Kings, Queens, Heroes, & Fools

by M. R. Mathias

  It was in that spirit of unified purpose that the forces marched away the next morning toward their positions outside the city gates of O’Dakahn.

  The few Dakaneese people who hadn’t sought safety inside the city’s walls were escorted away from the massive dwellings and shops that had been built against the protective barrier. It took most of a day to get them clear. Hundreds of stubborn families were displaced and sent north out of harm’s way. The besieged Dakaneese inside the walls didn’t waste any time taking action. During that first night they doused the structures with oil and set them to burning. They had no intention of letting the Eastern armies use them to build on, or the wood to build siege engines.

  Lord Gregory’s planning counted on them doing this. They weren’t planning on building siege engines, other than for the sake of show. They would sit there, outside the city, and wait for the rest of the reinforcements Queen Willa and Queen Rachel had dispatched to arrive, while the dwarves dug a huge collapsible cavity under a single section of the imposing wall. The charred and smoldering structures outside the barrier gave the dwarves excellent cover when they crept in close and started to dig.

  According to Oarly, the wall’s size and weight would bring it down. All that was needed was a large well placed gap under the foundation, and a little push. Oarly took his sappers away from the gate in search of a favorable area to collapse. Other crews of dwarven diggers were spaced around the barrier, each trying to bore a passage under the wall that might allow a small human force to gain entry. If they got through, the sheer number of people that lived in O’Dakahn would make it easy to blend in. If a small group of men could manage to get one of the gates open from the inside, then the eastern armies could just swarm in and go to work. Still, Oarly and many of the other dwarves agreed, collapsing an area of wall to make their own gate would be much more effective.

  ***

  A day’s march due west from O’Dakahn, on the bank of the Leif Greyn River, sits the marshland village called Nahka. For several days, the zard and their gekas used the powerful current of the Leif Greyn’s main channel to carry them from the marshes. Larger dactyls carried roped bundles of weapons and supplies, while flying in small unnoticeable flocks. The snappers that resided in the marshes didn’t bother with the zard, and only one geka met its end during the crossing. By the time O’Dakahn was ringed with the fires of the structures burning outside the city’s wall, fifteen thousand zard-men had gathered along the river.

  Flick, on the back of his dragon, flew high overhead during the night. He had rallied the zard with the telling of how sneaky King Mikahl murdered Queen Shaella in cold blood. The zard loved and respected the Dragon Queen. She had armed them and trained them and led them out of the swampy muck that the Westlanders had spent centuries driving them into.

  Flick reminded them of all she had done, and incited their desire for vengeance. It wasn’t that hard to get them riled and moving, not with Vrot sitting proudly beneath him. Now he was studying the forces that had besieged Ra’Gren’s massive cesspool. Flick wanted them to attack outside the northwestern gate first. He had seen the ragged Red Wolf banner of King Jarrek fluttering among those soldiers earlier. His instincts told him to move on the southern gate first, though. The zard were extraordinarily silent swimmers and the forces that were gathering there wouldn’t be expecting an attack from the bay. The zard could slither through the water carrying weapons and creep up on the men before they established position.

  Confident that he was making the right choice, Flick turned Vrot northward. The Dakaneese pirate ship that the sell-swords had taken over was speeding south to warn Jarrek and the High King of the zard movement. His zard had been watching the ship for days from the lake that now stood over Seareach. It baffled Flick how a king without a kingdom, with no coin chests, could buy up Ra’Gren’s well paid sell-swords. Maybe the High King had promised them land and titles in his make believe realm. Flick couldn’t imagine any real Dakaneese mercenary not demanding payment, at least partial payment, up front. It didn’t matter, Flick decided. The traitorous bastards were about to be snapper food. He brought Vrot down out of the sky in a streaking dive then leveled the dragon a few dozen feet over the river’s surface. Ahead, the boat could be seen riding the current swiftly southward.

  ***

  Maxrell Tyne opened his mouth and screamed out a warning as he took a leaping stride and dove from his ship. Grommen looked up into a searing splash of corrosive breath. For long moments after the top half of his body was eaten away, his legs and lower torso stood frozen in place. The other men were either directly covered, or splattered and sprayed with the acidy liquid. The Shark’s Tooth was eaten through and sinking before the dragon’s tail had swept past it.

  The pieces of the crewmen that weren’t eroded to a pasty liquid were quickly gulped down by hungry snappers. And those that were whole swam desperately, trying to get out of the water as quickly as they could.

  As Flick brought Vrot around in a hard banking arc, his blood was alive with glee. A few snappers were now floating dead. The acid residue from the human flesh had eaten through their innards and killed them almost as quickly as it had killed the men. Flick shivered at the sight. His body was full of anticipation and the lust for vengeance. He couldn’t wait to destroy the High King and the eastern armies so that he could claim his place as the new king of the realm.

  The Dragon King.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Master Amill was having a rough time of it. Between conferring with Master Sholt on Phen’s condition, and helping the dwarves clear out civilians from the ships and warehouses at Port O’Dakahn, he was exhausted. He was more than pleased to find his tent had been erected and that a meal of stew and biscuits was waiting inside with his things. The stew was cold, but he wolfed it down anyway. He didn’t bother to unpack his small satchel of books and personal necessities. This night, if it was actually still night, lasted far too long and he had only one thing left on his mind. Sleep.

  With the practiced ease of a man who’d been afield for several weeks, he snapped the straps on his bedroll and kicked it. It rolled open invitingly. A heartbeat later he was stretched out and trying to clear his mind so that sleep would take him.

  The situation with Phen was too disturbing to think about, so he forced it out of his brain completely. He wished that Queen Rachel’s flotilla would hurry and arrive. Keeping the harbor clear would be far easier once they had support from the sea. The extra soldiers those ships carried would come in handy as well. He figured that the other two gate areas were easier to clear. Merchants, traders, and travelers had to be more cooperative than the hardened crews, pirates, and salty dogs they came across here. It was done, though. The harbor area was clear of all but the men and dwarves under King Granitheart. And now Master Amill was finally slipping into slumber.

  The zard came silently and swiftly, from under the docks, from the rocky jetties that extended out into the bay, from the lightly forested shore. Small groups creeping on clawed feet snuck through the shadows or slithered through the alleyways of the shipping district. Several of the human sentries had to be killed to keep alarms from being sounded, but otherwise the first part of the zard assault went unnoticed.

  When the zard were littered about the sleepy encampment, Vrot came roaring out of the sky and bathed long swaths of tents and pavilions in acid. Flick sent fireballs streaking down that erupted in half a dozen places.

  When the waking soldiers, who weren’t corroding away, went to defend themselves they were overrun by heavy-footed gekas, and the swift silent attacks of the zard, and dactyls. The men and dwarves on watch duty were the first to be melted or scorched into oblivion by the aerial assault. Swift flying flocks of swamp birds swarmed down and shredded anything they could with their long sharp beaks. The dwarves fought bravely, with both hammer and axe, but even with their fierce determination they were no match for Vrot, the wizard, or the overwhelming number of slithery zard. Flick showered them al
l with bright fiery concussions and Vrot spewed entire lanes clear with his horrible spray, at least until his venom glands ran dry.

  Master Amill woke from a twisted battlefield dream to find a huge patch of his tent hissing away. A glance outside the flaps sent a chill of terror through the master wizard. Over half of the company was destroyed, either fizzling into a gory soup, or smoldering in flames. He contained his panic long enough to cast a sending to Master Sholt. As it was cast, he realized that Master Sholt was no longer with King Jarrek. He was in Westland now, but it was too late, the spell link was already forming. Master Amill heard a great groaning creek and turned to see the massive city gates opening. A stream of Dakaneese soldiers came pouring out, and in moments the chaotic encampment was overrun.

  ***

  Master Sholt woke to an insistent itching sensation in his mind. It felt like someone was scratching the inside of his skull. He sat up and glanced hopefully at the deep indentation that Phen’s heavy body was making in the soft feather bed. Realizing that it was a sending that had woken him, he rose out of the divan he was sleeping on and strode across the royal bedchamber to the balcony. He threw the doors open and let the breeze stream in. Once he had shaken the cobwebs from his head, he reached out and grabbed a hold of the magical voice that was calling to him. The faint light of the night sky was blacked out momentarily, but Master Amill’s panic stricken sending drew his focus. As he listened, he stepped to the balcony rail and looked up curiously. Seeing nothing other than stars, he turned and looked back at the bed.

  The words of his friend and peer suddenly sank in and filled him with worry. “By the gods, the zard and the dragon?” he replied. “Get yourself and King Granitheart out of there. He is royalty, man... Amill? Amill?”

  The sending ended abruptly, leaving Master Sholt trembling with concern. He knew that he had to warn the others. It was possible that the zard were planning on attacking all three of the siege forces. He closed his eyes and began speaking the words of another sending, but a sudden looming presence behind him stopped him cold.

  The starlight had been eclipsed again, only this time whatever had blocked it out hadn’t passed over. It was still there. Master Sholt began to shake as furnace hot breath that smelled of rot and brimstone blew across him. He was sure that one of the many demons that had climbed up out of the hells was behind him. He felt his hair curling and could smell the harsh acrid scent of it burning. A voice that could have been a crumbling mountain growled behind him.

  “Where is Hydens Hawkss?” it asked.

  Master Sholt took two steps toward the room and turned with the balcony doors in his hands. He was ready to throw them closed and run. What he saw staggered him to stillness.

  Cavernous nostrils, bigger than wagon wheels, with tendrils of smoke rolling up out of them were pressed against the balcony rail. Half a dozen feet behind them were luminous yellow eyes that were slitted vertically by pupils as long as a man is tall. They blinked with lids that rose from the bottom upward then narrowed fiercely.

  “Where is Hydens Hawkss?” the monstrous thing asked again.

  When Sholt heard the voice this time he realized what was speaking to him, but the knowledge caused him to faint into a heap on the floor.

  The massive red dragon pushed its snout through the balcony entry, shattering glass and splintering wood as if it weren’t even there. Then it reared back and brought its head down, using its chin to batter the balcony from the wall.

  The door across the room came flying open. Lady Able, and a pair of nervous looking men bearing swords and torches charged in. The lady crumbled when she saw the giant slitted eye pressed up to the gaping hole in the wall. One of the men turned and fled screaming. The other filled his britches before falling to his knees and putting his face to the floor as if he were praying.

  ***

  When Master Sholt opened his eyes, it was about midday, and the invisible marble statue that was Phen, was gone. The balcony opening had been destroyed and it looked as if something far too large for the room had been forced into it. The floor was busted downward in the middle and the ceiling was bowed up into a mangled arch. The big bed where the petrified boy had lain was smoldering and hanging out of the room over the garden yard. Only after Master Sholt gathered himself, and cast a sending to his apprentices and Cresson, did he begin to investigate what had happened at Lakeside Castle. He was so worried about Phen that he didn’t let his grief over Master Amill’s cruel fate distract him.

  The only one who offered Sholt any relevant information was the man who had shit himself. He said that the huge dragon had stuck its head into the chamber, hooked the bed with its tooth, and dragged it out to where it is now.

  “After that, the dragon growled so loud that I buried my head again.” The man was obviously still shaken by what he had seen. Master Sholt was shaken too. He had no idea what to make of the occurrence, but he knew that the dragon had asked for Hyden Hawk by name. That meant that the dragon was most likely Claret.

  ***

  Only a short few miles of lightly forested flats separated the harbor from O’Dakahn’s northeastern gate. Commander Escott wasn’t surprised when the zard came out of the trees like a swarm of scaly insects. When dawn broke, and Master Amill couldn’t be reached by either of his apprentices, the other two forces had gone on full alert. The High King had flown over the massacre in the first light of the day. The gate was closed again, only there was no one alive outside it to keep the Dakaneese in. The gore the dragon’s acid left behind was horrific.

  Commander Escott’s archers rained arrows on the advancing zard, but after each volley they retreated a hundred paces then turned and fired again. The idea was to get far enough away from the gate that the Dakaneese troops inside couldn’t come pouring out like they had in the south. If they came out and had to stretch their number to reach the retreat, then High King Mikahl could fly in and cut them off. The dwarves who weren’t digging hated this idea. They were angry and raging over the loss of their king. They wanted to attack, not back away.

  It didn’t work out the way anyone wanted it to. The gates never opened, and the zard came in widely spread groups on the backs of gekas and on foot. Huge flocks of deadly swamp dactyls filled the sky to cover their advance. Mikahl and his bright horse were surrounded by pecking, clawing clouds of them. They couldn’t attack him due to the magical shields Ironspike provided, but they effectively kept him from being able to aid the men below.

  Flick and King Ra’Gren couldn’t have planned it better. With King Mikahl and his fiery steed being harried by the dactyls, and the southern force little more than a gruesome stain along the harbor now, it left the majority of Ra’Gren’s Dakaneese soldiers free to spill out of the northwestern gate and attack King Jarrek. When the gates opened, Flick and Vrot came streaking over the wall and in moments cleared the way for the soldiers to pour out and attack. Ra’Gren felt so confident in the plan that he pulled on his armor and rode out with his men. He looked like some shining steel clad sea god with his flowing white hair and beard and polished armor. He rode a white destrier and held his trident high. In his other hand he carried a small glaive-like weapon that had hatchet blades on its sides and a longer blade that protruded like a spear. It was light and effective in his hands. King Ra’Gren might have been lazy and spoiled, but he was far from soft. He had killed more people in his throne room than half the soldiers on the field combined. Once the battle lust filled him he became a force unto himself, stabbing and hewing Jarrek’s soldiers at will.

  Vrot was relentless. After he exhausted his spew again, he carried Flick low and clawed men from their mounts, or whipped through the ranks with his powerful tail. Flick blasted flesh, dirt, and bone into rubble with his wicked pulses of kinetic energy. His wizard’s fire lingered on the flesh of man and steed alike. Without the High King to contend with, the amount of destruction they were allowed to wreak was substantial.

  King Jarrek fought with berserker-like intensity until he
was forced to stop and gather his wits. He couldn’t believe that they had discounted Shaella’s wizard and his ability to rally the skeeks, much less get them to O’Dakahn so quickly. In hindsight, he realized that the threat should have been obvious. The marshland that separated Westland from Dakahn was their natural habitat, and unlike a human enemy that would be bogged down in such terrain, the zard and their gekas were suited to it and traversed it easily.

  It wasn’t the zard that Jarrek was fending off now, though. The long rested Dakaneese soldiers from inside O’Dakahn’s wall were having their way with his travel-weary men. He wasn’t sure, but it appeared that his force might have been outnumbered by as many as five to one. He had no idea how many more men Ra’Gren had inside.

  He had to do something drastic, and quickly. The dragon was too much for them. He didn’t know what was keeping Mikahl from a coming to their aid, but he guessed that the situation probably wasn’t much better where the High King was fighting.

  An idea struck him, and he found the ring of soldiers guarding his apprentice mage and gave the terrified young wizard a series of orders. A few moments later he rode past Bzorch, and was nearly thrown from his saddle as the big breed giant walked right into his path. Bzorch didn’t take his eyes off of his target. He was just waiting for the dragon to get in range. His huge hairy coil-man followed closely, being sure not to let the rope tangle.

  King Jarrek got himself situated and moved around them. He passed along his orders to the commanders of the battling troops and slowly the entire battle began migrating eastward away from the open gates. The way Jarrek had the men and dwarves spreading out put the Dakaneese into an advancing formation. It forced the two opposing groups to take up sides of a battle line instead of fighting in random knots and clusters. It also made it easier for Flick and the dragon to attack them, which is exactly what Jarrek wanted.

  ***

  Ra’Gren roared with delight when he saw King Jarrek pulling his men back. The big white-haired seadog’s armor was covered in gore. His once white destrier was a dozen different shades of red and prancing anxiously for more. He could only gape though, when a streaking spear launched up out of the fray ahead of him, causing King Jarrek’s force to let out a hearty cheer. Ra’Gren twisted and looked up to see Flick scrabbling for purchase on the dragon’s back as it twisted and writhed in the sky. A spear had punctured the dragon’s shoulder where its left wing met its neck and body.The barbed spearhead had come out the top of the dragon’s back. Ra’Gren saw the long rope attached to the spear pull taut, but a sharp pain along his calf, where a stray sword stroke bit him, reminded him that he was in the middle of a battle. Immediately, he began working away from the front. His will to be in the heat of things was fading now that Flick and his dragon were in no position to protect him.