Dan the Warlord

by Hondo Jinx

  “You?” he said incredulously. “Delving takes centuries of training, and you’ve never shown even—”

  “Enough,” Holly said, and turned from him and kneeled beside the mossy mound that had once been her friend.

  I don’t need centuries of training, she thought. I brought Est eel Est back to life. Now the great delving tree will sense my need.

  She flattened her palms against the blue-spangled moss, leaned forward so that her forehead pressed into the rough bark of the Root of Roots, and thought, Please help me, Est eel Est. I need you. And then, reaching out to the countless grey elves buried here, between the roots, she repeated her plea. Please help me. I need you. Teel Elan needs you.

  A single word echoed back to her in a faint whisper.

  Need-need-need.

  Once again, the hairs at the back of her neck rose.

  But this time, she was smiling.

  Yes, she thought. I need you. I need your help.

  The response came instantly.

  Help-help-help.

  Intuitively, she understood that the word was coming not from the tree but from her deceased ancestors—just as she intuitively understood that Moro’s death and his acceptance by the moss had in some significant way awakened the collective soul of her ancestors and opened this portal to the past. These understandings were part of the mystery and the magic of delving and escaped both explanation and the need for explanation.

  For delving wasn’t about using the tree or one’s dead ancestors, but rather about communing with them.

  Est eel Est, she prayed, pressing her forehead into the tree, surrendering herself, and opening her mind, please help me to see, to know what I need to know.

  And her mind rushed away, splitting and fragmenting, her consciousness coming apart as it flew farther and farther from her body, racing out the massive roots of the great delving tree, then splitting again as those roots fanned out into smaller roots, and again and again and again.

  Physically, Holly was locked in place, overwhelmed, incapable of thought, as her awareness splintered, flying faster and faster out an ever-fragmenting network of millions and millions of roots. Soon, her consciousness had shot across the Wildervast and beyond, each fragment gaining strength as it tied into different trees, absorbing energy as it passed, flashing across those roots and rushing in and out of others, until her mind stretched out across whole forests.

  Holly gasped.

  Then she hauled back mentally, retracting her overextended consciousness over those same networks, pulling back until her mind, supercharged with the life force of millions of trees, hummed within a tight radius around Est eel Est.

  Consciousness rushed euphorically back into her—a consciousness made more euphoric still by the tremendous reservoir of energy she had tapped and the strength of the great delving tree.

  Without hesitation, Holly reached out again. This time, she controlled the extension. Her mind rode Est eel Est’s roots underneath the castle walls out to where the invaders’ train vibrated overhead. She rose up through the soil, radiating across a vast network of roots, tapping even into the grasses of the valley floor. And thus rising to the surface, she was suddenly able to see the battle from a new, strange vantage point.

  Holly could see everything. She was delving.

  Delving without the requisite training or the help of a dozen delvers. She was delving alone, where her own father, the Iron Druid himself, had failed.

  Est eel Est showed Holly the state of the battle, a ghastly affair which she absorbed in piecemeal yet vibrant detail, seeing, hearing, and feeling everything at once.

  A hand fell softly upon her shoulder. She knew that it was her father’s, just as she knew—no, felt—his pleasure pulsing through that hand and into her. The Iron Druid was, for the first time in her life, proud of Holly.

  A wonderful realization but one she kept at arm’s length. Now wasn’t the time for pride or gratitude or happiness. It was time to kill.

  Her father’s voice said, “Delve deep, my daughter. Ride the roots and trust the tree and your ancestors to show you the way. Only they can save us now.”

  36

  Hades Followed After

  Holly plunged once more into the roots.

  She could see the train and the fortress. Could see the wizards standing within the dome as clearly as if she, too, were standing within that same space; could see thousands of red elves packed inside the courtyard, ready to fight; could see these things and everything in between, all at once, effortlessly.

  Shouting filled the air.

  Her perspective wheeled around, showing her the fortress as if Holly were standing on the field midway between the train and the front gate.

  No, she thought, instantly understanding the shouting of her allies. No, no, no!

  A large section of the outer wall—a square perhaps ten feet wide and twice as high—had simply disappeared.

  The wizards had disintegrated it.

  Horror-struck, Holly retracted momentarily most of the way back into her personal consciousness. She remembered how much emphasis Dan and Ula had placed on avoiding a breach in defenses at Fire Ridge and how, when Roderick’s Rangers had breached the wall, Dan had shifted defenders to those locations.

  Apparently, Thelia remembered these same things, because when Holly rushed back into the roots, she saw her sister-wife shouting from atop the ramparts and watched elven troops respond, rushing forward to defend the compromised wall.

  Holly also saw Briar screaming and pointing Vine Caster across the field, toward the crackling dome. She couldn’t hear her brother’s words and didn’t need to.

  She knew what Briar knew.

  Regardless of the cost, they needed to kill the wizards, or all would be lost.

  But the sorcerers were shielded by a dome that defeated both spells and non-magical missiles. There was only one thing left to try.

  Thousands of red elves streamed through the breach and into the field, charging toward the dome.

  Holly’s view hopped and jostled as their boots pounded the earth.

  She gasped when many of those boots suddenly stopped pounding and hundreds of elves fell to the ground as if they had been pole-axed.

  Their collapse was so abrupt and instantaneous that the soldiers behind them kept going, tripping, stumbling, and stomping on their fallen comrades—none of whom so much as stirred.

  The wizards had killed them. Just like that.

  Another wave of red elves rushed into the field, screaming with rage.

  Blinding flashes strobed within the dome. Lightning leapt away from the wizards, splitting the air with loud thunderclaps, and forked into trees of sizzling electricity that slammed into the forwardmost elements of the elven charge, skewering dozens, perhaps hundreds, upon their bright and crackling branches.

  And yet the surviving red elves still charged, barreling bravely into certain death.

  Then the earth rumbled, as if Holly’s elemental was returning. A crack raced along the valley floor, opening a yawning crevasse that split the ground beneath the charging soldiers, who tumbled into the smoking crack by the hundreds.

  The earthquake severed countless roots and sliced through Holly’s perception. For several seconds, she reeled with vertigo, the formerly seamless broadcast splitting into discordant halves, jamming her senses with conflicting scenes and sounds.

  Then Est eel Est and her ancestors adapted, and Holly slid once more into the horror show that was the decimation of her home and her people—a scene made far more poignant when she saw giant eagles and griffons leap from the walls, carrying her siblings and sister-wife into the fray.

  Holly inhaled sharply, terrified.

  Please Est eel Est, she prayed. Please help us.

  The tree did not respond.

  The giant eagles streaked out ahead of the bulkier griffons.

  Thelia hunched low against her magnificent steed, and the giant eagle gave a bloodcurdling cry, ready to kill. Swooping
low, they raced across a nightmare landscape of fractured earth and flaming corpses, flying just above the heads of the beleaguered survivors.

  Red elves cheered as Thelia passed, encouraged by the sight of their True Matriarch joining the fight atop a giant eagle, like a figure out of mythology.

  Thelia zoomed between columns of smoke, punched through a curtain of dark smoke, and overshot the train. She wheeled back around, pointing toward the glowing dome and the wizards inside, one of whom turned to face her now.

  No, Holly thought.

  Thelia’s eagle dived with a shrill cry.

  But because Thelia and her mount had overshot the train, several other eagles reached the dome first.

  Holly echoed Thelia’s scream as the first eagle struck the dome and spun away in a blinding explosion of light.

  Another eagle struck, then another, and another, each of them blasting away in a flash of light and a shower of sparks, all in the space of a single second.

  Thelia’s mount barely managed to pull out of its dive. As they banked, Thelia stared at the smoking remains of the dead eagles, her face twisted in terror.

  Surviving eagles broke and raced toward the southern mountains, abandoning this matriarch who apparently led birds straight into death.

  Thelia’s mount, however, stayed true, spinning her around as the griffons arrived.

  Holly felt a surge of gratitude, watching her sister-wife warn Briar, Lily, and the other griffon-riders.

  But then a massive fireball rushed from the dome, followed by a barrage of enchanted missiles.

  Holly cried out again, watching the nightmare unfold.

  The fireball scored a direct hit on Thelia and grazed several griffons.

  Thelia was, of course, unharmed by the flames, but her eagle plummeted, shrouded in flame, and slammed into the ground. The impact tossed Thelia high into the air. She crashed down twenty feet away and lay in a smoldering heap.

  Struck by an enchanted missile, Lily was knocked from her mount.

  Briar reacted quickly, swooping down and catching Lily before she could hit the ground.

  At the same moment, however, an enormous enchanted missile leapt away from Blivet’s palm and struck Briar’s griffon. The beast fell, badly hurt, and landed near Thelia, who struggled weakly to her feet and stumbled, clad only in soot and sweat and smoking strips of charred cloth, to join Holly’s siblings and the injured griffon.

  Another fireball roared from the dome, then another, and another, and Holly watched in horror as griffons and grey elves burst into flames and fell from the sky.

  Meanwhile, down on the ground, her siblings and sister-wife fell to the ground as a barrage of enchanted missiles streaked overhead, pinning them down behind the still burning remains of Thelia’s eagle.

  Holly was breathless with terror.

  Once the wizards finished knocking riders from the sky, they would turn their terrible power fully on her family, who couldn’t penetrate the dome, couldn’t strike back, couldn’t retreat, couldn’t do anything except wait for death.

  In a desperate plea, Holly reached out to her ancestors, begging, Please help me. Help me to help them.

  And then, thank the wind and stars, her ancestors responded, not in words but in a wave of understanding that pulsed through the roots and into Holly.

  Yes, she thought. That is the way. And her voice, spoken internally, was also the voice of her ancestors, which was also the voice of the great delving tree.

  Holly focused her consciousness, racing along fewer roots, searching like a dog sniffing a faint trail, until… there.

  A vibration.

  She refocused her concentration again, bolting out smaller roots, chasing the vibrations until she overtook her targets.

  They paused, confused.

  Holly beamed them her love and then her will.

  To which they responded, racing through the earth, doing her bidding.

  Up and up and up they rose.

  And the ground within the impenetrable dome exploded, as Holly’s purple worms burst from the earth like sharks breaking from the surface of the ocean.

  Holly’s perspective shifted, showing the interior of the dome. The ground shook. The air was full of dust and screams.

  Her worms pulsed up and down, gobbling wizards in a chaotic blur of dust, blood, and bright robe-cloth.

  In mere seconds, it was over. The worms raced away into the earth, swallowing the lower halves of the wizards they had bitten in two.

  With its caster dead, the dome disappeared in a flash. The dust settled, showing Holly a gory and glorious scene of broken earth, torn bodies, and shredded robes.

  They did it, she thought, shuddering with relief. We did it.

  But then she noticed a lone survivor scampering onto the train engine. A short, stout man in a now dirty business suit.

  Blivet.

  His name was a curse on her lips.

  At least her siblings and sister-wife were safe now. Safe and able at last to attack the train, along with the thousands of remaining red elves.

  For an instant, Holly felt a surge of hope—which disappeared behind a cloud of fresh dread as the double doors of the lone train car rumbled open.

  Now we see why they brought only one car.

  Within the car hovered a glowing ring of yellow light.

  As Holly tried to make sense of what she was seeing, a horse stepped from the ring, barded in shining armor and carried a soldier in heavy plate.

  The ring is a portal, Holly realized. That’s what they carried here in their car. A fucking portal.

  The knight galloped out of the train and onto the field.

  Behind him, the portal stretched, growing wider, and wave after wave of mounted soldiers streamed forth, riding ten abreast, all of them heavily armed and armored. The cavalry rushed forward in a churning river of flesh and steel and pounding hooves. Moving in good order, they raced onto the field.

  Already numbering in the thousands and with a steady flood of cavaliers still pouring from the train, the cavalry charged in a daunting tide of destruction.

  But the horsemen reined up seconds later, when another portal, this one much larger and glowing not yellow but blue, opened on the field before them.

  Out of the shimmering blue portal rode a broad-shouldered man atop a dark warhorse. The man’s green cloak fluttered behind him. Atop his shaggy head, he wore a crown of bronze. And over his head, he brandished a three-bladed sword.

  Dan!

  Holly’s heart leapt.

  Dan had come to defend his home, to defend her, to defend his son.

  But how?

  She could see Dan’s brave face, his burning eyes filled with rage, and hear the loud bellow of his war cry even above the pounding of Granite’s hooves.

  A bolt of fear pierced her heart. For what could one man—even a man such as her husband—do against an armored wall of cavalry, thousands strong?

  But then her view changed again, swiveling into the point of view of the enemy, and she saw the truth.

  Saw Dan in all his terrible glory, racing forward like a god of war, while behind him, Hades followed after.

  She saw Ula, fiercely enraptured, her glowing axe raised overhead, and a great, chestnut-colored wolf racing on Dan’s other side, Nadia’s unmistakable green eyes glowing with the frenzied bloodlust of the mother wolf come to kill those who would kill her kin.

  Behind them followed an army—the army with which Dan had set out—and more. Much, much more. Not just an army but an aberration.

  She saw Dan’s horde: orcs and gnolls, hobgoblins and trolls, giants and a force of mismatched mongrels that could only be the Mullet Men.

  Alongside this massive horde, scampering along the ground and flying through the air, charged thousands and thousands of terrible creatures. Demons and gargoyles, sirens and harpies, ghouls and golems. Holly saw hell hounds, huffing flame; gibbering, howling things with dark, warty hides and fiery eyes; bare-breasted women with bat wings
and devil tails… an impossibility of terrors following Dan gleefully into battle.

  The duke’s cavalry resumed its charge.

  As the two forces collided in a deafening explosion of screams and clashing steel, Granite launched into the air, carrying Dan into the bloody maw of close combat.

  37

  I Will Have Vengeance

  This was an orgy of retribution, washed in hot blood.

  Dan carved his way through the invaders, mad with rage, slicing through helms, lopping off arms, and punching straight through breastplates with this three-bladed sword. Talon cleaved steel and flesh with equal ease. Every swing, every thrust, ended someone who had foolishly agreed to stand against his wrath.

  Kissed by Illandria’s dark favor, Dan would not tire. And fueled by love for his people and hatred for his enemies, he would show these invaders no mercy.

  Beneath him, Granite was a ferocious terror. Finally in his element, Granite bore Dan solidly forward with great situational awareness and a fighting spirit in tandem with Dan’s own. The battle-scarred warhorse slammed into enemy steeds, bowling them over. He lashes out with hooves and teeth, cracking riders’ skulls, severing sword hands, and helping Dan to break the collective warrior spirit of the enemy ranks.

  To his right, Ula sang battle songs in the ugly language Dan had come to love. He glanced in her direction and watched the hobgoblin warrior woman split a man in half from skull to saddle with her glowing axe.

  To his left, Nadia streaked along the ground, tearing out hamstrings and throats, hobbling horses and turning fallen soldiers into gory corpses.

  My beautiful wives, Dan thought, watching Nadia toss a screaming man beneath Granite’s stomping hooves, my gorgeous angels of vengeance.

  Yes, they were angels of death fighting alongside demons of destruction. Literal demons and monster girls alike boiled across the ground and swarmed overhead, swooping and striking like so many crows fighting over scraps.

  Dan watched a busty spider-woman spring over a horse, ripping its rider from the saddle and sinking her fangs into his throat.