Child Of Storms (Volume 1) (24 page)

Once they reached the southern edge of the hills, it would be a quick dash through fifteen miles of woods and farmlands to the River Brugerwyn. Ardabur still had two thousand men in the area, having withdrawn to the tiny southeast corner of The Westmark.

On the southern side of the river was Llywarch, its entire northern border protected by the wide, deep waterway. Rhydderch had sent several parties of scouts ahead of them to secure both sides of the river and have transport waiting for them at several possible rendezvous points so they would be able to cross over without delay.

“As long as Ardabur’s army is intact, the way to the Brugerwyn will be secure.” Braemorgan had assured Jorn. “Cross the river, and you will be safe in Llywarch no matter what.”

              The wizard, meanwhile, had his own matters to attend to. As Jorn headed south, Braemorgan and Wulfgrim would command what was left of the army of The Westmark. Six hundred men had reassembled amidst the hills and were willing to fight one last battle. They’d scouted the road north of Loc Goren and Wulfgrim was convinced he saw a weakness in Einar’s defenses. He approached Braemorgan and the others with his thoughts and they heard him out. A well-planned raid, Wulfgrim explained, could throw Einar’s plans to the south into chaos.

             
“They’ll be forced to deal with us,” Braemorgan said. “His men will have no food if his supply lines are cut, and both berserkers and gruks are infamous for mutinies when supplies run low.  This proposal could very well disrupt enemy plans for the foreseeable future.”

             
“It won’t be enough to beat him,” Wulfgrim said. “But it would force him to put every spare fighter towards restoring his supply lines.”

             
“And thus help clear the way for Jorn’s escape,” Braemorgan said, puffing absentmindedly on his pipe.

             
“Not to mention taking the pressure off Ardabur,” Wulfgrim added. “The enemy will not launch a major attack in the south if we bloody his nose to the north. And if Ardabur can hold his ground south of these hills, Jorn can slip off to safety.”

             
“Ardabur can’t hold out long, laddie,” Ironhelm interjected. “Ach! Even if he wants to.”

             
“It buys us time,” Braemorgan said. “And that is precisely the resource we may be most in need of right now. A few days or a week, it hardly matters. Time is time. We will rally what men we have left for an attack.”

             
They went ahead with Wulfgrim’s plan. As Jorn and the elves made their way south, six hundred soldiers headed north. It weighed heavy on Jorn’s mind that he was not going with them, but he was barely able to even ride a horse let alone command men in battle. He found himself glancing to his right as he rode along, in the direction of The Westmark. Defeat enraged him, the very novelty of it intolerable to his sense of honor..

_____

             
Their journey south the first day was quiet, and it passed without major occurrence. On the column plodded over the hills in silence through the never-ending snow, grateful to go unnoticed thus far by the enemy.

Rhydderch and his elves kept to themselves, ignoring the others and whispering amongst themselves in their strange tongue. Among the elves, only Falanos ever spoke to any of the non-elves, tending to Jorn’s shoulder carefully. He seemed pleased with how the lad was faring.

              “It still hurts like all hell,” Jorn told the elf.

             
“It could be months before it is truly healed,” the healer said, carefully changing the dressing as they sat close to the campfire that evening.

             
“Just keep it up with that wormwood broth,” Jorn said. “What’s it called again?”

             
“
Flannae,
” Falanos said.

“
Flannae,
” Jorn repeated.
“Grang’s teeth! That stuff tastes like shit. But it makes my shoulder feel better.”

“As well it should. It is a most ancient remedy.”

They camped that night at the bottom of a deep cleft, setting up their tents around a small campfire invisible fifty feet away thanks to the cliffs and boulders all around. It provided some warmth, at least, and they huddled close around it. A flavorless dinner of salted pork and dried cheese was eaten without enthusiasm.

The elf guards spent a tense night on watch. They could hear the howling of wolves in the distance and one of them spotted what looked like a wolf or perhaps a wild boar passing by a hundred yards from the perimeter of the camp. In the morning, they found a thin set of tracks in the snow where the guard saw the animal.

              “Many wolves roam these hills,” Rhydderch said, staring intently at the tracks. “But I do not think we have anything to worry about. No wolf would approach a party this size, no matter how hungry he might be.”

             
Ironhelm said nothing, crouching down next to the tracks and studying them carefully as the other returned back to camp. Each print was at least six inches across.

             
“Ach! Tha’s some wolf!” he muttered.

_____

             
The second day of their journey began with the climbing of a steep hill hundreds of feet high. Their path led up the side of the hill in a twisting, rising pattern until it finally reached the nearly-barren top. Only a few sparse trees grew there amid several large boulders covered in ice. Perched on the high branches of one of the trees sat a dozen huge crows. Every member of the party looked at them uneasily, the crows sitting there silently uttering hardly a caw as the column passed under them.

             
“Grang’s teeth! I don’t like their looks one bit,” Jorn said.

“Damned winged devils, tha’ they are,” Ironhelm muttered.

              Morag looked the birds over carefully. She hoped they were normal crows and not in league with the dark wizards of the enemy, evil familiars set to watch the hills. She did not sense any magic about them, but there was no way for her to tell with any certainty.

             
The path descended next into a narrow wooded valley and crossed a frozen stream before rising sharply yet again then following a long path for some miles. At the top of the next small mountain they broke for a bland, forgettable lunch.

             
The weather remained clear that afternoon as they continued south, still apparently undetected by the enemy. Once or twice they heard the sounds of wolves howling in the distance behind them. The elves peered into the woods in all directions, watching and listening carefully.

More howls echoed off the hillside from the opposite side of the earlier howls.

              “They are to either side of us,” one of the elves said.

“They would never molest a group this size,” Rhydderch said. “Such a thing would be unheard of.”

              They continued through the snow, following the twisting path along a small stream which ran along the bottom of a steep drop-off to their right. One of the elves at the front of the column shouted something and pointed off to the left through a thick cluster of beech. At first, Jorn didn’t see anything, but then a bit of movement drew his eye. Something that looked like an immense gray wolf was moving parallel to them.

             
Rhydderch shouted something in Elven. The elf seated next to him pulled back on his bow and took careful aim. He fired the arrow, somehow aiming it through a maze of trees and rocks and hitting the wolf in the hind quarters. The creature let out a yelp and tried to turn and run off, but two other elves fired upon it. One arrow struck the animal in the back, the other in one of its legs. The creature limped off into the woods, a pair of elves riding off after it.

             
They returned a few minutes later dragging the dead wolf behind one of the horses. It was a large animal, nearly two hundred pounds of sinewy muscle and teeth. Its eyes were bright orange, now glazed over in death.

             
“Grang’s teeth!” Jorn gasped.

“That’s no normal wolf,” Morag said. “But some creature of evil.”

              “It is one of the
uthin-nor
,” Rhydderch said, scowling. “Malicious, evil wolves   in the service of Kaas. I have not seen any
uthin-nor
in these parts for longer than I can recall. They are bold. They will attack when they feel ready.”

“And we’ve still a long way to go yet,” Ironhelm said. “Ach. We won’t reach the river before late afternoon tomorrow, we won’t.”

“Then we had best not tarry,” Rhydderch said curtly. 

“Damned devil crows,” Ironhelm said to Jorn, scanning the trees above them as they resumed their ride. “Ach. I told you they always bring evil, laddie, didn’t I?”

_____

              They camped at the base of a steep hillside and made a single campfire. It was just as cold as ever, and to make it worse a brisk wind began to blow. Rhydderch ordered walls of snow built around the camp.

             
“We shall need every advantage,” he said. “If the
uthin-nor
come tonight.”

And so the elves rolled and packed the snow into clumps and piled it around the tiny cluster of tents until a chest high wall surrounded them and their horses. They then took water melted in pots over the fire and pored it over the walls, soon turning them into barriers of hard ice. Ironhelm inspected the final result, grunting his approval. In less than an hour they’d built a solid stockade around their camp. Tents, horses, and
campfire all fit inside. As an added bonus, the walls kept out most of the wind.

             
They ate their bland dinner quickly, saying little and keeping close to the fire. Even in the cold, wet snow, a wave of Morag’s hand and the uttering of few words of magic set damp logs suddenly to roaring flame. They built another campfire to help warm the horses, covering the poor animals in heavy wool blankets against the night’s chill.

             
“I’ll command the guards of the first shift,” Rhydderch announced over dinner. “We’ll leave before dawn. I want to be in Llywarch sipping brandy by my own fire tomorrow evening.”

             
“I just hope we don’t have to fight our way through,” Ironhelm said. “Ach. It won’t be any-.”

He stopped in mid-sentence as a distance howl echoed from the darkness.

              Everyone stood, grabbing weapons and peering into the darkness. Several more howls were heard. As the minutes passed, the howls grew closer. The elves took up positions at the wall, bows drawn and arrows notched. A few times, luminescent pairs of orange eyes appeared from out of the darkness. The elves would fire arrows and the eyes would recede away again. It went on for hours, gradually tapering off sometime past midnight.

             
“Ach. They’re testing our strength,” Ironhelm said, brandishing his axe.

“If I didn’t know better I’d swear the devils were just trying to get us to use up our arrows,” Morag said.

              “If only they’d come a bit closer,” Jorn said.

             
“They are trying to draw us out to them, young Ravenbane,” Rhydderch said.

“They’ll soon see tha’ our defenses are too strong for ‘em to breach,” Ironhelm said. “Aye, they won’t attack us here. They’ll wait, they will.”

              “Till when, Dwarf Lord?” Rhydderch asked.

             
“When we’re out in the open,” Ironhelm said. “Aye, when we don’t have a barrier of ice to stand behind. Tha’s when they’ll come.”

             
Gradually, the howls and the appearance of the eyes in the darkness lessened until they occurred no more. It was near midnight when it finally stopped. Rhydderch ordered his elves to keep a double guard, the others retiring to their tents. Ironhelm pulled his fur-lined blanket close to him, his hand on his axe. Morag went around, as she did the prior evenings, casting spells to warm the tents. The magic would last all night, enveloping Ironhelm in a cocoon of pleasant warmth.

             
“Ach. Damn devil hills,” he murmured as he drifted off to sleep.

_____

             
Their course was slow-going the next morning, crossing the rocky valleys at the southern end of the hills. There was no sign whatsoever of the
uthin-nor
, not even a distant howl.

             
“They’re out there, laddies,” Ironhelm warned. “They want us to think they’re not, but they are. Clever devils.”

             
By noon it was as though they were almost out of the hills. The track they’d been following was certainly more discernable and the terrain less rugged. They even passed an abandoned stone cottage, its roof, front door, and windows long since gone. All that was left was a stone shell covered by a century of ivy growing up its sides. Whatever hunter or swineherd built it was no doubt long dead, but the sight of the once-occupied little cottage gave them hope they were almost at the river.