When Dragons Rage

by Michael A. Stackpole

  Adrogans also wondered about skycasters, thunderballs, and boombags. Their judicious placement would devastate his force, but he had no way to discover or disable them. And if he approached cautiously, as if they existed, and they did not, the assault would take far longer than it should. Yet, if he went in recklessly and they were employed, his force would be slain. There was no middle ground.

  I must win with blood what I would have preferred to take with strategy.

  Nor was it a good day for battle. Before dawn a cold north wind had begun to howl through the streets. Snowflakes started to fall. Though not thick, the wind drove the snow south, so his men would be marching against the wind. Worse yet, their arrows would be shot into it and, worst of all, the clouds to the north crept toward the city, promising much more snow.

  “Signal the advance.”

  The signalman blew the advance and other buglers picked it up and repeated it. Above the battlefield his remaining Warhawks flew. They dove repeatedly at the wall above the main gate. Their firecocks exploded brilliantly, their spears and arrows skewering soldiers. Burning oil sent fiery streamers down the wall and his men cheered as if that were an omen of victory.

  Onward the soldiery marched. In thick, swollen ranks the infantry advanced. Aurolani troops at the main gate rose and shot arrows or threw spears. Some men went down, but the arrows and spears that flew back scattered the opposition. Those who could retreated and scrambled back toward the inner city, and the front ranks of the Helurian Imperial Steel Legion reached the first wall. They crossed it and pressed on, though another hail of missiles tore at them.

  Over to the east, Beal mot Tsuvo led her clan’s dozen companies in a suicidal charge up the causeway to the breach. Adrogans had not wanted to give her the honor of that position. He viewed it as dubious, especially in light of the fact that the first troops in there would almost assuredly die, but she demanded it. While her role in the march to Svarskya had been vital, she and her troops had been spared in major engagements and their highland blood demanded the chance to prove themselves.

  There, arrows flew thicker than snowflakes. Warriors rushed upward, round shields raised and festooned with arrows. People slipped and fell, some never to rise, others to struggle up and keep moving forward. As the Guranin warriors drew close, grapnels on ropes flew, catching on the barricades. Stout warriors grabbed the ropes and pulled, though the arrows that greeted their effort killed many. As a gap opened in the barricade, warriors surged forward. They leaped over tumbling timbers and batted aside thrown rocks, then fell among the gibberers opposing them.

  Adrogans waited for a boombag to explode, reducing the clan warriors to meat and ghosts, but nothing happened. Then he waited for dragonels to blast, splitting the morning with thunder and bright light. Scattershot would rip through his troops, anointing that gap with blood.

  The infantry had drawn closer to the main gate. The Jeranese Crown Guards had slipped through the thinned ranks of the Steel Legion and driven forward. They’d taken the second wall and the third, with one remaining before the barrier at the main gate. There, or deeper in, or just on the other side, dragonels and archers could rake his troops. Boombags could leave smoking craters where they had been.

  He sought for signs that his other efforts might have borne fruit, but he saw nothing. The Okrans exiles had raised a battalion of light infantry, and he’d combined it with the Svoin Irregulars. He had infiltrated them into the city’s sewers, in the hopes they could slip in and attack the defenders from within. That, too, like Beal mot Tsuvo’s charge, was suicide, but neither group had shrunk from it. As if it would make them invulnerable, they murmured to themselves “dreams can come true,” and accepted their assignments.

  Pain rippled jagged sensations through him as warriors fell. He could sense the panic of people drowning in frigid sewer water. The hopelessness of a dying soldier trying to stuff his own entrails back into his body came to him with piercing clarity. More things, from burns and cuts to crushed limbs and implements, flooded into him.

  This was the sort of battle he hated. There was no fast or easy way to do things. Until the barriers were cleared, his cavalry could not move. And even when they could, he didn’t know what they would face.

  Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be good. No matter what, Adrogans could not shake the feeling that he had already lost the battle. All the blood is being spilled needlessly and yet for a purpose of which I know I will not approve.

  He glanced up at Nefrai-kesh’s tower and the fire burning there. I am defeated, but I know not how or why.

  Suddenly, over to the west, a firecock exploded against one of the barriers. He smiled and pointed. “Our luck may have changed.”

  Caro followed his line of sight, then nodded. “I shall see you within, then.”

  “Yes, good hunting.” Adrogans reined his horse around and rode west to where his Horse Guards waited with the Okrans Kingsmen. As he neared the cavalry and the Gurol Stoneheart Battalion trotted toward the burning barricade, he saw fighting behind it. Somehow, the Svoin Irregulars had won their way through the sewers and were attacking the Aurolani forces at the breach.

  The Stonehearts raced up the debris hill and met little opposition. They, too, used grapnels and ropes to haul burning debris aside. As the lead ranks parted, the trailing legion surged forward and fought its way through the gap. The other legions widened it further, then Adrogans and the cavalry started forward at a trot.

  With every hoof-fall Adrogans waited to see that mountain of debris become a volcano. He sought through the driving snow for the first hint of light and some sensation of warmth. He waited to see men begin to topple as the midden erupted. He knew fire and stone would shred them, then a rock shower would crush his horsemen.

  Closer and closer they rode. They got close enough that he could see warriors grappling with gibberers and spitting vylaens. Axes rose and fell; longknives flashed. Bodies—man and animal—reeled away leaking and torn. Screams and howls echoed louder than war cries, but war cries still could be heard. As his horse started up the slope, he shouted as well.

  “For Duke Mikhail!” Adrogans drew his sword and leaned forward, urging his horse on. Powerful muscles bunched as the beast propelled itself upward. Rock tumbled, but the horse kept his balance, leaping forward, cutting sideways and up. Foam flecked beast and bit and, finally, they reached the summit.

  Adrogans had a moment to survey the heart of Svarskya. He had expected to see fire-blackened ruins, for the walls and the bits of towers that rose high enough to be seen had given that impression, but his expectations were dashed. Streets were clear and buildings, though they lacked for paint and plaster in places, appeared in good repair. After Svoin and the outer city, he had not been prepared for such order.

  If one did not look too closely, it would be easy to imagine this place never having been touched by battle.

  But he did look closely. As his horse descended, signs of battle were everywhere. Blood ran thick in gutters and bodies lay twisted on cobbled streets. Some corpses burned and others were in pieces. The wounded twitched, cried, and scrabbled for cover or weapons or anything that might succor them.

  The Horse Guards poured through the gap behind him and inside the inner city they cut to the east. Riding fast, with the Okrans Kingsmen behind them, they reached the main gate quickly. There they found Aurolani infantry massed to oppose the charge that would be coming through the main gate. The cavalry slammed into the rear of one battalion, riding soldiers down, slashing madly and driving forward into another battalion.

  The Kingsmen sheared to the left and obliterated the last two battalions that had been waiting. The city streets trapped the Aurolani troops and only allowed the rear ranks to run. They could not run far, however—and certainly could not escape the vengeful warriors who, after more than a generation in exile, had come to reclaim their homeland.

  Dismounted warriors flew up stairs and into the chambers above the gate. Any Aurolani therein would be a
ble to rain molten lead or boiling oil down on troops riding through. They could even have had a boombag ready to detonate. But the Horse Guards, bloody swords in hand, burst into that chamber and bare minutes later returned triumphant.

  Adrogans directed other men to clear the main gate, which they did, then Caro and his Alcidese Horse Guards rode through. They fanned out through the city, hunting and killing. Farther east the Savarese Knights and Matrave’s Horse rode in through the gap Clan Tsuvo had cleared.

  Despite the success, something was wrong; Adrogans knew it. He had lost people, but not nearly as many as he should have. There were no dragonels—not in the city, not used at the bridge or the Three Brothers. There were not enough troops. And the city was pristine.

  Phfas appeared at his side. “The tower.”

  Adrogans looked to the top of it and saw the fire burning there, then it rose into the air. The two of them, father and son, rode together on a horse with dragon wings of fire. They galloped into the air, circled the tower once, and headed off to the north and east.

  Nefrai-kesh threw Adrogans a salute.

  Nefrai-laysh’s laughter mocked him.

  Once they had secured the city, Adrogans entered the tower with Caro, Phfas, several other of the Zhusk, and two of the men who had attended Duke Mikhail at his death. The group made the ascent carefully. They watched for traps and proceeded as if each step would betray them.

  Pain again slumbered, so Adrogans had no fear.

  At the top of the tower, in a chamber half-open yet somehow immune to the weather, they came to a banquet table laden with food still warm. The candles there had burned halfway down, and had they entered the tower immediately upon the sullanciri’s departure, it would have made for an elegant scene.

  Phfas sneered dismissively. “Too many chairs.”

  Adrogans moved to the head of the table. There, instead of a plate being set, a sheet of parchment had been stuck to the table with a dagger. The script had an easy flow, but the general found the dark brown hue of the ink unsettling.

  Blood. Its being still a bit moist unsettled him more.

  Adrogans leaned heavily on the table, holding himself up on straightened arms, and read aloud. “My dear General Adrogans. I congratulate you on a campaign fought brilliantly and well. Neither I nor my mistress thought you capable of waging a winter war. Because of this, I have been caught without reinforcements or supplies, all of which were required in the east.

  “You have won the freedom of Okrannel. I was here to see it fall and though it saddens me to fail my mistress in losing it, I do not begrudge the Okrans people their homeland. They now will know a peace that I have not known, nor am likely to know.

  “With profound admiration, I am, Nefrai-kesh.”

  Caro stared at him. “That cannot be what it says.”

  “Read it for yourself.”

  The Alcidese general frowned. “We won because we dared push at a time when she had her troops elsewhere?”

  “A fiction. The dragonels used at Lurrii or Porjal could have been shipped from there to here in five days, easily. The same for troops. It has been nearly a month since we took the Three Brothers. This city should have been teeming with gibberers.”

  Caro sighed heavily and stared out the window that overlooked the wall. “Why the pantomime? At the bridge he could have hurt us. Here he could have hurt us. Why?”

  Phfas reached over and pulled the leg off what appeared to be a chicken. “Does why matter? The witch has lost the city.”

  “You’re wrong, Uncle. She didn’t lose it.” Adrogans frowned. “She traded it to us. But for what?”

  The Zhusk shaman shrugged. “Time will tell.”

  “It will.” Adrogans shivered. “I just don’t think it’s a tale I want to hear.”

  CHAPTER 65

  I n some way, Erlestoke reflected, it was unfortunate that the Aurolani arrow had not been poisoned. It had taken him through the right thigh. Jilandessa said it hadn’t done too much damage, so he didn’t let her do more to it than stop the bleeding and close the flesh. Her skills were needed elsewhere, on more grievous wounds, and he was able to limp along as he was.

  But had the arrow been poisoned, he’d be dead. That would mean his nose and cheeks, ears, toes, and fingers wouldn’t be burning with frostbite. He’d not be consumed with fear about the DragonCrown fragment falling into enemy hands. He wouldn’t feel hungry and tired or any other of those things that differentiated the living from the dead.

  Their escape had not been without casualties. Jullagh-tse’s plan had functioned well, and they’d made it into the trickle tube easily enough. As they started to exit, though, Verum volunteered to stay behind. Erlestoke still heard shooting when he left the tube, so he allowed himself to imagine that, somehow, the meckanshii might still be alive somewhere in Sarengul.

  Jullagh-tse Seegg led them through the mountains on a course that ran south and a bit west. She was angling for a pass with a chasm spanned by a rope bridge. It had been years since she had gone that way, but all of the landmarks remained in place to guide her. The chasm literally split one whole duchy in Sarengul, and if the Aurolani were going to use the internal tunnels to get ahead of them, they would have to go far out of their way to do so. They all hoped that the Aurolani forces had not yet penetrated that deeply into Sarengul.

  To fully escape pursuit, all they would have to do is reach the bridge and cross over, then cut it behind them. Jullagh-tse had also described the chasm as being huge and bottomless. In the back of his mind Erlestoke considered it a possible dumping place for the DragonCrown fragment.

  The Aurolani did pursue them, and relentlessly. At dawn the Aurolani had ambushed them—killing three and wounding four, though none of the wounded was crippled. His group had gone from a dozen to seven, which, given all they had done, was rather remarkable. Still, being tired, falling into that ambush, and losing people so close to their final escape took the heart right out of him.

  Wind whipped through the mountains, driving snow south. Erlestoke much preferred the wind at his back, but it made watching their back trail painfully difficult. Out through the shifting sheets of snow he could see gibberers. Some were on the ground, following their path directly, while others moved up into the rocks. The wind neutralized arrows, but that didn’t stop the Aurolani from launching them.

  And, as always, trailing them, came the cloaked figure. It walked awkwardly, but kept advancing. The wind tugged at its scarlet cloak, but it never stopped. It never hunkered down against the wind, nor raised a hand to shield its face. What seemed worse to Erlestoke was the nagging sense that what had been a severed arm two days previous had, in fact, grown back somewhat.

  Jullagh-tse pointed south and then to the right. “There, you can see the opening to the canyon. Not far now.”

  “So they will have to make their move if they don’t want to be cut off, right?”

  “Yes.” The urZrethi looked down. “Highness, I am best equipped in the mountains . . .”

  “Yes, of course.” Erlestoke made to shrug his way out of the harness that held the DragonCrown fragment. “Take this and head out, fast.”

  She laid a brown hand over his mittened right hand. “No, Highness, what I mean is that you should move quickly and let me hold them off.”

  “It’s not happening that way.” He looked back at the others. “Let’s move fast now. Speed will be our friend. Once we’re over the bridge, we’re safe. Rys, Finn, go!”

  The two elves led the way through the narrowing canyon and off on the twisting crosscut that would lead to the chasm and their salvation. The wind muted the cry of a gibberer high on a point, but others heard it and began to come on faster. Other cries came from the high rocks, and Erlestoke surmised that more Aurolani troops had arrived from inside the mountains.

  Jullagh-tse helped him limp back as best he could. He held his quadnel in his left hand and had his right arm draped over her shoulders. His right leg wasn’t working that well, so his fo
ot dragged along, leaving a long, serpentine trail.

  A couple of black arrows fell here and there. Ryswin snatched one up, fitted it to his silverwood bow, and returned it to one of the gibberers.

  Onward they raced into the western canyon. It narrowed to twenty yards at the tightest point and twisted back and forth twice, making it easy to hold off pursuit, even if for only a moment. Inside the canyon itself the wind died. Erlestoke could hear the crunch of feet on snow and the hissed grumbles of his wounded comrades as they worked their way west. Anticipation grew as well, for the canyon began to widen and took one more grand, sweeping turn to the south.

  There they would find the chasm and the bridge.

  They did—but things were not quite as predicted.

  The chasm itself was much as Jullagh-tse had described it. The canyon sloped slowly down to it, barely five hundred yards distant. When she’d seen it last, it was in the summer, with meadow grasses providing a verdant carpet dotted with the reds, yellows, and blues of flowers. Grey stone showed where ice and snow now clung in frozen sheets. The chasm itself, which was easily two hundred yards across, had its own coat of snow and ice on the edges, almost suggesting a dark trough between two snowdrifts.

  Erlestoke looked over at Jullagh-tse. “When you said you’d not been here in a while, exactly how much time were we talking?”

  “Seventy years or so. At that time they were only talking about doing this, and they’d been talking about it forever.” Her flesh lightened to a streaky tan. “I had no idea.”

  The rope bridge that was to be their salvation had long since been replaced by a strong, proud arch spanning the gulf. Heavy blocks had been used to create it, and marble to finish it. In the urZrethi tradition, it was decorated with wonderful running sculptures and tableaux. Though snow did cling to portions of the span, the majority of it remained clear. Wide enough to let four horsemen ride abreast, it featured welcoming stone sentinels who greeted the travelers with broad smiles.