“What can I do for you, sir?”
Piper offered a warm smile to Borlin, the head mess sergeant. “Something cold with plenty of bubbles.”
Borlin shuffled to the back and returned with a tall pewter mug of the best field ale they had left. “Here you go, sir. It’s not much but it is damned sure cold.
Piper drank deep, the ale burning a trail to his stomach. “Damn. This has got to be the worst ale I’ve ever drunk. Do they sell this back in Chadra or did your boys brew this up from old combat boots?”
“Ha! Piss water has less of a bite, sir.”
He laughed. “Maybe, but at least it sates the thirst.”
Borlin nodded, a twisted smile on his lips. He took the empty mug and refilled it.
Piper eagerly accepted. “What are the men saying?”
“The usual. Nothing seems to bother them unless they’re in the middle of a fight or hungry.”
Piper somehow doubted Borlin spoke true. “You’re not telling me much. You’re the mess sergeant, you know more than even I do I suspect.”
The older veteran rubbed his chin wryly. He’d hoped to avoid this topic altogether. Leaders had more important matters to worry about than the rumors circulating camp.
“The men are worried. We’ve got those Pell bastards ranging behind us, raiding the supply lines and picking off our scouts, and that damned Aurec is having his way to our front. Hard times are coming. Rumor has it the city is going to be a hard one to crack.”
“They’ve had plenty of time to get ready for us,” Piper agreed. “You and I have been doing this long enough to know that no city is ever easy to take.”
Borlin snorted and shook his head. “Doesn’t make it any easier to swallow, sir.”
“No. I don’t suppose it would.”
“You’ve got a lot of worry on your face, sir. The men will do their jobs. Don’t you worry about that. We’ll take that damned city and be back in Chadra before the end of winter.”
Piper admired Borlin’s attitude. The sergeant was a man to hold his tongue when things went south. He was also a friend. They’d been on numerous campaigns together and Borlin had consistently proven to be the man you wanted at your back when times were bad.
“These are difficult times,” he said. “All we can do is our best.”
Piper didn’t say it. He didn’t have to. Both understood the number of live troops they brought home depended on the king. An old northern proverb claimed that madness had a way of spreading so it was best not to mention it. Piper had no intention of provoking such a chance this late into the campaign.
“Aye. It seems like they are. Would you be wanting any more ale, sir?”
Piper grimaced. “Are you trying to kill me?”
Borlin took the mug back and bit off a laugh. “Have a good night, sir. Trust the men to do their jobs. It will all work out at the end.”
“Good night, Borlin.”
Piper left the mess tent and stalked his way through the camp. A strange calm settled over them all. Piper was thankful for it. The men needed to relax. War was taxing in many ways. Waiting was one of the worst. Piper shook his head slowly. He never considered himself a necessarily strong person. He was good with a sword and had a good head for tactics, but that was about it. What he lacked was emotional control. Twice already in this campaign he found himself at extremes. The initial disaster at the outset of the invasion took him to undiscovered lows while the string of victories bolstered his desire to fight. Far from foolish, Piper realized his emotional stability depended on Prince Aurec’s success or failure. Piper was the sort to hold grudges; he very much wanted that man dead.
“What troubles you tonight?”
He looked up, startled and embarrassed at being caught off guard. Rolnir emerged from the night, hands clasped behind his back. The darkness made him look much older than his forty-four years. The war did not sit well with him either.
“Our lead scouts have returned.” Piper’s voice was bland.
Rolnir gently bit his bottom lip. “Come inside. I assume you have much to tell me.”
“None of it good.”
* * * * *
King Badron eyed his two senior officers with a snarl of contempt. He listened to as much of their initial assessment as he could stand, which wasn’t much, before waving them silent. Piper and Rolnir might have thought their concerns were valid, but they lacked the foresight of being king. Badron was sorely tempted to have them flogged for incompetence. The king was many things. Patient was not one of them. Dark circles permanently scarred his eyes. He’d lost weight and didn’t sleep well anymore. Nightly visits from the Dae’shan filled his mind with dark nightmares. Badron knew he bordered on losing control and he felt powerless to stop it.
“All I ask is that you do your jobs,” he said in a carefully measured voice.
“We are, Sire.”
Rolnir regretted the words almost as soon as he spoke them. This was not the first of Badron’s childish temper tantrums they had sat through. The one constant was that the end results were unpredictable. A junior captain had already been executed for having the spine to talk back to the king.
“Are you? Why do you keep bringing me petty concerns while my bastard enemy mocks me from the safety of his walls? Do I have need of a new general?”
Anger flashed across Rolnir’s face. He had gotten away with lashing out at the king once but doubted success a second time. Instead, he composed himself. “Sire, the Wolfsreik has never let down any king in our history. Rogscroft will fall, but I will not commit thousands of lives due to impatience. Too many will die. Those are lives we cannot afford to lose this far from home.”
“Losses are not my concern, general.”
Cold laced his words. Both military men felt like they’d just been slapped. Never would they have believed that a king of Delranan could act so callously towards his own men.
“Their lives are all we have!” Piper shouted.
Rolnir shot him a stern glare. Piper backed down, ashamed of his uncharacteristic outburst.
“Forgive him, Sire. He speaks out of place. He is right, however. The more men we lose, the less effective we are. I can’t condone any action that will only waste lives. I won’t.” Rolnir lifted his chin slightly, almost daring the king to challenge.
“Calm down, Rolnir,” Badron said and held up a staying hand. “I have no intention of throwing my army away.”
The emphasis on my did not go unnoticed.
“What do you mean?”
“Help is marching to us. We will not assault Rogscroft alone.”
Badron struggled to contain himself. He had no way of telling how receptive his officers would be to the news that it was a Goblin army en route. He still had mixed emotions about the situation. His one hope came from the thought that many Goblins were going to be killed in the assault.
Rolnir immediately grew suspicious. “What army? We have few allies here in the north. What land does this army come from?”
A pause. “The Deadlands.”
“Goblins!” hissed Piper.
Badron nodded. “Yes. An army of Goblins.”
“You have damned us all. Goblins are a blight on the world. What madness led you to this?”
“You yourself said we can ill afford to waste lives,” Badron began to explain quickly before their anger grew. He deliberately left pertinent questions unanswered. No one needed to know how the Goblins had been contacted. In the end, Rolnir seemed partially satisfied. The key selling point was the ultimate betrayal of the Goblins once Rogscroft fell.
Cold winds bit into Rolnir and Piper as they left the royal tent.
Piper pulled his cloak tighter. “I don’t like this. We shouldn’t make this deal.”
“What choice do we have? Badron has already committed us. The Goblins are on their way.”
“Don’t you want to know how he made the alliance?”
“No.”
* * * * *
Fifty leagues away,
the terrible Goblin army marched. Whips lashed them on at a frenzied pace. They’d already covered five hundred leagues in four weeks, stopping only for a few hours of rest a day. Grugnak watched his army with pride. It had been a long time since last they went to war. He salivated with the thought of sinking his fangs into human flesh. His hatred for mankind was almost unmatched. The Goblin lord only hated Dwarves more. The army continued to march.
TWENTY-TWO
Dreams
Maleela startled awake. Her heart raced. A light sheen of sweat covered her body. Her normally soft brown eyes were widened with fright. Just a dream, she tried to convince herself. She slowed her breathing, willing her body to respond to practicality. She felt lost and confused. A wide range of emotions collided within her. Maleela had never been overly close to her uncle, but her dreams were becoming more disturbing, horrifically vivid. Most of the men in her family alienated her, Badron most of all. Nothing she did was good enough for him. The guilt from her mother’s death was hard to suppress even though it wasn’t her fault. Badron thought otherwise. Maleela was entirely expendable. Shaking her head, she wiped her face off.
Bahr glanced up from the flames of their small fire. “Bad dreams again?”
“How did you know?”
His gaze softened. “I heard you. I’m surprised you didn’t wake anyone up. What was it that made you worry so?”
“I dreamed of fire and pain.”
She fell silent. The horror of it still felt real. Maleela closed her eyes and found herself standing in a maze of thorns. Each bush was over ten feet tall, an impenetrable mass of menacing spikes. Greenish mist swirled across the base, adding a haunted look. A full moon hung threateningly over the horizon. The sky itself was pitch black with not a cloud in sight. Even the stars seemed to have disappeared, eclipsed by a nameless menace.
Maleela froze, desperately trying to open her eyes again. She trembled and shook, but no matter how hard she tried, her eyes refused to obey her. Heavy footsteps marched closer. Gouts of flames sprang up in a constricting circle. She heard the menacing roar of faceless monsters in the unseen miasma beyond the flames. Her knees almost gave out. Her heart quickened. The ground shook with each new footstep. She knew it was death and was powerless to escape. Waves of pain spread from the approaching figure. She screamed.
“Your screams are like the sweetest wine.”
The voice boomed across the world. All of her darkest thoughts came to life with the sound. At last the nightmare came into view. Maleela screamed again as a beast of indescribable horror crept through the flames.
“Will you continue to scream as I tear you limb from limb? Flense your frail human form until you wear nothing but blood?”
She tried to run, tried to figure out where her uncle had gone. Maleela was frozen in place. She couldn’t defend herself. The shadowed face leered closer, strange yet oddly familiar.
“You didn’t think you could ever escape me, did you?”
Darkness seethed. She cried out as her flesh burned where it touched her.
“Look into my eyes and you will find the truth of your existence.”
She did, and screamed at the top of her lungs.
Bahr reached out to pull his niece close, whispering that it was all right.
“It was so real,” she whimpered. “That face…”
Bahr struggled not to cry. The pain of not being able to help her hurt worse than anything else he had experienced since this nightmare began. “Whose face did you see?”
She pulled away slightly. “My father’s.”
Bahr felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. He was speechless. Bahr was unskilled in dream reading and lacked the emotional development to be much more than empathetic. His initial impulse was to tell her to forget about it, that it was only a dream. Doing so might serve to make matters worse. What he really needed was Anienam. The wizard would know exactly how to treat this situation.
“It was nothing but a dream, lass. Shhh.”
He did his best towards comforting her, but he had never been a father. This was as alien to him as growing crops. His words felt empty. Bahr almost felt lost. Maleela glanced up at him, shifting to avoid scraping her face on the stubble of his chin. Her eyes were filled with diminishing fear.
“Uncle, I know what I saw. My father is involved with sinister forces. This dream was much too real to be otherwise.”
“We should not jump to conclusions. Wait for Anienam to read the truth in your dream,” he cautioned.
“What if he tells us what I already believe?” she asked.
Her voice cracked. Bahr looked up. Dawn broke across the horizon. The others stirred and slowly came awake. Anienam was the first to the fire, as if he expected to be needed. He rubbed his tired hands over the fire. His liver spots were darker, making him look much older than he was. He met Bahr’s stare.
“Long nights in the field never agree with me,” he said and smiled.
Bahr offered a warm smile. “It is not an easy life. I much prefer being on the ocean. Things are less complicated on the deck of a boat.”
Anienam grunted. “If you say so. I prefer a warm room in the local inn with down blankets and mulled wine.”
“You’ll get no arguments from me.”
Maleela couldn’t take it anymore. “Wizard, may I speak with you in private?”
His gaze danced between Maleela and Bahr. The Sea Wolf nodded.
“Of course.”
She explained her dream, at least what she could of it. The visions were too real. The hurt was too deep. Anienam sat silently and drank it all in. His brow furrowed at the mention of her father. Maleela finished speaking and waited expectantly for Anienam to solve all of her problems. He only wished he could. The wizard traced his moustache idly while trying to figure out what to say. The dream was not an easy one to decipher. Any number of possibilities might come from it. Still, a cold sense of dread settled over him.
“I know that look in your eyes,” she said. “What is it you know?”
“Most of the dream is meaningless. Riddles that we might go crazy from trying to decipher.”
An eyebrow arched. “Most?”
He gestured wildly with his hands. “Yes, most. I think this was more than dream. What you had was a vision of sorts. Flames and thorns mean nothing from your past. Not unless you’ve got dark secrets none of us know.”
She smiled despite herself. “No flames or thorns.”
He nodded absently. “The part your father plays disturbs me. He is no great charitable figure, but his visage as some demonic being suggests an influence we do not know of. There is darkness loose in the world. The Dae’shan that hunted Rekka when we came to rescue you was but one in four. Three are known. They have been active players since the night your brother was killed, if not longer.”
She flushed. Her brother’s murder was unintended and pointless. Her selfish desires robbed him of a long and potentially meaningful life. She had never really needed rescuing. The love shared with Aurec went beyond any other feeling. That love had been torn apart and now his kingdom stood upon the brink of destruction. The possibility that she might never get the chance to tell him she loved him ever again tore at her heart.
Maleela tried to push those dark thoughts from her mind. “Do you think my father has anything to do with the Dae’shan?”
“It is possible, but hard to tell. The Dae’shan are almost timeless. They manipulate in order to facilitate the will of their masters. Badron may well be under their influence.”
A new fear clutched at her. “Perhaps they seek to turn him to their will.”
Anienam nodded. “It is a thought. Unfortunately right now there is no way for us to be sure.”
His answer was too much for her to take. “Anienam, we must learn the truth. My heart tells me that we are heading into a horrible time.”
Bahr coughed from near the fire. “How do we do that? I am in no rush to go back to Rogscroft and confront my brother, not with
ten thousand soldiers of the Wolfsreik at his back.”
“We may have no choice,” the wizard countered. “Confronting Badron may be the only way to end this war. I do need to remind everyone that deciphering Maleela’s dream is not our primary concern. Venheim awaits. We must find the forge of Giants and their blood hammer before time runs out. The Dae’shan are cunning and deceptive. It might already be too late to make a difference.”
“How do you manage to bring us darkness every time there is a glimmer of hope?” Bahr asked.
The wizard forced a grin. “Live as long as I have and your outlook will be just as sour. Stop avoiding the subject. Venheim remains our best hope for stopping the Dae’shan.”
“Does your book give any light to what we need?”
Heads turned as Boen rumbled up from his sleeping bag to warm himself by the fire. Anienam was reminded of one of the big jungle cats ready to attack. The Gaimosian was Mankind’s predator. A dangerous race, he mused. Perhaps that was a large part in why Gaimos had been annihilated all those years ago. Maleela blushed. She had hoped to keep the conversation between the three of them. Foolish to be sure, for there was little privacy in such intimate company.
“The book contains many secrets. I’ve only managed to get halfway through it.”
Bahr had given the matter much thought since leaving Praeg. There were too many secrets and mysteries for him to grasp the central theme. A sudden thought dawned on him, one he hadn’t had before. “What if the Giants can tell us about the dream?”
Anienam’s eyes narrowed. “How do you mean?”
“The Giants clearly had a part in the writing of this book. Isn’t it conceivable that they might have the capability to decipher Maleela’s dream?”
“Giants are reclusive. They seldom suffer strangers on their lands. That the men who wrote the book survived their encounter speaks volumes, but it does not support your theory. Most of the world has forgotten the Giants,” Anienam replied.
Tides of Blood and Steel Page 18
