Baltor asked, “Really? If I am the one you really want, then let it be just you and I who fight to the death—right here and right now. If I win, you have your forces return to the world with which they came—”
The dragon interrupted, “And when I win?”
After chuckling for a second, Baltor answered, “Then you’ll have what you came for—my life and my soul! But regardless of who wins, your forces depart to the world where they originated. Hell, most likely.”
Dreeak replied, “My forcesss have told me they like thisss world—they want to stay! How about thisss counterproposal, Baltor? If you win by killing me, then my forcesss will return to their world—if you lose by me killing you, then all the humansss on this world shall become our obedient slavesss forever!”
“I honestly cannot speak for all the humans in this world, dragon,” Baltor calmly answered. “Yet I’m confident that not a single one of my people will allow themselves to become slaves to anyone, even if I should happen to lose in this one-on-one duel with you. We are all free men and women here!”
“Then I supposssse that war is unavoidable, fool,” Dreeak answered a few seconds later, just before her image dissipated into nothingness.
“Yes, I suppose that it is…” Baltor said mostly to himself, just before he launched his hawk straight up into the air—Cheo followed right behind.
Halfway back to their army, the dark gnomes on the other side began to maniacally scream in high-pitched tones, beat their weapons into their chests, and, if on the ground, stomp their boots!
The second Baltor and Cheo had landed, thirty noisy seconds later; everyone on the entire battlefield clearly heard the dragon roar at the top of her lungs, “ATTACK!!!”
Still screaming, the gnomes rushed in—not surprisingly, ninety-nine percent of the battlefield became magically enshrouded in “utter dark clouds,” including Baltor’s army’s location.
In the darkness that only he could see through, Baltor commanded through his megaphone, “Present arms!”
His soldiers simultaneously withdrew their weapons, which action made a loud, ringing noise—at the same time, the pyramid of giants slammed his shield into armored chest-plate one time, which caused an equally loud crashing noise!
After kicking his feet into his hawk’s stirrups, which caused his hawk to launch straight up into the air, Baltor called out, “Launch, King Cheo!”
Once both hawks had reached the altitude of sixty feet, which was forty feet above the tallest black cloud, Baltor roared at the top of his lungs, “For the survival of the world—charge!!!”
Fearlessly the cavalry soldiers and the giants rushed forward into the cloudy battlefield, all the while howling like madmen and madwomen! At the same time, joining this sound—on a slightly lesser scale volume-wise—were the sounds of thousands upon thousands upon thousands of galloping hooves and rolling wheels.
It only took a grand total of fifteen seconds to pass before the first sounds of combat commenced—swords clanking against other swords or shields, and of course, the sounds of death screams coming from both sides of the fence!!
All the while, Baltor continued to telepathically navigate his hawk over the battlefield, while seeking out the whereabouts of the dragon, both physically and/or psychically. So far, he had been unsuccessful in locating his nemesis.
At the same time, Cheo adroitly flew Leshava, and Darius rode in back—not only did they both seek out the dragon with scopes, yet Darius occasionally shouted out “words of encouragement” to the troops!
Several minutes had passed since the battle had begun, and still nobody had located the “cowardly dragon”—therefore, not wanting to waste any more time with cowards, Baltor shifted his mind, heart, and soul to his forces fighting for their very lives below.
Right away he began to yell out encouraging words through his megaphone—lungs that would never grow tired or sore—to his men and women swinging every type of weapon imaginable. Below, in the darkness, his blind-fighting troops clearly heard every word that he said and they became even more “fired up!”
Only minutes after that, yet another “good idea” popped in Baltor’s mind, and so he intermittently began to offer “tips, suggestions, directions and orders” to his troops, especially because he could see through that utter darkness below.
Thanks to all of his assistance, the battle remained incredibly successful so far … very few friendly forces had been killed, despite being severely outnumbered, outmatched, and continuously surrounded by the enemy-gnome forces!
And yes, even without Baltor’s encouraging help, his army would still have been “quite successful,” for these three additional militarily-oriented reasons:
The first was because the troops—including the giants—now trusted and utilized all their senses, including their sixth sense, instead of just relying upon the senses of sight and sound. Thanks, in great part, to all the “exceptional blind-fighting training” delivered by Humonus prior to his death.
The second reason was the hundreds of deadly plows, which had been stored in the back of hundreds of wagons until an hour before camp had been broken. Now they were securely mounted onto the front part of the chariots, or wagons—the front part of the plow extended fifteen feet beyond the length of the horses. Finally, these plows proved to be quite lethal weapons as they literally mowed through the non-ending ranks of dark gnomes!
The third and final reason this army could not even be slowed down whatsoever, was due to their “strategic battle formation.”
Leading the pack in ranks of four was the assault-cavalry—ten thousand men and women blindly charged forth upon their horses, or in horse-drawn chariots with attached plows, while furiously swinging whatever weapon he or she happened to possess every direction!
Following behind them were the stomping giants, who never gave up their pyramid-shaped formation, and continuously obliterated the disarrayed and damaged gnomes not killed through the initial charge from the assault-cavalry!
Following behind them were eight thousand of the support-cavalry, either on foot, horses, or wagons. They had two missions to perform by order of importance.
One, kill any remaining enemies still alive! Two, rescue any wounded soldiers or giants by taking them in the back of a wagon to the rear, so that the two thousand medics stationed there could patch up the wounded.
Statistically speaking, during these first five minutes of combat that passed, the dark gnomes had successfully killed eight cavalry soldiers and wounded twelve; not a single giant however was killed or even remotely wounded.
As for the numbers of enemies slain—nine thousand, three hundred and ten were killed … fifteen thousand, eight hundred and two became wounded, ranging from light to mortal!
Yet another five minutes of incredibly fierce battling waged between the two opposing armies, yet only a fractional portion of the assault-cavalry had been stopped in their ferocious charge—eighty-six wounded, and twenty-eight dead. One giant was slain, and two were seriously wounded.
On the other side of the fence—twelve thousand and twenty-six additional dark gnomes became slaughtered … while twenty-four thousand, nine hundred and six were wounded!
Despite the massive amount of casualties amongst the gnomes, ninety-eight percent of this bloody-battlefield still remained enshrouded in utter darkness…
All the while, a miniscule-sized Dreeak continued to hide away in one of the underground tunnels below … tunnels that her gnomes had strategically dug out this last week, spreading all around the entire battlefield.
Once the gnomes had finished this task, she shrunk herself down until she was no bigger than five feet in length, width, and height, and then entered the tunnels. Once she and ten human prisoners were safely inside, the gnomes purposefully caused a cave-in at the entrance, filled it up with dirt, and finally camouflaged it.
Since the battle had begun, she remained “enormously busy” using three of her magical powers simultaneously and continuo
usly.
First, she had used her power of “conjuration” to summon a three-dimensional, holographic and rectangular-shaped game-board that not only floated in the middle of the air, yet actually contained moving game-pieces so that she could observe the entire battle as it transpired.
Second, she utilized her power of “telepathy” to command her forty-eight divisions of game-pieces/forces all around on the game-board.
Third, she utilized her “teleportation” ability to maneuver around her divisions, strategically, so that they were always outflanking the enemy. Or, teleporting the wounded and/or fatigued back to the rear, so that they could get rest, and/or healed by the priestesses, whose divine power directly came from Tiamat—the dragon goddess.
After the first second of the tenth minute had passed, since the “game of war” begun, Dreeak tabulated that her pieces still astronomically outnumbered the enemy’s pieces by forty-nine-to-one, though it had originally been fifty-to-one at the very beginning…
The following second, most unexpectedly, Mitanium’s voice popped inside Dreeak’s mind, but he didn’t sound happy at all as he telepathically reported, Your Unholy Greatness…we have problems!
Even though Dreeak had never stopped magically gazing, directing, and teleporting her troops upon the battlefield, her throat emitted a low growling sound just before she growled out angrily, “What?”
Throughout the tunnels, her voice echoed this word for dozens of times…
Through the chaos, he answered, Because Your Unholy Greatness has been utilizing her magical powers, in order to strategically observe and manipulate all the game pieces on this board, I know that you are already fully aware of Baltor’s words of encouragement, and directions, to his game pieces…
After a short pause, Dreeak lightly hissed out the word, “So?”
He continued, So, you may not be consciously aware of the fact that your enemy has also been magically casting a “zeal spell,” which has transformed all of his forces into a “freaking demolition derby” on ours, for lack of a better term!
For the first time since the battle started, Dreeak took her eyes off the game-board by shutting her eyelids, so that she could mentally glare with outrage at Mitanium!
Once so a second later, Dreeak observed that he now bore a terribly worried expression upon his face, which was an expression she had never before seen. Not once.
A few seconds later, her physical mouth angrily howled out the word, “How??”
Dozens and dozens of echoes reverberated through the tunnels.
Through the echoes, he answered, Simply put, Your Unholy Greatness, though it is not a simple matter at all—no matter what word, phrase, or sentence that comes out of Baltor’s mouth, he has been super-consciously stressing seemingly random syllables into each and every sentence. But by combining these syllables together, they form the arcane words of the “zeal spell” using the ancient Dragonic-tongue…perhaps he has been feasting on humans, secretly?
Now truly outraged, Dreeak barked out the word, “What?!?”
This time, there were hundreds of very loud echoes that continued for minutes to come.
Through the echoes, he answered, As I know that Your Unholy Greatness heard my answer, but is asking this question regarding how this is all possible, I don’t know. All I know is that our game pieces are getting mowed, slashed, or smashed to bits, even though we have surrounded their forces three times since the battle began twelve minutes ago! In other words, they all should be dead by now, but the reality of the situation is that our numbers are the ones dying in mass quantities.
A look of shock and disbelief instantly crossed Dreeak’s face upon hearing this news.
After a ten second pause, he added, Even worse—Your Unholy Greatness’s army may not even last until sunrise, and then he will find you and kill you, before you can implement “The Plan” tomorrow morning during the time of the two new moons on the other side of the planet!
Dreeak physically screamed at the top of her lungs, “Well, what in the hell do you suggest we do? Alter the plan? Retreat? What???”
Utter chaos erupted, as every single word that she had screamed reverberated thousands of times throughout the tunnels for dozens minutes to come.
Shortly after the chaos began, Mitanium answered, Please calm down and trust me now more than ever, as I—your super-consciousness—have been at the beck and call of Your Unholy Greatness over the course of these last three hundred fifty-three years since you were still in the egg—remember?
Dreeak nodded her head affirmatively one time, though she was still very-very-very ticked off.
Mitanium said, Instead of going through a detailed history lesson, which history should seriously be written as a book in the nearby future, here’s my idea! Skip “The Plan” altogether, eat all your human prisoners now, transform into the vompareus, and kill Baltor. When his master comes, Your Unholy Greatness should be more than strong enough to take him out…okay?
Though Dreeak trusted Mitanium, she had also made a deal, and to her, a deal was a deal.
Therefore, she telepathically said, Hold on, Mitanium. Vompareus—hear me! Are you guys freaking watching this stupid game? I hope you are. After all, my forces are fast becoming quickly annihilated out there, despite my best efforts! We might not only lose this battle, but the entire war, if I do not stop Baltor at midnight, and his master right after. I know that this wasn’t a part of” the plan,” but let’s alter it.
Inside Dreeak’s mind, she heard a male voice and a female voice scream at the same time, which voices both belonged to her one Vompareus Creator, No—don’t you dare! Look—I know that you bear sentiment toward the Noman’stia Gnomes, especially since you were the one to diligently train them since we first gave you the recipe to make clones three and a half centuries ago, but the time has not come for you to take Baltor out of the equation, just yet. Wait until after sunrise, Dreeak!
You must allow the decimation of your army to continue—trust us—the tides will soon turn once Baltor’s forces get so tired that they can no longer lift their swords. This will happen just after sunrise when he goes to sleep for the day in his command tent!
And that is when you use the tunnels until you’re right under his bed, teleport a dark gnome into his tent, and have him or her assassinate Baltor in his sleep…
Trendon Harrn will have no choice but to try and rescue his apprentice, and there you’ll be, popping out of the ground right behind Trendon, stealing the Rod of Ro’shain from out of his grasp, and releasing us from the Realm of Darkness we have been trapped in for the last 9,000 years!
Only together can we destroy and kill Trendon Harrn… and together, we—dragonkind, the vompareus and the arch devils—will equally rule. That’s the plan… stick with it.
Finally, we know that hundreds of thousands of your forces will die throughout the night, but who cares, as they are just pawns in this game… We, however, have made you a Queen amongst all the races, including the Master Races!
“Fine, but realize the possibility that your plan may backfire.” Dreeak snapped back. She then reopened the window that allowed her to see and manipulate around the battlefield…
Only minutes before midnight, Mitanium popped inside of her mind; he then reported, As I warned you, Your Unholy Greatness, there is no sign of that spell stopping, despite the fact that Baltor has returned to the rear. Already you have lost more than two hundred fifty thousand, while the enemy has lost no more than two hundred thirty…
By tomorrow morning, you will no longer have any forces whatsoever. Perhaps this may even be my last message to you, if you don’t act as soon as you see him back on the battlefield, Your Unholy Greatness!
It is Tiamat’s divine will that you destroy the Rod of Ro’shain… not free the Vompareus. I know we did not tell you this before, but if the Vompareus suspected that you would betray them, they would not have made Your Unholy Greatness into a vompareus at all…
The dragon pondered
her super-consciousness’ warning. After eating all ten of her human meals, and her body had begun to change into the vompareus-dragon, Dreeak finally freaked!
After literally smashing open a new hole through the ground, she launched herself high up into the air. Only a second later, she saw two hawks bearing four riders flying low over the battlefield—the nearest was two miles away and the furthest was two-in-a-quarter miles away.
Her dragon ears instantly heard and recognized the voice of the driver of the nearest hawk continuously shouting encouraging words to the Forces of the Sharia Empire below. It was for this hawk that the dragon flew, which dragon not only multiplied in size with every passing second, yet would take no more than twenty seconds to arrive.
Two seconds later, Baltor saw the incoming dragon and yelled out, “Cheo, I’m going to personally destroy this thing, once and for all. Continue to man your post and supervise!”
Cheo cocked his head from side to side, indicating the affirmative.
Baltor veered his hawk’s flight path directly toward the dragon. Once so, only three seconds later, he observed that even though the monster was still two hundred eighty feet away, she was flying twice as fast as the speed of shadow! She was also twice her normal size.
After sucking in a very deep and thunderous breath that lasted four seconds, Dreeak blew furious gusts of dark clouds and fireballs out her mouth, aimed directly for her arch nemeses—fortunately, all the fireballs barely missed, as Baltor had already ordered his hawk to veer sharply up and to the right.
While continuing to blow a few extra bolts out of her mouth, the dragon switched her aim toward the path they were going, but they were already too far away.
The second Baltor heard the thunder stop, about three seconds later, he ordered his hawk to do a quick U-turn—now facing the other way, he saw that they were currently about four hundred fifty feet away from the vompareus dragon that was now triple its normal size, and rapidly closing in!
BOOK II OF III: The Reign of the Sultan Page 32
