As Nathan and Elsa walked alongside the slow-moving carts with Nicci leading the way, the wizard looked at the enormous warriors lying back and staring upward at the starry sky through the slits in their helmets. Nathan realized this was the first time these titans had seen the stars in more than fifteen centuries. He thought again about what those innocent young men had sacrificed. Jonathan, Rald, and Denn.
The procession passed gathered crowds. Children looked wide-eyed at the colossal warriors rolling past, while parents, old men, merchants, and freed slaves watched uneasily. With forced good cheer, Nathan ignited a bright fire in his palm. “Why so sullen? Dear spirits, we must cheer for these heroes, our Ixax warriors! They will save Ildakar. Show how much you appreciate them. They have given everything for your city.” He flared his hand torch brighter.
Elsa smiled, realizing what he meant. “Yes, everyone—cheer!” She let out a whistle and lit her own magical fire. “For the Ixax warriors, for the defenders of Ildakar!”
With a slowly building ripple, shouts rang out along the streets, and the congratulatory applause grew louder. Walking beside the armored head of one Ixax, Nathan bent close to whisper, “Listen to them, my friend. They know you and they appreciate you. Soon, you will finally get to do what you’ve waited to do for centuries.”
Elsa’s bright glow lit the other side of the groaning cart. After Nicci heard Nathan urge greater and greater cheers, she responded by sending up a column of fierce wizard’s fire in a dazzling beacon that awed the crowd.
The heavy carts rolled down the streets, passing the now empty and shadow-filled combat arena, the merchants’ district, warehouses, and workers’ homes, to finally arrive on the broad lower levels in front of the high walls. Dawn was just breaking, a glow rising to the east behind the city. The towering gates were closed and barricaded, and the carts bearing the two Ixax warriors stopped just behind them.
“These Ixax warriors remember their hearts, their families, and their city,” Nathan announced. “They will defend us, as they swore to do so long ago.”
High Captain Stuart commanded his sentries to release the locking spells, roll back the gears, and ratchet the crossbars out of their sockets. With a mighty heave, dozens of workers hauled on ropes, slowly creaking open the gigantic gates of Ildakar.
Impatient with the ponderous barrier, Nathan waved his hand and added a push of magic. By now, the sky was brightening, and the sun was over the river behind the bluff. When the gates were open far enough, teams guided the two carts carrying the colossal warriors through the gap.
The general’s army had withdrawn far from the walls, and the ancient soldiers stirred in their camp.
Concerned, Nicci said to Nathan, “Look at the army. Something is happening. General Utros is making his move.”
“Then we must make ours,” Nathan said. “Quickly now.” He turned to Elsa and the duma members who had accompanied them. “No time for a work crew. Use your gift. Let us stand our defenders on their feet and prepare to set them free at last.”
The newly constructed carts tilted down, placing the giant boots of the Ixax on the ground. Nathan released his gift. Nicci added her push. Oron, Damon, Quentin, and Elsa all used their magic, helping to raise the first warrior upright. He stood on his massive legs like a sentinel statue, half as tall as the huge city gates.
Working together, they raised the second Ixax warrior, so that the pair stood immobile but ready. Nathan could sense a difference in the giants, a tingling anticipation behind their armor, as if their blood was beginning to boil, trapped inside their encased forms.
“Soon,” Nathan said to them, gesturing. “Soon! You can see your enemy now, that giant army out there.” Though he wasn’t sure the Ixax could shift their gaze, thousands and thousands of troops filled the plain before Ildakar. The sheer number of foes was breathtaking, but the Ixax seemed ready. Anxious.
“Those soldiers are a threat to Ildakar. They want to shatter the walls and ransack the city,” Nathan said. The sky continued to brighten. “They plan to conquer Ildakar in the name of Emperor Kurgan, who has been dead for centuries. You can save us.” He looked up at the giant warriors. “The two of you can save us.”
Shouts came from the sentries on the walls above. General Utros was clearing a great area in his camp for some unknown purpose, and Nathan felt a growing dread. The other wizards looked around, also expecting something.
Nathan swallowed hard, and turned to Elsa. “Very well, my dear, let us prove ourselves right.” He looked at the towering inhuman soldiers. “Remember who you are. Remember why you were created.”
Elsa added, “Remember us. You have to remember us.” Then she activated the embedded rune on the plates of the Ixax armor, illuminating the mark with a glow of magic, setting them free.
The symbol flared, brightened, and Nathan heard a cracking sound as the joints became unfrozen, long-hardened muscles thawing. The eyes in the helmets blazed brighter, bonfires of anger and frustration. In a flash, Nathan remembered the night he had almost died when he’d faced a single Ixax. He, better than anyone else, knew the danger and power these things represented.
Now he was unleashing them, on purpose.
Moving now, coming alive again, they swiveled their huge helmeted heads down to give a knowing look to Nathan. Then, with a groan of ancient, unparalleled power, the Ixax warriors began to move.
CHAPTER 62
It was a bright morning, a fateful morning, and the sun rose above Ildakar’s bluffs, silhouetting the city. General Utros studied the haze in the air, the orange colors of brightening dawn, and he felt the magic around him strengthening—the magic that Ava and Ruva had released.
Because the spell was tied to the skin they had peeled from his face, Utros was part of the magic as well. When his sorceresses had burned the dragon-fire scar and mixed the ash with his blood in the water basin, a magical bond had been forged like a gossamer net cast throughout the gift. They knew it would take time. Finally, days later, in the darkness of the headquarters structure, all three of them had sensed … a dragon. Yes, their spell had found one of the magnificent ancient beasts, and caught it.
Even during Kurgan’s original reign of conquest, dragons had been imposing, unpredictable beasts, and rare. Now, with the powerful spell Ava and Ruva cast, they had found one dragon. Only one.
“He is distant,” Ava said in a hushed whisper. Ruva leaned closer, stroking Utros’s cold, hard skin. They shared their body warmth, their magic, their presence with him. “But we will make him come to us, through you.”
At midnight, Utros had withdrawn his lines of troops from the wall, where their unceasing pounding had begun to shiver Ildakar’s defenses. He knew the unexpected silence would unnerve the enemy, make them cower because of the quiet as much as they feared the hammering.
Sooner or later the walls would come down. The wizards inside had reinforced the blocks with their spells, but it was only a matter of time, and after fifteen centuries as a statue himself, Utros wasn’t worried about time. His emperor and his beloved Majel were already with the Keeper in the underworld. Utros wanted to succeed, needed to succeed to atone for his broken loyalty. Having seen Iron Fang’s absolute fury and vengeance, Utros knew he would not be forgiven easily. Maybe if he conquered the entire world …
Ildakar was the first step.
Once the pounding soldiers retreated, the night had been left with resounding silence while Utros made final preparations.
After painstakingly removing any hint of hair from their bodies, the women had used fingertips and bright pigments to daub designs over each other’s arms, necks, faces, breasts, each making her sister an exotic sensual masterpiece. With their bodies so colorfully painted, neither of the sorceresses needed clothes.
Utros knew they wouldn’t fail him. During the initial workings of the spell, after they dissolved his scar and sent out their call, they had discovered the water-scrying sorceress from Ildakar, but Ava and Ruva had dealt with the spy.
Now his enemies inside the city were likely aware of his plan, even though they could do nothing to stop it. How could even Ildakar prepare against a dragon in thrall to Utros?
After tense days of waiting, the time had come, and there was no sense in hiding their plan. Ildakar would burn, its walls would fall, its people would scream and try to surrender, though it would be far too late. Now, at the break of dawn, Utros walked with the twin sorceresses to the center of the plain. He had ordered his soldiers to clear a great open area in full view of Ildakar. It was time for Ava and Ruva to pull on the unbreakable spell chains and drag the giant dragon here to do the general’s bidding.
The women walked naked alongside General Utros out to the summoning point. Ruva spoke in a husky whisper. “Daybreak is the cusp between darkness and light, a time when magic is at balance, when certain spells are easier.”
Ava added, “It is not easy, beloved Utros, but my sister and I will give all we have. We will bring you the dragon.”
Now that the sun was up, the twins were ready. Utros stood in his ancient uniform, leather armor with polished metal strips, the helmet with the imposing bull’s horns. Around him, his army had erected banners to bring Iron Fang’s flame emblem to the battlefield again. Utros touched the large sword at his side, squeezed the leather of his gauntlets, felt the tight bracer on his right arm.
Sunlight reflected off the beaten-gold mask that covered the left side of his face, where his skin had been cut away. Ava and Ruva had used magic to fashion a half mask out of raw gold, shaping rings, bracelets, and necklaces into a covering that fit precisely against his exposed flesh. It seemed more glorious than his old dragon scar. It made him feel legendary.
“From which direction will the dragon come?” Utros asked.
Ava and Ruva turned slowly. “He will come from the sky, but we can’t know more than that. We have yet to call him.”
Two soldiers had brought large drums to the center of the wide clear space, according to the sorceresses’ commands. The women knelt, each facing a drum. With open palms and half-petrified hands, they began pounding a loud beat that resonated across the hushed army. The drumming was only part of the summons, though. They released their gift, and Utros could feel it tingling through his own body. Because of the scar and skin he had sacrificed to the spell, he and all dragons were joined by an invisible bond. Ava and Ruva sent the thrumming call through that bond, like a plucked string on a musical instrument.
Utros felt a lurch inside himself, like a trout struggling against a fishline, and then a surge of exhilaration. He knew the dragon was there, knew it was coming. He could feel the sheer power, the ancient reptilian strength, a creature whose very existence was tied to the bones of the world.
Ava and Ruva continued pounding the drums. The magic sparked like lightning through the air, cowing his thousands of soldiers. He no longer thought of the fires that had scorched the grass hills, or the separate armies he had dispatched on their own missions of conquest. All that mattered was this moment, this place, and the dragon that answered his summons.
With a thrill of never-forgotten fear, Utros recalled the wild silver dragon that he had captured long ago. That debacle should have made him terrified of dragons, but the general did not accept terror. He did know respect, however. With the bond through his skin, through the scar, Utros would command such a beast.
He heard a mutter of anticipation. He could feel the approaching dragon before any of his sentries caught sight of it. Ava and Ruva hammered the drums, sending loud reverberant thumps into the air and across the valley, like the frantic heartbeat of a doomed man.
The women stopped abruptly, sitting back on their heels and looking at the sky. Utros spotted a winged shape flying impossibly high, no more than a gray fleck against the blue. He felt it tugging against the bond, and then he saw the huge wings, the long sinuous neck, the lashing barbed tail.
Hushed gasps and outcries of amazement rippled across his countless soldiers. Once he sent the dragon against Ildakar, Utros wanted his entire army to attack as well, but even with his regimented tactical mind, Utros couldn’t worry about details of the military operation. Not now. His awe was too great.
The dragon swooped in, indomitable and unbelievable. It was far more ancient and much larger than the wild silver dragon he remembered from long ago. This one was a gray dragon that radiated unbelievable age, immeasurable wisdom, and the bile of anger that twisted back through the magical bond, lashing at the general’s heart.
With a bellows whoosh of hot air and a pounding of great weight, the dragon landed heavily before General Utros. Ava and Ruva stepped back from their drums as the general faced the creature. “You are mine,” he said.
The dragon’s head was as large as a horse cart, its jaws so wide and powerful they could snap a bull in two and swallow it in a single gulp. The yellow eyes burned with an inner fire, and smoke curled from its nostrils. Remembering the burn of the acid flames the silver dragon had spat at him, Utros knew this massive creature could incinerate him with a single breath.
The dragon’s deep voice rumbled like a storm. “Why did you summon me from Kuloth Vale?” The black forked tongue lashed out like a weapon.
“I am your master,” Utros said. “I command you to fight for me and my army.”
The gray dragon curled its wide serpentine neck. “I am Brom, and I have no master.”
In response, the general tugged on the magical bond, watched the dragon twitch in surprise. Ava and Ruva worked a spell, muttered incomprehensible words, and jabbed in perfectly synchronized motions. Brom flinched as if they had pierced him with hot slivers of metal.
“I am not yours to command!” Brom retorted. “I guard the bones of my ancestors.” Smoke boiled out of his mouth and flickers of flame curled in the back of his throat as he spoke. “To my knowledge, I am the last of my kind.”
Utros pressed his hand against the golden half mask. “You have a new loyalty now, a new mission. I call upon our bond. Fight for me. Attack and destroy Ildakar.”
Brom thrust his great wings into the air, flapping twice with a burst of wind that forced Utros to anchor himself to keep from being blown flat. “I will not.”
Utros stood firm. “You must! I command your service.”
Ava and Ruva worked their magic, unleashing what they had planned so carefully. Utros had not expected the gray dragon to resist so fiercely, but the twin sorceresses were surprisingly strong. They struck hard with the magic that connected them.
Brom roared, thrashed his head from side to side, and belched a long ribbon of flame into the air. Ava and Ruva wore malicious, defiant expressions as they jabbed magic daggers of pain into Brom’s brain.
“You will obey me!” Utros said again. “I command you to attack Ildakar.”
The sorceresses continued to inflict agony, and the huge gray dragon shuddered as if struck repeatedly by lightning. Though Brom struggled and his yellow eyes flared with hatred and resistance, he finally lowered his immense head toward the ground in submission before the general.
Utros smiled with half a face.
CHAPTER 63
The avalanche that had thundered beneath Kol Adair had erased the ancient roads, so the expedition from Cliffwall took several days to pick their way around the debris and search through the rubble. Scouts climbed up mountainous slopes, worked their way through the tumbled ice chunks and boulders. They had to find a route suitable for the horses, and the path was so narrow the mounts had to go single file, plodding over the rocks.
They also searched for survivors from the annihilated army, to interrogate if nothing else.
In the avalanche path, they climbed over mounds of ice and rubble, discovering countless broken bodies. The deadly snow had buried the army, crushed their bodies, smashed and suffocated them. At the edge of the ice field, Zimmer’s scouts dug out one of the bodies that had been partially exposed in the shifting snow. “Look, General!”
The ancient soldier had been crushed
in the falling glacier. His neck was broken and his face was slack, his eyes open. Verna stared curiously at the dead warrior. “He looks so pale.” She had seen corpses many times before, and they always had a grayish pallor, but this one’s skin seemed unnaturally white.
Bending down, Renn poked at the dead soldier’s cheek. “It’s hard and stiff.”
“Probably frozen,” Oliver suggested.
“I don’t think so. It is skin, but tougher, as if partly stone.”
Zimmer looked down. “They still bleed, and they still die, but they might be more difficult to kill. But we have fought difficult enemies before.”
Renn brushed more snow away to expose the dead man’s chest armor. He sat back, disturbed. “That flame symbol. This man definitely belonged to the army of Iron Fang, just as the scouts thought.”
“Emperor Kurgan,” Verna said. “I have read the histories.”
“The histories don’t tell the entire story, because the great General Utros brought an army of hundreds of thousands of soldiers to lay siege to Ildakar.” Renn poked the leather armor. “As I’ve told you, our great wizards turned them all to stone with a petrification spell, but something must have awakened them.” He ran his fingers along his patchy beard. He had not shaved since they departed from Cliffwall, claiming that the whiskers would keep his face warmer. “Maybe only this part of the army came back to life and marched away from Ildakar to seek some other home in the mountains.”
“And we killed them all,” Amber said, sounding shaken. “We don’t even know if they were an enemy.”
“They were,” General Zimmer said, looking down at the fallen soldier. “Ten thousand soldiers could not have been on a peaceful mission.” He shook his head again, looking at the jumbled field in the aftermath of the avalanche.
Working her way up among the blocks of ice, wading through the loose snow, Verna came upon another half-buried figure, and she was startled when he stirred, groaned. “This one is alive! Dear spirits.”
Siege of Stone Page 41
