Chapter Eleven
An alarm rang out in the tower, signaling that the battle outside had begun. Tystyl and his group silently moved into position, standing with their backs to the wall on either side of the large door, waiting for it to open.
But the door did not open. No sounds from the next room could be heard. Tystyl gave a quizzical look to Wyrmwood, who only shrugged. The king whispered to Adley, “Check it.” The sorcerer nodded and began casting. Through the small portal Adley had opened, the party could clearly see into the empty room. “A trick? This is the only room in the spire, is it not?” As Tystyl spoke, the floor beneath them opened up, and the four were tumbling down a long inclined tunnel, heading straight for a pit filled with spikes. Adley hastily cast a spell upon the others to slow their descent, hoping to prevent them from meeting their doom.
Tystyl, taking advantage of the spell, drew Infernous and jabbed the magical sword into the wall, melting stone as it easily slid in. With his free hand, the king caught Wyrmwood by the collar of his breastplate, who in turn caught Grimm and Adley. There they hung, all of them, until the sorcerer produced a wand that enabled them to levitate.
Tystyl took his blade and worked fast to cut a hole in the stone just large enough to crawl through. The adjacent hallway's floor was at least ten feet below their current position. One at a time, they crawled through the hole, still under Adley's levitation spell, and floated easily to the floor.
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The first orc in the group swung a mighty club with the strength of ten men, smashing the helmets of two of the dwarves and knocking them prone and to the side. Another dwarf rushed to position right in front of the orc, waving his hammer ahead of him. The orc snarled and drew back for another mighty swing. His swing never came, for he soon found a thrown axe embedded into his side. Lebouf had entered the battle.
The general drew another throwing axe, and with a twitch found another victim. Lebouf drew axe after axe, a seemingly endless supply, as he found more and more orcs to take down. He was so skilled with his weapons that he had taken out a third of the group of orcs before many of his army had even joined the fight.
“That ought to even the score,” Captain Jon remarked to him.
“Aye, I hope King Bareet's doing as good,” Lebouf replied.
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King Bareet's troops were faring well. They had used the same tactic as Leboouf and his troops, taking a group away from the larger troupe, destroying them and going back for more. Seven times the dwarves had done this, each group taking a group of orcs to a better tactical position and destroying them, until there was only a score of orcs remaining. All the dwarves surrounded these orcs, and the beasts did not resist, each of them offering their throat to the nearest dwarf.
Once the area was secured, King Bareet took out a whistle that Horlarl had sent for him to signal the elves. As he blew a single note, a door appeared beside him, and out stepped Jak and Horlarl, along with ten elf wizards.
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In a hidden room on the west side of the tower, Fael watched it all. Kryzzl, standing beside the wizard, was shaking his head. “You will not succeed, the army is too strong, and the tower itself has been compromised.”
“I will destroy the tower and crush them all once they breech the front door, I will not be taken easily, my friend,” the wizard said with a wicked smile. He waved a thin hand over his crystal, causing the image to shift from outside the tower to inside, where Tystyl's group should have been. The spike pit was empty. “How in the hell do they keep punching holes in my plans?” Fael shrieked.