by Daniel Diehl
“You’re going to get yourself killed some day, showing off like that, boy.”
“I have no doubt you might be right, wizard, but not here and not today.”
Llewellyn grinned and laughed as he waved for his men to follow him back into line to take up the wearying job of waiting for the dragons - dragons whose appearance even Jason and Merlin were beginning to doubt. For more than four hours Jason and his men had been scanning the sky every minute they were not transfixed by the slaughter taking place beyond the river, and so far the most threatening thing they had seen were the crows and rooks that had flown in, attracted by the smell of blood and death with its promise of rich feasting that would come as soon as the humans stopped running around. The line of stunted, scraggly trees dotting the low hills, far off to Jason’s left, were so full of the black carrion eaters that they appeared to have sprouted a rich crop of huge black fruit. Jason was watching the nasty creatures bounce around on their perches in hungry anticipation when one of his baggage boys, shouted at him.
“Master Jason, more crows coming. There’s lots of them, too.”
Jason looked down at the boy and followed his finger toward the eastern horizon. There, in the far distance, a small flock of tiny black shapes were bobbing through the clouds, heading directly toward the site of the battle. It only took Jason a few seconds of watching their odd, lumbering flight to know that these were not crows.
Chapter Eighteen
Jason stared intently into the distant sky, watching the indistinct V shapes pump their wings up and down. They heaved awkwardly, as though the act of keeping their huge weight airborne required a supreme effort. As he watched the things approach, they were joined by more and more of their kind; all of them climbing slowly upward in preparation for the swooping dive that was only a matter of minutes away. Jason had seen this same maneuver before, at a monastery in Mongolia, and he knew exactly what was coming. In the seconds between the time when he first realized what he was looking at, and the point when he started shouting orders, all he could think of was a stupid poster he had seen tacked to the wall of someone’s dormitory room when he was in college: ‘Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup’. Instantly the thought was banished and he snapped back to himself, shouting at the top of his lungs.
“DRAGONS COMING.”
Up and down the line the cry was repeated as the engineers bent their backs to the cocking mechanisms of their ballistae, and nervous baggage boys hurried to lay the huge iron arrows and endless lengths of chain in neat, orderly rows, ready to be handed up to the engineers. Equites shouted to each other and struggled to pull their skittish mounts into orderly rows, while couching their lances tight under their right armpits, preparing for the moment when they would charge forward, ready to pit themselves against the creatures which were slowly destroying their kingdom.
High above, mixed with the bottom layer of rolling black clouds, the first wave of dragons was now close enough for everyone to get a clear look at their truly monstrous appearance. From the ground, the clearest image was of the creatures’ feet; huge hooked talons, like the claws of some unimaginably monstrous bird of prey, clutching and grabbing, waiting to snatch and crush anything within reach. By the time they were close enough for those below to have a clear view of the monstrous, snapping jaws and huge, beating wings, many of the men were momentarily frozen in sheer terror.
The great, black wings tore their way through the ragged clouds, rending the air with a slow, rhythmic pumping; the heavy beats sounding distinctly like the dirt being shaken out of a rug: Whump, whump, whump. Flying in such close formation that the tips of their hundred foot wingspan nearly touched, their bodies filled the sky like a swarm of gigantic locust. In front of the veiny, leathery wings, long necks twisted and curled like writhing snakes, whipping back and forth as they turned their heads from side to side, focusing fiery yellow eyes on the massed prey below. Poking, prodding, feeling the air were dozens of wriggling tentacles surrounding the things’ mouths like the feelers around the mouth of a catfish; the main difference between the dragons’ feelers and those on a catfish was that these threw off electrical charges, intermittently lighting up the belly of the clouds with an eerie incandescence.
When the nearest of the flying nightmares opened its mouth it exposed row upon row of twisting yellow fangs. A moment later it let out a mighty roar as loud as the afterburners on a 747 airliner. Almost instantly the bellowing dragon, along with the sky surrounding it, disappeared behind a wall of flame and smoke nearly as wide as its wingspan. Behind it, more and more dragons answered its call, hurtling through the sky, closing in on the tiny line of men, horses and machines on the ground below.
Lost in the confusion and bustle, a gray-clad figure ran back and forth in the narrow space between the orderly line of ballistae carts and the ranks of waiting horsemen. With long hair and beard streaming behind him, Merlin waved his hands frantically in the air as he sought to weave a thousand foot long wall of protection to guard engineers and equites from a fiery death. Over the course of his long life the great wizard had constructed hundreds of protective umbrellas, some large enough to safeguard as many as thirty or forty people, but this was unquestionably the greatest challenge of his career. Moving as fast as his legs could carry him and still allow him the time necessary to spin his magical spell, the tips of Merlin’s fingers scribed the air with a great pentagram consisting of a five pointed star enclosed in a circle of protection. Because of the speed of his movement, the glowing, shimmering tracers flowing endlessly from the tips of his fingers made no visual sense to those observing him, but magic is not dependent on appearances, only upon the right incantations and formulas combined with decades of practice and an immense amount of faith. As he rushed through the tall grass, bits and snatches of Merlin’s murmured chants reached Jason’s ears and now, since he had learned to speak Latin, he could understand what the old wizard was saying. Straining his ears to pick up as much of it as he could, Jason listened intently.
“In the name of God and all the angels and the power of all the planets, suns and stars, I command you, in the name of the one who sits today on the throne of the Pendragon…”
The rest was lost. Merlin’s hurried passage had taken him out of earshot but even if he had remained in one spot there would have been no time for Jason to memorize the protective spell. In the cloud-laden sky above him the creatures had reached the zenith of their climb and were beginning to dive, their wings half folded, their snake-like tails thrashing, directing their downward plummet, and their cruel crocodile-like jaws open, ready to spew fiery death on everyone and everything in their path.
Three hundred yards, two hundred yards, one hundred.
As they dove, the creatures’ truly enormous size became more apparent by the second. Hurtling down, down, down toward the ground at a terrifying speed the things came in one rank after another like dive bombers, their roars splitting the sky, the glare of their fire so bright it was as impossible for their intended victims to look upward as it was to stare into the glare of the sun.
Ready for the assault that was only seconds away, Jason and his engineers gripped the handles of their ballistae so hard their knuckles turned white under the pressure. Desperately, Jason tried to remain calm and keep his muscles lose, flexing his arms and legs, his back and shoulders. Muttering to himself, his voice sounded almost like one of Merlin’s chants: “I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.”
In the seconds before the wall of blinding light and furnace-like heat hit his face, Jason realized that the dragons were widening their arc of approach, extending it to their right, so they could hit the engineers and equites head-on while simultaneously making a running dive across the mass of soldiers still locked in bloody combat on the far side of the river. As he felt the wall of flame sweep over him like an onrushing tide breaking across his head, Jason whirled his ballista around one hundred and eighty degrees, waiting for
vision to return so he could aim and fire. Even with his eyes squeezed shut the blinding light and heat had the same effect as looking through the door of a blast furnace. The blazing wind of the dragons’ breath tore at his hair and clothes, but he remained untouched by the fire thanks to Merlin. As soon as the heat dissipated enough to allow movement, Jason collected himself and stared upward, trying to identify one single target. He could only hope that the rest of his men were doing the same and that the emplacement of eight engineers on the edge of the far battlefield was preparing themselves; their turn would come in a matter of seconds.
Raising his head and blinking to clear his vision, he saw it; the huge, creamy-white belly of a dragon passing just above his head and slightly to his left. And it was very close. It could not have been more than sixty feet above him. Pushing down on the ballista handles, he raised the nose of his weapon as high as it would go, bracing his legs and holding himself as steady as the adrenaline rush would allow. Just a few more beats of its wings would put the thing in a perfect position to take a clean shot in its lower abdomen. Pumping the air with its tail the dragon heaved mightily to gain altitude before making its next pass. Up, down, up, down the massive tail went. The third time it lifted its tail after a hard downward stroke, Jason eased back on the trigger, releasing the bowstring and letting the huge iron bolt fly heavenward.
As though everything in his line of vision suddenly moved in slow motion, Jason watched intently as the sleek, black dart climbed upward, spinning, pulling itself through the air, hauling its shimmering length of bronze chain behind it like a bright gold ribbon tied to the tail of a child’s kite. Before the dragon could bring its massive tail down for another lunge forward, the arrow struck, driving itself so deep into the creature’s belly that it nearly disappeared. The impact pushed the dragon violently to the left, but in a split second the effect of the chain, whose opposite end was grounded in the murky waters of the swamp, made itself apparent to everyone on the battlefield. Like dropping an electrical appliance into a sink full of water, even before the chain played out to its full length the creature began writhing, twisting and throwing a shower of bright, multicolored sparks in every direction. Convulsing and thrashing, its body covered with tiny dancing sparks, the hideous thing threw back its head, smoke billowing from its mouth, and let out an ear shattering shriek as its entire tail section exploded in a storm of released energy. In a grand display of destruction the dragon excreted its entrails as it pirouetted through the air, plummeting downward to crash on the rough stone shoreline next to the ocean.
Even before Jason could whirl his ballista around to take aim at the next incoming dragon, three more of the monstrous creatures exploded above his head. As they thrashed and careened toward the ground, cascades of sticky dragon slime plummeting out behind them, drenching both combatants and engineers on the field below. Four dragons down, uncounted hundreds to go.
As Jason wiped the nervous sweat and slime from his face, out of the corner of his eye he caught a blur of motion as a small group of men darted between two of the ballistae carts. Initially he failed to give the men a second thought but as he ratcheted back the cocking mechanism of the ballista he could not get them out of his mind. Something about the way they moved; furtive, sneaky, like they were trying to avoid being seen. As the baggage boy handed him an arrow and he fixed it into place, Jason cast his eyes to the left, between the front of the cart next to him and the rear of the one beyond. Surrounded by dragon smoke, the confusion of equites’ prancing mounts, carters struggling to calm terrified horses and baggage boys passing arrows as fast as they could, it took him a moment to find the group of men. Even when he found them, they were hard to keep track of; crouching behind the wagon, sneaking into the space between the ballistae wagons and the squadrons of equites. It was only when he saw Merlin coming toward him, moving along the line, signing with his hands, trailing the glowing tracers of his enchantment, that Jason first thought something might be very wrong.
As Merlin moved closer to where the men crouched behind a wagon, Jason saw three of them move forward.
“MERLIN. BEHIND YOU.”
Jason screamed so loud it tore at the back of his throat but no voice was loud enough to be heard over the clash of battle and the roar of diving dragons. Even as he shouted, another dragon came swooping down, headed directly toward Jason, forcing his attention on the wall of fire and grasping talons aimed straight at his head. While Jason frantically fended off the latest attack, Merlin ducked and turned in one smooth motion; in the process, snatching a nearby ballista arrow from the ground. Whirling, straightening his shoulders and tossing his shock of white hair behind him, he caught the first attacker as he stepped from behind the wagon. Moving so fast he was almost invisible, Merlin swung around, whirling the metal staff in an upward arc, striking the man squarely on the right temple, fracturing his skull and sending him reeling to the ground.
Without pausing in the execution of his elegant dance, the wizard shifted position, grasped the arrow at the center point and stepped forward one step, driving the point deep into the stomach of a second man. As the man doubled forward and clutched at the iron rod boring into his bowels, Merlin extracted the arrow, swinging it upward, catching the dying man in the throat, driving him backward, forcing him to the ground.
As the second man hit the ground the third one stepped from behind the wagon and grabbed Merlin by his upper arm. Dropping the arrow, Merlin twisted toward the man, grabbed hold of the front of the man’s tunic with his left hand and his belt with his right. In one swift motion he lifted the startled, struggling man free of the ground and lifting him high into the air.
The entire fight lasted mere seconds, giving Jason no time to react, let alone climb down from the wagon and make his way to Merlin. Now, as Merlin heaved the third assailant into the air, Jason saw what the old wizard could not: the fourth man. Clutched tight in one hand he held a short, ugly looking dagger and he was moving in behind Merlin’s back. As Merlin’s third victim crumpled across the sideboard of the nearest wagon, the man with the dagger raised it high over his head – a head covered with a mop of strawberry blond hair – and stepped forward, ready to drive the blade deep into Merlin’s back.
Without hesitating, virtually without thinking, Jason shoved his hand under his loose fitting tabard and extracted the nine millimeter pistol. Pausing only long enough to glance down to make sure the safety was flicked off he raised the gun, pointed it at Mordred and squeezed the trigger once, twice, three times. Even in the midst of the noise, screaming and shouting of battle the sharp reports of the pistol were deafening. Stunned, it took a second for Jason to collect himself enough to look for Merlin. There, twenty feet away, the old man stood, looking dazed as he wiped trails of blood from the side of his face.
Jumping over the side of the wagon and rushing forward, terrified that one of the bullets had struck his friend, Jason was so relieved that he almost collapsed when he saw the grin spread across the old man’s face.
“Nice shot, my boy.”
“Oh, God, I thought I’d hit you.”
Merlin patted Jason’s shoulder reassuringly. “I’m fine. The blood belongs to him.”
Merlin pointed at the crumbled heap lying at his feet. There, with one side of his head nearly shot away, his hair and face covered with blood, lay Morgana le Fay’s psychopathic son. Jason stared at the body for a second before speaking.
“So I guess he doesn’t get to kill Arthur in this timeline.”
“Nor, apparently, me. Thank you again.”
“Right. No problem.”
Without another word both men turned back to their work. Merlin continued weaving his protective umbrella, and Jason clambered back over the side of the cart, settled in behind the ballista and took aim at the next incoming dragon. Everywhere around him the world seemed to disappear beneath a dense wall of flame, smoke and shrieking terror.
Faster and faster the giant beasts came screaming out of the sky, and eve
ry time Jason followed one along its downward path, honing in on its underbelly, whirling his ballista around to drive a heavy iron bolt into its innards, he caught a glimpse of the increasingly disorganized fighting on the far side of the swamp. While it was obvious that Arthur and his allies had been making good progress in their effort to roll back Morgana’s mercenaries, the incursion of the dragons into the mix was throwing the battle into complete confusion. Having no allegiance to either group of humans the dragons were just as happy to incinerate Morgana’s allies as they were to kill her enemies. Although the squadron of engineers on the right flank of Arthur’s line was doing their best to kill those dragons which escaped slaughter at the hands of Jason’s men, they could not eliminate the tide of destruction sweeping across the battlefield.
Through intermittent waves of smoke and Jason caught glimpses of the horror taking place only a few hundred feet away from where he stood. Nearly overwhelmed by the sight, he caught glimpses of fire-charred faces surrounding terrified, blind eyes and withered and blackened limbs. When the wind moved in the right direction he gagged and nearly vomited as he was assailed by the smell of burning hair and roasted human flesh. Equally horrible were the wails of dying men as they ran stumbling and falling through the battle lines, their bodies engulfed in flame, unheeding of the enemy surrounding them, before they collapsed to the ground and died. And on and on the dragons came, row upon row, wave after wave, an endless parade of furious hell-borne creatures determined to wipe out all human life and inhale the released energy as their victims roasted in their own juices. Regardless of how many dragons were sent crashing to the ground or exploded in mid-flight their numbers never seemed to lessen and the ferocity of their advance never wavered.