The Western Sea - Part 9
He hadn't intended to fall asleep, but the sholog's firebolt attack had weakened him more than he'd realised and the next thing he knew was a banging on the door and sunlight streaming in through narrow gaps in the shutters covering the only window. He felt a moment of panic at the thought that he was about to be discovered and clutched his sword tightly in trembling hands. "Get outta bed, Kashlak!" a harsh voice shouted. "Rise and shine!" To his relief, however, the sholog just walked off, chuckling to itself, and he assumed that it was common for the sholog wizard to rise late. He looked across at the decapitated head, now covered with flies. Today he'd be rising very late indeed.
More time went by and nothing else happened. Out of boredom he opened the sholog's spell chest and glanced through the sheets of paper, frowning at them in bafflement. The spells were totally incomprehensible to him, and the bizarre lettering seemed to writhe and squirm as he looked at it, almost as though it didn't want to be read. A few minutes trying to focus on a large, particularly elaborate, gothic looking letter accomplished nothing but a headache, so he gave up and put them all back in the box, locking it with the key he found around the neck of the dead sholog. He chucked the chest into a corner, into a pile of dirty rags, but then changed his mind, picked it up and tucked it into his shirt. The wizards might want it, he thought, and even if they didn't, he could probably sell it to someone who did. Magic always fetches money.
The sound of shologs moving around outside died down a little as they all got into their dull, daily routine, and most of them left the village to go and beat up a few nomes, so he decided to risk searching the hut to see if he could find anything valuable. After rummaging around for a few minutes he'd found a pearl necklace, a couple of gold armlets, a few rings, a gold, jewel encrusted tankard, and a brooch sporting a small sapphire. Thomas'll like that, he thought. He likes blue things. To the victor, the spoils, after all. He wondered where the great boxes and chests full of treasure that Kerrinott had mentioned were kept. He suspected that he'd made them up, to encourage the sailors to fight, but if they existed they would probably be in the chieftain's hut. He hoped they did exist, because if they didn't the sailors would probably be angry and might take it out on the nomes.
He froze suddenly as footsteps approached, and stopped outside the hut. "Isn't Kashlak up yet?" demanded a big, angry sounding sholog. "What in the name o' Hell is he up ta?"
"Studyin' ‘is spells, I betcha" said another. "Ya know what he's like."
"Yeah, skulkin' away in there, readin' his fancy books n' acting all high n' mighty while the rest of us do all the hard work. Well, I'm gonna get ‘im outta there an' get ‘im ter bend his back for a change!"
"I wouldn't if I were you," said the other. "Remember what he did ter Snogrot."
There was a slight pause before the first sholog spoke again. "Yeah, well, one day he's gonna get what's comin' to him, that's fer sure."
He already has, thought Shaun, smiling in relief as he heard them moving away. His relief was short lived, however. A commotion broke out outside as shologs ran about in a frenzy, shouting and yelling. He strained to hear what they were saying.
"Ambush! Ambush!" one of them was shouting. "They jumped us from both sides, dozens of ‘em! They killed all a Klakbat's boys an' mosta mine! We just managed ter make it back ter warn yer!"
"Ya spineless weaklings!" screamed a second, much louder voice. "How dare ya run from nome ratmen! If ya weren't man enough ter slaughter ‘em, ya shooda stayed an' died like shologs! How dare ya run! You've shamed us in the sight o' mighty Skorvos! I should kill ya here an' now!"
"They wasn't just nomes," pleaded the first voice. "There were humans wiv ‘em."
"Humans!" bellowed the second voice.
"Yeah! If we hadn't run we would've died there! No more killing fer us, no more glory ta Skorvos!"
"How many humans?"
"Lots! At least firty, maybe more!"
Shaun exulted. It was only a matter of time now and this island would be free of the shologs once more. The attack had begun.
"Fetch Kashlak," said the second sholog. "The time's come fer ‘im to earn ‘is keep!"
Here we go, thought Shaun. Drawing his sword, he stood next to the door, ready to kill the first sholog who entered.
The first sholog, anxious to redeem himself, almost flew to the wizard's hut and hammered on the door. "Kashlak! Get outta there, quick! We're under attack by humans!" Shaun kept quiet and waited. "Kashlak!" called the sholog again.
"Outta the way, let me." said another sholog, the one that had complained about the wizard's laziness earlier. A second later, a hefty kick took the door off its hinges and sent it crashing across the room. The sholog rushed in and Shaun, grunting with the pain of his burned chest, swung his sword, slicing his belly open. He jumped out, killing the other sholog before he could react, and ran off before anyone else saw him. He just managed to cross the distance to the next hut and dive through the door before anyone noticed the deaths.
Soon the cry went up. "Kashlak's dead! The wizard's dead!" The whole village erupted in fury and outrage.
"Search the village! Find the murderer!" cried out the chieftain. Before the command could be carried out, though, the lookouts on the wall called out that an army of nomes and humans had emerged from the forest and was surrounding them.
It was all happening too fast, one thing after another, and the shologs, faced with real enemies at last, were close to a complete breakdown of discipline, longing to throw the gate open and run joyfully out to do battle in a disordered melee. That would lead to their certain deaths, though, and the chieftain wasn't going to just stand by and watch his tribe disintegrate around him. Using all the considerable force of his personality, shouting with his commanding voice and knocking their heads together, he managed to calm them down until they were able to think and act in a rational manner again. Then, with the eyes of twenty five shologs on him, he walked calmly over to the wall, climbed up to the observation platform, and looked out at the army that had gathered to destroy them.
Almost every nome on the island was out there, male and female, young and old. Hundreds of them, wielding a variety of makeshift weapons from modified farm tools to bows and arrows. Among them were between forty and fifty humans armed with swords, sabres and scimitars, waving their weapons and shouting eagerly for the shologs to come out and fight. Mustn't forget the assassin hidden somewhere in here, too, he thought. The situation was clearly hopeless, but rather than feeling fear he felt a great sense of exhilaration. For five years they'd been stuck here with only puny nomes to beat up. Now, at last, they had a worthy adversary. The fact that they would be slaughtered meant nothing to him. To a sholog, fighting was everything. Their whole lives were dedicated to combat and warfare, and the greatest ambition any sholog ever aspired to was to die fighting with a pile of dead enemies under his feet.
Climbing down, he faced his men. "The enemy outnumber us ten ter one," he called. "They're waitin' fer us ta come out n' fight ‘em. Are we gonna stay here ‘n wait fer ‘em ter come fer us?"
"NO!" shouted the shologs in unison. This was something they could understand. They forgot about cowardly ambushes and skulking assassins and fixed their minds on the coming battle. A growl of excitement and anticipation rose from twenty five throats. Shaun heard it and his blood ran cold, wondering just how uneven the odds really were.
"We are gonna go out there ‘n show ‘em just what it means ter cross the shologs! We are all gonna get killed, but we are gonna make ‘em PAY! Before the last of us falls, we are gonna make such an end that Lord Skorvos ‘imself'll sit up n' take notice, so impressed that maybe he'll raise us up ‘n take us inta the black tribe! Though we die today, the name of the Yellowknife tribe will live on forever!"
"YEAHHHH!" shouted the shologs, in a great resounding cry that carried all the way to the attackers gathered outside, sending shivers down their spines and making not a few of them wonder whether it had been such a good idea to come after all.
The chieftain took down the crossbar from across the village gates and threw them open. "Then let's get ‘em!" he cried. He drew his scimitar and gave a blood curdling battle cry, echoed by the others gathered behind them. He roared again, and this time his voice and that of his tribe merged together to form a single, terrifying sound that made humans and nomes glance nervously at each other, as if to make sure they were still there.
The Sholog chieftain roared a third time, and this time he ran towards the enemies gathered outside, followed by every other sholog in the encampment. They all ran in the same direction, and the hapless humans standing in their way fell back in fear, unnerved by the fury and bloodlust of the creatures charging at them. Several men broke and ran, but many of them had fought shologs before and knew that their best hope was to stand firm and face their enemy. They gathered their faltering courage, therefore, and raised their swords, ready to meet the charge.
Shaun heard them leave the village and the sounds of battle begin, and he emerged from his hiding place to do his part. Reaching the village gates, he saw that the shologs had gone through the first ranks of nomes and humans like a knife through butter. Overconfident after the ease with which they had ambushed and massacred the sholog patrols earlier, the good guys were totally unprepared for the berserk fury of a sholog tribe that had had time to work themselves up to a battle frenzy and were fighting, not for victory, but for a place in the God of Conquest's black army in the afterlife. This was when they were at their most dangerous, as their enemies throughout history had learned to their great cost.
Shaun watched in dismay as between twenty and thirty nomes broke ranks and ran, fleeing the battlefield. He could hardly blame them, since nomes were hardly the greatest warriors in the world, but each loss made the task of those remaining all the greater. Realising he'd been standing and watching for too long, he ran towards the nearest sholog and drew his sword.
The human sailors and those nomes that remained fell back in dismay as the shologs tore into them, killing an enemy with every stroke of their scimitars. Seeing the humans waver and fearing they were about to retreat back to their ship, Kerrinott drew himself to his full height and shouted in his high pitched squeaky voice. "Nomes! Remember how the hated shologs have tortured and abused us for five long years! Now is the time when we pay them back for every broken bone and drop of spilled blood! Let's get ‘em!" So saying, he ran forward, brandishing the long dagger he'd taken from a sholog killed in the ambush, and plunged it into the thigh of the nearest sholog, making it bellow in rage and distracting it long enough for the human sailor he was fighting to run it through.
Emboldened by his example, the other nomes ran forward and attacked also, fearful at first, but soon with more and more confidence and courage as the battle lust took hold of them, along with the memory of every abuse and humiliation they had suffered. Each sholog found himself surrounded by half a dozen nomes, stabbing, clubbing and chopping with whatever crude weapon they happened to have, and although dozens of them fell, one by one the shologs were dragged down by sheer weight of numbers and hacked to pieces. The humans found themselves pushed to one side and left out as the fury of the nomes spent itself mercilessly.
Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: Truyen247.Pro