by Lou Anders
Karn sent Herakles forward only one space.
This puzzled Xalthea. Karn had effectively wasted two turns by not sending either piece forward its allowed two spaces.
“The boy doesn’t know what he is doing, and so he is afraid to act,” she said. “Your ‘Queen’ plays like a fool, Thianna,” she called to the frost giant.
“How do you know what a fool plays like?” Desstra shouted at her. “Are you basing this on your own experience?”
Xalthea scowled. The little elf creature was annoying. But she was also puzzled by Karn’s lack of aggressive strategy. She whispered to Sirena, “What is that northern boy playing at? Is he trying to draw us out? For what purpose?”
Sirena studied her opponents, who, for the most part, were still in an ordered line in the back row.
“I think he is afraid to lose any of his pieces,” she said.
“But why?” said the queen. “His fellow barbarian, perhaps. But these others, they aren’t his kin, or even from his country. Why should he care what happens to dryads and automatons and whatever that sickly girl is?”
“Maybe it is a weakness you can exploit,” Sirena replied.
Weakness or no, Karn continued stepping pieces forward only one square. Meanwhile Desstra continued to taunt Queen Xalthea every time the latter spoke. If she was baiting the haughty monarch, it was working.
“You are speaking to a queen,” Sirena hissed.
“Oh, don’t worry. I’m very impressed,” replied the elf. “In fact, I’ve never met such a small mind inside such a big head before.”
The monarch scowled at this.
“Time to close your mouth,” she said. Xalthea ordered Sirena forward and began to concentrate all her efforts on reaching and attacking Desstra.
The distance closed and Desstra found herself facing Thianna’s cousin.
“Your mouth is as big as your ears,” the Keras Keeper said. “Perhaps I’ll slice them off before I close it.”
“Remember when I asked your opinion?” the elf replied. “Me neither!”
Then both girls drew their weapons. Sirena held a sword and shield. Desstra still carried the hammer she had claimed in the dactyl caverns. The absence of a shield should have put the elf at a disadvantage, but her speed made up for it. She leapt in and around the other girl, dodging every blow. But when she somersaulted over Xalthea’s Champion to land behind her, she was oddly slow in taking advantage of the position.
Watching them fight, Thianna judged that the elf was holding back, fighting only defensively. Having fought Desstra herself, she knew what Desstra was capable of. Then, while dodging a vicious thrust of Sirena’s blade, Desstra seemingly misstepped. The former Underhand student stumbled backward, stepping off of her square onto the next one. To do so was to forfeit the fight.
The marble square beneath the elf fell away. Without a scream or even a shout, Desstra dropped through the hole.
There were cheers from the crowd, but they were drowned out by the voice of a frost giant.
“Desstra!” hollered Thianna, loud enough to silence the audience.
So quiet were they that everyone could hear the soft whir of gears as the floor of the square slid back into place.
“You have lost your first piece!” Xalthea called. “Do you surrender?”
“Desstra,” called the frost giant again. But the elf was gone.
“Do you surrender?” the Sky Queen repeated adamantly.
“I’ll surrender you,” said Thianna, unsheathing her sword and starting to step forward.
“That doesn’t even make sense,” Sirena said.
“Don’t step off your square,” Karn cautioned his friend. “You’ll forfeit your life if you do.”
Thianna fumed.
“Send me forward,” she said. “I want to pay the queen my respects.”
Karn nodded. He sent the frost giant two spaces into the field.
As the game continued, it was impossible to avoid conflicts. King Herakles battled one of Xalthea’s soldiers and won. Talos fought with another.
Then the worst happened. Karn had been shielding the timid dryad as best he could, but a seemingly clumsy play on his part left her exposed. A soldier moved to a vacant square and Xalthea called a challenge.
Daphne had no weapons of her own, so she had been given a short sword and small round shield. She hung behind the latter now, eyes shut in fear as the soldier battered her with her own sword. The little dryad fell back, landing outside her square.
“Oh dear,” she said. “That was a mistake, wasn’t it?” Then she dropped out of sight.
Thianna closed her eyes at their second loss.
“You’re shedding supporters,” the Sky Queen taunted.
“Still not surrendering,” the giantess replied.
“I wouldn’t accept it now if you did,” Xalthea answered. “I will take you down one by one until none of you are left.”
“Maybe you should come over here and say that!” Thianna roared.
But the Sky Queen made no move forward. Rather she sent Sirena across the field to match her cousin. Thianna glanced at Karn. An understanding passed between them, and he ordered her forward, closing the distance between Champions.
The two girls faced each other, each in her own square. Although Thianna was significantly taller than her relative, she knew from their earlier conflict that Sirena was a highly skilled warrior.
“You’re on the wrong side,” said Thianna.
“Go to the crows,” Sirena replied.
Then blades were swinging. The sound of metal clashing on metal rang in the air.
Thianna fought hard, but her cousin gave no less effort to the battle. It was tricky, having to keep inside the confines of your own square. The giantess found it hampered her movement and nullified some of her size advantage. Not all of it, though.
“Give it up,” she taunted. “Your reach is too short!”
“Long enough to reach your heart,” Sirena shot back.
Thianna paused in her assault. Would her own cousin really strike to kill?
“You know,” the giantess said, “as family reunions go, this one is kind of lame.”
“Then let’s get it over with,” her cousin replied.
But as the fight continued, neither combatant proved able to gain an advantage over the other. Thianna felt the sweat trickling down her back, and even her strong arms were growing tired. The determination in Sirena’s eyes never faltered, but frustration and doubt appeared there as well.
Around them, the audience held its breath as the two girls continued to battle.
“Get on with it!” Xalthea shouted at her Champion. “Finish her. The Great Hatching approaches.”
“I’m trying to,” Sirena replied through gritted teeth.
But beating the frost giant wasn’t easy. The fight continued until the audience began to grow restless. There were jeers and calls to one side or the other to resolve the battle. Sirena felt a growing suspicion that Thianna was toying with her, dragging things out on purpose. She buckled down and fought harder, but still victory wouldn’t come.
Then the giantess paused. She cocked her head as though listening for something. Then Thianna swung her sandaled foot upward and kicked the bottom of Sirena’s shield. The pelta was driven into Sirena’s own chin, stunning her, and she toppled backward.
The audience gasped as the Keras Keeper stumbled out-of-bounds. Sirena’s eyes widened as the floor dropped away beneath her. Then she was falling. She screamed, not in fear but in frustration. The fight was over, and it was she who was going to the crows.
Thianna leapt and caught her cousin by the wrist. She held the smaller girl suspended over the yawning chasm, their eyes meeting. Then Thianna drew Sirena to safety on her own square.
Gasps and catcalls issued from the audience. Mercy was not a quality they appreciated in their warriors.
“Why?” asked her cousin. “The fight was yours.”
Queen Xalthea had a sim
ilar question.
“Why did you arrest her fall?” the Sky Queen asked. “She was defeated and you won.”
“It was never about winning,” Thianna replied. “It was only about waiting.”
“Waiting for what?” the queen asked.
Suddenly, shouts came from the Sky Queen’s wing of the Twin Palaces. A soldier burst into the courtyard, alarm all over her face.
“Minotaurs!” she screamed. “An army from Labyrinthia is attacking the city at the south gate!”
Another soldier raced from the Land Queen’s wing.
“Tree folk!” she yelled. “They are leaping off the caldera’s rim and gliding on their leaves to land here upon our summit!”
A third soldier came from the Court of Land and Sky.
“Dactyls!” she hollered. “Pouring from the walls! Rising out of the floors! We are under attack.”
“That,” said Thianna with a smirk. “I was waiting for that.”
“Burn them all!” shrieked Xalthea. “Rain fire on them from the skies.”
Soldiers hurried from the stands to carry out the Sky Queen’s orders. Thianna started to oppose them, but Karn caught her arm.
“Wait,” he said.
Sure enough, the first of Xalthea’s players to move from her position unwittingly activated the trapdoor mechanism. The woman fell screaming through the hole in the game board. The rules and penalties were still in effect.
“Thank you,” whispered the giantess.
Across the board, Xalthea shouted orders. “Shut it off!” she roared. “Shut the gears off.”
Then she drew her own sword and advanced on Thianna.
“This one is mine,” said the queen. Around her Xalthea’s remaining soldiers closed in on Thianna’s team. Then Asterius lowered his head and bellowed. The minotaur charged across the field, butting a soldier with his horns and tossing the woman high in the air.
“Now that was a good move,” laughed Herakles Hammerfist, swinging both fist and hammer to batter another soldier. Beside him, his son Jasius did his part to live up to the family name.
As for the automaton, Talos’s bronze skin was as effective as any shield. Talos didn’t worry about attacks and swung both arms like heavy metal clubs. As for Karn, he wielded Whitestorm expertly, the blade’s dragon-bestowed magic an aid to his own growing ability.
Amid the fray, Thianna faced the Sky Queen in a moment of stillness at the center of the board.
“I’ll offer you the same deal you offered me,” said the giantess. “Surrender now to save lives. We don’t have to fight this war.”
“Ignorant barbarian,” Xalthea sneered. “War is the mother of all.”
Then the Sky Queen swung her sword.
—
When Desstra had fallen through the trapdoor, she had been prepared. In fact, falling—and being the first to fall—had been her plan all along, part of the strategy that she and Karn had worked out the night before. That was why she had tried so hard to provoke the Sky Queen and why she had deliberately misstepped in her fight.
This meant that the former Underhand student was ready when she dropped through the floor. The silken thread that she had collected from the spider caverns had proved its usefulness once again.
Desstra had hung from the underside of the game board, dangling perilously alongside the cliff and over the jagged rocks below. She waited only until the dryad fell. The tricky part had been to catch Daphne when she dropped, though the tree girl arrested her fall by gliding slowly on her leaves.
Together they had made their way across the cliff face, coming up north of the Twin Palaces. From there, the two girls, elf and dryad, had made their way to the Tower of Damnameneus.
Once they had reached their goal, the explosive bat poop again made for an effective distraction, while the odd mushrooms Desstra had gathered sent the soldiers in the tower into a deep slumber.
Having neutralized the operators of the deadly parabolic mirror, they paused to survey the battle.
Daphne pointed to where dryads and drus were leaping off the caldera’s rim to the north, gliding across the lake to arrive at the city summit. Desstra looked from there to spy dactyls clashing with soldiers all through their own district and even in the upper district as well. And on the south side of the helots’ district, the girls saw minotaurs making their way into the city. The south gate had been no obstacle to warriors who rode giant scorpions.
But along the castle walls, Desstra’s sharp eyes saw a new threat. The Calderan forces were rolling out enormous weapons of war.
“Are those cannons?” asked Daphne, pointing at the odd devices.
“I don’t think so,” replied the elf. “Not ordinary ones, anyway. They’re too long and thin. They look almost like—”
Desstra’s ears quivered as she recognized them.
“They’re giant fire lances,” she said. “They’re going to spray Thican fire at the invaders.”
Even as she spoke, the first of the cannons belched forth a jet of flame. Tree folk screamed as they ignited in the air. They folded their leaves to drop into the lake below, where hopefully the flames would be extinguished.
“We’ve got to do something,” said Daphne. “Those are my people.”
Desstra looked to the enormous parabolic mirror rising over them.
“You think you can give me a hand figuring out how this works?” said the elf.
The dryad looked at the death ray and smiled.
“Now this is one task where I won’t shy from getting my hands dirty,” she said.
“Whoever Damnameneus was, he certainly knew his stuff,” said Desstra as she looked over the controls. The genius of the ancient mathematician and inventor was clearly evident. The entire mirror moved easily in a track, operated by a clever array of switches and buttons. Together the two girls threw the controls that would uncover the polished metal surface. It gleamed in the morning sun. Then they angled the beam at the city’s walls.
As the ray of intense light passed across the fire cannons, the chemical components inside overheated and exploded. Soldiers dove from the walls to escape the bursting contraptions. Seeing what was coming for them, others abandoned their positions and fled before the ray even reached their posts.
Shouts came from the base of the tower.
“I think we’ve been discovered,” said Daphne.
“You think so, do you?” replied Desstra, as soldiers climbed the winding stairs to reach the pair. But she was grinning. “Do you think you can operate this machine by yourself?” she asked.
“Nothing to it,” replied the dryad.
“Good,” said the elf. “You keep melting cannons. I’ll hold them off.”
She hefted the dwarven hammer and moved to stand at the top of the stairs. Then she paused and dropped a hand to a pocket. She pulled out her smoked quartz glasses and put them on.
“It’s kind of bright up here,” she explained.
“I know,” said the dryad. “I’ve always loved the sunshine. And now I get to share it with all those nice soldiers and their weapons.”
Giggling, the tree girl set to work exploding more cannons.
—
Thianna battled the Sky Queen across the board. Xalthea’s earlier reluctance to fight had not been because of a lack of ability. The frost giant was already tired from her drawn-out battle with Sirena, and now her enemy was pressing her hard.
Their swords clashed again and again.
“Traitor,” hissed the queen. “Your mother was a traitor to her city, to her country, to her kind.”
“Don’t talk about my mother,” said Thianna.
Then the Sky Queen cast a look aside and made a quick gesture. Thianna wondered what she meant by it. Was it a signal of some kind?
Thianna guessed and leapt seconds before the ground at her feet gave way. The trapdoor beneath her yawned wide. Xalthea had ordered the gears activated. As Thianna landed, she felt the new square shift. She jumped again. Someone was operating
the mechanism of the board manually, aiding the Sky Queen by dropping the ground away at her opponent’s feet.
“That’s cheating!” the giantess roared. Then she flung herself aside, somersaulting from the square as it dropped away.
“Stand still and die,” growled Xalthea.
“Excuse me if I don’t,” replied the frost giant.
They fought on, holes across the board yawning wide. Then the Sky Queen tossed her shield at the giantess. Thianna raised an arm to block it and Xalthea smashed into her. The smaller woman only drove the half giant back a pace, but it was enough. Thianna slipped. And fell.
She caught herself with one hand, dangling in the air. Below her Xalthea’s discarded shield sailed on its long fall to the rocks.
The Sky Queen smiled down at the giantess.
“Now you die like all traitors.”
She raised a foot, preparing to bring it down on Thianna’s fingers.
—
Desstra was having a time of it defending the tower. She was finally beginning to appreciate the dwarven hammer, but she was also tiring. Then she noticed something in the sky. A shadow cast by something large. Very large.
“How are we coming?” she yelled to Daphne.
“Just melting the last of the cannons now,” replied the dryad.
“Good,” said Desstra. She tossed an incendiary down the stairs to buy her a moment’s respite. “Because we need to abandon the tower.”
She fixed the spider silk to the balcony railing, tossing the line over the edge. Then the elf was over the side, sliding down the webbing. Daphne leapt into the air, spreading leafy wings to glide with her to the ground.
“Won’t the soldiers use the mirror now?” she asked the elf.
“Not if they’re smart,” Desstra called back. “They won’t be sticking around at all if they see what’s coming.”
“Why? What’s coming?” the tree girl asked.
Desstra smiled and pointed.
“That is.”
Daphne looked where the elf indicated.
“Drakon,” she said in awe, her voice catching in her throat in shock.
Then a flame like nothing the Thicans could ever produce struck the mirror of Damnameneus and transformed it into a lump of molten metal.
—
