Gifts of Vorallon: 03 - Lord of Vengeance

by Thomas Cardin

AMBUSH

  Last Day of the Moon of the Thief

  -inside Blackdrake Castle

  Lorace shared his sight and spread his awareness wide, but most of his focus remained on the cliff top and the dark entryway of the castle. Nothing moved. Only a gentle wind disturbed the thin fall of snow. He looked within the edifice, examining the first few hundred steps of the main passage, and saw nothing. Where are they?

  He turned to General Moyan as they jogged in the wake of the dwarves. “Do you have any guess as to where the welcoming committee could be, Moyan?”

  “This is a trap,” Moyan said with a shake of his head. “Prince Wralka suggested this possibility when we discussed how we thought the defenders would behave. It is not a brilliant tactic by any means, but it goes like this: We enter the castle in force then the walls and ceiling behind and before us are collapsed, to trap us within in a tight area. This entry is a newer addition to the original castle, so it is possible that they could collapse much of that area. A quick look beyond those walls at the entrance would show us if work has been done to weaken the structure or if forces lurk beyond them.”

  Pushing his sight beyond the stone of the entry hall, he revealed a crowd of fifty or more large hulking brutes. They crouched to fit within the confines of a side chamber, most were ogres, disfigured and made more monstrous by blight. Among them were other tall and spindly man-like forms.

  “Ah, ogres and trolls. There you have it,” Moyan said with a nod. “The Zuxrans before my time had pushed them back to their lairs in the Gray Crag Mountains. Formidable creatures, they scarce needed the blight making them bigger and uglier than they were while they yet lived.”

  The transformation of the blight had covered them in scales, like the skin of large swamp serpents; shaded in black and sickly gray hues. Their bones had grown out of their scaled hide, forming sharp horns and barbs.

  “What did I tell you?” Prince Wralka said, dropping back from the forward ranks. “They wait to burst through the walls, and look at those ones with the big clubs—they could smash boulders with those. Their skin looks like demon hide and it may prove equally tough to our weapons.”

  “This is the tactic of one who wants to destroy us rather than just delay us,” Moyan said with chagrin. “Barricades and harrying attacks from side halls would have been my delaying strategy.”

  “Do you think we can burn them without collapsing our entrance?” Lorace asked, looking toward the leaders of each race. “If they have prepared a defense against Falraan’s fire, I would know about it sooner rather than later.”

  “They have not weakened the walls,” Moyan said. “Their plan is to just bust right through behind us. With their size and strength, they would make short work of us. I would say it should be safe to burn them out without risk to the rest of the structure, as long as Falraan is careful where she burns.”

  Lorace hesitated for a moment before nodding to Falraan. What am I missing? The Captain of Halversome’s guard began to concentrate on her gift.

  “Wait!” Iris called, bringing the column to a halt halfway through the first switchback above the quays. She took hold of Falraan’s arm before she could summon her red balls of spirit upon the grotesque giants. “This tells them too much. They think they can remain hidden from us, we should try not to prove them otherwise.”

  “You are right,” Adwa-Ki agreed. “We can burn them just as easily once they spring the trap, and the entity watching through them would be none the wiser. It may keep its further traps in place and just blame our quick reflexes for the defeat of this portion of its force. We may not be able to keep Lorace’s sight secret for long, but we should work to keep it our secret as long as possible.”

  “But what of the defense that Hethal warned us of?” Moyan asked. “If we let them spring this trap and somehow they have a defense to the fire, we are risking a great deal. And if these are not immune to flame, we can continue to burn out any more ambushes we find through Lorace’s sight.”

  “Do not debate this,” Lehan said, stepping before them. “I have discussed our truest path with Hethal; we must not give any of our mysteries away to the fiend who lurks. We have to allow them to spring this trap. My daughter’s fire is not past its use.”

  Hethal nodded in confirmation. “Your caution is wise, Lady Iris.”

  Lorace gestured for Prince Wralka to resume the quick march up the fire-warmed avenue.

  “Prince Wralka,” Lorace bellowed for the benefit of any unseen observer. “When we reach the entrance I want half your dwarves to take up a trailing position.”

  “It shall be so, Warden,” Wralka called equally loudly. “That is a good title, eh?”

  Iris squeezed his hand as she trotted along beside him, returning a smile to his lips. The snow continued to fall out of the deepening night sky unabated, hissing as it fell upon the gutted remains of the buildings lining their ascent. They gained the cliff top in silence. The avenue opened onto a broad, snow-covered parade ground before the castle’s entrance.

  The dwarves halted once they had pushed forward enough to allow the remainder of their forces to assemble onto the immense parade ground. Lorace bent down to brush aside a finger-width of trampled and slushy snow. He examined the plain artistry of the gray paving stones beneath. Something is not right about this.

  The untouched areas of the parade ground revealed no sign of footprints or anything else to have disturbed the fallen snow. Nothing had come in or out of the castle since the snowfall had begun. In his mind, he replayed the vision of this area teeming with shambling figures, dead, rotting men raised from graveyards and cairns.

  “Is this area normally so vacant?” Lorace asked while he tried to reason out what bothered him. “This is so much clear ground.”

  “There was always a great deal of traffic,” Moyan said. “Drilling soldiers, free tradesmen, and slaves carrying goods from outlying districts crowded this plaza day and night.”

  Lorace remained wary. He watched the last of the column arrive upon the parade ground. Turning, he watched the priests as they continued to aim the beams of their glyphs up into the sky above, eradicating the blight that continued to flow up through the stone of the sprawling castle. Through the stone!

  “Oen!” Lorace barked. “We have to make the glyphs pour out light all around, cease the beams!”

  The priests were quick to comply, and the piercing beams gave way to brilliant glows of blue-white light that permeated the area surrounding most of their forces. Lorace distributed the priests throughout the column, covering everyone with light.

  “What is it, Lorace?” Iris asked, once he had arranged the priests to his satisfaction. “The blight will settle back around us now.”

  “Yes it will, but the beams left us vulnerable,” Lorace explained so that all may hear. “The blight is not restricted to moving through the air, it flows through the stone of the castle walls, into the sea and through the ground of Vorallon as well.”

  “It can come up under our feet!” Moyan exclaimed. “And once we are within the castle we will be even more vulnerable to its attack from all sides where our light is barred by walls.”

  “The light as it is now should keep it back,” Lorace said. “But doubtless it will amass against us at some point to risk even our light in an attempt to infect everyone with its malign essence. I would guess that attack would come in concert with a physical ambush, while we are most vulnerable.”

  “Vorallon’s living spirit accompanies the light,” Iris said. “It is that life directed and empowered by the glyphs and our wills that holds back the blight now. We have to hope it cannot build up strong enough to overcome that barrier before we can destroy its source.”

  “All the more reason to keep moving,” Prince Wralka suggested with a light tap of his hammer upon the paving stones.

  Lorace nodded. “Yes, let us change up our marching order now and proceed to spring this first trap.”

  As they advanced across the pristine snow, toward t
he broad steps leading up to the castle entrance, Lorace began gathering a huge mass of air. With the blight having retreated to the confines of the castle, he had access to the air from horizon to horizon. By the time the leading dwarves stepped through the gaping entryway, he had built up a massive reserve behind and around his forces. He manipulated it with subtle skill so that it was never quite dense enough to cause any visible distortion, nor did it disturb a single falling snowflake. Behind this mass of air and connected to it, he formed funnels and rivers of air extending outward for leagues in every direction to keep a steady flow accessible. He hoped to have all the air he needed in the tight confines of Blackdrake without asphyxiating everyone. Without having to lift and move ships, this massive manipulation felt effortless to him now.

  Once he was satisfied with the amount of air at his command, he built up thick buffers extending off the face of each dwarf’s shield, tying their movement to the link with each spirit. The process was similar to how he kept air under Tornin’s blurred feet. When he let his awareness flow through the concert of spirits, it was as though everyone was an extension of his own body. He hoped this manipulation would also go unnoticed. These dwarves are going to be tougher than you think!

  Lorace placed himself, Iris, Falraan, Tornin, Sir Rindal, and a pair of priests at the rear of the column, just ahead of the dwarven rear guard—to meet the first trap.

  He scanned within the entry hall once more before giving the command for the column to proceed into the open castle. The blight lurking within was already withdrawing from the glow of the lead glyph. The walls were simple gray stones with no artistry to their construction. The ceiling was vaulted and high. The floor was more gray paving stones, filthy with tracked dirt.

  “Iris,” Lorace called to his wife. “Is the entry always so filthy? Was it such when last you passed through?”

  “No,” she replied with a thoughtful tilt of her head. “Everything has always been kept clean. Even given that nobody has been alive to clean for the several days that I have been gone, it should not be packed with dirt.”

  “Look more closely, Lorace,” Adwa-Ki directed as she shared in his sight. “I see tracks.”

  Lorace moved his awareness closer in on the packed dirt. Indeed there were tracks, many. “Hoof prints?”

  “Cattle, I believe,” the elf matron said with a nod.

  “There were vast herds kept in the north pasture land,” Iris put forth.

  Lorace cast his awareness to scout a huge area to the north. “No sign of cattle there now, undead or otherwise.”

  He turned to Iris. “Could the Devourer have fed upon them?”

  “He would have had to drive them here himself,” she said. “There were none still alive to have done the work otherwise.”

  “They must have been turned by the blight,” Lorace mused. “They would have been among the first creatures to be taken as the blight spread from here.”

  Iris lowered her voice to a whisper. “Lorace, the cattle numbered in the thousands.”

  “They could be lurking in the depths of this place. It is certainly big enough, but there is no sign of them other than their tracks within the region I have seen, just those ogre-horrors that lay in ambush. I dare not look deeper yet. I can feel the edges of the Devourer’s awareness even now.”

  Lorace shook his head. I can delay no longer. He gave the command for the column to proceed.

  On the plaza, snow had muffled their footfalls, but once they strode within the yawning portal, the crunch of their feet echoed through the castle like a beacon of their presence. The pace of the column warily slowed. All too soon, they came opposite the waiting ambush of ogre and troll-horrors. He exchanged a nod with Falraan to ensure that she was ready, noting that she still wore the godstone ring upon her finger.

  “When I say,” was all he whispered to her and the world spirit that listened.

  The rear guard entered with their large shields braced before them. With a crack of thunder, the monsters struck, crashing through the wall beside them with titanic blows of their heavy cudgels. The wall and part of the ceiling fell down upon the dwarves, but they were prepared. Their shields come up in the instant, making an overlapping barricade of scales. With the added strength of the air buffering their shields, the stones tumbled harmlessly to the sides. The falling debris of the arched ceiling slowed and fell without any crushing effect. Was that subtle enough? Lorace grinned. Tough dwarves!

  The towering horrors followed, some stepping onto the dome of dwarven shields. United by the clear opening cry of their battle chant, the dwarves pushed back in mass. Their power and coordination tumbled the ogre-horrors back into those who pushed in behind them, breaking their charge. Lorace was subtly shoving back with the dwarves own shields, absorbing the crushing force of the monster’s charge off of the stalwarts of Vlaske K’Brak. Once he had pushed the mass of towering foes back a step, he commanded Falraan into action. “Go!”

  With the speed of thought, she surrounded each of the giant figures in her red globes of spirit and compressed them down into white-hot combustion. Without so much as a scream or whimper of agony, the horrid flesh of the monsters was incinerated, blasting a wave of heat that Lorace dissipated by drawing the scorching air away and replacing it with the frigid air flowing outside the entry. Only red-hot bones remained, tumbling to the floor behind the broken down wall.

  A nearly identical force of the hulking creatures rushed forward through the halls ahead of the column to trap them against the rear ambush. More of the warped ogres and trolls came out of side corridors along their flanks. Lorace employed the same tactics at each of these points of action, using the air he had brought in with him. Once he had shoved them back from the shields of the lead dwarves and the swords of the men guarding their flanks, he gave Falraan leave to incinerate them down to their bones as well.

  Only one former Zuxran was lost when he lunged into a side passage to hold back two attacking ogres. It was not the ogres that were his undoing, but the blight. The man jumped out of the radiance of the nearby glyph and into shadow. In an instant, his body convulsed and contorted. Long spikes erupted through his armor from every joint of his arms and legs. Black scales contorted the skin of his face, and his eyes became slits of baleful illumination. The thing that had been a man turned and crouched to leap into the ranks of his former comrades. Falraan cried out in anguish, but burned him down along with the two ogres.

  “Stay in the light, to leave it is death!” Moyan shouted from the head of the column.

  “It was so fast!” Iris exclaimed. “Tornin, I think we have just seen the defense against your speed. If you should run into shadow, it will consume you before you can step back out of it. We do not know if the light of your sword will have the same effect as the glyphs.” She looked up and down the column with a new concern clouding her face. “If we should lose just one glyph, our forces might be cut permanently in half.”

  Tornin, his sword raised and blazing with light, nodded agreement.

  “We have to keep everyone together,” Falraan said, her voice low with dread. “I do not wish to have to burn down any more of our men like that.”

  Lorace surveyed their surroundings, looking beyond the walls and through the corridors nearby, but saw no more of the undead creatures, though the blight pressed in ahead of them. He was about to pass the word to continue when the blight caught his eye again, it was flowing into the glowing hot bones of the ogres and trolls.

  “The bones!” he cried in a voice that could be heard to the far end of the column. “The blight raises the bones against us!”

  “They do not burn!” Falraan cried.

  “Sir Rindal, Tornin, be ready, they will have to be cut down,” Lorace called out to his friends.

  “Falraan, heat the bones as hot as you can!” Iris cried as Lorace saw the image of Iris at the bow of the galley casting a large spray of frost and ice in his mind, followed immediately by the memory of cooling rocks cracking and shatte
ring in the snow. “We will shatter them with ice. Lorace, we need the magic of the priests enhanced as much as you can for this.”

  This was as much as she could say before the first glowing hot skeleton rose up in its mockery of life. Many others were beginning to stir with the power of the blight. Falraan heated all the bones white hot. The words of Petor echoed in his mind. Ogre bones will not burn!

  Before the blazing air surrounding the skeletons could reach the column, Lorace pulled in more cool air to shield them.

  The empty-handed priest nearby stepped away from his glyph-wielding partner to join Iris. Together they cast the ice spell. Lorace and Sir Rindal poured the will of the concert into them and the few other casting priests along the column. Their final gesture did not release a mere plume of frost and ice, rather a solid fan of ice shot from their outstretched hands extending over and through the white-hot skeletons. For an instant, the gigantic skeletons were visible, trapped within translucent ice before billowing steam obscured all normal vision. The bones and ice hissed and screamed. At the sound of the ice cracking and shattering, Tornin and Sir Rindal stepped forward with their swords raised before them.

  Lorace shifted his sight through the concealing vapor. The skeletons were moving and whole. Their bones were now blackened, but the ice had melted and fallen away.

  “It is not working,” Falraan warned.

  Sir Rindal and Tornin took another step forward, but were careful to stay well within the glyph’s luminance. The dwarves raised their shields and moved to defend them. Tornin’s sword flicked forward first to strike the huge arm of the first skeleton in a blur of rapid blows, shattering the bone into dozens of spraying fragments.

  “They break like glass!” Tornin exclaimed as his sword struck the bones of the behemoth a hundred more times, reducing the animated skeleton to nothing but broken shards. “Iris, it worked!”

  Sir Rindal received the next skeleton and the dwarves smashed into the legs of the following towering horrors with their hammers and axes. Brakke Zahn severed through arm, hip, and spine in one hooking strike, the pieces falling to shatter on the wet stone floor. The weapons of the dwarves were equally effective at destroying the brittle skeletons as fast as they could lurch forward into their air-warded shields.