Ravenwild: Book 01 - Ravenwild (78 page)

Messengers had arrived saying the invasion had already begun. There was not time for a problem.

They walked back alongside of the hull and into the underground workshops, where Gnomes labored furiously at their appointed tasks.

“Not too thin, Sopras,” said Titan to one who was rasping away at a massive piece of oak laminate that was about twenty feet long and curved throughout its length. “Too thin and she’ll split for sure. That’s a good lad. Get her nice and round and nice and smooth. Feather that leading edge. That’s right. Good.

“The tiller,” he said to Saviar over his shoulder as they continued along. “You know, to steer her once she’s underway.”

They stopped at a room in which had been set up a large, round, iron tank, perhaps twenty feet across. In it floated a small replica of the ship. “It’s pretty obvious what the problem is,” said Titan. “She won’t float straight. And the
reason
is, she is going to need rock in her belly. Like this.”

He bent forward and picked up a handful of stones. He removed the deck from the model and placed a few of them in the hold, replaced the deck, and put it back in the tub. “See,” he said. “Right as rain!”

The ship floated perfectly straight now. He gave it a gentle shove, and while it rocked slightly, it quickly came back straight upright.

“I take it we need to add stone to the big one,” said Saviar Murlis.

“Correct.”

“And where are we supposed to get this stone, and how much of it do we need?”

“Well,” said Titan, with a glint in his eye, “we would need to get it from the stone quarries up by Kohansk. But that would take weeks. I figure pig iron would work as well. Now as it turns out, I know a Gnome who knows a Gnome … who is a smithy. I am told that yesterday he received a very large shipment of the stuff from a certain Troll supply man, with orders to turn it all into weapons, and tools and such. It would be a simple matter to arrange that it “arrived” here by sundown tonight, but the crew boss tells me he is two Gnomes short of help. That leaves you and me. Pig iron is not light material, as you know.”

“Well, let’s have at it then,” said Saviar. “What’s holding us up?” then, “Oh my aching back.”

Titan grinned. “Mine’s a lot older and aches a lot more. No complaining.”

Jared awoke, shaking the sleep from his eyes. It was still an hour before sunup, and with the thick cloud cover it was dark enough to keep him from seeing much of anything. He listened carefully before he stirred, ever mindful that he might be within spitting distance of an enemy if anything had happened to Diana. He crawled slowly out from under the huge pine where he had slept, during a drenching rain, and all the way to the spot where he knew she had stood watch. She raised a hand in warning, lest he speak. He eased up to her, and she motioned in the general direction of the trail. She made walking motions with her fingers and pointed again towards the trail, then gestured that she didn’t know if they were friendlies or not. He nodded that he understood and motioned that he was going to take a better look. He slipped off in the direction of the trail, disappearing into the murk.

In about half an hour he was back, and smiling. “Troops,” he said softly. “Ravenwild troops, lots of them, lots and lots of them. It looks like a major military movement to me. But come and see. You might know better.”

They proceeded out to the trail and found unmistakable signs of exactly what he had said. There had passed by, during the night, a large battle force as evidenced by thousands, more likely tens of thousands, of Human, Elf, and Dwarf prints, as well as the ruts of hundreds of heavily loaded wagons.

“They’re marching on Vultura!” he announced quietly, with his arms folded on his chest. “No doubt about it. And look here,” he said, pointing to the trail. “They had sweepers. Lots of them, trying to make it look to anybody who happened to notice that there are a lot fewer of them than there actually are. See how deep these ruts are.” He scooped out a handful of the loose mud and leaf from one of the rut tracks that the sweepers had covered.

She stood looking at him, blowing on her hands for some warmth, while the rain ran all over them. “I agree,” she said, “Although for the life of me I can’t begin to imagine why they are taking the war to Vultura. It doesn’t make any sense to me.

“Unless … ”

“Unless? Diana, unless?”

She stared at him, unable to find the words to complete the thought. “Nothing,” she said finally. “It’s nothing.”

The morning stayed miserable as they slogged their way along, oftentimes over the tops of their boots in mud. They had decided to stay on the trail left by the advancing troops and try to catch up to them. They reasoned that the troops were trying as hard as they could to remain incognito, meaning they stood a fairly good chance of catching them, but by sundown they had neither seen nor heard any of the Ravenwild forces. It was the same the next day and the next after that: The same footprints, the same wagon ruts, but no troops.

“There can be no doubt,” said Jared, on their third night camped out, “they’re pushing hard for a reason. They’re going to take the fight
to
the Trolls and Gnomes
in
Vultura. Can you make sense out of it?”

“I cannot,” said Diana. “But my father’s no fool, and if he’s behind this, there’s a plan. He has always said that the most important part of any mission is a clearly defined end-point. So I’m sure he has one, although I can’t begin to imagine what it is.”

Jared chuckled softly. “I guess that’s why he’s King.”

The fourth morning of their arduous trek across the western Ravenwild Plains brought their efforts an entirely different result. The first thing they heard was the ringing of steel on steel as sword met sword. Then, as they got closer, they heard the screams of the Humans, Elves, and Dwarves who had been critically wounded in the fray, and the frenzied cries of the officers on both sides as they screamed out orders to the clashing warriors. They hurried along now and, coming to a spot where they could see what was going on, crouched down and watched as the two opposing forces struggled, the one to rout the other. It was clear that the Trolls were winning.

Diana’s face turned deathly pale as she saw the Trolls besting the Ravenwild troops. “There’s Thargen,” she whispered, pointing him out as he did battle with three Trolls that were doing everything they could to wear him down and take him out.

“We need to help!”

She stood and started to draw her sword. Jared roughly shoved her down. “
No!
” he whispered forcefully. “This fight will not be won by sword or mace. This battle will be won by the use of superior weaponry. Come now, help me with this.”

He hurriedly opened his rucksack and began to remove clay pots of the incendiary powder, fashioning fuses for about thirty of the smaller ones and dividing them up into two equal piles. He started inserting the fuses into them, motioning curtly for Diana to do the same. The ferocity of the battle right in front of them made it difficult to concentrate, and each had to focus all of their thoughts on the task before them to keep their hands from shaking. When all of the containers were ready, Diana asked, “What now?”

“What we need to do,” said Jared, “is work our way back around to the rear. That’s where we need to start to thin them out.

“Each of these will take out ten, maybe twenty, of them. Just be sure to give them a good heave, then duck, or they will take
you
out.”

As he said this, he quickly struck a tiny fire of Burnfast, and then formed two longer fuses. “Use this,” he said, handing one to her, “until it burns out. Then you’ll have to light the next one from the one you’re going to throw. That will be the tricky part. Let’s go.”

Diana looked at him, fear written all over her face. She would gladly go down in battle if it meant a chance for the free races to survive. But the thought had suddenly struck her that she might, in the next few minutes, lose the only man she had ever loved. “Hey,” she said, placing her hand on his arm, “don’t get killed.”

He glanced up at her, as he fiddled with the fuses on each of them to make sure they were properly seated, and nodded. “Same for you.”

He placed all of the primitive grenades in two buckskin wraps, one for each of them, and lit the two long match-cords.

“In the name of the Old One.”

“In the name of the Old One.”

They raced around the back edge of the clearing, trying to get to the rear of the Troll forces. One of the Trolls spied them, and a group of about ten broke off, charging straight at them. Jared touched the lit-end of the long fuse to the fuse of the explosive vessel and …

Nothing happened!

The fuse was damp! The Trolls came at them hard, rapidly closing the distance between them. In a matter of seconds they would be dead. He tried another. It smoldered briefly … and then caught. He waited a couple of seconds and heaved it forward, where it landed in front of the oncoming Trolls. One of them saw it and stopped. Then the rest of them stopped. The one who had picked it up stood there looking at it as though it were some sort of curio. The others in the group gathered in close to inspect it as well and, suddenly, there were no more Trolls in front of them as a massive explosion rocked the valley, blowing them into oblivion.

There was a brief silence as all the warriors on both sides considered the significance of this astounding event. Then, the battle resumed.

Jared and Diana took advantage of the smoke screen resulting from the detonation and ran to the rear-most position, behind the attacking Trolls. From there they launched two more, then moved, and launched two more. Not all of the devices were effective, but each time they were, large clusters of Trolls were blown to smithereens. Fragmented and disorganized, those that survived the explosions were whittled down by the Ravenwild troops, who pressed forward crying, “For Ravenwild! For Ravenwild!” In a matter of minutes it was all over. Jared and Diana stood and watched as the last of the Trolls were cut down.

Out of the smoke appeared Rolan, who dropped his sword and sprinted forward to Diana, lifting her off her feet in a huge hug. “My daughter!” he cried. “You live!”

Jared took the time to gather up the remainder of the grenades, carefully placing them in the buckskin wrap.

“Oh, Father,” was all Diana could manage as she cried unashamedly.

“We’re not going to be able to get it out without breaking it,” said Forrester. “And we can’t have that.”

“We need a tool,” said Orie. “Dad always says, ‘The right tool for the right job’.”

They had searched everywhere in Cirrhus’s house for some sort of tool that they could use to remove the stubborn switch from Cirrhus’s bed and had come up empty.

“I think we should leave it be,” said Forrester. “I think that you should stay here and operate it. I will use the portal and go to the Agden Woods. You can watch everything from here. I will find a way to get Jacqueline. It’s the only way.”

Orie shook his head, “No.” The expression on his face said that not in a million, billion, trillion years would he
ever
not go with Forrester on the mission to rescue his sister. It might as well have been carved of black jade. It was dark. Somber. His only emotion at the moment was frustration.

He had a sudden thought. “Duh,” he said to himself as he thought it. He reached into Forrester’s pocket and withdrew the fenestrated stone, clipping it to his shirtfront with the holes facing him.