by James Wyatt
The sight of him bolstered the soldiers’ courage, and Cart nodded in approval. Haldren could persuade, could lead, could inspire fierce loyalty and tremendous courage when the need arose. At times his charisma did seem magical, as though spells were woven into his words to soften his hearers’ fears or steel their resolve, but Cart didn’t know how to draw the line between the Lord General’s natural leadership and his sorcery. It didn’t matter—his soldiers would follow Haldren gladly to their deaths.
Another chorus of howls erupted in the distance just as the canyon mouth came into view. The sound didn’t seem to be coming from the gap in the wall of boulders, but farther into the canyon. With a sudden jolt, Cart remembered how the worgs had caught him off guard before, with Tesh and Caylen—the constant sound of distant howls that didn’t seem to draw any nearer.
“On your guard!” he called. “Expect an ambush!”
Three worgs leaped out from hiding places in the brush and rubble ahead of them, and a quick glance behind showed him three more advancing on the rear.
Haldren didn’t hesitate and didn’t move an inch—he pointed at the three worgs behind them, the ones closest to each other, and engulfed them in a burst of flame. One of them staggered forward a few steps and then fell to the ground, its fur smoldering with foul black smoke. The other two hesitated, then turned and fled.
Cart could feel the elation of the other soldiers—with Haldren leading them, they felt invincible. They were chomping at the bit, ready to charge the remaining worgs. He reined them back—“Stay close. Let them come to us. Haldren is our sword. You’re his shield.”
At Cart’s reminder, the soldiers pulled back into a loose ring around Haldren and waited. Two blasts of flame erupted from Haldren’s hands and consumed another worg. The remaining two circled warily, careful to keep some distance between them so a single spell couldn’t easily encompass them both. Haldren snorted, spread his arms wide, and channeled a bolt of lightning in a line connecting him to the two worgs, passing neatly between the soldiers in their defensive ring.
Magic charged the air. Cart’s whole body, made and enlivened by magic, hummed with the echoes of the power Haldren had unleashed. The others must have felt it as well—they surged forward with Haldren as he resumed his stride, swept up in his storm of devastation.
CHAPTER
24
Haldren’s magic blasted a path through the gap against the canyon wall. For every new group of worgs that stepped up to defend the narrow way, Haldren had another spell ready to scour them with fire or sear them with lightning. As the Lord General had predicted, the narrow gap actually proved a hindrance to the worgs rather than a defensive advantage. Perhaps recognizing that fact, the worgs soon fell back and ceded the gap to Haldren.
Haldren seemed as swept up in the thrill of his power as the soldiers were, ready to storm into the canyon and obliterate any resistance the worgs tried to offer. Cart, though, suddenly realized the flaw in their plan, and he tried to hold Haldren back. “Lord General,” he said, “there might be a problem.”
“Damn right there’s a problem,” Haldren barked. “I’m thirsty. Somebody give me a drink.”
Tesh tossed a waterskin to Haldren, who drank deeply while Cart tried to explain.
“We expected the worgs to concentrate their defense in the gap, but they don’t fight like that. If they see a significant threat, they fall back and regroup.”
“They can only fall back so far,” Haldren said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “We’ll catch them all.”
“No, Lord General, that’s just it. They’ll do exactly what we hoped to do to them—they’ll harry us and fall back, again and again, slowly wearing down our strength until we decide to retreat. But then we’ll have to fight our way through the gap again—they’ll block it from behind us.”
Cart was relieved to see the Lord General pause at least long enough to consider his warning. “What do you suggest?”
From his tone, Haldren clearly had no expectation that Cart could produce a better suggestion. He bit back a soldier’s curse that sprang to mind, and considered the situation. “I suggest we fall back and circle the canyon as the other squads are doing. We’ll wear them down from the outside in, like peeling an onion.”
Haldren grinned. “I suggest a different simile,” he said. “I say we pit them like a cherry—continue in until we find their heart, then cut it out.”
A chorus of cheers drowned out Cart’s attempt to protest further, and he shrugged. Perhaps Haldren was right—he’d had no difficulty yet in dispatching every worg they met. There didn’t seem to be any reason to expect more trouble. That was exactly why he did expect it.
Haldren’s confidence seemed fully justified, even if Cart also had good reason for his trepidation. They advanced slowly through the canyon, encountering occasional packs of worgs who nipped at their heels briefly before retreating, usually with at least one worg dead and no serious harm done to Haldren or his squad. Cart had been correct in his reading of the worgs’ tactics, but Haldren had apparently been right in assessing the threat they posed.
After routing the third group of worgs, the group advanced steadily for an hour without seeing any more of the demon-wolves. Distant howls assured them that there were still worgs to fight, but no more attacked them, even as they drew close to the end of the canyon. Near the canyon’s head, it was a narrow, jagged cut in the earth, and Cart couldn’t see more than a dozen yards ahead of them at any time. Tesh scouted at the front of the group, wary of an ambush.
When Tesh fell to his knees, Cart’s first thought was that he’d been hit by an enemy arrow—but of course the worgs didn’t use arrows. The scout had crept up to the next turn and peered around a rocky buttress jutting from the canyon wall, and whatever he saw sapped his strength. Cart ran to his side.
“What is it?” he demanded. “Keep it together, soldier.”
Tesh got to his feet, but he was pale and unsteady. He said nothing, only waved a weak hand at the canyon ahead.
Cart looked around the corner, and his limbs suddenly felt like lead. He saw Verren first—spread-eagled on the canyon floor, his guts ripped out and strewn across the ground, linking him in a line with the other members of his squad, crossing the width of the canyon. As mangled as their bodies were, their faces were all intact, wrenched into expressions of terrible pain. The worgs had wanted to make sure the dead soldiers’ friends would recognize them.
Haldren strode forward to stand behind Cart. “What is the problem?” he asked.
“It’s one of our squads, Lord General,” Cart said. His mind felt blank, and he couldn’t remember the name of the squad’s sergeant.
“All dead.”
“Idiots,” Haldren spat. “Let me see.” He pushed past Cart. “The worgs left them as a warning.”
“That’s more than a warning,” Haldren said. “That’s a barrier.”
“Lord General?”
“They used the bodies in a ritual to create a wall we can’t penetrate, at least not right away. I can get it down, but it will take some time.”
“A wall?” Tesh said. Wide-eyed, he looked back along the canyon. “That means we’re trapped here.”
“They’ll attack here, certainly,” Cart said. “We’ll have to fight them off before you take the wall down.”
For the first time, Haldren seemed nervous about the possibility of a worg attack. “I’ll start on the wall now. There’s a chance I can get it done before they attack, and we won’t be boxed in. If not, I can pick up where I left off after we’ve killed them all.” He turned the corner and started toward the bodies, but turned back after a few steps. “Cart, keep the others back. They don’t need to see this.”
Cart put a hand on Tesh’s shoulder and steered him back to the rest of the squad. He addressed the sergeant, Kovin. “We wait here—there’s a … an obstacle ahead that only Haldren can clear. Watch our rear, but catch your breath while we wait.”
Kovin ordered Tes
h and another soldier back to the last turn in the canyon, and told the other two to rest. Tesh still looked pale, and he hung his head as he walked. His companion was turned toward him, talking with her hands, inquisitive. She wanted to know what he had seen, but Cart could tell Tesh wasn’t talking. Good, Cart thought. Perhaps in the act of lowering the wall, Haldren could also remove the bodies, or at least put them into a less unsettling position.
Cart was still watching when the pair reached the bend in the canyon and a worg erupted around the corner, slamming into Tesh’s companion and knocking her to the ground. Tesh gave a shout and drew his sword, but four more worgs came around the corner.
“Tesh!” Cart called. “Fall back!” He broke into a run, yelling over his shoulder for Haldren. Tesh couldn’t do anything for his companion, but maybe Cart could, if he could get there fast enough.
Tesh tried a cautious withdrawal at first, backing away from the worgs with his sword and shield in front of him. When the worgs started edging around him, threatening to surround him, he turned and ran. A large worg pounced at him but fell short, raking its claws along his back and making him stumble but not fall.
By the time Cart reached Tesh, there were half a dozen worgs between him and the corner where Tesh’s companion had fallen, and he couldn’t see her anymore. He paused, debating whether to charge into the midst of the worgs to save her, but quickly realized he was too late. In the instant of calm before the breaking storm, he raised his shield and checked his grip on his axe, bracing for the worgs’ assault.
He let them push him slowly back toward the others, moving to intercept any that tried to get behind or past him, buying them time to ready their defense and—he hoped—get Haldren away from the wall. But the farther back he moved, the more worgs came into view around the corner. There were at least two worgs for every one in his party, and he was sure he hadn’t yet seen the end of the demon-wolves.
At the edge of his vision, he saw something move behind him and almost lashed out with his axe before he realized it was Ashara.
“What are you doing?” he said. “Get back!”
“No. Cover me,” she said. She put a hand on his back and he felt magic course through him, cool and exhilarating.
A swing of his axe pushed back a worg that was trying to get to Ashara. She touched his shield and it flared with blue light. His axe split the skull of a worg trying to come in under his guard. As he drew the axe back, she touched it as well, and the blade burst into flame. He almost dropped it in his surprise, but he caught it in time to swing it down into the shoulder of another worg. Even as the blade cut, the fire seared the hair and flesh around the wound, making the beast yelp in pain.
“That’s all I have,” she said. “Stay alive long enough to make it useful.”
“Thank you.” Another swing of his axe made sure that the worg trying to follow Ashara wouldn’t move again.
An enormous burst of fire blossomed in the canyon ahead of him, and Cart’s position suddenly seemed less desperate. Tesh and another soldier stood beside him—he’d made it back to the others.
“Remember your top priority,” Cart said. “Keep Haldren alive.” Please, he thought—or we’re all dead.
Some of the worgs in the rear of the advancing pack raised a howl, and the canyon seemed to shake with it as more worgs joined the chorus and it reverberated off the walls. The creatures in front surged forward, all teeth and claws.
Steel and stone, Cart thought. He met the worgs’ ferocity with his own.
Another blossom of fire drowned out the howl for an instant, and yelps of pain came in its wake. Cart fell into an almost mechanical rhythm, slicing and hewing, lifting his shield to block attacks or throw worgs back. No worg would get past him, and before long he was covering the other soldiers as their energy began to flag.
This is what I was made for, he thought. Tireless, unceasing battle. But in what cause?
Despite his efforts, the worgs were pushing them back, closer and closer to the barrier formed by their companions’ bodies. He saw Tesh beside him becoming more agitated, and he hoped none of the others would turn and see the grisly spectacle.
Haldren’s magic was thinning the rear of the pack, but the worgs in front—either unaware of or unconcerned with the fate of their fellows—fought with undiminished ferocity. Another howl rose in the back of the worg band, and grew to fill the canyon again. Tesh stepped back in fear, and then the line broke—the soldier on Cart’s right turned and ran in panic. The worgs made no effort to stop him.
“Stop!” Cart cried. “Hold your position!” He turned far enough to keep the soldier, Avi, in at least the edge of his vision without leaving himself open to the worgs.
Avi yelled when he saw the mutilated corpses, but he didn’t check his headlong flight. He tried to jump over the bodies—and stopped in the air, suspended inside the magical barrier that only Haldren could see. His shout of horror changed into an agonized scream and he writhed in agony. The last Cart saw before he had to turn his full attention back to the worgs was a cloud of blood spreading out from Avi’s twitching body, staining the invisible barrier red.
Kovin and the other soldier saw it too, and it nearly broke them. It was their first indication that they were trapped, with death on both sides, and Cart recognized the terror in their eyes.
“Forward!” Cart yelled. “Push them back!”
He stepped forward against the front line of worgs, trusting the others to follow him, and the worgs fell back the smallest amount. Haldren shifted tactics, blasting individual worgs in the front with smaller blasts of fire, helping to clear the line for the soldiers to advance. The ground was slick with blood, and they had to step over or around the hulking bodies of dead worgs, but they succeeded in pushing the line back, away from the deadly barrier. The forward press seemed to be having the desired effect—bolstering the last three soldiers’ courage and hope.
A chorus of barks and yips began somewhere in the middle of the worg pack, and the worgs in front fell back still farther. Cart scanned the canyon, then gave a shout of triumph. The two remaining squads under Haldren’s command perched atop the canyon walls on either side of the worg pack, showering arrows down into the throng. The other soldiers saw their salvation and joined Cart’s shout.
The canyon walls were too steep in that spot for the worgs to climb, so the archers above could loose their arrows without fear. Many worgs took three or four arrows before falling, but fall they did, adding to the number of the dead as Cart led the soldiers on the canyon floor in a renewed assault.
Soon it was over—the worgs broke ranks and fled back down the canyon, scattering into the hills. Cart ordered all three squads to regroup rather than give chase. Ashara tended to the wounded—Cart was surprised to see the number of breaks and tears in his own body—while Haldren turned his attention to the barrier again.
Ashara used wands to tend her living patients, manipulating the magic stored within the wands to flow into their bodies and knot up their wounds, refresh their spirits, and erase their fatigue. For Cart, though, she ran her bare hands over his wounds, unleashing the magic contained in his own body to help it repair itself. It was, Cart felt suddenly, strangely intimate.
“That was incredible,” she said, working her magic on his shoulder. “I’ve never seen anyone fight like that.”
“It’s what I was made for.”
“It’s more than that. Not every warforged is capable of what you just did. You’ve devoted yourself to it, mastered the axe and shield, trained your senses and reflexes. You’ve chosen to become the best warrior you can be.”
“What are you getting at?”
“You’re a person, just as capable of choosing your path in life as any of us. Other warforged have chosen to excel in magic or artifice. I met a warforged painter in Lathleer once—very skilled, and getting better. House Cannith might have made you to be a soldier, but that doesn’t have to be your purpose in living. You can do what you want—you can be
what you want to be.”
“Maybe I want to be a soldier.”
“A soldier?” she said, getting to her feet. “You’re a hero.”
She walked off to treat another of the wounded.
Haldren broke through the barrier and summoned Cart, who helped him pile the bodies together and start a pyre. Once the fire was blazing, Cart gathered the others together to pay their last respects to their allies, then hurried them onward.
After three more bends in the canyon, they found themselves at its head. The worgs’ labyrinth of bones spread out before them, and from the canyon floor Cart could see its focus. It seemed at first like a pool of deep blue water set vertically into the sheer cliff at the canyon’s head. Only after staring at it for a moment did he realize it wasn’t water, but crystal—a glimpse of a larger formation buried in the rock, from what Haldren had said. He couldn’t see any worgs—it seemed they had put everything they had into that last assault.
“The canyon is ours,” Haldren declared.
INTERLUDE
Kelas leaned close to the glass globe on his desk, straining to hear the voice coming from it.
“In all, we lost eleven of our twenty soldiers, and the wizard from Arcanix.” The small voice from the globe was Haldren’s. Kelas frowned—those were heavy losses. “But the worgs are routed. We still hear them howling, especially now that the sun is down, but there aren’t as many. We can hold the canyon until you arrive.”
