The Dragon's Test (Book 3) (13 page)

*****

“Curse this smoke!” Braun bellowed as the thick cloud dropped down around the manor. “To arms men, to arms!”

Erik
looked around and saw just under three hundred men, all of whom had recently fought alongside his father, in full battle-dress. The men closest to him wore grim, sober expressions and seemed to care little about the smoke.

“Shall we ride out?” one of the men shouted to Braun.

“Wait!” someone called out from around the corner of the house. Erik and Braun turned to see Lady Arkyn running toward them, with a couple of others trailing close behind. One of the men was a mountain of a man, arm’s thick and muscled, carrying a great warhammer as he ran. The other was tall, but thin and wiry, with a tuft of scraggly hair jutting out from the bottom of his chin.

“Master Lepkin,” the wiry man called out. “We should wait until the enemy gets close.”

“But our archers cannot see where to aim,” Braun argued. “We should march out from the screen so we can see our foe.”

“Please, listen,” Lady Arkyn said as they closed in. “Master Peren can weave a spell that will allow us to see out of the smoke.
When the enemy is within range, I will help the archers fire upon the enemy. The rest of the men should wait here until the enemy is upon our moat. Then Master Peren will push the smoke back around the enemy so as to cut them off from their commander’s view.”

“And then I will gladly charge out with you and bash their skulls together,” the large man said.

Braun walked up to the man with the warhammer. “I don’t believe we have been introduced, but unless I am mistaken, you are Gorin, son of Duaordin, and hero of Rororke.”

Gorin stood tall and nodded. “I would not call myself a hero, but I was there,” he said.

“They call him Boneshatter,” Master Peren said. The wiry man gestured to Gorin’s hammer. “I suppose the reason why is obvious.”

Braun nodded. “Go and weave your spell, Master Peren,” Braun said. “If you can do as you claim, then it will give us the advantage.”

“He can do that, and more, I assure you,” Lady Arkyn said.

Master Peren walked forward and worked his finger in the air in front of him, drawing ancient runes that only he could see. Then he muttered something Erik couldn’t quite make out, but after Peren’s words ended the very air itself seemed to expand near the manor. The smoke was pushed away from the men and formed a thin line around the moat, as if a large opaque bowl had been placed around them by some unseen giant. “Can you see, Lady Arkyn?”

“Perfectly,” the half-elf said. “Give me a moment.” She ran to the manor and ascended the ladder leading to the roof. Once she was with the other archers she waved down to Peren. “Hold it exactly like this, we can see everything.”

“How many come for us?” Braun shouted.

“Maybe five hundred,” Lady Arkyn replied. “But we are about to even the odds a little.” She walked among the archers and pointed to the field.

Erik could see the archers nodding and moving into position. “Can the enemy see us?” Erik asked.

“No, Master Lepkin,” Peren said. “To the enemy the smoke looks as thick as it was before. It is only altered for us.”

Erik
nodded and waved to the men. “Hold ranks behind the wall. Prepare to jump over it and charge through the gap in the moat only on Braun’s command,” he said.

Braun leaned in close. “Perhaps you should stay here, next to the manor,” he said.

“You would have Lepkin stay off the field of battle?” Peren said shocked. “That would be like not using your queen in chess.”

Braun sighed and looked to Erik for support. Erik shrugged. “I will fight with the others,” he said. “It will not be the first time I have raised my blade.” He patted Braun on the shoulder and walked past him to Gorin. “Stay by Braun,” he said.

Gorin looked to Braun and then nodded his head. “As you command, Master Lepkin,” Gorin said.

Braun walked back to his waiting horse and jumped up into the saddle. “On my mark,” he told the waiting troops. Then he looked back to Master Peren, “I wait for your word, mage.”

Peren nodded and kept his eye on the field. “We’ll let the archers whittle them down and then just as they start to climb over your wall we’ll go.”

Erik could see shifting shapes through the smoke
. He couldn’t see them clearly, but he could hear their march. Their armor and weapons rattled in synch with their steps, as if someone played a great set of drums and was rolling forward. Erik slid Master Lepkin’s sword out of the sheath and looked down at the black, Telarian steel. The weapon felt cool to the touch, but he could already feel the fire inside, yearning to be set free again. It matched the angry blaze growing inside Erik’s heart.

Bowstrings snapped into place above and a whoosh of arrows t
ore out through the bowl of smoke. Erik listened to the whistling missiles until the shouts and yells of men assaulted his ears. The drumming marching stopped as men clambered under shields and the arrows rained down upon them. Unable to see the result, Erik strained his ears, tying to discern the effect. Many cried out in pain or short, gurgling yells. Surely some of the arrows had struck their marks. Then followed a sound like pebbles falling upon plates of metal. Erik guessed that many of the opposing army were able to find cover in time.

Someone shouted from beyond the smoke and the march
ing resumed. This time the cacophonous thunder of steel boots assaulted the ground with a quickened pace. The enemy was running toward them.

Another round of arrows was
set free. The running didn’t stop this time. Instead, the foe ran quicker. Many were taken down by the arrows, shouting and yelling out as the deadly shafts disrupted their sprint, but many others were still able to effectively cover themselves as arrows
plitted
and
pinged
off their armor and shields.

“They are close to the moat,” Peren said.

Braun raised his arm to ready the men. Erik swallowed hard and wrapped his fingers tighter around Master Lepkin’s sword.

A third round of arrows flew. This time the whistling lasted only for a brief second or two before the arrows sank into the enemy force. There were only a few shouts this time, most of the arrows bounced off harmlessly.

Master Peren slowly raised his hand, index finger pointing to Braun. He kept his eyes trained forward, on the enemy. Shining breastplates could be seen now beyond the waist-high wall. The first couple of ranks reached the wall and dropped their shields to climb over. “Now!” he shouted.

“HUZZZAAH!” Braun yelled with all of his might. The three hundred men at his back answered in kind and the force tore off at full charge toward the enemy. Erik couldn’t see Peren, but he knew the mage had already gone into casting another spell for the bowl of smoke disappeared entirely, only to reform a moment later behind a sea of shimmering armor and grisly faces.

Erik’s stomach squirmed as if a nest of baby snakes had suddenly hatched inside. Until now, the reality had not sunk in. Now, faced with an army, he felt small and insignificant. Both armies clashed over the wall and mixed with each other violently. Soldiers rushed around him, eager to get at the front line of the oncoming enemy. Erik stood motionless for what seemed like an eternity. Everything around him moved slower somehow, as if he were no longer in the moment, but watching from afar. It was then, amidst the storm of shouts and the clanking armor that he felt a calm come to him. Something slid against his chest. He reached up and grabbed the leather thong out from under his shirt. He looked down to the jewel and all became clear again. “For you, my father,” Erik said as he raised his father’s ring to his lips and kissed it. Then he charged forward. The sword in his hands absorbed energy from Erik’s rage and a white hot blaze of flame erupted around the blade. He ran forward, his feet carrying him almost effortlessly. The enemy rolled at them like a great wave of the sea, moving together and running directly into the moat and clambering up the other side, picking their way through the large wooden pikes only to be slowed by the waist-high wall.

“Fire the moat!” Braun shouted. A slew of flaming arrows zipped down into the moat from the roof and a great
whoosh
of flames engulfed the enemy. Erik’s eyes went wide as a pair of men struggled to get through the pikes. They were wrapped in yellow fire, but on they came. Erik deftly hopped over the wall and rushed to meet them. He raised his sword and ran at them, but a pair of arrows put them down, dropping their bodies back into the fiery moat. Erik looked up and saw Lady Arkyn. She waved to him briefly and then went back to stringing her bow.

Master Gorin and Braun drove into the breach, where the moat had not been finished. The main body of the enemy was funneling into the clear space as well, coughing and gasping for air. Gorin raised his mighty hammer and came down in a sweeping arc that took three men to the ground. As he brought his hammer back above his head a warrior yelled and ran for him. The mountainous Gorin lashed out with a savage lef
t kick, denting the warrior’s breastplate and dropping him back to the ground.

Braun was equally as savage. He slashed his sword down through the gap between a man’s helmet and hauberk, sliding his blade deep down into the man’s body and pulling it back just in time to remove the head of an angry axe-wielder running at his right side. Then the main throng of the enemy slammed in through the breach and Braun’s horse was closed in as efficiently as if it had been trapped in a great, writhing vice. Braun leapt from atop his horse and took two enemy warriors down to the ground under him. He quickly ended them with a slice of his blade across their necks and rose to his feet. He looked up to see the blade of an axe streaking for his face.

Gorin let out a mighty roar and his hammer slammed first into the axe, and then into the axman that had been poised to slay Braun. The man’s body flew back, knocking several others into the fiery moat.

“Many thanks,” Braun said as he engaged the next nearest foe.

“Try to keep up,” Gorin teased as he continued sweeping his way through the enemy, laying several foes low with each swing of his mighty hammer.

Erik joined them then, fighting his way through a group of sword
smen with the help of his other warriors. As the bodies began to fall, Gorin, Braun, and Erik led House Lokton’s men through the breach, fighting off all who tried to come through the bottleneck.

As the main body of House Lokton’s army pushed forward, Peren ran back to the catapults. He kept close to the manor at first, so as to avoid the throng of eager warriors rushing to the battle. He found a group of six men loading tar and oil into ceramic contain
ers and hailed them. “Do you have any cats?” The men looked to each other and shrugged. A large man stepped forward from the group wearing leather greaves and a breastplate of bronze. His hands were thick and sturdy, covered in soot and dirt.

“
What are you about?” the man said with a hand resting on his heavy broadsword.

Peren waved the man off. “I need cats, or maybe small dogs,” he said.

The large man raised an eyebrow and stopped Peren from reaching the catapults with a strong palm against the wiry man’s chest. “I am Demetrius,” he said. “I am in charge of the catapults, so you will either explain yourself or I will throw you to the front lines.”

Peren took a step back and looked at Demetrius’ thick body and nodded. “I bet you could do it too,” he said.

“If I can’t, I could set you in the basket,” Demetrius said half-jokingly as he pointed to the nearest catapult.

Peren put a hand in the air. “I have an idea, but I need cats.”

Demetrius folded his arms, unimpressed.

“I can cast a spell to change a cat into a wyvern. The problem is that cats are stubborn and they only ascent to changing form if they are in great danger.”

Demetrius looked back to his men. “Back to work men,” he said. He glanced back to Peren. “I am busy, I don’t have time to suffer fools.”

Peren let out an exasperated sigh and started for the catapult again. Demetrius quickly reached out with a hand and snatched Peren by the collar of his robes. The thin mage weaved his fingers and Demetrius stood motionless, as if turned to stone.

“I have tricks of my own,” Peren said. The men each drew their weapons, but Peren cast another spell and held them motionless as well. Then he went to the catapult and checked the levers and triggering mechanisms. He nodded to himself, pleased with what he saw and then ran to the stable, leaving the statue-like men where they stood.

Once he got to the stable he looked in each of the stalls. Near the back of the second stall he found an extremely furry white cat with a gray tail fighting a packrat in the straw on the ground. The packrat was almost as large as the cat, but the cat was obviously toying with its prey, batting it across the side of the head whenever it tried to attack.

“What luck!” Peren exclaimed. He sprang into action and seized the packrat and cat at the same time, pulling them apart before the cat could finish the packrat. The rat shrieked and gnashed its teeth, but Peren held it firmly around the neck, nearly choking it. Its claws tore into his hand, but he paid that no mind. The cat was equally as agitated, growling in a low, menacing rumble, but Peren held onto the scruff of the cat’s neck, being careful to point all of its feet as far away from him as possible.