Song of the Serpent

by Hugh Matthews

  Krunzle thought it a bad place for a fight. The stream took up most of the valley floor and the trees came almost down to the water. If anything came out of the forest, it would be on them in no more than three strides—two, if it was bigger than a man.

  "What's going on?" he asked the world in general. Brond was engaged in a low-voiced consultation with Torphyr, and Gyllana was listening in, so it was Raimeau who answered him.

  "Orcs."

  The thief sniffed the air. "Dead orcs?"

  "They've sent scouts up the creek to see."

  The senior crown saluted his leader and went forward to where the spears of the leading half-platoon bristled. The dwarves stood silent, the only sounds the occasional creak of leather harness as someone shifted his equipment to settle it, and the shuffle of the cold wind through the tops of the evergreens.

  There came the sound from up ahead of approaching footsteps. The shield wall tightened in a series of clacks! Then two spear-dwarves came trotting around the bend of the stream and halted before Torphyr to report. A moment later, the senior crown was bringing the news to Brond: The party that the leader had sent after Wolsh Berbackian had been ambushed in a clearing not far ahead. They were all dead.

  The bald dwarf was not one to linger over a decision. The column would advance to the site of the ambuscade in battle order, and at the double. Krunzle wanted to suggest that they all head back the way they had come, preferably at a gallop, but even as the words were forming on his lips the column surged forward. One of the bodyguards seized the reins of his horse and he was left clinging to the saddle's belly-protector.

  The ambush had been sprung at a place where the stream, filled with spring snow-melt, had long ago undercut a high bank. Year by year, the spring freshets had cut away and carried off more of the earth, leaving only a wide and curving field of stones. It would have been as good a place as any the narrow valley offered to stop and rest, refill water bottles, or kindle a fire for a meal.

  By the evidence, the six dwarves sent after Berbackian had been engaged in all of those activities when a large party of orcs had sprung upon them from the trees. The six corpses were scattered between the trail and the water, all of them hacked and gutted—orcs were known to be fond of dwarf liver—and with their weapons missing. Amazingly, there were no orc dead.

  "They may have carried them off," said Torphyr, when Brond commented upon the absence of enemy dead. But a closer inspection of the ground showed no splashes of blood or pieces of severed flesh that were not dwarven. The senior crown pushed back his helmet and scratched at the hair above his forehead and said, "I can't account for it, Noble Head. To take six of our lads by complete surprise? Orcs can't be quiet enough, long enough, to pull off an ambush. Unless ..."

  "Unless what?" said the bald one.

  "Unless they're led by someone who terrifies them into silence and stillness."

  "I think," said Krunzle, "that we should withdraw to Grimsburrow and consider our options." He half expected to be choked off by the snake in the middle of the sentence, but Chirk did not interfere.

  Possibly, because it didn't have to. The hairless dwarf turned his pale eyes to the thief and said, "Spoken like a true rogue. Now hear a true dwarf speak." He raised his voice to be audible to all of the dwarves, arranged in a hollow square whose outer layer bristled with the weapons of spear-dwarves. Behind them stood ranks of axe-dwarves, while the center held the wagons and horses and the Noble Head himself, ringed by his bodyguard. "Enemies have come into our land," he called, "foul enemies who have struck down our comrades and feasted on their flesh! What will we do with these fiends?"

  The answer was immediate, and issued from a hundred dwarven throats: "Kill them!"

  The leader looked back to Krunzle. "Would you like to try to change their minds?"

  A dwarf in plate armor was glaring at the traveler. "I think not," said Krunzle.

  They wrapped the six bodies in tent canvas and put them in one of the wagons. The column reformed again, this time with its flanks strengthened by spear-dwarves from the forward and rear guards. A squad of the fleetest-footed young dwarves, sent ahead to scout, returned to report to the senior crown that the orcs had gone upstream. The officer relayed the information to Brond and added, "Something strange, Noble Head: a set of hoofprints in the wet ground beside the stream. One of them overlaps an orc print."

  "Meaning?" said the bald one.

  "Meaning that some orcs were waiting upstream while others got into position for the ambush. The human passed right through them. Indeed, my best tracker says they seem to have made way for him."

  A cold shiver passed down Krunzle's spine. Chirk? he said, inwardly. What is going on?

  The snake did not answer.

  Brond was saying, "Are you telling me that the orcs ambushed our lads but let the Blackjacket pass?"

  Torphyr nodded. "Almost as if they wanted him to get through and didn't want us to catch him."

  "We need to think about this," Krunzle said. "I can feel it. Something is going on that is bigger than we are. Let us go back and—"

  The bald dwarf stuck out his chin. "The only thing bigger than us is our destiny," he said. "I want this Berbackian. I want to know what a human is doing working hand-in-paw with orcs—orcs who are killing dwarves." He spoke to the senior crown. "We will go forward. There will be a reckoning."

  Torphyr strode to the head of the column, ordered the scouts forward again, then in a parade-ground bellow, "Column will advance! At the quickstep!" His arm came down, and at the head of the vanguard an older dwarf with three arm-rings and a voice that could have battered down stone walls began to count off the paces.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Chapter Ten

  The Battle at the River

  The valley imperceptibly widened as they went on following the stream south, the slopes falling steadily back until they left a wide bottom for the stream to wander in. The column kept moving until, with the afternoon shading toward evening, their valley met an even wider one, almost at right angles. Here, the watercourse had to be called a river, though it now became a wide and shallow one.

  Its banks were stony, spring floods having washed away the covering soil. The ground on the far side was gently sloped and thinly treed—at some time in the not-too-distant past a forest fire had taken all the timber on that side, leaving only blackened stumps. An expanse of long yellow grass had sprung up, broken by clumps of purple-flowered fireweed.

  But it was not the river, nor the stumps, nor the grass and flowers that drew the attention of Krunzle and his companions as the dwarven column emerged from the valley of the ambush. It was the dark, shifting mass that stretched across the high ground beyond the river. The wind had died down, but now it brisked up again, bringing the same sweet-sour smell the thief had noticed downstream.

  But now it was not a slight odor on the breeze; now it was a full-strength continuous stench, the reek of never-washed carrion-eaters who combed their shaggy manes with grease-smeared fingers and carried their next meal rotting in skin pouches hung about their waists. He recoiled, and as he did so the orc host sent up a bestial howl and clashed their roughly forged swords and axes together.

  "There must be three hundred of them," said Gyllana.

  "More like five," said Raimeau. "Look there, and there."

  Krunzle followed the motions of the thin man's outstretched arm, and saw, to either side of the body of the orc force, dark shapes among the stalks of long grass. "They're lying down. They don't want us to see them." And then the realization struck. "They're showing Brond enough orcs to bring him on the attack. When he comes up to their center, the hidden ones will jump up and hit his flanks."

  Gyllana was already saying to the bald dwarf, "Noble Head, this has the smell of a trap."

  "I see the ploy," said Brond. "Surprising for orcs. They normally rush at you, all in a body. This looks almost like tactics."

  "It also looks as if you're outnumbered five to one," Krunzle sa
id. "With them holding the high ground."

  The Noble Head gave the three travelers a bland look. "They're only orcs," he said. "Even if one of them has managed to formulate a battle plan and coerce the others into it, they will all lose their heads the moment we get things started. Then they will rush down at us in the same old way, and we will cut them down in the same old way."

  "I know that quote," said Raimeau. "Taargick used to say that to describe his battles against orcs."

  "You are well read," said Brond.

  Raimeau waved away the compliment. "But dwarves have not always beaten orcs. Remember Koldukar, whose streets were littered with the bones of your unburied dead."

  Brond's bald skull seemed to swell with suppressed outrage, but Krunzle knew the impression was just caused by the bulging of his eyes. "We are heavily outnumbered," the thief said. "We should withdraw."

  "Six of my lads are in the wagons," said Brond. "What's left of them. Some of their flesh is over there in the bellies of those filthy gribbishers. We're not going anywhere except to walk over the stinking carcasses of dead orcs."

  Gyllana would have joined in the argument, but the Noble Head was turning away. He kneed his horse forward and his bodyguard closed around him, putting themselves between him and the travelers.

  "The conversation seems to be over," said the Kalistocrat's daughter. She looked at the two men. "What do we do?"

  "Go back," said Krunzle.

  "No," said Raimeau. "If these orcs are smart enough to stage a trap, they're smart enough to leave a force downstream to catch any stragglers."

  He is right, said the quiet voice in Krunzle's head.

  So? the thief replied. What then?

  The snake answered and Krunzle repeated its words to the others: "We stay in the fort. It will be the safest place on the battlefield." Then he added his own counsel. "But be ready to run."

  "What fort?" said Gyllana. Krunzle directed her gaze toward the wagons.

  The dwarves had not been idle. Torphyr was giving orders and they were being efficiently carried out. The wagons had already been formed into a hollow square, with a gap at the rear. The oxen had been led a distance away and hobbled to keep them placid.

  The three travelers entered the makeshift fortification from the rear, tied their mounts' reins to brackets on the inner sides of the wagons. All around them was a bustle of activity. Krunzle saw the dwarves who had been driving the wagons now pulling back the canvas load-cover of one of the carts, revealing lengths of iron-bracketed, squared timbers that they passed down to others who carried them off to the front side of the impromptu fort, facing the enemy. The wagons on this side were now topped by planks to make a fighting platform, and here the dwarves were assembling their burdens of wood and iron and twisted, corded rope into—

  "Bolt-throwers!" Raimeau said. "I saw a picture of them in Uthorpe's History." He watched the dwarves working with methodical speed. "This will be something to see. Brond may well be right."

  The dwarves at the riverbank were forming up in three ranks on their side of the water, arranged in five half-platoons: three units of spear-dwarves, separated by two of axe-dwarves. The remaining half-platoon of spears marched around to the other side of the wagon-fort, to form a rear guard or, if necessary, a reserve.

  Brond and his bodyguard had gone forward and positioned themselves behind the center half-platoon of spear-dwarves. His seat atop his horse gave him a good view over his force's heads to where the enemy still stood along the high ground across the river. He raised his voice. "Company, about face!"

  As one dwarf, the three ranks turned their backs to the foe and fixed their eyes on their leader. Spears and axes clashed against shields in salute.

  Brond sat his horse and let his gaze roam over his small army. Then he began to speak in a conversational tone. "Dwarves of the Regulate," he said, "invaders have come into our land. They have killed our comrades in a cowardly ambush." A growl answered him from the ranks, loud enough for the orcs to hear; they set up a countervailing howl. The leader of the dwarves let the keening sound wash over them and die away before he spoke again.

  "Now they dare us to punish them." He spoke loudly, letting anger seep into his voice. "They stand there with our comrades' hearts in their pouches, our friends' livers in their bellies!" Another growl, answered by another howling from the slope, followed by another wait for quiet. "What do you say, dwarves of the Regulate?"

  The shout went up from every dwarven throat. "Kill them!"

  Brond dropped his tone back to a businesslike calm. "Then let us begin," he said. "Each of you knows his duty. You've done this a hundred times in drill. Now we do it for real." He paused as another howl and clash of metal rose from the orcs. "Listen for the command whistles, obey your officers and sergeants, above all, hold your place in the line, and all will be well." He looked at them again, left, right, and center. "Are you ready?"

  A hundred dwarven voices shouted, "Ready, aye, ready!"

  "Then fight for revenge, and fight for the rebirth of dwarven glory!" Brond cried. "Company, about face!"

  The three ranks turned again as one. Shields made a wall, and spears were charged, the second and third ranks aiming their points over the shoulders of their comrades in front. The axe-dwarves raised their long-hafted weapons, twirled them so that the fading light glittered on their polished blades.

  And now, with perfect timing, the five bolt-throwers that the dwarven weaponeers had erected and loaded on the wagon-fort crashed in unison, each hurling ten iron-tipped, wooden-shafted missiles over the heads of their comrades. The fifty bolts rose in an arc, each one spinning as its four tail-vanes caught the air, setting up a whirring sound like nothing Krunzle had ever heard.

  Then they plunged down and struck the orc host in a rain of death.

  The orcs had no shields, no armor except here and there a rusted helmet or a slab of iron slung from a neck strap to lie across the chest. The fifty projectiles, each as long as a man's forearm, should have wreaked havoc among the densely packed mass. But as the bolts left the throwers, a single hoarse voice, somewhere on the grassy slope, shouted a command. Immediately, the orcs at the back of their mob stepped backward several paces; those at the front stepped forward; those left in the middle spread out. And all of them squatted down, placing their crudely made swords and axes between their heads and the death whirring down from above.

  "That shouldn't happen," said Raimeau, as the missiles came down. Some missed entirely; a few bounced off orc weapons with a clang! Others struck home: Krunzle saw a big gray leap from his crouch, a dart stuck deep into the hunched muscle where shoulder met neck. With a roar of pain and rage, the orc seized the bolt's wooden shaft and yanked the iron point free. A gout of dark liquid fountained from the puncture, then another, and another, as the orc's heart pumped blood through a severed artery. Even as the orc flung the weapon toward the dwarven shield wall, his knees softened and he fell prostrate upon the grass.

  Other orcs had taken wounds, but few of them were fatal. Some hurled the bolts back toward their senders, though even the farthest-thrown missile splashed harmlessly into the river. Now the mass stood up, clashed their weapons together, and laughed at the dwarves standing silent across the shallow stream. Krunzle had never heard an orc laugh before; it was a sound to chill the bowels.

  Meanwhile, the dwarven weaponeers had recharged their bolt-throwers. They looked to their unit commander, a red-beard whose long hair was tied in two waist-length braids. He glared at the enemy, then shouted, "All sections, prepare to shoot! Section One, shoot!"

  The captains of the named team struck with their mallets; the bow-staves of the thrower, thrust into tightly twisted skeins of rope, sprang outward; ten darts flew up and out toward the orcs. The commander watched them rise, then as they reached their apogee, and as the orcs crouched and covered their heads, he said, just loudly enough to be heard, "Section Two, shoot!"

  A second swarm of razor-edged bolts followed the first. Sectio
n One's barrage fell among the enemy, and again the effects were minimal. But, again, the orcs stood up and, laughing, reached for missiles that had dug themselves fletching-deep into the ground, intending to hurl them back at the dwarves. And it was then that the second whirring hail of death came down upon them.

  "Sections Three, Four, and Five, shoot!"

  Thirty more missiles arced up and over the river. This time, Krunzle saw at least a dozen of the enemy drop lifeless, the iron tips lodged in their skulls or driven right through the torsos of those that had been stooped over to pluck up a spent missile. He heard others howl in anger and agony as the darts skewered legs and arms. He saw one thin-shanked orc bent over, trying to pull free the bolt that had nailed its foot to the ground, another staggering from their dark mass, reaching futilely backward with both hands to try to pull out a dart that had driven into the base of his spine. He fell to his knees, then sprawled face down, twitched a couple of times, and lay still.

  The orcs howled their rage at being tricked, and one or two along the front line raced forward, brandishing their crude weapons at the motionless lines of dwarves across the river. But, again, the orc force remained where it was; not even one of the dark shapes lying half-concealed in the long grass to either side of the main body stirred and rose into proper view.

  "This is not any kind of orc behavior I've ever read about," said Raimeau.

  "Perhaps," said the thief, "there's an orc version of the Noble Head, reviving ancient skills."

  "They never had any to revive," said the thin man. "This is ...strange." He studied the orcs, still standing in loose order, still mocking the dwarves. One of them rushed forward and turned to present his scabrous buttocks, slapping them loudly with both hands, while the orcs near him hooted and jeered.

  The weaponeers had reloaded, but their commander was looking to where Brond leaned down from his horse to confer with Torphyr. The senior crown saluted his leader, then turned toward the fort and made a hand signal that must have meant wait, because the artillery commander told his dwarves to stand by.