Rurik's Arc

Chapter 10 of 22

The birds were dead and the slope lay open. Rurik crouched at the ridge and looked down at the sleeping camp. His warband waited behind him in the trees, scattered along the tree line. That was the trouble. Bjorn's men held one edge. Thorin held the center. The wild folk waited apart, watching, still unsure. If Rurik gave the word, each cluster would break loose at its own pace. A ragged line would spill down the slope in pieces, and the enemy would cut them apart one group at a time. "They'll charge when they see me move," Rurik said. "Not together. Scattered." Thorin knelt beside him. The old dwarf had walked out of one betrayed pass alone, and he weighed every plan like it might be his last. He looked at the tree line, then at the men strung along it. "Too many hands," he said. "They need one signal. One start." Bjorn stood behind them, arms crossed. He had ridden here on Rurik's word and a knife given in trust. "A horn," he said. "Wakes the camp too. Same as a scream." He was right. A horn would carry to every tent. Rurik pressed his fist to the cold stone. His wyrm lay curled below the ridge, spent and slow, iron scales dull in the moonlight. It could not fly. But it did not need to fly. Rurik went to it and put his hand flat on its neck. The beast lifted its head. Its one good eye caught the light like an ember. "Not a sound they hear," Rurik said. "A sound only we know." He had trained the wyrm on a low call across the glade nights. A single note, thrown up from the throat, felt more than heard. It rolled through the ground, not the air. His own men had learned to feel it in their boots. The enemy in their tents would feel nothing. "When it hums," Rurik told Thorin, "you go. All of you. One breath, one line." Thorin passed the word down the tree line, dwarf to man to wild folk, hand on shoulder, no voices. Rurik watched each cluster nod. Bjorn drew his axe and set his feet. Even the wild folk shifted forward, ready as one shape now. Rurik put his hand back on the wyrm and gave the sign. The beast opened its throat. No shriek came out. A deep note rolled through the stone, up through every boot on the ridge. Rurik felt it in his teeth. The whole line broke at once. Not clusters. One wall of shields and axes poured down the open slope together, silent until the first blade struck a tent rope. The warband hit the north edge as a single fist. The camp woke to a wall already on top of it. Rurik ran at the center, his father's blood in his arms, and for the first time the siege bent under his weight.