Douglas Niles - Measure and the Truth

The human soldiers were storming through New Compound, and Bullhorn’s ogres-who, as novices to conquest, had been more stupefyingly drunk than most-were being butchered by the score. Half the town already seemed in the attackers’ hands, and yet a whole bunch of Ankhar’s army wasn’t even fighting!

“Where is Bloodgutter?” Bullhorn wailed, trying to ignore the throbbing in his head. “Make him fight too!”

“No!” roared the half-giant. “I stick to my plan!” He raised his fist but was satisfied when the ogre chief backed away without further protest.

The bull was simply too stupid to see the plan was, in fact, working to perfection. Events had begun when Rib Chewer’s scouts had reported, a day earlier, that a fast-marching column of humans was approaching the valley of New Compound. Ankhar had been careful to post those scouts, while cautioning the goblin warg riders to avoid discovery. The speedy gobs on their wolves had observed the approach of the enemy column without being detected.

Never very smart with numbers, the goblin chief nevertheless had managed to convey the fact that the new force was not as large as the great armies they had faced a few years before. He was also astute enough to deduce that the human war leader himself-he called himself emperor! — was leading the army.

So Ankhar had made a few stealthy preparations. General Bloodgutter proved himself worthy of his rank as he kicked and cajoled his two thousand veteran warriors away from the booty of the dwarf town. Marching them around the fringe of the valley, he had concealed them in a band of rough forest at the very base of the eastern precipice. Ankhar was pleased and impressed by the fact that, even as the enemy attack unfolded, Bloodgutter’s ogres had remained quietly hidden-just as the half-giant had ordered.

Rib Chewer and his riders, on their fierce, lupine mounts, he had positioned behind the stocks of wood along the lakeshore, where they could not be observed by anyone coming up the valley. The goblins had not fed their mounts for more than a day, and the huge, shaggy warg wolves were ravenous and ill tempered-just waiting to be unleashed on the unsuspecting foe.

As a final touch, Ankhar had ordered two of his few remaining sivak draconians-most had perished when the bridge exploded-to wait by his side. They would fly to Bloodgutter when the time was ripe, and Ankhar would spring his trap.

He snorted in amusement, even as a dozen of Bullhorn’s ogres, bloodshot eyes wide with terror, were cut down by swordsmen not so very far from where he stood. The humans were advancing into the plaza, coming around both sides of the massive, smoldering pile of ashes left over from the great victory fire.

The enemy general was the one who had led the armies that defeated Ankhar in his earlier war, the half-giant knew. That disgrace was about to be avenged.

“Silverclaw! Crookfang!” barked the one called the Truth.

“Aye, great lord!” replied the two sivaks, bowing to the ground, flapping their great wings in readiness.

“Fly to the woods,” Ankhar ordered. “Tell General Bloodgutter that it is time for him to burst forth!”

“Now!” Jaymes ordered. “Lancers, charge!”

The ogres had done exactly as he had expected, falling back across the wide central plaza but forming only an irregular defense on the open ground instead of seeking shelter between the buildings and sheds across the square. Lacking pikes, holding a front that boasted several ragged gaps, they formed a perfect target for a lethal cavalry charge. It was a marvelous situation!

And in the perfection of the situation, the emperor felt a sudden misgiving.

Angrily he tried to shake away the nagging feeling. After all, his enemies were drunk, obviously, even staggeringly so. Jaymes himself had slain an ogre who had been too busy puking in the gutter that he could barely raise his head as death rode him down. How could a foe like that be capable of battlefield deviousness?

But, Jaymes reminded himself, Ankhar had proved during the course of his earlier campaign that he was capable of learning lessons from his failures. After all, he had adopted a reserve; he had learned to array spearmen against cavalry; he had practiced feints and diversions and even, after the siege of Solanthus had been broken, mastered that most difficult of military tactics, the fighting withdrawal.

Why, then, should he expect the half-giant to behave stupidly when things mattered the most?

Narrowing his eyes, Jaymes watched the lancers charge across the square. They tore into the ragged line of ogre warriors, slashing and stabbing. Horses reared and kicked, smashing hooves into roaring, tusk-filled mouths. Steadily the invaders were being beaten and pushed back; the disciplined Solamnic riders held their line, refraining from impetuous pursuit-as they had been trained to do.

The emperor had spotted Ankhar himself. The enemy commander stood upon the stone roof of a low, dwarven house. There were several ogres and a couple of draconians up there with him, and he was watching the fight-which should have been a disaster, from his point of view-with no outward evidence of dismay or consternation.

This realization sounded the final alarm inside of Jaymes.

“Trumpeter! Sound the recall!” the emperor shouted.

Immediately, the brassy notes of the horn rang out. The lancers reined back, reluctantly allowing the stumbling ogres to escape as they looked back in some frustration at their army commander. But they were well-trained Solamnic Knights, so they backed away, keeping their horses-and their keen, bloody lances-trained on the shattered, fleeing enemy before them.

That was when Jaymes saw the two draconians with Ankhar take flight. He noted with some surprise they were sivaks. Those aloof and fearsome dragon-men had not served the half-giant in his previous campaign, and the emperor wondered at the meaning of their presence. Were they fleeing a lost cause?

The sivaks flapped their wings and veered away from the legion positions. A few bowmen launched arrows at them, but the draconians were smart enough to stay out of range. Banking and leveling off, they skirted around the edge of the valley. Jaymes continued to watch as they abruptly dived and came to ground just before the fringe of pine forest at the base of the eastern cliff.

Those were the same woods, he realized, where General Weaver had proposed his flanking maneuver. Jaymes had discounted such a move as impractical, deciding the terrain was too rough for troops and that such a movement would only waste valuable time. Had he been too hasty? Peering at the woods, he saw meadows within the groves, and though much of the ground was rocky, there seemed to be space between the outcrops-most of it concealed by foliage-where troops could hide themselves very effectively indeed.

“General!” cried the emperor, attracting the attention of Weaver, who was directing the heavy infantry as it cleared the buildings on the eastern side of the town. A company of halberdiers were chopping at the barricaded door of a stout house, while spearmen swarmed around the place, stabbing through the windows and the few cracks that had been chiseled in the doors.

The commander rode over at a gallop.

Jaymes, meanwhile, ordered his lancers to redeploy on the near side of the square. “Regroup! Fall back to me! Form a line here!”

“Excellency?” Weaver asked, raising his eyebrows in mute concern.

Jaymes pointed at the woods. “Keep an eye on the flank-there might be something happening over there.”

But the warning came too late. More than a thousand ogres suddenly spilled from the tangled, rocky wood at the slope of the cliff, emerging just where the draconians had landed. They came out like a tidal wave, heading straight for the legion’s unprotected rear. They were fresh veterans, not the drunkards and hangers-on they had thus far battled in the town, and they came roaring and howling.