“I didn’t see them,” Talen said. “I was watching the trail farther ahead. I can’t look everywhere at once.”
“How far away are we?” River asked.
Talen had been keeping his roamlings low, behind the hills, for he’d seen many of the orange skir out by the armies. He sent his roamlings up over the hill in front of them. The plain spread out before him all the way to the sea.
“By the Six!” he said.
“What?” asked River.
“There are three blue skir. Lords, they’re huge. Mountains!”
“How far away,” Harnock prompted him again.
“Ten miles, maybe more.”
“What’s happening with the armies?” Harnock asked.
Talen looked over the plain. The sky in the yellow world was filled with a great number of orange skir, but Talen risked sending his roamlings higher. He saw the vast Mokaddian army. He saw Shim’s smaller army ahead.
“They’re running,” he said. “Shim’s horsemen are fleeing.”
“A hammer of them?” Harnock demanded. “A fist? How many?”
“The whole army.”
“Regret’s eyes,” Harnock said. “Let’s move.”
The trail they were following turned and climbed to a saddle between two hills. They galloped up the slope to the crest, and stared at the plain below them.
Out on the plains, three huge winds whirled enormous columns of dust and debris.
“Those will be the death of them,” Harnock said. “What was Shim thinking?”
“We’re at least an hour away,” River said. “We’re not going to make it.”
Harnock said, “How far can you reach with those roamlings?”
“I don’t know,” Talen said. “But I don’t want to test it here. The sky is full of those orange skir.”
“If you don’t deal with those blue beasts, I don’t think there’s going to be any of Shim’s army to help when we finally arrive. We might as well turn around now.”
“I don’t know where the Skir Master is,” Talen said.
“Probably on one of those ships,” Harnock said and pointed.
Talen looked out at the coast, but couldn’t see clearly enough with the eyes of his flesh. So he looked with the eyes of his soul. A small fleet of ships sat off the coast. Odd, smaller skir circled around them. They were waiting at the mouth of a river that ran down from a canyon.
Talen said, “If Nashrud had a blade, the Skir Master is going to have far more. I bet he has guards or some awful servants in the world of soul.”
“You don’t need to ravel him,” Harnock said. “Leave him alone. Ravel the thralls in those urgom.”
Talen gazed at the urgom in the distance. They were so large. His roamlings would be like specks against them. What if the Skir Master turned them against him? How could he do anything against such might?
A murder of orange skir fluted and raced overhead.
“We need to get closer,” he said. “We need to get a lot closer.”
19
Fort Echo
ARGTOH RACED WITH the remainder of Varro’s terror across the dry grass of the autumn plain. Thickets and copses forced the six thousand riders into the channels of open ground between the trees, and the riders flowed like water, thousands of hooves thundering, churning up the earth below them. Behind, the whirlwinds approached.
Ahead of Argoth, the leading groups of Shim’s column broke onto the open ground before the fort. The red stone fort stood at the crest of a gentle swell a few hundred yards away. Behind it rose the orange and red cliffs of the Corals.
Argoth and Varro’s terror shot past the last of the trees and joined the hundreds of riders galloping for the protection of the twelve-foot walls. Lord Hardy’s riders, their many banners flapping in the wind, raced along the foot of the mountains to join them. As Argoth rode up the swell, he glanced back. Lord Vance’s riders, having been the longest distance from the mountains, were still out on the plain.
The old rock fortress backed up onto a sheer slope of rock and hoodoos. There were entrances to caves and chambers carved into the rock back there. But that wasn’t the only unique feature of the fort. The stone-wights had turned two of the hoodoos into towers, and the old settlers had built the walls to incorporate them into the design. One of these was about thirty feet tall. The other was almost twice that height. Running up the sides of these towers were black window-like openings.
It was obvious the fort had not been used for some time, for scrub had grown up in places in the ditch that ran around the fort walls. It was also clear that the fort was too small to contain all the horses and men in this army. They were going to have to turn thousands of the animals out. Even if they could fit, it would not do to have thousands of horses in the fort, for when the Skir Master sent the winds, the horses would only panic and trample the men.
Shim must have seen that as well because he turned his cohort aside and ordered them to dismount on the field in front of the fort. When Argoth rode up, Shim shouted for him to get inside and figure out how to make a defense.
Argoth turned and galloped for the gates with Varro’s terror behind him. Ahead a thin animal trail led through the grass to the weathered wooden gates that stood partially open. As the riders thundered toward the gates, a herd of deer, clearly alarmed by the sound of so many men and horses, shot out of the fort, but then they saw the riders and panicked. Two fled away from the fort. The others turned and ran back in. If Shim’s men survived the day, those deer would be a welcome addition to their supply of food.
Argoth passed by the red stone walls. The old settlers had built them thick, and they looked solid enough, even if there was sign of weathering on the mortar, but twelve feet of height, while better than nothing, was not much protection against an army of dreadmen with ladders. It was nothing to the wind.
Argoth rode up to the gate, then reined in his horse, and leapt off to push the gate open wider, but the big hinges on both sides were rusted. He ordered two fists of men to get the gates working, then led his horse into the wide fort. There wasn’t much here.
When the settlers had abandoned it, they’d taken all the timber with them to build other structures. In fact, along one section, it seemed some enterprising local had come to take away some of the stones of the wall as well. Inside the walls, there was nothing left but flat ground, some of it rocky, some of it growing grass or the occasional twiggy scrub. Around the edges lay the stone foundations of where a stable and other structures had been built up snug against the walls.
Argoth ordered a fist of men to find out how much room was in the caves and chambers at the back. He ordered another to find the supposed pathway that led up the mountain. He ordered a third to find out if the towers were stable enough to hide in. He ordered the rest of the terror and others coming through the gates to start trenching.
At the back of the fort, the deer disappeared into the caves.
The one defense against the wind was to go to ground. If a man didn’t have a hole to hide in, he dug one. If he could, he dug a trench and filled sacks with soil, then pulled those sacks over himself. One of the best defenses against the wind was to cover yourself with the safety of earth.
The men quickly spread out, marked trench lines, and began to frantically dig with their picks and spades.
Eresh rode through the gates and dismounted.
Argoth ran to a stair and climbed up to the battlement to get a better view and see how much time they had. Eresh was not far behind him.
Below, the men working on the old gates gave a cheer as they succeeded in breaking the rust on one set of hinges with some lamp oil and a horse to help pull. But they’d freed only one of the doors. A fist of men hacked at a shrub that was in the way of the other door. The mule-drawn carts loaded with the seafire raced up the rise to the fort, bouncing and jostling, and wer
e directed inside. In front of the fort, Lord Shim directed the rest of his two thousand riders who were unloading their gear, racing to the fort, or driving horses past the fort toward the canyon. At the bottom of the swell of open ground, the first of Lord Hardy’s riders broke past the trees.
Argoth expected the whirlwinds would be right at Hardy’s heels, but they weren’t. They were still out on the plain. And then he saw what the Skir Master was doing. The two funnels of twisting dust and debris fed with missiles of stone and glass sped to block the path of Lord Vance.
Eresh raced up the steps to join Argoth and saw what was happening out on the plains as well. “Those poor sods,” he said.
“They’re not down yet,” Argoth said.
Vance’s riders were galloping full out. Two thousand men bent low over their horses as the animals stretched out. Two thousand men weaving through the copses, rushing like a river of man and mount. But the sheer number of them meant that some riders were shunted off to the side when they had to bypass obstacles. Argoth watched one horse slam into another, sending a man and his mount to the ground.
“They’re not going to make it,” Eresh said.
“Come on,” Argoth called. “Ride!”
The thick whirlwinds cut across the plain, whipping trees, breaking branches and carrying them up into the maelstrom.
“Gods, Vance! Ride!” Argoth said.
The first few hundred riders raced past a thicket, clearly beyond the path of the winds. More followed on the other side. Still more broke through farther down. The riders poured through the channels of open ground, and for a moment Argoth thought they would make it. But one of the whirlwinds suddenly changed direction and speed, and Argoth watched in horror as the whirl of dust and debris rolled over the column and swallowed up the back third of Vance’s men.
Those in front continued to race forward. A few cohorts of those right behind them came bursting out of the cloud of dust. But the thick stampede of riders escaping the swirling dust turned into a trickle, then stopped altogether. Horses screamed. Men shouted. A number of helmets and shields whirled up in the twisting winds.
A beat passed, then a handful of panicked horses came running out the winds. And then nothing.
The winds blew. The branches of the trees whipped and broke.
“Dear Six,” Argoth said. Hundreds of men were trapped in there.
If he’d only killed that Skir Master. If he’d just tried a bit harder to shove that knife farther up his rotted rib cage. What had he been—inches from the Skir Master’s lung or heart?
“Look,” Eresh said and pointed to a gap between the trees. A terror of men came stumbling out of the rolling dust, scarves tied around their faces, holding hands like children. They were limping and injured. A cheer rose up from a number of men by the fort who had dismounted and were watching the spectacle.
But almost as soon as the men stumbled out of the dust, four packs of dogmen came loping up over a rise. They saw the men. The maulers let out terrible howls. Some of the men heard them over the wind; others didn’t. There was confusion. Half the men began to run. Others formed up to meet the attack. But most were without shields, many without weapons. There were maybe sixty, seventy men out there. The maulers and the dogmen plowed into them with axe and tooth. Vance’s men tried to stand. But the dogmen and their horrid beasts ravaged the men in front and broke the ranks. A few of Vance’s men stood their ground, but most turned to flee.
“Eagles!” a terrorman in front of the fort shouted, calling his riders. His men started to mount their horses to go help the men on the plain, but Shim’s hornsman blew a note that reverberated off the cliff walls. The men stopped.
“Into the fort!” Shim bellowed. “All of you! You cannot fight the wind!”
Out on the plain, the maulers and dogmen fell upon more of the fleeing men.
“Do not waste yourselves!” Shim shouted. “Into the fort!”
The men hesitated, but it was clear those on the plain were doomed. The men dismounted again, their faces full of dismay and horror. Down on the plain, the maulers and dogmen chased after the last of the fleeing men.
Argoth watched the monstrous dogs take the men down and clenched his jaw. He hated Mokad.
Matiga and her fell-maidens galloped onto the field and were directed into the fort. Shim sent in a few other mounted riders to join them, probably so that if the army escaped, they’d have outriders. Then Flax and the terror of men he commanded rode up and dismounted.
Shim tried to keep the dismounting riders and the drovers, who were moving the horses away, working in an orderly manner, but it was still chaos. Moments later Lord Vance and his cohorts that had escaped the winds raced up the swell.
Shim’s men poured through the gates and were directed to a place to dig. Hardy’s and Vance’s men joined them. Then Lord Shim and those with him brought up the rear. When he rode through, he ordered the gates closed and barred, then joined Argoth and Eresh on the walls.
Inside the fort, the men frantically dug their lines, picks striking, spades shoveling the dirt into sacks. Outside, the drovers harried the multitude of horses up the canyon and away from the fort. They wouldn’t go far, for the river swung in a great oxbow up against the southern wall of the canyon, but at least the animals would be out of the way.
Shim could have tried to cross the river at the oxbow and escape up the canyon, letting the horses swim with the riders holding on to their saddles, but the river was turbulent there. Furthermore, Mokad’s army on the other side would have simply moved from the ford and waited for them to swim across. The slaughter would probably have been greater than at the ford.
Argoth turned back to the winds to gauge how quickly they were approaching and found they hadn’t moved really much at all.
“Why not take us now?” Shim asked. “Why are they giving us time to trench?”
“You’ve defied Mokad,” Eresh said. “You’ve committed treason on a grand scale. And now that they’ve got you corralled, they’re going to take their own sweet time. You can be sure those whoresons commanding Mokad’s army are laughing at us. We’re in here like pigs waiting for the slaughter.”
It would not do to have the men hear such comments. “Keep your voice down,” Argoth said.
Flax made his way across the courtyard and climbed the stairs to join them. Eresh gave him a baleful glare.
Shim said, “We are not pigs, Master Kish. We are slaves that have broken free. Slaves that are standing at last in the sun. This isn’t over. All we need to do is break through into the mountains behind us.”
Flax smiled. “There’s your salvation, grandfather. You give up too easily.”
“You,” Eresh said. “You’re the one that got us into this mess.”
“I’m the one—” Flax began, but Shim cut him off.
“Flax does not command this army, Master Kish. I do. His plan was solid. How Mokad found out about it, I do not know. But that is not his fault. Battle never goes according to plan. The key is to deal with the surprises with wisdom and cool heads.”
Eresh gave Flax another withering glare, then sighed heavily and turned to look at the cliff at the back of the fort. At the bottom of the sheer rock were three archways. Spread above them on the face were a scattering of small black openings, windows of sorts. “I’m not seeing a path. What I see is a wall of rock.”
“The stone-wights were tunnelers,” Shim said. “The path is surely back there.”
In front of the archways, a group of men rigged a rope and bucket to draw water from a well. Inside the main archways, the deer that had been trapped in the fort could just be seen, huddling in the corner of the main chamber.
A soldier with the helm feathers and discs of a fistman sprinted past the deer and out of the archway into the fort. He was the leader of those sent to find the path.
“We’ll have our answ
er soon enough,” said Argoth. “Here comes our report.”
The man spotted Argoth and the others, then ran toward their position, dodging past the lines of trenching soldiers. He dashed up the stairs to the battlements.
“Well?” Argoth asked.
The soldier removed his helmet. “There are a lot of rooms that will protect the men from the wind.”
“And the path?”
“We think we found it,” the soldier said. “But it’s blocked.”
“What do you mean?”
“There are at least three levels of chambers that have been carved into the cliff. You can see the windows.” He pointed at the dark openings dotting the rock of the cliff face, then pointed to one side. “Do you see that cleft in the rock there? That big crack?”
Argoth looked where he was pointing. There was a narrow fissure running up the red rock of the cliff face for a couple hundred feet.
“We think that’s it. On the top floor—well, there might be other levels, but its highest level we’ve found so far—up there, the main passageway runs right to that fissure. You can see holes in the rock where the hinges of a door would have been. It opens up onto a narrow path that leads back away from the cliff face. That fissure is very narrow on the cliff face, but opens up inside the cliff. It’s a narrow slotted path, maybe a dozen feet across, with the rock rising hundreds of feet on either side. We followed the path to a stone stair, but there’s been some sort of rock slide, and a number of boulders block the way.”
“Can you clear them?” Shim asked.
“It’s tons of rock, Lord. We’re working on it.”
“What about climbing over the plug of stones?” Eresh asked.
“Two of my men are trying to figure that out.”
Shim said, “Go to Lord Burdock. Tell him I need a hammer of his quarry men. If anyone can figure it out, it will be those rotted Burundians from the hills.”
“Yes, Lord.”
“How much space is in those rooms?”
“Just inside the arches is a wide chamber. From there a passageway runs parallel to the face of the cliff. On one side of the main passage runs a series of rooms next to the cliff face. Those are the ones with the windows you can see from here. On the other side of the passage are more rooms. Then there are a couple of passageways that lead directly into the mountain. They aren’t long. We’ve counted about eighty rooms of various capacities. Some are the size of closets. But many would hold twenty men if they were all standing at attention.”
Raveler: The Dark God Book 3 Page 23