by Rutger Krenn
Talon knew what the Dwarves were like. He recognized, but didn’t fully understand, the deep conflict in their character. They lived in their underground fastness yet had a passionate love for the wilderness. He knew their fondness for humor and good times with plentiful food and drink; how they hosted matchless feasts with music and dancing beneath the dark mountains that outsiders never saw. He knew also that they could be quick to anger and that once that anger was roused, by insult, cheating, or affront in any way they were implacable enemies. They never gave up and they had a determination and endurance exceeding that of men. He was glad they were coming with him: they were sorely needed.
The Dwarves joined ranks with the Northmen and the march began once more. Talon rode in silence. He was thinking of his mother, of Arell and of his homeland from which he’d been an exile for many years. He was surrounded now by an army that was fired with the will to save it and a king that was gifted and courageous. If his homeland and his future could be secured, these people would do it. But would they arrive before the Goblins and the Turgil had left Thromdar in smoke and ruins and swept like a firestorm into Aren Daleth?
Chapter 22
Cadrafer had led the defense of Thromdar for several days. He was not the Duke but the men responded to him and continued to fight with a will that amazed him. Time and again they had turned the Goblin tide and watched their enemy storm the wall in vain. But each time the Northmen lost men and those losses were irreplaceable.
The Goblins were coming once more. They were a relentless flood of enemies that neither strength of arm nor courage of heart would turn aside.
Dawn presaged their attack. Smoke and haze hung in the air from the firing of the forests and the leaden sky was filled with low scudding clouds like the ceiling of a tomb. The blood-red sun lurched above the darkened rim of the mountains.
There was no movement of air. Everything was still. An eerie pall filled the choking atmosphere – a mood of lassitude, despair and annihilation. It did not feel like morning. Rather, it left the impression that it was the last morning ever; the extinguishment of light and all that was good in the world. The darkness was triumphant and bright days would never come again.
Cadrafer turned his eyes from the vaporish sun. He watched the Goblins come to end the battle. He looked on, his heart a cold stone in his chest as doom approached with the thunder of iron-shod boots.
Arandur was in his accustomed place in the tower. Cadrafer glanced in that direction, the effort seemingly a colossal task. What was the point of looking to the Wizard? Could he offer hope or defiance against the whirlwind of malice and power that was breaking upon them? Could he stop the rush that would follow through the mountain valleys, through the glens and dales of Aren Daleth that would surely destroy all that lay in its path? There was no stopping it. No more could a rainstorm, a winter gale or the coming of the dark night itself be held at bay.
On the Goblins came. Their charge was like an avalanche in the mountains. Now that it had started nothing would hinder it until it came to rest in its own time; sated by the destruction it had wrought.
Cadrafer’s heavy gaze shifted to the battlements. They were only thinly defended. So few soldiers against such a large horde. How had they even managed to survive this long? There was no reason for it. They should not have been able to do so.
He pondered this while the Goblins rushed. The only thing left to the Northmen was a determination to defend these walls until the last man was standing. They owed that much to all those in Aren Daleth who relied on their protection.
Pride stirred in his heart. Against all hope these men had fought on. They had faced insufferable odds and even withstood the summoning of a Kraken. They were men! Who wouldn’t be proud to live and die beside them? If they could not escape the doom that was overtaking them they may as well fight and oppose their enemy with the last strength they had. Sometimes it was not victory that mattered so much as the fight. What was the old saying of the Northmen? It had come out of the dark past but it had the ring of truth to it. Especially now. Heart shall be higher, mind the clearer, courage the greater as shadows deepen!
Cadrafer suddenly knew that those words, or the sentiments behind them, would never be extinguished. The Northmen may be destroyed and cast into oblivion but somewhere else, some other time, other people would take up the call.
He shrugged off the stupor that had enveloped him and called out to the defenders. “Stand firm!”
The voice of authority issuing from his mouth surprised him. It seemed almost like a stranger speaking.
“Hold your ground,” he continued, and his voice grew firmer still and he saw men straighten as they responded to his will.
The Goblins reached the walls like a tidal wave crashing against cliffs. Wild yelling and ululations preceded their arrival. They rushed upwards, ladders and grappling hooks thrown everywhere. Yet wherever they came the Northmen dislodged them. They worked without the fury, the frenetic energy of their enemy, but with a sure and steady purpose. These men were numb to death. They knew their lives were lost just as had been their comrades’ earlier, but they were going to fight anyway.
Eventually some of the ladders and grappling hooks could not be repelled in time and soon fighting began on the ramparts themselves and the stone ran with blood once more.
Cadrafer was watching carefully. He could sense death. He could feel the destruction that was to come in his very bones and he summoned the iron will and deadly skill that had enabled him to rise so high in Kenrik’s favor. A dozen Goblins had passed through the ranks of the Northmen near him. He leapt among them and his sword chopped and slashed in a flurry of unexpected death.
One of the Goblins came for him. He was bigger than the rest and wore chain mail armor that was notched and broken. He held a wicked looking scimitar in his hand; the blade large and heavy but he swung it with ease. He had the look of a trueborn warrior of the Goblins - fierce and deadly as an animal at bay and moving with the instinctive grace of a predator.
The Goblin yelled, a hateful sound that sent shivers up the spine of all who heard it, then attacked with speed unleashing a vicious stroke at Cadrafer.
The Captain of the Guard shifted sideways. He moved without haste or fear, merely stepping unhurriedly out of the way. The Goblin turned and looked to come for him again, but then, strangely, he stumbled. He slowed and the sword dropped from his hand. A great spurt of blood erupted from his abdomen and the chain mail glistened red.
All the onlookers knew was that the Goblin collapsed; dead within moments from a strike that no one had even seen. Yet a dagger was visible in Cadrafer’s left hand, smeared with blood.
For a moment Cadrafer, the Goblins and the soldiers nearby were caught in stillness. The frantic battle had momentarily stopped at the huge Goblin’s cry, but now, just as swiftly as it ceased movement commenced again.
The Goblins who had broken through tried to flee. They ran and tripped over one another and were impaled on the swords of the Northmen as they tried to get through their ranks and back over the ramparts. All the while Cadrafer’s sword chopped and slashed and soon they were all dead.
A ripple of fear went through the Goblins on the battlements. The red haired warrior was death incarnate. He was a hazel-eyed harbinger of doom and their primitive fears were aroused. They fled, shrieking and wailing their anguish.
The Northmen gave no cheer. They were exhausted. Some leaned on their swords gasping for air while others collapsed uncaring next to the corpses of their companions.
Cadrafer inspected his dagger. It had been gift from the Duke, and a princely gift it was. Fashioned by the Dwarves and said to be hundreds of years old it had been passed from hand to hand among generations of Northmen before ever they came to these mountains. It could penetrate chain mail and was worth a king’s ransom yet he would give it away to see Kenrik stride along the battlements once more.
This started him down a new line of thought. Where was Talon? It was too late
for him to bring help now. He had faith in him, a feeling stemming from their first meeting. It was possible he would achieve just what he set out to do, but even if he did reach the Dwarves’ lands and recall the Northmen army it would be too late. Thromdar was about to fall.
He looked up at the tower once more. There stood the single hope of Aren Daleth. Only a Wizard could save them now, but that hope died even as it was borne. If Arandur had power to prevent the catastrophe that was unfolding he would have done so already.
“Captain,” said a deep voice from behind him. Cadrafer’s thoughts were broken and he turned to see who had addressed him. A quick smile, which he thought must have looked ghastly in the ruddy gloom, flashed across his lips.
“Barad!” he said with surprise. “You don’t know how good it is to see you! We were worried about you.”
“Ha!” said the Axeman. “Worried about me? I don’t know why. I’ve been hit in the head plenty of times. It never seems to do me too much damage. I must have a skull of iron.”
“Well, Ironskull,” said Cadrafer, “it’s good to see you. And just as good to see you with that axe.”
Barad lifted the axe out of its belt loop and looked at it as though it were a new thing that he’d never seen before. The edges had been sharpened and the blades polished. It was a wicked looking weapon and Cadrafer remembered the damage it had caused to the enemy a few days ago.
“It still has some use in it yet, I think,” he said. “But how stands the battle,” he asked as his eyes casually strayed out over the battlements to the enemy camp and skilfully surveyed what they saw.
The smile slipped off Cadrafer’s face. “There isn’t much time left.”
“So I thought,” said Barad. “That’s why I came. A last stand is better on the battlements than from a bed. The Duke has woken by the way. He wanted to come with me but the healers wouldn’t let him. His vision is blurred.”
“There’s some good news then,” said Cadrafer. “We need him desperately but not even he can change our situation.”
“What does Arandur think?” asked Barad.
Cadrafer looked to the tower. The Wizard remained where he had all morning, indeed through most of the battle. He was still as stone. His head slightly bowed in contemplation, his staff held loosely in one hand.
“I haven’t spoken to him since last night.”
“Then I think it’s about time we did,” said the Axeman.
The two of them moved along the quiet ramparts where men, weary near to death, barely noticed them as they passed. They stood motionlessly, leaning against swords that they didn’t have the energy to clean of blood and gore. Others lay down, their fatigue too great to stand and watch the enemy. Some in extreme exhaustion even slept. It mattered not that they lay near the dead bodies of Goblins or Northmen who slept a different sleep. Their own would be like it soon enough.
The pair went up the stairs of the tower and approached the Wizard. His gaze was now lifted over the crenellations, seeing something beyond their understanding. His legs were planted firmly and his back as straight as the staff that he always held. His hands restlessly gripped and then loosened on its shaft, the only outward sign of anxiousness, thought Cadrafer, or perhaps the only sign that he waited for something impatiently.
“How goes it,” said Cadrafer when they came near.
The Wizard answered, his voice deep and rich as it always was, betraying nothing of what his inner thoughts were. His eyes however, didn’t shift from the view below.
“It goes as well as can be expected,” he answered. “The soldiers of the north are hard men. They fight, and even when they are beaten they continue.”
“We are beaten then?” asked Cadrafer.
“Of course,” replied the Wizard. “We are beaten. We were beaten from the beginning as I told you. There is no chance for the men of this fortress to hold against the host before us. None at all. There never was and for that reason, as I have always said, our only hope lies with Talon.”
“Ah yes, Talon,” said Cadrafer. “I liked him. If anybody could have done it, it would have been him. But it was too much to ask. To slip through the enemy host would have been difficult enough, but then with the Chung no doubt looking for him he had only a very small chance. It was too much to ask of one man.”
“Perhaps,” admitted the Wizard. “But he was all you had. Also, you forget, he is not alone. Arell followed him and together they may achieve what one alone could not. She has steel in her, although many men would not see past her beauty to notice it.”
“That is true,” said Cadrafer. “She’s the Duke’s daughter and, in boldness if nothing else, the son he could have wished for.”
“Yes,” said Barad. “There’s fire in her. Too much for many men I should think, but for one such as Talon he would settle for nothing less.”
Arandur smiled, but said nothing.
“A strange thing to say,” remarked Cadrafer, “considering the Lady Arell is betrothed to Lord Mecklem.”
“Ha!” grunted the Axeman. “Betrothed, yes. But are they married yet? No. Nor should they be. She’s too much woman for a showpony like him. I don’t know what the Duke was thinking when he supported their marriage. Anyway, we shall see. The Dwarf-home is a long way away and Talon and Arell will have travelled far in each other’s company to reach it and come back again. We shall see what happens when they return.”
“So you still think they will?”
“Of course they will laddie. You just wait and see.”
Cadrafer could not share the hope that the other two seemed to have. For him, it was plain to see. They would not survive another attack. When the next onrush came the Goblins would sweep over the battlements slaying all in their path and then they would spread out through the valley beyond into the unprotected heartland of Aren Daleth.
The Wizard interrupted his dark thoughts. “You no longer have any hope, Cadrafer?” he said gently.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “There’s no hope left for us at all.”
“And yet you roused the men this morning when all seemed lost?
“There’s nothing left for us to do. I would rather fight and go down resisting than have a Goblin slay me while I wait like a beast being taken to slaughter.”
“That is well at least,” said the Wizard. “Your fighting spirit, and that of your men, is still strong. That is a good thing, but it would be better if you had hope also.”
“Alas,” said Cadrafer, “There is none.”
“So the Turgil would have it,” said the Wizard.
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly that. The Turgil would see all hope drained from you. In that way he undermines your will to live and fight. I think in some ways he has misjudged this tactic, but that is beside the point. It will not work as well as he wishes, but it does work.”
”What do you mean?”
“I mean,” said the Wizard slowly, for the first time taking his gaze off the field below, a gaze that missed nothing and saw into the hearts of men; “I mean that he is a sorcerer and that sorcery is being used. Do not think that summoning creatures from the sea or driving the Goblins into an attacking frenzy are the limit of his powers. He has others, many others indeed. And this is one of them. To cast out a fog, invisible to the mortal eye, but discernable to spirit eyes. A fog of darkness and despair; a fog to smother you in loss and sorrow and inescapable woe. A fog to drain away your fighting spirit and the spirit of your men. Do not doubt such powers. Even now I feel it growing around us, stirring as an animal stirs in its den, thinking of the prey it will catch when night falls and how it will satisfy its hunger.”
A cold shiver ran up Cadrafer’s spine. He could not see what the Wizard was talking about but he saw the truth in his eyes. If Arandur said it, it was so.
“Is there nothing that we can do about this?”
“There is,” said the Wizard, turning his gaze back over the battlements one more. “The first you are already doing.
You and your men are fighting it. You have given up hope, but you refuse to give up the fight. That is good. Very good indeed.”
He finished speaking, his voice almost a whisper as though his mind had already gone on to other thoughts and the two men talking to him barely existed any more. It appeared as though he would speak no more.
“What of the second then,” asked Cadrafer, strangely reluctant to ask the question for he sensed the answer would be dangerous.
He thought at first that Arandur didn’t hear him for he did not reply.
“There is one more thing that can be done," said Arandur at last. “I could challenge the power of the Turgil. I could confront him, turn his magic aside, destroy his sorcery and shake loose the grip of his dark spell upon this fortress.”
“I see,” said Cadrafer, not quite sure what the Wizard meant but sensing that if he did as he said it would come at some price that was also beyond his comprehension.”
“Is that what you would like me to do?” asked the Wizard.
“It is,” Cadrafer said without thinking, realizing immediately after that he could be condemning the Wizard in some way but knowing also that Aren Daleth desperately needed help.
“Then I shall challenge him,” said Arandur. “Though you should know that I may well fail in this. The Turgil is a mighty sorcerer and even here, in the far north of Andoras, the arm of Eruthram reaches out and supports him. Should I die in the attempt, his victory will be more complete. This is not the only battle being fought against him. Even now in other places conflict is underway. And in future times other battles will be fought as well. My aid will be needed then, just as it is now, and without it good people will lose. This is a battle for Aren Daleth, but there is a battle for Andoras as well. Do you still wish me to challenge the might of the Turgil?”
Cadrafer thought long and hard before he answered this time but for the sake of all the people of Aren Daleth what other answer could he give?