Battledragon (55 page)

"Cut his throat!" came the command. Without knowing why, Relkin put the blade to the neck of his friend.

And then the doors burst open at the far end of the room with a tremendous slam. Screams of terror rose from the Kraheen as they stampeded, and right behind them came battledragons, led by Bazil Broketail, with Ecator gleaming in his hands.

So stunned was Heruta Skash Gzug at this sudden eruption of enemy power in the very heart of his realm that his spirit quailed as Relkin's knife clattered to the floor. Heruta never noticed the presence of Lessis, nor did he sense the subtle spell of affliction she cast his way. The spell took hold and a great fear mounted until he upped and fled in panic, skittering into the corridor on horn-covered feet, his thoughts fixed on the batrukh and immediate flight.

With the Master gone, the men under his command took the prudent course of escape, scrambling for safety, jamming in the doors behind the dais.

The dragons tore the doors off their hinges, but could not get their bulky bodies through them. Dragonboys looked through; the enemy had gone.

The Kraheen crowd in the meantime had flattened themselves back against the wall. Terror showed on every face.

Suddenly released from Heruta's crushing pressure on his mind, Jak had blacked out. Still dazed, Relkin caught him on his way to the ground and propped him up on his feet.

"Boys are tired," said a familiar voice from behind him. "Can barely stand up."

Relkin was lifted up by huge hands.

"Put me down," he said in a dazed voice. "We've got to get out of here."

"We go, but boy ride on dragon back. He tired."

The Count Felk-Habren was pulling at the dragons to get them to hurry. The surprise had been complete, but the enemy would soon regroup. They had to move. The dragons abandoned the doors at the back of the room. With the boys recovered, they turned and stepped past the stunned Kraheen notables and out through the larger, double doors into the main passage.

The fortress contained a veritable warren of passages, some of them large enough for dragons to use freely, others barely wide enough to admit Alsebra, let alone the Purple Green, who, now freed, was limping along with them. He was extremely hungry. He was even angrier than that, a somewhat awesome thing to contemplate.

"Why is boy dressed like enemy?" said Bazil, expressing a deep uneasiness.

"Jak cannot speak, so I don't know," said Alsebra.

"They tried to make him kill this dragon," said the Purple Green.

"Yet you are alive," said Alsebra.

"Boy refuse to do it. They were going to have Jak kill him as punishment. I saw all this with my own eyes."

"What else could you do since you were tied down?"

"Boy did well, then. Still I hate that uniform."

Lagdalen came running up with the spearman.

"Found it," she announced, and passed a small sack of powder to Lessis. For once Lessis's feelings showed clearly on her face.

"Good girl, where is it?"

"Not far. Big place. Stinks of horse piss."

They ran after her and shortly burst into a room filled with barrels, raised tubs, and other heavy equipment. Piles of grey powder mounded up in the nearest corner. Stacks of small barrels and sacks lined one wall beyond, which was a loading bay. A sour stench filled the air.

Lagdalen pointed to the barrels.

"That's the final product, I think."

Lessis broke open the seal on a barrel and poured out a handful of black powder. This was exactly as it had been described to her by Ribela.

"This is it. We need as many of these sacks as can be carried."

"Where to, Lady?" said the count.

"To the foundry."

Outside the manufactory they found a line of wagons, but the slaves manning them had fled. They filled three of these with the barrels and sacks, and then pushed them down the long, flagstoned halls of the widest passage to the foundry.

The foundry was a large space, hewn out of the volcanic rock and tapering toward the inner core of the volcano. From that end came the hissing of hot gas and the glow of lava in the pool below.

In the foundry great trolls had worked until quite recently, maneuvering the larger instruments, the tongs and cranes, while gangs of slaves had hauled ropes to power the lifts and swing the buckets of hot metal. All this activity had ended with the invasion by the dragons, erupting out of the lava tube with Stripey at their head.

Now the trolls lay dead, scattered by dragonsword here and there, and the gangs of slaves had fled. Two of the latest versions of the tube weapons lay cooling on beds of sand. These were slimmed-down versions of the weapons they had met on the field of Broken Stones. Lessis noted with horrified fascination that the enemy foundry had been making rapid progress in its development of this field of weaponry. These new tubes were markedly superior. She tested the barrels with a finger. One of them was already cool enough for her plan.

She called for the men to stuff the barrel with sack after sack of powder. Meanwhile Lagdalen scouted out a long iron bar and had Vlok use it to tamp home the sacks of powder and then to plug the barrel with a heavy wooden block torn from a block and tackle. The block fitted snugly into the barrel and was rammed home by Vlok and Bazil together until it was solidly jammed.

Lessis primed the firing hole on the tube and began to compose a spell for delayed combustion. In preparation for this mission, she had spent time studying such spellsay in the Imperial Library in the city of Andiquant. Now she thanked that time of study, for the lines sprang from her memory and the spell soon came together with a little quiver in the air. Everyone felt a sudden race in their pulse and a cool breath on their brows as the ancient magic was knit from thin air once more.

Meanwhile, with the aid of the dragons, the powder kegs were taken down and stacked around the packed tube. When it was done, they completely hid it from view.

It was done.

"We must leave. This place will soon be a shambles."

Lessis allowed herself a small thrill of achievement. This had been a success beyond her dreams. Now all they had to do was escape, somehow.

A moment later she felt a sudden drag on the higher planes. She shivered inside. A great power was coming, and she had no doubt who it was. It had been foolish to hope that her spell could completely spook him. A moment later she felt him, the massive power, the brutal intellect of the Master, the Great One, Heruta Skash Gzug himself. He came.

He had overcome the maddening fear. He knew of her presence from her nasty little spell. He was enraged.

The main doors were suddenly gripped by a tremendous power and torn open, ripping free their bolts. The Master strode in; this was no time for wasting energy on levitation. He was encased in gold-chased steel armor, but wore no helmet. The eyes blazed like fires in that face of glittering black and green horn.

"You thought to bewitch me, hag!" he snarled. His voice buzzed with rage.

Lessis made no reply. This was a contest she had dreaded all her life. In truth, she had none of his terrifying strength. He was a true enthraan of the death force. No witch, not even Ribela, could stand openly against such a one.

"You shall pay for this assault upon my realm! And when you are taken, then shall you give up to me all that you know. I will drain you, Witch, until you are nought but a cipher, a dead leaf rustling in the wind."

Dragons stepped forward, their long swords in their hands. Lessis felt sudden encouragement.

"If you come alone to do all this, you may find yourself in peril, Master Heruta," she said. "Perhaps it would be better to, ah, negotiate."

"Negotiate? With you? You are surrounded by my power. The presence of a few of these great beasts of yours will not save you. Madness, that is all you have to offer. All of you hags have long since lost all semblance of sanity. Why should we talk to you?"

"We work for the good of the world."

"You hold back the march of history. Men must have dominion over the world. We guide them, that is all."

"It is not the dominion of men that you seek, Master Heruta. It is dominion for yourself. Why do you need such crushing rule? Why must the men be guided the way you choose to do it?"

"You dare to question me?" Unbridled fury engulfed the Master, and his grip slackened for a moment. Lessis struck with her affliction spell again, but he recovered before she could penetrate.

"You dare to assault me, again! You will beg me for the release of death before I am done with you."

He brought down all his power to squeeze her to the ground. To the rest of them, it seemed as if an enormous shadow had filled the upper air of the chamber and pressed down on the Lady Lessis.

Around Lessis the air sparkled with a fragile white light. It resisted the shadow even as it pressed. The resistance grew, and the space where they met began to glow strangely. Polychromatic flashes of light struck their eyes and threw rainbow shadows on the walls.

Even in the midst of the struggle, the great Heruta found a moment to marvel at the strength he detected within the witch. Great strength, greater than any he had ever encountered, except among his own guild in Padmasa.

"You have misused the power that you discovered," Lessis hissed. "Why assault the world? Why do you not join with us in the use of the natural powers? The world can be made a benign place, with just rule and a place for all."

"You will achieve nothing like that. There must be strength of will and fanatical devotion to rulership!"

"Why? What is the need for such things?"

"Only thus can real power be concentrated, you fool. We are not interested in this world alone. There are boundless opportunities for those capable of wielding the greatest power."

"But why do you want such power?"

"You cannot understand, because you lack the true masculine will to rule. It will be done because we want it done."

"Why is this masculine? Anyone with power can misuse it for selfish ends. Surely this is nothing but egoism. Is this not unworthy of your vast talents? You and your peers, why do you sit in a tomb of stone and impose your harsh will upon the world? Why do you not come out into the light?"

"Silence, hag!"

A squad of trolls came in on either side of the Master. They lifted heavy axes off their shoulders. With them came fell men in black armor, swords at the ready, plus a squad of heavyset imps.

The foundry was a large place, but even so, to pit five trolls against four dragons was to fill it to the bursting with huge bodies and terrible weapons slicing through the air.

As huge swords flashed and mighty axes whirled, everyone else scrambled back to the walls for safety. The Great One dodged back hurriedly to the entranceway, safely behind his line of trolls.

The dragons were eager for the fight. Bazil exchanged a round of blows with the first troll, then he dug his shield inside the troll's shield and pulled it clear. Ecator thrust home, and the troll died in the instant. Bazil felt Ecator hum in his hand, gorged on life force for a moment. When he raised the blade, it had a familiar glow about it.

A troll's head flew past him, and he looked up to see Alsebra standing over the remains of the first, engaging the next with overhand and shield thrust.

Then came a gasp from the right as Vlok missed his stroke and was rammed in the belly by a troll shield. Vlok barely fended off the following blow with the ax. The troll pressed hard. Swane's arrow caromed off its steel-pot helmet.

But, before the troll could gut the leatherback, it was stopped in its tracks by the impact of the long iron bar wielded by the Purple Green. It staggered back, off balance, and fell within Alsebra's range. In a moment she had hewn it down.

"I hate all these wizardry men," roared the Purple Green as he hurled the iron bar in the direction of the Master, lurking in the doorway.

The bar shot through the door and ricocheted off the wall and felled a line of imps. The Master threw himself flat as the massive piece of metal bounced off the wall just above him and skipped on down the passage, killing three of his men. For a moment Heruta crouched there, quivering, appalled at such violence. He discovered that he had fouled himself in his sudden terror.

Suddenly there were but two trolls in the chamber, and these nervously edging backward. Alsebra drove in with Undaunt whirling, and the trolls scuttled back, almost crushing Heruta Skash Gzug beneath their huge, homely feet. The Great One was backed against the wall, confronted by battledragons.

Heruta suddenly faced the unimaginable—death. He dug deep for hidden strength of will. A calm coldness settled over his mind. His anger mastered his fear. He reached for his ultimate weapon.

With a long, ululating cry he wove harsh syllables of power in the air. Lessis felt her hair stand on end; the room

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was filled with peculiar energies. Then with die sound of an ocean wave crashing down on molten lava, a black mirror opened in the air above them. Purple light bathed the chamber.

Lessis was awed. To open a mirror on one's own like that, it was incredible to her. To open a mirror by the witch method took three people and long, precise incantation.

The bizarre glare of chaos flickered across the foundry, throwing stark shadows against the walls while a fat, seething hiss pervaded the air.

With a thrill of horror, Lessis understood the peril and began a counterspell.

The dragons, every one, stood still, struck rigid by the weird light that flowed from the six-foot-wide circle of chaotic nothingness that had just snapped into existence between themselves and the Master.

Heruta retreated through the doors with an evil smirk. He knew there was a Thingweight close by in the chaotic ether. It often lurked around him. Even across the membrane between its awful realm and the real world it could sense the power of Heruta Skash Gzug. Such power was like nectar to it. It would lurk there, hoping that the power might come closer so that it could be taken and devoured. It made use of the black mirror for journeying virtually impossible.