City of the Lost l-1

by Mary H. Herbert

  “Lord Falaius!” Leonidas shouted over the raised voices of other messengers who were also trying to reach the new city commander to pass on messages of the utmost importance. He pushed through the crowd right up to the ring of armed Legionnaires and shouted again. “I bring word from Caphiathus!”

  His words reached Falaius, and with a gesture to his bodyguards, the commander waved the centaur into the circle.

  Linsha stayed where she was on the centaur’s warm back, and as they approached the big Plainsman, she wondered for the first time what her reception would be. She was an exiled Knight accused of murder, a representative of an order that was doing precious little to help. As far as she knew, only Lanther knew the details of her trial and escape, and Lanther was not there. She hadn’t had time to talk to Falaius.

  But she needn’t have worried. The Legion commander greeted her with a weary grin and welcomed both of them into the circle of officers.

  “Lady Linsha, you are not unexpected,” the Plainsman said. “Although you may wish you had stayed in the Citadel’s dungeon. You would probably be safer there.”

  She grimaced at the memory of the framework she had seen in the starlight. “No, sir, I’d probably be swinging on the gibbet by now. Lord Remmik wouldn’t let a small thing like a dragon distract him from his duty.”

  “Then where is he now?” one of the militia officers snapped. “Where are the Knights of Solamnia? Why won’t they come forth and help us?”

  “Lord Remmik probably feels he is doing his duty by staying in the castle.” Falaius replied. “He is keeping his beloved garrison safe.”

  An astute observation, Linsha thought, from a man who would find Sir Remmik’s way of thinking totally foreign. Falaius had been commander of the Legion cell in the Missing City since its founding, and while he worked hard to keep his members safe, not once had he considered sequestering them “safely” in a fortress. That was not the way of the Legion.

  She felt Leonidas shift from hoof to hoof and realized she had distracted the commander long enough. “Don’t be polite,” she told the centaur. “Tell him.”

  Falaius turned to the centaur. “Forgive me. What is the news from Caphiathus?”

  The young stallion stiffened to attention. “Several large troops have been seen approaching the city from the west. They are flying the colors of the blue dragon.”

  A sharp outburst of curses and exclamations broke from the officers around the commander, but while Falaius remained quiet, his weathered face sagged and seemed to grow more haggard.

  Then there was time for nothing more.

  The blue dragon Thunder appeared suddenly out of the smoke and ash and settled his great bulk in the space of the square. Screaming in terror, people tried to get out of his way but there was not much warning and not much space between the buildings. Several dozen men, women, and children were crushed beneath his great weight, and many more were brought down by the sweeping of his massive tail. Without warning he belched a great gout of lightning that burst like a fireball in the top of the ancient yew tree.

  The tree exploded, sending deadly splinters into the nearby warriors. What was left of the grand tree burst into flame.

  The blast blew Linsha off the centaur and sent the buckskin staggering backward. Something slammed into her, and once again Linsha found herself on her back, aching and breathless. She felt her heart drumming with the terror of the dragon, but stronger still was a frantic concern for Leonidas and Falaius. She forced open her eyes and saw the burning tree. Voices screamed and wailed around her.

  “People of the Missing City!” Thunder bellowed in his granite voice. “Surrender to me now, or I will unleash the fury of my armies!”

  A heavy weight pinned Linsha to the ground. She managed to raise her head in spite of the pain it cost her and saw a body in the uniform of the city watch facedown across her stomach and hips, effectively weighing her down. The head was turned away from her, so she could not see who it was, and something warm and wet seemed to be soaking into her clothes. She stirred to try to get him off her, but his body had the heavy, collapsed feel of a corpse. Tilting her head further, she looked at the dragon crouched over the bloody square, his hideous horned head weaving back and forth. She felt his gaze sweep the green, and she remembered the look in his eyes when he saw her for the first time on Iyesta’s back. She had an urgent desire not be seen by the monster. Her head dropped back to the grass, and she tried to press her body down into the earth beneath the dead man.

  “In the name of our Dragonlord Iyesta,” she heard Falaius shout, “we will never surrender this city to her murderer!”

  The commander’s voice rang rich and deep as a bell across the sounds of terror in the square. The dragon lifted his head. His wings rose and spread like a blue shroud.

  “You heard him, General,” Thunder said. “You may release your men.”

  Surprised, Linsha looked up again. She saw someone she hadn’t noticed before-a figure seated on the dragon’s back between the wings. A man, perhaps. His skin was blue and a mask of gold hid his features. He carried only a great round shield and a huge ram’s horn. A man. Thunder allowed a man to ride him. Linsha could hardly take in the significance.

  At the dragon’s words, the warrior lifted the horn to his lips and blew a great blast of sound that soared over the city. Twice he blew the horn, and at the end of the second blast Linsha heard a reply echoing from the bay.

  Thunder’s wings swept down and the dragon sprang into the smoke-poisoned air, carrying his passenger with him. He paid no more attention to the ruin in the square. Rising above the buildings, he angled eastward and flew over the harbor.

  “We’re in for it now,” Linsha muttered to the dead man on her hips.

  17

  Battle for the City

  As the dragonfear passed, a heavy silence settled on the square. Everyone who still lived drew a breath, then the quiet disappeared into a cacophony of screams, shouts, cries for help, and groans of the wounded.

  Falaius strode among the prostrate officers of his command and urged those who still lived to get to their feet. “War is coming!” he shouted. “Go to your posts!”

  (Most clambered to their feet and obeyed. Considering the force of the explosion that shattered the tree, (surprisingly few men were dead or too badly wounded to move. Linsha pulled her arm free and rolled the watchman’s body off her stomach. She found the source of the wetness on her tunic. A large splinter from the yew had impaled the man’s chest, and much of his life’s blood had leaked out of the massive hole.

  The smell of blood clogged Linsha’s nose. Dizzy and sick, she tore off her overtunic and laid it over the dead man’s face. Her linen shirt and pants were stained with blood as well, but unlike some barbarian races, she did not believe in running into battle naked. What she needed now was armor-chain mail, a breastplate, anything.

  A groan in a voice light and frightened hit her senses like a bucket of cold water. Leonidas!

  She found the centaur sprawled on the grass, his body pricked red by a dozen large splinters. He groaned again, more irritably this time, and struggled to an upright position.

  “Hold still,” Linsha ordered. Using her dagger and a deft hand, she removed the splinters from his side and withers while he pulled out a few out of his chest.

  His teeth clenched, he pulled out the last sliver of wood from his arm and tossed it aside. “I suppose I should be glad it was merely splinters and not the whole tree.”

  Linsha shot a glance at the dead man who had fallen on her. Before she could say anything, Falaius approached, his seamed face reddened with rage and iron determination. “Go back to the centaurs, Leonidas. Tell them what happened. Tell your uncle I will send reinforcements if I can. But he must hold out on his own for a while.”

  “Where do you want me?” Linsha asked.

  The Plainsman looked at her pale face and the blood spots on her tunic. “Are you wounded?”

  She shook her head then wi
shed she hadn’t. This was one headache that would not fade anytime soon. “The blood is someone else’s.”

  “Then if you are able to fight, I would be pleased to have you come with me. I could use an able lieutenant.”

  An expression of disappointment passed over Leonidas’s face, but he bowed to the commander and the Lady Knight. “Fight well,” he said to Linsha, “and we will celebrate our victory together in the streets of the city.”

  On impulse, she took his hand, pulled him down until she could reach his face, and kissed his cheek in both blessing and farewell.

  He bowed again, turned on his heels, and cantered away to the outskirts of the city. His light form quickly disappeared in the gloom of the smoke.

  Linsha went the opposite direction toward the harbor and the city gate. She followed Falaius and what men he could gather of both the Legion and the militia to reinforce the defenders already in place.

  Not far from the Mayor’s Hall they passed a burning tannery-one of the many fires Thunder had started. Instead of staying to fight it, Falaius called the firefighters off the site and told them to join his force.

  “Let it burn,” he ordered. “The smoke and flames will hamper the enemy as much as it hampers us.”

  At the Legion Gate in the city wall, Falaius climbed the guard tower with Linsha and two other officers to view what lay ahead. The sight shook them all to silence. In the thirty minutes or so it had taken the Legionnaires to regroup and reach the wall, the harbor had come alive with small dark boats. Like so many carrion beetles, the boats clustered around the larger ships, then made their way to the ruined docks and the beaches where they disgorged their cargo of armed warriors and returned to the ships for more. Already the first wave of invaders was marching into the storm-damaged streets of Mirage and meeting the first resistance, while the second wave disembarked and formed their ranks on the little crescent beach near the foot of the hill where the Citadel sat.

  “What are those?” a Legionnaire gasped.

  Falaius was quiet for a moment, then he spoke in a voice filled with dismay. “They are Brutes.”

  “Brutes!” another man cried. “They can’t be. I don’t see any Dark Knights. Don’t those things fight only for the Dark Knights?”

  “Apparently not.”

  Brutes, Linsha thought. The gods help us. The Brutes were known to the people of Ansalon as ferocious fighters who had fought as slaves or mercenaries for the Knights of Takhisis during the Chaos War. After the war and the decimation of the Knightly orders, the Brutes had faded into the background, showing up every once in a while as shock troops for a Dark Knight offensive or as mercenaries for a war lord with enough money to afford them. No one knew where they came from or who they really were, and never in anyone’s memory had so many Brutes arrived together to invade a city in Ansalon.

  “Did Thunder organize this?” Linsha said in amazement. She thought she knew the huge blue from Iyesta’s stories and from tales she heard from Thunder’s realm. Never would she have imagined that the hungry, malevolent, territorial blue would have the imagination, the audacity, the courage, and the funds to arrange, plan, and set in motion a massive invasion of Iyesta’s realm. Apparently, she’d been wrong. Not only had Thunder organized his own mercenary forces, he had also hired the Brutes, found a way to slay Iyesta, and devised a two-pronged attack that caught the city in a vise-like trap. She would never have believed it if she hadn’t seen the evidence landing on the beaches and setting fires to the few merchant ships trapped in the harbor. How in the name of the gods were they going to fight an enemy force this big? She scanned the sky over Mirage to find Thunder, but for the moment he was out of sight.

  “You might as well wait, Iyesta,” Linsha said to herself. “It appears we might be joining you soon.”

  If Falaius had similar thoughts or regrets, he did not show them. He left a detachment behind to strengthen the guard on the gates, then he led the remainder of his forces toward the Legion headquarters. They heard the sounds of battle even before they reached the white, stuccoed building that served as home to the Legion cell.

  Falaius moved into a jog, his fist clenched around the hilt of his great sword. He glanced down once at Linsha by his side and noticed for the first time she carried only a short sword and a rusty dagger. They were moving down a street parallel to the street in front the headquarters, and as the troop moved closer to the building, the commander jabbed his weapon toward the back door.

  “There are weapons and armor within,” he shouted to Linsha over the uproar of fighting in the streets ahead. “Get what you need. We will meet you around front.”

  From the shouts and clash of weapons, the battle was in the Legion’s front yard. Waving her thanks, Linsha dashed across the weedy yard behind the Legion house and barged in the back door.

  Someone nearly nailed her to the door. She heard the peculiar twang of a crossbow and felt a swish of air by her neck as a bolt slammed into the wood of the door. “Don’t do that!” she cried, her voice furious. “I’m with Falaius!”

  Distracted though she was by the battle out front, a part of her mind made note that for the second time in a few short days someone had just missed her with a crossbow. If only her luck would hold for the rest of the day!

  “Lady Linsha?” cried an incredulous voice. “What are you doing here?”

  “Just passing through,” she replied dryly. “I need weapons.”

  The Legionnaire with the crossbow was a young man who had recently arrived from Port Balifor. Linsha knew him only vaguely. He pointed to a door in the hallway behind him and without apology, he retrieved his bolt and began to crank his crossbow into firing position.

  Linsha hurried. Although most of the Legionnaires had already drawn their weapons and armor in preparation for the expected invasion, there was still enough left to give Linsha a choice. Swords of several lengths, axes, battle stars, helmets, shields, breastplates, greaves, crossbows, spears, lances, and heaps of chain mail lay in haphazard piles. She did not take the time to pick and choose. Her own armor, made and measured specially for her, lay in her room in the Citadel but might as well have been a thousand miles away. All she wanted was a corselet of chain mail, a shield, a better dagger, and a helmet. She found them all in less than two minutes, threw on the corselet and the helmet, and for good measure, stuck a battle star in her belt. The Knights of Solamnia had trained her well, and now she was as ready as she ever would be to face the enemy.

  From outside came the sounds of intense fighting. Those few Legionnaires still in the building dashed outside to join their commander. There wasn’t much sense staying to guard the interior of a building if the enemy was at your front door. Linsha swiftly followed across the covered porch and into the street crowded with fighting men and women and the towering forms of the attacking Brutes.

  While she was tall for a woman, most of these warriors stood at least seven feet tall, with long arms and a reach that far outstripped hers. As graceful as elves, they were also as muscular as humans, and they fought nearly naked to show off their powerful limbs. They painted their skin blue and plaited their long hair with feathers. For weapons they carried both a short sword and a long sword, and many of them scorned shields.

  The Legionnaires and Iyesta’s militia fought with everything they had. Teeth bared, their faces white with fear or red with rage, they hacked and slashed and punched. Sword to abdomen, shield to head, blade to throat, axe to knees. They thrust and danced away and came back roaring. They fought with the courage and tenacity of people defending their homes. The Brutes who faced them fought with equal ferocity. They were the invaders, the seekers of slaves, the plunderers, and the gods knew what else, and they fought with the fury of men who loved war.

  Although Linsha had been trained with every weapon available to the Knights of Solamnia, she was intelligent enough to realize that as a woman, she had certain disadvantages in a pitched battle against men. Those disadvantages became even more pronounced when
she faced the Brutes. In the first five minutes of vicious fighting, she realized she could not beat these blue barbarians sword to sword. She would have to use her agility, her superb balance, and her sense of timing. Dropping her cumbersome shield, she used her sword and battle star in a primitive dance of thrust and hack and stab. Weaving and swaying, she wove her way around her opponent’s swords until she could make a quick killing thrust and slide out of the way. It was a dangerous dance that left her trembling, pale, and gasping for air, but she fought on, keeping the big form of Falaius in the corner of her vision.

  Despite their courage the Legionnaires and the militia were falling back. The second wave of Brutes had arrived, and they swept through the waterfront and the roads closest to the water, overwhelming the roadblocks and pushing the defenders inexorably back toward the city wall. The Legion had to abandon its headquarters, and soon the entire street fell to the marauders. Refugees fled toward the inner city.

  Falaius had fought enough battles to know when to retreat. The streets of Mirage were swiftly filling with Brutes, and there was nowhere the outnumbered Legion and its allies could regroup. They would have to fall back on the city gates. He knew all too well that the wall itself was not a final defense. There were gaps in the ancient stonework and places on the north side of the city where entire sections of it had vanished over the centuries, but the gates were strong and the wall would give his fighters a chance to recover their breath.