The Andor: Book One of the Legends of Tirmar

by Mark Dame

  On seeing the mountain troll fall, the last orc turned and fled, running back the way the patrol had come.

  “Get him!” Gudbrant yelled. “He’ll warn others that we’re here.”

  Harvig and Randell sprinted after the escaping orc. Flyn followed, but it wasn’t until he was already around the corner that he realized that he didn’t even have a weapon with him, having dropped his bow. His sword was still in the body of the orc he had killed. Ahead of him, the orc had dropped its club and was running faster than the humans could manage. Even Harvig, with his long strides, couldn’t keep up.

  On the left side of the path, the cliff rose hundreds of feet. Flyn couldn’t see the top. On the right side was a steep drop-off into a dark abyss. The path was so narrow that Flyn wondered how the troll had managed to traverse it. He slowed, realizing there was no point in risking a fall off the ledge when he didn’t even have a weapon.

  Up ahead, the cliff cut back to the left and the ledge followed. Slipping in the loose rock as he tried to make the turn, the orc lost its balance and fell, almost skidding over the edge. Harvig ran full speed at the orc, dropping to the ground at the last second and sliding into the prone orc. His foot slammed into the orc’s face, sending it toward the abyss. The orc scrambled to grab on to anything it could to keep from falling. Harvig’s leg was all it could grasp.

  The orc slid over the cliff, pulling Harvig after it. Randell reached Harvig just in time to grab his arm before he followed the orc. Bracing his feet, Randell tried to pull Harvig back, but the ground provided little traction. The weight of the orc hanging from Harvig’s leg was pulling both militiamen over the side. Flyn ran as fast as he could to reach them before it was too late.

  Skidding to a stop next to Randell, Flyn grabbed Harvig’s other arm and pulled with all his strength. Slowly, he and Randell pulled Harvig back to the path, but the orc was still holding on to his leg.

  “Let go of me, you ugly beast!” Harvig kicked the orc in the face with his free foot. Once. Twice. The third time, the orc lost its grip. Flyn and Randell fell back, pulling Harvig with them.

  The orc’s screams echoed through the ravine as it fell.

  “Any trouble?” Gudbrant asked as they walked back into the clearing where the battle had taken place.

  “Nothing we couldn’t handle,” Randell said.

  “The orc almost pulled Harvig off the cliff,” Flyn said.

  “Like I said,” Randell replied with a grin. “Nothing we couldn’t handle.”

  “You can tell me about it later,” Gudbrant said. “Right now, we need to get rid of these bodies. If another patrol comes along, we don’t want them to raise an alarm. Help me with the orcs.”

  The orcs were too heavy for one man to move, but together Harvig and Gudbrant were able to pull the bodies to the edge of the ravine and roll them in. Randell gathered their fallen weapons and the severed orc head, which he sent over the side with the bodies. Meanwhile, Flyn retrieved his sword, still buried in the side of the orc he had stabbed, and recovered his arrows. He found four, salvaging three of them. The shaft on the fourth arrow was cracked. Though he remembered shooting five, he couldn’t find the fifth one.

  “The Andor outdid all of you,” Gudbrant said as they worked. “Three kills, by my count. And a timely shot to the troll.”

  “He got a head start on us with that bow,” Harvig said.

  “And it looked like he saved your skin from that other one, Captain,” Randell said.

  “That he did,” Gudbrant said, laughing. “Get back to work.”

  After a few minutes, they had finished with the orcs. Flyn stood at the edge of the ravine, looking down at the bodies lying on the rocks below.

  “It doesn’t seem right to just throw them over the cliff like that,” Flyn said.

  “We don’t have time to bury them,” Gudbrant said, putting his hand on Flyn’s shoulder. “And a funeral pyre would draw too much attention. Besides, it’s a lot better than what they would have done to our bodies had the battle gone the other way.”

  “What—” Flyn started to ask.

  “You really don’t want to know.” Gudbrant turned back to the clearing. “Let’s try to cover up the blood with fresh snow.”

  The bright blue blood stood out on the white ground. Even without the bodies, there had clearly been a battle.

  “I didn’t know orcs had blue blood,” Flyn said.

  “The small ones do,” Randell said.

  “Those are the small ones?”

  Randell grinned. “Come on. Help us cover it up.”

  Using their feet, they scraped clean snow over the blood, covering up as much as they could see in the fading daylight. That task complete, all that was left was the troll.

  The massive beast was too heavy to drag, but working together, they were able to roll the body over the side. The ravine was too dark to see where it landed, though the sound of breaking tree limbs and a loud thud as it hit the bottom left no doubt that it had. The crashing echoed up and down the ravine. Using more snow, they covered up its blood like they had the orcs’.

  “Let’s get moving before someone comes to investigate that,” Gudbrant said.

  The group grabbed their gear from the ditch where they had spent the day and hurried back down the path. As they passed the spot where Harvig had almost been pulled to his death, Flyn looked over the side for any sign of the orc, but it was too dark to see. Harvig stayed as far from the edge as he could.

  “The fire may have been a mistake,” Gudbrant said after a while.

  “Why?” Flyn asked. He was hoping for another fire at the end of the night’s trek.

  “You think that patrol was sent to investigate it?” Randell said from in front. Harvig was too far behind them to join the conversation.

  “Possibly. They certainly saw it when we put it out. If they were just a random patrol, then we may be okay. But they weren’t equipped for an overnight journey, which means they’ll be missed sooner rather than later. It’s possible their disappearance may be blamed on the weather. Another patrol will be sent out tomorrow to find out what happened to them.”

  “But if they were sent to investigate smoke and they don’t return, it won’t be just one patrol we have to avoid,” Randell finished.

  “If that’s the case, very likely we will find the whole pass flooded with patrols tomorrow. We won’t be able to avoid them for long.”

  The group continued on in silence. Flyn had just started to feel good about the battle with the orc patrol. Gudbrant’s prediction that they may be in even bigger trouble tomorrow quenched his excitement, replacing it with dread.

  Their path lay relatively clear, the snow having been packed down by passing patrols. Any evidence of the small party was lost among the numerous tracks left by the orcs. Most of the drifts had been pushed aside by the giant mountain troll, its tracks clearly visible among the others.

  Flyn shuddered, thinking of the huge beast that only a few hours earlier had been walking the same path. Now it was dead, lying at the bottom of a ravine somewhere behind them, with only footprints to show it had ever existed. And lying with it, the bodies of five orcs, three of which Flyn himself had killed. The first two hadn’t felt much different from shooting a deer or a pig. At least, he kept telling himself that. But the third one had been up close. Its stench still seemed to linger in Flyn’s nostrils.

  He had never killed a person before, had never even considered it until recently. While Randell had been teaching him to fight with a sword, he had known in the back of his mind that one day he might have to kill. He understood that the ultimate outcome of a sword fight was to kill or be killed. But to actually do it was a very different thing.

  Even though the orcs had been trying to kill them, and Gudbrant might have died if Flyn hadn't stepped in, had they deserved to die? He was directly responsible for the death of three people. They might not have been human, but they were people nonetheless. What gave him the right to decide their fate? H
e was no god.

  He wiped away a tear from his cheek and looked at Gudbrant. The militiaman’s stern features were clear even in the dim evening light. The eyes that peered out from that face were as cold as the snow on the ground. Flyn knew that Gudbrant held no remorse for the deaths they had caused. Flyn wondered how a man could get that way.

  “Are you okay?” Gudbrant asked, turning toward Flyn with a raised eyebrow.

  “I’m fine.” Flyn looked away, embarrassed for being caught staring.

  “Was that your first time?”

  Flyn avoided Gudbrant’s gaze and didn’t respond.

  “It’s not easy taking a life. Even when your own life is in danger. It’s okay to feel bad about it.”

  Flyn nodded, finally looking at Gudbrant.

  “If you weren’t upset, I might be a little worried about you.” Gudbrant grinned. “You should have seen Harvig after his first kill.”

  “Harvig?” The big militiaman seemed devoid of emotion. Flyn couldn’t imagine him feeling bad about killing an enemy.

  “He may look tough, but after his first melee, he wandered off into the woods and retched. But don’t let him know that I told you that. He might just pound me into the ground for saying anything.”

  “What about you?”

  “Well, I wasn’t as bad off as Harvig, but it took me a while to get over. You never feel good about it, but after a while, you come to accept that you must value you own life over those who would take it from you.”

  Flyn nodded again, thinking about Gudbrant’s words.

  “What about Randell?” he asked after a few minutes.

  Gudbrant sighed and didn’t answer right away.

  “Randell is a different story. I suppose deep down he feels bad about taking another life, but after what the orcs did to his family, I’ve never seen a shred of remorse from him. Then, when they took Brenna, it was too much for him. I don’t think he would have gone on his own, but I couldn’t have kept him from coming with me. The two of them have a special bond.”

  Flyn looked at Gudbrant, confused. “I thought Brenna was going to be your wife?”

  “She is,” Gudbrant said. “But she and Randell grew up together. She’s like a sister to him. In some ways, I think maybe losing her to the orcs was harder on him than it was on me or Meinrad. He lost another sister. That’s one of the reasons I wanted him to come with us. I knew he wouldn’t hesitate if we had to fight. I can’t say that for all of my men.”

  “Why not?”

  Gudbrant smiled at Flyn. “The Ilfin clan doesn’t raise warriors. Not like the Mundars.”

  “Mundars? Didn’t the Thane say Mundar was one of the leaders in the Revolution?”

  “He was. He was a fierce warrior. The stories say that he preached ‘Peace through power.’ After the war, those who agreed with him followed him and became the Mundar clan. They focused their energies on training soldiers to defend themselves from the Yonarr, should they ever return. Of course, the other clans thought they were out of their minds. The Yonarr had been defeated.” Gudbrant paused. “I guess they were right after all.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “I wish I knew. To my knowledge there hasn’t been any contact with the other clans in over a hundred years. And since the coming of Jarot, we haven’t even had much contact with the rest of the Ilfin clan.”

  Flyn nodded, not really knowing what that meant. Everything was so different from Trygsted. Having no contact with another part of the clan was unheard of. Except those who were banished.

  They fell back into silence. A few weeks ago, Flyn hadn’t even known there were other clans. He had thought the entire world was an island barely thirty-five leagues across. Now he was trekking through the mountains of another land, with men from another clan, fighting creatures he had only thought existed in children’s stories. It all seemed to be too much to take in.

  Later in the evening, as they trudged along the icy path, snow began to fall again, but by that point, Flyn barely noticed.

  The path began descending after a while, the rocky surroundings giving way to trees similar to those Flyn and Kel had found along the coast, only smaller. Gudbrant informed him they were called “pine trees.” Very little snow covered the ground, as the trees formed a tight roof over the forest floor. Only the path they were walking on was exposed to the sky. In the moonlight, it looked like a glowing, white ribbon meandering through the dark trees.

  As they descended, the snowfall turned into a misty rain. The wet air cut through their clothing like knives, in spite of the warmer temperature. Flyn’s cloak, pulled tight around him, provided little warmth. Shivering in the dampness, he forced himself to think of Kel and how what he must be going through was far worse than being cold and wet. Those thoughts didn’t do much to raise his spirits.

  They traveled for several hours with no sign of another patrol. Flyn was just beginning to think they would make it to Gurnborg without any more trouble when Randell came running back down from a crest in the path ahead of them.

  “Patrol!” he said in a harsh whisper when he reached them.

  “Up into the trees,” Gudbrant said, pointing up the hillside to their left.

  Randell scurried up the slope, Flyn close behind. Gudbrant stayed at the edge of the path until Harvig caught up, then followed the other two. The trees were smaller than those along the coast, but they grew close together, providing plenty of cover for the group. They stopped thirty or forty yards from the path and ducked behind a clump of trees.

  “What did you see?” Gudbrant asked.

  “A large patrol coming up the path. I couldn’t see how many, but there were a lot of torches.”

  “Damn,” Gudbrant said. “Okay, everyone stay quiet. If we’re lucky, they won’t spot us.”

  They waited, huddled in their hiding spot, the path invisible in the dark. The muffled sound of voices drifted over the top of the hill, rising and falling in a rhythmic beat. Then a flickering light began to illuminate the trees below them. The voices broke over the crest in the path, a marching cadence in a language Flyn didn’t understand. The orcs’ chanting and the pounding of their marching feet echoed through the woods and hillsides. Flyn felt the ground tremor as the patrol passed through the trees.

  And they kept coming, group after group. Each group, with a torch bearer at the front, was armed with large axes, or spears, or massive two-handed swords with blades at least six feet long and nearly a foot across. Some carried shields, and all wore helmets and chain hauberks. Some of the orcs with shields banged their weapons on their shields in time with the marching beat. Others thumped their fists against their chests. Between some of the groups were mountain trolls, their large bodies breaking tree limbs as they passed through the forest.

  Flyn shrank down behind his tree, peering around the trunk at the column of soldiers. Their torches lit up the forest as bright as daylight. He was sure the orcs would spot them hiding in the trees if one of the patrol just looked up.

  But none did. They just kept marching and chanting and pounding.

  Following the soldiers were humans leading pack mules that were loaded with chests and sacks. They were accompanied by smaller orcs with prods and whips that they would occasionally crack. The humans’ legs were shackled together, causing them to shuffle instead of walk. Chains around their waist were attached to the mules they led.

  One of the humans fell, tripping on his shackles.

  “Get up, you lazy dog,” one of the orcs yelled, cracking the whip across the man’s back.

  The man struggled to his feet and hurried to get back into his place in the line. The orc smacked him with the whip again and laughed. Flyn gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. The thought of shooting the orc crossed his mind. He held fast, knowing that if he did, it would just draw the orcs’ attention. Then he and his small band would be quickly overwhelmed and captured. Or killed.

  A final group of armed orcs brought up the rear.

  “That
was no patrol or raiding party,” Gudbrant said after the last torch was out of sight and the marching chant fading into the night.

  “That was a full-sized company,” Harvig added.

  “Is all of that to look for us?” Flyn asked. Surely they wouldn’t send out scores of soldiers to look for one missing patrol.

  “That’s hard to say,” Gudbrant said. “Perhaps, but they had supplies for an extended journey. I think they’re off to war.”

  “To Garthset?”

  “Most probably.”

  Even in the dark, Flyn could tell Gudbrant was again questioning his choice to come on their journey.

  “Let’s get moving,” Gudbrant said. “At least with that many orcs on the move, there will be fewer in Gurnborg.”

  The group picked their way back down to the path, watching the direction the orcs had come from for any stragglers.

  The path, wet from the rain and snow, had been reduced to nothing more than a rutted, muddy slash through the forest. The vegetation along both sides of the path had been beaten down. Even small trees had been smashed by the passing trolls. All the remaining snow was gone.

  They resumed their positions, Randell scouting ahead and Harvig watching behind.

  “What are we going to do when we get to Gurnborg?” Flyn asked Gudbrant after a while.

  “We’ll have to figure that out when we get there. First we have to get there, then we’ll have to find a way in without getting caught. After that, I don’t know. I’ve never been inside the garrison.”

  “But you think Kel is there?”

  “I’m sure that’s where they took him. Whether he’s there now or not remains to be seen.”

  Flyn nodded, not wanting to think about what they would do if Kel wasn’t there.

  They hadn’t traveled far when they came to the edge of the forest and the path turned down the hill into a wide, shallow valley. Randell was waiting for them, crouched just inside the tree line.

  “Look,” he said, pointing.