Firehurler (Twinborn Trilogy) (72 page)

I have got to put a stop to this
, Brannis thought.
There is no one around. I have
to find a way to bring the avalanche wall down.

Brannis looked to the sword, hung from nothing,
waiting to be reclaimed.

Time for you to earn that name of yours
, he silently told it.

The sword accepted the news stoically. Avalanche was
not too far from the corner of a house, so Brannis used the building as cover
and then sneaked up and made a short leap for the sword, pulling it out of the
air. Goblins took notice, but those who first took notice were quickly
dispatched with a swipe of the blade. After that, Brannis ran off, ducking
behind the houses and occasional shop that formed the neighborhood around the
gate. Goblins continued streaming down the main trade road, making their way
straight from the main city gate (recently destroyed) to the undercity gate (even
more recently destroyed).

Brannis made his way to a more remote section of the
western cliffs and searched for a handhold. Climbing had never been a hobby of
his, even as a boy, but this was a circumstance that demanded risks be taken.
Keeping Avalanche drawn and ready, he found twofold purpose for it in his
climb. He was able to use its irresistible blade to carve spots for hands and
feet to grip, and more importantly, he was able to let go the hilt and use it
as a brace, trusting that the armor that could hold back a cannonball could
protect him from the blade of Avalanche as he leaned on it.

He made slow progress up the side of the cliff.
Goblins below noticed before long and threw spears and tiny daggers at him, but
all bounced off Brannis’s armor to no effect.

Were those hitting wards, or was that the metal
turning those blades?

For Brannis’s plan, it would be very useful if the
wards had not exhausted themselves.

At length, Brannis made it to the base of the
avalanche wall and carefully walked along the narrow flat area before it to the
gate to the undercity. Goblins took note of him, but he was beyond the reach of
their thrown weapons, and out in the cold, by himself, when there was a war and
warm air to be found in the city below, Brannis seemed to be better left to the
attention of “someone else.” Brannis managed to keep free of interference as he
steeled himself to do the craziest thing he had ever considered.

Taking Avalanche in both hands, he leaped and swung
the blade flat-first through the wall in a great diagonal slash. He felt the
barest of resistance as rock shattered at his sword’s passing. Without waiting
to see the results of his handiwork, he hopped backward, off the cliff, leaving
the sword out in front of him to drag through the rocky cliff face all the way
down.

Above him, Brannis heard the groan and crack as rock,
snow, and ice shifted and began to fall. Downward he plummeted, rolling and
turning to try to fall with the sword
aside
him rather than risk falling
with it atop him, or him atop it. The resistance of blade in stone was minimal
but slowed him from being fully in free fall. The remains of the portcullis
bent and then shattered as the sword caught it. After that, it was the duration
of a blink before Brannis slammed into the road on his side, crushing goblins
beneath him.

Brannis was stunned by the fall, his left arm
exploding in pain where it was caught beneath him.

So much for the wards
, Brannis mused.

Then the Neverthaw Glacier fell atop knight and goblin
alike, dropping a hundred feet of snow and ice across the entrance to the
undercity.

*
* * * * * * *

Rashan had tensed as he watched Brannis inch along the
avalanche wall, rune-forged blade in hand.

Clever boy. Do it! It is the chance I need.

When Brannis’s blade breached the wall, the city’s
protection against the Neverthaw Glacier gave way. The glacier shifted and
began to fall, the support it had relied on for countless generations suddenly
no longer sufficient to hold back its awesome weight.

The dragon panicked. She and Rashan had been watching
her forces overrun the undercity gate below and bringing siege to the castle on
the north side of the city. All was going in the goblins’ favor, then without
warning, the ground began to give way beneath them. The dragon’s instincts
caused her to stiffen her forelimbs against the falling motion, even as she
unfurled her wings to slow her fall and take flight.

But in that short moment, she seemed to forget the
demon she had been holding vigil over. Rashan did not hesitate. He had spent
his time with the dragon mapping out her muscles and scales, finding where best
to strike if the chance was presented. He could tell by the expansion of
Nihaxtukali’s chest as she breathed where her lungs ended. His aether-vision
saw the shielding construct built around her and where he could penetrate it.
She was an impressive beast, but a middling sorceress, and he had his pick of
spots where his own magic could whelm hers.

Rashan aimed his strike just behind her left forelimb
as she extended it to halt her slide. On a human, it would have been a strike
aimed roughly at the chink most armor had beneath the arm. Dragon scales were
not so clumsily assembled, but they faced the unnatural strength of a demon.
Drawing Heavens Cry and lunging with a two-handed grip in one blinding action,
he sent an aether blast to his target ahead of the blade. The magical attack
weakened the dragon’s shielding construct just enough that Rashan’s strike was
able to drive the point home.

The rune-forged sword punctured dragon scale, and
Rashan’s blade plunged to the hilt. Unleashing the terrible magic of his
creation, he pumped all his stored aether through the blade. The sword was
lodged in Nihaxtukali’s left lung, and the plume of toxic fumes not only filled
the dragon’s lung but melted through it, eating away the heart and other lung
as well.

Nihaxtukali screamed … or tried to at least. The great
bellows that had earlier announced the doom of the Kadrin forces now choked off
in strangled agony, accompanied by a billowing cloud of the noxious vapor that
had been forced into her. The dragon’s pain was short lived, though, as it was
already a corpse by the time it pitched face-first into the snow, ensuring that
the avalanche would take the whole glacier with it. With the dragon’s added
bulk, there was no stopping that.

Rashan rode the dragon’s corpse, hanging onto the
blade until they had nearly reached the ground. Before the impact, the warlock
leaped free of the monstrous, dead sledge. It was a gleeful, liberated demon,
drunk with bloodlust, that fell amid the teeming masses of goblins. It was a
stake thrust into history with Rashan Solaran’s name upon it. Dragon-slayers
were the stuff of storybooks, not histories, for dragons resisted slaying like
no other creatures. The mantle of “Dragon-slayer” would fit nicely among his
boasted titles, Rashan thought.

Out on the streets of Raynesdark, and afterward on the
plains below, goblins died. And died. And died …

*
* * * * * * *

Juliana heard the immense thunder of the crash, and
felt the ground shake as if the whole of the mountain would come down atop her.
She heard the frightened goblins running down the passageway and then the
relative silence that followed. She put away one of her daggers and risked
unbarring the door.

Outside, the corridor was clear. Magic lit it—left by
some goblin sorcerer most likely—and she saw bodies all about, mostly human,
some goblin. At the gate entrance, she saw the whole of it blocked by fallen
ice and snow, some of it forming a slope back into the corridor. Here and
there, a limb or a spear or bit of shining metal shone through the debris. She
caught a flash of gold …

Brannis!

Juliana rushed over, heedless that any goblins
backtracking to the entrance would have her trapped. She put away her other
dagger and rushed over to begin digging in the snow with her hands.

“Brannis? Brannis! Can you hear me?” Juliana asked.

“Yph,” came a muffled response from beneath the snow.
A minute’s effort had revealed Brannis’s face. Once she knew better where he
was, Juliana drew aether and warmed the snow around him. She pulled off one of
the vicious gauntlets of his armor and took him by the hand with both of hers.
She heaved and pulled as she melted the snow that pressed down on him, slowly
dragging him free enough that he could help the rest of the way.

“Thank you,” Brannis said, collapsing on his back to
catch his breath.

Juliana plunked herself down beside him, sitting in
the melted runoff and not caring. Brannis unclasped the demon helm and pulled
it off, and his hot, sweaty head steamed in the icy air.

“You stopped them,” she said.

“Good. Any idea how many got through?”

“Too many. They are overrunning the undercity by now.
Not many of your troops were left to hold them off,” Juliana said.

Brannis looked at her and saw the concern in her eyes.
She knew that he was not going to give up, take his rest, and leave the defense
of the undercity to those with more left to give.

Brannis sat up and cupped her cheek in his ungloved
hand. He leaned over and kissed her. The snow had cleaned much of the gore from
him, albeit haphazardly. He looked nothing like the heroes drawn in the fairy
stories that Juliana had grown up worshiping. He was bruised and bloody, with
matted hair and dripping sweat, but he was everything she ever really wanted in
a hero.

“I have to go help them. I cannot just rest here, much
as I might need it. If I think too much, I might not be able to move at all.”

Brannis grinned ruefully. He took up his helm and put
his gauntlet back on. Avalanche was lost somewhere amid the snow, and he had no
time to look for it. He took up a discarded spear from the floor and headed
down toward the undercity.

“Stay here, or at least stay back. I have to go.”

It was all she heard, all she ever heard from Brannis
anymore. The rest did not matter. She would follow. She would never stop
following him unless that phrase changed to: “I want to go.”

*
* * * * * * *

The undercity was in chaos. Goblins were everywhere.
The Kadrin defenders were few, and civilians were all over. Some reinforcements
were arriving from the castle, but the castle defenders had been hard pressed
as well. Brannis looked about and saw that there was no organization to the
defense. If there were commanders about, they had been overwhelmed by the
maelstrom of flesh and steel.

Mennon’s plan was the only solution Brannis could
think of. The ogre pens were along the south wall of the undercity and well
away from where the civilians and their defenders were making their stand, at
the mine entrances. It was hard to tell from the overlook at the lower interior
gate to the undercity, but it seemed like pockets of Kadrins might even have
been surrendering.

Brannis ran.

Brannis
tried
to run but managed a hustle. His
back hurt, and his left arm was likely broken. The enchantment on the armor had
saved his life, but it was done saving him until a sorcerer saw to it.

I guess I should be glad the quicksilver stays solid
when it runs out of aether
, Brannis
mused, mid hustle.

When he got to the ogre cages, he found them in a highly
agitated mood. They strode over to the barred door that marked the entrance to
their little community.

“Who is your leader?” Brannis demanded.

From what he knew of ogres, they dealt in strength,
using simple, straightforward chains of command that were often topped by the
strongest warrior. He hoped these were at least sensible enough to follow
someone who spoke good Kadrin.

“That be me,” one near the door answered.

The ogre towered over Brannis the way he did over
Iridan. Brannis’s bloody face came to the ogre’s sternum, so he had to look up
to see the furrowed brow and suspicious glare the ogre met him with.

“What is your name?” Brannis asked.

He refused to treat them with the dishonor the nobles
of Raynesdark did. He wanted them to fight for him, not as slaves but as
warriors. He hoped that the instinct for it still lurked behind the docile
front they had showed so far. The cunning he saw in their leader’s gaze gave
him some hope.

“Me Glumg. Who you?” the ogre responded.

“I am Sir Brannis Solaran. I lead the Kadrin army. I
am the big boss. I am boss of all bosses. I want you to fight for me.” Brannis
gestured to all of the ogres in the pen. There were hundreds of them, and most
would be battle ready without training if the opponents were just measly little
goblins. “All of you.”

“Huh? You have us fight goblins? They everywhere! See
’em?” Glumg pointed out into the city.

“So what? You are ogres. You are a lot bigger. Step on
them. Kick them. Hit them with tools. Killing goblins is easy. There are a lot
of them to kill,” Brannis said. “And it is fun. You will like killing goblins.
They make a crunch noise when you step on them.” Brannis mimicked a crunching
noise as best he could. It was a skill all little boys learned at an early age,
and he got the point across. Glumg grinned.