Windcatcher: Book I of the Stone War Chronicles (55 page)

“Quickly, come on!” his older brother shouted.

Richard dragged Sebastian back with him onto the scaffold, but before Raylan or Gavin could make it back up there, they were cut off by four soldiers on a full attack run.

Forced back, Raylan and his brother parried off the attackers. As he was fighting, Raylan felt the familiar movements of his brother, more and more. They easily circled past each other, blocking incoming strikes from all sides. It did not matter where the attack would hit, him or his brother…they felt as one…they fought as one. Their sword practice as kids, their weapon training in the army, their experience during this journey, everything was flowing into this one moment where Raylan finally felt equal to his brother…no longer in his shadow, but together facing the world…literally.

Then, the moment ended abruptly, as they both darted in a different direction to dodge a soldier who was wielding two double-bladed axes.

In an instant, they had both been isolated, surrounded by a full circle of soldiers. Raylan was closest to the scaffold, but Gavin was being pushed farther and farther away from it.

“Gavin, hold on I’m coming!” yelled Raylan, as he furiously attacked the soldiers who were preventing him from reaching his brother.

“Idiot, make your way back to the ship. I’ll be right behind you!” shouted his brother, in reply, as he cut down two reckless soldiers who had come too close.

But Raylan felt it. Even if they had the upper hand in weapon combat, the odds were not looking good, to say the least. The sheer number of enemies made it difficult to block all incoming attacks. Raylan felt a cut to the back of his leg. Another stabbed his left arm, as a club knocked off his helmet, leaving his ears ringing from the force of the impact.

He saw his brother not fare any better. A spear scratched his side as it was thrust just below his armpit. Gavin blocked an incoming sword, but another soldier came round with the back end of a spear and hit him directly on his leg.

“Leave him alone!” Raylan yelled.

The soldiers were almost upon them both, when Raylan finally felt the link return.

“
Hang on, I’m coming!
”

Before Galirras had even finished his private announcement, Raylan heard his roar descend from the heavens. The dragon came in low, wings pushed back as far as possible to increase his speed. The first soldiers were already knocked over by his hanging claws and tail as it whipped around; but the devastation only truly came into its own, as Galirras threw himself into the midst of the attacking soldiers surrounding Raylan.

Three enemies were instantly crushed under the dragon’s weight, as Galirras clawed his way through another group of five soldiers. His tail slashed back and forth, knocking down any soldier that happened to be in the way. The dragon pounced onto the double-bladed axe wielder, ripping off an arm and tossing him to the side.

The ferociousness of Galirras’ attacks drove the soldiers apart, freeing up some ground for Raylan.

“
Hurry, get back to the ship. I’ll take care of the ropes,
”
said Galirras’ voice, in his head.

“
But Gavin…
”
pleaded Raylan.

In reply, Galirras sent out a windblast, knocking over another five soldiers who had been too close. Gavin used the opening to break free of his entrapment and started to fight his way to the scaffold.

“
Now, go!
” urged the dragon.

Finding renewed bravery, a number of soldiers ran at Galirras, spears stuck far out in front of them. Galirras spun around and slashed out with his claws, snapping two spears in half. One soldier threw his spear at Galirras’ back and, briefly, Raylan was afraid that Galirras would end up pierced. But the spear ricocheted off Galirras’ scales and struck down a soldier on the other side of him. Two soldiers with swords ran in to hack away at Galirras’ shoulder. But before they could hit anything, Galirras swung his neck sideways and threw both soldiers through the air, knocking over a number of others.

At that moment, another soldier saw an opening and thrust his spear on the inside of the dragon’s hind leg. Galirras roared, in fury, as the spear stuck out of his lower flank. The soldier, realizing he did not have a weapon anymore, tried to retreat; but he quickly found a furious dragon left little room for getting away. Hooking his claws in the soldier’s back, Galirras jumped into the air and darted straight up. The spear was worked out of his leg by the movement, and dropped back onto the ground, as he flew higher into the air. He circled around, as he threw the soldier away in an upward arch, and faced the airship. As the wounded soldier plummeted to the unforgiving ground, Galirras boosted himself forward. Flying parallel past the ship, Galirras scraped his claw along the woodwork, cutting every rope attached to the ship. He took the opportunity to snatch up the last two remaining Doskovian soldiers on deck. They had been gripping the railing, so as not to fall when the ghol’ms turned the ship. As he peeled them off the rail, he swung around and threw them down onto the masses on the plaza.

With a jolt, the ship straightened out and started to tilt the other way, slowly. Xi’Lao managed to cut the anchor lines at the stern of the ship during the fighting, but a group of soldiers had another rope on the other flank side of the ship. Quickly, Galirras sent out a windblast, knocking them over. Now that nothing was holding back the ship anymore, it bobbed freely in the air and instantly started to move again.

Richard and Sebastian reached the top of the scaffold during all the commotion. Fending off a number of attackers, Richard now eagerly waited for the cargo doors to line up with the scaffold. Galen stood in the opening, ready to assist any of them coming aboard.

“Jump!” shouted Richard, as he gave a big shove to Sebastian’s back.

Galen easily caught the wounded ex-slave and saw Richard follow, quickly, by jumping aboard. A number of enemy soldiers came up the scaffold, trying to do the same; but Galen planted his axe in the chest of the first to jump aboard, and Kevhin and Rohan cleared out the rest with their arrows.

“Raylan, Gavin, hurry up. You don’t have much time!” shouted Richard, as the ship began to rise at an increasing speed.

On the ground, Raylan looked over his shoulder to see how far Gavin was behind him. His older brother hacked and slashed feverishly, making his way through the enemy forces. Raylan saw the prolonged fighting begin to take its toll on his brother’s endurance. He felt the same for himself, too.

As Raylan put his first foot on the bottom of the scaffold, Galirras threw himself—for a second time—right on top of the soldiers. It was a slaughter, as Galirras refused to stand still for long, preventing any further painful attacks. In no time, he had directly opened up a path for Gavin to escape through.

Unfortunately, both ghol’ms had no purpose serving as anchors anymore, as the ropes had now been cut. Galirras saw both dark statues push through the crowd of soldiers, coming straight at them. He fired a windblast, which slammed into the stone ghol’ms, full force. It had no effect at all; both statues continued at him at high speed, forcing him to take to the air and effectively cutting off Gavin from the scaffold.

Raylan had scrambled up the scaffold as fast as he could. Now on the top, he turned around, expecting to see his brother a small ways behind him. Instead, he saw Galirras take off, as a ghol’m rushed in slamming his fists into the ground. His brother was stuck behind two ghol’ms and an increasing number of enemy soldiers.

Raylan looked at his brother, trying to find a way to get back to him. At that moment, he saw Gavin turn around, triggered by a sound he heard. Raylan followed his gaze to find Corza’s warhorse running straight at Gavin through the crowd.

The exhaustion kicked in at a disastrous moment for his brother. Too slow to dodge the incoming attack, Corza hit Gavin square across his head with a metal rod. His brother spun around and landed on his knees. Raylan saw his brother slowly rock back and forth on his knees, dazed by the blow.

Corza circled around and calmly dismounted. Slowly walking up to Gavin, he unsheathed the dagger that was hanging on his belt, horizontally, behind his back.

Galirras tried to get close, but one of the ghol’ms was constantly blocking him. The other seemed to shield the High General from any incoming projectiles, as it jumped straight into the path of a fired arrow.

Galirras felt desperation set in. He needed to save Gavin, for Raylan. The dragon felt Raylan’s panic flow into him. He felt a nervous shudder go down his spine, for a moment, when he felt himself inhale deeply and give a roar unlike anything ever before. It was not a loud, far carrying roar. Instead of stretching it out and giving it air, Galirras’ roar seemed to be sucked into place right in front of his widespread mouth. Pushing all air inward, Galirras condensed the air in a ball of pressurized air. He had never done anything like this before. He was not even sure how he knew what to do.

As he felt the pressure in the ball increase, he strengthened the shell of spinning air around it. He reached the point where he could not put more air in the ball. Instinctively, he pushed it off with a focused burst of air. A shockwave pulsed out from where his windblast hit the ball.

The spinning ball launched forward, straight for the High General’s location. Immediately, a ghol’m moved to intercept, crossing both its arms to block this unknown projectile. As the ball hit, the confined air broke through its containment and exploded outward, with force. Several soldiers near the ghol’m were swept away by it, crashing into the ground more than fifty feet from where they began. Shards of stone flew around as part of the ghol’m’s arm shattered on impact.

Corza shielded his head behind his arm, moving a few steps to get away from the debris flying around; he was shielded from most of it by the ghol’m’s large body. Gavin, who had been kneeling more to the side of the ghol’m, immediately got knocked over from the force of the blast. Trying to push himself up again, he could do little else but lay there, exhausted and coughing.

“Wow! Impressive!” Corza shouted up to the dragon, as he slowly clapped his hands. “But you’ll have to do better than that. Archers, I have had enough. Please pluck this annoying creature from our skies…alive, barely…preferably!”

Happy to finally have an authorized target to engage, the archers on the plaza loosed their arrows at once, forcing Galirras to hastily retreat to a greater height. He saw Corza move in on Gavin. The High General dragged him to his knees again and there was nothing Galirras could do.

“Corzaaaa! You leave my brother alone, you hear me!” shouted Raylan, as he felt his panic and anger spike.

“What’s that, boy? Brother you said? I can barely understand you…” said Corza with a smile. “Don’t you wish you’d given me the egg, now?”

Spellbound, Raylan watched as Corza walked behind his brother and pulled his head to the left with his hand.

“Raylan, get out of here. You’ve got to warn the people back home.”

It was all his brother could shout, as Corza lifted his Roc’turr and plunged it in the right side of Gavin’s chest. Raylan saw Gavin’s mouth open, in shock. Corza yanked the blade out and shoved Gavin away.

“NOOOO! Gavin, no. Nonononooo!” Raylan’s voice left him as he fell to his knees.

The world slowed to a crawl as Raylan saw his brother topple forward. Colors and sounds disappeared from the world, till nothing but whiteness surrounded them; red blood sprayed from Gavin’s chest, forming a beautifully horrifying contrast against it.

Tears ran down Raylan’s face, his mouth opened with no sound coming out anymore, his eyes spread wide unable to look away from the scene. As Gavin’s body hit the dirt, his blood mixed with the blood of their slain enemies. His head did not even bounce up once when it hit the ground. The entire body was like a bag of flour falling off the wagon.

On the airship, Xi’Lao let out a scream and sank to her knees, sobbing. The ship had been bobbing in the air, deciding—by itself—to leave or stay. But without the ropes tying the ship down, the green vapors in the balloon began to win against the pull of gravity. Slowly, the vessel moved skyward, away from the scaffold, increasing in speed with every passing moment.

The remaining members of their group, that were on deck, had seen Galirras flash by and cut the ropes. Now, they found themselves watching the scene without a word, unwilling to believe they had just lost their leader.

The world came rushing back in as his brother’s body remained motionless at Corza’s feet. Colors…sounds…voices…he actively tried to push them out, refusing to acknowledge the reality…but there was nothing Raylan could do as he felt them force their way back into his head. Behind him, Galen, Richard, and even Sebastian, were calling out to him.

“Raylan, get up!”

“You
need
to get up, Raylan!”

“Raylan, hurry. The ship is leaving.”

But Raylan refused to hear them. Their voices distorted into monotone sounds, carrying no meaning. The world before him looked wet from his tears, as the silhouettes behind him started to slide away, still calling out to him.
My fault…it’s my fault. I wanted to steal a ship...I killed him…

Somewhere in the distance, Raylan registered the movement of the scaffold, as soldiers moved up it, toward him. The airship drifted off, further and further, making it harder and harder to jump the distance. Kevhin and Rohan shot any person with a rope and any archer they could spot and reach. Despite this disastrous turn of events, they had no intention of letting up and wasting their one chance to get away.