Winterfall

by John Conroe

  “Careful with that big word, Chris. You can hurt yourself with never,” Lydia said.

  I didn’t answer, instead turning as the first of the robots trundled out of the barn to get hosed off and re-equipped with wood and carbon fiber. The little vampire was dead right. Never say never.

  Chapter 19

  Clacher Hold, Fairie

  The party was in full swing. The main hall in the hold was filled with tables, people, and food. A man dressed in bright green pants and a bright blue shirt played some type of flute and danced a crazy jig, periodically stopping his playing to sing some shockingly dirty songs.

  At least the food was good, Mack thought as he speared another slab of meat from a passing platter. Their tableware consisted of both wooden and fired clay trenchers and a sharp bronze table knife, along with clay cups and pitchers of water and some kind of fermented juice. There was bread, several kinds of meat, fruits he couldn’t identify, and cooked vegetables, along with goat cheese and goat butter, yogurt, and honey.

  Mack and Jetta were seated at their own little table just below the main table. Above them, on a slightly raised dais, Clacher dined, along with his wife, children, and a couple of older men seated around him. Sergeant Kellan also dined at the head table.

  The night had started when Lord Clacher had pulled the re-forged sword from its scabbard and held it up for all to see. Then he gave a speech about his excellent foresight in capturing Mack and his sister, with more about how he would use Mack’s skills to make their hold, which was apparently named Forpost, into the greatest of the holdings. There were, as near as Mack could estimate, four other holdings. These were named Miln, Landing, Rising, and Demyne.

  Of those four, Demyne seemed to be the most hated, which to Mack’s way of thinking meant it was probably a lot nicer than Forpost, as there seemed to be an envious nature to the derogatory comments being thrown around.

  “Tell me again how one beat-up old sword is going to win the day?” Jetta asked.

  “Right?” Mack answered.

  “In monitoring all the conversations in this hall, I have put together the beginnings of a narrative for these five small holdings. Each holding supplies particular goods and supplies, trading with the others. Miln produces the fired clay dishes and containers, as well as quite a bit of fish. Much of the vegetables and grains come from Landing, which seems to have open, fertile fields. Rising has sheep whose wool makes up most of these folks’ clothes, while Demyne, which might actually mean the Mine, produces the copper and tin for the bronze, and Forpost , being the deepest in the forests of the Winter Realm, supplies meat and fur along with medicinal herbs. Forpost’s products are the least valuable, and it would seem to have the lowest status. Much of this comes from that musician, who is a traveling bard who moves from holding to holding with the trading groups. He, in particular, is a font of information. I would also expect him to approach you, as he’s been asking about the two of you non-stop. As to your question, Jetta, knowledge of steel and iron work seems to have been lost over the years and generations. Yet all of the holdings have some form of retained steel implements and weapons, most being worn or broken, all treasured and all hidden away. Lord Clacher plans to trade your skills to these holdings as well as have you make more weapons, which would imply that somewhere there is a supply of steel or maybe just raw ore.”

  “So, what do you think happened? These people, or more likely their ancestors, accidentally came through an open portal, landed here, and gradually set up these holdings?” Jetta asked.

  “Precisely. They appear to have come in several waves, mostly from Great Britain, but also from Scandinavia. This is the northernmost holding, with Demyne being about five miles south and west of here. Rising is six miles south of Demyne and the other two, Miln and Landing, ten and approximately seventeen miles south of here, respectively.”

  “That would put Landing very close to the neutral zone, wouldn’t it?” Mack asked.

  “Approximately four-point-two miles from the closest edge of the neutral zone.”

  “So if we got to Landing and escaped, we could bolt for the zone,” Mack said.

  “And then do what? Hike over seven hundred miles? Plus, just because it’s neutral doesn’t mean they can’t hunt us down there,” Jetta said.

  “So you just want to sit here and get pimped out by the mighty lord of the keep?”

  “There are a great many dangers for travelers, both in the forest and on the plains of the neutral belt. Also, a major mountain range that bisects the plains, ranging from the south to the north and it would be very difficult to cross on foot. Many of this continent’s active volcanos are in that group of mountains. It is also inhabited by a large group of elves known as the Wild Hunt. It would be advisable to wait for my father.”

  “See? I’m right. Besides, it’s really just you being pimped out. I’m only your assistant,” Jetta said.

  A servant brought a platter of cooked fish to his side and Mack suddenly realized it was the young girl, Aylin.

  “Hey, there you are. Thank you again for helping me with my headache,” he said to her with a smile. Instead of answering, she lowered her head and left the platter, backing away, although he did see one eye looking at him through the curtain of hair that fell over her face.

  “They’re low down on the food chain, Mack. I don’t think you showing her attention in public is healthy for her or her mother,” Jetta said, glancing sideways.

  Mack followed her eyes and spotted Ari carrying another tray of food to a different table. The older woman looked nervous.

  “Did anyone notice?” he asked.

  “Not sure, but that bitch Iona has been watching us like a hawk all evening,” Jetta said. “Wait, something’s happening.”

  Mack twisted to look behind them and saw one of the guards leaning down to talk to Kellan, who in turn moved over to speak into his lord’s ear. Clacher leapt up from the table.

  “Everyone arm themselves and see to your stations. We are under attack. The

  Feral are outside our walls,” he said.

  Mass bedlam ensued—controlled, as people seemed to know where they were going, but bedlam nonetheless. They mostly separated by gender. Mostly. Women and children moved deeper into the keep, heading toward the back where the Suttons had not yet been. The men, and a few of the women, picked up weapons from all around the hall; some that had been attached to the walls, some that were piled in barrels or tucked away in corners. Spears were the most common, but a number of men produced bows with quivers of long arrows, and a handful had crossbows; short, nasty affairs of horn bow and dark wood.

  Most of the men already wore leather, but now armor began to appear and Mack noticed it was virtually all organic in nature. Predominantly it was overlapping plates and circles of what looked like either shell or polished bone discs, sewn onto heavy leather shirts as well as over pants that looked suspiciously like chaps. Not everyone had the armor, mostly just the guards and the men who had been seated near to Clacher.

  Kellan’s armor had a reddish hue to it and the material was shiny enough that Mack found himself reminded of a lobster. But the lobster looked their way and then started to give orders to his men, still looking at the Suttons. Lord Clacher must have overheard him as he suddenly spun from his squire or attendant and spoke loudly. “No. Bring them so that they see what we face,” he said.

  Kellan nodded and then the two guards were moving to either side of them. They found themselves following Kellan and Lord Clacher out of the keep and up onto the catwalk on the front wall.

  The men crouched and watched over the pointed tops of the tree trunk palisade, the night lit up by dozens of hissing torches mounted at regular intervals of about four feet.

  Mack, thinking it would have made him nervous to illuminate a wooden keep and its log fence wall with live flame, looked closer at the nearest torch setting. The wood for a foot around the torch was coated in what looked like a layer of clay; the material painted down
both sides of that particular log for at least four feet. A basket of sand was stationed in between each pair of torches, likely for fire control, but possibly for pouring in the face of a climbing attacker. Eyes filled with sand wouldn’t be much good when the fighting started.

  When they had climbed level with the top and stepped onto the catwalk, Mack looked out into the night. Towering evergreen trees were lit by the flickering flames of the torches, and crouched at their trunks were dark shapes with greenish eyes reflecting the light.

  Try as he might, Mack couldn’t make out their details, just that they were squatty, heavy shapes in the dark of the forest night. A beam of light shot out, lighting up a nightmarish shape, something like a giant fat goblin. Mack, and everyone near him, turned to look at Jetta, who was calmly lighting the monsters in the dark with a compact LED flashlight of ridiculous power. The creatures were hundreds of yards away, yet the light lit them, if only just.

  Kellan and Lord Clacher were wide-eyed at her light but Mack turned back to study the illuminated creatures that crouched silently on the edge of the forest. The goblins in Idiria were all muscular masses of ape-like stature, much like extremely large chimpanzees. The ones that belonged to Winter were called ice goblins and sported thick white fur. Summer’s goblins were green and almost scaly looking.

  These things were taller and powerful, although they looked fat. By contrast, all the goblins Mack had seen were squat and muscled like power lifters. The things in the woods seemed to have tusk-like teeth as opposed to the sharp predatory teeth of the goblins.

  Clacher took the light from Jetta, examining it and then shining it, first on his own hand, then over the hostile faces in the woods. “Can you make these, Smith?”

  “Not here. They require specially formed parts that would be impossible here. I could probably rig some kind of focused beam projector though, if I can find reflectors of some kind.”

  “You don’t seem able to make much of what you carry,” Clacher said.

  Mack snorted. “What I do is an anachronism. Most blades and weapons on our world are formed by machines, not by hand. I practice old arts, and people pay me for that art as much as the quality. There are relatively few smiths that do what I do,” he said.

  Clacher thought about that for a moment, then grunted and turned back to the watchers in the wood, shining the light across them.

  “The Feral are ogres, somewhat related to goblinkind,” Clacher said. “But, as you can see, they are much bigger. They live in the deep forests and we don’t know much about them. Some say they were experiments of the Courts, created by Queen Morrigan, but they escaped and took to the wilds. The queen’s warriors sometimes hunt them for sport and they generally avoid the elves entirely, but they are not afraid of us,” the lord explained. “Usually, they fall upon our hunters deep in the woods, tear them apart, and eat them. Occasionally, when food is scarce, they will attack the keep. See how they stand outside of accurate bow range? They know us well.”

  “Really, because that looks like a whole lot of monsters out there. How often do attacks on the keep happen?” Mack asked.

  “When Winter is Ascendant and the deep cold of the north kills or drives their food sources south, they come down here, nearer the neutral lands. Although this seems…” Clacher trailed off.

  “Excessive? Overdone? Crazy?” Jetta threw out.

  The lord of the keep eyed her darkly but she simply waited for his answer, her expression mildly curious.

  “Unprecedented,” he finally said. Any response from Jetta was lost by Iona clattering up the steps to the catwalk, the Suttons’ weapons and gear in her arms.

  “Daughter! What do you mean by this?” Clacher asked.

  “My lord?” Kellan called, his attention focused outward. They turned in time to see a particularly massive ogre stride forward and throw a round object at the fort. It arced through the air, bouncing off the ground just a few feet short of the wall and rolling to a stop.

  Mack realized at the same time his sister drew a sharp breath that it was a human head.

  “Damnation! Is that…” Clacher asked.

  “Yes, Milord. It’s Randall, sir,” Kellan said grimly.

  Clacher looked at it with raw anger for a moment while Jetta shared a sharp glance with her brother. “Can yer weapons reach them?” Clacher asked.

  Mack looked at his sister. “What do you think that is? Four hundred yards?”

  “Yeah, maybe a bit shorter. I don’t think the bows these folks have are up to medieval standards. So let’s say between three fifty and four hundred yards,” Jetta said.

  “Bullet drop of like two feet—in the dark,” Mack said.

  “Use both flashlights?” she suggested.

  Mack turned to the others, who were watching with increasing impatience.

  “Generally yes, although in the dark, it will be tough. We can try though if you think it will scare them off,” Mack said.

  “Try it then,” Clacher said, nodding at Kellan, who moved behind the Suttons while two of his spearmen turned and pointed their spears at Mack and his sister.

  Moving slowly, Mack accepted first his rifle from Iona, who was fairly brimming with excitement, and then his sister’s. Jetta was digging in her chest pack and then Mack’s vest. She came over and handed Mack’s matching LED light to Lord Clacher and then exchanged her rifle for a twenty round magazine. Moving almost in synchronization, the two locked magazines and chambered rounds.

  “If you would use both lights to illuminate the ogres, Lord Clacher, we may have a shot,” Jetta said, kneeling down on the catwalk, putting in ear plugs from her shirt pocket.

  Mack followed suit, first with the ear plugs, then bracing his rifle in a gap between log points and settling into shooting position.

  “Still can’t see shit,” Jetta said.

  Mack had a head-smacking thought. “Hold on,” he said, leaning his rifle against the palisade and rushing back to Iona, who was standing with their gear. Ignoring the girl, he rummaged through a pocket in his vest. “Yes!” he cried. Back at the wall, Jetta looked at him as he held up a tiny, tiny vial. “Experimental O’Carroll Industries product number one. Code named Night Eyes,” he said with a grin.

  “Dec has a company named O’Carroll Industries?” Jetta asked.

  “Nah, we just call it that. He makes stuff and I try it out. This is a potion combining his night vision werewolf spell with saline solution. One drop in each eye. Only lasts for like fourteen or fifteen minutes. Don’t look at the torches when you go to reopen your eyes,” he said, dripping a drop into each of his own eyes. He moved to make sure he was looking at the forest when he opened his lids. “Perfect.”

  Jetta took the vial and after a glance at her brother, who was now looking through his own scope, she dripped a drop into each eye. She almost jumped when she opened them and looked at the tree line. “Holy shit! It’s like daylight,” she said. Eye back to her scope, she dialed in on the bulk of the head-tossing ogre.

  Mack was scoping the ogres himself and noted the wet, dark stains that covered the middle three ogres. One of them was holding what looked like a human arm.

  “Wind is minimal. Holding the three hundred yard aiming dot right on fatty’s forehead,” Jetta said. “Remember, Mack, the first five rounds in these magazines are tracer rounds. Firing.”

  Her rifle cracked and the round shot through the air like a sci-fi movie laser blast, the tracer burning bright in the dark. The big ogre jumped and stumbled back, then looked down at his front in surprise.

  “You hit him in the chest. The tracers are lighter and maybe the gravity here is different,” Mack said.

  The ogre was staggering now and suddenly fell to his knees.

  Jetta’s gun went off again, the muzzle blast scaring the guards on either side of her, both dropping their spears to grab their ears.