Elvenshore: 01 - The Dwarves of Elvenshore (8 page)

Ermort, still a little sleepy from his three-day ordeal, said
,  “
Can I be assigned to the last group? I would like a five week rest.”

Sarchise smiled, “Sorry Ermort, you are in my group.  Get all the rest you can tomorrow, because the next day you will be moving out.”

Ermort went back to sleep.  Sarchise also went back through the gate and up to his room.  Ammlee was waiting for him.  She looked him in the eyes and said, “You are going to war.”

Sarchise was surprised, “Who told you that?”

“Wives of warrior can see the faraway look in their lover’s eyes. It is said that if one looks close enough they can see the battle’s fury played out in the pool of the eye.  Sometimes even see who the victor will be. I cannot see a victor, but I see anxiety, death and destruction.”

“Do not look too close, if you see my death I don’t want to hear about it. It would be hard going into battle with no hope.”

Hemlot lined his soldiers up below the lower gate.  They had their banners flying from their spears.  Sarchise had chosen a white castle with a red background for his banner.  The castle represented South Fort, but he did not tell the dwarves that.  As trumpets blew, the warriors started singing and the march started.  The army passed between the towers and then south towards Westwood.  Sarchise’s job was to cut off the forests lower corner and pacify it.  He would then guard it until Cazz’s army arrived and marched through then on the way to the next section.  If all went according to plan it would still take a long time to pacify Westwood. 

In the back of Sarchise’s mind was the threat to the Kingdom of
Ril
. It was the last true Kingdom of men.  If they called for aide would the dwarves go? He didn’t know the answer for that.  As for himself, he lived with the dwarves, ate with the dwarves, and fought with the dwarves, even was married to a dwarf.  Was he a dwarf now? He no longer lived in the world of men.

The singing stopped when the dwarves entered the forest.  Most of the dwarves had not been in it even though it was only a half a day’s journey from the lower gate.  They kept looking around, liked caged animals. Sarchise couldn’t believe how much noise a dwarf army makes. He set the scouts out on both sides of the army so that nothing could sneak up on them. As soon as they entered the forest Sarchise began looking for an old elf outpost.  He knew that the elves kept a close eye on the dwarves, and that they had a semi circle of outposts around the High Mountain.  As it was getting to be dusk, Sarchise found a good hillside to spend the night.

The Dwarves had lain in a large store of dried meat and cheese and bread.  Most of the dwarves skipped the meat and ate bread and cheese while it was still fresh. The dried meat was still looked upon with a lot of suspicion. No fires were allowed and guards were placed around the camp. Sarchise woke at midnight and walked around the camp.
‘No spiders around tonight, even the deafest of the spiders could not fail to hear the loud snoring of the dwarves’ he thought to himself.
The guards were changed as he watched. The ones getting off duty were lying down on the soft earth for a restless night. Sarchise, satisfied that the guards were doing their duty, went back to bed.

In the morning, the moaning of the dwarves that were waking was the predominate sound. They looked forward to another day without fire. Soon after their
cold breakfast, they were ready to move out again. It was another long trek in the woods.  The forest was getting denser the further they moved into it.  The tight dwarf formations were starting to be a problem too.  When one of the dwarves would trip over a tree root, three or four of the ones following him would trip over the dwarf that had just fallen.  Sarchise had the warriors spread out more, so that the dwarf that tripped over a stump or root would have time to pick himself up before the one following him caught up. It made the line of dwarves snaking their way through the Westwood, five times longer, but there
were
less bruised and battered dwarves.

On the third day Sarchise found what he was looking for. There was
a
large mound of earth with a large tree in the middle of it. It was a stout tree and it still had the lookout post in the upper branches of the tree.  The wood was old and had a lot of rot in it, but they could stand on it without falling through.  None of the dwarves wanted to be in the tree, not even Hemlot. So Sarchise went up himself. 

He could see a great distance from there. The forest had closed around most of these outposts, but this one was still mostly intact.  He could not get all of the dwarf army on the mound but had them camp as close to it as possible.  He would use the scouts on the outskirts of the camp to serve as guards.  It would be another sleepless night for Ermort, but he was used to that.  Sarchise would establish this as his base and plan the battle from his tree house, lookout tower. 

The army camped without fires that night.  The dwarves were tired and had all of their gear on their backs for the march.  They were grumbling about the dried meat, but liked the fresh bread and cheese.  They then settled down for the night. 

The night went uneventful.  Some Razor Bears closed in on the camp but retreated when they heard all of the snoring dwarves.  They did not like their pray to be in big numbers and would only attack when there was only a few.  Sarchise heard the snoring dwarves also and wondered to himself why the spiders were passing them up.  He could see a great distance even at night. Somehow the mound seemed to reflect any of the moon and starlight up into the tree.  He could see all of the scouts from on top the watchtower, even though some were up to a half-mile away. Every movement of the forest for up to a several miles did not go unnoticed fr
om his vantage point. He saw dee
r eating in a meadow, and owls flying through the air,
then
swooping down on field mice. Every tree that moved from the gusts of wind was observed.  Realizing that having the scouts out was not needful when the watchtower was there, he brought them all in at midnight.  He posted two guards in the watchtower and then climbed down and went to sleep.

Sarchise was up with the sun. The dwarves were milling around, eating dried meat, but complaining bitterly.  Sarchise found Hemlot and held a council meeting under the tree.

“The night went better than I could have hoped,” he said.

Hemlot was stiff from sleeping on the too soft ground.  “The warriors don’t
like your dried meat,” he said with a grimace and then stretched his back out.

“I
know
but fortunately
for them there is not much of it.  In a few more days we will be forced to do something different,” he said with a smile.  “Anyway, we will make this camp permanent, by building fences around the outskirts. The watchtower can give us warning of approaching evil, so we will not have to send out guards every night. We will send out patrols day and night. 
Thirty warriors and one man per patrol.
  If we send them out in all directions during the day, and just one per night we can observe all that there is to see in the area we were assigned.”

“I’ll see to it.” Hemlot was off.

Three patrols left at noon.  When they came back three hours later, three more set out.  Sarchise went with the third group of patrols that day.  The forest was sparse, more so than he had ever seen before.  It let in light so the underbrush
was heavy in that area.  H
e taught the warriors to watch where they were stepping and how to pass though the jungle quietly.  This was a foreign concept to dwarf warriors but they learned quickly.  Soon
they were coming
across rabbits and deer that had not been spooked away by their approach.  Three hours later they wandered back into camp. Sarchise climbed up the tower and watched as the other patrols came back.  The scouts had repair
ed the base of their tree house
watchtower by taking out the rotten wood and replacing it with fresh logs.  Sarchise gazed out from his secure perch.  Nothing was stirring in the woods except for the normal wild life.  It troubled him, because he did not know where the enemy was.  You cannot defeat an enemy that you cannot see.

The first night patrol went out and the watchtower guard was posted.  The scouts had talked one of the dwarves to climb the tree and act as watchman. They even made him a step stool so he could see out of the tree better. Sarchise found his tent and slipped in his blankets.  He stayed there, not sleeping, but listening to the sounds of the forest until the first night patrol came back. He got out of his tent to greet them and they reported that they might have found a spider’s lair.  They did not want to go into it at night so they marked where it was on the map and came back and reported.  ‘At last’, Sarchise thought to himself. He settled in for a good night’s sleep after that.

In the morning Sarchise organized an assault party.  Hemlot was not happy with the idea that Sarchise would be going along.  His job was to protect the prince and he could not do that if he insisted on joining every possible battle.  Ermort was invited, along with fifty dwarves.

After an
hour’s
walk, they came across the lair.  Weapons were brought to the ready and with a rush they hacked their way into the middle of it.  Silver white webs encompassed the inside of it.  There were bones scatt
er
ed around the base.  To everyone
’s
surprise there
was no spiders
inside.

“Old lair, been abandoned for months, webs are dusty and there are no egg
sacks,” Sarchise reported.  He looked around at the bones on the floor. “They were feeding on deer and bear cub. 
Pretty sparse bones for a lair.
They didn’t find much to eat.”

“Do you suppose that they left to find more food?” Hemlot asked.

“I don’t know, on the one hand that would make sense, but there is so much food here now.  There are deer and bear everywhere.  The bears are fat, so they don’t seem to have much competi
tion from other predators.  The
only reason they would leave a good hunting ground is to go to a great one.  On the other hand, they will be competing with the spiders that already live there.” Sarchise
said, “Let’s get back to camp and h
unt some deer and rabbit on the way back.  The fence is complete, we can have fires tonight.”

The dwarves let out a cheer. That was the best news they had since entering the forest.

Back at camp the cooks made a feast for the dwarves.  They were all so tired of the dried meat that they all sang at dinner.  Then the tales of wars long ago started.  The songs and stories lasted all night.  The fires finally died down as morning was upon them. 

Sarchise looked at Ermort, “Never seen so many happy dwarves.”

Ermort replied, “Still don’t know if it was a good idea.  There still could have been spiders in the area.”

“I hid some dwarves in the woods and the
watchtower is
manned. The best way to find a spider is to offer him food.  Nothing took the bait.  I will send a message to that effect to High Mountain in the morning. We might as well move north.”

“Good plan.”

In the morning they heard singing coming from the east.  It
s
sounds became louder and louder, until a large dwarf army appeared on the horizon. They marched in good form and halted at the wall. Cazz walked through the gate. 

“Greetings brother” he said as he hugged Sarchise.  “How goes the war?”

“We have found
nothing,
we were going to ask permission to move north.”

Cazz laughed, “Still thinking like a scout.  Armies must move as a group.  You’ll have to stay here until the other three armies are in position. Then we can all move north together. We will make a sweep so that nothing large can pass by us.”  The King has moved the timetable
up,
you will see an army every three days pass through here. In just over a week, you will be able to move.  Meanwhile, you must keep up your patrols.”

Sarchise looked a little disappointed. “Very well, come we have food.”  They ate breakfast together and the cooks built up the fires again to feed both armies. Sarchise and Cazz poured over the maps an
d
plotted out positions that the armies would maintain their patrols.

“I will march after the men have finished their breakfast.” Cazz said, “I doubt that I will have such an excellent place to build an outpost, but I will send a runner as soon as I am set up.  I will map out exactly where we are so we can keep communication open.”

“I will await your messages,” replied Sarchise.

The well-fed dwarves of Cazz’s army moved out, singing as they went. 

We’re Cazz’s army, so we’ve been told

If we are strong and brave and bold

He’ll award us each with a pot of gold

And now we march towards in the land of elf

It’s one for all and none for self

Or he’ll put our heads upon a shelf

And now we march both day and night