Haven 5 Blood Magic BOOK (29 page)

Oberon’s troops rushed past the monster and down the far side, but something gave him pause. The elf lord himself retreated one step, then three.

A second tremendous boom and flash shocked them all. The abomination disintegrated, struck squarely for a second time.

“Archers,” screamed Oberon, though his own voice seemed muffled as his ears still rang with the aftereffects of the bombard fired at such close range. “Kill the crews! Silence those bombards!”

The volleys were ragged, but effective. Oberon gathered what infantry he could and threw them into the charge. Slipping over the bloody pile of flesh that was his destroyed abomination, merlings croaked hopelessly as they scrambled to obey the terrifying elf sorcerer.

The rest of the bombards cracked and flashed, firing gravel into the charging infantry, but once the elf arrows sizzled into their flesh and the infantry were among them, the weaponeers were quickly slain. The last to stand was the wild-haired commander known as Thorkil, a Kindred with orange hairs sprouting in every direction and eyes that were even more mad than usual. He simply would not die, and took a dozen wriggling lance points and black-tipped arrows to the guts before he cursed them all and sagged down, wheezing.

Oberon stood upon the blood-slick cobbles and thought that perhaps his curse had already done its dark work. They had lost too many.

Then he ordered his exhausted troops to take up the yokes of the great bombards and serve as beasts of burden. To aid them, he built smaller horrors with no more than a dozen limbs each. These applied their unfeeling strength to move the fantastically heavy bell-shaped metal bombards. They would drag the weapons to the nearest rise, and they would turn them on the gates of Snowdon itself.

They would pound the Great Gates to rubble and then Snowdon itself would fall.

* * *

Brand held a second council with his commanders. This time they had no tent, no roof, and it had begun to rain in cool, whispering sheets. Their heads dribbled water, and their hair hung in limp curls that clung to serious faces.

“Milord, the men are nearing exhaustion,” said a captain.

Brand whirled upon him. He was one that had, back in the Deepwood, urged them forward with great zeal. Brand leveled a finger in his direction. The axe shifted upon his back restlessly.

“You quail now? In the very face of the enemy? These men know nothing of exhaustion. Not yet. They have not even lifted their swords against a charging line of foemen.”

“But, milord,” said the captain, his eyes hollow. Brand eyed him. He was a few years older than Brand, perhaps thirty. But he had not seen the things Brand had seen. Not a tenth of them. Not a twentieth. By that measure, he was a stripling.

Brand lifted his arm upward, to where the bombards flashed and boomed every half hour or so. They fired at something, but none who stood at the foot of these mountains knew what.

“A great battle is being waged up there. At the very entrance to Snowdon itself. For all we know, the Kindred are falling as we speak. We’ve had no word. Gronig has been erased, its people slaughtered and turned inside-out into hideous monsters.”

Brand began striding among them now, his hands balled into fists. The axe was safely away, but it still had a grip upon his mind. As well, he truly felt for the Kindred.

“Always, we have called upon the Kindred for aid. They helped us when the Fae hunted us for skins in the forests. They helped us in the swamps of the Dead Kingdoms. Today, if we had called them to Riverton to aid us, they would have come without hesitation. So why do we hesitate?”

He glared at each of them in turn. Only Corbin and Jak, who still wanted to rush up that black stony path to an unknown ridge and an unknown battle, dared return his gaze.

Brand nodded. “Gather every man you can. Arm any Kindred survivor who might march with us. We will leave in one hour. I will personally decapitate any man who cowers and shames the Haven.”

Tomkin whistled long and low as he walked away from them. He hopped close and winked at Brand.

“What do you want?” demanded Brand.

The manling grinned and pointed up at the night-shrouded ridge. Rain lashed the peaks and cobbled roadway alike. “I want to march my Rainbow along that lovely pathway. Can you imagine the destruction?”

Brand paused and blinked rainwater from his eyes, staring at Tomkin. He slowly smiled. “That would be a lovely start to the day for the elves. You need a bit of sunlight and rain to form up a good Rainbow, don’t you?”

“Indeed,” said Tomkin, grinning as widely as only one of the Wee Folk could.

“Would dawn do the trick?”

“Aye, that would serve very well,” chuckled Tomkin.

Brand, feeling heartened, rushed to find his roan and to gather his forces for the ascent.

* * *

As dawn tinged the skies pink over the Black Mountains, Snowdon shook with the impacts of multiple strikes against the Great Gates. They held yet, but for how long?

Dust sifted down from overhead. There was dust everywhere, and Gudrin could taste it in the air. Heavy thuds came up through the stone tiles right into her boots. She could feel every strike with her toes.

 The bombards spoke again. Gudrin walked unsteadily to the viewing mechanisms. Built with ancient wisdom, tubes ran from the battlements over the Great Gates to spy on the external world. Using mirrors, prisms and carefully polished lenses, the viewing mechanisms allowed her to survey the outside world. Drilled holes, carefully hidden here and there amongst the cliffs and scrub growths of Snowdon’s face gave her many secret sights. Possessing the many glittering eyes of a spider, Snowdon could not easily be blinded. As Gudrin worked a series of wheels and gears, she reflected once again that in the end, the stoic mechnicians were perhaps the greatest heroes among the Kindred. Few songs were sung of them, not even among her own folk. But their fantastic works had, in many cases, been the cause of Kindred triumphs.

She watched Oberon and his unholy throng of allies. She had ordered her own troops to retreat behind the safety of the Great Gates, and closed the mountain behind them. No army since the stronghold’s construction had ever managed to breach the gates. She hoped that they would stop Oberon.

Inwardly, she chided herself. The bombards might break through the gates, and her own orders had given those weapons to her enemies. There would have been no chance of the gates falling if the enemy not taken the bombards. She did not blame Captain Thorkil, however. She had sent him out to fire upon the elves and distract them from their grim work in Gronig. He had fought well, and retreated exactly as she had ordered. But the elves and their new monsters, work clearly of the Red Jewel, had been a nasty surprise. They had caught Thorkil, when he should have been able to escape.

It had been a grave miscalculation, and it was entirely her fault. She had not known Oberon wielded the Red. In retrospect, she realized now she should have let them utterly destroy Gronig. That would have been the safe move, but she had not in her heart been able to abandon so many of her people to slaughter. She had none to blame but herself for the capture of the bombards. Hopefully, that mistake had not cost her people their existence. Without them, even the abominations had not the strength to hammer their way through the Great Gates.

“My queen,” said the chamberlain behind her. There was open worry in his voice, as she had scorched him earlier upon learning the bombards had been captured.

“What is it?”

“I would suggest you gaze upon Gronig.”

She blinked and glanced at him. “What new hellish news do you bring me?”

He smiled hopefully. His fingers waggled in the air. He was a diffident member of the Talespinners, one that she had never liked much. “If you would but look,” he said. “I think you will find the news pleasing.”

She sighed and stumped over to the viewing apparatus that gazed eastward. There she worked the wheels until a vision of the smoking ruin that was once the thriving town of Gronig came into view.

“I fail to see what—” she began, then she broke off. “Are those horsemen? They mount the ridge. The River Folk! Brand has come at last.”

“Yes, milady, that was our conclusion,” said the Chamberlain, effusing at having pleased her. “Now that the sun is rising, you can see clearly that the River Folk have a serious force and are marching up to trap the elves on the ridge.”

Gudrin hooted and laughed. It was a sound she’d not made in a weeks. “If we can hold here, we have them.”

She hammered her fists upon walls around the viewing apparatus and stared into the mechanisms. Her fists ran with flame and blackened her already crispy leather coat, but she took no notice.

She turned away then, calling for her captains and for messengers. They would relay her orders throughout the caverns, transmitted to her troops via flashes of light generated by lantern-like devices built with mirrors, lenses and flame. Using these communication systems, they were able to send coded orders over great distances to troops in the field, so long as there was nothing blocking the beams.

She had distributed her troops as best she could, given the circumstances. The kobold raiders ran about burning lichen farms, breweries and mining operations. She had companies of scouts armed with crossbows hunting them, but they were not her primary concern. They were an irritant and a distraction, this she knew. The real threat came from the concentration of gnomes and kobolds that had boiled out in the dusty wastes near the vents of the Earthlight itself. They could not be allowed to destroy the works there, nor could they be allowed to take the citadel. So far, they had not made their move. They had spent the hours since breaking through the plug gathering their numbers and organizing. Soon, however, she knew they would move. She suspected they waited until the gates were breached. Then, they planned to strike her army from both sides at once.

She and her Kindred regiments had not been idle, however. Between the gnome army and her own city, at the center of which stood the broken citadel, she had gathered the majority of her forces. Fully five regiments, each led by a squadron of three crawlers, stood at the ready. In reserve, she had the golems, called back from guarding the plugs. They had proven to be the most difficult for the enemy to defeat.

Now, however, with Oberon at her gates, she wished she had a greater force up here. If those five regiments or the golems were available, she could sally when Brand arrived and crush the elves between two armies with no retreat.

Chewing on her hand, she felt flames tickle her nostrils. The bright orange light of them, dancing up from her hands, did not burn, but made her squint. It was odd, she thought briefly, how accustomed she’d become to the gentle licking of flame. As the master of the Orange, flame did not burn her, but it did feel as if the finest gauze was being fluttered over her skin by a mischievous child.

She nodded to herself, coming to a conclusion. She would order her remaining five golems to march up the long walk to the gates. The good thing was that when they arrived, they would devastate the elves. But she had to hope that five regiments of heavy troops with crawlers leading them were enough to stop the gnomes and the kobolds.

The mountain shook with another impact, as the bombards snapped and hurled another volley. There was no time for further dithering. Still chewing upon her flaming fingers, she shouted out her orders.

She had a heavy heart, for she was committed now. The golems were far too slow to switch fronts a second time.

* * *

Like a great blue snake, Brand’s army wound up the steep cobbled road to the ridge. They were tired, but still game, when they reached the top. But once there, they saw nothing of the enemy. To the north rose up Snowdon, looking majestic, its crown laden with icy mist. Below a great battle raged, they could tell that by the continued flashing and booming of the bombards. But they could not see how it went.

“That way, comrades, lies the enemy,” he shouted to those nearest. “By moving up behind them, we have trapped them on this ridge between the army of the Kindred and our own. I do not expect this to be easy, but we clearly have the advantage.”

Jak had joined with the archers since he had the most training as a hunter. He tugged at Brand’s leg as he sat upon his roan, watching the army march by.

“Brand?”

“What is it, Brother?”

“Some of our hunters have noticed—
shapes
moving about on this mountain behind us.”

Brand craned his neck, frowning. Jak referred to the nearest peak of the Black Mountains, which loomed to the south. He knew nothing of it, but plainly it wasn’t as large as Snowdon and was rather barren at the summit.

“I don’t see anywhere for troops to hide upon its face. But the Fae are nothing if not tricksy. If your men see more shapes up there, shoot them!”

Jak nodded, and gazed up at the mountain with troubled eyes. Brand turned back to toward Snowdon. There, in his mind, lay the real battle.

It felt good, so
very
good, to be close to battle again. It had been too long. His mind, his hand, and most of all his
axe
ached to get into the thick of it again.

He urged his roan to a trot and pushed through his marching troops to the front. Tomkin hopped up there with Corbin. Everyone was eager. After the horrors they had witnessed in Gronig, there was a general desire to get to the elves themselves, to slay the real culprits.