Shadow Prowler

24. HARGAN’S WASTELAND

It took us a long time to find that almost invisible track in the total darkness. Several times Honeycomb stopped the group, dismounted, and walked along the wall of bushes, thoughtfully scratching the back of his head. Then he climbed back into the saddle and we galloped on, moving farther and farther away from the hills and the unfortunate village of Vishki. The point came when we had to light torches-the moonlight was simply not enough-and Loudmouth immediately started grumbling that now even a blind man could see us.

When Honeycomb dismounted for the tenth time, even the imperturbable Marmot started groaning:

“So where is this track of yours? How long can we carry on prowling about in the dark? Let’s put it off until tomorrow! We’re all tired, and the ling needs to be fed.”

“Just wait a bit with that mouse of yours,” the huge man retorted. “It’s somewhere near here. I think we need to turn round and ride back a bit.”

“You said that half an hour ago,” muttered Hallas.

“Let’s look for it in the morning,” said Kli-Kli, supporting Marmot.

The goblin had been tying knots in his string almost without a break. Now he had hundreds of them, and he claimed that very soon they would produce some terrible goblin magic.

No one took any notice of his blather, except for Deler, who asked to be warned when everything was ready so that he could hide as far away as possible from the place where the failed shaman planned to demonstrate his abilities.

“Are you sure this track is here? Have you walked along it yourself?” Eel asked.

“No. I was still a little kid then. My grandfather showed me it. The shepherds used it to take their sheep out to graze all summer in the wasteland. The grass there was really something.”

“That’s hardly surprising,” Kli-Kli commented dryly.

“Do you know something about this place?” Miralissa asked.

“I’ll tell you all an interesting story at the halt, if you don’t fall asleep.”

“I remember!” Honeycomb suddenly howled and slapped himself on the forehead. “I remember! It began beside two trees that leaned toward each other like a pair of drunks!”

“There was something like that,” said Ell, brushing aside a lock of hair that had fallen over his eyes. “About fifty yards back.”

Everyone heaved a sigh of relief, realizing that the halt they had been anticipating for so long would soon arrive. I myself was barely able to stay in the saddle and my dearest wish was to get down from Little Bee.

“That’s it! There they are, the darlings!” Honeycomb exclaimed when the silhouettes of two aspens emerged from the darkness, looming up in isolation above the bushes. “The track starts right between them.”

“Right then, a halt.” Hallas climbed gratefully out of his saddle and I followed his example. “Uncle! Are we going to eat anything today or do we bed down on an empty stomach?”

“You never think of anything but filling your belly, longbeard.” Deler laughed.

Do I need to tell you what the gnome said to that? Everything had come full circle.

“Someone promised to tell us a story,” said Arnkh some time later, when we were all sitting round the campfire with hare stew in our bellies.

“If you wish,” said Kli-Kli, setting aside his bundle of knotted strings. “What would you like to hear?”

“You mean you know a lot of stories?”

“I am the king’s jester, after all,” the goblin said, offended. “I have to know them for my job.”

“You promised to tell us about Hargan’s Wasteland, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Ah-ah…,” Kli-Kli drawled. “Have none of you ever heard about Hargan’s Brigade?”

Some shook their heads, some shrugged indifferently. The name didn’t mean anything to anyone.

“You people have such short memories.” The goblin sighed. “You know, it all happened only a little less than five hundred years ago.”

“Come off it,” Loudmouth laughed. “That’s time enough to forget anything at all.”

“But not the Dog Swallows Brigade to which Avendoom probably owes its very survival to this day.”

“Dog Swallows?” Uncle echoed with a frown. “I don’t recall any such unit. At least, it doesn’t exist in Valiostr…”

“It doesn’t now, and it never will again,” Kli-Kli said in a sad voice. “It all happened during the Spring War. The orcs came pouring out of the Forests of Zagraba in an endless flood, taking everyone by surprise. Tens of thousands of them descended on the Border Kingdom, but the main thrust of the blow was directed at Valiostr-”

“You don’t need to tell us that,” said Arnkh, interrupting the goblin.

“Who’s telling this story, you or me?” Kli-Kli asked furiously. “If you’re so smart, you do the talking, and I’ll go to bed! But if you can’t, keep quiet!”

Arnkh raised both hands in a gesture of submission.

“Grok set his army on the march and gave battle on the banks of the Iselina. For six days the Firstborn tried to force the river, but the men held firm. On the seventh day, at the cost of enormous losses, the orcs broke through Grok’s defenses in four places and threw back the army of men, forcing it to retreat to the north. The whole of south Valiostr was lost. There was no news from Shamar, and Grok thought that the Borderland had already been annihilated.”

“Ha! The Borderland doesn’t surrender that easily! We withstood that siege!” said Arnkh, but fell silent when he caught Kli-Kli’s eye.

“Isilia, as usual, did not get involved in the war, hoping that the cup of woe would pass it by. It was pointless to ask for help from Miranueh-your state had never lived at peace with that country. It made absolutely no sense to say anything to the dark elves after the Long Winter came, following the grotesque death of their prince; none of them had even been seen in Valiostr for many years… The kingdom was left to face the enemy alone. Only destiny and the army, gentlemen, could halt the flood of orcs.”

“The Firstborn had never attacked in such numbers before. That was a terrible time,” Uncle said with a nod.

“The humans despised the other races too much. How could they accept half animals as their allies? And then this happened. No one had anticipated the coming of the orcs, and they paid a heavy price for their lack of vigilance. After a long retreat, the weary army engaged the Firstborn under the walls of Ranneng and lost the battle. The capital was taken and then destroyed. The army and the king retreated to the north. The exhausted men, constantly harassed by the advance units of the enemy, fell back toward Avendoom in order to fight its final battle there-they had nowhere else to retreat to. Except to the Cold Sea, or past the Lonely Giant into the Desolate Lands.

“Either of those would have been suicide. All they could do was to die with dignity. Grok needed time to prepare for the final battle-time which, unfortunately, he didn’t have. The army had to rest, if only for one day.

“This area used to be covered with thick forest. There weren’t any villages yet… that is, there were some, of course, but pitifully few. In those times, no one thought about building a road or a main highway, there was only a fairly large track from Ranneng to Avendoom. And it happened to pass straight through the area that is now known as Hargan’s Wasteland. In our times the old road has been forgotten and abandoned, but then it was the vital thread that connected the central cities of Valiostr. The army retreated along it. A council that included both soldiers and members of the recently founded Order of Magicians decided that part of the army had to be sacrificed so that it could hold up the invaders for at least a few days. The area was advantageous-full of forests and marshes, with just one road, which was the only way the enemy could advance. At one point the road crossed a deep ravine with impassable swamps on its left and its right. It was decided to hold the enemy back here for as long as possible. To allow the main human forces to get as far away as possible.”

The goblin broke off, wrapped himself in his cloak, and continued.

“They put out the call and looked for volunteers. People who would decide to stay and give battle. You men are amazing creatures. Sometimes you’ll tear each other’s throats out for a copper or some piece of rubbish, and sometimes you decide to cover your comrades’ backs, knowing that you’ll never get out alive. Just over three thousand soldiers volunteered. Three thousand men willing to condemn themselves to death, to dig their nails into the slopes of that ravine, but not let the orcs pass. Four hundred of them were chosen; it would simply have been stupid to sacrifice the rest.”

“Well, I would have argued with that,” Hallas, who was sitting beside me, muttered to himself-but quietly, so that the goblin wouldn’t hear.

“The men who were chosen to stay behind were named the Dog Swallows. I don’t know why. The main army left. The new unit was commanded by an old soldier who had commanded a regiment with Grok. He was called Hargan, and a grateful posterity later named this place after him. The defenders’ primary goal was to hold back the enemy for at least one day, no more than that. But they managed to halt the orc army’s advance for a full four. In that time not a single orc got through. Hargan’s soldiers gave Grok’s army precious breathing space, and time to prepare for the encounter at Avendoom. If not for the Swallows, there’s no knowing how the history of the kingdom would have gone.

“The subsequent events are well known to you. Grok gave battle and the orcs broke into Avendoom, but then the dark elves arrived on the scene. No one had been expecting them. Neither the men nor, in particular, the orcs. The elves forgot their quarrel with men and came to their aid at the very last moment. The dark ones could not ignore such a good opportunity to settle scores with their cousins. The Spring War was won. And that, I think, is all.”

“And this wasteland?”

“The wasteland?” the jester echoed. “The wasteland remained a wasteland. A new road appeared somewhere else, of its own accord. No one wanted to disturb the bones of the fallen warriors. But then, to be quite honest, most of them were not actually buried. People had too many other things to deal with, setting the country to rights after the war. The years passed and Hargan’s Brigade gradually began to be forgotten. The road gradually fell into disuse. Only the shepherds used it to move their sheep. The land round here is really rich, and so the grass is high. Only the name was left-Hargan’s Wasteland-and with time people even forgot where that had come from. Now not even the old men remember those soldiers’ feat of heroism.”

An oppressive silence fell round the campfire. Each of us was thinking about those men who stood firm against the crooked yataghans of the orcs and did not retreat.

“Gnomes would never have forgotten something like that.”

“Or dwarves!”

I felt shame for my race. Probably for the first time in my life I feltashamed of people for forgetting such a sacrifice…

“Come on, Loudmouth,” grunted Lamplighter, getting up off the ground. “We’re on the first watch tonight.”

No one spoke to anyone else. One by one we all went to bed, leaving only the solitary figure of the jester still sitting beside the small camp-fire, gazing at the dance of the flames…

The slanting downpour from the sky was like whips lashing at their clothes, it soaked them with its soft hands, it was cold, warm, angry, prickly, stinging, caressing, biting.

The soldiers were tired, cold, and soaked through. The bowmen squinted furiously up at the sky-moisture spoiled the bows, and no elves’ tricks for preserving the condition of the string did any good.

“Wencher!” Hargan called in a low voice, wiping his wet face with his hand.

“Yes?” responded the commander of the swordsmen, running up to him.

“Take your lads. Grab every ax you can find in the brigade and cut down the trees on that side of the ravine.”

“Very well,” said the soldier, without batting an eyelid.

“Drag the trunks over to this side, and then we’ll dismantle the bridge. We’ll arrange a pleasant welcome for the Firstborn.”

The other man gave a gap-toothed smile, clenched his fist in the military salute, and ran off to rouse his men.

Hargan sighed.

It was hard. Ye gods! It was so hard to look at them! He was an old man, almost sixty years old-he wasn’t afraid of dying. But the men fate had decided that he should command… boys. Twenty-year-old, thirty-year-old boys. He regarded them all as too young to die in front of this bridge thrown across the abyss of a nameless ravine.

The orcs had attacked suddenly. No one had been expecting this war, and during the first days of the catastrophe that overwhelmed the land of Valiostr, the army had been defeated in battle after battle. And now there was only one hope left. Hargan and his men had only one goal-to detain the enemy for as long as possible, until the main human forces could dig in at the new capital of Valiostr. The retreating army was already far behind them, and in front of them, beyond the curtain of mist, the army of the enemy was waiting.

The orcs were in no great hurry. What difference did it make if they spilled the humans’ blood an hour earlier or an hour later? They were the Firstborn, they would conquer all the lands, and men… Men would be dispatched to feed the worms. First the Valiostrans, then the men of Miranueh, then it would be the turn of the gnomes and dwarves, and finally of their detested relatives, the elves.

The rain eased off somewhat until it was no more than a gentle drizzle. The air was filled with fine drops of water. It was early morning and mist was rising from the ground in thick white streamers. Three hundred yards away, on the opposite side of the ravine, the road was concealed in a dense white shroud and they could only guess how far away the enemy was. Yesterday the scouts had reported that the advance units of the orcs were at a distance of one day’s march. But that was yesterday…

The bottom of the ravine was hidden from sight. Its walls were not actually sheer, but they could certainly not be called shallow. If you were careless going down, you could easily break your neck. Somewhere far below there was a stream tinkling; sometimes you could hear it above the rain. So after they dismantled the bridge, the orcs would first have to climb down one slippery clay slope and then climb up another. That was the only way they could reach the fortifications.

The brigade had only been named that morning, when the final soldiers of Grok’s army retreated, leaving the volunteers alone to face the foe. Nobody at all was hoping to survive the fighting, they all knew what they were doing when they volunteered. They were saying good-bye to life.

Waiting is the worst torture of all. It has broken many men, even destroyed them. And what could be worse than standing behind a low wall of logs covered with earth and peering into a dank haze for an entire day, with only one picture in front of your eyes the whole time-a road cut off by a thick white wall of fog.

The day was approaching its end, and there had been neither sight nor sound of the enemy. True, about an hour earlier something that sounded very much like the booming of the orcs’ battle drums had been heard from behind the curtain of fog, but everything had gone quiet, the alarm had come to nothing, and the oppressive silence of anticipation had descended once again.

On the slope of the ravine itself, just below the line of fortifications, the builders had set long, pointed stakes into the ground. The attackers would find it very tricky to get past this obstacle with any speed. They would probably get stuck trying to squeeze between the stakes, and the bowmen would have time to reap a bloody harvest.

“They haven’t decided to wait for darkness, surely?” the commander of the Dog Swallows asked apprehensively. “But since when has the race of the Firstborn ever been so cautious with men? They regard us as talking monkeys.”

“I’ll tell you what I’m afraid of,” croaked Fox, who was sitting beside Hargan. “What if they’ve found another route to Avendoom? Maybe through the forest or the swamps…”

“Through the swamps?” The commander shook his head. “No, there’s only one road here. If the orcs decide to try the swamps, they won’t reach Avendoom before next spring. This whole area’s such a wild tangle you could never find your way out, even sober.”

“So we’ll wait, then,” Fox concluded philosophically.

And they waited.

“They’re coming! They’re coming!” The cry went up, and then a lone bugle sounded the alert.

Hargan lifted up his head and rubbed his eyes.

“Everyone to their posts!” the commander ordered, putting a light helmet on his head.

Like all the other soldiers, Hargan was never parted from his chain mail even for a moment. If the enemy attacked, they weren’t going to wait while the soldiers put their armor on. So he wore his mail all the time and even slept in it.

This was no time for the standard three royal lines, and certainly not for the four lines of the elves. Those formations were good out in the open, but here, hiding behind a wall of wood and earth, it was best to fire a salvo up and over first and shoot directly at the enemy afterward. When you could be certain. With a clear aim. So that every arrow hit its target.

The powerful battle bows had already been strung; the trusty mittens, tattered by thousands of blows, had been donned; the quivers were bursting with arrows.

One arrow in the hand, another two stuck into the ground. Each was as thick as a man’s thumb, with solid, armor-piercing heads-not just the standard cutting edges that would bring down only light infantry, but battering rams that could pierce good steel.

A dour line of soldiers with swords and huge rectangular shields formed up seven paces behind the bowmen. Unlike the archers, they were well spaced out, with a gap of two paces between each man. If the enemy managed to get through the hail of arrows, the sword-swingers would give the bowmen time to get behind them and exchange their weapons for something more effective at close quarters, while they themselves closed ranks and set their shields together.

“Is my help required?” asked Siena, who had approached the consulting officers.

The enchantress was wearing steel armor and her head was covered with a chain-mail hood. Overnight the armorers had managed to hammer together some reasonably good protection for the short girl out of whatever was available. Like yesterday, Siena had no weapon, just the amulet gleaming on the chain round her neck.

“Your help, Lady Siena, will be required in the very near future,” Hargan said, and shifted his gaze to the sergeant of her guards.

Several figures slid forward out of the wall of fog.

“Orcs!”

“Make rea-dy!” The sergeants’ calls ran along the ranks of bowmen.

“Raise the banner,” Hargan said curtly.

His order was immediately carried out and the yellow panel of cloth began fluttering above the fortifications. The material for it had been donated by Siena, who had allowed them to tear off part of her own tent. Although the brigade had just been formed the previous day, it had to have a banner, no matter what, even if it was only an ordinary rag nailed to the trunk of a young aspen instead of a flagstaff. Some unskilled hand had drawn something on the cloth that looked vaguely like a dog with wings and a swallow’s tail. And also written something in orcish. Hargan felt quite sure that the polyglot artist had crammed these incomprehensible squiggles with the most terrible of insults to the race of the Firstborn.

The men watched in silence as the enemy wave advanced. Now it would begin…

Three soldiers came forward out of the ranks of the enemy. The one in the middle was carrying a white flag, the one on the left was blowing a bugle in an appeal for negotiations.

“Since when do orcs come to negotiations with bugles instead of drums?” Hargan muttered as he drew on his armored gloves.

“Strange…,” said the soldier standing beside him, screwing up his eyes to peer at the strangers. “They’re… not orcs… they’re men! Yes, they are! They’re men!”

The whispers ran along the ranks of the defenders:

“Men? Where from? The entire army fell back ages ago! Are they ours? Reinforcements? But why from the south?”

Meanwhile the trio of negotiators walked up to the edge of the ravine and halted.

They really were men.

“Hey, you! Can you hear me?” shouted the one standing on the right, a tall, solidly built soldier with a full, thick beard.

“We hear you! We’re not deaf!” Wencher answered from somewhere over on the right flank of the fortifications. The harsh voices dispelled the charm of the summer morning.

“We are the valiant Sixth Southern Army of Valiostr, now the First Human Assault Force! Formed on the orders of the orcs from valiant warriors who desire the well-being and happiness of all humankind.”

“Hang on there, hang on! What’s this First Human Assault Force? And you’re lying about the Sixth Southern, none of them survived, they were caught in the thick of it at Boltnik!”

“Ah, come on, lads, don’t you get it?” shouted a voice from the ranks of the bowmen. “They’re turncoats! Traitors! Renegade scum! They do the orcs’ work now!”

“Fighting their own kind?”

“Bastards!”

“Don’t they realize that afterward the orcs will cut them to shreds?”

“The glorious army of the Firstborn, worthy of ruling the whole of Siala, offers you the chance to lay down your arms and join the First Human Assault Force. Resistance is useless; there are far more of us than there are of you. In a few hours the main orc forces will arrive, and we will crush you! Why simply throw your lives away? The war is lost, even a Doralissian can see that! Join with us and you will stay alive and perhaps even make good pay! The orcs are just.”

“Our reply is no!” said Hargan.

“Fools!” the bearded man roared. “How many of you are there behind those flimsy sticks of wood? Two hundred at most. And there are almost a thousand of us! We’ll wash our hands in your blood!”

“Come and take it!” yelled Wencher, incensed. “We’ve enough arrows for the lot of you!”

Hargan had total confidence in the loyalty of his men and he was not afraid of being stabbed in the back, but it was time to put an end to the conversation with this vociferous traitor.

“And now you listen to me, peace envoy! I’ll give you just one chance, too! You are a coward who had betrayed his own people! I hope you’re a fast runner! Try to outrun our arrows! That’s my answer to you!”

As he turned away, he saw the standard bearer toss aside his useless white flag and go running back, while the bugler started dashing about on the edge of the ravine and the bearded man followed, shaking his fist.

“Soldiers!” Hargan barked. “We’re about to fight a battle with our own kind, not orcs! With men! With traitors who have forgotten the taste of their own mothers’ milk and gone over to the enemy! Do not let your hands falter! Kill the turncoats, show no mercy!”

And the phrase rang along the ranks of men, determined to fight to the death before they let the enemy pass:

“NO MERCY!”

Bugles sounded on both sides. The attackers bolstered their spirits by shouting and brandishing their weapons as they ran. A thousand of them. A thousand men who would stop at nothing, since they had already gone over to the side of the orcs. There was no way back for them now, so they would fight to the last man. But Hargan had no doubt that his lads would hold out. After all, these were not orcs who were attacking them… And the Dog Swallows also had the slight advantage of the ravine and the wall above it.

The first wave of the enemy came rolling on, getting closer and closer. The soldiers ran, hoping to get through the danger zone exposed to arrows as quickly as possible and leave their comrades-the men running twenty yards behind in the next wave-as the targets.

“What kind of idiot is commanding them?” Hargan muttered.

Running in a crowd, simply inviting the arrows to strike, without even holding up your shields in front of you, was stupid. Very stupid. But now the traitors already had no choice.

“Arc five fingers upward! Together, fire!” Blidkhard commanded, shouting above the howls of the attackers.

The bowmen raised their bows, there was a sharp crack, and the arrows went whistling up into the leaden sky.

“Arc seven fingers upward. Correct for wind half a finger left! Together, fire!”

The new swarm of deadly bees took to the air at the very moment when the first wave of arrows came crashing down on the attackers’ heads. Some managed to hold their shields up to ward off this deadly rain; some were simply fortunate enough to escape being hit. But the greater part of the first wave knew the bitter taste of death. His scythe sliced through the ranks of traitors as arrows fell on heads and shoulders. Their impetus drove them straight through cuirasses and chain mail, deep into men’s chests, finishing off the wounded who had already fallen.

More than eighty bodies were left lying on the ground, and the survivors ran on doggedly in an attempt to dive into the fog of the ravine as quickly as possible and conceal themselves from the eyes of the bowmen.

The second swarm of arrows had been launched along a steeper arc and it fell on the men almost vertically. Screams… Now there were only thirty men left in the first wave-all the rest had met their death on the other side of the ravine. And they still had about fifty yards to run to safety.

“Number twos! Three paces back! Arc six fingers upward! Number ones! At the survivors! Choose your target! Fire!”

The line of bowmen trembled and split into two halves. The second line fired along an arc, sending death to the new wave that was already advancing. The first line fired directly, picking off the remaining soldiers of the first wave.

The bowmen shot down the men who were left-not a single soldier from the first wave managed to reach the safety of the ravine. Black bodies bristling with white-feathered arrows littered the brown ground.

Meanwhile the arrows of the second line were already falling on the heads of the new wave of attackers.

“Number twos! Three paces forward! Close ranks! All together! Arc eight fingers upward! Fire!”

The reconstituted line of bowmen all fired their arrows at once.

“At the enemy! Choose your target! Correction for wind half a finger left! Shoot at will!”

The arrows stuck in the ground had been used up long ago, and now right hands were lowered to the quivers hanging on men’s hips. The arrows rustled out and were set on the strings…

“Fox! Get ready! The ones who have broken through will be here soon!” Hargan shouted.

“No they won’t!” Fox laughed. “They’re not stupid enough to try breaking through with just twenty men! They’ll wait for the others!”

Blidkhard issued a constant stream of commands, altering the direction of fire every second, setting the arrows flying, first upward in an arc that seemed impossibly steep, then straight across, sowing death in the ranks of the attackers. There were even fewer fortunate fellows in the third wave than in the second: No more than fifteen men reached the shelter of the ravine.

“Look out!” one of the soldiers cried.

The commander of the attackers had kept his bowmen back until the fourth wave. While Blidkhard’s lads were dealing with the third wave, the fourth, which was armed with short bows that could not fire as far as the Dog Swallows’ weapons, came within firing range…

Before he ducked behind the huge wooden shield that had been cobbled together out of planks from the wagons for just this occasion, Hargan caught a glimpse of the flock of hornets heading toward them through the air.

The swordsmen fell to their knees, raising their shields above their heads, protecting themselves and covering their comrades. Blidkhard’s men came off worse-not all of them were quick enough to put down their bows and pick up the wooden arrow shields lying at their feet.

Hargan felt one arrow strike the board, then another. Another buried itself in the ground beside his foot. The soldier beside him, trying to take cover behind a small round shield, cried out when one of the arrows hit him in the thigh, uncovered himself for an instant, and took a second arrow in the neck. He wheezed hoarsely and tumbled to the ground.

The bombardment finally ended, and Hargan cast aside the board bristling with arrows. The enemy’s arrows were everywhere-in the ground, in shields, in the wall of the fortifications, and in men.

“Crush those bastards!” Blidkhard yelled hoarsely. “Come on then, you sons of whores!”

The bowmen took up their bows again.

“Fire at will!”

“Wencher!” Hargan roared. “What are our casualties?”

“Eighteen killed!” the answer came back after a while. “Mostly Blidkhard’s lads! I haven’t counted the wounded yet!”

“Fire!”

Slap! Slap! Slap! The bowstrings thwacked against the mittens and the arrows whistled through the air, drowning out even the howls of the dying.

The fifth wave of attackers had taken advantage of the pause in the bombardment by Blidkhard’s bowmen and fused with the fourth. They were running toward the ravine, with the sixth wave already following them. The enemy’s bowmen were no longer firing; they didn’t want to become a target for the Dog Swallows. The Wind Jugglers began choosing their targets. One of the enemy fell every second, but time had been lost and a large body of men disappeared into the ravine, bolstering their courage by shouting.

“Wake up, you whores! Keep your eyes open! As soon as the enemy appears, move back behind the swords! Target the sixth line! Together, fire!”

“Stop them shooting!” shouted Siena, bounding up to Hargan. Her chain-mail hood had slipped back off her head, her light brown hair was tousled, her face was pale and determined. “Let them get down into the ravine! And as soon as that happens, move back from the wall!”

“Cease fire!” Hargan roared. “Withdraw behind the swordsmen!”

“Cease fire! Withdraw! Withdraw!” The order ran along the line.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing, Lady Siena?” Hargan would be taking a risk by trusting in the young enchantress’s talent.

“Yes! Now just don’t interfere!”

The only ones left by the wall were the enchantress, the two shield-bearers from her bodyguard, and the centurions.

The sixth wave slithered down into the ravine, shouting triumphantly. The seventh and eighth waves were on their way.

“We won’t be able to hold them,” the commander of Siena’s bodyguard hissed through his teeth. “By Sagra, I swear we won’t be able to hold them!”

Hargan didn’t answer, hearing only Siena’s whisper, which seemed to drown out even the shouts of the enemy.

All of a sudden the fog burst into flames and was transformed into a mass of liquid fire, making the ravine look like the inside of one of the gnomes’ furnaces. The blast of heat struck Hargan in the face and he felt as if his eyebrows and hair had burst into flame. The men staggered back from the heaving fiery abyss, and the enchantress was left alone, staring unflinchingly into the scorching flames. Everybody down below in the ravine must have been burnt to a cinder.

Siena had incinerated about four hundred men at a single stroke!

The enchantress began slowly sinking down onto the ground, but her shield-bearers dashed over to her and caught her before she could fall.

“Are you alive, milady?” asked the sergeant from the Borderland.

“Y-yes,” she said uncertainly, and spat blood. Her hand was clutching the amulet and there were glowing strings of sparks running across the silvery droplet.

“Quick! Get her to the healer!” Hargan barked.

After seeing what had happened to their comrades, the seventh and eighth waves were beating a hasty retreat. Blidkhard’s men managed to fire several times more before the enemy moved out of the range of their arrows.

Silence fell in the ranks of the defenders.

The opposite side of the ravine and the road were littered with bodies. The black, charred walls of the ravine gave out a smell of soot and burnt meat. Thick smoke from this hellish scene rose high into the air above the soldiers’ heads.

“Ah, we gave them a good battering,” Wencher said delightedly as he came up to Hargan. “It’s just a shame that the swords had no work to do.”

“You’ll get your turn! We haven’t killed all of them.”

“Yes, there are about three hundred left. But they’re not likely to attack. They’ll wait for the orcs.”

Morning came and merged imperceptibly into day. But the road remained deserted. The enemy had pulled back and concealed himself behind the dark wood, and the only sound from that side of the ravine was the cawing of the crows feasting on the corpses. By noon the sky was clouded over even more thickly, the rain had become a downpour, and the road was almost invisible behind the wall of falling water.

From somewhere beyond the shroud of rain there came the faint rumbling of drums.

“Everyone to his station!” yelled Hargan, emerging from under the lean-to and putting on his helmet.

The rumbling of the drums was moving closer; the orcs had moved onto the offensive.

“Can’t see a thing!” said a bowman with straw-blond hair and no helmet, gazing into the white shroud.

“Listen, then!” barked Bildkhard, who was walking along the line of bowmen. “Listen to what your commander tells you!”

Hargan could not stand giving impassioned speeches. He was not Grok, nor was he some pompous, self-important colonel, to go ranting on about duty, honor, and devotion, but right now he really ought to offer his lads some kind of moral support.

“Soldiers! Our time has come! Let’s show these Firstborn what we’re made of! Let them break their teeth on our shields! The more of the brutes we kill, the fewer our lads will have to stick and bleed at Avendoom! Let’s make Grok’s job easier! Slash, stab, and cut! Kill them the same way they kill us! Show no mercy!”

And, like the last time, the cry echoed down the ranks of men:

“NO MERCY!”

The volley of arrows struck at the orcs but, unlike the men of the First Human Assault Force, they made rational use of their shields. The huge rectangular sheets of metal covering the heads of the Firstborn allowed them to weather the attack of Blidkhard’s bowmen with practically no casualties. The shields parted, and another swarm of arrows flew out at the humans through the gaps. Now Hargan’s soldiers had to hide behind their shields and wait out the bombardment. The orcs seized their chance, losing no time in moving forward to the very edge of the ravine.

Another volley from the brigade’s bowmen. The impenetrable barrier of the orcish shields. And an immediate volley in reply.

Hargan had no time to hide, and an arrow bounced off his breastplate. He swore vilely as he saw the orcs flood over into the ravine.

“Come on, you whores! Shoot! Or they’ll roast your heels for you!”

While the orcs were climbing down and then climbing up again, the bowmen managed to loose off six salvos. During the storming of the ravine the shields of the Firstborn were less effective, the formation fell apart, and the arrows finally began to inflict significant losses.

On the orders of their commander, the Wind Jugglers once again divided into two sections. The first lashed at the advancing wave of the enemy, while the second sought out the archers constantly firing at the men from among the mass of the orcs.

Another arrow whistled past Hargan’s head and yet another hit the light-haired archer in the stomach. His light chain mail didn’t save him and he dropped his bow and fell.

“Swordsmen!” Hargan commanded. “Another twenty paces back! Maintain your spacing!”

The order to leave the wall might have seemed stupid to many. After all, this was a spot where you could take a stand and repel attack after attack, while withdrawing meant giving the enemy the chance to maneuver, gather his wits after the climb, and go on the attack. But a simple defensive trick like that wouldn’t work against the orcs. The only thing that would save you here was to close formation and strike like a battering ram, and for that you had to move back. The line of men began slowly withdrawing, protected by shields and bristling with spears, swords, and axes. The orcs had already reached the stakes set in the ground and the bowmen’s final arrows were striking them, piercing straight through their armor.

The bowmen were already running toward the waiting swordsmen, slipping between them and forming a new second line of defense. Hargan withdrew with them, leaving only Fox’s crossbowmen behind.

“Come on, Fox!”

But the old war dog knew well enough what to do.

Forty crossbows suddenly appeared before the eyes of the startled orcs who had already begun climbing over the wall.

Thwack!

A massive, invisible chain crashed into the ranks of the Firstborn, sending them flying backward so that they knocked their own comrades off their feet and dragged them back down to the bottom of the ravine.

The soldiers slung their crossbows behind their backs and dashed toward that secure wall of shields and swords. The first orc climbed over the fortifications and immediately collapsed with an arrow in his neck. He was quickly followed by another two, then another four… and then there were dozens of the Firstborn jumping down onto the ground.

“Swordsmen! On one knee!” Hargan barked.

The sergeants repeated their commander’s order and the front line went down on their right knees.

“Fire, you whores!”

The bowmen standing in the second row didn’t need to be reminded of the basic rules of war-if the front line gives you the chance, then lash away at the enemy until your arm is exhausted or he manages to reach you! The arrows whizzed over the heads of the swordsmen and halted the running orcs.

“Will you look at that!” someone beside Hargan said with a whistle. “Stubborn, aren’t they, the mangy dogs!”

The orcs weren’t bothered at all by the death of their comrades. There were at least a hundred of the enemy facing the ranks of humans now. And more and more of them kept climbing over the wall of the fortifications. Then the orcs’ bowmen appeared on the fortifications constructed with such care by Hargan’s soldiers.

Before the two forces clashed, Blidkhard’s men fired for a second time. And while the bowmen mostly tried to pick off the orcs’ archers, Fox’s lads, who had already reloaded their crossbows, aimed them at the advancing mass of Firstborn.

“Stand firm! Lock shields! Lower spears! Maintain formation! Stand fiiirm…”

Impact. Shield struck against shield with a deafening, indescribable clatter. Uproar, shouts, the clash of weapons. For an instant the spears halted the avalanche of orcs, then they sank down under the weight of the bodies, and the surviving Firstborn came within striking distance for a yataghan.

The men withheld the pressure of the enemy for just a few seconds, and then their line snapped under the ferocity of the attack like a flawed string.

Now there were only scattered groups of soldiers fighting to hold back the pressure: in the best case ten or fifteen soldiers opposing the enemy, and in the worst case only isolated individuals. Somehow they beat the orcs back, somehow the men had successfully weathered the first, most dangerous rush, and they were slowly but surely forcing the orcs back toward the wall.

An arrow glinted in the air, then another. Hargan swore, assuming that the orcs had managed to send in more archers, but when he looked, he spotted thirty bowmen led by Blidkhard right at the back of his brigade. The bowmen had created space for themselves by moving back to a safe distance, and now they were firing at the attackers, choosing their targets. Several of the Firstborn tried to reach the bowmen, but their way was blocked by Wencher’s swordsmen, who shielded the Wind Jugglers.

Bolts of lightning began raining down from the dark clouds with a dry crackling sound, striking down the orcs one after another. Armor was no protection against Siena’s magic. Before Hargan’s very eyes a bolt of lightning appeared from somewhere up in the sky, divided into branches, and felled seven orcs at once, leaving behind nothing but black earth and charred armor.

The Firstborn flinched and faltered, unable to withstand the rain of lightning and hail of arrows. From somewhere behind the enemy, the war drums sounded, calling the retreat. The orcs withdrew tidily, in good order, leaving behind a small detachment to cover the main forces. But the men had taken fresh heart and they struck a crushing blow against the wall of shields, beating down the enemy to right and left, while those bowmen who had not changed their bows for swords in the course of the battle ran up, ignoring the battle raging around them, and began showering arrows on the Firstborn who were crossing the ravine.

Not one of the detachment of orcs covering the retreat was left alive.

Blidkhard spat, then he looked his commander in the eye and said: “Don’t you go thinking that we’ve beaten them off. This is only the advance force of the orcs’ army. The main forces haven’t arrived yet; this lot just tried to take us in a rush. It didn’t work. They didn’t even have a single shaman with them, otherwise our enchantress wouldn’t have got away with much magic. But when the Bloody Axes or the Gruun Ear-Gougers get here, they’ll brush us aside like a feather. We won’t even last an hour against those clans.”

“By the way, how is our enchantress?”

“I’m alive,” Siena replied.

“I’m glad your health is in good order, and thank you for the help.”

“It wasn’t me,” the girl said, embarrassed.

“How’s that?” asked Hargan, raising one eyebrow. “Then who was it?”

“I mean, it wasn’t just me.” The enchantress became even more embarrassed. “The amulet helped.”

Hargan glanced at the magical drop of silvery metal.

“My teacher said it would protect me against the shamanism of the orcs. The amulet neutralizes that magic, if it is directed at me. And it turned out that it also restores my strength. This time I tried to use it in a slightly different way, and it gave me so much power I was almost crushed.”

The rumble of war drums drifted above a world soaked in blood. During the night the orcs had attacked the humans’ fortifications eight times. They had managed to force their way past the wall three times, despite the hail of arrows from the bowmen and the determination of soldiers who stood to the death. Every time the orcs were thrown back the losses had been greater. The Firstborn simply went on and on testing the mettle of the Dog Swallows. The ravine was half full of bodies. There were almost no arrows left and the bowmen had to pick up what the orcs had sent them in order to manage to return the fire from the wave of attackers.

Hargan’s brigade had done the impossible-it had held out against the enemy for almost four days, giving Grok’s army a huge start. The commander glanced round at the few survivors. Thirty-nine men. Thirty-nine tired, bandaged, bloodstained men. The only ones who had survived this far, who had endured.

Blidkhard was gone. The young Borderman protecting the enchantress was gone. And the girl herself had been killed. After Siena destroyed one of the enemy’s shamans, the orcs had set out specifically to hunt her down, and during the last sally they had eventually succeeded, managing to surround her and her bodyguards.

But meanwhile, at the cost of catastrophic losses, the men had forced the orcs to show them respect. They had forced a race that despised everyone else living in Siala to act with caution and not simply come dashing headlong across that cursed ravine.

The soldiers would not survive the ninth attack. Everyone who was still alive knew that.

“We’ll show the Firstborn how soldiers ought to die!” said Fox, picking up his beloved flails and listening to the rumble of the approaching drums.

“Yes, we’ll show them,” said Hargan, getting up off the ground. “Look, Fox, it’s stopped raining!”

“That’s a good sign.”

“Raise the banner! Bugler, sound the alert. Bowmen to the battle line! Kill the enemy, show no mercy!”

And the orcs advancing on those cursed fortifications that would not surrender heard the cry that others before them had heard and feared each time they retreated from the walls of the ravine.

“NO MERCY!”