I have bowed to your wishes and made haste with this next installment. I now need to arrange another battle. I'll not say who is involved, instead I'll let this little story do the talking ...Southlands, Western Hills of the Worlds Edge MountainsThe tribesmen had easily accepted Gamouzo’s nephew, the warrior Agbeyama, as their new chief. He was the natural heir being of noble blood himself, and he was every much as ferocious as his uncle had been (even if still a little young). The last few days had allowed him to establish himself properly as someone whose orders were to be obeyed, and without question. Even Edem, the one warrior amongst them who Gamouzo had been willing to take advice from, appeared to have fallen into line.
The process had been helped by the fact that the Tassingbe warriors had been operating as scouts, independently of Prince Sadrin’s army, going several miles ahead each day and then returning to report each evening. Even at night they camped separately from the army, one of a handful of small units that formed a protective ring of watchful guard-camps around the main camp. So, apart from an hour or so in the main camp each evening, when Arabyan commanders were all about them, Agbeyama was left to command the Tassingbe alone, with no-one else telling him what to do.
Right now they were (by Agbeyama’s reckoning)about as far ahead of the army as they had yet been, having made good progress all morning. They had also moved much higher up the hills than previously too, following a track that split off from the ancient road. It was a path far more than a goat trail for it was surfaced here and there with stones, and had large flat sheets of stone lying over the umpteen rocky streams trickling down the hills. Agbeyama wanted to ascertain whether it could provide an alternative route south for the army, perhaps one more hidden from prying (
goblin) eyes? He also wanted to learn if any enemies lurked in this hills.
Nine warriors remained with him, for he had sent two of his best further ahead to scout much more quietly and secretly than all twelve could ever do. Some of the nine carried their traditional dull bronze shields, deliberately allowed to tarnish so that they would not glint in the sun or moonlight, and all were armed with the Tassingbe’s unique club-like weapon, the ‘otnebrie’, an unusual weapon that could be used in one of several ways according to how it was held and how it was unfolded.
They moved sometimes fast and sometimes slow, according to the ground they were traversing: running nimbly if there was little cover, and always towards better cover; but when among trees they moved much more carefully, ensuring that they did not carelessly reveal themselves. They were meant to be the spies, and their business was to discover enemies, not to reveal the presence of the Prince of Amon’s army to them.
As they crested one little hill, however, they learned that one of their forward scouts had not been so careful.
Bollgrid had seen such men as these at the edges of the great forest, but there was something odd about this one. For a start he was one his own, and had apparently been spying on them. Why would a tribal man be creeping about in the Dwarfen hills? Secondly there were the silver coins of Arabyan origin they had found upon him in a velvet purse. Since when did tribesmen carry small change in purses? Finally there was his dress. It was unlike any he had ever seen on tribesmen in this part of the world. He was from a long way from home.
The man would not talk, even when Bollgrid aimed his pistol squarely at him.
“Has he got a tongue?” asked little Habrodar, doing his usual hopping about from foot to foot. “They cut themselves those sort of men: scar themselves with patterns, pierce their ears, and wear bones through their flesh. That’s what I heard. Maybe he’s cut his tongue?”
“He can speak,” said Old Mathy. “I heard him curse in the desert tongue when he saw my hammer over him.”
Bollgrid cocked his head to one side, but kept the pistol aimed right at the fellow. “He spoke like the desert men, did he? Then maybe he’s one of their slaves.”
Old Mathy shook his head. “He’s too proud to be a slave. Just look at him.”
The tribesman towered above the Dwarfs, with a stern expression fixed on his face. He wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t that scared either.
“Maybe he knows something we don’t know?” suggested little Habrodar.
“Like what?” asked Bollgrid, narrowing his eyes beneath his bushy white eyebrows, and pushing back his morion helmet back a little. “What is it you know?”
Suddenly Habrodar stopped fidgeting. When the others followed his gaze they saw that they were being watched from the hill.
“Now I get it,” said Bollgrid. “You have friends with you.”
The Tassingbe warriors knew it was too late to hide. Besides, it looked to them that if they did not act soon, then one of their number was going to be killed. They counted four of the mountain dwarfs and a pony - surely not enough to cause them much trouble? But Agbeyama signalled them to stand for the moment, as he weighed up the situation. He knew little about such men, having seen only two of their kind once in the city of Amon, merchants from the cold northern lands. And even if he had learned about those two, which he had not, then who was to say that these mountain dwarfs where anything like their distant cousins? One thing he did know - his own warriors. It was Edem they had captured, and he was fearless, bold and quick in battle. It was highly likely that any moment now …
Yes! Agbeyama saw it, Edem flashed a look their way, and before Agbeyama could even order the charge, Edem’s hand lashed out to strike the pistol. The shot rang out all around the valley, frightening the birds so that several trees erupted with fluttering and squawking. Edem had not been quick enough - either that or the Dwarf had somehow known what he intended before he tried it. The Tassingbe warriors watched as his body fell heavily backwards through the red mist of his blood.
The dwarf began fiddling with his pistol, but before he could even open the pan to pour in some powder, the Tassingbe were already pelting down the hill, each one having dropped their shields so that they could run a little faster.
That evening.Prince Sadrin could not believe his eyes. When the bundle had been brought to him he thought it must contain the head of an orc, though he could not understand why it was being shown to him. When his servant unwrapped it, however, he did not even need to see the flesh to know it was no orc. A mass of white beard hair, spattered with blood, appeared, then the face. It was a dwarf.
It seemed that there were still dwarfs in these parts, perhaps still dwelling in the almost mythical hold of Karak Zorn? And his scouts had killed some of them.
Sadrin’s face drained of colour, his eyes widening. He looked at the tribesman Agbeyama, the new commander of his irregular scouts. “By the gods, what have you done?”