A War of Stones: Book One of the Traveler Knight

by Howard Norfolk

  Kulith chose one of the inns, it smelling the least polluted by the presence of thrings. The goblins camped in it gave him all the rooms upstairs, and those soon departed to go find some other place to lair. There was another reason besides Little Toad being sick for going inside a building. Kulith wanted to be in a place where the other buggers could not see what happened. Kulith was now hoping for another miracle, like the one he’d experienced the night before the battle on the Long Bone.

  He summoned some white hoods to check Little Toad’s condition, and make recommendations about what could be done to make her well. When all that could be done was done, he waited until they had left, and the girl was sipping a meat and vegetable broth out of a wooden bowl.

  “Have you figured out how to split the dead penny yet?” he asked her. She replied slowly, after some thought on it, and another sip or two of soup.

  “It will be done with lots, each lot a weight of silver or gold. The horde will stand in lines and each show their lot to receive their share of it. You can use sticks, broken pottery, or perhaps even clam shells taken out of the lake.” Kulith scratched his chin as he thought about it.

  “But how will we measure the shares out evenly for the entire horde?”

  “You seem very sure that it exists,” she said to him. “How are you so sure of it?”

  “Do the storehouses and castles of the stone men have nothing in them?” he asked her back, in a tone that said he was sure. “It is there. We know it is, because we once had it all, and now we do not. Kabi saw it, and I trust what she told me. She had no reason to lie.” Smartly, she went on without another comment to what he wanted to hear.

  “Only by calculating the entire amount of coins and metal in the treasure can it be done. There will of course be other things of value, like what you are getting now in tribute, but I assume it will be in a different form, mostly of things useful or desired. All of that should be saved and put to use for the general good order of the bugger lands. It should become the treasury for the Stones.”

  “How so?” he asked her.

  “You offer these things in trade after some time to the chiefs, in exchange for the gold and silver you have given them before, or other lands that they want. You make them pay for all of it. That is how the world of the stone men works.”

  “We don’t count it all?” Kulith asked her.

  “That would take too much time,” she replied, and turned her head to look over at him. “You will have to weigh it, and make measures with equal metal or stone weights that stand for each share.”

  “That’s a good plan,” he replied. “We can even make smaller weights to stand for part shares, or other amounts. The horde has a lot of debts piling up, and we will have to pay most of it off once we are free.”

  “Free?” she repeated, with her voice now full of scorn, the single word raised up above the level of the background noises below and outside on the streets where they were still slaughtering thrings.

  “Free of the dead,” Kulith clarified. He got off of the bench he had been sitting on and looked at the shutters that covered the windows, gauging their strength and defense. He knew that everyone was not happy with what he had proposed, but for the most part openly, they had said that they were with him. A group of injured warriors from the bands who thought they had the most to gain had quickly volunteered to come into town and surround the place, to make sure that Kulith’s plan was not interfered with. He could hardly refuse such an offer, but how much protection did they really give? They could as easily kill her, or at least seize her from out of his direct control.

  He wasn’t sure about the last possibility, though. It didn’t seem like anyone wanted to take her responsibility away from him. Perhaps they thought they could make a deal with Grotoy and Wallenz, or whatever other vengeance came looking for them if something bad happened to her. Either way, they would blame it all on him.

  He had gotten a report earlier that thrings, or someone else had gone and dug up the monument stone built to the Growler, the thring that Sarik had deposed, in a vain attempt to find the body and perhaps put him back together. There was nothing there Kulith knew, and the monument was only a ruse made by Sarik to check on the other’s loyalty. Sarik had confided to Kulith that he had placed the pieces of the body into several iron trunks, encased them in Mancan cement, and then had then rowed out and thrown into different parts of the lake.

  Did it mean that Vous Vox was concerned, or perhaps that he did not believe Sterina would help him? Had it been some gamble by Sterina, to restore order to the Dimm? Well, something desperate had been tried, but it had come to nothing.

  He considered what could happen, now that Sterina’s movements were being constantly watched. He summoned some of the White Knife, and sent them away with orders to position several thousand buggers out on the eastern edge of the camp, near the water, in case she had some of her thrings come out there. He also suspected they had less time than the three days that Rat Ears had reckoned. She would be on the top of the hills by nightfall, at least with part of her forces.

  But even if you could put your army on a road and could move that road anywhere, it still took time for them to clear off of it and form up into proper battle lines. A night attack would favor the undead and the vampires, which he knew Sterina and Vous Vox both had a few of. Another order he made told the horde to start sending their pony cavalry around the Stone Pile in patrols, to curtail any direct communication or movements between the two leaders.

  Then he sat back, and eventually caught some sleep, because he suspected that tomorrow would be the day of the great battle, or at least that it would start tomorrow. The light had gone when he awoke later, and he only moved around to get a bowl of soup, and to check and see that his orders had been followed. Then he rested, and gathered his energy.

  When he awoke again in the large room above the tavern it was still dark, and he went out and checked the time with a sentry. By then there were glowing pot fires all up and down the street, as the wounded veterans he had been promised were sitting around and eating, considering how the battle would go. None of the possibilities he had worried about before had so far occurred, and so he returned up to the room. There he took out the Tuvier Blade and placed it close to him, but also where the girl, who was now sleeping deeply and restfully upon the large straw bed could also possibly get at it and take it up. Then he drowsed and waited, and awoke at first light, and could not recall any vision or unusual occurrence during the rest of the night.

  It had not happened again like on the Long Bone, and he considered what this meant. He sensed this showed him something he could not yet detect through regular means: that Sterina had not personally ventured across the Dimm with her horde to fight the buggers, and this was in character with her actions before. Instead it seemed she would rely on one or more of her commanders; the strongest of which was a vampire they called Geizus, who had been in life a half-troll, just like him.

  He cleaned up and went out, walking by the fires of the injured veterans, who were mostly still asleep and full of the food he had distributed out yesterday. They didn’t want to be in this fight he sensed, only close by. They would all join in the fight and sacking of the Stone Pile afterwards though, even if they had to crawl there and fight with one hand. This was not a bad thing for him. The more buggers that lined up and accepted his plan, the better everything would be.

  There was a new center to the bugger camp, where most of the chiefs now had their tents pitched in a rough ring, with a great fire pit at the middle that they all shared. Berry sweetened tump and fresh cooked meat could be found ready for the taking. He went past the sentries and helped himself, then sat down on a bench and ate it down quickly with a couple of boiled eggs and some greens. By the time he had finished most of it, several of the great horde chiefs had joined him there, and were also eating.

  “Have you decided how you want to fight them?” Kulith asked, after he had finished. Agrok scratched the whis
kers on his chin, and then he replied.

  “It was a long time coming to a decision about it. There were several points that were put out, that made the most sense.”

  “I would like to know what you all thought,” Kulith said. “It could aid my small part in the coming battle.”

  “Well, Narus said that the thrings usually picked a plan and stuck to it, and chances are that Sterina gave them a plan at the Knife Back Palace, no matter what or how things are different than what she thought. We all agreed that their scouts are next to useless, and just serve to push ours back. No matter what we do, they will just stick to whatever orders they have been given.”

  “That’s true,” Kulith agreed. They had thought that they had got a jump on the buggers maybe, by coming by boats in under the fog, but the burning of the Red Tower had alerted everyone in the camp. Would they rush down the hill and attack? It was only the morning now, and the daylight did not favor them. When they had attacked the camp on the Bean, it had been repulsed under the same general conditions and numbers.

  “We then asked each other what the benefits were to not letting Sterina relieve the Stone Pile. We came back with the answer that there was neither a great benefit to us by blocking her horde, nor in letting it travel there.” Kulith was intrigued, and he knew that they were smarter as a whole than he was.

  “If her horde gets there what happens?” he asked.

  “Well, they will not all fit inside, and only so many can stand on the walls to defend at one time. Their army is not built for that either. Probably Vous Vox will not open his gate for them, and we are starting to build a covered ram today to further convince him that this would be a bad idea.”

  “If he won’t open up,” Amegis, the big troll chief said, “then only the most powerful thrings will be able to enter the Stone Pile like that jack in black did during the battle by hopping up over the wall. That type of thing will be a loss to the ones left outside on the field, and will only weaken them. If they surround it, then we will whittle them away by staying out of their arrow range. And they will all not fit around the base of the castle either, so that somewhere else on the field there will be a wing, trying to accomplish something else, or fighting us by themselves.”

  “They will be weakest there, and you were right to post lancers over by the water, as they could try and destroy our supplies and boats. That would be a great blow to us, as they do not need as much food, and perhaps have not planned for provisions at all.”

  “Yes, I see,” Kulith said.

  “It is actually worse for us to try and stop them from reaching the Stone Pile, because we will not all fit between it and the slope, so our line will be made thinner, and we will constantly be in danger of being pushed back toward the fortress, which will open us up to attack from the rear, or split our line.”

  “This seems to be an excellent plan, and you have figured it out together better than I ever could,” he admitted. He was indeed impressed.

  “We have begun to dismantle the wood from the pit you built,” Narus said. “I assume that you did that as a test, to see how long it would take us to tunnel under the wall. Some of that wood will be used to make the scaffold of the ram, which we will set out as a tempting target for them. If it burns, then it will take only a couple of days to rebuild it.”

  Kulith crossed his arms and nodded as he let the words of the big goblin chief wash over him, accepting all that was said. When he was done, Kulith had only one question for them. He posed this now.

  “Where do you want me to stand, during the battle?”

  “With the White Knives, the Red Marks, and Long Ridge’s thyrs near the middle of the field,” Amegis said. “You must spot the greater thrings and try to destroy them, hoping that doing so will save other buggers and causes the lesser thrings’ magic to fail.”

  “It is what I had planned on doing,” Kulith said. And then he added, “Really, do you want to put Long Ridge and me together on the battle field with the hope that one of us kills the other?”

  “If that happens, then it is between the two of you,” Amegis replied, looking over at him, his mouth hovering just over a goblet of red edge berry and tump he held in his hand.

  “They are the most courageous and the most thirsting for battle,” Narus the Nail said, coming over and cutting off a large slab of meat from one of the carcasses over the fire. “So we are giving it to them.”

  “You should all stop drinking right now,” Kulith told them. “We need to dose the entire horde with root tea. I have thought of something you all have not seen, from when we were fighting in the woods.”

  “What did you see in the woods?” Amegis asked, after he had taken another long drink of tump, and was now licking at his pointed teeth. It was scornful and rude, but he was a chief and they were too close to the coming battle to make a quarrel.

  “I fought the Whisper, and I am not stupid enough to think that Sterina’s horde has done in one day what I could not do myself in several. What if the Whisper is among them now, taking them over, hiding and waiting for its great chance? It could come with them over the hills and take over every dead body made new upon the battle field. Death fuels them, gives them their powers. There will be a lot of that tonight, or tomorrow, and for several days after. You need to get them all to drink the root tea now, or perhaps neither of the armies will be left standing here triumphant over the other. Perhaps it will only be the Whisper: the new thring Overlord of the Dimm.”

  Amegis swore and emptied the rest of his cup out onto the rocks forming the fire pit there before him. It had got their attention, and they all looked at each other, evaluating the threat he had proposed. Kulith crossed his arms and waited for a reply.

  “The lesser son of my father is right,” Ovodag said, as he walked forward to cut off another slab of meat. He had been so quiet that Kulith had missed his presence there. “The Whisper is a disease to the living and to the dead. I didn’t bring my war band all the way south across the Stones just to get it turned into its fodder. We must live, if we are lucky in battle, to spend the dead penny, and this is the way it must be.”

  “I will make the arrangements and explain the situation to the other leaders of the horde, so there is time to do it before we come to arms,” Narus the Nail said.

  Kulith nodded to them, and then nodded in thanks over to his brother. He excused himself a bit later, by just walking away from the fire. There were things to do, and they were going to run out of time and be fighting for their lives before they realized it. Some of the chiefs were being lazy, but he thought that the warriors would listen to him, if he appealed to them directly.

  This was the problem with believing yourself invulnerable he thought, that something easy was now missed. If this was not planned for, then their own numbers might be turned, and rolled back against them. If he could not get a miracle from the sword, then he decided that he would make one for himself. After a little searching, he found Long Ridge and his thyrs.

  “We will be fighting together when the time comes,” he told him. “I want you to take barrels now and place them out across the meadow, from this camp to where they are building the ram, spaced out about a hundred yaeds apart. They should be opened and filled up with fresh water for drinking.”

  “My warriors have a lot to do before the battle,” the thyr chief said back to him, and seemed dismissive of the idea.

  “I will pay you a gold coin for every one that you put in place,” he said. “You have my permission to go into the stores and get the carts and the barrels you need. If someone doubts it, just come along and get me.”

  “If we put out hundreds of barrels, will I get paid for every one?” Long Ridge asked Kulith, to see if he would dare lie again.

  “Yes,” Kulith replied, “as long as it is done as I have said. And when you grow thirsty in the battle, there will be water there for you to find and drink.” Long Ridge nodded, and considered it seriously now.

  “Do not wait too long to act,” K
ulith told him, “or I will make the offer to another chief.”

  He turned around and went back over to the tents of the goblin chiefs, where they were drawing in the dirt, trying to decide how they would place themselves out during the battle. He made no comment on it, just explaining to them how he had bribed the thyrs to place out barrels of water, and of how they could now be spiked later with root tea.

  He went back to the town, which had lost most of its rotten smell due to the winds now blowing in west from the hills and the marsh. The wounded veterans lay around, watching each other, and watching the lake water off to the west. He found the bugger in charge and made sure there were stacks of thring lances piled up and ready in case they were needed.

  He went into the inn, and everyone there was on edge, arrayed in full battle harness and armor, with weapons at hand. They all looked like they were ready to end this, but he was not sure it would ever really end. As long as one greater thring could remain through the ages, they would keep alive the decrepit memory of their lost peerage over the buggers, and also hold the grudge of the defeat.

  It was odd to think that something dead could keep something else alive in that way. Maybe after a long time, it would only live as words somewhere, written on a page or told around a pot fire. For the first time, he seriously considered going on after this and attacking the Pale Shore and the Knife Back Palace. He went upstairs with this thought, and checked on the others.

  There was a great deal of tension there also. The White Knife had drawn lots to see who would go where, and the ones who would guard the countess were sitting around, eating in their armor, wondering how their luck would play out. The lame archer named Edou was waiting on the countess, who was modestly cleaning herself behind a screen in one corner of the room with a pail of water and a cloth. She finished, righted herself and came out to see him.

  “What is going on?” she asked him.

  “I will have you taken to a place on a roof where you may watch it,” he told her. “It is the time of the great battle: the one that we will all talk about and remember. Each bugger here will say where they stood and what they did during it, and all the others will listen and wish they were also here. Because this battle means more than any of the others ones we have fought before. Old Roarer was killed, but he was also heard, and this is the battle of his prophecy. This battle is ours: it belongs to us.” For once she didn’t say anything, or at least not the first thing that came to her mind. After awhile she made a comment, but he wasn’t sure it was better reasoned.