Warriors [4] Theros Ironfield (24 page)

Feeling more at ease now that he had shared his burden with Sargas, Theros stood up and walked back down the hill. Undoubtedly, someone would be looking for him by now, wanting the answer to some fool question.

He wondered how Moorgoth’s army was doing.

Chapter 21

The army hiding in the forest waited for over an hour with no
news. The wait was unnerving. Nothing could be seen in the town. Nothing could be seen in the fields surrounding the town. Nothing.

A soldier crept through the underbrush to the baron’s side. “Sir, no sign of anything,” he whispered. “The scouts have seen no sign of the enemy.”

Moorgoth nodded and the soldier crept back into the underbrush, back to his place farther up the line. They continued to wait.

Suddenly, from their front, came a rumbling sound, rolling from the town and growing louder. Moorgoth rose to his feet and looked into the town. He pulled a spyglass
from a pouch on his belt, and put it to his eye.

Smoke was rising. Flames flickered on the far side of the town. The smoke was obscuring his vision, but the baron could make out individual buildings and the roads between them. He kept his eye on the main road that led into the town.

The next sound he heard was that of horses, galloping through the streets. He couldn’t see them yet, but he knew the sound of hooves thudding against hard ground.

A flash of steel. Another flash. Moorgoth moved the spyglass, followed the road down, and focused on two riders.

They were his men.

The baron put the glass down. He could now see the two clearly, galloping up the road. Behind them, he could see more horses thundering out of the town. He brought the glass up again. Yes, he recognized the maroon uniforms. They were his cavalry.

In a sharp voice, he yelled orders back to a runner.

“Those are our cavalry. Tell Captain Jamaar to hold his squadrons behind the forest until I call for them by bugle. Tell him to send me word of how he did. Understand?”

The young man nodded and was off into the woods at a run.

The first two riders galloped into the woods. Once out of sight of the town, the two riders dismounted. The runner raced forward to confer with the two. One of the riders remounted, just in time to lead the rest of the cavalry through the woods to the rear. The other rider returned with the runner to Baron Moorgoth’s position.

“Good day, sir. It was a fine fight, but a tough one,” the officer called.

“Lieutenant Boromus, isn’t it? You are second in command of the light cavalry. Am I right?” Moorgoth asked the young officer.

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“Did you achieve your objectives?”

The officer shook his head. “Not all objectives, sir. We rode into the center of the town. The town guard gave us a fight at first, but they weren’t organized. We threw them off. You were right, sir. There is a spy in our midst.” The
soldier was grim. “They were waiting for us.”

“Damn!” Moorgoth swore softly.

“When we beat back the town guard, we began rounding up the civilians, marched them into the central marketplace.” The officer paused.

“Go on,” urged the baron.

“There were more civilians than we thought and they were ready for a fight. They fought like devils from the Abyss, sir. At one point, they dragged one of Captain Jamaar’s heavy cavalrymen from his saddle and beat him to death. We pushed the people back, but there was a lot of bloodshed.

“The town guard regrouped and charged us on the west side of the town square, attacking us from the rear. They killed at least four and wounded four more before we could manage to turn around and make the battle more even.”

Moorgoth could see that the man was nearly exhausted. “Go ahead, drink some water.” He offered the cavalry officer his waterskin.

“Thank you, sir.” Boromus took a drink. “Once we’d whipped the town guard, we dismounted and held the horses on the east side of the town, ready for us to pull out, according to plan. We thought we had the civilians all penned up, but a bunch must have been hiding. They must have sneaked through the buildings, instead of going out in the streets where we could have seen them. They killed the guards we had set over the horses, and then cut the animals loose. We stopped them, but we lost a lot of men and mounts and supplies.”

“What happened next?” the baron asked, frowning.

“We fought on, both against the civilians in the square and the guard. We held on until midafternoon, as you had ordered. Then, we ran as fast as we could from that hornet’s nest. Sir, I can tell you, I’m looking forward to razing that cesspool of a town. I’ll …”

Moorgoth let the man rant. He could see that Boromus was cracking from the strain. He needed to let off steam. The baron waited patiently until the man had calmed down.

“You said that you had not achieved all of the objectives,” Moorgoth continued. “Your only objective was to have the calvary cause trouble in the town until midafternoon. It sounds as if you did that well enough.”

“Sir, I didn’t think it was in your orders to lose half of the cavalry! Half, sir. Half are dead. What you saw riding out of the town is it—around fifty of us. There were some wounded, but they’re surely dead now.”

Moorgoth looked down at the ground. Again he swore silently. He swore vengeance for his men. The town would pay.

“You did well. You held on, and that’s what counts. Go back to your captain.”

The officer looked at him in tight-lipped anger and despair. “Sir—” he began, but he couldn’t continue.

Moorgoth understood.

“Your captain is dead, right? You’re in command now. Is that right?”

The young officer nodded.

“Very well, you shall have the rank to go with it. You are now Captain Boromus. I wish it were under better circumstances. The fighting for the day is not yet over. Get your men fed and rested. I may call upon you again. Coordinate with Captain Jamaar. Go back to your unit.”

The man nodded, but did not salute. He crawled back through the underbrush to his horse. Mounting, he slowly made his way back to his troops.

Moorgoth shook his head. Half? Over half! Over half of his cavalry was gone. The cost alone was crippling, but the loss of good soldiers was worse. Those had been some of the finest mercenaries ever to come his way.

His attention focused on the top of the rise to the left front. A lone rider stood on the ridgeline. Moorgoth raised his spyglass again, to see the rider better.

Through the glass, he could see an armored warrior on a white charger. He could see the emblem on the breastplate—a bird. The rider was half a mile away and Moorgoth could make out nothing more. Yet he knew what that emblem was—a kingfisher, the symbol of one of the orders of the Knights of Solamnia.

The knight rode down the hill toward the town. The smoke of the fires on the far side of town stained the pleasant summer sky.

Moorgoth lost sight of the knight when he drew close to the town. The baron turned to order his men to get ready, but he needed to say nothing. Everyone was watching the knight. They crouched in their hiding places, ready to move. Excitement rustled among them like wind through tree leaves.

Two minutes later, the knight came charging out of the town, galloping over the hill in the same direction from which he had come.

“Settle down,” said Moorgoth to his men, though he knew they couldn’t hear him. “Settle down, boys. Now we get into the hard part. We have to wait for the main force of the knights to arrive. We even have to sit here and watch them assemble, right in front of us. And we don’t dare make a sound. It’s going to be hard.”

He motioned behind him for the runner.

“Pass this word to all of my officers. If any man makes a sound or moves so that the enemy finds us before we’re ready, I’ll cut his throat myself. Go ahead and pass the word.”

Another runner came up, crawling forward to the baron’s position.

“Sir, Commander Omini sends his regards.”

Moorgoth glared at the man. “I don’t need Omini’s regards! What’s his damned news?”

“He wishes to inform you, sir, that his scout reports a force of mounted heavy cavalry and another of foot soldiers moving at a quick pace toward the town.”

Moorgoth was immensely cheered. They were racing right into his trap!

“Good,” he said to the runner. “You tell Omini that I want his brigade flat on their bellies until they hear my bugle call. Tell him to recall his scouts and hide.”

The runner, crawling on all fours, saluted. Moorgoth fought to hide his laughter. Crawling on all fours and saluting looked extremely idiotic.

* * * * *

Sunlight flashed off armor. The knight had returned to the ridgeline about twenty minutes later. Moorgoth studied him with the spyglass. Through the glass, he saw the knight look directly at him.

The baron dropped down to his belly. Quickly, he looked up. He was all right—he’d been standing in the shade. He had feared that the knight had seen the reflection of light off the glass’s front lens. The knight must have been just scanning the forest.

The knight was joined by another, then another, and then by twenty more. One held a standard—a white flag hanging from a long pole with a crosspiece. The emblem on the flag was the same black-and-red kingfisher that the knight wore on his armor.

The party of knights stood at the top of the ridgeline for several minutes, looking around. Moorgoth found he was sweating. All it would take was one fool to sneeze and the knights would know they were walking into an ambush.

Silence.

Ten of the knights broke away from the main group and galloped down the hill toward the town. A bugle call rang out across the valley.

The baron looked nervously behind him. One of his men might have mistaken that bugle call for their own. He waited tensely for his soldiers to leap forward—too early.

Nobody moved. Everybody watched the ridgeline.

Moorgoth breathed again.

The main force of knights came down the hill, walking their horses. Over the ridgeline, a column of knights, four across, appeared. Behind the knights came their foot soldiers. They marched eight across and kept up with the cavalry.

Moorgoth brought his glass up again to study the infantry. They all wore leather cuirasses and steel helmets. Most were armed with swords or axes. They carried large shields on their backs. As he watched, he saw a break in the column, and behind came a group of two hundred archers. They did not wear any sort of armor. They carried
longbows strapped over their shoulders.

The baron looked around. He could see the anxious expressions on the faces of his soldiers. He gave them a stern look meant to reinforce discipline—that’s what mattered most in an ambush. He motioned for his bugler.

The baron turned his attention back to the army crossing the distance between the ridge and the town. When the last of the infantry had cleared the ridge, but the first of them had not yet entered the town, he knew it was time.

He stood up. The bugler, alert, stood up beside him.

“Bugler, sound ‘archers advance,’ ” the baron ordered.

The twelve notes rang out in perfect pitch across the field and through the forest. At first, nothing happened, as if no one had heard the call.

Then, suddenly, a thousand archers, from all across the front of the forest, moved forward, lining up in front of the trees.

They stopped, planted their arrows in front of them, and drew back their first nocked arrows. A lone officer held up his sword. With a single yell and a swift downward motion of his sword, he commenced the battle.

“Loose!”

The arrows leaped from the longbows almost in unison. Quickly, each archer retrieved his next arrow from the ground in front of him, nocked it, and raised his aim to achieve the maximum range.

“Loose!”

The second volley flew skyward, before the first had even hit the ground. Many of them found their targets. A shower of arrows rained down on the unsuspecting infantry, caught out in the open.

Gaps formed immediately in the Solamnic infantry column. Dead and wounded fell everywhere. Their officers responded quickly. They shouted for a charge. Shaken, but certainly not broken, the infantry charged forward.