A War of Stones: Book One of the Traveler Knight

by Howard Norfolk

He took out his swords, drawing them as the thyrs to either side gave him room. Not all of them had piles now, as they were being used up to the limit of their ability to move new ones forward. The wolf-heads ahead of him moved off to either side, and he found himself in the small groups and rings of a pitched battle, just like any other. A thring went by, seeming to not notice him, and he turned back and cut its head clean off with the Tuvier Blade.

  Another fiend was on him almost immediately, and he took its arm off as it clawed at him. It bit down on the blade of the magical sword, and the head puffed up into a ball of fire, peeling back the skin to expose bone and teeth. It fell off of him, and he cut across the next thring, and then pushed it down to pull his sword out of its back, where it had gone half way through and stuck in a bone. Something tried to grab at his own back, and he lowered himself and shouldered it off. He used the Tuvier Blade to stab the thring now under his boot through the neck.

  A thring jumped at him, and he bounced across the grass, avoiding it. Then the ghouls were all around him in a pack of white and black bodies. He began to dart about and cut at them, then shake them off as they grabbed at him and held on. He swept around with his magic sword, the blade lighting them on fire, they biting down into his heavy armor coat and then letting go as they weakened.

  “Golden Sword!” shouted a thyr, as it ran past him with a sword and cut off a white arm. A dozen others took up the cry, and they closed in with lances and spears, to stab and impale the undead. Then they cut them apart with axes and swords, leaving them to wither in white pieces on the black, bloody grass. They they went on, looking for more to destroy. Kulith stopped and looked around, and saw that they had cleared the area before the wall of bodies they had made, and now most buggers had moved about to destroy the ones left on either side of it. He wasn’t sure if this was the right thing to do, or if they should now all back off from the mass and reform. He stepped back, deciding for himself, and left it to Long Ridge or another thyr chief to make that call.

  Sunnil saw there were now thrings and buggers below, running through the streets, clawing and hacking at each other, and the shouts became a clamor, a cacophony of madness that kept on going, moving around in a swirl of thrusts, bites and strikes. The White Knife warriors had positioned themselves below in the twisting stairs leading up to the tower top. They used their swords to cut at anything that showed itself, friend or foe, and their lances, made shorter, were used to pin the bodies there. In just a few minutes, they had blocked it mostly up, to where nothing else could move past the mass. All but one of them came back up, satisfied but weary.

  “If one of us goes white, the others should push him out of the tower,” one proposed to the others. This was agreed on with nods, but then one reminded them all.

  “We’ve drank the root tea, so that’s not going to happen.”

  The wild breakthrough of the thrings into the town resolved itself into a chase. Growing groups of buggers herded the thrings into corners, or surrounded them in rings. They were lanced or cut apart, and then the buggers went off to find others. After another hour, it seemed that the streets had been cleared, and the east shore secured. The warriors moved back to the fires or marched on through, going up to the main battle line in the Meadows with their arms full of blackened thring lances. There it still raged, in a tumultuous clamor, all along the valley floor in front of them from the north to the south.

  Kulith had thought that it might get easier now, that destroying the thick central rank of thrings might be the high point in the army’s attack. It was not the case he found out, as the third great rank now approached, composed of greater thrings leading their individual groups of undead thralls, and so now he was faced with a more ordered repeat of the last attack. They all fell back, with piles being pulled free from bodies as they retreated, and more brought up to be collected and held by goblins in bunches of three or four, at the ready.

  The second wave of monsters had blocked a lot of the holes in the piled up bodies that the first wave had left, and now the greater thrings made their thralls stop and begin to clear the ground, and this made their entire momentum stop. The goblins, thyrs and trolls received a short rest, which the thrings should have never allowed them. Water was passed around, and their confidence partially restored, and a thousand little things that needed doing were given the time in which to do them.

  The archers in the back of the bugger formation began to shoot at the thrings as they cleared away the others, trying to bring them down, which was nearly impossible, and it wasted many arrows. One of the war band leaders finally told them all to stop, and they were mostly ordered away, farther to the south near the Stone Pile, where it looked like the living buggers from both sides were finally fighting against each other on the great flat.

  When the greater thrings had made large enough holes, they collected their thralls up and forced them to go through, in a charge that spread out as it cleared the gaps, and thus diminished itself. The piles drove back and forth as they closed in, first thrusting out, and then going back as the buggers could, and the thrings were caught at the line and mostly halted. Some were forced to climb immediately over the others lanced through in front of them, and these leapt off and landed onto the heads and shoulders of the first three of four ranks.

  Goblins and trolls used their other weapons and their boots to bring them down, while the ghouls tore at their armor, arms and faces. A thring came behind them: a great white brute like the Vagrim had been, and it swung about with a long, crescent headed axe, so powerful that it cut the lances in half and went on through the heavy coats of armor that the trolls wore. It threw up a spray of blood with every strike, and the ranks in front of it drew back, seeing that they had encountered something beyond them. Kulith didn’t know its name, but he guessed he was looking at one of the thrings that Sterina referred to as her children.

  He moved forward toward it, where it had occupied a weakness between the thyrs and the Red Marks, and was now breaking off the pile ends and ferrules from their spears. He waited for it to make a pass with the axe and then pause before the backswing. It was then that he leapt forward and struck at it, and the monster brought the grasping end of the axe around quickly, to catch the Tuvier Blade, and then it flipped him back, tumbling him over onto the ground.

  It had been quick, and it had caught him off-guard. His left hand came up empty now, and he realized that he had lost the champion’s sword somewhere on the field of grass and bodies. The monster took a step out and struck down at him, and the Tuvier Blade sparked as it caught the axe and just managed to force it aside. It shouldered into him as he got up, and he flew again, to land in a pile with a couple of angry thyrs.

  The focus of the ghoul on him had left it open and a great troll with one of the metal tipped lances drove in from the side. It did not see the strike, and the point of it punched right through, and came out again under its shoulder, splitting the armor. It turned around and picked the troll up with the flat edge of its axe, and it knocked him off in the other direction. It was almost like before, when Kulith had been tossed about while fighting the Vagrim. He had never wanted to go back and rely on the sword so much, but that path now seemed inescapable.

  He sprang back toward it as the creature tried to turn, but the lance driven through it shoulder now made it slow. The Tuvier Blade cut across its chest, just missing the neck, and it howled in pain and tried to draw the broken remains of the lance back out. Kulith struck at the axe, as the creature made a swing, and his sword was driven off. A sharp point of iron was on the cross of it, and the thring stabbed out with it instead and caught the edge of his iron ringed coat. He was twisted around, into the blade of the axe, only just checking it by putting up his sword. The metals banged together, and kept each other’s sharp edges from cutting. The creature then picked him up, and he partially rolled off the point, and was partly flung away by the flat, twisting through the air.

  He landed on a thring, bowling it over as it advanced down
the hill carrying a shield and sword. Kulith sprang away, as other blades now struck off his coat of armor and slid along the metal rings with a sparking squeal. He rolled, got to his feet and turned around, and he saw that the formation of ghouls, dressed and armed like human soldiers, was now upon them. They were equipped with old armor and chain mail coats over their white skins, and had spears and shields, and heavier, shorter Mancan swords.

  They had come down with or, right behind the third wave of thrings, and now they were closing in on the groups still fighting, leaving space for them in their lines, and they supported them as they could. Everything and everyone were moving backwards now, as the thring formations came forward, leveling their spears and locking their shields to make a line, as neat as the soldiers of Grotoy.

  Kulith had expected them to be more like the armor and leather clad fighters that Vous Vox had fielded, but they were not. He moved back, trailing the other buggers, getting cut at by a spear point as he passed and moved along a pile of lanced thrings to find a way through. Behind him, a group of white skinned skirmishers with swords ranged out, attacking and dispatching the injured or lone bugger warriors who could not get away. The great monster thring was struggling with two lances now punched through it, and the ranks parted for it, moved on around, and then closed back up. One of the thrings blew a horn, and it echoed across the field, to be taken up by the other formations of them moving down the sides of the hills.

  Kulith wondered now how he had gotten so far ahead of the others. He was almost on the slope, and now he had to move back, looking for breaks in the piled up, still twitching masses of the lanced thrings. There were only a few goblins and thyrs around him, and they were moving back also. He ran and searched across the piles and finally found an open exit, as a ghoul warrior tossed a spear at him from out of the ranks. It sank into the piled bodies next to him as he dashed through the gap, and he came out on the other side.

  He moved back off the slope and went through another line of pierced through thrings, like a giant, withering hedge of white nettles, and found the flat where they had started the fighting. There the thyrs were rebuilding their line, the fresher warriors coming forward now as Long Ridge and his chiefs shouted out orders to them.

  “The host of Sterina is coming!” Kulith called down to them, and he raised the Tuvier Blade up so that they could see it weakly burning there, in the shade made by the passing clouds, and the great masses of the dead. On the left and right of the thyrs the ranks had opened up and Kulith saw the reserves they had readied now moving forward. On the left were the White Knife and the Red Tounge, armed with shields and spears in the front, and behind them were a few ranks of fresh trolls with axes and great swords.

  To the right were a great mass of allied war bands from the Hook who called themselves the Black Reeds, because of the dark fur caps they all wore. They had darkened their helmets like the caps, and were armed with spears, axes and shields. Behind their front was a secondary rank consisting of goblins holding shortened piles, tipped on the end with iron points. And there were hundreds of these waiting: so many that Kulith could not have counted them all correctly. The Black Reeds’ line looked thin, but behind the warriors with the piles was another formation, some of it with spears and some of it armed with swords, clubs, axes and shields.

  The thring ghouls had some bowmen, and these began to fire arrows about in volleys, the flights either hitting in the ranks or totally missing them. Arrows were not playing a big part of the battle here, as the visibility was bad, and thrings were not very good with bows to begin with. The skirmishers of the thrings began to clear passages through the bodies lanced with piles, either by freeing them or by cutting them apart. The dead, hollow voices of their commanders ordered them about, and when a wide enough passage was opened, they marched on through it, giving time for the wings of the line to advance and then spread back out.

  The buggers all lowered their spears, and then waited for the thrings to come and press into them. Some of the decrepit thrings that had gotten loose came first, and were dispatched by thrusts through the head from sharp points. Then the ghoul army came forward, and they moved their shields together with precision, jabbing with their points at the heads and shoulders of the buggers facing them.

  Kulith had settled back between the close of the shields, so that he was now about four ranks from the front line. He realized how bad this type of fighting was for the buggers, and that it took away all their strengths. There was a story of another rebellion, of one of the chieftains who had sided with Old Roarer. He had boasted that when the time came, he would step up on the shafts of the spears and run back and forth along the line, cutting off the ghoul’s heads.

  It had not worked out like that. They had found that the ghouls would hazard grievous face and upper body wounds while the goblins could not. Fighting in such a manner before had been disastrous, and their line had always broken. They were repeating a mistake, and he had not caught it because he had given the battle over to them. It was preferable that there was no pile or spear melee at all, and then at least they could surround and cut up the bodies of the thrings, or reach them and put their own lances through them. He muttered to himself, and then watched as the lines of spears met with a hundred pops and strikes, as they tested each other. They pushed tight and began to thrust back and forth, and he watched it awhile, trying to get a sense of what was happening.

  He had been fighting for a long time as a raider out in the West Lands with one horde or another, while the household guards concentrated here were using the same staid tactics they had tried mostly against each other, as the thrings had allowed it. It was a different type of warfare, and it seemed he was out of his depth. He watched, and began to search around for a weapon to replace the one he had lost. He supposed that eventually, one of the greater thrings would show themselves again, and he would have to try and destroy it.

  The battle moved into the late afternoon, with the short lances being used twice in great volleys, thrown over the front line by the Black Reeds, and then the warriors armed with swords and axes would move forward, and try to cut a hole through the white warriors dressed in ancient armor. When the trolls finally went forward, Kulith took notice, and watched what they did. In their heavy coats of rings, plates and chain, they allowed strikes from the spears, and then sheared off the points with their own weapons. Then they moved forward, punching the thrings in the face, breaking their bones, and cutting their white heads off with their blades.

  They made a gap in the line, and warriors with swords surged into it from both sides, as a reserve of ghoul spear moved forward and attempted to reestablish the front. It also caused the great brute that Kulith had fought with earlier to reappear, it probably compelled back forward by one of the more powerful thrings who stood behind. When it came to the line, it began to cause the press to pull apart, and the uniformity collapsed as it waded in and reached out with its axe to batter at the goblins and the trolls.

  The thyrs seemed to have had enough of the static fight in front of their section of the line, and Long Ridge was going back and forth with some of his warriors, preparing something. Not at once, but in growing numbers, thyrs came up to the line and threw pot of oil across it, mostly striking the front ranks of the thrings. The undead shouted and moved about, but appeared to shrug it off as unimportant. That was a weakness of the puppet army, and after a few more strikes with pots, the wolf-men hurled torches across and lit them on fire in places. As they burned, withered and turned black, the thring archers were ordered to shoot at the entire front ahead of them with arrows, until their quivers ran dry. The arrows darted across, hitting buggers and the white bodies of ghould alike, burying into their shields and backs, depending on which way they faced.

  The burning thrings, in some places three or four ranks deep began to collapse, but the arrow fire was also now better, hitting the buggers more than ghouls, and doing injury or killing those that were hit. The goblins with the short lances push
ed into the line, throwing at the heads, and flanks of the ghouls with their weapons, crippling them and knocking them down. The spears began to push forward, as several trolls were able to decapitate and bring down the great white monster, it having waded too far ahead and become suddenly isolated. Scores of bugger lancers surged ahead now, going out across, in front of the thyrs, to catch the edges of he ghoul line, cutting into its sides. Another formation, perhaps the last reserve of armored ghoul now marched down off the hill. It was composed of several thousand new, undamaged bodies, and was led by a tall wraith in black and red armor.

  The buggers were all angry, disillusioned now by the small results from what they had just done. There were calls between the chiefs, and encouragements were shouted out. The buggers took it out mostly on the thrings, howling, shouting, and breaking through the line for almost half a mile along it, the upthrust weapons shoved back, checked, pushed out of guard. They cut the heads off the puppets and ghouls, and in turn took terrible wounds, running themselves up on the spears and weapons of their foes in places. There were calls to reform, as they moved ahead regardless and fought with the tall red and black swordsman, with the fresh spear. A great slaughter began on both sides, as if every warrior would expend themselves by their actions in only a few moments of fighting.

  Kulith watched it unfold, and like the battle they had fought with Vous Vox’s thrings, their brashness and quick movement in the opening field favored the buggers, and worked against the army of puppets. They surged forward, giving up their lines and letting themselves flow upward, toward the second line of spear, wasting themselves on points, or getting through the shield wall of their enemies. He ran forward with them, each stride making more room between the warriors be was aside. It was a crazy charge, but it felt right and favored the buggers, who had done alright before in similar circumstances during the battle upon the slope before the Stone Pile.