Spirit of the Wind bot-1

by Chris Pierson

  Paxina glanced at the eastern horizon, which was brightening from black to deep blue. “You should go,” she said. “It won’t be long now.”

  Catt stepped forward and kissed her sister on the cheek. “I’ll see you in a few days,” she said.

  “Sure thing,” Paxina said, grinning. She pulled a dagger from her belt and cut off her cheek braids. She held the locks of hair for a moment, then handed them to her sister.

  Catt nodded, understanding, and kicked the braids into a small doeskin pouch. Returning Paxina’s smile, she turned and walked to the top of the stairs. Giffel took her hand, and together they descended into the tunnels.

  Paxina listened to them go until the sound of their footsteps faded away. Then she turned to the others, her war-painted face hard with determination, and nodded.

  “Let’s get ready,” she said.

  On the second day of the new year, and Kendermore’s last, Kurthak stood just within the tree line, watching the sun rise. He shifted his gaze to the city across the meadow. Apart from a few sentries atop her walls, the town slumbered complacently. The Black-Gazer’s mouth curled into a malicious smile.

  “Send out messengers,” he said. “Wake the horde.”

  Tragor looked up. He was sitting on a tree stump behind Kurthak, scraping a whetstone alone the blade of his massive sword. He dropped the stone immediately, rising from his seat. “Is it time?”

  “Not yet,” the Black-Gazer answered. “But I want everyone ready when Malystryx gives the order. Move.”

  Grunting, Tragor headed off into the woods. A few minutes later he was back at Kurthak’s side, and a dozen ogres ran around the edges of the meadow, spreading the word to prepare for the attack. Kurthak watched in satisfaction as his army came to life.

  They gathered at the edge of the barren, parched waste that had once been the meadow surrounding Kendermore, buckling on armor of leather and bronze and slamming crude iron helmets onto their heads. Their massive fists clenched the hafts of axes and clubs, spear shafts and sword hilts. Others gathered armfuls of javelins and handed them to their fellows. They gnawed cold, gristly meat from the bones of last night’s meal and took deep swigs from skins of skunky ale. Here and there they raised their voices in droning war chants, accompanied by the rumble of massive drums. Standard-bearers appeared at the tree line, raising the emblems of their war bands-crude leather flags, poles hung with bones and animal skulls, and stakes mounted with the severed, withered heads of kender, around which buzzed clouds of black, stinging, flies. A great cheer went up as these gruesome trophies appeared, and the standard-bearers shook them wildly, the sallow, foul-smelling heads knocking against one another as they swung by their topknots.

  As the sun cleared the eastern horizon, a low, angry rumble began to build among the ogres, swiftly growing into a chorus of furious roars and vicious snarls. A forest of weapons and horny fists raised in the air, pumping up and down in time with the clamor. Those from the more savage war bands slashed their flesh with stone knives, smearing themselves with their own blood as they whipped themselves into a frenzy of battlelust. In many places, Kurthak’s officers had to physically restrain the shrieking, frothing ogres to keep them from charging onto the field. Ogres from rival tribes growled and spat on one another. The horde-nearly ten thousand ogres in all, completely encircling the clearing and the city within-grew more and more rabid as Kurthak watched. If the signal to attack didn’t come soon, he knew, the crazed brutes would turn on one another in their rage. Despite this, however, he did nothing-only waited as his horde seethed around him. Anticipation scorched the air.

  Time passed. The shadows of the city walls grew steadily shorter. Then, an hour after dawn, Kurthak felt a dark stirring inside his mind. Recognizing the feeling, he fought back the instinct to resist. His eyes lost focus as the stirring became a presence, and the presence became a voice.

  Black-Gazer, it said.

  “Malystryx,” he whispered. Tragor looked at him sharply. “Your egg?”

  Is safe. Are your people ready?

  “Yes.”

  Good. It is time.

  The voice faded, but the presence remained. Kurthak looked at Tragor and nodded. “Sound the attack,” he said.

  With a sanguine leer, the Black-Gazer’s champion pulled a long, curving horn from his belt. He raised it to his lips and blew a single, blaring note.

  Chapter 24

  Catt and Giffel were a league west of the city, walking through the tunnels at the end of a line of kender that stretched ahead for dozens of miles, when the call of the ogres’ war horns echoed faintly down the passage behind them. Hearing the noise, many of the kender stopped and looked back. Catt was one of them.

  “That’s it,” she whispered. “It’s started.”

  Giffel squeezed her hand. “You can’t go back,” he said, and nodded down the kender-filled tunnel. “We have to get them out of here.”

  She looked at him, hurt, then breathed a small, helpless sigh. Swallowing tears, she turned back to the kender who had halted in their march. They were all looking at her.

  “All right,” she told them. “Let’s keep moving. We’ve got a long way ahead of us.”

  Reluctantly, the kender began to move again. Sliding her arm around Giffel’s waist, Catt followed. For a few minutes she was silent, but then she drew a breath and began to sing.

  The song was an old one, older than Kendermore itself. It was a trailsong, a tune Catt’s people whistled to pass the time during their wanderings. Its melody was cheerful and lively, with a brisk, steady rhythm fit for walking. Every kender alive learned it as a child, and knew it by heart:

  Old Danilo Twill had a hundred bags o’

  gold,

  And a dozen times more

  silver than he could ever hold,

  But he lost it all at knucklebones, till he didn’t have a crumb,

  Still, there’ll always be more where that came from.

  There’s always more where that came from,

  So strike up

  the pipes and bang on the drum,

  Now don’t be

  cross, lads, and don’t be glum,

  ‘Cause there’s always more where that came from.

  Giffel picked up the melody, singing along with her. Then the kender in front of them joined in, snapping their fingers in time with the second verse:

  Before a year was done, good old Dan was rich again,

  Shipping mead, wine and

  grog out across the salty main,

  Then all his ships went down with their holds all

  full o’ rum,

  Still, there’ll always be more where that came from.

  Old Dan built himself a mansion, with twenty-seven floors,

  Four-and-sixty windows, and twice as many doors,

  But it burned right down to the ground and he moved into the slum,

  Still, there’ll always be more where that came from.

  Swiftly, the trail song spread forward, through the tunnels. The kender whistled and hummed, clapped their hands and stomped their feet. Some whirred their hoopaks in the air; others took apart chapaks and played them as flutes. Dozens of melodies wove together in complex harmonies-and occasional cacophonies. Every voice embellished on the song in some way, making up new verses about Danilo Twill and his resilience in the face of misfortune. And there were thousands of voices.

  So, surrounded with music, the kender left their homes behind, bound once more for the road.

  Now some folk, they might say old Dan’s luck is running black,

  But no matter what he loses, one day soon he’ll win it back,

  ‘Cause all you need’s a hoopak and a merry tune to hum,

  And there’ll always be more where that came from.

  On the barren meadow outside Kendermore, the harsh, fierce tone of a hundred war horns sounded all around the city. Howling with bloodlust, the ogres charged, a black wave dotted with foam of bronze and steel. The war bands standards flew h
igh. The thunder of the war drums echoed the pounding of iron shod feet.

  In the midst of it all, however, Tragor paused, angling his head and frowning with confusion.

  Kurthak glanced at his champion, wondering. “What is it?” he asked, shouting to be heard over the din of his charging troops.

  Tragor concentrated a moment longer, then shook his head. “Nothing,” he said. He raised his great sword above his head, bellowing a ferocious battle-cry, then charged onward. He didn’t tell Kurthak that, just for a moment, he would have sworn he’d heard the faint sound of kender singing.

  Paxina dashed up the steps to the battlements at the city’s south wall, Moonsong and Stagheart right behind her. At the top, she peered through the crenellations and saw the dark stain spreading out of the Kenderwood.

  Fear swelled within her, an unfamiliar and unwelcome sensation that choked off her voice. The sweat that trickled down her face turned cold, and her mouth went dry “So many,” she breathed.

  A hand touched her shoulder, its grasp at once tender and firm. Paxina glanced up and saw Moonsong. The Plainswoman’s face was pale, but she smiled nevertheless. That smile was a balm, easing the dread in Paxina’s mind. The Lord Mayor looked back out at the field and laughed.

  Then, recklessly, she leapt up on the merlons and turned to face the eerily quiet city. She cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted as loud as she could. Along the walls and among the streets, other voices echoed her call, sounding it all over Kendermore.

  “Be ready! Here they come!”

  When the silver-haired kender jumped up on the battlements and sounded the call to arms, Kurthak laughed aloud. He and Tragor marched at the rear of the horde, thousands of raging ogres before them. Swords and hammers, axes and spears waved above the army’s heads.

  “Remember!” he bellowed, his voice barely audible above the din. “Take as many of them prisoner as you can! Ten thousand steel pieces to the one who captures the most slaves!” He pointed his spiked club at the silver-haired kender. “And another thousand to whoever brings me that one’s scalp!”

  “I’ll remember that,” Tragor said, leering wolfishly. “You’d best be ready to pay up when this is over, my lord.”

  The Black-Gazer howled with glee, then raised his cudgel high above his head. “Charge!” he cried.

  Tragor winded his horn again. Other trumpeters echoed the call. The army stopped marching and broke into a run, bellowing and shrieking as though their very voices would topple Kendermore’s walls. The ogres closed around the city like a noose. Their pounding feet churned the blasted ground, sending great clouds of dust billowing high into the sky.

  Atop the battlements, archers and slingers began to fire. As before, when Baloth’s war band had assailed the city many ogres fell to the barrage-but many, many more held their shields high and kept running, eagerly striving to be the first to reach the walls. They struck on all sides at once, hammering against the flagstones with weapons and fists. The stones did not yield. More and more ogres caught up with their fellows, adding their weight to the onslaught. From atop the walls, the kender on the walls met the attack with more arrows and rocks. Looking up, Kurthak saw the silver-haired kender flinging stones with her hoopak; beside her, one of the Plainsmen peppered the field with arrows.

  “Where are the cauldrons?” Tragor wondered suspiciously, scanning the battlements. An arrow glanced off his plumed helmet, knocking it momentarily askew; he straightened it with an irritated grunt. “They poured buckets of pitch on Baloth’s band.”

  Kurthak squinted at the walls, his brow furrowing. Then he shook his head stubbornly. “What does it matter?” he snapped. “Fewer dead on our side this way!”

  The blasted ground ran red with the blood of dead and wounded ogres, but the living far outnumbered the slain. Some of his troops heaved javelins up at the battlements; pierced by those spears, kender began to topple from the walls. The horde crushed them into the ground where they landed.

  “Ladders!” Kurthak cried.

  Tragor sounded a third call on his horn. Ogres picked up scaling ladders-more than a hundred of them-and started forward, into the melee. Some didn’t make it, brought down by the bombardment from above, but most pressed on, until at last they were in place. They planted the bases of the ladders in the blood-dampened earth and raised them toward the battlements.

  Then something curious happened. Atop the wall, the silver-haired kender who had stood on the merlons at the start of the battle called out again. “Retreat!” she shouted.

  At once, the kender vanished from the battlements, yelling and screaming as they climbed down the insides of the walls. In mere moments, none remained. The ogres whooped with malevolent joy, clashing their weapons against their shields.

  “What’s happening?” Kurthak wondered aloud.

  “They’re retreating!” Tragor cried jubilantly, waving his great sword in circles above his head. “The walls are ours!”

  The ladders rose upright. Ogres started to clamber up toward the abandoned battlements. They spread along the catwalk, tossing aside the bodies of kender who had died on top of the walls.

  The new sound was low at first, scarcely audible above the yowling of the horde. It grew quickly louder, though, and Kurthak and Tragor glanced at each other in confusion as the ground trembled beneath their feet. Then their eyes widened when they recognized the noise. It was the grinding and cracking of stone.

  “Fall back!” Kurthak shouted to his troops. “Get away from the wall!”

  Too late. With a rumble that shook the earth, the city’s walls groaned and gave way. The ogres on the battlements screamed as the catwalks fell from beneath their feet, then they plummeted to their deaths in the middle of the avalanche. The walls did not simply collapse, however; the kender had spent weeks preparing them, chipping away the stones at their bases so they would do the most damage to their enemies. They fell outward, on top of other attackers.

  Stones pounded down on top of ogres, crushing them by the score. Scaling ladders, pushed back from the crumbling battlements, crashed to the ground. Within seconds, a large part of Kurthak’s horde disappeared beneath countless tons of rock.

  Dust exploded outward from Kendermore in a billowing, gray wave. Kurthak and Tragor choked and wheezed as it broke over them, stinging their eyes and filling their throats. When it cleared, they stared in shock at the ruins. The clattering of stone mixed with the cries of injured and dying ogres. Besides the hundreds who lay buried beneath the rubble, hundreds more lay on the ground, their legs crushed, or staggered aimlessly along the edges of the wreckage, clutching broken arms and bloodied bodies. Those who had escaped stood about the periphery, staring dumbly at the heaps of shifting flagstones.

  Soon, however, the stupor wore off. The ogres had toppled the walls. The city lay naked before them, inviting and defenseless. What was more, hundreds of kender stood, in the courtyards just beyond the ruined battlements, leaning on their hoopaks and grinning mockingly. It was too much for the dull-witted ogres. Howling furiously, they surged over the shattered walls, trampling their own dying comrades as they boiled into the city.

  They poured into the courtyards like water through a broken dam, weapons held high. As they ran, though, the ground gave way beneath their feet. Their bloodthirsty roars became a chorus of screams as they vanished into the earth.

  The kender had dug over a thousand pits in the courtyards. Most swallowed at least one ogre, and many claimed two or more. Kendermore’s attackers died by the hundreds, their massive weight breaking the fragile rope-and-wood lattices that held up the cobblestones. They fell, landing hard on the sharpened stakes that lined the bottoms of the pits. Gored, they writhed and choked as they died.

  Kurthak seethed with fury at what was happening. Rage filled his mind, clouding his vision with red mist. The kender were grouped on the other side of the pits, in the shadows of the courtyards, laughing. Laughing at him.

  His temper snapping, he threw his massive arm
s up over his head and howled. “Kill them!” he cried. “Take no prisoners! Kill them all!”

  The surviving ogres-no more than five thousand of his original mass of ten-began to pick their way past the deadfalls. Hooting derisively, the kender turned and ran down the streets into the heart of the city Kurthak drove his ogres furiously after them.

  Riverwind and his companions had walked for hours, following the snaking passage deep into Malystryx’s mountain. As they went, the reddish glow before them grew slowly stronger, flickering and gleaming as it reflected off the obsidian walls. The ground beneath them shuddered frequently, sending shards of glossy, black stone showering down from the ceiling. One piece nicked Kronn’s forehead, and the cut stubbornly refused to stop bleeding. Other than that, though, their march went undisturbed. They never noticed the shadowy form that trailed silently behind them.

  “I should be making a map of this,” Kronn whispered. His voice sounded loud and strange.

  Riverwind chuckled softly. “Next time.”

  At last, the light ahead grew bright enough that they could douse their torches. The air, already oppressively warm, grew steadily hotter. The three travelers wiped stinging sweat from their eyes. In the distance, they could hear the crackle of flames. Wispy smoke curled around them. Kronn reached behind his back and touched his chapak warily; beside him, Brightdawn and Riverwind rested their hands on their own weapons.

  The tunnel wound around a corner. The three companions rounded it, then stopped in their tracks, staring in wonder. Brightdawn gasped softly.

  The passage opened into a vast chamber, a hole in the mountain’s heart. The light here was shockingly bright, the heat like a dwarven foundry. A glowing pool of magma roiled and bubbled far below, choking the air with smoke and ash. Flames danced across its surface and burst forth in violent gouts. Stones, shaken loose by faint tremors, rattled down the walls to vanish with hisses of steam into the molten rock.