Crusade

by Daniel M Ford

  When she last looked back at her, Teague was smiling as she drew back her bowstring.

  * * *

  When they reached the walls of the Dunes, Allystaire saw that more damage had been done in the harbor. Boats had been lifted and tossed into one another. Quays and docks were smashed to splinters. Dockside shacks and shanties smoldered from the Dragon’s scalding breath.

  And the Dragon itself was hovering above the highest tower of the Dunes, flapping its wings, its huge angry eyes fixed on the comparatively tiny figure of the paladin.

  For a moment, just a moment, Allystaire felt overcome by awe, and allowed fear to creep into his heart.

  And then he saw the sun glint off his armor. The sun that was bathing the harbor, destroyed though it was, in its rays, and that was dappling the bay beyond it. The sun that had burned through the fog, that was staving off the thunderheads the Dragon seemed to summon with each beat of its massive wings.

  “Strength is greatest when it is being spent for others, instead of marshaled to ourselves,” Allystaire whispered. “Your enemies will not understand.”

  Allystaire raised his hammer to point to the high curtain wall of the Dunes. “Gideon,” he said, “can you lift me to there? Not the nearest point, but well back along the parapet.”

  The boy nodded. “I can, but, Allystaire. Please, let me—”

  “No. Do as I ask.” He turned to look down at the boy. “You are going to be a great man, Gideon. That much was always clear,” he added, resettling his grip on the hammer, wondering at the curious warmth in his hand. “Be a good one, too. Better than me.”

  Gideon lowered his head and raised one hand. Allystaire felt himself being lifted, flung, almost, from the ground into the air. He kept his composure, arms at his sides, clutching hammer, spear, and shield, landed with his knees bent, like jumping from a saddle. Around him he saw a guard or two hiding themselves, curled into balls, with their arms over their faces, fitted beneath the outcroppings of the wall.

  The Dragon lifted its head and roared straight up into the sky.

  WHAT DO YOU THINK TO DO, PALADIN? RAISE THE CASTLE’S SIEGE ENGINES? RALLY THE COWARDLY DEFENDERS? DO YOU THINK BALLISTAE CAN PIERCE MY HIDE? DO YOU THINK FLUNG STONES CAN TOUCH ME IN THE AIR OR UPON THE WATER?

  “No,” Allystaire said without shouting. He slid his hammer back into its loop, and took the spear in his right hand. “I do not.”

  The spear of a man who had willingly given up himself in the defense of his home. The weapon of a simple, honest man in love, given to him by the woman Renard had died for.

  Perhaps the glow of it was in his mind, but Allystaire felt it would suffice, in hands suffused with the strength of the sun.

  He reversed his grip, raised the spear over his head, and began to run. His other hand joined the first, holding the weapon point forwards in a two-handed grip.

  His legs pumped faster than they ever had, the Goddess’s Gift filling him with all that it had to give. Stone and wood cracked beneath the force of his steps.

  He neared the edge of the parapet, raised his right foot in a higher step, planted it on the edge of the curtain wall, and launched himself into the air, straight at the Dragon.

  Those beneath him on the wall felt nearly blinded by the radiance of his armor as the sun caught it.

  Most of the folk hiding in the city could see only a ray of light fly from the edge of the Dunes and pierce the Dragon in its side.

  The Dragon roared and flew straight up.

  * * *

  Chaddin and the other soldiers and greenhats on the walls of the Dunes had stayed immobile, frozen in place, as the Sea Dragon’s rampage tore the city to splinters and dust around them. In his heart, Chaddin hated himself for those long moments of inaction. People were dying, people he was meant to protect. But nothing, no thought of shame or guilt or self-loathing could move him from where he huddled against the parapet. Every time he thought he found himself again, the Dragon’s roar battered him back into the arms of his fear.

  Until he heard heavy footfalls along the parapet, just above his head.

  He turned his head and had only a brief impression of brightness, of a solid ray of sunlight moving past him.

  But it lifted fear from his heart and fog from his eyes.

  Chaddin sprang to his feet. Distantly, here and there, other soldiers began to do the same, slowly.

  He seized the signal horn he carried, as the current ranking commander of the Dunes, and blew three loud blasts.

  Chaddin began running for the nearest tower and the stairs to the courtyard, yelling orders to those he passed.

  “Open the gates! Out into the city, everyone. We can’t fight the dragon, but we can fight fires, dig up fallen buildings. Out! Pass the word.”

  Every soldier or greenhat or liveried servant he touched or spoke to snapped out of their fugue and hopped to his command. It wasn’t long before they turned out in force on the ruined streets of Londray, even while a battle raged in the sky above them.

  * * *

  It was a hard flight to Pinesward Watch, with the Gravekmir gaining ground.

  Idgen Marte tried not to think of what that meant for Teague, but she knew, when she looked back, that the numbers were less than they had been. She felt it, knew it in her bones.

  When the walls of the keep rose up before them, she vaulted out of the saddle, sprinting as soon as she hit the ground. Whatever ground she had lost, she made up when she found a shadow, blurred into it. The world slowed around her; there, an abandoned tent, there a pile of rock, there the lee of a small hillock, the walls of the keep, then inside of them, atop the wall of the inner keep.

  She appeared before a squat man she guessed to be about her age. Given the engraving upon his armor she assumed he was the Baron.

  “Baron Varshyne?”

  From the way his haggard, heavy-bagged eyes widened, she knew she’d guessed well, even as around her swords were being drawn and bolts were settling into crossbows.

  She looked back. One enterprising young man was raising a weapon, preparing to pull the lever that would fire the bolt.

  Faster than any of them could follow, she stepped to his side and hit the bow upward with one hand, sending the bolt firing in an arc, where it landed in the empty courtyard.

  “Baron Varshyne,” she said as she stepped away from the startled boy in his too-large armor with his too-large weapon, “I’m the Shadow of the Mother, an ally of the paladin, and I have a Baronial army beating its way to your door, with evil hard on its track. Throw open your gates. I beg you not to ask questions until you open the gate.”

  She watched him carefully. His mouth worked, tongue darting against dry lips. “Open the gate,” he croaked. “Now! Go!”

  A tall balding greybeard at his side quickly detailed individuals, who dashed down into the courtyard and began speeding towards the gatehouse.

  “I am Brazcek Varshyne,” he said, “welcome to Pinesward Watch.”

  “Idgen Marte,” she rasped. “Now let’s get that pile of broken furniture out of the way, too,” she said, pointing to the hasty barriers erected in front of the gate and portcullis.

  He nodded and waved his hand. This time, he led his men down to the courtyard himself.

  He might look a fright, Idgen Marte thought, but Cold, at least he’s decisive.

  * * *

  Allystaire felt the spear sink deep into the side of the Dragon, heard its roar.

  And this time, in the roar there was pain and there was fear, not just the arrogance, the strength, the challenge.

  The beast flew straight up, flattening its wings against its body. Allystaire felt the shaft of the spear breaking beneath his weight.

  He drew back his left fist and punched it hard into the Dragon’s scaled underbelly. Steel, even that worked by the Wit of the Mother, was not in itse
lf strong enough to pierce that hide.

  Allystaire felt his gauntlet crack and pain travel in shocks up his arm. He punched again. Knuckles in his hand crunched and cracked.

  The Dragon starting spiraling, trying to throw him off. The spear shaft cracked.

  He curled up his fist, touching his fingers to the palm of his hand, and healed it, punched again, broke through the scales and took a handhold, albeit slippery with blood, in the Dragon’s hide.

  Then he drew back his right fist and did the same.

  Hurting and healing himself with each blow, he climbed up the side of the Dragon to its neck.

  YOU ARE A FOOL. YOU WILL DIE. YOU WILL BE UTTERLY LOST. YOU WILL DIE IN THE SEA AND YOUR SOUL WILL BE MINE. The Dragon reversed its tactic. Its wings stopped beating, the spiral stopped, and the Dragon slowly bent itself in the air and aimed its long snout down at Londray Bay.

  Allystaire felt them falling, clung hard to the rough, armor-like scales. Wind rushed against him, tried to tear him free.

  What was wind compared to the power of the sun above them?

  He smiled when he saw golden bars of light, like the bars of a cage, becoming visible beneath them as the Dragon descended like a falling arrow.

  Another scream of rage and hollow, impotent anger, as the Dragon was forced to slow its descent, beating its wings.

  It raised one huge forelimb and clawed at its own side and neck. Allystaire gasped in shock as the very tip of a claw rent his armor, shearing his right pauldron and upper guard away in tatters, taking most of the flesh of his arm with it.

  He kept his left fist clenched, holding himself against the Dragon’s side with his arm tightly bent, called on the Mother’s Gift, and healed himself, closing the wounds even as the Dragon opened them.

  With every awkward rake, the Dragon tore its own scales away, doing far more damage to itself than it could to the paladin, tearing gaping wounds open along its chest and stomach.

  “I am willing to give all of it, Braech. To spend every Gift She has given me to defeat you,” he yelled, his voice lost in the wind, but he knew the Dragon heard him. “I do not care if I am lost, Braech. I do not care if I am remembered or if my name is given any glory in song. I care only about defeating you.”

  The Dragon flew straight up again, its roar becoming a screech.

  Allystaire felt the sky darken, felt droplets of rain lash his face. Thunderclouds rolled in, covering the distance of turns in the time it would take for but a few grains of sand to fall through the glass.

  Allystaire pulled his right arm free and drew his hammer, held it up to the disappearing rays of sunlight.

  Though his armor had been sheared away there, his arm still glittered silver, and the head of the hammer began to glow like the sun itself.

  He bashed the hammer against the side of the beast’s neck where it met the shoulder and the wing, shattering scales, rocking it in its flight. He heard bones, if indeed it had bones, crack.

  Allystaire felt the sunfire crawling down the length of his hammer and into his hand, up his arm. His lower vambrace and gauntlet melted away. His arm became a thing of the sun itself, the hammer but an extension of it, all of it golden fire.

  He smashed the hammer into the beast, even as the sun’s rays consumed him. His flesh burnt away, his bones and sinew, leaving something of brilliant silver and golden light. He felt it; there was pain, but what was his pain compared to those crushed or seared on the streets beneath him? What was it besides the dead in the fields of Varshyne, or the families they left behind him?

  The Arm of the Mother, the Paladin, Allystaire Stillbright pulled himself farther upward along the Dragon’s neck, his left hand now simply digging into the scales and ripping at them, until he could wrap his legs around the beast and swing himself around behind its head.

  Its scalding breath of boiling steam blew into the air, and then back onto him. The pain was indescribable, but he was utterly beyond pain now.

  Once more he lifted his hammer and brought it down onto the base of the Dragon’s skull. There was a crack loud enough to split the earth.

  Allystaire felt the Dragon go limp beneath him and fall away.

  He did not fall with the Dragon. He felt himself rise, felt all of his armor melt away, his body gone to sunfire. His hammer slipped from his hands and fell towards the bay alongside the broken body of the Dragon.

  Then Allystaire Stillbright knew nothing more.

  * * *

  On the street below, Gideon was utterly exhausted. He drew power into himself from the air, from the water, from the ground, trying to keep the beast contained. He felt Allystaire drawing from the sun itself, felt a huge explosion of power flung back into the world far in the air above him.

  The Will of the Mother reached tentatively for it. Most slipped from his grasp.

  What he did catch overwhelmed him, and he fell forward onto the street, unconscious.

  * * *

  To the people of Londray, the Dragon had fallen like a star, huge and impossible, into the bay. An enormous wave rolled out from where it hit, swamping what few boats remained undamaged in the harbor, washing over the houses that ringed it.

  Cautiously they peeked their heads out from doors or windows. People stepped out of doors, fearfully surveying what damage had been done. In time, greenhats and soldiers and even servants from the Dunes flooded the streets, formed bucket lines, brought shovels and mattocks and axes to dig into the destruction in the hopes of saving some.

  In some places in the city, no one stirred. Fires raged. Voices cried out in pain from beneath collapsed buildings.

  People wandered out into the streets where the green-clad men and women from the Keep appeared. They formed firelines, carrying water from cisterns and troughs and towers full of rainwater to where fires burned. They rushed with tools to the places where buildings fell, and dug madly for turns to free those trapped within.

  And on a street near the harbor, a seamstress and netmender named Yolande found a slim, bald boy lying in the street. He seemed unhurt, breathing steady, but there was no waking him up.

  With tender care and the assistance of a man who was running toward one of the fires, she lifted him up and carried him into her shop, a tidy little place with a sign outside of it showing a needle, an awl, a net, and a spool. It had escaped the worst of the damage, only some rattled windows and broken oddments to show for the excitement.

  CHAPTER 55

  The Will and the Eldest

  Norbert barely kept to his feet, stumbling along behind the five Dragon Scales who taunted him.

  The ache in his back was a more powerful pain than he had ever known. Every breath was an agony of fire. If ever he was freed, he knew, his shoulders and chest and arms were likely ruined. He would never draw a bow again.

  Never wrap his arms around Lenoir without pain. If at all.

  Still, he smiled to think of her as he shuffled along, one step after the other, nearly bent double under the beam lashed to his wrists and arms. Blood seeped from the ropes, which the berzerkers had tied wet, so that they’d truly tear into his flesh as they dried.

  “Any burden,” he muttered to himself as he took one more step, then one more, then finally crashed to the ground on his knees, dirt billowing up around him.

  The berzerkers gathered around him, one prodding him with toe of a boot. The beat of hooves that had been the beat of his march of misery and pain ceased, and he heard footsteps approaching him.

  “What’s the matter, sir knight?” Symod’s voice rolled heavy and mocking, rich in arrogance. “Not prepared to bear this burden any longer?”

  “What’s the matter, coward?” Norbert rasped back, from an all too dry throat. “Why do you run from the field of your great victory?”

  There was a rush of air and Norbert imagined the priest meant to kick him with one heavy boot, to
stave in his skull.

  He raised his head, shifting the beam on his back as he did, staring up at Symod. “Do it,” he growled, tasting blood in his throat. “You lost, or you would not run. What does my life gain you?”

  The priest’s lip curled in a sneer, and he stepped away. “Leave him,” Symod intoned slowly, drawing the words out. “Let him be crushed under his burden. Let him die in the dust like a dog.”

  Norbert lowered his head back to the dirt track beneath him. He heard the footsteps moving away from him.

  He planted one foot underneath of him, pushed up from that and one knee, raised his head.

  “Cowards,” he yelled, straightening his back, and breathing deep. “Run! The paladin will find you. The Order will find you.”

  They all stared at him strangely, the berzerkers exchanging looks with one another, and words in their rough tongue.

  It was only then that Norbert realized that he had stood up. That he’d had the strength to stand.

  That the beam on his back weighed no more than the shirt he wore.

  A ray of sunlight touched his face and he flexed the muscles of his arms, drawing them together in front of him.

  The beam snapped. The rocks lashed to it went spilling across the road.

  Norbert pulled the broken lengths of wood into his hands, ripping the bindings free from the opposite arms. A broken beam was not an ideal weapon, he supposed, and he did not know where this strength came from.

  But they would do.

  Norbert turned the broken halves of the beam so that the splintered sides were forward, and he charged. Before the Dragon Scales knew what was among them and could credit it, two lay dead with the beams shoved through their chests.

  He seized the third by the sides of his face and twisted his neck till there was a sharp crack, then whipped the body around, felt it absorb the blows of the throwing axes the remaining two had stepped back to throw.

  Norbert dropped the body and plucked axes from its back with each hand, threw them without thinking on it.