In Treachery Forged (The Law of Swords) (24 page)

Maelgyn nodded, lifting his hand and magically summoning his katana. Since he was no longer hiding his identity, he could afford to use the better blade. “We’ll meet them together, then.”

“And if El’Athras is a bit tardy,” El’Ba growled, “We’ll just have to make sure these idiots know just what it’s like to attack those in my care. Don’t worry, Doc, we’ll keep you safe.”

Wodtke looked vaguely reassured after that statement, but Maelgyn, sensing the same group of Dwarves Euleilla had reported, definitely was not. This was not going to be like the easy battles he’d been in, to date. He was going to have to fight off a horde of angry Dwarves, and he couldn’t afford to kill his enemy.

Maelgyn changed his mind. It wasn’t just a long day – it was an
extremely
long day.

Chapter 15

The six inhabitants of El’Ba’s inn used the scant few minutes they had to fortify the building before the rioters arrived. Tables were overturned to become shields against stone and arrow, chairs were used to prop doors and windows closed, a few very simple traps like trip ropes were set... but even with all of the ingenuity, magic and mysticism two Dwarves, three mages, and one Elf were able to produce, they knew they lacked the resources to hold their attackers off for more than a few short minutes.

“Euleilla,” Maelgyn asked when the rioters got close enough for everyone to hear, “Can you tell if Tur’Ne is anywhere near El’Athras’ mansion?”

“I’ve been tracking him,” she said. “He was allowed inside about twenty minutes ago, but I can’t tell you more than that. They have lodestones throughout the place, which makes it hard to see inside – especially from a distance.”

“The guard is probably already assembling,” Maelgyn mused. “They’ll head to the clinic, first... but what will happen when they find that we never showed up?”

“Probably they’ll come straight here.” Wodtke suggested. “It wouldn’t be hard to figure out where you were staying. At least Athy knows that this is where I’d come if I couldn’t get to my clinic.”

“Worst case,” El’Ba said, “It’ll take him another half-hour to assemble the guard. Which means he won’t be here for an hour, so we’ve gotta somehow stall these brainless sheep attacking my inn for that long.”

“And we can’t kill them. If we kill them, El’Athras’ political opposition will be able to use that to completely destabilize his government. ‘See,’ they’ll say. ‘He’s allied our country with those who think nothing of slaughtering our people!’” Maelgyn shook his head in disgust. “We can only use enough force to drive them off, unless we want the rioters to return ten-fold.”

“No killing?” Tur’Ba snorted. “You don’t like to make this easy, do you?”

A crash signaled the first attack upon the doors. Apparently, the crowd had already pieced together a makeshift battering ram, and the door, though sturdy, was not built to deal with that kind of attack. It was built with a complex lock no thief would ever manage to pick, but the crowd wasn’t interested in dealing with a lock. It was much more interested in destroying the door.

“Well,” El’Ba snorted when the second crash echoed through the inn’s common room. “It’ll take them about ten more strikes like that to break down the door. At the speed they’re moving, that means we’ve got about two minutes until they’re in here.”

Euleilla grimaced, removing her home-made steel bracers. Magically, she sent them flying across the room, forming them into solid bars as they went. They attached themselves to the door, reducing the noise and apparent effectiveness as the third strike hit. “I’ll help keep them closed as much as I can.”

Maelgyn sighed. “It won’t work for long. That buys us maybe... five minutes. Not enough time, I fear.”

“Ten minutes,” El’Ba said, taking a good look at the door. “Good woman you’ve got there, Maelgyn. Those bars look pretty strong.”

“Ten minutes, then,” he replied, grimacing. “Not nearly long enough, anyway.”

“Don’t worry, do not,” Wangdu said. “I’ve got a few things I can do, myself, I do. I should be able to buy us more time once they’re through the door, I should.”

“Until they get the poisons out, that is,” El’Ba snorted. “I know you’re good, Master Wangdu, but my people are more prepared for your tricks than you’d think. The Elves haven’t faced us in battle for almost five hundred years, but if they ever do they’ll find we’re a lot better prepared for them than anyone else they’ve ever faced before.”

“Debate a theoretical Elf-Dwarf war later,” Maelgyn snapped. “We need to think of something else we can try, should Wangdu’s methods fail us.”

“Hand to hand, of course,” Tur’Ba snorted. “You can only delay a riot so long unless you’ve got an army to disperse it.”

“I was hoping for something a bit less... lethal,” Maelgyn said. “Besides, Euleilla wouldn’t be very effective fighting in close combat. Bows and arrows like you and your father have wouldn’t exactly be useful that close in, either, and are even more lethal. Doctor Wodtke isn’t a fighter at all, and likely will have serious problems in battle. No, Tur’Ba. We may have to fight as a last resort, but it would be best to avoid that, if possible.”

“I can hold Dwarven patients down with magic during surgery,” Wodtke noted. “Perhaps we could hold back the attackers with magic, as well?”

“If El’Ba is to be believed – and I trust his judgment in these matters – then they’ll likely have lodestones,” Maelgyn warned. “I don’t think you’re strong enough to push through one like Euleilla and I. Even we can only manage it for a short time, with this many people around.”

“It’s the only other thing we can do,” Euleilla sighed. “So we shall do it.”

The door started splintering, and Maelgyn nodded. “It’ll have to be enough. There’s not much else we can do. At least we won’t have to worry about them burning down the building – Dwarven stone construction is going to save us that much worry.”

The next crash of the battering ram was accompanied by the first crack in the door. A second blow about ten seconds later sent some small splinters flying.

“Either you or El’Athras better pay me for that door,” El’Ba sighed, looking at Maelgyn. “I spent a fortune importing it.”

With the battering ram pounding on the door to the inn, the only noises the six people trapped in the inn allowed themselves came in the form of El’Ba’s groans and moans over his damaged property. Euleilla was using some of her magical strength to keep her reinforcing bars intact, but Maelgyn kept a close eye on her. They knew that, when the door was breeched and Wangdu’s diversions were overcome, it would be up to the two of them to prevent the intrusion of the rioters. She had to conserve her strength, and she still hadn’t recovered fully from her illness. Maelgyn knew she’d tire much faster than she expected to.

“Enough,” he finally said to her. “If you stress yourself out too much, you won’t be able to recover before it’s too late.”

With a sigh, Euleilla released her hold on the door’s iron bars. “Okay,” she whispered without a protest, leaning back to relax and recover her strength.

It only took one more blow of the battering ram to shatter the doors. Euleilla, with a last bit of magical effort before completely relaxing, recovered the iron bars and reformed them into her bracers. She did not put them on, however, before collapsing in exhaustion.

Maelgyn sighed. She had overtired herself, but she might be able to recover most of her strength with just a few minutes rest. He was so concerned for her that he almost overlooked Wangdu leaping over the makeshift barrier of overturned tables to go on the offensive.

He had to take care of Euleilla while also keeping one eye on the ongoing battle. First, he strapped her bracers on for her – he still wasn’t quite sure why she wore them, since they weren’t likely to be useful for her, but she seemed to think they were important. He still didn’t know enough about her magical practices to know whether they were worn for decoration or for some other reason. That done, he pulled her against his shoulder to comfort her while he watched the ongoing battle.

And it was a remarkable battle. No-one in the room had ever seen an Elf fight: not Maelgyn, not Wodtke, not even the Dwarves. While several centuries old – no-one knew his exact age – Wangdu was counted a younger, less experienced Elf. If this was young and inexperienced, Maelgyn dreaded the day he might face a veteran Elven warrior.

Mages were the elite of the Human fighting force. They could make themselves stronger and faster than any normal human, and had abilities no non-mage could dream of, no matter what tools they had with them. Powerful mages, like Euleilla and Maelgyn, were the central reason humans held such a strong position in the world. Alone, the average mage could fight regular humans and foot soldiers – and expect a reasonable chance at winning – at almost twenty to one odds. An army could face exponentially larger numbers and win when accompanied by a strong mage. That said,
no one
fought like an Elven soldier. From his history lessons at the Svieda castle, Maelgyn knew of a single Elf who held a mountain pass against ten thousand Human enemies for three days before he was killed, slaughtering nearly a tenth of his enemy’s forces as they tried to approach. He always had thought that story was a legend... until he saw Wangdu’s battle with the rioters.

True to his word, Wangdu wasn’t killing anybody... but that didn’t mean the rioters were going to escape unscathed. The vines he had planted while Maelgyn was taking care of Euleilla were now growing wildly, tying up many rioters and tossing them into walls, bloodying many a Dwarven forehead. It was a remarkable feat, given the Dwarves notorious durability, that he was knocking so many of them unconscious. Meanwhile, the blunt end of the Elf’s spear was thrusting into the bellies and cracking over the heads of the few who managed to slip past the wily plant. As the number of Dwarven bodies lying in the inn grew, Maelgyn started to hope that he and Euleilla wouldn’t be needed.

Sadly, Wangdu’s efforts proved insufficient to permanently stem the tide. As those who had been knocked out gradually awakened, he was finding himself more and more penned in. His tactic was slightly flawed for this kind of battle – while there would have been no problem if he’d been allowed to kill his opponents, the need to only stun them gave them a chance to recover... and as they recovered, to outflank him. Furthermore, his vines were slowly being beaten back, as someone started deploying Dwarven-made fast-acting plant poisons. The vines were literally melting as the poison touched, and the plants were being killed at a faster rate than Wangdu could regrow them. His spear lengthened and shortened as needed, but after a while he no longer risked it to the crowd that was deploying their poisons so liberally. Instead, he concentrated on the ones trying to outflank him, but gradually they drove him back.

Maelgyn saw he didn’t have long before he’d have to act... but then was shocked to sense Doctor Wodtke entering the battle, using her limited skills in magic to hold off some of the Dwarves from attacking Wangdu. Her efforts would give them a few precious seconds more for Euleilla to recover, but he wasn’t sure it would be enough. Wangdu was losing ground faster, now, and it wouldn’t be long before he’d have to either awaken Euleilla or battle the entire force of rioters alone.

He motioned for Tur’Ba to come closer. “Slowly count to a hundred and then wake her up,” he said. “She can’t fight in her condition, but give her just another minute or two more rest and she’ll be a great help.”

Tur’Ba nodded. “Yes, sir!” he snapped, giving him a Sviedan salute... although not properly. He would need to learn which hand to salute with if he was going to stay in Maelgyn’s service.

Maelgyn shook his head at the errant thought. If they got out of this situation alive, Tur’Ba would have earned a spot in his service, regardless of his limited knowledge of Sviedan formalities.

Maelgyn stepped out from behind their makeshift barricade, gathering magic in his legs to boost his speed and strength and collecting a nearby strand of rope that had been laced with iron powder. Ready for the battle, he jumped over the tables and into the fray. Startling the nearby Dwarves, he used his magically reactive rope to bind a half-dozen of the rioters together, effectively taking them out of the battle for a time. He assessed the situation closely as he marched forward towards Wangdu, intending to relieve the embattled Elf, and found that El’Ba had been right. Many of the attackers held frying pans converted into lodestones... and a few of them had military-grade lodestones and wore proper bronze armor. Professional soldiers, in fact, seemed well interspersed throughout the crowd – something to take note of and look out for as the battle continued.

Not all of the attackers had lodestones. Maelgyn left as many of those as he could for Wodtke. As completely untrained in battle as she was, her efforts were almost negligible, but with her as a distraction he could concentrate on the better equipped Dwarves.

For someone of his power, weak lodestones such as these were merely targets – iron weapons he could use to fight his enemies. True, it would take a great deal more effort than he would have liked, but he was strong enough to push aside the influence of a lodestone and work on its core of iron. If he had the time, which he didn’t, he could even remove their magical properties altogether. As it was, considering the natural magical resistance of the Dwarves, it was actually easier to use his magic on the lodestones than it would be to try anything on the Dwarves themselves.

With a dramatic gesture, he knocked back all of the Dwarves attacking Wangdu’s left flank using the rioting Dwarves’ own pots and pans. It required more effort than he expected, but he managed it nevertheless. He continued pushing that wave of Dwarves back, until they were once again behind the dying vines concocted by Wangdu.