The Game of Fates (67 page)

“Sire,
would you have me send warriors down to help Bantor and his warrior group?”  He
didn’t know why he’d asked that.  If they weren’t dead already, there was
nothing they could do for them now.  The ants would rip them apart.  There
would be no mercy.

Sennak
shook his head.  There was nothing that he could do for them now.  Their only
hope was that death would be swift, for it certainly wouldn’t be painless.  He
shuddered to think what the approaching horde of ants meant for Bantor’s entire
warrior group, and for the Kale warriors the paladin had left behind.

Sennak
turned and quickly followed the rest of his warrior group into the passage. 
Now was not the time to mourn.  Now was the time to run.

“Come
on, now!  Get moving!” Gorgon yelled at his companions.  “Only what I said to
gather, nothing more!”

They
had stopped at the landing where they had previously dumped their armor and
packs only long enough to catch their breath, leaving their armor where it
lay.  They had long since dropped their shields, knowing they’d be of little
use against the ants.

Gorgon
walked over to Troka.  “Come on, now, Troka.  Get going!”

Troka,
who had run far already, was gasping for breath after climbing so many of the
broad, spiraling stairs up from the middledeeps to the landing that led to the
halls of Lord Sennak.  Rather than answer Gorgon, he just nodded wearily and
began to jog toward the stairs.

Looking
over the edge, Gorgon could see the ants more clearly now.  They were obviously
gaining ground on the four warriors, as he could now distinguish individual
ants in the mass that was flooding up the great shaft.  At this rate, Gorgon
was pretty sure that his team would make the upperdeeps, but doubted they’d
make the Crossway.

Shaking
his head in frustration, Gorgon continued on after his companions, urging them
on, and resisting the primal urge welling up within him to run past them and
abandon them to their fate.

I
t was barely dawn in the world
above, but it had been a long night for Kale.  He felt genuinely relieved when
the noisy peace of so many sleeping kobolds was disturbed by a messenger from
Lord Karthan padding through the sand of the arena to fetch him.  The tension
in the council chambers had been almost palpable after the Kale Stone had
displayed such power upon his touch the night before.  He had thought that Lord
Karthan might send assassins instead of messengers after that, but the
messenger clearly stated that he should bring several of his warriors with him.
 

Not
that he really had many warriors, but that was a separate issue.  After all,
only those of his family followed him out of loyalty, though there may be a few
outcasts that would follow him out of curiosity.

“Gather
up those that will come, brother,” Kale said as the messenger left the small
group of curious onlookers.

“Don’t
doubt, brother,” his brother responded, sensing that the sense of purpose that
had gotten them here had begun to wane.  “They follow you still.  I will gather
the strength of our houses.”

Calling
out to the group, Kale’s brother instructed the assembling warriors to bring
their weapons and gather.  Slowly, singly and in small groups, the warriors
from the outcast families gathered in front of the pair.

“And
what now, Kale?” one of the warriors asked in a none-too-convinced tone.

“It’s
time to gather.  Lord Karthan has called for us,” Kale’s brother answered for
him.

“Oh,
so that’s it, then,” another warrior said.  “When their lord says jump, we jump
then?  I didn’t leave my home in the underdark to become minions to some lord.”

“Yeah,”
chimed in another.  “Where is this danger you mentioned?  The only danger I see
is losing all the things we left behind in the underdark to the scavengers that
stayed behind!”

“Please! 
People!” Kale’s brother called out to them.  “You all felt it.  We all know
that there is an evil approaching!  The Kale Stone.  It has called on us
through my brother to flee before this threat.  We must trust the Kale Stone!”

The
group of warriors were beginning to look rowdy.  Kale could see that the
situation was quickly turning bad.  Within his heart he reached out to see if,
perhaps, there might be strength given him to deal with this problem.

“Well
alright, then.  Where is this Kale Stone, then?  The only evil I see is a pair
of deceivers!  Who knows why you led us here?!”

“Yeah! 
They probably left people behind to take our things, the rotten thieves!  Let’s
get them!”

Upon
hearing this, Kale held up his hand.  Power swept through the little group
suddenly, like a sudden wind through stiff grass.

“Silence!”
he called out.  All eyes turned to Kale, though his eyes seemed to be
transfixed on something none of them could see.  “Even now a horde of great
ants approaches through the underdark.  Their queen…”  He paused, the horror of
what he saw was written clearly on his face.  “She is mighty,” he said in
whispered tones.  The arena had grown strangely silent, and even his rasped
words carried far.  Off in the distance, a baby’s cry sounded strangely
unnerving.

“What
is this?  What do you see?”  It seemed as if the entire group had turned from
hostile to intently interested.

“Spikes
like swords, jaws like great scythes, and limbs like the stalks of great
mushrooms… armor all over, with eyes that see intensely.  There is power in
that gaze!” Kale said, as his eyes showed the fear of what only he could see.

All
of a sudden his gaze broke, and, shaking his head he looked about himself as if
seeing the group that had gathered about him for the first time.  Looking at
them all, Kale breathed deeply, as if to brace himself.

“Come,
my brothers.  Lord Karthan has a task for us.  We must go back to Sheerface. 
There is much to be done if any of us are to survive these next many hours.”

News
of a coming flood of great ants on their trail spread like wildfire among Lord
Sennak the Younger’s warrior group and his personal guard.  Within moments,
kobolds were dropping their baggage, gathering up whelps and the elderly, and
running for all they were worth down the long passage that was called the
Crossway.

Lord
Sennak, seeing the panic beginning to ensue around him, stood and took the whole
scene in.  It was almost surreal.  Here a mother dropped a yoke that carried
her baggage, all that she owned in the world, to gather up her young whelps and
run.  In her eyes was a panic born of uncertainty and primal instinct. 
Hobbling past him was an elderly warrior, his crutch held in one hand and his
knee held stiffly.  Behind him, as he turned, he could see the stragglers of
the group, those with several whelps or with elderly parents who had to be
carried, begin to panic.  Some had dropped the litters they carried, gathering
up their children and leaving their disabled parents to their doom.  Others had
simply sunk to their knees in despair at news of the approaching ant horde.

Was
their something he should say?  What should he be doing?  Lord Sennak paused
for a few moments longer, unable to take his eyes from the scene of chaos going
on around him.

“Sire!”
a voice broke through his stupor.  From the passageway ahead the chief of his
personal guard was coming toward him with a double handful of older warriors,
warriors who were well past their prime, whose children had mostly left the
nest already.

“Yes,
chief?” he answered.

“Sire?”
the old warrior looked cautiously at his lord.  “You have to go now, sire.  Our
people need you.  Look to the people, sire.  I and these warriors will stand
against the ants.”

Lord
Sennak nodded his bowed head as he looked down at his wringing hands.

“Go
now, sire,” the old warrior gently turned his lord and walked a few steps with
him past the warriors.

“Sire,
you’ve done the right thing, you know, getting the gen out of the deeps. 
You’ve saved many lives.”

Lord
Sennak looked up at the old warrior.  “But you and these will have to die for
my inaction!  And still the rest who run now may not make it to Sheerface
before the ants overtake them!”

The
old warrior just smiled.  “Sire, our whelps are raised, and now they run with
their whelps in tow.  Sire,” he continued, breathing in deeply and puffing out
his aged chest, “we willingly give our lives for them.  Do not mourn for us. 
The only way to honor us is to watch after those we give our lives for.”

Lord
Sennak blinked and looked about himself.  The group of old warriors stood
straighter than he had seen many of them stand in some years.  Clerks and
administrators they were, for the most part of the past few decades, who had
kept the cogs of government running for his recently departed father.  Yet now,
with spear, sword, and shield in hand, their eyes were clear and resolute in
their choice.

“Yes,”
Lord Sennak answered, nodding.  “I will honor your sacrifice.”

The
old warrior let his hand fall to his side as Lord Sennak turned and walked
away, scooping up a spear that someone had dropped before breaking into a run.

“I
can’t go on,” Troka was whining.  “Leave me to the ants.”

Ahead
of him and Gorgon, Arbelk and Jerrig had both abandoned the last of their
equipment, carrying only their weapons with them.  Troka had long since
abandoned everything except the broadsword the council of his gen had given
him, and now, as he fell to the cold stone of the steps, he let his precious
broadsword fall off his back to the ground.

Gorgon
shook his head in frustration yet again.  Dropping his own shield, bow, and
quiver of arrows he scooped up Troka, slinging him over his shoulder before he
reached down and picked Troka’s broadsword up.

“I’ll
not leave you, Troka,” Gorgon grunted as he began running up the steps again,
his own two-handed warhammer slapping against his thigh in rhythm with his
pumping steps.

“You’ll…
never… make it… carrying me,” Troka whined as he bounced up and down on
Gorgon’s shoulders.

Gorgon
didn’t speak.  As much as he hated to admit it, Troka might just be right.  His
legs were already burning, and he didn’t know how much longer he could go on. 
This was more than he’d ever put his legs through before.

As
quickly as that thought of weakness came into his mind, Gorgon dismissed it. 
He was not weak, and he would broach no thought of weakness either.  Right now,
it was mind over matter.  He didn’t mind the pain, and his legs screaming at
him didn’t matter.

Lord
Karthan stood looking at the outcast leader from the opposite edge of the
precipice that led down into the underdark.  It had not been long before that
this ‘Kale’ had caused the Kale Stone to glow with such intensity, as if there
were some special bond between him and the stone.

Lord
Karthan shook his head.  He was trying to accept the many changes that had
happened in the last couple of weeks, but to win back the gen, just to give it
up to… a son of outcasts!?  That was inconceivable.  It was not something he
would allow.  However, he would certainly treat these outsiders with dignity
enough, as he had told the war council last night.  After all, there was an orc
horde approaching on the surface, and from Durik’s visions in the stone,
apparently an ant horde was coming up from below as well.

“Mirrik! 
How good to see you!” Kale’s voice could be heard above the din of refugees as
he extended a hand to a rather muscular warrior on the latest lift.  All around
the lip of Sheerface Kale’s outcasts and some former Deep Guard warriors were
operating the four lifts that led deep into the underdark.  With each lift a
handful of pitiful refugees, carrying their few possessions and whelps with
them, came streaming into the home of the Kale Gen.

Lord
Karthan shook his head.  It was a historic occasion, but this last batch of
kobolds had brought word of sighting the ant horde, and all sense of history
became very personal.

“Sire,
I’ve given the order for the supports for this cavern to be collapsed as soon
as you command,” Khazak Mail Fist was saying to him.  “Even now that team is
making ready to pull the pins to the supports.”

Lord
Karthan turned and looked up at a pair of kobolds climbing the wall of the
cavern toward the bases of a pair of massive support beams.  In their hands
were ropes to attach to the eye-holes of the thick iron pins that kept them in
place.  “Yes, right, good.  Tell me, wasn’t Gorgon and his team left down in
the underdark with these Deep Gen kobolds?”

Khazak
thought for a moment.  “Yes, sire.  I do remember Durik mentioning that in his
report.”  Below the pair, rising up from the bottom of the lifts, wails of
despair began to rise up, and the sound of many panicking voices.  Khazak
scowled.  “Sire, if they panic down there, they’ll likely flood the lifts and
break the ropes.  What shall we do about it?”