Chapter 7

Erak was facing a dilemma. He had agreed to fight for Morgarath, and that meant that he was honor bound to follow through. On the other hand, he and his men hadn't been paid yet. Erak had been skeptical of the plan from the beginning. In his opinion, fancy plans such as this were unreliable; take out one element and the whole thing would come collapsing down around your ears.

After the young Ranger had sabotaged the bridge, Erak had still been willing to fight for Morgarath, as there had still been a good chance that they would win and get a reasonable amount of booty. After meeting with Morgarath however, Erak wasn't so sure. They were still just as likely to win, but now he doubted that Morgarath would let him and his crew leave with anything good, or even with anything at all. There was no point putting his men at risk if they wouldn't gain anything from it.

For the past couple of days Erak and his men had been marching towards the Plains of Uthal, and he expected to arrive sometime in the next hour. When they reached the battleground, Erak would make the final decision on whether or not he and his men would fight.

"Erak."

"Yes, Svengal?" Erak had noticed that his second in command had been sneaking sidelong glances at him for the past half an hour. It seemed that he had finally decided to speak.

"We're going to leave, aren't we?" Blunt and straight to the point. Skandians weren't the type of people to beat around the bush, especially when it involved money.

Erak looked his countryman in the eyes before replying. "Probably, Svengal. I wouldn't trust Morgarath any further than I could throw him, even though I would enjoy seeing just how far that might be."

Svengal chuckled. He would enjoy seeing how far the big Jarl could throw the arrogant 'Lord' as well. The man had given him the creeps when they had met with him to hand over the boy. For the boy's sake, he hoped that Morgarath would be one of those killed in the up-coming battle; Svengal had no doubt of the torture that awaited the young Ranger Apprentice were Morgarath to survive.

"Skandians! Skandians attacking from the rear!" Calmly, King Duncan turned to address the scout. It would do no good to let the men see his shock at the words now rippling through the Araluan forces.

If there were Skandians coming out of Thorntree, then undoubtedly Halt and his men had been defeated. Duncan felt his heart give a sharp jolt at the thought of his old friend. Knowing the grim Ranger as he did, Duncan was sure that Halt would have died in the process; He never would have given up, not when he knew how much was relying on the Skandians being defeated.

Gesturing to his men to be patient, Duncan turned to study the group that had emerged from the tree cover. Perhaps the scout was wrong. Perhaps their men had just been mistaken for Skandians, after all, only the senior war council had known of the planned ambush in Thorntree.

Even from his position in the center of the army, Duncan found that he could make out the circular shields and horned helmets of the Skandians. Even the typical arrowhead formation that the Skandians were moving in gave testament to their identity.

As he studied them further, Duncan realized that there were only around 150 of them. It wasn't as bad as it could have been. If only 150 Skandians – 5 wolfship crews – were still alive, that meant that Halt and Gilan had managed to take out around half of them. Still, 150 Skandians could do a lot of damage. Heck, a mere 20 Skandians was enough to do a fair amount of damage.

Suddenly, there was movement at the edge of the forest, about 500 meters below where the Skandians had emerged. A lone rider burst from the shadows of the trees and his long green cloak marked him unmistakably as a Ranger. Anxiously, Duncan watched to see if another rider would appear and he felt his stomach sink when there was no more movement from the foreboding looking forest. The Ranger was a couple hundred meters from the trees before the Skandians spotted him, and some of them gave chase, scattering wildly after the horseman. They didn't have a chance though; the Ranger horse easily outstripped them, and the pursuing Skandians soon dropped back into the arrowhead formation as if they had never left.

"Send some men out to receive the Ranger. I want him brought directly to me." The scout turned quickly and ran back towards the rear of the army to deliver the King's orders.

In almost no time at all, Duncan could make out an exhausted looking Gilan riding through the mess of men to reach him.

"Quick, Gilan, we don't have much time. What happened? Did any of our men survive?" To Duncan's complete surprise the young Ranger merely grinned at his words and the King could only stand in stunned silence as Gilan explained what had happened in the Fens. He recovered quickly though and, making a split second decision, he turned and addressed Sir David. "Did you manage to catch all that? Can it be done?"

"Of course, Sir. It's a brilliant plan. If we don't part the men until the very last minute, then it's possible that Morgarath won't even see the cavalry until it's too late. Look at him now your majesty; he's brining all of his men forward to attack. He thinks to trap us between his Wargals and the Skandians, but since the 'Skandians' aren't a real threat, he is leaving his army completely exposed to any counterattacks that we might launch. We still have some archers and a smaller reserve cavalry unit waiting in the trees to the south, and if we were to attack him from the side…" Sir David trailed off and looked at his King and long time friend expectantly, waiting for the command to move.

Duncan grasped the concept immediately, seeing the movements and possible consequences of the troops in his mind's eye. The effects for Morgarath and his men would be devastating. "Do it." With a quick nod of acknowledgement to both Duncan and his son, the commander left to set the trap into motion.

"Lord Morgarath, the Skandians have emerged from the Fens. They are about to engage Duncan's army." Morgarath smiled. Things were going according to plan. He didn't need the bridge after all. Duncan would still be crushed, and Araluen would be his.

"Give the order. I want all units to charge." The man bowed low before he left, shouting orders and waving his fist threateningly at both men and Wargals as he went.

The Lord of Night and Rain watched as the Skandians made contact with the rear of Duncan's army with a satisfying crash, and Duncan's men turned haphazardly to face the new threat. The panicked sounds of the soldiers echoed though the air and when they realized that Morgarath's wargals were also advancing on them, the panic turned to pure chaos.

Right then, when victory was so close it was almost tangible, things started to go wrong for Morgarath. All of a sudden, Duncan's army turned as one coordinated unit to face the Wargals. The Skandian attack on the rear just melted away. It was as if it hadn't been there at all.

With a sudden burst of rage, Morgarath realized that Duncan had pulled off the impossible and stolen victory right out from under his nose. There had never been any Skandians. Someone must have defeated Horth and his men in the Fens… Halt. It had to have been. There was no one else who could have pulled off the maneuver.

As Morgarath fumed at Halt, the situation around him continued to deteriorate. The pounding of hooves drummed through the air. Cavalry. At the call of a bugle, Duncan's men split down the middle and heavy warhorses charged into his Wargals. He felt a wave of panic pass through his mind link to the ranks of his beastly army and even as he forced it down, a barrage of arrows struck his army in the left flank. Archers had emerged from the trees and were firing volley after volley into his men, devastating the ranks.

More cavalry quickly followed the appearance of the archers, and Morgarath was fast realizing that the battle was lost. "Keep fighting! Anyone who runs will die; I will hunt them down, cut their throats and leave their bodies for the crows!" With that declaration, Morgarath turned his white charger towards the Mountains of Night and Rain and fled the battlefield.

Erak and his crew had made it into the Fens without much trouble. The Wargals had ignored their progress across the battlefield after he and his men had made mincemeat of any of the beasts stupid enough to get in their way. Now, with any luck, he wouldn't come across Horth, the Oberjarl's son, or any of his men who were involved in the attack from the Fens.

It had taken him a lot longer to traverse back through the Fens to the ships than it had on the way in. They had entered a long way south from where he had the first time and he wasn't very familiar with the paths in this part. He took a wrong turn more than once, and he had even had to have Svengal pull him out of the mud when he had missed a path marker and walked straight into a sinkhole.

It wouldn't be too long now before they reached the bay where they had anchored the ships. Erak had been smelling salt in the air for the past quarter of an hour. Soon he and his men would be out on the open ocean where they belonged and helping themselves to a large flagon of ale. His men knew it too. They had stopped cursing and complaining about the Fens, and Morgarath, and the whole of Araluen in general.

However, Erak knew that the peace wouldn't last. His men would start complaining the second they cast off. They would complain about not being able to fight, about getting no profit, and about not sticking their battleaxes into Morgarath while they had the chance. Erak couldn't blame them though. He would probably be complaining as well. This entire campaign had been an unmitigated disaster and he would be glad when it was behind them.

A/N

Ok, here is CH 7! Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter and special thanks to those that sent me messages politely asking me to get a move on and get the next chapter out. This chapter is rather short, so I'll try and make the next one longer to make up for it, and for my delay in updating. (CH8 involves a destructive mourning Halt, which will be fun. *evil grin*)

I will try to keep updating as regularly as possible, and get ahead on my pre-written chapters, but I don't know how successful I'll be. My councilor says that I'm a bit depressed because I have no drive to do anything, and I haven't for a while. I want to update/do homework/study/meet up with friends, but I just can't be bothered... I finally made myself see a councilor though, so I hope that I'll get better at following through with things. Monday is my updating target and I do better when I have deadlines.

(Anyway, moving on from my random urge to share things with the internet...)

Thank you for reading this chapter and I hope that you won't give up on this story! I have tons of story ideas all noted down in my notebook, I just need to get the drive (and the time) to write them. The planning for this story is nearly 20 pages, and it's only half planned... I'm guessing this story will be around 60k+ words, at least. And that's not counting the normal version... It's on my bucket list to write more than 300k words for FFN…

Thanks to my beta Alyss Mainwaring!

Ali Ranger51