Song of the Dragon

CHAPTER 2

Drakis stepped into a killing field.

The fold behind him collapsus into a thunderclap, the sound joining the rolling chorus of other booms that shook the enormous subterranean plaza as four more folds delivered their own warriors into the battle. More than three hundred Impress Warriors erupted into the square, pouring from their own folds at the base of an enormous, bas-relief covered wall and onto the plaza floor.

The enraged dwarves were already upon them. The Warriors of the Ninth Throne ran with incredible speed from the towering rotunda at the far end of the plaza, their bright-edged axes and swords swinging in their hands as they rushed headlong toward the Impress Warriors.

“They’re engaging us before we’ve formed up!” KriChan shouted.

“Timuran Centurai!” shouted ChuKang above the battle cries of the charging dwarves. “Battle line! Now!”

The manticores and chimera scrambled to find their places as they had practiced so often in the sunlit fields south of the shining towers of their home. . but the dwarves broke upon them in a mad fury, shattering the lines of the four Centurai in the hall before any of them were prepared. Mad dwarven warriors bowled heedlessly past enemies at hand, their eyes fixed on the First Octian of the Centurai.

Drakis glanced at ChuKang.

They’re after the captains, he thought.

ChuKang’s face broke into a vicious grin.

A hand fell on Drakis’ shoulder. Drakis spun about, his sword swinging up instinctively.

“Drakis. .”

It was Braun.

“I don’t feel. . well. .” Braun’s eyes were blinking furiously. “I’m seeing too much. . hearing too much. .”

No, not the captains, Drakis realized. It’s the Proxis the dwarves want. No Proxi, no fold. . no fold, no escape.

Drakis gripped Braun’s shoulder too hard, shouting words into his face in the hope that they might somehow be heard. “Braun! Stay near me! Understand?”

Braun grinned back in reply, his eyes unfocused.

Drakis turned back to face the onslaught, his voice breaking as he screamed the command. “Octian! Octian!”

Time slowed in his mind. The formation of the Centurai had dissolved completely into a sea of vicious, desperate combats.

He saw the face of GriChag glance in his direction, then turn to face a dwarf whose ax was trying to find the manticore’s knees.

Ethis took several steps backward, trying to join Drakis, but a berserk dwarf launched himself against the chimerian, dagger in hand.

The song overwhelmed the sound of death and steel.

Mountains of stone and of dead fell dreams. .

Seeds that are planted in dark. .

Long for the sunlight. .

Wait for the sunlight. .

“DRAKIS! WAKE UP OR DIE!”

Drakis heard the warning from the chimerian barely in time. He flattened his back against the cold stone of the plaza wall, thrashing about with his sword as he desperately tried to parry the dervish flailing of the enraged dwarf pressing his attack. The ornate granite wall immediately chilled the back plate of his armor, pulling the heat out of his body with painful swiftness. He was grateful for the pain; the shock of it focused his mind. Drakis thrust fiercely, kicking hard away from the stone behind him with his right leg, rolling into his opponent before the dwarf could counter the blow. Drakis trapped the creature’s weapon arm in his own and forcefully bent it outward. He felt the thick bones crack as the dwarf howled, but he kept on, pulling the dwarf forward by his broken arm and throwing him to the ground. Desperate, Drakis reversed his grip on his sword, plunging it downward toward the dwarf’s chest-but another dwarf suddenly sprang onto his back, his thick arms wrapped around Drakis’ throat. Drakis panicked, trying to strike at the beast now throttling him, but his sword only flailed ineffectively at his back. What little vision remained to him was rapidly going blurry.

“He’s an insect, idiot!” Ethis yelled at him. The chimerian reached back with his fourth arm and shoved Drakis toward the cold wall behind him.

Drakis lurched back, smashing the dwarf between himself and the stones of the plaza wall. The impact rattled the dwarf enough to loosen his grip-but not enough to make him let go. Drakis staggered forward, hoping to smash his unwanted rider once more when he saw-incredibly-the dwarf with the broken arm running toward him. Blood streamed down his face as he screamed, his ax in his good hand. Flashes of light danced around the edges of Drakis’ vision as he watched the berserk dwarf charge at him. At the last moment, Drakis spun away from the horrible specter just as the gleaming edge of the ax blade swung toward him. He felt the impact of the blow behind him. Hot air suddenly rushed into his lungs as the second dwarf, still clinging to his back, took the thrust and released his grip.

Drakis swung around again, drawing his blade up swiftly behind his head. Too late. The berserk dwarf had already shoved his dead confederate aside and leaped toward the human, his ax blade descending toward Drakis’ face.

The flight of the dwarf was suddenly arrested in midair by the blur of a massive club swinging out of the darkness and connecting with the body. Drakis heard the dwarf’s armor crumple under the blow and the collapse of its rib cage just before the dwarf flew backward, vanishing under the feet of the raging combatants.

“Nice hit, GriChag,” Ethis commented, slightly out of breath himself. Drakis could barely make out three still shapes lying at the chimerian’s feet. “That one was worthy of the Imperial Games.”

“Not good,” GriChag replied with disappointment, his deep voice rumbling. The manticore’s massive dark head shook with disapproval a full two feet above Drakis. “I was aiming for his head.”

Drakis, still choking, stepped quickly back to the relative safety of the plaza wall and tried frantically to catch his breath. His Octian was forming a defensive circle around him, pulling ChuKang and KriChan both within their perimeter.

“When all else fails, depend on your Octian, eh, Drakis?” ChuKang yelled over his shoulder as he drew his twin swords across the throat of a dwarf before him.

“That is what you taught us,” Drakis shouted hoarsely as he rubbed his throat. Panic suddenly gripped him and he turned quickly. “Braun!”

“I’m here, old friend,” Braun replied. The Proxi stood next to Drakis, his sandals and feet covered in blood from the bodies about them, but he took little notice of either. Instead, he gazed at the bas-relief covering the wall towering behind them. “There are cracks in the wall, you know. I’ve been looking at them for some time now, and I think I can see light coming through them. They’re getting wider all the time.”

Drakis squinted at the Proxi. “What are you talking about? We’re leagues underground!”

Before Braun could answer, ChuKang and KriChan stepped back, standing on either side of the Proxi. “Braun! This is a disaster! What does the Tribune want us to do?”

“Well, he hasn’t. .” Suddenly Braun’s demeanor changed; anger and disdain showed on his face, and his voice was suddenly nasal and condescending in tone. They were used to it, for they had seen it every day of their lives: The Tribune was once again pulling the strings of his puppet Proxi. “Gather the individual Octia cells together and re-form the Centurai. Flank the dwarves in the plaza on the left and make for the rotunda. The dwarves are fanatical, but they have gambled on this charge and lost-they have extended themselves too far, and their reserves will not arrive in time. Flank them and get to the rotunda.”

“Master, should we plant a gate symbol there?” KriChan asked.

Braun turned to the second manticore, his features contemptuous. “No! There are grand halls leading away from the rotunda. Take the Centurai to the end of the right-hand hall. . then have the Proxi plant the gate symbol there and propagate it as many times as possible along the promenade you find there before the dwarven reserves arrive.”

ChuKang asked, “But how long before the dwarven reserves. .”

Braun turned back toward the captain, his face nearly purple with rage. “Just do it! We need as many gate symbols as possible established on the promenade at the end of that hall. Do that and you may yet salvage some honor from this debacle, Captain ChuKang.”

In an instant, Braun’s face changed again to a gently smiling countenance. “Did I miss something?”

“Captain!”

It was Jerakh, the manticorian warrior in charge of the Second Octian. “Second, Fourth, and what’s left of the Eighth and Ninth Octia have formed with you here. Third and Sixth are fighting off to the right. I haven’t seen the Octian Dista.”

“Let’s move!” ChuKang shouted. “Let’s push to join with the Third and Sixth-then swing the formation to the left. We’re to make for that rotunda.”

“But our casualties. .”

“We’ll count the dead later, Jerakh,” ChuKang said. “Drakis! You have the Proxi. Let’s go bleed some dwarf!”

The battle was still raging in the plaza when the Centurai from House Timuran broke around the left flank, trampling underfoot the dwarves who had not already succumbed to the Impress Warriors’ weapons. The broken dwarven line contracted, and with shocking suddenness, Drakis found himself running at full-gait through the rotunda with Braun’s shoulder armor gripped firmly in his left hand. What remained of the Timuran Centurai ran with them as well, their ordered battle lines once again dissolved by the necessity of the moment. Everyone was having trouble keeping up with Captain ChuKang, who dashed headlong from the rotunda and bolted down the grand hallway to the right.

Nine notes of stones polished, statuesque dwarf glowers. .

Seven notes of watchful guarding doom and loss. .

Five note halls of gleaming onyx. .

Five note halls of black entombing. .

The stones were polished under their feet, and they passed the thirty-foot-tall statue of a dwarven hero. The hall they entered to their right was filled with warm light from lit torches set in iron wall sconces. Ornate carved pillars of polished stone rose nearly fifty feet overhead to support the intricately carved arched ceiling.

Drakis barely noticed it. His eyes were fixed on ChuKang as he ran down the hall toward blackness darker than any night beyond the arch at the end of the five-hundred-foot-long hall.

“Keep running, Warriors!” KriChan shouted. “Don’t stop! The end is in sight.”

Come answer the call of lamenting. .

Drakis gritted his teeth as he ran.

Come answer the sky that fell. .

His feet fell into the cadence of the song.

Forgive the lament. . Forgive promise torn. .

“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” Drakis muttered under his breath, but the song kept revolving in his mind with every measured footfall on the stones passing beneath his feet. The great black void filling the open end of the colossal hall slid toward him, and still he ran, following ChuKang and holding fast to Braun because that was what he was told to do and the music in his mind overwhelmed all other thought.

ChuKang passed the arch at the end of the long hallway and abruptly stopped. The rest of the Centurai followed his lead, raising their weapons in caution as they approached the darkness.

“By the gods,” ChuKang said in awe as he stood looking out into the void. He called over his shoulder. “Timuran Centurai, set up a defense. Octia Two, Three, and Four protect the hall. Octian Eight to my right and Octian Nine to my left. Octian One to me! Drakis! Bring me that Proxi!”

Drakis glanced over at Braun.

“It’s going to be all right now,” Braun said to him quietly. “Sometimes it has to be truly dark before we can make out the stars in the sky.”

Drakis took in a breath to speak but then let it out again as a sigh. He stepped between the Impress Warriors even as their masters were organizing them into defensive lines. He was blind as he stepped quickly toward their manticorian captain, the darkness seeming a complete void beyond.

“Captain?” Drakis spoke as he came near.

ChuKang turned to the Proxi, pointing to the stones beneath his feet. “Gate symbols! The first one right here, and then start propagating them along both sides of this landing as long as possible! Do it now. . we may not have much time.”

Braun bowed slightly and then shrugged his shoulder out of Drakis’ grasp.

Drakis looked at him with slight embarrassment. He had simply forgotten to let go.

“As the Emperor wills,” Braun said with a crooked smile. The Proxi immediately swung the Standard around smartly, its steel point jabbing into the stone as Braun knelt next to it. The stones beneath it were cut by the strange purple glow at the staff’s tip-an unnatural color that Drakis found difficult to look at. Meticulously, Braun moved the tip across the stones, inscribing their surface with the familiar interlocking ovals of the gate symbol. Once completed, any Tribune could use them to transport their own Centurai to this same spot-the last location of their most forward progress. Many a valiant warrior had died for the honor of moving these symbols a few yards forward on the battlefield.

“KriChan,” ChuKang said quietly to his lieutenant at his side. “Have you ever seen the like?”

Drakis watched the two manticores stare into the darkness together.

Then Drakis realized that the darkness was not entirely dark. As his eyes slowly adjusted from the brilliance of the halls they had just left, he could make out fires burning in the distance, their vague reflection on still waters and in the distance. .

“The Yungskord!” Drakis breathed.

ChuKang turned at the sound. “Yes, Drakis. The Yungskord. . the last cavern of the dwarves. It’s said to be over a third of a league long.”

Drakis stepped up next to where ChuKang stood. He could see now that they were standing on a wide, stone landing that ran across the face of the dwarven city from which they had just emerged. Below the landing, the natural cavern sloped downward to the edge of the fabled underground Lake Kigga. The fires appeared to dot a rugged island in the center of the lake that rose upward toward an impossibly regular and enormous oval of stone. Drakis pointed toward it. “Is that. .?”

“The Stoneheart?” KriChan said through his fanged grin. “The last throne of the dwarves? Yes, Drakis, I believe we have found it.”

The Stoneheart, Drakis thought. Every Impress Warrior had been thoroughly instructed in it from before the battle began. It was a single, massive granite disk, polished by the dwarves to a glassy smoothness, though Drakis had wondered why dwarves would want to go to so much trouble to put a brilliant finish on something that would never be touched by light. It was nearly a hundred yards in diameter and perhaps twenty yards thick in the center. Most remarkable of all, the entire stone sat atop an enormous geyser whose channeled energies pushed upward with such force that the stone seemed to float atop it. It was the flow from this geyser that fed the torrents raging across the floor of the cavern.

“We may have found it, but how do we get to it?” ChuKang mused. “These gate symbols we’re laying down will make this the entry point for the entire army once they are engraved, but charging that island with an army isn’t going to get them any closer to the throne. Look-to the left-that small dwarven city on that side of the cavern. There’s a causeway that runs up from those buildings to that gate. .”

“The Thorgreld,” Drakis said aloud.

The Stoneheart was accessible only via a single bridge carved from the stone that extended from the doors to the Heart outward toward the Last Gate of Thorgreld. It was the final defense of the Last Dwarven Throne, for on the order of their king the entire Stoneheart could be rotated atop the geyser by the dwarves within, moving both bridge and entrance door away from the Last Gate and making it unreachable. The Tribune had told them a great deal about it as they prepared, for battle within the Stoneheart was the prize coveted by all the Houses of the Rhonas Imperium, but hearing it described did not convey to Drakis the enormity of the experience of seeing it himself.

“We’ve got to get to that causeway,” ChuKang said, his voice rumbling as he considered the problem.

“Were any of our warriors over there before?” Drakis asked.

Both ChuKang and KriChan turned toward him. “The Tribune would know. . but if they were that close to the causeway, wouldn’t they have pressed the attack?”

“Maybe they didn’t know it was over there,” Drakis replied. “They might have been fighting in the corridors as we have. . perhaps they didn’t know how close they were to the prize. We can only see it now because we’re over here.”

“If that’s true, then they might have abandoned some gate symbols there,” KriChan said quickly. “We could fold there and make for the throne ourselves!”

“Captain!”

ChuKang turned abruptly toward the sound. “Here!”

“They’re coming!” Jerakh said. “We can see them moving toward the rotunda.”

“How long?”

“Not long.”

“Braun!” ChuKang called.

The Proxi was still kneeling next to the gate symbol glowing faintly from the stone next to him. Braun moved his Standard over the symbol, and a spark arced upward and over the heads of the arrayed warriors until it landed nearly five hundred feet farther down the landing. There it burned briefly into the stones, carving out a duplicate of the gate symbol. “That’s ten, Captain!”

ChuKang reached down and picked up the Proxi with his massive hand, lifting him bodily from the ground and pulling him to stand next to him. “Do you see that city to the left?”

Braun squinted slightly. “Yes. . the one built into the face of the cavern.”

“They’re coming, Captain!” Jerakh called.

The sound of the slow march of dwarven boots became a growing thunder in their direction.

“That’s the way to the throne,” ChuKang said. “There’s a causeway next to it-a road that leads straight to the gate. Do you see it?”

Braun smiled. “Yes. . and so does the Tribune.”

Braun turned at once and knelt again next to the gate symbol in the floor. He planted the Standard, and its great crystal flared into brilliant light at once.

The fold opened.

Drakis shuddered. He could see nothing at all through the ink-black fold.

“Timuran Centurai!” ChuKang called out. “Fall back! Into the fold by the numbers! Octian Nine!”

The group leaped from their positions on the landing, dashing at once through the crackling oval into the darkness on the other side.

“Octian Eight!”

Warriors from the other side of the landing jumped up, scrambling toward the fold and vanishing into the blackness.

“Ethis! Megri!” Drakis called out.

The chimerian and the goblin both called out in ragged response, “Yes, Octis!”

“Each of you stand guard on opposite sides of the fold. TsuRag! GriChag!”

“Yes, Octis!”

“Keep your eyes on the dwarves coming up the hall! We’re leaving!”

ChuKang continued to call out the Octia. In quick succession each pulled back, running quickly through the black opening of the fold.

Drakis stared down the hall. The dwarves were running now, seeing that their enemy was trying to elude them. Their battle cries filled the hall, their blades flashing in the torchlight.

“Octian Two!” ChuKang shouted.

Jerakh and his warriors leaped up, dashed between the members of Drakis’ Octian and, without hesitation, jumped through the fold.

The dwarves shouted their rage in terrible chorus.

“That’s it!” ChuKang roared. “Fold out!”

Drakis turned toward the fold. Ethis and Megri had already jumped through. TsuRag and GriChag were following the captain, and KriChan as he watched. That only left. .

“Braun!” Drakis shouted.

The Proxi stood up. The Standard still emitted the magical Aether, holding the fold open, but Braun now held it casually in his hand.

“Let’s go!” Drakis barked.

Braun’s form was silhouetted against the bright hall. Beyond him, Drakis could clearly see the dwarven warriors less than a hundred feet away and getting closer with every thundering step.

Braun made no move.

“Braun!” Drakis shouted.

“It’s all right,” Braun replied, standing perfectly still. “You don’t see it, do you? The walls have all crumbled, and here-here in the darkness-the light comes at last!”

The dwarves cheered. Fifty more feet and their enemy’s blood would flow.

Braun smiled but made no move. “Do you see the picture? Do you hear the music?”

Nine notes. . Seven notes. .

“What did you say?” Drakis asked, his eyes going wide.

Twenty feet. Eight more steps.

Drakis lunged forward, pushing his shoulder into Braun’s stomach. The Proxi doubled over the warrior’s shoulder in surprise.

Axes and sword blades alike were raised. Two steps more to strike.

Drakis wheeled with the Proxi over his shoulder and leaped headlong into the fold.