Battle for Skull Pass Read online

  As they walked through the outbuildings, examining the fortifications, Godri saw Badurin and his scouts hurrying towards him.

  “Badurin!” he cried. “What news?”

  The dour scout stopped before him and bowed. “Grave news, my thane.”

  “Speak,” said Godri.

  “We have found the goblins’ position, and learned their strength. There are close to six hundred of them, including spider riders and a troll.”

  “No worse than we expected,” said Rodrin. “Is there graver news than this?”

  “Aye,” said Badurin, hanging his head. “To my shame, we believe we were discovered while scouting. If so, they may be moving already, trying to hit us before we can finish our preparations.”

  Godri’s chest tightened. “How far are they from the bridge?”

  “Not far,” said Badurin. “If they were quick to break camp, they could be there at any moment. Prince Aurik says he will hold it, but requests thirty more dwarfs as reinforcements.”

  “He shall have them,” said Godri. “They will leave immediately. Come.” He turned and started back towards the hold, Rodrin and Badurin and his scouts following in his wake.

  “But how were you discovered?” Rodrin asked Badurin. “Your lads have slipped past wood elves before.”

  Badurin looked like he’d swallowed mushroom brew. “The cowherd. He shot a bolt at their squigs, to stir them up.”

  “The young fool,” growled Godri.

  “It is my fault, my thane,” said Badurin. “I should have schooled him better, or not allowed him to come in the first place.”

  “Even so,” said Rodrin. “He is not blameless.” He looked around at the scouts. “Where is he?”

  “He remained behind at the bridge,” said Badurin. “Determined to make amends in battle.”

  Godri nodded approvingly. “At least he is not a coward as well as a fool.”

  “Aye, thane,” said Badurin.

  As they hurried past the brewery towards the hold, they saw Borri the dragonslayer watching the miners dig the trenches. He leaned on the haft of his axe with a pint in one hand. “Fear not, lads,” he said, stifling a belch. “You’ve no need of trenches and stakes while I’m here. That troll will die by my axe before he lays a single finger on this brewery!”

  “And what if it attacks the mill instead?” called Rodrin.

  Borri swung around unsteadily, slopping his ale. “Why then, I’ll fight him at the mill, of course.”

  “I’ll believe it when I see it,” muttered Godri.

  He and Rodrin and the scouts continued towards the hold to assemble the reinforcements for the bridge as the miners chuckled.

  FIVE

  In the barrack house of the guards who watched Skarrenruf Bridge, Skaari set down the two heavy buckets beside the fireplace, then poured them into the cauldron set over the fire. Near him, on the table the guards usually used for their meals, Eorik the Surgeon was laying out his saws, scalpels, needles and thread. Meanwhile Old Harn, a peg-legged ex-ironbreaker who was one of Eorik’s usual stretcher carriers, leaned into the fireplace, singeing his long grey beard as he stirred a pot of pitch, which would be used to cauterise any amputated limbs.

  “Very good, lad,” said Eorik, nodding to Skaari over the top of his spectacles. “Can’t wash wounds with just any old water. Got to boil the bad out of it first.” He motioned to the door. “Fill ’em up again. Hurry now.”

  “Aye, surgeon,” said Skaari. But as he picked up the buckets again, a horn blared from outside. He looked up. So did Harn and Eorik.

  “They’re here!” said Harn. He limped forward, his wooden leg clopping loudly on the flags, and took up a wood and canvas stretcher. “Come on, beardling,” he called. “We’ll be wanted soon.”

  “My water first!” said the surgeon.

  Skaari grunted with impatience, but took up the buckets again and ran out the door after the stretcher carrier. As Harn hopped toward the bridge, Skaari dodged through the yard of the barracks house to its well as all the rest of the dwarfs hurried the other way, pulling on their helmets and taking the last bites of their breakfast.

  “Grungni take them,” grumbled one. “Couldn’t wait ’til I’d finished my sausage, could they?”

  The first rays of the sun were edging the tops of the mountains that towered all around the bridge in gold, but in the winding pass all was still darkness. The warriors and thunderers made their way to the span by torchlight, the flames glinting off their armour and their weapons. Skaari looked at them jealously. He agreed with Aurik that he deserved the punishment that had been meted out to him, but he still wanted to be at the front, fighting instead of at the back, carrying away the proudly wounded.

  As Skaari lowered a bucket into the well, the thane’s son stepped out of his tent, looking magnificent in a gleaming suit of gromril armour, and holding the axe Grudge Ender—which had been in the possession of Clan Byrnik for generations—in one gauntleted hand. He was surrounded by four of his father’s heavily armoured hammerers, and paced by the veteran thunderer.

  “When the goblins reach the barricade,” Aurik told the thunderer as they started towards the bridge. “Your lads will fall back and take up new positions in the towers.”

  “They won’t like that, Thanesson,” said the thunderer. “They’re going to want to get stuck in.”

  “I know they will,” said Aurik. “But that will be the warriors’ job. Your lads will be thinning the ranks behind. If they fail to fall back I will hold you accountable.”

  “Aye, Aurik,” said the veteran, dejected. “They’ll do as you bid.”

  They travelled out of earshot as Skaari lowered the second bucket. He sighed. He wanted to fight too, but he had about as much chance of that as a goblin had of marrying an elf maiden.

  Both buckets full, he staggered back into the barrack house, dumped them in the cauldron, then turned to Eorik.

  “Anything else, surgeon?”

  “No, no,” said Eorik, smiling as he waved him away. “Go on. But do as Old Harn tells you, mind.”

  “Of course, surgeon,” said Skaari, breathing a sigh of relief. “Thank you.” He turned and ran out the door.

  He found Harn in the lee of the left-hand bridge tower, standing beside the stretcher and lighting his pipe unconcernedly as the last of the dwarf warriors filed onto the bridge and ranked up across it.

  “Are they attacking?” Skaari asked as he joined him.

  “If they were attacking,” said Harn. “We’d hear it.”

  There was a low wall around the base of the tower. Skaari climbed it, then craned his neck to see down the length of the bridge. He saw murky movement and bobbing torches at the far end, but it was too far away for him to make out any detail.

  At the near end, the dwarfs were all lined up and waiting. Ten thunderers stood at the front, a shoulder-high barricade erected in front of them that would allow them to steady the barrels of their guns, as well as protect them from goblin arrows. Behind them Aurik and his hammerers stared out across the bridge under Karak Grom’s green and silver banner, their helmets on and their visors down. Stout dwarf warriors were lined up to either side of them and in two ranks behind. Other than a gun crew and a handful of crossbow-armed rangers in each tower, these few were all that faced the six hundred goblins at the far end of the bridge.

  Skaari turned and looked behind him towards the winding path that led to the hold. He almost hoped the reinforcements would be too late. What a grand and glorious last stand it would be without them.

  A distant roar made him turn back. Something was happening at the end of the bridge. A large and lumpy shape separated itself from the darkness and lumbered onto the span at an awkward trot. Skaari snarled. It was the troll—the one that had killed Jarl and thrown the cow at him—and it was running right at the dwarfs.

  Skaari was surprised. It was difficult to make a troll do anything, let alone run in a straight line for any distance. They tended to get distracted, or
forget where they were going. But then he saw two little goblins running after it and poking at its heels with torches. They were driving the thing before them. These really were very clever goblins.

  A rattle of musket fire echoed off the mountains as the troll came in range of the thunderers. It staggered as the balls pocked it, but then recovered and kept on, roaring angrily. The two goblins capered behind it, shrilling encouragement, and Skaari stared as he realised that they were only the vanguard of a surging tide of goblins that filled the bridge from edge to edge and all the way back to the far side.

  It was clear that the goblins meant the troll to smash the dwarfs’ line, and then swarm in amongst them before they could reform. And it just might work. The troll was storming forward of its own volition now—the goblins’ goading no longer needed now that the dwarfs had angered it.

  The thunderers fired again, and again the monster was put back on its heels, but only for a moment. It recovered and charged on, raising its massive club and howling its defiance. Skaari swore, amazed. The troll had taken at least twenty shots and still it came on. The vile beast’s regenerative powers were terrifyingly swift.

  Then, above Skaari’s head, one of the cannons spoke, belching smoke and flame. The troll flew back in a hail of grape-shot and crashed against the side of the bridge, sprawled across the parapet with its head and torso hanging far out over the black chasm. There were huge holes in its chest and abdomen now, and one of its bat-wing ears had been shot away. It pawed weakly at the air.

  That’s done it, thought Skaari, as the goblin horde hesitated at the sight and the two torch-wielders shrieked and poked at it. But then, to his amazement, the troll began to rise again, clutching at the rail as the massive wounds in its torso began to knit at the edges. It was unkillable!

  Then the second cannon fired, spewing more shot, and punched the troll backwards over the rail. Its legs flew up and it was gone, tumbling down into the blackness of the deep ravine. Its handlers shrieked and ran back towards the goblin mob.

  “Yes!” cried Skaari, punching the air.

  “Fire!” bellowed the veteran thunderer.

  His thunderers disappeared in a cloud of smoke as they unloaded into the greenskins. The cannons echoed their volley, spraying more heavy shot down the bridge.

  “Reload!”

  The smoke cleared away on the chill mountain breeze, revealing a score of mangled green corpses, and the backs of the goblin horde as they fled back towards their side of the bridge, squealing in panic.

  The thunderers sent another volley after them, dropping another dozen, and they ran even faster.

  The dwarfs cheered. Skaari hopped down from the wall and slapped Old Harn on the back. “Ha! That’s seen them off!”

  “Aye,” Harn said, puffing on his pipe. “For now.”

  Skaari snorted. “Let them come. If that’s the best they can do we’ll hold this bridge forever.”

  Harn glowered at him through his pipe smoke. “Never underestimate a goblin, beardling,” he said. “Ask the dwarf who’s lost a leg to one.”

  “Arrrgh!” rasped Dagskar, biting the end of his whip in frustration as his boys ran past him willy-nilly, fleeing the bridge. “Now I’ve lost da troll! Now my plan is busted!” He spun to face Nazbad and stabbed a long finger at him. “Dis is still your fault!”

  “What’d I do now?” asked the shaman, folding his arms over his paunch. “I didn’t do nothin’ to da troll.”

  “It ain’t what you did now. It’s what you did den. If dem stunties hadn’t got past yer boys, I woulda—”

  “Oh, leave off about that!” snarled Nazbad. “I say it’s your fault. If your mob moved as fast as my spider riders we’d a’beat da stunties to da bridge.”

  “And if your boys woulda done their job, we wouldn’a had t’rush!” shouted Dagskar.

  “Would y’stop bringin’ up old news?” said Nazbad. “Whatta we gonna do now?”

  Dagskar glared at him then turned away with a snort and surveyed his forces. What was he going to do? Shifting dwarfs out of a fortified position was like trying to push an orc through a rat hole. They just wouldn’t go. The squigs would have done it, but the squigs had had to be put down. The troll could have done it, if it weren’t for the stunties’ cannons.

  His eyes fell on the stolen herd of cows, bringing up the rear with the rest of the fodder. He paused, thinking. They weren’t as savage as squigs, but they were heavier, and harder to stop once they got moving. But the damn cannons would still turn them into mincemeat before they got half way across. Unless…

  He looked at Nazbad’s spider riders, hunched on their mounts under the trees at the side of the path. An idea began to grow like a diseased mushroom in his mind. He would have to work fast, before the sun found its way down into the pass.

  “Hoy, shaman,” he called. “Unfurl yer ears and listen t’me. I got some work fer yer precious spider-boys.”

  “Much obliged, lad,” said a thunderer as Skaari filled his mug from the keg he had strapped to his back.

  Skaari nodded and moved to the next dwarf in line. With the goblins still milling about at the far end of the bridge, the dwarf lines could not retire, so surgeon Eorik had ordered Skaari to bring them hearty ale to keep their strength up. It was humiliating work serving the dwarfs beside whom he would rather be fighting, but it was necessary, so he did it without complaint, though he couldn’t bring himself to look any of them in the eye.

  He had just turned the spigot on the tap to fill the next thunderer’s mug when a cry rang out behind him.

  “Ware your flanks! To the right!”

  Skaari turned, spilling ale. The thunderers turned too. At first all he could see was the armoured backs of the dwarfs on the right side of the bridge, all surging closer to the rail. Then came another shout.

  “On the left, too!”

  Then, “The towers! The towers!”

  Skaari snapped his head left and right, searching for the threat in the dim morning light. Over the heads of the dwarfs to the left he saw what looked like long black swords waving around, and he heard the grunts of dwarfs in pain. Then movement from the towers drew his eyes and he looked up. Fat black shapes, with smaller shapes on their backs were swarming up the sheer walls—spiders! Spider riders!

  More spiders clambered over the sides of the bridge. Not black swords, thought Skaari—spider legs! They were surrounded!

  “Grungni’s beard!” swore a warrior behind him. “They must have crawled along the underside!”

  Skaari drew his hand axe and turned toward the flanks with the others.

  “Thunderers!” called Aurik. “Stay to the front. Keep your eyes on the bridge!”

  But it was impossible. The spider riders were amongst them now, stabbing with spears as their mounts whipped about with their legs. The thunderers had to turn and fight. Their neat rank dissolved into a mad scrum as they joined the rest and faced the new menace. Axes chopped and hacked, cleaving goblin skulls and sending shattered spider limbs spinning. Aurik and his hammerers fought at the left side of the bridge, cracking carapaces and crushing greenskins. A dwarf staggered past Skaari, his face swollen and black from a poisoned bite. Blood haemorrhaged from his nose and ears. A thunderer fired point blank as a spider leapt at him. The spider’s head exploded, and it collapsed in a clatter of legs, but its rider leapt at him, thrusting at him with his spear. Skaari hacked the goblin down, but it was too late. The thunderer fell back, the spear through the eye-slot of his helmet.

  A shriek from above made Skaari look up. A spider and goblin were falling from the tower, but the spider had a dwarf in its clutches and he fell too, still fighting as they vanished into Skarrenruf Gorge. The sound of furious battle echoed from the tower tops as the crews defended their guns.

  Skaari returned his gaze to the battle. One of Aurik’s hammerers was down, fighting to throw off a spider that pinned him to the ground. More spiders were climbing over the struggle to reach Aurik.

  “Thaness
on! Beware!” Skaari surged forward, the keg on his back lending him weight and momentum, but before he could reach Aurik, he felt the bridge tremble under his feet. Something was shaking it. He looked towards the goblins, expecting to see another troll, or some other horror. Instead, he saw… cows.

  The herd—his herd—was stampeding across the bridge, their eyes rolling with terror, as the whole horde of gibbering goblins poured after them like a green tide.

  “Cows!” he shouted. “Stampede! Look out!”

  All around him, dwarfs looked up from their fights and stared. Aurik turned and swore.

  “Fall back!” he cried. “Off the bridge!”

  Skaari could see it pained him to say it, but the thane’s son was right. With the cannon crews and the thunderers fighting for their lives, there was nothing to stop the herd from trampling them to a pulp.

  The dwarfs backed toward their end of the bridge, trying to extricate themselves from their fights. Skaari heaved his ale-keg at a spider rider and joined them, though he knew it would be useless. They weren’t moving fast enough. The thunder of hooves was getting louder. The herd would close the distance in seconds.

  The spider riders screamed as they saw the wall of cow-flesh bearing down on them. They broke away from the dwarfs, shrilling curses and scuttling over the sides of the bridge. It seemed they hadn’t been told of the herd’s part in the attack.

  Free of their fights, the dwarfs turned and ran. Skaari wondered briefly if there was dishonour in running from cows, but on the whole he thought not. It was no more cowardly than running from an avalanche.

  The first few dwarf warriors reached the end of the bridge and scattered left and right behind the towers. They were the lucky ones. The deafening rumble of a thousand hooves nearly shook Skaari off his feet. Five paces from the end, he threw himself aside. A bellowing cow shouldered him into the stone rail, crushing his ribs and knocking him to the flags. Another stepped on his leg. He covered his head with his arms and curled in a ball as the herd rushed by inches away.