Lord of the North

by Michael Tinker Pearce

  They began to scatter away from him, most of them to the north. He rode back and forth, driving them forward mostly. Slowly the pressure from behind began to cause those ahead of them to hurry up. Over the course of a quarter hour, the mass of them began to compress, but they were so many that those out in front were slow to pick up their pace.

  The sergeant took a moment to pause, pull his looking glass out, and train it on the mass of enemy by the city. They did not yet seem to be pursuing. He supposed it would take some time to get so many of them moving, but it couldn’t be long. For all their efforts, the mass of slaves was barely moving faster than a walk. Horns sounded from the massed goblins, the signal to advance.

  Hemnir looked over the crowd of braell and the distance they had yet to cover to reach the notional safety of the gap.

  Lord and Lady help us!

  ***

  They’re not going to make it.

  Ageyra lowered her glass and shook her head. Even if they made it there’d be no time to get ready to hold off the baasgarta. They could not barricade the gap or the braell would not be able to pass through quickly enough, and the riflemen that should have been digging fighting positions and defenses were chivying their charges through. It was a good idea, she thought. There just isn’t enough time.

  “This’ll be a near-run thing,” someone said. Looking around she saw the captain of the rifle company. She been introduced but had forgotten his name in all the rush to get this operation underway. She’d been sleeping on a cot in the back of the makeshift headquarters in Taerneal and been woken before first light. Quick as she could get dressed and moving she’d been sent out to help, however she could, with this desperate plan.

  She nodded to the captain and considered the situation and their options. “Fact is,” she told the captain, “It’s a might worse than that.”

  He nodded. She could see it in his eyes; he knew it was hopeless and they were effectively doomed. There was nothing wrong with the plan—sound military reasoning: divert and divide your enemy, deny them their goals. Call a different tune than the one they’re dancing to, she thought. If they’d had just a little more time, more troops or even the most basic fortifications to fall back on, it might well have worked. Instead all we’ve gained is a brief distraction and a lot of dead dwarves. We just don’t have enough of anything we need to pull this off.

  She extended her senses into the rock beneath her feet, the hills around her. Tendrils of thought slipped through tiny cracks, flirted with damp and wet, moved through soil and rock to give her a picture of what she had to work with. When she had what she needed she withdrew into herself, shook her head and turned to the captain.

  “You just get as many as you can through the gap. I’ll worry about the baasgarta.”

  The captain looked at her askance. “No disrespect, ma’am, but you sure about that? That’s an awful lot to take on.”

  She shrugged. “I’m pretty sure, and if I’m wrong you won’t be any the worse for it.”

  She looked him hard in the eye and said quietly, “I know you gotta’ keep up a good face for the troops but you and I both know how this is going to end. Even a chance I can pull this off is better than what we’re looking at now. You just get as many as you can through and clear. I’ll do what I have to.”

  He still looked doubtful, so she said, “Look, what’s the worst that happens? One broken down old Stonewright ain’t gonna’ make much difference anyway. Just take what chance is offered… and pray.”

  She watched the emotions work across his face, then he nodded sharply, decision made. “As you say, Ma’am. Lord and Lady bless you. I’ll see you on the other side.” He reined his horse around and began issuing orders.

  No lad, she thought. You won’t.

  ***

  A whistled alarm caught Hemnir’s attention and he looked off into the distance. It took but a moment for his eye to settle on the force of baasgarta cavalry that had broken loose from the main mass of the enemy and was heading their way. When it did he swore softly.

  A quick glance assured him that the braell were moving as well as they were going to on their own. At a certain point they knew what was expected and just followed the dwarves in front of them. Raising the whistle to his lips he blew the signal for assembly. Others passed the signals along the line and he saw the cavalrymen breaking off and moving towards his position.

  A few of the braell paused to look back, but almost all of them then hurried to catch up to their fellows. It took a few minutes but even though these dwarves were new to the cavalry they were every one of them veterans. Before the baasgarta had covered half a league they were standing their horses before the sergeant in neat ranks.

  “Alright,” he addressed them. “This is going to be pretty simple. We’re outnumbered, but we’ve got the armor and training they don’t. There’s about five of them for each of us, so we can’t afford to get bogged down. We’ll hit them in a flying wedge and try to blow through, reform on the other side if we have the chance and hit ‘em again.”

  He paused and looked them over. “Fact is we can’t stop ‘em. But if we can break ‘em up, slow ‘em down, maybe the boys and girls of the Rifles can get in position. So… 3rd platoon, you’ll take point; 1st and 4th will flank them; and 2nd fills in the middle. If we get a second shot 2nd and 3rd change places.”

  At his direction the three platoons fell into line, with the 2nd spaced out behind. While they prepared, the baasgarta closed to a thousand paces and brought their carnivorous mounts to a full charge. Hemnir dropped his visor into place, drew a breath and bellowed, “Company! At the walk, forward!”

  The mounted dwarves started forward. He gave them a moment to dress their lines and get sorted before blasting the whistle for double time. He hadn’t been a cavalryman long, but it thrilled his soul to watch his dwarves pick up their pace as one, as each became a component of a single great engine of war. When the enemy had closed to four hundred paces he blasted the final signal: ‘In the wedge, charge!’

  Starting from the center of the formation first, the dwarves spurred their mounts to a full gallop. The flanks pursued, closing in until all together they became one enormous armored spear point hurtling on steel-shod hooves across the field of battle as they dropped their lances to target the approaching enemy. Hemnir noted that the baasgarta were still essentially a mob with about twice their frontage, and they were aimed at their center like an arrow to the heart. The sergeant, at the tip of the spear, was again overcome with a wild elation. This was what they trained for, had sweated and bled for the winter long. Through rain, snow, and mud they had forged a weapon of surpassing power, and now they were bringing that weapon to the field for the first time. We might not survive this, he thought, but by the Lord and Lady these goblin bastards are going to know they’ve been kissed!

  Moments before impacting the baasgarta, the wedge tightened its profile and Hemnir chose a target. The ulvgaed leapt for him as they came into distance and his lance slammed into its chest, wrenching the weapon from his hand. An instant later his pony rammed an armored shoulder into the animal, barely slowing as the lighter beast was knocked aside. He never saw what happened to the rider, but at a guess nothing good. Drawing his saber, he lashed out at kaliedoscopic tumult of violence around him. Impacts knocked his mount this way and that, some glancing off his armor’s plates, some throwing off his cuts. But most struck true and the dwarven steel bit hard and sliced deep, despite the leather armor the enemy wore. Blood splashed his face more times than he counted, but his visor caught most of it.

  The charge was slowed by the melee, but Hemnir kept his pony plunging forward. He was dimly aware of the dwarf to his right falling, the man behind leaping his pony over his fallen companion to take his place. Hemnir stayed ahead, and cut savagely at whatever he could reach, be it goblin or beast.

  An ulvgaed ducked its head to bite his mount’s leg but the spirited pony’s own battle instincts engaged and it anticipated the beast, clam
ping strong, square teeth deep into the creature’s muzzle. The pony planted its forefeet and spun. Flinging the lighter creature away into its fellows it completed a full turn round and then lunged forward again. Suddenly they were through. There was no time for a count, but they were fewer now. Wheeling his mount, Hemnir bellowed “At them! Hit ‘em again, and Maker take the hindmost!”

  He set his spurs and charged, and Lord and Lady bless them, the company fell in behind. Not the perfect formation of their first charge but plenty good enough. The baasgarta charge had broken, and they were milling in place trying to reform to meet the next attack when the dwarves plowed into them like an axe into a melon. This time the enemy tried to scatter, but their ranks were in chaos and they had little success. Again, it was a furious exchange, Hemnir’s pony leaping and crashing through the lighter enemy. Fully in the spirit of things, it lashed out with its hooves as it went, and snapped at the goblins and their beasts. Then Hemnir was through again, and as they left the enemy behind he took a quick look at their situation.

  The baasgarta infantry had closed and were nearly in range to fire their heavy crossbows. A few of the goblin cavalry pursued them, and he noted with dismay that as many as half their company was no longer with them. Here and there a lone dwarf, broken off and separated from the unit charged away on their own, some of them pursued by surviving baasgarta, but most were lost. There was not time for a third attack and the enemy was closing in. Time to go. He blew the retreat and the remnants of the company galloped away to the north.

  That’s our bit, he thought. Now it’s all on the rifles, Lord and Lady be with them…

  Chapter Thirty Two

  “A dwarf goes for soldier knowing what it could cost but never expecting to pay that price. The real measure of a soldier is what they do and how they act when the bill comes due…”

  From the diaries of Engvyr Gunnerson

  Ageyra watched the cavalry encounter with no little awe. The odds were impossible, but the dwarves’ armor, and more importantly their training and discipline, carried them through not once but twice. By the end nearly half the cavalry had fallen, but by the Lord and Lady, what a toll they took. More than twice their number of the baasgarta lay broken and bleeding. At the Lord and Lady’s table, there’s not a soldier among you as can’t hold his head high tonight. Save me a spot, and I’ll toast the lot of you.

  The braell seemed to have finally developed a sense of urgency about getting into the hills. Perhaps the sight of tens of thousands of baasgarta closing in, or the cavalry fight, convinced them that something urgent was going on. Many of the braell were carrying baskets of supplies and some now abandoned them as they scurried to follow their fellow slaves.

  The baasgarta cavalry had finally gotten themselves back into a semblance of order and now renewed their pursuit of the braell. They were closing the distance rapidly and spreading out to encircle their target. In moments they would catch up with their stolen charges, but as they closed to four hundred paces, the trailing edge of the retreating braell exposed the neatly dressed lines of the rifle company, who fired a massed volley. The effect was shocking; fully half of the remaining baasgarta collapsed as they took a bullet or their mounts were shot out from under them. The resulting tangle slowed the remaining riders as they tried to leap over or pick their way past their fallen comrades. Another volley slashed into them, and the survivors decided that they had had enough. Some rode back towards their own lines. Others hunkered down amidst the corpses that littered the field to wait for their infantry to catch up.

  Ageyra heard the whistles of the sergeants blasting the retreat, and rather than trying to herd the braell, the soldiers double-timed back to the gap, weaving their way amidst the fleeing dwarves. The leading elements of the slaves were already in the gap moving past Ageyra, but they neither looked at her nor jostled her. Not surprising really, she thought. That’d get them beaten or maybe eaten among the baasgarta.

  As the flow of refugees continued passing her Ageyra began her own work, grounding and anchoring herself in the earth beneath her feet. When he created dwarves from afmaeltinn stock, the Maker had channeled their magic into the specialties he required; the working of stone, wood, and metal. But that did not mean these were the only magics they could sense and manipulate. Magic took energy, energy mages took from their own bodies. So they husbanded their resources, coaxing, cajoling, finding the places where minimum effort would produce the greatest effect. Working with the natural weaknesses and character of the stone, or weakening those by wearing away at the subtle bonds in the structure of rock and earth. But they could access other energies too: the strength of stones, the stresses of infinitesimally shifting land, even the heat smoldering deep, deep in the earth. Ageyra found those energies now, and connected to them—but did not yet draw from them.

  Half lost in the timeless time of the earth she only dimly noted the flow of people past her. She quested through the layers of the world, nudging at a crack here, a rift or fault there. Tiny things, shifting imperceptibly began to add up. An underground stream found a new path. Molten rock found the weight of the earth above it shifting, weakening and allowing it to rise. Given enough time these would all converge to produce the result she needed.

  But time was something she did not have.

  The soldiers of the rifle company were passing her now. She could sense the difference between their boots and the bare feet of the braell through the earth. The captain stopped and spoke to her, but she dismissed him with a wave of her hand, and when she continued to ignore him, he moved onward.

  Now she could feel the small violations of the baasgarta’s hob-nailed boots as they grated into the rocks and soil. They were among the tail-end of the braell now, stopping them and moving deeper into the gap. Here and there she felt the blood of dwarves seeping into the dirt as the baasgarta struck down a recalcitrant slave, or simply made an example to show the others what could happen if they were disobedient.

  Moments passed, and she established and strengthened her connections. Now the enemy was deep within the gap and would be upon her in minutes. There were thousands of braell still passing between the hills or held in place, but it was time. She spared these innocents a brief prayer for the Lord and Lady’s blessing, then opened the connections she had established.

  Power slammed into her, burning through her body and mind. There was a reason these energies were forbidden; their lethal strength was more than mere flesh and bone could contain. Things began to happen very quickly, as they must, she had only seconds left before she was consumed by the very energies on which she drew.

  We are of the earth, and there is stone in the very bones of every man and woman. Ageyra reached out into the mob before her and touched that stone. There was no time to discriminate, and her mind was expanded by the very fires that consumed it. She connected to hundreds before she reached her limit, and channeled the energy through herself to shatter that stone. Men, women, dwarves and goblins, slaves and soldiers collapsed in a wave before her. Their agony matched her own. She drew on that pain to bolster her defense, to buy herself the precious moments required to complete her other, final task.

  She no longer coaxed, she demanded. Feeding all of the energies she back into the earth, she violated her sacred craft, rather than persuading, she forced her will upon the earth to her will. She did what no stonewright ever should, Lord and Lady forgive her. She abandoned seduction seduce rape to tear her will from the earth. The ground began to shake as water mixed with fire and flashed to vapor, building pressure to intolerable levels. Ageyra felt the remaining people in the pass pause as they smelled fumes forced from the earth by expanding steam. Stone shifted, quartz split and released tiny tongues of piezoelectric lightning to ignite the gases released from the bowels of the world.

  Ageyra’s body collapsed as the power burned the nerves from her legs, then spread upward, freezing her lungs and stopping her heart. But the excruciating pain of it was eclipsed by the fire engulfing he
r mind. As the last of her consciousness was consumed, she felt the earth give, and she knew it was finished. She let go of thought, of pain, and gave herself to the fire.

  ***

  The braell were passing into the small valley beyond the gulch that separated the hills. The rifle company was among them, guiding them. Runners from the guard’s cavalry had gone to the shepherds that dwelled there, having them gather their flocks to concentrate them at the far end of the flat ground. Likely they would have to be slaughtered to feed the braell and soldiers among them, but that was a problem for later. If any of them were alive to have a later.

  “Captain?”

  It was the First Sergeant. He nodded for him to continue.

  “The last of ours are through, but there’s still a few thousand Braell left in the pass. Word is the baasgarta are among them; we haven’t much time.”

  He nodded, “Right. Have the men take up what defensive positions they can and prepare to fire. Detail 1st and 2nd squads of 2nd platoon to keep the braell moving. Get them away from the gap, we don’t want to mow down more of our own people than we have to.”

  The sergeant nodded and moved off, shouting orders and gesturing to defensive positions. Not that it’ll make a grout’s worth of difference if our mage doesn’t come through…

  As if on cue the ground rumbled, roared and then jumped beneath his. The world turned to sound as he was smashed from his feet by a wall of air. The breath was driven from his lungs and he saw stars as is helmet impacted the ground. He was stunned, but alive and relatively undamaged. Smoke, dust and fire rose in a column into the sky over the hills, rolling back and flattening at the top in the shape of a mushroom. Small rocks, and then larger ones began to pelt the earth around him. Lord and Lady, what in the name of all that’s holy was that?