The Game of Fates

by Joel Babbitt

  “I’ll do it,” Arren volunteered. “I’m faster than you two, even with your riding dogs, and I’m much more stealthy. You two should go to the other opening, and when you hear the dragon on my end of the passageway, kick your mounts to a full run and don’t look back. I should be able to keep him busy for long enough.”

  Krebbekar stood up and hobbled over to the elf, grasping his hand and looking up into his eyes. “Right! Good luck to you, elf.”

  “And to you, kobold,” Arren replied, taking the stone from Krebbekar’s other hand. “We shall see each other again, I would imagine.”

  Krebbekar mounted his riding dog, then glared at Morigar until he huffed and sullenly followed suit. With a look back at the elf prince, the pair of kobolds rode out of the small chamber and down the long passageway toward its far end.

  Chapter 9 – Counter Ambush and Ambush

  Dawn had come entirely too early for Durik and his group of wolf riders. After wounding a few from the last group of their pursuers, and allowing the rest to flee back the way they’d come, they’d resisted the temptation to go back and make another raid. After all, Lord Karthan wanted the orc horde led to him, and they weren’t supposed to take unnecessary risks in doing so. No, they’d caused enough commotion and chaos for one night. Durik had instead taken his wolf riders to the rough palisade of sharpened tree trunks known as the loyalist fort and let all get some rest, save a few scouts only and a detachment he sent out with Kiria’s team to finish work on a dam.

  At dawn that next morning six packdogs laden with bundles of plants arrived at the fort that Lord Karthan and those who were loyal to him had inhabited during their exile. The guard they’d set sounded the wakeup call, and many hands helped off-load the dogs.

  The dog drivers, and their few dogs, were glad to be rid of their burden, adjusting packsaddles then quickly leaving back toward the Kale Gen’s home caverns. The leader of the teamsters, a particularly dour looking older servant caste from the Trade Warrior Group, was none too thrilled when Durik insisted he get a message back to Lord Karthan and the gen’s forces out near the picket line. When Durik told him about the night’s successful raids, however, the dour old kobold got a smile on his face and gladly consented to take the word back to Lord Karthan personally.

  After sending out a team of scouts, on Durik’s orders the entire group went about lighting campfires, hanging clothes out that the loyalists had left behind yesterday when they’d marched off to take back the gen, and generally trying to make the enclosure look as if it were still inhabited.

  Following these preparations, Manebrow led off half of the contingent, while Durik soon followed with the other half. Today was going to be a long day; a day of decision, a day of death, and with all his heart, Durik hoped it would be a day of victory for the kobolds of the southern valley.

  Manebrow came riding up from the side trail. Reining in next to his leader, he reported. “Sire, the meadow and hill site are prepared. We should be ready for a large contingent this time.”

  Durik nodded almost absently. On the main trail his half of the contingent passed in silence. The look on their faces was one of grim determination. Last night’s long ride and ambush tactics, followed by a short rest, had had little impact on the Wolf Riders. In Durik’s mind their endurance was a tribute to the tough training and physical conditioning the Wolf Riders had insisted on for the several years of their existence. Fortunately the recent upheaval hadn’t been long enough to destroy the base of their effectiveness.

  “Manebrow, I’ll lead them by the nose this time. You set up the ambush.”

  Manebrow nodded. “Yes, sire. I…”

  Suddenly, the blowing of a horn from the direction of the ambush position, where Manebrow had left Drok in charge of his half of the contingent, captured everyone’s attention.

  “Manebrow?” Durik half prompted.

  “On it, sire!” Manebrow replied as he turned his wolf about and kicked his heels into its ribs. With spear lifted high, rider and wolf bolted past the rest of the contingent and over the next rise.

  “Come! Let’s move!” Durik prodded his warriors into action. Like a snake, the entire column began to ripple forward at a surge pace.

  “Fire at will!” Drok roared, while orcs spilled across the glade in small groups. With spear raised above his head, the kobold leader yelled encouragement to these, his friends and brothers in arms. What had been a few at first had turned into a wave of orc warriors, the shortest of which was easily a head and shoulders taller than Drok’s tallest warrior. Soon, this wave would break upon his line… or smash it. Drok was sweating profusely.

  The first couple of volleys had been fired while the orcs were too far away. They’d had less effect than Drok would have liked. The pair of volleys they’d fired since then had done little more than take down the leaders and punch a hole or two in the line. His warriors’ confidence was wavering.

  “Keep firing! Keep sticking it to them!” he yelled. The closest of the orcs, barely a spear’s throw away, went down with the third arrow that struck him. Two others went down near him. Drok looked up with utter horror as he realized that the orcs were about to smash upon them. That last moment slowed tremendously as Drok saw his imminent death arriving in the hands of these foul, green-skinned giants. The next command died in his throat as a massive orc jumped up onto the log he was hiding behind. A whimper was all that escaped his lips.

  Suddenly, from behind Drok, a battle cry split the air. As the orc lifted his axe, the green-skinned warrior lifted his gaze toward the sound, but too late. A spear sprouted from his stomach, doubling him over. Spitting blood, the foul-smelling beast fell forward, partially crushing Drok beneath him.

  “Brace spears!” Manebrow yelled desperately. Unslinging his axe, he grabbed Drok by the shoulder belt and drug him out from beneath the orc. “Go loose the wolves! We’ll need them in this fight!” he yelled at Durik’s somewhat dazed uncle.

  Against Manebrow’s thirty-some warriors, almost fifty orcs were about to smash into them. The tall orcs were building up momentum, their arms pumping, spittle and steam streaming from between sharpened teeth under fiery eyes as they yelled war cries and raised axes, swords, and spears high. Their dark chainmail shirts and thick hide coverings bounced about their torsos as legs pumped and hobnailed boots churned the dirt and grass of the clearing into mud in the early morning mist.

  There was no way his line would hold against such odds, not against these massive towers of flesh and iron. Grabbing a nervous young warrior, one he’d trained just last year, Manebrow turned him about. “Go that way and tell Durik to flank right!” he yelled in the face of the wild-eyed youth. “Go! Flank right! Tell him! Now!” he yelled as the youth hesitated to grasp any thought other than his imminent, impending death.

  Jumping up on the log where he’d just killed the orc, Manebrow yelled a determined battle cry and jumped forward as the impending wave smashed into the forest edge where his warriors crouched with spears braced. With a mighty swing, his axe split the head of the first of the massive, charging orcs. Dragging his axe out, he ducked a broadsword and slammed the shaft of his axe up into its wielder’s groin. With a howl the orc warrior doubled over and staggered back. Holding up his axe, Manebrow caught another sword on the axe head, shattering the orc’s blade on its thickness. Twirling around to build momentum, Manebrow cut through chainmail and flesh, ripping open both of the orc’s thighs. With a scream and a large splash of blood the orc fell backward. Manebrow stomped down on one of the orc’s hands and swung downward, splitting the orc’s skull in a merciful blow.

  Looking about himself, Manebrow saw the orc he’d slammed with his axe haft dragging out a dagger to throw. Grabbing his own long knife, Manebrow threw it with all his might. Spinning once in midair, the blade sank deep into the orc’s neck. The big warrior went down with a gurgle, clutching with both hands at his neck.

  A few paces from Manebrow the scream of a kobold warrior rose above the din. Turning,
Manebrow saw one of his warriors falling back, a sword blade sliding out of his stomach as he fell to the ground. With a cry of determination, Manebrow leapt forward, sinking his axe into the orc’s back, snapping its spine. As the orc flopped to the ground, Manebrow, in turn, pulled his axe out then grabbed the fallen kobold’s spear.

  Drok had loosed the wolves, and to Manebrow’s delight, the animals had surged forward to join the fight. The first several lingered near fallen riders, but after a couple of the alpha males came forward, the wolves began to form into packs. Then, as packs, the wolves began jumping at the orcs, dodging axes and knocking orc warriors down to get at their throats.

  All up and down the line Manebrow could see that his kobold warriors were trying to hold, but most of them were barely surviving. Several kobold warriors had fallen, and only a few orcs. The wolves had helped balance the odds, but Manebrow didn’t know if they could hold much longer. Shaking his head, he glanced briefly across the meadow. Already a second group of around thirty orcs were spilling out of the woods and preparing to charge across. Things weren’t looking so good for the Wolf Riders.

  Suddenly, from the tree line to the right of the kobold line, Durik burst out of the woods, spear held high as Firepaw carried him quickly toward the orc band. Behind him the rest of the Wolf Riders Warrior Group surged out of the woods with a yell. Within moments they were on the second wave of orcs.

  Spear and axe flashed in the early morning light as orc warrior and kobold rider smashed into each other. The second wave of orcs had turned to meet Durik and his riders, the look in their eyes one of defiance and confidence. But when Durik skewered the first one, then a second, and suddenly a third, all in rapid succession, the shock of his attack shot through the orcs’ ranks like lightning.

  That crucial moment of hesitation, when orcs tensed and lifted their spears reactively, cost the second wave dearly. Yelling fiercely as they sensed the momentum of the battle shifting, Durik’s wolf riders slammed into the second wave of orcs. Kobolds jumped out of the saddle, swords in hand. Wolves jumped up, knocking orcs to the ground. Within moments the second group of orcs was thrown into a panic as spears pierced chainmail and wolves tore out throats. First one, then another and another orc warrior dropped their weapons and began to run for the wood line. In several moments the tearing and smashing turned from a struggle for dominance to a mopping up of orcs who had fallen wounded and stunned to the ground.

  A group of Durik’s riders had begun to chase after the fleeing orcs when Durik, standing alone surrounded by a circle of felled orcs, called after them to stop. Reluctantly, the handful of riders checked their enthusiasm and reined in their wolves. Remounting Firepaw, Durik pulled his spear from the last orc he’d slain, silently thanking the old kobold Torgal of the Sundered Skull who had given him these bracers of strength.

  “Riders! To me!” he called. The most observant of the orcs from the first wave had seen how Durik’s riders had cut down the second wave in short order and were already beginning to break off from Manebrow’s half of the group.

  Once Durik had enough of his riders mounted and ready to have an impact, he spurred Firepaw forward. As one, the group of wolf riders yelled a war cry and raised their spears as they leapt toward the dissolving line of orc warriors.

  Many of the orcs had been so absorbed in the hand-to-hand combat at the kobold line that they paid no heed to the approaching danger. In moments Durik’s riders drove home almost a score of strikes with their spears. The effect of the charge was immediate. The orc attack was over. The last few orcs were quickly brought down by spear, arrow, and fang as the handful that had seen the charge coming fled weaponless back through the meadow and into the woods beyond.

  Reining in Firepaw, Durik hopped out of the saddle and walked over to retrieve his spear from the back of one of the orc warriors who had not fled soon enough.

  “Sire!” Manebrow approached from behind a large bush. “That was some good timing, I should say! That was a charge to remember!” Dark blood spattered his chest and arms, and his axe had bits of bone, brain, and flesh sliding slowly off the blade or sticking to the haft. Someone’s artery had sprayed red kobold or wolf blood across his brow, which he was wiping away with a rag. Both of his shoulder belts had been cut by the same blow that had traced a bloody line across his back, but otherwise the aging trainer appeared to be fine.

  Durik himself was covered to the elbows in orc blood, and his spear was awash in the foul stuff. His face was a stoic mask, almost sad, yet at the same time fiercely focused and alert. “Aye, Manebrow,” he nodded. “How many did we lose?”

  Manebrow’s sense of responsibility was pricked. The exuberance of the moment passed from his face and he looked down at himself for a moment as if to refocus. “Aye, sire. Let me get to it. I think we’ve had a hard day of it already,” he said as he shook blood and bits of flesh from the head of his axe. “But those orcs have had a worse morning than us, I’d wager,” he added, a smile creasing his blood-smeared features.

  “Sire!” a familiar voice called. Durik turned to look, steeling himself for the news that this battle would bring. “Durik,” his uncle Drok was calling. “Thank the Fates for that charge! You were amazing! Long shall the story of that charge be told to our young warriors to give them something to live up to!” Drok grasped his nephew’s hand and slapped him on the shoulder.

  Despite seeing the dead and wounded of his warrior group lying about him in the tree line, Durik smiled and accepted the praise with a mere ‘thank you.’

  “Uncle,” he asked calmly, “are you up to leading a scouting party? We need to know what’s coming at us. They caught us before our trap was set this time. We need to seize the initiative back from them if we’re going to win our part of this battle.”

  Drok thumped Durik’s shoulder one more time, beaming at the kobold he had raised as a son. “After seeing you ride into battle like that, and turning the tide back, I could do anything. Your father would be so proud of you this day!”

  Durik had never been one to bask in glory, and the urgency of the moment had strained him almost to the breaking point. “Drok, I need you to gather a scouting party now! I don’t want to tell my father about today for a long time, but if the orcs catch us unaware again, we’ll likely both have the opportunity to tell him very soon!”

  “Alright! Alright!” Drok backed up. “You can’t fault me a moment of pride after such a glorious morning as this.”

  Durik just looked straight at his uncle as if to hurry his departure.

  “Alright. I’m off. I’ll send back a messenger to give news of the orcs’ approach. Where shall I send him?” Drok asked.

  “Send him to the waterfall,” Durik said calmly.

  Drok’s brows raised. “Aha! Time for the big one, then!” Turning himself about, Drok went about gathering his team and a couple of warriors whose elite warrior had been killed. Within a few short moments he and his now larger team had mounted and taken off at a run across the meadow.

  Turning his gaze back down the line, Manebrow caught Durik’s gaze from the other end of their battle position in the tree line. The veteran warrior had both hands raised with nine fingers up. He made a motion like slitting his throat, giving Durik an understanding of the full cost of being caught unaware.

  Opening his belt pouch, Durik took the Kale Stone in hand and, reaching out in his heart to the powers that had seen him this far, he set about taking care of the many who had fallen to the ground with severe wounds from the axes and swords of their orc enemies.

  “Hold him still!” Manebrow commanded.

  “But chief, he’s not long for this world,” the elite warrior said as he shook his head. “No one survives a wound like that. Let him thrash out his last few moments.”

  Manebrow grabbed him by the arm and pulled him down to the wounded warrior’s feet. “Not today, Pintor,” Manebrow said emphatically. “See, here comes Durik with the Kale Stone.”

  “He has what?” Pintor asked as
he held the wounded warrior’s feet while Manebrow tried to hold the gash in the warrior’s neck closed with both hands.

  “Manebrow,” Durik’s calm voice was almost surreal in the combination of deathly drama and dawn mists. “Hold his head, Manebrow.”

  Kneeling next to the grievous wound as it again began to bubble up blood, Durik placed his hand over the warrior’s wild, fearful eyes, calming the dying warrior as surely as he would a flighty animal. Then, with the Kale Stone in his other hand, Durik placed his hand over the wound. Instantly a deep calm came over the little group of warriors who had assembled around their dying companion. The calm grew with the light that began to emanate from Durik’s hands.

  In a moment of clear, pure light, the wounded warrior began to breathe again. Then, as Durik withdrew his hand, the circle of warriors gasped. The warrior’s neck was whole, without so much as a scar or a torn scale to mark the drama of the morning.

  This was not the only warrior whose wounds were major enough to need immediate tending. With the Kale Stone in hand, Durik cared for several others. Soon, all the Wolf Riders, save Manebrow, had fallen to their knees.

  Standing up from where he had healed a less gravely injured warrior, Durik looked about at his fellow Kales; friends, neighbors, and now warriors of his warrior group.

  “My people. Do not worship me,” he said, his voice calm, yet full of the lingering power that had channeled through him for the benefit of his fellow warriors. “I am but a kobold like yourselves.”

  “But you have the Kale Stone! You are chosen of the Kale Stone!” one of his warriors cried out. “Are you sent to save us in our day of need?”

  Durik looked about at the earnest gazes of his warriors; tough, wizened old warriors who just yesterday had had a hard time accepting this young leader, middle-aged warriors who were the mainstay of his rather skilled warrior group, and even younger warriors, some of whom had been envious at having one so young put over them. Now, all of them were looking at him as though he had just stepped out of some legend from their childhood.