Authors: R.A. Salvatore
“No!” came the cries from many corners of the camp.
“Are we to accept this challenge?” Ashwarawu asked.
“Death to the Wraps!” one man cried, and another and then another echoed his sentiment.
Ashwarawu put on a wicked grin. “Death to Yatol Grysh,” he said. “In his arrogance and frustration, he has erred, for his forces cannot match our pace as we ride to the east!”
“I think he just said that we are to attack Dharyan,” Brynn remarked to Pagonel dryly.
That got the mystic’s attention, and he looked to her, then turned to the distant Ashwarawu.
“Let us take the battle to Yatol Grysh’s home, and see how strong his resolve remains,” Ashwarawu cried. “Our enemy thinks so little of us that he empties his city in the hunt. He insults us and taunts us. How loud will his taunts resound when Dharyan is in flames?”
That last question elicited thunderous cheers from the gathering, as fierce a war cry as Brynn Dharielle had ever heard, and the woman joined in.
But Pagonel did not. He was looking back at the settlement, then, thinking that this was all a bit too convenient. Certainly the rebels had discussed attacking Dharyan before; they had even made arrangements, through Ya Ya Deng, to build some support within the city if a battle should be joined.
But now, so suddenly, Dharyan seemed ripe for the plucking.
Obviously so.
The raider band set out almost immediately, breaking down their camp with stunning efficiency and riding hard to the east. Dharyan was five days away, but Ashwarawu hoped to knock a full day off the journey, so that the city could be struck, perhaps even sacked, before the garrison now settled into the outposter village could hope to get back and help.
The rebel band eagerly accepted Ashwarawu’s desired pace, even exceeding it, so that the white walls of Dharyan and the great temple within were visible to them as they set their camp on the third night.
“Tomorrow will bring triumph or disaster,” Brynn said to Pagonel.
“A resigned tone is not the voice of a warrior,” the mystic observed. “What do
you fear?”
Brynn spent a long while sorting through her feelings, then answered quietly, “It seems as if our enemy, Grysh, has erred in failing to understand the strength of our forces. Could he have been so foolish as to strip his walls of trained soldiers?”
“Or?” The mystic’s prompting told Brynn that he knew everything she was thinking, that he had likely already sorted these confusing issues out in his own mind.
“Or he wanted us here,” Brynn admitted. She gave a great sigh. “But does not every leader faced with such a seemingly wondrous opportunity question it? And are not blunders, exactly like this one that Yatol Grysh has apparently made, often the turning point in a prolonged battle?”
“He does, and they are,” the mystic answered.
“Then where does that leave us?”
In response, Pagonel nodded toward Ashwarawu, who was sitting near a small fire, chatting and laughing with some of the newer raiders. Whatever his faults, Brynn could not deny the love the raider band held for this man. She saw them staring, awestricken, at him, looking up to him for guidance.
Looking up to Ashwarawu for hope.
T
he next dawn came shrouded in a heavy overcast, and the To-gai-ru camp settled in quietly, drawing up their plans, readying their horses and weapons.
Various warriors were selected for various duties: strong riders to carry the torches to the base of the wall; the stealthiest of the group to lead the way in, scaling Dharyan’s low wall and quickly and quietly finishing off the sentries.
Ashwarawu wasted no time in approaching Pagonel for this second task. The Jhesta Tu were noted for the ability to follow the path of shadows, and with no more sound than a shadow might make!
The mystic stared up at the large and imposing man. This was not an easy moment for Pagonel, for if he accepted the duty, he would be thrust into combat. But this was a crucial moment for the raiders and for all of To-gai. If Ashwarawu could win a victory here, in the largest Behrenese city in all the region, then his reputation would explode across the steppes and scores, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of To-gai-ru would flock to join with him.
“I will help to clear the wall,” the mystic agreed.
“As will I,” Brynn added, and Ashwarawu looked at her curiously, as did his entourage of warriors, for the leader had not asked Brynn.
One of the large men standing beside Ashwarawu broke into laughter, and the others joined in, but Ashwarawu stopped them fast with an upraised hand.
“You have proven your value as a warrior upon your horse,” the leader explained to Brynn.
“I am stronger with the sword afoot,” Brynn said. “And have been trained well in the art of stealth. The Wraps will never know I am there.”
Neither Ashwarawu nor his entourage seemed convinced, but what bothered
Brynn at that moment most of all was the incredulous, even disappointed, look that came back at her from Pagonel.
“You will ride in the line, where your fine bow will be of greatest value,” the leader said, and he let his look linger long on Brynn, then walked away.
“Do not judge me,” Brynn said to the mystic when they were alone again. “Did you not just agree to become an assassin yourself?”
“The word does not flow prettily from your lips,” Pagonel replied.
“The word?”
“Wraps,” Pagonel explained. “Speaking the word does not become you.” He rose and bowed to her, then walked off, leaving her with her thoughts.
W
an Atenn stalked the wall of Dharyan all that day, for he and his Yatol knew well that Ashwarawu was near. The fierce Chezhou-Lei relished the coming battle, and only hoped that he would get the chance to kill many of the hated Ru before the two twenty-squares closed upon them and utterly obliterated them.
Dare Wan Atenn hope that he might get a chance to kill Ashwarawu himself?
He had only two hundred men with which to defend the city, half of whom were mere peasants and certainly not skilled in the ways of disciplined soldiers. He expected that Ashwarawu’s band would number at least his total, despite what Yatol Grysh had predicted. And while Wan Atenn knew that he could easily kill any two of Ashwarawu’s warriors, he did not underestimate the ferocity of the Ru.
The city had to hold firm, with little damage or loss of life, until the armies arrived.
When night fell and there remained no signs of the approaching raiders, Wan Atenn feared that Ashwarawu had sniffed out the trap. Perhaps the Ru had noted the approach of one of the twenty-squares, the soldiers moving into position barely an hour’s march from the city. If that was the case, the Chezhou-Lei decided then and there that he would take up the soldiers and pursue the dog, all the way to western To-gai if necessary!
He was standing by the main gatehouse, instructing a handful of sentries, when the first unusual sound reached his ears, one that the other men in the gatehouse didn’t even seem to notice, but one that piqued the interest of the superbly trained warrior.
“Hold fast your positions,” the Chezhou-Lei warrior instructed, and he moved off, silent as death, along the wall.
P
agonel had little difficulty in getting to the base of Dharyan’s wall undetected. Once there, the mystic fell into his life energy, willing it upward and in doing so, lightening his body.
The mystic ran his hand along the wall, feeling the grooves between the large stone blocks. When it had been constructed, a sandy mortar had been used to fill the seals between the stones, but the continual wind off the mountains and the steppes had cleared most of that fill away.
Pagonel was at the base of the highest point in the wall, but it was only a dozen feet, and the mystic went up it as easily as if he was crawling across a floor. At the top, he paused and listened, noting the approaching footsteps of a soldier—he knew that because he could hear the rattle of a weapon against armor.
Still hanging over the side, the mystic brought his legs up as high as he could and set them firmly, then listened, measuring the approach.
The Behrenese soldier spun to his left, facing out over the wall, as the form lifted past. Obviously confused, the soldier never even realized that the springing mystic had gone right above him. He was still staring out at the darkness when Pagonel came down atop him.
Pagonel’s foot snap-kicked the man in the back as he descended, blasting away both breath and voice. And by the time the mystic landed lightly behind the dazed soldier, he had already put a twisting chokehold in place.
The soldier never regained enough balance to even offer resistance before he lapsed into unconsciousness.
Pagonel gently and quietly brought him down to the stone, then took his weapon from its sheath and tossed it over the wall.
Then the mystic trotted off, with absolute silence, making his way toward the gatehouse that centered the city’s western wall.
He came upon a second soldier soon after, and a few quick moments later, tossed the unconscious man’s weapon over the wall.
On he went, with the dark silhouette of the gatehouse in sight. He knew that there would be much more resistance within, likely several soldiers, at least. But he knew, too, that the Behrenese warriors would have more than him on their minds by that time, for out in the darkness to the west, the mystic heard the beginning hoofbeats of Ashwarawu’s charge.
T
en horses, widely spaced, charged the Dharyan wall in a perfect line, each skilled rider holding the same posture, with legs alone guiding their trusted mounts, a pair of oiled torches across their laps, flint and steel ready to strike. They pulled up as one a short distance from the wall and, ignoring the cries of sentries just then realizing that an attack had come, they struck their torches and held them aloft and out to the side.
Now came the main charge, Ashwarawu’s warriors, Brynn among them, riding in hard in twenty orderly rows. All had bows, arrows set, and arrow tips treated to burst into flame as soon as they passed the lead riders and touched tip to burning torch.
The archers rode past and let fly their missiles, then turned tight and orderly turns, left and right, to circle for the next shot, setting another arrow as they went.
Brynn came past as the third in her line, and by the time she put her bow up, several fiery arrows had gone over the wall before her, illuminating the top enough for her to pick out the form of a scrambling soldier. With expert skill and a trusted mount, Brynn began her turn before she let fly.
She caught the soldier center mass, the flames catching almost immediately to his tunic. He waved his arms and ran about, frantically and futilely. By the time he fell off the wall, back into the city’s courtyard, Brynn was already coming around with her second arrow set.
C
rouched on all fours, Pagonel scrambled along the wall. He saw one Behrenese man go up in flames, an arrow in his side, and heard the screams of others as arrows or flames bit at them. He saw a building within Dharyan begin to burn. The mystic didn’t enjoy any of it. The whole concept of warfare assaulted his sensibilities, for though the Jhesta Tu were superbly trained warriors, theirs was a pacific philosophy, one that touted battle as the last means of resort for self-defense.
What, then, was he doing there?
Pagonel couldn’t stop to ponder the question, obviously, for he was nearing the gatehouse. He winced as he heard the first To-gai-ru scream of pain; he recognized the voice of one of his sneaky companions, not so far away, accompanied by the swishing sound of a sword and the thud of the weapon’s impact.
With the small alcove holding the mechanisms to the gate in sight, Pagonel went up straighter and ran on.
He skidded to a stop, though, reversed his momentum, and leaped into a high backspin, as an imposing figure rushed out of that alcove at him, a shining curved sword slashing across at waist height.
Pagonel landed in a defensive stance, ready to advance or retreat as necessary, but his attacker had not come on, but stood there on the parapet, staring at him with obvious surprise. The mystic recognized the overlapping armor plates of the Chezhou-Lei warrior.
“Jhesta Tu?” Wan Atenn asked incredulously, his face a mask of outrage.
Pagonel narrowed his eyes and went lower in the crouch, ready to face the Chezhou-Lei, avowed enemies of his order.
With a roar, Wan Atenn came on hard, his curved sword slashing down, then across, then back across, then up and over to come down diagonally yet again, the Chezhou-Lei taking care to cut through every possible angle of attack.
With only his hands and feet for weapons, Pagonel was forced to back away in response.
Wan Atenn did not take that as any sign of advantage, though. He understood the Jhesta Tu well enough to let caution temper his strikes. He did come forward, stabbing once, twice, and nearly scoring a hit with each.
But like a mongoose dodging a striking snake, Pagonel stayed just ahead of his attacker. His dodges were subtle, a simple twist or bend, for the first Jhesta Tu rule of fighting an opponent of obvious skill was to conserve your energy. Without a staff or sword with which to parry and open an attack path, Pagonel had to count on this one tiring, on the Chezhou-Lei launching an attack slow enough for him to deflect and turn the blade far away, and rush in behind the strike.
The sword came out straight again, then went in, up and over in a flash as the
warrior charged the mystic.
Pagonel skittered forward instead of back, diving into a roll past Wan Atenn on the narrow parapet, as that deadly sword began its downward slice.
Wan Atenn roared and spun about suddenly, recovering so quickly that Pagonel had barely begun his turn and charge before the blade was there, barring the way.
“Why are you here, Jhesta Tu?” the Chezhou-Lei demanded. “Is the fight of the To-gai-ru the fight of the Jhesta Tu?”
Pagonel didn’t answer, because Pagonel had no answer.
Fire erupted farther within the city—not the burning caused by the rain of To-gai-ru arrows, but a singular, planned blaze that soared high into the nighttime sky on the tip of a great ballista bolt.