Authors: R.A. Salvatore
“But if you do not?”
Brynn had no answer, but neither did the possibility shrink her proud shoulders at all.
“I hope you live,” Agradeleous said to her, and he let her go, and Brynn stood there for a long while, staring at him, until the cries from the wall told her that a breach was imminent.
She ran off to a ladder, scrambling up to the parapet, to find as many Behrenese in that area as To-gai-ru, and with more enemies scrambling over the wall with each passing moment. Brynn’s sword came to fiery life. “To-gai!” she cried, and pushed past her fellow defenders, driving hard into the forming Behrenese line. Those invaders gave way a bit before that blazing sword, and that single waver was enough for Brynn to gain a breach in the line.
Spearheading a wedge, she pushed through, shouldering one man off the parapet, stabbing a second man in the belly. She retracted the blade and fell forward to her knees, spinning about, an errant Behrenese sword swishing harmlessly over her head.
Flamedancer took that man out at the knees, and then Brynn was at the ladders, and a thrust to a face had another enemy tumbling back out. That falling man clipped the one behind him on the ladder as he tumbled, and as that second man
struggled to hold his balance, the drifting ladder moved out from the wall.
Brynn leaped atop that wall and kicked hard, dislodging the ladder altogether.
A line of arrows came at her from below, but she turned quickly and got her pulsating powrie shield up to deflect most of them. One did clip her across the calf, a burning wound.
She shrugged it off and leaped away, driving back another disintegrating line of enemies.
The breach was closed.
Agradeleous watched it all with sincere admiration, understanding more clearly Belli’mar Juraviel’s words to him concerning the value of humans.
“I hope you live,” he whispered to Brynn, though she certainly could not hear, and then the dragon fell within himself, bringing forth the transformation into his more natural, huge and terrible form.
Over the eastern gate he flew, above the line of ducking and scrambling Behrenese. Only a few got their bows up to offer meager shots.
Gaining speed with every passing foot, the dragon rammed hard into a catapult, scattering the crew and destroying the war engine. His head swung about and his fiery breath immolated a handful of fleeing soldiers.
Then the arrows began, but Agradeleous ignored them and attacked the next catapult, and then the next. He saw one man rushing to organize the defense—a man wearing the armor of a Chezhou-Lei. Off the dragon swooped, crashing amidst the leader and those about him, accepting the heavy blow from the man’s sword and returning it tenfold with a savage claw rake that nearly took the man in half.
Several others fell and Agradeleous leaped back up into the air, his great wings bringing him higher. His attack had stopped the entire charge at that eastern wall, had allowed the defenders within the city to peel away and reinforce other vulnerable areas, for the Behrenese were turning back upon the wurm, with cries naming the dragon as their primary target. Now the volleys of arrows showering Agradeleous increased, but the dragon roared through it and charged on, destroying another catapult.
A ballista bolt shot past him, then a second, but the dragon pressed on, breathing forth his fire to light both catapult and crew.
His wings brought him up high and he dove immediately, passing low over one group of Behrenese cavalry, unhorsing most as he sped past on his way to another catapult battery. Now the dragon swooped back around and up, hovering for a split second to line up his fiery breath.
Just as one ballista crew had anticipated.
The dragon fire came forth, then stopped abruptly as the huge spear smashed against his side, crushing bone at the base of his wing. With a shriek that deafened those nearby, Agradeleous rolled over in the air, then tumbled down into the sand.
Immediately, the Behrenese soldiers swarmed over him, bows twanging, swords slashing, but the dragon went into a thrashing frenzy, his tail swiping out men by
the dozen, claws digging and raking, his maw snapping to and fro, biting men in half.
But the dragon was in trouble, and he knew the truth of it. Soon his scrambling had purpose, turning him about, then running him flat out for the wall of Dharyan. He neared and leaped, crashing over the wall and tumbling hard into the courtyard.
Brynn was on that wall, urging him on, and as soon as the dragon passed over her, she and her batteries of archers drove back the Behrenese pursuit.
“The west gate!” came a frantic cry, and Brynn spun about to hear the screams of anguish and anger, and she knew that the city would be lost, that if the Behrenese got through that western gate, their flood would sweep her and her army from the city.
And she couldn’t get there in time.
But down below, her greatest warrior was moving again, clawing and fighting his way along the streets, his blood drawing a red slick behind him.
Agradeleous arrived in the western courtyard just as the gate began to crumble, and the To-gai-ru, seeing his approach, cleared the way.
The gate fell in, and in charged the Behrenese.
Or at least they started to, and then they were dead, melted in dragon fire. There Agradeleous stayed for the remainder of the attack, a living barricade.
Behind him, on the walls, Brynn rushed from spot to spot, bolstering the defenses with her cries of victory and with her deadly sword and bow.
Soon after, the Behrenese line retreated. Dharyan had held through the first day.
There was little revelry within the city, though, for many To-gai-ru lay dead about the walls. Several thousand Behrenese had fallen to less than one thousand To-gai-ru, but in looking at her depleted resources, and in looking at the gravely injured dragon, Brynn could not claim victory that day. They had held, and that was something.
But that was all.
Thanks to the heroics of Agradeleous, the barrage from catapults would be less that night. But several huge fires did erupt, forcing the weary men and women to battle them—all with the knowledge that their enemies would come on again in the morning.
P
agonel and Merwan Ma had little trouble getting into Jacintha, for the city was in seeming turmoil, with people rushing all about, selling and buying all sorts of staple goods. Soldiers marched about all the avenues, schooling hard the lessons they knew they would soon put into real combat.
“It would seem that Brynn’s efforts have been felt far, and to the heart of Behren,” Pagonel remarked to Merwan Ma, the mystic still playing the part of the Shepherd’s slave.
“Many of the brigades are from visiting districts,” Merwan Ma explained. “I have seen the pennant of Yatol De Hamman and Yatol Peridan, Yatol Shie-guvra
and—”
“Does that mean that the Yatols have assembled here?”
Merwan Ma nodded. “That would be the usual reason for their garrisons to be about Jacintha,” he explained. “But who can say in these strange times?”
“Can you find out?”
The Shepherd nodded and moved across the crowded square, to a merchant selling baskets of dates. He bent in and whispered to the man, then nodded, reached into his pouch, and produced a few coins—which Pagonel had given to him out of the loot from one of the conquered cities.
The smiling merchant took the bribe and bent in, whispering to Merwan Ma for a long, long time.
“The Yatols are in Jacintha,” the Shepherd reported to Pagonel a few minutes later. “And they are not pleased by the continuing war. Brynn’s efforts in hiring the mercenaries and pirates have played into the ancient rivalries between some of the Yatols, particularly those trading rivals along the coastline. Now the Yatols are angry that so many soldiers have been pulled from the disputed zones in the east and sent along to the west to join in Yatol Bardoh’s pursuit of Brynn.”
Pagonel nodded, considering the words. He wished he had known of this internal strife before, long before, when there might have been some opportunity to exploit it further.
“There is word from the west,” Merwan Ma went on, his voice going suddenly grim. “Brynn has conquered Dharyan once more.”
Pagonel nodded, knowing what was coming next.
“Yatol Bardoh is even now moving to encircle her and destroy her there,” the Shepherd went on. “Likely the fighting has already begun.”
Pagonel took a long moment to digest the information, then took a deep and steadying breath and stared hard at his companion. “It is irrelevant to our present course.” As he finished, the mystic looked across the way, to a large structure, the largest in the city, set upon a hill lined with beautiful gardens and fountains.
“Chom Deiru,” Merwan Ma explained, following that stare. “It will be heavily guarded—it is always heavily guarded, and even more so now, I would guess, with the tension so high.”
“But you can get me in,” the mystic reasoned.
“To what end?”
“To reveal the truth.”
“It is a truth that will get us both killed.” Merwan Ma stopped short, seeing the unblinking stare coming back at him, a reminder to him of all that he had learned of late.
“I will get you in,” he said to Pagonel, his voice steady. “Or I will try.”
The mystic nodded, and Merwan Ma led the way across the city, to the base of the hill of Chom Deiru and the first guard house they would have to pass.
They did so, quite easily, for Merwan Ma knew all the passwords through these preliminary checkpoints. Soon enough the pair were up the hill and moving up
the steps of the temple proper, through the great arching doors of Chom Deiru.
A pair of guards inside crossed their spears before the entryway, commanding them to halt.
“I have come from the west,” Merwan Ma said to them, then spoke the usual passwords, “The setting sun cannot elude the Chezru’s eyes.”
It was the proper phrase for any returning scout to use, but Merwan Ma noted that one of the guards betrayed his stoic expression for just an instance, as if in a flicker of recognition.
“What is your name?” the man asked.
“I am …” the Shepherd paused, feeling suddenly that something was very wrong. He didn’t really recognize the guard, but he had the feeling that this one had known him from his time as Douan’s assistant.
“My pardon, Governor Pestle,” Pagonel said behind him, and he began bowing repeatedly. “I should have been more prompt in arranging for your formal announcement.”
The two guards looked to each other, and then one retreated behind the door.
A long moment passed, the silence growing more and more uncomfortable. Finally, the door cracked open and the guard poked his head out, whispering to his companion.
“Welcome to Chom Deiru, Governor Carwan Pestle,” the other guard said as his companion disappeared behind the door once more. “You will be announced to the Chezru Chieftain at your convenience.” As he finished, he stepped aside and pulled open the door, motioning for the two men to enter.
Merwan Ma should have been dead the moment he stepped through, and would have been, had not Pagonel’s finely honed reflexes launched the mystic at the back of Merwan Ma’s legs, laying him low, and making the stab of the other guard’s long spear miss the mark.
Pagonel was up in an instant, spinning to face the spearman. He dropped his shoulder and leaped ahead, spinning diagonally down low. Then, as he came around and set his feet, he leaped up high, over the poor attempt to reorient the unwieldy weapon. He snapped his foot into the guard’s face.
The man fell away with a grunt.
Pagonel landed lightly, turning sharply about to see the guard from outside charging in at Merwan Ma’s back, and with the stunned Shepherd only then even pulling himself from the floor, facing away from the thrusting spear.
Out went the spear tip, but in the flash of the mystic’s well-aimed, stiffened hand, the weapon was no more, chopped in half.
Pagonel grabbed the broken shaft of the weapon in his left hand, stepped in against it, and swung around backward, his right elbow lifting high to smash the man in the face. The guard dropped like a stone, but stubbornly tried to rise.
Pagonel’s stiffened fingers smashed his throat, and he went down and stayed down.
The mystic was moving even as the man hit the ground, running past Merwan
Ma and sweeping him up in his wake. Noise echoed from both side corridors, likely other guards rushing to see what the commotion was all about.
“Where do we run?” the mystic asked.
Merwan Ma’s horrified expression told him much. “I must get to the Room of Forever,” the Shepherd explained. “But the way is long and the shouts of the pursuit will bring many guards out before us!”
The mystic stopped and looked all around at the great corridors and huge pillars. “Which way to the Room of Forever?”
Merwan Ma looked across the anteroom and through the large hall behind it, motioning toward some distant stairs. “Up there, and along many hallways.”
Pagonel retrieved the remaining spear from the fallen guard, and smashed the man again as he began to stir once more. “Go. I will keep the guards occupied.”
Merwan Ma spent a long moment studying the mystic, then put his hand on Pagonel’s shoulder. “There is much I wish to say to you,” he began tentatively.
Pagonel stopped him with an upraised hand. “We will find the time to talk,” he said with a smile, though neither he nor Merwan Ma expected that they would ever speak again.
The mystic ran off then, into the larger hall and to the right, and when a guard yelled out upon sighting him, he launched the spear, far and true, into the man’s chest.
Merwan Ma faded back against the wall behind a pillar as the commotion grew, as more and more guards and servants rushed all about. The whole commotion moved down to his right and the shepherd started off to the left, hugging the wall of the larger room until he made the stairs. Then he fell back into the shadows again, as a group of guards, including a Chezhou-Lei warrior, rushed down the stairs and right past him, giving chase to the now distant shouts of an intruder.
Up went the Shepherd, and he breathed a sigh of relief when he crossed out of the stairway and into the hallways of the palace’s second floor. He ran along, then down corridors so familiar and yet strangely out of place, past rooms that had once been his home, but now seemed foreign and uncomfortable.