The Road To Kalbakar, Wyrms of Pasandir #1

CHAPTER 18 - TOWER BATTLE (Part 1)

It was time.

'We're in place,' Amaj reported. 'Darn, you guys do look funny in those mad monk suits.'

We did, but then it was a mad caper.

Kellani growled something I couldn't hear. 'Ready?' she said.

I hopped onto the box, and held the unfamiliar whip with an air as if I'd done it a thousand times.

'Let's go.'

Kellani took the ox's bridle. 'Walk!' she said and the big animal seemed to understand, for it leaned forward in its harness and creaking loudly, the cart began to move.

Like a one-cart funeral procession, we ambled toward the keep. All the while, my stomach was busily tying and untying itself into knots and my throat contracted until I barely could breathe. I hadn't felt like this even with the octicalvo and those blasted parasites.

I looked over my shoulder. Ulaataq lay on his back on the beans, staring at the roof of the cart. Naudin sat in the back seat. He sweated profusely, but his face was composed. He caught my glance.

'You know what really scares me?' he said conversationally. 'That I must tell mother I broke my glasses when I fell just now. She's always warning me to be careful with them, y'know.'

I didn't say anything.

Suddenly I caught Kellani grinning. 'That guy leading the ox had been singing,' she said. 'I never could hold a tune, so I should do at least as well as that madman.'

She broke into a raucous battle song, confident no mad monk would recognize the words.

Naudin leaned over my shoulder and his face was pained as he watched Kellani bellowing of bloody axes and spattered brains.

'She's got the monk madness,' he complained. 'That's not my Cousin Kellie.'

I flicked my whip and shouted an unrepeatable obscenity.

Our act at least relieved our tensions, and we kept it going till we passed the last bend. There was the large iron-wrought gate, standing invitingly wide open. Only a vague shimmer betrayed the shield protecting the keep from intruders like us.

I had no idea how those monks would have behaved, so I waved my whip, yelling at every tree we passed. Madmen wouldn't change, I supposed.

Then there was a blurring of the air between the gateposts.

'Stow yer noise,' a wrinkled old woman snapped. 'Come in, in, in. I won't keep this open forever.'

I howled, pointing my whip at her as the ox pulled us inside Kalbakar Keep's screen.

The old women screeched, 'Hurry up, ya blippy fools. Ya know where ta bring the stuff. To the red shed, the red shed.' She broke off, staring at Kellani. 'You! Yer no monk; yer not. Who're you? Yer an impostor! A spy!'

Then Kellani knocked her down with the knuckles of one huge fist. 'I'm sorry; you must not betray us.'

'Well done,' I said, as I jumped down and knelt to tie the woman up. 'A gentle tap; you didn't even break her skin.'

'I didn't want to kill her,' Kellani said curtly. She took her broom from the cart. 'We'll ride to the top of the tower.'

'No magic,' Ulaataq said hastily. 'With the generator going, you can't use mana; it would suck it right out of your hands.'

'Darn,' Kellani said. 'What then?'

'Walk. I walked that tower a hundred times.'

'But you won't walk it now,' she countered. 'You're as weak as a newborn rabbit.'

Ulaataq's face worked. 'I have to,' he said. 'My mother is up there.'

'You'll ride on my back. You're not that heavy.'

'Hurry, before anyone else comes looking,' I said.

She swung Ulaataq onto her shoulders. 'There you are. Ready?'

We ran up the steep gravel path leading past the Lord's House and the cluster of buildings behind it. These were all in a strange style I hadn't seen before. The first floor to about ten feet high was square, with rounded corners, while the floors above were round, and their curious roofs gave the impression of some strange fungi.

As we passed a building like a barn, a man came out. Kellani didn't give him time to react. Her fist shot out and he crumpled. On her shoulders, Ulaataq cheered.

We ran on to the tower. It stood on a flattened rock some thirty feet high. Narrow stairs led up to it and we took them two at a time. The door was open and we entered a circular hall, dimly lit by a single torch. Most of the original furniture was broken and useless, blackened as if a mad monk had used them for target practice. Against the wall a staircase circled up into the dark. We ascended with caution; one slip and we'd end up as a heap of bones on the flagstone floor.

I felt funny, going up the stairs Kambish must have walked so many times. Kambish – I couldn't think of him as my grandfather. Any sense of family had been smothered in my earliest childhood.

The tower was roomier then I'd thought. We passed several floors, all apparently still intact and with their original furniture. There wasn't anybody; no guards, no monks, nobody, only endless amounts of dust and cobwebs.

'They're afraid,' Ulaataq said as I mentioned the absence of enemies. 'They're scared of the generator. Don't understand it, only that it steals mana, so they keep away. Ours is the next floor. Put me down, girl; I wanna walk the rest.'

She let him slide to the floor and he limped up the last stairs to the uppermost room.

Inside, a thin woman sat in a chair, facing the small window. She couldn't have been that old, but she looked ancient. Hunched, face sunken and hollow-eyed. Her hands on the table trembled slightly as she dozed.

'Mother,' the young Thali said urgently. 'I brought help.'

She woke up and turned her head to the entrance. 'Ulaa?' she said vaguely.

I pushed past Kellani. 'Permit me,' I said, and laid my hands on the woman's shoulders. She didn't move, just sat there as if she wasn't fully aware of her surroundings.

I closed my eyes and winced at the woman's immense fatigue waiting to overpower me if I wasn't careful.

'I'll begin with a little energy,' I said. 'Can't afford to pass out; we need to take the keep first. All right, Ulaataq?'

'I... Do what you can,' the boy said.

I staggered as her tiredness flowed into me and disappeared into the room's stone floor. Slowly, the woman's eyes brightened and some color returned to her exhausted face. When I couldn't take more, I stopped, swaying.

'Steady!' Kellani said, holding my arms.

The woman lifted her hands to her temples. 'Ulaa? It's really you. I thought it was another dream.'

The boy embraced her. 'It's me. I brought some friends to help. They want to retake the keep.'

I stepped away from Kellani. 'How do you feel, ma'am?'

'You used magic?' the woman said, as if it were a tool. 'It appears to have worked.'

'Healing magic; I took over some of your exhaustion.'

'You're not a monk,' she said matter-of-factly.

I smiled. 'Indeed I'm not; I am Eskandar of the house of Kambish. We are here to take back the keep, but to do so, we must shut down that generator-thing.'

'I'll do that,' Ulaataq said. 'But I wanted you helped first.'

His mother frowned. 'They're fighting the monks? Don't be silly, boy. Go aid them! I'd do it myself but my hands shake too much. Go and defeat those monks; I've got a project to finish.'

Ulaataq grinned. 'You're better already!' He turned to the stairs. 'Let's go do it, the sooner I can get mother to those healers you promised.'

I nodded. 'Show me the generator.'

'Be swift but careful,' Ulaataq's mother said. 'That old thing is a ticking bomb.'

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