The Wiz Biz II: Cursed & Consulted (39 page)

Aelric bowed to the group. "If you will excuse me, I have my own part to play. This battle will not be fought entirely in the World you know and my own role comes—elsewhere." He started to go and then turned back. "One other thing. You may find you have acquired some unexpected allies. I would suggest that you simply accept such help as you are given." He picked his way off the crowded dais and strode toward the door.

Moira followed him and caught up with him in the corridor.

"You came back."

Aelric looked down at her. "Did you doubt that I would, Lady?"

She stopped. "Lord . . ." The elf duke turned back at the sound of her voice.

"Lord, I have not properly thanked you for your aid. I have been surly and ill-natured to you and," her eyes begin to fill with tears and the words came with a rush, "and I am sorry and thank you. That is all I wish to say."

"You are most welcome, Lady," Duke Aelric said, ignoring her tears. "Truly this has not been easy for any of us."

"I wish there was something I could do to make up for everything."

"Bend every power you possess to our victory," Duke Aelric said. "Then hope that it is enough."

The dwarves were panting and exhausted by the time they reached the base of the castle. The explosions and beams of burning light had never come close but they had taken them as a hint and crossed the plain at a dead run. Since dwarves are too short and stumpy for distance running they were pretty well worn out.

A dozen dwarves slumped down in a row beneath the towering walls of living rock and gulped great lungfuls of air. Out on the plain the explosions continued unabated.

"Now that we're here," Thorfin gasped after several minutes, "how do we get inside?"

"Place isn't spelled against us," said Snorri. "Don't see any gates, though."

"Gates would be guarded," Gimli pointed out.

"There are openings further up," Glandurg shaded his eyes and craned his neck. "Leave your packs here and bring only what we shall need for the final assault."

Thorfin and Snorri looked at each other and shifted uneasily. "You mean those openings that spout fire and explosions every so often?"

"You have a better idea? I thought not."

The wall was solid rock and so steep it was only a few degrees off vertical. But dwarves are creatures of the mountains and if they cannot run they can climb like flies.

Glandurg lifted Blind Fury high above his head with both hands.

"Forward!" he proclaimed. "For glory and honor!" Glandurg turned and began to climb the wall. Behind him his loyal followers hesitated and then started after him.

It took Mick and Karin longer to cross the plain. Mick insisted on going flat every time the artillery came within a few hundred yards of them. Fortunately the fire never got really close and their only injury was to Stigi, who received a scratch from a shell fragment.

"Well, we're here," Mick said as they rested in the shade of the wall. "Now are you satisfied?"

"I wonder if we can get inside?" Karin said thoughtfully.

"Even for you that's a crazy notion. We've done too much already."

"Let us work our way along the wall and see if we can find a gate," she went on as if she had not heard him.

Mick looked at her, sighed and nodded.

The things men do for love!

"The scouts are in position," the Watcher reported.

Bal-Simba looked up at the display. Already it was beginning to show the information pouring in from tens of thousands of scouting demons like the ones Wiz and his company had used to locate the heart of Bale-Zur in the City of Night.

Unlike those demons, these absorbed everything that happened around them and transmitted the information back to dozens of concentrators floating well to the south out of the battle zone.

Circling off the southern end of the island was a thing like a gray tarp, a relay for communications and the concentrators. It absorbed the information, did some preliminary filtering and fed it back to the relay. The relay in turn passed the information back to the Watchers in the Capital.

As one, the controllers in the pit looked up at Bal-Simba. The giant wizard took a deep breath. Then he nodded.

The controllers turned back to their crystals and the attack was on.

"Dragon Leader, you have an allied force approaching to your right. I say again, you have friendlies approaching from widdershins high."

What the . . . ?
There were no more friendly forces. Save for a couple of squadrons on guard duty Dragon Leader had the entire cavalry of the North with him. Anything else in the air had to be hostile.

"Dragons at widdershins high," the scout on the right flank sang out.

"Can you identify?" Dragon Leader barked into his communications crystal. He hated surprises in the middle of a battle.

Silence.

"I say again, can you identify the dragons?"

"Uhhh . . ."

"Dammit, speak up!"

By now the formations were at almost the same level and closing fast as the newcomers pulled into a shallow dive.

Dragon Leader craned his neck to see the approaching force. Whoever they were, they had the most ragged-ass formation he had ever seen. They looked more like a flight of geese than a squadron of cavalry.

Dragon Leader's mount bridled and nearly bucked as the flight approached. It took a moment to bring the animal under control and when Dragon Leader looked up again the leader of the new force was flying next to him.

Dragon Leader glanced. Then he gaped. Then he nearly fell out of his saddle. Flying beside him was the biggest dragon he had ever seen in his life.

This was no adolescent cavalry mount. It was a full-grown, fully intelligent dragon and a monster of its kind at that. It was easily twice the length of his own mount and might have reached 200 feet. Behind and above came dozens more wild dragons.

A great golden eye regarded Dragon Leader and his dragon with amused contempt. Then with a flick of its tail, the giant reptile winged over and dived for the deck. The rest of the wild dragons followed their leader down.

Dragon Leader licked lips suddenly gone dry. "Uh, central," he croaked into his communications crystal. "The allied forces have taken the lead position and are going in low."

"Allies lead and low," the controller's voice came back. "Acknowledged."

Fortuna, Dragon Leader thought, what have we gotten ourselves into? 

Out on the edge of the plain the warbots waited. There were 100-ton Murderers, 30-ton Hellfires, Skysweeper anti-aircraft units, a couple of 200-ton Gargantua fire support models and a dozen or so Springer scouts, all in a loose grouping just behind the military crest of the ridge. They were being held as a mobile reserve, ready to sweep down off the ridge and deal any attacker on the plain a crushing blow to the flank.

The Springer nearest the crest of the ridge turned its head. Its sensors had picked up something. . . .

With a rush the lead dragon swept over the hill scant feet off the ground. A blast of dragon fire destroyed the first robot before it could even face its foe.

The second warbot had time to half raise its laser before the hurtling mass slammed it to the ground. The warbot next to it had only half turned when the massive tail caught it in its midsection and sent it sprawling.

By now the engagement was general as a dozen more dragons topped the ridge and piled into their metal enemies. Laser blasts and gouts of dragon fire lanced through the air and parts of robots and pieces of dragon bodies flew in every direction.

Then there were no more robots. Seven of the dragons lay motionless amidst the carnage and one dragged a wing.

As one, the unharmed dragons galloped forward and took to the air again. The one with the broken wing followed on foot.

Without warning clumps of guardsmen and wizards popped up all over the plain. Immediately they spread out into long, loose lines and started moving toward the castle.

Kenneth, at the head of his group, squinted at what lay ahead.
Fortuna, what a mess!
he thought. The wizards had been able to bring them no closer than a league to the castle because of interfering magic. They would have to cross the distance on foot, possibly under fire and almost certainly against enemies.

Kenneth felt especially naked without comrades at either shoulder. But they had been warned that concentrations which gave defense against sword and spear would only serve as targets for the weapons of these foreign sorcerers.

Well in front of the attacking forces a half dozen football-shaped metal containers popped into existence and split open on the red sand. A dark cloud poured out of each of them and dissipated in the air.

That was the signal. Kenneth raised his arm and motioned his men to move forward.

I wish I had a drink, he thought.

"Mikey! Mikey!" Craig beat on the door frantically. Finally it opened a crack.

"Yeah?"

"Why the hell didn't you answer the net? I've been calling you for fifteen minutes."

"I told you. If you have business with me, you come to me. I'm not answering your goddamn pager." The door started to swing shut.

"Goddamnit, we're being attacked!" Craig yelled. "We've got dragons and infantry and shit all over the place."

The door swung open and there was Mikey wearing only a pair of pants. In the back of his mind Craig realized he looked terrible, all thin and sort of stretched out. He moved like a speed freak, all jerky, uncontrolled energy. There was a predatory gleam in his eye that Craig didn't remember seeing before.

"Yeah?" Mikey said. Then he paused as if listening to something that only he could hear.

"Come on, man! I need all the help I can get."

"You keep them busy. I've got something to set up."

Craig nodded and raced for his command center.

"We have isolated their control links," one of the Watchers called out to the group on the dais.

"Transfer the characteristics to my station," Judith called back. Instantly the Emac sitting cross-legged in front of her began to write in the air.

Judith smiled tightly. "Time to jam." She turned to the Emac.

"backslash" 

"?"
the Emac responded.

"blackwatch exe" 

The Emac gabbled and several dozen demons appeared on the table. They were fashioned like men but each wore a skirt and shawl of dark green patterned with black. Several had drums and the rest had odd contrivances with several shiny black tubes extending over their shoulders. The leader carried a silver-tipped staff near as tall as he was and wore an enormous hat made of some black fur.

"Give them 'The Black Bear,' " Judith commanded. "Then 'Scotland the Brave,' 'The Highland Brigade at Maggersfontein,' 'The Southdown Militia,' 'The Earl of Mansfield' and 'Lord Lovett Over The Rhine.' After that use your imagination."

The tiny drum major nodded, turned to the demons behind him and raised his staff. The pipers inhaled as one, the drummer struck the beat and the skirl of the pipes reverberated off the stone walls.

"Let's see them even
think
through that," she said viciously.

"I hope it is as effective on the enemy as it is on us," Bal-Simba boomed over the noise.

Judith looked up and realized everyone in the command center had stopped work and was staring at the table. Several of them had clapped their hands over their ears. Judith made a gesture and the sound died to a whisper.

"Sorry Lord, I keep forgetting it's an acquired taste."

By the time Malus's dragon approached the castle the fat little wizard was half-seasick and thoroughly miserable. Normally a dragon could not carry two people for very long. But the wizards had added their magic to the animal's natural flying ability so they were able to keep up with the other dragons.

Not that it was much comfort to Malus. He was strapped into a second saddle back on the dragon's shoulders. The beast was too wide to straddle comfortably at that point and the insides of his thighs ached terribly. Although the straps holding him to the saddle were secure, the saddle itself had a tendency to shift alarmingly whenever the dragon maneuvered suddenly. For Malus's taste there had been far too many sudden maneuvers. The blue robe of the Mighty, which was so impressive on the ground, was totally unsuited for dragon riding. The wind tugged at the hem and tended to flip it back above his knees. The cold air whipped up the robe and around his legs. Probably the only part of him that was still warm was his seat, which was protected by the saddle. But he couldn't tell for sure because it had gone to sleep long since.

He tried to shut out the discomfort by concentrating on the back of the rider and not looking down. Above all, he didn't want to look down.

The castle erupted in flame and smoke as every weapon fired on the attackers. Artillery and mortars of every description fired and fired again as fast as the automatic loaders could feed them. Streams of tracers fountained up into the sky as anti-aircraft batteries sought their targets. Lines of laser light swept back and forth over the plain and sky.

Between the killer bees and the messed-up control system in the southern quadrant it wasn't nearly as effective as it should have been. What ought to have been annihilating was merely deadly. Men went down like tenpins and dragons fell from the sky under the impact, but still the others pressed on.

From ground and air the attackers returned fire. Lightning bolts and fireballs flew from the wizards' fingers destroying emplacements and blinding sensors. Then two squadrons of dragons peeled off and let fly with heat-seeking missiles. The missiles went for the hottest things in the castle, which were the barrels of the artillery and the firing tubes of the lasers. A series of explosions blossomed on the castle walls and here and there the secondary explosion of a magazine made a section of castle wall bulge outward and slump.