The Golden Orb i-2

by Douglas Niles

  “They’re quitting the harbor!” she cried.

  Once again the Lady of Brackenrock stood atop the highest tower of her citadel’s gatehouse. She looked down into the great courtyard, where her people were running back and forth in well-ordered chaos. “Archers, bring the extra arrows up to the walls!”

  She spotted a lithe farmwife coming through the gate directly beneath her. “Martine, start bringing the people up from the lower terraces. We’re closing the gates, but we’ll leave the sortie door open until the last minute. Tell everyone they have to get up here now!”

  “Yes, m’lady!” called Martine, and immediately raced off on her errand.

  “They’re coming for real?”

  Moreen recognized Bruni’s Voice and turned around with relief. The big woman emerged from the stairwell. “Yes, the signals say ‘two ships,’ but also that the boom stopped them at the harbor mouth. So they’ll be coming by land-which gives us a little time. Are the Highlanders ready?”

  “All six hundred, including Strongwind’s heavy axemen. That’s fifty more strong, big men. Gustav the White was here with a load of gold from his mine, and dozens more came in his caravan. They’re anxious for the chance to fight some ogres.”

  Moreen smiled grimly. “That will come to pass soon enough,” she said. “If we’re lucky, we match them in numbers now, but that counts our women, children, and elders, while they are seasoned warriors and brutes under a king who will not tolerate defeat. What about their secret weapon? Do we know anything more about it?”

  “Not yet,” admitted Bruni, “but Dinekki continues to cast her bones.”

  Moreen looked to the north, toward the deceptively peaceful waters of the Courrain Ocean. Sunlight reflected from the waves in shimmering patterns, and the blue sky mocked her with its promise of a beautiful day ahead. It had been a day like this, eight years before, when the ogres had attacked her village with disastrous results. Now all of these people were gathered in this cherished place, and all she could think was that the stakes were so much higher and it was her responsibility to command. If she lost this fight, it would not be just a small tribe that suffered. She was keenly aware that the stakes were nothing less than the future of all humans in the Icereach.

  12

  Attack on Brackenrock

  Kerrick stumbled up the road. Mouse lingered behind to secure the boat in the anchorage. The elf barely noticed the fact that the ogre galleys had sailed on, past the mouth of Brackenrock Harbor. Weariness tore at his limbs, his feet felt like stone. When he looked up, the fortress seemed impossibly Far ahead. He swayed dizzily, then fell onto his back.

  For an interminable moment he couldn’t seem to draw a breath. He stared up at the white sky as darkness closed in. His vision narrowed to a pinprick before, finally, air rushed into his lungs and the face of someone vaguely familiar appeared overhead. He noted the Highlander accent.

  “Nice bit of work out there, closing the boom,” Strong-wind Whalebone said. “There’ll be more to do up at the fortress. Lean on me, and we’ll go up there together.”

  “What… why are you here?” asked the elf, confused.

  “Came down to help block the harbor,” replied the king. “I would have been too late, but it turns out you and Mouse did the job just fine.”

  Kerrick remembered the ring, now safe in his pocket. He owed that feat to the magic of the golden circlet. He thought how easy it would be, how pleasant and warm, to just slide his finger through the ring again. Stubbornly, he shook his head.

  The elf climbed to one knee, then allowed the king to lift him, half-draping Kerrick over one broad shoulder. Together they started up the road, which no longer seemed as though it climbed to the heights of infinity.

  The two galleys, with Goldwing still in the lead, emerged from the Bluewater Strait into the full sweep of the Courrain Ocean swells. The powerful, deep waves surprised Grimwar Bane and in fact frightened him a little, but he didn’t let his concern show. Instead, he kept his stern, tusked composure and stared at the rocky headland.

  Stariz stood at his side, holding her mask in the crook of her arm as she inspected the landscape with a critical glare. As they came around the point, turning broadside to the waves, there seemed to be no good place to land. The entire shore was a rough headland, broken sheets of rock slashing down straight into the deep, churning water.

  “Ahead, a few miles around there,” Argus Darkand pointed, as the deck pitched and yawed beneath the helmsman’s feet. “There’s a long stretch of flat beaches, with a nice hillside rising all the way to the citadel.”

  “I remember,” the king declared. “I noticed the place years ago, marked it for just such a situation.” He turned to his wife. “Does Captain Broadnose have the Shield-Breakers ready? I want them to be first ashore.”

  The queen nodded to the foredeck, where a hundred heavily armored ogres, each carrying a monstrous double-bladed axe, had hunkered down in various states of seasickness, clinging to rails. “I daresay they will waste no time stepping onto solid land,” she said dryly.

  The rowers held a strong pace, and as the mouth of the strait slipped astern the precipitous coastline dwindled into rocky spurs and narrow coves. Now the king saw the green slopes of the terraces, rising like gigantic steps from the shore of a shallow bay. This approach, he thought, could not be guarded by any contraption of sticks and chain!

  “Mark a course for the middle beach, and ground us there,” the king called back to Argus, as the drummer slowed the rowers to an easy, gentle glide.

  There were no defenders in sight, the humans obviously having decided to cower behind the lofty walls of the fortress. Grimwar allowed himself a low chuckle, as he thought of the potent chalice and the orb. Those walls, that sturdy gate, would not give his army any trouble.

  Many kayaks dotted the shore, above the reach of the high tide, while numerous shacks gathered around the base of a long pier a short distance down the beach. The galley continued to slow as it approached the gravelly shoreline. A steady surf pounded, waves that would have capsized a lesser boat, but Grimwar Bane’s galley smoothly cut through the foaming crests. There was a scuffing of the pebbled seabed under the hull, then the ship gave a huge lurch as it grounded. Stariz stumbled, and the king caught her elbow before she fell to her knees. A hundred paces to the left Hornet drove similarly into the shallows.

  The great ramps, one to either side of the prow, creaked downward as the ogre king scanned the beach.

  Warriors moved into position, feet tramping on the deck.

  “Take the buildings and boats at once,” ordered Grimwar Bane. “Bring any livestock you capture back to the boat. Any humans put to the axe!”

  As soon as the ramps were grounded the Shield-Breakers stormed ashore, roaring the name of Suderhold in unison, hammering their axes against their shields with a thunderous din. Wading awkwardly onto the dry, flat gravel above the breaking waves, they spread into a double-rank line and charged inland, scrambling up a low sea wall and rushing across the first of the terraced fields.

  The great hatches on the mid-deck slammed open and more ogres came rushing up from below, charging straight down the ramps into the shallows and gathering into twenty-warrior raiding parties just in front of the galley. These were the Grenadiers, another of the king’s elite companies. Each was armed with a sword and a bundle of javelins. Once formed, they swarmed toward the huts and piers, using their blades and heavy, iron-studded boots to quickly shatter the wooden structures into kindling.

  One detachment of the Shield-Breakers rambled along the high water line. Tearing into the kayaks with their axes, they swiftly destroyed two score of the boats. By then the king had swaggered down the ramp and waded onto the beach. Stariz, with Broadnose and a dozen ogres as her bodyguard, followed just behind. The ogres who had manned the oars were gathering their gear, emerging from hatches and filing off the deck. These were light troops, protected by stiff leather shirts, armed with short swords and spears. A score
of them hauled heavy ropes, easing the wheeled catapult down the ramp, through the surf, and up onto the beach. Leaving two dozen heavily armed warriors to guard each of his prized galleys, Grimwar started to organize the rest of his troops along the wide, flat beach.

  “Spread out there, you oafs!” he roared, as the last of the rowers trundled ashore. “Look smart, all of you!” He turned to Argus Darkand, who, as usual, was not far from his king’s side. “Take four warriors you trust and go into my cabin. Have them carry out the lockbox. You’ll fall in at the rear of the army, and I want you to keep that box under your eye at all times!”

  “Yes, Sire-your will is mine!” declared the loyal helmsman. He turned to shout at several of the Grenadiers. “Scarnose, bring those three-come here!”

  A few minutes later Argus emerged from the cabin with the crate containing the two golden weapons. The chest was borne on a pair of long poles supporting the crate. By then the formations on the beach had established regular lines, with the heavily armored Shield-Breakers in the center and the relatively light troops on the flanks. One group of Grenadiers formed a tight ring around the king, and another surrounded the four ogres carrying the crate.

  “Remember, we must breach the walls and enter the keep to recover the Axe of Gonnas!” Stariz reminded her husband, as the front ranks started across a field of young barley. The plants, ankle high and frail, were trampled into pulp by the heavy ogre feet. The queen and her retinue of bodyguards lingered behind the others with the catapult, which rumbled slowly at the rear of the army.

  “I have not forgotten,” the king replied cheerfully, tasting the great victory ahead. “Our first rush will plant the chalice beside the gate, where the fuse will be lit.”

  Smoke tickled Grimwar’s nostrils as the first little fishing village yielded to flame. He scowled impatiently at his axemen, who were busy in the shallows chopping away the pilings of the sturdy pier. With a groan and snap of breaking timbers, the dock wobbled and collapsed.

  “No animals in the sheds or pastures down here, Your Majesty,” reported one sooty warrior. “Nor humans. Lots of fodder and tools, though, which we have put to the torch.”

  “Tools and fodder, but no men?” snorted the monarch, irritated. Given the hours it had taken the galleys to journey around the point so they could land on this shore, it was no wonder that the humans had made some safety preparations.

  “No matter-there will be plenty of blood to be had up there,” he growled, looking up the slope at the far lofty citadel. “And livestock enough to fill our holds!” He started to laugh, then stopped, struck by a thought.

  “That is, if the golden orb doesn’t blow everything inside that place clear off the face of the Icereach,” he added under his breath, in wonder.

  Moreen stood atop one of the two tall gatehouse towers, watching the ogre ships come ashore. She clenched her teeth as the raiders destroyed the kayaks, broke apart the houses, and wrecked the pier of the nascent village. The sight of the two enemy galleys, but especially the gilt-trimmed Goldwing, caused an almost physical ache-even now, after eight years, she remembered her first sight of that vessel-the day her parents and all the warriors of her village had been slain by the brutish invaders.

  But, she reminded herself, this time she was ready for the ogre attack-as ready as she could possibly be. A look into the citadel courtyard reassured her. Hundreds of Highlanders milled about. They would remain out of sight for now. She would not sacrifice valuable lives in a fruitless defense of the grounds outside Brackenrock’s walls. She looked along the trail leading toward the harbor, knowing Strongwind and many of his warriors had disappeared over the bluff a half hour earlier.

  Watching the ogre raiders as they started climbing the terraces, heading toward the lofty citadel, Moreen felt another stab of fear. Each little hut on the farm terraces, home to an Arktos family now sheltered within the fortress, sprang into flames as the ogres passed, their heavy boots making muddy waste of each carefully tended field. With every indignity, each insult and offense to her peoples’ homes, her fear coalesced into deep, abiding rage.

  But she was not foolish enough to send her warriors, brave though they might be, out to defend the surrounding land against the ogre horde. It was the walls of Brackenrock that were her peoples’ best hope. Farms could be rebuilt, crops replanted. She would be patient, conserving her army and resources for the fight ahead.

  Finally Strongwind and Kerrick came up the path from the harbor, appearing at the top of the long, steep climb. Moreen breathed a sigh of relief-before frowning with the realization that the elf was all but stumbling as though he was wounded, helped along by the Highlander king.

  There was no sign of blood, and as they passed through the narrow sortie door-the only remaining access to the fortress now that the great gates were closed-Moreen turned her attention back to the attackers.

  The rank of ogres was moving through the second terrace now, churning up fields, knocking down irrigation dikes, barns, and corrals. The enemy moved in a broad line, a few ranks deep, spread out for more than a mile. She spotted the ogre king, identified by his great golden breastplate, in the center of the formation. A wheeled catapult lumbered along behind. Just beyond that center came a small party of ogres, four strapping fellows bearing poles from which was suspended a heavy chest.

  She felt instantly certain that the chest contained the awful weapon of which she had been warned. Ideas, all of them impractical, came to her: They should send a sortie out, break through the ogre line, and capture the weapon! But that line was solid, with a whole company-a hundred or more ogres-clustered around the center.

  As the ogres climbed the steep slope toward the third, highest terrace, Moreen kept her eyes fixed on the small group clustered around the secret weapon, but no matter how many options she considered, she could think of no way to strike first. She summoned her archers to be ready when the enemy moved within arrow range.

  “My men are ready,” Strongwind said, arriving at the top of the tower to give his report. “Shall we keep them in the courtyard until we know where they’re needed?”

  “Yes,” the chiefwoman agreed, noticing that the king looked distracted. “What?” she asked.

  “The elf-he seems to be ill.”

  Moreen saw that Kerrick, too, had climbed to the platform atop the gate tower, emerging through the trapdoor. Pale, he paused to lean against the parapet. Moreen dismissed Strongwind and went up to the elf.

  “What’s the matter? Are you sick, or injured?”

  Kerrick shook his head and blinked, making an effort to focus. “I’m sorry.” His hand went to the hilt of his sword, and she was taken aback by the way his fingers shook. Suddenly she understood what had happened.

  “The ring of your father? Did you put it on?” she demanded, knowing the risk, the debilitating cost of the magical talisman.

  “I had to-there was no other way to secure the boom.” He sagged against the wall, gazing out in dismay at the attackers, easily a thousand strong, who could be seen pillaging and smashing the last cluster of farmhouses.

  “You have to get down from here!” Moreen snapped, irritated that he had resorted to the magic ring. “If you try to fight in this condition, you’ll only get yourself killed!”

  “I’ll be all right!” Kerrick insisted. He stood straight and looked her in the eye. “Where do you want me?”

  “Stay with the Highlanders in the courtyard,” the chiefwoman ordered. “If the ogres breach the gate, you know how important it will be to hold them in the gatehouse.” And if you fall over, you won’t have as far to fall, she added to herself, half annoyed and half concerned.

  She recalled the toll on Kerrick when he used his father’s ring, once, four years earlier, to steer Cutter into port against the fury of an early autumn squall. Afterward he had lain in bed for days, wan and listless and wracked with chills. Today, he wouldn’t have the luxury of such a long recovery.

  “Leave nothing standing!” roared the k
ing, his nostrils tingling to the scent of burning. He was frustrated, angry that his great army had encountered no living resistance, not even a stray calf. These were hollow prizes, these crude huts that collapsed after a few whacks of an axe.

  Before him loomed the citadel of Brackenrock, its walls and towers rising higher even than the summit of the mountain. His ogres had reached the top of the long slope, and the humans had withdrawn. They would not contest his advance but instead would wage the fight from behind their walls.

  Good, thought the ogre king. In fact, that was just about perfect for what he had planned. Grimwar looked around for his lieutenant, Argus Darkand, and curtly gestured to him. “Get the chest open and prepare to advance. It is time we unleashed the golden chalice.”

  “Aye, Sire,” declared Darkand. “It shall be done.”

  “You have the flares, to light the fuse?” pressed Grimwar Bane.

  “Indeed, four of them, safe in my pouch.”

  “Good. Bring the chalice forward and wait for my command. At my signal, you will do as we planned. Light the weapon-and the gates will fall!” He turned to Stariz, who was gazing at the fortress, licking her lips while her eyes blazed with fervor. “My queen.”

  “Yes, Sire?”

  “Remain with the catapult and the golden orb. As we rush the gates, have the men get the thing ready to fire. Load the orb as we charge inside, and as soon as we rush out-with the axe-I want you to fire over our heads. One blast, and Gonnas willing, our enemies will be gone.”

  Moreen watched as the ogres massed in the trampled fields, just beyond archery range from the walls. Many had leather shields the size of barn doors, and they raised these overhead to create a vast, rippling roof over their heads. Roaring in unison, they started forward at a fast march.

  “They’re coming, the whole lot of them, charging the gate,” the chiefwoman mused. “I would rather have expected them to try for the walls at the same time.”