Lord of the Rose

by Doug Niles

  Jaymes withdrew to join his comrades in the low gulley. From here they could peer between the thick grasses along the rim and, as long as the wind stayed friendly, keep an eye on the goblins with little chance of being spotted themselves.

  The goblins swarmed through the blackened rubble, kicking around the broken timbers, whooping and cheering as they scrambled over debris. Several squawked and barked when they came upon the fresh hole where the steel box had been removed.

  A goblin tore down one of the blue silk draperies from the lady’s bedchamber and threw it over his shoulders, a mockery of a regal cape. He pranced along the sagging edge of the broken floor until a rotten timber broke under his feet, plunging him unceremoniously into the tangled wreckage of the first floor. Moaning piteously, he was too injured to resist as another goblin came up to him and snatched away the material, leaving his stricken comrade pinned between two heavy, charred beams.

  Gray clouds had rolled across the plains with the goblins. Now a chilly drizzle began to fall, and the marauders wearied of their unprofitable explorations. They withdrew to the garden, leaving a few pickets posted around the fringes of the ruin. As it grew dark, the orange glow of an immense bonfire brightened the interior of the hedge ring. The rain picked up, leaving the four companions stuck in their ravine soggy, miserable, and cold.

  Even so, Jaymes said they should wait until dark before slipping away. Dram agreed. The two gnomes, huddled together under a single blanket with teeth chattering, had lost all their spirit. Hours later the warrior led them away, heading north behind the cover of rain and clouds and darkness blanketing the area.

  Hours before dawn, they were still moving. “Those outriders are just the vanguard,” Jaymes warned Dram. “I have a feeling the whole army is going to be along in another day or two.”

  Mason’s Ford was a nondescript town that owed its existence to a shallow stretch of the small but rapid North Garnet River. A series of small corrals and barns ringed the outer fringe of the community, which lacked the protection of a wall, tower, or any other fortification. The four travelers were foot-sore and weary as, two days after leaving the ruin of Lord Lorimar’s manor, they trudged along the muddy track leading through the town and toward the river crossing that had given the place its name.

  The rain had continued durng their trek, and Mason’s Ford was shrouded in a soggy fog that rendered the place indistinct and dreary.

  “Seems kind of crowded,” Dram noticed immediately. The main street was lined by wooden buildings with long covered porches that were crowded with men, women, and children. Many of the people were huddled in blankets or tarps. A few of the men had staves, picks, and other crude weapons near to hand.

  “What word of the gobs, Strangers?” asked one man, rising from the front step of an inn and ambling into the rainy street.

  “Last saw ’em two days back,” said the dwarf. “A patrol on worgs south of here. Dunno where they were headed.”

  “They burned Garnet, you know.”

  Jaymes and Dram exchanged a grim look. “No. We hadn’t heard,” said the swordsman.

  We’re just passing through, ourselves,” Dram added.

  The man chuckled. “Good luck,” he said, before turning back to his family and companions who were watching, with interest, from the crowded porch.

  “Wonder what that was about,” the dwarf said. “Why in the name of Reorx are all these folks sitting around here if they’re so dang worried about the goblins?”

  Jaymes simply kept walking, his long strides forcing the dwarf and gnomes to hurry in order to keep up. The street started to descend toward the ford, and they noticed even more people huddled under every roof. Some had erected tarps in vacant yards, while others had taken over stables, barns, and sheds for makeshift shelters.

  The reason for the crowding became apparent as they approached the river. Brown water spilled over the porches and crept up the walls of the last buildings on the street. The current surged, churning far above the banks, making the river so broad that the far bank was lost in the murky distance. Jaymes narrowed his eyes, looking toward the stout rope that anchored the auxiliary ferry, a flatboat that provided passage for those who didn’t care to wade the ford. That boat was broken, hurled by the surging current against the pilings of a nearby lumber yard, where it sat with its hull cracked and open to the river’s angry rise.

  There would be no crossing of the Vingaard, not until the rain ceased and the flooding river fell.

  Ankhar didn’t mind the rain. The water rolled easily off of his bearskin cloak, and his broad shoulders and sturdy frame were not burdened by the weight of the sodden garment. His goblins were happy to march through the mud, and the fleet-footed worgs were not hampered anywhere near as much as horses would have been.

  Several of his outriders approached now. The half-giant halted and shook his head, casting a spray over the hobs of his personal bodyguard. The lead scout, a small, wiry goblin named Rib Chewer, sprang from the back of his lupine mount and knelt before Ankhar.

  “Master, we have followed many humans to a place on this river. They cannot cross in the high water, and they have no wall to protect them. We can kill them all!”

  “Good. Where this place?”

  “It lies but a half-day’s march to the west of here. There is no river crossing above or below for two marches.”

  “What about knights?” asked the hulking chieftain. “They got garrisons to north and south. They moving?”

  “No, Master!” the goblin uttered a wet cackle. “They have withdrawn into their fortresses. They cower in their castles like old women. They are afraid to face us!”

  Ankhar stroked his broad chin, reflecting. His horde was spread across a hundred miles, but this town was a good objective. There would be good sport in the killing, and even if they found little treasure, there was sure to be food and drink enough to satisfy his troops for several days.

  “Son.” It was Laka, tugging at the loop on his belt where he slung his mighty, emerald-headed spear. She waved the skull totem back and forth, and Ankhar resentfully met those dark sockets with his own eyes.

  “What word of Prince?’ he asked.

  Instead of answering, Laka shook the head so the pebbles rattled and bounced in a wash of noise that was like the warning of a rattlesnake. No green light came into that empty visage. No words of counsel or warning emerged from the dead teeth.

  “Tell god we win another victory,” Ankhar said to his foster mother, his jaw jutting.

  “You not tell god!” spat Laka, springing closer to the half-giant, shaking the death’s-head at his face. She danced around in agitation. “The god tell you! And you listen!”

  “The god tell me nothing—I see humans for the killing!” Ankhar retorted. “So we attack!”

  Laka, sulking, went back to her tent—the only such structure in the whole camp, because the old shaman needed privacy for her meditations, invocations, and prayers. Ankhar tried, without success, to shake off a feeling of disquiet as he turned back to his goblin scout. That worthy lieutenant had been carefully studying the outskirts of the camp, though he had no doubt overheard the conversation between his army commander and the witch-doctor.

  “You do well, Rib Chewer,” the half-giant said. “Send riders to far wings of horde. March to this town today. We gather over night. Tomorrow morning we attack.”

  “Aye, Master!” cried the goblin, cackling again as he sprang into his saddle. The worg snapped and growled, drool slicking the long fangs, dribbling from the narrow jaws. With a howl, Rib Chewer kicked the beast in the flanks, and the wolf started across the plains at the easy lope that it could maintain for the rest of the day.

  By the time it finished, the horde of Ankhar would be gathering for the attack.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE BATTLE OF MASON’S FORD

  Hey, you. Come here.” The speaker was a Knight of Solamnia, Order of the Rose—the first knight the travelers had seen in the small riverfr
ont town where they had been trapped for a day.

  “Me?” Jaymes asked. He was seated on the ground, mostly covered by his woolen cape as he leaned against the wall of a store. The rain was still coming down, and he along with the other members of his sodden little party were huddled together under the overhanging eave of the building.

  “Yeah, you,” said the knight. “Come with me.” He was a young man, with a full shock of brown hair and a mustache trimmed neatly over the upper lip of a handsome, full-lipped mouth.

  “What’s going on?” Dram asked the knight, blinking himself awake after being elbowed by the warrior.

  “You’ll find out soon enough, dwarf. You, human—you heard me, come along. We don’t have a lot of time.”

  With an indifferent shrug, and a glance at the dwarf, Jaymes pushed himself to his feet and ambled along after the knight, who led him around the building and along the muddy street toward the largest inn in the main square. “Wait in there,” the knight said, pointing toward the front door. “Tell them Sir Rene will be right there—I’m just going to make a swing past the sawmill.”

  Upon entering, Jaymes found the great room crowded with men: burly farmers, a dozen lanky plainsmen in buckskin, a few well-muscled woodcutters and boatwrights. A half dozen knights were standing around or seated at a large table in the front of the room. None of them paid any particular attention to Jaymes, who, after a moment’s hesitation, walked up to the knights and said, “Sir Rene is coming soon—he’s going to the sawmill first.”

  “All right. Find a place. We’ll get started in a moment,” said one of the knights, a gray-bearded veteran who didn’t look up from a piece of parchment marked with some diagrams and numbers.

  Seeing no easy way out of the situation, Jaymes went over to one side of the room and leaned against one of the stout supporting pillars. He made sure that the hilt of his sword was covered by his cape and crossed his arms over his chest, waiting.

  Sir Rene, trailed by a couple more men, came in a few minutes later. The knight went to the table then turned around to face the assemblage. Rene gestured to one of his companions. “Tell us what you saw,” the knight said.

  The man nodded and stepped to the front of the room. He had the brown, weather-beaten face of a man who had lived his entire life out of doors. His expression was grave but unafraid.

  “The goblins are coming here. They came out of the mountains and burned Garnet to the ground seven days ago. Several thousand strong, with outriders on worgs. We fought off an attack by a hundred of them outriders yesterday. We were a score of men before that fight. We are a dozen now.”

  “Are they coming up or down the river valley?” asked a recent arrival, a farmer with big hands and mud-spattered trousers.

  “They’ve spread from Garnet city south to the main branch of the river,” the man answered grimly. “There is no escape from them on this side of the river.”

  “But we can’t cross the river!” objected another fellow, an older man still wearing a greasy cook’s apron.

  “No, we can’t. Not for at least another two days, and then only if the rain stops,” Sir Rene admitted. “That’s why I’ve gathered you all here. If we are attacked—and it looks like we will be—we’re going to have to fight for the lives of everyone trapped here.”

  “We’re not warriors!” protested the man wearing the cook’s apron. “We demand the protection of the knights!”

  Rene gestured to the five other men—those who wore the Rose emblem—seated at the table. “Well, you have the protection of six knights. Even if there was time, we couldn’t get reinforcements here across the river. So you all have the choice of waiting here to be massacred or of joining the fight.”

  His remarks provoked angry muttering and many apprehensive looks, as the men in the room sized each other up.

  “How far away are they?” Jaymes asked in a loud voice.

  Rene looked him in the eye and nodded, apparently relieved to hear a practical question. He nodded at the plainsman who had made the report. “Streamfisher here says they’re already gathering just beyond the horizon. It seems likely that they’ll be in position to attack by tonight, or at the latest, tomorrow morning.”

  He cleared his throat, planting his hands on his hips. Sir Rene might be the youngest of the knights, but the others deferred to him.

  “We want to pull everyone back into a semicircle near the riverbank. The young and the old, those who can’t help with the fight, we’ll shelter in the ferry building, and in several of the warehouses that haven’t flooded. The rest—starting with the men in this room, while including every sturdy youth, every strong woman brave enough to wield a staff or a pole—will help hold the line.”

  He outlined a defensive plan that was centered on the inn and another large establishment across the street. To the left of these, the flanks would be formed by the sawmill and boatyard, where unfinished hulls and overturned riverboats would form makeshift bulwarks. To the right, a stone-walled stable provided a decent strong point, and a large mill—together with its water wheel and dam on the riverbank—would form the far anchor of the line.

  “We’ll make firebreaks on the streets between each of these structures,” Sir Rene explained. “We’re lucky enough to have two score barrels of oil in one of the warehouses, so we can soak the timber enough that it should burn even in the rain. We have a little more than fifty men here, so we’ll post eight or ten at each strong point, with one knight acting as captain of each group. Collect all the able-bodied people you can find. Our survival depends on driving off the attackers and inflicting enough damage on them that they lose their stomach for the fight.”

  A fat old man, presumably the innkeeper, brought out a couple of bottles of fiery spirits. The knight directed that they be passed around the room, so everyone who wanted might take a sip.

  “I give you my knight’s pledge, on the Oath and the Measure, that we will stand at Mason’s Ford as long as blood flows in our veins. I ask you men to make the pledge, on this toast, that you will give us whatever aid is in your power. Together we must stand!”

  Jaymes took a long pull when one bottle came to him, wincing as the fiery liquid seared down his gullet. He passed the bottle to the next man, saw that Sir Rene was watching him.

  “You’ve got my pledge,” the warrior said loud, so that the others might hear. “Where do you want me to fight?”

  Dram had hung back from the crowd, listening, and now he went up to Sir Rene and volunteered to fight alongside the others. The knight looked him up and down and shrugged. “Why not?”

  Meekly trailed by the two gnomes, the dwarf went with Jaymes to his assigned post at the mill. They were joined by two dozen defenders—three or four sturdy men, and a mixture of youths, old men, and a few grim-faced farm wives. They were all under the command of the weathered knight Jaymes had spoken to upon arriving at the inn. He introduced himself as Sir Hubert and went about positioning his small force as dictated by the terrain.

  The millpond was lower than the river, separated by a raised embankment that ran like a causeway along the bank of the swollen Vingaard. The pond was surrounded by a shore of dry ground, and Sir Hubert assessed it as the most likely route of attack if the goblins came along the river.

  “If we had another day,” the knight said in disgust, “we could dig a hole in this dam and flood out the flat. Without that luxury, we’ll have to hold them at the embankment. Failing that, fall back to the wheelhouse. That will be our last redoubt.”

  He immediately sized up Jaymes as a capable fighter, putting him in command of a small group defending the dam, the pond, and the water wheel. The warrior posted his volunteers, assigning Dram the left flank while Jaymes himself stood on the right.

  They stayed in those positions all night, through intermittent shower and drizzle. The defenders took turns sleeping. Those who stayed awake staring into the murk saw no sign of the enemy. As dawn turned the black night to a soggy gray, Jaymes spoke to the dwarf
and the two gnomes.

  “That keg we brought from Caergoth—we might need to give it a try here. Can you rig a fuse that will stay dry?”

  Aided by Sulfie and supervised by Dram, Carbo found a small pump room, a watertight chamber located in the base of the dam. Arranging the keg in there, he ran a line of the black powder to the door of the small compartment. It was dry enough within that a spark could be struck.

  Jaymes took stock of the weaponry available to his small detachment. Three of the youths claimed to have some proficiency as hunters and were armed with bows and arrows. These he posted in the top of the wheel house, with orders to hoard their precious missiles until they felt certain of hitting their targets. Apart from Dram’s axe and his sword—still lashed to his back beneath his cape—they were armed with an assortment of large knives, one or two swords, and several stout poles. One burly man, a smith, had a large hammer that he flipped around deftly, pledging to crush the skull of any goblin that came within reach.

  “You’ll soon have an opportunity—look, there they are!” Sulfie cried, as the rain faded to a light drizzle.

  The worg-riders emerged like ghostly shadows from the murk of the gray mist, loping on their fearsome mounts. There were dozens of them, riding past the dam surrounding the millpond, gazing at the steep embankment, moving on toward more favorable terrain. A few hooted at the defenders on the earthen dam, waving spears, cackling wildly. Gradually they faded from view, riding in a wide circle around the fringe of Mason’s Ford.

  Sir Rene came through the mill and found Jaymes on the rampart. “They’re probing with their riders,” the knight informed him. “They will fall upon us soon. Already we’ve seen a least a regiment’s worth forming up to come down the main highway.”