Tellereth
Outpost
(Part II)
Copyright © 2020 Stanley Wheeler
All Rights Reserved
The terrible scream lanced into their ears from upstream—from the
Nahorn side of the river. Four unarmored Kru, one armed with a bow, and the
others wielding a blade of jagged steel in each clawed hand presented an unusual
sight as they advanced across the gray-green grass of the plain toward the barracks.
The other creature, or pair of creatures which moved as one, proved to be the
source of the mind-jarring screams. A great, black spider with a human archer
upon his back walked among the four savage Kru
“What is it?” Zorereth cried from his position on the bridge, fear
and doubt clawing at his thoughts.
Kolmor shouted back, “A screaming spider. I’ve heard of them. They
live in the Garkag Mountains, I’ve been told. I’ve never seen one. That thing
on its back is a man. We know how to kill one of those!”
“The noise, it hurts,” Zorereth said. “It tells me to run away.”
“Aye, so it does. Fight it. Fight the fear. Noise can’t hurt you,”
Kolmor shouted to the younger man.
Kolmor said no more, but his mind pondered the timing of this attack.
They meant to strike us while our
attentions were occupied by their friends from across the river. If they had
arrived only a few minutes sooner, they’d have caught us like a misplaced hand
between the hammer and the anvil. We’re not deployed to fight them with most of
us on the bridge, or upon the wrong side of it, but things aren’t as bad as
they could’ve been.
He looked to the enemy. He could barely see the heads of the Kru dog
faces over the river barricade. One of the Kru disappeared around the back of
the barracks. Kolmor stepped away from the body of the Kru he had slain only
moments before, and ran for the bridge. He had to get back on the Nahorn side
to lead the fight.
***
Gendorg urged the great spider forward with the power of his own
mind commanding the mount. He had received two gifts from the pale lady: the
ability to control the spider, and the special arrows she had given him. He
discerned from the position of the enemy that the attack by the Kru across the
bridge had already failed. He rode past the barracks on his right and toward
the bridge beyond at his left as he fitted an arrow to his bow. He would have
to seize victory himself this day.
***
Thormo raised his bow. He was the closest warrior to the new
attackers. He stood near the abutment on the Nahorn side of the bridge. The
constant, ear-piercing scream of the spider caused him to hesitate for an
instant. In that moment, the archer, wrapped in bands of blue, white, and gold
cloth, loosed an arrow from atop the back of the screaming spider. Thormo had
the presence of mind to duck behind the solid wood wall along the bridge. With
only the faintest sound of impact, the enemy arrow struck the edge of the guard
wall.
Thormo raised up and returned fire at the archer. The arrow flew
at the enemy, passing beneath his raised bow arm but failing to find the
archer’s body. Unfortunately, the dog face archer who had advanced beside the
spider had better luck with his shot. The missile penetrated Thormo’s hauberk
to lodge in a rib bone. Unable to contend with both the spider’s unnerving
scream and the arrow in his side, Thormo retreated to the center of the bridge
above swift waters of the Tellereth, and huddled against the guard wall. He hated
to see himself act in such a cowardly fashion, but for all the courageous words
he had heard and had spoken to inspire others, his mind could find no hold upon
such words at this moment. Even thoughts of his wife and children eluded him.
Two of the wild Kru, gray-skinned and barely clothed with a furred
hide about the waist, dashed past the spider and over the roadway. One of them
vaulted the bridge abutment and leaped down from the other side. Meanwhile, the
dog face who had gone behind the barracks appeared and sprinted up the roadway
toward the bridge.
Mellereth denied the fear brought by the awful arachnidian
screams, and lifted his bow. As he drew back the arrow, the string snapped. The
arrow clattered to Mellereth’s feet in the premature release, and the bow
bounced and shuddered within his hand. The warrior threw the bow to the bridge planking
next to the arrow. He drew his sword, racing toward the dog face. As Mellereth
neared the end of the bridge, the archer upon the spider loosed another arrow.
The peculiar missile struck Mellereth’s scaled hauberk and seemed to disappear
in a cloud of dust. Gripped by a sudden panic, Mellereth threw himself over the
bridge wall, falling to the turf between the river barricade and the bridge
abutment. His body shook as though seized by a momentary paroxysm before he
could push away the doubt which had seized him, and take stock of his
situation.
The spearman Zanfreth had been the most distant from the new
enemy’s advance. He left the breach in the river barricade and the patch of
brush to face the two wild Kru loping his way. Zanfreth raised his spear and
charged the nearest one. The Kru raised his twin blades high, running forward
to meet the warrior’s charge. The dog face avoided the tip of Zanfreth’s spear,
ducked, and rolled to slash beneath the warrior’s shield, cutting a bloody path
across Zanfreth’s leg below the hauberk. Stepping back with the wounded limb,
Zanfreth stabbed at the gray-skinned dog face. With one blade the Kru knocked
the point away before it could pierce his coarse-haired torso, and slashed at Zanfreth
with the other. Zanfreth avoided the jagged blade but his wounded leg failed
him. He stumbled at the feet of the dog face.
The other Kru didn’t follow his fellow to battle Zanfreth, but
moved against the fallen Mellereth. The blond warrior hurried to rise and
establish his footing to meet the fierce attack. With no shield to protect him,
he had to face the whirling blades of his enemy with only his sword. The jagged
blades failed to intimidate Mellereth, and he swept aside the enemy steel to
jam his sword into the dog face’s naked side. The Kru yelped in pain and hopped
back several steps. A third Kru raced past the dog face as that one retreated
from Mellereth, and leaped in to clash with the blond warrior on his own.
As Kolmor ran to the crest of the bridge, Zorereth upon the bridge
avoided one of the spider rider’s strange missiles. He struggled against the
pounding fear and sent an arrow in response. The shaft tore through a band of
cloth hanging from the enemy’s arm, harming only his wardrobe but not his
person.
The wild Kru archer sprinted forward and vaulted up the abutment
to the roadway. As he raised from his crouched landing, he brought up his bow
with an arrow knocked. The dog face found his target and released the shaft.
The iron barb of the shaft pierced Zorereth’s hauberk and stabbed into his
belly. The Nahorn warrior shouted out against the pain, against the fear
hammering against his courage with each intense repetition of the spider’s
scream. He clenched his teeth, aimed the tip of his arrow for the Kru’s chest,
and sent it swishing swift and true from his bow to the target. He watched the
dog face crumple like a wineskin with a rent torn in the bottom. One of the
spider rider’s strange missiles whizzing past his face jerked his attention
away from the fallen Kru.
Balured, upon the opposite bank of the Tellereth, leaped for the
top of the bridge abutment. His shield caught upon the edge of the obstacle and
he fell to the ground. In a flash he regained his feet and clambered up to the
roadway.
Mellereth parried the blades of the dog face who had rushed him
after he had wounded and repulsed the previous Kru attacker. Mellereth’s steel
bit into the naked flesh of the dog face’s side. The dog face yelped and turned
away, scampering back beyond his wounded comrade, and abandoning the fight
altogether. Mellereth spun about and ran toward Zanfreth who had found his
feet.
The Kru abandoned his attack against Zanfreth to slash at the
attacking Mellereth. The jagged Kru blades sliced across Mellereth’s bright
scales but did not wound the warrior. The dog face spun to turn his blades upon
Zanfreth who took the deadly blows upon his shield.
The first Kru Mellereth had wounded realized that he would recover
from the injury, and paused to lick the wound with his long tongue. He growled in
anger and dashed toward the warrior, salivating for vengeance.
No longer troubled by two opponents, the Kru renewed his attack
upon the wounded Zanfreth. He deflected the spear and slid down its length,
driving one of his blades into the warrior with all his weight. The connection
between the scales parted and the blade stabbed into the flesh below the
shoulder. The wound burned and Zanfreth feared that the Kru blade might be
poisoned. He could no longer hold back against the pressure of the spider
screams and the wounds to his leg and shoulder. He broke and ran, barely
turning the final flurry of the Kru’s last attack as he hurried in terror from
the field.
Upon the bridge, Kolmor romped past Zorereth to the Nahorn side of
the bridge, and narrowly avoided a glimmering missile from the bow of the
spider rider.
Thormo remained paralyzed with fear, unable to move from his
crouch against the bridge guard. He fought an inner battle for mastery, trying
to grip and hold his will and courage rendered slippery and untenable by his
wound and the incessant, fear-inducing screaming.
Balured shielded his mind
against the spider cries. He rushed across the bridge to Kolmor’s side. Balured
saw that Mellereth was engaged with one enemy, and that the Kru who had put
Zanfreth to flight would join against him. Balured leaped from the abutment,
falling forward, rolling to his feet and launching himself toward the dog face.
A great wave of panic had been steadily rising. Kolmor felt it
crashing upon him, drowning him in fear and doubt. He struggled to move, to think
at all. In an effort requiring every ounce of will that he could scrape together
and focus into action, he hurled his axe at the spider rider. The axe tumbled
end over end toward the rider who endeavored to nock another missile to his bow.
The blade bit deeply into his ribs below the bow-arm, and stuck, wedged in his
side. Kolmor’s throat voiced a victory cry.
***
Gendag held his position upon the black mount, adding his screams
to those of the spider. It was possible that he was not too seriously injured.
The blade had not penetrated deeply. A number of ribs had been broken and he likely
had some other painful damage that would probably heal in time. Nevertheless, his
blood flowed freely, staining his wrappings of colorful cloth, and it required
great focus to command the spider. If he should take another wound, or pass out
from the pain, he risked losing control of the beast. He cursed the two Kru who
had fallen to their deaths as they had made the difficult crossing of the
Tellereth with him over the narrow but deep ravine farther upstream. If those
two had not fallen, if the Kru sent to attack the bridge had waited for his
approach, he might be unwounded and bearing moustached and bearded heads in
victory to the pale lady. It was not to be. She would be angry, but she would
heal him. He had become one of the valuable ones upon whom she had poured a
portion of her power—a small, but not insignificant portion. He would return
another time with a properly timed attack. For now, he directed the spider
away, leaving the outpost and bridge to their defenders—this time.
Theer gave a snarl when he realized that Gendag was riding away.
He hated the human with his pretty clothes and mysterious arrows. Nevertheless,
the human served the lady, and she had commanded Theer to serve under the human’s
commands. If the human upon his mighty creature believed it proper to leave the
field, Theer would leave with him. The dog face had hoped to see the great
spider drag Nahorn defenders into its dark maw to rend and feast upon those
pale bodies. He would not see that today, but if he loped away wearing his own
wounds as proof of his bravery, he might delight in such a spectacle another
day. Theer turned away, taking a cut from the tip of the Nahorn sword which
sliced across his shoulder blade, and hurried after Gendag and the spider.
Vun saw Theer turn and flee. Vun understood that he was the last
of the pack in the fight. He ducked away from the two Nahorn warriors and their
swords. He ran to the end of the Nahorn barracks before wondering if he might
find a narrow way at the stable in which to make a stand against these yellow
beards. He stopped and turned to assess his enemy.
***
Mellereth followed upon the heels of the retreating foe. When the
thing turned to face him, Mellereth shouted a war cry and stabbed at the Kru.
The dog face parried his strike and pushed him away. Balured, right behind
Mellereth, crashed into the Kru, knocking him to the ground. Mellereth joined
Balured, but the dog face scrambled to its feet before they could pin it to the
ground. The dog face’s wicked blades held Balured at bay, but Mellereth charged
in, kicking the feet from beneath the Kru.
Kolmor, free of the near paralysis caused by the spider’s screams,
hurled himself into the fight against the last of the hated Kru. The resilient
dog face bounced to its feet, churning the twin blades in a slashing double
windmill toward Mellereth. With the other two Nahorn warriors interfering with
the dog face’s attack, Mellereth avoided the blades and drove the point of his
sword through the Kru’s liver and into its spine. The dog faced dropped for the
last time, coloring the hoof-trampled ground with the ichor that had keep it
alive.
Copyright © 2020 Stanley Wheeler
All Rights Reserved
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