But then, before anyone could rejoice, a huge shape loomed into sight, as the elemental king, with no apparent pattern in its random movements, came lurching back the way it had come. The men found themselves exposed in the street, and looking up, scattered.
The lord marshal froze, expecting the monster to charge and trample them all.
Instead, the gigantic being veered away to the side. Fire flashed from its eyes, and the yawning mouth opened in a surreal growl, like the moaning of a powerful wind through a desolate wood-only a hundred times as loud.
“What’s it doing?” asked Martin, who ran up besides Jaymes.
“I don’t know. It’s as though it’s been distracted,” the lord marshal replied.
“Look!” cried one of the swordsmen. “The kender!”
They saw him then, standing on top of the roof of one of the few intact buildings down the street. Moptop was jeering and hooting imaginative insults, waving his arms and shouting in his high-pitched voice at the elemental king. The monster turned its immense face toward the diminutive kender, as though disbelieving. It roared and shivered.
“What makes you think you’re so tough?” Moptop yodeled. “I’ve lit matches that made more fire than you! You’re probably scared of little old me! Well, aren’t you?”
The elemental roared again, the sound pounding against their eardrums like a hurricane wind. The creature stood in place, limbs gesticulating madly, fire blossoming from its cave-like eye sockets. The gargantuan figure twisted and flailed in obvious torment. Moptop vanished from sight as the creature took a hunkering step toward him. Once more the monster halted, roaring and bellowing; then his tormentor was back in view.
The kender had climbed up a cone-shaped pile of broken rock, scrambling over large sections of wall, pulling himself up the steep summit with one hand. At the top, he braced his feet on a pair of flat stones, stood up to his full height, and brandished his fist, pointing straight at the monstrous creature.
“I’m warning you, big ugly. Get out of here, you!” Moptop screamed, hopping up and down on the rock. “You stupid fire-face! This is your last chance to run!” He clenched both fists, shaking them in the air, and whooped and shrieked in triumph and glee. “You’re nothing but a big, overgrown thunderclap-that’s what you are!”
The elemental roared again, even louder than before, anguished by-as Moptop would claim for the rest of his life-the incredible humiliation resulting from the kender’s taunts. The mighty creature took a step forward then another. It lumbered closer, kicking through a row of shattered houses. Violent winds gusted in its wake, and raindrops splashed all over the street, only to be instantly dried by the swirling gale.
Jaymes spotted a ladder nearby, leaning against the balcony of a two-story building. Quickly he scrambled up the rungs and onto the overhanging perch. He pushed through the door, raced down a narrow hallway, and found a stairway leading to the roof. Scrambling up, he emerged several buildings away from Moptop, but with a view of all the city.
From his high vantage, Jaymes could see a whole regiment of ogres advancing in formation down the Duke’s Avenue. He could see that Moptop was still busy hollering taunts, though the lord marshal was too far away to fathom his words. Nor was it clear that the elemental king understood. But the important thing was that the monster remained focused on the diminutive taunter as it strode right into the midst of the ogre battalion.
The brutish warriors noticed too late that the monster was upon them, and they began to flee, but they couldn’t get out of the way in time. Those whirlwind legs swept through the regiment, tossing dozens of ogres through the air as if they were milkweed puffballs or dandelion seeds. A few ogres tossed spears or hurled axes at their supposed ally, but these weapons had no more effect than had the blades of the city’s defenders.
Not content with that initial and apparently accidental massacre, however, the elemental bent down to swipe at other ogres with its crushing arms, bashing them to the ground or sweeping them up against the walls that stood on either side of the street. Dozens of brutal, strapping warriors were squashed like bugs. Huge columns of flames erupted from the elemental’s eyes, immolating other screaming ogres with infernal heat.
Jaymes looked down into the street and spotted Lord Martin.
“Get back to the duchess!” he yelled. “Tell her that the creature is moving away from here. Now’s the time to attack Ankhar’s warriors, while they are thoroughly disorganized!”
“I’m off!” replied the nobleman. “Good luck to you!”
Lord Martin raced away at a sprint, while the archers in the streets took shelter and directed a volley of fire at another group of Ankhar’s infantry, painted goblins who had appeared in the nearby street and were moving toward the ducal palace. The attackers took shelter behind barrels and in the shells of buildings to avoid the lethal arrows.
The king roared again, exulting as he thrashed around violently. Only when all the ogres had been slain, knocked senseless, or driven away did the elemental pause. Remembering, it looked back, fiery eyes seeking the kender, who was no longer in view. Jaymes leaped from his rooftop perch onto a lower building then dropped to the ground. Once more he held the great sword high, waving it over his head as he gathered the swordsmen around him, the whole company starting forward at a trot.
Then the monster changed direction again, moving away from the site of its orgiastic violence, lumbering toward the plazas, the gap in the city wall, and the teeming army of Ankhar the Truth, the vast bulk of which was still gathered on the plains.
The elemental king, a being of pure power and energy, did not have thoughts, plans, or ideas in the manner of men and other sentient, intelligent creatures. Rather, it was driven by mysterious instincts, lusts, and furies whose urges were primal, fundamental.
Now those instincts carried the creature toward those who had enslaved it, had stolen it from the realm-however hellish-that had been its lair, its kingdom, its home.
It roared and spumed like a terrible force of nature, leaving only death and destruction in its wake. Where there had been buildings, now there was only rubble. Stone walls toppled, everything made of wood burned. But the elemental king took no note of the damage, the havoc. Its fiery eyes scanned ahead, seeking its intended target.
Seeking the one who had enslaved it.
“It’s moving away, Your Grace! I can’t believe it, but the kender has succeeded in taunting the beast and drawing it away from the center of the city!” declared Lord Martin.
Brianna could make no reply, perhaps because the swell of her emotions so tightened her throat that she didn’t trust herself to utter any words of hope. But the evidence was clear in the violent spectacle before her eyes: the fire elemental, for some reason, had turned upon its former allies, the savage warriors of Ankhar the Truth.
After decimating a whole regiment of ogre soldiers, the fiery monster had proceeded to rip the ranks of goblin archers who had been assembling on the West Gate plaza. Then the creature had turned to slice through the whole line of enemy bowmen, casting hundreds of them through the air with the gale-force winds of its cyclonic legs. Storms of lashing water gushed from the liquid arms, sweeping away entire companies, drowning those goblins too small or stunned to pull themselves free from the torrent.
The duchess looked around her. The garrison had assembled more than two hundred Knights of the Sword, all armored, mounted, and bearing heavy lances. She had ordered them to gather in the courtyard before the palace. Summoned to the ducal banner-the sigil of the Sword-they had ridden here at once and awaited her orders.