by Rick Cook
None of which mattered in the slightest. Dragons, even missile-armed dragons, don’t carry radar and the forces were too close for missiles. Now the defenders relied on the traditional weapons of the dragon cavalry. Bursts of dragon fire ripped at the metal shapes. Then the great bows sang and iron arrows leaped toward their targets. Planes cartwheeled across the sky or dropped like stones as flames and death arrows found their marks.
One lone fighter pulled away from the melee, climbing toward the relay station. Elke lined her dragon up on the metal enemy and touched the second stud on her saddle. Again smoke streaked from the dragon’s claws as a second missile sprang free. But there was no pulse of radar energy to warn the aircraft. Instead Elke held the missile on course by manipulating the stud with her thumb, always keeping it centered in the glowing orange rectangle. The missile traveled up the plane’s tailpipe and blew it out of the sky before the aircraft or its controllers even knew it was there.
In his castle, Craig cursed and pounded his fist on the table. But he had other things to command his attention.
Well, it wasn’t the first time he had lost heavily in the early moves and gone on to win the campaign. The enemy couldn’t do jack shit unless they could penetrate his fortress. They hadn’t hit his outworks yet. When they did things would be different.
Vaguely he wondered where the hell Mikey was and what he was doing.
The wind whistled and whipped like knives of ice around the high, dark spire where Mikey stood. He could sense rather than see the formless shapes that pulsated and moved in the freezing distance beneath his feet.
A single wan pool of yellow light illuminated his workbench. For the last time he checked the spell before him.
It was a complex shape about the size of his head and so dark as to be beyond black.
Mikey caressed the thing, oblivious to its piercing chill. At last it was ready.
We are prepared. The voice pulsed in his ears like his own blood. We wait.
With a gesture Mikey killed the light on the workbench. Then he clasped the sphere to him and started down from his high place.
The guardsmen and wizards advanced in loose order over the barren ground.
Actually, Donal thought, "loose order" was a misnomer. A "swarm of gaggles" was more like it.
But this was the formation they had been advised to use. Having seen pictures of their likely opponents Donal was all for it. Absently he reached back and touched the tube slung across his back. He hoped it was as good as advertised.
So far they had met no real opposition on the ground. The shelling had died down to a background rumble. Once a cluster of gray metal things swooped down on them with fire and explosions. But between their wizards’ lightning bolts and the timely intervention of a wing of dragons there had been very little damage done.
Up ahead a door opened in the castle wall and several things shaped like men stepped out.
Either we’re a hundred paces from the castle, Donal thought, or those things are giants. He signaled his squad to spread out and take cover. Seemingly oblivious to the oncoming metal giants, the guardsmen responded as they had been drilled.
A lance of fire slashed into the earth so close to him he could smell the ozone stink. Behind him bullets beat a tattoo into the dirt. Donal jammed the point of his sword into the ground and brought the dull green tube slung across his back around and over his shoulder. As methodically as he had been taught he flipped up the sights and lined them up on the giant robot.
The tube bobbed up and down as he followed his target and then he squeezed the trigger. The tube bucked slightly and Donal dropped and rolled just before another blast of laser energy rent the place where he had been standing.
When he looked up the robot was swaying uncertainly, its right knee a smoking ruin. Before he could get to his hands and knees two more explosions blossomed on the giant torso. It swayed forward once more and then toppled like a felled tree.
In his tower Craig swore viciously. His warbots were programmed to fight other warbots or dragons, not infantry with anti-tank missiles. He’d have to override and run this action himself. He slapped a button on his console, but nothing happened.
"Get me a control link!" he yelled into his microphone.
"We are trying, dread master," came a voice in his ear, "but there is something wrong in the transmitter."
"Then switch to the alternate," Craig yelled.
"That was the alternate," the voice said. "Maintenance estimates it will have the primary repaired in three point oh eight minutes."
"Shit!" Craig slumped back in his chair. This was like playing on a night when you couldn’t make a saving roll for love or money. Well, three minutes wouldn’t make that much difference in that part of the battle and there were plenty of other places he could put his time.
Meanwhile, was it his imagination or did he hear a high-pitched sound coming from his display console-a sound like a very small giggle?
"My palm’s sore," Danny complained.
"Well, don’t drag it along the wall," Jerry told him. "I didn’t mean that literally anyway."
Even investigating only the likely looking doors it seemed that it was taking forever to check out the rooms. Even this high up the castle was much bigger than Wiz had imagined.
The next set of doors didn’t look like anything Wiz remembered, but they were big and probably important. He was just about to punch the button when they slid open and he found himself face-to-face with a dirty, unshaven man in a tattered flight suit waving a pistol. Over the man’s shoulder Wiz could see an equally dirty and disheveled woman and a large dragon.
"Who the hell are you?" he demanded.
"Major Michael Gilligan, United States Air Force. Who the hell are you?"
"This is the Sparrow," Karin put in, stepping forward. "He is the mighty wizard I told you of." She sketched a curtsey. "Well met, my Lord."
"What are you doing here?"
"Raising hell," Gilligan told him.
"My Lords, the League is attacking the castle," Karin said breathlessly.
"I know. Look, can you get a message back to the Capital? They need to know we’re alive."
Karin’s face fell. "Alas, my Lord, the enemy is jamming our communications."
"Damn," Wiz said, entirely without heat. "All right. We’re searching this floor for a computer these guys are using to cook up something really nasty. Can you help us?"
"Of course, my Lord." Karin bobbed another curtsey.
"Okay by me," Gilligan said. "You really from the USA?"
"Cupertino," Wiz shrugged. "It’s pretty much the same thing."
"Hot damn!" Danny said, looking up at Stigi. "Firepower!"
"You might say that," Gilligan said, thinking of the pile of charred bodies by the gate.
"Come on then, and keep your eyes peeled. We’ve run into all sorts of things."
A couple of hundred more yards and two more uninteresting rooms and they came to a broad cross corridor that was carpeted in a different color and more richly finished than any they had seen so far.
"I recognize this!" Wiz said. "This is the way to the computer room."
"Great!" said Danny as he stepped in front of Wiz and out into the center of the corridor. "Let’s go…"
A bolt of green radiance lashed down the corridor and caught Danny square in the back. He pitched forward and dropped like a sack of sand. June screamed and rushed toward him, heedless of the bolts of energy crackling around her.
Down the corridor came a packed mass of goblin troops, the ones in front firing ray guns.
Gilligan stepped forward, dropped to one knee and braced the pistol in both hands, elbow resting on knee. Three well-placed shots dropped the leaders and the rest hesitated for a moment.
Then Wiz started throwing fireballs.
"Stigi," Karin’s voice rose over the noise. "Forward."
Stepping past June kneeling over Danny, the dragon shouldered Gilligan and Wiz out of the way and advanced
down the corridor. The guards reformed and came on, energy bolts scoring the walls ahead. If any of them hit Stigi he didn’t show it. Instead he breathed deeply and sent a gout of flame washing down the corridor.
That was the final straw. The attacking guards broke and ran.
Wiz bent over Danny, but June bared her teeth and hissed at him. The young programmer’s shirt was burned away and the flesh beneath was charred and smoking. Wiz could see the white of bone from his ribs and spine. He was still breathing, but his breath was coming in great harsh gasps.
"He’s dying," Jerry said quietly. His eyes were big and his face pale.
"Lord, unless you have powerful healing spells I am afraid this one is done for," Karin said quietly to Wiz.
"No," Wiz said without taking his eyes off Danny. "Nothing like that."
"Then I am truly sorry, my Lord."
"Goddamn!" Wiz breathed. If skilled healers could reach him in the next few minutes he still had a chance. But there were no healers among them and no way to get Danny to a healer in time. They could not walk the Wizard’s Way from inside the castle. The opposing magic was too strong. There just wasn’t time.
Time!
Quickly Wiz knelt again and reached for his friend’s arm. June bared her teeth again and fumbled in her skirt for her knife.
"I’m trying to save him, dammit!" June looked hard at him, but she relaxed slightly.
Wiz reached out and touched the ring of protection Danny still wore on his right hand. Before June could object he twisted the stone and Danny froze in stasis as the protection spell took hold.
"He’s all right," Wiz said to June. "Don’t you see? The spell will keep him safe until we can get him back to a healer." June looked down at her husband and bit her lip, but she made no move to touch the ring.
"Help me carry him further down the corridor." He turned to Karin. "I don’t think there are any more branches off this corridor until we get to the computer room. Once we move Danny, can you back your dragon up past the intersection and hold them off here?"
Karin nodded.
"Great. Jerry, help me move him. We don’t have to be too gentle. Stasis is better than a backboard."
"Then what?" asked Gilligan, looking down the corridor in the direction their attackers had fled.
"Then," Wiz said in a hard cold voice, "we’re gonna find that goddamn computer and stomp a couple of people flat."
Craig sat glued to his workstation and played as he had never played in his life. Slowly it dawned on him that this wasn’t just a couple of early setbacks. He was losing.
It wasn’t all one-sided. He was hurting them plenty, but it wasn’t enough. His carefully constructed defenses were washing away like sand. His warbots were powerful but the attackers were hitting him in ways they weren’t programmed to handle. If he took direct command of a unit he could do pretty well, but he couldn’t be everywhere at once and besides, his damn communications kept failing.
A motion at the corner of his screen caught his eye. There, superimposed on the glowing battle display, was a little manlike being perhaps six inches high. Unlike the rest of the screen image it was in full color and high resolution.
The thing turned toward him and pressed its face and palms against the inside of the tube, as if it was looking out. It wasn’t an image, Craig realized, there really was something inside his monitor!
The tiny being turned and gestured across the screen. Another manlike little thing stuck its head around the edge of the screen and peered at the world outside. Behind and around it the battle display scrolled on, unnoticed by the gremlins or by Craig.
The first creature tossed a glowing ball into the air and batted it with his free hand. The ball flew across the screen leaving a glowing trail behind it. The second thing leaped up and deflected it before it could touch the far side of the screen. The ball bounced off the bottom and ricocheted toward the upper right corner, smearing a goodly portion of the display. The first creature made a mighty jump and deflected it back toward the bottom left. His opponent dived for it, but the ball bounced over his head and off the side of the screen. The first gremlin chortled and held up a single finger.
Craig watched helplessly as his screen filled up with the lines of the ball tracks.
"Maintenance!" he yelled.
"He’s off this way," Glandurg called back to his companions. "Down this side shaft, now."
No more climbing for a bit, Glandurg thought. That’s a piece of good news. Although he never would have admitted it, he was just about done for. His arms and shoulders ached from clinging to fingerholds in the ventilation shaft and his calves and thighs were cramping from pressing his body flat against the wall. It would be a relief to just walk for a while.
He didn’t know how far they had climbed; a league or more, perhaps. But at last the arrow in the talisman had stopped pointing upward and was pointing off to the side.
As he started down the horizontal shaft, Glandurg reached back to touch the hilt of Blind Fury. Soon enough they’d be done with this climbing and sneaking into honest battle.
He wondered if battle was as exciting as the skald’s tales made it out to be.
It took nearly fifteen precious minutes for the maintenance robots to fix the display on Craig’s workstation. By the time he was back in control the situation had deteriorated even more. The last of his air force had been swept from the skies, and with it all of his recon drones. Now he was reduced to viewing the battle through the cameras and sensors mounted on the castle itself. Two critical outposts had fallen and even as he attempted to assert control a third one went.
In the southern quadrant the attackers were almost up to the last line of defenses at the base of the castle walls. Craig turned his attention there. Quickly he switched to one of the cameras on a forward emplacement to try to find a weak spot. He still had a couple of squadrons of warbots he could throw into the battle here, but he would have to command them directly if they were going to be any good.
As he scanned the line of approaching men, a shadow fell over the camera. He swiveled up in time to see a dragon diving straight at him. He flinched and tried to bring a weapon to bear but it was too late. The last view Craig had was of gaping jaws and an enormous golden eye as the dragon crashed head-on into the emplacement.
Cursing, he switched to an alternate view only to get a jerky low-resolution picture that barely resolved itself into blobs of light and dark. Two more switches and he found a camera high up on the walls that was working.
What he saw wasn’t good. Lines of dotlike figures, rendered tiny by the distance, were converging on the gates of the castle. Many of them were too close for the artillery, and the machine guns were strangely ineffective.
Some of the figures went down to energy beams or mines, but many more did not. They swarmed over the smoking ruins of his defenses and began to disappear down the tunnels.
Frantically, Craig ordered all his remaining robots to the lower levels to try to stem the attackers.
And then it was all too much. Craig turned and bolted from his war room, leaving the defenses entirely on automatic. He just couldn’t face any more fighting and losing.
Mikey! Mikey was working on something. Maybe Panda, the master hacker, could pull this out of the fire for them yet.
Mikey was sitting on a bench cradling something in his lap. As Craig came closer he saw it looked a lot like the figure that had been growing on the computer screen.
"We’ve got trouble, man."
"No we don’t," Mikey said softly. "We’ve won."
"Goddamn it, they’re all over the fucking castle!"
Mikey looked up at him and smiled. For the first time Craig saw the mad, red glint in his eyes. "It doesn’t matter," he said almost gently. "It’s all working according to plan.
"I was wrong about you, Craig," he went on in the same gentle, hair-raising tone. "You and your robots were important. You were a wonderful diversion. The robots got them to grab the computer. All we h
ad to do was bring them here. Now we’ll crush them. We’ll just fucking annihilate them."
He caressed the black sphere in his lap. "We own the world. We own both worlds. And we’re going to prove it."
Craig drew back in horror.
"You’re fucking crazy!"
"No man, I’m sane. Crazy is letting these fucking maggots walk all over you."
He reached out and patted Craig’s forearm in a way that made Craig’s flesh creep.
"You did good, you know. You kept them so goddamn busy chasing around after your toys they never had a chance to focus on the serious stuff." He caressed the thing in his lap.
"They couldn’t get at it. Did you know that? For all their power they couldn’t make what they needed without us. They needed the computer. And they needed us."
Craig stared in horrified fascination.
"You see what that means, don’t you?" Mikey was talking to himself now, looking down at the black thing in his lap, crooning to it. "It means they’re not all-powerful. We can do things they can’t and that means we’re more powerful than they are.
"When I get done I’m gonna be master of all I survey." He chuckled and his eyes glinted even redder, like live coals. "I’m gonna rule the whole goddamn world."
Craig backed away from his former friend and then turned and ran.
There were problems, Glandurg admitted, even with an infallible magic direction finder.
It was undoubtedly pointing at the Sparrow, but it didn’t show the way to go to get to him. That was a problem when you were in a maze of ductwork that ran only in straight lines and right angles. A half-dozen times now they had followed the arrow directly only to be balked by a dead end. Glandurg suspected the Sparrow was moving around also. But so far they hadn’t gotten close enough to be sure.
They didn’t want to leave the vents. The roars, screams, explosions and gunfire echoing through the vents-not to mention the smell of burnt flesh-made it clear there was a battle going on out there.
"He is over this way," Glandurg told his weary followers. "Forward."
"We can’t go that way," Thorfin protested.