Spirit of the Wind bot-1

by Chris Pierson

  She raised her head, her eyes accusing. “How do you know?” she demanded. “The gods are gone, Father! How can you be sure we’ll be together, after we die? How can you be sure there’s anything waiting for us?”

  A spasm of anguish crossed his face. “I know, child,” he told her, “because I have faith. The gods would not have left us without making sure our spirits were cared for after we died. In my heart, I prefer to believe that I’ll see them all again-my grandfather, Sturm, Flint, Tanis, Tas… and Swiftraven will be waiting for us, too.”

  She shook her head. “I wish I had your faith, Father.”

  “You will, when your pain subsides,” he answered. He pointed up at the sky. “Do you see that star?”

  Reluctantly, she looked. Most of the new stars had faded into the violet, pre-dawn glow, but one light lingered longer than the others. It shone red, like a glowing ember, above the northern horizon.

  “Paxina tells me the Silvanesti elves have a name for it,” Riverwind said. “They call it Elequas Sori-the Watcher in the Dark. They say that to look upon it is to know peace, that we are not alone.”

  Brightdawn looked at the red star a long time, and finally she relaxed in her father’s grasp. He let her go, smiling kindly. “You should go to your sister, child,” he said. “Moonsong will want to see you when she wakes. But first… I have brought you something.”

  He reached over his shoulder and unslung his bow from his back. Wordlessly, he offered it to Brightdawn.

  She looked at it a moment, then her gaze dropped to Swiftraven’s arrow. Its steel head gleamed in the morning light. She took the bow from her father, fitted the shaft on it, and pulled back the string, aiming out across the meadow. Then she fired.

  The arrow carried a long way, soaring high against the brightening sky.

  Chapter 20

  Two weeks passed.

  When Moonsong recovered from her injuries, she offered her skills as a healer to Arlie Longfinger, who consented gladly. Then she visited Stagheart and lay with him in his sickbed, holding him while he wept.

  “Forgive me,” he pleaded, sobbing quietly.

  She kissed him gently, tasting the salt of his tears. “Oh, my love,” she told him. “There is nothing to forgive.”

  Meanwhile, the kender continued to prepare for war. Riverwind, Kronn, and Brimble Redfeather held more drills atop the walls. Brightdawn helped Catt and Paxina oversee the daily struggle to keep the people fed as the town’s foodstocks dwindled.

  Then, one warm evening early in the month the kender called Blessings, the ogres launched their attack.

  They came at twilight, when the shadows of the Kenderwood were long upon the land. They were only a fraction of the whole horde, marching across the field toward the city’s east wall, but their numbers were still vast: two thousand ogres-two full war bands-all howling for blood.

  Thousands of kender, packed shoulder to shoulder atop the wall, peered between the merlons, watching the ogres advance. Some were resolute, their mouths drawn into tight, lipless lines as their hands twisted around their weapons. Others grinned and laughed, shouting at the onrushing attackers with mocking, singsong voices. Still others, who had come off watch only a short time before and had been called back when the alarm sounded, leaned sleepily against the battlements, their shoulders stooped and eyes drooping. A few took quick swigs from jugs of kender lager or flasks of lukewarm tarbean tea. Archers fitted arrows onto bowstrings; slingers tucked stones into the pouches of their hoopaks and chapaks. In the courtyard below, kender grabbed flagstones and hauled them up to the catwalk; the wall’s defenders would not be throwing kurpa melons at their assailants today. Others carried up buckets of steaming pitch, which they poured into the waiting cauldrons instead of the water they had used in the drills. They wrinkled their noses against the pungent smell, taking care not to touch the searing-hot kettles, then tossed the buckets back down into the courtyard when they were empty. Then they grabbed up weapons and squeezed into place at the battlements with the rest of their fellows. The tension on the wall was like the tingling of the air before a thunderstorm.

  The ogres were already halfway across the meadow when Riverwind dashed up the steps, joining Brimble and Kronn on the battlements. He stared over the merlons, down at the city’s attackers, and said nothing.

  “Why aren’t they sending more?” Kronn wondered aloud. “Can they take the city with so few?”

  Brimble shook his head. “I doubt it,” he said. “But that’s not what they’re aiming to do.”

  “They’re going to test our defenses,” Riverwind agreed. He bent his bow around his leg, strung it quickly, and readied an arrow. “They’ll engage us, try to find our weaknesses, then withdraw. Brimble, you should get your men in position.”

  The grizzled kender had already turned to bark at his troops. Archers and slingers ran to their posts, then stood ready, waiting expectantly as their foes moved toward the town. Then, when the ogres were in range, they raised their weapons and began to fire.

  The first volley of shafts and stones slammed into the front ranks of the horde, a rain of death that felled a hundred ogres in an instant. The second flight streaked into their midst, but the attackers were ready for it. They stopped, raising their shields over their heads to block the barrage. Even so, three score of their number dropped, dead or dying.

  When the ogres lowered their shields and began to move again, they did so at a run, charging toward the walls. Kendermore’s defenders slew another hundred and fifty attackers before they reached it. Riverwind picked off three ogres with his bow, and Kronn and Brimble pelted the attackers with stones hurled from their chapaks.

  Then the wall shuddered, dust rising from its flagstones, as the ogres slammed against it with all their might.

  Brimble blew on his whistle. “Rocks!” he roared, his shout carrying above the din of the attacking ogres.

  As the archers and slingers continued to pepper the town’s assailants, other kender picked up stones from the battlements and heaved them off the wall. The rocks ranged from stones the size of a kender’s fist to great slabs so heavy it took two kender to lift them. They crashed down upon the horde, smashing the ogres’ upraised shields and crushing whatever they struck. The ground beneath the wall quickly grew littered with rubble and broken bodies.

  Below, ogres heaved javelins with all their might; many of the spears clattered uselessly against the wall, but here and there they flew true, arcing over and between the merlons to impale the kender atop the battlements. Some of the dead collapsed on the catwalk. Others fell from the wall, their arms and legs windrnilling as they plummeted to the hard ground. One javelin flashed by Riverwind, lodging in the stomach of the archer to his right. The skewered kender, a woman with a bright red topknot, staggered and fell back, screaming, into the courtyard below. Her cries ended with a crunching of bone as she struck the cobblestones.

  “Cauldrons!” Brimble roared. He lifted a stone the size of his head and hurled it down, smashing an ogre’s skull. “Move it, you laggards!” he bellowed, and blew on his whistle. “Douse them now, before you get stuck with one of those spears!”

  Obediently, the kender nearest the steaming kettles grabbed up their pry bars and began to heave, tilting the cauldrons. The thick, black pitch was more stubborn than water to pour, but the kender heaved with all their might, and soon steaming tar splashed down upon the ogres. Cries of agony rose from the ground below. The pitch clung to whatever it hit, and black-drenched ogres howled, clawing at their faces and bodies as it scalded their flesh. Several archers nocked arrows wrapped in oil-soaked rags and touched them to nearby braziers. The arrows burst into flame, and at another shouted order from Brimble they loosed their shafts toward the pools of pitch below. Fires leapt into life where the arrows struck, killing many more ogres. The stench of burning rose from below, mixing with the brimstone reek of the wind. Black smoke filled the air.

  “That’s it!” Riverwind shouted. He loosed another arrow,
which flashed through the air, hitting an ogre in the neck. “You’re doing it! Keep at them!”

  The assault continued in this way for an hour, though to Kendermore’s defenders it felt more like an eternity. In time, half the attacking ogres lay unmoving at the base of the wall, pierced and smashed and burnt. But half still remained, and the supplies of arrows and slingstones on the battlements ran perilously low. One by one, the archers and slingers cast their weapons aside and joined their fellows at rock-heaving.

  “There!” Kronn cried, pointing out across the meadow. “Ladders coming! They’re going to try and scale the wall!”

  Riverwind squinted, leaning dangerously out over the merlons. He ducked a soaring javelin, then peered toward the distant Kenderwood. Night had fallen, but in the glow of the fires and the pale moon, he could make out several hundred more of the ogres, charging forward to join their fellows. They carried at least two dozen long, sturdy ladders.

  “Get ready!” Brimble shouted. With practiced ease, he slung his chapak across his back with one hand, picking up a long military fork with the other. “They’ll all come at once. Be prepared to repel them!”

  Hurriedly the kender set down or cast aside their weapons and pry bars, discarding them in favor of pole arms. The few remaining archers and slingers concentrated their last shots on the ladder bearers. They succeeded in stopping a third of them before they could get near the wall, but the rest came on, driving their ladders into the ground and swinging them up toward the walls. Then the ogres began to climb.

  Wherever a ladder rose, kender ran to intercept it. They pushed with their bill hooks and pitchforks, trying to shove the ladders away before the ogres could reach the top. Several ladders fell, crashing back to the ground and crushing those who had tried to climb them.

  But the ladders were sturdier than the ones Riverwind and Brimble had used in their drills, and the ogres who held their bases steady were strong. Of the seventeen ladders that went up, nine refused to fall.

  Brimble Redfeather swore like a sailor, shoving his fork against a ladder with all his might. “Damn it!” he snarled. “They’re going to make it up here! They’re going to take the wall!” He blew hard on his whistle, sounding a signal he’d hoped he wouldn’t have to use. “Arm yourselves! Be ready when they come! Kill them as soon as you can see their ugly faces!”

  The kender dropped their pole arms, which were ill-suited for close-quarters fighting, and took up their own weapons again. Hoopaks, chapaks, clublike battaks, hammer-headed hachaks, and many other strange weapons rose in anticipation of the first ogres to crest the wall.

  The kender didn’t have to wait long. The ogres climbed quickly, and soon they began to appear at the top of every ladder. The kender laid into them, shouting as they chopped and slashed and thrust with their weapons. Surprised by the defenders’ fury the first few ogres fell from their perches, bloody and battered. In several places, the ogres steadying the bottoms of the ladders had to leap aside to keep from being struck by the plummeting corpses. The kender promptly responded by toppling those ladders to the ground.

  Not all of the attackers were so easily thwarted, however. In three different places along the wall, the ogres forced the kender to give ground, vaulting over the merlons to land on the catwalk. The kender rallied quickly, sprinting along the battlements to hold the intruders at bay. In one place, they forced the attackers back quickly, toppling their ladder when they were done, but the ogres held the other two breaches. Kronn and Riverwind ran to one of those battlefronts, and Brimble dashed to the other.

  More and more kender died, in ever-increasing numbers. Ogres continued to climb up the ladders onto the wall, and for each attacker who fell, three of Kendermore’s defenders died, smashed by cudgels or hacked to pieces by axes and swords.

  Riverwind shoved his way to the front of the battle, his sabre flashing in the moonlight. He stabbed one ogre in the face, then swept the blade low and disemboweled another. The stones under his feet were slick with ogre and kender blood. To his left, Kronn hewed away with his chapak. To his right, a golden-haired kender woman swung a hoopak. She killed three ogres with the weapon, but a fourth seized her by the arm and lifted her up into the air. She slashed at the creature with her hoopak, but it only laughed, raising her high and flinging her out over the merlons. She dropped out of sight, plunging to the ground far below.

  For a moment, Riverwind and Kronn held the line alone, using all their strength to stave off the surging tide of the ogres. Then someone stepped in on the old Plainsman’s right, shouting with berserk fury Two ogres fell, in rapid succession, to her whirling, flanged mace.

  “Brightdawn!” Riverwind shouted. He thrust his sabre through an ogre’s ribs, and it fell face-forward on the stones. “I was wondering where you were! We need your help!”

  His daughter laid into the ogres with two weeks’ worth of seething rage, wreaking bloody vengeance for Swiftraven’s death. Bones cracked and blood spattered beneath her pounding mace. With the added force of her attack, Riverwind and Kronn began to push the ogres back toward the ladder.

  The kender at the other battlefront did not fare so well. The catwalk was littered with their broken bodies, and the survivors faltered beneath the onslaught of the ogres. The wall’s defenders fell like grain at harvest time.

  “Come on, you lamebrains!” roared Brimble Redfeather as he chopped at the attackers with his chapak. “Tighten up those lines! We’ve got to stop these bastards!”

  But the ogres continued to press, and the kender continued to give ground. Brimble glanced up and down the wall and cursed. Then he looked toward the ladder, where more and more ogres continued to pour up onto the battlements, and his eyes narrowed with sudden determination. Shouting at the top of his lungs, the old veteran leapt up onto the merlons and began to run toward the ladder. “You won’t take this city while I live, you goblin-spawned, lackwitted dogs!” he roared.

  The old kender dashed recklessly across the merlons, leaping across the crenellations, his chapak held high. Attackers and defenders alike stared in amazement as he sprinted to the ladder, knocked away the topmost ogre with his axe, and hurled himself off the wall, onto the rungs. Pushing with all his strength, he used his own weight to tilt the ladder away from the wall. It swung back from the battlements, stood straight upright for a heartbeat, then fell away. Brimble shouted triumphantly as he rode the ladder all the way down, then disappeared amid the throngs of ogres at the bottom of the wall.

  Galvanized by the old veteran’s last, crazed act, the kender who had been fighting at Brimble’s side began to make headway against their attackers. The ogres, suddenly stranded and bereft of reinforcements, cast about in panic, seeking to escape. The hesitation cost them dearly. The kender dosed in, slaughtering them without mercy.

  At the other battlefront, Kronn, Riverwind and Brightdawn continued to force their opponents back. Soon they were at the ladder. Riverwind raked his sabre across the chest of one last ogre, who screamed and fell from the ladder. Without pausing, the old Plainsman dropped the blade and picked up a discarded bill hook from the catwalk. He lunged at the ladder, using all his strength to shove it away.

  The ogre at the very top of that ladder happened to be Baloth, Kurthak’s lieutenant, whose job it was to command this first charge. For just a moment, the hairless ogre locked eyes with the fierce old Plainsman.

  Feeling his footing give way beneath him, Baloth dropped his war axe and made a wild leap for the wall. He landed on top of a merlon, fought momentarily for balance as the ladder fell away, then sprang forward, toward Riverwind. The old Plainsmen jumped aside, swinging the bill hook. The butt of the weapon’s long handle cracked against the underside of Baloth’s chin, and the ogre reeled back.

  Riverwind didn’t hesitate for an instant. He jabbed with the pole arm again, striking the hairless ogre between the eyes. Blood erupted from Baloth’s face as he dropped senseless to the catwalk.

  At once, several kender surged forward, rais
ing their weapons to finish the hairless ogre, but Riverwind held out his hand. “Stop!” he shouted. “Don’t kill him.” He pointed at Baloth’s intricate bone and tooth necklace, draped in a tangle across his comatose form. “That must mean he’s a leader of some sort. This one is of more use to us alive than dead.”

  Nodding their understanding, the kender ran, shouting for strong ropes to bind the unconscious ogre leader. Riverwind, meanwhile, whirled back toward the battle, relieved to see that it was all but over.

  “They’re retreating!” Brightdawn announced, looking out over the battlements. “They’re running away! We beat them!”

  The surviving kender atop the wall cheered heartily at this, lifting their weapons high above their heads. Riverwind and Kronn did not share their joy, however. They looked gravely at each other, sharing the same thought. Brave Brimble Redfeather and hundreds of kender were dead, they had nearly lost the battle, and they had only faced two thousand of Kurthak’s troops.

  There were some ten thousand ogres still out there, waiting for the real assault to begin.

  When the sun’s light touched Kendermore’s rooftops once more, it found the courtyards beneath the town’s east wall littered with the wounded and the dead.

  The surviving kender had found no rest after the ogres’ retreat. Some had spent the night heaving dead ogres off the battlements onto the bloody field outside the city, while the rest lifted those of their fellows who had fallen to the onslaught and laid them out in rows upon the ground. Now, as the sky paled with morning light, there was scarcely room to walk for bodies. Healers-including Arlie Longfinger and Moonsong of Que-Shu-moved among the fallen, helping those who could be saved and comforting those who could not. Many other kender picked their way through the aftermath too, searching for parents, siblings, children, and friends. The usual tumult of noise that hung over Kendermore had changed. Rather than shouts and laughter, the air rang with weeping and groans of pain.