Colborn nodded.
“And how many Eirdkilrs would you say made those tracks?”
“Two to three hundred, easy.” Colborn cocked his head.
“But why?” Aravon’s brow furrowed. “If they were intending to attack Godahus, why did they need so many warriors? And the fact that they left such visible tracks is unlike them.”
Colborn seemed to understand the direction of Aravon’s thought. “With that many men, it’s impossible for even Fehlans and Eirdkilrs to move through the forest undetected. So if it was just a supplies raid on Godahus, they’d take a smaller party—small enough that they would leave no trace of their passing.”
“Precisely.” Aravon let out a long breath. “And, add to that the fact that they bypassed Godahus entirely, it means their attack wasn’t a simple raid.” He frowned in thought. “Which means…”
He sucked in a breath as Captain Lemaire’s words flashed through his mind. Could it be? There was only one reason to send so many men to attack a seemingly random target.
“Captain?” Skathi asked. “A silver half-drake for whatever just popped into your head.”
“Silver is right!” Aravon whirled toward his four companions. “This many Eirdkilrs so deep in allied Fehlan territory, yet not going for easy pickings like Godahus or attempting an assault on Saerheim. It’s like Silver Break Mine all over again!”
Four pairs of eyes widened. “A mine?” Confusion echoed in Colborn’s voice. “I’ve never heard of any Deid-controlled mines this far south.”
“Just like you’d never heard of Silver Break Mine,” Aravon answered. “Precisely because the Eirdkilrs would try to capture it and cut off the Prince’s resources.”
The eyes of his comrades darkened. They all knew what awaited them if the Eirdkilrs had passed by here a day earlier. Yet they had no choice but to ride toward the danger, toward whatever lay ahead.
“Ride,” Aravon told Colborn in a quiet voice. “Guide us to wherever the Eirdkilr tracks lead.”
With a solemn nod, Colborn spurred his horse to the north. Aravon followed, but not before shooting a silent glance toward Godahus. The men, women, and children of the Deid village appeared to have no idea the grim fate they’d been narrowly spared. But somewhere ahead, others—Princelanders or Fehlans, Aravon couldn’t know yet—had not been so fortunate.
The horses splashed their way across the shallow channel feeding into Cold Lake, up a steep incline, and through dense woodlands, heading northeast. Aravon had no idea where Colborn led them, but he trusted the Lieutenant to follow the Eirdkilr tracks to their destination. Wherever that was, and whatever they’d find.
Fifteen minutes of hard riding turned to twenty, the miles between them and Godahus lengthening as they followed the Eirdkilrs’ trail northeast, deeper into the wetlands east of Cold Lake. Aravon’s gut tightened as they raced through the thickly-forested lands. If the Eirdkilrs lay in wait, they could be riding into another ambush. The five of them couldn’t hope to defeat even a quarter of the enemies that had come this way. Yet Aravon could only tighten his grip on the spear strapped to his saddle and pray that the Swordsman sharpened Colborn’s eyes and kept them safe.
Then he saw the thick cloud of crows circling high above the forest. A cloud of gray smoke darkened the afternoon sky, tingeing the air with the stink of burning wood, rope, and canvas.
They were too late.
The smell reached him long before the grisly scene came into view. The stench of death and decay, bodies left to rot beneath the Fehlan sun. Destruction, total and ruthless, with only silence to welcome Aravon and his companions.
The mining camp was laid out much the same as Silver Break Mine, a sea of wooden shelters and canvas tents spread out in an ever-widening circle around the base of a stone-covered hill. Yet these appeared far more permanent. Solid walls of wood and wattle-and-daub, with thatched roofs to keep out the rain and chill. Proper picket lines for the horses and paved stone loading areas for wagons and carts. Only two were visible, empty and abandoned, with no oxen or draft animals in sight. Someone had even painted a sign. “Gold Burrows”, it proclaimed in bright yellow letters.
But where Silver Break Mine had been utterly devoid of life, this camp was filled with death. Bodies lay scattered around the camp, skulls crushed in, limbs shattered, flesh carved to gruesome ribbons. Women lay beside their children, arms wrapped protectively around bodies that had been hacked and slashed by Eirdkilr weapons. Men run through by enemy spears, arms and legs sheared through by enormous axes. Charred corpses in a pile of blackened flesh and bone.
The Eirdkilrs had slaughtered them all. The blood of these miners ran thick, turning the ground to a gruesome red-tinged muck.
Aravon’s stomach twisted and threatened to disgorge its contents, but he clenched his jaw hard. “Skathi,” he signed, “head east, search for survivors. Zaharis, west. Belthar, guard our backs.”
The archer and Secret Keeper responded with silent nods and turned to obey Aravon’s command. Belthar pulled his horse to a stop and dismounted, his movements slow, burdened by the horror surrounding him. Metal creaked as Belthar loaded his crossbow, the sound echoing eerily loud in the utter stillness of the camp.
In grim silence, Aravon rode with Colborn deeper into the sea of burned homes and shattered bodies.
The corpses grew thicker on the ground as they approached the mouth of the mine. Picks, trowels, and shovels lay beside the bodies of men and women who had fought in vain to defend themselves and their loved ones. Carrion birds pecked at unseeing eyes, tore at flesh long ago gone cold, feasted on the silent dead. Naught but the occasional caw of a crow or the rustle of the wind whispering in the trees broke the all-encompassing stillness of death.
But the Eirdkilrs hadn’t only slain unarmed miners. Before the mouth of the mine, a thick line of fur-clad bodies lay sprawled in the crimson muck. Fehlan shields and swords were scattered among the axes, clubs, and spears of the Eirdkilrs. Colborn’s face turned ashen as he studied the fallen warriors.
“Deid?” Aravon asked.
Colborn nodded mutely.
Aravon hesitated a moment. “Did you…know any of them?”
Colborn turned toward him, eyes gaunt, hollow. After a long moment, he shook his head, but offered no more.
Aravon let out a long breath. “Though it’s little consolation, at least they died a warrior’s death.”
Huge figures with blue-stained faces and clad in icebear pelts lay among the slain Deid warriors. Thirty Fehlans had fallen, but they had taken nearly two dozen Eirdkilrs with them.
“Aye, so they did.” Bitterness echoed in Colborn’s voice. “And see what good that did them.”
“Stay here.” Aravon dismounted and strode toward the mouth of the mine. He gave the pile of bodies a wide berth, careful not to disturb the silent dead. Bloody, reeking mud squelched beneath his boots, and the stink of rotting flesh hung in a thick miasma around him.
Stooping, Aravon retrieved a burned-out torch from where it had fallen beside a Deid warrior. With quick, deft movements, he struck sparks with his Legion-issue flint. Long seconds passed before the mud-covered torch caught flame. Drawing in a deep breath, Aravon stepped into the mine, torch held high.
The light of a million stars glimmered in the pitch black heavens inside the mine. No, not stars, Aravon realized. Gold. A kingdom’s worth, waiting to be harvested from the walls, floors, and ceilings. Everywhere the torchlight touched, gold sparkled and glinted back at him from a sea of stone blacker than onyx.
Yet the sight of such wealth did little to drive back Aravon’s horror. The smell within the mine was stronger, yet far less rank. The underground chill had preserved the two dozen corpses that lay scattered around the mines. Picks, carts, and shovels lay abandoned beside crushed, hacked, and ruined bodies of miners. Dark-haired Princelanders and blond, bearded Deid lay side by side, brothers in death.
The miners had clearly been caught at work, toiling to free the precious gold fr
om its stony black prison. Yet no overstuffed sacks lay nearby. The hand-carts stood empty, overturned in the fight. The Eirdkilrs had made off with not only the gold, but the ghoulstone that Captain Lemaire had called “worthless”.
Turning, Aravon strode back out into daylight and into fresh air. Fresher air, where the icy afternoon wind carried away the reek of slowly-decomposing bodies, and the smell of smoke hung like a funeral shroud atop the remains of Gold Burrows Mine.
Outside, Colborn had dismounted and now crouched over the body of a fallen Deid warrior. His hand trembled only slightly as he closed the man’s eyes, bowed his head, and whispered something in Fehlan too quiet for Aravon to hear. Perhaps a prayer to Olfossa, god of the Deid, commending the warriors to Seggrholl.
Aravon gave Colborn his space, instead climbing into his saddle and riding a few dozen yards south, back the way they’d come. Back into the midst of the carnage, the thick carpet of savaged bodies and bloody mud. He ignored Belthar, who stood with his enormous crossbow shouldered and ready to fire. Instead, his eyes roamed the death and destruction that surrounded him, so at odds with the eerie stillness of Silver Break Mine.
Why was this attack on the mine different? Aravon’s brow furrowed. Why did they leave no trace of their passing in Eyrr land, but leave such death and destruction here?
He glanced over his shoulder, toward the line of Deid bodies arrayed in front of the mine. Had their presence caused the massacre? In Silver Break Mine, there had been no defensive force—the mine was kept a secret by limiting the number of Fehlans and Princelanders that knew of its existence. If the Eirdkilrs had descended upon the mine and met no resistance, they could have simply…
What, exactly? Confusion swirled in Aravon’s thoughts. They could easily have killed the miners, just as they did here. But instead of leaving a camp filled with bodies, they left nothing. Not a trace of where they’d come from or where they’d gone.
Yet that realization led to another grim thought. What if their true purpose was not only to capture the mine, but the miners?
Silver Break Mine had been a relatively new endeavor, yet the miners working there had been experienced laborers. Judging by the sturdy construction of the shelters alone, Gold Burrows had been in existence for at least a few years.
Dread settled in his stomach at the thought of Princelander, Deid, and Eyrr in the clutches of the Eirdkilrs. What the hell do they want with miners? At best, the Eirdkilrs would enslave them to work in the mines they had recaptured in the south of Fehl, perhaps even some in the Sawtooth Mountains and beyond. He didn’t want to think about the worst-case—the Eirdkilrs could be savage and bloodthirsty in battle, but he’d heard enough stories about their ritual sacrifices and tortures to wish a speedy death on the captive prisoners.
The sound of pounding hoofbeats snapped him from his pondering. Skathi cantered back from the eastern edge of the camp, shaking her head. “Nothing,” she signed. “Nothing but more bodies.”
A flash of orange fur caught Aravon’s eye. Snarl had sunk his teeth into a leather boot, gnawing at the tough hide, unaware of the severed foot that still lay within. Gut twisting, Aravon blew his whistle and Snarl came running. Aravon scooped the little Enfield up and held him in his arms, heedless of Snarl’s insistent whining to be let go. The creature seemed not to understand what had happened here, but Aravon did, and he hated the knowledge. Only monsters could do something so bestial, so inhumanely murderous.
Zaharis appeared from the west a few minutes later. Unlike Skathi, however, he hadn’t returned empty-handed. He rode with a sack slung across his saddle, and his horse’s slow trot set the rocks within clacking against each other.
“Found a dead Eirdkilr,” Zaharis signed. “He was carrying this.” With a grunt of effort, he lifted the sack from the saddle and dropped it to the ground. It landed with a loud thump and splash in the crimson muck, and the heavy contents within split the seams. Among the black stone that spilled across the ground, shards of gold gleamed bright in the afternoon light.
“Keeper’s teeth!” Belthar whistled. “That’s a bloody lot of gold!”
Zaharis nodded. “A fortune, by Princelander standards.”
“Enough to pay a full company’s wages for a week,” Colborn put in.
Aravon frowned down at the sack. “So they came for the gold, but when they found the Deid warriors defending the mine, it turned into a battle.”
“A one-sided battle,” Skathi growled. The fingers of her right hand toyed nervously with the feathered fletching of the arrow that lay nocked across her short horsebow. “Poor bastards never stood a chance against so many.”
“And that explains why the Eirdkilrs brought such a large force.” The wheels had begun to turn in Aravon’s mind. “They wanted to not only haul away all the gold, but they were taking prisoners, too.”
Four pairs of eyes narrowed at him. “Prisoners?” Zaharis signed. “That’s not the Eirdkilrs’ style.”
“Until now.” Aravon quickly recounted his train of reasoning. “If, and I know this is a big if, the Eirdkilrs decided that they wanted to extract the resources from the mines they control in the south, they wouldn’t waste warriors on it.”
“They’d simply raid the Fehlans and take the miners as slaves.” Colborn’s expression grew grim. “That was ever the Fehlan way, before the Einari settled the north. Still is, among many of the southern clans.”
“Though what the Eirdkilrs could want with all that gold,” Skathi put in, “makes no sense to me.” She gestured around her. “I can see them cutting into the Prince’s supply, cut him off so he can’t afford to support the Legions he’s got here, much less bring more across from the mainland. But to mine their own? What use could they possibly have for gold?”
Aravon frowned. Long moments passed before he shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Then there’s the matter of the prisoners,” Skathi continued. “Unless you plan to murder them all, you’ve got to make sure they’re fed, housed, clothed. Even as slaves, they’d need basic living conditions to survive.”
Aravon drew in a deep breath. Skathi made a valid point. The Eirdkilrs had never taken prisoners until now because they had no use for them. They never surrendered in battle, so there was no need to exchange or ransom prisoners. They considered the Eird, the “half-men”, little better than animals. They could be used as slaves, but as Skathi had said, slaves consumed resources. Resources that the ever-roaming Eirdkilrs had always hunted, stolen, or pillaged from southern Fehl. Even a few hundred slaves would hinder mobility and steal food from the warriors’ bellies.
Yet Aravon couldn’t deny the evidence of his eyes. The camp was large enough to house three hundred, yet a quick count of the corpses revealed little more than half that number. That meant at least a hundred Princelanders and Fehlans had survived—either fleeing into the Deid lands or captured by the Eirdkilrs. The fact that there had been no news of the attack on the mine hinted at the latter.
The Eirdkilrs had more than a hundred prisoners.
“What bothers me is how the Eirdkilrs knew about this,” Zaharis signed. “Even if, as you and the Duke believe, there is a traitor among the Prince’s Council feeding them the information, I still don’t understand how this particular band of Eirdkilrs got that information. And if they were fresh off the march from Jokull lands, why they came this way in the first place.”
Aravon nodded. “You’re right. All of you.” He fixed his four companions with a solemn gaze. “Too much about this doesn’t make sense. Just like so much of what the Eirdkilrs have done in the last few weeks. It’s more than just a traitor in the Princelands—there is something new at play here, something cleverer than any Eirdkilr we’ve known in the past. They’ve changed their strategy, and until we figure out exactly what they’re after, what their end game is, they’re going to keep catching us off-guard.”
Silence and grim looks met his words. His four companions exchanged glances, hesitation written in their eye
s.
“I don’t expect any of you to have an answer now.” Aravon shook his head. “But from here on out, we’ve got to stop treating them like the enemy we’ve faced for years. We’ve got to start thinking of them as a new enemy, a colder, more cunning one. And everything we see, everything they do, it’s going to factor into their new strategy somehow. It’s up to us to figure out what.”
“Then to figure out how to put an arrow in the eye of whatever bastard’s calling the shots!” Skathi patted her bow.
“Aye,” Belthar rumbled, adjusting his grip on his enormous crossbow.
Aravon turned to Colborn. “Find which way the Eirdkilrs left. We’ll follow their tracks back to wherever they’ve gone.”
Colborn nodded as he climbed into his saddle. “If they are carrying prisoners, they’ll leave a trail broad enough for even Noll to follow.”
Skathi snorted and muttered something derisive under her breath.
“Trampled brush, back that way,” Zaharis signed, jerking a thumb to the west. “Plenty of tracks where I found the dead Eirdkilr.” His eyes dropped to the sack spilled in the muddy ground, where shards of gold-rich ore lay gleaming among the pile of black ghoulstone. “And what do we do with that?”
“Leave it.” Aravon gave a dismissive wave. “It’s not ours to take, and it’s not our problem to deal with.”
The mask hid Belthar’s face, but a sudden tension knotted his shoulders, as if he prepared to argue the point.
“It’ll just slow us down,” Aravon said, shaking his head. “And when we rejoin the Duke, he’ll make sure to send word to the right people to come take care of…this.”
His gesture included the corpses. He wanted to bury them, to give them a send-off to the afterlife far more dignified than this. Yet they couldn’t afford the time. They were fortunate to have found the Eirdkilr tracks a day after the enemy had passed; if they delayed, they could lose the already faint trail.
“We ride,” he ordered. “Follow the tracks, see if we can catch up to the Eirdkilrs.” A tiny hope, he knew, but he had to try for the sake of the captive Deid and Princelanders.
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