Upon the Flight of the Queen

by Howard Andrew Jones

  She turned then, and a squire came over to lead them through the crowd, which parted before him. A ragged cheer followed belatedly.

  “Nicely done,” Elik said from the side of his mouth.

  Rylin flashed a grin at her.

  The squire guided them to the practice field beyond the stables, where a row of hay bales had been tossed out to form a barrier separating them from the curious onlookers. They stepped through it, joining a band of grizzled men and women in the black-and-gold livery of the city guard, the dark-skinned exalt she’d seen tending the stadium wounded, a dozen men and women in white shirts she recognized as junior members of the Mage Auxiliary, and two lone third-rank squires struggling vainly to look resolute rather than overwhelmed.

  N’lahr stood apart, watching as Kyrkenall trailed Lothrun through the sand where Elenai and Elik had trained under Asrahn. The archer used the point of the curved sword to draw an oval.

  This, Elenai speculated, must represent the inner city. As she watched Kyrkenall finish, an older Alantran woman drew up beside Elik and squeezed his shoulder. Her friend brightened and made room for her. With the old woman were three Elenai recognized as city councilors.

  “Elenai,” Elik told her, “this is Governor Feolia, of Alantris.”

  Elenai bowed her head in respect and the woman returned the gesture. The youngest of the councilors, a stern man in a trim blue shirt and dark pants, with salt-and-pepper hair, pointed at N’lahr. “That’s really him? Not some kind of magical trick to improve morale?”

  “That’s really him,” the governor said. “Why won’t you believe me?”

  “You didn’t tell me Kyrkenall the traitor was here,” the councilor continued to Feolia.

  Kyrkenall had just completed the oval only a few steps from him, and he glanced back.

  “He’s no traitor,” Elenai said, voice sharp.

  “You can arrest me later.” Kyrkenall wiped the tip of Lothrun on his pant leg and sheathed the weapon as N’lahr stepped forward, carrying a short rake.

  “I’ll be brief,” the commander said. “The enemy currently have a little over two dozen of those giant cattle, each carrying somewhere close to forty troops. There’s also cavalry. All told we face somewhere close to fifteen hundred enemy soldiers. In case it isn’t clear to you, this is not an invasion force. They mean to kill as many of us as they can lay hands on, and destroy anything they can’t take away.” He lifted his head and nodded into the distance. “You can see they’re already setting buildings on fire.”

  He brought the haft end of the rake down to the oval Kyrkenall had drawn and slashed a line through its middle, then crossed it so the image was divided into four sections.

  “Naor marksmen are already taking up posts in nearby buildings. Others are likely to remain on top of the black beasts, because once they come within sight of our walls they’ll have a height advantage. Our ko’aye allies will aid us against the marksmen, and so will Kyrkenall, who will be able to shoot from the back of one of them.”

  N’lahr looked over to Elenai. “The Naor have at least one powerful mage among them, and they’ll use him and others to sow chaos. But the Naor have ever and always relied more upon brute force than finesse. Their goal will be to gain the wall. And once they have part of the wall, their goal will be to advance across and start killing. So—we need the people off the grounds.” N’lahr pointed to the councilors. “Get all noncombatants into the palace and Altenerai buildings. There should be enough room inside especially if you utilize the storage larders as well. Keep them out of the entryways, because those are our fallback points. Clear?”

  “Clear,” Feolia answered, beside Elenai.

  N’lahr tapped the lines he’d drawn through the oval. “We’ll divide the protection among four commanders. Rylin, you take from the main gate to the western sally gate. I’ll take the western sally gate over to the north gate.” He called to a bright-looking middle-aged woman in guard livery. “Captain Anaria, you take from the main gate to the gap by the Idris. And you,” he pointed to the graybearded man in dark mail. “Captain Cercah, isn’t it?”

  The elder bowed his head in respect. “Yes, Commander.”

  “You take the last section. Each of you is going to need support teams below who can feed up extra arrows, spears, rocks, pitchforks, whatever you can possibly use against the Naor. Put teams together including volunteers from the citizenry. Each of you are going to have to keep at least two and preferably three banks of marksmen handy, capable of firing in volleys. Are you listening?”

  The response was delivered with military precision, many voices speaking at once. “Yes, Alten.”

  N’lahr lifted the rake and pointed it toward the exalts. “Thelar.” Elenai was impressed by her commander’s retention of information—she was fairly certain Rylin had only mentioned the exalt’s name once in front of him. “You’re in charge of our magics. Apportion the spell workers on every wall. Spread mages among you. You exalts ought to know who’s good at what and what strength everyone has. Make sure everyone has about the same force, right?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Assign yourself to my wall, and keep Elenai out of your calculations.”

  Elenai wondered at that, but said nothing as N’lahr faced Elik. “Elik, you’re going to command the mounted troop. Find us horsemen, and patrol the inner side of the wall. Come charging against any Naor who get over the wall, or through a gate. Get on that, now.” She also wondered how N’lahr had learned that Elik was a natural for cavalry and inwardly applauded his choice.

  “Yes, sir.” Elik snapped a salute, gave Elenai a brief nod and a whisper of “luck” and hurried off, already calling the names of squires.

  N’lahr pointed at blond-haired, brown-eyed Welahn. “You, third ranker. You’re in charge of the armory. You first make sure that all of Elik’s troop is armed and armored, and then make sure every weapon we have is in use. Clear out the place. Send an assistant to scour the palace and raid the Wall of Heroes. Alvor’s axe is going to do us a lot more good in someone’s hand than shining on the wall.”

  Welahn’s eyes widened in surprise, then he snapped a salute. “Yes, sir.”

  “Get moving.” N’lahr pointed to another city guard officer as Welahn dashed off. “You—” He snapped his fingers. “Your name?”

  “Myllikar, sir.”

  “Myllikar, you find retired veterans and strong builders. Have them identify and ready near the weak points. Postern gates, the main gates, every kind of entrance. Erect barricades just inside them. Use whatever you need—barrels, stable siding, anything that’s movable and defensible, even if you have to destroy buildings. Clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He faced them all once more. “I can’t predict what other surprises the Naor might have, so we’re going to have to think on our feet. Be flexible. Don’t crowd the walls, but keep them occupied. Have people ready to fill in from below, because you will take casualties. Some Naor will reach the walls. Maybe a lot of them. When they do, take them back. Don’t forget—we have more people than they do. Questions?”

  Elenai’s only question was why she hadn’t been assigned a specific duty, but she waited, silent as the others.

  N’lahr watched for a brief moment. “You have your orders. Dismissed.” Without a pause he motioned Elenai forward. “Oddsbreaker, we need to talk.”

  He turned his back to the crowd, stepping close to the shadow of the stables. A sprinting first ranker arrived with multiple quivers of arrows, which he passed over to Kyrkenall, who immediately dropped to the sand of the practice field and began to inspect the shafts. The rest of the men and women raced off to their assigned duties. Some were already shouting orders, and one of the soldiers called for any hunters or marksmen to gather about him.

  “Their mage is throwing some powerful spells,” N’lahr said. “Any observations?” Understanding that N’lahr wanted a tactical assessment outside his own field of expertise, and quickly, she struggled to put h
er thoughts in order. “We’ve seen him work spells from a distance on multiple instances. He seems capable of keying in on a hearthstone and immediately countering it with something of his own that’s just as strong. Possibly another hearthstone. I know of no other source that might sustain him.”

  “Blood,” N’lahr said. “At least in part, he’s using the black beasts as giant batteries to power his blood sorcery.”

  “Gods,” Elenai said, wondering if that red spiking slash that had damaged her dragon had, in fact, been formed of blood.

  “Once he has the beasts in place disgorging men he’ll have less need of them, and they’ll be even more useful as power sources.”

  “Of course,” Elenai agreed more softly. Once again, she was astonished at N’lahr’s finely honed perceptions. He might not understand sorcery, but he understood, profoundly, how resources were allocated in battle.

  “Do you think he’ll still be drawn to the hearthstone?” N’lahr asked.

  “I’m pretty certain.”

  “Can you sense him if he’s sensing you?”

  “I haven’t tried,” she confessed, “but theoretically I should be able to do so.”

  “Chargan may not expose himself to direct conflict, so once we locate him we’re going to have to go to him. And cut the head from the snake. We will have to wait for the right moment, which is why I want you on the wall beside me. Now let’s get to it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Once again the populace was in motion, many retreating from the inner wall and into the palace and stone outbuildings. Women with babes in arms. Stooped grandmothers and grandfathers. Children, all kept in orderly lines by elders.

  N’lahr was still arranging everyone, several dozen, upon his quadrant of the wall when the Naor moved in. A wide avenue lay just outside the inner wall, and all but one of the city’s main streets fed into it. This meant that the horned Naor monsters had easy access to the palace walls themselves and came stomping toward them, parallel to the defenders.

  A single drover sat in a roofed framework slatted with metal behind the head of each beast. The Naor troops rode upon platforms of wood and leather. Rounded shields hung along the lower sides, behind which the Naor crouched between attacks.

  As one of the reeking animals swung sideways to the wall beside them, Elenai kept the first volley of slings and spears back with a great wind spell, and Thelar followed her example on the second, but as other animals moved in more stones flew, more javelins arced and it was impossible to shield everyone. Some weapons found a mark. The screams were one with the bellows of beasts and clatter of arms.

  The warriors on the wall gave as good as they got, firing into the eyes of the Naor animals and sending some fleeing in pain. Many Naor fell finally behind their shields. Before long, though, a siege plank crashed down, landing with a solid thunk upon the battlement. A group of slingers rained stones down as Naor warriors ran howling down from the beast and stepped onto the wall.

  And there they met N’lahr the Grim, bearing Irion.

  Not so long ago, Elenai had fought at his side. Never, though, had she had such an unfettered view of the warrior in battle. Fluid, unlabored, he stepped between blows, somehow assessing the maximum length of his opponents’ reach and remaining just beyond it. He advanced into battle almost like a ghost, impossible to touch, but slaying all that he passed with precise and deadly cuts. Here he thrust deep; here he parted armor with impossible ease, so that a Naor fell shrieking beside his weapon arm. Here he ducked so that an axeman brained another, and then brushed a throat with Irion’s tip before tripping a rushing warrior and cutting an attacker’s blade nearly in half as he parried.

  Soon the swirl of combat encircled her, for a second black beast disgorged its hordes onto the wall, and then she was once more guided by that thread that enhanced her own blade skill, weaving past strikes to thrust home, ducking and rising with a slash, letting the incredible flexible armor of her khalat take the lighter blows. Thelar was in there beside her with a valiant second ranker and a band of archers whose arrows kept the nearest Naor marksmen too busy for concentrated volleys.

  One moment she was facing a shouting bearded warrior; the next she was breathing heavily and her field was clear. Down the wall, N’lahr was still cutting a swathe through attackers, dropping them left and right. Closer at hand, Thelar finished off a downed Naor as the enemy soldier scrambled for a spear. The second ranker knelt beside a wounded archer. All up and down the wall beyond their quarter, as far as she could see, Naor fired from the black beasts or came rushing down planks to assault the defenders.

  Elenai took note of the largest of the beasts she’d yet seen. It advanced to the corner of Altenera Way, a block to her west. If the others were twenty feet at the shoulder, this rose at least to twenty-five, and its massive horns were painted in scarlet. It paused briefly beside the great column with Queen Altenera at its capital that stood directly across from the famed Alteneran Gate. Then it advanced across the avenue, each step shaking the streets and puffing up gusts of fallen petals from the newly leafed trees.

  Huge though the beast might be, it sat fewer Naor. Elenai saw only a handful upon its back. One was a trumpeter, even now calling signals that brought more Naor soldiers to the walls. Others were men-at-arms, broad of shoulder, their ringmail gilt with gold, their helms touched here and there with gold leaf.

  She ascertained that the three Naor at the beast’s head were sorcerers, even though they were as heavily armed as their fellows. Looking through the inner world she could not miss the glow of two active hearthstones, and something more—the life force of the huge beast they rode was threaded into the magic of the stones. Further, one of the three was better connected to those threads than his fellows. Chargan. It had to be. His helm boasted the most elaborate flourishes, and a gold crest. He carried a remarkable long-hafted sword, brandished now in the air—one side of it was saw-toothed, and the other smooth.

  At sight of the enemy leader Elenai looked for N’lahr, and found him in the midst of a fierce fight with Naor toops.

  Darassan soldiers fired steadily as Chargan’s animal drew close. So, too, did Kyrkenall, for Drusa dived and he let loose a trio of well placed arrows as he swooped past.

  But the moment missiles neared their target a bloodred dome of energy flickered into existence about the sorcerers; watching through the inner world Elenai saw the dark threads the Naor worked to manage the spell, and the mage that manipulated them. She reasoned then that each of the three must be apportioned a different task; one had threads into the animal’s mind, and the other was clearly in charge of defense. Chargan, who as yet did nothing, was likely offense.

  A peculiar furred hump stood up along the beast’s back, directly behind its head, and Chargan drove that saw-edged blade down upon it. A gout of blood sprayed up, but the beast lowed only dully, as though it were removed from the pain.

  Chargan raised his blade and swiped it through the air. Blood coating the weapon’s edge slung out like a great whip and Elenai’s eyes widened in horror. For when it struck the soldiers upon the wall, it didn’t spray, but cut through flesh and into armor. Men and women dropped, crying out, or fell silent in death, and the whole of the battlement was clear. Chargan sliced once more and cast a deadly scythe of blood at soldiers advancing from the right.

  This, she understood with grim clarity, was the kind of attack he had sent into the sky against her dragon. And she was not sure she knew how to counter it.

  The beast plodded at the gate, lowered its head, and drove its horns into the thick wood. So strong was the blow that Elenai felt the stones sway beneath her even hundreds of feet away. Naor drawing closer upon their own animals took up a sinister two-syllable chant of their leader’s name. Char-gan. Char-gan.

  Below, she spotted a band of twenty Naor advancing across the parklike grounds of the palace until Elik’s armored troop broke them with a charge. From what weak point the enemy had emerged she could not guess, but this brea
k was further sign the defenders could not long hold them back.

  Elenai called again to N’lahr and saw him fighting to disengage. For now, she would have to handle the enemy mage herself. She reached deep within her hearthstone and sent a wave of bright energies against Chargan and his beast. To her eyes it looked like a solid sheet of lightning, but it did not move swift enough to stop that bloodred barrier from flickering into existence. Her attack struck it and dispersed into the air in small sparks.

  Elenai cursed, even as a familiar voice called out to her. It was amplified, ringing through the air like a thunderclap.

  You are outmatched, Altenerai! You cannot last!

  Sensing his reach for her stone, she turned it off, and she imagined him grinning in triumph. His beast backed away for another assault against the wall.

  A winded N’lahr arrived beside her on the battlement at last, his bloody sword in hand. Over his shoulder was a stream of bodies. “It’s time to take the offensive.” And he pointed his dripping blade toward Chargan, before the gate.

  Almost she asked him how he meant for them to get there. But she, too, was Altenerai. She spun to the bruised and battered second ranker, miraculously still alive beside her. She’d never learned his name. “Hold the wall!”

  Thelar had apportioned a quartet of mages to their command. One had fallen to a Naor spear, and the remaining three clustered near her, two men in white, high-collared shirts that were the new official garb of the Mage Auxiliary squires, and an older woman in bright blouse and pants. She looked like a grandmother. Elenai called to them now. “Mages, with me!”

  And with that, she and N’lahr were rushing over bodies and up the plank to the nearest of the ebon monsters. Its troops had already mounted the wall and been slaughtered by N’lahr, and its drover with a small force of guards still clustered near the thing’s head. They were struggling to get the beast under way until N’lahr made short work of them, and she soon was brutally thrusting threads of intent through the monster’s feeble consciousness. She discovered a little more there to work with than she’d found in the dragon, and recognition burst over her. The Naor monster was nothing more than an eshlack, twisted and reformed into this gargantuan shape. She should have guessed that sooner, from the familiar stench.