As the sun sank lower behind the hill and it grew too dark to see, Theros’s thoughts turned inward.
What is going on inside of me? I am an honorable man. I should never have agreed to take this job, no matter how much money it paid. Moorgoth has men whipped almost to death if they commit the smallest infraction. He murdered those poor women, when it would have been just as easy to take them prisoner. He destroyed my forge, and instead of killing him, as any minotaur would have done, I came along with him! I took his blood money!
Admit it, Theros, he thought ruefully, you wanted to be back with a fighting unit. You wanted the thrill of battle, the glory of the kill. Glory! He blew air through his nose. We’re nothing more than uniformed, organized bandits.
Theros shook his head, stared down at the ground. And how do I explain today? How do I explain the way I treated Yuri? I can’t. And this isn’t the first time. He was right, that day he yelled at me. I treat him like a slave. And I know how it feels, to be treated like a slave.
Sargas take me! What do I do? I have accepted Moorgoth’s money. We have a contract. It would be dishonorable to leave his army. Dangerous, too, Theros thought. Undoubtedly, he would think I was the spy. Yet I see no honor in staying. What do I do?
Theros raised his eyes to the heavens. “Sargas, give me a sign. Give me direction. That’s all I ask. I’ll take care of the rest.”
Theros watched and waited, thinking that he might see the gigantic black bird with the fiery wings that had come to him before, No sign came, but perhaps now was not the time.
Feeling more at ease now that he had shared his burden with Sargas, Theros stood up and walked back down the hill. Undoubtedly, someone would be looking for him by now, wanting the answer to some fool question.
He wondered how Moorgoth’s army was doing.
Chapter 21
The army hiding in the forest waited for over an hour with no news. The wait was unnerving. Nothing could be seen in the town. Nothing could be seen in the fields surrounding the town. Nothing.
A soldier crept through the underbrush to the baron’s side. “Sir, no sign of anything,” he whispered. “The scouts have seen no sign of the enemy.”
Moorgoth nodded and the soldier crept back into the underbrush, back to his place farther up the line. They continued to wait.
Suddenly, from their front, came a rumbling sound, rolling from the town and growing louder. Moorgoth rose to his feet and looked into the town. He pulled a spyglass from a pouch on his belt, and put it to his eye.
Smoke was rising. Flames flickered on the far side of the town. The smoke was obscuring his vision, but the baron could make out individual buildings and the roads between them. He kept his eye on the main road that led into the town.
The next sound he heard was that of horses, galloping through the streets. He couldn’t see them yet, but he knew the sound of hooves thudding against hard ground.
A flash of steel. Another flash. Moorgoth moved the spyglass, followed the road down, and focused on two riders.
They were his men.
The baron put the glass down. He could now see the two clearly, galloping up the road. Behind them, he could see more horses thundering out of the town. He brought the glass up again. Yes, he recognized the maroon uniforms. They were his cavalry.
In a sharp voice, he yelled orders back to a runner.
“Those are our cavalry. Tell Captain Jamaar to hold his squadrons behind the forest until I call for them by bugle. Tell him to send me word of how he did. Understand?”
The young man nodded and was off into the woods at a run.
The first two riders galloped into the woods. Once out of sight of the town, the two riders dismounted. The runner raced forward to confer with the two. One of the riders remounted, just in time to lead the rest of the cavalry through the woods to the rear. The other rider returned with the runner to Baron Moorgoth’s position.
“Good day, sir. It was a fine fight, but a tough one,” the officer called.
“Lieutenant Boromus, isn’t it? You are second in command of the light cavalry. Am I right?” Moorgoth asked the young officer.
“Yes, sir, I am.”
“Did you achieve your objectives?”
The officer shook his head. “Not all objectives, sir. We rode into the center of the town. The town guard gave us a fight at first, but they weren’t organized. We threw them off. You were right, sir. There is a spy in our midst.” The soldier was grim. “They were waiting for us.”
“Damn!” Moorgoth swore softly.
“When we beat back the town guard, we began rounding up the civilians, marched them into the central marketplace.” The officer paused.
“Go on,” urged the baron.
“There were more civilians than we thought and they were ready for a fight. They fought like devils from the Abyss, sir. At one point, they dragged one of Captain Jamaar’s heavy cavalrymen from his saddle and beat him to death. We pushed the people back, but there was a lot of bloodshed.
“The town guard regrouped and charged us on the west side of the town square, attacking us from the rear. They killed at least four and wounded four more before we could manage to turn around and make the battle more even.”
Moorgoth could see that the man was nearly exhausted. “Go ahead, drink some water.” He offered the cavalry officer his waterskin.
“Thank you, sir.” Boromus took a drink. “Once we’d whipped the town guard, we dismounted and held the horses on the east side of the town, ready for us to pull out, according to plan. We thought we had the civilians all penned up, but a bunch must have been hiding. They must have sneaked through the buildings, instead of going out in the streets where we could have seen them. They killed the guards we had set over the horses, and then cut the animals loose. We stopped them, but we lost a lot of men and mounts and supplies.”
“What happened next?” the baron asked, frowning.
“We fought on, both against the civilians in the square and the guard. We held on until midafternoon, as you had ordered. Then, we ran as fast as we could from that hornet’s nest. Sir, I can tell you, I’m looking forward to razing that cesspool of a town. I’ll …”
Moorgoth let the man rant. He could see that Boromus was cracking from the strain. He needed to let off steam. The baron waited patiently until the man had calmed down.
“You said that you had not achieved all of the objectives,” Moorgoth continued. “Your only objective was to have the calvary cause trouble in the town until midafternoon. It sounds as if you did that well enough.”
“Sir, I didn’t think it was in your orders to lose half of the cavalry! Half, sir. Half are dead. What you saw riding out of the town is it-around fifty of us. There were some wounded, but they’re surely dead now.”
Moorgoth looked down at the ground. Again he swore silently. He swore vengeance for his men. The town would pay.
“You did well. You held on, and that’s what counts. Go back to your captain.”
The officer looked at him in tight-lipped anger and despair. “Sir-” he began, but he couldn’t continue.
Moorgoth understood.
“Your captain is dead, right? You’re in command now. Is that right?”
The young officer nodded.
“Very well, you shall have the rank to go with it. You are now Captain Boromus. I wish it were under better circumstances. The fighting for the day is not yet over. Get your men fed and rested. I may call upon you again. Coordinate with Captain Jamaar. Go back to your unit.”
The man nodded, but did not salute. He crawled back through the underbrush to his horse. Mounting, he slowly made his way back to his troops.
Moorgoth shook his head. Half? Over half! Over half of his cavalry was gone. The cost alone was crippling, but the loss of good soldiers was worse. Those had been some of the finest mercenaries ever to come his way.