Battle for Skull Pass Read online

  “That’s Dargin’s horn!” said Rodrin as he shouldered a dying goblin back into the pit. “But who could have got behind him? His lads put their backs against the mountain side.”

  “The spider riders,” said Godri. He kicked down another goblin, then looked to where his runners waited behind the line—swift rangers with little armour. “Hugin! Tell Ogriff to bring his miners to Dargin’s aid.”

  “At once, my thane!” said the ranger, and sprinted back towards the entrance of the hold, where Ogriff and the other reserves waited.

  Skaari looked across the pasture towards the front line as the distant roar and clash of battle rang in his ears. His brothers were holding, but for how long? The horde of goblins that rushed towards them seemed without end, and the shaman in the wolfskin was beginning another dance. Now was the time to put his plan into action, before it was too late, but unfortunately the start of the battle had made it more difficult.

  The night goblin and spider rider reserves had crept forward, like small boys drawn towards a puppet show, straining their necks to see the action. He had been left behind at the back of the wagon, out of range for what he had in mind. But then at last—a prayer answered the wagon guards couldn’t resist edging forward either. They prodded the ponies forward and moved the wagon up behind the night goblins and spider riders for a better vantage point, then climbed on the bench at the front to watch. Perfect.

  Skaari looked around on the grassy ground. They were in the winter pasture, where his herd should have been grazing, had the goblins not stolen it. There were a few pebbles scattered amidst the grass, but they were too small. He needed something substantial.

  He paused as he saw a cowpat, sun-baked, and as hard as petrified wood. Again perfect.

  Unfortunately, the ropes that tied him to the wagon were too short for him to reach his hands to the ground, so he wedged the toe of his boot under the cowpat and pried up until it was free of the grass. He raised his head. The night goblin reserves were closest. The ones at the back of the mob were less than ten paces away.

  He took a deep breath and got his foot well under the cowpat, eyeing a potential target. He would have to make this good on the first try. The trick wouldn’t work twice.

  “Grimnir guide my aim,” he whispered, then kicked the cowpat at the night goblins.

  He held his breath as it sailed up in a high arc. For a moment he was afraid he hadn’t given it enough distance, but then it angled down again and clocked a short, sinewy goblin on the side of the head, just over the ear. It cringed and ducked as the ancient crap shattered and fell about it in a cloud of dust.

  Skaari quickly whistled loud in the spider riders’ direction, and was rewarded when a couple of the riders at the back of the pack looked over just as the little goblin was glaring around to see who its attacker was. It saw the spider riders turning their heads and squinted suspiciously at them.

  Now came the tricky part. Though it hurt his cracked ribs terribly to do it, Skaari bellowed out a whooping laugh and slapped his thighs like he had never seen anything funnier.

  The dirtied goblin and the two spider riders turned, looking quizzically at him. Skaari laughed at them, pointing first to the two spider riders and miming throwing the cowpat and it sailing through the air, then pointing at the little goblin and miming being hit in the head. He guffawed again and crossed his eyes, tottering like he was drunk.

  “They got you good, laddie!” he called. “And no mistake!”

  The little night goblin turned to glare at the spider riders, snarling. They held up their hands and shook their heads, but he wasn’t having any of it. He picked up the shards of the calcified cowpat and threw it at them, showering them in faecal dust, then jabbed his mates in the ribs and pointed at the spider riders, describing the attack.

  The spider riders shouted angrily as they shook off the dirt and snatched up cowpats of their own. They hurled them at the little goblin, but their aim—as was often the case with goblins—was off, and the dry clods clobbered entirely innocent goblins on the heads. They turned around, enraged, and started throwing cowpats too.

  Skaari chuckled, pleased with himself for a job well done, then leaned against the wagon to watch the fun. If he knew his goblins, the battle would have a second front in a matter of seconds.

  EIGHT

  Godri fought on mechanically, cutting down goblin after goblin as they tried to climb from the trench, but his mind remained with Dargin on the right wing. The goblins’ savagery was not so mindless after all. A flanking attack, using troops that could manoeuvre vertical terrain: there was a mind behind this assault—a dangerous mind—one that must be destroyed, before it destroyed them.

  A bolt of green lightning shot down from above, booming loud and blasting Arn and a few of his hammerers off their feet. Godri looked up. The shaman’s shimmering green cloud hovered above them. Another bolt shot from it, and another. Crackling energy slammed Godri to the ground like the slap of a giant green hand. It rippled over his armour and froze his joints. His teeth ached with it, and his arms stuck out stiff from his sides, rigid, as he hissed and cursed. Rodrin and the rest were the same, lying twisted and clutching the ground as green flickers danced over their bodies.

  A last bolt and the shimmering cloud vanished like a mirage, leaving only jagged lines on the inside of Godri’s eyelids. Shrill cheers filled his ears as he raised his head. The goblins were surging up out of the trench, and swarming towards the fallen dwarfs.

  Godri raised his shield and blocked a spear thrust, then cut his opponent’s legs out from under it with Thaggstok. He struggled to his feet, cursing and slashing, surrounded. All around him, his dwarfs were in the same straits—chest-deep in a swirling swamp of scrawny green horrors. Arn went down under the tide, a goblin stabbing him in the face with a dagger. Damn the shaman! His pitiful spell hadn’t killed a single dwarf—magic never bothered dwarfs much—yet it had distracted them just long enough to allow the goblins to get in amongst them. They were already flowing behind the brewery ramparts and attacking the backs of the defenders there. The dwarf line was broken. It would be impossible to stem the tide.

  “Fall back!” he called. “Blow the horn. Back to the second trench!”

  Dagskar nodded, pleased, as he surveyed the battle. All over the settlement, the dwarfs were falling back to rearward positions. The mill, the brewery, the grain storehouses were all his. It was going well.

  “What a mess!” cried Nazbad beside him. “We’s gettin’ slaughtered!”

  Dagskar scowled at him. “What battle is you watchin’? We’ve got ’em on da run!”

  “But dey’s killin’ five’a us for every one o’dem we kills!”

  “Good thing we got six’a us for every one o’dem then, ain’t it?” Dagskar laughed. “If it did da trick, I’d waste twice as many.” He shrugged dismissively, then grinned as he looked over the stuntie lines. “Da real killin’s gonna start now anyway. It’s time for da troll.”

  But as he turned to call for the troll, a babble of angry goblin voices rose up to his left, and he saw a mess of night goblins and spider riders surging towards each other around the corpse wagon, fists swinging and daggers flashing.

  “What’s all this?” He roared, and charged towards the brawl, uncoiling his whip as he went. Kizaz trotted after him, the banner swaying crazily above him.

  “Hoy!” cried Nazbad, turning as well. “Lay off!” He ran for the fray too.

  Dagskar waded into the fight, cracking his whip and pulling goblins off each other. “You can’t fight here!” he shouted. “Dis is a battle!”

  A spider rider was strangling a night goblin. Dagskar whipped the rider across the shoulders, cutting deep.

  “Get off!”

  The goblin turned, snarling, and hacked at him with a hand axe. Dagskar caught the axe and twisted it from its hand, then buried it in the goblin’s head.

  A hard hand spun him around, and he found himself eye to eye with Nazbad.

  “
What was that?” rasped the shaman. “You killed one’a my boys!”

  “And he was killin’ one’a my boys!”

  The shaman snarled and held up his hand, middle finger extended, wart glowing. “D’you want me t’give you da finger? I ain’t gonna stand fer dis!”

  Dagskar had had enough. The shaman had done what he needed him to. He had broken the dwarf line.

  Now he was just in the way. Dagskar lashed out with his axe and cut off the raised finger at the root. It spun away in a spray of black blood, the green glow of its wart fading as the shaman shrieked and fell back.

  “My finger!” he wailed. “You cut off my wartfinger!”

  Dagskar leapt after him, aiming another axe blow at his head, but the shaman blocked with his staff and countered with a crack to the shins.

  All around them, the night goblins and spider riders threw themselves at each other in a rage, coming to the defence of their leaders.

  “Kill da over-grounders!” cried Dagskar. “Dey’s breakin’ da pact!”

  “Call da boys back!” Nazbad bellowed to a rider with a horn around his neck. “We’s been betrayed!”

  At the fallback line—this one flanked by a forge and a stonecutter’s workshop—Godri, Rodrin and the surviving hammerers were filling another trench with dead goblins. Godri had seen a dozen dwarfs fall as they retired to the new position, and knew that dozens more must have died all along the perimeter of the settlement, but the retreat had been orderly and their lines still held.

  Even Borri Graniteskin had fallen back with the rest when the goblins had set fire to the brewery, and now fought side by side with Godri.

  “By Grimnir, I’ll not fall to a goblin’s spear!” he’d growled when the others had teased him for retreating. “That’s not a doom worthy of a slayer. I’m waiting for the troll!”

  A gabble of harsh horns sounded from behind the goblin lines, all blowing different phrases. Godri didn’t know what they meant, and it seemed the goblins didn’t either. Some of them looked back, seemingly confused. Others turned and tried to retreat, while still others continued forward. Scuffles and shoving matches broke out amongst them.

  The dwarfs were not hesitant to take advantage of their enemy’s confusion, decapitating turned heads and cutting down goblins that were already fighting each other.

  “This is it!” wheezed Rodrin, grinning. “They’ve fallen out. They’ll collapse any minute!”

  A cheer went up from the right. Godri looked down the lines to see the spider riders retreating from Dargin’s lines, skittering back towards the command position with musket shot peppering their backs. Dargin’s lads started after them, cutting through the goblins before them and roaring with bloodlust.

  Godri cursed. “No! The fool! Don’t be drawn!” He turned to his trumpeter. “Blow: ‘hold fast!’ Hurry!”

  The trumpeter blasted out the call, repeating it again and again, and at last Dargin’s lads halted their advance. But Godri could see they were surrounded by goblins now and fighting on all sides, while more greenskins poured through the gap they had left. Godri looked back. He had only a handful of reserves left.

  “Go!” he shouted at them. “Shore up the right!” He ground his teeth. If any other part of the line broke they would have to fall back to the King’s Wall—and from that there was no retreating.

  A dead night goblin flew through the air, flung like a rag doll by one of the hulking spiders in the centre of the brawl. The goblin crashed in a heap beside the wagon, almost directly at Skaari’s feet. Skaari stared. It was a gift from his ancestors, for the goblin was still clutching his spear!

  Skaari looked around cautiously, but his guards had long since abandoned their posts to join the scrap. No one was watching him. He stretched forward and hooked the haft of the spear with a questing boot toe, then drew it back and raised it carefully to waist height. He caught it in his numbed fingers and propped it against the tailgate of the wagon, then leaned on it to keep it steady.

  Another quick look around. The goblins were still at it, though it would be over soon. Only a few last spider riders fought on, defending their leader. Skaari would have to work fast while they were still distracted. He put his bound wrists to the jagged edge of the spear tip and began to saw.

  Dagskar had to hand it to Nazbad. Even without his wartfinger and his waaagh, the pot-bellied little shaman could fight. He’d blocked him strike for strike while all around them their boys tore each other apart. Dagskar was bleeding all over from the sharp bits at the end of Nazbad’s staff, and his head was swimmy from all the knocks. But he had given as good as he got. The shaman was covered in whip-stripes and blade cuts, and was missing an ear and the first three inches of his nose.

  Finally, Dagskar got in a lucky shot with his stuntie sticker and chopped Nazbad’s staff in two, and the shaman stumbled back, disarmed.

  He held up his nine fingers in supplication. “Give us a break, Earscrapper. It was just a misunderstandin’. You know how it is. Da boys get rowdy sometimes.”

  Dagskar kicked the shaman down and stood on his throat. “So does I, brudda. So does I.”

  And with that he stabbed straight down with his stuntie sticker and buried it between Nazbad’s beady little eyes. The shaman twitched, then slumped loose as dark blood oozed up around the edges of the sword.

  Dagskar wrenched it free and looked up. All around him his boys were finishing off the last of the spiders and the spider riders. He grinned. That was just fine. The forest boys had done what he needed them to do. They’d got him across the bridge, and tore up the stuntie lines from behind. He didn’t need them anymore.

  “Good work, boys!” he shouted. “Now we don’t gotta share da spoils with ’em!” He raised his whip and shook it. “Now get back to da stunties, ya lazy layabouts!”

  The goblins squealed with bloodlust and ran back towards the dwarf line.

  Dagskar nodded after them, satisfied, then turned away. “Now, where was I?” He waved to the boys who were watching the troll. “Hoy, bring da dummy over and get ’im on da wagon!” He started towards the wagon. “And where’s that sneaky little stuntie?”

  He stopped. The captured dwarf was gone. His ropes lay limp on the ground.

  Dagskar cursed. The plan wasn’t going to work without the dwarf. He scrambled up on top of the corpse wagon and looked around anxiously.

  Skaari held his breath as he crept for the long grass in the fallow field next to the pasture. Once there he could crawl unseen to the dwarf lines and join the fight where it mattered. He chuckled at his own cleverness and good fortune. The spider riders were all dead, their threat removed from the battlefield, and it was him that had done it—and all with a cowpat!

  He’d even managed to escape in the confusion—an added bonus he hadn’t expected. Now perhaps he could find more ways to make up for his incompetence and folly.

  He breathed a sigh of relief as he reached the fallow field and began to push through the tall stalks. He was safe now. He—

  A soft noise behind him made him freeze. Had that been a footfall? He turned his head, but before he could see anything, a weight slammed him to the ground and something jagged and sharp pressed into his neck.

  Fetid mushroom breath made him wince as a leering voice whispered in his ear. “Goin’ back t’yer mates, are ya?” A harsh cackle nearly deafened him. “That’s just what you’ll do!”

  Godri and Rodrin and Borri Graniteskin fought side by side before a surging press of goblins. Godri’s arms were weary, his gromril armour seemed to weigh a tonne, and the goblin horde hadn’t collapsed like Rodrin had predicted it would; nonetheless, he was cautiously optimistic. After the scare on the right flank, the dwarfs had regrouped well, and were holding their positions all along the line. There were many dead, but those that remained still fought with heart, and did not waver.

  The same could not be said for the goblins. The squabbling at the rear of their position seemed to have died down, but the horde hadn’t recovered.
They no longer fought with their earlier seething rage or oneness of purpose, and Godri could see that they were growing tired of throwing themselves against the dwarfs’ unbreakable wall of shields. They looked ready to turn around and go home. He hoped it was soon.

  A movement from beyond the greenskin line caught his eye as he bashed down another goblin with his shield. He stared. A wagon was speeding straight for them. A dwarf wagon, with a dwarf driver shaking the reins and the ponies galloping as if possessed. It looked as if it were piled high with dwarf dead.

  “Who…?” he said, squinting at the driver, trying to make out his face. And what was that beside him?

  “It’s the cowherd!” cried Rodrin. “Skaari Otgunsson, and… and he has Aurik with him!”

  Godri looked again as the wagon raced closer, and his heart soared. Rodrin was right. Beside the cowherd on the wagon’s bench lay his son, his head in Skaari’s lap, the axe Grudge Ender held slack in his hand. Godri couldn’t tell if Aurik was alive or dead. It didn’t matter. His son was returned to him!

  “Break the line,” he roared. “Let them through! Let them through!”

  The ponies trampled straight through the goblin ranks as the dwarfs parted to let them pass. Godri thought he saw a goblin leap from between them and roll away at the last second, but it might have been flung up by their crushing hooves.

  Godri and Rodrin backed out of the dwarf line as Borri the slayer and the remaining hammerers closed the gap and faced the goblins again. Godri’s heart pounded with anticipation as he and his brother hurried to the wagon. It was only as he got closer that he noticed that the cowherd looked strange. He had a rag stuffed in his mouth, and his hands were bound to the reins. Not only that, he was tied to the bench—as was his son.

  The beardling mumphed at him, eyes rolling wildly, trying to say something through the rag.