Swordmage

TWENTY-FOUR

10 Tarsakh, the Year of the Ageless One

The Hulburgans had chosen a good defensive position. The track descending from the moorland down into the river valley ran between a high hillside on the east and a small rocky rise on the right. The white rushing Winterspear wound across the vale just in front of the human defenses, spanned by an old bridge of stone. One of their small watchtowers stood atop the rocky rise. Mhurren grinned in appreciation as he studied the small army arrayed against him. The sun had set more than an hour ago, but great bonfires burned across here and there in front of the human positions, set so the humans would have light enough to fight by. The human soldiers were careful to stand well back from the firelight; they might not be able to see past the line of fires, but then again, Mhurren couldn’t send his warriors at them without sending them through the firelight. Whoever the commander was, he was no fool.

“They think that little stream will stop us?” Kraashk snarled. The hobgoblin chieftain waved his hand at the humans. He was taller than Mhurren by half a head, and his rank brown hair was braided with tapers around his face; in battle Kraashk lit them to wreathe his face in flame and reeking smoke, believing it terrified his enemies. He pointed across the vale to its lower side, where the hillsides steepened and drew together again. “They would be wiser to stand at the defile, there.”

Mhurren shook his head. “The river runs through the middle of it. Dividing their warriors between the banks would be folly. Each part is unable to guard the other there. No, their captain chose good ground. The whole army fights as one, and he can fall back if he is beaten here.”

“You think like a human,” Kraashk said and let his fangs show for an instant to demonstrate that he did not mean it as a compliment.

The Bloody Skull chieftain ignored his vassal’s barb. He studied the vale for a time, then nodded to himself. It was a good plan. He pointed to the high hillside on the humans’ right flank. “Can your wolf riders manage that hillside, Kraashk?”

The hobgoblin studied it for a moment. “It won’t be easy, but yes, they could do it.”

“Then my plan is simple. Take your wolf riders around to the top of that hill. I will attack down the throat of the valley and bring the humans right to the edge of the stream. When I signal, you bring the Red Claws down the hill and take them in the flank. The humans will be busy with me, so they won’t have time to shoot at you.”

Kraashk grinned in appreciation, and this time he intended no insult. “A good plan,” the hobgoblin said. For all the fierceness he claimed, he was quite clever and quickly grasped what Mhurren intended. “Give me an hour to get my wolf riders where you want them, then begin your attack. Do not call for me too early.”

“Then go,” Mhurren said. The hobgoblin held up his spear in salute then jogged off into the cold and windy night, already barking out orders at his tribesmen. Mhurren looked around. “Avrun!” he called.

The Warlock Knight was waiting nearby. “Yes, King Mhurren?”

“I will drive the Hulburgans down the valley in an hour. Can you see the place where the valley narrows, there? I want your manticores and wyverns to wait there on the heights. When the Hulburgans flee, they are to feast.”

The helmed human nodded. “What of my spellcasters?”

“They are to shield my warriors. We will attack at the bridge, there. Use your magic to keep the humans from shooting us to pieces.”

“It shall be as you say,” the Vaasan agreed. He went off to speak with the other black-armored humans and their pet monsters.

Mhurren idly wondered what Avrun would do if he came up with a plan that the Warlock Knights objected to. Would they try to reason with him? Threaten him? Use some form of magical compulsion? Or simply arrange his death and replace him with a warchief more amenable to their control? Tonight it did not matter, but the day would come when he decided that he would not do what they wished him to do. The trick was simple: He needed to make himself strong enough that the Skullsmashers, the Red Claws, and the other bands of rabble infesting Thar feared him more than they feared Vaasa. Destroying Hulburg would be a good start toward that goal. Each victory Mhurren won would increase his standing among the other chieftains of Thar, and soon enough they would come to believe that he’d won those victories with his own strength and cunning, not Vaasan magic or allegiances. And when they did, he might have a chance to turn against the Warlock Knights and rule in his own name.

Mhurren called his own Bloody Skull chiefs and captains together and gave them their instructions. Then he settled down to wait, squatting atop a boulder that gave him a good view of the valley below. The moon was waning and close to new, but the night was clear; he could easily make out hilltops miles away over the moorland. A cold, cheerless wind moaned through the hollows and over the hills around him… a ghost wind, as his warriors called it. Tonight the spirits of old warriors were close by, doubtless gathering to watch the fight about to take place and roar approval from the land of the dead.

He brooded on his own thoughts for a time, and then the Warlock Knight Avrun approached him. “King Mhurren, the Red Claws are in position. Kraashk awaits your command.”

“I hear you,” Mhurren said. “I will tell you when to signal him.” He set his helm on his head and picked up his iron-shod spear then trotted down to the place where his troops were gathering, a long bowshot above the Hulburgans. He found another boulder amid his milling warriors and scrambled to its top, so that all could see him.

“Listen to me, Bloody Skulls!” he shouted. “Listen to me, Skullsmashers!” The orcs and ogres around him fell quiet, and the silence rippled out so that most of the warriors in the horde turned to look on him and await his words. “There below you stand the warriors of the human king who murdered Morag and threw back his head in contempt!” The Bloody Skulls snarled in anger at that; the Skullsmashers had no idea who Morag was, but the dimwitted ogres knew a fight was near and they snarled too. “There below you stand the warriors whose people hunt your game, trap your furs, and steal your gold out of the earth! Look on them, my brothers-they are all that stands between you and Hulburg tonight. Deal with these, and all the gold and fur and food that they have stolen from you over the years is yours for the taking. A thousand slaves we herd out of Hulburg tomorrow, and all the plunder you can carry-if only you fight well tonight and slay these weaklings where they stand! Each warrior who takes from this field the skull of a human felled by his hand wins honor tonight, but you must strike swiftly, my brothers, because there are more of you than there are of them! He who is slow, who hesitates, who holds back when others charge forward, he takes no head tonight. Now, go and slay!”

With that Mhurren leaped down from his perch, pointing his spear at the humans across the field, and darted into the firelight. Thousands of orcs and ogres around him roared in battle-fury and followed, each striving to cross the firelit vale and be the first to claim a head. Arrows, bolts, and battle spells leaped out of the human shieldwall as Mhurren’s orcs appeared out of the darkness; many of the missiles and streaking fireballs vanished in sparks of crimson flame, intercepted by the Vaasan mages who worked to shield the Bloody Skull horde, but others slipped through. Orcs howled and fell rolling to the slope as arrows and bolts bit into flesh, while only a few yards from Mhurren a sphere of crackling lightning suddenly exploded amid several ogres and speared them where they stood with brilliant green bolts. The ogres shrieked and jerked horribly as smoke burst from their flesh, and they fell twitching an instant later. Mhurren ran past them, ignoring the dead and dying warriors.

He slowed his steps a little and looked around to get a good sense of how the attack was going. His Skull Guards clustered in a tight knot around him, guarding him with their shields. The Skullsmashers stormed the bridge, swarming up and over the small stone span-but a loud cracking sound ripped through the night, and the bridge suddenly collapsed into the stream, taking half a dozen ogres with it. “Clever,” Mhurren growled. The humans had sabotaged the span; he should have expected that. But elsewhere his warriors reached the bank of the Winterspear-here a cold, swift stream not more than forty feet wide and several feet deep-and began to wade recklessly across into the teeth of the human defenses. Orcs died by the scores in the water, shot down as they floundered and struggled against the current. But other warriors on the streambank hurled javelins and heavy spears over the water, taking a toll of the humans waiting on the far bank. Mhurren’s nostrils flared at the smell of blood, and he ached to throw himself headlong into the fray and lead his warriors across, but he restrained himself. He was a warlord, not a berserker, and that meant that sometimes he had to fight with his wits as well as with his hands.

Orcs and ogres reached the far bank only to die under the blades of the Hulburgan soldiers waiting for them. More warriors swarmed up behind them, pushing forward into the steel of humans and dwarves. It was not a fight that favored the Bloody Skulls, since their greater numbers were compressed into a comparatively small frontage, but even so the sheer mass and ferocity of the horde made itself felt. Foot by foot the Hulburgan line wavered, shoved back by the growing press. Mhurren waited thirty heartbeats more just to be sure of the moment, and then he wheeled and shouted at his guards, “The banner, now!”

Two of the Skull Guards raised up a bright yellow banner with the image of a crimson skull crudely depicted on it and waved it from side to side. One staggered and fell with an arrow quivering between his shoulder blades, but the sign was already given. A hundred yards behind them, one of the Vaasan spellcasters launched a blazing missile of green fire straight up into the air, where it burst over the battlefield. From the darkness above and to one side of the human lines, a chorus of fierce howls and war-cries greeted the signal. “You are not so clever as you think,” Mhurren growled at his unseen adversary. Somewhere behind the human lines, some lord or captain had just tasted his first true fear of the battle.

Shouts of consternation and distress arose from the right flank of the Hulburgan lines, and then Mhurren saw his wolf riders come pelting down the steep hillside behind the soldiers fighting at the stream. A number stumbled and fell, rolling down helplessly-but even those served to knock down the humans or dwarves they tumbled into. He grinned in triumph; while he’d hammered on his enemy’s shield with his right hand to keep him busy, he’d just managed to gut him with a cleaver in his left. The fight would not last long.

“At them, Skull Guards!” Mhurren shouted. “I mean to take a head tonight!” He sprinted forward to join the fray, splashing into the icy water not far from the ruined bridge. He clambered up onto the far bank unhindered-his warriors had already pushed the Hulburgans back from the water’s edge. Spying an opening in the lines, he roared a battle cry and dashed forward to bury his spearhead in the heart of a human soldier who did not raise his shield swiftly enough. The man cried out and fell. Mhurren wrenched his steel out of the man’s chest and turned to battle another soldier, this one a sturdy dwarf who nearly took off the warlord’s foot with a low, quick axe-cut. They traded several blows, spear darting to find a way around the shield, axe whistling through the air, and then an ogre came up behind the dwarf and smashed him broken to the wet ground with a huge overhand blow from his massive club. Mhurren growled in frustration and shifted away to find another foe.

He felt the beginning of the rout before he saw it. Soldiers shrank away from his warriors, giving ground a step or two at a time, then more quickly. Off to his right, on the enemy’s lightly engaged side, one of their companies-footmen in checkered surcoats of scarlet and white, likely one of the mercenary companies the Hulburgan merchants hired-stepped off the line and began an orderly withdrawal, which of course exposed the companies next to them. More of the Hulburgans began to withdraw as orcs howled after them, axes and spears raised high. The enemy companies on the Hulburgan right were already shattered, caught between the hammer and anvil of Red Claw wolf riders and Bloody Skull warriors fording the Winterspear. Only the harmach’s own Shieldsworn stood fast, holding the center, but they were in grave danger of being surrounded as the flanks crumbled on each side.

Mhurren plunged back into the fray, attacking the Shieldsworn in front of him. He speared a tall veteran with a beard of iron gray then drew back his arm and hurled his spear at another human who stood with his back to the warchief. The weapon transfixed him; he spun to the ground, sword falling from his fingers. The half-orc swept a heavy, curved sword from his belt and bounded over to the dying soldier, taking his head with one smooth strike. “This is my trophy!” he shouted to his Skull Guards, and then he looked for another enemy.

Trumpets sounded in the vale, and the human soldiers turned and jogged back, giving more ground. Behind them a single line of horsemen formed up to serve as a rear guard, while the rest began to stream back out of the vale after the mercenaries who had already abandoned the field. The captain of the horsemen waved her sword over her head and cried out in a high, clear voice: “Countercharge! Countercharge!”

The riders spurred forward at the vast horde swarming down against them, lances lowered, and threw a shock into Mhurren’s warriors that stopped them where they stood. At once the human riders wheeled and galloped back out of range-not before a couple were caught and dragged out of their saddles-and then turned to form another line behind their captain. Mhurren peered at her and scowled. She wore the griffon surcoat all the harmach’s men wore, but her griffon was gold in color instead of blue, and her eyes glittered with an eerie luminous light. “The Blue Serpent,” he hissed.

Few human warriors earned much respect from the Bloody Skulls, but he’d heard enough stories about Kara Hulmaster and her skill with bow and blade. Right before his eyes she was throwing back his warriors’ assaults in order to give her soldiers a chance to escape his trap.

“Again!” she shouted. “Countercharge!” And once again the line of fifty riders threw itself into the hundreds upon hundreds of orcs and ogres and wolf riders who pressed close behind and hammered them to a standstill. They broke free again and retreated, missing a few more of their comrades, but the harmach’s champion still rode at their head.

“That one at least knows the meaning of courage,” he said. It was almost a pity to slay a warrior of such heart, but die she must. He sheathed his sword and held out his hand to the nearest Skull Guard. “Quickly, your spear!”

The warrior handed Mhurren his spear-a good weapon, well-balanced and strong-and Mhurren studied his quarry carefully. She rallied her riders for one more attack against the swarming horde surrounding them and shouted again. “Countercharge! For Hulburg!”

The warchief took three quick steps and flung his spear with all his strength. It was a long throw, since he was a good forty yards behind the ragged lines of his warriors, but he gave himself a running start, and he aimed well. The spear arced down through the darkness as she galloped forward to meet it unknowingly. And then, at the last instant, somehow she glimpsed the spear hurtling at her heart. She threw up her sword and parried the flashing spearpoint, batting it aside so that it flew over her shoulder.

“The luck of a witch!” said the warrior whose spear Mhurren had borrowed.

Mhurren watched as she crashed once more into his warriors, laying about her with her blade, and then emerged again to gallop away. He snorted and shook his head. “That was not luck, Ruurth. That was skill. Her death does not wait on this field.”

This time, the remaining Shieldsworn riders-less than half of those who had first stood against the Bloody Skulls-did not reform their lines. They’d bought enough time for the survivors of Hulburg’s army to make their escape. The harmach’s champion led them through the narrow defile at the lower side of the field, retreating into the broad Winterspear Vale beyond. Mhurren noted with wry amusement that dozens of torn bodies in coats of checkered white and scarlet were strewn along the narrow path. The mercenaries who’d fled the battle first had simply ensured that they were the first to discover the Vaasans’ waiting monsters. “A fitting end for faithless cowards,” he muttered.

“A good fight, Mhurren!” The Red Claw Kraashk sat atop his huge worg, leaning on the saddlehorn. Smoke streamed from the burning tapers in his beard and hair. Blood oozed from a broken-off arrow embedded in the hobgoblin’s left thigh, but he paid it no mind. “They’ll run all the way back to the Moonsea, I think.”

“Not if I can help it,” the warlord answered. “Harry them at every step, Kraashk. Make them turn and stand ten times an hour. If you slow them down, we can catch them out in the open fields and destroy them completely.”

“That will cost me wolves and warriors,” the hobgoblin warned.

“And in token of that, the Red Claws will earn a generous share of the city’s plunder,” Mhurren answered. “But we can’t take the city unless we destroy the harmach’s army, and to do that, I need you to make them stand and fight somewhere far from help.”

Kraashk nodded. “As you say, then, Warlord. But I will hold you to your promise when it comes time to pick our plunder.” He dug his heels into his worg’s flanks, and the monstrous wolf snarled and bounded away into the darkness after the retreating Hulburgans.

Mhurren watched him go and grinned. With any luck, Kraashk would find a way to get himself killed and spare him the trouble of finding a suitable bribe. But if not, well, he’d simply allow the Red Claws to take a little more from what the Vaasans asked him to spare. There would be enough plunder that he didn’t feel that he had to share his own.