The Game of Fates (77 page)

“Mirrik!”
Kale called.  The muscle-bound warrior turned about to see who was calling
him.  He was drenched almost head to toe in sticky, congealing ogre blood, but
the white of his teeth shone through like a wolf’s in the dark of night.

“Mirrik,
the next wave is coming!” Kale called.  “Hemmet!  Pass the word!  The next wave
is coming!”  He had moved his skirmishers up in front of the Deep Gen’s line to
collect up their thrown javelins and to slow down the next wave the orc horde
threw at them. 
Someone has to be focused
, Kale thought.  Right now the
warriors of the Deep Gen were too busy celebrating their victory over the
ogres, and had yet to reform the line.

“Where’s
Lord Sennak?” Kale called.  “We must reform the line!”

Mirrik
looked about.  Down the line to the left a group of warriors were not
rejoicing.  They were some of the old lord’s personal guards that the new Lord
Sennak the Younger had taken on as his own personal guards as well, and they
were huddled about the shattered form of a kobold on the ground.

“There’s
your answer,” Mirrik called back to Kale as he pointed to the left.  “I think
he’ll not be leading us for now, if ever.”

Mirrik
and Kale both looked down the hill.  Already they could see the first orcs
through the trees.

“Form
it up!” Mirrik called.  “Here they come!  Form the line!”

Kale
didn’t have time to worry about others at the moment.  “Form the skirmish
line!” he called, and with an obedience he’d not seen in them before this
battle, his hundred outcast warriors quickly moved into their various
positions.

“Ready!”
he called out.  In front of them, not twenty paces away, the lead orcs of the
next wave were climbing up the slope, determined looks in their eyes and sharp
swords and axes in their hands.  Not far behind them a huge mixed group of
ogres and orcs came, some of the largest, fiercest looking orcs and ogres that
any of them had seen yet forming the nucleus of the group.  It was as if the
first group of orcs were but shock troops for what had to be the rest of this
entire wing of the orc horde.

“Throw!”
Kale called, and as one almost a hundred javelins flew threw the air, cutting
down the entire first group of orcs before any of them could get close enough. 
Kale had been prepared to fall back, but the effectiveness of his warriors’
throws made that command unnecessary for now.

Behind
Kale’s skirmishers, the Deep Gen’s warrior groups finished forming up.  Kale’s
skirmishers had succeeded in giving them enough time to reform.

“Look
at the number of them,” Kale’s brother muttered in a low voice.

“Steady
now,” Kale responded.

Down
the slope from them the orcs and ogres had stopped.  Kale counted to himself. 
Among the numberless mass of orcs… a few hundred at least… were about
twenty-five ogres.  Shaking his head, he looked back at the Deep Gen’s warrior
groups.  They were battered and beaten, having lost probably a quarter of their
strength in the last battle alone.  Not a one of them was more than three ranks
deep now as their leaders’ seconds moved warriors about to fill gaps the
previous groups of ogres had punched in their lines.

From
the elite group in the middle of the seething, screaming line of warriors, an
older orc with a large axe stepped forward.  The scars all over his body could
be seen by all the kobolds in the line, as could his massive muscles.  Looking
from one side of his line to the other, the fierce looking warrior began yelling
something in their feral tongue.  The orcs around what had to be their
chieftain repeated the older orc’s words, roaring it out with grim enthusiasm. 
The chief called out again, and this time the entire line joined in repeating
the foul syllables.

As
the old orc chanted, an orc with many small skulls about his waste and
necklaces of claws stepped out of the line.  The simple black cloth robe he
wore was smeared with handprints of ash mixed with blood, and in his hand he
held a long bone as a rod that was topped with a blackened skull with sharp
fangs.  In the eyes of the skull two dark rubies shined with a ghostly light.

All
along the line the Deep Gen warriors shifted about nervously, not knowing what
to expect.

“What
do you think he’s for?” Kale’s brother asked.

Kale
just shook his head slightly, keeping his eyes on the black-robed orc as it
raised the scepter.  Suddenly, as the orc shaman chanted, blackness radiated
forth from the rod, flying through the air with a power that chilled the hearts
of every kobold there.  In what had to be but a heartbeat the blackness had
flown through their formations, desecrating the ground about them and chilling
their hearts as though their tenuous grip on mortality were weakened somehow
with the arrival of the black mist.  Then, as suddenly as it arrived, the black
mist seemed to disappear, seeping quickly into the many corpses about them.

Instantly,
with jerky, spasmodic motions, tens of corpses came to their feat as one all
along the line, their eyes open yet senseless, their faces still frozen with
their final moments of agony.  Blood was still pouring from some of them as,
kobold or orc alike, the risen dead reached down and grabbed up weapons in
unnaturally strong hands.

A
great cry of despair rose up and down the entire line as many of their fellow
warriors, who had died nobly in the defense of their companions, now raised
spears against them.  Down at the end of the line Lord Sennak’s personal guards
fled as his corpse also rose to its feet and took up its sword, a particularly
pain-wracked grin lighting its slack features.

Kale
had seen much in his life, but he had never seen anything like this.  Neither
had any of his outcast warriors, by the looks of sheer panic on their faces.

“Skirmishers! 
Fall back!” he called out.  All around him, the outcasts were already trying to
do that, several of them being cut down by the reanimated corpses, who had now
begun to attack every living kobold within reach.

Kale’s
brother thrust a sword into his brother’s stunned hands.  “Kale!  We’re not
going to get through this line of undead!  We must flee around them!” he
yelled.

Suddenly,
Kale’s eyes became clear, and he looked down at the sword in his hand.  “No,”
he said.

“What
do you mean?” his brother voice was urgent.  “We can’t stay here!”

Kale,
however, threw the sword to the ground, sticking it upright.  In the air about
Kale a feeling of power, greater than his brother had ever felt, began to drive
out the fear.  Not understanding what was going on, Kale’s brother watched in
amazement as his brother knelt down on the ground in front of him.

“Ancestors!”
he called out as the din of battle behind the brothers began to be shut out
from where they knelt.  “Hear my plea!  I, Kale, son of Kale, inheritor of the
burden of lordship of this gen, call upon you!  Send help this day!”

Suddenly,
a great burst of light coming from seemingly everywhere at once blinded Kale
and his brother.  All along the two lines, kobolds, orcs, and ogres all reeled
back from the intense, purifying light.  After a few moments, as his heart
burned with an intense inner fire, Kale could perceive that there were many
figures coming from not far away, off to the right side of the line.  They rode
animals, wolves or dogs by their outline, and they came with spears and swords,
smashing through and riding down the animated corpses of those who the orc
shaman had raised against them, as if sent from the realms of the ancestors
themselves.

Suddenly,
in a moment, Kale’s sight refocused as the light began to fade, and he could
see that, indeed, they were kobolds, and they were riding wolves, and riding at
the head of them Durik held the Kale Stone high.

As
the Wolf Riders Warrior Group came sweeping along the front of the Deep Gen’s
line, the warriors on the line began to take heart again and to attack the
zombies that the shaman had raised against them.  To their surprise, what had
been unnaturally strong was suddenly weak, and the corpses of the both hallowed
and unhallowed dead were quickly struck back down to the ground.

Continuing
their sweep along the line, Durik led the Wolf Riders to the far end of the
line, and formed them up next to what had been Lord Sennak’s warrior group. 
All this time, the hundreds of orcs and many ogres that faced the Kale forces
stood strangely quiet, as if confounded by the light and its effects on their
shaman’s spell.

But
as the last of the zombies fell, and Durik’s Wolf Riders formed up, the orcs
began to break into yelling and cursing the kobolds in their guttural tongue. 
Seemingly woken up from his stupor, the shaman came forward out of the line yet
again, but his confidence was not the same.  With scepter in hand he began to
chant again.

Kale
grabbed a javelin and, running forward, he threw it with all his might.  The
orc shaman, seemingly at an impossible distance from the line of kobolds, paid
no heed to Kale.  All up and down the kobold line, however, warriors held their
breath as they saw the javelin arch high through the trees.

With
a stunned gasp, the shaman shuddered as the javelin struck true, piercing his
chest and driving all the way through.  The chanting instantly stopped and the
shaman fell lifeless to the ground to the cheers of the entire kobold line.

Grabbing
another javelin as he walked toward the back of the Deep Gen’s line, Kale
smiled and grasped hands with a few of the warriors as he walked past them to
rejoin the eighty or so remaining outcast skirmishers.  His brother came behind
him, gathering an arm full of javelins as he went.

T
rallik and Trikki sat against the
tree trunk listening carefully for any sound on the berm above them.  A large
column of orcs and ogres had just finished passing by, and they were waiting to
make sure that they had
all
passed.

After
a few more moments, Trallik stood up and peeked around the tree trunk and over
the berry bush that grew at its base.  He saw no one before ducking back behind
the trunk.  After a couple more moments, this time he stepped out and watched,
and waited.  Still nothing from down the hill, only the noise of many heavy
feet retreating away up the hill from them.

“They’re
gone, and I don’t see any more coming,” he whispered.

Trikki
stood up.  “They’ve all passed!”

“Yes. 
Let’s go tell Billik.”

The
two young kobolds ran off down the side of the hill and through the underbrush
to the meadow where the lead companies of Kale Gen warriors had gathered. 
Standing in the midst of the meadow with ash raining down like a sporadic
snowfall, Lord Karthan was talking with Billik and the twenty leaders of
companies that he had gathered to talk over plans.

“Sire!”
Trallik spoke urgently in a low voice as he and Trikki came running up.  “Sire,
they’ve all passed by!  The orc horde has passed up the hill!”

Turning
to consider Trallik for a moment, Lord Karthan thought for a moment longer,
then nodded.  “Leaders!” he said quietly, but urgently.  “The time for action
is now!  Remember, we march the companies into two parallel lines, then we move
up the slope to surround and destroy the horde.  First line, shields and
spears.  Second line, prepare to plant spears and fire bows.  Shields on backs,
second line!”

The
twenty company sub-leaders all responded “yes, sire,” in equally low, yet
excited voices, then turned and began running back to their companies.  Gathering
his small personal guard about him, Lord Karthan patted his wolf on the neck
and had it led away.  The message was clear.  Win or lose, he would share the
same lot as his warriors.

With
a hand signal from Lord Karthan, the scouts ran ahead of the companies to give
early warning, and the companies began to march across the top of the hill,
eventually forming two long lines of ten companies each before turning to the
right and beginning to advance up the hill in the direction their half of the
orc horde had gone.

Drakebane
the Mighty, chieftain of the Bloodhand Orc Tribe, screamed in frustrated rage. 
It was as if the hand of some powerful being were tipping the balance against
his forces, taking away the advantages his force had one by one.  They were
orcs, by the Dark Prince!  Each of his warriors were easily twice the weight of
a kobold, and even the shortest of his warriors was a head and shoulders taller
than the tallest kobold!  They had chainmail jerkins!  They had big axes and
swords, plus some spears, bows, and javelins for throwing and shooting as
well.  How had these kobolds done so much damage to them?  The first few groups
he’s sent up the hill should have torn through these little pests! 

And
the ogres?  What happened there?  Only two had come running back?  Ogres were
giants!  How had little creatures that were only knee-high to the giants kill
thirteen of them?  And why hadn’t the kobolds broken?  With half of their
number laying dead or dying about them, still they stood!  How was it possible?

Drakebane’s
rage was blinding.  The wily old orc had ceased to think.  It was now time to
kill.  Screaming in rage, he thrust his axe into the air.  Like a massive,
organic train, all around him the three hundred orcs and twenty-five ogres of the
main force echoed his rage and slowly began to charge the five or six hundred
little kobold warriors in their shield wall on the hill above them.  As they
approached the huddled, battered kobolds, the force of their charge reached its
peak.  The ground shook and axes were raised as a hundred tons of muscle and
steel bore down upon the little shield wall.

There
were no delusions among the grim warriors who stood in the kobold line.  There
would be no running away from the much taller, much faster orcs.  There would
be no surrender.  No, life as an orc slave was usually very short, if they
bothered to take slaves.  And there was no way they could abandon their
families at the caverns of the Kales anyway.  No, the only thing there was to
do was stand their ground to the last.

In
the eyes of every warrior on that line, it was clear that they understood that
they would die this day.  In fact, no one there thought they would live past
the next charge.

“Steady!”
Mirrik called.  Looking over to where his friend Hemmet stood in front of his
own warrior group, he could see how thin their lines were, only two ranks per
warrior group in most places, with the few warriors left for a third rank
mostly made of those who were wounded, but who had come back to the line anyway
to help brace the warriors in the first two ranks.

“I’ll
not die standing here!” Mirrik suddenly said.  “Get ready, lads!  Let’s charge
them!” Mirrik said.  Behind him, his warrior group began to pass the word in
excited voices.  Looking over to Hemmet, Mirrik called out.  “Hemmet, we’re
going to charge!”

“What? 
Are you crazy!”

Mirrik
didn’t respond.  Down the slope from them, like an avalanche the horde had
begun to charge, their roars drowning out all other sounds.

Raising
his spear, Mirrik screamed out a challenge.  All around him, his warriors did
the same.  Hearing his challenge, the other warrior groups joined him.

“Charge!”
Mirrik yelled, and the entire kobold line hefted spears and ran forward,
forming a wedge with Mirrik’s company at the point and the rest of the warrior
groups joining in as they caught the spirit of the attack.

“What
amazing, suicidal valor!” Kale said, the emotion of the moment washing over
him.  Turning to his skirmishers, he yelled “Charge!”  Running past the many
wounded and the piles of corpses that marked the position the original almost
nine-hundred kobold warriors of the Deep Gen and the outcasts had held against
several attacks already.

On
the left side of the charging line, Durik ordered his wolf riders to swing right
and fall in behind the tip of the wedge.

With
a thunderous crash, the almost six-hundred remaining kobold warriors jumped at
the orcs and ogres in a frenzy of crazed desperation that was suicidal.  As
Durik lined up his Wolf Riders, he saw great skill with spears and swords, but
he also saw kobolds throwing spears, knocking orcs off their feet as they
rammed their legs with their shields, butting them with their horns, and even
biting them in their suicidal attack.  He saw kobolds swarming into orcs, knocking
them to the ground and pounding in their heads with rocks.  It was as if they
had resigned themselves to death, but were determined to make the orcs pay for
every ounce of their blood.

Much
more frequently, however, Durik saw orcs pounding kobolds senseless, cutting
off arms and heads, kicking them senseless and stepping on their heads with
iron boots.  All about the many ogres great swaths had been cut in the kobold
charge, but one advantage the charge did give the kobold warriors was that they
got in close to the ogres, making it hard for them to swing their mighty, but
unwieldy weapons.

Durik
wasn’t sure how much longer the kobolds of the Deep Gen would last, but as
those in front of the orcs he was targeting fell, he saw his opportunity.  With
spear raised, he pointed it forward.  “Warriors of the Kale Gen, into the
breach!”

Durik
leveled his spear as Firepaw jumped forward down the slope.  Passing the
skirmishers who were picking up fallen spears and throwing them at the ogres,
Durik guided Firepaw with his knees toward the old orc with the axe.

In
a moment of clarity in the midst of the chaotic melee, Drakebane the Mighty
pulled his axe out of the shattered remains of the kobold he had just killed
and looked up the slope just in time to see the spear coming.

Twisting
his spear downward, Durik planted it firmly into the chieftain’s chest as
Firepaw jumped up on the orc.  Drakebane’s axe fell spinning off to one side as
his hands grasped the haft of the spear, his eyes bulging out with the impact. 
Propelled backward, Drakebane fell over the body of the kobold he had just
slain.  Riding up next to Durik, Manebrow smashed through Drakebane’s
minotaur-skull helmet with his axe, cleaving it in two.

The
pair of armored wolf riders passed by the lifeless form of the former chieftain
of the Bloodhand Orc Tribe and were continuing the attack.

“Warriors
of the Kale Gen, at the double!” Lord Karthan called.  Not far up the slope he
could hear the sounds of battle ringing clearly through the thick afternoon air. 
Already he could see those warriors on the outer edge of the melee through the
trees.

“Sound
the charge!” he called to his signalers.  He hoped against hope that it would
both give hope to the Deep Gen warriors that were holding the line, and cause
fear in the hearts of the orc horde.  Either way, he knew his fellow kobolds
were taking a pounding, and he just couldn’t get there fast enough.

As
the notes of the rams horns blew, many orcs turned in surprise to see another
almost seven hundred kobold warriors charging at them from behind.  Panic
ensued among the rear ranks of the orc horde, stoked on by the first volley of
arrows from the rear ten companies, who had planted spears and drawn arrows.

“At
them!  At them!” Lord Karthan shouted as he raised his sword and focused on one
orc warrior who was twenty steps directly in front of him.  All around him the
lead companies of his warriors had charged forward with a yell.

Some
orcs had begun to form up in small groups in the rear of the orc horde, but the
first volley of arrows had broken up most of that.  Now, as Lord Karthan and
the over three hundred and fifty kobolds that charged with him slammed into the
back of the orc horde, a shudder ran through the orcs and a panic began to
spread, even affecting the ogres as the hundreds of archers in the rear ten
Kale companies began shooting high to avoid shooting their Deep Gen cousins on
the far side of the horde, focusing their sharp missiles on the only things
that were high enough; the ogres’ heads and necks.

Soon
the weight of the encirclement began to take its toll.  Groups of orcs began to
peel away from the fight and tried to break through the kobolds in an attempt
to flee.  Many did, as there were several holes in the uphill side of the line
where the Deep Gen charge had stalled.  Here and there ogres were falling,
victims of the swarming tactics that the impetuous Deep Gen warriors had
perfected.  Almost imperceptibly, yet all at once, it was as if the will of the
entire horde broke.  Orcs and ogres once blind with rage now turned blind with
fear.  Large numbers of them ran on the spears of the Kale companies in their
attempt to escape.  A few ogres did cut large swaths through the Kale
companies, however, as they ran for their lives.