A War of Stones: Book One of the Traveler Knight

by Howard Norfolk

  “The…the…the Mistress of the Pale Shore has marched on you and landed her horde here on Big Stone! Sterina will come over those hills and attack this camp in three days time!”

  Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned to stare at the little rat-faced traitor. Then the chiefs all stood up and were talking at once to each other, or telling their warriors what to do. The swamp lion jumped at the wooden wall and clawed its way up, to disappear in several bounds out through the crowd.

  Kulith lowered the Tuvier Blade, and he smiled over at the little goblin. Since trolls were rumored to never smile, it was unnerving, and caused it to quiver, and make a little squeak.

  The goblins were lowering the platform down the side of the pit and they gathered themselves to it, to stand and be winched up to the ground level of the ring side. Several of the band chiefs were there by then, to immediately take counsel with Kulith and Ovodag. Kulith pushed the little goblin away from himself, toward some of his White Knife warriors, who grabbed onto him.

  “Make sure this one comfortable with shackles so that he doesn’t try to run away tomorrow and go warn the White Child,” he told them. They fitted Rat Ears with chains and led him off through the thinning crowd, that problem disappearing for now and leaving Kulith with far bigger ones. He looked around at Urubo, Narus the Nail, Kroson, his brother Ovodag, and half a dozen others. He checked the position of the sky. It was just after the fall of night, before the moon had come up. It was clear, good for the clear thinking they would now have to all do.

  “There are several tasks that are essential, and cannot wait until tomorrow,” he said to them. “The first is to bring the rest of the army down the valley so that we have maximized our lines and formations by noon, the day after tomorrow. That will give us time to decide where we want to fight her, and move the parts of the horde accordingly into position in the last hours.”

  “No one has ever fielded that kind of army before, or tried to fight with it in a battle,” one of the chief said.

  “Yes, we are the first,” he replied, “and if all goes well, maybe we will be the last to have to do so.”

  The next day the sprawling camp across the Meadows was mostly struck, and it was all moved over three miles to the east, closer to the harbor they had built next to the town. There were actually now three harbors that they controlled, the camp being so large that it used two, and also the Ghost Harbor, which they had stripped of ships and wood, but left the sunken boats in the mouth of to block it. At the other bugger harbor, a contemporary of Ovodag was now using a small fleet of boats and Vous Vox’s personal sloop to bring in food from the other Stones and the Shore, to the Black Ear, to the White Knife, to the Red Mark, and to a dozen other similar war bands.

  These warriors all moved south now down the Meadows, occupying a fresh campsite they had designated half way between the two groups. Kulith spent the morning taking inventory of the thring lances they had prepared, and making sure that the buggers were not urinating and defecating in the same water that they were drinking, which had caused sickness among them before.

  He sent Ovodag, who would be staying to fight in the battle, up to the top of the hills on Big Stone, to look down across the woods at the west shore and confirm what Rat Ears had said. He came back down about noon, to report to Kulith and the others.

  “There was a fog yesterday, which has aided her,” Ovodag said, “but it cleared this morning and we were able to look out over the woods and see about thirty longboats, and more than a hundred large crude rafts, like flatboats, spread out along the shore to the south of the river’s mouth. Do you think she plans on going through the Red Tower on her way here?”

  “A hundred flatboats,” one of the chiefs commented on it. “At least we now know what she has been up to. You could tie them all together somewhere and use them as a floating road.”

  It was an overstatement if he meant that such a road could stretch all the way from the Marsh Shore to Big Stone, because these were miles apart, but they got his general meaning. If you could put an army on a road and then move that road anywhere you wanted, then it was just as good. If each had carried fifty buggers or thrings on board, then there were now a lot of boots headed their way through the woods.

  “It appears that the rat-feced traitor has bought us a little time, and told us where we needed to look,” Kroson said.

  “Continue with your preparations,” Kulith told them all. “Inform me again when they come up out of the woods. We will have to pull back the cutters, and send more pickets up to watch.”

  “There is another problem we have this morning, that I need to tell you of,” the chief of the Blue Mark goblins said. “All the thrings working in factoria at and around the town have stopped. They are just standing there now, doing nothing.” Kulith growled, as if he could fix that problem for them, one that they had made for themselves.

  “Vous Vox has released them all from the enchantments they were under,” he explained. “They will go wild, or they will be transformed into soldiers. I told you this would happen, and this is why they should have been destroyed immediately, and buggers moved in to replace them.” They stirred, quiet for the moment under his admonishment.

  “Well at least we readied those burn pits,” Ovodag said, showing them that it was not a real mistake, only a part of the overall plan they had already made.

  “Gather several hundred warriors who don’t have any practice with a lance and go clear them all out,” Kulith told them. “Throw them into the pits and burn them all.”

  “There is another matter I need to mention, though it is small in comparison to the nearness and danger of Sterina’s horde,” Ovodag said to him. “If you would grant me a favor, bring Little Toad over to us here.” She had not been feeling well all night, but she was still dutifully nearby, watching them with the lame archer.

  “Little Toad, come over here to us,” Kulith commanded her. “My brother has requested an audience with your grace.” She had been sitting on a stool, and now she got up, stifling a cough with one sleeve of her jacket as she approached them. Ovodag reached into his overcoat and took out a flap of leather he had concealed there. He held it up for them to all look at.

  “We have gotten a reply back from the West Lands regarding her ransom. Hovus received it, carried over by a couple buggers who carelessly got caught near Krolo in a wood man’s barn.”

  Hovus Black Smile had withdrawn all the way back across the Priwak Barrens from Fugoe Castle with the remains of the horde and taken over Doom Wall, supposedly in Kulith’s name. He had come to a truce with the father of Kulith’s old sow Afria, and he had taken her on as his own. He had also rebuilt the burned hall at Doom Wall, in his own barbaric style.

  Kulith had suspected the troll of stealing from him at Fugoe after the great raid, and now this seemed only to continue in his absence. Still, the food had kept flowing down from North Stone to their camp, and at least he knew Hovus’ nature.

  He wondered if Ovodag had read the letter, or gotten someone else to read it for him beforehand. Was this some kind of surprise wrest for power on his brother’s part that would rearrange the leadership of the horde? It seemed poorly timed if it was. The cart they all rode on to fortune or disaster was fixed now as if its wheels were set in a deep pair of ruts. Ovodag handed it off to her, and she took it and opened it up.

  “Please read what it says to us,” he asked her. She spread the parchment open before her in the sunlight and stared down at it, her breath wispy with steam coming forth because it was still cold.

  “It’s from a Traveler Knight,” she said. Well, that figured as a good sign, Kulith thought to himself. That type of knight was not particularly dangerous, and they had slaughtered a whole company of them when they had taken her coach. Most of them knew that the knights dealt with trade and money, and so the man was obviously intent on paying her ransom. She became intent on reading some large part of the words to herself, and she frowned as she did so.

&nbs
p; “Tell us!” Ovodag barked at her.

  “He wishes to set a place for the exchange of myself for the ransom you have demanded,” she said, but she did not seem happy about it for some reason. “Another person took the letter from him when it was half way written, and has continued it with his own words and intentions. This was done by my cousin, Johnas Tygus of Grotoy.”

  That was the major military power north of the Priwak, and the area was always harder to raid into than the West Lands, because of the series of long, wide canals and fortifications that existed south of Grevies, and because the soldiers of Grotoy, Wallenz and Lowes were all well armed and coordinated. The whole border region between Alonze and Gece was at peace now and in full cooperation because the ruling families were all interbred with one another like a big pack of dogs.

  “What does he say? Do not spare us his scorn.”

  “He says that he and the Yellow Duke will begin breaking down the warrens and emptying out all the caves along the north shore of the Dimm, working their way down to the bridges crossing over to North Stone. They will then attack and seize Doom Wall from you and erect a scaffold there, and hang bugger warriors from it as they are brought to ground, until I am returned.”

  It was a great threat, but it loomed off in the distance like a far away mountain, while Sterina’s army stood almost in their faces. One of the bugger chiefs shared this opinion openly with the others.

  “It will take a couple weeks for them to even get up into the hills, and months to do what they propose. This stone boy seems rather assured of himself, puffed up like a dead fish left out on the shore in the sun.”

  “You are right,” Ovodag said. “But Hovus Black Smile also wanted us to know that archers and foresters from Grotoy have already entered the hills, and began the necessary clearing and cutting of the roads they will need for such a campaign.”

  “Well, it was coming, and it has now come later,” Kulith said. “We still have plenty of time to release her, but only after we take the Stone Pile.”

  Some of the chiefs looked like they wanted to be done with her immediately. What they were thinking now since war with Grotoy appeared inevitable was to rape her, murder her, and then throw her down into a burning pit with her archer. But Kulith had promised to save her, and she had promised to give him anything in return, and he felt more and more certain now as he observed what was happening among the buggers around him that he might eventually have to try and collect on that promise.

  It was his masterwork he thought, and he hoped that the story of it would be preserved and told on for at least ten generations around the pot fires of the buggers. It resolved several problems they now faced, and made sure of her safety while he was out fighting. It would help establish how things were done between them once Vous Vox was gone, and it would broaden their world through association to everything that lay outside the Dimm. He played this card now from his hand, down in front of the chiefs and warlords of the bugger horde.

  “Little Toad has already helped me plan out how to best get into the Stone Pile, he said. “Her knowledge of castle siege and what we have constructed so far will save the lives of thousands of buggers, including some of us standing right here. I don’t expect to ever go back north across the Stones and fight Grotoy at Doom Wall, and you are all sure that you don’t want to do it either. We all want to go home for the winter after this and feast, drink, and make whelps with our sows.”

  “But there is one service that she can do for us that no other bugger is capable of doing.” He made a pause, for them to guess, looking over at her as she stared back at him in disbelief, held also in his terrible suspense. “She can manage and divide the dead penny for us equally, without favoritism, and do so quickly and accurately. Do you expect me to do it? Do you expect Ovodag to manage it? Do you trust one of yourselves, or several of you as a group to be in charge of the task? Perhaps we should invite Hovus Black Smile down here to do it for us?”

  There were a couple chuckles at that last bit, but they were mostly interested, if not spellbound by the whole idea. It was perhaps taking some time to sink in, to be weighed against the other options available. Perhaps some of them had secretly planned to seize the Stone Pile for themselves, and the dead penny with it. If the news of it was reported back to Grotoy and Wallenz, that she was doing some great service for them, the novelty and care it implied might forestall the incursion; by showing that she was being treated with some respect.

  “You…you are a very dangerous bugger,” Narus the Nail commented, pointing over at him, and then bringing his hand back in a fist and hitting himself in the chest several times. There, someone had finally admitted it openly among them. Narus looked around at the others.

  “What do you all say to this plan? All it needs for now is a show of hands.” They quickly did this, and it was accepted. Kulith nodded back to them in acknowledgment.

  “After the thrings are cleared out of the town I will go into it and check that it has been done properly,” he said. “Then I will move my tent and the dead penny I have collected so far there, using the barns and warehouses for storage. Continue with your preparations for the battle. Have the scouts find out how Sterina is coming up through the forest, and what types of troops she has brought. We will have to decide tomorrow if we intend to stop and fight her horde before she relieves the Stone Pile.”

  He went back to his tents and began to arrange for the transfer of the goods and stores over to the town. He gave out almost all the food that was gathered there, sending it away to the warrior camps to power up and put heart into the buggers who would soon be fighting for the freedom they didn’t understand or respect.

  He left the table and tent there until last, for Little Toad and the archer to use. He came over several times and looked at her progress on the letter that he would send back to her cousin Grotoy and the merchant knight. Finally it was done to his satisfaction, and he took the envelope from her and summoned one of the White Knives to go and put it on a ship headed back to North Stone. After she had watched the message go off, she turned back to stare at Kulith and confront him about what he had earlier said.

  “You never asked me to do such a thing for you, and I would never have agreed,” she told him.

  “Yes,” he admitted, “but now they expect you to do it, so you cannot refuse. What greater gift could you get from me? Now they will not dare harm you, even if I am killed in the coming battle. At least not until this service is done for them. If you survive all this, every wood man and stone man you meet in Gece will know the tale.”

  He had the tents struck, and the last of their gear put into carts to be moved over to the town below the Stone Pile. The town was like everything else in the Dimm: only a rough copy of what the greater thrings had remembered from when they were alive. There was a center to it with several halls and taverns, to entertain bugger guests and for the dead to cavort in as if they were still alive. These had lost their purpose, and become barracks for a part of the horde.

  A series of warehouses and factoria spread out from the town center, and these had all used raw materials brought in as a part of the dead penny to create useful things, from armor and weapons to loaves of bread, some of which the horde had been in control of and used since it had been overrun. Thrings used in the manufacture stood in place, tirelessly working until they could no longer do so. Others had been compelled when needed from small warrens and underground storages, these little more than tombs made of brick or stone, and done work as required by a crew of weaker thring lords, trolls and goblins who acted as the bosses.

  When the thrings in the town had quit working, a series of steps began that Kulith had forced the other chiefs to accept. There were almost two thousand of the monsters, and they were now being lanced and carried to the burn pits that were dug along the south side of the place, where they were summarily thrown in and destroyed. The smoke mercifully rose up and drifted out to the east off shore, to settle on the surface of the Dimm, and upon the
distant small islands known as the Pennies.

  By the time they had reached the outskirts of the town with the carts, there was also a long smudge of smoke rising up over the hills, coming from the direction of the forest. It looked like Sterina and the Whisper had not been able to agree, and that the castle known as the Red Tower was now burning. Kulith assumed they would just bypass the other castles, holds and warrens, but perhaps not.

  He thought that the entire living population of Big Stone that stood in Sterina’s path of advance might be attacked, killed, and converted into thrings to use in the coming battle. Whenever he had dealt with the buggers under Sterina’s control, from the Swamp Shore or to the north of it, they had all behaved more desperately and dangerous than those from the Priwak and the Dimm. Threats and heavy handedness on Sarik’s part had mostly kept them in check when out raiding and his pact with Sterina from them competing over the same prizes.

  There was a group of about fifty buggers, mostly trolls standing on the outskirts of the town, a little away from the buildings, and they were practicing with lances as the thrings were brought out in ones, twos, or by the dozen. They were using some of the new lances Kulith had gotten made after the first battle before the Stone Pile. These were tipped at one end with a bladed or sharp iron point, for piercing through the armored thring ghouls they anticipated fighting in great numbers during the coming battle. As they went by, one troll showed another a tactic that was catching on.

  He approached a thring, held up by two other lances already transfixed through its body. He took the iron point and thrust it right through the front of the skull. It went in and burst out the back, making a nauseous explosion of fluids and brains. Kulith grunted in approval, as Little Toad stopped and gagged, then spit out into the grass.