Dragonsbane (Book 3) (51 page)

She’d gotten no mercy the first time, and she would get no mercy the second.

Titus closed his eyes and touched his collar, letting the windows of his falcons overtake his vision. They circled the battlefield and watched the Wright’s army through unblinking eyes.

The seas men’s volley was merely a distraction. They stood well out of the reach of Titus’s archers and their arrows clattered harmlessly against the castle walls, whipped away by the howling winds. His falcon sharpened its gaze at the wall’s base, where a handful of savages were using the pirates’ attack as an opportunity to try and scale the mortar.

“Eastern wall — a volley over the edge!” Titus commanded. He watched as his soldiers leaned over the walls and sent their arrows straight down.

The savages managed to dodge and went sprinting back to the seas men, their eyes wide with fear.

A few slings from the catapult kept the giants at bay. Those stupid oafs yelped and scattered when the first of the firebombs landed. They lumbered away until they stood safely at the edge of his range. One of them — their leader, judging by how much he bellowed — was several heads shorter than the rest. He also appeared to be drunk.

Titus watched the clumsy movements of the giant-leader’s scythe and nearly rolled his eyes at how easy it was going to be. The giants might’ve been able to stand out of reach of his catapults, but their thick legs had no chance against his beasts. They would be overtaken and torn to shreds by evening.

Yes, the two edges of the Wright’s army would be easy prey for Titus’s wolves. The only real challenge of it all would be in dealing with the center.

Wedged in the middle of the three forces was the head led by the Dragongirl.  Her savages had their eyes locked on the front gates. He watched in interest as some of them scooped up the blue stone at the base of the ridge. They molded it in their hands like clumps of snow before tossing it to others — who hurled them directly at Titus’s gates.

He grinned as he watched large chunks of the wood splinter and fall away. The savages were going to make quick work of the gates. They’d be through in less than an hour’s time. He thought it was a pity that whisperers couldn’t be magicked into his service. There was no end to what he might accomplish, had he been able to control them as easily as he controlled his beasts.

The Dragongirl paced with her white sword drawn, bellowing orders to the craftsmen — while the woman with the two-headed axe stalked behind the warriors.

Her stare was fixed on Titus. It was strange to watch from above, to be able to see the fury in her glare and see himself through the window’s grate — calm and close-eyed.

It’d been so easy to crumple her before. The moment she’d seen her people torn to shreds, she’d given up the fight. He’d expected her to be more cautious at this second meeting. The fact that her warriors stood so far from the gates told him that she was being careful.

But once the gates splintered and gave way, the temptation would be far too great. There’d be nothing left in her way, nothing to stop the fury behind those eyes from spilling out. She’d chase after her rage, follow it straight through the tower’s maw.

Titus would let her pass … but the savages behind her wouldn’t be so lucky.

When she saw her army erupt in flame, she would be broken. She’d stare in shock as their blackened, mangled bodies were scattered across the ridge. She would lose her voice, and the remainder of the savages would lose their leader.

His beasts would rain terror down upon them. They would devour the giants and the seas men. The rest of the savages would fall to a slew of poisoned arrows. Whatever remained of the Wright’s army would be driven into the frozen wastes, where winter would consume them. Titus would win this battle with a single blow — a single, calculated blast.

A screech sounded high above him, and Titus’s eyes locked onto the window of one of his falcons. It circled the back wall of his keep. While his eyes had been on the giants’ attack, a band of savages had darted out from behind their hulking shoulders.

They’d scurried between frosted boulders until they reached the back wall. Now they’d begun to scale the blue rock beneath the keep. Their hands worked with furious speed: flattening the jagged crests, digging a sloping path up towards the keep’s base.

“Clever little savages,” Titus murmured as he watched them reach the stone. Then he switched to a different window — one that overlooked a small army of beasts waiting in the courtyard. He found the set of eyes that towered above the rest and forced his command into them. “To the keep, Marc! Find those little rats and crush their skulls. Don’t let them free the Wright!”

*******

Screams bounced off the walls. The shadows beneath the door’s crack vanished as the soldier dove from his post. Seconds later, something heavy slammed into the door — testing its flattened hinges.

Kael stood just beyond the opening at the edge of the ramp. On his right, the villagers were scrambling down the slope to safety. On his left, a large group of craftsmen had all but disappeared into the rock. They dug like wolves, tearing huge chunks of stone-ice out from beneath the keep’s base and flinging it behind them, straight into the bottomless mouth of The Drop.

They moved against the ledge like a gigantic axe: the craftsmen chipped away, widening the split between in keep’s foundation and the ledge. It wasn’t long before the weight of the keep began to put strain on the thin layer of stone-ice left at its base. The whole tower groaned dangerously; its broken top shifted against the shrieks of the wind.

Now the V that the craftsmen dug had grown so wide that large chunks of stone-ice began cracking from the ceiling. The keep moaned, swaying like a tree. Kael glanced up to see how much longer they might have to dig — and instead, he saw quickly that their time was up.

Screams split the air above them as Titus’s monsters clambered over the keep’s top. They galloped down the walls on all fours, digging in with their dagger-like claws. Their twisted muscles swelled against the pull of The Drop. Thick streams of white trailed from between their fangs as they howled for blood.

Kael watched the tower sway and groaned when he realized what would happen when the monsters reached the keep’s base — when their collective, thundering weight put strain on the tower’s weakness.

There was no time to waste.

“Move!” he roared, waving to the craftsmen.

They scrambled out from the V and charged down the ramp. Kael stayed to help pull the last of the villagers out of the keep. Their panicked faces passed him in a blur. He could hear the monsters’ panting growing closer above him. And to make matters worse, whatever was crashing into the door was nearly through: the whole thing held on by its latch and middle hinge.

No sooner had Kael pulled the last of the villagers through the wall than the door broke — and Marc came bursting out.

Kael dove beneath his massive claws and back into the keep just as Titus’s monsters reached its base. The floors rocked like a ship caught in a tempest. He heard the panicked wails of beasts and saw several of their twisted bodies fall into The Drop as the tower lurched. A mighty
crack
split the floors into two. He saw the bristled end of Marc’s tail disappearing over the top of the hole, and Kael knew he had no choice but to run.

All the images he’d seen in the craftsmen’s memories burst to the front of his mind, jolted to life by his panic. His legs thundered beneath him. His muscles bent and twisted, carrying him over man-wide splits in the floor — curving as the keep tilted.

The floors became the walls. The walls became the floors. Kael leapt over torch sconces. He ducked into an enclave to avoid a wave of soldiers. They screamed and fell down the hall, dragged by the weight of their armor. One man hurtled straight into the edge of the enclave. Kael heard a
clang
and a sickening crunch as The Drop swept the body away.

Kael was still several yards from the door when the keep tilted to its final angle — the only floor was suddenly a hundred feet beneath him. So he had no choice but to climb.

His holds were clumsy, dug out by the frantic grasping of his hands. The warrior in him calmed the craftsman. His eyes found the best places to hold, his feet moved surely. The keep door was directly above him — a gap of light at the top of a cellar’s steps.

Kael hurled himself up the final few feet. His hands grasped. His arms pulled him over. The keep was still shifting, groaning towards The Drop. His legs jolted into a sprint. He ran across the keep’s outer wall and dove for the ramparts. The guards stationed along its top cried out, scattering to avoid him.

The world shook violently as his boots touched the ground and the keep broke free, tumbling straight into The Drop. Kael’s body flew forward — catching its weight on his shoulder and smoothing it with a roll. No sooner had he leapt to his feet than arrows hissed by his ears. He charged the Earl’s soldiers with a roar, donning his dragonscale armor as he went.

His arm exploded through the first man’s chest and the rest of the soldiers tore off with a scream, shouting at the tops of their lungs: “Fall back! The Wright’s escaped! Fall back to the gates!”

Chapter 47

Wolfstomp

“Run!
Run
, you fools!” Titus bellowed the moment the keep began to shake. He had both hands clamped upon his collar. The gold bit into the pads of his fingers as he roared, as he tried to will his beasts to safety.

Half of the windows showed beasts that managed to cleave to the ramparts and the cliff side, to find their way to solid ground — a sheet of gray sky consumed the rest. Clouds whipped by. Dying shrieks raked against his ears as his beasts fell for an eternity. The last thing Titus saw was the maw of the northern seas. One by one the windows went to black as his beasts’ bodies were crushed against the ice-capped waves.

Titus’s eyes snapped open as he groped for the relief of his own sight. In a single blow, the Wright had destroyed half of his army of beasts. But he’d done far worse than that: nearly all of his army’s supplies for the winter now lay in the depths of the northern seas, drowned along with the keep.

With the back of his fortress gone, the barracks were open and vulnerable to the howling winds. Titus felt its breath hiss through the windows and cross the nape of his neck, but steeled himself against it.

The Wright may have left him vulnerable to winter, but it’d cost him his life. He’d watched through Marc’s eyes as the Wright scrambled back inside the keep and to his death. Titus would replace his army’s supplies with the spoils of battle. They would take refuge within the stone village. All was not lost —

“Fall back! The Wright’s escaped! Fall back to the gates!”

Impossible.

Titus lunged to the western window and saw a lone figure barreling across the ramparts. His arms swung furiously beside him, trailing arcs of red behind his every blow as he hacked his way through Titus’s soldiers.

He watched a sword shatter against the Wright’s chest and howled his curses. D’Mere had deceived him. Her poison hadn’t worked! Now the Wright was as powerful as ever — and he was charging straight for the tower.

But he could still be stopped. “Catapults — aim for the ramparts! Bring him down!”

They scrambled to obey, working frantically to lower their aim while more soldiers raced up the steps to crowd the ramparts. With their keep destroyed, his wolves seemed to realize that the only way they would survive would be to kill the Wright.

And they would give their lives to stop him.

Titus was about to send his beasts into the fray when a familiar, earth-shattering roar broke him from his concentration. He lunged to the northern windows and saw the Dragongirl had taken to her wings. She rose over the walls and spat fire into the courtyard — heading straight for the catapults.

Titus bared his teeth in a grin. She’d just given him an unexpected opportunity to hobble the Wright. “Now, archers!”

He’d had a ring of soldiers hidden at the tower’s top, crouched beneath the walls and waiting with a single purpose: to destroy the Dragongirl.

Their cries rang above him and he watched as a volley of arrows left the tower’s top. They were arrows he’d made especially for her — tipped with dragonsbane heads.

Three of the arrows struck the Dragongirl’s wing. Her flame stopped short of the catapults as she twisted in mid-air, writhing against the pain. Titus watched as her wings faltered — as she drifted clumsily over the wall and landed hard in the field beneath him. He growled in triumph when he heard the Wright scream:

“Kyleigh!”

He was broken now. Oh yes, his strength would wane just as it had at the river. He would be unfocused, vulnerable. And while his heart was broken, Titus would rip it from his chest.

Wood creaked above him as his archers drew the ending volley —

“Ah!”

The crunch of bone and the sharp clap of rock sounded overhead. Archers tumbled past his window, limp and trailing gore — bludgeoned to death by a volley of ice-blue stones. He heard the savages howl in triumph and at the same moment, heard his catapults loose their jars.

Screams rent the air as a sea of orange-blue flame consumed the ramparts — devouring his soldiers along with the Wright. He watched their writhing bodies for a moment, basking in the Dragongirl’s agonized roar. Titus drank in his victory with a howl. Now that the Wright finished, he could carry out his plan for the savages.

Titus was marching towards the rampart doors when one of his soldiers cried: “Your — Your Earlship!”

He sprinted back to the windows and watched in horror as his soldiers’ burning corpses tumbled into the courtyard — thrust away by the Wright. His body was engulfed in flame, but he charged forward. He broke free of the corpses and burst into a sprint …

“Move! Get out of my way!” Cold strangled Titus’s limbs as he hurled himself out the door and onto the opposite ramparts. He ran as far and as fast as his legs would carry him, his teeth gritted against what he knew would happen next.

But no matter how he tried to brace himself, the blast still knocked him off his feet.

The earth shook and ice sprayed out in a wave as the tower exploded. Rocks the size of men burst out and tumbled down the ridge. The stone bit Titus’s knees as the force of the explosion knocked him to the ground. The few soldiers that’d managed to escape the blast
clang
ed down hard behind him, dragged off their feet by the weight of their armor.

Titus twisted onto his back, dragged himself to his feet and saw, with a horror that froze his limbs, a burning streak erupt from the tower’s
remains and begin charging its way towards him. He heard the savages’ wild cries. He watched from the corner of his eyes as they clamored over the blazing ruins and into the courtyard to battle what remained of his beasts. But the Wright’s stare consumed the rest of his vision.

His eyes were made darker by the fires that danced across his skin — a blackened gaze untouched by flame. They stayed locked onto Titus the whole while he fought. Heads rolled from the sweep of his arms. Bodies crumpled at his feet. The orange-blue flame ate across his jerkin, but the Wright’s stare never faltered.

At last, the final paltry line of his soldiers fell to the Wright’s fury. Titus heard the wails of his beasts as they fought desperately against the savages, and he knew that victory was out of his grasp.

The last of the Wright’s flames died to the breath of winter. The red mark that cut down his chest showed clearly through the charred holes in his tunic. His hands hung empty at his sides. His eyes glinted furiously from beneath the crop of his reddish hair.

Titus did the only thing he could do, the only defense he had left: he lowered his gaze … and fell to his knees. “I could be a powerful ally to you, Wright. The Kingdom is ours for the taking. With my help, the crown could be yours —”

“I don’t care a whit about the crown.” His words were as biting as the winter, his voice no more forgiving than stone. “You’ve already taken the Kingdom, Titus. You’ve shed its blood and strangled its children. You’ve wrung the tears from its eyes. I’ve seen the scars of your
power
in every hold across the realm.”

He took a step forward, and Titus brought his chin from the ground to meet his eyes. There had to be something there — some weakness he may have overlooked. He’d been able to find mercy in Setheran’s eyes … but there was no mercy in his son’s.

Instead, the warrior’s edge had been refined, sharpened until it glinted like steel. His fury lay unsheathed inside his glare, never to be covered. And Titus knew before he even spoke that he would not escape death that day …

For Death looked him in the eyes.

“I’m going to kill you, Titus,” the Wright growled. “Not for power, not for vengeance — but for the Kingdom’s sake. For the simple reason that as long as you’re dead, everything that’s good in this realm has a chance.”

In that moment, Titus knew he was beaten. He knew there would be no escape. The Wright raised his arm, brought it above his head …

No
! No, Titus refused to die this way. He wouldn’t die kneeling before a whisperer — he would stand. He would fight to his last breath. He would fight once more for the glory of men!

His sword hissed as he drew it from its sheath. The blade struck the Wright’s upraised arm and shattered. The hilt jarred from his hand. A resounding
crack
echoed in his chest as the Wright’s fist shattered his ribs. Titus’s back struck the ground hard.

Pain stabbed him with his every breath. He gaped at the swirling gray sky, blinked against the flakes of snow that drifted to melt against his skin. Blood coated his tongue with its peculiar, metallic tang. The agony in his chest railed so fiercely that his body began to numb rather than try to take it in.

The Wright’s face appeared above him. His eyes watched mercilessly as Titus struggled to breathe. His boot came up, arching high over Titus’s chest, and he knew what was coming.

When he tried to beg, a fresh spurt of blood clogged his throat.
Please
, he thought furiously.
Please — not like this. Allow me to stand. Let me take up my sword!

But the Wright couldn’t hear him. He never faltered in his stride. And so with blow that shook the mountain’s top, Titus went to meet Death.

*******

Kael watched as Titus’s eyes darkened and his body stilled. The Earl’s breastplate had collapsed beneath Kael’s boot, crushing his ribs and innards. A scarlet puddle formed beneath the Earl’s tunic. It spread eagerly across the mortar and stone, only stopping when it froze.

For a moment, Kael breathed deeply. The molten beast inside his chest cooled and sank beneath the rivers of his blood. He grinned when he heard the craftsmen howling from the field:

“Wolfstomp! Wolfstomp!”

He raised his fist, and they howled all the more.

Then he heard Nadine cry out in warning: “They are coming over the walls!”

With Titus dead, his beasts seemed to have found a new leader. Marc’s great bristling body disappeared over the ramparts — followed quickly by the remaining horde of beasts. The wildmen gave chase but couldn’t follow as the monsters vaulted over the walls.

Above them, the falcons screeched furiously. The first fell from the sky in a black bolt. Its pointed beak hung open, its talons stretched out. Both of its monstrous eyes were locked onto the villagers.

In the instant before it could strike its mark, Declan leapt into its path. The falcon split from around the upraised edge of his scythe in nearly two perfect halves. “Steady on, you clodders — protect the wee mountain rats!”

The giants wrapped tightly around the villagers, their scythes pointed outwards towards the hurtling bloodtraitors like the jagged maw of some gluttonous beast.

Kyleigh galloped towards them with a roar. Yellow flame spewed from her mouth and arced high, reducing the falcons to cinders. Their bodies tumbled out of the sky like fallen stars and crashed into the snow with hisses and puffs of steam.

The pirates were running to the giants’ aid; the wildmen were leaping over the ruins of the shattered gate. Kael sprinted as fast as his legs would carry him, prepared to leap from the ramparts and onto Marc’s bristling back —

Snow and ice burst from the field before the giants in a monstrous wave. A beast with a dragon’s head and a great, furry-white body lunged out and snapped at Marc. It was only by the panic of his long limbs that Marc was able to hurl himself to the side — and the beast’s great jaws clamped around the body of a weasel instead.

Kael heard the crunch from the ramparts, watched the iron on the weasel’s chest get torn and twisted between the monster’s jaws before it spat its mangled body away and snapped down for seconds.

More snow burst up, more creatures lunged out. Their backs were covered in ice-blue scales. The spikes that ran down their stout tails crushed the bloodtraitors’ twisted heads. Wherever their claws pounded down, they left crimson stains and mangled limbs behind. One drove its horned head into the snow like a battering ram, flattening three beasts beneath it.

In the midst of all the chaos, Marc had nearly escaped. Kael caught sight of his reddened body as he fled over the hill and charged after him. But Gwen got there first.

The two-headed axe flew from her hand, whistling towards Marc. There was a hollow
thud
as it struck him between the shoulders. His twisted body crumpled to the ground. He howled piteously, struggling under its edge as Gwen marched over to him. She wrenched the blade from his back and raised it high. Kael looked away as it fell.

Marc’s screams were cut short. He heard the thud of the axe falling twice more. When he dared to look back, Gwen hefted Marc’s severed claws above her head. “I’ve killed him! I’ve slain the red devil!”

The wildmen let out a triumphant howl.

Gwen’s eyes darkened quickly as she began marching towards the dragon-like creatures. Their battle was done: the last of Titus’s beasts lay slain in a twisted mass. Now the creatures stood noticeably before the giants — not threatening, but present. There was more warning in their ice-blue stares than bite.