As Drogan drifted off to sleep and started snoring, Lacy thought about what he’d said. She decided she wasn’t convinced of anything but she was willing to consider the possibility that Phane was an ally. The thought gave her more hope than she’d had in weeks. Someone powerful was standing up to Zuhl. Her people might have a chance.
***
She woke with a start. Drogan rolled out of bed and went to the door, his hand on the hilt of his dagger. She heard a scream, muffled by the walls between her and the source.
“Get your boots on,” Drogan said.
Lacy didn’t waste a moment. She was up and ready as quickly as Drogan. They grabbed their packs and went to the main hall of the inn. Several people were crowded around the innkeeper who was standing at the peephole, peering through.
“Dear Maker,” he said. “We’re under attack by a wizard.”
“All I want is the princess from the north,” Lacy heard from beyond the door. She recognized the voice—it was Wizard Saul. “Give her to me and I will spare you my wrath.”
“Time to go,” Drogan said, turning toward the kitchen.
Lacy followed silently, fear hammering in her chest. She didn’t know what was inside Wizard Saul but whatever it was, she was viscerally afraid of it. They slipped out the back door of the inn as they heard pounding on the barred front door.
Drogan led her to the stables, furtively looking this way and that. The stable master was nowhere to be seen and the horses were skittish, but Drogan started saddling one anyway. Lacy stopped, frowning at him.
“What are you waiting for?” he said, cinching the straps. “Saddle that horse, we don’t have much time.”
“But these horses belong to someone,” Lacy said. “We can’t just take them.”
Drogan looked at her like she was crazy, but didn’t stop readying his horse.
“You can leave some gold for them if you like,” he said. “Right now, we need the speed or we’re both dead.”
He finished preparing his horse and started saddling the one he’d selected for her.
Lacy wrestled with her conscience. Then she heard another scream, this time coming from inside the inn. Her fear got the better of her. She left four gold coins on the stall railing and helped Drogan finish preparing her horse.
She looked over her shoulder as they rode out of town and saw Wizard Saul step out the back door of the inn. He raised his hand toward her, but they rounded the corner of the building before he could cast his spell. They coaxed their horses into a gallop, racing the failing daylight to gain as much distance as possible before darkness slowed their pace.
They rode all night, sticking to the road for greater speed. Horses would cut the time needed to reach Suva by several days, but they would also make it much more difficult to hide during the day.
As dawn neared, sending streamers of crimson and orange across the sky, Drogan led them off the road and into a copse of trees. The terrain had transitioned from forested foothills into gently rolling fields interrupted by an occasional grove of trees hugging a small lake or lining the bank of a meandering stream. They were getting closer to the ocean and the promise of safety.
Lacy slept fitfully under the lone pine tree amidst the thinning hardwoods and woke midday to the sound of barking dogs. Drogan was up and pulling on his boots a moment later.
“We have to go,” he said as he scrambled out from under the pine boughs and threw on his oilskin coat and broad-brimmed hat. Lacy was up and ready a moment later. The dogs were getting closer. She heard shouting off in the distance as she mounted her horse.
Through the thinning trees, she caught glimpses of soldiers on horseback, spread out in a long line, following three men with tracking dogs. Zuhl’s soldiers had caught up with her. She swallowed her fear and spurred her horse into a trot through the trees, cautiously picking her path to avoid becoming entangled in the brush. As much as she wanted to bolt, to run for her life, she had to be smart. The forest floor was uneven and treacherous, moving too fast would only injure her horse.
Her fear spiked when she heard a whistler arrow shriek into the sky behind her. The enemy had her scent and was on the hunt. After what seemed like hours, she and Drogan finally broke free of the trees and into a rolling field, urging their horses into a gallop toward the road that ran along the copse of trees.
That’s when they saw the soldiers. At least two dozen of the big brutish barbarians from Zuhl were waiting for the men with dogs to flush out their quarry.
Lacy’s fear swelled into panic as she and Drogan veered away from the road and the onrushing soldiers. Everything seemed to happen at once. Coming up the road from the south was another force of nearly thirty men, all wearing the same brown leather armor trimmed in forest green and riding light, fast horses.
The dozen men behind them cleared the trees, spreading out and urging their horses into a gallop to prevent Lacy and Drogan from returning to the cover of the forest.
Wizard Saul came marching up the road from the north, undaunted by the soldiers. He began casting a spell as he quickened his pace.
Then Lacy heard the roar of a dragon. She looked up and saw two of the terrifying beasts in the sky above, flying in formation and wheeling to line up for an attack run.
She was trapped: barbarians to the east and west, unknown soldiers to the south, a wizard possessed by darkness to the north, and dragons overhead. Oddly enough, the panic that was just moments before threatening to overwhelm her reason faded away, leaving only calm clarity and a razor’s-edge focus.
The soldiers to the south spread out into a battle line, the front rank wielding spears and shields, the back rank nocking arrows. They advanced on the two dozen barbarians to the east, sending a barrage of arrows into them as they closed the distance.
The barbarians to the west sent their hunting dogs racing out in front of them, easily gaining on Lacy and Drogan as they spurred their horses toward the narrow gap between the leather-armor-clad soldiers to the south and the grove of trees west of the road.
“She’s mine!” Wizard Saul shouted as he released his spell. A black blob materialized just in front of his outstretched hand, streaking into the air and separating into three streams of a dark and viscous liquid. They spiraled around each other, traveling in an arc several hundred feet across the field and striking the three hunting dogs with unerring precision. Lacy looked back when she heard the dogs yelp. The black liquid tore into them, burning and melting their flesh away with terrifying violence, leaving only parts of each dog amidst a smoldering stain on the ground where they fell.
The dragons altered their attack run to target the wizard. Lacy expected to hear the roar of dragon fire but instead she saw a pair of javelins, one after the next, hurtle down from the dragon riders. Wizard Saul easily deflected the attack with his magic.
She raced on as the leather-armor-clad soldiers thinned the ranks of the barbarians with one volley of arrows after another, preferring to maintain a safe distance from Zuhl’s brutes and pick them apart with their arrows rather than engage them in close combat.
The barbarians that had flushed them out of the trees were driving their horses hard to gain ground on Lacy and Drogan as they passed the unknown soldiers from the south, slipping out of the midst of the battle.
The leader of the leather-clad soldiers broke off from the battle with a squad of his men to give chase. He was yelling something, but Lacy couldn’t hear over the rushing wind and the pounding of her heart. She leaned into her horse’s neck, urging him to greater speed.
Just before she rounded the bend in the road, she looked back at the battle one last time. The leather-armored soldiers had broken into two groups, a squad-sized unit was racing after her while sending arrows into the barbarians that had flushed her from the trees, while the remaining leather-armored soldiers were fighting a retreating action that seemed designed to prevent the barbarians from advancing past them to the south, putting this new enemy between Lacy and Zuhl’s barbarians.
Wizard Saul unleashed a scything pinwheel of magical force that severed the wing of the lead dragon and sent it crashing to the ground in a horrendous cacophony of broken bone and wailing terror. Lacy couldn’t imagine how much power it must take to kill a dragon, but now she knew that the monster chasing her was much more dangerous than she ever imagined.
When the dragon fell, the squad giving chase opted to focus on fighting the enemy soldiers rather than continue their pursuit, giving Lacy and Drogan precious minutes to make their escape.
They raced on through the late afternoon and into the evening, pushing their horses to the point of exhaustion and beyond, until just before dusk, Lacy’s steed came up lame. They dismounted, took what supplies they could carry and headed off the road into the night.
“Who were those other soldiers?” Lacy asked.
“Reishi Protectorate,” Drogan said as he carefully picked his path through the darkness.
“Why are they after us?”
“I couldn’t say for sure,” Drogan said. “I do know they can’t be trusted. For now, we’re on our own.”
“I don’t understand why they were fighting Zuhl’s men,” Lacy said.
“Zuhl hates everything Reishi,” Drogan said. “He wants to destroy the Reishi Protectorate just as much as he wants to destroy the Reishi Army Regency.”
For the next several days they traveled south, pushing themselves to the limits of their endurance each day before finding a hiding place to sleep for a few hours, only to wake and drive themselves to the point of exhaustion again. Speed was their best hope, their only hope. With so many enemies arrayed against her, Lacy thought it was a miracle that she was still alive. A month ago she wouldn’t have thought herself capable of all that she’d done in the past weeks. Despite all of her troubles, she found that she was more sure of herself than she’d ever been. She wasn’t a match for what she faced, she had no illusions about that, but she was learning and growing, becoming more capable with each passing day. She just had to make it to Ithilian. Lord Abel would help her.
Several days after the terrible battle, she and Drogan reached the city of Suva at dusk. She had no doubt that her pursuers hadn’t given up but she saw no sign of them as they entered the city. The city watch was wary but they readily accepted the truth that she and Drogan were refugees fleeing the war to the north.
They went straight to the port and booked passage on a freighter converted into a passenger ship that was bound for Ithilian the following morning. The captain was only too happy to accept them aboard when he saw the five gold coins they offered in payment. Most of his passengers could only offer a few silver coins or livestock in trade. They were assigned to a cramped little stateroom with a bunk bed, but it was far better than a cot in the hold of the ship that most of the passengers were only too happy to get. She and Drogan locked the door of their stateroom and slept like the dead.
She woke the next morning from the noise of the crew casting off and went up on deck, trailing a silent Drogan behind her. As she stepped up to the railing, she saw three of the soldiers in leather armor on the dock. One noticed her and waved frantically.
She thought she heard the leader call out, “Princess Lacy!” But his voice was drowned out by the sounds of the crew and the seagulls. Lacy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She was safe at last.
Then she saw Wizard Saul on the docks. He was looking straight at her as he cut his own throat and toppled into the water.
Chapter 37
The dragon was blue, the color of a glacier, twice the size of a wyvern, with a single row of spikes running down its spine and a pair of horns that coiled back from its brow. The first thrust of its wings lifted it a hundred feet into the air. It was magnificent and terrifying all at once. Not at all like Tanis, and yet just as potent.
“Didn’t expect that,” Abigail said. “Captain Sava, send a runner, have Knight Raja ready with Kallistos at a moment’s notice.”
He nodded curtly and gestured to one of his men.
“What are you thinking?” Anatoly asked, an uncharacteristic hint of nervousness in his voice.
“Not many weapons can pierce a dragon’s scales,” Abigail said.
The dragon lifted another hundred feet into the air with a second thrust of its wings. It roared, fury and puissance mingled to place the world on notice: A dragon had joined the battle.
Hundreds of long boards flopped over the front of the berm wall, covering the rows of spikes, stretching across the ditch and creating a multitude of paths from which Zuhl’s barbarians poured forth. Like ants, they streamed out of their hill toward the shield line protecting the archers who had been raining death down into their camp.
“It has a rider,” Wizard Sark said. “I didn’t think dragons allowed people to ride them.”
“They don’t,” Magda said.
The man riding the dragon started glowing, softly at first, growing brighter and brighter with each passing moment. By the time he was a thousand feet in the air, he was glowing so brightly that he challenged the sun’s dominance of the sky. The dragon roared again as it turned to pursue the attack wings of Sky Knights that were moving to engage the ships.
“Signal the heavy cavalry,” Abigail said.
General Kern had his order. If the barbarians came forth, he was to mount a charge along the berm wall into the enemy’s flank.
The barbarians met the shield wall with a tumultuous crash that rippled through the still morning air. Many fell against the pikes set atop the shields, but many also made it inside the pike line and engaged the soldiers manning the shields.
The heavy shields, each locked to the next and set into the ground with two heavy spikes jutting from the bottom edge, held against the initial crush of the enemy. The soldiers jabbed their swords through gaps cut into the side of each shield, killing or wounding those directly in front of them. But still the enemy came.
The next wave of brutes climbed up the carnage and vaulted into the soldiers behind the shields.
A few at first, thrashing about against the soldiers all around them, then a few more, killing several men each before they fell to the infantry. A small cluster of barbarians turned back toward the shield line, killed two soldiers, unhooked their shields, hoisted them out of the ground and tossed them into the battle raging around them.
With the line broken, the barbarians started to press forward, killing or maiming with each powerful stroke of their gruesome, battle-honed weapons. The fighting raged behind the shield line as the infantry struggled to stand against the bigger and more powerful barbarians. Zuhl’s soldiers fought with reckless abandon, as if they had already forsaken their lives and simply wished to take as many as they could into the netherworld with them before they fell.
An enterprising captain commanding a company of archers ordered several of his men onto the back of a wagon, giving them a vantage point to fire from. They began sending a steady stream of arrows into the barbarians at the breach.
Another point in the line failed, buckling under the pressure, shields lying down on top of the men strapped into them, crushing them under the weight of the barbarians clambering over the top of them.
Flaming arrows continued in a steady stream, arcing over the battle line and raining down into the enemy camp. Fires were growing behind their lines, but it wouldn’t be enough. Abigail knew her army would have to advance before her archers could reach far enough into the camp to cripple the enemy.
“We have to press forward,” she said. Everything was happening at once. She realized that the battle unfolding right in front of her was the least of her concerns as she looked out across the rest of the very big battlefield.
To the north, Zuhl’s slavers were fighting in pitched battles against the soldiers Torin had mustered from the refugee camp. At a glance she estimated he led a force of five thousand, and they were gaining ground against the barbarians as they freed those slaves they could and sent them into the forest to the north.
To the south, the heavy cavalry was just reaching the flank of the barbarians spilling out of their encampment. General Kern had formed his men into a column twenty wide and five hundred deep. They crashed into the disorganized flank of the barbarians, driving deep into the mass of men before Zuhl’s brutes recognized the danger and turned to face them. As the cavalry slowed, the barbarians began to take a toll on them, dragging men off their horses or striking out at the mounts along the sides of the column.
Three catapults fired into the column, bringing down several horses and disrupting the momentum of the charge. Mage Dax started muttering a spell. A ball of crackling, blue-white energy formed between his hands, floating and sputtering with power. With a word he sent it streaking at the nearest catapult tower. It struck with explosive force, splintering the tower and catapult, but it didn’t stop there. It floated in place for a moment before it streamed in an arc of lightning-like energy to the next tower, shattering it in a shower of kindling, then arced to the third tower. In the space of three breaths, the nearest catapults were demolished.
“Thought it was time I got into the fight,” Dax said.
“I agree,” Sark said, before beginning a spell of his own.
Magda started casting a spell as well.
Out to sea, the Ithilian fleet, led by Admiral Tybalt, had begun firing on the three completed ships anchored in the bay. Abigail thought she saw the firepots burst against a half shell of magical energy hovering over each ship. Then they returned fire. Each of Zuhl’s ships was armed with dozens of ballistae. Each targeted a single vessel with all of their weapons and fired at once.
Three of the vessels in the Ithilian fleet burst into flame as they were pelted by dozens of firepots.
Sky Knights hurled firepots down onto the docks and berths. The docks caught fire easily enough, but floating over each incomplete ship was a half shell of magical energy. The firepots shattered against the shields, coating the bluish shell of magic in angry but impotent burning oil.
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