Soul of Swords (Book 7) (25 page)

Karlam staggered after her, still screaming, and three of the armsmen leveled their crossbows. Quarrels slammed into Karlam’s chest and punched through his armor, and the Lord of Castle Rutagne pitched forward onto his face.

The smell of burning skin and hair was quite sharp. 

“Adelaide,” said Hugh, “are you…”

“I’m fine,” she said, rubbing her throat. “A little cut. Nothing serious. But, gods, Hugh, your arm, your jaw…”

“Hugh,” said Montigard, “you are needed at the Outer Wall. The runedead attack has come, and…”

“He is wounded!” said Adelaide. “He needs to be treated.”

“Not seriously,” said Hugh. “Clean me up and I’ll go. You and you.” He pointed at two of the armsmen. “Take some of the walking wounded and search the Inn. The Skulls have scurried into the shadows, but I don’t want them troubling the wounded.” He looked at the dead men strewn across the floor and cursed. Those men had died to save him, all because Karlam’s stupid pride and ambition.

And Skalatan’s cunning.

Hugh shook his head as Adelaide wiped the blood from his arm. This had been Skalatan’s work. No matter the outcome of the battle, the archpriest intended to gain Barellion as an ally against Lucan Mandragon. Karlam would have been more obedient, but Hugh would serve Skalatan’s purpose as an ally just as well. 

Lucan and his runedead were the greater threat, and Hugh could work with the Aegonar to defeat them. But someday, he vowed, looking at the dead armsmen, someday Skalatan would pay for what he had done. 

Unless the runedead killed them all by sundown.

“That’s the best I can do for now,” said Adelaide.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Hugh lied. There were men who had endured far worse. “Come!” He kissed Adelaide. “Be ready to fall back to the Inner City, should it prove necessary.”

“I will,” said Adelaide, though he knew she would no more abandon his duty than he would. 

Hugh hurried from the Inn, Montigard and the armsmen following.

###

Tongues of fire erupted from the battlements, sweeping the siege towers and the ladders. 

Malden frowned. “Are they throwing oil into the battle now?”

“No,” said Lucan. “The wizards of Greycoast are entering the fray.” 

“I thought they would be busy making wizard’s oil,” said Malden.

“As did I,” said Lucan. “But that is good news. We are pressing them hard enough that Hugh feels he has no choice but to commit the wizards to battle. It won’t be much longer now.”

Even as he spoke, another wave of runedead scrambled up the siege towers, and the spearmen started to buckle. 

###

“What the hell are the wizards doing?” shouted Hugh, hurrying across the plaza. “They’re supposed to be making wizard’s oil!”

“I ordered it, lord Prince,” said Maurus, his gaunt face and white hair streaked with soot and spattered blood. “The runedead press us hard. My lord, if we do not break their attack…it will not matter how much wizard’s oil we have in reserve. The city will fall before we have a chance to use the oil.” 

Hugh looked at the ramparts, saw the runedead establishing a foothold near the Gate of Merchants. If they did, they could seize the towers and open the Gate.

And once they did, the Outer City would fall.

“Maurus, Montigard, with me,” said Hugh, pointing his sword. “We have to throw back the runedead.”

Montigard shouted commands, and a troop of armsmen and militia formed up behind them. Hugh hurried to the rampart stairs, the men following. He reached the ramparts just as the line of spearmen broke beneath the press of the runedead onslaught.

“For Barellion!” roared Hugh, igniting the wizard’s oil on his blade. “For Greycoast! For the city!”

Around him the armsmen and militia threw themselves into the attack. Hugh cut down one runedead, and then another. Next to him a militiaman fell with a scream, his throat torn out by a runedead’s cold fingers, and Hugh wheeled and took off the creature’s head. 

In a few moments they had cleared the rampart, driving the runedead back to the siege tower’s ramp. 

“Hold!” said Hugh to the exhausted spearmen, “hold! Maurus! The tower!”

Maurus produced a copper tube topped at both ends with cork. He yanked away one cork, leveled the tube at the siege tower, and shouted an incantation. A finger of flame danced at the tube’s end, and then erupted in a tight column of fire. The blast drilled through the siege tower, tearing its top third to smoking kindling and leaving the rest of the tower a smoking stump.

A ragged cheer went up from the defenders. Hugh looked past the smoking tower and saw the endless sea of runedead stretching beyond it, the creatures carrying more ladders and pushing more towers. 

There was no end of them.

And in that moment, Hugh realized he had lost. 

Barellion could not hold.

###

The wind tore at the ragged robe of Skalatan’s carrier.

The great city of Barellion came into sight a thousand feet below. 

“Circle,” commanded Skalatan. “I wish to see the disposition of the enemy.”

The dragon complied. Huge masses of runedead assailed the northern, eastern, and southern gates. Flames burned before each gate, the ground strewn with wreckage and destroyed runedead. Yet fresh waves of undead made for the walls, pushing siege towers and carrying ladders. The defenders had given a good account of themselves, and Skalatan suspected at least a third of the runedead host would be destroyed by the time Barellion fell.

For Barellion would fall. Skalatan knew that Lucan cared nothing for the city or the runedead or for Lord Malden, only for harvesting enough stolen life force to open the Door of Souls. 

But Lucan would not reap this harvest.

“The walking shells of dead mortals,” said the dragon, contempt in its voice.

“Our foe thinks them a potent weapon,” said Skalatan. Should he attempt to ambush Lucan? No, too risky. Better to draw the necromancer out, to goad him to rash action, and then to destroy him utterly. “Shall we teach him otherwise?” 

The dragon’s roar boomed over the city like the wrath of an angry god, and at Skalatan’s mental command the great beast folded its wings and dove towards the northern gate like a thunderbolt.

###

“My lord, it is over!” shouted Maurus. Around them men fought and screamed and died. Hugh dodged a blow and drove his burning sword through an undead chest. The creature fell limp to the blood-slick stone. “Our reserves of oil are almost gone. At any moment we shall be overrun! My lord, we must fall back to the Inner City!”

“No!” said Hugh, but he knew Maurus was right. His mind raced, trying to form a plan through the rage and despair that choked him. How many of his men could he withdraw before the runedead seized the gates? 

And, gods, what would happen to the townsmen and commoners trapped in the Outer City? They could not all withdraw to the Inner City before the runedead broke through.

“Gods forgive me,” said Hugh. “Montigard! Give the command. All forces are to withdraw to…”

A strange noise rumbled over the city.

Hugh blinked. 

“What the devil was that?” he said.

Maurus frowned. “It sounded like…it sounded like a roar, my lord.”

Then the wizard’s eyes grew wide, and he looked towards the sky.

Hugh turned just as a dark shape fell towards the Gate of Bishops.

###

“Let them,” said Skalatan, “taste dragon fire.”

The dragon obliged.

The creature banked, swooping past the northern face of the Outer Wall, and its jaws opened wide.

A river of blazing fire poured forth, raking across the wall, turning the ladders to charcoal and ripping the siege towers apart. Screams of shock and terror went up from the ramparts, but the dragon ignored them. The creature rose higher into the air, and it swooped in a tight circle, coming behind the vast mass of runedead before the Gate of Bishops.

“Now,” said Skalatan, “let us set the runedead to burn.”

He felt the dragon’s maniacal delight through the drachweisyr. 

The dragon flew low, no more than a few dozen feet above the close-packed ranks of the runedead, and opened its jaws.

And the runedead burned.

They were packed so close together than thousands of them went up in flames at once, the dragon fire tearing through them like a firestorm through a field of dried husks. The dragon rose, turning its head back and forth, pouring its white-hot flame in all directions. Only magic and flame could harm the runedead, and in all the world there was no fire to match the wrath of an ancient dragon. 

The army of runedead below Skalatan turned into a field of flame. 

He was not prone to the unnecessary emotions that afflicted the lesser races, but even he could appreciate the dark beauty of the inferno below him. 

And, perhaps, he could understand the dragon’s pleasure in its destructive power. 

The dragon made another pass, its fire turning the runedead to smoking cinders. Behind the ragged remnants of the runedead lines, Skalatan saw a mass of horsemen and infantry fleeing in all directions. One third of Lord Malden’s host, waiting to move into the city once the runedead seized the gates.

Perhaps Lucan was with them.

Skalatan sent a mental command to the dragon, and the creature circled towards a group of horsemen. He saw a score of knights bearing the black daggers, stark terror on their faces as they fled the dragon.

They did not flee fast enough.

The dragon’s maw dipped low, and it devoured four of the screaming knights whole, horses and armor and all. Skalatan heard crunching and tearing as the dragon feasted, and wondered if the beast intended to consume the knights’ armor with their flesh and bones. He received an answer a moment later when the dragon unleashed another blast of flame, a spray of molten steel flying out with its fire. 

A hundred men and horses turned to ashes. 

The attack upon the Gate of Bishops collapsed, living men fleeing in all directions, but the runedead heading southeast. Skalatan suspected that Malden must have delegated control over this group of runedead to whatever knight had commanded the assault. With that knight dead, the runedead would return to Lord Malden to await further instructions.

And Skalatan suspected Lucan would be near Malden.

“Follow,” he bade the dragon, and the beast turned over the fleeing mass of runedead, loosing blasts of flame that turned hundreds of the undead to cinders.

No reason not to let the dragon enjoy itself.

###

“There,” said Malden, anticipation in his voice. “There. You see? The line is buckling. Soon the runedead will take the gate, and the Outer City will be ours.”

His hand stroked his black dagger as he spoke, his face alight with lust.

“Indeed,” said Lucan, watching the battle.

What had made that roaring noise? Some spell of Skalatan’s? Lucan had not yet seen any trace of the San-keth archpriest, but he would not lower his vigilance. In any event, the Outer Wall was about to fall, and once it did, Lord Malden and his knights would begin the slaughter.

Lucan could depart for Knightcastle by sunset.

“What the devil?” said Malden, all trace of his earlier delight gone.

Lucan turned his head and saw the runedead coming from the northwest.

Thousands of runedead. Had Skalatan raised an undead army of his own? No, those were Lucan’s runedead, the crimson sigil burning upon their brows. They must have come from the group assaulting the Gate of Bishops. But why were they here? They would only do that if the knight commanding the assault had been slain…

“My lord!”

A knight galloped towards Malden. The knight’s eyes were wide with fear and horror, and he clutched his black dagger like a talisman. He looked… singed, and Lucan saw burned patches on his cloak. Perhaps he had been too close to one of the fireballs from the catapults. 

“What is it?” said Malden. “Why are the runedead withdrawing from the northern gate?”

“The dragon!” said the knight, looking over his shoulder with fear.

“A dragon?” said Malden. “Do you think to mock me? Tell me what has happened!”

But the knight was already galloping away as fast as his horse could carry him. Lucan stared after him in surprise. Something had terrified the man so badly that he would quit the field rather than face it again. 

“He went mad,” muttered Malden, turning his horse towards the fleeing runedead.

“It seems so,” said Lucan. “There cannot possibly be a dragon. There hasn’t been a dragon west of the Great Mountains for over a thousand years…”

A dragon came into sight around the Outer Wall.

Lord Malden swore.

Lucan stared at the creature in astonishment. The dragon was huge, over two hundred fifty feet from its fang-filled mouth to the barbed tip of its tail. Its black and gold scales cave it a fearsome appearance, enhanced all the more by the burst of flame that erupted from its mouth. The dragon whipped its head back and forth as it circled over the runedead, every blast incinerating hundreds of the undead. 

“That’s not possible,” said Lucan.

Even as he spoke, a hundred more runedead went up in flame.

“Obviously it is!” said Malden. “Act at once! If you don’t stop that dragon now, it will drive us from the field!” 

Lucan watched as the dragon circled overhead, raining fire upon the runedead…and he saw the gray-robed figure sitting between the dragon’s shoulders, sparks of green light flaring in the robe’s sleeves.

“Skalatan,” he said.

How had Skalatan gained control of an ancient dragon? It should not have been possible. 

Yet the evidence of the archpriest’s success flew overhead, destroying runedead with every passing second.

“Skalatan?” said Malden. “This is the work of those Aegonar?”

Lucan’s shock hardened into dark amusement.

Skalatan had made a grievous mistake.

“It is,” said Lucan. “Fear not, my lord Malden. You can continue the assault upon the Outer Wall presently. I will deal with the dragon.”

He spurred his horse forward. Malden shouted orders to his knights and the nearby runedead, and the undead slowed their panicked flight, reforming into new lines around Malden’s banner. The dragon flew past the Gate of Merchants, unleashing a blast of fire that turned a rank of runedead to cinders and set a siege tower to burning like a torch. The great beast banked over the fields east of the city, the wind of its passage flattening crops and bushes alike, and turned to face the runedead host.