by Peter Plasse
“Blake,” she snarled, “say something to them.”
“What do you want me to say?” He shrugged. “That I agree with you? Of course I agree with you. But ordering them home is not going to do it. Each of them has to say the chant themselves, remember? Assuming the stupid thing even works.”
When they had all finally left, he put his hand over hers and said, “Let them go for now. We have a few days to persuade them. Let them help in any way they can, and that will give us some time to convince them that we need to be on our way. All right?”
She sighed as two solitary tears started to make their way down her cheeks, which she brushed angrily away. “We’ll never convince them,” she murmured. “That rotten, horrid, wizard-imposter … That sneaky, shady, underhanded, wizard-imposter …
Leaving the fortress in Ghasten the day after Thornst Scrappen delivered his fiery speech to the war council, the Trolls wasted no time in implementing the battle plan proposed by the freshman general, who had seen to it that his detractors were cooked and eaten. But, unlike the original strategy whereby the entire force was to hammer away at the front door of Belcourt in one overwhelming frontal assault, his plan called for the Troll army to be split in two, with half attacking the unprotected city and half deployed to the Vultura theater to engage the returning, now allied, Vultura-Ravenwild armies. None of his troops were left in Ghasten. They had no intention of ever returning. Why leave forces behind to defend something that was never going to serve as home again? He also reasoned that this strange floating vessel, with its frightful weaponry, would be of no use to the defenders of the distant castle, and there had been no word of these lethal killing-things being anywhere else.
All they needed was for the western faction to delay the arrival of Rolan’s soldiers long enough to give the frontal-assault forces enough time to penetrate the Wall, and they could then easily slaughter any of the citizens who presently occupied the city. Thornst had always wondered why Venomisis had recalled troops from a city he had already occupied. He could understand it for the Vultura situation, sure, but bringing home the soldiers from Belcourt had never made any sense to him. In all honesty, he thought it was idiotic; even knowing that, all indications were that it was essentially a city without a defense. And with only a handful of citizens, if that, living there, Thornst did not anticipate any serious resistance in the capital city. Thus, the most important objective became not so much defeating the combined Ravenwild/Vultura armies, but rather slowing them down enough so that if and when Rolan finally did manage to cut his way through the Slovan forces, it would be too late. Leopold Malance Venomisis would already be sitting on the throne, and Rolan would be on the outside of his precious Wall looking in.
Of course it all depended on the frontal-assault group beating Rolan’s army to the southern reach of the Knife Edge, but all of the scouting reports said they would win the race easily, as long as they kept on the move without stopping. So the Troll regulars were driven like the demons of the underworld drive their minions: ruthlessly, brutally, without mercy, and with great cruelty. And in their torment they gained strength out of the hatred they felt for the way they were abused, and that same hatred fueled their determination to win and end the torment.
They marched until their mission was finally right in front of them, prompting hundreds to add bone-chilling screams to the endless pounding of the war drums.
They had made it to the Knife Edge, where they began their slow, unimpeded, single-file ascent. Each Troll carried his shield on his back to ward off the arrows and spears shot and pitched from above. But no arrows, nor the like, would fly from the flat that day. There were no archers on it, as there should have been, to slow their advance. Nor were there any infantry wielding spears. There were only a few thousand citizens, most of these Stephanie’s loyalists, all equipped with bows and arrows from the catacombs under the castle.
Erik’s plan called for the placement of roughly half of them inside the Wall, at the site of the break in the great structure, on monstrous platforms that they had erected at the same time as they were repairing the Wall itself, where they would be able to fire from a distance of no more than fifty feet away upon the Troll horde who would soon throw everything they had at their one vulnerable spot. The other half, all volunteers, would be placed on top of the Wall itself. Blake and Jessica would be two of these.
Stephanie had labored long and hard using her supernatural strength to haul up block after impossibly heavy block of stone from the rubble below, and it was significantly improved compared to what it had been. Still, it was not enough. The void proved to be too great, and in the end she succumbed to the sickness of her second Bindu-trance in way of the Bindu-ward art of magic and spell. So now she lay unmoving and unresponsive in a room high up in the loftiest tower of the castle.
Outside the door to the room in which she lay unconscious in the Bindu-trance, and therefore unable to say the five simple words to end the madness, Maxilius Bravarus, his sister Daria, Mr. And Mrs. Strong, Orie, Jacqueline, Ryan, Gracie, Silver, and Cinnamon waited, each hoping, each praying in his or her own way, that she would awaken.
Saviar Murlis and Titan Mobst were on top of the Great Wall, far off in the distance, supervising the positioning of the cannons and getting ready to do as much damage as possible to the approaching Slovan arm by way of the devastating firepower of these lethal killing machines. Jared and Diana were organizing the ball-and-shot and powder teams for the fastest possible reloading. All of the wizards were about the business of making more firepowder and batch after batch of the metal balls of various sizes to be fired from the great guns, as well as fashioning as many of Jared’s grenades as they could, to be dropped on the attacking Trolls below. Eight hundred of the Agden Wolves were in place to deal with any Trolls that managed to get by the void and down to ground level. Brutus would lead these under the watchful eye of Patriachus, who would remain on top of the wall to coordinate the Wolf attacks.
Forrester Wiley Ragamund had been very, very busy in the last few days, using the tell-all to transport the reinforcements. The cannons had been the biggest problem, but he had found a way. He had noticed a very strange effect on the tell-all’s power as soon as Stephanie was carried, comatose, to her room. It had increased about fifty-fold, and finding that he could now transport many more than one individual at a time, sometimes up to as many as ten or twenty, he began bringing in some non-military he happened to meet along the way on his enchanted trips to The Gate, and other places to which he ventured to recruit help. Many of these were weaponless, simple country-folk, but a farmer with a pitchfork is a better soldier than none at all.
Owing to his tireless efforts, the Ravenwild defenders had begun to develop a small defense force within the castle, when in the predawn gloom the Troll war drums said in no uncertain terms that the battle was at hand.
At first light, with not a hint of delay, they surged forward at the rent in the Wall, dozens of teams pitching gigantic scaling ladders. Troll soldiers began creeping up them a step at a time, all firing shot after shot from the crossbows that they carried underneath their turtle-like shields. The Ravenwild forces, at the outset, suffered significant losses as many of these lethal projectiles found their marks.
Trolls that managed to avoid the arrows fired by the Ravenwild bowmen on the staging inside the Wall, lowered themselves down on its inner aspect by thick ropes that they flung over the edge, using stout grappling hooks to secure them to the Wall itself. Every single warrior on top of the Wall was forced to break away from their bow-and-arrow duties at some point to slice as many of these lines as they could, and every time they did, the Trolls sliding down them would fall to their deaths, shrieking madly all the way, but there were far too many of them for the Ravenwild forces to completely stop.
It was slow progress, but it was deadly progress, as several of the Trolls nearly succeeded in being the first to break through the forward lines of defense. It was all the great Wolves could do
to hold them in check.
And just as surely as the Troll ladders continued to fall, just as surely they continued to press the attack, never wavering, never tiring. The screams of those falling became a constant cacophony of death. Hundreds died. Hundreds more replaced them. More than once, Blake glanced over at Jessica as they fired arrow after desperate arrow for hour after desperate hour at the hordes trying to smash the resistance. And every few minutes, one or more of the cannons would roar from down below them, and dozens of Trolls would rocket backwards, dying in the smoke.
It was the day from hell, and about when it began to look like all hope was lost, sweet darkness finally descended and the Trolls withdrew the attack.
An eerie silence settled over the city, as if Death himself had laid a hand directly over it. All the sounds seemed muffled, from the creaking of the wheels of the carts, as foodstuff and munitions were distributed, to the banging of a random loose shutter.
Two of the six cannons had melted to useless states as a result of the heat from their constant use during the daylong battle. Paulimas assembled a team at once to effect repairs.
Almost nobody spoke as they chewed on canned flatbread and fish, washing it down with the city’s fine water. Crate after crate of arrows was hauled up from the storage rooms in the castle cellars. Swords, axes, and maces were honed until they glinted in the Ravenwild moonlight. Sleep was had by those who could, but not much.
Most importantly, because Forrester kept staunchly to the chore of transporting more reinforcements via the tell-all, with unbending determination for the fourth night in a row, so at first light there was a sizable, if not dominant, military presence inside the Wall. They were stronger now, and they knew it. They also knew their situation was fragile. If one major rupture happened in their lines of defense it was over.
Once again the sun began to rise over the rim of the mountains to the east, illuminating the amassing Troll battalions that would soon unleash their berserk rampage up at the patchwork defenders of the Wall. It was the same assault as the day before, except this time the amount of ladders thrown against the Great Wall at the breach was about three times as many as had been pitched the day before, causing the shooters above to struggle greatly with the sheer numbers of those coming at them. Notwithstanding the addition of actual military bowmen, thanks to the tireless efforts of Forrester, the great number of targets in front of them was proving thorny. It also meant that there were many more of the deadly Troll crossbolts being fired at the Ravenwild defenses.
For a while it looked as though the Trolls might prevail. At times, dozens of them managed to break through and into the resistance forces behind the second wave of archers on the platforms, but these were eventually overwhelmed and dispatched by the Agden Wolves, who tore at them mercilessly, now working together with the newly arrived foot soldiers, who assailed them with sword and mace after the Wolves had had their way with them.
And all day long the cannons pounded the Trolls as they battered the defending forces in wave after never-ending wave.
By mid-afternoon, substantial numbers of the enemy had battled their way to positions far inside of the Wall, giving the third line of defense all it could handle to prevent the onslaught from pouring into the city itself and gaining access to the trees. But eventually, after hours of brutal hand fighting, all those who had managed to make it this far were chewed up and hacked apart, the Wolves yet again working in concert with the Ravenwild militia. Thankfully, the Inam'Ra sun once more dipped below the horizon, the sounds of a battle being fought now replaced by the screams, moans, and weeping of those slowly dying.
“Is she awake?” Jessica asked Maxilius Bravarus for what had to be the tenth time within the hour. He had stopped answering her and merely shook his large head, “No.”
“She needs to wake up,” growled Jessica. She looked at Blake. “How did we let this happen? We could already be home. This is insanity.”
Orie, Gracie, and Ryan walked up the stone corridor to the door behind which Stephanie lay quietly in the Bindu-trance, oblivious to her surroundings. Gracie began to open it without announcing herself, and three blades inside were bared before she had finished.
“No progress?” asked Orie.
Mrs. Strong shook her head, “No,” as the three of them sheathed their weapons.
“Tomorrow is supposed to tell it all,” said Orie. He sat down and pulled out his honing stone, applying it to his sword. Jessica shuddered when she noticed all the blood on the blade. “The good news is we won’t have to be near the gap in the Wall, thanks to Forrester. He hasn’t slept the entire time, and he’s recruited nearly four thousand now, using the tell-all. So we’re actually in pretty good shape. The Trolls have shown no change in the pattern of their attack, and the military bowmen are optimistic they can hold them in check. It’s impossible to think they can pitch more ladders than they did today, and we held them. So, Erik is moving all civilian fighters away from the Wall.”
“Then what will you, we, be doing?”
“Well, we’ll be in the third line of defense, in by the entrances to the trees, which the Trolls should never get to if the first two do their job.”
“Thankfully,” said Blake.
“Amen,” agreed Jessica.
“Come on guys,” said Orie, then, “Where’s Jacqueline?”
“She’s helping to feed and care for the Wolves with Cinnamon,” said Blake. “You’ll pass her on your way out.”
The three trudged out, the weariness only too evident in the way they dragged their feet along.
“You tell her to get her butt back up here when she’s done tending them,” called out Jessica. Orie saluted and they disappeared around a corner.
“How much longer?” asked Jessica.
Blake surveyed the murk around them. “Two hours,” he said, “Maybe three.”
Jessica folded her arms across her chest and said, “I have a bad feeling about today. A very bad feeling. We have to get out of here.”
“No argument here,” said Blake. “If there’s any way you can think of to wake her up that we haven’t already tried, I’m all ears.”
Jessica stepped to her bedside and began hollering at her as loudly as she could. She gave her the traditional “sternal rub,” digging her knuckles forcefully into Stephanie’s sternum and twisting them back and forth hard, the ubiquitous move performed daily in every Emergency Room across their world for attempting to raise the level of consciousness of a person arriving with a depressed mental state. Nothing worked. She was hopelessly unarousable, and fear fell across them like a wet blanket that they might, in fact, have to survive yet another day in the face of what would most likely be the deadliest assault of all.
“I don’t have any more tricks,” said Jessica. “Come on. You’re the ER doctor. Get her to wake up!”
“I believe she will,” Maxilius said softly. “Soon,” causing Jessica to spin towards him.
“Why do you say that?” she asked.
“Well,” he answered, “I’ve been watching her eyes. You see there? She’s started moving them, like you do when you’re in a dream. That only started about an hour ago. It’s almost as if she’s fighting to wake up, but something, or someone, won’t let her.”
Their conversation was brought to a halt by three Ravenwild soldiers half-carrying, half-dragging Forrester Wiley Ragamund down the short stone hallway that led to Stephanie’s room, Orie, Ryan, and Gracie following.
“He passed out,” said one.
“Exhaustion,” said a second.
“Hasn’t slept in days,” added the third. “Almost a week. Erik sent us here. We needed a place to put him as far away from the battle as possible. He doesn’t respond at all.”
Orie went to his side and took his hand, his face white with fear.
They quickly fashioned a simple cot and mattress for him and laid him gently upon it in Stephanie’s temporary bedchamber. As they were finishing up, the Troll war drums started up again. It
had the desired effect, as fear was struck deep into the hearts of all.
“Maxilius,” Jessica half-whispered, half-groaned, “Would you please keep an eye on them. I’m sure Erik will have somewhere he wants us to be.”
Blake was again surprised that Jessica would, for the second time in as many days, leave their daughter in the care of somebody else, but when he thought about it analytically, it made sense. If the Trolls made it this far, the most important thing to have at her side would be the best sword arm, and that was clearly Maxilius Bravarus. But the point became to prevent it from ever getting to that and, to that end, the castle defense effort would be best served with each of them on the end of a stout bow with a quiver of straight arrows in front of them.
Without a moment’s hesitation, she walked briskly down the hallway to find out where their military leader thought they could best serve the cause. One thing was certain. She was going to kill a lot of Trolls today.
Rolan swung his sword in a mighty upward thrust, striking the much larger Troll on the underside of his arm and severing the artery, causing blood to squirt wildly all about. In doing so, the unified Ravenwild-Vultura troops finally broke through the Troll flanking forces. Hundreds of squads of Gnome archers rained thousands of arrows down on the Trolls below as more of the alliance forces charged through the sliver of a gap cut by their King, racing ahead to secure their position. Troll after pursuing Troll was cut down as the Gnome archers kept up their ferocious barrage of aerial death. In a few minutes, the number of coalition soldiers that had slashed their way through the Troll battalion in front of them numbered in the hundreds, then in the thousands, as they ran towards the southern aspect of the Knife Edge.
While the main force kept the Trolls busy behind them, those that had managed to break through formed ranks and pressed forward, and in the same way as the sound of the Troll war drums had sent the message of imminent death to those defending the castle not hours before, the sound of the Ravenwild attack horns sent a wave of hope through those presently doing battle at the Wall. Too engaged to do much in the way of cheering, nevertheless, there were isolated shouts of joy. Help was on the way.
