River Of Life (Book 3)

by Paul Drewitz

  Ungert, a troll with a one nostril nose and a large bright white scar down the entirety of his chest, flew off one of the towers, landing square on the dragon’s back. A little tuft of hair on the back of his head bobbing with the impact. Immediately, the mud trolls attacked. Ungert tried to grab onto the wings, to hold them, to break them, but the muscles were like stone. Keylon bit into the legs, but the scales were too hard and only chipped his teeth.

  A giant swung a monstrous mace, which collided with the dragon’s skull and sent it spiraling into the earth. With a magnificent lunge, the dragon soared upward, carrying both trolls with it. Ungert had shoved spears with rope through each wing and had begun tying them together. He slammed a hammer into the dragon’s back. The dragon retaliated, blowing fire, swinging its tail, but Ungert was just beyond the reach of any lethal attack.

  Spears were flung from far below, most ricocheting harmlessly, a few finding gaps within the scales. Keylon was jabbing a large spear through the scales of the abdomen. Slowly the dragon came to a stop. The dragon lost strength and its ascent slowly curved, and it began to plummet fast, trying to take the trolls off using the friction of the wind. Keylon climbed on top of its back, and between the two trolls, they managed to pop one of the wings out of its joint. One slammed his hammer into the joint, the other pulling against it and slamming his fist into it. The dragon let out a gasp as the wing went stiff, drifting wherever the wind took it.

  All three were tumbling out of control through the air. The dragon struck a rock wall, stone exploding below the impact. Rock sprayed in all directions. The dragon’s body fell to the earth stunned and limp. Both Keylon and Ungert crashed, neither rising as their bodies were completely crushed from the force of the fall. Both of the trolls, upon impact, bounced off the dragon, their bodies tossed across the ground.

  The dwarves quickly had the dragon’s head strapped to the earth. The dragon spouted fire, but the dwarves avoided the head and instead began forcing their spears between the scales in the dragon’s neck until its eyes ceased to move. Blood oozed between the scales, steaming as it poured to the dry earth.

  The wraiths' army was completely forced below the wall; many had begun to climb back up. Giants already began to move the siege towers through the gates and up the tier ready to assault the next wall. They were easy to disassemble. A few pins and it could all come apart in a few pieces small enough to be easily handled by the giants. They set cranes up on top of the walls so that some of it was carried through the tunnel while the rest was pulled up over the walls. Dwarves and giants raced to the next gates as the last of the wraiths' army climbed the wall in retreat.

  Yalen led his force of elves floating across the ground, firing arrows into the mass of goblins, driving them back into the dwarves, giants, and men. The arrows of the elves burned brightly, a spell carried by each one in the form of a tongue of fire, crowning each arrowhead. As the arrow slammed into a goblin, it would explode, tearing the goblin apart and sending a shower of tiny hot molten projectiles flying through the air.

  "The more you bring down now, the fewer we fight later," was Yalen's musical cry.

  As the elves swept in, they seemed to bring the sweet cool scent and breezes of the land of twilight with them.

  The sun began to set before the giants began to reassemble the towers, and the walls were impossible to scale, especially as the enemy had begun to dump hot oil and light it on fire.

  “Take the bodies and burn them,” Hendle ordered, “Fast now, we don’t have much time.”

  The battle had been an onslaught from both sides. The wizard’s army had been victorious, but fighting an immortal enemy, this fight would not continue to favor Hendle and his allies, or so Hendle feared. Spirits were high among the men, and Hendle did not wish to darken the mood and festivities. Hendle watched as torches were lit along the higher wall. A goblin’s face would emerge from the darkness, unveiled by the flame’s light, and be gone just as quickly, almost as if the enemy’s army was made of ghosts.

  The next morning found Hendle’s army lined up for another assault. Spirits were high that today would be another victorious battle. The night before had seen some melancholy faces as the mud trolls had buried two dead warriors. Today their faces were grim with thoughts of revenge. Hendle along with the other leaders had stood respectfully by as their new allies had buried their dead brothers, even though they buried them against Hendle's wish. Hendle had wanted to burn the bodies of their allies along with those of the enemy. Now as Hendle looked into their eyes, they were a sullen brown, glaring beyond what was immediately before them. They were staring into the future where they faced and fought the enemy. They wanted to take from the enemy the same amount of blood lost by their brothers.

  The moons had settled in front of the sun. For a moment, they almost completely blocked the light. Only a blazing halo surrounding the moons gave light to the earth. It was an unreal light, dropping against the ground randomly. It played games with the landscape, casting shadows where they never were before and lighting places in the world that had never seen light. The moons moved on, and the eclipse was gone as fast as it had arrived. The army came out of their trance and faced the wall, again aware of the event that brought them to this battlefield.

  As the giants started pushing the towers, the wraiths' army came from the walls, no longer retreating or simply trying to defend a wall, but engaging. Quickly, the giants quit pushing and picked up their weapons, plowing into the opposing army, clearing paths as their massive bodies threw the enemy warriors back through the air. Hendle stopped for a moment. Something was not right. The only enemy was goblins. Hendle stood and watched for only a moment before gathering other powerful wizards around him. Hendle knew that a special assault was coming, and he wished to be prepared to meet it. The giants themselves were able to control the goblins and, before late morning, they along with only a partial regiment of dwarves and elves had almost cleared the battlefield. The rest of the army had stayed back, keeping calm and resting but also wondering where the real resistance was.

  Hendle grabbed Yalen by the shoulder, "Do not stray out too far. Take the left flank, but be prepared to help me. May need your magic, may need to retreat."

  Yalen looked toward the wall where below the shadow of a giant, a man could be seen ramming a broken lance through one of the final standing goblins. The elf could feel it too, the absence of the monsters, the one's given life through magic.

  "And Grism?" Yalen asked.

  "He will be of little help if the attack that I can feel actually comes," Hendle replied.

  "What is that?" Auri asked, coming up from behind.

  "Something that not even your dancing swords can protect you from," Yalen tried to joke.

  As the wizard’s army prepared to celebrate, transparent, irregular black forms with glowing red eyes appeared on the walls above. Their very presence brought a cloud of despair. It seemed to cover all the earth that the warlocks could view. Over the walls came the skeleton warriors, rushing around and through their masters as well as other monsters that had not yet been seen.

  “Iriote,” Auri hissed and grabbed two short swords.

  Quickly Auri chased his nemesis through the battle, slipping his blades through the enemy as he passed by them. One reached out slicing through an abdomen, the other through a throat. Auri spun slicing through a goblin's wrist then smashed both through the chest of a wolfman. He had long ago given up his horse as it had stumbled tripping over bodies and had pitched Auri forward into the ground.

  Iriote disappeared for a moment. Auri stood, confused. An arching silver blur cut behind the weapons master, barely missing Auri as he rolled forward. Quickly he turned, blocking Iriote’s scimitar with one short sword and coming in quick with the other. It scratched the assassin’s ribs.

  “Ooooh,” the assassin hissed and laughed, “My masters say it’s not yet time.”

  Iriote disappeared into a haze of smoke that mixed with the atmosphere until gone
. Auri turned around in disappointment and physically ran into Hestler, who was smashing skeletal warriors with his hammer. The huge weapon came down on the soldiers made of ancient bones, splintering them into small pieces and dust.

  Yalen rode his horse, a long, thin, double-sided sword in each hand. No hands guided reins, for there were none. All the elves rode bareback, no reins, no saddles, nothing to come between them and their horses. Yalen's body movements were telling the horse how to shift, or he could give the horse commands telepathically. Over years of training together, the elf and his horse had become one. This was true for all elven warriors. The elf swooped downward, his blades biting into flesh each time. The elf looked almost as if he was flying low across the ground.

  A giant creature knocked the legs from below Yalen’s horse, sending them both sprawling head first into the dry, hard, packed earth. Yalen rolled to his feet, both swords ready. The monster looked like a mutated radish with two pale-brown, knotted, pudgy legs and a body that widened as it neared the top with many huge hairs, not quite big enough to call tentacles, twisting away from its body. The monster did not attack the elf; instead, it held up a giant foot to crush the life from the elf’s horse.

  “No!” Yalen bellowed and stretched a hand forward. Yalen's face twisted in agony as his mind instantly understood the pain of losing this horse. It would have been much the same as if Erelon sat watching the life of Draos being threatened.

  Even as Yalen's eyes showed pain of watching a friend die, his lips turned into a defiant snarl and he shoved his arm out before him. His fingers flared open, and his bleach-white hair began to drift lazily upward as if gravity no longer existed in this atmosphere.

  His mind groped for a new plane, the one where this creature had been called from. His mind passed through several in an instant, meeting with the fairies, elves from ages past, and finally coming to land in one where the world was dark. There was nothing, only a void and loud voices all screaming and crying. The elf could not proceed into this world far enough to see what existed here. To him it was almost like a hole in the world, a hole where only ethereal bodies could exist.

  Yalen called out to the creature in its own language, "Callum," calling its attention to him.

  The creature turned around, drawn to the voice that knew its name. The elf pulled the two planes together with his mind. Both mentally and physically. The ground below the elf began to waver and disappear into a vaporous black gas. Blood began to run from his nose and then the corners of his eyes. The ground opened up below the monster as if the earth itself were being sucked into a vortex. And then the creature was sucked into another plane of existence, returned to the world from where the warlocks called it. The ground healed back over with a slight ripple and then slowed until it became solid.

  The elf’s arm dropped to the earth, and his head, heavy and tired from the spell, slowly dropped as he went unconscious.

  Bahsal watched as Yalen blacked out on the floor of the battlefield. The goblins and other monsters swarmed toward the elf, each eager to claim the kill for their own.

  The other elves had charged too far down the field before they knew that their leader had fallen. As they turned, a massive swarm of goblins pushed into them, forcing them slowly away from Yalen.

  “To Yalen! To the elf!” Bahsal cried out.

  Bahsal charged and hundreds of angry dwarves with him. The two armies met just as each side reached the elf. Each dwarve strode in swinging, none afraid. As the enemy's army turned to face the dwarves, the cavalry of elves and men hit the enemy forcefully from the side, setting them off balance. They thrust their horses forcefully into the ranks of the enemy while shoving lances through as many bodies as they could before the shaft broke. The dwarves waded in, taking as many as they could before the enemy regained balance.

  Bahsal brought his axe down, standing above the elf, holding the enemy back. The axe crashed into the helm of a goblin, but it did not split the skull. The goblin looked at the dwarve and cackled. Bahsal mocked the goblin with his own hoarse laugh and brought a hatchet through the goblin’s throat with his other hand.

  Bahsal passed on over the elf, gripping the axe lodged in the helm, pulling it free as he brought it up, swinging with all his strength. The helm came with the axe, and as the swing reached its summit, the helm flew into the air. The axe came back down, buried in the chest of another goblin.

  Bahsal looked up and saw that behind the goblins several huge beasts of magic approached, a mix of wolves and men and wolves and spiders. Creatures pieced together randomly without a mind of their own so that the wraiths could control them. Bahsal slowly backed up, retreating. Two dwarves picked the elf up as Bahsal led several others to give them cover.

  Hendle stepped in with the ice staff. The leading wizard had already directed the other wizards spreading them across the ranks.

  He grabbed three and ordered, "Protect the dwarves' flank."

  Another, "Keep the fires clear. Flex, try to dig up a little rain to settle this dust and smoke. But not too much, don't want to fight in the mud."

  The wizard stumped around on his bum leg. It was better than the stump and crutches, Hendle thought to himself, but if he was not quick when the battle changed directions, he could get caught in the tide quickly.

  "Give me eyes in the sky," Hendle ordered another wizard who had a falcon resting on his arm. Hendle shook his head as he thought about his position, leading this attack on Mortaz. This should be Erelon's position, Hendle thought.

  Hendle froze one monster. As he thrust the staff forward, a blast of ice and wind pierced the atmosphere and impaled the monster in the chest, and a giant’s hammer fell, smashing the dejected creature into chunks of ice. The wizard waded out into the battle, trying to change its flow as his army was now in retreat. Hendle did not wish to lose everything he had come to gain. What would Erelon do? The question repeated over and over again in Hendle's mind. Erelon would have done something magnificent to boost everyone's spirit, Hendle thought. Erelon's very presence would have been an inspiration.

  Elves and dwarves had also joined in the magical fight. Fire, lightning, ice, holes, blasting winds, it was all being used. But it seemed to have no effect as the enemy continued to push Hendle’s army backward. As Hendle watched from the falcon's eyes above, the elements of the world seemed to be battling themselves. A circle of hateful lights and explosions.

  Lightning struck the ground to Hendle’s left, coming from the clear sky. The earth shook violently, but the earth that had been baked for two decades was unmarked except for a black circle. Goblins flew over the wizard’s head. A giant toward the front of the line had just brought his sword down, cutting a magical monster in half. Still Hendle’s army moved backward, pushed by the army that constantly rose from the dead and so had no limit to their numbers.

  Hendle's staff came down on the skull of a small creature. Its head froze, and as it fell toward the ground, the wizard's short sword thrust through the fragile frozen flesh.

  The atmosphere was filled with magical energy. The air became stale with the smell of burnt flesh, powder, and dust. The atmosphere took on a green glow that had explosions of blues and reds that cast ethereal shadows settling above the roar of clashing metal, angry voices, and falling bodies. The world for Hendle seemed to slow as one of the warlocks appeared before him. Time no longer existed, it was no longer relevant as the wraith passed through it, and his close presence to the wizard almost drew him into the rift in time that the wraith occupied.

  “My name is Harris Thusler. I am going to destroy you,” the wraith introduced itself.

  “Okay,” Hendle said brandishing his ice staff. As Hendle was pulled further into the rift, the ground around him faded and slowly the wraith took on human-like features.

  The wraith snickered, “Did you not learn from our battle years ago? Your weapons have no power over us.”

  Something invisible struck Hendle, sending him flying through the air and sprawling across the
desert floor. Looking up, the warlock came in fast, rushing to kill the wizard in command. Before the warlock reached Hendle, it disappeared. Hendle was on his feet, eyes wide, looking around, holding the staff before him defensively. The wraith had vanished into the rift leaving the wizard crouching on the hot ground.

  Chapter 19

  THE world seemed to whirl around Erelon as he stepped into King's Time. It was turned inside out and upside down, twisting and turning so that north became south and east exchanged sides with the west. Erelon became disoriented, though directions in the rift in time had no significance. Time was not of any great consequence. The grass grew and died at the same moment, within the same space. Birds flew through the same space; trees started and then shriveled; the grass was green, brown, and then gone. The wind blasted across the prairie as if demon possessed while the air was completely still.

  The glowing orb of the Humbas sat in the center of the circle where Erelon had laid it moments before. Now it pulsed gently as all time was combined, as every second of every day, every century, was relived in this one location all at the same moment.

  The Humbas who had built it could be seen moving back and forth, etching their runes, causing them to gleam bright. The short, fat, olive skinned race smelled of magic as it emanated from each one. It was a scent so strong that it made the nostrils feel as if they would start bleeding.

  For this one moment, the entire artifact, every pillar, every stone, was lit up with the life which the magic had given to it. Magic flew in currents, firing up the area, giving a glimpse of the radiance that the power of magic had at one time given the entire world.