The Powterosian War (Book 5) (15 page)

“They disappeared after burning the palace, suddenly appeared and disappeared as quickly.”

“As will one in ten of you soldiers that were supposed to be guarding my capital.”

Pindradese went through the narrow curved streets until he found the chatra in the city hall. There the prince issued an order for his commanders at Feldrik to withdraw and return to Prertsten at once. Thus the Prertstenian army of occupation withdrew from Heggolstockin, leaving Feldrik in possession of northwestern Heggolstockin.

* * *

General Bor had cleared the tunnel beneath Hador, hammered out the rock around the stone whingtang, and pressed on clearing the passageway. Though water ran down the shaft walls, the rock-dwarves pounded the rubble and stone endlessly as creatures of the base elements are prone to do.

*

King Ormadese fretted in his great hall beneath the mountains. His nobles avoided the court and the stress while the rank and file of his kingdom mined rock and filled in the old inner court tunnels where the whingtang had broken through. All Hadorian dwarves trembled at the constant muffled hammering that sounded through the mountain’s stone.

*

“Have we nothing with which to stop them?” Duke Jedrac asked. He sat on his throne in the great audience hall above the incessant pounding. The ministers and leading citizens of the dukedom stood before the duke, summoned for a great conference to determine what could be done to stop the forces of Dreaddrac from circumventing the famed ‘Gates of Hador’ and overrunning Graushdem. The chatra stood to the duke’s left and Wizard Hendrel on his right. Everyone in the great hall looked to each other, each hoping another could offer a solution, but no one responded to the question.

“This constant pounding is driving me insane,” the duke said. He clapped his hands over his ears. “It’s like the mountain’s heartbeat, never missing a thump. It must stop.” All nodded in agreement, but none spoke.

“Could we pour boiling water or oil down the shaft and set that afire? Would that stop them?” a voice in the multitude asked.

“They are rock-dwarves, stone. Hot water wouldn’t phase them; burning oil would only deter them until the fire couldn’t crack their rock limbs, then they would ignore it,” an engineer among the duke’s advisor said.

The meeting broke up with no resolution, the members returning to their homes.

“Vylvex has Graushdemheimer under siege, the queen is dead, soon reinforcements will break through the mountains beneath our feet and we can do nothing to offer help,” the duke lamented, leaving the great hall as his guests filed out.

Then one day the hammering stopped. It was at daybreak and the sudden silence woke the duke who had grown used to the mountain’s ‘heartbeat.’ Jedrac rose, threw on his robe, and rushed out of his bedchamber to his sitting room. There was a knock at the door and when bid to enter, the chatra appeared, his hair uncombed and his robes roughly wrapped around him.

“Your Grace, the hammering has stopped.”

“Yes, I noted it too. It woke me, that deathly silence.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means the rock-dwarves have succeeded in breaking through the tunnel!”

The chatra stumbled back, grabbing the door handle for support. “What can we do?”

“Nothing,” the duke said. His head fell to his chest. “Come, let us go see this new situation.” The two men went to the great tower over Hador’s Southern gate. They climbed the tower to the battlements’ windy heights and looked out over the lowered lake, down the road at the foot of the mountains. There, like ants out of a disturbed anthill, orcs poured from the rock onto the plain. They spread like a black lava flow in the mountains’ shadows until they broke into the morning sun farther out on the plain. The duke and chatra watched the spectacle, their despondency growing as the plague spread.

“There must be legions there,” the chatra exclaimed.

“Many,” the duke responded not taking his eye off the spreading horror below.

“Send a message to King Grekenbach,” the duke said. He looked at the chatra whose wispy hair fluttered in the wind. “We still have some carrier pigeons, don’t we?”

“Yes, Your Grace, a few.”

“Send a message to the king. Tell him Hador is broken, there are legions of orcs, number unknown, about to descend to reinforce General Vylvex at Graushdemheimer. We can do nothing to hinder them.” The duke looked back at the spreading mass of black leather uniforms.

The orcs, now seeing the duke on the battlements, turned and began beating their swords and spears against their shields. The banging was reminiscent of the hammering under the mountain, but much louder, no longer muffled.

“They hammer out their victory over Hador. They hammer out my defeat,” the duke said.

The chatra said nothing but turned and went to send the message to the king. The duke’s head hung and his body slumped. He turned from the parapet and went inside the tower that now stood impotent over the plain.

* * *

Bodrin marched his force of half a dozen Neuyokkasinian cohorts south down the low grounds along the River Nhy within the borders of Sengenwha, searching for orcs among the swamps and forests. They killed a few here and there, but the farther south along the swamps they moved, the more orcs they encountered until they passed around Lake Pundar heading to Favriana. The numbers of orc cohorts became too numerous to attack with the forces Bodrin commanded.

Coming out of a thick forest into a clearing, Bodrin felt relief with the late afternoon sunlight after an encounter the day before that severely taxed his men. They’d won and killed a dozen orcs, but the encounter had been too even, the threat too great. His mission was to break up the threat, but what he was now encountering was more than Saxthor was aware of threatening Neuyokkasin.

We must cross the river and return to Saxthor. He needs to be aware of this situation, Bodrin thought.

The few acres of clearing had been fields once. An old farmhouse on a low rise stood crumbling in the distance. Amber broom straw seed stalks danced in the broken grey stubble of dead grass and weeds. A few dark green pine seedlings stood out among the browns and grays. In the distance, near the dilapidated building, a deer flashed its white tail and disappeared into the woods beyond.

“We’ll make camp here,” Bodrin said to his second in command. The man left to arrange the disposition of the men for the night.

A sudden movement at the edge of the clearing caught Bodrin’s attention. He looked along the tree line but nothing else moved. The sun was sinking behind the forest canopy, its golden rays dancing through the bare limbs and trunks.

I’m getting jumpy, he thought. Even the deer seem a threat. He started to remove his helmet when he noted the birds in the trees had stopped singing. A flock of blackbirds, gathered for the night in a thicket of tall pines, stopped their end of day chattering. They flew up in a black cloud flying first this way then that. Finding no suitable safe site, they flew off south toward the river.

Cautiously scanning the tree line, Bodrin pulled his helmet down over his head again. His hand gripped his sword hilt. He stepped back closer to the trees as his aide came back up beside him. Startled, he jumped.

“What’s the matter?” the aide asked.

“There’s something there in the trees just beyond the edge of the clearing.”

The aide looked, squinting his eyes, straining to see something, anything… movement along the tree line. “I don’t see any movement.”

The troops were beginning to enter the old field when Bodrin raised his hand to stop their advance. “Use flags; signal for the men to form up,” Bodrin said. The aide looked again at the tree line, then turned to signal the men as told. A limb snapped in the distance. Both heads jerked looking to the source area.

“I still don’t see anything,” the aide said.

Below the forest canopy, in the shrubby undergrowth at the far tree line, Bodrin saw the dried, hanging beech leaves rustle on a sapling about his height. They shook when nothing around it moved. Not wind, he thought.

An arrow flew past Bodrin, cutting through his leather padding, grazing his shoulder. It slammed into a tree trunk behind him with a resounding thud. Both men dropped to their knees in the grass looking for the arrow’s source. Bodrin’s chest thumped, his heart pounding. He felt warm blood, slick between his arm and leather uniform. Then dozens of arrows flew from beyond the tree line in a shower, arcing over the field, slamming into the men crouching in the stubble behind them. There were screams as arrows found their marks.

“Shields up!” Bodrin yelled. He jerked his bow from off his shoulder, thrusting an arrow into it. He looked frantically around the tree line, but the attackers still didn’t show themselves. He looked back at his men dragging their wounded comrades back to the forest behind them.

Then at least four cohorts of orcs, maybe more, led by an ogre, rushed out from the trees. Their black uniforms and shields rippled across the field, hopping through the stubble, coming at the Neuyokkasinians shouting war cries.

“Form up! Hold your positions along the tree line,” Bodrin yelled. He shot arrow after arrow at the attackers. Several orcs fell in the grass but more raced past them. Swords flew out of black sheaths, their blades flashing in the last of the sun’s rays. Bodrin scanned his men, who by this time had reformed. They let loose a volley of arrows that flew into the orcs almost on top of Bodrin and his aide. The two leaders fell back to the trees with their men as the orcs came on in force.

The arrows found their marks and half the orcs fell in the field. Many continued on, but others froze facing the blunt arrowheads about to be released from Neuyokkasinian bows. Then many turned and fled back to the woods at the far end of the field. A dozen orcs continued the attack until the ogre leading them fell with three arrows protruding from his neck. With the ogre dead, the orcs fled and Bodrin’s men dashed out of the tree line to hunt down the survivors. When the men had killed the wounded in the field, and those of the retreating orcs they could catch, they began to enter the forest at the far end of the field. Bodrin saw dusk settling and knew that in moments it would be too dark to see the orcs in the wood.

My men will be the more vulnerable and hunted, he thought. “Sound retreat,” Bodrin told his aide. He stuffed a piece of cloth into the cut leather to stop his shoulder bleeding.

“But commander,” the aide said, caught up in the excitement. “We have them on the run.”

“Yes, but it’s nightfall. They can’t see the orcs and black uniforms in the dark. If they turn back in the woods and make a stand, they could wipe us out.”

The aide sounded his horn and the men reluctantly abandoned the counterattack, streaming back through the field to post guards and make campsites for the night.

“Post double the usual guards through the night. Tomorrow we cross the river to Favriana. Saxthor must know of the situation in southern Sengenwha. General Tarquak hasn’t pulled all the southern orcs to break Botahar. They’re planning to bypass Botahar and attack Neuyokkasin and soon.”

The next morning the men formed up with ample rear guards. The survivors worked their way through the swampy low grounds to the river that they followed back up toward Favriana. A scout found means to cross and they carried their wounded up to the gates of the newly built fortifications. The whole city was abuzz with news of Dreaddrac’s defeat at Olnak and with more disturbing news.

Bodrin found General Socockensmek at the fortress rechecking the fortification’s preparedness before sailing back down river to his headquarters at Heedra. The two men shook hands vigorously, not having seen each other in a long time. The general had come to meet Bodrin when his lookouts reported a force advancing on the city.

“How are you, my boy?” the general asked. “What’s happened to your shoulder?”

He still thinks of us as the boys he knew on Tixos, Bodrin thought. “I’ll be all right. What’s the entire city in an uproar about?”

“Come inside,” Socockensmek said. The general put his other arm around Bodrin’s good shoulder and led him inside the nearest building. His eyes gleamed below his bushy white eyebrows and above the huge mustache. Then his face frowned, deep lines formed in his cheeks and forehead and his eyes darkened as the brows hunched down.

“Admiral Agros and the Sengenwhan fleet defeated the Dreaddrac fleet. The surviving ships sailed north back up the Tixosian Sea, but they did manage to land some orcs at the Sengenwhan border. Word has just reached us that they’re marching southeast toward Heedra.”

“How many legions?” Bodrin asked. His tone deepened; his heart jumped at the news.

“We don’t know yet, perhaps two or more legions. It’s only rumors from locals that have fled here ahead of the invaders. Civilians tend to exaggerate things, of course, but it’s a substantial force. If they join up with the forces in the swamps of southern Sengenwha, well, we don’t know what we’re facing.”

“Saxthor sent me with my men to destroy what orcs we could in the Sengenwhan swamps, but we, too, ran into larger and larger orc forces as we fought our way south. Last night we were attacked a few miles downriver from here by many cohorts. We routed them, but I decided to come let you know what’s happening across the river. They’re massing for an attack. We must get word to Saxthor. He’s focused on the north and doesn’t realize the extent of the danger here.”