by Marc Secchia
“No evacuation?” Nyahi asked.
He shook his head. “Judging by what’s left on this landing field, I’d say we might be able to evacuate a quarter of our numbers, if we’re lucky. No. If we sink, we all sink together.”
* * * *
His first few hours on the job were filled with shocked looks, grousing, complaints, two instances of outright mutiny, and many longsuffering sighs from Chanbar as he explained for the fiftieth time that no, Asturbar was indeed the Marshal and he himself would be giving no more orders. There was also the matter of Chanbar having lost one of his children, crushed in a rockfall. Grief upon grief.
By noon, Thoralian’s forces were just ten leagues distant, obliterating any who dared to defend their territory and razing Islands. Until mid-afternoon they received an almost constant flow of refugees, bolstering the number of Lesser Dragons to a pitiful seventeen, but this influx did provide welcome extra hands and paws for shoring up the defences. Most shook their heads in disbelief when they saw the state of the Mistral Fires’ fortress; a few elected to risk their lives by flying on rather than hiding below ground. Judging by the sweep of the Dragonwings and Drake packs toward more northerly latitudes, Asturbar calculated, they had better fly faster than any wind or they would be engulfed.
May Fra’anior’s paw favour them.
Oddly, although that apparent storm front now loomed greater than half of the sky, slowly turning to a sickly cupric patina as a preternatural darkness descended, there was no accompanying tempest. Just silence. A strange, sticky, foreboding silence. Not so much as half a growl of thunder. Asturbar eyed the eerie quality of the light, and returned to check on Nyahi, who in her Dragoness form was supervising turning the sinkhole into a Dragon trap. Chains. Spikes. Spears. Stanchions and metal barrels, and …
“Sacks of pepper?”
“I’m told they work on Drakes.”
“Carry on, Dragoness!”
“Yes, sah! Excellent work, sah!”
Asturbar pinned her with a withering ‘you’re overdoing it’ look. Iridiana pouted, but then returned immediately to her labours.
Behind the main entryway, they had lined up armoured ground catapult emplacements to saturate the area with as much enfilading crossfire as possible whilst retaining a sensible distance from the Drakes’ inevitable fireball attacks. “Expect a siege once the entryway blocks up with bodies, soldiers!” he barked. “Where are the Heavies?”
“Armouring up, sah!”
The familiar response made Asturbar spin on his heel with a cry of joy. “Bantukor!”
Joy? Whatever was he thinking?
“Can I say –” His friend choked on his words as he found himself gripped in a huge hug. “Arrgh, can I say you’re stronger than ever, sah?”
“How’ve you been, you old slakkid-slug?”
“Highly ashamed, sah – Marshal, sah!”
Asturbar locked eyes with him. “Bantukor, I’ve a story –”
“Take away my Command, sah. Hit me. Beat me. Do whatever you like to me, I’m so – I was just a fool, sah, and I’ve regretted it every day since. I can’t bear to wear … I don’t deserve this uniform –”
“Nah, you don’t.” After a breathless pause, Asturbar roared, “Because you need to get your pox-blasted armour on, soldier!”
“Ah –”
“Take charge of the entryway, Commander Bantukor!”
“Yes, sah!” He snapped out a salute so rigid, it looked carved in stone. Then, his eyes flew wide.
“Commander Bantukor,” purred the Iridium Dragoness, trying to shovel Asturbar out of the way with her muzzle. He stood his ground, forcing her to speak over him, which was symbolic rather than a physical issue for a Dragoness of her stature, for she stood thirteen feet tall at the shoulder. “I’m the Shapeshifter Dragoness whom the Marshal found in the Doldrums. My name’s Iridiana. I think you and I should have a long overdue chat after this little squabble with Marshal Thoralian is finished, shouldn’t we?”
Whatever her fiery glare communicated, Asturbar saw beads of sweat physically pop into being on his friend’s forehead, and his throat bobbed. Twice.
Flicking out a talon, Nyahi chucked Bantukor beneath the chin. “The only thing I like about you right now, soldier, is that your treachery inadvertently sent Asturbar my way. The rest is … debatable.”
Only a Dragoness could make ‘debatable’ sound exactly like, ‘turn you into a Human kebab and roast you slowly in the bonfires of my breath.’ Asturbar discovered a different form of sweat, the cold sweat somehow extra-chilled by the presence of a living furnace right beside him. He feared for Bantukor’s health. Nyahi, evidently, thought introducing mortal fear to a man’s life was her bounden duty, and her forgiveness would clearly be much harder than his to win – a gesture that he regretted in part, now. Perhaps he might savour the moment later. Right now, he had orders to bark.
An hour later, Asturbar met with his three Commanders and the Dragons, outlining the situation for them. “The Drakes are massing about a mile offshore. Our scouts tell us that they are being bossed by three Blue Shapeshifters. Expect a massive assault before suns-down. We have nineteen Lesser Dragons unless a few more stragglers still arrive, exactly one Shapeshifter Dragoness, 1,341 professional soldiers including the elite infantry units, 900 irregular troops and support, and a further 1,879 civilians and children to protect, plus unnumbered refugees. Many of those will run supplies and suchlike for us. The armouries are open for whatever you need – make your requests to the Armour Master. This is mostly going to be an underground battle. The general plan is to kill enough Drakes that they impede access to the fortress, and keep killing any fresh ones that appear. Maybe Marshal Thoralian will get bored and pass us by.”
Nobody laughed.
“There are only two assault vectors passable for Dragons or Drakes, being the little rat hole on level one and the wrecked main entryway here, on level sixteen. So we fight on two fronts with runners serving the command post on level five. Now, observe this diagram.”
Drawing their attention to an architectural sketch of the fortress, Asturbar identified the fall-back and assembly points, and the order in which major supports would be sabotaged behind a retreat to try to further blockade lower levels. By the time the enemy reached level twenty-nine, to which the civilians would fall back if the battle started to turn against the Mistrals, the battle would long since have been lost and an outright slaughter would ensue.
Unless they had something Thoralian wanted, such as the contents of his gut?
Hmm. He wished they knew more about the bigger picture, but their time had run out in spectacular fashion.
Bantukor said, “Sah, what about the infantry stoppers? They’d work on Drakes, right?”
“Don’t see too many Drakes in these parts,” grunted one of the Dragons. “They’re small enough, if you hit them right.”
“What are you thinking, Commander?” asked Asturbar.
Everyone blinked as Nyahi spontaneously transformed into one of her dragonet forms – this one a larger gliding dragonet, with elongated ochre wings that ran the length of her flanks, connecting from the ‘elbows’ of her forelegs to the knees at the back, and bolstered by semi-rigid struts that made the configuration, just for a second, look curiously piscine. She hissed in annoyance.
He said, “Iridiana’s transformations can be flexible.” No mention of Chaos magic. Not unless he could help it! “Bantukor?”
The man coughed, clearly uncomfortable with anything that was new or unfamiliar. “If the bodies pile up, sah, the interior catapults along the entryway will lose their effectiveness. Why don’t we deploy the infantry stoppers up on level eleven, where the standard archer slots are located? They’d have a free field of fire. We’d have to hollow out the archery slots a touch to fit the explosive bolts, mind …”
“Excellent thinking, Commander. Gashukan, will you see to it?”
The Head Engineer nodded. “Consider it done, Marshal.” No
quibbling from him! “Where shall I place any spare stoppers? There will be … at least fourteen spare, considering the useful range from eleven.”
They considered the map. “Back of the main entrance?” Asturbar suggested. “We’ve the three hundred yard fortified tunnel, with its additional potential slots above it here and here … yes. Make this area our killing field.”
“Yes, sah,” the Engineer said drily.
“Dragons incoming, sah!” The messenger boy skidded to a halt, clearly overawed by the presence of Dragons. “Uh …”
Asturbar racked his brains. “Sant’t’ban?”
The boy grinned, all white teeth in his tan face. “Yes, sah!”
“Were they friendly, boy?”
“I think so, Marshal sah! Did the … uh, the wiggly thing …”
“The wingtip-twirl genuflection?”
“Yes, sah.”
“Good lad. After they arrive, we need to make a decision –” He paused at a further clattering of boots in the stone hallway. “Soldier?”
“Drake packs on the move, sah!”
Asturbar gazed about him, collecting their attention with the ease of long command – not that he had ever commanded Dragons. Or a Shapeshifter! Or four thousand plus people … he sucked in a huge breath. “I don’t need to tell you we’re fighting for our lives, do I?” What could he say? “No boon, no quarter, no calamity. This day, the Mistral Fires will earn their name. Let’s burn bright! Go!”
As the others departed at the run for their stations, Bantukor stopped him. “Sah, you’re forgetting your armour. A gambeson’s fine, but –”
“Not forgotten,” said Asturbar. He had debated this with Nyahi, and for the moment, opted for the flexibility of not wearing his full battle armour, which was still stored in the arming station below. “I’ve a more flexible arrangement. Iridiana – armour configuration.”
Whoosh!
Bantukor did a classic double take, before swearing expressively. “With respect, sah, that’s –”
The gorgeous but girly-lavender-coloured armour of his left bicep smirked at the soldier. “As the Marshal told you, I’m a very flexible girl.”
Hard-bitten a soldier as he was, the Commander blushed furiously.
Asturbar rolled his eyes. “Honestly? Stop befuddling my soldiers, you gorgeous fiend. To battle!”
Chapter 20: Drakes Descending
AGAINST THE BALEFUL half-light cast by the partially eclipsed setting suns, which leached an ichorous, olivine viscosity from Thoralian’s advancing storm front, the packs of Drakes glinted like crimson migratory birds as they swept in from the Southeast. Observing from level eleven, Asturbar quietly described the scene to Nyahi. The Shapeshifters stirring the Drakes to war. Directing them. A tardy Dragonship mobbed, overwhelmed, and torn apart by dozens of the relatively small but powerful Dragonkind. A flight of fourteen Lesser Dragons scooting in before the advance, muzzles agape as they pumped their wings to achieve their maximum speed, a speed necessarily restricted by the presence of five younglings they shepherded in their midst. Hatchlings, less than a year old, he judged. At thirteen to fifteen feet in length, they were half the size and a fifth of the tonnage of those Drakes.
One of their own Grey-Greens, Amuzkayne, squeezed through the deliberately narrowed tunnel at the main entrance, below, to direct their landing.
Even from his post two hundred feet above, Asturbar heard his gruff inquiry, Be you friend or be you foe?
Friend. We will serve the House, fluted the largest female. Her voice was surprisingly soprano for such an impressive heavyweight, for she stood four feet taller than Amuzkayne and had to measure twice his girth. Still, she genuflected politely to underscore their subordinate status.
Shifter or Lesser?
I am a glamoured Brown, the Dragoness clarified quietly. In a moment, he noted the area of her muzzle shimmering slightly, and the perfect illusion she had maintained flickered just for a second. A Brown Dragoness! Amuzkayne was a sharp one.
The Grey-Green ruffled his wingtips in salute, before folding them neatly along his flanks. House Asturbar and the Mistral Fires welcome your service. Enter.
Ever direct, the Dragonkind. After observing the incoming hordes for ten seconds longer, Asturbar hurried downstairs to meet and deploy his new troops, and to ensure that the entrance was fully barricaded. The Brown would be an incredible boon. Given the natural affinity of her Dragon powers to manipulate earth and stone, she could rebuild in a matter of minutes what would take his workers weeks to achieve, creating fresh stone blocks from rubble and perfect joins, or even forming seamless basal stone. That would stop a few Drakes in their tracks!
The House was always warm and well-lit inside, but Asturbar had ordered every second torch in the wall sconces to be extinguished to save oil in case they needed to fire the barricades or firebomb the attackers. The interior had been hollowed out by hired Brown Dragons decades before as a series of linked caverns within the Island’s primary granite massif, so the major walls and floors were grey stone thirty feet thick, while the lesser interior partitions were purpose-built rockwork or wooden walls and flooring. The major staircases had six-foot steps for Dragons – small by their standards – alongside standard steps for Humans. Ten-to-one ratio. Asturbar trotted down the zigzag steps with their defensible landings at a battle hurry, which was how he always moved when the adrenaline kicked in.
He said, “I see you managed to reseat my battle-axe as well, Nyahi?”
“Not very useful underneath your armour, is it?”
“Just part of the general weaponry,” he quipped, and had the satisfaction of feeling his armour warm up appreciably.
They descended into the Greeting Hall, or the first major space inside the House, where the entryway terminated and numerous major corridors and ten levels intersected – not all, and not without an eye to what was defensible, once more. These Houses had been designed as fortresses and to be difficult to penetrate. As they descended the staircase that linked the exit tunnels around the oval chamber, approximately a quarter-mile in diameter, he peered over the balustrade to the grey granite flagstone floor below to observe that two of the hatchlings had also been unmasked, or unglamoured to use the technical term, to display Orange and Lime-Green colourations. Interesting. But which one was her mate?
Amuzkayne drew the Dragons’ attention. Marshal Asturbar approaches.
Azingloriax? asked one of their number.
Indeed, a powerful and shrewd warrior.
Approaching the Dragons directly, Asturbar smashed his fist against his breastplate. The honour of Onyx be thine, noble Dragons!
Ouch, Iridiana teased.
After the Dragons answered in chorus and in kind, he learned that the female’s name was Yua’tak’tix, or Yuaki for short. When he inquired, she spat, My mate? He was destroyed by the Thoralian triplicate, may his souls shrivel and fall into the Cloudlands!
Triplicate? Asturbar echoed.
I MOURN! I GRIEVE … oh, my precious shell-daughter Inzi’ak’utix! Taken too, and eaten … AH! MY SORROW RAGES UNBOUNDED!
A feccaci curse upon the Yellow-White! Asturbar roared in visceral response, as the other Dragons bellowed their sorrow and anger. His armour shivered upon his body, but Iridiana managed to control her incipient transformation.
Yuaki turned to him, growling, We will fight! We must fight! Grant us this boon, o Marshal Asturbar.
Of course! You will slay many and despatch their soulless carcasses to the eternal ice, he said, noting the warning signs of ferality in her fire-eyes. But it seemed that the Brown Dragoness was able to gather herself, for in a moment, her great muzzle dipped toward him, inviting instruction. He said, As a first critical task, will you help us shore up the defences?
She said, You have no idea what is coming; the power of the Marshals Thoralian is beyond measure. Your eyes inquire and I reply: he is three shell-brothers linked by dark-fires so perverse, they mimic Dramagon’s own soul-spawn. Indeed this is h
is very nature; specifically, three identical Dragons that think and act as one. The legends of his evil speak no untruth. This great disturbance you observe to the East is not the vanguard of his army, but its rearguard, for he fights the Star Dragoness out near the Straits. Thus you observe merely the backlash of his powers, the harbinger of what would steal the very fire-souls out of the bodies of those he parasitizes!
Asturbar nodded. I commend you for sharing this intelligence, noble Yuaki. We will speak –
She raised a fore-talon suddenly. What is this … this aura of glamour about you, Marshal? Are you … a Shapeshifter? I scent-trace female Shapeshifter, yet you are a man. What are you concealing from us?
After an embarrassed pause, his left shoulder armour formed a small metallic extrusion of muzzle and fire-eyes, and said, I am Iridiana. Fiery and furious greetings, noble Yuaki.
The Dragoness dropped back on her haunches in shock, and her muzzle hung agape as she stared at the apparition for a long, breathless moment. She gasped, Such a mastery of glamour and form … I have never … this is unprecedented. Are you a Phase Shifter? No, surely not – you truly create armour of such artistry?
A Phase Shifter? asked Iridiana.
An exceedingly rare type of Shapeshifter whose transformations are usually linked to the cycles of the Mystic Moon, Asturbar explained.
No, I’m no Phase Shifter, the shoulder replied. I am an unusual colouration with powers of malleability –
Colouration? snorted the Dragoness, her fire orbs still a-whirl with wonder. You are young, by the sound of your voice? This Marshal is your roost-mate?
He … is. Asturbar sensed her laughing inwardly at his discomfited reaction. Dragons certainly phrased the matter differently to delicate Humans! She explained, In my primary Dragoness form I am an Iridium Blue Shapeshifter, noble Dragoness. My powers are problematical to control, and complex. I am only just beginning to plumb their capabilities. I would very much value the opportunity to draw upon your wisdom and experience, if you could spare the time.
