I sighed and forced myself to quit stalling. I had to pee and I had to fight, and the sooner I did one or the other the sooner I could get to the other one.
I led Traveler down the hill about half-way and stopped to talk to a group of archers, who were happily lobbing arrows into their mist in the hopes that they would strike something – or at least make the goblins keep their heads down. They did so with impunity, because the range of the average human bow was twice that of the short bows and slings that the gurvani carried. But they might want those arrows later, when they had better targets, so I ordered them to stop while I looked around.
From Traveler’s back I could see where the gurvani were holding up. They had dug into a narrow space at the north edge of the wood, between a massive bolder and small hillock, next to a field full of half-ripened wheat that would never be harvested. They had felled a few trees and created a make-shift bulwark to discourage us from hitting them from their flanks (their leader must have been one of the bright ones). I called upon magesight – that’s a simple spell that can do a lot of things, but right now I used it to view the goblins as if they were but a few yards from me.
There were at least six hundred of them, and they were armed as I’d come to expect of goblin raiders: a leather belt or weapon harness, some colorful tribal jewelry, iron-headed javelins, a sprinkling of short bows and slings, and everyone carried a knife and one of those traditional iron-headed clubs they enjoyed bashing our brains out with so much.
They were outnumbered, out-armed, and in the blinding light of the sun. They had no reinforcements within a day’s brisk ride, so they were trapped. Better yet, tactically speaking, they were prevented from moving in formation by the very defenses they’d erected.
They were planning on waiting for us to attack, no doubt because they had their shaman telling them that with the Dead God’s blessing and the power of his witchstone, they were invincible against us, blah blah, grunt growl blah.
He might have been right, too, under normal circumstances. A gurvani shaman with a witchstone would have made an assault by even three thousand a dicey matter, if he knew his craft. I’d seen the goblin shamans’ magic first-hand. The night of that first attack in Boval Vale I’d dueled one in the vanguard of the invasion, severed his hand in battle, and claimed his witchstone. But not before he’d given me a very hard time with his primitive spellcraft.
And that was far from the last time. During the siege I’d seen the power of the gurvani witchstones in all of their glory, as the Dead God’s minions used them to bind the horde together under his will. Even without the magical head in the ball of amber, they could be formidable.
And they did have a sophistication, of a sort. There were at least two classes of shaman, the rural sort of tribal witchdoctor and the much more educated – and more fanatical – class of shaman that served as the eyes and ears of the Dead God. They were easy to spot, as they dyed their black fur with lime to make it a ghastly white, but there was no way to see that when you’re scrying. Their spellwork was much more sophisticated, and they seemed less prone to arrogant stupidity when they used their power. I was hoping the magical corps attached to our enemy was the former, not the latter. Not that I couldn’t have vanquished one – I’d done it before – but I was looking for an easy victory here, and that would not have counted.
I suppose I could have just ordered a cavalry charge and taken our chances with both spears and magic. That’s what an ordinary military commander would have done, and damn the casualties. But that would have been messy and inept. Sure, we would have won – but we would have lost men and horses, too. We had a long campaign ahead of us, and I wanted to keep my men as safe and as ready to fight as possible.
I rode to the hay bale that had become the gathering place for the officers and captains, likely because one of the Orphans had set up a small keg of mead there. I wasn’t in the mood myself – had to pee – but I did find the man I was looking for there. I didn’t even bother to dismount, for fear of an embarrassing accident, so I called to him from horseback.
“It’s time to summon your men,” I ordered the steely-eyed mercenary archer captain. His name was Rogo “Redshaft” of Nirod, a lean and dangerous-looking man wearing red leather covered by a well-made but unadorned green cloak. He and his five-hundred bowmen were some of my best-trained forces, mounted for travel and able to work in nearly any kind of country – and his homeland was just over the Pearwoods hills in the Castali Wilderlands, so this was as much like home as he could ask. There were five hundred mercenary archers, too, among the Orphan’s Band, but they were light infantry, unmounted, and acknowledged the Nirodi yeomen their betters.
That was because Redshaft’s men took their craft seriously. They were excellent archers, either sniping or volleying in formation. The Nirodi boys begin practicing at the butts at age seven and keep it up daily until they’re full grown. It was how they remained a Free Town amongst a knot of greedy nobles. The Nirodi weren’t mercenaries, strictly speaking – Nirod owed service to the Duchy for their free status, and this was how they were paying it. I was thankful for that as I gazed with magesight at the enemy. “How many arrows have you in stock?”
“Milord, the Duke saw fit to send eighty arrows of the first quality for each man,” he answered with a slight deferential bow – I still wasn’t used to that. He was easily twenty years older than I. “As we’ve expended none in anger, we have that full complement.”
“Have you noticed anything about our friends’ use of bows, captain?” I asked as I watched the distant goblins squint in the glare of the sun. “I value your professional opinion.”
He shrugged, making his waxed red leather armor creak. “Just that they don’t shoot as far as ours, I’m happy to say!” he chuckled. “We’ve marked a rough line ahead that I think is the limit of their bowshot. I got a couple of fellows up there watching, taking the odd shot,” he admitted. “But every shot from them furries is far short.”
I nodded. “But have you seen them volley their fire?” I asked. He looked up, startled.
“Why, no, milord, they’ve been a-sniping, but no volleys,” he agreed, after a moment’s thought. “Not much for ‘em to shoot at, yet . . .”
“No, that’s not it. At Boval, they didn’t do it, either. Or only by accident. They’ve only used the bow for a few centuries, and mostly for hunting, at that.”
“Aye, firing a bow in war is a whole different matter,” he agreed, sagely.
“Let’s give them a lesson, then,” I decided. “Have your men and the archers from the Orphans take formation here, behind this line. From this angle, with the sun behind us, they’ll have a hard time seeing them in flight, so they’ll have a hard time keeping their shields up. I want you to prepare to instruct our foes in the art of volleying.”
He saluted sharply, “Yes, milord! I suppose they should learn from the very best,” and hurried off, shouting orders, all business. His men responded quickly. In only moments the field began filling up with archers. I was impressed – I hadn’t gotten used to commanding like that yet. Well, I hadn’t gotten used to having people actually listen, yet. It was refreshing.
I nudged Traveler over to the Orphan’s field camp and had Ancient Raric order a company of light infantry to screen the archers while they prepared. Then I sent a messenger to Captain Kaddel, the grizzled old veteran who led our mercenary medium horse, the Hellriders, and gave him orders. Then I settled a dispute between two companies of infantry over who should take which duty, and by the time I was done with that little squabble, there were nearly a thousand bored-looking archers standing around and waiting for orders
Redshaft was waiting a little more patiently than his men, so I rode with him to the front of the formation and addressed them.
“Good morning, ladies!” I began, sarcastically. There was a low chorus of chuckling from the old joke. “You see that knot of black-furred goblins between that rock, and that hill?” There was a sea of nods and mutte
rs of agreement. “If you ladies would be so kind, I’d like to see that entire area covered with arrows. I mean covered: I don’t want to see the grass. Or anything moving on it. At least six or seven volleys. Is that understood?”
There were some lusty cries of agreement, and I grinned. Usually archers are excess baggage on a campaign until they’re really needed, then they’re indispensable – but poorly used. More often, the thick-headed gentry reserve all the fun jobs for themselves and the cavalry, to win themselves greater fame and honor and glory and whatever else it is that knights like to eat. First blood was an unexpected treat for the Nirodi. And the first test of my abilities as a field commander.
Because I wasn’t a knight. I was a spellmonger and a warmage, and neither of those jobs usually led to military command. I’d overseen troops before, at Boval Castle, but those were scared peasants fighting for their lives. This was my first time commanding a battle with professional troops in this big in open country. I was willing to part with the opportunity to die gloriously in a cavalry charge to keep from spoiling it.
As the men got into formation under the shouts of the ancients and the corporals, I was about to relax in the saddle and watch . . . when my bladder once again reminded me of more pressing business.
This time I didn’t hesitate – this was the first spare moment I’d had in hours. I slid ungracefully from Traveler’s back with a noisy thud, and took two steps forward while I frantically un-fastened my pretty new borrowed armor. Three straps, five buckles, then the gambeson and underclothes – it was a trial, and I’m sure it was amusing to watch. I just barely made it, coating a nearby rock with a powerful stream and issuing a sigh of relief as the first volley went off, five hundred bowstrings singing in near-unison, and the resulting whoosh of flight. Then the other half of the troop let fly.
By the time I was done pissing and fastening up my armor, they were on their third volley, and I was strolling back to my horse, able to think clearly again. Getting back on a horse while in armor – unassisted – was no easy task, and I sheepishly used my witchstone to help me, hoping no one saw me do it.
When I was able to survey the carnage from horseback, I was even more impressed with the archers. Under magesight the make-shift gurvani redoubt was a mess. The little hollow they’d hidden in was only a hundred yards wide, and the whole area was covered in arrows, blood, and snarling, dying, little black bodies. It was a lot worse than a similar attack on human warriors. The goblins wore little armor, and their shields had been nearly useless.
They sometimes carried small leather bucklers, used in hand-to-hand duels or melee combat, strong enough to deflect one of those little iron-headed clubs they traditionally use. But there were only a few of them among them and they were ineffective against a three-foot long composite arrow with a five inch long steel head, propelled by a seventy-pound bow operated by a man who got paid to do nothing but practice archery every day.
As I watched the fourth volley sing into the air I could hear the moans of despair from the surviving gurvani even at this distance. Some were wise enough to seek cover, up against the boulder or under the corpses of their comrades, but most of them just stood there, their arms over their heads, peering blindly into the sunlight and awaiting death.
Four volleys meant two thousand arrows peppered that little hollow. At least a quarter of them had hit their mark, they were so densely packed, and by my rough estimate there were only maybe two hundred goblins who had escaped injury. I counted them silently as they scurried between volleys to rally the troops. The archers were preparing for a fifth volley when I felt the wind pick up from the west . . . and a tingle in the back of my mind that suggested that someone else was casting a spell.
There are only a few magical things you can do when you’re receiving fire with no way to shoot back. The gurvani shaman had hit upon one he could actually use. Witching the weather is no great feat, once you know what you’re doing, and even weak magi can manage to tug on the elemental forces of nature to raise a breeze. A really good one could manage to raise a real air elemental (think of it as a big piece of angry air that feels really good about itself). There were Seamagi who specialized in weather magic, although the official rule-of-thumb among us classically-trained magi was to leave the weather alone – affecting it is one thing, controlling it is quite another.
But a hefty breeze running across your field of fire is going to mess up your accuracy a bit. The fifth volley saw some arrows go astray while high in the air, but enough of them landed where they were aimed to continue the decimation. Had he been fending off only a few archers, that would have been far more effective – but when you’re facing massed fire, it’s like trying to divert the rain. The wind might move it around, but you’re still going to get wet.
But I couldn’t let the shaman stop us. “Cease fire,” I called to Captain Rogo, and he nodded. He gave the command and the men all went at ease as one. No use wasting arrows.
With magesight I could see the addition of another thousand arrows hadn’t improved the gurvani’s situation. But there were still some stirrings of life, as the surviving war leaders tried once again to rally the decimated raiders with screams and shouts and singing – and gurvani singing is rough.
When they didn’t hear another volley right away, they saw it as a sign of progress and began cheering. It took them a little while – about five minutes, but they finally got a little less than a hundred relatively-hardy goblins together, where they screamed at us and waved their weapons around defiantly amidst the stacked corpses of their comrades.
They surrounded one leader in particular, a tall (that is, almost five feet) muscular gurvan chieftain who bore a wooden round shield, a thick-hafted axe, and an over-large steel cap all looted from some human stronghold. He had decorated them all with gurvani glyphs to obscure the human markings, so he looked more than a little odd. As I watched he started chanting something in his folk’s guttural language that got them all singing loudly. Before long, those who weren’t screaming, moaning or dying were chanting defiantly in unison. It was horrible.
Apparently they thought that their shaman’s magic had prevented any more deadly arrows from falling from the sky. Their chanting grew more regular and rhythmic, and a few had recovered enough from the attack to pick up bows or javelins or slings and ineffectively launch a few back toward our lines.
Then a fresh group appeared from the south, out of the forest – that had to be the shaman and his guards. At his appearance the goblin chanting turned into a savage cheering – help had arrived!
I searched him vigorously with magesight to confirm my suspicions: he was indeed a country bumpkin shaman, not one of the elite acolytes of the Dead God. I could see the idiot, wearing a dirty white sash and elaborate wicker headdress, strutting around the field with his bodyguard stirring up the few survivors’ morale. He was quite the showman, doing a mad little dance that elicited howls from his fellows. Then the chieftain gave an impassioned speech that got them roused up again, too. They were all congregating in the center of the valley preparing, no doubt, to receive our charge. After all, they knew enough about human warfare to know that after the archers are done volleying, that meant that the big nasty horses would come down on them next. But I wasn’t quite ready for that yet. Not when the Nirodi hadn’t finished with their fun.
“Captain Rogo, please inform the men that I will pay five ounces of gold to the owner of the arrow that ends the life of that cocky little fellow in the colorful hat, out there. And a couple of bottles of wine, too. Prepare the next volley.”
“Oh, yes, Marshal!” he grinned wickedly. “You heard the Spellmonger! Five big and two bottles to the man whose mark takes that hat! Archers ready!” he shouted, as the Orphans suddenly had a reason to compete with their Nirodi comrades. I felt extravagant and lordly – five ounces of gold is the equivalent of five years of taxes for most peasant families. I had a war chest full of it.
While I waited and watched the goblins
continued to work themselves into a frenzy of defiance, their shaman at the center/ Then all one-thousand bowstrings of my men twanged at once. For a brief moment there was a storm cloud of wood and steel that obscured the sky. Nor did my men wait for their arrows to land before they had launched again – everyone wanted that money. And the wine. I’d barely let them have a beer ration in the last three weeks as we’d made fast time across country – those boys were thirsty.
When I finally ordered them to stop, and ordered the light infantry in front of them to slowly advance, there wasn’t much left of the gurvani band at all. ,A deadly thicket of arrows grew thick as weeds on the field watered by blood. We’d be able to glean most of those back up, too. The few survivors left among the bodies tried to put up a fight, but my men swept through and slaughtered the lot of them. There was no quarter in this war. Not if we ever wanted to win.
One of the Hellriders’ messengers rode back to me ten minutes later, informing me that of all the enemy that remained, only nine had not been killed or injured permanently, and those nine were being bound to be sent to me later for disposition. The shaman, of course, was dead, he reported, and presented me with the arrow he’d determined killed him, so I could note the archer by his chop for his reward. Then the messenger looked around and cautiously opened a grimy rag, revealing a dazzling green gem.
I’d cautioned them all about even touching any witchstones they came across on this campaign on the very first night of my command. Unless they were properly cleansed of the Dead God’s influence, they were dangerous even to seasoned magi. If a regular human without Talent touched one, it could produce a strong psychic shock that would make them unconscious, in shock, or even kill them outright.
The Spellmonger Series: Book 02 - Warmage Page 2
