DW01 Dragonspawn (26 page)

“You’re sure the treasure will be in the tower room?” Bagsby asked for what Shulana thought must be the hundredth time.

“Of course. Any wizard would put it there, under heavy magical guards—fire traps, stones that strike you dead when you step on them, other things I may not know of.”

“Good!” Bagsby exclaimed. “Then we go tonight! All we need is a length of rope.”

“But ‘ow? ‘Ow we gonna get in and out?” George asked.

“Like I said,” Bagsby taunted, “we’re going to walk in the front door and take what we want.”

The night was dark with little light provided by the sliver of a moon that hung on the horizon. Bagsby, George, and Shulana sneaked out of the woods into the meadow that surrounded the hill atop which Lundlow Keep was set. The tallness of the grass aided them as they approached the front of the hill. The castle itself, a small stone keep dominated by its sixty-foot round tower, loomed ahead like an indomitable fortress. George still had little understanding of the plan, and Shulana had grave doubts, but Bagsby moved forward with quiet confidence, stopping only once when he had to pinch his nose to stop a sneeze, for he had a shoot of grass up one nostril.

Stealthily the trio crept past the outer sentries, who hardly took their duties seriously. The damp earth stained their cloaks and tunics as they crawled on their bellies and inched their way slowly up the hill toward the main door. Bagsby was glad to see that their observations of the past few days were correct; the door was not locked. Men of the garrison moved freely in and out past the two guards posted at the doorway.

The thieves crawled up to within twenty yards of the door. They could hear the quiet conversation of the guards carried on the night air. George crawled up close beside Bagsby and whispered, “What now?”

“Wait for Marta,” Bagsby mouthed back.

The wait was not long. From beyond the opposite side of the castle Marta ran into the open field, screaming at the top of her lungs.

“Thieves! Murderers! Cutthroats!” she shouted. “There’s one, there, on the castle wall! He’s going up the castle wall!”

The woman’s shrill shrieks could be heard all over the compound. The response, as Bagsby had hoped, was both swift and confused.

The outer perimeter sentries, and those posted by the stables on the far side of the keep, came running in toward the castle, not a few making directly for Marta to see what all the shouting was really about. The castle doors flew open and a soldier with some authority stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the light from the main room behind him. He barked orders back inside as he pulled on his helmet. A troop of half-armored, half-armed, half-awake men came running to the doorway behind him.

“Fan out!” he ordered. “Search the perimeter.”

The men scrambled out into the darkness and quickly dissipated into disordered clumps, vainly beating the bushes and asking one another what was going on.

Marta kept up her shrieking. “There’re thieves inside the castle! I saw them going up the wall, climbing it like spiders, they was,” she babbled. Repeatedly she pointed to the tower room, and eventually one soldier had the brilliant idea of reporting this news to the commander inside.

“There are thieves afoot, in the tower!” the soldier shouted as he raced in through the main door. Bagsby strained to see through the doorway. The huge single room inside was in chaos. Men were running about, grabbing clothes, armor, and weapons, while others staggered to their feet, still groggy from being awakened from their deep sleep.

“Shulana, are you ready?” Bagsby asked.

The elf nodded, and Bagsby slapped George on the back. “Go!” he ordered.

George stood up suddenly, let out a roar, and charged forward with his great pike. Bagsby followed close behind, his quarterstaff in one hand, dagger in the other. George skewered the first guard before the man could react. The second managed to level his weapon to break Bagsby’s charge, but Bagsby, anticipating this move, leapt high into the air and, avoiding the spear, hurled himself feet first at the man’s chest. The guard crashed against the stone wall and collapsed to the ground. One quick thrust from Bagsby’s dagger finished him.

“Now, Shulana!” Bagsby shouted.

The elf was already in position just inside the doorway, her hands extended toward the great hall. Swiftly she muttered the incantation for sleep, and as she completed the spell, more than thirty men in the huge room fell over as though struck dead. That left only about fifteen active—the rest of the garrison was already scattered throughout the compound.

“Follow me, George, and stay close,” Bagsby said. He waded into the room full of still-startled warriors who grabbed what weapons they could to oppose him. As soon as he was inside, Bagsby began shouting toward the huge circular staircase that led upward to the tower room.

“Hurry! Hurry! We can’t hold them for long!” Bagsby called.

“Yeah, hurry up! There’s a bunch o’ ‘em down ‘ere,” George echoed, grasping the idea.

Bagsby’s homemade quarterstaff landed a crushing blow against one man’s skull, and a forward thrust jabbed it into the chest of the man behind him. George, meanwhile, had already dispatched two with his pike, one with a blow to the head with the flat of the business end and the second with sharp, stabbing thrust.

More of the men came running to oppose the pair, but several of the remainder took to the stairs, lingering, looking first up and then down at the melee below, uncertain what to do.

Bagsby swung his staff like a giant club, knocking down two more opponents. Then he ran forward and, planting the end of the staff on the stone floor, vaulted upward, landing about five feet up the stairway. One guard took the challenge and swung with his sword at Bagsby’s head. Bagsby dodged the blow and somersaulted backward down the stairs, feigning a fall.

“By all the gods, hurry. We can’t keep them down here much longer,” he shouted.

“The tower room!” one of the guards finally yelled.

“They’re in the tower room. Quickly!” The cluster of guards on the stairs lost their hesitation as that man charged up the stairway, sword in hand. They turned and followed.

Shulana and George, meanwhile, had succeeded in either killing or knocking out all the remaining guards downstairs.

“Hurry,” Bagsby said. “There’ll be more coming from outside.”

Running full tilt, Bagsby charged up the stairs behind the seven soldiers, thrusting his staff forward to entangle the legs of the rearmost man. That hapless soul toppled downward, where George grabbed him and, with a mighty heave, tossed him on down the stairwell.

“Six to go,” Bagsby muttered to himself. “Better leave at least four alive.”

Bagsby and George continued the chase up the stairs until the door to the tower room came into view.

“Hold them off,” shouted the soldier who, in the crisis, had assumed command. Two of the guards turned and stood side by side, facing down the stairs, to ward off Bagsby, George, and Shulana.

At the top of the stairs by the door, the soldier barked at the guards. “Open it!”

“You know the rules,” one guard protested. “No one goes there on pain of death.”

“Hurry!” Bagsby shouted, thrusting at one of the two guards opposing him with his quarterstaff. “They’re just outside the door! We can’t keep them out!”

“They’re already inside there, you dolt!” the would-be leader growled. “Open it!”

“We ain’t got a key,” the guard protested.

“Then break it down!”

Bagsby rammed the end of his quarterstaff up against the underside of his opponent’s jaw, rendering the man unconscious. At the same time, George dispatched his foe, using nothing but a dagger, as the stairway was too narrow for his great pike.

Bagsby glanced up. The four men at the top of the stairs were preparing to force the door; two of them would hit it to break it down.

“Now! Duck!” he shouted.

The trio of thieves threw themselves down flat on the stone staircase and covered their heads with their hands. Bagsby heard a solid thud, followed by a loud crash. Then the explosion flashed.

Deadly magic fire flared up from the floor of the tower room, consuming the fallen door and two of the guards in the first second of its existence. The two remaining men screamed in panic and beat the flames that rose from their tunics.

“In there—let’s go!” the leader still ordered. The second soldier hesitated. The first, glancing back down the stairwell, cursed and charged into the room. A second great explosion rocked the entire castle. Even with his eyes closed, Bagsby could see the flash of that second explosion, and an instant later the peculiar odor of ozone was in the air.

“Lightning trap,” Shulana called.

“Right,” Bagsby answered. “Let’s go.”

The little thief pounded up to the top of the stairs. “You!” he barked at the sole remaining soldier. “Out of my way!” The man dropped his spear and fled down the stairs past George, who tripped him, and Shulana, who watched him tumble toward the bottom of the great spiral far below.

“Shulana, hurry!” Bagsby said.

He stepped into the tower room, where everything that could burn was in flames. George was right behind Bagsby.

“Stay put until Shulana comes,” Bagsby ordered.

Shulana stood in the doorway, quickly chanting the words of the spell that made the magic auras of all things visible. When the spell was completed, she reeled backward! Never had she seen such strong auras, and so many, in so small a space.

“Hurry, hurry,” Bagsby urged.

Shulana forced herself to concentrate despite her shock and fear. She quickly spotted the glowing, pulsating, red egg-shaped auras in the center of the room. Next, she checked the floor. Only the magic circle glowed.

“The floor is safe,” she announced. “The Golden Eggs are right here.” She reached out her hand, touched one egg and then the other, and to her great relief saw them become visible. Then she located the source of the other extremely powerful aura that flooded the room.

“That crate against the wall. Don’t touch it—it’s enchanted,” she warned.

Bagsby noticed then that the plain wooden crate had not burned, despite the fire that had consumed shelves, parchments, and books in the room, and devoured human flesh in an instant.

“Valdaimon,” he breathed.

Inside the crate, in another realm reached through the gateway of a specially cut diamond, the soul of Valdaimon stirred. Intruders? Could it be?

Bagsby ran to the crate, despite Shulana’s warning. “Do what you must,” he said to her. “I will do what I must.”

Shulana once more set herself to casting a spell, this time a spell of diminution that made whatever she chose to affect shrink to a mere one-sixth of its normal size.

Bagsby flipped open the crate and screamed.

Before his eyes he saw living dust, thousands of tiny particles, swirling and blending with one another to take on a vaguely human form. First there was the hint of the outline of a head, then a torso, then a bony arm took shape.

Shulana finished her spell. She reached out and touched each egg again. As she did so, each shrank small enough for a man to hold easily in his hand.

George, who had watched all this in astonishment, nodded dumbly as Shulana extended her hand to him. She touched him, and he shrank. She picked him up and placed him on the tiny ledge of the arrow slit in the wall.

“Bagsby!” she shouted. “The rope!”

But Bagsby could not tear his eyes from the fascinating, horrifying sight inside the crate. The head, which moments before had been a vague, smooth outline, now revealed a face—a face which after a lifetime Bagsby still recognized.

“Valdaimon!” Bagsby bellowed. “You foul, murdering…”

“No time!” Shulana called. Already her keen elven hearing picked up the clank of armor coming from the bottom of the great stairway. “Get to the rope!”

“No,” Bagsby shouted. “No! I have to kill him! Now’s our chance!”

Shulana raced to Bagsby’s side, carefully turning her head so as not to stare directly into the forming face. Instead, she peeked side-long into the crate, aiming her glance at the middle portion. She saw the smooth outline of robes forming over the shape of two, scrawny, bony legs.

“You can’t kill him,” she said flatly. “He’s already dead.”

“I must!” Bagsby proclaimed, still staring at the now plainly visible, wrathful face as an almost solid arm began to reach slowly toward him.

Desperately, Shulana glanced about the room. Bagsby was useless, he was already in the power of those rheumy, dusty eyes whose gaze was locked on his. On the floor, just a few feet away, she spied a vial that had survived the explosion. A faint, pure-white aura still glowed about it.

“Water of the human gods!” Shulana exclaimed, excitement peaking in her voice.

“What?” Bagsby asked, turning in surprise to Shulana. So unusual was the excitement in her voice that his attention was drawn from the wizard’s eyes.

“Pour that vial on him—and quickly!” Shulana said. “Look out!” she added, suddenly shoving Bagsby backward, out of the grasp of the withered hand that suddenly darted from inside the crate.

Bagsby, taken by surprise and off balance, started to fall backward, and instinctively went into a back somersault. He flipped himself over twice, and rammed his head straight into the curving wall of the room. With a stunned, questioning look, he slumped over, unconscious.

Without further thought, Shulana grabbed the vial, ripped out the stopper, and poured the half contents over the bony arm. The remainder she splashed, without looking, into the crate. A piteous, wailing scream arose from within, as water blessed by the gods burned into the undead body! The arm crumbled into dust.

Shulana worked with lightning speed to complete her mission. She slammed the crate shut without looking inside, for she knew full well what was in it. Then she took the rope from around Bagsby’s waist, tied it to his sword, and dropped it out the arrow slit. She placed the eggs in a cloth sack she’d brought for that purpose. Lastly, she knelt beside Bagsby and roused him.

“Huhhnn...” Bagsby moaned.

“Quickly, awaken,” she whispered.