Dragons of War (63 page)

Twice he obtained a little flare that smoked and went out.

"Hurry," said Manuel, his voice cracking slightly. The enemy ranks were clearly visible now beneath their torches.

Dragon Leader Turrent came up. He had passed on the idea to the others, and they were pouring stores of virgin olive oil over the barricades while men built bonfires in the road behind the barricade and prepared to set alight bales of cloth soaked in oil that they would throw over the barricade. Turrent had recovered his wits somewhat.

The enemy assault ground forward.

"More ogres this time," said Jak.

He could hardly be heard over the thunder of the drums and the blaring of the enemy horns.

The cornets were shrilling, too, and once more the enemy assault column came forward seeking to batter through the thin line of soldiers standing in its way.

At last Relkin got a flame to take, and he fed it more scraps of paper, and then more, and then a handful of hay. Jak contributed quickly and provided them with a furious little fire.

With this ablaze they waited, oiled rags in their hands, their eyes locked on the advancing horde. Ogres swayed over the rest.

"Did you hear?" said Jak.

"Casualties?" It was hardly a question.

"Anther was killed. His wound slowed him up."

"I'm sorry to hear that. Halm must be in a bad way."

"There's more. Tomas Black Eye was killed, and Swane was almost gutted by an imp."

"Tomas is dead? Ah, that is hard." Another veteran of the Ourdh campaign was gone.

"And Swane?"

"Wounded, but he'll live. They sewed him up. He wants to fight, but they won't let him."

"That sounds like Swane."

"I am saddened by the loss of Tomas," said Manuel.

The butcher's bill was already high and likely to rise, thought Relkin. Would any of them survive?

"They're getting close."

They looked at one another and then to Turrent. There was something wrong with the dragon leader. He was shaking his head and muttering.

"Sir," said Manuel.

Turrent did not respond at first. When he did turn his head, he stared at them blankly.

"All right, let's do it," said Relkin quietly.

They lit the rags, and tossed them over the wall. Soon there were dozens of small fires flickering in the brush, faggots heaped against the wall. Some went out, others merely smoked. The enemy ignored the threat.

Now imps were shoving their ladders against the wall once more while trolls came up to engage the dragons. And last there came the ogres, swinging those huge hammers.

Rock cracked and powdered under the blows. A second breach was blown through the wall. Smoke was rising up in several places from new burgeoning fire.

Imps straggled through the gap, and screaming with the rage induced by the black drink, hurled themselves at the defenders.

And then the oil soaking the lower part of the mound of debris caught at last. With a rush and a crackle, a wall of flame shot up above the wall.

Imps screamed, trolls roared, and ogres bellowed as they scrambled for safety. The heat was so intense that dragons and boys stood back at the inner edge of the earth bank inside the wall.

"Look!" screamed little Jak.

Two ogres had caught fire, so covered in the thick cloud of volatiles and flames that their very hides had been ignited. They stumbled backward, moving pillars of flame that stumbled and then fell to the ground where they thrashed and died.

The dragons hurled the remaining rocks and paving stones over the flames and into the midst of the enemy, which wavered at the edge of the wall of fire, and then backtracked, stumbling backward, foot by foot.

More oil was poured over the wall, and the fires grew, swelling higher and hotter.

The enemy fell back farther, and then the spell broke, and despite the black drink and the thunder of the drums, the assault column lost heart and collapsed back on itself and withdrew.

A frenzied cheer went up from the weary line of defenders as a fortune in virgin oil blazed furiously along the southern margin of the town.

In addition to a vast store of oil, the world had lost the great vineyards of Ard and Desoli, utterly destroyed under trolls and ogres. But the thin line of defenders still held Lennink and the road to Waldrach.

The enemy had no thought of giving up. A new, much heavier, assault was immediately put into preparation. Enemy troops poured through the forest of Rundel and lined up in the wheat fields.

General Lukash would waste no more time. He would commit half his army to the assault. They would lap around Lennink and take the defenders from the rear if they could not break through on the front.

In the hour on either side of dawn as the faggots turned to ash, they watched the enemy formations gathering at the margins of the woods. Regiment upon regiment of imps, with troops of trolls and small clusters of mighty ogres formed up on the trampled wheat.

Now they came on, and the drumming and blaring of horns soon made it all but impossible to hear anything less than a shout in the vintner's garden.

They tried to keep the blaze going outside the wall but without wood, the oil smoked rather than burned. The enemy came up over the mound of corpses and through the ash and smoking oil and clapped their ladders against the wall.

Up and down the line of the scarp, the imps surged forward, and on either side of the town, they lapped around the flanks and pushed in along the Fitou road. Eads had small forces to try and block the road, but they were forced back. Baguti cavalry were moving in from the direction of Waldrach. They were completely surrounded now.

In the vintner's garden they roused weary bodies to block the imps and trolls. For a while they held them in a seesaw contest that saw parts of the wall taken twice before being reclaimed. Then ogre hammers smashed down a ten-foot length of the wall, and a tidal wave of imps washed through.

Dragons fought a retreat through the garden, through the house, completely wrecking it, and out the gate into the street.

The enemy broke through at several other points along the line at about the same time, overwhelming force finally cracking the defense.

Ogres tramped forward, huge hammers ready to pound dragons down. Men and dragons made stand after stand, side by side, and gave up the ground very grudgingly; but gave it up they did.

It was a time of extraordinary feats. Alsebra slew three trolls with consecutive blows of her sword. Relkin saw the Purple Green belly to belly with an ogre, heaving it back. Their arms and shields were entangled, and they could not win free. It snapped at the wild dragon with its gaping jaws, lined with sharklike teeth.

The Purple Green matched its roar with his own while ducking away from its jaws, and then came back with a snakelike dart of his own jaws to fasten on the ogre's throat. He tore, left, right, and then away. The ogre emitted a shriek and fountained dark purple blood.

But the defenders were outmatched, almost overwhelmed. Poor Vlok was felled by an ogre's hammer and was hauled away by Chektor. Felo, a brasshide in the 33rd Kadein was slain by another ogre. Chut, a leatherback in the 66th Marneri, was run through by a sword troll and finished off by a swarm of imps.

Men of the Fird died all along the line, fighting bravely to the last, but they were overwhelmed by the numbers of the imps and the strength of the trolls. And in the end, there was always the power of the hammers of the ogres. Wherever men sought to hold a strong point—the front of a house, the water well in the sutler's yard—the hammers smashed and crushed and broke it to smithereens and drove the men out.

Captain Eads fought with them, in the vintner's garden when the wall had been lost. Then he fought inside the house until he was wounded in the thigh and was forced to stagger away for a tourniquet and a bandage. The Purple Green was hit hard by an ax troll but saved by his armor, which, though cut, did not give way entirely. He was pulled away by Manuel and some spearmen, and collapsed up the road toward the center of Lennink.

Almost unnoticed during the fight in the house, Relkin fell. Right after Bazil and Alsebra had combined to kill a sword troll and clear the main drawing room. Imps were pouring in behind them, however, so they backed out the broken open outer wall and neither noticed that Relkin was no longer with them.

Outside in the street, Bazil and Alsebra found themselves fighting in an alley with great Burthong of the 33rd at their side.

"Good to see you still live, Broketail!" said Burthong as his sword "Herak" whistled down and sundered an ax troll's shield.

"So we fight together now," said Bazil, while methodically defending himself from sword trolls and imps with long spears.

He cleared his front and looked around. The boy was gone. Bazil felt something like panic rise in his heart. Where was boy? The leatherback surged back toward the house, but was met by three fresh trolls and a dozen imps.

Jak had noticed Relkin's absence by that point, but before he could bring it up, a section of the alley wall collapsed and an ogre started forcing its way in behind them. Alsebra swung over to confront the monster, and they clashed shield to shield.

Alsebra was forced back a step and then another. With a squeal of effort, she dug in her heels and swung Undaunt in beautiful combinations, cutting the ogre's shield to pieces. The hammer came, and she responded by stepping inside, forcing her way past the ogre's shield and taking the dim-witted monster by surprise. Undaunt buried itself in the ogre's belly. She got her shoulder down and into its chest, pushed, and the thing toppled backward, falling into the gap in the wall and crushing a dozen imps in the process.

Many more imps were already loose in the alley, though. Alsebra felt an imp sword cut into her tail. She whipped around and beheaded the imp, but another sword slashed her left leg. Then another imp tried to work a spear through her joboquin.

Frantically she stamped and shook, and smashed them left and right. Jak killed one with a sword thrust and was almost slain in return by another.

Bazil slew one troll and staggered another, but he was surrounded by imps and felt their swords at his back. He lashed at them with tail mace and shield. Then an imp sword went home, deep into his thigh. He gave a grunt, knocked the imp away, and spun back. A troll struck in, and he barely deflected the stroke. He could not get through. An ogre was coming.

"Fall back" came the cry, and they did, abandoning the alley to the enemy and joining the main remnant of Eads's force, which was standing in battle line in front of the Vintner's Guild Hall, a solid building of limestone, three stories tall with a green copper roof.

There they made the last stand, denying the road to Waldrach, and with them hung the fate of the very world. One final ounce of effort, and it would be over. The enemy would march through to Waldrach and the destruction of Marneri.

The drums began to increase their thunder. An assault column was formed up, swords and hammers raised high as they drank the black drink. Then forward they came under a lofting cloud of arrows.

Relkin awoke to the sound of two men arguing in furious voices. He opened an eye and saw a white plaster wall and some floor. He opened the other eye to more wall. Dawn had broken, the light was getting stronger. His head throbbed. His last memory was of three imps cornering him and of his killing one of them.

Indeed, a dead imp was lying across his legs. Another lay wedged against his back.

He moved slightly and eased the pressure on his legs. His head throbbed ominously. He felt his helmet at his side where it had rolled. He inclined his head and noticed some blood on the helmet's lower rim. "

Cautiously he put a hand up to the back of his head. It'd been laid open, despite his helmet, and there was a heavy crust of drying blood there. They'd struck him down and left him for dead.

Relkin gave thanks to the Mother for the hardness of an orphan's head! Briefly he wondered if he should thank old Caymo, too.

He eased the dead imp off his legs and felt blood rushing back to his feet with a tingle of pins and needles. His head hurt horribly when he moved.

Throughout, the argument had continued without pause. They who argued were much too engrossed to take any notice of him. He shifted a little more and turned his head to survey the room.

The front parlor of the vintner's house had once been a lovely room filled with stuffed leather furniture and oak bookcases. It had been wrecked to the point that one wall was half-broken open. Kindling and shreds of leather were all that were left of the furniture.

The balustrade hung off the stairs, and the front door had been torn from its hinges. The bodies of imps and men littered the place.

The argument was continuing. Relkin pulled completely free from the encumbrance of the dead imp, got to his knees, and crawled slowly forward while wincing from the savage pins and needles in his legs.

His hand brushed against a sword hilt and instinctively grasped it. He looked at it dully and noted with surprise that it was his own blade.

Lifting it brought on another wave of pain, this time from his hand. He looked down and saw more blood and a huge, purpling bruise across the back of his hand. For a moment he was unable to move. Then, using the wall to hold onto, he hauled himself to his feet. His left leg almost gave way, and he wobbled for a moment.

Something came loose in his mouth; he spat it out and glimpsed a white tooth bounce across the floor. There was one for old Caymo, who was said to come and take your teeth twice in life, once when he brought you a sugar candy in childhood, and once when he took your teeth for good in old age. No sugar candy this time, however. Relkin shrugged inwardly. That was destiny for you.

To see the argument, he had but to lean around the edge of the doorway. The question was whether he could do that without falling over. He steeled himself and put his weight on his right leg, limped a step, and then took a peek.

The door opened onto a walled, hidden garden, built on the southern side of the vintner's house. Rosebushes grew along the walls, and the air was full of their scent.