Dragonhammer: Volume I (20 page)

The third raises his hands like he wants to be left out of it.  “I agree with him,” he says reluctantly, pointing to the first.  “I’d like a drink before the mutts down there decide to drink it all.  And nothing’s happened for months!  So what if they retook Terrace?  Why does that mean I can’t have a drink tonight?”

The second guard shakes his head.  “Fine.  Fine.  Go, drink your hearts out.  When the captain comes and finds you’re asleep on the floor drunk, I’ll still be here, and I won’t have a licking to face.”  He turns about and stares off into the distance, where our army lies in wait, scattered in the trees.

The others shrug and walk off into the nearest tower.

The lone guard fumes for a moment, obviously at war with himself.  A yell from the tower comes, “The captain’s challenged you to a drinking game!”  Roars of laughter follow.

The guard shakes his head and moves about, agitated.  Finally, after another minute of indecision, he yells, “Oh, give me one of those!”  Then he disappears into the tower.

“That worked incredibly well,” comments James.

“How long should it take for them to fall asleep?” Nathaniel asks.

“Not long,” Jericho answers.  “Sometimes my dad would come home drunker than fish swimmin’ in wine.  He was really easy goin’ and would fall asleep in his chair within minutes on a good night.”

“Let’s find some weapons, then, while we’re waiting,” I suggest.  “I fear we may need them to overtake the Acropolis.”

“Good idea,” Nathaniel compliments.  “But we may have to wait for them to get to sleep.  I’d imagine most of the weapons are in there.”

“True,” I admit.

The guards stay true to Jericho’s word.  In only a few minutes the laughter is starting to subside and is replaced with loud snoring.  I hear some glass breaking and figure one of them must have started a fight.

“We didn’t give them bottles,” says Jericho in confusion.

“They might have dug into their own stores,” I explain.  “The more the merrier, right?”

“Especially in this context,” he mutters.

“Let’s go,” I command.

We sneak around the guardhouse and peer in one of the windows.  Sure enough, most of them are asleep.  Those that aren’t sleeping are dozing.

“Inside,” I say, opening the door with a creak and holding it open for the others.  Then I follow them in.

One of the guards, apparently still at least conscious, stands from his chair and unsheathes his sword.  “You wanna getta… tatates… taste of this?”  He swings his sword dangerously and wobbles about, spins around, and keels over backwards.  His tankard falls out of his hand and spills on the ground as his sword hits the ground with a clatter.

“He okay?” Nathaniel asks, a little concerned.

“Yep,” I answer when he snores.  “He’s just going to have an enormous headache in the morning.”

The room we have entered into has, or had, I should say, a square table in the center with a chair on each side.  The table still sits there innocently, but its chairs are scattered about the room and one of them is missing two legs, one of which a guard is gripping tightly, his other hand holding his tankard.

Along the wall to the right stands a weapon rack, but it’s lined with unlit torches instead of weapons.

There’s a door to the left, but I infer that it must lead into the support and eventually to the top of the bridge.  A staircase rises on the right side of the room, but we ignore it for now, hurrying through the door on the other side of the room.

I’m glad to see that we have found the armory.  Or, at least, a small one.  A couple of suits of armor hang on wooden mannequin-like structures, and there are a few racks of weapons and shields.  Quickly we don the armor and strap some swords to our belts.  I choose a long broadsword, and Nathaniel picks up a bow.  He takes a few test shots at the dummy on the wall to assess the individuality of the bow, and then decides it is worth keeping.

Quickly we check the second floor of the guardhouse and find an empty bunkroom and an office with stacks of parchment, an inkwell, and some quills atop a desk.  There’s nothing of importance.  I and Jericho each take a torch on the way out, lighting them with one of the torches outside.

“Now how on earth do we open the gate?”  Nathaniel wonders aloud.

“I guess we’ll have to figure it out,” I answer.  “Come on.”

We enter the tower to the left of the gate, shutting the door firmly behind us.

Immediately to our right sits an odd mechanism with an enormous crank.  To the left of the crank there’s a block of wood lined with steel.  Along the bottom of the block are large teeth, like a saw would have, but the teeth are blocky and rigid.  They fit into the teeth of the large gear attached to the crank.  “That’s simple,” says Percival.

I take the handle of the crank and pull with all my might.  The gear begins to turn with a creak, and the wooden block begins to move into the room.  I turn the crank until the bar cannot come any further.

“It’s one of the door bars,” I say quietly.  “There are four.  There must be two on each side.”

“We’ll split up, then?” asks Jericho.

“We can split into pairs,” I say.  “Make it go a little faster.  “I’m just worried about getting caught.  I think we should stay together.”

“I second that,” says Nathaniel.

With that we hurry down the hall a little ways and up the spiral staircase to the left.  We find an identical contraption on the second floor, and pull in the bar using the crank.

One of the guards stirs.  It’s not important or dangerous, but it makes me nervous.  “We should move faster,” I say.  “Do two of you want to move to the other side and take care of the bars there?”

Jericho and Percival volunteer.

“Hurry,” I say.  “And don’t get caught.  I’ll stay here and look for the contraption that opens the gate.  We’ll meet up top.”

The other two run down the stairs and out of sight.

Nathaniel and I run to the stairs and ascend to the next floor, where we find exactly what we are looking for.

An enormous wooden bar sticks into the room through a hole in the wall.  Upon closer inspection, I notice the bar is connected to the gate.

Nathaniel and I wait for the slight bang to signal that the bars on the other side have been removed.  After the sound, we each push with all our might on the bar.  Slowly as we push it forward, we hear the monstrous creak that means the gate is opening.

The bar stops parallel to the wall.  One of the doors stands wide open.

“We’ve done it,” I say as we run back towards the stairs.  “That was almost too easy.”

We emerge in the tower.  There’s a table with a barrel next to it, presumably empty.  Several bottles lie smashed on the ground.  The men are either knocked unconscious or fast asleep.

We run through the room and out the open arch, into the open air atop the wall.  Below us we hear the creak of the gate as Percival and Jericho do their work.

“What do you think you are doing?” asks a voice.

“Dingflies,” I see Nathaniel mouth.

We turn and face an authoritative appearing soldier, who is wearing an orange cape and holding a large diamond-shaped shield on his left arm.

“Well?” he demands.

Nathaniel and I look at each other.  Then I drop him with one strike.

“Hope nobody saw that,” I mutter.

“He did,” says Nathaniel.  Further down the wall, towards the arch above the courtyard, a soldier runs at us weapon drawn, visible only by the torches along the crenellations.   “Intruder!” he yells.  “In-” but Nathaniel’s arrow cuts him short.  The guard falls and we lose sight of him.

“Not good,” I say.  We hear running.

Nathaniel draws his bow and points it at the archway of the opposite tower.  I heft the broadsword and prepare to charge.

It’s Percival and Jericho.

We effectively scare the daylights out of each other and have to take a couple of deep breaths before continuing.

“You guys get caught?” asks Percival.  “We thought we heard something.”

“Yeah, but we took care of them pretty quick,” Nathaniel says.  “Nobody has heard that we know of.”

“Good.  Time for us to give the signal,” I direct.  As a group we run down the wall on the side of the courtyard area, to the arch that serves as its entrance.  Above it, we remove our helms and wave our torches in the air, in sync with each other.

Our friends are watching.  I see a similar movement in response to mine, and our army begins coming out of the trees.

We run back up the wall and to the gate.  Now we must keep it open.  Kill anybody that threatens us.

There’s nobody.  Everybody that was supposed to be on guard is unconscious in some way or another.  In silence we watch our army sneak in the front gate.

“What the-” I hear from the opposite tower.  Before he can finish his sentence, an arrow from the invading army pierces him and he falls.  I wave to the army below.  They know not to attack us because we do not wear helmets; our faces may be obscured by the dark, but we have worked past that.

It takes only a matter of minutes.  Our entire army is within the city and ready to attack.

Jarl Hralfar and Commander Magnus emerge from the stairs of the nearest tower.  They eye the carnage within, and then step out to greet us.

“Well done,” says the Jarl, holding out my hammer.

“Thank you,” I say, setting down the sword quietly and taking the hammer.  The entire army is completely silent, waiting for orders.

Genevieve is mystified.  “You did it…” she murmurs, looking around at the city.

The Jarl looks out over the army and raises his hand in the air, spread.  Suddenly he closes it into a fist, and the army disperses.

“What’s the plan from here?” I ask.

“Every squad has their own place to take over in the city,” he explains.  “Every guardhouse, tower, and barracks will be ours within the hour.  Assuming your plan worked this well all over the city.”

I hear the gate boom shut rather loudly.  One of the guards starts, but rolls over and smacks his lips.  Genevieve makes a face.

The bars roll into place and lock our army inside Amgid.

“What of the Acropolis?” I say, knowing the answer.

“We have over one thousand men at our disposal, Kadmus,” he says.  “If all goes well, we will hardly have to use any of them.”  I look down and find that only part of the army has dispersed into the city.  Most of it remains.

“When does it ever go well?”

“So far it has,” he responds.  “And now we storm the Acropolis.”

The Battle for Amgid

W
e march.  Though there are four entrances on top of the first tier of the Acropolis, there are none down below.  To enter, we must come from the walls, over the enormous bridges.

Any conscious guards we see are slaughtered.  Most of the men carry bows just for that reason.  As soon as we are detected, the detector must be killed.

Some of our biggest men carry ladders over their heads in long lines.  Those at the head of the line walk all the way to the wall, and then plant the feet of the ladders firmly on the ground, anchoring them with large blocks of stone.

Men push and pull from the base of the ladder, but what does most of the work are the men pulling on ropes that descend from the middle of the ladder.  The ladders make contact with the wall.  Then we start to climb.

Not all men will climb, of course.  We only need a few soldiers to get in to open at least one portcullis, and then we will be able to flood the Acropolis and take it with ease.

Then the warhorn blows.  The Jarl only nods.  “About time,” he says under his breath.

As soon as I hear the low note, I grab one of the ladders and begin to climb, cutting ahead of others who were in line.  My hammer lies on my back in its specialized sheathe.

There are yells above us.  One soldier looks over the wall of the second tier in unbelief.  “How did they-” he begins, but once again an arrow cuts him short.

I fling myself over the wall and onto the floor of the second tier.  Now I will have to fight down to the portcullises, but I am not alone.  Percival is right behind me, as are a few other soldiers.

Percival looks to me and gives me a nod.  I look ahead, unsheathe my hammer, and then charge into the Acropolis.

I’m in a hall.  Quickly I turn left and down another hall, passing doors that lead to who-cares-where.  Torches light the hallways with orange light.

“Do you know where you’re going?” a soldier asks.

“Of course,” I mutter, having had directions from the Jarl only minutes earlier.

At the end I take another left and down the stairwell that curves slightly left, following the curve of the massive structure.  The stairwell lets out into an identical hallway on the next floor down, but we run straight and onto the next curving staircase.

In the next hallway there are men waiting for us.  I smash through them with no trouble, turn right, and run only a few steps to the end of the hallway.  There, on the floor, sits a cylindrical structure that extends to the ceiling.  Long thick wooden spokes stick out in six directions, roughly as high as my midriff.  At the top, the mechanism turns a gear that in turn spins two reels, one on each side.  Each reel is connected with chains to the portcullis below in a simple pulley system.  This will lift the portcullis.

“Take the spokes!” I roar.  Some of the biggest men take places at the sideways wheel and begin to push.  They groan with the effort they exert, but with a creak the gears turn, the reels spin, and the portcullis begins to lift.  The chains ravel themselves onto the reels neatly.

Men are beginning to attack us.  The initial shock of a surprise attack is still there, but some of them are ready for the ensuing battle.

“How did they get in the city?” I hear.

I protect with my life the men that are lifting the portcullis.  Percival, in possession of his own sword and shield, fights bravely next to me.

I knock aside one soldier and turn to search for a lever or something similar that will lock the portcullis in the open position.  Instead I see that there’s a mechanism already in place to keep it from falling, but there’s a release lever to let it fall.  Satisfied, I turn to my next opponent.

The portcullis comes into sight underneath the pulley system.  Slowly, as the men continue to push, it rises until it fills the dead end of the hallway.  Then the men come away, and though they are exhausted, they pull their swords and ready themselves to protect what they have worked so hard to raise.

Within moments the Tygnar soldiers see that their cause is doomed.  They stand trapped between us and the impending army quickly infiltrating and ascending the Acropolis.  Still they continue to fight until our army floods the hall.  Then they see the wisdom of surrender.  Many of them drop their weapons and raise their hands, fleeing into nearby rooms or hallways.  I spot Jarl Hralfar at the head at the other end of the hallway.  Quickly I make my way over to him and exit the hallway into a huge room.

It reminds me much of the circular room in Nringnar’s Deep, but it’s three stories high and much larger.  After the ground floor, there are two balconies overlooking the entire room, lining the walls of the room and providing a way into the hallways that extend in all four directions.

“Do we control the first tier?” I ask as we stride back down the hallway.

“We just began,” he responds.  “But many of them were not able to react quickly enough to give us any resistance.  Those that were are dead, or soon will be.  Everyone else, if not asleep anymore, will have very little time to prepare themselves against our force.”

“Then we ascend,” I say.  “Do we leave the Jarl alive?”

“Yes,” he says.  “He could yet prove useful to us.”

I nod and lead up the stairs.

On every floor we send a few men to take control of it completely.  What little resistance they meet is quickly dealt with.

That is, until we reach the third tier of the Acropolis.

By this time their men have had time to ready themselves with weapons and armor.  They may not know how we got in, but they are determined to stop us.  They will fail, I decide.

The stairway lets us out into a large hallway, but this hall lets outside onto the roof of the lower tier.  “There!” says the Jarl as he cuts down another soldier.  Percival blocks a mighty swing from an enemy hammer and is thrown back slightly with a grunt.  I block the blow that would have finished him, and counter the soldier’s blow.  He does not react in time, and falls to the ground.

“You okay?” I ask as I take Percival’s hand and pull him up.

“Yeah…” he grunts as he bends over to pick up his sword.  “Just a little sore.  I’ll be fine.”

“Good,” I reply.  “We still have need of you.”

Jarl Hralfar leads us through the large archway that leads outside.  We find ourselves on a balcony-like structure that curves around the entire citadel, with a waist-high stone wall on the edge.  I look down and see that we’re four stories up from a similar balcony on the second tier.  It’s the same distance to the portcullises on the landing below that, and even further to the ground.  The sight is dizzying.

From what I can see, however, the fight is going well throughout the rest of the city; in fact, there’s not much of a fight to be had.  Most of the guards are so drunk they probably have slept through the warhorn and ensuing battle.  What a shock it will be for them to wake and find themselves under our control.

To the right, the tower-like structure rises from the ground as one with the citadel.  It’s an enormous fortress, like a second citadel that someone decided to layer on top of the first one.  It reaches even higher than the top tier.

“Inside,” Hralfar beckons.  He’s run to the right along the wall, and to an archway that lets into the second citadel.  ‘This is where the Jarl will be.”  He leads us to the right and up a set of spiral stairs.

There are fewer men in this section of the Acropolis, probably because most of them gathered in the third tier and didn’t expect us to run by them.  Most of their force is still unready, and as a result most simply surrender themselves and step away from the weapons they haven’t even picked up yet.

We come into a blank room and slay the guards. To the left, a hallway extends into the Acropolis.  Across the room stands an open arch that leads onto the top of the third tier, and we pass through it.  Immediately to our left stands a set of ten-foot-high doors.  We ignore them and instead turn right, running around the base of the fourth tier and then into its depths.

“We have them surrounded,” says the Jarl.  “Commander Magnus is below them with the rest of our army.”

“But where is their leader?” I ask.

“I don’t know,” says the Jarl.  “I thought for certain he’d be here, but he may be hiding in the highest reaches of his citadel.”

Soldiers come up from the floor below, trying to escape our invading army.  When they run into us, fear freezes them and they have nothing to do but fall beneath our swords.

Then we start down the stairways again, pushing them back the entire way.

“We are surrounded!” one of the soldiers yells.

Finally we make our way into a central room where most of the fighting is being done.  “Drop your swords if you wish to live!” roars the Jarl as he cleaves in the helmet of another soldier.

I sweep the feet out from under my next foe and bring my hammer down.  The next I slam with a stabbing motion, throwing him backwards into one of his allies.

The Jarl repeats his command, “If you value your lives, drop your weapons and surrender!”  Opposing soldiers start to obey his command.  There are few of them left, but because of their obedience, they are left standing.  Tygnar had stocked the citadel with plenty of soldiers; they simply weren’t able to respond in time to our surprise attack.

There’s a whoosh from behind the Jarl and he spins to block the strike of a malicious-looking battleaxe.

“Hello Hralfar,” says Jarl Theyor.  “I wasn’t expecting you tonight.”  Two men, fully clad in steel, wearing orange capes and steel helms with orange plumes, emerge from the hallway on either side of him.

“Pity,” replies the Jarl.  “It’s been a joy.”

Suddenly a new wave of their soldiers runs from the upper levels.  Those who had dropped their weapons pick them back up and fight with renewed vigor.  We still have not yet won.

Hralfar and Theyor engage in a sparring match, but it is evident who will win.  Hralfar is more battle-hardened and has more years of experience behind him.  However, Theyor does not play fair.

Theyor’s captains attack Hralfar from each side.  The Jarl is barely able to block and dodge the blows, and he rolls backward out of their deadly triangle.  I and Percival stand by him.

“I got the right one,” I say.

“I’ve got the left,” mutters Percival.

“Then that leaves me the one in the middle,” Hralfar growls.

Then we each dart towards our target.

The captain in front of me swings the first blow, and I block.  He stays on the offensive and keeps me on my toes, blocking for several seconds.  Then I bash my hammer into his sword as it carves its way down through the air, taking him by surprise.  He lurches backward from the force, and I use the moment of hesitation to my advantage.

Frantically he moves his sword to block my swing at his feet, but I fake and hit him head-on in the chest with a stabbing motion.  He reels backward and I slam my hammer into his sword arm.  He emits a yell of pain and his sword clangs to the ground.  Then I pull one of my daggers and bash him in the head with the hilt.

I glance at Percival and see that he is not the only one taking on the other captain.  Several other of our soldiers have surrounded him, and though the captain fights well, he is overcome and falls.

Theyor is no match for Hralfar.  The death match lasts only less than ten seconds.  Hralfar gets through the opposing Jarl’s block, and stabs his right shoulder.  Theyor falls to the ground, dropping his great axe.  He looks reproachfully at Hralfar’s ever nearing sword.  Still the battle rages around them.

“Surrender,” commands Hralfar.  “The Acropolis is ours.”

“It will never be yours,” retaliates the enemy Jarl in denial.  His hand slides across the ground as his arm fails.  “Never.”  He yells as he throws a dagger from his left hand.

The Jarl was not surprised and bats it away harmlessly with a
clang
, but by the time we look back, Theyor is on his feet and running towards the upper levels.

“He has nowhere to run,” grumbles the Jarl as he begins down the hall.  “And yet he runs.”

As their leader runs from the battle, many of the soldiers begin to throw down their weapons.  Some refuse, however, and fight to the end.

I follow the Jarl up the stairs and into another room.  From there we follow the sound of Theyor’s footsteps.

Theyor leads us all the way to the top of the fourth tier, the peak of the main Acropolis.  A small bridge leads into the higher sections of the second part of the citadel, but he ignores it and instead runs into the small tower to our right.  The door shuts and I hear a bolt click.

I don’t care that it’s locked.  I slam my hammer into the handle of the door so hard that the door bursts inward immediately.

A broadsword swings down and onto Jarl Hralfar.

A furious roar escapes Hralfar’s mouth and he falls to the ground.  I am there to stop the final blow.

Within two strikes I have disarmed Theyor and cornered him against the wall.  His sword clatters against the wall and he sits, leaning against the stone and holding his shoulder pathetically.