Bazil Broketail (58 page)

Eventually they were thrust into the Doom’s presence, in the main chamber. Armed men, trolls, imps were everywhere. The entire place was on a maximum alert. Something was happening.

The Doom’s Mouth was swung high..

“Ah, it is Thrembode. Rebels are abroad in the city, and our magician Thrembode decides to decamp. Running for safety like the coward he is. Not a pretty sight.”

The Eyes rattled in the cage.

“She must go to Padmasa,” said Thrembode, “if something should go wrong here.”

“Are you suggesting that I could lose control of Tummuz Orgmeen?”

“It is unlikely, Great One, unlikely, but still we must not take risks with a prize such as this.”

“Hah! You make a joke for me, magician. You say this girl is more important than anything else in my city.”

Rebels on the loose in the city?

“Not at all, but if there is danger here I must act, and I thought that with a witch running amok I had best remove the captive and ensure her safe delivery to Padmasa.”

“Ah, the witch. Yes, I remember the witch and I remember that you, Thrembode—you were supposed to have brought me the head of this hag by now. Were you not?”

Thrembode felt the sweat running down his body.

“It is not possible, this place is honeycombed with secret passages and tunnels. Your obsession with secrecy has made the place impossible to screen or even secure.”

“You seek to blame me?” The Doom squeezed the brain of the Mouth so hard it choked.

Thrembode could feel the rock’s anger as if it were radiating heat.

“I merely point out that there’s a labyrinth down there, and even with five thousand imps you’d be lucky to find anyone. They wriggled through holes no more than a foot high.”

“Incompetence!” bellowed the Mouth. “But that is hardly the gravest charge, is it, magician?”

Thrembode’s heart sank.

“Yes, we have found General Erks. He has been stabbed to death. You were the last person to have seen him.”

Thrembode gulped, unable to speak for a moment.

“Yes, you were, and he was going to give you some unwelcome news.”

“I don’t know,” said Thrembode quickly. “I never met him.”

“What?”

“I was too busy trying to find the captive. I decided not to attend the meeting.”

“Nonsense. You lie. I will boil the truth out of you, magician, but not yet. Move him back and gag him. I will enjoy your demise later when there will be more time for it.”

Troopers with leather gauntlets seized him and thrust a thick gag into his mouth and strapped it tight.

He was locked to a pole.

Besita was aghast. She stared up at the great mass of the black stone. Poor Thrembode was lost, the Doom would take his life. She could not imagine losing Thrembode completely. How would she go on without him?

She was confused. Thrembode’s spell made her ache for him in one way, but in another she could not help but feel joy, for she had dreaded the idea of journeying to Padmasa, especially in Thrembode’s company, serving as his thrall once more. Indeed she much preferred her life in Tummuz Orgmeen, where she had Thrembode for a lover and not a master, and where she enjoyed the favor of the Doom, to any previous period in her life.

Still, she had only seen the Doom before when it was on its most velvety-soft, best behavior. The sight of the Eyes, Mouth and Ears flung about in their cages was horrifying.

Thrembode was gagged and cuffed to the whipping post, and the Doom was about to turn to her, when messengers came in and whispered to the officers of the Guard.

One of them hurried to the Ears and repeated its message.

The Doom reacted violently. Its sensors were tossed about.

“Get reinforcements down there at once,” it shrieked. “They must be stopped!”

At the great gates to the Doom Tube Lessis halted. The dragons stepped forward and struck the doors with troll axes. Their massive thews bunched with power and the axes bit deeply into the door. Soon the wood was breaking up and flying apart.

Holes appeared. The wild drake grasped one end of a timber splintered by the Broketail’s axe and heaved. To his own surprise the door disintegrated.

Bazil dropped the axe and took Piocar from Relkin. Trolls rose up inside with sword and shield, dragons burst in upon them, and men and women poured in around the dragons and struck hard at the imps and troopers.

In the confined space there was a vicious, hacking fight, knives and fists were as effective as swords and Bazil found it hard to wield Piocar. The press put no inhibitions on the purple-green however, and he seized troll after troll, using his massive teeth on them.

Somehow, despite their exhaustion and their weary arms, the insurgents found a new strength, borne perhaps on the knowledge of certain death. They would die here, but they would take a great many of their enemies with them—that was all that mattered.

For the space of a few minutes the fight was more or less even, but then the men of Marneri led by Kesepton and Duxe hacked their way through the troopers and fell on the imps.

The imps panicked and flowed back, and the swords of the Argonath flicked out and took them from behind.

Along the way they lost several men, however. A troll caught Lieutenant Weald with a blow from his axe. Weald was virtually cut in two and fell in front of Kesepton. Then the troll was gone, smashed to ruins by an overhand blow from Piocar, and the fighting dragon burst free of the trolls and got space to wield his sword. In an instant the great blade had scythed through the remaining troopers and cut them down like corn.

Only imps remained now and they were in terrified flight. Swords flashed briefly and then there was silence in the chamber. The victors stared down at the slaves of the Doom Tube, those who hauled on the ropes that raised and lowered the Doom and its captive “senses.”

The slave masters cowered back now as the men of Marneri swept down. The swords rose and fell, for Lessis would not stop them, decreeing that justice in this case should be swift because these men who had kept other men and women in such deadly slavery deserved no further life of their own.

The place was secured. Looking up through the length of the Tube they could see the Doom, a glistening fat ebony pearl dangling high above.

“The mechanisms that move the Doom must be controlled from the upper chamber—we cannot bring it down from here,” said Lessis to Kesepton.

“Then what can we do?”

“We can send someone up to the upper chamber.”

Kesepton nodded.

“There is only one fit for this task and he has done much already.”

“But he can do it.”

Without hesitation she turned to Bazil of Quosh, who was standing nearby, leaning on Piocar and looking up the tube at the distant rock. It was a long way; he remembered how big the damn rock was when he was close.

The slaves at the ropes were staring up at him, as were the women and the swordsmen of Marneri.

“What next?” he said wearily.

“You will ride the chains,” said the Lady. “We will pull you to the upper chamber. The Doom is secured from falling by a steel net. It is secured by seven strands that connect to the main hawser that lifts and lowers it. Cut those seven strands and the Doom will fall.”

Bazil nodded. “I saw those. You are right, that is what has to be done.”

Lessis stood closer to the great wyvern.

“You must remain on the far side of the Doom. They can spin him and they will try to use the dragon lance on you.”

Bazil nodded. “They will try to spear me while I cut cables. I understand.”

He also understood that if he succeeded, the Doom would fall and with it would fall Tummuz Orgmeen.

Bazil moved forward to the chains. Gingerly the haulage slaves helped him onto their strongest lifting pallet. The pallet was hooked to a riser and the riser run onto the blocks. Then they began to pull.

“They understand, Lady Lessis,” said Kesepton. “They have to get him up there before the enemy realizes the threat and cuts the rope.”

Lessis nodded, but Relkin heard these words and felt his heart freeze. No dragon could survive a fall from that height.

The slaves pulled and needed no whip cracked over their heads to give it all they had. The dragon rose into the air with a cheery wave and picked up speed until he was soaring as if rocket-propelled.

Then renewed noise at the doors turned everyone’s head. Fresh imps and troopers were coming.

“To the doors!” shouted Kesepton.

Without a word they took up their weapons once more and made ready to sell their lives dearly.

Bazil soared in the chains, holding on tight with both hands and his tail while bracing his feet on the platform. Below him five hundred slaves heaved on the rope with every ounce of strength left in their bodies to send this weapon hurtling up the Tube.

So swift was the ascent that he arrived in the topmost chamber before any effective defense could be readied.

The men and imps on the upper floors had heard the commotion of the battle for the rope room, and there were many eyes peering into the deep well of the Tube, but the sight of a dragon rising to meet them took them by surprise and many mistakenly assumed that it was a flying dragon. They turned and ran for their lives.

At the very top, securely pinned to the structure of the tower, was a complex of pulleys and gears through which the Doom’s “hands,” men who rode forever in small cages at the Doom’s equator, controlled the motions of the Doom and signaled to the slaves below when it was time to hoist or lower the great stone. From the pulleys hung dozens of lines to control the senses of the Doom as well as the great hawsers that held the rock itself in place.

Bazil rode up past the “hands” at the equator, and as he arrived he swung the platform on its rope so that he came close enough to the Doom itself to reach out and seize hold of one of the seven cables that supported it.

The Doom sensed him at once and knew its peril.

Shouts of alarm rose below. The Mouth was jerked around in its cage, now ominously still. The “hands” tried again and again to get some movement for the Eyes and Ears but found no response from the floor of the Tube.

“What are you doing here, great dragon?” said the Mouth in a strange soft tone.

“Bloody rock, I come to kill you.”

Bazil had Piocar in his free forehand.

“No!” bellowed the Mouth.

The “hands” of the Doom twitched their signals in desperate reflex to have the slaves haul the stone downwards. But the slaves no longer obeyed. The Doom was trapped where it was.

“No, do not do this terrible thing, great dragon. Listen tome!”

“You like to kill dragons for your sport, rock. Now dragon kill you. Different sport.”

Piocar sang and bounced on the first cable.

The Mouth shifted to the harsh, command mode.

“Quickly, destroy the dragon. Bring dragon lance.”

Piocar rang on the cable again. It was of steel and thicker than a man’s thumb. Worse, he was not getting enough purchase for the swing and the great blade bounced off the cable, barely nicking it.

“Hurry, you fools!” roared the Mouth.

Bazil got one foot up on the side of the rock with his claws gripping the mesh of the net of cables.

Now he swung again with more power, and Piocar cut the cable, which gave way with a great twang and then lashed back with terrific energy that sent it crashing around the inside of the tower top.

“Nooooooooo!” shrieked the Doom.

The cable whipped back with a whistle, like the lash of some demonic god, and Baz ducked and prayed it wouldn’t cut his rope. Instead he heard a scream and saw one of the Doom’s “hands” go hurtling down the Tube with his chain cut.

Piocar came back for the next cable, but the strike was not clean and the blade rang off the cable and struck the black stone itself. To his horror Baz saw that his sword was notched.

A catwalk had been swung out to the Doom’s side and imps were approaching. Crossbow bolts began to bounce off the stone beneath him and then they began to hit him, sinking into his thick hide on back and legs and tail. The bolts stung but they could not stop him unless they hit him in the eye.

The sword swung down again, and this time the second cable parted with another loud twang.

Again it lashed around, striking the catwalk and knocking a pair of imps off into nothingness.

A troll with a dragon lance was coming. The catwalk ended some ten feet from the doomstone, the rest of the distance being bridged with ladders when maintenance was necessary. A troll planted on the end could reach the dragon and then some, enough to get the lance into his guts and finish him.

Baz saw it coming and began pushing at the stone with his foot and started it spinning slowly. It was hard work since he had nothing solid to push back against, but the stone began to move slightly after a while and then he was swept along, away from the catwalk and the troll.

Now Piocar swung again and bounced off the third cable.

Troopers on the floor of the audience chamber threw their spears, but none struck the dragon with any force and only one even stuck into the leather of his joboquin.

The turn of the great rock was taking Baz away from his platform—he could no longer keep a foot on it or hold the rope. He released them, clung to the cables, and crawled up until he was on top of the Doom itself.

The troll on the catwalk thrust at him with the lance, but he deflected it with Piocar. More arrows came, and he felt the pricks in his chest and arms and shoulders as they sank in.

“No time to waste, eh rock?” he called in a loud voice.

From his new position he could see out the hooded window atop the tower and down into the arena.

“You like the view from up here, eh? Pity about that.” Piocar cut the third cable.

The rock shifted suddenly in its basket of steel wire. With three cables cut, it was close to falling out.

The Mouth, the Eyes, the Ears and the remaining adjusters were hurled about. The cable whipped back and Baz had to flatten himself on the stone as it sang overhead.