The stone warriors continued to attack, to stab with their spears, and to lodge their weapons in the monsters. The king roared and thrashed but didn’t seem capable of destroying the attackers. Ankhar blinked, growling deep within his chest. So strange and unexpected! What in the world was happening? Even when the monster lashed out, each of the stone warriors struck by an elemental limb seemed to grab onto it, until the lower extremities of the monstrous being were wrapped in a skirt of stone ornaments.
The stone warriors rattled and clattered as the huge being shook, banging together and swinging about, but still none of them broke free. Instead, more came on, climbing, stabbing, clinging.
And the weight was clearly dragging the monster down.
Thrashing desperately, the king of the elementals seemed to shrink, its lower limbs slipping into the ground. The attackers affixed to the feet and lower legs disappeared, vanishing through the bedrock of the valley floor, and the king sank with them.
More and more of the spear-carrying warriors closed in, climbing on top of each other, swarming like ants higher and higher up onto the shoulders of the massive being, even as the king continued to shrink down closer to the ground. Almost waist deep now, the monster fought desperately with its arms, twisting its torso. But each blow only attached more of the mysterious spearmen to the creature’s immortal form. Spears stabbed into the great vault of the king’s chest, while more of the enterprising stone warriors-moving nimbly, despite their stiff facades- scrambled onto the creature’s collar, nape, and neck.
The attackers scrambled and stabbed, and finally they completely covered the elemental king. Ankhar could see no sign of the fiery eyes, the craggy shoulders, the stormy arms and legs. His great monster was just a huge, shaggy pile of stone creatures that coated the being, inexorably dragging it under. Still fighting, thrashing, convulsing, the massive form continued to sink under the ground.
Now it was chest deep in the solid bedrock of the valley and sinking deeper still. It roared once more, but even that was a hollow sound, coming as though from very far away and sounding more like hellish pain than fury. Even as the king howled, the stone attackers climbed into its gaping mouth, stabbing with those spears, dragging it down, down. Now only its shoulders and head remained above the ground, and even those moved sluggishly, totally overwhelmed by the stony weight of the spear-carrying attackers.
Within a few moments, the elemental king had sunk out of sight, bearing with it the heavy weight of the mysterious stone warriors. Still they piled on, spears pointing down into the ground now, the attackers stabbing, following the force of their thrusts into the ground, and descending from sight.
They continued until, at last, there were none of them remaining on the surface of the world.
Only then did Ankhar glance elsewhere, taking note of the human warriors, suddenly rallying under the command of their lord marshal and a general wearing the sigil of the Rose. The few goblins on their wolves who had followed closely behind Ankhar were being cut down by companies of mounted knights, the men refreshed and heartened by the defeat of their monstrous foe. Trumpets sounded, and the whole of the Palanthian Legion started forward, pushing the scattered remnants of Ankhar’s horde before them.
“I think,” Hoarst said with a low, rueful sigh as he started to climb down from the shelf of rock, “that we had better get back to the army.”
The Palanthian Legion led the counterattack, emerging from the mountain valley with a vengeance, sweeping into the scattered companies of Ankhar’s horde. Jaymes and his Freemen rode with General Weaver at the forefront of the charge, though the army commander immediately dispatched messengers from his bodyguard to his other retreating troops.
Within an hour the men of the Rose, Crown, and Sword were streaming back to the field from the west and north. Word of the elemental king’s defeat infused them with new energy, fueling the strength of a fresh charge. The barbarians and monsters of the half-giant’s horde, recognizing imminent disaster, began a flight to the south and east.
It became obvious that the shattered enemy army would continue routing all the way to Lemish. Exhausted and drained, the humans of the Solamnic Army finally abandoned the pursuit as night cloaked the battlefield in darkness. Too much had happened during this momentous day for any soldier to keep fighting. The enemy was clearly defeated, broken, and demoralized.
Annihilation would have to wait for another campaign.
CHAPTER TWENTY — EIGHT
‘The adamites’ sole purpose was to guard the elemental king, to prevent it from journeying to the upper world and wreaking the kind of destruction of which it was capable. They must have been stationed there many centuries ago-perhaps even during the Age of Dreams.”
Jaymes was explaining the situation to Lord Martin as the two of them rode to Solanthus, accompanying the withdrawing army of Solamnia. Thousands of troops marched with them, before and behind, all proceeding in a massive column. The joy of a great victory propelled them, but it was tempered by the memory of the many grievous losses, men and women slain, cities sacked and burned, during the three years of Ankhar’s war.
“We must offer a prayer of gratitude for whichever of our ancestors, or our ancestors’ gods, had the foresight to assign them to that ageless duty,” remarked the nobleman of Solanthus. “Without them, our cause surely would have failed.”
“Not just our cause,” Jaymes noted. “Imagine if that creature was free to roam the surface of the world. No city could stand against it. Even the greatest dragons might have had no choice but to flee or die.”
The army was marching westward, finally, away from the battlefield and the Garnet foothills. Of course, scouts and outriders were closely watching the area around the great force, and the men still carried their weapons at the ready. But all reports indicated the enemy was thoroughly broken, scattering to the southeast, and even the lord marshal allowed himself to relax a little.
The two men rode their horses at a slow walk, following behind an enclosed wagon that served as an ambulance, softly furnished to carry Coryn as comfortably as possible. The Clerist knight, Sir Templar, rode inside the wagon with the wizard, using his healing magic to ease her pain and recuperation. The lord marshal intended to accompany the wagon all the way to Palanthas, but Solanthus was the first stop on the long ride.
Generals Weaver, Dayr, and Markus were riding with their own troops, elsewhere in the great column. General Rankin had fallen in the Battle of the Foothills, as it was being called, and his body was carried in another wagon not too far away. He would be returned to Solanthus for a state funeral. Captain Powell and the Freemen were riding in a loose formation around the lord marshal, near enough to be summoned if necessary. One other rider, the slight figure of Moptop Bristlebrow astride a small pony, trailed very closely behind Martin and Jaymes.
“So you dispatched the kender to search for these adamites, to lure them up to the surface?” Martin said, shaking his head in astonishment. “How did he know where to find them? Or where to bring them to the battlefield?”
Now it was Jaymes’s turn to shake his head wonderingly. “All I can say is he calls himself a professional guide and pathfinder extraordinaire, and if anyone ever earned his title, it’s Moptop Bristlebrow. He must have a very benevolent god looking out for his welfare. I’ve never met anyone who can find his way like he can, and yesterday he found a path that saved a whole army.”
Yet Moptop, listening in as he rode beside the two humans, was unusually subdued and self-effacing. “I thought this whole war thing would be a grand adventure,” he said with a heavy sigh. “But there’s too many people who get hurt. The city got all broken up, and I can’t stand seeing all those horses get killed.”
“Aye, my friend,” said Jaymes, clapping him on the shoulder. “Far too many people get hurt.”
“We’re going back to Solanthus, but it makes me so sad to think of that place without the duchess. She led those people through that long siege, and she won’t be there now. Not ever again!” the kender declared, sniffling noisily.
“Aye,” Lord Martin agreed. “But she held us together, kept the city alive, during those years of the siege. You may rest assured, my friend, that her memory will live as long as there are people in Solanthus strong enough to
