“Of course, master. I should have thought of that. But perhaps coffee would be better in these circumstances? There is more caffeine in coffee, isn't there?”
“Ah, that sounds lovely. Make it coffee then. Thanks Kronk.”
“You are welcome, master. I will be back shortly.”
The mirror cleared as Kronk left the room and Simon focused on the view.
He was looking at Tamara as she paced the high outside wall of the castle. The scene was lit weakly by the approaching dawn and people were running around in a frantic but still organized way.
The mage was wearing a long cloak over her robes and the wind was blowing the black garment around her like an angry cloud. It matched her expression.
“Man the bloody ballistae,” she shouted furiously. “Move your asses! Those things don't care if you're half asleep; they'll kill you just as dead.”
What the hell was going on, Simon wondered fearfully.
He waited, not wanting to interrupt the woman as she barked orders to her people. He smiled involuntarily as Malcolm and Aiden appeared and hurried up to Tamara. The three conferred for a minute and then the men ran off in separate directions.
As she stood there, hands on hips, Simon decided to make contact.
“Tamara? Can you hear me?”
She barely quivered as she recognized his voice.
“Simon. Yes, I hear you. What is it? We're a little busy here.”
“What's going on?”
“A moment,” she said and cupped her hands around her mouth.
“Don't wait for the perfect shot, you fools! Shoot and reload, shoot and reload!” she yelled at someone out of sight of the mirror.
“Go ahead,” she continued as she trotted over to the edge of the wall and looked down with a scowl.
“Who's attacking you?” Simon asked quickly.
“The undead that you warned us about, the ones in London. Apparently the necromancer running the show moved them under cover of darkness almost to our gates. For dead people, they must run like deer. The sun is coming up though, so the attack won't last much longer.”
She smiled coldly as she saw something below that pleased her.
“Did you know that the old ways of defending a castle work well against ground-based attackers?”
“Such as?”
“Boiling oil. The skeletons melt like snow when soaked in it. Follow along and I'll show you. Or you could, you know, Gate over and give us a hand.”
Her voice took on an edge and Simon shook his head at her sudden temper. She was a hard woman to like sometimes.
“I'm under attack myself, Tamara,” he told her.
She stopped abruptly and stared straight into his eyes. Apparently his image had appeared near her.
“You are? By whom or what?”
“Same as you. Undead. Lots and lots of undead. My wards are holding them back for now but dawn is hours away here. And they aren't the main problem anyway.”
“Meaning?”
A shriek echoed from the mirror and the mage spun around, whipped the wand off of her belt and shot a volley of magic missiles at something that flew past overhead.
“What the hell was that?” he asked wide-eyed.
“Use your damned mirror and see for yourself,” she snapped. “I'm not a tour guide!”
He adjusted the spell and the mirror's view pulled back from the wall and soared up over the castle. Glowing purple shapes were soaring and dipping around the walls, streaking down to attack and then veering off as the ballistae shot their missiles at them.
“What are those?” he asked, still in contact with Tamara. “Birds?”
“According to my learned brother, they are, or were, wyverns. Now they're just flying skeletons. How nuts is that? A mythical creature attacking would be bad enough, but we have undead mythical creatures attacking. If they hadn't carried off three of my people, I'd be tempted to laugh.”
The wyverns looked the way Simon imagined huge eagles would look, if the flesh was stripped from their bones. They were disgusting and fascinating at the same time.
“Our arrows and ballista bolts are enchanted, so they can harm the things. But they move so bloody fast that it's hard to hit them. I think they'll be retreating soon though. The sun is rising. Now, what else is attacking you?”
Simon returned the mirror's focus to Tamara and it zoomed down toward her so quickly that he felt his stomach clench.
“Believe it or not, the tower's under attack by a dracolich.”
“A dra... What the hell is that?”
“An undead dragon. In this case, it's an undead primal. I believe it's the body of the primal brown dragon. It's circling the tower and the only thing keeping it out are my wards.”
He tried to loosen his shoulders and sat back, taking a deep breath.
“Unfortunately the wards are locked so tightly that not even air can get through. I'll have to drop them in an hour or two and that's long before dawn.”
“Oh. Crap. Sorry, Simon. Forgive my snarkiness. It's easy to forget that others are having troubles too, when your people are being attacked.”
“Nothing to forgive. You care about the inhabitants of Nottinghill Castle. So do I. And if I could help you right now, I would. I just called to warn you, but since that's obviously redundant, all I can do right now is to wish you luck.”
“Same to you, my friend.”
Tamara ducked as a flash of white obscured Simon's view of her for a second. A quivering scream made him jump and then he watched as the mage unleashed more magic missiles at the attacking wyvern.
“Keep in touch,” she shouted and then raced off toward a group of guardsmen who were waving frantically at her.
Simon watched for another moment, shook his head and canceled the spell. He put down the mirror and glowered at it.
“If Tamara and her people can take on a dozen undead wyverns, surely I can cope with one stupid dracolich,” he muttered.
He stood up and snorted at his own statement. Ridiculous thing to say, really.
As he left the study, staff in hand, Kronk called up from below.
“Coffee is ready, master.”
Drinking coffee in the middle of an attack. Well done, Simon, his inner voice said sardonically. How about some biscuits to go with it?
“How about you shut up?” he told it as he hurried downstairs. For some reason, that voice always sounded like one of his old bosses.
He trotted across the room to the counter, took the cup from Kronk and sipped it.
“Ah, wonderful. Thanks, Kronk. I really needed this.”
“My pleasure, master. What news from Nottinghill?”
Simon told the little guy about the attack on the castle as he drank the coffee. He burned his tongue a bit but felt more alert and grounded when he was done. He left the cup in the sink and both he and Kronk hurried back up to the roof.
As he climbed outside, a screech of mindless hatred shook the air.
“Hey, it spotted you,” Aeris called out. “Mister Popularity, that's what we should call you.”
“Do you mind?” Simon said as he joined the elemental. “What's it doing?”
“Circling, watching, being all ugly and stuff. The usual.”
Aeris' bantering tone changed and he became serious.
“What is happening at Nottinghill Castle?”
“They're under attack as well. The castle's walls are holding back the horde for now, but they have their own airborne threats. Undead wyverns, if you can believe that. Tamara and her forces are fending them off and dawn is breaking there, but they've lost some people. Damn it.”
“So this is a coordinated attack on both you and Nottinghill?” Aeris asked in surprise. “But that means that the necromancers are in contact with each other. Oh, that's bad.”
“Worse than this?” Kronk asked as he hopped up on to the parapet and pointed at the circling monster.
“I'd say so. Remember, we've seen at least a dozen groups of unde
ad gathered in cities around the world. If the necromancers from Ottawa and London are on the attack, that might mean that the others are as well.”
“Maybe so, but attacking whom?”
“Ah, now that's the real question, isn't it?”
Aeris moved closer to Simon and hovered near his right shoulder.
“You've always suspected that there were pockets of humanity left on Earth, haven't you? Maybe small towns and villages where survivors had gathered to try to rebuild and carry on with their lives after the dragons returned?”
Simon watched the dracolich as he nodded.
“Of course. It's a big planet. And there were seven billion of us at the end. Logically they couldn't all have been slaughtered on the Night of Burning or when the drakes were sent in to clean up any people who were missed in the original attack.”
“Exactly. Well, I very much fear that the dark gods are well aware of how many survivors there are, and where they are holed up. I hope I'm wrong, but it's possible that the necromancers around the world are moving en masse to wipe out the last of your species.”
A lump of ice seemed to form in Simon's belly and he looked at the air elemental's solemn face in horror.
“You really believe that?” he whispered.
“I'm afraid I do. But I've been wrong before. Perhaps I am now. Let us hope so.”
Simon began pacing back and forth from one side of the roof to the other, not realizing how much he was mimicking Tamara when she became upset. He kept an eye on the undead dragon, but for the moment its presence was almost secondary.
What can I do, he asked himself frantically. What the hell can I do? If Aeris is right, my people are about to be wiped out. How many can use magic to defend themselves? Nottinghill Castle and the Defiant may be aberrations. What if most settlements have no mages or other spell-casters? They'll be helpless in the face of hundreds of undead monsters directed by a malevolent necromancer.
He walked back to the elementals, wrapped both hands around his staff and leaned on it, staring out into the night.
“I think that this is the end of the human race,” he said hopelessly. “If we're even human anymore, which I highly doubt. I'm trapped here by that,” he glowered at the circling dracolich, “thing. And even if I wasn't, I have no idea where the rest of the necromancers are going. We may survive here, and the people in Nottinghill Castle and on the Defiant, but that could be it.”
The dracolich bellowed its horrific roar again and Simon scowled at it.
“But whatever happens, I'm going to send you back to Hell if it's the last thing I do!”
Chapter 22
“How long until dawn?” Simon asked Aeris as he watched the undead dragon gliding around the tower.
The air elemental looked intently toward the east.
“A little over three hours, give or take. You will be gasping for air inside the wards long before that.”
“Thanks. I know.”
The wizard looked down at the outer wall where the shield around the tower ended. Undead monsters, mostly skeletons and rotting corpses, were waiting just outside of the magical barrier and staring up at him balefully. He could actually feel their malevolent gaze on him even from the roof.
Simon looked to the left and right and saw that the monsters were beginning to encircle the entire tower. And the animated corpses were still coming, climbing stiffly out of the hole in the field and staggering forward to join the others.
“Where the hell is that necromancer?” he wondered aloud. “Shouldn't he be here directing his troops?”
“Not necessarily,” Aeris answered as he bobbed up and down above the parapet. “He has his wraiths to follow whatever his battle plan is. And the less...rotted undead have at least a modicum of intelligence. Only the skeletons must be constantly controlled.”
“But if he is not here, where could he be?” Kronk asked.
“Perhaps he took a contingent of his troops to the old town of Nottinghill to wipe out the bear people. Who knows? But if he did, there is very little our dear wizard here can do while we're trapped inside the wards.”
“Oh crap, I hope not. I like those guys.”
Simon frowned in thought as his eyes continued to track the dracolich.
“They do have a shaman; maybe that will help them defend against the undead. Damn it, I was hoping to face that necromancer here and deal with him right away.”
Aeris stared at him doubtfully.
“Really? You think you are a match for an evil wizard who can control something like that?”
He pointed at the undead dragon.
Simon glowered at him and returned to watching the circling monster.
“How should I know? But those casters have to be stopped, don't they? At least if he was here, I'd be fighting from my home base and not out in the field somewhere.”
“Well, you'll have to deal with him another day. In the meantime, what about that flying monstrosity?”
Simon hung his staff over his shoulder by its leather strap, then leaned forward over the parapet and stared down at the mass of attackers below.
“If I drop the wards to attack the dracolich, the horde will be pounding against the wall in an instant. Do you think the wards down there are strong enough to hold them back for a few minutes?”
“Longer than that, master,” Kronk said stoutly. “The wall is sturdy and the enchantment will harm every undead creature that comes into contact with it. They will not be able to cross and the wards in the cellar will protect us from an underground assault.”
“I like your confidence, my friend,” Simon told him with a smile. “And I'll accept your judgment in this case.”
“So, what exactly are you going to do to take out that thing?” Aeris asked, looking from Simon to the dracolich and back again.
“Me? Nothing, actually. I don't even know if any of my spells would make a dent in it. It has to be, what, a hundred feet from nose to tail?”
“At least.”
“Well, if it would do me a favor and land, I suppose that I could drop a meteor on it, but barring that, who knows?”
Both elementals looked at him with wide eyes.
“Then do not drop the wards, master!” Kronk urged. “If you cannot stop it, do not take any chances. Gate to Nottinghill Castle or perhaps the Defiant until the danger has passed.”
“Until the danger has passed? Kronk, if I leave, what will I be returning to? Do you think that the undead will leave this tower standing if I'm gone? They will level the place.”
“My dear wizard,” Aeris said carefully. “I am fond of this tower too, but in the end it is just a building. Kronk and his people can build you another one, or repair this one. Is it worth risking your life for?”
Simon looked at each of them and wondered if elementals simply couldn't feel sentiment. Maybe so.
“Guys, this is my home. Yes, it is 'just' a building. But I have history here. I'm more than fond of it. And to be honest, letting that necromancer get his grimy hands on it, even if it's his walking corpses that take it apart and not him personally, isn't something I'm prepared to accept.”
Aeris and Kronk didn't seem to understand his reasoning and he shook his head at his inability to explain.
“I'm not running away,” he said flatly. “I refuse to turn tail and retreat. Once I do that, my enemies will know, when push comes to shove, that I will cave in and scurry away like a little mouse. No. No way.”
“Master...”
“My dear wizard...”
“You heard me. I make my stand right here, right now. End of discussion.”
He turned away and walked across the roof to stare off into the distance, thinking hard.
“He's a stubborn one,” Simon heard Aeris murmur.
“That is our master,” Kronk replied with a deep sigh. “We cannot fault his courage.”
“Courage and stupidity are often interchangeable, have you noticed that?” Aeris asked the earthen.
“B
e silent. You are not helping.”
Simon barely listened to them. The elementals would support him no matter what, of that he was sure. But this was his fight. And he was trying to figure out how to win it.
He watched the undead dragon circle and circle mindlessly. He wondered if it had any of the intelligence of the dead primal brown dragon. Its movements seemed almost mechanical as it waited for an opening to attack.
A robot under command of the necromancer, that's what it is, Simon realized. A puppet. It will follow its orders like an automaton.
He smiled coldly.
Which means that it won't deal well with surprises. So let's throw a few at it and see how that goes.
He spun around and stared at the center of the roof.
“Incendus, I need you,” he said firmly.
A bolt of flame appeared in the night sky and shot straight down at the tower. It penetrated the shielding, dropped to the roof and hovered a few inches above it.
Six feet high and pulsing with wave after wave of heat, the ball of fire shifted its shape and condensed into a humanoid figure made of lava.
Two dark spots in the burning face looked toward Simon and the fire elemental nodded politely.
“Sir wizard, how nice to see you today,” Incendus said in a friendly tone.
His voice crackled and snapped like burning logs and he lit up the entire roof with a red glow.
“You too, Incendus,” Simon replied. “How have you been?”
“Oh, fair. Fair. The realm of fire is quite tame compared to the adventures I have shared with you. I am pleased that you have called upon me. What can I do for you?”
Instead of answering, Simon pointed over the elemental's shoulder at the circling dracolich.
Incendus turned and looked at the monster. He put his hands on his hips and cocked his head to the side.
“Dracolich, is it? Interesting. So you are dealing with a necromancer, and a rather talented one at that.”
“We are. Have you faced such a creature before?”
The flying skeleton roared at them as it flapped its enormous bony wings. Strangely, it didn't seem to notice the sudden appearance of the fire elemental.
Tales from the New Earth: Volume Two Page 67