The rest of the draconian officers slid out of the bunker, ran back to their troops.
The sun was halfway down the sky, slumping toward the forest. The battlements faced east, toward the armies of the Golden General, their archenemy. Her army had dogged them for the last six months, forcing retreat after retreat. Intelligence reported that the Golden General was no longer leading her troops, that she had been abducted by the Dark Queen and that her forces were in disarray.
Kang didn’t believe it. If anything, such news would only make the elves fight harder. And their officers at least seemed to be able to work together, were not always backstabbing each other. He had no say in command decisions, however. The First Dragonarmy had been ordered to stop its retreat, to stand and face the elves and knights. The entire First Dragonarmy had dug in, was waiting for the assault.
The two hundred draconians of the Third Regiment lined the mud and wooden ramparts. Seven ballistae were arranged along the defenses, each crewed by a troop of twenty draconians. In front of the ramparts stood Tchk’pal, waving that great bloody battle-axe around.
Kang hoped the minotaur would cut off something valuable.
“Glory is upon you, draconian warriors!” Tchk’pal announced. “Tomorrow is going to be big battle. Many thousands of warriors will die tomorrow. Probably most of you! You die with honor! We not hide behind dirt! We charge forth, meet our enemy, and slice their heads off! We going to find great glory for Queen of Darkness and Sargas, God of War!”
The minotaur ranted on like this for almost an hour. Eventually, exhausting his store of draconian language, Tchk’pal reverted back to minotaur, which few of the draconians understood. They stared at him in bemusement.
Slith stood beside Kang, who was shaking his head.
“You speak cow. What in the Abyss is he saying?” Kang whispered.
“Beats the hell outta me,” Slith returned. “Some minotaur battle story or something. He keeps mentioning glory, death, and honor in the same sentence. And ‘jumping into the heart of the fighting.’ You know, with all this talk of fighting, I’m starting to get nervous. Like Gloth says, a fellow could get killed! And just when I was beginning to think we might live through this.”
Slith edged closer, lowered his voice. “You’ve heard the scuttlebutt. So what if this Golden General’s been snatched? They got more generals, don’t they? We’re losing and losing badly! Everyone knows it. You know what I’ve been thinking?” His red eyes had a dreamy look to them. “We-you and me and the boys-we get away from here and we start a little settlement in the Khalkist mountains. I hear there’s hill dwarves living there. Dwarves are energetic bastards. They grow crops, raise cattle, haul stone out of the mountains, that sort of rot. We could raid their villages, from time to time, whenever we needed supplies. Life could be good….”
Kang regarded his sub-commander with admiration. “That’s really beautiful, Slith.”
“Ah, well.” Slith shrugged. His tone grew bitter. “Who am I kidding? We’ll never live long enough to see the Khalkist mountains.”
Kang grunted. “We’ve got to do something about our new commander, and fast. All this nonsense about death and glory and honor. We’ll be slaughtered and you can bet that no one’s going to sing any ballads for us!”
Tchk’pal ranted on. Many of the draconians, standing in the warm sun, were beginning to nod off, when suddenly Tchk’pal switched back to the draconian’s own language.
“Here is plan for battle tomorrow. We will seek out the enemy’s strongest point and rush forth to meet it! We will crush all resistance before us! Open up great hole. It will be glorious!”
“Open up great holes all right,” Slith said sullenly. “In us! Say, sir…” The Sivak edged closer. “What if we paid our commander a little visit in his tent tonight?” The draconian drew his dagger, flourished it.
“What will we do with the body?” Kang asked.
“Roast beef for breakfast?”
Kang considered, rubbing his scaled chin. “No,” he decided at last. “I, for one, couldn’t stomach him. We’d probably all end up with the heaves and the trots. And Rajak’s bound to wonder what happened to his pet cow,”