Venom and Song (52 page)

“LOOK, LOOK!” Jett ran over, smacked Tommy on his shoulder, and nearly knocked him off the hill. “Something's happening to the Warspiders.” Johnny, Autumn, and the others watched, too.

The black mass of spiders had been coursing toward the Elven back lines at the walls of Vesper Crag. Just as the flet soldiers were about to find themselves caught between a smothering blanket of spiders and the teeth of the Spider King's defenses, something started happening to the Warspiders. It looked as if a great chasm had opened up in front of their advance, and the spiders were pouring in.

“Dear Ellos!” Grimwarden exulted. “Has the Almighty opened the jaws of Allyra to swallow the enemy?”

“I . . . I don't think so,” Tommy muttered, and he swayed where he stood.

“Tommy?” Kat whispered. She was at his side in a heartbeat. “Tommy, what's wrong?”

Tommy stared across the field of battle, the sensation disorienting and awkward at first. He felt as if his eyes had detached from his head and flew of their own accord through the carnage, through the battle, and over the flank of the spider throng. Suddenly he could see as if he were standing next to them. “The spiders aren't falling into anything! There's no sinkhole opening up or anything like that.”

“What then?” asked Grimwarden, straining to see.

“I . . . I'm not sure,” Tommy replied. “It looks like they're tripping all over each other, running like mad things, and then suddenly they stumble—collapse—as if, as if someone is cutting their legs out from under them—like Vanagin's team was trying to do!”

“Travin, you sly fox!” Grimwarden growled. “You've set a trap for them.”

“But I don't see anyone,” said Tommy. “Travin's teams are still busy with the Gwar . . . and a fistful of Drefids. What's going on? Who's doing th—I can't—NO WAY!”

“Tommy, if yu don't quit that,” Jimmy growled. “What are you seeing? My foresight shows only more and more spiders going down.”

“It's the Gnomes!”

“AHA! Really?” Autumn laughed with joy. “Really? Do you see Migmar?”

“No, that's just it,” said Tommy. “I don't really see them.”

“Uh, explain that,” said Jett.

“Remember?” asked Tommy excitedly. “Remember when Kiri Lee first brought Migmar down out of that tree? He was covered in some kind of camouflage. It made him blend in with everything around him. But I saw a Gnome appear”—his voice grew low—“when a spider killed him, I could see him. I see more Gnomes now.”

“Whatever it is that makes them invisible,” Kat said, “they must control it mentally.”

“There must be hundreds of Gnomes out there,” said Johnny. “Even I can see they are doing a number on those spiders.”

Tommy watched as wave after wave of Warspiders collapsed and tumbled upon each other. Hundreds of Gnomes had to be scurrying beneath the spiders, hacking away at their legs. Tommy laughed. He remembered all too well the ingenious contraptions and devices the Gnomes had created. Who knew what battle gadgets they had?

But even as he surveyed the battle, he realized that the Gnomes must be running about on top of the spiders as well. Here and there, a Warspider would rear up and claw at its eyes. And then its eyes would burst, one by one, spraying a fine yellow mist into the air.

“Guys,” said Tommy, “I wish you could see this. It's a good thing we didn't try to fight the Gnomes. They are fierce little guys.”

“Ellos has answered our prayers,” said Kat, surprising herself. “I mean, the Earth didn't swallow up the Warspiders, but—”

“The Gnomes did,” said Johnny.

From the north, a piercing howl rose above the clamor.

Jett bounded up the hill toward Grimwarden. “You guys hear that?”

“Near froze my blood,” said Jimmy. “Please tell me the Spider King doesn' have some kind of mutated giant. . . .” His voice trailed off for a moment. “Oh no.”

“What?” asked Autumn. They all stared at Jimmy.

He didn't answer, but Tommy did. “It's Bear! It's Bear! Look!”

“Wha—really? I don't see him,” said Jett.

“He just ran behind those trees—no, wait!”

Then, though not as clearly as Tommy, they all saw Bear. He was running circles around a patch of black trees. But Tommy saw something the rest could not. “The trees have eyes!” he yelled. “They're Cragons!”

Bear howled again and ran south across the battlefield. The lords watched as the Cragons suddenly fell over in a heap.

“Did Bear do that?” asked Jett.

“I don't think . . . I don't really know,” said Tommy.

“I never cared too much for that grand big wolf,” said Jimmy. “But if he can take down Cragons five at a time—”

“The Gnomes are helping with the Warspiders,” said Johnny. “And Bear comes back to do a number on some Cragons . . . it's almost too good to be true.”

Autumn shook her head. “Guardmaster Grimwarden, sir, have you ever seen anything like it?”

“Ellos answer prayers?” he clarified. “Yes, I have seen him answer prayers . . . many times, and often in the strangest ways . . . ways both unlooked for and impossible to predict. But, no, I have never seen anything like this before. The Elves and Gnomes have not fought side by side in thousands of years . . . since the First Days, when Allyra was young, and the First Lords claimed their birthright.”

“Passed much time has,” said a high voice behind them. “Generations of time, in my reckoning, misused by both races, it has.” And slowly Migmar melted into existence beside Grimwarden. He bowed to the Guardmaster and dropped a quick knee in the direction of the lords. “If not for wayward rascals”—he thumbed toward the lords— “separation, much longer, I presume.”

Migmar turned to Tommy. “Survived you the Terradym Fortress. Very good. When all is done, you tell Migmar all your stories.” The Gnome sovereign took out a sprig of dragonroot, chomped off a bite, and passed gas like a bass saxophone.

A look ricocheted between the lords. “Uh, Grimwarden,” said Tommy. “Meet Migmar, Barrister King of the Gnomes.”

Migmar nodded to Grimwarden. “Pleased am I to meet you at last.”

Grimwarden crossed his wrists and bowed. “Sovereign of Gnomes, you and your people are a blessing beyond estimation.”

Tommy looked closely, saw tears in the Guardmaster's eyes.
Wow,
he thought.
He's getting emotional
.

Kat's thought popped into his mind.
“I don't think that's why his eyes are watering.”

“Be a bigger blessing yet, Guardmaster,” said Migmar. “My army, two-thousand strong, you command,” he said. “You see only some advantages, we have. Devices, we have. Observe perhaps the Keeper and the Cragons?”

“Keeper?” echoed Tommy. “You mean Bear? The big wolf? Migmar, you brought him here?”

“Taught him new tricks, we Gnomes have, ha!” Migmar chomped another bite of Dragon root. “Made him friendly, you did.”

“Migmar,” said Tommy. “What else can your soldiers do?”

“Scale walls and diminish defenses, if you wish. Harder there, Gwar have keen sight. See us plainly, they can't, but see our movements, they do. The Drefids, chief trouble for us. Their black eyes see everything, even shadow world.”

“We will need your aid behind the walls,” said Grimwarden. “But not yet. We wait for more aid . . . a map from our kinsmen venturing far from here. From this map we will know the fortress's weakest points. From it we will learn how to enter with least resistance. We seek to free the slaves in the bowels of Vesper Crag . . . and empty its throne of the Spider King once and for all.”

“Little we know of Spider King. If foolish, you say, to infiltrate fortress without more guidance, we wait. Then what for Migmar and his Gnomes?”

“Your army has rescued our forces fighting at the wall,” said Grimwarden. “You have slowed the mass of Warspiders and kept them from assailing our siege force from behind. If I may command that which is yours by right, then I ask that you continue to protect our flank from the Warspiders, Cragons, . . . and whatever else may come.”

“As you ask.” Migmar bowed, and as he did so there came a sound like the quack of a duck.

Jimmy started to laugh, turned away, and quickly walked in the other direction. Kat held her breath.

“Before Migmar returns to front lines with my people, something I must know,” said Migmar, and even as he spoke, his boots and legs blurred, melding with the grassy hill and stone beneath. “Master Grimwarden, by your side, fight, we will. Your enemy, our enemy. But mark time, we cannot, with lives of our soldiers . . . nor, reckoning, can you. Laid siege, you have, upon the Spider King, have you not? Conquer, you intend to. Do not your kindred return with map? What then?”

“By Ellos's hand, we will conquer,” said Grimwarden. “With or without the map. When the time comes, I will release the doom of the Spider King, his curse. I will unleash the Seven Lords of Berinfell, the finders of the Keystone and bearers of the Rainsong, to do what they may.”

Migmar looked quizzically at the six lords gathered there, seemingly weighing them with his eyes. Tommy wondered what he was thinking. Did Migmar see the awkward teen warriors who were so easily drugged and captured by the Gnomes? Or did he see the true Lords of Berinfell who passed all the trials and tests of the Terradym fortress? Tommy almost asked Kat to relay the Gnome's thoughts.
But then,
Tommy thought,
I might not want to know
.

Migmar bowed. “As you say, Master Grimwarden.” By now, he was just a face and a head sitting atop a wavering mirage of a body. Seconds later, Migmar had vanished altogether. “Go now Migmar,” came his disembodied voice, “and spiders cut to pieces! Oh! But hate, I do, smell when abdomens burst!”

“It can't be much worse—,” Johnny started to say, but in a flash Autumn covered his mouth with her hand.

“Migmar?” Tommy called. “Migmar?” But the Gnome was gone.

“Those little people are certainly a force to be reckoned with,” said Jett. “Lights out.”

“Actually,” the Guardmaster replied wryly. “Actually, I was thinking of those who face just Migmar. Bah, it is good to breathe clean air again.”

Kat, Jett, Johnny, and Autumn laughed . . . but not Tommy. He shared Migmar's concerns: Do not your kindred return with map? What then?

Jimmy hadn't laughed, either.
How long had it been since Kiri Lee fell behind enemy lines? Is she okay
? Of all the futures he wished he could see, it was hers. But he could not; his powers were not maturing as fast as the other lords'. So Jimmy decided to try something else.
Dear Ellos .
. .

35
Ashfall

A HARSH red light shone forth from the highest tower of Vesper Crag, and a dark figure stood out upon its balcony. All the lords and Grimwarden could see was that the figure raised his arms high, parting the blazing red light, creating shadowy phantoms in its otherwise unbroken streams.

But Tommy could see farther. Once more his vision crossed the vast battlefield, passed over the hissing mad Warspiders and the Gnomes who harassed them. Above the heads of the Elven flet soldiers and their catapults and siege engines. Up and over the main walls of Vesper Crag and the Gwar defending it. Climbing the high passes and twisting trails up the jagged mountain to the high tower itself. And there, Tommy beheld him.

Tall and broad, muscular but less pure bulk than the average Gwar, the Spider King lowered his arms and smiled. The canine teeth of his lower jaw were stark white and protruded in a hideous grin. But it was the Spider King's eyes that chilled the marrow in Tommy's bones.

Tommy had come face-to-face with many Gwar. He'd looked into their eyes and held his ground. But these eyes, these terrible eyes, were different. The shape was half-moon, but they had an odd slant, a kind of unnerving clever tilt. The vertical sickle-shaped pupils looked like smears of blood on his black irises . . . reminding Tommy of the hourglass of the black widow. And somehow, though perfectly impossible from that great distance, Tommy felt like the Spider King was looking directly at him.

Tommy shivered. Then he ducked.

An explosion rocked Vesper Crag. For a moment, all fighting stopped. A mile north of the battlefield, a bloody red crack in the ground vomited fiery destruction into the sky. Blast after blast shook the ground. Bright yellow and orange flames shot upward and, in slow motion, arced toward the battlefield. The first flaming chunks of debris knocked the Elves, Gwar, Drefids, and Warpiders out of their trances. One blazing piece slammed into the forward wall of Vesper Crag, exploding into dozens of smaller hunks. The wall sustained no damage, but Elves below could not move fast enough. Crushed, crippled, or burned, hundreds fell.

“Did you see that?” Jett exclaimed.

“What are those walls made of?” asked Johnny.

“Oh no,” said Autumn. “Travin . . . no.”

“Grimwarden! Sir!” yelled Jimmy urgently. He yanked at his commander's elbow. “Sir, we've got to do something. The Gnomes, the ashfall, Travin, and his men . . . I've seen it . . . they have to—”

“Have to what?” Grimwarden said sadly. “Leave the field of battle? We cannot. Travin will not. He will position his troops as best he can to keep them safe, but he must maintain pressure on the enemy. All our plans depend on it, and maybe Kiri Lee's life depends on it.”

More thunderous explosions. A great cloud, shot through with bursts of fire, rose up from the now-gaping fiery mouth of the volcano. As the cloud ascended, it was absorbed into the stormy mantle that already hung there.

“But, Grimwarden, sir!” Jimmy persisted. “We've at least got to warn the Gnomes!”

“Warn them of what?” he asked. “They know about the volcano by now.”

“Listen to him,” Goldarrow whispered to her commander, but not loud enough that anyone else might hear.