Fire licked and curled around the armored minotaurs. Gravlox knew the flame wouldn’t do much to slow the charge, but the smokescreen it created was blinding. He ducked and ran as fast as his short legs could carry him, trying with desperation to get to Vorst at the edge of the clearing.
The minotaurs crashed through the smoke and fire and swung their axes down hard, destroying everything in their path. Luckily, Gravlox had moved far enough away to not be caught in the assault.
The shaman’s eyes darted around, but he saw no opening. The three minotaurs fanned out before him and used their bulk to fill the space between the boulders that blocked Gravlox’s escape. Vorst cowered just behind one of the beasts, only a few feet away, but unable to help. Even if she had a sword, the minotaurs were so heavily armored it would have taken days for Vorst’s attacks to have any effect.
One of the minotaurs ducked and slid to the side, offering a momentary gap in the line. Gravlox tensed and got ready to lunge for the opening. Right as he was about to leap, a boulder twice the size of the shaman’s body flew through the gap and slammed into the rock behind Gravlox’s head.
Shards of broken stone exploded all around the tight space. Boulder fragments dinged and ricocheted off the minotaur’s armor and bits of stone found their way into Gravlox’s exposed back. He leapt forward and punched out with a molten fist, connecting solidly with the center minotaur’s steel greave. The minotaur kicked and swung its heavy axe down, narrowly missing Gravlox’s head.
Another axe head flew in from the side and Gravlox was forced to fall to his stomach to avoid being killed. The center minotaur didn’t hesitate and stomped his armored hoof down hard on Gravlox’s back. Thinking quickly, Gravlox willed his molten fists into a solid stone shield that wrapped around his body and dissipated the force of the stomp.
The minotaurs snarled and the growing flames crackled, but Gravlox could hear Vorst’s high-pitched yell above it all. She had jumped from one of the smoldering pine trees and landed on the minotaur attempting to crush Gravlox. Her small fists beat furiously into the minotaur’s head and for a moment, the minotaur backed away.
Vorst took a vicious hit to her side that made her gasp for breath. She clutched at the beast’s horns, but they had been sharpened for battle and cut deeply into Vorst’s skin.
Gravlox rolled to his side and beckoned to the ground, molding it and shaping it with his mind. He ripped his hands free of the soil and summoned forth a great spike of stone that blasted the minotaur’s lower body.
Vorst stumbled from her perch and hit the ground hard next to Gravlox. She coughed and looked into his eyes, searching for some hint of an answer. Gravlox steeled his gaze and dove deeper into the realm of magic and found a place of serenity within himself.
Using the circlet to amplify his shamanistic abilities, Gravlox whispered a prayer of sorts to the earth. The ground rumbled and shook violently. The wounded minotaur fell to his knees and the other two had to use their long axes to keep their balance.
“Run!” Gravlox shouted as he pulled Vorst to her feet. The two goblins took off through the burning trees with as much speed as they could muster. The ground rumbled again and split under their feet with a tremendous crack that shot lava high into the air. Minotaur bellows pierced the night and Gravlox could hear another boulder smash down into the trees behind him.
The earthquake hit a crescendo and Gravlox could feel his connection the ground waning. His body was being drained and Gravlox couldn’t help but slow his frantic pace.
“We have to get back to the others!” Vorst yelled as she panted for breath. She tugged at Gravlox’s arm but he was too exhausted to continue. With a final breath of release, Gravlox severed his mental connection to the bedrock and the earthquake subsided immediately. “They won’t be far behind,” Vorst reminded him. She hoped that the minotaurs had succumbed to the fire and the smoke, but knew that counting on luck would be suicide. Propping Gravlox up against her shoulder, Vorst carried him the rest of the way back to their camp.
“Gideon!” Vorst called out when they arrived at the small circle of boulders. “Asterion?” she shouted out again with a touch of panic. The battle and the earthquake were loud enough that the two sleeping humans should have awakened minutes ago.
“Gravlox!” Vorst screamed as she sat him down against a rock. “They’re gone. What do we do?” Gravlox cleared the sweat from his brow and tried to rub the weariness from his eyes.
The camp was dark and the moon hid behind a layer of smoke and clouds, but Gravlox had spent almost all of his life in the underground tunnels of Kanebullar Mountain. He had gone days without seeing the light of a fire and his eyes were well accustomed to the inky blackness of night. He glanced over his shoulder and looked for signs that the two men had gone toward the sounds of battle. That’s when he noticed the blood.
The rock behind Vorst was so evenly coated with blood that Gravlox hadn’t realized it at first. He ran his hand along the rock and the blood was warm and slick under his fingers. There was no way for him to tell who the blood belonged to, but he was sure that it was fresh.
“Vorst, look,” he whispered as he showed her the red stain on his pale fingers. They searched through the camp and it became obvious there had been a fight. A few yards behind the camp, in the direction of the mountains, Gravlox found two of Gideon’s throwing axes. One of them was soaked in fresh blood but the other was buried halfway in the dirt.
“They fought back,” Vorst said quietly. She kept looking back toward the fire and wondering if the minotaurs would come charging at them once more. She shuddered as she considered how big the boulder throwing minotaur must have been.
“This blood might not be theirs,” Gravlox stated defiantly, “but we need to keep moving.”
Vorst gathered what she could of the traveling gear and slid one of the throwing axes through her belt. “Where will we go?”
“We need to search deeper into the mountains. If the minotaurs captured him, we have to get him back.”
Vorst shook her head and gulped down her fear. At least now she had a weapon.
SEAMUS, GUIDING CORVUS by the shoulder, led the paladin’s expeditionary force. They marched in a line, three abreast, and sang hymns to Vrysinoch that set their pace. They weren’t exactly sure where they were headed, but the foothills of the mountains were where the orcs made their homes.
A pair of young paladins flanked the group and scouted. Corvus wanted badly to join them, but even after a day of marching, he had not grown accustomed to his blindness. Seamus had fashioned him a sturdy walking stick and the ascended paladin clung to it like a drowning man who had found a floating log. One of the more scholastically minded paladins, a skilled blacksmith who had joined the Tower much later in life than the rest, had carved a powerful enchantment into the staff that allowed Corvus to summon the thing with a word.
The stiff wind carried hints of snow that melted on their metal breastplates and fogged their breath. Corvus wore a heavy woolen hood pulled low over his nose to keep the chill from his face.
The other paladins, if they spoke to Corvus at all, did so with hushed voices as though they were speaking to Vrysinoch himself. Corvus hated it. He resented their reverence and wished for the return of his eyesight. He could sense all of their movements, even the paths of the paladins walking behind him, but what good would that do against a horde of orc berserkers?
“How many orcs be in a clan?” Seamus asked.
Far more than our pitiful number, Corvus thought. “The way they breed, there could be hundreds,” he decided not to soften his answer.
“We’ve not seen them before now, so there is no way to know for sure,” the old veteran chimed in from the row behind Seamus. “We study books written about the orcs and other races, but until the goblins sieged the city, most of us had never seen anything but the occasional minotaur in the fighting pit.”
“Then who wrote ye books?” the farmer wondered. “Someone must’ve seen himself a righ
t number o’ beasts.”
The veteran let out a long sigh. He had questioned the accuracy of the Tower’s teachings for years. “Most of the books came from the Green City, brought by the first settlers of Talonrend, if the histories are to be believed.” Even as he spoke, he wasn’t sure he believed those histories. “The old texts speak of orc settlements built like strongholds in the mountains, constantly warring against each other or anything else that stepped onto their land. The original settlers drove them out of the foothills and forced them to live deeper in the wilds of the mountains.”
“Maybe they’re now just fightin’ among themselves?” Seamus theorized. He didn’t like the idea of such powerful warriors organizing and building strongholds.
“We pray that is the case,” Corvus asserted, “but we must assume the orcs are preparing an assault.” He shot a hand out and pointed northeast. “There!” he shouted, urging Seamus forward but nearly losing his balance. “Do you see it?”
“What is it?” the veteran asked, straining to see. The rolling hills and fogging autumn air made it hard to distinguish scraggly pine trees from approaching orcs.
Corvus took a moment to let the shapes materialize in his mind, watching the white splotches grow and form. “The scouts are returning,” he said once he was sure. Two paladin heads bobbed up over a low rise a few hundred yards away and it was apparent that they were running.
The marching paladins broke into a sprint to meet the approaching scouts. “We’ve seen them!” one of the scouts shouted. Seamus led Corvus by the hand over the rocky terrain as quickly as the blind paladin could manage.
“Orcs?” the big farmer asked after the scouts had caught their breath. “How many?”
“Not a clan,” one of the scouts, a young paladin with brightly polished armor, replied. “Just a half-orc.”
“How many half-orcs? A raiding party?” Corvus asked eagerly. He had never seen a half-orc but had read descriptions of them from the books at the Tower. Half-orcs were said to be more human in appearance and mannerism than their full-blooded orc relatives, but with the primal savagery that made them deadly and unpredictable. Living in familial clans as hunters and nomads, most orcs lacked the intellect and cunning required for successful leadership. Thus, orc clans almost never rose to a level at which they could compete with human civilization. A half-orc, possessed of both a sharp mind and an orcish body, was the perfect combination of cunning and brawn.
The young scout shook his head. “There was only one. We followed him and watched him from a distance, but never saw any others.”
Turning to Seamus, the old veteran furled his brow and rubbed his chin. “You’re sure the orc you killed with the wolves was a full blood?” he asked, trying to recall exactly what the orcs he had helped to slay looked like.
“His skin was green an’ he was huge,” Seamus retorted. “What’s so special ‘bout a half-orc anyway?”
Corvus cleared his throat. “Most orc clans are led by a shaman, a spiritual leader similar to our priests. While shaman do not offer prayers to a god in exchange for magical prowess, they can instead call upon the magical energies trapped within the ground to bring about destruction. Half-orcs, with partially human heritage, are often powerful shaman that possess the sharpness of mind needed to hone their magical abilities.”
The scout nodded in agreement and continued with his report. “We never saw him cast, but the only thing he carried was a wooden staff. Not even a half-orc would be stupid enough to wander the foothills unarmed.”
“He must be a shaman,” Corvus concluded with finality. “How far away is he?”
The scout looked back the way he had come and tried to gauge the distance. “Maybe a few miles,” he said. “Not much more.”
Seamus noted the nervous tone of the scout’s voice and caught a glint of fear in his eyes. Years of gambling in seedy taverns had made the gruff man an incredible interpreter of body language. He could tell that there was something more.
“Get on with it, lad,” Seamus bade him, slapping the paladin on the shoulder for good measure.
“We saw some tracks near the half-orc’s camp.” The two scouts glanced nervously at each other. “It’s probably nothing, but the tracks looked like hoof prints. Deep hoof prints.”
“Impossible…” the old veteran murmured under his breath.
“What’s impossible ‘bout a deer?” Seamus blurted out with confusion.
“I reckon those prints were from something walking upright, son,” the paladin chided. “The half-orc might have brought some friends from the caves.” He looked around the gathering of paladins and could see the fear in their eyes as easily as he could feel it forming in tight knots in his stomach. “Have any of you boys ever seen a minotaur?”
“HOW WILL WE know where to look?” Her voice was high and thin with no attempts to conceal her trepidation.
Snowflakes fell silently between them, muffling the world with a white haze. Gravlox studied the ground and looked for any sign of tracks that might reveal a path. After several agonizing minutes of searching, he found a tall pine that had recently been cut. A long, deep gash oozed sap onto the frosted ground.
“If it was Gideon’s sword that left this mark, we will find a dead minotaur nearby,” Gravlox reassured her. The cold night air was starting to have a serious effect on the goblins. While they tolerated the elements better than humans, Lady Scrapple had not made their bodies warm enough to endure the frost unclothed.
Gravlox found a dead branch underneath one of the pines and focused what remained of his magical energy. With the aid of Gideon’s enchanted circlet, he drew forth heat from the earth and captured it within the branch. Using the paladin’s throwing axe, Gravlox broke the branch in two and handed one segment to Vorst.
“Just keep touching the wood,” he explained. “It should keep you warm.” The enchanted walking sticks gave off subtle waves of heat that melted the snowflakes before they reached Vorst’s pale shoulders.
“Thank you,” she whispered and kissed him softly on the cheek. “Let’s keep searching.”
It didn’t take much longer for Gravlox to find a blood trail leading west. The two goblins followed the line of fresh blood over two small hills and finally to a thin stream that snaked out from the snow-capped mountains. On the other side of the stream, a dead minotaur was propped up against a tree.
The beast was wearing a full set of steel armor that bore a wicked puncture wound in the breastplate. Vorst gave the corpse a kick to confirm that it was indeed dead before helping Gravlox search the area.
“More hoof prints,” Gravlox said, pointing to a fresh set of tracks.
Vorst studied the tracks and found a clump of droppings nearby that confirmed her suspicions. “They had horses,” she concluded. “We’re already slower than them on foot, but now they must be long gone.” Overwhelming sadness gripped her beautiful voice and pulled at Gravlox’s heart.
Gravlox had seen many horses during the battle outside of Talonrend and the huge beasts terrified him. He knew she was right—there was no way two goblins on foot could ever catch an organized group of minotaurs on horseback.
THE HALF-ORC, KEENLY aware of the paladin eyes watching him, twirled his staff and set out toward the northeast. A simple conjuration of mist a few hundred feet above the shaman allowed his vision to survey the area in a wide circle about him. With a bemused smile, the half-orc watched as the paladins scurried off to warn their companions.
A mile and a half from the small group of paladins, the shaman rendezvoused with a pair of minotaurs that eagerly awaited his arrival.
“Gorak!” one of them called out in guttural tones. “Our chieftain has captured two of the humans!”
The shaman sighed and rubbed his forehead with the palm of his hand. “How many times do I have to tell you?” he quipped harshly. “Gorak is the orcish word for wizard, not my name. I grow weary of telling you such basic facts…” The half-orc let his voice trail off to hide his growing an
ger.
“Then what should we call you?” the other minotaur asked. While minotaurs were renowned for their prowess in battle and their innate ability to design and execute battlefield tactics, their lack of advanced language severely limited their communications with other races.
“Names are things given to subordinates by their superiors as a means of control,” the shaman explained, “as I have no superior,” the shaman spread his arms and exaggeratedly looked about the area, “I have no name.”
The two minotaurs exchanged a confused look and the shaman knew his logic was lost. “Fine,” he let out a great sigh of defeat, “call me Undrakk, your own word for tyrant.” Undrakk grinned and mulled the name over in his mind the way a queen might savor the complexities of a fine wine. The orcish language and the runes of the minotaurs were undoubtedly related, and it was no coincidence that the word for wizard was similar to that which meant tyrant. Only a human could achieve the title of wizard, and only a human could be seen as a tyrant in the eyes of the mountain races.
“Now, what is this business about capturing a pair of humans?” he asked with mild curiosity.
“The chieftain sent us to tell you,” the minotaur bellowed, “we found two of them setting up camp not far to the east. They were tired and one of them is old,” he smiled and puffed his chest out with pride, “we captured them with ease.”
“Take me to them at once!” Undrakk ordered sharply. He climbed atop his horse and the two minotaurs began to run ahead of him. While a horse would certainly outdistance a minotaur over the course of several hours, an athletic minotaur could run quickly enough on two legs to keep up with the pounding gallops of a horse.
NEVIDAL RESTED PEACEFULLY in its sheath, tied to the back of a horse. Blindfolded, Gideon felt the absence of his sword as painfully as though he was missing a limb. His weapon had become such a real part of his soul that Gideon could feel the coarse hair of the horse’s tail as it flicked against the pommel.
The Goblin Wars Part Two: Death of a King Page 8