The Men of War

by Damon Alan

  “Numo, do you know where the river we hear goes?” Coragg asked.

  “Deeper, to a sea I’ve never seen. So the words I’ve been told said.”

  They didn’t need to go deeper. That wasn’t the way.

  As they neared the other side, a sight they didn’t expect waited for them. About forty dwarves, all with pale skin and dead looking eyes. White hair jetted out from under black tinted helms. Most of the dwarves wore leather, but a dozen or so wore chain or platemail.

  Twenty of the dwarves raised crossbows. There was no mistaking their intent.

  One of the three that wore platemail beckoned to them, summoning them forward. Undoubtedly the leaders, the one that gestured wore a black cape that partially wrapped around to the front. For the first time that Irsu knew of, a symbol was associated with the pale dwarves.

  An eight-pointed starburst. A very strange symbol indeed for a subterranean people.

  “Shields,” Coragg cried.

  Thankfully the royal guardsmen were some of the best trained warriors in Iron Mountain clan, which helped make up for the fact they’d rarely, if ever, seen combat. The soldiers immediately formed a two-high layered wall of shields. Hidden behind steel, Irsu listened as bolts exploded into fragments against the barrier. He thanked Ekesstu that these troops also carried excellent equipment.

  “What’s the plan?” Coragg said, looking at him. “We can retreat backwards, but then we’re trapped in the underway to Iron Mountain Hold with no other exit. We’ll be driven all the way back to locked gates.”

  “Good assessment,” Irsu agreed. He peeked around the end of the shield wall to see the enemy. The bows were reloading. The enemy looked well stocked. There was no going ahead or back.

  He looked over the side. “Light a torch,” he commanded Numo.

  Torch lit, he took it from Numo and threw it over the side. It fell a few dozen kadros to the river below. The water revealed some secrets before it killed the fire. The river was shallow, with many rocks that made the noise they heard from the bridge. It covered the bottom fully, but a dwarf with a pack lizard could travel such a terrain.

  “Samek, Horgra… lower your shields and get your crossbows from the front lizard,” Irsu ordered. “I will do the same. We’re going to deter them from following us back across the bridge long enough for me to make the plan I have work. Coragg and Numo, you’ll handle the lizards.” He pointed at the bolts sticking from the packed supplies on top of the front lizard. “Keep them behind the shield wall best you can.”

  The soldiers did as ordered.

  “Defensive retreat,” Coragg ordered once he and Numo had the animals under control.

  The party backed slowly away from the enemy as another wave of bolts struck the shield wall. Soon they’d be out of sight of the enemy, and then the sickly dwarves would probably move onto the bridge.

  “Stand ready,” Irsu ordered the other two archers. “After the next wave of bolts, we’ll fire straight down the line of the bridge.”

  A minute later bolts clacked against steel once more. The crossbow wielding dwarves stepped from cover, aimed as best they could, and fired.

  A couple of screams met their efforts, one of which changed in pitch and fell away into the void below. The archers retreated again to cover.

  Irsu wished he could still see the enemy, but he at least knew the path they had to take to approach. He could hold the far side of the bridge indefinitely.

  Until they starved.

  He waited to see if another bolt barrage would come, but it didn’t. The enemy was probably considering their options. The three archers reloaded and fired again. No screams. Either the enemy had a shield wall up as well, or they’d left the bridge.

  Both situations suited his need.

  “Coragg, you’re not going to like this next bit. Everyone is to tie themselves off to the pack lizards.”

  Coragg stared at him a moment. “Have the lizards climb down the wall? You’ve gone mad.”

  “Do it,” he ordered. “However many the animal can hold, you think. Then shuttle those to the river below and come back for more.”

  “You don’t think like a person should,” Coragg complained as he did as ordered. Three of the shields disappeared as Coragg tied them to the pack and himself to the saddle seat on the front of the pack. “Into the abyss,” he said as the lizard disappeared over the side.

  Irsu and the other archers fired again. A horde of bolts fired back, one of which struck Horgra in the shoulder. The well-trained dwarf didn’t utter a sound as he spun around and fell.

  “Keep firing,” Irsu said to Samek. “And pick up the rate if you can.”

  He went to look at Horgra’s wound. He dragged the warrior behind the shield wall and examined what happened. The bolt passed clean through the front layer of armor, through Horgra’s upper chest, possibly hitting a lung. The bolt passed partway out the back plate, but stopped there. When Horgra fell he’d landed on the bolt, breaking it off and twisting the rest inside.

  Irsu marveled that the warrior had fallen silently.

  “We’re taking you down next.” Irsu lifted Horgra’s head into his lap. “We’ll tend the wound at the bottom in the ravine.”

  “Nay,” Horgra said. “Spin me ‘round, give me my bow, and I’ll hold them while you and the others escape. We have no priest and you and I both know this is a mortal wound.”

  Irsu hadn’t known that for sure, but the blood that trickled from Horgra’s mouth confirmed it probably was.

  “I’m sorry,” Irsu said. “I planned on getting us all out.”

  “I will die fighting,” Horgra said. “How often does a King’s Guard get to say that?”

  Irsu smiled. “Not often, I expect.”

  “Set me up. I’ll fight. Ekesstu and Mordain will fight over my essence in the afterlife.”

  “I’ve no doubt,” Irsu said as he arranged Horgra facing the right way and gave him his crossbow.

  “Take my sword to my mother,” Horgra said. “I won’t be needing it.”

  “I will,” Irsu promised.

  Coragg touched Irsu on the arm. “It’s time for the next lot. That will leave you,” he looked down at Horgra, “this warrior and Samek to hold them off. You go down. I’ll stand with Samek.”

  “No,” Irsu said, a bit indignant. “You come back for us. Horgra will be staying to guard our retreat.”

  Coragg nodded and began tying off the next batch of shield bearers. Samek and Irsu leaned a shield in front of them, giving themselves cover as the next flurry of bolts struck.

  Irsu looked down at Horgra. The dwarf was dead. He reached out from cover to close the hero’s eyes. This was Hevreg’s fault. Her madness was costing lives. When Irsu reached King Scorriss once more, he’d demand justice.

  “It’s just you and me now, Samek,” Irsu said.

  “Aye,” Samek replied. He pointed at Horgra. “If they hadn’t killed him, we’d have just enough to storm across and teach those oafs a lesson.”

  Irsu smiled at the bravado. “I hope we’ve sent a dozen of them into the next world. Horgra deserves a price to be paid.”

  “We’ll have to assume we have,” Samek agreed. “We are, after all, of the Iron.”

  “A reasonable assumption then,” Irsu said as he shot another bolt into the darkness. “But I still hope Coragg hurries.”

  “The lizards can scale walls only so fast,” Samek said. “My father raised them when I was young, before the last holdwar.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Irsu said to reassure both of them. “Keep firing.”

  After what seemed like an eternity, Coragg appeared on the wall to the right of the bridge, strapped into the pack saddle of his lizard. He tossed two looped ropes to the archers. “Best I can do for you, since we’re not going to have any cover.”

  Irsu grabbed the nearest rope and moved to the edge of the precipice. He stuck a foot in the loop then stepped off. The rope jerked as he fell a short distance and swung, he hoped the stic
ky feet of the lizard held. He felt another jerk as Samek did the same, then swung into him.

  “Horgra?” Coragg yelled.

  “Dead,” Irsu shouted back up to his friend. “Let’s go.”

  The lizard skittered down the wall, slower than ever due to the strange weight of two dwarves hanging below him. The lizard’s face leered above Irsu, making him glad the beast ate fungi as a regular diet. Otherwise he and Samek might seem like dangling treats.

  After a small eternity they reached the floor of the ravine, the bridge lost in the darkness above.

  “Numo, you’ve scouted?” Irsu asked.

  “I have. Upriver is no path at all. The ravine closes up, turning the river on its side. There the water rages, narrow and deep. We would never pass.”

  “Deeper we go then,” Irsu said. “Eventually we’ll find our way up.”

  The dwarves regrouped and began their trek down river. Irsu looked at the faces of the soldiers. Grim, but spirited. Each wanted to make Horgra’s life-price worth paying, he was certain.

  The darkness summoned them deeper, and as it did it drew Irsu’s thoughts deeper as well.

  The sickly dwarves hadn’t tried to negotiate. They hadn’t called out or made any symbols of peace. They’d tried to capture Irsu’s team, then attacked when the Iron Mountain clan warriors refused to surrender, killing Horgra.

  If Irsu saw them again, a life-price would certainly be paid.

  Chapter 18 - Jangik

  July 18, 1940

  The gates of Jangik lay open as Ernst’s entourage approached. Formidable walls surrounded the city, twenty meters high and at least ten meters thick. The outside surface of the walls seemed unscarred by any war. What they were built to keep out was an unknown.

  The procession rode to the foot of a palace complex the likes of which Ernst had never seen. One a bit like what he imagined Rome’s palaces to have been during the rule of the Emperors. Powerful men often built monuments to vanity.

  Broad marble steps rose to golden doors as the party stopped, but of more interest was the group awaiting them at the bottom of those steps.

  Another twenty or so elves, much like Elianna.

  And a human. A young male, half Ernst’s age, the man looked about twenty. His clothing, however, indicated some grand rank within the city, possibly even the man Elianna said she served.

  Elianna leapt from her horse and landed on the ground with the grace and dignity of any acrobat. She didn’t run, but she took long strides as she approached the human, then embraced him with vigor. They kissed for over a minute while the Germans grew uncomfortable.

  They finally separated, and Elianna gestured toward the riders.

  “Lord Hagirr, may I present Director Ernst Haufmann and his wife, the Lady Herta Haufmann. They are emissaries from Germany, a nation of Earth.”

  Ernst dismounted and immediately bowed his head.

  “Ernst, this is Hagirr, the greatest wizard and ruler of Aerth.”

  “The entire world?” Herta asked, incredulous. “Or is that a false claim like so many rulers on Earth engage in?”

  Ernst flinched, but Elianna laughed. “Yes, Herta, the entire world.” She turned to her lover. “Earth is a mess of fractured nation states. Germany is trying to correct this.”

  If the wizard was offended, he gave no indication. He simply smiled at Herta as if Ernst’s wife were simple. “Let us discuss such matters over dinner. What shall I call you?” he asked, looking at Ernst, then smiling at Herta.

  “My name is Ernst, Lord. Ernst will do fine for me, and Herta for my wife.”

  “Then I am Hagirr,” Hagirr replied, smiling at Herta and bowing slightly. “Hagirr will do fine for me.”

  Ernst wondered if the man was taunting him, but then the wizard laughed.

  “Come. We will celebrate in my palace.”

  Elianna barked orders to the guards around her and Ernst and Herta’s travel bags were grabbed, then carried up toward the palace.

  Ernst looked at the front of the building. What wonders awaited inside such a wondrous structure in a world of magic?

  Seated in a great hall only half an hour later, he got an answer to his question. A monstrously long table sat in the center line of the room. He and Herta were seated as guests of honor to the left of Hagirr’s end seat, and Elianna and Trisari sat across from them. Elianna’s family lined the table down her side, Ernst’s pilots and guards lined his.

  Beings the likes of which he never imagined served dinner and entertained. On a stage at one end of the hall a dozen gossamer thin beings with the voices of angels sang softly, the perfect acoustics of the room carried the harmonies and melodies to the ears of every occupant. Art that maintained greater detail the closer you got to it for examination decorated gold encrusted walls. A being that seemed to be mostly plant grew a fruit unknown to Ernst on an extended arm and dropped it on Ernst’s plate, only to do the same a moment later for Herta and then so on down the table.

  A hundred diners sat in chairs arranged neatly in a row, and Ernst noticed a curious phenomenon. When he looked at any one of the diners, or if they addressed him, he would hear them with perfect clarity.

  Crystal plates sat on silk tablecloths. The same crystals decorated chandeliers that glowed with neither electricity nor fire. At the fast end of the table a giant chair housed a creature that was twenty feet tall when it stood up, looking every bit like a human with a distorted body.

  “A giant,” Elianna told him. “Aerth clan. The Storm clan is much, much larger.”

  Ernst had no idea how it even got into the room.

  Females of various races danced nude around the table, their bodies perfect in every way, their synchronous movements unnaturally timed. Every perfect dancer turned and ran into a central dancer, to become one. She bowed and the hall applauded her performance.

  Hagirr tapped a goblet, and the ring of the cup silenced everyone at the table. “We welcome our first guests from the nation of Germany, these representatives of Earth, Ernst and Herta Haufmann.” He raised the goblet. “Tonight, we show them the grandeur of Aerth. We will dine, then, if time permits, I will show them the Great White Pyramid of Jangik.” He laughed, and the attendees laughed along with him. “They’ve clearly been impressed by the palace. Wait until they climb the steps to the gods and see the gateway to the heavens!”

  The noise in the hall quadrupled, and food service increased. Platters were presented loaded with meat, little of which Ernst recognized. He took some of everything. The liquor, ale, beer, whatever was in his own goblet was the best thing he’d ever consumed in his life. Copious fruits and vegetables entered his stomach well past when he should have stopped eating, yet he didn’t feel full. The fruit dropped by the plant creature sprouted a face and looked at Ernst plaintively.

  He turned it to face Elianna, who slammed her knife into it, cutting it in half. “You have to eat it in a timely fashion, Ernst, or it will mature and escape. The escupa breed like rabbits. We can’t allow that.”

  Almost as if to verify Elianna’s words, Herta shrieked, in shock more than fear. The thing on Herta’s plate jumped up and ran toward the far end of the table, dodging back and forth between dishes and candelabras as if playing rugby. The diners stabbed at it with their forks and knives, but it deftly dodged them all.

  “Sagunimallutik nal Ingustivari,” Hagirr said.

  The creature had almost made it to the far end, past the giant, when an invisible hand grabbed it and jerked it the thirty meters across the length of the table.

  It landed in Hagirr’s hands, and he took a bite as the thing squealed in protest.

  “It’s fine,” the wizard said to Herta, smiling. “They taste far better if you wait until they can run.” He extended his hand, the creature’s fibrous legs now dangling lifelessly, offering it to Herta for her consumption.

  Herta fainted onto Ernst’s shoulder as Hagirr burst into laughter.

  “Too much for her to take inside of one day?” the wizard
asked. “We can visit the pyramid tomorrow. There is no need to stress your wife further.” He leaned in toward Ernst. “Because if she’s fainting at this, she should bring extra clothes with her for that excursion. She might soil herself. You haven’t seen a thing yet.”

  Ernst wondered if that was a reference to the humiliation the dragon had heaped upon him, but said nothing.

  After dinner servants showed Ernst and Herta to their rooms, where they discussed their predicament.

  “There is something not right,” Herta told Ernst.

  “We should speak in private,” Ernst responded, waving his hands toward the servants. “Ears abound.”

  Herta giggled. “They don’t speak German! I’m just saying the man who hosted us for dinner… he doesn’t seem as if he has a soul to me. It’s as if he is the world to himself and the rest of us are unliving playthings.”

  “I noticed it too,” Ernst agreed. “It’s in his eyes. While his face is expressive, his eyes… they are devoid of presence.”

  “Unlike your elf?” Herta asked.

  “She is cruel, but she knows others are beings too. She just rarely cares from what I see.”

  “Hmmmph.”

  Ernst sensed his wife didn’t want him defending Elianna. He spoke no more of it, and neither did she, the awkwardness was short due to them arriving at their room. The grandeur of it swept Herta’s displeasure with him away.

  They climbed into bed on the most comfortable mattress he’d ever slept on in his life. Down filled blankets covered them, but despite that he slept next to a shivering wife.

  He couldn’t help but wonder if he was being brave enough for her.

  Because he wanted nothing more than to break down in fear himself. It was a day of macabre comedy. Tomorrow, it seemed, would be something else entirely.

  Chapter 19 - A Narrow Way

  July 19, 1940

  A day after leaving Étables-sur-Mer, Nelson and his remaining men stumbled on a rear supply depot. Mostly untouched except for a few animal scavengers, the camp looked like the inhabitants had simply got up and left. In the mess tent food rotted on plates and on the serving line. A few forks lay on the ground, but most were on the table where diners had dropped them or set them down.