Tellereth
Outpost
(Part I)
Copyright © 2020 Stanley Wheeler
All Rights Reserved
“I win!” Zanfreth
said, slamming his cards down on the top of the table, sending the pile of
small, round, multi-colored cylinders of wood scattering across the table.
Mellereth pounded the table. “I think your luck has been
running mighty high. Are you sure you’re not in league with the pale lady?”
“Do not even jest about that!” Kolmor ordered. “Take your
sticks, Zanfreth. If we ever get paid again, we’ll pay you according to the
sticks of each man’s color you hold.”
Mellereth opened his hands before him, asking the other
three at the table, “Could a man league with the pale lady and have her change
his luck? They say she does magic.”
“Sorcery,” Kolmor corrected. “As for leaguing with her,
we’ll never know. None of our envoys to her have ever returned.”
Zoreroth, the youngest of the four, asked, “Does she create
the dog faces with her sorcery?”
Kolmor, the lieutenant and leader in Captain Fleroth’s
absence, said, “I don’t know as she created them, but she did something to
them. Ten years ago the Kru were nothing but scattered packs of dog faces who
came down from the mountains to raid livestock now and then. If we so much as
shot an arrow at them they would run away in fear. They attack all the time
now, here and there in little packs, sometimes in whole battalions, and they’re
armed too. I’ll wager the pale lady’s behind it.”
“Do you think our riders will be back soon?” Zoreroth
asked.
“Captain Fleroth is due back with Defling and Eoroth before
long. Later today I’d wager, depending on how many Kru necks they had to chop
in the next valley,” Kolmor said. “Until then, let’s keep our eyes open. This
bridge would be a fine prize for the Kru. If they can take this outpost and
bridge, they can run supplies up this road by wagon to help feed an invading
army. Let’s not be having them cross the river on our watch.”
***
Wun pushed his dark muzzle between two branches. Through
the trees and brush he saw the outpost which consisted of a narrow, two-story
barracks and a separate stable across the river. The Tellereth River ran deep
and swift, but it was not wide. The pony men had barricaded the far bank so
that it could not be scaled from the river. However, a section of the barricade
had washed out some distance away on the left at a place where the river ran
through some shallows. The current was particularly swift at that point, but it
was shallow enough that one could walk across if he watched his footing. He
could come ashore on the far bank on the edge of a patch of small trees and
brush behind the log house in which the pony men stabled their horses. His
small pack had come to seize the outpost and the bridge. He had placed his pack
members on each side of the road. They were making their way forward, moving
stealthily through the cover.
***
“Alarm! We’re under attack!” Thormo yelled. He repeated the
cry as he raised his bow, seeking a shot at the dog face he had seen sneaking
through the trees on the far bank. If he could see one Kru, there were several
others he did not see. His position on the abutment at the end of the bridge
gave him a raised position from which he could look over the barricade along
the river to the far shore. He did not see a shot he could take. He looked
downstream where he saw a dark shadow of a Kru leap into the swift waters of
the Tellereth. The dog face wore a mail shirt, held a shield, and had his sword
raised high. The fast flood swept the feet from beneath the dog face and he
went down beneath the water.
Thormo’s voice penetrated the barracks. Mellereth rose to
grab his bow and quiver of arrows. His sword was already at his side. He jammed
his helmet upon his head as he broke through the doorway. He raced onto the
bridge, his scaled hauberk thumping as he ran. He launched a shaft at a dog face within the trees, but the brush
deflected the arrow. Another Kru broke from the trees, and came running up the
road behind his shield. Mellereth dropped his bow to seize his sword. Balured, one
of his comrades, arrived at his side at the same instant the dog face made
contact. Mellereth stuck first, landing his sword edge upon the crown of the
dark Kru helm. The dog face stumbled backward from the blow.
The Kru in the river struggled to his feet and leaped to
the bank.
Thormo yelled and pointed when he saw the Kru emerge upon
the Nahorn side of the river. Zamfreth heard the cry and raced over the roadway
and past the corner of the stable in the direction indicated by the archer.
Before could reach the dog face, Thormo bid the intruder welcome with an arrow
to the thigh. The Kru took the arrow like a man and didn’t flinch. His upright
posture and courage in the face of danger allowed Thormo to deliver a second
token of welcome in the form of a feathered shaft piercing through the Kru mail
shirt to the shoulder beneath. The dog face reeled backwards and fell into the
swift current of the Tellereth and disappeared.
Balured drove forward behind his shield and sword at the
Kru on the bridge while Mellereth once again took up his bow. Balured had
fought many Kru. They had tried to cross the bridge before but had always been
pushed back. Although the dog faces were fierce fighters, he had been consistently
victorious by taking the fight to them, rather than waiting for them to
coordinate an attack. He crashed into the Kru and pushed him back a pace.
Mellereth spotted another Kru in the trees and communicated
the fact to the dog face with a pointed message which lodged in the calf of the
pale lady’s minion. Mellereth had won the archery contest the month before at
the village up the road. He wasn’t lucky cards, and his luck with the bow had
no connection to the pale lady in her dark tower. Regardless of whether one
mentioned the pale lady in the dark tower, the pale lady, or even the dark lady,
everyone knew the term referred to the nameless woman said to have face and
hands as white at the pale moon, and hair as dark as the blackest night. Living
in her dark tower of stone, she was rumored to use sorcery to create the Kru
and to attack the souls of men. Mellereth had heard stories of men who had
forsaken their duty to family and country under her influence. Some were said
to fall into a killing rage against their own comrades and kin. Others rode
away to unknown ends. It was said that to look upon her without a protective
charm was death, or something worse. Mellereth wondered how she entranced those
who had never looked upon her.
Zoreroth with his bow, and Kolmor with his axe and shield
followed from the barracks. Zoreroth moved to mount the abutment from which he
might fire over the barricade upon the Kru across the river. Kolmor moved to
the bridge itself.
Mellereth sped another arrow at the Kru who already bore an
arrow in his calf. The second missile struck the dog face’s helm near the eye, piercing
the metal, but not penetrating sufficiently to harm the target. Nevertheless,
with an arrow in the leg and another nearly in his eye, the Kru flung himself
to the ground in fear.
Another dog face burst from the trees to sprint up the road
toward Balured. As the Kru brought his sword forward to stab at the Nahorn
warrior, the hilt caught on his own shield and the weapon dropped from his
hairy hand.
Thormo aimed and loosed an arrow into the belly of another
Kru upon the roadway. The dog face fell in a yelping heap, hands tugging at the
shaft in its gut before it lapsed into the peace of unconsciousness.
Another Kru rushed from the trees to leap into the river
across from the washed out barricade. He was too late to save his comrade who
had been swept away. The smooth rocks and swift water collaborated in dragging
his feet from beneath him as well. A second dog face went into the river to
help the fallen one. This one kept his feet, reaching to assist his pack mate.
When the Kru lost his sword, Balured pressed his attack.
The wily dog face used his empty hand to seize upon Balured and swing him to switch
places with him upon the roadway. Balured, according to his strategy, refused to
relent against the dog face and he forced them changed places again, getting his
back to his own men.
When another Kru raced into roadway, Mellereth bent his bow
and sent a shaft toward the dog face, but the Kru shield turned the arrow away.
Thormo fired at a Kru still in the trees, but the cover proved too thick for
his arrow to penetrate effectively.
***
Wun had watched his pack retreat from battle and fall with
arrow wounds. He could not tell what had happened at the river crossing, but he
suspected those pack members were slain or held at bay at the water’s edge. He
rushed from his position in the trees to join Tu’un against the Nahorn
swordsman upon the roadway. Wun worked the warrior to the side, forcing him
around. Now Wun and Tu’un separated the warrior from his own men.
***
Zanfreth stepped to the river’s edge and hurled one of his
spears at the dog face still on his feet in the flow. The Kru, bent over his
pack mate, looked up, but could not avoid the deadly missile. The steel tip
took the hapless Kru over the collarbone between the opening of the mail shirt
and his metal helmet, driving deep inside. Unable to fight the spear and the
rolling waters, he fell and slid away in the current, dragging with him the
unwounded companion he had tried to help.
Zanfreth prepared his other spear, congratulating himself
upon the easy dispatch of two enemies in a single throw. These Kru fell more
easily than his comrades markers at cards. Zanfreth thought the Kru had to be
crazy creatures to attempt this crossing with the current in such a state. Did the pale lady drive them to do it with the
power of her magic?
Yet another Kru bounded up to the river across from
Zanfreth. The warrior prepared to meet him.
One of the last of the Kru warriors sprinted from the
foliage to the roadway toward Balured. Carried away by the anticipation of driving
his sword into the warrior’s back, the dog face stepped into a deep rut, tumbling
to the ground.
Kolmor bounded over the bridge with his axe swinging to
help Balured against his multiple enemies, with Zoreroth following behind. The
bowman had been unable to get a shot from the bridge abutment. The young archer
sought an opportunity to stain his arrows with Kru blood before the conflict
ended.
Mellereth looked down the shaft of the arrow upon his
bowstring. He looked beyond the shaft to meet the wide eyes of the Kru who had
fallen at the edge of the trees. Mellereth released the arrow. The shaft tore
through the right eye of the dog face.
***
Tu’un saw his pack mate Teree drop for the last time with an
arrow through his eye. Tu’un gave an involuntary whine and scampered from the
field, refusing to heed Wun’s warning barks. Varee, who had tripped in the rut
on the roadway, scrambled to his feet. With a growl, he shrugged off both Teree’s
death and Tu’un’s cowardice. Wun, angry at Tu’un, turned to follow and vent his
wrath upon the coward, and received a glancing blow from the Narhorn axe-man in
the process. He stopped next to Varee. “The glory of the lady be upon us alone
then,” he growled to his pack member.
Wun could not see him, but one other member of his pack
remained upon the field. Nevex stood in the river crossing, fighting against
the current to cross over and fight the spearman on the far bank.
****
Balured stepped from the bridge to the abutment, opening a
lane of fire for the archers, Zoreroth and Mellereth. Kolmor did the same upon
his side of the bridge. The archers offered arrows to the two Kru upon the
roadway but those two refused to receive them. The Kru divided, one rushing
Balured, the other attacking Kolmor. Kolmor rebuffed the attack, shoving his
attacker back into the roadway. Mellereth seized the opportunity of separation
to fire once more. The arrow nicked the dog face who fell back and dropped into
the brush for cover.
Kolmor saw that Balured was hard-pressed by his opponent
and raced across the roadway to add more Kru blood to this axe-blade. In
attempting to avoid the mighty axe, the dog face fell from the abutment to the
ground a few feet below near the edge of the river.
“Take him!” Kolmor ordered to Balured before turning to rush
the other Kru who had gone to ground to avoid Mellereth’s arrows.
Obedient and always diligent in orders to kill Kru, Balured
jumped from the abutment, but the crafty Kru rolled to his feet before Balured
could strike a blow. The Kru drove forward behind his shield, shoving Balured
away.
Zoreroth saw a chance for his arrows to taste of Kru and
stepped forward for a shot at Balured’s enemy. His shaft penetrated deep into
the dog face’s leg. With a flick of his sword, the Kru broke the shaft and
lunged into Balured.
Kolmor’s Kru got to his feet before the axe-man could reach
him. The Kru slashed at Kolmor but the warrior deflected the attack.
As Zanfreth watched the last Kru in the river succumb to
the relentless current, farther up the river, Balured thrust his sword into his
attacker’s arm.
***
Varee howled in pain and dropped his shield. He dropped to
the ground before rolling away and to his feet. The Nahorn swordsman pierced
his mail from behind, wounding him again, and forcing a yelp from his throat.
Using his sword arm to hold both his weapon and his injured arm, Varee made a
limping run in a mad panic away from this conflict. He could not enjoy the pale
lady’s rewards if he left his life at this river’s edge.
Wun snarled in disgust at the running Varee. The snarl died
upon his his lips as he considered his predicament. As far as he knew, he alone
remained against these men of Nahorn. He had not seen a single drop of blood
fall from the pony men. Half his pack had died or fled. He had had no sound or
even least sign of success from those sent to cross the river. He stood no
chance to take this bridge and outpost by himself. He turned to follow those of
his pack who still lived.
***
As the dog face turned, Kolmor stepped forward to bury his
axe in the back of the Kru’s head. He pulled his blade from the dead creature’s
skull, and turned to join his men scattered out across the bridge.
The men of Nahorn raised their voices in celebration of
their victory over the enemy. Even Zanreth, still at the crossing, joined in
the deep-throated chorus that was the victory cry of Nahorn.
A new sound rose over the victory note. The new sound made
their Nahorn blood run cold.
END OF PART ONE
Copyright © 2020 Stanley Wheeler
All Rights Reserved
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