The only way to the chambers above was through the narrow way.
Meanwhile Balls was taunting the assembled host at his feet. “Why do the chieftains send in your brothers to fight and don’t come themselves?” He called out. “My king fights. Your chieftains don’t. Why do they get all of the plunder and all of the shes if they won’t fight? Because they can kill you?”
“Hump your mother!” Soulripper shouted.
“That was said like a chieftain.” Balls retorted. “They take all the shes, and leave you humping slags. They take all the food and leave you hungry. They take all the gold and leave you to beg or trade. I see you, Soulripper. I hear how the Iron Bridge Band must run from the elk-men, and how you won’t defend them. You live and your boyos die.”
“You lie!” Soulripper screamed, furious. “The Iron Bridge Band fights and kills! We will kill you and your false king!”
“The door is open, Soulripper.” Balls replied simply. Soulripper’s captains and best warriors looked at him sideways. Balls saw it and smiled.
The goblins came to the narrow way and knew it for a trap. They whispered darkly to each other in fear and consternation. But they were not their own masters, sadly, and they had no choice but to spring it, for behind them a dozen ogres pressed and prodded, commanding them to move forward. In their weird and sibilant chittering they agreed that there was only one way to force the corridor, although it would be costly.
These goblins were clever, and they had battled the Nibelung and many other races in the many long and dark and deep places of the earth, and they knew that there would be line of warriors with shields on the other side of the narrow way, and probably spears. Always clever, and always prepared, a number of them came forward with pilums, special spears designed to take down shield walls. These spears had a sharp piercing tip on a thin metal rod, but were attached to a heavy base. The idea was simple. One hurled the spear into the shield of an enemy, and the heavy handle would foul the shield, forcing the enemy to drop it and fight shieldless. Fifteen goblins ran forward as swiftly as they could, and they hurled the pilums with all of their strength through the doorway.
But the shields the ogres held had been taken from the armory of Araous the Burner, and they were made to be wielded by ogres, not men or Nibelung. They were of steel thick and light, but massive, and although a man might barely lift one, a man could not wield one. But an ogre could. Not even the greatest and mightiest of goblins in all of the history of their twisted and wicked kind could have pierced these shields, and indeed, only a siege engine or a horse driven lance might do it. The pilums bounced off and fell to the floor.
Still, the hurling of pilums was to precede the wild charge, and the order for the charge was issued before the last of them flew. The goblins hurled themselves forward, driven by the pushes and stabs of the ogres behind them, into a house of slaughter.
Goblins could not foul the shields, but they could hurl themselves onto the tips of spears and foul them, and that is what they did, racing forward to collect like bits of meat on a spit, pulling down the spears that hung over the shield wall by their combined weight alone. Wolf ordered the shield wall to take one step back, as goblins died and packed the hall before them.
The goblins attempted to knock down the shield wall by sheer volume and weight, or pile up in front of it and clamber over, but Wolf was wise to this. The ogres behind the shields held swords above them and placed them side by side, leaving no room for the goblins to pass. When the press of small bodies grew too heavy, he backed up one step, then killed more goblins with his deadly gladius. Step by backward step the hall filled with the bodies of the hapless goblins. The air filled with the stench of their foul blood and offal, the floor grew slick and wet, and still the ogres from the City of the Damned drove them through the doorway, disregarding their tiny screams of terror and woe.
Wolf became aware that the king was behind him about the time that the last of the goblins died. Gutcrusher looked through the narrow way and saw the ogres from the City of the Damned assembling there. “Up to the killing floor now, Wolf.” He said. “Bloody good work here.”
The ogres behind the shield wall went first, running down the corridor to a long spiral staircase. Wolf backed the shield wall slowly away from the hallway where the goblins had been slaughtered, and the ogres from the City of the Damned saw only the vague forms of the shields, painted with strange red devices, withdrawing side by side into the darkness of the corridor beyond. They began wading through the bodies of the goblins to follow, their feet churning stickily among the packed and mangled corpses, which were still hot.
Once out of the hallway, Wolf was the last to leave, slinging the great shield onto his back and taking the stairs two or three at a time. When he finally reached the top, Gutcrusher was waiting. “We could hold the stairs a long time.” He panted. “Make them come up after.”
Gutcrusher shook his head. “This is better. Let them see our numbers.” At the landing the long spiral staircase opened up into a wide rectangular chamber, with corridors branching off in several directions. Gutcrusher had assembled thirty of the boyos in a circle around the landing, and a shield wall of ten shields including Wolf’s stood at the head of the stairs. The chamber was formed such that anyone coming up the stairs could be struck from every direction at once, and sixteen bucks, each one eager to make his first kill, stood with long, iron-tipped spears in position to strike the ogres coming up the stairs from above and behind. Gutcrusher had named this room the killing floor, for he intended to do a great work of slaughter here. He joined the shield wall and hefted a short steel sword, for it was better for this work than the mace.
Spearstained was the captain in charge of the attackers from the City of the Damned below. His feet stung from two cuts he had received stepping on knife blades mixed in with the bodies of the goblins at his feet, and he was coldly furious. He hated goblins. The chief had brought them into this, but it was race-mixing, and he was against it on principle. The little vermin would steal a camp empty if you took them in, and even when you flayed one, the rest hardly took notice. Aside from that, you couldn’t eat the little ratspawn, for their flesh was poisonous, and he was starving. Here was a hallway full of fresh killed meat, still hot, and not a bit of it fit to eat.
That damned shield wall! That was a man trick, and not fighting like ogres should at all, but Spearstained had to admire the efficacy of it. The stinking goblins hadn’t stood a chance, which was no loss to Spearstained, but the chief was going to be some put out. Whiteskin scared the piss out of Spearstained, and he wasn’t afraid to admit it. Why he had thought to bring goblins, their hated rivals around the City of the Damned into this, Spearstained didn’t know, but it was bad policy.
Oh, he understood that the false king had to be put down. That was just common sense. Everyone knew that a false king would shake things up and bring bloodshed to all the bands, but this was hardly the way to go about putting him down. This Black Mountain seemed to have been made to slaughter ogres, and so far he thought they’d killed no more than one or two of the King’s Band. False King’s Band, he corrected himself quickly.
He didn’t relish chasing after that shield wall or throwing his boyos against it. “Let’s clear these stinking goblins out of the hall before we go after them again.” He told Blue. The big ogre, his friend since they were whelps, nodded agreement.
“Aye, boss.” He said. “We ain’t in no hurry here.”
“We don’t want to talk to you no more.” Fargikiller called up to Balls. “Send out the Pretender.” He had painted a black stripe across his eyes, enhancing their already witchy appearance.
“Is someone talking to me?” Balls replied, putting a hand to his ear. “I can’t see nobody there. All’s I see is some slaggy looking ghost with a witch’s stick. Have you boyos been meddling around with spook-pushers?”
“You know who I am, old one.” Fargikiller replied. “Nobody is falling for your tricks.”
“Do I know who you are?” Balls answered him. “Oh yes, I know. You’re that chief from the Blackwood who feeds his boyos to the zeeks so he can get zeek magic for himself. Is that who you are?”
“That’s a lie!” Fargikiller screamed. “You’re a filthy liar.”
“Am I now?” Balls leaned back and looked down at the rune covered ogre. “Look at you, with your shifty ways. All covered up with magic writing and spook-pusher paint. Carrying a witch’s stick and wearing that witchy armor. Is that how you make your boyos to hunt the Blackwood for you? You scare them with that unnatural witchy talk?”
“You be careful old man, I’ll have your soul for dinner.”
“Oh, it’s my soul you’ll be eating? How about that, boyos? This crazy spook pushing ogre claims he can eat my soul.” He spoke loudly, his tone outraged. “How do like having him for a chief, you Blackwood boyos? Does he claim to eat your souls, too? I hear he sends you deep into the woods, makes you play with zeeks so he can get more of their sick magicks. How many of you boyos has he kilt so that he can go around scaring you with his spooky talk? A lot, I bet. By the Black God, if this spook-pusher tried that witchy shit in the King’s Band, we’d stake him to a tree!”
“Old fool!” Fargikiller roared at him. “You don’t know the powers you are dealing with!” A strange shadow seemed to flow about him, causing the ogres near him to edge away uneasily.
“I think you’re a great big fake, boy.” Balls called down. “But the door is open. Come inside and prove me wrong.”
Spearstained put his hundred boyos in a long line, all the way from the narrow place through the chamber of columns and out the entrance to the Black Mountain. They began taking out the corpses of the goblins, handing them back one at a time and passing them down the line, until finally they emerged from the door, to be thrown into a grim and rising mound of little corpses. Occasionally the striped and colored body of a nomad would come through the door also, usually without a head, and usually sporting the marks of many sharp teeth. It was not lost on the assembled host that the surviving Wasteland nomads were clustered most thickly near the doorway where the corpses were emerging, and many had gathered in tight circles so that none without could see what they were doing to the bodies of their fellows.
Balls watched it from above with disgust. “Who is the chieftain of these stinking nomads?” He finally called out. A large nomad with egg-white eyes cocked his head and peered up at Balls.
“What do you want, dried up one?” He called. “Would you like to join the pick-a-nick?”
“I just wanted to see what kind of a filthy piece of dung bosses a pack of cannibals.” Balls replied.
“Cannibals?” Madbastard queried. “No cannibals here, oh no!” Then he laughed, a high-pitched rippling scream on the far edge of insanity. His followers jumped and screamed “Oh no!” at each other, and at the other ogres gathered around. “Oh no!” Madbastard yelled again, laughing. “Give us your king and stop all your yammering, dried up one!” He was shaking his head from side to side now, adding to his general air of lunacy.
“You’re a crazy pigsucker all right.” Balls said. “Comes of eating the flesh of your own kind, I reckon. But you finally got one thing right. You called the king by his right name. Who else wants to talk to the king?” He rose his voice so that all might hear.
“He’s a pretender, he’s no king!” Shouted Soulripper, but many of the assembled ogres ignored him. Balls began to hear lone voices calling.
“Send out your king.” One loud voice called, and Balls was surprised to see it belonged to the chief of the Winter Mountain Band, who had so far remained aloof from all discussions. Whiteskin glared fiercely at the ogre, but Ironspike merely glanced in his direction, fingering his great iron pick. Balls noticed then that the ogres of the Winter Mountain Band did not mingle with the ogres of the other bands, and in fact held themselves in ranks, like a military formation. “Let us talk to your king.” Ironspike repeated.
“I will go and get him.” Balls replied curtly, turning from the balcony.
“It’s time, Gutcrusher.” Balls called from one of the entrances to the chamber of the killing floor. “They want to talk at you.”
“But none of the chiefs is come yet.” The king replied. “Thought the plan was we kill some chiefs, then I talk.”
Balls merely shrugged. “They’re calling you the king now. That was the plan, to come out when they said it.”
Gutcrusher stepped from behind the shield wall and followed Balls to the balcony. Balls preceded him, leaning forward from the balcony and shouting over the heads of the ogres assembled below. “Brothers, I give you your king!”
A scattering of curses and shouts followed his announcement, but most the ogres below seemed more curious than anything, and Gutcrusher stepped up to the balcony.
“Isn’t this a fine fornicating party.” He laughed, and many of the ogres below laughed as well, before they could stop themselves. The chiefs glared angrily about and gave the laughers threatening looks.
“So, what in the name of the Black God are you all doing here?” Gutcrusher asked.
“You know why we’re here.” Whiteskin replied. “We’re here to kill you.”
“Wasn’t talking to you, goblin-kisser.” Gutcrusher replied. “You’re the kind of filth that consorts with that kind, nobody wants to talk to you.”
“Come down and fight me, then.” Whiteskin replied in direct challenge, but Gutcrusher laughed again.
“Come down and starve with the rest of you lot?” He held up a haunch of dried venison. “The food is in here. You’ve all been invited in a bunch of times, haven’t you?
“No, Whiteskin, I’m not coming out there to fight you. There’s nothing out there that I want. I’ve got a mountain full of food and swag, I’ve got a she, I’ve got a good bunch of boyos and I’m the king of the King’s Band. You want to fight me, you got to bring something to the table, and you haven’t got shite. You’re a broken goblin-kisser who had to make a forbidden pact so that your band wouldn’t be slaughtered by the little rats. You think I’m scared of a goblin kissing pinky like you? Come inside by yourself and I’ll fight you one to one. You been invited.”
Whiteskin hissed. “You think I’d trust you to fight me? Hah!”
“I’ll tell you why you are all here.” Gutcrusher said, ignoring Whiteskin and looking out over the other ogres. “You are all here because your chiefs made you come. They give you some shite about freedom and how scary I am, then they made you come. When they want food, they make you fetch it. When they want me killed, they send you to do it. They don’t come. We’ve asked them to come on in, and they don’t.
“Let me tell you how it is in the King’s Band. You wonder how it is that all your boyos keep dying? It’s because the King’s Band has the best swag you ever saw. I know how it is in your bands, all the swag sits in a pile in some cave or some ruin, and the chief owns it all, and you can’t have it.
“In the King’s Band, everyone has swag. Old-time weapons and armor you can’t scratch, which is why you’re all dying. Because I’m the king, and I share. In the King’s Band, when you go hungry, the king goes hungry. When you fight the king fights. When you bleed the king bleeds, and when you kill the king kills, too.
“I have one she. Azha the Fury is my queen. Maybe you heard of her.” There was some scattered laughter below. He heard Azha growl from the chamber behind the balcony where she was lying. “That’s the only she I have, and she’s all I want. This ain’t like your bands, where the chief gets all of the shes and you get nothing. We got four shes here, and we’re going to get more.
“In the King’s Band the shes aren’t going to sit around thinking of ways to murder each other so they can be the chief’s favorite. In the King’s Band every ogre will have a fair chance to get a she, and there will be lots of them.” This statement drew a strong reaction from the crowd below, from the chiefs who declared him a liar to many of the boyos, who were looking around and nod
ding.
“Here’s another thing, my brothers.” Gutcrusher added, his voice going hard. “In the King’s Band, any ogre who eats the flesh of another will die. Any ogre who meddles with spook-pushing and witchery will die. Any ogre who is born all twisty and broken and white-skinned will die. The zeeks will fear us. The elk-men will fear us. The Auligs will fear us. The goblins will fear us. Because any one of them draws blood off my boyos, he’s drawing blood off of me, and I will march with a hundred hands and smash them to bloody pieces.
“That is what it means to have a king!” He said, pausing, and the ogre host all stood now, watching him, and none interrupted. “Now send in your cowardly chiefs to fight me.” He roared. “Let us be done with this.”
Soulripper looked at Fargikiller, Madbastard and Whiteskin, and they were looking at him also. Ironspike said nothing, but he stood apart, in front of his ranks of grim mountain ogres, and he did not look at them. Two of his great captains stood beside him, and they were whispering to him and to each other rapidly. The chiefs had been called out squarely, and they knew they could not refuse the challenge, not if they wanted to retain the respect of their boyos.
Madbastard was the first to reply. “Make a mighty sound, sons of the wasteland!” He screamed. “It’s a bloody fine day for a pick-a-nick!” Then, heedless of whether he was followed or not, he ran screaming into the Black Mountain, and hundreds of his people followed him, clawing other ogres out of the way in their fury to reach the doorway. They were all screaming and hooting and making their fearful din, and the others stepped out of their way and let them pass.
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 78
