But the Songs Say They Do
Vath was the first to exit the barrow. The half-troll lifted his bulbous nose and loudly sniffed the air, the mucous within his nasal passages bubbling like porridge. Only then did Vath squat and stretch one lesion-covered arm into the barrow’s darkness. One by one the half-troll plucked his companions from the hole, appearing very much like a Castamere crabman extracting the night’s catch.
Baden was the last – the dwarf’s ascent was made awkward from the bundle of armor clutched tightly to his chest. Most nights Baden slept fully armored – Borbidan’s regalia was nearly a second skin for the Axemarch warrior. But he had removed his plate the previous evening to work upon the dents Ral’s spiked chain had left as a parting memory.
None of them had expected trouble. Certainly, they had not expected Cyrics.
Vath reached out, grabbed Baden by the back of his gambeson, and pulled him upward. He set the dwarf on his feet as a man might a child. Around them, the party filtered through the thorny corridor away from the ceiling hole.
Baden took but a moment to survey the scene before dropping his armor before him. “Do I have time?”
Vath nodded. “They are upwind. They have not moved closer.”
Baden sat on the wet grass, placed a coif over his head, then pulled his beard out from beneath the mail. As he buckled his greaves, the dwarf favored Vath with a curious look. “You do not wear your wrist-cords, friend. I thought they were a mark of your faith.”
“I wear them still.” Vath held out his hands. Where once there had been tightly-wound twine, there was now a thin, alternating series of cuts and burns. The self-inflicted wounds encircled both of Vath’s wrists. “There has been much suffering. Should I prove worthy in Ilmater’s eyes, one day I might cut them to the bone.”
Whatever emotion Vath’s words might have evinced in Baden was hidden beneath the dwarf’s beard.
Vath turned from Baden and tasted the air once more as his companions spread outward along the barrow’s dome. He tapped his nose. “Blood.”
Baden donned his hauberk and stood. “The Cyrics?”
Vath nodded. “Fresh. I believe one of them is wounded – badly.”
“One of them, eh?” Baden grunted. “That’s a start.”
***
Half-troll and dwarf walked through the opening in the thorns to stand near their companions who had already gathered near the barrow’s lip. Raylin was on the left flank, Kellus on the right. John stood near Amelyssan, his crossbow in hand. The mist was still thick but lessened with each passing moment. Overhead, far to the east, the sun was a nebulous circle of filmy whiteness.
Twenty paces distant from the edge of the barrow stood a line of crossbowmen. Vath saw six of them, sniffed the air, and knew there to be more still hidden in the milky shroud. All wore chain mail, their tabards soiled but each displaying a jawless, purple skull.
“Easy, friends,” John breathed. “They make no move; let us wait for the sun to do its work upon this fog.”
Time passed. Vath could hear men moving about in the concealment – the sounds muffled. Suddenly the wind increased, blowing toward the party, rippling the fog. The stench of blood was heavy in the air. The half-troll peered into the gloom, attempting to locate its origin.
“By Moridin’s beard,” Baden whispered, “is that-”
“-a giant?” Raylin finished.
At the rear of the assembled Cyrics was an enormously tall figure. Ten feet, perhaps. Odd in shape. It was not moving.
“It bleeds.”
Raylin askance at Vath. “What is it?”
The half-troll shrugged. The scent of blood was coming directly from the large shape in the rear of the Cyrcis, brought forward by the breeze.
Amelyssan squinted, his elven eyes piercing the mists better than those of his companions. “No – not a giant. A stake. A body is on it.” The elf exhaled softly, face etched with bewilderment. “Upside down.”
Without further hesitation, Amelyssan murmured softly and a translucent armor of green-blue surrounded his figure.
“Do that again, elf,” a voice called from the mists, “and you shall die where you stand.”
“Not what I would consider a friendly morning greeting,” John remarked dryly. “I had hoped these louts only wanted directions to the nearest town.”
A man pushed through the line of crossbowmen. The sun had now burned away enough of the fog to reveal the entirety of those assembled at the base of the barrow. Ten crossbowmen. Seven others – some wielding sickles, a few with maces, more with swords. Their speaker continued, “No more spells, elf.”
John stepped forward. “What business do you have here?”
“Here?” The man, armored in plate and wearing Cyric’s insignia, waved a spiked mace. “Our business is with you, not this place.”
“I have many enemies,” John allowed in an affable tone, “but I did not think I counted the priests of Cyric among them. To what do I owe this bit of good fortune?”
The man stopped his advance. His face was hidden within his helm, but his enmity was nearly palpable. “You must be the southlander minstrel.”
John’s grin stretched from ear to ear. “You have heard of me.”
“You slew Ippizcius.” There was no emotion in the tone.
“To tell it true, I did have some assistance.” The bard raised his crossbow and aimed at the man’s chest. “Not much, mind you – but some.”
The man removed his helm and cradled it under one arm, oblivious to any threat posed by John’s crossbow. “We watched you relieve yourself; I find it passing strange you did not need to squat.”
John laughed. The bard removed one hand from his crossbow to feign wiping away a tear. “By the gods, you are a funny one.” He took aim once more, this time for the Cyric’s unprotected face. “You know a bit about me, friend. We know nothing of you – save your brilliant wit, of course.”
Raylin gestured with one blade. “I suggest you start talking.”
“In time.” The priest glanced skyward. “Soon, all will be made clear. When the fog further lifts.”
Baden moved to Raylin’s side. The dwarf spoke quietly, without removing his gaze from the Cyrics. “Too many crossbows, clansman. If it happens here, it will go badly for us.”
“Retreat to the barrow?” Raylin, also, did not look away from the men arrayed below.
“I am thinking that would be best.” The dwarf hefted his axe. “The mists will aid our retreat, but not for much longer.”
The Cyric seemed to understand their intent even if he could not hear their words. “Should one of you – any of you – seek to return to your little hole, I will order my men to shoot.”
An awkward impasse fell upon the plains. Slowly, inexorably, the fog continued to dissipate. John, ever the enemy of silence, squinted along the length of his crossbow and spoke. “For a singer, I am a passably good shot.”
The Cyric shrugged. “Good enough to kill all of us?”
“No,” John allowed, “just you.”
The man snorted. “I am Brother Henratt, favored of my god. I do not fear you, singer.” The last word was filled with contempt.
“You should,” John answered. “I can find the eye of a rabbit at fifty paces.”
“I am no rabbit, southlander.”
“No. You are much larger.”
Amelyssan suddenly gasped. His eyes narrowed even as his face paled. “The body…the body on the stake…”
Baden had not heard the elf use such a tone. “Speak, Amelyssan!” His words sounded harsher in his ears than he had intended. Below them, Henratt donned his helm.
“The man on the stake. We…we know him.” Amelyssan’s voice was soft, but yet held a hard edge. “It is Poridel.”
***
The color drained from Baden’s face. The dwarf willed his vision to pierce the mists that yet remained. Poridel? Moridin, please…let it not be so.
The laughter, when it issued from Henratt’s helm, dripped with mockery. “Now you see, my little band of Olgotha fools. Our business with you is in earnest.”
The priest gestured casually and his crossbowmen lowered their weapons. “Now, thank Cyric, we may proceed. There is much to discuss.”
For Baden, however, words were suddenly meaningless. The dwarf lifted his axe and picked his way forward through the thorns despite the hissed warnings of his companions. He did not charge, did not cry out, nor did he hurry his pace. Step by step, pace by pace, the Axemarch dwarf made his way down the gentle slope.
“Halt, dwarf.” Henratt’s voice was calm, brimming with malice. “We made an example of the sage. If needed, we will do the same with you.”
Baden continued his march without comment. Ten paces, nine paces, eight paces…
“Another step, stump, and you die.” At Henratt’s gesture, the crossbowmen raised their weapons.
Baden heard John call to him, but paid the bard no heed. Seven paces, six paces…
Henratt sighed. “Shoot him.”
Ten crossbows twanged in unison. Ten bolts sped toward the dwarf.
Not one found its mark.
Only then did Baden charge.
***
Raylin was dimly aware of Vath running past him, past even the now-sprinting Baden. But his awareness was muted, as if he were underwater and watching events unfold upon a riverbank.
A sound grew in his head, rushing about, swirling. He heard voices – distant yet near, quiet yet terrible.
Power coursed through his body – the power of his ancestors and the spirits of his clanlands. His fingers and toes tingled, his joints and sinews thrummed. “These men,” the ranger intoned in a voice not wholly his own, “are a stain upon the land.”
The fog disappeared. The sun was blinding. Raylin mac Larren spread both arms, his swords slivers of reflected sunlight. “My fathers! Hear me! I say – Let the land answer! Let the land show its wrath!”
And the land did answer; the land did show its wrath.
The brambles and thickets of the Weedsea, the heather and grasses of the Cormick plains, the briars and tendrils of Valusia – these were the instruments of the land’s anger. And, now, they lived.
Ropes of green and yellow sprung from the earth to wrap about Henratt and his men. Strands of grass became clutching weeds, and half-buried roots broke forth from the dirt to twist around boots and knees. A circle of roiling green, as turbulent and deadly as any ocean, spread outward to cover the entirety of the Cyric’s position.
***
Baden, through immeasurable will, halted his charge but a few feet from the churning undergrowth. A crossbowman was in front of him, the man’s eyes wide with fear as a leafy tendril snaked about his waist. Baden ended his fear with a single, vicious cut. The man’s body remained upright, nearly cloven, held by the grasping hands of the land itself.
From his position, just outside the arc of waving greenery, Baden could safely reach another Cyric. He proceeded to do so – cutting the man’s hand off at the wrist as the crossbowman sought to load his weapon. A second cut, and the man’s stomach was opened. He would be a long time dying.
Though, in Baden’s mind, it would never be long enough.
***
Vath loped along the ring of weeds like a hound on the edge of fire. He paused only in those places where Cyrics were within reach, leaving broken death in his wake. The half-troll’s body was a spinning, tumbling torch of rage personified. Yet Vath’s inner soul was calm, his thoughts detached, his aim pure and perfect. He did Ilmater’s work, and he did it well.
Motes of golden dust filtered through the air in front of him. The half-troll recognized Amelyssan’s work, and he used it to his advantage.
To Vath, there was no honor in battle. Only suffering. If the men he slew could not see, if they were entangled and whimpering in fear, so be it. His hands and feet were the weapons of his god, his knees and elbows the god’s tools.
In short order the half-troll had nearly made an entire circuit around the perimeter of the grasping weeds. The Cyrics who had been trapped near the edge were dead, now – little more than gruesome scarecrows still squeezed by the land’s anger. Their bodies glistened with wounds - broken and bitten by Vath, carved by Baden’s whirling axe, or sliced cleanly by Raylin’s swords.
A handful of Cyrics, an island of composure amidst a sea of verdant madness, stood well within the circle of dancing vines. Two had John’s mark upon them – bolts stuck at odd angles from hip and leg. Two more were blind, their countenances covered by Amelyssan’s golden film of dust.
Yet not all were incapacitated or wounded. Henratt and some of his mace-wielding followers seemed to have maintained their senses despite the turmoil around them.
Vath eyed the shivering thorns at his feet for but a moment before plunging into the maelstrom. He beat aside briars and kicked away vines, making a line toward Henratt and his remaining followers.
One of the men turned toward him, eyes widening at the half-troll’s approach. The Cyric grabbed a holy symbol from about his neck and pointed at Vath.
And the power of the man’s fell god did what the creepers and vines could not – they held the half-troll.
Vath raged, his sinews cording with the effort, but he could not break free. There was nothing to break free from – an invisible, intangible force held him as tightly as if he were encased in iron. The half-troll rolled his eyes, a maddened stallion, and helplessly watched two Cyric swordsmen close his position.
The pair of warriors seemed to ignore most of the clutching weeds. They made slow but steady progress toward the half-troll, death both in their eyes and held in their hands.
From Vath’s other side, opposite the approaching swordsmen, came Baden. The dwarf furiously pumped his knees, kicking at the tendrils slowing his movement. “Vath,” Baden called, his voice thick, “I am coming!”
The Cyric bladesmen would reach him first, Vath knew; they seemed to have less trouble with the entangling weeds than did Baden. Yet Vath was calm. Years and years ago his god has spoken to him. Once.
He would not die here.
***
A sword slid through Vath’s ribs, blade flat to the ground. A second thrust entered his collar, spilling his green blood onto his monk’s tunic. Still, he was held.
“Vath!” Baden’s tone was choked with fear and fury. “No!”
A bolt went screaming past Vath’s head, barely missing one of his attackers.
A second missile – this one a shard of arcane energy – impacted soundlessly upon the chest of one of the swordsmen. The man hardly flinched.
Both Cyrics sliced at Vath like men attempting to fell a tree. Cut, thrust, slash. The half-troll began to regain feeling. The pain was incredible, the pain was beautiful. His tunic, his legs, his taloned feet – all were drenched from his own blood.
He saw doubt register on the Cyrics’ faces, now. They had struck him no less than five times, mayhaps more, yet still he stood.
Baden arrived the moment Vath felt the enchantment’s iron grip release its hold. The half-troll sunk to both knees, slowly, then toppled forward onto his face. In the mud and blood, face buried in the writhing ground, Vath smiled.
Then there was only darkness.
***
The dwarf fought in the style of his own people. For hundreds of years – nay, thousands – the bearded folk had been forced to defend hearth and home from Deepearth raiders. Battles in the corridors of the Balantir Cor were not pretty. The walls were tight, the ceilings low, all spaces confined and narrow. One did not try to kill his enemies – not until after the battle. One merely did what he could to slow the onslaught, to buy time.
Baden did not swing for heart or throat, eyes or chest. No – rather he aimed for knees, ankles, groins. The axe of Borbidan was alive in his hands. The pitted but sharp blade tore through the Cyrics’ mail effortlessly.
As Vath fell Baden’s rage flared with newfound brilliance. He missed with an overhand chop, but quickly brought the axe upward to bite deeply into the man’s crotch. Blood, urine, and other fluids fountained downward from the wound, a multi-colored waterfall.
Baden moved to the next attacker before the first had time to fall.
The second swordsman was experienced. Somewhere, deep within Baden’s mind wherein a kernel of reason still remained, the dwarf realized he might be overmatched. The Cyric’s blade darted outward, skittering across Baden’s black breastplate. The dwarf shifted his grip to one hand, punched with the other, then made an off-balanced swing at the Cyric’s hip.
The sword came at him again. Baden dodged to one side, but not quickly enough. An attack that surely would have killed him instead pierced his armpit where there was no mail. The dwarf felt the left side of his body go numb.
Behind him he heard Amelyssan’s odd, arcane chanting.
Suddenly his attacker went white with fear. His jaw opened, his eyes went wide. The swordsman turned to run.
Baden hamstrung the man before he fled even a single pace.
Around him, the weeds fell once more to the earth. Inert, lifeless, normal.
Baden rammed the head of his axe against the nape of his fallen enemy’s neck. He then strode the two paces to the first man, who still rolled about on the ground clutching at his groin.
Another swing, and silence fell.
***
Baden dragged a shaking hand across his mouth. He surveyed the destruction. The Cyrics were no more. Where once seventeen living, breathing men had stood, there was now only bodies, tossed haphazardly about like a child-god’s dolls. Somewhere in the crimson mess was Henratt. Good.
Baden tossed his axe to the ground and knelt near Vath. He had problems focusing on the half-troll’s wounds; his vision was blurry.
- You weep for your friend, Baden.
I weep for us all.
Baden cradled Vath’s head in his lap. He pushed aside the half-troll’s lank hair, ran blunt fingers tenderly along the monk’s blistery skin.
Kellus dropped to Baden’s side. The priest, without delay, reached forward and murmured a prayer. Instantly, Vath’s skin turned from gray to green. The half-troll opened his eyes. He had never stopped smiling.
“Vath,” Baden sputtered, “you live. You live.”
“Wondrous…” Vath swiveled his head to one side. “Gods, but that was wondrous.”
***
“It was an ill deed, done by Men not worthy of the name.”
Raylin rested on one sword, the other forgotten somewhere in the morass of bodies behind him. The ranger stared at the impaled body of Poridel. The sage was a good five feet in the air, upside down, his robes hanging downward and covering his face. He had been beaten – repeatedly – but the clansman saw no death wound.
Kellus murmured a prayer before lapsing into a reverent silence. The party, save for Baden, gathered around the two men. The sun brought no warmth to the Cormick plains.
Raylin spoke to none of them and all of them. “The Church of Cyric – the entire thrice-damned church - will answer for this. By my fathers, they will answer.”
John swallowed. His hands were chaffed and cold from firing bolt after bolt during the melee. For once, the bard appeared speechless. “There are no words…no words…”
“You had damned well better find some.” Baden pushed through the line of his companions and walked to the stake. The dwarf’s rage had returned, his chest heaved with each breath.
Baden reached upward with a gentleness that seemed in stark contrast to his mood. He pulled the stake toward him, grunting with the effort, then hugged Poridel around his hips. The dwarf bent at the knees and pulled. The body – slowly – slid up the pole, leaving a shining trail on the wood in its wake.
Baden stepped back and turned the body upright. A shower of entrails cascaded downward from Poridel’s groin, further staining his robes and the ground. Baden slipped on the blood, fell, and the body of the sage landed heavily in the turf beside him.
Baden angrily shoved away Raylin’s assistance. He stood and dragged the body further from the now-leaning stake, slipping and falling once more.
His companions watched silently.
Baden tenderly laid Poridel on his back, folding the old man’s hands over his chest. Only then did he look up. The pain in his face was raw. “Give me a bolt.”
John licked his lips. “Baden-”
“A bolt, damn you!” The dwarf’s voice split the air.
John nodded quietly, reached into his leg quiver, and handed one of his last quarrels to his companion.
Baden dropped to his knees, took a single breath, and plunged the shaft into Poridel’s chest. The silence was stunning around him.
Finally, after a long, long moment, Baden stood. He stared hard at his companions. “Not all dwarves die in battle, but the songs say they do.”
Baden strode away from the dead sage, but paused next to John. “Poridel was killed in battle. Do you hear me?”
“I hear-”
Baden reached out and gripped a fold of John’s cloak in a gnarled hand. “If you write anything else – anything other than that – I will kill you.”
Only then did the dwarf release his hold, push through his companions, and go to share his grief with none but himself and his god.
