The same day Lord Gregory and Lady Trella arrived in the Red City of Dreen, so did Queen Willa. The two parties, however, arrived in quite different manners. The Lion Lord and his wife came into the city on horseback, after spending many days of hard riding over the well-worn passage through the Wildermont Mountains. Queen Willa used a witchy device that was hidden in the depths of her castle, called the Wardstone Waygate. Used properly, the Wardstone Waygate could take its user, and a handful of others, most anywhere they could imagine. It was a one way teleportation though. No matter where you went, you had to use conventional means, or other magical ones, to return to Xwarda. Only a handful of people knew that it existed, and as far as anyone knew, the gateway was the only one of its kind.
Queen Willa had her hair pulled back into a fat single braid, and was dressed for battle. A knee length shirt of fine silvery chain mail was fastened around her middle by a plated leather girdle. Over her shoulders was a custom formed breastplate that maintained her feminine form. High, shin-plated, boots, a helmet of gold worked steel, and a long narrow sword completed her garb. She brought with her a small escort, four of her fiercest Blacksword warriors as a personal guard, and King Granitheart, the ruler of the dwarves. Several days earlier she had dispatched from Xwarda ten thousand of her Blacksword soldiers, and half again as many mounted pike men. King Granitheart sent the remainder of his force with them, some three thousand battle eager dwarves. The entire force was currently marching west and Willa figured they would be almost to Kastia by now. A pair of her Master Wizard’s apprentices, young men who barely qualified as acolytes, were with the troops. The idea was for Master Sholt, Master Amill, the apprentices, and herself to be able to communicate by way of spells and other magical means so that the separate groups of soldiers could work together.
Willa came because she was a capable, battle-tested sorceress in her own right. She had every intention of taking the place of an apprentice once things started to get bloody. Her excuse was that the youngsters had no experience. In truth, she just wanted to be there.
After dinner she called a war council. General Spyra gave his full cooperation; after all, he was Willa’s man.
Of course, Lord Gregory was invited, and the King of the Dwarves as well. Master Sholt had conveyed to her the Lion Lord’s unofficial rank and role as the High King’s adviser and friend. Lord Lion’s opinion wasn’t to be taken lightly. Attending, by way of being close to Master Wizard Sholt, were King Jarrek and General Diamondeen. Commander Escott was with Master Wizard Amill as well. It seemed that Queen Willa was going to take control of the situation until the meeting actually began. When it did, she made it clear that King Jarrek was the one in charge.
There was no way to get troops where they were most needed, not fast enough to do any good. Ra’Gren was about to attack at Seareach. Jarrek asked that the others concentrate on getting forces into Dakahn along the Valleyan border at Oktin and Lokahna. Diverting Ra’Gren’s attention from Seareach was a priority. The demon beast guarding the bridge at Lokahna had to be eliminated first, explained Master Amill. He conveyed commander Escott’s thoughts about attacking the hulking creature from the Dakaneese side of the river and told them that the bulk of his troops should be at Oktin very soon. Master Sholt told them Master Oarly and General Diamondeen’s plan, though he let Lord Gregory fill in the details.
The mood of the evening was somber. The fact that neither High King Mikahl, nor Sir Hyden Hawk Skyler had been heard from for weeks left little room to hope for their survival, much less their aid. To make matters worse, it turned out that they had underestimated the timing of Ra’Gren’s aggression. In the middle of the battle council, the Dakaneese forces charged the Seareach Passage with a full out attack. King Jarrek and Master Sholt assured the others that they had things under control for the time being. They would follow the plan they laid out, but they had to leave the others and attend to the matters at hand.
When Master Sholt ended his spells of communication the others were left feeling helpless.
“If your men are at Kastia now,” Lord Gregory said to Queen Willa and the King of the Dwarves, in an attempt to generate some positive action, as well as some hope, “then they should be diverted immediately toward Oktin. If they are allowed to march all the way here, then they will lose maybe two days.”
Queen Willa nodded that it would be done, and then went about casting a sending to the apprentices to convey the orders.
Lord Gregory had to laugh at himself. Queen Willa was a far cry from the twisted conniving witch queen that rumors had portrayed her to be. He couldn’t imagine the beautiful headstrong woman eating people, or feeding them to her armies. He could, however, imagine her trying to turn a drunken lecherous lord into a hog-something else she had supposedly done.
“If Commander Escott and Master Amill are still at Lokahna, then the troops they sent to Oktin will have no serious brass to direct them,” General Spyra said hopefully. He was suggesting that he get the appointment, and was blatantly eager about it.
“That’s a good point,” said Lord Gregory.
All eyes fell on Queen Willa to make a decision, but she was busy speaking softly to an apprentice mage who was nearly a hundred miles away.
Lady Mandary, General Spyra’s wife, was outside the service entrance that led to the council room where the meeting was taking place. Her ear was pressed to the wooden door. A moment before, her eye had been glued to the key hole, surveying the group. She was giddy with a devilish excitement. Queen Shaella would love to hear of all the scheming troop movements. She would especially want to hear the little bits that Lady Mandary learned about the trap Jarrek and the dwarves were setting at Seareach.
“What, pray tell, are you about?” a loud female voice startled Lady Mandary nearly out of her false skin.
A heartbeat later she flushed with anger. She was the Lady of this castle and her husband was the current ruler of the kingdom of Valleya. She didn’t have to answer to anybody.
“Mind your business,” she snapped as she turned to see who was speaking to her. She expected to find a servant, or one of the maids. Instead she found regal Lady Trella glaring at her.
“That is exactly what I would say to you,” Trella said before moving on.
Trella was hungry, had been since they arrived, so much so, that she left the General’s prying wife and continued on her journey to find something to eat before the kitchens closed for the night. As soon as she was gone, Lady Mandary’s ear was pressed back against the door.
“…of course, General,” Queen Willa was saying. “But you are doing such a fine job here. I will go. I have King Granitheart and twenty thousand men to protect me.”
Lady Mandary cursed under her breath. She’d missed something important. Why wasn’t her husband being sent to war, she wondered? He was a general after all.
During the interruption of her spying, she hadn’t seen the dwarven king move about the room. It was all she could do to keep from getting cracked in the face as he hurried out the door in search of a chamber pot. She squealed and put on her best face for him, feigning that she had just been passing by, that he had startled her. He was in no condition to question her. The gallons of wine he’d drunk during the meeting were about to flow out of him on their own. Frustrated that she’d missed an integral part of the planning, she decided that she had enough information to warrant a sending to Queen Shaella. As fast as she could, she hurried to her quarters, pricked herself, and squeezed a drop of blood into a finger bowl.
Shaella was just getting back to Lakeside Castle when the orb at the head of her staff filled with the persistent image of her marsh-witch spy. She was in no mood for a gossipy chat. Her lover wanted to be let into the world. Gerard wanted to be with her, and she longed for him. Nevertheless, her curiosity wouldn’t let her ignore the calling.
Her spy told her that King Jarrek had a surprise planned for Ra’Gren’s troops in Seareach. She was in no position to do anything to stop it. Vrot was already coming down to land her in the bailey yard that had been set aside for the dragon’s comings and goings. All she wanted to do was hurry to the red priests’ temple garden and welcome Gerard from the Nethers. She ordered Vrot to fly like an arrow to Dakahn and to do as Flick bade him. The dragon could warn her wizard of Jarrek’s trap, but she figured that it would be too late by the time he got there. She could cast a sending to Ra’Gren herself, but that would take too much time. All she could think about was her lover. With a frustrated huff she decided that she wouldn’t leave loyal Flick unwarned.
As she watched Vrot leap back into the air and wing away eastward, she used her staff to call out to her friend so that he would be aware of everything she had been told. After that, her only concern was the coming of Gerard.
“Are you ready?” King Jarrek asked General Diamondeen.
“We’ll know in a moment,” the dwarf pointed to another of his kind who was approaching.
Jarrek greeted Oarly with a smile and a slap on the back. “Are we ready, Master Oarly?”
“As ever we will be,” Oarly nodded. “The relay is set. Just give one of those torch bearing dwarves on the hill the signal when it is time.”
“It’ll take some patience to draw them in,” Jarrek said.
“I hope it takes till dawn,” said the dwarven general. “I want to see the looks on their faces.”
“What of the tunnel? Is it cleared?” Jarrek asked.
“Since supper call,” Diamondeen answered proudly. “We’ve been sending a few through since then, but most of my dwarves are already at the far end.”
“Good,” said Jarrek giving the two dwarves a nod of appreciation. “I don’t know how to thank you.”
“When the battle is over you can get us drunk,” said Oarly with a grin.
“Why wait until the battle is over?” General Diamondeen asked seriously. “Everyone knows a dwarf fights better when he’s drinking.”
“If you can find it, you can drink it,” Jarrek laughed. “I have to get to the front.” With that he strode off to find a horse.
As everyone expected, the Dakaneese came hard. The Seaward forces under Jarrek’s command held them for a long time, but finally, around midnight, the call to retreat rang out. After that it was all about fighting on the run. The Dakaneese swarmed into the passage and pushed with mighty force. By dawn they controlled the position completely. The Choska demon came tearing through the ranks and the bald-headed wizard riding its back was strangely trying to keep King Jarrek and his troops from retreating. In between attacks, the wizard reined the Choska around, flying low over the Dakaneese and calling out to them. Soon they too began trying to retreat out of the passage too.
King Jarrek saw what was happening and cursed in disbelief. Somehow the wizard knew about the trap. Still, several thousand Dakaneese infantry were in the passage. Jarrek knew that it was now or never.
“Retreat! Full retreat!” he called out to his men. He turned his horse and charged back toward Low Crossing. As he went, he commanded the attention of the torch bearing dwarves on the ridge. “Let it go!” he ordered as loudly as he could scream.
The dwarf waved a flaming brand in a certain motion. Another dwarf up the way repeated it, and so on, until Oarly’s group, who were positioned underground, saw the signal and went to work.
For a long time, nothing happened, but then a great rumbling shook the earth. The Dakaneese hadn’t been expecting the sudden lurching of the ground beneath them. In the seconds of their initial fear and confusion, King Jarrek’s men broke from all engagement and charged away from the battle with breakneck fury.
From overhead, Flick tried to stop the retreat. He knew he couldn’t save the Dakaneese troops, but he figured he might cause quite a few of the enemy to get caught up in the trap.
The earth shook again, and this time the passage collapsed right out from under the Dakaneese fighters. Huge chunks of rock and earth fell away beneath their feet. Cracks shot across the earth that grew and shifted until it seemed the whole world was caving in. A loud roar filled the morning. Horses and men screamed and scrabbled but to no avail. As the ground beneath them was crumbling and falling, water from the mighty river was rushing in to fill the void. Armored men sank away and horses thrashed in the flow. King Jarrek and his Seaward soldiers had to fight through rows of thorny vines and treacherous thickets that hadn’t been there before. Flick also hindered their way by sending great exploding blasts into the earth in front of them, causing the horses to rear up or balk. A wall of fire erupted, cutting about half of the retreating force off before they could get away.
Those that kept themselves and their horses calm were able to leap through the flaming obstacle, but many were lost as their animals turned and ran into the expanding hole that was forming where the passage had just been. Jarrek went back, his horse leaping through the wall of flames as if it wasn’t there. He took the time to urge many of the men past the burning barrier, but soon he could wait no longer.
The caving pit had collapsed into the Leif Greyn River’s deepest channel and a wall of water and churning muck was rushing in with alarming force. Jarrek charged his horse straight back through the flames and up to higher ground as swiftly as he could. To his surprise, Bzorch and his dragon gun crew were there. They said they hadn’t been able to cross back into Westland because their ferry was destroyed. Streaking spears, followed by uncoiling lengths of rope filled the air and the Choska was forced to carry Flick away from the area.
Jarrek surveyed the scene. He took his time, letting his men catch their breath as he did. The bottleneck passage, and most of Seareach, was gone, as was most of the land that stretched from there up toward Low Crossing. It was all under water now. A great lake now blocked the southern border of Wildermont from Dakahn. The only way between the two countries now was over the Wildermont Mountains, and they were far too steep and craggy to allow any sort of sizable force to pass.
The first part of the plan had mostly worked. They could have drowned twice as many of the Dakaneese soldiers, had Shaella’s wizard not caught on to the plan. Considering this, Jarrek decided that the mage had to have been informed. There was no other way their movements could have given away what was going to happen.
Either way, it was time to start the second phase of the dwarves’ brilliant idea. King Jarrek was glad to see Bzorch and their big heavy weapons. When his forces came out of the earth on the other side of the secret mountain tunnel he was sure the dragon-guns would prove to be useful. If they moved swiftly enough, the breed might be able to catch up with the dwarves and the Highwander men who were already trying to come up behind what was left of Ra’Gren’s force. It would be a rout if they could pin them against the new body of water.
Jarrek glanced to the west. Already the Shark’s Tooth and a few other vessels were moving into the new lake from the river. As much as Jarrek didn’t like sell-swords, he’d grown fond of Maxrell Tyne and Grommen. The ships under Tyne’s Command were to spend the day transporting archers into the mountains, where the dwarves had cleared positions overlooking the confused Dakaneese.
Jarrek nodded to himself that he was ready, and went to round up and count the survivors of his Seaward front. Once they were regrouped they’d have a long ride underground and a few more battles to fight. As much as he hated to, he broke up the reprieve and ordered them to move. He found the troops eager to comply. None of them forgot how the Dakaneese had trapped and killed their kinsmen. In moments, they were following the breed giants into the dwarven tunnel.
It was time to take the battle to Dakahn.