Bazil Broketail (53 page)

There was a narrow adit, only just large enough to admit a small man. Thrembode was not about to enter it, but the voice was in there. The singing ceased. He felt his skin crawl; he had been listening to witch magic, the black gods alone knew what horror might have been visited upon him.

Did she know he was out here? He licked his lips and moved back very cautiously until he was well out of range.

The mining trolls arrived, but he held them back and instead sent a party of imps to push through the passage.

An imp was inserted into the hole. It was met by fifty of the biggest buck rats from the horde. They tore into its neck like small tunneling machines and the imp was pulled out with throat and chest torn open.

Another imp was chosen and forcibly inserted. It met the same fate. The remaining imps were unhappy. They danced back down the passage, and after some hesitation they ran away.

The sergeant of imps approached Thrembode. “They won’t go in, sir. There’s something in there that just about cuts off their heads.”

Thrembode saw that it was hopeless; he urged the trolls forward. Hammers and picks came down upon the wall, and soon there were slabs of stone falling to the floor of the cavern.

Not long after that they broke through into a low side chamber to the main cavern. A search revealed a pile of hay, some drops of congealed wax and a lot of rat droppings. There were also a dozen or more rat-sized passages leading away from this place, and three of them were just large enough to accommodate a small person.

Thrembode knelt and peered into the passages. He smelled rodents; there were a lot of rats down there. Equally clear to the magician was the fact that the damned witch was moving through a rat-infested tunnel just ahead of him somewhere.

He ordered fresh imps brought up and thrust into the narrow holes. They crawled in to between twenty and thirty feet when they were attacked and slain by packs of waiting buck rats.

More imps were thrust in, but they became fearful and would only move if jabbed with spears from behind.

The witch and her friends were getting away!

Thrembode ordered the trolls to resume their work— he would carve a larger passage if he had to.

The hammers and drills crashed home and Thrembode gritted his teeth. It was dawn in the world above, but if he did not apprehend the hag it would be everlasting night for him. He had to have her, and he had to have her soon!

The dawn’s light was filled with portent for other unhappy denizens of the great city.

As he watched the light swell dimly from the narrow window in his cell, Bazil of Quosh wondered if this was indeed to be his last day in the world. He would miss the world; his life had had its shares of triumphs as well as of defeats, and the tastes and sounds of life were dear to him.

Nesessitas awoke early as well. Neither dragon had slept more than fitfully. Soon the imps came, bringing them the usual oatmeal mush for breakfast. There had been no resumption of the attempts to feed them human flesh, for which both were grateful even if oatmeal mush was not exactly to their taste.

The imps left at last.

Nesessitas said, “I will not fight you for them, Broke-tail. I will not fight any dragon for them.”

Bazil nodded energetically.

“Nor will I, friend Nessi. But they will make us fight trolls.”

“Then I will fight. I will not let the trolls take my head easily.”

Bazil nodded. “Damn right, kill a lot of them first.”

All too soon the imps were back, and with them came the albino trolls.

One by one Bazil and Nesessitas were taken away shackled to the cart. They were pushed out through the great double doors into the amphitheater, and there they were placed in massive bull pens with movable sides that hemmed them in and kept them virtually immobile. They were able merely to peer out of the front of the pens, where the doors were made of steel bars.

What they saw was astounding, even for dragons who’d seen the world. They were familiar with the concept of the arena—every city in the Argonath had an arena for combats, either between men or between dragons. But those arenas were miniscule compared to this.

Massive tiers of seats rose around them, above a wall of smooth rock too high for a man to climb, with a wooden barricade above that to protect the lowest rows of seats. The tiers were vast, and the air was filled with a susurration of sounds as thousands of people filed in and took their places.

The pens were set in a recess about halfway down the length of the rectangular arena space. To their left was the end dominated by the keep, with the Doom’s Tube rising above the wall like a tower to allow an unobstructed view of the arena for the Doom itself.

To the right the seats swept around in a complete curve, tier upon tier. These seats at the end were unprotected from the sun and the rain, however, lacking the extensive canopies drawn over the rest of the place.

“The cheap seats are already full,” said Bazil to Nesessitas.

She looked in the direction he was pointing. The seats under the sun were filled with the bright colors of the poor.

“Looks like a sunny day,” she said.

“Sunny day to die,” muttered Bazil. “Unless fool boy come up with something damn quick.”

Bazil wanted to be hopeful, but he was finding it increasingly difficult.

On the flat plain of sand, a team of animal killers were at work. Using spear and lance, arrow and net, they were dispatching enraged lions and leopards. Each cat would be urged out of a cage by imps with small spears. It would pace nervously about, seeking some escape from this place which stank of blood and men and imps.

The men would close in, approaching the cat from three sides. One would cast the net, and the others would stab and kill it. These men were good at the work, and the distracted cats were actually too terrified to put up much of a struggle.

“You think they try that on dragons?” said Bazil.

“If they do, they’ll be making a big mistake.”

“Why, Nessi?”

“I will catch the net and pull it out of the man’s hand. He is not that quick with it. The cats are panicked, they are afraid in this place, they fight with desperation.”

“Hah, cats are stupid.”

“Well, Broketail, they are, but there’s something magnificent in all that ferocity. Look at that one!”

A tigress with more wits than her fellows had evaded the net and escaped for a moment. She suddenly charged towards a group of slaves, overseen by imps, who were engaged in removing the corpses of dead lions and leopards.

The slaves panicked and ran, a horde of skinny old people, jerking their bones along as fast as they might as they headed for the double doors into the keep.

The imps cracked their whips at the tigress momentarily and then fled as she showed no sign of slowing down. She took the hindmost down and killed him with a single bite through the neck. The others picked up speed with wails of terror.

A huge wave of laughter moved through the gathering crowd.

The animal killers moved in around the tigress, who watched them come with her tail lashing and growls of rage. Suddenly she broke and fled, running down the length of the arena, growling as she went.

The killers raced after her.

She turned at bay in the corner. The netman swung again and this time succeeded. The spears drove home. The crowd roared briefly.

Bazil shrugged in disgust.

Nesessitas examined the wall of the keep and the tower of the Doom that thrust forward from it. High above, perhaps thirty-five yards up, was a dark opening, a pool of shadow.

“Look up there, Broketail. I think that’s where the rock will be.”

“It said that it enjoyed this.”

“Sick mind in that rock.”

Bazil caught sight of something else, though, that riveted his attention.

Coming out of the anterooms behind the bullpen was a line of men wearing loincloths, helmets and sandals. They carried round wooden shields and short wooden swords.

“Captain!” he shouted suddenly, and heaved at the walls of the bull pen around him.

At the bellow of the dragon the men turned. They were the men of Marneri, with the surviving Talion troopers.

“The Broketail!” they shouted. “And Nessi!”

“Where are dragonboys?” the green dragon called.

“We have not seen them,” shouted back Lieutenant Weald.

Guards and imps thrust forward and pressed the men into the arena—the whips cracked.

“The lady lives yet!” bellowed Bazil, before a troll began to beat on the bars of the pen.

The men looked back in astonishment. How could the dragons know that? Was there really hope left to them?

The whips cracked over them again.

The double doors in the keep opened and a squad of imps ran in. These imps were armed with steel and proper shields.

The Valkyrie, her long golden hair streaming out behind her, rode her white chariot past the imps and swept around the arena floor, arousing the crowd to repeated cheers.

The men watched the oncoming imps with dour eyes and hefted the crude wooden weapons they’d been given. Kesepton and Duxe had already planned for this, however.

“Alright men, we’ll take this like it was training school,” said Duxe with his customary snarl toned down to an ugly purr. “Just like a training exercise, we fight in trios.”

“What’s the point? We’re all dead men anyway, why give them entertainment?” moaned one of the Talion troopers.

“We have fifteen effectives, that’s five trios, back to back. Officers will form the central trio.”

The men looked to each other. Then the big smith Cowstrap spoke.

“We must fight because if we don’t we’ll be run down one by one by that bloodthirsty bitch, just like poor Jorse.”

“But with wooden swords?”

“Better to die standing up than on your knees, man!”

The others nodded agreement. The trooper shrugged. “Well, then we all die together,” he said finally.

At Duxe’s command the men formed into four trios, ready to fight back to back. The officers formed a fifth trio in the center. Kesepton and Weald, of course, were experienced at this kind of fighting, but Yortch was cavalry.

“We fight as a team, remember that,” said Kesepton over his shoulder.

Yortch nodded. “I’ve seen how you foot soldiers fight. I’ll be with you.”

“Remember to watch the other trios. When possible, we have to assist them.”

“Do you really think the lady is alive?” said Weald.

Kesepton had scarcely dared to hope, because if the lady lived then so might Lagdalen.

“I would believe it. I see no reason why the dragon would say it if it wasn’t true.”

Yortch snorted behind him. “Bah, you are snared in the witch’s spell, still lusting after that girl.”

“Shut your mouth, Talion.”

“Ha, hah! Brave words, Captain.”

“When this is over I will demand satisfaction, Talion, sword to sword, you and me, do you understand?”

“You will get it, Captain.”

“And you will rue your insults to the Lady Lagdalen.”

It was out in the open, and several of the men were looking over their shoulders at their captain. Dueling was forbidden in the legions, a hanging offence for the most part, and here was the captain calling out the subadar.

A blast on the enemy horns ended all speculations. The imps halted a dozen places away and spread out into a line facing the men. The Valkyrie rode past with a naked youth, covered with gold paint, riding on the backboard behind her and blowing on a battle horn. At the signal the imps charged with their usual shriek of battle rage.

The wooden swords were heavy and clumsy, and the steel in the hands of the imps soon began to cut them to pieces. But the wood lasted just long enough; two, then three, of the attacking imps were felled by well-directed blows. The imps would attack head on and often were struck down by blows from the men to either side.

Then a few of the men had steel weapons and better shields, and the situation had changed slightly. The imps had fallen back. Men with whips on black horses drove them into a group again and sent them back into the attack.

Steel rang on steel now, but in one of the trios there was no steel and one man was trapped by two imps and gutted with a savage stroke. He went down with a cry of agony.

The others in the trio were soon beset. Weald and Kesepton went to their aid. Yortch, left alone, plunged into battle on his own for the moment. His wooden sword broke when he brought it down over the head of the first imp he met.

At once he was helpless, and though he staved off the first couple of blows, an imp blade soon cut into his shoulder and another sank into his ankle.

Kesepton had seen Yortch fall and was already in place in good time to clear the imps standing over him with a two-handed sweep with his wooden sword.

The imps fell side by side, and Kesepton snatched up the steel and tossed the second blade to Weald. Then he pulled Yortch back inside the ring of trios.

Another man was wounded, his wooden shield cleft through and his arm lopped off at the wrist by a giant imp as tall as a man. But disaster was averted as Liepol Duxe slammed his wooden sword alongside the huge imp’s head and it went down, completely stunned. Duxe took its sword, and with the men cheering him on, he slew the next imp to face him.

Suddenly the imps were backing away, their nerve shattered, leaving eight corpses behind them.

The men re-formed. Now they were four trios, but most of them had steel in their hands; they would not die so easily now. Their wounded they placed in the center.

Kesepton stared about him, the crowd was rising and clapping furiously.

“It seems this mob is pleased with the performance,” he growled quietly.

“We’ll make them remember the name of Marneri,” said Weald.

“Aye, Lieutenant, that we will.”

The Valkyrie rode past once again and her golden youth showered them with dead leaves, red, yellow and brown.

Men on horseback were riding out—at their front was an officer in black and silver. He drew up his horse nearby and addressed them.