When Dragons Rage

44

Try as he might, General Markus Adrogans had not found a way to guarantee that less blood than water would flow in the taking of the Three Brothers. The arrangement of the three fortresses had thwarted enemies for centuries, and most of them had not had to contend with the frigid cold snap that had settled over the countryside. For while it brought no snow, it made the march north agonizing.

Adrogans had brought his troops down into position three days before the assault and begun creating two siege machines. He opted for rams, with roofs and stout sides to protect the men wielding them. That made them incredibly heavy and slow to move, but if Darovin did have dragonels, the rams’ robust construction might shrug off a few balls. The question really became one of whether or not they could withstand enough shots to break through the first oak gate.

The Jeranese general had deployed the Blackfeathers to snipe at guards and keep them always on alert. While the river supplied no real attack route against the Three Brothers, its frozen surface did allow Beal mot Tsuvo and her troops to range north around the forts and along the road, setting up ambushes for any Aurolani reinforcements coming south to the Three Brothers.

Adrogans huddled inside a thick, furred robe, then pulled his scarf down and spit. His spittle cracked in the air as it flew. “At least Duke Mikhail’s dream was accurate concerning the day’s weather.”

Phfas snorted. “You place too much trust in Svarskya and the Kingsmen.

“If this plan works, it will be because of them.” Adrogans glanced back along the roadway. The ram slowly advanced thanks to the efforts of the Gurol Stoneheart battalion. They sang a deep, lusty tune, rhythmic and guttural. With each repetition it grew in power. The ram, which looked very like a covered bridge on wheels, ground forward. The heavy wheels crushed the snow as it moved, while the ram itself swayed forward and back, side to side, with each motion. The warriors had hung their round shields on the exterior walls, so the bold devices painted in reds, blues, greens, and golds lent it a fierce martial air.

The horses and liveried warriors of the Kingsmen waited around the corner from Darovin. Their horses stamped and blew out great plumes of angry steam. The warriors all had lances. From the tips of some fluttered gay pennants. Anonymous in their heavy armor, they would not be easy to kill, yet Adrogans knew that many of them would die. Any mounted horsemen trapped in the citadel would be slaughtered, yet there had been no way to deny Duke Mikhail’s request to let the Kingsmen go in first.

As the ram slowly came into view of Darovin, activity increased on the battlements. A few arrows arced out at the crawling ram, but none of them hit. Out by the river, a few elven shots hit the tower from the far shore. One gibberer did fall flailing to the ice below, but its body failed to break through. The crusted snow cracked beneath it, and a light dusting of powder puffed up and quickly floated down to cover the body.

Phfas pointed a finger at the top of Darovin. “They signal.”

The yellow flag that had been flying over the first tower slowly came down, then a red flag and a black pennant were raised. Across the river, elves flashed mirrors to communicate what the flags at the other sites were doing. Varalorsk acknowledged the signal by repeating it, then offered a green flag. Darovin replied by lowering, then reraising, its red and black flags.

Adrogans smiled. “Red to report a threat, black to dismiss it and the offer of help. The commander at Darovin is confident he can deal with the threat. Good, very good.” He turned to the signalman on his left. “Signal the Black-feathers to advance toward the Darovin river tower.”

“Yes, sir.”

The signalman used his mirrors to communicate that order to the elves. Mistress Gilthalarwin ordered her warriors to emerge from the brush on the far shore and approach in a long skirmish line that began to tighten into a semicircle as it drew closer. The gibberers launched arrows at them. While their height did allow the Aurolani archers greater range, their lack of accuracy—especially in face of the breeze—made their defensive efforts less than effective.

The Darovin commander reacted by sending more troops running out over the arched pathway to the river tower. The Darovin garrison should have numbered approximately one hundred, and the river tower had enough room for half that number of archers to be employed effectively. Even with the elves’ superior skill at archery, the chances of their doing much against the tower were nil.

“Signalman, tell the Warhawks it is time.”

The man shifted and flashed his mirror at the mountain high above the Three Brothers. No light came back, no signal acknowledged the message, but this did not surprise Adrogans. Instead of looking upward, he shifted his glance to Darovin’s river tower and, leaning forward with his hands on his saddlehorn, waited.

The first Gyrkyme he saw was traveling so fast that he was certain the winged warrior would never manage to pull out of his dive. The Gyrkyme had folded his wings in tightly and dropped toward the river, as if a suicide who had flung himself from the mountain. Nothing more than a brown streak, the Gyrkyme then snapped his wings open, twisted right, then left, and shrieked as he shot past the river tower. He swooped up abruptly, rolling in the air and gliding toward the river’s far shore.

By rights that level flight should have made him an easy target, but the tower behind him was in chaos. The Gyrkyme, and those who flew in his wake, carried firecocks. The devices consisted of a crockery oil reservoir and a fusing mechanism that ignited the puddle of oil once the globe shattered on the tower. The resulting explosion launched balls of flame and black smoke into the air.

A half-dozen firecocks slammed into the top of the tower, instantly immolating the archers at the top. Several more laced fire onto the archway, cutting off both retreat and reinforcement. One Gyrkyme flirted with death as she streaked low and deliberately aimed her firecock at a lower level arrow slit. The device apparently made it through, as fire burst out the other openings and one burning body remained lodged in the slit on the tower’s far side.

The flags atop Darovin immediately shifted. Down came the red and black. In their place rose two long green pennants.

Phfas cackled. “He demands two legions to help. Fool!”

The Kingsmen had advanced enough to be seen from Darovin and raised their voices in a cheer as they saw that signal. The Gurolans must have figured out what was happening, for their song redoubled in strength and the ram lurched, moving faster. The song pulsed power and Adrogans could feel Pain attuning herself to it, reading the ache of muscles, the creaking of sinews, the sharp tingling of frozen toes.

The Darovin ballistae launched their missiles. Adrogans took heart, since the heavy shafts with the foot-long blades had not nearly the power of a single dragonel ball. Even so, some spears did pierce the roof and Pain communicated to him the golden torture of the cold, steel head spitting a man.

The song faltered for a heartbeat, then resumed again, stronger and more defiant. The Kingsmen started forward again, but Adrogans held up a hand to restrain them. He read the urgency in the jingle of tack and the quivering of muscles, but shook his head. “Wait for the signal.”

The two green flags flew down. When they rose again, a third had joined them. This green flag had three white dots on it.

Phfas’ eyes narrowed. “Sorcerers.”

Adrogans nodded. “As we expected.” The elven scout on the far side of the river flashed a confirmation that reinforcements were moving up, including vylaens and the kryalniri.

The shaman threw off his robe, interlinked his fingers, bridged them, and raised them over his head in a stretch. The little charms hanging from his leathery skin stood out. Whereas Phfas normally wore rings of gold or other precious metals, this day he sported small stone amulets painted white, bits of bone, and two frostclaw feathers.

The general smiled. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

“If you please.”

Phfas’ hands parted, but remained above his head. The fingers splayed out and quivered. Tendons stood out and veins twisted beneath his skin. Scars became almost luminous and wove themselves into a network that closely resembled a snowflake. They burned whiter than snow itself.

Then the shaman’s hands convulsed into fists.

A crack sounded from the mountaintop. For a heartbeat after that there was nothing, then a slow rumbling rose in its wake. The rumbling built, quickly, swallowing the song, eclipsing the screams from the tower.

Phfas, like Adrogans, had bound to himself yrun, though his closest ally was air. As his fists closed, air hardened on the mountaintop. It drove down solidly at various points cracking the crusted snow and pressing it into the softer, looser powder below. The snow began to slip and slide, passing quickly over a deeper, icier level. The rumble grew as it picked up speed, then the snow flew from the mountain in a white cataract.

Snow, so light that it would drift down easily from the clouds, hardly seemed a threat, but it poured off the mountain swiftly and heavily. Tons of it flew in a fluid sheet, mixing huge chunks of ice with a few trees and the occasional rock, pounding down onto the roadway between Varalorsk and Darovin with the fury of storm-driven waves.

The Aurolani reinforcements—all three legions—vanished in the avalanche. Snow landed twenty feet deep on the roadway, rising higher than the walls of Darovin itself. The swath of snow flowed onto the river and the ice cracked. The snow poured down into the dark hole and disappeared.

The ram continued forward and the Darovin ballistae shot more hurriedly. More men died, but soon enough the shots from the tower played back against the middle and tail of the ram. Archers lined the top of the gate wall and shot down, trying to drive their shafts through the roof, but to no avail.

Adrogans watched the aft end of the ram swing back, then forward. The first impact sounded like a giant hand knocking politely on the gate. Then another knock, heavier and harder, echoed through the valley. A third came, then a fourth, each insistent, solid and undeniable. With enough time, the gate would shatter.

Suddenly chaos erupted on the walls. Gibberers pitched forward, spinning from above the gate to bounce from the ram’s roof. The gates opened, slowly at first, then more quickly, and the Gurolean song transformed itself into a cacophony of war cries.

Adrogans spurred his horse forward, with the signalman and Phfas trotting in his wake. He glanced back at the shaman. Phfas’ skin had taken on a blue tone and the older man shivered, but his eyes still burned bright. He smiled even more brightly.

“You see, uncle. It worked.”

Phfas nodded. “The Zhusk could have done this.”

“The Zhusk did. They just had help.”

Adrogans dismounted at the ram and, drawing his sword, ran in through the gate. The Stonehearts had already reached the far gate and opened it. A few of them ran out toward the mountain of snow cutting the road. A couple of gibberers lay broken on the roadway, or struggling to drag themselves from beneath tons of snow. The Stonehearts ended their misery.

The Alcidese general, Caro, begrimed but smiling broadly, met Adrogans in Darovin’s courtyard. “It worked perfectly, my lord. Yes, more blood flowed than water, but that’s because so little water flowed.”

The difficulty in taking the Three Brothers really fell into two areas. The first was a need to lure troops out from behind walls so they could be slaughtered. The roadway offered an obvious killing ground, and the Blackfeathers could have slain many of the reinforcements, but they could only have done so from the river and there they would have been in the open and terribly vulnerable.

The second problem was a manifestation of the first: how to approach the fortresses unseen. At first he had considered having the Nalisk Mountain Rangers descend on ropes from the mountain, but that would still have left them outside the fortresses, and as vulnerable as any troops on the road. With the river frozen, nothing could be floated down to deliver troops, and they would have still remained outside the walls.

Ultimately Duke Mikhail had provided the solution. So exact were his models that he even showed the stone tunnels where the fortresses’ offal flowed into the river to be carried away. Those tunnels provided a way in, but one that was guarded by twenty feet of frigid water.

More blood flowed than water because, fifteen miles upriver, Zhusk shamans whose yrun were water summoned all their power and diverted the river into an old flood channel. While the river pooled into a lake, Caro’s Alcidese King’s Horse Guards, the Helurian Imperial Steel Legion and the Okrannel Kingsmen had traveled beneath the ice, in the frozen riverbed, to the effluent tunnels. They slowly snuck into the fortresses and then, when the avalanche thundered down, Caro’s and Mikhail’s men attacked Darovin and Varalorsk respectively.

A man on the top of Darovin called down. “Varalorsk just raised a green legion flag. Elves say reinforcements are heading to Varalorsk.”

“Understood.” Adrogans raised a hand and summoned the leader of the troops who had appropriated the Kingsmen’s livery forward. “Captain Dmitri, have your people get that ram in here, then close the gates and man them.”

The man from Svoin nodded, then turned and began to issue orders to his troops.

Adrogans looked at Caro. “Shall we make our way to Varalorsk?”

“After you, my lord.”

With Phfas trailing them, the two generals hiked up over the hill of snow and back down to Varalorsk. The small sally port in the southern gate opened and filthy Kingsmen waved them forward hurriedly. Their urgency did not surprise Adrogans, as the green flag requesting reinforcements had been raised by the Kingsmen to lure Aurolani forces into the open. On Varalorsk’s north wall archers who would slaughter the reinforcements would be hidden, and this was something to which all of the attackers had looked forward.

The expression worn by the Kingsmen was not one of glee. “Hurry, General, it is the Duke.”

Adrogans slipped through the port and followed quickly. His guide led him through Varalorsk. In his mind Adrogans could see his route winding through Mikhail’s models. Deep inside they went, then up and up to the top level. His guide indicated the door to what should have been the commanding officer’s quarters, then stood aside.

Adrogans stepped over the body of a dead kryalniri and reached a wooden cot upon which an ashen-faced Mikhail lay. The dark brown clothes he wore hid much of the blood, but the fingers he clutched to his middle could not hide his wound. A hideous slash had opened his belly.

The Jeranese general turned to Phfas. “Get me an elven healer now”

“No, General.” Mikhail’s words came hissed and barely above a whisper. “There is no time.”

Adrogans looked back at him and saw a thin trickle of blood trail from the corner of his mouth. One of the other men standing there dabbed at it with a red cloth. “We’ve taken the towers, you know. Your plan worked.”

The dying Okrans noble nodded. “I know. It was as I dreamed.”

Adrogans narrowed his eyes. “Did you dream…”

“This? No.” He snorted weakly. “I am neither so brave nor foolish to walk into this. In my dream we won. We did. Then my dream ended. Now my life ends.”

Outside the roar of the archers rose as they revealed themselves and slew the arriving reinforcements. Their cries would signal the other Kingsmen waiting to emerge, and Krakoin would fall.

Mikhail smiled. “General, you will take Svarskya. I know it.”

“You’ll be there with me.”

“No, no I will not. I shall watch, though.” Mikhail’s eyes flared wide and white, then a spasm of pain shook him. More blood dripped from his mouth and stained his teeth. “A favor.”

Adrogans leaned closer as the man’s voice faded. “Anything.”

“Tell Alexia dreams can come true. Tell her to trust her dreams.”

“I will, my friend, I will.”

Mikhail’s body shook once more, then went limp.

Adrogans reached down and closed the man’s eyes. He mouthed a silent prayer even as Pain raked her talons across his belly. He winced, then looked up at the other Kingsmen standing around the cot. They looked stricken and he could tell each one of them would have gladly given his life in exchange for that of the duke. They even think his death is their fault.

Adrogans let his eyes harden and kept his voice grim. “I would speak no ill of Duke Mikhail, but he lied. He was a brave man, the bravest, for only the bravest could have taken Varalorsk.”

He hesitated for a moment as Mikhail’s men looked up at him and blinked. He waited until they could truly comprehend what he was saying, and once he read that in their dark eyes, he continued. “The duke did foresee his death, but he knew it was the sacrifice that would win the Three Brothers. He knew it would let us win Svarskya, so let no one think his death could have been prevented. He offered himself for the rest of us, for Okrannel. I charge you with making certain the truth of his death is known. Long shall his courage be sung.”

The trio of Kingsmen there nodded, then one met his gaze openly. “It will be our sacred duty, General.”

“Then I shall leave the master of the Three Brothers to your care.” Adrogans nodded once, then left the room.

Phfas caught up with him quickly. “Why lie for the dead?”

“Was I lying, uncle, or had Mikhail forgotten that part of his dream?” Adrogans narrowed his eyes. “His memory will drive them further than he would have alive. He wanted Svarskya free, and this way he will win it. He gave everything to this cause, and we shall make sure his effort bears the fruit he intended.”