A Sword for a Dragon (38 page)

Relkin loaded his bow with a quarrel bearing an armor-piercing point and waited. Beside him, he found Swane of Revenant.

“Using a steel point on your first shot?” said Swane.

“Not going to get too many shots before they lower that drawbridge.”

Swane had an expensive broad head on his bow, as if he was expecting a clean shot at someone’s flesh. Relkin stopped himself from commenting. The enemy on the towers wasn’t exposing any flesh.

Swane was unable to stand still, however. He kept aiming and then giving up in disgust. He cursed under his breath, but he didn’t change his arrow and kept looking for some target.

An arrow from the tower shot by. Swane snarled something unintelligible, released his catch, and his shaft shot out from the walls and stuck into the base of the drawbridge.

“No more firing there,” snapped Hatlin. “We will keep our discipline, or I’ll take names. No firing until the order.”

Swane grumbled under his breath and shifted away a few paces. Relkin looked away. It was always Swane’s way, to overreach and embarrass himself.

It was a beautiful day. The sun beamed down through occasional white fluffy clouds, the breeze was cool, and there was fragrance from fruit trees on the wind. For a moment, he could almost imagine that he was far away from the walls of ancient Ourdh.

But the drums never stopped their booming thunder, and so the illusion could not hold. And then the first great stone fell out of the sky, slammed into the top of the battlement, bounced, and smashed a hole through the wicker shield and shot over the inside of the wall.

“Dragons deploy shields,” ordered Hatlin at once. They’d been lucky, that first rock hadn’t struck a dragon unprepared.

Arrows started whistling over the battlement and sticking in the withe barrier. More rocks were coming. Relkin watched one climb high above him and tumble over and over, then crash into the battlement about a hundred feet up the wall from the gate tower.

Another rock, smaller, whipped across the battlement just above him and Swane, then bounced and skipped over the dragons and fell inside the city.

They stayed behind the battlements and watched as the tower wobbled, shook, and rolled toward them. Suddenly a rock hurled from inside the walls bounced off the tower’s upper right side. The huge structure shook, and a section of hides was torn open. A gap had opened up.

A Kenor bowman ran up and loosed an arrow from his longbow into the gap and followed it with three more. Arms came out of the hole and frantically pulled at the hides to close it.

Arrows whistled around the Kenor man, and Hatlin ordered the dragonboys to open fire on the upper fighting deck, which was now at the extreme edge of their range.

On came the tower. More arrows flashed from the uppermost deck and showered down around them. The Kenor bowman gave a sudden grunt as an enemy shaft sprouted from his shoulder behind his steel epaulet.

He sank to one knee with a groan. Relkin scrambled over beside him and took a look. The arrow had a broad head, it would have to be cut out by the surgeon. Relkin gave the man the bad news and turned his attention back to the oncoming monster. An arrow bounced off his helmet with what sounded like a very loud clang. He got down behind the battlement again, reloaded his bow, took careful aim, and then fired at the upper deck. His arrow shot over the hide barrier and disappeared. He reloaded again and again, using simple points that had been mass-produced in recent days. Between them, the dragonboys were now keeping a constant flow of arrows, nicely spaced, over the rail. As soon as a Sephisti archer showed himself, he was fired on.

The tower was close now. The drawbridge would soon be able to drop down and lodge on the battlements, and then the enemy would pour across.

Gathering from both sides came the men of Marneri. First were a dozen more bowmen who joined the dragonboys and added a lethal punch with their heavier shafts. Now the wall had fire superiority, and the archers on the tower could only get off the occasional arrow.

Swane yelled something and pointed. Relkin glanced up and saw another big stone reaching the top of its trajectory. He dodged backward and then dove to his left as the stone smashed down on top of the wall and shattered into a hundred flying shards.

There were screams and groans all around him, but miraculously he was not hurt. He got to his hands and feet, scrambled back, and slipped through the gap to the relative safety on the other side of the wicker wall.

The dragons were cursing and rubbing sore spots. A few fragments of rock had burst right through the withe, but neither Bazil nor the Purple Green had been struck. There was a touch on his shoulder; Relkin spun around to face Hatlin.

“They’re both alright,” he said.

Hatlin frowned. “Leave them, get back to your position, Dragoneer!”

Relkin hurried off, arriving in time for another rock to explode on the parapet about a hundred feet to his right. This time everyone was already crouched down, and there were fewer cries of pain.

Relkin peeked over the battlement. The sky had suddenly darkened with arrows, and now they came down by the thousands all around him as massed archers let loose below the walls.

He, Swane, and the others pressed themselves close to the battlements and prayed that no rocks or arrows would find them. Meanwhile the withe-and-wicker wall was studded so thickly with arrows, it looked as if it had grown fur.

The siege towers were now accelerating toward the wall on their final surge.

“Prepare to receive the enemy,” called Hatlin. A similar cry was going up and down the walls as all the towers closed in.

And then the tower was above them, and still Relkin had found no real target to shoot at. He saw a man, quite clearly, on a crowded stair, exposed by a torn-away hide. There were hundreds of men in there. Relkin rose and fired smoothly, and saw his shaft sprout from the man’s side and heard his scream, just forty feet away.

Another point bounced off the battlement beside his head, and he ducked.

“Here they come,” snarled Swane of Revenant standing and firing at the enemy bowmen above them.

“Dragons take up the poles!” yelled Hatlin, and the dragonboys danced backward, firing as they went. The withe barricades came down. The dragons surged forward and thrust their poles out through the battlements.

The siege tower rolled forward, the poles slammed against it and held it steady. Now more poles reached out to the right side of the tower. Bazil, the Purple Green, and Vlok were all leaning into it, and the tower began to rock and tilt, with one huge wheel coming up off the ground. At once the whole tower slewed around as the slaves continued to thrust on the shaft and did not halt until the rear was exposed.

With whips flailing, the imps sought to get the men to reverse and pull the tower back from danger.

A storm of arrows flew up from the archers below and began to sprout all over the dragons, sticking out of the leather of their joboquins and from their hide in between armor plates.

The Kenor bowmen stepped to the wall and laid a suppressing fire down into the mob below, but the numbers were against them, and barely a diminution in the enemy fire was achieved.

Now Chektor came up and so did Cham, and they laid their poles against the tower on the same side. The dragons pushed with all their might and slowly the huge tower wobbled up, tilted again, and stuck there, raised off one wheel but no further.

Enemy arrows were hissing around the dragons and sticking in joboquin and dragon hide alike, but the wyverns would not give up. An arrow sank into the Purple Green’s cheek, and he began a ferocious growling. He then reached down and made an enormous final effort, heaving his pole against the side of the tower so hard that the pole splintered and the tower wobbled over, gave a great groan from its timbers, sagged, cracked, and fell over into ruin on the ground below.

All the men on that section of the wall gave a great cheer, and the cornets played the charge over and over. The dragons emitted long, exultant roars and pressed their huge forehands together.

Then they turned and went to assist elsewhere, for only a few towers had been toppled successfully while a few more had been broken or had their drawbridges jammed. Others had reached the walls and lowered their drawbridges. Now the battle would be fought in earnest.

And now the battle of the walls rose to a crescendo as the two sides came to grips and the dark shadow of the enemy was cast across the future of all. For defeat meant annihilation for the men of Argonath and, indeed, for all the cities of the fair land of the eastern coast. Men and dragons alike were united in their stand, they would not retreat, and only death would take them from their places.

Above the constant clash and clamor of the combat boomed the drums of Sephis to be answered by the silver cornets of the legions blowing for the charge, the wheel, the retreat, and the quick response.

And through all the roaring chaos of war, the bellowing of the dragons came triumphant and loud, like echoes from the ancient swamps of reptilian struggle, erupting through the chaos of mere Mammalia.

On their left, the 109th discovered a siege tower had slipped through the dragon poles of the Marneri 66th and discharged a squad of the giant mud men onto the wall. The dragons of the 66th were forced back a few steps and kept busy holding off the mud men. A horde of Sephisti soldiery poured across the drawbridge behind the giants and fell upon the defenders. Soon a chaotic fight occupied a good one hundred yards of the wall. Through the battle loomed the giants. Men drove their spears into the soggy stuff of these monsters only to have them wrenched from their hands as the giants moved on with hardly any reaction. The mud men merely reached down and smashed at the men with heavy hammers and huge clubs. Men could not hold up under these impacts, and shields and helmets were crushed again and again until the legionaries scrambled back to evade them. The enemy held a section of the wall. The men of the Argonath could not stand against them. Doom rose like a dark cloud above them.

Then the dragons of the 109th arrived, with a front four dragons deep and the rest behind to lend their muscle to the effort. The four dragons at the front lined their shields up to make a wall of metal and hide, and then they pushed forward in step and drove into the mass of the enemy like a steel plow carving through clay.

The mud men struck at them furiously, but dragons had felt harder blows from trolls, and they struck back with gleaming dragon sword and soon had the advantage.

Bazil Broketail hewed the first giant he ran into, and Ecator clove the thing from neck to crotch, then it fell apart in disorder.

“Disgusting,” Bazil said, his eyes gone wide.

The great Purple Green had lofted a giant over his head and now hurled it right off the wall like a missile.

“Score one for me, too,” he replied.

Vlok had turned aside a hammer blow and then cut off the head of a mud man. The thing returned to the struggle undaunted.

“What does it take to kill these things?” he snarled.

“Is like fighting vegetables,” said the Purple Green.

Bazil put a foot up on another mud man’s chest while he extracted Ecator, which had sunk deep into the thing and stuck.

A space was opened for a moment. A brave Sephisti lunged at the dragon’s side with a spear. The movement was detected, however, and Relkin spun on the spot and snapped an arrow into the man. It jolted him, but stuck on his mail coat and failed to penetrate.

The fellow was game still, thrust again with his spear, and managed to get it into a gap between the cuisses on the dragon’s leg and the mail apron hanging below the joboquin. He tried to thrust it in deep, but Relkin was on him in the next moment with a scream of battle rage, and landed with both feet up, driving into the man’s side. The Sephisti was bowled over, his spear came loose at once, and the dragon carried on with no sign of a wound in the leg. The mud man was downed, and Ecator swung over in a gleaming arc of white steel and clove it in two.

Relkin scrambled to his feet before the Sephisti, but already several others were there and he ducked back from their spear points.

“ ‘Ware this side,” he yelled up to Bazil, and reloaded his bow. Out of the corner of his right eye, he saw something huge loom over him, and by instinct alone he evaded the huge hammer that swept down and powdered the brick where he’d been standing.

Relkin fell back and was almost brained by the leatherback’s tail, which rocketed past as Bazil braced and swung a backhand into the mud man. Relkin ducked another tail as big Vlok shoved in with his shield, dug it under the arm of the mud man, and toppled it.

Relkin glimpsed Ecator whirling down through the sunlight, reloaded again, and ducked another tail— this time Cham, who was pushing in behind the broketail and Vlok. Relkin scuttled forward, but there was little room now. A press was building up as the dragons drove back the mud men and confined them, so they squeezed the huge army of Sephisti behind them.

“Kill!” roared the Purple Green as he lofted another mud man above the fray and hurled it bodily off the wall, its legs kicking frantically.

“Kill!” The Purple Green was in his element, finally getting his own back for the mistreatment he’d received from the enemy. They had doomed him to foot soldiery. They would pay, by the roar of the ancients they would pay!

And all the time, completely without thought, the dragonboys reloaded, took careful aim, and fired again and again. They sent their shafts into the men behind the giants, knowing too well that no arrow could so much as disturb one of the huge beings of mud, but taking a toll on the Sephisti soldiery, which was now losing the ability to fight back due to the tightness of the press.

Still the enemy mass continued to fall back under the impetus of the fighting 109th. The second line replaced the first, and fresh dragon arms and swords took up the work while Bazil, Vlok, and the Purple Green, plus old Chektor, sidled back to the rear for a breather. Dragonboys rushed up and began checking them for wounds, for damage to their equipment, for breaks in the straps holding the armor, for bruising and swelling, for a hundred things that might affect their great charges.