“Until you are nigh upon the swamp itself, the plain is firm, Sieur Emile.”
“Good. Did you”-Emile waited as the heavens roared-“or the Wolves see or sense any foe?”
“Non. All was quiet but for the storm above, though there yet falls no rain.”
“I have not seen skies like this ere now,” said Roel.
The others chimed their agreement.
All commanders and armsmasters and warband leaders were gathered to plan the morrow, assuming they could draw Orbane’s forces out onto the plain.
After giving her report, Michelle withdrew, for with no scouting to be done, or at least no scouting that she and the Wolves might accomplish, she felt her role would be that of one of the archers. Laurent would tell her where to be in the fight to come.
And even as the planners sat in council, Chelle and the Wolves went back to the crest of the slope, and they watched as lightning flared to illuminate the land below. Finally, Michelle turned to go back into the encampment, yet a flow of movement caught the corner of her eye. At the next lightning flare she saw a great blot of darkness moving down the starwise slopes toward the swamp. Again lightning stuttered across the sky, and this time she could see that it was a great throng of Goblins, perhaps as many as ten or twelve thousand. And then the leading edge of the swarm reached the swamp and slowly the mire engulfed them.
She and another of the warders standing atop the ridge took this news to Sieur Emile and his commanders. Emile sighed and said, “It’s just more we have to face.”
“Pah!” snorted Laurent. “Goblins? We’ll make short shrift of them.”
Luc looked at the eldest of Emile’s get and slowly shook his head.
And the planning went on, and they argued on how best to draw Orbane’s forces out.
Little did they know that even then Bolok and an army forty thousand strong, soon to be fifty thousand, force-marched for the edge of the swamp to do battle with them.
Clash
During the flashes in the night the allied warders discerned movement against the black wall of swamp lying some two leagues away, yet what this stirring might portend, they could not clearly see. They notified Sieur Emile, and he in turn sounded the alert and called the brigade commanders to him. And as the army stood armed and armored and ready, they met to consider what to do. And none did note when Michelle and the Wolves slipped away from the encampment, not even the sentries on duty, so stealthy were she and the pack. Nor did they note when Michelle and the Wolves returned, slipping unseen through the line. They made their way to the war council and reported what they had seen, and the commanders, after a moment of disconcertment that she had done such a foolhardy thing, then did pay close heed.
“I drew nigh enough to see by the lightning that Goblins and Bogles and Trolls and Serpentines are gathering on the edge of the mire. Thousands upon thousands of them; I did not get an accurate count.”
“Did it seem they were preparing to mount an attack in the dark?” asked Bailen.
“I think not,” said Michelle, “for many lay down to rest or to sleep.”
“Nevertheless,” said Emile, “we must make ready should they come.”
“I and my Wolves will take a forward station,” said Michelle,
“and should the foe-”
An uproar drowned out her words.
“Non, I forbid it!” snapped Emile. “Going as you did was foolish enough, but I’ll not-”
“My lord, who else?” asked Michelle. “Who else has the skills to slip unheard and unseen through the darkness but me?
And who other than the members of my pack can scent danger as it comes?”
Laurent shook his head and spat a low oath, but Luc said,
“Send the Wolves, Princess, but you stay nigh the top of the ridge, and should the foe begin movement this way have the pack bring word, and we will meet them on the downside of the slope and attack from the high ground.” Michelle’s eyes narrowed, but she then gave thought, and finally she said, “Well and good.”
. .
After a sleepless night, dawn came late under the dark roiling sky with its lightning and thunder and churn. But when the glimmer of dim day finally made its overdue appearance, arrayed in a long arc out on the plain before the way into the swamp stood Orbane’s throng.
“My lord,” said Armsmaster Vardon, “it appears we are outnumbered five or six to one.”
“Oui,” replied Emile, though at the moment the count of the enemy did not overly concern him. Instead, he surveyed their deployment, noting the disposition of the foe, and strategy and tactics tumbled through his mind.
Finally, he said, “I need an accurate estimate of the numbers and kinds of the foe. And call for the brigade commanders to join me, for I would confer with them.”
. .
Orbane swallowed a vial of the potion Hradian had made at his instructions. It was an elixir of protection she had concocted once long ago for her and her sisters and Orbane. It was the time they had, as a test, denuded a small realm of all plant and animal life, much to the dismay of an impervious rocklike creature high on a mountainside.
Hradian, too, drank a vial of the elixir, for this was the day when Orbane would raise the putrescence.
Under the dark and raging skies they stood on the flet of Hradian’s cote, and Orbane peered into the turgid murk below.
“Lend me your power, Acolyte,” he demanded.
“Oui, my lord,” said Hradian, even as she in turn added Crapaud’s power to her own.
And Orbane began to whisper and gesture down at the slime-laden waters, and a thin tendril of bilious vapor rose up through the ooze and the water and began to blossom, spreading outward, gaining in volume, the tendril becoming a cord and then a rope and then more, and the swamp water whirled and gurgled, turbulent eddies spinning away. Faster and faster spewed the yellow-green gaseous upsurge, vomiting forth from the swamp under-bottom. And it began spreading wide as it bellowed out.
And the leaves on nearby trees drooped, and hummocky grasses sagged. And Orbane continued his sibilant whispering, as from a churning vortex the putrescence erupted.
. .
“Why do they not attack?” asked Laurent.
“I deem they wait for us to make the first move,” replied Luc. “Likely they plan a trap.”
Standing beside Luc, Emile nodded and said, “Note how they are arrayed: Goblins with Goblins, Bogles with Bogles, Trolls with Trolls, and mounted Serpentines on the right flank.”
“ ’Tis their cavalry, Sieur Emile, these Serpentines,” said Leon.
“Mithras,” said Blaise, “but there must be two hundred Trolls there in the center of the line.”
The commanders stood on the ridge and surveyed the enemy standing two leagues away. They were joined this day by Michelle, for as Emile had said, “I will not have you running off willy-nilly without my express command.” And so, disgruntled, she sat to one side listening, with Slate and the others flopped down nearby.
“How many heavy crossbows have we altogether?” asked Bailen, adding, “I have in my brigade twenty.” Emile frowned and said, “I have a total of twenty-five.” Petain glanced at Georges and said, “Between us, we have ten.”
“That adds up to fifty-five heavy crossbows,” said Roel, “not enough to slay two hundred Trolls in one volley. Of course, can they get off four shots apiece, and if each is a kill then it is more than enough. Yet that is an unlikely scenario, given the time it takes to cock and reload and loose, and the Trolls will not be standing still.”
Leon glanced at Luc and said, “Then, after the first barrage, I think it’s up to my knights to deal with the Trolls, even as the heavy crossbows are made ready for a second volley.”
“Whoa, now,” said Blaise, “that means your fifty knights will be outnumbered by the Trolls at a minimum some three to one, at least until more are brought down by the crossbows.”
