by Mel Odom
Then the suspension of the moment was broken as a half-dozen other catapult loads filled the air, arcing high from out in the fog-swaddled harbor.
“’Ware!” one of the dwarves shouted hoarsely. “There’s more of ’em comin’!”
The dwarven leader called his warriors to order and led them deeper into the safety of the alley. Glancing back, Juhg saw three of the pitchblende-and-rock catapult loads smash against other homes and shops. Before he’d drawn a breath, more catapult loads arced by high overhead. He felt the impact of the catapult loads striking their targets and the ground. Black smoke curled up, twisting and threading through the fog, turning the moving mass of low-lying clouds murky.
Juhg ran, following Raisho, who followed the dwarves. They reached the end of the alley and turned again toward the harbor.
A catapult load dropped onto a wagon full of dwellers as it careened across the street. Two Boneblights savaged the group of dwellers in the wagon bed, their great tusks and claws and scythes bright with blood. Then the horrifying sight disappeared before Juhg’s eyes as the pitchblende load dropped squarely onto the wagon and turned it into a fiery wreath of flames.
Pitchblende spattered across the rumps of the horses, setting their tails alight and causing them to panic. The driver tried in vain to control the rampaging animals, but he was covered in flames himself and fell from the seat.
At the end of the street, the horses tried to take the corner too fast. The wagon came up on two wheels, then twisted and fell all the way over, spilling pitchblende and rock, as well as flaming dwellers and Boneblights, across the cobblestone street.
The dwarves Juhg was following ran through the street intersection, stepping around the dying victims. Clad in flames, one of the Boneblights stood up suddenly and drew back its scythe.
The dwarven leader blocked the scythe with the long hilt of his war hammer, then swept the Boneblight’s legs from beneath it. By the time the creature landed on its back, the dwarf reversed the hammer and smashed its skull to a thousand pieces. The bones spasmed, then relaxed.
Skirting the pile of splintered ivory that had once been a Boneblight, Juhg again followed the dwarves. The other flaming Boneblight snapped a hand out and caught hold of his foot. He fell, sprawled out across the buckler, and began kicking to free himself.
A shape flew from the sky, descending with the speed of a crossbow quarrel. The falcon flew straight and true, then slammed its talons into the Boneblight’s face. The talons probably would not have harmed the creature, but it provided enough of a distraction that the Boneblight reeled backward and released Juhg’s ankle.
Raisho reached back and helped Juhg to his feet, pausing only long enough to smash the Boneblight’s skull as the falcon flew away.
Gazing across the street, Juhg noticed an elven warder carrying two small dweller children from a burning building. Juhg waved to thank him. The warder nodded and hurried along, favoring an injured leg.
Closer to the harbor now, the street turned more steep. With the light mist covering the cobblestones, the street grew slick. Juhg fell twice, nearly bringing Raisho down one of those times.
Catapult loads continued to smash against the town. Much of Greydawn Moors was already burning. Smoke warred with the fog, which was now beginning to lift, whether because the magick that had bound it no longer worked as well or because of the heat of the burning buildings and homes, Juhg wasn’t certain.
Out in the harbor where the fog grew thinner, the massive bulk of ships appeared. From his position along the docks, Juhg clearly saw the goblinkin ships and the fierce warriors aboard them.
The goblinkin had come to Greydawn Moors.
The sight nearly knocked Juhg from his feet. The unthinkable had truly happened. Cold fear filled his body from head to toe.
“There!” one of the dwarves called. “They’re rallying in the harbor!”
Following the dwarf’s outflung arm, Juhg saw that dwarven groups had joined together to make a formidable force. Human sailors and elven warders raced to add to their numbers.
But the effort appeared to be too little, too late. The sheer numbers of the goblinkin in a short time would overrun the island’s defenders after the enemy ships reached the harbor. As it was, the large mass of warriors drew fire from the catapults aboard the goblinkin ships.
Then a bolt of green energy sizzled through the sky, splitting into five forks that destroyed five pitchblende-and-rock loads in midair. Cherry-red rocks dropped into the harbor and threw up great clouds of steam.
“Craugh,” Raisho yelled in triumph.
A ragged cheer broke from the dwarves as they raced along the harbor.
Bouncing on his toes, straining for height and throwing himself up to peer over the shoulders of the dwarves, Juhg spotted the wizard’s pointed hat advancing rapidly to meet the goblinkin ships at the shoreline.
Frustrated with not being able to see properly, Juhg took his leave of the dwarves and raced to the nearest warehouse. Flames wreathed the top of the building and pitchblende still oozed from the eaves, where a direct strike had set the roof on fire.
Breathing rapidly, lungs burning from the smoke that eddied in the salt air, Juhg watched in disbelief as Craugh walked rapidly to the shoreline. Grandmagister Lamplighter hurried along at the tall wizard’s side.
Arrows struck the boxes of cargo and the wooden docks around Craugh and the Grandmagister. But the goblinkin archers didn’t fire with complete impunity. Elven archers took positions along the shore and on ships sitting at anchor. Although drastically outnumbered, the elven archers still proved steadier and truer than their goblinkin counterparts. Also, the elven longbow shot farther and more powerfully than the short bows used by the goblinkin.
Brightly fletched elven arrows sped across the harbor water and found target after target. Goblins staggered back with arrows piercing their flesh or tumbled over the ships’ sides as the vessels fought the outgoing tide to reach the shore.
Timber cracked.
Juhg flung himself from the warehouse, just before the roof gave way and the structure came crashing down. Smoke and cinders billowed out, chasing him as he raced toward the Grandmagister and the wizard.
Craugh stopped at a high point between two of the main wooden docks. He spoke and gestured, and Juhg could feel the power of the spell building. Judging from the amount of the mystical force and how quickly it worked, Juhg knew the wizard wasn’t so much summoning magic as he was releasing it.
A sapphire-blue nimbus suddenly rose from the ground in front of the wizard. Rock and hard-packed earth split asunder in front of the wizard and the Grandmagister, then an amethyst tower thrust forty feet into the air. The base of the tower straddled the land and the harbor water.
The Tower of Shrikra’s Calling, Juhg thought, recognizing the structure of the thing. Amazement swept through him. The Tower of Shrikra’s Calling was one of Greydawn Moors’ defensive spells. But since the island had been summoned from the sea and inhabited, no one had ever seen it. When people talked of it, which they seldom did, it was only thought to be a legend, a myth.
But it wasn’t.
Juhg glanced up the gleaming amethyst sides of the Tower to the golden horn that sat at the very top. According to the legend, the Grandmagister could use the horn to summon the monsters that lived in the Blood-Soaked Sea.
Even knowing the legends were true now, and possibly even the part about being able to summon the monsters that gave the sea its name, Juhg didn’t hold out much hope. The creatures hadn’t ever been seen in the harbor waters. And wherever they were, it was going to take too long to get to the island to be of much good.
Still, Craugh and the Grandmagister started running up the circular stairs.
Several of the goblinkin ships had reached shore, but they had suffered tremendous losses. Dead littered the decks, all of them jutting elven arrows that offered mute testimony to the warcraft of the warders.
The goblinkin crews swarmed from the ships,
obviously eager to plunder and pillage. Many of them headed for the Tower of Shrikra’s Calling but were met by the dwarves, humans, and elves who intercepted them. Blades and axes rasped against each other. Goblins and island defenders were cut down in droves. Fresh blood spilled into the harbor water, turning it a different color than normal.
Catapults fired again and again, pelting the Tower with pitchblende and rock. Flaming pools clung to the amethyst surfaces of the Tower and the circular steps.
Juhg gained the steps and hurried up them. He threw the buckler away, fearful that something would happen to the Grandmagister, despite the fact that Craugh was with him. He was rounding to the seaside again when he noticed that the goblinkin had pressed the island defenders nearly to the base of the Tower.
But the combined defensive forces of Greydawn Moors held the invaders there. Juhg kept running, feeling his breath wheeze through him now and a painful stitch start in his side.
Glancing up, he saw that the Grandmagister and Craugh were almost at the top of the Tower. A pile of flaming pitchblende nearby reflected in the gold finish of the horn. He pushed himself on, glancing at the dizzying panorama below as the harbor battle swung below him.
Movement out to sea drew his attention. At first, he thought it was the billowing sails of the ships locked in battle. Several of the goblinkin ships were now embroiled in deck-to-deck skirmishes with human and dwarven pirate crews.
But the movement belonged to a trio of dragonets. Much smaller than their massive cousins, the true dragons, the dragonets remained rare and surly creatures. Bereft of the true intelligence of the dragon race, the dragonets were driven by cruel and constant hunger.
Twenty-five feet long from snout to tail, with a thirty-five-foot wingspan, the dragonets possessed hatchet-shaped heads, long beaks filled with serrated teeth, and a whiplike prehensile tail they could use to hang from or grasp prey with. They had powerful hind legs and tiny gripping hands at the forward edges of their wings. Dulled brown and green scales covered the tops of their bodies, and light blue and white patches adorned their underside, making it more difficult to see them in the air. At least, they were more difficult to see when they were directly overhead.
Each of the dragonets carried two riders on special saddles. All six of those riders were human. The ones in front guided the beasts with a harness, and the ones in back carried bows.
As Juhg ran, the dragonets circled the Tower of Shrikra’s Calling. Their leathery wings actually touched the stairs on occasion. He dodged back, narrowly avoiding an arrow one of the archers sent speeding at him.
He reached the final leg of the stairway, just as the Grandmagister ran to the horn and blew.
The force of the magic knocked Juhg from his feet, sending him sprawling back dangerously close to the railing. He hit hard enough to have the breath knocked out of him. Dazed and trembling, he forced himself to his feet, ready to go to the Grandmagister’s aid.
One of the dragonets perched on the railing, holding the amethyst bars in its two cruel hind feet. The lead rider was a lean human of middle years. He wore short-cropped brown hair and a short chin beard and mustache that made him look handsome and dangerous at the same time. He wore riding leathers and a hood. A sword gleamed at his side.
The man stared at the Grandmagister with a mocking smile. “Well, Lamplighter, you see, I’ve found your little hiding place after all. I told you all those years ago that you couldn’t keep this place from me forever.” He made a point of glancing south, across Greydawn Moors and up the Knucklebones Mountains, where the Vault of All Known Knowledge stood in shambles. “If you’d only capitulated, perhaps you could have prevented the deaths of so many of your followers.”
The Grandmagister stood firm, even in the face of the dragonet. “Not true. Don’t go putting their blood on my hands, Aldhran Khempus.”
Juhg seized the man’s name and memorized it, searching through the years to see if he had ever heard of him. There was nothing, and that was surprising because he had a very good and very orderly mind for remembering things.
But the Grandmagister seemed to know the man quite well.
“This Tower is fascinating as well,” Aldhran said. “I find it somehow soothing that it does exist. With all the stories I’ve chased down over the years trying to find this place, I didn’t know if it would be.”
“The Tower is real,” Craugh said in his strong voice. “So is the power of the horn.”
“You mean, to call up the monsters that supposedly lurk in the sea around the island to protect this place?” Aldhran grinned as if he was a boy and the wizard had told him a good joke.
“Yes,” Craugh said.
Aldhran eyed the wizard in open speculation. “You are Craugh.”
Craugh said nothing.
“Over the years, we have crossed paths many more times than I have crossed paths with the Grandmagister.”
“Pity you weren’t more forthcoming,” Craugh said. “Else you’d have been dead by now and of no bother to us at this moment.”
Aldhran laughed, and the sound was strange when mixed with the noise of the battle below and the wind that whistled through the Tower and made the horn echo. “You do have your confidence, don’t you, old man?”
Craugh looked contemptuous. “I’ve ground a hundred like you beneath my boot heel over the centuries. You’re not worth the breath it would take to conjure a spell to flay the flesh from your bones and drop you into a goblin’s chamber pot.”
Aldhran’s features darkened with rage, but he forced a grin. “One day, old man. One day soon.” He shrugged. “Maybe sooner than you think.”
“I await your call,” Craugh said, spreading his hands out from him a little. “Then again, mayhap I’ll come calling myself one day.”
Ignoring the veiled threat, Aldhran switched his gaze to Juhg. “Ah, the apprentice. It was you who brought the book to this place so the gate could be opened and the way could be found.”
Juhg scarcely held on to the guilt that thrummed through him.
“How are you called?” Aldhran asked. “Pot? Pan?”
“Juhg,” the Grandmagister said. “And he is a better Librarian now than you’ll ever hope to be.”
Librarian? Juhg couldn’t believe it. The man sitting astride the dragonet was a Librarian? It can’t be. I’ve been at the Vault of All Known Knowledge for thirty years. He’s a human, and barely older than those years now.
“But a Librarian isn’t want I’ve wanted to be,” Aldhran answered. “That position was only a means to an end. Just as Craugh there has taught himself to prowl through books in search of power.”
A great hurrah sounded below.
Glancing down, Aldhran said, “It appears your defenders are getting the better of my goblinkin. Man for man, that is.” He looked back at the Grandmagister and grinned. “It’s a good thing I have ships filled with goblinkin out in the harbor who can’t wait to go ashore.”
Suddenly, a cacophonous boom of energy sounded out in the harbor.
Despite the tension of the moment, Juhg found his attention drawn to the harbor. Huge bodies crested out in the harbor, monstrous apparitions with tentacles and long necks and jagged teeth. Any one of them was larger than the largest ship out in the harbor.
As Juhg watched, the monsters attacked the goblinkin ships. Some struck them with their bodies, while others roped tentacles around the ships and pulled them under. In heartbeats, the goblinkin navy became shattered fragments floating on the surface of the Blood-Soaked Sea or sinking in the harbor.
“It appears,” Craugh said dryly, “that the horn works as well as the Tower.” He smiled. “And there’s less and less goblinkin all the time. I take it you never have taught the vicious creatures to swim, have you?”
Snarling a fierce oath, Aldhran turned his attention to the wizard. The younger human chanted and gestured, then he threw his hand out.
Craugh held up his staff. Virulent purple light splintered against his staff. However,
whatever spell Aldhran had used threw off enough force to cause the wizard to stagger back.
Before Craugh could recover, Aldhran kicked the dragonet in the sides. The beast belched a great gulp of liquid fire at the wizard.
Craugh held up a hand and put out the flames of the dragonet venom, but he couldn’t stop the arrow that leapt from the bow of the archer seated behind Aldhran from piercing his chest.
A shocked look filled Craugh’s face as he gazed down at the arrow in the center of his chest. Without a word, he toppled over the railing behind him and fell.
“Craugh!” The Grandmagister ran to the railing, grabbing frantically, as if he might somehow save his old friend. But he arrived too late. The wizard was already gone by the time he got there.
Horrified, frozen in terror and disbelief, Juhg stood against the railing.
Aldhran lifted a net from the saddle, spoke a few words, and threw the net through the air. The net flew true, unfurling and wrapping around the Grandmagister, bringing him to the ground as the strands magically tightened.
Breaking away from the terror that held him, Juhg raked his boot knife free and ran for the Grandmagister. His movement startled the dragonet, though, and the great creature spread its wings instinctively in preparation to throwing itself into the air.
The wing slapped into Juhg and knocked him backward effortlessly. Before he knew it, he was across the railing and falling. Headfirst, he plunged toward the broken rocks in the harbor below. He spotted Craugh’s body already lying there.
Unable to stop himself, Juhg put his hands in front of his face and hoped that his impending death would be quick and relatively pain-free.
Then burning agony bit into his ankle and his fall was stopped short as he began gliding out to sea. Glancing up, he saw that one of the dragonets had wrapped its talons around one of his feet and was carrying him off like a fish plucked clean of the sea.
Overcome by the rapid stop and the blood pounding at his temples, Juhg could only make a token effort to try to pull himself up before he passed out.
