by Dan Allen
It was beautiful, but its thick wood was not weighted for a woman’s draw.
With practiced speed, Enala placed the bow in a levered stand, pulled the lever to bend the bow and hooked the bowstring. She slung the quiver over her shoulder, lifted the strung bow, knocked an arrow, and drew until the string was even with her cheek.
“If they even touch him . . .” she whispered in a cool voice.
She loosed the arrow, completely missing the target twenty yards away and obliterating a scorpion moving across a tree ten yards past the target.
The prize bow and its quiver of ten arrows that had been in the locked case were the only weapons left at the range. Enala took the bow and the remaining nine arrows, all of which were tipped with red venom, and turned her thoughts to how she was going to get to the front lines.
The roads were packed with foot soldiers racing for the crossroads. Would she just run along with them and say she was just out for morning exercise with a quiver of venom-tipped arrows?
A summer dress wasn’t going to work either. If going to war was optional, looking perfect was not.
The armory was crammed with soldiers, but there were other ways to equip for battle.
Enala ran back past the weaver’s shop where she had regrettably resisted the temptation to snuggle in with Terith when he was helplessly exhausted after the steam explosion.
She was still bitter about that, especially after he had gone and chosen Lilleth—and he didn’t even have to! He was the only winner. He could have chosen her.
Enala knew she was more fun—and better looking. Hundred-to-one, she was a better kisser. Lilleth didn’t have the necessary creativity.
The fight wasn’t over, as far as Enala was concerned. So they had bonded—men bonded with their dragons to share their awakening. Big deal.
That thought suddenly caught Enala like a foot snare. Bonding . . . She started ahead again, quickly reaching her interim destination: the alcove, a theater depression with log seats facing a small stage. Under the backside of the stage was a crawl space used for storing props and ceremonial clothing.
Enala kicked the bolt free and stabbed the scorpion waiting behind the door with the end of her bow, and then hauled out a wooden box.
Tossing robes and ceremonial masks aside, Enala gathered whatever pieces of metal she could find. She exchanged her lavender dress that she had stolen from Lilleth for the kind of chain mail skirt men wore to cover the gap between their thigh plates. She wrapped the belt double round her slender waist to secure it and then donned a ceremonial bronze breastplate formed of two ornate crossing metal leaves. An ornate metal headband and shin braces finished her warrior queen ensemble.
The breastplate, except for its leather buckle, left her back bare, but she was an archer and didn’t need armor there anyway.
Now, for my ride.
Enala raced down to the keep. With the riders already gone to the front, it was virtually empty. Only a page kept watch on the few remaining dragons: yearlings, hatchlings, and dragons trained for pulling the sky chariot.
The sky chariot, of course, was too large for her to get in the air on her own. Besides, it took four trained dragons.
Enala spied Terith’s dragon-wing cloak hung on a peg near the entrance and made it a last minute addition to her outfit, besides its more practical value for keeping her warm on a night flight.
“First watch, supper! Food at Ferrin’s kitchens,” Enala called from her hiding place behind a stand of saddles.
At the sound of the voice, the page looked up, confused and hopeful.
“Get moving or you’ll get nothing,” she called again from the shadows.
The lad fell for it.
The page dashed out of the keep, his empty stomach leading the way.
Enala stepped out from behind the saddles and was greeted by a savage hiss. She nearly peed her chain mail skirt. Two young dral stared at her with their leafy, frilly faces loaded with teeth. On the opposite side of the cave, a clutch of yearling fruit dragons snapped their jaws and reared back in their cage, stretching their necks in a show of force to the intruder.
Enala shoved her face up against the bars of the nearest dral cage and hissed back at the dragon. The dragon snapped at her face, but she swatted its nose with the point of her bow and grabbed its neck spine when it flinched and then yanked its face against the bars.
Its great unblinking eye stared at her. She smiled and said in voice that left no room for doubt, “You’re coming with me.”
Enala breathed in, taking light and life and energy from everything in sight. The awakening closed on her as she unraveled the barriers in her mind. The dragons began to change color to her eyes. In the light of her awakening, their souls began to shine through their scales in brilliant yellows, greens, and oranges.
Enala called to her chosen dragon in song as she slid open the three locking pins on its cage. The other dragons curled up, slumbering as her song lifted them into ethereal bliss.
The stirrings it caused within Enala were a fortunate or unfortunate side effect. Every time she opened herself to the awakening, the desire to bond became stronger.
Open to her every thought and suggestion, the dral stepped out of the cave. As she closed the gate behind it, she sang a verse of submission and it knelt. She climbed on its unsaddled back, wrapped her arms around its neck, and closed her eyes.
Her last thought channeled through the awakening was Find the others. Exhausted and drained, she closed her eyes as the dral spread its wings and took to the air in three quick beats. She relished the connection to the dragon, the bond, but she had no control of its reins.
Montazi Realm. The Crossroads.
Arrows rained down around Terith, black darts streaking through the pre-dawn glow.
“Return volley,” Terith called. “Red arrows.”
The choice to use venom-tipped weapons this early in a fight was a desperate one. The arrows could be sent back by their foes and kill as many Montazi.
“Aim!” he ordered.
The squad of archers tucked in behind him drew their bowstrings.
“Loose!”
The deadly volley felled a group of barbarians headed for the bridge.
Voices across the narrow chasm shouted in the Outlander tongue. A veteran of ten summer campaigns, Terith recognized many of the deadlier phrases.
“Move!” Terith shouted. “They’ve marked us.”
From across the canyon a resounding boom shattered the air. The space Terith and the dozen archers had just vacated exploded in a tangle of torn branches and shredded leaves.
“Where is Werm with that catapult?” Terith muttered under his breath. The canyons at the crossroads were narrow, which was why the bridges were made of mortared stone rather than lighter rope and slat suspension. He couldn’t destroy them without the catapult.
To his left a dragon landed on an arched stone bridge only thirty yards long, taking a defensive position. It was one of the two dragons that had gone with Bergulo to guard Werm’s catapult on its hurried overnight trek down from Ferrin-tat.
He must be close.
The newly arrived dragon, topped by a rider in armor, lowered its head and breathed a gust of fire at the vanguard of warriors who surged at the beast, swords and pikes drawn.
Terith watched in horror as a thrown spear sank into the rider’s abdomen. His dark silhouette fell back, disappearing into the deep.
Undeterred, the strythe charged the remaining men, trampling two, leveling a handful with its tail, and upending one with its mounted head spike. The last of the warriors met its fangs.
A second boom sounded and the dragon disappeared in the smoke of the explosion, claimed by the deep.
So quickly they fall with none to replace them.
Terith rallied the archers. “Mark that b
ridge! Nobody gets across!”
The men dropped to one knee, nocked their arrows, and aimed at the warriors who braved the open bridge. Arrows sang out with twangs from the bowstrings as Terith searched the dim edge of the opposite canyon for the location of the Outlander’s cannon. A flurry of activity between two broadferns betrayed the location. But Terith was helpless to attack it. His dragons were all down. Many fell defending the approach to the crossroads, fighting to slow the raiders’ advance. The rest met with disaster as the surprisingly organized force thrust upon them all at once in the early morning. Bander had been one of the first to fall, caught in the deadly hail of arrows.
Terith kept his hope out for his unaccounted riders: Nema and Kyet. If one dragon could still get airborne . . .
In the gray morning light, a shadow moved overhead, coming from the west, behind him.
Terith looked skyward hopefully.
A lone dragon hovered high over the raiders. A heavy black stone dropped from its claws, accelerating to the ground. The crash of wood and the shatter of stone on iron sounded from the broad fern clutch where the cannon hid. It was an expert stone drop, handily disabling the cannon.
Terith couldn’t tell who had done it. He could scarcely make out the shape of the dragon in the dim light, let alone the rider.
It was large, and its wingbeat was typical of a fruit dragon. As arrows sailed upward to meet it, the dragon spiraled downward, taking cover in the canyon.
Expert, Terith noted. Only Nema could make that kind of maneuver.
Spared the onslaught of the cannon, Terith risked a jog along the canyon edge to the southeastern bridge.
“How goes it, Rindl?” he asked the lieutenant.
“We can hold until sunrise, I think,” he said. “My last three riders attacked the exposed flank and tipped their cannons into the deep.
“Excellent.”
“Before they fell,” Rindl added. “The volunteers are keeping the bridge clear with short spears and arrows.” He pointed to the dark edge of the megalith diagonal from their position. “Ferrin’s archers assault the flank. But they’ve sustained heavy damage. Guardians help us—this is all we have.”
“Can they hold the southern megalith?”
“They’ll need reinforcements before the morning is out,” Rindl stated. “How’s your fare?”
“The northeastern bridge is nearly taken,” Terith confessed. “I will make my last stand there if necessary. Keep your archers trained on your bridge. Flee if the megalith is taken. Get back to Ferrin-tat and lead the retreat into the highlands.”
“Yes, chief.” Rindl looked the champion in the eye and nodded a quiet acceptance of Terith’s veritable consignment of his own life.
Returning quickly toward the vulnerable bridge, Terith searched the skies again for the dragon he had seen. Then, at last, the sound of creaking wheels broke in Terith’s ears like angel song.
“Werm!” he cried, dashing ahead through the trees into a clearing as the catapult rolled to a stop and a gaggle of engineers and soldiers rushed to chock its wheels.
Mya was ready with the range-to-target information. “One hundred eighty-two point five,” she said, pointing to the southwest bridge. She turned and pointed south. “Two hundred ninety-six.”
Werm mumbled calculations from atop his rolling contraption.
“The north bridge,” Mya continued, “one ninety-four.”
“One ninety-four,” Werm repeated. “Load that second stone,” he ordered, gesturing the strongmen from Ferrin-tat to the pile of heavy rocks Terith’s men had gathered in the night.
“What about the northeast?” Werm asked.
“It’s blocked by trees,” Mya said nervously. “I can’t sound through to it.”
“I’ve paced it,” Terith volunteered. “It’s one-twenty or so.”
“It’ll have to do.”
“Loaded,” called the strongmen, checking the sway of the catapult while Werm bent to read the weight gauge. “Seven and two nocks—at one eight two.” He sat in the aiming chair and rolled a great wheel until the bridge was centered in his bore sight.
“Crank to eighteen notches, plus one mark,” Werm ordered as the men set to turning the winch.
“Wind speed?” Werm asked.
“Northerly, one mark,” answered a skinny soldier standing in front of a small wind flag.
Werm adjusted the great wheel back a degree.
“Eighteen mark one,” the solder reported.
Werm released the lever and the catapult heaved the massive boulder in a giant arc.
The three-hundred-pound stone traced a perfect parabola and smashed through the center of the south bridge, obliterating the keystones. The whole assembly vanished into shadow as the stones in the bridge peeled away from the foundations.
Werm heaved a visible sigh of relief as Montazi warriors nearby cheered.
“Keep it up,” Terith encouraged. “I’ll give you as much time as I can.”
A thin hope wavered on the horizon.
Terith drew his sword and prepared to summon his awakening. Bergulo joined him moments later, drawing his heavy sword and matching pace. He brimmed with light as well.
“Where’s your dragon?” Terith asked.
“I exhausted it avoiding archers on the return,” Bergulo said between breaths. “I’m not as light as I used to be. My mount fainted on the ascent and broke a wing a mile and half back. I raised that poor dragon and had to kill it myself.”
“I’m glad you made it,” Terith said as honestly as any phrase that ever crossed his lips.
The two warriors plunged headlong through the jungle-like forest toward the vulnerable northwest bridge.
“Yours?” Bergulo asked.
“Dead.”
“Well,” Bergulo said, catching the only glimmer of hope, “with the catapult we’ve got a chance to stop them. The pinch point is the bridge.”
Terith focused his courage, banishing all doubt. “We will have to hold them off.”
“What about the other riders?” Bergulo asked.
Terith shook his head. “Kyet had to land. He carried too much weight too far. He’s behind enemy lines. And Nema—he’s not back yet either.” Terith swallowed. “We don’t have any more dragons. I saw one, but . . .”
The keeper nodded grimly as they came to a stop behind the last cover brush. Around them, bodies of the archers lay riddled with arrows.
“Ready swords,” Terith ordered, as if speaking to a company of riders.
Bergulo hefted his enormous blade and raised his shield.
Terith drew his own saber, the short weapon of a rider. He lowered his visor and clutched his remaining knife with his shield arm. It was a poor replacement for the shield that went down with Bander, but a welcome one.
Ahead, Outlander warriors, hulking masses of tattooed flesh, charged onto the bridge following a giant of a man with a double-headed battle ax.
“Charge,” Terith ordered.
“Wait.” Mya burst out of the ferns nearby, pointing to the sky. “There’s another dragon.”
Terith paused on the verge of charging into the Outlander horde at odds of two against hundreds. Overhead a dragon came from the north—a bit off course to come from Ferrin-tat.
By the wing cadence, it seemed to be a dral.
“That’s not a rider,” he said instantly. “Look, it’s coming in directly over the front line—that’s suicide.”
“I recognize that dragon-wing cloak,” Bergulo said. “Who would have brought that into a fight? A load of trouble.”
Terith wondered if Tanna had managed to get on a dragon. Then he realized he had left his cloak in the keep at Ferrin-tat. Tanna was in Neutat, to the south.
“She did not!”
Mya cheered. “It’s Enala!”
A bevy
of arrows greeted the young dral as it labored over the treetops. It took a shot through its wing and screeched in protest. The dral pivoted and began to retreat west.
“Oh good, it’s leaving,” Bergulo said. Then the cloak fell.
“She jumped!” Terith gasped. He raced toward the falling wind sail cloak, praying Enala made it to the megalith, rather than the deep.
The bowed cloak filled with wind and sailed toward his position at a dangerous speed.
Terith sped ahead of the others, crashing ahead, chopping branches out of his path. He looked up and caught of a glimpse of armor and skin glinting in the sunlight before he was bowled over.
“Thank the Earth, you’re all right,” Enala said, from her position on top of Terith.
“Ow,” Terith said. “Enala, what are you doing?”
“Saving your life,” Enala said. She stood up. “Come on, get up.”
Terith, flattened, took another moment to get his breath.
Enala stood over him. She refolded the cape and tied it around her bare shoulders.
Terith’s eyes followed her toned legs in gleaming shin plates, past her chain mail skirt, to her shapely ceremonial bronze breastplate that seemed to offer both in equal measure. She had a strung bow over her shoulder. It was a magnificent weapon. But he could tell from the construction it would take more strength than Enala had to draw it.
He was wrong.
Enala hurried to pick up her scattered arrows.
“You call that battle armor?” Terith asked.
“What do you call it?” she said, smiling.
Trouble, Terith thought, pleased despite himself. He climbed to his feet as Bergulo and Mya reached them.
“Terith, they’re coming across!” Mya called.
“Enala, Mya stay out of this,” Terith said.
“Terith, wait!” Enala called out as he crashed ahead through the trees. “I have to talk to you.”
But Terith’s attention was elsewhere.
Outlanders had come onto the bridge and were already two-thirds of the way across, led by a man twice the size of Terith.
