Iron Tongue

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The green demon squawked as it worked to spin the rear axle faster and faster. Lan Martak' s first reaction was to grab, to physically hold back the runaway ore wagon. Then common sense and his newfound powers took over. No man, no matter how strong, could possibly slow that load. Instead, Lan reached down within himself and teased the dancing mote to life. The point of brilliance had become his guide, his companion, his source of power in realms he had yet to fully explore.

The savagery of the situation instantaneously communicated to the light mote. It blazed with indignant power, then flashed off, out of Lan' s line of sight.

Its response came too late. The crazed green demon smashed its wagon into the rear of the second one. The power stone surged up and out of the wagon, its momentum barely checked by the collision. The resulting roar almost deafened those in the tunnel. But that was the least of their worries.

" The dust. I can' t breathe," cried Inyx. She choked and gasped as billowing dust raced toward them from the wrecked wagons.

Lan knew full well that suffocation would be a merciful death compared to what might happen if they too deeply inhaled the power stone dust. His mote of light had failed to stop the demon' s suicidal mission, but it now served in a completely different fashion. Like a membrane drawn over a drumhead, the light diffused and formed a curtain between Lan, Inyx, and Krek and the source of the danger.

" It' ll be all right. Just hold your breath for a couple seconds." He looked at the way the curtain of palely shimmering light held back the dust and fragments of stone flying at speeds faster than he could track. The way the ore reacted reminded him of corn tossed into a campfire. Tiny explosions recurred at random, sending pieces hurtling outward. Every time one of the power stone shards hit his magical curtain, it exploded into actinic brilliance.

" How long will that continue, friend Lan Martak?"

" I don' t know," the young mage admitted. " But we' re safe as long as the shield is in place."

" Safe? How can you say that? There are men and women on the other side dying because you used some damned demon who double- crossed you!" Inyx raged, but he knew it wasn' t directed at him personally. She hated the idea of being unable to help the others trapped in the raging maelstrom of power stone.

" While I do share friend Inyx' s concern about the others," said Krek, " she and you both miss an important point. Claybore knew of our excursion. He senses magics just as you do. Even one of little or no training, as you are, is capable of detecting a spell in use."

" He can' t ' see' us now, no matter how good he is," said Lan. " The power stone is setting up some sort of continuous reaction. The magics are all jumbled. The energy locked within the raw ore is prodigious. With it we could have easily defeated Claybore. Now, it only serves to shield my own magic use."

" Then turn your spells against Claybore." Inyx stood defiantly. Dust coated her face and turned her into a chalk statue. Krek stood to one side in the narrow tunnel, shaking and brushing one leg against another in a vain attempt to remove the same dust.

" If I could, I would. But he remains too strong. Our best course is to go on out of the tunnel, see if we can salvage any of the power stone, and get inside Wurnna' s walls as quickly as possible. Let Iron Tongue activate it and then we can attack Claybore."

" Perhaps this is a suitable opportunity to use your power against Claybore," suggested Krek, " but in a more restrained fashion."

" What do you mean?"

" Spy on his camp. Learn of his troop preparations. We spiders care little about such things, but you humans value such oddments of information. Though why, I cannot say." Krek sank down, legs curled about him, hardly more than a dark lump in the narrow tunnel.

Lan didn' t bother answering. He split off a portion of the shield blocking out the power stone dust and sent it streaking through the nonworld it inhabited and into the air above Claybore' s camp. Through this aerial porthole he witnessed the grey- clads moving to mount their attack. Lan lacked control over the sky- spy, but what he saw chilled him. The troops marched with more determination than he' d have believed after his dragons had grazed among their ranks. Claybore- or k' Adesina or Silvain- had instilled a battle fever that would carry them to their deaths on Wurnna' s battlements.

The brief glimpse of an exposed chart carried in the hand of an officer made Lan shake his head. The canyon walls on either side of Wurnna would soon be scaled and the heights occupied. None but a sorcerer might use those heights to advantage, but Claybore and his mage- assistants knew enough spells to destroy Wurnna, given the chance.

" We must rejoin Noratumi and the others," he said. Inyx' s head came up and her eyes gleamed strangely.

Lan felt a pang of jealousy. What had gone on between her and the Bron leader? Then he pushed it from his mind. He had no time for petty emotion. This was a day of bold moves- and bloody deaths.

The curtain of light pushed away from him as he advanced. The faster Lan walked, the quicker the seal moved. It passed over the wrecked wagons but all power stone and dust was shoved before the light curtain. When daylight shone down on his head, Lan relaxed and allowed the curtain to coalesce once again into the mote he had come to depend on.

Dust billowed upward and roiled about, obscuring bodies and crushed wagons, but Lan and his friends stood in a small clearing in the atmospheric confusion.

" Jacy!" cried Inyx. She repeated the name until a battered, bloodied figure stumbled through the dust and waved to them.

" I never thought I' d see any of you again. Iron Tongue abandoned us. Went on into Wurnna. It: it' s all over. I feel it." Jacy Noratumi sank to his knees, more unconscious than alert.

Lan closed his eyes and chanted a simple healing spell. Noratumi gasped and fought for breath. Lan ignored his plight and Inyx' s pleas for him to stop. Only when he had magically plucked the last of the dust from the man' s lungs did he allow breathing to resume normally.

Noratumi fell forward, supporting himself on hands and knees. He turned dazed eyes upward to Lan and said, " I can feel the change within me. What did you do?"

" You are whole again. I must heal the others before the power stone dust kills them. The death is not a pleasant one."

Noratumi made a mask out of his tunic and rushed back into the perpetual storm of dust boiling about the entrance to the tunnel. In a few minutes he led back a small band of survivors- too small. Only four still lived.

Lan Martak found the healing both tedious and simple. He drew on the power of the dust itself to bring about the cure, yet he chafed at the delay. He needed these four; he needed a thousand times their number. Magics alone would not win this day' s battle.

" We must hurry. Krek, go into Wurnna and tell Iron Tongue to get crews out here to salvage the power stone."

" He returns even now," the spider said.

Lan forced a small tube of clarity through the obscuring dust and saw a wagon recklessly driven across the short distance between postern gate and tunnel mouth. Seated beside the driver was Iron Tongue. His lips moved in a slow chant. Lan guessed he goaded the driver to even more suicidal daring in reaching the wrecked wagons.

" Begone!" came Iron Tongue' s loud command. The spell carried enough power and authority to dissipate the dust cloud in seconds.

" Why didn' t you do that?" demanded Noratumi.

" He' s had more experience with both power stone and spell," said Lan, but the words sounded lame to him. All the more so when he saw Inyx' s expression. He went to greet Iron Tongue.

" Don' t take a second longer than necessary," said Iron Tongue. " Claybore' s attack is already launched. We need this ore. Badly. Now!" He used the full power of his tongue to goad the humans into frenzied action.

They all fell to loading the ore onto the good wagon that Iron Tongue had brought back from his city. When only half a load had been accumulated, Iron Tongue clapped his hands together and ordered, " Into the wagon, all! We must retreat. The attack is upon us!"

Even as he spoke arrows came arching downward to embed themselves in the ground at their feet. Lan casually brushed them aside with a quick spell of only minor potency; his attention focused on the heights on either side of Wurnna.

" Iron Tongue, how do you defend those areas?" He pointed out the spots that worried him most.

" Defend them? Why bother? Nothing can reach us inside the city from there."

" Claybore' s magics can. He has a clear view of everything within Wurnna from either canyon wall."

" We have always picked off any enemy attempting to scale those cliffs. We will again. Our archers are good. Come, Martak, worry over important things. Can we activate enough of this power stone for our projectiles?"

Lan frowned. He hadn' t known Iron Tongue wanted the ore to place in rockets. He had assumed the rock' s use would be to aid mages in countering Claybore' s magics and in powering offensive spells. Quick fingers brushed over the bracelet of the power stone given him by Rugga. To waste all the power stone by shooting it at Claybore' s troops seemed ineffectual- and it made their sacrifices to this point trivial.

He maintained the magical dome over them to ward off arrows, but he " felt" something else building, something of a diabolically magic intensity.

" Claybore hides his troops with invisibility spells. They: they are so apparent to me now." Lan' s voice conveyed the shock he felt. Only a few weeks before, the idea of detecting any complex spell would have seemed a miracle to him. Now he analyzed and located the nexus for spells he only barely recognized. " There. He sends his troops up the mountains, just as I warned."

He and Krek exchanged looks. They remembered all too well how Kiska k' Adesina had followed them into the foothills around Mount Tartanius on a far distant world. The woman had been raised in mountains, knew their dangers and uses in war intimately, and could fight ferociously using their rocky strongpoints.

Their wagon crashed and bumped along until the gates of Wurnna slammed behind them. They had ridden around, ignoring the small postern gate in favor of a larger one that accommodated their laden wagon. Even as the driver slowed and applied the brake, workers rushed forth to unload the pitiful amounts of power stone salvaged from the three wrecked wagons.

" To the battlements. From there I will launch my messengers of death. Claybore will go to his death mourning the day he attacked Iron Tongue and Wurnna!"

" Claybore is immortal," said Inyx in a small voice. " Even the great Terrill couldn' t kill him."

" The heat of battle goes to his head," said Noratumi.

" He is overconfident. He doesn' t realize Claybore' s true power."

Lan said nothing. He had a different idea and it didn' t sit well with him. The tongue resting in Iron Tongue' s mouth was once Claybore' s. Did some measure of that sorcerer' s evil personality carry over with the organ? Or was Claybore able to reach out and subtly influence Iron Tongue into foolish recklessness? Whatever the answer, the result would be the same.

" The heights will soon belong to the greys," said Rugga. Her concern for Jacy Noratumi drew Lan' s attention as much as the woman' s words. " We cannot use the rockets on them. There won' t be enough. Even working full speed, we cannot convert more than a fraction of the ore into the explosive and propellant needed."

" Get to the battlements. Help him as you can," Lan said to Rugga and Noratumi. " We might find luck on our side, at least for a short while."

" What do you mean?"

" When I looked down into his camp, I saw preparation for a massive assault. If Claybore uses only a physical attack, we might buy some little time. Not much, but enough."

" Enough for what?" Inyx sounded bitter. Lan wondered if it was due to their predicament or the way Noratumi responded to Rugga. He had not been able to find the time to explain to Inyx how such a friendship strengthened their chances for victory. Inyx still responded to Jacy on a personal- intimate- level that was now a thing of the past.

" We aren' t able to hold him at bay indefinitely. Without the power stone, Claybore will swarm over us and end it all quicklyunless we receive outside aid."

" From where? Bron is only a dim memory. The other city- states have long since surrendered. Only the-" The dark- maned woman' s eyes widened in disbelief. " Lan, you can' t be serious."

He nodded glumly.

" The spiders might he all that' s left for us."

" Murrk will never aid humans. He is well content with the treaty worked between us." Krek swayed to and fro in a dizzying motion. The spider' s agitation did little to bolster Lan' s idea of possible help from the valley.

" It might not be necessary. Let' s see how Iron Tongue' s rockets work."

Even as they climbed the battlements, Lan focused on the rocky crags jutting on the east and west flanks of the city state. The canyon that had provided the defense was being turned against them now.

On the walkway, Iron Tongue chortled and rubbed his hands together.

" This will do them just fine. Launch!"

Lan turned and shielded Inyx from the back flare of the erupting missile. Its tail ignited and lashed backward with the pent- up power of a released fire elemental. For a long instant, it hung suspended, then overcame inertia and blasted forth to arc up and come down amid the front ranks of Claybore' s advancing army. The explosion was as blinding as the launch.

" There. That' ll show them."

" They still march on us," came Rugga' s tired voice, " it will take more to stop them this time. Much more."

" The rockets will do it." Iron Tongue clambered up onto a stone pillar and shouted at the top of his lungs, " Die, fools! You will turn and run and die before Iron Tongue' s might!"

Lan felt the full unleashed power of that voice. The Voice. Even partially guarded magically against it, he felt the gut- level urge to obey the command. He prevented Inyx from turning and throwing herself on her sword.

" He is careless. He becomes: crazy." Rugga barely spoke. Noratumi moved closer and whispered to her. The woman quickly nodded. They moved to one side.

The tiny dramas being played out on the battlements of Wurnna didn' t interest Lan. The wavering of the invisibility spells to either flank did. He concentrated on the western side, his magical powers insinuating themselves, turning, twisting, subverting. The party scaling the cliff flickered into sight.

" Iron Tongue," called one of his observers. " The western face."

" They receive a rocket. Now!"

The missile exploded yards from its target. Through squinted eyes, Lan saw flesh boil off still living skeletons. Dozens perished under the attack.

" The other face," he said quietly. " Don' t forget the other cliff to the east."

Iron Tongue swiveled another of the rockets and launched it. This one went wild, going far off target. But Lan saw the true power of the projectiles. The exploding power stone disrupted the invisibility spell- he knew then that it distorted all magics within a certain radius. Even as he drew power to aid his own spells, so could the stone rob power when suddenly released.

The next rocket blew apart the hardy band clinging to the rock face.

" Do your worst, Claybore. You' ll never take my city!"

Lan said softly to Inyx, " There is barely enough power stone left for five rockets. That won' t be enough. Already new parties attack the heights."

" So? The spiders?"

" I' m afraid so. Especially now." He looked to the east. The commander of the new group moved with jerky movements that were only too familiar. This group would attain the heights over Wurnna. Kiska k' Adesina would see to it.

" Magic! Claybore attacks with magic!"

The cry pulled Lan Martak from a deep, dreamless sleep. He rolled over, freeing himself from both cloak and Inyx' s embrace. He sat up and stared into the starless sky.

Starless?

" What is that demon of a sorcerer doing? He' s blotted out the stars." Lan concentrated and sent his mote of light blazing into the firmament, only to have its brilliance snuffed out. The curtain of inky darkness slowly descended, threatening to cover the city.

" What' s he doing?" Inyx stirred herself to full combat readiness, even though she knew this wasn' t to be a battle of swords but of magics.

" I don' t know. But let' s see if he can contain this."

Lan drew on the power from the magical rock, formed it, shaped it into a lance, held the spear, and thrust it directly upward, twisting it and applying more and more pressure. When he thought his brain would explode with effort, the magical spear ripped through.

The sky ignited with the light of a million stars, once more normal.

" He uses the same magics I used to form the ebon dragons. I never realized they were so potent." Lan' s words died when tornadoes of fire whipped across the plain in front of the main gates of Wurnna. Dancing and bobbing, those cyclones touched earth and life perished. Again he drew on the power stone and again he dissipated Claybore' s magics.

" Can you keep this up for long?" Rugga and Noratumi had joined him on the battlement. Rugga' s anxious question went unanswered as he concentrated on Claybore' s next thrust in this magical duel.

Rain fell. Cold rain. Cold, burning rain. Every droplet seared and singed naked flesh, ate through stone, bored straight for the core of the planet. Lan slipped and stumbled, Inyx supporting him. He sapped her power, then Noratumi' s, and finally Rugga' s. He drew on all their inner strength to form an umbrella above the city. The rain mercifully stopped instants before the young mage knew he could no longer shield even himself from it.

" So," said Iron Tongue, boldly walking onto the battlement, " he tries again. This time I will fix him." Iron Tongue bellowed and chanted, cursed and conjured spells and sent the full force of his tongue- powered imprecations rumbling down the valley. Lan wondered if it affected Claybore at all, but if it stopped his grey- clad troops, the effort wasn' t in vain.

" There will be more," Lan told Iron Tongue. " I can' t stop it all. Even with Rugga' s help, I can' t. I doubt the full power of those remaining can hold Claybore off indefinitely."

" You may prove too weak. I will not. I am Iron Tongue, ruler of Wurnna." He threw his head back and laughed, the rolling guffaws mocking the very sky.

And as if offended, the sky retaliated.

Huge boulders fell from above, dropping onto buildings, smashing people and roads and anything else in their way.

" What' s he doing now? Stop them, Lan. Nullify Claybore' s spells."

" I can' t, Inyx. Those are real. Claybore, or one of his pet mages, propels the rock magically, but the rocks are real. Too real."

Tiredness assailed him. He felt his knees shaking in reaction to the enormous powers that he had tapped, that he had allowed to flow through him. Lan knew k' Adesina had finally scaled the cliffs and established the sharpened edges of the pincer closing on Wurnna. Unless those heights were retaken, all would die within the city.

" The rockets, man, use the rockets." Rugga tugged at Iron Tongue' s arm.

" There aren' t any more. The last of the projectiles was used this afternoon." Iron Tongue appeared confused. " We: we can use the power stone from the streets. Rip it from the building foundations: Let the spires fall. We have enough."

Lan shook his head. What Iron Tongue advocated would take months of hard work. The power stone had become an integral part of the city, strong enough for building purposes but too diffuse magically for real defensive work.

" Another! Duck!"

A boulder twice the size of the first crashed into the center of the city. Shock waves raced outward. Even if the destruction to life and property hadn' t been so severe, the falling rock would have taken its toll. Few inside the walls would fight if they were demoralized and fearful. Soon enough the mere thought of the empty sky would work its horror on them- every instant would be spent in dread of still another missile from heaven.

" We can' t last a day like this," moaned Jacy Noratumi. He took Rugga' s hand and pulled her close.

" You must," said Lan. " You must!" Even as he spoke he knew the city' s life was numbered only in hours unless something was done to thwart the dismembered mage. The attack came from too many directions, both physical and magical. He needed to blunt one of those prongs before success could be achieved. He silently motioned to Inyx and Krek and they slipped away. Only one course of action suggested itself. It might be a fool' s mission, but they had to try.