by Greg Curtis
And even so they had paid a bitter price. More were dead and injured. Many more. He watched as the bodies were picked up from where they lay and carried to the priests. As the injured were helped to the healers' tents. So many more of them. And every soldier who fell here would be unable to fight in the morning.
Over the hours that followed, Sam and the rest of the soldiers moved out over the valley floor, looking for survivors of the attack and quickly destroying them. There weren't that many. What few of the termites that had survived the war machines and fire balls mostly hadn't survived the twisters, and the only ones that had were a few termites that had had the sense to remain buried. The earth protected them even against the hurricanes. But not against the slow and methodical destruction he and the other mages brought against them. A master of earth would find them and uncover enough of them to expose a steel nose, and then Sam would drop a white hot fireball right on it. The resultant explosion was like an earthquake as it was contained almost completely by the ground, though black smoke would rise from the grave.
As the others enjoyed themselves, destroying the last of the enemy's army, Sam's thoughts kept returning to one single question: What else was coming?
Already the enemy had surprised them, making up for his pitiful command of his armies with sheer numbers and a cleverly concealed second army. Only good luck, speed and training, plus the unexpected and clever use of magic had saved them this time. Next time they might not be so lucky. Could he possibly have yet a third army in reserve, or an even tougher type of foot soldier?
Already he'd used a steel beast never mentioned in any of the histories. What else was in his machina army? And how much study had he now done on the tactics and strategy of war? Because it was clear that he was learning. And if he became a master? Then this new Dragon might not only be a terrifying monster; he could actually become more deadly than the first.
The other question that troubled him during those long hours, was the fate of the dwarves and hillmen below. Did they still survive? The sheer size of that first army of steel rats had shocked him when he'd first laid eyes on it. Never before had he seen such a massive force, and despite the reports they'd received of the battle for Ragnor's Rock, he'd somehow not truly imagined the sheer scale of the enemy until just then. He wasn't even sure it had been ten thousand. He suspected it had been far more. And if this was what waited for them above the ground, what would it be like below?
He hoped that the dwarves and hillmen still lived. The enemy must have known of the elves' coming for some days now from the loss of his soldiers, and he had probably kept the bulk of his forces back to destroy them. Especially if he suspected Sam was among those coming. The enemy hated him with a passion born of fear. In any case the last thing he could have afforded was to be attacked from the rear as he assaulted the dwarven caverns. Even a complete idiot would know that much. Therefore he would have left his army underground in defensive positions, holding the dwarves back but no more, while he prepared for another attack above ground. Then once he had won through above ground he would have continued his war below. It was the smart thing to do.
But Sam had to reconcile that hope with the realization that the enemy was no war master. He might not have thought to have to strengthen his above ground forces. He might well have chosen to keep battling the dwarves below ground as hard as he could while thinking his forces above ground would be enough on their own. In which case what lay beneath their feet?
It was a long few hours as they walked the perimeter of the valley, destroying all the termites they could find. A time made longer by his worries. And by the looks on the faces of the others as they continued killing the termites Sam suspected he wasn't alone in his worries.
By late-afternoon the last of the termites had been destroyed as far as anybody could tell. Certainly Sam could feel no trace of them anywhere nearby, and no more could the other mages. Surely the best part of five hundred of the great steel beasts had been destroyed and he couldn't imagine that the Dragon had any more. Of course the entire region was thick with the tang of strong magic and there could be no guarantee of what there could truly be.
Nevertheless, the war masters were confident enough of their safety by then that he and the other mages and commanders were gathered together to plan out the next battle, while the men returned to their camp on the valley floor. Celebrations were put on hold. Ale and cider bottles were capped. And the singing died away as the soldiers took up defensive positions. There would be a large number of sentries kept on watch that evening, and sleep might well be in short supply, but it was a start.
The real question to be answered as far as they were concerned, was what waited for them below? They had planned for the surface forces in the valley, and had been caught off guard by the enemy's cunning and the sheer scale of his forces. They couldn't afford to make the same mistake twice. But how could they know the size of the force that truly awaited them below? Or what other traps he might have left for them? And now they knew he had soldiers that could burrow. They hadn't planned for that.
The original plan had been a simple one. They would simply wander down into the tunnels and destroy the enemy from behind the safety of their shields. Now they had to revise it. They couldn't risk the original established tunnels because there could be steel termites in the walls, just waiting for their forces to go past them and then launch an attack from behind.
The new plan was to use the masters of earth magic to open up new tunnels to the underground city, and then use those tunnels either to allow the people trapped below to escape, or to open up a new front to attack the steel rats. It would be slower and a battle that had been expected to last a day or two might take a week or more. Each new tunnel would be only just wide enough to allow one of the huge wheeled shields passage and perhaps a few of the people trapped below might be able to slip around the side and escape the city. But there would be no mass exodus. The city's original tunnels which were much wider would be blocked. In that way they hoped they could not just control the battle but shape the battlefield to their advantage.
Unfortunately the plan came with its own risks, as each time the mages created a new tunnel down into the city, they would have had no idea as to whether they were reaching the dwarven occupied sector of the city or the parts the steel rats held. They would have no idea either as to whether they should send down a rescue party or an assault force until the tunnel was ready. And by then battle might well be joined.
And now there was a new problem. After the day's battles they realised that they didn't even know what they would be facing or how large their assault force would have to be, or even if there was anyone left to rescue at all.
It should work. At least, that was what Sam kept telling himself. Against what they had thought was down there it should have been completely effective. But that was before the termites had shown their faces. Now they had to face the very real possibility that all their forces might not be enough. After all, nobody had any real idea of the termites' true capabilities or how many there were. All they knew about the steel termites was that they could tunnel in soft earth, but not solid rock when it encased them. Everything in between was unknown. Worse still, they could already be there, waiting for them in overwhelming numbers.
The most terrible possibility – the one that everyone was thinking about but no one mentioned – was that they could be too late. The dwarves and the hillmen could already be dead. This could all be for nothing.
When the party had escaped the Bronze Mountains, four long weeks before, no sign of the termites had been seen, and only the rats and spiders had gone below ground. The dwarves had been holding them off. The termites had clearly been brought to this land sometime between then and now, specifically to dig down into the city and add their own brand of horror to that of the steel vermin. How long had they had to kill the trapped dwarves, and how much death had they dealt? It wasn't a pleasant thought, and it also meant they might well be risking their l
ives for nothing, though no one dared speak the words aloud.
The debate on tactics raged among the war masters for hours, as everyone had their own ideas as to how to fight the enemy underground. Slowly the afternoon became the evening and then the evening gave way to night. Time though wasn't a problem. They'd always planned on having the second phase of their assault start the following morning, giving the mages enough time to recharge their magic, and the soldier's time to dress their wounds and recover their strength.
But it also gave the enemy a chance to recover.
As night fell and the smell of tea began wafting over the valley, the meeting broke up with little resolved. They had prepared for what they could and the rest was in the hands of the gods – something that only the priests seemed comfortable with.
Sam, along with most of the others, made his way over to one of the nearer camp sites to groom and feed Tyla before the battle the next morning, and then to get some hot food inside him. He had eaten nothing since breakfast – many hours and two large battles before – and the grumbling of his stomach and the saliva growing in his mouth told him dinner would be very welcome. After that he thought, he would go and spend some time with the healers, heating water and doing what he could to help the wounded. The All Father only knew they had enough of them.
It was then that the enemy struck for the third time, and the only warning he or anyone else had was the lone cry of a sentry, standing guard by the main entrance to the city.
But that scream was enough. Even as he heard the scream, Sam understood it and had to curse himself for his stupidity. Of course the enemy would strike at them instead of waiting for them to take the battle to him! It was his standard gambit. He attacked, and then he attacked some more. And all the while that they had spent foolishly debating the relative approaches to combat underground, he had been quietly moving his third army into position. Waiting for the time that would favour his own soldiers: Night.
The enemy had possibly been slightly too eager, and had attacked while there was still enough light to see by, but that was his only mistake. And it wasn't enough to save them. Unfortunately the elves had been caught completely flat footed by his attack.
Many were scattered across the entire valley, still looking for termite heads to pop up out of the ground, so that they could kill them as quickly as possible. Everyone else was camped, eating their dinners and maybe even daring to imagine they could get a good night's sleep. Few were anywhere near the entrance to the city, as the battles thus far had not been fought there. And they weren't dressed or armed for battle. Sam like the rest of the wizards had only a little of his magic on hand. The rest he had let slip after the worst of the battles had seemed won, hoping to rest up for the morning. But what he did have he remembered with some thanks, even as he started drawing heat from the surrounds, was a battle axe and a greatsword, both fully powered.
Sam vaulted onto Tyla's back and with a kick to her side, galloped madly toward the cavern entrance where he could see a dozen or more soldiers already being overrun by the steel vermin, which were coming out of the entrance like a river. A silvery steel river of death and glowing red eyes. As quick as he was – and it was only luck that he'd been anywhere close to the entrance himself – Sam was too slow as he saw the elves ahead of him start running for their lives.
They weren't nearly fast enough, and the rats were on them in moments, tearing into their flesh, even while he was still the best part of a hundred yards away. But the battle wasn't one sided, entirely. Two dozen or more rats had been taken out by the elven arrows even as they attacked, and at close range they were effective too. The elven swords had been swapped for heavier blades, and he could see more explosions as they took a heavy toll on the steel vermin.
An instant later Sam was upon the rats, riding straight into their midst no matter the recklessness of the attack, and, raising his battle axe high above his head, he released the magic held within it in a blinding ball of fire and lightning. He hoped and prayed that the elves that still lived were far enough back that the spell wouldn't hit them, but he knew he had no choice. Just as he knew if he didn't use the enchantment they would be dead soon enough anyway as the rats overran them.
The result was everything he'd hoped for as fifty or a hundred of the rats simply exploded even as they charged down the sentries, giving them enough time and room to make a better stand. A score or more of them were down, probably dead, but perhaps another dozen were on their feet and running for safety. Meanwhile others were forming a line as they raised their long bows. And with the closest rats destroyed Sam knew that that was his chance to retreat with the others. To fall back behind the line. He took advantage of it. What he had done had simply been too reckless, and Tyla could have been killed.
With the first wave down, the soldiers were able to switch once more to long bows; always an elf's truest weapon. Another two dozen fell to their arrows even as Sam joined them on the line and switched from battle axe to greatsword. Then he unleashed his favourite fire scythe spell.
The rats had no chance. Attacking them in a column formation, the shape dictated by the fact that they had just emerged from a long narrow tunnel, Sam was for a while, able to destroy them all. The narrow beam of fire that shone from his sword cut directly into them, and destroyed them all the way back to the tunnel entrance, and even inside it. But soon he knew, the sword's magic would be used up, and he didn't have another shape ready. With only a hundred yards between the tunnel entrance and their position there wasn't a lot of time to prepare one. It might however, be enough time to hold off the attack while his brothers in arms formed into a proper line and more soldiers arrived.
“Fall back and line up! Defensive lines!” He bellowed the command even as he used the sword and simply hoped the men obeyed him.
For what was surely the longest few dozen heartbeats of his life, Sam sat there astride Tyla, and kept playing his sword's scythe spell back down the column of rats that were still trying to emerge from the tunnel entrance, and held the rats on his own. And all the time he was waiting for one of the rats to leap on him and tear him to pieces. But though he didn't dare turn his head to look, he heard the sound of feet disappearing behind him, hopefully to do as he wanted, and that was everything. He doubted though that they'd have time to fall back as far as they should. Two hundred paces would have been best considering the range of the long bows, but there was no chance of that. For the moment the continuing explosion that was the tunnel mouth told him the rats were dying by the score had to be enough. For a while. Still, every pace they made was a victory as far as he was concerned.
Finally the sword ran out of magic as he'd known it had to, and he had barely enough of his own drawn by then to manage a good chained fire shape or two. There just hadn't been enough time to prepare. Again!
Sheathing the greatsword, Sam watched the rats start emerging once more from the tunnel mouth, and he knew that while perhaps hundreds had already died, it was nothing compared to the thousands behind them. Numbers were always the enemy's greatest strength.
Knowing he had to be as effective as possible with his magic, he let the head of the rats approach to within fifty yards of him and Tyla. In fact they felt so close that even the horse had the good sense to be nervous as she saw the column of silver and steel running straight for them. Then he released his first shape of chained fire, and watched with infinite relief as all the rats coming toward him died as a unit. A column perhaps fifty yards long and over five rats wide suddenly turned into a glorious river of exploding fire in front of him, and he thanked the elders for having made him study that particular shape day in and day out. Not only did it not require the same amount of effort to hold and shape it, but it was far quicker to use than the fire ring, and time was critical. Even as he watched the first river of fire dying down, and saw the sea of glowing red eyes behind it trying to run over their fallen comrades, he could feel enough magic roaring within him for a second blast. It was a good feeling.<
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He felt even better a dozen heartbeats later when he heard the sounds of hoof beats somewhere behind him, and knew the battle was being joined.
“Archers, take positions!”
Sam didn't know whose voice it was that shouted out – he was too busy releasing his second chained fire shape – but when he heard the call he knew that it was his turn to retreat. A heartbeat later he had wheeled Tyla around and was galloping madly back for the lines, where at least a hundred elves were already in position.
The first volley of arrows flew past his head just as he reached them. Fifty or a hundred arrows flew and he guessed as many rats had just burst into flames. The elves didn't miss.
By the time he'd once more reined in Tyla and returned to the line, all he could see of the rats was a burning column of steel, a hundred yards long. He had no idea how many of them had been destroyed, but he knew it was a lot. But still more were coming. He didn't know how many, but as he watched ever more rats pour out of the cavern mouth, he feared it would be far more than they'd expected.