by Greg Curtis
He had hurried here. Today he had the feeling that there was something important to be discussed. Mostly because of the way in which the messenger had spoken to him as he'd brought him word that his presence was required. The man had seemed somewhat anxious and been insistent that he hurry.
Sam was happy enough to comply. After another long morning of doing nothing more than reshaping the great trees so that the artisans could start working with them, he was bored. It was work that he could almost do in his sleep. And he still had no great love of heights.
But as he approached the meeting he understood some of the messenger's insistence. This was no normal meeting of the Council. The Fiore Elle was full, and not just with elves.
The Shavarran Ruling Council was there as he'd expected, along with an assortment of other elders, wizards, warriors and sages. But they were far from alone. Mixed in among them were dwarves. By the looks of things a scout party had arrived, and were decked out in their solid steel plate and sporting battle axes as large as any he'd ever seen.
Standing proud among the elves, none of them over five feet in height but all well over two hundred pounds in pure muscle and bone, they looked distinctly out of place. But for all that Sam knew that they were supremely confident in their physical prowess, to the point where every one of them would have believed himself the equal of at least a dozen elves in a fight. And they did love to fight. They would never have considered themselves as being out of place even in an elven land. Rather, for them it was the elves who were far from home.
The dwarves weren't alone. Also among them were a group of humans, all dressed in rough sewn outfits of leather and fur with riding boots and leather gloves. Judging by their outfits he thought they had to be hillmen, and if the dwarves were many leagues from their home the hillmen had come from even further afield. Hillmen were often called rangers or mountain men, and their truest home was always on horseback, riding the alpine lands furthest from civilization. It was a very long way from this new Shavarra.
For them to be here, in the lowlands as they called them – and moreover in the midst of a forest instead of wide open mountain steeps – meant that something had to be wrong. Very wrong. They weren't traders, and they weren't great explorers of other lands. Moreover, they had hurried here. He could see that when he saw they hadn't packed for the trip. Instead of dressing for warmer climes, they still wore their shaggy pelts proudly, despite the fact that they had to be melting in the warm sun. The worst of winter was passed, and though it wasn't yet spring, it was still far warmer than the alpine lands. Their horses also looked to be carrying few provisions in their empty saddle bags, and the animals themselves had obviously been run hard for many days. Despite their natural fitness, they were tired.
All of that together could only mean one thing: The enemy had struck again. That understanding came with a whole new set of questions, since the hillmen didn't live anywhere close to the sea. Their lands, wherever they were, were always a long way inland. So if he had struck them, he had changed his pattern. But how? Where could he have landed his ships? Or had he marched his army over league after league of inhospitable terrain just to reach them? And why?
Walking quietly Sam joined the group, wondering if his presence was required simply for protocol or if something more was required of him. Naturally no one was going to tell him if it was, and by the look on his face Elder Bela standing to one side didn't look like he knew what was going on either.
“Good. All are here now for the telling.” War Master Indolan acknowledged Sam's arrival.
Sam gained the distinct impression from the War Master's tone that not only had he and the rest of the elders waited for him, but that he was late, though how he could have come any quicker was beyond him. He nodded politely but said nothing, knowing there was nothing he could say that wouldn't sound like some sort of excuse.
“This is Lochar Stonewright of the Bronze Mountain Clan to the south east of us, and Halibur Swift of the Straight Arrow Pride, their neighbours these past many years. They have a tale to tell.”
Lochar launched into his tale a moment later, automatically assuming the position of the leader as was his people's nature. For their part the hillmen stood around, watching, listening and waiting patiently, apparently completely unconcerned by having a dwarf speak for them. But then they were nomads by nature, all their worldly possessions and their homes carried on horseback, and fixed to no particular place or allegiance. As such they were always remarkably calm about all things that couldn't be changed according to the tales, choosing to leave rather than argue when things became difficult. There was always another mountain range to settle. But apparently they couldn't do that any longer. In fact if Lochar was correct, the hillmen were just as trapped as those who had built great cities or fortresses, bound not by their own walls, but by the enemy's armies.
It seemed the enemy had changed his approach with the hillmen, very likely after having had his conversation with Sam. Gone were the sailing ships. Instead he had found great ships of the air to carry his armies. Balloons. Great black bags of gas that held aloft baskets in which the rats could be carried. And instead of worrying about the vagaries of the wind, he had the balloons tethered to one another and towed a dozen at a time by a steel drake. It was a frightening development. And it was new. He hadn't read that in the histories of the Dragon Wars.
This new Dragon was learning. And he would be even more dangerous because of it. If each drake could tow a dozen balloons and each balloon could hold four or five rats, then each landing left fifty or more of the steel vermin on the ground ready to attack, with a drake in the air to rain down fire from above. In that way his armies grew fast.
No more were the steel rats his only soldiers either. At least as far as the open ranges went. Instead, he now had an army of spiders that spat balls of fire the size of a man's head further than an archer's arrow could fly. Worse than that, when the fire balls landed they exploded, spreading fire and fragments of steel everywhere, and taking out as many as a dozen people at once. In short he now had mobile artillery. The same mobile artillery he understood had been used to such devastating effect against Ragnor's Rock.
Infantry supported by air power and artillery. The Dragon had obviously started to improve his tactics.
Against them the hillmen had had their traditional advantage of speed as they stayed in the saddle. They had always thought themselves safe thanks to that. But for once it hadn't been enough. The enemy's drakes were even faster, and could strike silently from above without warning. They would cast great swaths of fire down upon the hillmens' unsuspecting heads, leaving more than a few charred corpses still in their saddles. It was a vicious tactic, but an effective one. The drakes kept the various clans bottled up tight in the forests where their horses' speed was limited, while the rats, the enemy's foot soldiers, made the forests their own, turning them into a series of traps rather than a refuge.
Attacked from the air mercilessly and finding no safety in the forests, the hillmen had been forced to retreat, and for the first time ever, to find shelter from the open skies. It was something they had never done before. Something they had never even considered. Consequently they hadn't been entirely sure what they should do. They had no skills to build great castles, and there were no such structures among their lands. Nor could they flee great distances to those lands where such structures existed. The drakes would have caught them the moment they left the shelter of the forests. So they had found themselves a place among the dwarves of the Bronze Mountain Clan.
And then the enemy had found them there too.
In the tunnels and corridors of their great underground city the enemy's rats had made a reappearance. There they had truly found themselves at home. They loved the dark, and they could squeeze themselves down into the tightest of places, cunningly letting the dwarves pass them by only to attack from the rear. And as before they had numbers on their side. It seemed that however many of them the dwarves killed, they w
ere replaced by dozens more.
But in turn the dwarves had their battle hardened steel weapons and armour, and the archery of the hillmen to call upon. The fight had soon become a pitched battle for the city which nobody could win. Yet. Instead both sides had formed siege lines and established fortifications, and currently they were waging a battle of attrition.
The real danger for them however, wasn't the rats that were already there. The dwarves might even win against them. It was that they were trapped within their underground city. The steel drakes and fire spiders were unable to break through into the city itself, but they stopped the dwarves leaving as they set up a perimeter around it. A barrier that prevented the dwarves both being resupplied and escaping to safety, while the enemy kept growing in strength up top.
As a soldier Sam could see the strategy of the enemy, and even be impressed as he turned his opponent's strengths into weaknesses. It was a well thought out campaign he'd launched and it appeared he'd started studying tactics. But as a man, he found it disgusting. What had happened at Shavarra was terrible, but this was worse. Far worse. It showed the enemy's purpose. It was clear that he wanted no survivors. Then again perhaps he hadn't wanted any at Shavarra either, they'd just fought back a little better than he'd expected. He had trapped the dwarves in their own cities, knowing that they couldn't escape since his drakes would have torn them apart in the open, and then settled back to win a battle of attrition. In short the battle had become a siege, and a siege that the enemy would win.
In time the dwarves and the hillmen would be forced out, slowly but surely as hunger and desperation forced them either to assault the rats, or flee. In both instances the dwarves would come off second best. They weren't suited for a fight out in the open, and the rats had turned their own defences against them.
It was only the construction of hidden entrances to the city that had allowed these dwarves to escape and the speed of the hillmen that had got them through the wilds to the new elven homeland. And all the while as they had desperately made their way to the new home of a people they'd heard had fought a battle against the enemy and perhaps even drawn it, the battle behind them continued towards its inexorable end. Food and supplies were running lower by the day, while ever more rats arrived to replace the fallen.
But the question was what to do about it. Or more accurately what did they want Sam to do about it?
Clearly his fame, or at least the legend of his battle with the rats had made it as far as the dwarves, and they hoped that once more he and the elves could turn the tide. But at the same time, how much could they actually know about the battle he'd fought? Did they understand that it was magic that he'd used? Something the dwarven people weren't especially fond of, except for their own enchantments of course. Did they understand that his most powerful weapon, the fire ring, couldn't be used in an underground city – it would kill everyone out in the open, the dwarves and rats alike. It would also likely smother the dwarves and any buildings that fell as a result, would make barricades for both sides. A siege would become trench warfare. And that was the best result assuming he got into position in time. Long before they got there Sam and any others he travelled with would have to contend with an army of spiders and drakes.
Despite all the problems though, Sam wanted to help. How could he not? He was a man as well as a knight, and he could not sit back and let others die, especially women and children, while he stood back and did nothing. He suspected he wasn't alone either. All around him he could see the soldiers and guards bristling with anger, while the war masters were obviously well into planning their own campaign.
But could they dream one up sufficient to wipe out such a scourge? And was it even a choice?
Chapter Twenty Nine
Riding through the forests in the rain and fog was far from a pleasant experience, though Tyla didn't seem to mind. Sam though was tired of the wet and the cold, even though he knew the weather protected him. But he would truly have welcomed some sunshine. The last of winter was still with them and the cold and wet was the last thing he wanted as he rode into battle. In fact after a week of this, he would have given away everything he owned just to enjoy a couple of hours of blue skies and sunshine.
But it wasn't to be and he knew that it was for the best. They were riding into battle, and he knew they had to be close to their destination. They had ridden hard to get here and in a week and a half of riding an army could travel a lot of leagues.
The Bronze Mountains he thought couldn't be many more leagues ahead. Of course when they got there the battle would begin. Maybe a little rain and fog wasn't such a terrible thing after all.
“Spider.” The soft call came from just in front of Sam, startling him, and it was a few heartbeats before he realised the intent. It was a warning and he cursed the elves for their soft voices. Often their warnings were no more than murmurs in the background, and if he wasn't paying attention he could miss them altogether over the noise of the rain and hoof beats.
Still he did his part, pulling on the reins to stop Tyla in her tracks, while Forellin, the youngest master of earth magic, drew alongside him with his great bow in hand. And what a bow it was – nearly as tall as a man standing and bursting with magic. It took all of the forty something year old elf's strength to pull back the cord and release the arrow, and yet despite that and the fog, he was deadly accurate. More importantly, he was a powerful mage and the arrow that he fired would completely destroy a spider, or even a drake should it happen to be on the ground.
Its stone tip was magically hardened until it was stronger than the best steel – far stronger. It would pierce even the steel sides of the massive spiders. But the real genius lay in the metal shaft just behind the head, which would explode on impact, tearing the steel beast apart. Before they'd left, Sam had enchanted over two hundred of the arrows under Master Forellin's watchful eye, each at least four feet long, and Aegis who proudly carried the master and the arrows looked as though a giant porcupine had attacked her. Still, she could bear the weight of the elf and his oversized quivers with ease where other horses would have struggled.
It was an odd thing he thought, but the strength of the force they'd brought to the rescue to the hillmen and the dwarves was far stronger for being diverse than he would have expected. Forellin and the arrows were merely the beginning of that strength.
Further back in the party, nearly a third of a league behind them, the weather mages were creating the constant mist and fog that hid the party's approach from the steel vermin, and coincidentally grounded the drakes. That was an unexpected blessing. Until now, no one had realised the beasts couldn't fly in the rain, and Forellin's arrows had already turned nearly two dozen of them into piles of smouldering steel rubbish along with at least fifty of the spiders as they sat there like wounded rabbits.
There was no doubt the enemy had noticed their approach, but given that all his machina they had encountered had been destroyed, he could have no real idea who they were or exactly where they were coming from. His rats which he'd sent out in droves to search and destroy, were also disappearing by the hundreds as the elves' long bows were taking a deadly toll on them. On the rats they were using slightly different arrows. These ones just had hardened heads. But that was enough. They might not destroy a spider or a drake, but the smaller rats were no match for them.
Meanwhile the hillmen, armed with their own short bows, were riding horses which had all been gifted with extra stamina and speed by the nature mages. They too were cutting a mean swathe through the outer patrols of the machina as they attacked and ran, pulling the enemy forces in every direction as they tried to give chase and failed. The rats and spiders were too slow to catch them, the drakes and balloons were grounded, and the hillmen's arrows destroyed them as they too were hardened. The end result was that the enemy forces were in chaos, as their master gave into his every vicious impulse and chased every attacking party without realising it was a fool's move. One thing was certain; he was no military man
. He was like an angry giant swatting at flies, never realising he was just wasting his own strength.
Their real weapon though was being readied by the dwarves even now as they approached to within range of the army. During the week and a half that they had ridden here, the dwarves had been building, their own war machines. Giant trebuchets which were mounted on some of the spare wagons the elves had had left over, and which were being pulled by the incredibly strong war horses of Fair Fields. Each night when they stopped the dwarves went to work, and each morning the giant war machines were taller and heavier.
Sam would have preferred it if they could have brought cannon with them, but the dwarves had none with them and the elves would never have tolerated such weapons at all. They didn't have a foundry either. The only cannon there were, were all in the city itself. So they were having to fall back on weapons they could make without a foundry. Still, the war machines were powerful weapons and the dwarves were impossibly quick builders. It helped that their numbers were being boosted as they took a path through some of the dwarven outposts, but even so the progress was amazing.
And the war masters had come up with a plan of attack that was inspired. One that used all their different strengths. The plan was that while the hillmen used their speed to keep the steel army busy and the elves wiped out their scouts and hunting parties, the dwarves would be setting up the score of war machines on the ridges surrounding the enemy encampment. With an expected range of six to eight hundred yards thanks to yet more magic and the surprisingly small size of the stones they would fire, they would rain down death upon the steel army, while Sam and the other elves would become the final assault force, should they be needed.
