by Hans Bezdek
“We’re already gambling with elven lives,” said Emerich dryly. “I don’t see the point in adding meaningless money onto that.”
“Yeesh,” I said. “You’re such a fun person to travel with, you know that?”
“Leave him alone, Reimar,” said Cassandra. “He’s worried about the lives of those under his command. That’s a good attribute to have in a leader, not one that should be mocked.”
“I’m not mocking it!” I protested, although I wasn’t exactly sure what I was mocking if it wasn’t that.
Thankfully, Cassandra didn’t press the matter. Emerich gave me an obnoxious smirk when she turned away. I stuck my tongue out at him in return.
It wasn’t my proudest moment.
The rain that had been with us since we arrived on the island only grew stronger and colder as we marched. We’d occasionally see movement on one flank or another, but it was never more than just two or three figures. I hated knowing that we were being watched, but it would’ve been stupid to run after them. We were on their home territory, and they’d easily escape us. We could only continue on and hope nothing too big was headed our way.
“No wonder no one wants to live on this stupid island,” growled Dhot, shivering slightly. “Does it ever stop raining?!”
“No clue,” I said. Even though my cloak provided some safety from the elements, it had gotten soaked over the past several hours and was not nearly as warm as I’d have liked it to be. “I’m sure it’s not as heavy in certain parts all the time.”
“These elves don’t seem to mind it too much,” said Braun, nodding back.
That was certainly true. The elves marched behind us, weapons at the ready, without showing the slightest of signs that they were bothered by the elements. I had no idea what sort of training they went through back in Aelric, but I was sure glad I never had to do it. Granted, it would’ve made this trip a little more bearable…
After a quick stop for lunch that consisted of mostly tasteless jerky, we continued on to the north. Tad had joined us toward the end of the meal and provided someone new to talk with. He explained that after the battle at the Palace, Sheridan and all the elves that had fought with us were honored. The townspeople were even called upon to stay back from the fight on Ra’Chok in order to protect the Queen, should we fail out here.
“Why didn’t we bring, ya know, horses?” Tad asked Emerich, after nearly falling over for the thirtieth time.
“Too valuable,” explained the elf. “If our ships would’ve gone down before we reach the island, they all would’ve been killed.”
“The same could be said for the elves,” I pointed out.
“True, but we could at least put up a fight,” said Emerich. “On the sea, the horses would’ve done nothing but slow us down.”
“Would’ve sped us up here, though,” mumbled Tad.
“You could’ve brought your own steed if you wanted one so badly,” said Emerich, clearly not impressed with the drunken elf.
“You think I’m made of quat, or something?” chuckled Tad as he took another swig.
“Clearly you’re able to afford an unhealthy amount of alcohol.”
“Uh, yeah,” said Tad, giving the rest of us a look like Emerich was the crazy one. “That’s the reason I can’t afford a horse.”
“Maha! He’s got a point!”
“Is there a reason you’ve joined us up at the front?” Emerich asked Tad.
“Tad’s more than earned his spot with us,” I said firmly. “Besides, I like his company.”
“Thank you,” smiled Tad. “And, eh, that reminds me… We’ve been followed by a large group of Greeners for the past, oh, I dunno, fifteen miles.”
“W-We have?!” cried Braun.
“Might’ve been helpful to bring that up earlier,” said Cassandra.
“I’m not worried about it,” said Emerich. “They’d only attack us if they thought they had the resources to beat us right now.”
“Agreed,” I nodded. “Without the black and reds to back them up, the Greeners know better than to try and fight us right now. We can know for certain that the rest of the Dar’Ka know we are on the move, though. While we might not have mounts, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen the occasional goblin in the distance riding something as they scout our group.”
“That’s bound to happen,” nodded Emerich. “I don’t want to risk sending any units after them, unfortunately. There’s no telling how many groups of Greeners are nearby, just waiting for the opportunity to close in on some elves that get separated from the main group.”
“Should we make sure everyone’s keeping up?” asked Dhot.
Emerich held his chin up proudly. “My people don’t need to be told such things. They’ll never get caught out like that.”
“They sure had a rough go of it back at the Palace,” pointed out Dhot.
Emerich didn’t respond.
We continued our march, our eyes occasionally glancing back for the Greeners that we knew were following us. Before we fought with Ulrich, it would probably be a good idea to take out anyone behind us. While I had a feeling a final showdown between us would only involve a few more people at the maximum, I’d hate to defeat the half dragon to come back and find out that the elves had been defeated.
“The rain’s finally starting to let up!” smiled Cassandra.
Sure enough, over the next couple of minutes the rain died down to a light drizzle. It was certainly still there, but much more bearable. Even the elven army, which had done a good job pretending to ignore the rain, picked up the pace a little.
“According to the map, we should be able to see Zundif any time now,” said Emerich.
“Perfect,” I said. “Once we can scope out the city, we’ll be able to come up with some sort of attack plan.”
“Are you sure we shouldn’t reach out to the others yet?” asked Cassandra. “The Republic should be somewhere in this general region, right?”
“I’d prefer to wait until we come up with something before reaching out to them,” I said. “That way there’s less arguing about what we’re going to do.”
“I thought you and Laurinaitis were best buds now?” asked Dhot. “Maha!”
“I definitely wouldn’t say that,” I grinned. “He’s sure to be less argumentative now, but that doesn’t mean he won’t try to come up with the plan in order to get credit for it. If we contact them before we have a plan in place, it’ll just waste time that we might not have.”
“B-But what if all of Ulrich’s a-army is there?” asked Braun.
“You won’t have to worry about that,” smiled Cassandra softly. “You can use your special rock and let your other side take care of it.”
The dwarf let out a sigh of relief. “I, er, I mean, he will be thrilled!”
Emerich’s reading of the map was right, and it was just a few more minutes until we came over another black hill and saw the town of Zundif.
Like Khu’Mul, the town had plenty of tents in it. Unlike Khu’Mul, they also had some stone buildings, many of which rose high into the sky. The most eye catching thing, however, wasn’t the architecture.
It was that the city was engulfed in flames.
Chapter 7
“That’s…. Odd,” I said, as our army came to a halt behind us and watched the flames slowly burning the city down.
“Guess it wasn’t raining enough over here to put the fires out,” said Dhot, messing with his Goggles to get a better look.
“If only we had horses,” chimed in Tad. “Might’ve gotten here to, ya know, help put the fire out.”
“We don’t know who started it,” growled Emmerich, perturbed that the other elf wouldn’t drop the horse matter.
“Maybe the black and reds fought with Ulrich?” offered Cassandra. “Or maybe this is The Republic’s doing?”
“M-Maybe Ulrich’s dead!” said Braun.
Cassandra looked excitedly at me at the prospect. I feigned a smile back. I highly doubted that. The Great Or
acle had really emphasized the importance of the four of us in the downfall of Ulrich and the Dar’Ka. Unless he was completely wrong, then we at least had to be around for Ulrich to be defeated.
“Convinced this wasn’t a trap for us?” I asked, turning to Emerich.
The elf nodded. “Unless their plan was to destroy one of their own cities in order to lull us into approaching.”
“Do you really think that’s what this is?”
Emerich shrugged. “You can never be too sure.”
“I say we move in immediately,” I said, looking around at the others. “If Ulrich is still alive in there, maybe we can get to him before he escapes.”
“I do see some movement,” said Dhot, adjusting his Goggles some more. “It’s all shadows, though, so I can’t tell who or what is in there.”
“Only one way to find out,” I said. I looked at Emerich to give the signal.
With a sigh, the Aelric commander lifted his weapon and shouted at his elves to charge Zundif. We all ran for the city, pulling our weapons out as we went. I thought about that group of Greeners following us, but pushed it away. Even if they tried to come in and flank us, they’d have no more of an advantage than we did in a city on fire.
As we neared Zundif, I could see that there were a few sections of the town that hadn’t been caught up in flames yet. I figured it was going to be most likely for Ulrich and any Dar’Ka to be in that section, and motioned for the others to follow me.
“C-Can I change first?” asked Braun.
“Not yet,” said Cassandra with a shake of her head. “We can’t waste your rock until we can be sure that we need it.”
Braun let out a whimper of despair, but to his credit ran into the flames with the rest of us. Cassandra and I were able to jump over more of the fire than the other two, who had to slow down in order to find another path forward. Tad kept pace with us fairly easily, although it looked like he’d trip into the burning rubble at any moment.
“Seeing anything yet?” I asked the elves.
“Bunch of fire,” observed Tad.
“Nothing,” said the more helpful Cassandra.
“Yaaa!” came voices a block of tents away from us.
There were some loud thumping noises, then we saw a two story stone structure tumble over. The three of us shared a quick look then ran in that direction. Cassandra activated the blue glow of the Shattered Sword as we neared the sound of people, and the three of us jumped into the middle of the street.
A group of shocked humans with large hammers stared back at us in surprise. They were dressed in the colors of The Republic.
“Elves!” exclaimed one of them. “This must be the Aelric force!”
“Are you still in combat?” demanded Cassandra. “Do you need us to send our people to another part of the city?”
“Huh?” was the collective answer.
“Did you, uh, already win?” tried Tad. “Or are you still fighting Greeners or dragons?”
The group looked at one another, somehow still not processing what we were asking them. Dhot and Braun joined us before they could come up with an answer to the basic question.
“Is Laurinaitis in the city?” I growled at them. This got several of them nodding. “Take us to him.”
Finally hearing something they understood and could do, the group of humans made for the other side of the city.
As we followed them, we surveyed the damaged. From what I could tell, fires had been set around the city relatively recently, along with a few smaller ones in the center of the town. Large chunks of it remained undamaged, however, and there weren’t nearly as many bodies as I expected to find. Occasionally we’d pass some dead red or black dragons, usually near some burning goblin or troll bodies. The smell wasn’t great.
Oddly, we never came across the humans fighting with the Dar’Ka. There were plenty of The Republic’s soldiers running around. However, they were mostly clearing empty tents or breaking down stone buildings that hadn’t been hit by the fire. It looked like they were never finding anyone alive.
A couple of minutes of following later and the humans finally got us to The Republic’s leaders. Laurinaitis was talking with a few attractive looking women with silver and golden eyes, while Antonius was busy barking orders to those nearby. Neither of them looked like they had gotten into the action. While this wasn’t very surprising on Laurinaitis’ part, of course, I was surprised to see Antonius not at the front of the battle.
“Glad to see The Republic made it to Ra’Chok,” I said, announcing my presence and getting the two leaders’ attention.
“Reimar!” said Laurinaitis, a look like he was genuinely happy to see me. It still weirded me out. I imagined that wasn’t going to feel right for the foreseeable future.
“Good!” grinned Antonius. “Aelric’s forces are here! The black and reds will be shaking in their scales once they learn we’ve joined up.”
“How was the journey?” I asked. “Was the fight difficult?”
“The trip here wasn’t too bad,” said Laurinaitis. “The battle was a little closer than one would like, until I and the other gold and silvers jumped in. It was fairly painless after that.”
“I’m glad to hear you didn’t suffer too big a loss,” said Cassandra.
“Did you kill Ulrich?” asked Dhot.
I held my breath as I awaited their answer.
“Ulrich?” laughed Laurinaitis. “I don’t believe he was there. They only had two or three dragons.”
“What?” I asked, confused. “But we passed half a dozen dead Dar’Ka dragons on our way to you.”
“We didn’t fight them here,” said Antonius. “When we reached land west of here, we were immediately attacked by some Greeners that had been hiding near some cliffs. I believe we spotted a total of three Dar’Ka dragons during the battle, and we killed them all.”
“So all this wasn’t you?” asked Dhot, gesturing at the destruction.
“No,” said Antonius. “We assumed we’d be in for a fight when we arrived at the first town, but it was already on fire. Just to be sure, we’ve had our forces slowly moving through the town, destroying any buildings that look like they could be hiding Dar’Ka fighters and clearing any tents that weren’t on fire.”
“I guess that’s why those humans didn’t know how to answer us,” reasoned Cassandra. “They haven’t fought anything here, so they were confused by what we were asking.”
“It’s strange, isn’t it?” asked Laurinaitis. “We assumed it was the elves or dwarves that had destroyed the town, but we haven’t come across a single casualty from the Collective’s side.”
“Not that surprising,” I said, looking around the city again. “We found out yesterday that Ulrich has been turning on his own people. Those that won’t join him freely are forced to, or they’re killed. If I had to guess, a large percent of dragons in Zundif weren’t interested in fighting with him, so he decided to destroy the whole place.”
“How long have ya been here?” Braun asked them.
“Roughly an hour ago,” said Antonius.
“That means they’ve been gone for a while, then,” I sighed. “They’re probably flying, so there’s no way we’ll catch them now.”
“You weren’t able to figure out Ulrich’s location yet?” asked Laurinaitis.
“This was his location.”
“Oh…” said the gold dragon slowly as he realized what this meant. “Well, that’s not good.”
“It’s not,” agreed Cassandra. “If Ulrich killed everyone that wasn’t going with him, we’ve got no leads on where he could be going next.”
“We’ll just have to scan the whole of Ra’Chok,” shrugged Laurinaitis. “Surely that’s no problem.”
“Yeah, no problem,” I said sarcastically. “It’s not like they know this island way better than we do, or now our advantage is lost since they’ll be the ones deciding when to attack.”
“Maha!”
“He’s right,” Antonius said
to Laurinaitis. “It’s important we find out where Ulrich is as soon as possible. Word will surely reach him that Yaerna’s forces are converging on the island. We can’t risk them leaving us here to chase them while Ulrich sends a large group of dragons back to destroy the unguarded territories.”
“That certainly won’t help you get reelected,” I said.
“No,” agreed Laurinaitis, now looking worried. “No, it wouldn’t.”
“Sir!” came an orc’s grunt as he and a ragtag group approached us. He looked from Laurinaitis to us and back to the golden dragon. “Um, am I interrupting something?”
“You got orcs fighting alongside you?” I asked.
“These are Nicole’s men,” explained Laurinaitis. “She got terribly seasick on the first day of the trip and had to turn back, but sent the rest of them on with us.”
“Ah, the Gray Badgers,” I said, nodding.
“Gray Adders,” said Cassandra. “But that one was close! You’re nearly there!”
“Thanks!” I smiled at her. Then I realized she was patronizing me and my smile slipped away.
“We’ve also got some soldiers from Durnskeep with us, but the numbers are quite a bit smaller than what Dmetri claimed to have sent,” said Laurinaitis. “Something not out of the ordinary with the Tumblers. Er, no offense.”
“None taken. I’m not with them anymore,” I said. Besides, it wasn’t like I hadn’t myself screwed The Republic out of deals when I was working for Dmetri back in the day. I turned back to the Gray Adders. “What’s going on?”
“We thought you’d like to know we’ve found some survivors,” the orc said to Laurinaitis. “A whole group of em!”
“Excellent work,” smiled Laurinaitis. “Kill them at your leisure.”
“What? No!” I said, stepping forward. “They could tell us where Ulrich went!”
“He’s right,” said Antonius. “It’s also poor form to murder prisoners.”
“Oh, it is?” asked Laurinaitis, sounding slightly disappointed. “Very well. Take us there. I suppose we can ask them what they know and then take it from there.”
“Now we just have to get there before Emerich decides to kill our prisoners again,” I said, shooting Cassandra a look.