Dragon Alliance: Rise Against Shadow (55 page)

Gallanth was ready to strike again when the thunderclap of Ordin’s hammer struck one of the wounded giants in the back, snapping its vertebrae like a twig. An arrow from Elm hit a second giant in the side, knocking him away from Gallanth. Another crackle of lightning echoed as Lupek’s javelin struck still another giant in the shoulder. Toderan was running as fast as his mithril armor and shield allowed, with sword drawn to engage the first enemy he could get to. The gold dragon roared, spreading his wings, striking a giant and an ogre, sending the broken body of the ogre flying through the air and almost flipping the giant over. He then turned to face the chieftain.

Mkel fired a bolt at one of the ogres with too quick an aim, just winging it, but it was still enough to kill it. A follow-up arrow from Dekeen slew one of the wounded giants, which fell with a huge thud. Toderan had finally reached one of the giants, who turned and faced him. Ordin was just behind the group, not being the fastest runner with his short stubby legs, but managed to catch his hammer and move to fight another giant. Lupek reached the giant his javelin struck, recovering his weapon to the discomfort of the brute, and moved in to finish it off.

Gallanth faced the chieftain with a loud growl. The giant started to step back but then stopped, realizing there was no running now. He yelled and charged the dragon, swinging with his club. Gallanth raised his head, avoiding the club swing, and then lunged down in a blinding strike, biting down on the giant’s right arm. He crunched the bone while picking the brute up and flung him through the air, also tearing his arm off above the elbow in the process. He slowly walked over to the screaming giant as it rose to its feet. He deftly swiped it with his left claw, leaving deep slashes across its shoulder and chest.

He was now toying with the chieftain, as he knew giants liked to torture their victims. “Does it not feel good, giant chieftain, to be on the receiving end, like so many of your innocent victims?” Gallanth roared in giant tongue. The chieftain scowled through his pain in a last defiant expression, and then Gallanth struck forward with his huge jaws open. His thirty-six-inch-long fangs sunk deep into the giant’s chest and abdomen; the brute briefly struggled as he left his parting groan and gurgled as the purplish dark blood spurted from its hideous mouth. Gallanth lifted its lifeless body up and spit it to the ground.

Mkel turned and shot another ogre in the side; the explosion tore it in half. Ordin’s hammer fell heavily on a wounded giant’s knee, snapping it back with a sickly noise. Once it fell, he finished it off with a blow to its skull. Lupek thrust his javelin into another giant’s chest after it weakly missed him with its club. It fell back dead as Dekeen’s arrow struck one of the two ogres that was trying to attack Toderan from his back, easily slaying it, while a bolt from Mkel almost took the other ogre’s head off.

Toderan moved in and smote the giant he was facing with a powerful overhand swing that sliced his foe from its diaphragm to its pelvis. A paladin’s smite with his holy sword can be very deadly. The giant reeled back, grasping his deep wound as the dark blood poured out, but then it raised its club and moved to attack the paladin. His club rang down on Toderan’s shield, knocking it from his arm. If it had been anything but mithril, it would have crumpled under the incredible strength of the brute. Toderan then moved to the right, ducked the next swing from the giant’s club, and thrust his sword into the beast’s side between its ribs. The giant screamed and then fell with a dying gasp.

“Excellent job, gentlemen. Toderan, are you all right?” Mkel yelled.

“Just a little sore, that giant hit hard,” the paladin replied with a smile as he picked up his shield and sheathed his sword after wiping the giant blood off of the blade.

“Glad to hear it; take a breath before we go and help the legion. Ordin, I want you to come with me, I need someone to help Tegent watch my back,” Mkel said with a smile, for he knew Ordin only liked to fly on Gallanth, versus a griffon or winged horse. The dwarf smiled, walked over to Gallanth, and started to climb up to the rear seat on his flying rig. “I need a drink,” Mkel said as he pulled the canteen from his flying gear. The cooling crystal-chilled water was what Mkel needed, although a tankard of ale would have been good too. “Thanks for all your help,” Mkel continued.

“No, thank you and Gallanth,” Dekeen said with a smile, “there were a lot of giants, and we would not have fared well against so many.” Mkel gave a quick half salute as Gallanth bowed his head and shook off the injuries from the giants’ clubs.

“Gallanth, are you hurt?” Ordin asked the gold dragon as he climbed up to his saddle.

“I am fine, my good dwarf,”
Gallanth replied.

“The fight against the chromatics went well then?” Lupek asked Mkel.

“These demon dragons have incredible strength. That unnaturally enhanced red was almost as strong as Gallanth. I don’t think that we could have handled that wing by ourselves without Talonth and Strikenth. This increased cooperation among the chromatics is also disconcerting, for they were organized and fought with a ferocity that Gallanth hasn’t seen since the Great War,” Mkel replied.

“No time to contemplate it now, I want that Morgathian sorcerer captured after we see his army crushed,” Gallanth said with an angry tone to his normally deep commanding voice.

“All right, my friend, I’m loaded up and Ordin is ready,” Mkel answered his dragon. “Gentlemen, I’ll see you in the air.”

“Hold on, Master Dwarf,” the dragon spoke as he stretched his wings and launched into the air. Toderan, Dekeen, and Lupek then called for their mounts, who emerged from behind the ridge line and landed beside them.

“I was on my last two arrows. Mkel and Gallanth arrived just in time, thank the Creator. We owe them our lives,” Dekeen said to his companions who all agreed as they mounted their flying steeds.

General Daddonan dispatched a land dragon team to finish off the wounded black dragon that had crash landed some distance from the battle. This, along with the two he sent with Jodem to deal with the giant pod, had caused him to delay his order for a final push to break the enemy line. The behirs were falling fast in direct fang and talon fights with the land dragons, but with taking out four from the line, he did not have the strength for an all-out assault. He then called Colonel Reddit through his crystal and redirected his cavalry to head off this new giant threat from the east. He looked into his seeing crystal to view the battle between the Draden Weir crew, and now Gallanth and Mkel, with the giant clan. They let ten of the brutes get through but were in the process of killing the bulk of the beasts. Again he was glad they and the two silver dragons were here, or this battle would have been a certain defeat.

The cavalry commander had rallied his remaining forces, having just defeated Ashram’s cavalry and gnolls. He had almost all of his battalion minus the few that were killed or wounded from the first fight. His horsemen did not suffer very many casualties thanks to their speed and prowess along with the aid of the coordinated attacks by the dragons and hippogriffs. Daddonan then ordered Colonel Ronson to send two more land dragons to aid the cavalry with this new giant attack. Begrudgingly, the land dragon commander readjusted his remaining forces and sent another pair around to the left to join the cavalry to head off the giants. This stretched his forces even thinner, but they still had the upper hand.

As soon as the two land dragons joined the cavalry, they all oriented and charged toward the onrushing giants. They were immediately met with a hail of thrown rocks from the beasts, which seemed to focus on the land dragons; one took two hits, and the other took one. Four of the other seven rocks struck horses, killing or injuring them and their riders. They all continued their advance to rapidly close the distance between them and the giants to give the beasts minimal time to throw their boulders.

The cavalry flanked the two land dragons in their headlong charge toward their enemy. In spite of being up to fifty feet long, the well-muscled land dragons could keep up with horses for a short distance. Once within one hundred yards, they breathed jets of flame, striking two giants and engulfing them in the searing hot fire. The beasts roared as they fell to their knees and then collapsed. Five of the remaining giants managed to throw more rocks, two of which overshot the charging cavalry, one hit each dragon, and another hit a rider, killing him instantly. Two giants were then struck by ballistae spears from the land dragon crews; immediately afterward, they quickly secured the large crossbow-like weapons and grabbed their spears and short bows to prepare for a close fight.

The two groups collided, with the land dragons lowering their heads and delivering well-placed bites on two giants, pushing them to the ground. Two hundred cavalry riders streamed through the attacking giant pod, thrusting spears and lances into the forward giants. The lead brute received almost twenty spears, piercing his thick hide before he fell dead. All the remaining took at least five successful hits each as the cavalry thundered past them, for these horsemen were veterans at fighting giants. The large brutes did manage to hit five cavalrymen in the charge, killing one and wounding four, who were immediately picked up by their comrades and taken to safety.

The giants reeled from the shock of the cavalry charge but managed to regroup and attempt to attack the land dragons. Each dragon was rushed by three giants wielding their large clubs, while the seventh was headed off by a cavalry platoon. The remaining beasts were pulling the multiple spears sticking from them with their free hands. The first giant to reach the side of one of the land dragons was met by the point of a long spear from one of the crewmen along with an arrow in the chest from another. It snapped the spear in half, leaving one end stuck in its shoulder, and struck the dragon in the side with a thud against its greenish brown hide.

Another giant met the same treatment on the other side of the land dragon while the one attacking from the rear was hit with dragon’s tail, smashing it in the side and knocking the twelve-foot-tall brute to the ground. The dragon turned quickly to the left and sunk its jaws into the giant’s shoulder and threw it to the ground while striking the other giant with his tail, snapping its neck and killing it. The third giant had gotten up and struck the dragon in the hip with its club, causing it to roar in pain. One of the land dragon’s crewmen hit the giant with another arrow as the land dragon limped back a couple of steps away from it, to gain distance for a counterattack. Just then the cavalry came back, attacking the giant from the rear and finishing it off with multiple spears and arrow hits. The other wounded giant met the same fate.

The giants attacking the other land dragon met similar demise, with one being killed by the dragon and the other two finished off by the cavalry’s lances. The last standing giant was surrounded by the cavalry and the land dragons. It looked all around at the dozens of spears pointed at it and the two enraged land dragons. The lead paladin called in its own tongue for it to surrender. The protruding brow crumpled in a brief moment of contemplation. Being very cruel but cowardly by nature, the giant laid down its club and lowered its head in a sign of surrender. The injured beast was then escorted to the rear by the land dragons and the troop of cavalry.

The pod led by the mountain giant moved quickly toward the legion, weapons ready to crush anything in their path. Jodem raised his staff and fired a disruption ray at the mountain giant. The clever giant quickly pulled a smaller common giant in front of him to take the spell blast. The bright ray struck the common giant in the chest, wrenching his thick frame before it went limp. The mountain giant towered over his dead common giant type cousin, standing at least five feet taller. He then shrugged it to the ground with ease—attributing to his great strength, for only thunder giants and dragons were stronger than these creatures. He raised his nine-foot-long studded mace and continued the charge with the remaining six common giants.

When the two groups got to within a hundred yards of each other, the giants began to throw rocks and the land dragons breathed their line fire. Six rocks hurtled through the air as one common giant was struck by the cone of fire, searing him over half his body and killing him instantly. The other land dragon hit the mountain giant’s huge metal shield, which blocked the fiery blast, but both knocked it out of his large hands and partially melted it. Three rocks glanced off the land dragons, with the other three squashing five of the charmed orcs.

The land dragon crews fired two ballistae spears, which struck two of the lead common giants. Both grabbed the shafts and pulled them out of their midsections with roars of pain. As the two forces came together, the land dragons quickly struck two common giants with deadly bites, lifting them in the air and throwing them aside. The charmed orcs moved in and began to attack three of the other common giants with spears and swords. The mountain giant sprinted in quickly and struck one of the land dragons in the head with his mace, knocking it on its side. The four-man crew spilled out and quickly tried to recover themselves as their dragon roared in pain.

The giant raised his morning star to hit the injured land dragon again, but Jodem beat him to the strike and fired a sunburst beam at the evil brute, so as not to cause any collateral damage to the land dragon or its crew. The mountain giant raised his hand, enacting his spell shield and absorbing some of the power of the wizard’s light ray, but it knocked him back several feet as his magic force field gave way, and the remainder of the beam hit him in the chest.