Legend of the Swords: War (25 page)

“Oh, I think so, Renek.” Hesiod shook his head. “Although, in truth, I’m not sure that the king would do any differently. There was a time, not more than a few years ago, that Aiden, at least, had the interests of the kingdom at heart. Not so much, now—the war has changed him.”

“The war?” Renek spoke forcefully. “But he stays at his castle, while we are out here dying for him!”

“True, but he cared quite a lot about his soldiers. Watching them die was hard on him. And he found out in the first few battles he fought, long ago, that he wasn’t much of a commander. I think he would only come out to a battle now if he felt that the kingdom itself was at stake.”

Renek snorted. “It might be, right now.”

“I know.” Hesiod nodded.

“Well, there’s one good thing about this.” Renek smiled grimly.

“What’s that?”

“If we decide to sneak off to try to get the weapons, it won’t be noticed as quickly.”

Hesiod pursed his lips, and then shook his head. “I don’t know if that’s true. The prince seems … interested in you. I think he probably has people watching you to see if you do anything that he can use against you.”

Renek’s eyes narrowed. “Is that what you would do in this situation?”

Hesiod smiled. “Of course," he said.

“Well, at least you’re honest about it.”

“To you, I am.” His smile grew broader. “To you.”

*   *   *

Michael was a powerhouse on the battlefield, and, as Hesiod had predicted, the men liked him. He used a two handed sword instead of a sword and shield. The massive blade was nearly as long as Michael was tall, and was quite effective. It seemed to intimidate the enemy, and the Triols quickly learned to fear Michael almost as much as they feared Renek.

They fought well together, inspiring each other to do better each day. Michael seemed to be at his best when he was in a genial competition with his men. He asked his men to compare numbers of Triol warriors killed at the end of each day. Renek usually came in first, but occasionally Michael would win the day.

Their unit’s success inspired the entire army, and after a few days even the Singers spent more time helping them than the other units. Lightning bolts turned out to be one of the least powerful attacks they had. One battle saw Triols momentarily turned into giant weeds, easy for the kingdom soldiers to cut down with their sharp swords; the next day there were giant fireballs landing in the midst of the attacking army; one skirmish ended with the kingdom soldier’s weapons becoming strong enough to slice through the Triol’s swords.

The Triols fought back valiantly, but they were losing more and more men each day. It started to look like the kingdom might be able to pull off a success. About a week after Michael arrived, the black-robed Triol Singers seemed to disappear—at least, there were no more incidents of invulnerability or counters to the kingdom mages’ attacks.

“You know, Renek,” began Hesiod, one evening in Renek’s tent. “I think we might be able to pull this one out.” He stretched back on his chair, lifting his hands towards the canvas cover above him. “Maybe James is right.”

“Maybe. Their Singers disappearing certainly helped.” Renek grimaced, and reached for the glass of wine in front of him. “But I think it’s worse than it looks.” He pointed back at the generals’ tent. “If we had that map in front of us, I’d show you what I mean.” He shook his head. “Let’s say that we ‘win’ here. How many soldiers will we have left when we rout them? A thousand? Fifteen hundred? That’s not enough to defend the kingdom against a small army of grandmothers wielding iron pots.”

Hesiod laughed. “Perhaps you’re right about that. By the way, do you like the wine? It’s one of my last bottles. I’ll be very sad next week when we have to switch to whiskey. I couldn’t find any good whiskey when we left town, the stuff I brought is rotgut.

“I don’t know much about the political situation as it stands now,” Hesiod continued, “but there is another kingdom that borders ours, the Kerlin … they might just be waiting for us to be finished here before they swoop in to the capitol.” He stroked his chin thoughtfully.

“Exactly. What about the Kerlin.” He looked intently at Hesiod. “How many soldiers do we have left? Five thousands?”

Hesiod nodded. “Perhaps six.”

“Even that’s not enough, Hesiod, and we’re not done with this yet. My guess is that the Triols still have nearly ten.” He shrugged. “We’ll be lucky to have two, even if we win. Two is not enough, not to defend the kingdom against any real invasion.”

“We might be able to defend the capitol with that many,” Hesiod said. “It’s heavily fortified. That might discourage an attack.”

“I doubt it. We’re severely weakened. That’s the perfect time for an enemy to take advantage of us.”

Hesiod leaned forward, suddenly energized. “Then we have to go after the swords, Renek. It’s imperative, as you say. That would be enough of a deterrent to keep anyone else off of our backs.”

Renek was silent for a moment. “I still don’t like it. It would be like we were going behind the king’s back.” He smiled. “Or the prince’s. I don’t mind that so much, even if his strategy is turning out relatively well.”

“So far,” Hesiod said, ominously. “Who knows what those Triol Singers have gone off to do.”

Renek started. “You don’t think they’ve realized that they were on the ‘evil’ side?”

“No.” Hesiod shook his head slowly. “I think they’re up to no good. They may not have many of them, but I’m guessing that they have something in store for us that we’re not going to like.”

Renek nodded, pursing his lips.

*   *   *

They didn’t have to wait long to see what the Triols had in mind. The next morning, as the two armies prepared to face each other in the narrow valley, the Triols were enthusiastically pounding their shields with their swords in their famous rhythm. The very ground shook with the sound.

Renek felt the shaking. He looked up, behind the assembled Triol army, and saw several piles of boulders, twenty feet tall, arranged in a semblance of human form. Giant arms made of stalactites swung at the sides of enormous boulders, which rode on legs that somehow moved fluidly, almost as if they had hips, knees, and ankles articulating beneath their black bodies. They marched in time with the Triol pounding.

Oddly, all Renek could think was:
I’ll bet that Michael beats me in the numbers today.

*   *   *

The massive rock creatures towered over the Triol army. Their soldiers scattered to the side, making a wide pathway for the giants to march through. They marched in perfect time with the beat of the Triol shields.

Renek’s teeth chattered as the ground shook underneath him.

The front of the kingdom army broke. Man by man, they turned to flee as the creatures came close. They were at least twenty feet tall. Their bodies were made of rough, porous black rock. Their legs were stacks of fieldstone, which slid against each other, allowing the legs to bend. Their heads were made of carved gray boulders, with glowing eyes that seemed as large as a man’s head.

That’s interesting.
Renek thought to himself, staring at the multitude of stones.
It’s as if they’re cobbled together with whatever was around.
He looked closer, and saw that some of them were smaller, or missing pieces. He started counting, and found there were six.

Huh.

He wheeled his horse around and rode back towards the rear line. There were few kingdom soldiers left, most of them had run long before Renek had turned. He rode straight up to the generals’ area.

It was too much. The generals were staring, a bit dumbfounded at the sheer largesse of the other side’s use of magic. James actually had his mouth hanging open, but when he saw Renek riding up, it snapped shut. He looked at Renek, eyes narrowed.

James shook his head, bewildered. “Either they’ve got more Singers than we think or this battle is important enough to them that they’re willing to exhaust the ones they have.” He turned to look at Renek. “Do you have any ideas, soldier?”

“Not really,” Renek said. “They seem to be slow, though.” He walked his horse past the generals and up to the Singer behind them. He looked at the healer’s assistant who had been slightly familiar to him, and raised his eyebrows questioningly.

The man looked at him for a moment, then shrugged. He gestured towards Tristan, the other assistant Sorcerer.

Renek turned to Tristan. “What can we do?” he said, then shook his head and corrected himself. “I mean to say, what can
you
do, for I can do nothing against such beasts.”

Tristan laughed. He seemed relaxed, happy. “You would be surprised, warrior—for there is a lot that you can do.” He gestured towards the rock creatures. “You were last off of the field, weren’t you?”

Renek nodded.

“Well, then you are probably are brave enough.” He smiled, shaking his head in disbelief. “It has been centuries since anyone attempted to build golems like this. Rocks this large are quite fragile. One sharp blow can break a rock in two; once it is broken, its song will leave it, and it will become lifeless rock again.

“We will hold them off as long as we can—that will be, at most, an hour. Should you need to go close to them, we can protect you from falling rock, but you must do the rest.”

Renek raised his eyebrows. “What can I do?”

Tristan shrugged. “I don’t know.” He smiled broadly. “Keep yourself from getting hit by one of their pointed arms? Find a way to knock them over? They are tall, so if they fall they will hit with a large impact.” He turned back to the other Singer and started chanting. Thunderclouds began to gather.

Renek nodded, rubbing his chin. He turned in his saddle and snatched at where his saddle packs would have been, if they were marching—but he was outfitted for battle, and his bags were back in his tent.

Why is everyone looking at me?
Renek looked around, and saw that most of the generals weren’t just looking
at
him, they were looking
to
him. They either had no ideas, or the Singer speaking to him had temporarily lent him some authority. He glanced at the young prince, and saw that those feelings were not universal—James was glaring at him as if he were a Triol captain.

Well, I don’t hear any ideas coming from him.
He looked around, searching the at the scrub brush in the hills for ideas … until his eyes found some scraggly trees.

“Does anyone have a rope?” he asked.

*   *   *

Sheets of lightning were holding the creatures, and the army, back. When one stepped through, one of the Singers threw a small rock at it; when the rock struck, it exploded, pushing the creature back.

Unfortunately, the Singer that was throwing the rocks was completely exhausted by doing so. Clearly, a larger rock was out of the question. As it was, he had to sit down for a few minutes to rest, his clothes wringing with sweat, after every rock.

Meanwhile, Renek was busy.

“General Richard,” he began, “can we dig a trench across the center of the valley?”

Richard nodded. He spun his horse around and started gathering men.

A foot soldier came running with a long length of rope. He handed it to Renek.

“Thank you,” Renek said to the man. “Can you gather about a hundred men with swords and axes?” The swordsman saluted, and ran off.

Renek looked over at young prince James, a question on his lips…but saw James’s sneering face and thought the better of it. He turned instead to another old general.

“General, would it be possible to build a battering ram?” Renek asked. “ I can bring you a log. I would prefer a ballista or catapult…” He looked back at the Sorcerers. They were all sweating, now. “But I fear we do not have the time.”

The general nodded. “The smith back at camp has smoothed many logs for me.” He smiled. “He might even be able to find some metal to cap it with, since you say you will bring the wood.” He turned and galloped towards the camp.

The man he had sent to find swordsmen and axe wielders ran up to him, with several dozen men behind. “I could not find a hundred, sir, but there are perhaps sixty swords and ten axes.”

“It will have to do,” Renek said, and led them towards the trees.

Once they had gotten there, he stood with the copse of trees behind him and motioned for them to gather. They grouped up next to him.

“We only have a bit less than an hour before the Singers’ protections will fail.” He gestured towards the trees behind him. “I don’t need to tell you what will happen to us when that happens. We need as many logs as possible cut down and stripped of branches. And then we need them dragged to the top of the hillside near the lightning, and stacked on top of each other.

“Break up into groups of three or four men and cut trees as fast as you can!”

The men fell to with gusto. This was far better than fighting twenty-foot tall creatures that would break your weapon and stop you into jelly.

It wasn’t long before the group had about thirty small logs, about a foot in diameter. Renek whistled.

“Everybody get on one side of your logs!” He yelled. “Two of them go back to camp. The rest we can roll downhill, that’ll get us halfway there.” He wheeled his horse. “I’m going to prepare the site, just roll the logs up to me!”

Back at the kingdom army, one of the Singers gasped and fell as Renek galloped across the field. He heard the men gasp, and glanced over at the lightning barrier as it flickered, then froze in place. The lightning wasn’t moving any more. The stone creatures pushed against it, and it toppled to the ground and shattered as if it were made of ice.

The ground shook as the giant stone golems came to a stop in front of the shallow trench. It was about three feet deep, perhaps half as deep as their legs were tall. One of them stepped forward, hesitantly, and toppled forward. It fell across the trench and shattered, pieces flying everywhere.

No, that’s not right
. Renek thought.
It didn’t shatter, it broke into its original pieces of rock.