Dragonhammer: Volume II (7 page)

He takes six of them at once, turning to contend with each.  It takes only a single blow for him to defeat any soldier.  He spins as he cuts across the chest of the fifth, and then rams his sword through the gut of the last.  The blade spears all the way through to the hilt and the orc lifts him into the air.  He snarls into the face of his gasping foe atop his sword, and then turns and flings the soldier into another.  In the same motion he cuts across the chest of an enemy and decapitates another.  As the last falls, he turns towards the line and steps forward with a growl, twirling his blade to rid it of some of the blood.

As men fall in front of me, they also fall behind me.  My men are not able to block every blow, return every strike, or dodge with quickness as they must to survive.  Some of them fall.  Too many.  It is always too many.

Despite our losses, we push forward up the hill.

An arrow sprouts from the neck of an enemy and he falls, rolling down the hill until he runs into the body of one of his comrades.  There they lie, oddly peaceful in the midst of such violence and chaos.

With the spike of my hammer I snag the shoulder pad of a Tygnar soldier and throw him to my left, down the hill and into another of them.  “I’m glad to be on your side,” says one of my men standing just behind me.

I acknowledge him with a nod and work my way up.

The top is only a few feet away.  A soldier emerges from the ridge and readies himself with a halberd twice his height.  The deadly thing swings dangerously close and I bat it away as he stabs it at me.  Before he can retaliate I get close enough that the weapon will be of little use.

As he swings it again I slam my hammer into the shaft of the halberd and it snaps in two.

He draws his sword, only to have it knocked from his grasp.  Then he falls dead beneath me.

I’m at the top, standing between two of the tall stones; it’s clearer up here than down below in the melee.  A few archers still stand where Titus had placed them, and two of them fall to my throwing knives.  Three more fall to arrows.

Titus is nowhere to be seen.  I look about for any sign of him or where he may have gone, but see nothing.  A warhorn blares two short blasts, and I recognize it as the Tygnar warhorn.  The soldiers, upon hearing the sound, turn and run with cries of “Retreat!”

Ullrog’s brow furrows.  Any enemy that passes him by is immediately dispatched, and not in very humane ways.  I kill only those who raise their weapon against me.  Whenever my hammer is not swinging through the air, I am looking for Jarl Hralfar for orders.

He’s not too hard to find, but it takes a few minutes once the armies have separated and Tygnar has begun to run the opposite direction.  “Do we follow them?” I ask.

“They will be retreating to Zurin, to the southwest,” he says.  “We are not fitted for desert travel and we do not have appropriate supplies.”  He turns to Genevieve.  “See what we can scavenge from their camp.  They have left everything; they know they are outmatched.  Take everything you can and inform the men that we will be on the march in a matter of hours.”

Genevieve nods and turns around, shouting orders and pointing.

“Yes,” he says to me.  “We will.”

“Good,” I mutter.  “Titus will not stop until he dies or we do.”

“Agreed,” says Hralfar.  “Ready yourself for a long, hot journey, Kadmus, because this will be just that.  Most of these men have never even seen this desert, let alone walked in it.  We’ll see if there are sufficient supplies in their camp to sustain us to Zurin.”

Then he turns and walks away to take an inventory of their camp.

“Fight good,” says Ullrog, holding out his hand.

“Oh,” I say quietly, a little taken aback.  “You too.”  I take his hand expecting a normal shake but instead he pulls me to him and knocks his shoulder against mine.  Then he nods and says nothing more.

My next thought is of Aela.  Quickly I turn about to search for her and see her climbing the hill towards us.  I breathe a furtive sigh of relief as she nears.

“When I couldn’t see you I thought they had gotten you,” I say.

She seems slightly confused.  “You would care if they had?”

I’m a little offended.  I study the look in her eyes and see that she is genuinely asking me if I truly care. 
How sad
, I think. 
She must never have had somebody that cares
.

She’s more than surprised to find herself enveloped in my arms.

I hold her tightly, only long enough for me to say, “Of course.  You are my friend.”  I ache to hold on, but force myself away.  A feeling stirs inside of me, awakened by the embrace.  Unfamiliar with it, I shove it aside.

She looks up at me with wide eyes as she realizes that I mean what I have said.  “You do,” she says quietly.  The corner of Ullrog’s lip turns up and his brow softens slightly.  He sees my gaze and nods, and then looks away over the hills with his arms folded over his enormous chest.

A clap on my back interrupts us.  “Good to see you alive and well,” Percival says.  “In fact I believe we all made it out without much more than a scratch.”  And so we had.  James is unhurt and Jericho has only a small scratch on his sword arm.

“Good fighting,” Ullrog rumbles to the group.  James eyes a large splotch of blood on the orc’s breastplate and says, “Yeah… you too.”

“We should go help with the camp,” I say.  “We’re leaving in only a couple of hours.  There’s plenty to do.”

Zurin

T
ygnar fled in such haste that they barely even stopped to grab food.  We are not able to carry everything, but we leave with food to last us to Zurin and, some of us at least, clothes fit for the desert.  We leave the weapons and tents.  They’ll only slow us down.

Firstly Jarl Hralfar leads us north to the road that hugs the Juniper River.  The river is calm, though wide and long, winding through the plains brushed with stout sedge; as always I appreciate its leisurely rush.  The desert lies so close that we can see it directly to the south.  The Juniper acts as the boundary between the Vrakkjar Plains and the Ha’avjah Desert.

We follow the river southwest, towards Zurin.

To the left, across the river, a barren expanse stretches to the horizon.  Nearer us, the sand is a harsh reddish color, but as I gaze farther out, the sand becomes light and tan.  It lies in monstrous drifts and hot wind throws waves of it from their peaks.  Between two large dunes, I spot a hill similar to the one we are crossing over:  covered in brush with a small flat tree.

Only shrubs and bushes cover the banks of the river.  Every once in a while there stands a group of odd-looking trees with scraggly trunks and branches, and flat tops.

Ullrog carries his armor on his back and wears worn travel clothes light in color.  Many of the men were planning on wearing their armor the whole way, but some of them are beginning to follow Ullrog’s example.  I wear my armor underneath a light cape I had acquired in the Tygnar camp.

“I should have killed him,” I say softly to Aela, who marches to my left.  Ullrog walks to my right, and the others march around us.

“Why?”

“Because now we’re chasing him into his own lands,” I reply.  “Wasting precious time tracking him down when we could be furthering the efforts in the west.”

“You did what you thought best.”

“But it was wrong.  I swear to you I will not give him mercy when I next see him.  I will kill him and then we will be one step closer to winning this accursed war.”

She does not respond.

“Fire,” says Ullrog softly.  The steady rhythm of the soldiers’ boots fills the silence.

“What?” I ask.

“Rage in you,” he says.  “Make you fire.”

I shoot him a puzzled look, but he only stares straight ahead.  “Fire,” he mutters.

The trek will only take four or five days, but the heat makes every day an eternity.  We make camp that night along the banks of the river and every soldier sleeps soundly in the cool night.  It’s an enormous relief to remove the outer layers of armor and feel even the slightest breeze on my sweat-soaked clothes.  Most of us spend time that night polishing the sweat out of our armor.

The next day most men still wear their armor.  It is not likely that we will overtake the Tygnar forces, as they are more used to this type of environment, but we cannot afford to be unready should they decide to turn and attack us.

We make trips to the river frequently to refill our water pouches.  On one such occasion this particular day, I refill my own canteen next to Aela.  As I get up, a soldier bumps my shoulder lightly as he passes to refill his own.  “Sorry,” he says as he looks behind at me.  I only nod and continue up the riverbank.

He sits next to Aela and says something I cannot hear.  Aela ignores him.

He says something else and his hand reaches up to brush her hair back.  She leans back and slaps his hand away, and then he tries again more vigorously.  Ullrog places himself between them calmly and begins to fill his waterskin.

The soldier is taken aback, as is Aela.  When the orc finishes, he looks up at the soldier but says nothing, holding a firm gaze.  Then he rises and gives me a nod as he passes me on the riverbank.

“You can’t hide behind your orc forever,” says the soldier softly, his hand rising again.

Aela’s face contorts, her arm flies up, and the soldier finds himself floundering in the river, much to the amusement of the onlookers.  She smiles at him smugly just before she turns around and walks away from the bank.

As we sit around our fires the next night, the air is cold, but it is not the temperature making it feel so.  Druam stands on the other side of the fire, staring stonily at Ullrog, Aela, and me.  He says nothing, and we ignore him.

When we get within a day’s travel of Zurin, all soldiers wear their armor.  Battle will come.

Finally the city comes into sight.  The road makes its way over a hill and through a flat expanse to the walls of Zurin in the distance.

“About time,” somebody mutters.  “Let’s end this.”

“They will see us coming,” I say.  “There’s no way we can hide in this open plain.  They will be ready for us.”

When we get within about a mile of the city, we stop.  We will attack the next day.

Jarl Hralfar summons me to his tent that evening, probably because he wants to hear what I have to say about getting into the city.  So far just about every idea I’ve had has been a success.

“Captain,” he says as I enter.  “Good.”  He stands with his hands resting on the table in the middle of the tent.  A map is laid out upon it, and a little blue flag marks our position on the Juniper river right next to the little orange flag that marks the city Zurin.  Overlapping that map, he has an open book with a couple of quills and inkwells.  Genevieve stands next to him.  A lantern hangs from the center of the canvas ceiling, and another sits on the end table next to the kingly cot in the corner.  The tent is well lit.

“What are we dealing with?” I ask.

“Zurin was never meant for war,” Hralfar says, “But the gate is strong and the walls are thick.  We do not have siege weapons with which to enter the city.”

“And no trees to use instead,” I think aloud.

“As far as we know,” the Jarl continues, “there aren’t any secret entrances or sewage tunnels we can use to gain access to the city.”

I nod.  “What do you want me to help with?”

“Finding Titus,” he says.  “What’s to stop him from running away again during the battle?  He knows we’re here to end this and to do that he needs to be killed.  He knows that, so he’s going to try and run.  We need information on those secret entrances or evacuation tunnels.  There’s got to be some kind of escape tunnel, and we cannot allow him to use it.”

“And you plan to find it by…?” I ask.

“I have spies out right now,” he answers.  “Searching the walls, foundations, and surrounding areas of the city for anything that might be even slightly suspicious.  They could give us our way in, but in case they cannot, we need a way to enter the city or else all of our other plans are for naught!  We need a way to break in the gate!”

“That will not be necessary,” says a voice.  The man enters the tent quickly and stands up straight.  He wears light armor underneath a dark cloak and hood, but as he enters, he lifts his hood.  “The gate is open.”

Jarl Hralfar’s face falls.  “What?” he asks.

“The gate is open,” the spy repeats.  “Jorge walked right inside and nobody even batted an eye.  There’s nobody there.”

“Nobody?” questions the Jarl after thinking for a moment.

“Nobody hostile,” clarifies the spy.  “Just a few citizens going about their work.”

Hralfar stares for another moment and then says, “Inform the men.  We move out immediately.”

Genevieve’s brow furrows.  “What’s happened?”

“It could be a trap,” I say. 

Hralfar nods.  “Or Zurin was a decoy,” he says.  “They are not here.  We have to see.  Now.”

Within only a few minutes the men are all suited and we are marching towards the city swiftly.  As we approach, I notice that there are only a few torches set on the wall, and the gate hangs open like a closet door somebody forgot to close.

We walk inside warily.  After a few minutes, it becomes very clear that there is no army here.  Women and children are asleep in their homes, some with their husbands and fathers, but there is nobody here to challenge our presence.  Most are not even aware of the army inside of their city.

Hralfar turns about and says, “They are not here.  We leave in the morning.”

“Where have they gone?” I ask.

“Nur’tokh,” he says.  “Their capitol.  They can’t have left very long ago.  They’ve taken everything.  Who knows how far ahead of us they are, but truthfully it doesn’t matter.  We were fooled and they could be halfway across the desert by now.  They will be there by the time we get back into Greendale.”

“Why would we go back to Greendale?” asks Genevieve.  “Nur’tokh is in the middle of the desert.”

“It is!” says Hralfar sarcastically.  “But we’ll travel much faster in our own lands!  I, for one, do not want to run all the way across the desert with no water and far too much sun.  We’ll go up to Greendale, follow the southern border all the way to the Tygnar River, and follow the river down to their capitol.”

Genevieve makes a face, slightly offended.

“We have to leave tomorrow,” he says.  “As early as is possible.  Make sure the men are ready.”