Elven Queen

by Bernhard Hennen

  Orgrim opened a small hatch in the wall and peered ahead to the tower that rose at the end of the bridge. Behind the battlements, he saw the elves’ helmets, sparkling silver. They fired salvo after salvo toward the roof of the cave, but they could not see what was going on behind the wooden wall.

  The pack leader estimated the distance to the gateway behind him. He must not advance too far—the Albenstar, from which reinforcements would soon arrive, had to stay out of the archers’ line of sight. They’d moved perhaps twenty paces forward. That would have to do!

  “Halt!” he ordered. “Drop the shafts!” The pack leader slipped the goat leather sack from his shoulders. The iron bars clanged softly. Orgrim was now level with one of the massive pillars that supported the bridge. This was where he needed to be. He kneeled. He and his warriors had practiced what was to follow dozens of times.

  “Stanchion holders to your posts!”

  Three warriors broke from the group of trolls and kneeled beside Orgrim.

  The pack leader wrapped heavy strips of leather around his hands. Then he reached into the sack and took out the first iron bar. One end was as sharp as a thorn. The kobolds had assured him that they had used a special process to harden the tips. Would it be enough?

  “Hammer bearers, to me! Shield bearers, cover us!”

  Gran came to Orgrim’s side. The giant troll pulled a heavy war hammer out of his belt and hefted it in his hand. Others joined them until there were two trolls with hammers beside each of those kneeling. The shields scraped as they closed over their heads to form a protective roof.

  Orgrim held his iron bar with both hands. Carefully, he positioned the sharpened tip on the polished stone. Everything came down to this moment! If they did not succeed in pounding the iron bars into the bridge, their assault would fail.

  A cry made Orgrim look up. One of his warriors had fallen, a black-feathered arrow jutting from one leg. The falling arrows rattled like hail onto the roof of interlocked shields. An occasional lucky shot was bound to get through.

  The pack leader looked up to Gran. “Get started. And if you smash my fingers, I’ll have you thrown off the bridge!”

  The giant grinned. “You still need your hands. Maybe today will be the day when you finally kill almost as many elves as me. It would spoil the whole battle for me if you couldn’t fight.”

  “Shut up and hammer!” Orgrim snarled.

  The heavy stone hammerhead came down on the iron rod. The iron vibrated between Orgrim’s fingers. Gran and the other warrior quickly fell into a rhythm, taking turns striking the end of the iron spike. At first, the point found no grip on the polished stone of the bridge. Again and again, the hammers came down. Orgrim’s arms ached, and he was holding the bar so tightly that his fingers were numb.

  Then, finally, a tiny flake of stone splintered away. “Stop!” he ordered. Then he set the tip of the iron rod in the fine crack in the surface. “Continue!”

  The hammers took up their rhythm again. From the corner of his eye, Orgrim could see one of the other spikes already boring slowly into the stone of the bridge. It would work!

  The work went on, unbearably slowly. The elves had stopped shooting at them. Maybe they would try a direct attack from the tower in an attempt to push the wooden wall from the bridge?

  “Man the shafts again!” Orgrim ordered without looking up from the iron bar. As long as his warriors held against them, the puny elves would never be able to move the wall.

  Orgrim could let go of his bar now. It had been driven more than a hand’s width deep into the stonework. Deep enough to carry the load? The pack leader looked back to the Albenstar. How long would it be until Boltan sent the first warriors through? The short stretch of bridge they possessed was already full.

  “Stop!” The hammers stopped in midswing. Orgrim grabbed hold of the spike and pushed against it with all his strength. It didn’t move.

  “Let me try!” Gran kneeled. His face contorted as his naked fingers closed around the iron. The muscles in his mighty arms tensed. Nothing! The spike didn’t move.

  “I’d hang on that,” the giant said, looking at Orgrim.

  “The ropes!” Orgrim ordered. Rolls of heavy rope, each woven from thongs of leather, were tossed onto the stone beside him. They were easy to grip, and loops had been tied into the ends of each. The pack leader laid one of the loops over the iron spike. He looked up to Gran. “Only four ropes for each rod, and no more than two warriors at once on a rope. They won’t hold more than that. Drop the ropes left and right of the bridge so we don’t get in each other’s way on the way down.”

  Gran peered over the edge of the bridge. “Let me go first. It could be dangerous down below. You can’t defend yourself if you’re hanging on a rope.”

  “Which is why I’m going first. Good prospects for you to become duke in my place if anything happens to me.” The pack leader pushed his war hammer into a leather loop on his back to keep it out of the way as he descended.

  The giant gave him a lopsided grin. “You’re right. After you.”

  Orgrim slung the rope around his hips, then let himself slide backward from the side of the bridge, his feet pressed against the bridge pylon. The side panels of the wooden wall protected him from elven arrows. He still had the leather wraps around his hands. Pushing away from the stone pylon with his feet, he glided into the depths. Thick fog beneath him drifted over the hillsides of the Skyhall. It is unbearably hot, even worse than in Vahan Calyd, Orgrim thought. But the Normirga had left Vahan Calyd only to return here. Maybe they’d liked sweltering in the mangroves? Who knew what went on in the heads of elves?

  When he entered the fog, Orgrim slowed his descent. Despite the leather strips, his hands burned. Warm water settled on his bare skin and rolled off. The air smelled of rotten eggs.

  He stopped for a moment and looked down. Something was wrong. The stench . . . it was not like the elves to allow something like that, not at all. Somewhere in the cloudy gloom, he heard a gurgling sound.

  At least no archers would be able to see him in that musty vapor, Orgrim thought as he continued his slide down the rope. Moments later, he had firm ground under his feet again. Beside him was a bush, its leaves drooping. What was going on here?

  The fog could be dangerous to them. He had to find the entrance to the broad tunnel that stretched for five miles through the belly of the mountain. It connected the two harbors, and whoever commanded that tunnel, he knew, also ruled Kingstor. From there, connecting passages linked to all the other caverns, and anyone trying to leave the fortress had to do it through that tunnel. Orgrim smiled, sure of victory. They would think that he was trying to get to the Snow Harbor to open the gates for the attackers. But he knew better and had very different plans in mind. Plans he had not shared even with the king or Skanga. With a little luck, they would defeat the elves in their magnificent fortress in a single day.

  Beside him, another troll came sliding down a rope. Soon, there would be five hundred of them in the heart of the elven fortress. Who could hope to stop them then?

  RETURNING FIRE

  Ollowain peered down along the route that led through the pass. He was standing in a casemate a hundred paces above the Snow Harbor. The large chamber, buried deep inside the rock, had been constructed from the start to serve as the command post for any defense of the pass. In raised alcoves along its eastern wall stood catapults, their firing lines trained on the pass trail below. Several heavy crossbows were also there, set up on wooden carriages and ready to loose their bolts on an enemy in the pass. In the center of the room stood a large map table on which plans of the fortress had been rolled out. Crystal carafes of apple wine, swords, and daggers weighted the ends of the maps to stop them from rolling up. Several crystal glasses, half-filled with water or diluted apple wine, also stood on the table. A second, smaller table held a platter of cold meat and fragrant fresh bread.

  The swordmaster stood in the central defensive alcove. Along its sides stood pyrami
ds of heavy stone balls, and bundles of crossbow bolts leaned against the wall. From this wall, just behind Ollowain, projected four golden tubes, their funnel-shaped mouths stoppered with wooden plugs.

  From the embrasure where he stood, Ollowain had a good view over the entire valley. Four similar casemates were built into the cliff wall beneath him, like the levels of a defensive tower.

  The catapults were firing stone after stone at the advancing trolls. There were so many that the pass was black with them, and they were paying a terrible price, targeted unrelentingly by the casemates above the harbor and by the defenses inside the long mountain flanks on both sides. Hundreds of warriors must have perished already. And they had no way to get back at the elves, humans, and kobolds, protected as they were behind the narrow embrasures.

  Almost all the troll fighters carried massive wooden shields. They formed columns and tried to protect themselves from the projectiles and arrows flying from every side. But it was a deceptive security, for the columns made easy targets for the catapults. Again and again, their stone ammunition carved bloody furrows through the marching columns.

  Some of the trolls had hung thick bundles of brushwood on themselves, relying on that strange armor to stop an arrow, but it only made them a natural target for the archers shooting flaming arrows.

  The most forbidding weapons that the trolls had brought with them, however, were three huge battering rams. They had been fitted with protective roofs on which thick, grass-filled leather pads had been attached. Most of the stone projectiles simply bounced uselessly off the padding, and flaming arrows were just as ineffective on the ice-crusted leather.

  Their kobold slaves built those for them, Ollowain thought in annoyance. The trolls never would have come up with something like that themselves.

  The first of the battering rams had made it to the gates of the Snow Harbor, and when the ram pounded against the great gold door for the first time, it sounded like an enormous gong. Ollowain saw the glasses on the map table tremble. The sound went deep into one’s belly, but for a noise created by trolls, it sounded strangely solemn.

  The swordmaster leaned far out of the embrasure to get a better look at what was going on at the gate directly below. Another low, loud beat of the gong rang. Slowly, the trolls were bringing their second ram into position.

  “Can they break through the gate?” asked Alfadas, worried. He was watching the trolls from the embrasure beside Ollowain’s.

  “The gate is made of solid gold and is as thick as your underarm is long. I don’t think they’ll be able to destroy it. The vibrations they create won’t loosen any hinges either. Opening the gate means pulling the wings sideways into the rock with chains. Still, gold is relatively soft. They might be able to buckle it enough where the wings come together to open a gap and slip through. But only one at a time, maybe two side by side at most. On the other side, we have five catapults waiting and two hundred kobolds with heavy crossbows. If the trolls can’t attack on a wide front, then they will never make it past our little comrades in arms.”

  The second battering ram began to hammer the fortress gate. Ollowain felt the floor beneath his feet shudder. The trolls must have huge tree trunks beneath those roofs, he thought. Had they been fool enough to take the wood they needed from the forests of the Maurawan?

  The swordmaster stepped back from the embrasure and went to the four golden tubes set side by side in the wall. He removed the walnut plug from the nearest tube. A small gold chain prevented the stopper from falling. “Is the oil ready?” he called loudly into the tube. Then he leaned forward and listened.

  “Oil is boiling, Commander,” came a tinny reply.

  “Then close the embrasures. Relay the order to the other casemates!”

  Ollowain left the speaking tubes and returned to his perch above the gate. Below, on the ice, the trolls were pulling their third battering ram into position. Ollowain gestured to Lysilla to attend to the speaking tubes. The thumping of the rams merged into a steady beat. Ollowain signaled to Lysilla, swinging one hand down.

  “Now!”

  “How many vats?” she said.

  “All twenty!”

  “Close the embrasures,” he ordered the catapult crews.

  Ollowain looked down a final time. Fans of scalding oil spewed from the mouths of wide, flat tubes mounted beneath the lowest casemate. Hundreds of guttural screams sounded from the trolls, and the oil flowed in streams across the ice. Ollowain shut the wooden hatch that covered the embrasure.

  There was a loud hiss, and a sudden light flared through the fine cracks in the wooden shutters. A heavy, oily odor penetrated the casemate, followed closely by the stink of burned flesh. Ollowain fought the urge to vomit. Beneath him at that moment, hundreds of trolls were dying on the ice, and he had ordered their deaths. Not one within twenty paces of the fortress gate would survive. With the smallest flame, the hot oil transformed in a heartbeat into a fireball. The swordmaster remembered the fires of that night in Vahan Calyd. The flames that the trolls had brought with them to Albenmark had now returned to them.

  He went back to the speaking tube. “No back-burning through the funnels?”

  “No, Commander. It’s hot in the casemate, but there have been no mishaps.”

  “Then refill the vats.”

  The swordmaster pressed the stopper into the speaking tube and returned to the embrasure. When he opened the shutter, thick black smoke hid any view of what was going on immediately below, and a foul smell filled his nostrils. Farther away, he saw figures still on fire, screaming and writhing in the snow. Streams of fire stretched as far as a hundred paces down the glacier. Countless trolls were fleeing in panic, but too many still remained.

  Ollowain could see them trying to pull the burning battering rams back from the gate with long hooks. Would they be ready to negotiate peace after such a defeat? After this attack, it had to be clear even to their bullheaded king that he could never conquer Phylangan. Two or three more assaults like that, and his army would start to fall apart, perhaps even rebel against him. The stone garden was the strongest fortress in the north. Nothing could defeat it.

  Alfadas was standing at one of the embrasures and looking down, his face a mask of stone. What is going on inside him? the swordmaster asked himself.

  Lysilla smiled halfheartedly. “That looks like the end of this troll war.”

  Ollowain, however, found it strange that more and more trolls were pushing back toward the gate. And with all their formidable strength, others were hauling the battering rams away. Maybe the soldiers in the first casemate could see better what was going on? He went to the speaking tubes.

  “What is happening at the gate?”

  Instead of an answer, all he heard was a metallic scraping.

  “Report!” Ollowain shouted, angry at the apparent lapse in discipline. Someone always had to be at the speaking tubes in battle!

  He cleared his throat. Everyone in the chamber had their eyes on him. “I request an immediate report about the situation at the Snow Harbor gate,” he said with pointed composure.

  Suddenly, a piercing scream sounded from the speaking tube. There was another scraping noise, and then a deep voice snarled: “Come out of the pipe, little elf, so Gran can eat you!”

  Ollowain inhaled sharply. How was that possible? How had the trolls penetrated the fortress? And where else were they? He had to act but at the same time needed to keep a cool head, needed to think.

  “Lysilla, relay an order to the other casemates—all fighters are to meet at the north stairway of the third casemate. They are to withdraw all crews on the catapults and crossbows.”

  He crossed to the map table. Had the trolls actually managed to get into the Snow Harbor? They could penetrate the casemates from there. But how had they made it through the gate in the first place?

  “Commander!” Count Fenryl appeared at the entrance of the north stairway. His left arm hung limply, and his white linen armor was soiled with blood. “Th
ey’re in the fortress. They’re coming from the Skyhall. Hundreds of them!”

  “Where are they?”

  The count joined him at the map table.

  “Here in the main tunnel and in the systems that run parallel to it. The only place they haven’t attacked yet is the Snow Harbor itself.” He pointed to one room. “They’ve occupied the north winch room, and I fear they are also on the other side, in the south chamber.”

  Ollowain shook his head in disbelief. “From the Skyhall? How could they overcome the tower at the Mahdan Falah so quickly?”

  He looked at the plans in front of him again. Then he understood what was going on.

  Whoever was leading the attack must have had a spy inside the fortress. The trolls were armed with intimate knowledge of Phylangan’s weak points. The winch rooms not only allowed the gates of the Snow Harbor to be opened—anyone wanting to enter the defensive positions along the two mountain flanks that overlooked the pass along the glacier had to pass through those chambers. If the trolls managed to occupy and hold those positions, then two-thirds of all Phylangan’s defenders were trapped in the outer defenses. They could certainly still fire at any attacker coming up the glacier, but they could not leave their positions, because there was only one way out: through the winch rooms! To make matters even worse, of course, those chambers also allowed the harbor gates to be opened. The army outside would storm the fortress. If they did not act quickly, Phylangan was lost!

  Ollowain reached for his sword belt, which lay on the map table.

  “Come with me, immediately,” he said to Alfadas. “Lysilla, seal the south door to this casemate, and make sure the south doors of the lower casemates are also sealed. We cannot let the enemy attack us from behind here, too.”

  As he raced down the winding staircase, the swordmaster tried to picture the fortress plans in his mind. There were many tunnels that led to the Skyhall from the east, but only one opened into the enormous hall from the west: the central tunnel that went straight through the mountain from Sky Harbor to Snow Harbor.