The Exodus Sagas: Book III - Of Ghosts And Mountains (36 page)

In the rush of noise from the open passage, Lavress had forgotten to ask to be released, not that anyone would have listened. His ears perked, he focused, the sound of battle rang clearer now as the door to the prison rooms in Southwind was left open a crack. He heard roars, not human at all. Then hisses, definitely trolls by the following screeches that they used to communicate. A voice, Chancellor Marcus, issuing commands to knights and archers, he heard it strong amidst the yells of horror and charging of horses into war. Another voice, it was unknown, but it had an elven accent to the Agarian commands it shouted. It was Eliah Shenndrynn, yet something was not right, the voice had differing tones.

Lavress looked across, through his bars, to the pack with the tome of High Elven Magick, then he remembered. He had to escape, there was no time,
he
was here in Southwind Keep with an army to wage war for the book. He reached down, over to the corpse of the young soldier, reaching in his pockets, empty. His hand felt around his neck and produced a golden feathered cross on a necklace.
Good enough
,
forgive me Alden.

The hunter of the Hedim Anah grabbed the chain, breaking it with a quick yank. He took the small symbol off, placed it on the stone floor of his cell, and cut it in half with his kukri dagger. The gold was quality, it cut with a short snap. Reaching with half a broken gold wedge, he put his hand around near the small lock as he lay on his back, head staring at the ceiling and pressed against the bars. He turned, felt with his fingers, and listened, then
clank
, it unlocked. He kicked the door open with his feet overhead, continued the roll in a backwards somersault, turned as he landed upright, pack and quiver slung over his shoulder in a blink. Lavress sheathed his blades, drew the longbow, nocked an arrow, and stepped over the dead soldier into the keep.

The sight was bleak as he stepped cautiously and quickly into the spiraling stairs, up onto the stone battlements of the east tower. Men held the bridge facing the west, barely twenty of them now, with ten archers above them raining arrows down into the mass of ogre. The north wall had been breached, a crumbled section allowing more ogre access to the inner courtyard. Lavress saw Marcus Mederris there on horse, full armored regalia, commanding other knights to hold the inner yard. To the south, trolls clawed their way over the walls to the catwalks, some being cut down and shot off the castle, yet they healed and resumed their assault moments later as the men of Southwind tired. Retreating to the east through arches and fortress towers, dropping portcullis and the dead behind them, the injured and reserve soldiers tried to protect themselves and a small group of commoners.

Lavress counted quickly from his high vantage at the top battlement with but one young archer up with him. Eighty or more ogre at the walls, a dozen or so inside, forty more in the field atop brahmas. He counted fifty or more trolls, and not one dead, just some filled with arrows that barely slowed them. Eliah Shendrynn it must be, standing on a black cloud like a small personal whirlwind out to the west, over the battle in the open field some fifteen feet off the ground. The hunter looked again, seeing fifty cavalry of Southwind battling in the field, then those on the bridge, and maybe twenty here in the keep. The injured men and the dying numbered over one hundred, removed from the battle and protecting the east wall under cover. Eleven archers, counting the one beside him, held the walls as spears flew from two sides up at them, most of the bowmen dead already. It looked as if Southwind Keep would not survive another few hours.

“What..what do we do?” The soldier beside Lavress nocked another arrow.

The youth, in full chain and battle dress, could not have been more than sixteen. He stood, trembling, next to the flagpoles high over the keep, his post under the black falcons on red banners. He looked at Lavress, who looked back and then to the field of battle. He grabbed the boy by the tabard, pulling him down the stairs to the lower balcony, closer to the battle inside the keep.

“Throat, groin, or face.” Lavress took aim over the edge of the wall into the keep and fired. An ogre near Chancellor Marcus dropped, grabbing for the arrow that lodged into one side of his mouth and out the other. As he paused, Marcus lowered his shield and cleaved into its back, then again and it fell in roars of agony.

“What, what did you mean, I don’t…I..” They boy stammered as he raised his bow, taking aim next to the savage elf he knew was some sort of prisoner here. He did not care, not now.

“Throat, groin, or face. Their hides and chest muscles will stop an arrow from killing outright in the torso. The face will distract them, the groin as well for sure, and the throat will kill. Cause a fatality or an injury that will allow your men to finish them off. How many arrows do you have?” Lavress took aim again, fired again, hitting another ogre with a giant sword in the throat. It fell holding its own neck, struggling on the ground, blood running down its chest like a river.

“Ten, twelve, I have twelve!” The soldier aimed.

“Then I expect twelve hits that produce twelve dead ogre. What is your name?” Lavress counted his flights, fifteen was all.

“Liogan, Liogan Andellis of House Andellis.”

“Very well Liogan Andellis, take aim. Slow, watch the motion, eye on the spot of the ogre you wish to hit. Breathe, then stop your breath, and release.”

He did, the arrow flew into an eleven foot tusked ogre marching towrd the east tower with two heads in one hand and an axe in the other. It dropped to a knee, dropping what was in its hands, and reaching for an arrow through the groin. The howl was like nothing they boy had ever heard.

“I did it, I hit him in the shankers!” He jumped up, excited for a moment, then a spear from an ogre came right for his chest.

Lavress threw his elbow into the boys’ midsection, knocking him to the left as the spear grazed his face and imbedded into the stone wall behind them. Blood ran across Liogan’s cheek and neck, he wiped feverishly, shaken but not dead.

“Watch your enemy, save your excitement. Make that your first and last scar of this battle, Liogan Andellis. Here are my arrows, make them count. Get more off of the dead when you run out.” Lavress slung his bow, pulled the boy up to his feet, and drew his blades. The boy nodded, his eyes focused and grateful without a word.

“Where are you going, elf?”

“To take as many ogre heads as I can.”

He rushed down the spiral stairs to the open courtyard. Crouched low, stepping over the dead and dying, Lavress came upon the ogre with the arrow in the groin who was just standing back up. The falcata slashed his hamstrings, the kukri reached around as it dropped down, and slit its throat open. The hunter kicked it forward, then walked across its back to face a charging ogre savage with a spear, both the ogre and its weapon twice as tall as Lavress.

He waited, the ogre’s speartip only feet away now, then it hit. Off center, yet the arrow lodged into the neck of his enemy, and Lavress sidestepped the spear as it reached for the projectile. He cut once through the wood shaft with the curved blade, then slashed his dagger across its side, splitting it deep as it passed him. It fell moments later to the stone.

“A little quicker on the draw, master Liogan!” Lavress yelled up behind him, never taking his eyes off the battle, and his next target.

“Quicker heard, master…” The boy yelled down into the foray of bloody blades and ogre.

“Lavress!” He looked around, too many to count now, Marcus’s men were falling back. He did not know where to start.

“To your right master Lavress!”

“To the right, heard!” Lavress smiled, turning to his right into three charging ogre. He stepped up, taunting with his blades, then slowly stepped back, waiting.

The first arrow hit down through an ear, piercing the back of the neck. Lavress backed up still, holding for the moment. The two took charge as their companion tried pulling the shaft loose. Another hit from above, into the hip of an ogre with two axes. It fell, stumbling and driving the arrow in deeper as it roared in pain. No time, the third was upon him, spiked mace in two hands. It swung, and Lavress ducked, it swung again and Lavress jumped over the weapon. The ground shook, it reared again, and an arrow hit the windpipe. The hunter did not hesitate, stepping up and plunging the falcata deep in its ribs, not slowing a step as it gurgled out crimson.

To the center of the courtyard he ran, stopping to cleave the head from the fallen ogre with the arrow in its hip, then diving both blades into the thigh of the other that had removed a flight from his ear and neck. It roared and grabbed the savage elf by the shoulder, and Lavress took its arm off at the elbow with the curved blade, then slashed twice across the thoat with the kukri. He kept moving, watching for the cover fire to lead him to Chancellor Marcus, and ogre by injured ogre, it did. Six more lay dead behind the hunter of the Hedim Anah, each with an arrow somewhere to mark them. Lavress looked to Liogan Andellis and nodded with a smile, though his deadeye partner missed it. The boy was grabbing quivers from dead bowmen and making his way down to the courtyard.

“Hold here, shields up! After the volley, charge the wall and take out their legs! By Alden we will not let them in! Knights of Southwind, forward!”

“
Haaa!
” The fifteen men, covered in blood, marched with Marcus to stop the breached wall from more invaders.

“Marcus! You need to withdraw your men!” Lavress shouted up to get his attention, then looked back, twenty trolls now over the wall to the south, unhindered and unchecked.

“Never!
This keep survived before the floods, and still stood after the deluge was over. For four centuries now it has---“

“Your men are
dying or dead
! We have but less than twenty in the walls now! Use your head!” The hunter shouted, watching the knights afoot stand toe to toe with ogre marauders at a broken wall.

“Run if you like, but we here of Southwind have a fortress to protect, elf. Perhaps I misjudged you.” Marcus’ face was covered by his helmet and faceguard of steel, yet anger and disappointment rattled out in his voice.

“
Damn fool!”
Lavress ran past Liogan, leapt onto a horse that no one alive held claim to, and charged the western gate.

“Where are you going now?!” The young bowman for Southwind yelled to his painted ally.

“To take their commander, it is the only way anyone will live!”

“Enemy commander heard master Lavress!” Liogan slung his bow, straddled a steed from a dead knight, and charged behind the savage elf. He drew his broadsword, for the first time in real combat.

Through the mess of dead at the bridge, dodging swarming ogre at the gate, and into the open fields of the west they ran. The horses were fresh and fast. The field was bloody, ogre blood, brahma blood, and half the mounted cavalry of Southwind was dead with them. Lavress and Liogan spurned their steeds toward the black whirlwind at the rear of the enemy lines. The elf grabbed a spear from the field of battle that was imbedded into a fallen knight, his companion sheathed his blade and did the same.

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The white stallion crested the hill, followed by twenty royal guard upon armored steeds. Blue banners of Loucas and red flags with the same falcon of Chazzrynn blew in the breezes carried by the honor guard with King Mikhail. He glanced to his left, Lord Alexei T’Vellon had answered his calling and brough half his men and supplies, leaving Southwind Keep in jeopardy. To his right, Lady Aelaine Lazlette of Vallakazz and the renowned Captain Kendrynn Shilde had come as well. His men welcomed the reinforcements and food, their battles since had turned into quick victories. No word from Hurne nor Roricdale, yet with these forces amassed and his supply lines now protected, King Mikhail Salganat was confident they would defeat any force of ogre or troll that clamored from the Western Wastes.

The road to Southwind had been clear after the battle north of Thoranack, too clear. Mikhail knew, as did Lord T’Vellon, that if the armies of the west attacked Southwind, they would have to cover the eastern road to stop any reinforcements. So far, they had seen nothing.

“My lady, if you would be so kind to let our enemies know we are here.” The king drew his golden engraved broadsword, lowered his steel visor, and waited. Lord Alexei followed in turn.

“Certainly your majesty.
Hulaminous, vicatrem, demthiri avunas!”
Aelaine held both her hands in the air, forming a V shape from the saddle, her head lowered chin to chest.

At first, only a breeze, then a bit of rain began to drop from the sky. She held her form, and sleet and winds blew across the open fields between them and Southwind Keep in the far distance. The hills and streams were many, yet still no sign of an enemy. The sleet changed to snow in the summer sun, then to hail. It widened, deepened, and spread as the clouds darkened with arcane power. Soon, chunks of ice like small boulders fell for miles ahead and around.

“There your highness, right there!” Captain Shilde of Vallakazz spotted it first, grass covered trenches revealed over the whole vale, at least twenty.

The scattered traps held spikes of sharp wood below the exposed covering. Their horses and men would have incurred many a death on a battle charge. Then the bridge fell, having been tampered with, the falling ice revealed as much as it crashed into the river. The storm of unnatural force slowed and stopped faster than it appeared, Aelaine resting and raising her head back up. She looked to the west, chunks of ice by the thousands beginning to melt in the Chazzrynn summer heat.