The Coldstone Conflict (18 page)

Grid Thungus clung to the dragon’s back like a leech, his great arms locked with every ounce of effort he could muster. Very slowly, he began to claw his way toward the saddle.

Air rushed around him.

The dragon, infuriated by the itch it couldn’t scratch, dived once again, determined to take out its anger on the human army below it.

M
OLTENOAK WAS THE BIGGEST
dragon ever to exist in Illmoor; a crimson beast of such gargantuan size that he actually blocked the light of the sun for several seconds as he passed over the Crest Hill Tower. At once the most magnificent and most terrifying sight imaginable, Moltenoak came to ground inside the gates of the palace, transmuting into his human form in a fierce and blinding flash of energy.

First, there would be talk: Vanquish knew this with a certainty, for he had conceived and created Moltenoak himself: this creature and
all
its kind. They had been the perfect warriors during the continent’s first war with Bobova, the founding father of light. They had also been the greatest companions, the most blessed of sons … until this wretch—this firstborn child—had betrayed him.

Vanquish stared down from the balcony at the approaching figure.

You come here to beg forgiveness …

The hooded man threw off his cowl and stared back.

I come here to offer you death.

You … whom I gifted birth …

And a will of my own.

… in whom I bestowed magical blood …

Independent of yours.

… an ability to conceal your true form …

And a skill in shielding the land from your cruel eyes.

You betrayed me … in my hour of need. You sided with the light … and tricked me into a prison that has held for time uncounted! I curse you, Moltenoak! I
made
you … and you betrayed me!

You would have covered the land in darkness.

I still will …

Not while I draw breath.

Then … you shall draw it no longer.

Vanquish extended his hand … and a burning spear of red light shot from his fingers.

Moltenoak raised his own hand and absorbed the ray, flinching only slightly as he took the force of it.

Really, master. You insult me with such weak magic.

Vanquish sneered.

A taster, my child. That and nothing more.

The dark god turned and ran, shoving two of his possessed servants aside as he went.

Moltenoak resumed his true form, and flew into the palace with such force that a gaping hole was left in his wake.

Landing on the flagstones of the devastated throne room, he released a jet of flame that melted the stones of the far wall as easily as if they were made of candle-wax.

But Vanquish was nowhere to be seen in the corridor beyond.

Burnie and Diek ran.

To say that they ran fast would have been an incredible understatement: Burnie and Diek ran for their lives. Perhaps crucially, they ran in opposite directions.

Diek dashed across the hills toward the River Chud, unintentionally following Earl Visceral’s army, while Burnie reached the west bank of the Washin, and bolted south. However, he soon skidded to a halt when he realized, to his horror, that the beast hadn’t pursued him.

Not the boy,
he thought.
Not the boy
!

Burnie watched the great beast … and tried to follow it.

The dragon wheeled in the sky as it made to pursue Diek, its mind still burning with anger.

Charm us, would you ? Insignificant, mortal wretch. Now you will be consumed …

Diek ran on, his own thoughts racing. He remembered being bullied by a few of the village boys when he was growing up back in Little Irkesome, and being pelted with stones on his way home from the market. He also remembered the advice his dad had given him: never to run in a straight line.

Diek didn’t look behind him: he knew that to do so would mean instant death. Instead, he began to run in a series of zigzags toward the out-hanging edge of Rintintetly Forest.

Just as he reached the trees, several of them exploded in great gouts of flame. Diek dived for cover, scrambling further into the forest as the shadow of the beast fell across the hill beyond.

He gasped with relief. He’d made it—the dragon couldn’t follow him inside.

Wrong.

The dragon charged into the trees, its incredible bulk forcing several of them over.

Diek turned and ran as the dragon charged again, and again, and again.

I will find you, human. It doesn’t matter how long it takes. I will find you, if only to watch you burn …

The voice was full of malice … and Diek couldn’t shake it from his head. He ran deeper into the forest, but he could still hear the beast crashing through the undergrowth behind him.

Ah … so you delay me … clever … very clever—but pointless. My army shall catch up with the riders—wherever they go—and they shall destroy them … as I shall destroy you.

The dragon had slowed to a careful crawl. It moved between the trees, its great wings folded up behind it. Every few seconds its scaly head turned to study the view in each direction.

Diek was crouched inside a tree hollow, shaking like a leaf as he felt the beast moving closer. He nearly jumped out of his skin when a warty palm closed over his leg.

“
Aghghh
! Oh, Burnie, it’s you! You scared me half to death!”

“Shhhh! I can see it … it’s just over there.” The little troglodyte crept over to crouch in the hollow with Diek. “That was a very brave thing you did, back there,” he managed. “Stupid, but very, very brave.”

“I can’t believe you came back for me!”

“Hey, of course I did. We’ve been through some tough stuff together, haven’t we?”

Diek sighed, a world-weary look on his face.

“What now?” he breathed. “If we try to move, that
thing
will annihilate us …”

“I think we should stay where we are,” said Burnie. “At least for the time being. It’s bound to give up the search … eventually.”

“But it can get inside your head,” Diek whispered. “Maybe it knows where I am and it’s just toying with me.”

“If someone don’ tell me what the ’ell’s goin’ on,” said a voice, “I’m gonna be kickin’ some serious face when I get out of ’ere.”

“Shhhh!” Burnie and Diek exclaimed, looking down at the box in the troglodyte’s arms. “Keep it down! There’s a dragon hunting us.”

“Fort so.”

Diek and the troglodyte shared a glance, then they hunkered down in the tree hollow and prepared for a long wait.

Visceral’s cavalry thundered through the hills as if they were being granted speed by the gods themselves.

“We make for Chud Bridge,” screamed the earl, his eardrums pounding as loudly as the hooves thundering beneath him. “Once we’re over the river, it’s Coldstone—and every man for himself. We fight for Spittle!”

“For Spittle!” shouted the captain beside him.

The cry was echoed by the rest of the cavalry as the river and the bridge loomed into view.

T
HE BATTLE WAS RAGING
into an inferno as the Army of Illmoor collided with their possessed countrymen. Swords clashed, axe-heads cleaved bone and pikes speared flesh as each side held back absolutely nothing in their determination to claim victory over the other.

Large numbers of warriors from either side staggered around blindly, wreathed in flame.

Far above them, the dragon was becoming increasingly frustrated with its human parasite. Try as it might, it couldn’t actually shake the infuriating creature.

Grid Thungus had decided that he’d wasted enough time merely irritating his host. Keeping one hand firmly looped through the dragon’s saddle-harness, he reached down and plunged the other into his boot, withdrawing a long dagger from the fur-lined recess. Then, waiting for the beast to draw level once more, he swung himself up into the saddle, raised the blade with both hands and brought it down into the dragon’s neck.

The creature gave an almighty roar, and fell from the sky like a stone down a well. Grid Thungus hooked the reins around his neck … and prepared for a crash-landing.

Several screams erupted from the battle below as some of the more perceptive soldiers realized that the dragon was heading for the ground, fast. Within seconds, a large vacuum had opened in the midst of the conflict.

It was filled with a sound like the collision of two mountains. The entire land shook as the dragon landed.

Grid Thungus, who had leaped from the beast mere seconds before it came to ground, struggled to his feet and drew his great axe from its shoulder strap.

“Right,” he muttered to himself. “Now for the difficult part.”

The battle was beginning to go against the Army of Illmoor. Possessed warriors were cutting down soldiers left and right, and those who did manage to gain the upper hand were finding their opponents increasingly difficult to put down. A second wind was badly needed.

It came in the form of Baron Muttknuckles. Leading a group of some two hundred cavalrymen, he ploughed into the right flank of the possessed army, his troops lashing out with everything they had. None fought more furiously than the baron himself, who swung out with a frying pan and practically decapitated the first zombie with the affront to attack him.

“Get out of it, you privileged scum!” he cried, clunking random troops with the chair-leg he carried in his other hand. “Take my town, would ya? Take the shirt off my back as well, I’ll bet! Have at ya!”

Grid Thungus circled the dragon wearily, looking for an opening. He found one, but just as he was about to strike the beast uncoiled, lashing out at him with claws and teeth.

Thungus moved with remarkable speed for his size, leaping left and right in order to avoid the attack. When the first jet of flame erupted from the dragon’s nostrils, he had already rolled beneath it and was about to swing his great axe into the beast’s stomach.

Another deafening roar resounded across the plain as the axe-head slashed its terrible wound across the scaly underbelly.

Recognizing the possibility of a collapse, Thungus somersaulted between the dragon’s back legs, slashing the tendons on one of the giant appendages as he rolled out.

The dragon’s last roar was the loudest of all. As the almighty beast collapsed in the dirt, Grid Thungus scrambled up its back like a spider and brought his axe around in an outlandishly wild sweep.

An incredible silence settled over the battlefield, and both armies took a step back from each other as the dragon’s head rolled away from its body.

Soldiers and zombies alike lowered their weapons in shock.

Then Earl Visceral arrived.

Regaining his human form, Moltenoak strode through the twisting corridors of the wreckage that Dullitch Palace had become. Still, there was no sign of Vanquish.

You won’t find me.

I don’t need to find you … I only need to keep you from escaping.

Fool! I could extinguish you with a blink of my eye.

Yes. Curious then, that you choose not to. Unless … unless you cannot extinguish me because that eye is not yours to blink.

You wish it were so.

I know it is so. We both know that you are not complete … and that the one thing you have hungered for is a return to your own body. Ha! What use is a soul when its true host is still hidden from it? Had I not been alerted to your return by the humans, you may have yet discovered the location … but your lack of subtlety sold you short.

I … can still uncover the location.

Unlikely. That is why the trick was perfect … that is why there were always two prisons for you, Vanquish. You may have found a way out of one, but you will not be able to locate and free the other. You have lost, my old master. You have lost.

Moltenoak rounded another bend in the corridor, a smile playing on his lips.

Look out now, Vanquish, look out upon Illmoor. I will give you one small glimpse of the land without attempting to block your mind. There … can you not see the battle at Coldstone? My own suggestion, that was. One dragon has already fallen … the other will soon join it. Tell me, master, do you still have enough power to sustain an entire army without the dragons to aid you? Ha! It will certainly be interesting to find out …

A dark shadow fell across the doorway at the end of the hall, and Vanquish appeared.

“So,”
said the dark god, his voice saturated with cruelty and malice.
“My body is at Coldstone, is it? You fool, Moltenoak. You always did talk too much …”

Moltenoak transformed in the blink of an eye, his enormous frame splitting walls and bursting glass.

Vanquish threw up both hands and muttered under his breath, beaming with glee as an immense wall of ice developed in the air between them.

Thundering through the remains of the corridors, Moltenoak delivered a jet of white flame. It hit the wall and melted away more than half of it. A second burst removed the remaining ice, but Moltenoak was too late.

The body of Groan Teethgrit lay in a sprawling heap on the corridor floor. Vanquish had left his human host.

The great dragon bellowed with rage: he had made a terrible mistake.

B
URNIE LOOKED DOWN AT
the box in his hands: it was beginning to shake.

“Look,” he whispered, bringing it close to his lips. “We’re trying to hide from a dragon here—and if it finds us, it will kill us. So do you think you could keep still?”

“Eh?” said Groan’s voice. “What you talkin’ ’bout? I ain’t movin’!”

“Shh!” Diek urged as he heard the beast crunching through the trees toward them. “He’s going to get us—Burnie, what’s wrong?”

The troglodyte was holding on to the box with all his might, but it was still shaking violently.

“H-h-help me hold on to this!” he managed. “It feels like it’s going to explode!”

Ah …
the dragon thought.
There you are.

“It’s found us!” Diek screamed out. “Run! Run for the edge of the forest!”