Here be Monsters

CHAPTER 16

“You would have us call you Zonploka?” Cordelia asked. “Then it is not your real name. Are you afraid we will use it to work magic against you?”

Zonploka only answered, “Be sure you shall not leave this cave alive.”

“I am not sure of it at all.” Geoffrey fondled the hilt of his sword. “Your creatures seem to be quite as allergic to Cold Iron as the spirits of our world. Wherefore, though, have you sent them among us?”

“Why, to weaken you for the assault of my armies,” Zonploka answered, still grinning. “These you have met are only a few of my host. There are hundreds of monsters, and after them shall come thousands of soldiers, each eager for loot, for the joys of conquest, and for land that he may rule to his own liking—which, I assure you, shall not be yours.”

“They shall not come,” Alain said, frowning, “for there was more to the assault of your vanguard than terrorizing the people, was there not? You may not enter unless we invite you.”

“True,” said Zonploka, “but some fool of a peasant is bound to finish the Taghairm as the dreams I’ve sent have shown him—and he will do that soon, for you few who have realized my stratagem have come here into my stronghold and shall not go out again!” He threw back his head and laughed.

The companions exchanged a glance, saw the anger and grim resolution in one another’s eyes, and knew that the sorcerer was wrong—that they would go back into their own world no matter how many men and monsters Zonploka sent to stop them. Still, it was folly to let an enemy know their strength, so Alain turned back to the sorcerer and asked, “What will you do once the portal is open to you?”

“Why, send my vanguard of monsters and my army of cavalry and footmen, of course,” Zonploka said, grinning. “They shall despoil the land even as you have said—and rule it all according to my dictates. I shall be king of your land even as I am king of my own!”

“King of stony desert and waterless wasteland,” Geoffrey said, flint-faced, “king of a land with no life. How came your domain to be so sterile, sorcerer?”

Zonploka only grinned the wider, toying with his wand. “It is mute testimony to my power, foolish child.”

“Mute indeed.” Allouette’s voice shook with anger. “No wonder you want our world, for you have blasted your own! What sustains this army of which you speak? What do they eat and drink?”

“The last of the cattle who used to live here, of course.” Zonploka’s grin turned feral. “Flesh for food and blood for drink—but they are few who are left, and growing fewer.”

“When you say ‘cattle,’ do you speak of cows or of people?” Cordelia demanded, trying to throttle her rage.

“Yes,” Zonploka answered her, “for once they are conquered, there is no difference. All are our beasts of burden and our meat.”

“And thus shall Gramarye be within months of their coming,” Gregory said grimly.

“Why?” Alain demanded. “Why would you wreak such devastation, allowing your monsters to come out into Gramarye and destroy everything they find? By what right would you slay a whole land?”

“Why, by the right of might,” Zonploka answered impatiently. “Is not that obvious, youngling? If I can seize the land and slaughter the people, surely it is right for me to do so!”

“It is anything but right,” Alain contradicted. “The king is there to protect the people, not despoil them.”

“Foolish innocent!” Zonploka sneered. “The king makes the nobles yield him men and money, and they in their turn exploit the people, forcing them to labor for their lord’s gain!”

“There are some such,” Alain admitted, “but they are base and vile creatures who ignore the obligations of nobility.”

“They respect the rule of nature!” Zonploka spat. “This is the natural order of things, that the strong should prey upon the weak! You must conquer all you can to prevent a rival from rising—stamp him out before he can gain enough strength to conquer you!”

“So when you learned of this portal to our world, you saw at once that you must conquer us before we conquered you,” Alain concluded.

“Conquer me! Fools!” said Zonploka with a mocking laugh. “Do you truly think you can stand against my monsters? Against my human armies? Be mindful that horrible though they are, they obey me only because I am more horrible still!”

“You have seen very little of our world,” Gregory demurred.

“What I have seen is most amusing in its weakness. Do you know how I learned of you? By a rock! A rock a plowman discovered in a meadow, one that gave out a strange sort of thumping with a thrumming that your kind, I suppose, call music! He brought it to me, hoping to curry favor, and I knew it was nothing that had ever been in this land, nor was likely to be.”

“Too pleasant,” Allouette inferred. “Too soft.”

“Soft indeed, and I never before had seen a stone that yielded to the touch! I knew that whatever land had given it birth must be a soft land indeed, and one ripe for the plucking! I made the peasant lead me to the spot where he had found it. From there I cast about with my magic until I found the gateway to your realm, small and inconspicuous though it was, and only visible when the mist rose from the river and gathered about it in a knot.”

“Yet you found you could not pass through it,” Gregory guessed.

“Nay, for it was tiny, scarcely big enough to admit an imp; it was sheer blind chance that the rock had flown through it! But I brought my magical slaves, shackling their powers to mine, and made that portal expand marvelously!”

“He speaks of espers he has enslaved,” Allouette said, her face hard. Her companions turned very grim, too—Zonploka had chained their own kind.

“But,” said Gregory, “even when the gate was wide open, you found you could not pass.”

“No, not until I heard the plowman mutter a wish for another rock whose sounds would lighten his labors, let him forget his toil—and lo! Another stone flew through! Thereby I knew that I would have to manipulate your folk into inviting me, and they proved most easy to mold to the task!” He laughed.

“Terrorize, you mean.” Alain fought to keep his face neutral. “You found that thought could pass through the gate, so you crafted monsters out of witch-moss in our land and sent them to destroy anything they found, naming you as their author, so that folk would fear you and seek to appease you.”

“Aye, and creating so much chaos that your folk would long for order, any order at any price! Oh, they were quite easy to turn!”

“Poor folk, simple folk who knew no better,” Alain interpreted. “So you sent them dreams of the Taghairm, and when some among them do manage to complete the ritual, you shall send an army of monsters into our land, to lay it waste and raise terror in the hearts of our people, terror and despair?”

“Aye, and thus shall they learn that they can never prevail against my forces! Foolish lad, not to know the natural order of things! Nay, if your like seeks to defend these fools, I am bound to conquer all!”

“What, with monsters who can do naught but destroy?”

“Nay, with my army of human warriors, who can rule as well as plunder, force folk to work as well as come to the slaughter,” Zonploka retorted.

Allouette shuddered at the thought of the deeds those soldiers might wreak, to make people hop to do their bidding. “We have heard enough, Highness!”

“Aye,” said Gregory, “enough to know that the gateway is not something this sorcerer made, but a natural phenomenon.”

Zonploka frowned. “What nonsense do you speak?”

“Only words you have not heard before,” Alain assured him. “Still, Gregory, it would seem the portal is susceptible to manipulation by your sort of magic, or his chained magicians could not have made it widen.”

“Agreed,” Gregory said. “We have learned enough.” He turned and went back into the helical tunnel.

“Halt, impudent insect!” Zonploka snapped. “I have not given you leave to go!”

“Then we had best go leave.” Alain turned to follow Gregory. “Ladies, Sir Knight, let us march.”

They fell into place behind him as Zonploka ranted, “I bid you stop! I bid you halt! I bid you return and bow!” He stood and stabbed a finger at the prince.

Alain’s belly clenched as though he had been struck with a mace; he doubled over but kept staggering toward the tunnel. Cordelia cried out in outrage and spun to glare at Zonploka. The sorcerer slammed back against his throne, eyes wide in shock, and Alain straightened up and strode swiftly toward the tunnel. “Quickly, my friends. He has resources other than himself!”

Sure enough, as they stepped within the tunnel they felt as though they had suddenly stepped into a morass of molasses. They had to struggle to move their legs, barely managing to shuffle slowly forward—but Gregory linked hands with Allouette and the morass disappeared as suddenly as it had come. The companions staggered with relief, then steadied to a quick walk.

“Go swiftly!’ Geoffrey called. He squirmed past Gregory and Allouette as Zonploka’s cry of outrage echoed behind them—outrage that turned to burning rage, shouting, “Down upon them, or die in agony!”

“That is my summons.” Quicksilver twisted between Allouette and Gregory, drawing her sword as the clatter of hobnailed boots sounded in the passage ahead. She swung her blade up just in time to meet the warriors who rounded the curve of the rocky spiral and stabbed serrated blades at them. She recovered as Geoffrey parried a thrust from Zonploka’s human guards.

Human, but they scarcely looked it. Their bodies were half again as wide as Geoffrey’s, one soldier filling the whole width of the tunnel but others visible behind him. Their skin was pallid, their faces swollen, their eyes staring with gleeful anticipation of the pain they could cause as they attacked with gloating smiles. They wore black tunics with blood-red trim and stabbed with swords that gave off the gleam of bronze.

Cordelia held her glowing ball high and those smiles vanished; the soldiers had planned to do their work in the dark. But the narrow tunnel scarcely allowed room for one of them at a time—one sword against the two that Geoffrey and Quicksilver wielded, side by side, and the roof was low, so there was no room to slash; they could only thrust, and they faced expert swords that could parry and riposte far more quickly than they. Nonetheless, the first managed to recover and thrust a second time.

Quicksilver caught his sword in a bind and Geoffrey struck down at it with all his might; the bronze blade broke under the impact of the steel, and Allouette thrust deep into the man’s vitals. “Back!” she cried, and they all retreated a pace, enough for the soldier to fall—but the next charged them.

Charged, tripped on the body of its mate, and fell. Geoffrey’s blade rose and plunged; the soldier screamed, then was silent.

“Withdraw!” Geoffrey cried, sending his thoughts so that whatever language they spoke, the soldiers would understand him. “Withdraw, for you cannot win! We can stand here all day and slay you one by one—and when one of us tires, another can come to the fore in his stead!”

The soldiers backed away, muttering; then one called back a stream of words that were unintelligible, but they could read his thoughts; he was saying, “True enough, but you cannot go forward either, for we block the tunnel. What do you mean to do—walk on our dead bodies?”

“Why not?” Geoffrey retorted. “You would! And be assured, we shall keep our footing quite well.”

The soldiers were quiet in consternation. Then sudden belly cramps doubled the companions in agony; the soldiers howled and charged.

Allouette managed to counter Zonploka’s telekinesis with her own, and the cramps went away just in time for Geoffrey and Quicksilver to chop down the next two soldiers, leap back to let them fall, then stride over their bodies even as they had said; the footing was unfirm but the tunnel walls stabilized them when they stumbled. Still, Allouette stole a leaf from her enemy’s book and sent her thoughts ahead, to make belly muscles spasm; grunts of pain answered her as the soldiers doubled up. Then Gregory reached into their hindbrains, activating a primitive panic that made the soldiers cry out with horror and turn to run, shoving against one another in their agony to be gone.

“Quickly!” Geoffrey shouted, and ran after them.

Up the tunnel and out into the cavemouth they ran, with Gregory, Allouette, and Cordelia countering Zonploka’s thought-traps at every turn—first another round of cramps, then numbness in the legs, then sudden pain around their hearts. Finally Gregory struck back with a wave of dizziness that made the sorcerer reel in his underground cavern, long enough for the companions to sprint down across the rocky beach, between lines of huge soldiers bent over retching from the last round of belly cramps, and into the portal before the rising sun had quite managed to evaporate it.

They landed one by one, diving and rolling, then sat up, panting and staring at one another wild-eyed. Finally Allouette said wonderingly, “We are alive and whole!”

“Only a temporary state if Zonploka has his way,” Alain warned. He looked around at his friends. “What shall we do now?”

“Stand ready to defend,” said a familiar voice, “for surely they shall not let you escape so easily.”

The companions looked up in surprise and saw a lean and thoughtful young man with lank blond hair neatly combed, looking down at them from a tall warhorse. His face seemed a thinner version of Alain’s. Behind him six men-at-arms stood ready with their spears.

“Diarmid!” Gregory jumped up. “You are well come indeed! My dear, this is my chess mate Diarmid; Diarmid, my bride Allouette—oh, but surely you have met at Quicksilver’s trial?”

“I would surely remember so fair a flower,” Diarmid said gallantly but with no heat.

Allouette remembered him quite well, for as Duke of Loguire he had been Quicksilver’s judge—and her own. “I was . . . disguised, Highness.”

Diarmid gave her a small bow. “I hope we shall have the opportunity to renew acquaintance, but at the moment there are more immediate matters pressing.”

“Aye, an invasion of monsters!” Alain stepped forward. “You are well met indeed, brother.”

Diarmid smiled down at his older sib. “You did not, I hope, think I would sit at home and twiddle my thumbs while you went riding off to adventure and glory.”

“I had something of the sort in mind, yes,” Alain agreed. “Nevertheless, brother, if it is adventure you wish, you are likely to have more of it, and soon—for the morning mist is almost gone, and if Zonploka seeks to stop us, he will have to send his army through in minutes.”

“Surround that knot of mist, men of mine!” Diarmid called, and the footmen spread out in a semicircle, archers and spearmen alternating, their weapons aimed at the whirlpool.

“Quicksilver, let us and Alain meet them with steel.” Geoffrey drew his sword. “Let Gregory, Cordelia, and Allouette fight with telekinesis and whatever other spells they can fashion.”

“I am surely as well trained in fighting as yourself,” Allouette protested.

“True,” said Geoffrey, “but you are also a most powerful projective telepath, and should be able to wreak far more havoc with that gift than with a sword.”

Allouette blinked, uncertain whether to take the comment as a slight or a compliment, then decided to take up the issue after the battle was done, if the two of them still lived.

Monsters exploded out of the vortex with howls, roars, and baying.

“Loose!” cried Diarmid, and bowstrings thrummed. Arrows sprouted in monsters’ throats, but they only roared with anger and pain and kept coming.

Alain, Quicksilver, and Geoffrey immediately formed a triangle, facing outward, swords at the ready.

The gigantic bull with pointed teeth lowered his head and charged the trio; the dire wolf and the giant scorpion closed in from the other two sides. The rest of the dozen, though, went right past the trio and charged the soldiers.

The gigantic scorpion’s stinger flashed down at Quicksilver, but her sword swung even more quickly, chopping it off. It fell short but gouged her shin; she screamed but swung again, chopping off a pincer.

Geoffrey jammed his sword down the throat of the dire wolf, then yanked it out a split second before the great jaws clashed shut; he spun to chop off one of the scorpion’s claws. The dire wolf fell back, coughing blood; Geoffrey kicked the stinger at it just as the wolf bounded forward again. The stinger’s point caught it in the chest and it fell, jaws snapping at the pain.

Allouette glared at the oncoming menagerie of giant snakes, gargantuan spiders, ogres, goblins, and trolls; a huge dragon exploded into existence before them, sweeping them with a blast of fire.

Alain sheathed his sword as the bull charged again. He dove, catching a horn in either hand. The bull tossed its head, bellowing in anger, and Alain let go, somersaulting into a seat on the bull’s neck. He whipped out his sword as he seized one horn again, lay flat, and slashed his blade under him, across the monster’s throat. The bull’s bellow turned into burbling as it pivoted in rage, snapping its jaws, trying to reach the man just behind its own skull. It failed, of course, but one pointed tooth did score Alain’s leg. He shouted with pain but hung on grimly and stabbed behind his own knee, sword piercing between the bull’s ribs and into its heart. Blood gushed from its throat as the monster fell to its knees.

Alain vaulted off—and his right leg crumpled beneath him. He stabbed at the ground, using the sword as a cane to push himself up, and hopped back to take his place in the triangle.

The squadron of monsters fell back from the dragon’s fire, screeching and chittering; then a troll bellowed, “Not real! Can’t hurt!!”

Cordelia stared at the dragon’s mouth, thinking of molecules speeding up their dance to a frenzy.

The troll charged forward, then screeched and fell back, its hair burning. The other monsters skidded to a halt.

“Loose!” Diarmid cried again, and the bowstrings thrummed, sending razor-sharp broadheads to pierce hide and fur. The monsters screamed again but charged in anger. The dragon roared and half of them fell, writhing in agony; the other half charged onward.

The archers managed one more volley, but the giant spiders and giant snakes came on. The spearmen gulped but braced their spears, then stabbed as the nightmares came upon them. One went down, ichor streaming over his chest from a spider’s fangs, but the monster made a grating noise and retreated away, turning to scurry back toward the vortex but falling in a tangle of legs on the beach.

Another spearman stabbed straight into a snake’s maw, then dropped his spear and leaped aside; the snake thrashed about in blind pain. The soldiers dodged its loops, but its eyes were already filming over in death.

The third spearman’s point went into another snake’s nose. It hissed in anger, sounding like a boiler blowing, and struck at the man again—but the spearman held it off with his weapon, though it forced him back and back. Then it threw a coil over him. His companion archer loosed arrows at close quarters, feathering the monster, but its coil tightened inexorably around the spearman, whose cry of horror grated into choking.

Diarmid galloped up and chopped down. The snake’s head fell and the coil loosened as the huge body began to whip about in its blind death-dance.

Quicksilver shoved her shoulder under Alain’s arm. “Lean on me and walk, Highness!”

“And you upon me,” Geoffrey said, throwing an arm about her waist.

“Where are you wounded?” she cried in alarm.

“On my left arm,” he answered, “the one you are now guarding. Advance!”

So, supporting one another, they hobbled up behind the monsters who still crouched before the dragon, waiting for an opening. The companions began to slash and stab.

Then, suddenly, the dragon was gone and the wounded fighters stood staring around at dead monsters.

Cordelia dashed up, crying, “Allouette! A rescue!” She touched her hand to Alain’s leg and began to knit muscle fibers back together.

Allouette set her hand on Quicksilver’s shin and frowned intently. “Poisons . . . I must change the molecules to benign ones . . .”

Quicksilver bit her lip, choking back cries of pain.

Gregory knelt by one fallen spearman, resting a hand on the wound in his abdomen, then shook his head and turned to the other fallen man. He placed a hand to either side of the fellow’s chest, beginning to knit fractured ribs back together and close the walls of the bronchial tubes in a pierced lung.

The remaining spearman stared at the huge carcasses, awestruck. “How came we to slay such horrors, my lord?”

“Because,” Diarmid told him, “your spears and arrows are tipped with Cold Iron, which is poisonous to any creature of faerie.”

Alain was taking experimental steps, staring at his healed leg in amazement. “You are a wonder, my love!”

“And you were so brave you nearly stopped my heart.” But Cordelia held her brother’s wounded arm in her hands, glaring at the slash.

“Thank you, Allouette.” Quicksilver took stiff steps, her healed muscles seeming to thaw by the second. “Surely this cannot be all the force Zonploka could muster!”

“Now they are wounded! There are only a dozen of them!” a voice screamed behind them. “Kill them! Rend them! Hack them apart!”

Whirling, they saw Zonploka, mounted on a beaked lizard with horns stabbing from its forehead, clawed feet, and a snake’s lashing tail. He rode out full tilt against them, and behind him rode rank upon rank of over-wide human forms with distorted faces, grinning in anticipation of their victims’ agonies.