Red Valor

by Shad Callister

  Having slowed outside to signal the retreat to more of his men, Pelekarr reached the gate just as the men inside the walls began to narrow the opening against a possible push from the barbarians. He got his horse through, took a backward swipe at a Silverpath warrior that was clinging to Keresh’s saddle, and then turned to direct Copper’s men to fall back inside the palisade, if it were possible.

  Horsemen poured into the fort beside him, all bloodied and some barely hanging to their mounts. The infantrymen were desperately battling the horde in front of them, trying to hold the way until they could follow through the gate. It was a desperate moment; if the Silverpath pushed through into the fort, the gate would never be closed again. All hung now on the valor of the hoplites; if they broke, the tide of the battle would turn and the day would be lost.

  Yet Pelekarr could do nothing for them now. He and his horsemen had had their charge, done their killing. Now it remained to be seen what came of the contest at the gate. How long so few might hold against such a crushing mass of barbarians, he dreaded to think.

  A flash of movement in the treeline caught his eye, and he froze, looking up. He could hardly believe what he saw there.

  Emerging from the trees, a hundred paces from the point where the Silverpath advance had originally come from, he saw Perian.

  He blinked and looked again; there was no mistaking her.

  She was alone and horseless, staggering forward on foot, clearly near the end of her strength. Blood streamed from a wound on her neck or shoulder, and she carried nothing but a leather pouch.

  Why had she come back? Why now?

  He couldn’t save her now. There were well over a hundred maddened warriors between them, and she was running directly toward the battle line. Pelekarr’s face twisted in anguish.

  You should have stayed away. Far away. By the gods, what a mess I’ve made of things. Telion forgive me.

  But Telion was not a forgiving god, and Pelekarr knew it.

  The trees behind Perian waved as if in a strong wind, then thrashed violently as something large passed between them.

  No one but Pelekarr saw it, and perhaps a few of the archers on the wall above him. He waved his saber, but Perian could not possibly see him in the crowded gateway.

  Then a creature out of nightmare left the trees, hurtling forward at terrifying velocity, and the men on the walls cried out in awe.

  The White River woman put on a final burst of speed that brought her within forty paces of the vicious battle at the gate. She turned her body and did a sudden pirouette that made Pelekarr think she had stumbled and was going down for the last time.

  But then her arm came up, flashing pale in the sun, and whipped around and over her head. She flung the leather sack she carried with all of her might and it sailed upward through the air.

  Then Perian threw herself to the ground and lay still, face down in the dirt.

  All eyes in the fort now watched as the strange object arced through the sunlit air over the field, coming nearer to the warring Silverpath lines. The leather crumpled and fell away on the wind, revealing a pale green egg dripping with slime and hurtling end over end.

  Pelekarr recognized it instantly. Keltos and Makos, if they were watching, would also know the thing; the captain even thought he could smell it, though it must have been merely the vivid memory of the foul pit where he had witnessed the centipede’s vile nesting habits.

  The egg whipped through the air, gobbets of scented mucous scintillating around it. The sun pierced its translucent surface and showed something wormlike inside, still moving. Then the thing dropped to the ground among the trampling feet and surging bodies of the warriors below, and was lost to view.

  Ghormonga was dimly aware that something was wrong.

  He had given in somewhat to the bloodlust inside him and was urging his men onward relentlessly. They were minutes from overwhelming the infantry at the gate and gaining entrance to the fort. A crushing win was in sight. But there was a smell issuing forth from the center of the horde, something far more unsettling than the reek of blood and spilt guts.

  A cavity was opening up in the middle of the mass of warriors. Ghormonga angrily stormed into the space to see why his warriors were stepping away instead of pressing the gate.

  In front of him stood a bearded giant, Revek by name, a well-blooded Silverpath veteran who had claimed several kills so far in this battle alone. Perhaps the young Northfire men would falter, but Ghormonga had not thought it possible that Revek would hesitate in battle.

  Now, though, the hulking man turned so pale he looked corpse-like, and beads of sweat burst across his savage face.

  “Mekkilak!” he screamed, looking up and lifting a shaking finger to point at the trees.

  Ghormonga flinched, suddenly recognizing the smell and now seeing the spatters of green slime across the man’s back and the side of his face. There was something lying crushed and broken at the veteran warrior’s feet.

  On instinct, the wily old chieftain moved away from the smell as fast as he could. Others joined him, melting away, but it was far, far too late.

  From the trees burst an avenging mother, splintering logs and snapping huge branches as it came.

  The centipede was a colossal, writhing nightmare. Each segment of its massive, glistening body boasted two legs, one on each side. All of them moved in seamless, coordinated perfection, propelling the creature forward so fast it seemed to float over the ground. From its last segment jutted the forked telson, each side tipped with a black spine.

  But the true horror was the head, a gigantic maw surrounded by a quivering tangle of mandibles and weaving antennae. Each mandible ended in a long, slightly curved forcipule, gigantic hollow stingers on which gleamed deadly liquid. Unlike ordinary centipedes, the monster before them also employed a secondary set of mandibles, set just under and behind its primary pair. This secondary pair formed two sweeping scythes, each as long as a man.

  Ghormonga noticed a strange silver dagger protruding from the disc-like sensory lobe in the thing’s face. Deprived of some of its sensitivity to light, the thing was now feeling its way by smell and by vibrations in the ground and in the air.

  The monstrosity advanced in horrifying silence, single-mindedly closing on the scent of its ruined egg. As it approached, its mouthparts waved ever more frantically as the creature’s simple brain processed the chemical message filling the air: its last egg now lay ruptured and dying.

  Added to the mix was the sharp tang of large quantities of fresh blood. Combined, the mixed reek of both egg and blood proved too much for the monster. Already maddened with pain and rage, it went utterly berserk.

  Men dropped their weapons, turned, and ran in fear, but the heavy scythe-mandibles whipped back and forth in a blur as the centipede came within feeling distance of the Silverpath’s back ranks. Every warrior within their reach tumbled away in a spray of blood, and then the monster was among the main body of attackers, surrounded by soft targets for its wrath.

  Revek knew he would never escape the field alive; he was marked for death by the green slime on his body. The bearded warrior lowered his head and charged the thing. This unexpected act allowed him to get in close and he plunged both of his long obsidian daggers into the insect’s side.

  Then it whirled and cut the man in half at the waist with a single horrific blow. Without pausing, it moved on, seeking out the clusters of pounding feet and shouting men.

  Stingers darted and pierced, impaling men on all sides. The scythes moved ceaselessly, and decapitated heads and limbs sailed through the air like a child was kicking the tops off daisies. The maxillae grabbed pieces and parts of its prey, stuffing them into its gaping mouth, feasting even as it slaughtered to regain the energy expended during its long trek to this place.

  From the palisade walls, men and women turned away in horror and disgust. Even the most hardened troopers, men who’d been killing for most of their lives, grew pale and trembled. The beleaguered hoplites, s
uddenly relieved of onslaught, stumbled backwards through the gate, which swung shut just in time. A few barbarians, panicked, stumbled through with them and were instantly cut down.

  The Silverpath men, knowing well the inexorable deadliness of the creature working its way through their lines, broke ranks and fled across the field wherever they could, desperate to get away from the scythes that leveled everything they touched. Many of the Northfire men were too slow to get away, and were cut down where they stood.

  And in this hour of despair, as the best warriors of the mighty clans were being mindlessly butchered, powerful ranks demolished like sand blowing away in the wind, their young prince came into his own.

  Uthek screamed a war-cry and darted forward. “To me! To me! Wolf-brothers, to me!”

  He still carried his great axe in his hands, haft of polished oak, head of chipped obsidian sharper than a razor. He came in from the left side and hewed with all his might at the skittering legs of the mekkilak. Three of them snapped in half with a gush of brown ichor, and the monster slewed momentarily to the left.

  The prince severed another two legs on the backswing, and the centipede’s hindmost body segments began to drag in the mud. Other warriors rushed to join their prince, hacking in desperation. They now saw that their only hope for survival lay in overpowering the monster while they still held the advantage of numbers against it.

  The creature turned almost double and swept many of them away in streaks of gore that hung in the air before wetting the grass below, but others sprang to take their place, called by their prince in a time of desperate need. Daring their nemesis’ power, driven past the point of desperation, they hacked and cut in a frenzy.

  One warrior, his chest streaming blood, pierced the centipede’s central segment with a spear, pinning it briefly to the earth before a stinger burst through his guts and he was tossed to the ground, jerking spasmodically with the venom that coursed through his ruined body.

  That brief respite, however, was enough. The surviving barbarians converged on the monster. The long body began to buck and heave, crushing men to the earth, snapping spines and crushing ribcages. Spears stabbed, axes rose and fell. The creature’s head kept wriggling to the bitter end, snatching men here and there, cleaving them into sodden piles of meat that smoked and steamed in the chill dawn air.

  The prince himself delivered the final blow, with only a handful of his men remaining alive. Chest heaving, staggering with weariness, he raised the stone axe high overhead and brought it down at the joint between the head and the second segment.

  The obsidian fractured in two at the strength of the blow, but he did not stop. It took two more hacking cuts, but with the third the head parted from the body. Steaming slime oozed from the stump as the great body shuddered with a final spasm and lay still.

  For a long moment, there was silence. The Silverpath warriors stood in a daze, or knelt shaking on the ground, nursing wounds. The death screams of their brothers and comrades still hung in the air. None of them had yet reckoned the toll taken on their numbers.

  The enemy captain, watching from the ramparts, had counted. There came a shouted a command and the gate swung open once again. The hated cavalry streamed out, battered and not so proud this time, but just as deadly with their lances lowered.

  Ghormonga, face caked with drying blood, screamed orders. “To the trees! To the trees! Back to the trees!”

  His force was cut to a mere fraction of its size, and those that remained were scattered, shocked, and weary. They would never hold on the open field.

  A few heard him, but many were already fighting for their lives. Those warriors caught in the open were ridden down or pinned to the ground by lances. Several were able to dive for cover among the wreckage and detritus of the past night, and those nearest the centipede were able to use its stinking carcass for cover. The cavalry charge broke around it like a river parted by a boulder.

  Ghormonga led a handful of men towards the trees, running hard. Uthek, by the centipede, took charge of the men around him. A few horse troopers were pulled from their horses as they rode past, but the vast majority continued the charge, turning towards the south and converging on Ghormonga and his men.

  The Silverpath war chief saw that he would never reach the forest. Snarling, he gripped his obsidian spear and turned, breathing deep as he waited. The foremost horse trooper had lost his lance and now swung his saber high, standing in his stirrups.

  Ghormonga threw the spear. It drilled the trooper in the thigh, punching through the joint where leg met torso. The man toppled off his horse with a cry and thudded into the earth. Ghormonga rushed forward, dodging the charging horse, flint knife held low.

  The trooper attempted to rise, awkwardly batting at the spear piercing him, as the war chief closed in. The knife went into the neck and out again, and the trooper fell, coughing on his blood. Ghormonga turned for more killing. If he was denied the victory he had come so close to tasting, at least he would make a few more widows this day.

  He did not see the cavalry commander’s horse swiftly closing on him at an angle from the rear.

  The Kerathi captain’s lance took the Silverpath war chief just beneath the throat, lifting him, and Ghormonga was carried thus for several paces, jerking and wriggling like a great fish.

  The captain finally dropped the lance and its sodden burden with a gesture of disgust, and drew his saber to rally his troops against the remaining clan warriors.

  The last stand of the barbarians was as valiant as it was futile. All remaining fighters from the fort issued forth, a howling river of skirmishers, infantrymen, and burly villagers with axes. They now outnumbered the Silverpath survivors as heavily as they themselves had been but a few minutes earlier, and they broke the dwindling group against the harrying cavalrymen.

  The horsemen formed up for another charge and washed over the survivors yet again. When the field at last quieted, no more than a score of Silverpath men remained. All of the reinforcements that had arrived in the dark before dawn were down, lying bleeding in the grass.

  The end was brutal. Here and there one of Uthek’s core of warriors broke free and ran for the trees, almost instantly ridden down and lanced by the circling cavalry. The remainder bunched together in a snarling mass and held their ground as the phalanx enveloped them.

  Spears punched out, driven by knotted muscle and sinew, ripping, puncturing. The Silverpath wolves died hard, hacking at their foes with broken weapons, stone against metal. None asked for quarter.

  Uthek stood in their midst, dealing lusty blows with his fractured ax, a mere shard now. He gave no commands—there were none to give. Each man sold his life as dearly as he could, and the prince watched as his men, the feared killers he’d so proudly led into battle, fell around their leader one by one.

  Uthek screamed in fury and grief as his last clansman crumpled at his feet. He snarled his hatred like a beast, whirling this way and that, sodden hair whipping across his face. Several hoplites were about to administer the final blow to the prince himself when a sharp command stayed their hands.

  “Hold!” Pelekarr shouted.

  They froze, spears ready. In the middle of the circle, Uthek still turned this way and that, eyes wild.

  “Our prisoner returns to us again,” the captain said. “Take him alive.”

  Uthek threw himself at the nearest hoplite, axe raised, shouting hoarsely, wordlessly.

  Sergeant Copper dropped him with the butt of a spear, and the Silverpath prince hit the mud with a groan, knocked senseless.

  Captain Pelekarr steadied his prancing bay and heaved a tired sigh.

  “Victory,” he said.

  As a ragged cheer rose from the men, he turned and cantered swiftly across the field to where a bloodied, shaking Perian was pushing herself off the ground.

  CHAPTER 36: A DEAL STRUCK

  The infantry in the Valley of the Red God took an hour to lay out their dead. Twenty-six lives snuffed out by the mammoth god o
f the barbarians. Perhaps it was a price fit for such a creature, but far too much for Damicos’ liking.

  With their sacrifice, the fallen had purchased wealth and power for their surviving comrades. Would it prove worth it?

  Well, they were mercenaries. He supposed it was worthy, in the end. But over a score of seasoned hoplites would take time to replace, and Leon alone… already he missed the steadying presence of his right arm.

  The lieutenant would have mocked any maudlin show of mourning, and Damicos knew himself too well to think that the loss would drive him into a self-indulgent depression. Yet he truly missed the stolid man. Friends were hard to come by in this life.

  The queen entered the valley while the Red God’s blood was still drying in the hot breeze. Jamson came with her, now in control of his horse and of Damicos’. The explorer was sheepish, yet clearly relieved to have missed the fight.

  His eyes bulged at the sight of the fallen mammoth, and Damicos noted the way they lingered on the mighty tusks—a small fortune in ivory if they could be harvested and transported. But their value was greater to him, and to the men that had brought down the god of the barbarians. Perhaps they would make a centerpiece for the headquarters outside Dura, or even an impressive gate leading into it.

  The new arrivals filed past the carcass in awe. The queen and Gladwin dismounted from their beasts, which shied away from the fallen mammoth, and came to stand by the captain’s side, watching as their cheering men cut souvenirs from Redtusk’s hide. The Tooth and Blade stood apart, watching without expression.

  “Your men do not take trophies of their kill, Captain,” the queen observed.

  “They are exhausted, Majesty,” he replied. “The beast… took a lot of killing.”