by Greg Curtis
“We'll get through it,” Sam replied.
And they would. If nothing else, the elders had prepared their people well for this torturous leg of the journey. They had extra horses, now almost one for every man woman and child. Their artisans had spent their evenings building water wagons, while the people themselves had all been building barrels and oil skins to hold their own supplies. The order had gone out the moment they'd entered Fair Fields; five gallons minimum water carrying capacity for every man woman and child, twenty for each horse. And the people had prepared well. If anything they had exceeded that.
In Sam's own wagon they had four large barrels, each able to hold forty gallons, all full to the brim and many more skins and jugs. For the four of them and their three horses, it was more than enough to last them through the wastes provided they rationed it carefully. Their load however did mean that they had some trouble finding room to sleep on the deck.
In addition they had built sun shades to allow them and the horses to all to rest comfortably during the hottest part of the day, while they would be travelling through the night. In all, Sam had confidence that they would get through all right.
They were fortunate in that it was fall, which was probably the best possible time to cross the wastes. The days would not be so hot, the nights not so cold. The slow pace they had taken as they crossed Fair Fields had worked to their advantage. Two and a half months to cross one hundred and fifty leagues was almost slothful. But they were better prepared now. And they would not be stopping every day to purchase supplies and trade as they crossed the wastes. It would be a much faster leg of the journey.
“And then what?” For once the Elder was uncharacteristically direct.
Sam understood what he meant. He and the rest of the elders had discussed that even more than the hardships ahead. They could prepare for the hardships. What they couldn't prepare for was a life in another province. No more could their people.
After three long months of travelling, there was only one more month to go. The end was in sight. But the end wasn't really an end. It was just a new beginning. And one no one was sure they wanted to start on. Everyone seemed to now be focused on that. Some of the people were lucky in that they had kin in the Flats, and would be able to stay with them. But most had few if any family there and were effectively refugees in a strange land. They would be cared for, there was no doubt of that, and a place had been set aside for them to set up a township, which in time might become another province. But it wasn't home.
“And then we begin anew. A new city, a new land, but with a strong people. We will survive, mourn our dead and start again.”
They were hard words but true. In saying them Sam was actually only saying what had been said a hundred times before in Fair Fields during the land wars before the kingdom had united under its first king. Then too people had said those things after their lives had once more been destroyed. It was simply the price of war. It wasn't just the soldiers who died.
“You forget young Samual. Even if we do find a place and settle down, there is still an enemy out there that we have to fight. He may come for us and our kin again. There is no true end in sight until he is defeated.”
“Elder, I have been reading and rereading the accounts of the Dragon Wars day and night, as have the scholars and the war masters. And while much is unclear, some things are obvious, especially when viewed from the information that the shadelings gave us. The enemy comes by boat. His armies can only travel so far from him before they must stop. He will attack up and down the coasts first, driving one and all into the inland provinces. Then presumably, if he makes it that far, he will set up his bases before he strikes further inland. But that will be many years away.” Sam left unspoken the fact that the Golden River Flats where they were headed had no coastline. And that the nearest coast to Shavarra – the town of Beckenridge – was thirty leagues from the city. The rats had marched a very long way before attacking the city. He didn't really know just how far the machina would be prepared to march to attack their targets. He just hoped that the Flats would be far enough.
“The original Dragon Wars lasted nearly a decade, and in all that time he attacked and held only twenty seven coastal provinces. Each new territory he gained cost him many more resources, and that meant each following attack was further away in time as he had to build more machina. That's why in his later conquests he hired mercenaries to flesh out his armies. The people will be safe for many years in the Flats even if the worst happens and he takes all the coastal cities. There will be time to prepare.”
“Ahh, the naiveté of youth. Wanting to trust in hope where the facts are not certain.”
It was unlike the Elder to be so gloomy and Sam guessed the emptiness of the lands must be harder on him than he'd thought.
“No old friend. He gives the analysis of a soldier born. One day we may yet make a war master out of young Samual here. He sees the battle ahead very clearly.”
Wyldred had joined them at the entrance to the pass, and he, like Sam, saw the same likely pattern of attacks occurring. Whether it was the Dragon returned or some evil successor, the enemy was so far following the same campaign. He had to. He had the same armies and they assumed the same method of transport. He was probably also sending out his armies from the same place.
The only question for Sam was why the Dragon was attacking the coastal cities if, he was working from Andrea as legends had it? Andrea was nowhere near the sea. And if he was based there surely he should have sent his first armies straight into Fair Fields and Ore Bender's Mountains. They were the closest lands after all. Was he trying to hide his true home? Or had it in fact been that the caverns to which he had finally retreated had not been his origin, only his safe harbour at the end? There was of course no answer but it was a question that desperately needed one.
“What's that?”
Sam was pulled out of his reverie by the guard's abrupt question, and it took him a moment to see where the guard's hand was pointing. Sam let his gaze follow the guard's hand and looked south, across the boundary between Fair Fields and the Dead Belly Wastes. He saw nothing other than sandy hills and more sandy hills for as far as the eye could see.
“Where?” But even as he asked he saw that the guard's hand was pointed not just south, but also slightly upwards, and as he followed his arm, he soon saw the black smudge in the air above the hills that the guard was asking about. Unfortunately, he had no answer. To him it was just a black smudge. It was the same to the others. It was simply too small and too far away. But something about it troubled him. It could have been a bird – a small griffin or even a cloud – but for some reason Sam felt threatened by it. Looking around he saw he wasn't alone.
“Do we have a telescope?” Even as he asked, one of the Council guards pulled out one of the copper tubes from his saddle bags and handed it to him. Another was given to Wyldred and carefully they began studying the skies. The telescopes were amazing instruments, the secret of their construction known only to a few master artisans, all of them dwarves. As always Sam marvelled at the fact that they could bring a man's face into view from more than a league away. It was as though he was just outside the window. But they were difficult to use, and both Sam and Wyldred spent considerable time playing with the small wheels at the instruments' bases before the beast came into view. Then he wished it hadn't.
“Alder's hairy tits! It's a steel drake.”
Sam was the first to identify the creature, his nightly reading of the history of the Dragon Wars telling him exactly what it was. But knowing what it was, and knowing what to do about it were two completely different things. Steel drakes had been the ancient Dragon's terror weapon, and paradoxically his undoing. Nearly unassailable, they attacked from the air, often completely without warning, raining fire down like a dragon upon anyone unfortunate enough to be out in the open. They had struck in the lands that weren't yet under attack, creating chaos and confusion, and preventing them from sending armies to help oth
ers under siege.
If the steel drakes hadn't been seen as an affront by the dragons themselves, who had then begun destroying them in their hundreds, they would have ensured the Dragon's victory. The dragons however, would not tolerate another ruler of the skies and when the steel drakes had flown over their lairs they had struck them down.
“Sound the alarms. Get the people down below their wagons. Tether the horses and for the Goddess' sake get the weather mages here as fast as possible.”
Fortunately Wyldred was nowhere near as slow as Sam as he started yelling orders, and Sam remembered with relief, that there was an answer. Towards the end of the wars it had been found that weather mages, the most practical and yet least war like of all spell casters, could effectively bring the steel drakes down. The drakes didn't fly well and even a relatively small cross wind could bring them crashing to the ground. If they hit hard enough they would then explode in a fiery heap.
Immediately horses began galloping back toward the rest of the caravan as riders obeyed their instructions. Meanwhile Sam concentrated on building his fire within him. According to all the reading he'd done, it would be of little use to him as the steel drakes like all dragons were immune to fire spells. Still it was his best weapon. In fact against such a nightmare, it was his only one.
Steel drakes chose to attack from the air, staying safely out of range of both archers and fire mages, while it was said their flame could spray for hundreds of yards, incinerating not just a few soldiers, but an entire army. To face them was to die, and to run the only accepted defence, as long as everyone ran in different directions. But if the caravan scattered, Sam knew they would be picked off one by one and not all would return.
Fortunately Sam's lessons suddenly paid off as he realised that while fire magic was not that useful in attacking a steel drake, it could still be a potent defence. Because it could still be used as a way of hiding.
Sending out a spray of ice arrows as far as the eye could see down the caravan, and then hitting them with flame strikes, Sam began creating a fog over the elves. It might not stop the steel drake's flame, but what the machina couldn't see it couldn't spray with fire. And while such creatures might not be affected by illusion, the fog was no illusion.
Slowly he began thickening the fog as he added more and more ice and fire to it. And while the process was painfully slow, thanks to the early warning from the sharp eyed guard he had time. Steel drakes were not fast flyers either, travelling not much quicker than a man on a horse, and this one had been at least a league away when the guard had spotted it. Meanwhile he could hear the sounds of bells clanging furiously all the way down to the caravan's rear, a quarter of a league back. The early warning system had been sounded.
In the middle of the caravan a sudden explosion of fog billowed out. It seemed the other fire mages had seen what he was doing, and had followed suit. With nearly twenty of them – four of them masters – they were doing a much better job than him. Sam felt a wave of relief wash over him as it gave him the chance to concentrate his fog on the parts of the caravan nearer him and thickened it up quickly. It wasn't long before the sky was turning grey all around them.
Soon the fog around them was so thick that they could barely see ten feet in front of them, and Sam could feel it rising hundreds of feet into the air and covering them all in a blanket of cloud. It was just as well, as he could hear the shouts of the sentries hiding just on the edge of the fog, calling that the drake was finally overhead. It had been a nervous wait.
From then on it became a waiting game for Sam. He concentrated only on maintaining and increasing the thick cloud of fog all around them, while the drake flew overhead, looking for anyone to attack. According to the sentries it was circling, like a buzzard over a dying animal, blinded by the fog, but still somehow aware that its prey lay within.
Meanwhile Wyldred had galloped off with a group of soldiers looking for the weather mages, who had somehow disappeared on them. Or at least he'd started off galloping for them. That was the problem with the fog. Even as it protected them it limited their own ability to see one another within it. Nor did the horses run, but trotted slowly, as their riders carried torches and called out to any who might be ahead.
Of course the real danger would come when the weather mages finally acted. If they weren't careful, they could blow their protective fog away as they tried to upset the machina's flight. That could be deadly, but he was certain that Wyldred, would discuss that with the wizards. Once he found them!
The other worry was that the wizards would be successful and the steel drake – easily the size of a six horse wagon – would come crashing down to the ground in the midst of the elves, and promptly explode. If it did so it would kill everyone within a hundred yards as the magic within it was released in a blast of fire. It might even kill Ry. The thought was terrifying but there was little else that could be done. If the creature wasn't destroyed, it could kill all of them.
But at least they had the fog to hide them,
Unfortunately it wasn't enough. The drake apparently decided that it didn't matter what it could or couldn't see. It only mattered that its targets were somewhere in the fog. And so it struck. There was a blast of something, fire and orange light making the clouds glow, and then an explosion as it laid down its fire breath, that was followed by screaming. The drake had attacked!
For a moment Sam was struck almost senseless as he realised what had happened. And then his heart started thumping as he understood they were all in danger. This thing didn't care that it couldn't see them. It was going to strike at them again and again until it had found and killed them all. And there was absolutely nothing he could do.
He couldn't strike at it. Even if his fire would have some effect on the creature, he couldn't see it to hit it. His fog had blinded him too.
He didn't even know if the drake had hit anyone. He couldn't tell where it had struck. If it was anywhere near the people. All he knew was that it had attacked and people had screamed in terror. And that it was going to do it again and again.
Sure enough fifteen or twenty beats of his heart later he saw the sky turn completely orange once more and heard another explosion followed by more screaming, and he knew that if no one had been hurt, sooner or later they would be. And Ry and her family were somewhere out there!
How could he be so helpless? He was one of the most powerful spell casters there was, and yet there was nothing he could do against this enemy. Nothing except create more and more fog and pray to the All Father.
While Sam waited, as helpless as the other elves around him, he concentrated on keeping his calm and maintaining the fog. There was nothing else he could do. He wanted to run to Ry. He wanted to destroy these beasts. But he could do neither. The worst of it all was that he had no idea how long it would be before those who could do something finally acted.
So he kept putting all his magic into creating the fog and praying each and every time the sky lit up and the ground shook that Ry was safe. He couldn't lose her. Not now. Not after everything they had gone through.
The time passed achingly slowly as he worked, with the only knowledge he had of the drake coming from the nearer sentries who reported the drake's position as it flew overhead, hunting them, and the direction of the flashes of light. Nothing however seemed to change. The drake wasn't yet wobbling in its flight or falling out of the sky according to the look outs when they spotted it. Instead it continued to circle above them, searching for targets and raining down fire on them every so often. Sam's nerves began to stretch. Because the longer this went on he knew, the greater the chance it would hit Ry.
Sam could hold the fog shape all day and night if he had to, though it would soon start to get cold and wet inside it. But the interminable waiting for the weather mages to strike back was eating him alive. He had always been a soldier, a man of action. Waiting for a battle was the worst of all possible times, especially when the enemy was already striking at them. And still there was noth
ing to do.
An age seemed to pass that way, and for the longest time Sam began to worry that the War Master had been unable to find any of the weather mages. Maybe the fog was simply too thick. By then it was hard to see your hand in front of your face. Even the scouts trying to rush to the edge of it to spot the drakes, were useless. The edges of the fog were simply too far away for them to be heard as they shouted back what they saw. Especially when people kept screaming as each new blast shook the ground and lit up the sky. Their screams drowned out whatever the scouts shouted.
Maybe the wizards were right at the rear of the caravan, a full half a league back. If so, Master Wyldred would have a long slow trip as he searched for them.
He wasn't alone. All around him he could hear the Council guards talking to each other, wondering much the same as him, even as they waited for one of the drake's blasts to hit them. Some of them came close. Close enough to deafen them. But none hit.