FIERCE: Sixteen Authors of Fantasy

by Mercedes Lackey

  The young lad managed a half-smile. “Yes, sir.”

  Tarren had already gone to his first day of training, and though that was a brutal and dangerous affair within the Eldalon Army, Whill was glad nonetheless.

  “I have informed the king that I wish Tarren to be schooled intensively throughout his years in the academy. His thirst for knowledge will go beyond the sword, I do not doubt, as will his compulsion to right the wrongs of this world.”

  “Hmm. I wish him good luck in that endeavor.” Abram lit his pipe and looked out onto the sunset upon the horizon. “I wonder, Whill, did your own words spark any familiarity with you this day?”

  “What words?”

  “Your words to Tarren.”

  Whill sat upon a heavily cushioned chair. “Ah, that. Well, Abram, my father’s killer remains at large at the moment and, being that he is the one who must be slain to ensure victory, it seems that I am left with a most monumental situation. For that which my sense of vengeance deems necessary, is that which the cause requires as well.”

  Abram chuckled at Whill’s cleverness. “Yes, my friend.” Smoke from his pipe encircled his body, causing a strange effect in the light of the sunset. “You know well the difference between the compulsion of emotions and that of duty. I beg you forget them not in this matter, nor, I must say, in that of Avriel.”

  “I shall not soon forget, sir,” Whill said.

  Roakore burst into his soldiers’ training room, sweat dripping from his brow and a wild look in his eye. At his entrance the shout went out: “Roakore has returned!”

  The proclamation echoed throughout the hall, and the more than two thousand sparring soldiers all came to a sudden halt. Roakore gasped and put his hand upon the nearest dwarf for support as he caught his breath. After a moment passed he spoke.

  “Me friends, me sons, me brothers, me great warriors: the time has come. I travel from Eldalon with the word o’ King Mathus. We and the humans—and even the elves—shall fall upon the shores o’ Isladon. There we shall liberate the people and fight the Draggard scourge. We’ll be takin back the mountains o’ our fathers. We shall finally be knowin’ redemption!”

  The hall erupted into a frenzy of cheers that seemed to test the very structural integrity of the mountain itself. Roakore raised his arms for silence.

  “Yer training is done. Go home, love yer wives, spend time with yer children—do what ye will—fer the next time ye raise yer weapons in combat, it’ll be against the hell-born Draggard bastards. We leave for battle within the week!”

  Chapter XXVI

  The Drums of War

  THE TIME HAD COME. WORD had arrived from Ky’Dren: the dwarf armies of both Ky’Dren and Elgar would be poised to strike at sunrise two days hence. The army of Elladrindellia had set sail a week prior and were already among those ships that waited within the Eldalon harbor.

  As promised, Freston and his sons were at the docks at sunrise with Whill’s ship. He greeted Whill and gestured to the vessel with pride. “It is my pleasure to give to you Celestra,” he said.

  Whill was in awe, as many men who looked upon the ship that morning had been. She was beautiful. Abram patted Whill on the shoulder and simply laughed, at a loss for words.

  The day was mild, the sun shone through thin clouds, and on the air floated the Eldalon farewell song. The elves had arrived, as had Rhunis. It was time to depart.

  With goodbyes said, and Whill’s great ship turning from the harbor to face the endless ocean, he finally got a look at the full scope of the fleet that would carry the army to foreign shores. Though the sight of his allied ships should have given him solace, there had been a foreboding in his heart since his vision of the coming battle. So vivid had it been that he could still remember the smell of burnt earth and flesh. He knew logic dictated that he should have no part of such a war, so important was he to the grand scheme. But another part of his mind urged him to go.

  He looked at Avriel. The sight of her, with the sunlight upon her beautiful face, for a moment made his stomach fall like the first time he had ever sailed. Then she came into his mind. He had noticed a difference in sensation when Avriel, as opposed to Zerafin, spoke to him in this way. His stomach fell again as he seemed to fly like smoke through an open window into her mind. For a brief moment he could access every memory, explore every feeling and fantasy, and hear every thought—and the thoughts behind every thought as well. He might have plumbed the depths forever, but did not have time to—so brief was the experience—for as soon as his mind had gone to hers, it became filled with fear.

  He blinked and was himself again—the sea breeze on his face, the sun at the bow, and everyone staring at him.

  “What’d you do this time, Whill?” asked Abram with a smirk.

  “It seems Whill has just had his first attempt at mind-sharing,” said Avriel.

  “It was an accident, I wasn’t trying to. It just happened...”

  “We find that these things first happen when one is not trying,” Zerafin said. “Which is why much of the training can have disastrous results.”

  Avriel chuckled. “You mean like when you were first training, brother, and you were first learning to move things with your mind?”

  Zerafin looked to the heavens with a laugh. “Not that story.”

  Rhunis egged her on. “Ha! Tell it m’lady, what did he do?”

  “When Zerafin was first learning to move objects with his mind, he couldn’t get the image of tomatoes pelting monks out of his head. No monk within my brother’s sight was safe for a month. One would come walking through the village pondering the song of the birds and splat, out of the nearest home or garden would come a tomato.”

  The men bent over with laughter. “I had to have a trainer near me at all times for a month to counter my skills,” he admitted.

  Whill was relieved that the subject had been diverted. Even as he laughed with the others, he enjoyed a private happiness, for he had seen what he could never otherwise have known for certain or fully. He knew how Avriel really felt about him.

  Roakore couldn’t help but smile. Before him, though still many miles away, lay his mountain home —and his father’s spirit as well. Behind him marched two thousand of the finest dwarf soldiers this land had ever seen, their sole purpose for living these last twenty years had been preparation for this moment. And their sole purpose in dying would be victory. Each and every one was a master of his weapon. Muscles bulged from years of mining; hands were strong on their hilts from years of training; minds were bent, and eyes set, on one thing.

  And behind them marched the forces of the Ky’Dren and Elgar mountains—thousands of loyal dwarves, every one honored by the chance to avenge such a travesty, and willing to die fighting for the greatest good. In dwarf society, one could only hope to die such a death. Not a dwarf lived who would turn down such a chance at glory as this, Roakore knew.

  “We will stay with the fleet until we are near the coast of Isladon, then we head south,” Whill confirmed to Abram.

  “Yes. We should have no troubles. No ship can outrun this one, I would bank on it.”

  The fleet had been sailing all morning and into the afternoon. They would reach the beaches of Isladon by the next morning, after the dwarves had closed the great doors of the Ebony Mountains. From there, Whill and his comrades would separate from the fleet, and start their journey to Elladrindellia.

  Roakore stopped and grunted low in his throat, and those immediately behind him did the same—and so on until every dwarf had stopped. It was a few hours past midnight; they were right on time. Roakore crouched at the foot of a small hill and then crawled to the top with two of his generals. By the faint light of the moon he could make out every detail of the world around him—a few minutes in the dark and a dwarf could see as well as any cat. Before him was the northern entrance to the Ebony Mountains. He turned and signaled behind. At once, two dwarves broke rank and went about infiltrating the entrance. They had seen no scouts, but if they were an
y good at what they did, Roakore counted on not seeing them. No word had come from the dozens of their own scouts.

  Within minutes the two dwarves returned. They had seen no sentries on duty but the entrance remained closed. Roakore silently selected six stout dwarves, brought his fist into the air, and proceeded with them to the entrance. Slow and quiet they crept, and he was alert to every movement in the world around. The light wind carried only the scent of spring foliage and earth, and a faint scent of deer urine. There was no sound but the wind in the grass.

  Once confident that no one was on guard, he settled on the door. Like many others of dwarven make, it was mostly concealed to look like its surroundings. It was not adorned with writing or runes, or any of the like. It was simply a giant slab of rock, made to appear no more conspicuous than the rest of the mountainside. Roakore did not like the idea that they had not seen any Draggard about. But they had a schedule to keep, and he had thousands of dwarves at his back. The time was now.

  The wind had picked up, blowing in from the west with force. It had been clear sailing all day, but now, with the sun down, the clouds came and masked the stars in their heavenly lair. Whill thought of Eadon and the Dark elves as he watched Zerafin study the sky.

  The elf turned and read the concern on his face. “I doubt this is the work of the Dark elves. They would not expend so much energy on weather. No, they would save it for the battlefield.”

  Whill was about to visit Abram at the wheel when the elf spoke again. “But we do have visitors.”

  He looked up at the sky and listened, but found nothing. Zerafin’s voice came to him. Use your mind-sight, Whill, and ready your blade.

  As his hand found the hilt, he relaxed to achieve the meditative state. At first he could not, due to his inexperience and the suddenness of the command. But within a minute he was there, and gasped at the sight of the ocean. The ship, which was faint due to its lifelessness, seemed to float on a cloud of greenish blue light. It pulsed and throbbed—colors and life-energy patterns teeming and swirling in a strange and hypnotic dance. When he finally looked away and to the deck, he saw for the first time the life-energy patterns of Abram and Rhunis. He could not see the elves’, however. They were, he assumed, hiding it somehow.

  With that thought, he snapped out of his amazement and remembered Zerafin’s warning. He looked at the sky. Though it was overcast, he could clearly see the stars, which were now more brilliant than ever they had been before. Again came Zerafin’s voice: Just below the Star of the Kings.

  Whill looked, and there he could make out faintly the life energy of something. At first it appeared to be a bird, but then he saw it for what is was. Glowing like hot lava and moving among the stars was a dragon.

  With the power bestowed upon his bloodline by the gods, Roakore moved the large slab of rock from its place in the mountain. The dwarves with him might have helped by pulling on the ropes disguised as tree roots along the seam, but they were in awe of their king’s great power. It taxed Roakore more than he showed, but he hardly cared; he had twenty years of vengeance fueling his muscles as well. Once the door was opened fully, he again threw his fist in the air and, with his comrades, entered their mountain home for the first time in too many years.

  They carefully stalked the tunnel, alert to any noise. It had been used in his father’s day mostly for trade, and therefore the floor was flat and wide enough to accommodate two wagons abreast. The ceiling was high, and its stone walls embedded with millions of shining minerals.

  On they walked until Roakore signaled to one of the dwarves, who nodded and turned back to get the others. They walked for another five minutes, and again Roakore sent a soldier back to advance the troops thus far. Soon they neared what he knew was the first big chamber. It had been used as a loading place for dwarf traders. More than twenty tunnels led to it, which meant they would have to be careful of an ambush. He signaled a third dwarf to go back and return with forty more, which he intended to have search the many tunnels in pairs.

  Just as the dwarf was heading on his way, the draft in the tunnel shifted. It had been blowing into the mountain since Roakore had opened the door, but now reversed direction and blew faintly on his beard—with the scent of a dragon.

  An hour had passed and Whill had long ago become weary using mind-sight. He looked again every few minutes but nothing had changed. The dragon still flew directly above them, thousands of feet in the air. Abram and the others, learning of the dragon’s presence, had discussed the implications and relayed the information to the other ships. At least this would not be a surprise attack, but it seemed there was no way of stopping it. The elves where powerful, but even an arrow shot with perfection and elven power behind it would not be able to take down the beast.

  Roakore’s blood began to boil. The thought of a dragon slumbering within the mountain of his people—the mountain of his father—was too much to bear. His breathing became heavy, and his axe was in his hand without his realizing he’d gone for it. He was no longer aware of the three dwarves remaining with him. He knew only that he was running into the chamber of the dragon.

  A sound that at first had been faint now grew into a primal scream. The guttural war cry, he knew, would carry to the many thousands of dwarves still outside the tunnel. It was a sound, he also knew, that would be recalled by all the surviving dwarves when they sat and told the story of this great day. If there were any survivors.

  Whill continued to watch the night, as the elves did, with his mind’s eye. He was no longer tired from it, for he had begun calling upon the stored energy of his father’s blade. He was so intent on the dragon above that he was startled when Avriel suddenly pushed him to the ground with a mental energy blast. As he hit, Zerafin was already firing his bow at a phantom that swooped down where he had stood. Whill looked desperately in the direction the elf’s arrows flew, but saw nothing. The sudden drop to the floor had broken his mind-sight. He slowly regained it, but in his panic it was not easy to maintain. Then he saw more clearly as Avriel came to his side and whispered, “Stay down.”

  It was a Hawk Rider.

  Roakore barreled down the tunnel and into the trading chamber. He was met by a wall of heat and flame as the dragon belched fire from its maw. He dove to the left behind a pile of treasures, at the same time releasing his stone bird. It whirled through the air, directed with all his mental might to where he thought the dragon to be. The weapon hit with a loud thud, followed by an angry groan. Again the beast groaned in pain as three hatchets thrown by Roakore’s comrades, found their marks. Only the dwarves’ strength and excellent craftsmanship could have gotten the blades through the thick scales. Roakore fired his own hatchet at the beast as it reared its head to strike yet again with its deadly breath.

  As the weapon flew, he got a good look at the monster. It was the biggest he had ever seen, and he had seen a few in his day. It had no front legs, like some did, but rather two huge outstretched wings and huge, powerful hind legs. Its scales shone green in the firelight; its eyes dead black. Upon its head like a crown were a series of small horns, starting above its eyes and growing bigger as they ascended toward the main horn. Like a knight’s lance it was, but not as long as the many sharp horns upon its back. Roakore knew this species: it was a spear-horn.

  He ducked again behind his makeshift shelter as another wall of searing flame spewed across the chamber. Two of his men dove for cover among similar piles of gold and jewels, but one was not so lucky—a young soldier named Ro’Quon, who was consumed by the fire as Roakore screamed his name. The dwarf did not fall; he did not stumble. Engulfed in flames and his armor glowing red, he charged forth crazed. Blinded but for the tears of rage that quenched the fire in his eyes, he took ten running steps up a pile of gold and leapt at the dragon with his axe pulled back high over his head,, his entire body arched in the great strike. His huge axe found its mark, breaking through scales and muscle and bone, as both blade, and dwarf disappeared into the beast’s fiery mouth. To Roako
re’s amazement, the dragon reared its head and let out an earthshaking scream. Fire sprayed forth onto the ceiling and descended upon the chamber. Roakore’s cloak was consumed and half his beard burned off. It was not until the dragon suddenly lurched forward that he saw the wound. The dragon’s snout had been split from mouth to forehead by Ro’Quon’s great axe. The spear-horn lurched again and finally fell dead, black smoke issuing from its split head. Roakore and his men stood from their cover and looked on in awe until finally Roakore spoke.

  “Now that, me boys, is how it’s done.”

  Zerafin’s initial shots had missed, and now the Hawk Rider swooped low beyond view over the deck. Because of the ocean’s great aura, it was impossible to see it against the water.

  “What’s going on?” Rhunis yelled as he hurried up from below deck.

  “A Hawk Rider,” Zerafin answered as he scoured the night.

  “There is more than one,” Avriel added

  “This is no good; they know where you are, Whill,” Abram said. “We will never get to Elladrindellia this way.”

  “We must,” Rhunis argued. “This is exactly what they would want, for Whill to be present at the battle. Or perhaps they simply have orders to kill us all.”

  Avriel shook her head. “No, Eadon knows well enough that the Hawk Riders stand no chance against us, not with the power we possess. He was likely a scout. The others will be attacking shortly; they mean to capture Whill alive.”

  Whill had been watching the dragon during the conversation. It had changed course and suddenly swooped down with great speed, parting the clouds as it came, revealing the moon behind it. He readied his bow.