Tyrcamber jogged to the north, heading towards the outer wall. The trumpets sang again, more urgently, and Tyrcamber broke into a run. Around him, he heard the clatter of armor, the shouts of knights and men-at-arms as they roused their soldiers and got to their positions.
He reached the square before the northern gate and saw the Emperor’s banner. The Emperor himself was in the square, flanked by the knights of the Imperial Guard, and Tyrcamber caught a glimpse of Rilmael’s gray cloak and golden armor. Tyrcamber scrambled up the stone stairs, jogged along the battlements, and came to his section of the ramparts.
The sound of drums rose from the Valedictor’s host.
Sir Daniel Tremund was already there, clad in his black armor, his expression serene as he gazed to the north. He looked well-rested, but Tyrcamber wondered if the Knights of the Third Eye ever slept at all. The mind magic the Order of the Third Eye wielded had strange effects upon its knights.
“Sir Daniel,” said Tyrcamber, catching his breath. “What’s going on?”
He saw activity among the Valedictor’s camp. Ranks of goblins and ogres had formed up, the brightening sky fire glinting off their helmets and spear points. In the center of their formation, facing the northern gate, was something that looked like a barn, albeit a barn on wheels.
It was the housing for some kind of siege engine.
“The enemy prepares to attack,” said Daniel. “I don’t know if you saw it, but their rafts are crossing the River Bellex to the east. The Emperor and the Dukes had to send many of our reserves there. The Valedictor is going to attack from the north and the east simultaneously.”
“Risky,” said Tyrcamber.
“Or perhaps bold,” said Daniel, his voice quiet.
“Aye,” said Tyrcamber. The army of the western Dukes would begin crossing the River Nabia to attack soon. If the Valedictor wasn’t careful, he was going to find himself caught between the fortifications of Sinderost and the approaching reinforcements. But if he was bold, he could seize Sinderost today and have a strong point from which to repel the western army.
Assuming, of course, the Valedictor could storm Sinderost. It seemed unlikely on the surface. Yet the Valedictor was careful, methodical. He had spent the decades since the fall of the Dragon Imperator preparing for this war. Tyrcamber couldn’t imagine the Valedictor launching an all-out attack on the city unless he thought it would succeed.
“They have more siege ladders,” said Daniel, pointing.
“Larger ones, too,” said Tyrcamber. Armored ogres carried the new ladders, which were broader and heavier than the ones from the last attack. Additionally, barbed steel hooks topped the ladders, which would help them grip the battlements and make it harder to throw them down.
Another roll of drums came from the Valedictor’s host, and thousands of muridachs and goblins and ogres shouted at once. He heard another roar coming from the east, accompanied by the growing sounds of violence and occasional splashes. The Valedictor’s host was trying to cross the River Bellex. Tyrcamber hoped that the men on the eastern wall could hold.
But they had their responsibility, and Tyrcamber had his.
There was a roar, and a winged shadow rose from the goblins and soared into the air. The Valedictor’s great black dragon spiraled upwards, wings flexing, and Tyrcamber glimpsed the dark elven lord riding upon its back. As the dragon circled over the enemy host, dozens of gray-skinned figures moved to the side of the wheeled siege engine, clad in blue armor and dark cloaks. They were umbral elves, and as Tyrcamber watched, they took up escort positions around the wheeled engine.
“Sir Tyrcamber,” said Daniel, peering at the wheeled device, one hand raised to shield his eyes.
“Aye?” said Tyrcamber.
“I think there is a ram inside that housing,” said Daniel.
Tyrcamber frowned. “Our own catapults and ballistae should destroy a ram before it reaches the gate.”
“Probably,” agreed Daniel. “But I wonder why all those umbral elves have gathered near the ram. Surely they are not going to push it forward.” A dry note entered his calm voice. “The umbral elves are not overly fond of physical labor.”
“They are not,” agreed Tyrcamber, who had spoken with umbral elves. As he watched, dozens of ogres armed in steel plate marched to the ram’s housing. They wore the heaviest armor Tyrcamber had yet seen among the Valedictor’s soldiers, armor so heavy it would have been a challenge even for a creature with an ogre’s strength to move while wearing it.
The ogres took position on either side of the ram’s housing, grasping wooden handles protruding from the walls. For a moment the Valedictor’s entire host stood in silence, and then the Valedictor’s dragon roared, shooting a blazing plume of fire across the sky. The thousands of goblins, ogres, and muridachs cheered, and the ogres carrying the siege ladders began to march forward. Muridachs armed with shields screened the ogres, while the ogres at the ram roared and began shoving.
The wooden housing and the ram shuddered forward, the massive wheels churning at the earth.
A blast of trumpets came from the gatehouse. Tyrcamber glanced to the west and saw that the Emperor himself stood on the ramparts over the northern gate to direct the battle. Likely the Dukes, the Masters of the Orders, and the Guardian Rilmael would be with him. Another blast came from the trumpets, and behind Tyrcamber and the serjeants, archers raised their bows. They released as one, sending volleys of arrows soaring into the sky and falling like steel-tipped rain among the enemy.
Yet this time the Valedictor’s soldiers did a better job of defending their siege ladders. The muridachs screening the ladders carried massive tower shields, and the shields were thick enough to deflect most of the arrows. Some of the shafts got through and pierced the ogres carrying the ladders, and the catapults and ballistae on the wall released stones and bolts. The tower shields proved no defense against the fury of the siege engines, and the missiles ripped through the muridachs and the ogres.
But there were far, far more goblins, ogres and muridachs than there were siege engines, and the Valedictor had ample replacements. Other soldiers rushed forward to take the places of those killed by the arrows and the ballistae, and the wave of ladders drew ever closer to the city’s wall. Tyrcamber saw a flash of silver light from the ramparts, and a brilliant bolt of lightning screamed down from the sky fire and struck one of the approaching ladders. The ladder ripped apart into burning splinters, and the explosion killed dozens of ogres and muridachs. Rilmael had thrown his magic into the fray, and Tyrcamber had seen him use that powerful lightning spell many times before.
In rapid succession, the Guardian destroyed two more ladders.
Yet the rest of them kept coming despite the arrows.
“That ladder is going to reach our section of the wall,” said Daniel.
“Serjeants forward!” said Tyrcamber. “Conserve your magical strength!” He did not want to have to kill any men who succumbed to the Malison and began transforming into a dragon. Tyrcamber had been forced to do that too many times already.
The nearby serjeants moved forward, shields raised and swords drawn back. Tyrcamber slid his shield onto his left arm and drew his sword, the blue steel flashing in the harsh light of the sky fire. The archers behind his serjeants unleashed a steady rain of arrows at the approaching ladder, but it kept moving forward.
With a cry, the ogres carrying the ladder shifted position, raising it, and the ladder swung upward and slammed into the ramparts, the steel hooks at the end grasping the battlements.
A steel-armored ogre grasped the end of the ladder. The hulking creature would have stood eight or nine feet tall, its skin gray, its eyes a harsh yellow. The ogre wore steel plate armor that covered it from head to foot, heavier than a human could have borne. Through the slit of its helm, Tyrcamber glimpsed its glaring eyes and the fang-filled mouth. In its right hand, the ogre grasped a heavy steel-bound club. It whipped the club around in a vicious swing, and the force of the impact drove back
the two serjeants. The ogre lumbered forward with a bellow, and behind it, goblins began clambering up the ladder, swords in hand.
Tyrcamber summoned magic and cast the Lance spell, throwing a bolt of flame at the ogre. He aimed for the creature’s face, but it was too quick, and his blast struck the ogre’s cuirass instead. Tyrcamber put enough power into the spell that it melted a hole in the armor, and the ogre rocked back with a howl of pain. He lunged forward before the creature could recover its balance and slashed his sword into the gap beneath its helm. Tyrcamber felt the keen blade cut into the ogre’s thick hide, and dark blood welled across the steel cuirass. The ogre fell to its knees, and one of the serjeants finished it off with a mace blow that left a fist-sized dent in the steel helmet.
By then the goblins swarmed up the ladder and onto the ramparts.
Tyrcamber caught the thrust of a goblin sword on his shield. The creature’s attack landed with enough force to send splinters flying from the thick wood. Tyrcamber caught his balance, and over his shield’s rim, he saw the goblin’s blue-skinned face beneath its steel helm, its yellow eyes and the needle-like teeth bared in a furious snarl. He surged forward with a burst of speed as the goblin prepared another attack, and Tyrcamber hammered his shield into the goblin. The creature rocked back, and Tyrcamber’s sword darted out, plunging through the gap in its helm and into the goblin’s throat. The goblin fell dead, but two more took its place.
Steel rang on steel as Tyrcamber’s men closed around the goblins, trying to push them back. Magic flared as the goblins cast Lance spells of ice or lightning, and Tyrcamber’s serjeants responded with Shield spells, deflecting their attacks. The goblins attacked with ferocity, but Tyrcamber had more men, at least on this section of the ramparts. To the west and east, he heard fighting along the walls, and the huge ram in its massive wooden housing crept ever closer. The ladders had reached the wall before the ram, but no doubt that was the Valedictor’s plan. Let the goblins scrambling up the ladders pin down the defenders while the ram crawled to the gate. Tyrcamber hoped that the Emperor and his advisors saw the danger.
But right now, Tyrcamber had more immediate problems.
He joined the fray as his serjeants tried to drive the goblins back. The fighting was brutal and bloody. Tyrcamber caught the thrust of a sword on his shield and plunged his own weapon into a goblin soldier’s stomach. Another goblin lunged at him, and Tyrcamber twisted, shoving the impaled creature into the line of the second goblin’s attack. The goblins tangled together, and Tyrcamber ripped his sword free. Before he could strike, another serjeant put an axe into the second goblin’s skull, and both creatures went down.
Sir Daniel stepped forward and gestured, casting a spell. His eyes glowed white, a shimmering haze around his fingers as he worked a spell of mind magic. A pulse of power flowed out from him, and suddenly the goblins fighting in front of the ladder went limp, their minds dazed.
“Strike them quickly!” said Daniel, his voice calm but strained. “I cannot hold them for long!”
“Go for the ladder!” commanded Tyrcamber, and he ran forward, the serjeants around him. Two dazed goblins stood in his path, and Tyrcamber cut them down. It felt like cold-blooded butchery, but they needed to get that damned ladder off the wall. He seized the steel hooks at the end of the ladder and heaved, and six other men clustered around him. They managed to push it a foot from the battlements, and a goblin scrambled up the top rung, raising an axe. Tyrcamber worked a quick Lance spell that caught the goblin in the shoulder. Since the goblin was holding onto the ladder with that arm, the creature screamed and fell backward, hitting the ground.
The serjeants gave one last heave, and the ladder tilted backward and fell to the ground with a thump. A cheer went up from the serjeants and men-at-arms nearby, and a few of the soldiers threw Lance spells at the advancing goblins.
“Hold your magic!” said Tyrcamber. “Save your power. Archers, forward. Forward! Keep that ladder pinned down!”
The spearmen and the swordsmen stepped back, and the archers moved forward. Once they reached the battlements, they raised their bows and began sending shafts towards the fallen ladder. They killed goblin after goblin, keeping them from raising the ladder and reaching the ramparts again.
“Serjeants!” said Tyrcamber, calling his magic. “Burn the ladder. Lance spells, quickly!”
He hurled a Lance of magical fire at the fallen ladder, and a half-dozen serjeants followed suit. All the men of the Order of Embers, whether noble knights or common serjeants, trained with the use of the magic of elemental fire, and the Order’s harsh lessons made them stronger. The volley of magical fire hit the ladder, and several of the rungs began burning, spreading to its sides.
That threat was neutralized.
Tyrcamber sucked in a deep breath and looked to the east and to the west, trying to take in the situation. Up and down the wall he saw furious fighting as mobs of goblins and muridachs and ogres scaled the walls and stormed the battlements, though the defenders were holding. Tyrcamber was not sure how long that would last, given the horde outside the wall. From the east, he heard fighting as the Valedictor’s forces crossed the river on their rafts and attacked. Tyrcamber didn’t know how the defenders on the eastern wall fared.
He supposed that was outside of his responsibility. It was the task of the Emperor and Duke Chilmar and the other high nobles to oversee the entire battle. Tyrcamber’s task was to hold this section of the wall, and so far, he had done so.
But that ram was starting to concern him.
It had covered considerable distance while Tyrcamber and his men had fought off the ladder, and it had picked up speed as the armored ogres put their backs into it. The archers and the siege engines near the gate had turned their attention to the ogres, but their armor was thick enough to deflect most arrows. Those few ogres who fell were quickly replaced.
There was a flash of light, and a massive lightning bolt screamed from the sky fire and towards the ram and its housing. It seemed that Rilmael had seen the threat of the ram as well.
Then Tyrcamber saw why umbral elves accompanied the ram.
In unison, the umbral elves summoned magic, and dozens of overlapping Shield spells covered the ram and its housing, creating a mesh of protective magic. Rilmael’s lightning blast struck the web of Shields and rebounded, hurtling to the north to blast into the Valedictor’s army. The errant bolt of lightning killed a score of goblins, the thunderclap booming over the battlefield, but the ram kept coming.
Tyrcamber heard a blast of trumpets and men shouting, and the archers on the walls turned their attention towards the approaching ram. Volleys of arrows hurtled towards the ram, and again the umbral elves cast spells in unison, sheathing the ram in Shields. The ram had gotten too close for the catapults to target, but the ballistae had no such limitation. Shafts hurtled towards the ram’s housing, and the umbral elves managed to deflect most of them, but several got through, killing both the armored ogres and the gray-skinned elves.
But it was not enough.
Yard by yard, the ram crept closer, until it had almost reached the gate.
And as it drew nearer, Tyrcamber could see into the housing, and the sight puzzled him.
He had seen siege rams before, and he expected the ram’s shaft to have been constructed from tree trunks. Given the size of the ram, it would likely be a dozen tree trunks lashed together with iron bands, and the ram’s head would be a massive ball of stone or metal. Heavy iron chains would hang from the framework of the housing, holding the ram suspended and allowing the ogres to draw it back and swing it against the closed gates. Tyrcamber saw the iron chains, and he saw the thick shaft of the ram.
But the ram didn’t have a head.
And after a moment, Tyrcamber realized that the ram’s shaft wasn’t made of tree trunks.
It had been built from bones, dozens of thick, enormous bones. Flickers of golden fire danced along the bones, almost like the light from a dying ember. Those were dragon bones
, dozens of them lashed together. Why had the Valedictor built a ram from dragon bones? Dragon bones were hard and strong, true, but so were iron and wood, and those were much easier to obtain. When a dragon was killed, it reverted to its original form, to whoever it had been before the Malison had taken hold. The only way to obtain dragon bone was to cut it from the dragon while it was still alive, a procedure to which the creature would object violently.
The Valedictor must have gone through dozens of dragons to assemble the necessary bones for the ram. But why? It would have taken months, maybe even years of work to gather that many dragon bones, and the Valedictor had been busy gathering the armies now invading the Empire. Why go to such efforts?
Tyrcamber remembered the fighting in Falconberg a few years ago, how the Theophract and the Dragon Cult had almost used a weapon made from a dragon’s skull to destroy the city. The skull of a dragon could be fashioned into mighty weapons of dark magic. The rest of a dragon’s skeleton wasn’t as powerful, but the bones could still nonetheless make potent weapons…
And what kind of power could dozens of dragon bones unleash?
Tyrcamber felt a chill.
“It’s not a ram,” said Tyrcamber.
“I’m sorry, Sir Tyrcamber?” said Daniel.
“It’s not a ram,” said Tyrcamber. “It’s a weapon of dark magic. We must not let it reach the gates of the city.”
Storms of arrows hissed towards the housing, and volleys of magic thundered at the umbral elves and the ogres. Rilmael called more lightning, and the knights near the Emperor hurled Lance spells. More umbral elves and armored ogres fell to the fury of the attack, but more rushed forward to take their places, and the dragon bone weapon continued its steady roll towards Sinderost.
At last the weapon thudded against the city’s northern gate.
Nothing happened.
“If that was supposed to break the gate,” said Daniel, “then it seems our enemy has failed.”
Malison: Dragon War Page 4