Don Perrin - Theros Ironfield

The next sound he heard was that of horses, galloping through the streets. He couldn’t see them yet, but he knew the sound of hooves thudding against hard ground.

A flash of steel. Another flash. Moorgoth moved the spyglass, followed the road down, and focused on two riders.

They were his men.

The baron put the glass down. He could now see the two clearly, galloping up the road. Behind them, he could see more horses thundering out of the town. He brought the glass up again. Yes, he recognized the maroon uniforms. They were his cavalry.

In a sharp voice, he yelled orders back to a runner.

“Those are our cavalry. Tell Captain Jamaar to hold his squadrons behind the forest until I call for them by bugle. Tell him to send me word of how he did. Understand?”

The young man nodded and was off into the woods at a run.

The first two riders galloped into the woods. Once out of sight of the town, the two riders dismounted. The runner raced forward to confer with the two. One of the riders remounted, just in time to lead the rest of the cavalry through the woods to the rear. The other rider returned with the runner to Baron Moorgoth’s position.

“Good day, sir. It was a fine fight, but a tough one,” the officer called.

“Lieutenant Boromus, isn’t it? You are second in command of the light cavalry. Am I right?” Moorgoth asked the young officer.

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“Did you achieve your objectives?”

The officer shook his head. “Not all objectives, sir. We rode into the center of the town. The town guard gave us a fight at first, but they weren’t organized. We threw them off. You were right, sir. There is a spy in our midst.” The soldier was grim. “They were waiting for us.”

“Damn!” Moorgoth swore softly.

“When we beat back the town guard, we began rounding up the civilians, marched them into the central marketplace.” The officer paused.

“Go on,” urged the baron.

“There were more civilians than we thought and they were ready for a fight. They fought like devils from the Abyss, sir. At one point, they dragged one of Captain Jamaar’s heavy cavalrymen from his saddle and beat him to death. We pushed the people back, but there was a lot of bloodshed.

“The town guard regrouped and charged us on the west side of the town square, attacking us from the rear. They killed at least four and wounded four more before we could manage to turn around and make the battle more even.”

Moorgoth could see that the man was nearly exhausted. “Go ahead, drink some water.” He offered the cavalry officer his waterskin.

“Thank you, sir.” Boromus took a drink. “Once we’d whipped the town guard, we dismounted and held the horses on the east side of the town, ready for us to pull out, according to plan. We thought we had the civilians all penned up, but a bunch must have been hiding. They must have sneaked through the buildings, instead of going out in the streets where we could have seen them. They killed the guards we had set over the horses, and then cut the animals loose. We stopped them, but we lost a lot of men and mounts and supplies.”

“What happened next?” the baron asked, frowning.

“We fought on, both against the civilians in the square and the guard. We held on until midafternoon, as you had ordered. Then, we ran as fast as we could from that hornet’s nest. Sir, I can tell you, I’m looking forward to razing that cesspool of a town. I’ll …”

Moorgoth let the man rant. He could see that Boromus was cracking from the strain. He needed to let off steam. The baron waited patiently until the man had calmed down.

“You said that you had not achieved all of the objectives,” Moorgoth continued. “Your only objective was to have the calvary cause trouble in the town until midafternoon. It sounds as if you did that well enough.”

“Sir, I didn’t think it was in your orders to lose half of the cavalry! Half, sir. Half are dead. What you saw riding out of the town is it-around fifty of us. There were some wounded, but they’re surely dead now.”

Moorgoth looked down at the ground. Again he swore silently. He swore vengeance for his men. The town would pay.

“You did well. You held on, and that’s what counts. Go back to your captain.”

The officer looked at him in tight-lipped anger and despair. “Sir-” he began, but he couldn’t continue.

Moorgoth understood.

“Your captain is dead, right? You’re in command now. Is that right?”

The young officer nodded.

“Very well, you shall have the rank to go with it. You are now Captain Boromus. I wish it were under better circumstances. The fighting for the day is not yet over. Get your men fed and rested. I may call upon you again. Coordinate with Captain Jamaar. Go back to your unit.”

The man nodded, but did not salute. He crawled back through the underbrush to his horse. Mounting, he slowly made his way back to his troops.

Moorgoth shook his head. Half? Over half! Over half of his cavalry was gone. The cost alone was crippling, but the loss of good soldiers was worse. Those had been some of the finest mercenaries ever to come his way.

His attention focused on the top of the rise to the left front. A lone rider stood on the ridgeline. Moorgoth raised his spyglass again, to see the rider better.

Through the glass, he could see an armored warrior on a white charger. He could see the emblem on the breastplate-a bird. The rider was half a mile away and Moorgoth could make out nothing more. Yet he knew what that emblem was-a kingfisher, the symbol of one of the orders of the Knights of Solamnia.

The knight rode down the hill toward the town. The smoke of the fires on the far side of town stained the pleasant summer sky.

Moorgoth lost sight of the knight when he drew close to the town. The baron turned to order his men to get ready, but he needed to say nothing. Everyone was watching the knight. They crouched in their hiding places, ready to move. Excitement rustled among them like wind through tree leaves.

Two minutes later, the knight came charging out of the town, galloping over the hill in the same direction from which he had come.

“Settle down,” said Moorgoth to his men, though he knew they couldn’t hear him. “Settle down, boys. Now we get into the hard part. We have to wait for the main force of the knights to arrive. We even have to sit here and watch them assemble, right in front of us. And we don’t dare make a sound. It’s going to be hard.”

He motioned behind him for the runner.

“Pass this word to all of my officers. If any man makes a sound or moves so that the enemy finds us before we’re ready, I’ll cut his throat myself. Go ahead and pass the word.”

Another runner came up, crawling forward to the baron’s position.

“Sir, Commander Omini sends his regards.”

Moorgoth glared at the man. “I don’t need Omini’s regards! What’s his damned news?”

“He wishes to inform you, sir, that his scout reports a force of mounted heavy cavalry and another of foot soldiers moving at a quick pace toward the town.”

Moorgoth was immensely cheered. They were racing right into his trap!

“Good,” he said to the runner. “You tell Omini that I want his brigade flat on their bellies until they hear my bugle call. Tell him to recall his scouts and hide.”

The runner, crawling on all fours, saluted. Moorgoth fought to hide his laughter. Crawling on all fours and saluting looked extremely idiotic.

* * * * *

Sunlight flashed off armor. The knight had returned to the ridgeline about twenty minutes later. Moorgoth studied him with the spyglass. Through the glass, he saw the knight look directly at him.

The baron dropped down to his belly. Quickly, he looked up. He was all right-he’d been standing in the shade. He had feared that the knight had seen the reflection of light off the glass’s front lens. The knight must have been just scanning the forest.