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 bridge had burnt down, 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 though, 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. 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 or so. When they reached the battleground Erak would decide 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 killed in the up-coming battle; Svengal had no doubt of what would await him if Morgarath lived.

"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.

If there were Skandians coming out of Thorntree then that would mean that Halt and his men had been defeated. 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 come out of Thorntree. Perhaps the scout was wrong. Perhaps their men had just been mistaken for Skandians.

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 more of a giveaway was the typical arrowhead formation that the Skandians were moving in.

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 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 trees and his long green cloak marked him unmistakably as a Ranger. Anxiously Duncan looked to see if another rider would appear and he felt his stomach sink when no one did. The Ranger was a couple hundred meters from the trees before the Skandians spotted him, and some of them gave chase. 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 neatly 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 Duncan'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 he made a split second decision before 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. "Do it." With a quick nod of acknowledgement to Duncan, the commander left to set the trap into motion.

"Lord Morgarath, Skandians have been spotted coming out of 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 the 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 and they turned to face this new threat. The panic of the soldiers was evident and when they realized that Morgarath's wargals were also advancing on them the panic turned to pure chaos.

It was then that things started to go wrong for Morgarath. All of a sudden, Duncan's army turned as one 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 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 the ranks of his 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 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, this is the betaed version of CH 7! Not much has changed, except now it reads a little bit easier and should be a bit better. 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.

I will try and keep updating as regularaly as possible, and get ahead on my pre-written chapters, but I don't know how successful I'll be. My counciller 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 counciller though, so hopefully 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...)

Thankyou 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 dark version... It's on my bucket list to write more than 300k words for FFN.

Ali Ranger51