Samual (32 page)

It was a troubling thought. Trolls were savage creatures who preyed upon the weak. They saw no difference between humans and animals. Or even between other trolls and animals. All were meat. And they treated them all as their next meal. Nor were they particularly interested in cooking. Although it was said that some still knew the basics of fire and roasting, they were just as happy eating their prey while it was still alive and struggling. They also ate their own kin when the chance arose. The idea that the shadelings might be similar creatures was far from comforting, especially when they had such strong magic of concealment at their disposal.

“Should we follow you to the meeting place?”

“You are already here.”

The leader of the group answered the Elder. He was so thin that he looked almost like a giant stick insect, yet the intensity in his eyes said he was far more dangerous than any insect that had ever lived. As did the way his hand kept fondling the curve of his long bow and the hilts of his bone knives.

“Ohh?” That seemed to have caught Elder Bela off guard.

“With such a mage as this forest murderer here in your party, we could never allow you near our home.”

Suddenly all eyes were on Sam and he realised he was in trouble. He had made an enemy of these people long before he'd even arrived. The Elder had told him that these people worshipped trees as did the dryads. Suddenly it seemed that they took the entire worship idea to a new and militant level. His blood turned to ice in his veins. Fortunately Elder Bela seemed to have expected the accusation and had prepared for it.

“Samual Hanor's actions were both foolish and accidental. Raised among the humans, he had little idea of his true strength and he was caught off-guard by the enemy's numbers. They came in their hundreds and he stood alone, surrounded. Still, he saved perhaps many thousands of our people with his act, and the forest will recover in time. If and when we are fortunate enough to return there some day, we will see to its recovery and he will help. That is our honour, and his duty as our charge.”

Sam nodded his agreement carefully, still seeing too many hands on bows. He didn't mind helping to replant a forest, not that he would have had any choice in the matter if he had. And he didn't want to have these people angry at him for long. Should they choose to fight, he doubted whether even with both a war master and master wizard beside him he would survive. That invisibility of theirs was a powerful weapon. But he was also left with a question. How did they even know about his fight? Had one of their number been near enough to witness it, and somehow survived? Or was it by some other, yet unknown form of magic?

“It is your honour and you are held to it.”

A new voice entered the clearing. An older male, filled with strength and confidence. Sam, like the others turned to see another shadeling appear out of thin air. He was perhaps seventy or eighty – assuming he aged like the elves he knew, but he had not the first trace of grey in his hair, or slowness in his gait. In fact he moved like a young man. Above all else his voice radiated confidence, and Sam knew he had to be the Wisdom that had been mentioned. Unlike an elder among the elves though, none of the others appeared to defer to him. He clearly commanded and they obeyed, but there was no show of respect at all. Just as these people had done away with the refinements of life he guessed, so too had they done away with manners.

On some level these people reminded Sam of wolves in a pack. The strongest acted as the leader and spoke for them, while the rest followed as it suited them. But sooner or later, the leader would fall and a new one would take his place. Normally among wolves there would be a battle and the loser would limp away into exile if he survived the fight. These people he guessed, would follow a similar pattern, respecting strength and cunning rather than wisdom and age.

“Before we can do so however, we have to return to Shavarra, and at present that is beyond our ability. The enemy holds our home in his steel grasp. Unless there is something you can tell us to aid us in our return?” Elder Bela turned the conversation to the reason they had come.

“At least you're direct for your people. The few other elves we have met want to converse at length about the beauty of the world while boiling water for tea.”

The Wisdom was right. Caught up in the likelihood of being skewered by these people for damaging a forest, Sam hadn't even noticed that Elder Bela hadn't gone through the normal rituals. But then the Wisdom didn't seem to appreciate those things anyway and he probably knew that.

“This is what we know of the enemy – and he is our enemy as well as yours. His golems have attacked our villages, and even our spells of concealment do not seem to do much good against them. The steel rats are immune to illusion. We think this is because they have no minds and are therefore unable to see such things.”

“Were there many deaths?”

“A few hundred perhaps. Those too slow to seek the safety of the great forests. But once out and away from the villages, our people can climb trees far better than the golems, and drop heavy stones on them from high above. It has proved an effective technique, and shown us the error of our ways. We should never have established villages in the first place. There is no need. The forest provides all that we could ever want.”

Except that without a physical village of some sort, the shadelings would lose touch with one another Sam thought. That in turn would mean they would soon lose their sense of community, which was probably all that they had left of civilization. Barbarism would not be far away. But Sam didn't say it. He was already in trouble with these people, and he had no thought that they would ever accept his concerns.

“The battle continues with few of our kin hurt any longer, while many rats die. But many more continue to come, making the battle seem without end. We meet with you only because we hope that you will seek to end it.”

“We do so seek. But the enemy is strong. Stronger than any we have ever known.”

“True. But sooner or later his strength must fail, especially as he attacks more and more lands. No one can fight everyone, though he is trying. But of more importance to you now is the fact that the enemy has struck once more. Harder than before.”

Sam heard that and had to suppress a groan. It was exactly as he'd feared.

“Seventeen days ago his steel rats and also some larger steel spiders, attacked the human port city of Ragnor's Rock in the kingdom of Yed, over a thousand leagues to the south west.”

Even though he had never been anywhere near there, Sam knew where Yed was. It was the southern most tip of the continent and home to an army of traders and seafarers, as it was the access route to the twelve major island nations to the south. It was also a natural fortress.

Though he had only ever read about it in history books, Ragnor's Rock was reputed to be a natural bastion, one which no army had ever successfully assaulted. The city itself was perched on the top of a cliff overlooking the port, with a commanding view of all the surrounding lands. They could not be crept up on. To add to their defences, the city walls were lined with canon, able to decimate any attacking army.

“The battle lasted two full nights and a day, and many hundreds if not thousands of the steel things were destroyed. But in the end the humans were defeated, and have fled inland towards their dwarven neighbours. Their own wizards and steel weren't enough when the spiders could spit fire further than an archer's arrow could fly and the rats came in their tens of thousands.”

Tens of thousands? Sam couldn't quite bring himself to believe that, and yet if the stories were true, that was what it would take to assault Ragnor's Rock. It was also what the ancient Dragon had assembled to do it. For he too had taken the city once before.

“And of the master behind the rats?”

Trust Wyldred to remember the important questions while he was still reeling in shock, Sam thought. He was not acquitting himself well here.

“We know little, except that he comes by sea, unloading his deadly vermin by night along the shores. He uses a fleet of gigantic sailing ships, fully three sails high each, painted out in black. Even the sails are black. Ship after black ship comes, each carrying hundreds of his steel servants, finding old and disused wharfs to dock at.”

“In the black of night they are unloaded, walking off the ship, along the wharf and then along the shore until they find a suitable spot, where they simply collapse down into huddled balls and sleep. Row upon row of them, hundreds wide and dozens deep. Then when there are finally enough of them, the Master gives the order and they awaken and as an army they march towards their target.”

“Our people saw it first at Beckenridge to the south east of Shavarra, but they did not know then what these things were. So they watched for a while, and left. It was only days later when the steel army came to life and attacked that any of us understood what was happening. A tragic mistake that harmed us all.”

Beckenridge! Or to give it it's proper name in High Elvish, Willen mi Becken or Sea of Becken. Sam knew the town, or rather, its reputation. It was part of the realm of Shavarra, but its people were a strange mix of elves, dwarves, humans and gnomes. Some said there were also sylph and fairy among them. The town was so mixed up in race that for someone to claim they were from the little port town was almost considered a roundabout way of saying that their blood was mixed.

“At Ragnor's Rock he used another abandoned wharf; Little Rock. It had previously only been used by fishing boats in the spring. From there he assembled a force so large it took eight nights for all of the black ships to arrive and unload. At least so our people have heard. And then, once his army was in place, he marched them nearly fifty leagues south, through deep forests and over mountains, to reach the city. As they did in Shavarra the rats attacked by night, scaling the cliffs and fortified walls, and then descended like a plague on the city guard.”

“But they did not have the element of surprise on their side for long. The alarm was soon raised, and hundreds and then thousands of soldiers met them on the battlements before they could enter the city proper. Mages among them took a terrible toll on their numbers, but for that they paid an even more terrible price. The steel rats singled them out, and began concentrating their attacks on the mages themselves, heedless of how many of them were destroyed. It was an effective strategy. All the spell casters were killed.”

“Once the mages were gone, the rats retreated back down the cliff, and the steel spiders began their assault. Perched on the cliff itself, perhaps twenty feet below its top and beyond the range of archers, they began firing flaming balls of fire high into the air and over the walls, causing many deaths and setting the city alight. What had been a natural fortress became a burning prison and the people were trapped in it. This they did for a day and a night.”

“In the end, once enough of the city was destroyed or in flames, the rats once more advanced through the lines of spiders, and entered the city proper. There they caused immeasurable death and chaos, as those who had survived the rain of fire couldn't see them through the fire and smoke. Battles that should have been easily won as the people used their spell casters and heavily armed soldiers to destroy their enemies at a distance, became confused hand to hand fights in the street and the fighting was more even. And the rats kept coming, no matter how many fell.”

“In the end it was the numbers of the steel rats that proved decisive, and a retreat was called. The gates and the bridges between the city and the land were opened and the people fled, chased every step of the way by a steel army.”

“The city was home to over two hundred thousand humans, but scarcely fifty thousand made it out alive. And not all of them survived. They were pursued relentlessly. For a full three days and three nights the enemy chased them, a swarm of steel teeth and glowing red eyes that didn't need to rest, cutting down any stragglers mercilessly. And then, on the dawn of the fourth day, for no reason at all, they stopped pursuing. The humans do not know why, no more do our kin. It was as if the rats were on a chain, and they had suddenly reached its limit.”

It had been the same with the elves, Sam realised. The numbers of both people and rats had been smaller, and after his battle the rats had been slowed. But they had not stopped chasing them. In fact they had continued their hunt for a good three or four days. Until the caravan was well on its way to Fair Fields. And then for no obvious reason they had stopped. So at least the scouts had reported, as had the villagers from the various towns and villages that had been hastily emptied out as the steel vermin advanced on them. But he said nothing. They could wonder about that later.