He considered the armor once he took it off. There were no great rents or deep, penetrating holes through it, and he wondered amazed that for once he had not taken a terrible wound. There were places where arrows had struck off, including two dents to his helmet that looked new, and places where the spears of the thrings had cut or poked at him. Perhaps they had not bothered to sharpen them before the attack, he mused.
He looked over at Little Toad. “It is done,” he said to her. “We have beaten the witch of the Great Swamp: the Queen of the Knife Back Palace.” They both knew what was next, and so it was not said again.
“Did you see Kabi?” she asked him. He nodded.
“She slunk away when things were tight and has now returned to share in the sack. She’s a bugger through and through. No. Perhaps there are two kinds of buggers now: those who stood here together, and those who ran away.”
“Things are usually not that simple,” she said.
“They are for buggers,” he corrected her. She had learned nothing. She was still arguing about universal truths and viewpoints based on stone men’s laws and religion. Those didn’t exist for buggers. The world was whatever they said it was. He stood up, sicker now than he had been before, and he went back downstairs. After eating some food that had been put out by one of the sows on a table, he sat and brooded over the battle.
He had half a mind to go look at the booty collected from it, to marvel at the things the thrings from the swamp had worn and carried, and perhaps retrieve the champion’s sword if it had been picked up and put there. But he didn’t and about an hour later, Kabi came over and stood there in front of him. He had been dozing on the stool, and now he looked up at her and placed his hands out on the table, and pushed the food away.
“You are back,” he said.
“I never left,” Kabi told him. “I was taken in by a troll who fought with the Black Reeds. He was killed in the battle.” Kulith considered it. She would not have been able to come back so quickly if it had not been otherwise. He had expected her to go up to the Sword, or get even farther away.
“The Black Reeds fought well. I saw them,” he said. The troll could have even been the one who had helped him slay the vampire, or the one who had cut through the ghoul’s spears.
“I have thought that you might need me now,” she said, “now that you will finally test the walls of the Stone Pile.” He nodded.
“You could help a little that is for sure. There is an issue that has come up with the foundations under the castle. Little Toad pointed out to me that the tallest sections of wall and towers have the greatest foundations underneath them, and might even rest on the solid stone of the earth underneath. The sky observation tower Vous Vox built for instance, could not otherwise stand.” She nodded, and scratched idly at the skin covering the notches cut into the bone on one side of her jaw. Perhaps there was a bad memory involved with them.
“It is just so,” she said.
“That is very important. Why did you leave that fact out before?”
“Because you were not interested in it, and did not ask,” she said. He thought about it, and she was right. He had made other plans a long time ago it seemed, and while he had some of the dungeons and underground areas described, this had not been important. He stood up, and she withdrew a little from him, still expecting some type of retribution for her quitting of his tent. He sighed, and let it pass.
“I will bring out the drawn plan, and we will go over it again, with you now describing the stonework and depth of the passages under the Stone Pile.”
The next day as the great funeral pyre still burned, and all the bodies had still not been cleared off the field, he called the chieftains together and discussed the siege. They changed only one of the start points for the tunneling, moving it from a section of wall that appeared to sit atop bedrock over to the south, where Kabi had described a sunken cistern earlier. They had both realized that the foundations there were both narrow and of poor quality, with an abrupt incline right before the wall. The cistern right behind it might eventually help weaken it, and the water suppy was of course a natural target for them. He had paid her off and then sent her away to find another place to stay. He had ignored her hurt look and not acknowledged her request to stay with him.
Instead he had Little Toad dress up in her best, and they made a procession out through the bugger warriors who were left, and he had her climb up the signal tower constructed now near the ram that rose up fifty feet. It could watch all the camps on the near side of the fortress at once, see the harbor, and trade signals with the warriors who now camped up on top of the hills. She stood there in a blue silk silk and a long skirt, with a black overdress stitched with swirling patterns of gold thread. From her neck on the silver chain now hung a thick gold ring of beach amber, carved out and polished by one of the buggers.
The goblins blew their horns and rolled their drums, and they shouted for awhile, their reduced ranks still tremendous and loud, but not the same as before. There was perhaps a small note of sadness in their voices that she heard, as they had all looked for pot mates who were no longer there. The Countess Sunnil took up a red pennant that had belonged to Sterina’s army of thrings, and she waved it twice over her head, and then threw it down off from the top of the tower. The buggers all roared as it fell, and then they roared again when it hit the ground. It signaled for the digging to begin, and it was now a race to see which group would bring down the wall first. Vous Vox watched with his thrings and buggers from the fighting walk above the gate of the Stone Pile, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
WAYLAND
KROLO CASTLE
Wayland was sitting at his desk in the passage between the two towers with his winter cloak of gray wool wrapped around him, it trimmed off with brown rabbit fur, the gilded scales of the knights fixed to it so that people would have some idea of who he was. He and his men seemed like ghosts now, just haunting the halls and passages since the battle before the walls of Fugoe Castle. They hung on at Krolo, with him doing the odd bit to pay ransoms as they came in, and to inquire after the other names still on the list. What he did mostly now was act as a foil to Johnas Tygus Grotoy’s more provocative thoughts and belligerent actions, as he and the Duke of Wallenz continued to push soldiers up into the hills north of Lake Aven, in an attempt to frighten and subdue the buggers there, and force them to release the Countess of Rydol.
He had the small windows along the wall open, and though it still might be tolerably warm outside with the autumn sun shining down, it was dark and cold in the passage, and the winds that blew in through the windows was colder. He caught a bit of a tittering laugh, from someone down below, out in the small, sunny garden. It had been a woman’s voice, and he thought that it must have been Lady Tazah’s. A moment later he heard Johnas Tygus reply to her, his voice always louder, and then there were sounds of them moving about, perhaps around the plantings of flowers, or the hedges of spruce.
He opened up a new letter, just sent across from the Dimm. He had paid only a few pieces of silver for it, because it was presented to him as written by an Alonic soldier who had been captured by the goblins during the great raid of Sarik’s horde. He went down through the rough scrawl, to where it ended abruptly and a new hand had began and written the rest. He immediately recognized it, and got up out of his chair in excitement, to read it standing where the light was better. He finished reading it and folded it back up, then hastily went out of the room, going to descend by the nearest tower stair, taking them two at a time because he was not wearing his sword.
He went from there across the paneled and banner hung hall with some speed, dodging the wash and kitchen girls he encountered in his path, drawing the looks of his men who were just then sitting over by one of the hearths. Down through another passage he went, past several doors on one side, and then out through a heavy exterior door into the gardens. He stopped there, breathing heavily, and looked around for Grotoy.
“Your grace, I have just received a letter. Somewhat concealed at the bottom of it was another message that I see is from the Countess Sunnil.” The smile they shared left his face and he straightened up, dropping Tazah’s hand.
“Well, read it to me then,” he said. Wayland opened it back up for effect, and did in fact then look at it to draw and use the same words that the countess had used, to describe the conditions around her in the Dimm.
“There has been a great battle between the demons and the buggers there, perhaps the greatest that they or we have any history of. The great warrior called Golden Sword who holds her led twenty thousand goblins and trolls into battle, and destroyed twice that number of undead from the Great Swamp between the lakes. I’m sure that is an exaggeration.”
“How many of them are left then?” Johnas Tygus asked Wayland, because he wanted to know.
“Most of them it seems, and they celebrate their great victory and freedom from their old masters, and go ahead to lay siege to a castle. It’s the fortress they have named before, and she describes it as being about as big as the citadel at Kavvar.” Johnas whistled out in amazement.
“That must be quite a place,” he said. The young count sat down on a stone bench, and patted the other end of it to beckon Lady Tazah over to sit with him. He scratched his short beard and stared out across the flower garden at the far wall, and then at the defenses positioned atop it.
“They will be emboldened and assured now, these monsters,” he said. “There is only so much I can do with the men I have out in the mountains. The Grand Prince has ordered half our soldiers out, to the border with Bagheri. The Yellow Duke still has most of his men. At least he still has the ones who haven’t gone off and joined the Tourade.”
“Do you think destroying their homes north of Lake Aven will be enough, or will you now use a different strategy?” Wayland asked him. Johnas Tygus shook his head back.
“I don’t think they really care what we do to them there. When has one goblin ever worried about what happened to another? In a couple weeks that big bugger army will break apart, to go its separate ways with whatever loot they get out of that castle. Then we will be dealing with several lords who have no control or ability to make the others obey them. Who will have Sunnil then?”
“She writes that they hold her now as a captive only to serve as an impartial judge between them: to divide into shares this great treasure, a part of it going to each fiend.”
“Impossible!” the young count snapped back. “They’re animals, and if that is not just a ruse, it has just placed her now in greater danger. You cannot look like they do and do what they do and not have the heart of a beast. They will fall upon each other at the first glimmer of metal, and that is something we can be certain of.”
“Our plan now is what?” Wayland asked him.
“This leader still holds some sentiment for the place called Doom Wall. Did he not once proclaim himself the lord of it?”
“Yes,” Wayland affirmed back, then cautioned. “But if he has moved away from it, and the troll Hovus Black Smile is there now, it may no longer belong to him or be important.”
“Do they have any shame, these creatures?” Johnas remarked, posed as a question.
“He has pride, this troll,” Wayland said, thinking out loud. “He has a great standing now with all the other buggers.”
“I threatened to put a gallows at Doom Wall and start hanging their braves. I will have our soldiers clear out all the caves and warrens in the hills that they can find, driving their women and children ahead, down to the water’s edge. It’s going to be winter soon, and that will be hard on them.” He planned a horror, but Wayland and Lady Tazah both approved. Wayland saw one danger in his plan though.
“Your grace, if they have defeated their great enemy, could they not now march back north, across the islands of Lake Aven and meet your men there at Doom Wall?”
“Yes, but we will never know until we try to do it,” he said. “The pressure of another war might persuade Sunnil’s glad release, or perhaps cause her to slip out of their hands.” It sounded like chaos to Wayland, but he had seen enough of the goblins to understand that chaos was a force that moved them like a human king could, or a church sanctioned miracle. The letter itself, delivered covertly to them seemed to indicate that chaos could accomplish large things.
“I think we should inform them of your intentions again, your grace,” he said. “We will propose a place for her exchange, taking the lead in this as they are so guarded and reluctant. Since you may soon control it, I propose Doom Wall, and as a second choice the place where they most commonly take and exchange their prisoners. It is a ruined Mancan town on the southeastern edge of the swamp, between the West Lands and the Bezet March. It’s called Warukz.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
KULITH
THE SIEGE OF THE STONE PILE
It had been a week since they had started the digging around the Stone Pile. Guards on the hills had watched more the remnants of Sternia’s horde come out of the woods and board their boats and barges. They had piloted them slowly back over to the Pale Shore, appearing in disarray and disunion. The buggers and thrings had burned some of the extra boats before leaving, but also left just as many tied up and abandoned. The goblins had rowed around Big Stone and commandeered these, and slowly moved them all over to the harbors on the east side of the island.
A group of buggers who had not been included in the digging contest had come to the chiefs with an offer to use the ram against the Stone Pile’s gate. There had been contracts like this one made for a long time, between the different bugger chiefs and small bands of mercenaries, perhaps wintering over from the hordes, and so it was considered and bargained out.
They discussed what they would do, and it was planned for as well as it could be. The ram was finished and rolled into its final position, and when night came, two hundred well armored goblins and trolls took their chance, while three thousand others massed up just behind it, with lances and weapons in case it was a success. Kulith doubted it would come to much, as Long Ridge looked on with him, twitched his ears, and shook his head.
The ram company blew a horn as they set off, pushing the great, wheeled box up the road. It was armored all over and wetted, with a peaked roof and metal rods affixed to its sides. When they got within two hundred feet, the fighting walk and towers began to respond, shooting flaming arrows out at them, red against the black sky, hissing through space and each hitting with a large thud or pop.
The arrows did almost nothing, though a few bodies could be seen now on the road. The thrings that had been collected around the Stone Pile from the previous fights were now commanded to stand in front of it, and went under its wheels to prevent it from moving forward. A few attacked the buggers inside, but blades and lances were thrust out of slots, and they were dispatched before doing much damage.
It rolled onward until it got into position, and then blocks dropped down along the sides behind the wheels to fix it in place. The buggers and thrings atop the gate turned over several buckets of hot oil that spilled down in a steaming waterfall and washed across the front, mostly running down along the sides. Vous Vox looked down as his arms rose, and he began to call down lightning, as he had done before during his talk with the chiefs. A silver bolt broke from the air in a flash amid a sudden gust of wind, lighting up the wall, and the other chiefs then remembered that betrayal, and seemed angry enough to order their warriors forward in a sudden mass attack.
The silver line of lightning jumped over to one of the iron rods and discharged down into the ground, but not before setting the entire front of the ram’s apro
n alight. The flames roared and followed the oil upwards and downwards, lighting the entire front of the wooden gate and setting the cowl of a vampire who had gotten too close there on fire. The burning creature jumped off the gatehouse and disappeared from view behind the wall, it getting a round of jeers from the buggers watching. They waited, to see what had happened to the ram, as the smoke and flames roiled up above the apron and off the face of it, a red sheet of flame also going up the iron and wood of the door, licking the stones of the gatehouse arch.
Then it came, a mighty shout all together, and the ram began to strike the gate with its business end, insisting on immediate entrance with its iron head. The goblins shouted and encouraged them from afar, and they carried on, getting about ten more strikes with it before they stopped. The ram apron had burned through, and there was a hasty evacuation from the other end of the machine, as hide flaps lifted up and bodies came out to run back away, not guarding themselves but just trying to reach the safety that distance provided. Arrows shot out at them, trying to punish, but mostly they missed, the defense being too disorganized now by the burning fire and smoke.
They came back to the rest and stood there, and they all watched the ram burn, and the gate also with it. The defenders of the Stone Pile began to wet the gate front from above, trying to put it out, but it went on and roiled up for about another hour. Kulith and the chiefs had the survivors looked at by the White Hoods, and gave them water. There was also a chest of money prepared and they were immediately paid, as the rest of the horde set its sentries and returned back to the town and the camp.
“In three days, we will try again,” Kroson told the other chiefs. They all knew what that really meant. In three days most of the tunnels would be more than half way to the wall, and there would be a meeting with the leaders of each group, to see how things were progressing. And if they failed at that, it did not look to Kulith like the ram idea had been a total waste of effort. He would have to think about it and see if there was some new trick that could be tried next time.
A War of Stones: Book One of the Traveler Knight Page 45