03 - Liar's Peak

by Robin D. Laws - (ebook by Undead)

  A halfling girl fell in front of a corpulent human woman who dashed for the fortress entrance. Franziskus swept in to snatch her up.

  Angelika searched for Deely, who had her blades. She spotted him dashing for the slope and sprinted furiously after him. Her long legs gave her dominance over a thump-footed halfling. She tackled him, hitting him in the shoulders and bringing him down.

  Deely rolled. Angelika, waiting for him, pounced, planting her pointy knee on his sternum. He threw his arms back into the grass, in submission, seeming to know what she wanted from him. She rolled him onto his side, fleeced her twin daggers from him, and leapt off. Returning to the edge of the hilltop, she plotted an avenue of escape that would circuit through the invaders in their various groupings. She looked for Franziskus.

  At their sergeant’s command, the soldiers formed a semi-circle inside the broken gate, braced to receive the charging Kurgan cavalry. Jonas shouted for the remaining townsmen to join the formation. Curran surged at him like a furious bantam, uselessly waggling his spear, hectoring him unintelligibly. Jonas’ elbow shot out, catching the enraged halfling in the forehead. Curran wove, staggered, and folded in two. An unruffled Jonas resumed his barked commands.

  Filch and several other halflings, ignoring the indignity dished out to their compatriot, rallied to the Stirland officer. Clamouring for their friends to follow, they joined the half-circle of human soldiers, as other townsmen poured away down the hillside to fight for their hovels and cottages.

  Six barbarian riders reached the top of the hill. Their sturdy steeds broke easily through the wide gaps in the ruined stone gate. They crossed through a single volley loosed by the Chelborg Archers. Arrows clunked off helmets and shields. One found purchase in a patchy equine flank, another in the leg of a howling Kurgan. Barbarian horsemen rode into Stirland swordsmen. Axes and maces hammered down; heavy sabres jabbed and pierced in return. A mace smacked squarely into a swordsman’s face, pulverising it. Its owner flew backwards into the dirt and lay there, stunned and dying. The Stirlanders groaned in wrath and consternation.

  A sole Kurgan horseman, his armour bulkier and more ornate than the rest, had paused in a slight depression in the middle of the road about twenty yards from its summit. He sat confidently upon his huge and snorting horse, surveying his battlefield to see where he was needed. This was the Chaos chieftain, Ortak Nalgar. He waited, holding back from the battle.

  Jonas mounted his horse and Emil, who’d done the same, rode after him. Jonas bore down toward the barbarian who’d downed his man. The Kurgan wheeled his mount to better face his charge. Jonas rode past screaming and countered the swing of the Chaos worshipper’s mace with a brisk downturn of his sabre. The blade hit the Kurgan’s fingers, severing two and ruining the others. He squalled in agony as his weapon fell between his horse’s hooves.

  Jonas came circling back for a second charge. The barbarian rode off toward the ruins of the fort, where the women and children were. Jonas urged his steed on and overtook the barbarian’s. He struck wildly at the enemy’s back until he slumped in the saddle, then keeled over. Upended in his stirrup, the barbarian’s head bounced from rock to rock as his mistreated horse, freed of its reins, zigzagged aimlessly down the hillside.

  A pair of Kurgan footmen reached the hilltop and stampeded over its lip. They saw Franziskus standing alone, blocking the fortress entranceway, and heaved their massive bodies toward him. He hadn’t recovered a weapon. He reached down for a rock to throw. Low chortles arose from barbarian throats as they came at him.

  One tumbled headlong, his chin smacking the dirt. A knife protruded from the back of his neck. Angelika, perched on a fallen slab of outer wall, had thrown it. Franziskus had no time to thank her; the second Kurg was charging fast. For an instant he saw Angelika advance on the dead barbarian, to retrieve her dagger. Then the big man was on him. He ducked a swiftly-swung axe, and kept his balance to evade a repeat thrust. He jogged back, hoping desperately for aid or respite.

  Jonas rode between them, tossing Franziskus a spare sabre. He masked Franziskus’ vulnerability with a sweeping feint at the Kurg’s head. The Kurg swivelled to protect himself, only to see Jonas’ steed gallop back to the main melee at the roadway’s head.

  The marauder turned his attention back to Franziskus. They circled one another, testing sabre against axe. The enemy had fifty pounds on Franziskus, all of it heaving muscle. A filament of drool hung from the side of the Kurgan’s mouth. Franziskus wondered if there might be some way to bring his obviously superior intelligence to bear on the situation. He shifted his weight to his left side, winced, and limped backwards, holding his leg to feign an ankle injury. The barbarian smirked. They swayed around each other, Franziskus faking his injury and allowing the Kurgan to back him into the fortress wall. Then, foretelling his blow with his eyes, the Kurg aimed a low strike at Franziskus’ supposedly bad leg.

  It threw him off-balance, just as Franziskus had reckoned, exposing the steppe fighter’s neck. Franziskus slipped out of the way and slammed Jonas’ razor-sharp sword down onto the enemy’s naked spine. The wound seemed paper-thin at first then it welled with blood. The barbarian belaboured him with a wide and impetuous strike. Then he stopped, seeming to realise that he was dead. He sank to his knees, teetered, and slumped to the dirt.

  Franziskus heard a shouting voice—it was Angelika, beckoning him to follow her down the hillside. He wondered why she meant to join the battle down there, when it was best to keep the most dangerous foes, the mounted warriors, up on the hilltop, where Jonas’ forces were concentrated. He followed her a short distance to the lip of the hill. There he realised that Angelika, who skittered sideways down the slope, meant simply to flee the town. Franziskus watched her run.

  Widening his view, he saw helpless villagers falling beneath the clubs and axes of the Chaos horde. He turned to join Jonas’ men. As he ran toward their formation, Chelborg arrows downed a Kurgan steed. Stirland swords flew into the air and then down to slash at the unhorsed foe. Two barbarians clambered up the slope to dash at him, one from the front, one from behind.

  Angelika stopped midway down the slope to see Franziskus facing two bigger opponents. She called uselessly after him, hesitated, and reversed course, climbing up to help. All the way up she swore dark thoughts at him: if he wanted to rejoin the army he’d deserted from, that was fine by her, but if he was going to get himself killed, he should show the basic courtesy to wait till he was out of her sight to do it. No, Angelika wasn’t having any of that. Franziskus could under no circumstances die in a way that would induce even the slightest shred of guilt. Not with her new life of calm and safety so close at hand.

  When she reached the top, one of the barbarians had compassed his arms around Franziskus’, and held him, squirming and kicking, chest exposed. The other Kurgan, pausing to savour the moment of slaughter, swung his axe in a circle on its leather throng. He ululated a war-cry in the glottal Chaos tongue. He had his back to Angelika, and he was both helmeted and cuirassed, offering no tempting targets to her knife. The marauder holding Franziskus, on the other hand, wore no face-plate.

  She took a chance and threw her dagger at his face.

  It burrowed itself deep in the man’s eye socket. He grunted and fell from Franziskus, who stepped deftly away, to avoid being brought down with him. The axe-wielding man erred, turning back to see who’d thrown the dagger. Franziskus took the opportunity, snatching his dropped sabre from the ground. He swung the heavy sword into his enemy’s well-protected temple. The barbarian staggered back, stunned, then shook it off.

  Angelika ran toward the melee, as if ready to join it, though her intent was merely to circle around the barbarian, distracting him. Franziskus now seemed to have little need of her help, pounding his sword repeatedly across the helmet and breastplate of his opponent. She turned to tug her dagger from the skull of the Kurgan she’d killed.

  She stalked the battlefield like a crow, looking for safe blows to strike. Franziskus was
wearing down his opponent; intervention in that fight did not justify the risk. Amid the clanging of weapons and the crackle of burning thatch, she felt the calm and detachment of being outside herself. Angelika was where she never wanted to be—in the heart of battle.

  Ahead of her, at the meeting point between road and hilltop, Jonas Rassau’s men appeared to be making headway against the invading barbarians. Only one Kurgan horseman still contended with them; the rest of their foes fought on foot, as they did. The defenders’ ranks had burgeoned, increased by townsfolk, including a few halflings, crazed with sudden bravura.

  Shelter. That’s what she needed. A vantage point. Especially now that the battle was turning, it would be unbearably ironic to be injured by a stray arrow or flying axe-head. She would find a safe spot, wait for Franziskus to get his alabaster hide out of harm’s way, and then quickly decamp, before the lovely folk of Hochmoor remembered their plan to lynch her. She looked to the dark walls of the crumbling fortress.

  Keeping a wary watch for enemies and flying objects, she skipped to a crumbled bit of wall and hauled herself up onto it. The missing bits of mortar made for fine handholds. With the facility of a stick insect, Angelika scaled a lone, freestanding section of wall. She perched about fifteen feet above ground level to watch the melee below. The wall creaked and shifted, then adjusted to her weight.

  A cacophony issued from the Stirland ranks. Suddenly men were falling back, bowled over. A new horseman, larger than the others, had joined the fight. Ortak Nalgar waded into the press of attackers and defenders, moving men aside with axe and elbow. The weapon-sharp hooves of his nightmare steed slashed into the chests of swordsmen and archers. The chieftain’s followers took heart and redoubled their attacks against the Stirland formation. Defenders fell or fled. Ortak Nalgar swung his axe and the heads of two archers separated from their bodies and sailed above the crush of men.

  Jonas’ horse reared back, withdrawing from the battle. Hugging tight to its muscular neck, legs wrapped firmly in the stirrups, he regained control of the panicked beast. He rode it in a circle around the hilltop, readying a charge against the Chaos chieftain.

  Spotting an opponent on horseback, and deeming him to be the leader of the enemy tribe, Nalgar trampled his massive steed over both barbarian and Imperial soldier in an effort to get to him.

  Angelika calculated the Chaos chieftain’s trajectory. He was headed straight for Franziskus and his opponent. Occupied by their exhausted, fruitless exchanges, neither saw the chieftain soar at them. Nalgar raised his axe.

  Angelika decided to do something stupid.

  Before Franziskus and his opponent, long before he reached his final target, Lieutenant Rassau, the chieftain would pass within a few feet of Angelika’s wall.

  His horse swung past her.

  She leapt.

  She fell onto his back. The impact knocked the wind out of her. She bounced off his thickly armoured frame and into the air. Ortak Nalgar flew from his saddle, beside her. He hit the earth first. She landed on him, his body breaking her fall. Feeling him strain beneath her, she scrambled off his back to land, dazed, a few feet away. Pain shooting through her, she got up to a crawling position. She heard a snort behind her. The gigantic chieftain was already on his feet, fixing her in his gaze. His axe lay in the dirt between them. He strained down but she grabbed it first. His boot crunched onto her fingers. White dots of agony pulsed in Angelika’s vision.

  Pounding hooves approached: Rassau was finally upon him, holding his sword out like a lance, aiming to run the chieftain through. Ortak Nalgar stepped off his axe, freeing Angelika’s hand. She rolled out of the way, executing a half-formed backwards somersault.

  Ortak Nalgar grabbed Rassau’s sword arm as he charged, yanking him from his horse. Rassau leapt onto him, gloved hands punching without effect on the chieftain’s helmet. Nalgar wormed his vambraced arm between them and pushed at Rassau’s throat, heaving him away. By some miracle of agility Rassau managed to remain standing, falling back onto his heels.

  Angelika’s head spun. She understood that she should be getting off the battlefield and out of the way. She blinked and tried to bring the world back into focus. The fight between Rassau and the chieftain became a struggle between slowed and lurching cut-outs.

  Skirmishes elsewhere on the hilltop and on the slopes of the village echoed distantly. Angelika wrenched around. Franziskus and his opponent had fought to a standstill, and now stood staring and panting at one another, neither able to take a step forward or raise his blade for another blow. Tears of effort streamed down both men’s faces.

  Angelika spun again. Ortak Nalgar suffered several free blows from Jonas’ sabre, then stooped to recover his axe. Thus equipped, the chieftain manoeuvred the smaller man easily around the battleground, pushing him back, draining his strength with one feint after another. Then Franziskus lurched into view. His opponent had somehow fallen, and had now wrapped one leathery hand around his ankle.

  Franziskus kicked him in the face, but he would not let go. He lifted Franziskus’ boot off the ground. Franziskus fell onto his back, ripped off his helmet, and smashed him a half-dozen times on the back of the head. The Kurgan kicked, twisted, bucked and finally slumped. Franziskus tore free from him and, in a daze, wandered into the fight between Jonas and the Chaos chieftain. Ortak Nalgar swiped at both men and they stumbled back.

  A third Stirlander leapt over to help bring the chieftain down. Though forced into a defensive mode, Ortak Nalgar fended off all three men with apparent ease. Angelika wanted to shout to Franziskus, to urge him away from the battle. To remind him that these people wanted him dead, just minutes ago, and would likely turn on him again, if their anger remained unsated. There would be no use in it, though: it would merely spur him on. Despite all their time together, he was still in thrall to romantic notions of heroism.

  On the edges of the fray, she beheld Filch, as he fled from a huge Kurgan warrior. She remembered his facility with a thrown rock. Angelika regarded the wall behind her, and recalled how unstable it had seemed when she’d jumped from it. An idea coalesced. While the three Stirlanders worked to keep Ortak Nalgar encircled, she snatched a large piece of dislodged brick. Too large, in fact; she dropped it in favour of a smaller cousin. She weighed it in her hand. She thought about throwing a knife, and the differences between a dagger and a rectangular chunk of stone. If she erred, this could go very wrong. But the chieftain seemed to be gaining his second wind, so the risk seemed worth taking.

  She waited for the fighting men to reach the right point in their orbit. To mark out their pace, she counted in her head. One gold crown, two gold crown, three gold crown.

  Angelika threw the rock.

  It banged into Ortak Nalgar’s helmet, striking a few inches above the bridge of his nose. A flanged ornament of cresting spikes detached from the dented headpiece. It swung uselessly, humiliatingly, from a tiny screw. Ortak Nalgar turned to Angelika. Quaking with fury, he ripped the ornament from his helm. He pushed past Franziskus, knocked down Jonas, and charged at her, swinging his axe and shouting out foul Kurgan curses.

  As Angelika had guessed, it was a particularly gruesome blow to a steppe barbarian’s pride to be assaulted by a combatant of the female persuasion. He would have to act immediately to recover his honour. He hurtled at her.

  The next move was more than risky. Possibly fatal, if she got it even a hair wrong. So dangerous that she could not conceive of a solitary rational reason to even attempt it, except that it was already too late to stop.

  At the last possible moment, she adjusted her stance. She readied herself to receive the blow, and turn it to her own ends. As he made impact, she drew back and around him, pivoting him into the decrepit wall, letting the force of the slam throw her clear.

  Half a ton of ancient brick escaped its bonds of decaying mortar to shower down upon him. Ortak Nalgar wailed in outrage and then fell silent, entombed in a heap of rubble. A cloud of brick dust drifted from it.

 
; Angelika had landed painfully on her tailbone. Jonas came to her side and pulled her up. The pair of them stood dumbly before the debris pile. Jonas held his sabre ready, in case the chieftain suddenly shrugged his way through the crushing stone. Behind them, where the main mass of men battled on at the head of the road, the sounds of combat had dulled.

  She promised herself that that trick was the last foolish risk she’d ever take.

  Ortak Nalgar’s black steed wheeled, stamping the ground in a tight, crazy circle. Through foam-flecked teeth it howled, producing a sound more like a wolf than a horse. It bolted at Angelika and Jonas, intent on trampling them. Angelika turned and leapt into a space between sections of fortress wall. Jonas stood his ground as the beast bore down on him. He drove his sabre deep into the raging animal’s underbelly. Its momentum took it headlong into the pile of bricks, where it collided with a terrible impact. Jonas flinched at the sound of its cracking bones. The dying beast writhed and groaned, waggling its broken limbs.

  A lone Kurgan marauder, unchallenged by any defender, wandered toward the debris pile, mouth agape. Two halflings charged, flanking him; Angelika recognised one of them as Deely. The Kurgan, his fortitude sapped by his master’s demise, turned and ran. He swung his axe wildly out at his side, trying merely to fend off his tormentors and escape. Deely fell back, clutching his throat. The marauder picked up speed, though it did not matter: the second halfling had dropped his spear and rushed to Deely’s side, holding him upright.

  The Kurgan ran past the ranks of his compatriots at the roadhead, squalling in disbelief. His cries struck confusion into his fellows’ hearts. If unengaged, they froze. If stuck in combat, they faltered. A few, torn by grief, fell abruptly beneath Stirland blades, or quivered, impaled, on halfling spears. Most, feverish with unreasoning fear, disengaged deftly from their melees.