The doom of dragonback, p.21
The Doom of Dragonback, page 21
‘We ain’t there yet,’ said Farbrok. He squinted down the slope. ‘How many do you reckon there are?’
‘Seventy, maybe eighty,’ someone said off to Skraffi’s left. It sounded like Erzakaz Skullingrim. ‘Enough to go around.’
‘Kill the wolves first,’ said Skraffi. ‘They’re more dangerous than the bloody goblins.’
Snarling and snapping, the wolves came surging up the hill, moving quickly between the trees. The slap of Grodin Fundunstull’s crossbow broke the still at the summit, followed by the whistle of the bolt and a pained scream from below. Grodin grunted and groaned, winching the string back, and managed to loose another shot before the riders were on them.
Skraffi ignored everything around him, focusing on a wolf and rider coming straight at him. There was a fallen log a few paces in front of the dwarf veteran and he stepped forward as the wolf bounded over it, swinging up his axe to catch the creature in mid-jump. Elfslicer carved into the creature’s chest, slicing out through the shoulder.
His movement carried him sideways, the dead wolf thudding to the ground where he had been a moment before. The goblin falling from its back lashed out wildly with a stone-tipped spear. Skraffi answered with his axe, taking the goblin’s head off with one swing.
A shout warned him to turn, giving him just enough time to step back as Farbrok slammed his hammer into the head of a charging wolf, the blow carrying through its shattered skull to crush the chest of the greenskin riding it.
Skraffi returned to his spot, kicking the wolf corpse down the hill to give himself more space. Another beast and rider came at him and he did the same as before, catching wolf and rider unawares as they vaulted the fallen tree.
A third had seen this trick and circled to Skraffi’s left, hoping to come at him from the side. The longbeard had been waiting for that too and he stepped nimbly into the beast’s charge, heedless of snapping fangs and swinging scimitar. The former shattered on the plate protecting his left shoulder, the latter bounced harmless from the mail coif guarding the back of his neck. Skraffi smashed the haft of Elfslicer into the goblin’s face even as his shoulder barged solidly into the side of the wolf, ribs and organs giving way under the impact.
The wolf uttered a strange cry, almost like the shout of a goblin, and limped away into the gloom. The goblin had been deposited onto the ground, jaw and cheek shattered. It spat teeth and cackled spitefully, driving the point of its blade towards Skraffi’s groin. The blow went wide, shrieking from mail. Skraffi ended the greenskin with his boot, splitting its head into the dirt with one heavy stomp.
‘Keep going, lads, we might just win this one,’ Farbrok shouted.
Skraffi turned to see the old Grimsson surrounded by a pile of mangled wolf and goblin bodies – at least half a dozen of each. Another joined the dead a moment later, Farbrok’s hammer shattering the mount’s legs before snapping the rider’s back almost in half.
Then Norbrin Troggklad fell with a cry. Two wolves had come at him at once, the first cut from throat to belly by his axe but the second leapt into the ageing dwarf, jaws snapping around his upper arm. The goblin on its back jabbed its spear into the eyeslit of Norbrin’s full helm and blood spurted.
Erzakaz was there a moment later, his axe taking off the head of the wolf and the leg of the goblin in a spray of dark blood, but it was too late for Norbrin.
The remaining ten longbeards retreated a step, closing the hole left by Norbrin’s death. The raiders came on again and again, slamming cudgels and spears into shields, claws raking, fangs flashing in the moonlight. Skraffi swung his axe without pause, ignoring the stray scratches and bruises inflicted by his attackers.
Farbrok was the next to die, caught in the side of the throat by an arrow. He pitched forward like a felled tree, hammer tumbling from his grasp. Skraffi couldn’t believe it, staring in dumbfounded shock for a moment. He and Farbrok had never been friends, but they had grown up in the deeps at the same time, always there in the tough times against elf and goblin alike.
The wolf riders were pulling back, realising the dwarfs were not the easy victory they had hoped, leaving the dirty work to the bows of their companions. The night air was filled with more short, black shafts hissing and sighing past, thudding into tree and shields, pinging from mail and plate.
‘We can’t stay here,’ growled Grodin. ‘They’ll pick us all off.’
‘They don’t have enough arrows,’ argued Erzakaz. ‘Keep close to the trees and your shields up.’
This strategy worked for a while, affording some protection against the arrows of the goblins, but it was not long before one of the greenskins devised a smarter plan. Soon the arrows were dipped in the tar from the lanterns the dwarfs had left behind and set alight. Flaming projectiles set leaves and branches blazing.
As if that was not enough, the same bright goblin, possibly, realised that they could use smoke to drive the dwarfs off the hilltop. Skraffi could see it snapping orders at the other greenskins, getting them to hack down green branches and leaves to pile them near the base of the slope, downwind. The trees around the dwarfs were starting to burn more fiercely as a lamp was dashed against a rock, its flaming oil spraying across the piled wood.
The wind was quite strong and soon the flames were fanned into vigorous life, thick smoke pouring up the knoll. Skraffi’s eyes were watering and he could feel his throat closing up.
‘S’no good,’ he coughed, ‘we have to break out of here.’
‘They’ll cut us down,’ said Erzakaz. ‘I’d rather die as smoked fish than skewered boar.’
‘I’m going to take some of the beggars with me,’ said Skraffi, taking a few steps down the hill. ‘Who’s with me?’
‘Damn right we are,’ said Grodin. ‘When they let me in to the Hall of Ancestors I’ll be throttling a goblin in each hand.’
‘All right, let’s make this short and sharp,’ said Erzakaz.
He raised a horn to his lips and let out three pealing notes. The dwarfs gathered into a tight knot and started advancing down the hill.
Ahead, Skraffi could see shapes in the darkness, moving to and fro through the smoke, silhouetted by the flames and lamps. The shadows of the wolves looked gigantic, the goblins on their backs hunched figures with exaggerated noses and spindly fingers.
Erzakaz sounded his horn again, causing much perturbation amongst the goblins. There was sudden activity, goblins on foot dashing around looking for their mounts while others rode back and forth in the gloom. This close, the smoke was so thick Skraffi could barely see ten paces in front of him. He could hardly breathe and the air was hot enough that he feared his beard would burst into flames from a stray spark.
Something loomed out of the smoke and Skraffi swung his axe without thought, slicing the muzzle from a wolf. The creature bucked, throwing the goblin from its back, and leapt away with an odd yapping noise. Grodin’s hammer finished off the goblin.
There was more movement, swirling the smoke more than the wind, but the dimness made it almost impossible to locate a target. Thick trunks and swaying branches fooled Skraffi, looking like squatting wolves or goblins holding swords and shields.
The crackle of the fires was close, burning Skraffi’s lungs, causing his eyes to stream with tears. He could only breathe in short gasps, Elfslicer in one hand, his other held across his mouth and nose, holding his beard as a filter. Orange spread through the trees like dawn breaking, but even this light was too little to show anything ahead.
The goblins fired blind into the smoke, arrows clattering from trees and armour, slicing the fumes with swirls in their wake. Wolves howled and goblins snapped at each other, seemingly all around, but still Skraffi and the other dwarfs could find nothing to fight.
A horn blast close at hand drew their attention.
‘That was no goblin horn,’ said Skraffi, sure of the fact. ‘That’s a dwarf horn!’
Lifting his instrument to his lips, Erzakaz replied, letting loose a long peal of a note. Sure enough, there was a returning blast, copying the old dwarf’s call.
Skraffi broke into a jog and the others followed step, hurrying through the trees.
‘Durazut Angbok karak!’ Skraffi bellowed, uttering the war cry of the Angboks as more arrows sliced up the hill from the darkness.
Now they heard the ringing of metal on metal and gruff dwarf voices raised in challenge. The goblins were shrieking fearfully and their mounts yammered and yelped, but Skraffi could see nothing of their rescuers. He pressed on, almost falling over a dead goblin slumped against a root, its throat cut open.
‘Durazut Angbok karak!’ he called again, hoping for a reply, but all he could hear were sounds of battle and frightened greenskins.
Glancing to his left and right, he saw that he had become separated from the others somehow.
‘Erzakaz? Grodin? Troffik?’ His calls went unanswered. ‘Anybody hear me?’
Then he heard it, faint but unmistakeable.
‘Durazut Angbok karak!’
He headed towards the shout, calling out every few steps. The woods were not like the tunnels where he know every echo and reverberation, but he was able to orientate himself to the sound bouncing from tree to tree.
The ground was levelling and he had passed the fires when finally he caught a glimpse of another dwarf. For a moment he thought he had reached safety, but as he neared the figure, he found that it was Asdrek Firebeard, propped up by his own axe buried in a wolf, his back and chest pierced with more than a score of goblin arrows. Clearly the fighting wasn’t yet done and Skraffi raised his axe once more, thinking the worst. It would be typical of his luck to get killed by a stray arrow or panicked goblin when salvation was so close at hand.
Eyes streaming, hair and beard stinking of fire fumes he staggered onwards, thinking that the smoke was thinning. He could feel a breeze on his left cheek and turned towards it, remembering that the wind had been coming roughly from the south, from which direction their assistance likely came.
He almost tripped over another dead goblin and then came across four more, all of them decapitated. They had run into someone very handy with an axe.
‘Anybody there?’ he called out.
‘Skraffi?’ He didn’t recognise the voice in the distance but headed straight towards it, shouting wordlessly.
The smoke seemed to vanish, leaving him in a clearing, the night sky above, a cluster of dwarfs ahead. Through tear-filled eyes he saw Nakka, wiping a cloth along the blade of his axe.
‘Grungni’s shiny runes, you’re alive, you old beggar!’ exclaimed Nakka, grinning widely. He held his axe to one side and slapped Skraffi on the shoulder with his free hand. ‘I am so pleased to see you, old fella. I don’t know what Haldi would have been like if we’d lost you.’
Slowly others congregated in the clearing, both the longbeards and the expedition that had found them. Sat on the ground, Skraffi was coughing hard still, drinking his own weight in water from the canteens given to him, when Gabbik appeared.
‘Hello, lad,’ Skraffi croaked.
‘Hello, pa,’ Gabbik replied. ‘Good to see you.’
‘And you.’
They looked at each other in awkward silence for a moment and then Skraffi held out a hand, asking to be pulled up. Gabbik obliged, hauling the old dwarf to his feet. Skraffi patted his son’s hand a couple of times before letting go, and with a look they both assured each other that everything was as should be.
‘Thanks for coming to look for us,’ said Skraffi.
‘Don’t thank us just yet,’ said Gabbik. ‘These woods are still swarming with wolf riders, and Grimnir knows where that wyvern has got to. When we’re back at the Lower Gate, I’ll rest easier.’
‘Sure enough,’ said Skraffi. He hacked up a great gobbet of phlegm and spat. ‘Let’s go and taste that sweet beer already. Lead on!’
Although he had uttered words of caution to his father, Gabbik was confident of their safe return to the Lower Gate. Over three hundred armed and prepared dwarfs were a more fearsome prospect than a few score, tired and hounded up the mountain.
The wolf riders seemed to think the same and those that survived the attack on the hill slunk into the darkness, not even remaining close at hand to watch the dwarfs turn south. The woods were filled with lantern light and once they were away from the fires set by the goblins Gabbik started to relax.
He glanced at his father, who was walking in silence a little way ahead, keeping company with the other longbeards who had been rescued. He was pleased Skraffi had survived, but deep down could not fight a sense of shame. The cause of this consternation was the simple fact that it had been reputation more than duty that had spurred him to help with the rescue mission. Had nobody known Skraffi was out in the wilds, had Stofrik not announced his intent to go back out for the longbeards, Gabbik wondered if he might not have just stayed in safety at the Lower Gate.
The fear that others would witness such dishonourable behaviour had been the poker that stoked the fire within Gabbik. It would have been unseemly to not attend the expedition, and it was this fact more than love or sense of responsibility that had propelled him out of the gates and back onto the road.
Now that they were returning, guilt gnawed at Gabbik. He was unworthy of the thanks his father had given him, and that was the real reason he had been unable to accept Skraffi’s gratitude. There had been genuine relief, of course, but Gabbik felt a twinge of remorse when he remembered that his first thought on seeing his father alive had been pleasure that the effort and risk had not been wasted. He would be credited amongst the brave dwarfs that had ventured forth to bring their living ancestors home.
‘What’s up, Gabbik?’ It was Fleinn, as cheerful as ever. ‘You look like you’ve lost a gold piece and found… Well, just lost a gold piece. Aren’t you happy to see the old fella?’
‘It’s good,’ said Gabbik. ‘I’m just tired. Tired to the bones.’
‘I hear you, right enough.’
They walked on in silence, following the lead set by the rangers ahead. Even in darkness the lower groves seemed less hostile now than they had the day before. Gabbik was bemused that it had only been yesterday they had been fleeing for their lives between these same trees; it felt as though it had been days and days ago.
‘It’s all changed, hasn’t it?’ he asked Fleinn. ‘This is going to be our great battle, isn’t it?’
‘I don’t know what you’re on about. Great battle?’
‘The orcs. Even if we beat them, we’re not done, are we? Karak Ungor, Karak Varn… Now us. None of us is safe any more.’
‘Stop being such a miserable beggar,’ said Fleinn. He playfully punched Gabbik on the arm. ‘The orcs are going to die throwing themselves at our gates and that’s that. Nothing’s changing. It’s like them what went around saying the world was going to end when the elves tried to besiege Karaz-a-Karak. Where did that end, eh? With them scarpering back where they came from, leaving their shiny crown behind.’
‘Maybe you’re right,’ said Gabbik, but in his heart he knew Fleinn’s optimism was misplaced. Maybe not in a year or a hundred years, but at some time the orcs would be back, and again, and again. Even in his years, short compared to some, he had seen the Ekrundfolk dwindling, in numbers and in craft.
‘There’s a sight to cheer you up, anyhow,’ said Fleinn, snapping Gabbik from his contemplation.
The woods gave way to pasture and the ribbon of the road wound down the valley ahead. Though he could not see the Lower Gate yet, looking north Gabbik could just about make out the lamps and torches on the walls of Kundazad-a-Zorn, the great watch fortress overlooking the upper valley halfway to the main gates of Ekrund.
Dawn was still some time away when they reached the road, and there was a brief debate between Menghir Garudak and Stofrik Grimsson. Stofrik wanted to head to Kundazad-a-Zorn, as it was closer, but Menghir’s intent was to return to the Lower Gate and from there to go forth to reinforce his father if he had not returned from Gundak Karazin.
Gabbik spoke in favour of Menghir’s plan. He did so not only because sometimes Stofrik needed reminding that he was not always in charge, though this was the main reason, but also, Gabbik told himself, because he would be sooner reunited with this family and they would sooner know that he and Skraffi were safe.
In the end the two could not agree and against the wishes of many, who thought dividing their numbers was a foolish notion, Stofrik headed north with those that wished to follow him while Menghir and the rest of the thanes and their clans went south, Gabbik and the Angboks amongst them.
Though their numbers had been diminished, the dwarfs put faith in speed more than stealth and set a brisk pace along the flags that had paved the valley for so many centuries. Gabbik found himself near the front of the column with Skraffi, Menghir and a few of the other thanes, and they spoke at length regarding the orc horde and what could be done about it.
So at ease had they become, and so engrossing was their conversation, that to a dwarf none of them was quite prepared when there was a shout of alarm from behind. As they stopped to see what the problem was, the answer came from overhead. A great roar echoed along the valley and a massive shape dived down from the scattered clouds.
The dwarfs scattered at the wyvern’s descent, seeking shelter behind the wall that lined the road and in the rocky outcrops and defiles beyond. Gabbik found himself being dragged to one side by Skraffi with Menghir, Vadlir and a few of the Lower Gate thanes near at hand.
Claws scraping across stone, the wyvern landed on the road just a few dozen paces away, lashing its tail, wyrm-neck undulating as it swung a bucket-jawed head towards Gabbik. Jade green scales glistened in the light of the setting moons. It had two legs only, no forelimbs, but its wings were tipped with claws and it used these to balance itself as it lunged over the wall, snatching up a handful of dwarfs in its maw.
As the closest wing dipped, Gabbik saw with shock that the wyvern had a rider. Perched on a high-backed throne atop its back was an orc larger than any he had seen – not that he had seen many. Although perhaps the night and the monstrous steed made it seem even more hulking, the orc rider was easily twice as big as a dwarf. It was clad in plated armour hung with ragged pieces of mail, spikes of bone and tusk jutting out from the shoulders, its helm a simple skull cap topped with a crest of what looked like dagger-long teeth.
