Dragon Alliance: Rise Against Shadow (47 page)

“It’s probably Vetness getting those giants moving to join our fight,” Fellaxe answered.

“That was not a request, warlord,” Ashram demanded.

“Yes, my liege,” the death knight replied with a scowl on his scarred face, as he swung his wyvern around to head back to their encampment.

Ashram spurred his nightmare steed forward to motivate his army. “I will see that sorcerer grovel before me one day,” Fellaxe grumbled to himself, as his wyvern mount veered to the right to head back to their encampment.

“Mkel, a rider on a wyvern is coming back from the enemy army. And I hear giants approach from the hills,” Dekeen spoke quickly.

“Decray, we are expecting company any minute. You need to get those men to your mounts,” Mkel relayed.

“Giants! Finally a fight worthy of my hammer. The earth tells me they come from the east,” Ordin said with glee, for dwarves were very in tune with ground vibrations, being a race that lived a good portion of their lives underground.

“Lupek, Toderan, go with Ordin and Tegent and head off the giants. Dekeen and I will take this wyvern down,” Mkel quickly directed.

“Yes, Captain, good luck,” Toderan replied as Lupek and Tegent nodded an acknowledgment.

Mkel, there are at least three giants coming down the valley, with more following several miles behind, along with ogres and more orcs,
Gallanth told Mkel telepathically.

“Toderan, Lupek, there are at least three giants, with more to follow, so be careful,” Mkel shouted as he loaded an exploding-tipped bolt magazine into his crossbow.

“Mkel, the wyvern carries the death knight,” Dekeen spoke as he drew an arrow from his quiver.

“Not for much longer,” Mkel answered as he cocked the lever behind the trigger, which loaded and readied it to fire. “Wait until he dives toward us,” Mkel spoke to Dekeen as he dropped to a knee and lifted his crossbow to his shoulder, carefully taking aim at the approaching wyvern.

Who are these insolent invaders of our camp?
Fellaxe thought to himself as he spurred his dragon-like mount to dive on the two closest foes, who were daring to take aim at him. His wyvern would slice those two to shreds with its talons, and then he would deal with the others in turn. The black iron axe he wielded had felled many a foe, and he attacked the small group with confidence. He surmised that any Alliance soldier or warrior of strength would certainly be heading the legion that his forces were marching to meet, not here skulking in their encampment.

The brownish gray steed brought up its raptor-like talons and raised its tail with its enlarged poisonous stinger. Wyverns did not have front legs like true dragons, and without an antidote, the poison from their tail stinger was deadly to all but dragons. The wyvern let out a warbled roar, tilting its wings to initiate its dive. These creatures were minute compared to a true dragon, even smaller than a white, and were just larger than a manticore. Their roughly fifty-foot wingspan was just over half of a white dragon’s. They did possess a long tail, making them appear bigger than they actually were. In a close fight, a land dragon would tear one of these creatures apart, and a good-sized griffon could beat them, as long as it could avoid its deadly tail.

“Fire!” Dekeen shouted as he released his arrow, which was immediately followed by Mkel’s bolt. Both missiles streaked toward the diving wyvern. Dekeen’s hit the creature on the base of the neck, easily piercing the wyvern’s relatively lightly armored hide, as compared to a dragon’s. The energy of the dragonstone-enhanced arrow transferred into the wyvern, as Mkel’s exploding-tipped bolt struck it in the left front region of the chest and burst in a brilliant flash. The resulting double impact from the powerful weapons’ missiles actually interrupted the wyvern’s dive, pushing it up and to the left of its flight path. The mortally wounded creature crashed into one of the larger tents, sending its black armored rider tumbling to the ground.

In the meantime, three common giants emerged from around the small hill on the left side of the shallow valley behind the camp. When they saw Ordin, they shouted something in their crude simplistic language and raised their huge clubs as they rapidly moved toward him. Ordin smiled, raised his thunder hammer, Donnac, and hurled it at the lead giant. The powerful double-headed hammer whirled end over end, with its ruby dragonstone glowing and crackling with energy, as it sped toward the giant. The large brute did not think of it as a threat and kept advancing toward the brown-bearded dwarf. The hammer struck the giant square in the chest, with a loud thunderous clap, knocking the fourteen-foot-tall, two-and-a-half-thousand-pound creature off its feet. It gasped, as it slammed on its back in a muffled thud. The hammer flew back in a wide arc to Ordin’s outstretched hand.

The giant that was hit was not killed but must have had several broken ribs and likely a crushed diaphragm, for it was barely able to roll over and get to its knees. The other two did not even acknowledge their companion’s plight and continued to advance on Toderan, Lupek, and Tegent. Toderan faced off the giant on the right and drew his holy sword while firming his grip on his mithril shield. Lupek raised his javelin and threw it at the giant that was rapidly bearing down on them from the left. The lightning javelin streaked through the air and easily pierced the giant’s hide armor on the right shoulder, with the electrical energy blast spinning it around and bringing it down to one knee. Tegent fired two arrows in rapid succession, one hitting it the stomach and the other in its back, as it was twirled around by Lupek’s javelin.

Toderan moved toward the third giant as it raised its five-foot-long club and swung at the knight. The paladin ducked and raised his shield, making the club only score a glancing blow. Even with that, the burly paladin was pushed back a step but quickly recovered with a downward thrust of his long sword that sliced through the giant’s hide armor and cut into its side, transferring the energy of the sword into the brute. It winced at the blow, which left a nasty and deep gash in its side. The giant had received wounds from a long sword before, but never like this, as the pain from the gash was intense.

As it raised its club again, Toderan moved in and struck the giant’s right leg with his blade, cutting the thigh to the bone. The giant crumpled but did manage to hit Toderan with his club, which he again blocked with his shield, but was thrown back, landing on his side. He quickly got up, as his mithril plate armor was much lighter than steel, and in three strides he was on the giant. As it was attempting to get to its hands and knees, the paladin thrust his holy sword into the base of its thick hairy neck. The shimmering mithril alloy blade sunk almost to the hilt. The giant let out a gurgling groan as it fell dead.

Ordin had moved up to the giant he first hit and struck it in the calf, as it just had gotten back on its feet, with one hand still clutching its club and the other grasping its chest. The giant’s lower leg snapped with a loud crack, bringing it back to the ground. It swung its club in a powerful downward stroke as it fell. Ordin deftly rolled away from the huge club, which struck only earth. He then sprang back up on his feet and swung his hammer, hitting the giant square in the forehead, killing it instantly.

“Ahhaahahh!” Ordin shouted in a victory cry. Tegent fired another arrow, which struck the third giant in the chest as it attempted to get up and pull the mithril javelin out of its shoulder. Lupek quickly closed in on the giant while drawing his scimitar and sliced a wide but thin and deep cut along its side, then he whirled around and plunged the curved blade to the hilt in its back. The giant’s distorted face reflected the pain of the deep wound as another arrow from Tegent pierced its neck, finishing it off as it fell forward with a thud.

Fellaxe had finally recovered from being thrown from his wyvern when it crashed; he grabbed his axe and moved to meet this insolent threat. As he rounded his dead mount, he faced Mkel and Dekeen, who had drawn arrows trained on him. He grasped his black iron double-headed axe, with its bronze skull head in the center of the spiked circle that both blades of the axe originated from. “A dragonrider and an elf?” he shouted as he noticed the dragon symbol on Mkel’s collar. “Where’s your dragon? Too afraid to fight?” he attempted a weak insult.

“No, you’re just not worth the bother, death knight,” Mkel answered back, matching his insult. “Now it’s time for you to surrender, or die,” Mkel quipped as he and Dekeen aimed their bows on him.

“No, Captain. He’s mine,” Toderan shouted as he walked over to them.

“An Alliance paladin; I will enjoy splitting your skull with my axe,” Fellaxe replied, as Mkel and Dekeen lowered their bows. Toderan’s holy sword was still dripping with the last of the dark reddish-purple giant’s blood, its ruby dragonstone glowing brightly.

The two armies were now converging on each other. When the lines were within one thousand yards, all six small catapults that had managed to squeeze into the group that Strikenth and Talonth teleported in started to fire. The ballistae gunners on the land dragons also initiated firing with their dragon’s fire-tipped spears. The catapults that the Battle Point legion had taken with them were smaller than what Jodem was used to seeing but slightly more mobile. This did limit their range to a thousand yards as opposed to the mid to large size catapults that had a two- to three-thousand-yard range. The largest trebuchets of the Alliance Capital heavy legions could throw a sixty-pound projectile over two miles.

One of the two fragmentation stones hit directly in the center of the orc lines, sending out nails and sharp metal fragments in a deadly twenty-yard circle. Nineteen orcs fell dead and twenty-four more were wounded by the secondary projectiles. The other stone hit just behind the lines, which only killed four and wounded twelve. The gunners quickly adjusted their catapult throw strengths to correct for the distance and the orc forward movement.

“Down hundred yards and left fifty,” the second catapult crew leader shouted, as his men wound the throwing arm to a specific tension and loaded a dragon’s fire canister, as did the other engine. “Fire!” both crew leaders shouted to their men to let the arms fly forward. This time both hit their marks, with fireball bursts exploding in the middle of the orc and human infantry ranks, killing scores, coupled by the two dozen smaller bursts from the land dragon ballistae.

“Damn that dragon’s fire of theirs. Why can’t our alchemists or the drow find the formula for that material?” Ashram grumbled to himself as he just reached his army, flying on his black demon horse steed. “We’ll see to that later.” He spurred his mount on toward the legion, preparing a spell, as the dark crystal on his staff started to glow. Suddenly an arrow sailed dangerously close to him, and then another struck the nightmare in the hindquarter, just penetrating its tough pitch black hide. The sorcerer looked up to see two squadrons of mounted hippogriffs bearing down on him. He quickly raised his magic shield, which stopped eight more arrows from finding their mark as the hippogriffs started to dart past him on their way to strafe his army below. He did manage to fire a lightning bolt, which struck one of the hippogriffs, sending it end over end toward the ground, but the rest had all passed out of his range before he could prepare another spell.

“Where in Tiamat’s name are those manticores?” he shouted to himself, then looked over and saw them slowly approaching at mid altitude from the east. In the meantime, the first wave of hippogriffs dove on his mixed army below, letting loose a hail of arrows and dragon’s fire grenades, many of which found their mark. They then pulled up just as the second wave of two squadrons dove on the army from the opposite direction. The two squadrons of hippogriffs unleashed a hail of arrows and dragon’s fire grenades on the sorcerer’s army, resulting in over a hundred casualties. Several hippogriffs received arrows hits, mostly to the hindquarters as they flew by and pulled away. Orc archers were notoriously inaccurate and depended on pure numbers to achieve hits. The usual Morgathian army makeup had only a quarter of the number of archers the typical Alliance legion deploys.

“The manticores will keep them busy for a while, it’s the land dragons that I have to worry about,” Ashram said to himself as his black steed dove down toward his own lines, looking for his key leaders. He saw Barlog moving behind the line of grummish and the behirs, shouting at the orc battalion he led. “Barlog!” he shouted as his nightmare steed reared up in midair just over the orcs’ heads. The land dragon ballistae were bursting in regular order all around them, accented with the occasional larger explosion of a catapult canister. This was playing havoc on the orc and human infantry lines.

“Keep your scum in order!” the sorcerer screamed. “You are facing a reinforced legion; they somehow got here through your scouts.” Ashram was furious that the Battle Point legion had gotten so close without being detected, especially with nearly a battalion of land dragons. He estimated that this portion of his army still had them outnumbered, but not by as much as he would have liked. “And don’t let those grummish outdistance the behirs, or they will be burnt to ashes in the cross fire between them and the land dragons.”

“Yes, my lord,” the large muscular orc shouted back.

“Dog orc, we will not be told when we can kill,” the grummish leader growled in half common and half his own tongue.

“You heard Lord Ashram,” the hierorc yelled back at him in orcish, “you are to stay in line.” Barlog brandished his black iron axe in a threatening posture.