“True, though if we flee before them, they might not pursue as aggressively. They want to stop our raids, after all.”
Will raised a hand. “What if they learn of the fragment?”
“I doubt they will want us more dead.” The Vorquelf shrugged. “Their motivation doesn’t matter; they’ll die all the same. The mountains will just make us a bit harder to find, and we’ll have to hope that will make enough of a difference.”
CHAPTER 60
E rlestoke hated the feeling of being stalked. For close to a week his team had moved through Sarengul. They had intended to keep as close as they could to the Aurolani forces, and if there was another Sarengul attack that created an opening, they wanted to break through the lines to what they hoped would be safety.
Their plan, however, had been predicated on what they thought of as logical behavior for a military force. The bulk of the Aurolani troops had continued to move south along the main route. They fought little skirmishes here and there, but the Saren attacks did not amount to much. The Aurolani forces pushed on, and Erlestoke followed them, ignoring side passages off the main line.
Then the Aurolani leader made a classic mistake and split one group off his main force to follow a sideline. Erlestoke’s people had missed the signs of that departure, but quickly became aware when that unit came back into the main route. They hunkered down, hoping the enemy would return to the main body of the Aurolani force, but they never did.
The main Aurolani force had started acting much more intelligently, too. Erlestoke’s group could find very little in the way of supplies left behind. What they did find was occasionally poisoned and often booby-trapped. For the first several days he had no reason to suspect the Aurolani were doing anything more than looking for urZrethi stragglers, but after four days, the hunting became more diligent and his people had been forced to flee into the byways and smaller passages.
Jullagh-tse had explained how villages and towns existed up and around the main routes, but Erlestoke had never quite grasped the idea until he moved into some of them. They could be built around a cylinder, with the doorways to corics opening onto that central circle, or as a maze of corics that were chopped into rock as miners followed the serpentine twists of an ore vein.
Erlestoke and his people were moving through an ore town. Its narrow roads broke off at odd angles. They rose, then curved and dipped sharply before coming to a broad stairway that slanted upward and cut to the right. Facing down that stairway were the empty black pits of windows, but at any moment archers or draconetteers could pop up and the stairs would offer his people nothing by way of cover. Worse, he couldn’t see the entrance to the building, so even if they got up there, getting in to kill the snipers would be difficult.
While he knew they were being pursued, he couldn’t be certain that some of the enemy hadn’t gotten in front of him to wait in ambush. The village’s abandonment only added to his sense of insecurity. The lack of any indications of a massacre was a good sign, but there could easily be a lot of blood splashed over stone walls before any of them got out.
If any of us get out.
Being pursued didn’t bother him as much as having the sensation that his pursuers knew what he was carrying. He would have expected any Aurolani troops cutting across his band’s trail to follow—that made sense. What would drive them on faster was knowing he had a piece of the Dragon Crown with him. He had been hoping, however, that the journey through the bowels of Fortress Draconis would have been enough to throw informed pursuit off.
It further disheartened him that their pursuers did not come after them pell-mell, but seemed to be moving deliberately. The gibberers should have used numbers to compensate for a lack of sense, but they hadn’t. While Erlestoke still felt that he and his people were making their own choices in terms of the path they were taking, the enemy force clearly was cutting off all avenues of retreat. They could only go forward and, at some point, the enemy would be there waiting for them.
Erlestoke crouched at the base of the stair, then turned and pointed Ryswin and Finnrisia to the stairs, indicating they should mount them. He then signaled for Jancis to come up so both of them could shoot into the windows if any targets showed themselves.
It was a desperate tactic that could have turned out badly in any number of ways. While the two elves could take cover at the base of the wall, avoiding easy shots by the snipers, it could be that off to the right there were more lurking who would catch them in a horrid trap. Still, there was no choice, so hefting their bows, the elves swept past him and sprinted up the stairs.
The stairs did not really rise that sharply, but the steps were just long enough to force a break in the elves’ stride. For urZrethi who could shift their legs to be any length, the steps wouldn’t prove a distraction, but they cost the elves time.
Erlestoke raised his quadnel and aimed it at the rightmost window. A sniper lurking there would have an easy shot at Finnrisia as she raced up the stairs. He strained his eyes, looking for any movement in the room. Was that something? Was that? He had to be certain because the sound of a shot would undoubtedly bring pursuit through the village maze.
He waited and waited. The smoke of the slow-match stung his eyes, but he dared not blink for fear he might miss something. In his mind he ran over what he would do if he saw someone in the window. He could see a gibberer archer drawing a bow. Erlestoke would steady the draconette, squeeze the trigger, and hope, after the weapon flashed and boomed and the smoke thinned, that he’d see Finnrisia, unhurt, at the top of the steps and a splash of black blood dripping from the window.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, the elves reached the top of the stairs. Without a moment’s hesitation the two of them cut right and sprinted away. Erlestoke listened for the sound of any fighting. When he heard nothing, he turned and waved the rest of the crew up the stairs. They raced past, leaving him and Jancis acting as rear guards.
And there, emerging from the darkness, he did see something. Something he remembered very well from the past. His chest ached as he swung his draconette to cover it. Without glancing at the meckanshii, he squeezed the trigger. The hammer fell, the priming flared white, then the quadnel roared and bucked, vomiting fire and metal.
With his left hand he snapped the cocking lever forward and back, rotating the barrels. He drew the hammer back, primed the new barrel, and sighted down it. There, twenty yards distant through thinning smoke, the huge cloaked figure of the creature that had hit him in the chest had dropped to one knee. It steadied itself with one hand on the roadway, while the other arm that had been held out for balance now appeared as only a stump beneath the cloak. Beyond it, a knot of gibberers had gathered, one flopping on the ground from Jancis’ shot.
Erlestoke shot again, then stood. His second ball had hit the cloaked figure and knocked it back onto its tail. The cloak flew open enough for him to see that, indeed, the right arm had been severed at the elbow. The left leg, also now exposed, appeared lighter in color than the rest of the creature’s body, and thinner, as if it had been withered because of an injury.
“Jancis, pull back.”
She stood and shot, then recocked her draconette. Her shot had crushed the skull of another gibberer. “That barrel always shoots high.”
“They don’t know that.”
They both withdrew up the stairs at a steady pace. Erlestoke brought his third barrel into position and primed it. He kept it trained down the stairs as he slowly backed his way up. One gibberer peered into the stairway and hooted, but pulled back before either one of them could shoot.
The meckanshii glanced over at him. “They’ll rush us now.”
“I know.” Erlestoke smiled as the howls rose from below, then the two of them turned and ran up the remaining stairs. At the top they stopped, and each snapped off a shot into the group. One gibberer went down, tripping up two others, but it did nothing to stem the onrushing tide.
Calmly they each cocked and reprimed. In a couple of
heartbeats, they could thrust the muzzles of their quadnels into the faces of their targets. That would kill two or perhaps even more if a ball carried well, but before they would know the results of their efforts, longknives would have carved them into quivering slivers of flesh.
From above, through the windows, a rattling of shots blasted back down the stairs. Gibberers spun and jerked as holes opened in pelts and leather jerkins. Erlestoke did stab his weapon forward and pulled the trigger, flash-burning a face as the ball blew out the back of its head.
A gibberer also made it to Jancis, but she saved her last shot. Instead, she parried a weak lunge with her metal left arm, then stabbed stiffened steel fingers into the gibberer’s throat. It reeled back, choking, tripping over the bloody body of a comrade, then slid back down the steps.
Quickly she and Erlestoke cut into the passage to the right. It narrowed, then swung left and up, to a small courtyard. A door on the left led into the building with the windows. Three more shots rang out, and Ryswin announced, “They got it.”
Erlestoke ducked his head in through the doorway. “Don’t count on it staying down. I’ve shot it twice.”
The elf frowned. “What is it?”
“I think it’s the thing from Draconis, the thing that was guarding the fragment.”
“It’s still moving.” Verum raised his quadnel and triggered a shot. “It’s down. Again.”
Erlestoke turned to Jullagh-tse. “I have the feeling it wouldn’t have pressed us so closely except we’re being herded toward a trap. Do we have options other than to continue down this road?”
The urZrethi nodded. “It’s an ore town. We might. You won’t like it, though.”
Verum shot again. “It’s not steady, but it’s hearty.”
“Right now, there’s not much I won’t like if it includes putting distance between us and that thing.”
Jullagh-tse pointed up. “This village is fairly high up, so to get water, it’s going to have its own cisterns. This high up, we’re looking at a quarry where snow melts and flows down in. We have to find the internal reservoir here, where the trickling water will collect, then break into the flow tube. We crawl out and we’re on the outside.”
“How big a tube are we talking?”
She shrugged. “The thing chasing us won’t be able to follow.”
“But can the rest of us get through?”
“I don’t know, Highness.”
Erlestoke rubbed a hand over his mouth. “But you could shift your shape enough to get out, right? No question of that?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, here’s the plan. Let’s find this way out. If we can all make it, we do. If we can’t, the fragment is yours. Get as far away as you can.” Erlestoke laid his hands on her shoulders. “And none of this brave, ‘I don’t want to go.’ None of us want to go, but we’d all do it if we had to.”
“Yes, Highness, I know.”
“Good.”
Another shot sounded and Verum cursed. “Dammit, Nygal, give me your draconette.”
Erlestoke looked at the heavyset weapons-master. “Did you miss?”
The grizzled warrior shook his head. “No, I hit it dead center. Mistake I was making was giving it a chance to stand up before I shot again.” He raised the borrowed quadnel and triggered a shot.
“Got it. Broke its left leg, I’m sure of it.” Verum nodded. “It’s crawling away from the stairs.”
“Good, maybe that buys us some time.”
Jilandessa glanced at him. “Will it be enough?”
“Who knows. Right now I’ll just settle for more.” The Oriosan prince gave her a confident smile. “What we do with it will decide if it is enough or not.”
CHAPTER 61
I saura clapped her hands over her ears to shut out the screams of the burning mage. The Murosan sorcerer who had opposed Corde collapsed in a flaming mass. People on the walls of Navval shrank back or reeled away.
Seated there before Naelros’ pavilion, which had been set up barely five hundred yards from the city, Isaura could not smell the roasting flesh. For that she was thankful, for at least that was one aspect of the display she could escape. Being Chytrine’s daughter, there was no way she could avoid watching, since all of Lord Neskartu’s charges saluted her, their master, and Naelros before marching off to do battle. For her to absent herself would greatly affect morale, so she sat there.
And there was a part of her that did not shy from watching her mother’s enemies die. She would have preferred to see them led to see reason, but it was obvious that having an army camped outside a city was hardly something that would encourage compromise. As it was, they opposed her mother, so they were a threat that had to be neutralized.
Death duels between the wizards was accomplishing that rather well.
Isaura admired the courage with which combatants from both sides approached the battleground. Though they were mortal enemies, they still showed respect for each other. Neskartu had been very careful in selecting the opposition for his mages. He had previously cast a spell that allowed him to assess the strength and number of the sorcerers hidden in Navval, and he planned accordingly.
The Aurolani had fared very well in the combats. While a handful of the kryalniri had been killed, and two of Neskartu’s Apprentices had been slain, a full dozen of the sorcerers from Navval had been destroyed—including the last four in a row. Corde had dispatched two of them by herself, one after the other, and gave the appearance of remaining for a third. While that did seem a bold move, the Murosans had the habit of sending their strongest mages out first and working down.
Neskartu, who was able to sit without a chair, was a varicolored presence between Isaura and the dracomorph. They are reduced to Apprentices, all of whom will be swept away. Naelros, you will have little opposition from the realm of sorcery.
The dracomorph nodded slowly. He, likewise, used no chair but instead squatted back on his heels. A hooded cloak covered him, but Isaura could still see his large eyes glittering from within the hood’s shadow. “There is no haste. The longer we wait, the less powerful they become, and the more time we have to build our stores of firedirt.”
His assessment came firm and even, yet sent a chill down Isaura’s spine. She had seen Porjal fall, and its subjugation had been savage. Anarus’ assault had concentrated the dragonels such that they collapsed a section of wall; the army then poured through the breach. The slaughter had been horrifying and the city was taken in short order.
Naelros, however, had been given two weeks to take Navval and showed signs of using every minute of it. The dragonels had been laid such that they would shoot over the walls and destroy buildings within—proving the walls to be ineffective protection. That could suffice as inducement for surrender and might allow him to take the city with the walls intact, which would make it very difficult for anyone to retake.
Isaura realized their strategy would save Aurolani lives, and she applauded that idea. What she hated was the visiting of the war on those who were not warriors. She had seen the same thing in Porjal, but it had resulted in the bloodlust frenzy of the city’s storming. Here the death would be random and its only purpose would be to terrorize the people so badly they could not think of resistance.
She wondered, though, if such random slaughter might not stiffen resistance. She further wondered why Naelros couldn’t see that as a possibility. Being a dracomorph who likely was centuries old—though this mind might only possess decades of consciousness—he doubtless had a differing view of humans than she did. She was even willing to consider that her interaction with Neskartu’s Apprentices had inflated her view of their capabilities, since his students were drawn from the smartest of the humans.
When she had raised this point with Naelros, the dracomorph had thanked her for her words. “I shall consider your ideas, Princess.” His voice rang with sincerity, but he commented no more on what she offered. Instead, he concentrated on his preparations, and seemed not to have altered thing
s one bit.
The small mageport in Navval’s gate opened again. A heavyset, dark-haired youth squeezed through it and strode toward the battleground. He wore a simple robe of dark brown that had been secured around his bulbous middle with a length of white cord. He tried to stride purposefully, but a trick of wind lashed him with the smoke from the burning woman. He side-stepped awkwardly, stumbled for a moment, then caught himself against the black dolmen and slowly straightened up.
Laughter and hooting sounded from the Aurolani lines, but it did not appear to daunt him. He straightened his robe, then lifted his chin. “I am Kerrigan Reese, Adept of Vilwan. I come in challenge.”
His right hand came up and forward. His fingers were curled into a fist around the middle of a wand. His hand glowed blue for a moment, then that glow sprang off into a soft sphere. It bounced across the snowy ground between Navval and the Aurolani lines. It took short, high hops, and some long ones as well. It leaped over warriors, then rolled for a bit before coming to rest before Lord Neskartu.
The sullanciri flowed down to one knee and scooped a hand beneath the spell. His fingers contracted, raking through it. A similar color played through him. In an eyeblink he was standing full upright and the colors quickened as they flowed through him.
Most curious.
The dracomorph lifted a hand to suppress a yawn. “How so?”
He was undetected in the survey of Navval. And the wand he is carrying is one I created and gave to Wheele. Wheele used it to slay an old acquaintance of mine.
Isaura studied the youth. The brown robe indicated his area of expertise was conveyance magick—though she admitted it could just have been the only color robe he could find. That he was from Vilwan and in a Murosan city was a bit of a curiosity. His moving into the dueling circle, which was a Murosan custom, was unusual, and his daring to challenge a sullanciri remarkable.
Young and very foolish, or young and wise beyond his years.
Corde, who yet stood in the circle, turned to face the youth. “I am Corde of the Aurolani Conservatory. I will face your challenge.”
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