The closer the eight men got to the swirling cloud, the quicker the bones at their feet moved. The smaller fragments skittered and jumped across the ground as if blown by a strong wind. Apollonius looked over his shoulder and was relieved to see Kharon standing atop Terror's Lament with a dozen or more archers. The soldiers took measured steps; they were nervous and visibly shaken by the magic of the bones.
After several fearful minutes of slow marching, Apollonius brought them to a halt. The towering monstrosity of whirling bones and dirt looked to be a hundred feet high. Despite none of the soldiers being magically inclined, they could all distinctly feel the power that flowed from the whirlwind. Wave after wave of malevolent energy cascaded around them like sheets of driving rain in a storm.
Without warning, a deafening bellow rose up from the depths of the tornado and burst forth. Several of the soldiers were knocked back by the force of the sound and Apollonius turned to cover his ears. The roar resonated in his metal helmet and confused his thoughts. “Turn back!” he managed to shout. Whether the other men could hear him or not above the ringing in their heads was irrelevant. A hideous screech echoed out of the magical whirlwind and the Templars broke ranks.
Hundreds of screeches joined the first and the bones of the tornado sprang to life. They joined together in unnatural ways, forming grotesque amalgamations of goblin corpses. The animated bone creatures were thrown from the tempest where they exploded into pursuit of the soldiers.
Apollonius heard the rattling footsteps of one of the creatures about to reach him. Ducking his head, the commander rolled across the ground and turned, coming up with his sword in front of him. The beast, if it could even be called such a thing, was quadrupedal, but with hundreds of skeletal arms lashing out in all directions. Apollonius steeled his resolve and met the charging equine creature with a thrust of his sword. Bones erupted and showered against his armor.
For a moment, Apollonius believed he had slain his adversary.
“GIVE ME THE damned bow!” Kharon yelled. He pushed the young archer aside and snatched the wooden crossbow from his hands with one fluid motion. The boy, barely sixteen, had just accidentally loosed a bolt into the stone parapet, missing Kharon's chest by mere inches. The fighting was still too far away, but the Templar leveled the crossbow and waited patiently.
Apollonius shook off the force of the crashing bones and turned, evaluating the plight of his comrades. Two soldiers circled and flanked a bone creature that resembled a skeletal goblin with four pairs of overly long arms. The two men timed and alternated their strikes, slowly hacking the bizarre bone creature to bits.
The horse-like monster that had shattered itself upon Apollonius' armor reformed behind the captain, striking down with its brittle hooves. Apollonius lifted his left arm above his head to deflect the blow and cut a slashing arc in front of him with his sword. The creature crashed against him like a wave breaking around an immovable rock. With another two swings of Apollonius' sword, the creature was again reduced to little more than skeletal debris.
The other monstrosities fighting amidst the Templars were equally outmatched. Reinforced steel armor proved far too thick for the flailing collections of animated bones to puncture. Within moments, the eight soldiers were free of their assailants. As they ran toward the slowly raising portcullis of Terror's Lament, Apollonius could hear the skeletal creatures reforming.
Kharon waited until the last possible second to give the signal for the archers to fire. In sloppy, untrained attempt at unison, a volley of crossbow bolts shot out from the parapet and obliterated the three creatures chasing the Templars. The fresh recruits barely had enough time to reload their weapons before the magical enemies reassembled and began their chase anew.
Apollonius and his Templars made it to the gate without losing a man. With the portcullis only a few feet above the ground, they had to drop to their bellies to make it through. The strange skeletal beasts crashed into the iron bars of Terror's Lament and shattered, sending hundreds of bone fragments all over the ground.
“Hold!” Kharon called from atop the parapets. The uneasy recruits leveled their crossbows and waited to fire. It took only seconds for the bones to reassemble into new and even more bizarre monstrosities.
“Fire!” Kharon's voice echoed from the stone walls. A devastating volley tore through the shambling skeletons and scattered them once more. An uneasy silence followed.
Apollonius and his men got to their feet with their swords drawn. Nervously, their eyes darted from each other to the broken pieces of bone at their feet. Suddenly, with a great peal of thunder, the bones launched into the air and raced away from the city as if pulled by unseen, magical strings. “What do you see?” Apollonius called to the archers.
A moment passed and a fierce wind began to howl through the metal bars of the portcullis.
“Something is coming!” Kharon called down to the Templars. “I see...” his voice broke off as he gasped for air. Apollonius couldn't tell if the soldier had been suddenly killed or merely stunned into silence. Without hesitation, the captain ripped open a door in the wall and began ascending the stone staircase as quickly as he could. Shouts of confusion rang out from above and below but with the wind, it was impossible to tell what was happening.
When Apollonius burst forth from the interior staircase, he too lost the air from his lungs. Several of the recruits cowered down behind the crenellations and others, Kharon included, stood slack-jawed with their weapons at their sides.
Perhaps a mile or more away from the city walls, thousands of goblin skeletons had joined together into one unholy beast. “Run...” was the only word that Kharon managed to whisper past the fear that clutched his throat. Even at a considerable distance, the bone creature was easy to see.
A flap of its skeletal wings sent a tower of dust and debris into the air beneath the colossal undead dragon. Wave after wave of dark magic swelled up from the ground and into the dragon. Luckily, the beast roared once and turned away from Terror's Lament. It circled through the air and beat its massive wings, flying in the direction of Kanebullar Mountain. There, atop the ancestral home of the goblin race, the great bone dragon settled down to wait.
DEEP WITHIN A cave north of Talonrend, a strange pool of black liquid shimmered and pulsed. We have done it, brother, a disembodied female voice whispered above the dark pool.
Yes, sister, we have, echoed an ethereal response.
The black liquid churned and bubbled, raging with energy and raw emotion. One of the eggs near the pool wriggled and cracked, hatching a coal-black scorpion shrouded in acrid smoke. Taurnil. My child, beckoned the sultry female voice. Awaken your brothers and sisters.
The scorpion clacked its claws and the chamber filled with an impenetrable inky blackness. Several hundred eggs began to crack at once.
LADY SCRAPPLE WRITHED and bellowed with uncontainable joy. Her slimy appendages thrashed against the stone walls of her chamber like never before. All throughout Kanebullar Mountain, her control began to wane. The bone dragon was a massive being, created from the gathered remains of an entire goblin army, and it took nearly all of her energy to control it. Without the magical guidance offered by the Mistress of the Mountain, the wondrous monstrosity, the ultimate goblin weapon of war, would crumble.
“HOLD YOUR POSITION,” Corvus called with an upraised hand. A small group of paladins crouched just beneath the crest of a rolling hill and waited with their weapons drawn. The blind leader turned rapidly, sharply jerking his head back and forth.
Seamus stood next to Corvus and tried in vain to see the things the paladin described. The band of holy warriors had traveled north and then doubled back to the east, moving parallel to the refugee column, but leaving the head of the caravan exposed. Although the tracks they followed felt erratic and often misplaced, they were unmistakably minotaur.
Corvus’ magical vision made his eyes dart frantically from light to light. “We are surrounded,” he whispered once the men had gathered.
A few scattered grunts were all the reply the trained fighters gave.
“What is it?” one of them asked as he tightened the forearm straps of his heavy shield.
“One...” Corvus struggled to put his magical vision into words, “thing approaches from the northeast.” He pointed a hand in the general direction they had been traveling. Corvus could see the oddly shaped ball of energy steadily growing larger. He had tried several times to communicate with the magical consciousness, but had been violently repulsed.
“What else is out there?” Seamus asked as quietly as he could manage. Fear gripped his throat and made his voice crack.
Corvus turned to the west. “I can see many distant lights,” he explained, “like dozens of magic users spread out in a field.”
One of the older paladins adjusted a strap on his armor. “Magic users wouldn't spread out unless they had reason,” he stated. “It sounds like a group of priests marching with an army.”
“Or tribes of orcs with their shaman,” Corvus corrected. “We should—”
“Goblins, sir!” one of the men scouting to the northeast shouted. The group exploded into action. Within seconds, the paladins formed two rows of interlocking shields with their swords gripped tightly at their sides. A subtle chant rose up and they began to march. The two lines moved in perfect unison—slowly, confidently, and inexorably.
Corvus stood next to Seamus and joined in the battle hymn from behind the lines. He let his mind swirl in the rumbling notes and could feel his body and soul strengthen with each verse. Vrysinoch was certainly among them.
The first row of paladins reached the crest of a sloping hill and halted at once. They planted their shields in the ground and surveyed the landscape through slots in their helmets.
“One, sir!” one of the men broke his chant just long enough to call out before taking the song up again.
“Friends!” a squeaky, high-pitched voice shouted from somewhere ahead. Corvus jerked his body in the direction of the voice out of reflex, but saw nothing—his eyes were useless. He couldn't recognize any magical presence other than the growing lights that resided within his brethren.
“Friends!” the voice called out again and Corvus knew his men were waiting for an order. If there had been a goblin army on the other side of the ridge, they would have marched down the slope and cut the beasts to ribbons with ease. Had it been orcs, the paladins would have formed a defensive circle atop the high ground and waited for a charge.
A single goblin calling out in his own language was enough to pique Corvus' curiosity. “Hold!” he barked at his men. It was a slow trek, but with help from Seamus' guiding arm, Corvus crested the hill. The whistle-like goblin voice called out a third time and Corvus spread his arms out wide as a gesture of invitation.
“If you are a friend, come forward!” he answered. The two rows of soldiers behind him stopped their chanting and waited. Corvus was impressed; he had only been with them for a short while and not a single person questioned his authority or his decision. The small troop was well trained. During battle, they were as one.
Hesitantly, Vorst crept from around the side of a small boulder and tossed Gideon's throwing axe onto the ground between her and Corvus. “Paladins...” Vorst marveled at the sight.
“How...” Corvus was so surprised by the idea of a talking goblin that he wasn't sure what to say. “How do you know what we are?” he finally asked.
Vorst took a step closer and looked up into the man's sightless eyes. “We fought with Gideon,” she stated calmly, pointing to the axe, “the giant paladin. He saved our lives.”
Corvus took a moment to process Vorst's words before he understood. “You must be one of the goblins Herod captured after the battle. I've heard rumors, but I didn't think they were true.”
“Another goblin approaches, sir,” a soldier in the front row called down. He lifted his sword to point toward Gravlox, forgetting his commander could not see.
“To the left,” Seamus whispered, following the soldier's outstretched arm.
Gravlox was not as confident as Vorst that the humans wouldn't try to kill them. He strode forward with one of the axes dangling from his belt and Gideon's enchanted armlet seated between his pointy ears. Gravlox held his hands out to his side, but not as a sign of surrender. Sparks of magical fire danced between his fingertips and each step he took made the ground tremble and surge with energy.
It didn't take Corvus any effort to locate such a violent consciousness. Gravlox appeared perfectly in Corvus' vision as a raw conduit of destructive force contained within the meager body of a goblin. A thick lump of fear nestled in the man's throat and refused to leave. “There must be more…” Corvus sputtered, unable to believe such a powerful magical signature could be made by only a single creature.
“Gravlox!” Vorst scolded, but her thin voice was lost amidst the clangor of the men. The shaman strode forward to within a few feet of the first paladin line.
“An armlet,” one of the soldiers called to Corvus. “He must have killed a paladin and stolen it!”
“Hold your ground,” Corvus reminded the paladins. With an army marching toward them from the west, the last thing he wanted was a bloodbath due to poor diplomacy with a solitary pair of goblins.
Turning back in the direction he presumed Vorst's voice to be coming from, Corvus stretched his right arm out and invited the goblin to shake his hand. Whether Vorst understood the human custom or not, she made no attempt to return the gesture. If hostilities were going to happen, Corvus wanted the shaman to be the one to initiate them, so he let a momentary silence fill the air.
Finally, after a tense minute of inaction, Corvus spoke. “Is your friend going to kill us?” he questioned. His voice cracked as he spoke but Corvus felt no shame for his overt fear. He knew beyond a doubt that the small shaman could kill him before any of his paladins would have the chance to move. Vorst and Gravlox exchanged several sentences in the high-pitched goblin language before the bright light of the shaman's magical spirit began to dim.
Corvus watched cautiously with curiosity as Gravlox let his power recede. The magical energy, instead of going out like a candle in the wind or dispersing into the air, flowed out of the goblin like a waterfall. The power rushed out of Gravlox’s body and sank into the ground as though it had been there all along. What was even more thought-provoking to the ascended paladin, was that as soon as the energy entered the soil, Corvus could no longer see or feel it.
“Gideon is lost,” Vorst stated, breaking Corvus' silent contemplation.
“By lost, do you mean dead?” Corvus responded. He had never met Gideon, but after the battle, everyone in Talonrend knew the name. Especially among the paladins, Gideon was a living legend.
“I don't know,” Vorst admitted, “but he was captured by minotaurs with Asterion.”
“The old man?” Corvus was startled. He knew Asterion very well. The veteran priest was one of the most respected members of the Tower and had trained Corvus and the rest of the paladins in the use of divine magic.
“Yes,” was all Vorst said.
“Come then, goblins. We have much to discuss.” With that, Corvus and Seamus turned to walk back to the shallow valley on the other side of the ridge. The paladins followed, but each of them kept an eye on Gravlox and a hand on their weapon.
You nearly got us killed, Vorst tapped in the goblin code against Gravlox’s palm. I told you they would help us. Not every human is as evil as you think.
Seamus and Corvus sat down on the grass with the goblin pair and attempted to lay out a plan. If Gideon and Asterion were being held hostage by a band of minotaurs, Corvus had every intention of rescuing them.
Less than half an hour into their discussion, several of the sentries watching the ridge called out an alarm. Corvus stood to call back to the sentry, but had no need. The unmistakable rumble of a distant war cry filled his ears.
“Orcs!” one of the men yelled as he fell into line with his shield.
&n
bsp; “A whole army!” Another soldier added.
“May Vrysinoch protect us...” Corvus muttered as Seamus led him slowly by the arm back to the ridge.
The battle hymn began, but was soon drowned out by the screams of orcs and the howling of wolves.
THE REFUGEES CIRCLED their hundreds of wagons, but knew that was more of a formality than a defensive maneuver. The militia that were scattered among the peasants climbed to the tops of the wagons with bows in their hands. Some of the stronger men, armed with makeshift clubs or rusty swords taken from their fireplace mantles, formed a meager line in front of the wagons.
“Tell the women and children to run!” one of the men shouted from atop a cloth-covered wagon. Tears ran down his face and he did nothing to hide them. The charging orcs came into view only a hundred or so yards from the wagons. “Run!” the man screamed, gripping his bow so tightly the rough wood cut his palm. The orcs held all manner of wicked weapons in their green hands, but next to all that glinting steel, the distinct glow of torches filled the night.
“They aren't here to raid and then leave...” he muttered to the nervous man crouching beside him. “They're here to kill us all.”
The women were moving behind the wagons, but not quickly enough. The orcs would be upon them before they could flee and the paladins were too far away to see the battle and return. “Get out of here!” the bow-wielding man yelled as loudly as he could. His wife and two children scrambled to escape through the cluster of terrified refugees. He pulled a crude arrow from a bundle by his side and loosed it into the approaching mass of warriors. One of them went down. One… in a sea of thousands.
The men in front of the wagons started to break before the howling orcs felled a single one of them. Hundreds of refugees had answered the paladins' call to defend the wagons, but by time the orcs hit the line, less than half of the men remained. The others threw down their arms and fled with the women and children.
The Goblin Wars Part Two: Death of a King Page 11