Her horse was snorting and tossing its head, the foam spraying from its mouth tinged pink with blood. Perian knew even in her panic that her mount was dying; she had driven it too hard. No beast could sustain the punishing pace, and the horse had given its all; at any moment it would stumble and fall.
She looked over at the horse next to her, bearing the now-lifeless body of the girl she had dragged into this foolish endeavor. Harnwe’s head flopped up and down on the neck of her horse, body still lashed to the saddle but slowly slipping free. Her eyes were half-open, misted over with death, her arms hanging loosely down at her sides. Soon the brave archer would tumble downward and there would be a terrible end to her.
But the smaller woman’s horse was a bit stronger, had carried a slighter burden during the journey so far. And if Perian could gain but one pace, two paces, perhaps three, on the beast rampaging up the path behind her, there might be the barest of chances of completing her ride.
Hating herself for it, sobbing with the sheer naked desperation of it, Perian reached out to the horse galloping next to her on the road. She pulled loose the strap holding Harnwe’s body, and without a sound the small archer slipped from the saddle and fell away into the darkness behind.
Ignoring the horrific sounds, the crunching and tearing and splashing, Perian held tight to the other horse’s rein with her right hand and arched one long leg over its back. Leaving her own horse but keeping a grip on the egg-sack with her left hand, she hurled herself onto the back of Harnwe’s mount and clung to it tightly to keep from falling.
Seconds later her erstwhile mount nicked a rock with the tip of its hoof and went down like an arrow into the ground. Its neck was broken instantly, but the centipede again paused to chew through the animal’s body, mandibles stripping flesh from bone and crumbling spine and skull to bits within a few moments’ time.
Perian urged her new mount onward at top speed, though the beast scarcely needed urging. It was near the limit of its own endurance, but it just might get a few leagues farther before dropping. That was all Perian needed now.
Just a few leagues farther. Please.
The mekkilak picked up the trail again and came on, nearing inexorably, panicking Perian’s new steed. The beast was closing the distance, no matter how fast the horse ran.
She wasn’t going to make it.
Uttering a dark incantation under her heaving breath for strength, she drew the shining silver dagger the blacksmith had given her, and gripped it tight.
CHAPTER 32: TO THE VALLEY
The morning wore on. The infantrymen climbed forested hills, crossed several shallow valleys alongside the foothills of the mountains, and forded a frothy mountain stream that tumbled down from heights that Cormoran couldn’t see the top of. Midday came and went; the men ate as they marched.
Most of the wildlife they encountered fled long before the men got near, warned by the sound of tramping feet. But there was one creature that seemed unfazed; a snake, much like the one the troops had encountered previously on their trek to Leisha’s city, but even larger this time. Its head alone was broader than a horse’s back, and though it was difficult to judge its length by the constant undulation of its many folds through the underbrush and between the trees, Cormoran guessed it would stretch near to eighty cubits if laid out straight.
Leisha’s beast-riders had it half-encircled by the time Corm came within sight of it, prodding it away from the men using their spears. The thing didn’t seem eager to attack, which Corm thought might have been a first in all his time in Ostora, before ruefully realizing that the thing was sluggish only because it had probably just eaten its fill. The sight of his fellow soldier’s body coming out of the belly of the last snake they encountered was still fresh in his memory.
Two of Leisha’s riders had their arms outstretched and were staring hard at each eye of the gigantic reptile. When it moved, they moved, keeping centered within its field of view, and this technique seemed to mesmerize the creature and prevent it from advancing into the path of the marching column.
Many of the mercenaries paused to watch, gripping their weapons tightly but unable to resist getting a good look at something so hideously large. Leisha told the captain to get his men past the encounter quickly, and the sergeants broke up the gawping men. Soon the huge snake was out of sight behind them, and the beast-riders caught up with their fellows in the advance guard.
“Why don’t they ride the giant snake?” Corm joked with Kairm, who marched among the rest of the men, now that his skills as a guide were no longer in demand at the front. “It could have fit twenty men on its back.”
The only other disturbance that day came at evening. As the sun sank beyond the western peaks of the Atacanthians, dipping the valley in blue shadows, there was a disturbance in the rearguard. Corm never got a good look at what caused it, but he heard that a pack of fierce animals had lunged out of the trees and clawed two men half to death – saved only by their armor – before the rest drove them away with their blades. Leisha sent six of her men back to ensure that the threat was dealt with.
“Perhaps there’s something to these Leitrans’ abilities with the creatures,” Cormoran had to admit to his fellow soldiers. “We’d have had a much harder time of it today without them.”
They camped that night along a small stream that wound through a meadow. It was a remarkably serene setting, and the sunset’s light fading from the mountain peaks towering beyond kept a pleasant glow on the grassy area until all the tents and other preparations were in place.
Guards were posted in pairs every few paces, and rotated out through the night. No further encounters with large fauna were reported, although some men complained of bats flitting through their open tent doors and shrieking until they were killed or driven out again.
Once the tents were closed up, the night passed without a problem. Although Corm didn’t see them, he was told Leisha’s beast riders were stationed in a circle all around the encampment, warding off anything that dared approach, which suited him fine. He only had to stand guard for one hour, and the time was passed pleasantly enough with fellow infantrymen. They traded gossip about the strange people they were traveling with, and about the beautiful girls they’d spied in the city.
At sunup they got under way again and marched throughout the morning. As the sun was nearing zenith, they came up against the beast riders, who had stopped in a line along the face of a stony hill. It rose for fifty cubits or more, and blocked the way entirely for a league in either direction.
The queen and Damicos gathered with Gladwin and a few other men at the base of the hill.
“This is it, your Highness,” Gladwin reported. “The far side of that great rock is the beginning of the Valley of the Red God. We should wait here and send these soldiers on as soon as they are ready. They can use the game trail that winds over the slope there. It will lead them directly to the valley floor.”
Damicos studied the terrain. “You still haven’t told me exactly what we’ll face in this valley, Leisha.” Gladwin flinched at the familiar tone the captain took with the queen, but Leisha said nothing. “Nor why your men are unable to deal with it on your own.”
The queen bowed her head. “There is something there that holds sway over all creatures,” she slowly explained. “We can no longer command our beasts once inside that valley.”
The captain nodded. “Hence you’ve never conquered the place. Well, my men can wield their spears while standing on their own two feet. But what are we going to be fighting?”
“It may not come to that,” Gladwin said. “We have never fought the mammoth. Perhaps you can simply drive it out.”
“Mammoth?”
Leisha’s cat lashed its tail violently and swayed. She steadied it by placing a hand on the back of its head until it lowered itself to the ground.
“The Valley of the Red God is the place where dwells one of the deities of the barbarian tribesmen. A huge red mammoth, with tusks like tree trunks a
nd legs like the pillars of a Kerathi temple. They call it Redtusk.”
Damicos blinked. “Is that all, then? A single… mammoth?”
“It is enough,” Gladwin said. “I tell you the massive beast controls all other wildlife around it. They defer to the ancient creature, and would turn on us if the mammoth bid them.”
“Then it has intelligence?”
“I do not know,” the queen replied. “We have only seen it twice. Both times my people lost their mounts and had to return on foot.”
“Can it be killed? Dare we kill it?”
The queen shook her head. “Again, I do not know. The raff we’ve talked to swear oaths by it and revere it with existential awe. But what power it may have to do you ill I cannot say. Slay it if you can. Rid the valley of its presence so that we can take what we want.”
“Would that you had told me this before, Majesty. We could have made sacrifices to Telion and Mishtan, enlisted their favor.”
“What need have our gods of such sacrifices, Captain? You do their work when you drive out the forces of darkness ahead. They will aid you no matter your devotions.”
The captain gestured to his sergeants. “Very well. We will go before you and secure this valley against all threats. Then we will assess the wealth to be found there.”
Gladwin grimaced, but the queen smiled.
“Go with my blessing, Damicos. Do not fail me now. We are on the cusp of victory, you and I.”
Damicos said nothing, but gathered his sergeants and explained the plan.
He advised Jamson to remain with the queen, but the explorer wanted to come along regardless of the danger, and brandished the long, slim sword he carried. Damicos stationed four men a little way up the rocky slope to watch and warn the men venturing into the valley if anything unexpected happened.
Then Cormoran’s sergeant moved out, and the men of the Tooth and Blade began to climb the stone hill toward the unknown. The grizzled hoplite shook his spear and silently called on Pellia to give him strength. He began to breathe quicker, flooding his lungs with air and his mind with excitement for the danger ahead.
They ascended the side of the hill on a long, diagonal path that curved up and over the shoulder of the slope. After several minutes they crested it and began to descend.
Not much could be seen ahead, the view being hemmed in by large brown outcroppings of rock jutting this way and that. Then they passed between two of the great towers of brown stone, and Cormoran gained a vantage point over the valley floor.
It was long and narrow, with sides steeper than the hill they had climbed getting there. No doubt carved by a mighty river long ago, there was now only a small and muddy trickle visible running along the length of what was truthfully more like a canyon than a valley.
But the entire floor of the canyon seemed to be moving.
As Cormoran stared, he gradually realized that he was looking down upon the backs of thousands of creatures, packed into the valley shoulder to shoulder. They were all facing the same direction, away from the trail where the mercenaries stood. They jostled and stamped, but all were silent aside from a few whines and snorts that echoed up on the breeze.
It was among the most eerie things Cormoran had ever seen. He had never known any animal to behave this way, let alone a variety of different species in such close contact with each other.
There were hundreds of smaller creatures clustered in bunches and herds, some furred and others with dull hides half encrusted in mud. He did not have names for most of them. Here and there a larger animal stood above the rest, and he recognized a few of those as the great elk he had seen earlier. There were also big things with shaggy brown fur so long they had to come from the snowy regions beyond the mountains, something like the aurochs of Kerath but far bulkier.
He noticed several large black cats perched atop rocks and boulders, like the one Leisha rode. There were also large birds flapping slowly around over the herd, occasionally settling in a scraggly tree or fighting for space on one of the boulders.
“What goes on here?” Leon breathlessly muttered to the captain.
Cormoran looked at Damicos, hoping for some comment that might shed light on the strange situation before them, but the captain was silent, seemingly as nonplussed as the soldiers he led.
Then, while the men were still coming to a halt, a few of the animals below turned their heads to stare directly up at the approaching soldiers.
Like a wave rippling across a sea of mottled brown and gray, all the rest of the heads swiveled, and all eyes came to rest on the advance guard of the Tooth and Blade, the men that had just come into view in the pass.
“They’ve seen us,” the captain whispered.
And from the far end of the valley, hidden somewhere among a series of deeply shadowed slot canyons, came a thunderous call. It sounded like a Kerathi war-horn, but deeper and more ragged.
Every creature in the valley simultaneously began to move. The brown sea became a frothing torrent of activity as animals scrambled over and under each other in an eager rush toward the pass.
It was surreal. Cormoran hardly knew whether to trust his eyes. The onrushing mega-herd was making a lot more noise now, but still defied any reasonable behavior for wildlife he had experience with. Where were they going?
“Brace for attack!” Leon bellowed. “Form the line, ten deep! Move!”
The men scurried into action, locking shields and aiming spears out against the oncoming swarm. But still Damicos had not reacted nor given orders.
Cormoran and his troop backed away from the hill that descended into the valley and took their place in the battle line.
Finally, as the first creatures were thundering up the hill toward them, Damicos turned and pointed at the men with his sword. “Open the ranks! Split a channel through the center. Let no man stand in the trail. Get to the higher ground on each side!”
The men instantly obeyed, led by their sergeants. In a few seconds there was a wide swath through the middle of the company, with troops taking to one side or another of the trail.
“Let them through if they will go. We need not stop them all here,” Damicos shouted back to his men. “These are not our main target. Kill only what attacks you.”
That was all he had time for.
The birds came first. Swooping out of the clear sky with eagle-cries, they came at the men in front. Clawing and ripping at the men, flapping wings desperately, raptors and vultures began their onslaught.
These were easily dealt with, however. The helmets and shields of the infantry could turn aside arrows and swords; a crow’s beak or a vulture’s claw did little to harm the men. Swords cut the birds out of the air, and the skirmishers on the hillsides arced their missiles up into the sky until all but a few of the fowl were dispatched.
Then the fleetest of the terrestrial creatures arrived at the top of the sloping trail. And Cormoran found himself fighting alongside his fellow hoplites in the strangest battle yet encountered in Ostora. As he plied his spear against the beasts that lunged against the line, standing along the sides of the trail, he could not think whether he were a hunter or a soldier in that moment.
But again, the very wildness of these mindless foes proved their undoing, for the Ostoran fauna had no stratagem, no order beyond their basic instinct. Whatever rude command had compelled them to leave the canyon and attack did little to form them into effective combatant groups.
The cats and hoofed runners were far out in front of the heavier beasts, and though they launched themselves upon the ranks of the Tooth and Blade with startling ferocity, they had no armor and no way of combating the keen spearpoints and chopping bronze of the mercenaries.
Shields held back the swiping claws and kept most fangs or antlers from goring the soldiers. Two men fell back, slashed and wounded, but others closed the rank and the ground in front of the advance guard quickly became a slaughterhouse.
Many of the animals, finding themselves unable to strike down their p
rey, reacted by rushing away again. Not back into the valley, but farther into the pass—directly between the divided ranks of the company.
Some paused there to try again for a kill, but most kept running. Now finding themselves surrounded by a wall of flashing bronze and shouting men, they raced up the pass until they had left behind the gauntlet of blades.
The men in the rear formed a careful lateral guard to prevent any attacking creatures from coming again at them from an angle, but none tried. Those that escaped the gauntlet had apparently tasted enough of the ferocity that men could offer back. They continued onward, over the steep ridge of stone and down the other side, toward the place where Leisha’s men waited astride their tamed monsters.
Cormoran stabbed out at one elk that came close, tossing its antlered head and prancing sideways in an effort to get at some of the armored men, but he and his comrades only nicked the thing in its flanks. That was enough; it galloped desperately away up the pass along with many smaller creatures, and was gone.
Then the heavier beasts arrived, and the full wisdom of Damicos’ hasty strategy was realized. Had he attempted to stop the wall of wildlife in its tracks, these large creatures would have plowed right through the men. But by allowing them a way through, he blunted their crushing strength and directed them away again. The men had the high ground and could thrust down at the creatures with spears until they sauntered away, bloodied and roaring.
One horned creature, similar to the thing Cormoran had seen Gladwin riding, came at them and would not retreat as others had done. The men had a difficult time cutting through its spiky hide, and it succeeded in trampling one man and goring another through the thigh.
Corm sank his spear into the joint behind one of its front legs, and the thing let out a bellow that rang in his helmet. Then Meeks pinned one of its feet to the earth, and two other men dashed in to hack at its head with their short cutting blades. Finally the beast lay dead and bleeding at their feet.
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