War of Wizards (25 page)

They reached an abandoned bazaar, and Whelan drew short, as if expecting an ambush. There was none, and they were soon galloping across the empty square and continuing toward the Dark Citadel. They caught glimpses of the enemy fortress now and then, as they came around three-story buildings and onto straight roads. A handful of furtive shapes disappeared into houses as they approached.

“Where are they?” Whelan asked, bewildered. “Where is everyone?”

Sofiana pulled up on her horse. “They must have fled the city.”

“No,” Markal said. “The people of Veyre are bound to the dark wizard. He wouldn’t have let them leave, he would have compelled them to fight to the death, down to the last child.”

“Then where are they?” Narud asked.

Whelan chopped a gloved hand forward as the last of his riders pulled up behind him. “Keep moving!”

A stench gathered in the air, thicker and thicker the deeper into the city they rode. Finally, they rounded a corner and approached the great black gates of the Dark Citadel itself. Markal thought this had once been one of the most densely settled quarters of Veyre, but the roads and buildings around the citadel had been torn down, any trace of them obliterated. Instead, black walls rose from bare ground. Behind them lay the massive ziggurat of the enemy’s citadel. There were no defenders on the walls or at the gates.

Had Toth fled? Would he have given up Veyre with so little struggle, refused to mount any sort of defense of this massive symbol of his power? That was impossible to imagine. He must be inside, waiting.

Someone screamed, and Markal looked up. A body fell flailing from the tower along the uppermost level of the ziggurat. A child. Moments later, another falling, screaming person. An adult woman this time.

“Narud,” Markal said grimly. “Let’s smash down these gates.”

The two wizards climbed down from the horse and studied the black gates. They seemed to be made of solid iron. Narud bared his hands, which were smooth and undamaged. He eyed them doubtfully. Horses stamped nervously around them, men muttering and anxious.

A nervous twitch worked at Markal’s belly. “You can do it?”

“There are runes.”

“Yes, I feel them. Dark and forbidding.”

“I’ll need your help to draw the strength,” Narud said. “And it will take both of my hands. But if I use everything I have . . . yes, I believe so.”

Markal reached into the orb again. There was precious little power left. To strengthen Narud would take the rest of it, and then he’d be reduced to the magic he could draw from his own hands and the strength of his convictions. To face King Toth himself, within the heart of the dark wizard’s own fortress.

My magic, Whelan’s sword. It will be enough. It must be.
 

He took the magic from the orb and cast it on Narud to focus the other wizard’s mind. A spell came to Narud’s lips, and Markal felt its power grow.

Narud spoke the words in the old tongue:
Bend and break, tear and destroy. Throw down this wall and break the wicked magic that protects it.
 

When Narud stopped speaking, the spell hung in the air for a long moment, heavy and potent, like a storm about to break. Then it blasted toward the gates of the Dark Citadel.

“Everybody back!” Markal cried.

Whelan’s men pulled back even as Narud’s magic hit the gates and buried itself in the iron. The gates resisted, still and strong. But brittle. Narud’s spell built until it crested.

The gates broke with a terrific screech. Shards of metal went flying. They buried themselves in the ground, hissing and sparking. One of the gates broke off completely and landed where the king, his daughter, and several men had been moments earlier. They would have been crushed had they remained. The other gate dangled from its broken and smoldering hinges, bent nearly in two and swaying like a drunk man.

Markal stared at Narud with wonder and admiration. The other wizard sank to his knees with a cry. His two hands withered and curled, so black and twisted that they looked like they would fall off. He collapsed in a heap. Narud was finished for this fight; he had nothing left to give.

A wall of stench rolled out through the suddenly opened fortress: death and rot and maggots. Men bent and turned, gagging. Horses shied and refused at first to go forward. Markal lifted a sleeve to cover his mouth.

Whelan shouted for his men to advance. They held out swords and spears ahead of them like talismans. Several dozen more men had ridden up behind them through the city while Narud cast his spell, and they were more than a hundred strong as they rode through the broken gates and into the enemy’s fortress.

A scream sounded above them. Markal looked up to see a woman falling from the top of the tower, her arms windmilling at the air. She hit the ground and was killed instantly, but she hadn’t hit the flagstones. Instead, what Markal saw below made his horror complete.

The woman had landed atop human bodies. The courtyard was filled with the dead, thousands upon thousands of them, heaped in great piles, with only a single path cleared to the steps of the ziggurat. The biggest pile was at the base of the tower where it seemed they all fell before being spread about the courtyard and left to rot. Even dead, even squirming with maggots, the faces of the dead still held the pain and terror that had consumed them as they died.

This was why the city had seemed deserted. The people of Veyre were here, in this courtyard, dead. Thousands, no
tens
of thousands of them, murdered by their king.

And suddenly, Markal understood. This was how the dark wizard raised his armies. This was how he had called up wights from the Desolation. How he controlled a full-grown, monstrous dragon and forced it to do his bidding. How he had taken slain Knights Temperate and turned them into undead ravagers.

To wield such magic had taken great pain, born from suffering on a scale not seen since the first Tothian War. The dark wizard had gathered that strength by murdering his own people. He’d cast thousands to their deaths, then used the Dark Citadel to send his power across the breadth of the land.

Whelan met Markal’s gaze. The expression on the king’s face passed from disgust, to fear, to understanding, and finally to a burning, righteous anger. He pulled his mount next to Markal’s.

“My friend,” Whelan said. His voice was calm and deadly. “Let us find this monster and destroy him forever.”

Chapter Twenty-four

Daria led a massive wave of griffins into battle. Her mount was a golden griffin wrested from the wild northern mountains and tamed by her own hand. Massive. Powerful. Head like an enormous eagle’s, with a huge, curved beak for slashing. Talons on front, for tearing and gripping, and powerful, lion-like haunches on the rear. The rear claws could open a sheep’s belly with a single swipe.

Forty-five other riders and their griffins followed her. They were fierce, brave people of the wild high country, nearly immune to the thin, frigid air of the upper peaks. They were both men and women, the two sexes equal in power and war prowess, every member of her force strong and lean, armed with sharp, piercing swords. Their keen eyes matched those of their mounts. Griffin and rider were so accustomed to each other that when they flew together they were practically one creature.

Facing them, a single dragon.

It came roaring across the battlefield like something out of an ancient legend. Its massive jaws and sheering teeth were big enough to bite a griffin in two. When it opened its mouth, smoke billowed out, and fires were visible down its throat, glowing deep within its belly. When it spread its wings, they blotted the night sky.

“Come at me, you brute,” Daria cried. “Come at me!”

She flew directly at its gaping mouth, and her shout mingled with Talon’s battle scream. At the last moment, she nudged him down. The griffin ducked under the dragon’s mouth, and they raced beneath it. Daria lifted herself above Talon, her sword gripped in both hands, and dragged it along the dragon’s underbelly. It clanked and scraped like she was scraping it along a stone wall. The blade nearly jerked out of her hands.

The dragon’s claws grasped for her, and its tail lashed, but they were past and into safe air again before it could get at her. Those belly scales had seemed as hard as fired bricks, but the dragon writhed away, and she knew she’d caused it pain. It turned toward her and roared.

Daria was already peeling around again for another attack, but too soon. A lance of flames roared toward her. Talon veered right to avoid it, and the fire blasted by on the left. Daria gasped at the heat. The smell of scorched hair and feathers filled her nostrils.

Griffins slammed into the dragon as it turned. They clawed at its wings and tail, while riders hacked and stabbed. The dragon twisted away from Daria and toward this new threat. It knocked them away with powerful wings, thrashed its tail, and broke their formation. A rider fell from his mount and fell silently toward the ground. His griffin screamed and chased him down, as if trying to catch him before he hit.

Daria came at the dragon again while it was distracted. This time, she braved its head. She swung her sword, aiming for one of its massive, smoldering eyeballs, but the blade clattered off the horny shield above its eye. Quick as a striking snake, it twisted its head and snapped at her. Its hot, sulfurous breath roared in her face, and Talon tucked his wings to drop below it.

The dragon chased her. Daria veered down, then pulled up just before she slammed into the ground. Fighting men on the ground cheered her as she raced away. The dragon roared flames after Daria and her mount, and the men suddenly ducked for cover with frightened cries.

Talon beat his wings furiously, and for a moment it seemed as though he’d pull away. But the dragon was closing and would shortly have them in range of its fire. Her fellow riders pursued, but couldn’t keep up. Daria banked to one side; the dragon matched their course.

Twenty more griffins and riders screamed in from her right. Uncle Jhon’s force. They struck the dragon with such force that it was forced to abandon its pursuit of Daria. She pulled around to give them aid. Griffins flew this way and that, and for a moment, she was lost in the midst of all the wings and talons and claws. She spotted the dragon directly ahead, surrounded now by dozens of attackers.

A griffin sped by, carrying a strong young man. He flashed her a grin as he passed. It was Poul, the handsome young rider favored by Daria’s mother. Daria followed him.

Poul came at the dragon’s throat. The beast had turned its head to blast fire at several enemies harrying it from one side. They fled the fire, and the dragon happened to turn back the other direction just as Poul came in to hack at its neck. It snapped its jaws as the young man went past. The bite caught his griffin by the wing. The animal screamed in pain. The dragon lifted its head to pull the griffin deeper into its mouth, even as she clawed and scratched and pecked ineffectually at its great jaws.

Poul was still on her back, hacking to try to free his mount. But they were still far above the battlefield; if he did manage to get the griffin loose from the monster’s jaws, the animal would never be able to fly, burned, with a destroyed wing, and both griffin and rider would plummet to the earth.

All of this happened in two blinks of the eye, and Daria barely had time to change her course as she came in.

“Jump!” she shouted to Poul. She held out her arm to catch him as she flew beneath the dragon’s jaw.

Poul barely glanced her way. Rather than relinquish the fight, he was climbing off his mount to stand on the dragon’s snout and try to thrust his sword into its nostril. Daria wheeled around to get closer. Other riders brought their griffins in to assist.

The dragon tilted back its head, and the griffin fell into its mouth. The animal screamed and flopped as the jaws bit down with a horrible, bone-crunching bite. Poul cried in rage, found the dragon’s nostril, and plunged his sword down.

The dragon roared in pain. The broken, bleeding griffin fell from its mouth. It tried to snap at Poul, but couldn’t get to the young man. But as Daria arrived, she was forced to duck one of its great claws. The dragon grabbed Poul and tore him loose. The young man’s eyes bulged. The dragon lifted him toward its gaping mouth. Poul opened his mouth to scream, but he couldn’t seem to get any air. He fell into its mouth.

Then Daria was blowing past again and didn’t see the final, gruesome death. Rage boiled within her. As she turned around, sword clenched in hand, the final cohort of griffin riders entered the fight. Palina and her fellow riders came in from above, materializing out of the night sky. They struck the dragon even as it fought to free itself of all the biting, stinging, clawing enemies around it. Poul’s sword still stuck out of its nostril. The griffin riders forced it lower, until it was only a hundred feet off the ground.

If it fell, it would land in the midst of several dozen Eriscoban mounted warriors, with hundreds more soldiers nearby. Daria had to force it to the ground so they could help her destroy it. She remembered the battle in the mountains, when she had stabbed the dragon where its wing met its body. Even though she had been thrown clear before she could sever any tendons, it had only been able to fly away with difficulty. Here, such a wound might be sufficient to keep the dragon down if enough forces could be brought to bear in time.

Daria rose above the dragon. She raised her horn and blew the order for all forces to attack. They came at the dragon from the right and left, from above and below. The dragon burned two foes from the sky, caught another in its jaws, and knocked a woman from her mount, but the attackers forced it lower and lower and fought back its every attempt to break free. Men on the ground scattered to keep from getting crushed.

Daria had been staying clear of the battle, and now she untied her tethers until there was nothing keeping her on Talon’s back except the grip of her thighs behind his wings. She leaned to whisper in his ear.

“I’m going down. When I’m off, let me go and get away from there. Stay away from its jaws, you understand?”