The Sword of Darrow (4 page)

The goblins were pulling his crew from the water and tying them with ropes. He scanned the landscape. Not a single pirate escaped. His entire crew was lost.

But Telsinore was hardly discouraged.

“A dime a dozen,” he muttered and began thinking of where he might hire his next band of scoundrels. But a more alarming thought crossed his brain.

“Frick! Three Fingers Frick! Why, that lowly scoundrel has escaped his due!”

As Telsinore watched the goblins fish the boxes from the river, his heart boiled with anger. His war? For nothing! Frick still ruled the sea.

These goblins would pay. Not today. Not tomorrow. But an account had to be settled on a day and at a time when fate offered him the chance. His hands trembled as he lifted himself from the water. Steam rose from his water-logged clothes. With a grim expression and a memory etched in stone, Telsinore turned and began his long walk back to the sea.

I
t was the fifth day in the forest. Beltar was up at sunrise and moved to the head of his column. There on the ground lay a raven, pierced by a yellow arrow of Sonnencrest. The enemy had finally struck.

Great precautions were taken. A scouting party moved through the dense underbrush, far to the left of the path. Another advanced to the right. Scouts ran back and forth, bringing reports from the trail ahead.

Up and down his column, Beltar shouted orders, cursed Zindown’s creatures, and urged his soldiers forward. Today, his curses grew louder, for there was a new delay—the mantis men.

Another creation of Zindown’s, a mantis man, had the body of a man but no hands. Instead, his arms terminated in giant crablike claws. Covered in a hard red shell, these claws could snap a soldier in half so quickly the movement was impossible to see. The heads of these creatures were tiny, round, and, like the claws, covered in a bright red shell. Worst of all was the face. The yellow eyes never moved. Incapable of even the slightest expression, the mantis men were so hideous that Zindown himself was frightened in their presence.

But while the mantis men were well designed for warfare, they moved with a strange, jerky gait. They lifted each leg one at a time high into the air and then slowly folded the knee until it pointed straight upwards into the sky. At this point, the mantis men froze, not looking left or right but simply pausing. When they resumed, the foot eased forward in a reaching motion that languished in the air until the toes softly touched the ground.

These trancelike motions disturbed the goblins. They shouted at the mantis men, but the creatures were deaf. Some tried prodding them with sticks, but the mantis men turned to strike. One soldier lost an arm and the prodding ceased. The deeper they ventured into the forest, the slower the mantis men moved.

Beltar peered through his telescope. The forest floor had changed. Large thorn bushes, brown and without any sign of spring, rose waist-high from the ground and painted the landscape in dark, forbidding colors. Beltar smiled. No human could penetrate these thorns. There would be no ambush from the side.

He listened for the caw of the ravens. Only the moaning of the Cyclops reached his ears.

“Six days,” cursed Beltar, “and we are barely halfway through the forest.”

He looked down at his feet. Two more ravens lay dead in this path. Yellow arrows had done the deed.

His enemy was mocking him.

At that moment, a messenger appeared with news: “The trail is blocked.”

Beltar hurried to the barrier. Across the trail lay five large trees—huge trees, obviously felled by a mighty axe. No wagon could pass this blockade. Removing it might take days. But passage was no longer a problem. For these trees spoke as clearly as a painted warning: the attack was imminent.

Beltar summoned the scouts.

“Move ahead past the obstacle and see what you can find.”

While the scouts scrambled ahead, Beltar organized a defense. He ordered soldiers to man the barricade. To either side he placed archers.

But when the scouts returned they had nothing to report.

Beltar thought aloud. “If they are not ahead on the trail, then where can they be?” His eyes grew large.

“Tunnels!”

Soon, goblin soldiers moved up and down the path stabbing sharp sticks into the ground. But all they wounded were mole rats and tarantulas.

That night, Beltar did not sleep. The Cyclops and skriabeasts were blissfully silent, but the forest sang with coos and mating cries of animals he did not know. So loud were these sounds that the entire army of Sonnencrest might have marched, covered by darkness, directly into their midst.

Twice Beltar awoke his troops; twice the attack did not come. In his mind, the enemy’s presence was everywhere.

Morning arrived. Around the barricade and at either side, goblin soldiers gripped their swords and tightened the strings of their bows. Once again, Beltar dispatched his scouts. Once again, they returned with no news.

The low moan of the Cyclops echoed through the forest. The skriabeasts cried in reply. The forest became a menacing force, almost laughing at a great army unable to see or hear the enemy before them.

Then, above the din, came a sound Beltar knew all too well. It was the death cry of a goblin.

A soldier was struck by a yellow arrow, not in his leg or arm or even through his heart. No, the arrow was planted squarely in his forehead, its feathered end pointing skyward to the trees above. The wound was so deadly that the soldier’s scream stopped even before he hit the ground.

Beltar pulled his sword, eyes still seeking the enemy. A new sound filled the air. And this sound sent a chill right through his toes.

It was no battle cry. No footstep or clashing swords, no war trumpet or martial drums. The sound was air, rushing air, descending from the heavens above. Beltar lifted his eyes. A thousand arrows burst from the trees, a merciless rain of death that headed straight for his warriors below.

He had found the enemy—or rather, they had found him. From high in the canopy of the kamilko trees, an army of archers had located their prey, and a terrible slaughter was under way.

The goblins countered, but their response was pitiful and without effect. Arrows launched upward but fell short of the enemy every time. Soldiers hurled rocks and lances. So short was their flight that surely the enemy laughed from above.

Here and there, the mantis men, unnerved by the chaos, curled in on themselves and huddled motionless on the ground. Their still bodies made easy targets, and they were the first to die.

Without any possible defense, the goblins had but one choice. They ran. But the thorn bushes that crowded the road clawed at their garments and tore their skin. Even after they had traveled beyond the arrows’ reach, their desperate flight continued without order or reason. Beltar shouted orders, but his words were but a whisper against the screaming of the wounded and the chaos of retreat.

How far they might have run, no one will ever know, for it was not exhaustion or relief that slowed the goblin flight. Their retreat stopped for one reason alone.

Sonnencrest struck again.

Waiting far down the path was yet another company of tree-dwelling archers. And this second volley of arrows was even more deadly than the first. Once again, the frightened goblins turned and ran, this time back in the direction from which they had come. But there was no escape from this attack, for the path was clogged with goblins fleeing from the first. Soldiers collided, falling to the ground. The fallen were trampled. Dozens were shoved into the terrible thorns. Jammed together on the trail, they made a perfect target for the archers above.

But Beltar did not panic.

“Fire,” he ordered. “Set the forest on fire!”

Soon, up and down the path, the goblins set torches to the dry thicket of thorns. Great flames surged high in the air, moving outward from the road. Plumes of smoke lifted from the ground, forming dark clouds in the canopy above. The archers struggled to breathe and were soon unable to see the ground. Fewer arrows fell, and almost none of those found targets.

“Skreeeeeeeeeeeeee!” Frightened by the fire, the skriabeasts broke their ropes. They ran down the road and deep into the forest, their terrible screams piercing even the sounds of battle and fire.

But another cry arose, even louder and more chilling than the skriabeasts. Up the road, marching directly toward Beltar, came the Cyclops, staggering with three arrows protruding from his large eye. Without sight, he swung his hammer wildly through the air, sending terrified goblins scattering from his path. Then his hammer struck a tree and an archer plummeted to the ground, landing with a sickening crack.

Seeing the dead archer, Beltar knew what to do. Rushing to the Cyclops, Beltar shouted, “Listen to me, listen to me. The archer who has taken your sight cannot escape. There he is—to your right.”

And with a thunderous stroke, the Cyclops swung his hammer against a tree, sending another archer falling from the sky.

“To your left! There is the archer who has taken your sight!” Again, the Cyclops struck. Slowly, Beltar guided the Cyclops down the path.

“The cave trolls,” Beltar shouted. “Bring me the cave trolls.”

When the cave trolls arrived, they followed the Cyclops, hitting the trees with heavy logs. More archers fell to the ground. On and on, the Cyclops raged. Again and again, bodies dropped from the black clouds above.

Beltar screamed at the Cyclops once more. “He has escaped! The one who took your sight has fled. Come, we will destroy him.” A group of goblins took the Cyclops by the hands to lead him back to where the battle had begun.

A great black cloud filled the branches of the trees. Looking up, the goblins wondered how these archers could breathe. Some had already fallen. Others cowered above.

Again, the Cyclops’ hammer struck. Furiously, the monster’s club exploded into the trees. “On, Cyclops,” Beltar screamed. “A Cyclops is more powerful than some coward in a tree. Slam him. Kill him. Destroy him!”

And with the cave trolls close on his heels, it was not arrows that rained, but the archers themselves. A few archers used their ropes to descend, but they were easy targets for the goblins below.

When the smoke cleared from the forest, many goblins lay dead. But for Sonnencrest the day was no better. Their soldiers retreated from the forest, hoping to make a stand behind the palace walls. But Beltar’s trap was ready.

At the mouth of the forest, Sonnencrest’s army met a wall of metal shields locked together in a great semicircle, blocking any path of escape. The scorpion man led the charge, but the goblins were ready, covering him with nets. Beltar followed from behind. The scorpion man cut himself free and disappeared into the forest. He was the only one to escape. No message reached the palace, and King Henry knew nothing of the defeat.

The army of Globenwald was wounded but victorious. They moved toward Blumenbruch, and a long line of prisoners followed them. They would be paraded through the streets of Blumenbruch in a show of goblin might. And when the goblin victory was complete, they would be locked beneath the palace until the last soldier breathed his last breath, a reminder to every citizen of Sonnencrest that the final remnants of their army remained in goblin hands.