The Game of Fates

by Joel Babbitt

  “Then why do I see many dead orcs and ogres along the path?” the massive beast asked in the feral tongue of these lesser creatures.

  “My lord,” Drakebane whined, “Kale Gen wolf riders very smart! They run fast. They fire arrows and run. They be cowards running much!”

  “Enough!” the dragon roared. “Hear my words! You and your little tribe will move to capture the kobolds now, before the ant horde arrives. They have thousands of warrior ants, and many hunters as well. They cannot be allowed to eat my prize.”

  Drakebane looked to either side of him in surprise. This was the first he’d heard of an ant horde. Yes, the few scouts that had returned had reported finding some ants, but nothing that could be called a horde, and no report of warrior ants at all. Ahn-Ki the hobgoblin mercenary’s eye patch was turned to him and his son Shagra just shrugged his shoulders.

  “Lord Manateel,” Drakebane mispronounced. He was nervous and afraid, but he knew better than to ask questions of a dragon. “We go get kobolds now! Ants will no get them. We hide them in caves until ants go away.”

  “Fine,” Mananthiél’s fierce look met his. “You are chieftain of this pathetic tribe for now, whatever it’s called. Do not fail me! Either you capture me the kobold gens intact, or your tribe will work my mines instead!”

  Drakebane nodded his understanding. “Yes, Lord Dragon!” he answered. “We go and do right now!”

  “Yes, you shall,” Mananthiél’s voiced boomed in the silence of the low-walled canyon. “Or I’ll kill you myself!” he said as he looked about the canyon at the host of fearful warriors. Seeing that they were sufficiently cowed, Mananthiél again took to flight, this time to see what he himself could do about the ants that had surprisingly showed up on his very Doorstep.

  Fire would be part of the answer, of that he was certain.

  “Where are ants? What ants? Scouts say only little ants, not manies and not warriors!” Drakebane was ranting. All about him orcs and ogres were scurrying about, gathering back into their groups with their own leaders and sub-leaders. The dragon had commanded, and they were moving to obey.

  “Father,” Shagra said, “we saw no more ants than what our scouts reported. This must be a new ant horde.”

  “Ahn-Ki!” Shagra was still furious. “Where is Karthan? Why he no at this place? You say he be here and we kill him and kobolds listen to us, because we kill Karthan!”

  Ahn-Ki’s look suggested one who was growing impatient. “Lord Drakebane. Yes, we expected to find the old lord of the Kale Gen here, but instead we find the place empty. I say that perhaps they took back their gen. I don’t think it matters now. Right now, we should just do what the dragon commanded and go directly to the home of the Kale Gen.”

  Shagra nodded his head. “Yes, lord. We go get Kales now. We fight ants later, when they come.”

  Drakebane’s scowl was likely going to stay for the rest of the day. Grabbing his axe up off the ground, he snorted and turned to yell at the chief of the ogre mercenaries. Within several moments the entire horde had begun movement.

  Not knowing where exactly the Kale Gen’s home caverns were, as it had been six years since they had actually seen the place, they did the only thing they could do. They followed the trail of the wolf riders who had pestered them so far, moving out at a slow run.

  Ardan slowly became aware of his surroundings as first one, then another cinder fell on his outstretched hand. The fact that his hands had only tiny, thin scales on the palms of them meant he could feel both of them burn out as they landed on him.

  Curling up his hand, he struggled to open one blurry eye, then the other. He could sense that he was lying in shallow water and that his back was numb from the cold spring run-off. Trying to sit up, he discovered that at least one of his ribs was broken. Looking down, he could see his tail, but couldn’t feel it. Finally, as he rolled over and pushed his way up to his knees, he rubbed his eyes and looked around himself.

  The little stream where I was hiding from the dragon. That’s where I am!

  Struggling for a moment, he eventually made it to his feet. Krebbekar! Where is Krebbekar?

  Turning about, Ardan stumbled stiffly toward the blasted divot in the shoreline that was the embankment. After several moments of looking dumbly at the blasted bits of a tree and smoking embers of what had been its branches, his eyes narrowed.

  Was that? Could it be? Stumbling over to the collapsed shoreline, he thought he saw an arm sticking out of the pile of dirt its collapse had made. He fell to his knees next to it then he realized he was kneeling on something soft.

  Falling back onto his still numb tail, Ardan saw the pile of dirt he’d knelt on move slightly, and suddenly a pair of eyes opened in the midst of it as dirt was blown outward in a cough.

  “Ah! Is the beast gone?” the moving mound of dirt said. In a moment it partially sat up and dirt began to fall from Krebbekar, making his outlines visible, though still caked with a thick layer of dirt. Standing gingerly on one foot, the old warrior began spitting, blowing dirt out of his nose, and shaking off the caked-on dust. After a moment, he turned and looked at Ardan.

  “Oh! You’ve lost a horn, there!” he said. “That had to hurt! And that’s quite a crack you’ve got to go along with it. Come here, let me see what I can do for it.”

  Krebbekar moved forward and put a hand on Ardan’s head. The instant he touched it a bright, searing pain shot through Ardan’s body, and the veteran warrior fell backward into the stream, unconscious yet again.

  Drakebane couldn’t believe his own eyes. What sorcery was this? Lying about the ground at the entrance to the enclosure, some thirty or more of his warriors and two of the largest ogres were screaming in pain, many of them with stiff limbs or limbs twitching spasmodically.

  “What is this?” he asked in wonder.

  Next to him, both Ahn-Ki and Shagra were silent.

  “What make them do this?” Drakebane asked again, looking at the hobgoblin.

  “Lord Drakebane,” the hobgoblin replied. “I do not know. It’s not like any magic I’ve ever seen.”

  Shagra noticed something. “It is not magic,” he said, pointing at the bundles of chew weed that these warriors and ogres had broken open and plundered. Shagra knew chew weed made one feel good, but it took away a warrior’s control of his own body over time, leaving one a blabbering idiot, soiling himself and useless, after several years of use. He never touched the stuff because of that reason, though most orcs did.

  “Look,” Shagra pointed out as he walked forward and picked a handful of the leafy weed out of a spasming warrior’s hand. “All this warriors and ogres took chew weed. And look!” he said, pointing at the brown, mushy substance that was smeared on some of the leaves. “This poison!”

  Several of the warriors and ogres who had been looking at the spectacle had some of the fouled weeds in their hands. Upon hearing it was poison, however, many of them dropped the leafy plants and ran out of the enclosure. Some who had been chewing the stuff while they watched spat the leaf out and looked about with fear and panic in their eyes.

  Drakebane shook his head in utter frustration. Seeing the leader of the ogres nearby, he walked up to the massive brute.

  “Go now!” Drakebane yelled at the big, equally dumb oaf that was the ogre mercenary chief. “Send many ogres! We catch little kobolds! They punch through little kobolds that run and catch them!” he said as he punched a fist into his other hand. “Many ogres be too much. You break them and take them! You kill them for poison us!”

  The big ogre grimaced and nodded his head in partial understanding. Then, as if a light had suddenly come on, he smiled. “Yes,” he muttered back in orc-speak. “Yes, many ogres, less arrows! We run fast, they can no run away!”

  Turning away from the orc chieftain, the ogre jogged heavily over to the many ogre warriors who were standing around outside the enclosure watching the spectacle. “Tog and Bograt!” he commanded. Two of his sub-leaders looked at him. “You take warriors!
You go run after kobolds! You catch them!”

  The two sub-leaders each walked over to where they had been sitting before the screaming began, grabbing their weapons and pushing their companions along with them. In a few moments, twelve ogres had gathered and were lumbering into the woods at a slow run.

  It didn’t take them long to find their first kobolds. Their arrival at the wood line flushed out a small team of them. With great zeal the first few ogres ran with all their might after the four wolf riders. When they caught the rearmost rider off the back of his wolf, however, the great oaf that caught him stopped to show him to all of his friends, who also stopped to see the little creature before they smashed him on a rock.

  Before long, Pintor and his two remaining companions arrived at the ambush position, yelling and screaming for the group to mount up.

  “Ogres! Twelve of them!”

  Durik and Manebrow looked at each other from behind their hasty barrier. There was no way they could take down twelve ogres in their current position, and they didn’t have any other traps set up that would do it either.

  “Time to run, sire,” Manebrow said as he put his arrow away and began walking toward their wolves.

  “Agreed,” Durik said, following suit. “Leaders! Everyone! Mount up!”

  As the wolf riders began mounting up, from the other side of the meadow the first couple of ogres appeared. Immediately, the wolf riders nudged their mounts forward at a run.

  There was not that much further to go, an hour at most by wolf-back. Though the ogres were fast in short sprints, they were no faster than the wolf riders over long distances. Also, the ogres were in unfriendly territory, and didn’t know what was around each corner. The quicker they caught the little wolf-riders, the less chance they had of being led into a trap. It was a contest of endurance that neither side could afford to lose.

  Lord Karthan and the other leaders of the various kobold forces had all climbed to the top of what they were now calling “Great Bow Hill.” Looking far out across the valley, the kobold leaders could hardly believe what they were seeing.

  The dragon had left their side of the valley, had flown toward the area of the Doorstep, and had begun dipping down toward the ground, alternately blasting fireballs into the trees and meadows of that part of the valley or raking them with broad lines of fire.

  Already it had become such a conflagration that mighty columns of flame could be seen rising back up from the forest floor, casting ash far into the air. The noon-day sun was beginning to be dimmed by the amount of smoke and ash gathering in the air above their home valley. And as if the fires the dragon started were not enough, cinders had risen through the super-heated air, only to land on nearby stands of trees to light them on fire as well. In the eyes of the handful of kobold leaders could be seen a deep sense of helplessness and sorrow.

  “Our forest, father! What is to be done if the flames reach our forest?” Krall was saying, the despair in his voice clearly evident. “Shall we risk taking our warriors home? Perhaps we could fight this fire!”

  Standing next to him, Lord Krall just shook his head. “No, son. There is nothing we can do. That fire is beyond our ability to fight. Besides, we’d never make it home in time, and would probably just get caught in the fire and die anyway.”

  “Then what of our home?” Krall asked, tears beginning to stream down his face. “What will happen to our people? Will there be anyone or anything to come back to?”

  “I don’t know, son,” was all Lord Krall could say.

  “Why would the dragon do this?” Kale asked no one in particular.

  “I don’t know why, unless perhaps the ants have already broken into the valley, though I don’t see why the dragon would care about ants in this valley,” Lord Karthan said.

  Khazak Mail Fist shook his head. “I should have seen it earlier. The dragon is in league with the orcs!”

  Most of the group turned to look at Khazak. Lord Karthan asked what they all were thinking. “But why? What do we have that a dragon could possibly want?”

  Khazak shrugged his shoulders. “It may not be what we have, but what he’s been told that we have. I don’t know what a dragon could want from us and why he needs an orc horde to get it from us.”

  The entire group stood looking at the flames for several moments in silence.

  “How long until the flames reach us, would you say?” Lord Karthan turned and asked the group.

  “Probably this afternoon some time,” Khazak Mail Fist spoke up. “Remember the last time we had a fire in the valley? It was in the fall, when the rains were up, however, so it didn’t spread very far.”

  “We were whelps then. It’s been too long ago for me,” Lord Karthan said, his eyes fixed on the approaching fire.

  “It traveled about as fast as a wolf can run,” Khazak said, “or so my father told me.”

  “Then this afternoon it is,” Lord Karthan nodded. “That does not leave us much time.” Kale and Lord Sennak had no frame of reference to even guess. The amazing sight that confronted them all was as alien to them as the deepest depths of the underdark were to the other leaders of the group.

  “With only an afternoon to deal with,” Lord Karthan was saying, “I think our only course of action is to flee to the caverns of my gen and let the fire deal with the orcs and ants. Does anyone else have a different idea?”

  Khazak was first to speak up. “I’d say we flee to the caves and deal with what’s left of them once the fire passes by.” Around him, the rest of the kobold leaders nodded in agreement, except for Kale, who was looking not at the distant fire, but at something much closer.

  “I do not think we have much of a choice, my friends,” Kale said. Everyone looked at him, and then down the slope to where he was pointing. “It appears that Durik and his Wolf Riders have returned. I would imagine that the orcs are not far behind them.”

  The mass of riders on their black wolves were riding hard along the road at the far end of the slope, having already cleared the trees. Not a hundred steps behind them a handful of ogres came into sight, marking the beginning of a mixed mass of orcs and ogres, all of whom seemed intent on catching the cavalry contingent.

  Suddenly spurred into action by the appearance of the orc horde’s vanguard, Lord Karthan immediately made for the ladder that ran down the back slope of the stone hill. “Come! Remember, I will draw them up the slope first!”

  Chapter 13 – The Horns of the Minotaur

  Durik and his warrior group had been able to break away from the ogres a couple of times, only to find a good vantage point up on a hill where they could fire a couple of volleys at them. It had had some effect, mostly just slowing the big beasts down. However, when the rest of the orc horde showed up, running in long, ragged columns behind them, Durik and Manebrow knew they had a dragon by the tail, so to speak, and so they led their entire Wolf Riders Warrior Group in as straight a line as the terrain would allow toward the hill where Lord Karthan had commanded.

  Durik looked over his shoulder as they broke out into the openness of the huge meadow. The group of ogres, ten of which were still following them, was still running after them, and though they didn’t look like they were getting closer, the massive beasts couldn’t be outside the range of the huge javelins some of them carried. Of course, Durik wasn’t about to stop to let them try a throw or two.

  Not more than a bowshot behind the ogres that were pursuing them, the first mixed groups of orcs and ogres were running along. Seeing that the enemy was in a tight enough group, Durik called out for his riders to follow him. Then about halfway between where the road came out into the open, and where it turned toward the caverns of his gen, he plunged headlong off the road and onto the long, sloping field. Like a flock of birds, the entire Wolf Riders Warrior Group followed behind Durik, making the sharp turn into the field, then charging straight up it.

  Behind Durik’s warrior group, some of the ogres stopped and threw javelins. One of them struck true, skewering a wolf and
throwing its rider into the dirt. A pair of other riders saw what happened and stopped to pick up the fallen rider. The ogres were upon them before the wolf could get far with its double burden, however, and suddenly a large rock smashed the two riders and the wolf they were on as they lagged behind the rest. Seeing the fate of his companions, the third rider spurred his own wolf on at top speed.

  Up at the front of the column, Durik and Manebrow sat as far up in the saddle as they could, looking for any sign of their forces in the wood line at the top of the hill. Finally, as they approached the mid-point of the slope, the sound of a ram’s horn could be heard on the breeze, and a few moments later the ogres broke off pursuit and began to return to their own forces. Moments later, the much shorter kobolds could see the spear tips of a kobold shield wall near the top of the slope.

  Far down the slope, where the wolf riders had plunged off the road, the first units of the orc horde had halted and were beginning to form up into large masses of warriors. As they assembled, Drakebane went from one group to another roaring a deep, resonating challenge that was answered in turn by each group of warriors.

  There, at the top of the slope a broad, thin line of kobolds with shields and spears had marched out of the wood line. Just looking at the little creatures, he couldn’t help but think that there were only half as many of them as there were of his warriors. How could so few of these much smaller warriors hope to stand against his entire horde of strong warriors?

  This was a good day. The smoke in the air from the great burning far off behind them in the forest where the dragon was taking on the ants served to take the edge off the bright noon-day sun, and the appearance of so few warriors was a welcome sight as well. Though he didn’t know why there were so few warriors, Drakebane thought that maybe many had died in the past six years, or maybe here was Karthan and those loyal to him, or maybe here was only part of the force. Whatever the reason, he would happily beat these kobolds into submission, to have something to show his master next time he returned.