That was Gromph’s error, Jarlaxle realized, and he nodded knowingly as he considered his brother.
Poor Gromph had dared to hope.
CHAPTER 24
TORN GROUND AND EXCREMENT
LEAVING TORN GROUND AND PILES OF EXCREMENT IN ITS WAKE, THE MASSIVE army of Many-Arrows plodded up the road along the north bank of the River Rauvin, the route connecting the ruins of Sundabar to Everlund. The monsters walked many abreast, a mob more than an army, it seemed, with more than ten full miles separating the leading edge of that catastrophe from the trailing ranks.
Warlord Hartusk was near the front of the army, surrounded by his most trusted and most ferocious orc legions, and so he noted the growing excitement at the front of his march. He understood when word finally carried back to him that they were approaching a settlement, a sizable village on the northern banks of the Rauvin.
“Lhuvenhead,” Hartusk’s advisor remarked. The warlord nodded, and grinned wickedly. Lhuvenhead was the largest settlement in the Rauvin Vale, a prosperous merchant community.
“We are only two days from the walls of Everlund, Warlord,” the advisor added.
“Kill them and capture as many as you can,” Hartusk ordered, and the word went forth in eager shouts, and the orcs leading the army launched into a charge, sweeping down upon the village.
But the place was deserted, they found to their disappointment, and no boats remained at the village’s disproportionately large docks. Prudence and good planning would have led the Many-Arrows army to leave the village unscathed. As they passed it, it became their land, after all, and with an important and well-designed system of barges and docks that could bring vast supplies down from Everlund in short order.
But these were orcs, and immediate gratification was a far more urgent call to them than wise long-term planning. By the time Hartusk himself arrived in Lhuvenhead, there really was no Lhuvenhead remaining.
There was just a hundred piles of splintered and burning wood and broken homes, and with a mess of jetsam floating down river, splashing and rolling along the forty miles to mighty Everlund.
Warlord Hartusk did not disapprove, even though he was wise enough to realize the waste. His minions needed blood, and none was to be found here, not with every villager long gone—no doubt to Everlund. The orcs needed some release for their violent urges, and so be it.
Besides, Hartusk figured that Everlund itself would be his soon enough.
It was the first day of Flamerule, also called Summertide, the seventh month of 1485. How fitting that this particular village, long known as a pleasant summer respite for the lords and ladies of both Sundabar and Everlund, had simply ceased to exist on this day.
“Press on!” Hartusk ordered his charges, and the black wave of Many-Arrows rolled along toward Everlund, the great gateway to the southlands.
More than an hour later, far back in the line, Jarl Greigor Kundknoddick and his entourage came upon the obliterated village.
The frost giant leader was not amused. He, like Hartusk, recognized the waste, and the opportunity lost. He heard again the drow’s warnings in his thoughts.
Would sheer numbers be enough? To conquer, perhaps, but to gain any lasting hold?
Frost giants were not like orcs and goblins and ogres. They did not war for the sake of war, but for the promise of greater riches and power. They preferred beauty to ugliness, and this town was surely ugly.
“The dwarves are out,” Jarl Greigor said to those around him. He didn’t wait for any answers, and didn’t want any.
In truth, he was speaking more to himself than to the others, as he tried futilely to process the information the drow had offered. He had brought his giants into this fray because he hated the dwarves and because it had seemed then that Hartusk’s march could not fail. That seemed even more assured when Sundabar had fallen.
Greigor looked to the brothers of Thrym, but they could only shrug and shake their heads.
They had served well in getting him out here, as with his counterpart, Jarl Orelson, to be sure. But that was all they had done.
Jarl Greigor shook his head in reply, and thought again of the great victory at Sundabar, truly the high point of Warlord Hartusk’s war. But without the dragons, would that have happened? Without the dragons, and without the surprised dwarves caught in their holes?
A commotion drew Jarl Greigor and his entourage back around the ruins of the village to the east, to view the rear guard of the Many-Arrows force. Dust climbed in the distance and the wind carried cries and screams.
“A battle,” one of the other giants, a brutish female named Jierta, remarked.
“Knights in Silver!” an orc confirmed, running by the group. “They have come in great numbers!”
“Silverymoon?” Jierta asked. “They are besieged!”
“So we thought,” Jarl Greigor replied. He started away at a great pace to the east, the others running beside him. Soon enough, on a low hilltop, the behemoth spotted the fight.
“Knights in Silver,” Jierta confirmed.
Jarl Greigor could only nod in agreement, and wince at the size of the force. Hundreds of armored riders skirmished around the trailing edge of the orc army, firing bows from horseback and running down any monsters who ventured too far from the main throng. Apparently yet another siege had been broken.
“The orcs are organizing,” Jarl Greigor remarked, nodding. He could see that the goblinkin were biding their time until the worg riders could arrive. He spotted those riders, nearing the leading edge of the skirmish.
And at last the defensive ranks of the Many-Arrows army broke open wide, a thick stream of orcs and goblins, some riding, most running, stretching out to meet the threat.
Horns blew, echoing off the mountain walls in the north, and the Silverymoon cavalry broke away as one, fleeing back to the north and the foothills of the Nether Mountains.
“We will have them!” Jierta said to Jarl Greigor.
A far greater Many-Arrows force pursued that cavalry and with the mountains looming so near, the riders would have nowhere to run.
The giants ran toward the skirmish, hoping to get into the fray before it was over. They plowed through their smaller allies, trampling many under their huge feet. They lost sight of the battle, or the chase, intermittently, as they rushed through dells and copses of trees, and by the time they neared the area of the initial fighting, all was quiet there.
Not so up to the north of that position, however, where screams of abject terror filled the air.
“They have them!” Jierta cried.
Then came such a roar that the blood drained from the frost giant’s face, a monstrous roar—a dragon’s roar.
Jarl Greigor Kundknoddick’s blue eyes sparkled at that thought. The drow was wrong, just as he’d hoped!
But the screams continued, heightened, and running back from the foothills came the orcs and goblins, desperately falling all over each other.
“A dragon?” Jierta asked her jarl, and the ferocious giantess didn’t seem so eager to charge north to join in the fighting.
More than seven thousand Many-Arrows soldiers had swarmed up into the foothills to pursue the raiding Knights in Silver.
Less than one in five returned.
Jarl Greigor motioned to one of his giants, indicating a trembling orc whimpering amidst some of its colleagues. The giant moved over, scattered the standing orcs, and hoisted the sniveling one up into the air, carrying it back to Jarl Greigor by the ankles, and giving it a little shake every couple of steps.
The giant unceremoniously dropped the orc to the ground at Jarl Greigor’s feet.
“No, no, I chased them … I—I—I had to run,” the orc stammered when the imposing Jarl bent down over it.
“A coward deserter?” Jarl Greigor said wickedly, as if he meant to cut the cowardly orc in half on the spot with his gigantic sword.
“No, no!” the orc whined.
“Go back and fight them!” Jarl Greigor demand
ed, and he grabbed the orc by the collar of its filthy jerkin and yanked it to its feet with frightening strength and ease.
But despite the imposing figure of the mighty giant, the orc shook its head and glanced nervously to the north. “I … I can’t.”
“You cannot?”
“Dragon …” the orc said, its voice a whisper. “Dragon.”
“Arauthator has returned?” the frost giant asked, but the orc shook its head so violently that it seemed as if it might simply fly from the creature’s shoulders.
“Not white. Not … ours.”
Jarl Greigor looked around at his entourage, all of them now nervously stepping from foot to foot.
“The color of a copper piece,” the orc explained.
“This dragon,” Jierta demanded, “it aided our enemies?
“The humans fled in front of us and rode around the dragon without hindrance.”
Jarl Greigor tossed the orc aside, and the pathetic terrified creature was fleeing once more even as it hit the ground.
“Our dragons are gone, so claimed the drow, but now our enemies …” Jierta started to say, but Jarl Greigor cut her short with an upraised hand.
“Tell the orcs that we will return to Hartusk Keep to lead the northern armies along the northern road to put the dogs of Silverymoon back in their hole,” he said. “Have them tell Warlord Hartusk that we will meet him at the walls of Everlund.”
The others nodded and ran off, all of them understanding that Jarl Greigor had no intention of doing any such thing. His was not the only frost giant force that had come to the call of Warlord Hartusk, but it was among the most powerful, perhaps second only to Shining White itself, particularly with the three huge brothers of the frost giant god Thrym in their ranks.
Threescore giants broke from Hartusk’s vast ranks that day, running north for the Moon Pass and the lands beyond. They would turn west, as they had told the orcs, but not to engage Silverymoon. They were bound for the lands across the Surbrin, west, to the Spine of the World and their icy home.
Warlord Hartusk suspected as much when he heard of Jarl Greigor’s departure. If it was true, he silently vowed, he would march on Shining White when he was done with Everlund and Silverymoon.
They were much closer to Everlund now than to Hartusk Keep, and the minor skirmishes against his vast army and the desertion of a few here and there would not deter him. Reports of groups of raiding bands of enemy riders were common—Knights in Silver trapped outside their besieged city, he believed. Nay, such minor inconveniences would not deter him.
Nor would ridiculous rumors of enemy dragons.
The army of Many-Arrows pressed on through the dark night, and late the next day, they came in sight of mighty Everlund, settled on the northern bank of the Rauvin River, with two great bridges reaching across the water to the southern road.
Warlord Hartusk nodded grimly. They had to destroy those bridges as soon as they took the city, to prevent enemies from coming up from the great cities in the southlands. Surely the call had already gone out from Everlund.
Nay, this would be no siege, and that very day, Hartusk sent his hordes charging at Everlund’s great wall, thinking to knock the city down with sheer numbers.
Indeed, had it been only Everlund there to defy him, his tactics would likely have proven correct and effective, but barely had the first ranks reached the killing grounds before the walls when another force appeared on the field, riding down from the higher ground in the north, horns blowing.
The Knights in Silver.
And this was no raiding group, Hartusk and his commanders knew at once. This was the garrison of Silverymoon, nearly in full.
And with wizards … so many wizards.
Fireballs and lightning bolts led that charge, blasting and scattering Hartusk’s minions. The warlord and his elite fighters rushed back, calling for a regrouping.
“Kill the fools outside the walls!” he cried, and the great morass of his army began its slow turn.
But then came the two copper dragons, skimming in low, breathing clouds of magically slowing gasses, or spitting acid that melted orcs where they stood.
And the horns blew from the west as well, as Everlund’s garrison, too, came forth.
There, between the Nether Mountains and the River Rauvin, just east of Everlund, was fought the greatest battle of the War of the Silver Marches.
On a wider field, Many-Arrows would have prevailed, sheer numbers overwhelming the elves and humans and their allies, even the dragons. But this was no wide field, but a bordered corridor of death.
Warlord Hartusk was soon in full flight, back to the east, his force chased every mile by the Knights in Silver, who shot their longbows from horseback with deadly accuracy.
Wulfgar lifted Aleina Brightlance in a great hug when he found her on the bloodied fields, not far from Everlund’s walls.
The fierce woman grabbed him by his blond hair and tugged his head back so that she could look into his blue eyes.
“We will chase them all the way home,” she said. “We will kill them all!”
Wulfgar kissed her passionately and squeezed her so tightly that Aleina thought her spine might crack apart. But she didn’t complain, just kissed him even harder, and tugged at his hair, her lust unsated by battle.
They had broken the siege at Silverymoon just days before, the arrival of the dragons and word of the dwarven citadels out and free sending the bulk of the besieging armies in full flight before the battle had even begun.
And now the plan Aleina had proposed to Lord Hornblade, which he had taken to the lords of Everlund with help of a wizard’s spell, had worked to perfection.
The fighting wasn’t done, Wulfgar and Aleina knew well as they made their way to a quiet and secluded place and made love under the dark sky to the sound of the rushing river.
But that was for tomorrow.
Riding on the back of a dragon, sitting in front of Brother Afafrenfere, Regis could hardly contain his smile. Far below in the east, what remained of the army of Many-Arrows was in full flight for the Moon Pass.
Raiding knights nipped at the stragglers behind, just to thin the ranks as they could, and more importantly, to keep the orcs running.
Many giants remained among the monstrous force, and giants could throw heavy rocks, so the dragon sisters did not engage. They meant to stay up high and allow their mere presence to bring fear to their enemies. Unless, of course, a sizeable force of monsters turned back to try to catch the pursuing knights.
Then Tazmikella and Ilnezhara would swoop down, alerting the knights of the ambush, to play with the ambushed forces and chase them on their way.
“They’ll not stop at Sundabar,” Afafrenfere said to Regis on the fourth day, as the Many-Arrows army crossed through the Moon Pass and had the city they had named Hartusk Keep in sight. “They will pass through, with Hartusk hoping that those he leaves behind in the ruined city will hold back the pursuit.”
“He knows he’s lost,” Regis agreed. “He’ll run all the way to Dark Arrow Keep!”
“Let us hope,” Afafrenfere replied. They both knew what awaited Hartusk’s less-than-triumphant return.
The Surbrin Bridge was unguarded, but neither were any of the vast encampments the orcs had set about the place, around Mithral Hall, evident. Hartusk’s fleeing army encountered many small bands of fellow orcs in the long retreat, and all of them said the same thing: the dwarves had broken the sieges and the Many-Arrows armies had scattered or had been destroyed.
Just north of Fourthpeak, word came to Warlord Hartusk that a large force was again on his tail, an army flying the banners of Silverymoon and Everlund.
Hartusk was not dismayed by the news. He knew the ground around his home fortress, and that ground had been prepared to ward off an attacking army.
Indeed it had, and those defenses had been improved upon greatly since Warlord Hartusk had departed for the south.
But what Hartusk did not know was that Dark
Arrow Keep was now in the hands of four dwarf kings and the combined armies of Mithral Hall, Citadel Felbarr, and mighty Citadel Adbar.
How joyous ran the orcs when at last the tall pickets of Dark Arrow Keep’s formidable walls came into view! How great came their cheers, how fast their pace, as they ran for home.
Several balls of catapulted flaming pitch were in the air before any of the monsters even began to understand the truth before them. It was not until those fiery balls hit and exploded, and created a torrent of flames as lines of shallow-buried oil crisscrossed the field south of Dark Arrow Keep, that Warlord Hartusk understood his doom.
Hundreds of elves lined the parapets, their bowstrings playing a deadly song. And among them raced a drow, with a bow more deadly still. And from their ranks came crackling bolts of lightning, and fireballs, the blue glow of magic lifting up from the spellscarred arms of Catti-brie.
Crack artillery teams of skilled dwarves adjusted the catapults and ballistae—scores of the mighty weapons—and sent their fury raining down upon the Many-Arrows army.
Before the orcs had even adjusted to the shock, from the south came the horns of the Knights in Silver and the garrison of Everlund, accentuated by the roars of a pair of copper dragons.
And from the west, out of the foothills, came the charge of King Bruenor and nine thousand shield dwarves, swarming down like an avalanche on the orc forces, driving them east, to the river.
And all the lines blurred, and the dragons came down low, Ilnezhara dropping a pair of wild-eyed dwarves, Athrogate and Ambergris, into the fray near Bruenor, then flying off to wreak her own savagery upon the monstrous enemies.
Tazmikella, too, came in low, but she didn’t pause as her lone passenger, the monk Afafrenfere, leaped down from on high into the midst of a horde of orcs. He landed in a roll and sprang up high out of it, snap-kicking left and right into the surprised faces of a pair of enemies. Almost immediately, orcs began flying away, tumbling and falling as the monk launched into a brutal and unrelenting assault.
Vengeance of the Iron Dwarf Page 38
