The Dark Glory War (40 page)

“Oh.” I stood as the bandy-legged urZrethi troop began walking past. Some actually leaned forward on their hands to walk on all fours, while most just struggled along on two. “I shan’t keep you, then. It is good to see you up and about.”

“And it is good to be up and about.” She gave me a quick smile. “Find me later; I have something for you—a relic of our adventures that you might find useful. Until then, be well.”

“And you.”

I watched her go and wondered what she was talking about. Before I could figure it out, I turned and found Lord Norrington approaching me. “What did you think, Hawkins, of the fighting down there?”

“Seemed to me to be like fighting in a grave. I didn’t much care for it.”

“Neither did I, but as a result of seeing it I’m fairly certain the walls will stand until Chytrine batters them down.” He laughed. “It will be quite a while before that happens, though. We’ve a long siege ahead of us.”

I nodded in agreement, not realizing how quickly the both of us would be proved wrong.

Later that afternoon a great cry rose from the enemy camp. I was walking with Seethe in the outermost section of the city and quickly mounted the walls near the main gate. Because of the press of people, the closest we got to them was a hundred yards. Even so, we did have a decent view of what was going on and quickly understood why the Aurolani host was elated.

Chytrine had arrived.

Six magnificent drearbeasts pulled her gilded carriage, with vylaens serving as coachmen and footmen. The bulbous carriage had been shaped like a dragon in white, with its head and long neck extending out over the fearsome team drawing it. The wings flowed back to form the roof and the tail sailed behind to counterbalance the head. All four paws clutched axles and windows had been cut in the side, but curtains hid her from curious gazes. Gold traced every scale and edge on the carriage, allowing the afternoon sun to sparkle off it the way it ripples off gentle sea swells.

Above it all flew a white banner with the black image of a man wreathed in red, yellow, and orange dragonfire. I’d seen that banner before, in some of the fortress’ murals, and knew it to be the banner beneath which Kirun had invaded the south. That she still used it even though he’d been dead for centuries made me wonder if she was not so much interested in conquest as vengeance. Which, if true, made her more dangerous in my mind.

Seethe shielded her eyes against the glare. “So there she is. Things will begin soon, I expect.”

“I agree, but I think we can hold.” I pointed out at the entourage that had traveled with her. “She didn’t bring that much in the way of troops. She’s not got enough to take this fortress.”

“I hope you’re right, and I hope Kedyn sees no reason to test your faith in him.”

Part of the company that came with Chytrine split off and moved forward, drawing itself up near a pyramidal stack of round stone balls. We’d seen the stones there for days, but they were too far back and too light to be of much use with the siege machinery the troops had built. Two drearbeasts hauled a long, narrow, canvas-shrouded cart into position beside the stones, then vylaens shouted at gibberers as they turned it around and started off-loading barrels from one of the wagons.

A vylaen stripped the canvas off the cart with an air of grave solemnity that prompted a tittering from the defenders. What we saw was a stout cart bearing a long bronze tube with a rounded end at the back, which seemed scarcely worth the care the vylaen seemed to lavish upon it. The entire cylinder had been worked with a dragon-scale pattern and the mouth of the thing had a big dragon’s head on it, with the mouth open. It didn’t look beautiful or terrifying, and none of us had any idea what it was.

“What’s this now?” Cavarre shouldered his way in between Seethe and me. “What has she brought us?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Could she keep the fragment of the DragonCrown in there?”

“Perhaps it’s a cup for a dragon.” Seethe frowned. “I’ve not seen its like before.”

Cavarre said nothing and just stared intently at it.

A group of vylaens filled buckets with a black powder, which they poured into the dragon’s mouth. Another one pushed a long stick with a thick end into the dragon’s throat, packing the powder down in there. Finally four gibberers lifted one of the stone balls and rolled it into the tube, but I gathered they didn’t do such a good job because two vylaens used the packing stick to force it down further.

Back up the hill a door opened in the side of the carriage and Chytrine emerged. Being as how she was a mile or so distant, making her out was tough, but she had bright gold hair that seemed to flow down to mid-back. She wore boots and a skirt anH a Kl/->uco ~—J -

a hundred years old, she didn’t show any signs of her age in how she stood or walked. In many ways she seemed as ageless as Seethe, and that scared me a little.

Chytrine walked forward to the metal dragon and a vylaen handed her a torch that had been kindled in a nearby fire. She waved it back and forth, as if in a salute to the fortress. People standing along the wall, me included, waved back. Some added shouted epithets to our acknowledgment of her presence. The Aurolani troops started to shout back at us, but orders snapped by vylaens quieted them.

Chytrine gently kissed the dragon-tube’s tail with the torch, and the world changed forever.

I saw a flash of fire from the dragon’s mouth and saw a billow of grey-white smoke shoot out, as if the dragon had vomited. Then, barely a heartbeat later, a loud boom shuddered through my chest. I felt it hit me, harder than a gust of wind, and vibrate its way through me. It was as if I’d been slammed into a wall suddenly and fast, without having moved at all.

Then the stone ball hit. It struck the wall above the gate, striking one of the merlons. The ball crushed the stone and itself shattered into thousands of deadly fragments. People standing there were reduced to a red mist. Arms and legs flew. Bodies, torn in half, linked only by entrails, toppled from the walls. Beyond them, in the streets below, stone chips blasted through people, pulverizing bone, laying flesh open. Rocks struck houses, breaking bricks, bursting through windows and cracking doors.

Bile bubbled up in my throat and I reached a trembling hand out for Seethe. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

Pressed against the battlements, leaning forward through a crennel to study it as best he could, Cavarre shook his head. “That is the weapon that will lay waste to this fortress and, damn me, I don’t think there is anything we can do to stop it.”

Tt was of considerable interest, but little comfort, to learn that I the dragonel was not magickal in nature. Had it been, our 1 sorcerers could have analyzed the spells that made it work and created counterspells. As it was, the range to the target made hitting it or the loaders, packers, and firebeasts with combat spells impossible. There was some thought that magickers might be able to affect the stone balls in flight, but not without shards of them to provide links to them.

The only bit of luck we had came because of Cavarre’s foresight. The streets and houses nearest the outer wall had long since been evacuated and many were already filled with dirt and debris. The dragonel shots that arced up over the walls plowed into these buildings, crushing facades and sending broken roof tiles whirling off in all directions, but the buildings themselves did not collapse. In essence they formed a wall inside the wall, limiting damage done deeper into the city, which prompted Chytrine to shoot further, with higher arcs, until she bounced a shot off the fortress’s second wall.

The dragonel’s rate of fire was low, but its accuracy made it devastating. A catapult or trebuchet would hurl stones and firepots and debristoward a target. Depending on the weight of the load being flung, it would fly over, or land short and often drift side to side a fair amount. But the dragonel directed shots and kept them on target. Two shots shattered the fortress gates. Subsequent shots pulverized the barricades we raised in their place. If the dragonel’s crew could see a target they could hit it, which made defending the fortress difficult and hazardous.

The Aurolani forces rolled forward the siege towers they’d created. These were remarkable things, for they rose a good ten feet above the level of the outer wall. Gibberkin archers were placed atop the crenelated wooden towers. Wet canvas hung in great sheets over the towers themselves, so anynapthalm would have a hard time sticking and catching the towers on fire. Walls in the front of the tower were hinged to open down into platforms that would allow the warriors inside to cross onto our battlements.

Chytrine used the dragonel throughout that first night. The slow, steady, rhythmic booming deprived us all of sleep. Shot after shot slammed into buildings and walls. A careful series of shots opened breaches north and south of the main gate, giving the Aurolani host three avenues of attack, with the siege towers supplementing them. Her troops organized themselves through the night, dividing into three forces.

By dawn we expected them to come.

Dothan Cavarre impressed me with his determined calm despite the situation. He divided his forces into three commands, granting Lord Norrington the northern command while entrusting the southern command to Prince Augustus. He maintained control of the central command, which pitted him against the Aurolani force commanded by Chytrine.

Throughout the night, workers tore down houses in the outer city’s interior, creating channels into which the Aurolani hosts would flow. Where the siege towers seemed headed, he set up barricades so those troops would find themselves in blind alleys and trapped in killing zones. Siege machines on the second set of walls were prepared to target those areas. Troops were dispatched to wait in stronghouses until trumpeters could call them forth to their stations.

The day dawned dim and cold, with low fog clinging to the landscape. I waited with Prince Kirill, Lord Norrington, Seethe, Leigh, and Nay on the battlements near the north wall breach. In front of us, five hundred yards off, the Aurolani legions arrayed themselves in hideous splendor. Banners rose at the head of their ranks, huge drums on wheels boomed and massive trumpets blared obscenely. Guttural war cries were snapped and snarled, making the enemy host sound like a pack of dogs fighting over scraps—and they didn’t look or smell much better at that.

To the head of their formation moved a creature I knew instantly to be asullanciri. It had a huge mannish torso joined at the waist to the body of a gigantic horse. The upper body sprouted four arms, each of which had a serrated bony blade running the length of the forearms and two longer blades curving out three feet past its massive, clawed hands. The creature’s beetling brows and saberlike fangs stole from it any sense of civilization. Armor plates, as if inlays of turtle shell, covered it from head to tail.

As impressive a sight as that was, what made it all the more eyecatching was the fact that he glowed white. All the urZrethi I had seen before had been the color of minerals or dirt, and this one was as well, but it was the color of iron that lay in a forge. The incandescent color dominated its core, but yellowed slightly in some cooler areas. I could feel no heat radiating off it, but I didn’t want to get any closer to determine if that lack was only a function of range.

My hand sought Seethe’s, or hers mine—I don’t remember after all this time. I gave her a brave smile. “We’ll get through this, you know.”

“One way or the other, I suspect.” She reached over and plucked at the bowstring lying across my chest. “If it comes down to it, save an arrow for me. Don’t let them take me.”

I shook my head. “They won’t take you, I promise.” I gave her a quick kiss, which she turned into a longer one. When we broke apart I blushed, and Prince Kirill turned away with a smile on his face.

Leigh stared tight-eyed at thesullanciri and clasped Tem-mer’s hilt the way Seethe held my hand. “Yes, my pet, I understand … That one is Vank-dae Ynl. He was exiled from Boragul for reasons of sedition. Chytrine made him the first of her Dark Lancers. He, I suppose, will be mine.“

Lord Norrington laid his hand on Leigh’s shoulder. “You’re not the only one who will be fighting here today, my son.”

“But I’m the only one who can kill him.”

Leigh’s father smiled. “If he joins the battle, then you are free to engage him, but killing gibberers will win us this battle.”

“Won’t be wanting for gibberers to kill.” Nay shouldered his maul. “Hawkins can feather vylaens and we’ll kill the rest, Leigh and me.”

Leigh turned his head to look at Nay. “Was that a rhyme?”

“Might could be.” Nay grinned slowly. “Forge work doesn’t demand a lot of thinking. Played with words for a bit.”

A smile broke on Leigh’s face. “Very good, Nay, very good. A wager, then. A point per creature we kill—the loser composes a poem to the glory of the winner.”

“Done and done.”

“Done and done.” Leigh looked over at me. “We’d invite you in on this, Hawkins, but you’ll claim every arrow-stuck body as your own.”

I shrugged. “Just as well. I couldn’t stand the two of you offering praises to me. Good luck.”

Leigh nodded. “May Kedyn’s will be done.”

I glanced at Nay. “For this contest are you sure you don’t want to be using the sword you’ve been working on?”

He smiled, then glanced down at his feet. “This would be a great battle for Tsamoc, but I yet need to put an edge on it. Next battle, after we beat them back here.”

“Next battle, indeed.” I nodded, then turned back to the Aurolani host. From the east blatted a harsh trumpet blast, and horns to the north and south repeated it. A thunderclap echoed from the east, then a stone ball hit on the gate towers, toppling men to the street below. The image of their falling, and of arrows spilling from their quivers, froze itself in my mind forever.

“They’re coming.” Lord Norrington drew his sword and pointed down at the catapults and trebuchets behind the wall. “Ready your missiles; launch on my command.”

The northern Aurolani army started forward. All but the banners of their lead ranks disappeared as they dipped into the fog-bound lowlands. We watched the banners draw closer, as if they were held by the vanguard of a ghostly army. At the other side of the river of fog thesullanciri waved its arms, urging troops on in a shrill, undulating voice that cracked and popped despite being almost too high to hear.