by Travis Peck
He shut the barn door on the way out and climbed the ladder. Rogair and Ester were carrying on with their watch, though keeping an anxious eye toward him as they were eager for relief. “How’s it been?” Crallick asked.
“Quiet. They’ve all stayed in their clump there on the knoll,” Rogair reported. “Ester still took her wall patrols, but we haven’t seen a single one leave their position.”
“All right. Why don’t you two call it a night?” The two quickly agreed. They shed their gear and were down the ladder in no time, ready to check on their children, eat some food, and then seek out their beds.
The moon was still full, thank the Giver, and the ravinors were plainly visible on the top of the small rise they had selected as their camp. Crallick squinted his eyes but could not distinguish how the leader was faring, much less identify which figure was his. He hoped the ravinor was hurting. And the fact that it had been such a quiet night so far credited that hope. But he had learned his lesson by underestimating this particular intelligent ravinor and would not assume anything.
Crallick put on the helm, ignoring the warmth and sweat in it; it was a small price to pay to avoid getting brained by a rock and falling as Myrna had. Putting his arm through the strap on the shield, he began to make a circuit while waiting for Barsus to join him. The ravinors did not look to be active for the time being, so he figured they wouldn’t be trying the gate any time soon.
The movement helped clear his head from the lingering sleep. As he expected, there were no ravinors along the wall. When he had made it to the spot on the wall opposite the gate, he saw Barsus climbing the ladder to begin his vigil. Crallick was proud of his friend’s eldest son. He would have made a fine soldier, but he knew that neither Myrna nor his old captain wanted that life for him. He hoped that they got their wish. They just had to find a way out of this situation.
The food was close to vanishing, and they would all have to start rationing now. That, with the lack of sleep, and the constant need for two people to be on watch, was starting to grind them down, and with Garet unable to help out and lead them, the burden landed on him and Barsus to take up the slack. But how long could they keep this up? A tired man made mistakes, and he knew that the ravinor leader would be quick to take advantage of any such slip.
These were notably different circumstances than they found themselves in during the Third. There had been a much more forgiving margin of error in dealing with the tactically challenged creatures. The extent of their strategy was to charge at any perceived meal, and they were easily distracted by their own dead. The retired sergeant knew that this was likely the beginning of a problem that was much larger, and it would prove to be more deadly than any of the previous wars had been. Barsus’s parents might not be able to avoid their son becoming a soldier if things were getting this bad everywhere.
After a candle had passed, the first attack of the night came. Crallick suspected that the leader must have realized his lapse and ordered a small-scale attack on the gate to test the humans’ alertness after such lax behavior. The sergeant and Barsus repelled the probing assault at the gate. He used one of Garet’s makeshift polearms and the younger man wielded a pitchfork. Two ravinors were killed, and they wounded a handful of others, before the small assault retreated back to their leader with their casualties.
Once the creatures returned to their former position atop the small hill, Crallick sent Barsus down to get some water. When he returned, the older man did likewise. It was important to stay hydrated. Even though it was past midnight, the heat from the armor he was wearing, and the exertion of the fight, had left him drenched in sweat. He had seen men fall from dehydration in the heart of winter, and they could not spare anyone the time needed to recover from that.
As his body calmed from the excitement, Crallick’s muscles protested their lack of quality rest. He was forced to patrol from the top of the wall to keep his legs from cramping up. As usual, there were no ravinors trying to sneak over, or under, the walls while they were occupied at the gate, but he knew they had to keep up with their wall patrols. The first time they did not check would be the time they should have.
Crallick stopped and looked around the area at the halfway point directly across from the gate. With the presence of the ravinors around their land, there was no sign of life other than a few squirrels and birds out to find some food while their normal predators were no longer in the area. Ravinors would certainly eat small game—or anything living that they could get their hands on—but they had not strayed from the knoll. Their own dead were providing them enough sustenance for now—in addition to the feast they must have had when Haelle was destroyed.
Crallick shuddered to think of the handful of inhabitants he knew who had resided in the nearby village. He did not often make it to the village, but he had enjoyed a pint or two at the local inn, and he had had some dealings with the blacksmith there, as well as with the supply store owner. He felt anger rising in him as he thought of Haelle being overrun by these creatures. He also felt a little guilt. Not that he was personally responsible for these attacks, of course, but he and Garet, and many other soldiers, had risked death and infection in the Third Ravinor War and now here they were again. What had been the point? Had their sacrifice only delayed the inevitable? The old sergeant hated to consider that they hadn’t done their job well enough, but the proof was right there before him, currently occupying the knoll. He spat over the side and nearly dropped his shield when he heard a muffled curse from below.
“Watch it, Crallick!”
He thought he recognized the voice, but the shock at hearing it here and now, coupled with his sleep deprivation, forced him to ask, “Mozz? Is that you?”
“No. It’s your aged mother down here, you daft bastard!” Came the retort from the figure crouched down at the base of the wall. Mozzarino Irasta. When Crallick and Garet had been in active service, he had been one of their cohort’s corporals. The short man stood up, and four other figures rose from around him, all armed and armored. “And what manner of greeting is that, to spit on your old friend?” Crallick could make out the man’s smile in the moonlight, though the rest of his swarthy face was difficult to see.
“Well, quit standing there looking poleaxed, and throw a rope down already,” the short, stocky soldier whispered up insistently.
“Hold tight. I will get some rope,” Crallick whispered back, and waved at Barsus over by the gate, who was looking over toward him quizzically. He mimed to bring over the rope. After some miscommunication, Barsus finally picked up on what he wanted. Crallick did not want to alert the ravinor leader of anything out of the ordinary going on, and prayed to the Giver that he was not paying attention to the far side of the wall. From their vantage point from the lower knoll, the sergeant did not think the ravinors could see people being hauled over the wall, but they could probably make out the two humans doing something on the other side.
Crallick tried to act as he normally did on patrol and paced back and forth a few times while waiting for Barsus to fetch him the rope. The lad handed him the rope, and Crallick put his finger to his lips to indicate that he must not shout out. It was a good thing he had given the young man some warning. The five imperial soldiers staring up at him might have forced out some noise of disbelief if he had not. Barsus smiled widely when he saw the heavily armed men.
Crallick waved him away to go back to his position above the gate. With some hesitation from the obvious urge to ask questions, the lad managed to follow his orders and returned to his post. The sergeant checked the ravinors again. Not one of them had stirred, or given any other indication that they had noticed anything amiss. He tied the rope onto one of the supports of the catwalk and tossed half of the coil over the wall to the outside and the other half down to the ground inside the wall.
Leaning over the wall, Crallick whispered, “I will explain later, but for now, come up and stay as low as possible. Then get down to the ground inside as fast as you can. I want to keep
you out of sight for now if we can.”
Mozz nodded once and grabbed hold of the rope. He was up to the top of the wall in no time, despite having all of his gear strapped about him, and a small satchel slung over his shoulder. Crallick did not dare stand still any longer and so, as nonchalantly as he could manage, began to complete his usual circuit, all the while forcing himself to pay no attention to the five soldiers climbing over the wall behind him. He checked the ravinors. They were still slumbering but for a few sentries that stared out toward him, fighting to stay awake like every sentry in any human army had done for centuries.
It seemed to Crallick to take an age to reach the end of the circuit so he could go back to join Barsus at the gate, but finally he arrived. The young man could hardly contain his excitement and had a palpable sense of relief upon seeing reinforcements. Five battle-hardened veterans were still not enough to drive off the ravinors, but at least it would ease the burden for the two exhausted defenders, and it certainly increased their chances for staying alive and uninfected.
“I’m going to get our guests settled, lad,” he explained to the near-bursting-with-joy Barsus. “Try to act normal. If the ravinors didn’t notice what just happened, then we can give them the Taker’s own surprise the next time they attack.”
“Thank the Giver.” Barsus grinned but turned back around and adopted a tired and bored stance. The tired part did not seemed forced. If Barsus was anywhere near as tired as he was, Crallick gave the young man all the credit in the world just to be able to stand at this point. But relief had arrived. Unlooked for and most appreciated—and desperately needed.
Crallick descended from the wall. The five Styric soldiers met him in the courtyard; all six men grinned with wide smiles, until suddenly, three of them were leveled to the ground, flat on their backs, by tawny blurs of movement.
“No! Off!” Crallick commanded in his most authoritative sergeant’s voice. The two smaller mastiffs were up and off the unlucky soldiers and were trotting over to him as if nothing had happened. Aelpheus was still growling, his hackles raised as one giant paw kept Mozz pinned to the ground as the snarling mastiff threatened the other four soldiers. “Aelpheus! No! Off!” He once again commanded and to everyone’s relief—especially Mozz’s—the large mastiff backed off the fallen soldier and loped back into the house, rumbling like an avalanche the whole way.
“Mozz, you old bastard!” he greeted his old corporal with a bear hug. The soldier’s armor creaked under the strain of the big man’s embrace.
“Leave off, you oaf. You’re as bad as the dog!” Mozz protested, but his grin never left his face. “I’m glad I wore the armor…” Mozz rubbed at his chest and arms when the large man put him back down on his feet.
Introductions were made all around.
“Crallick, these others joined up after you and the captain retired,” Mozz said, then pointed out each man.
“Privates Besra, Obrag, Walis, and Dhizhu-Rŭgin-Ammølis—we just call him Dizzy.” Mozz smiled as he saw Crallick’s brow rise at the Nøm-Ün born private. The man was larger than Crallick was by half a hand, and even with the armor on, he could tell the lad was solidly built. The four privates gave him respectful nods and he returned them.
“Well met, and thank the Giver you are here. Sorry about the greeting. These other two listen to me, but that big one is Garet’s, and he doesn’t listen to a word I say,” Crallick said, apologizing to them all. Putting an arm around Mozz’s shoulder, he added, “We can talk inside.”
The privates followed their corporal and Crallick inside the house. The interior was lit only by a small lantern. Everyone else was still asleep as there were still several candles before dawn. The soldiers all sat down at the table by his invitation. Crallick got them some mugs of ale, nearly the last of their stock.
“What brings you and your men all the way out here?” Crallick asked after he had seen that everyone had a full mug at the ready.
“General Aelpheus sent us here to bring back the captain,” the corporal answered. “He’s here, isn’t he?” Mozz asked after draining half his mug in one gulp. His old friend must have noticed the tightening around his eyes at the mention of Garet, and the corporal’s face paled. “No—infected?”
“No, thank the Giver, but he got knocked on the head pretty good. He’s been out since. Two days now,” he said.
The corporal cursed under his breath, and the privates looked none too pleased either. No man liked to waste the time and face the danger spent on a mission that may not be possible to carry out. But Crallick knew that the corporal was upset for the sake of his old friend, and not solely for the mission’s possible failure.
“I begged the captain to let us go on ahead to see what was what. We have a full century with us, but they are back a day or so. We’ve seen a lot of ravinor activity in the area, as you likely have guessed, so I wanted to get here as soon as possible. I should’ve asked to come earlier—curse the Taker,” the corporal explained, the regret clear in his voice and on his face.
“If anyone can come back from that, the captain can.” Crallick still believed that his friend would recover.
“That is the Giver’s truth.” Mozz agreed and drained the rest of his ale; his men followed suit at the sentiment. Crallick knew that none of these privates had ever met Garet, but if they were from the same legion, then they certainly had heard of him. Every soldier in all the legions knew the name and reputation of the famous Captain Garet.
“So, have you encountered anything strange with ravinors recently?” Crallick asked, praying that his fear for how widespread these new developments had become was incorrect.
“You mean the thinkers?” Mozz asked, and nodded. “You have one here, do you? Damn the Taker, that will make things more difficult. We saw our first one a few days out from the capital. Our century scouts had located the coven a few candles behind us, so we set a little ambush for them, but by the Giver, one of the ravinors grunted—or something—and the others changed direction and steered clear of the trap.
It took a few days of skirmishing back and forth to finally take care of the lot of them, but we never did get that thinker. We ran off a few smaller covens a few weeks back, but none of them had one of the smart bastards, thankfully. And it’s been quiet until we got up to your area. There are probably four covens from what we can tell. How many have you seen up here now?” Mozz asked after his report concluded.
“Three covens joined together. We’ve whittled them down some, and we actually had another coven attack us a week back; that’s how this whole thing started,” Crallick explained. “The first one didn’t have a leader—a thinker, I mean—and it was easy enough to lure them to the gate and light them up. Once that one was done for, Garet went to scout out toward Haelle and ran across what you see here. They followed the trail made by the first coven back to the house.”
“Is it like this everywhere?” the retired sergeant asked, his brow furrowed with concern.
“We sent a bird back to the capital after our first encounter, but we haven’t heard back that it is more widespread, though, I know that ravinor attacks have increased all over the empire. Queen Amalia is recalling some of the retired veterans back to service. Something big is coming from what I can tell…but you know how it is,” Mozz said and finished with a shrug.
Crallick nodded. He remembered his military days well enough to know that corporals, or sergeants for that matter, weren’t told everything. “Your captain know anything?”
“I think he might know a bit more, but I don’t think he knows any better than the rest of us why we were sent to get the old captain back.”
The four privates were keeping quiet, content with their ales and perfectly willing to let their superiors figure things out. Crallick recalled those days for himself as well. But then he had Garet to lead him in the right direction. “Where are your horses?” he wondered aloud suddenly.
“They’re tied up in a gully back to the south. Our scouts should f
ind them by dawn. We left a message for them, so they’ll know where we are.”
“And when do you think your century will be here?”
“Tomorrow night, I would guess. I’d expect a scout by midday to check on us at least.”
Crallick knew that they could hold out for another day, and though he desperately would like to go to bed, he thought it best that they keep going as they have been. He did not want to waste the element of surprise that reinforcements had arrived. The old sergeant said as much to Mozz; the corporal agreed.
“Well,” the corporal said, “we’re here if you need us. We’ll sack out in the barn so we don’t alarm anyone when they get up. And I don’t think that big mastiff wants us in the house anyway.”
Crallick could hear a low growl coming from the hallway at the top of the stairs; a deep rumble that would make the most tired of men unwilling, and unable, to sleep at all with that going on for the rest of the night. “Aelpheus is a bit on edge with Garet down. He’ll warm up to you eventually. You two are already getting along better than when he first met you.” Crallick laughed and slapped the corporal on the back.
“Anything is an improvement I guess, but I think the barn is best just in case,” he responded with unconcealed chagrin.
As their corporal stood up, the privates followed suit and pushed in their chairs under the table as they stood. Crallick was pleased to note that two of the privates had full quivers on their backs. That could prove quite useful, he thought as he escorted the men to the barn to sleep away the remainder of the night.
Barsus was waiting for him at his post and Crallick filled him in, though the youth seemed a bit disappointed that they would still have to finish their watch as if the newcomers were not there. Crallick seconded that feeling but knew that they now had an edge over the thinker and did not want to use it until the time was right. When that would be exactly, he was not yet sure, but he had learned a thing or two from Garet over the years, and he knew that his captain would approve of not revealing the advantage too soon.