Chapter 6: Advance

The Army of Dwarves and Goblins, with Giant Eagles circling effortlessly on the airwaves overhead, advanced through the sparsely populated meadows of the lands on the very edge of Man’s minor influence on the world of such varied fabulous and dangerous creatures, most of whom they had so little contact with they had assumed legendary status.

It was in the late afternoon of the first day of the Army’s advance on Man’s land that they approached a small hamlet.

“We’ll set camp here,” Korwyn directed, noting that there were streams in which to refresh themselves and wild conies and pigs in the nearby woods where there was plenty of fallen wood salvageable for lighting fires. “I will ride into the village here and talk to the Headman.”

“I’ll come with you, Sire, with a couple of my scouts,” said Captain Difaniel of the Skirmisher Scouts. “A man of some status should have an escort and it would be good for you to have someone alongside as back up. We have already seen treachery from some of your people today, I would not be happy to let you off on your own. Besides, I assume your Lady will come too and we have seen in practise that her Living Armour is becoming difficult to manage.” He smiled and risked a small chuckle at the thought.

Korwyn laughed out loud, “Indeed, The Lady Zyndyr is having problems with her thickening waist as her pregnancy reaches mid-term and her armour is reluctant to overstretch itself. I am sure it will only get worse as our campaign lengthens and she mines ever deeper into her pregnancy. Ah, here she comes now, fresh from tending to the wounded.”

“Hail, Zyn, how are the sick?”

“They are mending, husband,” she said, as she hugged and kissed him after dismounting. “When I heard we were setting camp so near to the village, I thought that you might resolve to visit them before dark and see where their loyalties lie.”

The five rode down slowly to the village while it was still light. A few villagers came out of their hovels out of curiosity, the trade with Goblins wasn’t substantial so the road was little used beyond this hamlet. Korwyn estimated the families to number about twenty. The men brandished mostly farm implements, although one older man carried an ancient double handed broadsword in his hand.

Korwyn dismounted and walked forward towards them.

“Good eventide, my friends,” he called, “it looks like the spring is coming at last but it is still cold at night.”

“True, mister,” said the older man holding the sword, resting the tip on the ground, “who are you are why are you here in such numbers, eh?”

“I am Lord Korwyn, of the Isthmus and Headland of Baldyah, son of the late Lord Hadryn and the hearty still Lady Galadriella, the grandson of King Eldryndre The Wise, and the nephew of your king Goadrik. I recently killed the infamous Black Dragon, instigator of the Battle of Hawkshart Plain, who turned a peace treaty signing into a bloodbath.”

“Aye, my Lord, I have heard of your country. I am Eoann, headman here and juryman at the County Assizes. I once briefly knew your father. When he was a young man about your age or younger he served in the Army around these parts and I trained with him, though I only joined the Militia hereabouts. We drank wine and ale together, even sowed our wild oats around here. He was a good man. As for the Black Dragon, I heard of his actions starting off the Battle of Hawkshart Plain, but I wasn’t aware the dragon was slain. However, what is your purpose coming here at the head of an Army?”

“We are here seeking justice, Headman Eoann. A second wrong was committed on that day at Hawkshart, a wrong aimed at the men than were there representing our race of people. Someone fired Elf arrows at the King, the Crown Prince, my father and me. Three arrows were fatal and I was severely wounded. We blamed the Elves for the attack on our royal family but it has been proved to me beyond doubt that the arrows were never fired by Elves. And I believe the instigator who ordered the murders was my uncle, the present king, your king.”

“And he is not your King, my Lord?” Eoann asked.

“Nay he be not my king, we have evidence to my satisfaction that he needs to be questioned about, so we are here for a reckoning, a settlement in justice. The Army behind me are here volunteered by the High Queen of Dwarves and the King of Goblins, here as an escort to persuade your king to subject himself to a Court of Enquiry. Man were not the only side at Hawkshart who lost kings, fathers and sons, the whole world want to see justice and an end to suspicion and strife. Let Goadrik disprove the accusations in the highest court of Man.”

“You could have questioned him without an invading Army behind thee, Lord Korwyn.”

“I could have, but in light of the discovery of damning evidence, I now believe that a litany of misfortunes I have suffered over the last decade have shown themselves to have been a series of assassination attempts. I can’t think of any single person who would have a reason to seek me out, and that is because after his children, the Princess and young Prince, I am third in line to inherit the throne. Before Hawkshart, Goadrik was third and I was fourth.”

“Are you after the throne for yourself, my Lord?”

“Nay, sir. I am a farmer forced by the wiping out of all the men of my generation to be a warrior. I’m no king, I’m not even a prince, my father, an honest farmer himself, gave up that title soon after I was born. If Goadrik was deposed by order of the Court, his son Prince Fantym would be king, followed by Princess Glendora, and I would never be more than third in line for a job I declare I neither seek nor want. We want no trouble here, Neadman Eoann. I would like your leave to rest here on your land overnight and move on peacefully in the morning. I hope by gentle persuasion. Ham;et by hamlet, town by town, city by city, to reach Llandoryn Castle in peace. And there ask leave for a hearing of my evidence and testimony by the chief judges of Mankind.”

“Well, my Lord, we see little of our king in these parts, but his agents are ever keen to collect the taxes on time or early. We’d barely survived this last winter before they came aknocking and took all that weren’t screwed down. There be a lot to answer for if King Goadrik is as guilty as you say. I lost my son, Hallam Longshanks at Hawkshart Plain. You can camp in yon meadows, my Lord, the water there is good and sweet, and on the morrow go on from here in peace.”

The following day they reached the first heavily Man populated place where the people there would not listen to what Korwyn had to say before the local Militia attacked the head of the column. It was a small frontier town called Svelvass, about three-quarters of a day’s march from the first hamlet. They had passed through half a dozen humble hamlets that morning, where everyone stopped working to enquire what was going on, but offered no threat to the Army. If anything, their response to calling on the king to account for the murders he committed was positive.

As what had become usual practice, Korwyn rode into the town accompanied by one of the regimental commanders and two or three comrades, which he cycled through the regiments at each place they passed through. This time he was with a Goblin Commander, Captain Mydhinjhi, two of his troopers and a Man Merk, Thomazyc, an older silver-haired experienced and respected ex-soldier, who had been a sword for hire in the employment of one of the minor Dwarf kings, and volunteered for Korwyn’s Army in Dharibia. Thomazyc had always from the outset expressed his distrust of Montoule, calling him a “bloody bandit”. Korwyn liked him, because he was calm and efficient in battle, had experience to offer in advice and had a relaxed self-deprecating attitude and good sense of humour.

They rode into town to explain who they were and why they were there, but the group were seized immediately by the Shire Reeve, with up to twenty archers aiming iron tipped arrows at them. Korwyn’s little group were relieved of their weapons, before being marched, none-too-gently, to the town lock up in the Market Square under the stilted meeting hall of the town burghers.

Then the town’s rag bag Militia attacked the Army with skirmishing tactics. All along the flanks on either side there were skirmishes by relatively untrained militia, who did little to hurt the Army.

Under Korwyn’s earlier direction, the Dwarves tried not to kill where they could avoid it. Formed into squares, the regiments managed to erect their tents before dark and prepared meals and rest overnight with sentries posted. A handful of patrols went out during the evening and found slumbering pockets of Militia, who were easily and bloodlessly taken as prisoners, leaving few Militia left standing against them by the middle of the night.

It was past the middle of the night, a couple of hours before dawn that Zyndyr, Captain Difaniel, and the Skirmisher Scouts, with weapons and boots muffled, ghosted their way unto the unfortified town in a bid to release the prisoners. Zyndyr had already swooped around the town as dusk approached, memorising the streets and locating where she assumed Korwyn would be taken.

At the same time, she had one of the Giant Eagles fly one of the Man Merks, Siggerkhynt, an eager young man untainted by anyone association with Montoule, to the other side of the town so he could be seen walking in from the direction of the cities. He was armed with a little of the coinage of the Realm of Man, furnished by Korwyn, and went to a tavern near where Zyndyr believed the prisoners were kept. He introduced himself to the boastful town gaolers, as a traveller interested in the Goblins, as he was travelling that way and had never met one before. He bought them all flagons of ale in exchange for being introduced to the captured Goblins, he said he was not interested in the Men, “They be everyday common folk who hold no interest for me, I want to see the Goblins, so that when I reaches their country in three or four days, I will be prepared and not shocked or repulsed by their appearance.”

“Yeah, They is pretty ugly, boy, and don’t get near ‘em,” advised one of the town’s gaolers, one with a mouthful of rotted teeth, whose breath smelt like a barrack latrine long overdue for filling in or abandoning. “One of the townfolk picked up one o’ they titchy Goblin swords by the handle and it burned ‘is hand somethin’ fierce.”

“Goblin magic, boy,” said another guard, trying to touch his nose while imparting this information as fact but was too far gone in ale over-indulgence to find the tip of his own nose after three or four attempts, “You takes my word for it, lad, there be bad magic and evil about tonight. Just thee wait for an’ beware o’ ... the ‘Witchin’ Hour’!”

“Anyways, young man,” the first gaoler asked, “why you be goin’ into Goblin territ’ry if’n you ain’t knowin’ anyfink about ‘em, eh?”

Siggerkhynt dropped his voice to a whisper, as if in shame, as he spun his rehearsed lie. “My late father was a cobbler, but he died when I was too young and thus I was never learned in his trade. My widowed mother had to sell his tools in trade to feed us young ‘uns. So, I worked in the fields as a day labourer, learning farm labouring and a bit of husbandry, before I joined the Militia so as I learned how to handle myself. But I need a trade, so’s I can live more comfortable in town rather than break my back daily upon the stoney ground.”

The gaolers, townees to a man, agreed that to live comfortable in town a good trade was desirable. None of them in this cohort had a good trade.

“I needs to earn enough coin to attract a comely wife, one brought up well enough to run a good tradesman’s household and bear me strong healthy children,” Siggerkhynt continued.

More nods of approval came from not just the gaolers, but those other taverners within earshot.

“My mother couldn’t afford to buy me an apprenticeship, nor do my meagre savings allow me to learn the trade in any town betwixt home and here. So I am heading for Goblinland, where they are famed for their craft leatherwork and see if I can work for scraps and observe how they work, maybe practice what I have seen on waste leather. It won’t be a recognised apprenticeship, so I could never join a town guild, but maybe set up a business working on a monthly round of villages, a day in each, repairing boots and harnesses, buying up hides and curing them, until I build up a reputation and take on apprentices of my own as a master leather worker.”

“Sounds like a good plan for an enterprising young man,” sounded another gaoler, adding, “then maybe your marriage and your cobbling’ business should ‘last’, get it, ‘last’?”

“Yeah, never heard that one before,” Siggerkhynt replied, rolling his eyes and laughing.

As the night wore on until the middle point of the night. Siggerkhynt walked with the relief gaolers back to the Market Place, taking out a leathern flask of distilled brandywine, which he offered round to his new friends to swig from, saying, “My mother gave me this to use on my journey in emergencies, to revive me when tired, warm me on cold nights through the mountains to Goblinland, and to celebrate my success. This is a time to celebrate, my friends.”