Wardragon (31 page)

Jelindel slumped on the battlement, momentarily spent. Like a vulture, a surviving Farvenu closed in on her. She saw the grinning daemon face and knew that it realised she was defenceless. It swooped with a cry of triumph just as two women miraculously loomed over Jelindel, two women who looked very much like Lady Forturian and Madame Dion. The two witches from Jelindel’s past were mere images, as insubstantial as smoke, but they confused the Farvenu as it came in for the kill. Its claws slashed at them, but met no more than air.

It turned to swoop again.

Suddenly two far more substantial legs straddled Jelindel’s slumped form, and a real sword swung to meet the Farvenu’s face as it flew down. The sheer impact snapped the blade, but cleaved the nightmare’s head almost in two, and it flew on to crash heavily inside the walls.

Lukor offered his hand to Jelindel.

‘Who were those women?’ he asked.

‘Pardon?’ panted Jelindel.

‘Wraith-like they were, with no substance. They swirled around me and cried out that you were in danger. They led me here in the nick of time.’

‘Old friends who did not forget,’ she said.

‘Well, that’s the end of my favourite sword,’ Lukor said, holding up the broken blade.

‘Take one from the dead,’ said Jelindel. ‘They have no need of theirs.’

‘Come with me, Countess. This place is too exposed.’ With that Lukor helped her to shelter, snatching a sword from a dead hand as he walked. He stood by her as she drank thirstily from his water skin.

‘I must get back to the battle,’ she said presently.

‘So soon, m’lady? Will you not rest?’ She looked frail and tired to him, but he did not say so directly.

‘Spells are like sprinting, Lukor. They take it out of you, but you recover quickly enough when you need to.’

‘As you wish, m’lady.’

Lukor led her back to the battlement, but to a spot less vulnerable and with an overhang that should protect her from aerial attack. The sight that greeted them as they emerged onto the wall was one of spreading devastation. Entire sections of D’loom lay in ruin and the wall had been breached in so many places that attackers were now fighting inside the city. At least the flying vessels were no longer firing their thundercasts, since too many of their own force were now intermingled with the allies. The weapons were good for large scale destruction, but useless for fine-tuned killing.

‘More of the blasted things come!’ shouted Lukor, pointing into the distance.

Jelindel stared, shading her eyes. She felt her despair deepen. Each new attack forced her closer to the moment when she must decide. It was as if she stood on the edge of a chasm with a pack of snarling wolves bounding toward her.

The ominous specks were still high in the sky. ‘Why do they want more flying craft when the city is already breached?’ Lukor groaned.

But Jelindel’s heart lurched. ‘Those are not more ships, Lukor, they are dragons!’ And she threw her arms about the captain and hugged him, much to his red-faced discomfort.

It would be fair to say that few of those fighting in and around the city saw the dragons, and if they had their response might have been more ambivalent than Jelindel’s. Dragons were still, after all,
dragons
, and hardly predictable.

On the other hand, it was quickly clear that the enemy was not pleased by this sudden turn of events. The aerial ships broke off from their attack of the city, bringing a ragged cheer of relief from the defenders, and wheeled to meet the dragons. Thundercasts were energy weapons. They fired no bolt, arrow, spear, or leaded slug, but sought to undo the atomic structure of whatever they hit. Unlike the mailshirt itself, they employed nothing but cold science, and cold science alone was no real match for the ancient and inexplicable magic of the dragons, as Chiron the God-king had discovered five thousand years before.

As the dragons swooped to attack, the searing energies of the thundercasts smote them head on, flaring into fireballs, and the cheers of the few defenders turned to a lament. Yet one after the other, the dragons punched through the fiery maelstroms and fell upon the airships, ripping them apart with their claws, or blasting them with their dragon’s breath. Several airships exploded in midair and fell in smoking pieces into the midst of their own forces, killing many.

A great roar of triumph, of defiance, blasted out from D’loom and its battlements, and many of those who attacked felt the tide of battle had turned against them.

Clearly, the flying wagons were in trouble. Half the fleet had been destroyed by the first attack of the dragons. The others moved cannily now, and kept their distance. Then, inexplicably, the dragons’ fiery breath, liquid jets of fire, failed.

‘Fa’red!’ Jelindel’s heart pounded. ‘Impossible of course, but he’s somehow behind this.’ She knew, however, that to hinder the dragons even temporarily would have extended Fa’red’s power.

Far away on the plateau, an ally of the dragons was approaching that even the dragons could never have imagined. The holy hermit was sitting on a creaking cart pulled by a very nervous mule. While the mule kept looking up in trepidation at the terrible shapes in the sky that whirled and swooped, and cast torrents of fire at each other, the hermit seemed quite unperturbed. The mule attempted to run back the way it had come, but the hermit guided the animal with a firm hand on the reins, and a stout stick in the other hand.

‘Oh no you don’t, our destiny is not in that direction,’ the hermit monk told the mule.

The words meant nothing to the mule, but the smack of the stick across its rump gave it some incentive to keep going. A huge dragon, mortally wounded, spiralled out of the sky and slammed into the ground ahead in a cloud of dust, smoke, and dispersing magical energies. The mule reared in terror, and repeated whacks from the stick could not persuade it to go any further.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked the monk. ‘Do you want to live forever?’

Had the mule understood the question and been able to reply, it might well have replied, ‘No, but another twenty years would go down quite well.’

‘Oh very well, this is probably close enough.’ The monk sighed, then he alighted from the cart and cut the mule from its harnesses.

The mule tried to bolt for the mountains, but the monk tethered it to the stump of a long-dead tree. Then he uncovered from the wagon a large box of gleaming metal about the size of a household trunk. He pressed a bright green stud, and lights began to gleam and wink. He began typing over four rows of a keyboard.

‘I may have designed those infernal spacecraft, but I still have a conscience,’ he told the mule. ‘They call it a kill switch, and that’s what this thing is – well, a jamming signal, really. A special switch to shut down the weapons that the designer – that’s me – knows about, but the owner does not. Oh yes, I have spent years in the wilderness, trying to atone for my sins.’

The mule gazed at him balefully. Finally, it nudged the man.

‘What sins are those, you ask?’ the monk asked, steadying himself. ‘Designing weapons and spacecraft. Well, I have finally decided that I cannot allow my creations to be used for injustice any longer.’

The monk pressed a red stud. Nothing seemed to happen as far as the mule was concerned, but those in the spacecraft soon noticed that in the middle of their battle with the dragons their thundercasts had ceased to function.

Some fled, while others were ravaged by the dragons and erupted in spectacular explosions. With that, the threat to the city from the skies faltered.

Almost mesmerised, Jelindel watched as a flying machine spiralled toward the ground.

Aboard that crippled spacecraft a desperate captain noticed that the jamming effect on his craft was coming from the ground. All that the scanner could detect was a cart, an elderly man, and a frantically struggling mule, but it was what the captain needed to make the last decision of his life. He had just enough response in the steering to aim his plummeting craft at the cart.

‘Well they were bound to be a bit cross about this,’ said the hermit to the mule as the burning mass of metal and machine plunged out of the sky at them.

The hermit, Hawtarnas by name, spared a brief moment to unleash the mule and watch it run for its life before the spacecraft obliterated him and everything within a three-hundred-yard radius.

Seconds later, as the fireball rose into the sky, the handful of surviving spacecraft suddenly had the use of their thundercasts restored. They began to fight back again, but by now their numbers were too few. At the very end, it became a matter of which side was losing its airborne warriors at a greater rate, and once it became clear that the dragons were having far fewer losses, the resolve of the crews in the spacecraft cracked. They broke ranks and scattered, making themselves even more vulnerable to the dragons. No longer easy targets to numerous machines, the dragons turned their deadly anger on the enemy below.

Below, on the battlefield, the two sides seemed equally matched.

Daretor spurred his horse forward and cut down an attacker to either side of him. Slashing backwards as he caught a hostile movement from the corner of his eye, he was rewarded with an agonised cry from another who had tried to sneak up behind him. Turning, he saw that he had cut down one of Fa’red’s men. He forced his horse into the thickest part of the melee, and continued to stab, slash, and sometimes just kick.

Daretor had assigned his cavalry regiment to protect one of the larger breaches in the walls, so they were fighting alone, outside the city. He ducked as a spear hurtled towards him, then wheeled his horse and trampled a green-skinned creature he had never seen before. As he did so a shadow passed over him and he glanced up just in time to see a dragon swoop down on an escaping airship, crumpling it on impact. The craft plunged into the ranks of the besieging army, while the dragon flapped away, apparently uninjured. Daretor roared his war-cry.

But something caught Daretor behind the ear with a terrific impact and sent him tumbling from his mount. He rolled on hitting the ground and even before he could see his attacker he had scrambled to his feet and whirled about to face whatever was coming after him. A Farvenu flung two of Fa’red’s men aside and strode towards him. Daretor smiled grimly as he confronted the creature. It stared back in surprise. Rarely had it come upon an enemy who did not cringe at the sight of it. Then it came on.

Daretor’s earlier encounters with the creatures had taught him something of their approach to fighting. The Farvenu attacked with blurring speed, slashing for the throat while its wings battered at its target in an instinctive effort to distract it. If speed and cunning were all that was needed, Daretor would have fallen dead at the daemon’s feet. Instead, expecting just such an attack, he had dived in under the slashing arms, rolled to his feet and thrust his sword into the creature’s gut, then snap-rolled aside, all in one fluid lightning movement. As the creature crashed to the ground, Daretor drove his blade into its heart. It gasped and went still, though the eyes fixed on Daretor in a red glare of disbelief.

‘Who are you?’ it croaked.

‘I am called Daretor.’

The Farvenu gave a series of croaks that may have been laughter.

‘You are a worthy fighter. May you live out this day,’ the Farvenu said. ‘I shall speak for you in the House of Reckoning.’

Daretor slew four more attackers before he managed to find and mount another horse. He then rejoined his men at the breach. As they watched, a dragon swooped low, raking the ranks of the enemy. Faced with odds like these, the attackers outside the city turned and fled, trampling those commanders who stood in their way.

‘Daretor!’ cried a voice from the sky. Daretor looked up and saw a waving figure astride the neck of the mightiest of all the dragons. It was Osric riding S’cressling. Daretor waved back.

‘I will see you later,’ yelled Osric. ‘Work to do!’

Daretor signalled that he understood.

Mopping up the enemy still within the city walls took some hours of intensive fighting, but by sunset the city was again secure and at rest. The dragons annihilated the fleet of blockading enemy ships by clawing and ramming them while the citizens of D’loom cheered them on.

Chapter 20

The Balance

H
ours later Jelindel was seen slowly picking her way through the corpses that riddled the battlefield. Here she saw a decapitated body, its head nowhere to be seen; there a body with an arm hanging on to its shoulder by a thin thread of bloodied tendon. Many had their eyes open, as though having been slain so swiftly they had not had time to close them. She saw so much death that a horror grew in her.

Jelindel turned a full circle, casting her glazed eyes over the thousands of dead and dying. She didn’t know what she was doing out here in the midst of all this death. Was she expecting to find someone she knew? The answer to that question came quite suddenly. She recognised from her past Holgar Drusen more by his blacksmith’s garb and huge frame than by his face, which had been slashed from forehead to chin. His helm lay cleaved to either side of his scalp. He was cut elsewhere, and had been struck by two arrows, she noted clinically, but it was the head wound that had finally felled him. She knelt down and closed his cold, staring eyes. He had died in battle, as he would have wanted. Proof to himself, more than to his fellows, that he was no coward.

We turn our own fears against ourselves, she thought.

Jelindel closed her eyes. When she looked again, the blood-soaked plain had turned a sickly sepia; its metallic stench assailed her nostrils. Even now carrion birds were circling, their raucous calls beckoning others to the feast. She would gladly have rid the skies of them there and then, but nature had its own way of dealing with death. Interfering with the balance of things was never wise.

But isn’t that what I must do? she asked herself. Interfere with the balance?

Having found Drusen, having somehow made all this horrible death personal and real, she knew that she could go no further. In this sea of madness there were sure to be others she knew: Kelricka and her Temple of Verity men-at-arms and neophytes? Leot and the townspeople from Ogven? Thousands had flooded D’loom, and thrown in their lot against the might of the Wardragon and the attack on magic. She didn’t want to see their dead faces; she didn’t want to be reminded that
she
had brought them here to their deaths. Time enough later to feel that particular guilt.

She felt dizzy then, and a confusion filled her soul. She blinked, wondering which way lay the city walls. It was as if a veil had come between her and the city. She started to panic a little. Then she felt someone’s hand taking hers, guiding her.

With a start she realised it had been there for a while.

‘Come,’ said Daretor. His voice was husky with his own emotions. ‘We shall see our people receive their proper funeral rights after we’ve dealt with their murderers. We must care for the living now. And you need rest.’ He ruffled her matted hair and forced a smile onto his face. ‘And, if truth be told, a good wash!’

She smiled and allowed Daretor to navigate her back to the main gate and the cool shadows within.

That night the defenders held what many believed would be the final council of war. No one believed the Wardragon to be defeated, but none knew its exact strength either.

‘The outlook is mixed,’ Lukor said, with the casual tone of someone discussing his town’s chances in the wheelbarrow races at some regional fair. ‘On the positive side, D’loom is still in our hands. On the negative, the enemy has not retreated far, and is showing signs of bringing up yet more reserves.’

Several of the other commanders scowled and grunted, but could add nothing to Lukor’s dour comments.

‘Lukor speaks more truly than he knows,’ said Jelindel. ‘The enemy is far from vanquished, but then not all those who have pledged their help to us have arrived yet.’

‘A man might think such absence is itself a message,’ said one of the grizzled commanders.

He spoke with impatience, but not rudely. After all, this was an archmage whom he addressed.

‘A man might,’ said Jelindel, smiling wearily. ‘Or he might think that help comes when it can …’

‘If it can,’ said another of the battle-weary veterans.

Jelindel thought fleetingly of all those familiar faces she had seen during the battle. People she had met over the past few years. They had given up everything to defend the world they loved. How many of them would live out the next day? She did not want more lives wasted.

‘The question is, what can we do that we’ve not yet done?’ said Daretor.

Jelindel glanced around the room. ‘I won’t lie to you, our backs are against the wall. Without further help I … The defences have been breached in too many places. And after all, this is only the Wardragon’s opening gambit.’

‘When your back’s against the wall you can’t be stabbed in it,’ said Zimak.

‘Nor retreat,’ Prince Augustus pointed out.

‘Can you not work some great magic, Archmage?’ The voice came from the back of the room. Jelindel did not recognise it but she noted the tone of pleading in it.

‘There are things I may yet do, of which I cannot speak, though no doubt the Archmage Fa’red has surprises in reserve as well, and I fear that in the next attack –’

‘Archmage!’

They all turned to the door, where a nervous lieutenant stood. He was clearly intimidated by the sheer weight of military and magical might collected in one room.

‘Speak,’ said Jelindel, not unkindly. A couple of the commanders guffawed quietly.

‘There is an …’ He swallowed. ‘The enemy. They’ve sent an emissary!’

There was a sudden stark silence followed immediately by an outburst of voices, questions and oaths, not to mention accusations of trickery and assassination. Presently Daretor called for order.

‘Bring him in,’ said Jelindel.

‘My lady, is that wise?’ said one commander, clearly concerned for Jelindel’s safety. ‘After all, the enemy has already made one attempt on your life.’

‘Several, actually,’ Jelindel said, smiling. ‘But right now I sense no danger. Bring him in.’

The lieutenant returned to the room bringing Kaleton, the Wardragon’s right hand man. Kaleton surveyed the room briefly then bowed. Some there thought they noticed an element of mockery in that bow. Although he stood within the jaws of his enemy, and knew that many enemy leaders were known to phrase their replies in terms of the severed head of an emissary, he showed not the slightest sign of apprehension. If he was surprised to see Jelindel alive, despite Fa’red’s assertion that she was dead, he showed no sign of it. The Wardragon had already sensed that she lived, and had even included her in its terms of the city’s surrender.

‘Kaleton,’ said Jelindel, ‘do you bring terms?’

‘I do. You will, of course, not accept them.’

‘On the other hand, it’s been a long hard day,’ said Daretor, ‘the court jester’s still in hiding, and we could do with some merriment, so speak, please.’

‘From the Wardragon I bring the following terms: lay down your arms, yield up D’loom, swear an oath of eternal allegiance, pay a tithe, and hand over Jelindel dek Mediesar. Do this and everyone else will be spared.’

The room erupted.

‘That was a rather predictable joke. I don’t think we should pay him,’ said Daretor.

Jelindel called for silence. Once it descended, she said, ‘Anything else?’

‘The Wardragon wants what I term its just deserts.’

‘He’s not getting any of my dessert,’ Zimak joked.

‘Ah, the famous Zimak wit,’ said Kaleton with the briefest flicker of a smile. ‘At least I think that was how Fa’red phrased it.’

Zimak pondered whether he had been insulted or not.

‘I judge from the temper of the room,’ said Jelindel, ‘that the Wardragon’s demands do not meet with the Council’s liking.’

‘As I predicted,’ said Kaleton stoically.

‘You may return to your master,’ said Daretor. ‘You can even do so in one piece.’

‘Hold a moment,’ said Jelindel. ‘You said “from the Wardragon”. You have other terms?’

‘I do. No more palatable to you, I fear.’

Jelindel’s eyes narrowed. ‘From Fa’red?’

‘Indeed.’

‘And what does the Archmage offer?’

‘An alliance.’

The ensuing uproar at this was the loudest yet. Prince Augustus leant forward on the table and rapped for silence. ‘Is this not the very thing we are looking for?’ he asked.

‘You have obviously never met Fa’red,’ said Daretor, with no trace of respect for rank.

‘Please elaborate,’ said Jelindel. ‘What shall we find in the arms of Fa’red, apart from a more subtle brand of betrayal, Kaleton?’

‘My lady is perceptive, as ever.’

‘This is ridiculous,’ said one of the commanders. ‘This man is the Wardragon’s own. He no more wants us to ally ourselves with Fa’red against his own master than he wants us to remove his eyeballs with red hot pincers – which happens to be my own recommendation.’

‘Aye. Rennok speaks truly!’ called someone else. There was a chorus of agreement.

Jelindel shook her head. ‘Kaleton is no man’s lackey, of that I am certain. And if he were entirely of the mind of his master then why would he bring terms from Fa’red? Further, why would Fa’red have furnished him with the very knowledge that would instantly turn the Wardragon, and all its hellish fury, against him? Kaleton?’

The commanders turned puzzled looks on Kaleton, as if they had not seen him clearly before.

‘Do you seek asylum with us?’ asked Jelindel.

‘Do you offer it?’ Kaleton countered with vast dignity. A new hush fell on the room.

‘I offer it. Jelindel dek Mediesar offers it.’

‘Then I accept your kind offer.’

Daretor raised his eyebrows and leaned close to Jelindel’s ear. He whispered, ‘Is this wise? He’s been our enemy and has plotted and spied for the Wardragon. Not to mention he killed our people.’

‘As we have killed his. Isn’t that the hypocrisy of violence? That we do unto others what we are appalled by when they do it unto us?’

‘I’ll not argue philosophy of war with you, Jelli,’ Daretor said. ‘But I feel you’re making a mistake.’

Jelindel placed a hand on Daretor’s arm, and felt the tension that his voice did not betray.

‘Trust me.’ She looked up into his eyes and said again, ‘Note, I said trust me, not him.’

‘I have always done so,’ he said. ‘Mostly.’ Louder, he said, ‘Well then, we have a refugee from the enemy. How may he be used? Soaked in pitch, set alight, and fired over the wall with a trebuchet?’

‘I thought you had dragons for that sort of thing,’ said Kaleton.

The room erupted in laughter, the tension eased, and Kaleton knew he had been accepted – if not with open arms, then at least with an uneasy grace he himself understood.

But Jelindel was still intrigued. ‘Why this change of heart, Kaleton?’

The other shrugged. ‘My loyalty was to the Preceptor, for reasons I will not elaborate, except to say that he allowed me once, long ago, to redeem my honour.’

Daretor flicked Kaleton a look. This was something
he
understood.

Kaleton continued. ‘But today the Preceptor – ceased to be. I cannot explain how I know this, but until now some small part of him remained, and while it did so, I was still bound to him. I am no longer bound.’

‘I guessed as much,’ said Jelindel. She turned to Daretor. ‘I want you to take Kaleton under your protection.’

Daretor nodded, saying nothing. Kaleton moved forward to the table. He was used to command and his manner carried its own authority.

‘I can assist you, though some of what I have to tell will not bring you joy. The Wardragon’s forces outnumber yours greatly. It has called up fewer than half of its total army.’

‘Fewer than half?’ gasped the prince.

Rennok waved a hand. ‘Begging the meeting’s attention,’ he said, ‘but it’s possible this man has been sent to undermine our confidence. Battles are sometimes lost and won in the heart long before sides cross swords.’

‘You speak wisely, Rennok,’ said Jelindel, ‘but good intelligence has also won many a battle. Let us keep our wits about us and assess Kaleton’s information.’

Once the meeting had broken up Jelindel sought out Daretor, who was staring morbidly at the enemy’s campfires.

‘So what do you think?’ she asked.

‘He will betray us,’ Daretor replied. ‘He will seek to destroy us.’