The Road To Sevendor - A Spellmonger Anthology (15 page)

Hell, if I could get them to desert to chase some mythical commissary wagon,
that
would be a cheap enough victory.  “Of course, if guarding this
tree
is more important that feeding your troops, I suppose an evil dark lord has his priorities,” I reasoned, swallowing another healthy mouthful.
The shamans both glared at me.  The trolls looked barely restrained by their spells.  The gurvani warriors were milling around, scarcely keeping to a defensive posture.  They were
starving
.  My own men were on the brink of bolting from the site and running as far as they could in fear, or concealing themselves in the bush and fretting about targets. 

The only ones who seemed to be enjoying themselves were the River Folk, who had begun gleefully feeding the fire and adding things to the hell-broth cooking in the bronze shield atop it.
 
And Tyndal, I realized.  While he wasn’t “saying” anything to me, he was sending a feeling of pure excitement through the telepathic link between our stones.  The kind of excitement you get, for example, when you single-handedly attack a superior foe by surprise, and have some very limited early success before they regroup and kick your ass.  But he was having the time of his life, so I hesitated to chew him out at the moment.  Best continue with the distraction.
“So what’s it gonna
be
, fellas?” I asked, as if I was addressing a band of belligerent drunks in a tavern, “are you going to come down here and
take
this snack away from me . . . or am I going to
finish it all on my own?”
I asked, innocently.  “Or are you scared of what the big, bad Spellmonger has planned when you get to the bottom of the hill?” Pure bluff – I didn’t have any powerful spell at hand – so bluff was about all I had.  

It was then that it became clear to the priests that the fellow shaman they’d left to guard the tree was under assault.
 The priest to the rear began to be distracted by something, as well as a few breathless messengers, while the one addressing us was getting fighting mad . . . yet was trying to restrain his troops from charging haphazardly.  I didn’t envy him.  But I did figure it would be a good time to turn up the heat on the soup, as it were, to give Tyndal the best chance I could.
Rondal,
I sent,
have the archers volley,
I ordered,
and then attack that enchantment!
I didn’t wait for him to acknowledge the order, but while I continued to talk arrows began to whiz out from the trees and into the milling mass of gurvani .  That didn’t improve the dark priest’s mood one bit.  His warriors were being viciously sniped at from all directions, and there was that mocking asshole at the bottom of the hill and that intoxicating smell of soup in the air . . . and the longer he waited, the more of his troops fell to Redshaft’s snipers.

He finally managed a strangled order to charge, but by then it was too late.
 Some of his troops were already in motion toward me on their own accord, while others were standing stupidly and stubbornly in the way, more concerned with the snipers than orders.  But more than two dozen warriors listened and began brandishing their weapons and running maniacally down the hill toward us . . . and toward the fake soup they were smelling.  

Their mouths were open, their pink tongues were slathering drool, and their eyes were lit with an unearthly gleam.
 They weren’t an army charging, they were a starving mob trying to get to food.    Their guttural war cry turned into a hungry growl that was even more frightening by comparison.  Desperation filled their faces as they smelled cooking meat over the fire, our hastily-contrived Ambush Soup. 
And I was in the way.
Suddenly, the whole “starving goblin” idea didn’t seem so bright.  
“Shit!” I whispered, as I drew my mageblade. and a warwand at the same time.
“Prepare  to receive charge!”
I called out to the tiny band behind me.  

I heard an answering chorus of
“Shits!”
behind me, and the clank of armor and sword as the men tried to prepare themselves against the dark, hairy wave about to descend.  From the groans of dismay I wasn’t the only one re-thinking the wisdom of the plan.  To their credit -- and largely thanks to their tough-talking petty-captains -- they stood their ground.  Even when the gigantic trolls began to chase behind the gurvani, slowly and ploddingly, making the whole hillside shake with every step, those boys formed up their line.  

I hope you’re doing something useful, Tyndal!
I yelled in my mind as I launched a magical bolt with my wand.  
We’re getting attacked, now!
Just a few more moments, Master!
he promised
Got it!
Rondal’s “voice” broke through to me, severing Tyndal’s connection.  And before he could explain, I saw he
had
gotten it: the magical bindings that held the trolls in thrall to the shamans was
broken
.  Already they were losing the glazed look in their eyes and looking around as if they had been napping.  But there was no mistaking the trolls’ expressions – they had no trace of the Dead God’s malice.  They had free will -- such as it was.
But that didn’t mean that they stopped and thought about their next most logical move -- they smelled food, and they
wanted it
, and they didn’t care who got in their way.  In fact, they sped up, which was not exactly what I’d wanted, not at all.  Their huge feet slammed into the earth as their great legs took them yards with every stride.    It only took moments for them to catch up to the rear of the charging force, where the shaman himself was leaping up on a convenient fallen log to cast spells over the heads of his troops, a large curved knife clutched in one paw.  

I whispered the next command words that sent my body into the hyper-sensitive and extremely fast set of warmagic spells that we warmagi use to make us fight really, really well, and things slowed down around me as if the air were made of glass.  The frenetic charge thundering toward me now seemed like a slow-moving herd of goats.  The men milling around behind me slowly locked shields.  The arrows from the Nirodi floated through the air with the unhurried pace of distant clouds.  Lining up my targets, chosen for their potential to befoul the paths of those behind them, was childishly simple for a few moments.

I was able to fire three blasts of my warwand and one from Twilight – that’s what I named my dark-metaled, newly-forged mageblade – when the trolls’ huge strides brought them even with the attacking shaman as if they were dancing a graceful pavane.  I expected them to leap over the log he was fighting upon and continue down the slope toward the soup.  Closing the thirty yards between us would only take seconds for the trolls, even in my augmented state of perception.

Only, the trolls didn’t quite make the leap. 

One of them (the one on the left) tripped over a protruding branch of the fallen log before he could even raise one mighty foot, comically enough, and that sent the shaman tumbling to the ground just as he was about to cast his spell.  Then the troll, the tree, and the wild-eyed priest were all tumbling around merrily and no longer moving toward me, and I would have stopped to watch the amusing picture if I wasn’t concerned about the other troll.

The other troll stopped, as abruptly as a troll can, and surveyed the chaos with a thoughtful (for a troll) eye.  As his comrades came to a skidding stop in the dirt and leaves at his feet, the troll reached over, gently lifted the shaman out from under the fallen log . . . and tore his arm off before stuffing it in his mouth, bloody shoulder-first, munching as calmly as a cow chewing its cud.

The priest wailed desperately as his arm was ripped off.  The spell he was preparing discharged chaotically, filling the slope with flashing green light and wave after wave of disruptive magic.  I had no idea what he’d been attempting, but based on his spectacular futzing of the spell I was glad he hadn’t completed it.  Tufts of dirt and leaves and rock erupted under the wild magic, and the fallen troll, just getting to his hands and knees, shook his head in confusion. The shaman pawed frantically at the stump where his shoulder had once been.  The troll sat down next to him, still chewing his twitching arm, while his fellow rose shakily to his feet and saw what was happening. 

Trolls aren’t very smart on their best days, but they understand basic things like “hey, that guy is eating . . . and I’m hungry!  Perhaps he’ll share?”  So while the screaming shaman writhed in pain at the sudden amputation, the other troll snagged him by the wrist and calmly broke off the other arm at the elbow, much to the shaman’s surprise.

I didn’t have much more time to watch after that, because I was ass deep in starving goblins.  Twilight sang through the air as I thrust at the first gurvan to approach our line, catching him in the throat on the left side and continuing the thrust into the face of the one behind him.  Neither one was dead right away, but neither one was getting up soon, either.  I left Twilight swaying in the face of the second while I drew a second warwand and blasted two more, one from each hand. 

For good measure I took the time to trip one tall, muscular gurvan who leapt over his wounded comrades and was making a dashing dive into the thick of the fray.  My boot caught his knee before he could take his guard, however, and he sprawled instead at the feet of the shieldmen.  He took a sword
point through the back of his neck for his daring.
Still, we were being overwhelmed.  A dozen against thrice that number is almost never a fair fight.  I was doing the work of any three of the militiamen, but even with that I was forced back against the press of their numbers.  At one point my back was actually pressed against the shieldwall behind me.  I wasn’t panicked – but I was starting to get concerned. 

But in moments we were joined by the red-armored Nirodi mercenaries who had slung their bows and drew their long knives and swords to support the militia, those who weren’t still sniping effectively from the sides.  Rondal joined us a moment later, performing like the worst, most clumsy warmage in history with the few spells I’d been able to teach him. 

That still made him a far deadlier warrior than just about any of the non-magi, but I was discouraged as I watched him fight.  He clutched his mageblade like a cub, not a sword, and his footwork would have gotten him weeks of latrine duty at the War College.  He did, indeed, need some remedial training.  He only slew three of the beasts in the first pass, and did so with great effort.

Master!
Tyndal shouted into my mind again,
I’ve done it!  They Alka Alon, they’ve escaped!

I couldn’t spare a moment for praise, so I grunted instead and regained Twilight in time to impale the next brave gurvan to happen along, squarely through the chest. 

The trolls were still enjoying snacking on fresh shaman, I saw when I could take a breath.  His lower limbs dangled from one giant mouth, while his entrails and head were sticking out of the other as the massive teeth crunched fur, flesh, and bone with equal efficiency.  The shaman was dead – I hoped – but the trolls were still very much a danger.  The hunger spell was powerful by design, and it didn’t matter how much they shoveled between those mighty jaws, they would still be just as ravenous – and even more frustrated.  It was only a matter of time before that became a problem.

In the meantime, I had plenty of problems to contend with right in front of me.  I pointed at yet-another gurvan warrior determined to push past me with my warwand and nothing happened.  It was depleted.  I reached over my shoulder for Twilight, but it wasn’t there – I’d left it in some gurvan’s face a few paces in front of me.  That left two more warwands and then I was down to my knives and whatever spells I could lob on the fly.

Meanwhile, another contingent of gurvani was stepping carefully around the troll’s picnic and rushing toward the shield wall.  Clearly there were more than we had accounted for, I realized with dismay.  They had probably called in their pickets and patrols at the sign of trouble, and these fellows were less-crazed by far.  They stomped down the hill in formation, sloppy but effective.  I used both warwands thinning them out, but in the end I had to dive behind the militiamen with a couple of the archers and let the infantry take the brunt of their assault. 

There were fewer of our infantry than earlier – four of the men were down, I saw, some dead and some injured.  I tossed aside my empty wands and tugged one of their swords from its death
grip – it seemed too long, clumsy and unwieldy in my hand compared to Master Cormaran’s beautiful mageblade.  It was a thick piece of sharp steel, not an elegant weapon.  I stood at the flanks of the wall and kept the gurvani from passing, and tried to figure out my next move.  As many black furry bodies as there were on the ground, there were still far too many attacking us to consider this a victory, even if the Tree Folk had escaped.

“Master!” Rondal shouted as he clumsily kicked one goblin in the face from the other end of the shield wall.  “I have an idea!”

“HAra
VU
!” screamed the insane-looking goblin trying to beat past my guard with his own chipped iron blade.  I kept him from proceeding, but because of the shield man I was behind I couldn’t seem to get a piece of him.

“Just
do it
!” I hollered.  I had no idea what he was thinking about, but I was fresh out of ideas.  There was a flash of light overhead a moment later, one which startled both me and the goblin, but both of us recovered before the other could take advantage.  Another head popped up next to his, and I was able to take him in the throat, but Sir HAraVU or whatever eluded my blade.