Broken Stone 02 - Warlock's Sun Rising

by Damien Black

  ‘Why didn’t you say so in the first place?’ Balthor demanded.

  The tracker quailed before his wrath. ‘I didna want t’say till we could be sure,’ he stammered. ‘An’ truth to tell, I dunna like to dwell on such things.’

  Balthor shook his head, his disgust complete. The tracker’s cowardice was despicable, even for a commoner.

  ‘We can’t abandon them to that fate – we must storm the gate,’ the knight said. ‘I’d sooner die than have that on my conscience!’

  ‘Wait, sir knight, I weren’t finished yet,’ said Ratko. ‘We kens the ‘abits o’ Woses right well, after all these years. They dunna breed until the moon’s full, so they say. We’ve time on our ‘ands.’

  Balthor reflected on that. The churl’s counsel was better late than never. And he was right – his governess had always said something about a full moon. He’d always thought her a frightful old woman, telling tales like that to young nobles, but now he thanked her from the bottom of his heart. Full moon was about a week away. It didn’t leave much time, but maybe just enough…

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘I can get back to Graukolos, raise the Eorl’s forces…’ His voice trailed off as he realised he didn’t have his horse. There was just wilderness dotted with farmsteads between where they were and the castle, with precious little opportunity to requisition a swift courser. It would take him at least a week just to reach Graukolos on foot, and by then it would be too late.

  ‘Dammit!’ he swore, cursing hard truth. ‘I don’t have enough time to get there and back with enough men to storm this blasted fortress.’

  ‘There might be another way,’ said Ratko, a keen light entering his beady eyes. ‘Some o’ the woodfowk are puttin’ together a resistance movement, I ken the fellow Madogan who’s leadin’ it an’ where ‘is base is. If I kin get word to ‘im, he’d come ‘elp us.’

  Sir Balthor glared at him suspiciously. He still did not trust the shifty tracker.

  ‘And why should we trust you?’ he asked, giving voice to his thoughts. ‘Who’s to say you won’t disappear as soon as we let you out of our sight?’

  For the first time since he had met him, Ratko looked indignant. ‘I may not be the bravest or noblest like you, sir knight,’ he said, ‘but these’re oor wummenfowk they’re dishonourin’ too. Besides that, I’d sooner be a messenger than gettin’ int’ thick o’ it wi’ you two.’

  Sir Balthor paused to consider that. The tracker was a coward and a base rogue – but only the most depraved of men would stand by and let their women be ruined by such monsters. Flawed as he was, the commoner probably wasn’t that bad he decided.

  ‘All right,’ he said, ‘how soon can you get them back here?’

  ‘Their camp’s abowt a day from ‘ere, might tek ‘em another day or two to muster enough men, but as soon as they know what’s goin’ on they’ll be keen enough to get ‘ere. Last I ‘eard, Madogan ‘ad no idea abowt this fort.’

  ‘Good,’ said Balthor, clapping him on the shoulder with enough force to make him stumble. ‘We’ll wait for you on yonder ridge – it’s wide and long enough to hold a host of men, a perfect spot for your woodland archers. Now get you gone – and Reus speed you on your way!’

  The woodlander nodded and bounded off back down the slopes towards the forest.

  ‘You really think he can be trusted?’ asked Anupe. ‘He could have told a story to save his skin.’

  ‘Maybe, but what choice do we have? Without ready aid of men Her Ladyship and her companion are doomed anyway.’

  ‘You are probably right,’ said Anupe. ‘Well we have at least three days until he returns, I suggest we use them to find out as much as we can about our enemies.’

  As they scrabbled up towards the ridge, Sir Balthor felt delicious hope returning to him. It was a desperate plan, leading a ragtag band of forest churls against a host of monsters – but it might just work. And if it did, his reputation would soar. The Eorl would reward him with a banneret’s seal and double his lands for this. The greatest knight in Dulsinor? Nay, he might well be considered the greatest knight in Vorstlund if he pulled this off.

  Sir Balthor allowed a wolfish grin to cross his features as he loped up the rocky hills.

  CHAPTER XIII

  Ichor And Blood

  ‘They’ve picked their spot well,’ muttered Sir Aronn. ‘A hundred yards of open ground and a river at their backs – no chance of surprising them by day.’

  Sir Torgun frowned. His friend was right: from where they were crouching the land broke abruptly, tumbling towards the River Lyr at a steep incline with naught but rocks and the odd tree for cover. Beyond its grey waters the forest resumed, a great blanket of oak obscuring the horizon even from their high vantage point. The Woses had pitched camp on the open scree by the river’s edge, right next to a ford that crossed it. Two of the creatures were on sentry duty, sat on boulders while their comrades slept the day away in log huts. He wondered at the strength that had driven the boles of wood through the hard shingle into the unyielding earth below.

  But this was no time for admiring a loathsome enemy.

  ‘We’ll have to wait for dusk,’ he said. ‘That way we’ve a chance of closing with them as they’re waking up. Perhaps we can slay a few before they realise what’s happening.’

  ‘I thought you said Wadwos are weaker by day?’ asked Aronn. ‘Wouldn’t it make sense to attack them now, while the sun’s still up?’

  Sir Torgun shook his head. ‘Much as I value your opinion, Sir Aronn, I must disagree. The one I fought came at me by day – it was no weakling I can tell you! If we attack them now it’s at least three to one against us – yon woman and the monks will be of no use in this fight.’

  ‘I will be,’ disagreed Kyra, ‘but only if we kin get closer – it’ll need to be close range for me to start puttin’ arrows through their thick skulls.’ She seemed equally comfortable with the Vorstlending and Northlending tongues, but then the woodland dialect was a mishmash of the two and other influences.

  ‘And how will you do that with no light?’ asked Sir Braxus pointedly. ‘If we’re to catch them while they’re waking we can’t wait for them to start a blasted fire!’

  The huntress made a face at that, but said nothing.

  Sir Torgun frowned, turning back to scan the camp again. The catapult Kyra had mentioned was there: fashioned from logs and sitting on wheels, waiting to be hauled over the ford. Besides it were what looked like a couple of barrels, covered with a heavy wet tarpaulin. Most likely for the pitch: the tarpaulin was there to stop anyone setting it on fire with a couple of well-placed fire arrows.

  The beastmen had thought of everything. Someone was definitely controlling them – it was uncanny how much like regular soldiers the once-mindless monsters had become. Horskram said they had been bred for that purpose long ago, by a race of mighty warlocks who had something to do with the quest they were on. Few sorcerers since, if any, had relearned how to master the creatures. Until now.

  ‘Well, we’d better get back to Horskram,’ said Torgun, ‘give him his report.’

  The four of them slunk back behind the cover of the trees and went to rejoin the others.

  A couple of hours later the six of them were loping down towards the camp, doing their best to move quietly in their armour.

  Sir Torgun caught a glimpse of the Hyrkrainians to the west, bathed in the orange glow of sunset; the river parted the forest to allow a knuckled sliver of the ranges to peep through. As they moved from tree to tree and drew nearer the camp, he could make out hulking figures emerging from the huts in the fading light. His boots occasionally dislodged small stones as he picked his way downwards, but the sound of the fast-flowing river should hopefully obscure that.

  A quick glance told him the others had taken up their positions. In accordance with their plan, they were behind half a dozen of the nearest trees, swords drawn and shields ready.

  They waited. Then the sound came, a whistling that imitated a lar
k. Responding to the signal, Vaskrian tossed a leather bag towards the camp. It landed some ten paces away from it. The sentries looked up sharply, peering out towards the sound. Still behind the tree, the squire lit a taper and threw it towards the bag. It wasn’t a perfect throw, but it didn’t need to be: it landed several paces away from the bag, enough to shed light on it.

  As one they broke cover and dashed towards the camp, some fifty paces separating them and their targets. There came a searing noise as a flaming arrow arced across the twilit skies, striking the bag dead centre. It erupted in a ball of fire.

  They roared battle cries as they closed on the Wadwos. Torgun felt his heart soar – their plan had worked! They’d managed to get a light for Kyra to see by, and hadn’t lost the element of surprise.

  Closing on a sentry he cleaved off both its legs with two mighty strokes before it could even take a swing at him. The joy of battle was on him now: he moved like lightning and struck like a tempest. Sir Aronn was getting stuck into the other, his sword ringing off its crude spiked mace before he found its guts with a sidewise stab.

  There were twenty at least, but most of these had just got up and didn’t have their weapons on them. Ululating cries cut across the gurgling river as the other four hacked and gouged at the beastmen, cutting down several before they could arm. Another arrow struck a Wose in the neck; with a roar it turned to face the attack, before a second shaft buried itself in its eye.

  By the time the Wadwos started fighting back there were around fifteen left.

  Three of these circled Sir Torgun, already spattered with their ichor, which clogged his nostrils with its stink. He lunged at one, a great brute wielding a makeshift morning star fashioned from a chain and anvil with knife blades welded to it. It curled the thing around, trying to sweep him aside like chaff, but Torgun anticipated the move with a sideways duck, his torso tracing an invisible horseshoe as he came back up several paces to the left of where he’d been. The creature barely had time to register that it had been flanked before he cut its arm off at the elbow.

  The next one lunged at him with a pike but Torgun had spotted it from the corner of his eye as he’d come up from his duck; twisting on his heel he turned away and let the polearm bite thin air, throwing up his shield to parry a hammer blow from the third Wose as he stepped in and stabbed the second in the midriff, punching through its armour and finding its entrails. The hammer blow splintered his kite in two, but Strongholm mail and his hugely strong arm were enough to withstand the partly turned blow, though it shook him from head to toe. He wrenched his blade free from the second Wose, a mess of grey guts following in its wake.

  The last Wadwo raised its warhammer in both hands, but Torgun hurled himself at it before it could strike, shoulder barging it in the chest. The move would have been sheer folly from a lesser knight, but Torgun wasn’t much smaller than a Wadwo. The beastman staggered back and Torgun brought his sword around in a whirling arc, driving its point through the beastman’s heart and burying the blade up to the hilt in its chest. He pushed down on its corpse with his foot as it fell to the ground, pulling his blade free and tossing aside his cloven shield in one easy movement.

  In an instant he took in the scene. Aronn had felled another but was hard pressed by two more; blood ran from a gash in his head. The Chequered Twins had one left each, having made corpses of two more, but the Thraxian and his squire were struggling, being pushed back by five of the monsters. Several of these sprouted arrows, but none of Kyra’s shafts had found another eye.

  He was about to dash over and help them when he heard a great cracking sound. Turning to look across the river, he saw a huge manlike figure come crashing out of the woods. As it stepped into the water, sending up a huge cascade, Sir Torgun mouthed a silent prayer.

  From their vantage point overlooking the Wadwo camp, Adelko watched the battle unfold. Next to him Kyra nocked and drew, while Horskram muttered prayers.

  He felt completely powerless. It reminded him of the battle at Linden Castle, when he’d been unable to do anything to help his friends. In a way this was worse: here he could actually see the people he cared about, albeit as shadows against the burning bag of pitch. Every time a Wadwo swiped at one of them his heart lurched into his mouth.

  Their plan had been a good one, but perhaps not good enough. He could make out Braxus and Vaskrian, backing away beyond the fringes of the light, a pack of bloodthirsty beastmen baying after them. The raven knights seemed to be faring better, but even with Sir Torgun on their side victory was beginning to look doubtful.

  Kyra swore as another arrow missed its target. They had picked a spot that allowed her to shoot at close range, but trying to hit a moving target in the eye with only a small fire to see by was nigh impossible. Frankly he was amazed she had managed to fell one of the creatures.

  The huntress was nocking another arrow to her bowstring when they heard a loud crashing sound from the woods. Adelko followed it and gawped as a giant humanoid figure stalked out of the trees and began crossing the river. It moved with unnatural jerky movements that were eerily fast for a thing of its size; as it stepped across the Lyr into the light he could see it more clearly. It appeared to be fashioned of dark wood, roughly humanoid but angular in form; some strange matter covered its barky hide, though he could not tell what it was at such a distance.

  ‘Ye Almighty!’ breathed Horskram, abandoning his prayers. ‘That is no Terrus!’

  The wooden giant moved to attack the party of Wadwos menacing Vaskrian and Braxus. A few gargantuan steps and a swipe of its huge arm sent the nearest one flying into a hut, collapsing a wall. Another Wose broke off its attack, lurching towards a drum that rested against the side of the hut, while another two hacked at it ferociously. The thing scarcely noticed their assault, knocking one off its feet with a glancing blow.

  ‘It’s the wood demon I told ye of!’ exclaimed Kyra, who had stopped shooting. ‘It’s on our side!’

  ‘Demons are never on anyone’s side but their own,’ said Horskram. ‘Adelko, come with me – do you remember the Psalms of Banishing and Abjuration?’

  Adelko blinked quizzically. He was fairly confident he did – he had used them at Rykken to save Gizel, and again at Landebert’s hut on the Brenning Wold to save their own skins. But something didn’t add up – in all his studies at Ulfang, he’d never heard of demons taking such a peculiar form.

  ‘What kind of demon possesses a wooden statue?’ he asked as they began to scramble down the slopes towards the river.

  ‘A very rare kind,’ said the adept over his shoulder. ‘Yon horror is a Golem – an evil spirit bound to a statue fashioned by a warlock to do its bidding. Once bound they are nigh impossible to banish, but we must try!’

  The Wadwo reached the drum. Slinging it over its head the beastman began beating on it. The Golem paused. It was crushing the first Wose into the hard ground with its amorphous broad foot while holding the second above its head, ready to smash it into the ground as it hacked desperately at it with a crude axe.

  The drum beats resonated across the dusky skies. The Golem tottered backwards and wavered, making more curious jerky movements… Then with a horrible high-pitched scream it hurled the Wadwo at its companion beating the drum. The Wose crashed into its fellow, the two of them falling in a sprawling heap. In an instant the thing was on them. It brought its foot down on the drum, smashing it and crushing the chest of the Wadwo beneath it. Hauling itself to its feet the other Wose turned to run, but the Golem caught it by a leg, swinging it round into another hut and breaking its back.

  The knights and Vaskrian launched themselves at the remaining beastmen with renewed vigour. Thanks to the Golem the odds were evening up fast, but Horskram was even more frantic in his efforts to reach the skirmish, shouting down to the others: ‘RETREAT! In Reus’ name, GET OUT OF THERE!’

  But his words were lost in the din of combat. Adelko caught his foot on a rock and stumbled, swearing impiously as he tripped and fell to the roug
h ground.

  Horskram rounded on him. ‘Get up!’ he shouted. ‘This is no time for blaspheming, Adelko! I need you in the purest of spirits if we have a chance of besting this thing!’

  ‘But you said yourself the Psalms probably won’t work,’ Adelko spluttered, picking himself up. ‘There must be some other way of beating it! What about that drum?’

  ‘Yon drum lies in broken splinters, boy, this is no time for contemplation!’

  ‘But it must not like it for a reason…’

  ‘Tis probably some magic of Andragorix’s,’ snarled Horskram. ‘We’ve no time for this – unless you really do have one of your bright ideas!’

  His mentor was staring at him. It was too dark up on the slopes to see his face, but Adelko’s sixth sense told him Horskram was actually waiting for him to suggest something.

  His mind flashed back to his childhood. He was at the celebration feast in Narvik. Balor the headman had been saved by Horskram and he had just met the adept for the first time. He could picture it clearly, his kith and kin sat around the clearing drinking and eating, some of the younger lads and lasses getting up to dance as Ludo Sharpears and his brothers took the music up a notch…

  Down by the river the fighting raged on as Horskram continued to stare at him.

  Vaskrian darted to one side as a Wose swiped at him with a woodcutter’s axe. The blow would have taken his arm off at the shoulder, but he was beginning to find his courage again. Whatever that demon-thing was, it had probably just saved his life: he and Braxus were left with just one beastman each, a fight they could actually win.

  He circled around it, changing directions to try and confuse his opponent and employing everything the Thraxian knight had taught him about footwork. His initial tactic had been to try and wear the thing out and then step in to attack, but the loathsome creature wasn’t tiring.