Kings, Queens, Heroes, & Fools

by M. R. Mathias

  A great roar filled the air. Vrot, with no spew left in him to blast through the rope, gave out a screeching call of frustration and pain. Then the rope yanked tight against the spear that had torn through him. He sucked in a deep whooshing breath and, with fangs gritted, pounded his wings, trying to carry himself clear.

  From the ground, the half dozen men and the wide-eyed breed giant who was handling the rope came lifting up off of the ground. Some of the men stumbled and fell away, letting go of the line. The breed had tied the other end of the rope around his waist. He took a long leaping step, and when the others let go he was pulled high into the air. Vrot fought through his pain and lifted the huge half-breed up into the sky. A moment later, Flick gathered his wits, and with a clever spell, turned the spear into water. Bzorch roared out in frustration as the last coil handler went tumbling out of the sky with the rope trailing behind him. He crashed into the Dakaneese lines and luckily died from the impact before they could swarm over him.

  The black dragon peeled away on surging wings and carried his protesting rider out over the vast expanse of marshland. In only moments, they were nowhere to be seen.

  It looked to everyone that the dragon was fleeing due to the spear. The battle started to turn then. Jarrek’s men actually started to force the Dakaneese back toward the gates.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  The Dakaneese retreat didn’t last long. Within the turn of a glass Vrot was back, his glands somewhat replenished after drinking in the marsh. While the dragon rained more acidy breath over the battle, Flick killed men and dwarves by the dozen with his powerful destructive spells. The battle raged on, Jarrek’s men steadily retreating eastward. King Jarrek was heartened when he finally set his eyes on Commander Escott’s force. It was clear that they were retreating too. It didn’t look like they had taken nearly as many casualties as Jarrek’s group had.

  The zard, without any form of real military leadership, had kept advancing into Escott’s archers’ volleys. The number of skeeks pressing them had been reduced significantly. Every now and then a big geka, carrying four or five of the braver zard, would burst through the lines of Escott’s ranks and wreak havoc, but it was the thick swarming clouds of dactyls that were giving them the most problems.

  When commander Escott saw Jarrek’s thinning numbers easing back toward his, he cringed. The remainder of their force was nowhere near the city’s gates anymore. This section of O’Dakahn’s wall was relatively deserted. He knew that it wouldn’t last, though. If they got backed up against the wall they would be surrounded. Hot oil and arrows would eventually come raining down from above with the dragon spume and that would be the end of it.

  Escott hoped that Jarrek had a trick up his sleeve, but he had no idea what it would be. Soon enough he would be able to ask the gore-splattered Wolf King himself. It wouldn’t be long until both of them were backing into each other.

  Mikahl finally managed to get out of the cloud of dactyls that was harrying him. At first he thought it was his maneuvering, and Ironspike’s magic, that won him free, but then he saw the sleek black dragon coming in sharply and realized that the dactyls had fled from it. They had no desire to be splashed by the wyrm’s wicked slaver.

  Mikahl made an evasive move to get clear of the speeding creature, then checked himself to make sure that he was shielded as well as he could be. After that, he sent a fireball streaking at the dragon. He had no choice but to peel away from his current position. Vrot altered his course and flew around the fireball as if he were water flowing around a boulder. A gout of spew went splattering across the archers at the front of Commander Escott’s side of the battle. Mikahl had to look away as their bodies began dissolving. In a surge of disgusted rage Mikahl sent a trio of fireballs at the dragon in a triangular pattern. Vrot came around the first one and took the second hard in the hind quarter. The third nearly took Flick off of the dragon’s back. The bald wizard held on for his life as Vrot twisted and shivered the pain from his scales. Vrot let out a roar. Flick had just righted himself when the agile black wyrm was forced to pull up into a stall to avoid one of Bzorch’s whizing spears.

  The breed giant cursed savagely and slung his big crossbow over his shoulder. He couldn’t believe the dragon was able to stop in midair like that. Quickly, he began coiling up his line. It was the only one he had left. It wasn’t easy carrying his own rope, but he was managing it. He had two spears and one line left, and a focus of will that is only attainable by a predator on the hunt.

  There was a Dakaneese arrow sticking up out of the breed giant’s back and a ragged cut across his waist, but he didn’t seem to notice them. His intensity was frightening, even to the men of his own company. For a long while, several Highwander men had fought around Bzorch to keep him protected while he reloaded, but when Vrot swooped low the breed shouldered his way right out of his own protection and stalked into the enemy’s ranks. With his club like fist and terrifying growl, he cleared his own path through the mayhem. Occasionally an arrow would streak into an enemy who was trying to make a move on the big creature, but it didn’t matter—the hulking half-blood seemed to be, for the most part, battle blessed.

  King Jarrek sighted commander Escott and began working his destrier that way. A Dakaneese soldier carrying a long sword made a darting charge at his mount, but the well trained horse saw the man coming. It bucked sideways and then nearly pitched Jarrek over its head as it back-kicked and caved in the breastplate of the attacker. No sooner than the horse’s hooves found the ground again, Jarrek spurred the animal forward to avoid a big screaming dactyl that had been skewered by one of the archers. It crashed into the space where he and his horse had just been, taking out several men.

  Jarrek chanced a skyward glance and caught his breath. Mikahl had engaged the dragon. Jarrek hadn’t expected the sky to be filled with swamp birds. The archers were doing the best they could, he saw, as another of dactyl came half flapping, half spinning down into a cluster of soldiers.

  Jarrek took in the city wall to the south. Archers were gathering along its top. They were sending long arcing volleys of arrows out into the fray. He glanced to the north and saw that hundreds of skeeks, all riding their quick, ferocious geka lizards, had closed off the only way left to avoid being pinned against the barrier. Jarrek realized his mistake. One of the first rules of battle was to never underestimate your enemy. Now, here they were being pushed back against O’Dakahn’s wall by Ra’Gren’s soldiers, Shaella’s skeeks, and her wizard’s dragon. The reinforcements Queen Rachel and Queen Willa had dispatched were still days away. Not only had King Jarrek failed his enslaved people, many of whom were still in chains beyond the huge city wall, he had led all these men who had come to fight for his cause to their deaths. The intensity of his regret almost outweighed the anger he felt at himself for being such a fool.

  Overhead the dragon roared and Jarrek mimicked the sound from some place deep within himself. Angry beyond reason, he charged his mount into the heat of the battle.

  “Follow me!” he ordered a group of mounted Seawardsmen. “We’ve got to get through or we are done!”

  He decided that he would either carve a way out of the press or die trying. The men, seeing his intent, disengaged from their current battles and followed him, each knowing that the endeavor was next to impossible.

  Commander Escott saw the realization of the situation come over King Jarrek’s face. The Red Wolf had miscalculated, and now he was attempting the impossible. Escott spoke a prayer to the sun gods of his people and then ordered a dozen of his cavalry to follow the Red Wolf. A moment after they rode into King Jarrek’s wake, the commander sent half a score of men after them. If the old Red Wolf was willing to sacrifice himself to carve them a way out of the trap they had fallen into, he was going to try and make sure that the sacrifice wasn’t made in vain.

  He began ordering men to wedge after Jarrek and push away from the wall. Better to be surrounded by an enemy on a level field then be pinned beneath the fifty f
oot wall that was topped with soldiers. He knew that the reinforcements could never get there in time. It was now a do or die situation. Any thoughts of besieging O’Dakahn were a fleeting memory. This had become a fight for their lives.

  Mikahl managed to keep Vrot and Flick away from the men on the ground, but he could tell by looking at the battle below that things weren’t going well. He saw Bzorch stomping around anxiously with his dragon gun at the ready and tried to lead the dragon into its sights, but the black wyrm, or maybe its rider, were wise to his ploy.

  Suddenly the dragon inexplicably bolted northward. Mikahl rose into the sky and came around over the wall. He managed to clear the archers from a good length of its top with a series of fiery blasts. After that he swooped toward the ranks of gekas that had closed off the northern portion of the battlefield. He blasted them hard with savage lighting, alternated with streaking swaths of wizard’s fire.

  As he passed over the gekas and pulled up into the air, he was overcome with shocked despair, for at least five thousand soldiers were storming in from the north, the Dakaneese trident banner streaming from the flagman’s pike. He cast a wall of fire across their path that startled their horses, but Flick, who was now gliding on Vrot’s back, just above the charge, countered it quickly. Before the horses could even break their formation to avoid the flames, the inferno was extinguished.

  Mikahl arced around and started back toward the main battle. He had to warn the others. These new Dakaneese would be on them in moments and would devastate them. As he sped back to find King Jarrek, he noticed that the dactyls had all but vanished from the sky. Only moments ago, thousands of them had been darting down and attacking the soldiers, but now they were nowhere to be seen.

  A roar shocked him into the realization that Flick and his black dragon were right on the bright horse’s heels. Mikahl took a jolting blow that dispersed out around the edges of the glassine globe that shielded him, but it still knocked him sideways. He was in trouble, and he knew it. There was no way that he could out fly the wyrm that was nipping at his back. He saw Bzorch out of the corner of his eye and faked pulling away from the breed’s direction, but then dove straight for the big savage looking half-blood. He tried to keep his body between Bzorch and the dragon as best he could so that it couldn’t see what he was intending. At the last moment he pulled up and away.

  Bzorch didn’t hesitate to fire his spear. The projectile tore through Vrot’s hind leg at the meaty part of his calf muscle. Bzorch dove out of the way of an acidy blast and somehow got caught up in his uncoiling line.

  Mikahl banked around as sharply as the bright horse would allow. He came round just in time to see the rope that led from Bzorch to Vrot pull tight. The black dragon didn’t stop, but the sudden jolt of Bzorch’s weight threw Flick tumbling forward from its back. Mikahl didn’t hesitate either. He forced the bright horse into a dive toward the tumbling wizard.

  ***

  King Jarrek seemed to have done the impossible. He and several of the mounted fighters had battled a lane clean through the zard force to the north. In a flash, hundreds of Valleyans and Blacksword soldiers, and quite a few dwarves, filtered into the gap and fought to hold it, so that their fellows could escape the closing press of the enemy. The passage wasn’t open long, though. The worst possible thing that could happen did. The Dakaneese cavalry, riding in from the north, came crashing into the battle before Jarrek or his men could even catch their breath. The corridor Jarrek had fought so bravely to open gave those riders a clear path right into the heart of the battle. Within seconds, the Dakaneese began hacking and hewing away the lives of King Jarrek and Commander Escott’s men. King Jarrek tried to blink away his tears when he saw what was happening, and then he was bashed from his horse by a passing Dakaneese fighter’s mace. His red enameled wolf skull helmet went spinning through the air. He crashed into the growing pile of corpses on the bloody ground. Then he was trampled into the muck.

  ***

  Flick cleared his mind and calmly cast a levitation spell. He couldn’t fly, but he didn’t have to come crashing down to the ground either. As he righted himself and came to a hover in the air, a roar so loud that it shook the city walls filled the sky. Flick ignored it and raised his arms to blast Mikahl as he came swooping in. Mikahl had hoped to catch Flick before he recovered, but he was too late. He half expected to smash into another invisible wall, but he still leveled Ironspike at the bald-headed wizard and called forth a streak of lightning.

  Strangely, Flick’s arms fell to his sides and his eyes grew huge. He was looking at something behind Mikahl. Mikahl didn’t care what it was. He let loose his white-hot blast right into the wizard’s chest. The jagged bolt of energy hit Flick with its full intensity. The shocked wizard went spinning head over heels across the sky and into the battle below. A pillar a smoke rose up from the charred husk that hit the ground and exploded into chunks of cherry embers.

  Even though he caused it, Mikahl didn’t see Flick’s end. A gust of wind so violent that it sent him and his bright horse tumbling out of control hit him from above.

  ***

  Bzorch knew he was in trouble, so he rolled under a wandering horse then looped the line over the animal’s saddle horn. When Vrot hit the end of the slack this time, there was an unimaginable yank. The horse was spun shoulder under hooves and nearly torn in half, and Bzorch was snapped up into the air with breakneck force. He only came up a dozen feet, though, before darkness swept across the battlefield and a sound that might have been angry thunder blasted across the sky. He never got to see what it was because he hit the earth again in an ungainly heap.

  ***

  Commander Escott heard the gigantic roar. The battle around him slowed as soldiers from both sides stopped fighting to look and see what could have made such a noise. Escott’s discipline kept him from turning, and he put his sword in at least three Dakaneese soldiers, and a skeek, in the pause. Then the sun was eclipsed by something monstrous and he couldn’t help but look.

  His body began to tremble as his eyes swelled to take in the dragon. Not the black-scaled wyrm that had just tossed its rider, but an enormous red beast that was easily two hundred paces from head to tail. It leaned its head down casually to where the black dragon was fighting to lift the weight of the breed giant dangling limply from the line. The red launched its head out and, with a snap that sounded like a thunderclap, half of the black dragon came tumbling down out of the sky into the enemy ranks.

  The sound of sudden movement brought Escott’s eyes back to the battlefield. The zard were fleeing. They had lived in Claret’s shadow for hundreds of years while she was bound to guard the Seal in the Dragon’s Tooth Spire. They had helped Shaella and Gerard steal her eggs and trick her into a collar. Claret’s wrath, and the fact that gekas were one of her favorite foods, sent the zard fleeing mindlessly from her presence. Gekas reared up and bolted out from under their riders. They trampled over the zard-men that were on foot as if they weren’t even there.

  Escott looked back up at the huge dragon. Sitting on its long neck, like a pixie on a warhorse, was a strange looking figure clad in stark white attire. The person pointed toward the city and then down. The dragon twisted in midair and lay a gout of flame across the Dakaneese ranks that was so huge that it literally charred hundreds of men and their mounts. With a casual adjustment of its huge leathery wings, the red dragon repeated the act again and again, making it clear that it was only going to roast the Dakaneese and the zard. After that, those of Ra’Gren’s soldiers that didn’t run for their lives, fell to their knees and begged to be spared.

  After scattering the enemy, the dragon flew to the top of the city wall and perched there. Its huge clawed feet tore loose gigantic pieces of the structure where it gripped for purchase. It calmly listened to the white clad figure sitting on its back. Then, as if it were merely toppling over an anthill, it tore a two hundred foot section of the wall to the ground. Claret leaned forward then and started clawing her way through the city.
Behind her slithering belly she left a rough path that was nearly twenty paces wide and relatively free of obstruction.

  Escott had to laugh. The big red wyrm was making them a road that led directly to Ra’Gren’s palace.

  ***

  Mikahl somehow kept himself on the bright horse as its magical wings fought to catch air. When they were righted, he watched Claret turn the tide of the battle and was overcome with relief.

  As the dragon began demolishing O’Dakahn, a white bird came fluttering down out of the sky clumsily. The High King recognized it, sort of. The bird had no color left to it at all.

  “Talon?” He asked, though he knew it was. The irritated hawkling let out a long caw of sorrow then landed on Mikahl’s shoulder.

  “Aye,” was all Mikahl said in response.

  Just then, a few hundred feet to the west, a group of dwarves emerged from the rubble at the base of the wall. One of them was waving his arms excitedly. Mikahl winged the bright horse over to him. The dwarf was covered in grey brown dust, but Mikahl recognized him as Master Oarly.