Deadly Intentions (Blood Feud - Volume 2) (11 page)

The Sergeant smiled sadistically as he
saluted and walked off to prepare his new toys. One of the benefits
of spending a few months in Guis had been the Sergeants education
at the hands of the Guisian generals. While drinking copious
amounts of alcohol together they shared tactics and weapons of
choice. One of the stories had involved an old general’s favorite
siege tactic. He would bury large iron crosses in the sand
surrounding the keep walls, when horses came to close they would
impale themselves on the crosses.

Over time he minimized the size of the
crosses down to the size of a large melon and instead of burring
them in the sand, he would load them into catapults. Launching them
into the path of oncoming soldiers created all kinds of problems
for attackers. The
caltrops
as he called them; were
sharpened three-dimensional crosses, infantry fell on them and
horses tossed their riders as the sharp ends dug into the frogs of
their hooves.

Tristan loved the idea and ever since their
return to the front lines he had his blacksmiths working day and
night to produce as many as possible for the spring campaign. With
the new caltrops, the new spring mechanism for the catapults, and
the permanent trebuchets mounted on the towers, Tristan felt
confident that unless magic became involved the fight would go well
for the Vallius forces. The new catapult springs allowed a single
engineer to pull the firing arm back, their volleys could now be
timed down to the second, maximizing damage to their enemies.
Although magical means of warfare made him uncomfortable at best,
should it become involved he need only send for the elder dragons.
Even now they were continuing Bethia’s education in the hills south
of Kenting, close enough to render aid but far enough away to be
out of danger.

Further musing was interrupted as a man rode
slowly through the ranks of the Terum army and came to a halt just
outside of bowshot. Even from here Tristan could clearly make out
the silhouette of the bandit King, Boris. Behind him came the
sorceress, walking off to the side of his horse. The Prince might
have been imagining things, but he was sure the men assembled
before him spread farther away for the mage than they did for their
leader.

Hello my young friend.
Socolis’ voice
echoed in his mind.

What’s wrong?
Tristan asked, suddenly
nervous.

Oh nothing.
He replied lightly.
Bethia wanted to witness mortal war craft.

You’d better find a safe vantage point,
there’s a sorceress with their army.
Tristan warned.

I know. I was actually thinking of helping
you even the playing field.
He offered playfully.

What do you mean?
Tristan asked
uncertainly.

Still have that remarkable bow my grandson
helped make?
He asked humorously.

Yes.
The Prince answered.

String it lad.
He instructed.

The Prince sighed as he sent a page running
for the bow he kept in his command tent. While the page was off on
this errand King Boris led his horse forward a few paces. His voice
filled the battlefield, magically amplified by the witch at his
side.

“Quit the walls and pack up your belongings.”
He said with clear malice. “If you’re not on the road back to
Kenting in the next hour I’ll burn that fort down around you and
slaughter you all down to the last cooks’ monkey.” He spat.

The page arrived moments after the
pronouncement and Tristan once again felt slight pressure as
Socolis spoke to him in his thoughts.
Pull a hair from your
head; tie it around one of the arrows and wait for the sign.
He
ordered.

What sign?
Tristan asked.

The Prince was greeted by silence.
Socolis! What sign?
He asked again.

Again he was only greeted by silence. Cursing
he used his leg and arms to string the massive longbow. He sighed
as he pulled an arrow out of the quiver the page had brought with
the bow, and yanked a hair out of his scalp. Methodically he tied
it securely to the shaft of the arrow and sighed again as he pulled
the arrow back and took aim.

Sergeant Frose returned to find his Prince
aiming down at the self proclaimed King of Terum. While he was
clearly confused, he’d long ago abandoned the need to doubt his
commander; instead he merely pulled his pipe from his belt and
leaned against the parapet as he packed it full of tobacco. Tristan
couldn’t fathom what his target should be. If he could kill the
witch, he would rob them of any surprises they might spring during
the battle. If he shot the
King
he would break the spine of
the force and maybe even turn the army to rout. Boris leaned over
as he exchanged words with his sorceress, Tristan could clearly see
that she was giving him instructions and orders and this more than
anything else decided his aim.

A roar echoed across the battlefield and
Tristan watched in morbid amusement as the sorceress immediately
erected her defense around herself, leaving Boris outside and
unprotected by it. Another roar carried across the field and
soldiers began to slowly back away, obviously experienced in the
hell the dragons could create at a whim. A third roar washed over
them all and the majority of the army turned and fled to the
pitiful protection of their breastworks along the ridge behind
them.

When the first dragon, Lesariu, flew into
sight many of Boris’ battle hardened murderers fled for cover. Soon
all that remained of King Boris’ army was a handful of mercenaries,
several legions of orcs and the last of the trolls who hadn’t been
trampled by the fleeing humans. King Boris dismounted his horse and
began pounding on the defensive dome surrounding the sorceress,
desperately trying to get in.

The Prince chuckled as he took careful aim at
the sorceress, adjusting his angle to compensate for the wind. He
took a deep breath and released the arrow. One of the mercenaries
needlessly grabbed the King and pulled him none too gently behind
the protection of his large shield.

Time seemed to slow down strangely as the
sorceress turned to see the arrow in flight, aimed at her defenses.
She smiled in contempt as she launched a fireball at it. Tristan
watched in fascination as the fireball flew towards him, engulfing
the arrow as it continued towards the Prince. He quickly drew his
sword and focused his will, as he had when facing the leader of
The Bane
. The fireball connected with his sword and
ricocheted off. It spiraled off into the distance and exploded
harmlessly on the ground, leaving a small creator.

Tristan watched as the sorceresses’ defensive
dome winked out of existence. She spun in place and fell face first
into the dirt. The Prince cursed as she got up to her knees and
pulled another arrow out of his quiver and took aim. He was spared
having to shoot again though as King Boris stalked over to her and
decapitated her.

Then the self-styled King of Terum pointed to
the walls of his former command fort with his sword and yelled.
Thousands of men and creatures reserved for the nightmares of the
young and old alike stormed across the battlefield screaming
incoherently as they closed in on the walls.

~

With the failure of the last offensive weeks
behind them, Cyrisa had watched as Boris began preparations for the
spring thaw. With fevered intensity he forged new contracts with
his mercenaries, made new blood oaths with the orcs and sent envoys
to the giants with gifts to soften their anger and seek more
support.

The troll engineers were hard at work in the
forges, preparing weapons and engines for the next round of fights.
The town around Kumia had been gutted; all of the houses converted
to smithies for the trolls to work in. All of the residents now
either lived in tents surrounding the town or served in the
army.

Boris had been forced to execute one in every
hundred citizens to ensure that they would stay in line after the
failure of the last battle. Now the orcs and mercenaries acted as
overseers to the forced training camps. The King was obsessed with
the coming campaign, convinced that the army needed to learn how to
function as a cohesive unit in order to guarantee victory.

Cyrisa had begun to drug the King slowly over
the last few weeks. A little Gerdium in his mead each night was all
it took. The Gerdium was a mixture of her own kind; valerian root,
ginger, nutmeg and yeast. A pinch in his mead and the King was fast
asleep within the hour. Nothing short of a gong in his ear could
wake him for the next five hours. Cyrisa used this time to weave
her subtler and infinitely more effective magic.

She rubbed his temples lightly, whispering
suggestions in his ear and directing his forces as she saw fit. Of
course there were commanders, close to Boris, who saw the change
occurring in their leader. They were the first executed to prove
the King’s wrath extended to all of his army.

The orcs became the King’s creatures of
choice, and it was much easier to influence them. Their base anger
and resentment towards other races made them easy targets for her
manipulation, as is often the case with the racially blind. They
were unlike any other mortal races on this world though. Their
women would pass a score of fifty eggs or more, and then the men
would fertilize the eggs. The women would return and burry the eggs
in the marches of the north where they came from. The eggs would
hatch in weeks and under the right circumstances up to thirty
orclings would survive.

With her brothers and sisters aid, the
crèches they created could house thousands of eggs, be fertilized
by hundreds of males and only three out of every thousand hatchling
didn’t survive. Their numbers had swollen this winter, and now the
orclings were being trained in war craft and being magically
manipulated by her brethren. Their overall size had tripled, the
hunchbacks no longer existed and they were all extremely powerful,
able to lift and throw boulders only catapults could toss. Cyrisa
was sure that this was the first true genetic manipulation this
planet had ever experienced.

Where the orcs would more often than not
fight and kill one another as they asserted their dominance, now
the strongest became legionaries. The mightiest of the legionaries
became captains, able to command units numbering in the thousands.
The most gifted captains became generals and they answered to only
one, the
Orc Legate
. Even now, they only gave their oldest
and weakest to help the King of Terum. They kept thirty thousand of
their best and most brutal warriors, swelling their nation’s
population to five times its original size.

Under the direction of Cyrisa’s brothers and
sisters, they waged their war of conquest in the Great Expanse.
They obliterated villages, burning everything to ground. They
murdered chieftains and massacred children in perverse and dark
rites as they paid homage to their Gods. The orcs legions bathed in
the blood of the other humanoid species as they gained control of
the eastern half of the Expanse. Even now threw themselves at the
armies of the western half, throwing old and established realms
into chaos and panic as they fell before the host of orcs.

The war had gone on despite the snow.
Treacherous footing, blizzards and the cold of the long nights and
short days did little to slow down the conquest. With spring here
they slowed their march only to mate in the crèches created by her
brethren. The last contact she’d had with one of her brothers had
revealed that they were mere months away from controlling the
entire Expanse and then they undoubtedly would turn their attention
on the Great Terious wall and the pathetic humans it guarded.

A detachment of orcs had arrived a week ago;
at their head was an enormous captain. He spoke the human languages
flawlessly and seemed less than impressed to be leading the rabble
that followed him. His force consisted off the last of the old
orcs, slack jawed and inbred as well as the weakest of the new
generations, tossed out for their diminutive size. The trolls that
came with him were the last of the northern tribes. Her contact had
explained in private that his brethren no longer needed or wanted
their scheming filth any longer.

They held quiet council while the King slept
and Cyrisa was quite impressed at what their magic had
accomplished. Merely a year ago an orc such as this would have been
a drooling, nearly mindless thing hunched over as their
inter-breeding created life spans easier to measure in months than
decades. Now the orcs stood at a uniform seven feet tall, they were
wide, being heavily muscled with thick arms and legs. They still
reeked of the unclean, but such was their religion.

Their faces no longer possessed the slack and
drooling features she remembered. They were strong and dangerous.
Their lower jaws were powerful and extended out beyond the upper,
revealing an impressive array of jagged teeth and two large tusks
that rose from their jaw line. Gone was the greenish tinge that
hinted at internal organ decay, they were now a dark brown color
with coarse black hair that was tied back in intricate ways to show
their rank and the number of kills they boasted. They painted their
nails and eyes black with soot and blood, and their ears had an
oddly elfish look to them.

Most of them growled excessively in her
opinion, but the effect on their enemies was worth keeping it in
their gene pool, as it was explained to her. Each of them chose the
sword, axe, or mace as their weapon of choice. Each was formed with
a similar crude, though powerful design. They also bore a simple
round wooden shield and clothed themselves in rags beneath their
roughly smithed breastplates and greaves. Many of them chose to go
barefoot, a legacy of their heredity she had been told, but none of
them passed up the gauntlets created in the same fashion as their
armor. Some of them bore helms of the same design, while others
proudly displayed their scars and tattoos by leaving their heads
bare.