Battledragon (32 page)

From the walls they could see them come, a great moving mass of men, with siege engines drifting along in the dark, outlined against the sea of torchlights. Their rhythmic chant rang in the hills, and then as they came in sight of the city walls so their drums began to thunder.

Baxander went to take a look. He was impressed, and appalled. They had covered the distance at a tremendous pace. They had a great number of siege engines that they were pushing forward. Clearly they had anticipated his arrival and fled as a ruse to lure him into the city. He understood their calculations, and his estimation of their leadership rose a notch.

They knew that the Czardhan knights were of most use as shock troops on a battlefield. They also knew that the walls of Koubha were insufficiently massive to allow dragons to fight atop them as they had at Ourdh, for instance. Thus both the heaviest offensive weapons available to Baxander were virtually negated by this sudden, all-out, nighttime assault. It had all the hallmarks of a carefully thought-out scheme.

Baxander surveyed the scene and pondered his options. In his mind ran an old Teetol saying, "Fight the bigger enemy by hugging him close, then stab inside." He made his decision and then ordered that the eight squadrons of dragons be formed up in a single mass, a virtual phalanx of seventy-nine dragons, the cream of the dragon force, which he would wield like a stabbing sword, a sudden blow to the vitals of the enemy army.

To go with them he massed the Kadein Alpha Regiment and the Pennar Third Regiment. To protect them from the enemy horsemen, he sent the freshest cavalry sections to hold the flank.

Outside the walls the enemy engines were looming, vast fields of torches surrounded the city. The thrub of drums and the rhythmic roar of the chanting filled the air.

Baxander waited for the right moment. He received word that the Koubhan forces were in place, manning the walls. His own units were in their places, ready to reinforce any trouble area. Even the Czardhan knights had agreed to his plan and were waiting to be used as a reserve, either on foot to reinforce the walls or mounted to follow up on the dragons' thrust.

The enemy rushed the walls under a storm of missiles. The Argonathi bowmen took a great toll, as did the bowmen of Koubha, when the enemy came in range of their smaller bows. But the horde was so great that they ignored these losses.

Siege engines were thrust up against the gate towers. A host of ladders was set to the walls. The Kraheen swarmed up to engage the defenders.

The clanging roar of warfare now rang out on the walls of Koubha. The Kraheen were attempting to break in on three sectors, previously weakened during the siege. They had brought a dozen great siege towers. The fighting on the walls quickly became desperate and the Koubhans took terrible casualties. Baxander feared they could not hold very long.

The cornets shrilled for the dragons standing in stark rows, lit by torchlight.

"Good," sniffed Alsebra. "I hate standing around."

"I agree. Waiting is much worse than fighting," said Bazil.

The Purple Green expressed his considerable feelings with a heavy growl followed by a long hiss. The wild dragon hated the tension before battle. His huge eyes glared around him, seeking a target for his rage. The younger dragons had all learned a certain wariness in their dealings with the wild, winged giant. They exchanged looks but kept quiet.

"Forward march!" shouted Wiliger at last.

They moved down the avenue toward the main gate. Atop the gate, backlit by the fires outside the walls, they could see a great mass of men, spears projecting above, arrows and rocks flying overhead.

Arrows began falling among them. A rock clanged off the Purple Green's helmet. Wiliger dodged another and took shelter under an overhang at the gate. More arrows were falling among the dragons, feathering their joboquins, glancing off their armor. The dragonboys looked in vain to Wiliger for the command. Relkin lost patience.

"Dragons, raise shields above your heads!" he called.

He was instantly aware of Wiliger's furious eyes upon him, but at least the dragons had raised their shields and were protected from the arrows.

Wiliger was about to say something when a loud groan of metal on wood announced that the main gates were swinging open. Wiliger stared at them for a moment, Relkin forgotten. Beyond the gates loomed a sea of white cloth, torches, and dark angry faces.

A rock bounced off Bazil's breastplate with a clang. Relkin and the rest looked to Wiliger, but the dragon leader was lost in some rapture, staring out at the white-garbed mass.

Then the regimental cornets began shrieking for the charge, and Wiliger's moment was gone. Dragons dropped their shields in front of them and strode forward out of the gate.

The cornets continued to scream, and the dragons picked up their pace to a ponderous trot. The ground shook beneath them. Dragonboys ran alongside, like small active moons, their wicked little Cunfshon bows at the ready. Arrows flicked in toward them, along with stones and an occasional spear. Relkin dodged aside as one spear bounced on the ground and shot past him at knee height.

Wiliger had finally woken up to the moment. He drew his sword and ran down the line of trotting wyverns, waving his sword and screaming "Charge!" in a shrill voice. In his haste, he somewhat outdistanced the leading dragons, Alsebra and Vlok, and found himself at the front of the unit.

The dragons were not amused by the sight of the dragon leader running in front of them where he was most vulnerable to dragonsword. Alsebra stretched her neck and hissed at him, but did not gain his attention. So she accelerated her pace. As she did, so did the rest and the trot became a kind of lope as the multiton monsters reached their top speed. They overtook Wiliger, who suddenly found himself running between Alsebra on his.right and Vlok on his left. Enormous haunches sprang, contorted, thigh muscles the size of a heavy man bunched and released, the ground shook and the monstrous animals thrust ahead. Their dragonswords gleamed evilly, great sweeps of shining steel. Wiliger's heart swelled in his breast. This was extremely perilous, but it was an intoxicating moment. Never had he experienced such a thrilling sense of power.

Alsebra's tail snapped suddenly just above his head like an enormous whip, and Wiliger ducked wildly and stumbled and would have fallen if Swane hadn't reached out a hand in time and steadied him. Spun half around to slam face first into the burly dragonboy, Wiliger gave an oath. His face purpled with anger. He yelled something inarticulate at Swane, but the dragonboy was already gone, hastening after Vlok.

The Purple Green and Bazil went past, then came the two young brasshides, Oxard and Finwey. He saw their tails jerking from side to side as. they bounded, and he remembered the sorcerer's isle. He dropped to the ground and lay prone on his belly while the rest passed him. He looked up to see dragonboys leaping by, bows ready, dodging the dragon tails with accustomed skill, and he felt a deep sense of inferiority and outright shame. The dragonboys did their utmost not to look at their dragon leader and just prayed that he got up before the squadron behind them came rumbling through in their wake.

The leaders were through the city gates and out into the open where they could see more of the battle in progress. To either side great masses of Kraheen were bunched about the siege towers. Hundreds of ladders were thrust up against the walls.

Straight ahead was a thinner crowd of men, since no direct assault was being made on the gate towers themselves. These men held their ground as the dragons emerged, each a tower of steel-clad muscle and sinew threatening death.

The dragons hefted their swords and dressed out their formation to a line that kept expanding as each dragon squadron deployed. They did it as smoothly as if they were on the parade ground, and watching from the tower above, Baxander's heart swelled with pride at the sight.

The closest Kraheen drew back, abandoning siege ladders, pressing into the positions of their fellows on either side of the gate.

Wiliger had raised himself after the 109th and taken up his proper position, with as much aplomb as he could muster. He did his utmost to concentrate his energies on the task at hand. He stood ten paces behind the dragonboys, who stood behind the dragons, who were spaced out twenty feet apart from each other.

A cornet shrilled from above, and the dragons rumbled forward, monstrous, towering bringers of death. The waiting Kraheen stood still until the dragons were about fifty feet distant, and then they broke and ran, having suddenly realized that they could not possibly give battle to such giant beasts with only their tulwars and round shields.

The dragons kept coming in the long-legged predatory lope of their kind, sea striders, rock wranglers, hunters of the shore. Their swords glittered on high, and the Kraheen fled in disorder.

The fugitives began to impact on other divisions of the Kraheen army, and as these resisted, so there grew a thickening crowd that slowed as it thickened, stiffening like egg whites under the whisk. There were still thousands of Kraheen marching down to join the battle, and these now ran up against the crowd and slowed its flight even farther.

The dragons gained, and then suddenly the dragons actually reached the struggling mob. There was a Sudden murmur, a loud basso groan of complaint that was separate from the general din. Dragonswords rose and fell, and a mad convulsion shook the enemy host. Somehow the men closest to the dragons compelled those behind them to give way. An explosive effect, men tumbled, scattered, rolled in every direction. Those who lingered were dismembered, literally cut to pieces in a matter of moments by those huge, arcing dragon blades.

Behind the dragons, dodging tails, feet and backward sweeps of dragonsword, bounced the dragonboys, eyes peeled for any infiltrators. The dragon leaders roamed behind them, ready to assist if needed, or to order a change in alignment. Wiliger now understood the depth of his mistake. Dragon leaders did not actually lead dragons into battle, it was simply too dangerous.

Meanwhile, capitalizing on the panic caused by the appearance of the dragons, the men from the Kadein and Pennar regiments had been moving along the base of the wall cutting into the flank of the enemy's assault forces. Ladders toppled wholesale. Siege towers were captured from the rear. The legionaries took the ground floors in the towers and then sent for the engineers. The engineers brought oil and flame, and the towers went up like gigantic torches, illuminating the wall and the turbulent battle in a harsh, flickering glare.

The dragons were cutting their way through the maddened Kraheen as if they were harvesting a field of corn. It was a horrible, bloody work of butchery carried on in the terrible red light of the fires.

Relkin felt his mind freeze. He reached down with his sword tip to kill a man too badly wounded to move again, but not yet dead. Something shuddered in his own heart, perhaps just a bedrock disgust. They were trampling forward now over a field of parts of men. Bodies lay everywhere, men suddenly sundered from life, cut in two and hurled to oblivion.

The only mercy was that the death was so swift and so certain. Hardly a one survived to scream his death agonies in the wake of the dragons. But the ground was sticky with blood. The stench of the opened viscera was appalling.

During this slaughter a bare half dozen Kraheen penetrated the dragons' front, and these were all slain by dragonboy arrows before they could do any harm. The dragonboys were busier putting the few mangled survivors on the ground out of their misery than they were in fighting.

And then, at last, there was open space in front of them, and the dragons had cut their way clean through the enemy army. Space was opening up on either side as the Kraheen took to their heels rather than face those great blades.

Relkin slowed up. The dragons had halted. Wiliger went forward to assess the situation. Relkin checked over his dragon. A dozen arrows stuck out of the leather outer covering on the shield. A few had lodged in the leather of the joboquin, but none had penetrated dragonhide. Relkin gave thanks to old Caymo, and then after a moment, to the Mother, too. You never knew these days just who might be watching over you.

Lower down there was a slight problem. A spear had left a long shallow slash along Bazil's thigh. Relkin swabbed quickly with Old Sugustus. Bazil hissed sharply for a few seconds. It would need some stitches later, but no large blood vessel had been cut.

Relkin did his best to examine the wound from the Czardhan lance, but it was largely out of sight under the joboquin. From what he could see, the wound had not opened. The dressing seemed dry and unsoiled, cause for further thanks to the heavens.

While the boy worked, Bazil hissed quietly, exchanging looks with the other dragons, but keeping his breath for self-renewal. Huge lungs labored in each mighty wyvern chest.

Relkin climbed to the dragon's shoulder to extract an arrow from the leather side strap of the helmet.

"We have killed many men," Bazil said after a moment. "They did not fight very well."

Relkin grunted while he snapped the arrow shaft and began to dig into the leather for die arrowhead.

"You did what you had to do."

The dragon turned his head. For a moment they stared into each other's eyes.

"Still I do not care to kill men like that."

There came a blare of trumpets on their front. The ground trembled, and with a high yipping cry a great mass of white-clad cavalry came out onto the plain before the city. The riders came on quickly, and arrows from their compound bows were soon flicking in, whining and sparking from dragon helm and shield.

Roquil was struck in the left cheek by a shaft that got through a gap in his helmet vizor. Endi darted up the leatherback's side and cut the shaft free. The dragon was able to continue. The others roared encouragement.

The horsemen came on, pressing their mounts forward despite the presence of the dragons. They could only come so near, however, and then their ponies shied away, unable to stand the proximity of dragons. From this range they plied the dragons with arrows, and the dragonboys' return fire was overmatched. Wiliger and the other dragon leaders ordered the dragons to fall back. This development was not unexpected; Baxander knew the enemy had plenty of excellent cavalry and there was no need to risk injury to the dragons since there was no reason to hold the ground. They'd done the first job, which was to split the enemy army.