The Coldstone Conflict (17 page)

“Let me see!” Diek clambered up the bank, remembering at the last moment to take Groan’s box with him, and snatched the telescope from his companion.

Burnie waited while the boy moved it through several adjustments. “Well? Can you see?”

Diek nodded. “It’s terrible,” he said, his voice wavering. “That dragon … the people of Phlegm don’t stand a chance.”

“They must have gone through the forest, too,” Burnie added. “Because they’ve got a tree as a battering ram—and I’m betting it will do the job.”

The horde of the possessed ground to a standstill a few meters from the great doors of Phlegm. For a few seconds there was stony silence. Then the enormous dragon crashed onto the dirt before them, and Gape Teethgrit dismounted. The great casket of souls was brought forward, causing the twenty or so zombies who had hold of it to stagger beneath the weight.

“People of Phlegm,” he thundered, in a voice filled with malice that rang out in the surrounding hills and valleys. Diek almost dropped his telescope. “You are granted this one chance to surrender your souls and join the ranks of our lord, Vanquish. Otherwise, you shall die … crushed beneath the wrath of our might. I ask you now: will you surrender?”

The soldiers on the battlements of Phlegm maintained their stance. Nobody moved.

They must be terrified,
Diek thought, watching the scene.
Absolutely terrified.

Then a cry echoed from the top of the wall.

“We will not surrender. In the name of our absent king, and the royal steward who serves him, we shall fight you with the last gasps of our breath.”

Diek looked on in terror as Gape strode back to the dragon and remounted it. The army behind him suddenly bristled with all manner of swords, axes, pitchforks, pikes and spears. Then …

“What’s happening
now
?” Burnie asked.

“Wait!” Diek adjusted the telescope again, and slowly turned until he was almost facing the little troglodyte.

“What are you doing, lad? Don’t play with the damn thing!”

“I’m not!” Diek muttered. “There’s some people over on the far hill, just right of the town. They’re on horseback!”

“Really?” Burnie looked suddenly hopeful. “Phlegmians, do you think?”

“I don’t know. How do you tell?”

“Give it back to me, I’ll tell you.”

Diek handed Burnie the telescope. The little troglodyte had barely put the device to his eye when he lowered it again.

“That’s Earl Visceral, Lord of Spittle,” he said, excitedly. “THAT’S the man I need to talk to.”

On a low hill just east of Phlegm, Earl Visceral turned to his commander in chief.

“Archers,” he said, looking on with grim determination as the order was passed on and more than seventy soldiers drew back their longbows.

“Ready when you are, Highness,” the commander said, nodding his head respectfully.

Visceral squinted at the army laid out before Phlegm. “I want half the front line of zombies taken out,” he said. “That should get their attention.” He leaned closer to the man. “And be certain that you give the command to go the very
second
we get their attention. We will then have to gallop
in front of them …
yes, I do mean
between them and the gates of Phlegm,
if we are to successfully draw them to Coldstone.”

The commander nodded, somewhat gravely, and urged his horse back along the line of archers. Raising a hand, he hesitated for a few seconds. Then he screamed: “Fire!”

A rain of arrows flew from the seventy longbows, arcing through the sky with incredible speed.

For a second, Visceral and his men waited with baited breath, their eyes fixed on the dark horde.

Then a wave seemed to wash over the sea of zombies as several of the creatures in almost every line on the front flank flew backward, arrowheads embedded in their chests. The dragon turned its great head to scan for the new threat as a roar went up from the soldiers who still stood on the battlements of Phlegm.

“With me now! With me!” screamed the commander of the Spittalian army, his horse thundering toward the space between Phlegm and its sprawling enemy.

Gape screamed out, and the dragon took to the skies. The army of the possessed charged forward.

“Where are they going?” Burnie said, out of breath. He and Diek had reached the hill on which they’d expected to find Earl Visceral, only to find that he and his men had already charged away.

Diek put a hand to his forehead in order to block out the sun.

“It looks like they’re galloping across the front of the horde.”

“But why would they do that?” Burnie cried. “It’s insane! They won’t survive an attack from that rabble! They’ll all be killed!”

Diek stood rooted to the spot as the inevitable clash loomed. The great dragon swooped, and the horde swept forward.

“Destroyed,” he said, his voice so low as to be almost inaudible. “All those innocent people. It’s not fair … I have to do
something.
”

Burnie watched the scene until it became clear that the dashing army were
not
going to make it through the gap. Then he closed his eyes and said a quiet prayer for the fallen. When he opened them again, Diek Wustapha had vanished, and the great dragon was twisting and turning in the air, as if caught in the throws of a fit.

A
DIRTY BLACK SPECK
appeared in the air over the Plains of Coldstone. At first, it appeared to be moving on land. Then, as it drew nearer, it became clear that the dragon was aloft. There was no sign of the army beneath it, but every armed solider standing on the plains knew the horde was coming.

“Well, here goes nothing,” said Grid Thungus, taking up the reins of his horse and winking at the assembled lords. “I bid you gentlemen good day, and I wish you the very best of luck.”

Muttknuckles glared at him. “Deserting, are you?”

“Not at all,” said Thungus, pulling his great axe from its shoulder strap. “I’m going to draw the dragon away from you.” He raised the axe above his head and began to urge the horse forward. “If I were you, I’d have your men attack in one great rush. See? There really isn’t anything to being a general … it’s all about running at the enemy and hoping you don’t get killed. Grant me luck, fellas! Hahaha!”

As the horse thundered away, picking up speed with every second, Muttknuckles turned to Prince Blood.

“I don’t reckon much on his strategic skill,” he said. “But I’ll tell you one thing for certain: that bloke’s got ba—”

“Yes,” Blood interrupted. “But he’s also just left
us
in charge of an army, so if you don’t have any objections, I’m going to order a charge.”

“Not on all of them, you’re not,” Muttknuckles warned. “I’m taking a few hundred out wide so we can flank the scumbags.”

“Will that work?”

“It’s something my grandfather taught me.”

Prince Blood hesitated.

“Your grandfather died in the opening salvos of the Third Crust Conflict,” he muttered.

“Yeah I know,” growled Muttknuckles. “Somebody flanked him.”

“Diek? Diek! Where are you? Where did you go?”

Burnie, the box wedged under his arm, ran up and down the little hill, searching the landscape for Diek Wustapha. His gaze took in the war-zone at Phlegm, the riverbank and even the series of small hills they’d run across in order to get to the earl. Then he saw the boy … and stopped dead.

Diek Wustapha was standing on the very top of the next hill, the flute at his lips. Burnie couldn’t make out any sound because of the hideous din caused by the two clashing armies, but he knew instantly that Diek’s actions were prompting the suddenly erratic flight pattern of the dragon.

Diek knew it, too … but he also knew that it wasn’t working—not completely. The mind was far too strong …

“
How dare you try to break us
,” said a slithery voice in his head. “
We are older … so much ollllder than you … we will not succumb to your low enchantments. We WILL NOT … WE WILL NOOOOOOT …
”

Diek felt a sudden surge of pain in his skull, and the flute fell from his hands. He staggered a few paces then folded up, dropping to his knees and crying out in pain.

“Diek!”

Burnie scrambled up the hill and hurried over to the boy, crouching beside him and throwing an arm over Diek’s shoulders.

“You idiot! You can’t mess with the mind of a dragon: they’re the smartest breed of all!” He shook his head and fixed Diek with a stern glare. “What did you think you were doing?”

Diek raised a shaking hand and pointed. “That.”

The dragon’s mental struggle had bought Visceral’s men some much-needed time. As Burnie gawped at the conflict, a group of some fifty or sixty soldiers, Earl Visceral among them, broke free of the horde and galloped toward the River Chud.

The army of the possessed trampled the remaining troops, but were far too ponderous to give immediate pursuit. Still, Gape screamed at them … and slowly they reformed in order to follow the troop.

“It worked!” Burnie cried. “I can’t believe it: you actually helped them to get away! Well done, boy! Well done!”

But Diek’s face had suddenly become a twisted mask of horror.

“The dragon!” he screamed. “I’ve attracted its attention: it’s coming this way!”

He staggered back.

“Run,” Burnie mouthed. “
Ruuuuuunnn!
”

Dragon-hunters had always been few and far between. This wasn’t because the job paid poorly or because there wasn’t much demand for such a talent: it was mainly because dragon-killers didn’t live very long. A job which inevitably involves a good chance of your own death is a job not many people decide to make their own. In Illmoor, dragons were now a rare species. Occasionally, the odd cave dragon might make itself known but, by and large, the breed was fast disappearing. Consequently, there were only two dragon-hunters at large in Illmoor, and of those two only one had ever actually taken on a dragon and beaten it.

His name was Grid Thungus. Born into a barbarian tribe not dissimilar to the Teethgrits’ own brood, Grid had grown up with a grim certainty that life was short. He had therefore decided to set forth with a great axe and make it a lot shorter for things he didn’t like. A curious attitude, but one that was remarkably common in his family.

Grid Thungus was a dragon-hunter. In his lifetime, he had fought three cave dragons, a slime dragon, two ice dragons and a Frecklin Wyvern. Admittedly, he hadn’t beaten them all—but he
had
lived to tell the tale and that, in itself, was a testament to his talents.

The thing wheeling in the sky above him, however, was an obsidian dragon. It looked almost as old as Moltenoak … and that meant it was
olllld.

Grid sighed despondently: it was clear that he had only one reasonable chance of getting out of this battle alive.

He thrust a hand into his loincloth and produced a long, white handkerchief. Then he raised it high above his head … and waved it in the air.

A collective gasp went up from the Army of Illmoor ranged behind him: their appointed general was surrendering!

The dragon flapped noisily in the air. As Gordo struggled to bring the great beast to ground, the horde of the possessed began to appear in the distance, a vast line of the staggering soulless, stretching out as far as the eye could see.

Thungus forced his reluctant horse to approach the dragon.

“You surrender so readily,” said the voice of Gordo’s inhabitant-spirit. The glowing eyes looked out at the Army of Illmoor. “Who are
you
, to do so on behalf of so many?”

Grid Thungus smiled. “I’m nobody special,” he said. “But I
do
like your dragon.”

From his place at the head of the army, Prince Blood looked on in astonishment as the distant figure of Thungus slipped from his horse and bolted toward the dragon. Blood must have blinked then, for when he next looked upon the scene, Thungus was a darting blur and the dragon had taken to the air once again, its rider and the army’s barbarian general struggling frantically in the saddle.

Grid Thungus had met Gordo Goldeaxe a fair few times. He tried not to let his fond memories of the dwarf affect the force with which he drove his head into Gordo’s chin.

There was a crack, and Gordo’s head snapped back. Throwing a punch of his own that missed by a mile, the dwarf then tried to grab for his battle-axe, all the while keeping a tight hold of the dragon’s rein with his free hand. His battle-axe slipped from its strap and dropped away. Grid almost lost his own, but managed to snatch hold of it at the last second.

Desperate to shake the attacker off, the dragon rose into the air and then spun itself around, causing Gordo to hang desperately from the reins and Thungus to hang desperately from Gordo. Still clinging on to his great axe with one hand, Thungus managed to clip the weapon on to his belt. Then, clamping a firm hold on the dwarf’s stout legs, the barbarian began to climb, driving his knees into Gordo’s back at every opportunity.

Meanwhile, far below this aerial battle, sensing that his troops expected something of him and realizing that the inevitable moment had arrived, Prince Blood forced his own horse over to the far edge of the army.

“Charge!” he shouted. “Everyone!
Chaaaaargge
!”

There was a moment of hesitation, and then the Army of Illmoor cannoned toward the enemy. The speed of their assault almost took Blood’s breath away, and he gasped with unexpected pride at the fury of his own soldiers. Slowly, very slowly, he began to urge his horse into a gallop.

Up in the skies, the dragon was still falling, spinning faster and faster as it hurtled toward the ground. At the last second it leveled out and furiously beat its wings, avoiding the stony plain by no more than a couple of meters before it took to the skies again.

Unfortunately for the dragon, the only thing it lost as a result of the dive was its rider. Gordo, who’d been hanging from the end of the reins, hit the ground hard, skidding along on the dirt for several meters before the friction stopped his progress. The dwarf quickly struggled to his feet, snatching a sword from a passing warrior and thrusting it into the man’s chest with a defiant scream. He may have lost his mount … but he wasn’t going to lose the battle.