Fortress Draconis (66 page)

The gibberers broke and dashed into alleys or sprinted down streets. Adrogans dispatched riders to kill those they could, then scout out the city. His intelligence from the Vorquelves had been good but old, and while he was fairly certain the walls had demanded three-quarters of the defenders in the city, that still left a battalion gathered somewhere. He needed to find it and destroy it before the leader could disperse it with orders to fire the city and slaughter the inhabitants.

Adrogans quickly dismounted and entered the building being used to evacuate the hostages. He passed through the packed crowd of Vorquelves, doing his best to ignore haunted faces, and worked his way to the roof. He took quick comfort in the fact that he saw no golden glow betokening buildings burning, but he had no confidence that that situation would last.

A Guarnin captain tossed him a hasty salute. “They’re going fast, General. We’ve lost a few—to arrows, to just being weak and dropping off lines—but most are escaping two a minute, each line.”

Adrogans nodded, then called out to a Gyrkyme who landed to drop off more of the bracers. “I need you to overfly the city. I need to know where the enemy is gathering.”

The Warhawk nodded and set off, quickly vanishing in the night. As he waited for her return, Adrogans watched Vorquelves come to the roof, get secured on the lines, and launched. Some screamed in terror, and a few in delight, which caused smiles to blossom all around.

The Warhawk returned and pointed toward the center of the town. “They gather there, General. If we had more firecocks…”

Adrogans waved her remark away. “Go east. Find General Caro and give him my compliments. Tell him they are in the market square and will be oriented south. Tell him to use the Kingsmen as well.”

She launched herself into the night again and Adrogans made his way back down to the street. He dispatched two riders to bear the same message to Caro, then gathered his legion and headed north toward the market square. His troops filled the road five abreast, expanding to ten as the streets widened near the market.

It surprised Adrogans that the windows above remained shuttered and darkened. The lack of curiosity of the inhabitants puzzled him. He shivered when considering that most places might be empty. Or, worse, that the population’s spirits had been so shattered that nothing could bring them hope.

At the edge of the market he halted his troops. Three hundred Aurolani infantry filled the market square. Most were gibberers, with a vylaen for every ten. Scattered throughout were a handful of hoargoun. Adrogans suspected the giants had been in residence in the huge temple to Erlinsax at the west end of the square. The open arched doorway would have admitted them without having to lower their heads.

Adrogans rode forward of his line. “Throw down your weapons, strike your banners.”

The gibberers hooted and hollered at his command. Their legion banners were boosted higher in the air and waved, part defiance, part taunt. Vylaens snapped orders and ranks closed. Shields and spears deployed on the front

FORTRESS DRACONrS

facing him. One hoargoun bent down and then straightened up with a long granite curbstone in his hands, ready to hurl. In their movements Adrogans almost read a nobility, but that vanished with his recollection of the Vorquelf falling to her death.

Then Caro’s Horse Guards burst into the square from the east, catching the Aurolani formation in the flank. The charge drove a huge wedge into the formation. The hurled curbstone did take down several horses and riders, but couldn’t blunt the attack. Vylaens shouted more orders, trying in vain to reorient their troops.

Then the Okrans Kingsmen hit from the north. The Kingsmen literally sheered off a third of the Aurolani battalion, driving it back toward the temple, then encircling it and shrinking it until finally even the last embattled hoargoun went down.

Adrogans did deploy his Horse Guards, but only let them police the square’s perimeter, picking off fleeing Aurolani troops. His people could have added nothing to the main fight and would have only robbed Caro of a full sense of victory.

The Jeranese general slowly let a breath out.It would appear we did win here this evening, and the butcher’s bill won’t be too high. The next move would be Chytrine’s, and Adrogans shivered.The price exacted for winning the city was light, but the charge for keeping it, I have the feeling, will be very dear indeed.

ill stared at the creature standing opposite Vionna at the far end of the table.That thing is my father? He shivered, feeling cold ooze into his marrow. As much as he had come to accept being a Norrington, and eventhe Norrington, having the orphan’s dream of some wonderful father coming to claim him replaced by having to acknowledge this thing as his father came hard.

He shook his head.That’s the thing that consumed my father. I refuse to he his son.

Alexia, who stood on Will’s right, between him and Lombo, turned to face Vionna. Will took that as a sign of her trust in him, for she wore a dagger at the small of her back. It would have been simple to draw it and plunge it into her.If I were my father’s son …

The princess lifted her chin. “You want us to name a price for that portion of the DragonCrown? How do you know we will pay? How can you trusther agent to pay?”

Vionna seated herself in the tall chair and leaned back, bringing her booted feet up onto the table. She held the sapphire before her as if it were a crystal goblet of wine, turning it to admire the light moving in it. “Well, Alexia, I would trust you if you gave me your word—and if you remained behind as my guest until the price was delivered. As for Chytrine, I have ample evidence that she rewards those who serve her rather well.”

Crow forced a laugh. “You need only look down the table to see your reward.”

Thesullanciri bowed his head graciously. For a heartbeat light played in those blue eyes as it did in the sapphire, then they went dead. “To rule all that is small, or a small part of the all. One option to choose, one option to lose.”

Resolute stood opposite Alexia, between the Azure Spider and Crow. He glanced at thesullanciri. “Is that your bid, then, a portion of all Chytrine will conquer?”

“Still full of unrest, fury clogging your breast, Resolute seeks to contest where acquiescence is best.” Nefrai-laysh slowly grinned, then lifted a turtle to see what awaited him at his place. “If the bid pleases her heart, it’s good for my start.”

“It pleases my heart greatly, thank you.” Vionna lifted an eyebrow and looked to Alexia. “Your turn.”

“He bids the future, a future he does not own. Chytrine’s conquests will be contested; she will lose.”

“But not if she has this, will she?” Vionna laughed lightly. “Here is the trick. Even if I were to give this to you, Alexia, and your fine band of heroes here, you would never use it. You would never command dragons, and without them, you could not prevail against Chytrine and her allies. So, yes, he promises that which he does not have, which his Mistress does not have, but is more likely to get if she is given this portion of the crown.”

Will shivered again as the cold calculation of Vionna’s words sank into him. Across the table the Azure Spider listened and nodded, his expression betraying no surprise at her words. He had clearly heard them before, had reckoned on their value, and, it seemed clear to Will, had agreed with her reasoning even before the robbery. In fact, in the absence of such a discussion, Will could not imagine the Azure Spider having undertaken such an adventure.

That portion of the DragonCrown in Chytrine’s hands would mean suffering and death for thousands. Stories of the misery of Svoin’s residents, of the melting of the town of Porasena, even visions of the dragons at Vilwan, all these made clear to Will the evil that Chytrine could wreak with that piece of the DragonCrown. To think about that and further undertake to get it into her hands marked a level of depravity Will had not heard of outside terror tales for children—and those were all clearly fiction.

Crow usurped Alexia’s answer by pointing past Orla and Kerrigan toward thesullanciri. “So you would become like him, willingly supping on the suffering of the world? He was once a man, you know, an honorable man.”

Thesullanciri looked up from a picked-over bird carcass and snarled. “By a friend laid low, as well you know. It was quite the blow, Crow, and you can’t say it’s not so. A man I once was, and ne’er again will be, but better to be this, than to skulk about as thee.”

Nefrai-laysh sucked on his fingers from where he’d been tearing meat from the fowl, then nodded. “Have they no bid, no treasure hid, to sate avarice thine? Then end the game, a winner name; the gem goes to Mistress mine.”

It occurred to Will, in a heartbeat, that Vionna had never intended to auction off the gem. Nefrai-laysh had ar- Ś rived to take possession of it. Vionna would next offer them to Chytrine’s lieutenant. And for this band to fall to Chytrine would be even more of a blow to their allies than the loss of the crown fragment.

He couldn’t allow that to happen.

Even as he reached his conclusion, a whirring buzz sounded in the chamber. In the corner of his left eye Will caught a flash of green as Qwc flew between the ankles of a pirate at the stairs, then vanished beneath the table. Will raised his right hand as the Spritha popped up before

Vionna, beating his wings furiously as he stopped, then spat a mouthful of webbing in her face.

The pirate screeched and clawed at her face as her chair tipped and began to fall. Qwc neatly plucked the gem from her hand and started to fly back, but the weight of the gold turned his flight into a fall, which landed him with a thump on the platter that had held the gem. The Azure Spider clapped the turtle back down, trapping the Spritha.

That would have ended the brief drama save for Will sliding the dagger from the sheath on Alexia’s back. In one fluid motion he whipped the blade forward. The knife was a thick, cumbersome thing with no balance at all, but it flew as Will wanted it, smacking thesullanciri full in the face. Nefrai-laysh staggered back, more from surprise than hurt since the hilt had hit flat across his face, then laid his right hand to a swordhilt and drew a longsword that moaned piteously.

Resolute swung a fist, catching the Azure Spider full in the chest and knocking him back away from the table. The Spider went down, but slewed his legs around and came back up. He drew a swept-hilted longsword with an extraordinarily narrow blade, then lunged at Resolute. The Vorquelf parried with one of his longknives, and lunged with the one in his left hand. The Azure Spider danced back adroitly and parried, carving a little curl of steel from Resolute’s blade.

Crow swept past Kerrigan and Orla, bringing Tsamoc to hand. He intercepted the cut Nefrai-laysh had meant to kill the warmage, then parried it high and chopped back down at Nefrai-laysh’s right leg. Thesullanciri retreated quickly, but not quite quickly enough. Crow’s straight blade nicked him, spraying black blood that smoked when it hit the ground.

“I bleed, I plead, but you will die, say I.” Chytrine’s creature attacked, whipping his blade about quickly, as if it were a willow wand. Crow parried one cut and let another slip past his left flank. He tried to spin away from the reverse slash, but bumped into Kerrigan, knocking the corpulent youth against the table. Nefrai-laysh’s slash sliced through Crow’s multiple shirts, tracing a thin and reddening line over his right hip.

“Ah, just for thee, a scar to cross the three!” thesullanciri brayed.

Kerrigan’s bashing into the table proved providential. Lombo had already turned away and had armed himself with two bags of gold coins, which he used as flails against several pirates. Alexia had drawn her sword and engaged Vionna, likewise moving away from the table. Dranae, to Will’s left, had picked up an iron candlestand and was using it to duel with two pirates while Orla thrust her right hand at another, triggering a gout of brilliant flame that engulfed him for a heartbeat.

The only member of the pirate crew left unaccounted for was Nacker, who had bounded up on the table. He grabbed the turtle covering Qwc in his right hand, and had a serving fork in the left, ready to spit the Spritha. Kerrigan’s bounce against the table shifted it enough to topple candelabra and the dwarf. The turtle came off, Qwc spat a mask of webbing into Nacker’s face, then looked at Will. “Help Qwc, quick.”

Will grabbed the edge of the table in both hands and vaulted himself up to kick the dwarf squarely in the chest with both feet. The dwarf grunted and flew past Resolute as the Vorquelf trapped the Azure Spider’s blade between his longknives, then shoved the slighter man back. Reaching out, Will grabbed the platter on which Qwc lay and slung it down the table to Kerrigan.

The spinning Spritha’s scream all but eclipsed Will’s shout of “Help Qwc.” The thief scrambled to his feet on the table and grabbed the turtle in both hands before leaping off. He brought the turtle down with all his might, clanging it over the Azure Spider’s head. The man groaned, then collapsed as Will’s body slammed into him. Will rolled off the legendary thief and came up into a crouch with his back against a thick stone column.

At the head of the table Vionna and Alexia dueled. Their blades matched in length, giving Alyx an advantage in reach. Vionna turned her lunges, but only at the last moment, and more than once retreated, trading ground for whole skin. Ground quickly surrendered however, as her retreat backed her against an open chest of gold coins. She sat down abruptly and Alexia approached with her blade leveled at the woman’s throat. “Yield or die.”

Nefrai-laysh drove at Crow, coming in at an angle that kept the man trapped against the edge of the table. Crow parried one slash, but kissed the table with his blade as he moved to block the next blow. Thesullancirts next cut would have laid him open hip to hip, but Resolute lunged forward, sliding on his knees, and deflected the blow. The Aurolani’s blade sliced through the longknife as if it were smoke, then came up and around in an overhand blow that pared three-quarters of Resolute’s other longknife away.

Resolute threw the hilts at Nefrai-laysh. Thesullanciri batted one wide, but the other thumped against his chest. Resolute twisted to his feet and backed away, but Chytrine’s plaything advanced, slashing. Resolute leaped away again and again, but each cut came closer to separating him up from down.