Soldiers of Avarice

by Stephen L. Nowland

  “Did you hear that?” she asked with a trembling voice. Aiden listened carefully, but couldn’t hear anything other than their horse’s steps through the snow, and the distant sound of the sea.

  “I hear nothing out of the ordinary,” he answered.

  “It was the growl of a large beast, far in the distance,” she explained. “I — there it is again.”

  “Okay, I heard it that time,” Aiden muttered, his stomach clenching. Though they couldn’t see each other’s expressions in the darkness, Aiden could guess the rest were as afraid as he was. “Anyone care to venture a guess as to what that was?”

  “You hear all sorts of things during a war,” Colt said with a shrug. “That could have been the groan of a siege engine, or the collapse of a building.”

  “This far away from Culdeny?” Nellise queried.

  “We’re wasting time,” Colt growled. “We need to get there as soon as possible, or there ain’t gonna be a town left to save.”

  Too tired to argue, Aiden pressed on, with a reluctant Sayana by his side. Nearly half an hour later, they finally emerged onto the eastern highway, a long, straight stretch of road that followed the cliffs of northern Aielund all the way through the Stonegaard Mountains and on to the capital, Fairloch, nearly a week’s travel to the east.

  They’d heard no more of the deep growling sounds, but the scene before them as they climbed down from their saddles was one of devastation.

  The smell of charred flesh and burnt wood drifted through the air, and the smoldering remains of a large fire could be seen up the road a little. There were a dozen bodies, all clad in metal armor that had partially melted from the heat. Nearby trees were blackened and charred, as if the entire area had been blasted with fire of incredible intensity.

  “What could have done this?” Criosa asked with a trembling voice, as they searched amongst the wreckage. The princess suddenly gagged and dashed off into the bushes to throw up. Nellise stood there transfixed at the grisly sight, and Aiden feared her resolve to continue on might fail.

  “I’ve got tracks over here,” Colt said grimly. “Mostly theirs, I think, judging by the boot prints. They were running from the east as fast as they could. Whatever hit them, it happened while they were moving. There’s no sign of a fight — they just burned.”

  Movement from the brush on the side of the road made everyone whirl around with their weapons at the ready. Half a dozen men in the livery of the Kingdom Guard emerged onto the road with their hands in the air. They carried an assortment of swords, maces and longbows.

  “Who are you?” Colt barked, ready to shoot them at the first sign of trouble.

  “Sergeant Evans, Kingdom Guard Culdeny detachment, second company,” an older man replied in a drained voice. “We’re the only survivors of this attack. You’re not with the mercenaries — that much I can tell.”

  “No, I think we’re on the same side,” Colt began, before he was interrupted.

  “Help — I’ve found someone over here,” came Criosa’s sudden cry from the side of the road. Colt and the others lowered their weapons. As one, they rushed over to see a terribly burned man lying in the snow.

  He was alive, though only just, and as Nellise brought forth a prayer of light, they could see that his skin was horribly burned and he must have been in terrible pain. “You’re going to be okay,” Nellise told him gently, as she knelt beside the man with her crystal in one hand, putting Aiden’s fears to rest.

  “I’ve never heard a priest lie like that before,” the burned man managed to choke out, exhibiting remarkable bravado considering his condition.

  “She’s the finest healer in these parts, friend,” Colt told the man. “She’s gonna have you on your feet and back in the fight in no time.”

  “No, thanks,” he gasped. “I don’t want to fight that thing.”

  “You saw what attacked you?” Pacian asked.

  “Dragon,” came the dreaded reply. “It was a dragon. Size of a house...”

  Aiden felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up, and a deathly silence fell over the assembled group as they digested this information. Instantly, he thought of Salinder, the enormous dragon in his dreams who had turned the tide of a battle long ago. But the withered creature he’d met was trapped on another plane of existence, and couldn’t be responsible for this.

  “There hasn’t been a dragon in these parts for centuries,” Colt said. “Where the hell did it come from?”

  “I’ll ask it next time,” the burned soldier replied, clasping onto Sergeant Evan’s hand as he struggled to breathe.

  “My squad was patrolling the highway,” the old soldier explained, “and we came across the monster in the mountains, watching the road. We managed to make it back here before it caught up. Is he going to make it?”

  “He’s too far gone,” Nellise whispered sadly, looking down on the burned man with regret as he stiffened, then relaxed for the last time. Evans gently placed the man’s hand across his chest, while Aiden looked around at the carnage the dragon had wrought.

  “It must have attacked Culdeny,” he muttered; “that’s why we saw it on fire, well before the Steel Tigers could have made it there.”

  “Maybe the dragon attacked the mercenaries as well?” Criosa asked with a trembling voice, sounding like she was starting to regret her decision to come along.

  “We’ll find out when we get closer to town,” Aiden surmised. “If the Steel Tigers are still there, working side by side, then it means the dragon has to be working with them.”

  “Is that even possible?” Pacian asked, incredulously. “How do you deal with something that could turn you into a pile of ash in seconds?”

  “It has been done in the past,” Sayana pointed out. “There are dragons in the mountains where the Akoran live. They have had dealings, though the price is always too high.” Though she hadn’t looked at Aiden directly, he knew she was speaking to him when she said that.

  “If they are working together, then there is nothing we can do to help Culdeny,” Criosa whispered soberly. “How can we fight something that powerful?”

  “We don’t,” Aiden surmised. “We’re going to engage the Steel Tigers from the shadows, and if that dragon shows up, well, I have a few tricks up my sleeve that’ll make it think twice.”

  He touched the scroll cases on his belt and hoped the remaining magic at his disposal would be enough. “The dragon can’t be everywhere at once, and this poor man said it was back on the highway in the mountains.”

  “If you’re planning to take on the people attacking our home, we’re going to help,” Sergeant Evans volunteered. “We might only number eight men, but the rest of my lads gave their lives in defense of the realm, and I for one ain’t going to let them die in vain.”

  “We could use all the help we can get,” Aiden agreed.

  “Let’s move west while I scout along the way,” Colt ordered. “Save the horses. We’re going to need whatever they’ve got left.”

  With their numbers bolstered, they cautiously set off along the frozen road. It wasn’t long before they saw a flash of light rising into the sky from the tree line, to disappear into the distant glow from the town.

  “They’ve set up siege engines,” Evans advised. “I guess that means they are working with the dragon.”

  “No sign of it yet, though,” Aiden said hopefully. “Colt would have said something if he’d seen it.”

  It wasn’t long before they began to hear the sounds of distant battle, the screams and cries of men fighting for their lives echoing across the frigid landscape. When they had gone as close as they dared, Aiden called for everyone to stop so Colt could move ahead to investigate further.

  It was a tense wait, but gave them time to catch their breath after the long day’s journey. Aiden drank from his water skin and rested his eyes for a minute, letting the distant sounds of war wash over him.

  When he opened his eyes again, Colt had returned, crouching down in the snow to
let them know the situation. “They’re over the rise, about two hundred yards away,” he started, speaking to the gathered assortment of soldiers, civilians and royalty. “Got themselves a couple of big siege engines, trebuchets, I think.”

  “We’re still half a mile from Culdeny,” the sergeant remarked. “How many men are they holding in reserve this far back?”

  “About two dozen, not including their engineers,” Colt grunted. “There are a few mounted warriors, too, including their commander, from what I can tell. They’re bloody well equipped for a bunch of mercs.”

  “Robert Black is there?” Aiden asked, suddenly very interested. “How could you tell?”

  “They’ve got a few runners ferrying orders back and forth from the front lines, and they were always meeting up with this one bloke in heavy armor. Has himself a nice big stallion to ride, too, so I think it’s a safe bet that he’s in charge.”

  “How much light was there?” Nellise asked. “We had planned a dawn attack, but if my guess is correct, we’re still over an hour from first light.”

  “I saw some lanterns here and there, but it’s not quite enough to fight in. I had an idea, though — they’re using burning pitch in those siege engines, so if we set those on fire...”

  “I can do that,” Sayana said with a measure of fear in her voice. Aiden glanced around at the faces lit by the distant fires and saw the same trepidation he felt. They were in over their heads, and they knew it.

  “I know you’re weary,” Aiden said in sombre tones, “and I know you’re hurt, in more ways than one. I feel the same way. If I thought we had a choice here, I’d be staying out of this fight altogether. This isn’t my war, and for most of you, it isn’t yours either.

  “The people who should be fighting this aren’t here, so it falls to us to step forward and do our part. We’ve heard about the king fighting a war in another country, and didn’t think we were part of it. But now the war has come right to our doorstep, and if we walk away, we may not have a home left to go back to.

  “Things have come between us in recent weeks,” he continued, speaking directly to his companions, and more specifically to Sayana. “Personal conflicts, hard choices, tough situations, not to mention my own personal failings. Under ordinary circumstances, we probably would have gone our separate ways.

  “But remember when we first started working together? We were a team, and we were unstoppable. That’s what we need to be here. If we want to survive the next hour, we need to put aside our issues and trust in each other.”

  They looked to each other in the dim light of the nearby burning town, considering Aiden’s words and his admission of guilt at his own failings. He was unsure what their response would be, until Pacian spoke up — and for the first time in many days, Aiden heard his cocky old friend once more.

  “I think I speak for all of us when I say that the Steel Tigers are in for a very bad day.”

  * * *

  A chill wind blew mournfully over the landscape as Aiden, his companions, and the men of the Kingdom Guard moved westward. There was still no sign of the dragon, and Aiden fervently hoped it stayed that way.

  As they crested a rise, Aiden was able to see Culdeny itself in the distance, buildings torched by dragonfire and burning pitch, turning the sky a fiery red. More immediately, the entire scope of the battle could be seen from this position, which was probably why Commander Robert Black had chosen it for his command post.

  Less than fifty yards away, two siege engines could be seen, their crews winding back the massive wooden arms and placing large barrels of pitch into position before setting them on fire, ready to launch into the town.

  Positioned to the left of the trebuchets stood a group of mercenary soldiers, calmly watching the battle take place in the distance. Of that battle, Aiden could see little, but he knew the defenders, led by Sergeant Ariel, would put up a good fight. It would go a lot easier on them, however, if the trebuchets were out of commission, and this was precisely what Aiden intended to achieve.

  “Can you hit them from here?” he quietly asked Sayana, crouched down in the snow next to him.

  “Yes,” she assured him. “The blast will be huge, so it’s good that we’ve stayed back.”

  “I’m moving into position now,” Pacian said to Aiden as he crept past. “As soon as you’ve created your diversion, I’ll go in and make sure those engines never work again.”

  “I won’t disappoint you,” Sayana told him before he disappeared into the bushes.

  “Do your boys have the horses ready?” Aiden asked Sergeant Evans. “Your experience is going to count for a lot in this fight.”

  “They’re saddled up and ready to charge,” he answered, then looked to the princess. “We’ll do our utmost not to disappoint you, Your Highness.”

  Aiden raised a hand to Colt and the ranger signaled back, his longbow at the ready. Aiden nodded to Sayana, who raised herself up on one knee and began a rhythmic movement with her arms.

  Seconds later, a torrent of fire materialized and blasted towards the siege engines. It struck the barrels sitting next to a trebuchet, which detonated with incredible force. The smoking bodies of engineers and mercenaries flew through the air.

  Other barrels of pitch, stacked neatly between the two engines, ignited with a flourish, sending a plume of fire thirty feet into the air, which seemed to ripple from the force. The impact wave washed over Aiden and the others, along with the stench of burning pitch.

  The suddenness of the strike sent the mercenaries into disarray. The few horses they had tethered nearby in the darkness pulled free of their ropes and bolted into the night.

  It was a perfectly executed opening move, but their advantage wasn’t going to last long. Even now, the officers of the Steel Tigers were shouting orders to control the flames. A dozen mercenaries, led by a brash and loud sergeant, formed up and moved towards Aiden’s position.

  “This is probably the time, then,” Aiden muttered to himself, pulling out the last arcane scroll he had left over from the deceased wizard’s collection. By the light of the nearby flaming pitch, he quickly read through the incantation before intoning the words aloud, releasing the energies stored many decades before.

  A brief tingling sensation covered his body as the scroll disintegrated in his hands. Aiden looked ahead and saw that the mercenaries seemed to slow in their advance. But it wasn’t them, as such — the incantation had altered the flow of time around him, giving his allies an advantage over their adversaries, even if it would only last a matter of seconds.

  “Here they come,” he said grimly, drawing his scepter and speaking the word that would bring his force shield into being. To his right, Sayana stood with her ancient dwarven axe in both hands, her clothing faintly glowing with protective magics.

  When the mercenaries were in close enough, Aiden gave the signal to charge forward and fight. “Aielund forever!” Criosa called in challenge, as the men of the Kingdom Guard thundered past on their horses. They crashed through the enemy line, knocking down and trampling those unfortunate enough to get in the way.

  With his incantation speeding them up, Colt, Nellise and Sergeant Evans sent an impressive barrage of arrows and bolts into the scattered ranks of the mercenaries, andAiden blasted a few down with the blazing light from his scepter. The mounted soldiers kept moving, sweeping around to make another pass at the enemy infantry. By the time the incantation of speed finally ebbed, fifteen of the enemy had fallen.

  Their diversion had worked, for the second trebuchet had its ropes cut, and the fires were slowly making their way toward it, thanks to a trail of pitch poured across the ground by Pacian. The remaining engineers were scrambling, trying to put out the fires and save the trebuchets from total destruction. Aiden glanced to his right and noticed Sayana looking around with a perplexed expression on her face.

  “I could have sworn I heard something moving,” she said nervously, before she was bowled into the snow by an unknown assailant. Sayana scr
eamed in pain, for the shadowy figure had stabbed her arm with a dagger at the same time, and the two of them wrestled on the ground for their lives.

  Aiden couldn’t help her, tangled up and rolling around as they were, but a moment later, flames erupted from her position, engulfing the mercenary agent and flinging what appeared to be a short, athletic woman back into the snow with smoke rising from her charred body.

  Three more of these agents came out of hiding and struck at Aiden and Sayana, using clever flanking tactics to disorient and take advantage of gaps in their defenses. Aiden was struck from behind, leaving his back searing with pain from a laceration. When he whirled around to strike back, he was hit on the back of his leg by some other assailant.

  Sayana didn’t waste any time — with one swing of her axe, she leaped forward to cut down the stealthy warrior. Aiden was about to move to support her exposed flank when he was hit on the side of the head by the hilt of a weapon. He staggered to one side, trying to pull back from the unknown assailant.

  Shaking his head to clear it, he noticed that Pacian had emerged from the undergrowth to aid them, stabbing and slashing at the agents with fury and precision.

  A flash of light suddenly caught Aiden’s attention, and he risked a quick look. What he saw was a robed woman with lightning flaring from her fingertips, sending electricity arcing along the armored men of the militia, shocking them and dropping them to the ground.

  “Nel, wizard!” Aiden called, to which she responded with a quick nod, pulling the crystal from her belt pouch. It was, however, too late to prevent the robed woman from conjuring chunks of snow and ice from the ground.

  They hovered before her; then the pieces spun around, ice chips flying off them until the points became sharp, and then darted at Nellise.

  Her breastplate protected her a little, but the rest of her body bore the brunt of the icy blast tearing through her leathers. She stumbled from the onslaught, blood oozing from a number of tiny wounds. Nellise still had the crystal raised in one hand and this time, as the wizard attempted to unleash another assault, it failed, drawing a string of curses from the woman.