Aelfric looked at Manzer Larvantis, who was practically on his knees to plead for the lives of the refugees. He nodded eagerly. “Yes. I would, milord. Let them cross and Redwater Town will be behind you forever, I swear it.”
“Anbarius?”
“I’ve known the Cthochi for a long time, Aelfric. They are good people with bad leaders. The war isn’t the fault of the common folk. They will not make war against you or cause you problems if you let them across.”
“I can’t believe you all are saying this. A king? Me? I want to look at your heads and make sure you haven’t all been knocked daft. Do you remember Walcox? Ugly Woman Hill? We paid so much.”
“They paid also.” The voice belonged to Tuchek, who had just come up to join the conversation. “They paid thousands of lives. The Earthspeaker is dead, and Kerrick. Their seer, my father, is disgraced. They’ve paid, Aelfric.”
“Tuchek.” Aelfric was so flabbergasted he did not remember to call his friend Eskeriel. “How much of what they said have you heard? They want to make me a king.”
Tuchek shrugged. “Likely no worse than most. So long as you have them around to guide you, you’d probably do all right. The land certainly needs one. If you don’t want to be a king, call yourself a duke or something. Makes little enough difference.
“Meanwhile, I’ve several thousand people who need to get across the river, Aelfric, and thousands of armored Muharl ogres less than a day behind us who want to slaughter them. Will you let them pass?”
It was Aelfric’s first experience with democracy, and he saw that every vote was against him. Finally he threw up his hands and shook his head. “Fine. We let them across, but they have to relinquish their weapons and agree to obey whatever authority we put in place over here, whether it’s me or something else.”
Celdemer smiled. “It will be you, Aelfric. It will be just wonderful, too.”
Once it was decided that the Cthochi would be permitted to cross the river, the problem became a mechanical one, for the bridge was a narrow suspension bridge capable of holding the weight of no more then twenty or so people at a time, or one or two horses or small wagons with men to lead them. The gates of the Expanded Fort were opened, and a surge of people came in, both from beyond the treeline and those coming from the Earthspeaker’s camp. It shortly became evident that to cross all of these people on the one bridge would be an undertaking of at least two full days. Once they were across and into Redwater Town Manzer assured Aelfric that they could be moved through the city and into the surrounding area fairly swiftly, but the bridge was a bottleneck, and there was no getting around it.
They had left Edwell in Northcraven, so it fell to Busker and half a dozen clerks to distribute the peaches and peach products to the refugees as they came across the river, and they quickly set up in a market booth, where each refugee was given half a peach or a slice of peach bread once across. Busker wasn’t sure they would have enough for everyone, but they determined that if anyone went without they would be put on a list for later deliveries.
The Cthochi began to cross the bridge at first in fits and starts, but once they got organized, a steady stream of people crossed, and they found that it could hold about thirty at once before Anbarius objected to the strain on the ropes from which it hung. In the meantime the Cthochi were brought into the Expanded Fort as swiftly as possible, and on the word that the ogres might appear at any moment, Captain Meblin ordered the ballistas and mangonels armed and the sand heated on the forges until it glowed red.
When the process of moving the Cthochi across the bridge had been going on for about an hour, Tuchek approached Aelfric on the wall. “I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions with the others, Aelfric. I didn’t think to ask if you wanted to be a king or a duke or whatever it is they have in mind for you. I think the people are going to need someone, and I think you’d do fine, but it’s not something to be pushed into.”
Aelfric was focused on the movement of the people in the square below him, standing with his arms crossed and a tight look on his face. “I’m not going to worry about that just yet, Tuchek. By the way, what name do you want us all to use now? I know the Cthochi call you Rakond and the men have known you as Eskeriel, but I met you as Tuchek. Which do you prefer?”
“One is as good as another. The name Tuchek is kind of a play on words. Eskeriel, too. On the other hand, I haven’t gone by Rakond for nigh on twenty years. Tuchek is fine, I guess.”
Aelfric nodded. “Tuchek it is. Tell me something, Tuchek. You’ve been listening to the drums and I know you can read them. How much time do we have?”
“Maybe two hours. A band of scouts was trailing the ogres, and they made camp just this side of a place we call the Bristling Thicket. The last of the scouts sent a drum message before he attacked them.”
“He attacked them?”
“Aye. A group of ten scouts decided to see if they could slow the ogres’ march by attacking them in a series of suicide attacks. The last one was the drumspeaker.”
“Lio’s breath. That was bloody heroic.”
Tuchek nodded. “They aren’t much different from us, Aelfric. Or maybe I’m not much different from you. I haven’t made up my mind whether I’m Cthochi or Mortentian or both. I guess if this mixed kingdom of yours works, maybe it won’t matter so much.”
“Two hours.” Aelfric shook his head, looking down at the mass of people, and he saw that still more were arriving outside of the gates. “We’ll never get them all across.”
“There is a way to speed things up.”
“Aye, I’ve thought of that. But the tunnel is secret, and I hate to have half of the people in Northcraven knowing that it’s there.”
“I don’t think we have a choice, Aelfric. We can move a lot more people that way, and everyone in the Silver Run Army knows it’s there already. Say the word and I’ll have it open for you. Opening the door requires some doing, though. I don’t want to wait until it’s too late.”
“No. You’re right. Go on then, get the men you need from the archers. Open up the tunnel and start them across, those who are willing.” Tuchek hastened down from the wall and began issuing orders.
“Up and up you lazy sacks of offal!” Gutcrusher’s voice roared across the camp where the ogre army lay sprawled, and over nine thousand full-bellied conquerers raised their heads from where they lay pillowed on sacks of plunder. They yawned and cursed and took their morning piss, then gathered up their arms to attend to the king. The King of All Ogres leaped up on a convenient boulder to address them, unmindful of the fact that several ogres had pissed on it for some reason or other.
“Listen up, boyos.” He called, and his voice could be heard by all. “We’ve had some mighty good fun bringing justice to the pigsuckers. This here is our land now, all the lands on this side of this here river.” He nodded toward the Redwater, flowing placid and wide to his east. The snow had stopped falling but the morning horizon was still gray and pale.
“But justice is hard work, boyos, and the work ain’t done. Pigsuckers has dared to attack our band while we were on the march, and they have done bloody murder by night. I known Hungry Wolf, and he was a nice buck with a lot of guts, and they kilt him by sneaky means.” There were several angry mutters at this announcement.
“So we got more grievance piled on grievance, and they keeps on trespassing on us. It’s plain as plain that we can’t rest until every pigsucker is drove from our land. Wolf tells me that a mighty lot of them passed this way last night, so many that the tracks in the snow is plain to follow. We are going to follow them tracks, and we are going to kill every last one of them starting today!” This announcement brought a roar of approval, and many of the ogres began to pound weapons on shields, for plainly he had said everything that needed saying, but he was not finished.
“But listen up, boyos.” He shouted, and the tumult subsided. “We come for justice, not because of greed. We will take their women. We will kill their warriors. We will take their land.
There won’t be nothing left of them. Remember when you kill them that you are doing right by the ancient laws. This here is a lawful vengeance come about from their trespass. The whelps will be revenged! Hungry Wolf will be revenged! Now let’s get to it!”
This last speech from the King of All Ogres was not strictly necessary to their undertaking, but it had the salutary effect of getting their blood up, and the ogres fell eagerly into their places in the new marching order. The column of fours had been abandoned due to the depredations of Stalksdeer and his fellows, and now the ogres moved in a mass with a width of fifteen, with shield bearers to right and left to repel any more such activity by the pigsuckers.
Gutcrusher and his captains were in the front rank, and in the snow their formation looked titanic, bristling with spears and blades. They were heavily armored on all sides, and they drove through the newly fallen snow, following the trail of the refugees from the Earthspeaker’s camp. Their pace was swift, and they were unrelenting. Unstoppable. Inexorable.
An alarum bell rang from the topmost tower in the town of Redwater, for the watchman there had seen something approaching from the north, even though it was on the other side of the river from his position. He rang the bell after looking for a few moments, then called up his captain. From a league off, the approaching army looked like nothing so much as a large rectangular mass, black and crawling across the snow, leaving a trail of slightly darker snow trampled behind it. By the time the rest of the bells in the city were ringing, individual ogres could be seen, and large rectangular shields and some larger weapons.
People ran to the upper floors of houses and buildings that overtopped the walls, and there were many in Redwater Town, and they looked with fascination at the army of the ogre king, for it was large, and despite the fact that they marched in a column that was fifteen ogres wide, still there were more than six hundred ranks spaced a long pace apart, and the column stretched over half a league in length, or slightly more than a mile to the men of Redwater who had been sailors. Interestingly, the ogre army had very close to the same number of men as the Privy Lord’s army, but each ogre would weigh five times what a normal man would or more.
Aelfric climbed the highest tower in the Expanded Fort to watch them approach, and he knew instantly that this was an army that he could not hope to defeat. Giant forms clad in black metal armor and carrying weapons that his own men could scarcely lift, trod toward the fortress in the footsteps of the refugees, and Aelfric told his men to hold the gates open for no more than five minutes. If any Cthochi arrived after that time he could not save them, and he hardly hoped to save the ones already within the fort. Even with as many Cthochi walking across the bridge as it would carry and a steady stream hurrying down the cavern trail to the tunnel below, it would still take more than two hours to get them all either safely in the tunnels or across the bridge.
The archer fyrdes took their positions on the walls and their fyrdmen told them to aim for the eyes. The ballista men cranked back the cords on their powerful weapons, and the mangonels were loaded with shot. A couple of fyrdmen climbed out of the outer trenches with mallets in their hands, for they had been firming up the placement of spikes there. They moved to the inner trench as the ogres closed in on the fort.
“Tell the Cthochi to run!” Aelfric called down to his captains and fyrdmen, and the pace of the exodus from the Expanded Fort to the other side of the Redwater picked up. Children were snatched up and placed on shoulders and soldiers ripped bags and baggage ruthlessly from the hands of women and piled them in a heap. The bridge would not support the extra weight.
He might have been yelling at the ogres, for at almost the same instant he gave his command, the lead ogres started to trot, and the column fanned out into a much broader rectangle, with the ogres in the rear racing to take their places in the attack. The wide white space between the ogres and the fort began to narrow quickly.
“Seven Devils, them bastards are huge.” Captain Meblin watched the ogres advancing, and as they drew closer their true size became apparent.
“Yes.” Celdemer was watching them from the same wall, and he turned to Meblin suddenly. “Have you a war sword?”
“War sword? What, like the knights and such use? I reckon there might be one in town somewheres, but none of the Privy Lord’s army use ‘em. Why?”
“I think I shall have need of one.” Celdemer replied calmly. “Tell me who might have one in town and where I might find it.”
Fifty paces down the wall Lord Mayor Manzer Larvantis watched the ogres coming and cursed. Anbarius did not, but he shared the Lord Mayor’s dismay. He called out for a runner. “Go and tell Lord Aelfric that the fort won’t hold.” He told him, and the breathless youth turned and dashed toward the outer wall, where Aelfric was watching. Anbarius looked over the Cthochi in the parade ground, and the crowd seemed hardly smaller than it had been an hour earlier. He knew that they were getting a good many across, but the little streams that could move across the bridge and down through the tunnels seemed to do little to reduce that mass of humanity. The ogres were trotting forward at a pace to rival a horse at canter, and they were remarkably tall. The trench around the exterior of the outer wall would scarcely slow them down.
“Are they in range?” He asked Timerin, the captain of the engineers manning the ballistas.
“They been in range for half a minute, Lord Anbarius. Waiting on the order to loose. Should we let ‘em have it?”
“By all means. The mangonels, too. Get the sand men ready.”
Moments later the sound that had come to mean terror to the Cthochi of Kerrick the Sword was heard clearly in the crisp afternoon air, the sound of the arms of the mangonels slamming against the stops as the massive machines bucked and heaved all along both the outer and inner wall. Ballista bolts, each one tipped in iron and flung by several thousand pounds of pent up torsion in the machines, flew through the air swifter than the eye could follow, crossing the distance between the wall and the ranks of charging ogres with devastating effect.
It took the ogres a moment to understand what was happening, then the heavy shot followed the missiles in a downward trajectory to land amongst them like a rain from hell.
“Hold up boyos!” Gutcrusher shouted when he saw the first ogre hit by a flying stone the size of his head. The stone knocked the helmet from the ogre’s head, an old Mad River warrior named Bulgro. The impact broke Bulgro’s neck.
Gutcrusher waved his arms and signaled to his captains to halt the advance to give him time to sort things out. “We can charge them!” Ironspike protested, even as the boyos began following Gutcrusher back to where he felt they’d be out of range. “The pigsuckers are right inside them walls!”
“We will charge them.” Gutcrusher replied angrily. He didn’t like having his commands questioned, and Ironspike had been second guessing him now for days. “I want some shields up over us first.”
“They’ll be across the river by the time we get a shield wall up, king. We should smash them now!”
“Shut up, Spike. I don’t give a stinking pigsucker shite if they get across the river. We ain’t crossing the river, and if they’re gone the land is ours. It’s a puny fort made of wood. We’ll march up and tear it down, but under our shields, see? I thought you were the patient one, Spike. I’m the king and I say we fornicating do it my way!”
Ironspike’s fury showed on his face, and it was not something that Gutcrusher had seen before, but the Winter Mountain giant said nothing. He looked around and saw the same frustration mirrored elsewhere among the boyos.
“Listen up, lads.” He spoke loudly to his captains, but he wanted others to hear as well. “We’re going to smash that fort, but there ain’t no point losing a bunch of boyos in some wild-assed charge. Now I want everbody who’s got one of the big shields up front.”
In short order the ogres had assembled, and the boyos with the large rectangular shields from the Black God’s weapon hoard stepped forward. Ironspike seethed
with impatience and Wolf and Balls were watching him warily. “Here’s the plan, lads. We put the shields up over our heads, and if you ain’t got one, get in behind a boyo that does. We’re going to run up under the wall where them rock throwers can’t hit us, and we’re going to rip it down with hammers and axes. Once we get inside, we kill everything that moves. Everbody understand the plan?”
Shouts of “Aye, king” and “We got it Crusher” followed his announcement. The ogres, built and designed for war, assembled into the long, wide lines that Gutcrusher wanted, and they did it with remarkable speed and very little bitching. On the other side of the wall were their enemies, and their blood was up and eager. Once assembled, they marched back, stepping over the bodies of the two or three dozen ogres who had not survived the siege engines.
“Damn them to the abyss, they’re fast.” Aelfric said to Anbarius. “They assembled into a phalanx in less than half an hour. Load up the mangonels with the flaming balls and ready the ballista again.”
“They’re already loaded, milord. The sand men are standing by. I think we’ll need them this pass. Do you just keep moving the people out of here, milord. We built this fort ourselves, and she’ll hold for a minute. I think we’re good for one more.”
“I pray you’re right Anbarius.” Aelfric replied, watching the ogres, now moving in disciplined and orderly ranks, as they advanced across the field. The ballista bolts now mostly bounced harmlessly off of the shields, each of which was as large as a cottage door and banded in steel. One or two ogres fell before the formation reached the right range for the mangonels, and then once again the huge engines leaped and kicked, this time sending burning bundles of sticks and cloth that had been liberally soaked in pitch. Inside of each missile was a fragile pot full of oil, and when the missiles struck they exploded in flames.
War of the Misread Augury: Book One of the Black Griffin Rising Trilogy Page 142
