Anderson, Kevin J - Gamearth 01 (34 page)

The wind stopped, but the great ogre said nothing. His bulky iron crown held the pyramid-shaped Air Stone, gleaming with transparent power. The ogre had grown even larger than Delrael remembered him.

Gairoth took a step forward with an ominous slow confidence, and even the ground seemed to shake. His big bare feet dug into the ground of the training area. The low sunlight of the afternoon shaded him, casting odd shadows on the gnarled muscles of his arms. He carried his club like an uprooted tree, ready to smash an entire forest.

When Gairoth emerged into the direct light, Delrael could see his skin was dry and peeling in places. All the ogres looked dejected and uncomfortable. The cultivated land around the Stronghold was much different from their festering swamp terrain. The air held less moisture, the ground was firm, the insects were not as persistent. Gairoth did not look to be in good spirits.

A cold look of hatred poured over the ogre's face. "Delroth!" He smashed his club on the ground.

Delrael pulled his bow off his shoulder in a flowing motion. It fit nicely into his hands. He nocked an arrow. "Leave the Stronghold now, Gairoth.

Enough games
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we have important things to do."

"We'll call our dragon back!" Bryl said from a safe distance. He removed the Water Stone from where he had hidden it in his sleeve. The half-Sorcerer wrapped his fist around the sapphire, turning his knuckles white and letting a misty blue glow seep between them. It made him feel strong. He was a different person now than when Gairoth had tormented him before. "If I don't get you first."

Bryl's voice became shrill with anger and hatred. Delrael remembered what the ogre had done to the half-Sorcerer in the swamps, feeding him to the giant jellyfish in the cesspool, forcing him to teach how to use the precious Air Stone.

Gairoth turned to stare at him, then his single eye gleamed with excitement. He fumbled with the Air Stone in his crown and pulled down the diamond shaped like a four-sided die.

"More shiny rocks! Do more tricks, Magic Man!" The ogre stumbled forward, panting in his eagerness to snatch at the sapphire.

"This is the Water Stone, Gairoth! More powerful even than the Air Stone you possess."

The ogre slapped his thigh, leaving a wide red mark on his flaking skin. "Haw! Haw!"

Bryl spoke without his edge of confidence. "I warn you
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I am more than half Sorcerer. You are a corrupted bastard child born from a Sorcerer father and a stupid ugly ogre mother!"

Gairoth snarled at him. "You be nice to Maw! She loves Gairoth! Maw be mad if you say nasty things about her!"

Bryl squeezed the Water Stone, making it glow a brilliant, blinding blue. Then he rolled it on the ground. "Come on
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give me a three or better!"

The face glowing "3" gleamed on top.

Above them, a massive cloud curdled in the air like black milk. A rip of angry thunder buffeted their ears as a bolt of blue lightning lanced to the ground, blasting in front of Gairoth's feet. The sand turned to slag, and some of the wood shavings burst into flame. Gairoth howled and lurched backward.

All the other ogres jumped in simultaneous surprise, though the lightning had not struck near them.

"Give me the Air Stone, Gairoth. Now!" The thunder head still rumbled over them. "Take your mob of ogres and leave here! Give me the Stone, and I'll let you leave unharmed. But hurry, before I lose my temper!"

Bryl snatched up the sapphire, sliding his fingertips over the facets as if they were covered with oil. Two more bolts of lightning crashed down on each side of the ogre.

With a roar of fury, Gairoth flung the Air Stone on the ground. It bounced once into the air then dropped to the mulched tannery refuse. He also rolled a "3".

"Haw!" Gairoth snatched up the Stone and popped it back into the setting of his iron crown. He raised the spiked club over his head, gripping it with both hands, then he smashed it down on the ground.

As the club struck, the Air Stone gleamed like milky ice. Gairoth split into two identical ogres, each mirroring the other. With another roar, both ogres
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one real, one illusion
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brought their clubs down, splitting a second time and doubling their numbers. Four Gairoths, then eight, then sixteen.

"Haw! Haw!" all sixteen ogres bellowed, echoing their laughter from sixteen throats. The rest of the ogre army stood motionless, watching.

Delrael fidgeted, gripping his bow. Then he remembered how ineffective arrows had been when Tarne and the other villagers tried to defend the Stronghold against the invading ogres. Bryl scowled, bringing his eyebrows together. "You're not any stronger, Gairoth. Those are just illusions. Except one."

The mirrored ogres echoed their response. "But you needs to find the
right
Gairoth! Haw!"

Bryl had only three spells left.

Delrael pulled his bowstring tight and shot an arrow at one of the Gairoths, and the shaft passed through the illusion to strike against the far wall of the Stronghold stockade. He rapidly fired a second arrow, exposing another false ogre. "I can find the real one, Bryl
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all I have to do is hit him. You watch, and then do your stuff!" He bent to fire a third shot.

But the other three dozen ogres let out a battle cry and charged at Delrael, waving their gnarled clubs, spears, and massive swords. Delrael was startled but he ignored them for a moment more, firing a fourth arrow, striking one more imaginary Gairoth.

Delrael turned to face the oncoming ogres. He tried to back closer to the Stronghold wall, casting quick glances behind him to make sure he did not stumble. One of the broken stumps of the wooden sword posts got in his way, but he sidestepped it. He nocked an arrow and shot it at one of the approaching ogres. The shaft plunged into the monster's chest, but the ogre snapped it off with barely a grimace. The ogre batted away Delrael's second arrow as well. Delrael reached back into his quiver. He had only a handful of arrows left.

Bryl blasted right and left with lightning bolts, searching for the real Gairoth, but then the thundercloud dissolved and the spell was over. The illusion ogres milled about, making it difficult for him to remember which ones had already been exposed.

"Haw! Haw!" Gairoth could take the half-Sorcerer anytime, but he seemed to be enjoying the game.

Bryl cast the Water Stone again. He rolled a "1" and failed.

Delrael shot another two arrows, striking two different enemy ogres with little effect. The monsters pushed forward, swinging their weapons, moving with deliberate slowness. Some struck the ground with their weapons in a childish threatening gesture. They curled their lips into eager snarls, succeeding in making themselves even uglier.

Delrael bumped into the corner of the weapons storehouse. A shiver went down his spine as he remembered his personal training, the role-playing game, where he had fought against the worm-men to steal one of their sacred earth-gems. In that make-believe game he had died
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he didn't want to die again, not here, or anywhere.

The ogres kept coming.

Sixteen Gairoths lifted their spiked clubs, flexing muscles as strong as pulleys. They let out a volley of hideous, echoing laughter. "Haw! Haw!"

Rognoth heaved himself back out of the smashed wall of the village smokehouse. He ran a purplish forked tongue over his fangs, trying to sandpaper away some of the yellow scum. After snapping down five hams and a dozen or so hanging sausages, he didn't know how he could feel more satisfied.

Before fleeing the village with the rest of the characters, Lantee the butcher had packed his best cured meats and taken them into the forest retreat. But he had been forced to leave some of the hams, sausages, and sides of bacon in the smokehouse. The butcher and his wife had barred and hammered the door shut.

But in the hot and humid air, the delicate smells of meat drifted to Rognoth's sensitive nostrils. He had already devoured every edible thing in the Stronghold's two storage pits. Though he did not particularly care for grains or vegetables, he found them to be tolerable if consumed in massive quantities.

Fed properly for the first time in his life, Rognoth had grown enormously in the month he and his master had inhabited the Stronghold. His body had doubled in size and tripled in girth. When he walked, his belly dragged on the ground. His stubby, arthritic wings spread upward like the straining fingers of a dying man.

The dragon's neck had swelled enough that the rusty iron collar became a constrictive ring around his throat. Rognoth had been unable to breathe; he stumbled around in a daze, seeing black blotches in front of his eyes. Gairoth had finally wrenched the collar free with his two massive hands. The little dragon could now draw in lungfuls of air, feeding the sputtering furnace in his chest. He could smell the wonders of the world, especially the wonders hidden in the smokehouse.

Rognoth had not bothered with the bolted door, letting his clumsy momentum carry him through the wooden walls. Part of the roof fell down on top of him, and sausages tumbled from their ropes on the ceiling beams.

Two sausages and one ham beyond being comfortably fed, Rognoth lurched out of the shed, blinking his eyes in the afternoon sun.

"Rognos!" a second dragon bellowed. "Come here, you bad boy!"

Tryos soared overhead, beating his thunderous wings against the updrafts, scouting the surface of the ground. He circled the stone-filled trench surrounding the hexagonal stockade wall, then glided down the slope of Steep Hill to skim over the village, dragging razor claws on thatched roofs.

With a whimper of terror and shock, the obese little dragon scuttled back into the smokehouse.

Tryos saw the movement and swooped down. "A-ha, Rognos! You disssgrace!" With a snap of his long neck, Tryos strafed the roof with a gout of flame. Lantee's smokehouse burst into roaring flames. Rognoth waddled away, urgently dragging himself from the burning wreckage.

"Sssuch a disssappointment! You are no dragon!"

Tryos swung around again with flames gushing from his mouth. Rognoth crashed through the split-rail fence around the butcher's corral for animals to be slaughtered. He galloped on stubby legs, scraping his belly on stones and weeds, and leaped into the shallow stream just as Tryos struck again.

Steam poured into the air and hot mud splattered upward. Some of the scales on the little dragon's back shattered from the heat.

Rognoth charged through the underbrush on the far side of the stream, into the hex of dense forest terrain. Above the forest, Tryos flew low, rustling branches as he grazed the tree tops. At odd moments Rognoth caught glimpses of Tryos up through the covering of leaves. The large dragon belched a wave of fire, clearing away the trees and leaving Rognoth naked and unprotected. "You should not have ssstayed with Gairos!" Tryos pulled up higher, for the deathblow.

Rognoth yelped and saw his last chance for escape. He pumped his stubby wings and launched his barrel-like body into the air. The little dragon zoomed across the treetops, fueled by the threat of flaming death. Rognoth shot forward with surprising speed, like a giant reptilian bumblebee.

Tryos used his great wings to push himself forward in pursuit. Barely able to fly at all, Rognoth could not perform elaborate evasive maneuvers. He flew northward in a straight line that, he hoped, would take him farther than Tryos was willing to follow. The gigantic vengeful dragon beat his wings but could not close with his little brother.

After more than an hour of dodging in the air, Rognoth was exhausted, but his will to survive kept the wings beating. Gravity tried to pull him crashing to the mattress of leaves and branches below.

Tryos, on the other hand, had been flying without rest for two and a half days, covering the immense distance from Rokanun to the Stronghold.

Panting and wheezing, Rognoth dropped low to the treetops of a hex of forested-hill terrain, trying to hide again. Tryos blasted the trees into cinders, but he had begun to lose his breath, and the flame was weak. Rognoth squealed miserably and forced his wings to fling him forward again, heading inexorably northward, as the hexagons of terrain flashed by under them.

Delrael backed against the splintered wall of the weapons storehouse.

The ogres converged on him. He had only six arrows remaining, but they had no effect anyway. He needed to find the way out
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Vailret said the Outsiders always made sure a situation had some solution.

But if the Outsiders knew of the quest to stop Scartaris, might they not just remove the troublesome characters once and for all?

Bryl struck another illusion Gairoth with a weak lightning bolt, but the one-eyed ogre guffawed. Bryl's third spell faded out, leaving him helpless again. He had only one spell remaining, one more roll of the Water Stone.

Delrael screwed up his courage and determination. He was the head of the Stronghold. He was supposed to keep the other characters protected. No matter what his father's orders said, no matter what the Rulewoman Melanie had told them, Delrael had failed in his most important job of keeping the villagers safe.

He made up his mind then. Gairoth was the main threat, not these other ogres. Without the one-eyed ogre to lead them, the others would never remain together. Within days, they would probably fight and kill each other off.