With his heart in his mouth, Trapper walked up to the doors of the Factory Core. They were, as he expected, locked tight. He scanned the hundreds of dwarven runes that covered the massive panels, looking for the specific sequence he had stored in his mind.
Just as he found the first of them, another gigantic, distant explosion rocked the ground beneath his feet, and he had trouble staying upright as the earthquake-like impact shook the stones beneath him. Whatever weapon the demons were using now, it seemed pretty damn potent. He just wanted to get his mission over with and get the hell out of here. This blast definitely sounded closer than the last one had.
It took him a few minutes of scanning to find the other runes. The whole time his hands were trembling slightly; he expected death, in the form of a crossbow bolt or musket ball, to come at any moment.
No sniper’s projectile came for him though. He checked the location of the correct runes before reaching into his satchel and fingering the enchanted chalice inside it. With his other hand, he quietly slipped some gold coins into the cup, and when he heard the hiss and bubble of the metal melting instantly, he knew it was time.
Trapper knew that he would have three or four seconds, if that, to do this, and if he screwed up, his fate would be sealed.
“Come on, come on, you can do this, you can bloody do this,” he muttered to himself, psyching himself up. He verified the sequence of runes one last time, picturing his hand, holding the enchanted chalice full of molten gold, dancing across from one to the other in record time. Three runes. One per second. “I can do it … I can bloody do it. Ugh, no point in waiting any longer. Time to do or die.”
With a shout, he whipped the satchel open, yanked out the chalice and splashed molten gold into the first rune, which started to glow. In less than a second, he moved on to the next, and then, a half second later, onto the final one.
The Factory Core had realized what he was doing the instant he pulled out the chalice, and it had sent a command to the nearest gecko to immediately put a crossbow bolt through the thief’s skull. But just as the gecko was about to activate the trigger of its built-in crossbow, its aim fixed on the back of Trapper’s skull, the molten gold entered and triggered the third and final rune. The gecko could not fire anymore, nor could any of the Factory Core’s weapons.
Trapper was now protected and had full immunity. He stared up with relief and awed disbelief as the huge stone doors of the structure silently opened for him … and then he was inside, on his way to the center, the heart of the Core. Once he made it there, he would just need to activate another few sequences of runes, and then the beautiful invention would no longer be an independent entity. It would come under the control of Trapper’s patron, King Pavanir.
“Mission complete … well, almost,” said Trapper as he stepped inside the maze-like interior of the Factory Core. “I’m gonna get me a lordship and a castle for what I’m about to bloody do. And all the gold I could ever imagine! Hahaha!”
With a broad, impish grin on his grubby face, the thief entered the Factory Core and prepared to complete his sinister mission.
CHAPTER 46
A sensation of intense dismay tore through the entire structure of the Factory Core as the thief walked through its formerly impenetrable doors. Then a blitz of white-hot rage quickly followed—wrath directed both at the thief, who it was now powerless to kill, and at its creators, who had built this terrible flaw into it.
Another gargantuan explosion rattled the walls of the structure and the ground beneath its feet, and the Core was forced to turn its attention back to the Demon Horde, whose trebuchets were slowly starting to dial in their range with increasing accuracy. While the Core was not able to use any of its deadly traps on the intruder, it was at least able to delay his arrival at its center by constantly shifting the placement of its walls and stairs, thus creating an almost endless labyrinth, which could take the thief hours or even days to navigate. Perhaps, thought the Core darkly, if it kept up its moving mazes long enough, the intruder would starve to death, for there was neither food nor water in here for him. In that way, the Core would not technically be going against the protocols programmed into it by its creators, for it would not be killing the man directly.
Regardless, the Core could not afford to focus too much attention on the intruder at this point. It had to direct most of its immense power and intelligence toward the coming battle. The battle that would decide the outcome of this war once and for all.
The Core realized that there was no longer any point in using its spiders and geckoes to hold off streets and alleys in the city. It needed these troops—every last one of them—to form up in battle lines and march out of the gates to meet the enemy beyond the city walls in the open. As for the fights inside the ramparts, the Core would leave the zombie demons, with masses of them placed strategically at bottleneck locations throughout the city, to face the demons that were occupying sections of Karak-Drang.
It was a gamble, but one that the Factory Core had to take. The fate of this whole operation was to be decided outside the walls of Karak-Drang, on the stark plains beneath the rocky sky. If the Core’s army won, then the surviving geckoes and spiders could return to the city and finish off the demons that would, at that stage, likely have made it to the palace walls for their final assault.
If the Core’s army lost, though … well, then none of this would matter at all; it would all be over.
Thus, as the massive flaming projectiles of rock and devilfire continued to arc through the air above Karak-Drang in the final hour of night, just before dawn, every mechanical gecko, spider and zombie demon—and the remaining few ice wraiths—turned to move to a central location, all under the control and direction of the Factory Core’s super-mind. These troops marched through the streets in determined, stoic silence. Not one of them was afraid, like organic troops would have been. Each faced their potential death with the knowledge that they would go on fighting with every ounce of energy they possessed, and would not stop until they were literally torn limb from limb by their enemies.
The Core directed various companies of the spiders and geckoes to stop off at various factories and workshops on their way to the city gates, where they could restock their individual ammunition supplies. For the last few hours, the Core had shifted its production into overdrive, using every last scrap of wood, silver and steel, as well as every last bit of gunpowder, to make as many crossbow bolts and musket balls for its units as could be made.
Thus, when the Core’s army finally reached the city gates and prepared to march out, all of the troops were fully stocked with as much ammunition as each of them could carry. The remaining zombie demons flooded the streets, blocking off the demons that were currently inside the walls of Karak-Drang from attacking the flanks and rear of the Core’s army.
As the skirmishes between zombie demons and the invading demons raged inside the capital, Grakk’n watched from outside the city walls, with the bulk of his army, observing as the Factory Core’s troops marched in perfect ranks out of Karak-Drang.
“So,” he growled, grinning evilly, “you wish to face us on the open field? Good, this has dragged on for too long now. Finally, I can bring about your complete annihilation … and then reduce what is left of your town to ashes and dust.”
Even though this was what he had been waiting for for a long time, Grakk’n was too wily a commander to become complacent at this stage. He knew how smart the Factory Core was, and suspected—after everything it had done to him and his troops before—that this could be another trap. He remained cautious, and certainly did not slow down with the attacks from his gigantic trebuchets. In fact, he walked over to the massive war machines to talk to the demons overseeing their operation.
“How goes the bombardment?” he growled at one of the overseers.
“We are still adjusting the range and sighting, Grakk’n,” answered the demon as a couple of enslaved cave trolls struggled to place another
of the gigantic projectiles into the trebuchet. “And, as you can see, the loading process is unfortunately quite slow, even with these stupid cave trolls being as strong as they are. We are trying, of course, to load and fire as fast as possible … but, um, it is difficult.”
Grakk’n snarled with impatient rage. All he needed was for two of these clusters of molten rock and devilfire to smash into the dwarven machine, and then he would be victorious. Just two of them! How difficult could that be? He was so frustratingly close to success, so agonizingly close … but not there yet. He grabbed the demon overseer by his throat and yanked him closer, so that he could snarl into his face.
“Push the cursed cave trolls harder,” Grakk’n said. “Increase the rate of fire, and get your damned range accurate! If the cave trolls die, they die. We have more. Fire this damned trebuchet faster! Do it, or I’ll launch you from the trebuchet!”
“Y-, yes Grakk’n,” gasped the overseer, struggling to breathe with Grakk’n’s huge, vice-like fingers clamed around his neck.
Grakk’n snarled again and shoved the demon away; it would do no good to kill him, as satisfying as that would be. Hopefully the violence and threat would be enough to motivate the fools to work harder and faster, he thought.
In the meantime, the Factory Core’s army was arranging in formation on the vast plain, and Grakk’n decided to get his forces to do the same. If the Core wanted a straight-on battle, he was happy to give it exactly that.
He marched around, ordering his troops into tight lines. In the very center of his army he positioned a corps of undead cave trolls. A less experienced leader may have set these potent shock troops, which were like tanks, at the front. Grakk’n knew better; indeed, the Core’s forces were likely to come out, quite literally, with their guns blazing, and the front rows of demon troops were likely to get cut down pretty quickly. Grakk’n wasn’t about to sacrifice his best assets; he had plenty of demons who would serve better as cannon fodder.
Thus, he moved all of his wounded to the vanguard. They were expendable, and would be quite useful for absorbing the Core’s crossbow bolts and musket balls—items that Grakk’n knew were in short supply.
As for himself, he assumed that the Core would place its ice wraiths somewhere where they would be protected, but from which they could effectively pour their torrents of ice energy into the mass of demon troops and cause maximum damage. Therefore, thought Grakk’n as he picked up his bow and arrows, he would position himself where he could take out these ice wraiths, one by one. He had plenty of fire-enchanted arrows, and he intended to make each one of them count.
His own wraiths he placed on the far flanks of his army, so that they could blast their green fire into the Core’s army from afar, and hopefully not expose themselves to too much enemy fire. He had far more wraiths than the Core had ice wraiths, but they were nonetheless valuable troops to him, and he did not want to get many of them slain too soon.
After much maneuvering, both armies had their formations ready, and were facing each other, with perhaps half a mile of empty ground between them on the plain.
“So,” growled Grakk’n as he surveyed the scene, “it is time. This will be the hour of my greatest victory.” He cupped his hands together and bellowed out the order that would begin what was surely the biggest battle ever seen in the Below World.
“Attack!”
CHAPTER 47
The Factory Core focused as the gigantic mass of demons charged, screaming and howling across the open ground. The Core’s super-mind had gone into overdrive by this time; it was controlling each of its troops in the army as an individual, as well as leading the zombies who were swarming the invading demons in the city, and it was still desperately running experiments with electricity while doing all of this, as well as one last-ditch attempt at a secret super-weapon—in addition to continuously rearranging its inner walls to stall the progress of the thief.
The Core was facing a battle not only against the huge army of the Demon Horde, but against time. Faced with this immense pressure, though, the Factory Core did not crack. Instead, its super-mind simply became even more concentrated than ever.
The front rows of the Core’s army consisted of spiders, and as soon as the demons came within range they began to open fire with their muskets. The Core had figured out what Grakk’n had done, though—his placing of weak, injured demons in the lead—and it did not intend to fall for this trick and waste valuable ammunition on those easy targets. Instead, the spiders aimed their shots at the demons a few lines behind—perfectly healthy demons, that were now dropping like flies as the musket balls smashed through their skulls and tore holes through their chests.
The Demon Horde, however, could always count on the one deciding factor that had weighed heavily in the balance since the start of the invasion: oppressive numbers. The army of demons on the field outnumbered the Factory Core’s mechanical troops by around ten to one. For every fiend that fell, another three or four scrambled to take their fallen comrades’ places, trampling the bodies of their fellow demons in their reckless haste to engage with the Core’s troops.
The Factory Core’s geckoes now began to loose volleys of cold-enhanced crossbow bolts into the opposite ranks as they got within range. Hundreds of demons started exploding, transformed into shattered shards of ice. But even with thousands of demons dying left, right and center to the spiders’ and geckoes’ expertly-placed shots, the demons’ charge was barely slowed down.
Some of the Core’s most potent troops, though, had been waiting for this exact moment. Now that the demons were packed thick and tight, forced closer together by the eagerness of their charging comrades, the conditions were perfect for the ice wraiths to wreak havoc. They shot out their freezing torrents into the places where the demons were most tightly crammed.
The ice energy cut swathes through the demon army, tearing large holes in their ranks. For the first time since they had started their reckless charge, the momentum of the demons was hampered. It was not stopped, though; even with the ice wraiths killing hundreds of demons in mere seconds, there was no way to halt the demons’ advance. There were just too many of them.
Grakk’n gritted his fangs and nocked one of his fire-enchanted arrows to his bowstring. He needed to take out the Core’s ice wraiths as quickly as possible. So he took aim at the nearest ice wraith, and then loosed the arrow, grinning savagely; he knew that his aim was perfect the instant that he released the string from his fingers.
However, instead of having the satisfaction to see his projectile slam into the ice wraith and blow it to pieces, Grakk’n watched with sudden rage and disbelief as one of his target’s bodyguards, a mechanical spider, reared up and took the arrow itself. The head exploded in a tremendous fireball, launching the spider up and back from the force of the blast… but instead of reducing the mechanical creature to bits and parts, as previous fire-enchanted arrows had done to the geckoes and spiders, the spider, completely intact, got up off the ground and hurried back to get into position next to the ice wraith.
Boiling over, Grakk’n stared with disbelief at the spider, which seemed almost unharmed, despite having taken the full brunt of one of the Dark Lord’s fire-enchanted arrows. As the demon commander looked more closely, he finally noticed that the units acting as bodyguards to the ice wraiths had been reinforced with a lot of extra armor.
Grakk’n spit at his feet. Now the job of killing the ice wraiths had suddenly become a lot harder. He decided to take a different approach while the battle continued to rage. As his forces pressed closer and closer to the Factory Core’s army, moving forward despite taking heavy losses from the withering rate of fire from both the spiders and the geckoes, Grakk’n turned his attention to the farthest ice wraith from him, a target that was almost completely out of bowshot.
Only by taking the ice wraiths and their bodyguards by surprise could he hope to kill them now. Most bowmen could not have made the shot Grakk’n was about to take,
but he was no average bowman. After nocking an arrow, he angled the weapon’s limb up, calculating the arc and trajectory of the arrow. The shot was almost beyond the bow’s maximum range, and the ice wraith he was aiming at was at the very opposite end of the battlefield. Even if the arrow did hit, much of its force would be lost, but Grakk’n didn’t care about this. The damage would not be done by the force of the arrowhead striking the target, but by the fire enchantment releasing a gigantic explosion.
It was a gamble of a shot, yet Grakk’n knew that he had to take it. With the spider bodyguards’ reinforced armor, he had no chance of hitting the ice wraiths closest to him. But the Factory Core only had a handful of ice wraiths in its army, and each one it lost would be a major blow to its fighting effectiveness. To win this battle decisively, Grakk’n had to remove those ice wraiths from the equation.
He loosed the arrow and watched it arc high through the air, shooting upwards, reaching its apogee above the center of the Factory Core’s army, and then racing earthwards.
The ice wraith at the far end of the pack had certainly not anticipated such a long-range attack, and neither had its spider bodyguards. One of them noticed the incoming arrow at the very last second, and tried to rear up to take the shot. It was too late though, and the arrow zipped between the spider’s legs and smashed into the surprised ice wraith. There was a huge explosion and a billowing fireball. And when the fire and smoke cleared, nothing was left of the ice wraith but tattered, smoking shreds of cloak.
Grakk’n raised his bow triumphantly to the sky and bellowed out a vicious cry of victory. As a nearby ice wraith turned its ice energy on him, he ducked out of the way and charged around to the rear of his army, using his demons’ bodies as meat shields.
Once he was out of sight of any of the ice wraiths, he slunk and crept through the ranks of his ever-advancing forces, looking for another vantage point from which he could snipe a second ice wraith. He would take them out one by one, and then, when all of these blue-energy shooting bastards were wiped out, he would encircle the whole of the Factory Core’s army in a pincer like movement, and grind them to dust with his superior numbers. After that, Karak-Drang would be his to destroy.
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