through the crack. He eased through the opening and felt for the floor
with his feet. The elevator was just high enough that he couldn’t keep his
weight resting on his elbows in the car and touch the floor at the same
time. He eased out further and for a terrible second kicked his legs over
empty air in the elevator shaft. Then his left foot caught the floor and
he eased himself down on solid footing. He sighed and turned around to
face down the corridor.
And found himself face-to-face with a goblin guard.
The guard roared a challenge and swung his halberd two-handed. Wiz ducked
and the halberd knocked chips of stone off the door jamb. Snarling, the
guard swung the weapon back over his head and down toward the crouching
programmer. Instinctively Wiz lunged forward as the blade descended. He
hit the goblin in the knees just as the halberd came down with the full
force of the monster’s body behind it. The combination overbalanced him,
and the guard went sprawling headfirst down the elevator shaft, screaming
as he fell.
Wiz collapsed forward on his face, sucking great lungfuls of air.
Somewhere in the distance a siren began to wail. Behind him he heard his
three companions drop to the floor of the corridor. Then Jerry and Danny
reached down and pulled him to his feet.
“How’d you do that?” Jerry panted, red-faced from the tight squeeze.
“I don’t know,” Wiz gasped. “Now run!”
The four of them pounded down the corridor, turned a corner and headed off
in what Wiz hoped was the right direction. After several hundred yards
they ducked into a side corridor to catch their breath.
All four of them leaned up against the wall gasping. Off in the distance,
faintly, they could still hear the siren. Then another siren sounded and
another and another until the castle reverberated to the sound.
“Guards to the perimeter,” the speakers in the wall above them squawked.
“We have intruders approaching from the south.”
“What’s that?” Danny panted.
“I think,” Wiz said slowly between gulps of air, “that all hell just came
unshirted.”
Forty-four: FOR FAITH, FOR LOVE, FOR HONOR
The Wizard’s Keep boiled with activity. From the tallest towers the
trumpeters blew “Assembly” over and over. Down on the drill ground armored
guardsmen fell in rank by rank while the drummers beat the Call To Arms on
the great bass drums that hung by the reviewing stand. From the aeries
below wing after wing of dragons rose and circled and grouped themselves
into larger formations.
In the Watch Room every post was manned. The Watchers on the main floor
murmured into communications crystals or peered into scrying glasses for
some sign of the enemy. On the wall behind them glowed a huge map of the
northern end of castle island, casting an eerie bluish glow over the
proceedings.
On the dais at the opposite end of the room groups of wizards hovered over
their own crystals and muttered spells and incantations. Bal-Simba was
there, seated in his raised chair where he could watch and command
everything. Judith was there, seated next to Moira at a small table to
Bal-Simba’s right. Arianne was at his left and next to her, the elf duke.
Aelric stood tall and terrible in shining silver mail of elven metal. His
helm, intricately and carefully wrought, extended down over his cheeks and
neck, unlike the conical helms of the Council’s guardsmen. But save for
the nose guard it left his face unprotected.
“Is there aught else?” Bal-Simba asked the people clustered around him.
Arianne and Moira shook their heads and Aelric said nothing.
“My Lady Judith?”
“We’re as ready as we’ll ever be. The dragon riders have got the new
spread-spectrum communications crystals so they can cut through the
jamming, the guardsmen have the last of the special weapons and the
scouting demons are deploying now.” She took a deep breath. “It’s going to
be rough, but Craig’s in a world of hurt unless he can make a saving
roll.”
“Saving roll?”
“Uh, unless he gets lucky.”
Aelric smiled without warmth. “Fear not, Lady; luck they shall not have
this day.”
Bal-Simba looked around the group once more. “Aught else? Then we are