Douglas Niles - Winterheim

After slashing, chopping and stabbing for a frenzied minute or two, the wave of brutish attackers staggered then broke backward in the face of this determined resistance.

They did not fall away any great distance. Instead, the tuskers backed up only ten or twenty paces, where they continued to roar and beat their chests with clubs and fists. The din was deafening.

“Archers-give me three volleys! Let them eat your arrows!”

Moreen glanced back, glad to see that Thedric Drake was rallying the bowmen in the middle of the ring of defenders. His metal cap, the only such helm in the war party, stood out like a silver beacon. He strode back and forth, gesturing and shouting. The archers showered the attackers with missiles, and in seconds a score or more of the walrus men fell dead, pierced by the lethal arrows.

It was hard to calculate the odds, but Moreen estimated that the enemy had them outnumbered at least three or four to one. The only hope for the humans was their tight formation-so long as they held their defenses, the walrus men could not bring their greater numbers to bear, but how long could that last?

Once again the tuskers roared forward, hurling themselves with bestial frenzy against the wall of steel and flesh. Bruni cracked the skull of a huge, feathered chieftain, while Kerrick wielded his slender blade with dazzling skill.

The chiefwoman fought against a pair of attackers, brutish creatures who lunged forward in unison, using spears to block her frantic thrusts. She dropped to one knee as a stone blade scratched across her scalp, and when the other raised his spear she saw death staring her right in the face.

Her elf companion would not allow the attack. Knocking aside his own foe with a blow to the head, Kerrick turned and lunged, hacking his sword across the thanoi’s flank, scoring a deep, ghastly wound. The monster howled and staggered away, clutching both hands to its side in a vain effort to contain its spilling entrails. Moreen sprang upward again, stabbing her crimson blade through the guts of the other tusker. Her weapon began to feel like a lead weight, and she wasn’t sure she could lift it again, but fortunately the wave of attackers fell back once more, leaving more than a hundred of their number bleeding and still on the battle-churned field.

She gasped for breath and let her sword tip rest upon the ground, waiting for the next press of attack. Someone tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned to see Thedric Drake.

“We can’t hold like this all day,” said the elder warrior, his face creased by deep lines of worry. He removed his helm to wipe the sweat from his scalp, and she was surprised to see how bald he looked.

“Do you have a better idea?” she asked impatiently.

“Yes-let’s carry the battle to them! Attack, and we might break their morale.”

She looked at Kerrick, who had been listening to the suggestion, and the elf nodded in agreement.

“At least we can push toward the south,” he added. “Make the bastards realize that we’re not running away. If necessary, we can fight our way right up and over the Tusker Escarpment!”

She saw the audacity of the idea, and she also perceived that the thanoi were as tired as her own people. Perhaps a show of resolve was all that would be needed to break their will.

“Let’s go,” she said.

The plan was spread quickly, the thanes, the chiefwoman, and Mouse quickly explaining the idea to all the fighters. Five minutes later Barq One-Tooth raised his axe and uttered a howling battle cry, and the entire formation lurched into motion.

The big Highlander clove his axe right through the skull of a startled thanoi. Warriors to either side of him added their own blows. The tuskers in the path of the advance quickly scattered out of the way, though not before several more fell to the weapons of the angry humans. In a tight formation, a solid ring with the archers and a dwindling supply of reserves in the middle, the war party moved down the hill and along the floor of a valley that took them due south.

A small band of tuskers worked themselves into a frenzy and rushed the front edge of the advancing circle. These were cut down with brutal efficiency, the war party not even breaking step as the humans trudged over the bodies of their enemies. The rest of the walrus men continued to bark and roar, howling on both sides of the ring and surging along at the rear, but they made no further efforts to try and block the advance.

On the flank, Moreen and Kerrick kept their eyes on the enemy as the tuskers remained just out of arrow range. The thanoi kept them surrounded, but the circular formation, bristling with weapons, maintained a steady pace toward the south. For three or four hours they continued on in this fashion, occasionally brushing off the attacks of small groups of thanoi who harried them. The humans did not have to contend with the full weight of the enemy numbers at any one time, though a thousand or more thanoi remained in view on all sides, still raising a constant din. The war party thus followed the course of the valley throughout its length, taking advantage of the smooth floor beside a shallow stream. Finally the march slowed as the formation began to climb the gradual slope toward the headwaters.

“This is the foot of the escarpment,” Mouse declared. “Not as steep as I thought it would be-though the summit looks to be a good cliff.”

“I think I see a pass there,” Kerrick noted. “We might be able to get through it without scaling a precipice.”

Indeed, the stream they were following seemed to issue from a narrow cut in the rocks at the head of the valley, and Moreen wondered if the thanoi would try to make a stand there to prevent the expedition from moving over the escarpment and into the wild lands beyond. Instead, she was surprised to see the attackers fall back even farther as the humans climbed the slope. Finally, as the Arktos and Highlanders drew near to the crest, the thanoi ceased their roaring and stomping. Now the creatures gathered in a long semicircle, an arc around the tail of the formation. They were several hundred yards away, out of range even of the stoutest longbow, and seemed content to allow the war party get away.

The humans drew near to the steep-sided pass that seemed to offer a good route over the Tusker Escarpment. The ring of warriors compressed in order to pass through that gap, smoothly adjusting their formation into a column at the front, while still maintaining a line of defense against attack from the rear. Bruni, Kerrick, and Moreen joined the rearguard, keeping a watchful eye on the brooding thanoi, while Thedric Drake and Barq One-Tooth strode boldly at the front.

Abruply the column came to a halt, and Moreen heard shouts of consternation from the leaders. She turned to look and gaped in awe as a monstrous figure shrugged off a tumble of rocks to rear up into the air, twenty or thirty feet high. It seemed to be a giant insect of some kind, with horrible bulging eyes and a mouth surrounded by a pair of sharp, clicking pincers. An insect easily the size of a whale, it buzzed angrily, taut and menacing.

Barq One Tooth uttered a fierce, ululating war cry and rushed forward with his axe upraised. Other Highlanders shouted too, and Thedric Drake urged them to charge behind Barq. The monster swept a spiked leg before it-it had many such limbs, jutting from a body segmented like a centipede’s-and knocked the big Highlander to the side with a slashing blow.

The horrible head snapped forward and down, a lethal stab followed by a click of those jaws. Thedric Drake shouted one word-“Kradock!” the name of the Highlander god-and vanished into that awful maw. The beast lifted its head again, wriggled through an unmistakable swallowing gesture, and let out a roar of challenge and hunger.