“By the gods, I hope the retreat to the dungeons is going well,” Prince Russet said. Then to the nearest sergeant he could find he said, “Go cut loose the horses and haulkattens. Clear the stables so that the animals have a fighting chance.”
The prince’s left forearm was broken and swollen to the size of a fire log, yet he still refused the magical aid of either wizard. Instead, he ordered them to help Duke Elmont’s soldiers delay the advance of the green-skinned beasts in any manner they could so that as many innocents as possible could be evacuated to the half-dozen ships anchored in the bay.
The wizards attempted to do this by diverting the ogres’ attention to themselves. They turned out to be more of a diversion than they ever intended. Now pinned in the recovery wing of the stronghold’s infirmary, on the top floor, they were just two stories over the gaping hole in the wall. It was from there Orphas saw the prince fall. With bolts of wicked blue lightning and hot crimson pulses of force he blasted the ogres away from the young man’s half-conscious body. Quazar levitated his fallen body up out of the fray, and started tending his arm. He was soon left to strings of curses as the prince rose and began commanding the archers within earshot.
Most of the soldiers below were dead, but not all. A few made it back to safety because of the prince’s quick thinking. Others met a terrible end, but died stalling the pursuit of their fleeing families. The prince told them this as they died, and did so with a king’s conviction behind every word he spoke. “Your loved ones are in the cave-ways now!” he promised. “Some are already being rowed across the harbor to the king’s ship.”
Ogres were now storming up to the higher levels of the stronghold after the wizards. Several of the wounded housed on the floors between met with horrible ends. They were helpless to defend themselves from it. This weighed heavily on all of them as they were forced to continue drawing the ogres away from the populace, but it was a small price to pay to save the bulk of Dyntalla’s citizens. Now a particularly determined band of ogres was finally coming up the last of the stairs to bash through the heavy oak stairwell doors onto the top floor.
Orphas was poised to unleash a magical blast at the opening from the far end of the marble-tiled corridor. Quazar had committed himself to trying to figure out how to protect the prince of the realm, as was his sworn duty. Fleeing was the best form of protection he could think of, but not an easy feat four stories above a bailey yard full of raging beasts. If he could spot a safe place to climb down, he might be able to cast a modified levitation spell that would allow the both of them to defend their descent without injury. If it were only him, he would have long since teleported himself to a safe place, or just floated down to the ground while invisible. These actions were easily performed by oneself. It was nearly impossible to manage them on himself and another at the same time. He could probably send the prince down alone somewhere, but then the brave and foolish young man would be left unprotected. If this had to be done, as a last resort, then he could order Orphas to go with the prince and protect him from there; but he didn’t like that idea at all. If it was possible, he would find a way to get them all out of the closing trap in which they’d put themselves, if only so that they might protect the prince further. If he couldn’t manage that, though, he was fully prepared to stay behind and sacrifice his life helping the other two get away.
“You’re wasting time, my prince,” Orphas called down the corridor.
Prince Russet was manhandling a heavy five-drawer chest in front of the doors. “They’ll just bash it through. Besides that, you’re in my way. If I let this prismatic surge loose and you’re there, you’ll be caught up in it.”
“The chest might slow…” The prince stopped and listened at the door. After a moment of deep concentration he looked up, searching. “Quazar, come here,” he ordered. “Where are you, man? Come help me.”
Quazar hurried out of one of the side rooms where he’d been searching from the window for a place that wasn’t infested with ogres. His face was a study in worried intensity. “What is it, boy?” he snapped.
“Help me,” the prince shot back. “There are people trapped beyond the door and I blocked it.” He shouldered the chest of drawers with all his might and shoved it a few feet, but not far enough. The sudden pounding of a fist, and the muffled sound of a yelling woman came from behind the door. The sound abruptly stopped, or perhaps was drowned out by the roar of an angry beast.
“They’re pinned!” Prince Russet yelled as he shouldered the chest again. This time it went sliding across the tiled floor as if it were on rollers. The prince had to fight to keep from falling after it.
The door burst open and Orphas nearly blasted Duchess Gallarain’s fat handmaid into oblivion with his prismatic surge. Had her skin been a shade greener she would have been done, for her piggish face looked very ogreish in fright. Only the sight of his own charge, the Duchess of Highlake, stayed his spell. He had been told she’d been ravaged and killed. Her sickroom was on the same level where the explosion had occurred. Beyond her, the yellow-eyed heathen with the shiny metallic locks fought off one of the green-skinned beasts. He was using the very sword the duchess had insisted they carry down out of the mountains to return to Vanx Malic.
Zeezle jabbed with an indescribable quickness and the ogre clutched at its guts. Then the Zythian booted it back off the landing. It toppled into the rest of the up-charging band, causing them to tumble into a tangle on the landing below.
With his good arm, Prince Russet dragged the Zythian into the hall and slammed the door. Beyond the barrier, the muffled, high-pitched screech of something other than an ogre came to them. The ogres then began to scream and howl out in pain and fear.
“What in the hells was that?” the prince asked the Zythian as he motioned for him to help push the chest back in place.
“Your sister,” Zeezle responded between gasping breaths. “She’s loose.”
“Get back over here, boy,” Quazar shouted hoarsely. “You’re right in Orphas’s way.”
Zeezle and the prince sprinted to where Gallarain was comforting her babbling maid behind the chrome-capped mage.
“There has to be a way to get us down,” Quazar said more to himself than anyone else. “There is nowhere below that I can see as safe.”
“Why not go up?” the surprisingly calm duchess offered. “There’s a hatch in the service pantry just big enough for a man to fit through. Those monsters won’t be able to come up through it.”
“You’re sure it’s there?” Quazar asked, knowing that if they could at least get out of the reach of the ogres for a time, he might figure a way out of this fix.
“I’m positive,” she replied curtly. “I spent many a summer exploring this place as a girl. Your predecessor, Master Gaiman, used to take me up there at night and ogle my breasts while he taught me the constellations.”
Quazar paled. The absolute lack of discretion in the lady’s tone and the slightly suggestive look in her eyes caught him off guard, but only for a moment. As he located the hatch and sent Zeezle hobbling up onto the roof, he found that he had no doubt as to the root of Duke Martin’s problems. Without even trying, Gallarain Martin radiated sexuality. It was easy to see how so many had fallen under her spell. Unfortunately for the duke, no one bothered to clear the dungeon before the order to flee was called.
“Come along,” Zeezle called down to the wizard. “We’ve company up here of the welcome sort.”
The terrified scream of the duchess’s handmaid and the sound of breaking wood could be heard down the corridor. The ogres had regrouped and were bashing the door apart.
A brilliant flash of light erupted behind the group. “We’ve company down here, too, I’m afraid,” Quazar shouted up over the sound of Orphas’s spell. Then turning to the others, “Come on. Get up there. The prince goes first. No quibbling.”
In a matter of moments all of them were on the gravelly, flat rooftop of the stronghold’s main building with the half-dozen archers w
ho’d been sent there earlier. The soldiers had a dejected look about them.
Quazar immediately began trying to assess the situation. “There’s no way down, then?” he asked them.
“There was,” the sergeant pointed to a long ladder that lay twisted and broken among the many corpses in the yard. “See the poor fellow whose legs are splayed backwards?” The soldier’s voice grew grim.
“That archer with the arrow stuck in his chest?” Quazar understood the tone now, for it was plainly a kingsman’s arrow that killed the man.
The sergeant nodded grimly. “That pack he’s holding was our rations for the day. He fell with yon ladder and lay mewling for half an hour before I ended his pain.” The soldier’s gaze slipped to some faraway place. “Was the hardest thing I ever had to do,” he sniffled. After a minute his eyes refocused on the wizard. “If we can’t go down the way you came up, then we’ll just have to go hungry and hope something breaks.”
“I can retrieve the pack,” said Orphas. “At least we’ll have some food while we wait these creatures out.”
The pack fidgeted on the ground and then shot up toward them. It went right into Orphas’s outstretched hands. This caused the archers to gasp in awe and fear, and afterward they showed no small amount of unease.
“I guess I was wrong, Quazy.” Orphas hefted the bag with a dry snort. It looked as though it weighed very little. “We’ll definitely be hungry while we wait. Do we really starve these men so?”
Around them, as far as the eye could see, in every open space and avenue, in every market square and garden-yard, ogres bashed and smashed and wandered about in packs. What was once the realm’s most formidable outpost had been reduced to little more than rubble.
In the distance they could see the myriad longboats and trawlers out in the bay ferrying the common folk to safety. It was a bitter relief. Quazar also noticed that the king’s personal banner wasn’t flying on his ship’s mast. Knowing old King Oakarm, the man was probably down in the caverns helping the people get away. The fact that the king wasn’t secure, though, made his duty all the more important. If Ravier Oakarm died, then Russet was the King of Parydon. At all costs it was his, Orphas’s, and the soldiers’ duty to keep the prince alive.
As we sail across his sea,
we honor Nepton’s crown.
For if you cross old Nepton,
the waves will take you down.
– A sailor’s song
A group of ogres that hadn’t been distracted by the wizards’ magic didn’t deviate from their search for the demon statue that haunted their dreams. They roamed the stronghold’s corridors searching the rooms for the object of their desire as if it were the only thing that could sate their hunger.
The demon Raxxteriak had selected the more intelligent beasts while visiting their minds in their sleep, though intelligent isn’t how the demon would have described any of them. They were animals: primal, instinctual, and with little capability for logical decision making. They didn’t even consider splitting into groups and trying to cover two or three rooms at a time. They didn’t keep track of the turns and crossings they made in the halls, either. More than one room was ransacked several times over. All the while, most of their kindred raged in the outbuildings, stables and utility sheds.
Other ogres decided to explore the stronghold as well. In the ladies’ tower, where a decent amount of stitching took place, and bolt upon bolt of cloth was stored, a fire was started when the ogres knocked over candles that had been left burning. Built as a place to harbor the women in safety when the stronghold was under siege, it had no windows on the lower floors. The tall, cylindrical building soon filled with smoke. It leaked out of the upper vent windows, but nowhere else. Many of the ogres suffocated from the thick, noxious fumes of the silk, velvet, and blistering paint as it burned. The smoke began to roll out of the lower doorways into the courtrooms and meeting halls, filling that portion of the stronghold with an acrid stench as well.
The duke’s trial had been about to get underway when the great western gate was breached. It would have been a crowded affair. In an attempt to spare King Oakarm from the pressing crowd that usually accompanied such an assembly of frontier folk, the biggest room Dyntalla Stronghold boasted had been chosen. Coll’s statue had been carried down to the makeshift open-roofed hearing room in preparation for the event. Dyntalla’s ballroom sported a high vaulted ceiling with open sky-panels and suites with balconies that opened up both on the dance floor and on the giant forested park outside the room. Beyond the park was the silvery expanse of Dyntalla Bay.
With the people of Dyntalla not having many occasions to hold a true ball, the room was rarely used. It was used mainly on Yule’s Night when the children of the area came and lit a candle for Saint Crimson and made merry mischief on the ballroom floor.
The windows were all closed, but the heavy curtains that usually hung over them had been taken down and racks of folding chairs were pushed against one wall. The vast space was filled mostly with moonlight refracted to a soft golden hue by the haze of fire smoke that was seeping in from the doorways.
When the exploring band of ogres burst into the cavernous space and saw the bright half-moon shining on them, a pair of them howled out in delight. The others saw the object that had been in their dreams and started to topple it. None of the ogres, though, saw the other thing that was in the ballroom with them. Its hide was so slick and black, its movement so silent and imperceptible, that they didn’t even know they were being attacked until Gallarael had opened the guts and throats of at least half their number.
Raxxteriak watched on, peering through the eyes of the dying ogres to see what was happening. This blackened she-beast was as fierce as any of the ogres and obviously far more intelligent. She continually taunted them, drawing them into single combat before acrobatically crawling, climbing, and cartwheeling over them, ripping flesh and gashing vital areas as she went.
What was worse was that he couldn’t seem to get one of the few recovering creatures to pull out of its battle lust back into the dreamy urge that lulled them there in the first place.
The three remaining ogres were circling the dark thing now. Swirls of moonlit smoke roiled in the wake of their every move. Two of them were smart enough to keep her between them, while the third waited for her attention to be drawn.
Raxxteriak held back, jumping his vision from corpse to corpse, and back again, trying to get the best view of what was transpiring.
Gallarael launched herself at one of them and slashed with a raking claw, thus providing the opening for which the third ogre had been waiting. He came charging with arms closing like pincers to tackle the deadly foe.
An ear-splitting screech erupted, and a blurring shadow shot straight up from where she’d just crouched. The ogre’s arms closed on thin air and it went into a sliding tumble across the blood-slicked marble floor. By the time it gained its feet and turned back, there was only one of its kin left facing the creature. The other was writhing on the floor, howling and trying to reach back at the deep, bloody furrows running down its spine.
There was a moment of confusion and even fear when the demon’s essence managed to get through to the beast. Without another moment’s hesitation, and while the last of its companions was being ripped to bloody shreds, the ogre charged across the floor and shouldered over the statue of Coll.
There was no loud crash or sound of breaking stone, no muffled thump of Coll’s body striking the floor. Only a shadow of what Coll had been touched the tile and it was rapidly changing into something far more intimidating. Seeing this transformation, the ogre that had toppled the statue fled like a frightened deer.
Gallarael hissed at the thing the statue had become. It was ogreish in size and build, being well-muscled and over ten feet tall, but that was the only resemblance the demon had with the mountain creatures. Its head was bald and short-spiked yellow horns jutted from each temple. A larger single horn curled out and over its head from the bas
e of its skull. Its skin was an angry red, and its bulging forearms were covered in gauntlets formed from some skeletal creature whose horny form fit perfectly around the demon’s wrist. It wore a long cloak and a loose-fitting vest made of some brownish-yellow-scaled creature’s hide. A codpiece of the same scaled material was strapped over its substantial groin by a wide leather belt from which dangled an assortment of twisted bones.
Its three toes and one heal nub were tipped with finger-length claws that were as black as jet and chipped at the tiles as they grasped the floor. The claws on its hands were as long as daggers.
The demon wasted no time lashing out at Gallarael. She tried to jump away from his grasp but she didn’t see the tail wrap her ankle and jerk her violently to the floor. She struggled to get loose, for every instinct in her entire ferocious countenance told her to flee this new monster, but she couldn’t break the grip.
The demon opened its fang-filled maw and bellowed out a hoarse laugh. “Maybe I’ll find time to breed you later, bitch. Right now I’ve a wizard or two to reap my vengeance upon.” He dropped her and before she hit the tile he kicked her halfway across the slippery floor. Her breathless body slid to a stop while a pair of wide, leathery wings opened up from under the cloak the demon wore. It started into a headlong run across the tiles. Half a heartbeat later, the only things left to show that it had even been there at all were a few bloodied claw prints and the icy cold residue its grasping tail had left on Gallarael’s skin.
After the explosion in the nearby building shook the wizard’s tower, Darbon helped Matty into Trevin’s sickroom and then barricaded the door with all he could find. The action had not only spared them from the exploring hordes of ogres that had been roaming the floors of Quazar’s domain, but from Gallarael’s deadly fury as well.
Trevin was still unconscious and had taken on a deathly grey pallor. Matty wasn’t much better off, but at least she was alert and somewhat mobile. Though hours had passed since the explosion, Darbon didn’t dare unblock the door. There were still beasts randomly roaming around. It was dark, and even if they got past the creatures, he could think of no real destination for them. The best they could do, he figured, was stay there and hope that somehow the kingdom’s troops regained the stronghold.
Dragon Isle (The Legend of Vanx Malic Book 2) Page 13
