A Dragon at Worlds' End (44 page)

After the initial panic had settled, Zulbanides had ordered a census taken of the lords who were present, and of their retainers. There were more than three hundred lords and a thousand servants. A third of the Thousand, in fact, drawn to the board that night by the dramatic play of Old Pitz, engaging Flannimi with Strengths and Leapers. They had a comforting sense of their own numbers. They were a strong group, but Zulbanides knew they were also a large group to feed on the available resources.

Unless, of course, they wished to eat the pap that was fed to the slaves of the mind mass. For beneath the board dwelled the mind mass and the access way lay through the hall of the Game. Of course the thought of eating pap never even occurred to Zulbanides or Rasion.

Zulbanides addressed the leading members of the Tendency first. There was a brief discussion and then agreement. It was a dark and dangerous path, but it would provide them with a force with which to tackle this kebbold.

They passed out the word, first in a meeting with the top six Cabal members present. The idea was accepted. Golgomba was the only answer. And they would act soon, because they had no food and the situation was intolerable.

Meanwhile, down below, in the passage between the gates and the atrium, the Ardu took turns to rest. A few even managed to snatch a few minutes of sleep. The dragon, furiously hungry now, hid out by the gates where he could see the city, the lake, and the open plaza below. Guards had appeared on the plaza in considerable numbers. Elf lords clad in blue and silver armor appeared and harangued the guards.

Bazil was glad of the breather, but he remained very hungry. Worse, things had not gone as planned. The attackers were trapped between two forces. By the fiery breath, he had never imagined that there might be portcullises. Just get to the gates had been his thought, and it'd been wrong. The only thing in their favor was that they had the Game lords trapped on the other side of the portcullises. There was only one way in or out of the Pyramid of the Game. Unfortunately, they could not shut the pyramid gates, since the operator had broken off the long keys inside the mechanism. The doors could not even be pushed shut, since they were controlled by immense gears, all governed by those keys. The whole thing would have to be taken apart to remove the key. Neither the Ardu nor the wyvern dragon had the skills or even the tools to begin such a task. Thus they were left with gates propped halfway open.

Bazil surmised that the elf lords down there in the plaza would realize there was some kind of problem. It would not take them too long, he imagined, to decide to try a frontal assault.

Bazil could not see it, but from the diminution of the sound coming from the southeastern end of the city he was sure the rioting had died down somewhat. The caravans had burned out in the commercial road, although there were still a number of buildings ablaze. The smoke was still rising into the night air. A lot of rioters had participated in breaking into the wine shops and were reeling around the gutters now, singing and shouting incoherently. At the city gates things had settled into a contest of rock throwing and archery. Guards held the city gates. The mob threw rocks at them, the guards occasionally sent an arrow down. Bazil imagined that reinforcements would soon be brought from the riot area to assault the pyramid gate.

His thoughts turned briefly to the captives they'd taken. They might prove worthwhile as hostages. They had five elf lords and twenty servants, some of them Ardu.

The servants were too terrified to raise their eyes from the ground. They could hardly even respond to the Ardu. The elf lords were haughty at first, until one or two had been knocked to the ground and kicked around a bit by vengeful Ardu. Disgusted with the cravenness of the servants, the Ardu herded all of them together into the gate control room.

There was a stir of movement down at the bottom of the stairs. A horn blew and a single man, wearing a helmet and leather armor, came up the stairs holding a white flag of truce. He reached the top of the stairs and came to a halt.

"I bring a message from the Lords Tetraan." He spoke Ardu with a harsh accent.

"Advance to the gate," said Bazil. "We will not slay you."

Captain Katun stepped forward warily. The gates were half closed. He could not see into the shadows until he stepped right into the center. Then he almost jumped out of his skin. A huge kebbold was standing there, hidden from view. Beside the kebbold stood an Ardu girl, and behind her were a number of Ardu men, some of them of impressive size. They would fetch good money in the slave market.

"Who is your leader?" said Katun.

"I am," said Bazil without a second's hesitation.

Katun's eyes popped and he went into a kind of dragon freeze. He sputtered, completely flabbergasted. After a half minute Bazil leaned over and poked the man with a talon.

Katun came alive, wide-eyed, face taut, spewing obscenities in Mirchazese.

"Speak Ardu," said Bazil.

Katun swallowed and took a couple of deep breaths. "I had not expected to be addressed by a kebbold."

"By the fiery breath of the ancestors, I am not a kebbold, any more than you are an ape!"

"How…" said Katun weakly. "Who…" He failed to finish.

"What do you want?" said Bazil.

Katun got a grip. "The lords wish to parlay with you. Do you have a list of demands?" Katun spoke to the Ardu; he still couldn't accept that a kebbold would speak.

"We have two demands," said Bazil firmly. "First we demand you free a captive. A boy taken in the Ardu country. He is dragonboy, my dragonboy."

Katun breathed an oath. That damned kid had told all these stories and Katun had never believed a word of it. Katun didn't know how they'd scared everybody out of their wits with a pujish, but he knew that pujish could not be tamed; they were simply too elemental—too stupid, perhaps. Pujish always ended up eating their handlers. But what was this thing that looked like a kebbold and yet spoke language?

"You did all this just to get back Relkin?"

"Relkin! You know my boy?"

Katun realized it was time to dissemble. "Yes, I met him."

"Relkin lives?"

"As far as I know. It is complex to tell. Are you capable of understanding?"

"I don't know… are you?"

"Yes."

"Then I think I will manage."

Katun swallowed again. Never had he dreamed that things would come to this. He described the great, glorious universe of the magic of the elf lords. He spoke of the whirling magical worlds, all created by the power of the mind mass. Somewhere, one elf lord had made a world and hidden it so cleverly that none could find it. It was suspected that that was where Relkin was.

"If they have harmed boy, they will pay," growled the dragon. Katun quailed. The dragon was leaning forward on that scabbarded sword. The scale of the sword struck Katun, who was highly familiar with swords of many types. He blanched at the thought.

Bazil spoke again. "That is first demand. The second is this: The slave raids in the Ardu land are over. If anyone ever comes to the Ardu land again for slaves, they die. And I will come back here and kill those responsible."

"I will tell them. They asked me to beg you to spare the boards and the sweet lords of the Game. They have raised great beauty in their worlds. Do not harm them!"

"None have been harmed. All are alive."

"Can we speak to them, to be assured that they are alive?"

"No."

"Will you release them?"

"No. Go now, tell your masters what I say. Tell them forest god has come to Mirchaz. Things will change."

Katun returned to the bottom of the stairs. Several lords of the Tendency were waiting. He told them of Bazil's demands.

"A talking kebbold. 'Tis extraordinary."

"We do not have the boy! This is the same damned boy everyone was looking for because they thought he was the Iudo Faex."

"No one knows where he is."

"Mot Pulk has him."

"Nobody knows where Mot Pulk is, either. Probably on his hidden Game world."

"Then he can only be found by going through the Game board."

"How can we do that when the kebbold holds the gate?"

"They hold the gate, but perhaps not the rest."

"The kebbold does not have control of the Game board."

"The portcullises, they dropped the portcullises…"

"That is a comforting thought."

A few minutes later the guards were given the order to assault the gates.

Bazil saw the guards mass for an assault on a front ten wide and ten deep.

The elf lords had seen through the attackers' position. Perhaps there was a way for the elves inside to communicate with the elves outside. Or else something he had said had given it away. Damn! The dragon just was not wily enough to fool men.

Now they would have to fight. Unless the hostage option would work. He called for the captive elf lords to be brought out.

Quickly they were dragged out and displayed.

"Stop the attack and go back or we will kill these lords."

The guards came to a halt. Messengers ran up and down the stairs to the group of lords bunched at the bottom. Captain Katun was sent up to investigate. He reported back a few moments later. Five lords were being proffered as hostages. None were of higher rank than the eighth hundred, none had connections to the Tendency.

This confirmed the suspicions of the elf lords. The Ardu rebels had not secured the pyramid; they merely held the gate. The need to recapture the pyramid was paramount. A third of the Thousand was trapped in there. The lives of a handful of the eighth and ninth hundred were light in the balance in comparison.

Katun returned to the top and ordered the attack to begin.

Bazil realized his bluff was called. He ordered the elf lords shoved back into the gatehouse. He and the Ardu readied themselves for battle with a collective rasp of steel as they drew their swords and took up the slain guards' shields and spears.

As they did so, in the heart of the pyramid, in a chamber above that of the great board, the lords of the Tendency were at work on the dread magic from the Old Red Aeon known as Golgomba.

A struggling servant, firmly gagged to prevent screams from breaking the general concentration, was bound over an altar. Words of power were recited by the group in unison. They reached out to the mind mass and established a connection by which to draw strength for their spell.

Zulbanides took up a sharpened knife and cut the servant, sending his blood running into a copper pan. The pan was then passed among the elf lords, who took sips of the blood to imbibe the slave's spirit.

Then Zulbanides cut out the slave's eyes, followed by his tongue, lips, and ears. Finally, Zulbanides cut the throat and the death energies gave power to the lords' dread spell. The room rocked, a sulfurous stench thickened the air, and the sense of imminence began to build.

At the gate, battle began before dawn. The guards were seasoned mercenaries who had seen combat all over the southern part of the continent of Eigo, and many had experience dealing with kebbolds. But none had ever confronted a battledragon of Argonath. Thus, they were perhaps a little overconfident at first and made painful mistakes.

First they lit torches and set them at the edge of the platform, as archers took position along the top step. Spearsmen came in at a run, chanting a motto to inspire themselves as they chugged up the steps and started toward the gate. Bazil waited in the deeper shadows behind the gate until the last moment, so as not to expose himself to arrows and spears more than he had to. Then, as they began to bunch in front of the gate, he stepped out smartly and swung Ecator through the first rank at waist height.

Two tried to parry with their oblong shields. The shields were good ones, of steel on wood lapped with leather, but against Ecator at full power they parted and their owners were sent directly to hell in a spray of blood. Screams and cries of horror accompanied a mass drop to the ground by the rest of the first rank, all except for a fellow at the end who tried to jump and lost his legs just above the knees. The second rank jammed to a stop; some men fell down, and then rebounded and crashed into the third rank.

Ecator was just as quick on the backstroke and two more guards were cleft in twain, sending clouds of bloody viscera flying. The survivors of the front rank bolted back into the mass behind, which was bunching badly now and had slowed to a halt a good thirty feet from the gate. Bazil towered there in the mouth of the gate, that huge sword stained red. Lit by the savage fire of the torches, it was a terrifying sight. Then arrows flashed toward him and he stepped back into the shadows.

The guards were left shaking their heads, not looking at each other.

"Come on, you cowards," roared one of their leaders, a giant from Nuzt with a great battle-ax in his hands.

"Hasmone!"

"Hasmone will go up against the dragon!"

The guards took heart, sorted themselves out, and set off at a walk for the gate. Behind them the bowmen took aim. They pressed in on the gate, the long spears at the ready in front, with mighty Hasmone slightly ahead, waving his battle-ax. And then the darkness of the gate disgorged a line of robust Ardu, armed with swords as well the usual clubs. Some had taken up the shields of fallen guards.

The shock of impact rang out over the lake. Weapons of all sorts were instantly at work in a mad hacking, stabbing, ripping fight at close quarters. The Ardu had learned a few things about close-order combat with edged weapons. Both sides took casualties, but the Ardu were the clear winners. Hasmone struck down an Ardu, Lea of the Red Rock, before being gutted by a backhand strike from Norwul. A half dozen other guards were down by then, as were two Ardu stabbed through with spear and sword.

The floor of the pyramid gate was slippery with blood. The bodies of the slain covered the terrace. The Ardu fought with barely controlled fury. The guards could stand it no further and they broke back and withdrew. Again the archers struck and Usad of the Yellow Canyon went down and moved no more. The Ardu pulled back behind the gates, taking with them a valuable haul of spears and shields. But its value was not as much as that of Usad, or Lea or Usogon, who were now gone forever.