by Marc Secchia
“That Warlock’s done gone crazy,” averred the Illuxorite. “TO ME, MEN! Dracopedes done nuthin’ like toys, lil’un. Go! Run!” As she sprinted away, the Captain was yelling at his men, “We need to get off the trail. Run for the city, for the open territory before it. Run for your lives!”
* * * *
The distant thundering grew as Whisper sprinted back toward Arbor. She really needed to work on running in the right direction at some point. All this charging about like a headless draconid – how was this helping anyone?
Yet, she found Warlock Sanfuri nowhere on the trail. His tracks led half a mile out of the city and straight into a rock face. Shivura and four Element Enchanters were present, examining the sealed rock face with rueful expressions.
“Bored straight through,” said the Mage. “Perfect dracoworm control.”
“Sealed three to four hundred feet deep, best I can tell,” said one of the Earth Enchanters, removing his hands from – Whisper’s neck protested at the speed of her double-take – inside the solid rock. He shook his blonde curls unhappily. “Power like sunstrike, that grey-haired fungazoid!”
“There’s dracopedes coming!” Whisper blurted out.
“A stampede?” Shivura queried angrily, his skin blanching to almost complete white, that made the bags under his eyes appear sepulchral.
“Apparently, they’re tame.”
Mage Shivura swore loudly and long. The Element Enchanters picked up their robes. “Stop!” rapped the Mage. “Where’s Drex’s command?”
Whisper hooked a thumb over her shoulder, unable to speak. The pressure! Why had her danger-sense just stolen her tongue? She knew the vibration through her paws, the hammering of her heart, the panicked flare-sniff-analyse response of her nostrils. What was the matter with her?
Shivura snapped, “Back a hundred yards. Earth Enchanter! Can you seal us in, and the soldiers?”
“Aye!” The four nodded and shouted as one.
“Get in there. I’ll run to meet and direct the men. Whisper, the Princess –”
She was already gone.
Shivura! Strange, how in a crisis, the best of the man came out. He had been Rhyme’s rock, she had said, and now his concern was for Captain Drex and the men. He might be a brain-pickling weird-Mage, but he was a good sort – if that made so much as a whisker’s worth of logic.
Thankfully, even as she approached the city once more, the alarm gong rang out urgently; crashing blows of the ten-foot circle of brass dangling from the buttress just above the Palace roof. People turned immediately. Whisper dashed through the gates like a speeding dragonet, yelling at the first person she saw to find out where the Princess was – standing right in the middle of the main route strongside of the city! This was an extension of the ledge-trail that led all the way out to the bridge.
“Rhyme! Rhyme!” she cried, not enjoying the pitch of panic her voice struck.
“Whisper. What happened?”
Smoke drifted over the city. She saw that Sanfuri and his Dragons had bulldozed a path right through, tearing down buildings and tossing aside the bodies of any foolish enough to get in his way. The Arborites had put up a decent fight. She saw seven Dragons dotted along the trail. People wandered about dazedly, calling for loved ones.
“Dracopedes!” Whisper shouted.
“We know that!”
“Then clear the freaking road, idiot Blue!”
Whisper clapped a paw over her mouth in horror. What the –
Rhyme just laughed gruffly. “Straight through, Whisper?”
“We think so.”
The Princess might not be a tall woman, but she was built like a pocket Dragon, full of muscle and fire. Right now, her warning bellow cut through the din like a parade Captain venting her spleen upon the greenest of recruits. She stalked her Captains and ordered runners to move throughout the city, especially up to the rear gates where Whisper saw, through the drifting veils of smoke and ash, a clean-up operation was in progress.
Whisper added, “If those dracopedes are transporting Sanfuri’s army, order your emplacements and archers to make the opportunity count.”
Rhyme clapped her on the shoulder. “I like your thinking, girl!”
“Have you sealed your father’s room?”
“Huh?”
She had to shout now over the thundering; the city shook, and a dust cloud tinged with the green of plants rose into the wind-still afternoon air. Whisper howled, “Get Mages in there and seal the room. Warlock’s revenge, see? He promised!”
Rhyme said something as razor-sharp as her axes. “Keep your fur on. King Xan after that, right? That’s where he’s headed. The man’s a … gaah! How does he time battles like this?”
“Xola,” said Whisper. “He wants her for –”
The Princess slammed one mail-clad fist into the palm of her hand with a sound like a boulder cracking. “The acidic hells he’s getting anything more from us. Not in my city! Captain Landur! Mages! Get organised! Who’s here – Inshari. Go to the Palace and seal the King’s room. Take three Mages and ensure that room’s as tight as a drakkid’s –”
“Aye, Princess!”
“Captain Semoki!”
“Aye!”
“Gather your troops at the front gate. The moment those dracopedes go through, we’re following them to Warlock Sanfuri. Enough being trampled! We fight!”
Semoki crashed her fist against her breastplate. “Aye!”
Soldiers raced through the broken city of Arbor, hurdling the rubble as they shouted at citizens to clear the road. Whisper saw heads popping up over nearby roofs. Oh. The people were not cowering away as she had assumed. No wonder Sanfuri had taken such heavy losses as he rode through. Closer at hand, an axman scooped a toddler off the road. A hundred feet away she saw Gemmini and her father, lurking on a gantry just off the main ledge. Both carried crossbows; both had clearly seen the thick end of the battle already, but their round faces were set in grim lines as they watched her.
Gemmini raised her hand. Whisper patted the crossbow and gave them a grin she hoped communicated much.
Then, the dust cloud rolled in.
Buildings shook. Windows cracked. Even shouting was impossible. The dracopedes moved faster than a man running at a full sprint. She saw rounded carapaces emerge from the dust. Silvery, dart-shaped insects standing twelve feet tall and perhaps a hundred feet long, the sightless dracopedes moved upon the strangest of appendages, which appeared to be rows of flailing legs rolling beneath the creature in a constant flow. The flailing appendages projected five or six feet either side of the thickset, flattened bodies, and shredded anything they touched. They pulverised naked rock. Tossed bodies into the air. The dracopedes’ legs mowed through walls and slapped against metal with a dreadful crashing sound.
Warlock Sanfuri’s army rode on the backs of these beasts. Men. Provisions. Cages of dragonets and draconids, holding many hundreds of creatures. Siege weapons.
The people of Arbor rose up, and rained death upon them.
Axes flashed. Arrows darted into the dust. Huge crossbow quarrels snapped men and beasts off the backs of the dracopedes as though they had been swatted by almighty hands. Mid-city, the ready axe emplacements fired, smashing into the dracopedes’ bodies at point-blank range. Carapaces cracked. Boiling, acidic green blood splattered into the air. One dracopede slewed and stopped, but the creatures kept coming – rolling up and over the stricken creature in front, crushing every man upon its back before eventually shovelling it over the edge. The massive tonnage crashed down through the gantries, tearing them away before snagging in the netting below the city. Whisper saw men and women falling onto the netting too; several fell through rents and down into the canyon.
Even a twelve-foot quarrel in the ribs did not appear to stop these drakkids. Her flechettes were next to useless, but Rhyme stooped suddenly and lifted Whisper on her shoulder. “Jump up there. Get some good shots in. Aim for the sensory bundles.”
“Sensory w
hat?”
“Sides of the body. Black clusters on stalks. Six feet back from the nose.”
Whisper loaded her crossbow with neurotoxin darts as she scrambled up into the jentiko tree Rhyme had indicated. She doubted they would stop the drakkids, because they were insectoid rather than draconid or full Dragon, but she would take her chances. Then, the thundering caravan rolled past at high speed, and Whisper made her shots count, as many as possible. Ten dracopedes. Twenty. A full three dozen made it past, taking a withering crossfire that left the men on their backs dazed and reeling. Three dracopedes remained behind; the two that still moved were being pounded to smithereens by the catapults.
Outside the city, a further two dracopedes slewed to a halt, but the others raced away, moving at the same high speed as before.
Whisper gazed along the ledge. If Drex did not move, he’d be a smear on the rocks.
“Captain Semoki, your troop!” roared the Princess Blue.
“Whisper. Whisper!” Gemmini was negotiating a twisted gantry, waving a small package.
“Careful.” Whisper dashed to her friend.
“Mana darts. The Mages and I think we have a viable design,” said the girl. “Look, they work, see?” She held up her bandaged left hand.
Whisper tapped her paw on the metal guard rail and gave Gemmini a decent glower.
“Still got all my fingers.”
“Really?”
“Except that two are blue,” she added enthusiastically. “It was a low initial charge that’s changed my fingers to magical fingers! Isn’t that wonderful?”
“Amazing.” Whisper gave her a droll wink. “Thanks, Gemmini. You’re my favourite Armourer, bar none. Well, your Dad’s okay, but –”
“Whisper,” Rhyme called, already on her way to the city gates. “Keep up!”
“As if, you armoured Dragoness,” Whisper snorted.
Gemmini almost fell off the gantry laughing.
* * * *
Rhyme and Captain Semoki’s hundred-strong battle group moved at the mile-eating jog-trot of experienced soldiers. Whisper decided she was not unimpressed. They ran through the dust clouds generated by the charging dracopedes. The Princess pointed out that at least the trail was clean and freshly cleared, which would save the treasury a few gemstones in the future. She joked, but her face was as grim as a thundercloud – almost as grey as a woman of Azarinthe, Whisper needled her gently. The destruction of her city, with the outer circle still burning freely as they departed, weighed heavily on the Princess’ heart.
Shortly, they joined up with Captain Drex’s troop, freshly emerged from their bolt-hole, who were more than keen to join in. They had attacked Sanfuri’s baggage train from above, leaving a few piles of slain and subsequently pulverised Irregulars at the trailside – ready fertiliser, claimed one of the men, patting his axe hungrily. Rhyme promised he could do more gardening shortly. Even Shivura started shucking his heavy robes, making ready to run. Now, there was a sight. He was as thin as a stick-drakkid, his limbs pale red and his face an improbable shade perhaps best described as furious puce.
“Mage Shivura, you should knot your beard to prevent it tangling when you run,” Whisper advised dryly.
“I should what? You shrivelling little dracowasp!” he screeched.
“Ready?” called the Princess Blue, not quite managing to smooth a smile off her lips. “Move out!”
Whisper asked, “Princess, what was that thing the Warlock stole? He called it a Talisman.”
“A Talisman?” Rhyme looked puzzled. “No idea. Describe it.” After she had explained about the foot-long, slightly curved blue horn with its gold trim she had seen at the Warlock’s belt, she just shook her head. “No. Sounds like an old heirloom from the past – there used to be Mage-horns used in battle to create a shattering sound, but those fell into disuse maybe fifty or seventy years ago. Clever Mages like Shivura developed a standard reflective spell that turned the attack back on the wielder. Not very nice being pulverised by a sound so loud, it turns your bones to dust.”
Shivura voiced an ugly gurgle of laughter.
Whisper turned to the Mage. “I like your scarf, Mage Shivura.”
He stroked his beard, wrapped twice about his neck. “I was considering Whisper hide, but you’re just too prickly.”
“You’d ruin his lovely complexion, even if the russet hide and red colouration strike me as a fetching combination,” Rhyme suggested slyly.
“Is that a spot of rust on your axe-head?” Whisper inquired.
“Shall I polish it on your neck-ruff, girlfriend?” retorted the Princess.
Drex looked across at them as if they were both mad.
After a further half hour’s running, Rhyme’s command saw the dracopedes filing into another new cave off the main trail, exactly where Whisper’s memories and Xan’s logic had identified a flaw in the emforite bulwark that ran strongside of this canyon, creating the sheltered environment Arbor enjoyed.
Rhyme raised her hand. “Men!”
“And women?” Whisper asked. “Why do you call them all men?”
“This is hardly the time to discuss Human foibles,” the Princess cut in, mopping her forehead with one arm. “Form up. One minute to catch our breath, then we go in and start trimming their rear ends.”
One of the Element Enchanters, although he was panting as if on the point of keeling over in a dead faint, cried, “Stop! Rigged to collapse. Structural … magic, Princess. It’s a … trap.”
“Thar’n rear drakkid’s carrying their wounded,” Drex pointed out.
“Do you think Sanfuri cares about that?” Shivura asked. “Can you catch a cave-in?”
The Element Enchanter nodded. “Surely, twenty feet or so. After that, it’s anybody’s guess how many tonnes we’d need to shore up. You’ve seen Sanfuri’s power. I just wouldn’t risk it.”
“Makes us traverse a landslide if we’re to reach the Azar,” Whisper noted.
“Aye, little furry,” grunted the Element Enchanter. “Better an innocent landslide than Sanfuri’s tricks inside that tunnel, eh?”
Whisper sighed. “Aye.”
“Come on, Princess,” growled another woman. “Let us at ’em.”
Rhyme nodded stiffly. “Aye. Form up, and whatever you do, stay out of the tunnel mouth.” To Whisper, she added aside, “Don’t panic, alright? We’ll reach the Azarinthine army in time.”
How did she know?
Whisper’s paws itched to run the trail. She had to reach Xola. The Warlock could not want her for any good reason. Being his wife might be the least sinister option in Sanfuri’s devious mind.
* * * *
With two dracopedes taken down, the Warlock’s forces collapsed the tunnel, burying another three dracopedes and six Arborite axmen. They pulled out four, one of whom would take no further part in the battle. The other three dusted themselves off and rejoined the column with the air of naughty boys who expected and probably deserved a thorough thrashing.
Rhyme just gave them a filthy look, and said, “Save it for the Warlock!”
The armoured column jingled off again.
So, the stolid axmen could run with the best of them. Whisper could not believe their stamina. The Greys might have the edge in cunning, but these axmen and women could literally run for the kingdom. Putting in seven- to eight-minute miles carrying a full load of armour was no frolicsome trot down a canyon. Now Whisper knew why Rhyme trained as she did. The girl was a machine. In just an hour and three-quarters, they reached the rockfall. Unfortunately, the Mages and Enchanters were not nearly so fit. Five of the axmen immediately shucked their armour and weapons, and ran back to fetch them.
Whisper whistled in admiration.
The landslide was a decent blockage, fifty feet high, entirely covering the ledge, manufactured by the use of dracoworms, she concluded quickly. The Warlock’s devious plans and preparations left her in no doubt as to his Grey heritage. He had thought of everything.
“Right,” sai
d Rhyme, mopping her glowing cheeks again. “Whisper, how close?”
“Less than one mile. I can hear the battle.”
“Yar can? I can’t,” said Drex.
“Shame you can’t just run around this mess,” Myntix grunted. “Can ya, lil’un? Run around this thing? Drex said you did before –”
“Aye!” Whisper yelled. “Myntix, you’re a genius! I just ran along down there, last time.” She pointed a paw. “Anyone know if gravity inversions work on Humans?”
A great deal of head- and beard-scratching followed as everyone looked at everyone else, and shuffled their collective feet. Eventually, it was Drex who said, “Yar bunch o’ fungus-brains, it’s gravity!” Then, he grinned ruefully and punched Myntix on the shoulder. “After yar, m’lady!”
That broke the tension. The Arborite soldiers roared with laughter.
Whisper said, “See you all in a moment.” She jumped off the cliff. Ten feet down, the world tilted and her head pointed at the canyon’s opposite wall. “See? I’m not falling anywhere. Let me check how far it goes …”
The answer was, not far enough, but she approached to within fifty feet of the end of the rockslide. Whisper marked the spot clearly with an armour-piercing flechette and returned to the group to brief the Princess.
Rhyme propped her hands on her hips, sighed, and said, “Volunteers?”
Two hundred and eighty fists crashed against mail and plate breastplates. “AYE!”
Whisper blinked. The Princess blinked for a different reason; she appeared to be fighting back tears. “Is that the lay of the canyon? Then, give me an axe or a stone or three. Let’s test our Whisper’s highway. Where are those Element Enchanters?”
“Why, you gonna toss Mage Shivura over the side?” a wag called from the back.
Rhyme laughed. “Congratulations on your promotion, Garar! Come forward!”
With laughter more foreboding than cheerful, numerous hands pushed the young man to the front. He seemed rather whiter than blue, Whisper decided, taking pity on him. She said, “Princess. Use your belts to hold him the first time. Just to be safe.”
Garar looked as if she had just reinserted solid ground beneath his feet.
