The Trees And The Night (Book 3) (37 page)

The first of Portlo’s archers reached the tree line and spun in behind massive trunks. Instantly, they notched arrows and fired at the pursuing Ulrog. Sparks erupted from flinty hides that saved the lives of their wearers. Others were torn from their feet and dropped into the tall grass of the Erutre, oily blood pumping from their wounds.

The Malveel slowed, raking the air with his claws as arrows buzzed past him. The first dozen Ulrog runners did not see him halt and continued their charge. The Ulrog trailing Greeb froze and frantically searched for cover.

What was he thinking? He was a Malveel lord, not one of the mindless drones who enforced the will of Amird upon others. Greeb’s powers were formidable, but foremost among his attributes were his brains. To be lost to the bolts of a dozen archers was absurd. Amird created Hackles for such work. The stone men’s lives were expendable. The Malveel spun and crouched low in order to lessen the target he afforded the Derolians.

“Do you abandon your lord to face the filthy humans alone?” roared Greeb.

Wild-eyed Hackles and red robed priests raced to surround their leader. Greeb heaved and gnashed the air. More Derolians entered the wood. Arrows poured from the trees in greater quantities. The Derol erupted like a disturbed hornets nest.

Hackles on the outer edge of the group roared in pain as arrows split their hides. Black blood oozed down as they dropped. Greeb’s long neck rose above the heads of his servants and his eye blazed red. He invoked the name of his master and sprayed the forest’s edge with flame.

“Burn them out,” commanded the Malveel, “then cut them down.”

The priests immediately surrounded themselves with guards and advanced on the wood, dousing it in red flame. The remaining Hackles fanned out and lumbered forward swinging their cleavers before them. Greeb allowed himself a wicked smile as a great claw reached toward the back of his neck and worked a long, black fetched arrow from between two massive, stony scales. When it was free he threw the bolt to the ground and ran a claw across the wound. The claw came away covered in the blackness.

The last of Portlo’s men dashed into the wood, hotly pursued by the lead dozen Hackles. The steward had not counted on such passion from the Ulrog. Typically, the stone men shunned the woods. It was something with which they were unfamiliar. Certainly the presence of their master fostered such blind obedience. Hopefully this blindness could be exploited in Portlo’s favor.

The steward leapt from his horse and drew his sword. An attendant grabbed the stallion’s lead and rushed it deeper into the wood. Portlo moved in beside a tall oak.

“Hold your arrows,” cried the steward. “Wait until they are upon us. These Hackles were wasted by their lord!”

The dozen Ulrog covered the remaining steps in an instant.

“Fire!” shouted the steward as he dashed from behind the tree.

Immediately, the Hackles were riddled with arrows. Their bodies quaked left then right as they were struck at point blank range from one direction then the other. A particularly large Ulrog fought through at least eight hits and entered the wood wielding his cleaver. Portlo leapt upon the beast instantly, parrying a clumsy thrust and delivering a deathblow.

A cry from a nearby archer alerted the steward to danger. Roiling flames spanned the distance between the main Ulrog line and the wood. The priests moved on his position.  Portlo dove behind the oak as flame engulfed the forest’s edge. A moment later the fire of Chaos dissipated, but the damage was done.

A handful of archers ran deeper into the wood screaming in pain as fire crawled across their clothing. Portlo watched as the figure of Lijon dashed from behind a towering oak. The woodsman threw his body into one of his flaming brethren and slammed the man to the ground. Quickly Lijon scooped dirt and debris from the forest’s floor and poured it onto his prone companion. The flames smothered and died.

The trees on the forest’s edge were aflame. It danced amongst their branches and crawled across the forest floor to ignite other dry timber. The remaining archers retreated, moving deeper into the woods. Portlo ran with them. Twenty yards into the darkness he was startled by a figure stepping into his path.  Hai quickly bowed.

“Are your losses light?” asked the rider.

“My force is not significantly weakened,” replied Portlo heaving from his run.

“The Ulrog show an unusual degree of fervor,” stated Hai. “I did not expect them to challenge the wood this early in the game.”

 “Nor I,” returned Portlo. “Your father may return to find our corpses. The plan called for him to remain out of sight for several hours. Again timing is at the heart of our plan.”

“Do not worry,” smiled Hai. “Temujen will send scouts to monitor the battle. Once he has assessed the situation he will return inside the time allotted.”

Portlo acknowledged the assurance with a nod.

“I leave you now,” continued Hai. “You must not show your strength until we are set to sweep out from the northern wood.”

“My strength may not be enough to hold these woods, let alone drive the Ulrog back into the open,” scoffed Portlo, “but we do what we must.”

The steward slapped Hai upon the back and a broad grin flashed across his face.

“Avra protect you, Hai,” smiled Portlo.

The Eru rider smiled in return and dashed north.

CHAPTER 22: THE FOREST’S EDGE

The stream of arrows from the Derol slowed then abruptly stopped. The flames that Greeb and his priests unleashed crawled across the face of the wood with a life of their own. Periodically, one of his priests washed the Derol in flame. The Derolians retreated from the heat and set up a defensive position some distance within the wood.

Greeb faced a difficult choice. His Ulrog feared the wood and had never done well when forced to enter it. Additionally, venturing into the wood took Greeb and his army further from their valley stronghold. The Malveel lord was not naive. Temujen and his Eru riders removed themselves from the fight, but they were no cowards. If Greeb entered the wood in pursuit of the Derolians, he exposed his rear to the riders. If Temujen returned, the chieftain might delay the Malveel’s retreat to the Mnim and cause serious damage to the Ulrog forces along the way.

Greeb cursed and spat the name of the Eru. Even if the horsemen returned, Greeb’s force was too large to overcome. However, at its worst, the battle might weaken Greeb’s position so seriously that Sulgor and Izgra would be forced to delay their conquest of Zodra. This type of delay would not be tolerated by his masters, especially a delay caused by disobeying their explicit orders.

The Malveel stood lost in thought as he peered at the leaping flames devouring the Derol. Nothing short of complete annihilation of the woodsmen would be accepted by Sulgor. Destroy the woodsmen and you open a new door for Sulgor to the West. Failure and retreat would simply weaken his force.

Greeb weighed his alternatives and decided. Retreat to the Mnim now. Minimal losses and the Eru driven further south. Sulgor would learn little of the battle and question nothing. Suddenly, Cortik appeared at his right hand.

“My lord,” growled the high priest. “The Derolians retreat from the wood’s edge. My priests waste themselves by igniting timber already charred black.”

Greeb raised a brow in thought.

“Tell them to stop,” stated the Malveel calmly and his gaze returned to the flames.

Cortik sensed his master’s mood.

“Lord Greeb, the Derolian are masters of the wood. They know its ways and windings. They need neither light nor pathway to navigate it,” said Cortik. “If we venture into its darkness, we most certainly will receive heavy casualties.”

The High Priest’s face twitched as he braced for the response. Greeb’s eye lost its fire and the Malveel slowly turned back to the High Priest. He hesitated a moment then replied.

“Call your Hackles back into formation,” snarled Greeb. “The Horde of mighty Amird will not be drawn into the Derol to be toyed with by the chattering squirrels inhabiting its branches. When the time comes, Amird will lead us to this place and we will uproot the oaks and shake the woodsmen from the trees. Today, I will spare them, so one day my lord will bathe in their blood.”

The Malveel spun and moved away from the light of the fires. He remained surrounded by trackers and attendants. Cortik waited until Greeb turned then allowed a slight smile of relief to crack across his rigid face.

Lijon’s men continued their work on the Derol. Trees were strategically felled across certain pathways while alternate trails remained wide open. In other areas, woodsmen severed limbs near through and dropped them to hang by a small portion of their width. These great tangles of branch and leaf created additional cover and obstruction. The wood turned into a green and black maze of dead ends and hidden chambers, a maze with its secrets known only to the Derolians.

The woodsmen set up firing points for their archers. Ax men and Astelan swordsmen huddled in the hidden areas created by the low hanging canopies. Portlo surveyed the wood with a beaming Lijon at his side. All was ready.

A Derolian scout appeared before the steward. The scout’s face was blistered and soot covered his clothing.

“Steward Portlo,” coughed the scout, “the Malveel moves from the edge of the Derol. His priests call the Hackles away from the forest.”

Portlo grimaced. Certainly the Seraph and his charge received enough time to enter the Scythtar. Possibly even enough time to scale the valley into the range’s upper reaches. However, the Ulrog needed to be engaged in a true war in order for the Seraph to slip out again. Portlo fought to obtain as much time as possible for the old man.

“Lijon,” stated the steward calmly, “continue with any additional preparations. The Ulrog will attack the wood within the hour.”

Lijon nodded and moved away. He held no reason to doubt the steward’s word, for the steward had never been wrong in all the years the huge blonde woodsman served with him. Portlo turned and strode purposefully toward the forest’s edge.

The trio reached a barren, wind scraped plateau at the top of the Mnim Valley. Kael found it both difficult to stand and hear. The southern wind raced up the Mnim and ripped over the top of this plateau.

“The Scythtar ridge,” stated Ader.

Kael investigated their surroundings. He stood atop a flat stretch of broken rubble that sat upon the upper end of a great flood of stone and rock that comprised the whole of the Western Mnim. It was as if a river of stone had one day washed down the mountain, blasting it open and settling in the wide fissure known as the Mnim.

To the east, the saddle of the ridgeline trail ran for a half league then dipped and disappeared behind the crown of the last of the Mirozert Mountains. The lesser range ran to the southern horizon bordered by the dark skirt of the Derol for countless leagues. In the moonlight, the dark, hulking shapes of the Mirozert peaks crowded over the endless Erutre plains.

Ader moved the group north for a hundred yards and they halted before a cliff that dropped into infinite darkness. For the first time Kael looked down into the land of Zodrians’ nightmares. The Northern Wastes lie in inky darkness, huddled in the frozen land beyond the Scythtar. The moon seemed incapable of penetrating the shadows cast from the mountains, shadows that stretched north.

“The Scythtar Mountains guard this land more capably than the spawn of Amird,” stated Ader. “This is one of the few passes from the South into the Wastes and even here one must travel west to find the trail that winds down to its broken, frozen surface.”

Kael turned to face the length of the Scythtar. The saddle he stood upon rose sharply toward the towering peaks to the west. A winding path, beaten into the river of broken shale, climbed toward those peaks. Kael stood upon the end of the ridgeline trail, the dangerous conduit the Ulrog used when trying to rush between Kel Izgra and destinations west. This was the trail Ulrog Hackles dragged Lilywynn along. The boy turned to Eidyn and noted the Elf’s nervousness.

“Eidyn, station yourself there,” said Ader pointing to a jumble of boulders just off the trail. “Keep hidden.”

The Elf quietly obeyed the instructions. Ader crossed to the opposite side of the trail and settled behind a similar bundle.

“Kael, you are with me,” stated Ader.

Kael followed the Seraph and sat beside him. When Ader seemed comfortable, he leaned against the boulder and closed his eyes. Kael sat nervously craning his head over the top of the boulders, peering up the slope toward the Scythtar’s peaks.

“What now?” the boy asked nervously.

“We wait,” stated Ader calmly.

Slowly the Ulrog returned to their ranks. Greeb wanted a tight formation on the march back to the Mnim. The Malveel searched the darkness to the west. Temujen rode out there somewhere. The Eru chieftain still commanded a sizable host of riders. The Derolians hid in their woods and posed no threat for now, but the riders were a different matter. Greeb exercised patience. There was no need to rush. Better that he gather the Ulrog into a solid unit as opposed to spreading them out across the Erutre.

The burning Derol hissed and popped behind him. Its dry tinder would burn for hours. The Derolians probably huddled within the darkness a half league from the light and cautioned one another against approaching it. His priests were feared.

Time dragged on and Greeb convinced himself that he chose correctly. Why challenge Sulgor’s orders now? Centuries had passed while he displayed patience. He held himself in check during its entire stretch. To act rashly now would be to jeopardize all the rewards of his early restraint.