Conqueror Read online

  CONQUEROR

  MONSTER TAMER BOOK 2

  Isaac Hooke

  For my Mother

  My greatest, most devoted fan.

  1938 - 2018

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Want Free Books?

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  In Closing

  1

  Malem led his army into battle on the back of a huge hill giant.

  Around him lay the no man’s land that separated the two warring sides: charred, broken tree trunks; muddy, packed earth; blast craters and sinkholes; monster corpses in various states of decay.

  That ruined land stretched from Alcaania in the south to Malstasia in the north. Its width varied from a furlong in places to as much as three miles across; here was one of the more average separations between the opposing armies, with the no man’s land region coming in at a little over one mile and two hundred yards across.

  The magic of opposing battle mages swirled in front of Malem, striking the hill giant. Deadly works of fire, ice, earth and darkness came upon him. But the Buff Mages of the Alliance had granted the hill giant temporary immunity against all magic. Sixty seconds they promised him. Sixty seconds as counted by the hands of the Clock of the Magi. If he could run a mile in roughly ten minutes, surely a hill giant could do it in under sixty seconds.

  Behind Malem, the seven oraks joining the rush didn’t fare quite so well. Fire ignited them. Ice tore off limbs. Darkness sent black veins crawling across their flesh. But they were a token force—beasts he had Broken well before the battle began. He crushed their wills in his own, killing them, draining them of all their stamina before they could succumb to the enemy magic.

  As he got closer, night elves launched arrows from the northwest, and dwarves threw spears from directly ahead, to the west. Malem raised his dragon scale shield as that deadly rain arced down, and the buckler became porcupined with arrows, which spoke to the power behind the bows that launched them: arrows launched by ordinary bows wouldn’t have penetrated.

  Perched beside him in the large basket tied to the giant’s back, Ziatrice laughed hideously as the arrows from her people sloughed away from the invisible shield that protected her. Earlier the blue-skinned half elf had offered to extend that protection around him the whole time they crossed that no man’s land, but when he learned what the cost to her stamina would be, he declined, telling her to do so only as needed.

  The hill giant, which Malem had named Gant, had a shield it used to absorb those projectile attacks as well—essentially the wooden wall of a watermill Malem had the giant disassemble outside Midweald forest. Unfortunately, because of the contrasting angles the two attacks came from, with the arrows raining down from above and the spears from directly ahead, the giant had to choose between protecting its head from the former or leaving its thighs exposed to the latter. The creature kept alternating between the two choices, depending on whichever proved the most painful at the moment, exposing Malem and Ziatrice at intervals to the elven arrows.

  Gant momentarily fought against his control: despite its menacing aspect, the hill giant was frightened, and wanted to turn around and flee more than anything. But Malem clamped down on its will and impelled the hill giant onward. He felt anger and resentment course through the creature’s energy bundle in his head, and then he felt an outward blow against his mind clamp that was so strong, for a moment he thought he might lose the hill giant.

  But then Gant tripped on a large blast hole, distracting its mind. Malem instantly secured his mental grip as Gant nearly fell; when the hill giant recovered, it sprinted on with renewed vigor, its anger at Malem redirected toward the creatures harming it up ahead.

  The dwarves entrenched behind the earthen barricades directly in front continued that onslaught of spears, launching them from special one-armed slings. Gant was forced to adjust the wooden shield to keep its body covered, because at that close range, some of the spears were powerful enough to tear large holes in the wood.

  Those spear-slinging dwarves belonged to Vorgon’s Eighth Regiment, known as the Ax Bangers, led by the Dwarf King Barrowfore himself—one of Vorgon’s “Black Swords.” And Malem’s target.

  Arrows also continued to come down from above, thanks to the elven archers to the northwest. The giant carried an enormous spiked club in the hand opposite the wooden wall it used as shield; Gant had learned to hold that club over its head to protect itself from those arrows.

  The intensity of the forward onslaught increased as the hill giant got closer to the enemy lines; it seemed all of the dwarves in range were concentrating on that wooden shield. The protective mass began to break apart, and spears struck the hill giant’s legs. Gant screamed, running on through tears of pain. Malem felt it all through his link to the creature, and he willed the hill giant to run faster.

  But then, thankfully, relief came. Metal Dragons rained havoc down from above, igniting large swaths of dwarves with their liquid fire. The flames burned persistently from that liquid so that the screaming dwarves basted in their armor. Other Metals swooped in upon the more northwesterly troops, in a coordinated attack against the night elves and their archers.

  Took you long enough, Malem sent Abigail, a silver dragon flying with the Metals above.

  Sorry, she replied. I was arguing with the Alliance commander about the timing. Finally I just told him to piss off and launched my platoon. The plan won’t succeed if you don’t even make it to the front lines.

  No, it won’t, he agreed.

  Black dragons came in now on the side of the enemy to intercept the Metals. The blacks under Ziatrice’s control had infiltrated their ranks, and turned upon them before the attack even began. The Metals used that to their advantage, attacking the distracted blacks from behind.

  Ziatrice had wanted to infiltrate the ranks of the night elves to sow discord as well, mostly because she was pissed that Vorgon had raised another elf to the position of Black Sword to take her place, but Malem had deemed it too risky. And it was beyond their current objective.

  The hill giant finally reached the earthen barricades the dwarves had raised and broke through. It began smashing the dwarven troops within the trenches beyond; they seemed like ants compared to that giant, but to their credit, none of the dwarves fled the terrifying creature that towered before them. To a man, they stayed and fought. Gant used the spiked club to deadly effect—especially considering the weapon was barbed with even more spikes than ever before, thanks to the intercepted elven arrows. Dwarves were bashed aside in groups of twos and threes, like playthings, usually dead before they hit the ground.

  Malem had Gant concentrate on any obvious mages in their midst. Those mages were once visible by dyed beards, which indicated their respective disciplines—red for fire, blue for ice, and so forth. Though recently the dwarves had begun to dye their beards the same color as in
fantry so that they didn’t stand out, just like the orak mages had stopped wearing robes, copying a tactic first started by the Alliance, whose mages and officers dressed the same as ordinary soldiers. Malem could still sense the stronger-willed magic users among the dwarves with his mind, and he directed Gant accordingly.

  Malem reached out experimentally, but found he was unable to Break any dwarven minds, from infantry to mage, at least when they were uninjured. The race was too strong willed. He sensed one particular dwarf near death, and wrapped his will around that one and squeezed. He was able to Break it. The dwarf, an ax slinger, used up three slots, rather than the two an orak would have taken. Interesting.

  He crushed the dwarf’s will before it expired; taking its stamina to make up for what he’d lost Breaking the thing in the first place.

  Two large Metal dragons, a silver and a gold—Abigail and her brother Jayden—swooped down and set several more dwarves aflame with their liquid fire. They also created fire elementals to dance among the dwarves and wreak havoc among their ranks. But then two large black dragons collided with each of them and wrestled the pair away.

  Dwarven mages summoned rock elementals in turn to deal with the entities of fire. They also conjured demonic little sprites: small, insect-sized fairies with razor sharp teeth. When those things swarmed, you better make sure you had some defenses.

  Gant’s magic resistance hadn’t yet run out, so none of the sprites could touch him. But Malem on the other hand wasn’t so safe.

  Stupid mages should’ve granted me magic immunity, too.

  Except they couldn’t. They’d exhausted everything on the giant.

  Ziatrice spun toward him on the giant’s back and wrapped her arms around him, temporarily extending her invisible shield around his body.

  Her shoulders were bare, thanks to the green and purple corset she wore, and he rested his gauntleted arms across them. He felt the press of her breasts against his armor and her hot breath on his cheek, and he scolded himself for feeling arousal at a time like this.

  “Well hello,” she said softly into his ear as the sprites swarmed, unable to penetrate her force field. He felt her stamina rapidly draining however, from the effort of maintaining that shield, and she slumped, pulling slightly against him.

  He borrowed liberally from Gwen and Abigail, the other two half monsters linked to him. He’d take shit from them later for it, but what else could he do?

  Ziatrice straightened and pushed back to gaze into his face. She wore a thankful expression.

  Around them the wave of sprites subsided, vanishing to the realm they came from by winking out in rapid succession.

  Meanwhile Ziatrice still had her arms wrapped around him; her eyes glinted with mischief, and she kissed him squarely on the lips. Before he could react she pulled away.

  Ax-wielding dwarves rallied and rushed the hill giant; they swerved around the remnants of the shield before Gant could counter them. The lumbering giant attempted to stomp them and succeeded in getting a few, but others struck at its Achilles tendons with their axes. Gant screamed and collapsed.

  Malem and Ziatrice leaped free from the basket that held them and landed in a spot free of dwarves. Behind them, the angry attackers began hacking the hill giant to death.

  Gant fought valiantly, killing many dwarves in the process, but the hill giant was already riddled with arrows and spears from the previous attacks, and wouldn’t last much longer. Before it died, Malem crushed the hill giant’s mind; taking what stamina he could from the monster.

  Sorry about that, Gant.

  “Well, this is going to be fun,” Ziatrice said.

  Malem drew Balethorn. Beside him, Ziatrice wielded her terrible magic halberd, Wither. It cut through the air audibly as she moved through her death forms; the black blades composing her skirt whirled about, whistling in counterpoint.

  He fended off those that came at her from behind, and soon positioned himself to fight back to back with her as the dwarves surrounded the pair. The two of them weren’t quite touching—the range of motion they needed to freely wield their weapons prevented that, but he could sense her behind him at all times, just as she could sense him, ensuring they didn’t stray far from one another. The black blades of her skirt occasionally struck his leg assemblies, but the thick dragon scales protected him from any injury.

  To the east a roar came up as a portion of King Goldenthall’s army sprinted onto the field, its ranks bolstered by troops from other Alliance members. Many of the oraks that served Ziatrice deployed as well, running across the no man’s land alongside the soldiers of men.

  “Who came up with this strategy again?” Ziatrice asked as she hewed down two dwarves with a single slice of that one-handed halberd. The tip glowed a bright purple, and it left a trail of similarly colored mist in its wake.

  “Wasn’t me,” Malem commented. He stabbed through the thick chest armor of a dwarf with Balethorn, but he received no boost in vitality from the kill because although the magic weapon was a Drainer, it preferred dragons.

  General Rashan, the leader of Goldenthall’s army, had the brilliant idea of sending in a hill giant to “distract” the dwarven and elven ranks ahead of the Metal Dragons, who in turn would clear the way for the Mulhadden troops to cross the no man’s land unhindered. Humans could only accept one type of magic resistance at a time, whereas a large unit like a hill giant could accept multiple. And because adding magic resistance to a unit cost a Buff Mage the same amount of vitality no matter the size of that unit, Rashan’s thinking was: why waste the resistance on smaller individual troops when he could send in a hill giant to get the job done?

  Malem decided he would have to ride the hill giant into battle, because it would be obvious even to Gant that it was marching to its death, despite its size difference. And since range seemed to have some influence on how well Malem was able to maintain control of his beasts during times of extreme stress, riding in on its back seemed the best option.

  Ziatrice had announced she was going with him, no matter what. Xaxia and Gwen wanted to go, too, but Malem had lied to them, telling them the hill giant could only handle himself and the night elf. The other two women would be coming in with the main army, unfortunately, but there was nothing he could do about that. The pair were as strong willed as the best of them.

  All of those thoughts flashed vaguely through his mind in the time it took to parry a dwarven blow and swing his sword in deadly riposte. Blood gushed from the wound he caused, splashing his dragon scale armor. Another dwarf came, this one extremely well built. Rapid, heavy blows slammed into Malem’s shield, forcing him to give ground and shove against Ziatrice behind him.

  “Hey, fuck!” Ziatrice said, slamming her back against him.

  He probably shouldn’t have done that.

  The dwarf was too eager, and his ax-blade momentarily got stuck in Malem’s shield. He used the moment to cut off the dwarf’s arm, and followed up with a neck slice, before kicking the gurgling foe away.

  He sensed what must have been two dwarven mages out there, judging from their superior mental resistance. He overlaid the locations in his mind with Ziatrice’s vision so that she would be able to pick them out.

  “What’s this?” Ziatrice asked over her shoulder.

  “Mages,” he said.

  Ziatrice promptly used her free hand to conjure chains of black mist, wrapping them around the first dwarven mage, who dressed the same as its companions. The night elf brutally yanked the mage to her and hewed it down with her monstrous halberd. She did the same with the second mage, and when the dwarf’s head bounced on the ground, its fake beard fell away, and long hair spilled free.

  “Hm!” Ziatrice said. “I always thought their females had beards, too!” Dark mist was coursing from her eyes at that point.

  Oraks and Alliance soldiers swept past then, cutting into the enemy ranks and offering the pair respite. He turned to watch the press, pausing to catch his breath.

  Deeper within
the enemy troops he detected another dwarf mage joining the fray. Before he could broadcast its position to Ziatrice, the mage launched more of those demonic sprites.

  The tiny creatures formed a deadly swarm that tore through her oraks and the soldiers of the Alliance, treating them like fodder.

  Once more Ziatrice spun about and wrapped her arms around him, letting Wither hang out to the side, and her personal shield protected them both from the deadly attack.

  “Hello again,” Ziatrice said.

  The small, puckered mouths cast their blades all along the surface of the hidden force field, and as they surrounded it, the creatures blotted out the view of the battlefield entirely.

  The night elf staggered from the effort of maintaining that force field, so as usual, he transferred stamina from Gwen and Abigail to her.

  She stood straighter; just like the last time he’d done this, she had a mischievous look to her eyes. He wondered what she was going to do now.

  “How about a quick fuck in the middle of battle?” she said.

  The sprites dissipated and in answer to her question he promptly pushed away. He broadcast the position of the mage to her.

  “No?” She pouted. “Maybe next time.”

  She flung out her left hand, and those chains of mist parted the ranks of men between her and her target. They latched onto the surprised mage, and she hauled it to her. The dwarf landed on its knees before her, and she swept Wither in a backhand stroke to perform the unceremonious beheading.