The trolls have broken through. They clamber down the stairs, roaring in triumph, until one of them eats a bolt right in the eye. It takes barely a minute for our forces to overwhelm them without so much as a scratch, their thick hides no match for our iron. But something leaves me uneasy. There were only four of them. I've seen goblin armies before. A contingent of trolls always comes in groups of ten or more, and I only saw a small handful getting caught in the cage traps. Where are the rest of them?
Plenty of time to worry about that later. For now, I return to my viewport. Seems the lads downstairs have woken up. The bridges are down, with a veritable heap of cursing goblins nursing bruises or exposed fractures. Crisis averted, I suppose. But I'm still having a word with those two once the siege is lifted and I've had a drink.
Some of the goblins are having themselves a heated argument. It goes on for some time, with voices getting louder and hands moving to weapon hilts, before some of the greenskins - the majority, in fact - turn away from their army and make a break for the desert. The siege is not yet lifted, however. One squad of goblins remains, and as soon as the bridges come back on, they ascend the ramp again. The whole ordeal kind of makes me wonder about dwarven stubbornness.
Since there are no archers left among them, I tell the marksdwarves to hit the turrets. The goblins come under heavy fire immediately. Some get injured, others dodge off the bridges, other still break into a dead run, trying to reach the end of the archways as quickly as they can. Before they are even at the final bend, the bridges go down again, and down they plummet. They stare at each other, nod in silent agreement. Then they run off. I order the gatehouse bridge to lower.
That didn't go well. One of the lads, antsy to spill goblin blood, went running after the axegoblins. Grumbling, I tell the rest of the squad to move up and protect their idiot friend. Didn't do him much good. The goblin he was chasing decided that he wasn't a complete coward after all and turned to fight. By the time the lads could get to him and rip him to shreds, their hasty idiot friend was dead, skull split by an axe. His own damnfool fault. Two of the lads took injuries of their own in avenging him, thus preventing the enemy from getting any idea of regrouping at great cost to themselves.
But that was the end of it. The siege was lifted. But where were the trolls?
I take a moment to think on it. Trolls don't rout. They carry on or they die. But a number of them had gone missing. That meant either they'd found a fortress pet to harass, or found something to break. But the goblin attack had begun after the pets had been slain, and there wasn't anything for them to demolish outside the fortress. Except....
Oh dear gods.
Our search party doesn't make in time to prevent the break-in. We arrive to find the wooden doors shattered to splinters, Lenehan's desiccated corpse splayed on the ground, the trolls hammering away at Chancebraid the Late Hero, the artifact weapon rack that the elf party leader had tucked into his resting place. They bellow in fury, striking the marble to no effect. Dwarven artifacts do not break easily.
We dispatch them without a hassle, but end up painting Lenehan's tomb a lovely shade of cyan in the process. On our way back to the gatehouse, a scout informs me that the invaders are all either gone or caught in cages. That should give us a plentiful supply of live targets for the marksdwarves.
Corley is waiting for me on the depot, rubbing soot from his hands, an unlit cigarette caught between his lips. I had called for him before we left to dispatch the trolls. He needed to know what happened. Lying or hiding the truth wouldn't do me any good."I'm sorry lad. The trolls broke into your father's tomb and dug up his body."
I was never one for formalities. "I'm willing to repair the damage done and lay him to rest properly again, but as the executor of his estate, it's up to you to decide what to do."
"Don't look so surprised. I may have not particularly liked your father or his ways, but that doesn't mean he deserves this. Come see me in my office when you decide how to proceed."
Emdief walks at my side as I make my way to the barracks. We take a detour through the armory. I hand him a mongoose leather quiver with glass decoration, a glass flask, and a stack of copper bolts. The backpack will have to wait until our leatherworker gets off his lazy ass and makes some."Try to understand, lad,"
I tell him. "Signing you up for the marksdwarves would be a mistake. Those lads train year round, leaving no time for civilian work. It would be a waste of your formidable mind."
"However, it did give me an idea. Way back when I was on active duty - far before you were born - we had this thing in the army called an engineering corps. It was basically a squad of engineers with armor and crossbow training. The idea was that we could carry around engineers on campaign without having to devote too much dwarfpower to keeping them safe. They would do their jobs, and open fire on anything that got in the way of them doing it.
"During peace time, the old general died and got himself replaced by some duke's son who thought he knew the business end of a hammer."
It just bloody well had to be nobles. "At some point in the ensuing logistics clusterfuck, we lost the engineering corps and nobody bothered reinstating them.
"Until now."
We pass the cramped drill yard and go through the door to the archery range. I turn to Emdief."As of now, the engineering corps is reinstated. For now, it's just Steelholds engineers, serving under Unib Eshtanakmesh. She proved to have a decent mind for military discipline, so I got her learning basic military strategy under Captain Deler of the Mighty Cudgel-Roads. She decided to name the squad the Decisions of Creation. Fitting, wouldn't you say?"
I lead him toward the open passageway at the far end of the range. "However, there is one thing you must understand. You in particular, lad, because I'm certain you've a better head on your shoulders than the rest of the squad."
My face hardens, as does my tone. "If you're going to be in a squad, you have to be capable of killing, and of following orders. Without that, the moment you enter a dangerous situation, you will freeze up or take a stupid risk, endangering yourself and your brothers in arms. We are not yet at a point where machinery can replace soldiers, and there are precious few of us as it is, so we have to cover each other's asses. If you're not willing, I can't sign you up. Your brilliance would be best put to use elsewhere."
Emdief follows me through the passage, into a chamber he has never seen in action. A pit takes up the entire center of the room, with a single pillar jutting out from its center, ending at floor level. Atop the pillar, bound and manacled, is a goblin. A pikeman from the previous siege, who had been left to rot in her cage for over a year. She hissed at me, then at Emdief. She spat vile curses in the hideous language of goblins, struggling in futility against the heft of the iron chains holding her down. If she did manage to dislodge the chain, she would just tumble into the pit anyways.
I turn to Emdief. "Kill her. Kill her, and you're in. I understand if you're not particularly willing. It's coward's work,"
I sigh, "but wars are won on wits and discipline first, courage second.
"So kill."
Melek lifts her head from her suturing work when I enter the hospital. She looks tired. The dwarf she's working on is one of the marksdwarves, who decided to venture up to the battlements at the wrong time and got turned into a pincushion for his troubles. He is conscious, groaning into a pile of cloth stuffed into his mouth to keep him from biting his own tongue. Two other beds are taken by militia dwarves, still armored. Asmoth stands at the corner of the room, head tilted to one side, a tray of medical supplies in her hands. She nods in approval as her daughter goes back to work with excellent precision, but I can tell from her eyes that the 'good' doctor's mind is somewhere far from here."Consider yourself lucky, Ilral",
I tell the soldier. "If those goblins had any kind of training, you'd be in a coffin."
I turn to the young doctor, in a far gentler tone. "What's the damage?"
"Several puncture wounds, "
she tells me, businesslike, "including one in the intestines. I'm doing what I can, and Moisturizer is making more soap. He'll get better, but he won't walk right again."
This doesn't seem to faze Ilral that much. I guess he already heard the news."Thank you for the hard work, lass. I won't distract you any longer. Come meet me in my office when you're done."
I excuse myself and walk away, back toward the barracks. Her being a clever dwarf, she probably suspects what I'm calling the meeting for. I was going to ask about her mother's notes. I'd be gentle about it, certainly, but I needed the information now more than ever. Her mother's sick experiments aside, the woman had been brilliant in her time. I needed to figure out if she had anything to do with the Elf Plague, and if there was still some of it laying around. She will probably lie about it. But if she does, I'll know it.
My thoughts turn back to Lenehan, Melek's first cousin and Corley's father. The masked dwarf had said something about him becoming a - what was the word he used? A host? I can't help but wonder what that means, more so now that the tomb has been desecrated. And I doubt the masked one will tell me. He has his own agenda, and it's important enough that he handed control of Steelhold to me in order to focus on it. Then there's the fractaldwarf. Another mystery. He likes to act like an ineffectual basket case, but there is far more to this dwarf than meets the eye.
Isn't there anybody in this Armok-forsaken place that can tell me shit about magic?
OOCI discovered some fun things today. For example. Melek is married, and has two kids. She's carrying one around right now.
Also. Emdief is married. To Derroth. As in, Derroth the Royal Pervert. They have two kids.
Make of this what you will, both of you. You don't have to let it become part of their lives.
Author
Topic: The Insidious Sons of Steelhold -- Revival Succession Fortress (Read 282246 times)