Kingdom's Forge: Book 01 - Paladin's Redemption

by Kade Derricks

  She checked her fellow spellcasters’ work. A young woman to her right struggled with her trees, and Sera added her own strength to the task. Then she climbed down to see about her father while a second group of mages took up their places, ready to shield the newly-grown refuge from enemy spells.

  She hoped Dain had found a refuge of his own.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Dain called the retreat.

  For two days now, he and his troops had been fighting off the enemy. His armored wood elves held their own against the golden elf troops, but the enemy spellcasters, though few in number, made all the difference. The onslaught of their fireblasts had shattered his lines again and again, their lightning ripping ragged holes in his army. Only by ambush had the wood elves been able to inflict serious casualties without losing an equal portion of their own men. But the enemy was learning. Now, all too frequently and far too quickly, the Golden recovered and counterattacked. This morning had been no different.

  “We are running out of room,” Larcet said. He drained a waterskin then continued. “Behind us there’s a deep bend in the Wessen and they are trying to herd us into it.”

  “Can we break free to the east?” Dain asked.

  “There is a trail that leads toward Galena, but the men are too tired to run again.”

  “If we turn to run and can’t stay ahead of them it will be a slaughter.”

  “What are you thinking?” Larcet asked.

  Dain held in a frustrated sigh. The elf knew the situation as well as he. We have no place left to run and no one to relieve us.

  “We’re too exhausted to flee and our spellcasters are as recovered as they are likely to get. We’ve given them what little rest we can afford. Those bastards have got to be tired by now as well. We could make a stand.”

  Larcet pointed to a large hill to the north.

  “The Wessen sweeps around the back of that hill. The path up narrows around some steep ravines and will reduce the advantage of their numbers.”

  Dain knew the decision was his. He had already reached it. They couldn’t run forever. He straightened his shoulders and faced the hill.

  “Order the spellcasters and reserve units uphill. Bring one mage here to blanket the area in fog and cover the retreat. I want the others held back for their final push. We’ll live or die up there.”

  Larcet gave a grim nod and began shouting orders.

  Two hours later, Dain led the defenses at the hill’s base. He had sent Larcet to organize a group of warriors—those with stronger casting abilities—into engineers, and they had moved boulders and grown thorny brambles to create a low wall around the hill’s base. A narrow, deliberate gap had been left in its center. If the enemy wanted to advance, they would have to funnel through it. In the gap Dain and a group of warriors waited. He spoke to them.

  “General Larcet is preparing more defenses behind us, some surprises for our guests. He needs time to finish his work and we are going to buy for him. This hill…this is where we stop running. This is where we bleed our enemies dry.”

  Dain didn’t know how many understood him, only a few spoke Common. They could interpret for the others. He flexed his hand around the hilt of his sheathed sword. It felt good, solid. The midday sun shone bright overhead. The wait wouldn’t be long.

  This time, the golden elves didn’t bother forming into lines. The daily ambushes had worn down their discipline, leaving behind a smoldering and mindless rage. They broke into the clearing at the hill’s base and saw the waiting defenders. They howled. Like a great wave rolling against the shore, they crashed forward.

  In the moments before they collided, Dain thought of Sera and Jin. Light grant that they are safe and if the price for their safety is my life then so be it.

  He narrowed his eyes, selecting the first enemy he would strike and waiting for him to get close. The elf’s armor was dirty and dented in two places. Several links of chainmail were broken on his chest. Dirt streaked his gaunt face.

  Dain plunged his sword into the broken mail. The elf’s own sword fell from his dying grip into the mud below. A new enemy took his place almost instantly and Dain fought on. He stopped seeing their faces. Tomahawk and sword struck and struck again, drawing blood each time. He didn’t feel human, but rather like some great engine of death and destruction and wrath.

  After he knew not how long, he found himself in a lull in the fighting, one long enough to turn toward where he knew the main force of the Golden would be. There were no live enemies nearby, but more had arrived and were organizing themselves into a battle line three hundred yards from the weary wood elves. Their commanders barked out orders to the restless troops. These would advance with discipline, he knew. First though they would try opening the gap. Two mages walked out ahead of their line and confirmed his thoughts.

  “It’s time,” Dain said to a pair of waiting shapeshifters. At his words they transformed, growing wings, feathers, and talons then taking to the skies. Dain drew on the Light, readying himself. He needed to buy them time to get aloft. He stepped out into the open alone, weapons raised.

  “These wood elves are under my protection!” he called. For the plan to work, he needed to draw the mage’s fire. In their hands, rotating spheres of black, planar energy sprang to life.

  Dain continued walking.

  “Did you hear what I said? These people are under my protection. Return to your own lands.”

  How much longer?

  The spheres pulsed. They grew larger. One mage visibly strained with effort, spun around once, and threw his fireblast. The spell closed the distance, leaving a smoking trail rising in its wake. It burned hot enough that the ground beneath baked and steamed.

  Dain focused all his strength into his spellshield. The fiery blast exploded just feet from him, meeting his shield, then collapsed inward on itself and vanished.

  From behind him the tired wood elves cheered. The first mage’s mouth tightened. He clenched his jaw. His stronger companion continued to cast, focusing more power into his own attack, readying to release his black sphere.

  Before he could do so, a shriek came from above followed by a blur of talon and beak and feather that slammed into him with brutal force. A second blur collided with his companion scant moments later. At diving speed, the two shapeshifted elves had hit the mages far harder than any warrior’s spear ever could have. Razor beaks and hard talons tore into the two, shredding them to bloody ribbons in seconds.

  Other Golden elves rushed forward to aid the spellcasters, but the falcons took flight well before they reached them, leaving only two heaps of torn, red flesh and ripped cloth in their wake.

  Dain ran back to his own lines as the invaders collapsed in on them. He had no intentions of facing them along. Once there, he turned to meet the enemy again.

  The fighting seemed to never end, though by the sun’s advance, it had been less than an hour. His limbs grew tired and weary with exertion. His weapons seemed ever heavier, and sticky warm blood—some his own—coated him from head to boot.

  The wood elves held out longer than he had expected they could. They fought fiercely, valiantly, losing a third of their number and still pressing on. Finally, there was another short break in the fighting and he called them back into the next ready position.

  Larcet waited for him there.

  “Are we ready up above?” Dain asked.

  “Yes, the mages are resting. How does it look?”

  “Like we are about to get wiped out. There are still too many of them, and they are determined. Something odd about them though…they look thin, and they seem weak and tired. More so than I would expect. I don’t think they are being fed.” Dain remembered Sera’s destruction of the supply train and smiled. “And if that’s true, they can’t last long. We could starve them out.”

  Larcet’s face fell. “Yes, except we’ve just cornered ourselves on a hilltop. Now they can resupply without losing us. We should have kept moving.”

  Swearing, Dain ad
monished himself. He should have seen it. He should have known. Now he’d traded away his advantage in mobility for a worthless hill, and the Golden wouldn’t have to march to find them anymore. They wouldn’t wear themselves down on pursuit.

  “You couldn’t have known, champion. And it was I who suggested the hill in the first place.” Larcet placed a hand on his shoulder. “We could not have run any farther and we may yet starve them out.”

  “I should have known. The responsibility was mine. Save the excuses for the families of our dead. If…there’s anyone left to tell them.”

  Myria and Breen led the winding column of armed miners.

  Verdant, with Drogan Baylest at his side, rode a horselength behind the wood elf sisters into their enchanted homeland. The priest thought on how the tides had turned in favor of war. Drogan—he had been the cause. The Lucky Seven’s owner had managed to convince a majority of the smaller miners to send aid to the wood elves. As he had predicted, the larger mine operators ignored the call for help without exception. Unfortunately for them, word quickly spread among Galena’s populace of the golden elf treachery, and many of their workers eagerly joined up of their own free will.

  “Man’s desire for revenge can never be underestimated,” Drogan had said.

  Fully three thousand men, armed with either shortswords or pickaxes, walked after him now. They had agreed with Myria and Breen to meet up with the wood elf king’s army and combine their forces.

  That was the plan, in any event.

  “How much further?” Verdant asked Myria. She was the more talkative of the sisters; he wasn’t altogether sure Breen understood Common at all.

  She twisted around in the saddle to face him.

  “Soon.”

  Her sea-green eyes shone at him and she held her lips curled in a playful smile. She looked all too eager for the battle ahead. Though he offered a smile back, he didn’t feel half so eager.

  For another hour they continued among the great towering pines and leafy oaks. The land’s primal beauty stunned him. Butterflies in thousands of complex masterworks of color, size, and pattern banked and dived on invisible air currents, floating in and out of the narrow shafts of light that pierced the canopy. Songbirds warbled in the trees overhead. He had seen a black bear and her cubs fishing in a meandering stream. She had watched, with only mild interest, as the column passed by.

  Like the other travelers to Galena, Verdant had entered the valley along the old road. That more northerly route merely skirted the forest’s edge, and the golden elves had stripped clean large tracts of land at the roadside for farming. Here the land remained in its most natural state. The warm weather too amazed him. While bitter winter raged outside, autumn-tinted leaves still clung to the trees here. He thought to ask Myria about it.

  “What you would call winter lasts but two weeks here,” she told him. “Just enough time for the final leaves to fly and a hint of snow to fall before the trees bud out and spring begins anew.”

  Verdant was admiring an open meadow alongside their path, his mind wandering, when the elves stopped. Was their army so close already?

  In their own native tongue, the sisters talked among themselves before Breen rode forward alone. Myria turned her horse around, facing Drogan and himself.

  “Sounds of battle ahead. My sister will scout, but you should ready yourselves.”

  “But we haven’t met up with your king’s host yet,” Verdant said.

  “Looks like we improvise. How far?” Drogan interjected.

  “A mile, maybe two,” she answered. “Sound does not travel well here.”

  Drogan turned and passed the word along to the miners behind him. They in turn sent the message back further and it bounced from man to man like a chain. Seconds passed slowly by and the improvised army waited for Breen’s return.

  Verdant had never seen a real battle before. Until last week, he’d never even seen a fight before, just the aftermath. With Razel and the injured man’s lives on the line, he hadn’t the time to really think about it. Everything had been instinct. Now, his mind had far too much time to dwell on what was to come. He felt the mild rush of panic tight in his chest. He tried forcing himself to breathe, to relax.

  Drogan, by contrast, sat calm beside him, confident and serene. If the mine owner had any inward fear, it never showed. Verdant envied him. Soon, perhaps this very hour, they would begin a battle to avenge his fallen brother-in-law and to show the Golden that they weren’t to be toyed with. Men would die. And a good portion of the responsibility was his for stirring them to action. His palms felt clammy and his heartbeat raced. He wondered how soldiers controlled their anxiety. Is it a trick of the mind or their experience and training?

  When visiting Neive and her children Maib would regale his family with wonderful stories of all the battles he had fought in. Verdant had long admired them. At the time, they had seemed terribly exciting compared to the dull life of a simple priest. Maib was dead now. Murdered by the golden elves for the riches he had guarded. Today, those same golden elves would try killing him, too. Perhaps a dull life was better.

  Razel came riding up from behind them. The colorful beads he normally wore in his beard had been replaced with smiling silver skulls. They clanked loudly as his horse walked.

  “About time we got this started, I’m damned tired of riding. And I’m ready to kill me some pointy ears,” Razel said. He smiled at their wood elf guide, clearly hoping for a response.

  “It must be tough to sneak up on an enemy with all that clattering around on your face,” Myria commented.

  “Dwarves don’t sneak, cowards sneak. We want our enemies to know right where to find us.”

  “That’s because those squat legs of yours are too short to catch them,” she quipped.

  The dwarf scowled. From experience, Verdant knew how much Razel hated not having the last word. He opened his mouth to say more when Drogan interrupted.

  “Maybe I need some of these wood elves down in the mine to keep you in line, Razel,” he said.

  The dwarf’s face turned a bright shade of red to match his beard and he stammered for a quick response. Verdant chuckled at his friend’s discomfort. For a moment, his nerves stilled.

  Looking down the line of men behind them, he saw a broad range of emotions reflected on the faces there. Some must have felt the same nervousness. A majority, though, wore the same resolved look Drogan wore. They are angry, he thought, and it is overruling their nerves. It makes them strong. The priest prayed they were strong enough for the fight to come.

  Breen soon returned, galloping her horse around a bend in the road ahead and coming back into view. She spoke in the rapid Elvish to Myria then dismounted. She lifted her sheathed weapons and replaced them, making sure they would pull free easily. Myria addressed the miners.

  “The invaders have driven some of our warriors up onto a hillside. They are trapped, and the Golden are trying to finish them off. We are at the enemy’s flank. By striking quickly, we can take them completely unaware,” she explained. She and Breen tied their horses to a nearby tree.

  Drogan, the other mounted men, and Verdant followed suit, dismounting and tying their own mounts. Word spread back down the line behind them that it was time to meet the enemy. Weapons and gear rattled along the column while the men prepared themselves for what lay ahead. In low tones they spoke to each other, some offering assurances, some boldly making their claims of battlefield prowess, and some offering up prayers to their various gods and goddesses.

  Praying for the strength to kill another didn’t seem proper to Verdant, not for the Creator and his Light. Many wouldn’t agree with him, he knew. In Arctanon the priests blessed their armies before they went into battle against those of Ghent. The priests in Ghent did the same, he was sure. He believed the Creator called on him to oppose evil. And there were things of pure evil that walked the world, demons and the like, but were these golden elves truly evil?

  He took a breath and reminded himself of
why he was here.

  They had enslaved their fellow elves and made war on their neighbors. They had killed his sister’s husband. To cover up their crimes, they had tried to kill himself and Razel and the only witness. That made them evil enough.

  After all seemed ready, the sisters led them on a quick march up the path. As they approached the trail’s bend, he heard the sounds of fighting. Sharp cries rang out on the hill above as soldiers fought and died among the ancient trees. Steel hammered into steel as they wrestled with one another.

  Mouth dry, Verdant swallowed.

  The first enemies they encountered were bandaging their wounds when the miners swept into them. Verdant saw Drogan strike first, thrusting his sword through the chest of a golden elf. The surprised elf had been sitting on a tree stump, head down with one arm wrapped in a sling. Razel’s axe took a second elf with a bandaged leg.

  The violence, particularly against injured and unarmed men, horrified Verdant, but the frenzied miners around him didn’t hesitate.

  Twenty golden elves died in the span of a few heartbeats. None screamed out a warning, and the miners fought on. They began to climb the hill, striking at more of their unsuspecting enemies until a soldier cried out when a pickaxe sliced across his back. Only then did some of the warriors ahead recognize the danger and turn to face them.

  The miners, while untrained and undisciplined, were angry and fresh whereas the Golden had spent days tracking and chasing and ultimately cornering the wood elves. Golden were slain by the dozens. The fighting was unorganized and quickly broke down into single combat between miner and elf. Whenever the Golden tried forming up into ranks, Myria and Breen threw lightning, dispersing their formations. Verdant hadn’t guessed the sisters could spellcast. Ruthless as the miners were, Myria and Breen slew an even greater number. And by keeping the enemy scattered they saved the lives of many miners. He feared for them all if the sisters tired.