The men gasped, and I was amused to note that a couple of the ones
between me and Hroldir exchanged nervous glances and discretely stepped out
of the line of fire.
“What’s going on?” I said sharply. “Where’s Captain Rain?”
There were grim looks at that.
“He’s fucked up bad, sir wizard,” Rolf explained. “A felwolf bit half his
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arm off, and then the damned giant stepped on him. One of the boys got a rope
around the arm, and maybe you could save him if you had time. But he’s got so
much shit broken he’ll die for sure if we try to move him, and if we don’t get
our asses in gear here we’re all goners.”
I frowned, and took Cerise’s offered hand to pull myself to my feet.
“What’s the hurry?”
I glanced around, noting that there were a lot fewer people in the camp
than there had been yesterday. The remaining villagers were all huddled in a
miserable-looking mass next to the one intact wagon, along with a handful of
soldiers. A few people were tending the wounded or policing the camp, and I
caught a flash of Avilla’s blonde mane atop one of the dead wolves. But most
of them were just huddled under their blankets looking terrified.
Then I realized the sun was up. It must have risen while I was healing
myself, but I was sure that hadn’t taken more than a half hour or so. I felt a
prickle of disquiet as I realized the attack had come during what the military
calls ‘morning nautical twilight’ - the same timing modern special forces
groups prefer for surprise attacks. It might just be a coincidence, but I suddenly
had a bad feeling about the general competence level of those giants.
Rolf’s response didn’t help.
“The stories all say giants live in big tribes, just like human barbarians.
You saw what one frost giant and his pet wolves did to us, sir. There’s no way
we can fight a whole squad of his buddies at once.”
“Or a frost drake,” one of the men put in. “Some of them are supposed to
have those too.”
Rolf nodded. “Yeah. If we keep on like we have been we’re all going to
die. We’ve got to drop the dead weight and make straight for Lanrest. It’s only
twenty-five miles, we can be there by midmorning tomorrow if we make a
forced march of it.”
I frowned. “So you’re just abandoning the civilians?”
He shrugged. “No way they can keep up. If we bring them they’ll just end
up strung out all down the road like a big monster buffet. That’d be like a giant
sign behind us pointing out where we are. But it looked like you and your girls
can keep up, so you’re welcome to come with us.”
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I was so shocked I just stared at him for a moment. Apparently Captain
Rain really had been the only thing holding this unit together.
“Shall I go tell Avilla to skip the wolf steaks, master?” Cerise asked
quietly.
My gaze flicked automatically to Avilla, as I realized that’s what she was
doing with the wolf corpse. Then it fell to the hopeless mass of peasants, and
the handful of soldiers left to guard them.
“No,” I said firmly. “These cowards can abandon their comrades and
their honor if they want, but we aren’t going to. Show me to the wounded.”
A growl of anger went up from the mob of deserters, and hands went to
weapons. I called up a force bubble, and let it bleed a haze of shimmering blue
sparkles into the frigid air.
“Try it. There won’t be enough left of you to bury.”
Rolf raised his hand. “Easy, boys! We didn’t come over here to pick a
fight with no wizard. If he wants to be a damned fool and die that’s his
business. Let’s move.”
I waited until they were well out of reach, and then spun and stalked
towards the survivors. Cerise trotted along behind me.
“Are you sure that was the right move, Daniel?” She asked quietly. “I’d
feel kind of bad about leaving these people, but I don’t want to die for them
either. It’s not like we owe them anything.”
“They’re human beings,” I said shortly. “I’m not leaving anyone to die as
long as I have a choice about it. Avilla! Can you make enough of that for
everyone?”
The pretty blonde started at my call, and smiled down at me. “If that’s
what you want, master. There’s certainly more meat on these beasts than we
can hope to eat. But it will take time.”
Something in the sky behind her caught my attention. There were dark
clouds rolling down from the north, much closer than the ones we’d seen
yesterday. It was far too cold for rain, so that meant more snow. Possibly even
a blizzard. Lovely.
“That’s fine,” I told her after a moment. “I’ll need an hour or two to
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stabilize the wounded before we can move, and we won’t be going very far.”
She nodded, and returned to butchering the giant beast.
I found Sergeant Thomas talking quietly with the men that were left, which
was something of a relief. Trying to organize this group by myself would have
been quite a challenge.
“Sergeant,” I nodded. “Glad to see you made it.”
He took in my appearance, and shook his head. “You look like hell, sir
wizard. I take it you’re staying, then?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I can’t see abandoning all these people. How bad is it?”
He lowered his voice a bit. “We’re pretty fucked, sir. We lost a lot of
men in that battle, either dead or run off into the woods. We’ve only eight men
fit to fight, there’s thirty or so refugees left that didn’t die or run off, and those
felwolves scattered all the animals. We’ve got a dozen wounded too bad to
walk on their own, and no way to pull the only wagon that isn’t smashed. Even
if we leave them behind the rest of this bunch’ll be lucky to make five or six
miles a day, and I don’t see us going more than a day or two without another
attack.”
I frowned. “I was afraid of that. Well, it looks like there’s a blizzard
coming in, and even if the cold doesn’t bother frost giants I doubt they can see
through falling snow. So we’re going to collect what supplies we can and hole
up maybe half a mile from here, just far enough that no one’s likely to find us
before the weather clears. You collect supplies and get everyone organized
while I do what I can to keep the wounded from dying on us. When we find a
good spot I’ll work some magic to make a shelter and keep it warm.”
He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Sounds like a plan, sir. Any chance
you can save the Captain?”
“I’ll try, Thomas. Just show me where he is.”
Captain Rain was a grisly sight. Apparently he’d been popular with the
refugees, because a few of the peasant women had gotten a little fire going next
to him and were carefully tending his wounds when we arrived. But most of
his right arm was missing, and there were bubbles of blood on his lips.
One of the women looked up, and hope blossomed on her face.
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“Lord wizard!” She said pleadingly. “Are you here to save him?”
“I’m going to try,” I told her. I knelt next to him, and laid a hand on his
forehead to feel out his injuries.
It was bad. His chest had been crushed by the giant, and the broken ribs
had punctured both lungs. They were filling with blood, which he had precious
little of left after losing the arm. Frostbite was already setting in on his feet,