Fortress Draconis (75 page)

The blast of a trumpet from the north cut off any reply Crow might have offered. Other trumpets repeated it urgently. Crow took Alexia’s hand and started sprinting with her through the Maze. The course forced them to run west a bit to go east again, but soon they reached the fortress’ outer wall and ran up the ramp to the eastern Lion battery.

Coming up over the hummock between Fortress Draconis and the smaller fort to the east, two riders raced along toward the main gate there to the southeast. Both men rode hard and one had an arrow sticking from his right shoulder. He wavered in his saddle a bit, but managed to hang on. The other rider waved her hand in a salute, then apparently gave some sort of hand signal that caused themeckanshü captain at the battery to call down to the gate and order it opened.

The narrow sally port in the gate swung open, admitting both riders. The wounded man swung from the saddle in the courtyard while his companion spurred her lathered horse on into the Maze. Alyx watched her go, then looked up and saw an Alcidese balloon rising on a tether above the Crown Tower. A basket hung beneath it with two observers, their attention focused to the north.

Alyx knew the two riders were scouts—that much was obvious. Equally obvious they’d been in a fight and rather ominous was the fact that a squad consisted of ten individuals. She couldn’t imagine part of the squad abandoning their fellows, unless the information they had was vital and the fight already lost.

Soon, a number of flags hung from the balloon. The breeze plucked at them, snapping them crisply. On top of the Crown Tower other flags rose and fell on a flagstaff there, apparently in answer to the signals from on high. Neither she nor Crow could figure out the exact information they conveyed, but both of them knew what was coming.

Within an hour their worst fears were confirmed. Chytrine’s host had come from the north, down through the Boreal Pass. Cavalry came first, with renegade men riding horses, and gibberers and vylaens on frostclaws black or white. Armored figures rode the grand temeryces, but their metal shells hid their identities. Still, a number were tall and slender enough to be taken for elves.

The cavalry came down into the plain just north of Draconis Pond, which warded a portion of the north wall. They formed up just beyond the range of the dragonels in the northeastern stronghold. Behind them came Chytrine’s artillery. Teams of a dozen frostclaws drew small dragonels, while drearbeasts in pairs or fours moved the larger weapons. The drearbeasts were of a size to make a full-grown bear seem to be little more than a yearling pup, and their white fur would have rendered them all but invisible in the frozen Aurolani wastes.

Wagons loaded with firedirt and shot for the dragonels came next, then infantry. Alexia had been used to ragged lines and unruly sounds coming from her enemies, but these troops moved smartly, with discipline and in silence. Their standard, a cloven ox skull painted red, was one she recognized from a variety of reports. While they had not always been victorious in their various raids, they had always fought hard.

Beyond them came a legion of large men and gibberers who shouldered weapons the like of which she had not seen before. “Crow, are those draconetteers?”

The older man raised a hand to shade his eyes, then slowly nodded. “You can see they’re carrying their draconettes and that other stick with the horns on the top. They rest the barrel of the draconette on it and shoot, then reload and shoot again. Accuracy isn’t much over fifty yards and the rate of shots is must slower than that of an archer.”

“Then why use them?”

Crow sighed. “Archery takes a lot of training, but shooting a draconette does not require so much.”

“You’ve fought against them before?”

He smiled. “I’ve eluded them before. I’ve never been hit, but I helped Resolute dig a ball out of another Vorquelf. The ball broke the arm and it hasn’t been quite right since. Got him some magick help, but too late.”

Alyx frowned. “But, Resolute, with all his magick, I would have thought…”

“Him, magick thatheals? No.” Crow stared hard at the smallest of the wheeled weapons that started to filter onto the plains. “I wonder what those are. I’ve not seen them before.”

She looked out, following his line of sight, and saw a series of two-wheeled metal things being pulled by a single frostclaw each. They looked nothing so much like a frog squatting with its mouth open, though most of the creatures decorating them were more reptilian and toothy than any frog. Clearly the weapons belonged in the dragonel family, but their exact purpose she could not puzzle out.

Legion after legion came into the field, with cavalry and heavy infantry screening the assembling artillery and supplies from the castle itself. The infantry set about digging trenches and using the dirt to create revetments, behind which dragonels and their volatile firedirt could be stored.

The Aurolani troops started to cheer, and Crow pointed north. “There she is, riding in the open this time.”

Alyx looked north and found herself staring at a woman driving a chariot drawn by two grand temeryces, flanked by two more, and followed by yet one more pair. She wore a rainbow cloak of semitransparent silk, while her gown was a wispy sky-blue and far better suited to a boudoir than a battlefield. Long golden tresses floated on the wind, as did her cloak and skirts. She seemed tall and strong and ageless, though Alyx admitted the considerable distance made all of those assessments suspect.

She saw Crow shift his shoulders. “What is it, Crow?”

“Someone walking on my grave. Perhaps riding over it.” He glanced over at her, the reddened scar very apparent on his ashen face. “Just seeing her with hair like yours, strong and tall like you, I wonder if she shaped herself to be like you, or that is mere happenstance.”

“Shaped herself?”

He nodded. “Like the urZrethi, she can mold her shape to whatever she desires. In Boragul she’d taken on the appearance of a demi-fiedged urZrethi queen. The way she is out there now, that’s how she appeared twenty-five years ago.”

“Is she urZrethi?”

Crow shrugged. “I don’t know. They deny it, but that is no surprise. Kerrigan might know of magicks that would allow her to change shape—I’ve always assumed she had mastered such things in her lifetime.”

Alyx slowly nodded as more and more troops poured into the area. Against any army raised in the south, Fortress Draconis would have been impregnable, but the Aurolani host had dragonels and much more. The fortress itself had a garrison of nearly seven thousand, but her army boasted easily three times that number and there seemed no end in sight for her troop train.

A black, cruciform shadow raced over the landscape coming from the west. Alyx saw it drift toward the Aurolani lines, then turned and, shading her eyes, looked up. Drifting lazily above the battlefield, like a hawk hunting vermin, a dragon hung in the sky. Gold glinted from its scales, then it slowly spiraled down and came to a landing beside the pavilion being raised for Chytrine.

Crow pointed. “See the wound on its hip? That’s the dragon she had at Vilwan. I wonder why the old black didn’t kill it?”

“I don’t know, Crow, but I have a feeling that this dragon isn’t ping to die as easily as the last one she employed here.” Alyx crossed her arms over her chest. “And if we can’t kill it, stopping Chytrine will be all but impossible.”

Rather a curious thing to be called a garden, isn’t it?“ Will looked up from his contemplation and saw Princess Ryhope of Oriosa, the Draconis Baroness, standing just inside the garden gate. Will tried to straighten up, but since he was sitting on the railing of a little bridge, hismotionthreatened totopplehim backward.He grabbed the railing and heard it creak, but it held and he was able to avoid the short drop to the dry streambed beneath him.

Her comment had been completely correct, and he acknowledged it with a nod as she picked her way from one stepping-stone to the next on the winding path to the bridge. Despite the growing gloom of night, the blanket of white stones on the ground made it easy to see every bit of the garden, and to see that aside from the hedges bordering it and a couple of trees tucked next to the walls, nothing grew there. Instead larger stones rose from the white like islands from a storm-whipped ocean, and the darker trail of stones in the streambed split that white sea cleanly in half.

Ryhope smiled. Will found her to be a handsome woman, with the strong chin, full lips, and straight nose that her mask allowed him to see. The twilight helped as it hid wrinkles and the light threading of grey in her hair. She wore a grey gown with a dragon rampant in green on it, similar to the design embroidered on his shirt’s left breast. Over her right she had a crown, whereas Will had a sword. Ryhope moved fluidly and lightly, as if the stones really were water and she wished to stay dry, lifting her skirts girlishly until she reached the bridge.

She watched him closely for a moment, then shook her head. “There are little traces of your father in you. I can see it, just a bit, in the eyes, the chin. Your eyes are lighter than his, of course, your hair darker, and he was a bit bigger than you. Not much, but a bit. Quite dashing when he wanted to be.”.

“Did you know my father well?”

She clasped her hands before her and said nothing. The rhythmic pounding of Aurolani war drums filled the dark silence before her returning voice banished them. “I knew him. Not terribly well, since I only met him briefly, during the Harvest Festival, but he made quite an impression on me, on my brother, and even on my mother.”

She laughed lightly. “Had things been just a bit different, I could have been your mother.”

That sent a jolt through Will. “I thought you said you didn’t know him well.”

Ryhope nodded, her eyes pale. “He and I would have been paired, for he was a hero, the slayer of threesullanciri. He surpassed his father, but his injuries here prevented his joining his father on the fateful expedition. He returned to Oriosa, to Valsina, to recover. News that his father had been seduced into Chytrine’s service hit him very hard. He had not recovered from what had gone on here and that was another blow. My mother could not have allowed us to marry, had either of us tried to pursue it.”

Will frowned. “I don’t understand.”

She smiled indulgently. “I am of the Oriosan royal house. My desires are nothing when placed against the needs of my nation. It was deemed desirable for the Draconis Baron to have a connection to the nations of the south, so I became his bride. Like you, I had a destiny visited upon me, and I hope your destiny is as fruitful as mine has been. I have grown to love my husband, and I love our children. What I once feared I now praise every waking moment.”

The thief pointed east. “Even with Chytrine out there pounding away, ready to destroy this place?”

Ryhope mounted the bridge, then leaned back against the railing beside him. “You know Adrogans was successful in taking Svoin. You saw asullanciri die there, if I am not mistaken.”

“Something like that, yes.” Will squirmed a little, refusing to admit he’d fainted. “But losing that battle hasn’t stopped Chytrine.”

“No, it hasn’t, my point exactly.” She raised a hand and pointed at the Crown Tower. “You see that dragon skull there? That is the skull from the dragon that died right here, died in the pond. Chytrine lost the last time she tried to take Fortress Draconis. It cost her dearly, and we had already lost Okrannel. That defeat didn’t stop us, nor did hers stop her.”

He frowned. “I’m missing your point, then.”

“My point is simply this: whether or not Fortress Draconis falls to Chytrine, the only way we lose is if we stop fighting. The only way we win is to stop her from fighting. Ripping the heart out of her army here will do that quite effectively.”

Will looked at her curiously. “You don’t think she can take this place, do you?”

“I know better than to assume she can’t.” Ryhope shrugged. “I’ve spent over two decades here learning how difficult this place will be to take. It will be a big bone in her throat and could easily choke her to death. We might not beat her, but Adrogans or Augustus, they could finish what we start.”

Will scratched his head. “Your voice is nicer, but you’re as depressing as Resolute.”

The Draconis Baroness threw her head back and laughed aloud. “Well, pragmatism and realism are an antidote to minstrel songs, yes; but I don’t mean to make you melancholy. I will admit, however, this garden can have that effect.”

“Really?” Will shook his head. “I don’t know why anyone would think that. Sure, it doesn’t have flowers or fruit or anything, but I’m not much for all that anyway. I mean, this bridge is lovely, and the way the stones lay on the ground and the big ones come up, I can almost hear gravel waves breaking against them. Looking out I can see what a Gyrkyme flying over the sea might see with islands and everything.”

“You don’t find it a bit stark and forbidding, cold even?”

“Well, maybe the white is a little bright, but you have to look at how everything is covered and the little swells and curves and stuff. I mean, maybe if you see it as white rocks over dirt it’s dead, but I guess that’s not what I see. I mean, it is, of course, since that’s what it is, but there’s something more here, there is life in the rocks. It makes me think.”

Ryhope nodded thoughtfully. “I’ve been told your father spent a lot of time in here, thinking, composing poems. It was a peaceful time for him, before the last battle.”

Will slapped his hands against the bridge railing. “You mean he might have been sitting right here, in this very spot?”

“I don’t know, but… perhaps he was. It could be that the railing has been replaced in that time, but yes, in this garden.”

Will began to smile and look anew at the garden when something thumped him solidly on the chest and shoulder, somersaulting him backward off the bridge. He came all the way over and landed on his feet, but pitched forward onto his hands and knees quickly enough. Above him, on the bridge, he heard Ryhope struggling and the tearing of cloth. “Run, Will, run!”

The thief came up in the dry riverbed and saw two dark forms, wings unfurled, clutching at Ryhope with clawed feet. The things had human-sized torsos and heads, but no arms, short bird-legs and claws, and wings about equal in size to those of a Gyrkyme. Will wasn’t sure what they were, but when one turned its hag-face toward him and hissed, he knew they weren’t friendly in the least.