An Army of Heroes

by Scott J Robinson

  Rawk narrowed his eyes. “Talk to who?”

  “He won’t want to talk to me,” Thacker said. “He wouldn’t lower himself to talk to me as if I was in charge.”

  Raven nodded.

  “Well, you’re coming though,” Rawk said. “You are in charge, so you can make any decisions.”

  Thacker grunted. “If I must.”

  “Come on then.”

  Out of habit, Rawk checked he had everything. Sword. Utility belt with his dagger, snacks, and his cutlery. Maybe one time he’d find a way to win the war in one of the pouches as well. “Right.” He sighed and headed for the door.

  “Rawk.”

  He turned and looked back at Celeste.

  “Be careful. Don’t try to be a hero.”

  He nodded and started to turn. But he stopped for a moment before hurrying back to her. He cleared his throat and looked around. Everyone was watching him. “You be careful too. You should go back up to Caldera.”

  “If the fight reaches even this far then all is lost.”

  “I know. But you should go.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “I need you to go. Just in case.” He turned and hurried out the door.

  Outside, half a dozen dwarves with goat cabs were waiting to run messages. Rawk climbed into the seat of the nearest and they started down the hill.

  The edge of the river was crowded with warriors. Most were just normal men and women— bakers and cobblers and merchants and a hundred other types— but they were warriors nonetheless. It was in their eyes. In the way they stood. In the way they spoke. They shuffled aside as best they could in the crush to let the cabs through.

  A rumble followed Rawk along, growing to a cheer as he neared the water. Rawk was glad they didn’t have any walnuts.

  The goats finally came to a halt near a hay wain that had been turned on its side as a barricade just a few yards from the river. Rawk hopped down into the shade and was joined a moment later by Thacker and Red Raven.

  “So I’m just shouting from here?”

  Raven shrugged. “He’s on the northern stub of the bridge.”

  Rawk rolled his eyes. “Of course he is.” His bald head was sweating.

  “What do you mean?”

  “That’s nice and dramatic, isn’t it? Is he wearing a cloak?”

  Raven glanced at Thacker. “Perhaps. I didn’t really take any notice.”

  “I imagine he’s brought some men with him to wave big fans so the cloak billows around him.” Rawk loosened his shoulders and his neck.

  “There is some breeze today.”

  “Come on then.”

  The three of them, plus two more warriors, headed for the tail of Dragon Bridge and started to climb towards the crest. About twenty yards up, the bridge ended in a ragged stump where the dwarves had demolished it. Rawk stopped near the edge. Weaver was thirty yards away, cloak billowing.

  “Hello, Rawk.”

  “Hello, Weaver. Haven’t you got some gold to count, or puppies to torture, or something?”

  “I want this to end, Rawk.”

  “So you’re surrendering?” He clapped his hands together. “Excellent.”

  Rawk saw Weaver’s mouth twitch.

  “This went better than expected.”

  “Do you take anything seriously?”

  “Seriously? You want me to take this seriously? All right then. If you want this to end, and you aren’t here to surrender, then offer your terms.”

  Weaver didn’t respond.

  “That’s what I thought. Even you know your terms are ridiculous.”

  Still, the Prince said nothing.

  “Come on, Weaver,” Rawk bellowed. “Name your terms. You want me and the leaders to turn ourselves in? And you want everyone else to go back to work as if nothing has happened? As if you haven’t tried to send mercenaries into their homes. As if you haven’t destroyed their businesses. As if you haven’t tried to take everything from them in a petty fit of rage.”

  Taking a deep breath, he thought of Maris, killed by exots coming through Weaver’s portals. He hadn’t actually loved her, which made her murder even worse. She just died because Weaver could not control his rage. His voice dropped to almost a whisper. “In some cases you have taken everything, Weaver. But here you are, asking for more.

  “Name your price, Weaver, so I can tell you where to shove it and we can get back to the fighting.”

  “I just want you, Rawk. As ever. As always.”

  Rawk shook his head. “Even if I went over there, Weaver, with flowers in my hair and a smile on my face, you still wouldn’t have me, and you know it.”

  Weaver glared for a moment. “It has come to this, has it?”

  “I don’t know, has it? This is all about you, Weaver. You can stop this. We don’t want to fight, but we cannot surrender. This ends when you leave Katamood, or when you die.”

  “Just remember, you called this down upon everyone, Rawk. This is on your head.” He started to turn away, but stopped. The Prince smiled at Rawk. “I thought you were in love with Maris. And I thought you were in love with Sylvia. I was wrong. I got the wrong women, didn’t I? But not this time. This time I got the right one.” His smiled broadened. “So that makes two out of four. That isn’t too bad, really.”

  He turned away, cloak swirling dramatically, and called to some of his followers.

  Rawk’s heart was beating wildly. He stared after Weaver, unwilling to believe what he had heard. Then he turned and ran down the bridge.

  “Dragons!” someone shouted.

  “DRAGONS.”

  Rawk slowed and turned back. He walked backwards through the crowd, eyes scanning the sky. There were dragons rising from the palace. A dozen of them. Each was at least twenty yards long and looked as fierce as a cornered cassaluk. They were bright colors— red and green and blue and gold— and each had a rider on its back.

  “Take cover.”

  The creatures raced southwards, skimming over the tops of the buildings, screeching a chorus that set Rawk’s nerves on edge as he pushed his way through the square. He didn’t want to start a stampede but he wanted to run. He didn’t want to escape the dragons, he wanted to return to the Burning Tree as quickly as he could, before it was too late, if it wasn’t already.

  But the dragons kept coming, crossing above the river, and a hundred arrows leaped into flight to meet them. Rawk stopped to watch and saw most of the shafts bounce harmlessly away from the thick, scaled hides. A second volley had the same effect.

  Then they were over land again and the dragons breathed long gouts of liquid flame into the retreating militia.

  Rawk saw a woman batting at her burning dress, but the flames clung to her hands and she was screaming before he could get to her. She rolled about on the ground, but all that did was set the cobblestones on fire as well.

  Red Raven dragged Rawk away before he could go to help. Others did what they could, but her screams followed them away from the docks and in amongst the streets.

  They stopped to look back and saw the dragons coming around again.

  “In here.” Rawk led the way into an old stone building. Inside was a bakery but Rawk broke the door in the back and thumped his way painfully up to the second floor, and from there to the third. He found a bedroom with a window that looked to the north.

  Outside, buildings were already starting to smolder. The tree near the edge of the square was blazing, sending out crackling flames that leapt towards barricades.

  Across the other side of the river, a hundred men emerged from one of the streets. They carried between them a long platform with struts on the bottom and six legs sticking up n the air .

  “What is that?” Raven asked.

  But it became obvious soon enough. The end closest to the water was quickly chained to two stone blocks, the other end fitted into some type of contraption that...

  There was a hiss and clang and the end of the platform rose up into the air, teetered at the perpendicular for a moment, then fel
l over the river, hitting the wharves with a crash and a spray of dust.

  Rawk looked at Raven. “I think we’d better talk to Thacker about dwarves who aren’t where they’re supposed to be.”

  Raven nodded but was still looking out the window. “Perhaps some other time. At the moment, we have more pressing concerns.”

  Mercenaries were already streaming over the newly made bridge. It flexed and wobbled but held their weight. And with the attention of the few remaining defenders captured, more men were approaching the far side of the river with boats and rafts to add to the ones already afloat.

  Raven leaned out the window and looked down. Then he sprang through the opening and was gone.

  Rawk look out as well and saw the elf leaping down to the ground from the roof of a ground floor porch.

  “Is he crazy?” No, he’s an elf. Ignoring his knee, Rawk took the stairs two at a time and raced across the square. Militia were already defending the end of the new bridge and holding their own for the moment, keeping the enemy bottled up on the wobbling planks. But if too many of the boats made if across...

  He stopped by the edge of the river and stared. There were already a hundred boats making the crossing. Some of them only had one man on board, others had ten or twelve, all with weapons ready.

  “Great Path,” Rawk said. This was it then. Weaver had finally decided that he wasn’t going to get what he wanted. And if Weaver wasn’t going to get it, then nobody was.

  Rawk tried not to think of what might be happening at the Burning Tree. Who had stayed behind?

  Taking a deep breath, he looked at the men and women waiting around him. “Those men don’t fight for their family,” he shouted. “They don’t fight for their homes and their shops. They don’t fight for what is right. They fight for money, and sometimes, today, money is not enough.”

  The militia cheered, brandishing their weapons. Rawk would have been a lot more confident if those weapons had all been swords, or maces and flails. There were far too many rakes and hoes and staves for his liking. And for a moment, he wondered if he should send them on their way. But the ones who would leave had already done so— these people would just be disheartened by such a suggestion.

  He swallowed and took a deep breath as the first boats reached the bottom of the wall below him. “Don’t let them reach the top,” he said. “Let the river do the rest.”

  Rawk kicked the first man in the face and nearly had his leg chopped off at the ankle by the second. He stumbled away, panting, sweating, and was pushed back towards the action by the crowd waiting around him. He needed more room. All the front line did. But even if such a thing could be created in the surging mass, there was too much noise for the order to be heard. So Rawk concentrated on stabbing and thrusting and tried not to get tangled with those beside him.

  A dragon screeched, and Rawk looked up, feeling the sound twisting amongst his nerves. The creature spat and twenty yards away a handful of people burst into flames. There were militia and mercenaries alike and they suddenly had no thought for the battle at all. Some of them jumped into the water but the screams kept going.

  Killing another man, Rawk sent him tumbling into the water as well, creating an avalanche of mercenaries that left him on his own for a moment. Overhead... He tried to keep his thoughts on something he could control but he hunched his shoulders, as if that might save him from the fire, as if that was really all that much worse than a slow death with a knife wound in his stomach. To his left, away from the bridge, he saw a tight cluster of men collapse, almost as one, as they were pounded with arrows from a barge in the middle of the river. And half a dozen mercenaries surged up the wall and into the breach.

  Rawk was too far away. He watched, knowing that the first few seconds would make or break everything. And the mercenaries pushed the locals back, edging away from the water. Soon they’d made enough room for another boatload of men to get their feet on dry land. And that was it. It was all over.

  “Don’t be a hero,” Rawk muttered, thinking of Celeste and what Weaver’s men might be doing to her. He couldn’t help her now, so he charged towards the enemy he could reach. He called for archers, but there were none. Or if there were, they didn’t hear, or if they did they were too busy doing something else. Men fell in behind him though, drawn along by his urgency. They arrived in time for the third boat, crashing into a group of mercenaries that had pushed through the militia line.

  Rawk swung wildly, hoping the help wasn’t far behind. They were taking their time. He killed two men, or good enough, running one through and sending the other head first over the wall and onto a boat. There was a sickening thud and a loud crack. It wasn’t immediately obvious if it was the boat or the man that made the latter noise.

  Taking the chance to look around in the spare moment, Rawk discovered that he fighting with just a few locals. The rest were dead or dying, or had been forced further from the river. Mercenaries were coming up the wall by the boatload now, all the way to the makeshift bridge and almost to the edge of the square in the other direction. Rawk swallowed. It wouldn’t be long. They would be over run soon. More boats were on the river, ferrying men across in ever increasing number. There were already more than enough to win the battle, but more were lining up on the far side, ready to launch their boats.

  “To me,” Rawk called, dragging his attention back to his more immediate surroundings. He couldn’t do anything about the men in the boats. All he could do was concentrate on those within reach of his sword. And that would be more than enough in a moment.

  “Hello, Rawk.”

  Rawk blinked in surprise. “Fabi! What are you doing here?”

  Fabi looked a bit confused. “Fighting.”

  “I thought, a long time ago, I told you to find another line of work.”

  “You did. This is just a hobby; I’m not getting paid.”

  “Well, I have the feeling you are going to enjoy today then.”

  The big man looked out at the river and smiled sadly. “I imagine you’re right.”

  “Come on.” Rawk looked at the militia gathering around him. Makeshift soldiers, many of them with makeshift weapons. “Give them hell.”

  And they charged towards the largest knot of mercenaries who had gathered not far away to organize themselves as quickly as they could.

  By the time Rawk reached the first man another dozen had joined the group. Two died almost instantly, and another handful took their place. Rawk shouted and swung his sword. And he knew that for every man he killed, at least three or four of his own followers met a similar fate.

  It wouldn’t be long.

  There was a slight reprieve when the next wave to come over the wall suddenly caught fire. But by the time the shadow of the dragon had passed the next surge had scrambled up to join the fight.

  A dwarf on Rawk’s left died with a dagger in his chest. On the other side a woman stumbled away from a mace strike only to be impaled on a pike. And another died and another. They shouldn’t be fighting. They should have all left... He tried not to think about it. He tried not to think.

  “Look to the river. Look to the river.”

  Rawk didn’t know who was calling, whether it was friend or foe, but it didn’t really matter. He turned to look at the river again, expecting to see a whole flotilla of mercenaries making their way across. There were a lot more boats than before, hundreds of them, but they seemed to be making their way down the river, not across. And in the first one was a man in a fluttering butterfly cloak and...

  Rawk smiled. Opok stood in the back of the boat. The old duen raised a huge bow and fired an arrow as long as a javelin into a crowded boat. One mercenary died with the arrow in his chest and he took another three into the water with him. A man fell from the sky, an arrow in his chest, and knocked a hole right through the bottom of a skiff. Overhead, his uncontrolled dragon attacked on of its fellows and others scattered

  A hundred more huge arrows were loosed, some towards the sky, others toward
s the river, as the duen turned towards the southern shore. They cut a swath through the enemy, using maces when they came close enough. The fear they created seemed almost as deadly.

  Half the boats reached the shore and duen started leaping up onto solid ground. And the mercenaries now had an enemy at their backs, a huge enemy who fought with a cool, silent ferocity that was unnerving.

  It took only a matter of minutes for the enemy to break and run, though where they thought they were going to go when everyone south of the river was totally against them was anyone’s guess.

  Rawk looked around. “Fabi, I have to...”

  Fabi was lying on the ground not far away, blood slowly leaking from a wound in his chest. Rawk rushed to the other man’s side.

  “No, no, no.” He slid to a halt and tried to pick Fabi up but he was too big and couldn’t do anything to assist with the movement. Rawk cradled the other man’s head in his lap.

  “Rawk.” It was a whisper. Such a soft sound should not have come from such a big man.

  “Yes, Fabi. I’m here.”

  “We’ve got things under control here. I’ve got them sorted out.”

  Rawk nodded.

  “Go and find her. Make sure she’s all right. Path be with you.”

  Rawk turned and found Opok walking closer. Zid was by his side, the soldier carrying his helm under his arm. “Can you help him, Opok? I have to go...”

  The duen nodded somberly and quickened his pace.

  “I’ll talk to you soon.” And he gently laid Fabi down. “Don’t be a hero.” He winced when the other man coughed a spray of blood onto his shirt, and rose quickly to his feet. A moment later he was racing through the remains of the battle. His knee throbbed with every step, but he paid it no heed. He would have run all the way back up the mountain, but a dwarf blocked the way with his goats and buggy.

  “Hop in, Rawk. It will be quicker.”

  Rawk recognized Harris. He hesitated for a moment, then threw himself into the passenger seat.

  The dwarf got the goats moving, pushing them as hard as he could.

  The goat ran all the way to the Burning Tree.