River Of Life (Book 3) (38 page)

A giant swung a monstrous mace, which collided with the dragon’s
skull and sent it spiraling into the earth.  With a magnificent lunge, the
dragon soared upward, carrying both trolls with it.  Ungert had shoved spears
with rope through each wing and had begun tying them together.  He slammed a
hammer into the dragon’s back.  The dragon retaliated, blowing fire, swinging
its tail, but Ungert was just beyond the reach of any lethal attack.

Spears were flung from far below, most ricocheting harmlessly, a
few finding gaps within the scales.  Keylon was jabbing a large spear through
the scales of the abdomen.  Slowly the dragon came to a stop.  The dragon lost
strength and its ascent slowly curved, and it began to plummet fast, trying to
take the trolls off using the friction of the wind.  Keylon climbed on top of
its back, and between the two trolls, they managed to pop one of the wings out
of its joint.  One slammed his hammer into the joint, the other pulling against
it and slamming his fist into it.  The dragon let out a gasp as the wing went
stiff, drifting wherever the wind took it.

All three were tumbling out of control through the air.  The
dragon struck a rock wall, stone exploding below the impact.  Rock sprayed in
all directions.  The dragon’s body fell to the earth stunned and limp.  Both
Keylon and Ungert crashed, neither rising as their bodies were completely
crushed from the force of the fall.  Both of the trolls, upon impact, bounced
off the dragon, their bodies tossed across the ground.

The dwarves quickly had the dragon’s head strapped to the
earth.  The dragon spouted fire, but the dwarves avoided the head and instead
began forcing their spears between the scales in the dragon’s neck until its
eyes ceased to move.  Blood oozed between the scales, steaming as it poured to
the dry earth.

The wraiths' army was completely forced below the wall; many had
begun to climb back up.  Giants already began to move the siege towers through
the gates and up the tier ready to assault the next wall.  They were easy to
disassemble.  A few pins and it could all come apart in a few pieces small
enough to be easily handled by the giants.  They set cranes up on top of the
walls so that some of it was carried through the tunnel while the rest was
pulled up over the walls.  Dwarves and giants raced to the next gates as the
last of the wraiths' army climbed the wall in retreat.

Yalen led his force of elves floating across the ground, firing
arrows into the mass of goblins, driving them back into the dwarves, giants,
and men.  The arrows of the elves burned brightly, a spell carried by each one
in the form of a tongue of fire, crowning each arrowhead.  As the arrow slammed
into a goblin, it would explode, tearing the goblin apart and sending a shower
of tiny hot molten projectiles flying through the air.

"The more you bring down now, the fewer we fight
later," was Yalen's musical cry.

As the elves swept in, they seemed to bring the sweet cool scent
and breezes of the land of twilight with them.

The sun began to set before the giants began to reassemble the
towers, and the walls were impossible to scale, especially as the enemy had
begun to dump hot oil and light it on fire.

“Take the bodies and burn them,” Hendle ordered, “Fast now, we
don’t have much time.”

The battle had been an onslaught from both sides.  The wizard’s
army had been victorious, but fighting an immortal enemy, this fight would not
continue to favor Hendle and his allies, or so Hendle feared.  Spirits were
high among the men, and Hendle did not wish to darken the mood and
festivities.  Hendle watched as torches were lit along the higher wall.  A
goblin’s face would emerge from the darkness, unveiled by the flame’s light,
and be gone just as quickly, almost as if the enemy’s army was made of ghosts.

The next morning found Hendle’s army lined up for another
assault.  Spirits were high that today would be another victorious battle.  The
night before had seen some melancholy faces as the mud trolls had buried two
dead warriors.  Today their faces were grim with thoughts of revenge.  Hendle
along with the other leaders had stood respectfully by as their new allies had
buried their dead brothers, even though they buried them against Hendle's
wish.  Hendle had wanted to burn the bodies of their allies along with those of
the enemy.  Now as Hendle looked into their eyes, they were a sullen brown, glaring
beyond what was immediately before them.  They were staring into the future
where they faced and fought the enemy.  They wanted to take from the enemy the
same amount of blood lost by their brothers.

The moons had settled in front of the sun.  For a moment, they
almost completely blocked the light.  Only a blazing halo surrounding the moons
gave light to the earth.  It was an unreal light, dropping against the ground
randomly.  It played games with the landscape, casting shadows where they never
were before and lighting places in the world that had never seen light.  The
moons moved on, and the eclipse was gone as fast as it had arrived.  The army
came out of their trance and faced the wall, again aware of the event that
brought them to this battlefield.

As the giants started pushing the towers, the wraiths' army came
from the walls, no longer retreating or simply trying to defend a wall, but engaging. 
Quickly, the giants quit pushing and picked up their weapons, plowing into the
opposing army, clearing paths as their massive bodies threw the enemy warriors
back through the air.  Hendle stopped for a moment.  Something was not right. 
The only enemy was goblins.  Hendle stood and watched for only a moment before
gathering other powerful wizards around him.  Hendle knew that a special
assault was coming, and he wished to be prepared to meet it.  The giants
themselves were able to control the goblins and, before late morning, they
along with only a partial regiment of dwarves and elves had almost cleared the
battlefield.
  The
rest of the army had stayed
back, keeping calm and resting but
also wondering where the real resistance was.

Hendle grabbed Yalen by the shoulder, "Do not stray out too
far.  Take the left flank, but be prepared to help me.  May need your magic,
may need to retreat."

Yalen looked toward the wall where below the shadow of a giant,
a man could be seen ramming a broken lance through one of the final standing
goblins.  The elf could feel it too, the absence of the monsters, the one's
given life through magic.

"And Grism?" Yalen asked.

"He will be of little help if the attack that I can feel
actually comes," Hendle replied.

"What is that?" Auri asked, coming up from behind.

"Something that not even your dancing swords can protect
you from," Yalen tried to joke.

As the wizard’s army prepared to celebrate, transparent,
irregular black forms with glowing red eyes appeared on the walls above. Their
very presence brought a cloud of despair.  It seemed to cover all the earth
that the warlocks could view.  Over the walls came the skeleton warriors,
rushing around and through their masters as well as other monsters that had not
yet been seen.

“Iriote,” Auri hissed and grabbed two short swords.

Quickly Auri chased his nemesis through the battle, slipping his
blades through the enemy as he passed by them.  One reached out slicing through
an abdomen, the other through a throat.  Auri spun slicing through a goblin's
wrist then smashed both through the chest of a wolfman.  He had long ago given
up his horse as it had stumbled tripping over bodies and had pitched Auri
forward into the ground.

Iriote disappeared for a moment.  Auri stood, confused.  An
arching silver blur cut behind the weapons master, barely missing Auri as he
rolled forward.  Quickly he turned, blocking Iriote’s scimitar with one short
sword and coming in quick with the other.  It scratched the assassin’s ribs.

“Ooooh,” the assassin hissed and laughed, “My masters say it’s
not yet time.”

Iriote disappeared into a haze of smoke that mixed with the
atmosphere until gone.  Auri turned around in disappointment and physically ran
into Hestler, who was smashing skeletal warriors with his hammer.  The huge
weapon came down on the soldiers made of ancient bones, splintering them into
small pieces and dust.

Yalen rode his horse, a long, thin, double-sided sword in each
hand.  No hands guided reins, for there were none.  All the elves rode bareback,
no reins, no saddles, nothing to come between them and their horses.  Yalen's
body movements were telling the horse how to shift, or he could give the horse
commands telepathically.  Over years of training together, the elf and his
horse had become one.  This was true for all elven warriors.  The elf swooped
downward, his blades biting into flesh each time.  The elf looked almost as if
he was flying low across the ground.

A giant creature knocked the legs from below Yalen’s horse,
sending them both sprawling head first into the dry, hard, packed earth.  Yalen
rolled to his feet, both swords ready.  The monster looked like a mutated
radish with two pale-brown, knotted, pudgy legs and a body that widened as it
neared the top with many huge hairs, not quite big enough to call tentacles,
twisting away from its body.  The monster did not attack the elf; instead, it
held up a giant foot to crush the life from the elf’s horse.

“No!” Yalen bellowed and stretched a hand forward. Yalen's face
twisted in agony as his mind instantly understood the pain of losing this
horse.  It would have been much the same as if Erelon sat watching the life of
Draos being threatened.

Even as Yalen's eyes showed pain of watching a friend die, his
lips turned into a defiant snarl and he shoved his arm out before him.  His
fingers flared open, and his bleach-white hair began to drift lazily upward as
if gravity no longer existed in this atmosphere.

His mind groped for a new plane, the one where this creature had
been called from.  His mind passed through several in an instant, meeting with
the fairies, elves from ages past, and finally coming to land in one where the
world was dark.  There was nothing, only a void and loud voices all screaming
and crying.  The elf could not proceed into this world far enough to see what
existed here.  To him it was almost like a hole in the world, a hole where only
ethereal bodies could exist.

Yalen called out to the creature in its own language,
"Callum," calling its attention to him.

The creature turned around, drawn to the voice that knew its
name.  The elf pulled the two planes together with his mind.  Both mentally and
physically.  The ground below the elf began to waver and disappear into a
vaporous black gas.  Blood began to run from his nose and then the corners of
his eyes.  The ground opened up below the monster as if the earth itself were
being sucked into a vortex.  And then the creature was sucked into another
plane of existence, returned to the world from where the warlocks called it. 
The ground healed back over with a slight ripple and then slowed until it became
solid.

The elf’s arm dropped to the earth, and his head, heavy and
tired from the spell, slowly dropped as he went unconscious.

Bahsal watched as Yalen blacked out on the floor of the
battlefield.  The goblins and other monsters swarmed toward the elf, each eager
to claim the kill for their own.

The other elves had charged too far down the field before they
knew that their leader had fallen.  As they turned, a massive swarm of goblins
pushed into them, forcing them slowly away from Yalen.

“To Yalen!  To the elf!” Bahsal cried out.

Bahsal charged and hundreds of angry dwarves with him.  The two
armies met just as each side reached the elf.  Each dwarve strode in swinging,
none afraid.  As the enemy's army turned to face the dwarves, the cavalry of
elves and men hit the enemy forcefully from the side, setting them off
balance.  They thrust their horses forcefully into the ranks of the enemy while
shoving lances through as many bodies as they could before the shaft broke. 
The dwarves waded in, taking as many as they could before the enemy regained
balance.

Bahsal brought his axe down, standing above the elf, holding the
enemy back.  The axe crashed into the helm of a goblin, but it did not split
the skull.  The goblin looked at the dwarve and cackled.  Bahsal mocked the
goblin with his own hoarse laugh and brought a hatchet through the goblin’s
throat with his other hand.

Bahsal passed on over the elf, gripping the axe lodged in the
helm, pulling it free as he brought it up, swinging with all his strength.  The
helm came with the axe, and as the swing reached its summit, the helm flew into
the air.  The axe came back down, buried in the chest of another goblin.

Bahsal looked up and saw that behind the goblins several huge
beasts of magic approached, a mix of wolves and men and wolves and spiders. 
Creatures pieced together randomly without a mind of their own so that the
wraiths could control them.  Bahsal slowly backed up, retreating.  Two dwarves
picked the elf up as Bahsal led several others to give them cover.

Hendle stepped in with the ice staff.  The leading wizard had
already directed the other wizards spreading them across the ranks.

He grabbed three and ordered, "Protect the dwarves'
flank."

Another, "Keep the fires clear.  Flex, try to dig up a
little rain to settle this dust and smoke.  But not too much, don't want to
fight in the mud."

The wizard stumped around on his bum leg.  It was better than
the stump and crutches, Hendle thought to himself, but if he was not quick when
the battle changed directions, he could get caught in the tide quickly.

"Give me eyes in the sky," Hendle ordered another
wizard who had a falcon resting on his arm.  Hendle shook his head as he
thought about his position, leading this attack on Mortaz.  This should be
Erelon's position, Hendle thought.