Enough games ¯ we have important things to do."
"We'll call our dragon back!" Bryl said from a safe distance. He removed the Water Stone from where he had hidden it in his sleeve. The half-Sorcerer wrapped his fist around the sapphire, turning his knuckles white and letting a misty blue glow seep between them. It made him feel strong. He was a different person now than when Gairoth had tormented him before. "If I don't get you first."
Bryl's voice became shrill with anger and hatred. Delrael remembered what the ogre had done to the half-Sorcerer in the swamps, feeding him to the giant jellyfish in the cesspool, forcing him to teach how to use the precious Air Stone.
Gairoth turned to stare at him, then his single eye gleamed with excitement. He fumbled with the Air Stone in his crown and pulled down the diamond shaped like a four-sided die.
"More shiny rocks! Do more tricks, Magic Man!" The ogre stumbled forward, panting in his eagerness to snatch at the sapphire.
"This is the Water Stone, Gairoth! More powerful even than the Air Stone you possess."
The ogre slapped his thigh, leaving a wide red mark on his flaking skin. "Haw! Haw!"
Bryl spoke without his edge of confidence. "I warn you ¯ I am more than half Sorcerer. You are a corrupted bastard child born from a Sorcerer father and a stupid ugly ogre mother!"
Gairoth snarled at him. "You be nice to Maw! She loves Gairoth! Maw be mad if you say nasty things about her!"
Bryl squeezed the Water Stone, making it glow a brilliant, blinding blue. Then he rolled it on the ground. "Come on ¯ give me a three or better!"
The face glowing "3" gleamed on top.
Above them, a massive cloud curdled in the air like black milk. A rip of angry thunder buffeted their ears as a bolt of blue lightning lanced to the ground, blasting in front of Gairoth's feet. The sand turned to slag, and some of the wood shavings burst into flame. Gairoth howled and lurched backward.
All the other ogres jumped in simultaneous surprise, though the lightning had not struck near them.
"Give me the Air Stone, Gairoth. Now!" The thunder head still rumbled over them. "Take your mob of ogres and leave here! Give me the Stone, and I'll let you leave unharmed. But hurry, before I lose my temper!"
Bryl snatched up the sapphire, sliding his fingertips over the facets as if they were covered with oil. Two more bolts of lightning crashed down on each side of the ogre.
With a roar of fury, Gairoth flung the Air Stone on the ground. It bounced once into the air then dropped to the mulched tannery refuse. He also rolled a "3".
"Haw!" Gairoth snatched up the Stone and popped it back into the setting of his iron crown. He raised the spiked club over his head, gripping it with both hands, then he smashed it down on the ground.
As the club struck, the Air Stone gleamed like milky ice. Gairoth split into two identical ogres, each mirroring the other. With another roar, both ogres ¯ one real, one illusion ¯ brought their clubs down, splitting a second time and doubling their numbers. Four Gairoths, then eight, then sixteen.
"Haw! Haw!" all sixteen ogres bellowed, echoing their laughter from sixteen throats. The rest of the ogre army stood motionless, watching.
Delrael fidgeted, gripping his bow. Then he remembered how ineffective arrows had been when Tarne and the other villagers tried to defend the Stronghold against the invading ogres. Bryl scowled, bringing his eyebrows together. "You're not any stronger, Gairoth. Those are just illusions. Except one."
The mirrored ogres echoed their response. "But you needs to find the right Gairoth! Haw!"
Bryl had only three spells left.
Delrael pulled his bowstring tight and shot an arrow at one of the Gairoths, and the shaft passed through the illusion to strike against the far wall of the Stronghold stockade. He rapidly fired a second arrow, exposing another false ogre. "I can find the real one, Bryl ¯ all I have to do is hit him. You watch, and then do your stuff!" He bent to fire a third shot.
But the other three dozen ogres let out a battle cry and charged at Delrael, waving their gnarled clubs, spears, and massive swords. Delrael was startled but he ignored them for a moment more, firing a fourth arrow, striking one more imaginary Gairoth.
Delrael turned to face the oncoming ogres. He tried to back closer to the Stronghold wall, casting quick glances behind him to make sure he did not stumble. One of the broken stumps of the wooden sword posts got in his way, but he sidestepped it. He nocked an arrow and shot it at one of the approaching ogres. The shaft plunged into the monster's chest, but the ogre snapped it off with barely a grimace. The ogre batted away Delrael's second arrow as well. Delrael reached back into his quiver. He had only a handful of arrows left.
Bryl blasted right and left with lightning bolts, searching for the real Gairoth, but then the thundercloud dissolved and the spell was over. The illusion ogres milled about, making it difficult for him to remember which ones had already been exposed.
"Haw! Haw!" Gairoth could take the half-Sorcerer anytime, but he seemed to be enjoying the game.
Bryl cast the Water Stone again. He rolled a "1" and failed.
Delrael shot another two arrows, striking two different enemy ogres with little effect. The monsters pushed forward, swinging their weapons, moving with deliberate slowness. Some struck the ground with their weapons in a childish threatening gesture. They curled their lips into eager snarls, succeeding in making themselves even uglier.
Delrael bumped into the corner of the weapons storehouse. A shiver went down his spine as he remembered his personal training, the role-playing game, where he had fought against the worm-men to steal one of their sacred earth-gems. In that make-believe game he had died ¯ he didn't want to die again, not here, or anywhere.
The ogres kept coming.
Sixteen Gairoths lifted their spiked clubs, flexing muscles as strong as pulleys. They let out a volley of hideous, echoing laughter. "Haw! Haw!"
Rognoth heaved himself back out of the smashed wall of the village smokehouse. He ran a purplish forked tongue over his fangs, trying to sandpaper away some of the yellow scum. After snapping down five hams and a dozen or so hanging sausages, he didn't know how he could feel more satisfied.
Before fleeing the village with the rest of the characters, Lantee the butcher had packed his best cured meats and taken them into the forest retreat. But he had been forced to leave some of the hams, sausages, and sides of bacon in the smokehouse. The butcher and his wife had barred and hammered the door shut.
But in the hot and humid air, the delicate smells of meat drifted to Rognoth's sensitive nostrils. He had already devoured every edible thing in the Stronghold's two storage pits. Though he did not particularly care for grains or vegetables, he found them to be tolerable if consumed in massive quantities.
Fed properly for the first time in his life, Rognoth had grown enormously in the month he and his master had inhabited the Stronghold. His body had doubled in size and tripled in girth. When he walked, his belly dragged on the ground. His stubby, arthritic wings spread upward like the straining fingers of a dying man.
The dragon's neck had swelled enough that the rusty iron collar became a constrictive ring around his throat. Rognoth had been unable to breathe; he stumbled around in a daze, seeing black blotches in front of his eyes. Gairoth had finally wrenched the collar free with his two massive hands. The little dragon could now draw in lungfuls of air, feeding the sputtering furnace in his chest. He could smell the wonders of the world, especially the wonders hidden in the smokehouse.
Rognoth had not bothered with the bolted door, letting his clumsy momentum carry him through the wooden walls. Part of the roof fell down on top of him, and sausages tumbled from their ropes on the ceiling beams.
Two sausages and one ham beyond being comfortably fed, Rognoth lurched out of the shed, blinking his eyes in the afternoon sun.
"Rognos!" a second dragon bellowed. "Come here, you bad boy!"
Tryos soared overhead, beating his thunderous wings against the up
drafts, scouting the surface of the ground. He circled the stone-filled trench surrounding the hexagonal stockade wall, then glided down the slope of Steep Hill to skim over the village, dragging razor claws on thatched roofs.
With a whimper of terror and shock, the obese little dragon scuttled back into the smokehouse.
Tryos saw the movement and swooped down. "A-ha, Rognos! You disssgrace!" With a snap of his long neck, Tryos strafed the roof with a gout of flame. Lantee's smokehouse burst into roaring flames. Rognoth waddled away, urgently dragging himself from the burning wreckage.
"Sssuch a disssappointment! You are no dragon!"
Tryos swung around again with flames gushing from his mouth. Rognoth crashed through the split-rail fence around the butcher's corral for animals to be slaughtered. He galloped on stubby legs, scraping his belly on stones and weeds, and leaped into the shallow stream just as Tryos struck again.
Steam poured into the air and hot mud splattered upward. Some of the scales on the little dragon's back shattered from the heat.
Rognoth charged through the underbrush on the far side of the stream, into the hex of dense forest terrain. Above the forest, Tryos flew low, rustling branches as he grazed the tree tops. At odd moments Rognoth caught glimpses of Tryos up through the covering of leaves. The large dragon belched a wave of fire, clearing away the trees and leaving Rognoth naked and unprotected. "You should not have ssstayed with Gairos!" Tryos pulled up higher, for the deathblow.
Rognoth yelped and saw his last chance for escape. He pumped his stubby wings and launched his barrel-like body into the air. The little dragon zoomed across the treetops, fueled by the threat of flaming death. Rognoth shot forward with surprising speed, like a giant reptilian bumblebee.
Tryos used his great wings to push himself forward in pursuit. Barely able to fly at all, Rognoth could not perform elaborate evasive maneuvers. He flew northward in a straight line that, he hoped, would take him farther than Tryos was willing to follow. The gigantic vengeful dragon beat his wings but could not close with his little brother.
After more than an hour of dodging in the air, Rognoth was exhausted, but his will to survive kept the wings beating. Gravity tried to pull him crashing to the mattress of leaves and branches below.
Tryos, on the other hand, had been flying without rest for two and a half days, covering the immense distance from Rokanun to the Stronghold.
Panting and wheezing, Rognoth dropped low to the treetops of a hex of forested-hill terrain, trying to hide again. Tryos blasted the trees into cinders, but he had begun to lose his breath, and the flame was weak. Rognoth squealed miserably and forced his wings to fling him forward again, heading inexorably northward, as the hexagons of terrain flashed by under them.
Delrael backed against the splintered wall of the weapons storehouse.
The ogres converged on him. He had only six arrows remaining, but they had no effect anyway. He needed to find the way out ¯ Vailret said the Outsiders always made sure a situation had some solution.
But if the Outsiders knew of the quest to stop Scartaris, might they not just remove the troublesome characters once and for all?
Bryl struck another illusion Gairoth with a weak lightning bolt, but the one-eyed ogre guffawed. Bryl's third spell faded out, leaving him helpless again. He had only one spell remaining, one more roll of the Water Stone.
Delrael screwed up his courage and determination. He was the head of the Stronghold. He was supposed to keep the other characters protected. No matter what his father's orders said, no matter what the Rulewoman Melanie had told them, Delrael had failed in his most important job of keeping the villagers safe.
He made up his mind then. Gairoth was the main threat, not these other ogres. Without the one-eyed ogre to lead them, the others would never remain together. Within days, they would probably fight and kill each other off.
Tarne and the other villagers in the forests might be able to retake the Stronghold.
Bryl had one spell left against Gairoth. He might make the Water Stone count ¯ if he could only identify the real ogre among the illusions. And Delrael had six arrows.
Ignoring the advancing ogres, Delrael shot down the line, one arrow after the other, using the skill he had absorbed from years of training. He struck four illusion Gairoths, watching the arrows pass through them to skid against the dirt of the training ground. Then the fifth arrow stuck in the ogre's shoulder.
"Oww!" Gairoth howled, and his illusory counterparts flickered.
Bryl's eyes lit up with a surge of last desperate power. The Water Stone bucked in his hand, and he threw it to the ground. He didn't even look to see if his roll had been successful.
A ball of pale lightning appeared in the air, glowing and bobbing as it moved across the distance. Gairoth tried to duck, but the ball lightning popped against him, singeing his hair and blistering his skin but causing no real harm. Bryl had rolled only a "2". The ogre shouted in pain.
Delrael's wrist flowed as he reached up to snatch an other arrow out of his quiver ¯ his last arrow. The oncoming ogres had hesitated for a second.
He needed to deprive Gairoth of the rest of his power.
Delrael shot the last arrow.
The point struck the heavy iron crown with a thunk. The crown dropped to the ground and bounced on the packed earth. The Air Stone popped out of its mounting, gleaming on the ground.
The mirrored Gairoths winked out of existence, leaving the one-eyed ogre standing alone. Gairoth roared with pain and surprise.
Delrael could do nothing more. He cringed, then balled his fists. He waited for the rest of the ogre army to plunge forward to beat him with dozens of clubs, to stab him with spears and swords....
"Come on then!" he said, wishing the tears would stop glinting in his eyes and blurring his vision.
The oncoming ogres faltered, wavered in the warm afternoon air, and dissolved into nonexistence.
Illusions, every one of them.
Bryl dived forward, landing on his chest and scrabbling for the fallen Air Stone. Gairoth lurched at him, trying to grab the diamond for himself. But the old half-Sorcerer's fingers touched the facets of the diamond first; he snatched it up, tossed it across the field ¯ and he vanished, surrounded in an illusion of invisibility. The Air Stone also winked out of sight.
Delrael blinked in surprise. Only a moment before, he and Bryl had been facing two dozen ogres and sixteen identical Gairoths. Now, in the entire Stronghold, he could see only himself and the one-eyed ogre. And Delrael had only a sword.
Gairoth turned red with anger and frustration. His burned skin, already peeling and cracking from being too long away from the swamps, looked blistered and painful. He swung his club blindly in the air, furious with the world, wanting to strike something, punish something, kill something.
He saw Delrael standing alone by the weapons store house.
"We won, Gairoth. Fair and square. You'd better leave now." Delrael crossed his arms for emphasis, trying to appear tough.
"Delroth!" Gairoth thundered forward, his eye blazing. He ran forward with his club. His bare feet kicked up the mulched wood shavings. "You be dead meat!"
Delrael had no time to duck inside the storehouse for even another dagger. He stood, wishing he could run, wishing he could just defend himself better. He was a fighter. But he could not use bare fists against Gairoth's battering-ram club.
Before the ogre could swing his club down on Delrael's head, another pounding came from outside the stockade wall just behind the weapons storehouse. The pounding reverberated in the air, and Gairoth stopped as a hoarse woman's voice shrieked his name. "Gairoth! You deserve a spanking, Gairoth!"
The ogre dropped the end of his club, letting it thump against the ground. His mouth hung open, dumbfounded. Delrael was afraid to make a move toward the storehouse.
"Gairoth! Do you hear me, boy?" the harsh female voice demanded.
"Maw?" the ogre asked quietly, astonished.
A crash struck th
e double-walled barrier, and Delrael stared as the upright logs shuddered with the strain. Another crunch, and the wall buckled inward. The logs splintered, and the cement-hard mud between them sifted down.
A huge female ogre flung the broken logs aside as if they were toothpicks and strode into the Stronghold. One hamlike hand rested on her hip and the other held a flat-ended club that looked like an oar for a warship.
She had lumpy eyebrows perched on a jutting forehead, and her skin looked as smooth as gravel. Each breast seemed fully as large as her head, and probably contained as much cerebral matter. Her hair was long and ropelike, tied with an incongruous pink ribbon that looked like centuries-old Sorcerer silk. Her buckteeth bit down on flabby lips.
"There you be!" She cracked the flat end of her club against one leathery palm. Her mouth was huge and yawning when she spoke, making "Maw" seem a terribly appropriate name. "You gonna get a whopping like you can't imagine! Look at you! Playing high and mighty in a" ¯ she spat the word -" human place like this! Now get on home!"
Gairoth bowed his head and shuffled toward the torn hole in the wall.
But his Maw stormed forward, threatening to crack him with her club. "What you be, an animal? Go out through the front door! And to think I raised you! Such a disgrace!"
Sheepishly, the ogre turned instead to the massive gates, which Delrael now saw had never been smashed down at all ¯ yet another facet of Gairoth's Air Stone illusion. The ogre glared at Delrael, but his Maw smacked him for the delay.
Delrael listened to their stomping footsteps diminish down the hill path. Then he realized he was in total silence, alone in the Stronghold.
Everything was over, finished, the final turns taken.
Bryl winked into visibility beside him, grinning so broadly his wispy beard protruded from his chin and his wrinkles folded into themselves. He seemed exhausted but delighted. He held the Water Stone and the Air Stone in his hands.
"I thought you were out of spells," Delrael said. "You used four."
Bryl smiled. "When I have two Stones, my spell allowance is determined by a different table in the Book. I get a bonus, five spells each day instead of four. Gairoth didn't know that."
Gamearth Page 24