City of the Lost

18 Trouble at the Gate

“Where is Lanther?” Linsha asked. It was a question that had lurked in her mind for some time and only now found a moment to be asked.

Falaius leaned against the stone crenellations of the city wall and gestured vaguely behind him. “I don’t know. I sent him to a militia post near the north gate this morning. Not seen him since.”

Linsha nodded. If the Legion commander was even half as tired as he looked, then he felt about the same way she did. That brief conversation was all she could manage for now. She closed her eyes again and let her muscles relax. She had rarely felt so sore and listless, not even after that sword duel with the Dark Knight assassin.

“Look at that,” Falaius commented softly. “They really want this town.”

Linsha forced herself to stir and turn her upper body around so she could see the streets of Mirage below. It had been about three hours since the city defenders had fallen back on the wall and left the outer city to the mercy of the Brutes. So far, the invaders had shown a sort of brutal mercy to the town and the inhabitants who had not escaped. All the buildings and houses were being thoroughly searched, but none had been put to the torch and few had been ransacked. There was no sign of the expected pillaging, drunken riots, or rape and slaughter. The survivors, including the women, were being herded into a guarded pen of sorts on the beach near the waterfront. Only the wounded had been killed outright and hauled to a growing heap of bodies left piled in an empty lot. The bodies of those Brutes killed in the fighting were immediately collected and carried back out to the ships. They were, Linsha noted, nothing if not methodical and thorough.

Meanwhile, workers resumed the repairs to the docks and the unloading of supplies on shore continued without a break. Any fires outside the walls had been put out. In the past few hours only the Solamnic fortress and the Legion headquarters had been stripped and demolished.

The Brutes had made no move on the city wall yet. The man with the blue skin and golden mask had made one appearance—on a horse this time—to the people guarding the Legion Gate. He offered them once again a chance to surrender, and once again Falaius said no. The leader of the Brutes saluted the Legionnaire and promptly ordered archers to guard the gate. Their whole attitude seemed say, “Just wait. We will come when we are ready.”

Thunder seemed to be content to let them do what they wished. After destroying the Solamnic Citadel he had settled on the ruins to talk to the leader of the Brutes. Moments later he lifted his great blue bulk into the air and disappeared to the west. He had not been seen or felt since.

Linsha acknowledged Falaius’ comment even though she was not sure what he had seen to prompt it, then she pulled off the hot, heavy chain mail and sagged back against the wall. The next attack would come soon enough. She sat patiently, silently suspended between sky and stone, breathing the thick hot air laden with dust and smoke. The heavy afternoon sun soaked into her battered body and dragged her consciousness under. She had fought it for a while, wanting to stay awake in case Falaius needed her. Now, she felt her strength ebb beyond her reach. Her head grew heavy; her eyelids slid closed and locked in place. The world faded away.

In its place a dream took shape that filled her mind like a room fills with smoke. She saw herself standing on a ledge on the side of a great mountain—a mountain she knew all too well. The ledge was empty, and the cave that opened at the ledge’s head remained silent and abandoned. She looked up and saw the mountain’s peak looming against a brilliant blue sky, then smoke belched from its fiery summit. A black cloud of ash and smoke billowed down the mountain’s side toward her. She wanted to run, but she could not move fast enough, and in the blink of an eye she was enveloped by the hot, stinking fumes. Coughing and choking, she reached out to the cave entrance. But he did not come. Another form came instead—a smaller, upright shape that walked slowly out of the darkness and materialized before her startled eyes. Even after all that had passed between them, she felt her traitorous heart lurch at the vision of his roguish good looks and his cool blue eyes. Ian Durne. She thought she had loved him, until he killed her friend and turned his blade against Hogan Bight.

Linsha, you are as beautiful as ever. And just as blind. Do not trust him.

“You are a fine one to be telling me about trust.”

Ah, but I always trusted you to do what was right. I knew you better, you see. I knew when the time came you would follow your honor.

“Yet you loved me.”

He gave her that grin she remembered so well. Honor can be a powerful aphrodisiac to those of us who have none.

As can the allure of the dark rogue, she thought. “What are you doing here, Ian? Who is this I should not trust?”

Look carefully, Green Eyes. There are other rogues in this world besides Dark Knights. He turned back into the smoke and vanished.

“Ian!” she cried into the emptiness, but he was gone, and the loneliness he left behind swept over her with startling intensity.

“Linsha,” a different voice said. A hand fell on her shoulder. Tired as she was, she came instantly awake and her reactions responded with the speed of a striking adder. Her left hand clamped on the offending wrist, and her right hand snatched the dagger from her belt. She opened her eyes and looked into the imperturbable brown gaze of the old plainsman. She blinked in surprise; she had expected blue.

His deep-sunk eyes gazed at her steadily, unshaken by the dagger inches from his chest. “Remind me just to kick you the next time you are dreaming,” he remarked.

She collapsed back to the wall and let her dagger drop. Her heart galloped madly under her breastbone; her breath came in long drawn gulps. “Gods, that was a dream.” She groaned. “It was too real.”

Falaius studied her curiously. The tribes of the Plains of Dust believe in the power of dreams and in the realities revealed in their interpretations. “Who is Ian?” he asked, his voice calm and deliberately soothing.

“He was an assassin sent by the Dark Knights to infiltrate Lord Hogan Bight’s inner circle and kill him.” She said it as if listing Ian’s sins would help her put things back in the right perspective.

“He is dead then. His spirit came to you?”

She hesitated, then said, “It was just a dream. His spirit is gone… wherever Dark Knights go when they die.”

The older man pursed his lips. “Not necessarily. Our mystics have found that many spirits have not left this world yet. Something appears to be blocking their departure. Perhaps this Ian found a way to come to you. Would he care enough to do that?”

Linsha stared at him. Was he serious? Spirits of the dead still haunting the world? Why? Did that mean her grandmother was still out there somewhere? Was her friend Shanron? That could not be true.

“It was only a dream,” she said softly, insistently.

“Are you sure?”

Could it be possible that Ian still cared enough to find her and warn her about someone? But if he had truly come to her, why hadn’t he given her a name? Why did he have to be so mysterious? The mere thought made her head swim. No, this was not some spiritual visitation. This was just a dream wrought by her exhaustion and fear. Who else would her imagination pull out of her collection of memories to haunt her at a time like this?

Several messengers arrived just then with urgent news for the commander. He winked once at Linsha and hurried down the stone steps to speak to them.

Feeling irritable, she climbed to her feet and decided to find something to eat. The Brutes beyond the wall did not seen to be in a hurry to kill them, so perhaps she would have time for a quick meal.

“Lady Linsha,” Falaius called her over. “I’ve received word from Lanther. He is at the North Gate. He is looking for you. He wants you to come if you can.”

“Did he say why?”

At the commander’s nod, the messenger answered. “He captured two men from Thunder’s forces. They told him some things he thought you should hear.”

Her eyebrows rose. “He just went out and captured two men in the middle of an attack?”

The messenger shrugged. “You know Lanther.”

“That section of the wall and the gate are still holding fast,” Falaius said, “but we have received word that portions of the Northern District and the Artisans District have been overrun. The militia is falling back out of the ruins to more defensible positions. Be careful where you go.” He walked with her a short way beside the city wall before he said farewell. “You fought well at my back, Rose Knight.”

“It was an honor to join you,” she replied.

He twisted a grimace into some semblance of a grin and said, “We may not be here tomorrow, so I want to take the opportunity to invite you to join the Legion of Steel.”

It was an honor, and Linsha knew it. She flushed at the genuine regard in his voice. “I think,” she said slowly, “if I had not grown up on the stories of my uncles and my grandfather’s friend, Sturm Brightblade, I would have joined the Legion instead of the Knighthood. I remember Sara Dunstan with fondness.”

The Plainsman’s dark eyes warmed at old memories. “I remember her, too. The invitation stands ready at any time you want to accept it. We’ll waive the apprenticeship.”

Linsha thought about the impossibility of their situation and suddenly laughed. “It could be the shortest membership in the history of the Legion.”

“Then so be it,” he replied. He touched his fingers to his heart in salute, bowed to her, and left to return to his duties.

The city wall on the northeast side of the Missing City was one of two large sections that had been rebuilt. Twenty feet high it stretched from the harbor seawall for nearly four miles around the Port District and well into the Northern District. It reached as far as the old North Gate and its two squat guard towers. For about one hundred yards, the wall extended beyond the North Gate where it came to an end in scaffolding, piles of rock, and heaps of sand for mortar. There was nothing left of the original wall beyond that but scattered stones and the old foundation, but since most of the Northern District had never been rebuilt, no one thought it necessary to rush into rebuilding the walls in that area. The other portion of wall had been-rebuilt from the southwestern side defending the Garden District and Iyesta’s Lair. The original idea had been to build the two sections of wall around the city and eventually join them on the northwest side, making the rough circle complete. Unfortunately, Thunder had surprised everyone.

When Linsha finally worked her way to the North Gate, she found the defenders there in much the same state as the soldiers at the Legion Gate. They had suffered hard fighting with Thunder’s army and had fallen back to the Gate to recover. The worst of the wounded lay in makeshift shelters and were tended by townspeople and healers. Many of the walking wounded had returned to the city for rest and care, but a few sat where they could find shelter and waited for the next attack. Those who were still unhurt stood on the walls and kept watch on the distant enemy.

The forces of the blue dragon had paused all along the line, whether to rest in the heat of the day, regroup for a new onslaught, or pause while Thunder instigated another part of his plan, no one was sure. They were just grateful for the respite.

Lanther saw Linsha first as she came striding along the path that paralleled the wall. He jumped up from his resting place in the shade of an awning and limped to meet her.

They surveyed each other from battered heads, down blood-stained clothes, to dusty boots and finally grinned at each other like two survivors who had found each other against hope.

“You made it,” Lanther said. “I knew you would not stay in the safe house. Is that blood yours?”

She glanced down her white linen shirt now smeared and filthy with blood, dirt, soot. “Only some of it.” She pointed a finger to the chain mail and the sword slung across her back. “Falaius allowed me into the Legion armory.”

“He’s a good man,” Lanther said, taking her arm. “Come with me. I’ve got something to show you.”

She fell into step beside him and felt his companionship slowly dissolve the ache she still felt from her dream. While she felt no desire for Lanther, she liked his company, and after the disastrous relationship with Ian, that’s all she wanted from any man she had met so far. Maybe her heart would thaw one day, but Linsha hoped it would not budge any time soon. Her choice of men had been less than advantageous, and with two of them it had proved almost fatal.

“What’s happening in Mirage?” she heard Lanther say, and she had to shake herself to clear her muzzy mind.

Quickly, she told him of the Brutes’ landing and how the streets of Mirage were now in their control. She described the fighting in the streets, between the buildings, and beside the city wall, and she told him as best she could of the Legionnaires who had fallen.

When she finished, he rubbed a grimy hand over his eyes like a man who had seen too much that day. “I am glad to hear Falaius is still alive.” He paused then went on. “It’s similar to here. The militia set up outer defenses beyond the walls, hoping to drive off Thunder’s forces, but they’re stretched too thin. The enemy has driven us back to the walls. Out there, where there are no walls, they have penetrated the militia’s defenses in a number of places. If these Brutes continue their advance into the inner city and the dragon’s army pushes through from the north, the city is lost.”

“You’re not including Thunder,” Linsha said. “Except for scaring the population half to death, starting a few fires, and destroying the Citadel, he has been leaving most of the work to the two armies.”

“He has been busy nonetheless,” said Lanther, escorting her into the ground-floor room of the guard tower on her left.

After the heat of the day’s sun, the dim, cool light of the round stone room was a welcome relief. Other people thought so, too, for the room was crowded with injured men and women sitting on the floor or at the tables usually used by the tower guards. A girl from a tavern nearby served ale to the defenders from a barrel donated by her father.

Lanther worked his way through the crowd to a small narrow stair leading down to the lower level. The small room below the tower was mostly used for storage, but tucked away in the darkest space was a set of holding cells.

“Ah,” Linsha breathed. “Your prisoners.”

“I just wanted you to see them. They are in no position to talk at the moment.” His lips pulled back in the dim light to reveal his white teeth like a snarl. “I had to be a little rough on them.”

She followed him forward and looked over his shoulder at two men sprawled on rough blankets thrown on the floor. Both men looked battered and bloody, and both wore a makeshift emblem of the blue dragon on their sleeves. One, a rugged-looking plainsman, scrabbled back into the darkest shadow when Lanther approached and huddled there, his breath rasping through his swollen nose and mouth as he stared fearfully at the Legionnaire. The other man did not move. The skin on his face hung slack and his half-opened eyes stared unseeing at the ceiling.

Lanther muttered something under his breath that Linsha could not understand, then louder he said, “That one didn’t make it. I’ll have to get someone down here to get him out.”

He turned and ushered his companion up the stairs before she had a chance to say a word to the other prisoner.

Linsha felt her irritation rise. Surely, he had not dragged her away from the Legion Gate and some much-needed sleep just to get a quick glimpse at a dead man and a battered prisoner. “Why did you want me here, Lanther? What did they tell you?”

He said nothing. Passing by the barmaid, he whisked two cups off her tray and held them out to be filled. Still without a word, he took the brimming cups of ale and led Linsha outside, past a row of sheds and huts left by the wall builders, to a clump of shrub hazel growing in the foundation of an old ruin. He sat carefully on a fallen pillar and indicated a seat beside him.

“No prying ears out here,” he said quietly.

The ale looked so good to Linsha that she would have sat anywhere just for the chance to drink it. She accepted his offering and sat beside him where she could keep a watch on the comings and goings at the distant gate. Far to her right, she could see a burial party hastily burying some of the dead before the summer heat took its toll on the bodies. To her left, she saw a troop of human militia taking advantage of the lull in the fighting to bolster their flimsy defenses with rocks and sand bags. She wondered briefly where the centaurs were and if young Leonidas was faring well enough.

“What do you know about the brass eggs Iyesta was guarding?”

If Lanther had thrown a bucket of ice water on her, Linsha could not have more stunned and surprised. She choked on the ale. “What?”

“I know Iyesta took you somewhere the day the triplets disappeared. Some place that left smudges of dirt on your face and the smell of damp on your clothes.”

Linsha glared at him. Good gods, where had this come from? “She took me into Thunder’s realm to see him. I told you about that.”

“Yes, you did. But I know Chayne and Ringg came back long before you and Iyesta. The dragon took you to another place.” He narrowed his eyes and stared at her; his blue eyes gleamed cold like the water at the foot of a glacier.

Linsha felt his gaze bore into her brain to the very back of her skull, and she felt a shiver run up her back.

Fiercely, she closed her thoughts and shuttered her eyes and brought her pulse back under control. He had taken her by surprise but it would not happen again. “Iyesta and I spent some time in her garden talking. She was worried about the triplets and furious at Thunder. She wanted someone to listen.”

A flash of speculation tightened the lines around Lanther’s eyes, then he smoothly changed his tone. “I’m sorry. I should have approached this from a more discrete direction. Those men we hold told me Thunder is looking for eggs. He has ordered his entire force to search for them as soon as the city falls. This was news to me. I had no idea Iyesta had a nest of eggs around here.”

“What makes Thunder think there are eggs?” Linsha countered, but the answer came to her with sickening certainty. The three young brasses. If the giant blue captured and tortured any one of the triplets, or all of them, he could have used his greater, more malevolent power to wrench the knowledge from their minds.

“Dragons have ways of learning things,” Lanther said. “The men did not say how Thunder came by this information, only that he had it. Is it true?”

Linsha felt a cold sickness creep through her and settle in her stomach. She took a long swallow of her ale, but it tasted flat on her tongue. Of all the dreadful possibilities to endanger the eggs, it had to be Thunder. She did not doubt Lanther’s information. There was no reason that he would make up something like that and several reasons to believe his sources.

“I don’t think we need to worry about it,” she said, trying to sound casual. “If there is a nest, it is too well hidden for anyone to find.”

Lanther rested his elbows on his knees and gazed deep into the golden depths of his ale. “Not if there are enough people looking for it.” He stopped and looked at her again. “Just why did you want to go to Iyesta’s lair so desperately after we freed you from the Citadel?”

“To look for Iyesta. I found her, too. Remember?”

“Linsha, we cannot let Iyesta’s eggs fall into Thunder’s control. He will destroy them.”

“What about Iyesta's skull? It seems to me we should be more concerned about Thunder collecting dragon skulls. Did you ask those men if he is building a larger totem?”

“Yes, I asked. They did not know. All they would tell me is that Thunder plans to move into Iyesta's lair as soon as it captured.”

“Like Chaos he is!” Linsha snapped. She shot to her feet.

Lanther grabbed for her arm. “Where are you going?”

Linsha was too quick for him. She twisted out of his grip and backed away. “To the palace. I can fight as well there as anywhere. I will not let that foul monster use her lair as his own!”

With a speed that belied her aches and exhaustion, she tossed him the empty cup, spun away, and jogged into the last golden streaks of the setting sun toward the palace of the dragonlord.

Lanther made no move to follow. He watched her go, his face impassive, until he could no longer see her in the gathering twilight. Only then did he allow a faint smile to lift his lips.