“To freedom,” Sandoval said, and blew the gurvan’s head off with his new warwand. He has a flair for the dramatic.
Mavone struck the other two gurvani with a pain spell that caught two of the human guards in its path, as well. My contribution disrupted their internal organs until they were puking and shitting blood. I didn’t spare the humans. They were Soulless. More, they were willing to beat and slay their fellow humans. We didn’t need to take them with us. We didn’t need to leave them behind to be of use to the Dead God, either.
“Those swords seem to be going to waste,” Mavone pointed out to a group of passing slaves, who were still wondering if the rumor of rescue was real or just a trick. A few eagerly took the weapons of their captors and began to march even faster. Nothing convinces a man of his freedom more than a weapon in his hand.
“There will be more defenders, as they get organized,” Mavone murmured, glancing up at the smoldering gatehouse. “We should get in position to defend. The cavalry won’t be here for a while, yet.”
Minalan, what is your status? Came Pentandra’s anxious voice, mind-to-mind.
We’ve neutralized the remaining defenders at Fethkala and are starting to move the captives east, I reported.
Good! That makes eleven out of eleven! Initial reports are all positive, but that could change any moment. Scrying reports from the Barn show a small force moving up the western road, about four miles out. Have fun. I’ve got things to do, she said, and was gone.
“All the attacks have begun,” I reported to my men. “Mavone is right. We’ll have an aggressive response here before everyone can evacuate, according to Pentandra, in addition to those left here. Have the other Sparks meet us here as soon as they finish up,” I ordered Sandy. He smiled and complied. It was like old times in Farise, when I was his squad leader during the occupation. I hailed the 3rd Commando captain who was directing the prisoners and explained the situation, Sir Leran, and asked for one of his men to fetch our horses before the fight.
I was enormously impressed with the Alshari 3rd Commando. I’d known them when they were the Third Royal Commando, multitalented mercenaries hand-picked by Count Salgo for the defense of Gilmora. They were crack troops, then.
Now they were professional military men used to working with warmagi, in tough conditions. Each of the three-hundred Commandos who’d been assigned to work with us was as equally comfortable on a horse, storming a redoubt, sneaking through the woods, performing as archers, light infantry, heavy infantry, cavalry, sappers . . . whatever was required of them.
Each Commando rode a charger or courser and was clad in chainmail hauberks, with thick leather covering their extremities to their knee-high boots. They wore plain round short-necked helms, as a rule, unburnished and blackened against detection. Each commando carried a light lance or spear, a round shield, a cavalry sword strapped to his horse, an infantry blade at his hip, and a newly-made crossbow of Remeran rosewood: light, powerful, easy to use from horseback . . . and clearly an early procurement through the nascent magical smuggling ring. Such weapons carry a fiendish penalty for export.
Pentandra had quietly admitted to me, mind-to-mind, that Count Salgo had purchased three thousand of them from Planus, at a fair price: the product of some of Remere’s finest craftsmen. They were just part of the bounty Anguin had showered on his new fighting men when they’d arrived. Their trek from hostile Gilmora to the relative political safety of the Wilderlands had shaped them as a unit. So had the lavish gifts the Orphan Duke had given the orphaned unit.
I’d spoken with the Commandos at length as we’d ridden to our positions before the raid. They seemed uniformly grateful to Duke Anguin for taking them into service, and were proud to be known as the Alshari Third Commando, now. After spending six months drilling former freeholders and reformed refugees into militia, they seemed especially eager to participate in this mission of liberation.
Mavone and Sandy weren’t the only warmagi on the Fethkala raid. While we were seeing to the main gate, two other teams of three were eliminating the guards on the other side of camp, while the Kasari snipers began to shoot every furry face they saw inside the castle and the 3rd Commando ran pickets on horseback to rouse the entire camp. Along the way, they didn’t hesitate to take a shot at any passing gurvani with their swords, or peg one who showed his face on the wall.
When the hobgoblin leader of the bucket brigade who’d finally gotten an organized response to the gatehouse fire under way took an iron bolt to his throat in the middle of a rousing speech, it didn’t take long for the gurvani to finally realize they were under attack.
That panicked them. They were prepared for a slave insurrection, not a liberating raid-in-force. Most of the garrison was already deployed against the raid on the depot. The slaves were marching resolutely toward freedom, the strong bearing the weak and injured. With their gatehouse in flames, they couldn’t even get out of the castle, now, to stop the thousands who were waking up for work and discovering a chance for freedom.
“I know it’s their first native attempt at building a castle,” Mavone noted, nodding to the smoldering fortress, “but perhaps they’ll learn to install a postern door, next time.”
“Having one entrance and exit does have its drawbacks,” Sandoval agreed, as one of the goblins inside who tried to lower himself down from one of the towers took an arrow in his back for his trouble. The Kasari were watching. “It’s just poor planning,” he said, shaking his head, sadly.
“Perhaps more than two guards at the gate,” I added. “But then, this is a prison. They relied upon their terror and the threat of execution and the garrison to keep them cowed. They didn’t figure on an outside attack.”
The prisoners were starting to break into a run, as they came to the fence and finally recognized an opportunity to escape – those who were in any condition to run. They all looked half-starved, their eyes wide and blinking blindly in the sun. The rags they wore were filthy, and had infected the many welts on their bodies. The chains and coffles around their necks had chafed their skin raw, leaving red and oozing pustules. Their feet were black and blistered – none were shod.
Yet they ran, when they had the chance. As a new day dawned, they glanced at the burning gatehouse, heard the irate screams of the goblins inside, and then at the warmagi and other warriors of the vanguard who were affecting their escape, and they ran for their lives. At least two or three thousand had fled beyond the rail fence and thorny hedge, by that time, and the entire remaining gurvani administration was in a panic. The scattered guards across the camp were being slain by the rebellious slaves.
The burning gatehouse and the sight of the river of humanity were all some rebellious souls needed to turn on their guards. A few small groups of guards managed to form around the shacks that served as guardhouses, gathering in a huddle against retribution. But wherever one or two of them tried to stop the flood of frightened slaves, used to obedient simpering and cowering compliance, their former prisoners leapt on them as one and beat them to death with rocks, fists, or their own clubs.
Eventually, the goblins within the castle got enough of the fire under control to allow passage of a few dozen goblins and hobgoblins out into the camp. They immediately began attacking the fleeing prisoners with their cast iron weapons or thick wooden bats.
But they met fierce resistance before my men could even get to them. By that time, enough of the guards’ weapons were in the hands of the prisoners that they were able to fend off the worst of the sorties, keeping the stream of humanity flowing.
A fully-armored hobgoblin with helm and glaive is able to deal quite a bit of damage. Especially if he’s stumbled into a berserker glyph. A few did just that, and began carving a bloody swath
“Are you not gon’ t’ help us?” a man with a long shaggy beard and a desperate look in his eye pleaded, as he glanced at the bloody melee unfolding. He might have been a Wilderlord or a bandit, before he was a slave. “We’ll fight! But we don’t have no
thin’ but our chains an’ our fists!”
I didn’t know what to say . . . until it occurred to me that I did have something to offer him. Something left on my staff, Pathfinder, from the Long March. I pointed the staff and activated a hoxter. In a moment fifty plain siege spears spilled out on the ground.
“Defend yourselves!” I urged. “But keep them moving! I have thousands yet to get on their feet and underway!”
“Trygg bless you, Spellmonger!” the shaggy man said, his eyes gleeful as he began distributing the spears. They were the most basic of weapons, a simple wrought iron head six inches long, three wide, attached to a stout (and reasonably straight) ash rod six feet long. The sort of weapon you hand to a man who is fighting for his life in a siege, and may not have held more than a hoe in his hand before.
Nearly anyone can use a spear to basic effect. Many of these men had used them before, and they were eagerly taken by the angry, frightened prisoners. Fifty spears, suddenly deployed, was a surprise to the gurvani and hobgoblins who were trying to stem the flow.
The slaves weren’t disciplined or well-led, but it didn’t take much resistance to convince the gurvani to proceed more cautiously. Especially when some of the slaves began using their despised chains to entangle the heads of their glaives and swords while their fellows stabbed or pummeled them to death.
“Keep them at bay,” I ordered Mavone, nodding toward the gurvani from the castle, “and you keep them moving!” I instructed Sandy, as I indicated the swiftly flowing river of unwashed humanity. “I’m headed toward the center to fetch the rest of the sparks.”
“Aye, Captain!” Mavone smiled, recalling other days as a Commando brought us our horses. “We’ll have it well in hand!”
I saluted before riding off toward the far end of the camp with two troopers escorting me. I did my best to encourage the slaves to move quickly, but there were plenty for whom such a command was impossible. I urged the strong to help the weak, freed some poor wretches who’d been confined to a gibbet for some offense, and otherwise did what I could to convince the slaves to run.
We came upon a tall, rickety shed that several guards and trustees had taken refuge within against the anger of the prisoners. They were shooting arrows and throwing rocks from the summit, screaming out the vile punishments that would be due for any human who did not immediately return to their bed. No one seemed to be listening to them, but they were causing as much harassing damage as possible.
I was about to deal with the guards when the entire tower collapsed, suddenly. Before I could react, a large figure leapt atop the wreckage of the building and began flamboyantly plying his mageblade against the survivors while he kept up a booming soliloquy about how fearless and deadly he was.
“Are you quite done, Caswallon?” I asked, when the last guard breathed his last breath.
“Now that these vile vermin are dead, Spellmonger,” the big warmage agreed, with a satisfied nod of his head. “We have split the fetters of hundreds, this morn,” he reported with unnecessary drama in his voice. “The blood of their captors stains this once-fertile land,” he added, as if I was unaware. “It has seen the vengeance of Caswallon’s blade this day, and the Fox’s Bite earns the debt of a thousand liberations! What happy sunrise, to dawn on the freedom of so many in suffering! I glory in the favor of the gods as we do this noble deed!”
I didn’t even roll my eyes. Caswallon is just like that.
You meet a lot of characters in warmagic – a profession that depends upon a practitioner’s reputation for power encourages flamboyance and displays of potency to attract clients. Not everyone is good at it – Carmella, for instance, is lousy at presenting herself in such a light, and suffered financially for that for years, until Boval Vale. Others are quite good. Sarakeem has made his career on his flashy style and his incredible displays of archery, and Azar cultivated the idea that he was Death, incarnate, since he’d entered the trade.
But Caswallon was in a class by himself, when it came to his professional presentation.
His six-foot six height, broad shoulders, and always-bare muscular arms (he favored a Farisian wrap-around waistcoat sort of garment specifically to display his biceps under his fighting harness) made him physically imposing. Add to that a thick, long mane of auburn hair that hung to the middle of his back with the tips bleached white, held away from his eyes by a steel circlet engraved with his symbol, a stylized fox’s head, and you can imagine just how visually impressive the warmage was.
But that was just half the show. Caswallon had a penchant for speaking of himself in the third person, stating the obvious as if no one else could see it, and aggrandizing himself with every verbal opportunity. He basked in the glory of battle and prided himself on the righteousness of his cause, regardless of what that might be. Caswallon’s personality filled a room, even if there wasn’t room for it, and managed to inject itself into nearly every conversation. I suspected that part of his rajira had manifested as a sportish talent for charisma, but there was no way to be certain of that without a deep survey of him. And that would be rude.
I admit, Caswallon’s attitude and personality flirted with the frontier of boorishness, no uncommon trait amongst our colleagues. But if his narcissism contended with his charisma, they were both tempered by his bravery and his skills on the battlefield. Unlike many who brag about their power and ability, Caswallon was fearless in his willingness to prove he was every bit as good as he said he was.
He was also just a genuinely friendly guy, someone who wanted to be everyone’s best friend, as self-serving as that was. It was hard to dismiss the man as an asshole because he actually believed the stuff that flew out of his mouth. When you’re put in command of a spark like that, you have two choices: try to put him in his place as your subordinate, or encourage his ego with flattery and inspire him to do crazy stuff on your behalf. I’m lazy. I took the latter route.
“Then I bear good news, Caswallon,” I said, bowing from horseback. “A small gurvani force is bearing down on us, but two miles up the western road. While they are not enough to deter this grand liberation, they could serve to harass the hindmost, and imperil the freedom of the weakest and most infirm among the prisoners. Could you and your squad lead an ambush of them, as they arrive? I can think of no more fitting greeting than to have the Fox and his friends challenge them.”
He was instantly hooked. His eyes narrowed, his brows furrowed, his nostrils flared, and his posture changed subconsciously to a fighting stance.
“My friend Minalan, I shall give them such a greeting! They shall drink a stirrup-cup of my wrath, and taste the bitter bread of my fury! They shall rue the day they took service to their foul master, and ever dared emerge from their stinking mountain dens! To the Fox!” he called out, into the steadily-emptying camp.
The other two warmagi in his team looked up, one eager, one sour. “We have a mission most pressing, my friends! All those who wish vengeance on your captors, follow me! For I will give them battle, and see them perish in terror! Any man who stands with Caswallon the Fox this day shall see the meaning of fury! To the Fox! To the Fox!”
See why I fed his ego? It was voracious.
But it also fueled his resolve. As his two comrades came jogging up to him, a small but growing crowd of slaves emerged from the crowd in response to his call. The vast majority of hemp-clad humans had the bloody good sense to flee, as far and as fast as they could.
But out of every hundred men there is one for whom valor – or hatred – compelled to take up arms, even in impossible circumstances. Surrounded by thousands, Caswallon’s call lured each of those to the warmage’s side, until he had half a company.
“Pick through the wreckage, my friends, and arm yourselves as best you can!” he said, pulling a nasty-looking iron knife out of the dead hand of a crushed gurvani overseer and handing it to a dazed-looking man with a recently-broken nose.
Tentatively, at first, then with more energy, the slaves began to root through t
he ruined tower and recover whatever weapons they could salvage. They didn’t hesitate to use the beams and posts as clubs, or take up bricks if they could find nothing better.
In a few moments, Caswallon had recruited an army of a hundred enthusiastic slaves to his side. “Take their tools of destruction and turn them on their masters! Arm yourselves! And follow the Fox and his friends into victory!”
Damned if he didn’t get them to cheer. Caswallon was just like that. They could all be dead in an hour, but none of them were even thinking about that.
I rode back to the now-burning castle with a feeling of satisfaction. The camp was half-empty, now, the gibbets were cleared, the guard shacks all but destroyed. Mavone and Sandy had reduced Fethkala to ruins. By the time more than a band of goblins could be raised to respond to the raid, we’d be long gone, leaving Fethkala plundered of its most precious resource.
Turning Caswallon loose on them, that was just a bonus.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The Gathering Of Forces
“That was refreshing,” Sandoval yawned, as we finally returned through the Ways to the staging area at Timberwatch.
“Refreshing? That was bloody well done!” Count Salgo greeted us. “Eleven raids, only one ending poorly. We slew thousands, and saved over a hundred thousand,” the old soldier read from a dispatch scroll upon which he was keeping a tally. “And we knocked their organization and supply chain into Sheruel’s chamberpot!”
“How many lost, on our side?”
“Three hundred sixty-one,” he called out. “Thus far. Not counting slaves. There are still battles underway. Nearly two hundred of those were at Glandon,” he added, with a sigh.
Necromancer: Book Ten Of The Spellmonger Series Page 40
