The Conqueror's Shadow (45 page)

Which was, of course, when things fell apart.

Valescienn was one of the first to hear them coming. It wasn't quite thunder, for the snow muffled their footsteps, and the earth did not shake beneath their tread. Nevertheless, Audriss's lieutenant was briefly paralyzed by their sudden appearance, his eyes wide and his jaw agape as the army of Corvis Rebaine charged from the ice-encrusted trees.

The stone-walled hallway echoed—no, shook, really—with the footsteps of half a dozen ogres. Their shoulders hunched and heads bowed, they still barely fit within the corridor built for humans, but they were determined to let neither cramped muscles nor bone-deep weariness slow them down.

Nor the angry, ever more desperate human jogging in their wake, for that matter.

“Davro, you're not listening to me!” Valescienn had to shout just to be heard over the clattering of his flail against the metal of his greaves, to say nothing of the aforementioned marching feet.

Davro rolled his eye ceiling-ward. “No, Valescienn, I'm listening. You're just not saying anything worthwhile.”

“Damn it, Davro, I told you to
stop
!” Even as his pale-skinned hand reached out to snatch at the ogre's belt, a veritable chorus of low growls sounded from six enormous throats. Valescienn found himself staring up at Davro's narrowing gaze—and at the bristling array of spears beyond.

Swallowing softly, he released his grip and took a step back. Fearless, Valescienn might have been, but not stupid.

“Was there something?” Davro queried politely.

“Davro,
think!
Think of what we can still accomplish! There's no reason to give up now! We—”

“No reason? You haven't noticed the surrounding armies, the complete lack of surviving fortifications, or the abrupt disappearance of one suddenly less-than-terrifying Terror of the East? You're not really all that observant, are you?”

“I'm not an idiot, Davro.”

“Ah. Just practicing, then?”

Valescienn ignored him. “I know we're in a bad position, but it's
not
untenable. They're not ready yet; they think they can come in and wipe us out at their leisure. A sudden sally, a single thrust through the encampments, and we can be through them before they can react!”

“Kovul shinak, et,”
Davro marveled to a handful of ogrish chuckles. Corvis's lieutenant—former lieutenant—didn't need to speak the language to understand that he was not being complimented.

“We'll lose a chunk of the army,” he admitted, “but not so much that we can't rebuild! They're tired of war, they'll be back to feuding with one another in weeks! We can still—”

“Valescienn.”

“What?”

“Shut up.” Davro hunched down farther still, bringing his one eye on level with the human's two. “Corvis is gone. The war is over. You want to stay and fight? You go right on ahead. We, however, are going home.”

“Davro, I can't do this without the ogres!”

“Then I guess you have a problem, don't you?”

Behind Valescienn's pale skin, the slow flushing of his face looked almost like a growing forest fire, and he seemed literally unable to catch his breath. “I will
not
let you ruin this for me, you damn savage!”

“
Me
ruin this? Remember that army we just talked about? I'd think—”

Valescienn's hand dropped to the hilt of his flail; Davro's hand dropped to Valescienn's. The meaty fist snapped shut and the
rattling of the chain ceased as abruptly as it had begun. Valescienn fell to one knee, grunting, as the bones in his forearm shifted, threatening to give way entirely.

“Because we've fought together,” Davro whispered to him, “side by side, you're still alive. Try that again, and you die messy.”

“You took an oath, Davro,” Valescienn whispered through the pain. “In Chalsene's name!”

“An oath to Corvis Rebaine, Valescienn. Not to you.”

Valescienn collapsed to the floor, gasping in relief, as Davro let loose his grip. Without a word, the ogres turned as one and resumed their inexorable march toward the exit.

“I won't forget this, Davro!” Valescienn shouted after them.

But the only answer he got was the slamming of a heavy door, and the pounding of large feet receding swiftly into the ash-coated streets of Denathere.

ANY OTHER TIME
, they'd have posed little threat. Without even counting the Endless Legion or the gnomes, the Serpent's army outnumbered the Terror's several times over. But nothing about these circumstances was normal. Audriss's army found itself, for the first time since they'd taken Denathere, trapped in a defensive battle, crushed between the unyielding stone walls and a flanking foe.

Valescienn didn't even bother calling orders, for no one could possibly have heard him over the surrounding roar. With a furious cry, the scarred man met the enemy, short sword clasped loosely in his left hand, barbed flail whirling from his right.

Expertly, he parried an overhand blow with his short blade, even as he wrapped the chain of his flail around the soldier's calf. Valescienn yanked hard, driving the flail's spines deeper into armor and flesh, jerking his opponent's leg out from under him. Even as the man fell screaming to the snow, Valescienn's short sword flickered forward and down. The screaming ended abruptly with a wet gurgle.

Snow crunched behind him and he whipped around, rising from his crouch. Flesh ripped as the ball-and-chain tore free and a second of
Rebaine's soldiers went down, the side of his head caved in, shreds of his dead companion's leg muscles dangling from his skull where they'd been stuck to the barbs.

But while Valescienn held his own against the surprise assault, his men fared less well. The defenders on the wall, heartened by the unexpected arrival of reinforcements, redoubled their efforts against both the attackers without and the invaders within. Arrows dropped on the Serpent's soldiers with increasing speed, rocks and boiling pitch poured from the ramparts, scaling ladders were shoved back with long poles or else doused in oil and set ablaze (and
then
shoved back with long poles). The Terror's forces harried the armies, attacking at the edges of the battle and then veering off, only to return moments later in a thrust aimed straight at the heart of the melee. Even as Audriss's soldiers tried to regroup, the officers could see that the damage was done. Units were scattered, companions separated, commanders isolated from their subordinates. And still the arrows fell, and still the enemy advanced.

“Valescienn!” It was a primal sound, the roar of a hurricane. It carried well across the tumult, climbing the wind and striding across heads to reach the ears of Audriss's beleaguered lieutenant. Eyes narrowed, stretching his scars into an ugly white line, he turned to meet the source of that voice.

“Davro …”

Nor was he alone, gods take him! With a fury to drown the battle cry of Kassek War-Bringer himself, a scream split the frigid air: a hundred inhuman voices, shrieking the Night-Bringer's unhallowed name. Sliding from the snow-coated trees came an entire wedge of ogres, a living, snarling avalanche of muscle and steel. The first of them, taller and broader than Davro himself, carried an iron-headed maul. It rose and fell methodically, and if it was not a speedy weapon, well, it had no need to be. The first man within reach of that crushing sledge, unable to leap aside due to the snow piled around his feet, threw his shield up over his head in desperation. It, along with the arm behind it and most of the man's body from the waist up, disintegrated into a wet smear on impact.

And everywhere the ogres struck was more of the same. Swords broad enough to cleave a horse in twain laughed at such conceits as armor; axe blades the size of body shields cut through men like wheat; and those horrendous mauls pounded everything beneath them—metal, flesh, bone, and blood—into indefinable pulp. Here and there, an ogre who'd somehow lost his weapon laid about him with fists and horn, and more of Audriss's soldiers fell to the ground, torn and bleeding.

Valescienn did not, however, have much time to absorb what Davro's people were doing to his men, not if he wanted to prevent Davro's spear from doing the same to him. The insanely long weapon licked outward long before Davro came within the human's reach, and Valescienn realized, even as he hurled himself from the heart-seeking blade, that he would have to bring the fight to the ogre.

He rolled back to his feet, his entire left side coated in a patina of blood-soaked snow. His brow creased in rage, Davro spun, slicing his spear in a horizontal arc. Unable to dodge a second time, Valescienn braced himself for the coming shock and twisted
toward
the spear, flail and sword crossing in an X-shaped parry.

Though he did indeed prevent the spear from sinking home, the terrible force of the blow knocked him from his feet. His arms aching, his hands ringing from the impact, he heaved himself upright once more, just before Davro's spear plunged down into the snow where he'd fallen.

Valescienn lunged desperately, aware that he might never again find himself so far inside the ogre's reach. The short sword flicked outward, stabbing at the weak spot in the ogre's armor between stomach and waist.

And Davro laughed.

It was a harsh, heavy laugh, ridiculing Valescienn even for the attempt. And even as he recoiled, face red with fury, the human realized why. He'd been too stunned by the force of the ogre's blow to notice earlier, but the short sword with which he'd attempted to gut his opponent was little more than an inch of jagged metal. The rest of the blade had snapped clean off when he'd parried the weighty spear.

Cursing defiantly, Valescienn hurled the useless weapon at his foe and gripped his flail in both hands. For a moment, the two opponents circled, each waiting for the other to move.

“Why are you here, Davro?” Valescienn taunted, buying time. “I thought you preferred slaughtering sheep and pigs to people.”

If he'd been hoping to stun the ogre with his knowledge of Davro's dark secret, he was destined for disappointment. “Obviously,” Davro replied, “you were mistaken.” He grinned maniacally. “Or Audriss was mistaken. Or Audriss's pet demon, Pekatherosh. Maybe it was
his
mistake?”

Valescienn's scowl darkened, but he, too, was unsurprised at the extent of the enemy's knowledge.

“Loyalty to Rebaine, then?” Valescienn continued, jerking away from an experimental spear thrust, though he knew he was once more beyond reach.

“If I'd known we'd be having such an in-depth conversation, Valescienn, I'd have brought wine and pastries. Since I didn't, do we want to get on with trying to kill each other?”

But Valescienn saw before him a different sort of opening. “We could,” he admitted. “But there's no point now, is there? What with Rebaine having been captured and all.”

Finally,
finally
he evoked a reaction. The ogre tried to hide it as quickly as it occurred, but Valescienn knew he'd seen that ugly, single eye go wide, seen the horn twitch with a sudden doubt. “What are you talking about?”

“Don't even know your own leader's whereabouts?
Tsk, tsk
, Davro. You used to be a lot better than—” Valescienn yelped as Davro lurched forward, and once more twisted wildly aside to avoid gaining an extra orifice.

Even as the shaft thrust past him, he brought his flail spinning up and around. The weighted length of chain wrapped tightly around the spear in a lustful suitor's embrace, the barbs digging furrows in the dark wood.

Valescienn yanked before the far stronger ogre could react, every muscle in his body straining. The spear tilted sideways, and Valescienn lifted a foot and dropped it down in a devastating kick. The haft of the
spear, thick as it was, gave way with a deafening snap. Davro pulled back, grimacing in consternation at the splintered wood in his hand.

Valescienn grinned nastily. “I'd say that makes this fight a
little
more even, wouldn't you?”

Davro's shoulders slumped. “My father gave me that spear at my coming-of-age ceremony,” he said, almost whimpering. Valescienn's grin grew larger still.

And then, without the slightest change in expression, Davro drove the broken end of the shaft straight through that mocking leer.

For a moment, the ogre held the broken weapon and its gruesome burden aloft, until his single eye settled on the thick trunk of a nearby tree. He lowered the broken spear—allowing Valescienn's feet, still kicking feebly, to once more touch the ground—and then charged, setting the staff under his arm like a lance. The impact rocked the earth around him and torrents of snow shook down from the leaves. When the dust settled, the staff was embedded in the wood and Valescienn's body hung lifeless from the trunk, a large rivulet of blood coursing down his chin.