And yet, Toniquay and the other leaders observed, their progress proved painfully slow. Waves of trolls came against them. Mobs of the monsters rushed in, leading with a barrage of flying spears that set the barbarians back on their heels and forced them to pause and cover with their wicker and leather shields.
Toniquay looked to the distant ice castle, their goal, and then to the west, toward the dipping sun. They would not get to the castle in daylight, he surmised to his dismay, and the night would not be kind.
A cheer in the southern end of the Alpinadoran line turned Toniquay that way, and when he noted the fierce fighting there, he did not at first understand. As he focused, though, he heard the bolstering cry “Another giant is down!”
He swept his gaze out farther to the south, to the powries, the fallen monk, the stranger, and Milkeila. The shaman’s tight old face crinkled with confusion and consternation; were these to be the saviors of Mithranidoon?
All he had for weapons were his hands and feet, and Bransen really didn’t see how either would do any damage to the giant battling the powries before him. But he had to try.
A dwarf rolled right around the behemoth’s treelike leg, ending with a solid, two-handed wallop of his heavy club against the front of the giant’s knee. As the behemoth lurched and howled, Bransen closed the last dozen running strides and leaped high. Good luck was with him, for even as he lifted, the dwarf, having gone around to the back of the giant’s leg, drove in a dagger, then smacked it hard with his club. The giant lurched backward this time, distracted and overbalancing just as Bransen crashed in and began launching a series of heavy punches. Over went the giant, crashing down to its back on the ice, and Bransen hopped up to a crouch, sprang into a forward somersault, and double-stomped his heels into the giant’s eyes.
The giant howled and swatted him, launching him away, and only good fortune and a beam of wood prevented Bransen from going over the lip of the chasm. As soon as he had steadied himself, his legs dangling over the ledge, he looked back in fear, expecting the behemoth to rush over and finish him, but the damage had been done, and now powries swarmed over the supine giant, hacking with abandon.
Cormack slid down low and clamped his hands on Bransen’s shoulders, desperately steadying him. Bransen started to assure the man that he was all right, but a shriek from the north, a supernatural, preternatural piercing screech, cut him short.
When he looked at the small dragon swooping across the lines of cowering barbarians, Bransen knew at once that it was Ancient Badden. Leathery wings propelled the beast with great speed, its long hind legs and talon-tipped feet snapping down to keep the warriors ducking and diving aside.
It screeched again, and there was magic behind that powerful wail, for many men fell to their knees, screaming in pain and grabbing at their ears. A dragon claw caught a woman by the shoulder and jerked her from the ground with such force that one of her boots was left behind! With that one foot holding her tight, the dragon’s other foot raked at her, talons tearing clothing and skin with ease.
The creature banked and rolled back under, and with a sudden halt of its momentum, hurled the broken woman like a missile through the throng of barbarians. The dragon breathed forth a line of fire, immolating some and creating an obscuring fog.
Spears reached up at it but they seemed to bother the beast not at all, for they did not penetrate its armored body, or what seemed like a magical barrier encompassing that body. The defiant dragon issued that deafening, earsplitting screech again, sending more warriors to their knees in pain.
“We have to help them!” Cormack cried, tugging Bransen back from the ledge. He scrambled to his feet, as Bransen did behind him, and started for the Alpinadorans.
“That is Badden,” Milkeila mouthed in horror-filled understanding.
Bransen grabbed Cormack by the shoulder, tugging him about. “The castle,” he said.
“We have to help them!” Cormack implored.
“We help them by taking the castle,” Bransen replied. “It is the source, the conduit, of Badden’s power.”
Cormack glanced back at the desperate fight to the north, but desperate acquiescence was in his eyes as he turned back to Bransen.
“Go on! Go on!” Bransen shouted to the powries, for he saw that the way was clear. “To the castle doors, for all our sakes!”
But few powries heeded that call, entranced by the allure of bright giant blood, and with still more behemoths to be tripped up and slaughtered. And the hesitancy of the behemoths-obviously they had fought the tough little powries before-only made the dwarves hungrier.
“Mcwigik!” Cormack called, and the dwarf skidded to a stop and turned to face the humans. “To the castle!” Cormack yelled, pointing emphatically that way.
Mcwigik put on a sour look, but he did stab out his arm to stop Pergwick from running by. Cormack nodded and started off, Milkeila and Bransen close behind. By the time they crossed the glacier to the ice ramp leading into the castle, Mcwigik and his three cohorts trailed in close pursuit.
A strange sense of urgency came over Bransen, then, and he overtook Cormack, moving from a trot to a sprint for the front of the large castle. He looked all about as he ran, though his path was straight. Were Brother Jond and Olconna still alive?
How much he suddenly cared about the pair and the other prisoners surprised Bransen, and he silently cursed himself for his hesitance back on the path. How could he have considered turning aside? He lowered his head and ran on faster, right to the base of the ice ramp that led up through the carved towerlike guardhouses that flanked the opening to the castle’s bailey. But there, right at the base of the ramp, he skidded to a stop, and he quickly put his arm out to block Cormack from running by him.
“It is warded,” he explained.
“How do you know?”
Bransen shook his head, but did not otherwise answer. He fell within himself, finding the line of his chi and willfully extending that life energy down to the ground beneath him. He felt the power there, clearly, and discordant with the teeming magic that had constructed and now maintained this castle.
“He says that it is trapped,” Cormack said to Milkeila when she came up beside them, the four dwarves huffing and puffing close behind.
Milkeila nodded her agreement almost immediately. Her magic was quite similar to that of the Samhaists, both drawing their energies from the power of the world beneath their feet. She stepped up tentatively and began chanting and rattling her claw and tooth necklace.
She nodded again and looked back to Cormack. “Our adversary has collected the muted countering energies to his construction together in this one place,” she explained. “It is a powerful ward.”
“Can you defeat it?” Cormack asked.
“Or can ye bleed it?” asked Mcwigik, and Cormack looked at him curiously, and all the more curiously when he noted Milkeila nodding and smiling.
The shaman tentatively walked up the ramp, rattling her necklace before her as if it served as a guard to the release of Samhaist magic. As she neared the opening to the castle bailey, she began to softly chant while jiggling her necklace with one hand and running her other hand in the air right near the doorjamb without touching it. Immediately the gleaming ice began to sweat and drip, and little flames seemed to dance within the ice itself.
Bransen felt it all profoundly. He understood Milkeila’s counter; she was calling to the ward in measured volume, bringing it forth in bits and pieces to release the pressure. He nodded as he came to understand the trapped flames in the doorjamb, designed to burst forth with tremendous energy if any crossed through without the appropriate magical commands.