The doom of dragonback, p.17
The Doom of Dragonback, page 17
What anybody else reckoned was lost as they were all snapped out of their thoughts by a shout to the south. As one the dwarfs turned to look and the reason for the call of alarm was clear. A red star was ascending into the sky some distance away, burning bright and trailing ruddy smoke.
‘The flare!’ Haldora was on her feet in a moment. ‘We have to get going!’
‘Wait on a moment,’ said Nurftun, grabbing Haldora’s arm as she headed towards the canvas awning beneath which her axe and shield were stowed. ‘We can’t go charging about like toadstool-addled werits. We have to have a plan.’
‘A plan?’ Haldora looked at the flare, which was still rising, though more slowly now. ‘We head towards the shiny red thing. If we see any orcs or goblins we kill them.’
‘It’s not that simple,’ said Nurftun. ‘If they’ve sent up a flare that’s serious trouble. What if it’s more than we can handle? We’d just be throwing ourselves in the spoil as well.’
‘What else do you expect us to do?’ Haldora asked. ‘Just wait?’
‘Mebbe,’ replied Nurftun. He pointed northwards. ‘They’ll see that flare at Undak Grimgazan and come looking. We might be better waiting for them.’
‘And my pa and the others? I’m not going to just leave them.’
‘It’s a warning flare, Haldi,’ said Fleinn. ‘This isn’t just a few goblins scrounging about in the marshes. They sent up a flare ‘cos they don’t think they’re going to be able to warn anyone themselves.’
‘It’ll take the rest of the night for anyone to get here from Undak Grimgazan.’ Haldora felt panic starting to rise, tightening her chest, making her bosom heave as her breath came shorter and shorter. ‘Anything could happen to my pa before then. We need to go now.’
‘There’s a way of doing things, Haldi,’ said Nurftun, almost pleading with her.
‘It’s Haldora!’ she snapped back. She raised her voice to be sure all of the dwarfs could hear. ‘Some of you can stay, or maybe go back if you want to. I’m going to help Nakka and Gabbik and the rest of the lads. That’s what we came out here to do. I’d rather die with my axe in my hand beside them fellows than with a goblin arrow in my back, heading to the towers.’
This struck a nerve in many of the dwarfs. Many of them were shaking their heads, beards trembling at the subtle accusation in her words. Nurftun looked fit to explode, his eyes bulged so much.
‘Is that it?’ he growled. ‘Is that what you think of me, when I’m only looking not to add more Angbok blood to what’s spilt already?’
‘Are you so sure we can do nothing?’ Haldora demanded. ‘It’s just over that ridge. Let’s go and take a look. You came this far, why not just a bit farther? If there’s too much for us to handle, then you can go back and wait for the garrison. At least we can try!’
Nurftun looked at her sourly for several heartbeats, saying nothing. Finally he nodded once and turned to the others. In another moment he was barking out orders for the group to ready their weapons and the fire to be doused.
‘What about the camp?’ asked Fleinn. Haldora realised that her time as trusted leader was over, and all attention was on Nurftun.
‘Leave it. We can pick up the stuff later, and if not… Lives is more important than canvas.’
Bronze and iron and runes glittered in the campfire as axe blades were bared and hammers unslung, before the fire was doused and the dell plunged into darkness. The flare’s descent was retarded by a linen canopy above the burning canister of blended powders, showering ruddy sparks and dousing quite a stretch of land in its glare.
‘After me,’ announced Nurftun, and within three dozen heartbeats of the flare being launched the whole group were moving out at a trot, heading southwards.
The ridge that Haldora had pointed out angled south-east, a last rocky outcrop of a spur of the Dragonbacks covered with ferns and thorny bushes. It was hard to tell exactly, but as they neared the rise it seemed to Haldora that the flare was falling not far away. The wind would have carried it some distance in the time it had taken them to cover the nine hundred paces and more from the camp, but she was hopeful that her father and the rest of the patrol were just on the other side of the rise.
The ground steepened quickly and Haldora was forced to pull herself up with her hands as much as to walk, with thorns scratching at her face and fingers, snaring her cloak and tunic while burrs latched onto her braided locks. She ignored it all, filled with a burning determination to make it to the top of the ridge. The panic she had felt at the thought of losing her loved ones had subsided, to be replaced by a gnawing dread in the pit of her gut; a dread she could not allow to manifest fully.
She had not quite crested the rise but some of the others had and their excited shouts spurred her on to cover the last few dozen paces, panting hard as she rose up amongst the bushes and was able to look south.
She heard the fighting before she saw it – the clash of metal and hoarse cries of anger and pain. The yelp and howl of wolves told her all she needed to know before she finally saw a cluster of dwarfs in the ruddy gloom, a few hundred paces from the bottom of the ridge, encircled by goblins on wolf back.
At that distance she could not count how many were there in the poor light, but there were fewer than the twenty that had set out, she was sure. Haldora had no means of recognising who was still alive. She whispered a plea to Grimnir to lend strength to their axe-arms and hoped that Nakka, Gabbik and Skraffi were amongst the living. She could not yet bring herself to entreat Valaya to guide their spirits to the Halls Beyond if they were not.
‘Bows and crossbows!’ Nurftun announced. ‘Get your arrows and bolts ready.’
The southern slope was not as steep as the northern, and the entangling bushes were sparser, making progress back down to the plains that bit swifter. As she descended, Haldora could see that the ring of dwarfs keeping back the attacks of the wolf riders was not staying in place but moving slowly towards the ridge. Step by step the dwarfs were heading for the higher ground.
‘They’re coming this way,’ she said. ‘We’ll be with them soon!’
Her hope rose and then suddenly guttered as she saw one of the dwarfs go down, pounced upon by two giant wolves and their green-skinned riders. The other dwarfs surged around their fallen comrade, hurling back the raiders with a brief counter-charge.
‘Let’s announce ourselves, lads!’ shouted Fleinn. ‘Maybe scare these beggars off, eh?’
Haldora slammed the butt of her axe against her shield and shouted along with the others, raising a clamour that could be heard all the way down in the wildlands. The wolf riders fell back briefly, giving the patrol time to break into a steady run towards the ridge. Soon enough the wolves were closing in again though, convinced that they could take down one group before they united with the other.
‘Get your legs moving!’ shrieked Haldora, breaking into a headlong run, heedless of the danger of falling head over heels down the slope. ‘Hurry!’
She heard the other dwarfs surging after her – the rattle of stones, the flap of feet and the jingling of mail as twenty-five sturdy warriors hurtled down the ridge towards the goblin attackers. The wolf riders broke away from harassing the patrol and formed up together. It might have been the darkness but they looked bigger than the creatures she had fought with the rangers. And there seemed even more than when she had first laid eyes on them, maybe forty or fifty with more still appearing out of the darkness.
Screeching horns split the night and the goblins charged. Nurftun called his group to a halt and they formed up, shields to the front, bows and crossbows sending a shower of missiles down the slope to greet the onrushing greenskins. Arrowheads glinted red in the last light of the flare, which had landed somewhere to the east and had now almost guttered out. A few wolves yelped in pain and riders screamed as the projectiles found their mark, but there were too few to break the goblins’ momentum.
Haldora felt more afraid now than when she had been alone amongst the wolf riders during the ambush. Not for herself, but because she realised that Nurftun to her left and Fleinn to her right would be depending upon her axe and shield to guard them as much as they were guarding her. She pictured herself with Nakka, dancing light-footed back and forth across the high pasture.
The thought that he might be dead brought tears to her eyes and a lump to her throat, her arms started to tremble and the fear grew. Her mother had been right, she had no place here. This was warrior-work, not chopping parsnips and coalroots.
She could step back, she realised. The goblins were still some distance away, even though they were closing fast. More arrows sprang out to meet them while the few dwarfs with crossbows were still reloading their weapons. There was time for her to withdraw, to let the shieldwall reset in front of her.
Nobody would blame her in the slightest.
And that sent a surge of resentment through her. Like rods of iron reinforcing a pillar, indignation strengthened her limbs. The thought that it was expected she would step back, that she would retreat and leave the fighting to the menfolk, was like a tumbler of Fulnir’s mushroom spirit – ‘dragon’s breath’ it was called around the clan. Heat washed up through her, driving away the tiredness and the numbness, filling her with vigour and anger.
‘Come on, you sour-faced, beady-eyed goat turds!’ she shrieked. She lifted up her axe. ‘Come and taste dwarf iron!’
‘Easy there, lass,’ said Fleinn with a surprised smirk. He had his elven blades ready, held loosely by his sides. ‘Save your energy for the fight, eh?’
‘Sod ‘em,’ said Haldora, grinning back, feeling slightly foolish at her outburst. ‘They’re not worth the breath.’
The wolf riders tried to circle around to the north, but Nurftun held the line right and the dwarfs turned with them. The goblins then split and looked to attack from two directions at once, but again Nurftun held them ready, two lines back to back in an oval. Between the snarls and snaps of the wolves and the high-pitched shrieks and yells of the goblins, the night was alive with noise, though the dwarfs faced them in stoic silence broken occasionally by a puff on a pipe, the striking of a flint to light the same, or a hawk and spit to clear a bit of phlegm.
‘Easy, lads.’ Nurftun spoke softly but without any hesitation. ‘Watch the flanks and turn on the left foot.’
The cacophony of yowls and screeches reached a crescendo and with another clamour of whining horns and shrill war cries the goblins charged, coming at the dwarfs roughly from the east and the west, along the line of the ridge.
The thorn bushes and unsteady footing slowed the momentum of the attack and forced the goblins to spread out lest they trip each other as their mounts dodged past bracken thickets and jumped over gulleys. Nurftun had picked the spot after some consideration, amongst some of the tallest bushes and with a large boulder stopping the wolves from charging directly at the eastern end of the line.
The first wolf to reach the line had its throat slashed by Durk. Another, its shoulder already pierced by an arrow, stumbled as Fleinn slashed at its muzzle with his swords, falling in front of Haldora. She acted without a second thought, moving with her shield forward to ward away the rider’s spear, her axe cleaving into the wolf’s head between the eyes. She wrenched the blade free and swung again, chopping the arm from the goblin on its back.
It felt natural, without effort.
There was cursing and crashing around her, but Haldora trusted the dwarfs to either side and behind and focused on the patch of ground in front that was her responsibility. Goblins and wolves were dying, the snap of fangs on shields and armour, the wet smack of hammers crushing bones through green flesh sounding as though it was right next to Haldora, but she allowed nothing to distract her.
Dodging a swing from Nurftun, a white-furred wolf bounded into her field of view, its rider at least a head taller than the goblin she had killed earlier. The wolf pounced, jaws wide. She countered with her shield, moving her left foot across, catching the beast’s charge with her weight on her back foot. It crashed against the shield with more force than she had been expecting, but she held her ground, right foot ploughing through the dirt. Over the brim of her shield she could see the goblin leering at her, a curved sword in one hand, a small oval shield made of woven hide strips in the other.
The wolf lunged again and Haldora defended herself again, waiting for the moment. The goblin’s sword arced down but she was able to catch it on the rim of the shield, turning it away from her face. The wolf pulled back, muscles bunching, while the goblin steadied itself, raising its sword for another strike.
This was her opening and she attacked without hesitation. Slamming her shield into the wolf’s face she stepped forwards, under the swing of the goblin’s crooked blade. She swung her axe up and down with all her strength, throwing her whole weight behind the blow. Its gleaming head chopped through the goblin’s thigh and into the ribs of the wolf.
The goblin fell backwards as the wolf yapped and jumped away, blood spilling from both wounds.
Haldora stepped back into place, remembering the lessons of Nakka. In the line she was safe. Outside the line nobody was watching her back. The white wolf rolled and thrashed for a few heartbeats and then fell still. Beyond its corpse Haldora could see that the goblin was still alive, dragging itself away through the bushes, trailing its good leg behind it. It was tempting to chase after the greenskin to finish it off, but she kept her cool and told herself that even a goblin could not survive such a wound.
Another wolf and rider came and she killed them too. And another. And another. The fifth she shared with Fleinn; his swords decapitated the wolf as Haldora’s axe ripped out the guts of the rider.
More horns blared, but these were not the brassy, thin notes of goblin instruments but the bass tone of dwarf horns. The patrol had reached the ridge and were piling up towards the goblins, catching them between the two forces. Realising that they had missed their chance, the goblins’ courage faded quickly and they scattered, disappearing into the night just as they had the last time Haldora had been in a battle.
There were shouts of greeting as the two groups converged. Haldora scanned the faces looming out of the starlight. She recognised them all, but not the faces she wanted to see.
‘Gabbik! Where’s Gabbik? Skraffi? Nakka?’ She grabbed one of the dwarfs by the shoulders – Cousin Grothrund – and demanded to know where her family were.
‘Back there,’ said Grothrund, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder back to the plains.
‘Oh no,’ sobbed Haldora, sinking to her knees. It felt as though the ground had opened up beneath her, the stars above swirling below as well, a vast emptiness threatening to suck her in. ‘Not all of them, no!’
‘Sorry, lass,’ said Grothrund, crouching beside her. He patted her arm. ‘Poor choice of words.’
Through her tears she saw there was another group of dwarfs coming up the slope, each of them dragging a bier behind them on which lay more dwarfs – wounded or dead Haldora could not tell. As her tears cleared she recognised Skraffi and surged to her feet.
She sprinted down the hill, dropping her axe and shield on the way to run all the faster. He carefully lowered the sled-like stretcher as she hurled herself at him, braids flapping.
‘Easy, Haldi, easy,’ he said, hugging her tight. Skraffi pulled away and turned, letting her see the bier. Her father lay on the lattice of wood and reeds, very pale, a ragged cut across the side of his head, mail stained with dried blood. Her hand went to her mouth and she sobbed again.
‘He’ll be right enough, no worries,’ Skraffi said. He nodded to the left and Haldora saw Nakka pulling another stretcher, a bandage around his left arm. He smiled at her and nodded.
Gabbik opened his eyes, frowning. When he spoke his voice was little more than a dry croak. He coughed, took in a breath that made him wince and tried again.
‘Haldora? What by Grimnir’s hairy chin are you doing here?’
They waited until dawn, patching up the wounded, of which there were eight dwarfs, and using cloaks to shroud the five that were dead. Haldora stayed close to her father, but as Skraffi had promised his injury was not as severe as it looked.
‘Scalp cuts always bleed bad,’ said Gabbik, as though he was an expert on that sort of thing.
He was on his feet by daybreak, complaining of a sore head but nothing worse. The night had passed without further event but the sounds of prowling bands of wolf riders had kept everybody awake and alert.
With the earliest daylight streaming across the horizon they made their way north, back towards the fortifications at Undak Grimgazan. In the growing light they found tracks of more wolf riders, who had evidently overtaken the dwarfs the night before, and not few in number. Wary of an ambush the dwarfs marched with weapons and shields at the ready, which made for slower progress but was far safer.
‘We should meet the garrison before midday,’ declared Nurftun. ‘If they set out soon after the flare was sent up, they’ll be halfway to us by now.’
‘If they did,’ said Haldora.
‘I know Stofrik was being a bit of a stickler when we left but he’s not so petty he’d ignore a signal flare,’ said Fleinn. He looked at Nurftun. ‘Is he?’
‘No, lad, he’ll have roused the garrison sure enough,’ replied the older dwarf.
With wolf riders on the prowl it was a hard choice not to send out scouts, but the risk of a lone dwarf being attacked outweighed having eyes and ears further abroad. By the time it was almost noon there was still no sign of Stofrik and the rest of the clans from Undak Grimgazan. Haldora had a few sour words about the Grimssons, Fundunstulls and the rest, as did others, but Gabbik and Nurftun claimed that the garrison would be looking for them.
Not long after the sun was passing the zenith they came across evidence of a fight. There were dead wolves and goblins scattered over the hilly ground, some with arrows in them and others with axe wounds and injuries from hammer blows. The grass was trampled over a wide swath and they discovered broken mail rings, two splintered shields bearing markings of the Burlithroms and a snapped axe.
