Rurik's Arc

Chapter 18 of 22

Rurik led his men west along the rim. The wyrm dragged behind them, one side stiff with its wound. He saw the flanking force below, cresting the slope for the west side. They moved fast. His men were spent, their arms heavy from a night and a dawn of fighting. If the enemy reached the open ground first, they would spread wide and charge. Eleven tired bows could not stop a charge on flat rock. "We won't beat them to the top," Thorin said. The old dwarf climbed slower than the rest now, his knees stiff under worn mail. He carried his father's axe across his back, the protection runes worn shiny by his thumb. He had walked out of one betrayed pass alone; he read ground the way other men read faces. "Open ground gives them the horses. We need a throat to choke them in." Rurik looked at the rim. He saw a narrow cut where the rock pinched, just below the crest. "There," he said. "They have to funnel through that gap. One at a time." Gunnar dropped the iron door he had carried since the ravine. The blacksmith's hands were black with soot and old blood. "Metal's tired," he said, kicking the door flat across the cut. "So am I. It'll hold once." Kjell was already on his knees in the mud past the gap. He worked fast, setting his iron traps in the dark between stones. "Five," the hunter said. "That's all I have left." He set the last jaw and stood. "Anything through the gap loses a foot." Bjorn planted himself at the mouth of the cut. He drew his axe and said nothing. Rurik's belt-knife still hung at Bjorn's hip, held as hostage against gold not yet paid. Bjorn had followed him this far without the coin. He would fight the flank first and settle debts after. The enemy hit the gap. The lead horses took the traps and screamed. Bodies piled in the narrow cut. Behind the iron door, the eleven bows loosed into the crush. Gunnar's door buckled but held. Bjorn's axe rose and fell at the mouth. The wyrm pressed low behind them and let out its subsonic hum, and Rurik's men held the line as one. The flank broke. The enemy could not spread. They could not charge. They died in the throat of the cut or turned and ran back down the slope. Rurik stood in the gap and watched them go. Then Kjell called from the rock above. "North." He pointed past the crest, off the west side entirely. "Riders. A fresh column. No banners." Rurik climbed to see. A second body of horses crossed the far ground, moving hard for the pass itself while both his horses bled here. He had beaten the flank. He had spent everything to do it. And the road home stood open behind him.