by Joel Babbitt
The group of warriors were beginning to look rowdy. Kale could see that the situation was quickly turning bad. Within his heart he reached out to see if, perhaps, there might be strength given him to deal with this problem.
“Well alright, then. Where is this Kale Stone, then? The only evil I see is a pair of deceivers! Who knows why you led us here?!”
“Yeah! They probably left people behind to take our things, the rotten thieves! Let’s get them!”
Upon hearing this, Kale held up his hand. Power swept through the little group suddenly, like a sudden wind through stiff grass.
“Silence!” he called out. All eyes turned to Kale, though his eyes seemed to be transfixed on something none of them could see. “Even now a horde of great ants approaches through the underdark. Their queen…” He paused, the horror of what he saw was written clearly on his face. “She is mighty,” he said in whispered tones. The arena had grown strangely silent, and even his rasped words carried far. Off in the distance, a baby’s cry sounded strangely unnerving.
“What is this? What do you see?” It seemed as if the entire group had turned from hostile to intently interested.
“Spikes like swords, jaws like great scythes, and limbs like the stalks of great mushrooms… armor all over, with eyes that see intensely. There is power in that gaze!” Kale said, as his eyes showed the fear of what only he could see.
All of a sudden his gaze broke, and, shaking his head he looked about himself as if seeing the group that had gathered about him for the first time. Looking at them all, Kale breathed deeply, as if to brace himself.
“Come, my brothers. Lord Karthan has a task for us. We must go back to Sheerface. There is much to be done if any of us are to survive these next many hours.”
News of a coming flood of great ants on their trail spread like wildfire among Lord Sennak the Younger’s warrior group and his personal guard. Within moments, kobolds were dropping their baggage, gathering up whelps and the elderly, and running for all they were worth down the long passage that was called the Crossway.
Lord Sennak, seeing the panic beginning to ensue around him, stood and took the whole scene in. It was almost surreal. Here a mother dropped a yoke that carried her baggage, all that she owned in the world, to gather up her young whelps and run. In her eyes was a panic born of uncertainty and primal instinct. Hobbling past him was an elderly warrior, his crutch held in one hand and his knee held stiffly. Behind him, as he turned, he could see the stragglers of the group, those with several whelps or with elderly parents who had to be carried, begin to panic. Some had dropped the litters they carried, gathering up their children and leaving their disabled parents to their doom. Others had simply sunk to their knees in despair at news of the approaching ant horde.
Was their something he should say? What should he be doing? Lord Sennak paused for a few moments longer, unable to take his eyes from the scene of chaos going on around him.
“Sire!” a voice broke through his stupor. From the passageway ahead the chief of his personal guard was coming toward him with a double handful of older warriors, warriors who were well past their prime, whose children had mostly left the nest already.
“Yes, chief?” he answered.
“Sire?” the old warrior looked cautiously at his lord. “You have to go now, sire. Our people need you. Look to the people, sire. I and these warriors will stand against the ants.”
Lord Sennak nodded his bowed head as he looked down at his wringing hands.
“Go now, sire,” the old warrior gently turned his lord and walked a few steps with him past the warriors.
“Sire, you’ve done the right thing, you know, getting the gen out of the deeps. You’ve saved many lives.”
Lord Sennak looked up at the old warrior. “But you and these will have to die for my inaction! And still the rest who run now may not make it to Sheerface before the ants overtake them!”
The old warrior just smiled. “Sire, our whelps are raised, and now they run with their whelps in tow. Sire,” he continued, breathing in deeply and puffing out his aged chest, “we willingly give our lives for them. Do not mourn for us. The only way to honor us is to watch after those we give our lives for.”
Lord Sennak blinked and looked about himself. The group of old warriors stood straighter than he had seen many of them stand in some years. Clerks and administrators they were, for the most part of the past few decades, who had kept the cogs of government running for his recently departed father. Yet now, with spear, sword, and shield in hand, their eyes were clear and resolute in their choice.
“Yes,” Lord Sennak answered, nodding. “I will honor your sacrifice.”
The old warrior let his hand fall to his side as Lord Sennak turned and walked away, scooping up a spear that someone had dropped before breaking into a run.
“I can’t go on,” Troka was whining. “Leave me to the ants.”
Ahead of him and Gorgon, Arbelk and Jerrig had both abandoned the last of their equipment, carrying only their weapons with them. Troka had long since abandoned everything except the broadsword the council of his gen had given him, and now, as he fell to the cold stone of the steps, he let his precious broadsword fall off his back to the ground.
Gorgon shook his head in frustration yet again. Dropping his own shield, bow, and quiver of arrows he scooped up Troka, slinging him over his shoulder before he reached down and picked Troka’s broadsword up.
“I’ll not leave you, Troka,” Gorgon grunted as he began running up the steps again, his own two-handed warhammer slapping against his thigh in rhythm with his pumping steps.
“You’ll… never… make it… carrying me,” Troka whined as he bounced up and down on Gorgon’s shoulders.
Gorgon didn’t speak. As much as he hated to admit it, Troka might just be right. His legs were already burning, and he didn’t know how much longer he could go on. This was more than he’d ever put his legs through before.
As quickly as that thought of weakness came into his mind, Gorgon dismissed it. He was not weak, and he would broach no thought of weakness either. Right now, it was mind over matter. He didn’t mind the pain, and his legs screaming at him didn’t matter.
Lord Karthan stood looking at the outcast leader from the opposite edge of the precipice that led down into the underdark. It had not been long before that this ‘Kale’ had caused the Kale Stone to glow with such intensity, as if there were some special bond between him and the stone.
Lord Karthan shook his head. He was trying to accept the many changes that had happened in the last couple of weeks, but to win back the gen, just to give it up to… a son of outcasts!? That was inconceivable. It was not something he would allow. However, he would certainly treat these outsiders with dignity enough, as he had told the war council last night. After all, there was an orc horde approaching on the surface, and from Durik’s visions in the stone, apparently an ant horde was coming up from below as well.
“Mirrik! How good to see you!” Kale’s voice could be heard above the din of refugees as he extended a hand to a rather muscular warrior on the latest lift. All around the lip of Sheerface Kale’s outcasts and some former Deep Guard warriors were operating the four lifts that led deep into the underdark. With each lift a handful of pitiful refugees, carrying their few possessions and whelps with them, came streaming into the home of the Kale Gen.
Lord Karthan shook his head. It was a historic occasion, but this last batch of kobolds had brought word of sighting the ant horde, and all sense of history became very personal.
“Sire, I’ve given the order for the supports for this cavern to be collapsed as soon as you command,” Khazak Mail Fist was saying to him. “Even now that team is making ready to pull the pins to the supports.”
Lord Karthan turned and looked up at a pair of kobolds climbing the wall of the cavern toward the bases of a pair of massive support beams. In their hands were ropes to attach to the eye-holes of the thick iron pins that kept them in place. “Yes,
right, good. Tell me, wasn’t Gorgon and his team left down in the underdark with these Deep Gen kobolds?”
Khazak thought for a moment. “Yes, sire. I do remember Durik mentioning that in his report.” Below the pair, rising up from the bottom of the lifts, wails of despair began to rise up, and the sound of many panicking voices. Khazak scowled. “Sire, if they panic down there, they’ll likely flood the lifts and break the ropes. What shall we do about it?”
“Khazak, I can’t leave Gorgon and his team to their deaths. We have to control the panic down there, or else we’ll not get anyone else out before the ants arrive.”
Khazak nodded. “Aye, sire.” Looking up at his lord, he took a deep breath. “Sire, I know you’ll not like it, but I think me and some of mine have to go down there to sort things out.”
Khazak Mail Fist was right. Lord Karthan didn’t like it, but in the end there wasn’t much he could do about it. There wasn’t anyone else that he’d trust with such a task anyway, which was why he’d said anything at all.
“Very well. Take some of these Honor Guard warriors with you, then,” Lord Karthan directed.
With a nod, Khazak turned and stopped one of the lifts from descending. Looking about, he called out. “Trallik! Gather up a handful of Honor Guard warriors! We’re going down to sort out this mess, and to gather up Gorgon and his team if we can.”
Trallik, who had been working one of the winches with Trikki and a pair of warriors from the outcasts, turned and replied “Yes, sire!” before taking off into the exit passage to obey.
This was not going to be an easy mission. Trallik knew ants, and they had no mercy, but he was a warrior of the Kale Gen, and part of Lord Karthan’s Honor Guard now, and he would do his duty, even if it cost him his life. It was strange for him to feel this way. Not two weeks before it had been all about him, but now he knew his heart had been changed.
Many kobolds would likely die before the evening arrived in the world above, and as Trikki watched her young lifemate go to gather some of the Honor Guard that stood watch in the outer cave, she hoped desperately that he wouldn’t be one of them.
Gorgon let go of Troka’s hand as the pair of them collapsed on the broad landing that was the top of the broad stairway. Jerrig and Arbelk were chipping rocks out of the wall and were trying to run back and forth from the wall to the abyss that was the great shaft down into the deeps, though their legs were near spent so stumbling was all they could manage. The look on their faces was one of near panic, as they saw their doom quickly approaching.
After several moments of willing the intense pain in his legs to stop, Gorgon crawled over to the edge of the landing and looked down.
“Troka!” he croaked, his throat and lungs burning. “They’re coming, Troka! On your feet!” the exhausted warrior forced out as he attempted to stumble to his feet.
Troka, laying flat on the landing, could take no more. Gorgon had alternately carried and drug him up the last several hundred steps. The pain that now wracked his body was more than he could endure. Still panting heavily, Troka began to cry uncontrollably.
Stumbling over to him, Gorgon stood on crooked legs and looked down at his spent companion. Steeling himself one more time, he slapped Troka across the snout.
“Get up!” he yelled.
“But I can’t,” Troka whined in response.
Striking Troka again, Gorgon yelled “Get up! I’m not leaving you!”
Troka turned over and kept crying, but began to struggle to his knees. Gorgon grabbed him by the crossbelts and helped him to his feet. Thrusting his sheathed broadsword into Troka’s arms, Gorgon sent him into the passageway that led through Mirrik’s home caverns in the upperdeeps and out into the Crossway.
Turning, Gorgon looked at Jerrig and Arbelk, both of whom were frantically gathering rocks and throwing them down at the flood of ants a hundred feet below them now.
“Go!” Gorgon screamed at them. Instantly, the pair of warriors woodenly obeyed, their stiff limbs grabbing weapons and shuffling them into the passageway after Troka. Grabbing his hammer, Gorgon stumbled after them.
“Steady, now, warriors of the Deep Gen,” the old warrior said, the timber of his voice belying the nervousness they all felt. The broad passageway had been clear for some time, and they had just decided to begin to retreat when the noise of pursuit began low, then grew to the sound of an oncoming flood echoing through the upperdeeps.
With spears and shields raised and interlocked, the group of older warriors was ready. The same battle-drill they had practiced for decades now served as the common language of their resolution to stand against the impossible odds of a great ant horde.
As the first figure burst out of the side passageway that led back to their home caverns, they were surprised to see that it was, in fact, a kobold, and not an ant at all! Was this it, then? Were there no ants?
Stumbling down the broad passage known as the Crossway toward the double handful of Deep Gen warriors, the kobold was quickly followed by three others, all of them holding weapons and all of them running for their lives.
“Steady, now. Steady,” the old warrior repeated. “I’d imagine the ants flushed these last few stragglers out. They should be here any moment now.”
Not ten paces behind the last of the kobolds a pile of ants came tumbling out over one another, blind in their sadistic eagerness to catch their prey. Some of these Deep Gen warriors had seen great ants before, but what they had expected was not what they saw this day. Standing erect on four legs, with spiked arms and mandibles flaring, these were no mindless drones.
As one, the veteran ant warriors rushed headlong toward the shield wall.
Within a few short heartbeats the four fleeing kobolds were flinging themselves through the small gap the old warriors had made for them in the shield wall. Immediately after them, the flood of ant warriors hit.
The old warrior, standing in the second and final rank, braced the warrior to his front. Lifting his head, he was proud to see his fellows still on their feet. With his spear raised over his head, he joined his companions in stabbing into the carapaced torsos of the snapping, slashing ant warriors who seemed to have woken up out of their crazed fury after slamming into the shield wall.
For the first few confused moments, the double line of old warriors stabbed and smashed at the ants with spear and shield, their blows landing with some impunity on the confused monsters. Then, as the ant warriors recovered from their bloodlust, they began grabbing at spears, yanking them from their owners’ grasp, wrenching away shields and knocking aside drawn swords.
Not long after the ant warriors had hit the line, the screams of the last few aged warriors were silenced, and all that echoed down the Crossway was the low rumble of many, many feet.
Traveling much faster on level ground, Gorgon and his team had honored the old warriors’ sacrifice by not stopping for even a heartbeat.
“Go! Go! Go!” Khazak Mail Fist called out to the four warriors as they stumbled around the corner far to his front. Behind him, the last of the refugees was boarding the last of the lifts… the last lift, that is, except for the one that Khazak and his last few Honor Guard warriors had kept for their own retreat.
With sweat dripping from his brow, Trallik looked breathless as desperation turned suddenly to hope. Grabbing him from behind, Trikki screamed out with the tension of it all.
“Go!” she called out as she jumped up and down.
Far above them, the winch workers took her jumping as a tug on the rope and began to work the winch with all they had.
“No!! Not yet!!!” Khazak’s voice boomed out in desperation. But, for all his noise, the lift operators far above him couldn’t hear his command above the din of the refugees.
Drawing his sword, Khazak jumped off the quickly rising platform and landed in the sand. Not twenty paces from him, the four warriors’ faces had gone white with the disappearance of the platform up Sheerface. Seeing Khazak drop from the lift, the four warriors stumbled into
the small cavern at the bottom of Sheerface where Khazak stood urging them on. Not a hundred paces behind them the ants came surging forward, tumbling over each other in their eagerness to get at the four fleeing warriors.
“Where… where is the lift?!” Gorgon called hoarsely.
Suddenly, a rope fell at Gorgon’s feet. With a giddiness that only comes from experiencing the extremes of despair, followed by the sudden hope of reprieve, all five Kale Gen warriors grabbed the rope, riding with it toward the rim of the cliff in the darkness far above them.
Not long after, the cavern had been collapsed, sealing the underdark approach into the caverns of the Kale Gen under hundreds of tons of rock and debris.
Chapter 8 – Escaping the Dragon
“Wait for me!” Morigar whined as he struggled to keep up with the long-legged elf and his mounted minder; Arren the elf warrior and Krebbekar the master of Lord Krall’s house guard.
The look that Krebbekar gave the spoiled Krall princeling said more than any words could say. But contrary to its normal effect, it didn’t shut Morigar up.
“We should seek shelter with one of these local gens,” Morigar suggested.
Upon meeting up in the dragon’s lair, the trio had immediately headed out of the Hall of the Mountain King and even now were heading down the Winding Way toward Outpost Hill, then Birdstone and eventually the path over the mountains to the southern valley. Krebbekar had no intention of hanging around the dragon’s lair, and Arren had agreed to go along. Though neither of the kobolds knew why, Arren had pondered long and hard after seeing five empty pedestals, each marked with the name of one of the original five kobold gens on it.
Once, after they had found shelter in a small hollow in the foothills along the way, for some time the elf had sat mesmerized, seemingly staring into space, during which a strange translucence had come over his face and he had spoken in a musical, yet firm tongue that neither of the kobolds understood. When he’d finished, his only explanation to the pair was that it was an elvish thing, and that they wouldn’t understand. The dragon had passed, however, and seemed to have finished his hunting for the night, so rather than question him further, the trio resumed their midnight journey.
