Defenders of the Valley

by K. J. Coble

  Sarcha smiled to hide fear at her weakening hold over him. “We will see.”

  THE SETTING SUN PAINTED Lake Remordan shimmering red as ships gathered at the docks of Eredynn to take on the Expeditionary Force. Torches and lanterns flickered to life, dancing along piers and vessels like the fireflies that would grace the Valley in another couple months. The air rang with orders, curses, planks groaning under the weight of men and gear, and the susurrus of earnest conversation and tears as loved ones parted.

  Vohl strode up the pier where the barge, Eredynn Queen, waited to take on the Fifth Cohort. The Legionnaires loaded in professional silence, long-used to such departures. Lantern light flashed off helmets and weapons, picked out hard faces, one or two lifting a gaze to the shore with a sad smile for citizens waving from the beaches and buildings above. The XXXX Legion had been in the Valley a long time and it was more of a home to many now than Thyrr or any city of the heartlands.

  Dodso stood at the end of the dock, in conversation with Captain Ulomo, a surprisingly young man with the imperious, hooked nose of a southern Thyrrian, commanding the Fifth and the Engineer detachment. The officer nodded to Dodso as they finished, gave the gnome the fist-to-breast salute of the Legion and strode up the boarding ramp. Dodso rubbed his forehead as he turned away to look across the harbor, his face tight, his eyes devoid of their normal twinkle. He seemed at once serious – even worn – and ridiculous, clad in a hastily-tailored corslet and holding an oiled-wood baton with a golden eagle cap of Imperial authority clearly meant for human hands.

  Song rose from an adjacent dock. A column of leather-clad gnomes clomped up the pier to another waiting barge, crossbows angled over their shoulders, a drummer at their lead, beating out a lively cadence. One of them saw Dodso and a cry of recognition burst out, became a full-blown cheer a moment later. Dodso raised his fist in appreciation, but no smile followed.

  “Quite the muster,” Vohl said, coming to stand behind the gnome. “I see Kobolon, Eredynn, Andenburgh, some odds and ends from the countryside.”

  “No word yet from the dwarves,” Dodso said softly. “I had hoped to hear from them by now.”

  “They’ll be along, as will more as the word is fully spread,” Vohl said. “And you’ll have the balance of the fighting men out of the lakeside towns. It’ll be more than two thousand. You command an army, my friend.”

  “An army...” Dodso snorted. “That son-of-bitch, Vennitius; this is all his fault!”

  “All?” Vohl asked with a sarcastic note. The gnome shot him a look. “I told you that mouth of yours was going to get you in trouble some day.”

  “If that’s all you’ve got to bring me,” Dodso snarled, waving him away, “then you can get back to your little landowner’s dream!”

  Vohl shrugged and turned to go, unwilling to be castigated.

  “Vohl...”

  He paused. Muddle was coming up the dock with a load over his shoulder.

  “I’m sorry,” the gnome said. He held up the baton and laughed without humor, gave a hopeless shake of his head. “What do I know of commanding an army?” He shoved the symbol of office savagely into his belt.

  “I’m sure that’s why Ulomo is going with you,” Vohl said.

  “Damned Vennitius must be getting a good laugh out of this!” Dodso glared upwards towards the walls of the Imperial Palace.

  “I’ve got to admit, I do see the humor,” Vohl said with a grin.

  “Is the only reason you’re here to torment me?” Dodso asked, eyes going glassy. Vohl felt a pang of guilt. The little fool was smart enough to be scared.

  “I’ve got other reasons,” Vohl said. Muddle joined them. The half-breed reached into the tied-together packs and pulled Vohl’s sword free, handed it to him.

  Dodso’s eyes widened as Vohl girded the weapon to his hip. “You’re coming?” he asked in a voice hesitant to hope.

  “Of course,” Muddle rumbled.

  “Will you look at that, Muddle?” Vohl said, chuckling as he adjusted his belt to the new weight. “That’s a first: Dodso has nothing to say.”

  “Truly a momentous occasion,” Muddle agreed. “I’d say it’s worth a drink.”

  “When we get back,” Vohl said.

  Dodso looked back forth between the two of them. He blinked away moisture that had begun to well at the corners of his eyes. “You don’t know what this means to me,” he managed in a choked voice.

  “Don’t get all sentimental,” Vohl said. “It’s not like we had a choice; the River Imp was commandeered by the State to ferry troops. We’ll be taking Fletcher and the Edonite contingent, as well as some cargo.” Vohl spat into the water. “It’s not like we want to see the Skinners again.”

  “Right,” Dodso said, smiling away emotion that clearly threatened to overwhelm him. Something drew his gaze over Vohl’s shoulder.

  Vohl turned to see Jayce, Danelle, and Illah approaching.

  “You, too?” Dodso asked.

  “We’re part of the Edonite group,” Jayce said, smiling. “And I had hoped to get back to my tower some day.”

  “I’ll bet you just couldn’t bear to be away from me,” Vohl said, winking at Illah.

  “That’s it, I’m sure,” the half-elf maiden murmured with a roll of her eyes. A shadow of dread lingered about her features, though, that even the lantern light couldn’t chase away. She seemed to age as Vohl watched, pain and fear blending with bruises still livid.

  “You’ll need us,” Jayce said seriously. “There’s still the matter of that rogue wizard.”

  “And more...” Illah added in a barely audible voice that invited none to question her meaning.

  “Well, thank you,” Dodso said. He barked a laugh and clapped his hands to Vohl’s side and Muddle’s knee, forming an impromptu circle out of the small group. “Thanks, all of you!”

  “All right, enough of this,” Vohl said, shaking Dodso off. “Let’s get loaded and get moving before our Imperial overseers get too antsy.”

  They broke up to the ships, Dodso going with the Eredynn Queen and the Legion command group, Vohl leading the others to the battered River Imp. Ships were already beginning to drift from the piers. Vohl paused at the ramp to his ship, looked across the water o watch Dodso board the barge. The gnome stopped atop the main deck and turned, saw Vohl and waved. Vohl gave a resigned sigh and returned the gesture.

  “Friends, huh?” Muddle said from behind him.

  Vohl glared at the giant. “Shut up and get aboard, will you?”

  Muddle chuckled and starting packing his pipe as he boarded.

  The bells of Eredynn and the cries of well-wishers sang the Expeditionary Force on its way across the night-shrouded lake.

  GOBLINS POURED FROM the darkness in a shrill, cackling tide, yellow eyes flickering from the night like a tide of onrushing flames. The dwarves met them at the top of the palisade, a tight semicircle of unyielding steel. Steel flashed and squalled as it bit metal, leather, and meat. Riven goblin-flesh shrieked and black gore spumed.

  Sarcha watched from the cave mouth with the dwarf reserve, a bunched line of kneeling, armored shapes, trembling to get into the fight. A gap opened to the right, a goblinoid press overwhelming a dwarf in a tossing swarm. A pair from the reserve bolted forward to kill and seal the hole. The line held.

  Clegg paced back and forth behind his warriors, bellowing encouragement and occasional orders. There was little else for him to do; it was a straight-up brawl, line against line. With the high ground and their prepared positions, the dwarves were getting the better of the exchange.

  Something cracked against the arch of the cave entrance and dropped to the ground before Sarcha; a broken arrow. The air quivered with the arrival of more, the crow-feathered shafts speckling the dirt. Beyond the sphere of light cast by lanterns at the entrance, syrupy blackness reigned and the incoming could not be seen, could only be sensed the moment before they struck. Sarcha’s skin crawled, expecting the cruel prick of an arrowhead at any moment. She
wondered why she didn’t flee. She didn’t have to be here. But she knew, as she watched Clegg, that she was the slender thread that held the dwarves to their task.

  Goblins screamed as the recklessly loosed arrows landed in their midst. Their escalade teetered on the edge of repulse. But a dwarf tumbled from the palisade with a shaft in his neck and red-black bodies squirmed through. A second dwarf, his left exposed by his comrade’s fall, went down with a grunt of shock at the tulwar thrust into his flank. Goblins surged into the perimeter.

  Sarcha began to backpedal into the gloom of the cave. But the reserve rushed forth, rallied around Clegg, and she checked her flight. Melee raged in the tight space, four-and-a-half-foot dwarf against spindly, three-and-a-half-foot goblin. The fight degenerated into a brawl, combatants disarmed in the tangle going at it with hand, claw, tooth, and fang. Crimson blood mingled in the puddles of black, neither side offering quarter, hatreds older than the Empire or the Vuls possessing the fight, harkening back to ancestral contests for resources in a misty past.

  Then it was over. No goblin lived inside the perimeter and outside it, they tumbled back, calling high-pitched taunts and curses, blaring horns and pummeling drums in defiance. The dwarves answered with deep-throated roars and equally shrill curses. Song rumbled forth, was joined by all.

  “Due for battles and trials bold; There are none that can stop us; There are none so bold; Not even ye gods of new or old...”

  Clegg staggered to Sarcha’s side, face streaked in black and sweat. He let his axe drop to his side and wiped his beard with the back of a hand. “That’ll give them something to think about!”

  Sarcha swallowed away the dust-dry taste of terror in her mouth. “You...you did well, Clegg. The Norothar reputation is justly-earned.”

  “Aye,” he said with a weary nod. He glanced at his celebrating kin. “But it was a close-fought thing. And this was just a probing attack, I’ll wager. There are more out there.”

  “How many?”

  Clegg took her by the sleeve, led her further into the cave and out of earshot before whispering, “Their campfires light up the gorge beyond. It’s more than just a war party. It’s more than just one tribe.”

  The dryness returned to Sarcha’s palate. In the poor light, she couldn’t read the dwarf’s expression, but she could feel the tension of his grip on her sleeve. “What do you recommend?” she asked.

  “We’ll need to bring work crews up to bolster the line if we intend to hold,” he replied.

  “That will slow the dig,” Sarcha said and began to shake her head.

  “If we don’t hold the line, we die,” Clegg cut her off, grasping her hand in a grip so tight she wanted to groan.

  “But we’re so close!” Sarcha rasped.

  Clegg pulled her down, eye-to-eye, his blazing into hers. “So close to what?”

  Sarcha pulled free and rubbed her hand, looking away from him. “So...so close to the riches we seek.”

  “We’ve already pulled out gold and gems enough to make us wealthy,” Clegg said, his voice quivering with a murderous edge lent by the nearness of battle. “So, what is it down there that you seek, my lady?”

  The tossing light of a lantern held in the fist of a dwarf rushing up from the depths of the cave lit the two of them. Both turned to face the newcomer, one of the dwarves working the lower catacombs.

  “Elder Greatclub. My Lady Sarcha.” The dwarf nodded to both breathlessly. “We have unearthed another chamber, beyond the...the chamber of the dead.”

  “What did you find?” Sarcha asked, her heart thumping against the inside of her ribs.

  “It was strange...” the dwarf said with a confused expression. “It was almost no work at all, almost as if the ruins gave way to us, wanted us to pass through.”

  “What did you find?” Clegg repeated with heightening annoyance.

  “I...I’m not certain.” The dwarf looked back and forth between Sarcha and Clegg. He waved the lantern down the way he had come. “You must see! Come!”

  Sarcha exchanged the briefest look she dared with Clegg before following the dwarf down the tunnel.

  GROON BLOOD-DRINKER watched the goblins fall back from the cave entrance with an amused upturn of his tusked mouth. At his side, Brathug Foulstench quivered.

  “Weakling Fenskulkers!” Foulstench barked, beating a boulder at his side with a fist long gone bloody from such punishment. “Clan Foulstench would already be feasting on dwarf by now!”

  “They accomplished what we sought,” Groon said, ingnoring the other’s agitation. “We know strength and position now. They’re holed-up in there like moles. We just have to dig them out.”

  Foulstench ripped one of his swords from its shoulder sheath. “We can dig them out now!”

  Groon put an arm across the goblin’s chest, restraining the urge to just bash the vermin into bloody pudding against the rocks. “No,” he growled, “we wait.”

  “Wait for what?” Foulstench shrieked.

  Groon turned to Akrak, seated cross-legged behind him on a flat slab. In contrast to Foulstench, the shaman seemed calmer than he had at any time since first speaking of this quest. His eyes were closed and his hands lay folded in his lap. “Akrak?” Groon called. “Wake up!”

  “I am fully awake, Deadly One,” the shaman replied with disturbing composure. His jaundiced eyes fluttered open. “What may I do for you?”

  “Tell me,” Groon said, “is this it? Is this the place?”

  “Do you not feel it?” Akrak asked.

  Groon opened his mouth to curse the shaman but stopped short. Akrak spoke the truth. He did feel it. In fact, this place, this entire episode had played out before him like a dream he’d already had. Blood coursed through him, warm with energies that seemed to thrum from the very rock. Muscles felt light. His thoughts shined clear, doubt cast aside before a shining certainty that had the cave mouth above him as its source. He grinned. “Yes, I do.”

  “I don’t care what either of you feel!” Foulstench ranted. He jabbed the point of his sword uphill. “Listen to the hole-diggers! They mock us!”

  Dwarf song echoed from the top of the gorge, interspersed with pointed curses and challenges to goblin pride.

  “Let them,” Groon replied with a light chuckle. “It will be their funeral dirge.”

  Foulstench trembled, veins pulsing beneath the skin of his face, his ears twitching, his eyes bulging from their sockets. With a shriek, he mounted the rocks before him.

  “Go up there and you go alone,” Groon called after him. “Your death will provide the rest of us with some entertainment.”

  Foulstench halted. For a moment, the battle between his instincts and his willpower showed clearly in the tensing and untensing of his body. Finally, the conflict passed, he turned and dropped back down beside Groon, sheathing his blade and spitting to one side. “Very well, Blood-Drinker. You are the One the witches spoke of. What now?”

  “As I said, we wait,” Groon replied, momentarily sorry not to have the spectacle of the goblin chieftain’s suicide. “Our strength is not yet fully up. When it is, we will drown the hole-diggers with our numbers.”

  “When?” Foulstench demanded in a voice shrill with barely-held control.

  Groon glanced into the gorge behind him at the fallen starscape of hundreds of campfires. “Dusk tomorrow,” he said.

  SARCHA SHIVERED WITH power circulating like hot gusts up the passageway as a pair of dwarf miners let her pass. She stepped into a hexagonal chamber of gilded surfaces throwing back torchlight in crazed scintillas. The air hung still and heavy with the strange, damp heat they’d found in the previous rooms. Statues of Vuls in prayer and obedience occupied the eight walls, jeweled eyes glimmering through shrouds of dust and cobweb to focus on the center of the chamber and what occupied it.

  A sarcophagus lay at the heart of dust-obscured symbols and pentegrams etched into the floor. Gold shimmered across stone crafted with images of long-gone victories won by outlandish figures of sku
ll-faced legions. Bodies lay piled under their cloven feet and flames of hammered brass flared about their forms. An effigy adorned the lid of the casket, the likeness of a woman of peaceful and serene beauty clutching an enormous, yellowy diamond chiseled into a miniature sun.

  The hands seemed tensed in an effort to crush away its rays.

  Sarcha stepped across sigils of warning and protection, knowing that one intending to free the entity within had little to fear. Passing her torch from one hand to another, she reached out and brushed dust from the effigy’s face then let her hand come to rest fully upon the casket, felt the stonework warm beneath it like the flesh of a slumbering lover.

  I have come at last.

  In times long-crushed by wrathful and jealous deities, the priest-lords of Vul Aronath had defied the order of Creation itself and made their gods live. They selected from amongst the most devout of their number one to become the vessel for the entities that would then breathe and walk and conquer among mortals.

  One such vessel lay at rest in the sarcophagus before Sarcha.

  “You will live again,” she whispered.

  “What is that?” Clegg demanded from the chamber entrance.

  Sarcha turned and smiled at the dwarf. “It contains what I have come to retrieve.”

  “That’s not an answer,” Clegg replied, stepping into the room and hefting his gore-tacky axe to his shoulder. At his sides, the miners tensed, noting their foreman’s anxiety.

  “Have your people found an egress route?” Sarcha asked.

  Clegg paused, obviously wanting to press his inquiry. But he answered, “They’ve located one passage that seems promising. Why?”

  “Have your freshest crews work on it,” Sarcha replied. “All others may rest or be diverted to the defenses, as you see fit.”

  “We’re done here?” Clegg asked incredulously, glancing at his people, who began to breathe easier.