50
Fletcher turned his healing spell on his own cheek, then staggered through the corpses to the injured, ignoring the gremlins as they dismounted nearby. He kneeled beside Dalia, white light pulsing through his finger to heal her wound, wiping away the jagged puncture as if pouring clear water over a stain of red paint.
Rotherham reformed the surviving soldiers in a circle, wary of more enemies. Only Rory and Genevieve were spared, collapsing to the ground beside him so they could help with the healing.
‘I’ve barely any mana left,’ Genevieve said, her hands shaking with nerves.
‘Just do what you can,’ Fletcher croaked, his throat suddenly hoarse with thirst.
It was tough work, and his own mana reserve was draining far faster than he would have liked. The worst injured were healed first, though Fletcher’s heart twisted as he passed over a dwarf who had died before they could get to him, his green uniform red with blood from the two spears that had passed through his chest.
Others had broken arms and fractured skulls, which Fletcher could not heal for fear of fusing the bone and causing permanent disfigurement. When Genevieve and Rory ran out of mana, they did what they could to splint broken limbs with strips of cloth and broken spear hafts, but the wounded soldiers would not be fighting any time soon.
‘What’s the butcher’s bill?’ Fletcher called, as he healed the last man of a deep gash in his thigh. Sir Caulder stomped from the ring of soldiers surrounding the three battlemages and kneeled.
‘Four dead,’ he said. ‘A dwarf, two men and an elf. Then there’s a young lad with a dented head and two more with broken limbs.’
Fletcher closed his eyes. How had this happened?
‘Easy there, lad,’ Sir Caulder said, his voice low in Fletcher’s ear. ‘We did well. There were almost two hundred of the blighters. It could’ve been a lot worse. Trust me, I’ve seen it.’
Fletcher nodded, but could not help but let a tear trickle down his cheek, mixing with the blood that still caked his face. They had done well, but good men and women had died. Was it his fault, for taking them so close to the jungle’s edge? And who knew how many more would have been lost if it weren’t for the sudden appearance of the gremlins? He ran a hand over his eyelids, unwilling to get to his feet just yet. A sudden exhaustion had taken hold of him.
‘About our rescuers – looks like one of ’em wants to talk to you.’ Sir Caulder jerked a thumb over his shoulder.
Fletcher sighed and struggled to his feet, making his way out of the ring of soldiers. As he did so, he pushed down the muskets that the men held pointed at the gremlins, and forced an encouraging smile. After so many years of regarding gremlins as enemies, he could hardly blame them for their apprehension, especially given the similarities in appearance between their race and the goblin species. He had felt the same way not so long ago.
There were as many as forty gremlins wandering the field, stabbing the hundreds of enemy corpses to make sure they were dead. It was brutal to look at, but the occasional squeal revealed that at least a few goblins had been faking, though driven more by animal instinct than cunning – Fletcher knew from experience that goblins were barely smarter than a jungle chimp, incapable of complex language or intelligent thought.
One gremlin stood ahead of all the others, its hands on its hips, legs spread akimbo. Fletcher recognised it instantly, from the tattered stump of an ear on the side of its head. It was Half-ear, one of the gremlin leaders he had met at the Warren during their mission.
‘What are you doing here?’ Fletcher asked, hunkering down so that he was more level with the short-statured gremlin.
Half-ear crossed his arms and spat derisively. Clearly, the choice to aid them had not been his. Instead, the gremlin pointed over his shoulder, towards the edge of the jungle. Fletcher gaped at what he saw there.
There were hundreds of gremlins, blinking in the sunlight as they emerged from the undergrowth. Females, elders, children, most carrying bundles of food, tools and weapons on their backs. Beside them, a multitude of animals walked, and not just maras. Tiny jerboa could be seen, held on leashes of grass twine, appearing like mice with over-large ears and long, skinny hind legs that made them hop like a kangaroo. Bandicoots dragged infant-laden sleds, sniffing the ground ahead of them with their shrew-like noses. There were even lumbering, pot-bellied wombats being used as beasts of burden, carrying baskets of fruit and dried fish on their backs and looking for all the world like miniature bears.
But despite the procession of beasts and gremlins, Fletcher’s eyes were fixed on the figure at their head, one that he recognised even from all the way across the field. Blue.
The gremlin was riding a fossa, a creature that might have been the love child of a cat and a ferret, padding sinuously over the grass with feline grace.
Seeing Fletcher, Blue dug his heels back, sending the animal racing towards him. He halted just in front of Fletcher, a wide grin spread across his frog-like face, the large, bulbous eyes filled with joy.
‘We is meeting again, Fletcher,’ Blue said, jumping down from his mount to stand beside Half-ear. ‘You is lucky, I think.’
‘Lucky is an understatement,’ Fletcher said forcing a smile, in spite of the dead bodies of his troops so close by.
‘I is hoping you is well?’ Blue asked, shuffling his feet nervously. Behind him, the masses of gremlins had slowed, yet still more were emerging from the jungle. Now there were at least a thousand, and the muskets behind Fletcher were slowly rising again. It was not the time for small talk.
‘Blue, let’s dispense with the niceties, eh?’ Fletcher said, lowering his voice so the men couldn’t hear. ‘What are you doing here? Where’s Mother?’
At the sound of the orc matriarch’s name, Blue’s ears flattened, and his large eyes filled with tears.
‘Dead. The orcs is killing her,’ Blue said, his whispery voice quavering, as if on the verge of a sob. Even Half-ear looked away, his usually hate-filled face a picture of misery.
‘They is on the move,’ Blue said, pointing into the jungle. ‘They is attacking all our Warrens at once, filling them with smoke and sending down hyenas. They is hunting us to extinction.’
‘Even the slaves?’ Fletcher asked, horrified.
‘They is killing them. Some escape,’ Blue fluted, twisting his webbed fingers as he spoke. ‘Not many.’
‘Why?’ Fletcher asked, hardly able to believe the madness of it all. ‘Orcs have been keeping gremlins as slaves for thousands of years.’
‘Because Khan is saying that they will have human slaves soon. No more need for gremlins.’
Blue was speaking more quickly now, spurred on by the approach of the band of refugees behind him.
‘There is an invasion happening, now,’ Blue said, his voice low and urgent. ‘Thousands and thousands of orcs is attacking the front lines. All of their tribes is fighting together. It is the battle to end all battles.’
He pointed east, past the mountains, where the southern border of Hominum lay. Was that the distant booming of cannons he heard? Or just the echo of the wind?
‘Heaven help them,’ Fletcher murmured. ‘I have to warn—’
‘It is being too late,’ Blue interrupted, shaking his head sadly. ‘It has already begun.’
Fletcher chewed his lip, considering the news. He could be at the battle within the hour if he flew.
Even as the thought crossed his mind, he looked at Ignatius, who had dragged himself a short way from the battlefield and curled up in a patch of thick grass. The Drake was half asleep, but the horror of their near deaths was still simmering in the demon’s mind. Could he fly Ignatius into danger once again, so soon after they had barely escaped with their lives?
‘So the cassowary riders – they were hunting you down?’ Fletcher asked, as the first, timid refugees slunk past him, parting like a branching river around the small band of Foxes.
‘No,’ Blue said, looking over his shoulder once again. For the first time, Fletcher realised he was not looking at the other gremlins, but at the jungle behind them.
‘The orcs is attacking in two armies. Orcs to the east. Goblins to the west … here.’ Blue opened his arms, then crooked them towards each other. ‘It is … how you say? Pincer movement.’
‘So that was it, right?’ Fletcher asked, feeling a cold lump of apprehension hit the pit of his stomach. ‘We just killed them.’
Blue shook his head, his ears flattening once again.
‘That was the vanguard, the scouts. There is more coming on foot. Maybe an hour behind,’ Blue explained.
‘How many?’ Fletcher asked, looking back at his exhausted, bloodstained soldiers.
Blue said nothing, instead mounting his Fossa again and stroking the silky fur of its head.
‘I asked how many?’ Fletcher snapped again, the apprehension morphing into abject fear. Blue closed his eyes, and answered with one, brutal word.
‘Thousands.’