The Butcher of Gadobhra

Chapter 555: Northguard Still Stands

Despite the daily assaults by Winter forces, Northguard still stood, the ragged banner of Baron Pinchpenny flying above the main keep. (And to be honest, it had been ragged before the war. Thread is expensive!)

The Legion outpost that had shared a wall with the keep was gone, destroyed early in the war. All of the soldiers had been killed by Winter soldiers or fled into the wilderness to try and make it to safety to Rowan Keep. Only two made it, the rest were eaten by wolves. Taking shelter in Baron Pinchpenny's keep was not an option for them. Not if they wished to keep their souls, that lesson had been learned early, after their officers went to talk to the Baron and never returned. Two dozen blank eyed Legion soldiers still patrolled his keep, guarding against assassins. The Baron was a frugal man, hating to see good souls wasted in battle. One morning, as Winter scaled the walls, they found no one left inside the Legions part of the fortress. Assuming the remaining soldiers were inside the Baron's keep (correct) the attack was shifted to the dilapidated walls where they expected a quick victory. (Incorrect.) This began the second phase of the siege of Northguard, a much longer and more frustrating campaign for Jarl Cragstone as he tried to deliver the victory he had promised General Glacia.

Surrounding the keep, and at his disposal, were units of Rime Knights, barbarian tribes, prowling wolves, and an endless horde of the Frozen Dead. It was a frustrating battle for Winter, complicated by many factors they didn't fully understand at first. They had a better idea of what they faced now, but that brought no solution, only dread. Too many times Cragstone had ordered assaults on the walls, only to see his warriors repulsed. Like the Frozen Dead, their foes seemed to be endlessly reborn to fight again. Worse, some of the people they had to fight were known to them. No man wishes to come face to face with a friend or brother turned into a soulless husk and fighting against him.

The Frozen Dead were beyond that fear, and would have welcomed a final death, but in this battle their numbers and strengths couldn't be brought to bear. The walls of the keep were higher now than at the start of the siege. Every stone from the destroyed Legion keep had been carried away in the night by creatures who could lift tons. The Frozen Dead would climb the ladders and ramps made by the few Ice Wizards in the besieging force, only to be met by uncaring men and women armed with primitive weapons who cared as little for dying as the Dead themselves. They pushed the Frozen Dead from the walls and crushed skulls with iron adze. Those that were killed returned to fight the next day, sometimes against the same frozen warriors they'd faced before. And any damage done to the walls was quickly repaired with a speed that demoralized their foes. Rumors ran rampantly through the winter army that the Baron had made a deal for the undying creatures who worked and fought all day, returning at dawn to fight again.

The barbarian tribes feared the walls the way the dead did not, and even the Rime Knights were uneager to join in the assaults. A warrior of legend defended the keep, a man who wielded a sword that the Knights feared. It hummed as he waded into them, slaughtering them by the handful. If the sword seemed gleeful of the carnage, Sir Huck wasn't. To him, this was just a job, reaping the lives of the attackers the way he might weed a garden or fix a fence. When the Knights managed to make a beachhead, he was there, pushing them back, severing heads, and plugging the holes in the defenses.

Only if things seemed dire did Baron Pinchpenny appear to turn the tide. Waves of black tendrils reached out to the invaders, devouring souls and turning their husks into more defenders. And the dead listened to him, breaking off their attacks to stand mindlessly on the ground, staring up at the keep. The Ice Wizards would try to command the dead, only to be blocked by the superior magic of Necromancy that they knew little about. Killing the Baron would have been the end of the siege, and many times, assassins had been dropped from the sky by giant owls in attempts to end the Baron's life. Their blank-eyed husks would join the defense the next day.

The wolves were useless of course, and the Beastmasters refused to send their few Snarlfangs up the walls. One had been reaped by the Baron and sent back in the night, killing five of the Beastmasters and a dozen Rime Knights before it was brought down.

Day by day, the Winter forces gained no victory, only a mounting casualty list, and a growing unease among the barbarians that led to desertion. What should have been a quick victory over an incompetent Baron who spent his days cataloguing bugs had become a morass that slowed the advance of the main army and caused General Glacia to snarl at the messengers as new reports came in. She couldn't afford to leave a fortress controlled by the enemy along her lines of supply, and needed a large force of warriors there in case the Emperor sent a relief force from Rowan Keep. It was tying down her forces, when she needed every man, woman, or beast at the front to push forward to the city of Wolfsburg where she could force the imperial forces to stand and fight.

On the advice of the book, she called for Jarl Cragstone to journey to the front of the war so she could scream at him and tell him how incompetent he was. It was the best way to get the most work from a minion, the book had advised. She'd always suspected this, but with the books words in her head, she could see the truth of it so quickly. And she'd grown bored yelling at her other advisers and commanders. Deciding it was time to address her commanders, she sent messages winging their way to all of them, drawing them to her palace atop one of the Wooly Mumakil. Three more messages went North. Some of Winter's champions had declined to march with her. She made new offers with promises of rich loot and and ownership of these new lands. As fate would have it, they all arrived on the morning after one of the Mumakil drawing the supply sledges had broken free and rampaged through the army. An inauspicious beginning to her conclave.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

It was snowing hard as Cragstone approached the Winter army and began winding his way through the camps, stopping now and then to talk to other Jarls and take their opinions. He didn't rule the tribes, but he had standing with many, and he wouldn't keep that if he ignored the opinions and knowledge of the other Jarls. Those opinions were mixed. The campaign was going well as they moved steadily south, but the tribes were seeing either no battles, or being used poorly. Several tribes had been sent on missions to hit small villages or scout for the enemy forces, only to disappear. Sometimes the bodies were found, but many times they simply didn't return. The chaos of the night before was seen as a bad omen. No one was comfortable with the Hungry Ones nearby. Glacia's lack of control over them had led to the death of an entire tribe, the crew of the mumakil, and a third of the army's supplies. The insatiable appetites of the ogres meant they would camp on the mound of food until there was nothing left, and only killing them would stop their feast. With meat in short supply, the tribes began hunting the wolves and eating them. The wolves were responding by doing the same with the tribes, and anything less than a dozen humans was seen as prey. Cragstone was one of the exceptions, not fearing a pack of wolves anymore than he would fear a dozen tribesmen. A fight might even be enjoyable, but it would delay him, and that might cause him trouble. Maybe on the way back he would stray to close to the animals.

Cragstone had seen this before. Glacia lacked the experience to know the limits of her troops and how to use them. She saw taking land as a victory, and was focused on the city, not the army that danced around them and caused delay after delay. Worse, no one dared to tell her she was wrong. The Jarls were urging him to do just that, but the Winter Council had always held themselves above the tribes and the chance she would listen was next to nothing. But to influence her, he needed to know her plans, and to get those, he needed a spy who could bypass her magical wards and find those plans. He had such a spy, hovering above him, hidden in the storm, ready to alert him to threats. They'd be only too happy to do something like spying on Glacia. Of course, if they were caught, he would be dead by tomorrow morning after a long night of torture. He made his decision and whistled once while walking through an open area, away from the camps

The flap of leathery wings announced his spies' arrival. A large, white-furred bat landed heavily in the snow in front of him and tumbled along the ground. Landings had never been Tambat's strongpoint and the snow played hell with her ability to 'see' things. Standing up on her short, clawed legs, the bat was only a foot tall. Huge for a bat, small for anything else. The bat looked around feverishly, then waddled over to her first landing spot and dug in the snow. "I lost my hat!!!" Cragstone saw the edge of the hat and handed it to her, then watched as she struggled to get the large, blue witches' hat on her head.

"Better! Need my hat! Best Hat!"

He grinned at the sight. "You know, if you took my suggestion of adding a chin strap, it wouldn't come off so much."

"I can manage, chinstraps are for losers! My ears hold it on except for bad landings."

"And all your landings are bad."

"Snow sucks! Hard to see down here. But what's up, boss? You whistled the important mission whistle."

He sighed, knowing there was a good chance this would backfire. "I have to attend a conclave. Glacia is in charge of the army."

"WOW! Someone put that bitch in charge of something? What a maroon. What an imbecile. Did she kill all the smart people? That girl is a dozen stoats shy of a boogle. I'd say not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she's a spoon, and a bent one at that. She's so dumb...have I told you how dumb she is?"

"Yes, often."

"Good! Then you have the background to understand this little story...it all started when the idiot saw her father's Ice Staff and decided she wanted to be a powerful wizard...

"Enough! Please?! I'll agree to listen to your stories about her as we ride back to Northguard. But first, I need you to wait until she leaves for the conclave, then get into her private rooms and find her plans for the war. Letters as well, read everything. I need to know what her strategy is, who she is talking to, and any other piece of information you can gather. You can't be seen, and you can't be caught. Can you do it?"

The bat began to spin in circles, yelling "Wheeeee!" Then stopped suddenly, lost her balance, and sat down in the snow. "Ok. Let me get this straight. After not letting me get near her for years, you want me to get into her inner sanctum and find out her secrets? Ohboyohboy! Yeah, I can do that. She thinks I'm dead, and never changed her spell parameters. Piece of cake. Oh, speaking of cake, you owe me a cake. A big cake."

"Yes. A big cake. But only if you don't get caught."

"Got it. Trust me, boss, no one will know I was there." The bat saluted and flew off into the storm.

Cragstone began walking again. This either worked, or it didn't. But the only chance of the tribe's surviving was in knowing what the twisted woman in charge of this war was planning to do. Hopefully, Tambat could follow orders this time, and get in and out, unseen.

High above the camp, winging her way to the mumakil that carried Glacia's small palace, the bat was in high spirits. "Find secrets, I can do that. Then I'm dumping all her lingerie and slinky dresses overboard, and pooping on her pillow. This is going to be great!"