He scanned the city, searching for a target. He soon found one; around three hundred yards away, a mechanical gecko was scrambling up the wall of a tall building, shooting cold-enchanted crossbow bolts at a group of warriors below it. The gecko was too high up for any of the demons to reach, and every time one of them started climbing up the wall to attack it, the damn bug would shoot the demon down.
“You think you’re safe up there, do you?” growled Grakk’n as he leaned in close to the bow and lined up the gecko in his sights. “Hahaha, not for much longer, steel lizard.”
Accounting for the curve the arrow would take in flight, and the distance between himself and the mark, Grakk’n finalized his aim. He drew in a deep breath, held the bow rock steady and still, and then released.
The arrow thrummed through the air, arcing up and then slightly downward as it sped toward its victim. The gecko only had a half second to look up as it sensed the projectile speeding toward it—but that was far too little time for it to react.
The heavy arrow slammed into the steel body, and there was a blast like a grenade exploding as the fire magic was activated. A massive fireball billowed out from the gecko. And when the smoke cleared, Grakk’n grinned as he saw that most of the creature’s body had been blown to smithereens. The charred, twisted remains of the gecko dropped off the wall into the crowd of warriors below, and they attacked what was left of it with gleeful violence, tearing it to shreds and making sure that there was nothing left of it to salvage.
“This works better than I thought it would,” grunted Grakk’n with a smirk. “And with the extra reinforcements arriving tomorrow, I know that the day will be mine. Your days are numbered, cursed dwarven machine. Oh yes, your days are numbered.”
CHAPTER 38
The Factory Core rumbled as it watched the city burn. The tide of the battle had indeed turned, and despite the Core’s many efforts and ingenuity, the upper hand lay now with the Demon Horde.
Even so, the Factory Core was not prepared to give up yet. Not by a long shot. It was continuing its experimentation with electricity, and had managed to slay a handful of wraiths with the magic sword, and had turned them into zombie ice wraiths. While the Core’s troop numbers had diminished greatly, with many mechanical spiders and geckoes being ripped to pieces and dragged outside the city walls, and many zombie demons suffering the same fate, the Core’s determination to fight the horde and win the battle for Karak-Drang had not faded out at all. In fact, the Core was feeling more determined than ever to prevail. The spirits of the ancient heroes bound to its walls were aflame with fury and the desire for vengeance.
That night, while the demons dozed off, with over a third of the city burning down and being reduced to rubble, the Core worked harder than ever, producing more soldiers in the various workshops and factories across Karak-Drang, and secretly moving its new, ultra powerful weapons—the ice wraiths—into position to strike when the time was right.
Another way in which the Factory Core was at a disadvantage, though, was the fact that raw materials were beginning to run low. Even with the Core’s ability to utilize the city itself for resources, certain materials were simply in low supply. There was coal, for driving the engines that powered some of the troops, and energy crystals, which powered others. Both of these fuel sources were becoming scarce, and while there were more stores of them in other dwarven cities, the Factory Core would have to send spiders out to collect them and bring them back—and somehow get past the Demon Horde in doing this. It was a risky, if not impossible mission.
Then there was demon blood—an alternative source of fuel. It would have been more viable, however, if the demons had not now decided to drag their dead outside the city walls after battles and skirmishes.
No … electricity, the Factory Core believed, would be the best source of fuel. If it could find a way to store electricity—to create batteries, essentially—out of things that were in good supply in Karak-Drang, it believed that it would stand a good chance of regaining the upper hand in the fight. The problem was, of course, that achieving such a goal would require more time, more research. Things that were also in terribly short supply.
Still, the Core persisted with its research into electricity, devoting a significant portion of the brainpower of its super-mind to trying to discover the secret of storing an electrical charge in some kind of cell.
As it was, the ice mages were powered by coils that were cranked via little steam motors, with the energy crystals that powered mechanical geckoes serving as power sources. Zombie wraiths had light bodies, and didn’t need much energy to move around—not nearly as much as zombie demons, for example. And it didn’t take much energy to zap their brains and activate the ice glands either. The problem with wraiths was simply getting enough of their corpses. And killing them, of course; it was difficult to get a spider close enough to one of them to slay it. Also, there was the ever-present danger of the magic sword falling into the enemy’s hands; if it did, the potential to create any more ice wraiths would be forever lost.
Still, the Core had managed to create a few of these units. And with this small handful of zombie ice wraiths, it intended to stage a blitzkrieg surprise attack on the encamped demon forces in the city in the early hours of the morning. A couple hours before dawn. The Core knew that the demons were weary after a long day of fighting, and they would be at their most vulnerable.
Thus, while the fires of industry burned on one side of Karak-Drang and the fires of wanton destruction raged on the other, in the darkest hours before dawn, the Factory Core sent its new weapon out to assault the enemy.
The zombie ice wraiths, accompanied by bodyguard forces of mechanical spiders, crept silently out of the area of the city controlled by the Factory Core and through the streets of what was now a kind of no-man’s-land—the deserted zone between the part of the capital under demon control, and that under the Core’s control. The Core knew that the demons had posted sentries outside the places where they slept—and to deal with these guards, it sent out squadrons of geckoes; a sniper’s crossbow bolt in the night was silent and deadly, and wouldn’t wake any sleeping warriors.
The geckoes crept ahead using the darkest shadows to remain invisible, and avoiding any space where the light from burning fires might reflect off the metallic surface of their bodies. The Factory Core was controlling them all simultaneously; they were individuals, each making their own choices and moving in their own ways, on their own individual missions, yet at the same time they were all part of one gigantic mind that knew exactly where each of them was, and where each needed to be.
The Factory Core looked through the eye lenses of each gecko, making sure each one got into a prime sniping spot in the dark shadows near the places where the demons were encamped, and got the demon sentries lined up in the sights of their crossbows. For the attack to be most damaging, each of the sentries would need to be executed at exactly the same time, and the zombie ice wraiths would need to launch their attacks as one.
Finally, all the gecko snipers were in place, with the unsuspecting sentries lined up in their sights. The time to launch the surprise attack had come.
The Factory Core’s super-mind instructed the geckoes to fire their crossbows, which they all did at exactly the same moment. Dozens of ice-enchanted bolts whizzed through the air, and in a mere second dozens of sentries exploded, turned to shards of ice. Now that they had been eliminated, the zombie ice wraiths and their bodyguard companies of mechanical spiders were able to creep up close to the places where the demon warriors were resting: ruined buildings, alleys, and other such places. The zombie ice wraiths, directed by the Factory Core, positioned themselves so that the blasts of ice energy that would surge out of their fingertips would hit as many enemies as possible.
Then, when all of the zombie ice wraiths were in position, it was time for phase two of the plan. The Factory Core zapped their brains with electrical charges, and in a second the darkened streets wer
e glowing bright blue, as torrents of ice energy blasted from the wraiths’ hands, engulfing swathes of sleeping demons in rivers of death.
The demons didn’t even know what hit them; the ice magic was as destructive to them as their wraiths’ green fire was to dwarves. The whooshing rush of cold energy blasted them to shards of ice in milliseconds, and hundreds were gone before the others were even able to open their eyes.
But soon enough, they did awaken. And those that weren’t swallowed and flash-frozen in the torrents of glowing blue ice energy sprang to their feet, howling and roaring with surprise and rage, preparing to counter-attack at once.
The Factory Core had been prepared for this too, though. As soon as the surviving demons came out of their stupor, it directed the spiders’ muskets in their direction, shooting them down as they jumped up. The zombie ice wraiths, meanwhile, continued to blast their gushes of ice energy into the enemy, plowing trails of shattered ice through their masses as they scrambled to fight back.
Outside Karak-Drang, where Grakk’n was resting, he jumped up with a start at the unexpected sound of battle coming from within the city walls. Roaring with anger, he grabbed his sword, bow and arrows, and called a contingent of wraiths to charge with him inside to check what was going on.
“What the hell is this blasted dwarven machine doing now?” he roared. “Wraiths, move! Hurry!”
They raced through the neighborhoods, running past ruined, burning buildings and piles of demon corpses. And lots of shattered shards of ice that had once been demons.
“That cursed thing has a new ice weapon,” he growled. “What is it?”
He heard the sounds of battle coming from a nearby street, so he sprinted over there, trailed by the wraiths. As he turned around the corner, he caught a sight that filled him with extreme anger: a wraith shooting webs of blue energy into the ranks of his warriors and causing immense death and destruction.
“Gah!” he roared. “Now this blasted thing has managed to resurrect wraiths! Curse it, curse the dwarves and their damned machine! Gah, I’ll deal with this wraith myself!”
He slung his bow over his back, grabbed his dragon bone tower shield, and drew his sword. He was not scared of any dwarven weaponry, and certainly did not fear this revived wraith; he would chop it to pieces with his blade, just as he had done with the zombie demons.
With a roar he leaped straight at the ice wraith, keeping his tall shield in front of him as cover from the blasting streams of ice energy. The ice wraith turned to face him as he bore down on it, and it redirected its deadly fingers in his direction. Grakk’n grunted and stumbled back when the spurts smashed into his shield, but inside his helmet he grinned; that attack was in no way powerful enough to hold him back, and all he would need to do was use his strength to push against it until he reached the wraith, and then—
Crack!
The sound was loud and unmistakable—and it had come from his dragon bone shield, against which the barrage of bright energy was still blasting.
Crack! Crack!
Grakk’n took a quick peek at his shield, and discovered with alarm that splits were beginning to appear in it, and that the smooth, black texture of the fire-hardened dragon bone was turning brittle and glistening with frost. The realization of what this meant sent a jolt of panic through Grakk’n, and he felt, running through his veins, something that he hadn’t felt for a very, very long time. Fear.
His armor was no longer impervious to the weaponry of the dwarven machine. Finally, it had found something that could destroy hardened dragon bone—and this weapon was about to obliterate his shield. Next would be his armor, and then…
As predicted, his tower shield exploded in a shower of frozen fragments, all of which shattered into a million pieces as they hit the pavement. Now the wraith’s ice energy was firing directly onto Grakk’n’s armor, and he knew that he had mere seconds to take cover before that too burst out and left him naked and vulnerable.
In desperation, he dived behind a wall, temporarily taking shelter from the nightmarish onslaught. However, it seemed that the ice wraith was intent on dealing with him. He heard its river of ice energy striking against the wall, and heard the tell-tale sound of the bricks cracking as they too turned to ice. He got up and sprinted off just as the wall exploded. As the twin torrents of ice energy followed him, he jumped through the window of a nearby building, breaking the glass and crashing to the wooden floor inside in a heap. Panting, he flattened his body on the ground as the blue ray of death came pouring through the open window right behind him.
“Wraiths!” he yelled. “Kill that blasted thing, kill it!”
The wraiths screamed in their high-pitched, ear-splitting shrieks in response, and hurried over to do combat with their resurrected comrade. For a few seconds, the torrents of ice energy vanished from above Grakk’n as the wraiths began attacking the traitor. Quickly, though, he heard the howls of his own wraiths being killed, one by one. The ice magic was just as effective against them as it was against any other beast from the Infernal Realm.
At least, the wraiths were managing to distract the wretched creature. So, using this opportunity, Grakk’n scrambled to his feet, nocked one of the Dark Lord’s arrows to his bowstring, and took hasty aim through the window at the ice wraith as it was engaged in combat.
The ice wraith blew its opponent to shards of ice, and then turned its attention back to Grakk’n. But at that very instant, he loosed his arrow. It flew straight and true, and slammed into the ice wraith’s head, exploding in a huge, potent fireball upon impact. Grakk’n pumped his fist as the fire vanished and the black smoke cleared, for all that was left of the thing was a smoking pile of tattered rags.
“You haven’t beaten me yet, you cursed machine,” he snarled.
Just then, though, a contingent of mechanical spiders rounded the corner at the top of the street. And with them was another ice wraith. Grakk’n only just had time to drop to the floor before new gushes of ice energy shot through the windows above him. This time, he knew that luck was not on his side. So he roared out a snarl of rage and frustration, and crawled on his hands and knees to escape the building via the rear entrance, and flee like a coward.
The tide of the battle for Karak-Drang, it seemed, had turned once again.
CHAPTER 39
“So,” said King Pavanir with a sneer of disapproval, “this is the greatest thief in my kingdom. The one who has ‘relieved’ so many of my nobles and rich merchants of their gold and jewels, eh?”
“Aye, that is me, my lord,” said Trapper, bowing low before the king in his private chamber, with Ser Greenfield and Professor Alandarus—an elderly scholar, and an expert in dwarven runes—watching on.
“You look like a common street thug, or a rough peasant,” said the king.
“Aye my lord,” agreed Trapper. He had been cleaned up and given a new set of clothes, a haircut and a shave since being pardoned and removed from the cells, but he did still look like a common ruffian. “Anonymity is the best disguise. Looking like everyone else you’d meet on a street makes it harder for guards to spot me. Looking different to others—wearing fancy clothes or carrying an expensive sword, or having a stylish haircut—these things draw attention to oneself, and a man like me, doing what I do … well, my lord, I don’t like drawing no attention to myself.”
“Yes, yes, I understand,” said Pavanir, still scowling with distaste. “Anyway, you are aware of the stakes should you fail in this mission, yes? And of the reward you shall gain if you succeed…”
“Aye my lord,” answered Trapper, still kneeling. “Well, if I fail I die. It’s as simple as that. And I would’ve died today anyway, with a hangman’s noose around my neck, had my lord not been so generous as to offer me this job. So I’m not too bothered about that. And if I succeed, enough gold on which to live comfortably for the rest of my days. Aye my lord, I like the sound of that, I do. You can bet, my lord, that I’ll be doing everything I can to ma
ke this mission a success.”
“Good, good,” said the king, nodding slowly. “Well, you can read and write well enough, yes?”
“I can, my lord,” answered Trapper.
“Professor Alandarus here will go over the scrolls you will take with you, that have translations of the dwarven runes into our language. It is very important that you do not lose these scrolls. They are the key to taking control of the Factory Core and, as such, the key to your own survival. If you enter the Core and misplace the scrolls, you are as good as dead. The dwarven machine is quick to kill any who enter its structure who it perceives as an enemy.”
“I understand that, my lord, believe me,” said Trapper. “I’ll make sure I keep these parchments on me at all times, and that I use ‘em well.”
“Yes, you had better do that,” said Pavanir. “And, of course, equally important is activating the correct runes. You are familiar with melting down gold, I assume … in your ‘profession’, this is something I am sure you have done a lot of.”
Trapper grinned mischievously, exposing a mouth filled with crooked yellow teeth.
“Aye my lord, I’m no stranger to melting fine metals.”
“Well you’ll need this then,” said King Pavanir, handing Trapper an enchanted goblet that could instantly liquefy solid gold. “The runes can only be triggered by pouring molten gold into them. So you’ll have to take this too,” he added, offering Trapper a bag of gold coins. “Oh, and don’t imagine that you can simply take these and disappear. You’ll be escorted to the entrance to the Below World by my guards, who will wait there until you return. And there is only one way in and out of the Below World. If you return to our world without the Factory Core, I promise you, you’ll be tortured to death very slowly and very painfully. You’ll wish you had been hanged today. And if you try to escape some other way … well, being tortured by my guards will sound like heaven compared to what will happen to you if the demons capture you.”
Factory Core Page 19
