Dragons of War (51 page)

The man's sword whirled down, and Relkin barely deflected it with an arm that felt leaden. The mercenary was too strong, and too quick. Relkin knew he could not match the next blow. And then a legionary leaned in from the side, his spear sank home, and the mercenary slid backward with a final groan. Imps climbed over his body. The battle raged on. With a huge groan, a troll was picked up bodily by the Purple Green and thrown with both hands. One of its legs knocked a line of imps flying, and the troll bounced and crashed into the butt end of a sawn-off tree trunk.

"Ah, I see you have lost your temper again!" hissed Bazil to the Purple Green.

The wild one gave his battle roar, the cry of the Dragon Lord of Hook Mountain. Trolls and men cowered back from him at that moment.

Bazil roared a salute to the wild one, and Ecator sang through the air, sundered a sword troll's helmet, and toppled the brute back onto a solid mass of imps and men.

The enemy still came on, but the defenders held the crest of the barricade, the Fird mixed in with the rest, and everyone cheering and screaming their defiance as they swung swords with arms that were beyond weariness and struck down the enemy like heroes on some ancient painting dedicated to the gods of war.

Relkin was struck on the helmet, kneed in the groin, cut along one shoulder, and punched hard in the mouth by sundry imps during the next hectic half an hour. It was an exceedingly rough fight, he had to admit.

Swane went down, hammered by an imp from behind, but he was saved by the intervention of several men from the Fird, who were now pressed up with them, bolstering the tiring men of the Host and the legionaries. Swane was soon back on his feet and back in the fight beside Vlok.

Rusp was badly wounded. Vlok was wounded, but not badly. Cham and Anther and Chektor had all received slight wounds. The Purple Green had damaged his fist where he'd punched through a troll's faceplate. Bazil's strange tail had been trod on by another troll and bitten by yet another. All the dragons had innumerable arrows sticking out of their joboquins and their hides. Yet they remained indomitable.

And now the force in the battle ebbed somewhat for the first time. The fury of the black drink began to fade, and the imps grew weary.

The imps had taken terrible casualties, at least one-tenth of their number were strewn across the ground, and almost a fifth of the trolls were down, mostly dead. The fire no longer glowed, but merely flickered in their eyes.

The enemy wavered.

In the midst of the struggle, Clan Chief Ranard had received light wounds and some bruises, but he was awake to the moment and sensed that the tide of battle was changing. He called for the Fird to go over to the offensive and charge.

At that very second there came a blast from Eads's silver cornet, and it was taken up by other cornets. The command rang out for the charge, and the legionaries, the dragons, and the dragonboys went over the top, with Clan Wattel at their heels, and pitched into the retiring mass of imps.

The dragons struck home hard and heavy. Four more trolls bit the dust. One of the enemy commanders was caught up in the ruckus, his horse surrounded by maddened imps. Alsebra's blade, Undaunt, looped in and took the man's head. Men from the Fird ran in, alongside men from Bur Lake and men with the Kohon Yeomanry and they knocked imps, horses, and even a troll down the barricade and tumbling in chaos.

Suddenly the imps began to run, their spirits abruptly quailed and the black drink ebbing from their blood. Arrows and spears followed them and then the men of Clan Wattel sent up their ululation of triumph and rushed on. They completed the rout and drove the enemy in a terrified mass down the Clove Valley, slaying them by the hundreds as they ran. Snarling trolls, too tired to run, stood their ground here and there, and died by the score as they were speared or cut down by dragonsword.

The rest of that day was an eerie, tormented time. The sun appeared fitfully through high clouds. A strange silence replaced the din of war. Captain Eads roused himself to ensure the victory. The fittest of the Talion troopers mounted up and harried the fleeing enemy with support from squads of legionaries and bowmen who shrugged off battle fatigue and carried the pursuit as far as the southern end of Lake Wattel.

They found that the enemy force had virtually disintegrated and could be left to flee in terror down the Kalens Valley. A few prisoners were taken and brought back for interrogation.

Meanwhile at the battle site, around the barricade, the sad work of burying the dead and tending the wounded went on through the afternoon and into the night.

Hundreds of homes across the Wattel lands would never see their men again. More than four hundred graves were dug for men of the Fird and the Host combined. Hundreds more were wounded, many seriously. Then, of the one hundred and eleven men of Bur Lake, fully forty had perished on the field. Of the nine women who had been impressed as messengers, two had been slain, found with enemy arrows jutting from their backs.

There were other casualties. In the 109th Dragons, Rusp had bled to death from a terrible sword thrust in the belly. Little Jak was left to sob over the hulk of his dragon. In the 66th Dragons, the nimble leatherback Oast had been slain by troll ax. In addition, there were three dead dragonboys, Jin and Tunu of the 66th, and Bryon of the 109th, stabbed through the heart by an imp. Alsebra was now without her dragonboy. Then in the late hour of the afternoon, the 66th lost their commander when Dragoneer Mescual succumbed to his wounds.

A score of legionaries, yeomen, and bowmen were also to be buried and among them were Captain Senshon of the 322s, Lieutenant Grass of the Talion Light Horse, Sergeant Quertin and Sergeant Jist.

Almost everyone bore wounds to some degree. Bowchief Starter had been stabbed in the hand, cut on the back, the legs, and the arms, but remained on his legs, sporting a lot of bandages and keeping his cheerful presence among the men, lifting spirits wherever he went.

Dragon Leader Turrent had a face almost flayed of skin and a suspected broken arm. He had been trampled slightly in the crush, but whether by troll or dragon no one could say. He complained of a ringing in the ears after being struck down with the butt end of a troll ax. For once, the dragon leader was incapable of enforcing his demands for polished steel and brass on all equipment. In truth, he scarcely even thought of such things. The pain in his arm was dramatic.

Relkin had a bandage around his forehead, which had been laid open sometime during the victory charge, he thought by the dragon's tail tip or possibly an arrow. He also had bandages on two cuts on his left leg and a poultice on a big bruise on his right arm above the elbow.

All the dragonboys were cut up and swathed in bandages. All were downcast over the fate of Rusp and Bryon.

Huge funeral pyres were lit for Rusp and Oast, and the remaining dragons stood in a loose circle about the blazing fires. There was no beer, but the dragons still sang their dirge to the dead, and their voices carried away far into the night and brought wonder to those who heard them.

Clan Chief Ranard heard the sound in his tent, where his wounds were tended by his daughter Eilsa. He looked up in wonder at the sound, for the voices were good and great and inhuman and like nothing he had ever heard before. Eilsa went out for a moment and returned with her eyes widened in wonder.

" 'Tis not so astonishing, daughter," he said. "Think of a wolf that's lost its mate, or a member of the pack. Wolves mourn their losses. The dragons are predators, too, and more intelligent than wolves."

Ranard lay back on the cot. In truth, he was feeling his years. He had a nasty stab wound in the upper arm and a slicing cut along the side of his neck. But what really affected him were the two cracked ribs on his right side and the deadness he felt in his legs. He didn't think he could walk a mile.

He had never seen such a fight. He was sure the memories would haunt him for the rest of his days. He had seen horrors as should never be allowed under the sun.

In his heart there was a great weight, for the dead of the Fird and the Host. Many had fallen, more than in any single battle in clan history. It would take a generation or more for the clan to recover. But the honor of the name Wattel had been burnished for all time. Ranard felt a glow of pride in that. But there were so many mothers and wives and sons that he would have to visit. They would weep and their eyes would accuse him, and he would have to live with it. Such was the responsibility of a war chief, to explain to the grieving that there was no other option, that they had to defeat the enemy or there would be no Clan Wattel.

His gaze fell on his daughter's face, so stern, so beautiful, so focused on the bandages she was cutting. Something had been taken from her forever by the battle. Something fey and silvery and young was gone and replaced by something of iron and steel and hard ground.

She said little, changing the dressings on his wounds. Fortunately the bleeding from the neck had stopped, there was no need for surgery there.

Eilsa herself had been in the fight on two occasions, and had struck furious blows against the rough, square shields of the imps that had sought to take her during a break in the line of the Fird.

She had lopped off the hand of one who had seized her leg, and she remembered her sense of horror at that moment. Yet to be captured and taken away by those imps would have been a horror far greater and of endless duration.

There were cook fires lit and cauldrons of wheat noodles were boiled and served with leeks roasted in the embers and some Livolese wine that had been brought up from the cellars of Castle Wattel.

The dragons had finished their chant, and the great majority of men were fast asleep when Captain Eads returned from the pursuit. He ate a quick meal and then went at once to Ranard's tent.

Ranard roused himself and sat up. Eilsa brought the captain inside and showed him a seat on a folding stool across from Ranard's cot.

"The name Wattel will always live in my heart," he said. "Truly did your people fight valiantly today. My men and I owe them a great debt."

"I thank you, Captain, for such pretty speech. The Clan Wattel stood firm, despite the cost."

Eads nodded grimly. "Well do I know that. And it has cost my men as well, not to forget the dragons. A hard fight, indeed."

"Never have I seen a harder."

"I am afraid that for my men it will not be the last fight in this campaign. We must go on, as quickly as possible."

Ranard's wits had not been dulled by his wounds. "You speak of Arneis?"

"I do. I must get my men and dragons there as quickly as I can. I head for the Kohon Pass in the morning. I ask your leave to abandon the refugees to your care. They will only slow us up."

"You plan to join the legion Host on the other side?"

"If I can. Every sword arm will be needed there. I fear the very worst has happened. The enemy will have to be stopped there, the odds will be great."

Ranard fought down his first response. In agony he suppressed what he wanted to say, and merely mumbled platitudes and hopes for the safety of Eads and his men and dragons.

"We will take in the refugees, of course. May the Great Mother protect you and bring you victory."

Eads went out soon after, and Ranard was left with a peculiar agony burning in his heart. To get to Arneis there were several ways, and the shortest of all was known to Ranard, and only two other living men of the clan. It was the greatest of the clan's secrets from the ancient times. Ranard could not bring himself to give it up, although he deeply wished to help Eads and his men. The hidden entrance to the Dark Stair was but five leagues away, and down below, in the deeps, it opened on the underground river, Eferni, which flowed to the Danding Pool in Arneis, on the other side of massive Mt. Livol. But to tell of this to a living soul, other than to his successor, was a crime too great to be borne, and Ranard quailed at it.

In the morning, Captain Eads made a quick inspection of the men and the dragons. Despite his deep desire to move on as quickly as possible, he realized that a day of rest was absolutely essential. Everyone was too worn, too sore, too battered, to march that day.

They were perhaps forty miles from the Kohon Pass, and from the pass it would be another forty miles before they came down into the vale of Dandelin in Upper Arneis. Eads retired to his own tent to examine a map of the route and plan for the march.

Relkin rose late, fed the dragon, and hauled water despite a great number of aches and pains. His sword arm was sore, and the bruise above his elbow was already purple. He pressed a pad soaked in Old Sugustus to the cuts on his leg and sucked in a breath at the sting. When he was finished with his own wounds, he turned to Bazil's and changed a dozen big bandages on the dragon's hide. Despite leather joboquin, chain mail, breastplate, vambraces, cuisses, and elbow guards the dragon had still taken a lot of punishment. In particular, there were nasty bite wounds on the tail, and Relkin packed them with honey after a thorough cleansing with Old Sugustus. Throughout, Bazil remained calm, although Relkin could sense that the leatherback was preoccupied. "Big fight" was all he would say, though.

When it was over, he took up his great sword Ecator and a whet stone and began to work over the blade. Ecator had come through in perfect shape. Relkin marveled again at how Ecator came through fight after fight with nary a notch in that gleaming swathe of white steel. Truly the sword was inhabited by a wild and perfect spirit.

Elsewhere there was nothing but damage. Both their shields were much cut about. His own sword was notched, and one of Bazil's tail maces had broken just below the head. There was a dent in Bazil's helmet.

Relkin piled it up before taking it down to the smithy for repairs.

"I liked Rusp," Baz suddenly murmured. Relkin looked back to the dragon, and their eyes met for a moment and then he went on.

The camp was quiet. Even the great Purple Green was subdued, submitting to the ministrations of Manuel concerning a nasty cut on the lower back.