The Crucible of the Dragon God (11 page)

"I don't think it's going to take three or four days. Look ahead."

Maybe a tenth of a league further on, a dust storm was beginning to brew on the plain, vast spirals of flotsam thickening moment by moment. "Oh, wonderful. We'll be blinded too."

"I don't mean the storm. I mean what's
causing
it. The people at the front.
Look
."

It was then that Moon noticed the gestures being made by a group of six individuals leading the march. Garbed in thick, plain cloaks but with hints of far more colourful robes beneath, they appeared hardly to move under their covering - except for a subtle but complex flexing of their hands.

"Are they what I think they are?"

"Yep. League of Prestidigitation and Prestige. Saw them with the soldiers at the gate. And they're
weaving
. In fact, they're brewing up the storm."

"But why on Twilight would they do that?"

"Perhaps to disguise what's inside it." She nodded forward, into the storm itself. There was a distinct glow visible inside, a swirl of energy that Moon recognised instantly.

"My Gods, they're creating a warp portal. They're going to
teleport
these people to Andon."

"Without them even realising it," Kali said with a twinkle in her eye. "It wouldn't do to let the general public know just
how
much magic was around them, now, would it?"

"These people aren't stupid, they'll realise."

"They're scared, tired, hungry and facing the unknown. When they arrive in Andon, they won't even care enough to ask."

"You knew what you were doing all along, didn't you?"

"Oh, aye."

Kali, Moon and Horse continued forward and soon entered the storm. Cloaks or hands raised against their faces to protect themselves from the swirling dust, no one other than Kali and her companions realised what was happening. Even when the teleportation magic took hold of their bodies, causing a slight tingle of the flesh, a barely noticeable buzzing in the bones, as they suddenly left one place to arrive in another. Or at least they
thought
no one else had noticed. Because as the marching refugees emerged from the other side of the dust storm, finding themselves amidst the skeletons and ruined machines of war that littered the outskirts of Andon it was, ironically, Harmon Ding who noticed something amiss.

Towards the front of the line, the small twitchy man sniffed the air and bobbed his head from side to side, his brow furrowing in confusion and consternation and his fingers rising as if to question the soldiers and the mages at the forefront of the march. Thankfully, they ignored him for the most part, but then Ding's continuing and questioning gaze looked back down the line, spotted Kali, Moon and Horse in its ranks, and his face whitened. He grabbed one of the soldiers and pointed in their direction.

"This we can do without," Kali sighed. "Excuse me."

She began to work her way down the line, and the closer she came to Harmon Ding the clearer his entreaties to the soldier became.

"Don't let them into your city! They're not
normal
. This crazy woman has, well, a
thing
, and her friend, the old man, he isn't an old man at all, he's some kind of
monster
. A big, green monster. They're in league with those other things, I tell you. Armoured horses and big green monsters and crazy women and... and gloves that fire circles in the air."

"Excuse me officer," Kali said in an approximation of a backwoods accent. She could tell from his expression that the soldier had already decided he was dealing with someone less than a full tenth, so that made her task a lot easier. "Is cousin Ding botherin' you?"

"He seems to think your grandfather is a big, green monster, ma'am."

Grandfather
, Kali thought with a smile.
Oh, the old man was going to love that
.

"Pssshh," she said, dismissively. Kali extracted a bottle of thwack she had palmed from the Greenwoods on her way down the line and shook it at the soldier, feigning clumsiness as the cap she had deliberately loosened came off and the noxious brew splashed all over Harmon Ding. "Sorry, cousin," she said. "But at least you can't stink of it any more than you already do."

"But - but I haven't touched a drop!" Ding protested. "Not a dro -"

Kali looked at the soldier and shook her head sadly. "Denial," she said, and rammed the neck into Ding's mouth, whacking him subtly in the stomach as she did so he couldn't help but gulp the thwack down. "There, there. You know it makes you feel better."

The bottle extracted, Ding sucked in a gulping breath. "Armoured horsh," he said, dribbling thwack while his eyes rolled. "Big, green monshter, gloves that - that..."

"I'm sure you have enough to deal with, so I'll take him off your hands," Kali said to the soldier. "I'll look after him, now."

"Thank you, ma'am."

"No problem."

Kali took Ding by the arm and force-marched his protesting form back towards Moon. As they neared Horse she took a quick look around to make sure no one was watching and then suddenly elbowed Ding in the face, knocking him cold. She slung the body over Horse and then fell back into step with Merrit Moon.

"Nice work," the old man commented.

"Shucks, it were nothin'...
grandpa
."

The old man turned to protest, but then thought better of it as the exodus neared the walls of Andon itself.

They were formidable - and it was immediately clear why the barons had chosen to evacuate the populace here - because in addition to the normal ranks of catapults, trebuchets and giant crossbows that lined their tops, additional defensive weapons had been added to their number. Some, by the look of them, magical in their design. If - make that
when
- they came, the k'nid would certainly have a battle on their hands.

The soldiers at the front of the line called out and, with a massive rumble, the gates began to open. Gradually, the line filed beneath the stone arch, until it was the turn for Kali, Horse and the old man to enter.

It was then that the first of the problems Kali had envisaged hit them. Inside the city walls, refugees not only from the northern towns but, by their local dress, Fayence to the south-east, milled about in an ever thickening crowd, threatening to block the main thoroughfare. Nor did they just mill. Many were crying in fear of what they had been told might come; others beseeched the soldiers for help they could not give; still others protested volubly about the situation they had been forced into. It was, in short, chaos, and the soldiers looked as confused as they did.

Kali approached one of the city guards, asked what was to happen next.

"To be honest, Miss, it's kind of every man for himself. All accommodation is already taken, and the situation isn't helped by the fact that many have already barricaded themselves in their homes, threatening to put a quarrel through the heart of anybody who approaches. Frankly, the barons have made something of a mess of all this. All I can offer you is stabling for your, er, horse. We're stabling all the beasts in the bunkers in the city walls, should be safe enough there."

"Can't these people use those bunkers?"

"They could Miss, but try persuading them. If you knew things straight from the hells were heading for the city, would you hide in the first place that might be breached?"

The soldier had a point. For that very reason, she wasn't happy leaving Horse there either. But there was no other choice and he would, when it came down to it, be safer there than out in the open. Kali slipped Harmon Ding's unconscious form from her mount and patted Horse on the neck, before handing the soldier his reins.

"Could you see to him for me? I need to find some shelter for our peop -"

Kali's words were drowned out by a sudden series of urgent cries from the city walls and a flurry of activity above as soldiers took up positions. There were mages amongst them too, standing tensed and slightly hunched, their faces dour, fists balling and beginning to flare or crackle with energy waiting to be unleashed. Within seconds there was barely an inch of space left on the walls as Andon's defenders readied themselves.

"They're coming! Seal the gates!"

My Gods, so soon?

Kali raced up the steps to the walls, needing to know what the city was facing. Pushing her way between soldiers she stared out over the Killing Ground - or at least, what she could see of it.

The advancing swarm of k'nid completely obscured the abandoned battlefield as they tumbled, rolled and scuttled rapidly towards Andon's walls. As the k'nid came, Andon's defenders responded with devastating force, unleashing a rain of missiles and magical bolts that should have created an impassable wall of death but which, after the initial volleys ended, appeared to be having very little effect on the k'nid at all. It seemed, in fact, that for every k'nid that was pounded by the defensive assault, another two appeared. As prepared as it was, Andon looked as though it was about to be overwhelmed. Sure enough, only seconds later, the first wave of k'nid reached the walls, scaled them and rushed straight into the ranks of the now panicking mages and soldiers.

As men and women fell flailing and screaming, their cries muting as they were enveloped, spasming, within the k'nid, Kali knew that Andon's walls were already lost and the city itself would soon follow.

There was nothing she could to help these people now but she had to help her own - and quickly.

Kali raced back down the steps and quickly enlisted Moon and the Greenwoods to help marshal the people through the tortuous maze of twisting and jinking streets that led to the Andon Heart. For though the city guard had informed her that all accommodation was taken, she knew of one particular hotel that did not normally open for business that might be able to provide them with sanctuary.
If
they could get there in time. Because, with most of its residents barricaded behind their doors, the city was strangely quiet, making the sound of the continuing k'nid assault ever louder.

Screams were actually coming from the side streets around them now and, among them, they could hear officers barking desperate orders to their men and the crackle of magical discharges as mages made one last, desperate stand. The k'nid assault was, it seemed, relentless. As the walls around them turned rainbow-coloured with flashes of weapon fire and energy bolts, all Kali could say to her charges was: "Run!"

This they did without hesitation, and Kali led them to the Andon Heart, and there towards the alleyway that led behind two deserted market stalls to the entrance to the
Underlook
.

As Kali neared the mouth of the alley, a crossbow quarrel thudded into the wood right beside her, stopping her in her tracks. She stared at it, and then up at the window from which it had been fired, and then at the other windows which lined the alley. Like the first, they were occupied by the figures of a man or woman aiming a weapon in their direction.

What the hells?
she thought.
This was hardly time for Pim and his guild to be playing their secret headquarters games.

"These people need shelter!" she shouted. "Tell Jengo Pim they're with Kali Hooper!"

The only answer was another crossbow quarrel embedding itself firmly in a wall next to her head.

Dammit
.

"Kali Hooper!" she shouted again, but her voice was lost in the clamour that was taking over the city.

"Forget it," Merrit Moon observed. "The place is a veritable fortress."

"Yeah?" Kali said. She studied the alley anew, weighing it up. The last time she had been here - immediately after the 'death' of the old man and before her trip to Martak - she had been escorted along its deadly length, but at that time she had still been learning of her new abilities and what had seemed impossible then now seemed less impossible.

"Stay here, old man," she said, and before Merrit Moon could respond, she was gone.

The first of the window sentries didn't even see her coming, Kali already having worked out her trajectory so that she could leap off some piles of rubbish to the alley's side and springboard herself off the wall above to its opposite number. There, her momentum allowing her for a second to actually run along the vertical surface, she flung herself forward, grabbed a drainpipe and slung herself around for a leap back across the alley. Somersaulting in mid air, she hit the first wall again with her feet, kicked off and propelled herself backwards towards the window that now lay opposite, jack-knifing herself as she went so that her legs wrapped themselves around the neck of the sentry positioned there in a scissor grip. Thus anchored, Kali allowed herself to flop loosely, hanging upside down from the window with her back to the wall. As she did, she jerked her legs so that the sentry was flipped forward and out. She opened her legs and he screamed as he plummeted to the ground, hitting with a dull thud.

Five or six crossbow quarrels slammed into the wall where Kali hung, but she was already gone, dropping down to the ground and pinwheeling on her hands across the alley's width.

Back on her feet once more she leapt straight upwards, directly beneath the second window, grabbed and twisted the front of the crossbow that was wielded there, then quickly pulled the trigger so that its quarrel impaled itself in the shoulder of its bearer.

Only seconds had passed since she had begun to run the gauntlet, but it was long enough for those sentries who remained to realise that she would now be coming for them. Shouts and cries of alarm bounced back and forth across the alleyway.

Kali went inside now, pulling herself through the window she had just vacated, knocking the groaning sentry cold then running through the room beyond, along the corridor, and into the adjacent room. She didn't slow her pace, however, indeed she accelerated, then launched herself straight through the room's window. Straight as an arrow, she flew across the width of the alley, waving a casual 'hi' to the stunned occupant of the window opposite, before slamming into him and winding him so severely that he sat down with an
oomf
.