Many Hidden Rooms

by S. J. Varengo

  “Then we must send warriors on to augment the defenders of Jenoobia and Illyria at once,” said Cerah.

  “Once they arrive,” said Kern, gently reminding her of her decision to fly on ahead of the armada.

  “Of course. In the meantime, I want riders to hurry to both of those continents. Illyria has the largest standing army. With a flight of wizards to assist they may be able to hold off Surok until more warriors arrive by ship.” She turned to face Kerval and Lista. “You have both been most effective in every phase of this effort. I must call upon you again. Select ten wizards each to accompany you. In addition, I will dispatch a full contingent of riderless dragons as well. I want you surrounded by greens at all times to defend you while you are in the air. I will also send you with a large group of reds to attack any forces of Surok you may come across. I will include a band of blue dragons to help you patrol the continents. They excel at reconnaissance. Each group will have black dragons as well, to help organize the others. Your mission is no longer to recruit or prepare. You are being called upon now to engage and attack. Kerval, you and your team will head to Jenoobia. Lista, your destination is Illyria. Keep your eyes peeled for any sign of the enemy but join with the defenders as soon as you can.

  “Russa,” she said, turning to the young wizard who had become one of her closest associates, “you and I will rally the troops here on Oz Qanoti. We, too, will utilize the riderless. I want every shore of this continent patrolled constantly. Surok must have been near for his clouds to have been seen. At least a portion of his force will very likely return, this time not just passing by.”

  Russa smiled at her friend and leader. What Cerah didn’t say, but what Russa heard clearly nonetheless, was that she would not send her away when Yarren and Slurr were headed here. Russa knew that Cerah was as desperate to see her husband as she was to again be with her betrothed. But when Cerah went on, Russa’s mouth dropped open in surprise.

  “Should anyone sight Surok himself, you are to project a message to me at once. Tressida and I will immediately head to where you are. The sooner I can confront the vile kvarna the better. And once the head is cut off, the body will die. His forces will be lost without him.”

  “But Cerah,” Russa said, “Slurr will be here any day.”

  “And my heart aches to see him again. But my place now is wherever the demon is. I no longer harbor any illusions. More of the Free People will die. We are in the exact situation I hoped to avoid: chasing Surok. He will spill more blood before the end. But I still hold in my heart the belief that this can be a brief campaign. If we effectively apply our resources and locate the dark forces quickly, we can still defeat Surok before he can trample all of Ma’uzzi’s creation.”

  “We’ll begin at once,” said Lista. Kerval nodded. Both wizards raised their fists in salute to Cerah, then quickly ran off to select the riders that would accompany them. Cerah herself headed toward the riderless dragons, calling Tressida to go with her.

  After the wizards had gone, Cerah met with the officers of the defenders that had occupied Kal Berea. There were nearly ten thousand warriors already on the continent, the majority in and around that city. The remaining battalions were stationed in the other two major cities of Oz Qanoti, Perrilan, and East Rubik. The smaller village of West Rubik was also patrolled, due to its proximity to its sister city. The battalion commander, Deneth Asgrand, was a formidable looking character. His barrel chest looked as though it had been designed to wear armor. Flaming red hair protruded from beneath the metallic helm that he wore always. His right hand seemed ever poised near the hilt of his sword. Before the attackers had left Harundy to sail south, he had a tattoo of a severed Silestran head crafted on his massive right bicep. It was late afternoon when they sat together at a small table that had been set up near his headquarters.

  “Chosen One,” he began, but Cerah stopped him at once.

  “Please, Deneth. When we are talking, call me Cerah. When I am not around you can bandy about all the ‘Chosen Ones’ you desire. But face to face, we are two citizens of the Free People. So, Cerah, please.”

  “Very well, Cerah,” he went on, “the men and women defending Kal Berea have been honed to a razor-sharp edge. The company officers have been drilling their warriors since the day you loaded the remainder of our forces on the ships of the armada to head…south.” He hesitated before speaking the word, anticipating that the memory of the failed campaign might yet be sore for her. “For the past several weeks, since the first sight of the swirling storm clouds, they have been poised near the beachheads around the city where it seemed most likely that Surok would make a landing. We are ready.”

  “Excellent. I expect that if there is a landing before the armada arrives, we will be outnumbered. Still, from the sounds of it, your troops will mount an able defense. And the time-frame for arrival of the rest of our army is a matter of hours, not days. Our lookouts should spot them by nightfall.”

  As she finished speaking, there was a cry from the direction of the docks. At first, she thought that the sentries might have spotted the armada, arriving ahead of schedule, especially as she heard the call of “Sails!”

  But then her heart dropped, for the call came again, “Black sails!”

  “It is Surok!” she cried, jumping to her feet.

  She heard Tressida’s voice in her mind as she began to run in the direction of the commotion. “I will be there in twenty seconds. Wait for me!”

  Cerah turned her head and saw the flash of gold as Tressida dove from the sky to land near her. Even as she climbed on Tress’s back, she received a projected message from the shoreline. “Ships, but no giant dragon. Surok is not with them.”

  She sent her message back at once, projecting it to all the wizards who were now running to their match-mates. “Then we fight his scum. His day will come soon enough!”

  Cerah and Tressida rose from the field where she had been speaking with Deneth. They saw the ships immediately. They were still several miles away but were sailing toward the beaches and docks of Kal Berea at full speed. As Tressida moved in their direction, Cerah could see the warriors taking up their positions. The force of nearly five thousand dug in and prepared for the impending landing.

  Cerah had no intention of waiting that long. As she raced toward the ships, she saw that Kern and Szalmi were flying to her right. Russa and Barbini were close by Tressida’s left flank.

  “Kern!” she called to her friend and teacher, “Send all riders on reds to attack the ships. Tear at the sails. Take out any creatures that they can get claws or jaws around!”

  Szalmi, himself a red dragon, was the most fun-loving, jovial creature Cerah had ever encountered. But now as she looked at him, she felt a chill. His eyes were narrowed to two blazing slits. Even though the enemy was still a great distance off, he was already flexing his claws, eager to dig them into the flesh of Silestra, or of the hybrid warriors born of doomed human mothers in the ice lair of Surok.

  Cerah looked out at the advancing ships. They were far larger than the fleet that carried the warriors of the Free People. She estimated that if they were as full as her ships were crammed, there would be upward of a thousand creatures on each. Fifteen of the black ships were spread out across the water.

  Tressida was equally as eager to attack. But she had an advantage that none of the other dragons shared. As they soared ever closer to the ships, Cerah heard a growl rising in the queen’s throat. When they were about a hundred feet from the lead ship, a hail of arrows rose up from its deck. Like a flash, a dozen riderless green dragons flew between Tressida and the ship, swatting at the projectiles with their tails. Most were deflected harmlessly away. Those that found flesh were ignored by the swarming dragons.

  Tress dove from the circle of escorting greens. While still fifty feet above the ship she opened her mouth and sent a searing column of fire upon the masts of the huge vessel. The sails, stitched from some jet-black fabric, immediately burst into flame, and the ship slowed in
stantly, causing another boat to crash into its rear. Cerah watched as a score of karvats, who had been poised on the ratlines of the faster ship, tumbled into the sea or crashed lifeless on the hardwood decks thirty feet below.

  On the burning ship, creatures ran everywhere, some still trying to shoot off arrows at the teeming dragons, others desperately attempting to put out the fire that had quickly spread from the cloth sails to the wooden masts. Dragon fire, Cerah knew from the few times she had seen Tressida employ it, was not like the flames made by flint and tinder. Tressida’s flames encircled their target and stuck to them, like burning molasses. As Cerah made a second pass at the crippled ship, Tress sent another blast, directly among the scurrying karvats. She could hear their screams as they dove overboard, vainly hoping the ocean water would extinguish their burning flesh. It did not.

  Within moments, the lead ship was fully ablaze. Both Silestra and hybrid soldiers abandoned the doomed craft, swimming to nearby vessels. It was the first sight Tressida had of the new creatures. “Look at the Silumans,” she said, “jumping ship like grizzos!”

  “‘Silumans?’ Oh, Tress you’ve done it again! I’ve known of these creatures for months, and indeed until now they’ve only been seen in my visions and by the slaughtered people of Niliph. In all that time I have thought of no name for them. You take one look and call them exactly what they are. Part Silestra, part human. Siluman.” She felt Tressida’s smug little snicker inside her head. The laughter stopped, however, when Cerah’s next thought formed: I wonder if one of these is my nephew.

  “In any case,” the golden dragon replied, “let’s go kill more of them.”

  The sky was filled with dragons. To the untrained eye their assault on the ships appeared haphazard. But Kern was expertly directing the other riders, sending wave after wave of red dragons to attack both the ships themselves and any beasts they could reach. Even more aggressive were the riderless reds. With no wizards to protect, they flew with wild abandon, soaring mere feet above the crowded decks, snatching up anything that moved. They especially relished capturing Silestra. The dragons had an instinctive hatred of the foul beasts, and where they merely plunged their claws deeply enough into the karvats and Silumans to cause a fatal wound, when they grabbed a Silestran, they tore them limb from limb. They tossed their broken bodies into the air, much as they did when feeding on ocean fish, and caught them in their mouths, tearing at the black creatures’ flesh with their razor-sharp teeth. Once the monster was fully dismembered, the dragons would cast the body parts like rain down upon other creatures, before swooping in again for another attack.

  But for all the damage the dragons did, the sheer numbers of Surok’s force meant that far more of the vile creatures survived than were killed. The ships, many in flames, as Tressida continued to shoot fire in every direction, continued to race toward the shore.

  As Cerah watched them approach at full speed, she said to Tressida, “They are going to run the ships aground!”

  And indeed, almost as she finished the mental communication, the first ships pounded to a sudden halt as their keels dug into the sand of Oz Qanoti’s shore. Still others crashed into the harbor, destroying both the docks and the small craft that were anchored there.

  With inhuman screams, the vile minions of the Anger of Pilka began to leap from the ships and wade the last few yards to the shore, while those that had landed in the harbor climbed up the ruined planks of the pier. As they headed inland, the army of Kal Berea charged into their ranks.

  The fighting was fierce and horrible to observe. From above the melee, Cerah watched as the valiant warriors clashed with the creatures. The karvats surged to the fore, swinging crude battleaxes. The small creatures, with their skin a deep indigo, were clumsy, and the warriors were by and large able to avoid their assault. But when one did make contact, their enormous strength was evident. Not only did the axe cleave deeply into the armor of the warrior, causing blood to gush through the breach, but the force of the blow sent the stricken warrior flying through the air.

  Still, the humans got the better of the fighting, using their superior agility to strike the karvats while managing to avoid their coarse weapons.

  All that changed, however, as the Silumans began to reach the shore. Unlike the boorish karvats, the Silumans were lithe. At the same time, they possessed both the strength and ferocity of their Silestran fathers. Armed with jagged longswords, they quickly began to cut a swath through the defenders.

  Seeing the tide of the battle turning, Cerah screamed to the wizards who flew near her, “Hurry! Strike the Silumans!” Though they had never heard the name before, they knew at once to whom Cerah was referring, and they began to dive upon the hybrid warriors. Tressida too flew down toward them, repeatedly casting shafts of flame in their direction.

  The combined efforts of the warriors and the wizards seemed to be stemming the assault, but Cerah could see that as the last few ships hit ground and disgorged their evil cargo, the numbers were so in the enemy’s favor that all her forces were doing were slowing the inevitable. As Tressida flew back and forth, mere feet above the heads of the combatants, Cerah scanned her warriors.

  At last she saw the unmistakable shock of red hair jutting out from both sides of Deneth Asgrand’s helm. He was hacking at a pair of karvats. She flew down to him. Tressida grabbed a karvat in each of her front claws, as Cerah called to the commander, “Have the warriors fall back. If they remain on the beach they will be quickly overrun.”

  “But Cerah, we need to keep these beasts out of the city for as long as possible!”

  “Agreed. Do not retreat all the way into the city. Just make some room between the waterline and our forces.”

  “Aye!” the burly man cried. He turned to the warriors who fought near him and ordered them to fall back, but to keep fighting. The word was quickly passed through the ranks, and they withdrew.

  The dragons were giving Surok’s beasts all they could handle, harrying them from all directions. But again, there were far more of them than there were of mounted wizards and riderless fliers combined. For all the dragons’ clawing and biting, and the wizards’ staffs sending bolt after bolt of destructive energy at the monsters, they kept coming, relentlessly.

  It did not take long for the news of the battle to reach the people dwelling in the city. While many of its citizens had evacuated Kal Berea when the other-worldly storm clouds had been spotted a week before, many had remained. They were now in a state of panic.

  Russa had flown Barbini back toward the city as the army fell back. She saw people running through the streets, screaming wildly. “Down, Barb,” she said. “We’ve got to maintain some sense of sanity if they’re to have any hope of survival.” The blue dragon spotted a space in the market that was adjacent to the harbor. He touched down there. Russa jumped from Barbini’s back. She held her arms above her head, waving them. She screamed as loudly as she could, “Stop! Don’t panic! Head north! Move out of the city in that direction. They are approaching from the south!”

  The people nearest to her heard her instructions and began to move in the direction she had indicated. The vast majority, however, continued running helter-skelter. In frustration, Russa raised her staff. Pointing it toward the sky she called, “Report!” A massive ball of red energy issued from the tip of the staff and rocketed into the sky, exploding fifty feet above the heads of the terror-stricken citizens. The loud blast it made caught their attention, and most dropped to the ground, covering their heads in fear. For a moment, the market grew quiet. Using the voice amplification spell that Cerah had taught her during the time they had spent together on Niliph, she spoke calmly but very loudly.

  “You need to head north. The enemy has landed, but they are coming from the shoreline. If you hurry north, you may be able to escape while the army engages them.” The people responded, immediately rising and heading north in a more or less orderly fashion. As Russa watched them go, she thought, The army will engage them, but they will not h
old them off for long, unless something miraculous happens.

  She flew back into the fray and, as she headed toward the shore, she witnessed her miracle. Finding Cerah, she flew alongside the Chosen One and called to her: “White sails, Cerah! White sails! The armada is here!”

  Cerah snapped her head toward the ocean and saw that the ships had indeed arrived. They were anchoring in the deeper water offshore and, as she looked, the dozen or so landing boats that each ship carried were lowered from the sides of the vessels, filled to overflowing with human warriors. Tens of thousands of them, all rowing to shore as fast as they could come.

  When the boats reached the shallows, the warriors jumped into the water and waded at a run toward the wicked host who quickly realized they no longer had the advantage. Even as the first reinforcements reached the shore, the boats turned around, heading back to fill again with more fighters.

  As the embattled humans on land saw their comrades approaching, their spirits soared, and they spontaneously charged back toward the water, effectively surrounding the enemy.

  Just when it appeared that the victory was close at hand, however, Silestra began at last to pour off the ruined black ships. They carried a variety of weapons. Some swung battleaxes, similar in design to those wielded by the karvats, but easily three times larger. Others brandished wicked swords, with blades six feet long. Some carried only daggers, dark, with curved blades, which they dragged across the throats of the warriors as they grabbed them in their massive arms. Though they numbered in total less than one thousand, they were quickly turning the tide of the battle back in the enemy’s favor.