by Rick Cook
Since Jerry weighed nearly as much as Wiz and Danny put together this presented a problem. Since Jerry was not exactly light on his feet, it presented a serious problem. The first attempt to hoist Jerry through the opening nearly pulled Wiz and Danny back into the car. Finally, Wiz dropped back into the car to push from below while Danny heaved from above. With much tugging and shoving, they were able to get Jerry onto the roof of the car.
Then the elevator ground to a stop and the doors started to open.
Wiz leaped for the hatch and wriggled through just as the doors ground open. Before they could close the panel two goblin guards strode into the elevator with drawn laser pistols. As the four humans held their breath the guards looked around suspiciously, their weapons tracking their head movements.
One snorted like a bull and drew in a deep breath, as if testing the air. His companion grunted something to him and he exhaled with a grunt. They looked around again, but they did not look up.
Finally the pair backed out of the car and the doors closed. After a moment, the elevator creaked and jerked and started upward again.
Wiz let out a deep breath and nearly collapsed with relief.
"It’s the helmets," Jerry said after a moment.
"What?"
"The helmets. They’re so ornate the guards have trouble looking up." He shook his head. "Bad design. Like a lot of this place."
"Personally I think it’s great design," Wiz said sharply. "It just saved our bacon."
"Aw, we could have taken them easy," Danny said. "A few lightning bolts and, hey-" He made a gun with his finger and mimed shooting at the door. There was a flash of blue spark from his fingertip and a large scorch mark appeared on the wall of the shaft.
Danny looked down at his finger in surprise. "I didn’t know it was loaded."
"Well, holster it. And remember we’re just a little bit outnumbered here. We don’t start throwing fireballs until we absolutely have to."
"Get ready then," Jerry said, looking up at the indicator over the door. "We may have to. We’re almost there."
Quickly the three magicians arranged themselves to have the best field of fire when the door opened. All three of them muttered preparation spells so they could come out shooting if they had to. Then they waited.
The elevator creaked and swayed, jerked twice more and then expired with a sigh. The doors started to open, slammed closed, and then slid all the way open with a despairing groan-leaving them looking at a blank stone wall.
Wiz looked down through the hatch and out the open door. At the bottom of the door there was a narrow slit of corridor visible, perhaps eighteen inches wide. The elevator had gone almost completely past their intended floor.
"Shit!" Wiz muttered and all of them quickly dropped through the hatch into the car.
Jerry reached out and punched the elevator button. The car lurched and groaned again, but did not move.
"Reminds me of the elevator at a Star Trek convention in Denver," he said.
"We’ll have to squeeze out through that space then," Wiz said.
Jerry eyed the slit. "I don’t know if I’ve got that much octopus blood in me," he said dubiously.
"Maybe there are working controls outside," Wiz said as he knelt to slip through the crack. He eased through the opening and felt for the floor with his feet. The elevator was just high enough that he couldn’t keep his weight resting on his elbows in the car and touch the floor at the same time. He eased out further and for a terrible second kicked his legs over empty air in the elevator shaft. Then his left foot caught the floor and he eased himself down on solid footing. He sighed and turned around to face down the corridor.
And found himself face-to-face with a goblin guard.
The guard roared a challenge and swung his halberd two-handed. Wiz ducked and the halberd knocked chips of stone off the door jamb. Snarling, the guard swung the weapon back over his head and down toward the crouching programmer. Instinctively Wiz lunged forward as the blade descended. He hit the goblin in the knees just as the halberd came down with the full force of the monster’s body behind it. The combination overbalanced him, and the guard went sprawling headfirst down the elevator shaft, screaming as he fell.
Wiz collapsed forward on his face, sucking great lungfuls of air. Somewhere in the distance a siren began to wail. Behind him he heard his three companions drop to the floor of the corridor. Then Jerry and Danny reached down and pulled him to his feet.
"How’d you do that?" Jerry panted, red-faced from the tight squeeze.
"I don’t know," Wiz gasped. "Now run!"
The four of them pounded down the corridor, turned a corner and headed off in what Wiz hoped was the right direction. After several hundred yards they ducked into a side corridor to catch their breath.
All four of them leaned up against the wall gasping. Off in the distance, faintly, they could still hear the siren. Then another siren sounded and another and another until the castle reverberated to the sound.
"Guards to the perimeter," the speakers in the wall above them squawked. "We have intruders approaching from the south."
"What’s that?" Danny panted.
"I think," Wiz said slowly between gulps of air, "that all hell just came unshirted."
Forty-four: FOR FAITH, FOR LOVE, FOR HONOR
The Wizard’s Keep boiled with activity. From the tallest towers the trumpeters blew "Assembly" over and over. Down on the drill ground armored guardsmen fell in rank by rank while the drummers beat the Call To Arms on the great bass drums that hung by the reviewing stand. From the aeries below wing after wing of dragons rose and circled and grouped themselves into larger formations.
In the Watch Room every post was manned. The Watchers on the main floor murmured into communications crystals or peered into scrying glasses for some sign of the enemy. On the wall behind them glowed a huge map of the northern end of castle island, casting an eerie bluish glow over the proceedings.
On the dais at the opposite end of the room groups of wizards hovered over their own crystals and muttered spells and incantations. Bal-Simba was there, seated in his raised chair where he could watch and command everything. Judith was there, seated next to Moira at a small table to Bal-Simba’s right. Arianne was at his left and next to her, the elf duke.
Aelric stood tall and terrible in shining silver mail of elven metal. His helm, intricately and carefully wrought, extended down over his cheeks and neck, unlike the conical helms of the Council’s guardsmen. But save for the nose guard it left his face unprotected.
"Is there aught else?" Bal-Simba asked the people clustered around him. Arianne and Moira shook their heads and Aelric said nothing.
"My Lady Judith?"
"We’re as ready as we’ll ever be. The dragon riders have got the new spread-spectrum communications crystals so they can cut through the jamming, the guardsmen have the last of the special weapons and the scouting demons are deploying now." She took a deep breath. "It’s going to be rough, but Craig’s in a world of hurt unless he can make a saving roll."
"Saving roll?"
"Uh, unless he gets lucky."
Aelric smiled without warmth. "Fear not, Lady; luck they shall not have this day."
Bal-Simba looked around the group once more. "Aught else? Then we are ready."
Aelric bowed to the group. "If you will excuse me, I have my own part to play. This battle will not be fought entirely in the World you know and my own role comes-elsewhere." He started to go and then turned back. "One other thing. You may find you have acquired some unexpected allies. I would suggest that you simply accept such help as you are given." He picked his way off the crowded dais and strode toward the door.
Moira followed him and caught up with him in the corridor.
"You came back."
Aelric looked down at her. "Did you doubt that I would, Lady?"
She stopped. "Lord…" The elf duke turned back at the sound of her voice.
"Lord, I have not properly thanked y
ou for your aid. I have been surly and ill-natured to you and," her eyes begin to fill with tears and the words came with a rush, "and I am sorry and thank you. That is all I wish to say."
"You are most welcome, Lady," Duke Aelric said, ignoring her tears. "Truly this has not been easy for any of us."
"I wish there was something I could do to make up for everything."
"Bend every power you possess to our victory," Duke Aelric said. "Then hope that it is enough."
The dwarves were panting and exhausted by the time they reached the base of the castle. The explosions and beams of burning light had never come close but they had taken them as a hint and crossed the plain at a dead run. Since dwarves are too short and stumpy for distance running they were pretty well worn out.
A dozen dwarves slumped down in a row beneath the towering walls of living rock and gulped great lungfuls of air. Out on the plain the explosions continued unabated.
"Now that we’re here," Thorfin gasped after several minutes, "how do we get inside?"
"Place isn’t spelled against us," said Snorri. "Don’t see any gates, though."
"Gates would be guarded," Gimli pointed out.
"There are openings further up," Glandurg shaded his eyes and craned his neck. "Leave your packs here and bring only what we shall need for the final assault."
Thorfin and Snorri looked at each other and shifted uneasily. "You mean those openings that spout fire and explosions every so often?"
"You have a better idea? I thought not."
The wall was solid rock and so steep it was only a few degrees off vertical. But dwarves are creatures of the mountains and if they cannot run they can climb like flies.
Glandurg lifted Blind Fury high above his head with both hands.
"Forward!" he proclaimed. "For glory and honor!" Glandurg turned and began to climb the wall. Behind him his loyal followers hesitated and then started after him.
It took Mick and Karin longer to cross the plain. Mick insisted on going flat every time the artillery came within a few hundred yards of them. Fortunately the fire never got really close and their only injury was to Stigi, who received a scratch from a shell fragment.
"Well, we’re here," Mick said as they rested in the shade of the wall. "Now are you satisfied?"
"I wonder if we can get inside?" Karin said thoughtfully.
"Even for you that’s a crazy notion. We’ve done too much already."
"Let us work our way along the wall and see if we can find a gate," she went on as if she had not heard him.
Mick looked at her, sighed and nodded.
The things men do for love!
"The scouts are in position," the Watcher reported.
Bal-Simba looked up at the display. Already it was beginning to show the information pouring in from tens of thousands of scouting demons like the ones Wiz and his company had used to locate the heart of Bale-Zur in the City of Night.
Unlike those demons, these absorbed everything that happened around them and transmitted the information back to dozens of concentrators floating well to the south out of the battle zone.
Circling off the southern end of the island was a thing like a gray tarp, a relay for communications and the concentrators. It absorbed the information, did some preliminary filtering and fed it back to the relay. The relay in turn passed the information back to the Watchers in the Capital.
As one, the controllers in the pit looked up at Bal-Simba. The giant wizard took a deep breath. Then he nodded.
The controllers turned back to their crystals and the attack was on.
Forty-five: BATTLE ROYAL
"Dragon Leader, you have an allied force approaching to your right. I say again, you have friendlies approaching from widdershins high."
What the… ? There were no more friendly forces. Save for a couple of squadrons on guard duty Dragon Leader had the entire cavalry of the North with him. Anything else in the air had to be hostile.
"Dragons at widdershins high," the scout on the right flank sang out.
"Can you identify?" Dragon Leader barked into his communications crystal. He hated surprises in the middle of a battle.
Silence.
"I say again, can you identify the dragons?"
"Uhhh…"
"Dammit, speak up!"
By now the formations were at almost the same level and closing fast as the newcomers pulled into a shallow dive.
Dragon Leader craned his neck to see the approaching force. Whoever they were, they had the most ragged-ass formation he had ever seen. They looked more like a flight of geese than a squadron of cavalry.
Dragon Leader’s mount bridled and nearly bucked as the flight approached. It took a moment to bring the animal under control and when Dragon Leader looked up again the leader of the new force was flying next to him.
Dragon Leader glanced. Then he gaped. Then he nearly fell out of his saddle. Flying beside him was the biggest dragon he had ever seen in his life.
This was no adolescent cavalry mount. It was a full-grown, fully intelligent dragon and a monster of its kind at that. It was easily twice the length of his own mount and might have reached 200 feet. Behind and above came dozens more wild dragons.
A great golden eye regarded Dragon Leader and his dragon with amused contempt. Then with a flick of its tail, the giant reptile winged over and dived for the deck. The rest of the wild dragons followed their leader down.
Dragon Leader licked lips suddenly gone dry. "Uh, central," he croaked into his communications crystal. "The allied forces have taken the lead position and are going in low."
"Allies lead and low," the controller’s voice came back. "Acknowledged."
Fortuna, Dragon Leader thought, what have we gotten ourselves into?
Out on the edge of the plain the warbots waited. There were 100-ton Murderers, 30-ton Hellfires, Skysweeper anti-aircraft units, a couple of 200-ton Gargantua fire support models and a dozen or so Springer scouts, all in a loose grouping just behind the military crest of the ridge. They were being held as a mobile reserve, ready to sweep down off the ridge and deal any attacker on the plain a crushing blow to the flank.
The Springer nearest the crest of the ridge turned its head. Its sensors had picked up something…
With a rush the lead dragon swept over the hill scant feet off the ground. A blast of dragon fire destroyed the first robot before it could even face its foe.
The second warbot had time to half raise its laser before the hurtling mass slammed it to the ground. The warbot next to it had only half turned when the massive tail caught it in its midsection and sent it sprawling.
By now the engagement was general as a dozen more dragons topped the ridge and piled into their metal enemies. Laser blasts and gouts of dragon fire lanced through the air and parts of robots and pieces of dragon bodies flew in every direction.
Then there were no more robots. Seven of the dragons lay motionless amidst the carnage and one dragged a wing.
As one, the unharmed dragons galloped forward and took to the air again. The one with the broken wing followed on foot.
Without warning clumps of guardsmen and wizards popped up all over the plain. Immediately they spread out into long, loose lines and started moving toward the castle.
Kenneth, at the head of his group, squinted at what lay ahead. Fortuna, what a mess! he thought. The wizards had been able to bring them no closer than a league to the castle because of interfering magic. They would have to cross the distance on foot, possibly under fire and almost certainly against enemies.
Kenneth felt especially naked without comrades at either shoulder. But they had been warned that concentrations which gave defense against sword and spear would only serve as targets for the weapons of these foreign sorcerers.
Well in front of the attacking forces a half dozen football-shaped metal containers popped into existence and split open on the red sand. A dark cloud poured out of each of them and dissipated in the air.
That was th
e signal. Kenneth raised his arm and motioned his men to move forward.
I wish I had a drink, he thought.
"Mikey! Mikey!" Craig beat on the door frantically. Finally it opened a crack.
"Yeah?"
"Why the hell didn’t you answer the net? I’ve been calling you for fifteen minutes."
"I told you. If you have business with me, you come to me. I’m not answering your goddamn pager." The door started to swing shut.
"Goddamnit, we’re being attacked!" Craig yelled. "We’ve got dragons and infantry and shit all over the place."
The door swung open and there was Mikey wearing only a pair of pants. In the back of his mind Craig realized he looked terrible, all thin and sort of stretched out. He moved like a speed freak, all jerky, uncontrolled energy. There was a predatory gleam in his eye that Craig didn’t remember seeing before.
"Yeah?" Mikey said. Then he paused as if listening to something that only he could hear.
"Come on, man! I need all the help I can get."
"You keep them busy. I’ve got something to set up."
Craig nodded and raced for his command center.
"We have isolated their control links," one of the Watchers called out to the group on the dais.
"Transfer the characteristics to my station," Judith called back. Instantly the Emac sitting cross-legged in front of her began to write in the air.
Judith smiled tightly. "Time to jam." She turned to the Emac.
"backslash"
"?" the Emac responded.
"blackwatch exe"
The Emac gabbled and several dozen demons appeared on the table. They were fashioned like men but each wore a skirt and shawl of dark green patterned with black. Several had drums and the rest had odd contrivances with several shiny black tubes extending over their shoulders. The leader carried a silver-tipped staff near as tall as he was and wore an enormous hat made of some black fur.
"Give them ’The Black Bear,’ " Judith commanded. "Then ’Scotland the Brave,’ ’The Highland Brigade at Maggersfontein,’ ’The Southdown Militia,’ ’The Earl of Mansfield’ and ’Lord Lovett Over The Rhine.’ After that use your imagination."