Authors: R.A. Salvatore
Without a word, without a blink, he strode toward the pair of visitors, but stopped some dozen paces away. He lifted his own flagon and drained it in one huge swallow, then took the other two, one in each hand, and came forward slowly, the rustling of his deerskin breeches the only sound in the hall—other than the heavy breathing of both Midalis and Liam.
Right before the pair, Andacanavar stopped again and slowly brought his arms out wide and high above his head.
And then he closed his eyes and howled, turning it to a roar, primal and feral and as frightening a sound as either of the Vanguardsmen had ever heard.
And all the others took it up with vigor, a deafening communal roar that shook the tent walls and sent shivers coursing down the spines of the two visitors.
Continuing to roar, Andacanavar now opened his eyes and winked to the two, a signal that Midalis did not miss. Up went the Prince’s arms, and he, too, loosed a tremendous bellow; and Liam, after an incredulous glance, did likewise, though his sounded more like a squeak. That only seemed to spur the barbarians on to greater heights, their shouts reaching a thunderous crescendo.
Andacanavar dropped his arms suddenly, foam flying everywhere, and all cut short their howls—except for Midalis and Liam, who didn’t understand the game and kept howling a few embarrassing moments longer. Both met the powerful gaze of Andacanavar, and the three stared at one another a few moments longer, before the imposing barbarian came forward and thrust the mugs into their hands, then reached back and called for another drink.
Liam started to bring the mead-filled mug to his lips, but Midalis, catching on, held him.
Then Andacanavar had a mug of his own, presenting it to the pair. “Ah, but we have a bunch of goblins to kill, now don’t we?” the barbarian ranger asked.
Midalis took a chance. He raised his mug above his head—even splashing some mead on Andacanavar, though the man hardly seemed to notice—and shouted, “To the death of the goblins!”
Andacanavar slapped his mug against Midalis’ and held it there, both men eyeing Liam, who quickly smacked his mug up there, too, while all the gathering took up the toast, “To the death of the goblins!”
Andacanavar drained his mug, as did Liam, for none in Honce-the-Bear could outdrink a born-and-bred Vanguardsman, and Midalis got his close enough to empty to call for more.
“Drink hearty, my friends,” said Andacanavar.
“But not too much so,” Midalis replied. “We’ve important business.”
Andacanavar nodded. “But my men are wishing to see the truth of you both,” he explained. “When you have taken enough of the mead, you will wag your tongues honestly, and let us see if we have a bond that can be forged.”
Midalis considered the words and glanced to his friend, and then both held their flagons out as younger barbarians, barely more than boys, rushed about with bulging waterskins, refilling each mug in turn.
“This is Bruinhelde, who leads Tol Hengor,” Andacanavar explained, holding his arm back and sweeping forward another imposing, stern-faced man, his blond hair tied with feathers and ornaments, his jaw square and strong. It occurred to Midalis that if he ever punched that jaw, he’d do more damage to his hand than to Bruinhelde’s face. His eyes were the typical Alpinadoran blue, burning with inner fires.
“Your closest neighbors, they are,” Andacanavar continued. “Far past the time for you two to meet as friends, I say.”
From the expression on Bruinhelde’s face, Midalis wasn’t sure that the man agreed with the ranger’s assessment. But the powerful barbarian leader did nod slightly and did present his flagon to Midalis for a clap of mugs. Liam started to add his, but Bruinhelde wilted him with a glare.
“Have we?” Midalis asked bluntly.
Bruinhelde looked at him curiously, then turned to Andacanavar.
“Met as friends,” Midalis clarified. “For so many years, our two peoples have had little contact, and rarely has that contact been on friendly terms.”
“And you place the blame for this on my people?” Bruinhelde, obviously an easily agitated fellow, roared in reply; and all the Alpinadoran warriors bristled, and poor Liam seemed as if he would simply melt away.
But Midalis kept his eyes firmly on the imposing Bruinhelde. “Blame?” he asked with a chuckle. “I would not presume to blame anyone—likely, there is enough of that to go around, and each of the disastrous meetings would have to be judged on its own circumstance. But, no,” he continued as Bruinhelde’s look softened somewhat, “I seek not to place blame, nor to take blame upon my own shoulders, but rather to accept that which has happened and hope to learn from it, that it never happens again. Good Bruinhelde, if the invasion by the minions of the demon dactyl brings a new understanding and alliance to our peoples, then there is a bright edge to the dark cloud. Far too long have we skirmished, to the detriment of both our peoples. Let this night of Hengorot”—Bruinhelde and the others were obviously caught off guard that Midalis knew their name for the mead hall celebration—“forge a new bond between us, one for benefit and common good.” As he finished, he held his mug aloft.
A long and uncomfortable moment slipped past, with Bruinhelde glancing once at Andacanavar, then fixing his stare on Midalis. Another moment slipped by, the mead hall perfectly silent, every man holding his breath waiting for Bruinhelde’s answer.
He clapped his flagon hard against Midalis’. “We could not have picked a better
common foe than the smelly goblins!” He roared, and so, too, did every man in the hall, a thunderous battle cry, full of excitement, full of rage. The sheer enthusiasm and volume of that barbarian war cry weakened Liam’s knees, and when Prince Midalis looked at his companion he knew that Liam was thinking the same thing as he: they were glad that the Alpinadorans were on their side!
Though he had to go to rally his troops for the morning’s battle, Prince Midalis did not leave the mead hall early that night. Nor was he able to escape until after Bruinhelde had poured a dozen flagons of drink down his throat.
“I’m not sure we’re better with ’em as friends or enemies,” Liam remarked as the two made their way through the forest, each man as groggy and drunk as his companion. “Oh, but me head’s to hurt tomorrow, before any goblin even clunks me with its club.”
“They’ll all awaken with sore heads and tongues of cloth,” Midalis agreed. “Likely, it will only make them more fierce.”
The mere thought sent a shudder along Liam’s spine.
Midalis stopped then and stood with a curious expression upon his face.
“What’s it about, then?” Liam asked.
Midalis held his hand up, motioning for the man to wait. A sensation had washed over him, much like the night before, a silent, spiritual cry for help. Abbot Agronguerre, he knew, using the hematite gemstone to reach out to him. It was a subtle call, nothing distinct, an imparting of emotion, of need, and nothing more. Midalis concentrated with all his willpower, trying to reciprocate the call, hoping that Agronguerre, who was floating spiritually about him, would sense his reply. “In the morning,” he said aloud, for he was unsure of how the gemstone magic worked, unsure of whether the abbot could physically hear him in his spiritual form. “We will come on against the goblins in the morning.”
“As we already said,” a confused Liam answered, and again, Midalis held up his hand for the man to wait. But the sensation passed, the connection broke, and the Prince could only hope that his friend in the abbey had heard.
“It was Agronguerre,” he explained to Liam. “He came to me again.”
Liam held up his hands, seeming unnerved. “The magic again?” he asked, and Midalis nodded. “What’re ye thinkin’ our new barbarian friends’ll think o’ them monks and their magic?” he asked, for it was common knowledge among the Vanguardsmen that, while the monks considered the magical gemstones the gifts of God, the Alpinadorans mistrusted the powers completely, even spoke of the monkish magic as the work of Fennerloki, the god of their pantheon representing the powers of evil.
“We start the fightin’ and the monks loose a fireball from their stone walls, and then Bruinhelde and his boys turn against us and pull St. Belfour down around Agronguerre,” Liam reasoned.
Midalis blew a sigh as he considered the words, but then shook his head. “The ranger, Andacanavar, knows of the magic,” he explained. “And so Andacanavar will warn Bruinhelde and the others. They know that we march against goblins besieging
the abbey, and yet they join with us anyway.”
“Andacanavar,” Liam echoed with obvious respect.
The Prince did not sleep at all the rest of that night. He had seen battle many times in the last months, but always against smaller groups of monsters and always upon a field of his own choosing. This time, he had a large portion of his total army with him, more than three hundred men, and all of the monks in Vanguard were bottled up in St. Belfour. If the goblins won this day, the results for the region would be devastating—it was possible that those remaining men and women here would have to retreat to Pireth Vanguard, perhaps even board the few ships there and sail south across the gulf, surrendering the region altogether.
With the dawn, all weariness left the Prince, and the surge of excitement he found in organizing his soldiers erased his sore head from the night before.
“None to be seen,” Liam O’Blythe reported a short while later. “Not a barbarian in the area, by what our scouts’re sayin’. Not even their campground.”
Midalis stared out into the forest. “Are they sure?”
“Can’t find them,” Liam confirmed sourly. “Might be that they changed their minds and went away.”
“Or that they’re preparing an attack from a concealed position,” Midalis said hopefully.
“And are we to wait?”
Midalis spent a long while considering that. Should he wait for Andacanavar and Bruinhelde? Or should he trust them, and begin the attack now, before the sun had climbed into the sky, as he and Andacanavar had discussed? He recalled Abbot Agronguerre’s spiritual plea and knew that those within the abbey were going hungry this day. He and his men had to go against the goblins soon or lose the abbey, but with so much at stake …
“We go,” he said firmly.
“We’ll be outmatched if Andacanavar—”
“We go,” Midalis said again. He flattened the parchment map of the region, which lay on the small table in his tent. Midalis had trained in tactics with the Allheart Brigade during his days in Ursal, had learned to recognize his strengths and his enemies’ weaknesses. He knew that his men could outfight goblins two to one—more than that if they could bring their horses into play. But the numbers today were far less favorable than that.
Midalis studied the map, focusing on the clear area around the abbey and on the rocky, forested hills to its west. At the least, he and his men had to get some supplies into the abbey.
The Prince nodded his head, settling on a plan. He called together all of his commanders, and within the hour, the Vanguard army was on the move.
“H
e heard yer call, did he?” the nervous young Brother Haney asked Agronguerre, joining the old abbot in St. Belfour’s bell tower, which afforded them a view of the area. The rain had stopped, the stars fading away as the eastern horizon began to
lighten with the coming dawn, but the air had turned much colder, leaving an icy glaze on the grass and trees.
Abbot Agronguerre stared out past the goblin campfires. He understood the depth of the disaster here; they were out of food, already with growling bellies, and they needed Midalis to come on in force. But Agronguerre knew well the limits of the Prince’s army and knew that, even if Midalis attacked with every available soldier, the odds were against them. Even worse, Agronguerre couldn’t honestly answer Brother Haney, for he simply did not know.
“We must pray,” he replied, and he turned to regard the young man, barely into his twenties.
Brother Haney shook his head. “They must,” he insisted. “If they do not—”
“If they do not, then we shall find our way out of St. Belfour with the fall of night,” Agronguerre replied.
Brother Haney nodded, obviously taking some strength from the determination in Agronguerre’s voice.
But they both knew the truth of their desperate situation, both knew that this time, it seemed, the goblins had won.
“T
hey’re keeping it quiet, then,” Liam O’Blythe remarked to Prince Midalis shortly before the dawn. They sat on their horses on the wooded trail behind St. Belfour, all the forest about them deathly silent. The scouts had just returned, though, with news that the goblins were beneath the shady boughs, in great numbers.
Midalis looked back over his line of riders, each horse sporting bulging saddlebags. They had to get to the abbey wall, at least, and heave the supplies in to the monks and common folk trapped within. And so they would, Midalis understood, but he knew, too, that getting back away from the abbey would prove no easy task.
“How long are ye planning to stay and fight?” Liam asked him, apparently reading his thoughts.
“We rush the northeastern corner,” Midalis explained, pointing in that direction. St. Belfour was situated with its northern wall near a wooded hillock. That hillock, unfortunately, was thick with goblins, but Midalis believed that he and his riders could get past them to reach the abbey. The other three sides of the rectangular stone structure faced open fields, thirty yards of cleared ground in every direction. Beyond those fields loomed more thick woodlands—thick with brush and trees and goblins. While the fields offered Midalis and his men the best advantage, using their horses to trample enemies and within easy magical support from the monks, he understood that they’d have a difficult time if a retreat became necessary, scrambling their ranks back into the thick brush helter-skelter, with goblins coming at them from every angle, separating them and pulling them down. The Vanguardsmen had survived the war by picking their battlefields carefully; this was one the Prince did not see as promising.
But they had to go, had to get the supplies to their starving kinsmen.
“The fight will come to us quickly, I believe,” Midalis remarked, “pursuit following
our line and goblins rushing from the brush on all sides.”