Darik nodded, but he noticed that the enemy scattered more quickly this time. He looked over his shoulder and saw the Gates of the Dead open and the khalifa’s army pour out. The enemy did not yet see this new threat.
The griffins rose back into the sky, and as they did, Darik saw a cloud of dust north of the city. Darik pointed to the north. Whelan frowned, then gestured for the others to follow him to investigate.
Their work below had done its job. Kallia’s men rushed from the gates, driving into the disorganized Veyrians. Balsalomians scrambled over the barriers, scattering the enemy. Darik turned back to the commotion north of the city.
An army marched along the Way. Darik thought at first they might be from one of the other cities revolting against Cragyn. But no, there was no way that they could have heard already and sent aid. But neither could Mol Khah have sent for help so quickly. The grand vizier’s spies had spotted an army several days away, making its way west. But nothing so close. Perhaps Cragyn’s march through the Western Khalifates had disrupted Saldibar’s spy network, or some of his spies had turned.
They flew in low, and Darik saw his fears confirmed. They wore the black and scarlet of Veyre in the front, while rows of camels lumbered further back in the army, ridden by men in gray robes with black and gold bands about their heads: Kratian nomads. No wonder Saldibar’s spies had failed: the Kratia lived on the southern deserts. They wouldn’t have reached the Tothian Way until earlier this morning.
Sinuous shapes rose from the army to meet the griffin riders. Dragon wasps. Fifteen or twenty of them. The dragon wasps rushed to attack.
Whelan and Daria spotted them at the same time, and turned to flee. The griffins could fly fast, but it took them longer to bank and turn than the wasps. By the time they turned around, the griffins had flown completely over the new army, and were surrounded by dragon wasps.
Chapter Thirteen
Three dragon wasps set upon Darik and Brasson, dragon kin on their backs. Brasson leaned to one side, but one of the dragon kin jabbed his spear as it flew past. A sharp pain bit Darik in the shoulder.
Brasson lurched to one side, and grabbed the wasp by the neck with its talons. The creature struggled to free itself while the kin pulled his spear around to jab into Brasson’s underbelly. Darik drew his sword, leaned over with one hand on the tether, and knocked the spear away. The man snarled and jabbed his spear at Darik instead. Darik ducked away. The spear jabbed his shoulder.
The pain in his shoulder throbbed when Darik twisted away. He released the tether and grabbed at the spear to wrench it from the other man.
The dragon kin had only a tenuous grip on its mount and Darik’s pull wrenched him from his saddle. The man struggled with the spear, while Darik tried to let it go, hanging half way over the saddle. Darik grabbed for the tether, both the spear and his new sword falling to the ground. He hung upside down beneath Brasson, only the tether holding him in place.
Also no longer holding on, the dragon kin grabbed at the wasp’s head. It snarled and snapped its jaws, still trying to free itself from Brasson’s talon’s. The man fell to the ground with a cry.
Darik didn’t see where he fell. He was fighting for his life, trying to get himself back on top of Brasson, but he flailed underneath. His face scraped against the griffin’s back claws. The tether held his waist, but it wrapped his chest and cut his air. He tried to pull himself up, but the tether spun around and pinched his hand.
Brasson fought his own battles. The griffin cast away the dragon wasp, the creature crippled by talon, claw, and beak, then turned hard to avoid two more wasps at his haunches. Brasson dropped twice to get Darik back on its back, but there were too many attackers.
At last Darik gripped the tether with both hands where it crossed over Brasson’s back and pulled himself up until he sat in the saddle. Brasson sped away, outdistancing the dragon wasps. Darik looked over his shoulder.
Whelan and Daria were in trouble. Whelan’s mount was younger and not as powerful as the others; three dragon wasps clung to its back and side. Whelan had killed or dismounted all three riders and slashed at one of the wasps, but his griffin dropped under the weight of its attackers. He fell into the city, and friendly troops ran to finish the wasps when he landed.
Daria, however, had been driven north of Balsalom and the Tothian Way, and was beset by a dozen dragon wasps. She tried to gain open space where Averial could spread her wings, but the wasps drove her this way and that. Instead of fleeing for the city, she tried to climb higher, into the clouds.
“Ska!” Darik shouted, digging his heels into Brasson’s flanks. Brasson saw Averial under attack and screamed in rage. Dragon wasps snaked their necks in surprise at this new threat, then raced to intercept him.
A wasp met them head on, but Brasson cast it out of the way with its beak. The dragon kin on its back threw his spear, but it flew wide.
“Darik!” Daria cried.
Blood stained her face and ugly gashes marred Averial’s flanks. She pointed in the sky and he could see why she was climbing. Floating overhead was a cluster of cloud castles, each standing atop a single, massive cloud. From this close, some of them looked strikingly like Montcrag perched on the edge of the cliff.
Raging to protect his mate, Brasson scattered wasps in front of him. Freed momentarily, the two griffins climbed; Daria swung her sword, striking one wasp across its leathery wing. Below, a dozen wasps gave chase. Their only hope was the cloud castle.
Giant windmills on the end of the cloud churned a strong wind, and when the griffins flew into this current, they fought to fly straight, while wasps tore at their flanks. At last, however, the winds grew too fierce for the smaller wasps and the griffins continued alone; the wasps circled below, waiting for them to come down again. The two humans ducked their heads and hung on tight.
And then they crested a cloud, and Darik got his first, wondrous glimpse of the Cloud Kingdoms up close. The cloud stretched for several miles from one side to the other. Clouds bulged around the end, but from above, the rest of it looked like the ground, with rocks and dirt, and plowed fields. No other buildings stood on the cloud, except for the three windmills and the castle that jutted from a rocky promontory about a mile from the edge. The entire cloud made him think of an island, only an island sat in the middle of the sea, while this floated on a sea of sky.
The scope of the magic required to build these Cloud Kingdoms took his breath away. If it took the blood of thousands to bind the Tothian Way to Mithyl, what had it taken to lift kingdoms into the sky? He couldn’t even imagine who had such power.
Other cloud castles floated nearby. Darik saw six others, some larger or smaller, some with buildings and houses among the fields, but all floating at about the same level, windmills churning. Darik thought of the steel tome and its diagram of windmills.
Darik and Daria landed in a field and climbed off the griffins, breathing hard. While Daria turned her attention to Averial’s wounds, Darik touched the ground. It felt solid enough. Fog clung to the ground at ankle level in places, but other parts were clear.
The fields were corn and barley, lined with hedgerows, all of it incredibly green. A few sheep grazed quietly, paying no attention to them or their griffins. He saw nobody tending fields or animals.
They were discovered. The gates opened on the castle, and a cavalry rode forth. Dozens of white horses and white-armored riders. The gates issued forth not at ground-level, but some fifty feet above ground. The horses leapt from the gates and galloped across the sky.
Darik turned to Daria, amazed. “The horses can fly.”
“Winged horses,” she said, wonder in her voice.
The horses sped rapidly in their direction. “Are the griffins all right?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” She took Averial by the tether and instructed, “Hold Brasson.” She continued, “I’ve never seen a winged horse, but Father told me of them.”
Both horse and rider shimmered in pure white. The men were armed with white shiel
ds and gleaming swords or painted white lances. When they drew near, the griffins struggled to fly, but the two humans kept them on the ground. The cavalry circled overhead, then landed with a flurry of neighs and nervous prancing.
One man rode his mount to face the two companions. He wore a white helmet with sweeping wings that drew back from its crest. He removed the helmet to reveal a young man with white hair and a clean-shaven face. Drawing his sword, he addressed the two companions.
“In the name of Collvern, Lord of the High Kingdom, and his magistrate of justice, I place you under arrest. Throw down your weapons.”
#
Kallia had watched the three griffin riders with growing elation. They’d driven the enemy from defensive positions. The Veyrians didn’t spot her men charging from the gates until they drew within fifty feet. Some turned to fight as captains screamed for them to fall into position, but many simply fled. Balsalomian forces overran the bombard within the first ten minutes of battle.
Kallia stood on one of the towers overlooking the Gates of the Dead. Of all the defensive towers in the city, these were the oldest, dating from before Balsalom itself, when this was another city. Syrmarria itself had been destroyed in the wars, but the gates and the walls on this side had been intact enough that the founders of Balsalom had simply incorporated the old stone into the new defenses. These towers had been strengthened over the years and connected to the garrison quarters behind them.
Because the gates were shorter than the gates on the north of the city, and the guild towers blocked her view of the Tothian Way, she never saw the new army, never knew anything was wrong until Whelan’s griffin screamed into the city with dragon wasps attacking it on all sides.
Whelan brought his mount down near the Gates of the Dead. The dragon wasps kept attacking when he landed, but Balsalomians with swords and bows drove them away. Whelan’s mount bled heavily; he didn’t stop to care for the griffin, but ran to the tower where Kallia stood. Kallia and Saldibar hurried to meet him.
“Pull back,” Whelan gasped. “A huge army is riding toward the tombs. Several thousand horse and footmen. And camel riders.”
Kallia realized her mistake. Mol Khah had been smug, she’d noted, but her worry had not been another army, but that Cragyn himself would send help. She had known that if Balsalom couldn’t take the palace before the dark wizard returned, they would have no hope of holding the city.
Saldibar’s face paled. “Impossible. Reinforcements are several days away.”
“Not that army,” Whelan said. “Kratians, from the south and riders from the Sultanates. The gates. We have to close the gates.”
Saldibar turned toward the gates, but Kallia held his arm. “Get our men inside first.”
“If they reach the open gates,” Saldibar protested, “we’ll never stop them. Some men must be sacrificed.”
“We won’t leave our men to die.”
Saldibar said, “Please, Khalifa. Close the gates.”
She looked at Whelan. He looked torn, but at last he shook his head. “We can’t abandon them. Give me a horse and I will lead a sortie to protect the retreat.”
“Yes,” Kallia said, relieved and frightened at the same time. For Saldibar was right. If an army breached the gates Balsalom would fall.
Whelan groaned. “The griffin. I can’t leave him untended. I have to look after his wounds.”
Kallia opened her mouth to protest, but had seen him ride down on the magnificent animal. It was more than a dumb beast.
Whelan said, “And my friends. I have to find them.”
“Your friends can care for themselves. I know a man who rode once with the griffin riders. I will send for him and he can look after the beast,” Saldibar said. “Kallia, go to Toth’s View and tell Pasha Boroah.”
They went their separate ways. Kallia hailed a horseman, who stopped in amazement to see his queen. She sent him from the horse and galloped toward the tower, which stretched above the north side of the city. She reached the tower in a few minutes, and gave the news to Boroah, who sent messengers and blew trumpet messages to assemble more men to guard the Gates of the Dead.
She stood in the tower next to Boroah. He was a large, older man with a bushy growth that spread from his sideburns to his mustache. He wore a blue turban and rubbed nervously at his smooth chin as he surveyed the battle. Most Selphan stayed in their traditional trades of money lending and silver working, but Boroah had risen amongst the ranks of fighting men, winning their increasing respect. Cragyn had deemed him too old to ship east to Veyre, but perhaps he had been overly hasty in his assessment of the man’s battle-worthiness.
The rain began to fall again. Overhead, jostling amidst the storm clouds, cloud castles positioned themselves over the battle. Kallia wanted to shake her fist at them, watching as if this were some jogu ball match instead of a battle for a great city teetering on destruction.
Whelan rode from the gates with his cavalry and headed north to intercept the enemy. The Balsalomians abandoned their attack on Cragyn’s Hammer. Saved by fortune only, the enemy in the tombs overcame their confusion and moved to retake the bombard. Kallia groaned, seeing victory snatched away.
Kratian camel riders howled like winds from the desert, riding hard to meet Whelan’s cavalry. And to the right flank, men of the Sultanates on fast desert horses, wearing flowing robes and carrying long, graceful scimitars. For a moment, the two sides met, and then the newcomers, several times as strong, pushed Whelan back. Kallia bit her thumb, wishing she rode among them instead of sitting up here, useless. At last, Whelan turned his forces to flee.
Whelan’s delaying tactics had only bought them fifteen minutes, but it was enough. If the Veyrians at Cragyn’s Hammer had been better organized, they might have better pressed their new advantage; as it was, Kallia’s footmen reached the gates safely, as did Whelan’s cavalry. Archers on the walls drove the enemy from the gates.
One of the men standing next to Kallia let out an alarmed shout. Pasha Boroah cursed. Kallia followed their gaze and her heart sank.
Mol Khah fought his way from the palace. His troops savaged the thinned positions guarding the palace. Had she kept adequate forces outside the palace, had she owned such forces, Mol Khah would have exposed himself. Instead, his men cut through the defenses and pressed toward the Great Gates. She had no forces with which to contain him. The nearest reinforcements were on the other side of Balsalom some five miles distant, and they were needed to stop the assault on the Gates of the Dead. Mol Khah fought his way west, ready to open the Great Gates to destruction.
And had the new army on the Tothian Way pressed its attack, that is exactly what would have happened. But she noticed an amazing thing from her perch atop Toth’s View. Instead of turning from the Tothian Way toward Balsalom, the enemy army continued west, toward the mountains. Even the Kratian camel riders and the cavalry rejoined the army once they’d freed Cragyn’s Hammer. She could see the small force that had guarded the siege weapon dismantling it.
Pasha Boroah saw this lucky stroke of fortune at the same time that she did. Trumpets blared to order men from the Gates of the Dead to the Great Gates.
Pursued only by the remnants of the small force that had guarded the palace, Mol Khah’s garrison reached the Great Gates about fifteen minutes later. They seized the gate towers. This fighting raged below Toth’s View; the enemy could capture the khalifa and Boroah had Mol Khah not more pressing needs. His army threw open the Great Gates.
No doubt Mol Khah expected to see a friendly army, either at the gates or approaching quickly. What he saw instead was the empty expanse north of Balsalom, with only the tail end of his ally visible on the Tothian Way.
By now, Balsalom’s first reinforcements arrived from the Gates of the Dead. Mol Khah’s men met this new threat in the only way they could. They turned to fight, but even from where Kallia stood it was apparent that the sight of their allies fleeing had broken their spirit. Archers on the walls drove Mol Khah’s men back f
rom the gates and slaughtered them in the gate towers.
Men on horseback drove a wedge through the Veyrians. Mol Khah stood by himself, shouting for his men to stand by his side. A man rode his horse at the pasha, but Mol Khah caught him across the breast and knocked him to the ground. A second man jumped from his horse to wrestle the pasha to the ground. Mol Khah rose a moment later and nearly decapitated the man with the force his blow. Two others fell before the pasha’s scimitar and Kallia feared that the battle would turn on the strength of his fighting alone.
But his army collapsed around him. Kallia’s guardsmen and the remnants of her army, only a ragged force that morning, had become a real army. They put Mol Khah’s men to the slaughter. The pasha found himself surrounded by twenty or thirty men, all pressing in to attack him. He threw down his sword and raised his hands. The surrender spread from the pasha to his men until there was no more fighting.
In the tombs, the enemy army carted away Cragyn’s Hammer. One victory had eluded Balsalom. But they had won the most important. Men seized Mol Khah and tied his hands behind his back.
Boroah turned to her with a wide grin. “Oh khalifa—may you live forever—shall we kill the mongrel?”
She shook her head. “No, I prefer to see the look on his face when he discovers that the dark wizard values his siege engine more than he values the life of his grand vizier.”
She kissed the grizzled old Selphan on both cheeks.
That night, every cricket in the city fell silent. Instead, the sound of baying hounds filled the air while the people huddled frightened in their beds. Always, the sound came from only a few hundred feet from the listener. Throughout the night, the Harvester feasted on the souls of the dead, of which there were many.
Chapter Fourteen
Markal’s magic was a shadow of Chantmer the Tall’s, but none understood the old ways like Markal. He read not only the common tongue and the ancient forms of the old script, but knew more cartouches than any wizard or scholar. Few suspected the depth of his knowledge.
The Dark Citadel Page 21