In a tent with the leaders, including old Barachuk, the woman quickly got her answers.
“The Behrenese hoard all of the food, slaughter all of the elk and deer. They leave those which they cannot take to rot on the steppes,” said a man whom Brynn surely recognized: Tanalk Grenk of her old tribe, Kayleen Kek. “They stockpile the foodstuffs in their outposter settlements and guard them fiercely.”
“They continue to seek us,” added another leader, a fierce-looking woman who could not have been much older than Brynn. “If we reveal ourselves by striking at a settlement, they close a wide noose about us.”
“We have lost several battles and many warriors,” said Tanalk. “We have five thousand ready to fight, but we cannot hope to defeat the thousands of the Behrenese. And as the numbers of our warriors have grown, so, too, have our responsibilities.”
“We are in no condition to do battle against them!” a third interjected angrily. “We cannot repair our weapons. We cannot refill our quivers! Our horses starve, and we starve!”
Brynn took it all in stoically. Until this moment, she had viewed the distraction of the Chezru Chieftain’s great army as a blessing, allowing her to run wild through western Behren. But now she understood the brutal truth. Now she questioned her decision to initiate the Autumnal Nomaduc. Would her people left in To-gai have been better off to remain conquered, to remain under the control of the Behrenese, even if that meant that Brynn’s army would be having a much harder time of it in Behren?
“The winter will not be kind to us,” another voice piped in, and many concurring murmurs followed.
“We have won great victories in Behren,” she said, if only to judge the reaction. And that reaction was more positive than she had hoped, with Barachuk leading a cheer for Brynn Dharielle, for the Dragon of To-gai. Tanalk, who had obviously gained great respect among the folk, readily joined in. That these beleaguered people still stood behind her despite the terrible conditions her revolution had exacted upon them, struck Brynn profoundly and made her vow then and there, silently to herself, that she would not forsake them through this difficult season.
“I will return to you tomorrow night,” she promised. “We will find a way to bolster your supplies and your readiness. We will find a way to strike hard at the Behrenese, to chase the remnants of their once great army out of To-gai!”
She was surprised again at the response, for it seemed much more somber.
“They are strong,” Tanalk Grenk remarked quietly.
“Where will we hide this time?” Agradeleous asked her sarcastically when she returned to him out from the encampment.
Brynn didn’t immediately answer, going instead to the pile of netting and large skins on the ground beside the dragon. She had intended to make a supply run during her return to the Mountains of Fire, using Agradeleous in his customary role. That was fortunate, she now knew.
“Hide?” she replied skeptically. “We have several hours remaining until the dawn. Why would we hide?”
The dragon looked at her curiously.
“Let us find a settlement to destroy,” Brynn said grimly, and the dragon’s lips curled back.
They swooped down like a great bird of prey, right into the middle of a small outposter settlement. For those Behrenese still awake and near to the area, the first warning came too late, a sudden rush of air, the flap of a leathery wing, just in time for them to look up and see their doom as the dragon breathed its killing fire over them.
Agradeleous banked back up, hovering for just a split second, long enough for Brynn to leap down into the village and scramble into the shadows. She would be no spectator this time.
Alarms went up, as did a pair of bows from the sentries near the gate. But Agradeleous was upon them in a rush, jaws snapping, wings and tail smashing, and the sentries were dead and the gate crushed. Then the dragon flew off into the night, turning up high and out of sight, lining up his next angle of attack.
Brynn darted from shadow to shadow, listening to the sounds of the wakening town, measuring the screams. She put her back up against the wall of one cottage, right beside the door, and when it swung open and a man rushed out, the ranger turned and struck hard, a slash across his chest that sent him back inside, sprawling to the floor.
Another man loomed right behind him, a son or a brother, perhaps. He gave a shout and awkwardly tried to put up his axe in defense.
But Brynn leaped over the prone, dying man, to stab the second through the heart.
The ranger turned and rushed out into the village, avoiding the central area, where great flames leaped high into the night sky and the dark forms of terrified outposters rushed all about.
She turned down an alley between two long buildings, realizing at once that they were storehouses. Brynn put her sword up high and lit its blade, but only briefly, the prearranged signal with Agradeleous to mark where he should not loose his devastating fires.
Around the back corner of the building, Brynn turned to see three men running her way. Confident that they had not noticed her, she slipped back around the corner, sword in hand, and concentrated on their footsteps and chatter.
Brynn stepped out right in front of them, skewering the man on the left and tripping the one on the right. She stepped and turned past the stuck man, tearing free her sword and coming around all the way in perfect balance to bring her fine weapon in hard against the side of the third, trailing man. Brynn winced, and the outposter collapsed screaming, as his arm fell free to the ground.
Brynn heard the charge from behind, and purely on instinct brought her sword up horizontally over her head, intercepting a downward chop from the man she had tripped up. She spun and slashed, opening his belly, then stabbed ahead once, slipping Flamedancer deftly past his feeble parry and into his chest. Then she retracted it quickly and stuck him again, this time in the throat. He fell away, and Brynn retreated back into the shadows of the alleyway.
Agradeleous came across then with his second devastating pass, and a line of buildings on the opposite side of the village went up in flames.
By the time Brynn came out the other side of the alleyway, no semblance of organization remained within the doomed village. Outposters raced all about, screaming and crying. Many headed out over the wall, or through the smashed gates, fleeing desperately into the cold dark night.
Brynn caught another duo running her way, but looking back over their shoulders at the dragon, who had set down near the rear wall and was even then slaughtering outposters by the dozen. By the time the second man even looked ahead again, his companion lay beside him, mortally wounded, and Brynn’s sword was rushing for his chest.
He fell beside his friend.
It was over quickly, with the village deserted and most of it in flames. Brynn and the dragon did not give pursuit; the woman wanted those who had fled to bear witness to the sudden and devastating strike. The dragon, so excited from the destruction, had to be reminded of this tactic, but to Brynn’s surprise, he agreed. He went out from the village then, not to hunt down the fleeing Behrenese, but to retrieve the netting and skins, then joined Brynn at the warehouses.
As the pair rose again into the night sky, they noted the torches of the nearest section of the great Behrenese army, rushing for the dying outposter settlement.
It took Brynn a long time to convince Agradeleous to hold his course steady, to the south and the west.
Just before dawn, Brynn walked into the encampment of To-gai-ru once more, bidding the perimeter guards to follow her out into the darkness, to a mound of foodstuffs and other supplies.
“There will be more,” she promised grimly. “Every night. But keep your eyes out far, for the Behrenese army will be marching swiftly, trying to find you, and to find me. Stay ahead of them—I will find you and feed you.”
With that, she was gone, and the legend of the Dragon of To-gai had grown a bit more.
Over the next few weeks, Brynn and Agradeleous hit settlement after settlement, scattering their
attacks far and wide to avoid any organized attempt by the Behrenese army to trap them. As the woman had promised, she returned often to the To-gai-ru encampment, delivering stolen supplies. And so the To-gai-ru grew stronger while the Behrenese chased ghosts and died by the score. And the word went out, throughout To-gai and into Behren, that the Dragon of To-gai and her army had returned to the steppes of their homeland.
In western Behren, the news was received with mixed feelings, more relief than trepidation. Though Brynn was running unchecked throughout the steppes, and many Behrenese were being slaughtered, at least she was out of Behren, they believed, where the army had been unable to find and destroy her, and every city seemed vulnerable.
In Avrou Eesa, Yatol Bardoh took the news as an invitation to brag that he and his soldiers had chased the Dragon of To-gai away, often punctuating his long-winded speeches with promises that he would march out in the spring and finish the Dragon of To-gai once and for all.
Many To-gai-ru slaves in Avrou Eesa heard those boasts, and relayed them out of the city. Thus Pagonel and the To-gai-ru army, wintering safely and quietly in the fields scattered within the Mountains of Fire, heard them, too.
Chapter 32
Hit and Run?
“HE HAS A GREAT ARMY AT HIS DISPOSAL,” PAGONEL REMINDED BRYNN. FARTHER north, the winter snows were beginning to relinquish their grip upon the land, and there near the Mountains of Fire, the day was almost uncomfortably warm. “Yatol Bardoh boasts because he believes himself to be safe.”
Brynn looked around at her army, now more than six thousand strong. They were eager, she knew, hungry to be back on the roads that would lead them to the next Behrenese city that would fall before them. And though Brynn had seen much fighting over the winter, she too longed for a great battle, man against man, army against army.
“Do you believe that the dog Bardoh will come out after us, as he has declared?” she asked.
Pagonel shrugged noncommitally.
“Do you believe that we might lure him from his city?”
Pagonel shrugged again, and looked at Brynn hard. “Even if you do, going against that army would be folly, for it is as great a force as is now in To-gai. And Yatol Bardoh …”
He paused as Brynn spat upon the ground.
“He is reputed to be a fine military leader,” the mystic finished.
“He is a murdering dog, and nothing more,” said Brynn. “And before this is ended, I will have his head.”
Pagonel’s expression became even more puzzled. “You would risk all to go against him?”
Brynn’s hard look didn’t answer the question in the least, and for a moment, the mystic honestly feared that Brynn would do just that.
“I will get him out of Avrou Eesa and into Behren,” Brynn declared. “Not too far over the plateau rim. I want him to see the smoke from the fires when I destroy his city.”
Pagonel had never seen her so grim and so determined.
Brynn said no more, but walked from the encampment and through a long and rocky pass, to where Agradeleous waited. She and the dragon had made several journeys back there during the winter months, but this one would be the shortest stay, for that very night, after only a few hours among her forces, the Dragon of To-gai was back in the air, flying fast for the north.
They stayed along the plateau rim for a long way, with Brynn taking careful note of the terrain, a plan already beginning to form.
Yes, she would lure Yatol Tohen Bardoh from his home, and let him sit up on the plateau helplessly while his home burned.
She found Tanalk Grenk and her To-gai forces right where she had left them, and surprised them indeed when she ordered a split among them, with a portion of the strongest warriors riding south and east, and the rest, accompanying those who could not fight, fleeing straightaway to the southland.
“Now, with the weather at last breaking, you will get your fight,” Brynn told the force that would travel with her, and that brought as many concerned murmurs as eager grins. The To-gai-ru understood the power of the Behrenese forces assembled against them, after all.
“We will strike, and we will run,” Brynn explained. “Leading our enemies back toward Behren, to the edge of the plateau rim.”
“And into Behren?” one man asked.
“We will take them to a point where there seems no route into Behren,” Brynn answered. “Where they will believe us trapped by the plateau rim and where they will likely find allies to strike against us.”
More murmurs filtered throughout the gathering, but Brynn, growing more and more confident, merely smiled.
And so it began, with the newest To-gai-ru army, two thousand strong, overrunning an outposter settlement teasingly close to the frustrated Behrenese army. A week later, a second settlement fell, far to the south and east of the previous. While flying about on Agradeleous that night after the second battle, Brynn noted that the Behrenese army had turned more to the south, and she also noted a line of couriers riding out straight to the east. Yes, her enemies knew where they were, and knew well the terrain.
She was counting on that most of all.
Through it all, the ranger kept Agradeleous in check, tightly reined. She was not willing to reveal him further to her enemies, for all of this, in the end, would come down to his ability to serve her army well. She did fly out to the south, to the Mountains of Fire, to instruct Pagonel to begin the march toward Avrou Eesa.
Two days later, a Behrenese supply caravan was flattened, and the chase continued, and the word continued to spread into Behren that the Dragon of To-gai had indeed returned to the steppes, but was fighting her way back toward Behrenese soil.
Right in the region immediately west of Yatol Bardoh and Avrou Eesa.
The march from Bardoh’s city began the very next day, heading for a pass that would bring the glory-hungry Yatol and his fifteen thousand onto the To-gai plateau to the north of Brynn’s position, with the second army, led by Chezhou-Lei Shauntil, circling fast to the south. At that particular juncture of the two kingdoms, there weren’t many easy routes up or down the plateau, and it seemed obvious to the Behrenese that the Dragon of To-gai had erred, for Yatol Bardoh would beat her to the north pass, arriving within a week, and Shauntil had the west and the south already cut off.
Brynn’s To-gai based army continued its flight to the east, seemingly walking into the jaws between the mighty Behrenese forces.
And then, a few days later, they were out of room, with the cliffs of the plateau divide blocking their way to the east, and with south, west, and north blocked by the two pursuing armies.
“Burn your fires bright this night,” Brynn instructed her warriors.
“For tomorrow, we will fight and die!” one man called out, and neither he, nor any of the others, seemed bothered by that grim possibility.
“For tomorrow, we will begin our ride across the sands of Behren,” Brynn corrected, and she pointed out over the cliff. “Down there.” She finished with a whistle, and the great dragon Agradeleous rose up over the edge of the cliff, higher and higher, and bearing under him a huge platform, secured to his talons by thick ropes.
They rode like the sandstorm whirlwinds across the open desert, the great storm that was the Dragon of To-gai and her followers. Before Yatol Bardoh and Chezhou-Lei Shauntil had even charged their way out of the steppes and back onto Behren’s light brown sands, Brynn and her two thousand had the city of Avrou Eesa in sight.
The woman looked to the south, knowing from the previous night’s dragon flight that Pagonel and her main force was still several days away. If she waited for them, the assault on Avrou Eesa would have to happen right before Yatol Bardoh returned, and then they would have to flee wildly, with the Behrenese in hot pursuit.
But Avrou Eesa was a prize that Brynn would not let get away, for she keenly remembered the grim fate of her parents at the hands of Yatol Bardoh.
That night, she went in with Agradeleous, swooping about the city, setting buildings ablaze and
toppling defensive positions and great catapults, blasting down the many remaining soldiers who came out against them.
And then, from on high, Brynn yelled down to them, told them to flee Avrou Eesa or be destroyed. “Run down the eastern road!” she cried. “I claim this place for To-gai. Be gone!”
The response came in the form of a volley of arrows that had Brynn ducking tight to Agradeleous’ back and had the dragon roaring in protest at the pestering stings.
“Destroy that group,” Brynn ordered, and the outraged Agradeleous was more than happy to comply, tucking his great wings and falling into a stoop that shot him right past the archer battery as he leveled out.
By the time Agradeleous flew out past the Behrenese line, many had died before his breath, others from his wing, and he clutched two screaming men, one in each talon. Now he and Brynn went up high over the city, back to their original position, where Brynn repeated her warning that any who did not flee the city would die in it the next day.
To accentuate her warnings, Agradeleous then dropped the two men, one after the other.
At dawn the next day, Brynn and her two thousand charged Avrou Eesa’s western gate, with the dragon coming in to support them from the north.
There was little resistance, and when Brynn walked into the conquered city soon after, moving to the high tower that anchored the eastern wall, she noted the lines of Behrenese who had fled at the onset of the attack, running wildly to the east.
DemonWars Saga Volume 2: Mortalis - Ascendance - Transcendence - Immortalis (The DemonWars Saga) Page 167