The Game of Fates (79 page)

Soon,
the feast of the ants began.

“Sire!”
Khazak Mail Fist called to Lord Karthan as he arrived at the top of the slope
ahead of the trail of wounded kobolds and the helpers he had taken to them. 
All about the top of the slope kobolds from three gens milled about, and off to
the front a group of about a hundred orcs stood unmolested, watching nervously
the ants at the bottom of the slope and the kobolds just above them on the
slope.  Streaming in behind the orcs were many wounded orcs, though unlike the
kobolds not one of their own moved to help them.

Lord
Karthan turned about.  He had been talking with Lord Krall, who sat stiffly in
his saddle, and with the two foreign kobolds who were leaders of the Kobold
Gen’s forces; Krulak and Jominai by name, as Khazak remembered them.

“What
news, Khazak?” Lord Karthan asked.

“Sire! 
The ant front is much larger than we thought!” Khazak replied.  “They are
coming up our left flank as we speak!  Manebrow reports that they have massed
beyond our left flank as well, with mostly worker ants coming around to the
north of us.”

“And
they’re coming around our right flank as well,” Lord Krall said from the back
of his muscular riding dog.

“Lord
Karthan,” the older of the two Kobold leader caste spoke, “I know we are but a
small part in this whole battle, but I would suggest that we cannot form a line
against these ants.  We must move to secure our flanks.”

Lord
Karthan nodded his head.  “I have to agree.  However, I do think we can form a
line.  But we will have to put sizable forces on our flanks, and prepare to
fall back into one large circle.”

As
Lord Karthan looked around the circle, he could see that there were no other
ideas among them.

“Very
well,” he said.  “Khazak and I will form the center of the line with the thirty
Kale companies.  We will do it in three lines of ten companies, or about three
hundred and fifty kobolds each.

“Out
in the open?” Lord Krall asked, skeptical as always.  “But what of the dragon?”

Lord
Karthan nodded.  “Aye, the dragon’s out there somewhere, but what choice do we
have?  The only way we can fight this many ants and have a chance of winning is
if we bring our archers into the fight.  We’ll have to risk the dragon
reappearing suddenly, if we’re going to get those crucial volleys of arrows
in.”

Lord
Krall wasn’t happy with the answer, and after a moment he growled in
frustration.  “Lad, I hate to say it, but you’re probably right… or at least I
see no other way.”

“Well,
then,” Lord Karthan continued, “if you will, Lord Krall, your forces form our
right side.”  Lord Krall just nodded his frustrated acceptance.

“Krulak
and Jominai,” he said, looking at the two Kobold Gen leaders, “your warriors
with spears can form up next to my warriors, on their left side.  I want your
one hundred cavalry on the right flank, protecting Lord Krall and his
warriors.”  The two Kobold Gen leaders nodded their agreement.

“Khazak,
send a messenger to tell Lord Sennak of the Deep Gen that his forces will take
the left side, and to tell Durik to take the left flank, to protect the Deep
Gen’s forces.”

Khazak
seemed uncomfortable.  “Sire, Lord Sennak is dead.  It seems that they’ve
decided that the outcast Kale is going to be their new leader.”

Lord
Karthan stared at Khazak Mail Fist in surprise, almost as if probing him for
more information.  When Khazak shrugged, Lord Karthan just shook his head.

“Send
a messenger to Kale, then,” he said, “and to Durik.”

“And
what of…
those
,” Krulak of the Kobold Gen said, pointing at the orcs. 
“What do you intend to do with them?”

Lord
Karthan thought for a moment.  “We could use their strength.  Krulak, as you
pass by, tell them to form up in a group between my Kales and the Kralls.  And
Krulak, show them where that is, will you?”

The
Kobold Gen leader nodded, then all leaders moved off to begin the movements
necessary to make the plan happen.

Soon,
as ant warriors continued to mass by the hundreds and then by the thousands at
the bottom of the slope, the kobolds of the Kale, Krall, and Kobold Gens began
to form up in ranks at the top of the slope with the orcs in one ill-fitting
mess in the middle of them.  The field was huge, however, and the entire line
of kobolds and orcs barely extended from the tree-covered low hill on the right
to the berm-like hill on their left, with their cavalry riding cover on both
flanks.

As
impressive as the almost three thousand kobolds and one hundred fifty orcs
assembled there that day were, however, as the ants continued to gather into
the field from their dispersion in the woods, the kobolds realized that they
were far outnumbered.

Then,
as if the almost ten-thousand warrior ants and the thousand or so worker ants
were not enough, from the trail in the woods a massive six-legged creature
larger than the dragon broke through the trees into the clearing.  Its legs and
segmented body were immense, its mandibles were like giant barbed scythes, and
its eyes were full of hate and pent-up fury.

The
ant queen had arrived.

^“
D
rink water!” Khazak Mail Fist
called as he trooped down between the first and second lines of Kale Gen
companies.  The call was quickly echoed by the second for each company, and all
up and down the line kobolds nervously put shield and spear, bow and arrow down
and unslung waterskins they had filled in the broad, shallow lake back at the
Picket Line a few bowshots behind the hill they stood on.

“That’s
it, suck it down!” Khazak called.  “Breathe deeply now, warriors!  Get ready
for them!  Loosen up a bit!  It’s going to be a long afternoon, if the ants
have anything to say about it!”  As he called out to them, the kobolds on the
line began to stretch and loosen up.  The small break was all that several of
them needed, the look in their eye changing from one of tensed stress to one of
focus.

“That’s
it, warriors!” Khazak called, then moved on to the next company.  “Drink
water!” he called, as behind him Lord Karthan and his small group of personal
guards and messengers watched toward the front.

“Trallik,”
Lord Karthan turned his gaze away from the slowly advancing ants for a moment.

“Yes,
my lord,” the young warrior stepped forward.

“Trallik,
run a message to Gorgon up on Great Bow Hill,” Lord Karthan said.  “Tell him to
watch our flanks, and to blow on the ram’s horn if he sees us being flanked on
either side.”

“Aye,
lord.”

“And
Trallik,” Lord Karthan added as the young kobold was turning to leave, “tell
him to see if he can pierce the armor on the ant queen.”

“Aye,
sire,” Trallik answered, then turned and ran for all he was worth toward the
tall stone hill.

Lord
Karthan watched the ants for several moments as they reached the mid-point of
the slope.  They were traveling slowly up the slope, and he didn’t understand
why.  Then, against the foreground of the advancing tsunami of ants, the dragon
chose that moment to take flight and, from not terribly far away at all, the
dragon turned in mid-air and began heading toward the battle.

All
up and down the line, the kobolds of all three gens saw the dragon at the same
time, as did the ragged little band of orc survivors.  Wailing and mutters of
frustration could be heard from the line about Lord Karthan.  True to form,
however, the sub-leaders and seconds of each company quickly quieted the fear
in their ranks.  Panic was a poison that, if not dealt with, would spread
quickly and kill them as surely as dragon’s fire or ants’ mandibles.

Lord
Karthan looked from where he stood in the very center of the entire line to the
right.  The hundred orcs gathered together in a group next to his three lines
of almost a thousand total kobold warriors looked out of place, as they surely
were.  He didn’t know what he’d do with them after the battle, whether to let
them live or die.  But that wasn’t a choice he had to make yet.

Beyond
the orcs on the right, the Krall Gen stood with their Heavy Guard in a line to
the front.  Their forward-curved, heavy chopping swords rested on the shoulders
of the heavy hide armor they wore.  These were mine-workers, and a rather
muscular lot.  Directly behind them were the Border Guard with their short bows
and short swords, and behind them were the numerous Archer Guard with bows that
were as tall as them, and arrows that were of equally long length.  Lord
Karthan nodded.  They would do well in the coming battle, especially with their
volleys of sharp arrows.

Far
to the right was the Kobold Cavalry contingent.  They stood nervously milling
about in the trees on the right flank where the hill bordered the broad, flat
battlefield.  He didn’t know these kobolds.  They had the equipment, wearing
chain mail, with spears, shields, bows, and swords, but whether they would
stand or not, that was a different question.

On
his left, the young leader caste from the Kobold Gen, Jominai by name, and his
second Marbo, sat on their wolves in the midst of the four hundred levies from
the northern gens.  Lord Karthan shook his head.  They were a hope at best, not
a solid force to be relied on.  Their spears were of mixed quality, and the few
Kobold Gen leaders they had showed no confidence in them by staying mounted, as
if to quickly run away.

Lord
Karthan had had his wolf led away.  It showed his warriors that he shared their
fate, that he would not abandon them.

Beyond
them were the five or six-hundred remaining warriors of the Deep Gen and the
outcasts.  Their skirmishers were out front with javelins, and the rest of them
lined up in three lines behind them.  They were truly a battered lot, having
left hundreds of dead on the battlefield, and having drug a couple hundred
wounded up to the clearing on the crest of the hill.  But for all that, it had
been them who had borne the brunt of the orc horde’s assault, and they had done
it without wavering.

That
Lord Karthan could respect.

He
hoped that, at the end of this, they would join with his gen.  Warriors of that
caliber would be a very valuable asset.

Far
away, on the extreme left flank, Durik and his fifty or so remaining Wolf
Riders stood beside their mounts.  As he looked down the line, Lord Karthan
could see the young leader caste, the one who had found the Kale Stone, who had
been called to be a Paladin of Morgra, who had led his company through more
danger than most saw in their entire lives.  That was a leader if ever Lord
Karthan had seen one.  He would watch that one with great interest for the rest
of their lives.

Which
could be very short, Lord Karthan reminded himself as he looked back down the
slope to the mass of ants surging up the hill now.  He had not noticed it
before, but the ants did not stop at any of the bodies that were strewn along
the slope, orc archers mostly who had died when the Kobold Cavalry turned
against them.  That was strange for ants, who he had always heard would stop
for food whenever it presented itself.  As he looked closer at them, he thought
they looked hungry yet determined, as if their queen had driven them far
without much to eat.

The
mass of ant warriors was probably three bow-shots away when, all of a sudden,
he heard the snapping of a large machine from above him on the left, followed
almost immediately by another.

Suddenly,
a pair of spear-sized arrows flew through the air.  Gracefully from such a
distance, the two Great Bow missiles slowly arched downward, their deadly tips
forward.  As the entire line watched the progress of the two bolts, they slowly
came down in line with the front ranks of the ant line.  With swift, extreme
violence, several ant warriors in a row were thrown backward leaving only a
mist of red blood in the air where they had been.  Behind the point of impact,
one of the bolts had tumbled sideways upon impact, knocking almost fifteen ant
warriors flying, breaking legs of those around the three who had been skewered
as the three dead warriors flew threw the ranks of their fellow warriors.  The
second missile had not tumbled on impact, but had gone straight through five
warriors before staying in the sixth.

The
ant warriors, silent until now, began to chitter.  It started at the point of
impact, then spread rapidly throughout the entire ant force.  Soon, the entire
mass of ant warriors were surging forward with their front set of limbs raised,
slashing at the air with their arm-spikes and chittering away behind mandibles
that opened and closed as if lusting for the blood of those who stood before
them.

On
the far side of the orcs, the Kale Gen’s Archer Guard were firing already. 
Their long, elegant arrows arching up in one large mass, coming down to rain
death upon the lead ants of the horde.  The ants were so tightly packed
together that well over half of the arrows hit, leaving scores of ants dead or
writhing in agony on the ground.

“Arrows!”
Lord Karthan raised then dropped his sword to signal, as there was no way he
could yell loud enough to be heard far over the chittering of the ant horde. 
As he had instructed them, however, the sub-leaders of each company relayed his
commands.  Soon, all along the Kale Gen line warriors raised bows, all but the
first two lines who stood behind spear and shield waiting to receive the ant
charge.  By companies the Kale Gen warriors fired off volley after volley.  And
with each volley scores more ant warriors went down. 

By
the time the ants reached the point where they could charge, the ranks in front
of the Krall and Kale Gens were attritted down to a mere fraction of what had
been there.  Now, the outcast skirmishers in front of the Deep Gen warriors
threw two volleys of javelins, and the orcs threw whatever they had, rocks
mostly, before lifting axes as well.  By the time the ant line charged the
kobolds, thousands of arrows had been fired, and a thousand or more bodies
littered the field.  Though it thinned their lines, the ants marched
relentlessly on, then charged.

All
up and down the line, kobold warriors braced for impact.  Final volleys were
fired by those too close to the action, before dropping bows and picking up
spear and shield.  Lord Karthan looked up and down his line.  Khazak Mail Fist
had rejoined him during the volleys. 

Like
the waters of a tsunami striking the shore, the ants smashed headlong into the
first lines of his warriors.  Blood splattered all along the line as ant
warriors were impaled on the spears of the first line.  The initial shock of
the spear-line did nothing to stop those behind them, however.  Like frenzied
berserkers, the ant warriors climbed over their dead or dying companions to get
at the spears and shields of those beyond.

Most
of his warriors were able to get their spears free in time to skewer the next
ant in the wave, or the warrior behind them was fast enough to cover for them. 
But here and there a warrior’s spear was firmly stuck, and the warrior backing
him wasn’t fast enough, and the ant warrior would be able to land a blow with
its spiked forearms, or latch onto the kobold warrior with its mandibles.

The
company of warriors that were directly in front of Lord Karthan began to be
pushed backward, the sheer weight of the hundreds of ant warriors almost
trampling each other to get at the kobolds was just too much for the kobold
shield wall.

“Keep
up the volleys!” Lord Karthan yelled.  His call was echoed by sub-leaders up
and down the line.  Companies which had paused in wonder at the spectacle of
death just to their front snapped out of their stupor to rejoin the hundreds
who were pouring arrows into the mass of ants, plunging their fire just behind
the front lines.

The
volleys were helping tremendously.  Just as the ants seemed about to push
through his line in one place or another, the pressure would let up just long
enough for the warriors of the shield wall to begin lining back up again.  The
seconds of the various shield wall companies took advantage of the slight lulls
to pull wounded or dead warriors from the line, or to push new troops from
companies behind them into gaps that were developing in their own companies.

Durik
was glad to have Ardan’s team back with him.  Though Ardan had been delirious
when he’d been brought to him, Myaliae’s ministrations had brought him back and
mostly to normal quickly enough.  That he’d lost his right horn was a
certainty, however.  No healing potion would grow that back, and time wouldn’t
do it either.

As
they stood in the woods watching the giant mob of ant warriors slam first into
their Kale brothers in the center, then the northern gen levies closer to them,
and finally the right half of the Deep Gen warrior line just to the right of
them, Durik looked over at Keryak, his best friend from a childhood that was
only two weeks distant, yet ages ago.

“You,
Tohr, and Kahn still sure you wanted to join us?” Durik asked, only
half-joking.

The
twins both looked at each other and shrugged.  Keryak, on the other hand, shook
his head.  “You know Darya would never forgive me if I let you get killed,” he
said.

“She’d
never forgive me if I let you get killed, either!” Durik retorted.

“Well,
I guess we’ll both have to live, then,” Keryak answered, as if it were a
decision they could make.

After
a moment of watching the ant horde begin to expand outward and closer to them,
Durik began to see Deep Gen warriors going down; at a much lesser rate than the
ants they were fighting, but their shield wall clearly was not proof against
the ants.  In this battle, as in every battle, there would be no guarantee of
survival.

“You
know, Keryak,” Durik spoke.  “I think the ants get a vote in this one.”

Keryak
turned as if stunned.  “Not if I have anything to say about it!”

Durik
turned to Manebrow on his other side, who was also watching the ant warriors
with intense focus.  Breaking his concentration for a moment, he saw the
question in his leader’s eyes and nodded.