When Dragons Rage by Michael A. Stackpole
“What, Princess?” A knot formed in his stomach. He thought he knew what she was going to say. He found it exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.
“I think I am wicked for thinking about adding another burden to those you already bear, Lord Norrington.” She kissed him softly on the mouth, then the forehead. “You are very deep in my affections, Will. Very deep.”
“Princess, I . . .”
She pressed fingers to his lips again. “Say nothing, my lord. Say nothing. I know what is in your heart. That is enough.”
Sayce dressed in silence, though she did smile when she saw him watching her. She filled the cup of wine, drank, then kissed him once again, hastily, before leaving. Will rolled up onto an elbow to watch her go, then collapsed forward onto his face as the door clicked shut behind her.
He didn’t know what to think or what to feel, though he did know he felt very good, at least physically. The coverlet, where he nosed it, was full of her scent. He breathed deeply and her perfume quelled the riot in his head. Smiling, remembering, he fell asleep again.
His servant greeted him with breakfast, which Will took at the table near the hearth. The servant built up a fire, for Will’s sense of cold had returned, and even a hot bath did not get rid of it. While bathing, Will dared not let himself think of Sayce, lest his body betray his feelings in the presence of the servant, but choosing not to think of her guaranteed he could think of nothing but, and specifically her joining him in the tub of hot water.
Though he had previously considered it a curse, the sense of cold helped him because it cooled his ardor and concealed all visible evidence of it. He emerged from the tub and dried himself off, then dressed as quickly and warmly as he could.
The servant had anticipated his needs and had set his clothes to warming before the fire. Will pulled them on and smiled. Fastening his belt around his middle, he fished a gold coin from the pouch and tossed it to the youth. “Thank you.”
The young man, who likely was four years older than Will, caught the coin and stared at it. “Oh, my lord, thank you.”
“You are most welcome.” Will smiled and tied the mask onto his right shoulder. “I believe I’m ready to go.”
“Yes, my lord, very good.” The servant bowed. “It will be my pleasure now to conduct you to the king.”
CHAPTER 48
A lexia smiled as Will was led into the small antechamber where the company had been assembled. “Good, we are complete.”
The thief blushed as he looked around the dark, stone-walled room. “Were you waiting on me?”
Resolute grumbled and shifted on a rough-hewn bench against a wall. “We’ve all been waiting, but this is to be expected when the king receiving us has his nation under siege. But even that, I suppose, is nothing compared to what kept you waiting.”
“I overslept.” Will lowered his voice and his eyes, but his blush faded instead of rising, so Alexia assumed he was lying. “Nobody told me we would be summoned.”
Crow smiled and clapped Will across the back. “We were all tired. We’ve been on the road for a long time. A soft, warm bed was quite welcome.”
Alyx nodded in agreement. “Besides, we’ve spent the time discussing how we can help here.”
Before she could elucidate, the door opened behind her. A man in the livery of the King’s Guards smiled. Alexia didn’t see any rank insignia on the uniform, but the grey in his beard, the scars on his hands, and the numerous ribbons decorating his black-and-midnight-blue mask suggested he’d been around long enough to have attained the highest of rankings. “If you will follow me, please.”
Alexia led the way, wearing dun leathers with the Okrans winged horse rampant on her left breast. She’d been given a lacy white courtesy mask, which she had donned. Crow, who followed her, had not put on a mask, nor had Resolute, Lombo, or Qwc. Kerrigan had been given a mask of black lace, whereas white had been given to Peri, Bok, and Dranae. Will’s mask rode on his upper right arm.
Their guide took them down a corridor, then up a staircase that doubled back and opened into a broad, shallow, rectangular room with a relatively low ceiling. They entered through one of the long walls, opposite a large hearth. On either side of it were set two other doors, both closed, and murals covered the walls. The rest of the walls had maps on them and had been furnished with a number of long flat tables that contained tactical models of areas in Muroso.
Alexia was well acquainted with such models. She’d studied them in Gyrvirgul while working out tactical variations on battles from the past. More recently, General Adrogans had used similar models in plotting out his Okrannel campaign. Each table had small wooden blocks on it to represent troops, each emblazoned with a paint scheme that identified the unit.
Attending these tables and the maps on the walls were mages. Each bore a slate that she assumed was an arcanslata. Somewhere in the field, other mages were scouting the enemy and sending information back to Caledo and King Bowmar. Provided the information was reliable, the reports gave the Murosans a great tactical advantage over the enemy.
“Your Majesty, here are your guests.”
Alexia had followed the guide’s glance to a particular table and expected one of the grizzled, older men to greet them, but instead a tall slender man dressed in the black robe and mask of a mage reacted to the news. His crisp gait made short work of the distance separating them. Close up Alexia could see several strands of white in his thick black hair and beard, but otherwise he seemed more Prince Murfin’s match in age. I could easily have taken them for brothers. What surprised her was that, for as long as she could recall, the king of Muroso had been Bowmar, and the man before her hardly looked of an age to be Sayce’s father, much less father to Princess Dayley or Prince Murfin.
She’d also not expected him to be a mage. She’d heard stories of his being a masterful tactician and had even studied a couple of minor battles he’d waged when one of his dukes had rebelled and tried to join Saporicia. He had showed a good sense of territory and deployment of troops. For that reason she had assumed he was a warrior, but clearly this was not the case.
“I am pleased to meet you all.” The king smiled easily and his dark eyes did seem to reflect his smile. Not completely, but enough that Alexia did not feel wholly uneasy. “There will be a ball, of course, at which we shall all be formally introduced, but I know well who all of you are. I apologize for how you were brought here, but I do not regret your presence. You have arrived at a most critical time.”
He turned from them, then beckoned them on with the wave of a hand. They followed him to one of the sand tables. It depicted a city by a river. Aurolani forces outnumbered Murosan units three to one, and the Aurolani had already taken the city. The Murosan troops were strung out on the road leading south and some undecorated blocks had been used to represent refugees.
“This is the city of Porjal. A cousin of mine ruled over it, but now he is dead. Two of his sons have likewise perished, and a third is wounded and being evacuated. His eldest daughter is leading the rearguard action as the refugees are evacuating west to Navval and beyond. You all know how difficult a march that will be, especially in this weather.”
Alexia nodded. “I am sorry for your loss, Highness.”
“You are most kind, Princess Alexia. When I have the time I shall mourn their deaths, as well as that of my city. What concerns me most, now, is what the destruction of Porjal portends.” Bowmar folded his arms over his chest. “Dragonels are the key to all this, of course. We met them as we would normally do. Our mages fought theirs, killing a number, losing some ourselves. Despite warnings, however, my cousin took great comfort in Porjal’s walls. Spells had been worked to reinforce them. They did take a harder pounding than Lurrii in Sebcia, but the walls fell nonetheless. My cousin had promised me a month; I got a week.”
Crow nodded at the table. “How current are the positions?”
“Those positions came in at dawn. We should be receiving another report soon, by noon
Alexia studied the situation closely. Muroso’s terrain consisted largely of rolling hills that sloped west toward the ocean, then rose again toward the Saporician Highlands and southeast toward Bokagul. Forests dotted the countryside, which made it more defensible than flat, bare plains. Even so, that the Aurolani were used to winter neutralized that advantage and created hardships for Murosan troops.
The majority of the population existed along the seacoast, save for those who lived in Caledo and, a bit farther south, in the city of Zamsina. The roads from Oriosa and Saporicia ran through Zamsina before heading north to Caledo and then out west to the coast. Coming in toward the capital they’d skirted the city and picked up the north road halfway between Caledo and Zamsina.
The defensive situation was not good at all. The Aurolani had two targets to hit. The first consisted of the coastal cities. They’d already taken Porjal and could roll into Saporicia, right to the border of Loquellyn. The advantage of doing that would be to allow them to ship supplies down by boat, which would be quicker than the long road past Fortress Draconis.
And they will be needing more supplies. If a city’s walls can be reinforced, by stone or magick or both, the Aurolani will require more firedirt and shot to bring the cities down. In addition to providing the Aurolani another line of supply, taking the coastal cities would also cut the Murosans and the folk of northern Saporicia off from being supplied by sea. For those two reasons, rolling the coastal cities up made perfect strategic sense.
The other target was Caledo itself. Because it was the capital of the nation, it made a perfect political target. Taking Caledo would be the equivalent of decapitating the nation. Its citizens would lose heart. The nation would, in the minds of some, cease to exist. Some nobles would take advantage of that state to either ally themselves with Chytrine to save their realms, or otherwise proclaim themselves independent—until the Aurolani rolled over them and shattered their cities.
The very idea of failing to defend Caledo adequately was as bad as losing the city itself. If the coast went, the city could hold out for a while. But if Caledo fell, the chance at cohesive opposition to Chytrine evaporated. While the government might fall back to Zamsina, the loss of Caledo would let the Aurolani still take the coast, and Muroso’s free zone would slowly starve.
King Bowmar looked over at Alexia as if he had read her mind. “It is grim. They feint at the coast, so we have to move to defend it. They feint at Caledo, so we have to defend the capital. I do not have enough in the way of troops to save both areas, and the loss of one betokens the loss of the other. Chytrine’s dragonels will shatter our walls and kill our troops.”
“Then we have to stop the dragonels.”
Alexia looked over at Will. “Easier said than done, Will.”
“I know, but not impossible.” The young thief squeezed in at the edge of the table beside her. “Look, I’ve seen dragonels. The only way to stop them from breaking the walls is to build bigger walls, which I’d guess you’re going to try to do, or prevent them from getting in range to hit your walls. Or, if you can’t keep them out of range, you keep them from being able to hit so hard.”
The king canted his head. “I’m not sure I follow you, Lord Norrington.”
Will sighed heavily. “In Bokagul, Princess Sayce was shot by a draconette. Lombo was, too. Dranae figured some of the folks using the firespitters didn’t put enough firedirt into them. The shot didn’t hit as hard as it could have. Now it strikes me that if they’ve not got the firedirt, they can’t use it, and since you know where their troops are, you could have some folks out there stealing their supplies.”
Alexia smiled. She’d wondered at Will’s sudden exposition on tactics, but once again he’d reduced a military operation to an exercise in thievery. “Very good, Will. I think you’ve got the half of it.”
“I do?”
She rested a hand on his shoulder. “Yes. Highness, Will’s right. The only way to slow the Aurolani forces down is to cut their supplies. This means that, as your people retreat, they have to destroy anything they can’t carry off. It’s winter. There’s no living off the land and an army can’t fight when there’s only snow to fill their bellies. Despite the hardship it will cause, everything the Aurolani will benefit from must be destroyed.”
The king nodded. “We’ve already begun the shifting of stores and livestock. We’ve destroyed some bridges but, so far, we’ve not fired villages. We can do that, however.”
“That will be good. The second thing that needs to be done, as Will suggested, is to keep the dragonels out of range of the walls. Your situational information makes this possible. We can set up ambushes and defenses at key points. We hit the lead elements of the Aurolani force, stop them, and wait for them to bring their heavier troops up to blast through. Our defenders fade before them, which means our people have time to destroy supplies while, at the same time, we force the Aurolani to wait on land where there is nothing for them.”
King Bowmar ran a hand over his bearded jaw. “So elementary I should have seen it. We have taken pride in the strength of our walls, and the skill of our mages. Cities have become the focus for our defense, but when faced with a force that can overwhelm our cities, defending those cities is just waiting for destruction. I am not certain this defense in depth will defeat Chytrine, but it will slow her forces down.”
Alexia shook her head. “No reason you should have seen it. This war is unlike any we’ve faced before.”
“And yet all this was clear to you.”
She shrugged. There was no way to explain to him that her entire life had been spent learning how to defeat conventional forces. From her earliest days she knew of the destructive power of dragonels, and knew they rendered any city into rubble. If a force was stationary, it invited destruction, so the only antidote to the dragonel was to be found in a highly mobile force that made the enemy’s advance grind to a halt. Since she had always believed Chytrine would return, dragonels had to be accounted for and countered. Here, in Muroso, she had a perfect landscape for providing a solid defense.
“What we need to do, Highness, is to determine which forces you have that are best suited to their roles. We need a city force to defend and reinforce the cities. We need a mobile defense force that will hit, hold, slow, and fade before the enemy. And we will need . . .”
“You’ll need your hunter-killers.” Resolute’s voice echoed strongly. “Crow and I will organize that force. We have spent a quarter century harassing Chytrine’s troops. There is no one better suited to it.”
Alexia smiled. “I have some experience at the kind of tactics you are talking about.”
The Vorquelf’s silver eyes locked on her and sent shivers through her. “Princess Alexia, please do not think I doubt your abilities or harbor any doubts about you, but you will not be coming with us.”
She tried to cover her surprise. “Why not?”
Crow smiled. “Because, Princess, only you know what you have in mind for your mobile defense forces. They will be your responsibility. If they are successful, you will know why. If they are not, you will make them successful. There is no other way.”
Alyx caught the reluctance in Crow’s voice and took solace in it. In her mind she’d seen herself off riding with Crow. They would be out there, free, slashing at Aurolani troops. People without nations attacking an enemy that would destroy all nations. But that freedom, the exhilaration, were illusions. She wanted to slip the responsibilities for which she had been trained and just fight at the side of the man she loved.
In his voice she heard that Crow did not want to be parted from her either, but she hid the smile that realization sparked. Both of them knew their own desires had to be subordinated to their duty. Until Chytrine’s troops were defeated and she was slain, any peace and happiness they might know would be a fancy that could be easily torn asunder.
Bowmar frowned. “I had thought, Lord Norrington, that you would remain here to rally my people.”
“Probably not a good plan.” Will sighed. “Chytrine wants me dead, so having me standing around in one place means that place is a target. I’ll be with Crow and Resolute. Only thing worse for her troops than having me waiting for them is having me hurting them.”
Crow glanced at Resolute, then shook his head. “That decision, Will, is not final. We will talk about it.”
“I figured that, Crow.” The thief shrugged. “We can talk lots, but it comes down to this: we have a plan to stop Chytrine and folks who can do it. Anything that stands between us and spilling blood is just a waste of time.”
CHAPTER 49
T he piteous notes in the screams echoing through Porjal were what unsettled Isaura. She fully understood the need to pacify the city. The siege had been successful, but the resistance had been fierce. Lord Neskartu had been forced to work hard to counter the magicks that rebuilt the shattered walls. The dragonels had to pound them into gravel and then dust before her mother’s troops were able to enter the city.
Once they were poised to do that, a heavily armed force burst from the city and headed away, westward along the coast. The Aurolani troops entering the city had become overconfident, and assumed there would be no one left to fight them. In a sense they were correct, for very few people remained. Those who did, however, were clever, suicidal, and adept at setting up and springing ambushes and booby traps that mangled, maimed, and occasionally killed.
Given the casualties among the sorcerers Neskartu had brought south with him, Isaura found herself pressed into duty aiding the wounded. She joined Trib in trying to heal some grichothka. One had fallen into a pit that had been lined mostly with upward-pointing spikes that impaled him as he fell in. Others at the bottom of the pit pointed down, holding him as his fellows tried to pull him free. Yet others had arms smashed or severed, shoulders crushed and legs broken as stones fell, or logs rolled. Any number had their feet punctured by a pair of iron nails bent at right angles and welded together in the middle. With all points sharpened, they could be tossed on the ground and a spike would always point upward.