Elade winced as she leaned over the edge of the bridge. The water was clear and still enough that she could see her own reflection. “Everyone who spends too much time around me eventually pays the price for my mistakes. I won’t allow that to happen again.”
“You can’t still blame yourself for Tevek’s death,” Darius said, creeping up behind her. “There was nothing you could have possibly done.”
“I could have been there with him.”
“Then the Crell would have taken Garos. I would be dead, and Jason and his friends probably would be, too.”
“I could have returned to the Citadel with him, then,” Elade pressed. “They might have forgiven him if I’d been there to surrender. Tevek’s powers would have been restored.”
“Alric would have found a way to destroy Tevek one way or another, and you would have been locked in a dungeon or killed outright. Instead you chose to protect Jason, drive his father’s demons out of Celenest, and save Garos from Crell occupation. I’d say you made the right decision.”
Elade shook her head. “You don’t understand. You can’t understand.”
“I’m willing to try,” Darius said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Please, tell me.”
She pressed her eyes shut. Deep down, she understood that he just wanted to help. He always wanted to help. From the first time they had met in Serogar, she had sensed a bond between them. She had been shocked that any Solarian, let alone a high-ranking Legion officer, had been willing to speak with a vaeyn. But Darius hadn’t seemed to care about her gray skin or her people’s reputation. He had seen her as a Knight of the Last Dawn, and that had been enough.
As the weeks had passed and the battles had grown more intense, the nature of their relationship had changed. His attraction to her had been obvious, but it had also been mutual. Under different circumstances, Elade would have gladly invited him into her bed…and now, a few years later, their time apart had only caused those feelings to simmer into a boil. She could hear it in the tone of his voice; she could feel it in the trembling of his fingers on her shoulders. And she could see it in the sparkle behind his eyes.
A part of her wanted to spin around and kiss him. An even larger part of her wanted to drag him back to her chambers and spend the night beneath him. But if sleeping with him would have been a mistake at Serogar, then it absolutely would be a mistake now. She needed to get out of here as soon as possible…
“Those refugees down there in the lower city think the world of you,” Darius said.
Elade blinked at the abrupt change of subject. “They don’t even know who I am.”
“They know enough. And that Izarian girl practically worships you. She’s been begging my men to get another chance to see you.”
“She’s young. Too young for war.”
“The Crell have never been all that choosy about their conscripts. As awful as this is to say, she’s probably lucky the local commander didn’t make her his pet instead.”
“Very lucky,” Elade murmured. “But she saved my life. I’m still not sure why.”
Darius shrugged, “Like you said, she’s young. You’re probably the first Knight of the Last Dawn she’s ever seen. Even Crell children grow up on stories about knights and dragons.”
“No, I don’t mean that,” Elade whispered. “There’s something unusual about her. She’s skilled for a raw conscript—too skilled, I think. And too brave as well. I still have a hard time believing she followed me all the way from Lanesk, and I have an even harder time believing she shot and killed a Zarul operative.”
“Paladins have a reputation for inspiring regular people to take great risks.”
“Maybe, but you know how much the average Crell fears the Green Coats. And I’m sure it’s worse in the assimilated provinces like Izaria.”
“What are you suggesting, then? That she’s lying to you about being a conscript?”
“I don’t know,” Elade admitted. “But something doesn’t feel quite right about her.”
“If she’s some type of Crell spy, then she’s one hell of an actress. And I’m not sure why they would set up a trap to bait you into the fjord only to have her kill their own men. That seems way too elaborate, even for the ‘Coats.”
“You’re probably right. And if she’s not a Zarul plant, I have no idea what else she could be.”
“A brave, awe-stricken kid with a crush on an exotic foreigner,” Darius said. His hand gradually shifted from her shoulder down to her waist. “Trust me: I know exactly how she feels.”
Elade closed her eyes. “Darius…”
“Please stay,” he whispered into her ear. “I won’t pretend to know what you’re going through, but the people here need you.” His grip tightened. “I need you.”
Slowly, deliberately, Elade finally turned around…and the instant she did so, she knew she had made a terrible mistake. She should have run while she’d had the chance. She should have shadow-walked free of his grip and sprinted off towards the lower battlements before he could stop her.
Instead she leaned forward and kissed him. Her arms locked around his head, and his arms squeezed about her waist. For a few perfect seconds they remained still, and she savored the heat of his breath and the taste of his lips. Their armor clattered together as he gently pushed her back against the edge of the bridge, and his hand grabbed her thigh and hoisted her right leg up near his waist.
Elade was just about ready to drag him back towards the central tower when she caught a flicker of movement from the corner of her eye. Tilting her head to the side, she glanced down into the water. The surface wasn’t nearly as calm as it had been just a few minutes ago. Farther down the channel she noticed some small waves…
“What’s wrong?” Darius panted between breaths.
“Something is stirring the water.”
“What?”
“Is there a mill or pump further down that I’m not aware of?”
He shook his head in obvious confusion and frustration. He was probably trying to decide if this was another weak attempt to get away. “No, but plenty of fish squeeze through the western grate.”
“This was much larger than a fish,” Elade told him as she gently slipped free of his grip. She didn’t sense anything strange when she reached out to the Aether, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. There were enough channelers and enchanted weapons in the city that she couldn’t really separate one aura from another.
“Urchins from the Black Quarter sneak down there to swim at night sometimes,” Darius said. “Not all the guards have the heart to turn them away.”
“Mm,” Elade mumbled. “When was the last time your people checked the grates?”
Darius blinked. “I don’t know, that’s not exactly the Fort’s weakest—”
He never finished the sentence. Without warning, a thunderous roar echoed up from the waterway, and when Elade glanced down over the edge she had to resist the urge to scream at the top of her lungs. Rising out from the water, its massive black scales glinting in the moonlight, was the unmistakable silhouette of a dragon. The creature’s mighty wings flapped upwards, splashing the adjacent streets in a veritable tidal wave of displaced water, and it reared back on its haunches as if it were about to breath fire across half the fortress. But instead it hoisted its arms from the water and flicked its talons outward…and a pair of all-too-familiar Crell troop carriers soared free from its grip and crashed down somewhere in the upper levels of the city.
“Sol have mercy,” Darius stammered. “How in the Void did—”
“Get down!” Elade warned, driving her shoulder into his waist and tackling him flat against the bridge. She felt the air wheeze from his lungs, but before he could protest another roar echoed across the battlements…followed by a storm of flame and death.
Without the protection of the Aether, they both would have been cooked alive. Even with Elade shielding them, the heat was so intense that her brow instantly beaded with sweat. Flames writhed hungrily ar
ound the bridge like the tongue of a giant beast lapping up everything in its path, and she closed her eyes as a curtain of fire singed barely an inch in front of her face…
And then it was over. The dragon unleashed another ear-splitting roar, and Elade grabbed Darius’s arm and wrenched him back to his feet.
“Get back to the command tower and rally your men,” she ordered. “Now!”
Darius hopped back to his feet. The dread momentarily darkening his features had already vanished. Whatever else he might have been, he was still a soldier. His combat instincts immediately took over.
“You should come along,” he told her. “I’ll need your help to—”
“I’ll keep them contained as long as I can,” Elade said, pushing him away. “Now go!”
Without waiting for a response, she dashed off towards the closest Crell troop carrier. Groll shock troops were already spilling out onto the streets, but even with the help of a dragon, this wasn’t a large enough force to actually conquer Amberwood. The Crell would have reinforcements on the way, and it was up to her to hold the line until Darius could mobilize his priests and erect a barrier over the city. Otherwise this fortress was doomed…and Solaria would be doomed along with it.
Unsheathing her sword, Elade charged into the fray.
Chapter Sixteen
“Embrace victories when you can. Endure defeats when you must.”
—Legion General Karolyn Hargrove, 1972 A.G.
“The siege dragon has breached the waterway, sir,” Lieutenant Mirrel reported, her eyes flicking back and forth in concentration. “The groll carriers have been deployed, and our Breaker units are standing by.”
“Excellent,” Onar Tenel said with a crisp nod. “Order them to hold position for another few minutes. We need to give the groll a chance to whip up a suitable distraction.”
“Yes, sir.”
Tenel sank back into his chair and calmly folded his hands in his lap. He had long ago learned the importance of projecting a calm façade to his subordinates, especially during vital engagements. On the inside, of course, his stomach was twisting into knots. He had spent months carefully developing this plan, and if it worked the Solarians would have no choice but to fall back and perhaps even consider outright surrender. If it failed, the loss of life and resources would be relatively minimal…but he had no idea how Sovereign Ishthare would react. She had been suspiciously quiet recently—she hadn’t spoken to him in person in nearly a month, and she hadn’t whispered a single word to him via Mirrel or the other Imperators within central command, either.
Not that he was complaining. The less he caught her looming over his shoulder, the better. And the less he saw of the Zarul, the less time he spent wondering what the Imperium was actually going to look like when this war was finally over…
“Can we get a projection of the fortress?” Horsch asked.
“Yes,” Mirrel said, her forehead creasing. “One moment…”
A heartbeat later, the table shimmered with magic as the lieutenant conjured a translucent, three-dimensional approximation of Amberwood. It wasn’t perfect, of course; they could only see what the Imperators on the ground could see, which meant that most of the fort was still covered in shadow. Still, from a commander’s perspective these projections remained immensely useful tools. Tenel could scarcely imagine what war must have been like for the generals and officers of the dark ages before the Godswar…
“The groll shock troops have engaged the Solarians,” Mirrel reported. “Most of the enemy soldiers are fleeing back to the command tower. They have nothing to defend the—wait.”
Tenel cocked an eyebrow. “Lieutenant?”
She waved a hand above the projection, and several other human-shaped blurs appeared near the bridges overlooking the waterway. “One of the figures is General Iouna. He is heading for the command tower.”
Horsch swore under his breath. “I don’t think we’ll be able to cut him off in time. What a pity. That would have been a fine turn of luck, wouldn’t it?”
“What about the other figure near the bridges?” Tenel asked.
“We’re not certain, sir, but he—no, she,” Mirrel corrected, “seems to be heading towards the groll.”
“I’ll bet you a year’s supply of vodka that’s our missing dark elf paladin,” Horsch grumbled. “She could bloody ruin everything…”
“There’s no need to panic just yet,” Tenel admonished. Despite the flatness of his tone, however, he felt an extra twinge of anxiety in his gut. This woman had almost single-handledly prevented them from acquiring the divine spark in Lyebel several months ago, and then she had cut down their powerful soldiers at Garos just a few short weeks later. Tenel might not have loathed her as much as General Moore and his Elf Witch…but tactically speaking, this vaeyn was almost certainly the greatest threat to the war effort in Solaria.
But perhaps her presence was a hidden blessing. If they could successfully sack Amberwood and destroy the Alliance’s most visible hero along with the Legion’s High General…
“Order the Breaker units to begin their assault on the Solarian priests,” Tenel ordered. “And make sure the siege dragon causes as much destruction as possible—I want to make certain it gets her attention.”
Horsch cocked an eyebrow at him. “She is a paladin, you know. There’s a real chance she might actually be able to kill it.”
“Possibly, but she’s also the only one in Amberwood with the power to stop our Breakers. The longer we keep her attention on the waterway, the more time they’ll have to finish their job.” Tenel smiled and leaned forward. “And once our reinforcements arrive, the fortress will be ours.”
***
Chaos, the old saying went, spread as quickly and destructively across a battlefield as flame across a slick of tar. And the panic gripping Amberwood could not have been a more perfect illustration.
Many civilians bowled over each other in a frantic attempt to find shelter, while others cowered behind buildings, towers, or even rocks for cover. Most of the Solarian soldiers were scrambling to locate their unit commanders and rally a defense, but a surprising number of them had dropped their weapons and run screaming in the opposite direction. The sad truth was that by the time Darius organized his men, this battle could already be over.
Elade grimaced as she leapt down off the bridge to one of the staircases on the lower level. The groll shock troops were a serious problem, and so were the Crell units accompanying them—especially if they included Imperators or Breakers. But right now the water-borne dragon had to remain her top priority. If she could draw its attention for even a few minutes, the Alliance soldiers might be able to gather their wits and hold the line. Better yet, if she could force the creature to take off, then perhaps the priests could erect a defensive barrier over the fort and block it out completely…
But first things first. One of the Crell troop carriers had shattered barely a hundred feet ahead of her current position, and an armored groll brute was already rampaging through the streets directly between her and the dragon. Elade knew she needed to eliminate it before it could do anymore damage, and so she sucked in a deep breath, summoned her shield onto her arm, and charged.
The groll turned at her approach. Her dark blue cloak and armor blended in well with the long shadows, but her shield wasn’t exactly subtle. The shimmering blue disc lit up the street as she ran, and the monster picked up a large chunk of broken stone and hurled it in her direction. Reaching out to the Aether, Elade waited until the rock was just about to squash her before she teleported through the shadows and re-appeared directly behind the groll. Her Dawn-forged sabre easily carved through the creature’s leg armor and sank deep into its flesh, and on instinct she immediately rolled to the ground in the hopes of evading the inevitable counterattack.
Just in time. The groll’s right-hand axe whooshed through the air and narrowly missed cleaving her head from her shoulders; the left axe slammed into the ground and just as narrowly avoided sever
ing her arm at the elbow. Wincing, Elade vaulted back to her feet and thrust her sword into the creature’s now-exposed flank. Again her blade tasted flesh, and again the groll retaliated with wild slashes in her direction. But at this point the bulk of its strength had been sapped, and a few seconds later it crumpled over in an anguished ball of blood and screams. Elade hacked down a third and final time to put the monster out of its misery.
“Get back to the command tower!” she called out to any soldiers that could hear her above the rising din of battle. “General Iouna will rally the defenses there!”
Elade had no idea whether they would obey her or not, but she didn’t have time to wait around and find out. Pivoting on a heel, she dashed down the road towards the dragon and stopped when she closed within fifty feet.
At first, she was a bit surprised the creature hadn’t taken to the air yet—even a dragon could only do so much damage trapped within the confines of the waterway. But now that she was close enough to get a better look, she belatedly understood: this wasn’t a normal dragon.
The Crell beast masters had obviously been doing some tinkering. The average black-scaled adult dragon was wide and powerful; the Imperium had long bred them for raw strength and carrying capacity rather than speed. Crell commanders preferred to use the smaller, nimbler manticores for aerial raids and skirmishes, while their dragons functioned as mobile siege platforms and troop carriers. This particular dragon, however, had obviously been malformed by some type of perverse Aetheric manipulation. Its wings were thick and stunted, not to mention shaped oddly, and Elade wondered if it was even capable of flight. But she had a feeling it could swim quite rapidly, and the grotesque, bulbous sacks hanging from its jowls likely aided the creature in holding its breath for long periods of time.
In other words, the beast had been designed specifically for this mission. The Crell must have loaded it with troops somewhere farther up the river, knowing that the only viable entrance into Amberwood was through the old waterway. This dragon’s purpose wasn’t to conquer, but to divide and confuse…and even though the beast couldn’t fly, it could still crawl out of the waterway and breathe flaming death across the streets, not to mention terrify the defending soldiers. Elade had to buy Darius and his men a little more time…
The Godswar Saga (Omnibus) Page 113