The Legend of Asahiel: Book 03 - The Divine Talisman (36 page)

She scrambled toward the gatehouse, stumbling over loose chunks of rock and half-buried soldiers painted white with dust. The ladder to the tower was inside. She climbed quickly, the rungs slippery beneath her sweating palms.
Her mail felt like an apron made of sandbags, weighing heavy against her. Her thick boots felt just as awkward. Twice, in her haste, a foot slipped out from under her. Somehow, she managed to hang on.

The watchmen above were gone—whether fled or gone down to join the battle, she couldn’t say. A blessing in either case, since she hadn’t the words to explain.

Alone atop the tower, she tossed aside her helm, grateful for the breezes that brushed her face. The rains seemed to be slackening, but the sky flashed, and thunder boomed. It was the lightning she needed. Not to ignite or destroy, but as a conduit, to spark and conduct the transfer she required.

The dragon continued to battle below, surrounded by the sprawled, twisted shapes of its victims. Making note of its position, Annleia palmed her wellstone and reached both hands toward the volatile heavens, searching anxiously for the next flash.

I
TZ LAR
T
HRAKKON ROCKED AND
twisted in his makeshift harness, wrenched fore and aft and from side to side by the sharp, sudden movements of his mount. Whip, spin, lash—Killangrathor’s frenzy rolled through him like colliding waves. The straps that held him to the beast’s spine chafed and pinched, slicing at the skin beneath his jerkin. But for every scrape he suffered, half a dozen of his enemies were bludgeoned or torn or flung wide, never to rise again.

Save as Illychar.

So he grimaced against all discomforts, relishing the pain. One hand clenched the leather loop in front of him for balance. The other gripped the hilt of the Sword—sheathed at his side—keeping him flush with energy and awareness, attuned to any imminent danger. He’d had to duck a spear or two when flying south along the city wall, and now and then a throwing axe would go spinning past his head. But by and large, the threat thus far had been rather one-sided. Killangrathor stood taller than the height of the Bastion, and his wide, shifting bulk made for a mighty shield. The ants below would have to come crawling up the dragon’s body before they could hope to do its riders any real harm.

Scant chance of that, though the insects seemed determined enough to try. As the number of carcasses grew, so too did Thrakkon’s admiration for the reckless fury of these foes. They could not hope to slay the beast; any one-eyed fool could see that. Yet even after watching wave upon wave of their comrades fall, the next would come roaring in. Almost Illysp-like, he marveled, fearless and savage and unrelenting. Not just
willing
to die, but
eager
to test themselves according to nature’s rules of strength. If deserving, they would survive. If not…

Their bodies continued to pile and sprawl, littering the ground about Killangrathor’s clawed feet. Beneath those feet and between the dragon’s toes, the earth had become an ooze of mud and blood and grass and sand, thickened by a pulp of iron and steel and leather and bone. Farther out, the untram
pled dead lay upon one another in twitching heaps, with the maimed and the battered writhing among them. Those whose wounds appeared less grievous hunched or crawled in search of new weapons, as if to rejoin the fight. A fine army they would make, when born anew.

Regrettable, in a sense. For Thrakkon could easily imagine how much greater the devastation might be were Killangrathor to forgo the preservation of coils and the scraps thereof for his fellow Illysp. Loosen the dragon’s reins, and it might turn all the world into a bloody, smoking slough.

The horns blew yet again, another call from the south. Thrakkon and Killangrathor looked together, ignoring for a moment the feeble buffeting carried on by the scores around them—scores that a short time ago had been hundreds. At last, it appeared the baiting and posturing was finished. The force arrayed just outside Neak-Thur’s curving entrance corridor dwarfed the orc horde dumped forth earlier. Tens of thousands they were, arranged in lines and columns and wedges, wheeling along more of their heavy weaponry besides. Thrakkon’s stagnant blood stirred in anticipation. If those preparing now fought anything like these had…

Killangrathor snarled, jaws dripping with the blood of his victims. Thrakkon smiled, envisioning already the scale of slaughter to come. Perhaps he would even find a chance to spill some of their blood himself.

He sensed the lightning only an instant before it struck—scarcely enough time to turn and cringe as it shot toward him in a scintillating burst. It hit a nearby gatehouse first, white hot, before splintering onward. The reflected energy appeared blue in color, and danced momentarily between dragon and tower with a sharp, blinding crackle. It seemed to focus on Killangrathor’s face, his eyes, but before Thrakkon could be sure, the bolt retreated, so fast as to riddle the mind.

Killangrathor snorted and shook his massive head, flinging rain and blood from his tufts of fur. The movement caused the beast to buckle, and, for a moment, Thrakkon feared it might have been injured. He saw no smoke, but the light had left a giant flare in the middle of his vision, so he wasn’t yet seeing much of anything. Still, he should have been able to smell it: the singeing of hair, the charring of flesh. On both counts, the dragon and its riders were unscathed.

He looked to the gatehouse, blinking irritably. Around the edges of his blind spot, there was naught but an empty barbican. Killangrathor, however, continued to droop and sway like a dazed sot.
Something
had happened, and it didn’t bode well.

Their enemies seemed to sense it. Most had fallen back, blinded like he by the strange energy blast, else kneeling in exhaustion. Some looked to the skies, as if wary of further lightning strikes. But the rest resumed their maddened press, emboldened by the dragon’s queer behavior.

Fools.

As their blades hacked and pricked at him, Killangrathor righted himself. His roar seemed a rasping thing, his movements stiff and sluggish compared
to what they had been moments ago. But he remained a dragon, and Illychar at that. The lightning had stunned him, surely, yet he would not be stopped.

Thrakkon drew the Sword. A risk, should he lose it to one of Killangrathor’s sudden twists or jerks—and of little use against Lorre’s troops while mounted so high above their heads. But perhaps it would spur the dragon from its stupor. Perhaps it would remind his enemies of the uselessness of their efforts.

Almost at once, his returning sight focused on a familiar figure slipping near. The man was thickly muscled beneath his partial armor of black leather and sewn rings, though he moved with the grace and agility of one half his size. Bulging legs carried him deftly over a slick mound of corpses that blocked his path. He bore a battered shield and a heavy broadsword spattered here and there with blood—that of his comrades, or his own. A thick sheen of it covered his cheek and one of the shaved sides of his head.

Gilden, Thrakkon recalled. The memory caused him no pain, for he had uncovered it some time ago. Torin had admired this one, this “Lancer,” as he’d been known. A formidable warrior with whom Torin had battled
against
Lord Lorre, here now to throw away his life in the warlord’s service.

Thrakkon kept waiting for the dragon to turn, to catch the traitorous soldier in his approach. An errant tail whip caused him to duck, but its spikes missed his head. A swipe followed that took out a group upon Lancer’s flank, but Lancer himself popped back up from behind a mound of dead. The dragon had turned its back to him by then, to deal with a press from the other side.

Lancer came bounding forward, his weapons gripped firmly. Thrakkon sought the man’s eyes. They gleamed boldly even now, in the face of imminent death. He slipped at the last moment, but that misstep only saved him from a vicious wing slap. By the time he righted himself, he stood unnoticed by the heavily occupied Killangrathor, with a clear opportunity to strike.

Thrakkon grinned.
What now
,
traitor?

Lancer didn’t hesitate, settling quickly for the nearest target. With fully summoned force and fury, his blade chopped down upon the dragon’s smallest toe.

And broke it.

E
VEN FROM ATOP THE GATEHOUSE,
amid the wail of wind, the clangor of arms, the huff and snarl of man and beast, Annleia heard the crack. She’d been watching Gilden’s approach through a wide crenel, down on one knee as she fought to contain the forces roiling through her. For an instant, she felt certain it was his blade that had shattered.

The dragon’s bellow told her otherwise—a sudden trumpeting of shock and dismay. She felt a jolt from her wellstone at the same time. Gilden appeared as stunned as any by the damage he had inflicted. As the dragon whipped its head around to find him, he managed to raise his shield, only a heartbeat before a backhanded swipe sent him hurtling. He flew twenty paces, stopping
when his back crunched against the wall of the Bastion. Dead or unconscious, he slid down to lie at its base in a rumpled heap.

With renewed vigor, the warrior’s comrades took up the fight, howling their bestial cries. The dragon roared, though it seemed almost a whine. A broken toe. It amounted to no more than a scratch. But the creature should never have suffered even that much. To have proven vulnerable…

Annleia hunched over her wellstone. Her head swam, and her stomach turned. The crystal itself pulsed, searing her palm like hot iron. Her eyes watered at the strain. She hoped she was right. She
had
to be right. For she saw now the Sword, drawn by the lead rider, who was lashed to a spine at the base of the dragon’s nape. Torin, she presumed. Whoever, the Sword was sure to protect him against any magical assault. Had she considered that from the first, she might have found her answer much sooner, before so many had to die.

Grimacing, she pushed against the parapet. She swooned when she reached her feet, but managed to hold steady. Some of the dizziness was passing. Still, she found it difficult to focus.
Upon the wall she fought
,
and beyond it she waited…
Beyond. But which direction? She had come from the north, as had Torin, she believed—she feared. Yet the battle was
south
of the wall. Which was “beyond”?

An absurd little detail, its vagueness easily overlooked amid all else she’d been called upon to remember. And yet the rest would mean nothing if she guessed wrong.

From the south, a fresh thunder began to build. Lorre’s army had started its charge, a great black stain creeping across the battlefield. A hypnotic procession, so great and vast and terrible, like a giant flow of mud and boulders grinding down a mountain’s slope. She only hoped it had the strength to do what was required.

In that moment, she made her decision. Turning her back to the carnage below, she stumbled toward the gatehouse ladder. Her head spun. The stones rolled like waves beneath her feet. The power begged its release, threatening to tear her apart. Annleia ignored its pleas, bit down against its demands, and prayed for sufficient strength of her own.

T
HRAKKON LOOKED UP AT THEIR
frenzied approach: a screaming horde of humans, giants, trolls. A vast and formidable army, bearing down upon him.

The Boundless One might have laughed.

But his smile was no more, burned away by a rising fury. The enemy at Killangrathor’s feet had been reduced to dregs, yet still refused to be brushed aside. No explanation he could muster would account for how Gilden had wounded his prized mount—not given a thousand such strokes. That single blow had rattled Thrakkon’s confidence, and given his foes a false sense of hope.

He was tired of their insolence, had grown bored of their pathetic defiance. The time had come to crush that undue faith, once and for all.

Killangrathor must have thought the same. With a final snap and snarl,
the dragon lurched forward, leaving behind the decimated band at the wall’s edge. Its first few steps were clumsy, staggering things. It beat its wings as if to rise, but they flapped and dragged strengthlessly, as awkward as those of a hatchling. Killangrathor roared in frustration.

But he did not let it stop him. Loping along on his broken toe, wings lifting and lolling uselessly at his side, he rumbled onward. Sodden earth churned beneath his claws, turning up ash from the pyres of those slain upon this field weeks ago. A mounted vanguard drew near, their leather and iron and steel as wet and dark as the morning storm clouds now beginning to break apart overhead.

The scale and measure of Lorre’s forces seemed to grow as they approached. While scanning their ranks, Thrakkon wondered fleetingly if he should have waited at Aefengaard until his own had been swelled by the Finlorian dead. He had considered it, but their vast numbers would be traveling afoot—and only
after
their three-day incubation. Journeying alongside them would have slowed his conquest and allowed advance warning of his impending arrival.

He snarled the doubt away before it could fester, and tightened his grip upon the Sword. Boulders were raining from above, a cover volley launched by the mammoth engines to the south. Killangrathor grunted at those few missiles that found their target. One turned a tailward goblin to splatter and snapped the small spine to which it was strapped. When that happened, the dragon let loose a yowl.

Bolstered by the creature’s pain, the enemy closed with a screaming, sprinting flourish.

Killangrathor plowed headlong through the center of their wedge, hissing at those who veered to either side. With arms spread and wings outstretched, he cut a wide swath, shedding men of their steeds and filling the air with mashed and broken bits of both. Lances shattered or fell aside or missed their mark as those who wielded them lost their final joust. Others actually found a home in the dragon’s skin, to dangle from its thick hide like splinters.

The shrieks of his foes were splinters in Thrakkon’s ears, though he relished every one of them. Too many had escaped to either flank; Thrakkon could not decide if it was the riders or the horses themselves that had refused to engage.