Ky’Ell ignored the allusion. “When did this barbarian witch say that the dragons would come?”
“She wasn’t specific,” said Raene. “She rarely be. But she be seldom wrong about such things.”
“And this horde of undead marching south…how many ye be guessin’?”
“I’d say tens of thousands. It be hard to know. A grim fog covers Shierdon. We could hardly see anythin’ flyin’ over it.”
“Flyin’?” Ky’Ell arched a brow and scowled at his daughter.
She realized her mistake but tried to shrug it off.
“A winged beast summoned from the spirit world by Dirk. That’s how we got here so quickly. That and ghost horses.”
“What kind o’ winged beast?” Ky’Ell pressed, eyeing Dirk dangerously.
“A dragon,” Dirk dared admit.
Raene groaned.
“A WHAT?”
“Father, please, it ain’t like ye be thinkin’. Fyrfrost ain’t like other dragons.”
“Ain’t like other dragons! They all be the same!”
“If I may,” said Dirk. “Raene was against the idea from the beginning. But we had to get here as soon as possible to warn you of the coming attack.”
Ky’Ell’s gray eyes held Dirk with unmasked suspicion. “And ye got the power to summon the beast in me halls, ain’t ye?”
“Well…yes, but—”
“OUT! Get out o’ me mountain!”
“Father!”
Ky’Ell waved her off angrily. “Necromancers, spirits, barbarian witch doctors, elves, DRAGONS! Ye be meddlin’ with what ought not be meddled with, lass. And I ain’t standin’ for such devilry in me halls.” He suddenly stopped, brow creased in thought, regarding Dirk as he hadn’t before. “Wait just a bloody minute. I seen ye before, ain’t I? You was at the battle for the Ky’Dren Pass.”
“That is true, we both were,” said Dirk.
“Aye, and whose side was ye fightin’ for?”
“Dirk put Ky’Ro to rest after he was raised from the dead by Zander. And he saved me life,” said Raene.
“Be that so?” Ky’Ell asked rhetorically.
“Come on,” said Krentz. “We should have never come here.” She began to turn to leave when a horn blared somewhere in the city. Everyone froze. Ky’Ell watched the two suspiciously. Another horn followed the first, this one deeper.
“That be the dragon horn,” said Raene. “We’ve no time for this, Father. Let them help.”
“Help?” he spat. “Ain’t no help needed from an elf and blasted spirit. We dwarves can take care o’ ourselves. As for you, get yerself to the inner sanctum with the other females.”
The king pushed past them and headed for the door.
“Ain’t ye heard anythin’ I said?” Raene yelled to her father, stopping him in his tracks. “I’ve faced more foes than half yer male warriors. When ye goin’ to start treatin’ me with the respect I be deservin’?”
A horn blared once more. Ky’Ell’s face turned beet red.
“Ye done went against me wishes once, lass. Don’t be testin’ me no more about this, or Ky’Dren help me, I’ll—”
“Ye’ll what? Put me in me place?”
Again a horn blared. The doors flew open and four guards rushed inside.
“Sire!” said one of them. “There been a terror o’ dragons spotted ten miles off headin’ this way. And a horde o’ undead be comin’ from the north.”
“Aye,” said the king. “Escort these two out o’ me mountain.” He pointed at another guard. “See to it that me daughter be brought to the inner sanctum with the rest o’ the lasses. And prepare me ram for battle.”
“I will not hide with the females,” said Raene, slapping away the hand of the guard.
“You will do as I say!” Ky’Ell hollered, his voice booming in the large chamber.
“I came here to warn ye, not to be treated like a helpless girl! I thought maybe ye would’ve changed. That maybe ye’d be able to see me as the warrior I be. But I see now that I be mistaken. Goodbye, Father. Perhaps I be seein’ ye on the battlefield.”
She pushed past her father and the guards with Dirk and Krentz in tow.
“Halt!” Ky’Ell commanded.
Raene ignored him.
Ky’Ell growled and reached out with his hand, mentally taking hold of Raene’s armor and pulling her off her feet to skid across the floor. He then raised his arm, and Raene was lifted to her feet to stand before him. She was shocked by his ability.
“How…how did ye do that?” she asked.
“Get ‘em out o’ here,” Ky’Ell told the guards.
Dirk and Krentz were pushed along toward the door. There was nothing they could do. The dwarves had enough problems without them causing a fight over Raene. If they did so, they knew that they would never get out of the mountain alive.
When they had been escorted out, Ky’Ell regarded Raene. “I lost ye once. I won’t lose ye again.”
Dirk and Krentz were brought back the way they had come. Dwarven warriors scrambled to their posts as they were escorted through the city to the bustling railway system. They were then brought to the northeastern door and pushed out into the night.
“And don’t be comin’ back!” a guard yelled as the door slammed shut with a resounding boom.
“What now?” Krentz asked as she looked out over the fog-covered valley far below.
“Dismiss me. I’ll bring back Fyrfrost.”
Krentz did so, and soon they were flying east high over the mountain peaks. To the north the sounds of battle could be heard, likely the undead had reached the mountain and were trying in vain to find a way in.
Fyrfrost suddenly veered left against Dirk’s command and began to climb swiftly for the clouds. Dirk saw what had startled the beast. To the south came a terror of red dragons, six in all.
“Do you see them?” he asked Krentz.
“Yes, the firestorm that Gretzen spoke of.”
The dragons flew below them a few minutes later as Fyrfrost circled high above the clouds. Dirk spurred him north to follow the terror, curious as to their purpose.
“Could they be under the control of Zander?” Dirk asked.
“It is possible. Though they do not look possessed, nor are they undead.”
The dragons flew all the way to the northernmost mountain that ended in a harbor feeding into the Gulf of Shierdon. The army of undead waited at the foot of the mountain on the eastern side. Dwarven catapults fired rounded boulders from on high that rolled and crashed down the side of the mountain and into the forward ranks.
The red dragons attacked then suddenly, diving down and swooping across the mountainside and belching long lines of fire. The largest of the reds landed at the foot of the mountain just south of the harbor. The great beast cocked its head back as if to breath fire, but what came out was something more—a long beam of concentrated heat, white and pure, devastating in its destructive power. Stones exploded from the point of impact, and the earth melted like candlewax as the red dragon bore down on the mountainside with its mystical ray of light.
“How can that be?” Krentz asked, astonished.
“You have seen this power before?” said Dirk.
“No, I have only read about it. This dragon possesses the power of the ancients.”
“Great,” said Dirk, spurring Fyrfrost closer.
“What are you doing?” Krentz asked.
“We’ve got to help.”
She laughed. “After Ky’Ell was such a bastard?”
“We were given these blades for a reason. Gretzen said we would be needed.”
“The dwarves don’t want our help,” she argued.
“Yeah? Well, they’re going to get it anyway. That dragon must be stopped before it digs a hole deep enough for those undead to go through. You see? The dragons do not attack the undead, and Zander’s forces do not attack the dragons. The dragons are indeed in league with the necromancer.”
“
If
we can even stop the dragon, the dwarves will likely only be angered that you took their kill from them or some such ridiculousness.”
“You’re probably right. But I for one cannot leave Raene and her people to their fates and turn a blind eye. We must do something. You and Fyrfrost should hit the undead army from behind, I’ll take care of the dragon. Call to me if you get into trouble.”
Dirk shifted to spirit form quickly and reformed again, facing her in the saddle. He grabbed her face and gave her a big kiss. “See you when the smoke settles.” He then leapt off of Fyrfrost and flew through the air toward the giant red.
Krentz cursed under her breath and steered Fyrfrost northeast through the dense clouds tinted green by the pooling fog below.
Dirk didn’t fall as much as fly. He had leapt off almost directly above the red dragon and was coming in fast. The dragon remained bent over, spewing forth the long thick beam of destruction. Behind it the undead had begun to gather, ready to wreak havoc in the mountain once the way was made clear. The dwarves tried desperately to thwart the dragon, but the other reds blasted them from the mountainside with dragon’s breath, destroying towers, catapults, and harpoon stations.
Falling like a meteor, Dirk aimed for the dragon’s spiked head and cocked back his shimmering sprit blade. He slammed into the beast, driving the blade deep into its forehead. The dragon howled and reeled back. Its wings flailed, and its beam of destruction, like a thousand rays of focused sunlight, scraped across the mountainside. Dirk got a glimpse of the burrowed tunnel. It was wide and dark, but at the end there was light.
The mountain began to rumble. Dust, dirt, and small stone fell from the ceiling of the tunnel as Raene was led to the inner sanctum—the place where trembling, fearful females and their suckling babes were supposed to be kept during such times of invasion.
Raene was furious.
She had been biding her time as she was being escorted through the city and into the tunnels that led to the hiding place. Now that she was away from the crowds, she made her move. Each guard held her by an arm as they led her down the corridor. They were big dwarves, at least a foot taller than she, armored and armed to the teeth. It mattered not, however, how strong they might be, for Raene was the daughter of Ky’Ell, a direct descendent of Ky’Dren.
Up ahead there was a statue on each side of the doorway they were walking toward. Raene reached out with her mind, taking hold of the heavy statues, and pulled them straight down the tunnel. The guards cried out and released her, instinctively moving to catch the chiseled busts of their gods. When they did, Raene pulled harder, guiding them up suddenly to smash into the guards’ helmets. The two dwarves crashed to the floor with a terrible clamor of metal on stone. One was knocked out cold, but the other groaned and began to get up. Raene conked him on the head with a hammer fist, laying him out.
“Sorry lads,” she said, laying the statues at their feet like grave markers. “But a lass has got to be doin’ what a lass has got to be doin’. Sleep tight.”
She took the cloak, helmet, and halberd of the smaller guard and hurriedly made her way to more populated areas, easily blending in with the now hundreds of dwarves hurrying through Tsu’Dar to catch the lifts up to the surface and rails that would bring them to their stations.
Raene had made a mistake thinking that her father might have changed, that she would be seen as anything but a birthing oven to be plumped up and made fat so that the coming babes would have more to suckle. The other dwarf females might have been alright with that life; Raene knew that of course mothers were needed, and that indeed, it was a respectable thing to be, highly esteemed by all. But it was not the life for her. She knew that now. Regardless, she suspected that she could not have children anyway. A few dwarf males had caught her eye during her sixty years, and she had rolled in the sheets more times than once with a few of them. But she had never gotten pregnant, a fact that was of course kept secret by the young courters, who might have lost their heads should the king find out they were bedding his daughter before marriage.
Even if she could have kids, Raene hadn’t yet had the urge. She hadn’t gotten the “itch,” as the women would say. Raene craved the open road and adventure. She had been born for it, she realized then as she ran along with the others.
Raene took a rail and a lift to where the terrible sound was coming from. It had begun as a dull trembling far away, but it had grown louder with every step. The dwarves coming from that direction were hollering and screaming about some sort of sunbeam that was melting through the mountain into the city. She thought instantly of elves and their ridiculous powers of old. But that was impossible, elves could no longer wield such terrible magic.
The lift she was on stopped, and the cage door slid open. Raene instantly felt the wicked heat. She got off with the others and stared down the corridor branching off to the east. Something was coming from that direction, something terrible and powerful, something evil. Raene could feel it in her bones. The grating, shrieking, screaming sound continued. The stone shook with the vibration, causing a long crack in the ceiling of the corridor.
Suddenly there was an explosion at the other end of the tunnel. Raene ducked to the side and covered her head as the shockwave blasted through the tunnel, hitting the lift and tearing it free completely to topple to the cavern below.
Raene dared a peek. When she saw nothing, she uncovered her ears. The whining, high-pitched sound was louder than ever. It flowed from the tunnel. Raene was beckoned by the mysterious sound and rose to her feet and ran down the tunnel.
She gasped.
A white-hot beam of fire as wide as her shield had blasted through the stone at a twenty-degree angle and continued on through the other side. Raene mentally followed the beam’s course—it was heading straight for the city.
There was nothing she could do. By the time she got to the surface and found what creature could possibly be behind the terrible beam, it would have already bored into the city. She suspected that once it had broken through it would cease, and the undead or worse would begin pouring in through the newly formed tunnel.
As if the gods had been listening to her thoughts, the beam suddenly winked out.
Raene ventured farther into the tunnel. Dwarves had begun to gather around behind her and down at the other end. They approached the smoldering hole slowly, cautiously. One brave dwarf dared a peek up into the smoky tunnel and let out a curse. Raene fought to get a look. She pushed and shoved and finally saw. There was light at the end of the tunnel—moonlight.
Turning her head downward, she saw the glow of torches from the dwarves looking up from the bottom of the tunnel hundreds of yards away.
Then a sound came from the surface side. A low moan, a scraping, boots beating on stone. Raene knew the undead when she heard them.
“They’re invading through the tunnel. To arms! To arms!” she cried to the dwarves around her.