I should have trusted my gut!
Finally, there appeared an end to the long tunnel. He slowed. The corridor ended in an archway where the view opened up to an eerie light source. There was a faint hum too that vibrated the walls. Slowly leading the others, Nath walked forward.
“I don’t like the sound of this.” Selene placed her hand on the wall.
“There’s no turning back now.” Nath crept forward, stopping just short of the threshold.
The ziggurat was hollowed out. Stairways of stone led up to terraces on the upper levels. Terraces lined with wurmers. Soldiers were posted behind them.
Under his breath, Nath said, “Great Guzan, there are as many soldiers on the inside as out.”
CHAPTER 35
Night had fallen over Thraag. The roamers and the elven guard spread out in the hills around the hive. In the cover of darkness, they low-crawled through the grasses.
Belly to the ground, Liam inched forward foot by foot. It was an agonizing pace. To the left and right of him were his father Shum and uncle Hoven. They were several yards apart, but all of them had the same purpose. In the cover of night, they would sneak into the cave.
Liam popped his head up. The fields weren’t devoid of life. The titan army had patrols. Liam spied three guards wading through the ankle-high grasses. Metal rubbed on metal every time they moved. Each of them poked at the grasses with a spear. The soldiers murmured to one another. What they did was routine, mechanical. The spears dug into the dirt where the soldiers weren’t looking.
Liam had been in the field for hours. He was more than halfway to the base hill. This wasn’t the first patrol that had passed him, but the third. The others had walked right by him twice. He had his special roamer garb, a leather armor of blending, to thank for that, crafted by the roamers themselves. Its enchantments were special, making for perfect camouflage in the woodland.
The soldiers moved toward him, sticking the ground. Sticking, sticking, sticking. The spear heads enlarged right before his eyes.
Roamers, we have a problem.
One patrol had passed within a body length of him earlier, but this one was on track to walk right over the top of him. They wouldn’t see him unless he moved—or they tripped over him. If they did, the roamer garb’s blending effects would be spoiled.
Footsteps crunched over the cold and crispy grass.
Liam flattened out. Head down.
Go right! Go right! Go right!
A spear dug into his hand. Liam’s jaw clenched.
Aaaaaargh! That hurts!
“Hold on a moment,” a man said. “Something sticky here.” The man’s knees crackled when he lowered himself. “What’s this? An odd lump of some sort. This grass is heaved up like a just filled grave.”
“Look!” an orc soldier said.
A jackrabbit hopped out of its burrow. Liam could hear the rabbit’s paws and the men’s feet shift.
“That’s a big one,” the man said. “I haven’t had good rabbit in ages. Do you suppose the three of us can catch it?”
“No, but I can. None of you can cast a spear like me.” The orc’s spear cut through the air.
“Ha! You missed.”
The soldiers moved away from Liam. Their quick footsteps and voices faded.
Liam checked his hand. The spear had bit the meat between the bones. Blood oozed from the wound. He tore a stretch of cloth from his shirt and wrapped it. At least I still have my fingers. He caught Shum’s face and gave a quick nod. Shum eyed the sky, making Liam look up.
Something circled in the air. A twinkle like starlight went on and off in long and steady signals. Wurmers that had been perched on the ledges of the hillside took flight. The eyes of the soldiers guarding the hills were cast up and not on the field.
Shum took off at a dead sprint. Liam pursued. On feet graceful as a deer’s and quiet as a rabbit’s, all of the elves converged from their place of cover. Before the soldiers took another glimpse down, the elves had hidden themselves at the base of the hill.
Back pressed against the ledge, Liam listened to the soldiers. They mumbled and murmured over the strange light in the sky. Liam knew what it was: Sansla Libor with the bright stone of the Occular of Orray in his hands. He toyed with them from above.
Strong fingers squeezed Liam’s shoulder. “It’s time, son,” Shum said softly. Liam swallowed. Roamers didn’t get choked up, but he knew where his father was coming from, that Shum was proud of what he’d become. He rested his hand on his father’s. “It’s been a glorious life. I thank you for it.”
Hoven slid in among them. “Don’t be so sappy. We haven’t even started, but there sure are many. I’m ready to get rid of them all.” Hoven pressed into the ledge. It was a twenty-foot climb to the next level. “Let’s go.”
Shum climbed onto Hoven’s shoulders. Liam climbed up the both of them. He spied the soldiers, looking up with their backs to him. He slid over the rim. Hand over hand, he help Shum and Hoven up. They stood in the midst of the enemy whose faces were turned toward the sky. In the same fashion, they traversed the next level, and one more. That was the plan for all of them.
When they were one level from the top, cries of alarm went up. Metal clashed. Somewhere on the hillside, the rest of the roamers and elves were now in the thick of it.
Scores of men posted on the jagged ledges pushed toward the sound of the battle. The problem was, there were soldiers moving away from Liam, Shum, and Hoven, but more soldiers came right at them from around the other side of the hill. Relying on their roamer garb, the three of them pressed into the hill.
The soldiers stormed by, but the last one, a burly nuurg with a huge eye in the center of its head, turned. His eye zeroed in on them. He cocked back his flail and opened his mouth to yell.
Striking like a cobra without the hiss, Shum thrust his elven blade into the nuurg’s chest.
The huge, one-eyed orc went down easy, with Hoven and Liam catching his falling body.
But just then, more soldiers came around the side, led by another nuurg. Its eye popped out of its head at the sight of its fallen brother.
The nuurg yelled, “Slaughter those elves!”
CHAPTER 36
Within moments of taking flight, much like when a gallant horse thundered beneath her, Laylana became one with the crimson dynamo. But the exhilaration that raced through her veins was ten times stronger. Barely containing the shouts that built up in her chest, she guided the dragon through the air away from Elome—with a sea of wurmers nipping at their tail.
“You need to use some strategy, or else this is going to be a quick fight,” Inslay yelled in her ear. “Use the trees. The mountain sides. Slow them in the crevices and ravines. At some point, we will have to fight with our back to the mountain. They’ll eat us alive in the skies.”
“I know. I just want to get them as far from Elome as possible. That doesn’t mean we can’t take out some of those wurmers in the meantime… Inslay.” She leaned back and elbowed his ribs.
“Ooch, what was that for?”
“Are you just going to sit there, or are you going to do something? I didn’t bring you along so you could enjoy the view.”
“I might as well. After today, I’ll never get the chance to appreciate it again.” He leaned over the side. “Yes, the elven lands are truly a wonder in nature. I suppose once you’ve seen it, there is no need to see it again.” His lips and fingers went to work.
Laylana turned in the saddle. Osslin flew behind her on a grand steel dragon with horns like halberds. A smile almost cracked his face. His eyes were filled with elation. In the saddle behind him was an elven archer who nocked arrow after arrow and fired with pinpoint accuracy. The missiles sailed true, dropping wurmers right and left. Other elven riders also shot from bows. The arrows plunged into necks, punctured hearts, and sheared through wings.
Wurmers died by the dozens, but the swarm’s thick ranks didn’t thin.
“I don’t think we have enough arrows in
our quivers to shoot them all. As a matter of fact, I’m certain of it,” she said. “Inslay, you really need to come up with something.”
Inslay opened his eyes. They glowed with a rosy hue. “I certainly hope you didn’t expect that I alone could wipe out that frenzy.”
“My expectations are nothing less.”
“You flatter me. I’ll do what I can.” He flung his hands out wide. In Elven, he spoke words that were incomprehensible. His wrists rolled in tight rings. Rings of ambient light spun over his wrists and grew. He brought his hands together. A vortex twisted scintillating colors over his head. With a push from Inslay, the vortex held its position in the sky. Inslay kept his eyes fastened on it.
The dragons zipped right by the swirling powers of the vortex. The wurmers ran through it.
Inslay smacked his hands together and let out a powerful word of command.
Laylana shook in the saddle. Her ears rang. “What did you do?”
“Watch and see,” he said with glee.
The vortex, small at first, began to grow. It sucked every wurmer into its angry winds. It became a maelstrom of wurmers. They shrieked. Their wings beat in a frenzy. Hundreds of them were mangled together. The wurmers that escaped the tornado of scales were shot down.
Led by Laylana, the dragon riders circled. “Will that kill them?” she asked.
“Probably just slow them down.”
“Then what good is it?”
“It slowed them down, didn’t it?”
Laylana patted her dragon’s neck. “A little fire would be nice.”
The crimson dynamo’s body heated up under her saddle. It took the chill of the northern sky out of her limbs. And then the dragon spewed a gust of orange flame into the vortex. All of the dragons unleashed their breath weapons. Cones of fire, strings of lightning, and balls of energy turned the wurmers into a spinning inferno. Their roars were deafening. The vortex spun faster. The wurmers, several hundred of them, turned to ash.
“You did it, Inslay! I was only joking when I said it.”
“I gave you all I had, but I fear it wasn’t enough.” He made a notable sigh. “Not nearly.”
“Why would you say—oh…” Laylana’s heart skipped a beat. The next wave of wurmers was coming. They were big ones, and they were saddled with nuurg riders too. “Oh, speckles.”
***
The earth giants returned to the entrance of Morgdon. It was four of them this time, carrying the battering ram. The twenty-footers hit the iron doors with raw power that made the walls quake. The sound could be heard for leagues.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The hinges groaned but held.
The earth giants labored. Shoulders heaved with bulging muscles and blue veins popping up like tree roots in their necks. Giants hated dwarves as much as dwarves hated giants. Anyone could see it their eyes a mile away. The dwarves fired crossbow bolts into their meaty bodies.
“Look at them! They look like oversized porcupines! Keep firing, bearded brethren! Let them feel our sting!” bellowed Anndee, a prominent dwarf known for his valor on the field. “Get off of our lawn, you stinking things!”
The giants walked the battering ram back, set their feet, sucked in wind, and surged forward for the hundredth time that day.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The seam in the iron door popped open.
The giants paused, their heads tilted to the side.
The iron doors opened in silence.
“Say hello to our little friend,” Glenwar shouted up at them. He was standing just inside the gate. Beside him was the Apparatus of Ruune. Two dwarves wearing dark goggles sat on the mystic cannon. The thunder stones lit up, charging the chamber of the apparatus’s barrel. The brilliant gemstone light glared.
The earth giants charged forward.
Glenwar dropped his arm. “Fire!”
A bolt of energy shot from the canon’s muzzle.
“TOOOM!”
The torpedo tore through all three giant bodies. It left gaping holes smoldering in all of them. They all looked at one another with disbelief. They started to fall.
“Timber!” Glenwar yelled.
The titan army stirred with rage. They beat their weapons on their shields. On order of the nuurg, they charged the main gate of Morgdon.
Ten thousand dwarves in full metal armor stormed out like a great metallic juggernaut rushing down the main gate’s ramp. Like a hammer, they busted into the bewildered evil forces.
CHAPTER 37
“I’m all for fighting,” Brenwar said to Nath. His brown eyes darted all over the massive numbers of the enemy glaring at them from the inner terraces of the ziggurat. “But this might be stretching it a bit.”
“Are you suggesting we turn back?”
“It’s not retreat if we haven’t started fighting yet. However, I noticed something as we traveled down that corridor.”
Trying not to look as out of place as he felt, Nath said, “And what was that?”
“There’s an aberration in the stones of this corridor. I suspect it’s a trap of some sort. But it hasn’t been triggered yet.”
“Trap?” Selene looked back. “I didn’t see any trap.”
“You’re not a dwarf.” Brenwar pointed back down the corridor. “Do you see that low spot in the ceiling?”
“You mean the one that is lowering?” she said.
A huge slab of stone began sinking in the corridor.
“Morgdon’s walls! It traps us within!” Brenwar exclaimed. The corridor was sealed off by the huge slab of stone. Absentmindedly raking his bony fingers through his beard as if he were searching for something, Brenwar said, “I told you it was a trap.”
“I get the feeling they knew we were coming.” Nath eased out into the chamber. All of the faces were silent. The wurmers perched on the ledges no longer hummed. The purple in their eyes had a hot glow. Their hungry tongues flickered out. “Remember what we came for,” Nath said quietly. “We need to find the life gem and end the nest.”
The inner core of the ziggurat was a square fifty yards wide lit by a skylight hundreds of feet up. There was a rectangular wall that appeared to drop down into a pit in the center. Baby wurmers crawled out of the pit and scurried over the floor.
Still looking down into the pit, Nath said, “Remember, we have the appearance of them, so just act accordingly. It may buy us some time.”
But Selene cleared her throat. “Ahem.”
Nath turned around.
Selene, Brenwar, and Bayzog had all changed back to normal.
“Never mind. Just pretend you’re my prisoners.”
“You aren’t going to be fooling anybody at this point, Nath Dragon.” The throbbing voice that filled the cavernous chamber rankled Nath’s scales. It felt like it was part of everything in the room. “Please, enter. Face your doom.”
Nath shifted back into his normal form and led his friends inside. “If you don’t mind, please reveal yourself, spirit.”
“I am more than a spirit. I am I. I am you. I am all of you.”
Apparitions rose up out of the dark pit, four in all. Floating forward, the ghostly forms stopped short of Nath and his friends. The smoke images took shape, forming mirror images of Nath, Selene, Brenwar, and Bayzog—clothing, armor, weapons, and all.
“I must say, I’d hate to fight an opponent with hair as gorgeous as mine.” Nath flipped his locks over his shoulder. “Well, almost as gorgeous.”
All four of the images spoke as one. “Nath Dragon, your end has come. There is no life stone here.”
“My senses tell me there is. If you’d care to step aside, I’d like to take a look for it. You see, I have places to be. As a matter of fact, why don’t you just lead me to it? You have to understand, I’m eventually going to find it either way.”
Brows knitted on all four faces. “You jest too much.”
“And you talk too much!” Brenwar swung at his twin.
The twin parried. Hammer hit hammer l
ike a clap of thunder.
The dwarves went at it. Nath lost track of which was which. A problem of his own arose. With a sword the same as Fang in its hand, the mirror image of Nath attacked. He blocked the blow with Fang in a colliding sound of metal.
Great Guzan! This spirit is as strong as I am!
***
Selene socked her image in the face. Energy fired from her hand into its body. The image hit the ground then rose to its knees with a mocking smirk on its face. “You cannot hurt me, but I can hurt you.” A blast fired from its fingertips, striking Selene in the belly. It doubled her over. A tail like Selene’s coiled around her neck. It constricted. Selene’s tail did the same. In a death roll on the floor, Selene and her mirror image choked one another. Selene’s face purpled. Her twin’s didn’t.
***
Bayzog’s twin jabbed its Elderwood staff at him.
Having the power of the Elderwood Staff already summoned to strike, Bayzog shadow-jumped away from the twin, then moved in behind his own image. He smote the flatfooted twin in the back with the butt of his staff. The striking power of the Elderwood Staff hit the mirror twin full force and slung the monster off its feet, sending it skidding over the floor.
It was up in an instant, saying, “I will kill you!” It shadow-jumped.
Bayzog, a split second ahead of it, shadow-jumped to the edge of the pit. He took a quick glance down. His fingertips tingled. The fine hair on his arms stood on end. There was a sea of eggs and wurmers resting in the basking glow and caressing mist of a life gem’s powers. The glance cost him.
His twin locked him up, with its staff crushing his neck.
His eyes bulged. He couldn’t see clearly.
Nath took a shot in the chin.
Brenwar’s chest was busted with a hammer.
Selene was choking.
Surrounded by a horde of hate in the hundreds shouting wildly from the balconies, Bayzog realized something. They were losing.
CHAPTER 38
Power of the Dragon (The Chronicles of Dragon, Series 2, Book 9 of 10): Dragon Fantasy Series (Tail of the Dragon) Page 12
