Trapper accepted the bag of coins and the enchanted goblet, and put them in his leather satchel, along with the scrolls.
“Don’t you worry my lord, I don’t intend to try to flee, or to fail this mission. I’ll get that dwarven machine for you, or I’ll die trying. I promise you that.”
“Good, good,” said King Pavanir, smiling menacingly. “Well then, go with Professor Alandarus to his chambers, where he’ll go over his scrolls in detail with you. After that, my guards will take you straight to the entrance to the Below World. And once you’re underground, you’re on your own.”
“I won’t disappoint you, my lord,” said Trapper, rubbing his hands together as he thought of the reward that awaited him should he succeed. It was easier than thinking about what would await him in the event of failure.
“Good, good,” said King Pavanir once again. “Now, off with you, you scoundrel. Go!”
“Come on, thief,” said Ser Greenfield. “You’ve got a lot of work to do. Move it!”
Trapper, Ser Greenfield and the professor all left the king’s chambers, and Pavanir sat and watched them go, smiling with a glint of greed in his eyes. If the thief could succeed in capturing the Factory Core and bending it to Pavanir’s will, it would give him the power he had long lusted after. The power to create an empire.
CHAPTER 40
A blast of rage surged through the Factory Core’s super-mind as Grakk’n’s fire arrow destroyed one of its ice wraiths. The ice wraiths had proved to be tremendously effective against both demons and wraiths, and—the Core was pleased to see—against Grakk’n himself. No longer would the demon commander’s dragon bone armor protect him to the point of near invulnerability against its weapons. Now, finally, it had discovered something that could put an end to his annoying existence.
However, those fire arrows were a serious threat to the Core’s units, and its ice wraiths, which were precious few in number. The Core knew that if Grakk’n managed to take out all of the remaining ice wraiths, its advantage would be overturned, and the tide of the battle would swing yet again. And if the demons gained the upper hand this time around, the Core was aware that its chances of defending the city might be reduced almost to zero. Raw materials and fuels were now in dangerously short supply, and the only way for the Factory Core to get more of these vitals supplies would be to send large contingents of spiders and geckoes out of the capital. A mission that was becoming more impossible as the demons occupied and destroyed ever larger sections of the city, and with their armies surrounding the city walls and cutting off any escape routes.
The Factory Core was still convinced that electricity—if it could discover a way to hold a charge—would be the key to winning the battle for Karak-Drang once and for all. It still dedicated as much time as it could into researching this phenomenon, but its time, like its resources, were being stretched to capacity. For the moment, the ice wraiths were formidable weapons, but the Factory Core had only managed to make seven of them—and now Grakk’n had blown one of them up.
The Core knew that taking out Grakk’n was another priority that should rank at the very top of its list, and now, while he was on his back foot, it realized that it had to strike fast, and strike hard. The Core’s super-mind directed all of the remaining ice-wraiths away from their skirmishes with various groups of demons, and instead sent them in pursuit of Grakk’n.
Finding him was easy enough; after all, the Core had eyes all over the city. As Grakk’n sped through the streets, the Factory Core followed him, plotting the path of his flight against the photograph-like memories of the maps and blueprints of the city it had committed to memory.
The course of the demon commander’s retreat was predictable; he was trying to get back to the city gates, through which he could escape, and thereafter rejoin the mass of demons waiting outside. If he managed to reach the gates, the Core would lose its chance.
One problem with the ice wraiths was their slowness of movement. The Core, however, quickly came up with a plan to overcome this limitation. It directed the ice wraiths to jump onto the backs of mechanical spiders, which were able to run just as fast as Grakk’n.
The hunt was on, with Grakk’n charging through the desolate ruins that were Karak-Drang, jumping over walls, scrambling up buildings and leaping from rooftop to rooftop in his madcap flight to escape.
The ice wraiths, mounted now on spiders, were right behind him in hot pursuit, and were coming from all over the city, converging on Grakk’n with a single-minded focus: to annihilate this demon commander once and for all.
As one of the riding ice wraiths rounded a corner, getting onto the road along which Grakk’n was sprinting, the demon commander spun around with a snarl, and, mid-stride, fired off one of his arrows. Even though it was a fast shot, taken with barely a second to aim, the arrow flew straight and true—but the spider reared up and took the hit itself. The Core was prepared to sacrifice spiders, because as valuable as they were, they were still not as valuable as ice wraiths.
The arrow smashed into the underside of the spider, and the resulting explosion tore the metallic creature to pieces, blowing it apart. With the large arachnid taking the brunt of the blast, the ice wraith landed with a crash on the ground but survived.
Grakk’n roared with defiance and rage. However, before he could take another shot at the injured ice wraith, two more spiders and their fearsome riders came scuttling around the corner, and the ice wraiths shrieked their ear-piercing, shrill cries as they caught sight of Grakk’n. He had to sprint off again, with jets of ice energy shooting after him like lightning bolts.
As the ice wraiths hunted him down relentlessly, Grakk’n skidded around another corner and found himself in an alley, with tall, windowless and doorless buildings on either side of him. With the ice wraiths on his tail, Grakk’n had no option but to bolt down into the alley. However, after a few seconds he came to the end of it—another huge frontage with no openings. The demon commander was completely trapped.
The ice wraiths on the spiders soon came barging into the dead end, and they skidded to a halt. They stared at the demon commander, his back to the tall wall, a defiant scowl on his face, and an arrow nocked to his bowstring as he prepared to make his last stand.
This was the end of the demon commander, thought the Factory Core. And once he was no more, his army would fall into disarray, and they could be crushed.
The fingertips of the ice wraiths glowed as they got ready to unleash their magic … and even with his flame arrows and dragon bone armor, Grakk’n knew his end had finally come.
CHAPTER 41
“Come, fight me!” roared Grakk’n. “I’ll take plenty of you down before you send me back to the Dark Lord in pieces!”
In the split-second before the ice wraiths could release their bitter touch and end Grakk’n’s existence, there was a rumble that came from the wall behind the commander. It seemed as if the buildings and ground were suddenly shaking … and then just as the wraiths blasted out their streams, the wall behind Grakk’n exploded in a burst of tumbling bricks and billowing cement dust.
Done with the wall, two massive creatures came storming through. These were the reinforcements Grakk’n had been waiting for all this time. The falling bricks from the destroyed wall collapsed around the demon commander, shielding him from the surging blasts of ice energy. Then the creatures that had saved him smashed their way through the debris and pounced, roaring, directly on the ice wraiths, running headlong into their discharge.
The creatures were cave trolls, but then not just any cave trolls. They were dead cave trolls who had been reanimated by the power of the Dark Lord and made undead. And in place of their former brains, in their hollowed-out craniums, there were now imps—tiny but intelligent demons, controlling the huge bodies they were possessing like puppets. Immensely strong puppets capable of wreaking terrible destruction.
Cave trolls were naturally resistant to cold, but these undead were even more
so. They had also been given armor, shields and huge spiked clubs, blessed by the Dark Lord to be cold-resistant as well.
The streams of ice energy did little against the roaring undead, who, driven by the imps, charged screaming at the ice wraiths, whirling their gigantic clubs around their heads. The closest ice wraith tried to direct its energy stream right into the leading cave troll’s face, hoping to freeze and kill the imp inside the skull. But while the undead troll staggered back as the imp in its head absorbed damage from the cold, the other one behind it surged past its flailing companion, and swung its massive weapon in a vicious arc at the ice wraith.
The scrawny body of the wraith stood no chance against the weight and momentum of the club, and it was killed instantly, every bone of its skeletal frame shattering. The body was flung into the wall and it crumpled into a broken, limp heap on the floor. Grakk’n pushed his way out of the ruins, looked at the dead ice wraith, and laughed evilly. The battle was not over yet … not by a long shot.
“Now let’s see who runs!” roared Grakk’n defiantly. “Come, imps. Now we massacre these ice wraiths and their spider bodyguards … and then, we take the city and reduce it to ashes!”
The fact that the Factory Core had sent all of its ice wraiths in pursuit of Grakk’n, with all of them converging on his location, now meant that a terrible reversal was taking place. While the ice wraiths—these tremendously valuable pawns to use against the Demon Horde—had just a few seconds earlier been poised to kill Grakk’n and thus completely turn the tide of the battle, now they were at their most vulnerable. From behind the remains of the demolished wall, seven more undead cave trolls came thundering along the street like maddened elephants.
“Kill them all!” roared Grakk’n, pointing in the direction of the now-fleeing ice wraiths and their contingents of spider guardians. “Smash them to pieces! Show them the might of the Dark Lord!”
The undead trolls careened around the corner onto the main street, and there they saw the spiders and ice wraiths scampering away in flight. Half of them were heading one way, and the other half in the opposite direction. Both routes led back to the king’s palace, which the Factory Core had fortified as a place in which to make a last stand, if necessary.
“Demon warriors!” roared Grakk’n. “Fill the streets, fill the alleys! Attack these fleeing cowards, show them your fierceness! Kill them! Do not let them get back to the palace!”
Again, fate took a cruel turn. While the Factory Core’s early morning attack on the camps of demons had caused many casualties, it had also awakened all of them. And now they were fully alert and ready to fight … and eager to take revenge on the ice wraiths that had offed so many of their comrades.
Heeding the roaring bellow of Grakk’n’s commands, tens of thousands of now-mobilized demon troops shrieked with violent delight as they swarmed through the place, racing to cut off the ice wraiths’ paths to the palace, so they could be surrounded and exterminated.
The Factory Core’s super-mind was surging into overdrive now; it had to get the remaining ice wraiths out of the streets. No way could it afford to lose such potent and effective weapons, not at this critical stage of the battle. But how, how could it get them to safety when all exits were rapidly being cut off?
In terms of the cave trolls, the ice wraiths could outrun them when mounted on spiders. But not if the alleys were blocked with writhing masses of bloodthirsty demon warriors. Fighting running battles against these savage enemies would slow them down enough that the undead trolls would catch up with them. And if that happened, it was game over.
A grim realization dawned on the Factory Core: there was no way all of the ice wraiths were going to make it out of this situation in one piece. However, the fact that some of them were going to die did not necessarily mean that all of them had to. In fact, if a few of them could be directed to make strategic sacrifices, then perhaps more would survive than perish.
The Core had an idea. It was a long shot, but it just might work.
Sending three of the ice wraiths veering off in an unexpected direction, it sent the others off on their own, all splitting up so that they were taking separate roads back to the palace. To these individuals, the Factory Core provided much-needed fire support, dispatching the last remaining squadrons it had of mechanical geckoes and spiders to swarm out along the walls and provide covering fire for the ice wraiths as they fled, firing crossbow bolts and musket balls at the madly-charging swarms of demons.
As for the ice wraiths who were to be sacrificed, the Factory Core directed them to head toward an unlikely location: the cathedral of the God of the Forge. The cathedral was the largest in Karak-Drang, and it was one of the newer structures in the city, only a few decades old. As such it was built in a new style, quite different to a lot of the older architecture, in which much of the structure was steel, holding up large masses of concrete and stone. As it was such a large building, the cathedral of the God of the Forge could hold a great number of dwarves … and, of course, a great number of enemies too.
The three ice wraiths and their contingents of bodyguards raced into the cathedral and spread out, with thousands of demon warriors hot on their heels. Once inside and dispersed through the monument, the ice wraiths dismounted, and the mechanical spiders all scuttled up the walls and disappeared through the windows, leaving the wraiths on their own in the cavernous space … waiting patiently for their demise, their fingertips glowing blue as they prepared to make their final stand.
Within seconds of the last spiders scrambling out the upper windows of the cathedral, with its huge ceilings and roof towering high above, demon warriors began to pour into the building from all the entrances. As they surged through the doors, the ice wraiths began shooting at them, freezing them on the spot and making them burst into shards of ice by the hundreds.
But even with three ice wraiths covering the entrances and exits, there were simply too many foes to handle. More and more kept pouring in, swarming in like insects, clambering over the dead and the piles of shattered ice that used to be their comrades in a vicious charge to end these ice wraiths.
Now the defending wraiths had to redirect their streams and aim for the demons which were running through the huge space of the cathedral toward them. No longer could they cover the entrances— now it was a fight for what remained of their lives. They blasted left, right, center, back, firing out in all directions and turning demon warriors into statues of ice. But still the demons kept rushing in, and it was apparent that in a few minutes, maybe less, the many thousands of warriors which were now inside the cathedral would be on top of the ice wraiths, and would tear them to shreds.
But now, as thousands of shrieking, maddened fiends continued to enter the house of worship and target the ice wraiths, the Factory Core redirected the wraiths’ aim to shoot their freezing power in an unexpected direction: up.
The wraiths now concentrated their energy on the main steel structural supports that held the cathedral’s heavy stone roof up, pouring the last of their strength into blasting the steel with as much cold as they could muster. The demon warriors swarmed all over the ice wraiths, ripping them to pieces, and one by one the cerulean streams faltered and disappeared … but their work was done. Up above, the metallic beams had been frozen to the point where they were ready to yield.
As the demon warriors screamed with vicious victory, they failed to hear the ominous sounds of sharp cracks coming from above them. Then, bits of frozen steel began to fall and shatter like glass baubles on the ground.
One or two demons looked up, surprised, but it was already too late. With a thunderous crack, the main supports collapsed, and with them hundreds of tons of stone and concrete came toppling down from the sky.
The demons barely had time to scream out with fright before they were crushed to death. Grakk’n, who was watching from outside, bellowed out a furious roar of wrath as the cathedral came toppling down, squashing thousands of his warriors like
mere bugs.
The remaining ice wraiths made it to the palace, safe for now. And once they passed through the huge oaken gates, the Factory Core commanded some of its spiders, who were manning the gates, to slam them shut and bolt them. The palace grounds were surrounded by fifteen-foot-high walls—not much of a deterrent to demon warriors, but something, at least—and it was here where the Factory Core intended the outcome of this war to be decided.
Grakk’n, realizing that he had missed his opportunity, decided to pull his troops back and wait for dawn before making his final assault on the palace, so as to give his warriors time to rest and get their energy levels to the maximum. Also, a messenger had come to him from the heart of the Infernal Realm, with news that the war machines he had requested were ready, and were on their way.
The fate of what was left of Karak-Drang would be decided when the sun rose next.
CHAPTER 42
Trapper knew that the Factory Core had eyes and ears everywhere in the city, and that the place was crawling with demons too. He was a master of stealth and knew how to move through the shadows like a mouse, and use them to make himself nearly invisible. However, remaining hidden to the eyes of Men was far easier than evading those of demons and a super-intelligent machine, and Trapper was sweaty and nervous as he made his way through the war-torn city of Karak-Drang.
Luckily, the night was pitch black here, owing to the rock sky above, and Trapper avoided any areas of the capital that were burning, as the light of the fires would give his presence away. No human should have been able to make out anything in this intense dark (all the street lamps were out, as the Factory Core had diverted the gas to fuel its production of weapons), but that didn’t matter to Trapper. He had a set of enchanted goggles he wore on thief missions, which gave him the ability to see like a cat in the dark.
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