The hero navarre book 3, p.15
The Hero (Navarre Book 3), page 15
After he buckled on the sword, he picked up a hatchet like the sheriff carried and clumsily sheathed it on the other side of his belt. He remembered well how he and Theodore had had to hack at the hands and fingers of orcs trying to pull themselves onboard his ship and he wanted to be ready to repel them again.
Across from him, Gabi, the beautiful half elven woman he had helped to rescue from the orcs near Hidden Harbor, stood in the prow of Theodore’s Pride examining the oncoming fleet. Sister Agnes, mace in hand, had knelt on the deck and bowed her head as she prayed to Thorne in preparation for battle. Only Neville wasn’t getting ready. He sat where he had most of the journey, tight against the side of the boat, arms around his knees, looking utterly…well, it wasn’t kind to say, but he looked utterly terrified.
“Why don’t you buckle on your weapon, Neville?” Reginald suggested in what he hoped was a kindly voice.
His old friend looked up at him. “It’s not too late, Reginald. We can still turn around. We don’t have to die here.”
Memories of Neville’s endless boasts about his commission in the Colonial Guard of Star flashed through Reginald’s mind. His friend had been so proud and frankly a bit unkind in the way he had assumed his rank in the guard made him superior to Reginald and everyone else. “What’s wrong with you, Neville?” Reginald asked, trying to bolster the other man’s nerve. “You’re a lieutenant in the Colonial Guard of Star. You—”
He broke off because Gabi had just snickered.
“What?” he asked her. “What’s funny?”
She immediately composed herself. “Oh, I’m sorry, Regi. I would never want to insult you.”
“No, I mean, I’m not insulted but I don’t understand.”
She turned around to face him. “I’m sorry, Regi, but in Forestria and most of the colonies, the Colonial Guard of Star is a joke. Their officers are known for chasing women and getting drunk in their clubs. Their men are good for nothing but the parade ground.”
Reginald vigorously shook his head. “That can’t be! My father—”
“Your father,” Gabi interrupted him with great compassion, “was the exception that proves the rule. I was still in the academy when the Battle of Willow Creek was fought—”
“That was more than fifteen years ago,” Agnes interrupted. “You don’t look old enough to have been in the academy back then.”
Gabi rolled her eyes. “Half elf, remember? Many of us look young for a very long time. I think that’s part of Regi’s problem. He still looks like a teenager even though he’s actually a young man.”
“What were you saying about my father?” Reginald interrupted them.
Gabi immediately grew serious again. “I heard many of my instructors complaining about the battle after it happened. You are absolutely right! Your father and his small company of colonial guardsmen saved the day. But did anyone ever tell you why he had to hold the line so that the army could withdraw and regroup?”
“No,” Reginald realized.
“It was because the Colonial Guard of Star broke at first contact with the enemy and fled the field—everyone but Baronet Terrence Spenser and his company.”
Reginald glanced at Neville, still huddled against the side of the yacht. “I, um, didn’t know that.”
Then he firmed his resolve. “But it makes no difference. We have to focus on the battle ahead of us.”
“Reginald,” Neville wailed. “We have to retreat!”
Baronet Reginald Spenser took the wheel back from Theodore. “I’m sorry, Neville. You should have never boarded this boat. Because Spensers do not run away.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Opening Moments
“Steady men!” Captain Edith Grant, Knight of the Order of the Crimson Sword, tried to reassure her people as the Steadfast drew ever closer to battle. They were all frightened. Orcs were the meat and drink of every frightening story told to children as they sat by the hearth with their families on cold winter nights. In their hearts, all of her men had to know that they were not going to survive this day. The enemy was even more numerous than she had feared and even if Thorne smiled upon them and gave them this first victory, there was no way that they were going to stop all of these ships from reaching the shore. Yet her marines and sailors, wizards and priests, were still at their places ready to fight for their king.
They made her proud.
“Alfred,” she spoke in the loud clear voice of command. “You and your wizards may initiate our attack when you judge the moment right. Priests, stand by, eyes sharp, remember the plan. Marines, sailors, our moment is coming.”
She glanced up into the main mast where the tiny halfling in his large plumed hat stood on a cross beam with a length of rope firmly in his hands. They had tied his war maul to his back—a weapon longer than he was tall and heavier than he weighed—before he scrambled up one of the ropes like a little monkey, completely unaware of the extra mass he was carrying.
She didn’t believe he could do it, she realized. She wanted to—oh, how she wanted to. But she’d known far too many halflings in her life and there was no way that that meek and helpful race could produce the warrior that Forestria needed right now.
“Fire balls, now!” Alfred Whitelock, Master Wizard and Knight of the Magical Fire, shouted and half of his people launched small beads of flame across the falling distance between the vessels and to her frustration, orc shamans or witchdoctors raised mystic shields of yellow-green mist against the incoming threat. Before the first attack exploded against this barrier, Alfred called out again.
“Second wave, pick your opening!”
A second line of fire balls shot forth even as the first wave hit the shields, bursting into bright orange and yellow flowers of death, their tongues of flame frustrated but not completely useless.
Orcs further back in the ranks wearing bone masks across their faces lifted feathered sticks and a second line of shields congealed out of the air to block the new attack.
Alfred did not wait for the attack to land, launching a jagged bolt of flame that looked very much like lightning, through one of the spaces between the misty shields to weave like a snake until it struck the tallest of the shamans actively defending the battle barge. The creature went up like a bonfire, shrieking in agony, even as more orcs in bone masks turned to direct attacks at Alfred. Yellow-green lightning, a bubble of dripping acid, a storm of fanged frogs all shot across the heads of the orc warriors to bridge the gap between the narrowing ships and rain death upon Grant’s master wizard.
Calmly, Alfred pointed his staff and obliterated the acid and the frogs in a torrent of flame. The lightning strangely rippled upward away from Alfred to impact the head of the maul tied to the back of the strange little halfling who was even then swinging onto the enemy vessel.
***
Navarre landed on the cross beam of the main mast of the orc battle barge even as the wizards, priests, shamans, and witchdoctors clashed with each other below him. With a well-practiced movement, he pulled his thunder maul free of the ropes binding it to his back and hurled it with all of his strength and power down into the center of the orcs ready to board the Steadfast.
A most satisfying explosion of sound erupted from the impact site knocking two or more scores of orcs over with powerful bolts of lightning slaying a dozen more.
“You timed that perfectly,” Tyran praised him inside his head.
“Now go kill some more orcs, laddie!” Furaidh ordered.
Navarre leapt off the crossbeam catching a rope and slid rapidly to the ground, even as a yellow-green bolt of lightning splintered the spot on the beam where he had been standing. As he did so, Grant’s marines gave a great cry and began leaping on to the battle barge. Fire balls landed among the tightly packed orcs as the mystic shields failed as distracted witchdoctors turned to see what had caused the bedlam behind them.
Navarre let go of the rope when he was still ten feet off the ground and landed hard on the back of an orc trying to get to his feet after the thunderclap knocked him over. He went flat again while Navarre whirled about with his axes cleaving the flesh of other orcs who were still stunned from the blow with his maul. Then he sheathed the weapons, scooped up his maul, and hurled it full strength at another group of orcs.
A huge chief or subchief emerged from the crowd as Navarre’s weapon approached and swung his own mighty spiked mace into the weapon to deflect it.
Lightning exploded from the impact sight and blew the subchief’s hands off even as the maul continued forward to fling the orc’s body back into his warriors.
Navarre immediately charged into the fray to recover his weapon, even as a pair of mighty ogres knocked orcs out of their way to confront him.
***
“Did you see that?” Lieutenant Douglas gasped as the tiny halfling leapt off the crossbeam of the battle barge into the middle of the orc army he had just knocked over.
Grant had no time for idle chatter. “Defend the ship, Douglas! I’m leading the next wave over.”
“Captain, you can’t—” Douglas started to protest, but Grant had already left him behind.
“For Forestria!” she shouted and rapier in hand, led a second swarm of men over the side of the Steadfast and onto the enemy vessel.
***
Sister Camille followed her captain onto the battle barge determined to guard her leader’s back. When she’d first caught sight of the fleet in front of them, she had almost despaired. How could Thorne bring them here only to have them slaughtered by such superior numbers? But Captain Grant hadn’t wavered and Camille decided that if she must die, she would bring down as many of the bastard orcs as possible before she did.
Then that crazy halfling who had so much of Thorne inside of him that it terrified her, swung out over the orc vessel and knocked a gaping hole in their defenses.
They were still going to die, she knew. But damned if they wouldn’t take down this battle barge before they did.
She caught sight of one of the orc shamans fighting with Sir Alfred and called upon the divine power of Thorne to silence the whole area around him.
His evil spell broke off in mid cant and the astounded orc looked around through his bone mask for the source of his troubles. Their eyes locked and Camille lifted her mace in answer to his challenge.
A moment later, a suddenly unimpeded Master Wizard Alfred Whitelock dropped a monumental fireball on the shaman and blew another hole in the enemy defenses.
“This way!” Captain Grant shouted as she charged forward into the area Sir Alfred’s attack opened for them. Her rapier expertly slashed the throat of a burning orc and Camille ran forward to make certain none of the others could get at her back.
The whole battlefield was a reeling mass of chaos, but for the moment at least, to her utter surprise, the priestess of Thorne thought that she and her allies were winning.
***
“Impressive,” Great Chief Broken Tusk observed from his battle barge as he observed the humans close on the Dragon Claw and momentarily push Chief Scar’s orcs back so that they could surge onto its deck. “Our prey has teeth.”
Chief Shaman Taint’s voice bubbled with pleasure. “I agree, your immensity. The meal has much better flavor when the prey fight before becoming dinner. Do you want to close so that we can join the battle?”
“Not yet, I think,” Broken Tusk decided. “I see that Chief Bramble’s brig, Hammerhead, is closing with that frigate and I’d like to observe the battle.”
“I will create a window for you, your immensity,” the chief shaman said as he gestured at two of his acolytes.
They brought forth a struggling human woman who had already served her purpose by giving birth to a half orc.
“Mighty Dirge!” Taint shouted into the sky. “Show us the battle between the Hammerhead and the Sea Hawk.”
One of the acolytes slit the woman’s throat and in the spray of blood that resulted, a window shimmered into existence revealing the two vessels as they closed with each other.
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Braddock’s Gambit
“Randal, it’s time,” Captain Meredith Braddock announced. “Grog, I want you and the men to stand by in case this doesn’t work. Elan, you stay beside me. I am going to have enough trouble explaining to your elven father how I failed to catch you sneaking onto my ship. I don’t want to have to explain how I let you get killed as well.”
She looked around. The enemy brig was getting close. “Randal, what are you waiting for?”
“I don’t understand,” the red-headed druid confessed. “What can I do before they come into reach of my flaming sword.”
It suddenly occurred to Braddock that her new druid was not very smart. “You can grow one of your big trees on the deck of that orc ship,” she told him.
The man’s jaw dropped, aghast. “What?”
“You heard me!” Braddock insisted. “I need you to grow a big tree on that orc ship so that it overbalances the vessel and tips her over.”
“But the tree will die!” Randal protested.
“This is why I hired you,” Braddock told him. “I told you we might be facing orcs.”
“I thought you wanted me for my flaming sword spell,” Randal argued.
“Regular sword, flaming sword, one blade is not going to make a big difference,” Braddock insisted. “But when I saw you make that tree grow from a seed to a majestic plant towering over our heads in just minutes, I knew you were the man I needed.”
“But I’m a druid,” Randal pleaded. “I cultivate forests, I don’t destroy them.”
“Well, that’s a shame,” Braddock shook her head. “Because if you don’t make with the magic and grow a mighty tree on that brig real soon, I think we’re all dead.”
Randal looked from her to the brig and back again.
Then he took out a slingshot and a single acorn. “I hate you!” he told her before stepping up to the prow of his vessel and launching his tiny missile high into the air to come down unnoticed on the deck of the orc brig.
***
“What did he just do?” Broken Tusk asked his chief shaman. He wasn’t worried. The orc brig was more than twice the size of the human frigate and Chief Bramble knew what he was doing. Still, magic could always complicate things.
“I have no idea,” the chief shaman told him with a touch of genuine concern. “From the way the humans are all staring ahead, they seem to expect something dramatic to happen.”
“Dramatic?” Broken Tusk raised an eyebrow at the choice of words. “Well then, let’s watch the show.”
***
Randal the Druid had always been considered strange among his kind. For example, he had always been fascinated with fire, finding ways to set things alight that didn’t normally burn—like his iron sword. He could do the opposite and suck the fire out of things as well, but frankly such tricks were more of a hobby than a calling. The true joy he found in the universe was in making forests bloom and grow healthy again.
Now, he felt that he was betraying everything he believed in as he closed his eyes, pictured the little acorn on the other ship, and began to chant. “Grow little acorn. Find the tree inside you. Grow little acorn. Find the tree inside you.”
Power rose within Randal and he felt it flow outward, over the water, and onto the enemy ship.
The acorn woke up and began to sprout.
***
“What are they doing?” Captain Edward Bryce muttered as he took another look at the Sea Hawk as it advanced on the orc brig. “She hasn’t turned her broadside yet for boarding. Could she plan to ram?”
“If she does,” his lieutenant predicted, “she will break apart and sink to the bottom. That brig is much bigger and heavier than the Sea Hawk.”
“Damned Anundals,” Bryce complained. “Captain Grant should have removed Braddock from command and turned her frigate over to you. All that idiot has succeeded in doing is costing us a ship.”
“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant enthusiastically agreed.
Ahead of them, something started to happen on the brig as a spray of green suddenly appeared rising above the enemy vessel.
“What is that?” Bryce wondered as he tried to get a better view through his spyglass. “Is that—no it can’t be—but it looks like…Is that a tree?”
***
Like the orcs on his brig, Chief Bramble, in command of the Hammerhead, never even noticed the tiny acorn fly across the water to land on his deck. So, he didn’t see the tiny seed of the mighty oak trees roll up beside his forward mast. His attention was on the enemy frigate trying to keep him from the larger prize just a couple of thousand feet behind it.
“Should we launch the ballista, war chief?” his chief shaman asked.
“Why?” Bramble found the idea preposterous. “They’re not running away. They’re coming right towards us.”
“And not turning as we would expect,” the shaman said.
“No, they’re obviously going to try and slip to one side so they can board us as they pass,” Bramble told him. “But I’m going to wreck their day by ramming them. I don’t want to waste my time with small prey when there is a big prize in the—what? What’s happening?”
Orcs began to cry out in confusion and alarm as Bramble whipped around to see—
“Is that a tree?” he demanded.
Ahead of him, right next to the forward mast with all of its sacrifices secured against it, an oak tree had sprouted out of the deck of the Hammerhead. Its branches reaching in every direction, even as its trunk thickened and its roots ripped up the mighty logs which formed the bottom of Bramble’s warship.
With a great creaking groan, the forward mast toppled over backward, tangling in the main mast and causing the whole brig to tilt to starboard. And still the tree grew, branches tangling in the main mast sails and shredding them even as the mighty leaf-covered limbs themselves began to catch the wind.
Bramble finally overcame the pure unadulterated shock the sight of this oak tree had generated in him and recovered his faculties. “We have to cut that thing down now!” he bellowed. “Shamans, witchdoctors, orcs—destroy that tree!”
