War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy

by D. S. Halyard

  “Well, some of the wounded were got away. We did that much. Now we must go, cousin, or we shall become casualties ourselves. The Cthochi are breaking.”

  With sad eyes the two Araqueshi watched as the Cthochi line broke, first at the rear, where the youngest warriors threw down their spears and ran, then the center began to buckle, and finally the flanks gave way. The ogres poured down the draw, stopping only to send runners into the woods after the archers, for they had done more harm than any others. Rashad doubted more than five ogres had been killed, and that more from luck than anything.

  Derbas cloaked the four of them in a haze of ghostly snow, and together they marched rapidly back to the Cthochi main camp, almost running.

  “Ogres.” Derbas told Tuchek when they found him at last, for the camp was a mad turmoil of milling women, wounded come back from the battle and screaming children. “At least five thousand of them, and armored like godsknights or better. The Earthspeaker is dead. Kerrick, too, I think. The Cthochi line was breaking when we left. You have, perhaps, an hour.”

  Allein was standing near and heard. Without asking any questions he quickly went out among the people and started issuing commands. Despite the distrust many of them had for him, they listened and quickly told others around them. “To Redwater!” Tuchek shouted at him. “Tell them to get to Redwater Town!”

  The two Araqueshi and their guards joined the throng of wounded and terrified Cthochi as they ran down by the river. The road to Redwater was long, and in some places it would be narrow and difficult, but the ogres were to the west, and the wounded assured their people that there was no safety in that direction.

  The drumspeakers in the Earthspeaker’s camp began sending messages out into the winds, and they struck their drums as hard as they could. The sounds of answering drums came through the snow as if from a great distance, and Rashad wondered what they said, but he thought he could guess.

  When Gutcrusher reached the Cthochi’s main camp some two hours later, he found it nearly deserted. The women and children had fled, he decided, but his wrath was relentless, and he determined not to let them go. “Wolf!” He called, and his trustworthy captain was there in a few moments. Gutcrusher waited for him, watching as some of the Cthochi women who had been too slow to get out of the camp threw themselves off of the Redwater River cliff to avoid being captured. Probably a wise choice, he decided.

  “Round up some of your best sniffers.” Gutcrusher ordered. “We’re going to run them fuckers down tonight.”

  Wolf nodded. “Aye.” Then he smiled. “That was a good battle, king. Went just how I like. They never had a chance.” Gutcrusher laughed back at him.

  “They still don’t, Wolf. We ain’t going to leave none of them alive. This is Muharl land now.” Then he walked through the stinking remains of some kind of sick camp the pigsuckers had set up, so he could get a look at the river. When he reached the heights from which the pigsucker slags had jumped, he looked across the river and saw, for the first time, a city.

  “Fuck is that?” He asked to no one in particular, but Balls was there, and he gave answer.

  “It’s like the Black God’s city.” The old ogre said. He was spattered with blood and gore, Balls was, for he had stood in the front line and watched the Crusher’s flank. His spear had grown heavy with the weight of frozen blood stuck to the blade. “Only it ain’t dead.” It was late afternoon in Northcraven, and lamps were being lit.

  From a tower on the west gate Aelfric looked across the river and saw two armored giants appear on the cliff opposite. They were hard to make out through the falling snow, but they looked larger than any Cthochi he’d ever seen. Jecha had come to him less than an hour ago, and what she had said had seemed unbelievable. Some nameless doom had befallen the Cthochi, and they would need to come across the Redwater to escape it.

  Tuchek was over there, probably leading them she said, and they would be headed toward the Redwater Town Bridge and the Expanded Fort. “Saddle the gray and assemble an escort of lancers.” He told Faithborn. “We’re riding to Redwater Town tonight. Leave Anbarius in charge of the city. On second thought, bring him along. We may need to destroy the Redwater River bridge. Put Captain Tolric in command here.

  They climbed down the spiral staircase and walked rapidly across the western keep’s courtyard, and Faithborn began issuing orders. Captains and fyrdmen began scrambling to get horses, and by the time Aelfric had walked across the bridge and all the way to the market square, the lancers had assembled.

  “Gentlemen, we ride to Redwater Town. We’ll be in the saddle all night.”

  “As usual.” Aurix said with a smile. Aelfric sighed. There was no way the High Cavalier was going to miss being a part of this escort.

  Tuchek took a page from the book of the Cthochi he had once tracked with the godsknights, and he sent groups of volunteers, mostly wounded warriors, to make trails that branched away from the river road and into the wilderness beyond it. If the ogres followed those men they were likely dead, but the distraction might keep the ogres off of the trail of his people.

  His people.

  He thought about that statement and saw the truth in it. The actions of Allein-a-Briech may have driven Tuchek away from the Cthochi and into the life of a Mortentian, but in the bones where it mattered he was still Cthochi. He had lived among them most of his life, then fought against them twice, and now he was a leader among them. Perhaps the only real leader, for so many had fallen in the snows of Big Elk Draw, and certainly his father did not count anymore.

  It was coming on dark now, but Tuchek had no illusions that this would stop the ogres from hunting him. He had fought them before, the Muharl, and he knew that when their blood was up neither moonlight nor sunlight was necessary to feed their lust for blood. That was long ago and in their country, and he’d had a giant Thimenian to side him. Together they had managed to kill three of the monsters, and those three had been unarmored and carrying only stone-tipped hammers. The army that Derbas had described to him? Seven hells, not even the Silver Run Army could hope to stand to that.

  Sometimes people stopped, and others had to cajole them to get up and march in the snow. This was rare however, for these were the Cthochi, and they were hardened to endure the wilderness. Tuchek knew that there were many marches like this one taking place, for the message had been sent to every Cthochi camp that an army of monsters was loose in their country, and that to stay was to die.

  Perhaps in the northern reaches they were escaping by boat, and in the southernmost places they could cross the Redwater at Maslit, assuming they were permitted to do so, but most of his people had their camps near to the place where the Earthspeaker’s had been, and Redwater Town was the only crossing that was close. They quickened the pace at his command, and many of the larger carried the smaller ones, and not many were left behind.

  Hungry Wolf’s bag was full of plunder, and he walked in great joy, for he had killed many pigsuckers in the battle of Big Elk Draw, almost as many as some of the full-grown ogres. He had looted the bodies of those he killed, and he had been lucky, because he was among the ogres who ran down the archers, and so was a good distance from the main host of ogres when the battle ended. There were many bodies to loot, and not many ogres around to pick over his plunder and take the choice bits, which they tended to do. So his bag was full of items of silver and items of brass and copper, and although he did not know the value of such things, the heaviness of the bag gave him comfort.

  Like many of the ogre host, when they hit the main camp of the pigsuckers near the river Hungry Wolf’s thoughts turned to plunder, and he was among the first of those to enter many of the tents. So it was that he was the very first of Gutcrusher’s host to enter the large tent near to the central fire, the one that looked very old and was dark with smoke and the marks of many years. He pushed his way through the tent’s flap and looked inside.

  The fire at the center of the tent was just embers, and it was very dark, but he was ea
stern Muharl, and his night vision was good. He saw immediately that there was little to take here, but he began to gather a few scattered bits of jewelry and things that had been left on the floor. He nearly jumped out of his skin when the lump of furs in the shadow of things by the fire spoke.

  “Who is there?” An ancient and leathery voice said, and he saw then the old woman. She was sitting cross-legged by the fire, and she was very old, and he could see that she was blind. She had hardly any hair on her head and the wrinkles around her blank and staring eyes were deep and many. There was something a bit witchy about her.

  “Hungry Wolf.” He spoke without thinking, but then decided that it didn’t matter. Whether she knew his name or not was not going to matter in a moment. He hefted the fine steel sword he had looted at the battle of the Bone River Crossing and began walking toward her.

  “I am Walks Under the Moon, Hungry Wolf. I know what you are. I tell you this, as surely as you strike me down you will die. I have spoken.” He thought about her words for a moment, then laughed. She was just a pigsucker slag, and not young or ripe enough to be of any use to the King’s Band.

  “Soon as I strike you down you will die, old woman.” He said, and then he proceeded to do just that, splitting her skull with the sword. Then he began gathering up the bits of jewelry she was wearing, and some of it looked like it was real gold. The old woman’s blood was on some of it, but he decided that didn’t matter. Once he’d looked over the rest of the tent and taken the few baubles that the Cthochi elders had scattered in their haste to escape, he kicked the embers from the fire into the dried skins, and he was happy to see a flame kick up.

  Minutes later the elder’s tent was on fire, like so many of the Cthochi tents, and Hungry Wolf had gone to join the King’s Band in hunting down more pigsuckers.

  Stalksdeer and the six scouts with him missed the battle of Big Elk Draw by minutes, coming on the scene of the slaughter after first the surviving warriors, and then the victorious ogres had departed. He had heard the tail end of the battle, the clash of arms and the roars of the ogres and the screams of the dying Cthochi, but it had not prepared him for the evidence of the massacre that he encountered in the wide and shallow draw itself.

  The battlefield stretched over perhaps two or three hundred paces, and all along that length lay the bodies of Cthochi warriors. He stood over the body of the Earthspeaker, and he was easily found for the armor that he wore, although the body was headless now. He saw where Kerrick the Sword had fallen, gutted and then cut to pieces after he was dead. Here and there he saw the markings of men he had known, but many of them had been cruelly disfigured after death. Even with the snow falling the smell was strong and awful, the coppery tinct of blood and the deeper and more fecal smells that the freshly killed emit. The snow was black and red with blood, and the ogres had not looted the weapons from the Cthochi, for there were simply too many of them and the ogres had better weapons of their own. Stalksdeer found a good broadsword and he gingerly removed the scabbard and put it around his own waist. The other scouts with him did the same, for they typically only carried bows and knives, and the weapons here were better.

  It was easy to tell the direction the ogres had taken, for their line of march was liberally decorated with the corpses of those Cthochi who had been too slow to escape them. Smoke was already rising from the tents of the Earthspeaker, thick columns of black rising mistily behind the snow falling between here and there.

  Stalksdeer thought he could hear distant screams, but if the evidence of the draw was any indication, pursuing the ogre host would only result in his own death, as well as those with him. He thought about what the thousands of Cthochi in the camp would do.

  Plainly they could not all escape by boat, for there were not enough boats there, even if the butcher general had not destroyed so many. To run west meant running into the ogres themselves, and the way north was impassible, for the land there was broken and lined with crevasses and cliffs. The people would flee south along the river, which meant to Redwater Town. He heard the drumspeakers moments later, and they confirmed his prediction.

  “Why Redwater?” A voice asked at his shoulder. Broken Flagon was a scout only because he had gotten into trouble with his drinking among the fighting men. He was built like a warrior, not a scout, and he was not very quiet in the forest. Still, for this night Stalksdeer had no doubt that Broken Flagon was better suited than he was.

  “Perhaps the stonecutters have agreed to allow them to cross the river.” Stalksdeer said, and then, once the words had passed his mouth he saw the truth in them. “Remember that the lord in Redwater is friendly to our people.”

  “The bridge there is very narrow and rickety.” Winterhawk, a veteran scout and one of the men Stalksdeer most relied on, observed. “Not many can cross at once. It will take days for the people to cross there, and the ogres will be behind them.”

  Stalksdeer thought of Winterhawk’s words for a moment. “We must delay the monsters.” He said after a moment. We must find a way to slow them down.” Then he looked and saw that Ponyrunner was lifting a bloodstained hauberk of chainmail from one of the fallen warriors.

  “Leave that.” Stalksdeer ordered. “It did him no good, and will only slow you down. We must fight as scouts, not as warriors.” He indicated the large field and all of the dead. “These men fought bravely as warriors, and it did them no good.”

  “It’s suicide to go after them.” Broken Flagon said, and Stalksdeer nodded.

  “Yes.” But his eyes were on the dead Cthochi, not on Broken Flagon. “Most likely it is suicide, but all of these men died to save our people, and I am sure they knew they fought without hope of living another day. We can do no less.”

  He stood with his men and outlined his reckless plan, and their faces grew pale with realization of the death in it, and then grim with purpose. The seven men struck out southward, for this was their land, and they knew the way. The marks of their moccasins quickly filled with snow.

  Drums rattled ceaselessly in the Cthochi lands throughout the afternoon, and on the wall of the Expanded Fort Captain Meblin O’Bennith, the son of a free drover from Diminios, shook his head and wondered what it meant. He called for an interpreter, and a half-breed Cthochi soldier in the piss purple named Nilborm was brought to him. He looked pale and serious.

  “It’s the Cthochi drum speak.” The man said. “It’s a summons. All of the people of the Cthochi are to come here, to Redwater Town.”

  “It’s an attack then? Surely they know we can stop them.”

  “Not an attack.” Nilborm explained. “It’s a summons for all of the people, not just the warriors. Already some have arrived. Look there.” Nilborm pointed, and Meblin saw movement along the tree line that marked the extreme range of the mangonels on the wall. The trees that had once sheltered Cthochi archers in the early days of the Expanded Fort had been cut and removed, and an open space had been opened five hundred paces deep into the forest here. Auligs were assembling in the snow at the extreme edge of that space.

  “What in the seven hells do they mean?” Meblin asked Nilborm, but the young man did not know. Something was bothering him, though, Meblin could tell. “What’s riding you, half breed? There’s something else in the messages, isn’t there?”

  “Monsters.” Nilborm replied warily, as if afraid he would not be believed. “The drums have been saying that there’s monsters over there.”

  “I don’t know if there’s to be an attack or not.” Meblin told the gathered archer fyrdmen and engineers after Nilborm had left. “But better to have the missiles all brought up just in case. And tell the bellowsmen to get the sand ready.” At his order the engineers ran back from the outer wall to a series of forges that had been set up. Soldiers in piss purple began gathering large iron trays, and each tray was set above a forge and filled with sand. Other men loaded the forges with charcoal, and still others began gathering more wood and fuel for them. This was an addition to the defenses of the Expanded
Fort only, and none of the sleeping forts had such a defense, put into place at the suggestion of Busker O’Hiam who had foreseen a tough fight for this fort.

  It was dusk when Mablin saw Bishop Weymort approaching, walking across the Redwater River on Anbarius’ suspension bridge between the town and the fort. A familiar well-muscled figure in the crossed-swords tabard of house Larvantis walked behind him. Meblin spat, then put a smile on his face and walked over to greet the two of them.

  “Good evening, bishop. Lord Mayor.”

  “Good evening Captain Meblin.” The bishop’s voice carried an urgency that Meblin was not used to hearing. “We have some news.”

  “Orders.” Manzer Larvantis said curtly. “We have orders for you. We need for you to open the gates of this fort and let the Cthochi refugees into it.”

  “Hells you say? Let the Cthochi into my fortification? Are you mad?” Meblin’s voice echoed his outrage and disbelief. “I’ve been a month figuring how to keep them out of it!”

  “The drumspeakers have been going all day.” Manzer Larvantis explained. “The Cthochi have been attacked by some kind of … things. Some kind of enemy that is killing them by the thousands. We need to let them come over to our side of the river for safety.”

  “Things, is it?” Meblin’s reply was scathing. “That’s too bloody bad for them, says I. Mebbe that’s their comeuppance for waging war unlawful against us. I don’t give a fig for your things, Lord Mayor. Lord Privy built this fort and he’s the one who commands it. I’m not opening up this fort without his command. Certainly not yours.” When Bishop Weymort would have spoken, Meblin raised an arm. “Nor yours, Bishop. I reckon I’ve as much respect as anyone for the holy church, but you ain’t my commander, and I’ll wait on him.”

  By nightfall the clusters of Cthochi had moved closer to the Expanded Fort, and there was no holding them to the treeline. They built small fires and huddled around them, just out of bowshot. Mablin told his archers and engineers to get ready to repel an attack, and he had a few bowmen shoot arrows into the field, so as to mark the arrows’ range and make sure the Cthochi didn’t mistakenly come within it. If they moved within that range his orders were to shoot them, whether they were women, children or what have you.