The sun had risen which meant they had close to nine hours before the beasts took advantage of the darkness and came in, death would be the best they could hope for with this lot. This all, however, had become the least of Drick’s concern when he saw how agitated Ice King was becoming. He went to the stallion and started to remove some gear when he remembered the last time the stallion acted this way. He moved quickly knowing that when the beast bolted there wasn’t going to be anything that he could do about it. He half thought of climbing on his back and waiting for the moment and he would have if he was alone, but there was more at stake here. His heart warmed at the prospect that the princess was still alive but he would not be able to go to her, he knew that Ice King would, or he would die trying, it was what he was bred to do. The few packs of his belongings and all weapons were clear so he stepped back to allow him free reign.

  He backed up cautiously when Bryan stepped to his side.

  “What’s happening?”

  “Ice King is going to run. He is bonded to another and he must be sensing her. Grab your bow and see if we can help him get free of the mass out there.”

  “I’ll try, but if you ask me, it sounds like Ice King is going to feed the masses if you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I am afraid of that too, but there is nothing I can do to stop him,” Drick said and looked over toward Grodeg who was watching the opposing force that was still growing about two hundred yards out from their position. He pulled out a long horn.

  “What are you going to do with that? Play them a lullaby so we can sneak out while they sleep?”

  “Nah, you stupid oaf. We have four other parties out searching for where they are keeping the slaves. Also, there are miners up in them hills and there be breeds just to the east of us. Somebody is going to hear something…maybe. Or at least hopefully. Now what is your blasted horse doing?” Grodeg said at the same time as a splash was heard behind them. They all turned only to see Ice King in the sea and swimming out to deep water.

  “I guess your damn horse is a lot brighter than we are,” Bryan said with a chuckle.

  “Yeah, he can manage to swim without all of the gear and me on his back. I think he will do just fine providing an arctic shark or whale doesn’t spot him first,” Drick added.

  “Too bad we ain’t got a boat or we could get to one of the logging canals that lead to the house,” Bryan said.

  “What, and leave Spunk here for the muridai and half men to feed on?” Drick said in jest.

  “It would serve them right to break their teeth on his mangy hide,” Bryan replied, and as if the donkey understood every word, he turned his gaze on to the human with a dead pan stare that said he shouldn’t even waste his time on the pitiful being, Bryan laughed long and hard.

  Grodeg started to blow a long slow singular note that increased in volume as it went. He took a breath and followed up with three short loud bursts and continued with another long and drawn out note. He did this three times, until very faintly and far away he heard a reply. He responded with four drawn out blasts.

  “Settle in, boys, help is a long way away,” the dwarf said.

  “In just about eight hours I will be the only one able to see well enough to shoot, we’ll see how long it takes them to overrun us then, soldiers or not,” Drick said knowing the truth. There was no way a horn that distant could ever get here in time to help them.

  Bryan walked over to the donkey, Spunk, and started to remove the massive amount of packages and bundles on the beasts back.

  “You might want to keep him loaded up there Bry. Ya never know if’n we get a chance to make a run for it,” Grodeg said in his gruff all-knowing manner that is typical for a dwarf.

  “I might have a couple of things that can help us in here. Not to mention that Spunk here likes a good fight, but he is best when he is dressed and ready for it,” he said and laughed as he roughed the forehead of scraggly beast. “You see, Spunk here isn’t a mule or a horse and he isn’t one of those tiny things the mountain folk use called a burro, no…he is a full-fledged donkey. He may look to be of equal size of a good size riding horse, but trust me when I say that he weighs half again as much and he has a set of jaws on him that could crush yer femur. One of the only beasts that can whip up on a grizzly bear on any given day is one built just like Spunk here, it’s probably one of the reasons him and I get along so well. I never have to set guard or worry about wolves with Spunk around, he hates to have his sleep disturbed and wakes up ornerier than a snake.”

  Bryan talked as he unpacked and one of the items he pulled out and gave a quick shake to was a thick leather blanket that didn’t seem quite square. He tossed the blanket over Spunk’s back and the animal seemed to stand straighter or taller and set himself so Bryan could have easy access. Either way it was obvious that he knew what it meant and he seemed to visually gear up for what was to come. He fastened straps across his ample girth and even pulled a leather hood up complete with ear cut outs over the head of Spunk. Across the chest and down the forehead, Drick could see that there were some kind of plates or armor inserted inside to protect vitals.

  He stepped back and held out his arms to display his handiwork. Both Grodeg and Drick were tempted to laugh, but then Spunk looked at them and they saw none of his typical humor. The ultimate beast of burden was ready for war and both dwarf and elf knew that it was better to be on this side of him.

  “You calm down there now, Spunk, you’ll know when it is time,” Bryan said causing the donkey to face out toward the still massing horde as his friend patted him down and checked some hardened leather plates that were inserted into pockets on the donkey’s battle tunic. “Now if you two gentlemen would gather round over here we have some preparations to make. Now there ain’t much up here in Follock other than lokai and timber to bring the dwarfs up to this part of the world, but what they do have is some of the most potent juniper scrubs you will find anywhere. I have been distilling this stuff for years up here, it is too potent for drink and is better used as a cleaner, but if you get it south and add some fermented citrus to it or mix it with some low grade brandy, you get something that will flatten the hardiest of sailors.”

  “Sounds great, Bryan, but I don’t think that now is the time to be getting drunk,” Grodeg said with noticeable regret in his tone.

  “It burns, fool, very fast and hot,” Bryan said as he held out a clay sphere roughly the size of your fist with a solitary cork pounded tight into the top, the perfect container for packing and traveling long distance. “We just have to bore a hole through the cork and shove strips of cloth or…here, let me show ya.”

  Over the next several hours the three men worked as the mass surrounding them thickened.

  * * *

  Nothing had changed other than the mass of enemies growing larger by the time the sun touched the top of the Spires off to the south and west.

  “There has to be almost three hundred out there now,” Bryan said after a peek.

  “Yeah but a lot of those are definitely not soldiers. It’s like the whole pit has emptied out for the spectacle,” Drick replied. “Maybe their warrior force is as far away as our own reinforcements?”

  “Great,” the dwarf grumbled. “So, if we would have taken some time and planned this out, we could have had an army here and free the mines in one swoop. Nothing chaps my hide more than not bein’ smart enough beforehand.”

  “Yep, we kind of struck out on the progressive thinking this time around,” Bryan added.

  The three men knew that is was only a matter of time before they were dead but they kept their spirits up. They had fifty of the distillery bombs that Bryan had thought of, though he had no idea if they would work. They also had Spunk who was diligent in watching the opposing force by pacing back and forth scanning the muridai constantly.

  Drick knew that if it came to a pitched battle, they would simply be overrun by sheer numbers, especially if there were more blades-men like the one he had faced outside the mine’s entrance. That thing had fought in a style he had never seen before with his head and shoulders parallel to his hips, slipping and sliding side to side smoothly, his guard always up. He would think about that attack until the day he died, which of course might only be a few more minutes.

  “So, if two or three of these search parties that are out and about show up, what exactly are they going to be able to do against so many?” Drick asked Grodeg.

  “You never know with fair folk,” Grodeg replied with an encouraging tone that was obviously disguising a false hope.

  “More’n likely they will write down our slaughter for the bards to sing about,” Bryan said and broke out into a huge laugh.

  “Why in the god’s names is that funny?” Drick asked the man who plopped down beside the elf and popped the cork on his personal flask. Drick smelled the strong brandy and found himself wanting a pull off of it. Bryan slammed some and passed it to the elf.

  “I’m not one for crying is all, never have been,” Bryan said as he wiped his lips. Drick tipped it up and took a pull before tossing it across to the dwarf, who everyone knew would drain the last of it and complain about it all being drained by the time it got around to him. Instead he poured some into a bowl of manure before draining it and tossing the bottle back to Bryan. A fire began to smolder over the dung creating a bluish barrel shaped flame.

  Bryan let the flask bounce off of his chest and fall to the ground as his eyes followed the donkey’s motion. Ear’s perked forward, front legs in a wide solid stance, Spunk was posted up facing out.

  “When his ears lay flat, they’ll be in striking distance but give Spunk his due first or you’re liable to get knocked out of the fight before it even starts.”

  “They’re just sending sorties out to shake us up, it might be time to show them what shake them up truly means.” Grodeg smiled mischievously as Bryan, who was the only one who knew what was going to happen, gave them a little chuckle. Please take up your bow, Har Karoome and let fly.”

  Holding two arrows to his bow, Drick lit the fuses off of the dung stoker Grodeg had made with the brandy. He then held his bow horizontally toward the mass of foul folk packed so tightly that he couldn’t help but stick home no matter where he pointed. However, he wasn’t looking for bodies, instead…

  He let fly and the two arrows discharged out at opposing angles, blasting the lit clay decanters against rocks and ridges of ice, massive blasts sent ice shards and chips of rock into the faces of the muridai force. A troll from the center of the mass strode forward, intending to walk in and crush the three men hiding behind the pile of stones. Drick sent two arrows so deep into his chest that when the explosion came, it rained down viscera, flesh, blood, and skull fragments covered with the flaming liquid onto the mass below.

  “Ah, nothing burns better than troll,” Grodeg said as he watched the flames start to leap up within the screaming horde. Drick rushed over to where Bryan had been with two more arrows, but had to check his shot when he saw the massive human and his beast of burden pushing a small section of the mass back. He would have shouted kudos to the man but realized that Spunk was doing most of the work and Bryan was just trying to keep up with the beast. He let fly four bombs over his head before moving to the east side to do it again. Almost half the decanters were gone so he stopped and drew his sword as what was intended as a full blown charge, turned into an easily managed trickle.

  37

  Slaughter

  Grodeg swung his large bladed ax like it weighed no more than a thin stick, spinning and twisting in ways to distract and often to plunge the straight talon jutting out from the top of the head or the curved talon on back, only to obliterate a skull with the heavy steel pommel. He wore a heavy leather buckler strapped to the back of his wrists, which were built into his gauntlets, and swung a long knife in his left. His short powerful legs kept below the onslaught with the upper body strength to hold back an entire wall of besiegers, but he was wearing down.

  This was the third sortie of the night, Drick as well as Bryan were showing various nicks and cuts, all of which could eventually drag them down. It was the resilience of the dwarf that had turned the tide this time but he doubted he could do it again. He lopped the head off of a halfman that was struggling with Drick as a muridai attacked from another angle and split a troll down the middle from behind, the two halves separating to show Bryan gasping for breath as he tried to lift his sword one more time. Spunk was suddenly trampling the muridai that still attacked Drick and they all looked at each other knowing that they could do no more.

  “Well, do we swim?” Bryan asked.

  “I’m a dwarf, we sink…we don’t swim.”

  “Oh, that sucks,” Bryan said and sat down to wipe his blade and shove some jerky or water down his throat.

  “Yeah, I’ll stick it out here,” Drick said. “These people are just the grunts and workers, not a damn one of them knows how to fight. They’re wearing us down. I don’t know how they are making these people come at us, but they are not soldiers. Most don’t even have weapons.”

  “Ya, but they have real soldiers out there, I saw them before the sun set, They’re trying to wear us down first.” Grodeg said. “One of these times, maybe even the next time they’re gonna be coming in. That’s when we gotta start praying fer a miracle.”

  They ate in silence with Bryan even catching a cat nap of ten to fifteen minutes when drums started to sound.

  “Here they come, how many of those flamers you got left?” the dwarf asked.

  “Six, I didn’t use them in the last sortie so they probably think that we are out of them.”

  “Fire them up, I want to see what we are getting into,” Bryan said and Drick grabbed his bow.

  He shot into a couple of the dead trolls that had gotten in their first couple launches, setting the bodies aflame so they could see some of what was coming at them. Trolls had a tendency to burn hot for a long time. The mass was smaller now, but for once, it was as still as a glass pond as the drum beat rose in intensity; louder, faster, louder…it was becoming an incessant roar that shook the ground and then it just stopped

  A unified shout of a single word hit their ears like a punch in the gut and then a continuous roar as the crowd of grunts opened a wide aisle down their middle. The soldiers finally appeared on the field. Larger and armed to the teeth, they marched forward and held up their arms to silence the crowd. A solitary scream of command…a precise group reply and the real soldiers charged the three behind the rocks. Two of the soldiers were aflame from one of the bombs Drick sent off, but it didn’t slow them, the stench of burning unwashed hair heralding their charge.

  The three, as unlikely of a group as you could find, braced themselves. Spunk showing great weariness from the previous battles stepped up beside them, a warrior’s spirit if Drick had ever seen. He stood close to Bryan protectively, sensing what they had all noticed. Bryan wasn’t holding up well. He was solid for the first two bouts, but had been flagging ever since due to his age and condition.

  Movement behind them, feet slapping the water as more attackers approached from the sea. Drick turned and stepped past Spunk’s flanks, allowing him to take the brunt as he investigated the new threat. Breeds, almost a hundred were jumping from long boats on to shore, blades in hand. They rushed past him and jumped into the battle reaching the front at the same time as the attackers. Their momentum was negated and the two forces stopped right on the line for an old fashion fist to face brawl. They wanted a face to face confrontation with these stealers of kin ever since they started sneaking around in the night kidnapping their people.

  A dwarven horn sounded off behind the muridai and screams could be heard in the distance, more shouting and the clash of steel rang out.

  * * *

  Bobbick rode his beasts hard, only slowing them when they absolutely needed rest. What the rams lost in speed to a horse, it made up for with nimbleness. Many shorter paths through the ridges were accessible to the rams where a horse would have to take the long way around, not that there were any horses with them. The entire village of Youlose took to their long boats and headed west. Survivors from Fuchston and Finny came out of the woods but Bobbick just shouted to them.

  “West, to the west! We have them trapped, pick up your spears and hurry!” he shouted, not wanting to take the time to explain what was going on. He didn’t know if they followed or not nor could he care for when he crested the last rise, he saw the dire situation his kinsmen were in. There wasn’t a massive army surrounding the people in need but there was enough. He figured a hundred to a hundred and fifty at a quick scan.

  The brush rustled behind them and he turned to see fifteen to twenty of the breeds step out, most looked to be at least half elf which would explain their ability to stay close to the rams that the rangers rode. They asked no questions choosing instead to look upon the scene below. They had been through a lot having lost not only their families, but actually their entire town as well as friends and jobs. Over the course of a few months they had gone from hard working independent people to living worse than animals in the wild in fear. All due to the infestation of one race, muridai.

  “Rat bastards,” Bobbick said and he heard a growl from the breeds beside him. He leaned over to the closest one and said, “They’re called muridai and yours isn’t the only town they have destroyed.”

  There were several wide spaced explosions and the mass was suddenly lit up with fire

  The breed started to jog down the slope and his mates followed. Bobbick gave a couple of clicks to his mount and followed after.

  “I’m seein’ some goblins mixed in.”