Kelemar took up his helm, fixed it in place and drew his longsword. He held the blade up to the obscured sun.
‘For Asuryan, Ulthuan and Tor Caled,’ he said, his voice steady. All around him his retinue did the same, raising their blades through the murk.
He turned to Liandra, a resigned expression on his face.
‘I’ll take my place at the gatehouse now,’ he said. As he spoke the stonework around him trembled – the front rank of dwarfs had made it to the foundations. ‘You have all you need?’
Liandra raised her staff, the one she’d been given after her rescue from the Blight. ‘It will do.’
‘Then Isha be with you, lady.’
Liandra inclined her head. The first shouts and screams of combat drifted over from the walls.
‘And with you, lord.’
As Kelemar left she turned, raised her staff, and kindled the first stirrings of aethyr-fire along its length. Ahead of her rose a sheer wall of rage, a heat-drenched surge of focused violence, repeated in rank after rank of implacable dawi warriors, all now surging towards the walls like jackals crowding a carcass.
She ignored the tight kernel of fear in her breast, ignored the avian scream of the griffons as they swooped into the fray, ignored the murmured spells of the mages around her, and prepared her first summoning.
It was about survival now.
‘For Ulthuan!’ she cried aloud, and her staff blazed with light.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Imladrik rode east. Below him the forest passed in a smear of speed. The endless trees looked like waves on the ocean, infinite and without permanent form, a swathe of dirty grey-green under a cloud-pocked sky.
Draukhain had sung little since their departure from Tor Alessi. The dragon seemed in contemplative mood.
So you will leave, then? the creature sang eventually.
I need more troops, I need more dragon riders. Only the King can grant me those.
He will not do so willingly.
No, he doesn’t grant anything willingly.
In the far distance the mountains rose up, their vast peaks little more than claw-shaped marks on the edge of the world. Draukhain exhaled a gobbet of black smoke from his nostrils. He was flying fast, though comfortably within his capability.
You know, of course, that Ulthuan is in the west? he sang, sounding amused with himself.
Imladrik sighed. Like everything he had done since arriving in Elthin Arvan, his current course felt far from wise. It was driven by necessity, though; by loyalty, and by a hope he hardly dared entertain.
Oeragor is my city. I should have gone there at the start of this.
What can you do there now? Too far to help.
Not for you, great one. Imladrik peered ahead of him, as if he could see out across the Arluii and into the great Blight, the semi-desert that separated the temperate northern lands from the lush and mysterious south. It should be abandoned, its people escorted to the coast. I will oversee this, then go to Ulthuan. To Tor Vael, then to Lothern. The arguments will begin again.
Draukhain’s head dipped, his shoulders powering smoothly. The ivory-skinned wings worked harder, scything through the air.
Always arguments with you.
So it seems. Imladrik shook his head. I need to breathe the air of the Dragonspine again, if only for a short time. I need to think.
Draukhain discharged a growling fireball in approval. Good. Good. I will breathe it with you.
Imladrik watched the forest slide underneath him, mile after mile of featureless foliage. The dream of taming it, of turning it into a fragranced land of beauty, now seemed worse than foolish.
This has nothing to do with the fire-child, then? asked Draukhain, impishly.
Nothing.
You mean that?
Imladrik did not reply. It was impossible to lie, almost impossible to dissemble. In truth he didn’t know what he would do if Liandra were still alive. The reports of a druchii abomination might have been true, they might have been false. He had tried to persuade himself, and Caradryel, that he didn’t care and that his first duty was now to the war, but the arguments were weak. Possibilities wore away at him, eating into what little sleep he could muster.
This flight was a final act of duty, a last display of responsibility before the war would consume him utterly. Yethanial had been right – Elthin Arvan made his moods dark, however hard he tried to counteract it. Once Oeragor was evacuated he would return west, rebuilding the bridges he had let fall into ruins. Thoriol, Yethanial, Menlaeth – they were the souls he needed to cleave to. They were his blood-ties, the ones whose faces he saw in his dreams.
This will be the last ride to Oeragor, he sang, remembering how much labour it had been to create and how many plans he had once had for it. It had been years since he had even seen it. Let us try to enjoy it.
The gates buckled, struck from the outside by the first kick of the ram.
Kelemar, waiting with his knights in the inner courtyard, steeled himself.
‘Stand fast!’ he cried, watching the wood tremble and splinter.
Above him on either side the walls rang with the clang and crack of combat. Ladders were already appearing on the ramparts, each one thrown up by iron-clad dawi gauntlets. Rocks sailed high over the parapets, crashing into the towers beyond and sending rubble cascading down to the streets.
The ram thudded into the gates again, bending the bracing-
beams inwards with a dull boom.
Kelemar tensed, ready for movement. His best infantry stood around him, all ready for the charge. They would have to meet the dawi at speed, trusting to the charge to repel them. Once the dwarfs were inside the battle was lost.
On either flank of the courtyard stood two rows of archers, bows already bent. In the centre stood the swordsmen. All held position, hearts beating hard, waiting for the inevitable crack of timber.
The third impact broke the braces, sending tremors running along the stone lintel and shivering the doors. Dust spilled out of the cracks in ghostly spirals. The roar of aggression from the far side grew in volume – a hoarse, guttural chant of detestation.
‘On my command,’ warned Kelemar, seeing the nervous twitches of those around him.
The battering ram crashed into the gates a fourth time, smashing through the centre and slamming the ruined doors back on their tortured hinges. Broken spars tumbled clear, rolling across the stone flags like felled tree trunks.
‘Let fly!’ cried Kelemar.
The archers sent a volley out at waist height. The arrows spun through the debris, finding their marks with wet thunks. Some dwarfs made it through, stumbling into the open over the broken timbers; many more were hurled back, throats and chests impaled.
‘For Ulthuan!’ roared Kelemar, charging at the breach.
His troops echoed the shout, sweeping alongside him in a close wave of steel. Kelemar made the ruined doors and swung his blade into the reeling face of a dwarf warrior, already hampered by an arrow sticking from his ribs. The sword bit deep, angled between helm and gorget, spraying blood out in a thick whip-line of crimson.
More dwarfs clambered through the ruins bearing axes, mauls, hammers. They pushed the yard-long splinters aside, backed up by the brazen blare of war-horns.
Kelemar barrelled into one of them, kicking him backwards before plunging his blade point-forwards into his stomach. The dwarf’s armour deflected the blade, sending it pranging away, and Kelemar nearly stumbled. He caught a cruel-edged maul swinging low at his legs and just managed to twist clear. One of his own knights then cracked a blow across the maul-bearer’s face-plate, throwing him on his back where he was finished off by a third.
The melee sprawled onward across the ruined gates, a desperate pack of grappling, thrusting and stabbing. The elves gained the initiative, and their charge carried them
under the shadow of the gatehouse. Helped by the steady torrent of arrows from the walls, they pushed the dwarf vanguard back out into the sunlight.
Kelemar drove onward, nearly decapitating a dwarf with a vicious backhand strike. Swords whirled on either side of him, spun and thrust with disciplined speed. The counter-attack pressed out further. More dwarfs piled into the breach, charging out of the dust like iron ghosts.
They seemed to fear nothing. They didn’t move as fast as his own fighters and their reach was far less, but every blow was struck with a heavy, spiteful intent. Kelemar saw his troops begin to take damage – bones smashed, armour dented, swords shattered.
‘Hold here!’ he bellowed, hoping they could drive the dawi back far enough for the engineers to erect some kind of barricade across the shattered doorway. He pivoted expertly, using his bodyweight to propel his blade across the chest of another dwarf, biting clean through the chainmail and into flesh beneath.
It was only then that his gaze alighted on the dwarf beyond. This one was taller than the others; broader, too. His armour was all-encompassing, lined with gold and covered in blood and dust. He strode into battle with a dour, heavy tread, a huge axe gripped two-handed. He didn’t roar his contempt like the others; he just waded silently through the throng around him, striking out with chill deliberation.
Kelemar rushed to engage him, seeing he was the linchpin and knowing he needed to buy more time. He closed in, throwing a wild swipe across the dwarf’s right pauldron.
The dwarf met the strike with his axe and the two weapons rang together, resounding like bells as the metal bit. Kelemar’s arms recoiled; it was like hitting an anvil.
The dwarf counter-swung, aiming for Kelemar’s midriff. Kelemar got his sword in the way – just. He staggered backwards, aware out of the corner of his eye that his troops were beginning to take a similar beating.
The counter-charge was faltering. Kelemar pressed forward, whirling his blade around to where it could be slid into the dwarf’s gorget. The manoeuvre was done well, as quickly as he had ever done it.
It was too slow, though, and too weak. The dwarf thrust his body into the blow, hurling his axe-head savagely upwards. Kelemar’s blade was ripped from his grasp by the viciousness of the dwarf’s strike.
Bereft of options, Kelemar grabbed a dagger from his belt, aiming for the dwarf helm’s narrow eye-slit. By then the axe-head was already sweeping back, careering through the air two-handed. Kelemar didn’t even feel pain as the edge cut deep into his chest; only seconds later, as his innards spilled out across the dust, did the raw agony bloom up within.
Kelemar fell, coughing blood, eyes staring sightlessly at the dark runes on the dwarf’s axe-blade. If he’d had any self-awareness left he might have consoled himself that to fall to such a master-crafted blade was no shame; he had stood no chance, not against a weapon forged to take down the mightiest of living beasts.
His head cracked against the hard ground, just as those around him fell to the remorseless advance of the dawi vanguard. He didn’t see the ladders finally find their purchase on the ramparts above, nor the last of the gate-doors kicked aside, nor the first rank of knights beaten back into the breach.
For a while the dwarf who had slain him stood over the corpse, as if ruminating on the kill. His axe dripped with blood, his breastplate and gauntlets ran thickly with it.
Then Morgrim Bargrum lifted his head, pointed Azdrakghar through the ravaged gatehouse, and broke into his stride once more.
‘Khazuk!’ he roared, at last joining in the wall of noise created by his war-hungry warriors. ‘Khazuk!’
Liandra hurled another flurry of star-bolts into the advancing knot of dwarfs before retreating further up the stairway. The front rank collapsed in a burst of crimson fire, their armour cracking and splitting. Dwarfs tumbled down the steep incline before toppling over the stone balustrade and down to the dust below.
More quickly arrived to replace them. Uttering grim dirges to their ancestor gods, the dawi advanced remorselessly. They stomped their way up the stairs, helm-shaded eyes burning with fury.
Liandra fell back again, already summoning up more aethyr-fire. Her palms were raw, her breathing ragged. The watchtower she’d been aiming for loomed up at the summit of the open stairway. Ahead of her, past the square at the stairs’ base, was a scene of pure destruction. She could see dwarfs crawling all over the city’s multi-layered thorough-fares and bridges, slaying at will, driving the remaining defenders back into whatever squalid last stands they might be able to muster.
The battle for the walls had been a nightmare – a doomed attempt to hold back whole battalions of implacable attackers. They had clambered over every obstacle, destroyed every barricade, surged up a hundred ladders and demolished entire stretches of wall with their damned stonebreakers.
She had no idea where the other mages were. She’d seen one of them dragged down into the rubble after a wall-collapse, his screams lingering thinly before being suddenly cut off. After the gatehouse had been taken the order had come to abandon the outer perimeter and fall back towards the central tower, but the retreat had been anything but orderly. Blood was everywhere, splattered against the hot stone like a gruesome mural.
Somehow Liandra had made it to the centre of the city, fighting the whole way with her ever-diminishing band of defenders. The Caledorians with her had fought well but they were hopelessly outnumbered. The watchtower was her last refuge – a squat, four-sided building at the summit of the wide stairway, still occupied by archers and with the emblem of Tor Caled hanging limply from the flagpole.
She retreated further up towards the doorway, now less than twenty feet away, her robes ripped and her staff spitting sparks.
Closer to hand, the dawi clustered once more at the base of the stair, ready to pile upwards towards the tower. Liandra slammed her staff on the ground before her.
‘Namale ta celemion!’ she cried, angling the staff-point and dragging more aethyr-energy from the sluggish winds of magic.
A nest of crimson serpents crackled into life, spinning from the tip of her staff and flailing outwards. Liandra swung the staff around twice before hurling the writhing collection down at the dawi labouring up the stairs.
The snakes scattered across the foremost, clamping on to the joints of their armour and burrowing down like leeches. They snapped and slithered as if alive, their unnatural skins blazing with arcane matter.
Liandra didn’t wait to see if that would halt them – she knew it wouldn’t for long – but turned and scampered up the last few steps. A few dozen guards held the doors open for her.
She slipped inside, heart thudding, feeling the trickle of blood running down her forearm.
‘Brace it,’ she ordered curtly. Soldiers around her hefted the heavy wooden bars into place.
She pressed on, running up more stairs, a tight-wound spiral that ran up the interior of the watchtower. As she went she passed rooms with archers crouched at the narrow windows. They looked low on arrows, and some were already turning to their knives.
At the top level she joined a disconsolate band of swordsmen, all of them streaked with grime and gore, their robes dishevelled and armour cracked.
‘Who’s in command here?’ Liandra asked, limping over to the outer parapet.
Several of them looked at one another for a moment, as if the idea of ‘command’ belonged to a different age, before the tallest of them replied, ‘You are, lady.’
Liandra smiled humourlessly, and peered through the nearest embrasure.
Dust and smoke rose up from the corpse of Oeragor. The gatehouse was now a gaping scar through which marched an endless stream of dwarf warriors. A few islands of resistance remained – clusters of asur defenders holed up in towers or rooftop terraces.
Even as she watched, a griffon-rider swooped on an advancing column of axe-carriers. The huge beast crashed among
them, lashing out with claw and beak. Its wings beat ferociously, sending dozens of dwarfs staggering backwards. For a while its lone assault chewed through the oncoming warriors, crushing those within its grasp, flattening others rushing to help. Eerie shrieks of anger rose up above the howl and holler of the battle, a single voice of defiance amid the wreckage of the city.
Then, slowly, the volume of warriors around it began to tell. Liandra watched axe-wielders crawl closer, one by one getting within swing-range. The griffon managed to slay half a dozen more before the blades began to bite. It tried to pounce back into the air but crossbow bolts suddenly scythed out from the shadows. More dwarfs appeared, drawn by the shouts of combat. The griffon was dragged back to earth, its rider seized from the saddle and buried beneath a riot of fists, axe-handles and cutting blades.
Liandra looked away. The screams of the dying creature were hard to listen to, and they went on for a long time. It might have been the last of them. The griffons had accounted for many of the dwarf dead, but it hadn’t been nearly enough.
‘What are your orders, lady?’ asked one of the swordsmen by her side.
Liandra screwed her eyes up against the glare and peered out beyond the walls. Most of the dwarfs’ war engines were still out on the plain and guarded by phalanxes of infantry. Almost none had loosed their deadly, steel-tipped bolts. The chassis of the bolt throwers were angled steeply, pointing directly skyward.
‘Why so cautious?’ she murmured.
She turned to the swordsman. His youthful face was badly bruised, with a purple swelling under a cut eye.
‘Give me a moment,’ she told him. ‘My power will return. I will stand alongside you.’
From below, she heard the first booms as the doors took the strain. She grimaced; the dawi would be inside soon, and that would be an end to it.
‘When they come, you will all do your duty,’ she said, sweeping her gaze across the chamber and fixing each swordsman in the eye. ‘Stand your ground, do not shame our people by giving in to fear.’
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