Tarah Woodblade (22 page)

It was an ugly thing. At least that’s what he had been told. He understood why people felt that way. The mace was overly large. The workmanship of the haft was sturdy, but not fancy and the octagonal head was just a little malformed, as if the smith had held it in the forge too long. The spikes were of varying lengths and some of them even bent.

Those bent spikes were actually why he had bought it from a trader so many years ago. His friends had laughed, but Djeri saw a history in it. This was a weapon that had seen heavy use and against tough foes. When he carried it into battle, that history was shown to each enemy and he had seen the fear it had caused reflected in their eyes.

Djeri smiled and set it back on his shoulder, shaking his head. Of course that was why he had chosen it for this mission. He had been away from adventuring for a long time and of all the weapons he owned, this was the one that made him feel the most intimidating. This ugly weapon was his declaration to the world that Djeri was back.

It wasn’t long before he came upon the path Tarah had described. It was about three paces wide and free of rocks and weeds. He stepped onto it and headed towards her house, wondering if Tarah had obtained a bow yet. Not that it mattered much. He would plow through the goblinoids anyway.

After a short distance, wide paving stones appeared on the path. They looked rough-hewn, as if cut by hand, but they were set well and didn’t shift under his feet. It seemed truly out of place this deep in the forest, like something a dwarf would do.

Just then a goblin walked out of the trees not ten yards in front of him. A fur cap sat on its head, partially obscuring a circular tattoo. Its eyes widened in surprise and it dropped the firewood it carried. “A dwarf!”

“Are you scared?” Djeri asked, giving it a toothy grin. He hefted his mace and it turned and ran, shouting. He chuckled and lowered the visor on his helmet as he followed. His other concerns faded altogether. Now there was only battle in his mind.

He followed the panicked goblin down the path through a dense copse of trees. It shouted all the way, warning of dwarf invaders. Then as the path left the copse, Tarah’s house came into view. Djeri paused for a moment despite himself, taking it in. The place looked nothing like he had expected.

The front of the house was of log cabin design, with a thatch roof that hung out over a wide front porch. It had a large single front window and a thick front door that was painted red. The strange part was the way the house disappeared into the side of a steep and rocky hill, looking as if it had been half consumed by the earth. He could tell that despite its oddness, the house had once been a tidy place, well taken care of.

The front window had been broken outwards, pieces of a chair still wedged in the frame. The yard was spotted with burnt spots where cook fires had been set and several of the large paving stones had been overturned or broken. Scraps of paper and parchment littered the ground along with bits of colorful fabric, likely the pieces of clothing the goblinoids had decided not to use.

Sitting on opposite edges of the porch were two burly orcs, both with moonrat eye tattoos on their foreheads. They had small knives in their large hands and were carving something into the wooden supports. As the shouting goblin ran up the pathway towards them, they looked up from whatever they were whittling and rolled their eyes as if this was a common occurrence. The goblin stopped half way to the porch and began jumping up and down and pointing.

Djeri’s fingers tightened on the haft of his mace. He let his anger build at these goblinoids, these monsters, laying in wait as they defaced Tarah’s home. He ran towards them. The orcs froze in surprise when they saw him appear from the copse. He lifted the mace over his head.

“Dwarf! Dwarf, stupids!” The goblin was yelling. It was so focused on getting the orcs’ attention that it didn’t notice Djeri running up behind it. “I tells you, it’s a mean nasty dw-!”

Djeri’s mace burst its skull, the force of his blow driving its small body into the paving stones. He jumped over its crushed form and ran on, bits of the creature remaining stuck to the weapon’s bent spikes.

The orcs stood and clutched their weapons. One of them, with orange skin and crude leather armor, carried what looked like a woodsman’s axe. The other, brown-skinned and muscular, wore no armor, but carried a wide wooden shield and a spiked mace. The goblin’s death didn’t seem to frighten them as much as Djeri had hoped. Both of them had odd grins on their faces as they started towards him.

These beasts were fanatics. Somehow even with the witch they worshipped dead, they still believed. Djeri planned to disabuse them of that notion. He didn’t wish to be caught between them, though, so he angled his trajectory towards the orc without the shield.

Just before he reached the orange-skinned orc, he heard the unmistakable sound of an arrow plinking off his shoulder pauldron. He caught a quick glimpse of a goblin archer standing on the hillside above the house. There was nothing he could do about that. He just had to hope that it wasn’t good enough to hit a gap in his armor. Where was Tarah?

The orc, a good foot taller than the dwarf, swung his axe down in an angle aiming for the joint at Djeri’s neck. Djeri leaned forward, twisting his body so that the axe missed its mark, glancing off his back plate. At the same time he brought his mace low on a sideways strike that hit the orc in the side of the knee.

Its limb crumpled inward and the orc cried out as it fell to the side. Djeri tore his mace free from its leg and ignored another arrow that bounced off his helmet. He turned to face the second orc.

This one was a bit more cautious. After seeing its friend downed, it stopped and watched the dwarf warily, its shield held in front of it, its mace held back, ready to strike at the right moment.

“Are you scared, orc?” Djeri asked, stepping towards it. The orc took a step back.

“Clobber!” it yelled. “We’re being attacked!”

“My leg! Mistress! My leg!” shouted the other, laying on the ground, clutching its ruined knee.

Another arrow zoomed by, this one missing Djeri completely. There was another goblin archer, this one standing on the rooftop. Where was that girl? There was a loud thump from inside the house.

Djeri knew he had to finish the two orcs off quickly before their leader arrived. Well, one was easy. He feinted at the brown-skinned orc, causing it to take another cautious step back, then spun around, swinging his mace down in a back-handed blow that caught the first orc in the face. When he brought his weapon back up and faced the remaining orc again, there were shreds of orange skin stuck in the spikes.

“Blasted dirt-grinder!” the orc spat, a common derogatory term for dwarves among orcs. “Come! I’ve killed your kind before.”

This one did seem to have fought with dwarves before. Or at least it knew what to do. It held its wide shield low to avoid attacks to the legs and its mace was cocked back, ready to strike a downward blow if Djeri came too close. With enough strength behind it, a direct blow would crumple even a dwarven helmet.

Djeri smiled, his keen eyes catching something. If this thing really had fought some of his kin, he hoped that it had fought them with this same shield. Because if it had, they had done him a favor. The wood was chipped and gouged as if by many weapons, but one weapon in particular, likely an axe, had started a fine crack that ran the length of the shield, right along the grain.

“Hurry up, Clobber!” the orc shouted. “Mrag just died!”

Another loud thump came from within the house.

“Are you ready?” Djeri asked the orc. He took one step back and tensed his body, gripping the shaft of his ugly mace with both hands and bringing it into striking position.

He heard the rush of another arrow, but this one came nowhere near him. One of the goblins cursed.

“Come at me, dirt-grinder!” the orc growled, his muscles taught and ready.

Djeri came. His powerful legs churned and he covered the distance between them faster than the orc expected. Djeri put his full force into the swing, putting all his strength into it. The orc lifted his shied into position and Djeri shifted his weight just enough to bring his weapon in line with the perfect spot.

The steel head struck the cracked spot with more of a devastating impact than Djeri had expected. The shield split in two, sending splinters of wood into the orc’s face and eyes. The mace drove into the orc’s arm, shattering bone and knocking it off its feet. The orc landed on its back, shards of wood scattered all around it.

Determined not to let it recover, Djeri walked to its side and stomped on the hand holding its weapon. The orc groaned and looked towards him. One of its eyes had been pierced by splinters, but the remaining one focused on him with hatred and disbelief.

“That was a bad shield,” Djeri said with a shake of his head.

“Clobber will kill you,” it promised.

“Not likely,” Djeri replied and swung his mace down again, ending the beast. He tore the weapon free and grimaced at its gory state. The worst thing about this mace was the cleanup.

Another loud sound echoed from the house and Djeri turned to see the door shudder. With a creak, the door swung inward. From the pool of sunlight where Djeri was standing, he couldn’t see through the dark interior.

“What’s this?” said a deep voice. A hulking shadow stirred within. With loud heavy steps, the leader edged through the doorway. “You kill the mistress’ servants, dwarf-dirt?”

Clobber came to the edge of the porch and rose to his full height, nearly seven and a half feet tall. Djeri sighed as the sunlight illuminated his enemy. This was more trouble than he’d expected.

Clobber was an ogre.

Chapter Eleven

Tarah arrived at the top of the hill just in time to see Djeri knock the orange-skinned orc down. The dwarf was brutally efficient. Each blow of his heavy mace not only crushed bone, it tore free chunks of flesh leaving his opponent a broken and bloody mess. Tarah shivered at the savagery of it.

She saw an arrow clang off of the dwarf’s helmet and scanned the area. Two goblin archers were on the hillside above the dwarf, one of them on her roof. Fortunately, their bows were small and their arrows crudely made. It would take an amazing shot to injure the dwarf.

Nevertheless, she didn’t hesitate. Tarah fired twice in quick succession. The first goblin was just beginning its slow tumble down the hill when her second arrow pierced the other one through the head. It fell just as Djeri charged the second orc.

Tarah whistled softly to herself as she watched the dwarf’s swift blow destroy its shield and throw the orc to the ground like a rag doll. She began to pick her way down the hill towards the dwarf, but she didn’t make it very far before Clobber emerged, his voice deep and fearsome.

The ogre stepped into the sunlight, and stood to his full height, half again as tall as the dwarf and as wide as two men, with a bulging muscular body. She had never seen an ogre this large in person before. He wore a breastplate made by the crude joining together of two man-sized breastplates and a pair of her papa’s breeches strained to fit his legs.

Inset in the ogre’s thick overhanging brow, as if pushed halfway into his skull, was a green moonrat eye. The eye was shriveled and veiny and the skin around it was puffed up and enflamed.

In his right arm, he held an enormous iron shield. It was shaped like a long rectangle and had a snarling moonrat face painted on its surface. He took another step forward and Tarah saw that he dragged an enormous sword behind him, its handle clutched in one hand. The blade was sharp and highly polished and two elemental runes were carved into the metal near the tip.

Tarah’s jaw clenched so tight that her teeth hurt. It was as she had feared. The ogre carried her papa’s sword. A memory came unbidden to her mind of her papa polishing the weapon by the fireside, the soft glow of the firelight making the blade seem to gleam.

Though Djeri must have found the ogre’s appearance intimidating, he didn’t let on. The dwarf let the head of his greatmace fall to the ground in front of him and leaned forward on its pommel casually, his hands gripping the handle. “So you’re the one they call Clobber?”

“You killed my followers!” the ogre accused pointing with a rigid finger.

Tarah couldn’t see Djeri’s face through his visor, but she imagined a smile on his lips. “I work for the Battle Academy. Killing goblinoids is one of my jobs. As is killing ogres that invade the homes of my friends.”

“Friends?” The ogre’s wide mouth stretched into a grin. “You are friends with the Woodblade?”

“She’s quite upset with you,” Djeri said.

“The Woodblade comes?” shouted the ogre. “Bring her here! She must die for my mistress!”

Tarah’s first arrow struck the ogre in the base of his muscular neck. “You don’t have a mistress! Not anymore!”

“There you are!” Djeri said. He pointed to the hill above her house. “There’ve been archers firing at me from up on the . . . oh. I see you got those.”

He was interrupted by a laugh as the ogre tore the arrow free. Though the wound bled profusely, Tarah hadn’t struck a major artery. “The mistress said to wait. She promised you would come!”

“She was right!” Tarah said, firing again. She aimed for the juncture of his jaw line and neck, but this time he brought his shield up and the arrow bounced harmlessly away.

“You can’t kill me with arrows!” The ogre bellowed. “The mistress showed me my death and it is glory!”

“Watch me!” Tarah said, firing again. The ogre raised his shield, but she wasn’t aiming for his neck. The arrow pierced his calf instead. “Your shield isn’t big enough, idiot!”

The ogre grunted, but ignored the injury, stepping forward. “I will kill you after your dwarf-friend is dead!”

Another arrow darted in, driving deep into the ogre’s foot. It grunted again and Djeri laughed.

“I don’t think you’ll make it over to me!” the dwarf said as Tarah fired again. Another arrow plunked into the ogre’s calf right next to the first one.

With a growl, Clobber crouched behind the shield to better cover himself from Tarah’s bow. He then lifted her father’s sword and crept slowly towards the dwarf.