The Sleeping King (79 page)

“The Lord High King of Gandamere is also ruler and protector of the natural realm within his lands. I do believe the title the forest creatures gave him is Mythar.”

She'd never heard of a kingdom of Gandamere, but now was not the moment to split historical hairs. She was not in a hurry to tell this noble knight that her reason for being here was to take some of the king's magic to solve her own problem. Her instinct told her Laird Dalmigan would not be impressed. She glanced sidelong at Will. “Perhaps you would like to explain your reasons for waking the Sleeping King?”

Will answered slowly, “I will try. I first heard of the Sleeping King from my father. We were under attack by Boki and—”

Dalmigan interrupted, exclaiming, “The Boki still live?”

“Aye,” Will answered. “They guard the chamber which leads to this place.”

Raina added, “And they ferociously guard the secret of the king's existence.”

Dalmigan nodded in satisfaction as Will continued, “My village was under attack by the Boki, and my mother and father made a last stand to let me escape. Just before the Boki closed upon them, they told me of their quest to wake the Sleeping King and bade me to finish it in their stead.”

“And why didst thy parents seek to wake His Majesty?” Dalmigan prompted.

“For everyone. For Urth. The Empire of Koth has crushed the spirit of its subjects and systematically destroys the land. The Emperor has ruled for so long that few remain who remember a world without Maximillian. A world with hope. Where the word ‘freedom' had meaning. We need the Sleeping King to lead us out from under the Kothite fist before all hope is lost.”

Dalmigan studied the three of them long and hard. At length, he finally said, “This is a worthy reason. However—”

They never got to hear Lord Dalmigan's “however,” for a new sound intruded upon the silence. It was as if a great ship approached across unseen water nearby, its sails snapping and flapping in a stiff wind.

The knight cursed under his breath and barked at his lion, “Under the trees, Aegenis! Hurry!” The lion's head whipped up and the animal bolted for the cover of the trees.

Cicero's sword whipped up and he bit out, “Who comes, knight?”

“If yon glimpse of green lies not, Hemlocke sends her minion to investigate. If you have drawn
her
attention, then the three of you obviously must finish your quest.”

“Who is Hemlocke?” Raina panted as they ran for the cover of the spreading tree boughs beside the path.

“The Green,” Dalmigan replied low and hard. “She durst not come herself. It would draw too much attention to this place. But apparently, she would risk sending one of hers to destroy thee. We must ascertain how dangerous a creature she has sent. 'Twill tell us how great a threat she doth deem thee.”

Within moments a huge, winged creature came into sight. Covered in scales with leathery wings, it looked reptilian.
Draconic
. Great stars above, was that a dragon? Raina stared in disbelief. She'd read of many wondrous creatures in her studies, but of them all, the one she'd never
dreamed
of seeing was a dragon.

“Drakken,” Dalmigan breathed. “A great one. Well then. A most serious threat Hemlocke perceives in thee.”

Will and Cicero looked as astounded as she. Drakken were mythic creatures, said to be made of Dragons much like a golem, and only slightly less powerful than their legendary creators. Or so the hearth tales went. To her knowledge, no living being had seen an actual dragon in ages. Literally,
ages
. And a single age was measured in thousands of years.

“I will face this beast in combat, young adventurers, whilst thou flee with all haste. I shan't defeat the beast, but mayhap I shall grant thee time enough to reach thy destination.” He whistled low for his lion, which crashed out of the underbrush momentarily. “To my death I ride, then. These thousands of years as guardian of the grove come down to this moment. For the promise of hope, I ride!”

“Wait!” Will blurted as the knight made to mount his steed. “Where is the king? Where do we go from here?”

“All paths lead to the king, boy. Make the leap of faith!”

The drakken, no doubt attracted by their sound and movement, swooped down in a deadly dive toward them, its great, toothed maw open hungrily. Dalmigan spurred his lion, and the pair charged forward to meet the drakken in mortal combat.

“C'mon!” Will shouted at Raina as she stared, aghast.

“We can't leave him!” she cried. “He's sacrificing himself for us!”

Cicero gave Raina a light shove. “Go. I will stay and help him as best I can. We will fight the drakken together.”

Not Cicero. Not her stalwart Cicero on whom Raina could always depend. It was too much. This final blow would break her. “I cannot lose you!” she cried.

“I have resurrected before and will do so again. Go!” he shouted over his shoulder as he ran forward to meet the beast at the knight's side.

Will grabbed Raina's arm. “Do not let their sacrifices be in vain. Let's go!”

Heartbroken, Raina did the only thing she could as the huge creature's leathery wings blotted out the light above. She turned and crashed after Will into the forest. The sounds of battle and terrible, inhuman screams erupted behind them.

Creatures began to materialize out of the trees around them, clawing at them as they tore past. Grasping fingers reached for her ankles to trip her, for her eyes to blind her. She ducked and tripped, staggered, and right herself, but always she ran on. In spite of his weakened state, Will's longer legs allowed him to keep ahead of her as they fled through the rapidly darkening forest.

They ran flat out for several minutes before Will's steps flagged. She pulled up beside him and gasped, “Where are we going?”

“He said all paths lead to the king. We'll find a path and follow it.”

And as if his words conjured one, a narrow path opened up before them, running at an angle to their current direction. Will veered onto it and Raina dived after him. Mist began to form around them, but not the bright, white fog of before. This cloud was dark and cloying, smelling foul and sliding unpleasantly across her skin.

The last, dim green light of the forest gave way to the colorless darkness of the gloaming around them. Worse, that awful flapping sound became audible again. She dived under what might be some sort of overhang beside Will, and they plastered themselves close to the cold, slimy surface at their backs. A gigantic shadow glided low overhead.

“Is that the same drakken from before?” she whispered.

“I don't think so. This one looks even bigger than the last one.”

She hoped desperately that the appearance of this second drakken meant Cicero and Dalmigan had survived and somehow defeated the first one. “We must hurry,” she breathed. “If these monsters are going to keep coming until we find the king, Cicero's and Dalmigan's lives depend on us.”

The weight of so many's blood upon her hands sat almost too heavy on her spirit for her to go on. But that weight was precisely the reason she
must
go on.

The second monstrously huge drakken flew out of sight into the putrid cloud and Will nodded at her. They took off running again with renewed desperation. Invisible hands continued to reach for them, and she spied a massive cliff rising ahead. It was smooth and gray and looked formed of a great upheaving of granite from the earth.

They pulled up short before its base, staring up at the smooth, several-hundred-foot-high wall.

“Can we climb it?” she asked doubtfully.

“No handholds. It might as well be a mirror, it is so smooth. Not a chance we can scale it.” Will looked left and right, and the wall stretched away from them in both directions. “We cannot go back. The drakken are behind us. But I do not see a way around this.”

Screeches and clicks and all manner of inhuman noises rose up behind them, closing in fast from all direcitons. The creatures of the darkness were almost upon them and would tear them limb from limb.

She said, staring at the cliff, “Dalmigan said to make the leap of faith.”

“What does that mean?” Will snapped.

“Are we supposed to … leap up the cliff?” she asked slowly.

“It is no crazier than anything else in this place—four-armed trolls and crystal fire, hydras and immortal knights,” Will grumbled. “How do we do this?”

They both took an upward leap and landed unceremonious on their feet.

“Umm, problem, Will.”

He turned around with her to face outward. Monstrous creatures were materializing rapidly out of the dark mist. And they looked dangerous and hungry. It was just their bodies these creatures wanted to consume. It was their spirits they drooled for. Will swung his staff in a desperate arc around them both, and it passed harmlessly through the insubstantial bodies of the mist creatures.

But as she looked on, the forms were becoming more solid. Something sharp raked across her arm, and it
hurt
.

Will winced beside her, his staff flailing wildly. “There are too many of them,” he panted.

He sounded as exhausted as she felt. They had nothing to use to defend themselves. They were going to die if they didn't get out of here
soon
.

“We have to
believe
it will work and … jump!”

“On the count of three?” Will gasped.

She cried out, “One. Two.
Three!
”

They jumped a little ways in the air and landed right back on their feet once more.

“Nothing happened!” Will cried. “Now, what?”

She was out of ideas. Despair washed over her, threatening to crush her. They could not endure so much, sacrifice so much, come so close to their ultimate goal, only to fail now.

There
had
to be a way. But what? Dalmigen said to take a leap of faith. What if the leap wasn't the thing? Maybe faith was the key.

She spoke quickly as the hideous creatures around them became fully corporeal and solid, snarling and snapping as Will flailed at them with his staff. “Not only do we have to believe this will work, we have to have faith. Hope. Reach deep inside yourself and know in your bones that everything will turn out all right. After all, we've made it this far. Right?”

“Right,” he grunted as he fought off the claws and snapping jaws closed in on them from all sides.

“We've got this,” she encouraged him. “Let's just try the leap one more time.”

 

CHAPTER

31

Anton screamed in fury as the trees came alive, branches whipping, and vine creatures began to writhe around them. Now the forest itself helped guard the Boki treasure? Its worth must be beyond compare! Furthermore, he must be almost upon it.

Another cursed wave of Boki charged over the ridge ahead. Would they never stop coming? But then he spied the composition of the charge. Female orcs. Old orcs if their heavily scarred hides and faded coloring was an indication of age. And half-grown orcs. Their women and children had been hiding beyond that ridge all this time? And they chose to engage now? His eyes narrowed as he stared at the charging Boki. They were not brilliant military tacticians. But they might send out a charge in a last-ditch effort to destroy him as his men approached that ridge.

Abruptly it was imperative that he see what lay beyond the hill. For surely that must be the spot where the treasure was hidden. This vale must have been the anteroom to the actual treasure chamber, obviously. But now that the Boki force was losing, they made a desperate charge with the last defenders. Oh yes. He must get over that ridge right away.

Krugar yelled for his men to fall back and take up a defensive formation, but Anton shouted to belay that order and bellowed for his men to charge.

The orcs had moved together in front of him, shoulder to green shoulder in a veritable wall of living rage. But he could meet rage with rage, by the stars.

How dare they turn on him like this? Where was the Ki' with whom he had his arrangement? The Boki were supposed to put up token resistance out here. To retreat from this battle and then invade the outlying holdings of his most irritating landsgraves in a few weeks! Of course, he had neglected to mention his own plan to loot the Boki treasure horde in the process. But still. They'd had a cursed deal! No surprise the green whoreson was absent, the traitorous cur.

If he couldn't find the Ki', how was he supposed to get the supplies he needed to make what the assassin, Kane, required to finish off his greatest enemy? Nothing was going as it was supposed to out here. And that would
not
do. It was time to change the rules of the game.

He was within a single arrow's flight of perhaps the greatest acquisition of his life, and no orc army was stopping him, curse it. He swore viciously under his breath. He would kill every last one of them himself if he had to.

“My chest of globes!” he yelled. He was not a master alchemist for nothing. If they wished to taste of gaseous death, so be it. A soldier ran up to him with the wooden chest and its rows of carefully padded glass globes within. Enraged, he stormed forward, globes filled with expensive and rare death gas poison dancing in his fingers.

*   *   *

“Here goes nothing,” Will muttered resolutely. He stopped swinging his staff and let down his defenses entirely. Hope. Faith. He could do this.

He closed his eyes and imagined himself flying up the cliff face like a giant hawk. And jumped as hard as he could.

A yank at the back of his tunic snapped his eyes open. The crowd of dark creatures had fallen away beneath his feet, howling in outrage. The cliff face was soaring past and he looked down in shock as he realized he no longer stood on the firm ground.
What on Urth? Or rather,
not
on Urth?
He looked up and saw the white-feathered belly of a massive bird. He craned his head to see more and spied the short, hooked beak of a falcon.