“You ain’t fought zeeks before, Spike.” Gutcrusher answered. “I tell you true, any chance this stuff helps us, you will be glad of it.” He looked around at the forest nervously. Although he had exploited Ball’s wounding of a zeek to show his luck before, both Balls and he knew that it had been a matter of pure luck that it had happened at all. The truth was, Gutcrusher feared the zeeks with good reason. He could see the thicker trees that bounded the Bone River from where he sat, and the impending crossing of that river filled him with apprehension. Not even the square in front of the Black Mountain had intimidated him as much as that narrow band of shallow water.
The ogres rose when he did, formed up into their loose column, and began walking the last half a league to the crossing of the Bone River.
Hungry Wolf marched with the ogre host, and even though he was just barely a buck and shouldn’t have been with them, he held his head high and carried an iron-tipped spear. Like the ogres, he wore armor, although what he had was cast-off chain mail, a rusty drape of iron links that had once belonged to a chief. The full-grown ogres wore the marvelous hauberks of steel links and scales that had come from the killing of the Black God, or some wore the elaborate plates and decorative gear from Araous the Lannister’s horde. Hungry Wolf’s gear had been discarded, and then passed from one ogre to another, until finally it had come to him. Well, truth be told, he had stolen it from another buck who hadn’t been looking.
Still, he was eager for war, and when the ogres had assembled for the march, no one had objected to his taking a place in their ranks. He could tell from the eager way they marched toward the ford on the Bone River that they thought battle was in the offing, and they were watchful and alert. He, too, was very alert, and not a little scared.
The ogres were marching in a broad column toward a place where the canopy was still mostly leafy and thick trunks of willow and oak lined a shallow ford over the Bone River. Snow was on the ground and the sky was mostly cloudy, although a few patches of blue still showed themselves here and there. The wind had stopped when they broke for lunch, but now that they were marching again, a cold breeze had picked up. Hungry Wolf had a layer of fur between his skin and the chainmail, but it was still chilly.
He was probably nine or ten rows back from the lead cohort when the voice came forth, seemingly from the ground and the trees themselves, and like the others around him, he froze in place. “Turn back.” The voice commanded. “The way is closed and you may not pass. From ancient times it has been forbidden for your kind to cross the Bone River.”
But Gutcrusher, although he did not have the same magic in his voice, roared a reply that was equally loud. “I am the Ogre King!” He yelled, and his voice was commanding. “I bring justice for my people. Whelps has been murdered by the fishstinking pigsucking Auligs. I told them not to cross the stinking Bone, and they come across and done murder. I am come to forfeit their land for penalty!”
“You may not cross, Ogre King.” Came the reply. “Begone and return to your kingdom, else we will turn you back.”
“Do your stinking worst, zeek scum!” Gutcrusher roared, and then, like the plan said, all of the ogres began running toward the shallow ford at a full run. Then all thoughts of cold left Hungry Wolf as all seven hells in the abyss burst forth.
A sheet of flame sprang up from the waters of the Bone River, forming a solid wall, and arrows flew from it by the thousands. The ogres raised their shields against the arrows, and for the most part they bounce off harmlessly, but an ogre next to Hungry Wolf stumbled, and he saw the feathered shaft of an arrow sticking out from his eye. When he bent to steal the ogre’s shield, he saw that some strange green slime was pouring forth from the eye socket, and he withdrew his hand, afraid to touch the thing. When Hungry Wolf stood up, he saw other ogres had fallen, and each one was writhing in agony as the cursed arrows did their eldritch work. Some of the ogres burst into flames, some of them seemed to freeze into ice, and some of them were suddenly swarmed in maggots or termites that consumed their flesh. The terror of the arrows fell on Hungry Wolf and most of his company, and they stopped running and sheltered behind their shields, screaming in terror or pain.
But Hungry Wolf had no shield, and there wasn’t room for him behind those of the ogres crouching in fear. He looked ahead to where the leaders of the King’s Band were, and he was amazed to see that they did not run from the arrows or even hesitate at the wall of flames. Gutcrusher the king had his round steel shield up and was striding forward right into the fires, and where he stepped the fire seemed to fade and go out. Balls, Wolf and Ironspike marched fearlessly forward alongside him with arrows bouncing off of their armor, and behind those four another hundred leaders roared their challenge at the zeeks and continued fearlessly forward, striding like elder gods through a maze of ruin and death.
For not the just the fires of the river now assailed them, but huge things issued forth from the waters, scaled monstrosities of horn and spines, but when these things crashed against the captains, they fell away and the captains marched on, unharmed. The trees themselves reached down with clawed limbs, tearing and ripping, but the captains ignored them and walked under them, as if immune to the terror of the wood.
Their fearlessness was contagious, and Hungry Wolf raised his voice above the screaming and yammering of his companions. “Come on!” He yelled to them. “Get up and run! We’ll kill the fookers!” All around him other ogres were rising to their feet, looking ahead to the captains and taking heart. They began to rise and march forward, positioning their shields to catch stray arrows.
Elcarrios watched the ogres pass through the sheet of flames and was worried. The wall of flame was his own work, and the ogres should have been writhing on the ground in agony. He saw Elfuistas’ trees fail to hurt the things, and even Mizlani’s water wights did not slow them. By rights half of the ogres should have been drowning by now, but instead over a hundred of them were more than halfway across the Bone River, and coming on fast. He drew his sword and assumed his wraith aspect.
Among the lead ogres a much smaller figure marched. It was an old crone, leaning on a staff and keeping her pace slightly behind their king, even as he took long and swift steps among the slimy stones and gravel of the ford. Elcarrios considered the crone. Was it possible they had made an alliance with a witch or dreamweaver? That would explain their immunity to the shades of death that sprang up around them, for she could be dispelling the illusions even as the hidden people were weaving them.
Yes, that had to be what was happening. He called out in the language of the Thushavra. “Behind their king, Elfuistas. See the black-robed crone? I think she’s practicing the Art.”
“Yes.” Elfuistas called back. “I will put an arrow into her.” He lifted and loosed in the same instant as he spoke, and a thin shaft sped forth, but by some mischance it bounced off the shield of a gray-haired ogre striding beside her. A second arrow was similarly deflected, again seemingly by chance, and the third simply passed by her head, missing by inches. “Impossible!” Elfuistas exclaimed in frustration. “She must be warded in some way.”
“I will manage her.” Elcarrios offered. He shaded into the shadows of the trees and began stalking the black robed figure, moving invisibly forward with his sword in hand. In moments he had crossed the distance between himself and the front line of ogres, and confident in his invisibility, began slipping through their ranks toward the crone.
A round steel shield slammed into his side, cracking several ribs and hurling him into the rocks on the near bank. He lay there stunned for half a second, and then the ogre king was before him. “Got you, you stinking zeek sneak!” The ogre king said, and even though Elcarrios willed himself to fade into the water and earth, he felt the great booted foot of the ogre pushing him backward into the cold mud. He lifted his sword to parry the blacksteel mace as it came down, but the blade shattered and the spiked head crushed his skull.
When the zeek’s brains splashed all over his boots, Gutcr
usher laughed. Then he raised his mace and marched onward, his feet now on the dry eastern side of the Bone River. Killing the damn thing had been all too easy, and Gutcrusher wondered that he had ever feared the things. What he did not know was that shorn of their ability to weave illusions, the Thushavra were terribly ordinary, with the same weaknesses as other folk.
Wolf called out from slightly ahead of him. “I see another one of the stinking skulks!” He called out, and he quickly rushed forward toward another zeek, who was loosing arrows as fast as he could draw back the bowstring. The arrows were small, but they had poison in the tip, as far as Gutcrusher could tell, and Wolf had to keep his shield up to keep from getting shot in the face. Hammers and Wolf cornered the thing against a tree, and Wolf split it in two with his blacksteel gladius.
Splitnose called out in his froggy-mush voice that he’d spotted one skulking in a tree, and a few thrown spears brought it down. This one was a female, and Splitnose spent a few moments mounting its head on his spear. “Find them all, boyos!” Gutcrusher roared jubilantly, and the ogres began swiftly stalking the woods, pulping zeeks that tried to hide behind trees or fade into bushes. Those they didn’t see plainly they located by smell, and the ogres hunted them in packs until all but a couple were brought to bay and slain.
Gutcrusher faced the last one, a deadly fast fighter with a long and leaf-shaped sword, in a clearing. A ring of ogres had surrounded this one and brought it to bay, and they waited for the king to finish it off.
“I am Gutcrusher. I am the King of All Ogres, zeek.” He said, grinning beneath his steel cap helm as he crouched, blacksteel mace extended. The zeek’s head barely came to the height of the ogre’s thigh. “Usually I let one fucker live to give warning, but some of you lot has already run. You are one dead skulk.”
“I am Eldannith.” The zeek said, and tears were streaming down its boyish face. “You have no idea what you have done, ogre. You have extinguished thousands of years of history and lore. You have shorn from the dream such beings as you cannot begin to comprehend. Mizlani was alive and walked these woods before your kind even existed. What dreams you have ended! There shall be war such as you have never imagined over this day.” The zeek held its sword at guard position, but plainly it was hopelessly outnumbered and surrounded.
Gutcrusher grinned. “I don’t give a slag’s curse for your dreams, zeek. Everything dies, even you lot. The ogres claim both sides of the Bone now, and your witchy tricks don’t work no more on us. I piss on your witchery.” He took a step forward, but suddenly the crone was there, standing next to Gutcrusher. She put a hand on his wrist and stayed the blow that would have finished the zeek.
“A moment, mighty king, if you will allow it.” Her tone was diffident.
“What do you want, witch?” Gutcrusher was impatient. He wanted this over with, and he didn’t want to be shown up in front of his boyos. Already they whispered behind his back about this witch, and he couldn’t have her making free to take charge. He moved as if to shrug off her hand, but found that he couldn’t. He learned then what Wolf had long known, that the crone was very strong. His eyes widened in surprise.
The crone looked at the zeek. Her voice was very loud, and echoes reached even the ogres who were still hunting in the distance. “I am Khama Holle, Eldannith. I know that there are others of your kind who are hiding still, and listening. When those others return to Mythladen, or whatever your great city is called in this age, they will say my name, and they will know that I stand with Gutcrusher, the King of All Ogres.” She gave the zeek a wintry smile and shook her head. “There will be no war. You will withdraw from this land and be thankful I do not come for you.” Then she removed her hand from Gutcrusher’s arm.
Eldannith parried the first great smashing blow, and his counterstroke scratched the steel greave of Gutcrusher’s right forearm. He parried the second blow and the third, spinning athletically and whirling with amazing skill so that even the ogres watching were impressed. He aimed a stroke at Gutcrusher’s eyes, but the move left him open. The fourth blow snapped his blade and crushed his ribcage, and the fifth pulped his skull, much to the disappointment of Splitnose, who was collecting heads.
“Is there any more?” Gutcrusher called out, and when all replies were in the negative, he took some extra time to stomp Eldannith’s body into the snow and mud and howl out his war cry. The other ogres joined in, and there were many thousands of them, and the great eastern forest trembled in fear and in awe.
Elbarvius shuddered at the cry and wept. The icy waters of the Bone River claimed his tears, for he was lying in it, with only his face above the water, hiding his scent from the sniffing, searching ogres. Nineteen Thushavra the ogres had shorn from life, such a reaving as had not occurred among them since Marten’s day. It was an epic catastrophe, a disaster of such proportions that it was hard even to imagine. Only the black days of the eldest age compared with it.
Elbarvius could remain in the icy water for an hour or two, if need be, and be unharmed, for that was his nature, but it was painful. He closed his eyes and heard again in his mind the name of Khama Holle. It was a name of ancient dread and mystery, the name of the Wild Witch, and if anyone knew more of slaying Thushavra than did she, they did not walk the world in this age. She was right in what she said. There would be no war against the ogres if she was among them, but of course, she would probably kill them all herself.
The thought was little comfort.
When the zeeks began dying on the other side of the river, the flames vanished from the river, the trees ceased their deadly reaching and the monsters in the river quieted and disappeared. Hungry Wolf watched in awe as Gutcrusher and the mighty captains killed zeeks at will, catching them here and there, surrounding them and slaying them. He watched Ironspike toying with one, breaking its limbs one by one until it was crippled on the ground, and the giant ogre seemed more curious and surprised than anything. “I thought you zeeks could fight.” His brow was furrowed and his mouth twisted in mingled curiosity and puzzlement. When he finally drove the point of his military pick through the thing’s brain, he’d seemed disappointed.
Even more surprising, when Hungry Wolf went back to the place where other ogres had been killed by the zeek arrows, he found that their bodies were intact, as if they had not been frozen, or burned, or consumed by vermin. Instead he found only that they had been killed by arrows, and apart from a slight redness around the wounds, there was nothing unusual about their deaths. He found a good shield and helmet, as well as a nice sword, but when he tried to strip a body of one of the scale hauberks, he found his captain had already put dibs on it. “This ain’t for no buck.” Mansmasher said, but not unkindly. The captain remembered how Hungry Wolf had been one of the first to stand before the zeek onslaught.
Perhaps fifty ogres had fallen in the fording of the Bone River, and the bodies of nineteen zeeks were ultimately discovered in the battle’s aftermath, but it was accounted a major victory nonetheless, for the ancient ban on the river was lifted, and the passage to the east lay open to the King’s Band.
Chapter 93: Kingdom of the Green Hills
When the platter fell to the stone floor and shattered, the infant king of Mortentia woke up startled, and his eyes went suddenly wide. The small lamb’s hide pacifier in his mouth fell to the floor of his bassinet, and when the high pitched young girl’s shriek burst forth, he began to cry immediately, for his sleep was ruined and he found the noise offensive.
Beside the bassinet stood Lanae Brookhouse in her riding leathers, and a moment after she dropped the platter and screamed, she drew a dagger from her belt and stood protectively in front of the little king. “What are you doing here?” She demanded loudly. Her breath was coming in desperate spurts.
King Otten Ottenson stepped into the room, and his massive hand was on the hilt of his oversized broadsword, but he had not drawn it forth. He was puzzled by what he saw. Jahaksi, one of his scouts, stood not ten paces from Lanae, his guest, and was hold
ing his hands out, palms toward her in a placating way. The little prince was howling, big lusty noises that the two of them ignored. Jahaksi spoke to the girl while King Otten seized upon this rare opportunity to pick up the boy and cradle him in his massive arms. “This one did not know that you were here, Lanae Brookhouse, else I should have announced myself beforehand.”
“Why are you here?” She demanded again, then she turned to the king without waiting for a response. “He’s a Brizaki, your majesty. He was one of the ones who kidnapped me.”
“You can call me just Otto.” The king replied, his eyes on the face of the prince, who had gone quiet and was staring back at him in fascination. “And I know this Brizaki. He’s one of my scouts. I don’t know what grievance you have against him, but he is under the peace of this house. Also you have made a mess of the crockery and must clean it up.” He did not offer to hand over the baby. Pretty soon Eleinel would come, having heard the screaming and crying, and take the boy away from him.
Red faced, she sheathed her dagger, but she kept a wary eye on Jahaksi. “Grievance? You want to know my grievance? He killed guards at an eagle’s landing. He captured one of the king’s eagles. He kidnapped me and dragged me in chains halfway across Mortentia. Those are my grievances.” She tried to control her voice, but there was a tremor of fear in it.
“Also this one kept you alive when Da’all Khor would have slain you.” Jahaksi amended gently. “This one disobeyed his commands to slay you.” He lowered his hands. King Otten looked over at the two of them, satisfied. Jahaksi had but recently returned from a scouting mission in the Whitewood Forest, and had been unaware that Lanae was one of Otten’s guests.
“Whatever lies behind you two, you are in my house now. Let us open a bottle of Alidis red and make peace talk. Jahaksi has left the Brizakis and works for me now. You are no longer in the kingdom of Mortentia, so whatever crimes he committed there have nothing to do with me.” Otten knew that he had to be patient in his explanation, for she was a woman, and Mortentian on top of that.
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 123
