by Jack Conner
The Leviathan watched a strange performance. To the furious, pounding rhythm of drums, perhaps fifty goblins danced, leapt and cavorted wildly before the Worm. The fat, spindly goblins were both nightmarish and comic as they danced between the bonfires and mounds of treasure, where the drummers perched. From time to time a dancer would lift his head and howl or hoot or call out lustily. They wheeled and spun and jigged.
Baleron looked from this strange dance to the dragon, who watched it all with heavy-lidded amber eyes. He seemed bored.
Just as the prince glanced his way, as though it had triggered him, Throgmar snapped its huge head up and glared at the trolls and their prisoner.
“WHAT IS THIS? WHO TRESPASSES IN MY DOMAIN?” he thundered in Oksilon. Baleron found it interesting that he spoke Ungier’s tongue, not Gilgaroth’s, even though the dragon was surely older than the rithlag and would have originally spoken the more ancient tongue. It said much for the Leviathan’s temperament, and it encouraged Baleron.
“Only us, Great and Mighty Throgmar,” answered Zogshub. He lifted up his prize for inspection. “I bring a gift.”
“We bring a gift,” corrected Wrogmosh.
“APPROACH ME,” commanded the Worm.
The trolls obeyed, drawing nigh the Leviathan. The goblins, who’d ceased their music and dancing at the first word of Throgmar, scattered before the advancing trolls as if chased by the flames of the Worm himself.
The trolls plopped Baleron down right before the stairs that led up to the raised portion of the room. The sword clattered to the floor, coated on one side with Baleron’s blood. Hastily he sheathed it, noticing as he did the charred remains of several recently deceased Borchstogs littering the area. Near his knee was a burned-out ribcage; the rest of the corpse was scattered. The stench of smoke was fresh, and the bodies looked recent enough. Even better.
The trolls sank to their thick, knobby knees. “We found this one wandering around in your halls,” Zogshub explained.
“TRESPASSER!” boomed the Worm. “ANOTHER MESSENGER OF UNGIER ORDERING ME TO ASSIST HIM IN HIS BATTLE, NO DOUBT. BAH!” He opened his hideous mouth to reveal large sharp teeth and a big red tongue. Baleron looked down the mouth and saw fire start to lick the back of his throat.
“N-n-no!” he shouted in Havensril, having to force the sound out. He raised a hand to ward off fire. “It’s I! Prince Baleron Grothgar!”
The flame died. The dragon closed his mouth. His amber eyes speared Baleron. “YOUR VOICE ...”
“It’s I.”
The Worm snorted smoke. “CURIOUS.” To the trolls, he said, “WHY DID YOU BRING HIM TO ME?”
“Only to show our love and worship, O Great and Mighty Throgmar,” said Zogshub. He had been looking at Baleron in surprise and suspicion, but now he regarded ul Mrungona once more.
“But,” said Wrogmosh, eyes lighting, “we would enjoy a few tokens of your greatness. To keep you in our thoughts, as it were.”
“YOU WANT MY TREASURE!” Throgmar rose to his feet and a wave of gold coins sloughed off his flanks and trickled to the ground. “THIEVES! FEEL MY WRATH!”
Flame licked out. Baleron leapt aside. Fires passed over his head and engulfed the two trolls. The unfortunate creatures howled and ran, but it was too late. Zogshub and Wrogmosh crumpled flaming to the floor in a pile of treasure. Writhing, Zogshub grabbed a fistful of jewels, groaned, and took his last breath.
Smoke rose from the charred bodies. The stench was awful.
Throgmar turned his attention to Baleron, snorted, then surveyed the huddled, fearful goblins. “LEAVE US!” he shouted and punctuated his order with a burst of fire.
Screaming and gibbering, they fled the room.
“FOOLS,” Throgmar muttered in Havensril when they’d left. “THEY AMUSE ME AT TIMES, BUT THEY ARE SIMPLE THINGS. LOOK HOW THEY BOW AND SCRAPE! AS IF I WERE THEIR KING! I WOULD NOT LEAD SUCH AS THEY. THEY HAVE BEEN DOWN HERE TOO LONG ... AS HAVE I. OTHERWISE I’D NOT LET THEM ENTERTAIN ME, IF SUCH THEIR DANCES CAN BE CALLED.” He seemed to be half speaking to Baleron, half to himself. Baleron did not interrupt. “FELESTRATA ENJOYS THEM, THOUGH.”
“Felestrata?”
“YES. I MISS HER. SHE HAS BEEN GONE TOO LONG. I BEGIN TO WONDER WHAT KEEPS HER.”
The dragon shifted his weight and stretched, flexing his huge muscles and adjusting his great, scaly wings. His head towered high above Baleron, staring down at the prince imperiously, so that Baleron had to crane his neck at a painful angle to see the Worm’s whiskered face. Like a god.
“YOU DID NOT COME HERE BY ACCIDENT.”
“A great battle takes place without. When I didn’t see you out there fighting for Ungier, I knew you’d chosen to side with the Light—to come to Havensrike, as I promised you could.” He gestured to the burned corpses of the Borchstogs before him. “You’ve slain Ungier’s messengers. You’ve ignored his peril.”
“LET HIM ROT. IT IS WHAT HE DESERVES. BESIDES, I WILL HAVE A NEW HOME SOON.”
Baleron shook his head. “Perhaps not. Even now my father the king fights in the battle, and he’s losing. The hosts of the Crescent are retreating, but even in this they’re checked. Trapped. As it is, they will be destroyed.”
“UNGIER WINS?” The Leviathan growled, and Baleron took a step backward. “YOU FOOLS! HOW COULD YOU LET THIS HAPPEN? HOW COULD YOU LET YOURSELVES BE DEFEATED? DON’T YOU KNOW WHAT I’M RISKING BY NOT AIDING MY BROTHER? HE WILL BETRAY ME TO OUR FATHER, AND HE WILL EXACT REVENGE.” Black smoke billowed from his nostrils, and the air shimmered about him. Baleron retreated slowly. “IT SEEMS I MUST AID YOU AGAIN, LITTLE MORTAL. I MUST ... ATTACK MY BROTHER DIRECTLY.”
Baleron sagged in relief. For the first time, he noticed a white, wispy sort of beard-like growth that dangled from Throgmar’s chin and jaw. It made him look sort of grandfatherly, though no less regal and imposing and surly.
“Thank you,” he said.
“BAH. GET ON.”
The Great Worm lowered his head. Baleron grabbed a spike and hauled himself up the side of the dragon’s scaly head. Throgmar began to stomp through the Throne Room, jostling Baleron even as he settled into the cluster of horns. They passed through the high archway into the great hall the trolls had found him in. The air was cold, but Throgmar was hot, and steam rose up from Baleron’s sweat-dampened clothing. Throgmar’s scales warmed his thighs, and the dragon’s strange sulfurous musk filled his nose.
The dragon thundered down one hall, then another. This high up, the fires that constantly issued from his mouth illuminated the ceiling, showing millions of bats astir just above Baleron’s head. They chittered around him, and their reek nauseated him.
From alcoves down below he sometimes saw dark shapes moving, but they fled the wrath of the Worm and disappeared without Baleron ever getting a good look at them. Just as well.
At last the halls grew very wide indeed, wide enough for Throgmar’s wings to stretch, and Baleron suspected that the dragon had had these passages enlarged after he’d taken over this section of the mountain. Wind blew in. They were close, then. Soon Baleron saw gray daylight glimmering ahead, growing stronger and stronger.
Then they were there. Throgmar paused at the end of the hall and Baleron saw that this opening emerged from a sheer cliff.
The dragon shook himself, stretched his wings, and sprang into the air.
Wind blasted Baleron. He grabbed two horns tightly and hunkered low. His heart leapt into his throat.
Throgmar’s wings caught the air and he glided out and away from the mountain wall. The feel of weightlessness was a shock and a delight to Baleron. Then they were circling, and flame crackled from Throgmar’s mouth with a loud roar. Smoke poured over Baleron, and he coughed it away. They flew up, up, up, around a spire of rock ... then suddenly shot out over the battle.
It was an awesome spectacle, the tens of thousands of men and elves streaming against the endless dark tides of Ungier’s legions, with the glarumri and serathin wheeling above giving battle to each o
ther, threading between the many forked tongues of lightning that licked down from a black roof of clouds. Baleron stared down in dismay at the men and elves fighting their way through the Borchstog host, trapped but trying madly, vainly to escape. The hosts of the Crescent were truly doomed, unless—
Swan riders flew at Throgmar. White-shafted arrows bounced off his armor. One whistled by Baleron’s head. Another embedded in a nearby horn.
“Damn!” he said. The elves thought him an enemy. Shelir herself might be firing at him. He hunkered lower.
Throgmar spat flame at them, and they shrank back. Shelir, be safe. Baleron waved at them, trying to signal them, but they didn’t see him. The false night was too dark and the horns concealed him.
Throgmar plowed through the aerial combatants, and they scattered like leaves before him. He must be an impressive sight to any looking on him, Baleron thought—anger blazing from his eyes, wings stretched wide, blotting out the lightning, his roar shaking the earth. He was awesome, huge, greater and more massive perhaps than any Worm that had ever lived. As he split the air, cutting towards Gulrothrog, he was like a force of destruction from primordial times.
As they neared the great fortress, Baleron could see Ungier’s necromancers up in the highest terraces, waving staffs and muttering spells. They directed lightning to blast into the retreating Havensril and Larenthin armies, caused the land to gape, swallowing many, and more, but they didn’t think to strike at Throgmar. He was, after all, on their side, though he had come late to the battle.
Then the Leviathan was upon them. He spat a bright column of fire that raked the terraces, burning many of the necromancers into cinders. Others threw up shields to protect themselves.
Throgmar circled the spire of rock, scouring Gulrothrog with flame. Then he drew off, wheeled about and launched himself at the fortress at terrible speed. Baleron braced himself.
Throgmar’s jaws opened and a sword of flame shot out. The terrible lance burned into the rock wall of the Hidden Fortress, and the force of the blast shattered the wall and set flame to the interior in a deadly eruption. Rocks and stones wheeled out over the battle, crushing man and elf and borchstog alike. The wall of the keep exploded beneath the dragon’s hellish flames. Black smoke billowed from the scar, rising into the night.
Throgmar fell upon it. With claws and teeth and lashing tail, he tore at the gaping wound in the fortress’s hide, mauling the mighty bastion. Walls gave way and rockslides sent waves of death upon the Borchstogs below.
The enemy hosts wailed and their arrows covered the sky, each seeking a chink in the Leviathan’s armor, but finding none. Baleron crouched low. Arrows thudded around him. Fire, smoke and dust rose over Gulrothrog.
The Great Worm savaged the fortress, rending it apart with his claws, rocking it with his flames and the wind of his wings and the lash of his tail.
The glarumri attacked him, but his fires drove them away, consuming more than one. Borchstogs from within the fortress massed and assaulted him, rushing at him through the breaches he’d made. Most hurled javelins or fired arrows at him, but a few actually leapt onto him and stabbed at him. Baleron drove them back, tumbling them out into space or skewering them with Asguilar’s sword.
The battle was a surreal scene to Baleron, who after dealing with the Borchstogs clung tightly to Throgmar’s horns. Glarums flew all about, and Borchstog archers from within the fortress rained down arrows, and the armies clashed below, and Throgmar’s head bucked this way and that, and Baleron’s stomach heaved, and he closed his eyes. Part of him cheered, but part of him grew steadily colder. Fear gripped his heart.
Rolenya ...
She was in danger. The apartments of the nobility and their personal slaves occupied the upper floors of the fortress, and those were the parts most vulnerable to Throgmar’s campaign.
“I must leave,” Baleron shouted at the dragon, though he doubted Throgmar could hear him.
When next Throgmar’s head passed a likely looking rift, Baleron leapt and rolled. He came up before three Borchstog archers, catching them by surprise. His long, slender blade darted out and speared the first one through the throat. The second pulled out its dagger and jumped at him. He dodged its lunge and kicked it out of the opening, sending it hurtling to the ground hundreds of feet below. The third was notching an arrow when he shoved his sword’s tip up under its jaw into its brain. Its body sagged. Blood ran down Baleron’s blade and over his hand, and he shook it away.
As he left the chamber, he heard Throgmar call out, “WE ARE NOT DONE, YOU AND I. THERE’S STILL A DEBT BETWEEN US!”
Baleron was still not sure his father would honor the bargain, but he had other things to worry about at the moment.
He plunged deeper into the fortress.
* * *
The halls shook and stones tumbled from the ceiling. The Leviathan’s roars echoed down the halls. Baleron made his way to Rolenya’s suite, which he found unguarded and unlocked; he let himself in. In a state of disarray, it looked as though someone had gone through its contents frantically. Preparing for an escape? Could it be that she’d already left this place?
“Rolenya!” he cried, searching the rooms breathlessly. “Rolenya!”
No one answered. He tried the terrace, straining his eyes to find a trace of her winging away on a glarum. No sign.
He did see the glarumri, however—many of them, engaged in combat with the serathin of Larenthi or swarming up toward the Leviathan.
Below the war raged on, and amid its chaos Baleron could not tell who was winning—though he did note that all the upper terraces he could see were destroyed. The sorcerers that had orchestrated events from them were no more, and surely the hosts of Gulrothrog suffered because of it. Already he could see the black clouds above beginning to part as Elethris and the other wielders of Light tore away the artificial night. When that happened, the Borchstogs should scatter. So perhaps the forces of the Crescent were saved, though Baleron was far from certain. I wonder what Ungier is up to.
A swan rider and his mount, in flames, smashed into the wall beside the terrace upon which Baleron stood, crashing into Rolenya’s apartment with a great sound. Startled, Baleron ran inside to find both rider and mount dead and smoking. The rider was not Shelir, he saw—thankful for that, at least—but he did recognize the elf as one of her comrades.
Dejected, he slumped against the wall, only to feel the trembles and reverberations of Throgmar’s assault. Where could Rolenya be?
A group of Borchstogs bustled down the hallway, in a hurry to get somewhere. The Throne Room?
His eyes lit up. That’s where Ungier would likely be, directing the war from afar like a craven, or an overconfident general, and he might very well be keeping his bride-to-be close by, under lock and key. The Throne Room was lower, in the very bowels of the fortress, and would be relatively shielded from Throgmar’s attack.
Baleron quit the suite and started down, careful to avoid all opposition unless he could catch one singly or in pairs, and then his narrow blade darted out and tasted the blood of Borchstogs. At last he reached the main hall leading in from the gates, the way to the Throne Room. Borchstogs ran about, some running towards the Throne Room and some towards the gates. Baleron shrank against the wall. This won’t do. As silent as he could be, he stole back up the stairway until he came to his last kill. He stripped the Borchstog and donned its stinking armor. He’d slain the creature with a blade to the throat and the armor was intact, if bloodied. He decided not to wash it; it would just appear that he’d seen battle.
Disguised, he crept back down the stairs to the main hall and made his way towards the Throne Room, trying to move as the Borchstogs did and careful to keep to the shadows. His disguise wasn’t that good, and he hadn’t taken the time to skin the Borchstog and wear its flesh as he’d done so long ago at Ichil.
He reached the grand stone staircase. With some trepidation, he ascended. It wound up and up. Sounds echoed strangely here and from somewhere
a draft stirred the air, leaking in through the cracks in his armor and cooling his sweaty, dirty, blood-drenched skin. Eventually the staircase ended in the Great Hall. Borchstogs ran in formations, heading in all directions, for many tunnels branched off from the Hall.
Baleron passed several groups of stationed guards, but the guards were too preoccupied to notice the human truth behind his armor. They whispered fearfully amongst themselves, casting glances upwards, where stalactites shook and occasionally snapped off to plummet to the ground, crushing the unwary. The thunderings of Throgmar’s assault shook the hall. His roars vibrated through the rock and set Baleron’s ears to ringing. Amidst all this, he passed undetected.
Ahead loomed the great archway that led into the Throne Room. It was somewhat smaller but much more ornate than the old one, the one Throgmar used.
Baleron steeled his resolve and stepped through. Instantly he melted back against the wall, marveling in fear at what lay ahead.
For the first time in years, he saw the great cavernous room whose cave ceiling was lost to mist and smoke. Somewhere above this veil stirred countless rithlags, clinging to the roof with clawed feet. Baleron could just barely see their leathery, winged forms stir like shadows, disturbing the mist, and he could smell the stench of their offal seeping up from the gorge that ran to either side of the chamber. The mountain shook and a stalactite broke loose from the ceiling, dislodging several rithlags, who cried in complaint and fluttered about below their layer of mist until they found a new roost. The stalactite fell and cracked the stone of the huge, steep staircase that led up from the visitors’ platform to the stone throne high above, closer to the ceiling than to the floor.