CHAPTER 17

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Battle of Giants

"The orcs are coming! The orcs are coming!" The cry went up and down the lines. Kelvin looked up from his despondency, feeling a dim ray of hope. The orcs, he remembered, were reputed to be better versed in magic than Helbah or any of her helpers; they were also strong and magnificent warriors.

"Krassnose," Helbah greeted the orc wizard, distinguished by a darker-than-usual green face, "it's so good to see you again."

Krassnose opened and shut his gills once, an orc acknowledgment. Like all orcs Krassnose could breathe perfectly with the lungs nature had given him, but underwater he changed over to gills. Nature had been more generous with orcs than with other creatures in that respect. Kelvin's father had said that they might have evolved from Earth's lungfish, whatever they were.

"Krassnose, I hope you've tricks the rest of us haven't thought of. Our defenses are strained already.

What magical strategies do you suggest?"

"Strengthen defense barriers," Krassnose said.

Helbah frowned. "I know you orcs are stronger in every way than the rest of us, but can you really—"

Krassnose raised his webbed fingers and above them a fireball that had gotten through their barrier detonated. Sparks rained down, snapping and sputtering and winking out before landing on those below.

Now a faint glimmer appeared, showing where the orc had made a superior magical barrier or wall to halt further fireballs.

"Well, Krassnose, that is impressive, and I'm sure it will help. But we were hoping you orcs would have attack plans. What do you think our army should do?"

"Get out of orcs' way," Krassnose said. "Orc army will handle puny invaders."

Helbah looked crestfallen. Kelvin sympathized with her. The orc wizard was not only disparaging their magic as weak but also their army. Remembering how it had been twenty years ago, he had the feeling that quite possibly the orcs might be strong enough. Twenty years ago the combined might of the Confederation had not been enough to turn back or defeat the orcs; there had been no way short of a superior magic by which the Confederation could have won.

"Krassnose," Glint began, looking up at the giant in awe, "when I spied into their minds I found—"

"He knows," Helbah told him. "I've been in crystal contact with Brudalous all morning. He knows what you found."

As though on cue the orc leader came forward. To see a band of orcs grouped together was almost like looking at a grove of trees. When one of them moved away it had to be startling.

"Helbah, Roundear," he said, opening and closing his gills twice. "My orc army is about to launch its attacks. As my warriors march out, have yours fall back."

"As backup?" Kelvin suggested.

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"No, to keep safe. When an orc warrior swings his sword he cuts a wide swath. Swords and clubs often do not distinguish between friend and foe, especially in the heat of battle."

"Oh." He knew the orc leader was right, though it rankled. An orc could step back and if a human happened to be there the human was likely to be kicked back into eternity. In size orcs resembled trees and windmills more than men.

Helbah relayed the orc messages to the generals via crystal. St. Helens looked out as if he were ready to explode at the insult; on the second crystal Mor didn't look much better. Yet they were good soldiers, as St. Helens often said. If the orcs wanted the humans to retreat as the orcs moved up, they would. First John Knight, then Mor Crumb, and finally St. Helens issued orders to their nearest officers. Helbah widened the images with a pass of her hand, giving them a second view of soldiers in green uniforms before them.

Kelvin looked to Helbah, hoping she'd tell him to do something to help. He wanted to help; he wanted to lead things. Heroes were supposed to lead, not cower way behind the action. To his surprise he found that now he desperately wanted his heroship; now that it was too late, he wanted it. When he thought of his sister he wanted more than anything to rescue her. His gauntlets did not yank him forward into action and his boots did not move his feet and force him into a long, long step. Alas, he was just a man after all, and in every way that counted, less than the giants surrounding him.

On Helbah's battery of crystals Kelvin watched the battle; he imagined himself a little like the human couch-potatoes his father had described as spending their lives watching a distant people, sometimes dead people, doing things in boxes. Those vision boxes of Earth must be a lot like the viewing crystals, magic or what his father insisted was science. In the long run it mattered little how a thing was accomplished, used or misused, so long as it was. With others who possibly had eyes no better than his, he settled down to what he felt would be a long viewing.

Men on the left began vomiting. The orcs, better protected by stronger spells, walked on past their green-uniformed allies. The men were clutching their middles and staring in awe at the great bulging muscles. They must have been glad enough that the orcs were here and that they had been ordered to fall back.

The orcs marched on and in great strides. No horses for orcs, since an orc was far bigger than even the largest warhorse. Each orc had a large knobby club swung over his scaly shoulder. Each carried an unsheathed sword the length of three men in his right hand, and a shield the size of a rowboat in his left.

Marching trees, Kelvin thought. Trees marching to destroy the woodcutters. Only the fish-faces of the amphibian creatures spoiled his analogy.

Suddenly, astonishingly, giants of even greater dimensions came striding up over the top of the greenish hills in the background. These new giants appeared to be men, but with dark, sinister faces. Dressed as they were in the dung uniforms, complete with swords and shields much larger than the orcs', they seemed in every way a greater force.

The orcs paused not at all but marched on. The facing giants charged down the hills, huge swords raised high, emitting guttural barks and growling sounds that were audible way back here. Kelvin shivered, seeing the orc army about to be crushed.

"Watch this, Kelvin," Phenoblee said, bending low to whisper to him. The orc witch and wife of Brudalous looked horrendous, but was actually a decent person in her fashion. She raised her webbed Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

hands and made a downward sweeping motion. Instantly a wind began blowing out there, out past the orcs. The giant apparent humans were blown backwards, breaking against the hills and scattering as separated whiffs of vapor. Illusion they had been, but an illusion subject to magic.

Kelvin felt like giving a rousing cheer, but just as he drew breath to change desire to action, a second column of giants came over the hill. These appeared to be much the same as the first wave, but just a bit smaller. Their faces were definitely as mean looking as those in the first wave had been. They brandished swords, spears, axes, and clubs and came at a loping run.

Phenoblee raised her hands and repeated her earlier action. The wind rose up, raising dust and denuding trees. Still the enemy came on. "These aren't the phantoms," Helbah remarked unnecessarily. "Can you do anything against them?"

Phenoblee shook her head. "Zady has her protective spells. If there's an opening maybe Krassnose or I can help."

In the crystals the two armies had almost reached each other. Kelvin hated to look. It was like two great beast herds about to crash.

"Zady must have gotten some Hagus Water," Helbah remarked. "That's the malignant's equivalent of Alice Water."

Kelvin remembered the use his two human children had made of Alice Water. They had grown big and later bigger using it on that trip Zady had sent them on. Fortunately Merlain had had the water or neither of his twins or the royal twins would have survived; neither would they have gotten the opal.

Thought of the opal made him wonder: when, if ever, would Horace come to his senses? He was going to have to look for him. Drag him back by the tail, if necessary. Mating might be a delight for dragons as it could be for humans, but Horace had a responsibility. If the orcs had the opal now he had the feeling Zady's forces would be running in the other direction.

The armies merged. The carnage commenced. Great swinging swords. Great chops. Cries of rage; cries of pain. Just another battle, but larger, more impressive because of the size of the combatants. Green orc blood flowed and orcs died, but red human blood flowed also, and dung-uniformed soldiers died and shriveled down to what had to be their natural size.

One thing gradually became apparent: though they were now larger than the orcs, the enemy warriors were lighter. Kelvin recalled his father talking about that once: the magically created giants would have to have the same mass as their former selves. The enchantment might enhance it some by bringing in mass from elsewhere, but it wasn't feasible to bring enough. That meant that for all the fury of their blows they just hadn't the weight behind them. Time after time a blow that should have decapitated an orc was turned aside by his neck scales. Equally impressive was that the orcs, who had their natural weight, sometimes swung hard and sheared through armor that should have stopped even their blows. Evidently Zady had increased the size of men, uniforms, and weapons together. If she had had the weapons forged rather than enlarged they would have been more deadly and the armor more protective. But then if the armor and weapons were of denser mass, the bodies of the warriors could not have handled them. Truly, magical enlargement did have its drawbacks.

As the aggressors died, they and their uniforms and weapons shrank to normal human size. Such was the nature of magic, as experienced by Merlain and Charles many years previously. If they had lost their clothes and traveling packs whenever they enlarged their Alice Water could not have saved them.

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Kelvin was thinking that the orcs were at the start of mopping up. At that moment a dragon came charging down the hill behind the dung-clads. Horace! But no, this dragon was bright gold in the sunlight and had large, swordlike teeth even bigger than Horace's. Kelvin shivered as the beast displayed the teeth and emitted a roar that was freezing to all who heard.

The dragon charged through the fighting men, ignoring the human fighters but slashing with claw, snapping with teeth, lashing with tail every orc within reach. It was a formidably large dragon, and repeated sword thrusts did nothing to stop it. Time after time an orc's oversized sword swung right through the golden scales. Kelvin wondered that the beast showed no wounds and emitted no cries of pain.

A second dragon came to join the first. Then a third dragon, a fourth, and a fifth. Now the dung-uniformed giants were fighting between and at the sides of the dragons, and everywhere the dragons scuttled, orcs were flung dead and dying to either side.

"Oh, this is terrible!" Phenoblee cried. Her crest rose on her head in an extremely agitated manner.

"They're only dragons! What's the matter with our warriors? Why don't they fight?"

More and more dragons came charging over the hills. They were the full length of the orc army, attacking only orcs. Kelvin saw one big orc leap at a dragon's snout as the snout was down on a wounded orc. He had the impression that the orc's feet went through the snout as through a phantom, but the snout moved so quickly and the orc died so fast that he thought he must have been mistaken.

Now the orcs were backing up. Some threw away their weapons. Heedless of wounded comrades and the few brave and foolish humans who had moved up to help them, they were running. Orcs in retreat?

Unheard of!

"Phenoblee, that must be the death-wish powders and coward vapors! And those dragons are phantoms!"

"Tell me something I don't know, Kelvin."

"Can't you stop it? Can't anyone?"

"No."

"I'm going to try!"

"No you're not, Kelvin." Helbah made a move of her own and Kelvin realized she had him held in a spell of immobility. Well, boots and gauntlets would overcome her spell! He willed for them to do something for him—to leap from safety and into the midst of the enemy where his gauntlet-activated sword would cut down concealed wizards and warlocks and dung-clad fighters. Nothing, try as he wished, happened for him.

"Now," Helbah said.

Phenoblee raised her hands and made the downward sweep. Instantly a wind was blowing. It tore the dragons to shreds, exposing the wizards and warlocks and fighters who had been their magic guts. The orcs, astonishingly, were still running.

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"Can't you do something, Phenoblee?" Helbah asked. "I knew that I didn't have the power, but I thought that you—"

"No protection against death-wish powders and coward vapors. Pharmaceutically the malignants are ahead of even orcs."

"Then we're doomed."

"We would be without a hero. Wait until they start up the rise, then release him. Kelvin, you blast the malignant army without exposing yourself. Just point the tip of your chimaera sting over the wall and give them a shock that will stop them. Ready, ready, NOW!"

Kelvin found he could move. Now his gauntlets and his boots were moving him. He had the sting under his hands, butt firmly against the ground. In the crystals he could see the eager, inflamed faces of the enemy. He concentrated on drawing forth the planet's energy through the sting—of exploding it out in one big crackling lightning bolt.

In the crystals he saw it—the blackened, screaming faces amid the charred and burning corpses. It was like that expression his father had—shooting fish in a barrel. Only this was no barrel with fish—this was impending doom outside the wall. Orcs, shivering and trembling, were climbing over the barrier. Orcs were throwing themselves flat, screaming, webbed fingers over their eyes. Obviously Zady's power had been great, but not, as it turned out, as powerful as the chimaera's.

"Kelvin! Use your Mouvar weapon now!"

Helbah's voice hardly penetrated as his body responded. Moved by the gauntlets more than by his own thought, he whipped out the bell-muzzled weapon and pointed it just at the wall. His finger triggered, and—

On the other side of the barrier there was an explosion. Bits of cloth and flesh and metal rained all about them, pieces of something that would give him nightmares landing and sticking on his face and arms and head.

"Well, at least the old buzvald had good aim!" Helbah remarked. "You countered that warlock's magic but he did hit you—with himself."

Kelvin wanted to vomit. He turned his head aside, ready to empty his stomach. At that moment Helbah grabbed his arm.

"Some still coming. Another shock, hero."

He knew he couldn't, but he did. The gauntlets knew just how to raise the sting and point it, and possibly helped him fire its bolt of energy. The energy exploded with charred bits of flesh as the lightning arched up over the barrier and down with a resounding crack.

"That did it! Now they're retreating! Give them a few parting bolts!"

Watching the crystals he saw the lightning strike retreating dung-clad soldiers and destroy them.

Mercenaries never to gain the rewards promised them. He saw their bodies fly in all directions even as the dazzle came and went in his eyes.

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Lightning, lightning—Master of Lightning, he thought. But it wasn't him exacting revenge and retribution in defense of those he loved—it was something far greater than himself.

"Kelvin, Kelvin, snap out of it!"

Dazed, he realized that he had just about wiped out the enemy, and then he saw it, there in the crystal—even more enemy than there had been, coming with the floating copper shields above their heads. Experimentally he fired a bolt and watched it sizzle and leap in a blue line from shield to shield before striking the ground to one side. Zady had reinstated her sting defense.

"Ebbernog," Kelvin suggested.

"Oh, Kelvin, the lad's burned out! Didn't you see the way he looked? He'll never be able to move things with his mind again! He won't be able to use his mind at all unless we finish this battle and Phenoblee can cure him. Kelvin, you must get Horace, or if not Horace, the opal! Get it now, immediately; it's our only chance!"

"I'll try," Kelvin said, and took a long, long step. As before he heard imploding fireballs and felt heat singe his back, and then a blur of green and brown continuing on and on and then his foot coming down, down, down to rest.

He stood dizzily, hearing a dragon roar. He was at the spot where he and Jon had been when they had first adventured. They had slain a dragon, and then—

But now was not the time for reminiscences. Hastily he sidestepped a golden dragon's maddened charge. It wasn't Horace, and he knew Horace had to be up in those mountains. He took a sight on a distant peak and stepped there. Clouds floated by on either side as his dizziness returned and his lungs fought to adjust to the height.

So now where was Horace? That ledge over there—could that be the one Glint had talked about? He wished now that he had paid more attention. He stepped over to the ledge he had chosen, down to it, and standing, adjusting to the transference, he thought that yes, it did indeed look right. Down below him was a winding road where Horace might have come, where Glint and Ember had watched him in Ember's astral form. If that was the road and this the right ledge, he just had to go up mountain to find Glint and Ember's cave.

He stepped up the mountain and he searched and searched until he did in fact find a cave. As he stood before it, looking inside, a smell drifted out that had to be of a badgunk, a creature noted for its ferocity and stink. Could Glint and his foster sister have lived here?

"Skeeunk." The little cub looked up at him from glistening black eyes, then elevated its hips and broad tail and danced toward him on its front legs. A stinking shower was coming fast, and if baby was here at the entrance, could mama be far behind?

He stepped, not quite fast enough. The spray from under the cub's raised plume caught him on the chest and stomach and partially on the face. He put his foot down on the ledge he had recently left, bent over, and was sick. A bit later his boots took him to a pond of water and plunged him repeatedly into its icy grip.

Many steps later Kelvin had to concede to himself that he wasn't finding Horace. All he was doing was stepping on mountains, stepping on cliffs, stepping in water. He was sopping wet most of the time and he Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

still stank. He was stepping, stepping, stepping, and discovering nothing that could in any way help.

Worst of all he was now lost. He was wasting his time while his sister was suffering. Because of his inadequacies Zady was going to win her battle and subject all those he held dear to unspeakable torment.