Dan the Warlord

by Hondo Jinx

  34

  The War for the Wildervast

  Thelia’s flaming red eyes panned across the vast and ancient fortress that she had come to love. Fire teams stood ready at the Fists of Fury atop the eastern and western towers at opposite ends of the front wall. The grey elves’ griffons circled overhead, ready to fight. Higher above, giant eagles wheeled, awaiting her commands. Down below, staring up at her from the courtyard, were her people, thousands and thousands of them now, weapons in hand.

  Yes, they had taken up arms, but she knew that Parus’s death had rattled them, too. They needed her now, just as she needed them.

  “General Parus was a great man,” Thelia said from atop the ramparts, addressing the thousands assembled within the courtyard, “but he was led astray, corrupted by an ancient artifact. For a time, the artifact also swept me into its magical fever, but with Parus’s death, the spell has broken—and the artifact has been removed from the fortress.”

  To a place where no red elf will ever voyage, she thought, recalling the directions she had given to the giant eagle that carried off the arms and armor of Mooret. North, past the mountains, to the mutant wasteland.

  “The artifact had also been affecting you,” Thelia continued, “and now you are feeling the same things that I am feeling. The death of Parus jarred us from a dream, the most glorious dream and the most terrible nightmare all rolled into one.”

  The throng nodded as one.

  “We feel staggered and displaced,” Thelia said. “And we feel ashamed.”

  The red elves milled, looking sheepish even though the crowd bristled with weapons.

  Thelia went on, “We feel shame for how we have treated others, especially Lady Holly and her family, with whom we desire to live in true and lasting harmony forever and ever.”

  More nodding from below.

  Thelia glanced to her side and saw less enthusiasm among the grey elves, who, alongside the healed Tatiana, stood in a tight knot on the ramparts. Holly smiled dutifully if not quite convincingly. The others, who had been prepared to kill Thelia when she returned to warn them of the duke’s approach—and would have, if it weren’t for Holly, Lily, and Tatiana—now eyed Thelia with open mistrust.

  “We don’t have time to heal,” Thelia said, and made pointed eye contact with Briar before sweeping her gaze out across the thousands of red elves staring up from the courtyard. She would have locked eyes with the Iron Druid, too, but he was in the keep, burying Moro—and apparently trying to delve. “Harmony begins now.”

  Thelia had made her apologies and paid her penance by killing her own cousin. She would not beg forgiveness from Holly’s family. Not now. Now, she must be strong. War was upon them, and her people needed the True Matriarch.

  “This very second,” she continued, “our cousins march across the valley, coming home to join us. But the Duke of Harrisburg, likewise, approaches in a train filled with fifteen thousand soldiers who want to kill us all and take our home.

  “We red elves and our friends,” she said, and gestured toward Holly, “must put our differences, recent and ancient alike, behind us. Everything has changed. If any of us is to survive, all of us must move beyond the past to protect our future. We fight for our home, our freedom, our lives, our children, and our Warlord, Dan. Let us come together and fight this battle with all the fierceness Dan branded onto our hearts.”

  The soldiers cheered, but the sound was tentative, and they fell silent when Holly’s voice cut through the clamor.

  “Even now,” Holly said, “the ground shakes with the approach of the invaders’ train.” She pointed toward the south. “Behold! The enemy is upon us! Let us fight side by side. Let us fight together and die together and thereby create a new covenant between us, signed in our blood, shed in unity so that our children might live together in peace and freedom!”

  The soldiers roared again. Only this time, their response thundered like the battle cry of a conquering war god.

  Thelia felt a surge of love for her sister-wife. Whether Holly had meant the words she had spoken or simply crafted them to rally the troops, Thelia couldn’t know, but Thelia was thankful either way.

  She will trust me again. I will show her the truth. I will make her understand. If we live that long.

  Jorbin Ateel hauled himself atop the rampart and waved his small sword overhead. “Let’s kill every last one of these motherfuckers!” he shouted. “Freedom Valley! Freedom Valley!”

  The soldiers took up the chant at once.

  Jorbin might not be a military genius, Thelia thought, but he certainly knows how to whip a crowd into a fury.

  “Freedom Valley!” the thousands assembled below shouted. “Freedom Valley! Freedom Valley! Freedom Valley!”

  Seeing the smoke of the train rising beyond the walls, Thelia strode across the rampart past the wary-faced grey elves and pulled Holly into an embrace.

  Holly stiffened in her arms but did not protest.

  “I love you, sister-wife,” Thelia said, surprised at the thickness in her own voice. But these emotions, these matters, could wait for later. “Let us defend our home and make our husband proud.”

  Hearing a loud huffing, they turned to see the train arriving.

  Thelia was shocked by the sight. She had never seen a train, but from what she understood, they were different than this.

  “Just two cars?” someone asked.

  The squat, soot-black, rivet-stitched engine pulled a single cattle car, basically a wheeled box with tall, slatted sides and a broad set of double doors.

  “Where is the rest of the train?” someone wondered.

  All around her, people whispered in confusion. Even Holly looked perplexed.

  But Thelia felt a surge of hope. The silver car couldn’t carry more than two hundred soldiers. She had over twelve thousand.

  Perhaps this was some sort of diplomatic mission?

  She nearly snorted at the thought. After what the first ambassador had done to Thelia’s husband, she would never trust—or treat with—the Duke of Harrisburg.

  Others must have been coming to similar conclusions about the single train car, because laughter rippled along the walls.

  Huffing dark clouds of spark-spangled smoke, the train slowed, squealing demonically, and ground to a halt on the rails several hundred feet away from the fortress. The engine hissed, released a huge blast of steaming white vapor, shuddered, and was still.

  “Want me to fire, Lady Thelia?” one of the fire team members called down from behind the nearest Fist.

  “Not yet,” Thelia replied.

  A hundred feet out from the engine, a wall of crackling yellow electricity leapt up, arched over the tracks, and created a thrumming dome that encapsulated the train and a large patch of ground encircling it.

  A magical shield, Thelia realized.

  A moment later, two figures emerged from the train, a man and a woman, both wearing colorful robes.

  Wizards.

  A third figure emerged from the train and stepped forward—but stayed well inside the dome of protective energy, she noted.

  Short, plump, and balding, the man wore a black business suit and gold-rimmed spectacles, the lenses of which caught the late-afternoon sunlight and flashed brightly, like disks of flame.

  Was this unimpressive man the feared Duke of Harrisburg?

  The man’s voice, clearly magnified, rang, nasally and officious, across the distance. “My name is Blivet. I am the official representative of Lord Reginald Harrington, the Duke of Harrisburg. With his voice, I address the usurpers of Bannon’s Valley.”

  Blivet, Thelia thought, the name echoing darkly in her mind like the name of some nearly forgotten poisonous viper. Beside her, grey elves hissed the name with obvious loathing.

  Blivet continued smugly, “Your so-called warlord is all the way across the valley and will soon be destroyed by the Duke of Pittsburgh.”

  Concern rippled across the masses and through Thelia. What was this man Blivet sayin
g? The Duke of Pittsburgh was going to destroy Dan?

  Blivet’s words made no sense, and yet they relayed such a terrible notion, that Thelia shuddered to consider them.

  “Your warlord cannot help you now,” Blivet said. “No one can. No one, that is, except for me.” He gave a showy little bow.

  That’s when Thelia remembered the name, remembered who Blivet was, and what he had done. This was the murderous wizard who had nearly killed her husband!

  “Throw down your arms, open your gates, and surrender at once,” Blivet demanded. “Do these things, and you will receive the duke’s mercy. Do otherwise, and you will die!”

  Thelia did not respond. Not in words, anyway.

  Instead, she thrust a palm in Blivet’s direction, and a river of red fire rushed from the conflagration at her core, whooshed out her arm, and raced through the air straight at Blivet, who didn’t so much as flinch.

  The blast of flame struck the dome, dispersed across its crackling surface, and vanished.

  “Well then,” Blivet said, “you have made your position clear. Prepare to die.”

  35

  The Golden Daughter

  “Fire at will,” Holly shouted.

  She was not surprised when her enchanted missile bounced off the magical dome. This was clearly an anti-magic shield, much like the one Griselda had used in Beaver Stadium.

  But Holly was surprised—and alarmed—when the pang-pang-pang of the Fists resulted only in an explosion of sparks as the steel spheres ricocheted off the dome.

  So the shield blocked both magical and normal missile attacks. Or the wizards had nested one dome atop another, protecting themselves from both forms of attack.

  Either way, this was a profoundly troubling development. If neither magic nor missiles could penetrate their defenses, the sorcerers would be free to cast spell after devastating spell.

  From below came the twang of several thousand bowstrings firing as one. Arrows rushed loudly overhead, momentarily blocking out the sun before sailing over the field. A second later, the dome snickered as thousands of projectiles disintegrated instantly.

  No surprise there.

  “Cease fire!” Holly called.

  Down in the courtyard, officers shouted at their archers, but not until half of them fired again, wasting thousands of arrows.

  I wish Ula was here, Holly thought. These troops need real leadership.

  Briar had the knowledge, charisma, and temperament to command an inexperienced army, but the wound between Briar and the red elves was still too fresh, all of Thelia’s sweet platitudes aside, for her brother to lead these troops now.

  In towers to the left and right, the Fists still pounded away, wasting ammo, oblivious to her command. Pang-pang-pang-pang!

  “Lily, Estus,” Holly called, and pointed to the towers. “Make them stop.”

  Lily and Estus nodded and trotted off in opposite directions along the ramparts. A second later—and thank the wind and stars not thirty seconds later—both towers exploded, struck by bolts of lightning that leapt from the brightly robed wizards beside Blivet.

  It’s Fire Ridge all over again, she lamented, watching debris fly away from the burning towers and wasted guns.

  Estus and Lily, thankfully, had not reached the towers.

  Unfortunately, the fire teams hadn’t been so lucky.

  Mentally, Holly slapped herself in the face. Get smart, she thought. It was a stupid mistake, a terrible mistake, allowing the Fists to fire while the wizards were still safe behind that crackling shield.

  “We have to take out the wizards,” Briar said, putting voice to her thoughts. His purple eyes were wild with rage, and he slashed the air with Vine Caster. “The shield stops spells and missiles but likely won’t stop troops. We need to charge.”

  “Not yet,” Holly said. “That’s exactly what Blivet wants. If we send troops into the open, the sorcerers will obliterate them. Let me try something first.”

  Moving quickly, she put away her wand of enchanted missiles and pulled out her scrolls.

  She wouldn’t waste death whisper, which would likely damage Blivet as much, thanks to the dome, as if she cast restore tree.

  Change mud to stone might help in reverse, changing any stone beneath the train to mud.

  Might.

  But they didn’t have time for might.

  Likewise, plague of insects might work. But even if the insects got through, the wizards could likely handle them easily.

  Manipulate weather was also a no-go. Whatever weather she called in would hit friend and foe alike.

  Only one spell made sense.

  She read the incantation aloud, loving the sound of the old Elvish in which it was written. The lilting and lyrical cadences of the old tongue made it seem like her ancestors were coming to join the fight.

  A moment later, the earth shook. Halfway between the fortress and the train, the ground swelled. A deep groan sounded from far below the surface, like a giant awakening from a million years of slumber to do her bidding.

  It wasn’t a giant rising from the ground, however, but the ground itself.

  Up rose a mound of soil and stone, filling the air with clouds of dirt. The terrible groan intensified, growing deeper and louder and, Holly thought, angrier, more aware, as if the slumbering force she had summoned was coming around, understanding the situation more clearly as it rose toward the surface, and this understanding was fueling its rage.

  The swelling mound split suddenly, sending a geyser of dirt and rock high into the air. For several seconds, she couldn’t even see the train, so thick was the resulting curtain of dust.

  The cloud of displaced soil didn’t drift away or fall to the ground. Instead, it sucked into itself, gathering at its center, tightening into a titanic figure, a massive humanoid towering one hundred feet in the air.

  Holly stared, awed by the thing she had summoned, but had to look away. Stared again and looked away. Stared and looked away again.

  For the thing standing before her was so terrible, so unnatural, so otherworldly, that her eyes revolted against her attempts to gaze upon the beast. The mountainous creature was made solely of the very earth out of which it had risen. Hulking chunks of bedrock, wagon-sized divots of sod, and countless tons of soil and stone formed the thing’s flesh, all of it churning constantly yet maintaining its overall shape, like a living avalanche constantly collapsing in on itself.

  The earth elemental split the air with a terrible roar that hurt Holly’s ears even at this distance and triggered in her a primal fear of the uncanny, making the fine blond hairs at the nape of her neck rise to attention.

  Along the walls, her allies cried out in fear and dismay.

  Not Holly.

  For despite the screaming of her bones, she understood that this beast was hers. No matter how powerful and terrifying this creature was, it had come to do her bidding and her bidding alone.

  The thing stomped its churning foot, making the earth shake. Then it turned its eyeless face toward Holly.

  And Holly made her bidding clear. Pointing at the train, she said, “Destroy!”

  Without so much as a nod, the elemental swiveled around, lifted a leg, and slammed it down again. The monstrous thing marched—boom-boom-boom-boom—pounding toward the train, walking at first, then trotting, then running with surprising speed, hurtling toward its target, shaking the earth.

  All along the ramparts, soldiers cheered.

  Nearing the train, the elemental raised one huge fist overhead, gave a deafening rockslide roar, and disintegrated.

  Holly gasped, shaken by the shockingly abrupt turn of events.

  One second, the towering elemental was ready to smash a colossal fist down on the duke’s train; the next, it was gone. The towering creature didn’t roar in pain or collapse to the ground as a pile of dirt and rocks. It merely vanished without so much as a grumble.

  All that remained was Blivet’s caustic laughter, amplified by whatever spell was magnifying h
is voice.

  Holly had no idea why the duke had brought only an engine and one car—there had been so much talk about his huge army and its unstoppably massive and well-armored cavalry—but Blivet’s confidence was withering to say the least.

  I can’t do this, Holly realized. I can’t beat them. Not like this. Not without Dan or Ula or Nadia or Father.

  Only one of those people was close now.

  Turning from the battle, Holly left the ramparts, her departure as abrupt and unceremonious as the disintegration of the earth elemental.

  Tatiana fell in beside her. “Where are we going, my lady?”

  “The keep,” Holly answered. “Only the Iron Druid can save us now.”

  People shouted to her as she passed, and Holly did her best to answer questions but refused to break stride or elaborate. They were on their own now, just as she was. Everyone needed to do his or her best. Period.

  And please let that be enough.

  When they reached the keep, the Iron Druid was kneeling beside a mossy mound at the base of the great delving tree, practically shouting in Elvish, demanding that Est eel Est answer his prayers.

  “The tree lives,” he explained, when he noticed Holly and Tatiana, “but I can’t break through. I can’t delve. Perhaps Est eel Est has not fully recovered from its long dormancy. The moss accepted Moro, but I… I can’t…” And the Iron Druid simply trailed off, looking older than Holly had ever seen him look.

  She laid a hand upon his shoulder. “Father,” she said. “Rest. The battle goes poorly. Tatiana can elaborate. But I believe that we will need your help.”

  “I need to contact the grove,” her father said, sounding uncharacteristically emotional. “On griffon-back, they can reach the grove quickly. Polnus is a master of teleportation. Once he’s inside the Wildervast, it will be nothing for him to—”

  “Father, I am loathe to interrupt you,” Holly said, coaxing him to his feet, “but I must attempt to contact Est eel Est.” An idea had taken root in her mind, nourished by desperation. An idea that might grow into a plan.