Night Calls the Raven (Book 2 of The Master of the Tane)

by Thomas Rath

  Thane shook his head at Dor’s words. “No, Dor. Yes, it has been a difficult path and for the longest time I was bitter for it having chosen me to trod its course. But now I better understand. I would not give up what or who I am. I would not wish away my Tane. It is who I am, and I have accepted it. Sure, there are moments when it causes me pain, but all suffer such things in life. I know now that it is how we react at those times that make us who we are. I can let my Tane define who I am or I can choose to define myself. I choose to steer my own destiny.”

  Dor placed a hand on Thane’s arm and then slowly nodded. “You’re right. I have no right to judge malevolent with what you are forced to live just because I would be too weak to face such a challenge myself.”

  Thane shook his head and smiled. “You have faced it just as much as I and have not faltered. It is, after all, why you are here with me now.”

  Dor smiled back. He opened his mouth to say something more but was interrupted by the sound of a distant drum.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  An eerie hush fell over the men along the wall as they listened to the faint sounds of drums as they continued to grow closer. Thane and Dor peered against the darkness, straining their eyes to catch sight of the approaching army but even their night vision could not breach the blackness that had settled over the pass. Soon they would be put to the test to determine whether their preparations were in vain. All down the line, men were busy stringing their bows and checking to make sure their arrows were easily accessible. Captain Dainz walked the line along the top of the wall giving last minute instructions to his men as all sat in wait for their approaching fate.

  Dor’s heart pounded hard in his chest keeping beat with the drums that continued to grow louder. But the certainty of approaching death suddenly rested upon him sending him into the peaceful calm to which he’d become accustomed when his life was on the edge of forfeit. Glancing at Thane he found a steeled look of determination hardened across his friend’s face that made him smile slightly. He found that he was suddenly very happy. Not that they were forced to meet such an imposing threat, but that the waiting was finally over. He wanted it finished. Whether that meant his death at the end of a troll’s pike or victory to him and his friends, he wanted the decision made and left to stand.

  Thane resisted the desire to throw his spirit into the pass to see how close they were and find out what was coming. He felt amazingly confident now about the wall and its strength but worried about the dragon and what its destructive breath might do to such a structure. He knew that he could send fire to kill the dragon but felt uneasy about using so much energy without an anchor. He knew all too well what the results would be should he try. There had to be another way to defeat it. The sudden creaking sound of the catapult being locked into place behind them brought him from his thoughts. He listened as the men strained to load the first boulder and then all was silent save for the drums coming up the pass. All was ready.

  * * *

  For an hour they waited as the drums continued to move closer, growing louder and more intense. It was as if the approaching horde could smell their quarry in the air and the drums echoed their nervous hunger to kill and destroy. The men on the wall remained fast and silent though the pounding seemed to echo in their chests. Dainz had taken up a position a few men down from Thane’s right, his bow strung and resting against the wall.

  “They come,” Dor’s voice suddenly broke through the drums’ reverberations turning all heads forward to search the darkness. It was still a couple of hours before dawn so none but Thane could confirm his statement but the scrapping sound of wood rubbing leather suddenly filled the air as the men pulled arrows from their quivers and readied their bows to fire.

  “On my order,” Dainz’s voice echoed down the line.

  Suddenly the drums stopped. A slight wind flowed through the pass toward them carrying with it the foul stench only such a large army could produce. The men waited. Long minutes passed without the slightest sound. Finally, Dainz moved from his position coming over to stand by Thane. “What are they doing?” he whispered. “Can you see them?”

  Thane nodded. “Oh yes, I can see them. They have stopped just beyond the reach of your bows.”

  “What do they do?”

  “It is my guess that they are trying to build the fear in your men. The longer they are made to wait, knowing the enemy is near and about to spring, the more chance there is for fear to take their hearts.”

  Dainz glanced down the line on either side. Thane was right. He could see the men twitching, moving from foot to foot, ready for the fight but hating the wait.

  “I’ll take care of this,” Dor offered and then nocked an arrow and pulled back on his bow. Arching it high in the air he paused for a moment, checking his target, and then let fly. The slight twang of the string echoed in the silence and many of the captain’s men also pulled back on their bows as if to fire.

  “Hold!” Dainz shouted and then a sudden strangled cry echoed up the pass toward them.

  Dor smiled. “Got him.”

  There was a silent pause and the air itself seemed to charge with an expectant energy, coiling itself and preparing to strike. Then, with a sudden roar like thunder following lightning, they were blasted with the charging cry of the enemy. The sound hit them like a terrible wave attempting to hurl them off their perch as the enemy rushed forward.

  “Hold until they are in range,” Dainz shouted above the cacophony while running back to his position. He looked back at Thane who nodded his understanding and then raised a hand for the signal. A black mass filled the narrow corridor racing toward them with a lust for blood that could almost be felt in the air.

  Thane watched them, seeing the mix of goblins and orcs charging ahead and suddenly became aware of the absence of any trolls. Could they be headed for the other pass while the men fought here? Had Zadok split his army? He shook his head. He’d seen them enter the pass. He knew they were with the group. Why then were they not in the charge? He had no time to ponder the problem as the black mass quickly covered the ground between them.

  He dropped his hand and Dainz’s voice cut through the din. “Fire!” As one the twang of a hundred bows pressed against the roar of the approaching enemy. Their arrows arched through the pass finding targets all along the line of the rushing horde but none heard the cries of the dying over their fevered shrieks of anxiety to reach the wall and the hated men that guarded it. The dead were swallowed up by the bodies of those who followed and were trampled into pulp where they had fallen.

  Like a dark fog, Zadok’s army filled the pass, their gyrating forms finally closing the gap to the wall and becoming visible to the men above. “Fire at will,” Dainz shouted and then twisted to the side as an enemy’s arrow slightly grazed his cheek.

  The enemy broke against the wall like water, the first two rows of fighters crushed against the rock by those pushing from behind. The sound of arrows being shot from both sides filled the early morning air like the buzz of an angry swarm of hornets. The man next to Thane suddenly fell back, an arrow protruding from the back of his neck as Dor and Thane continued to fire into the crowd below.

  For an hour they exchanged bow fire, the enemy being cut down in mass while an occasional arrow found its mark with a man on the wall. And still they kept coming, piling up like fire wood at the fortification’s base.

  Dor laughed as arrow after arrow found its mark in the crowd below. “It’s too easy!” he shouted, as Thane took out another goblin with a shot through the heart. Hundreds of orcs and goblins had been taken down but the horde continued to press forward, the dead bodies pushed in against the wall or crushed into the ground under the feet of those who replaced them. The once white wall was now covered in gore and blood.

  Thane reached for another arrow but to his horror was greeted by an empty quiver. Looking to Dor’s he found his friend had only five. Ducking below the parapet he raced down the line checking quivers as he went. Most were in the s
ame shape.

  Racing back to Dainz, he pulled the captain down and shouted above the noise. “Captain, we are almost out of arrows.”

  Glancing down the line, Dainz nodded his understanding. “How long before our first relief arrives?”

  He shook his head. “I have not had time to check. If they ride with speed, I would guess it to be sometime tomorrow.”

  Dainz thought for a moment and then nodded. “Hold your fire,” he yelled. “Hold your fire!” Dor shot his last arrow, taking an orc in the eye before dropping down like everyone else and looking toward the captain. Thane shook his head at their stupidity. They’d been taken in. It had been Zadok’s plan all along. The enemy, as they were, had been no threat against the wall, yet they had emptied almost all of their arrows into them anyway.

  “All arrows to me,” Dainz called. The men passed down what was left of their arrows, filling quivers as they went, until Dainz was surrounded by ten quivers holding twenty-five arrows apiece. He looked at Thane realizing what he had already determined and then sighed. “All right,” he said, “pass these out again, only five per person. The remaining come back to me.” The men next to him nodded, carrying out his orders as they passed the arrows back relaying his orders down the line as they did so.

  The shouts from below dropped off as the air broke with the sound of banging drums. Thane looked over the wall to see the enemy suddenly retreating back into the pass. “They retreat,” he called to the captain. Dainz rose and looked, the predawn slowly starting to give light enough at their backs to allow the HuMans a better view of the battlefield below. Both waited and watched for long minutes with nothing but the drums confirming the enemy’s presence. Then, out of the black beyond, large shapes suddenly materialized like specters in a fog.

  “Trolls,” Thane confirmed. Ten large bodies marched forward, slowly approaching the wall. Thane’s hand instinctively dropped for one of the arrows at his side but stopped at Dainz’s command.

  “Hold, Master Thane,” the captain called. “Let us first see what they are about.”

  He nodded, and then caught sight of the white flag carried by the troll out in front. “They come to parlay?”

  “Can trolls even talk?” Dor wondered aloud.

  “Beware Captain,” Thane hissed a warning to Dainz. “There is something that smells worse than the filth of the dead in all of this.”

  Dainz just nodded as they watched the trolls approach. As soon as they came to the first dead body, one of the trolls picked it up. “Do they come to clear the field?” Dainz asked, but his answer came almost immediately as the troll heaved the body forward against the wall. Another body took flight as another troll picked up the dead and also threw it forward.

  “What is this?” Dor asked aloud.

  Thane risked a look over the wall seeing that the dead bodies created a mound that ran halfway up the wall. Another body dropped on it near the top as realization suddenly struck him. “They’re building a ramp with the dead!”

  “What?” Dainz looked over the wall confirming what Thane had just revealed.

  “Dor,” Thane called, “take out the one with the flag.”

  “But our arrows,” Dainz objected.

  “Trolls are natural cowards,” he quickly explained as Dor drew back and took aim. “They will retreat if they feel they are outnumbered or at a disadvantage.”

  Dor let fly, catching the troll holding the flag right through his left eye, immediately dropping him to the passage floor. The other trolls threw or dropped the dead they had picked up and with a roar of anger raced back the way they had come. But just as they passed out of sight, other forms rushed forward followed by the deafening roar of the advancing army.

  “Hooks and ladders!” Dainz shouted as the first wave reached the mound of death below and scurried up the bodies carrying grappling hooks and ladders. “Hold your arrows,” he shouted. “Prepare the oil!”

  All at the wall stowed their bows and pulled their swords preparing to cut the ropes from any hooks that made it over the wall or push back the ladders that were now being set and thrust forward. The horde swarmed up the stacked dead, pressing their weight against the ladders as they were pushed against the wall and the lead trolls took to the rungs. They had not counted on the pile up of dead bodies to cut the height of the wall in half, so no poles had been prepared to push back a ladder assault. As the men tried to shove against the heavy ladders filling with climbing trolls, they exposed themselves to the many enemy arrows that suddenly filled the air. Many of the men went down in the first assault.

  “We can’t get throw the ladders back!” one of the men closest to Dainz shouted as a grappling hook bit into the wall next to him. Dainz’s sword fell quickly on the rope attached to it, dropping the climber back into the sea of enemy bodies below. All around them more hooks and ladders seemed to be attaching themselves to the wall as the enemy climbed, coming dangerously close to overrunning the top.

  Thane pressed hard against a ladder in front of him but was unable to move it, almost taking an arrow through his chest as it glanced past his side just under his arm. He fell back just as a troll’s head suddenly appeared at the wall. Thrusting his swords forward in a scissor move, he quickly dispatched the enemy but was almost immediately greeted by another troll following right behind. Other fights were breaking out all along the wall as more trolls made it to the top and were engaging the dwindling number of defenders.

  Thane paused as a troll reached the edge of the parapet and was beginning to climb over. Calling forth a sudden burst of wind, he caught the troll right in the chest and sent it flailing back against the ladder and another troll just reaching the top. Both trolls held to the ladder as it suddenly separated from the wall toppling all that held to it back into the sea of bodies below.

  “Pour the oil!” Dainz cried, running to help battle a troll that was getting the better of the soldier trying to fight him off. The fighting on the wall was quickly becoming desperate as the men at the great cauldrons lifted large handles protruding from the iron bowls and tilted them forward. The boiling oil spilled out onto the massing army below cutting off the screams of the dying almost as soon as the heated liquid devoured their skin.

  There was a slight lull in the onslaught as the putrid smell of burnt flesh wafted its way into the air. The men at the cauldrons quickly refilled their pots with the extra oil, but it was sure to take too long before it was hot enough to cause any effect on the fighters below. Almost instantly, the dead were replaced by others who were eager to scale the wall and destroy the defenders above.

  Dor ducked beneath a swinging cudgel aimed at his head before bringing his sword shooting up into his opponent’s groin, dropping the troll to his knees before taking off its head. Rushing over to help the captain take out an unusually large troll he yelled, “Have them pour the rest of the oil on the enemy.”

  “But it’s not heated yet,” the captain answered, thrusting his sword into the neck of another troll just reaching the top of one of the ladders.

  Dor just smiled. “I have an idea.”

  Dainz pulled his gore-covered sword back and then stepped away from the fray. “I’ll tell the one on the right,” he shouted. “You get the one back there,” he finished, motioning to the cauldron closest to Dor and Thane’s position. Dor returned to his post and quickly relayed the message. The men stared at him for a moment as if not understanding but when they saw the others suddenly dumping their oil over the wall, they quickly follow suit. Dor picked up one of the blazing logs set beneath the great pot and motioned with it towards Dainz who was watching him curiously from his position. A smile suddenly broke onto the captain’s face as understanding quickly washed over him.

  “Back from the wall!” he shouted to his men as they struggled with the enemy that seemed to be breeching it now at will. The men quickly followed orders, allowing more trolls to make it to the top and over before Dor and Dainz tossed their ignited logs over the side.

  Almost
instantly, a great rush of flames shot up from below quickly engulfing the ladders, hooks, and bodies that were on them. The air was filled with the choking scent of burnt flesh sending up a black plume of smoke and ash that threatened to suffocate any who were too close. The trolls on the wall, suddenly feeling the tide of victory sweeping back, were quickly eliminated. Below, the flames caught onto more of the living, burning eyes and bubbling the skin of those pressed closest to the front. Long moments of torturous burning took the enemy as the press from behind did not allow them to retreat. Many caught near enough to the flames tried to scream but were cut off as lungs shriveled in the fire’s heat.

  As the last troll was taken down on the wall, a great cheer went up from the men above as the first rays of a new morning’s sun broke through the night, shining brightly at their backs. They had held against the horde. The great body of trolls paused and wavered for a moment before turning as one and rushing back up the pass. Any who were too slow or were turned the wrong way were trampled in the retreat, now in full force, running away from the decimating fire.

  The men rested against the parapet, dressing the wounds of those who could still fight and removing from the wall those too injured to continue or dead. The smoke still curled up behind them as the fires still burned the filth that had piled up. None could eat on the wall due to the awful smell of burning tissue so they went in shifts back to the barracks to get something to eat and wash away some of the gore left from fighting.

  Dor and Thane were among the first shift to go since Thane needed to report to Haykon. Dor chewed silently on a piece of bread as Thane settled in against the barrack’s on the outer south side. Here he could do what was needed without being interrupted by the other soldiers. Though still respectful of two Tjal-Dihn warriors, many of the HuMans had voiced their thanks and showed as much support and friendship as they thought would be acceptable. Thane was grateful for the attempt at camaraderie but still wondered what they might feel should they know his true nature. Luckily, none had seen, or understood, what had happened when he’d knocked the troll and ladder back using the wind, but he knew that as the war progressed it would become evident that they were dealing with no mere Tjal.