by P D Ceanneir
‘I’m here to give you a warning.’
The marshal blinked and frowned, whose side was this creature on?
‘The Warlord is here with his Raiders, they walk amongst you now, like ghosts in the night. So let the sufferings begin.’ The Blacksword moved quickly before Zolar could answer, and brought the pommel of SinDex down on his head; darkness and oblivion became the marshal’s destination as the Blacksword sent him into unconsciousness.
Mad-gellan moved quietly through the sleeping enemy. His company stretched out in a long thin line on each side of him. The prince was taking a risk; the Raiders were vastly outnumbered by four to one. Walking among your foe in the dead of night was not Mad-gellan’s idea of war.
However, he had reluctantly agreed with the prince. Taking Zolar’s force in open battle was suicide. The prince’s main aim was to slow them down on their march to the Pass so Lord Rett could finish completing the walled defences. He also had to agree with Jericho at the hastily sprung morning meeting, the Long Valley, a stretch of road through the mountains from Wyani into Haplann, was the best place to ambush the enemy. Since their famous duel of stamina in the cold Fess Lake, Jericho and Mad-gellan got on a little better; at least there was a grudging respect for each other.
Havoc agreed with Jericho’s plan, but he also wished to hit them unexpectedly and target the catapults, which was the prime reason for this dangerous night attack. The prince had watched the enemy for three days now. They had not made much progress due to the slowness of the catapults and the large baggage train they brought with them, but the size of the force was formidable. On the third day since the Raiders found them they were close to the Long Valley and had made camp in the large open grassland that the higher Wither Mountains flanked to the southeast.
The mass of the enemy soldiers camped in a circle; staked torchlight strategically placed in concentric circles at the perimeter and at intervals until it stopped at the centre where they corralled the horses. Guards changed on the hour. Pickets went further out for the first line of defence and warning of attack, but these extra precautions made no difference to the Raiders.
Beforehand, Havoc had split his force, sending half with Powyss and Velnour to prepare the Long Valley for ambush, while the prince commanded the night attack on the camped Vallkytes. Jericho and Felcon took their men to the right flank; their task was to take out the catapults. Mad-gellan, Mactan and Verkin moved in with Havoc to attack from the south side. Whyteman and Ethyn stayed as reserve with half of the archers; while Linth and Brynd took the rest to the north where he found a convenient area of high ground so he was looking down on the enemy camp.
The enemy pickets never got the chance to give the warning they were supposed to. Each picket dispatched by dirks to the last man as the silent Riders crept towards them through the stumpy snow-flattened grass and shadows of the night. The perimeter guards fared little better each had their throats cut from behind or taken out silently with arrows.
The darkness of the early hours was all embracing as the line of Raiders dowsed the torches on passing. Havoc had asked Mad-gellan and Jericho to wait ten minutes while he went on ahead, both were confused, but they followed the prince’s orders regardless.
Their extraordinary armour never made a noise as they walked into the field of sleeping men that littered the landscape. The sleepers never woke as daggers sliced open their throats or split their hearts in two. Mad-gellan thought that the alarm would sound at any moment, but he was amazed at how far into camp he had come, proof that there were no remaining pickets. His son Chirn was by his side, the Battle Horn in one hand and a blood soaked dagger in the other, his eyes were wide with fear, but his hand did not tremble. He must have killed at least a dozen soldiers so far. More would die by the blades of his men. He wondered how long this would last.
After two minutes he got his answer.
The mass of horses at the centre of the host became agitated and woke some of the Vallkytes sleeping by the corral. Cries went up and the sleeping soldiers around them stirred.
‘Damn it!’ cursed Mad-gellan, ‘blow the horn boy, sound the retreat!’
As the Blacksword exited the command pavilion and stepped over the two dead guards he had killed before entering the tent, he heard the Horn of Relin blare long and loud. He gave a dry chuckle and smiled.
‘Your turn now, Field Commander Havoc,’ he said sarcastically and changed back into the prince, the Blacksword’s cloak became the green waterproof rain cape issued to all of the Raiders. The iridescent green armour appeared from under the jet black alternative that the swords Earth Orrinn had created.
Havoc ran to the south as Vallkytes got out from under their sleeping blankets and off the cold damp earth. Officers ran out of their tents and shouted urgent orders for their men to form up in a defensive line, the prince took their moment of confusion to cut through them, and keep running. Soon he was dodging between the recently dead and out into the open grassland. Other Raiders ran alongside him.
He heard the Horn again, this time giving the order for Linth to loose arrows.
Linth nodded to his junior officer as soon as he heard the Battle Horn. The officer lit the torch with his tinder and flint, and he ran along the ranks of archers who held their pitch tipped arrows out to the flame. The whole crest was revealed as the burning arrows cast their glow over two hundred archers. Their breath misted in the air, as they look the one hundred and twenty pounds of strain on the bow cords onto their thick shoulder muscles.
‘Loose!’ Linth shouted.
Zolar woke suddenly with a loud groan and healed the bump on his head. He was in a rage; grabbing his sword and baldric, he shouted for his men to stand-to as he made for the tent entrance. He rushed out and met the mounting confusion of battle.
Some soldiers had formed into cohesive formations while others stumbled around blindly in the dark, a soft glow was emitting from the north and as he turned to see what it was, he saw hundreds of flame tipped arrows, zipping through the air like fireflies.
‘By the gods!’ he said under his breath.
Havoc had caught up with Mad-gellan’s company and both men turned to watch the carnage as the fire arrows found their marks. They could hear screams from dying men and horses over the burning of tents and the whooshing of the arrows. A well-disciplined Vallkyte force ignored the burning rain and began to charge towards their position; Havoc gave the order for Whyteman and the reserves to open fire. The charge faltered as the front rank disappeared under the arrows that zipped out of the darkness; the rest ran back to their camp to hide behind shields as they used them to form a protective wall.
Once the Eternal archers used up their quota of pitch tipped fire arrows, Havoc then ordered the retreat. The pitch darkness of the night descended over the grassland from the sky once again. On the ground however, the individual fires still burnt casting eerie shadows over the camp.
The prince and Mad-gellan’s company met Linth’s archers at the preordained rendezvous point, and then they marched to the Long Valley.
In the morning light Zolar could see the wreckage more clearly. The fire damage to the tents was only material, and did not concern him. It looked to him as if the enemies’ main strategy was to take out the catapults. Splinter was now useless; they had crudely hacked away with an axe at the throwing arm of the machine and rendered it irreparable. The same happened to Crusher, but the damage was minor, but repairable. One of the smaller fire throwers had ironically, been hit by fire arrows and had burnt well into the morning. Twenty horses and two hundred men were lost in the attack, small losses compared to the men at his disposal, but they had also hamstrung a dozen oxen that pulled the catapults, he felt overwhelmed at his losses. He was up against a clever and ruthless opponent in this Rogun prince. The presence of the Blacksword disturbed him even more.
He ordered the guards doubled and sent scouts to trace down the whereabouts of these Raiders, but as the day wore on the scouts never returned. He did not
break camp; instead, he strengthened the defences and waited for another attack.
The night went by quietly, but the morning light revealed the perimeter guards heads on stakes. Fear spread when one of the scouts returned and spoke of the Blacksword killing ten of his men and warning them not to enter the Long Valley.
To take a detour would add days to their journey and the spring thaw had already flooded the shallow passes anyway. Their only option was the valley.
Ghosts came in the night for Shanks, he could sense their approach, he could not explain why.
‘What is wrong, Shanks?’ asked Molna. Her usual routine at the end of the week was to tour the children’s hospital she had commissioned and had become its patron, but she found herself more and more inclined to visit the mysterious man who had revealed his identity to her and not much else.
‘They are coming, you have to go,’ he said with urgency.
‘Who is coming, is it these Lovers of Destiny you mentioned to me?’
‘Yes, and they must not know of your visits to me, or you will be in danger,’ he said in a panic as he ushered her out of the open cell door. She watched him close it then she locked it with her spare key. She ran towards the old rear entrance of the prison by the water well. Just as she was about to open the wood and iron-rimmed door she heard her husband’s voice coming down the corridor to the main entrance.
Ducking out of sight by the well, she watched Kasan come round the corner with a tall woman in a purple cloak; Queen Cinnibar had come secretly to Dulan-Tiss it seemed.
Molna was not stupid. She knew that two powerful Rawn’s in this confined corridor could easily detect her, so she stepped out of hiding place and walked down the corridor, to make it seem as if she had just entered from the rear door.
‘Your majesty, what a pleasant surprise, the king never mentioned you were visiting,’ she said to them both in a genuinely pleasant voice.’
Cinnibar and Kasan looked shocked to see her.
‘Why are you here, my dear?’ asked the king.
‘Husband, I’m shocked,’ said Molna with her hand on her chest, ‘I’ve told you before that the dungeons are part of my improvement project, do you not remember?’
‘Ahh...right, yes, of course, I, we, did not expect to see you. You should be resting, and not overtaxing yourself.’
Cinnibar had a slight smile on her face. Molna noticed that the Sonoran Queen was different somehow. Her skin was pale, the fine blonde hair was greying at the temples and thin lines at her mouth, and eyes gave away some semblance of age.
Cinnibar was looking with rapt intent at her swollen belly.
‘I do hope you have another boy my dear,’ she said and reached out thin white fingers to touch her stomach, ‘yes a healthy boy it is Kasan,’ the king smiled.
A cold sensation spread through her womb at Cinnibar’s touch, she almost slapped the hand away in disgust, but stepped back out of her reach instead.
‘I must carry out my duties,’ she sounded flustered, ‘good day to you both.’
As she rounded the corner, she heard Shanks welcome them as they entered his cell.
‘You appear quite lucid today, Shanks,’ said the Sonoran Queen.
‘Have you come for my gift, Cinnibar?’ he said, and then she heard no more as the cell door slammed shut with an ominous clang.
Powyss had done his job well. He had pushed his men hard and created a professionally executed ambush site. Boulders were piled up at the top of a ridge, near the end of the Valley, they were supported by a long log fence pinned in place by a wedged stake. Luckily enough, the ridge was a natural area for rockslides, so it would not take much for a devastating dry slurry of debris to crash down on the enemy.
He had also dug a long line of trenches on both sides of the Long Valley road and covered them in the natural foliage that grew all around the area. When the signal was given, men would burst from these ditches and attack the unsuspecting enemy.
However, Powyss was not to have any fun and see his hard work put to the test.
‘Scorched earth policy?’ he said incredulously at Havoc’s orders on the early morning. The prince had just received an image from Mirryn on his swords pommel that Marshal Zolar’s host had just entered the Long Valley.
‘My intention is to attack their baggage train and cut off their supply lines. Destroying the farmlands to the north will slow them down even more as they run out of food, so take your men there as quick as you can’ said Havoc.
‘That’s a bit harsh on the population.’
‘This is war, major.’
Powyss did not have to like it, but he would carry out the prince’s orders nonetheless.
The Vallkyte army saw the pall of smoke lifting high in the sky by the last of the winter winds. Proof to Zolar’s officers that the Raider’s were otherwise engaged. The marshal was not so convinced, the Valley may be safe to traverse, but he was not taking any chances. He sent five hundred archers and spearmen up each side of the steep ridges and hills that enclosed the route through the valley; they would be his safety net in case of attack.
Havoc had prepared for this eventuality; the piles of boulders, for the ambush, were inaccessible from the eastward route that the enemy would need to come. Powyss had made booby traps to be safe.
The prince watched as the Vallkyte army walked through the narrow route to the valley. Lord Yaquis took his three thousand Foygions in first to secure the route, then Zolar led the infantry and the plodding catapults and baggage train followed this up. The thirteen thousand strong hosts stretched through the valley for miles.
With a thousand Raiders, hidden on each side of the road in the ditches at the start of the valley under Mad-gellan, Havoc watched with Chirn and twelve archers further up the slope. He watched as the Foygions went out of sight as they exited the main route out, riding into south Haplann, and then came the infantry units. Chirn fidgeted beside him as they hid behind thorny shrubs. Most of the enemy were through the valley, and Havoc still gave no order to attack. It was a testament to the discipline of the Raiders as they awaited their commander’s signal.
Chirn was so tense that he jumped when Havoc gave the order to commence the ambush.
As the sound of the Horn of Relin echoed off the hills of the Valley, two Raiders used the club ends of their spears to knock away the securing wedges to the huge piles of bleached white boulders.
The resulting avalanche of boulder, logs and other debris, was everything Powyss would have hoped for, and more.
The prince had timed it right; Vallkyte spearmen and those troops controlling the first catapult behind them was in the path of the rock storm. The thumping, rumbling noise of the sliding mass echoed around them and they panicked, eagerly trying to get clear.
However, escape was impossible for the soldiers. Blocked to their rear by the catapult and stuck in a narrow neck of the valley to their front, they instinctively cowered behind their shields as the crushing tonnage blocked the valley and covered men in their hundreds.
The first catapult splintered into ruin, the team of oxen on the second burst into red mulch as the deluge of falling boulders crushed them against the vertical cliff face to their right. The muffled cries of the trapped became silent as more debris entombed them.
Mactan and his troops waited in the trenches until the avalanche slowed and became a shower of loose earth and small rocks. He screamed the order to attack and rushed the trapped Vallkyte soldiers on his side of the rockslide’s blockage. The Vallkytes, though shocked and surprised, acted professionally, forming a defensive line and stopping Mactan’s infantry in mid charge.
It was Mad-gellan in the northern ditches that saved the day; he attacked later than Mactan and took the enemy completely by surprise. Using their extendable spears, they skewered the backs of the Vallkytes, ending their fighting days.
Jericho’s company attacked the rear lines and the poorly defended baggage train. His men managed to get away with three cartloads of goods b
efore the enemy archers, high on the north cliff sides, got into position to fire. Jericho ordered his men to hold with shields; they formed a circle around him as he used his tinder and flint to set fire to the rest of the trains carts and the last remaining catapults.
The smoke from the burning wood, grain, dry meats and several rum casks, sent black smoke everywhere. The wind whipped up the fire until it roared with intense heat and spread the smoke for miles around. All of the Raiders used the cover of the black smoke to retreat to safety. Task accomplished.
On the other side of the avalanche the bulk of the Vallkyte host watched in helpless despair as the smoke drifted north.
Chapter 13
The Battle of Sternford
The Ring of Terbaum, a circle of ten stones twelve feet high, was seldom used as a means of travel to the Eternal Forest, but for Lord Ness swiftness was a necessity at this time.
The resounding crack that preceded his arrival sent birds flying in fright and the palace guards running, it also scaring the civilian onlookers into wide-eyed disbelief. Lord Ness stepped out of the stone circle with a pained look on his face. The agony all Ris’ have to endure, when Driftwalking and experiencing the high-energy particles of the Dragon Lanes, would abate in time.
The guards found him leaning up against one of the stones, trying to catch his breath.
‘My lord Ri, are you all right?’ asked one of them.
‘Fine, fine...now I know why I never use the damn things,’ he smiled to reassure the guard, but it was more of a grimace, ‘take me to the queen.’
