[Sundering 03] - Caledor

by Gav Thorpe - (ebook by Undead)

  “And until Ellyrion is secure again, Caledor cannot send relief to the city,” said Carathril, sighing heavily. “How many times must I explain?”

  “Until you make sense,” said Myrthreir. “Caledor’s strategy is wrong and the prince should make better representation. With Lothern delivered, we can control the shore of Ellyrion and supply his army.”

  Carathril offered no further reply, annoyed by his companion’s obstinacy. Caledor would no more relieve Lothern with the enemy free in Ellyrion than a swordsman would turn his back on an armed opponent. The city held, and held strong, and that was all that mattered.

  They reached their destination, a stretch of wall overlooking the Inner Sea that curved away from the Sapphire Gate. Further along the shore the ships of the Naggarothi were beached, having been captured in northern Ellyrion and sailed south in support of the siege. To the north and south, the Lothern Straits were bracketed by enemy fleets. The one saving grace was that the Naggarothi had made no inroads upon the eastern reaches of Eataine, and many of the populace had been evacuated towards Saphery.

  It was the sea gates the Naggarothi desired though, and for two long years they had battered the walls with war engines, vile monsters and evil sorcery. This last had become less of a threat since the arrival of Eltreneth last autumn, one of the chief mages of Saphery. Soaring above the city upon his white-winged pegasus, the Sapherian had countered the spells of the enemy, staff wreathed in mystical power, sword blazing.

  Now the enemy prepared for a fresh assault. They had built towers and rams concealed from the war engines of Lothern by huge ramparts of earth and timber. They planned to launch this latest attack along the Inner Sea road, that much was clear, and Prince Aerethenis had finally bowed to those who would have the fleet of Lothern let free.

  Without ceremony, the Sapphire Gate opened, the roar of water building as the huge portal swung open between the Straits of Lothern and the Inner Sea. Where the two bodies of water met, the sea thrashed and foamed as wave crashed against wave, before slowly swirling and dying away to leave the path clear for the flotilla. The early morning light shimmered from the gleaming decks of the ships as they passed through the open gate, their sails bright triangles of white and blue.

  “I heard a new name for them,” said Mythreir.

  “What’s that?” said Carathril, his attention on the hills through which the Inner Sea road cut towards the city, alert for foes that might attack the emerging flotilla from the coastal cliffs. There was no movement, yet the two hundred archers who stood with bows ready at the rampart did not relax their guard, having experienced much Naggarothi trickery in the past.

  “The Naggarothi,” said Mythreir. “They are being called the druchii now.”

  “Druchii?” Carathril could not stop a grim smile. The word meant the Dark Ones. It was fitting. Since he had first ridden with Prince Malekith, Carathril had seen the Naggarothi prove themselves capable of the direst acts. “Druchii it is. Let us keep watch for their wiles all the same.”

  The Lothern flotilla sped along the coast at full sail, the pilots knowing every reef and rock around the harbour entrance. Horns blared in the distance as the druchii caught sight of the oncoming ships and Carathril could just make out a burst of activity along the shore as they streamed towards their own beached vessels.

  There came a rush of air and a flap of feathers above and Carathril looked up to see Eltreneth soaring overhead mounted on his pegasus. The mage’s staff trailed sparks of red and blue fire as the winged horse pitched down towards the cliff tops where the druchii had made camp.

  A bolt of black lightning leapt up from the sea of dark pavilions, to be turned away by a shimmering sphere of gold that enveloped Eltreneth. Hails of repeater arrows streamed towards him, yet these too were turned away by his magical shield. Even from a distance, Carathril could feel the ebb and surge of magical energy as the mage and the sorcerers below him battled for control of the winds of magic. Multicoloured fire leapt from Eltreneth’s staff, scorching through tent and corral, setting a swathe of the camp ablaze as dark clouds sprang into existence in the air around him, crackling with unnatural energy.

  The ships had now come into range of the druchii fleet moving off the beaches. Only a handful of enemy vessels had made the sea when blossoms of white-burning bolts and arrows seared across the waters, catching in sails and rigging, setting fire to decking and masts. Not to be outdone, the druchii fired back with clouds of black shafts, repeater crossbows and bolt throwers raking the decks of the Eataine ships as they closed in.

  “Rather them than me,” said Myrthreir as the two flotillas moved amongst each other, turning and tacking, their war machines scything the air between with black- and silver-headed missiles. “Let me face my death toe-to-toe.”

  Carathril was inclined to agree but said nothing. The fighting would get all too personal soon enough as the lightly armed hawkships of both sides manoeuvred around each other, looking for an opening to board. From this distance the naval battle looked more like a stately dance than a desperate contest of bloodshed. The squadrons arced about each other like partners hand in hand, linked by the clouds of arrows instead of arms. Here and there they came together, the war cries and crash of timbers lost in distance so that everything seemed as serene as a masque.

  Two druchii ships were already sinking, aflame from bow to stern, tiny figures leaping to the water to save themselves. Another listed heavily, sails tattered, masthead burnt, the rigging a smouldering pile upon its deck. The Eataine fleet had not suffered too greatly from the exchange, but a hawkship had already turned and was limping back towards the Sapphire Gate, a yardarm trailing by ropes over the port side, dragging like a sea anchor. Carathril could see the white of the crewmen’s robes as they swarmed around the debris, cutting and hacking to free themselves from the broken mast’s dead weight.

  Having speared through the first line of the enemy, the rest of the flotilla swooped upon the vessels still landed at the sandy beach. Eltreneth circled above, driving back the Naggarothi who sought to board the ships with blasts of flame and glistening silver clouds of magical blades. Undefended, the beached ships were an easy target for the Sea Guard, who poured flaming arrows into them with volley after volley.

  In their attack, the Lothern ships had approached within range of the bolt thrower batteries mounted on the cliff top. They added their shafts to the arrows being fired from the camp, iron-headed spears punching through canvas and timber and flesh as they fired down upon the decks of the ships.

  Sited even more advantageously, the engines of Lothern now let loose their fury. From the highest towers on the wall, the bolt thrower captains now spied the druchii’s positions and unleashed a devastating storm of shafts onto the cliff tops. Here and there an archer near Carathril loosed a shaft as the war machine crews scurried from cover to cover, the high wall of the city providing ample extra range for their Eatainii longbows.

  Carathril did not set an arrow to his bow, knowing that his aim was not so good at such extreme range. Always he had been better with sword and spear. Such skills had been put to the test more than a dozen times since that first night attack, repelling assault after assault on the city walls. Sometimes he had faced the sinister Naggarothi legions, other times cultists fuelled by bestial hatred and frenzy-inducing drugs. On more than one occasion the Naggarothi had gained the wall and threatened to overcome the defenders, but on each occasion the defenders had held firm, rallied by their leaders to drive the enemy back from Lothern.

  It was spirit-sapping, the endless tension, the constant waiting for the next attack. The garrison of the city and the few citizens who had remained behind to provide for them were not without supply, from the sea and the east, but such was the ever-present danger of the city becoming surrounded that such food as was brought in was carefully rationed. Water too was always stringently measured, ever since some of the wells in the southern quarter had been found to be poisoned.

  That was pe
rhaps the worst part of all; the enemy that hid within. Long had the cytharai worshippers made their lairs and temples unseen in Lothern, and even the discovery of Prince Aeltherin’s cabal two decades earlier had not ended them. Now they acted as assassins and saboteurs, a shadowy threat that could strike at any time. Some had been discovered, but so many elves had fled into the city two years earlier it was impossible to guard against attack and patrol the streets at the same time. Lone soldiers heading back to barracks from duty had been waylaid, families threatened and kidnapped and slain, captains and nobles blackmailed, the cultists ever seeking to weaken the strength and the resolve of the city’s defenders.

  That was one concern that Carathril did not have. He had few friends and no family. He fought for his city alone, and was responsible solely for himself. He did not count the number of his fellow elves he had slain, nor the times he had come so close to death. Two years had numbed him to the fighting, deadening the pain in his spirit that threatened with each attack.

  The naval raid was almost finished. Half a dozen druchii ships had been destroyed at the cost of three vessels, the rest of the enemy flotilla fleeing northwards along the coast. Companies of Sea Guard had landed, nearly two thousand in all, and were fighting through the druchii camp to bring down the siege engines and set oil and flame upon the rams. Smoke billowed across the waters of the Inner Sea and the crackle of flames spread along the shore.

  A great cheer rippled along the wall as another tower was brought crashing down in an explosion of wood and rope and tarred canvas. It was quickly silenced as horns pealed from further west along the wall. All eyes turned in that direction.

  The main druchii army was on the move; not for the city but to the relief of its shore camp. At its fore, the Naggarothi knights galloped ahead, thousands of heavily armoured warriors riding in columns across the fields and hills, intent upon the Sea Guard. Warned from the city, the green-and-blue clad warriors of the navy broke off their attack and covered by archers and bolt throwers upon the ships returned to their vessels, quickly streaming up the gangplanks.

  The knights had barely reached the outskirts of the ravaged camp by the time the ships were putting off from shore, their sails hauled up, tacking across the wind to head back towards Lothern. It was impossible to tell how much damage had been wrought by the raid, but the pall of smoke was testament to considerable success.

  The elves upon the walls raised their spears and bows and sang songs of rejoicing as the flotilla passed back through the Sapphire Gate. Carathril did not feel like celebrating. He looked along the shore of the Inner Sea to where the druchii were amassing. It was only a matter of time before they came again. He stowed his bow and leaned on the rampart, eyes fixed on the host of the Naggarothi slowly moving back westwards.

  How long could Lothern hold, alone against such determined hate?

  “When will Caledor come?” Carathril whispered.

  ——

  The Black Dragons

  The army of the Phoenix King stretched along the valley in a winding line of silver, red and green against the pale rock. Here and there companies bearing the colours of other kingdoms broke the scheme; the pale-green banners of spearmen from Cothique, the purple standards flying above archers from Saphery.

  There were not many, barely four thousand including the five hundred knights of Caledor that rode in the vanguard. If the scouts were correct, at least twice that number of druchii was marching east along the pass, directly towards Caledor’s host. For all that, the odds were not all in the enemy’s favour.

  Maedrethnir soared easily upon the upward draughts coming from the mountains that flanked the pass. The chill air was soothing against his scales, cooling his blood and the fire within. Steam trailed from the dragon’s mouth and nostrils as he banked over the army, climbing high on a fresh rush of wind, eyes narrowed as he scanned the mountainsides for any sign of a Naggarothi ambush.

  He barely felt the weight of the throne and the Phoenix King upon his back and for a time enjoyed the sensation of flying, allowing the currents of the skies to move him left and right, wingtips leaving thin streamers of vapour in their wake as he glided down through the low cloud.

  The dragon felt something else beside the wind; the pulse of magic from the elves’ vortex. It was like a thin sheen of oil upon his body, an acrid taste in his mouth, a distant echo in his ears. He remembered a time when he had crossed these mountains without that sickly sensation, when the Everqueen had ruled and the dragons had played in the skies.

  Even then Maedrethnir had been old, and his memories stretched back further still, way beyond the fall of the Old Ones and the coming of Chaos that polluted the land. He remembered when this isle had been nothing more than a chain of volcanoes jutting from the ocean. Newly hatched, Maedrethnir had played with the others, hopping from fuming peak to fuming peak on growing wings.

  The air had been lighter then, and all the world colder so that the fire inside was but a flicker, not the raging inferno he was now forced to hold back. He rumbled unconsciously with annoyance as he remembered that strange day, many millennia before, when the skies had been split by multicoloured rifts and the silver starboats of the Old Ones had appeared. The dragons had scattered, terrified by these new arrivals. Many fled to the deepest caves and oceans, but some remained to see what the strangers intended.

  The sun had grown larger and the skies had warmed, and the Old Ones built their temples and cities in the jungles that had thrived in the new heat. Many of the dragons had voiced concern, calling to their kin to fight and cast out the invaders. The oldest and wisest knew better, and like those before them they slunk away into the dark corners of the world and waited to see what would pass.

  Amongst them had been Indraugnir, Maedrethnir’s father. With many of his kin and friends, the ancient dragon lord had sought shelter in the caves of the volcanoes, but even there they had not found peace. Maedrethnir smiled and turned his head to cast a glance at the rider upon his back. What could Caledor know of the disruption his people had caused? He knew nothing of those worrying days and nights when the earth had rumbled and the seas had roared. The Old Ones’ servants, the bloated slann, had lifted the isle from the sea bed, the mountains belching forth smoke and flame. The dragons trembled as the caverns they had made their home fell around them, but Indraugnir cautioned them to stay hidden lest the Old Ones destroy them altogether.

  In time the lands settled again and the first elves came. Maedrethnir had spied upon them from the mountain fastness with his father and mother, protective of the new clutch of eggs hatching in the darkness beneath the volcanoes. With the Old Ones had come that first taint of magic, and the isle was soon steeped in its presence, lingering in every cloud and upon every blade of grass.

  For all of the intrusion, the elves had seemed peaceful enough and the dragons had returned to their lairs and dreamed long dreams of the day when they would be free to roam the skies as they had done before.

  Indraugnir entertained his children and his allies with ancient stories of the war with the shaggoths and the dragon ogres, and had warned about the dark touch of the Powers Beyond the Skies that had corrupted the dragon’s twisted cousins.

  “Look there!” Caledor’s shout and pointing lance broke Maedrethnir’s reverie.

  The dragon shook himself from the half-dream, alarmed that the long sleep still beckoned him even though he flew upon the winds. A shiver of expectation ran through Maedrethnir’s body as he spied a swathe of dark-armoured figures in the valley below; the vanguard of the druchii army.

  “Shall we greet them?” said the dragon.

  He needed no reply and tucked his wings tight to dive down towards the valley floor. The wind keened in his ears and rushed across his scales, sweeping away the last somnolent after-effects of his daydream. Heart beating fast, Maedrethnir flexed his claws in anticipation. The elves below were scurrying to and fro in their fright as the dragon and rider descended, their panic stirring Maedrethnir
’s old hunting instincts.

  He was filled with the urge to stoop and rend, to bite and rake claws through the miniscule prey that scattered before his approach. Caught up in predatory excitement, the dragon plunged down, wings opening to slow his descent as he felt the fire building up in his gut, nagging at him to unleash its fury. A roar burst forth, powered by primal desire, the valley echoing to the blast of noise.

  Black spears sped up from the scattered rocks and bushes. Maedrethnir dipped a wing and veered as the missiles streaked past. Another volley followed from a second repeater bolt thrower stationed guarding the flank of the druchii, catching the dragon with two of the long shafts. Metal screeched and wood splintered against the dragon’s hard scales as two of the bolts bounced harmlessly from Maedrethnir’s shoulders. A cloud of arrows from dozens of repeater crossbows engulfed the dragon, pattering from his hide as harmlessly as rain as he crashed through the dark storm of shafts.

  More of the larger bolts flew upwards from the druchii war engines. Twisting, Maedrethnir batted two aside with a sweep of his foreleg, the rest missing or bouncing away from the thick scales protecting the dragon’s shoulder.

  With metal shrieking and bones snapping, Maedrethnir landed in the midst of the archers, smashing half a dozen druchii to a pulp with the bulk of his body. Flame erupted from the dragon’s throat, scorching everything within reach as Maedrethnir’s neck snaked left and right, the pain from the fire burning at his mouth and gut.

  The internal fires exhausted for the moment, he heaved in a great breath, smoke and steam coiling around his face. Caledor shouted something from the dragon’s back but he heard not a word of it, consumed by the need to kill. Claws swept out, slicing through armour and flesh like swords, eviscerating, decapitating and dismembering. Turning, Maedrethnir lunged and snapped his jaws around the body of a fleeing elf. Metal links buckled between sword-like teeth. Sheared in twain, the elf’s corpse dropped to the ground while rivulets of blood ran down the dragon’s throat.