The Dreaddrac Onslaught (Book 4) (42 page)

“You make a good argument, Dagmar. I must think it over tonight.” He motioned for the elf standing beside the door to come forward. “Rest here tonight. Your horse will be attended to. We will speak of this again on the morrow.”

Dagmar rose and bowed slightly to Ahkenspec, then followed the elf aide to lavish quarters for the night. Her rest was uneasy, though the accommodation was the most soothing she had ever known. She rose early the next morning and was prepared when the elf aide from the night before tapped on her door to take her to meet with King Ahkenspec.

“Greetings, Majesty,” the king said. “I trust you slept well.”

“Quite well, Your Majesty,” Dagmar said, not wishing to seem unappreciative of the elfin hospitality. “Have you come to a decision?”

“Please take refreshments,” Ahkenspec said. He swept his arm to draw attention to a lavish table spread with every sort of culinary delights.

Dagmar suddenly realized she was famished. She joined the king. Servants offered elaborately carved chairs for host and guest. They ate without much comment until Dagmar pushed back from the table and swept the delicate elfin linen napkin across her lips, placing it on the table.

King Ahkenspec did the same in response, and the servants removed the table as the monarchs again took to their thrones.

“I have decided that your argument, that we must fight together to survive, is the correct analysis of this invasion threat,” King Ahkenspec said. “If the Dark Lord seizes control of Sengenwha, we are all lost.”

“Then you will come to the aid of Botahar?”

“We will be with you when needed.”

“But you are needed now.”

“We will be there when needed,” Ahkenspec repeated. “Now you must return to your people to prepare for the onslaught. General Tarquak has rallied his forces and begun the march on Botahar.”

Dagmar jumped out of her seat.

“Tarquak! Marching on Botahar as we speak?”

“Yes, Majesty. You must return to Botahar at once.”

Dagmar bowed to Ahkenspec. She moved quickly to the door, where the elf that had led her into the kingdom led her back out. She rode around the lake to the agitated aides around a campfire near the passage out of the forest. The group returned to Botahar at breakneck speeds.

A ragtag army rushed about fortifying the last of Botahar’s defensive works. A general, slumped in his saddle, his boots dusty and uniform missing a button, greeted the queen. “Welcome back, Your Majesty,” the general said. “This might be too dangerous a place for us to ensure your safety. Perhaps you should withdraw south, closer to the Neuyokkasinian border, in case things go badly here.”

Dagmar dismounted. She faced the general. He fumbled trying to button the missing button.

“General Tarquak must be nearing Botahar as we speak. If the city falls, Sengenwha is lost.” She looked to the west and noted unusual dust clouds in the distance beyond the hills.

“Tarquak’s army is nearly here; how does your majesty know this?”

“We know, General; aid is on the way. Be ready; the attack may come any day now. Summon the army to the plaza before the governor’s palace where we’re in residence. We would speak to them.”

Dagmar went to her former quarters, bathed, and dressed in her brother’s military uniform she’d had altered to fit her before she left. The army was assembling in the public square along with a growing throng of citizens apparently curious about what the queen would say. Dagmar reviewed the city’s defenses with the commander, getting updates of the progress since her absence as she waited for the assembly.

* * *

Having delivered the Neuyokkasinian supplies to Botahar and assigned the Neuyokkasinian volunteers to the Sengenwhan general’s disposition, Count Bodrin stood in the crowd, awaiting Queen Dagmar’s address to her subjects.

“I hear the queen is to speak to the people shortly,” Bodrin said to a farmer-soldier standing next to him. “I’m from Neuyokkasin, here to aid the war effort.”

“Indeed,” the man said. He raised an eyebrow at first, then grinned. They shook hands, and the soldier looked back at the palace balcony, his face somber. “She’s our last hope now that her brother, King Calamidese, is dead. We’re much interested in what she has to say.”

Looking up at the governor’s palace tower balcony overlooking the plaza, Bodrin noted a dark shadow that swept down from the tower’s roof. That’s quite a large bird, he thought. He looked up, but there was no cloud or object moving across the sky. A chill ran through him. That’s the same kind of poisonous thing that attacked Saxthor on the boat above Olnak. It has the same dark smoky essence… there and yet not, a plasma. His whole body tensed.

“Is there a wizard in the crowd?” Bodrin yelled.

The crowd ceased chattering and turned to the source of the frantic-toned question.

“Is there a wizard in the crowd?” Bodrin yelled again, but still there was no answer.

Bodrin then saw Dagmar moving to the balcony as the dark vaporous plasma slithered down the tower’s shingles above the balcony.

“Don’t come out on the balcony, Majesty!” Bodrin yelled, but he was too far away for her to hear him. He pushed through the crowd, slow to part for him, trying to get closer. I’ll never make it in time, he thought. He looked around and snatched a bow and arrow from a farmer-soldier beside him. Before the man could react, Bodrin set and fired the arrow at the lintel above the balcony.

The angry crowd gasped and rushed at Bodrin, pinning him to the ground. Soldiers tied his hands and prepared to take the would-be assassin to the queen for judgment.

Bodrin looked up to see the arrow, quivering where it had slammed into the beam, just where the foul plasma’s head was coiled below the shingles.

The general had pulled the queen back into the palace, and guards surrounded her. A wizard rushed into the room just ahead of the guards bringing Bodrin for judgment before the shaken queen.

“Bodrin!” Dagmar exclaimed. “Was that you? Release him,” she said, nodding to the guards.

“Stand back from the balcony!” Bodrin shouted.

“But, Your Majesty,” the general said, “this man has just tried to assassinate you.”

“Nonsense,” Dagmar retorted. “This man could have killed me a hundred times in the past. You know him, General. He’s Count Bodrin Vicksnak, King Saxthor’s closest confidant. He brought us supplies and Neuyokkasinian volunteers to aid in our defense. He and King Saxthor saved our royal family and gave us sanctuary when Dreaddrac’s wraith first seized Sengenwhapolis. Now release him.”

The confused guards looked at the general, bowed to the queen, and cut the restraints on Bodrin’s wrists.

Bodrin rubbed his painful red wrists and noticed the wizard, standing behind Queen Dagmar, began to twitch. Something has disturbed the wizard, he thought.

“What are you reacting to?” Bodrin asked the wizard, leaning around Dagmar. The others in the room turned to the magician.

“There’s something entering the room, some evil presence. Its energy is burning me,” the wizard said.

The Bodrin saw the black plasma vapor sliding in from the balcony and moving across the floor.

“Wizard, cast wizard-fire there!” Bodrin shouted, pulling the queen away and behind him.

“What?” the confused wizard asked. He looked about the floor to where Bodrin pointed.

“There! Shoot there now!” Bodrin yelled, pushing the queen back further and pointing at the plasma. He grabbed his sword back from the guard beside him.

The wizard spotted the poisonous plasma-like thing slithering across the floor faster, having found the queen’s scent. A guard near the balcony slumped dead to the floor.

“Pow!” shot the wizard-fire, incinerating the assassin in a puff of smoke.

Guards with swords drawn spread out to cover all the openings in the room. Dagmar looked about her this way and that. The general moved to stand between her and the door, with Bodrin between her and the balcony. The room was tense as they waited for another attack, but none came.

Then Dagmar pushed the two men away from her but thanked them profusely. “I owe you my life once again, Count Vicksnak,” she said and squeezed his hand hard. She cleared her throat, looked around once more, and moved toward the balcony.

“Don’t go out there, Majesty,” the general said.

Dagmar turned to Bodrin, then the general, and held up her hand to stop them from coming closer to restrain her. “These are my people. They have come to hear their queen speak to them. We will not disappoint them and show fear now. What we will face in the coming days and weeks may well take us all. My people will need to know we are with them always,” she said to the general.

She went to the balcony bathed in sunlight, and with the twitching general again at her side, she addressed her nation’s last hope. “We have asked you here as loyal subjects prepared to defend your families, homes, the crown, and country. For many generations, our forefathers have fought for the independence and integrity of this great Kingdom of Sengenwha. Now, in this most desperate hour, we gather to fight for that time honored independence and to restore Sengenwha to the noble nation she has always been. We are her last defense. We must not surrender to the foul tyranny of Dreaddrac, its cruel agents, and loss of liberty and freedom at this most critical hour.

“We stand before you today as first among equals. We stand with you in this crisis. We will fight and die if need be beside you, but we shall never surrender our kingdom to such an evil and cruel overlord as Dreaddrac. Know that we, your lawful queen, hold each and every one of you dear to our heart and will always know you as family.

“Return now to your stations to defend the greatest Kingdom of Powteros. We are one.”

Bodrin looked over the crowd; there wasn’t a dry eye. Men put their hands on their neighbor’s shoulders. Teary-eyed ladies hugged each other. He looked at Dagmar. The general had grasped her hand and shook it, a tear in his eye.

Bodrin noticed a very old, white-haired man in a leather apron, loyal servant to the royal family that had insisted on accompanying the queen on her travels since the death of Calamidese. Bodrin shuffled over beside him.

He looked at the queen, then up at Bodrin, and nudged him. “Like her great-grandfather,” the old man said, nodding toward the queen. “Not since the old king I saw as a boy has anyone so touched the people. She inherited the crown but just made herself mother of the nation.”

Tarquak won’t break these people, Bodrin thought. Saxthor has met his match in this queen.

* * *

Lord Amenibus reined in his great gray gelding at the head of his legions. They looked down across the plain at Feldrik Fortress, guardian of the northwest region of the Duchy of Heggolstockin and the Graushdem Kingdom. The sloping plain had been kept relatively free of forest to prevent hostile forces from having access to materials for building siege machinery. The fortress seemed to shine, standing defiant over the glistening black waters of the Edros Swamp to the north and the Akkin River to the west. But black boats bobbed on the river, many more were jammed on the shore below Feldrik. Swarms of men and orcs scurried between the boats and the fortress, carrying supplies and erecting camps for a siege. From his position on the heights above the plain, Amenibus could just make out activity along the opposite shore of the Akkin. He spotted Prince Pindradese directing his assault troops. More enemy forces marched onboard boats to cross the Akkin.

Amenibus gathered his commanders about him. “Gentlemen, you see before you the impediment to the Prertstenian advance into Heggolstockin. This fortress must not fall to the enemy. So long as we remain in control of Feldrik, the Prertstenians can’t advance further, exposing their supply lines to attack from behind.”

“Lord Amenibus, what disposition of the troops do you command?” a commander asked.

“We need to stop further enemy troops from landing on Heggolstockin soil. Look there, across the river. Boats are loading massive numbers of troops. We might defeat those already encamped around the fortress, but if more land, they will be too many to drive back out. We must cut that traffic on the waterway.”

“We have no fleet on the river, My Lord,” another commander noted.

“Then take a cohort to the reed beds. Cut reed bundles, tie them in floating bales, and soak them in the tar from the tar pits further up the Edros Swamp. We’ll float them down the Akkin and anchor them alternately in the riverbed. Then set them on fire. They will stop the boats temporarily and may give us time to attack the enemy surrounding the fortress. We must wipe them out before more reinforcements can cross the river to support them.”

The commander nodded his understanding and left to collect his men and advance to the swamps. The senior general advanced beside Lord Amenibus.

“General, take your legion and form up east of Feldrik. Don’t attempt to engage the enemy until we’re all in place. I’ll send you further instructions when all is ready.”

The general left to reposition his troops. The second commander advanced.

“Take your legion and form up south of Feldrik, but again, do not attempt to engage the enemy until we are all in place. I’ll send instructions.” The second commander turned his horse back to his men and led them northwest.