The sergeant shot him an interested look, his mind racing over pre-combat procedures in the event of a fight.
Too anxious for his own good, Piper gestured his sergeant to follow and rode forward to meet the flustered scout. The rider reined to a halt and tried to catch his breath.
“What’s the word?” Piper asked.
“Commander, we ran into a small column of Goblins marching this way. Must be a few hundred of the bastards. Looked like they were dragging fresh kills. We saw smoke coming from the direction they’re marching out of.”
Piper frowned. The Goblins were still strong enough to be raiding villages successfully. He glanced back at his fifty men. They were light cavalry, not meant for heavy charges. Piper’s force was specifically designed to engage the enemy fleetingly and keep them distracted until the heavy infantry arrived. They were never meant to fight a pitched battle against large numbers of infantry. Pikes and horses didn’t mix well.
“How well armed are they?” he asked, the words coming out rushed.
The scout used a sleeve to wipe the sweat dripping down his face. “Enough to give us trouble. They got pikes and spears. Bevin saw a few axes, too. All of ‘em carried swords and were heading this way.
“We have enough to keep them busy, but not destroy them, Commander,” the sergeant offered thoughtfully.
Piper struggled with the urge to strike something. “We don’t have a choice. A force that size can cause mayhem across the countryside. If what this man says is true they’re fresh off of a kill. We have a chance to strike now and catch them with their guard down.”
“We’re going to need help.”
“Dispatch three men back to General Vajna. He’s to bring five hundred men as quickly as possible,” Piper ordered.
An eyebrow rose. “You mean to attack them at night?”
“Is there a choice?” Piper didn’t want to. Night attacks were hazardous for all parties. Goblins were creatures that lived without the sun. Darkness was their element. Fighting a numerically superior force at night and on unfamiliar ground was tantamount to suicide. A thought sprang to life, quickly growing from spark to flame. “Have the rest of the men gather as much kindling and torchwood as possible in the next few minutes. We’ll have a nasty surprise waiting for those Goblin scum when they arrive.”
* * * * *
Rolnir came upon the battlefield shortly after dawn, having ridden through the night to reach the vanguard. A regiment of heavy infantrymen panted behind him. They’d come expecting to dig their scouts out of a mess but were almost stopped in their tracks when the sun showed the full extent of the fight. Bodies littered the area for hundreds of meters. Most were the dark, grey bodies of Goblins but more than enough were Wolfsreik. Rolnir lamented the losses but saw them as manageable enough to call it a victory. Piper and Vajna were standing in the center of the field pouring over maps and captured documents.
Haggard, much as he normally looked these days, Piper looked up to his friend and commanding officer with exhaustion in his eyes. He was tired of fighting and it was beginning to show. Every soldier endured their own private struggle with how far they could go before the breaking point crept upon them and dragged them down. Piper was almost there. He threw up a hasty salute and waited while the red-haired general slid to the ground.
“Piper, Vajna. I wasn’t expecting you to engage without heavy support,” he said, keenly eyeing the battlefield. Delighted as he was to see so many Goblin bodies, he subconsciously counted his own losses.
Piper barely mustered a shrug. “They left us little choice.”
“What happened?”
Watching from the side, Vajna saw Piper’s reluctance to answer and decided to jump in. “The out riders spotted a small raiding party heading towards us. We only had a short amount of time to react. Commander Joach dispatched riders back to warn the main body while we prepared an ambush. The men strung wire across all likely avenues of approach and set traps. They weren’t much but I’ve seen more than a few killed by them. We had a limited number of archers but used them to harry the Goblins into the areas where we’d be most effective.”
Rolnir listened intently though his mind never strayed from the deep streaks of black circling the immediate area. “And these? What are they from?”
Vajna actually broke a grin. “Fire. We had collected a lot of scrub brush and fallen trees. Once the Goblins walked into the trap we set the whole damned area on fire. They panicked enough for us to hammer them from three sides. And a good thing too. If it hadn’t been for that distraction we wouldn’t have won.”
Nodding his approval for Piper’s innovative thinking, he asked, “Why did you engage? Light cavalry against heavy infantry isn’t the ideal situation.”
“We didn’t have a choice,” Vajna said flatly. “They moved faster than anticipated and very nearly caught us off guard. Fortunately they were drunk from their previous raid on a village not far from here. Runner came back and reported everyone there was murdered. The houses burned.” His eyes blazed fiercely as he took in the nearest corpse. “These bastards got what was coming to them.”
Rolnir had heard enough. “Gentlemen, very good work. That’s two hundred less Goblins we need to worry about. Have your vanguard form up and return to the main body. I’ll have another unit dispatched to cover the advance to the mountains. You did good today. All of you. Get some hot chow and refit. The campaign is just beginning and I’m going to need you if we’ve any hope of succeeding.”
Piper took offense at being relieved; memories of his first engagement in Rogscroft started replaying in his head. “General, we can continue the march. Give me an hour to bury the dead and collect their gear. We’re good to go.”
Rolnir’s eyebrow rose sharply. He seriously doubted his second in command was in as good of shape as he insisted, but he didn’t have any reason to pull him from the line. Not until he makes a mistake and gets someone killed. Damnation, but being a commanding officer is hard. Retirement doesn’t sound so bad right about now. “Very well. I want your unit refitted by the time my infantry cleans up the battlefield. Piper, that’s an order. I don’t want to hear it.”
“Yes sir,” he replied meekly and went back to his soldiers.
Rolnir returned Vajna’s salute and watched his best friend stumble back through the carnage, all the while thinking he was going to have to find a way to rest Piper before the end. Some lives were too valuable to waste in the preliminary rounds of the fight.
FIVE
Delranan Burning
“Ever you have sought to be more than your ancestors allowed. Countless decades of servitude to others have left you bereft of dignity. What it means to truly be your own man. Did you find it difficult to carry on day after day as the world progressed while you stagnated?”
Harnin One Eye glared sharply at the coalescing shadows dancing across from him. He despised being mocked by anyone, much less one of the mysterious Dae’shan. Two facts prevented him from acting on those raw emotions. The dark creature, Pelthit Re, was infinitely more powerful than any mortal and he had facilitated Harnin’s rise to power. If it hadn’t been for Pelthit, Harnin might never have had the nerve to make a grab for the throne. Badron should have insisted he accompanied the army on campaign. Harnin snarled. Look where that arrogance took you! Delranan is now mine.
“I feel your hatred, One Eye. It consumes you in glorious pain, slowly devouring each piece of your conscience. Give in and become more than yourself,” Pelthit cooed. It was an old game he enjoyed playing with his victims. Righteous men fell so quickly and easily. The Dae’shan preyed upon their strengths, casually turning them against themselves until only a bitter husk remained.
“You given me enough of your gifts, demon,” Harnin snapped. “I rule this kingdom and no longer need you.”
Pelthit concealed his amusement. If only Harnin knew he could snap him with a thought, he wouldn’t be so smug. “Do you? The rebellion you have failed to quash has found new life i
n the countryside. How many units have you lost over the past month? A dozen? More? This Ingrid has proven more than capable of stymieing your grand intellect. Towns and villages are steadily abandoning your rule, choosing to become independent rather than live under your brand of tyranny.”
“The rebellion is my problem to deal with, though I suspect you had a hand to play in their resurgence,” he accused sharply. “I can take care of Ingrid’s rebellion.”
“Perhaps but there’s the matter of King Badron’s return you forget.” He’d used the royal title purposefully, hoping to inspire Harnin to new levels of hatred and depravity.
“Badron’s a non-factor. He’s bogged down in Rogscroft and won’t be able to return until after the spring rains melt the snow in the passes. I have time to deal with him,” Harnin said, waving the concern off.
“Less time than you imagine, One Eye,” Pelthit taunted. The air between them grew chill.
Harnin’s face tightened, the mass of scar tissue twisting like a handful of earthworms pulled from the dirt. “What do you mean?”
“The Wolfsreik has abandoned him. Even now he is heading back to Delranan to reclaim his throne.”
Harnin slammed his palm on the hard, wooden table. “The throne is mine! With no army he has no hope of stealing it back.”
Shadows swirled, solidifying long enough for Harnin to make out the Dae’shan’s harrowing face. Ice-cold eyes glared through the darkness. “That is where you’re wrong, One Eye. I said the Wolfsreik betrayed him. He still has an army of Goblins at his side and another impossibly large army en route. You cannot win.”
Goblins! In Delranan. They hadn’t been seen this far west in countless generations. Harnin felt cold dread dance across his flesh. Fighting men was one matter, a nation of Goblins entirely another. His mind began calculating how best to approach this new dilemma while cursing Pelthit Re and his brethren for bringing his kingdom down to this point. Despair threatened to consume him, robbing him of any sense of security he had been feeling.
He still clung to hope, if barely. Badron was weeks away, if not longer, giving him plenty of opportunity to finish constructing the defenses in the east while hunting down the rebellion in one final gesture. Harnin believed killing Ingrid would effectively end any resistance to his rule. Jarrik and Inaella were already in the field, wasting manpower as far as he was concerned. Their combined incompetence jeopardized all he’d struggled to build over the winter. The old Delranan was dead, burning away as the new order slowly crept into every corner of society. Harnin One Eye, the architect of this new madness, laughed gleefully as his world transformed.
Only now he felt it all spiraling away. His enemies were compounding while his own forces, meager by comparison, bogged down in a nasty, guerilla-style war. He needed to make a move now before the clock expired.
“I can win. All I need to do is eliminate Ingrid and her command staff and focus the bulk of my army along the line of redoubts I’ve ordered built in the east. Trapped between those forts and the mountains, Badron will grind his army down to the point I can attack.” His twinkle had returned to his eyes as Harnin envisioned taking Badron’s head in front of what remained of his army. The event would go down as one of the most renowned in Delranan’s history.
Pelthit folded his arms across his transparent chest. The outcome was never truly in doubt. He played Harnin like an instrument while allowing the delusional man to think he was accomplishing some grandly designed purpose. It was an old game the Dae’shan played with mortals. Each generation had its share of degenerates more than willing to give in to depravity for their own selfish needs. Harnin had languished in Badron’s shadows for years before garnering Pelthit’s attention. His downfall was systematic and eventual. How he arrived to the dismal end was a matter of the Dae’shan’s discretion.
“That is…plausible, but what happens when the Wolfsreik returns home? What then shall you do, I wonder?”
Harnin frowned. He hadn’t thought of that.
Skaning entered the throne room with great trepidation. He’d never liked Harnin and was wary from their earliest days of knowing each other. The older One Eye was devious from the core. A man like that didn’t stay at the right hand of a king for so long without taking care of the odds and ends behind the scenes. Skaning knew Harnin had personally killed over a score of men without Badron ever finding out. That was before the change. The rebellion and theft of Delranan changed matters drastically. Harnin was free to kill at will. Jarrik had already been banished, in all but name, to the west in a futile attempt at hunting down the rebellion and restoring order.
Given the rash of recent failures, Skaning tended to believe Harnin was about to drop the hammer. He was forbidden from wearing arms, but managed to smuggle a short dagger under his tunic. Conspiracies ran rampant in Chadra Keep. Bodies swung from the ramparts daily, pecked apart by crows. Skaning had no desire to become the latest addition to the makeshift gallows.
“Come in already,” Harnin snapped upon seeing Skaning’s hesitation.
The younger lord, last of the council, entered and halted a respectful distance from the broken throne. “You summoned me.”
Ignoring the impudence, Harnin drummed his fingertips on the carved armrest. His eye narrowed in what would have been a menacing glare if he’d had both eyes. Instead it merely made him appear to be squinting in the twinkling firelight. “Jarrik has failed me, again.”
“The rebellion is spread out across the kingdom. Finding the head is not an easy task,” Skaning replied, defending his friend.
“Truly. Perhaps you can explain how Jarrik’s managed to lose over a dozen supply trains while accumulating minimal results? Or how losses in personnel vastly outweigh enemy deaths? Don’t preach to me about difficulties, Skaning. We have tactical and numerical superiority yet we can’t defeat a militia comprised of peasants. Why?”
Because you command. Yet how could he explain that to Harnin without having his head taken from his neck? He already knew the answer and decided to redirect Harnin’s accusations before becoming a victim. “We’ve successfully driven the rebels from all of the major cities. They command a handful of minor villages and have less than a thousand capable fighters. Jarrik is driving them deeper into the wilds.”
“He’s being led deeper into the wilds,” Harnin countered. “Taken away from the culture centers where the army will be ineffective.”
“The rebels will also be ineffective. They are scattered, incapable of coordinating a major attack,” Skaning theorized. “We have the opportunity to cut them off and destroy them group by group.”
Malevolence sparked in Harnin’s eye. “I’m glad you and I agree on this, Skaning. You will take a small command of specialized soldiers and hunt down Ingrid and her leadership. Kill them all. Do you understand? Hunt them down to the man and do not return until the wilds are retaken. Only then can we focus solely on the east.”
Turmoil sparked in his stomach. He’d expected something drastic and, thankfully, wasn’t being ordered to kill Jarrik. At least not yet. Still, that didn’t prevent him from wondering exactly what Harnin expected him to accomplish with a handful of men whereas Jarrik already had close to two thousand in the field. Life secure for the moment, he wasn’t about to press. Instead he asked, “Is there word on Badron?”
Shadows swirled behind the throne, briefly yet enough to draw his attention. “Our beloved king is already making the return journey. I expect him to set foot in Delranan within the next few weeks.”
Adding reason to your obsession with the rebellion. It begins to make sense. You can’t move against Badron with an enemy force in your rear. How I don’t envy you, One Eye. All of your plots and schemes are boiling down into dismal failure before your very eyes. No wonder madness is your boon companion. “When do you want me to depart?”
“At the dawn. There is no time to waste,” he ordered. “Do not fail me, Lord Skaning. I will have need of men I can count on when the dust of this war settles.
Remember that as you conduct your business. Now leave me.”
* * * * *
They made landfall in the middle of the night. Skiffs were launched to take the passengers to shore. Frigid water sloshed against the weather-worn boats, spilling over the rails already dangerously low in the water. Badron, King of Delranan and Lord of Rogscroft, clutched the rails with disdain to prevent from tipping into the sea. His disgust for water stemmed back to an early age. Perhaps having a famous brother who made a reputation sailing the seas aided in the rising jealousy, perhaps not. Regardless, Badron couldn’t wait to be back on dry land again. He briefly contemplated ordering Grugnak’s Goblins to kill the crews and have the boats burned but anticipated needing them again at some point, especially if his attempt at reclaiming Delranan went ill. A viable escape plan in his back pocket helped ease his troubled mind.
Each splash of the oar took them closer to the rocky shoreline of his kingdom. The men sitting beside and around him were just as eager to return to their homes, their families, their lives. Badron knew this through his dealings with Amar Kit’han and the other Dae’shan that whispered in his ear when no one was looking. He despised their involvement, secretly wishing he’d never made the deal with them in the first place. Grief over the loss of his only son and, he begrudgingly admitted, the kidnapping of his only daughter, drove him willingly into the Dae’shan’s embrace. So far gone, Badron danced like a puppet on strings. At least they have no qualms about letting me reclaim my own kingdom.
Shadows of pine trees loomed, dark and ominous. They reminded him of the jaws of some great beast from legend, eager to swallow him and all who travelled with him. Ever since deploying the Wolfsreik to Rogscroft, Badron felt Lord Death barreling towards him. It was only a matter of time before events let them meet. He knew he lacked the strength to withstand any assault Lord Death chose to make and, oddly enough, he was ready to meet it. Life had never been kind to Badron, not even during his tenure as king. Watching his wife die in childbirth pushed him closer to the edge. Life lost its luster, turning to shades of grey and doom.
The Madness of Gods and Kings Page 4
