The Dragonswarm

by Aaron Pogue

  I felt it then. A shock rushed back to me, an echo of weary weakness, and I saw it in my wizard's sight. My fire was much dimmed. Perhaps by half or more. And yet another part of me was stronger. I felt far more aware of all the stronghold. I felt the wild emotions flaring among my men. Without strain, without even trying I could see the curiosity and surprise on Lareth's face as he tried to understand the distant echo of two thousand men crying out in wonder.

  My lair. My perfect lair. I thought of Pazyarev, an elder legend with a thousand dragons under his will, and he could only claim a cave. I thought of Tirah, with walls perhaps this tall and half as thick, and nothing like my Tower. I thought of the king's palace atop the hill in Sariano, and even that would look small and plain when I was done here.

  I released the southern walls for now and turned my attention to the main wall before me. I used my arms again to focus my will, twisting both hands and carved a soaring arch out of the center of the wall to be our gateway.

  More power burned away at that, but I did not yet feel weak. I turned both palms up, stretched toward the east and western ends of the wall, and as I lifted them two rounded towers sprang out of the earth and climbed up the angle of the walls. It took no effort at all to spin a stairway up the middle of them, carving perfect steps by nothing more than thought from nearly a mile away.

  I marveled at what I could do. Three thousand strong and fearsome men marveled at me, too, and I could feel their awe. It sang in my soul. I watched my fire dim, determined not to let it burn too low, but while there was power yet to use....

  I topped the towers with platforms fit for archers. Then I grabbed the walls themselves again and raised them up. It was delicate work now, a careful balance against the power I had left, but I wanted every inch of height that I could get. We had enough to stop a charge, but not to stop a volley of arrows. Not enough to thwart some simple earthworks or ordinary ladders. The king would come in force, and he would come prepared for siege. But I would give him a stronghold no siege could break, no engine could destroy. I raised my hands another inch and gained another pace in height along the walls.

  And then among the wild, adoring crowd I felt a new sensation. Not my own, but from one of the men I felt the sudden stab of nausea, the fever flush of sickness. It came on fast, and by my heightened senses I could have pointed to the spot three hundred yards off to my left where he collapsed.

  Sweat stood on my forehead now as well, and as I watched my powers burn, they now burned low. Another pace, perhaps, but not much more. I set my jaw and raised my hands.

  And heard the groan come from three hundred throats at once. I felt them fall, staccato rapping on my soul as they collapsed, and more men staggered. More men swayed. I felt exhaustion hit them all at once. Then their confusion rang within my head. The awed elation melted into fear as all across the courtyard men collapsed, and I alone among them understood.

  They had paid my price. I still burned. I still burned with the lifeblood of three thousand fires, but it was those fires that guttered now. Another ounce of strain, perhaps, and I could snuff them out. I dropped my hands in horror, feeling all too clearly the agony and fear that raged within my camp.

  I had strong walls, and I had made three thousand men weak to get them.

  They never learned just what had come to pass. Lareth would not let me take the blame. Caleb said that few among them could have understood anyway. Even he had trouble grasping it, no matter how I tried to put the price in words.

  Seventeen men died. That was a mercy, though I took it as a blow. Only seventeen among them died, and those who lived recovered within days. So did my fire. Lareth watched with tempered interest, and as my men grew strong again, so too did I.

  "It doesn't help," I said, early on the eighth day when the three of us sat together to breakfast. "It doesn't help the ones who died."

  "They're soldiers," Caleb said.

  "They're here to die," Lareth said. "That's what they're for."

  He fell silent when I met his eye. He'd not shown much of madness these past days, but he fell back to ruthless cruelty as easily as breathing. He shrugged and said, "It's true."

  "It doesn't matter," I said. "I cannot use a power that does this to my men."

  "It didn't...at first," Caleb said.

  "You agree with him?" I asked, eyes straining wide. "For a week now you've cursed at having all these men down lame, and now you think it's not so bad?"

  Caleb spread his hands. "But now they all improve. I have nearly a thousand on their feet, but by this afternoon they will be back upon the walls."

  "And there's no way they would have done this in that time," Lareth said. "One week? Two, even? No. Ten thousand men could not have built that wall so fast."

  "There's no number of men could build a wall like that," Caleb said. He had spent hours in the archway, looking for some seam within the stone, some crack, some tiny flaw.

  "Their exhaustion is a minor price to pay," the wizard said. "They do recover, given time."

  "Not all of them," I said.

  Lareth rolled his eyes. "Again, I must agree, you went too far. But now you've learned. Now you know more. Just...just keep more of that power in reserve. Don't use so much at once, spread it out, give it time to build back up. You gained four paces off the ground before the first among them fell. So spread it out. Do half a pace a day, and even if that keeps them in their beds, it will give us ten before another week is out."

  "But that is just a number. It's just a legend. This place is not the point! That's what I forgot. The stronghold's just one weapon; I need men to fight my war."

  "If you would do it as I say," the wizard sighed, "two weeks from now you'd have your men, and you'd have your fortress out of legend. What is wrong with that?"

  "What's wrong?" I asked, incredulous. "Even if you're right. Even if they live. Even if two weeks from now they're all as strong as they were before, that's weeks I've stolen from their lives. Do you understand? That fire you see burning all around me is the lives of men. I cannot spend it like a currency."

  "Then you are not much of a king," the wizard said.

  My lips peeled back in rage, but Caleb interjected before I could call the wizard down. "You both have points," he said. "I don't pretend to understand the rules, but Lareth's right. You spread the burden out, and did in an afternoon—or in a week—what should have taken months. That is your strength. That is your special power."

  "I cannot risk their lives—"

  "You can. You will. And it is well and good that you are so hesitant, but you cannot ignore a power like that and accomplish the things you mean to do."

  I glared at him, but I could find no answer. He gave me four heartbeats, then nodded satisfied. "And yet you're right. This place is not the point. Our walls are tall enough to stop a charge. They're tall enough to thwart most any straight assault, and in a day or two we'll have some men hard at work making them taller still. You needn't risk them all at once just for the walls."

  Lareth snorted his objection, but he gave it no words. Caleb gave him several seconds, too, then nodded. Then he met my eyes.

  "You gave us walls," he said. "You learned the limits of your power. You have grown wiser, stronger, and more cautious. And only seventeen men are dead. Call yourself a fool if you must, but you have to let it go. The day you lead these men to war, you lead them to their deaths. They're soldiers. That's what they are for."

  "It will be easier when I can blame a dragon for their deaths," I said, grumbling like a child.

  He nodded. "Then blame the king. He brings you war for petty vendetta and drives you to build these walls. You'll need them against the dragons, too. Blame the dragons now. Many more will die before this is done."

  "But now," the wizard said, "at least we'll have a chance to start. You bought us time."

  "They are impressive walls," the warrior said.

  "And what is next?" I asked.

  "Training," Caleb said. "You'd asked
for soldiers you could teach to hunt the dragons. I'd meant to hand pick some, but we'll just use the strongest for a start."

  "Good," I said. The plan had slipped my mind, but now that he reminded me I was anxious to get started. "We'll start today. That's now my top priority."

  "Very well." He hesitated for half a heartbeat, then shrugged. "When you're ready—when more of the men are ready—we do need more from you."

  I sighed. "What do you have in mind?"

  "Wells," he said. "Inside the walls. The nearest miserable creek is more than a mile off. I keep forty men on water duty just to get us by, and when a siege is set...."

  "I understand," I said, but a memory nagged at me. The baron had mentioned a clear well. I closed my eyes and reached out to the tower.

  I hadn't done that much the last eight days. It was easy enough to push the awareness away, but when I touched it, I got all of it. I felt the convalescing soldiers. I felt the weariness sapping at even the strength of the men well enough to work. The price of my recklessness burned like a coal in the back of my mind.

  But I could feel the earth as well. I could feel the ground around the tower, feel the shape of the stones, and there outside the tower's western wall....

  "There are wells," I said. "They're buried under rubble, but otherwise they're sound. I'll show you where, and you can set the men to work at digging."

  He opened his mouth to argue, then shrugged. "Very well, my lord."

  "I'll use my power when I must," I assured him. "I will use every weapon at my disposal when it comes to fighting the dragonswarm. Trust in that. But this work can be done by men."

  "Very well, my lord."

  I searched his eyes for some objection, some remaining concern, but he met me with a level gaze and I gave up. "I still have much to learn," I said. "And no one to learn from but my own mistakes. Give me time."

  "I'd give you years," Caleb said, "but the king will give you weeks at best."

  "The dragons give you days," the wizard said. "If you truly mean to protect the farmers near the tower."

  Startled, I looked to him. He shrugged. "I've gone up to the town to buy some wine. They've been attacked, you know."

  "The town? Teelevon?"

  He shrugged. "Outside the town. Some miller's house, and fields out in the west. Not many dead. Not yet. But every night for days now, there've been raids."

  I growled low in my throat. "I gave orders no one should go near the town."

  Lareth gaped. "You meant me? I thought you meant the soldiers."

  "I mean you far more than most. If they had recognized your face—"

  He scowled across at me. "I do not wear this face when I go into towns."

  "You will not go back to Teelevon." I frowned. "Is that where you have been? I told you to go riding in the hills so you can summon portals for our hunters."

  He tore his gaze away. "But...there are dragons."

  I only glared, then turned to Caleb. "Find us someone else, someone I can trust, and send him to Teelevon. We need more news."

  I frowned down at my hands and thought about the miller's house. I thought about the fields out west. "And send me these promising hunters. It's past time we should begin."

  15. Unusual Approaches

  I had not touched the tower since the day I raised the walls. I hadn't dared to work any energies at all. But still, as Caleb said, I'd gained in power. I'd gained awareness of the fortress, and there were places on the second floor accessible and strong. The outer stairs were blocked both ways, but from the spiral staircase in the center of the tower we could reach the middle of the second floor where four crossing corridors stabbed out toward the walls, north and south, east and west. And there upon the intersection were four vast rooms.

  Two of them we'd made into barracks, where men could sleep beneath a roof and in the gentle warmth that Lareth's magic could maintain. Another, at Caleb's suggestion, became an officer's quarters where officers enjoyed a bit more space. Three large rooms off the back wall might have been meant for storage or private studies, but I reserved them to me and my two lieutenants. They had no doors in the empty frames, no windows, no furnishings at all. But after weeks living in military camps or on cavern floors, the bare little rooms felt like royal accommodations.

  The fourth great room we made our conference hall, and there we used a broken oxcart's bed as a makeshift table. A dozen camp stools clustered around it, and I'd used memory and ink to sketch the rough terrain around the tower.

  I was at the makeshift table that afternoon, reviewing a scrap of parchment crowded with Lareth's narrow script, when a shadow fell across me. I looked up to find a soldier standing in the door. He saw me look and threw a nervous glance over his shoulder. Then he turned back, but he fixed his eyes on the ceiling.

  I said, "Dain, isn't it? Garrett Dain?" His eyes snapped down to mine.

  "Y-y-es, Lord Daven. The General sent me. You intend to teach us?"

  "I intend to start. Please, take a seat." I waved to the crude stools and looked past him to the hall. "We'll wait for the others."

  The others weren't long in coming. Caleb had chosen thirty men for this chore, and he'd promised me the brightest he'd found in his short time commanding the men. The felling at the walls had changed his selection somewhat, but as the afternoon progressed, I was impressed with the quality he'd managed to find.

  Twelve of them came from the first battalion. They'd been there when Pazyarev's greens attacked. Four more had witnessed dragon raids firsthand. But every man among them seemed attentive, not only fit but smart as well. And they all knew how to sit, silent, and listen. That was the most important trait for any kind of hunter.

  I'd set aside the whole afternoon to work with them. First I explained my plan—for the first time I laid out in detail my intentions for this army. "I mean to carry the fight to the dragons," I told them. "There are dragon lairs all through these mountains, and when night falls they fly. More and more, with every day we wait."

  "But you will kill them for us?" Dain asked. His eyes flicked to one of the soldiers from the first battalion. He'd heard stories.

  I shook my head firmly. "No. You will kill them for everyone else."

  That got their attention.

  "I will make you into hunting packs. Thirty men to a pack, I think, but it depends on what we find when we go out there."

  "Go out?" Dain asked, his voice quavering.

  "Yes. You will hunt them in their lairs. You will kill them while they sleep."

  "But how?" another soldier asked, an ugly-faced young redhead at the end of the table. "We can't fight monsters."

  "You can, with sharpened steel. With ruthless tactics. Sneaking and dodging and wearing them down. Strike when they are unprepared and bleed them out, and even a far stronger enemy will start to crumble."

  I'd borrowed words from Lareth, from the speeches he had used to give, and now they worked like magic. Another kind of magic. Lareth had spent months convincing these men they were strong enough to fight the king's great host.

  "We'll strike and then we'll run," I said. "And when the next day dawns, it will dawn on an enemy dazed and weakened by our cunning."

  "But how?" the redhead asked. "Don't dragons fly?"

  "They do, but we won't fight them in the open. We will choose our turn to strike, and we will keep them from the sky."

  He tried to repeat his question again but I raised a hand to stop him. "It's not easy," I said. "But it can be done. That's why we're here. I know the way. I know their secrets, and we'll develop tactics you can use."

  "Us," he said. "You keep talking of us, as though you don't intend to come along."

  I glanced toward the door, then on an instinct down and to the left, and realized I was looking through a hundred feet of solid stone toward the northern gate where Caleb stood in conversation.

  I shook my head. "We have three thousand men against ten thousand dragons," I said. "We can't afford to lean on me alone. I'll help yo
u as I can—and there is much that I can do—but in the end I'll need a dozen hunting parties out at once. I can't go with them all."

  Garrett Dain nodded reluctant understanding, and I saw others among them take his cue. "You're right," he said. "But if that's what you want, what are we doing here? Why Palmagnes, if we're fighting the dragons? Why have us work so hard to build those walls?"

  "They're clever, Dain. Word travels among them quickly, and their vengeance is a terrible thing. Once we begin, they will come for us. You can count on it. And we must have a reliable stronghold if we're to survive that strike."

  The redhead raised his chin. "Where does the king's force fit into this?" Every eye turned to me at that, even Dain demanding an answer.

  I sighed. "Nowhere. The king's force is no concern of ours. We'll make a fortress strong enough to stand against dragons, and the king's army can break their teeth on it all day long if they want. They are of no interest to us."

  They had their doubts, but soon enough I turned the talk from what and why to how. And then I showed them. I started out sitting, but as I began describing how to force a dragon out of the air I found myself on my feet, going through the motions.

  I explained as best I could how to bring one down, and how to fight him once he was grounded. When even Dain seemed uncertain what I meant by some description, I gathered dust into a cloud and spun it out into a faerie dragon, insubstantial on the air. I raised it up and walked beneath its wings to show them where to look for vulnerable spots, where to attack and when. Then Dain jumped up and drew his sword to try some practice swings, testing maneuvers based on what I'd said.

  Then the others were standing beside him, offering suggestions, and as I watched they found a routine. Then they were circling the illusion, talking out a strategy. I made it lash its heavy tail, and one of the men barely ducked short of losing his head. They laughed, then listened gravely as I explained a dragon's many methods of attack.

  In the end, as I tried to teach them humility, I slowly came to realize their numbers were their real advantage. One blast of fire might kill thirty, but not if they spread out. And apart from that, a dragon might have six different lethal assaults, but it could not really use them to kill six men at once. It could not split its focus so many ways.