Ravenwild: Book 01 - Ravenwild (11 page)

Soon they were riding at a swift but controlled canter across a field. There did not seem to be any immediate danger, however they were not wasting any time. At the edge of the field they entered some sparse woods, and the trail became less and less distinct. The woods became more and more dense and soon, despite that fact that it was still early afternoon, Stephanie found herself straining to make out her surroundings because of the darkness. They proceeded at a slow walk for what seemed like hours. Nobody spoke. Nobody coughed. They halted. It was all Stephanie could do to make out the back of Erik, who was only a few feet in front of her. She looked around. They were in the middle of a patch of the largest ferns she had ever seen, the tops of which extended several feet over their heads. There were trees that looked like oak. They were huge. Imposing. They started along again, now at a snail’s pace. The footing seemed to be getting softer and the hooves of their mounts made little sucking noises in the mud. Nobody spoke a word. The ferns started to close in on them, almost as if they wished to show their displeasure at the group’s passing. Were it not for the dampness, it might have actually been pleasant to rub up against these soft monstrosities but, before she knew it, Stephanie was soaked to the bone. She found herself shivering at first. Then her teeth began chattering. Everything smelled of damp and rot. Even straining, she could now no longer see anything farther away than Spirit’s ears. So, when Erik was suddenly beside her, she was so surprised she almost lost her seat.

She recovered quickly, however, and took a small measure of comfort when he told her that in a few minutes they would come to a wall through which they would pass, using codes known only to the royal family and its appointees. Behind the wall they would find shelter, and once inside they would again be warm and dry. “Hang in there,” he concluded. “It’s going to get a lot better soon.” She caught the faintest glimpse of a smile and tried to manage one herself. If only she wasn’t so cold …

And then the world went insane.

Trolls, and what she presumed to be Gnomes, surrounded them. Not that she could see much of anything between the gloom and the oppressive ferns pushing in, but she saw enough to know that they were now all but captives. She caught glimpses of Cloud being hauled down by two huge Trolls holding fast to his halter. Then she heard Erik’s cry of warning end abruptly with a sickening thunk as something struck his head. Spirit too was being held as securely.

“That’s it,” she thought. “I’m outa here.”

She thought for the briefest of moments how sad it was that she had to abandon Erik and his band of loyal troops. How she would wonder forever how he had made out, if he had lived, what had finally happened. She even added to her own stream of thought how she had never met his father and mother, when she began the words to get her out of this nightmare. She managed to get out one, “I want to go home …” when everything went black.

Rolan couldn’t sit still. He was finding it extremely difficult to concentrate on the task before him, which was to attempt to figure out a way to get reinforcements and supplies to a contingent of his soldiers that were trapped in the hellhole known as The Gate. A fort, it sat on a narrow strip of land between the Slova River to the east, marking the southwestern border of Slova, the Agden River to the south, and the Pass of Defiance to the west. The Gate was situated in this no man’s land in between the three.

This same strip of land had originally been a trade route, but that was so long ago that almost none of the Humans, Dwarves, and Elves of Ravenwild even knew this. It took its name from those times, however, because in those days a large gate had been erected so that border inspectors could halt the advancing caravans of merchants in order to inspect the goods. Some of the elders might remember this, but to most it had become a long forgotten historical fact.

The Gate was of vital strategic importance because it overlooked the original trade route, through which ran a well-developed cobblestone road that led straight into the land of the Humans, Elves, and Dwarves, on which a Troll army could march right in. So, long before anyone decided that keeping written records of historical details mattered, soldiers had built the fortification from great blocks of stone that they had hauled on wagons down from the quarries of Logan, named after their discoverer. It was the most beautiful stone imaginable, basically pure white, flecked with splotches of pink.

The splendor of the remote stone citadel stood in sharp contrast to the solemnity of its mission as protectorate of the southern reaches of Ravenwild.

It had taken centuries to construct. It consisted of a large fortress that was capable of housing several battalions of soldiers and their families, and a wall, easily 60 feet high that completely surrounded it. The outpost had been subjected to every manner of assault and had never been conquered solely because of this wall, which was over four feet thick and perfectly smooth, every stone in its construction having been hand carved and polished to interlock perfectly with the next, so there was no possibility of handholds for attacking troops attempting to scale it.

The immediate problem for Rolan and his commanders was that about a thousand troops of the Slovan army had worked their way around it by fighting their way through the Agden Forest to the south. They had started out with an attack force of ten times that, but their already decimated numbers, after their arduous trek from the north, had been further whittled down by the large packs of Agden Wolves. Many called them border Wolves, given that their territory was the vast forest to the south of the border of the two lands. Agden Wolves were about three times the size of an ordinary wolf, and allowed absolutely no living thing to enter their woods without devouring it. And they were always hungry.

But the Trolls had succeeded, if the loss of ninety percent of an invasion force can be called a success, and now they had The Gate flanked.

Still, Leopold Malance Venomisis, Emperor of the Troll nation, considered it an
undeniable
success. The loss of thousands of his troops meant nothing to him. He had the fortress flanked. That was what mattered. Nobody could get in, nobody could get out. So he ordered brigade after brigade away from the conflict in the north with explicit instructions to his commanders to find a way to breach the walls. He had told his messengers to inform them that they had three weeks to get there, a journey that would normally take twice that long making good time. Every Troll knew that if they failed to arrive in this amount of time they would be tortured to death in front of the rest of the army. And it was the worst conceivable torture. Slow. Brutal. Such was the Slovan way. So they had marched like no other army before them had ever marched, through the sweltering heat of midsummer, and torrential rains that turned the footing into so much slop. With precious little for food, other than their fallen comrades, hundreds perished early on in the journey from simple causes: dehydration, starvation, and exhaustion. Then, in their weakened condition, hundreds more died from the infectious diseases that always prey upon the weak: pneumonia, blood poisoning, and mysterious stomach ailments causing diarrhea and vomiting.

One would think that these Troll soldiers might have considered rebelling against their own leadership, such was the hardship they were forced to endure to please the chain of command. Not so. A Slovan warrior was exactly that, a warrior, born to follow orders, no matter how harsh, no matter how irrational, no matter the consequences fostered upon his body.

What the Trolls did not know was that not two weeks before they had prevailed in their flanking maneuver, while so many of their forces were being torn to shreds by the Agden Wolves, Rolan had been forced to order most of his troops occupying the fortress dispatched to the north to deal with the military situations around Salem and in the Silver River valley. So the station was even weaker than the Slovans knew.

“We cannot just sit here and let the Trolls starve them out!” Luke shouted. He pounded his fist on the huge polished table in the Great Hall for emphasis. “We must attack. At once. Before Malance Venomisis has a chance to bring in the reinforcements. And it is not just the saving of our own soldiers that concerns me. We all know the consequences of losing The Gate. We would then be flanked to the north
and
to the south. War over. See you in the next world.”

Rolan returned his attention to the matters at hand.

What was causing his mind to drift away from the here and now was the fact that he had not seen Erik for days. This was not like his son. Not like him at all.

There was a loud knock on the door. This was an unprecedented event. All in the castle knew that it was strictly forbidden to interrupt the King and his commanders when they were in session. The only sound that followed in the next few moments was that of every Man, Dwarf, and Elf in the room baring his blade. All took up positions to protect the King, who called, “Come.”

The door swung open. It was Baird, a lieutenant of the House Guard and well known to all present. He immediately went to his knees. “My Lord, Commanders, please forgive me, but I bring you news I knew you would want to get without delay. Erik, and the entire North-Gate scout patrol, was attacked by a Troll squad, hours ago. The details are sketchy, but what we do know is the following …”

The face of Rolan turned ashen. Still, he managed, “Please, Lieutenant. Get up. There is no reason for you to be on your knees. There is
never
a reason for you to be on your knees before anyone in this kingdom, including me.”

Baird stood and continued. “My Lord, I surveyed the scene myself. The trail starts out at the tool shack by the north gardens. There were fourteen horses, which is odd because the North-Gate scout patrol, as you know, has only twelve in it. I did inquire with the stablemaster before I came here, and he tells me he saddled both of the Prince’s horses earlier this morning, and that he rode Cloud, leading Spirit behind him. He did not ask the young Prince directly why he needed the two but, from the way Erik was talking, he thought it might be to meet a girl. He is getting to the age … At any rate, the patrol made it as far as the edge of the gardens when they were intercepted by a band of Trolls. There were about twenty of them, all riding Lizardrulls. They were chased to Running Wolf Cliffs where they took flight using the underwings, and all of the Trolls went over. All were accounted for at the bottom. All were dead. We then trailed them to the Hagemore Woods. There were still fourteen of them. I am sure they were planning to use the tunnel. The trail ended in what was most surely a fight with a much larger squad of Trolls and Gnomes combined. Our lead tracker says there were seventy to seventy-five Trolls and half that again in Gnomes. These were all on foot. No Lizardrulls. There was a lot of blood. Still, he feels that the Prince survived because Cloud was one of the two horses that were led away. He could identify the hoof prints from the royal seal that is carved into the hoof, and the Trolls would never bother to let a captured plain soldier ride away, and he was clearly being ridden, most likely by someone unconscious and strapped over the saddle. We followed the trail to this side of the Silver River, where they met up with an even larger band of Trolls and Gnomes, more than one hundred strong. All of these were riding Lizardrulls, with extras for the captors of the Prince. From there they all crossed at Salmon Shallows, and they are presently headed east towards the border.”

He stopped talking, but looked like he had more to say. Rolan noticed this and asked, “Is there anything else, Lieutenant?”