The Legend of Vanx Malic: Book 02 - Dragon Isle (19 page)

Not waiting to see if the soldier got the message right, Prince Russet charged into the slackening flames to help his men. Already he could see ogres clawing their way into the stronghold through the hole the explosion had created. These weren’t the ogres who’d been doused, either. These were fresh beasts, the smaller ones that had been holding back. From what Prince Russet saw before the roiling black smoke filled his eyes, there were a lot of them, more than enough to storm the stronghold and do irreparable harm. He had to make a decision then. His father, the king, was in danger.

With much reluctance in his voice he yelled out with all the power his choking lungs could muster. “To your king! Defend your king!” He knew full well that without the experienced elite guards fighting here the defense would soon be broken. His only hope was that one of the wizards would arrive soon; otherwise the ogres would establish a way into the stronghold and be able to hold it. If that was allowed to happen, the battle, save for the dying, would be all but over.

Zeezle was being bounced along on a travois by two straining young boys who could barely manage his light weight. He remembered drinking the white-haired wizard’s foul potion and feeling it course through his body, and then the curious look on the other wizard’s face, the one whose chrome skull cap seemed impossibly tight. He blacked out again soon. Now, he heard a woman sobbing, and after another female called out her title, he rolled from the travois to his feet, startling the two boys carrying him into a wide-eyed fear.

“Bahhh!” He lurched at one of them with a wild, ferocious snap. He laughed, despite the deep pain he was feeling all over. Both boys scurried away, squeaking like frightened mice.

He followed the insistent whimpering to a door situated down a long hallway. He harrumphed to warn anyone inside that he was about to enter, and then proceeded in.

“What is the meaning . . ?” A handmaiden’s fat old cheeks and neck jiggled before she froze in shock at the sight of the yellow-eyed heathen walking toward her. She started to scream, but a shifting on the bed turned her eyes and stopped her.

Duchess Gallarain had unfolded her body and was attempting to sit up at the edge of the mattress. Zeezle saw that she wanted to speak, but was searching for the right words, so he waited. He was curious to see the woman whose charms, or charm, had enraptured Vanx and started all this mess. Finally, she wiped her face and met his amber eyes. “Was he your kin?”

Before he could answer, the entire stronghold shook with an explosion. Moments after that, smoke rolled through the hallway, as did terrified screams of fear and agony. Through the din, Zeezle could hear that the ogres had finally gotten inside.

A dragon hunts the sky and earth.

They even hunt the seas.

What does a dragon hunt my friend?

Why anything it pleases.

– Dragon’s song

B
y the time Quazar reached the soldiers at the newest breach, it was too late. Even with him and his counterpart, Orphas, and their combined power, they couldn’t push the intruders back out of the stronghold proper.

“By the gods, I hope the retreat to the dungeons is going well,” Prince Russet said. Then to the nearest sergeant he could find he said, “Go cut loose the horses and haulkattens. Clear the stables so that the animals have a fighting chance.”

The prince’s left forearm was broken and swollen to the size of a fire log, yet he still refused the magical aid of either wizard. Instead, he ordered them to help Duke Elmont’s soldiers delay the advance of the green-skinned beasts in any manner they could so that as many innocents as possible could be evacuated to the half-dozen ships anchored in the bay.

The wizards attempted to do this by diverting the ogres’ attention to themselves. They turned out to be more of a diversion than they ever intended. Now pinned in the recovery wing of the stronghold’s infirmary, on the top floor, they were just two stories over the gaping hole in the wall. It was from there Orphas saw the prince fall. With bolts of wicked blue lightning and hot crimson pulses of force he blasted the ogres away from the young man’s half-conscious body. Quazar levitated his fallen body up out of the fray, and started tending his arm. He was soon left to strings of curses as the prince rose and began commanding the archers within earshot.

Most of the soldiers below were dead, but not all. A few made it back to safety because of the prince’s quick thinking. Others met a terrible end, but died stalling the pursuit of their fleeing families. The prince told them this as they died, and did so with a king’s conviction behind every word he spoke. “Your loved ones are in the cave-ways now!” he promised. “Some are already being rowed across the harbor to the king’s ship.”

Ogres were now storming up to the higher levels of the stronghold after the wizards. Several of the wounded housed on the floors between met with horrible ends. They were helpless to defend themselves from it. This weighed heavily on all of them as they were forced to continue drawing the ogres away from the populace, but it was a small price to pay to save the bulk of Dyntalla’s citizens. Now a particularly determined band of ogres was finally coming up the last of the stairs to bash through the heavy oak stairwell doors onto the top floor.

Orphas was poised to unleash a magical blast at the opening from the far end of the marble-tiled corridor. Quazar had committed himself to trying to figure out how to protect the prince of the realm, as was his sworn duty. Fleeing was the best form of protection he could think of, but not an easy feat four stories above a bailey yard full of raging beasts. If he could spot a safe place to climb down, he might be able to cast a modified levitation spell that would allow the both of them to defend their descent without injury. If it were only him, he would have long since teleported himself to a safe place, or just floated down to the ground while invisible. These actions were easily performed by oneself. It was nearly impossible to manage them on himself and another at the same time. He could probably send the prince down alone somewhere, but then the brave and foolish young man would be left unprotected. If this had to be done, as a last resort, then he could order Orphas to go with the prince and protect him from there; but he didn’t like that idea at all. If it was possible, he would find a way to get them all out of the closing trap in which they’d put themselves, if only so that they might protect the prince further. If he couldn’t manage that, though, he was fully prepared to stay behind and sacrifice his life helping the other two get away.

“You’re wasting time, my prince,” Orphas called down the corridor.

Prince Russet was manhandling a heavy five-drawer chest in front of the doors. “They’ll just bash it through. Besides that, you’re in my way. If I let this prismatic surge loose and you’re there, you’ll be caught up in it.”

“The chest might slow…” The prince stopped and listened at the door. After a moment of deep concentration he looked up, searching. “Quazar, come here,” he ordered. “Where are you, man? Come help me.”

Quazar hurried out of one of the side rooms where he’d been searching from the window for a place that wasn’t infested with ogres. His face was a study in worried intensity. “What is it, boy?” he snapped.

“Help me,” the prince shot back. “There are people trapped beyond the door and I blocked it.” He shouldered the chest of drawers with all his might and shoved it a few feet, but not far enough. The sudden pounding of a fist, and the muffled sound of a yelling woman came from behind the door. The sound abruptly stopped, or perhaps was drowned out by the roar of an angry beast.

“They’re pinned!” Prince Russet yelled as he shouldered the chest again. This time it went sliding across the tiled floor as if it were on rollers. The prince had to fight to keep from falling after it.

The door burst open and Orphas nearly blasted Duchess Gallarain’s fat handmaid into oblivion with his prismatic surge. Had her skin been a shade greener she would have been done, for her piggish face looked very ogreish in fright. Only the sight of his own charge, the Duchess of Highlake, stayed his spell. He had been told she’d been ravaged and killed. Her sickroom was on the same level where the explosion had occurred. Beyond her, the yellow-eyed heathen with the shiny metallic locks fought off one of the green-skinned beasts. He was using the very sword the duchess had insisted they carry down out of the mountains to return to Vanx Malic.

Zeezle jabbed with an indescribable quickness and the ogre clutched at its guts. Then the Zythian booted it back off the landing. It toppled into the rest of the up-charging band, causing them to tumble into a tangle on the landing below.

With his good arm, Prince Russet dragged the Zythian into the hall and slammed the door. Beyond the barrier, the muffled, high-pitched screech of something other than an ogre came to them. The ogres then began to scream and howl out in pain and fear.

“What in the hells was that?” the prince asked the Zythian as he motioned for him to help push the chest back in place.

“Your sister,” Zeezle responded between gasping breaths. “She’s loose.”

“Get back over here, boy,” Quazar shouted hoarsely. “You’re right in Orphas’s way.”

Zeezle and the prince sprinted to where Gallarain was comforting her babbling maid behind the chrome-capped mage.

“There has to be a way to get us down,” Quazar said more to himself than anyone else. “There is nowhere below that I can see as safe.”

“Why not go up?” the surprisingly calm duchess offered. “There’s a hatch in the service pantry just big enough for a man to fit through. Those monsters won’t be able to come up through it.”

“You’re sure it’s there?” Quazar asked, knowing that if they could at least get out of the reach of the ogres for a time, he might figure a way out of this fix.

“I’m positive,” she replied curtly. “I spent many a summer exploring this place as a girl. Your predecessor, Master Gaiman, used to take me up there at night and ogle my breasts while he taught me the constellations.”

Quazar paled. The absolute lack of discretion in the lady’s tone and the slightly suggestive look in her eyes caught him off guard, but only for a moment. As he located the hatch and sent Zeezle hobbling up onto the roof, he found that he had no doubt as to the root of Duke Martin’s problems. Without even trying, Gallarain Martin radiated sexuality. It was easy to see how so many had fallen under her spell. Unfortunately for the duke, no one bothered to clear the dungeon before the order to flee was called.

“Come along,” Zeezle called down to the wizard. “We’ve company up here of the welcome sort.”

The terrified scream of the duchess’s handmaid and the sound of breaking wood could be heard down the corridor. The ogres had regrouped and were bashing the door apart.

A brilliant flash of light erupted behind the group. “We’ve company down here, too, I’m afraid,” Quazar shouted up over the sound of Orphas’s spell. Then turning to the others, “Come on. Get up there. The prince goes first. No quibbling.”

In a matter of moments all of them were on the gravelly, flat rooftop of the stronghold’s main building with the half-dozen archers who’d been sent there earlier. The soldiers had a dejected look about them.

Quazar immediately began trying to assess the situation. “There’s no way down, then?” he asked them.

“There was,” the sergeant pointed to a long ladder that lay twisted and broken among the many corpses in the yard. “See the poor fellow whose legs are splayed backwards?” The soldier’s voice grew grim.

“That archer with the arrow stuck in his chest?” Quazar understood the tone now, for it was plainly a kingsman’s arrow that killed the man.

The sergeant nodded grimly. “That pack he’s holding was our rations for the day. He fell with yon ladder and lay mewling for half an hour before I ended his pain.” The soldier’s gaze slipped to some faraway place. “Was the hardest thing I ever had to do,” he sniffled. After a minute his eyes refocused on the wizard. “If we can’t go down the way you came up, then we’ll just have to go hungry and hope something breaks.”

“I can retrieve the pack,” said Orphas. “At least we’ll have some food while we wait these creatures out.”