valley floor, but they managed to work their way through the trees some distance down from the road. Progress was slow, but after an hour they paused for a rest in a small clearing. They ate a quiet meal of salt pork, stale bread, and a few gulps of ale. Gazing back up the dark slope, there was no way to judge how far below the road they were. Willock guessed it was nearly a half mile.
“Ach,” Ironhelm grumbled. “We’re still too close to the road. An army’s sure to have advance scouts at least that far on out on its flanks.”
“We’ve still a ways to travel tonight,” Willock said.
On they went, winding their way down the slope. More than once, the ground dipped sharply down and was too steep for the horses to traverse safely. Ithlon rose higher in the night sky as the hours passed, reaching its zenith directly overhead and bathing everything in a silvery light that helped them find their way along the dark path.
_____
Ironhelm muttered to himself under his breath. He was working his way through rough terrain in darkness, enemies everywhere around him. How many times during the course of his life had he found himself in this exact same situation, he wondered. He’d decided he was far too old for this sort of thing, then heard the faint barking of a dog from somewhere in the darkness in front of them.
“Oh, my! Was that a wolf?” Flatfoot whispered.
“Stay alert,” Jorn said, drawing his sword.
They kept moving forward, the ground finally sloping down now at a gentler angle as they neared the bottom of the valley. On these milder slopes they were at last able to move nearly straight down, riding at a swifter pace than before.
“We must be near the marshes,” Willock said.
Again there was a faint sound of barking, this time from what sounded like multiple animals from somewhere to their left.
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Ailric said.
“Nothing we can’t handle,” Jorn said, watching the darkness where the barks were coming from.
Child Of Storms (Volume 1) Page 42