Douglas Niles: The Messenger

He pointed to the road excavated into the side of the steep slope, beginning near the cave mouth. It curved along the mountainside, making its way higher and higher above the water in the cove until, on the far side of the valley, it vanished through a narrow notch, a pass flanked by a pair of brooding, cornice-draped cliffs. Beyond that notch rose the plume of smoke marking Brackenrock.

“Up! Let’s go, my brutes! With luck, we’ll have plenty of killing on the top!”

“More of the Highlanders are here,” Bruni said, pointing to a throng of warriors spilling into the courtyard of the fortress, emerging from the door to the barracks chamber and the once-secret cave. Moreen lowered her sword and at last drew a breath. “They must be coming up the chimney now as fast as they can.”

“Only one at a time,” Moreen said, half to herself. She and Bruni were atop one of the two towers of the gatehouse. Five dead thanoi, bodies still warm, lay at their feet. The first rays of pale sun bathed them in light, but all Moreen could see was the slick, brilliant red of the blood that covered them and everything else.

The big oil fire in the gateway had been kicked apart by Highlanders and Arktos, but the smoke still lingered. It had clearly been a signal fire, and soon enough the chiefwoman expected an attack from the ogres on the shoreline below.

The fortress was mostly secured. The Highlander warriors, behind the berserker Mad Randall and the veteran Lars Redbeard, were here and there breaking into chambers within which the tuskers had barred themselves. One by one these strongholds were cleaned out. Against the most stubborn pockets of defense, the Highlanders tied burning rags to flasks of warqat and threw the flaming missiles with explosive effectiveness.

More Arktos warriors had reached the fortress in the last few minutes, fighting side by side with the men or going after individual tuskers on their own.

Tildey had led a group out the gates of the fortress, slaying the few tuskers who had tried to flee through the snow. The archer had gone all the way to the notch overlooking the cove before turning abruptly and heading back at a trot to Brackenrock, leaving four Arktos women standing guard at the pass.

“I’m worried,” Moreen said. She and Bruni climbed down from the tower and met Tildey in the open gateway of the fortress. Lars Redbeard, his axe stained with tusker blood, also met them there.

“The ogres,” Tildey announced, trying to catch her breath. “They’re starting up the path. The whole column is on the march, and they’ll be here within two hours.”

Moreen nodded curtly. She looked at the slopes leading toward the gate, imagining what a charge of ogres could do. Her eyes fell on the narrow notch, where Tildey had posted her four sentries. Tall flanks of rock, each draped with cornices of snow in deep drifts, loomed to either side of the gap, narrowing the pass to a bottleneck.

“Let’s get most everyone working on getting some kind of barricade across this gate,” the chiefwoman said. “Use whatever we can find.”

“Good plan, but it’ll take the better part of a day,” Lars noted.

“I said most of us should work on that. The rest of us will go there, to that narrow pass. It will be up to us to hold the ogres off long enough to seal the gate.”

“Will you work with me against a common enemy?” asked Strongwind Whalebone

“I don’t think we have much choice.” Kerrick pointed at the steep slope, where the outline of the ancient road was just barely visible through the snow. “Up there is Brackenrock. You know where the cave is. The Arktos and, I suppose, the rest of your army are holed up in there. You say they were going to climb up to the fortress from inside the mountain?”

Strongwind explained about the narrow chimney, the hope that Moreen and a small force could rush the castle from within, and lead the rest of the beleaguered humans there to safety.

“If the ogres get there first, Moreen won’t have a chance.” Kerrick spoke grimly, pointing to the ogres massing outside the cavern. Already they were forming up and filing along the snowy road that gradually ascended toward the fortress, curving up the side of the valley until it disappeared through that lofty notch.

“That smoke must be some kind of signal.”

“If we somehow delay the ogres, can the citadel be held against ogre attack?” Kerrick wondered.

“Yes, as long as most of my men get behind the walls before the ogres do. Brackenrock was impenetrable for generations, before the dragons came. It was the center of a blossoming civilization, and the ogres sent many armies to destroy it but could never breach its high walls. If we can seal off the gate, we can hold the advantage as long as necessary. From the towers we can harass them with bows and spears. But how can we hope to delay so many ogres?”

“There!” Kerrick said, pointing to a notch beneath the overhanging shelves of snow. “The ogres have to pass through there. If we get there first and get some help from your men, we might be able to hold them up.”

“As good a plan as any,” Strongwind agreed. He touched the hilt of his sword, secured in the great scabbard strapped to his back. “I have my weapon. What about you?”

Kerrick picked up the gold-bladed axe. “This will work,” he said grimly.

Only when he and Strongwind made ready to jump to shore did Kerrick again remember Coraltop Netfisher.

“Your passenger?” asked the king, seeing the elf look back to the stern and hesitate.

Kerrick shook his head. “Forget him. He’s gone.” If he was even here in the first place, he added to himself.

He had maneuvered Cutter to a place directly under the massive shelf of snow. Reluctantly, he abandoned the boat, consoling himself that she couldn’t drift far in the icebound cove. The ogres were on the other side of the bowl-shaped valley, slogging their way along the road that angled gradually upward, though they had yet to travel very far.

“It’ll be a steep climb,” cautioned the Highlander. “Do you think we can get ahead of them?”

Kerrick snorted. “I don’t think we have any choice,” he declared. “Anyway, we can go straight up to the notch, and they’ll have to circle around half the valley.” He left unsaid that the ogres would climb a smooth track on a gentle grade, while the human and elf would be going straight up a steep slope strewn with rocky outcroppings.

Together they jumped onto the snowy shore, the momentum of their leap shooting Cutter slowly toward the middle of the cove. Sinking knee deep into the wet snow, dragging the heavy axe behind him, Kerrick started to climb. Strongwind Whalebone kept pace at his side.

The snow was wet. At first the elf tried to drag the axe along, but he quickly realized the heavy weight of the weapon made it a liability. He used the long shaft as a climbing pole, jabbing it into the snow.

“No sense in both of us doing all this work,” Strongwind suggested after a few minutes. “Why don’t you follow me for a while? Use the path I make?”

The elf found it easier to follow in the human’s bootsteps. Strongwind clawed his way upward with admirable strength, steadily ascending until finally he collapsed, gasping for breath. Kerrick passed him, taking a long stint in the lead. Within a few minutes they had risen as high as the leading rank of the ogre army, still across the valley, like a long, dark snake on the snow-covered trail. No doubt the ogres had spotted the climbing duo, though they hadn’t visibly quickened their pace.

Once more Strongwind took the lead, and soon they were climbing above the ogres, but the steep grade took its own toll. Before long both again collapsed, gasping for breath, straining to find strength in their leaden limbs.