A Sword for a Dragon (39 page)

The cornets were blowing wildly. Spearmen were ordered forward into a line behind the dragons and let loose to spear the mud men and try to pin them together, helping to immobilize them and make it easier for the dragons to dismember them.

The spearmen, however, were not as adept as dragonboys in avoiding dragon tails, and several times men were knocked flying as one of the great beasts lashed its tail for balance while wielding dragon sword. Indeed, it was the hardest art for a dragoneer to learn, sensing the lash of tails. Getting clipped by a dragon’s tail could knock a strong man senseless.

The spears went home, the dragon swords rose and fell, and the two dragon squadrons worked their way toward each other, compressing and squeezing the invading force back against the battlements. Many mud men had been cut to pieces and thrown over the walls.

Others had been chopped in half and left on the walls. The Sephisti soldiers were scrambling back onto the siege tower, but there was a jam of traffic from both directions inside the tower and the crush on the wall was getting unbearable. Once again, the Argonathi technique of war had immobilized an enemy.

Still it was arduous work, and the dragons switched lines again and again before it was over.

And even as the siege tower rolled back, defeated, and the last mud man was toppled from the wall, the enemy’s trebuchets renewed the bombardment and rocks began slamming down onto the brickwork again.

There were screams of pain and bellows from dragons, too. Big Guttupeg, a yellow brasshide from Aubinas in the 109th was killed outright by a boulder that fell directly on his head.

The cornets blew frantically, and officers moved up and down bellowing orders, thinning the position out, removing the tempting target of a great gang of dragons and men clustered together.

Orders came for the 109th and the 66th to rest. The sectors on either side of theirs were also freed from the invader. In fact, the enemy had been forced out of all but a couple of sections by the river gate where the Imperial Guard held the line. Dragons had been sent to help, and the situation was under control.

Exhaustion set in, dragons slumped down, men collapsed where they stood. Only the archers and dragonboys remained active. Relkin peered over the wall. A vast heap of dead, mostly Sephisti soldiers, had piled up there like scree at the side of a mountain slope. Among the corpses were chunks of the mud men, already decomposing into sluglike masses of a dark slime. He shivered, the magic of the enemy was truly terrible. It was as the witches said, there was no choice but to fight.

The quiet was eerie after the roar of battle, Relkin noted no targets in sight, and the enemy had pulled back out of range. Even the trebuchets had fallen silent, having run out of rocks to hurl.

Relkin asked Hatlin for permission to leave his post. It was granted, and he hurried back to examine his dragons.

The dragons were huddled over in a morose group, cleaning and sharpening their swords. Plate armor had been pulled loose, helmets tossed down.

Relkin caught a look from Swane and knew at once. The great beasts were upset by the death of Guttupeg, the brasshide from Aubinas. His dragonboy had been Jiro Belx, who was sitting red-faced, holding back the tears, on the inner battlement. Relkin didn’t need to know that the body of the brasshide was on a cart down below. The dragons would mourn the young brasshide. They had come together as a unit during the long trip south, and they had fought together at Salpalangum and on the walls of Ourdh. Guttupeg had impressed all with his quiet, respectful manner.

But Guttupeg was not their only casualty. Mooz, a hard green from Seinster had a broken rib and a suspected broken shoulder. He had been helped down the engineer’s steps and was being treated back in the dragon tent. Big Cham had a spear wound, and both Vlok and Swane had arrowheads in their flesh.

Swane gritted his teeth and made no sound as the surgeons took the barb out of his buttock, and Relkin found a degree of respect grow for the boy from Revenant.

Relkin had found that Bazil had taken a shallow cut from that spear thrust between the cuisse and the apron. It was impossible to bandage, so he used disinfectant on a clean cloth, then packed it with boiled mud, the old Sugustus brand, of course. He would have to hope it would hold and that they would see no action for a while.

The Purple Green had a few long scratches and some bruises from hammer blows. Relkin prepared poultices and found Dragoneer Hatlin there to help bind them in place.

“Good poultices, Dragoneer Relkin,” said Hatlin. “Thank you, sir.”

“You fought well, and so did this pair.”

“They did, sir, thank you, Dragoneer.” The dragons did not look up; they were oblivious to human concerns. They muttered together in dragon speech and worked the whetstones on their blades.

The walls had held. The Argonathi had not given way, the great enemy was denied its prey.

In fact, that enemy had been savagely dealt with. A third of the siege towers had fallen. Hundreds of mud men had been lost. Even the catapults and trebuchets had fallen silent having run out of ammunition.

The mighty military machine that had been concentrated around Ourdh to destroy the legions had ground to a halt. An eerie quiet persisted, split only by the screams of wounded men as they were taken to the surgeons’ stations and dealt with.

Treading through the tent city outside the walls, the Magician Thrembode observed the signs of defeat. A lethargy hung over the troops, who sat around small fires, eating and drinking with little conversation. Few men even looked up as he passed.

Once again he reached the conference tent of General Klend. Klend was not looking very well, in fact, he seemed a little green in the face. High priest Odirak was also looking withdrawn. The other priests were absent. The reason was obvious enough in the hunched shape that stood alone on the far side of the space. Thrembode could feel the Mesomaster’s anger quite clearly. It blazed like a hot star on the astral plane. Still Odirak was moved to say to him, “The Master is displeased by General Klend’s failure.”

Klend shot the high priest a vicious look. Thrembode nodded, the dolt Odirak could not sense beyond the normal plane of gross materiality any more than poor Klend. But at least Klend knew better than to say anything to his betters.

The Mesomaster had not yet so much as acknowledged Thrembode’s appearance. The figure in the black cloak was intent on a small message scroll.

Thrembode looked at Klend. Klend looked away unwilling to meet his eye. Thrembode surmised that Klend might not be long for the world.

Abruptly the Mesomaster finished reading. With a contemptuous gesture, it tossed the scroll to Klend.

“See to the repositioning of our remaining siege force. Resupply will be achieved within two days. You will have everything ready to renew the assault within four days. Understood?”

Klend grasped at the scroll as a drowning man grasps at a line.

“Yes, master, of course.”

“The enemy will be resupplied after that. Their fleet has been delayed by our pirate allies, but it cannot be stopped nor can it be defeated. The witches remain the rulers of the oceans for good reason. So we must be ready on the fourth day, when they will be at their weakest. They are hungry now, but they will be starving by then.”

“They must be defeated!” said Odirak fervently. “The god demands their sacrifice!”

The Mesomaster was tired of Odirak’s witless piety in this bogus religion. The thing in Dzu was no god, it was but a malacostracan demon, chained here in the world Ryetelth and made to do the bidding of the High Ones. Odirak had been the priest of a dying cult and had found himself suddenly elevated to undreamed-of heights. The Mesomaster found Odirak irritating. He forbore from disposing of the high priest because he understood that the cult’s hierarchy was vitally important to organizing the war effort. If not for that need, Odirak would long ago have gone into the blood pool.

“Clear the tent,” hissed the Mesomaster. “I must talk with the magician alone.”

Klend and Odirak left hastily. The bizarre horned face turned to him.

“Magician, you have now the opportunity to serve yourself well. In fact, you will even be forgiven by the High Ones. You will be allowed to live.”

“Surely that was not in question.”

“Hah! That is so like the surly young magician, who lacks humility before his betters. Nay, protest not, I know everything, Magician. I know what took place at Tummuz Orgmeen.”

Thrembode did his utmost to betray emotion, but his pulse raced. How much did they know? In the fall of the city, he had escaped and gone south. He’d spent the winter in the spice islands.

“Yes, Magician. You served the Blunt Doom, but you did not love it. They are hard to love are they not? In fact, the Doom had found your services lacking in quality and zest. You were about to suffer the consequences of the displeasure of the great Doom.”

“Now, I…”

“Nay, do not attempt to dissemble, nor to weave some skein of cunning before my eyes. You know you cannot hide the truth from me!”

“Believe me, master, when I say I have no such intention.”

“Believe you? Believe a magician of your rank? Hah, that will be the day. I will not believe you, but I will command you and you will serve me well, or else.”

The flames in those eyes danced brightly.

“Yes, master.” Thrembode knew when it was time to be submissive.

“You have bungled many operations in the past year or so, Magician. This bungling has not gone unnoticed.”

“Bungling, I protest!”

“You lost an entire network of agents in Kadein. Then in Marneri, a perfectly planned assassination was missed because of your clumsiness. You were then forced to flee, and you were chased across the Gan to Tummuz Orgmeen by the witch Lessis.”

“Chased is too strong a word.”

“In Tummuz Orgmeen, you lost the Princess Besita and brought on the destruction of the Doom itself.”

“I, no, I did not. I must protest!”

“Your protestations are meaningless. This is what I was told in Padmasa.”

“Urgh.” Thrembode’s throat constricted. If this was what they believed in Padmasa, then he was done for.

“Anyway, the fact is that we have received a sharp check in our progress, and this is not acceptable. We shall have to try your traitors once more. You will contact them and see if we can get them to give up a gate.”

The Mesomaster held up a gloved hand. Thrembode imagined the horn talons inside the black glove. Was it really worth it, he wondered, to achieve all those powers and end up looking like that, a demon of dark green horn and yellow flame?

“If you can deliver up a gate to us, then I shall intercede for you with the High.”

“Yes, master,” Thrembode reflected that the Mesomaster Gog Zagozt would be a powerful ally. A magician needed such friends if he was to survive long in his current line of work.

“Good. Can it be done, Magician?”

“Yes, master, we have several possibilities to consider.”

“Good, spare me the details. Get me a gate.”

“Yes, master.”

I’ll get you a gate, I’ll get you the entire wall, you’ll see, Thrembode thought to himself and prepared to leave.

The Mesomaster wanted to talk, however. Thrembode smiled attentively; such opportunities to ingratiate oneself with the powerful came but rarely.

“It is a troubling situation, Magician. You see, we must take the city and soon. There are many reasons. You are privy to stage-three secrets, so you may understand the weakness of our myrmidons. They must be replaced shortly. We require the population of the city for that task.”

Thrembode envisaged the slaughter that would involve. The screaming, the horror on the psychic plane.

Mesomaster Gog Zagozt continued. “But even more important is the fact that we have trapped a great hag here.”

Thrembode looked up with a slight tremor of alarm. A hag? Here?

“Yes, Magician”—there was a gloat to the Mesomaster’s tone—“I, myself, detected her. She is very sly, very insubstantial on the astral plane. But I sensed her. She is one of their greatest, perhaps the greatest of all. If we can make sure of her, especially if we can capture her, then, well, need I say more than that the future would be filled with boundless opportunities.”

Thrembode was riven by extreme emotions. On one hand, he saw the great opportunity offered by the Mesomaster and on the other hand he shivered with odd fears. Thrembode had had a number of close calls in dealing with one of those hags.

“Is it the Grey Hag, Lessis?”

“No, no,” the Mesomaster grunted evilly. “No it is not that one, she lies on her death bed in Marneri. An assassination in which no magicians were involved.”

Thrembode exulted. “That is wonderful news, Master. I congratulate whoever was responsible.”

“So you should, Magician, so you should. So! Now you see what is at stake here, go back and win us a gate.”

Thrembode left the general’s tent and returned at once to the ruined villa. Once more he became Euxus of Fozad and made his way back into the city.

Within the walls, he found an air of disorder. Mobs of starving men and women were gathered on street corners. In some places they were quiet, simply staring at the desultory street traffic. At other places they were boisterous,, and there were shouts of rage and sudden chanting of slogans in the native tongue.

Thrembode noted these signs of discontent with satisfaction as he hurried down Fatan Street and turned in at the house taken over by Commander Glaves of the Marneri Second Legion.

Glaves was drunk. Dandrax had successfully robbed a merchant’s house and come away with some powerful Ourdhi distillate, called yaak. Glaves had been drinking it steadily all day.

Porteous Glaves had decided he couldn’t take any more of this. To avoid a court-martial and execution, he had been forced to join his command and actually witness the fighting on the walls. He’d lost control of his bladder when a boulder fell out of the sky and crushed a man just five feet away. The shame and mortification were mingled in his memory with the terror he had felt all that day.