“If you don’t extend aide to the south then what they face will be here next, you don’t want to face that alone. It’d best if we team together to face the scourge.”

  “We sent word to Lilieack months ago to help us with the raiders who are enslaving more of us every day and we have heard nothing in responce. Our messengers have never returned and the kings among the elves choose to play their trumpets instead. Half of our blood is their blood and they do nothing but play games and ignore their responsibilities.” It was the first voice again.

  “Games? The Great King of the entire elven nation was assassinated by evil magics and you think that they play games?” Bobbick said beginning to wonder if these people were as he had originally thought. “Oh for pits sake, do you mean to tell me that I traveled all this way only to find a mass of sniveling whelps pretending to be grown-ups? People need you, your people need you.”

  “You can swan dive into the pits for all I care, dwarf, they have done nothing for us.”

  “Except give you life, the opportunity to breathe the air that sustains us all,” Bobbick replied.

  “You say that like they did us a favor. Shunned by those who share your blood and forced to live up here in what amounts to communes is hardly a favor, ranger,” still another voice shouted from a distance.

  “It seems that I recall you having options at the time you all moved up here. You were offered entire neighborhoods in every city and even a portion of Riverhouse, but you opted to move up here for the stipend and the sense of security. You were trained and armed to watch the borders up here and have technically been in the service of Riverhouse for over a hundred years.” Bobbick didn’t struggle to remember the details of the arrangement as it was common knowledge among all rangers in the event that they found some who were unwilling to grant them succor. “Now, for the first time in that history you are being called upon to honor that commitment…and you refuse?”

  “It’s not that we refuse, as you have surmised, ranger.” It was a calmer, more mature voice now that came out from the rocks accompanied by a man who was followed by several more men and women. Bobbick thought the man looked familiar, but couldn’t recall a name to go with the face. “I am Lindwarf, impromptu leader of Youlost. You see, our people have been systematically taken from us over the last year and we can’t find the culprits. More than half our numbers are gone and it is even worse for the people of Fuchston and worse yet the farther west you go.” The information was an utter shock to the ranger.

  “What? Why hasn’t this been reported?” Bobbick asked.

  “We sent emissaries to the elves and the dwarves in Riverhouse months ago when this first began, none have returned,” Lindwarf said, his name making an obvious connection to the royal family in Lilieack. “You say the great one is dead?”

  Bobbock nodded and Lindwarf hung his head.

  “I guess this explains some things now, doesn’t it? I’m thinking that our enemies have been planning this attack for a very long time. It kind of makes me wonder who the mind behind it is.”

  “Our enemies, ranger? Are you certain that they are our enemies?”

  “Oh yes, very much so. You probably heard the horns or saw the watch fires,” Bobbick pressed.

  “We did, though we don’t know what they meant. Some hoped that you all were coming to our aid, but with your arrival, we see that isn’t the case.”

  “No, I am sorry to say it isn’t. The first horns heralded the death of Lindrow, the Great King of the Elves. A relative of yours, I believe.”

  “Distant, but a relative nonetheless. How did the king die?”

  “He was set upon by trolls and giants.”

  “Giants, there’re no giants anymore, ranger.”

  “Or so we thought,” Bobbick added. “The second group of horns from just a couple of days ago was to herald assistance to Pine Hold.”

  “Pine Hold is under attack?” This brought the breed’s head up. Pine Hold was the only bastion close enough to the area to trade and deal with whatever else might come up.

  “No, Pine Hold is completely destroyed. Juin from Lilieack showed up in time to rescue some survivors, but not enough to stop the swarm of muridai and others who intend to ambush the kings returning from the funeral of Lindrow,” Bobbick said, giving as much intel as he could now that he had their attention.

  “Which kings… and what are muridai?” Lindwarf asked.

  “All of them, including Lindren, whom I assume is another relative of yours.”

  “Yes, again though, distant. So, it seems the kings have themselves in quite a pickle, and I actually do wish we could help, but we have our own battle front right up here. We have been attacked on a regular basis by small rattish looking men, they don’t seem like much but they know how to fight and there are a lot of them.”

  “Those are called muridai, they have been a plague since the day they were first seen skulking amongst the Spires. So it seems that we are both in need of some assistance, is there someplace warm where we could sit and discuss things?” Bobbick asked, knowing that they were still leery about having outsiders join them at such a perilous time.

  “Yes, we keep a fire going in the meeting hall since everyone has moved in there until we get this resolved.”

  They started to all move toward the main hall when one of the apprentices spoke out.

  “Did y’all hear that?” he said and the crowd quieted to listen. A soft distant howl could be heard coming off the calm sea. This was a common illusion as sound couldn’t travel over the spires and crags of the Rachis, forcing sounds to be funneled along the shoreline for great distances.

  “It sounds like a horn,” one of the breeds said.

  “It’s a horn alright, a dwarven horn,” Bobbick confirmed and looked to the west. One of his people was in immediate danger, but how far? “Follock’s gotta be seventy-five to eighty miles from here,” he pondered out loud.

  “Closer to a hundred ifn’ ya follow the coast,” Lindwarf said. “We don’t do much business with them, seeing as how that is more of a permanent work camp and not a trading post. They got some goods and such but they want to charge House prices.”

  “How far is it to the next town of breeds? I can’t remember the name of it…Huckstation maybe?”

  “Fuchston, there were almost four hundred there just over a year ago, but it is gone now. One day it was there and the next nothing but smoke. It seems that the same thing happened in Finatunty farther down the coast and no one knows how. It almost happened here too, but we got our guard up and take to the woods at night.”

  “Your whole village?” Bobbick asked incredulously.

  “We haven’t had a full-on attack yet, but a lot of our numbers have just disappeared like the runners we sent to Lillieak and Riverhouse as well as the ones sent to find out what was going on in Fuchston an Finatunty. The others seem to just disappear,” Lindwarf said regretfully.

  “And you’ve seen nothing?” Bobbick questioned.

  “Oh we’ve seen plenty, we’ve killed several halfmen, goblins, and even captured a few of their rat men, but we haven’t been able to get much out of them.”

  “No survivors you say?”

  “Nope, didn’t say that. There have been some survivors, but they won’t come here, they say we are vulnerable to the rat’s blade-masters and prefer to go rogue. Some have been seen running with the few bandits left in the area and we assume that some have joined with the breeds that prefer to live in the Spires rather than the sea, but we don’t know for sure. We are cut off and reduced to protecting the little we have left to us.”

  “Fools,” Bobbick spat at the very nature of these solitary beings becoming the source of their own downfall. “Ya gotta band together and fight these things,” Bobbick said and the breeds shook their heads as one.

  “You don’t get it, dwarf. If an army had come at us in a front we would have banded together and handed them their ass, but they don’t come at us like that. They come at us under the cover of darkness like the rats they are, slinking in the shadows silently and with purpose. They leave no bodies or trails other than the scattering of erratic footprints that disappear into the sea or the rocks of the crags that litter this area. It is impossible to find them,” Lindwarf said, obviously frustrated by the situation but feeling truly helpless.

  In truth, Bobbick felt compassion for the man. These people weren’t rangers or king’s men, they were fishermen and farmers with a few hunters to gather food and pelts. They weren’t equipped to deal with anything like this and he felt regret for so many having been cast into the cold by society to live under their own means simply due to impure heritage.

  “Well, there is no telling how far away that horn was and I’m not going to find out by sitting here. I will do my best to get you some help up here, Lindwarf, but as I said, the whole country is at the beginnings of war and it’s a war that will affect all of the races. You go on and do as you want but I can’t help but think it will kill you, slowly for sure. Slow or not, however, dead is dead unless you come up with a different strategy.” Bobbick held the man’s gaze for some time before pulling away and climbing back on to his ram.

  “Rangers, west,” was all he said before he and his five young apprentices mounted upon their steeds that were specifically designed to exist and travel through this environment and headed out at a steady run.

  * * *

  “Blasted dwarf,” Lindwarf cursed.

  “He’s right you know,” Chalms said from his right shoulder.

  “How do you mean?”

  “I mean…that I would rather fight a man head on than let him sneak up on me in the night. If there is a battle raging, then I for one, want to be there. Who knows, maybe all of our brothers ain’t dead and we can get some of them back,” Chalms said with the same argument he had been approaching Lindwarf with for over a month, however this time it made sense.

  “It could be the death of us you know. The end to everything we have worked for and built up here in this wasteland,” Lindwarf replied.

  “Aye, and there is no one up here that could have done what we’ve done and survived, yet we thrive, until recently that is. With ya or without ya, Lindwarf, I’m going to fight,” Chalms said in a manner that wasn’t argumentative. He had no desires to rule or control anyone else. He only wanted to survive and keep what was his. Most of his family had already been lost and Lidwarf knew that he saw this as a potential opportunity to get some of that back if they still lived.

  Lindwarf stared after the disappearing rangers for a long bit, ignoring the comments that were made behind him. As leader he had to listen to the opinions of others but ultimately…the decision was his.

  “Ready the boats, we’re going to battle,” he said and headed off toward his thatch, somehow relieved that things would finally take a change for what could be the better. Not the change that he would have asked for but for the first time in a long time there was hope. Lindwarf and his people would no longer be the victim.

  Drums and horns within the tiny village started to sound in earnest and there was life behind his people like he hadn’t seen in months. Half of him felt that he should have done this earlier but he knew that the time had not been right. Now…the time felt, right.

  36

  Drick

  Getting out of the one-time abandoned mine was supposed to be the hard part, as it turned out, the muridai had forces outside of the mine. They had been lax from inactivity when the three allies approached but that had changed in a hurry as soon as the sounds of steel were heard outside the entrance. The high ground was denied them as they were forced into a run and shoot battle, which soon had them cut off in front and nothing to their backs except the open water of the North Sea.

  They had managed to get several large rocks between them and their adversaries, but it would never hold. With close to sixty arrows between them, it was only a matter of hours before they were overrun by sheer weight of numbers.

  “What are they waiting for?” Grodeg, who spent most of his time in Riverhouse asked.

  “Dark, evil always does better at night,” Bryan said.

  “True, but these aren’t like the soldiers we faced in the Spires. They are unorganized except for a small knot of them,” Drick said as he scanned the crowd over the tops of the rocks. I bet that’s the squad that blade master is in control of, he thought as he remembered the trained fighter he had met outside of the once abandoned mine.

  “I also don’t see any bows among the group,” Bryan said.

  “I don’t think they are soldiers,” Drick added. “I think they are slavers or guards for the most part and afraid to attack. They also don’t know how many we have back here. They saw us three, but how insane would someone have to be to attack an established facility with only three people,” he finished, realizing how crazy that actually was, he should know better.

  It has to be because of the uniqueness of the situation as well as my present company. A human, a dwarf, and an elf, trapped and fighting whatever those rat things are…I bet the world hasn’t seen this in a thousand years.”

  Bryan’s laugh started low in his belly and slowly started to grow into a full-on guffaw, regardless of the enemy just a couple of hundred yards away.

  “Yes, exactly what kind of fools would do something so obviously stupid and rash?” he said, then puffed out his cheeks and giving a wide disturbed look to his face, blew out a raspberry as he pointed to Drick, Grodeg, and finally himself.

  “What kind of fools indeed,” Grodeg said and couldn’t help but smirk and allow a small chuckle to escape.

  “You realize this is going to get us all killed, don’t you?” Drick interjected.

  “How could it not?” Bryan said as he regained control of himself. “I’m not going to lie down and die to make it easy on them, I’m going cut a swath into their army’s ranks like they have never seen before.”

  “That brings us back to the point I was trying to make earlier. They’re not soldiers, they are guards and inhabitants of the slave pit. Look at their clothes and the lack of weapons.”

  “Hmm, I do kind of feel like a bear surrounded by townsfolk after eating a few of their children.”

  “What are you talking about, Bryan?” Grodeg growled.

  “When I was a kid growing up in Skorsdale on the top of the Headwaters, we always had a problem with bears, but never something that couldn’t be managed. In one of the northern villages, one of the big Kodi’s developed a taste for children and started tracking them in the night, and on one occasion took a small girl right out of her home and started to eat her in the middle of town. It was a terrible scene, though the girl didn’t scream for long. The villagers rose up and chased the bear to a small cave which was barely more than an outcropping of stone from the cliff’s face, shallow…barely big enough to fit the bear’s body. He held off the entire village for a full day, his hide speckled with arrows, seeping blood from multiple wounds, as well as a few village corpses strewn about him until a huntsman arrived.

  “You see, son, I remember my father saying to me when we came upon the scene. There are some beasts that are simply too much for regular folk. These people aren’t cowards or weak, they have chased a giant bear out from their homes and have trapped it as a matter of course. They haven’t run and some have even sacrificed their lives, though foolishly, to try and eliminate this threat. These are very brave and heroic people, but they are simply not equipped to kill a beast from legend like that efficiently. Of course, my da made sure there were enough villagers around so they could hear his well-rehearsed speech. Men were always kind of embarrassed when they had to call in a huntsman to kill something they had dealt with on their own in the past. As with all beasts, there is something special to resolve the issue.”

  Drick thought of the muridai fighter he met outside the mine. Is that what he is? An anomaly? No, that would be too convenient.

  “That is when they called us before any other huntsman. It was because Da made them feel good about calling him. He wasn’t a better or braver man, no sir. He simply had the right equipment. He laid out four spears before them. Long shafts of almost ten feet with steel tipped, needle sharp points covering the last foot. He had them made special in the dwarven kingdoms, the wooden shaft was actually two pieces that had been split then shaped to fit around a dwarven steel rod for the entire length. They would slide through hide like a hot knife through butter, but they were only for the end game. Then he would un pack the bow. A contraption of wood and hide of my da’s own invention. Never seen anything like it before or since… I swear that man was crazy my whole life. He raised me with a firm hand I tell ya, but he was never malicious or cruel.”

  Grodeg and Drick just watched and listened, both thinking that it would be nice to hear a story before they… Yes, better to think of a story than the inevitable outcome of their current situation.

  “I would move the wagon around and he would jump into its back end and set his ballista on a post we had tied into the frame. Then we started to crank, thirty turns it needed and the last ten got pretty tough. When she was taut, we had a piece of rawhide stretched so tight it would snap a man’s head right off if’n he was unlucky enough to be caught in the wrong when the tension was finally released. The shaft was six feet long and an inch thick, an unwieldy weapon to be sure, but for stationary targets like this, it was quick and clean. The bear…he knew. He knew what was about to happen, he knew that his life was in its final seconds and instead of standing and taking it, he charged right at us. It happened so fast there was no way I could have grabbed one of the spears in time to stop it.”

  “Did it kill yer da?” Grodeg asked.

  “No,” he chuckled. “Nothing will kill that old coot. I wasn’t trained to pick up the lance in time, I was trained to already have it in my hands, so all I had to do was lay the point on the correct spot on its chest and let his momentum do the work. At the same time Da got a bead on the beast and put the ballista shaft right through its eye. We got a lot of work after that.”