by Alex Stewart
Drago returned to the road and glanced around, hoping to find some other trace of the stranger’s passing, but without any success; the thin veneer of vegetation had all but vanished now, leaving nothing but bare rock, pebbles and gravel. Giving up, he shouldered his pack again, and continued plodding doggedly uphill.
So used had he become to the monotony of his journey, he was almost taken by surprise when something happened to disturb it. Almost, but not quite; one sound he was more than familiar with was the clashing of blades, and the hoarse panting of people pitted in combat, with no breath left to threaten, scream, or engage in polite conversation. This was drifting his way on the breeze, and he tilted his head, trying to get an idea of how far away it was; back in the avenues and alleyways he knew so well, he’d be able to pinpoint it practically to the inch, but up here, with its unfamiliar echoes and acoustics, he couldn’t be sure. Not far, though, on that he’d definitely bet.
The question was, what to do about it. Intervene, keep out of the way until the noise stopped, or try to get close enough to the fight to see where the bandits went when they broke off, and hope to follow them? Gorash’s people had to be involved, he was certain of that. The real question was who they might be fighting.
So musing, he picked up his pace, hurrying along the road toward the sound of combat. He wouldn’t be able to choose an option unless he knew what was happening anyway, and his body was already reacting even while his mind was dithering. His sword hissed from its scabbard without him even being fully aware of it.
Then he crested the next ridge, and there was no more time to think at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Stinks like a midden.”
Drago paused as he reached the top of the next downward slope, pressing himself against the rock face bordering the left-hand side of the track in an attempt to remain unnoticed while he tried to work out what was going on. The road descended into a gully here, the perfect place for an ambush, and that, it seemed, was precisely what the bandits had done. Three carts, each with a disgruntled-looking donkey between the shafts, had been halted, presumably by the small group of goblins with drawn bows still blocking the narrow track, and edging forward to cover the half dozen gnomes who’d been driving them. Most of the carters looked more irritated at the delay than particularly frightened.
Between the carts and where Drago stood watching, a vicious melee was filling the road, elven soldiers in the uniforms he’d seen back at the wharf hacking at goblins armed with short swords and shields. The two sides seemed about evenly matched, although the elves were outnumbered, several of them already lying dead or incapacitated on the unforgiving ground, struck through with green-fletched arrows. Evidently the archers had struck from cover, before emerging to halt the wagons.
“Get those covers off!” One of the goblin archers slackened off her string, returned the arrow to her quiver, and slung her bow across her back to free her hands. The others clearly regarded her as a leader, as the nearest two immediately followed her instructions, trotting across to a wagon each, and flinging back the tarpaulins covering their loads. The goblin woman tore the sheeting from the leading cart. “What have you got?”
“Tools. Picks and that.” The goblin at the rear cart shrugged dismissively, and spat in the dust, reminding Drago incongruously of Clearspring. “Sod all we can use.”
“Food.” The one in the middle looked a lot happier, rummaging among the boxes, barrels and sacks thus revealed. “Pork, flour, pickled fish . . .”
“Take it.” The leader glanced into the bed of the leading wagon, then to the nearest gnome. “What’s in here?”
“More food.” The gnome shrugged. “Be sorry to see it go. Don’t get much rat up at the mine.”
“You’re welcome to it.” She turned to the middle cart, directing the others with the wave of a hand. “Let’s get this one back, take anything you can carry off the lead one that’s not something only a shortarse would eat. And get a move on, the others won’t hold the guards off forever.”
That was true, Drago reflected. Few of the goblins seemed to have been hurt so far, but that wasn’t for the want of trying, the elven swords clashing against their steel, or biting deep into their shields. Even as he watched, one went down to a vicious sword thrust that burst clean through his body, and hit the ground, where he twitched for a minute and lay still.
“That’s more like it!” The elf who’d struck the killing blow brought his sword back up into a guard position, and began to batter away at the defenses of the next goblin, who’d stepped in to the gap the fall of his comrade had opened up in their ranks. Unlike any of the other elves he wasn’t in uniform, and didn’t appear to be wearing mail, being dressed instead in gray leather that had seen a good deal more hard use than Greenleaf’s jacket and breeks could ever have imagined, and a similarly hued cloak, which seemed more patch and stain than wool. He seemed a lot older than any of the others too, his hair iron gray, although his movements as he blocked, parried and struck were more fluid and assured than any of the soldiers surrounding him. This one, Drago thought, would be worth ten of them, and wasn’t an elf he’d like to face unless he had to.
The question was, should he intervene, or carry on lurking in cover to see if he could follow the bandits when they moved away? If they were taking one of the carts they couldn’t have been going far, surely?
Then, abruptly, the decision was taken out of his hands.
“One of them’s getting away!” the goblin leader shouted, pointing at him. Three of the bandits immediately broke off from the melee with the soldiers, and came sprinting up the hill, brandishing their swords.
Drago reacted instinctively. The bandits would be secure in the knowledge that they had him outnumbered, and probably thought he was a terrified civilian. They’d be expecting him to bolt, or stay rooted to the spot in terror. They were also running up a fairly steep slope, after fighting for their lives for several minutes, so would be relatively slow to react to the realization that they were wrong in pretty much every assumption they were making.
With a yell that sent echoes bouncing from every rock face, Drago charged headlong down the hill toward them, brandishing his sword; which, by great good fortune, caught the westering sun, tinting it the shade of blood, and, with any luck, dazzling his opponents into the bargain. Almost before they had time to react he was among them, scoring a long gash across the ribs of the goblin in the center of the group as he passed between him and the one on the right. It would be a painful and disorientating wound rather than a critical one, but it produced a satisfactory amount of blood, which clearly disconcerted them all, buying him enough time to turn and slash at the leg of the goblin on his other side.
Who turned out to have impressive reflexes, bringing his shield down smartly enough to protect his leg, and pivoting on the spot to cut at Drago as the rotational movement pulled the gnome forward and off balance. It was an impressive move, and against an elf, goblin or human would probably have proven lethal, but habit made him strike at the height of the ribcage of an opponent roughly his own size: Drago ducked under it easily, kicking out at the back of the goblin’s knee, and bringing his own blade around in an arc which would have decapitated him as he went down if it hadn’t been for the shield. As it was, the bandit raised it just in time to deflect the blow. Continuing to spin, Drago kicked out, catching his opponent in the temple more by luck than judgment, and sending him crashing to the ground. He wasn’t sure if he’d struck hard enough to land a killing blow, or merely stunned his attacker, but the reiver was definitely incapacitated either way, which worked fine for Drago.
“Think you’re hard, do you?” one of the other goblins snarled, the one he hadn’t hurt yet of course, as he circled looking for an opening. The one Drago had cut was moving too, in the opposite direction, the stain on his shirt growing visibly by the moment, but too charged up with adrenaline to be feeling the worst effects yet. If anything, he’d be the more dangerous of the two,
angry and looking for revenge, and too deep in the endorphin rush of combat to be taken down by anything short of an all-out assault.
“Hard enough to take a pair of jessies like you,” Drago said, hoping to provoke them into doing something rash he could take advantage of. Despite their aggressive posturing they were both hanging back, looking for an opening, probably hoping the other would move first; the ease with which he’d dispatched their companion had clearly come as an unpleasant surprise to them, and even though they’d probably overwhelm him with ease if they coordinated their attacks successfully, they didn’t quite have the confidence to do that yet. Fine, then, he’d just have to take the initiative himself, before they recovered their nerve.
Without another word he lunged at the wounded goblin, going wide on the bandit’s sword-hand side; hardly anyone brought a shield to a street brawl, and he was at a disadvantage in trying to get through one. Getting past a blade parry, on the other hand, was second nature to him, and with any luck the goblins had got so used to relying on their wooden shields for protection they’d be less practiced at defending with their weapons.
It almost worked. Taken by surprise, the bandit barely raised his blade in time, and Drago’s sword skidded off the edge of the sharpened steel, almost taking his balance with it. Forewarned by instinct and experience, he jumped back in the nick of time, as the other goblin’s sword slashed through the space formerly occupied by his extended arm, rebounding from the back of his own blade with a clang! which reverberated up his entire limb. Which, uncomfortable as it was, still seemed preferable to picking his right hand off the ground and trying to find a mage who could reattach it, something which hardly seemed likely around here. He gave ground slowly, as his opponents closed in, forcing him back downhill toward the fight still going on in the gully.
He was running out of options. They had the advantage of height as well as numbers now, and both were advancing with murder in their eyes. Not only that, the closer he got to the melee, the more likely it was that someone would take advantage of his distraction to get in a free hack at his back.
Then a piercing whistle ripped through the air, and the bandit leader removed two fingers from her mouth. “That’s it!” she yelled. “We’re leaving!”
Without another word the two bandits took a simultaneous step back, opening the distance between them and Drago, hesitating for a moment in case he was rash enough to follow up. Then they turned, lifting their limp comrade between them, each taking an arm across their neck and shoulder, and hurried off to rejoin the rest of the band.
Drago stood, watching them go, breathing heavily. The group engaging the elves pulled back in good order, staying between them and the cart full of foodstuffs as it was led away, now laden even more heavily with half the goods from the other one carrying provender, to prevent any attempt at recovery. None of the soldiers seemed inclined to follow up and press the attack, much to the audible disgust of the gray-haired elf.
“Get stuck in, you useless bunch of pansies! I’ve seen better fighters in a dame school playground!”
“Our orders are not to pursue.” One of the soldiers, with a larger and more ornate plume on his helmet than any of the others, shook his head, as the last of the bandits disappeared round the next bend of the trail, still poised to renew the hostilities if necessary. “We’ve lost too many people that way.”
“I’ll just bet you have.” The gray-haired elf flicked the blood and slivers of flesh his sword blade had acquired away with a casual ease that immediately confirmed Drago’s initial impression of how dangerous he was, and resheathed it. His lip curled.
The officer’s jaw tightened, but he could clearly read the signs too, and wasn’t foolish enough to decide his honor was being impugned. “They know every inch of these hills, and split up as they retreat. If we try to follow them they’ll just pick us off one by one.” Drago wondered if that was true, but it didn’t look as if he was going to get the chance to try anyway; following the bandits would mean getting past the elves and the goblin carters unnoticed, and that simply wasn’t going to happen. “Anyway, we have wounded to attend to.” Drago suspected this was as much a face-saving excuse for inaction as it was genuine concern for the officer’s men, and it was clear from Gray Hair’s expression that he thought the same, but would let it go for now. “And who the hell are you to be giving my men orders anyway? You turn up out of nowhere, attach yourself to my column, and then suddenly we’re up to our elbows in bandits. Doing a little scouting for them, were you?”
“My name’s Elerath, but I don’t use it much. I generally go by Graymane. And I’m here because I’ve been hired to do a job, which I’ll discuss with your captain when we get to the mines. Does that answer your questions?”
“It does.” The officer nodded, with sudden wary respect. Whoever this Graymane was, his reputation in this part of the world clearly preceded him.
“Good. See to your wounded.” Graymane waited until the officer was turning away, before adding “and if you accuse me of aiding or sympathizing with bandits again, I’ll call you out. Is that clear?”
“Absolutely.” The officer nodded, a trifle stiffly. “My apologies for any offense given by my words. The stress of combat and losing so many good comrades may have affected my judgment.”
“Then you’re not much of a soldier, are you?” Graymane asked. The officer flushed, but had the sense to turn away, and start bawling at his troops instead—Drago suspected they were in for a hard time for the next few hours.
“That was amazing,” someone said, and Drago became aware that he’d become the center of interest for the gnomes, which was hardly surprising under the circumstances. One of the younger ones was staring at him with an expression which could only be described as awestruck wonderment. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”
“Trying to get to the bar in The Strumpet,” Drago said, which was less of a joke than it sounded. He’d never had to draw a sword to get served there, but he had been forced to use his elbows several times, and on one occasion his teeth. He registered his interlocutor’s expression of bafflement, and smiled. “It’s a bar in Fairhaven. Can get a bit crowded.”
“You’re from Fairhaven?” The young gnome sounded as though he thought that was as outlandish as Drago claiming to have come from the moon. “What’s it like there?”
“Crowded. Noisy. Stinks like a midden. Love every inch of it.” And that was true, he reflected. He wasn’t exactly homesick, he’d had too many novel experiences since leaving for that, but he did miss the bustle and the energy there. He stuck out a hand. “Drago Appleroot, by the way.”
“Clovis Gravelseam.” The young gnome shook it, a little warily, perhaps reflecting that a few moments ago the same hand had been grasping a sword and using it to deadly effect. He waved, taking in the rest of the group, and reeled off a litany of names so quickly that Drago was left with only the vaguest idea of which one belonged to which gnome. Fortunately the one in charge was easy to pick out by his belt-length beard and red conical hat, folded over at the top, and the fact that everyone else addressed him as Gaffer.
“Pleased to meet you all,” Drago said, trusting that he’d be able to work out who was who if it became necessary. No one else seemed inclined to shake hands, but that didn’t mean much. These were mountain gnomes, stockier than the inhabitants of the lowland burrows, and widely reputed to be more taciturn than the ones he knew.
“You’re a long way from home, then,” the Gaffer said, curiosity and suspicion not far from the surface of the remark.
Drago nodded. “I heard there was work for gnomes up this way. Thought I’d try my luck.”
“Fancy yourself as a miner, do you?” The ripple of amusement around the group was unmistakable. “Not much call for that down your way, I’d have thought.”
“You’d have thought right,” Drago said. “Which is why I’m here, instead of there.”
“Is it, now.” The Gaffer was clearly unconvinced. “I’d
have thought you could find something to suit a bit closer to hand than that.”
Drago nodded. “Tell you the truth,” he said, “I thought a river trip would be good for my health. If you get my meaning.”
The Gaffer nodded too. “I think I do, and I’m not sure I want to. But we owe you for pitching in when you didn’t have to, and that’s worth a ride up to the diggings. After that, it’s up to the boss.”
“Fair enough,” Drago agreed. He glanced around, wondering how the elves would take to acquiring an extra passenger, but most of them seemed too busy to even notice that another gnome had joined the party. The wounded soldiers were being assisted into the remaining wagons, where they perched uncomfortably on top of the remaining loads, and their able-bodied comrades were busy dragging the corpses of the less fortunate to the side of the road, presumably for later recovery. All the abandoned casualties were being stripped of their weapons, armor and personal effects, presumably to deny any lurking bandits the opportunity of looting them at their leisure; watching this procedure with a professionally cynical eye, Drago couldn’t help noticing a number of small items disappearing into pockets and pouches instead of being bundled up with the recovered kit.
The exception was Graymane, who was examining the body of the goblin he’d killed in minute detail. Giving up, he gestured a passing soldier to take it to the far smaller heap of dead bandits, no more than three in number, with an impatient kick. “Shouldn’t have killed him so thoroughly,” he said. “He could have told us where their camp is.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” the soldier said incautiously, before noticing Graymane looking at him and hastily adding, “begging your pardon, sir. We’ve never taken a live one yet.”
“How very careless of you.” Graymane turned away, and caught sight of Drago looking at him. They held one another’s gaze for a moment, then the gray-haired elf nodded, almost imperceptibly, before turning his head to start conferring with the officer again.
