BOOK II OF III: The Reign of the Sultan (42 page)

Not even two seconds later, the hawks landed
on the ground about twenty feet away from Baltor’s position—after
turning around, he saw Traes sitting in the backseat of Praetor,
firmly holding the reins with one hand and a scope with the
other.

Sitting in the front seat of the other hawk
was Cheo who held the reins. In the backseat was Darius, equipped
with his own scope.

Baltor walked over until he was standing
right in front of his hawk. Once there, only a few seconds later,
he gazed deep into his hawk’s eyes—eyes that were staring right
back—and pet his feathery cheeks while telepathically asking,
Are you ready for battle, my most-beautiful hawk,
Praetor?

Inside his mind, he clearly heard Praetor
say,
Yes I am, my master! I have learned very well how to
maneuver by your telepathic commands alone over these last few
weeks. Whatever you want me to do—just let me know… you’re wish is
my command!

Baltor replied,
Thank you, my
friend!

One more thing I’d like to say, my
master.

Yes, Praetor?

If I don’t come out of this alive, I’d like
to say it’s been an honor to die at your side, my master!

After nodding his head a couple of times,
Baltor sucked in a deep breath before answering,
And let me say
that it’s been an honor, my friend, to have lived by yours
…

Though hawks cannot physically smile, Baltor
could totally feel the smiles he and his beloved hawk shared for a
few more seconds, before he climbed into the saddle and buckled
up—upon seeing his Sultan complete that task, Traes immediately
handed over the reins without a word spoken.

Ready, Praetor?
Baltor asked
telepathically, as he tied the reins around the front pommel on the
saddle.

Yes, my master! I know we will win now…

Launch!

Praetor launched straight up into the air—at
fifty feet in altitude, he heard Baltor telepathically say,
Level out now
…

The hawk did as ordered—meanwhile, his sister
hawk Leshava followed right behind, thanks to Cheo’s expert
directional steering using the reins.

The second Baltor’s eyes saw that the army
and the giants were ready to travel, he called out from above
through his megaphone, “Forward—ride!”

They, including both hawks, did.

An hour and a half later upon this very dark
night—mostly cloudy without either moon visible—the army finally
arrived at the western borders of the barren field that Darius had
earlier scouted out the dark gnome army, which army had obviously
never left.

Everyone, not just Baltor, could clearly see
tens of millions of dark gnomes—some were on the ground and others
were flying in the air—all were clearly visible because of the tens
of thousands of magically-glowing red orbs that also floated ten
feet up in the air! They wanted to be seen!

Both males and females wore the same exact
black attire, from the boots on their feet, to the chain mail
armored vest, to a cape with hood that covered their face and
bodies. Their impressive variety of weapons was the only thing that
distinguished anything about them at all!

In that next moment, Baltor’s superhuman
senses revealed that there weren’t actually tens of millions, but
only a little more than a million dark gnomes waiting—odds that
made it fifty-to-one against his own forces. Still astronomical in
the odds of winning, in is unspoken opinion, but not
impossible.

After all, he had a little more than twenty
thousand cavalry forces, and several hundred giants. Unfortunately,
the bulk of his forces (hundreds of thousands) were still more than
six weeks away. This battle would be long over by then…

Despite the horrible odds, Baltor refused to
get fazed or scared. Once his assault-team had reached the
one-mile-marker from the enemy, he confidently issued the command
from above, “Halt!”

The forces did.

Because Baltor could now sense the incredible
nervousness and fears in all his troops, especially because of the
odds not being stacked in their favor, he began to fly his hawk
back and forth in front of his troops.

All the while, he called out through the
megaphone he unstrapped from Praetor’s saddle, “Forces! I can sense
the fear that is in your hearts and your minds! It is okay to be
afraid, but if you let fear govern, and you flee like a coward,
then know that this evil army and their dragon leader has one
singular purpose—too destroy our beloved world, including our
friends, our family, and our Sharia Empire!

“Do not let their numbers, which are ‘mostly
an illusion,’ scare you. Actually, they only have a little over a
million dark gnomes! So once I have dispensed with the dragon, I
shall jump right into the middle of their swarms and help you all
out! I promise…”

After a very short pause, Baltor added, “For
the Sharia Empire!”

For a few moments, most of the troops
remained gloomily silent. Only the highest-ranking officers were
the very few to emphatically respond!

At the top of his voice, Baltor called out
yet again, “
For the Sharia Empire!
”

This time, hundreds of troops responded,
though most sounded weak, “For the Sharia Empire!”

After sucking in a really deep breath, Baltor
roared aloud, “
For the Sharia Empire!!
”

This time, tens of thousands of troops
responded emphatically, “
For the Sharia Empire!!
”

While drawing his swords and holding them
crossed over his head, Baltor sucked in yet another breath, just
before he roared like a dragon, “
For the Sharia
Empire!!!
”

The entire troops and even the giants
responded with such zeal that even the dark gnomes, all the way on
the other side of the battlefield, became just a bit startled! A
few strangely became afraid.

Feeling satisfied by their last response,
Baltor sheathed back his swords, and said through his megaphone,
“Excellent! King Cheo and I shall now ride out to meet the enemies’
leader for the pre-combat meeting. Be patient. We shall return
shortly! Ruling-General Stormea, you’re in charge while we’re
gone.”

“Yes, my Sultan!” Stormea called back from
below, of whom was riding on Baltor’s black stallion, Grasha. At
the same time, Baltor and Cheo made their way on the hawks to the
center of the battlefield.

Upon seeing the two hawks and their four
riders coming their way, the dragon who was on the ground in the
very middle of all her gnomes, launched herself into the air, and
flew out alone to meet them.

Once they had all arrived in the very middle
of the battlefield, approximately two minutes later, they landed
upon the ground, facing each other at a distance of thirty
feet.

With a menacing grin that included her forked
tongue slithering out between her teeth for a second, the dragon
began, “Nice speech, Baltor, but hopelesssss—”

Without an ounce of fear, Baltor interrupted,
“That is your opinion of the situation, Dreeak. Hope is only dead
once dismissed by the heart and mind.”

“The situation,” Dreeak countered, “isss that
the bulk of your forcesss cannot help you, and you’ll all be long
dead by the time they arrive, and then they too will die, asss will
thisss whole world. However, if you surrender your life and your
soul to me now, we can avert thisss unnecessary war! You are the
one I really want, and the reason we have come…yesss!”

Baltor asked, “Really? If I am the one you
really want, then let it be just you and I who fight to the
death—right here and right now. If I win, you have your forces
return to the world with which they came—”

The dragon interrupted, “And when I win?”

After chuckling for a second, Baltor
answered, “Then you’ll have what you came for—my life and my soul!
But regardless of who wins, your forces depart to the world where
they originated. Hell, most likely.”

Dreeak replied, “My forcesss have told me
they like thisss world—they want to stay! How about thisss
counterproposal, Baltor? If you win by killing me, then my forcesss
will return to their world—if you lose by me killing you, then all
the humansss on this world shall become our obedient slavesss
forever!”

“I honestly cannot speak for all the humans
in this world, dragon,” Baltor calmly answered. “Yet I’m confident
that not a single one of my people will allow themselves to become
slaves to anyone, even if I should happen to lose in this
one-on-one duel with you. We are all free men and women here!”

“Then I supposssse that war is unavoidable,
fool,” Dreeak answered a few seconds later, just before her image
dissipated into nothingness.

“Yes, I suppose that it is…” Baltor said
mostly to himself, just before he launched his hawk straight up
into the air—Cheo followed right behind.

Halfway back to their army, the dark gnomes
on the other side began to maniacally scream in high-pitched tones,
beat their weapons into their chests, and, if on the ground, stomp
their boots!

The second Baltor and Cheo had landed, thirty
noisy seconds later; everyone on the entire battlefield clearly
heard the dragon roar at the top of her lungs,
“
ATTACK!!!
”

Still screaming, the gnomes rushed in—not
surprisingly, ninety-nine percent of the battlefield became
magically enshrouded in “utter dark clouds,” including Baltor’s
army’s location.

In the darkness that only he could see
through, Baltor commanded through his megaphone, “Present
arms!”

His soldiers simultaneously withdrew their
weapons, which action made a loud, ringing noise—at the same time,
the pyramid of giants slammed his shield into armored chest-plate
one time, which caused an equally loud crashing noise!

After kicking his feet into his hawk’s
stirrups, which caused his hawk to launch straight up into the air,
Baltor called out, “Launch, King Cheo!”

Once both hawks had reached the altitude of
sixty feet, which was forty feet above the tallest black cloud,
Baltor roared at the top of his lungs, “
For the survival of the
world—charge!!!
”

Fearlessly the cavalry soldiers and the
giants rushed forward into the cloudy battlefield, all the while
howling like madmen and madwomen! At the same time, joining this
sound—on a slightly lesser scale volume-wise—were the sounds of
thousands upon thousands upon thousands of galloping hooves and
rolling wheels.

It only took a grand total of fifteen seconds
to pass before the first sounds of combat commenced—swords clanking
against other swords or shields, and of course, the sounds of death
screams coming from both sides of the fence!!

All the while, Baltor continued to
telepathically navigate his hawk over the battlefield, while
seeking out the whereabouts of the dragon, both physically and/or
psychically. So far, he had been unsuccessful in locating his
nemesis.

At the same time, Cheo adroitly flew Leshava,
and Darius rode in back—not only did they both seek out the dragon
with scopes, yet Darius occasionally shouted out “words of
encouragement” to the troops!

Several minutes had passed since the battle
had begun, and still nobody had located the “cowardly
dragon”—therefore, not wanting to waste any more time with cowards,
Baltor shifted his mind, heart, and soul to his forces fighting for
their very lives below.

Right away he began to yell out encouraging
words through his megaphone—lungs that would never grow tired or
sore—to his men and women swinging every type of weapon imaginable.
Below, in the darkness, his blind-fighting troops clearly heard
every word that he said and they became even more “fired up!”

Only minutes after that, yet another “good
idea” popped in Baltor’s mind, and so he intermittently began to
offer “tips, suggestions, directions and orders” to his troops,
especially because he could see through that utter darkness
below.

Thanks to all of his assistance, the battle
remained incredibly successful so far … very few friendly forces
had been killed, despite being severely outnumbered, outmatched,
and continuously surrounded by the enemy-gnome forces!

And yes, even without Baltor’s encouraging
help, his army would still have been “quite successful,” for these
three additional militarily-oriented reasons:

The first was because the troops—including
the giants—now trusted and utilized all their senses, including
their sixth sense, instead of just relying upon the senses of sight
and sound. Thanks, in great part, to all the “exceptional
blind-fighting training” delivered by Humonus prior to his
death.

The second reason was the hundreds of deadly
plows, which had been stored in the back of hundreds of wagons
until an hour before camp had been broken. Now they were securely
mounted onto the front part of the chariots, or wagons—the front
part of the plow extended fifteen feet beyond the length of the
horses. Finally, these plows proved to be quite lethal weapons as
they literally mowed through the non-ending ranks of dark
gnomes!

The third and final reason this army could
not even be slowed down whatsoever, was due to their “strategic
battle formation.”

Leading the pack in ranks of four was the
assault-cavalry—ten thousand men and women blindly charged forth
upon their horses, or in horse-drawn chariots with attached plows,
while furiously swinging whatever weapon he or she happened to
possess every direction!

Following behind them were the stomping
giants, who never gave up their pyramid-shaped formation, and
continuously obliterated the disarrayed and damaged gnomes not
killed through the initial charge from the assault-cavalry!

Following behind them were eight thousand of
the support-cavalry, either on foot, horses, or wagons. They had
two missions to perform by order of importance.