Rune Master (Dragon Speaker Series Book 3)

by Devin Hanson

  It was with some surprise that Travis discovered the next wave of the Salian army was already forming up to march on the wall. The looks of contempt they gave Travis and the other retreating soldiers stung deeply. Travis felt unmanned by it. He had retreated in a panic and hadn’t even drawn his weapon! He hadn’t even got a good look at the defending forces. It didn’t help that he was only one of hundreds that had retreated.

  Still, he felt a surge of relief when it became apparent nobody expected him to turn around and march back to the wall again. At the moment, he wasn’t sure he could do it, physically speaking. He felt wrung out like he had spent all day in the hot sun doing heavy labor.

  Travis found a bit of ground by a stunted tree and sat down with a sigh. In the distance, he heard the cannon towers begin to cough out their rain of deadly hail once more. Already the third wave was forming up under the goading of the sergeants, but nobody looked in his direction so he was happy to just sit there and breathe.

  War, he decided, was not his cup of tea.

  Meria listened to the cannon and sipped from a water skin. In another minute or so the Salians would be back in range of the gate. It had been an hour since her first sortie behind the wardens. One hour and two more attacks. They had turned away the attempts of the Salians to take the gate, but not without a cost.

  The wardens had paid the heaviest price. In the last attack, the Salians had had a force of archers within the formation that rained arrows down upon the wardens before the alchemists could see what was happening and throw up shields to protect them. Four wardens had been killed outright and a dozen more wounded before they drove off the Salians once more. One of the alchemists, a man that Meria only knew by sight, had taken an arrow in the eye when he hadn’t raised his shield fast enough.

  It was sobering, seeing him carried away on a stretcher after they had retreated back through the gate. That, just have easily, could have been her. Intellectually she had known walking out that gate put her in danger, but it hadn’t been real before.

  The thunder of the cannons didn’t make her sick anymore. Every cannon shot reduced the number of people trying to kill her. Maybe not by very much, but every little bit counted.

  The wardens were forming up again and Meria put aside her water and rejoined her team.

  Jessa gave her a tired smile as they formed up on the wardens’ flank. “You want the attack position this time?”

  Meria shrugged. “Okay.”

  Beyond the gates, the horns called the charge and the cannon gave one last salvo before reaching their maximum depression.

  The gates swung open and Meria ran through on the heels of the wardens. It already seemed like routine to her. Jessa’s shield protected their flank while Otto covered them from above, leaving a narrow gap between where Meria could direct her alchemy.

  “Igan’anir!” she cried, and fire leapt in a streak from her outstretched hand. She was already shifting her focus, looking for the next target when something about the Saying made her turn back. None of the soldiers in the direct path of her Saying had been affected.

  “What?” she said.

  Something in her voice, or maybe the all-important awareness drilled into them during their brief training made Otto shift his shield to fully cover them just as a wash of flame jetted out from the Salian ranks and boiled over the overlapping shields.

  Meria was still trying to process what was happening when another tongue of fire burst through the warden formation.

  “Alchemists!” someone screamed.

  “Shield the wardens!” Meria cried and threw up her own shield.

  Jessa shifted her focus, widening her shield until it covered their flank and half the arc in front of the three alchemists. Otto followed Meria’s instruction and threw up a shield covering a portion of the wardens. For her part, Meria focused her shield on protecting them from incoming arrows.

  They were just in time. Lightning lanced out from the Salian forces, and this time, Meria picked out the alchemist dressed in robes amid the press of armored soldiers. Otto’s shield caught the lightning and redirected it into the ground. The other teams of alchemists were catching on as well, and more shields went up, covering the wardens as they started to retreat to the gate. The Salians had watched them sally out repeatedly and had concluded that the only way to break the defense was to attack with alchemists of their own.

  The presence of the alchemists among the Salian forces hit Meria like a blow. It was more than the threat of alchemical attack. Those were alchemists! And they had turned traitor, striking against the Academy that had taught them everything they knew. Some of them had been lured by the promise of unlimited power in the form of the secret Incantors, but others had turned traitor for nothing more than the promise of money.

  The syllables of the Saying were on Meria’s lips before she realized what she was doing. Jessa spared a glance at her, eyes wide, but nodded. Meria finished her Saying and Jessa dropped her shield just long enough to let the alchemy pass through before bringing it back up again.

  It was the Saying that Professor Milkin had used in defense of the Archives. In the gloom of the underground vaults and over the flagstone floor, the flames had been obvious. Out here, in the bright light of day, and over the broken ground thick with half-trampled grass, the flames surged toward the Salian lines invisibly.

  The alchemist in the Salian ranks never saw it coming. The rolling surge of flame came out of the grass and enveloped him before he had time to do anything more than gasp in surprise. In a spreading wedge behind the alchemist the flames rolled through the Salian soldiers.

  Finally, the flames burned through the vitae powering them and died out, but the damage had been done. Dozens of soldiers rolled about the ground screaming or desperately tried to put out fire that climbed up clothing. The alchemist that was the target of the Saying was dead. There were more alchemists with the Salians, though, and Meria had no choice but to retreat with the wardens.

  Fire and lightning danced against their shields as the defending alchemists covered the final steps through the gates. Arrows hummed through the air and splintered on shields and stone. Then the gates slammed closed and Meria let her shield drop.

  The usual tense hurry behind the gate was replaced by chaos. Liter-bearers were hurrying away the wounded wardens. Meria was breathing hard with adrenaline running sour through her veins. It seemed like only seconds had passed before the gate shuddered as an explosion roared outside.

  Meria shared a look with Jessa. She didn’t know what to do. Alain was nowhere to be found. She and the other alchemists could hold the gate once it was destroyed, but for how long? They didn’t have an infinite supply of vitae and even her scale couldn’t hold a shield that size for more than a few minutes.

  A warden shouted something in Maari, pointing toward the wall. Meria followed his finger and saw the top rungs of a ladder thump against the top of the wall. Wardens were running for the wall and climbing the stairs. The head of a Salian mercenary showed over the ladder for a brief second before an arrow took him in the eye and he fell back.

  The gate shuddered again under an impact and one of the timbers splintered. Smoke was rising from outside the wall. They had set fire to the gates.

  Then Alain was there, shouting to the alchemists to fall back across the courtyard. Meria followed his instructions, thankful to have some guidance. The wardens all seemed to know exactly what to do without being told, but Meria had no experience in this sort of thing. She hadn’t even read a book or heard someone telling war stories.

  A squad of city guards were rolling a wheeled cannon into position at the top of the courtyard and Alain gave them places to stand behind the cannon and to one side.

  “The gate won’t hold forever,” Alain said, shouting to be heard over the cries and clamor of the battle at the wall. “Your objective is to protect the cannon and make it as hard as possible for the soldiers coming through the gate.”

  “Then what?” Otto aske
d.

  “If the enemy takes the courtyard, fall back with the cannon if you can. Otherwise destroy it and retreat to the next barricade.”

  Meria nodded and Alain ran back across the courtyard toward the wall. He never made it. Another explosion made the ground jump beneath Meria’s feet and the gate shattered. The force of the explosion sent gate timbers and fragments of stone spinning into the courtyard. Reflexively, Meria threw up a shield covering her group. Peripherally she was aware that Otto or Jessa had raised a shield to cover the cannon. Alain was twenty yards from the gate when it was destroyed and he vanished in the storm of shattered wood and fire.

  For a few seconds the gate was clear, then a press of soldiers surged into the opening. Arrows rained down on them from the defenders and shattered against a shield held up by an alchemist somewhere in their midst.

  “Fire!” the crew chief on the cannon shouted, and a thunderous blast beat into Meria, leaving her ears ringing.

  From her position, Meria saw the cannonball arc away and slam into the knot of soldiers pressing through the gate. Instead of driving through them, the cannonball ricocheted away with a howl, leaving the soldiers unharmed. The shot had been deflected by an alchemist’s shield, and apparently had had no effect. But Meria was looking deeper into the ranks, searching out the alchemist holding the shield, so she saw what happened when the cannonball struck. The shot had been deflected, but that huge bolus of kinetic energy had to be transferred somewhere. Deep within the ranks of the Salians, a sudden spray of red marked the death of another alchemist.

  It was a lesson that had been drilled into Meria the last couple days. If you’re going to shield against a large kinetic force, anchor your shield within the earth around you. The downside of an anchored shield was that it was stationary. There was no way to move the shield when several tons of earth and rock were caught up inside it.

  “Strike now!” Meria cried.

  Both Otto and Jessa shouted out Sayings, and Meria dropped her shield long enough for the alchemy to pass through before raising it again. Without the enemy alchemist protecting the soldiers pouring through the chokepoint of the destroyed gate, the arrows and alchemy of the defenders went uncontested.

  Dozens of soldiers died. But for every one that was cut down while trying to pass through the gate, two more made it through. The wardens defending the walls were forced to retreat as Salians came at them from both sides. The cannon fired again, aiming straight across the courtyard and out through the gate. This time there was no alchemy to stop it, and the heavy cannonball ripped a corridor of death through the packed soldiers. Working with feverish haste, the cannon crew worked the charging wheel to prepare for the next shot.

  Meria called out her Sayings, protecting her friends and the cannon crew while Otto and Jessa directed their blasts of alchemy into the courtyard. It was impossible to hold against the seemingly endless flow of Salians, but they could make the invaders pay dearly for every foot of ground.

  Corvis Priah leaned against the rail of the Black Drake watching the battle unfold far below. The airship hung near the very rear of the Salian forces, ostensibly providing an escort for the Pride of Salia. King Delran wanted to watch the battle, but wasn’t about to put himself in danger.

  Through his spyglass, Corvis picked out the banners of his troops, noting with approval that they had yet to enter the city. It had been a clever plan of Edmund’s to put his forces in the rear of the first assault on the city. They routed, as had been expected, and General Forthist had left them to catch their breath, knowing they would be useless in trying to take the gate again. It was a little galling, knowing that his forces had been taken out of the combat rotation, but Corvis consoled himself with reminders that it had been intentional.

  The number of dead Salians was disturbing. Even their worst-case planning hadn’t prepared them for how difficult it was to take the gate. The combination of wardens and alchemists had proven to be more than a match for anything the Salians could come up with. Finally, Corvis had turned to Trent and his alchemists. If they couldn’t breach the walls and get the king off his floating fortress, the whole plan would have been for nothing.

  Directing a ground battle from an airship was an exercise in frustration. He could clearly see the formation of the enemy but had no way to communicate that to the forces on the ground. His only way of giving direction was to fly different colored pennants from the hull and hope someone on the ground was looking at them. So he had flown the pre-arranged signal for Trent to attack with his alchemists and hoped that his son would follow the direction.

  It had worked. With the aid of the rebel alchemists, the Salian forces had finally taken the gate, then the wall, and were now fighting in the streets. It was time for the Priah forces to join the fight once more. He called for the flags to change and watched as motion stirred through his forces. Those cursed cannon towers were still active, firing down on the Salians as they approached the city, but running his troops through their fire was a necessary sacrifice.

  His personal forces had orders to focus on taking the towers as a priority over securing the streets. If they couldn’t take the towers, then the king would never land. If the king never left the Pride, then he couldn’t be assassinated.

  Once the outer ring of towers was captured, the airship fleet could move in and destroy the rest. Then, with nothing left to challenge them in the air, they could hammer the ground forces of Andronath at will. Subjugating the city would be swift once that happened. The king would come down to dispense his justice upon those ‘responsible’ for the attacks in Galdaris. And a man with a crossbow would end the king’s life.

  It was a good plan and all the hard parts were complete. Corvis put the spyglass back to his eye and watched his troops approach the gate, weathering the cannon fire until they were under the shadow of the wall.

  Soon it would be time to land the Drake and lead his forces in person. He had to be a hero in this particular tale in order to win the hearts of the common folk, and you couldn’t be a hero from the safety of your airship.

  He patted a satchel hanging from a strap around his chest. It held a flare launcher and a collection of different-colored flares. Captain Bor had a very specific set of instructions, one for each of the different colors. Instructions that Corvis had shared with nobody else.

  War was a complicated business and you never knew who you might have to have killed.

  Chapter 26

  Trapped

  Iria was exhausted. Smoke curled through the air, smelling faintly of fragrant herbs. A chandler’s shop had been set alight the next street over. The building’s stone walls would contain the fire, but the wax would be burning merrily for days.

  Scented candle was not the only smell in the street, though it was by far the most pleasant. The rank cinnamon exhaust from the cannon permeated everything, layered on top of the scent of charred flesh and the sewer-reek of rent bowels.

  Iria had a bandage wrapped tight about a leg wound, a fortunately shallow cut that was more messy than anything else. It ached when she moved quickly, but it was a surface pain, not the deep, tearing agony of muscle damage. Her robes were torn in several places, and one sleeve was missing entirely, exposing the fine mail mesh she wore. Deep muscle bruises twinged in her side, the souvenirs of killing blows turned aside by the mail.

  For all her collection of injuries, she counted herself lucky. There were dead wardens scattered through the streets they had been forced to retreat from. Wardens were skilled fighters, but they were outnumbered at every turn.

  If it were not for the alchemists fighting with the wardens, the city would have fallen a long time ago.

  Iria leaned against a wall, fighting to catch her breath. For the moment, they were behind the defending lines. Once the defenders had lost control of the wall, the Salians had poured into the city in their hundreds. Rather than trying to hold the great expanse of the outer wall, the defenders had fallen back as planned.

  The few c
annons on ground carts in the city kept the long main streets clear of enemy soldiers, but they did nothing to stop the Salians from using the many side streets to advance.

  Andronath had been built in stages. Initially just a garrison fortress town on the top of the mountain, the city had developed in rings over the ages, with each ring being protected in its turn by a new wall. If you didn’t count the Academy, there were three walls that ran in rings about the mountain. The integrity of the inner walls had been degraded by thoroughfares punched through the stonework, but the majority of their length was still intact.

  The defenders had abandoned the outer wall and had fallen back to the first of the inner walls where the mountain started rising in earnest. After the first inner wall, there were no more straight streets where the cannon could be put to good use, so the defenders were making the most of the weapons while they still could.

  Iria and her spear of five wardens had just made good their retreat behind the first inner wall. Barricades had been rolled into place, blocking the gap in the wall, and archers were hidden in the nearby buildings, ready to punish any Salians who tried climbing the barricade.

  The gaps in the wall might be the easiest routes into the next layer of Andronath, but they weren’t the only ways. Eventually the Salians would get the ladders they had used on the outer wall, or put makeshift ones together, and then there would be enemy soldiers among the defenders once more.

  Iria’s current job was to make that take as long as possible. She could have retreated to the command post at the Academy. In fact, one could argue that was where she was supposed to be. But she had created the duties of the Speaker’s Spear specifically so she could do what she wanted without being forced into a role by others’ expectations. Right now, she wanted to test herself against the Salian soldiers some more and keep them from advancing up the mountain too quickly.