Conqueror Read online

  Her black dragons dove from the sky in spiraling patterns and launched burning acid that cut through the dwarves in swaths. Hastor was among them. The black was no longer linked to him—he had transferred the dragon’s allegiance to Ziatrice by making it drink her blood in part of a magic subservience ritual, the same ceremony she had used to bind the orak troops and other black dragons to her via dark magic, ensuring their loyalty was to her and not Vorgon.

  When Balethorn saw the blacks it began humming, and Malem had to suppress the urge to slay the great beasts. That was one reason he had waited so long before drawing the sword: he hated its damn nagging.

  With Ziatrice at his side he waded his way forward, swinging his blade. The ranks had devolved into chaos: there was no semblance of order here. It was every man and dwarf for himself. Oraks fought at the side of the defending dwarves now, Malem noted. That meant reinforcements from the rest of Vorgon’s army had begun to arrive.

  Xaxia joined him on his left. The bandit was dressed in her usual leather corset and leggings. She had refused the dragon scale armor, claiming it would only “encumber” her movements, though she was wearing a protective helm today, mostly to tuck in her hair—again, her words. She wielded Biter in hand, a Drainer like Balethorn, though its preference was oraks rather than dragons. It glowed brightly as she hewed down the oraks in front of them, but not so much when she targeted dwarves.

  Gwen stood beyond her. The half gobling wore dragon scale armor that wrapped her body from head to toe, like Malem, leaving only her green face exposed. She had chosen not to wear a helm, and wore her dark hair in a tight ponytail that hung to the small of her back. She expertly shot arrows with Wasp, her magic bow; at her hip she carried the Infitas quiver, which gave the impression that she only had one arrow left, but every time she took that seemingly last arrow, another appeared, ad infinitum. Like his, her armor and weapons were gifts of the Metal Dragons.

  A commotion ahead drew his attention. Alliance and orak troops were knocked backward, sometimes arcing into the air first. Their chest armor was invariably caved, and when they landed, they often coughed blood before dying.

  “I think we’ve found Barrowfore,” Ziatrice said.

  Malem sought ahead with his mind while he fought, and indeed sensed a powerful creature waiting beyond those troops. He tried to wrap his will around the entity but the tendrils of his mind evaporated upon contact.

  He alternately hewed down dwarves and shoved his way past Alliance troops until he was standing at the heart of the commotion. This was indeed Barrowfore, based on the description Ziatrice had given him. Barrowfore wore a horned helm, with a beard that hung in multiple braids down to the middle of his chest. It was colored a deep red—he was unafraid of standing out from the other dwarves. He did that already with his sheer bulk, standing almost as tall as a man. Rumor had it that the beard was actually naturally white, but Barrowfore never washed out the blood of his opponents, which gave the beard its unique wine coloration.

  The uniqueness of his weapon also made him conspicuous—the dwarf king wielded a giant dual-headed hammer, rather than an ax, which explained why his opponents were knocked backward with their chest’s caved. He wore the same black chainmail as the other dwarves, but around his throat hung several necklaces, the source of much of his magic, according to Ziatrice. Some were thick chains of diamonds and expensive gems, while others were thin bands of more modest gold or silver.

  “Get back!” Malem shouted.

  The surrounding troops cleared away from Barrowfore, and instead concentrated on keeping the other dwarves and enemy oraks at bay. Gwen launched arrows in rapid succession, but they wouldn’t penetrate the Black Sword’s armor. She tried targeting the king’s face, but the arrows bounced away, their points blunted.

  Barrowfore laughed heartily. “That all you got, Green Bitch?”

  Two Metals swooped low and breathed flames at the Black Sword. The liquid fire didn’t take on his skin, and instead sloughed to the ground harmlessly.

  An Alliance ice mage dressed in armor stepped forward and unleashed a barrage of sharp icicles. They all struck the dwarf king, but again did no harm.

  A black dragon came in for a pass and unleashed acid. Like the fire, the caustic liquid flowed harmlessly to the ground, touching neither the king’s skin nor his armor.

  Another black launched tendrils of deadly black magic, but the ghostly substance refused to wrap around Barrowfore, instead dissipating.

  A third black dragon came in, swooping down in an attempt to physically snatch the king in its jaws, but Barrowfore struck it in the side of the head with his big hammer before it could do so, flinging the dragon’s entire head and neck to the side. The stunned dragon crashed-landed drunkenly nearby, crushing a whole troop of enemy units.

  A dwarf mage embedded within the milling mass behind the king launched more sprites, and the tiny creatures swarmed past the king. As Alliance troops screamed, Malem instinctively raised his buckler, and Ziatrice turned toward him and the other two women, ready to extend her magic force field around them, and likely exhaust herself to the bone in the process.

  But Ziatrice was spared from doing so when an Alliance fire mage countered the sprites by creating a wall of flame; the fire mage sent that wall hurtling forward, burning everything in its path, sprites and dwarves alike, including the magic user who originally launched them.

  Malem glanced at Xaxia and Gwen. “Stay back.”

  2

  He and Ziatrice stepped forward to engage Vorgon’s servant.

  “Hello Barrowfore,” Ziatrice taunted. “Miss me?”

  “Like I missed the trimmings of my beard!” Barrowfore roared, swinging that hammer.

  Malem and Ziatrice were forced to dodge.

  “I was wondering why black dragons were attacking me!” Barrowfore continued.

  “Did you know that a barrow means ‘burial mound’ in the human tongue?” Ziatrice asked, her voice sugary sweet. “I intend to deliver you unto your namesake today.”

  “You can certainly try, lass!” Barrowfore said. He drew the hammer back and paused, holding that attack poise, waiting for them to strike. The hammer began to shake violently, as if the dwarf king were charging the weapon in some manner. It also glowed red slightly.

  Malem feinted with his magic blade, causing Barrowfore to swing; the dwarf’s speed was incredible, as of a compressed spring suddenly released, and the hammer moved in a blur that was barely visible to the naked eye. If that had been a real attack on Malem’s part rather than a feint, that blow would have struck him—there was no way he could have dodged it. It probably would have killed him, too, even with the armor of dragon scales he wore.

  But striking and missing like that left the dwarf king momentarily vulnerable, as momentum carried Barrowfore’s arms around and twisted his torso. So, while the Black Sword recovered from the missed blow, Malem plunged Balethorn into the dwarf’s exposed neck.

  It was like trying to strike iron: the magic weapon didn’t even scratch the skin. Malem felt the reverberations pass painfully into his arm.

  “You’re lucky that blade is magic!” Barrowfore said, stepping backward as he reversed the swing of his hammer. “Ordinary swords shatter when you try that, lad.”

  Malem retreated, dodging the backhand blow. The hammer swung more slowly this time, because the king neglected to charge it. The hammer’s swoosh as it arced through the air was still formidable, and even louder than the noise Wither made. The hammer still retained a slight red glow from its previous charge.

  While Barrowfore was still recovering from the latest miss, Ziatrice sliced her purple-edged halberd at the necklaces around the dwarf king’s neck. Her blade didn’t sever a single one of them, instead bouncing away harmlessly.

  “Trying to take the necklaces, are ye?” Barrowfore said. “Good luck, Blue Bitch!” His eyes suddenly widened, before narrowing greedily. He turned his attention on Malem. “A blue bitch and a green bitch! You’re the
one the master wants! Fitting that I should be the hero to capture ye. Dwarves, rally to me!”

  The other dwarves began smashing through the surrounding defenders. Xaxia and Gwen quickly assumed defensive positions behind Malem and Ziatrice to protect their backs.

  Abigail landed nearby, crushing dwarves and oraks with her hulking silver body. She reared her head and sprayed liquid fire on the enemy with her massive jaws. She chomped down on a few obvious magic users who deflected the magic with either shields of ice or ramparts of earth, then she turned toward Malem and the dwarf king and summoned a fire elemental. The ghostly creature wrapped arms of flame around Barrowfore and squeezed, restraining the king’s arms to his sides. The elemental otherwise caused no damage to the invincible dwarf.

  “Let me… the fuck… go… fiery bitch!” The king broke free and when he kicked the fire elemental, his boots made contact, incredibly, and shoved the flames back.

  “Never seen anyone kick a fire before,” Gwen commented as she notched and released another arrow at her latest foe.

  Barrowfore dissipated the creature with a single swing of his hammer.

  “He has almost the same magic you did,” Xaxia told Ziatrice. The bandit impaled a dwarf with Biter, spattering her blood-soaked corset with yet more dark fluid.

  “He is a Black Sword,” Ziatrice said, hewing down an enemy orak. “As I was.”

  “Yes,” Barrowfore said. “And I’m trying to get my name changed to Black Hammer… it’s far more appropriate, don’t ye think?”

  “Then I should’ve been the Black Halberd,” Ziatrice told the king.

  “And so ye should have,” the dwarf said. “But it’s a wee bit too late for that now, isn’t it lassy?”

  “Don’t call me lassy,” Ziatrice said.

  “Blue bitch then, if you prefer,” Barrowfore taunted.

  With a growl, Ziatrice hewed down her latest foe and moved in, halberd swinging. She struck Barrowfore several times in rapid succession, forcing the king back. He deflected some of Wither’s blows with the hammer, but those that got through merely bounced from his chest.

  “Ye never learn, do ye?” Barrowfore said. He hit her with his hammer while she was in the middle of her halberd barrage, and she was sent reeling backward. As far as Malem could tell, the hammer hadn’t actually hit her body, but instead struck the energy field that surrounded her. That was still enough to throw her back, apparently, though Malem had never seen any weapons, magic or otherwise, do that before.

  An energy beam of some kind launched from the hammer. It extended in three directions: forward, to the left and to the right. The Alliance soldiers in the path of that multi-pronged beam were killed instantly, in a line extending five men deep on either side: the energy beam drilled holes cleanly through their torsos, eating away armor and skin both.

  The forward beam hit Ziatrice, too, but thankfully couldn’t penetrate her shield.

  The expulsion of energy lasted only a moment, and when it faded, so did the glow from the hammer.

  The night elf sent Malem a telepathic message when she landed facedown on the ground. My shield is gone. Don’t have the vitality to maintain it.

  Malem could feel her weakness through their link, so he transferred stamina her way, drawing liberally from Abigail and Gwen. The silver dragon, breathing fire at dwarves nearby, slumped slightly, as did Gwen, who continued to shoot arrows from Wasp like there was no tomorrow.

  Which there probably wasn’t.

  Thanks, Ziatrice said, sitting up. But that won’t cut it.

  At least you can fight again, Malem told her.

  She stood completely, and swung her halberd at a dwarf that rushed her, splitting the attacker in half. And so I can.

  “Come then, surface dweller, surrender to Vorgon,” Barrowfore said. “Let’s do this the easy way.” The king swung his hammer backward, and into the charging position, where he held it.

  “I don’t think so,” Malem said. “Instead, I’m offering you the chance to surrender.”

  “Me?” Barrowfore said with a toothy grin. “The lad has a sense of humor! I love it! You’re outmatched, in case you failed to notice. You can’t touch me. I’m invincible, you stupid shit! Go on. Attack. Come on. Try.” He waited, and when Malem didn’t oblige him, he added: “Doesn’t matter. Even if you just stand there doing nothing, your tiny regiment is surrounded, and quickly succumbing to my own. Vorgon’s reinforcements have already arrived. Surrender, and perhaps I’ll spare the lovely women who fight for you, and whatever members of your foolish Alliance who don’t flee to the safety of their own lines. Do not, then I’ll kill them all, along with your precious dragons—”

  As if to emphasize that latter point, a beautiful Metal fell from the sky and smashed into the ground some distance behind Barrowfore. Three blacks landed on top of the dragon and proceeded to rip the poor creature to shreds.

  Abigail turned from the fighting to chase them off, but she was too late. A black dragon fell upon her from the sky a moment later, forcing her to grapple for her life herself.

  “Soon thereafter you’ll be the last one standing,” Barrowfore continued. The hammer was shaking visibly in his arms, and glowed a moderate red from its increasing charge. “You’ll find yourself beaten to a bloody pulp on the field of battle, with no recollection of who you are, or why you’re here. I’ll bind and gag you, then drag you to Vorgon for my reward. What he does to you will not be very pleasant. Not at all.”

  “Well, at least you stopped using the word ‘ye.’” Malem faked a leap forward, and once more Barrowfore swung. The king moved even faster than the last time he charged like that, a barely visible blur. The sound was like thunder cracking, and the air from the passage of that hammer physically shoved him back, coming as a great rush of wind.

  “Damn it!” the dwarf king exclaimed while his torso twisted in the opposite direction.

  Malem launched himself at Barrowfore while the king still recovered from the swing. But instead of striking with Balethorn, Malem grabbed at the necklaces. He attempted to wrap his gloved fingers around a group of them, either to break them free or lift them off the dwarf’s head, but he didn’t get very far.

  “Oh ho, ye are a feisty one!” Barrowfore said, head-butting him.

  Malem stumbled backward—he wore a helm, but the blow from that horned helmet had dented it, causing the metal to dig into his skull. Wasn’t pleasant.

  A moment later he took a debilitating hit in the side from the big hammer. It sent him flying, and he landed amid the press of Alliance soldiers face-first on ground that had been churned to mud, thanks to all the blood spilling into the dirt, and the booted feet pounding it.

  The hammer blow hurt incredibly, despite his dragon scale armor, and he wondered if he’d broken some ribs. Bruised a few, definitely. He was lucky that hammer impact hadn’t been a charged attack. Then again, he was starting to believe the armor would save him from a charged hammer strike, too, given that Barrowfore claimed he intended to capture Malem, and had already tried to hit him twice with the weapon while it was charged. Not that Malem planned to test out that theory.

  He scrambled to his feet. Ziatrice wasn’t using her chains of mist anymore, and she relied solely on her halberd. She began to take cuts and bruises now that she was too weak to maintain her shield. Xaxia and Gwen fought at her side, and protected her and each other from enemy blows as well as they could.

  The ranks of Alliance soldiers, and Ziatrice’s own oraks, began to thin around them. Mage attacks had lessoned on both sides—the magic users were growing exhausted. Although as more enemy reinforcements arrived, Malem expected sprite attacks to increase. He wasn’t sure how he would survive another sprite assault without Ziatrice to shield him. Then again, now that Barrowfore knew who he was, maybe none of those attacks would be sent his way.

  He wondered if the Alliance losses were restricted to the area immediately surrounding the dwarf king, or if the fighting fared just as poorly across the battlefront.
Probably not: with the help of the expired hill giant, these brave men and women had driven a wedge deep into the enemy ranks, and they were now paying the price. Malem momentarily tapped into Abigail’s vision, hoping to get a better perspective on the battle space, but he perceived only snatches of the sky as she grappled with her current dragon foe a ways to the northwest. Not quite what he was looking for.

  He was forced to utilize his own vision when a dwarf jumped him, and he wearily beat back the attacker. Thankfully his foe was just as tired as he was, and Malem shortly ran the enemy through with his sword. Just in time to spot Barrowfore bearing down on him.

  Send in one of your oraks from behind, Malem ordered Ziatrice. See if you can steal away some of those necklaces while I distract the king.

  What if it’s not the necklaces granting him his power? Ziatrice said. What if it’s the hammer?

  But you said it was the necklaces!

  Yes, she agreed. That’s what I was told. But it may have been misinformation, meant to mislead me.

  Try the necklaces for now, he sent. Because getting him to part with his weapon will be a whole lot harder.

  Malem dodged a blow from the dwarf king and leaped against an Alliance soldier, and accidentally shoved him into a dwarf’s ax in the process.

  “Sorry,” he told the man. “Healer!”

  Malem was forced to leap again, and this time the dwarf’s big hammer struck the injured soldier, sending the man flying away to the side, and caving his rib cage in the process.

  Shit.

  One of Ziatrice’s oraks leaped onto Barrowfore from behind and wrapped its legs around the dwarf’s hips. Its fingers grabbed onto three necklaces and heaved upward. The orak was able to lift the front portion of the magical chains, which also lifted the king’s braided beard, but the rear sections remained glued to the back of Barrowfore’s neck, and the orak was unable to slide them free.

  “Who’s playing with my beard?” Barrowfore leaped backward in anger, throwing himself onto the ground, and landing back first. He crushed the orak beneath him and swung his head back and forth, ramming his horned helmet repeatedly into the orak’s head. Blood spurted to either side as Barrowfore cracked open the creature’s skull.