Knightswrath (The Dragonkin Trilogy Book 2)

by Michael Meyerhofer

  The thought sent a chill down Rowen’s spine. “Are they invading the Wytchforest?”

  “Not yet. Most Olgrym have no grasp of strategy, but this new leader, Doomsayer, is different. He knows better than to let us attack his flanks and rear. He’ll have to wipe out the Shal’tiar and the Wyldkin before he can make for the World Tree.” Briel turned, staring into the night. “There are six Wyldkin strongholds between here and Godsfall.”

  “How many are the Olgrym attacking?”

  “All of them.” Briel pointed.

  Rowen squinted and saw a plume of fire on the distant, dark horizon. He detected the faint din of far-off battle. “Where is your captain?”

  “Hopefully, helping General Seravin plan a counterattack. Or else he was caught behind the lines when the Olgrym advanced.”

  “Have you sent men to aid him?”

  “Worry about yourself, Human. If any warrior could cut his way free of that”—Briel pointed at the horizon—“it’s Captain Essidel.”

  Still, a trace of fear lanced the Sylv’s voice. “Want me to wake Silwren?”

  Briel’s tone hardened. “Why in the Light would I want that?”

  “Because her magic makes her more dangerous than your twenty best archers. If you’re under attack, you might need her.”

  “Oh, I think we’ll manage.”

  “I don’t like the Olgrym any more than you do. Return my blade, and I’ll fight beside you.”

  “I cannot command a garrison while worrying that you’ll betray us the moment our backs are turned.” Briel gestured to two Shal’tiar fighters. “Take him back to his lodgings and keep him there.”

  “You just said you can’t spare the men. Forget it. I’m staying.”

  To Rowen’s surprise, Briel smirked. He waved back the guards. “How good are you with a bow?”

  “As good as any man here,” Rowen lied.

  Briel laughed. “I doubt that. But we’ll see.” He pointed at a nearby weapons rack. Some of the longbows were ornately carved and strangely curved, but Rowen selected a smooth, plain one, along with a quiver of arrows.

  He tested the string. This Sylvan longbow had even greater draw weight than he was used to. He marveled that the lean Sylvs could use such heavy weapons. He figured he had the strength to draw one, but his aim would be shaky at best. Still, it was something.

  Briel pointed. “Stand there. And if you so much as turn sideways with an arrow on your string, I’ll cut your throat. Are we understood?”

  Rowen nodded. He took up his position and looked out over the battlements, into the night beyond. “I don’t see the Olgrym. Are you sure—”

  “You will.”

  Rowen felt the Sylvs scrutinizing him as he drew an arrow and fit it to his borrowed longbow. Poison glistened on the arrow’s tip, though he doubted any poison in the world could bring down an Olg. He hoped that, at the very least, the Sylvs would not notice how badly his hands were shaking.

  Seems I have a knack for finding myself at the heart of sieges. He remembered the Battle of Lyos, which he had not expected to survive. Then, though, Silwren and El’rash’lin had been at his side, not to mention a whole company of Isle Knights, the men of the Red Watch, and a militia made up of gang members and citizens of the Dark Quarter. Right then, he was surrounded by Sylvs who most likely still considered him an enemy.

  He thought of laying down his bow and fetching Silwren himself. But aside from Briel’s mistrust, her display at the gates of Que’ahl had clearly drained her, drawing her perilously close to losing control and burning them all to cinders. Better they call upon her magic only as a last resort.

  The Sylvs had lit beacon fires all over the plains, well beyond Que’ahl’s walls, so that the yellow-orange flicker would illuminate advancing forces. Even without the fires, though, only the deaf could have failed to hear the approach of the dark-eyed, gray-skinned giants.

  They marched like madmen out of the night, row upon row, their approach heralded by guttural shouts and cruel, challenging laughter. Once in view of the stronghold, still a few hundred yards away, they spread out. They seemed to fill the whole of the darkened plains. Rowen thought of how terrified he had been when, as a mercenary, he had seen just two or three Olgrym at a time. Those few had slaughtered thrice their number in battle. He tried to count the hulking figures advancing across the Ash’bana Plains, then he gave up.

  Que’ahl had nowhere near the number of defenders it needed. Still, we’re fortified behind high walls. There are trenches and three palisades down there. We have bows. Even if our numbers are the same, we should beat them with ease.

  Then the Olgrym stopped. They formed a broad phalanx just beyond longbow range. Some of the Olgrym wore crude armor or furs, but most were naked. All were gruesomely painted for war. In addition to blades, spears, and axes, many carried boulders. These they wielded with ease, often using only one arm, though Rowen guessed that it would take half a dozen Humans or Sylvs to lift even the smallest of the Olgrym’s stones. The Olgrym quieted for a moment, as though bracing themselves.

  No matter. They’re like wild boars. A few arrows and—

  The Olgrym roared in unison. The din they had made before was nothing compared to the new noise. The beasts’ voices tore across the grasslands like an avalanche. Rowen felt faint, though he took solace in the fact that many of the Sylvs—who had likely been fighting the Olgrym all their lives—betrayed signs of similar strain in their otherwise-grim expressions.

  Briel’s voice somehow carried over the Olgrym’s roars. Rowen momentarily forgot he knew some of the Sylvan language, but he remembered in time to catch one word: courage.

  Easier said than done. He wished again that he had Knightswrath or knew at least where the Sylvs had locked it up. The familiar feel of the dragonbone hilt would be as comforting to him as the implacable sharpness of its blade would have been, especially if the Olgrym began scaling the walls and got close enough to render a longbow useless.

  But they can’t scale the walls without ladders. Rowen squinted, studying the fire-lit figures in the distance. He searched for the dark shape of ladders, or even a few Olgrym toting grappling hooks fixed with rope, but he saw neither. He felt a surge of hope. “Briel, they have no ladders. Do you see? They’ll have to try and hack through with axes. Even they can’t do that!”

  The Shal’tiar officer did not acknowledge his cry, though the other Sylvs around him sent him a few condescending looks. A moment later, he saw why. At least fifty Olgrym had moved ahead of the rest and stood shoulder to shoulder, tauntingly close to longbow range. All were naked and unarmed, save for what looked like gigantic wineskins. They roared in unison and upended the wineskins over their own bodies. Dark liquid poured out. They stood a moment, arms raised, then tossed aside the wineskins.

  Rowen frowned. “What?”

  More Olgrym came forward with torches. They raised the torches toward the dark sky, lowered them, and touched the torches to their comrades. The Olgrym burst into flames.

  “By the Light!”

  Those fifty-odd Olgrym roared again—the horrible cry rang with as much desire as pain—and sprinted toward Que’ahl.

  The Sylvs had already fired once before Rowen remembered the longbow in his hands. He raised it, drew back the bowstring, and let it go. He could not track his own arrow’s flight in the darkness, but he sensed at once that he’d missed.

  The Sylvs were better. Arrows struck all the charging, burning Olgrym, though amazingly, only two toppled to the grasslands. The rest charged on, crazed, faster than Rowen would have thought possible. Then barely fifty yards separated them.

  Rowen realized that Briel was calmly giving orders. All around him, the Sylvs were a blur, firing a second, a third, then a fourth volley while Rowen was still fumbling with his second arrow.

  Rowen felt his heart in his throat as he chose a target and loosed his arrow. He knew he had not missed, though he could not be sure if it was his arrow or any one of a dozen others that
sent the howling, burning warrior headfirst onto the grasslands. Rowen reached for another arrow.

  A fourth of the burning Olgrym had been shot down, but the rest hurled themselves onward, some with a dozen arrows in their bodies. Some vanished into trenches and traps, only to claw their way out moments later, but others leapt clean over them. They were almost to the palisades.

  That will slow them down. It has to.

  He fired again and fumbled for another arrow from his quiver, just as the Olgrym reached the wooden stakes. He saw with relief that some of the Olgrym had rushed blindly forward and impaled themselves. He dared to hope that the rest would follow suit, if only to cut short the pain of burning to death. But most of the Olgrym managed to climb and claw their way past the earthwork defenses.

  They flowed through the trenches and barreled past the second and third palisades, leaving more burning dead behind. But not enough. Only a few yards still separated them from Que’ahl’s gates, which were right below him. Without intending to, he’d placed himself exactly where the fighting would be fiercest. The smell of burning flesh soared up into Rowen’s nostrils. He winced, his eyes watering, and loosed another arrow.

  Another furious twang resounded from the longbows of Shal’tiar and Wyldkin. A knot of arrows met the Olgrym’s advance. Steely tips sliced organs and severed tendons. Six more Olgrym fell, burning and twitching on the grasslands. But the rest, shielded by those dying in front of them, sprinted the final few feet and flung their burning bodies at Que’ahl’s gates.

  Rowen heard and felt the stout beams shudder. They’re going to force the gates open. They’re going to burn them and force them open.

  But Briel was already shouting a new set of orders. A squad of Sylvs upended fat cauldrons, pouring sand through a series of murder holes located directly above the gates. The sand spread over the burning Olgrym, suffocating the flames. Then the Sylvs sent a final volley through the murder holes, carpeting the area before Que’ahl’s gates with arrows, killing anything left alive.

  Rowen shook his head in disbelief. He leaned over the wooden battlements to get a better look at the tangled, bloody mess. His stomach lurched. “All that death, and they barely even singed the gates.”

  The archer next to him, a Wyldkin woman with feathers in her braided hair, gave him a sour look. Her grave expression belied the melodic beauty of her accent. “Wrong.” She pointed.

  Rowen’s heart jumped into his throat again. The whole time they had been concentrating on bringing down the burning Olgrym, the rest of the host had been charging about fifty yards behind them. They had already reached the palisades and were either clambering over them or using gigantic axes to hack down the wooden stakes. The sound of splintering wood mingled with their guttural shouts.

  Rowen stared. The Wyldkin woman loosed an arrow then kicked him. She shouted in the Sylvan tongue for him to wake up.

  Rowen fumbled for another arrow. The Olgrym were so close that he hardly needed to aim. He could see their cold eyes, their gray skin stretched taut over bulging muscles and occasional protrusions of bone.

  Then he saw the rocks. Those Olgrym who had armed themselves with boulders were heaving them over the stronghold’s walls with the force of catapults. Rowen heard an awful, ominous crack to his right. He turned to see a guard tower struck by a flurry of boulders. The tower was crowded with archers. Some of the Sylvs managed to leap clear, but others burst in grisly showers of blood under the weight of the jagged rocks.

  Rowen stomach lurched. He chose his target and fired again, putting an arrow three hands deep in an Olg’s shoulder. The Olg paused to break off the exposed shaft and glance up. For one moment, their eyes met. Rowen had the awful impression that the Olg was memorizing his face. Then the Olg hefted his axe and hurtled forward. Rowen lost sight of him, but he could hear the sound of the beast’s axe rending wood.

  Gods, they’re chopping their way inside! He nocked another arrow, but by then, all the Olgrym still alive had pressed themselves to the stronghold’s walls and were tearing at the wood with their weapons. The floor quaked, and a few Wyldkin poured arrows through murder holes. Meanwhile, the dark-garbed Shal’tiar quietly left the battlements and massed in the courtyard below, blades and black brigandines glinting in the torchlight.

  Rowen remembered Briel’s orders, but the Sylv was nowhere to be seen.

  The Wyldkin woman next to him said, “Safer here. Nothing down there but death.” She fired an arrow through a murder hole, directly into the face of an Olg just a few feet beneath her.

  The beast howled and swung up at her, but she was just out of reach. The Wyldkin calmly fit another arrow and fired, then another.

  Rowen paused, peering through the murder holes at a heap of slashed and twisted corpses, all bristling with arrows. The archers were inflicting heavy damage, but for every Olg the Wyldkin killed, two more seemed to take his place. Rowen felt their odds of victory diminishing. Still, the woman was right. As close as they were to the Olgrym, the battlements were still safer than the courtyard would be once the Olgrym forced their way inside. Then he remembered Silwren and Jalist. Before he realized what he was doing, he left the battlements and rushed down the steps.

  The Shal’tiar formed ranks with icy efficiency. Those in the front traded their longbows for swords and savagely curved polearms. A few seized ropes that Rowen had not even noticed before and pulled. To Rowen’s amazement, the ropes were fixed to a wooden platform that covered a pit on their side of the gates. The platform was quickly dragged out of the way. As he hurried toward Briel, Rowen glanced down into the pit and saw wooden spikes protruding in the darkness.

  Meanwhile, archers took up position on the platforms above. They were fitting three arrows at a time to their bowstrings. He also spotted two frightful ballistae designed to fire a dozen light spears all at once. The ballistae had already been loaded and aimed directly at the gates.

  Briel stood at the center of the Shal’tiar line, scowling at Rowen. “You’re supposed to be on the walls.”

  “I like it better down here,” Rowen said, feigning bravado. As he spoke, though, he heard the dreadful sound of Olgrym axes chopping at the gates. “Let me get Silwren.”

  Briel hesitated. “If you like. You’re a worthless archer, probably no better with a sword, anyway.”

  The change of heart surprised him. Rowen wondered if that meant their odds were even worse than he thought, and Briel knew it. He decided to press his luck. “My sword?”

  “Go, Human!” Briel snapped. “If you want a blade, I’m sure there will be plenty lying on the ground before long.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  AXES AND FLAME

  Rowen made his way through Que’ahl, back toward his lodgings. A mixture of guilt and relief filled him as he left the Shal’tiar to do what would surely be the worst fighting of the battle. He passed more Sylvan men and women rushing to reinforce the ailing gates, but they paid him no mind.

  If Silwren can’t help, we have to get out of here. The Sylvs did not seem to have even considered the option of retreat. But the Olgrym were clearly going to win the fight. Once they breached the walls, the stronghold would become a slaughterhouse.

  He could not leave without Knightswrath. He ran in what he hoped was the direction of the barracks. He still had his bow, half wondering how he would respond if a Sylv tried to stop him, but the rear half of Que’ahl seemed all but deserted. Then he caught a glimpse of movement and saw three Wyldkin women armed with bows and swords, hustling a row of children into a small, wood-and-stone temple devoted to the Light. The Sylvan children’s wide eyes were full of fright. The women gave him cold looks but quickly returned to their duty. When the last child was inside, the women followed, closing the doors behind them.

  Rowen found himself wondering if they thought the gods would protect them there. He remembered the Noshans who had been slaughtered in their own temple. In his experience, the gods had no more interest in safeguarding the innocent than they did th
e guilty. Granted, Sylvs worshipped the Light, but he had not known the Light to respond to prayers, either.

  He shook his head and hurried on. He spotted what looked like the barracks and rushed in. To his relief, they were empty. He found an armory. His hope was short lived, though. He found dozens of blades and bows, but not a single rack contained the precious adamune. Then he spotted a chest in the corner. He opened it. Inside were the rest of their weapons. Still, Knightswrath was not there.

  Rowen cursed. The sounds of battle had moved much closer than he would have thought possible in such a short time. He took the weapons, along with a Sylvan blade for himself. The blade was shorter and more curved than an adamune, though it seemed excellently balanced, and a test of its edge left a swell of blood on his thumb.

  He ran back to their quarters. He was not surprised to see that the guards had already left their posts to fight alongside the other Sylvs.

  Jalist stood outside, armed with a hatchet he must have found somewhere, but he cast that aside and took his long axe from Rowen’s hand. “You picked a hell of a time to wander off.”

  “Olgrym,” Rowen said, trying to catch his breath. “They’re about to cut their way inside, if they haven’t already.”

  Jalist paled. “That explains why you left your precious armor behind. And the sword?”

  “Couldn’t find it.”

  Jalist’s expression was nearly sympathetic for a moment. He glanced around at the streets, which were empty except for rows of lit braziers. “Looks like everyone who can fight has gone to the gates. Just how many damn Olgrym are out there?”

  “More than either of us has ever seen.”

  “Good to see our luck hasn’t changed. Let’s just get out of here while we still can.”

  “Where’s Silwren?”

  “Passed out. Pale as a bedsheet. I suppose we’ll have to carry her… unless I can persuade you to leave her behind.”

  Rowen hurried into the cottage. True to Jalist’s description, Silwren was lying on one of several beds lining the far wall. Her cheeks were as pale as the dragonmist of her eyes, though to his relief, she was awake.