The Grim Wanderer

by James Wolf

  ‘Cattle?’ Baek pointed at the heavy print left by a cleft hoof.

  ‘No,’ Logan shook his head darkly. ‘Whatever left these walked on two legs, not four.’

  ‘You mean...’ Baek gaped with terror. ‘These are Narg tracks? They must be so close!’

  ‘Yes,’ The Sodan scanned the immediate terrain with a new level of vigilance. ‘Come, let’s get back to the others.’

  Taem saw the dread in his friends’ eyes, as they listened to the news of the ominous tracks.

  ‘Nargs stalk this valley,’ Logan said, as the companions gathered around. ‘They are close, and they are many. They may even be watching us, waiting for the time to strike.’

  The shadow of fear grew in Taem’s heart, at the thought of the terrifying enemy hunting them.

  ‘Nargs!’ Drual’s glance skittered around the dale, trailing his crossbow across the scenery.

  Baek notched an arrow in his bow, as his anxious gaze scoured along the ridge lines.

  Ragad eyed the trees within the valley. Taem saw the Croma’s cold eyes had no fear in them.

  ‘They do nay of’en stray inter mountains,’ Forgrun rubbed his bearded chin.

  ‘They would not be here without reason,’ Hirandar muttered. ‘It is rare enough for them to be so far south–’

  ‘They wouldn’t be here for us though,’ Jvarna said fearfully, ‘would they?’

  ‘They have come for us,’ Logan said warily. ‘Those camps last night were set to watch the eastern mountains.’

  ‘But you said there were over fifty in each camp?’ Drual said frantically.

  Logan nodded again, and Drual’s mouth dropped open in horror. Taem sensed the foreboding descend on the company. They each realised that the Hand of Fire was alone out in the wilderness, far outnumbered, and no help would come. The companions had each other, that was all. Jvarna was shaking her head, and Baek was looking anxiously to Logan. Forgrun seemed to be looking inwards, preparing himself, whilst Ragad’s clear gaze continued to watch the surrounding country. Taem thought even Hirandar seemed unsettled, as the Wizard gripped her staff tight.

  ‘They must be all around us!’ Drual glanced up at the ridge line.

  ‘We just have to stay out their way,’ Logan said calmly, as he gestured for Drual to lower his crossbow.

  ‘What do come, do come,’ Forgrun said boldly, as he patted his war axe.

  ‘They are well behind us,’ Logan looked back up the valley trail. ‘If we want to keep it that way we need to up our pace.’

  The Sodan Master looked into each companion’s eyes in turn, and Taem felt how each warrior took strength from Logan. It was in that moment – as Taem watched even the mighty heroes of the Hand of Fire turn to Logan for courage – that he realised what it meant to be a leader.

  ‘Baek, drop back,’ Logan gestured for the Aborle to turn around, ‘watch the rear with Ragad. Taem and I will go ahead.’ Logan motioned for Taem to move to the front. ‘Everyone stay alert, and we will live through this.’

  The next few hours were tense as the company pushed on towards the foot of the eastern mountains, not knowing if enemies were close, or in what number. It was mid-afternoon when, with no noticeable signal, Taem and Logan both drew their swords and spun to face behind the company. Taem sensed it immediately. His hackles raised. Danger was coming, a Dark presence the Sodan could feel was close.

  Baek and Ragad came running from back up the trail.

  ‘They’ve picked up our scent!’ Baek panted – Taem knew if the Aborle was struggling for air, they had been running fast. Ragad was gasping, too out of breath to even speak.

  ‘They’re moving fast and gaining on us.’ Baek added between heaving gulps of air.

  ‘Fire and brimstone!’ Hirandar said angrily.

  ‘Bloody Hell!’ Drual pointed his crossbow up the glen’s slope.

  Taem’s eyes were fixed on the back trail, the Starblade gleamed blue in his hands.

  Jvarna cursed under her breath.

  ‘By ye luck o’ ye Black Pit,’ Forgrun muttered.

  ‘How many?’ Logan demanded.

  ‘Five score at least,’ Baek said wearily.

  ‘Can we get off the trail,’ Hirandar asked Logan, ‘let them pass us?’

  ‘Not if they’re tracking us,’ the Sodan gazed up to where the trail disappeared over the ridgeline. ‘The Narg-Baal can smell as well as dogs, and there’s nowhere to hide in this open country.’ Logan turned to Baek, ‘How far back?’

  ‘They’d just entered that last valley,’ Baek looked back to the crest of the last rise. ‘I’d say five minutes, if that.’

  ‘Come,’ Logan glanced around. ‘We’ve got to move fast. Everyone stay together, move!’

  Logan sheathed his blade and strode off across the glen, the others followed.

  If they got ambushed here – Taem realised, as he scabbarded Estellarum – caught in this deep-sided glen, there would be no escape.

  Taem knew Logan must have thought the same, and the Master upped the pace to a run. Every few moments, Taem checked back over his shoulder for pursuit. But his Sodan senses told him the enemy were not that close – yet.

  The company soon climbed out of the steep-sided glen, but Logan kept them moving at speed. The trail led on through the fells, rising as it clung to a steep mountainside, skirting the edge of a high drop to ragged boulders below. The adventurers’ path wound upwards over a crest in the mountains then sloped down again, covering rocks and patches of grass and shrub. It was twenty minutes since Baek had returned with his dark sightings, when a horn was blown behind the Hand of Fire, well in the distance.

  ‘They have our trail!’ Logan cried.

  As he shouted, the companions swivelled to the south, as an answering horn was blown, then whirled to the north-east as a third horn sounded.

  ‘Hurry!’ Logan held up a fist, urging the company into a run.

  Taem’s frantic gaze searched the mountains as he ran. He knew the enemies were circling, closing in on the Hand of Fire. They were surrounded! The company hurtled down the long mountainside slope, heading eastward, the descent rolled on for half a mile at least. When they reached the bottom, Taem glanced back up the trail.

  ‘The Light blind them!’ Taem roared. ‘They’re right behind us!’

  The companions all spun round to look back. Their faces dropped at what they saw. Swinging round the curve in the mountain, Taem watched a horde of ravenous Nargs start down the long mountain slope, in pursuit of the warriors. His heart beat raced as he saw the company was outnumbered many times over. The way the Nargs bounded on, beasts sensing a kill, brought a shudder to Taem’s spine. He saw the primitive power in their altered bodies, and their monstrous cries chilled his soul.

  The companions bolted down the steep trail, hurtling into a fertile valley. But as they started down into the next glen, Logan pulled up.

  ‘Stop!’ The Sodan Master reached to grab Taem from running on any further.

  Looking down the trail, through the grassy valley, past clumps of trees, Taem saw a Narg war party was racing towards the company. His mouth went dry as his heart missed a beat.

  ‘Back!’ Logan roared. ‘We must loop right! Logan ran uphill past the other warriors, climbing to where the trail entered the valley.

  Logan led the Hand of Fire round the base of the northern ridge, down into the next valley, and they started eastwards again. More horns sounded in the distance all around. The companions dashed across the valley floor until Hirandar began to falter. Even though Ragad was half carrying her, the Wizard was wheezing and her exhausted legs could barely hold her upright. Taem rushed to support the old woman. Logan gestured for the company to slow to a walk.

  The warriors staggered through a patch of trees, gasping and heaving, and they saw a sight that stole what little breath they still had left.

  Nargs were coming straight at them from the east, and soon the Narg pursuit would enter the valley behind them, cutting off the west. Taem looked
to the north and south, and saw there were mountains that rose thousands of feet high, thwarting any possibility of escape.

  ‘Up on that tor!’ Logan yelled, starting to run again, urging the others to do so.

  Somehow, the companions all summoned more energy and stumbled into a weary run. The warriors made for the tor in the oval valley’s southern side. Taem could see the tor rose fifty feet above the valley floor, and the sides were steep, but climbable. If they sprinted, the adventurers should just reach the tor before the eastern pack of Nargs. Even though Hirandar was slight, Taem felt the Wizard become ever heavier with every few steps. Pain sliced through Taem’s faltering shoulder, as the extra weight numbed his arm.

  ‘We’ll be trapped up there!’ Jvarna screamed, as they hurtled through the low grass.

  ‘We’re trapped anyway,’ Logan shouted back to her, ‘At least up there we can make a stand.’

  After a couple of excruciating minutes – during which Taem saw many of the company thought they could not go on, but forced themselves through the pain – the Hand of Fire reached the bottom of the rocky tor’s sheer sides. Taem felt his body quivering with exertion as the run finished, and he was the fittest of the company. Every heaving breath he took seemed to burn inside his chest. Forgrun dropped to his knees, but Ragad lifted the Rhungar back onto his feet. Taem and Baek held up Hirandar, and the old woman felt as if she would collapse without them. Jvarna leaned on Logan, and Drual was coughing like he was going to be sick.

  ‘Climb!’ Logan said forcibly. ‘Climb because your lives depend on it!’

  The breathless warriors scrambled up the craggy side, grabbing rocks or tree roots and helping each other up to the top. All whilst a stampede of charging Nargs chased after them, as loud as a thundering herd of wild bison, their guttural cries filling the valley. Taem pushed Hirandar up over the edge and heaved himself up afterwards. He wearily rose to his feet, and saw the tor was larger than it looked from afar, with a flat top that was a hundred by forty yards. Two of its sides were vertical rock-face, and there was the steep side the company had just climbed, plus a fourth gentler slope to the south, carpeted in low grass. He saw that the southern rise was shallow enough that it could be walked up without the need to climb with the hands. That was where the attack would come, Taem thought.

  ‘Help me get them up,’ Logan gestured for Taem to lift the wheezing companions to their feet. Even Ragad had dropped to one knee, but Taem saw the hard look in the Croma’s eyes as he rose to his feet.

  ‘Show me some Rhungar spirit!’ Logan clasped Forgrun’s shoulder, and the Rhungar climbed to stand and glower at the Nargs.

  Taem held Jvarna’s forearms and pulled her up. She rested on him for a few moments, her chest heaving, but he saw the strength of will in her blue eyes. Hirandar gasped, pale faced, as she used her staff to support herself, and Baek helped Drual to stand.

  ‘This way,’ Logan led the group across the flat tor to the top of the slope. On the way the companions discarded their packs and cloaks, and drew weapons. Logan formed them up in a line across the top of the slope, so the Nargs would have to fight them uphill.

  ‘They will assault us here,’ Logan said dauntlessly, as the puffing companions faced the shallow rise, and the bawling Nargs surged across the valley. Taem shivered as he heard the Nargs’ haunting cries, cries that promised to tear the Hand of Fire to pieces. He watched as the beasts of the Dark battled each other to be the first to get to the slaughter. Taem looked upon the jostling monsters, and their smouldering rage turned his muscles to ice.

  ‘Do not let them get amongst us,’ Logan’s steely voice rang out over the bestial clamour. ‘Keep them downhill, it is our only chance. There is no retreat! We stand or fall here!’

  Taem saw how the valley floor was filled with over a hundred Nargs, with more on the way. He saw malignant and depraved red and yellow eyes – and some that were far too human – glaring up at the companions, from the jostling sea of monstrous forms. Taem looked at his friends and saw the terror on Baek’s face, and the stubborn resolve on Forgrun’s.

  ‘So many,’ Jvarna said incredulously.

  ‘Too many,’ Drual sighed.

  ‘Enough for a glorious death!’ Ragad held up his massive warhammer.

  ‘Aye!’ Forgrun roared.

  Drual gawked at Ragad and Forgrun in disbelief, ‘I’d rather live–’

  ‘This slope is just narrow enough for us to hold them,’ Logan cut out the desperate talk, ‘if we stand together!’

  Baek and Drual shot arrows and bolts off the tor into the snarling Narg ranks below. With a whoosh, a sphere of fire emerged from Hirandar’s palms. The Wizard issued forth a fiery conflagration that grew to be a massive ball of fire as it flew down the slope and bowled into the screaming Nargs, engulfing a handful of the foul creatures in flame.

  ‘We stand as a few friends opposing the Dark,’ Logan said strongly, ‘against ten or twenty fold our number – but I say, the Light is with us!’

  A blast of white brilliance surged from Hirandar’s staff, burning through the foul beastmen as they started up the slope. Baek was floating a continuous stream of arrows at the oncoming Nargs, whilst Drual had just reloaded the four bolts of his crossbow and was loosing them down into the enemy. Taem blocked out the fear of those horrific bestial cries as he focused on his Sodan blade. Together, as one. He watched as the sunlight glimmered off his sword, shining blue.

  ‘I have never stood before a finer group of warriors,’ Logan said bravely. ‘Courageous, strong and skilful – it is my privilege to stand beside you, my companions; my friends. You are each worth ten trained soldiers, and do not forget we have with us the greatest wizard of our age.’

  Hirandar held crackling raw energy in each of her fists. With a cast of the arms the Wizard launched a searing blue sphere of tumultuous lightning. The lightning destroyed the Nargs it tore into, sending countless others sprawling to the floor, clutching their scorched out eyes.

  ‘It’s times like these when you must discover who you truly are,’ Logan said, ‘ask yourself, how do you want to be remembered?’

  Glancing around to his determined friends, Taem took heart. He could not have hoped for better friends than these. They were all great warriors, and he could see each was resolved to kill Nargs.

  ‘Fight for the Light and each other!’ Logan roared. ‘Fight because this moment could be our last! Fight because none of us deserves to die out here!’ Logan lifted his sword, touching the flat of the blade against his forehead. ‘The Light shine on all your blades!’

  Ragad, Forgrun, Jvarna and Taem raised their weapons in a battle salute.

  ‘The Light shine on your blade, Master!’ Taem cried out the Sodan blessing.

  With a start, Taem realised Estellarum was gleaming with a dull blue aura. His breath caught. There was more than sunlight reflecting off the blade now, the Starmetal was imbued with an inner blue light. Taem gazed in wonder at his mighty sword.

  The Nargs loped up the tor, swarming forward in a savage mass. Taem saw how their eyes glinted with malice, and they bawled and screamed cries of pure evil. They almost had the bodies of men – each as big, if not bigger than Ragad – but had the heads of bulls or goats. And their bodies were covered in dense fur, their huge hands ended in claws, and their legs ended in hooves.

  ‘Gromm!’ Forgrun roared, as he went berserk crashing the butt of his war axe against a rock. ‘Gromm!’ He bellowed out across the valley louder than any Narg cry. ‘My calls do yhee hear! These warriors nay be o’ our kin, but they do fight fer our kind! Let ye spirits o’ ye great warriors o’ ages past – me Ancestors an’ ye ones that do went before – yhee be hearin’ me now! Do heed me call ter be watchin’ o’er this company o’ friends!’

  Raising her arms, Hirandar beckoned lightning down from the sky. Taem had never seen the like of the carnage that followed. The serrated chains of light scourged through the Nargs on the valley floor, lacerating beastmen flesh to leave lifeless, charr
ed remains. Taem knew the Nargs were feeling the full force of the Firefist unleashed, but the enemy were so many, and so full of bloodlust, that Hirandar’s magic could not deter them. The beasts of Shadow climbed the slope, and Taem knew the Nargs were intent on rending apart the line of warriors, and then feasting on their marrow.

  Gathered to the valley by the horn calls, over two hundred of the evil beastmen stood below the tor, and charging up its side. Taem could see the Nargs were in a frenzy, baying for blood, and striking out at each other just to be first to the slaughter. The boar-like Narg-Kul drove the horned Narg-Vak forward, with a few of the weasel-like Narg-Baal jostling amongst them. Taem watched as the rat Nargs, the Narg-Yils, were sent to climb the rock-face to come up behind the warriors. Damn them, Taem thought! Once the ratmen scaled the tor’s rock faces the company would be engulfed by enemies from all sides.

  The Nargs stormed the slope, and Baek and Drual shot down the forerunners, but there were many more to surge up and take the places of the fallen. The Aborle and the rogue worked flat out, to scythe down as many Nargs as they could, only moments before the first wave reached the top of the tor. Taem watched as fire from Hirandar’s fist ripped through the enemy as they came on, whilst arrows and crossbow bolts further thinned their number, as the fearsome monsters reached close combat range. Taem waited, filled with foreboding. He remembered how the Nargs were truly terrifying up close. Massive creatures of evil, half man, half beast. The largest ones over eight feet tall. There was great variety amongst them, but all growled with bloodthirsty rage.

  Taem looked down at his Sodan blade in awe, saw how the metal was alive with a dull blue glow.

  Nargs roared as they leapt on the warriors, and combat exploded. Taem’s blade slashed across a Narg throat. He stepped aside. The bull-headed monstrosity fell to the earth, gurgling through blood for air. A cleaver came across from the left. It was too slow to catch Taem. He ducked and sliced through the Narg’s shin. He leapt forward to strike down and finish the foul creature, as it writhed in agony on the floor. He noticed the trace of blue light wherever his blade flashed.