The Road To Sevendor - A Spellmonger Anthology (41 page)

“You would charge across the bailey?” the captain asked, skeptically.

“Nay,” the priest said, shaking his head, “I would lead a team along the top of the walls.  While they have not been able to gain our walls from below, it would be a simple enough matter to lower a ladder.  A team of five or six, if they are stealthy enough, could be on the upper battlement of the gatehouse before the foe even suspected the attack.”

“Perhaps,” the captain conceded, “but it is just as likely that they will be alerted.”

The priest looked defeated.  “So you reject my proposal?”

Antrig blinked.  “My good brother, I merely think it would be best to give them something else to think about while you go.”

*

Late that night, just before dawn the great doors of the gatehouse, now well-scarred by battle, were pushed open, and the portcullis was raised.  A few men in heavy armor deployed to the flank of the gatehouse . . . and just waited.

It took a while for the goblins to understand that their enemy had opened up their fortress door, and left it but lightly defended.  If any suspected a trap or a ruse, they were not privileged with command.  Within an hour of the Iron Ring opening their doors, a score or more of goblin infantry had begun to slowly, cautiously advance against the inner gatehouse.

Before they had made it even half-way, at the point where they would be easy pickings for the Iron Ring’s adept archers, Brother Thune had led a dark-clad contingent of troopers quietly along the wall on the left, while Hanith led three more across the wall on the right.

The warmage deftly used his magics to keep the attention of the beasts away from the walls and on the far gatehouse.  His men had slit three throats before the first of them were aware of the attack.

Brother Thune’s troopers were less stealthy as they dropped down on the unsuspecting foe.  By the time the first of them had managed to sound the alarm, the massive priest was plying his double-bladed axe to devastating effect, and the men who fell in behind him attacked ruthlessly with their swords and daggers.  The assault was so sudden and unanticipated that it was over before the foes advancing on the second gatehouse were aware of it.

The men of the Iron Ring wasted no time, once the last of the foul defenders was dispatched: the ruined portcullis of no use, they sealed the gatehouse’s massive door and spiked it into place, then set to defending the post against its former inhabitants.

Caught between two occupied gatehouses in the outer bailey, the goblins, no more than two score remaining in the rising light, were dismayed.  Most turned and tried to assault the weaker, outer gatehouse, only to find Brother Thune and his axe, flanked by a few fell-handed warriors, keeping them from the threshold.  On the other side of the bailey, a third of the force attempted the open doorway – only to find a plethora of arbalests waiting them. 

Their numbers were too scant to best either gatehouse, not in the light of the sun.  As dawn fully broke it revealed their locations to the archers on the wall, and one-by-one the besiegers fell.

At last, a contingent of eight from the inner bailey herded the remaining goblins into an advancing party from the outer gatehouse, and between them they slaughtered the goblins handily.

“That was the way to exercise before breakfast,” sighed Antrig as he led his contingent back into the keep.  “Just leave the bodies there for now.  If they re-take the outer gatehouse, I want them to have to wade through the corpses of their dead to get to us.  Might make them think.”

While re-taking the gatehouse had lifted everyone’s morale, it had also stretched the available men to guard the walls as thin as they dared.  While archers gleaned arrows from corpses, the outer door was strengthened as fast as possible.  Hanith used magic to help seal it, casting a spellbinding on the battered door to help keep it closed.

“That will help,” he admitted, “but tonight we can expect even more.  A lot more.  Hundreds, perhaps.”  Despite the victory, he seemed even more depressed by their prospects.  “We should prepare to fall back to the keep, if we need to.”

The mage was borne out, for that night a great column came against the castle.  Not just goblins, but the Dark Lord’s hardiest troops, the portly eunuchs hobbed to make them almost as large as men.  Scores of them arrived, each bearing a wooden roundshield and falchion, or a wicked-looking glaive.  Most bore helmets of iron, and all bore slack-jawed, vacant expressions . . . until they were commanded into action.

The new forces threw themselves at the outer gate.  The Iron Ring’s archers loosed every shaft to great effect, but that deterred the hobgoblins not at all.  They felled a great oak tree and trimmed its branches, and then began using it as a mighty ram against the outer door.

“I hope your spell holds,” Antrig said to Hanith the Cunning, as they oversaw the defense of the gate. 

“It will . . . for a while,” the mage admitted.  “I am weary, with the great expenditure of energy I’ve made.”

To their dismay, when the ram did not force the door to yield the goblins brought up one of their accursed shamans, the same who had destroyed the portcullis a week before.

“Get the men to fall back,” whispered Hanith.  “That one bears a witchstone!”

“How do you know?” asked the captain.

“I can feel it in my mind,” gasped the mage.  “Hurry!  Abandon this place and fall back!  If you value your lives!”

“What are you going to do?” Antrig asked, confused.

“Slow him down,” the warmage said, drawing the blade of his craft from behind his back.  “Now move!”

As the captain ordered the defenders to quit the post they had won so dearly, the young mage disappeared.  Nor had his warning been in vain: the shaman spoke a few words and raised his closed fist, and the spell that had kept the door shut was splintered like kindling.  On the very next throw of the ram, it burst asunder.  Once again the men of the Iron Ring made the second gatehouse only seconds away from their besiegers.

All night the attackers renewed their furious assault, with fresh troops and far more arrows.  The men within did their best to throw down the scaling parties and dodge behind crenellations to escape the relentless archery.  Two more fell in the night.

But there was unexpected hope from one quarter.  Sir Sastan was awake again.  Feeble and weak, but alive.

“He wants to go back into battle,” sighed Brother Thune, as he rested between attacks.  “The man can barely stand.  He is unfit for command,” he said, reluctantly.

“Aren’t we all?” cracked Antrig.  “Still, if nothing changes, he may get his wish before he wants it.  We are but eighteen, now.”

“And down one mage,” nodded the priest.  “Did you see him fall?”

“No,” Antrig said, sadly.  “I fear he was captured.  Better slain than that fate.”

“I can’t see Hanith succumbing to capture,” the priest disagreed.  “He would die first.”

“Let’s hope he did,” Antrig said, making the sign of Duin.

The shaman who was in command of the goblins was feeling his power, now, as his forces assailed the gatehouse directly.  The hail of arrows was too much to allow the defenders to stand long under it.  But the door and the iron portcullis stood firm.  Wary of his tricks, two men with crossbows slew any who approached the grate with a pail. 

But the shaman was undeterred, and he began to prepare a spell against them, Antrig could see.  As could every man of the Iron Ring.

As the night wore on, the fire the shaman conjured grew higher and higher as he and a few acolytes danced maniacally around it.  While no direct effect was seen at first, the guards reported the wood of the great door was beginning to dry and age.  Only it’s great mass kept it from becoming decrepit immediately.  But there was nothing Antrig or Thune could do about it.  They were missing the young warmage’s protections, now.

Along with the magical dance the goblins brought great drums into the bailey as they prepared to assail the castle again.  Antrig and the other defenders watched helplessly as the arcane forces at his command began to swell around the dark priest. 

He stood his bandy legs on one of the great drums and roused his folk into a frenzy; only the stoic hobgoblins seemed unaffected by his zeal.  He called for them to be strong in their harsh language, and he drove their spirits mad with rage against the humani.

But at the height of his spell, a green blur streaked from nowhere, and a blade swept out and struck off his head and his hand nearly at the same time.  Before the goblins were aware of what was happening, Hanith stood triumphantly in front of the door of the gatehouse, the severed arm of the shaman raised over his head.  His eyes possessed a deep spark as he spoke words of his craft . . . and suddenly a sheet of flame kept the goblins at bay.

“I have it now!” he screamed at them.  “I have it!  Now you’ll pay!”  With that he threw another spell at them, causing a dozen to spasm with pain and scream with anguish.

“Open the door!” commanded Antrig.  “Let him in!  He may just have saved all of our lives!”

When the doors were opened enough to permit him to enter, Hanith did not immediately come, instead using his newfound power to blast away at the enemy haphazardly.  Only when the men begged did the young mage relent and come inside to safety.

“I told you I’d take care of it,” he informed Captain Antrig.  “Now I have their stone.  I’ll seal the doors with it.”

“I thought there was a danger to such sorceries?” Antrig asked.

“Only if I touch it.  I can leave it in the shaman’s hand and still draw power, and the Dead God should not be able to know my mind.  Theoretically,” he added.  The young mage set to his work with an eagerness that bordered on madness, but before long the gate was so strongly bound that no man or goblin could hope to break the spell. 

But that did not stop the gurvani from trying.  They began to build proper ladders at the far end of the bailey, no doubt in preparation of a concerted assault.  While that troubled the men, they felt sustained by their newly-powerful magical ally.  Hanith used his power lavishly, and discomforted the foe with a number of irritating spells from the battlements while they worked.

Before long their ladders were complete, however.  In late afternoon they began moving them into place and preparing scaling parties.  There were hundreds of them, now.

“This might be it,” Captain Antrig said, stoically.  “We can retreat to the keep, at need, but with this few men it will be doubtful if we can hold it long.”

“We will hold it as long as necessary,” insisted Thune.  “We take this assault until we cannot, anymore.  Only then do we retreat.  I’ve already had the wounded moved inside.”

“No need to leave the goblins dinner,” agreed the commander.  “Are you ready?”

The men geared themselves for yet another defensive battle, and had manned the battlements as much as possible, waiting for the final blow to fall.  As their foe formed up into parties, however, there was a curious commotion at the other gatehouse. 

“What is it?  Warmage!” called Antrig.  “What is happening out there?”

“That,” Hanith said with a sly grin, is a troop of our brothers, my Captain.  They were protected from even my scrying, as a High Mage rides with them, until a few moments ago.  At least a score of horse and fifty men!”

“Then we are rescued?” asked Jagan, his eyes wide in disbelief.

“We are relieved,” corrected the warbrother.  “Subtle difference.  We have kept our watch here, as we were ordered.”  The goblins, it seems, had discovered the new attack, and abandoning their ladders they went to defend their gains . . . to no avail.

For Magelord Astyral, one of the great High Magi, had accompanied the Iron Ring’s relief detachment, once Gos the Feather had relayed the dire straights of the castle.  When he came to the occupied gatehouse, he spared no fury in his sorceries – one after another the gurvani defenders fell under his blades and bolts, and his men, fresh to the field, were eager for blood.

As twilight fell, the white-clad mage met the battered-looking Captain and his officers in the middle of the outer bailey, surrounded by the bodies of dead goblins.  Hundreds of bodies.

“Well met, Captain,” the Magelord said, looking around.  “I see you’ve taken possession of the place.”

“And my thanks for your friendly visit,” Antrig said, casually.  “We were hoping someone would drop by.  Welcome to Castle Dardafan, Magelord.”  Then he stopped, looked at the weary faces of his men who had borne weeks of hardship and survived.  His commander was still too weak to fight, his priest was exhausted from battle, and his warmage was depleted, save for his new toy.  Behind him, the many makeshift banners of his order hung from the battlements.  It occurred to him that he had more banners than defenders when the relief force had arrived.

“No, Magelord,” he corrected, “welcome to the Iron Ring’s headquarters:
Castle Defiance
.  I hope you like it.  We’d make more of an effort to decorate but . . . well, we’ll all probably be dead in a week, so why bother?”