by Greg Curtis
Still, it was not a soldier's place to surrender to fear. And as he took his place on the line with the others and drew his magic to him, he promised them all silently that he would not. No matter what happened, no matter the odds, he would fight.
For a little while he didn't have to. Though the rats kept coming, a river of steel and glowing red eyes, the soldiers were up to the challenge. And so the numbers of dead rats kept growing while the column of rats bursting from the cavern scarcely grew any larger. And all the while he was drawing his fire to him.
The air was chilling all around, the fires from the torches were dimming, and the sky above and the ground below were growing cold. He tried to draw more from above and below, shielding the elves from his magic, but still he knew they must be cold. Yet it was the only way he could fight – and sooner or later he knew they would run out of arrows.
Then he heard the sounds of hoof beats assembling all around him, and watched out of the corner of his eyes as more elves took up their positions. They were being joined by more and more elves as they came from across the valley floor to join the fight and he praised the All Father for that mercy.
Soon they were hundreds strong. Surely two hundred stood on either side of him and another hundred were astride their horses. And as the commanders started shouting instructions they formed up into formation, ready to take on the rats. A giant semicircle with himself in its middle, and the tunnel mouth at the centre.
It was just as well. The rats were coming faster by then. Instead of a column five or six wide they were a dozen at least running at them side by side, and they were moving even faster. The river was fast becoming a torrent.
Still they came and still they died. And though every so often as the column of rats emerging from the cavern mouth grew longer, he loosed a good hot fire ball at them. One that would not just destroy them but send the pieces of their steel corpses flying high into the night sky. And each time they did he heard cheering from all around.
In time they found a rhythm. The archers on his right would loose a volley. Then when more rats emerged he would send a spell of chained fire screaming down their middle. Next the archers on his left would take their turn. And all the while more soldiers and more supplies, mainly quivers of arrows, would be brought to them.
It was a good system. It gave them all a chance to rest between attacks and conserved arrows. But as the rats kept coming and coming Sam kept wondering when they would run out. By then he was sure that several thousand had to have been destroyed. The land all around for hundreds of yards was littered with burning steel corpses. In places they were starting to form piles. And yet they kept coming.
Still, as long as they kept being destroyed.
And so the battle went on for what seemed like ages. The sun, long since set, finally let the last of its light leave the land and the sky grew completely dark around them. But another mage had an answer for that – a vast orb of shimmering silver appearing in the sky above, giving the archers all the light they needed to keep sending the rats to a fiery death. Meanwhile step by step the elves fell back as a unit, making the semicircle ever larger and allowing more archers to stand with them. Soon they were thousands strong, and for maybe the first time ever, the machina were outnumbered as they burst from the tunnel mouth. It gave the men more time to pick their targets and loose their arrows. And it turned what had been a panicked retreat into an attacking formation.
Not to be outdone, the masters of earth magic soon arrived to stand beside Sam and the archers with a plan of their own. One as deadly as any he could ever have asked for. As the soldiers fell back, they turned the good earth where they'd just been into liquid, in effect creating a giant, unseen trench fifty yards deep, which, if and when they decided to let the rats advance fully out of the tunnel, they would fall into, never to be seen again. All that was needed was the command. It was the same shape he'd used when the elders had tested him, and that others had used before him. And he guessed that it was a shape that would become more common as the war against the machina progressed. Who said that earth magic couldn't make a useful weapon!
Meanwhile above his head Sam could feel the gentle wind that marked the very edge of a gigantic tornado hovering high above them, as the weather mages made ready. No doubt they would hold off for a while, since their magic was likely to be as dangerous to anyone caught in it as to the enemy, but if and when the time came Sam knew they too would be used.
Over the next half hour or so, though it seemed longer to Sam, what had been a desperate defence and holding of the line against the enemy, became an organised campaign. The war masters somewhere behind them began sending their messengers along the lines, coordinating the attack so that the most damage was dealt to the steel rats for the least effort. At the same time the rats began to pay a heavy price for their attack. Where initially they had been destroyed in their scores, in time that became in their hundreds and even thousands. In fact so many were being destroyed that their still burning steel remnants were forming a gigantic hill over which their fellow rats had to climb to get to the elves.
But at the same time, while Sam was feeling good about their success, he was also starting to worry about the sheer numbers of rats that kept emerging from the underground entrance. They didn't seem to be slowing down. They had thought that there would only be a few thousand underground. But he was starting to think that that was yet another miscalculation. Just how many were there?
“Fog in five! Fall back twenty paces on the horn when it arrives.”
A messenger screamed it at them even as he galloped by on his horse. His words could barely be heard over the constant thunder that was the death of so many rats, but for everyone who heard him it was a major morale boost as they knew what was coming. It was time to see just how effective the earth mage's trench could be.
Exactly as promised, a little while later a fog began to descend on the rats, and Sam like every other soldier there began to feel a trace of excitement as they waited for the horn. This could be the decisive moment in the battle! The killer blow that would decimate the enemy and give them a chance to rest. Or, though he didn't want to imagine it, the rats could finally come in such numbers that they would completely fill the trench and the rest would then come running over the bodies of the fallen.
Just as they'd hoped for the fog began thickening, starting at the cavern mouth and then spreading out back towards the elves, covering the liquid trench the mages had built so that it was completely hidden. And when the fog finally reached them Sam knew that everything was in play. So did the war masters, and as promised the horn sounded.
With a final blast of fire and a volley of arrows aimed in the general direction of the cavern mouth and the rats, the elves fell back the required twenty paces like a well drilled unit. And waited.
It wasn't easy waiting. Staying calm and not attacking the enemy, even though they couldn't see him anyway, but it was necessary. The rats' master had to believe they'd retreated under the cover of fog, fled against his insurmountable numbers. They hoped it would be the bait he needed to make a mistake. To order his soldiers to charge ahead blindly, heedless of the risk. And that he was just stupid enough to take it. To send his army running heedlessly and blindly into a trap. The real question was how long would he keep doing it once his rats began sinking? How many would he have left after he'd realised his rats were all being destroyed?
Naturally there was no answer, and Sam like everyone else there simply had to wait it out. But at least while he waited he had the chance to once more draw the fire he so desperately needed. It had been tight for a while as the age spent battling the rats had used up so much of his fire, leaving him without enough magic burning within him, and using nearly everything he had with each blast. Now that he had the chance to draw more fire he used it for all he was worth, fanning the barely glowing embers into a raging bonfire.
By the time the first of the plopping sounds could be heard, exactly as though the rats were
diving into a river, the bonfire was singing sweetly in his flesh. Meanwhile thunder in the skies was beginning to grow and Sam guessed the weather mages were also preparing themselves for something spectacular.
Suddenly the plopping sounds became a symphony of falling water. It was almost as though the skies had opened up and unleashed a deluge on to a pond. But it wasn't rain drops that were making the noise. The rats, finding the ground ahead of them free of elves and arrows, were charging toward where they thought the elves were, and sinking in their hundreds. The noise brought a smile and a small cheer to Sam's lips and he wasn't alone. All around he could hear the sudden, quickly suppressed roar that were the thousands of elves standing with him cheering. He could see their white teeth and the whites of their eyes glowing orange in the fire lit sky.
In time the noise of the rats ceased, as they'd always known it had to once their master finally realised his foolishness. But by that time having listened to the rats hitting the water almost continuously, surely thousands if not tens of thousands had to have been destroyed. Meanwhile Sam and the other mages had rediscovered their magic, the archers had rested and reloaded their quivers, and tired arms had been stretched. No matter how many rats remained, this had been a victory for them.
“Count off a hundred then cheer!”
The rider thundered by, giving the next command, and Sam could see the logic. In theory the rats had stopped running blindly into a trap in pursuit of an enemy they couldn't find. It was time to give them a target to chase, though of course they would remain blinded by the fog. Meanwhile they could rest for a little while longer and recover their strength. Immediately the count began.
Soon – though whether the full hundred had been counted Sam wasn't sure – a cheer rang out from dozens and then hundreds and thousands of throats. A cheer which quickly became a roar of triumph that filled the entire valley itself. A roar that the Dragon surely heard even in his homeland, wherever that was. And sure enough, in time more plopping sounds could soon be heard through it, as more rats ran for their prey and sank into the earth. This time those plopping sounds didn't became a deluge, but that was expected. Even the most stupid commander would have realised his mistake eventually.
But as time passed and the silence continued, Sam like all the rest, finally began to hope. Could it be that the enemy was finally out of soldiers? Or was he simply becoming smarter? Sam had no answer, and neither, he suspected did anyone else. They simply kept cheering and hoping.
A sudden touch of earth magic raised the hairs on the back of Sam's neck, and he realised that the earth mages had sealed their trap, entombing the rats in their rocky grave. A few moments later a gust of wind blew away the fog as if it had never been and the light from the fire mages suddenly revealed a rocky landscape, bereft of steel vermin. In truth it was bereft of anything as even the grass that had once covered it had sunk into its strange liquid embrace, never to grow again. A ring of bare dirt surrounding the cavern entrance and the arena surrounding it filled with piles of burning steel bodies. But more important than the death of the land was the complete lack of steel vermin even behind the trap. No new ones were emerging from the cavern. None were running for them, trying desperately to cross the ring of bare dirt in which their brothers were entombed.
Where the cavern entrance popped up out of the ground no more glowing red eyes could be seen. No more steel glowed in the silvery light – it was all blackened. No more fires burnt either. No more threat remained above ground as far as they could see.
But what remained under ground? That was the question. How many more of the rats remained? How many more would they have to fight their way through in the morning? And in the longer term, how many more armies could this new Dragon raise?
It was a sobering thought, as Sam tried to estimate the numbers of his steel vermin they'd already destroyed that day, and failed to even find an estimate. Certainly it was something in the many tens of thousands, but no closer than that could he begin to guess. And if the Dragon could raise armies like that, even afford to lose them and then raise more, what hope was there in truth? What hope at all?
But even as he was thinking such morbid thoughts a new cheer erupted from all around him, and he wondered why. But he understood when he caught sight of arms pointing and followed to what they were pointing at. To the new figures that had emerged on top of the mountain of destroyed steel vermin surrounding the cavern entrance. Short stocky dwarven figures.
There could only be one explanation. The rats were gone. They had used all their numbers up in this final attack and the dwarves had destroyed whatever remained below before chasing them all the way back up the tunnels.
The battle was over and they had finally won. A province had been cleared of the enemy. The Dragon had been defeated if only on a single battlefield.
But it was a start.
There were simply no words to express how powerful the emotion was that overcome him. But the tears of joy that began streaming down his cheeks were a start.
Chapter Thirty Two
Riding home after a war was an unusual experience for Sam. He guessed it was the same for everyone. It was actually more difficult than he would have expected. On the one hand he still felt like celebrating over a week later. He felt like throwing his head back and shouting the joyful news to the skies. They had won a major victory and it was time that the entire world knew it. It was time that the people knew that the Dragon could be beaten. And though the celebrations and drinking had largely ended he kept thinking that they should still be doing that.
On the other hand it was also a time when the price they had paid for that victory sat heavy in his heart. More than eight hundred men and women had perished. Nearly a thousand more had been badly injured, and would only return home once the healers had finished tending to them. If they survived. Another thousand carried the scars and minor injuries of battle.
A tenth of their army was dead. Another quarter would not soon return to the fight if at all. And at that he knew, they had been lucky. They had been stupid too, and in battle making stupid mistakes got you killed.
So what were they to do? Celebrate or mourn? And what would they say to the families whose loved ones had perished? How did one tell a wife or husband that their partner had died? How did you tell the children that their father or mother was now with the Goddess? And most terrible of all, how did you tell parents that their most beloved children were gone? Especially when so many had already lost loved ones already?
And yet if the price the elves had paid for their victory was too high, it was so much worse for the dwarves of the Bronze Mountains. Their losses were in fact so great that they could never place a true figure on them. All they could truly guess was that nearly a quarter of their clan or around thirty to fifty thousand – had died. There would be no family he guessed that had not suffered some losses. Some families might have been wiped out completely.
And all because of one man. One part troll. A man who wasn't yet finished either. He might have had his nose bloodied, but he was far from down. Even now Sam knew, he would be building his armies once again. Preparing for the next attack. And no doubt next time he would be stronger.
The people had a song they sang constantly as they marched – Rowell ni mar – the gold is going, and while on the face of it it was simply a ballad about the end of fall, it was about much more than that. It was about the falling of the golden leaves and the coming of winter to the land. Only in this case the falling golden leaves were the people and they were falling in numbers, covering the forest floor.
“So, tell me about my parents, brother.”
Sam started as he heard Mayvelle's voice come from just beside him. He hadn't heard her approach. But then he hadn't been paying attention to much as he'd been riding. Mostly he'd just been wallowing in his own dark thoughts. In fact he hadn't even known she or her troop were with the army. It took a few moments to redirect his thoughts to the question asked. And then to realise he had no
idea what she was talking about.
“I don't know anything about your parents.”
Why he wondered would she even think he did? And then the last word hit him and sent his thoughts spinning in a whole new direction.
“Brother?” Ry and her family had said she might be his sister, and maybe they were right. He didn't know. But he hadn't broached the subject with Mayvelle back in their new home. Not even after Ry had told him about her visit. He'd barely even seen her around the new Shavarra. And when he had the topic hadn't come up, for which he had been grateful. Because it wouldn't have been good for anyone. So why was she?
“I discussed the matter with my parents before we left. They told me the truth.” Her face though said it had been a bitter truth.
“What exactly did they tell you?” Sam stalled, trying to work out what she thought she knew and more importantly what she felt about it.
“That they took me from my mother's dying arms. That she'd been poisoned. That your father and his mistress killed her.”
“What?!” Sam was instantly outraged. The very idea was appalling. In fact it was worse than that. So much worse that he didn't know what it was. But he knew he couldn't allow his father's name to be so badly tainted by lies. “My father would never do any such thing! He was a good man. An honourable man. And he loved my mother with all his heart.”
