The Dreaddrac Onslaught (Book 4) (2 page)

With the goblins dispatched, the Dark Lord turned again to assembling the ingredients for the monster that would take control of Sengenwha once and for all.

* * *

At the bottom of the Munattahensenhov’s smoldering bowels, there was a deep well that plunged into the molten lava bubbling beneath the mountain. The Evil One had searched the graveyards and battlefields over the ages to snatch souls of those tormented in death. The vile sorcerer targeted those that died suddenly and horribly, trapped in their pain before they could accept death. He searched for those that lingered about in the shadows, watching ghouls feed on the dead and dying bodies not knowing they, too, were dead without hope of redemption or peace.

When the Dark Lord sensed their pain, he’d trap their confused spirits and cast them into the Well of Souls under the Munattahensenhov where they burned in torment until the Evil One had use for them.

Smegdor trudged down through the mountain’s dusty, smoky tunnels. His good hand felt its way along the hot walls as trembling, he stumbled, weak kneed, down the winding passageway to the well. The tormented wailing enmeshed in the fire and brimstone tore at Smegdor’s very soul.

I dread this place the most among all the Ice Mountains’ terrors. There’s nothing I can do to help them. Any attempt to ease their pain or free any would only get me thrown in the well with them, he rationalized.

Like a condemned prisoner going to the gallows, Smegdor’s reluctant feet shuffled along the rough stone path leading down to the well. He mumbled to himself to bolster his courage and tried to convince himself he could draw out a vengeful general from the well.

Controlling the freed specter long enough to get the twisted soul to my master will be another nearly impossible challenge.

Smegdor finally reached the sweltering level, where the well’s black basalt mouth opened as a face frozen in a scream of torment. He hurriedly turned off to the adjoining archive chamber that housed records of souls trapped deep in the well. The wailing, rising from the depths, was a cacophony of pain that grated on Smegdor’s raw nerves. Quivering, he fumbled through the records for a dead general to suit his master’s purpose.

Suddenly, he felt something tickling the hair on his good leg! It was like a fingernail. He jumped back against the wall, knocking over the stool as he looked down.

“Filthy creature!” he said. He jerked up his robe and slapped a large cockroach crawling up his leg. The glossy brown insect fell backward onto the floor, stunned. “Those things even survive down here!” As he spoke and started to stomp it, the cockroach suddenly righted itself and scurried away toward the well.

Turning back to the files, Smegdor thought he saw something. A shadow, an energy warp, or something zipped over the well’s lip and snatched the roach. No, he thought, it’s my imagination; they can’t get out of the well by themselves. He turned back to the files.

“Ah yes!” Smegdor exclaimed, partly to drown out the wailing. He held up the record. “General Tarquak will be just the mix of vengefulness, hatred, and self-loathing the master demands.”

Careful to record the ‘withdrawal’ of the general’s soul in the archive, Smegdor drew a deep breath. Noting the hot, smoky, sulfur scent, he coughed. He went back out to the screaming stone of the Well of Souls. There he plucked a scroll from a deep cuff in his sleeve. Cautious, Smegdor unrolled the powerful book, showing respect and fear of its contents in the well’s glowing, ominous green light. The ancient black blood writing flaked here and there where the parchment hadn’t absorbed the thick ink. Smegdor studied the runes, pronouncing them in his mind to be sure he had the incantation correct in tone and enunciation, emphasizing powerful commands.

When he was sure he had the spell perfectly formed, the wizard’s assistant drew a leather pouch from his other sleeve. Opening it with care, he took out and placed each item in the correct order on the stone outcrop that formed the well’s raised lip. Thinking of what came next made the bones of his withered leg ache. The vigilant servant mumbled a spell over a handful of bat wing bones. They glowed slightly as Smegdor spoke. While they glowed, the wizard dusted the bones with a powder and cast the lot into the well’s gaping mouth. Instantly, flames shot up to swallow the offerings. A moment, then a green vapor slithered up from their ingestion.

That initial act was to awaken and placate the Keeper of the Well. A long ritual of casting in various ingredients and chanting incantations followed until the well was appeased and ready to give up one of its charges. Smegdor spoke into the depths.

“I call now from the Well of Souls.

The spirit of one whose power of old

Sacrificed armies in treachery and deceit

And in the end brought his own defeat.”

“General Tarquak! Come up from the well,

Do my bidding at once, without fail,

Lest your soul in flames return here

To spend eternity under soldiers’ sneers
.
”

The wailing in the well receded. From the flaming magma below rose a ribbon of black vapor rising through the restraining veil that had held it back for so long. The serpentine haze rose above the abyss, then condensed into the general’s rough form. Smegdor felt his hair stand on end and crackle from the energy passing so close to him. He straightened up and faced the form hovering above him as sooty haze with two yellow, reptilian eyes.

“I command you to accompany me to the master’s presence high up on the Munattahensenhov,” Smegdor said. The general’s restless spirit wavered back and forth. Its sinister eyes glared alternately at Smegdor and the exit tunnel.

That sneer betrays his revulsion at having to obey a deformed master, Smegdor thought. For the moment, the specter suppresses his contempt, fearing I might be able to force him back into the inferno for eternity.

The ghost stared at the ebony wand in Smegdor’s quivering hand. For a moment Tarquak hesitated, wavering, then nodded his compliance.

Smegdor led his reluctant charge up through the tunnel in the mountain’s heart. I must dominate this force until the master takes control, Smegdor thought. His painful, crippled leg slowed his movement and scraped on the dusty stone floor going up the shaft. The impatient specter bumped into him from time to time. Smegdor felt a cold chill run through him with each tap, but he willed himself not to look back. 

A bare-chested, sooty orc jumped in front of Smegdor from a side tunnel. He gasped and jumped back. Tarquak’s chill overwhelmed the skittish assistant, and he fell back on the cold gritty stone. He jerked the master’s wand up between the two adversaries and himself. The jewel clutched in the wand’s claws glowed an ominous red.

“Back away from me, Tarquak!” Smegdor said. He thrust the baton at the general, who wafted back. The orc’s sinewy arm was slowly raising his blacksmith’s hammer. Smegdor jerked the wand toward him. “What do you want, orc?”

Staring at the wand’s glowing crystal, the orc lowered the hammer and backed off without answering. It looked back once, then disappeared down the smoky side passageway. Staring again at Tarquak, Smegdor held the wand up at the specter as he struggled to get up. “Keep your distance.”

Dragons roaring and snorting in their stables above and constant hammering from forges all through the mountain cancelled each other out. The inhabitants didn’t pay attention to the constant roar within the Munattahensenhov. Smegdor led the black vapor on through the dark corridors to the mad King of Dreaddrac in his workroom.

“Master,” Smegdor called timidly from the doorway. He peeked in.

The Dark Lord didn’t turn from his work but cast a squirming snake into the cauldron, bubbling on the fire. Its mouth opened in a silent scream, flashing its fangs in death. The king motioned Smegdor to enter with his charge as he read a spell from a scroll.

“Master, this is General Tarquak,” Smegdor said.

“Silence!” the Evil One snapped. “Don’t you hear me speaking, you fool? Do you want to ruin this complicated incantation?”

Terrified, Smegdor froze, trembling in the doorway. He held himself up with his free hand locked on the doorframe. His side felt cold from the specter wavering next to him.

*

The dead general’s vaporous soul drifted across the room to the sorcerer-king. So long in that subterranean hell, the general thought. Now that I’m free, I’ll take revenge on the mortal world. Even this sorcerer will pay for imprisoning me in that well. The vapor began to transform into physical essence.

*

The sorcerer-king wheeled about, hooked the general’s essence with a glowing wand, and hurled the black soul, horrified face frozen, into the cauldron’s steaming sludge.

“You arrogant fool. Did you think you’d outmaneuver me?” the Dark Lord said, laughing.

The last of General Tarquak’s substance slid into the boiling swill. The bubbling sound echoed after the black sludge, hissing and spitting, sucked the general’s spirit into the cauldron.

The Dark Lord chanted the last incantation, then turned to Smegdor, cringing at the door. “An excellent selection.” The Evil One turned back to the cauldron. “You may go.”

Smegdor hobbled away toward his station.

“Remain close by in case I require something else,” the sorcerer called out to the sound of Smegdor’s dragging foot in the passageway. The Dark Lord looked into the bubbling pot and smiled. The general’s horrified face, caught in a silent scream, swirled a moment, then slid into the foul goo, confirming his total defeat. “I’ll permit you a new life when you declare your total submission and obedience. After all, as a very powerful wraith, you’ll get to dispense pain and suffering as you like.”

The wizard performed rituals, made sacrifices, and chanted spells all night to the growing thing in the cauldron. Powers effervesced up from the mountain vents. The Dark Lord fused them to the creation undulating in the pot. The wraith’s power grew through the night in the kettle, fed by blood and warped energies, until just before dawn.

The wraith crawled from the cauldron and slithered to a chest provided for it that it might rest in the moldy darkness. As the black fingers pulled the trunk’s lid shut, the Evil One rested also, having infused his own evil energy into the wraith.

Sengenwha will have a new military commander without any restraints on his ruthlessness, the king thought.

* * *

If it could be called such, Earwig recovered in Earwighof’s damp recesses, where water dripped incessantly in the slime next to her bed. She finally rose and prepared for her journey to Dreaddrac and its warlock king, her only hope.

“I’m excited about the trip, Miss Irkin,” Dreg said as he packed. Beaming with energy, he glanced at her. She was surveying the room, taking in the chaos like the dead strewn across a battlefield. He blushed. “I ain’t never been beyond Konnotan.”

“Did you remember to pack the dried mushrooms?” Earwig asked. “You know I can’t live without my fungus.” Scratching a flea on her head, she caught it under her blackened nail and quickly crushed it in her teeth, then scanned the room. “What, have you forgotten?”

“Oh yes, Mistress,” Dreg replied. “I packed a little box of dried ones with the bright red dust underneath, and also, I packed a bucket of that red dust stuff. They can grow on the horse’s crap as we go.”

“Horse’s crap?” Earwig repeated. “What horse?”

“Well, I found an old cart in the barn. I bought us a horse at the market while you was recovering. I been feeding him as best I could to fatten him for the trip. I knowed you didn’t really want me to carry all this stuff on my back all the way to that there Dreaddrac place.”

Though Dreg dared not look at Earwig directly, his peripheral vision saw Earwig’s stare locked on him with raised eyebrows.

“You
hunchback, grave-digger-in-training promoted to apprentice-idiot, are you trying to think? You don’t have enough brain to think. I’m going to have to teach you to speak, you uneducated lout.”

Stooped over, Dreg stared at the floor. I better not look at her or say nothing, he thought.

“So we’re traveling to Dreaddrac in a cart,” Earwig mumbled to herself as she hobbled toward the door. “Well, what can I say? My beautiful coach is a mass of splinters now, thanks to my own stupidity. Those vengeful citizens even used my grand little cart to burn the flesh off that ungrateful Magnosious. This cart, whatever it is, will be better than having to lean on that hunchback and hobble all the way to Dreaddrac.”

“Let’s have a look at this conveyance and steed,” Earwig said, exposing a squinted eye and frown.

“You gonna be proud of me. They’ll make our trip much easier and faster,” Dreg said. He scurried around her and disappeared out the door to bring around the horse and cart for inspection.

On pulling up to the Earwighof’s former grand entrance, Dreg felt his proud smile drain away. He saw the look of horror on Earwig’s twisted face. She turned and disappeared back into the crumbling edifice. When Dreg caught up with her, he scratched his befuddled head. Earwig had fled down to the dungeon’s protective darkness and was cowering in the corner, sucking on a red-spored mushroom as though it were her thumb.

“Don’t you likes the rig?”