by Jeff Sabean
“Sibling rivalries are the same on every plane, I suppose,” Heishi whispered to Fion, who was attempting to keep the smile from his face as well.
“Now, how many warriors did you bring?” Fion asked Krait, finally breaking the tension and turning her attention to himself.
“There are twenty thousand orc warriors, and somewhere near three times that many goblins, although it is difficult to count those little beasts. We camped to the North of the city, and the entire area between the mountains is filled with my people. No one will be coming in or out of the city by the road, and our ballistae and catapults will keep their dragons at bay for now.”
“Excellent. With the thirty thousand of my people on the Eastern mountain, that only leaves the West side vulnerable, with the sea as the only avenue for escape.”
“Aki took my guys out to the West to set up some surprises for anyone attempting to sneak out that way to flank the orcs,” Heishi interjected. “Anti-personnel mines will not win this war, but they should go a long way to securing that ridge and keeping the elves in their city.”
“Excellent,” Fion repeated, walking back into the shelter and looking at the sand table again. “We have them cut off but will need an assault plan.”
“Do not rule out Yutri and the hill giants,” Shenroc answered. “Even if we can only gain the support of a hundred giants, they will go a long way to bringing that wall down.”
“Yes, but how long will it take, and what will these ‘high elves’ throw at us in the meantime?” mused Fion, staring intently at the map.
Chapter 15 – Hill Giants
Understanding the dire position his friends were in, Yutri ran off into the darkness as fast as his legs could carry him. His long strides were useful in these situations, but he knew his stamina would run out long before he reached the higher elevations where his mother’s people could be found.
After an hour or so, he slowed to a light jog, thinking back to his childhood as the miles passed quickly. He had been born among the giants, but his distinctly dwarvish features had quickly made him an outcast among them. He had done everything he could to fit in, but in his thirteenth year when his peers continued to grow past his seven-foot-tall height it was the final nail in his social coffin.
When he began to fight daily with the other children, his mother was given no choice but to take him to live with his father in the dwarvish city of Derlin, under the mountains far to the North. But if the giants had bullied young Yutri, the dwarves had been outright hostile. He had inherited the physical features of his father, but his mother’s height and intellect, which put him at a severe disadvantage with dwarves his own age.
Adding to the hostility, there was a long-time hatred between giants and dwarfs, so much so that Yutri still wondered how his parents had ever fallen in love. Neither would tell him the story, and simply explained that they had made a mistake believing that either culture would accept their marriage. They had each returned to their own people shortly after Yutri was conceived, and his father had not even known about the child until his mother dropped him off to be raised by him.
He had lived with his father until he was sixteen, which was still barely a child for a dwarf. In those few years his father had taught him the basics of blacksmithing, which was more than most other races ever learned. This set him up to be able to support himself in the world before he was once again run off by a city who would not accept the half-breed.
He had luckily found his way further and further South, finding rejection at every turn, until he stopped in the city of Terminus. Even then, all those years ago, it had been run by a different dictator, but the outcasts of society could find a home there. It was not much of a living, but at least he had been able to support himself and eventually met Shenroc, the best friend he could have ever hoped for. He was finally in a place where he was happy now that Jim was gone, and yet the reluctant hero had felt it necessary to follow his friend to someone else’s war.
And now he was returning to his mother’s people to ask them to join a war that did not concern them either.
“I must be crazy,” he muttered to himself as he reached the base of the mountain chain he had been searching for. The sun was rising behind him as he turned West, looking for the trail that would lead him to the village that had rejected him several decades before.
It took the rest of the day for him to find the trail, carefully concealed to keep “monster hunters” from finding the giants’ home, but rather than stopping to rest he began to climb as the sun went down. It would have been suicide if not for his superior low-light vision, some called it infravision, that he had inherited from his father. This was comforting as he climbed, knowing that if any of his mother’s people decided they did not want a visitor showing up in the dark that the boulder hurled at him would most likely miss in the lack of light.
The path wrapped up around the mountain, then down the other side, the trail no more than a few feet wide in most places, making it barely wide enough for the giants to slip through. It appeared to Yutri that the path had not been used in some time, and he hoped as he began his ascent up the next mountain that his mother’s clan would still be there.
His musings were halted suddenly as an enormous rock bounced off the path ahead of him, kicking up a giant cloud of dust. He ducked into the dust, pulling his shield and warhammer from his back smoothly as he crouched down.
“Did we’s git it?” he heard a male voice ask from above and to his left side.
“Of’n course we’s did,” came the reply from a female voice from the same direction.
As the two voices in the dark argued whether they should go check or wait until the morning, Yutri crept forward as stealthily as possible. His armor clanked more than he would want as he moved down the path, but the two sentries were arguing louder than the noises of his armor, so he was able to sneak right up to them before he was spotted.
“Hey, you’n should be dead,” the male giant stated, looking down at him from at least twice his height.
“I have heard that before,” Yutri replied smoothly, smiling at the sentries disarmingly.
“I knows this one,” the female stated, scrunching up her face as she tried to remember him. “His momma runned off with a dwarf, methinks.”
“Aye, good lady, and now I am back to see my mother and speak to the chief,” Yutri interjected before the conversation could go south. He maintained a solid hold on his weapon and shield as he watched the two for any sign of hostility.
“I sez we smash him,” the male stated, grinning and showing a mouth full of missing teeth as he lifted a club that was at least as long as Yutri was tall over his shoulder.
“He sez he wunts to speek with the chief,” the female replied, staring at the gigantic dwarf. “If chief sez smash, then we’s smash.”
Looking upset at being rebuked, the male waived to Yutri to follow him, then turned and led him to the giant village.
It was exactly as Yutri remembered it, with a single path winding between two walls of solid rock. There were cooking fires spread out along the path, marking the entrances to the caves where the giants lived. As he followed his escort, he smelled the cooking meat of every type of animal imaginable in these mountains, and on one spit he thought he saw the body of a human being cooked.
Shuddering, he picked up the pace to keep up with the taller giant, who led him to the enormous cave at the end of the trail where the tribal chief lived. As always, there was a large fire in front of the chief’s cave, and multiple guards standing around the fire glaring at the intruder. His escort waived for him to stay put, so he stood there trying to look as unthreatening as possible while he waited.
It did not take long for him to hear his name bellowed from the depths of the chief’s cave, and he tried not to wince as he heard footsteps stomping toward him, the ground shaking with each step.
Into the firelight stomped a massive hill giant, standing close to eighteen feet tall, wearing leather pants
, no shirt, and his scraggly hair sticking out as if he had just been woken up. The giant’s eyes fell on the giant-dwarf, and his scowl deepened, his face turning red in anger.
“Yutri, why you’s come back here? You not welcome,” the chief stated, glaring down at him.
“I came to see my mother and speak to you, Mudtrag,” Yutri replied calmly.
“You’s dwarf lovin’ momma be dead, and I don’t wants to talk to you. Be gone.”
Yutri paused, shocked at the news of his mother’s death. He stared hard at the chief, attempting to remain calm and remembering why he had come here.
“What happened to my mother?”
“She died. That’s how she be dead,” Mudtrag replied, giving him a look like he was stupid for asking such a ridiculous question.
Yutri thought about the response for a minute before restructuring his question: “How did she die?”
“Elf killed her dead,” Mudtrag answered, his scowl deepening. “She’s went out hunting, one o’ dem elfs hunted her dead.”
Yutri paused to digest this new information, hoping it would help him with the reason he had come.
“Which elves?” he asked, then clarified when the look on the chief’s face turned from anger to confusion. “Was it the brown ones or the white ones?”
“We’s got no problems with dem brown ‘uns,” Mudtrag replied, shaking his head. “It always be dem white ‘uns dat kills me family.”
“That is why I came to see you, mighty Mudtrag,” Yutri replied smoothly, hoping that flattery would at least get the chief to listen to his proposal. “Have you ever heard of the shadow elves? The black ones?”
Mudtrag shrugged his massive shoulders, but the look on his face showed he was gaining interest.
“They live under the ground,” Yutri explained, hoping to spark a memory, but still seeing the blank look of intrigue on the giant’s face. “The white elves spread lies about them, saying they are evil and attack the good people on the surface for no reason, but it is the white elves who do this!”
He paused again, hoping he was getting through to the listeners, but although the guards were all now listening attentively, he did not appear to be getting through to any of them.
“I have made some friends,” he continued tentatively. “These friends of mine are about to destroy the elf city that is close to here. They could use some help, so I came to see if you wanted to destroy an elf city with me.”
He held his breath as he stood his ground, staring up at the giant chieftain in front of him. He held back the information about who his friends were purposely but knew that if the chief agreed to join the war, he would have to give that information before he led them to the Western side of the city.
“I likes killin’ elves,” Mudtrag began, his eyes searching Yutri’s face for any sign of deception. “You’s ain’t tellin me sumptin, dwarf.”
Deciding it was time to lay his cards on the table, Yutri let out his breath and forged ahead.
“My friends I have made will be strange to you, great one. They are orcs, humans, shadow elves and brown elves. Mostly, anyway,” he replied tentatively.
Mudtrag stuttered a few times trying to find the words to reply to this new information.
“Humans? Orcs? These be yer friends you’s wants me to be helpin?”
“Aye, they are. And I will tell you why, mighty chief. If you help kill the elves, the rest will leave you and your clan alone to live in peace. They will not hunt you if you leave them alone. The white elves will not do that, they will continue to hunt our,” he paused seeing the look of rage cross the giant’s face, “your people for sport. They do it to the black elves now, and when they kill them all, they will come after you.”
The chief stepped back and started pacing in front of his cave, muttering to himself all the while. Occasionally he would stop, look at Yutri, mutter something under his breath, then continue his pacing.
After enough time that Yutri began to get anxious, Mudtrag stopped and looked him squarely in the face.
“You’s be talkin like dem, dwarf-kin,” he began solemnly, then broke into an evil grin. “Did dey teaches you to fight like dem?”
“Aye, I learned to fight,” Yutri replied, swinging his warhammer from his back with his right hand and slapping it across his left palm.
“If you’s can defeat Gruttor, maybe we’s kin talk some more.”
With that, the guard who had escorted Yutri to the chief’s cave stepped forward and swung the tree trunk of a club with no warning, swatting him to the side like a toddler and laughing as he raised the club to finish the job.
Chapter 16 – Guerrilla Tactics
Outside Harmonui, Heishi and his team finished explaining their plan for beginning the attack on the city, and Fion nodded in approval.
“Yes, this will be a good way to thin the defenders. Begin with all haste and let me know if I can assist with anything,” Fion replied, clearly happy with the plan.
“I need your people to make themselves seen when the sun rises,” Heishi replied. “How many are up there?”
“About 30,000 in all between warriors, ballistae teams, healers, and those proficient in the Art.”
“Perfect, and with the shadows it will blur the numbers but make it clear there is a large army to the East. With the road to the North blocked by the orcs and goblins, it will make a flanking movement from the West the only logical move for them. And that is where I will be waiting with my people to start this war of attrition.”
“Go quickly, human, the sun will rise soon, and my people will reveal themselves when it does,” Fion replied, unable to hide the grin on his face.
“I’ll send you a push when I am in place. I will need you and Krait to stand in front of your armies and call out Queen Linnie. Get her attention. Make sure she knows there are two armies out there so she sends soldiers to the West to flank Krait before she can prepare an assault on the city. We will take it from there.”
“Send me a push?” Fion asked, shaking his head in confusion.
“Sorry, that goes back to the old days when our radios to communicate with each other were push-to-talk. It just means I will call you on the communicator provided by Zatus when we are ready.”
“I understand. Vathio, will you be joining me with our people, or will you be joining your friends on the Western perimeter where the fighting will begin today?”
Di’eslo looked slowly back and forth from his brother to Heishi, then back again before answering.
“While I am ready to stand with our people once more, I feel that the other-worlders will need my healing abilities sooner than our people will. I will assist them until I can teach Aki more about the healing arts of our world, as he has shown promise in that area.”
“Very well, I agree that they will need you. Do not die, brother, I have missed you,” Fion replied, his face scrunching up a bit as he attempted to maintain a look of indifference.
“I will see you soon,” his brother answered, embracing him before turning to follow the humans out of their makeshift camp.
◆◆◆
As the sun began to rise in the East, the members of Ronin team laid in wait in the wood line to the West of the city, flanked by elves. There was a smaller gate on this side of the wall which led to a dirt road wide enough for two horse-drawn carts to travel side-by-side. After entering the woods, this road led up to the edge of the mountain where it split to the North, which would lead around behind the orc army, or continued up the side of the mountain and disappeared around the back.
Right on cue, the orc army began chanting and beating their drums, drawing attention to the North and the shadow elves launched several ballistae bolts toward the walls, causing little to no damage but keeping the defenders’ heads down. The group on the western side stayed quiet, and within the hour a contingent of several hundred knights, fully armored and moving swiftly on horseback, came thundering out the side gate and up the road to the West.
Smiling, H
eishi and his team watched the knights pass by, remaining hidden and waiting patiently until the last of the group was past. Moving swiftly, the woodland elves pulled logs cut from deep in the forest across the road, creating a hasty roadblock just past the bend in the road where no one from the city could see it. The barrier was tall enough to be seen from a distance, but still low enough that a charging horse could jump it, which was exactly what the team wanted. With the logs in place, Aki and Zatus set claymore mines in the center of the roadblock, covered them with leaves, and quickly retreated to the sides of the road with the detonators.
“What did your people place in the road?” asked Am’eria Waesren, laying in the bushes beside Heishi.
“They are explosive devices packed with small metal balls that are launched toward the enemy when detonated,” he began to explain, then stopped as he saw the confusion on her face. “You will see soon enough but let us suffice to say those two devices will kill a score or more of our enemies.”
Shaking her head in disbelief, the elf stood to a crouch and moved away from the human, tripping over a branch as she did.
“That one is going to get someone killed, Top,” Tiane muttered, lying next to a tree with his sniper rifle aimed down the road.
“She definitely has never been in a fight before, but Ja’ade told me the elves are well trained and deadly with their bows. Might even give you a run for your money,” Heishi replied with a grin.
“Not with these new rounds Zatus made for my rifle. You are going to absolutely love this.”
Their conversation was cut short as they heard explosions from the road intersection.
“Get ready, they will be headed back this way shortly,” Heishi quietly called to his ambush team.
The sound of hooves thundering down the packed dirt road toward them a few minutes later supported his theory that the elves would retreat and regroup in the city when confronted with the unknown technology. The elvish knights rounded the bend in the road about two hundred yards from the roadblock, and immediately slowed when it came into their line of sight.
