The Sword of Darrow (25 page)

Night had fallen, but still Scodo and Babette pushed on.

By Scodo’s calculations, the goblins would arrive at Kelsner’s Plain in the morning. They were seven or eight hours away. With luck, they would just make it.

From the front of the wagon, Zauberyungi unleashed a long moan and began to stagger. Babette rushed to his side, feeding him grass dusted with strange potions. At first, her magic lifted his spirits, but it gradually lost effect. Hovering at his side, Babette whispered, nudged, stroked, and urged him on. But as they approached a stream, they had to stop once more. Zauberyungi could not take another step.

“Give him an hour,” Babette said, and soon all three were again asleep.

When the time had passed, Scodo was awake, shaking Babette and beseeching Zauberyungi to rise again. But Zauberyungi would not budge. Babette knelt at the old mule’s side and whispered gently into his ear. But even Babette’s sweetest words could not move the mule.

Now, Babette was pleading with Zauberyungi, who looked back with aching eyes. Frantically, Babette pulled grass from the stream’s bank, offering it to the mule. Zauberyungi lifted his head to take the grass but fell back once more.

Babette knelt again beside the mule, pleading. Zauberyungi lifted his head, trying to roll to his feet, but his body sagged to the earth.

Scodo and Babette looked at one another, wondering if their journey had come to an end.

“We need your magic!” Scodo cried to Babette. “Find it. Bring Zauberyungi to his feet.”

Babette looked back at Scodo without expression. “I have no magic for Zauberyungi,” she said.

Scodo was on his feet, stomping angrily in the sand.

“Where is Asterux? If he is such a great wizard, why is he not here to help? The force of evil can visit us three times. But not once does the great and mighty Asterux bother to help! Call him!”

“It is not necessary to call him,” Babette replied. “He will know.”

“He can’t know. If he knew, he would be here!”

“Don’t be angry. There are things you don’t understand.”

“What things?”

“A wizard for the good possesses great powers. It is important never to use those powers as long as any person can find it within himself to succeed. The power of good must always make room for what lies in each of us.”

Scodo sat in the sand, his face in his hands, shaking his head in disbelief. They were at the end. Zauberyungi lay motionless on the ground.

For ten, maybe twenty minutes, Scodo and Babette did not speak. Babette looked, unmoving, at the sky. Scodo stared at the ground below.

Scodo rose to his feet. Without hesitation or delay, he walked over to the old mule. For a moment, he looked down at Zauberyungi, wondering if perhaps he was dead. Then he leaned down and placed his arms around Zauberyungi’s belly. With all of the might that remained in his body, he lifted. And ever so slowly, the mule was raised from the ground.

Stunned, Zauberyungi tottered for a moment and staggered backward, but he found his footing. Scodo put on his harness. Two deep breaths later, Zauberyungi stepped firmly ahead. The wagon was under way again.

Across the desert, the sun was casting the first shadows of the day. In a few hours, Darrow would face the goblins at Kelsner’s Plain. Miraculously, Zauberyungi had pulled all night. Scodo and Babette, almost too exhausted to walk, had helped by pushing the wagon from behind. Now they were two hours away.

Scodo guessed that the goblins arrived last night. They knew that Darrow was marching from the forest and that Kelsner’s Plain was the place that the two armies would most likely meet. With luck, their wagon would reach Darrow’s army just in time.

Onward, onward, Babette urged the old mule. As they walked, her words to Zauberyungi were constant, gentle, but urgent. Zauberyungi could sense in Babette’s voice that their goal was near, the ordeal was ending, and that reaching this end, whatever it might be, was more important to Babette than anything in the world.

“My beautiful Zauberyungi,” she whispered. “You are the hero. The hero of us all!” Forward Zauberyungi surged.

The wagon passed out of the long valley and through a canyon that opened into the plains. Kelsner’s Plain was barely an hour away.

“Onward, Zauberyungi, onward!” Babette whispered, nuzzling his neck as they walked. “Onward, you beautiful boy.”

But just as the wagon entered the great grassy plains of Sonnencrest, the wheel lifted over a rock, crashing into a rut. It twisted to one side and the weight of the swords shifted hard. For a moment, the wheel leaned at a deep angle away from the road. A snapping sound split the air.

A wheel fell from the wagon and struck the rock. The weight of the wagon followed.

Scodo lifted while Babette inspected the damage. The wheel was shattered, utterly beyond repair. Zauberyungi whinnied loudly. Wild-eyed in frustration and disbelief, Scodo lifted a rock and hurled it far into the distance. Babette fell to her knees, muttering words Scodo could not hear.

Then Babette rose. “Unhitch Zauberyungi,” she stated quietly. She looked back down the canyon and to the desert from which they had come and spoke not a word for a long time.

Out of his harness, Zauberyungi collapsed on the ground. His chest rose and fell with each breath but otherwise he lay without movement. “I don’t know if he will live,” said Scodo with deep emotion.

Babette looked at her beloved mule. Angry, she turned back toward the desert, staring into the sky.

“Curse you, Zindown. Curse your evil soul.”

As these words passed across the plain, black clouds once again gathered in the sky. Scodo looked at Babette with alarm.

Three bolts of lightning crisscrossed high above and thunder shook the ground. The clouds began to swirl until, off in the distance, a black tornado appeared. Spiraling, towering, high into the sky, the funnel began to move straight at the wagon.

“Run, Babette, run!” Scodo screamed, his legs clawing at the sand as he scrambled desperately to get away. “Run!”

But Babette did not run. Her face was unmoving, her feet planted firmly on the ground. With her hands curled into fists, she braced her body against the wind. From her mouth came her strange whistle. Above the roar of the storm, her whistle sounded clear in Scodo’s ears. But the tornado did not stop. Its movements were slow and jagged, but its direction did not waiver. When it arrived at the wagon, Babette refused to move, still whistling, hurling her magic against a power far mightier than her own.

When it struck, it threw Babette into the air. She landed far away, her body crumpled on the ground. The wagon lifted into the air and, with the tornado, disappeared from sight.

As Babette lay unconscious on the sand and grass, a voice called softly.

“Awaken, Babette.”

Babette tried to look up, but her head was heavy and her eyes would not focus.

“Awaken, my princess, your work is done.”

This time, her eyes opened slightly. The sun glared from above, and at first, she could make out nothing at all. A shape appeared: a short, round man. She squinted again to focus and lifted her hand to shield her eyes from the sun. Now she could see.

It was Asterux.

The terrible events of the last three days raced through her mind. She was broken in spirit. Her head would barely lift above the ground. Summoning her strength, she spoke.

“Asterux, Asterux, I have failed you, I have failed Darrow. I have failed our kingdom.”

“My dear, you have failed no one. You have made me prouder than you will ever know. As I speak, Darrow is fighting the goblins. It is time to return to the forest and wait.”

Blinking, confused but too tired to argue or understand, she climbed to her feet. “Where is Scodo?” she asked.

“He has gone to join Darrow in battle. Come. It is time to go.”

No other words passed Babette’s lips. She rose and began to follow Asterux to the forest. But after a few steps, she stopped and turned to stare at Zauberyungi’s lifeless body laying on the plan. She lifted her arms and tightened her hands into fists. A low whistle drifted into the horizon.

When Asterux turned to look, Zauberyungi’s body was gone.

B
y the time the sun peeked above the horizon, not a single soldier was still asleep. Seven hundred and fifty men stood ready on the plain, pacing to and fro, inspecting their weapons, and wondering when their first battle might begin.

They called themselves soldiers, but almost none had looked across at the enemy and summoned the courage to charge headlong into the possibility of death. The cruelty of battle was beyond their imagination. That their weapons were useless they could not know. But from their innocence came power. Blind to the ordeal that lay before them, they were still able to believe.

There were some who held swords, but most held the weapons of the primitive tribes that roamed the plains many centuries ago. Sticks as tall as a man sharpened to a point without metal or even stone tips. Others held clubs carved from the branches of trees. And many held pitchforks, the weapon most available on the plains, as if the goblins were little more than hay that might be piled in a great stack and set ablaze.

Two days ago, cows grazed on the pasture where they stood. On either side of this pasture, the land rose upward to form hills just tall enough to look down on the pasture but rare in this long, flat landscape. This was the site Darrow had selected. Here, on this ground, the fate of the kingdom would rise or fall.

The stone was round and flat, barely bigger than a walnut. In the soldier’s hand, it journeyed down the edge of a long blade, curved and half the length of a tall man. Again and again, the stone stroked the metal until the morning sun danced at its edge. When the blade could not be made sharper, the soldier rose and dropped the sharpening stone into his pocket. As he did, across the goblin camp, five hundred more did the same.

A scout, at rigid attention, stood before the goblin commander Decidus.

“Twenty minutes from where I stand. More than seven hundred, as best I could count.”

The commander nodded. He was no general, but he had been handed the mission to round up Darrow and his thirty men. Now an actual army waited across an open field.

“Seven hundred of nothing,” he scoffed. Decidus knew war and he knew what lay ahead. Before the goblin swords, sticks and pitchforks would stand no chance. He smiled and wondered who would carry so many bodies away. There was a second reason for Decidus’ smile. This larger force would make him a hero. Fortune had touched his career. His victory would be celebrated throughout the kingdom.

In the distance, Darrow could see the dark blur that was the goblins’ advance. The sun in their faces, shrouded in dust, they glowed like an image from a strange dream. Darrow’s men, seeing their enemy for the first time, let out a great cheer.

Darrow scanned the field and inspected his line. His soldiers were adorned in rags. Above their heads, they hoisted their wooden spears. Here and there, a few torches sent fingers of smoke into the air. Behind them stood about a hundred townsfolk, recruited the day before and now guarding an odd assortment of boxes and barrels.

Darrow wondered how many swords they held. Perhaps two hundred? It was no use counting.

“Form the lines,” Darrow ordered, and across the field all scrambled into the unruly formation they had practiced again and again the day before.

Soon the goblins halted their march. In their line, there was no disorder. Each soldier stood motionless with a forward gaze, standing erect, expressionless, and proud. Each was armored with breastplate and helmet. All held shields, and in almost every right hand, held in exactly the same position, pointing upward and parallel to the body, stood a gleaming sword, almost thirty inches in length, with a curved blade honed to a razor’s edge.

Scattered among the troops were five cave trolls. Towering over the goblins, holding large hammers, the cave trolls grunted and snorted at their foe.

Darrow’s men were quieter now. In recent days, they had sung brave songs, but now they looked ahead, awed by the gleaming metal that painted their opponent’s line.

What was the power of a wooden club against an armored soldier wielding a fine sword? What damage might a wooden spear inflict against a breastplate of iron? Darrow’s weapons were courage, passion, and belief. So as his troops girded for battle, he climbed to the top of a fence post, balanced gingerly on his short leg, and began to speak.

“The power of the sword is great indeed. Men and women will die today on this field. But no cold metal blade will extinguish the fire that burns in our hearts.

“What weapon has more power than the passion of the heart? Our hands today shall write a new history for our kingdom. And through centuries to come, all shall remember this day on Kelsner’s Plain when we drove the goblins from the plains of Sonnencrest and marched to our capital to restore freedom to our land.”

A great cry arose. Once again, Darrow’s words made his men proud and sure. For what they felt in their hearts was suddenly larger than what they saw with their eyes.

Across the field, the goblin formation stood unmoving and ready. Darrow lifted his sword to signal the advance.

His sword high in the air, a scream arose from the far end of the line.

“Tornado!”

Goblins and men alike looked to see a dark funnel weaving its way toward the field. On both sides, the soldiers retreated and shielded their eyes as bits of grass and dirt flew about in the air. Soon, the noise raged like a swarm of a million locusts. Into the field between the two armies, the dark funnel came. As the soldiers looked upward, it reached so high that the top was beyond their view. For a moment, the funnel seethed in place as if anchored to the land. Then, ever so slowly, it moved to the center of where Darrow’s army had once stood. It hovered for what seemed an eternity and then, strangely, its winds began to slow. No longer supported by the wind, a great object dropped and crashed into the earth. The sound of clashing metal rang across the plain.

All that remained was a great cloud of dust. More than a thousand soldiers, human and goblin alike, stood wide-eyed and speechless, not sure by what miracle the storm had disappeared.

A low breeze swept across the field, slowly clearing the dust from the rubble. What Darrow saw, he could not believe: a pile of metal resting on a shattered wooden frame. Two hundred swords, the bounty Babette and Scodo had transported across the desert, lay there for the taking. Standing upright and high over the pile like a flag of victory was the great battle-axe.

Darrow’s men scrambled to the pile, picking through the weapons and raising them high in the air. Timwee mounted the pile and pulled at the battle-axe. It was too heavy to lift, so, walking backwards, his back straining against its weight, he dragged it across the ground to where Hugga Hugga stood. Then Hugga Hugga lifted the axe, quickly and easily, as if it were a toy made for a child.

When all had armed themselves, they reformed their lines and stood ready once again. Darrow lifted his own sword and the line began its advance. Shields locked in a ribbon of silver, the goblins awaited.

There was no headlong charge. Across the line, soldiers beat swords against wood in a primitive rhythm that guided their steps. When they had traveled a third of the distance, Darrow ordered a halt.

Decidus, the goblin commander, looked across the field, surprised by the order of their march but puzzled by their decision to stop. Eager to be done with this riff-raff, he spoke.

“If they will not charge our line, we will charge theirs.”

So the goblin line began its advance.
Boom, pattattattat. Boom, pattattat
.
The goblin drums sounded and feet followed. One step forward, a pause, and another step. With each step, the wall of metal shields moved forward. Darrow’s men likewise resumed their advance. Like a pair of centipedes in a sidestepping dance, the two armies edged closer and closer together.

The goblins stopped. Decidus cried out an order and a great volley of arrows rose into the sky. When those arrows landed, soldiers of Sonnencrest fell all across the grass.

Another volley of arrows struck. More soldiers crumpled to the earth. Now the goblins moved forward again with gleaming metal and frightful swords. The two lines were a long stone’s throw apart.

At the front of Darrow’s line, a voice moaned.

“We are going to die.”

To their sides lay fallen comrades begging to be carried away. Ahead stood a wall of shields that neither sword nor wooden spear might break. And when the first voice cried out, others followed, and the men began to run from the field.

Soon, Darrow’s entire front line was fleeing the battle. Decidus turned to order pursuit. But from the corner of his eye, he noticed something strange. As Darrow’s men departed, they revealed a wall of wooden shields and these shields stood unmoving before them. The shields spanned the length of the line, sheltering another row of soldiers armed mostly with pitchforks and spears.

This wall did not waver. Instead, it stepped forward toward the goblin line.

Decidus looked left and right. The soldiers ran with their weapons, disappearing over the hills on either side. Some goblins gave chase, but most looked back for orders. Perhaps it was a trick. But when Decidus looked ahead, the wooden wall stepped forward once more. For a moment, Decidus was silent. Then he shouted his command.

“Forward.” And with these words, the goblin line stepped ahead with new resolve.

Now the sun was far above the plain and its rays reflected against the goblin shields with a blinding light. Behind their wooden barrier, Darrow’s men steeled for the assault. The goblins stepped forward and this time Darrow’s line stepped back. In the meantime, Darrow counted, “Seven, eight, nine . . .”

A great thud sounded in the air as the wall of steel met its wooden foe. Again, Darrow’s line retreated, first one step, then another. Swords flailed at the wood while pitchforks jabbed at the advancing foe. But there was something strange about this wooden barrier, for these were not shields at all but one wooden wall carried by the entire line.

Again, the goblins struck and metal buried itself deep into the wood. Chips flew into the air and pitchforks fell, severed at the handles.