Fortress Draconis (22 page)

Caro stood and shook hands with the king. “Highness, this is an unexpected pleasure.”

“You lie as glibly as always, Caro. The last thing you want is me here, especially if the rumors I’ve heard are true.” Augustus turned to Alyx. “And you, Alexia, you know I am not here to usurp your victory, yes?”

She nodded and shook his hand, relishing the firm, dry leathery grip. “Our victory was for you, Highness, so usurpation is not a question.”

The king smiled. “I am also not here to proclaim you to be a rival to Adrogans, but delivering your troops here and winning this victory does put him to shame. This pleases me. He might well be competent, and has even harassed Chytrine’s troops in Okrannel, but I do not like having to rely on him alone. He is being pushed hard, as if he were the Norrington that would defeat Chytrine. I am uneasy with the forces gathering to support him.”

“Understandably, Highness.” Alyx sighed. “Despite my reservations about him, however, I would appreciate his insights on the current situation.”

“This evacuation, yes. It’s a bit of a thorny problem, isn’t it?”

Caro nodded. “They understand the concept of clearing things out of the city, but they are without direction after that. You must have run into some people making for the capital as you rode in.”

“We did. It got me thinking. Let me tell you an idea I have had.” He waved them over to the map table. “It’s not as clean a solution as your assault, but will work, I think.”

What the king outlined was both bold and inspiring. Two leagues upriver, just shy of the other natural ford, the river’s restless wandering had carved a nice valley through some low hills. The king handed out landgrants to the merchants that ceded to them vast tracts of land, provided they would remain in residence and meet other goals. The fact that half the land he gave them was in Oriosa went unnoticed in the first flush of the plan’s revelation.

Smaller grants went to people of the city, giving them something they’d never had before. The king did not allow these smaller grants to be sold before ten years, but since the chance at owning land was something most of the people of Porasena could only have aspired to, incredible enthusiasm greeted the king’s generosity.

Given the threat to anyone in the vicinity of Porasena, the king’s retreat to Yslin would have seemed a wise course, but Augustus would have none of it. He noted correctly that if he fled to the capital, most of the refugees would follow. The king himself made several trips into the city, helping folks move their belongings out. He promised to visit them at the new city and even detailed a supply convoy that had arrived to lead the way to Newpora and oversee the settlement.

From her vantage point Alyx could already see the brown stain of a muddy track roughly paralleling the river. People heavily laden with burdens struggled along it. Little family groups moved south, jostling with enterprising people helping an overloaded mule negotiate some of the tougher spots. Alcidese warriors helped and directed.

Augustus came up beside her, letting the hood on his black, woolen cloak slip down to his shoulders. “The evacuation goes well, Alyx, and yes, I know you will tell me all praise belongs to Caro in this regard. I have thanked him appropriately.”

She nodded, then pointed toward the city. “Most of the family groups are out. Now we just have the fools and daredevils. They’re making runs back into the city to get things that were forgotten. Could be excuses and thinly disguised looting, but Caro has not executed anyone.”

“Looting would have been an impediment to the evacuation, but now…” The king shrugged. “I doubt there is much of significant value left in the town.”

“You are doubtlessly correct, Highness.”

Augustus smiled, the corners of his mouth disappearing beneath the thick curves of his moustaches. “You heard thesullanciri pronounce the doom of Porasena. As I understand it, there was no hint of what or when.”

Alyx shook her head. “I have been surprised we were able to evacuate the town. I have assumed that by sundown today our job here will be done. We can slip away and leave it. The big question is whether or not we fire it.”

“Yes, we should.” The king looked at the town and its towers clustered at the heart. “If we leave them a place they can occupy, more will enter from Oriosa. I would just as soon deny them a stronghold here.”

“Highness, I .do not question your wisdom, but why do you tolerate Oriosa’s harboring of the Aurolani forces?”

The king ran a hand over his jaw as he looked across the valley. “To get Oriosa to stop would require its invasion. Oriosan troops are fierce fighters, and in defending their homeland, they would be more so. As for bringing political pressure to bear, well, you know the story of how Scrainwood obtained the throne, don’t you?”

“Yes, Highness. Asullanciri slew his mother.”

“Killed her in a most horrible way. That year Oriosa was supposed to host the Harvest Festival, but it was postponed for a year because of Queen Lanivette’s death. Scrainwood had once been a friend of mine, and the man I saw when my father sent me to represent Alcida at the funeral had been broken in spirit. He still had Scrainwood’s feral cunning and political acumen, but what little courage had been there was gone.”

The king shivered. “He does not stop them from passing through Oriosa, but he fears them so much that he keeps an eye on them. He has spies everywhere and shares his information with me, to forestall an invasion. In fact, news of your victory here prompted him to divulge some things which are useful. Chytrine is being very bold.”

“So my next assignment will be?”

Augustus laughed aloud. The deep rich sound lost itself in the expanse of the valley. “You will be returning to Yslin with me. The Harvest Festival approaches, and as on the eve of Chytrine’s last invasion, Alcida is hosting it. I want you there. Chytrine inspires fear in many, but you are an antidote to that fear. She may be formidable, but she is not invincible, and the peoples of our world need to be reminded of that.”

“I will do as you bid me, Highness, but my place is in the field, fighting.”

“I know it is, Alexia.” The king’s lips pressed together in a thin line for a moment, then he gave her a weak smile. “I could hear your father saying those words. He would be very proud of you, though even he would tell you that Chytrine’s current move is not of your concern.Arcanslata reports indicate she is bringing a fleet against Vilwan.”

Alyx’s head came up. The value of wizards in warfare had long and hotly been debated. While it was true that even the most simple of spells could have military applications, the fact that counterspells could negate them limited their usefulness. In general, wizards were maintained behind the lines, so they could work on repairing equipment or soldiers ortneckanshü, who were a whole lot of both.

Regardless, an assualt on the sorcerer stronghold is pure folly.She frowned. “The only way that makes sense is if she has created some grand spell, or some mechanism, that can wipe them out.”

“True, though her motivation might be even more basic. The Wruona pirates are with her on this expedition, but they’ve harried her ships before. It could be that she wants to wipe them out, so she’s pitting one enemy against another. There are plenty of leaders who should learn that to deal with her can be very dangerous.”

“I wonder, then, Highness, what the troops she sent to Porasena did to offend her.”

A brilliant light sparked on the plains northeast of the town. It flared argent, blindingly bright as a lightning strike, then resolved itself into the figure of thesullanciri she’d seen three days earlier. The Aurolani creature looked at the town, then sniffed at the air. It turned to face the hilltop where she stood with the king.

“Blood I smell, and all too well; but rare blood tickles my nose. The odor, I am quite sure, comes from our greatest of foes. All hail King Augustus, who is most chivalrous, and soon quite dolorous.”

Augustus closed his eyes and hung his head, slowly shaking it. “You still try too hard, Leigh.”

Though the king’s words came in little more than a whisper, thesullanciri, despite being a half mile away, reacted as if they had scourged him. He hissed and hunched, pulling the flaming cloak around him as if it were armor. He slowly straightened up, craven no more, then pointed east.

“Behold, as foretold, Porasena no more gets old.”

Alyx looked up toward the Oriosan border, then took an involuntary step back. Without conscious thought she drew her sword and interposed her body between what she saw and the king. “Move now, Highness, get away.”

“No, Alexia, I’ve seen its like before. Running won’t matter.”

The dawn’s sun silhouetted the creature, rendering it as black as the massive cruciform shadow that rippled down over hillside and through the fields. Once the dragon swooped below the line of hills, the ivory scales flecked with gold made it seem the work of a skilled artisan. The fluidity and grace with which it moved seemed impossible for so massive a creature, yet it seemed positively feline in its suppleness.

It dipped its left wing and soared in a tight circle around Porasena. The large blue-green eyes had whorls of color swirling through them, swiftly, as if they matched the thoughts of the brain inside the horned skull. The dragon appeared to be watching the people in the city scurry and run. It snapped idly at one person frozen on a tower balcony. Though the dragon missed the bite—the person would have been a mere morsel, lost in that maw—the person leaped back and tumbled to her death.

With a powerful beat of the wings, the dragon shot skyward, wingtips and barbed tail tridentine, rising above the town. Several hundred yards up, the dragon tucked itself into a ball and somersaulted backward. It began to fall toward the ground, then the wings snapped out. The fall became a swift, looping dive, aiming straight at the town.

Flying barely above the top of the highest tower, the dragon vomited fire. The flash of heat hit Alyx with the force of a playful cuff, and that was but a faint ripple of the power lashing the city. The gout of red-gold fire blasted into Porasena’s heart, evaporating the bridge she’d used to cross the river, then flooded through the streets. Discarded wooden furnishings and other rubbish combusted in an eyeblink. The fire knocked fleeing people forward, tumbling them as if they’d been caught in a flood, rendering them in black and then swallowing them.

The fire’s roar effortlessly devoured their screams.

The fire splashed against towers, again seeming more fluid than vapor. It broke around them, not burning as much as eroding them, the way waves gnaw at sand castles. Towers, with tapestries and abandoned furnishings burning brightly within them, began to sag like overheated candles. Alyx could see where two touched and actually began to fuse, forming an arch over the inferno that was the town’s heart.

The dragon circled again, letting little nasal snorts of flame roast men on the walls, or ignite the shacks of the beggars’ quarter. The river carried burning debris northward. In a second circuit, and a third, the dragon sowed fire throughout the town. While no assault came as furiously as the first, Porasena blazed merrily, sending a dark grey column of smoke into the air.

The dragon circled one last time, then beat its wings and flew off to the east. Once it had again disappeared beyond the Oriosan border, thesullanciri walked into the town. He strode down burning lanes, his fire not quite as bright as that of the inferno. It made him easy to watch until he got into the very heart of the city.

Alyx studied the blaze intently, waiting for him to reappear, but he did not. Instead, in an instant, the fire fluttered and struggled throughout the city, as if being battered by a harsh, cold wind. The flames shrank from the edges, then fled inward. They vanished all at once, almost completely, tightening down into a burning cyclone that resolved itself into thesullanciri and his burning cloak.

The tiny figure sketched a bow, then threw the king a salute, again he spun, his cloak flaring to brilliance, then the fire died with an audible crack that left darkness in its wake.

Alyx blinked and looked at the town again, shaking her head. Smoke billowed from bent and twisted towers. Here and there the heat reignited fires, but they burned with pale ferocity in comparison with the dragonfire. Where the bridge had once been, now lay a basin slowly filling with steaming river water. She could almost feel the river’sweirun writhing in scalded agony as parts of it rose in clouds of mist.

Alyx shivered though she felt not in the least bit cold. “I understand that display of power, but if thesullanciri knew you were here, why didn’t the dragon kill you? Your loss would be a mighty blow to the forces that would oppose Chytrine.”

The king slowly nodded. “Yes, but more damaging will be my reporting of what I have seen. A quarter century ago she had a dragon working for her. She enslaved it through a portion of the DragonCrown. We slew it. Men took heart in that—too much, perhaps. Now she has another.”

“Won’t she just send it to Yslin to slay the world’s leaders when they come to the Council of Kings?”

“You would, I would, but not Chytrine.” The king pulled his hood up to shadow his face. “She warned us she would return. These are more warnings. Before she defeats a foe, she wants him broken. Mark me, Alexia, the destruction of Porasena will break the will of some who oppose her. In that light, what she lost here to your victory was nothing. If we cannot unite to vanquish her, we will leave the world open to her domination.”

The repair to the hem of his sleeping gown had been faster than the recovery of his self-esteem, but Kerrigan had managed both. As he had been ordered, he sewed the hem up, sticking his fingers only a couple of times with the needle. He decided he would find a seamstress and learn some of her magicks, too, so he would prick his fingers no more. Then he washed the robe, and watching those Apprentices being punished by doing laundry, he learned to wring the garment out and hang it up on lines to dry.

None of his other tutors would have had him do that, and Kerrigan knew that Orla’s reason—that there was a shortage of servants because of the fleet’s arrival—was merely a blind. Every other tutor he’d had would make him work at magicks as punishment, doing mindless repetitions of spells he’d learned years ago.