by Vox Day
“Must be. They can’t have reached the bigger one yet.”
The viscomte nodded to him. “We know where it is. Shall we ride for it, monseigneur mage?”
“Aye, but slowly. No torches! I’ll ride next to your guide and leave a trail of witchlight behind me. But tell them not to tarry; the spell won’t last forever.”
“And when we see the skins?”
“Tell them not to be surprised when their torches light of themselves.” Theuderic had prepared one torch for each of the eighty riders in his group; a single word and all of them would ignite at once. He very much hoped they would encounter this first group of goblins before dawn, as the effect promised to be striking in more ways than one. “Then kill everything they see.”
The viscomte nodded and walked off to give last instructions to his captains. It wasn’t long before they were all mounted and moving deeper into the dark shadows of the great forest. It reminded Theuderic of the border patrols he’d ridden some fifteen years ago, a frightened young kingsmage with his royal blue cloak resting heavily upon his shoulders. Soon the night sky was gone, obscured by the leafy branches high overhead.
He would have liked to check with his other three colleagues, but Sebastien’s group had been pushing the most aggressively to the southeast, making it the most likely to encounter the enemy first. There was a certain risk in dividing their force into five parts, but they had all agreed to make contact through the flames at dawn, noon, and sunset, which would hopefully permit them to avoid any one group being isolated and overwhelmed. As long as the orcs failed to rally and regroup, Theuderic was confident that the prince’s men would be able to butcher any enemy they encountered with impunity.
Both the prince and his man Donzeau remained back at the camp. They retained a fifty-horse reserve and were supposed to be getting the men-at-arms and the peasant levies in some semblance of order in case the regrouped orcs were able to drive off the five cavalry squadrons and threaten the nearby city of Vallon-sur-Bois. Theuderic had his doubts about them managing the task; he was not counting on the prince’s foot being able to do much more than get trampled underfoot in a general rout. But matters shouldn’t come to that, especially since Sebastien’s first report indicated that the goblin cavalry was still disordered.
The false dawn was just beginning to pierce the darkness of the leafy canopy with faint hints of the new day to come when two of the horses whickered and Theuderic heard movement ahead of them. His horse threw its head up and broke the rhythm of its easy trot, leading him to conclude that the wolfriders were nearby. As the sound of the wolves loping towards them became unmistakable, Theuderic called out softly to the viscomte behind him.
“Now, Seigneur Roche!”
He heard the marcher lord draw steel behind him. “God, King, and Prince!” he shouted.
“God, King, and Prince!” the greater part of the men echoed the cry.
Theuderic counted to ten, to give the men time to find their torches and raise them clear of horseflesh and anything else that might not take kindly to the kiss of flame. “Fiat lux!” he said, triggering the spell, and the forest erupted before the light of eighty torches blazing into life.
The roar of the flames was echoed, then drowned out, by the frightened shrieks of the goblins. There were scores of them not more than an easy spear’s throw away, and they pulled up their wolves in sudden terror at the sight of the Savondese knights in front of them. But the wolves were exhausted from a long night of running, their red tongues lolled from their jaws, and eight or nine of them did not pull up, but instead threw their riders before fleeing into the trees. Theuderic could hear a deep-voiced goblin shouting what sounded like orders, but his troops had no time to do whatever he was ordering, because the viscomte’s men, led by Roche himself, rode past Theuderic and crashed into their midst, assailing the goblins with sword and torch alike.
Theuderic stayed behind them, content to observe the skirmishing. The viscomte’s scout had drawn his bow and was loosing arrow after arrow in the direction of the goblins’ shadowy figures; most of them missed, but the man did manage to send one shaft through the throat of a wolfrider, who promptly tumbled from his beast. It was one of the most confusing fights he’d ever seen, and for a moment, he thought one of the knights had gone down, but when he kicked his horse forward to see if he could help the man, he saw that the knight had only thrown down his torch, preferring to fight in the darkness rather than be encumbered by it.
A snarl was the only warning he had as a wolfrider nearly spitted him with a crude lance. He managed to parry it with his staff before pointing it at the goblin and blowing its head off its shoulders with a highly concentrated wind-summoning. It was a useful spell he’d learned from Abattre, an Immortel who unfortunately died in battle ten years ago before figuring out how to scale up the spell for artillery purposes.
Feeling its rider slump in the saddle, the wolf snarled again and leaped away, disappearing into the black trees. The goblins had a modicum of training, Theuderic recognized, but not enough to present the knights with much danger. Neither their poorly constructed weapons nor their wolves’ teeth could pierce the marcher knights’ armor, whereas a single stroke of a blade or mace was usually sufficient to cut them down.
“Ride them down! Ride them down!” he heard the viscomte shouting and rode in his direction. Theuderic swung his now-glowing staff like an axe as another goblin rode by and his arms vibrated as if he was chopping wood when the staff struck the creature right in the chest. There was an audible crack, and for a moment Theuderic thought he’d shattered his staff, but then he saw the goblin was clutching at its chest as it fell to the forest floor and painfully thrashed about in the mud in its agony. He pulled up his horse, leaned over, and shattered its head with a single savage, downward jab of the staff’s iron-shod bottom. He realized he was smiling broadly. War was a terrible thing, there was no question about it, but he would be lying if he didn’t admit that he was enjoying himself.
A flaming wolf shot past him, howling in pain and terror, and he laughed. Someone had obviously managed to set the wretched brute alight with his torch. It would make for a memorable sigil, he thought. The Flaming Wolf! If the viscomte knighted anyone after the battle, he would have to be sure to mention the sight. If that didn’t prove popular with the men, he would eat his bloody boots.
The goblins were shattered now, fleeing in every direction, and he could see by the bobbing lights of the torches that the knights were beginning to spread out too far. He was just about to send up the green burst of light they had agreed would be the sign to regroup when the viscomte’s hornbearer sounded the recall with two short blasts, a brief pause, and then another two blasts. Almost immediately, the lights began to converge, and Theuderic urged his horse towards the gathering of the flames. The knights moved aside to make way for him, and it was not long before he was at the viscomte’s side.
“We didn’t lose anyone. But we didn’t get as many as the buggers as I would have liked,” the older man complained. “Fucking cowards knew better than to try to put up a proper fight.”
“It’s a start.”
“Long fucking day ahead of us if we’re only going to kill twenty or thirty at a time, Seigneur Mage.”
“True enough. Before we go any further, I’d like to see what’s going on with the other groups. We’re not far from Sebastien and perhaps one of them will have contacted him.”
“Who?”
“The mage with Sieur Hirunel.”
“Ah, right.” The marcher lord cleared his throat and spat. “Do your witcheries, then. I’ll tell the men to wet their throats while we wait.”
But before he could even dismount from his horse, they heard a horn being sounded repeatedly in the distance. Four short blasts, followed by four more.
Theuderic and Lord Roche looked at each other in mutual alarm. The horn came from further east than Sieur Hirunel’s squadron, which meant that it was the one led by the defrocked priest tur
ned routier, Jean de Cervole. The signals had been agreed upon before they separated. One blast meant attack. Two blasts meant regroup. Three signified retreat. And four was a cry for help, indicating that the squadron was outnumbered and in trouble.
The marcher lord looked away and Theuderic suspected he knew what the older man was thinking. If the orcs had successfully regrouped, they might find themselves facing three or four thousand, perhaps even more. It would be insane to take such a risk on behalf of men who were little better than land-pirates.
“The prince would likely look askance at the loss of one of his mages,” he commented.
“He’d look a damn sight more askance at losing two, to say nothing of the loss of another hundred fifty horse. And I’d look askance at me getting et by them monsters.”
“I can see where it would be tempting to leave de Cervole to their tender mercies.”
“Grey-toothed bastard tried to bugger one of my squires two summers ago. If it was just him, I’d leave him for the damn orcs. And half his men are scum too. But they got Joscelin de Courcillon and Michel de Brienne with them. They’re good lads.”
Theuderic waited. He could hear when a man was trying to talk himself into something he really didn’t want to do. And, to be honest, Theuderic wasn’t terribly enthusiastic about the idea of riding to the squadron’s rescue himself. The idea of galloping into the woods and butchering hundreds of defenseless orcs had seemed dangerous, but viable under the mid-day sun in the safety of the camp. Now, with the dawn threatening to break upon the horizon, it struck him as insanely stupid.
The viscomte sighed. “Ah, well, I never wanted to die in bed and both my sons are grown men. And I expect my wife will sleep better without me snoring. Anyhow, so long as we don’t get ourselves ambushed and surrounded, we can outrun the stump-legged sons of whores. I suppose you can scare up a trick or two to give us a head start, Sieur Mage?”
“Without a doubt.”
“Good man. You remind me of Amand. What was his name? Estochait, I think. I rode the border patrol with him.”
Theuderic blinked. Amand Estochait was an Immortel, and so fat it was hard to imagine him ever sitting a horse. “You knew Estochait?”
“Damn good man with a timely fire spell,” the viscomte declared with a faint smile. “So after all these years, here I am, still riding the woods with a damned bluecloak, hunting orcs. Well, shall we get on with it, Sieur Mage, or shall we leave the verdards to bugger the bloody curé in peace?”
Theuderic glanced back at the men. Most of the riders were covered in varying amounts of green blood. He saw no fear in their eyes, only anticipation. He nodded to the old nobleman.
“Keep it close, lads,” Lord Roche’s voice boomed out through the trees. “You heard the horns. That damned de Cervole has got hisself in trouble and it’s our duty to see that he dies the death he deserves, with a rope around his fat neck! We already had goblin for the starter, so let’s go kill some orcs for the next course!”
The men roared, more than willing to follow the viscomte into more slaughter and bloodshed. Theuderic laughed, though he wasn’t sure if it was the thought of Amand Estochait on a horse or the world-weary expression on Lord Roche’s white-mustached face that amused him more. He kicked his horse into a canter, ducked under a low-hanging branch, and wondered what on Earth had convinced him to let the old man talk himself into rescuing the others.
Lodi
It was the fourth day of their journey downward and Lodi found himself beginning to fantasize about pushing his pretty young travel-companion off the cart. He would have thought her mute were it not for their single earlier exchange; she responded to most of his conversational overtures with a flat, uncomprehending stare that would have done credit to an orc being lectured on the gods by an Amorran priest. It was maddening to sit so close to her in the darkness, knowing that she was there, smelling the alluring scent of her body, and not even being able to talk to her. For a dwarf who had been away and above for very nearly a year, it was something akin to torture. Even if she had been an older dwarfess, like the Bodel-wife, he might have found her tempting. But the young Deepling was as exquisite as a newly found gold vein rated at more than 20 unsam per tonne!
His one saving grace, the one thing that kept him from giving into the temptation to take her in his arms or make a fool of himself by trying to kiss her, was the fact that he was still in a considerable amount of pain. His wounds were healing, but they were far from fully healed, and indeed, twice each day Myf crushed a bit of glowmoss and checked his bandages in the dim green glow it cast, changing them if she deemed it necessary. Her touch was always light and gentle, and if he closed his eyes he could almost imagine she was caressing him. And yet, despite her tenderness, she never said a word nor evinced even the slightest interest in any of his conversational gambits. By the end of the second day, he gave up trying to break through her reserve and contented himself by lying back on his well-beaten leather pack and calculating how much profit his various veins had produced during his absence.
That was one benefit of being an adventurer in the King’s service. It kept one’s expenses down. On the other hand, it had led him here, where he was lying on his back in the dark, wounded, bored, and frustrated. At times, he actually found himself wishing he was back in the troll-infested mountains of Uskiluhk, clinging to the side of a windswept cliff and hoping that an angry wyrm wouldn’t notice him. At least in Uskiluhk, there was no possibility of feminine companionship, barring an unlikely decision to court an orc. He knew he was only making matters worse for himself, but he couldn’t help it. Each time the pitch dark was sporadically broken by strategically placed glowmoss on the walls, he immediately turned to look at Myf. Even though each flashing, blurry glimpse lasted only seconds, it wasn’t long before he had her every feature burned into his mind.
Fortunately, after three days of silently riding in the cart without a single stop, the tunnel-train finally came to a stop in a small, well-lit cavern where the wheels were examined, the pulleys were carefully checked, and another six sections were attached to it, including, much to Lodi’s relief, an actual passenger cart. Its toilet facilities were the same seat-and-hole arrangement that he and Myf had been using the last three days, but it had proper seats, genuine storage space, and a roof. Also, the prospect of company that didn’t leave him feeling alternately infuriated and foolish was a welcome thought.
He was informed by the station-master that they had less than an hour before the train would automatically resume; the tunnel-train waited for no dwarf. Lodi took the opportunity to visit the cavern’s tavern and purchase a lunch of fried cave-fish and ale, which was particularly delicious after the dried rat and fungi on which he and Myf had been subsisting on the first part of their downward journey.
He paid and bought a large sack of spiced mushrooms that looked rather more appetizing than the fungi he’d been given by the surface dwellers. He also bought a small tin barrel of mushroom wine, deciding that it would taste better at cave temperature than the ale since the tunnel-train lacked any deep wells in which to keep it cold. When he returned to the train, he saw a pair of fair-bearded dwarves who must have been brothers, so similar were they, overseeing some crates being dwarf-handled onto the train.
From the way they were strapped and restrapped onto the cart, Lodi assumed they must contain something valuable. Certainly the two brothers looked prosperous enough, wearing thick wool capes and shiny new leather boots. They stared at him curiously until one of them realized he was a fellow passenger, after which they came over to introduce themselves. They were Thori and Yori, custom pickaxe makers, and they were traveling down to the capital to deliver more than fifty orders they’d fulfilled over the last year.
Myf was already seated in the corner of the passenger cart, looking out the glass window towards the darkness of the tunnel into which they’d be descending soon. Fortunately, the cart had a glow lamp built into the ceiling, so there would be no repetition of t
he silent journey through the darkness he’d endured earlier. Three more dwarves clambered aboard as well, a young married couple traveling deep to visit the dwarfess’s parents and a rather shady-looking dwarf with a black beard who claimed that he’d been summoned to serve in the army.
Lodi, observing the poor state of his clothes and the way his heavy coin purse hung from his belt, guessed that he’d been hired as a substitute for one of his wealthier clansmen. It was a legal dodge, but it went a long way towards explaining why most of the regular Army units weren’t worth a well-mined vein of marcasite. The married couple introduced themselves as Raldri and Raldrizena, while the shabby soldier-to-be announced himself as Orin Sperrylite. Lodi was relatively sure that was actually the name of the dwarf who had paid his new namesake to stand in for him, but he wasn’t inclined to press the dwarf on it.
A small crowd of well-wishers, mostly young dwarfs and dwarfesses, had gathered to see Raldri and Raldrizena off. Raldrizena cried prettily, as befitted a young wife, giving her new husband the opportunity to comfort her. She was sitting between her husband and Myf, who sat next to Lodi, while Orin, Thori, and Yori took up three of the four seats that faced them. The seats slid down to provide makeshift beds, and Lodi was deeply grateful to see that there were bars that would prevent one’s neighbor from inadvertently rolling over atop one while asleep.
“So, how long is this going to take?” asked Orin brightly. His face was a portrait in comic dismay when Thori informed him it would take two weeks before they would reach Iron Mountain.
Lodi had no idea how the tunnel-train operated; as near as he had ever understood, it operated by virtue of some form of magic that had something to do with the thermal energy generated deep under the deepest mines, where the rocks themselves were said to glow red, and deeper still, flow like water. All he knew was that it was the fastest way to travel safely under the lands belonging to Men, Elves, and Orcs, and it moved continuously, always maintaining roughly the same speed whether it was sliding down deeper, traversing a flat, or climbing a short rise.