by Dragon Lance
*
Daylight saw the raider band diminished further, despite Ungrah’s threats and Zannian’s exhortations. When they mustered around their captains, only two hundred forty-four men were present. Hoten reported the rest had deserted, including all the men without horses.
Zannian was livid. “Wretched cowards! After the battle I’ll hang every one of them from the walls of Arku-peli!”
Hoten clenched his heavy jaw. “There’s more, Zan. The slaves have escaped, too. All that’s left are those we captured in this valley. I don’t know why they stayed.”
“They think they’ll be free soon,” Zannian muttered. “Summon Ungrah-de.”
The ogre chief was fully decked out for battle, which on this special day included drenching himself with a foul-smelling oil the ogres called kunj. The acrid oil was supposed to weaken the enemy with its terrible odor while strengthening the ogre who wore it. Fighting the famous Karada demanded all the warrior rituals the ogres possessed.
Upwind from Ungrah, Hoten still had to hold his nose. Grim-faced, Zannian ignored the stench.
“I have a task for you,” he said.
“You do not give a great chief tasks,” Ungrah replied.
“Call it a favor then – a favor I’m doing for you.”
The ogre’s yellowed eyes narrowed. “What favor?”
“There are a score or so captives in our camp. Win or lose, they’re yours. Our other slaves ran off in the night, but those from Arku-peli stayed behind, thinking they’ll be free soon. I want them to know staying behind was a mistake.”
Ungrah looked over Zannian’s head at the depleted ranks of the raiders. “Many humans ran during the night. Why did you not?”
“Because I am Zannian!” He shook with fury. “Because I will conquer or die!”
Ungrah nodded his heavy head. “You have the proper spirit. Like Harak-ta.” Ta was an ogre epithet meaning “small.” He added, “Where is that one, since I speak his name?”
“Dead,” Hoten said. “Taken when the nomads first struck us.”
Zannian snorted. “Deserted, more like. Smooth-talking snake.”
Hoten asked the ogre chief his plan for the coming battle.
“I will kill as many of the enemy as possible, starting with Karada. That is my plan,” Ungrah said, then left to organize his warriors.
“Let the monsters do as they will,” Zannian said, seating the skull-mask on his head. “As for us, Hoten, I want you to take fifty men and follow Ungrah-de. If he breaks through, ride hard and exploit any openings you find. The rest of the band will follow me. I’ll show Karada how the Raiders of Almurk fight!”
With this ringing pronouncement, Zannian swung onto his gray horse. Hoten’s hand on his animal’s reins caused him to look down. The old man looked as though he wanted to say something but didn’t. Finally he bowed stiffly to his chief and watched as Zannian cantered away to the head of the column.
Not long after, under writhing clouds and punctuated by the sound of ogre drums, the raiders rode to their final battle. Hoten led just forty-five men. He sent the other five – all older men he knew well and trusted – on a special task of his own creation. If they succeeded, he would face his death with a calmer spirit.
*
The drumming ceased.
Ungrah-de stood at the head of his warriors, wind rattling the bones decorating his chest. His patchy gray hair, coarse and long, streamed out behind his massive head like a personal standard. He raised his terrible stone axe – still chipped from the blow he’d given the walls of Yala-tene – and bellowed. Like an answer from on high, a bolt of lightning flashed overhead, and the ogre’s cry merged into a ferocious clap of thunder.
The rearmost ogres began running. When they drew abreast of their comrades, these also started moving, and so on, until the line of running creatures reached Ungrah himself. The ogre chief, axe held high, hurled himself forward. Twenty-four ogres came storming up the knoll at Karada’s waiting line of horsemen.
Behind the nomad leader, Beramun swallowed hard. “Karada?” she said unsteadily.
“Wait.”
A white shaft of lightning struck the mountains north of the valley. The ground beneath their horses shook, and fat drops of chilly rain hit Beramun. The sky was full of black, billowing clouds.
Karada held her sword up. Every eye was on her.
“Now,” she said quietly.
The horsemen stirred into motion. They didn’t pitch headlong down the hill but moved at a steady trot. Inexperienced in mass maneuvers, Beramun found herself dropping back through the ranks as more skillful riders pushed by. She tried to keep Karada in sight, but it was difficult.
She heard no command, but at the same moment all the horses broke into a canter. The ranks were close-packed, and she had no room to lower the long spear she carried against her shoulder.
Rain thickened, pelting the soil and purging the air of dust. Lightning flashed again, and Beramun saw with terrifying clarity the heads of the ogres looming above the mounted nomads.
The canter became a full gallop. The ogres were less than forty paces away, running hard toward the hurtling mass of riders. It seemed impossible they could stand against the nomads, powerful as they were.
Rain fell in a torrent, and Beramun was blinded when it struck her eyes. She heard loud grunts and groans, and the screams of horses. Flinging water from her eyes, she saw the front rank of riders slam into the ogres. Succeeding waves of nomads piled up against those halted ahead of them. She hauled back on her reins, trying to turn her mount, but it was too late. Her horse collided with the animal ahead of her. The shock of impact almost unseated her.
Karada rode straight at the biggest, ugliest ogre on the field, assuming he was their leader. He in turn ran right at her, confirming her belief. Coming closer, she recognized Ungrah-de from their brief encounter the day before. He held his huge axe in a two-handed grip over his left shoulder. She shifted her horse a little to the right. As they came together, the terrible stone blade crashed against her shield. It was an oblique blow, and though her arm stung from its force, the weapon slid harmlessly down her shield.
The muscular monster recovered his swing and drew back in time to parry her sword cut with the stout handle of his axe. She cut again, aiming for his fingers. Her bronze blade bit deeply into the thong-wrapped handle held by Ungrah. He threw the axe over in a wide arc, forcing Karada’s hand to follow or lose her sword. The upper edge of the axe sliced into her horse’s neck. The wheat-colored stallion reared, lashing out with its front hooves. One dealt Ungrah a fierce blow to the forehead. The ogre stumbled back, recovered, and laid about on either side with his axe, hacking empty air.
A nomad on Karada’s right pushed in and tried to spear Ungrah. The ogre chief snatched the head of the spear in his bare hands and snapped the shaft. An ogre beside him thrust with the spiked tip of his axe handle and caught the nomad in the ribs. The nomad dropped his spear and reeled away, clutching his bleeding side. With another sweep the ogre lopped the man’s head off. His triumph was short-lived. A brace of spears hit
Ungrah’s comrade, one finding the gap between his tunic and his breechcloth. Dark blood fountained. The second spear buried itself in the fleshy junction of his neck and shoulder.
Ungrah turned to the wounded ogre and plucked both spears out. The bleeding ogre staggered backward and sat down. He was immediately trampled by five eager nomads, who used the weight of their horses to hold him down while they speared him to death.
All along the line the struggle continued, drenched with rain and blood. Grips grew slick. Horses slipped. Ogres fumbled. Though the fighting pressure was not too great, Karada stuck to her strategy and slowly withdrew up the hill. Ungrah followed, still trying to connect his jagged axe with the nomad woman’s neck. She eluded his blows and teased him on.
Hoten’s small force of veterans was on the scene at last. The ogres, fighting as individuals, were engulfed by the nomad horde. Zannian had ordere
d Hoten to exploit any gaps the ogres made, but he couldn’t even see all of Ungrah’s warriors, much less any gaps.
The raiders with Hoten shifted restlessly in the pouring rain, watching the bloody fracas occurring just in front of them.
“Are we going to fight or sit and soak up rain?” one asked Hoten.
Hoten looked up and down the enemy line. Attacking now would be futile, like flinging grapes against a stone. He wrapped the reins around his hands. He thought of Nacris and of the dreams he had, which she would never share.
“At them, men!”
They galloped up the hill, shouting the way they had in the good old days out on the plains. Hoten aimed himself at the only landmark he could see: the back of Ungrah-de’s head.
The center of the nomads’ line fell back. Karada let them come, luring ogres and raiders over the crest of the knoll. The press was so great that she lost contact with Ungrah. Off to her right another ogre had cut a clean circle around himself, slaying any nomad who came within reach of his axe. She crouched low over her horse’s neck and rode at him. He heard the fast rattle of hooves and whirled in time to receive Karada’s sword in his eye. Transfixed, he nonetheless seized her sword arm in both his broad hands and tore her from her horse. She hit the muddy ground the same time as the dead ogre.
The legs of horses and ogres churned around her. She leaped up, planted a foot on the dead ogre’s chest, and recovered her sword. Her favorite horse had disappeared. Buffeted on all sides, she found herself propelled through the crowd until her back bumped into something large and solid.
Karada looked up into the face of Ungrah-de.
He was bleeding from sword and spear cuts on his face and shoulders. Seeing Karada, he bared the yellow tusks in his protruding lower jaw. Up went the chipped axe. Her blade could not deflect such a massive weapon. With no other choice, she whirled away from the downward swipe, spinning on one heel like a dancer. Completing the circle, she brought her blade down on his axe arm, only to watch the bronze blade skid off the polished chunks of lapis attached to the ogre’s sleeve.
Ungrah backhanded his axe, narrowly missing Karada’s chin. She ducked, rolled, and came up standing. She felt something snag her back and jumped aside. The ogre’s axe head came away with a triangle of buckskin on its tip.
The fight had shifted so that Karada had to run uphill to battle Ungrah-de. Behind him, raiders with painted faces traded cuts and thrusts with her warriors. She saw friends and foes fall, horses floundering in the mud or lying still in death.
A nomad with room to maneuver bolted in front of his chief and shoved a stone-tipped spear into Ungrah’s chest. The flint head shattered on the ogre’s breastplate. With a roar, Ungrah impaled the brave fellow on his axe tip, hoisting him off his horse and into the air. Lightning played on his face as Ungrah lifted the slain foe over his head. He roared back at the following thunder and hurled the nomad’s body into the battling swarm.
The nomad’s sacrifice was not without benefit, however. Karada sprang onto the dead man’s sorrel mare and shouted for Pakito and Bahco. Her warriors took up the cry, transmitting it through the din of battle and thunderstorm. Word reached both men, and they spurred their forces to action.
Hoten’s small band had disintegrated within moments of colliding with the nomads. He found himself alone, dueling with capable foes on all sides. A spear butt struck him in the mouth. He spat blood and teeth and fought on. A bronze sword chopped the head off his flint spear, leaving him with only a knife. Hoten put the stone blade in his teeth and jumped from his horse onto the back of a nearby nomad. One stroke of the knife, and the woman’s horse was his.
He had no idea where he was or where his men were. He had no idea where he was going. Rain came in waves, drenching him to the skin and making his oxhide garments stiff. He drove his horse through the crowd, and many nomads let him pass, thinking from his mount he was one of them. Emerging at the base of the stony knoll, Hoten spied a large body of enemy horsemen sweeping around, closing in behind his little band and the ogres. They were solidly trapped.
Despairing, he briefly considered falling on his own knife, but thought better of it. Why throw his wretched life away when he could still sell it dearly?
He yanked a lost spear out of the mud and rode hard to the head of the nomad column. Leading them was a giant warrior, Hoten’s old comrade Pakito. When he drew near enough, he shouted to the big man. Pakito turned his horse and received a spear jab in the face.
Pakito was quick as well as big, however, and the tip only tore a gash through his left earlobe. He countered with a stone-headed mace, caught Hoten’s spear, and sent it spinning away.
“Yield!” Pakito said.
Hoten spat. He held out his too-short knife. “Do your worst!”
Gripping the club in both hands, Pakito easily parried Hoten’s slashes. Then came the opening he needed. He let go with his right hand of his two-handed grip and punched Hoten hard in the ribs. Then Pakito slammed the flat stone head of his mace into the raider’s chin. Hoten’s vision exploded in a haze of red. He fell from his horse.
Pakito had no time to make sure of the death of his former comrade. The chaos was shifting again. After losing several warriors to overwhelming numbers, the ogres belatedly had closed together and formed a tight ring, back to back. From there, the seventeen survivors were fighting off every attempt by the nomads to ride them down. Hoten’s men were not so lucky. Isolated and outnumbered, they succumbed like their leader until none were left standing.
Karada caught sight of Pakito and worked her way to him. They clasped arms.
“No raiders remain!” Pakito cried. “We’ve won!”
“Not yet! The ogres!”
“If only we had our bows!”
Karada lifted her eyes to the sky. The storm showed no signs of abating. Indeed, the clouds fast approaching from the south were even lower and blacker than the ones currently dumping heavy rain over the entire valley.
At this point, a nomad named Patan, who rode in Bahco’s band, galloped to Karada.
“What news?” she demanded.
“Bad! The raiders hit us before we reached the top of the knoll,” said Patan, breathing hard. “Bahco is down, maybe dead! Kepra now commands, and he sent me with word!”
“Pakito, ride to Kepra’s relief!” Karada said quickly. “You’ll have to swing ’round and take the raiders in the back.”
“How many are there?” Pakito shouted above the din.
“Two hundred, seems like,” said Patan.
While Pakito’s band worked free of the ogres and made its way south to help their embattled comrades, Karada urged her mount back into the melee. She found Beramun, on foot, handing spears to nomads in front of her to throw at the ogres. The girl’s face was covered with blood.
“You’re hurt!” Karada yelled.
“It’s not my blood.” Beramun handed two recovered spears to the nomad ahead of her. These were passed forward until they reached the fierce struggle surrounding Ungrah.
“Give me those,” said Karada when the girl was handed two more spears. Beramun did so.
Karada dismounted and tied a rag around her forehead, under the visor of her dented elven helmet. Hefting the spears to her shoulders, she started toward the ogres.
“Wait! Your horse!” Beramun cried, catching the reins of the sorrel mare.
“No room.” Karada cracked a smile and disappeared, shouldering her way through the crowd.
Panic shot through Beramun. Lifting her face skyward, the rain mingling with her tears, she froze in fresh surprise. Something huge and dark wrestled with the heavy clouds. Thick, serpentine coils appeared and disappeared in the lowering storm. As she looked on, spellbound, the pain in her shoulder flared to life, lancing her sharply.
Jolted from her daze by the sensation, Beramun put a hand under her buckskin shirt, expecting to find blood or broken skin. Instead her skin was smooth and cold to the touch. She knew then what it was: the green mark
. It had never given her any twinge before, but now...
Her gaze lifted skyward once more. Though she’d seen the strange aerial vision for only a moment, she knew now what it was. Despair welled up in her heart like a great dark wave.
Sthenn had returned.
Chapter 13
The raiders streamed by, a wall of men and horses. Amero and his small band waited to see if any turned back to deal with them, but none did. If Zannian saw them, he discounted any threat from a handful of villagers on foot.
Balif and the elves came out from behind the ramp. The villagers who’d run up the ramp hastened down again, and the mixed band of elves and humans slogged after the raiders. It was hard going. The rainfall was heavy, and the terrain itself obstructed progress. Beneath the walls the ground was broken by ditches and pits intended to hamper raider attacks. The pits now brimmed with muddy water, and ditches had collapsed in the downpour. All semblance of order was lost as the humans and elves were forced to pick their way through the morass.
By the time they got to higher ground, Zannian’s men had reached the stony knoll and attacked. The momentum of the column punched through the thin line of riders screening the hill and carried down the other side into Bahco’s waiting force. The raiders drove deep into the waiting nomads, their long spears giving them an advantage over the nomads’ shorter weapons.
The fighters on foot ran up the gentle slope to the top of the knoll. A fantastic sight greeted them: Spread out across the valley northward was a sprawling battle, with waves of nomad riders charging a ring of stoutly fighting ogres. Scarcely more than a dozen ogres were holding off two-thirds of Karada’s band, some four hundred seasoned fighters. Behind Ungrah-de, a small band of raiders was thoroughly tom to pieces, their riderless horses galloping from the scene.
Amero waited until his people and the elves were together atop the knoll. “Let’s attack!” the Arkuden shouted to Balif over the rain.
“Not wise,” the elf lord countered. “We may slay a few, but when they realize how few we are, we’ll be swallowed up like those raiders behind Ungrah-de!”