Rise of Dachwald (Boxed Set, Books 1 through 2)

by Lawlis, Daniel

  “Ah, I wish I had my damned battle hammer!!” Kihlgun moaned angrily, backing away from the bear evasively. For perhaps the first time in his life, Feiklen also wished Kihlgun had his battle hammer with him. In his mind, he could imagine it sending a cloud of blood, bone, and brains into the air from a single stroke or pulverizing a limb with one blow or squashing internal organs like a heavy boot on a tomato . . . .

  Realizing wishful thinking would do him no good, Feiklen decided to make the most of the weaponry they did have. He flung his steel ball forward, but instead of aiming it at the bear’s body, aimed it towards the ground at an angle, right by the bear’s foot. The chain wrapped around its foot, and he began to pull hard. He wasn’t able to completely stop the bear, but it definitely wasn’t moving as fast. Seeing that Feiklen had bought him some time, Kihlgun stopped backing up and instead launched a vicious offensive. For the first time getting a true grasp of what the weapon was capable of, he began whipping it back and forth rapidly, slamming the spike-covered ball into the bear’s face again and again, his inhuman strength delivering blows twice as powerful as even Feiklen’s. As he felt himself adapting to the timing involved between flicking his wrist and flipping and releasing the switches, his hits became faster and faster. Within seconds they reached a fever pitch, eight devastating blows being delivered directly to the bear’s head within as many seconds.

  In spite of the immense thickness of the bear’s skull, it had been cracked all the way through in a few spots. All of these blows to the head caused it to slow down, which, of course, made it an even easier target. All of the other Moscorians, except for Feiklen, who was still pulling on the bear’s foot, and Fasendall—who was lying on the ground in immense pain—began delivering devastating blows to the beast’s body. Despite its massive muscular thickness, the balls began tearing into the bear’s ribs and vital organs. It finally stopped advancing, trying vainly to swat away what seemed to be a swarm of large angry bees, but it couldn’t remember any bees that stung this hard.

  As it did so, Feiklen finally managed to pull the bear completely off balance. As soon as it hit the ground, everyone except Isendall delivered a final and fatal blow to the bear’s skull. Its brains oozed out; the great beast became silent.

  The Moscorians knelt next to the slain grizzly and offered solemn words of praise for it having fought so nobly. They made a promise to the god of hunting, Ichindall, to make good use of the bear’s flesh and that the killing had not been done in vain.

  Fasendall tried to get up, but couldn’t—his back was broken in three different places. He was paralyzed, and this was going to take serious expertise to heal. The Moscorians knew only Tristan would be able to do it. Under other circumstances they would have been hesitant to ask him to heal anyone. Healing required the use of Feiglushen, and they knew Tristan hated Feiglushen worse than a cat hates being thrown into water. However, the Moscorians knew all of them were valuable to Tristan and his plans of conquest and despite his hatred of Feiglushen he would use it in order to not lose a valuable soldier.

  Kihlgun carried Fasendall over his shoulder with the ease of a knapsack, and the other ten Moscorians picked up the bear, and they all walked back to the camp. It had been a successful hunt, in spite of the serious injury. They were glad for having participated in it, because it showed them Tristan was right: They had to practice much more with the fishing mace before they could even dream of using it in combat. Kihlgun’s experiment with the weapon had shown that the true key to the weapon’s success was mastering the timing of the flipping of the switches so that the warrior could strike repeatedly in quick fashion. Tristan had very high expectations for the weapon, and apart from the large contraptions they were working on, he considered it to be the weapon of the future.

  Chapter 28

  Pitkins woke up suddenly.

  Aghhh, my head hurts so bad, he thought to himself. Where am I? How did I get here? Then, just as suddenly as he had woken up, it came to him: the attacker, the slash, the strange wound, the bird, the cave, a terrible drink, and then . . . sleep. He reached back to feel the wound. To his amazement it was almost totally healed.

  “Where in Uchinweld am I?!!” he screamed, not caring if his kidnapper heard him.

  He could see nothing.

  He was in utter darkness. How am I going to get out of here? What about Donive? I hope she’s okay!! He felt angry as he realized just how helpless he was. He couldn’t even see. Holding his hand out in front of him to keep himself from hitting his head on anything, he began walking forward slowly. About a minute later, his hand touched a wall. He felt it, and then began walking to his right. After he had done this for about fifteen minutes, he realized that he was just walking around in a big circle. It seemed that there were no openings in the walls of this pit, but, hoping that perhaps he might find a small hole somewhere towards the bottom of it, he got on his hands and knees and started circling around the pit again, this time searching lower. Suddenly, he heard a noise. Not knowing exactly what to expect, he instinctively moved away from the noise and assumed a fighting stance. He heard a few very faint footsteps and then . . . silence.

  Just when he was starting to think that he had imagined the whole thing, he heard a very faint sound of something falling into the pit.

  It was about twenty feet in front of him.

  He moved back again quickly, keeping his fighting stance. But then, a few seconds later, he heard the footsteps moving away; he heard what sounded like a door close; and then . . . silence.

  He hesitated. Not quite sure what to do. This pitch darkness was somewhat terrifying, even for a hardened warrior.

  Let me see my enemy, and I’ll take on anyone and anything, but this darkness is unbearable!! he thought to himself angrily. For all he knew this person might have just dropped a sack full of highly venomous snakes inside his pit.

  Maybe venomous spiders. Maybe tarantulas. Maybe . . . okay, time to stop thinking like that!

  Although it was already so quiet he could have heard a needle drop on a soft blanket, he focused his ears harder than he ever had in his life. After all, he knew that his auditory abilities were going to have to become very acute if he was going to survive in this hellhole because his visual abilities were now completely useless. Out of the equation. After about ten minutes of the most agonizing waiting he had ever endured in his life, he decided to investigate what it was that had been dropped into his new home.

  Here goes nothing. One . . . two . . . thareee! He leaped in the direction of where he had heard the object dropped, and he reached out his hand and tried to grab it. His hand hit something,

  (SNAKE??!)

  and he felt a strange sensation on his hand. “Aghhh!!” he screamed, recoiling in terror. He had felt something wet and slimy . . . surely it was a large, venomous snake! Then, he began to laugh. A loud, hearty laugh. The “venemous snake” was a bit of water he had spilled on himself. Apparently the jar of water that had been lowered into his hellhole.

  Although laughing at himself had calmed him down a bit, he still wanted to proceed with some caution. Reaching his hand out again, he touched the object: it was definitely a large jar of water.

  “I’m so thirsty!” he said out loud, and he arched his head back to begin guzzling the water. Then, suddenly, panic hit him like a kick from a mule. What if its poison?! The thought sent waves of terror through him like volts of electricity hurtling through the body of a man struck by lightning. He smelled the water cautiously. It smelled normal. In fact, it had a very fresh smell, as if it had just been taken from a cold stream.

  (you’re doomed either way; which is better death by thirst, or quick-acting poison?)

  (I’m NOT doomed, but . . . .)

  After thinking it over for a few minutes, he finally decided that if he was going to be able to escape from this place at all, it was certainly going to take some time. And if he didn’t hydrate himself, he was going to die of thirst before he could ever even come close to figuring
out how to escape. Finally, he decided that, although there was some risk to drinking the water, the risk in not doing so seemed far greater.

  Here goes nothing . . . . He took a long, deep drink of the water. It was wonderful!

  Where did this come from? A freshwater spring?

  He started to guzzle the water but then quickly stopped himself. He knew it was dangerous to drink water too quickly. Furthermore, he needed to conserve it. He had no idea when, if ever, the mysterious kidnapper might return again to bring him more water.

  He felt a sack next to the water, and he quickly figured out that it contained bread. He decided to forego all the doubting and second-guessing this time and tore into it immediately, stopping only when he realized that he was in danger of eating all of what might be his last meal for a long time . . . if not his last meal ever. With a renewed determination to find a way out of the pit, he circled it again.

  And then again. A third time. A fourth time. On his knees. Standing up. Jumping.

  “UCHINWELDDDDDDD!!!!” he suddenly shouted out in fury. He began punching the sides of his prison, furious at himself for having allowed himself to become captured and imprisoned like an animal.

  This went on for weeks. Then months. There was always water and bread for him to eat. It didn’t come everyday, but sometimes it came twice a day. He realized that for some strange reason, his kidnapper wanted him alive

  (or wants to be the one who decides when and how you DIE!)

  He wanted to yank on the rope that his kidnapper must certainly be using to lower the food and water into the pit so silently and crush his vertebra in about seven or eight places. For starters. But the person somehow always knew when he was sleeping and chose that time to bring the food. He knew that somehow, in addition to being able to move very stealthily, the person must have had some way of seeing in the dark.

  (and Kasani knows what other talents . . . .)

  He simply could not think of any other way in which his kidnapper could consistently slip past his detection. He tried sometimes to stay awake and pretend to be asleep so that he could wait for his captor to come and feed him. His plan was to yank on the rope and send the jailer tumbling down into the pit, hoping against hope he would still be alive when he landed so that he would still be capable of feeling pain when he grabbed his head and . . . . But it was no use. Somehow his captor knew when he was just pretending to sleep.

  This disturbed him. He had looked death straight in the eye many times in his life and not blinked, but this darkness and utter isolation were beginning to test the limits of his mental and physical strength. To try and avoid becoming completely weak and emaciated

  (which would be fatal if you ever do get lucky enough to catch Mr. Jailer off guard)

  he did lots of exercise. This helped him quite a bit mentally, as well as physically. He did thousands of repetitions of each exercise everyday, and he found that anything that got his mind somewhat off of the darkness was helpful.

  Chapter 29

  “Cut this one down!” shouted Istung. The large tree fell and was sawed to a length of one hundred feet, then placed into a large steel machine with adjustable steel rings through which the tree was placed. The rings were placed about two feet apart from one another, the diameter of which could be decreased to as little as one foot or as much as twenty feet. The rings were held together by about five long pieces of steel, and they all rested on top of a large steel block over a hundred feet long.

  Once the tree was inside, the rings were tightened snugly against it. At the end of each side of the long contraption were lids that came down onto each end of the tree. The lids had sharp blades protruding from them and were hammered into the ends of the tree. On the outer surface of the lids were large grooves into which an enormous screw was inserted, and the screw was attached to a gigantic wheel. Three of the strongest Moscorians went to each wheel and begin turning the tree. As they did this the bark was peeled off the tree neatly and evenly, just like an orange, by a series of razor-sharp blades attached to the steel poles covering the length of the tree. Once the bar was removed, the steel rings towards one of the ends of the tree were made tighter and tighter causing the diameter of the tree to become smaller and smaller, eventually coming to a point and looking like a sharpened spear.

  At this point, Istung and nine other Moscorians carrying a long steel spike approached the pointed end of the tree and held the spike towards it. Kihlgun, the strongest of the Moscorians, approached the end of the spike and began pounding away at it with all of his might. The end he pounded on had a flat surface shaped like the end of a nail, about four feet in diameter. The length of the spike was doused with Plethor, a powerful lubricant. After about thirty minutes of pounding, cursing, and sweating, Kihlgun succeeded in driving the sixty-foot spike almost all the way into the tree. Now came the hardest part—although it was made easier by the Plethor—and that was pulling the spike out. Kihlgun stopped to rest for a moment. Once rejuvenated, he began pounding the opposite way on the end of the spike, thus taking it out of the tree one swing at a time. About twenty minutes later it had been removed. What was left was a six-inch-wide, sixty-foot-long, hollow shaft piercing the tree’s interior.

  Kihlgun brought forward a large barrel of pheorite, a highly explosive substance, and Istung picked up the tool he was going to use to insert the pheorite. It was a long steel rod, much like the one that had been used to create the hollow shaft, but its diameter was less than half that of the hollow shaft. They poured the pheorite inside the shaft and then inserted the shaft inside the tree. The rod’s exterior was solid, but upon being violently shaken, small steel flaps moved aside across its entire length creating small openings through which the pheorite poured out inside the tree. Next, Istung proceeded to take small rocks and shove them inside the tree.

  Next they hollowed out a portion near the base of the tree, leaving a large opening into which a heavy weight could be place. The Moscorians then spent several hours sanding the tree until it was smooth all the way around. The missile was now ready. All the Moscorians needed now was to make hundreds more of these and create the mechanism to launch them.

  The first thing the Moscorians and Vechengschaft did was dig large shafts in the ground. These shafts were completely circular, and their diameter was nearly the same as that of the missiles themselves, but were just enough larger that the missiles could fit inside easily. Since the shafts were completely stationary and couldn’t be adjusted, Tristan knew they had to be careful to make the correct number of shafts at the correct angles. Tristan wanted three angles so that he could make the missiles land behind the enemy, onto the enemy, and in front of the enemy.

  The mechanical principle behind generating the force to launch these wooden, pheorite-stuffed missiles into the air involved elasticity, the introduction of a very heavy weight, and then the sudden removal thereof. Across the opening of these deep shafts that had been dug into the earth was stretched a strip of Achenpulp. It covered the entire surface of the opening of the hollowed-out shaft, which was fitted with smooth steel. Prior to being inserted, the tree would be rubbed with the lubricant Plethor. As a result, its descent into, and subsequent ejection from, the smooth steel shaft would be nearly frictionless. Protruding from each steel shaft was a half circle of smooth steel onto which each missile would await being launched. The Achenpulp below the tree was thick enough that the weight of the tree itself was insufficient to cause the Achenpulp to bend.

  This was where the temporary introduction of an extremely heavy weight came into play. The bottom of the tree was hollowed out for a specific purpose, holding a very large weight. Into this open, hollowed-out pocket at the base of the tree, five soldiers would push a two-thousand-pound, solid-steel ball. This sudden, unbearable increase in weight would cause the Achenpulp to stretch, and as it did so, the tree would then quickly descend down into the shaft, which was hundreds of feet deep.

  At the very bottom of the shaft there was an opening to a
tunnel the ball would roll roll into. It would roll through the tunnel and then exit at the bottom of the hill. This instantaneous loss of thousands of pounds of weight would allow the Achenpulp to stretch back to its original shape and position. As it did so, it would bring the wooden missile with it, and when the tree exited the Plethor-lubricated shaft, it would be traveling at several hundred miles per hour. It could also be coated with naphtha so that when the pheorite exploded upon impact, not only would the shrapnel go flying everywhere, the naphtha would ignite and spread fire.

  Tristan demanded the Moscorians and Vechengschaft work quickly to construct the launch pads.

  He knew time was not on their side.

  Chapter 30

  “I want to find out what happened here!” General Fuhdor shouted to his men as soon as the Dachwaldian emissary and his bodyguards turned around and left.

  “I see a tree, and I see a knot attached to a piece of steel pounded into a tree, but how in Uchinvweld did this measly piece of wood smash and destroy hundreds of Sodorfian soldiers?!! Start figuring it out!!” he shouted.

  He himself couldn’t figure out exactly what had happened. One thing he suspected rather quickly, however, was that both ends of the tree had had some sort of contraption hammered into them that was removed after the ambush. As he looked more carefully, he noticed many of the dead Sodorfians had holes through their bodies but no arrows.

  (they must have drilled spikes into it)

  “This will likely mean war,” he said to one of his officers standing next to him, surveying the carnage. “Eight hundred and thirty years of peace, and now Dachwald thinks she will rise again. It won’t be she who rises. It’ll be us. And when we rise this time, we’ll crush the Dachwaldians so thoroughly and so utterly they’ll never even consider attacking us again. I’m going to go and speak with the nobles. Clean up this carnage and give these men a proper burial. They’ve earned it. I also want you to continue trying to figure out just how in the world they rigged this lethal device. I want scouting parties scouring not only this area, but also the border itself. If there are any other Dachwaldians in Sodorf, I want to know about it. If you encounter any, slaughter them.”