been very little damage done.
Up ahead a door opened in the castle wall and several things shaped like
men stepped out.
Either we’re a hundred paces from the castle, Donal thought, or those
things are giants. He signaled his squad to spread out and take cover.
Seemingly oblivious to the oncoming metal giants, the guardsmen responded
as they had been drilled.
A lance of fire slashed into the earth so close to him he could smell the
ozone stink. Behind him bullets beat a tattoo into the dirt. Donal jammed
the point of his sword into the ground and brought the dull green tube
slung across his back around and over his shoulder. As methodically as he
had been taught he flipped up the sights and lined them up on the giant
robot.
The tube bobbed up and down as he followed his target and then he squeezed
the trigger. The tube bucked slightly and Donal dropped and rolled just
before another blast of laser energy rent the place where he had been
standing.
When he looked up the robot was swaying uncertainly, its right knee a
smoking ruin. Before he could get to his hands and knees two more
explosions blossomed on the giant torso. It swayed forward once more and
then toppled like a felled tree.
In his tower Craig swore viciously. His warbots were programmed to fight
other warbots or dragons, not infantry with anti-tank missiles. He’d have
to override and run this action himself. He slapped a button on his
console, but nothing happened.
“Get me a control link!” he yelled into his microphone.
“We are trying, dread master,” came a voice in his ear, “but there is
something wrong in the transmitter.”
“Then switch to the alternate,” Craig yelled.
“That was the alternate,” the voice said. “Maintenance estimates it will
have the primary repaired in three point oh eight minutes.”
“Shit!” Craig slumped back in his chair. This was like playing on a night
when you couldn’t make a saving roll for love or money. Well, three
minutes wouldn’t make that much difference in that part of the battle and
there were plenty of other places he could put his time.
Meanwhile, was it his imagination or did he hear a high-pitched sound
coming from his display console-a sound like a very small giggle?
“My palm’s sore,” Danny complained.
“Well, don’t drag it along the wall,” Jerry told him. “I didn’t mean that
literally anyway.”
Even investigating only the likely looking doors it seemed that it was
taking forever to check out the rooms. Even this high up the castle was
much bigger than Wiz had imagined.
The next set of doors didn’t look like anything Wiz remembered, but they
were big and probably important. He was just about to punch the button
when they slid open and he found himself face-to-face with a dirty,
unshaven man in a tattered flight suit waving a pistol. Over the man’s
shoulder Wiz could see an equally dirty and disheveled woman and a large
dragon.
“Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
“Major Michael Gilligan, United States Air Force. Who the hell are you?”
“This is the Sparrow,” Karin put in, stepping forward. “He is the mighty
wizard I told you of.” She sketched a curtsey. “Well met, my Lord.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Raising hell,” Gilligan told him.
“My Lords, the League is attacking the castle,” Karin said breathlessly.
“I know. Look, can you get a message back to the Capital? They need to
know we’re alive.”
Karin’s face fell. “Alas, my Lord, the enemy is jamming our
communications.”
“Damn,” Wiz said, entirely without heat. “All right. We’re searching this
floor for a computer these guys are using to cook up something really
nasty. Can you help us?”
“Of course, my Lord.” Karin bobbed another curtsey.
“Okay by me,” Gilligan said. “You really from the USA?”
“Cupertino,” Wiz shrugged. “It’s pretty much the same thing.”
“Hot damn!” Danny said, looking up at Stigi. “Firepower!”
“You might say that,” Gilligan said, thinking of the pile of charred
bodies by the gate.
“Come on then, and keep your eyes peeled. We’ve run into all sorts of
things.”
A couple of hundred more yards and two more uninteresting rooms and they