This is one of the short stories that I wrote for the Heroes of Steel KickStarter.
Andrew
===
Hagaen’s loping pace was irregular compared to the orderly unit of soldiers moving along the road. He trotted to his own tune, moving ahead a little and then lagging behind. Sometimes he was ahead to look over the next rise in the cavern floor and other times falling back to watch for danger. Always he kept at a distance, maybe eighty paces, shadowing their progress through the rough and uneven territory. It was not proper scouting, Haegen knew. However, they had not hired him for scouting, nor sneaking nor for hiding. They had hired the Outlander for muscle, for the two short blades he kept drawn as he trotted along, but more importantly for the warhammer he kept slung across his back.
The Pebble Ridge cavern was long and stretched on for another mile before them, and a mile behind them. The paved road meandered across the open space, dodging the larger rock piles, occasional sinkholes, and the stretches of sharp rock. At the edges of the gray gloom, Hagaen could see the slanting walls of the great underground rift. Somewhere ahead in that same gloom laid the safe haven of the Southern Ridge Outpost, a small military bastion. The fortification was the southernmost tip of Baron Koda’s defensive network, a stout stone fort protecting the approach to Riven Field and his Bastion.
It would mean a night of sleep in a straw bed instead of on a cavern floor. It would mean a hot meal and a proper fire. Then the new recruits would take over the walls of the outpost and the stationed soldiers would be relieved and march back up the road, home to the Bastion of Baron Koda. Captain Whythe had hired Haegen for both legs of the journey, so he would shadow the return party as well.
The distance the Outlander kept was more of a working arrangement between Captain Whythe and Hagaen than anything said aloud. Hagaen felt more comfortable at a distance, and Captain Whythe liked him there. He loped along, only a short run from the detachment if they needed him but far enough away to stay out of the way if they were threatened and had to enact their precious defensive maneuvers and shield walls. That’s where Captain Whythe liked him to be.
Seeing the land rising ahead, Hagaen shifted his stride and outpaced the soldiers. He had been this way before, a long time ago, and the terrain felt familiar. There in the unexplainable gloom of the underdeep, the walls of the Southern Ridge Outpost materialized. The gloom was everywhere in the underdeep--a pervasive, ever-present, unexplainable gray light that made it possible to see without a torch or lantern. Hagaen had never decided if it was the light of the pre-dawn or of the waning dusk or if it really mattered at all.
It was enough light by which to see, but not to see well. Not enough light to stand guard without a torch or a lantern. However, the outpost wall was empty and dark--as dark as it ever was in the underdeep, at least. That was a sign of trouble. Hagaen leapt up onto a rock outcropping that overlooked the road and waved a fist at the forty soldiers coming up the road. A minute passed and someone’s eye caught his motions. Hagaen thrust his fist and blade in the air, pointing at the empty walls of the low fortification. The soldiers’ progress slowed and stuttered, many of them pointing ahead with their spears. After a pause, Captain Whythe gave a few orders and the whole unit advanced at a slower pace, bristling with spear tips.
Hagaen relaxed his arm, lowered his fist. A fist completely wrapped in heavy cloth, bound by leather bracer and gauntlet. His fist was always bound, the flesh always hidden. He picked at the wrapping with an idle finger, and glared at the troublesome unmanned walls of the outpost. Clenching his fist, Hagaen felt the pull of the hidden skin, the tight area on the back of his hand, on his palm. Hidden there lay the double brand of a murderer. Scorched into his flesh of his palm and the back of his hand, he was a marked man – an Outlander. However, they needed the extra muscle out here in the underdeep, so they had taken him on. Not all Outlanders were criminals, but they all lived on the edge of society--forsaken, lost, outcast, or criminal.
As Haegan approached, he could hear Captain Whythe preparing his men; they shouldered shields and tightened armor. In the underdeep, there were no good explanations as to why the outpost was unmanned – only bad ones. Captain Whythe gave Hagaen a sharp nod, suddenly glad to have the Outlander with them.
The outpost welcomed them in silence. The heavy wooden gate hung slightly ajar. In the silence and stillness of the cavern, the only sound was the crunch of their boots on the road. Hagaen put his shoulder into the gate and pushed it wide, crouching low as he entered the shallow courtyard with both blades at ready. The unit spilled into the outpost’s empty courtyard behind him. It was a small, bare place with a few stairs up to the low wall, one dilapidated wooden shed, and two wide staircases leading down into the bowels of the outpost.
“Where is everyone?” asked a soldier in an unsteady voice. The unit milled about, looking up to the empty walls that surrounded them menacingly. Their murmurs echoed off the cold stone. Emptiness. All alone in the gray gloom.
Another soldier started backing toward the gate, “It’s the work of the dark powers!” he cried out. “Gurshin has corrupted this place!”
The name of the Dark Born god snapped Captain Whythe to action and he barked: “Form ranks! Get back in line, soldier!” The men stiffened and closed ranks, the moment of fear broken. “Do not utter that name here!” he snarled, glowering at the young soldier and cuffing him on the back of the neck for good measure.
Hagaen kept his distance from the wavering soldiers. True lack of discipline showed under stress, and the soldiers were even greener than he had thought. Hagaen picked at the bindings on his hand, and then hefted his blades, adjusting his grip. He circled slowly, checking over the ramparts again in the gray-light. Nothing. Moreover, no sign of the missing soldiers either. Simply open gates, an empty courtyard.
===
Captain Whythe had led half the band into the garrison under the outpost when they struck. A scrape of metal on stone, a rush of air and the vermin descended like a chittering wave. Pouring over the ramparts came a wash of stinking, snarling, slashing creatures of fur, teeth, and steel. Hagaen met the first ratkin with a down stroke, slamming the creature to the paving stones and spun to eviscerate a second. A bloody melee erupted, swirling across the courtyard. In seconds, Hagaen earned his keep, his dual blades singing and dripping in foul rodent blood.
The green recruits in the courtyard backed into a shield circle, stabbing with spears defensively against the mass of vermin-kin. In the midst of the chaos, three terrified soldiers rushed up the stairs from the outpost’s lower decks and were met mercilessly by the vermin-kin. Splattered in gore and cut in a few places, Hagaen eyed the second gate and weighed the odds even as his blades danced. Hagaen glanced nervously at the stairs -- would Captain Whythe and his twenty men reach the surface or was the Southern Ridge Outpost truly lost?
Hagaen’s hesitation evaporated as the first white-masked ratkin appeared on the ramparts. Hunched and as small as its waist-high brethren, its facemask glistened an unnatural white with a red mark daubed across its brow. Tensing to leap, the assassin brandished its fists that were wrapped in bandages and ties that strapped on two wicked wrist blades. With a shrill cry, Death-Kin launched itself from the rampart, floating through the air and landing in the center of the failing shield circle. Hagaen did not stay to see the soldiers crumple. He had not been paid to die.
When pressed, Hagaen’s long lope could be a full on sprint. Letting the two drawn blades swing; he pumped his legs and was out the back gate and running into the underdeep in mere strides. Going back into the Pebble Ridge, into wide-open territory, would have been suicide. There, it would have only been a matter of time before they brought him down. The far side of the outpost was as he hoped, a broken and rough wash of territory that closed down into smaller caves and tunnels running in all directions. There were many places to get lost. Or to lose someone. Only a few hundred paces away!
A snarling sound and the heavy scratch of claws barely warned Hagaen in time. Looking over his shoulder, he saw a giant rat barreling after him. The size of a small horse and covered in matted fur and blood, the monstrous creature was closing quickly. Roaring, Hagaen turned into the speeding beast, pivoting hard on his left leg. Bringing his blade across laterally, he connected solidly with the rodent’s deadly jaws, crushing its skull and turning its deadly teeth aside. The full weight of the beast slammed into Haegan and flattened him to the ground.
Head ringing, the Outlander heaved against the corpse and rolled out from under it. Stabs of pain up his left leg warned he wouldn’t run much farther now. Cursing the thirteen gods, Haegan looked behind him and saw his escape slipping through his fingers. A pack of ratkin was not far behind now. A few of the rats dropped to a knee to draw on their wicked short bows. A heavily armored ratkin warrior led the charge, brandishing a curved tulwar.
Leaving the blade stuck in the giant rat’s skull, Haegan turned and fled. The first few steps were sharp with pain and then his entire left side turned into a raging ache. An arrow shattered a few feet ahead of him on the cavern floor. He was closing on the tunnels, a hundred paces now.
The ground opened under Hagaen’s feet dramatically. The chasm’s maw had lain hidden in the gloom of the underdeep until he was running in mid-air. Legs and arms wind milling; Hagaen plummeted for a second and then collided with a protruding ledge, fifteen paces down and across a wide gap. Heaving forward into a combat roll, Hagaen took the impact as best he could. His blade skittered from his hands and blood filled his mouth as he crashed across the rocky ground. Behind him, a sickening crunch of bone and a shrill screech of pain alerted the Outlander that he was not alone on the ledge. Aching, Hagaen dragged himself to his feet. Deliberately, he drew his hammer from its furred sheathe across his back and limped to where the ratkin warrior was slumped. Its short legs had shattered in the landing, weighed down by its heavy armor. It hissed in terrible defiance until Hagaen’s hammer silenced the vermin.
A warning silence settled over the ledge, and Hagaen looked up to see the Death-Kin float across into the chasm with an alarming ease. It fell the fifteen paces, but the assassin did it with such control and grace that its descent looked like flight. Skidding into a crouched landing, the assassin chittered something at Hagaen and lunged forward in a whirlwind of steel. The rodent darted in low, too fast for Hagaen to beat him back with his hammer, and was inside the Outlanders guard. The two adversaries tangled in close combat and the ratkin’s teeth, claws, and hand blades took their toll. Hagaen stumbled back under the assault, swinging desperately but the cursed creature was too fast, too fluid. The Outlander’s big body spasmed as two long blades slid between his ribs, punching into his vitals. Roaring blood and acid pain, Hagaen heaved with his hammer, catching the Death-kin’s small form between his body and the haft of the warhammer. His eyes swimming in red, Hagaen stumbled and fell, crushing the vermin in a dying embrace. In the final throes, the two slipped over the chasm’s edge and plummeted into the gray … into the endless gray gloom of the underdeep.
No comments:
Post a Comment