by Rick Cook
"And why not?"
"Because it’s a blind tunnel, that’s why."
"He’s right you know," Snorri put in. "We’ve been there twice already."
"I’m the leader and I say we bloody go this way!"
"You may be the leader, but you’ve got the sense of direction of a blind pig," Thorfin said without heat.
" ’S’truth," young Gimli added. "Remember the sewage tunnel back home."
Glandurg reddened and puffed up like a toad. Then he got control of himself and exhaled slowly.
"Very well," he bit out. "For this job I will appoint a scout. Snorri, you go first to find the way. But I’m still the leader, mind!"
Without a word, Snorri moved past Glandurg and led the party off.
What now? Craig tried desperately to think. The lower levels were already overrun, the control center was out of commission and he didn’t even want to think about what Mikey was up to. It couldn’t end like this. Not after so much. But now what?
It took him a minute to separate the shrill tone in his ear from the background noise of the battle and a minute longer to realize what it meant. The computer room! Someone had reached the computer room already. He touched a stud on his bracelet and the tiny screen lit up with a view of the computer room. He gaped at what he saw.
Zumwalt and the others were with the computer! Craig slapped his palm against his forehead and swore. A trojan horse! He’d brought them into the castle himself and they’d turned out to be a trojan horse. No wonder half his equipment wasn’t working. They must have been sabotaging it for days.
Craig looked at the tiny image and felt his gorge rise. Somehow those sonsofbitches were responsible for everything that had gone wrong since he got here. They were behind his defeat, his every loss.
Well, maybe he’d lose, but they sure as hell weren’t going to profit by it!
He turned on his heel and ran down the corridor, away from the War Room and toward his private workshop.
* * *
Craig met nothing in the halls. The robots and goblins were all fighting elsewhere. Half the lights were out and the elevators didn’t work. Now and again the sound of battle or a muffled explosion would reach him by some trick of acoustics, but otherwise the castle was deathly silent. Even the air tasted stale and he realized the air conditioning system had quit.
The automatic door opener wasn’t working either, so Craig had to use a spell to burn his way into his own workshop. Once inside, he pulled the door shut behind him and looked around.
There in the middle of the room, surrounded by scaffolding and equipment, was his latest creation: A full suit of Legion battle armor with some special improvements that no game master would ever have allowed.
The bottle-green armor glinted dully in the bright lights of the shop. It was almost twelve feet tall and so broad it looked squat by comparison. There was no neck, only a low rounded dome for a head. The arms were enormous, with oversized forearms to accommodate the blasters and heavy machine guns mounted in them. The hands were six-taloned metal claws, sharp as razors and hard enough to tear through armor steel. The legs were elephantine in proportion with all the actuators hidden behind layers of super-strong flexible armor.
It was hunched forward until its metal claws almost touched the ground and the upper back was opened up like a clam shell. In spite of his anger and haste, Craig stopped to pat the massive knee joint and look up approvingly.
Everything he knew, everything he had learned, was incorporated in this one lethal package. It wasn’t as big as his warbots, but thanks to the power of magic it was nearly as heavily armed. It could run at over a hundred miles an hour and slam through walls and buildings as if they were not there. Instead of jump jets it had anti-gravity plates that would let it fly from the surface of the planet out into space if the wearer wished. It could withstand a nuclear explosion and its own firepower was measured in kilotons per second. It was the ultimate warbot, the culmination of his dreams of power.
And now it existed for just one purpose. To destroy the people who had caused his ruin.
Craig mounted the scaffold and chinned himself on the grab bar to ease his legs into the suit. He wiggled the rest of his body in, fitting arms and legs into the sensor harnesses. Finally he touched a switch and the back sections slid noiselessly shut behind him.
He watched the screen displays for a moment as the power gauges rose levels and the view out the front port came alive with a network of glowing lines and cryptic inscriptions. A breath of cool air washed over him as the climate control system activated. This was one design that could stand up to dragon fire and not even feel it.
Once he was sure everything was operational, he stood erect and stepped away from the scaffolding, brushing it aside with a casual gesture that sent pieces ricocheting off the workshop walls. He turned and stepped lithely toward the door. As he passed the workbench he reached down and scooped up the thermonuclear hand grenades lying there. Maybe they would be good for something after all, he thought as he dropped them into a pouch on the armor.
Stigi couldn’t use his tail, but that didn’t matter much. He very nearly blocked the passage physically. The attackers’ only approach was through a mass of fire and straight into the dragon’s fangs and claws.
Even if the castle guards had been equipped with dragon-slaying arrows it would have been hard to take Stigi out. As it happened that wasn’t part of their equipment and so the problem was very nearly impossible. Warbots might have been able to handle Stigi, but they had all been sent to the lower levels to confront the League forces battling their way up through the castle.
Not that the guards stopped trying. They came on until their charred bodies reached nearly to the ceiling and then they climbed over the smoking corpses to keep coming. By the sheer mass of their onslaught they managed to force Stigi back a pace or two with every attack. But it was a long, straight corridor and Stigi had lots of room to back up.
* * *
The door at the end of the corridor was locked, but that didn’t stop Wiz. He wasn’t fancy about it, he just used a fireball to blow the lock off. Almost without breaking stride he kicked the door open and stepped through. Jerry and Mick were hard on his heels.
The computer was sitting in the middle of the floor, almost exactly where Wiz’s double had been standing when Mikey hit him with the fireball. It was up and running quietly away with the image of the key rotating slowly on the screen.
"Is it my imagination," Jerry asked, "or is that thing a lot more detailed than the last time we saw it?"
"Your imagination’s not that good. Let’s smash the computer and go get Craig and Mikey." Wiz raised his arms to throw another fireball, but Jerry put his hand on his shoulder.
"You’re not thinking. Without the key how are we going to close the gate?"
Wiz turned his head and looked at him. "What’s your plan?"
"Make a copy of the file first. Binary representation should be as good as any other for the purposes of spell casting."
Wiz dropped his arms and nodded. From down the corridor came roars and yells as Stigi held the entrance. "We’ve got the time. Let’s do it."
Craig heard the fight in the corridor as soon as he stepped off the stairs. The din echoed and re-echoed through the entire level of the castle. His sensors reported combustion byproducts in the air, including some that came from burning flesh. Finally he saw the carpet of bodies in the corridor leading to the computer room. Cautiously he stuck his massively armored head around the corner.
The smoke was so thick he had to resort to his sensors to see what was happening. Up ahead was a packed mass of warriors, some living, some dead and some wounded and down. Every one who could move was pressing ahead. As he watched the scene was backlit by an enormous gout of flame that turned the figures to black silhouettes against a fiery background.
With his battle armor he could undoubtedly charge through the mass and handle whatever was blocking his guards. But that would t
ake time. What he wanted was to get his hands on Zumwalt as fast as possible.
He turned and ran back the way he came. Plenty of time to finish this bunch later.
Several hundred yards and a number of turnings later he was in the corridor leading to the side entrance to the computer room. He had only gone a few yards when he heard a rhythmic banging coming from an alcove ahead of him.
In the alcove two light warbots were beating their heads against the wall, literally. They would step forward, run into the wall, bounce back and then step forward again. From the looks of the wall they had been doing it for some time.
"Halt!" Craig ordered and the robots froze in midstep. Quickly he ran diagnostics and found the robots had a bug screwing up their obstacle-avoidance routines. Fortunately they were light warbots or they would have long since walked through the wall.
A couple of quick commands and the warbots were functional again.
"Follow me," Craig ordered and set off down the corridor with the two killing machines at his heels.
"Come on, damn you," Wiz muttered, but the tape cartridge spun on unheeding. He only wanted one file, but the file was enormous. The tape backup was designed for reliability over speed; its designers had never imagined someone would have to transfer information to tape in the middle of a battle.
"They’re in there," Snorri reported breathlessly. "I can hear them."
"At last." Glandurg thrust his scout out of the way. He turned to the others. "I will go first. Remember, give me room in battle to wield Blind Fury."
His followers nodded. Glandurg motioned the others to follow him and trotted forward, Blind Fury slapping against his back at every step.
Craig paused outside the door to the computer room. One more thing. He took a thermonuclear grenade from his belt pouch and pulled the pin. Now the only thing preventing a multi-megaton explosion was his clawed grip around the grenade. If anything happened and he loosened his hand, everyone in the tower would die in a flash of nuclear fire.
Then he kicked down the door.
The side door to the computer room fell in with a crash and Craig and his robots stormed in. Gilligan was at the main door watching the fight in the corridor and Wiz and Jerry were at the console waiting for the download to finish. All of them jerked up at the sight of the three armored apparitions bearing down on them.
"Kill!" Craig screamed. The robot to his left took one step forward, caught one foot behind the other and tripped headlong with a metallic crash. The second robot raised both its arms to sweep its built-in lasers across the group.
"Drop," Gilligan yelled and all of them pressed themselves to the floor as the beams of ruby incandescence swept toward them.
Wiz felt something gently warm across his back, unsquinched his eyes and looked up. The robot’s head swiveled back and forth as it looked from one gently glowing arm to another. It nodded twice, executed an about-face and marched headlong into the wall.
"Oh shit!" Craig screamed. Then he went for Wiz.
He could have used his blasters. He could have used his machine guns. He could have let go of the thermonuclear grenade. Instead he lumbered forward with one taloned hand outstretched. He didn’t just want to kill Zumwalt, he wanted to tear him apart, to trample him beneath the battle armor’s steel feet until there was nothing left but a thin red smear on the computer room floor.
Wiz dodged the first swipe of the hand by ducking under the massive arm. He got a desk between himself and Craig, but Craig picked the desk up one handed and threw it across the room. There was a terrific crash as the flying desk hit the window wall and the sheets of glass collapsed.
Mick Gilligan dropped to one knee and emptied his pistol at Craig. He ejected the empty magazine, slammed another home and kept on firing. Bullets bounced off Craig’s armor and ricocheted wildly around the laboratory, knocking up puffs of rock dust when they hit the wall and leaving neat holes in what was left of the big window.
Craig swiveled and pointed the arm holding the grenade at the pilot. A beam of roiling green fire lanced out. Mick dove for cover, but the very edge of the blaster bolt caught his left arm and side. He went down moaning.
Then Craig turned back to Wiz. Inexorably he closed in with one arm outstretched and his claws gaping. Wiz backed away, trying to dodge behind furniture. Craig kicked one piece after another out of his path as he herded Wiz back into a corner.
"Die, Wizard!"
In a single motion Glandurg kicked the grille free and sprang from the vent, screaming his war cry and brandishing Blind Fury. The enchanted sword hummed through the air in a mighty blow aimed straight at Wiz’s neck. At the last minute the blade twisted and struck Craig’s battle armor, slicing through the armor plate just above the knee joint.
Craig stopped and looked down in wonder at the oil and fluids gushing out of the cut. Slowly and almost gently the leg collapsed under him and he sank to one knee. Wiz just stared open-mouthed.
Undaunted, Glandurg drew back and struck at Wiz two-handed. Again the sword twisted, this time upward to catch Craig in his massively armored chest. Again the sword bit deep, cleaving through magically enhanced armor and what lay beneath it.
The suit’s speakers amplified Craig’s scream to a deafening level. Sparks and fluids poured out of the gaping wound in his chest. He rose on his good leg and tried to stagger back. The suit’s gyros moaned as they worked to hold him upright, then screeched as the bearings failed for lack of lubricant. Craig rocked backward, caught himself, overcorrected and fell forward just as Glandurg brought Blind Fury down in a mighty overhead chop to cleave Wiz in half.
Instead the enchanted sword connected with the back of the battle armor’s domed head. Blind Fury went deep and came out with the tip stained with a wash of crimson. The battle armor jerked convulsively and then lay still.
Glandurg looked down at the fallen metal giant, over at Wiz and up at his bloodstained blade.
"Shit," he said.
Then he looked down at his feet. A gray, egg-shaped object had rolled clear of the armor’s lax hand. Now it lay on the floor between the dwarf and his quarry hissing quietly.
The dwarves didn’t know what the thing was, but their magic told them it was dangerous. Very dangerous.
"Run away!" Glandurg yelled to his men. It was wasted breath. The dwarves had turned as one and jumped for the air vent. There was a mad scramble as dwarves bounced off each other in mid-air, pushed one another out of the way and tried to squeeze three dwarves through an opening that wasn’t big enough for two. Glandurg wasn’t the first through the vent, but he wasn’t the last either.
Wiz and the others pressed themselves flat behind the console as the grenade hissed evilly. Then the hissing stopped. Wiz jammed his fingers in his ears and squinched his eyes tightly shut waiting for the explosion.
At last he opened his eyes, took his fingers out of his ears and cautiously peered around the corner of the console.
The deadly gray egg still lay in the middle of the room, rocking gently. As Wiz watched, the fuse protruding from one end slowly unscrewed itself and fell to the floor. A tiny head poked out of the fuse hole and peered about, enormous ears flapping.
The gremlin pulled itself out of the grenade and grinned widely at Wiz.
"Wheee," it squeaked.
Forty-six: MIKEY
Wiz leaned against the wall, one hand on his chest, and enjoyed the luxury of breathing deeply.
Jerry came over and knelt by the battle armor.
"Is he… ?" Wiz asked.
Jerry stood up. "Yeah," he said flatly. "He is."
He turned to Mick Gilligan. "Are you all right?"
"Just burns," Gilligan panted. "Not too bad, but it hurts." He looked down at his flight suit. "Good old Nomex."
"We’ll get a healer to you as fast as we can," Wiz said. "Meanwhile, we’ve got one other thing to do."
Jerry raised an eyebrow.
"Mikey," Wiz said grimly.
"Someone call me?"
; Mikey strolled through the broken door as casually as if it was still his castle. He was cradling a dark, misshapen thing in both hands. Wiz recognized it and sucked in his breath.
Mikey smiled and shook his head. "You poor dumb shits. You never did figure it out, did you?"
He stepped around the fallen robots and moved to the shattered window wall, shards of glass crunching under his feet.
"Now it’s too late." He looked down at Craig’s corpse. "While that little shit kept you running around in circles, I finished this."
Mikey held his prize high. A trick of reflection from the broken window made it appear that there were two of him, one floating in air and both holding the key.
Gilligan growled and scrabbled for his gun. Mikey looked over at him and he froze. Wiz wanted to scream, he wanted to run, he wanted to go for Mikey’s throat. But he couldn’t do any of it. Like Mick and Jerry he was rooted where he stood.
Mikey looked up and Wiz saw his eyes were red and glowing like an animal caught in the headlights.
"Always one step ahead. That’s the difference between a real master hacker and people like you, Zumwalt. We’re always one step ahead.
"Anyway, I just wanted you to know before…"
Out of the corner of his eye, Wiz caught a movement in the shattered window wall. Now there were two reflections in the glass. He shifted his eyes back to the room, but Mikey was alone with the key.
Then he looked in the window again. There was someone standing in front of Mikey’s reflection.
Duke Aelric.
The elf’s silvery armor was marred and stained. There were nicks in the blade of his curved sword and what looked like a burn mark along his helmet. Wiz had no idea where he had been, but he’d obviously been in a hell of a fight.
The elf stepped forward and laid both his hands on the key.
"Mine," he said.
There was still no one in the room but Mikey took the black convoluted thing in a double death grip.
"I made it," he yelled. "I can use it. It’s mine!"
The muscles in his arms quivered and the veins in his neck bulged as though he was trying to hold the key against a tremendous pull.