One group of Behrenese was not inside, though. A visiting caravan milled about the castle door, denied entrance, with nowhere to run or hide.
Brynn wouldn’t bring her soldiers in close to the well-armed fortress, though, nor did she allow the To-gai-ru to cut down the trapped merchants with their great bows.
She walked Runtly around to that side of the castle, close enough to make eye contact with some of the frantic Behrenese—and many began pounding on the door once more at the sight of the woman given such deference by the other To-gai-ru as to mark her obviously as the fierce leader of this army.
Brynn lifted a hand to the Behrenese and motioned for them to approach.
They held back, some still pounding on the unyielding iron door.
“You have nowhere to turn,” Brynn called out to them. “Your surrender will be accepted, if offered. Else you will die where you stand.”
Those simple words seemed to break the will of many of the merchants, and they exchanged despairing looks and threw up their hands, walking out toward Brynn and bowing repeatedly.
The first volley came forth from the castle then, a hail of arrows aimed primarily at Brynn. Most fell short, though, some even cutting into the poor merchants as they made their way out from the castle.
They all scrambled, as did Brynn, leaping Runtly aside, but not before one arrow struck the pony’s foreleg, digging a deep gash and making him rear, nearly dislodging the woman.
The Behrenese merchants were in a full run, then, fleeing in terror from their own countrymen. Brynn’s soldiers pulled them in roughly, herding them to a central point, while Brynn, with Runtly back under control, marched defiantly back to her previous position.
“Despite your insolence, I offer you a similar chance to surrender,” she yelled out to the castle.
“Go away!” came a curt reply. “You cannot defeat our thick walls, fool, and we’ll not run out to do battle with you. Water your horses if you choose, for we cannot stop you, but your victory here has reached its end! Go away!”
Brynn held her sword aloft and sent a burst of fire running the length of its blade. “I am the Dragon of To-gai!” she cried. “Dharyan has fallen. Pruda has fallen. There is no escape for you. I will knock the walls of your fortress down around you!”
The answer came in the form of another volley of arrows, but Brynn was already moving her precious mount out of harm’s way.
“Water the horses and resupply on the far side of the lake,” she instructed her commanders as she crossed by them. “But keep a perimeter of scouts up and ready. If they try to flee the castle, chase them into the open desert.”
“What of them?” one tall and stern To-gai-ru warrior asked, pointing out the twenty merchant prisoners and their slaves, which included some To-gai-ru.
“Our countrymen will join with us—find them mounts from among the captured,” Brynn instructed. “Allow the Behrenese servants to go. Give them mounts and supplies enough to get them to the next town in line. And the merchants …”
Brynn paused, considering what value might be gleaned from the unexpected prisoners. “Send them south with the next group bearing wealth in the hopes of employing mercenaries. Tell our leaders in that action to use them for ransom.”
The warrior, and many others, looked at her skeptically, an expression that Brynn returned with one of inquisition.
“We agreed long ago that we would take no prisoners,” the man explained.
Brynn looked to the groveling merchants, men and women grown soft from living most of their lives in almost decadent luxury, from having others do all of their menial tasks for them.
“They will hardly hinder us,” she decided. “As we take this war more fully into Behren, employing greedy pirates and mercenaries, we will need even greater wealth, and I suspect that this group will offer anything to save their soft skins, whatever the cost to Behren.”
“Yes, my Dragon,” the warrior agreed with a brisk bow.
The title hit Brynn like a slap. She knew that many had taken to referring to her in that manner, but given what she knew of Agradeleous’ true, destructive nature, she wasn’t sure that the title was quite the compliment intended.
The warrior woman, ranger and trained in Jhesta Tu, steeled herself against those twangs of guilt. She had told the impudent Behrenese that she would topple their walls around them, and she meant to do just that. The fortress at Garou had been built to withstand the fastest spears thrown by ballistae, the heaviest shot of catapults, and the thunder of magical gemstones, the greatest engines of war ever devised by man.
But Brynn had a greater weapon than that at her disposal.
Juraviel and Cazzira turned their heads in unison to see the approach of Brynn, the woman walking and not astride Runtly. The elves, along with Agradeleous, had put up behind the shelter of a high dune, a half mile from the besieged oasis, and as with the victory at Pruda, and despite the night of devastation he had rained upon the outposters in To-gai, insatiable Agradeleous did not seemed pleased to be left out of the fighting.
The dragon’s lip curled up over his fangs and he gave a low grumble and moved away as Brynn neared the elves.
“You did not try to lure them out,” Cazzira remarked. “I was surprised to see the whole of your force charging to battle.”
“Not the whole of her force,” came Agradeleous’ sarcastic remark.
“Different tactics for a different battleground,” Brynn explained. “I wanted them forced within the castle, and so they are, and now I mean to tear it down.”
All three heads turned on that cue, to regard the suddenly interested dragon, and Agradeleous’ lip curled again, this time with apparent delight.
Brynn walked between the elves, approaching the dragon directly. “This will be your most difficult challenge yet,” she said.
The dragon scoffed, a curious sound, hissing and rumbling all at once.
“I will take you against the fortress, destroying the shell around our enemies that my army can swarm over them,” Brynn explained.
“You should have begun the battle like that,” Agradeleous growled back at her.
“I offer you this opportunity, as I did in To-gai that night three weeks ago,” Brynn said, and again the dragon scoffed.
“Do you believe that you could stop me if I decided to take this opportunity?”
Brynn walked to stand directly before the wurm, who was in his lizardlike humanoid form, and she eyed him hard, unblinking. Behind her, Juraviel and Cazzira exchanged concerned looks, and both rushed up to stand beside the brave, and apparently foolish, woman.
“I will allow you to continue to follow my army, Agradeleous,” Brynn said firmly. “But I offer this opportunity to you only with your promise that when I require it, you will return to your lair and haunt neither To-gai nor Behren any longer.”
Agradeleous’ wide-eyed scoffing response seemed the prelude to a sudden and deadly attack, so much so that Juraviel pulled Brynn back a step and Cazzira leaped before the dragon, waving her arms to distract him and give him a moment, at least, to reconsider the strike.
But Brynn didn’t blink.
“I could destroy you here and now, human!” the dragon roared. “I could burn you where you stand, to ashes! Or grab you up in my hands and tear you in half, with hardly an effort.”
“With no effort at all, likely,” Brynn agreed. “But to what gain? And to what long-term detriment?”
The dragon narrowed its reptilian eyes, seeming hardly convinced.
“You will agree, or your time here is at its end,” Brynn said.
Agradeleous issued a long and low rumble.
“And you will be handsomely paid for your service!” Belli’mar Juraviel said suddenly, moving before Brynn. “For when To-gai is free, we will deliver a line of treasure to your lair, wealth fairly earned for your services!”
Agradeleous tried to hold his angry glower, but one eye did widen, tellingly, at the appeal of that offer.
; Brynn, though, was much less thrilled that Juraviel had offered anything, or that he had intervened at all in this necessary showdown between her and Agradeleous. For in reflecting upon that horrible night in To-gai, Brynn Dharielle had decided that she would either assure herself control of the beast, or she would dismiss the beast. There could be no compromise.
“A treasure delivered by five hundred human slaves!” Agradeleous demanded suddenly, eyeing Brynn with every word.
“No!” the warrior woman shot back, and there was no compromise in her tone. “Delivered by men of free will.”
“Who will entertain me with stories—and if I find those great tales of adventure acceptable, then perhaps I will not devour them!” Agradeleous pressed.
“No!”
The dragon roared.
“Name me as your enemy here and now, then!” Brynn demanded, pushing past the elves to stand right before Agradeleous. “Strike me dead with your fiery breath and know that all the peoples south of the mountains will rise against Agradeleous. And they will take you down, united, for the war between Behren and To-gai will seem inconsequential beside the true horror of a wild dragon. What place will you find, mighty Agradeleous, where you might sleep well again? For I know the way to your lair, and have spread out many informants, who will deliver those directions to mighty enemies if I am betrayed and killed by you.”
The dragon’s eyes narrowed to threatening slits.
“I desire to ride upon your back this night, that you and I, as allies, will topple the fortress of Garou. But I will not do that, Agradeleous, until I have your word that when I am done with you, you will return to your lair and bother the race of man no more.”
“And what will I have from you, Brynn Dharielle, the Dragon of To-gai?” the wurm hissed.
“Treasure,” Brynn answered, nodding deferentially toward Juraviel. “Finely worked pieces, and delivered by To-gai-ru bards, who will sing to you and tell you great tales—proper reward for your service to our cause.
“But it must be to our cause, Agradeleous, and not to your own!” the woman added fiercely. “That is the leash I demand about your neck.”
“You demand?”
“I demand!” Brynn countered with striking intensity, her eyes widening and sparkling with inner fires that seemed to more than match the dragon’s own.
Agradeleous fell back a step, and for one horrible moment, both Brynn and the elves expected the beast to pounce upon her and devour her. Then came the dragon’s laughter, grating and mighty bellows.
And then it stopped, suddenly, and Agradeleous stared back at Brynn. He moved with awesome speed toward her.
But not to throttle her or devour her. Rather, Agradeleous fell to one knee before her in the sand.
“Climb on my shoulders, Dragon of To-gai!” he said. “Let us show our enemies how feeble their fortress walls are against the power of Agrad … against the power of To-gai!”
“I have your word?”
“Tell me when I may go and rest. I am growing weary of this adventure already.”
Brynn looked over to Juraviel, who wore a perplexed, but ultimately pleased, expression.
The air was still that night, crisp and clear and with a thousand stars twinkling above, but no moon shone over the desert sands. And so it was dark, and so none noticed that some of the stars seemed to wink out momentarily, briefly blocked by a moving line of blackness.
Alone astride Agradeleous, Brynn did not light her sword. Riding her engine of destruction, the woman glided down quietly toward the mighty fortress, repeatedly checking the leather straps she had secured about the dragon as a makeshift saddle.
“Straight and strong,” she whispered to the great wurm, though she doubted that he could hear her words against the rush of air.
The dragon folded back his wings and dropped like a gigantic spear toward the dark mound of the fortress. Just before impact, Agradeleous swooped back up, opening wide his great leathery wings and landing hard against the side of the fortress, his huge clawed feet digging deep footholds in the soft sandstone, shaking the castle so forcefully that waves rippled across the oasis pond fifty feet away.
Cries began immediately from within the place, and when Brynn lifted her sword and set it ablaze, her soldiers ringing the fortress took up great cheers and war shouts.
Brynn held on tight as the dragon went into a frenzy, his great tail smashing at the walls, his forelegs and great maw tearing at the stone. An arrow came out at him from one nearby slit, bouncing harmlessly off his scaly hide, and the dragon responded by putting his mouth against the slit and breathing a burst of great fire within.
How the howls inside increased!
But the resistance from within erupted suddenly, as well, with many arrows coming out, buzzing in the air about Agradeleous and Brynn, clipping off the dragon’s thick scales to poke and stick against his leathery wings. That only increased the dragon’s fury, and he leaped up from the side and dropped back down, again and again, shaking the whole of the place, weakening the integrity of the thick walls. His tail continued to smash hard, as well, and wherever he saw an opening, the dragon breathed his fire.
“The gate! The gate!” Brynn bade, for she had purposely brought Agradeleous in against the front side of the place, with a definite plan for opening it wide.
The dragon hopped a few more times, smashing and tearing, then finally seemed to hear the shouting woman. He snapped his snakelike neck, sending his maw hard into the soft stone just above the iron gate, and there he focused much of his wrath, burrowing through the soft stone, biting and gnashing until at last his teeth clamped on something more substantial.
With a great heave, Agradeleous retracted his head, pulling the slab of iron right through the soft stone, then snapping his head high and to the side, launching the great gate of Garou Castle far into the night, to splash into the oasis pond.
Agradeleous’ head snapped down even lower and he filled the castle entryway with his killing fire.
And then he thrashed some more, and a great slap of his tail at last toppled a portion of the wall, dropping great chunks of stone on the helpless defenders inside.
But the stubborn Behrenese kept up their rain of missiles, which now included great spears hurled from ballistae.
“Fly free!” Brynn ordered the dragon.
Agradeleous continued to thrash, snapping his head into the opening left by the toppled wall, grabbing one man up in his toothy maw.
Brynn winced, hearing the bones crunch under the weight of that terrible bite, and then the man was gone, just like that.
“Fly free!” she yelled again, and the dragon spun out and slammed his tail against the weakened wall once more, knocking a larger chunk free to topple inside. And then, to Brynn’s great relief, Agradeleous leaped away, his great wings beating the air to lift them far away in short order.
Brynn closed her eyes and allowed herself to breathe. The dragon had obeyed.
Then the woman opened her eyes and looked back to the battered castle, to see the opened gate area and the even larger gouge in the wall to the side. Smoke was rising from both openings, and from the roof as well, from fires no doubt begun by Agradeleous’ breath. Now, seeing Brynn’s sword held high as she and the dragon flew away, her army began its charge.
By the time Agradeleous set Brynn down beside the elves and Runtly, and she was able to ride her pony back to the oasis, the fighting was done, the fortress taken, and the few defenders left alive had been herded together in a small circle.
Brynn rode to that circle and dismounted. Then she walked about the terrified, overwhelmed Behrenese. “Supply them and send them on their way,” she told her warriors, and then to the prisoners, she instructed, “Go and tell your countrymen of the fate of Garou Oasis. Tell them of the Dragon of To-gai, of the fate that will befall them, all of them, unless the Chezru Chieftain declares To-gai free. There are no castle walls strong enough to defy me.”
And then she walked away.
/> Chapter 30
One Angry Cat, One Clever Mouse
“FROM ALZUTH?” the CHEZRU CHIEFTAIN ASKED, REFERRING TO THE NEXT CITY in line south of Pruda, and, to his thinking, the next city in line for the Dragon of To-gai. Only a couple of weeks before, Yakim Douan had heard of the fall of Pruda, and now, hearing that frantic men had arrived bearing news of another disaster, he expected that Alzuth had fallen.
His new attendant, a skinny and tall Shepherd named Took, shook his head slowly. “Garou Oasis, God-Voice,” he said quietly.
The others in the room, Yatols who had come in with reports of increasing pirate activity and other unsettling events, began to whisper nervously. The Chezru Chieftain motioned for them to remain calm, but his own expression showed that he, too, was a bit unsettled by the unexpected news. For Garou Oasis was not along the plateau line directly south of Pruda, as he had expected the Dragon of To-gai to run, but was farther inland, farther east, and along the southwestern road out of Jacintha.
Yakim Douan slumped back in his chair, his face tight with concentration.
“God-Voice, what does it mean?” Yatol De Hamman asked desperately. “Does the Dragon of To-gai intend to charge at Jacintha?”
Again, the Chezru Chieftain patted his hand reassuringly in the air. “Show the emissaries in,” he instructed Took, and the man bowed repeatedly, skittering for the door, and returned in a moment with three dirty men, one of whom, Doyugga Doy, Yakim Douan recognized as an ambassador from Garou.
“God-Voice,” Doyugga said, prostrating himself on the floor before the Chezru Chieftain. “I beseech you! She is mighty beyond words! Her horse can change into a great dragon, wielding fire as she wields fire! And the barbarians follow her without regard to their own lives! They are mad, God-Voice! Mad, I say!”
“The oasis was overrun?” Yakim Douan asked calmly.
“Crushed!” the man replied. “They swept in like a sandstorm. I think that they were sand, yes, magically transformed sand, sweeping in on fast winds. My master, Yatol embrace him, brought in all of the villagers, as many as our fortress could hold, but the Ru leader turned her horse into a dragon and smashed down our walls! And then her warriors flew in on the wind, as many as grains of sand!”
DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) Page 164
