Chronicles of the Black Swords
Black Steel Reborn
I can smell the smoke of the burning towns. The harsh smell of the farms we put to the torch to deny the orcs forage. They burned everything else to show us their displeasure.
It was a stupid thing to do anyway. The orcs just started eating our dead. To them it doesn't much matter. Meat is meat.
I take a long pull at the leather wine skin. The bitter swill Hakum found needs to be drank up. Before it eats through the leather. Sour and vinegary it's still wine.
I can hear the cries of the orc scout they found earlier. They have been trying to make him talk ever since. I could have told them it was a waste of effort.
I saw the foul thing bite out it's own tongue when it was caught.
What do they hope to find out anyway? We were over run at the ford, driven back into these hills. There is no way out behind us. They have filled the valley below us in the thousands. Come night they will attack. If they can't kill us all tonight they will keep us pined down here till tomorrow night then finish the job.
What more do they want to know?
The only good that has come to us in the past week was when Hakum and her brothers came up out their mine tunnels and helped us get higher into the hills, to a stronger point to make a stand.
I look up to see Hakum walking up the hill.
Never seen a dwarf woman till yesterday. Must say she's cute in a stocky, surly, bearded way. If you like that type of woman.
Don't know if I do yet or not. Maybe it's the beard that's giving me pause. Though in truth it's more like long side burns in her case. Her chin and upper lip are bare of the dark yellow hair. She has a splattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks and the most beautiful blue eyes.
She looks up from the ground to see me starring at her. She gives me a lopsided grin.
"You're too tall for my taste. Like my men short with a long beard you can sink your teeth into." She tosses me a wineskin. "Here, stop drinking that elf piss."
I pull the cork out the bag and turn it up. It's like drinking liquid fire, but oh I need this burn. After a long drink I hand it back to her.
Hakum plops down her ample ass next to me.
"Got tired of watching them try to make a mute orc talk?" I ask as I try to hold down the belly full of hot coals I just drank.
She chuckles.
"Given what they do to my people when they catch one of us I could watch that for hours. No I traded a dagger I pulled off one of those scouts for that skin of fire brandy. I owe you for my brother's life. Thought I would come pay off that dept before you die tonight."
I can't help but laugh. Not that I disagree with her.
"I was in the right place at the right time. Just glad I was." I watch her take a long pull of the brandy. I see the little droplets sparking in her beard, like morning dew on wheat.
Her eyes shift to me as she drinks and I see that lopsided grin comes back as she hands me the wineskin.
"Like what you see then? Like short hairy women do you?" She gives my shoulder a friendly slap. Thank god for my armor! "Well if we live the night out I might even give you a taste of Dwarven honey."
I stop as I raise the skin again. The orc's screaming is cut off with a wet gurgle. Then silence.
Hakum spits on a nearby rock.
"About time. He was starting to make my head hurt." She reaches into her pants and gives herself a hard scratch.
I lower the skin after taking only a small sip.
"You and your brothers staying the night?" Part of me hopes so. Part of me wants her safe. I chuckle at the idea. She's by far deadlier than I am with a blade.
"Can't let you humans have all the fun. We're going to take a stand near the opening of our mine. When things go bad we'll fall back. If they want to chase us down into there... well lets say then the real fun begins... for them." I see her eyes go hard and focus down the hill. Following her gaze I see Lord Drake coming up the path.
One of the kings chosen. A Dreadlord they call them. After yesterday I know why. In the end he was all they held the foot of the pass while we retreated higher. Even from here I can feel that sickening feeling his sword brings.
A hell blade.
I've heard the legends, didn't really give them belief till I saw him cleave through an orc like he was made of cloth.
The black armored form comes to a stop before me. I look up at dark hollow eyes.
"You two shouldn't be drinking." He looks like he might reach for the skin so I hand it to Hakum. She takes it and just to piss him off take another sip.
I hear a gleeful sound from his scabbard...from the sword. Like a maniac laughing in a nut house. I know there isn't any sound for my ears to hear. I'm hearing this inside my skull.
His eyes look holes in her for a second then turn to me.
"If you're sober enough to stand, go down to the barrier. They are coming soon."
He walks away heading up the hill. I shudder as the feeling of his sword leaves me.
"My people should never have forged those damn things." She says looking after him.
"Dwarves made them? Never heard that before." I look back at her blue eyes. In the growing dusk they glow like blue coals.
She nods.
"We were tricked. Told one thing, then a lie within a lie. We wanted to believe we were doing good. The king was a good man then. He was trying to do what was right for your race. But now..."
I nod. The king had found a taste for power and he liked the taste too well.
I'm about to get up when I feel her hand on my shoulder armor. I turn towards her.
I feel her thick fingers slip into the front of my armor just under my throat. I'm pulled to her with a strength I couldn't begin to defy.
Her lips are hot and moist against mine. Her breath tastes of brandy. I feel her hand come up to caress the side of my face.
I smell a heavy musk from her fingers. I realize it's from when she scratched herself.
She pushes me from her lips.
"Go. Kill orcs. Live." Her word are harsh, I can hear the emotions underneath.
I get up slowly; I turn to look at her. Maybe it's because I might not live through the night but the beard just doesn't mater all that much.
"Do the same. When things... get bad, get your brothers back into the mine. Give em hell." I turn and head down the hill.
"Hey!"
I look back at her.
"You don't kiss too bad for a beardless human." She grins at me.
I grin back.
"Hope I survive. I want to take you up on that offer of some honey."
She laughs
"I said might."
My left eye is swollen shut till I can't see from it. I feel like I'm never going to get a full breath again. A mace has the side of my armor caved in. I look around me in the light of the fires.
I'm in good shape compared to most around me. All of us are bathed in blood, some our own. I feel the bite of at least a half dozen small wounds. The arrow I pulled from my side by far the worst.
Only Lord Drake stands undamaged. Like a rock, nay a column of black steel he has been. The anchor point of our line. Twice we've been overborne and had to fall back. Twice he has been all that held the rear as all others fled up the hill. We stand now with out backs to our camp. To fall back now will leave the wounded to the gentle mercies of the orcs.
I look down the hill. They seem to be in even greater numbers now that at the start of the night. I see our bon fires bathing their green skin in a hellish light.
Down bellow I see they have some of our fallen comrades. They are impaled on long poles.
Roasting over the fires.
Then I hear the scream. I look down to see them pulling someone from the piles of dead. He screams in pain. In fear. I hear their hideous laughter filling the valley below.
I shiver as Lord Drake steps up beside me.
"He's beyond arrow range. I would put a shaft into his heart if I could." He tells me. I nod. I can see the long lines of orc archers looking up at us grinning. Their bows have ours by a good dozen yards. To try to get a man close enough to shoot is suicide.
I see the orcs strip the man out of his armor. I watch unable to do anything as an orc with a mace break both of the man's arms. His screams are drowned out in the orc's laughter.
"What are they doing?" asks a pike man next to us.
I see them drag the man to a bolder and drape him over it. I see a large orc, one of their champion's, step up behind the man.
I realize a second before the man screams out.
A rage starts to build in me as I watch the orc hunching his brutish body behind the man.
The orcs are laughing.
I feel Lord Drakes hand grab my shoulder as I start forward.
"There is nothing you can do. You would be dead long before you could reach him." The Dreadlord watches as the orcs defile his warrior before the whole of our force. First the champion, then another and another. Then man's screams become whimpers, then a silence that I hope means he's dead.
He's not.
I feel Lord Drake's hand holding me back when the orc with a glowing hot spear steps up behind the man.
His scream as the fiery blade enters his violated bowels if hideous. Mainly... because it continues on for so very long.
I turn away as they carry his still twitching body to one of the bon fires.
"Avenge him. That's all any of us can do." I hear the grin voice behind me say.
"Even you?" I ask harshly.
"Even Dreadlords can die. Against such numbers as this, yes even I." He turns and walks up the hill. "Rest if you can. They will come as soon as they finish their feast."
I wake in the dark. I only know I'm awake because of the pain. I didn't hurt till I woke.
I tighten my fingers around my sword hilt. It pleases me to at least still have it. I try to sit up, but strong fingers push me back down.
"Lay down." Says a deep voice. I tighten my fingers around my sword hilt . I won't die like the man I saw. "Rest easy. You're among friends."
There is a spark of light. Like a shooting star in the pitch blackness. Then a candle is lit. I see a bearded face. I relax as I recognize the dwarf whose life I saved. He grins down at me.
"You're a mess long shanks. Here this'll help."
A wineskin is put to my lips. I only just get a whiff before the fiery stuff in flowing into my smoke burned throat.
I choke and cough but manage to keep it down.
