“Zahaak was destroyed once before,” Vadian reminded the noblemen, “put back into the grave for almost two millennia by the dwarfs. The runefang of Solland put him there. Grudge Settler brought the wight to ruin once. When Baron von Rabwald returns with it, the runefang will do so once again.”
Count Eberfeld could see the men around him trying to take encouragement from Vadian’s words, but there was too much doubt and despair to overcome. Two centuries had passed since Grudge Settler was stolen by Gorbad Ironclaw. Men had searched in vain for the sword, lost their lives looking for it. Many believed it would never be seen by the eyes of men again. No, the promise of bringing Zahaak to destruction with the fabulous lost sword was too remote, too fantastic to bolster their courage. They needed something substantial, something certain, if they were to overcome their fear and stand with him against the wight lord. And stand they must, for if Wissenberg fell, Count Eberfeld knew that Wissenland would never rise again. It would be carved up between the feuding provinces, absorbed into the realms of other counts and princes. Like Solland and Drakwald before it, Wissenland would be nothing more than a memory.
The count let his hand fall to the jewelled scabbard that held the runefang of Wissenland. “There’s nothing the Grudge Settler can do that Blood Bringer can’t do better,” Count Eberfeld swore, patting the hilt of his sword, steel in his voice as he stared into the eyes of each of the men gathered around him. “We’ll make this grave-cheating ghoul sorry it ever crawled out of its tomb.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Stop fooling with the damn ogre and help us!” Raban’s furious voice rose above the grunts and curses of the men labouring at the rock pile. They’d been working at the mound of rubble for hours, tempers falling ever fouler the longer the labour progressed. Kessler clung to the belief that this, indeed, was the right tomb. Right tomb or not, the promise of treasure had quelled complaints from other quarters. Only Eugen hadn’t been fired by the promise of looting whatever riches the orcs had buried with their warlord. Already branded a traitor, the knight couldn’t realistically expect any share of the plunder, or any part in the glory should they find the runefang. Kessler had been perplexed by the knight’s bravado during the fight against the hydra, but Valdner soon set him right. Even a traitor was threatened by the mindless beast, and Eugen had acted to protect his own hide, not save the expedition. The mercenary captain set Anselm to watch over him, trusting that the Sigmarite would make a more attentive custodian than Minhea had been.
Theodo looked up as Raban challenged him. Following the fight with the hydra, the cook had raced to his wounded friend, tending Ghrum’s leg as best he could. Though the ogre was covered in scratches and burns, it was the deep injury he’d sustained to his leg that troubled Theodo. He’d seen Ghrum take a lot of punishment over their years together, but never had he seen so noxious a wound. The hydra’s claw had stabbed clear through the meat, scraping against the bone. It bled profusely, forcing the halfling to make a tourniquet for the mangled limb while he tried to stitch it back together. Valdner considered the halfling’s ministrations to be a lost cause, a sentiment that most in the camp shared. Ghrum was beyond an opinion either way, fading in and out of consciousness.
“Let him bleed out already and get over here and help us,” Raban snapped when he saw that he had Theodo’s attention. Theodo scowled back at the mercenary.
“If he dies, you’re next,” the halfling promised, darkly. The threat brought a laugh from Raban. The axeman threw the stone he was hefting in Theodo’s general direction.
“Any time burrow-rat,” Raban grinned, turning back to his work. He laughed again when the rock he moved exposed a strip of bronze. He tugged it away, causing a small slide that brought curses from the workers lower down the pile.
“Captain!” he called, pointing triumphantly at the exposed section. Valdner and Kessler approached the axeman. They could see that the bronze panel was badly dented and warped by the avalanche. Raban drew their attention to the cold, clammy draft.
“The rocks broke down the doors,” Skanir agreed, climbing stones to join them. He studied the twisted bronze, and then forced another rock from the pile. Instead of revealing more of the door, he exposed a vacancy, a section of blackness that betokened the crypt beyond.
“Another hour of this and we should be through,” the dwarf promised. As he made the declaration a black-fletched arrow glanced from the rocks beside his head. The attack had barely registered among the men before savage war cries were roaring in their ears.
A pack of hulking orcs was charging up the narrow path to the canyon, blades and clubs waving above their heads. Kessler saw the gruesome standard of Uhrghul Skullcracker rising above the throng, the ghastly trophy rack that marked the presence of the infamous warlord. A handful of wiry goblins was already on the plateau, ahead of the rushing orcs, crude bows of bone and gut clasped in their hands. The goblins laughed cruelly as they saw the fear in their enemies’ eyes, and let fly another salvo at the men. One mercenary fell victim to the slovenly bow fire, his belly punctured by an arrow. The man dropped in a screaming heap.
Valdner barked commands. Men leapt from the rock pile, scrambling to reclaim the weapons they had set aside when they started their work. Seeing their foes armed, the goblins abandoned their archery, scurrying behind fallen rocks, content to wait for the orcs to confront the men.
The orcs were not long in coming. Valdner had time to arrange the men in a ragged skirmish line before the brutes reached the plateau. The mercenary captain did not seem to have any great illusions about their chances. Blade for blade, they were no match for the ferocious greenskin warriors. In desperation, Valdner snapped a command to Anselm and Eugen, ordering the prisoner and his guard to continue clearing the doorway. Within the confines of the crypt, they might at least prevent the orcs from completely overwhelming them.
Kessler did not give the mercenary’s hope undue attention. If the plan was to hold off the orcs until the door was clear, then he didn’t think their efforts would buy them enough time. It would be all they could do just to keep the orcs from crashing through them like a stampede. The swordsman shook his head. He’d always known his doom would be to die with a sword in his hand. There was a rough justice that he would meet his end fighting against the kind of creatures that had destroyed his face.
Howling like blood-mad wolves, the orcs surged onto the plateau, their rusty axes gleaming crimson in the dying sunlight. Iron-shod boots ripped at the earth as the immense greenskins rushed towards their prey. As Kessler watched them come, something in his mind snapped, rebelling against the fatalism that had claimed him. With his own war cry screaming from his chest, Kessler ran to meet the hulking brutes. His heavy greatsword, its black tassels dancing around his wrists, described a great arc as he swung it at the foremost orc, tearing the brute’s belly open clean to the spine. The roaring monster crumpled, folding in half as his body collapsed around the hideous wound. Kessler’s boot cracked into its skull, smashing its jaw and knocking the mangled orc prone. The dying brute was trampled beneath the iron heels of its charging comrades.
Kessler turned to face a horn-helmed warrior that lurched at him from the ruin of its fallen fellow. Before he could meet the monster’s axe, a heavy warhammer cracked into the orc’s ribs, bits of scavenged plate and looted chainmail flying from the impact. Bloody froth exploded from the orc’s fanged mouth and it stumbled back. Kessler saw Skanir follow it, raising his weapon to finish the job he had started. The orc lashed out at the dwarf with a sloppy sweep of its axe. Skanir skirted from the path of the murderous stroke, leaving the orc extended and unbalanced. Before the monster could recover, Skanir brought his hammer plummeting down in an overhead blow, bursting the orc’s helm and smashing its head into pulp.
All around him, Kessler found others meeting the charge of the orcs. Emboldened by his example, perhaps gripped by the same impulse of defiance in the face of certain doom, soldiers and mercenaries were grappling with the
powerful greenskins. The sudden counterattack caught the orcs by surprise. Creatures ruled more by instinct than strategy, they were slow to react to change. In those first few moments, the skill and training of the men prevailed against the raw, brute power of the orcs. Five of the monsters were brought down, slashed by halberd, smashed by hammer and stabbed by sword. The first few seconds of battle belonged to the men.
It was not enough.
The smell of blood, the crash of battle, the feel of steel cracking against steel broke any confusion that had entered the dull minds of the orcs. Raw, brute power asserted itself in gory magnificence. One soldier was cut in half by the sweep of an orc cleaver, the hulking mass of sharpened steel carving through him as if he was a butchered steer. A mercenary found his arm snapped like a twig beneath the impact of an orcish bludgeon, bones bursting through the links of his mail under the power of the blow. Another mercenary had both hands chopped from his body by the slashing edge of an orc sword as he slashed at its owner with a halberd. Before the man could begin to scream, his attacker lunged forwards, closing its fanged jaws around its victim’s throat.
Foot by foot, the orcs pushed their foes back, the sheer mass of their huge bodies allowing them to bully their human adversaries across the plateau. The dark-skinned bulk of Uhrghul rose up behind the press of battle, goading his warriors on. The warlord barked a command to his warriors and the thick, violent laughter of the orcs rose above the screams of dying men.
The ferocity of the orcs seemed to abate. Their attacks were pulled short, jabbing at men to keep them moving, but without the intention of cleaving flesh and smashing bone. Those with shields used them to batter their enemies, pushing them back, turning them aside. Kessler could almost believe that the monsters were fighting defensively, trying to conserve their strength, but it was virtually unheard of for orcs to hold back in battle. Then the first wailing shriek sounded from the edge of the plateau. A mercenary had been pushed back too far, his feet finding nothing beneath them but empty air. The coarse laughter of the orcs rumbled again as the man’s scream faded with his fall. With sadistic cunning, the orcs had turned the men, moving them so that their backs would no longer be to the doors of the crypt but to the edge of the plateau. Certain of victory over their outnumbered foes, the orcs had decided to make sport with them, to give them the choice of dying upon steel or plummeting to the canyon far below.
Valdner made the same realisation, shouting orders to his men, trying to reverse the terrible path the orcs were trying to herd them down. Men redoubled their efforts to break through the line of green monsters that pressed upon them, but neither training nor discipline could offset the strength and mass of the orcs. Foot by hideous foot, they were forced back, pushed closer and closer to the precipice.
Eugen and Anselm watched in horror from the rock pile as their comrades were forced towards the edge of the plateau by the orcs. The Sigmarite made the sign of the hammer, praying to his god for deliverance, for triumph over the ancient foes of humanity. Eugen paid the mercenary’s prayers little notice. Seizing a rock, he brought it cracking against the man’s leather hat, dropping him senseless to the ground. The knight quickly removed Anselm’s sword from its sheath. For an instant, he looked at the doorway behind him. A black vacancy now gaped near the top, a space just big enough for a man to squirm through. He immediately dismissed the thought.
Already branded a traitor and a murderer, Eugen would not earn the epithet of coward. The Knights of the Southern Sword had been scoured from the land, driven into the dust that had claimed Solland. He was the last. The order would fade with him, and in time even its memory would vanish. He was bitter that everything would end with him. He had hoped he might see the legendary Sun-Blade, the Runefang of Solland, set eyes on the sacred talisman he had served for most of his life. That hope was gone, however, and all that remained was to acquit himself well in his final moments, and perhaps to buy some hope for his comrades. He had not betrayed them before, and he would not do so now.
Eugen saw the iron-fanged hulk of Uhrghul Skullcracker towering behind his warriors, urging the monsters to brutal effect with his deep bellows and roaring curses. The knight’s fist clenched tighter around the hilt of Anselm’s sword. Killing the warlord was the one thing that might throw the orcs into disorder and allow his friends to escape the deadly trap. The orcs were wholly fixated upon pushing their enemies over the precipice, and had totally ignored the two men. No greenskins stood between him and the warlord, and a quick sprint would bring him face to face with the malevolent Uhrghul. Eugen grimaced at the thought. His entire order had failed to destroy the monster, and now he would have to do it on his own. The longsword in his hand looked as threatening as a paring knife beside the enormous armoured monster. Still, no other plan of action suggested itself to him.
Just as he started his run, motion beyond the warlord drew Eugen’s attention. At first, he thought he had seen a goblin scrambling among the rocks, but when the movement was repeated, he saw that it was something very different. The heap of boulders and rubble that had buried the hydra was shifting. While he watched, he saw a serpentine neck clear the rubble, waving dizzily in the air. Another soon followed it, and then a clawed paw was pulled free. Eugen felt a chill of horror as he realised that the hydra yet lived. Then a thrill of hope surged through him as a new, mad plan occurred to him.
The knight bolted from the doorway, racing past the battleline. Several orcs turned away from the foes before them to howl at him as he ran past, yet none were quick enough to block his path. Uhrghul was turning towards him, glowering at the armoured man who charged at him. The warlord lifted his brutal weapon, ready to dash the life from the knight. Eugen ducked beneath the murderous blow, slashing at the orc with the slender sword he held. The tip scraped across Uhrghul’s face, dark blood beading behind the blade’s sweep. The warlord roared in rage, driving his weapon again at the knight. Eugen ducked away from the attack, jeering at the gruesome beast.
Uhrghul snarled, drool dripping from his tusked jaws. The orc smashed his weapon against his chest in a savage display of fury, and then lunged forward, pursuing the knight who dared to mock him. Other orcs broke away from the fight to assist the warlord, lessening the pressure against the men still struggling on the battleline. Taxing his every muscle, Eugen continued to avoid the warlord’s powerful blows, striking back at the brute when the opportunity presented itself. The cuts were not enough to cripple the warlord, just enough to keep his rage and attention focused upon Eugen.
Eugen led the orc across the plateau, risking a look over his shoulder whenever he could. The knight smiled. In a way, the plan was a grim parody of the sport the orcs had been making with their enemies, except that the monsters didn’t know it yet.
The hydra was free from the pile of rubble, its reptilian heads waving around in confusion, still stunned by the violence that had crashed down upon it. Eugen jabbed one last slash at Uhrghul, opening a wound in the orc’s thigh. Uhrghul was so intent upon the knight and so consumed by anger that he failed to notice the hydra until he had been lured to the base of the rock-slide that had buried the beast. As Eugen danced away from him for the last time, the orc’s crimson eyes strayed from the retreating knight, widening in alarm as the writhing nest of the hydra’s heads filled his vision.
Eugen turned his back to the shocked orc. He shifted his hold on his sword, gripping it by the blade just before the guard. With all the strength still in his body, he hurled the improvised javelin at the disoriented hydra. The steel stabbed into one of the necks, sinking deep into the scaly flesh. The writhing nest of the reptile’s heads snapped around, the fresh pain from this new injury cutting through the confusion that gripped it. The hydra’s snake-like eyes narrowed with malice, as one of its beaked mouths snapped open. Eugen opened his arms wide and laughed as the concentrated flame of the hydra engulfed him.
Let Uhrghul Skullcracker try to add these skulls to his totem, was the thought that filled the knight’s mi
nd as death’s fiery breath swept over him.
Theodo drove his dagger into the goblin’s sharp face, piercing its eye. The greenskin flopped away from him, rolling on the ground in agony. Some of its fellows actually paused to point and laugh at their maimed comrade before turning their attention back on the halfling. While the orcs had charged into battle with the men, their goblin allies had looked for softer prey, prey less likely to present them with a fight. The small halfling and the insensible Ghrum looked to them like a gift from Mork, the sneaky greenskin god of cunning and trickery.
He could have run, and tried to find cover, but Theodo was not about to abandon his stricken friend. For a time, he had been able to keep the goblins at bay with his keen archery, but while he had been sticking arrows in the goblins to the fore, others had crept upon him from the flank. Now they were all over him, crawling across Ghrum’s body like lice in their effort to settle their score with the halfling. Two of the goblins had discovered that Theodo knew how to use a blade as well as a bow. Unfortunately, the others didn’t seem terribly impressed.
A goblin with a crooked sword and a chewed nose circled Theodo, chopping at the halfling’s feet with its blade, laughing at the way he hopped to avoid the biting edge. Another, wearing a cowl of animal skin and a shirt of finger bones jabbed at him with a spear, trying to push him into the flint axe of a third goblin. Blind in one eye, the axe goblin made wildly inaccurate strikes at the halfling’s head, almost overbalancing with each attack.
Theodo felt his blood boil at the mocking, degrading laughter of the goblins. He was sure it was quite a novelty to the spiteful beasts to find an enemy smaller than them. Used to the humiliating disdain of humans, the snickering contempt of the goblins was more than he could endure. He struggled to keep his wits about him, to prevent himself from throwing his life away in some reckless assault. That would only play right into the goblins’ hands.
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