Chapter 19

Bunniswot passed a filthy rag over his forehead and leaned into the shovel. After the argument, the stupid argument that unfortunately demonstrated to the gnolls that Renders and the rest of them were not powerful wizards, the gnolls had melted into the swamp, presumably to debate what to do next. The idea that they would be back with blood on their minds had set everyone into an honest, full-fledged panic. It was one thing to hear a rumor of attacking humanoids, another to see them up close, and then learn they are still murderous, flesh-eating fiends.

Renders had gone out "to talk some sense into them," and taken two of the "boys" with him. The rest of the group had drifted off in groups of two and three, some fading into the swamp, some heading west to take their chances with the necromancer, and others trying to reach the main road before the gnolls closed it off. The horses had vaporized quickly in the first moments after the argument.

Bunniswot tried to organize some kind of defense, but to no avail. The only person who even listened was the other hobgoblin, the cook, when the young scholar told him to go fetch his friend, the dreamer called Underhill.

Now the cook was overdue; perhaps he had abandoned them as well.

Bunniswot decided that the best thing to do would be to dig up the old manuscripts, save the original rubbings, feed his notes into the fire, and see if he could smuggle the rubbings back to civilization. Even if they could not be published now, there might be a time for it in the future. To that end he had half the trench reexcavated-so that it was only about three feet deep and ten feet wide-and started a modest fire that was burning merrily. Bunniswot threw a small log on the blaze.

He was sweating more than he ever had in his life, and wondered if it was heat or fear that drove him. The late autumn sun was merciless. He passed the rag over his face, wincing as it touched the bloated, bruised side of his body where Charka had struck him. The bleeding from his nose had stopped, but the swelling in his face pounded with every beat of his heart.

That was when he saw them, emerging from the forest into the now-deserted camp. There seemed to be about twice as many gnolls as before, and Bunniswot thought perhaps they had gathered reinforcements, just in case these humans were powerful wizards.

The returned attackers fell upon the empty tents, tearing them down with their bare claws and howling dark curses.

Then they noticed Bunniswot, and suddenly it didn't seem to have been such a smart idea to have lingered behind.

Bunniswot took a step backward, then a second step, and he would have taken a third were it not for the fact that he had already reached the edge of his own trench on the first step. The second sent him hurtling backward into the soft earth, as dirt-covered papers erupted skyward.

Bunniswot looked up, seeing the gnolls silhouetted against the sun. The largest one present wore Charka's metal skull-piece, but it was not Charka, he noticed. That was a scant solace as the flint-headed spear this one carried was pointed at his chest.

Bunniswot shouted what he thought were some well-prepared last words, but the spear-chucking gnoll was not paying attention.

Suddenly, nearby, there was the sound of something crashing through the birch trees at high velocity, and an object with an impressively huge shadow passed directly over the trench and the prostrate scholar.

The spear-threatening gnoll barely had time to look up and twist his face into something that resembled alarm before the shadow passed and the gnoll's spear bounced into the trench, the flint head crushed and the wood splintered.

"Six-fifty-two!" came a deep, rumbling voice that could be heard over the sound of crashing wood and screaming gnolls. There was another, high-pitched voice mixed in that was lost in the deeper, deadly counting. Whump! "Six-fifty-three!" Whump! "Six-fifty-four." Whump! "Six-fifty-hang on, we just winged him!" Whump! "There we go! Six-fifty-five!"

Bunniswot cautiously peered over the edge of the trench to witness the ongoing devastation. The agent of destruction, mowing down gnolls right, left, and center, looked like a siege engine, the type that was normally lugged up by invading armies to storm the local castle. Except that this particular engine lacked the units of troops that were normally used to ferry it, and was moving about on its own.

No, not completely on its own. Perched on its back was Underhill, and his was the higher voice that Bunniswot had heard amidst the rampage. Underhill would beckon and shout, and the great runaway siege engine would spin around and roll through enemy gnolls, toppling trees, flattening tents, and crushing everything in its path. Whenever it struck another gnoll, a great shout would go up, as if the True Gods were keeping tally of the battle.

The engine was effective, but nondiscriminating in its targets. The device struck an ogre plinth dead on, and the aeon-old carving vaporized in a puff of stone dust. Some gnolls had chosen to hide behind the plinths for protection, while their wiser brethren had dashed for the swamp at the first sight of the flame-red creature. The siege engine plowed through stone columns and gnolls as if they were one being, and with double the glee.

"Six-sixty!" It bellowed as it caught a gnoll cowering behind a plinth and decimated both.

Bunniswot was delighted to see that Underhill had not only rescued himself from the temple, but had brought aid. Still, the destruction of the plinths was too high a price to pay, and the gnolls seemed in full flight already. The red-haired scholar struggled to his feet and waved, using both arms, and shouting for Underhill to direct the behemoth elsewhere.

As Underhill saw him, the hobgoblin's face lit up, if the combination of shock and fear could be considered "lit up" in humanoid terms. The hobgoblin said nothing, but motioned, fingers splayed, palms downward, raising and lowering his hands frantically.

There are times when, under stress, an individual cannot understand a common sentence or a particular written word, or is confounded by such simple matters as whether a door opens inward or outward. This was one such time for Bunniswot, and he stared dumbly at the mounted hobgoblin, trying to piece together what he meant by… ah! He must be signaling Bunniswot to get down.

By that time the device had turned to face the entrenched scholar, and Bunniswot realized that the horrible visage at the front of the siege engine was also the horrible visage in the temple.

So it was not a siege engine at all. The creature spun its huge rollers and snapped off two more pillars while closing the distance between itself and the terrified scholar.

Bunniswot swooned, and in the swooning saved his own life, for he toppled backward. Had he tried to dive sideways, or even engage his brain in the question of what to do, he would have been too late, and the Abyss-engine would have crushed him.

As it was, he came to, alert, as soon as the heavy shadow passed over him again. A deep voice vibrated through the soil. "Missed that one. Hang on while I hit 'im again."

Bunniswot thought about rising and running, but caught himself. Instead he flattened himself further, trying to burrow his body into the deep, twice-turned soil of the trench.

The shadow passed a second time, very quickly, and then a third, this time from the side. Each time the scholar was convinced the entire trench was going to collapse on him, but each time the trench held, and the shadow passed.

Finally the great engine rolled over the trench and parked, leaving Bunniswot directly underneath in its inky black shadow. The scholar willed himself immobile.

"What now?" said Underhill's voice.

"I can grade down to him," said the engine, in a voice so low that it made Bunniswot's teeth ache.

"And that would take?" asked Underhill.

"Hmmmm." The engine made a sound like a gnomish device. "Figuring soft soil, about a week. Less if it rains, little… ah, Toede."

Toede? thought Bunniswot. As in Highmaster Toede?

"Sounds boring," said Underhill/Toede, sounding more pensive and worried than bored. Bunniswot wondered which one of the two was trying to crush him to death.

"And you have a better idea?" grumbled the engine.

"Uh-huh," said the hobgoblin. "A place where you can make your quota in a day's work."

"I'm game," said the engine.

"The only thing," added the hobgoblin, "is that there is a special individual I want you to make number one thousand. A particularly large and nasty frog."

Again the rumbling. "Don't know if it counts. Frogs don't talk, and that's a basic rule to counting."

"Oh, this one talks, and plots, and schemes," said the hobgoblin. "Promise me you'll go after this one and I'll guide you to Flotsam."

The engine grumbled a little, something about a "sure thing" right here versus a "maybe" tomorrow. The hobgoblin explained, patted, and cajoled, and suddenly Bunniswot knew that this was Toede-the legendary, venomous, dangerous, twice-dead Toede.

The engine rolled off the trench, and there was more crashing as birch trees and plinths snapped in its path.

Bunniswot sat up carefully, ready to fling himself to the ground in case the great engine reversed itself. But no, it was pounding its northerly way up the path, trampling a wide swath with it. And on its back was the hobgoblin Toede, who turned and waved as they disappeared into the brush.

Bunniswot's knees failed him. He had to try several times to organize himself in a sitting position on the edge of the trench. He was surrounded by the remnants of the camp. Everything the scholars had abandoned was now smashed, along with a dozen extremely two-dimensional and soil-impacted gnoll corpses. The engine had been thorough in its devastation, in that not a single plinth seemed to have survived unscathed.

I could have died, he said to himself.

And you were spared, he answered himself.

By Highmaster Toede, he added.

Bunniswot looked around at the wreckage, and then rose, walking to the fire. He kicked at it until all the larger sticks had been scattered, and stomped on the hot ashes until they were dying embers.

Then he returned to the trench, grasping his shovel and shoving the rag in his pocket. He began to uncover the last surviving words of the ogres, his unwanted life's work that almost had become his death's work.

There was not a great deal of opportunity for chat during the journey from the camp to Flotsam. This was due both to a limited range of discussion, and to the fact that the juggernaut had been designed without any idea that anyone would ever care to ride it. As a result, it lacked such modern amenities as seats, windows, springs, or intentional handholds.

Toede found that he could manage by a tactic he called "hanging on for dear life," which worked fairly well. He shouted directions whenever he could, bellowing over the noise of Jugger's passage. Once or twice Jugger had to slow to reasonable speeds to learn which way to proceed, but as soon as Toede said anything, or even motioned, the infernal device was off with a commotion.

It was early dusk when they hit Flotsam. Jugger's total had reached the six-nineties by that point, aided by a handful of farmers, a pair of elves, one or two stragglers who could have been among Renders's fleeing scholars, a few gnolls, and two creatures that Toede thought counted but Jugger said were undead zombies and as such were "gimmies."

As they topped the last rise, Toede noted that the low-slung sun had set the golden fields alight with a crimson hue. Ahead, the city hugged the coast, as if seeking consolation from the blood-red bay.

Jugger only growled and muttered, "Walls." Then the front of the creature bucked upward as the rear roller bit into the road, and they lurched forward in a blur of red-hued speed and hobgoblin curses.

Two hay wains and a traveler's pushcart later, they burst through the Southwest Gate, sending splinters of both the heavy oak doors and the two guards raining in all directions. It was late in the day, and those street merchants who had stayed late to make one more sale, or those townsfolk who tarried behind to eke out one last bargain had just enough time to look up, startled, as the runaway siege engine hurtled down on them, leaving a wake of smashed bodies, broken ironwork, and crushed cobblestones. Jugger's body count put his take in the low seven hundreds.

"Gate!" bellowed Toede. "Gate to the east!"

Toede meant the Rock Gate leading to the headland, but the juggernaut swung a hard right (through several not-abandoned buildings), and toward the Southeast Gate. Given that Jugger was a stranger in town, it was an understandable mistake.

As a result, Toede and his infernal device went slashing along the inner perimeter of the wall Gildentongue had erected almost a year earlier, taking out interior buttresses and supports, then weaving into the city again as the wall crashed behind them. Toede wondered if the creature would get full credit for those killed indirectly by collapsing buildings and crushing walls, or only partial. Figuring the politics of the Abyss, it was probably all or nothing.

The two guards at the Southeast Gate had enough time to hear the disaster approaching. One fled his position, the other, the one with a comet-shaped scar on his face, turned to gape and became number seven-six-three as the juggernaut crashed back through the gate and found itself outside the city.

Toede beat on the unyielding surface of Jugger's body and screamed. "No, we're heading the wrong direction!"

Jugger rumbled, "You said the eastern gate."

"North and east," screamed Toede, his face turning pink. "The gate to the upper city, to the headland!"

"Right, hang on," roared Jugger. "I'll take care of it and pick up the spare as well…"

The guard who ran was paralleling the southern edge of the wall, and shortly was made one with the city wall he was charged with protecting. The wall itself bulged inward and flew apart in a cascade of mortar and loose stone.

Poor workmanship, thought Toede, as the first measly arrows of defense started peppering Jugger's hide.

Resistance had appeared, finally, in the form of a unit of crossbowmen, who took up position beneath a statue of Lord Hopsloth. The crossbowmen were trying to pick off the "driver" of the device and were protected by some (very nervous) spearmen in the front line.

Toede flung himself down on the top of the juggernaut, and shouted, "Take out the statue, too!"

Toede did not see the statue explode, but he certainly heard it, combined with a rain of spears, and Jugger's declaration, "Eight-zero-five!"

Toede grabbed one of the spears and started using it to steer, banging on one side of the juggernaut, then the other. He soon learned that Jugger took notice of buildings in the same manner as humans noticed wildflowers when charging across a field, and if he tapped too early (or late), the corner of a building would disappear in a shower of masonry.

Another unit of crossbows and spears in front of the Rock Gate raised the total to eight-fifty-something, and Toede began worrying that Jugger would hit its quota long before Toede reached his own quarry. Then he would be left alone in the middle of the destruction, with some very angry and organized citizens surrounding him.

The Rock Gate was made of sterner and older stuff than the new walls, and Jugger almost slowed as it crumbled into fragments. Now the troops were mobilizing, but morale evaporated as quickly as mobilization when the humans in the rear echelons saw the humans in front reduced to red, splotchy pulps in the cobblestone.

Toede banged the right side of the device, and they swung toward Toede's old manor. They charged up the front steps (reducing them to a gravel slope in the process). Then, all of a sudden, a powerful explosion rocked Jugger and sent Toede sprawling to the pavement. He felt something give in his ankle, but skittered clear, so when Jugger tipped and fell, thankfully, Toede was not underneath.

Thunder echoed in Toede's ears. He raised himself on the spear to see what happened. Jugger was on its side, swaying back and forth, its great wheels spinning helplessly in the air. A small collection of humans in vestments, gathered by the north wing of the manor house, had been the source of the effective attack.

Wizards. Hopsloth had no true priestly powers, so like the old frauds and charlatans of the prewar days, he had hired spellcasters who drew their powers from impure sources. Pity, too, because real priests were unlikely to have the ability to summon and fling magical lightning bolts.

The wizards walked slowly toward the tipped, rocking juggernaut, behind a wall of spearmen who showed uncommon sense by not scattering in fear. Several were congratulating each other as they neared, as if the surrounding carnage were nothing more than an everyday field exercise. Toede thought again of the dead, beached whale, and the pygmies who came out to watch it bake in the sun.

None of the wizards or spearmen noticed Toede yet.

Toede saw that Jugger's rocking had become more pronounced, not less. The infernal device was starting to move in wider arcs. Leaning on the spear as a staff, Toede hobbled up the stairs of the manor, knowing what would come next.

The mages didn't notice that the juggernaut was figuring out how to right itself until they were about twenty paces away. Actually, the mages regarded the rocking as one more interesting phenomenon, and it was the spearmen who realized what the rocking truly meant. They started to fall away in panic as the last great swing of the machine's body brought the rollers back in contact with pavement. A jet of cobblestones shot backward as Jugger stood up and charged the astonished crowd.

Half the spearmen fell instantly under the massive wheels, as well as some of the more powerful (and incautious) wizards. One spread his arms and began to rise in the air, but Jugger's sharpened top jaw caught him, and only the upper torso continued to float upward, raining blood beneath. A few of the mages in the rear ran, as Jugger pursued.

It's in the nine hundreds now, thought Toede. He shouted to Jugger, but to no avail. Eventually, Jugger would realize no one was pounding on its back, but likely not before several more buildings were leveled. And if it hit a barracks, well, that would spell the end of his cursed presence on this plane of existence.

Toede limped up the steps to the double doors of his manor, picking up a discarded and uncrushed dagger from the smashed body of its previous owner. He jammed the dagger into his belt. He estimated the length of the spear and the width of the door, and pried open one of the door's twin panels.

"I'm home, dear," he bellowed into the manor.

With the door forced open, he could see the renovations made by Lord Hopsloth. The entire rear section of the building and his sacred throne had been lost in the flames and/or removed entirely.

All that could be seen was a stone scaffolding lined with plates of rare sheet glass. The front hallway was now a balcony, with a long staircase leading down into a pool, surrounded by fronds and other plants. The sun had set behind Toede, so the pool was as dark and inky as a sleeping octopus.

"Hope you have supper ready," continued Toede. He saw ripples in the water and remained in the doorway, holding the spear.

"I don't know about you, but I feel like eating frogs' legs tonight," he shouted with a grin. At that, the shadowy hulk of Hopsloth emerged from the depths, at the edge of where the stairs vanished into the water.

"You're… back," grunted the amphidragon.

"Can't say I like what you've done with the place," said Toede, ignoring what sounded like an explosion behind him and to the left.

"You did… this," came the grunt.

"So I got peeved," smiled Toede. "I'll call it off if you agree to surrender. Now," he added, hoping that Jugger wouldn't vanish for at least the next five minutes.

"Killed you… once. Kill you… again," murmured Hopsloth. His tongue lashed outward and upward, striking Toede full in the chest.

Toede had only a second's warning, but was ready for Hopsloth this time, and used the second to full advantage. He turned the spear so it would form a bar across the outer door, a foot overlapping the frame on either side. Even so, Toede's arm was nearly ripped from its socket as the tongue-tip lassoed him and tried to suck him back into the amphidragon's maw.

Toede bit down on the pain he felt. With his free hand, he pulled the dagger.

"Doe!" shouted Hopsloth, which was "No!" with your tongue moored fifteen feet away.

"Sorry, Hopsey," muttered Toede, "but you had your chance." And he drove the dagger into the creature's outstretched tongue.

Hopsloth arced in a spasm of pain. He tried to lunge (slowly) up the stairs, toward his tormentor. Toede drove the blade in up to the hilt and started to make a sawing motion. Greenish blood coated his torso and lower limbs, while the arm anchoring the spear grew numb.

Toede knew that Hopsloth could not immediately disengage his tongue. Everything depended on Hopsloth losing more blood on the way up the stairs than in the end he would need to bite Toede in two.

Hopsloth closed the distance in slow motion, or at least it seemed so from Toede's standpoint as he jammed the dagger into the flexing, writhing muscle that held him aloft, anchored only by the spear across the door frame. Ten feet between them. Then five. And then Hopsloth was close enough to leap forward and swallow Toede in one bite. Again.

"Nine-nine-seven" came a powerful bellow that Toede felt more than heard, and he swiveled his head to see Jugger charging up the stairs. One last foolish mage was aiming a wand at the juggernaut, and was rewarded with a shriek and the solemn declaration, "Nine-nine-eight!"

Toede saw what was going to happen and closed his eyes. Hopsloth realized a moment later. His eyes grew wide and wild, exactly like those of a frog's caught in a sudden flash of light.

Jugger struck Toede and Hopsloth, and all three pitched off the balcony, over the pool. The far wall shattered like a dry crust of sugar, and Hopsloth's body was left twitching on the remaining spurs of stone.

"Nine-nine-nine!" bellowed Jugger. "And a thousand!"

Jugger and Toede's remains flew over the deep red waters. Jugger began to fade, and only Toede's body reached the hungry jaws of the sharks circling below.