A Sword for a Dragon (46 page)

Through the stacked molds flitted the wisp of fire, injecting each and moving on like some busy parasitic wasp in a forest filled with prey.

The mud men would harden, and they would even awake. But as soon as they awoke, the corrupting spell would begin its work. In time, they would soften again and dissolve.

At last she finished, arose, and surveyed the scene. The job was done. She composed herself and made the transition to the subworld of chaos once more. She floated there for a moment, clearing her thoughts. This was a drastic mistake, for hovering nearby was a great Thingweight, a towering mass of shifting shapes set atop glittering energies. Tentacles flashed forth from the base of the thing and speared through her position. In a trice, she was held and tugged toward the monster’s underside where the receptor surfaces would already be warming in anticipation of the feast.

There could be no escape, not in this astral form, except to retranslate to the world Ryetelth again, immediately. It was hard to concentrate, but Ribela steeled herself and after a moment achieved her aim and slipped the grip of the Thingweight and reappeared as a wisp of fire, floating just outside the dread warehouse where they made the men of mud.

Beneath her was a great jostling mass of humanity, slowly being pushed into the warehouse doors by armed men and imps.

She was in a terrible quandary. As the wisp, she could fly back to the Imperial City and complete a double translation. It was a physically taxing process to travel in this form, but it could be done. Or she could wait here and try the route through chaos once more. The problem was that as a wisp she could not pass through solid walls or doors. She would be forced to wait outside and dart in when doors were opened. On the other hand, Thingweights could be incredibly stubborn. The one that sat over her position in the subworld would stay there for hours in the hope that she would show herself again.

With a mental sigh, she made her choice. The wisp turned and fluttered toward the distant river and the Imperial City. Darkness had fallen. The enemy ram worked on. The defenders awaited their doom.

The southwest waterside tower fell near midnight. It went quite suddenly. There was a crack in the lower course of the outer wall that had grown progressively wider as the ram pulverized the outer layers. Suddenly it gave, and the front section of the tower sheared off and collapsed, spilling out over the ram in front.

For a moment, the rest of the tower stood there. Then slowly, gracefully, it collapsed, falling in on itself and sliding down into the waters on the river in ruin.

From the enemy lines came a harsh cheer and the drumming began, the terrible drumming of Sephis.

Catapults and trebuchets were at work at once, hurling missiles across the ruins of the tower.

In the rubble, men worked to free a few survivors. Dozens had been caught in the collapse, including several engineers. Others hurried to set up a barricade along the top of the pile of brick rubble that now constituted the wall. Archers from both sides were at work, but in the moonlight the task was easier for the enemy archers, since on the pale mud-brick rubble, the defenders stood out quite clearly, while in the dark outside the walls, the Sephisti were hard to see.

With the drums booming, a force of mud men began to form up in front of the breach. Around the giants grew a swelling mob of Sephisti soldiers, augmented here and there with foul imps, creatures hatched in the dungeons of Axoxo in the White Bones Mountains. These imps were trained to fight dragons, to cut hamstrings, to hack between the legs, to stab into feet.

The 109th dragons, along with the 66th and the 25th were set to hold the breach. They waited far back, however, as the storm of missiles fell on the men erecting the barricades, but at length the cornets shrilled and they moved forward, dragonboys behind each dragon, with swordsmen and spearmen from the Eighth Regiment behind them. Dragonboys picked up arrows as they went along, adding to the thick quivers each had now amassed.

Up the steep pile of rubble they went. Engineers had already set up prefabricated dragon steps. One set of these had been smashed by a rock and so the 66th and 109th had to share another. It was crowded, and it slowed their arrival on the top of the breach.

Rocks continued to fall from the sky, although by now the Argonathi trebuchets inside the Imperial City were zeroing in on the enemy’s machines. One by one, they were either struck and damaged or pulled back to a new, safer position.

But the end of the rock fall was only the signal of the beginning of the real test. Now, coming up the slope, straight at them, was a solid regiment of the mud men. Behind them boomed the drums.

Dragons sucked in their breath and drew their great swords. The giants raised their hammers and began swinging them in that mad, automatic rhythm. They came together with a crash of steel, shield to shield, swords rising and falling, hammers striking sparks off dragon helm and dragon shield.

The moon rose high above the scene and cast its pitiless light across the ruined tower and the struggling mass atop the breach. The fight was stern and virtually endless. The giants of mud came in a constant stream and soon even the stoutest hearts were tiring in the line of great dragons of war.

As for the dragonboys, they had a desperate time of it. The new style of imp was very troublesome, indeed they had suffered casualties and even lost a dragon, Kreuzun, a leatherback from Lake Gana in the Blue Hills. Two dragonboys were down, Geff, who fought with Kafskella the freemartin from Aubinas, was dying from a sword through the guts, and big Solly who fought with Rold had lost a leg, crushed by a mud man’s hammer. Kreuzun had died under those terrible hammers, after he was hamstrung by a plucky imp.

Mono had a scrape on his thigh and another on the side of his head, but he was still on his feet. Swane had caught a sword slash over his helmet that had stunned him for a while. He was also limping from a blow to his ankle, but he, too, was still in the fight. Tomas Black Eye had been struck a glancing blow with a mud-man hammer and was incredibly lucky to have no broken bones. His shield was dented and useless, however, and he could hardly stop the trembling in his arms. Relkin had scrapes on his ribs from an imp’s shield and a rake down his left arm where another dying imp had dug in its talons.

These imps were great fighters and had been well trained. Dragonboys alone could not cope with them, and it was fortunate that they had the men of the Eighth Regiment to sustain them, for the imps would otherwise have soon killed all of them and started it on the dragons.

But the breach in front of them was strewn with dead men and the ruins of dozens of the mud giants. And at last there came a respite. The mud men stopped coming, the fire from the Argonathi trebuchets had become too intense for the moment. The space in front of the breach was cleared, but further back a great new mass of mud men was deploying. The assault would be renewed.

However, the 109th and 66th would not have to face it. Cornets shrilled and the battered dragon squadrons were pulled back and replaced with fresh units.

Wearily the dragons trod back to their billets where they lay down with groans. Exhausted dragonboys picked up their boxes and went to work at once on their dragons, cleaning and stitching wounds, checking for broken bones, examining sword and helm for needed repairs.

Beyond the walls the drumming began again, and with harsh cries the enemy resumed the assault. Once more the din of war erupted across the breach. The moon continued to glare down with baleful light upon the struggle.

“It’s a simple plan, Commander, and your participation is vital for its success.” So said Captain Rokensak trying to bolster Porteous Glaves’s confidence. They were all worried that Glaves might fail the test.

“I only hope it works,” Glaves said irritably. He was wearing his summer cloak and full uniform. Behind him lurked Dandrax.

“Would you listen to that?” said one of Rokensak’s men, a crew of Kadeini soldiers from various regiments.

He was referring to the battle in progress at the top of the breach. The distinctive sound of dragon sword cutting through armor and helmet rang out again and again, pealing like the bells of death over the harsh uproar of men’s voices lifted in the chorus of war.

Glaves shuddered.

“It’s only a question of time. We can hold them off for a few hours, but when all the dragons lose their puff, then what?” said a surly fellow with a black eye patch and a scruffy uniform with the double trefoil badge. The badge said he belonged to the Kadeini Second Regiment of the First Legion, a famous unit with a long history of valor.

“Only a matter of time.” The words went around and around in Porteous’s brain.

“This is the best thing to do Rokensak. Somebody has to get back to tell the story.”

The black eye patch nudged him with a hideous familiarity that would have earned him twenty lashes at any other time.

“And it might as well be us, eh, Commander?”

He heard Dandrax chuckle. Dandrax had become increasingly unsympathetic lately. Once they returned to Marneri, Glaves thought that Master Dandrax would have to be dispensed with. The man knew too much.

He looked up, straightened his shoulders, told himself that this was the only way out.

Sergeant Villers of the Kadein Ninth Regiment, First Legion, was whining to someone. “We didn’t sign on for this mass suicide. We were due to go home. It ain’t fair.”

“Shut it, Villers,” snapped Rokensak. “Move.”

They filed down onto the quay, thirty desperate men, half on a cart, covered in bandages, the other half looking almost as damaged.

At the end of the quay were the
Nutbrown’s
boats, watched over by her boatmen. Glaves flourished a parchment scroll.

“Take me and these wounded men to the ship. I have orders from General Paxion to the captain.”

This was the vital moment. If the boatmen rumbled him now, they were done for. But messengers, even parties of a dozen or so, had been going out to the ship ever since she’d docked. And so the men and Captain Rokensak took places in the boats, and the boatmen pushed out and began rowing for the ship.

The sound of the fighting on the wall continued to ring out through the darkness of the night.

Glaves was aware that keen eyes with telescopes would be giving them all a scrutiny, but at night, and with the disguise of wounded men, they would be fooled.

At the ship’s side they maneuvered while the hooks were lowered and the stretcher cases were raised smoothly to the decks. Porteous Glaves rode up in the sea chair. Some of the others scrambled up the netting over the side, others rode up on sea chairs.

Glaves found a stout woman in brown uniform with a leather hat standing in front of him.

“Captain Peek?”

“No, sir, I am Shipmate Doon. Captain Peek is asleep.”

“Ah, be so good as to lead me to him right away. I have important orders for him.”

“And who would we be telling the captain is calling on him while he is asleep?”

Porteous drew himself up and loaded his voice with every ounce of authority he could manage.

“I am Commander Glaves of the Marneri Second Legion. I am a personal emissary from General Paxion himself, who is in command here.”

There was a twinkle in the woman’s eye. She had seen her share of puffed-up army toads, and this one was a prime sample. Captain Peek would have this one for breakfast.

“You wish to disturb Captain Peek, Commander? Are you sure about that. Could you not just pass me the orders.”

“My good woman, there’s a battle to the death going on. Can’t you see that? There is a need for greater coordination of the forces here. General Pax-ion has sent me to work with Captain Peek. That much you may know, but the orders I have here are from General Paxion for Captain Peek’s eyes only.”

“Well, in that case,” said Shipmate Doon, “you’d better come this way. But don’t say I didn’t warn you. Captain Peek, he don’t like to be woken up unless it’s real important.”

Glaves nodded to Dandrax and Rokensak to accompany him. The rest of their party would soon be on board. Now for Captain Peek. They moved through the ship to the captain’s cabin.

Doon indicated a door, and Glaves pushed past her and rapped heavily on the wood. Then without more ado, he burst it open and surged inside.

Captain Peek’s quarters were modestly appointed. There were some chairs, a table, a rack of scrolls, and another for equipment. The captain himself was already dropping out of his hammock.

“What the hell is this?” he roared.

Glaves was startled. Captain Peek was a huge man, tattooed on the face and arms, long grey hair, and heavy arms. There was a distinctly wild look in his eyes.

Glaves hesitated, looked back, and saw Rokensak closing the door.

“Captain Peek, I have been sent by General Paxion to take control of this ship. We have to ship all of our wounded out, right away.”

“You’ll take my ship over my dead body!” roared Peek. “You have no rights here, I have my ship’s commission from Cunfshon, no Argonathi has powers above that.”

“Captain, it is only a temporary thing. The battle is lost. The legions are doomed. It is only a matter of an hour or so. The wounded must be brought off.”

“Damn you, I’m the captain of this ship, and no one, not even General Paxion, can tell me otherwise. And we will stay here on our anchor until I decide we leave. If the situation’s as dire as you say, then I agree that we’ll have to try and take off as many men as we possibly can. We’ll put every boat in the water, we’ll build rafts, we’ll find a way to take everyone.”

Glaves saw that there was absolutely no possibility of co-opting Captain Peek.

He motioned to Dandrax.

Peek saw the motion and from somewhere drew a cutlass in the next moment. Dandrax drew his sword. With a banshee shriek, the captain attacked. The two big men grappled and shoved back and forth. In the melee, Glaves was bowled over and crawled for safety beneath the table.

Peek was getting the upper hand, Dandrax was bent back over the table, and Peek was close to freeing his cutlass arm for the death stroke.