DragonFire (27 page)

         
42
         

S
TIFF AS
S
TAKES

Bardon knew the stages of stakes, but since he had skipped the disease as a child, he hadn’t expected to be walking along peglegged as an adult. All of his joints were stiff, but his fingers and toes ached the worst. Flexible toes had not been toward the top of his to-be-thankful-for list. Now, if he got past this uncomfortable and inconvenient stage of the disease, he would express his gratitude for flexibility daily.

Five minutes with his dear wife and Gymn would undo all the swelling and also unbend his joints. But he didn’t know where she was. She and her father’s mission wouldn’t lead them to a specific place where he could send a message. He had no specific destination that he could use a gateway to reach. So frustrating when a brief visit would certainly be welcome.

He hobbled through the nearly deserted camp. Troops had been assigned to help with the eradication of quiss as they came ashore. Others had been sent with volunteer kimens to build and secure grawlig traps. Sir Dar and Lady Allerion had gone off to investigate a report of Burner Stox’s army of grawligs deserting her forces and joining Crim Cropper. Leetu Bends and Latho took on the same mission, only working from within the enemy camps.

Bardon’s load had lightened briefly when he saw Leetu disguised as Latho’s wife. The embellishments to the emerlindian’s trim figure were arranged by courtesy of Lady Allerion’s wizardry. But even laughter at his friend’s expense cost him the pain of jarring muscles.

No laughter lit his eyes now. He’d been left behind and “in charge” of the base.

Most of his work consisted of shuffling paperwork. As far as commanding the troops, this morning he had ordered his unfortunate batman to tie his shoes. Bardon couldn’t even tie his own laces in the aftermath of stakes. And no one knew if this condition would be permanent or not. “It depends upon the individual,” Lady Allerion had said, with a voice too full of sympathy.

To get away from the depressing reports coming in to headquarters, Bardon decided to take a walk. Perhaps the exercise would be good for his stiff joints. Leecent Voet trailed behind him.

“Do you think I don’t know you’re back there?” Bardon asked. He couldn’t turn his head enough to toss the question over his shoulder.

“Of course not, sir.”

“What are you going to do? Pick me up if I fall over?”

“Something like that, sir.”

“Well, come up here and walk beside me. I’d rather see you than hear your footsteps behind me.”

“Yes sir.”

They passed the domestic tents and wives of the men out on patrol. Most of the women stopped their chores to give the passing knight a curtsy. Children halted in their running and jumping to give stiff bows and wobbly curtsies. Voet waved and grinned at the tykes, even reaching out to tousle the hair of boys who ran up for a closer look. Bardon tried not to grimace as he bowed slightly to acknowledge their greetings.

He sighed with relief when they passed the last tent.

“My knees and elbows are better, Leecent.”

“I’m glad to hear it, sir.”

“Perhaps you won’t have to mollycoddle me forever.”

“I never thought that would be the case, sir.”

“Do you have to call me ‘sir’ in every sentence?”

“Yes sir.”

Bardon glanced over to see a big grin on his batman’s face. “You enjoy giving me a hard time, don’t you?”

“Well, sir, it’s just that I have brothers, sir. And giving you a bit of a tease comforts my soul, sir.”

“I see.” Bardon turned down a path that would lead them to the river. “I wouldn’t want to stand in the way of your soul’s comfort.”

“Exactly, sir.”

They walked toward the water’s edge. At this point of the river, the water flowed slowly between wide, grassy banks. Large bentleaf trees created cool, shady groves. Bardon shivered as they entered one stand that stood back from the water.

“The most disturbing news I hear,” he said, “is the reports of mordakleeps. We have plans in motion to handle the quiss and grawligs, but the mordakleeps are attacking at random, and there’s no way to predict where they’ll strike next.”

“Yes sir. And therefore, no way to put up a defense.”

“And our men are stretched and scattered as it is. If we could have more men enlist from other parts of Amara…”

“Paladin has sent out recruiters, sir.”

“I know.”

“That’s how me and my brothers heard. That’s why we signed up.”

Bardon wanted to clap the boy on the shoulder but could not make his arm obey his desire. “Not all men see the need as you and your brothers do. Many think the danger will pass. Or that someone else will take care of it.”

The batman shook his head. “We had a battle between Pretender and Burner Stox in our own fields and pastures, sir. The armies killed each other and our animals as well. What they didn’t destroy during the battle, they carried off as plunder. It broke my da’s heart. He would have gone off to fight, but he’s too old and crippled, sir.” The boy’s voice faltered on the word “crippled.”

“Just as I am, Leecent?”

“No sir. Yours is temporary because of an illness. His is permanent due to old age. You’ll get better, sir.”

“I certainly hope so.” They took a few more steps along the path. “And I’m sorry for your loss, Voet.”

“It’s all right, sir. We couldn’t go back to farming right away, seen as how the damage of the battle worried the soil some. But Da says to give the land a rest of a season or two, and the ground will be better than ever for planting.”

“Your da sounds like a wise man.”

“Yes sir. He also said he’d be raising no livestock for those monsters to come by and steal.”

“Another wise move.”

“Yes sir. So my ma’s flock of chickens and poultry-birds are living out in the woods, going wild, but still producing eggs and meat for the family that’s still at home.”

They passed out of the trees in silence and ambled along the path on the broad bank of the river. Fatigue began to nibble at Bardon’s strength. He needed to return to camp and rest. Perhaps he would take a nap.

What an excellent warrior I am! What a marvelous leader of men!
He realized his self-mockery.
“Do not favor Pretender with the honor of quoting his lies.”
The principle calmed his exasperation.

The batman’s sword rasped lightly as it came out of the sheath. Bardon jerked at the sound, sending a wave of pain through his neck. The sight of three mordakleeps standing in the shallow water gave his heart a twist. He and Voet stood feet away from the river’s edge and imminent danger.

The middle mordakleep raised the lower part of his body and put what almost looked like a foot on dry land. Voet slashed downward and pierced the appendage. The dark flesh sizzled and drew away from the cut. The monster lifted his body out of the river.

The leecent waved his sword in front of him. “To arms, men. Attack!”

Bardon gave him a sharp look that went unseen. He marveled at the batman’s naiveté but didn’t want to distract his only protector. Instead, he groused to himself over their predicament.

Our men won’t hear you, boy. Or, was that for the benefit of our visitors? Do you think they would assume that more soldiers will arrive any minute? Do you think the prospect would scare them? You are so young. Too young to die.

Bardon looked again at Voet’s earnest expression. He would be a leader for this raw recruit. “You know to slice off their tails?”

“Yes sir. Of course, sir.” He paused. “Their tails are on the wrong side, sir.”

“I’ll bait one and draw it past you. You make your move right after it passes.”

“Yes sir.”

“And watch your back while you’re doing it.”

“Yes sir.”

“Wulder, protect us.”

“Yes sir. I mean…well, I do mean, ‘Yes sir.’”

“Step back three paces.”

The leecent followed the command, and before the mordakleep could advance, Bardon hobbled in front of his batman. The dark beast turned to follow the crippled prey. Voet sliced downward and severed the tail. Its body dissolved, leaving a splotch of goo on the grassy bank.

Leecent Voet stood staring at the spot as it quickly soaked into the ground. “I’m going to be sick.”

Bardon panted as he shambled back. “Nonsense. It’s no worse than wringing a chicken’s neck. You’ve done that before, haven’t you?”

“Yes sir, I have. But I’m wondering if you have. The two don’t compare at all.” He paused. “Sir.”

“Get ready. Here comes the next.”

Bardon made his tottering run in front of the water monster. Voet took in a deep breath, held on to the air in his lungs with a grimace on his face, and released the breath in a great rush when he made the deathblow to the second mordakleep.

Wheezing with one arm pressed against his side, Bardon returned. “One more.” He gasped.

“I don’t think so,” a gruff voice interrupted.

Bardon and Voet turned. Five bisonbeck soldiers in a semicircle cut off their escape. Bardon checked the water’s edge to be sure the mordakleep was not taking advantage of the distraction to sneak up on them. The water rippled where the monster had submerged.

“Drop your sword, boy.”

Voet looked at Bardon. Bardon nodded. The weapon thudded on the grass.

“Your weapon, too, Sir Bardon.”

“I can’t reach it,” he said.

The bisonbeck motioned Voet to remove the sword from Bardon’s belt sheath. The batman complied.

“Now, you’re coming with us.”

“Where?” He chafed at the situation.
I don’t suppose I could talk you pretty-faced messengers out of this little trip, since I surely can’t fight my way out of this mess.

“Master Crim Cropper wishes to speak to you.”

Ah no, there will be no talking you out of disobeying Master Cropper. There’s no escape, and I don’t want Voet playing the hero. He’d just get killed.

He stepped forward, indicating he would come peacefully.

Voet came too, staying at his side.

A soldier raised the blunt end of his weapon. “Not you.” He brought it down, whacking Voet’s head. The boy sank to the ground.

Bardon objected, “That’s—”

Pain exploded at his temple, and he fell. He knew he hit the ground. He knew Voet’s body lay beside him. He knew he was losing consciousness and fought to keep his senses. But in another moment, he knew he couldn’t keep the darkness at bay.

         
43
         

F
ROM THE
W
IZARD’S
L
AIR

Bardon became aware of the stench first, the scuttling of animals next, then the haze in the room that diminished the lights, and the muttering man last. Bardon’s head hurt, and he couldn’t move. He slid his eyes to one side, and even that caused pain.

The muttering man stood by a wooden worktable cluttered with papers, books, jars, boxes, and a vase full of feathers. He wore a shabby wizard’s robe and a pointed hat that drooped around the brim. As Bardon watched, the tip of the point fell over and hung down in front. The wizard brushed his hand upward through the air, and the point stood up again. Although he’d never seen him before, Bardon guessed this was Crim Cropper.

A short servant shuffled toward the wizard on overlarge feet. The man could have been a tumanhofer, but something odd about him made Bardon believe he was not. He wore a good suit of clothing, befitting his station, but of finer cloth and better condition than the wizard’s.

He stopped a few feet away from Crim Cropper and clasped his hands behind his back. He laced one hand’s fingers with the other hand’s. His knuckles turned white. “Master Cropper, I’ve sent the messages you requested.”

The man didn’t look up from where he wrote in a book. “You’ve had answers already, Prattack?”

“No, Master.”

“Then go away until you have.”

The servant didn’t speak, and his face didn’t show that he had any reaction, ill or fair, to this rude response. He turned and started away. His eye fell on Bardon. “He’s awake, Master.”

“I know.”

Prattack shuffled out of the room. Bardon heard his dragging gait, then the creak of a door opening, then closing, and the bolt click as it was set.

He waited. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. He ached, but not as much as when he first woke. He forced his eyes to move in a full circle, trying to determine the various factors of his situation.

No bars surrounded him. No guards stood over him. No windows offered a clue as to the time of day. And he suspected the deplorable smell came from a series of three vats along one wall. Each one bubbled, and the two outside vats gave off a colored steam, one green and the other a purple brown. Bardon figured this accounted for the haze in the room.

The man at the bench underlined something, closed the book, and put his pen in a holder with assorted other writing instruments. “You won’t be much use to me.”

He picked a box out of the disarray before him and walked to a row of cages. He didn’t bother to look Bardon’s way. Bardon, however, was pleased that he could shift his eyes more comfortably and follow the wizard’s movements. As the man turned, Bardon viewed his profile. Crim Cropper’s full beard reached almost to the floor. He’d braided his mustache from the corners of his mouth down to where the tips brushed the hem of his robe.

Crim Cropper opened a small feeding door in the side of the cage and poked something from the box into the opening. He hastily withdrew his fingers and shut the wire-woven flap, then moved on to the next enclosure. “But it feels good to have you helpless and in my power. Revenge.”

Bardon tried to process this information. Why would having him imprisoned give Cropper the pleasure of revenge? He wanted to ask the question out loud, but his mouth still refused to open. He realized he was thirsty.

“I shall make sure that your wife knows I have you and that you are dying slowly and in a most humiliating manner.”

Oh, Kale isn’t going to like this. I don’t think I shall like it either.

Having fed whatever animal dwelt in the next cage, the wizard moved to the third in the row. “I’ve thought of rodents nibbling away at you while you can’t move. But you would die too quickly.”

Wulder, protect me from death at all, quickly, slowly, whatever. But if it is my time, I prefer quickly.

Crim Cropper finished feeding the animal in the last cage, the thirteenth by Bardon’s count. “Then I realized I didn’t have to put all of my mutant rats in with you. Just three or four.”

Not comforting information at all.

A second and third row of cages were stacked on top of the first. The wizard walked slowly back, feeding the creature in each enclosure, sometimes speaking to them, saying, “Soon, soon. Be patient.”

He continued to talk to Bardon as he strolled through the feeding routine. “You’re wondering why I would seek revenge? Why I would target your wife? Because your wife took my wife, and it is only fitting that I should take her husband.”

He fed an animal that hissed. “Be quiet. You don’t impress me.”

He sighed and put his hand under his beard in the general vicinity of his heart.

If he has a heart. This all seems melodramatic to me. I no longer wonder if this man is sane.

“Burner Stox,” said Cropper, with another sigh. “No female compares to her. Intelligent. Cunning. Masterful. When she walked into the room, the air crackled with her power.”

He stood still with a faraway look in his eye and a smile brightening his dark visage. “Burner Stox understood my work. She, and only she, knew the depths of my secrets. She went with me to the lower levels and marveled over my creations.

“She laughed and named them for me. I never bothered to name them, but she delighted in finding just the right-sounding words to describe each and every creature, every living, breathing, functioning organism developed purely and simply from my handiwork.”

Bardon found it odd that Crim Cropper talked to him but never looked his way. He pointedly avoided the sight of Bardon, the man he held trapped in his laboratory.

That’s all right, Wizard Crim Cropper. I’d rather not be looking at you.

The tip on the wizard’s hat again fell forward. He waved it into its proper position once more. “You’re wondering about our latest difference of opinion. A minor disagreement. Normal husband-wife tension.” He scowled and spoke through clenched teeth. “She would have come back. She always came back.”

Crim Cropper stared at the door for a moment as if he thought she might actually appear. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and continued his soliloquy.

“My Burner Stox. Such a dominant, vigorous, formidable personality required some measure of freedom. Her beauty, her attraction, rose out of her vibrant character. Burner Stox could accomplish anything she desired. And she chose me to be her partner. She supported me and my research. She put aside her personal ambitions to nurture my amazing talent.”

Crim Cropper opened his eyes, and his face became tense, his voice rising in pitch. “She was my inspiration. The months she’s been away have tortured me. Now, your meddlesome wife has murdered my guiding star. Kale Allerion has made the unbearable separation permanent.”

The wizard’s head jerked around, and his eyes fell on his victim at last. “Do you know what I’m going to do? Something very practical, I think. I have no further need of my laboratory animals, the mutants I’ve created, the resulting specimens of my genius. Every experiment I’ve conducted had one ultimate purpose—for me to hear my Burner Stox exclaim with delight. So what should I do with the creatures I no longer need?

“In the past, I’ve taken one or two and deposited them here and there in regions of Amara. Burner Stox and I used to be entertained by the havoc that our little friends could create in just a few days. But this time, I shall open all the doors.”

He placed his hands behind his back and wove his fingers together. Staring up at the ceiling, he rocked back and forth on his feet. In rhythm to the swaying, he clasped and unclasped his hands. Bardon thought the wizard had entirely forgotten his prisoner until a small smile tipped his mustache.

Cropper’s words flowed from his mouth in a soft coo. “And then, just because my star would have laughed at the resulting panic, I am going to incite my dark minions, the evil sprites of the earth.”

Crim Cropper again looked at Bardon. He cocked his head and grinned, white teeth showing through the dark beard. “My blimmets and schoergs. Under my command, because Pretender didn’t bother to cultivate them. But I am not so shortsighted.

“I’ve won the respect and the obedience of the schoergs. I’ve trained the blimmets to follow a sound and surface where I want them to. I’ve fiends for messengers. Evil fiends who relish in doing mischief.” He turned away and turned back. “And the mordakleeps. Let’s not forget the mordakleeps. We know how helpful they can be now, don’t we?”

He strode to the door, his body quivering with energy. “Prattack!”

The stunted servant appeared as if he had been just around the corner.

“We’re taking our guest down to our lower levels. I want him to see the creatures who will destroy his world.”

Prattack trudged across the stone floor, grabbed Bardon, and hoisted his dead weight onto his broad back.

With one arm slung over the servant’s shoulder and one leg held in a viselike grip against the other shoulder, Bardon watched the floor as they traveled to a stairway. His knuckles scraped against the rough stone, but Bardon could not lift his arm any more than he could turn his neck to see ahead.

The odor of animal waste increased with each jarring step down the stairs. Cages rattled, creatures barked, howled, and snarled. Prattack’s breathing wheezed in and out with increasing difficulty as they proceeded down the stairwell.

They reached a dimly lit dungeonlike chamber.

“Open the portals,” Wizard Cropper commanded.

Prattack dropped his burden and shuffled away. A draft of cold, clean air swept over Bardon. He breathed in deeply. The movement freed his neck from the stranglehold of stiffness.

Bardon forced his knees to straighten, then pulled them back to the curled position in which he had landed on the floor.
I thought this rigidity came from some spell by Crim Cropper. Perhaps it is part of the stakes.
He worked to get his arms to move but with little success.

The sound of metal latches lifting, crate doors opening, and the scurrying of feet drew Bardon’s attention. A slight shift of his neck accompanied the movement of his eyes. A blur of creatures passed before him. Fur, feathers, and scales. Claws and talons. Sharp beaks and pointed teeth. Growls, snaps, howls, roars, snarls, and screeches. Scuttling, slithering, racing toward the outside. Following the flow of fresh air.

The stampede lasted longer than Bardon could fathom. Then he realized that Prattack must have gone down to another layer and opened cages there, for some of the creatures came out of a dark stairwell.

Thank you, Wulder, that I was dropped on the sidelines. I would hate to encounter even one of these monsters.

A laugh cackled over the noise of mass exodus. Bardon shifted his neck enough to view Wizard Cropper sitting on a raised dais on a throne-like massive chair.

“What do you think?” The question shrieked over the clatter of hooves as a herd of larger animals climbed the stairs and headed for freedom. “Do you think my pets are merely going outside to play for a while in the sunshine and then return? No! I’ve built gateways to each region of Amara. They are dispersing throughout this miserable land.”

Another wave of creatures passed. “Do you think I want to rule the world? Ha! What good would it do me to gain the world, since I have lost my Burner Stox?” Cropper’s voice dropped to a mutter as smaller animals skittered through the chamber. “Rule the world? No. Destroy the world? Yes.” He laughed again. “What do you think? I will tell you what to ponder upon, Sir Bardon. My genius has bred into my creations only one common characteristic.”

He sneered, his curled lip lifting one side of his mustache. Bardon shivered.

“None of my creatures are friendly. They all revel in killing, in blood, in screams, in choking and rending the life out of their victims. A suitable gift for me to leave your world, isn’t it, Sir Bardon?” He enunciated each word with obvious satisfaction. “Don’t you agree, Sir Knight in service to Paladin, unfortunate husband of Kale Allerion?”

Bardon closed his eyes and tried to block out the maniacal laugh of the demented wizard.