Sons of Ironstorm - Book 1: Griffon's Rise

Chapter 12: Retribution

"And they waged almighty War, blade to blade,

One great foe man against another, mind to mind.

Their spilled blood was a river, a gushing Torrent,

Flowing into the sea of Death."

- From Tusk, 'Musings of a Madman' 

Filled with nervous energy, Tas Vegadorn jerkily paced in the plain issue tent he had claimed as his own as the sounds of battle now echoed all around it. Never a handsome man, the short, thick-bodied general was now perspiring heavily, his florid face covered with a thick sheen of moisture to add a new dimension to his ugliness. His uniform in rebel colors, was soaked with it, the stink of fear heavy on him. Like many rebels, he had participated in the cleansing the Usurper had foisted upon the quada and he was very well aware of what mayhem they were capable of, a reason they attacked non-combatants for the most part. Now, unfortunately, they faced the harden cream of the centaur military and he could hear his rebel soldiers dying in the droves. It was only a matter of time before he fell under the weight of one of those dark centaur gazes.

A scream just outside the tent wall jerked Vegadorn to a halt as he started wildly, staring at the place where he imagined the sound to have come from. Perhaps his death was closer than he originally thought. Before he could think more on it, a tall, weather-beaten colonel in rebel colors burst into the tent, naked sword in hand. Twisting in surprise and fright, Vegadorn relaxed only slightly when he recognized the officer as he bent over, gasping for air, his face flushed with the effort to reach the tent unharmed.

"Tale, you feckless son of a whore! Where have you been? I've got quada all over me and in any shade they'll be stamping in here and finishing me off!" the short, lumpy-faced general snarled, hiding his naked fear with a rush of anger.

In response Tale quickly held up a restraining hand from his bent-over position to bring his commanding officer to a verbal halt.

"All is not yet lost, sir," he began in a gravelly voice, still somewhat breathless from his mad dash across the battlefield where rebels were dying by the dozens, no match for the enraged centaurs.

"What do you mean, you fool? The quada, ..." Vegadorn stammered back into voice at the colonel's husked words. Only to be interrupted by yet another forestalling hand.

"I mean, sir, we may still have a chance of getting out of this fiasco with our lives," Tale curtly explained, straightening up as he finally recovered the last of his wind. "Captain Urd stopped some peasants trying to flee the village and we found three of the Ironstorm children with them. We might still be able to use them to bargain with the quada commander."

"Do it!" Vegadorn screamed, clutching desperately at any chance to live. "Bring them to me and raise a flag of parlay at once!"

"Yes, sir." Tale saluted and then the leather-faced colonel was gone, leaving an anxious Vegadorn in his wake, wringing pudgy hands as he considered what he could say to the quada to force them to cease hostilities.

The blocky general was still staring out the tent door after the vanished Tale when, with a soft 'whirr', an arrow streaked through the opening to bury itself in the fat man's chest. The impact instantly stealing his strength, Vegadorn fell back with a muffled cry to thrash on the tent's carpeted floor, trying the reach the dark-fletched shaft protruding from his chest. It was in his efforts to take hold of the shaft that he noticed it was no quadan crossbow bolt, or long-shafted quadan arrow.