The Dreaddrac Onslaught (Book 4) (20 page)

“Don’t you think I’m quite a handsome woman?” she asked. There was no response. She pinched her pinched lips. “Well, where’s the horse?” She faced him with hands on her hips.

“He’s gone,” the tired apprentice mumbled. His muscles twitched when he slumped down on a log.

“What do you suggest we do now to pull this stately carriage to Dreaddrac? The dragon fodder was a poor excuse for a horse, but he was better than nothing. Maybe after a good night’s rest, you can pull the cart? Hurry up and cook something to eat.”

“Can you fix the food?” Dreg asked. “I’m really worn out.” He looked over at the uneaten hay he’d given his departed friend.

“Me! Fix the food! You can’t be serious!” the witch exclaimed, flipping her wiry hair to make it curl up at the bottom. It flew out in a tuft, ready to spark anyone that touched it.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t have imagined you could cook food,” Dreg said, his tone annoyed. He mumbled, “You have no consideration for me at all.”

Oh crud, I’ve pushed the wimp too far, she thought. I’ll have to pretend consideration. I can’t afford to have the idiot abandon me, too.

“I tell you what, you make dinner, and I’ll whip us up a beast of burden tomorrow morning that will have us back on the road before the dew is off the grass, how about that?” She flashed the dreaded fake smile to which there could be no response.

Without a word, the exhausted man took out the cooking utensils and began to make something to eat.

He sees through me now even if I did promote him from gravedigger to apprentice wizard. So far, I haven’t taught him a single spell or trick. He must be beginning to wonder about that, too.

Dreg quickly got discouraged. He threw the pots into the fire and rolled himself up in his bedroll, falling fast to sleep. Next morning, they woke, and Dreg fixed their breakfast in silence.

“Well, this is a great morning to conjure us a beast of burden,” Earwig said, seeing Dreg still sulking. “What shall we have, a horse or a pair of oxen or maybe a dragon?” the witch asked. I don’t want him running off, too, she thought.

“Whatever you want, but I hope if you conjure a dragon, we’ll be out of its way in case it tries out its flaming on the cart,” Dreg said, his tone serious.

“OK, ok we’ll have us a horse, a real horse with muscles and moving parts instead of a swayback on hooves,” the witch said. Being nice is so tiresome. It drains me more than zapping things.

“We had a horse; you ran him off,” Dreg replied caustically. “Maybe you would prefer a couple of oxen?”

“How dare you suggest I’m a domineering battle ax, you ungrateful defective!” the witch screamed, losing control. “You think you can do better?”

“You just conjure something that can drag that cart full of your junk,” Dreg said, standing up, staring at the witch. “You’re a selfish, inconsiderate woman, Miss Earwig!”

“I’ll do just that,” the witch said, backing away. “You just wait until after I finish eating. You’ll see a horse like none other. You shouldn’t talk to me like that.” This stupid oaf is getting above his station, she thought. He’ll be dragon poop, too, when I’m finished with him.

After they ate breakfast in silence, Dreg washed up the dishes in the nearby stream.

“We need an animal,” Earwig said in a conciliatory tone. “You see any animals when you were down by the stream washing dishes?”

“You should’ve told me earlier you needed something for your conjuring,” Dreg said. He slammed a stick on the ground, shattering the dead wood into fragments.

Earwig slapped her hands on her grossly ample hips and stared down at Dreg. “Don’t get smart with me, boy! Anymore of that tone and you’ll be the horse pulling my cart to Dreaddrac.” A silence followed.

“There was a rat on the other side of the stream. It was pretty fat. I doubt it would make a very good horse,” Dreg mumbled. He led the way back down to the stream with Earwig waddling along behind. The rat was still searching for anything edible along the water’s edge. Earwig smiled and slapped Dreg quietly on the shoulder. “That one will do nicely.”

The witch chanted some incantation, and as she did so her voice changed and deepened. The tone settled into a monotone, and the words seemed to reverberate as she increased the strength of her invocation. Suddenly, she thrust out her hand. The stick for wand shot a blue spark at the rat that froze, absorbing the enchanted energy.

“Bring the rat back to camp,” Earwig instructed confidently. She turned and went back up the slope, leaving her apprentice to cross the stream and get the rodent.

With the rat lying dazed under the cart’s harness, Earwig began another chant. Suddenly she stopped. I forgot the spell, she thought. I can’t have that smart-mouth idiot know that. He’ll laugh, and I’ll be duty bound to turn him into something to drag the cart and shut his mouth. I don’t have time to stop and look up the spell. I’ll go on as best I can remember to keep him, as well as the rat, under control.

She cast ingredients into the fire and onto the stunned rodent, all the while chanting along with a newfound self-confidence. Blue smoke billowed up from the fire. Sparks flew from the next ingredient then red until exhausted, the witch fell back onto the log beside Dreg.

“The spell is finished; the horse will now appear,” she said, beaming a confident smile.

They stared at the rat, waiting. Earwig began to rock nervously forward and backward on the log. There was a long silence as both Earwig and Dreg waited for the transformation.

After what seemed like an eternity, Earwig burst out in a nervous laugh. “Oops! I forgot a most important ingredient. I’ll be right back.” She jumped up and rushed to the cart for some nasty dried thing in one of the boxes. She hurried back with the shriveled black thing the length of her hand. Earwig tossed it beside the rat with some powder, and then splashed some foul water from an earthenware jar on the heap.

The rat jerked and the ingredients merged in a vision. The witch repeated, the incantation’s last line again and splashed more foul liquid onto the pulsing mass beneath the harness.

The thing grew larger and larger and soon filled the harness with something that looked the rough shape of a horse but which had several noticeable differences.

Dreg stood up, his bulging eyes fixed on whatever it was. He felt for the knife handle on his belt. They waited until the transformation was complete, then walked slowly around the thing.

“This is a horse?” Dreg asked, looking into the beady red eyes and the supposed horse’s threatening rat-like muzzle. “The teeth on this thing ain’t gorna eat grass, they’s fangs, Miss Earwig.”

“Uh huh,” the witch mumbled, not taking her eyes off the thing either. After a moment to recover, she puffed up and turned to Dreg adding, “Well, its close enough, and it can pull the cart better than that creeping bone pile you found.” She looked back at the teeth, too, but then looked away.
Crud!
That thing’s going to want meat. “Luckily, the beast, whatever it is, is in the harness. It will have to pull the cart if it moves.”

Warily, Dreg loaded the camp utensils and bedding into the dray. He stood beside it but hesitated to climb up on the cart’s seat.

The animal still stared ahead and made no sound. Seeing no attack on Dreg, Earwig moved to climb up on the seat.

The fanged horse-thing turned its head, looked at the witch. The muzzle drew back, exposing a hundred spiked fangs. It coughed a terrifying hiss, then bolted, throwing Earwig high into the air as the cart jerked forward. Monster and trailing cart raced down the slope to the stream. The fiery-eyed creature tried to get back into the safety of its tunnel on the bank. The cart turned, rolled, and flipped until not a single item was still attached to the erstwhile cart’s frame. Some ingredients’ boxes floated away down the stream. Others sank in the muddy bottom. Unidentifiable dried things swirled in the eddies amid hydrated and blood-red ooze. Caught on a branch, a bedroll rippled there too, but they saw no food.

Eventually, the spell wore off the rat in its determination to get back in its hole. The monstrous thing shrank out of the harness and disappeared down the opening. Only some jumbled boards around the cart’s central beam remained above the rippling stream.

Sticks protruding from her wiry hair, Earwig was mute. She lay sprawled on the bank, staring into the gurgling water, where her treasures floated and bobbed in the current.

Finally, Dreg waded out into the water and managed to upright the cart pieces. With all his strength, he dragged them to the bank at Earwig’s feet. It would take the two of them two days to reassemble the pieces and haul the cart up the slope to the campsite again. Both of them waded in mud to retrieve boxes and supplies they could dredge up from the muck.

“At least the bedrolls are all clean now,” Earwig said, breaking the multiday silence.

“How you going to get that mud out of your stuff?” Dreg asked. He was looking at the sludge, caked and cracking on their legs like pottery glaze as they dried by the campfire.

“Shut up!” Earwig said.

“Maybe we could get that fanged horse to find us some food,” Dreg said. His grin wrinkled the corners of his eyes.

Earwig jumped up, reaching for her wand about to zap Dreg, when she saw the grin. She sat back down, propped head on hand, thinking. She looked up at her helper. “I’d go wash it out in the stream, but that beady-eyed mistake looked starved. I’m not risking its appetite!” She broke out in a laugh. Her marbled-purple skin undulated as the fat beneath jostled, and she flashed all sorts of colors in the light. They both laughed and stared at the bedrolls turning to brick by the fire.

“OK, so what about a horse?” Dreg asked, sitting up and turning to Earwig.

“We’ll worry about a horse tomorrow. Right now we better collect what we can salvage and push this cart up the road as far away from this place as we can get.” She looked apprehensively at the path leading down to the stream. “That thing that scurried back down the hole might have a flashback. I don’t want to run into it after dark!”

They packed up what they had salvaged, heaved the baked bedrolls onto the cart, and continued up the road, huffing and puffing, dragging the rickety conveyance as best they could.

General Bor had sent his rock-dwarves southeast into the Hador Mountains above the Hadorian border. With the grotto vacant, the orc army began to fill the cavern beneath the Hadorhof. Corrupt wizards produced artificial storms on moonless nights, hiding the activity below the city. Orcs and ogres streamed down the mountains and into the cavity before daylight, filling it with Dreaddrac’s soldiers. At that point, General Bor instructed the last of his rock-dwarves in the cavern to crack open the mountain’s southern face. This done, the general and his dwarves withdrew and moved north into the Ice Mountains.

General Vylvex had organized his forces within the cavern. When the dwarves opened the mountain’s face, the orc army spilled out onto the Hadorian Plain south of the mountain fortress, where they formed up in their respective legions. They stayed clear of the road leading up through the mountains to the city above. Evil wizards created illusions of stone facing so the travelers to and from the city of Hador didn’t see the ever-growing army on the plain. When over half the main army was through the tunnel and assembled on the grassland, General Vylvex was pleased with his progress.

* * *

King Ormadese received the ornsmak from Memlatec. He was horrified to learn the Dark Lord’s rock-dwarves were the source of the tunneling. By the time he received the ornsmak, he realized they must be very far along indeed. Memlatec’s suggestion would certainly stop that progress. Sitting uneasily on his great throne, the agitated king’s eyes first narrowed with anger but then sparkled, reading the suggestion. His genial grin was infectious. The courtiers passed from group to group, whispering speculations of what was behind the king’s animation.

“Summon our lead engineers at once,” King Ormadese said to his chamberlain. When they arrived, the king addressed them, “Organize all our work force. Have the miners cease their present missions. Have them tunnel above the old forbidden passages and seal off the network to the east. Work east and up to the lake bed just below Hador’s entrance. Muffle the works with thick straw on the floors so those in the lower tunnels won’t know we’re working above them. They use storms to muffle their tunneling; we shall use the same ruse.”

“Why are we tunneling to the lake bed?” a dwarf commander asked. “Isn’t that dangerous? If we breach the lake bed, all the tunnels could flood.”

“Our old eastern halls are filled with orcs by this time,” Ormadese said. The shocked dwarves began chattering among themselves. Ormadese waited for the grumbling to die down and then repeated his warning. “Again I say, carefully mask the mining sounds.”

The dwarves tunneled quickly through the rock to the lake that served as moat before Hador’s citadel and its southern approach. As the orc army moved beneath them, the dwarves excavated upward to the lake bed.

“Your Majesty,” the lead engineer said at an audience later, “the rock holding back the lake’s water is very thin. What are your orders now?”

“Prepare to seal off the new tunnel from our kingdom after carefully opening the ceiling into the old tunnels below, where the orcs move steadily through the mountain.”

This done, King Ormadese addressed the assembled workforce. “We must ask for two volunteers to crack the lake’s base and flood the orc-filled tunnels. Those volunteers will probably give their lives in the resulting flood. We wouldn’t ask anyone to make such a sacrifice, but there seems no other way to halt Dreaddrac’s army from passing under and through the mountains,” King Ormadese said.

“We’re not involved in this war among men,” one of two volunteers said, stepping forward, “but our own freedom as dwarves will end if Dreaddrac conquers the southern kingdoms. For the sake of our families and our race, we volunteer without hesitation.” 

“You will forever be remembered for this most selfless act,” Ormadese said to the assembled subjects. He looked to the multitude before him, seeing them nodding and commending the volunteers. “Your descendants will ever be looked after by our kingdom.”

“One moment, Majesty,” called a small voice from the back of the audience chamber. “If we carve out two vertical bubbles several times the size of a dwarf, with small openings just enough for the volunteers to climb up through, they might be able to wedge themselves in the openings and breathe there while the water from the lake rushes below them. They might survive the torrent,” the young dwarf suggested.

“Excellent idea!” King Ormadese exclaimed. “Why has no one thought of this before?”

The dwarves reopened the tunnel and carved the bubbles suggested. This done, the plan was implemented.

*

The nervous volunteers crawled around the false ceiling in the orc filled tunnels below and up to the rock just beneath the lake bed. Each felt the stone above his head as only dwarves can do, sensing the nature of the rock behind. The lead dwarf called to his companion. “Are you ready with your hammer?”

“Yes, I’ve found the weak spot on this side that should lead to a weakness in the stone above,” his companion replied. 

The lead dwarf caressed the rock as if it were alive. He looked down, hearing through the rock and passageway the muffled tone of the orcs shuffling along below. A drop of condensed moisture fell from the stone onto his ear, bringing his attention back to the task at hand. The rock seems unusually cold. I suppose it’s the lake above chilling it, he thought.

“On the count of three,” the lead dwarf called out.

With the opening to their kingdom resealed, the volunteers each placed their chisels on predetermined points on the rock face. On three, they struck the weak points with their hammers. 

Two almost simultaneous “cracks!” sounded in the tunnel beneath the lake. The strikes sent two exceedingly powerful tremors through the rock. The vibrations circled the stone openings and followed veins through the rock to the lake bed. Stone groaned with the tremors. The volunteer dwarves understood the sounds of the spreading cracks.

“Run! The strikes were exact; we’ve only seconds!” the lead dwarf yelled. They scurried down the drainage tunnel and up into the rock bubbles above the shaft. Wedging themselves firmly into the holes, they sealed the air pockets from the shaft. The rock creaked, groaned, and cracked as if in a struggle. “Wedge yourself in tight.” He then pressed himself against the opening, checking that his muscled arms filled the spaces. He wedged his thick legs against the cell’s stone roof, jamming himself in, sealing the air bubble.

*

With a thunderous boom, the plug of stone gave way under the lake’s water pressure. The shattering rock shot down through the shaft at the head of a column of water wider than a dwarf standing upright. The whole mountain trembled from the shock. The dwarves shivered with the rock surroundings. Their ears rang with the thunder of the rushing water going past their backs. In less than a minute, the water-propelled rock rubble smashed through the orc tunnel ceiling below.

*

King Ormadese and his courtiers listened to the terrifying sound of the rock smashing and grinding through the tunnel with frightening speed. The rock seemed to amplify the sound. The king looked to those around him; all stared at the wall in front of them, which stood between them and the orc tunnel on the other side. “We hope you sealed this well,” he said to the workers nearby.

The screeching and banging of the rushing stone hurtling down toward them grew exponentially. Many of the courtiers looked to the king, then the workers. Some began moving back away from the wall that trembled. Dust and gravel trickled from the seams.

“Hold!” Ormadese commanded. “Our workers know their work.” He stood staring at the retaining wall, refusing to move.

*

Water poured into the passageways, drowning countless orcs and ogres jammed into the tunnels, marching to their doom. The flooding water filled the shafts, floor to ceiling. Dead orcs shot out onto the grasslands south of the mountains. For hours, water gushed out of the tunnel, drowning more cohorts reforming on the plain.

When the water flow reduced to a relative trickle, the lake above was only half its prior depth. The city above was cut off from the outside world. While reinforcements couldn’t get to the city, the chaotic Dreaddrac army assembled on the plain below couldn’t cross the lake or climb the now muddy lake banks to attack Hador, either. Hador had time to plan for a southern defense, but the remaining orc army encamped below, south of the mountain, was free to move about in the Dukedom of Hador unencumbered.

* * *

“The passage flooded!” enraged General Vylvex yelled on hearing of the disaster. He climbed to a cliff overlooking the plain. His remaining forces stumbled around in the mud,   assessing the damage with his subordinates. His stringy hair flapped in the breeze as Vylvex shook his downcast head. That head soon jerked up.

“Behead those engineers still at hand for not discovering the plot before it was too late. And have them tortured before the remaining assembled soldiers. Only behead them after hours of slow dismemberment as a warning to the others.”

“We have half our army south of the mountains,” Vylvex stated to his remaining commanders. “That’s still a formidable army. There’ll be no resistance from Hador’s defenders. All their troops is concentrated in the city up yonder. They’re cut off from this here plain. The way is open to Graushdem, living off the land as we goes.”

“Our supply lines is cut, General,” an ogre commander noted. “We can’t get reinforcements or supplies ifn the land don’t have enough stuff for the army.”

“Have that ogre beaten to death for his cowardice!” Vylvex said. As the ogre was dragged away, the general looked slowly at each remaining commander. There were no further comments.

The king’s rage at the huge army losses will be horrible, the general thought. I have to march now or pay with my life. I’ll leave wraiths to clean up the mess in the tunnels and reopen the supply line.

* * *

From above, Duke Jedrac was horrified to see the catastrophe unfold below him on the plain.

Standing on the windy battlements overlooking the Grand Gate, Duke Jedrac stared at the lake’s plunging water level. “Just look at the water draining away. That’s a sight I never thought to see.”

“Look there, Your Grace!” his army’s commander said. He pointed to shimmering on the plain west of the great road to the citadel. The wraiths’ spells hiding the legions dissipated in the chaos, exposing the now visible legions in disarray on the landscape beyond the waves of orcs bodies.

“Unbelievable!” was all the duke could say, staring at the expanding orc hordes. Mud and bodies materialized on the plain, where only moments before it appeared peaceful, empty scrubland.

“How could such numbers move through the mountains?” the general asked. His fluttering cloak made a slight snap, a sound that seemed unusually loud in the dead silence of their shock.

“At least the army’s movement through the tunnel is stopped for a while. The enemy can’t remove the muck and open the tunnels again anytime soon,” Jedrac said to his commanders, gathering in larger numbers on the battlements. “We must make a plan immediately to stop additional forces from again moving through the passageway. Now our defensive castilyernov must become an offensive source of attack. We must somehow hold back further movement of Dreaddrac’s armies into the South until Graushdem can mount a defense.

Send winged messengers to King Grekenbach advising him of the situation. Warn him that there is now a hostile army on the Hador Plain. It will most likely move south at any moment toward Graushdemheimer.”

“Will they not try to break Hador before moving on Graushdem?” the general asked. “We’d be behind their lines and a threat to their supplies.”

“We’re trapped here with the lake down and impassable. No way for them to attack us here or for us to get out to them. They’ve lost the element of surprise now. I think they will live off the land and move quickly to neutralize Graushdemheimer before the kingdom can mount a defense, else their now limited forces could be wiped out.”

“They must know we’re neutralized,” another commander said.

“Yes, I can’t put an army in the field to prevent the invasion but will try to prevent further troop movement through the tunnels. At least I might be able to prevent the opening of any supply lines. Tell the king, we’re cut off and can do little to help him.”

*

At the Hadorhof audience hall, the duke’s staff rushed through the fortress, reporting on the latest developments. They checked for possible breaches and prepared for a long siege. Troops moving armaments and courtiers scurrying could be heard outside the grand hall. Slightly slumped, the chatra approached the duke, his steps hesitant.

“A message arrived yesterday from Memlatec, Your Grace,” the chatra said, his voice quivering.

“Yesterday! A message from Memlatec,” the duke repeated. His voice rang out loud and clear in the great hall, which immediately hushed all there. “Are you telling me today, with this catastrophe at hand, that the principle wizard of all Powteros sent a message, and you’re just now bringing it?” The duke’s face turned scarlet. The veins on his forehead stood out over his trembling lips. The chatra fell to the floor cringing; he felt the blood drain from his face and his stomach heaved.

“Here’s the message, Your Grace. It’s still unopened,” the chatra said, rising and rushing forward to hand the hawk’s message to the duke. Both stared at the small paper. Jedrac crumpled the paper, then held it up in the air. “Memlatec’s paper warning is too late.”